Focus
06:16 Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 70.3°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 235
I'm reading Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again (The Kindle Edition). I'm loving it. I can't say I love the author's style of writing, but I'm enjoying the content of what he's written.
I was up early this morning, and the iMac wanted to perform a MacOS update, and that always takes a while, so I started that and decided to return to reading the book.
While I'm reading about all the sources of distractions in our lives, my watch taps me on the wrist and congratulates me on my standing yesterday and encourages me to keep going. A few minutes later, it taps me on the wrist and tells me that the RAV4 has finished charging (It finished yesterday, I think Mitzi unplugging it prompted the unnecessary update.) A few minutes later, it tapped me on the wrist again and suggested I should meditate now. A few minutes after that it tapped me on the wrist and reminded me that Work focus was now turned on.
I was using the Apple Pencil to highlight certain sentences and phrases. Occasionally, I'd let go of the pencil by letting it magnetically attach to the side of the iPad mini. Each time, a little alert bubble would pop up with some update about the state of the pencil's charge.
Clearly, I have some work to do with my notification settings!
✍️ Reply by emailMaintenance Update
06:50 Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 70.45°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 1.99mph
Words: 99
This is a test post to check the operation of a bit of automation. HTML Export has changed in Tinderbox, and I'm getting a folder for each month's archive, with each post in it as a separate html file. That's not how this site is built, and I don't need them, so I've been manually deleting them before sync'ing with Forklift.
If all goes well, Hazel will delete any folder in 2023 that isn't named Images and I can just go right to Forklift.
Insert Jurassic Park, Samuel L. Jackson "Hold onto your butts" gif here.
Update: Test sat.
✍️ Reply by email"The clock! She is ticking!"
07:27 Sunday, 31 May 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 47.34°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 4.38mph
Words: 1092
Blue Blaze Irregulars will get the reference.
A Poor Player has a poignant post (there's that alliteration gene again) about time. Part of the reason why we're in New York now, building a new house in a rural county, is the reality of aging and how that factors into risk management.
You might wonder why a couple in their late 60s would essentially be "starting over" in a new state? The answer is because we'll never be any younger than we are right now. Watching the faces of people in their 70s dragging everything they own to the curb and saying to the camera, "It's never flooded here before," set off an alarm in my head that wouldn't stop ringing.
I fail to understand why anyone over 65 would choose to live in Florida, if they understood the risk they face from hurricanes and flooding. First there is the trauma of "losing everything." People are resilient, they can recover or adapt to the experience, but it will still exact a cost.
Then there is the physical act of "recovery." Dealing with an insurance company. Companies that are increasingly unwilling to pay full value on your policy. So you get to spend some days or weeks of your life dealing with that bureaucracy. Then there's the county, they have to assess your loss and your property and determine how you're able to rebuild. Will you have to elevate your home? And you can't start talking to contractors until you get that determination.
Maybe there's FEMA. They do important, valuable work. But does anyone enjoy working with them?
Then you have to find a contractor. You and several thousand of your neighbors. And hope that it's a good one. An honest one.
Then there's the actual rebuilding, and paying for scarce resources. And when it's all said and done, hopefully you don't have a punch list as long as your arm. And try not to think about what your home insurance rates are going to be now.
I think it's at least two to three years to "recover" from a hurricane if you're in the area of significant damage. Maybe not if you're in that town that was built to be resilient and withstand hurricanes. But that's not most of Florida. Most of Florida is stucco stick-frames on slabs only feet about sea level.
Florida, back when it was a fairly sane, progressive state, learned from Andrew and wrote some of the best residential building codes in the country. But we've had three decades of global warming and sea level rise since then, and Florida has become a right-wing fever dream that hasn't done very much, at all, about flooding.
So if you're in your seventies, how much time do you have left? Ten years? Fifteen? Do you want to spend twenty percent of your remaining life "recovering" from a hurricane?
I didn't.
Low probability, high impact. Too many people focus on the "low probability" part.
We're here because we're lucky. We had this place my wife bought as a vacation home. Before we decided to leave Florida, we took some comfort in the fact that we could live here if our Florida home were uninhabitable. But it also gave us an escape route.
When I told Mitzi I didn't want to live in Florida anymore, I told her we didn't have to live in New York. We could go anyplace she wanted to go that didn't represent the same kind of disaster risk that Florida represents. I thought it would take me a year or so to talk her into moving. A couple more hurricane seasons at least. But she said yes, right from the jump.
Good thing she did too, because the past two hurricane seasons have been relatively quiet, and this year's might be too, with a super El Niño event coming on.
It took a lot longer to sell our house than we'd expected. Maybe that's a sign people are beginning to catch on. But, for the most part, we've been able to proceed at a deliberate pace in terms of deciding what we wanted to build here. And we're fortunate that the guy she bought this place from is a builder. It all feels very beschert. There have been bumps along the way, and there are certain to be more, but we're not dealing with an insurance company. The county is very responsive. While there isn't an enormous labor pool in the skilled trades, we're not competing with thousands of other people either.
Florida caters to the elderly. New York, not so much. There's a robust healthcare system for aging adults in the affluent parts of Florida. That's a powerful attraction, I know. I kind of miss that part. But we'll figure it out.
It's possible that I'll pass on to my reward long before any hurricane ever pushes a storm surge into our former cul-de-sac. But Florida was hot, humid and hateful anyway. And I don't have to worry about it anymore. Sure, some sort of individual calamity may befall us here too. But it's likely to be a limited event, perhaps just to us. We won't be competing with thousands of other people for resources.
We used to think that the Florida house was going to be our last house, that they would have to carry us out feet first. That's how we're thinking about this house. One of our neighbors down the road is 93 and still mowing his lawn and doing yard work. His neighbor is 86. The guy across the street is in his 70s. People do "age in place" here. We're building this house to help facilitate that.
Anything can happen, of course. We could get sick. We could have an accident or some other misfortune. But for now we have a beautiful view, wonderful surroundings, new places to explore and get to know. And building something is exciting in a way that just maintaining something will never be.
Seems like a pretty good way to spend our "golden years."
I'm still hoping to have a dog in my life again. Mitzi's not keen on one because it complicates travel. But I don't know how much longer travel will be a major part of our lives. I know if I'm lucky to have a dog again, it'll probably be my last dog. I know if we got a cat today, it'd definitely be our last cat. They live forever!
But the clock keeps ticking.
And the beat goes on.
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