Today it was time to get my recertification for CPD/AED and First Aid. Good times…
I did my first CPR certification back in 1982 or so, and have been through more of the classes than I can count, as the certification expires every two years. And in spite of having been trained over and over and over again, I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never had to put these skills to the test. Well, I’ve done first aid about a thousand times, but fortunately have never (knock on wood!) had to administer CPR or use an AED machine on anyone in duress.
Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to brush up on these skills if you’re rusty. If you’ve never been trained in First Aid or CPR, what are you waiting for?
The entire course was just shy of four hours. Just about anyone can find four hours to make themselves a more prepared and useful citizen…
I get it, Real Estate prices have gone through the roof…especially here in the Bay Area. But seriously, I cannot wrap my head around this:
One hundred MILLION dollars for a home? Don’t get me wrong, Atherton is really nice but…
Even the “bargain basement”, luxury listing is just shy of 20 million. In SAN FRANCISCO!?!
In “traditional” terms, a mortgage for the “cheapest” listing would require a 20% down payment of nearly $4 million. I have a really well paying, Director-level job, and at my current salary, if I saved 100% of my take home pay (after taxes and health insurance, in other words), it would take me 62 YEARS to amass a 4 million dollar down-payment. Sixty-two years of full time employment. Of course, someone that can buy a 20 million dollar home probably doesn’t go through traditional routes, meaning “cash” deals…
Who are these people that keep this insanity afloat?
The Top 10 on this list equal nearly half a BILLION dollars ($448,600,000)!!! I imagine the county treasurers salivate at the skyrocketing property tax revenues, but it pushes the armies of people these wealthy folks depend on for EVERYTHING from mowing their lawns, cleaning their pools, to cooking their meals, cleaning their homes, to raising their children and everything in between further and further away. With fuel in this area right at $7/gallon, a lot of ’em aren’t going to want to commute 100 miles a day for a Housekeeping job at $15-17/hr.
I can’t imagine this can keep going, and I can’t imagine a scenario that ends well…
I write this as an American that was raised with firearms, taught to respect firearms, and also to respect “the Law”.
We have been enduring an onslaught of talking heads and politicos telling us we have a GUN problem in the USA. Anyone espousing such nonsense is either a complete moron or they are a liar. My money is on the second one, but it’s entirely possible some of these people could be both…
Firearms, and more specifically the dreaded semi-automatic firearm have been around a hell of a lot longer than “mass shootings” have. And more importantly, they do not shoot themselves.
When Cain killed Abel, God blamed Cain, not the rock. For my entire adult life, all you ever hear about is how evil the “rock” is…
There are a lot of “reasons” why somebody might go off the rails and kill someone, too many to list. Some even justified, in my opinion. But a gun is simply a tool, it isn’t the reason somebody does what they do. If somebody REALLY wants to kill someone, they’ll find a way to do it, regardless of the access to a firearm.
And if you happen to be the poor bastard on the receiving end? You’d better hope you’ve got more than 911 on your cellphone for help, or your ticket is gonna get punched.
There are only two reasons the political class gets involved in gun control – neither of them being care for their constituents – money and control.
On the money side, pols that “take a stand”, either for OR against, can count on “donations” to their election campaigns from the various gun organizations for toeing the line. If you want to get “endorsed” by anti-gun orgs for example, you better not say ANYTHING about the responsibility of the criminal or mental health – ALL your ire must be directed at the gun. “Guns are bad, mmm’kay?”
As for the control side of things? Does that REALLY need to be spelled out? Every despot over the last 100 years disarmed their populace before visiting unspeakable horrors ON said populace. China. Russia. Cambodia. Cuba. Germany. The list goes on, you get the idea. I’m curious to see what happens to Australia and New Zealand over the next decade or two… Judging by the gratuitous strong-arm tactics employed by the cops during the Plague, I’d guess the general population is basically under complete “iron fist” control down under, which is bad news for the citizens.
Seriously, think about how bad things are right now, half way through 2022. Think back to the unbelievable restrictions /they/ put their people under during the Plague. And that’s what /they/ did knowing we have more weapons than PEOPLE in this country…just imagine what they might try to roll out on us if we were unarmed?
If, and that’s a BIG if, the politicos tried everything at their disposal and we still had a problem with violence, then maybe, just maybe it might be time to see if there are in fact some “common sense” solutions around the guns themselves but we are a looooong way from that. That isn’t the place to start, making the law abiding sitting ducks for the lawless. All you ever hear about “justice reform” involves leniency for repeat offenders, and all you hear about mental health care on a National level is…zip, nada, ziltch.
I believe anyone charged with a felony crime committed with a firearm should have 20 years added to their sentence and no “gimmes” for juvenile offenders. Make the penalties that much harsher. If they can add on “hate crime” penalties, why NOT? Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows a loaded gun could go off in someone’s hands, especially in a heat-of-the-moment situation. Why not consider every brandishing of a firearm in the commission of a crime, attempted murder? If you actually kill someone in the commission of a crime – I say you should get the death penalty. No 20 years of appeals, no legalese nonsense, you just get your lights turned off, forever. Maybe 90 days for a post-trial review, to make sure no glaring mistakes were made. Felons caught with a firearm? 20 years, hard labor. If that firearm happens to be stolen? 20 years AND your thumbs removed… When getting caught up in “the system” is seen as a right of passage and not a deterrent, clearly things aren’t working and you’ll never have a civil society, much less a safe one.
As for the whole mental health angle? That’s a whole different ball of wax, but yes I’d wager that ALL mass shooting events were due to seriously disturbed INDIVIDUALS, that may have been stopped with the proper mental health affirming intervention. Duh. But since that didn’t happen, and likely never will because our government is far too corrupt to help its citizens, we get whackos going off instead of simply being put to sleep for the benefit of society. Yes, I know, very non-PC there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we as a society are doing ourselves an unforgivable disservice by allowing so many mentally deficient people to run rampant over our country. Hell, some of ’em even get elected to office!
And now, in this day and age, knowing what we do about these sub-human wretches that do these things, I also believe any “news” outlet that publishes photos of these killers should be fined substantially at the very least, and publishers jailed if they make a habit of it. Same for social media. No more “press darlings” made from psycho/socio-pathic cretins, please and thank you.
In short, crazy people are gonna do crazy stuff, guns or no guns. How many maniacs have gone on knife attacks in the last decade or so, racking up double digits of victims? How about the bombers? Or the twisted sacks of excrement that drove vehicles into crowds to rack up a nice, high body count? Or the dealers cutting their product with Fentanyl, killing untold thousands? There are myriad ways to take someone’s life, guns are just one. The flip side of course, is that a gun is the BEST self defense tool you can own. And with all the ways someone else can try to ruin your day and/or end your life, I think being a responsible gun owner is the smart way to go for strictly defensive purposes. “If it saves one life”, right?!?!
Compassion and empathy are very valuable traits, but when your compassion leads to actually endangering your society on behalf of the criminal element, it’s past time to reassess. If there is a truly “revolving door” in prison and recidivism is really as bad as they say it is, that’s your low hanging fruit right there. Put a hard stop to that, and watch violent crime decrease. How many times do they let a dog bite before it’s deemed a dangerous animal and euthanized? We should follow the same guidelines for “career criminals”. We need to face up to the reality that some people are just no damn good, and deal with them as the problem they truly are, not some sociological experiment.
I’m no scientist or social worker, but I’d guess that IF criminals are locked up, or buried, the chance of them committing violence against an innocent victim are pretty slim…regardless of how many guns are in the hands of responsible citizens.
Of course, this is just my 2 cents on the subject…
It is hard to believe it’s already been 6 years since we lost Prince, nonetheless his music and spirit lives on!
I remember the first time I heard about Prince, it was a write up in BAM (Bay Area Music) Magazine, when he opened for the Rolling Stones on their first of Lord-knows-how-many Farewell Tours. He was panned mercilessly for his performance. I recall them saying he was “booed off the stage” by the Stones fans…
Rolling Stones fans didn’t know what hit ’em!
It was maybe a year or so later that I actually heard his music for the first time, and I was immediately hooked. We suburban white kids didn’t get turned on to Prince until the “1999” album, which was released in 1982 (my Freshman year of high school).
Prince was one of those artists that transcended genre, trends, race, orientation… everything. The man changed music and the expectations of musicians. “One of a kind” is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’d been a big fan of Prince for a good decade or more when I learned that we shared a birthday – he was born exactly 10 years to the day before me – and that he threw big jam sessions at Paisley Park on his birthday (in spite of being a Jehovah’s Witness). It was my dream to one day reach a level of drumming notoriety that would get me invited to one of these all star jams…Alas, it was never meant to be. In fact, he’s one of the legendary musicians that profoundly influenced my own musical journey that I never got to see live. Nevertheless, without Prince I wouldn’t be the musician I am today.
So, Happy Birthay Prince! You were before your time, and beyond your place in the Universe and I am eternally grateful for what you bestowed upon us mere earthlings. You will be forever missed, you Sexy MF!
I’d been waiting with great anticipation for this show, and planning on a thoughtful and thorough review of the show. As it turns out, the show left me “speechless”… I’m still processing what we witnessed and words just don’t seem to do it justice.
The event was a “no cell phone” thing, so I have no photographic evidence, but it wouldn’t have made it any more understandable than my failing words do.
In short, it was electrifying, mesmerizing and unlike any other performance I’ve witnessed. Jack White is one of those guys that gives you the impression that he couldn’t possibly NOT do what he does. He makes you believe in “hand of God” stuff. He’s a vessel. The only comparison I can think of is an old fashioned, fire and brimstone, tent revival Preacher, and he’s gonna save your soul or die tryin’. It was the most spiritual experience I’ve had in a long time.
Thank you Mr. White. That was an evening we won’t soon forget.
Nicholas “Topper” Headon, drummer of The Clash, turns 67 today.
While ordinarily I don’t celebrate junkies, The Clash is without a doubt my all-time favorite band and without Topper it’s unlikely that they would have had the impact they did. Lets face it, most of the attention in a band goes to the singer and maybe the lead guitarist, but a drummer can make or break a band. And to be fair, Topper has since cleaned up and completely taken responsibility for his actions back in the day. Which is about the best you can hope for in those situations. Besides, I’m not here to judge.
I hated the man for a time; as a young musician and uber-fan of The Clash, I held him responsible for their demise. Now that I’m older and have a few more decades of life experience under my belt, I can be happy for what they WERE and not be hung up on what they might have been. It’s been over 4 decades now that I’ve loved the music of The Clash, and whatever demons they were fighting back then made them what they were.
A lot of people don’t know the Topper both wrote and recorded most of instruments for “Rock the Casbah”, which while not my favorite tune by The Clash, was their biggest hit in the charts and gave them visibility to millions of “normies” that would have never paid attention to the band, so there is that.
Happy Birthday Topper, and best wishes to you! Thanks for your tremendous body of work, without it I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
We’ve been waiting soooo long to see these guys! We had tickets for a tour a couple years ago that was canceled due to the Plague, then we were supposed to go see them last week in San Francisco. Unfortunately, life was busy kicking us all in the nuts last week, so we pulled the plug in the 11th hour in hopes that we’d make the Menlo Park show the following Tuesday.
Sadly, more misfortune followed…The Mrs. tested positive for the Plague Monday morning, and the poor lady was knocked flat. But, our daughter had already purchased the tix so the Mrs. insisted that we make a father/daughter night out of it.
We felt bad to leave her all by herself, with nothing but NyQuil and the cat for comfort, but it turned out to be a great night.
This was our first time at the Guild Theater and had no idea what to expect. Well, it was GREAT. Super easy to find, parking was maybe a block and a half away and FREE, the staff was friendly, the bartender prompt and the place was simply beautiful, with a great sound system and acoustics. A+ with a cherry on top for the Guild! And one final note, that I didn’t notice until we were leaving the venue, they’ve got the swankiest AND cleanest restrooms I’ve ever seen in a nightclub. Kudos!
Of course the fact that it WASN’T in San Francisco adds fifty-bazillion bonus points!
The night started out with a tidy half-hour set by semi-local singer-songwriter Jennah Bell, who hails from Oakland, CA – just a hop, skip and a jump up the road from Menlo Park. Neither my daughter nor I had ever heard of her and she wasn’t listed on the bill, so we didn’t even know if there was going to be an opening act.
Jenna Bell, the real deal.
I’ll be honest, singer-songwriters are NOT my thing, especially in a live setting. Don’t get me wrong, I admire the hell out of them for having the fortitude to get up in front of a room of strangers, just a single instrument and a voice, and let it all out. That takes a lot of guts. I just don’t want to listen to it, generally speaking. This being my frame of mind, when she walked out on stage my initial (internal) response was “Oh no…”
Well, let me say, I’m an IDIOT for jumping to conclusions. We really enjoyed her set, and she was just delightful as a person. I can’t put my finger on what it was that made her different from the standard singer-songwriter, but she is. In the best possible way. Her style is unique. She doesn’t sound like anyone else I can think of, a truly authentic, original sound. Her set included two cover songs, and she took a HUGE risk covering legendary songs, but she made them completely her own. (I won’t give any spoilers on the songs, but they’re both massive (vintage) hits that EVERYBODY that knows 60’s music knows) It’s nearly impossible to make a cover of a tune better than the original (not that it hasn’t been done) and I’m not saying hers were “better” exactly, but when you completely turn a song inside out to where it sounds nothing like the original and it STILL sounds amazing?!? Yeah, that’s some talent right there.
Ms. Bell’s set was a really unexpected, pleasant surprise and I look forward to hearing more from her.
Next up, it was The Dip’s time to shine and boy, did they!
Honestly, I don’t really know anything about The Dip, where they are from, how long they’ve been around…but from the first time I heard them, I was hooked. Their sound is hard to categorize- take a little Motown, a chunk of jazz, some crooner-type lounge music and throw it in a blender, with a fine dusting of funk thrown on top and you get close to a description, but only close.
Basically speaking, since that’s really all I know, they are a 7-piece operation. Drums, bass, guitar, guitar/lead vocals, baritone sax, tenor sax and trumpet. Each and every one of these guys were on their game, and as a group they were TIGHT! It wasn’t a high-energy show, but it isn’t exactly high energy music either, more of a slow burn groove, with lots of twists and turns along the way.
Hollowbody tone + Bigsby tremolo = Heaven!
The band played a good hour-plus set, then came out and did another 3 tunes for the encore. My only beef, and this is strictly personal, is that in a couple of my absolute favorite songs, they played them completely different than the recorded versions, like an entirely new arrangement. This can be cool, and they actually did great job with they way they did it, I was just looking forward to hearing them at least somewhat like I knew them… But honestly that is just me being nit-picky, it really didn’t detract from the show in any way. Overall, it was a stellar showing from The Dip, and I will ABSOLUTELY go see them again should the opportunity arise. We’ll done gentlemen!
It has been said by many who know me, and I will admit it’s true, that I am predisposed toward paranoia. Well, that makes me sound like a whackadoo, so let’s just say I’m drawn to pessimism.
I’ve never had a day so bad that it couldn’t get worse.
I guess it all started as a young Boy Scout and my introduction to their motto “Be Prepared”. I took that to heart at a very young age (12, I think??) and it has stayed with me these last 4 decades or so.
After the panic of Y2K (what a nothingburger that turned out to be!) I was seriously lulled into believing that we were beyond catastrophe. Sure, we’d have earthquakes and hurricanes from time to time, but “end of the world” stuff? Pfft… That was crazy-talk.
Part of it, for me personally, was the final nail in the coffin of my religious upbringing and beliefs. I had been so indoctrinated with Penecostal “End Times” rhetoric growing up, that part of me still believed the the Millineum was going to be Game Over for humanity. When NOTHING happened, the weight of the duplicity I’d carried my whole life finally fell away and I felt like life was good and I had nothing to worry about.
Then we had the events of 9/11. Then we invaded Iraq for no good reason. Then al Quaeda. Anthrax scares. George “Dubya” Bush at the wheel was enough to give you nightmares, throw in Cheney and Rumsfield and Holy moly, the Rapture seemed like a WAY better option, but alas! No Jeebus was coming back to save us from those lunatics.
On top of all the swell news of the day, there was also the fallout of the “dot com bubble” bursting and causing untold havoc in our country. I too was a victim of that bubble bursting…lost my job, lost 70% of the value of my investments and had to cash out what was left to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads because jobs were non-existent. But I digress…
So in my life so far I’d gone from lower middle-class as a kid, to “working poor” as a young adult, to borderline destitute when I hit my early 30’s, with a wife and child I was also responsible for.
At some point, the dust settled and I was able to see clearly for the first time in a long time, and I realized the ONLY person that would look out for me and mine, was myself.
There was no “luck” coming my way. Thinking “everything will work out OK” was nonsense. Believing in the Government was beyond fairy tales. No, it was time to make some serious changes and get my family in a better position.
All of this is taking the long way ’round to explain WHY I firmly believe in personal preparedness and why I came to believe in its importance.
Well my friends, at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, some sort of Chicken Little, screaming the sky is falling, I have a feeling, a deep unshakable feeling, that we’re in for a rough ride over the next two or three years.
I’m not speaking about politics (a pox on ALL their houses!), or even a resurgence of the Plague. My biggest concern (that has been keeping me up at night, literally) is the food supply.
I believe everyone, and I do mean everyone, should have – at MINIMUM – 3 days of food in their home. I don’t care if you need a cookbook to boil water, you NEED to have food in your home.
But all that aside, just consider the following:
1. US farmers were paid to plow crops under last year.
2. A significant portion of the world’s wheat supply comes from Ukraine. I suspect this is going to be an issue come harvest time.
3. A significant amount of the world’s fertilizer comes from Russia. Do you think they will want to sell it to the US? Will the .gov even ALLOW farmers to buy it, if they could?
4. Crop yields in the US are expected to be lower this year.
5. Numerous food plants in the US have sustained damage in the last year, closing them down or at the very least diminishing their output. This one is very suspicious. More food plant fires in the last year than in the previous 10 years, combined?
6. Pressure from the .gov to divert grain (corn) to ethanol, to lessen the fuel problems we’re currently experiencing.
7. Millions of livestock fowl have been culled this year, supposedly to deal with yet another “bird flu” epidemic.
8. The clarion calls are already ringing out with news of another Covid surge fast approaching. How many more food plants will we see closed down due to the Plague?
9. The cost of diesel has skyrocketed to unseen levels. “But what does this have to do with food?” you may ask? Well, the tractors that plow, seed and harvest crops all run on diesel. The trucks and trains that get the crops to the processing facilities run on diesel. The same, or similar, trucks and trains burning diesel then deliver the processed goods to distributors who load even more diesel trucks and trains to get those processed goods to your local retailers. Do you really think the farmers, the truckers, the rail lines, the distributors…are all going to simply give away any small chance of a profit by NOT charging more along each and every step of the process to cover THEIR expenses? Not bloody likely. Oh, and just in case that isn’t bad enough, a lot of places use diesel to run generators when the power is out to keep the food from spoiling. Lest anyone tell you otherwise, the cost of diesel fuel is DIRECTLY RELATED to everything you eat that you didn’t grow, hunt or harvest yourself. Period.
10. Weather is wreaking havoc on crops this year. We had flooding that caused problems with planting in the US, then cold snaps/freezes that damaged crops in the ground. I read recently that California strawberry farmers lost 80% of the first crop this year due to a “late freeze”. Eighty percent!?!?! Of course, better we lose strawberries than grains in the big scheme of things, but grains are in serious trouble too, world-wide.
None of these things are fringe ideas or “conspiracy theories”, you can find stories on all this stuff all over mainstream media. And frankly, that what freaks me out. If there were only stories about these things on the crackpot websites, or it was only one “personality” talking about it I might be able to dismiss it, but these things are no secret.
Preparedness has many facets- water, food, medicine, shelter, self-defense… but for right now, it’s all about food people.
If you have nothing in your house, get something.
A lot better than nothing!
If you have a little, get a little more.
If I had the space, I would happily store 2 year’s worth of food, but in our tiny apartment we can only do so much. But seriously, anything you can do to put yourself and your family in a better position with food, do it. Now.
If only I had the space…
Once the harvest season is upon us (just a few short months away!) and the reality of the situation becomes more clear, expect prices to soar and availability to dwindle. Then things will start to get nasty. You do not want to be brawling at your local grocery store over the last bag of noodles!
In all honesty, I hope I’m completely, utterly wrong about all this. I would love nothing more than to have y’all back here in a year, making fun of me over my crappy, outlandish predictions. But look it this way, if nothing happens and all the crops turn out great, Russia, Ukraine and NATO all hold hands and sing Kumbayah, and several million gallons of diesel suddenly appear out of nowhere, you’ve still gotta eat, right? You might as well “buy when the market is low” and try to stay a little ahead of inflation. When people are getting “cart-jacked” in grocery store parking lots or standing in line for hours for a government handout, you’ll be glad you did!
That’s just my 2 cents on the subject. Take it or leave it, we’re all adults here. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live or what to believe.
I freely admit that I’m one of those old fashioned folks that much prefers to use cash rather than debit or credit cards.
The positive aspects of this are that I have a better idea of how much I’m spending, when it is literally -not just figuratively – coming out of my pocket AND it leaves less of a “paper trail”. My fellow “tin foil hat” brigade will know what I mean…
The negative side of these transactions is that I always have coins in my pockets.
A few years back I decided to turn lemons into lemonade and started saving the coins in a couple jars at the end of each day. Since we’re apartment dwellers, we always need quarters for laundry, so they have their own separate tin. When the jars were full I’d take them to the coin kiosk at the local grocery store and trade them in. Usually I’d walk out with $40-50, nothing to sneeze at.
Well, yesterday was the first “cash out” since pre-Plague. My jar of nickels and dimes had filled up, so I tossed ’em in a little wood box I had and kept going. Then I had to dump into another tin I had, then the jar was nearly full again! Along the way I started a second jar for pennies too…
I dumped all the “silver” into one plastic bag, then all the “copper” into another bag. I weighed the two before heading out and to my surprise, the silver coins weighed in at 17.2 lbs. and the copper coins added another 2.3 lbs. Nearly 20 pounds of coins! Now you see why I don’t like to carry them around in my pockets!
The kiosk takes a cut off the top for the service, I don’t recall off hand what it is, I think is was 12% or something, whatever. I’d rather pay that than buy coin wraps and spend the time sorting, counting and rolling them up myself, THEN taking said rolls to the bank to deposit, but I digress…
Now, granted this was the longest stretch of collecting – by a long shot – due to the Plague, but I walked out the store with $190 in “folding money”, with a little collection of coins to throw back in the jars for the next run!
Not too shabby!
Of course, in reality I just lost a little money with this exchange. But psychologically it feels like I just got a bunch of money for doing nothing but feeding the coins into a machine. Bottom line, I never would have spent the coins as they were, but by flipping them into cash I got the Mrs. and I a nice pizza for dinner last night and threw the rest of it into the emergency “cash on hand” pile.
You DO have an emergency CASH ON HAND collection, don’t you? If not, why not?
If you don’t (and you really, really should!!!), this is a painless way to do it! And did I mention you REALLY should have emergency CASH on hand?
The Boring Old Man 