2020 Visions

Waxing Crescent Moon

I'm not a big party person. I believe that people who stay up late on New Year's Eve making loud noises and killing brain cells are nuts. Lunatics crying for help. That said, I really enjoy getting up early on January 1 feeling obnoxiously happy and refreshed. So do your thing. I'll do mine.

I guess if you put stock in the notion that cosmic psychological revolutions occur when the wall calendar that your favorite non-profit mailed to you two Novembers ago runs out of wilderness photos or sad-eyed rescue dog portraits, you could make a resolution or two to escape entropy. Avocados, push ups, and planks just might trick the Universe that eats itself into sparing you. It's worth a try. Conversely, you could just suspend all that desperate positive thinking and accept what is. You might find that it's rather beautiful, being right where you are supposed to be. I have no idea. Personally, I'm just farting around.

Meanwhile, funny cartoonists continue to entertain us. I love self-deprecating humor. It has the power to unite humans and to expand our appreciation of the moment that embraces us all.

Peace, Love, and Happy New Year,

Jim

Greta the Great

Waning Crescent Moon

It's the climate, stupid.

In 2019, everybody has a gripe. Everybody is a victim. Everybody has a conspiracy theory. Mostly, these things are rooted in unwitting needs planted by suggestive advertising. It is rare when you meet someone who stops and takes responsibility, who examines their own actions, who places the blame where it belongs - on the face in the mirror - and corrects their course.

All the little things people fuss about pale in comparison to taking control of the messes we all create. The fundamental solution is as simple as complying with your parents' long ago annoying insistence that you clean up your room, brush your teeth, turn out the lights on your way out the door, or do your share of the household chores: stop creating messes for others to clean up.

You, yeah you (me, us, face in the mirror), grow up. If you still don't get it, learn from this kid.

Watch this Greta the Great video.

I love this girl, this Greta Thunberg, this ray of hope. Long live Greta.

Click here to read her story.

Peace, Love, and Priorities,
Jim

All Great Men (and Women, Too)

Waxing Gibbous Moon

I guess I should be tired, but I'm not. This morning, at 7:51 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, I successfully completed my 68th lap around El Sol, thus exceeding all reasonable expectations by a couple of decades. I feel good, though somewhat balding and rickety, and not in the least bit "old." Earth, as we know, has been around for ~ 4.6 billion years. No human is, was, or ever has been "old" in comparison, i.e., in reality. I will in all probability become balder and ricketier, but I will happily move on to whatever is next before I ever get "old."

I learned today, thanks to reading my favorite news and travel magazine, that gold was first discovered in Tuolumne County, California on December 5, 1948 in or around what today is coincidentally known as Jamestown, California. That's JAMEStown, in case you missed it.

I feel obligated to point out publicly that, given the above data, I should be awarded a fist-sized gold nugget, preferably today.

I could really use a fist-sized gold nugget today because unfortunately, Spugly the Spectacularly Ugly Palomino Transporter, required a new set of front brakes yesterday, to the tune of $598 U.S. That amount is precisely the same as my food budget for December. Without said nugget, I will be reduced to foraging in the woodsy woods woodsy for berries, nuts, mushrooms, and the occasional small game animal, assuming I can catch one, until at least the year 2020.

I find it ironic that Spugly vroomed across half of America without a problem, only to spit out a couple of brake calipers and shoes as soon as it got home. Clearly, Spugly did not want to stop.

Today the rain that has blessed the central coast for several days is taking a day off, perhaps in my honor (hard to disprove) and perhaps to facilitate the smooth transition of a biggo hunk of shiny gold from a vault in Jamestown to my trailer in San Juan Bautista (just a guess). I think this makes just as much sense as somebody on TV saying there is a river somewhere in Earth's atmosphere.

As soon as I finish this pot of Peets Major Dickason, I am going to march across the road to see if I can pilfer some early artichokes from the farmer's field or bean a squirrel with a well-rounded, fist-sized, actual river rock from San Juan Creek. Stew is on the menu.

Peace, Love, and Possible Tommy John Elbow Surgery,
Jim

P.S. As my esteemed and much loved Dad (December 1, 1917 - July 20, 1963) liked to say, "All great men were born in December." This, of course, goes for women, too.

Shameless Cyber Monday Blog Ads

Waxing Crescent Moon

Peace, Love, and What Color Is Tuesday?

Jim

Potentially Extra Grateful

Waxing Crescent Moon

I would be extremely extra grateful if you spent some of your hard-earned holiday gift moolah treating your friends or family members to one or both of my books. It's SOOO simple!

P.S. I stole this picture from I-can't-remember-which-one of my siblings from their trip to South Africa this year. I also forgot the warthog's real name, so I made one up. It's a real warthog, though.

Peace, Love, and Small, Very Small Business,
Jim

Spugly By The Numbers

Waning Gibbous Moon

Spugly the Spectacularly Ugly Palomino Transporter certainly measured up to its rigorous task on my recent spin around the Southwest Divided States of America. For the uninformed, Spugly is a 1987 Mazda B2200 long bed pickup truck with a 4 liter engine and a plywood bed liner that covers up gaping rusted out holes in the long, but sadly incomplete bed. Spugly spent its first twenty-six years in Marina, CA, a pleasant little beach town with lots of corrosive salt water fog. Hence the holes.

Anyway, its initial owner was a gardener who puttered around locally until he became ill. For ten years, Spugly sat idle in front of the gardener's home. When I bought it in 2013, it only had been driven 93,000 miles. So really, despite the rust, it was a good deal for $1,500.

By the way, you will note that although Spugly has a name, it is a truck, not a girl or a boy or any sort of imaginative combination on the broad spectrum of twenty-first century gender identities. It is a very good little truck of which I am fond. But it is an it. Any type of personality or character is just  projected or assigned because life should be at least a little bit fun, IMHO. If this movie wasn't at least a little bit fun, it would be just plain ridiculous.

Spugly was named in the parking lot of the Windmill Market by Cud'n Mindy shortly after I bought it. I remarked that I had recently bought this spectacularly ugly vehicle and instantly, Cud'n Mindy blurted "Spugly!" That woman is a genius.

On the aforementioned road trip, Spugly logged 4,386 miles on 144.2 gallons of gasoline (which was alarmingly cheaper in Uncalifornia than here at home - by a lot - like $1.50 per gallon cheaper most places) for an average of 30.4 miles per gallon. That is outstanding if you ask me, Or even if you don't, it is still outstanding. It burned only one quart of oil on the way to Tejas. I stopped at Lube N Go in El Paso for an oil change and new oil filter as I was leaving. From there all the way to San Juan Bautista, it hummed and purred and didn't burn any oil at all. Way cool. Spugliferous.

Spugly has a bench seat, much more comfortable than bucket seats, no air conditioning, no power steering, no electric windows or mirrors, no radio, no cruise control - none of that stupid stuff that you do not need and have to pay oodles of bucks to fix when it inevitably breaks. Some day I will shell out the money to replace the multi-chipped windshield which is probably one pea-sized gravel shot away from shattering in little bits right in my lap. But no big hurry on that.

The gray, Sun-degraded, plastic front bumpers are held on by an array of black zip ties, adding immensely to Spugly's sleek, classy lines when viewed from the silly rear view camera in your $40,000 compact sport utility vehicle. I mean, what did we ever do without those things?. I should probably get new license plates next time I register it, though. They are both so battered and rusty that the cops are bound to stop me sooner or later. Yes, I am going to get "SPUGLY" plates for certain. Eat your heart out.

Peace, Love, and Transportation,
Jim

Get Back

Waning Gibbous Moon

There are much worse ways to finish a trip than a walk on the beach and breakfast with a dear, beautiful friend. My heart swims with the dolphins.

Peace, Love, and Happiness,

Jim