It's Snowing
09:28 Friday, 8 May 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 37.26°F Pressure: 1012hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 3.29mph
Words: 4
Yep. Big fluffy flakes.
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08:26 Friday, 8 May 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 40.84°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 4.14mph
Words: 442
I haven't been blogging much about the unfolding catastrophe that is the destruction of American democracy. Mostly because the new house has captured most of my attention, but also because it is so totally depressing.
This country is ruled by bad faith, zero-sum mentalities, wealthy élites, and an electorate that is misinformed, ignorant and indifferent. They know something is wrong, but they can't be troubled to do anything about it. Other than post on social media, I suppose.
I don't see this situation improving. I think the trajectory is firmly established. We're being sucked into a gravity well of greed, corruption, incompetence and malfeasance. I don't see a dynamic emerging that will provide enough thrust to alter that trajectory.
It's astonishing to me how brazenly corrupt the Supreme Court is. Roberts' protest that they're just "interpreting the law," exhibits gross contempt for our intelligence. We can believe our own lyin' eyes, Mr. Chief "Justice".
I watched a video about Graham Platner. I like what I saw and heard. I think it's encouraging, I just don't think it's enough.
I'm glad we moved to New York. I hope it can remain a relatively "blue" state, and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to contribute to that effort in some meaningful way. It's not all sunshine and roses here, but at least you don't feel powerless. I suppose the Trump-loving "conservatives," (let's just call them what they are, fascists) feel as though they are shut out of power, but that's a good thing, isn't it?
I'm grinding my way through The Third Reich at War, and it's very similar to The German War inasmuch as it doesn't cover the war from a strictly military, strategy, tactics and logistics point of view, but from the standpoint of its inhumanity. The myth of the honorable Wehrmacht, that the SS committed all the atrocities. The entire war, most particularly in the east, was an atrocity, a war of annihilation.
We can, of course, talk about American conduct of the war. Firebombing. The atomic bomb. A difference of degree perhaps. And today we're killing very low-level individuals at sea in small boats. Murdering them. Because we can. We won't stop ourselves. We've started a war with Iran, because, well, why not?
What I've learned is that the capacity for brutality, murder, blind hatred is present in nearly everyone. It just needs to be summoned. ICE, IDF, the SS, all cut from the same cloth. You just have to stop seeing people as people, and instead, vermin. And that's apparently rather easy to do.
Maybe it's the rain, and the chill, but I'm unhappy today.
✍️ Reply by emailCountry Roads
Current Wx: Temp: 40.73°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 4.14mphWords: 538
This is from yesterday morning's walk. It's cloudy today. The two guys installing the shower left around noon yesterday. One is supposed to be back today to do some more drywall work.
Made some progress on the new house yesterday. We have a local structural engineer who's going to give us a quote on reviewing and stamping the plans, hopefully more quickly than the four weeks the design firm's engineer has quoted.
We have to have our current septic tank pumped and inspected before we can get approval from the watershed protection agency, and that's set up for the 19th. That'll be more than $800. Our neighbor is onboard with doing the driveway and the excavation, we should have that contract in hand today sometime.
We'll need new power to the new house, which means NYSEG has to come out and look at the site. Because I said we didn't have a driveway all the way to the where the new house will be, they won't come out and look at it until we do. Seems pretty foolish to me. You can see where the driveway is going to go, and it's just an extension of the current driveway, and the power pole we think we'll need isn't near the driveway. But whatever. Our electric utility is owned by a corporation in Spain, so we got that going for us.
We're not planning on building the garage at the same time that we build the house for budget reasons, but I hope to get it built early next year. My plan is to put the rooftop solar on the garage. If I manage to afford a new Ford small EV pickup with bi-directional charging, the truck may be the battery backup for the house, and having most of that infrastructure in the garage makes sense to me. If the truck is going to be unaffordable, which is likely to be the case, I can install batteries in the garage to perform the same function.
I've heard that standing seam metal roofing, which is what we're using, is ideal for installing solar panels with no roof penetrations. I haven't verified that yet, but even if roof penetrations are required, doing so in the garage is lower risk than using the roof of the house.
We probably can't go completely "off-grid" because of limited solar in winter, but as long as net metering remains a thing, we can probably offset most of our winter electric bill with summer credits.
We're placing the garage very near to the house so we won't have a long walk in the winter to get to the cars. It also works for a short run to the mechanical room and power meter. The only downside is our "view" from the bedroom is going to be mostly the garage, and we won't get as much of the morning light. Mitzi is fine with that because the sun starts coming up around 0500, and she likes it dark in the morning. Me, not so much.
Anyway, things are starting to move, and that's a good thing. I know there will be surprises and setbacks, but at least we're getting started.
And the beat goes on...
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