Day 3831

We had a lot of rain and high winds last night. I didn't sleep well because I was nervous about trees falling in the back yard and roof leaks. Luckily, the storm passed without doing any damage. I probably just got lucky. I noticed that there were a lot of downed trees in the park this morning. I also noticed that it was a lot colder. The storm did bring one good thing. Cooler weather.

Dawn loved her walk this morning. It was brisk and cool with a nice breeze. I spotted a new type of heron that I'd never seen before and we saw the green parrots again. On the way home we saw what looked like a fine mist rising from a grove of trees silhouetted in the rising sun. Very strange. I wish I had my camera with me. There seemed to be an enormous amount of frogs. You could hear them everywhere. Everything felt fresh and new. It felt like nature had pushed the reset button.

Somebody needs to press the reset button for grocery shopping. Many items are still in short supply. I had a long grocery list today, but I still couldn't find Clorox Wipes. Maybe that brief sighting last week was just an illusion. I couldn't find blueberries either, but I did find peaches. Peaches are back in season and you can find nice looking ones everywhere. It seems like that's all I think about these days. What am I going to eat for breakfast and dinner?

The Mars rover is almost ready to fly and I still haven't heard anything from NASA or the Air Force. I miss my little community of space friends. When we would gather for launch events it was always an interesting mix of people. There were active military folks and college professors. Some people came from small towns and others from big cities. Lots of space fans were young, but there were plenty of old people like me as well. Often we would get together for dinner or drinks while we were waiting for the main event. You'd think that in today's environment there would be lots of arguments in such an eclectic and diverse group. Nope. Everybody got along. There was an unwritten rule that we never talked about politics. I've been to many launches and this always seems to be the case. It works. Improbable and lasting friendships can be made when you don't talk about politics or religion.

I wonder how many people realize that things are going to get worse no matter who wins the election.   Today's problems have simply become too complex to fix. Nobody even wants to listen when you try to explain how complex and interconnected the world has become. If you try to fix one thing, you inevitably wreck something else. I've never been a big fan of politicians. Their job is to supply solutions, so they tend to oversimplify and make promises that are never kept. The globalists think they are clever enough to manage all this complexity. The isolationists just want to pretend it doesn't exist. There is a conspiracy theory going around now that Bill Gates and his Davos buddies engineered the entire pandemic and subsequent social unrest in an effort to significantly reduce the world's population, stop climate change, and install a world government. Lots of luck with that. It's far more likely that humans will simply become extinct in three hundred years. Bill Gates is right that there are too many of us, but I don't think you can stop this train.

Taking the long view on things gives you a curious perspective on current events. Pulling down statues means nothing. Look up at the stars. Our country's two hundred year history, or even humanity's 300 thousand year history isn't even measurable on a cosmic scale. We are temporary. I sometimes wonder what ants think. We are just ants in the grand scheme of things.

Alamo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day