I took my first 2-week vacation since 1988 at the end of September. Best Beloved, the dog, and I went camping. We don’t backpack, but we spent two hours in four-wheel drive to get to our campsite in Hells Hole Canyon. We saw more deer than people on the “road” -- we could drive 8 miles an hour in 4WD on the road, and could walk faster than we could ( Read more... )

Amazon Engineer texted me late (for me*) last night. She wanted to know whether I knew who was on call for the Streets division. I did not. There is supposed to be a monthly schedule, but one hasn't been published for a long time ( Read more... )

Are people with "essential jobs" -- water plant operators, Amazon drivers and warehouse workers, store clerks, firefighters, garbage collectors, etc., immune to Covid-19, or are we merely less frightened of it than those with the wealth or privilege to work from home ( Read more... )

Our police are generally pretty nice, for police. I mean, they're police, but they aren't the armor-clad idiots one finds in cities ( Read more... )

NYU admits to not protecting their Jewish students against targeted harassment after a Title VI violation was filed by Adela Cojab.

Can they lose access to federal funds for this? Is there a reason that they should not? Will "Defund higher education" be the new battle cry of social justice warriors"?

There was a time, long ago, that I thought I would be a good lawyer. I can't claim the idea as my own: I was told that by a nice officer who was handcuffing me and arresting me for a crime that he *knew* I'd committed - he was correct - but lacked evidence for. I was eleven and had just enough sense to keep my mouth shut except to question why he ( Read more... )

For reasons I'm not totally clear on, my work days have crept up to City length. Yes, I have projects, and yes, some stuff needs to be done at night, but I really can't do back to back to back 16 hour days any more ( Read more... )

Then:
Yesterday, my dashboard thermometer read 110. "No," I thought, that can't be right!"

"Hey Siri, what's the current temperature?"

"It's about one hundred eleven degrees outside."

"Hey Siri, what will the high temperature to be today?"

"Today's high temperature is expected to be one hundred eight degrees."

Now:Traffic Technician is ( Read more... )

The fire has been burning for more than a month. It's now burned/burning 185 square miles. The smoke plume has been visible from space. 311 fire fighters, 4 water tenders, 4 aircraft, and 12 fire engines are working in 112 degree heat to protect structures and contain the fire ( Read more... )

Best Beloved was desolately rooting through our ammunition boxes. "Don't we have any armor-pirecing rounds ( Read more... )