People want to believe: NFT fraud Melania style - 16 December 2021

And if you still were not sure that NFTs are a scam, the final bit of evidence has been announced.  Melania Trump, gold-digger and person who truly does not care about you, has announced an NFT.  If you think the gold-digger attribute is too cruel, the announcement says that a "portion of the proceeds will 'assist children aging out of the foster care system'" -- a PORTION.  You can be sure that the other portion will assist Melania.  

If you were unsure about NFTs, thinking that there might be some residual value in the concept, you can now rest assured that the lowest of the low have entered the ring and that all honesty has fled.  Interested parties may now line up to be fleeced.

Full details via CNN -

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/16/politics/melania-trump-nft/index.html

 

(c) By Regine MahauxWeaver, Hilary (3 April 2017). Here's What You Should Know About Melania Trump's Official First Lady Portrait. Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. "[O]n Monday[,] . . . the White House released [Melania Trump's] first official portrait, which was taken by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux."Laurent, Olivier (4 April 2017). The Story Behind Melania Trump's Official Portrait. Time. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. - whitehouse.gov/administration/first-lady-melania-trump (page) (archived)whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/flotus.png (direct link) (archived)whitehouse.gov/copyright (license) (archived), CC BY 3.0 us, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57696382

People want to believe, NFT fraud edition - 13 December 2021

The timing of this tweet is perfect. NFTs are frauds. NFT Fraud is a thing. Self-parody is real.

https://twitter.com/nfttheft/status/1469445764275339265?s=21

People want to believe, NFT edition - 13 December 2021

There is a message here, and it is both uplifting and depressing.

 I have been reading about NFTs for months and still fail to succumb to the allure.  I just watched a video, courtesy of BoingBoing, that is located here -  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXaYUEspyG8

and as referenced from BoingBoing -

https://boingboing.net/2021/12/13/what-is-the-true-nature-of-the-nft-bubble.html

The video, named "How Celebrities are Making MILLIONS with Selling JPG’s (NFT’s)" [sic], takes seventeen minutes to explain, first, that NFTs are a bubble and, second, that NFTs are not a scam.  I will grant that the first ten minutes are correct: NFTs are a bubble.  I take issue with the second part: NFTs are a scam.

The best argument for the long-term validity of NFTs is that they provide some sort of a guarantee that one possesses an original.  This is the non-fungible aspect.  The presenter notes that it is trivial to make a perfect copy of a digital original;  he somehow completely glosses over this key fact when comparing NFTs to conventional works of art.  He argues that, somehow, an authenticated work of art by Picasso, Rothko, Rembrandt, or Banksy is equivalent to an NFT.  This is either self-deceiving or disingenuous.  The unacknowledged fault in this argument is that the conventional work of art is unique.  It cannot be duplicated or reproduced and it exists in exactly one place.  It is true that there is a large business, science, and art for the authentication of art works, and it is true that this sometimes has its failures, but it generally works to support the uniqueness and origin of a particular piece of art.  For NFTs, there is no such thing.  A particular NFT, itself, certifies to the uniqueness of a collection of bits, but those bits can be copied perfectly with no way to determine the original.  Further, those exact bits can "exist" in many places (hundreds, thousands, millions of URLs) and they can be moved to a new location trivially - with or without leaving a copy behind.  If the Mona Lisa is removed from the Louvre, there is no copy left behind, perfect or otherwise.  Further, if an artist can make money from the resale of the art (likely a good thing), it seems likely that the artist (or agent) can make another NFT.  Nothing makes the second NFT more valuable than the first.  One can argue that the first NFT is a "first edition" and that brings value.  However, this discussion again calls the basic question - what is the value of an NFT?  

The presenter argues that an NFT has the same exclusiveness as owning a Ferrari or an exotic watch.  The Ferrari has no value on city streets as 35 remains the speed limit for all cars; the watch does not keep better time than the cheap digital watch.  Thus the Ferrari and watch bring status because of exclusivity and expense.  But a fancy car or watch is difficult to make - they are not mass produced using a "copy" command on a cheap PC.  They are not trivially distributed on cheap USB memory sticks.  So if you are the kind of person who is impressed with logos imprinted on leather or carved into steel watches, then maybe an NFT is for you.  But the Ferrari will still be putt-putting along at 35 and will eventually become scrap metal, so enjoy it while you can.  Ferrari will make more cars next year while Rembrandt will remain dead.  The exclusiveness analogy fails.

The presenter mentions in passing that Bitcoin whales are buying NFTs to evade taxes on BTC gains.  The whale converts capital gains on the BTC investment (wager) into the value of an NFT.  Well, yes, that works now.  But eventually the whale will want to convert that NFT into cash to buy their yacht or their pizza, so the NFT will collapse into an cap gain at that point and taxes will be due.  Of the NFT market will collapse and the cap gains will evaporate.  Ultimately, this practice is a statement that the long-term promise of the Bitcoin world is not good (a purchase of NFTs signal low confidence in BTC; if confidence in BTC was high, investments would remain in BTC).  This also means that the world of NFTs is rather like the island of dry cleaners that prospers because everyone takes in each others' laundry.  That will not last long.

To summarize the depressing part of the NFT story, NFTs represent people who are seeking something for nothing.  They seek huge profits at the expense of others with no effort from themselves.  Think about that NFT booster - they add nothing to the value proposition of NFTs.  They are in a pump-and-dump model with the hope that they will get out before the crash caused by the dump.  Which NFT whale will start dumping first?

I said at the start that the moral here was both depressing and uplifting.  I have dwelt on the depressing bit.  The uplifting bit is that many people remain optimistic.  Now that I see that written, it feels inadequate.  NFTs are depressing and a lot of innocent people will lose money.

Lost Mail and Checking, 8 December 2021

In yesterday's mail, I got a repeat bill, a "late" bill.  I checked my records and I had sent a check a month ago (11 Nov), but the vendor has not received my payment as of about 5 December.  I can understand why he might be a little grouchy.  I checked my records, and all the other checks written shortly before and after had cleared the bank, so it looks like Ol' Man Dejoy, the Postmaster, has Done It Again.  After screwing up the USPS, he is now losing mail.  I could pay a few bucks to issue a stop-payment on the lost check, but I am too cheap.   Instead I have sent a replacement check and will be watching should the errant check wander in. 

This is one of the few bills I pay by check.  As this service is ending, I think I have two left that are not in autopay mode.  This gives me a chance to think about checking.  We used to write 10-20 checks a month.  There use to be fleets of small airplanes that would collect and deliver bags of checks to smaller banks in the rural towns.  I used to order checks by the box-full and go through several hundred a year.  And I used to deposit checks received from others.  All that is now gone, or severely reduced.  Of the remaining two checks a month, both could go on autopay, and maybe I should arrange that this afternoon.  There will be the occasional check for donations or large amounts (e.g., buying a new furnace), but I would be down to 10 a year from hundreds a year.  

I could pay the remainder by credit card.  One of the things that gives me pause is that the credit card companies take a cut.  I could have paid the furnace deposit by credit card, but they would have imposed a 3% fee.  I notice in my contributions that the "bank" is taking a fee on the order of 3%, and on the smaller amounts, the "bank" usually sets a floor amount for the minimum fee - often 50 or 75 cents.  When a goup of us would go to lunch and split the check, the bank would get four or five of the 75 cent fees for the one lunch ticket.  That is $3-4 that the restaurant will not get.  There is a similar story at the weekly farmers' market where the little guy, the farmer, loses a buck or so on the deal when you pay by credit card.  With the advent of COVID, everyone avoided the handling of cash and moved quickly to the credit transaction.  In some cases, the farmer took the hit and in other cases, the cost of vegetables went up so that the bankers could collect their fees.  

Instead of turning into a rant, let me simply point out that we should go back to cash for those small transactions.  The bankers are driving much nicer cars than the poor farmers and restauranteurs.  

Working with Medicare and Social Security: Follow-up Follow-up, 7 December 2021

I suppose this is the way things normally happen in life.  Once you buy a car, you suddenly routinely see them on the road when you have never noticed them before.  In this case, I contacted my U.S. Representative's office to ask them to inquire at the Social Security Administration (SSA) about the revision to dates of my eligibility for Medicare.   I completed some confirmation forms for them (approval to use my personal information) and then went out to get the mail.  

Sure enough, that was the day that the confirmation mail arrived from SSA to grant my eligibility for Medicare.  I promptly called the Rep's office to explain and cancel my request.  The office is working remotely, so the interactions are through voicemail and email.  One does not actually talk to anyone, but I tried to be clear in my message (both times).

Now to convince everyone that I am on the "special" enrollment schedule and I am not late for the annual enrollment schedule that ended yesterday (7 Dec).  I got the confirming mail after the close of business, thus I was unable to respond in time to meet the deadline, anyway.

The Mobile Phone of 2031 - 6 December 2021

Twenty years ago, a flip-phone was considered the peak of technology for mobile phones.  Nokia dominated the industry.  Voice and text were the dominant applications (we did not use the phrase at the time) - some limited web browsing was likely possible, but it was really, really crappy.  An integrated camera might be one megapixel on a high-end phone, maybe as poor as  640x480 on a typical phone.  I am not looking at references but that is probably a reasonable summary.   In a revolutionary move, the iPhone was introduced by Apple in 2007 (announced in January, units delivered to US customers on 29 June and then worldwide in 2008).  Since then, a touch screen and ability to run general applications has been the backbone of the mobile phone.  An article today asks where the mobile phone will be in 10 years.

https://gizmodo.com/what-will-smartphones-be-like-in-10-years-1848138666

I thought I would answer this question.  I have been thinking about this for the last 5-6 years and have some predictions.  Most of the predictions I have seen are along the lines of "more of the same" - more bits and colors on the screens, longer battery life, faster CPUs and applications.  I think these answer the wrong question.  I think we need to turn the question around and ask what problems are being solved by a smartphone-like device.

A smartphone is not just a phone: it is a computer.  Therefore it has storage, compute, input, and output.  In today's form, we call these FLASH, CPU, keyboard & voice, and screen & speakers.  But that is a narrow definition.  As Scott McNealy and SUN Microsystems have said, the network is the computer.  Applying this thought, the smartphone is the connection to a larger world, a network of storage, computers, input devices, and output devices.  We used to store music but now we stream it; the storage is in the cloud.  We used to run apps directly on the phone, but now there is a distrubuted model (think about how Siri, Alexa, Maps, and other apps work).  We are surrounded by inputs such as location, sounds, text/typing, and gestures.  We consume output in the form of displays and spoken prompts ("recalculating...").  We are limited by power as seen by the eternal complaints about limited batteries and carrying auxilliary batteries to "make it through the day".  These are all limitations of the small form-factor of the current smartphone.  We are also facing new demands and applications such as payment through the smartphone (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo).  And we are starting to see the smartphone as a means of identity - you can open your front door or start you car with your phone; this exposes security concerns to be solved.

If we combine all these things, we can get a clearer idea of where smartphones are going.  Ultimately, they will be little radios: to talk to the cloud storage and compute; to the cellular network for text, voice, and data;  to connect to the input and output devices around us (Bluetooth, WiFi, others); and to provide credentials for purchase or access.  These radios will have enough compute capability to work with the cloud for larger storage and compute problems; some local storage will be available for caching, but only part of the vast data resources - your top-100 playlist may be on the device, but your total collection will remain in the cloud, perhaps in the form of a subscription.  Similarly, your smartphone will do just enough computation to get you thru day-to-day, and bigger compute will be in the cloud - this is a form of "compute caching".  Computation and storage are useless if they cannot connect to the user, so we get to the input-output devices.

I am surrounded by screens.  I have a 16-inch screen on my laptop, a 30-inch screen on my workstation, a 60-inch screen in my living room.  when I get in my car, I have another screen.  When I get on an airplane, I have yet another screen.  Cabs in Japan have screens, so it is nothing to add them to taxis and Uber cars in the US.  None of these require power from  my device - they have their own power sources.  My smartphone only needs to be able to connect - wirelessly, I presume.  Screens are so cheap that they will appear in kitches, bedrooms, airport waiting rooms, dental waiting rooms, and -- everywhere, and all of them with their own power sources outside my smartphone.  Technology like ChromeCAST and AirPlay show that screens outside my smartphone can be drawn into service.  Even you glasses can be used.  Input devies are even easier - for $100, I can get a device that projects a keyboard on any flat surface to allow me to type.  Some evolution of this idea will allow tablet and keyboard style input.  But voice and gestures will be even more common than today's Siri, Alexa, and Hey Google.

Security is the next big problem to solve.  all of these wireless connections (cloud, screen, Bluetooth, Wifi) are openings for attacks.  But the smartphone device can be programmed to carry my secret keys and allow secure communications.  this is not a solved problem, but the proliferation of VPNs and two-factor verification give a sense of where this is going.   Note also that payment systems systems depend on this being solved, or your bank account will be eternaly zero.  Finally, the proliferation of COVID vaccination status shows that identity is closely tied to smartphones as the carrier.  This simple example will be expanded to include access to cloud services from subscription feeds to financial transactions in increasingly secure methods.

Camera is the one app I have neglected  Some sort of on-board display seems necessary to make a camera work and a small display can be used for other purposes as well, to display security codes as well as directions and red/yellow/green indicators for whatever purpose. 

In the end, we have a small device - anything from a TicTac box to a deck of cards - with a camera lens, a small display (1-in by 1-in, for example), limited storage and CPU, radios, and a battery.  Everything else will come from outside and be displayed outside.  For most of the day, you will not even take it out of your pocket.

I tried to convince a colleague of this idea when we were walking in Beijing, both there on a business trip about eight years ago - roughly 2006.  He was not buying it; his predictions were wrapped around more-of-the-same (better screens, better batteries, a smartphone to the core).  Therefore, my 10-year prediction may take longer than 2031 to arrive, but I think it inevitable.

--andy

Lawn and Garden - 3 December 2021

It has been a quiet period dominated by lawn and garden work.  

We have seen an increase in bird activity, so the suet and nectar get refilled more frequently.  I am guessing that we went through a migratory phase that has changed the populations.  During the Fall migration, there were lots of seeds available naturally and this seemed to reduce the need for supplemental feeding.  The new Winter populations have settled in, the winter pickings are few, the cold raises the need for food and - voila! - we have hungy birds again.  The hummingbirds are reluctantly sharing the feeders (they were quite territorial in the Summer months) and the suet is savaged by packs of maurading little birds.  

The garden work has mostlly been pruning.  Our Howe Sound cabin has a rose that has been growing at one corner of the cabin since about 1938-40, planted by Susan's grandmother.  This is an original "old rose", a climber that has survived benign neglect and active construction for about 80 years.  In advance of the construction, we were unsure if it would survive, so we took a half-dozen clippings back to our Redmond house.  Several of the cuttings remain in pots, large pots, and several are in the ground.  The grounded roses are very happy.  We did not really know what we were planting, how the cuttings would adjust to their new home, but the last few years have shown them to be taking quite well to the new surroundings.  for the last couple of years, the one by the back deck has grown up onto the (south-facing) roof and the one by the entrance has tried to capture any number of delivery persons.  I pruned both in the past week, completely filling the 96-gallon composting container twice.  The thorns on the old rose are quite effective as deterrents; wicked things.  This makes pruning a challenge.  I have settled on a technique that starts at the edges and prunes inward and downward.  This limits me to smaller cuttings and the work goes slowly.  Once I have removed a good bit of the rose bush (about half), I can come in from the side and this allows me to cut off larger bits.  The composing service is very handy - they use an automated truck to collect the contents of the bin and I can just wave good-bye to the thorns.  The alternative would be to run the rose cuttings through the chipper-shredder, and that would be awful.  The canes going in would be constantly grabbing at fabric and flesh, neither of which is pleasant.  And the service means the rose bits go off to become compost. Win.

I came across a video, now misplaced, that explained a technique for pruning and trellising old roses.  It was an eye-opener.  I have decided to try its technique.  I am now pruning the roses to grow large, healthy canes in a horizontal pattern.  From these will grow smaller canes, reaching vertically, that will carry the rosebuds, creating a wall of roses.  Nice.  We have not had any mildew or pest problems, so these old roses seem quite hardy and the veritcal growth will lead to more sun (mor blossoms) and good ventilation (controlling mildew and pests).  I will need to rebuild the arbor so the roses have something to grow on, but that will be another story.

Shattered Fence, Fallen Tree - 23 November 2021

This is actually an experiment to see if I can embed movies in a post.  It does show the fallen tree that broke the new fence in the windstorm around Halloween 2021.

<pause>

Well, it did some sort of upload, but there is no image here. 

Next experiment - upload to YouTube and link to there.

The video is here: https://youtu.be/423yL75Lkp0

It seems one must click and follow - the video is not embedded.

Oh, look - there is one button to upload images and one to upload videos.  Let us now pause to upload the video.

.

I am not looking at the final version, but the original portrait image has been truncated to landscape.  Not sure how Blogger determines this.

Excitement in the Backyard: Septic extension - 23 November 2021

This work was done a while ago, but I am documenting it today because I only just pulled the photos from the camera (phone?).

When the septic pumper was here, he pulled out the filter in the septic tank that protected the lines in the leach field.  He was very careful, warning me in advance, but the filter moreorless fell apart upon removal.  I think I noted that there were three plastic (nylon?) rods that heald together the individual stack plates of the filter.  The nuts holding these failed.  The guy offered to install a $500 replacement filter, but also described the repair process.  I went for the repair. I got three "all-thread" rods of stainless steel with six of those nylon locking nuts.  The idea is to replace the failed plastic rods with steel rods that will last.  

After I got back from the hardware store, I hosed down the filter in an effort to clean it.  I was mostly successful, but let us be real - there is no way to "clean" this thing.  I wore gloves to remove the failed rods and install the new ones.  I had put three of the locking nuts on the three rods in the kitchen (when everything was clean from the store).  That was a challenge because - no surprise - the locking nuts locked up.  As you might imagine, this foreshadows the trouble I was about to have in the backyard, assembling the repair for the filter.  I tried and tried, but could not get the bottom locking nuts on the rods, so I went back to my stash of nuts and bolts, grabbed four and used them.  I double-nutted one of the rods as a safety and then put the reluctant on the bottoms of the rods as best I could as a double-safety. 

In the photo, you see the repaired filter insert to the left, the receiving column inside the septic tank in the center, and the silo lid on the right.  For sanitary reasons, I used a loop of rope to lower the filter core back into the filter housing in the tank.  Once it was all settled, I put the lid back in place and screwed it closed.

For future reference:  the screws in the lid are Robertson, likely #2 or #3.  There are four at about the cardinal points. 

Working with Medicare and Social Security: Follow-up - 23 November 2021

I got back on the phone to Social Security Bellevue this morning and was on-hold for about 20 minutes.  I retraced my (verbal) steps of yesterday, and the woman on the phone confirmed that the delayed start of Part B into July 2022 seemed odd.  From what she can tell, all the paperwork is in-place to justify a "special start" now rather than the open-enrollment start in July.  The case is under review and she added a case note for the responsible individual.  She was very reluctant to provide a case number or contact, so I am "in line" somewhere.  When the review is complete, I will be issued a new card with new dates and be able to sign up when that happens.  Until then, she said there is nothing for me to do - Part A is automatic and in-force, and any enrollment in the other Parts, including Advantage, are gated on the new date.

Sigh.

Working with Medicare and Social Security - 22 November 2021

After filing the right paperwork, I received notice from the Social Security Administration that I was confirmed as eligible for Medicare.  Medicare Part A (hospital) started April 2021, Part D (prescriptions) started (no date - but "can enroll"), and Part B (medical/out-patient) starts July 2022.

July 2022.  Wait a minute.  Why so late when Parts A and D were active?

About noon, I called the number in the letter, the 1-800-MEDICARE number.  I was on-hold for a while and then spoke to a nice woman; I did not catch her name.  She was generally helpful, but the computers were down, so she could not check any specifics.  She advised that I call back later, when the computers were back up.  OK.

About 2pm, I called 1-800-MEDICARE again.  After a long time on-hold, I was able to speak with Wanda.  Wanda was rather the opposite of the first woman.  Wanda was not very helpful.  In summary, she said that I had called Medicare and needed to call Social Security.  She did not accept that the letter had me call Medicare - that was not going to be her problem.  As the computers were back up, I asked for my Medicare number.  She said I had to have a reason.  I told her that I had not received my card with the number and we were in the midst of the enrollment period, so I needed my number.  That seemed to satisfy her and she put me on-hold.  I eventually connected with Greg.  Greg was very helpful and gave me my number.  It took a while, but it worked.

About 2:30, I called Social Security at 1-800-772-1213.  I spent my time on-hold and was connected with Sarah.  She listened to my story and looked at the records.  To her assessment, I had been put in the general enrollment for Part B in July 2022 rather than special enrollment for new Part B people.  She said that I needed to call the Social Security Bellevue office.  I needed to ask them to put me in the special enrollment category.

About 3pm, immediately after I got off the line with Sarah, I called the Bellevue Social Security office at 1-866-574-2323.  I was on hold for about 28 minutes and SS-Bellevue dropped the call.

About 3:30pm, I called SS-Bellevue back.  I was on hold for about 25 minutes and I got a recording announcing that they could not connect me to an agent, advised me to call back again, and hung up.

The Bellevue office closes at 4pm.

So I spent literally hours on the phone to get nothing.  Well, OK, I finally have my Medicare number, but that was not the main purpose of the day.

I wil lbe back on the phone tomorrow at 9am to the Bellevue office to fix this.

Excitement in the Back Yard - 16 November 2021

Well... the excitement is papable.  I think that is a word.  Two big bits of excitement in the back yard, and maybe three bits if you count differently.

A tree fell down and broke our fence in a windstorm around 1 November.  I took some photos, but the weather has been so crappy that I only just got back there to do some clean-up.  It is (was) a sweetgum tree in our neighbor's yard that snapped off at about the six-foot level, and almost twenty feet of tree fell on the corner of our newly installed fencing.  Other names for the sweetgum are liquidambar and American storax.  Unfortunately, besides the cleanup, about three panels of the new fence are damaged.  

Under WA law, we are responsible for repairs - this is an agreement common among insurance companies.   Metropolitan just sold our policy (the whole business) to, I think, Farmers or maybe State Farm, so I have to find the new insurance information to make a claim.  In the mean time,  I went back to do some initial clean-up.  I am hoping that I might get a 4x4 board out of it, maybe 12 feet long.  Looks like nice wood, but we shall see.  I am concerned that an otherwise healthy-looking tree snapped, so the wood may be diseased or otherwise not useful.

Second bit of excitement - we had the septic tank pumped for the first time in about 5-7 years.  We are pretty careful with, uh, what we put into the tank, so seven years is about normal for us.  We had the silos put in (towers?) last time, thus no digging this time, just pumping.  When he went to clean the filter (between the septic tank and leading to the leach field), there was a bit of discovery.

The filter fell apart when he pulled it out.  Not surprising that 30-year-old plastic fails.  As I understand it, the filter is a stack of filter plates that are held in a column by three plastic rods and capped by three plastic nuts.  The filter serves to protect the leach field from solids in the tank (liquids only).  The plastic failed, probably the nuts but perhaps the threading on the rods.  Anyway, the operator got the filter out, but barely.  He offered a replacement at $500 but also told me how I could get some replacement rods to repair the filter for another decade or three.  I chose the latter option, but now I have to go to the hardware store, get the replacement bits, finish cleaning the filter, and replace the filter (inside the septic).  I am not entirely thrilled by this option, but I am less thrilled by the $500 option.

In the meantime, I have ripped the first seven seasons of MASH to the family media server and Handbrake has only crashed twice.  I am now completing seasons 8-11 and then the movie.  Then on to House, Seinfeld, and some miscellaneous DVD movies that I have not yet ripped.  I also have some French DVDs to rip, but they are a different Region (EUR rather than US), so I have to look into MakeMKV. 

COVID Booster Received - 11 November 2021

I did a lot of misccellaneous things yesterday, but the significant one was a trip to get my COVID vaccine booster.  The vaccine is quite available - if you qualify - but it is not easy to get.  Let me explain the three parts of that statement.  

There are several web sites that will allow you to find places that are dispensing the COVID vaccine boosters; I think Google even provided some tailored search results.  I knew I could get a booster at a pharmacy, so I did a search at the site for Bartell Drugs, a regional chain.  No problem, it is easy to find the appointment page, but they do not offer walk-in or same-day appointments and the appointments for the next couple of days were already booked.  Because of my travel to DC, I booked about a week out for 11 November.  

To qualify (as I write this), one needs to have special needs such as a compromised immune syste, working with senior citizens, etc., or be 65 years or older.  By now, the doses for kids 5-12 should be available, but that was still only a promise when I booked.

Finally, distribution of avaiable appointments is lumpy.  I would normally go to Bartell Drugs in Redmond, or in Bellevue, but I had to go to Factoria, about a 25-minute drive.  Not a big burden, but I was hoping for a 25-minute round-trip trather than an hour.  I know. #FirstWorldProblems 

Google Maps took me to the wrong "Bartell Drugs Factoria".  I asked for my destination verbally and Google Maps took me to a Bartell Drugs store in Bellevue so I had to redirect when I got to the wrong destination.  This would have been a real problem on mass transit, but I was driving, thus no big deal.

Once in the right place, I had arrived a bit early, so I wandered around after I checked-in.  I had no particular shopping list, so I looked for some general needs.  I was both surprised and not-surprised by the stocking problems.  I found everything I needed (looked for), but maybe not exactly what I was looking for.  Maybe I wanted gel-cap ibuprofen and they only had tablets or I wanted the 500mg and they only had the 200mg -- that kind of thing.  There were some sections that looked depleted but I did not make note of what they contained.  It is not like the shelves were bare, but some of the sections had gaps.

The pharmacist called me, I got my shot, and they gave me a bale of paperwork.  Totally free.  No questions about payment, costs, or insurance.  I could probably go back tomorrow for a fourth shot (I am not recommending that - I state it simply to suggest that suppies are ample).  I got a third Pfizer dose; I could have mixed it up with another version, but the pharmacist said that the general recommendation was to stay consistant, so I did.   My physical reaction was nil - nothing.

Next morning, there was a little bit of soreness at the injection site, but only when I poked at it. And now, 24 hours later, even that is barely noticeable.

As of 5-Nov, I received notice that I am registered in Medicare, and I await my number so that I can book an annual physical and get a flu shot.

 Kayak Construction, Day Six, completion - 31 October 2021

This is written on 4 November and the kayak is resting in the garage.  I am trying to get the Blogger layout commands to put the photo to the side of this text, but with severely limited joy so far.

Reconstructing, on Day Three, we had a separate deck (top) and hull (bottom) that fit, that had some edge glue to hold the panels together, and a lot of copper wires holding everything together.  Although the kayak has enough strength to be able to move the hull parts about, it must be done carefully.

On Day Four, we expanded the fiberglass work.  We used a thickened epoxy mix to fillet (two l's rather than one) the hull pieces.  This fillet is to fully set the deck and hull shapes that the prior tacking had begun, and the fillets give structural strength to the halves of the kayak.  To provide a continuous fillet, all the wires must be removed.  We are talking hundreds, probablly 200 or more.  There remain a handful in the bow and stern of the hull to retain the proper shape because there is notable twist and stress in the plywood.  Eventually, the few remaining wires will be clipped and sanded flush (fortunately, while copper is strong enough to hold the stresses, it is also soft enough to work with sandpaper).  To do the filleting, I clipped the wires at the deck-hull joint, laid the halves of the boat side-by-side with the (to be) interiors facing up, and clipped the remaining wires.  This gave easy access to the interior for stem-to-stern fillets.  I  prepared the filleting epoxy mixture and used the clipped end of a sandwich bag to apply long fillets that were then smoothed to a gentle curve.  The curves were pretty flat in the bottom and got sharper (smaller radii) toward the bow and stern.  I also applied fillets to the bulkheads, preparing them to be waterproof.  We left this to set for a bit and started taping the seams with 3-inch fiberglass to reinforce the strength of the joints.  We put extra layers of glass in the bow and stern, and then put a sealing coat of epoxy on the inside of the lower hull.  

To start Day Five, I glued one of the hatch fixtures in place.  This goes on the inside to hold the previously cut hatch covers aligned with the deck and to create a waterproof assembly.  I had to shape the hatchh assemblies to fit the slope of the deck at the sides; I also needed to adjust the fillets to seal the waterproof chambers.  I taped the underside of the deck seams and put a sealing coat on the bottom, then it looks like I glassed the underside of the deck and rejoined the halves.  Somewhere in the day, more sanding cleaned up the puzzle joints, removing the surface epoxy and leaving the joints.  Late in the day, I started work on the Kokopelli accents by the cockpit.  Inlay was not really possible due to the complex outline of the figures; to be honest, inlay is the way to go for simpler figures such as circles.  I put a stripe of epoxy on the deck to give the Kokopelli fitures something to stick to (yes, I also put epoxy on the underside of the Kokopelli figures).  Then I laid down a heavy coating of epoxy, taking care to fill in the figures as much as I could. 

This worked well.  The green tape that you see is simply holding the halves together.  Again.  

I came in on Day Six to cut the extra fiberglass from the remainder of the cockpit and hatch openings and trimmed up the edges. Today was challenging for a couple reasons.  I applied a top surface of fiberglass to the deck and later spread a fill-coat to smooth out the weave (make it less visible).  This will create a problem later in the day because of the curing delay in the cool, Autumn temps -- therefore the heater that you see in the photo.  I also filleted the joint between the hull and the deck.  Around the cockpit, I applied 3-inch tape and epoxy, then the rest of the seam got 1-inch tape and epoxy.  The 3-inch tape is very hard to handle when working in the limited access through the hatch holes, so the 1-inch tape was a welcome relief.  While I waited for the epoxy to cure, I helped apply glass and epoxy to the outside hull of several other boats.  Finally, at about 6pm, it was declared that the epoxy was ready for travel.

I already had a roof rack on the car, so I added some foam padding to protect the kayak.  We threw some straps over the top and padded them with old towels and plastic wrapped around the straps.  As a general rule, shiny plastic will not adhere to the epoxy, therefore the straps and towels were kept unglued to the car and straps.  We took the ferry home and arrived without incident.  Well, except for the deer that tried to cross the road as we were leaving Port Townsend - able to stop in plenty of time to avoid entanglement.  The canoe is now resting the garage and I am acquiring tools and materials to complete the work.

Kayak construction, Day Three - 27 October 2021

 Writing from Port Townsend, WA.

We took the Edmonds ferry to Kingston, then crossed the Hood Canal Bridge to Port Townsend. That Sunday evening, we had a glass of wine at the Port Townsend Winery Vintage tasting room and dinner at Alchemy Bistro. PT was quiet. About all there was to do was walk around town.

On Monday morning, I went to my class at the Northwest Maritime Center. There were seven of us assembled to build Chesapeake Lightcraft (CLC) kayaks. Mine is a Shearwater Sport, about 16 feet long and well balanced between performance and comfort (broader beam for stability). We each started with a pile of precut plywood parts, directions, and miscellaneous other bits (copper wire, epoxy, fiberglass sheeting, a few screws, and some shock cord). Joel is our instructor. We are doing the work and Joel comes in when we get stuck. We do not get stuck often, but is has proven key that Joel came in with techniques and tips to keep us moving forward. 

The first day was mostly woodworking. Although the wood parts are precut, the wood does not meet at convenient right angles on the boat, so we spend a lot of time beveling the edges to mate. A small block plane and sandpaper do the trick, but remember there is a lot of edge on a multichined 16-foot boat. The pieces are cut from 4x8-foot sheets of plywood, so the longer pieces are formed by gluing shorter bits together. Joel helped by doing that initial gluing on Sunday so that the epoxy was cured and ready for us to sand on Monday. So one can say that Day One is a dusty day. At the end of the day, the projects do not look like much and there is little obvious change from the start of the day.

Day Two is spent with a lot of little copper wires. The edges ofrhe appropriate pieces of the bottom hull are joined together with hundreds of little copper wires to create the basic shape over some temporary forms and bulkheads. The bulkheads will layer serve to create water tight storage compartments but their initial purpose is to set the shape of the hull. The CNC machine has drilled hundreds of little holes along the edges of the boards. These line up such that the hull pieces can be wired together with “twist ties” to create the correct nautical shape. This is not easy. To join the hull pieces, a simple U-shape works, but to tie in the forms and bulkheads requires some serious distortion of the wire. And all these wires are twisted by hand to bring in the alignment and shape, the further twisted with pliers to set the final shape. I broke a dozen or more wires in the process of adjustment, probably two dozen. Each broken wire was removed and replaced. My fingers were sore at the end.then we repeated this for the top, the deck of the kayak. Finally, we “dry fit” the two to see the shape of the kayak. It took a lot more adjustment to get top and bottom to align, but it was a very satisfying day when we saw the reality of the emerging boat.

Day Three, today, was mostly a day of chemistry and yet more adjustments. We took the boat halves apart and started to apply the first “tacks” of epoxy along the seems. This is to prepare the full structure so that we can later remove the copper wires that were so lovingly fit and tweaked. A light bead of thickened epoxy is laid along each seam of the bottom, skipping over the copper “staples”. Further thickened epoxy is thickly applied, a”filet”, at the bow and stern because they are subjected to greater stresses than the rest of the seams. The top is put on the bottom to check the fit, and the boat is wrapped or taped to set the shape white the epoxy takes an initial set. After lunch, we took the top off again, and did the filet w work on the seams of the top. Then we wired, wrapped, and taped the top and bottom to set overnight to let the epoxy carefully. As we had sometime left, a few of up glued up the support structures for the hatches. We will cut the hatches tomorrow after the epoxy filets and tacks have had a chance to cure.

Tomorrow, Day Four, is more chemistry. We remove the wires to apply filets of fortified epoxy. I expect we will also cut the deck hatches. 

Cookbook arrives - 7 October 2021

Thursday, 7 October 2021.

A quiet day, mostly chores and relaxed "reading" (includes YouTube and death-scrolling, I am afraid).

The cookbook arrived at Obec Brewery.  To be precise, two pallets of cookbooks arrived.  This is The International Table - Recipies from the Seattle Sister Cities, with an introduction by Chef Kristi Brown of That Brown Girl and Communication Seattle.  This book has been under development for about two years - a COVID-19 project, if you will.  Susan has bee working it through the authorship and publication process wihth her partners on behalf of the Seattle Sister Cities Association.  It is out just in time for a holiday gift.  I can personally attest to having tested many of the recipies.  We grabbed a growler of Granat on the way out.

I mention the Cookbook because we went to the Obec Brewery to collect about three dozen books on behalf of ourselves and for other members of the Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association.  

Then we went to the SeattleNantes1980 geocache for some renew and replace action. The previous waterproof box proved not so waterproof when it collected an inch of water in the recent rainy days (an inch of water inside a waterproof box is no bueno).

Finally, I made reservations in Port Townsend for my kayak-building course.  I shall be at the Water Street Hotel.  I am building a Cheasapeake Light Craft Shearwater Sport kayak - seen here. This is scheduled for the week of 24 Oct - 31 Oct 2021.

Maple Pass Loop hike, WA - 4 October 2021

Maple Pass Loop, North Cascades National Park

4 October 2021

The rainy season has started to settle in Seattle with the start of October.  We got a break with some nice weather on Monday, 4 October 2021, where it was sunny but cool.  The waves of weather washing in from the Pacific had a 24-hour gap that allowed the sun to shine.  It was not warm, but the bright colors of the landscape shone in the the sun.  This is the kind of weather that brings out the colors of nature in the mountains - mountain blueberry, sumac, and larches.  Naturally, we decided to go on a hike.  Rather than bury the lede, let me start with a view from the top.

It is a bit of a drive from metro-Seattle to the trailhead, approaching three hours.  We started late (by my keeping) at about 9am, and headed north on I-5 to Arlington on route 530.  This is the boring bit, but heading through Oso, Darrington, and Rockport starts to get prettier and wilder.  Now Route 20 wanders through Newhalem, past Diablo Lake, past Easy Pass Trailhead (hah!) to the Maple Pass Trailhead.  

The trail starts from the ever-crowded parking lot with a steady but brisk rise along a forested valley.  After a couple miles, there is a break to go to Ann Lake or continue upward toward Maple Pass.  As you keep going up, the trail leads across a series of rockslides with nice views of Ann Lake below.

As the trail (seems to) near the top, there is a turn that yeilds a view where everyone stops.  After climbing, it is a treat to see the next valley over.  The saddle between Ann Lake and Lewis Lake has a patch of larches with bright colors.  this is a ruse.  The trail to Maple Pass continues upward.

At this point, the hiker has hit something of a tree-line.  There are trees, but the area is so rocky that very few trees can grow, and few to any size.  The trail climbs and switches back and forth to ascend yet to Maple Pass and a saddle between Ann Lake and Rainy Lake.  Maple Pass does open to the Maple Creek valley, however the trail turns toward Rainy Lake.  

A strong hiker can ascend to Frisco Mountain or farther to Lyall Glacier, but we turned to descent.  The trail descends rapidly above Rainy Lake and then enters the forest that covers the ridge between Ann and Rainy Lakes.  In the photo, one can just make out part of the switchback trail on the left side; just above (and far beyond) the switchbacks is a segment of Route 20 in the distance.

While the mind turns to descent at Maple Pass, I want to show a photo of Rainy Lake (in the distance).  I did not take too many photos on the descent, so this will have to do.  

Notes - In this post, I have included photos, but I wanted to include a video.  I think I have to include a YouTube link, so I will need to experiment further.

Not surprised - 30 Sept 2021

 I spent the day with Medicare.  Well, I started yesterday when I formally and officially applied for Medicare coverage.  I was following a guidebook, generally quite good and very useful, but it left a misimpression that has caused some grief.  Toward the end of the book, there is a checklist to enroll in Medicare.  It makes a blithe reference to the fact that it could take "10 minutes or less" to enroll.  Yeah, about that.  It may take as few as 10 minutes to enter the required information in the Medicare forms (on-line, of course), but then there is a delay while the application is processed (in Albequerque) and a Medicare number is issued.  I got an email to confirm that my applicaton had been recived, but it contains no Medicare number.  The email leaves a gentle impression that the process is quick - but there is no commitment.  

today, I went to register for the Medigap Plan and a corresponding Part D drug plan.  After you enter a bunch of information, it prompts for a Medicare number.  Not unreasonable, but I have none - yet - so I am stuck.   So much for the "10 minute" enrollment.  In a chat-conversation with Betty, a representative of the Medigap insurance company, I discover that it can take "weeks" to get the critical Medicare number.  So I left the Plan process partially completed and started the Plan D drug plan application.  The the surprise of precisely no one, that too needs a Medicare number.  Therefore, I am nominally left without insurance while Medicare proceeds.

Ah!  I hear a shout from the back of the room.  You should have started sooner!  Yes, it would have been prudent to do so.  However, I was awaiting inforation about COBRA benefits from the HR department, and that took a while to arrive.  I had been thinking that I might use COBRA for family coverage through the end of 2021, then pick up on Medicare.  Add in other, personal delays, and I simply did not have enough time with the information to make a decision.

A further complexity is that Medicare is *personal* insturance.  One gets coverage for the self -- and not for the spouse.  COBRA would have covered the spouse; this another factor in the decision process.  Finally, COBRA is expensive.  Surprisingly expensive.  If I were on Social Security, COBRA would consume nearly half of my monthly payment (assuming Social Security were not taxed - which is it, thank you Ronald Reagan).  So my wife spent several hours today to file for WA state health coverage under ACA.  I am glad it exists, but the bureaucracy is astounding.  We are trying to pay them money and the insurance companies make it hard.  SMH.

So, I am technically not covered by insurance.  The last time I made an insurance claim was... 2019?  Maybe?  Anyway, I have chosen to take the risk -- and I can document the fact that I tried to get coverage (tho that may not help in any future discussions, I did try).

Changes - September 3, 2021

As of 3 September 2021, I have retired from AMD.  My time managing a research group is now ended and I am learning to be an old retired guy.  One might think this is easy, that it comes naturally, but I after about three weeks, I still have a lingering compulsion that I have something to do, some meeting to attend, some HR or recruitig mishap to remedy, or a status report to write.  

No.

No such thing.  My days, my time, are mine to define.  I still have responsibilities, but no longer a manager who sets them or an employee that demands them.  For now, I have projects, mainly ones that have been postponed, some postponed for a long time.  I am also fighting a global pandemic (or, rather, doing my best to avoid it) and the seasons have started to change to be more inclement.  This severely limits the outdoors projects.  Horticulture is no fun in the rain and I simply do not want to run a chainsaw, lawn mower, or chipper-shredder in the rain.  

That said, the US-Canada border recently reopened and we have visited the cabin on Keats Island, once in August and once in September.  During this time, we have done a lot of pruning and other maintenance that sets the stage for a big burn in October.  The residents of Plumper Cove traditionally burn the year's pruning pile during the weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving (American Columbus Day or Indigeneous Peoples Day).  Once the fire completes, the rising tide extinguishes the flames and sweeps away the ashes.  I have spent hours in the trees wtih various saws, manual and chain, to produce a distinctively large burn-pile for 2021.  We will also use this event to get rid of some old stain (I much prefer water-based over oil-based, if nothing else for the cleanup).  After a two-year hiatus while the border was closed and the COVID-19 pandemic raged, there was a lot of growth to remove.  I removed a cedar tree near the deck, stripped another cedar tree near the deck, pruned some trees to the south of the cabin (for light), and pruned the cedars on the bank under the cabin.  And more.  I will not pretend I am done, but the season is over and so the work must pause.  the burn will come in Otober and pruning will resume in Spring 2022.

--agk 29 Sep 2021

It's been a long time

According to this site, I got started in blogging in 2005 and took a giant vacation in 2010.  That's a long time ago.

We just finished a trip in Howe Sound, British Columbia, where we caught a small pod of orca.   Caught means "photographed". 

We are about to start a trip to France and Spain to hike in the Pyrenees Mountains.  More soon.

At loose ends

In 2008 I was training for Northern Tier.

In 2009 I was training for Philmont.

In 2010 I was training again for Northern Tier.

Both my sons have done the Triple Crown (Northern Tier, Philmont, Seabase), so what do I do now?

And home again

We're back. It was a great trip - seven days on the water, two days at the base camp, and a day of travel. We camped six times, portaged 20-30 times, and covered an estimated 117 miles (about 10 of which were portage miles and the rest paddled). One big result - no injuries. A couple of quick impressions --

1. Get the Kevlar canoes. The aluminum canoes are rugged but I'm sure they were part of the reason we had two injuries on the 2008 trip and NONE on the 2010 trip.
2. Train. Then train some more. If you show up without training, you'll pay for the lack.
3. Cardio training. The portage trails are rough and the packs are heavy. You'll be happier on the portage trails if you've trained carrying weight on trails (get some vertical if you can, use stadium steps if you can't get it on trails). All the packs start out at about 50 lbs; the food packs get progressively lighter but the others remain heavy.
4. Skills training. Paddle canoes and go canoe camping at least once, preferrably twice. Practice the wilderness skills - Leave No Trace. If your crew members can't j-stroke, if they don't have some power in their strokes, they'll fail when the wind kicks up.
5. Team training. You'll have some crew members who don't get the idea of working as a team. They'll put of their own tent but let someone else struggle with another tent, they'll take care of their personal needs and preferences first and leave the group responsibilities to others, and they will be selfish instead of sharing. Find out who they are and decide if they can be tolerated. One bad apple...
6. Test skills. Have each team member demonstrate that they have the skills needed. Otherwise you'll have a bunch of sandbaggers who stress all the others.
7. Have a written duty roster. This cuts down on a LOT of arguments.
8. Go to Quetico. The Boundary Waters (BWCA) are just plain crowded.
9. If the advisers like coffee, take a spare stove. I recommend the Starbucks instant coffee in the little tubes.
10. As an advisor, stand back and let the scouts run the show. There are times when you, the advisor, will have to lay down the law (e.g., no one eats dinner until ALL the tents are up, pads are unrolled, and sleeping bags ready). I say this because otherwise you'll be standing around feeding the mosquitoes while the scouts dawdle with and fuss with their tents.
11. Make the rules clear, then repeat five times. Shoes mandatory. Life vests mandatory. Buddy system mandatory. For some reason, mail teen-agers don't understand multi-word sentences until many repetitions. Keep the rules simple and clear so that you don't waste time picking nits with some budding lawyer.

For fun, take a gander at this video -- a portage from the point of view of the guy under the canoe.

Departing soon for Northern Tier

I had all these plans to reignite this blog by tracking our training for Northern Tier. Ah, it would have been brilliant. People would have been inspired to get up out of their lounges and off their sofas to head out into the wilderness. Didn't happen. So that's the bad news. The good news is that I'm doing my final packing and we leave on Monday.

We catch a flight at the crack o' dawn on Monday morning and arrive in Minneapolis a bit after noon, high noon. This "we" is a group of six teen-aged boys and two teen-aged adults; or at least we have teen-aged dreams of wilderness adventure. We'll toss our stuff into our rental cars and head to the Mall of America for lunch. After that, we head up to the US Hockey Hall of Fame Museum. We spend the night at a warmed-up ski center and on Tuesday go to visit the Soudan Underground Mine State Park to tour an iron mine 2,341 feet down. After lunch, we arrive at Charles L. Sommers Northern Tier Canoe Base. After that, we're on our own. We start in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northern Minnesota but we quickly paddle through Prairie Portage into the Quetico. It will be a while, but we'll return to the US and then head on home.

See you on the flip side.

TRASFER OF US$25,000.000.00 FROM FIRST NATIONAL BANK

I have received this invitation to great wealth. Being a generous person, I hereby decline the personal benefit of selfish actions and share this knowledge freely with the rest of the world. In the unlikely event that you should decide to partake, to reply back [sic], and become wealthy, please remember the small people.

And herewith follow the words of Mr. David Brown and TRASFER (david123kgobudi@rediffmail.com).

-----

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA

FROM: MR. DAVID BROWN

Tell: +27- 78-773-6361

E-mail: davidbrownsa2010@gmail.com

Dear: Friend,

Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics. I will introduce myself as Mr. David Brown, the accountant staff in the accounts management section of the above firm here in the South Africa.

This is the detail of what I want you to assist me in doing, One of our accounts with holding balance of US$25,000.000.00 (Twenty Five Million United States Dollars) has been dormant and has not been operated for the past four (9) years. From my investigations and confirmations, the owner of this account, a foreigner by name (Mr. Kurt Kahle) died in July, 2000, For more Information see BBC News on:-http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

And since then nobody has done anything as regards the claiming of this money because he has no family members who are aware of the existence of neither the account nor the funds. I have secretly discussed this matter with a senior official of this bank and we have agreed to find a reliable foreign partner to deal with. We thus propose to do business with you, standing in as the next of kin of these funds from the deceased and funds released to you after due processes have been followed.

Noted that in percentage you will be entitled to 30% of the total sum as gratification, while 5% will be set aside to take care of expenses that may arise during the time of transfer while 65% will be for my partners and me. Please you have been advised to keep top secret and noted that this transaction is totally free of risk and troubles as the fund is legitimate and does not originate from drug, money laundry, terrorism or any other illegal act. On receipt of your response I will furnish you with detailed clarification as it relates to this mutual benefit transaction, I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible if you are interested and with your trust. And also furnish me with the following information’s.

For us to proceed, you have to urgently send to me the following information’s because this are the information required from the lawyer who will obtain all legal documents needed to establish you as the next of kin and legal beneficiary of the funds, To get the required approval for the release and transfer of the fund to your bank account.

YOUR FULL NAMES...................

YOUR TEL/FAX NUMBERS.........

YOUR COUNTRY....................….

YOUR OCCUPATION..............….

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SEX………………………………..

As soon as i receive the above information’s i will contact the lawyer who will obtain all the legal clarify approval document under your name.

GOD BLESS YOU AS YOU REPLY BACK.

Mr. MR. DAVID BROWN

Tell: + 27-78-773-6361

E-mail: davidbrownsa2010@gmail.com

Northern Tier 2010

We're in full-swing training for Northern Tier. Northern Tier (NT) is the BSA National High Adventure Base for canoeing. We're going to the Charles L. Somers Canoe Base outside Ely, MN in the last week of July and the first part of August, 2010. The base is in or near the BWCA - Boundary Waters Canoe Area - and just south of Quetico. I've been there twice before. The first time was as a college student or recent grad (I'd have to check the dates) and was in 19jasjdhf. Gosh, that must have been a data transmission error. The second time was in 2008 with my older son and a group of Boy Scouts. This time is with my younger son and a group of Boy Scouts. I sense a pattern.

The crew this year is a bunch of 15- and 16-year-olds. The 2008 crew was a bit older and bigger; the biggest guys on the 2010 crew would be the smallest on the 2008 crew. This means we won't go as many miles (109 or so in 2008), but we'll still have a grand time. Although we start in BWCA, we cross over into the Quetico on the first day and don't return to the US until the last day. Yes, we cross an international border and need all the appropriate paperwork.

For training, we started with hikes and bike trips. I divide training into three purposes: cardiovascular health and endurance, skill development, and team-building. Since the water was cold in January, we started with hikes - a weekly 6+ mile hike with increasing weight and irregular weekend hikes for fun. For variety, we also did some cycling - about a 20-mile trip on a suburban bike trail. As the weather warmed in May, we got into canoes. Fortunately, we have a crew member who lives across the street from Cottage Lake, so we are able to use their house as a base and portage the canoes over to the Lake. The paddling started out pretty light, building up to a mile in the early days, but now we're more like 1.5-2 miles (it is a small lake). We also did a canoe-camping trip to Diablo Lake in the North Cascades. We did 13 miles over two days with two nights camped. The weather was great, so this was a good trip for a break-in. Finally, having the guys travel together, camp together, and work together is the best team-building I know, so that's what we do.

More later.

Fire in the Mountains

We dropped the boys off at Stevens Pass to ski and continued on toward Leavenworth. We've done a lot of hiking in the Icicle Creek canyon and thought we'd try a snowshoe hike today. I'd forgotten, but huge fires swept through the Icicle Creek area in 1994. Irony would have us visit today - a recent fire at a candy store outside of town left a smoking ruin. We never stopped there, but it was a landmark telling us we were approaching the town.

The forest fire was in the news in 2004 but other fires had pushed it out of our memories. It was an interesting drive as we entered the canyon. The memories came back as we studied the hillsides for evidence of the fire. It's easy to see after a while. At first, the area looked like a clear cut - there were stands of a few trees here and there that survived. But then it became clear there were none of the slash piles left by loggers, and there were bare spires standing that loggers would never have left. On the ground, it was obviously a fire. We walked up a Forest Service road and the undergrowth was thick on one hand; and there was virtually no undergrowth on the other. The fire had demolished it all.
The area is restoring itself. Recreation continues. But the scale of the fire is astounding; in a city, it would be blocks and blocks. Our drive through the fire-scarred area went for miles and the burned areas climbed the hillsides for nearly a thousand feet. I don't know if it crossed the ridge into the next valley. I hope to do a backpacking trip into the Alpine Lakes this summer, and that should reveal the secret.

Rank has its privs

We were visiting the Gettysburgh battlesite and I finally understood how rank influences. It became clear to me that Colonel Sanders has a fried chicken place, but General Pickett has an entire buffet.

Brands

As a result of a resounding loss at the polls in November, the leaders of the Republican Party have been pushing an intense effort to reexamine the Party and position it to win in the future. Some of the talk comes from talking heads on radio and television who claim affiliation with the Party but have no actual position within the leadership and have no elected position; they continue their rants about returning to the roots of the Party, being true to the ideals of Ronald Reagan, and defending American culture from further erosion. The talking heads seem to want to re-energize the base, to strengthen the appeal of the GOP to the existing Party members. The discussion that comes from people actually in the Party leadership or holding office is more subtle and looks for ways to broaden the appeal of the Party outside the base. In both cases, they often talk about the "brand" of the Republican Party.

A "brand" is a symbol of a corporation or organization that is intended to communicate the essence of the entity to a consumer. In modern practical usage, brands are often false. It is not true that using a certain shampoo, toothpaste, or car will make a consumer happier or more attractive to partners, but branding is often constructed to give precisely that impression. The essence of the company or the product remains unchanged while branding manipulates only the perception of the product.

When I combine these two ideas, it is clear that some "leaders" in the conservative movement of the US are attempting to redefine and change the perception of the Republican Party. They are not attempting to understand the underlying issues nor craft new proposals to solve the problems. They are not attempting to make their current positions more clear. They are changing the wrapping without changing the contents. Their goal is to win elections and thereby impose their will. This is not democracy and these leaders should be called to answer for their attempt to confuse and outwit those that they pretend to serve. Some of the self-described leaders of the Party are intellectually and ethically bankrupt if they think that changing the perception is the same as changing the reality.

Much better would be Republican leaders who revisit the principles that lead to the losses and the polls, determine if they are relevant or stale, and freshen the ideas of the Party. Instead of putting lipstick on the pig, they should think about an exercise program to get that pig lean and in shape for the next competition.

Coincidence

I didn't realize it until now. My last post before the lapse was about Lincoln and his fight for the Constitution. I described how Lincoln was an instrument of fulfillment of the original vision of equal rights. My first post after the lapse was to welcome Barack Obama, the first non-white president of the United States.

Lincoln may now rest easy. His task is accomplished. Our task has begun.

Change has come to America

It took something monumental to get me off my stupor. Today is monumental.

I've been chewing my nails all day. I was worried it was going to be a squeaker of a race - that it would be down to hanging chads and failed voting machines with cheesy keys and without backups. But I was wrong and how wrong I was. It is such a relief to have a definitive result - a landslide - and not to be worrying about the final votes in the final states. I haven't seen the participation numbers, but I'm optimistic that voting proportions are up dramatically.

Change has come to America.

Barack Obama has run an outstanding campaign. Not just a technical tour-de-force but a campaign of dignity and style. At the end, in his concession speech, John McCain attempted to make up for his rotten campaign, but he'll be remembered as he has acted. A sad end to a noble career. Eight years ago, four years ago, he might have taken it all, but he was up against a sleazy politician from Texas and Maine, a pampered scion of wealth who came equipped with all the dark tools of a brutal trade. Maybe John McCain could have faced such a foe again to win, but Obama took a different road.

I hope this is the end of the sleaze merchants. I'm not sure, and we won't know for another few years, but I hope. In the meantime, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

George W. Bush has had eight years of practice, and he's not going to stop now. Lack of small-d democratic support has never slowed him down. He's going to try to pour regulations and policies into the system that will gum up the works and take years to undo the damage. The transition team has to learn their new jobs AND watch for devious tricks by the out-going administration. This won't be sophomoric tricks like glue on the toilet seats or tape on the phone, but will be one give-away to his cronies here and a defanging of a protection there. Words will be redefined to be meaningless and entire laws will be disabled. This will not be a cooperative transition, it will be passive aggressive to the end.

But it will end. The people have spoken. Welcome, President Barack Obama.

Lincoln 1865

The day raced past before I could get organized enough to write a post, but I wanted to write about Mr. Lincoln. It was 143 years ago in the theater box shown here that Booth struck out one of the lights of American history.

I learned the usual school-kid history and it really turned me off to anything historical. Time passed and I've developed a revived interest in the past. It started with Angel in the Whirlwind, a book I recommend to those interested in the American Revolution. It gave a realistic picture of George Washington in context - so much more interesting than the drivel fed to our schoolchildren. A few years living in metropolitan Boston, and my interests advanced to the American Civil War.

I find so few people understand that war - it is so easy to get lost in the distraction of state's rights and completely fail to see the real reason for the war. Even Lincoln took a while to come to grips with it, but in his wavering he gives us such deep insight and reveals the truth. All men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Every time a commentator talks about "original intent" as a valid interpretation of the Constitution, I remember Lincoln. It was a rail-splitter from Kentucky and Illinois who showed us that we must not be satisfied with the insights and limitations of the founding fathers, but each generation must add its own brilliance to enhance the luster of the gift they gave us.

The Constitution is one of the great documents of history, but it is only a diamond in the rough. It is an on-going challenge to us to develop and improve the spirit and intellectual quality of the original document lest it become a quaint and curious aged bauble. If the party of Lincoln is to be a true party of conservatives, they must rediscover the struggle to preserve and defend the Constitution, they must watch over it and guide it to new greatness instead of smothering it in uncertainty and blather. To lock one's self to some concept of original intent is to regress to the antebellum mindset.

Lincoln sacrificed his life for the rights of others. Let us hope we are sufficiently strong to continue to fight for the rights of all men and women.

Dome Sweet Dome

We live in the shadow of mounains - when the sun is low in the sky and the clouds are missing, anyway. To our east is the Cascade Range through which cuts Stevens Pass. Because we don't have enough to do, someone invented skiing and put a ski resort in Stevens Pass. It's nice, but not crazy enough, so we go snowshoe hiking there. Lovely, hilly, with great views. It's nice, but not crazy enough, so I took a class in January and built an igloo in March. I would have built the igloo in February, but there was so much snow in the mountains that avalanches closed the pass and I couldn't get there. Building an igloo is nice, but not crazy enough, so I slept in the igloo with my co-builders.

We had a great time building the igloo and camping out there in the wild. We were fortunate that it was cold that night - I'm guessing around 20F or -7C for a low temperature - and that our igloo didn't drip.

There's a secret hidden in the picture. If you look closely at the photograph, I'm looking at a particularly bright spot, a hole in our igloo. For a number of reasons - just assume that they are good reasons and not merely poor construction techniques - we accidentally left a small hole near the top of our dome. Under normal conditions, an igloo dome should be intact so as to contain as much heat as possible. It's supposed to be warmer inside the igloo than outside. However, as we had three full-grown adult men in this igloo, there was plenty of excess heat. As a result of our little hole, we had a constant draft all night. I believe this kept our igloo from overheating and drip-drip-dripping on us all night. (Note to experienced igloo builders - another of our construction, uh, innovations was to forget to smooth the inside of the dome to eliminate drip points.) It was cold, but we wrapped up tightly. The other benefit of the hole was to help release the pressure of the combined snoring of three full-grown adult males and I think this helped protect eardrums. (There's no physics or medicine behind that statement, just a personal awareness of the power of the adult trachea.)

The blue is a little exaggerated. I used the "snow/beach" setting on the camera to adjust the exposure. The texture of the blocks is really there, and there's a distinct blue glow inside the igloo, but it's not quite what you see here.

Photo taken about 7:30am at about 4000 feet near Stevens Pass, Washington, in mid-March, 2008.

Odd anathema

It strikes me that anathema is not a noun. This has confused me for some time. Dictionary.com reports it as a noun, but I don't believe it. Consider their example sentence: That subject is anathema to him. Put another noun in its place: That subject is steeple to him. Put any adjective in its place instead: That subject is beloved/disgusting to him. If it were a noun, the example sentence would read: That subject is an anathema to him. Anathema just isn't a noun because it's not used like one as it lacks an article in common uses.

(Steps down off soapbox.)

Unfortunate headlines (1)

The BBC news site had this interesting headline today:

Afghan becomes open heart surgeon

This was a fascinating evolutionary advance for dog-hood until I read the subtitle:

An Afghan doctor has qualified as his war-torn country's first-ever open heart surgeon.

That's what I get for letting my mind wander when I'm tired.

143 million pounds of beef on the wall

CNN has reported that 143 million pounds of beef are being recalled. This beef includes meat from cows that were "downed" - unable to walk, many carried to the slaughter by forklifts. Dr. Dick Raymond, USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety, is quoted as saying "We don't think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take this action." Evidently this is because they think most of the meat has already been eaten. Of course, most of the meat went to school food programs, prisons, and Native Americans.

The Bush administration has spent years trying to dump regulations and cut funding for government organizations like the FDA (as recently as 2006, until public outcry caused a policy change).

Of course, Ron Paul is on the forefront of this issue. He says "I oppose legislation that increases the FDA‘s legal powers. FDA has consistently failed to protect the public from dangerous drugs, genetically modified foods, dangerous pesticides and other chemicals in the food supply. Meanwhile they waste public funds attacking safe, healthy foods and dietary supplements." Go Ron! Keep us safe. Yeah, right.

In the meantime, will a fine keep Hallmark from doing this again? Or prevent anyone else from doing it? How long does it take to produce 143 million pounds of beef? They've been doing this for a while, clearly, so the practice is well-entrenched and must be visible to management. I propose a prison term for the CEO. If I did this as an individual, I'd be wearing an orange jump-suit, so why not apply this to the Corporate perp?