Month: October 2022

One of the biggest failures of the U.S. Constitution is the two-year term of Congressmen.

What this ensures is 24/7/365 politicking year-round, so that the incumbents spend most of their time looking over their shoulders and constantly sucking up to monied interests to fund their next election. These Congressmen, who are elected to legislate (i.e. craft laws to solve societal problems), instead devote the bulk of their energies to making the “other” political party look silly and digging up dirt, real and imagined, on potential opponents in the next election.

Incumbent and aspiring Senators, facing a six-year term, don’t have to debase themselves as often.

Candidates of both political parties play the same games every election cycle, blaming opponents for things they have nothing to do with, exaggerating trends, painting a dystopian future if the “other guy” wins, lying shamelessly, and promising to do things, once elected, that they will have no power to do. And, of course, now we have the phenomena of losing candidates claiming that the election results are tainted by illegal voting or ballot counting.

It’s a pretty slimy profession, ranking right up there with prostitution and organized crime.

This year’s midterm elections, instead of focusing on the economy, the war in Ukraine, global warming, mass murderers on America’s streets, and the Nation’s crumbling infrastructure, seem to be referenda on such things as abortion, G.O.P. fealty to ex-President Trump, and current President Joe Biden’s mental acuity.

Abortion is a hot-button issue this time around. There seems to be a crusade on the part of Republicans to force a “pro-life” agenda on all American women, even in the case of rape. The Democrats, who would have an uphill battle retaining their House majority because they are the “in power” party, look at the abortion issue as a gift… because most Americans are “pro-choice” on abortion. So, the Democrats are using this tactical mistake on the part of the Republicans to hammer their candidates on the abortion issue.

It’s a self-inflicted wound that is annoying G.O.P. strategists, particularly when you have prominent Republican candidates (like Herschel Walker in Georgia) who have apparently paid multiple women to abort unborn children. Walker, by the way, has toed the G.O.P. line on abortion… he’s staunchly opposed to it unless he gets one of his girlfriends pregnant.

In addition to the abortion kerfuffle, the Democrats are trying to make hay out of the recent aggressiveness of the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. It appears that this Court is intent on reversing many decisions of previous Courts and providing cover for ex-President Trump in his many legal battles.

There is some confusion within the Republican ranks, as about half of registered G.O.P. voters are somewhat fed-up with hardline Trump cult antics, including hate speech, the “stolen election” fable, the January 6th Capitol Riot, the demonizing of the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice, and the endless kowtowing to the ex-President by their elected officials.

Crime is always on topic at election time. The other candidate and his political party are always “soft” on crime and statistics are always revealed (massaged) that show society going to Hell. The Republican Party has jumped on the “defund the police” slogan to show just how liberal the Democrats are when it comes to crime. Actually, one would be hard pressed to find virtually any Democratic Congressional or Senatorial candidates who support that idea… it actually arose during the BLM unrest, when most of the Nation was appalled by overly aggressive and sometimes illegal police behavior.

As everyone knows, the police will be funded no matter which candidates are elected.

I don’t know that crime is any worse than in previous years, but I do know that mass shootings are endemic in American society and I have yet to hear any Republican candidate (who, of course, abhors crime) offer up any viable solution to that problem. They don’t dare, as the National Rifle Association and the U.S. armaments industry generously fund their campaigns.

The economy is obviously an important issue in 2022. The inflation-fighting efforts of the Federal Reserve, which bewilder most Americans, seem to be adding fuel to the fire, but that is what needs to happen to bring supply and demand back into synch. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who was elevated to that position by President Donald Trump, is sticking to his guns by raising the Federal Funds rate up and up. This confuses the Average Joe and there is the widespread feeling among most Americans that the government doesn’t know what it is doing.

Many voters will instinctively vote against incumbents for this reason and it will be surprising if the Republicans don’t win back control of Congress.

Mid-term success by the “out of power” party is normal, as is the business cycle, which results in periodic bursting housing “bubbles”, stock market declines, and inflationary periods. No political party has ever found the recipe to successfully avoiding such things. It is just a downside of the capitalistic business model that the world has embraced.

It will be interesting to see what happens within the Republican Party once the mid-term dust has settled. The G.O.P will then start positioning itself for the 2024 elections which may or may not include another run for President by Donald Trump. At the very least, it would seem, a Trump-supported candidate would have to embrace a lot of the Trump nonsense in order to garner support from the Trump cult, which is estimated to comprise 40 percent of all registered Republican voters.

In the meanwhile, we can pretty much assume that there will be a lot of punitive behavior by G.O.P.-led Congressional and Senatorial committees beginning in January, 2023, where many legislators will be trying to bolster their M.A.G.A. bonafides. It will be silly season, for sure, a time for a lot of political theater, with ambitious egotists fighting each other for headlines.

Narcissist Donald Trump is going to relish this two-year period of craziness, while the Biden Administration will have a difficult time getting anything done.

It will be déjà vu all over again

Murder has been a societal no-no ever since there were human societies.

Long before the Old Testament fables were concocted by Hebrew priests in the 6^th and 5^th centuries B.C., there were Middle Eastern laws which declared murder to be a capital offense. The earliest known law code surviving today (on stone tablets) is the Code of Ur-Nammu, written in the Sumerian language (in Mesopotamia) roughly 4,000 years ago.

Of course, back in those days, killing on behalf of the state (i.e. military) was an exception to the rule. Huge armies periodically ran roughshod throughout the Middle East, smiting enemies right and left. The writing of the Old Testament was commenced during the Babylonian Captivity, after the small Kingdom of Judea had been overrun by the forces of King Nebuchadnezzar and the surviving Judeans were exiled to Babylon.

Help from God was needed, pronto.

Killing on behalf of God was excused by the Hebrew clerics who wrote the Old Testament, claiming that God “gave” the Promised Land to the Jews and they were entitled to take it by force from the historical occupants. This helpful “permission” from God simultaneously violated three of His Commandments to the Jews: “Thou shall not kill” and “Thou shall not covet”, and “Thou shall not steal”.

But, the invasion, mass slaughter, and confiscation of property was (conveniently) God’s idea, according to the priests who penned the Holy Scripture.

I’ve always wondered why God would need human help to accomplish anything that He wanted. After all, He’s a God, he’s omnipotent, he created the Universe in seven days, and, when pissed off, he drowned the whole World in a catastrophic flood. It seems silly to think that such a Superman would require an Army of God (human beings) to accomplish His goals here on earth.

Nevertheless, according to the Bible, Joshua and the Host (God’s human army) conducted a murderous campaign throughout Palestine, wiping out city after city, and sparing no man, woman, or child. If this Old Testament tale is true, the Jews under Joshua committed one of the earliest documented cases of “ethnic cleansing”.

Once Christians had become powerful, they justified doing horrible things to people on behalf of God. In the Medieval period, several Popes (“God’s emissary on Earth”) sanctioned bloody religious wars in the Holy Lands with the objective of recovering Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Islamic rule. Once again, slaughtering men, women, and children and stealing their property in God’s name was encouraged. In fact, the members of the Army of God were given “indulgences” by the Pope, meaning that all of the stealing, smiting, torturing, and raping that they did during the Crusades was “forgiven” in advance. The end justified the means, I guess.

I wonder, though, why didn’t God just smite the Muslims by himself with a plague, a drought, an earthquake, or a series of lightning bolts?Better still, He could have solved the Islam “problem” if He’d caused Muhammad’s mother to miscarry. Why would a God rely on Crusader swords and mass murder 300 years later?

In the Middle Ages, Christian zealots, led by Catholic clergy like Dominican friar Tomas Torquemada, used the Inquisition to torture, maim, and kill non-Catholics in cruel and sadistic ways. Presumably God blessed this horrific conduct, since the Pope condoned it.

Fast forward to the 1930’s and 1940’s in Hitler’s Germany, when six million European Jews were ethnically-cleansed by the Nazi’s in what would become known as the Holocaust. Was Hitler sanctioned by God to do this work on His behalf? Who’s to say, but the Catholic Church remained absolutely mute during the carnage. Interestingly, Adolph Hitler was a Catholic altar boy in his youth and always considered himself a devout Christian.

I wonder whatever happened to the Christian concept of “free will”? I have yet to find, in the New Testament, where Jesus encouraged the righteous to kill Jews or non-believers of any sort.

Jesus was “The Prince of Peace”, for God’s sake.

Nowadays, we have vigilante Christianism, where righteous believers beat homosexuals to death and firebomb abortion clinics as if they have been deputized to wreak such mayhem. Muslims stone women to death for their perceived indiscretions. All of this confuses me somewhat, as I was taught in Sunday school that it is God’s job to pass judgment on a person’s behavior here on earth.

I worry when I see true believers of any religion running amok in the name of their God. They don’t seem to be accountable to anyone and any tactic, including murder, appears to be acceptable to accomplish their goal.

I wonder what Jesus would say about this.

Today, I read a news article today about a young lady and her boyfriend who, on a dare (I suppose), jumped off of the Huntington Beach pier into the surf 40’ below.

The lady was rescued by surfers but, tragically, the boyfriend drowned.          ,

I know this pier and the surf conditions there quite well, as I spent part of my youth bodysurfing and bellyboarding at that location. The surf can get gnarly, the riptide can be fierce, and the barnacles on the pier pilings can cut you up real nice. I have a scar on my right hip to attest to that.

Huntington Beach, memorialized in the Jan and Dean song “Surf City”, was a magnet for surfers and skimpy-bikini-wearing babes back in the mid- to late-1960’s. I was a competitive swimmer and a lifeguard in those days, and would head down to “The Pier” whenever my buddies and I had the time and a few bucks for gas (which was 25 cents per gallon back then!)

Our group, mostly competitive swimmers, were bodysurfers for the most part. However, we eventually built our own bellyboards with surfboard-sized skegs and would position ourselves out by the old bait house (mid-pier) to catch big waves and “shoot the pier”. This was risky business, because falling under the pier raised the prospect of being caromed off one barnacle-encrusted piling into another while holding your breath underwater.

There is a significant side current in effect at Huntington Beach, from left to right. To get out to the preferred spot (near the old bait house), the experienced guys would paddle out through the pier (between the pilings) or jump off the pier with their bellyboard or surfboard. I don’t know if that is allowed anymore due to the danger. Another danger to swimmers and surfers in the water near the pier is the fact that there are FISHERMEN angling off of the pier, so it is not uncommon to come upon some monofilament festooned with hooks and sinkers. No bueno.

We were, of course, dumbass teenagers back then and danger was not something that worried us much. Even though we were “expert” swimmers, we took our licks when the surf picked up. I can remember bodysurfing in 10’ waves at Huntington and getting my ass kicked, thinking that I was a few seconds from drowning. Of course, there were the good times, too, and there’s nothing comparable to catching a perfect wave and handling it with aplomb.

We even surfed The Pier in the Winter in wetsuits. It was really cold, and when we got out of the water our exposed skin would be blue-ish and our teeth would be chattering. Our favorite thing to do when we got out of the water was to wander down Main Street, go into a grocery store there, buy a huge baked potato dripping in butter and barbeque sauce, sit down on the curb, and have a feast. Wow, that really topped off the morning!

While I was in college, I drove down to Huntington one morning with my best friend “Pat” to do some bodysurfing. We had a great time, but not so great when I got back to my car: someone had broken into it and had stolen my wallet. Dammit! Among other things, I had to get a replacement driver’s license. Back when I first started driving, documentation wasn’t a big deal, but in 1968 the DMV was now requiring a legit birth certificate. I asked my Mom for my certified copy and she said, “There’s something that I have to tell you. Your birthday I fibbed way back when you entered Kindergarten. If I had used December 5^th, you would have had to wait until the next term (one year). You were driving me nuts around the house and I had to do something, so I did. Sorry.”

(No biggee, I guess, but I subsequently wondered how I would have done in academics and sports if Mom had waited one year to enroll me.)

When our kids were teenagers, I would take them down to the beach occasionally. I was in my mid-Thirties by then and could still “show off” my swimming and bodysurfing prowess. I recall one time  when we spent the day at Crescent Bay (in Laguna Beach), a beautiful, boutique place renowned for a good shore break in shallow water.  I took a hefty wave that I shouldn’t have, showing off to the boys, and I got planted in the sand. We had to scurry up to the local emergency hospital where they determined that I’d cracked a bone in my elbow. How embarrassing!

Me and my buddies used to bodysurf and bellyboard at The Wedge in Newport Beach, just down Pacific Coast Hwy from Huntington. The Wedge is probably the most famous shore break location in the world, with waves banking off the rock jetty to create massive waves that break in about 18 inches of water.

It is very dangerous there: surfboards and people’s bodies get broken, and occasionally some unlucky guy gets killed. It is not uncommon to surf ten foot waves there and, a few days each year, there will be days when the sets are averaging 15 to 18 feet. As good as we were in the pool and in the ocean, me and my buddies were overmatched when The Wedge got up to 10 feet. Then, it was time to get out of the water and watch the lumberjacks from the USC water polo team risk life and limb on those heavy waves.

As those young folks learned this past week, the ocean can be a dangerous place. “Man’s got to know his limitations!”, as Dirty Harry once said.

The last time that I went to The Pier at Huntington Beach with the family was when I was about 40 years old. For some reason, probably pride, I decided to don my fins and swim around the Pier. The pier is 1,850 in length, which I believe is the longest ocean pier on the West Coast. Anyway, I was getting tired when I got to the end of the pier and now had to get back to shore. All of the sudden, I realized that I was not in very good shape and COULD DIE out there with the riptide, side current, and moderate surf taking its toll on me.

Luckily for me, when I was at about the point of exhaustion and really worried about my survival, I caught a wave and rode it all the way into shore.

Without that lucky break, I might have become one of the tragic statistics of The Pier at Huntington Beach.

I have a great respect for the ocean now: lots of bad things can happen out there. I think I am retired from ocean swimming.

It’s Fall now here in Mesquite, which means that it’s getting cooler. Daytime temperatures are in the 60’s and 70’s now, while the overnight low ranges from the mid- to low-40’s. It’s a beautiful time of the year out here in southern Nevada.

I’m getting up at around 6 a.m. now because the dogs get antsy as soon as the sun comes out. Charlie likes to sleep in to around 7 a.m., so I take the dogs out to the backyard to do their business and then I make them breakfast. Then I get Charlie’s breakfast in order (coffee and Special K) and make myself an English muffin or a waffle to go along with my Diet Coke (got to watch my weight!).

We then watch a couple of home remodeling shows on TV while the dogs play with their toys and with one another.

After that, I clean up the living room, the kitchen, our bedroom, and pick up all of the dog poop in the backyard.

After all that’s done, I can attend to whatever else is on my agenda.

Today, I had to drive up to St. George, Utah (50 minutes) to pick up a folding patio chair at Camping World. The chair was a replacement (at no cost!), since I had an insurance policy on the four chairs that I bought a couple of years ago. Still, it cost me about $25 to make the round-trip, so I don’t know how good a deal that insurance policy was for me.

On the way back, I stopped at Big Shots, the computerized golf driving range up in St. George just off of I-15. It is an interesting place where one (or a group) can play a simulated round of golf for around $30 per hour (up to six players). It looks like fun; I think I’ll invite my buddy Lloyd to try it out with me.

On the way home, I stopped by the Catholic charities thrift store in Mesquite to drop off some stuff which failed to sell at the community yard sale on Saturday. Charlie and I did pretty well, unloading a bunch of crap for $232. We celebrated on Sunday by treating ourselves to a nice Mexican dinner at Los Lupes.

When I got back to Mesquite, the dogs gave me THAT LOOK, which meant that I hadn’t spent enough time with them today, so I took each one of the kids (separately) on a walk, probably 3/4 of a mile each so that they could smell all the other dogs’ pee and take a crap in just the right spot. They live for their walks!

After that, I finished up painting the six-foot tall ladder that I take with us on RV trips. I didn’t take the ladder this year because Charlie said that it looked ugly (it’s green) hanging off of the back of the motorhome. Instead, I used a dinky stepstool, which didn’t work at all when I needed to wash windows and such. I love that gal but, dammit, we need to take a ladder that is up to the task. Anyway, I painted the six-foot ladder in a brown metallic hue to somewhat match our RV colors. It took three cans of paint, so we ended up with a fairly expensive ladder.

Once I finished with my chores, Charlie and I poured some adult beverages and proceeded to play some card games. We typically play “Continental Rum” and “Spite and Malice”. Occasionally, we will play “Spinner”, which is a dominoes game with wild tiles. This usually take us a couple of hours, and the three dogs like to play fetch and keep-away while we are sitting there.

Afterwards, its “feeding time” for the puppies and we begin to settle down for some TV time and dinner. The dogs, who are pretty well exhausted by then, settle in on the couch with us and try to sleep while we watch anything that looks interesting. Typically, it’s some crime dramas mixed in with home remodeling shows, movies, veterinary shows, and maybe an episode of “Pimple Popper”, “F.B.I.”, “America’s Funniest Videos”,or “My Lottery Dream Home”.

I like action movies and Charlie likes Hallmark-type love stories, so we alternate programming to a certain degree. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, we watched the news a lot. However, we got burned out on all the drama (recall that Trump was President, there were the Covid press conferences and the drama of everyone dying, and there were also all of the BLM protests and such going on) and rarely watch the news anymore. It doesn’t matter to me, as I read the news on my cell phone every day, probably a dozen news sites or more. So, I am aware of current events and will alert Charlie if something extraordinary is going down.

We voted this past week by mail. There were a slew of people running for office, but we only voted for the one lady who we know (a neighbor who is a candidate for City Council) and a few Statewide candidates who are not beholden to ex-Prez Donald Trump. I think the Democrats are going to get their asses kicked in this election, because the economy is heading toward a recession. Charlie and I have been through a few of these before, a the “in” party always takes it in the neck, even though the “out” party has no answers, either.

The City Council candidate, Pattie Gallo, is the same lady who alerted me to the availability of “Vinnie”, who was being fostered by a family associated with We Care For Animals here in Mesquite. What a coup that was, rescuing a very nice dog and making our Boston Terrier pack even more cool. Anyway, politics aside, we think Pattie Gallo is a great neighbor and might make a great City Councilwoman.

If she loses the election, and claims that it was rigged/fraudulent, I will probably have a different opinion about my neighbor.

Time to make dinner for Charlie. I think we will do some deep-fried Chicken Wings tonight. What the Hell, a few extra calories can’t hurt that much, right?

It’s midterm election time again, and we’re faced with the task of voting for one of two crappy partisan nominees or not voting at all. The Biden Administration isn’t exciting anyone in a positive way, and the Republican Party seems to be at war with itself. I am getting tired of this, as are many Americans.

It is a weird time right now in America.

Of course, the big issue right now is the economy and the looming recession. Jesus Christ himself wouldn’t be able to instantaneously harness inflation, as the current situation is natural “payback” for trillions of dollars of cheap or free money inserted into the economy by the Trump and Biden Administrations to, first, supercharge the economy, and second, to ease the chaos deriving from the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Lots of money chasing scarce resources equals… rising prices.

Republican candidates are cudgeling the Democrats over those rising prices and declining 401K’s and gleefully hammering home the theme that Americans would be much safer (i.e. from those darker skinned criminals and illegal aliens) if the G.O.P. was running things.

Typically, the “out of power” party does well in mid-term elections. In the 22 midterms elections from 1934 to 2018, the President’s party lost an average of 28 House seats and 4 Senate seats. If this occurs in 2022, the Republicans would control both the House and the Senate, virtually assuring that Joe Biden’s Presidency would accomplish nothing in its final two years.

This circumstance would be somewhat “normal”, considering the extreme partisanship which has plagued the American democracy for the past half century. A government which, on its best day, struggles to get anything positive done, would basically tread water for two years. Major policy issues like the war in the Ukraine, global warming, mass shootings, inflation, and competition with China would take a back seat to spitwad fights between our Democrat and Republican elected officials.

Interestingly (and a bad omen for the Republican Party), the G.O.P. adopted no policy platform for the 2020 elections. In other words, the Republicans did not identify anything substantial that they intended to do if they were to control government. Maybe they didn’t want the American public to know what their intentions were? Maybe their intent was to simply let President Trump do whatever he wanted for an additional four years? Maybe they envisioned four years of simply attacking Democrats for political gain?

It is estimated that about 40 percent of Republicans claim to believe that the 2020 election of Joe Biden was fraudulent. We can all thank our ex-President for that Big Lie, which seems to be rocket fuel for right-wing nut jobs. A few weeks ago, Eric Trump, youngest son of the Big Liar, stated that “The Republican Party is now the Trump Party”.

It’s a sad state of affairs. I used to vote Republican fairly often, but that political party has disintegrated into something that doesn’t stand for anything except obtaining power any way it can and using it to pummel opponents.

There is an old military term for this: SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up). It is what it is, though: a form of government which no longer works because of extreme partisanship.

I believe that an increasing majority of Americans believe that democracy, as currently practiced, doesn’t work and are eager for something that does. Some believe that the system should become more democratic and others believe that it should become less so.

Republicans know that demographics are their enemy: that the numbers of W.A.S.P. citizens are on the decline and the numbers of young, non-religious, and multi-hued voters are on the increase. Party leaders have only one choice, really: they must “rig” the democracy so that G.O.P. candidates can succeed, even when Republican voters are outnumbered by Democrats.

The “Big Lie”, or “Stop the Steal”, hoopla regarding the 2020 election wasn’t really about who actually won the Presidential election. Everyone knows who won, including the 212 Republican legislators who were elected to the House of Representatives. Interestingly, not one of those Congressmen has argued that he was elected by fraudulent means. Let’s face it, if the election was “rigged”, then everyone who was elected benefited from the rigging.

No, the Big Lie wasn’t about truth; in fact, it was about fealty to Donald Trump. He’s a guy who’s publicly professed that all elections are rigged. In fact, he publicly stated this belief on election eve in 2016, hours before he was elected President.

After he lost in 2020, Trump used the Big Lie campaign to scam several hundred million dollars in donations from his political base to ostensibly fight fraudulent voting in court. He and his G.O.P. buddies have lost every significant case filed, but they made a lot of money while losing.

There are efforts in several States to “rig” future elections so that only the candidates of one party can win electoral contests. There are also legal initiatives which seek to enable State Legislatures , rather than voters, to determine who wins electoral contests.

This is called “one party rule” and is what one finds in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and numerous dictatorships throughout the world.

My father, a staunch Conservative, used to say that the best form of government would be a “benevolent” dictatorship, forgetting of course the old adage that, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

I think that we are headed toward that autocratic future, where one individual (and/or one political party) pretty much calls all the shots and where the average citizen has no say in his government. Elections, should there be any, would be shams, with the outcome already determined by the Boss.

Once this occurs, there is no turning back.

Interestingly, what then happens is that “Freedom of Speech” disappears along with the sacred “Right to Bear Arms”. Dictators don’t like people saying nasty things about them, particularly if they’re armed.

Fifty years of scoffing at, and sabotaging our, democracy will bring us our just deserts. We will have turned over our futures to a person or group of people whose only interest is in retaining power and enriching themselves.

We will have screwed ourselves and our progeny

OMG, the 2022 Manning RV Road Trip is complete!

On Wednesday, October 6th, we drove the final couple hundred miles from Barstow/Calico KOA to Mesquite, Nevada.,completing our 2,000-mile journey. There was virtually no traffic on I-15, which is rare.

We were due a break, as our sewer hook-up at Space 28 (Barstow) was evidently clogged up and I had to pull our connection and let all of the black and gray poopy water disperse onto the ground before we hastily left. It was a shitty mess, to be frank, but not my business at that point.

We got into Mesquite at around 2 p.m. and were greeted by my best buddy Lloyd, who helped me unload the rig. That was especially helpful, as Charlie couldn’t do much on her broken left foot. The house was in good shape, as it had been cleaned on Tuesday.

The dogs ran around excitedly, enjoying all 2,500’ square foot of the interior and the spacious backyard. Hound dog heaven it was.

Shortly after our arrival, Charlie took it upon herself to check her weight on the scale in our bathroom. Kaboom… she’d gained around 22 pounds on the 3-month trip. Oooooooh, was she upset! So, I got on the scale… and I’d gained 23 pounds! WTF, I was amazed and upset. Dammit, back on the Nutrisystem diet for us. We were in the dumps.

On Thursday, as we were settling in, Charlie turned on her office and quickly found that her business computer wasn’t working. I took a look, called our tech guru out in California, described the screen message, and he said, “Your hard drive crashed”. We talked over our options a bit and came to the conclusion tat the 5-year-old Dell desktop tower needed to be replaced.

Damn, there goes $1,000… at least.

On Friday, Charlie and I drove up to St. George, Utah to get the verdict on her bum left foot from Dr. O’Brien, the orthopedist surgeon/podiatrist. He very carefully examined her and the CT scan that we had made in Southern California, and ordered up a weight-bearing X-ray. Once that his tech had completed that, he decided that the 3-month-old break of the proximal end of the 2^nd metatarsal bone had begun to heal and that surgery probably wasn’t necessary at this time. He put Charlie in a post-op boot and scheduled a follow-up in two months, trusting that Mother Nature will work some magic.

GREAT NEWS for my long-suffering wife!!!!!

BTW, the nursing tech in the doctor’s office weighed Charlie as they always do on their digital scale. Instead of a 22-pound weight gain, she was only 3 pounds more than when we started the RV vacation. I quickly hopped on the scale and, to my delight, was about 4 pounds to the bad… in street clothes and shoes. So, we left the doc’s office in a VERY GOOD MOOD.

We then headed over to Best Buy for the bad news… the cost of the replacement computer. It turned out that they didn’t have any desktop computer towers available (the guy said, “No one buys them anymore”), so we ended up purchasing a beefed-up laptop with all the bells and whistles for $1,500.

Luckily, Charlie had a stash of money set-aside for eventual replacement of RV tires which we won’t need for awhile, as our Paradise By The Sea neighbor/friend Reid Parker (ex-long-haul trucker) examined our tires in Oceanside and said that they were good for several more years.

Now we have two new laptops (remember that my old laptop, back in August, decided that it no longer wanted to support two monitors) to load up with software and stored data files. Another chore for the October to-do list!

We also got some good news from our son Jeff and wife Carol, who had actually taken my advice for once. They are trying to go full-time RV in an old Damon Daybreak motorhome and want to tow a Jeep while doing so. They asked about one of those “brake assist” thingys that supposedly helps the RV slow down without burning up its brake pads. I used to have one, it sucked, and my Monaco diesel pusher monstrosity didn’t need the help, so I tossed mine. However, in Jeff and Carol’s case, with the old, lightweight Daybreak RV, discretion would be advised, as who knows what that rig’s brake pads can handle. They decided to purchase the brake assist technology for $1,500.

I will sleep better by knowing that they are just a bit safer when they head off into their great adventure in November. They are going to reconnoiter potential “wintering” locations in Arizona first, and then head up into Nevada, visit us for a while, and check out some possibilities there. They are super-excited about their new life out in…

Our property in Mesquite seems to have weathered the monsoon season in pretty good shape. A few plants croaked, but the rest of them seemed to enjoy the wonderful extra dose of moisture. I can hardly wait until I have some free time to do some landscaping work in my yard… I love that.

I have a consultation this week with my orthopedic surgeon regarding my bum right shoulder. I think surgery will be necessary, probably just after New Year’s Day. I’m putting it off until then so I can golf with my buddy Dan Quinn when we visit Yuma, Arizona at Christmastime. Luckily, the left shoulder does most of the work for a right-handed golfer. I haven’t played golf since April, I think, so I’ll have to hit the range a few times before Christmas.

Other than Charlie’s broken foot, our 2022 Road Trip was one of the nicest ever. The RV had zero issues once we replaced the Norcold cooling unit in Coos Bay, Charlie read a lot and did very little bookkeeping stuff (thanks to business partner/son Jonathan in Kentucky), and new dog Vinnie adjusted well to RV life.

It’s good to be back in the desert.