The Debate

 Did you watch it? We saw all of it. She was better than he was.  ABC referred to him as an old man yelling at a cloud. That's a Simpsons reference.

Immediately after the debate, this happened.

Think he'll debate again?

A Laptop Saga

Here is some personal history which I must record somewhere so I can find it in the future.  Repeatedly I have proved to myself that my "filing system" is lacking, and things go missing.  

My Lenovo, which I bought in December 2021 became unusable while we were in Tucson the winter of 2023/2024.  It was a hinge failure.  See the screen frame on the right which is detached from rest of it.  Now it is also ailing, losing internet, that sort of thing.  I bought a new Lenovo in Tucson February 1, 2024.  As of this writing, it's still working.

Jim's Lenovo laptop has died.  This is the one he bought in August 2021.  It loses connection with the internet, it gets really hot (110F) on the keyboard, and then the cursor becomes inoperable.  We took it to be fixed, but they say it works just fine.  It does not.  I have records.  

At this point, given the fact that two Lenovos purchased in 2021 are dead, we've lost faith in the brand.  Plus, they are really expensive.  Our idea was that if you pay more, you get more reliability.  I think this is not true.

Yesterday morning we looked at Walmart on-line, I know, evil empire and all of that, and they had an HP on sale.  We ordered it, they said same day delivery.  They actually did deliver it the same day.  This is the unboxing.  Notice the packaging is like egg carton material, recyclable.  It's not as nice as the Lenovo, no backlight on the keys, their fonts are too light, but over all it's a keeper.

So, this is the record of our rotten luck with laptops.

Jim has new Oofos flip flops.  Zappos used to have a lot of them, now not so much.  If it's in your size, you get the color you get.  We got green.  This is what our feet will tolerate, they're extremely cushy. They do last a long while.

We rode to the lake this morning.  It was an early go due to the heat, and they were also predicting gusty winds.  All of these things conspired to give us a Red Flag Warning, which is a notice to wild land managers that fire danger is high.

Last night's sunset. 

Here is a link to the orange menace giving a "press conference" at Trump Tower.  He's getting free coverage.  This used to be an election law violation until Ronald Reagan did away with the Fairness Act.  Anyway, load it and play it and marvel at how little coverage his lack of mental acuity is receiving.

That's it, that's all I have to report.  Failing electronics and Dementia Don.

 

Current Events

The weather cooled off some and the recent rides to the lake have been pleasant for the most part.  Two weeks ago we were verbally abused and harassed by two people on E-trikes because we said "two bikes behind you", indicating that perhaps they would like to ride single file and stop blocking the entire trail in both directions by riding side by side.  They were very poorly behaved.  Since then, I have finally, after 50 years of riding (50!) put a bell on my bike.  I'm sick of having to ask people to please stay on the right side of the trail, and if you're in a group, single up.  So I used the bell today, started ringing it before each and every blind corner, and lo and behold, people do move over.  It was surprising. 

Flat water on the lake, and my favorite silo being reflected.

Geese and ducks.

There are two dogs in the water, wearing life jackets.  The one with the stick in his mouth is Max, and it was his first time in the lake.  He was ecstatic with joy, and barked a lot. 

We watched a family of four load a lot of stuff into a canoe.  Dad wanted to fish.  The two girls did not seem as enthused as Dad.  Here is the younger daughter sitting in a kayak.

Here is Dad's canoe stuffed to the gills with fishing poles and fishing stuff.  We didn't stay long enough to watch them launch.  I'm sorry I missed that.

In international news, it appears that the Russia shit has hit the fan.  This is excerpted from Reuters.

The U.S. on Wednesday filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 presidential election.

Justice Department officials said the two employees used shell companies and fake personas to pay $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company to produce online videos aimed at amplifying political divisions in the United States.

The un-named Tennessee company has been identified as TENET media. 

From Joni Askola we learn:

TENET media and its content creators are facing scrutiny after being exposed as disinformation agents funded by Russia to promote pro-Russian rhetoric. Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, and Lauren Southern are the influencers associated with Tenet media. The organization received $10 million to disseminate Kremlin talking points in the United States.  The ironic part is that the shared factor among these individuals is that they are all paid by Russia to criticize Democrats and support Trump. This serves as further evidence that Russia is attempting to facilitate Trump's election.  Many more individuals, including some close to Trump, are likely on Russia's payroll while supporting him. Trump himself could potentially be a Russian asset or, at the very least, an opportunistic useful idiot. 

From Yashar Ali we also learn:

Blaze Media has fired Lauren Chen. Yesterday, a DOJ indictment alleged that Lauren and her husband Liam’s company Tenet Media took in over $10 million from the Russian government to participate in a Russian influence operation. The indictment also alleged that they participated in a conspiracy to cover up the original source of the funds.

Tim Pool is a particularly wretched piece of pond scum.  He runs a podcast and a website actively advocating for what ever Russia tells him too.  Up until today he was anti aid to Ukraine.  Today, "upon reflection" he has decided that Ukraine is an important ally and we should fund their defense against Russia. Also interesting is the fact that neither Washington Post or New York Times have this visible on their digital issues today.   If you google "doj and russia rt" you will find other outlets reporting on it.

These people are in a world of hurt.  People suspected ties to Russia, now it's a sure thing.  Oddly enough, after all of this started making the news, Putin endorsed VP Harris.  Right.

Rebecca Cheptegei has died.  She was just at the Paris Olympics, and now she has died because a man doused her in gas and set her on fire.  She's not the first runner to be murdered.  Agnes Tirop, stabbed; Damaris Mutua, strangled.  When does this stop?

The US has yet another school shooting.  This time it was a 14 year old white boy.  Apparently, the shooter focused on a class room full of autistic kids.  Kaitlan Collins has just posted this: News -- the father of Colt Gray has just been arrested in connection with the shooting at Apalachee High School. Per GBI, Colin Gray has been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.  Good.  It's time to go after irresponsible parents who buy guns for their kids.

Today the orange menace addressed the Economic Club of New York.  They asked questions, and he attempted to answer them.  In response to a question about how would he lower the cost of child care he responded with the following.  Yes, it's long, but it's illustrative of how poorly his brain is working, something else main stream media is not reporting.  This is an unedited transcript of what he said.

Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, and I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It's a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care is. Couldn't, you know, there's something, you have to have it – in this country you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to — but they'll get used to it very quickly – and it's not gonna stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Uh, those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including child care, that it's going to take care. We're gonna have - I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I'm talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We're gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care, uh, is talked about as being expensive, it's, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we'll be taking in. We're going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we'll worry about the rest of the world. Let's help other people, but we're going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It's about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we're a failing nation, so we'll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.

Is this pitiful or what?  President Biden had a bad debate, and the press corps hounded him out of running again.  The orange menace says something like this on television and nobody says anything.  How does this happen?  Greg Sargent has much to say on the subject.  In a separate interview JD Vance reiterated that child care in dual income homes should fall to the grandparents, or aunts.  Any post-menopausal female will do.  

So, there's more, but I think this is probably too long as it is.  I did see that NPR has identified the two campaign staffers who assaulted the Arlington National Cemetery worker when she was trying to prevent them from taking campaign photos in Section 60, which is forbidden by law.  Update: The two Trump staffers involved in the Arlington National Cemetery altercation are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Ok, done now.

Ennui

Ennui has settled in firmly.  I have things to say about the orange cheeto, but ennui.  So, instead there are squash pictures.  This lives next door.  It's invading our yard.  I've had to pull the tendrils out of the arborvitae to keep it from climbing.  Thus far, it's interesting to watch the rate of growth. 

 August 31.

September 4.

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

Back in Spokane

Today we went back to Spokane via I5 to I90.  Traffic from Everett to Bellevue, where the turn for I90 is was bad, but not terrible.  Apparently there had been an accident which they had cleared, but the memory lingered on.  Here is traffic.  We were fortunate that we could do most of the route in the HOV lanes.  People still do not like to car pool.  Even with traffic, it was faster to take the non-scenic route.

 Here we are entering the Cascades again.  It's pretty out there. 

I'm not sure where we were when I took this, it was out in the great wide open of eastern Washington.  Tucson has dust devils, but only one at a time.  I have never seen three at once in the same area.  So that was pretty cool.  They're the vertical columns of dust.

Why, you may wonder, didn't we mail the EE savings bonds to the treasury.  This is why.  In 2022 our taxes made multiple round trips between Spokane and Cincinnati.  It took 38 days for them to arrive, IRS tried to hit us with a late fee, and the whole thing was the fault of the post office.  Last winter, we had our mail being forwarded to Tucson, to the park model.  In that time frame, an RMD check was marked undeliverable and returned to the people that manage our 401k accounts.  Also during that time frame, several bills were marked undeliverable and returned to sender.  Also, they quit forwarding our New Yorker magazines.  The last one we received was the front and back cover only, dated December 18, 2023.  After that, silence.  My faith in the USPS is nil.  So, it felt better to us to drive to the credit union and hand deliver them to a teller.  I would not want that much money floating around in the post office ether.  Turns out they were worth more than we thought they would be.

Anyway, it's done, it's over, and now when the last of us dies, the executor of our will, who is a friend, will not be bothered with fooling with the bonds.  I read up on it, it's no small feat to convert them after the people are gone.

I think we're done with Seattle.  I used to miss living there, but it has become too crowded, they're still putting up apartments with no new roads to support the development, and prices are crazy.  

So now I will return to my regular programming of riding to the lake and being pissed off about the 45th president's behavior.

A Trip to Everett, Washington

Greetings from Everett, Washington.  Why, you wonder, are we here?  When we used to work for Boeing, managers put intense pressure on employees to buy EE savings bonds. Jim was a manager and for him it was a condition of employment, so there was really no choice but to buy them.  I guess because the company had military contracts.  So we did.  Redeeming these bonds has become a nightmare.  No one wants to do it because it's time consuming and generates no income for the financial institution.  So, we drove from Spokane to Everett to go to our credit union, who has two offices that will still cash bonds for customers.  It's a loooooooooong drive.  You can mail them in, but given the current state of the USPS, we don't like to mail anything.

In July 2022, we drove to Bellingham (north of Everett) and the traffic on I5 from I90 to Bellingham was so horrendous, we declared never again.  Returning home, we took US 2 to avoid the traffic between Marysville and I90.  We remembered it as a pleasant drive.  Today we again took the US 2 route, and it was horrendous.  It goes through downtown Wenatchee, which took forever.  Every small town seems to have sprouted stop signs and round abouts. Part of the problem is that it's harvest season, there are many trucks on the road transporting food.  So, I think US 2 is now on the banned list.  Tomorrow, we're going to try I5 south, and then east on I90.  This is probably our last trip to the Seattle/Everett area.  The traffic is so bad, the drivers act like it's a personal insult to them if you change lanes, and there is really nothing over here worth a six hour drive.

Eastern Washington is really different from the western side of the state.  They get way more rain than we do.  Eastern is more desert-ish.  The area around the Columbia Basin is full of fruit trees, lima beans, alfalfa, timothy, sweet corn, seed corn, and potatoes. 

Here are photos from the day's drive.  They grow Kentucky Blue Grass for seed here.  Then they burn the fields to get rid of the grass part of the plant.

This looks like the Palouse.

We are heading down to the Columbia river.

The Rock Island dam.

Now we are entering the Cascade mountain range.  They keep the west side wet.

We're staying at what appears to be a new Hampton Inn in downtown Everett.  It's very nice.  Rooms are a little small, but we won't be here very long.