The backyard maple is giving up the ghost, just in time for Halloween.
Elections should not be held as the days grow shorter, darker and colder.
One is not inclined toward optimism or fellowship as the furnace begins clicking, on and off, on and off. Our better selves are very much not in evidence. What we’re thinking about is not how we might strive together to build a brighter future, but rather which of our neighbors we would kill and eat first when the power goes out, the grocery stores have been stripped of toothsome tidbits, and the backyard gardens have been grazed down to the bedrock.
Which is the scenic route toward saying, yeah, I punched the buttons that activate the Compound’s heating systems last night. Also, and moreover, I am wearing pants this morning. The horror … the horror.
But at least I am in my own house, unlike at least one of my people out in Santa Rosa. My man Merrill has fled south to his brother’s pad in Hell A, which may be called an improvement only because Hell A is not currently on the barbie. Yet.
When last heard from, Mayor Chris was sheltering in place and continuing his bid to become Commissioner Chris. More from that smoke-filled room as I hear it.
One wonders about the mood of the electorate in Sonoma County. If PG&E were a candidate for anything other than a vigorous tarring and feathering I would predict a massive beating that would make Nixon-McGovern look like a friendly rub-and-tug in a Healdsburg hot tub.
But who knows? The People are a fickle bunch, and winter is coming. They might just elect PG&E president.
Tags: California fires, Elections 2019, Fall
Mad Blog Media 
October 30, 2019 at 8:23 am |
Heh. We’ve been running the home heating system up here for several weeks up in the People’s Republic. Shit, we had our first killing frost around the first week of October. Destroyed all the raised beds in spite of tents, light bulbs, etc.
October 30, 2019 at 10:44 am |
This is the first time it’s really been chilly enough inside the house to crank up the machinery. This house needed more skylights and windows — it stays fairly dark, especially as the days shorten.
Shit, the sun doesn’t even peek over the Sandias until 9 a.m. or thereabouts. Come October even Tonatiuh stays in bed where it’s warm.
October 31, 2019 at 6:33 am |
Life in the foothills with mountains to the East. Camping in canyons Always made for cold mornings in the fall and spring.
October 31, 2019 at 7:13 am |
When you run into a vampire on a bitter cold Halloween night like tonight’s, you know what you get?
Frost bite.
October 30, 2019 at 8:31 am |
I guess November elections are a throwback to earlier times.
https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-vote-on-a-tuesday-in-november
October 30, 2019 at 8:37 am |
We’re a relatively young nation, and we basically invented the MBA and all that TQM, Six Sigma crap. And yet, 90% of the way we operate is because that’s how we did it the last time.
October 30, 2019 at 10:04 am |
I was on the bleeding edge of implementing TQM principles in the Department of the Army workforce. They worked very well, especially the continuous process improvement part, in wholesale commodity management. The Japanese adopted and adapted it, and they whipped our asses in the automotive and electronics markets. But, Americans love that John Wayne lone wolf fable, and it allows oligarchs to continue their march towards total control. Empowering everyone? Bullshit they say. “I alone can fix it.”
October 31, 2019 at 12:39 pm |
Nothing wrong with any of the theories. The problem is when you spent $100 in consulting to save 99¢.
This guy is always pointing how this huge fruit company is always doing things “wrong” and yet somehow they make it work.
https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/
This article is a billion years old but has aged very well:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-management-myth/304883/
October 30, 2019 at 8:41 am |
Dunno, I’m kinda liking sleeping with the windows a bit open and a thin blanket on the bed …(but no bugs flying in) rather than running the A/C. In the winters we’ve spent down here we’ve never cranked up a heater, instead putting on long pants and perhaps a sweater? Cycling-wise, a long-sleeve jersey and some knickers (bermudas as they call ’em here) with perhaps something covering the ears is pretty much all we need to keep us warm on the bike.
But the sun going down at 5 PM still sucks, wherever you are!
October 31, 2019 at 6:46 am |
I like cold-sleeping. The thermostat here is set to 62° for optimal snoozeage. But once I’m up and moving around I like it a bit warmer, say, around 68° or thereabouts.
I should start wearing a watch cap indoors. Just think of the BTUs I’m losing through that poorly insulated chrome-dome.
October 30, 2019 at 10:08 am |
Chris and Padraig must be getting really tired of this shit. I imagine that many people in Santa Rosa and surrounding area learned their lesson last time and were prepared to haul ass if it happened again. I bet Arnold had an alternate home he could flee to.
October 30, 2019 at 10:21 am |
And Merrill! Nothing but bad juju since he moved there from Noo Yawk. If my house were still standing after this one, I would rent it to someone who’d been burned out and get the hell out of Dodge.
October 30, 2019 at 10:31 am |
Amen buddy. We met a couple recently who lived in the San Jose area for the last 40 years. I understand the family attachment they have in the area. But, if I payed under $50K for a house that was now worth over $1 megabuck, you can bet your ass I would be gone in a heartbeat before a republican politician decided my grandfathered property tax rate was “unsustainable.” Can’t make any money on real estate unless you can churn the market.
October 30, 2019 at 10:42 am |
But all my CA friends ask, “OK, but where am I gonna go?” with the same mindset I had before I left. They’re convinced CA is the promised land so they just take the 4 seasons (earthquake, riot, fire, flood) as they come, year after year after year.
The first time one of these things happens I feel sorry for you, but when you stay for the next ones I start to feel the same way I do about people who rebuild homes in flood plains after every flood as if somehow it’s not gonna happen again. There’s some definition of insanity that explains it, no?
October 30, 2019 at 10:43 am |
Meena decided, after we watched dead (fortunately) embers raining down on our BombTown house during the 2011 Las Conchas fire (and have to flee to Fanta Se as town was evacuated) that she eventually wanted to get outa Dodge. So we eventually did.
October 30, 2019 at 12:31 pm |
Reminds me of Iowa – they were burning (Iowans love to burn stuff) the virgin prairie near our house and yours truly was up on the roof watering. The Sioux City FD showed up and laughed and laughed as this former Southern Californian wetted down his roof! What do I know?
October 31, 2019 at 6:43 am |
They burn the fields to return nutrients to the soil, amirite? Or is it just to keep warm in fall?
“Goddamn, Billy Bob, I’m freezin’ my nuts off. Light up the back forty.”
October 31, 2019 at 8:22 am
That and it’s a natural part of the cycle of a prairie. Certain native prairie plants need to have their seed husk charred or weakened by fire in order to germinate. That and it kills the invasives that can otherwise crowd out the natives.
October 31, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Natural cycle, meaning it happens every 40 years or so. But burning your Mickie D’s wrappers 5x a week ain’t the same thing.
October 30, 2019 at 10:47 am |
On an unrelated matter, and speaking of forced relocations, any of you grunts ever done time at Fort Sill down to Oklahoma? One of Hal’s runners is headed for basic there. Should be quite a change from Weirdcliffe. Also, Ethiopia, which is where the kid originally hails from.
October 30, 2019 at 1:17 pm |
Well, you say that but here in jolly old England, we’re having a general election on 12 December. Which means that the new Prime Minister will become known on Friday the 13th. It wil be the third general election and the third or fourth Prime Minister in four and a half years. How did politics in our two anglo-saxon nations become so screwed up?
October 30, 2019 at 1:38 pm |
Facebook. That’s how things got so f–ed up. Zuckerberg should be bankrupted and then tarred and feathered! His name really should be Frankenstein because he unleashed a monster that’s gone out-of-control.
October 30, 2019 at 3:23 pm |
Larry got it right. Let’s not forget tweety. Bullshit metered out in 240 character doses. Propaganda on anti-social media, nationalism, and dumb people is a toxic combination. You know what the Professor says.
October 30, 2019 at 3:42 pm |
Twitter is an appropriate name, don’t you think? It’s a perfect platform for twits.
October 30, 2019 at 9:44 pm |
Twitter is at least as F-ed up as Facebook. Its become a nest of woke idiots and far right trolls.
October 31, 2019 at 8:03 am
The wife says we’re gonna look back on this social media crap the same way we look at cigarettes now. They were awful, the people who sold them knew they were awful, but they enlisted hundreds of people to deny the reality in order to get everyone addicted while they got rich.
We’re gonna ask “Why did we let them get away with this? We should have known better as there were plenty of examples of how crap like this gets going, but we’re always too late to regulate this stuff. Next time we’ll be smarter.”
But you know the other thing she says….
October 31, 2019 at 6:40 am |
Social media are a problem, to be sure. But so are ignorance, sloth, gullibility, narcissism, and a fascination with shiny objects that would shame a parakeet.
The final responsibility lies with the end user. Just because you saw it on the Innertubes doesn’t mean it’s true.
This is probably a topic for a separate post. Stand back, I feel a rant coming on.
October 31, 2019 at 11:38 am |
Let ‘er rip mi amigo! Maybe it will go viral?