Hike and 39 Years

Today was another picture postcard day.  As nice as the weather is, we're concerned about the amount of dead and dying cactus we're seeing out in the desert.  It really does need to rain.  However, not in the forecast.

Today was a hike day.  We're trying to get more weight bearing exercise, biking is of no use in bone maintenance.  It was a difficult hike.  I had forgotten how bad parts of it are.  Now I recall, my thigh muscles are also recalling this.  Here is Jim, slogging up the portion of the trail that we call the stair master.  This is actually from a few years ago.  It's a screen scrape of a previous post.  It's interesting to me that he's wearing the same blue hiking shirt.

That dip in the ridge line is where we used to hike to, but we're older now, and it's too far.  Today was enough.  Getting down the hill is brutal on the feet.

This cactus has experienced some trauma, I think. 

Coming back, we lost the trail.  I think we got too far to the right.  Anyway, we went through a wash, and realized we were not where we were supposed to be.  However, Golden Gate Mountain loomed over us and the trail that goes up to the saddle, so we went that way.  It was not all bad, it made the return a little shorter that it would have been on the planned route.  My feet were screaming by the time we were done.

This is an agave in the neighbor's yard.  Look at the size of that.  I didn't know they get that tall.

The bedrooms used to have carpet, most of the houses built in this time frame did.   Our old house in the neighborhood also had carpet in the living room, which I miss because it cuts down on noise.  Anyway, at some point it was replaced by laminate planks.  I think the installer was impaired that day, they did a terrible job.  They filled the gap between the ends of the planks and the threshold with plastic wood.  Over time it had cracked and started to come out.  So we dug it out today after receiving our backer rod from Amazon.  We got the quarter inch rod today, but the planks do not end in a straight line, so tomorrow the 3/8 inch should arrive for the short plank.  Then we will caulk the whole thing.  I hate caulking, it's very stressful.  That dark line is the gap that needs to be filled.

If I were not concerned about losing Social Security I would consider having the laminate floors replaced, and something done with the grout that has cracked between the floor and the wall in the primary bathroom.  If we're still here in four years and that man is gone, maybe then.

Happy Winter Solstice, the days start getting longer tomorrow.  Today was our 39th wedding anniversary.  I put a reminder on my phone, so we both remembered it.  We have been known to forget.

Ride and Skin Cancer

Yesterday we finally got the bike rack on the car, the bikes on the rack, and ourselves up to Christopher Columbus park.  It was a glorious day.  We actually had a tail wind in both directions.  The wind often does a 180 degree switch in the early afternoon.  

We rode north to see how the sewer project was doing.  It's been going on for quite some time, closing parts of the trail, entrances to parks, and in general messing up biking in the north end.  It's done!  The trails and the park entrances are open now.  That was good.  The freeway project continues, but they haven't shut down any of the trail for that.

This is the sewer pipe that's been installed.

Here is the park, with the lake.

The out fall from the treatment plant.  The water is amazingly hot.  You can feel it on your face, looking at the water.  I guess it cools off quickly, because people fish not too far down stream from there.

Jim saw the Mohs surgeon today, he complimented Jim on his excellent wound care.  The Mohs doctor rubbed Jim's head and said he could feel the baby cancers below the skin, and that they needed to be dealt with.  In 2018 Jim did several courses of 5-Fluorouracil on his face, arms, and scalp.  It was brutal, 21 days of twice daily application, avoidance of the sun, and it was painful.  When he was doing his face, he sort of looked like a tomato.  All this for three weeks.  Things have changed!  For the better!  5-Fluorouracil is now mixed with calcipotriol, which is something like Vitamin D.  So, Jim will do the combined creams for 5 days on his face, and 10 days on his head.  So, if your dermatologist wants you to do this, ask about this treatment.    Here is an article on the subject. 

So, go forth and slay your skin cancers.

Hike and News of the Day

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Today started out poorly, the water dispenser in the refrigerator door has died again, no parts available.  We got out the new and improved Brita water filter pitcher and discovered that its flow rate is abysmal.  I guess we'll be buying an old and not improved version and throwing this one away.  One would think that they might have done a comparison between old and new, but apparently not.  New consumes less plastic, which is good, but fails in its primary mission.  As you no doubt recall, tap water here is undrinkable.  At least the ice maker still works, if that goes, we'll have to replace the whole refrigerator.  Yes, I know, first world problems.

Anyway, we decided a hike would be just the thing to improve our outlook on things.  We did the circuit around Little Cat Mountain, which is about three miles.  It's a rocky little hike.  My feet were very happy to see the end of it.  We have photos.  

A lump of rock, surrounded by cactus.

Part of the trail.  Many of these "trails" are water courses.

That's regular Cat on the left.  The trail goes through the notch between Little and regular.

A few days ago, I was on the rowing machine, diligently rowing.  Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.  It was a squadron of javelina.  I didn't get a photo, but you can see them here.  The foot prints in the gravel that I have been assigning to deer are not that, they've from them.  They mosied through, sniffed a couple of plants, and kept on going.  So, that tells us that nothing that has flowers and soft leaves can be left outside, because they will eat them.

One of the four bougainvilleas is blooming.  Not sure what's wrong with the other three. 

Now I am going to discuss some news of the day, which was also causing my malaise this morning.  The coming administration is going to be disastrous. 

From a Meidas Touch article we learn the following, "Trump's mass deportation policy would eliminate entire sectors of the American workforce at a time when the nation is already seeing critical labor shortages. Migrants fill key jobs in food production, manufacturing, and construction, and spur economic growth."  This is from the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.  Further, deportations would:

• Reduce real gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 7.4% by 2028,
• Reduce the supply of workers for key industries, including by up to 225,000 workers in agriculture and 1.5 million workers in construction,
• Push prices up to 9.1% higher by 2028, and
• Cost 44,000 U.S.-born workers their jobs for every half a million immigrants who are removed from the labor force. 

It's estimated that there would be a recession that would last for four years.  

Dr. Oz has been nominated to run CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  He's on record as wanting to move all the seniors currently on traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage.  Any idea as to why? He has conflicts of interest, in that he owns stock in companies that support Medicare Advantage.  Traditional Medicare is more efficient, Medicare Advantage is a for profit enterprise, which drives much of their behavior.  This is more of the grift that the new administration will be doing.  You can read more on this here.  Or just google "Dr. Oz conflict of interest Medicare Advantage."

Why don't people have their hair on fire about this?  It's because many of them do not know what the new administration is planning.  Mainstream media is not covering it.  ABC just paid a $15M bribe to the orange one to avoid a defamation suit.  It was a suit they could have won easily, but they're already bending the knee.  I don't expect to see any reasonable coverage in the papers for the next four years.  The New Republic did a piece on this, which is available here.

Finally, even though there is more, I'm going to wind it up with this.  United Health Care, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to curtail coverage for therapy for kids with autism.  Some kids can be helped, but UHC is deciding that they don't want to pay for this.  If you get coverage through your job, and it's UHC, you are just out of luck getting care for your child on the spectrum.  I find this morally reprehensible in light of how much money insurance companies make.  There is an article here.  The new head of UHC had this to say.

They get to decide what's unnecessary.

That's it, that's all I've got.

Hike and New Chair

As you are all no doubt aware, one of the reasons I write this blog is to remember stuff.  I would now like to make a note of the fact that we should not go to the northern part of Tucson during December.  Yesterday we went to a southern Walmart for a bath mat and clothes to paint in.  Then we headed north to Home Depot because Jim is replacing switch plates.  The ones in the house were not cleaned often enough.  We stopped at Target for wash cloths.  Then, we made the fatal decision to head further north to check Home Goods for art (none to be had) and Trader Joe's for macaroni and cheese.  The traffic between Target and Trader Joe's was apocalyptic.  So, note to self, no north end near Christmas.  There are other Trader Joe's in less congested areas.

We hiked today. I had a terrible night of not sleeping well, and so we did not ride.  The hike was good.  When we headed up to a ridge line the wind was impressive.  This is a very enthusiastic bougainvillea we walked by on the way to the trail.

Taken from the high point of the hike.  That is our neighborhood down below.

Another view from the high point.

On the way back.

While we were gone, the chair arrived.   The FedEx driver actually carried the box around to the back patio.  Yesterday FedEx delivered a power cord for the new leaf blower and put that behind the house, as well.  So that was nice.

There were encouraging words on the box.

Here it is, waiting to receive clothing.  Tomorrow we're going to unload the dressers and scoot them to the right.  The chair needs more room.  The light in the photo is weird, it's sort of yellow, and the dressers are not actually that dark.  Assembly of the chair was not terrible, all the holes lined up properly, which does not always happen. 

So, that's about it for me.  I promise sometime soon I'll have more profound things to say.  Or not.

Hike, Rebar, and Syria

Greetings Earthlings.  This morning we were both in the slough of despond, given the recent nominations to the cabinet of the orange menace.  It was decided that a really unpleasant hike in the sunshine would be just the ticket to restore our spirits.  And so, we decided to walk here.

There is a trail up the the saddle between Golden Gate and Bren.  I think we're one and done on this, there are many loose rocks, pointy rocks and it's all up hill going there.  On the way up there is not much to look at.

There were many prickly pears along the way.  Some of them look close to death.  These are a little greener.  The desert in general is looking burned again.

This is the view from the top.  More mountains.

This is what we see, going back to the house.

It was a nice day, good temperature and light wind.

There is a piece of rebar stuck in the ground in the back yard.  We can't get it out.  Apparently this is an ongoing issue for people, generating many solutions for stake removal.  If money is no object, there is always the JackJaw.  It's a slick method of getting out rebar.  Here is a youtube.  Reddit offered up this less expensive technique, which I think we will be using.  One locks the vice grips onto the rebar, and then with a pry bar levers it out of the ground.  It's an iterative process.  We want it gone, because if someone were to fall on it, there would be damage.  Right now a pot is sitting on top of it.

So there you go.

In news of the unexpected, the Assad regime has fallen.  He has been granted asylum in Russia.  It's amazing how fast it happened.  Putin is over extended, as is Iran.  So the timing of the HTS insurgency was good.  They are an off shoot of Al-Qaeda, and have promised not to be as evil, but who knows.  Israel has been bombing the Syrian Golan heights and ISIS sites preemptively.  Understanding the Middle East is beyond me. 

That's it, that's all I have to say.

New Furniture, Crashes, and Health Care Costs

Well, the good news is that Anthem BCBS has reversed its decision to charge the patient for anesthesia if the surgeon took too long with the procedure, at least in Connecticut.  They put out some lame statement to the press that it was misinformation, and they only wanted to do what was best for patient care in accordance with standards.  To which I would have to reply, bull shit.

The weather continues to be eerily nice.  I just reread last December's posts, and it was not a great month for being outside.  This is better, although it's not good for the spring flowers.  Rainfall in December determines how good the spring bloom will be.  

We finally broke down and bought two chests of drawers at Bob's Discount Furniture, a nation wide chain of crappy furniture sold for what I consider to be too much money.  They're MDF and are currently off gassing.  If you've ever been in a new RV, you know that smell.  We're opening windows and running fans during the day.  It was an interesting buying experience.  First we were told that the least expensive piece on the floor was the only one left, no more available, and here, go look at the ones that cost more.  Then out of the blue, no! there are more, but they won't be available until December 21.  Ok, we'll take them.  They were delivered yesterday.  They hold up the clothing; they are by no means heirloom quality furniture, but that's ok.  I've ordered a faux cow hide covered slipper chair to go in the corner, so we can throw clothes on it.  Every bedroom needs a chair for clothes that aren't clean, but aren't dirty yet.

This was a weird accident, even by Tucson standards.  People here drive stupid, too fast, too close, too dangerous.  We make every effort to be off the roads by 3:30 which is when traffic picks up.  This happened on a stretch of road where there is a median, so it's not clear how they managed a head on collision. Traffic was detoured out into the desert onto a dirt strip.  The white car is totaled.  The black pick up truck had front end damage, and all air bags deployed.

Bad picture through the driver's window in to the sun.  Look at the front wheel, the front suspension has failed due to impact.  Both cars sustained front end damage, how did they do this when separated from on coming traffic.

This is a tree in our front yard which is dropping its miniscule leaves on the driveway.  I strongly suspect it will be the cause of us acquiring a leaf blower.

There was a hike the other day and we saw this.  The balance is pretty amazing.  I did not touch it so see if it's glued like that.

With the shooting of the CEO of United Health Care in the news, health care costs have once again come into the publics' consciousness.  UHC has a 32% rejection of claims rate.  Here is a chart.

Here is another chart.  OECD is an acronym for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  It helps explain why healthcare in the US costs so much.

And then there is this.

This is something Congress could do something about, instead of allowing Musk and Ramaswamy to threaten VA benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP programs.  They could also go after PBMs that are raising the drug prices for consumers.  But no, obeisance to the orange menace and the billionaire class is foremost in their minds.

Other than this, I have not too much to write about.