[Ibon]

Nice pic Newfie, wide open spaces.


We retrieved one of our game cameras today. Look what passed by September 21 at 5:20am. This location is a 15 minute walk from our cabin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGROurq ... e=youtu.be

[Newfie]

VERY cool !

[Newfie]

Visiting my son, he has let his beard grow out a bit.

Sitting at the table talking last night I noticed “Holy Shit, he is going grey!!”

My SON is going grey. How old does that make me?

Yikes.

[careinke]

Teaching my five (and a half!) year old granddaughter to read is the most amazing, interesting, and satisfying thing I have probably ever done. We just finished lesson 38 of 100 to get her to the third grade reading level.

We are starting to sound out words in our heads and then say it out loud the "fast way". She has a keen mind, and I was worried she was just memorizing the words. But the last few days, I've become confident she is actually reading. She also likes her mom to write out sentences so she can copy them. Tonight she started her letter to Santa.

Sorry, couldn't resist bragging a little.

[Plantagenet]

I’m off on an unusual little adventure.

About two nights ago a friend called up and said he had just come from the optometrist and he was having a little problem with retinal separation.....his retina was pulling away from the back of his eyeball and he’d already lost about half his vision in one eye. The nearest medical facility capable of dealing with retinal separation was in Anchorage, about 500 miles south of us. And then he asked if I would be willing to drive him to Anchorage since he had to be there the next day for his surgery. Apparently flying is a no-no when your retina is separating and they won’t do the eye surgery without someone there to take of the patient after surgery.

So I immediately dropped everything and an hour later we were in his car (I refused to go in my 20-year-old RAV4 that I drive in the winter) heading south to Anchorage.

We’re down to about 3 hours of daylight and it was a blizzard (of course) but we had to get to Anchorage. MY friend lay down on the back seat and I drove and drove and drove. We did the worst of it about midnight, crossing the Alaska Range in the dark in a big-time blizzard that blasted and swirled snow into the windshield so you couldn’t see a thing. It was a total white-out. There was nobody else on the road but us lunatics. I drove right dow the center of the road because it was snowing and swirling so hard I couldn’t even see the edges of the road. There were rumble strips down the middle and I could feel the rumble strips hitting the left tires which meant steer a little more to the right and then they’d hit the right tires and I’d steer left.

Anyway we made it to Anchorage, and my friend saw the doctors. He actually has one retinal separation in one eye and a retinal tear in the other eye. Surgery is later today.

I got a good nights sleep last night and this morning I feel really good I got my friend to the doctors.......even if it did take 20 hours to drive him there.

Cheers!

PS. I’m also enjoying taking a little trip away from my cabin up in central Alaska. I insisted we stay in a “nice” motel because Anchorage is having a serious Covid outbreak. Just about EVERYTHING in the city is mostly closed. No bars no restaurants. Its kind of amazing to see a big city closed down. Now I know what the rest of COVID America is like right now.

[Shaved Monkey]

Family in South Australia find live koala in their Christmas tree



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijRe4zv ... e=emb_logo


https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... stmas-tree

[Newfie]

Great stories guys. Plant, thats a big favor he asked of you, he must value you a great deal to ask so much.

[mmasters]

Anyway we made it to Anchorage, and my friend saw the doctors. He actually has one retinal separation in one eye and a retinal tear in the other eye. Surgery is later today.

I got a good nights sleep last night and this morning I feel really good I got my friend to the doctors.......even if it did take 20 hours to drive him there.

That's awesome you helped your friend! Also, on the positive side I bet there wasn't much traffic.

I'm not sure if I could live in an isolated place like central Alaska - I value convenience too much.

As far as news for me, I got a new heat pump for my house, was 13K. My dad left me a 4,000 square foot ranch house in central VA which I now live by myself in. The only problem with it is it has a concrete foundation and water pipes in the attic. Sometimes when it gets below 20 the pipes in the attic break. I don't want to deal with that anymore so I got a system that could handle the attic as well as the rest of the house. The unit also helps dehumidify in the summer which is good for my musical instruments. So far I'm loving it! I didn't want to spend that much but it was what was necessary given the situation.

[Newfie]

We launched the boat out of the yard after a nearly 6 month stay. Took a long time for the yard to schedule our work, and then (as is always the case) more work was found and the list grew. So we were pretty busy right up to the end. Splashed Monday.

Left Tuesday for an approximate 135nm trip to Edenton, NC for our winter berth. Had a range of weather along the way, all of it cold. One day got throughly drenched and had to tolerate that for some hours. And one day we just said screw it, too cold, too windy. So we laid on the hook and relaxed.

Arrived Edenton yesterday and our dear friends met us with our car. So we even have wheels!

Today, 45°F, constant rain, we assembled the dink and surveyed the channel into the marina. Minimum 6’ depth noted, we draw 6-1/2’. It is supposed to be soft mud you can push through, it was and we did. However there is apparently also a lot of dead trees or stumps or something down there, and lots if it, so we would go along and ride up over something and go along and bump something else, etc. But we persevered.

We are now nestled into to our slip, have shore power, heated bathrooms and toilets, and can (sorta) just step onto the dock, no more climbing 1-1/2 stories to get on or off the boat. And a nice restaurant/oyster bar right here. Heaven.

So Tuesday we leave our nest to drive 6 hours to visit the kids for the holidays. Down to a 6 hour drive.

Life is good.

[JuanP]

Definitely sounds good from here. Enjoy your holidays, Newfie!

[careinke]

Here is a rather optimistic view of 2021. I recommend it if for no other reason then to expand your thinking. I enjoyed it, it also fits in with my agorist and permaculture views.

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy spend Christmas Eve with Abe Cambridge of TheSunExchange.com as they deliver the opposite of coal in your stocking. They discuss the solarpunk ethos of a decentralized, peer to peer, anti-fragile energy grid. Cambridge catalogues the renewable energy breakthroughs from 2020 and forecasts more for 2021. Solar planes and blimps, UV sequestration and solar energy pipelines are just some of the latest advances they cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lp1qD-BEIA

[REAL Green]

Here is a rather optimistic view of 2021. I recommend it if for no other reason then to expand your thinking. I enjoyed it, it also fits in with my agorist and permaculture views.

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy spend Christmas Eve with Abe Cambridge of TheSunExchange.com as they deliver the opposite of coal in your stocking. They discuss the solarpunk ethos of a decentralized, peer to peer, anti-fragile energy grid. Cambridge catalogues the renewable energy breakthroughs from 2020 and forecasts more for 2021. Solar planes and blimps, UV sequestration and solar energy pipelines are just some of the latest advances they cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lp1qD-BEIA

I am an optimistic pessimist. You can lower the pain and the trouble of decline with a positive system. It is kind of a strategy of old age. You can follow some basics that will lengthen your lifespan and make the decline less painful but you are not going to eliminate decline. In the same way I see civilization declining in decay. Sudden death is always possible for the individual and so is it for civilization. You can positively decline with the right system. I find as I get older in decline I am finding much happiness. In fact I am much more content now then in my wild youth.

We are now nestled into to our slip, have shore power, heated bathrooms and toilets, and can (sorta) just step onto the dock, no more climbing 1-1/2 stories to get on or off the boat. And a nice restaurant/oyster bar right here. Heaven.

Newf, keep your sail boat stories coming. I love to hear them becuase one of my life fantasies is living on a sail boat. Sailing is wonderful. I did it when I was younger with my grandfather.

[Plantagenet]

I just got my Covid vaccination.

Alaska has a very small population but its doing a very good job of getting the vaccine distributed around the state and into arms.

I want to encourage everyone to sign up and get vaccinated as soon as you become eligible in your own states.

I know Gov. Cuomo in New York and Gov. Davis in California and other leading Ds were spreading fear and doubt about the vaccine in the runup to the election, but they were only trying to discredit the vaccine out of a misguided effort to deny any credit for the vaccine to Trump.......in actuality the vaccine has been put through the same kind of tests and analysis as any other drug or vaccine.

Don't be afraid of this vaccine.......my advice to everyone is to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

I'll post again if I have any adverse reaction, but so far I feel GREAT! AND its an incredible relief to know I've been vaccinated. The worlds been turned upside down in the last year, but the vaccine can change things back to normal, for every one of us individually and for the whole world.

I want the world to go back to normal.

The vaccine is a good thing.

The vaccine is a miracle.


To paraphrase Mick Jagger......Everyone must get stoned vaccinated.

Cheers!