Month: September 2023

Daily Life, Government

Be Prepared, A Motto

Does anyone remember the Boy Scouts? I know I’m dating myself, but I did the whole scouting thing. Eventually we moved to a different city so I never finished my Eagle Scout, but I was pretty involved as a kid. If you didn’t know, the scout motto is “Be Prepared”. When the scouting founder, Robert Baden-Powell, was asked “be prepared for what?” He replied, “Why, for any old thing”. This way of thinking was drilled into me even further when I was a member of a Search and Rescue team. I saw first hand what happened when people wandered into the woods without adequate preparation. (hint, it was never good)

A looooong time ago I lived in California, in the Bay Area. The possibility of the big earthquake was very real. Having a minor part in my cities emergency management system, I realized what a shit show things would be if the big quake really did hit. Trust me, your government is not ready. If a couple of overpasses came down, say goodbye to your food supply (grocery stores only have 2-3 days on hand at any given time). As a result, I had a fair amount of food and water stockpiled. I felt pretty good about my ability to ride out multiple weeks of no power, water, or food.

I no longer live in California (thank god). My little part of the world is reasonably immune from natural disaster. We have plenty of water sources, don’t suffer from droughts, don’t have earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes. We don’t have the civil unrest plaguing so many cities right now. While we’re starting to see some homeless and a bit of increased drug traffic… snowy winters tend to keep that somewhat in check. Basically our main threat is the Yellowstone super volcano blowing. If that happens, we’re all screwed so it’s not really worth worrying about.

So as you can probably guess, my “prepping” has gotten somewhat lax. I still stock quite a bit of food and things that go bang to defend the aforementioned food. Water is not an issue. So the question is, should I be preparing more?

It’s been a long time since I gave this question any thought. But lately… the political, social, and geopolitical situation has me more nervous. We’re closer to WWIII kicking off than we’ve ever been. An EMP strike is a very real possibility. Side note, read “One Second After” if you want a realistic picture of what that would look like. Complete South Africa-like social collapse is certainly in the realm of possibility. I’d like to think my part of the world is isolated enough to avoid much of it, but you never know. China is nearing a collapse. Inflation, fuel prices and fertilizer shortages are skyrocketing the price of food. The price of cattle futures has doubled. Supply chain interruptions and food scarcity generally lead to bad things. A terrorist attack on our power grid? Yeah, that would be bad. So far this year, 160 people on the terrorist watchlist have been stopped on the border. How many snuck through?

The point is, I think it’s time to starting thinking about worst case scenarios. I filter “prepping” down to the following:

  • Does my family have enough food, water, and the ability to cook it for several months? Can we function without electricity for that length of time? Do I have the ability to defend it from people trying to take it?

That’s it. No more, no less. Nobody’s bugging out or going on the long march. We’re not setting up radio communications or coordinating neighborhood assault/patrol teams. I’m not digging a fallout shelter. None of that’s realistic. If something really bad happened, could we hunker down for sixty days and survive? If it’s still really bad beyond that… well, it’s probably end of days and Mad Max time. Nobody but the gangs and most brutal will survive that. I’m not sure I’d want to be around at that point.

My personal weak points are cooking, heating, and light. The hard part is that the solutions to those problems are somewhat expensive. It’s hard to spend money on something you hope to never use. Depending on what happens in the world this next year – it may be time to pony up and prepare.

How about you? Could your family survive a couple months without power or government infrastructure? One month? A week? It’s worth thinking about.

Whether contemplating the societal breakdown scenarios, or going backpacking, fishing, or riding a motorcycle into the backcountry, there’s a saying I like:

“Expect to self-rescue. No one is coming.”

Keep that in mind when planning stuff and you’ll be better off than most of the population.

Government, woke

Coming To A Favela Near You

A favela is the term for a large slum, ghetto, or shanty town. The most famous favela is in Brazil surrounding the city of Rio de Janeiro. They’re full of horrible poverty, crime, and drugs. And they’re the future we’re looking at here in the US.

Don’t believe me? We already have one just outside of Houston Tx. It’s called Colony Ridge and is home to somewhere between 45,000 and 75,000 illegal immigrants. There’s little, if any, law enforcement. Dirt roads. Houses can be bought without social security numbers or traditional income verification. The area is controlled by the cartel and is rife with drugs.

Should you care about this? Well, so far during the Biden Administration 8+ million illegal aliens have crossed the border. They have no money, job skills, don’t speak the language, and are often still in servitude to the cartel they paid to bring them across. Where are they going to go?

We’re seeing in NYC, one of the most affluent cities in the country, what happens – there’s no housing for them or sufficient services. Thousands upon thousands of migrants are sleeping on the streets and in parks. The city is paying exorbitant amounts to take over hotels to house them. Winter is coming… now what? There’s not enough indoor housing for the masses of people. This is not a winning recipe. Ask yourself, could whatever little town you live in support an overnight influx of 10,000 people? That’s how many people a day are crossing the border. What do you think that would do to your cities budget? Think your taxes would go up to make up the shortfall?

As compassionate humans, we don’t want to see people dying in the streets so we raid our city budgets to provide food and temporary shelter. Our health care systems become overwhelmed with migrants using the emergency room for free primary care – the hospital eats the cost for that care since they don’t have insurance. Actually you, the average insured person, eats that cost. Why do you think an aspirin is $250 in the hospital?

These folks have limited to no job skills other than menial labor. You do what you need to do to survive – and that often means turning to crime, which puts a great burden on already overworked police departments.

I’m sure many of these people are lovely humans who simply want a chance at a better life. I get it. I’d want the same had I not been fortunate enough to be born where I was. But let’s be realistic. Doctors, lawyers, and nuclear engineers are not who are streaming across the border. Look at the daily images and tell me what you see. The overwhelming majority are fighting age males from every country on the planet. By and large the migrants coming across, are not basic family units.

Faced with the hurdles they have here, assimilation into the American way isn’t going to happen. They will self segregate into familiar communities, continuing to speak their language, and carry on whatever customs and way of life they know. And those communities will be preyed upon by cartels, limiting any chance of upward mobility.

In short, it’s a recipe for favelas being created in every major city in the US.

These areas will quickly become no-travel zones for the average person. Policing will be virtually non existent. Is that the future you want for your country?

If you believe in an open border, or support the current administration, I’d love to hear a reasonable explanation for how/why allowing the current border situation to continue is in our best interest? Please show me any country in the world where allowing unchecked migration has been a net positive. How does allowing 8 million migrants stream across the border in just a few years benefit our country? I’d really like to know. I’ll assume that if you’re in support of an open border, you’ve opened your home to help house several migrant families… right? see Martha’s Vineyard

I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late. Nobody’s going to deport millions upon millions of people. Mexico and the cartels aren’t going to stop. Congress will continue to issue random pithy statements and hold pointless hearings, while doing absolutely nothing about it. The liberal screaming class won. They’ll come down like a ton of bricks on any person or business stupid enough to not embrace unchecked migration. In short, we’ve thrown in the towel. The border is open.

I’m not sure what it means for the average citizen. I don’t see how this improves the quality of your city or town. I suppose the long term outlook is that the upper classes will retreat further to their gated and patrolled neighborhoods. Downtowns will continue to die as it becomes too dangerous to shop and eat out for the regular person. I suspect private security will become the hot new business venture to invest in – after all we have twenty years of disillusioned military vets looking for something to do.

Sorry for the negativity to end the weekend. It’s just hard to watch the images of what’s happening and wonder how we got here? Maybe I’m being too pessimistic and we will find a way to turn things around. Maybe American exceptionalism will find a way to turn lemons into lemonade. Maybe.

Meanwhile, stay strapped and keep your head on a swivel.

Government, Solving the wrong problem

The Robot Way

If you didn’t already see the story, NYC is going to deploy a giant Roomba vacuum cleaner with cameras on it for additional security in the subway. Ok, it’s not actually a Roomba. It’s something called a K5 from a company called Knightscope. This 400 lb robot is equipped with continuous video recording, facial recognition, thermal anomaly detection, and license plate recognition. Somehow this thing is supposed to make the subways safer. Will it work, or is it just a stunt?

The premise of a wandering robot recording everything it sees and potentially spotting crime isn’t necessarily bad. The problem is – let’s say it spots someone stealing a ladies purse (I guess it could be a mans murse to be fair and balanced). Now what? If you’re not going to have real live officers in a place they can respond quickly, what did it deter?

Ah, but we’ll know who you are and come arrest you later for your evil-doing right? As every large city in the country is experiencing, there already aren’t enough officers to respond to real-time calls for service, let alone try to track down and arrest people after the fact. And even if there were, that only does any good if you’re actually going to prosecute and jail them. See California for how that’s working out.

So basically the NY mayor blew a chunk of budget he doesn’t have on a giant Roomba that rolls around and hopefully captures video of crimes that won’t be stopped or prosecuted. Mmm, ok.

It did make me think about the ever advancing security state. What level of privacy are you entitled to from state run surveillance? New York City already has more security cameras than a Vegas casino. They employ fleets of drones to watch any large crowds or gatherings. Obviously the courts have ruled generally that you have no expectation to privacy in public. But if the police were to set up a camera to watch and record your house and had officers actively follow you and video wherever you went, wouldn’t that level of surveillance require a warrant? Or at least some sort of official procedure and sign-off?

I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the answer to that. My point is, aren’t police cameras on every corner recording everything and creating a searchable record the same thing? This just seems like a slippery slope we’re headed down. If you live in a bigger city, the government is essentially recording your every movement, every place you go, what times you went, and who you interacted with. Who knows what they’re going to eventually do with that info. Hmmm. A giant, permanent database of every citizens movement patterns and network of friends and interactions? What could possibly go wrong?

Lawyers, woke liberals, and the George Soros funded prosecutors have made actually enforcing the law impossible. Too expensive in terms of cost, lawsuits, and negative press to arrest, prosecute, and jail criminals. The end result is the free for all you’re seeing in cities in California… coming to a town near you soon!

So politicians have thrown in the towel on any sort of traditional policing. The potential cost of doing the hard work to arrest bad guys is too high. Confronting a meth’d out psycho threatening people with a machete never ends well. Someone will capture it on cell phone video and the bed wetters will scream for the creation of crisis intervention teams to pass out therapy bears instead of armed police officers. And god forbid the subject is non-white. RACIST!

The end result is that the politicians will trade your freedom for the illusion of security. See, we’ll put all these cameras up and it will be like a force multiplier. We’ll see crime anywhere in the city and can respond. It’s like quadrupling our police department! Except there’s nobody to respond. Nobody to investigate. Nobody’s going to go track down that car jacking that was recorded.

So every city now has data centers containing multiple exabytes of stored surveillance data on its citizens. I know I’m a tad more skeptical than the average guy… but I’m pretty sure some bureaucrat will find a use for all that information.

You know, for your own good and all.

Daily Life

Maybe It’s Not For Me

100. It’s an arbitrary number, but one that I’ve been fixated on for some time. A goal that continues to elude me. I want to break 100 playing golf. That was painful to admit. It takes courage to throw open the kimono and let the world know just how bad a golfer you are. If you’re not a golfer… well, shooting more than 100 for a round of golf is pretty awful if you’re not a complete beginner.

100 means lots of lost balls. Balls sent flying into the woods. Balls sent to a watery grave in lakes and creeks. It means taking a mighty swing and chunking it a few feet in front of you. It means taking four or five attempts to putt the ball into the hole. It means attempting a four foot chip and sending the ball rocketing across the green. Shooting over a 100 means it often takes several minutes and all the fingers on both hands to add up how many shots you took on that last hole.

Shooting over 100 means you are not PGA material. The senior tour is probably not in the cards for me.

So why do I care? It’s a hobby after all. I care because I’ve never been bad at a sport before. With every other activity I’ve done, I manage to get to a respectable intermediate level before too long. Not so with golf.

I’ve taken countless lessons. I’ve watched a ridiculous number of hours of golf instruction videos. None of it seems to take. I can go to a lesson and do pretty well. I’ll go back to the range or the course the next day and it’s like I never had a lesson. It’s a mystery to me why this happens. It’s like the more I practice, the worse I get.

There’s nothing significant about a score of 100. For some reason, the scoring benchmarks people seem to track are breaking 100, 90, 80. Once you’re in the 70’s you’re nearly a scratch golfer and move to a whole different stratosphere of golf. My ultimate goal would be to be consistently in the low 90’s. But first, I have to reach that elusive score of 99.

I thought for sure it was going to happen this weekend. I was at an even 50 after nine holes. All I had to do was keep it together and play just as well for nine more, and then take one less shot than the previous nine. Just one shot less. How hard could that be?

Unfortunately it’s hard. So hard that I fell apart completely. Ended up shooting way more than a 100.

I just don’t get it. I guarantee I could pick up a baseball, football, or toss a frisbee right now despite not having done it in decades. I’d be willing to bet that with a little bit of practice I could probably surf or windsurf again even though it’s been at least thirty years. Skiing comes right back every year after the long summer hiatus.

Why can’t I just figure out a semi consistent golf swing?

Maybe the problem is that I took golf up as an older adult? All those other activities I started as a kid or in my teens/early twenties. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not cut out for golf. I really wish I didn’t like it so much, because I really hate it much of the time. The constant kick in the ego when I see an obese eighty-year-old hit the snot out of the ball is real. Especially when I walk up to the tee and immediately chunk it 50 yards into the wrong fairway.

It’s unclear who originally came up with the quote, but it’s the best description of the game I’ve heard – “Golf is a good walk spoiled”.

Sigh. But on the plus side, I did recently find a golf video on Youtube that I think is the secret move I’ve been missing. I’ll probably run to the driving range in a bit and practice some more.

Daily Life

A Weekly Wrap-up

It’s Friday and time for some random thoughts to wrap up the week. Enter at your own risk:

  • If you haven’t seen it, there’s a meme floating around about a wife who asks her husband how often he thinks about the Roman Empire. She’s shocked to find out it’s a daily/weekly thought for him. Take a moment and watch this – it’s hilarious because it’s so true. I’m a once every couple of weeks kinda Roman Empire guy.
  • I’m heading to a tropical island in a few weeks and needed a new swimsuit. Since the boardshorts don’t have a liner, I had to order some sort of swim underwear to keep the parts… well, contained. I don’t know what my Amazon search term was, but I discovered dudes are ordering underwear with padded crotches to, ahem, enhance the bulge. I now fear for the ad suggestions that will pop up for the next month. And no, I didn’t order them.
  • I learned a new term today. Anthroinsulae: human islands — cultures within cultures. The island of Lampedusa, Italy was overrun by 8,000 migrants in 48 hours. We had 9,100 migrants just the other day on our southern border. We’re on track for 200,000+ a month this year. DHS is now referring to them as “freedom runs” when instructing the border patrol on mass releases. If you’re of my age, the country you grew up in is gone. These migrants are not looking to assimilate or integrate into the American culture. See earlier reference to the Roman Empire and decline thereof.
  • We’re about 90 days now from the typical start of the ski season. Unfortunately we’re entering an El Niño phase, which in my part of the world usually means drier and warmer. Is it going to be a bust of ski season? I hope not, I don’t have that many left.
  • Dove soap is having its own Bud Light moment. After watching Disney and Bud Light implode, how does a corporation still green light ad campaigns like this? How did woke become more important than oh, I don’t know, returning profit to shareholders?
  • We’re having some landscaping work done. I’m in awe at how hard these guys work. This week they’ve been going to a different job at 4am, working until 8am and then coming to our place and working until 6 or 7pm. Meanwhile, I change a lightbulb, go to the grocery store, mow the lawn and then need a nap because I’m exhausted. I clearly won’t survive the zombie apocalypse.
  • Speaking of zombies, I watched the first episode of the new Walking Dead/Daryl Dixon spin off series. Meh. I’ll give it a few more episodes. I don’t know who thought having half the characters speak in a heavy French accent that’s hard to understand would be a good idea.
  • Because of the landscape work being done, I spent the last few days researching low voltage lighting systems. Good grief, it’s way more complicated than I imagined. Voltage calculations, length of wire runs, transformer options, LED vs halogen… At this point I may just duct tape some flashlights to the trees and call it good.
  • People are getting fed up with the ridiculous climate activists blocking roads. Unfortunately in this country you just have to sit in your car and take it. I guarantee if you try to move any of them out of the way, you’ll be seeing prison time.
  • Update to the Crocs situation: I am now a convert. Contemplating ordering more colors.
  • Speaking of converts, Mrs Troutdog is a long time Apple person. Apple just announced their new phone and watch, which Mrs Troutdog instantly jumped on. As a brand new iMac user, I expect her to go full court press to get me to dump my Android phone and fully commit to the ecosystem. She already hinted that the watch could be used as a dive watch for the upcoming island trip. I did look, it turns out you have pay for a subscription service to use it as an actual dive computer. I might have to unretire to afford all the new tech.

That’s it for the week. Go out and do something fun. I plan on ruining a good walk by chasing the little white ball around. Probably throw a trip into the backcountry into the mix as well. Might even wear my new camouflage Crocs.

Cool, Daily Life

Wanna Have Dinner?

I’ve been reading the book Tucker by Chadwick Moore. In it, Tucker Carlson gives his thoughts on Donald Trump. One of the things he says is that hands down, Trump is one of the best people on the planet to have dinner with. It has nothing to do with politics he says, but instead it’s that Trump is the perfect host. Carlson calls him the ultimate maitre d’. He says that’s he’s hilariously funny, vulgar, and just has an innate sense of how to read people.

So that got me thinking. What would be your top five list of people to have dinner with if you could?

I had to think hard about this. I’m making the assumption that it’s just a normal dinner. No guarantees that you’ll get any sort of inside scoop or information from whoever it is. They might be standoffish or very closed and reserved. Since we don’t really know these people, you’ll never know. Dinner might be a bust or might be an amazing experience. With that in mind, here’s my list in no particular order:

  • Tucker Carlson I think he’s one of the most interesting people around right now. Funny, energetic, asks good questions, and seems genuinely curious about the world around him.
  • Joe Rogan There’s a reason he’s the number one podcaster. He has a way of engaging with his guests that makes conversation effortless. Someone who’s equally at ease with top scientists, thinkers, and fighters is going to be interesting as hell to sit down with.
  • Lance Armstrong I’ll admit this is more of a fanboy thing. Hands down one of the greatest cyclists ever. To have a chance to hear what it was like to be in the peloton back in the day would be amazing. His podcast The Move is worth watching to get a sense of his personality.
  • Elon Musk This one might be a bust. You watch interviews with him and he has an awkward, slow speech pattern that probably comes from overthinking each answer. I’m not sure I’m smart enough to grasp most of what he’s thinking about. Hard to guess how this would go, but worth a shot.
  • Donald Trump I struggled with this one. I don’t care for Trump and I’m not sure I could take an entire dinner of his ego. But if Tucker says it’s worth it, then so be it. If nothing else it would be worth it for the novelty factor.
  • Runner-up: Anthony Bourdain If he hadn’t passed away, he absolutely would have replaced Trump in my list. A fascinating guy who loved street food carts just as much as Michelin star restaurants.

A few other notables that I considered… James Carville, Michael Yon, Col Douglass Macgregor, Bill Maher, and Adam Carolla.

So there’s my list. What would your list be? Would it be sports stars? Musicians? Politicians? It’s an interesting thought experiment to do. So if any of these folks are reading this, DM me. Let’s do dinner.

Government, Politics, Solving the wrong problem

Lesser Of Two Evils

I get it. Everyone thinks Russia is evil. Putin is a monster that launched a war that has resulted in massive loss of life. I think the reasons he did it are complicated and will be debated for years, but implementing a blitzkrieg march straight through to the Netherlands is not one of the reasons. You’re quite naïve if you think that was the ultimate goal. You can debate all you want about good vs. evil, ulterior motives, blah, blah, blah… What’s important is – here we are. Now what?

How does this play out? The war hawks claim we’ll support Ukraine to the end. So what does that look like? Russia is not going to suddenly say sorry and pull back to pre-war borders. Therefore, the only way to force Russia back East is to inflict the complete and total annihilation of the Russian military.

Given that, I have an honest question:

Can anyone give a plausible scenario in which that happens? I’m honestly interested in hearing from someone who believes that’s possible.

Ukrainian losses are in the ~300,000 range, with another 100,000 or so wounded. Kill ratios are 8-15:1 depending on the region. Russia has decimated Ukrainian equipment and artillery. Ukraine has run out of fighting age males. They are snatching people off the streets and conscripting them into the military. They’re now taking women and old men. They’re threatening anyone who fled the country with arrest and forfeiture of their passport/citizenship if they don’t come back to fight.

Russia currently has about 750,000 men in theater, with plans to ramp up to 1.2 million. They have complete air superiority. They have very sophisticated aerial/drone and artillery targeting capability. They’ve ramped up their wartime production of shells, missiles, and ammo to the point they can fire many hundreds per day without fear of running out. They’ve built three rings of massive concrete defensive positions. There are hundreds of thousands of mines to cross before you even get to their defensive lines.

Please tell me how Ukraine defeats that?

The answer is they can’t. It would take the entirety of the US military plus NATO forces to attempt to defeat them. That would be literal world war three. The problem with that scenario is that Russia will not go quietly. I guarantee they’ll use tactical nuclear strikes along the western border of Ukraine before they allow NATO forces to advance further towards Russia. And we can all guess where that would lead.

So now what? Please, someone give me a scenario in which this plays out different if we keep going down our current path.

At this point it doesn’t matter any more if you think what Russia did was right or wrong. It has to stop, and soon. The longer this goes the closer we get to the nightmare scenario. I see our administration and virtually the entire congress gleefully speeding down this path with zero plausible ideas on how it ends.

I don’t know how we convince our leaders that what they’re doing is madness. They don’t listen to the citizenry and the press is in lockstep with these fools. How do we stop this?

I get it. Russia bad, Ukraine good. I don’t like what happened any more than the next guy, but I’m starting to think that if you have any interest in visiting Europe you may want to do it soon. It may be a smoldering crater before too long.

Daily Life

Some Random Thoughts

While thinking about what to write this morning, I got bogged down with too many thoughts. Too many ideas, most of which I’m bored of. So as we edge towards fall and consumption of pumpkin spice flavored everything, I figured I’d throw down the random thoughts that occupy my brain most of the time. A brief little look at what it’s like to be in my head. You’re welcome.

  • Tomorrow is the rehab evaluation for my recent injury. Can I get my core sufficiently stable/strong with PT alone, or is surgery required? I suspect I know the answer, but we’ll see.
  • The interest on the national debt exceeds our defense budget and will soon be larger than all entitlement spending combined. Think about that. Every dollar of every fancy new program government wants to commit to – is borrowed.
  • Secretary Blinken announced during his trip to Ukraine that we’re committing more than $520 million to help make Ukraine’s energy infrastructure “cleaner and more resilient”. See the previous thought. Can someone explain to me like the simpleton I am, why we need to borrow more money to give to Ukraine for crap like this? How is this in the national interest?
  • Mayor Adams says that New York City is done due to the influx of illegal migrants being sent to the city. Hmmm. What happened to we’ll always be a sanctuary city? Interesting that even the biggest city in the country (and all democratic voters) complaining isn’t enough for the federal government to take action. I have thoughts on why.
  • We recently purchased a large amount of furniture. The cardboard and packing material it came in literally filled our garage. Yesterday was the first time I had to address it. It took the better part of the day to get the boxes all broken down and three trips to the dump to get rid of it. No point other than amount of landfill waste bothered me. Of course usually that’s hidden from us. That’s probably a tiny fraction of what every furniture store in the country generates daily.
  • I’m on week two of being a brand new Apple Mac OS user. I’m really liking it so far. I’d say I’m a competent user at the moment. It’s still going to be a while before I master all the shortcut keys. I’d say I was close to “superuser” level on the PC. Wonder how long that will take with the Mac?
  • We had a rock fountain installed in the backyard. They failed to mention that you need to put bleach or algicide in the water to prevent moss from growing. The rock is now covered in moss. Todays task is to scrub down the rock and add the chemicals. Would have been nice to know from the beginning.
  • Last night I rewatched the movie “The Big Short”. We’ve already forgotten how bad that collapse was. Do you remember how many banks and major financial institutions failed and went under? Uhm, yeah. Don’t think it won’t happen again.
  • We’re about 100 days until opening day of ski season. Crazy to think about, since it’s going to be 90 degrees today. Will I have had surgery? Will I be able to ski?
  • This doesn’t apply to women so much, but most guys have a fixed “hairstyle” that they maintain for the rest of their lives (or until they have to shave it or do the combover). Their haircut literally never changes. At my age, I still haven’t figured a haircut that works. I’ve been unhappy with almost every haircut I get. I recently let my hair grow almost the longest it had ever been. At Mrs Troutdogs suggestion, I went to a fancy stylist to help shape it better. She butchered it and I ended up just shaving it off. I don’t know what to do now. Long, short, bald, mohawk, Peaky Blinders style? I guess I’m lucky at my age to still have hair.
  • Speaking of style, for some reason I had thoughts of tattoos the other day. I wouldn’t mind getting another tattoo, but A) I have no idea what I’d do and B) I really don’t have the right “look” to pull off a tattoo, and C) old guys probably shouldn’t be getting tattoos. Very low probability it would ever happen, but I do think about it from time to time.
  • I need to make more videos for my tiny little YouTube channel before it dies off. I literally think about making a video every day. And every day I draw a complete blank. It’s the “creators” version of writers block. I’m not sure how to bust past this.
  • I just finished the fourth book in the John Matherson series. Highly recommend this series! It’s the most realistic look at what our world would look like after an EMP strike. If you’re looking for something to read, you won’t be disappointed.

Ok, that’s probably enough brain dump for one morning. Trust me, that’s a small portion of the crap that floats around in my head at all times. Now, time to blast some Rage Against the Machine and get my yard work done.

Government, Solving the wrong problem

Thinking About Borders

I woke up thinking about our southern border. I find it odd that our government basically has thrown in the towel and simply left the door open. Why would we do that? I do not buy into the vision that some evil WEF cabal is orchestrating the great replacement theory. Yes, the overall identity of the United States is being slowly replaced. I believe somewhere around 2030 whites will no longer be the majority in the country. This is already the case in California, with Texas not far behind. But I don’t think it’s intentional. The left certainly cheers this development, but I don’t think anyone in government is intentionally planning it.

I think we’re not addressing the border issues due to fear of the Mexican cartels. Drugs, guns, and human trafficking is a 10+ billion dollar a year business for the cartel. They will would not take kindly to that revenue stream being shut down. The Mexican government is fully controlled by the cartel and actively support the massive migrant flows north. Just the other day there was a record overnight surge of illegal migrants crossing the border. Video showed Mexican police escorting buses of migrants to the border. Don’t you find it odd our government says nothing about this?

The DEA assesses that Mexican cartels are operating in at least 1,286 US cities. One of the reasons you rarely hear about the notorious bloods and crips of LA is that the Sinaloa cartel came in and killed many of them and took over. I think it’s fair to say the cartels own the border and many of the US border towns.

The cartels have already infiltrated the border patrol. As far back as 2010 there were congressional hearings into corruption in the border patrol. In 2020 a report came out that said the CBP internal affairs believed that as many as 10% of border patrol officers were involved in corruption. That’s Mexico levels of corruption.

So why won’t our government do something about it? I think it’s fear of the all out war on the border that would ensue. If we actually tried to stop the cartels it would quickly escalate to a hot conflict with huge civilian casualties. I think you’d start seeing the level of violence you see in Mexico on US soil – bombings, beheadings, bodies left in the street, and public officials being assassinated.

Our public officials don’t have the stomach to put troops on the border. Of course there’s also the weird legal wrangling that would occur due to the posse comitatus act that prohibits our military from acting as law enforcement on US soil. If a president actually tried it, we’d end up dithering for years as the Supreme Court decides if it was a law enforcement action or defending our border from foreign invaders.

So where does that leave us? No politician has the gumption to start a hot war on the border and have to explain civilian casualties. We have effectively ceded the border to the cartels. They are free to operate with near impunity and continue the invasion of US cities. Gee, I wonder why the fentanyl issue is escalating? I’d be curious how many local politicians in the US are actually being bribed by the cartel? I’d bet it’s way higher than anyone thinks.

So what happens next? Nothing good. California has essentially stopped policing. Been watching all the looting and smash and grab videos lately? Just wait until the cartel gets bolder. No California mayor is going to do anything about it. Texas and Arizona are helpless. Their border towns have been completely overrun. Our government will prevent any citizen groups from banding together for protection. It’s not a pretty scenario.

Politicians calling for “building a wall” are just juvenile. It won’t happen and we won’t enforce it. The left is busy reframing the discussion as a refugee issue. Any talk about closing the border is instantly countered with racist and white nationalist accusations. Want to see the future? Spend some time looking into what South Africa has become.

This is how you lose a country.

Daily Life, Health, Motivation

And The Answer Is…

If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll remember that I recently did something I shouldn’t have done. I thought I was twenty again and spent the day lifting furniture. I figured I’m a dude, so of course I can still do that sort of thing. The problem is that as you age the connective tissue becomes less supple and thinner. Years of slowly becoming deconditioned take their toll. The end result is injury.

In my case it’s a hernia and a separated linea alba. My abdominal muscles pulled apart, allowing the tissue below to bulge out. Yesterday I got the official word – lots of PT and surgery.

Age is a weird thing. It creeps up on you. Mentally I certainly don’t feel old. Up until recently I didn’t feel terribly old physically either. Oh sure, I couldn’t do things to the level I could when I was younger – but I was still out there doing it. I’ve always felt that compared to lots of guys my age I’m doing pretty good.

But this year felt different. Especially this summer. Yes I’ve put on weight before and felt various levels of stronger/weaker throughout the years, but the last six months I just haven’t had the mojo. Body parts just hurt. My eyes changed and I had to get new glasses. My balance is noticeably worse. I’ve had lots of little nagging injuries. And my weight, and the motivation to do anything about it, just hasn’t budged.

For the first time, I honestly feel old.

And now this. The unfortunate part is that the warning signs were flashing neon red. Rapid weight gain. A low back injury last year was the foreshadowing that my transverse abdominals were weak and deconditioned. I skied a bunch last winter, but otherwise didn’t do much physical activity. For a variety of reasons, my usual summer activities (hiking, mountain biking, motorcycle riding, etc…) have been pretty sparse this year. Long story short, there’s been more sitting than moving.

A perfect recipe for injury. An older adult going from the couch to moving furniture, or trying out pickleball, or deciding to take up running again, or even just stepping off an awkward height is just asking for problems. As Dr. Peter Attia writes in his book “Outlive”, once you reach your mid-50’s you’re no longer building muscle and strength – you’re desperately trying to maintain what you have. The moment you stop moving, you start going backwards in terms of physical ability.

Muscles atrophy, connective tissue weakens, tendons and ligaments are no longer supple. The key is to recognize the limitations. Unless you’ve continued to actively train, the days of doing box jumps, hill sprints, and explosive dynamic movements are probably in the rear-view mirror. That doesn’t mean you can’t get back to some form of those things… but you need to go very slow and carefully to avoid injury.

Mentally it’s hard to come to grips with that. In my head I’ve always thought that if I just got motivated for a few months and lost a few pounds, I’d be right back to where I was three or four years ago. Reality has a way of itch-slapping you in the face.

The Dr was pretty blunt. The surgical recovery won’t be too bad. Four weeks of not lifting anything. I should be able to ski in six weeks, although not at 100%. It’ll all be dependent on how motivated I am with PT (Hmm, sounds just like I used to lecture my post–operative patients about. What goes around, comes around).

The good news is that the doc cleared me to do any activities I want leading up to the surgery. I won’t make things any worse at this point. The harder I work now, the better my recovery will be. It looks like I have eight weeks to get ready.

Let’s do this.