Thursday, the 29th day of March, 2012

On the big dance, the Gators lost to Louisville! One of my son-in-laws is from Louisville and went to UF for his MBA and became a Gator… I wonder how he dealt with that one! By the way, with the Gators losing, I really don’t care anymore!

So, on the issue of preparing for an unforeseen event in which one of the main ‘comforts’ we’ve come to rely on is no longer available (i.e. power), here is what’s happened since I last wrote about it… Our closest neighbors came by to have some popcorn and watch two of the most recent episodes of the Discovery channel “Doomsday Preppers” that I had recorded… There were several levels of interest (or lack of it, I may say) but there was some discussion… Some of our neighbors, about 1.2 miles away, have been gardening and canning all their lives; and he is an avid and veteran hunter; so, they are way out in front in the continuum of being prepared. Some other neighbors (about 5 miles away) have a pool with 13,000 gallons of water, and they say we can share (imaging carrying 5-gallon buckets of water on a bicycle on hilly terrain). Based on what I’ve seen, heard and read, I prepared and distributed a list of must have items. They encompass food, food procurement and preparation, clean water procurement and storage, shelter, communications, transportation, defense, etc. Waiting for feedback… On the other hand, my wife shows little or no interest at all on the subject; she says that, if we get to be without power for more than two days, we would saddle up and go to Florida with our kids… I think I am doomed!

Started garden works! I’m determined that, this year, I will get something out of the ground, even if it is stones or worms! On Sunday I dumped soil into the pen, used a hoe to mix it with what was there already (was dying on Monday) and then put a little fence on one of the sides to eventually help the tomatoes… I still have some ways to go; stopped the other day by the Sullivan Supply store and Mr. Sullivan says he will have top soil next week. He said that, with top soil and some fertilizer, ‘even a walking stick will bloom’. I hope he’s right about having top soil; but, if I don’t get it, I will work with what I have (red acidic clay; oh well)…

Lawn mowing began in earnest… Had our second pass in the back this past weekend and then we moved to the middle and front… Before we were able to mow, we had to walk the whole yard, step by step, picking up debris that came out of I-don’t-know-where and accumulated in such a way that, if we did not do the walk through and picked it up, we would certainly lose another mower… So, we mowed the back, mowed the very front and then cleaned the middle, mowed it and then I trimmed it (many trees are hidden by the sage grass so I have to trim around them…)

Heard last night that, because we had a very mild winter, we may be looking at a very mild summer… That would be very welcome! And that’s all for now…

Now, food for thought:

“The deed is everything, the glory is naught.” – Goethe

Stay humble, my friends…

Friday, the 23rd Day of March, 2012

OK. It is my time to get going with college basketball… I believe we are close the ‘the dance’, or the sweet 16… I know that the Gators beat Marquette last night and that is good; I also know Michigan State lost and that is not good… Ohio State won; blah… Don’t know where the rest are, but I’ll find out… I know the South Florida Bulls were in the mix and the stinkin’ ‘Noles were also trying to show up (are they still in it?)…

Our big car, the Escalade, was showing small failure of subsystems here and there until the ABS (Anti-loc Brake System) light came on, and stayed on, saying that the system needed attention… Took the car to a local shop in Sparta (not a Cadillac dealer, therefore very reasonably priced!) and he found out that both the front rotors were within few miles of breaking (seizing, burning, etc.) and that was causing the ABS light to come up… The A/C fan seems to be stuck on one position and he could not fix it; he said that Caddy designed the electronic for the system in a hermetic box that only they can get in (we’ll take it there one of these days). Bottom line, the big boat is ready to go again for several tens of thousands of miles more…

…and Spring is here! The Vernal Equinox happened for us on Tuesday, March 20^th at 00:14 AM and, therefore, Spring is here formally. Never mind that we've had unseasonably spring-like weather for the last four weeks! In talking to Ligia, my sister, who lives in a mountainous region about 50 miles South of (and 3000 higher than) Caracas, Venezuela, she shared that their weather is also out of whack! By now, it was supposed to warm up a bit and the rains were expected to stop; well neither has happened, and that is completely unseasonable… I don’t know if you can call it Global Warming, or you can call it the beginning of the end according to the Mayan Calendar; whatever floats your boat. But I do know that things are not the same!

And so it appears – AGAIN- that it is Mitt against Obama. So, let’s see who is the most capable of telling what the people want to hear, making the right promises (the ones that have lots of caveats in it), saying the most without saying anything, making most allegations that cannot be verified but stick anyway, making the most egregious accusations without having to prove any of them, buying the most time on the media to get all those wonderful messages mentioned above to the masses. On this subject, I will go underground now and emerge again on the other side of the November elections (unless something really juicy or comic happens in between!).

So, here is a simple question: “If we lost power (for whatever reason) this evening and it was not restore for ten (10) days, am I prepared to deal with it? If yes, precisely how? If not, what do I need to do to be prepared?” This simple question triggers all sort of thoughts when one start evaluating the bases of one’s lifestyle… People who think – and act – about these things are called ‘preppers’. Some people take it to extremes, like some of the characters in the Doomsday Preppers series being broadcast by the Discovery Channel; they are real ‘kookies’. You also find many of them in the http://www.survivalmagazine.org web site, where there are all types of fora, most of them useful, some of them ‘frequented’ by real scary characters! I prefer to justify my interest on the subject based on old principles where the first step one took before starting any task was to take a back-up so, in case something went wrong, you could get back to the point of departure; and once you had a plan or solution, it was not complete without the proverbial ‘Plan B’, just in case you original plan did not work as designed. Based on that, I ask myself questions: do you have a back-up, and do you have a plan B? The answers are everywhere, except where I need them to be… So, needless to say, now I have a whole slew of new projects; some that I have only thought about; and some that I have already started.

Now food for thought:

“If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves”. - Thomas Edison

Keep pushing, my friends…

Friday, the 16th day of March, 2012

It seems like spring is here… For the majority of last week, this whole week and, as forecast, the whole next week, the low temperature is expected to be in the mid fifties and the high in the high seventies. The trees are starting to bud out; there are either little leaves coming out or little flowers coming out. The birdies are starting to appear as well; every morning they are getting louder and more of them. The grass is starting to grow to the point that I will have to mow the back lawn this coming weekend… All those symptoms are yelling SPRING to me. However, everybody that I or Jan have spoken to about this – and have lived here long enough to know the local climate nuances – seems to be sure there is yet one more freeze (or snow fall) left on the season. This past Tuesday I was talking to some folks from the Land Management Bureau and they were saying “plant your tomatoes after you pay your taxes on April 15^th; if you plant them earlier, you may lose them all”… As far as a new transplant like me is concerned, all I can do is echo everybody else’s assessment: this weather is crazy!

I don’t think I can comment coherently anymore about the Republican Primaries… I am so out of it that I don’t seem to know which way is up… First, my man Ron Paul has not been able to win anything, anywhere! He continues to speak reason, responsibility, maturity, prosperity and freedom, but his message is not getting any credit in front of more than 80% of the Republican Electorate. And I ask myself: if these things are not attractive to my Republican brothers and sisters, then what is? Is Romney’s motto “I was a severely Conservative Governor” (and my Massachusetts Romney-care program was the model for Obama-care) more attractive? Is Santorum’s message of “I am your conservative answer” (and I voted to fund Planned Parenthood) more attractive? And I won’t quote Newt because he does not count anymore… Mathematically, nobody except Romney can get to the 1114 delegates needed to be nominated; however, he keeps on losing to Santorum (and to Newt in Alabama and Mississippi). If Robo-Mitt is so inevitable, why are the vast majority of the people not buying it? Where are we going with this? Is it going to be a mad house in Tampa? I don’t understand anything, anymore! One more thing: I saw on Facebook a bumper sticker that said “Do not re-nig in 2012”; I don’t need to comment on it or characterize it. However, it is widely believed in some circles and by many that we, as a country and as a people, have made great progress trying to change our racist past. Stickers like that (and people who celebrate it) may be evidence we are in a different place from where we think we are...

I have not much more to say this week. I’ll gather more stories for next week… Meanwhile, food for thought: “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” - Voltaire

So, keep inquiring, my friends…

Wednesday, the 7th day of March, 2012

On Friday, March 2^nd, around 10:45 AM CST, we got a call from Van Buren County emergency services warning us of severe weather in the area with a threat of tornadoes. That was the first time since we’ve lived here (~3y) that we’ve had such an experience… Fortunately, I had been following the storm via a web site that Danny Authement had sent us and, by the time we received the call, we had been in the basement already and, I must add, the storm had all but past already. Kudos to VBC EC for the call; there are, nonetheless, opportunities to improve the timing… But it wasn’t over. At about 6:45 PM we got the same call and this time things got a little hairier. There were tornado warnings for our county and all the surrounding counties as well…Specifically, there was a strong ‘area of circulation’ on the intersection of Bake Mountain Rd and R.T. Davis Rd, about 2 miles from home, as the crow flies… Once again we took off for the basement and stayed there; there were actually no tornadoes touching down in the area at all, but we stayed in the ‘safe area’ until we had the ‘all clear’ signal from the Channel 2 Weather Advisories… Many friends and most of the family called to check up on us; THANK YOU!

As you may be surmising now, my days as political pundit are all but over; I’m almost done! I predicted last week that the Republican primary race was all but over after Mitt the Magnificent had beaten all his opponents up in five contests in a row. Yesterday, on Super Tuesday, Gingrich took GA, Santorum took TN, OK and ND, my man Ron Paul still did not get on the board, and then Mitt got MA, VT, VA, ID, AK, and beat Santorum in OH by 1% of the votes after outspending him 10:1. I think I’m going to start agreeing with Newt on his assertion that Mitt the Meek just cannot close the deal. As Michael Douglas said in The American President, “the problem is not that Bob doesn’t get it; the problem is that he cannot sell it!” You replace Bob with Mitt and you have reality! Robo-Mitt’s inability to make himself credible, to portray himself as a genuine individual (i.e. sell it and close the deal) are really damaging my chances of becoming a nationally-recognized political ‘seer’… Oh well. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we also had elections here in the county; we were having primaries on both parties for the position of Property Appraiser. Don’t know the results yet, and that’s fine since I think that is a position where party affiliation bears no impact.

So Iran is on a mission to acquire nuclear weapons, although they say it is for energy purposes (yeah, right, one of the largest owners of oil deposits in the world looking for nuclear power…) At any rate, regardless of their motive, why are some of us so bent on invading/bombing/punishing Iran for having nuclear weapons? Iran says they will obliterate Israel? Well, let them try that one out for size; many others have tried to do just that over the years, both alone and in confederations, and Israel has been able to kick everybody’s ass grandly. I agree we are to stand by our allies and friends and have their back; I also agree to go to their help when needed/asked for; but to go in and do it ourselves just because the rhetoric sounds tough and appeals to some extreme factions/political sects? Come on, man! Haven’t we learned any lessons from the last recent years of international shame and discredit for invading countries on a whim? If Iran is a threat, where does that leave North Korea? Why don’t we invade them? Why don’t we invade Pakistan, who is clearly hostile to us? Why didn't we follow Patton desires and invaded the Soviet Union? All those countries have nuclear weapons (some by the thousands) and the capability to deliver them… None of these warmongers have ever donned a military uniform and taken fire; but they are certainly chomping at the bit to send more young people into harm’s way and spend money that we do not have… The only sane inmate in the whole asylum is RON PAUL!

And now, food for thought: “Work on your important tasks when they are not urgent; that way you can apply optimal amounts of time and intellectual capital. High quality results will follow naturally.” Translation? Don’t rush the important stuff.

Manage your time wisely, my friends…