Shamble On

17:54 Thursday, 27 July 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 77.18°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 91% Wind: 0mph
Words: 117

Lying awake since 0400, debating whether or not to "exercise." A little squall rolled through and took the matter off the table for a short while. My knees ache. It's not "pain" per se, I'm just aware of them and in not a good way. Of course, my shoulders ache too, especially lying on my side in bed.

I finally got tired of arguing with myself, got up and went and did it.

Yesterday I ordered a couple more shirts and pairs of shorts, so I don't have to wait on laundry day. But I did select Amazon Delivery Day (Saturday), rather than today.

Too early to say I'm "committed," but it may be trending that way.

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!Funny

18:26 Thursday, 27 July 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 76.48°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 22

I have, of late, eschewed commenting on the whole "X" fiasco. But I will link to this, because I think it's hysterical.

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"Ya wanna know what I think?"

18:29 Thursday, 27 July 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 76.48°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 156

The whole world has gone nuts. We live in a simulation and the admins are screwing with us, that's what I think!

The "Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon" guy? That former intel weenie? Is he related to George Santos? I mean, the Spooky Mulder in me "wants to believe," but is anyone else's bullshit meter pegging here? I don't know what happens in some people's heads. Does he own a lot of cats or something? And these congresspeople? This is like catnip to them. The pilots I'm ok with. I'm sure they saw what they saw, and I sure as hell don't know what it was.

And wtf with Senator Yertle the Turtle? Whoops! No problem. Just had to reboot the android. "I'm fine." Sure, buddy.

Anyway. The list goes on. We have "departed from controlled flight." I don't know what to tell you. Just try to enjoy the ride.

We're all getting off at the same stop.

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Recovery Day

05:55 Saturday, 27 July 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.74°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 995

Didn't sleep well last night, sore too. I'm taking a day off. Sue me.

Florida is pretty much a microcosm of everything that ails America, not the least of which is Republican governance.

This is an Apple News link, so apologies if you can't open it. It's a story about a "sticks and bricks" (Actually, I don't see any bricks. It's just sticks and stucco.) apartment complex that was built in 1988 and converted to condominiums in 2006. (Some details here.)

If you recall those heady days pre-financial collapse, our "innovative" financial industry figured out how to make a bunch of money with sub-prime mortgages. Everyone wanted to get in on the action. Low mortgage rates, easy money, can't build houses fast enough! What to do? Buy apartment complexes and convert them to condos!

Go in, do a bunch of cosmetic touch-ups, add some amenities, some landscaping, new pool furniture and voila!

I know this, because I lived in one.

If you think back to 2021, Florida had a high-rise condo collapse and kill a bunch of its residents, Champlain Towers. That was built as a condominium, but it wasn't built right, because "Florida," and condominium owners are like Republicans everywhere, they don't like to pay taxes, or condo assessments. So they put off all their maintenance to "someday," (presumably after they'd cashed out).

So the Florida legislature, governed by the Republican Party for more than a generation, took action! (Too late, but hey, it's Florida. "Pro-active" is "pro-gressive" and that's too close to socialism for their liking.) (See also: Everglades, sea level rise, climate change, water quality, wetlands, insurance reform, the list goes on.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, they made a law that said all those lazy condo owners and their do-nothing boards of directors had to act responsibly! (Unlike the legislature.) They had to fully fund reserves and not defer maintenance! And they had to have their buildings inspected by professional engineers to make sure they were safe and wouldn't fall down.

Well, there are a lot of rather old condo buildings in Florida, with a lot of deferred maintenance and, um, little in the way of actually "funded" reserves. All of a sudden, monthly condo fees ("assessments") went up by enormous percentages.

(Add to that the cost of insurance increases, because "Florida.")

People are screaming. Screaming!

Anyway, back to the subject. This Heron Pond condominium that is being essentially shut down, is a lot like my old condo. It's about six or seven years older, and judging by the pictures, it's only two stories so it didn't actually require the inspection.

But... It's sticks and stucco, and in Florida that means... Water intrusion!

Basically, all the framing behind the stucco is rotting away. We had the same problem at Belleza. But we went after it and paid the high price of assessments to do so. Heron Pond is mostly owned by "investors." This class of scum includes absentee landlords who love to collect rent but hate paying assessments. So Heron Pond has been rotting away. The steel stairs rusting? We had that problem too. And we went through every staircase on the place and removed all the steps, replaced all the rusted steel and repainted them all. Paid for it out of the "paint" reserves. (Under the old law, the only statutory reserves were roofs, paving and painting. We funded them all.)

And our petulant, adolescent, would-be autocratic, humiliated ex-presidential candidate with funny cowboy boots with enormous lifts governor seems to have heard the screams of condo owners ("investors"), and says it's up to the legislature to sort this mess out.

Bad news, boys and girls: There's no cheap way out of this.

But hey, it's kind of a "teachable moment."

See, this is what's going to happen with the sea level rise thing. it's too late to fix it, because we've denied it for so long. The problem wasn't going to manifest itself in any politician's actual term of office, so no politician wanted to be proactive (because that sounds like "progressive).

And the insurance thing? Well the legislature "fixed" that the way they fixed the condo problem.

They didn't.

Because they can't. You can't pass a law that makes climate risk artificially "affordable." (That's the National Flood Insurance Program.)

What they did do was make it easier for insurance companies to deny claims, and harder for policy holders to sue insurance companies who deny claims. (If you sue your insurance company and they prevail, not only are you not made whole by your policy, you get to pay your attorney...and theirs! Winning!)

Which has made Florida pretty attractive to a lot of second or third rate "insurance companies" who see an opportunity to swoop in and grab that sweet, sweet premium money and skate out when the big one (or more than one) hits.

I'm insured by USAA, and there are a lot of retired military (to say nothing of active duty military) living in Florida because winter and no state income tax. I'm hopeful that USAA is financially and ethically strong enough to do right by its policy holders in the event of a loss. But who knows? I'm not an insurance expert, but it seems to me that USAA is massively exposed in Florida. But they seem to be run by smart people.

And I buy flood insurance. When I was president of my condo association, I made sure we bought flood insurance every year too. And people bitched about that. "We're not in a flood zone!"

We were less than a mile from the beach.

Because, apart from living in Florida, I ain't stupid.

Anyway, we're just whistling past the graveyard down here. Hoping every year that this year won't be the one that brings the big one, or two, or three, or four.

If you're dreaming of moving to Florida. Wake up. It's a nightmare.

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Mailbox

09:30 Sunday, 27 July 2025

Current Wx: Temp: 72.12°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 6.04mph
Words: 403

This is from the iPhone 16 with the Painteresque lithograph filter.

In the course of writing this post, I learned that Painteresque is back in the iOS App Store! It had been gone for quite a while, and the only reason I still had a copy was because my OG 12.9" iPad Pro couldn't be updated anymore! While updating my other devices, Painteresque would disappear, or an icon with a download arrow would be in its place, but I couldn't download it and searching for it on the App Store would come up empty. Looks like it reappeared in March with a new name, and an in-app purchase feature to tip the developer, and a bunch of new features. It's still free.

Our stuff didn't get delivered yesterday. Apparently the driver had some sort of family emergency. It's now supposed to be delivered on Monday. Fingers crossed.

Rained hard last night, but briefly. My weather station reported the rainfall rate was 3.85" per hour, which is pretty intense. We received 1.45" of rain in that short time. You can go to this NOAA website and try to figure out how often it should rain that hard. Maybe. I'm not exactly sure how to use the data from my little consumer weather station to enter these tables. The peak rainfall intensity was between 2250 and 2310. Rainfall began around 2150, and essentially ended at 2330. Total accumulation for that period was 1.45 inches. Twenty minutes at the 3.85" rate would result in 1.25" of accumulation, which seems reasonable.

At any rate, it seems that this rainfall intensity should only occur once every couple of years, or once every decade? (15 minute interval, 2.18"-4.1"/hr) I'm guessing, but I think these point precipitation frequency intervals are outdated, developed as they were in a climate that no longer exists.

We watched Witness For The Prosecution (1957) yesterday afternoon, and that was a good movie. I'd never seen it before, so I really enjoyed it. Marlene Dietrich, such a badass. Can't say anymore because it'd ruin it for you if you haven't seen it. In which case, you should.

But it put me in the mood for more Marlene, so we watched No Island In the Sky (1951) with Jimmy Stewart. I think this is the fourth time I've watched it, and I still enjoy it.

Well, that's probably enough about all that.

Carry on.

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Bullshit

16:14 Monday, 27 July 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 80.51°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 68% Wind: 3.83mph
Words: 358

I'm in kind of a cranky mood. If there's anything I'm less interested in reading about or listening to than AI-anything, it's critiques of The Odyssey. As if this was a cherished childhood story that everyone knows and loves and "woke Hollywood" had done violence to it.

And while I'm happy to not be on social media, I nevertheless do encounter social media commentary about it, which reminds me why I'm not on social media. So many precious performers offering their killer takedowns about all the defects and deficiencies of the movie.

Bullshit.

But that's not the reason for this post.

Once again I have the throbbing vein in the temple and I must vent my spleen over a privileged old white guy (not Christopher Nolan) offering a vision of the future that is totally divorced from the reality of the present.

We really could be headed for a dystopia right now. There is a greater than zero chance it could happen in our lifetimes. But obviously we should not aim for it. However, if utopia is also not a possible future, then what kind of future should we hope and plan for?

Kevin Kelly is five years older than me. How does he not understand that we are living in a dystopia right now?

This guy is wedded to the notion that technology is the solution to everything. He's blind to reality.

It's the solution to nothing.

At best, technology is a temporary band-aid to the problems of modernity. An ugly hack. Another pitch in the Ponzi Scheme of "progress."

It's like Doc and his "MyTerms." (Which doesn't even merit a Wikipedia entry?) It's another tech protocol band-aid that will be routed around, gamed, cheated and ignored into irrelevance.

All of our problems stem from the "first principles." We have created a world that rewards selfishness and cheating and theft and calls it "success." A world that seems to locate the meaning of life in material wealth and status and "power."

There is no path to "Protopia" that doesn't pass through the destruction of the pernicious notions that are the foundation of this civilization.

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