Monday, September 28, 2020

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Begin Halloween crawl.

 
I guess we are starting early this year. But, I also feel like the fires robbed me of a quarter of summer so it's nice people are starting early. 

It was just insufferably smokey for a solid month. You didn't want to go outside unless you had to. A few days ago was the first day the sky was an actual color of blue.





Friday, September 25, 2020

I wasn't going to comment on Gavin Newsoms plan to ban ICE cars because...... California. Amirite?

Then it dawned on me today that the people in my city have their panties all in a bunch about an industrial solar farm and are trying to vote one down.

I'm not exactly sure how they think all these electric cars are going to run.

Thursday, September 24, 2020

They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 
I guess all of those stories about the Democrats paying fines for felons is true.  A couple of days ago I got this text. Then today I got a voicemail from a different number, but the same organization. 

I find the whole thing super creepy and frustrating because I support an avenue to work off your bad choices. For instance, Newsome actually did something good for once and made it so prison firefighters can become actual firefighters. It teaches them a skill and helps them be employed after their sentence. But you should have to work for it. 

This is just ridiculous. How bad does your campaign have to be going, to be scrounging up felons?

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Why are we taking COVID advice from banks?

The Jump In New Covid Cases Is "Completely Explained" By a Surge In Testing" BofA.

"You wouldn't know it reading the mainstream press, but in the past two months there has been a remarkable improvement in the covid pandemic in the US. Here are just two quick observations from the latest daily note by BofA's Hans Mikkelsen. 

With the number of people in the US hospitalized with Covid-19 down 52% in 59 days since the recent peak on July 23rd, the count is now nearly back local lows from mid-June." 

I've been noticing it for weeks and it's creeping me out. I don' t really care who lives or dies at this point. I'm just thankful that if you aren't a dummy, you can stay well. 

I mean, I don't know what a charmed life people lead that wearing a mask is the worst part of their day. I don't really care what people do. People are free to do stupid things. Which is pretty much all America is about these days.

I am sort of frustrated that people acting out are going to keep us locked up forever... but.... that's America where the minority rules the majority.


Goldman Spots An Ominous Turning Point In The US Coronavirus Pandemic. From 7/10/2020

What Economists Can Teach Epidemiologists. From 7/12/2020 

Monday, September 21, 2020

LG finally gets us.



It's been a while since anything has delighted me. I guess I failed to appreciate that nothing is more interesting on the internet than it is in real life. It used to be if I was bored with real life, things on the internet would more interesting. So far that has not been true at all.

But LG ran a commercial last night that made me happy. Their new feature wasn't Internet of things bullshit. Or computer screens in the door with cameras to spy on what's inside. It was round ice cubes. Yep. That's it. The kind you put in whiskey. 

Funnily enough I just bought a couple of these ice trays and I have a total kink for them right now. And it's just nice to see them advertising something we as customers might want, instead of crap they are just trying to shove down our throats.

Friday, September 18, 2020

This is why PG&E burns houses down.

Tree-sitters protest PG&E power line plans in Nevada City.

"Nevada City attorney Lorraine Reich said she is working to prepare documents to file an injunction seeking to prohibit the further cutting and removal of trees in Nevada City until there can be greater opportunity for the public and city to consider alternative options.

“After years and years and years of neglect on PG&E’s part that they’re now trying to compensate for with this aggressive and barbaric approach of clear cutting through large sections of land,” Osypowski said. “I feel that small towns and private property owners are being pushed around in ways that are not fair for a corporation that doesn’t have any particular interest in any of the things that we care about. They are not here to protect our landscape, they’re not here to protect our people.”


Obviously Nevada is just as crazy as California is regarding trees.

I want to feel sad for people losing their houses to fire since I have been there - but I can read a story like this almost every week. Then people wonder why things burn.

Last week it was a city next to me that had a 100 year old Eucalyptus tree which had a fungus. The city wanted to cut it down, but less than a dozen people tried to stop it. They hired their own arborist and everything. For a tree that is not even native to California and is very flammable.

This week it's Nevada who has some of these tree sitters trying to stop PG%E from maintaining their lines. These people make me a special sort of pissy because around 2008, Berkeley wanted to build a sports arena. But to do that they needed to cut some trees.

Up went the poop slinging monkeys, I mean tree sitters, and they delayed the project for about two years. It was a HUGE deal at the time. They did ultimately start flinging poo at authorities. It was quite insane at the time. The thing is, these people are usually never successful, but they wind up costing us all a ton of money. And ultimately, they are the reason towns burn down because a lot of Califorians have the same mindset.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Delta smelt and Jerry Brown largely to blame for California wildfires.

And while we are at it - let's also blame George Bush. I'm tired of people trying to gain political points right now. I've been sitting in smoke for 30 days with one mile visibility for the last week.  There is enough blame to go around. Every Californian is to blame. Except for me because I'm not some immature baby that thinks trimming trees leads to the end of civilization,

Listening to Gavin Newsom blame climate change for the fires is infuriating. Their own failed environmental efforts are the reason we are sitting on record fire fuel.

The minnow wars of 2015 are just a vague memory at this point, but it set the stage for what California is experiencing right now. You see, Jerry Brown decided he had to save these tiny minnows at the expense of the entire State. Water was allowed to flow to the ocean to save these tiny fish. Then we went through a savage drought where Jerry Brown said - these minnows are more important than food for people. He kept flushing water to the ocean. It was well documented at the time.

"Giant pumps near Tracy funnel Delta water to 25 million people in Southern California and the Bay Area. They also send water to 3 million acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland.

To protect smelt from getting sucked into the pumps, they often get throttled back or shut off altogether. As a result, water earmarked for the south state flows out to the Pacific Ocean, outraging farmers and other water users. Pumping also alters the Delta smelt's habitat.


Gov. Jerry Brown has made the smelt's survival a talking point in his crusade for the controversial Delta tunnels project, which he says would help the fish while stabilizing declining water deliveries. "
Source.

So naturally a lot more trees died than should have. Everyone knew this was a problem. EVERYONE! Read:

California has 66 million dead trees but nowhere to put the wood.

“A lot of these trees are sitting alongside the road because there’s not a place for them to go,” said Len Nielson, the lead forester in Mariposa County for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, as he made his rounds surveying tree-cutting efforts on a recent day.

While Nielson and others acknowledge that allowing downed wood to pile up is anything but ideal during fire season, it’s better than leaving vast stands of dead trees that could feed an inferno. Fire officials hope to eventually move the debris, but areas like Mariposa County — despite its lumberjack-themed tourist towns and shops with names like Lucky Logger — no longer support a timber trade to process the wood.


“We don’t have a logging industry anymore,” Nielson said, motioning from his truck toward an old sawmill that’s now just a lumber yard."



Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/water-and-drought/article212342719.html#storylink=c
Right before Jerry Brown left office he directed that these dead trees be harvested. But there were so many dead trees, cutting them actually became more of a hazard because we couldn't process them due to NAFTA hollowing out our timber industry. So all those dead harvested trees would just sit around which is also a fire hazard. Why cut them if you can't process them?

Also read:  Lessons from California’s 2012–2016 Drought

"California’s 5-year drought has ended, even as its aftermath lingers. From 2012–2016 much or all of California was under severe drought conditions, with greatly diminished precipitation, snowpack, and streamflow and higher temperatures. Water shortages to forests, aquatic ecosystems, hydroelectric power plants, rural drinking water supplies, agriculture, and cities caused billions of dollars in economic losses, killed millions of forest trees, brought several fish species closer to extinction, and caused inconvenience and some expense to millions of households and businesses."

Fire is a needed part of nature. It kills bark beetles and other pests and funguses. What is not natural is forests that don't burn and pile up debris. Which is what we have now. For example, Big Basin hadn't had a control burn in THREE YEARS!

Top scientist knew Big Basin was at risk for a catastrophic fire, cried over it in a 2019 podcast.

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Wednesday, September 09, 2020

Sunday, September 06, 2020

Saturday, September 05, 2020

Because 2020.

Rolling blackouts are expected amid record heat in parts of the state.

Friday, September 04, 2020

I love when my bias is confirmed.


I'm adding this picture so you can see the water is running from my backyard to the front yard.



I hated every moment of the housing crisis. But the truth is - it taught me a ~lot~ about people. How people do things for irrational vanity. And how they make really strange choices when they are under pressure. I also learned how to spot people that didn't have to work hard for their money. Like my neighbor.

I'm trying to be careful about my photos right now because of reverse lookup. I always make it very obvious when I doctor a photo. This is why no front photos yet.

My property is about 10 feet from hers. And, she's figured out that she needs more water for those trees. But, because of the nature of our properties - all of the watering she does drains out onto my side. I didn't even know this was an issue until she unleashed the first day of water.

Immediately I was like - OH - she's never going to be able to keep that water on her property. She did this for three days. About five hours of water each day. From 4:00 to roughly 9:00. Then two days off. I was conflicted because I didn't know if I should grade the front area to take advantage of that. I mean, she feels she has more right to my property than I do. She might was well water it!

Also ironically - If I knew she was going to flood my property I would't have said anything because nothing within 10 feet is dry enough to burn now.

So, she watered for three days then took two days off. I wasn't really sure what her next move was going to be. I assumed, doubling down on watering. And that seems to be her course for now.

Obviously I can't tell her that she is flooding my place. She's called the police on me twice. So she can eat a bag of dicks. I am super afraid she is going to blame me, so having the whole confrontation recorded turns out to have been a good thing. She let a lot of her inside thoughts out, and incriminated herself in a lot of ways. She threatened to poison my stuff. Sane people don't do that. She admitted she was never going to do anything about that dog. It didn't matter how nice I was. And I did start that way because you learn in Silicon Valley to have impulse control. You never know when things are going to circle back around. The Valley is filled with that kind of irony.

Last night I did become concerned that a neighbor walking by is going to knock on my door trying to be helpful. The water is running from my gate to the front like I lost of sprinkler head. I mean, what am I going to say? It's not mine. Then they are going to wonder why I don't talk to the neighbor. It's all very uncomfortable.

I did get my water bill a day or two ago. Which means, she is not going to realize all that water pain for a whole cycle. ~That ~is some funny shit. I've never had anyone be so spiteful that they just give me free water. That is some baller money I have to say.

I'm not even quite sure how to handle this. So right now I am in full avoidance. She will figure it out. I assume.

Tuesday, September 01, 2020