Category: Events

December blizzards of 2020 at the Estate de Yusmith

As if 2020 wasn’t already difficult enough December has brought two blizzards to the Estate de Yusmith. This is unprecedented in the almost 5 years we have been here.

December first brought a blizzard that, that is seen here at dawns crack, that brought things to a standstill, at least here.

Thank goodness an hour after this photo the crisis was over as the sun came out.

And then today, Christmas day, I awoke to another weather emergency. Another blizzard struck overnight as seen here sometime after dawns crack.

I did go to the grocery the other day but I forgot to buy milk and I didn’t buy toilet paper. I hope this clears before I run out of supplies.

Presidential Election and Birthday – Take 3

Well it has happened again. I have woken up on November 3rd and had another birthday. That is 71 times now and I think I see a pattern developing where this occurs every year. This year is different than most of the previous years as it is election day, specifically Presidential election day. This is the eleventh time that election day has fallen on my birthday (of course meaning there were 60 that it didn’t or 84.5% of the years). Of those eleven 6 were just run of the mill local election years, 2 were mid-term years (1970,1998), and this year is the third time it has been a Presidential year. When you consider the previous times and the results (1964, 1992) it does not bode well for the Trump guy and his chances as my birthday seems to be a great predictor of presidential election results.

The election of 1964 had LBJ running against Barry Goldwater, the leading ultra conservative of the Republican party. He ran on small government, low taxes, strong defense, all the usual Republican talking points although he was a bit extreme. He also ran against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Johnson won in a landslide with Goldwater winning only his home state of Arizona and the Southern tier of states. Notably this was the first time they had voted Republican since the Civil war and that has not changed since. That was all the Civil Rights Acts doing. The same act split union support in the 68 election. Now I won’t try to claim that any of this was impressing itself on my 15 year old brain more than being aware it was happening. I had more important things to be concerned with. There was a British music invasion that had to be kept up with. There was a space program that was always doing something new. I was 15, I didn’t have a drivers license yet so I had to walk everywhere including to school and then home and back for lunch every day. That was like a mile each way, and uphill both ways. I put forth that my birthday happening on that election day held off the conservative forces getting control of the country sooner than they did. It allowed LBJ and the more liberal congress that resulted from this election to pass the Civil rights act, the voting rights act and start a number of anti poverty programs during the next 4 years. The republicans have spent the last 40 years overturning them as Reagan was a disciple of Goldwater’s and from the ashes of this election the conservative movement managed to put a coalition together that brought Reagan to the Presidency 16 years later.

The 1992 election between Bush and Clinton was the second time the election and my birthday coincided at the presidential level. Bush was running for his second term and though popular because of the great Gulf War victory the economy was going to crap. He made a deal to raise taxes which upset his conservative base. Because of Bush’s high approval ratings none of the expected Democrats decided to run and in the end Clinton, a centrist Democrat (read that as Republican light) won out for the Democrats. The country had just been through 12 years of conservative rule with Republicans winning every popular vote total. A third party candidate entered the campaign, Ross Perot, and he ended up getting about 19% of the popular vote. He was anti deficit and against the NAFTA trade agreement. Those positions pulled votes about equally from both Bush (the conservative deficit people) and Clinton (unions and anti NAFTA people). Nonetheless Clinton’s more liberal social platform and the failing economy allowed him to win the popular vote and the electoral college as well as both houses of congress. That lasted for 2 years. In 1994 conservative Republicans won back the house, led by Newt Gingrich, and that started the decline into cynical divisive politics that have been in play for the last 25 years. But at least my birthday brought an end to the conservative choke hold on the government for a couple years. Unfortunately, Clinton moved more to the right, aligned himself more with Wall Street and generally screwed the Democratic party until today. During his eight years I moved from South Bend to Long Island and worked at a 750 person plant that was turned around from big losses to profit, sold to a US fortune 500 manufacturer that immediately built 2 plants in Mexico and moved it there. Then there was 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nonsense and 6 years of Republicans blocking Obama from getting anything accomplished and 4 years of Trump. What a 40-year run of disasters. Which brings us to today.

With today’s election being billed as the mother of all-important elections it would behoove my election birthday fuju to work its magic again. While Trump certainly deserves the blame for his actions being the incompetent psychopath that he is the real blame lies with the Republican Party as a whole. They allowed this guy to run and after he was nominated, they supported his candidacy. After he was elected, they turned a blind eye to all the unethical and probably illegal activities that have been exposed. All because they are just as corrupt but also because they are power hungry and wanted the courts stacked with conservative (and in many cases unqualified) judges. It has taken the Republican party 40 to 50 years to get this corrupt and anti-citizen. So, the birthday fuju not only has to work against Trump but it has to work against the entire Republican Party. It is time for these guys and their ideas to be put in the dust bin of history. (think of the Whig party).  I intend to crank up the fuju to create enough juice to have Trump lose the popular vote by about 55% to 45%. Lose the electoral college by somewhere in the neighborhood of 493-143. Also flip the Senate to a 52-48 Democratic majority and pick up another 5 or 10 house seats. I may not have that much fuju. It’s untested at this level.

Hopefully I can pull this off so that when I vote in the next birthday-presidential election on my 99th birthday in 2048 and I tell all the young whippersnappers about the 2020 election and how it started the turning of the Republican party in to a force as about as potent as Dadaism.  I would expect they will be going to the polls to decide how to continue to improve the world for each individual and not each company or billionaire. When I tell them about the Republican Party their response will be something like yours when I mentioned the Whig Party.  When I write this birthday rant thing next year I can write about what song was playing 50 years ago or something if in fact I can make this happen.

In fact coming in at 35 on the chart the first week of November 1970:

Seems good enough for today.

The Rona Garden

When we got home from China and Japan back in February it quickly became apparent that the world was going to come to a complete halt. Mary decided it was the time to start the planned garden project. The first phase was to build the Sidewalk to Nowhere through the Arch de Nowhere.

As the Rona continued the garden kept growing until it got to this by early summer.

All told something over 100 plants, more than 10 trees and close to 200 bags of mulch.

So with that much effort of course there had to be what I’m sure will be an Oscar nominated documentary. You can watch it here right now.

Be sure to tune in for next years expansion.

The case of the hit and run on the mailbox.

Again this detective had the opportunity to interface with the local police department. It seems that our mailbox was the victim of a violent and unprovoked hit and run.

AS you can see from the police report this crime wave was quickly ended.

” On 10/21 2020,1 was dispatched to a hit and run crash at 5074 Rock Springs Rd involving a white box truck and a brick mailbox at said address.

I made contact with the box truck in front of 5730 Rock Springs Rd. It had damage to the rear and left rear tire. I made contact with the driver, later identified as Juan Rangel-Cervantes. He stated through the passenger, Jose
Medrarro-Romero, as translater, that he was trying to tum around on Rock Springs Rd. He backed into the mailbox, and then left leaving away from Smyrna on Rock Springs Rd. Mr. Medrano stated that they left the scene because they did not want to get into trouble. They were aware that they had hit the mailbox. There was still brick dust on the damage in the rear of the box truck. The passenger stated that they tried to find a safe place to pull over, but could not find a viable place. There were several very large drive way entrances that they passed before coming to a stop in the roadway, creating a traffic hazard.
Another officer on scene made contact with the witness, Steve Jones, and the victim, Michael Srnith. The witness stated that he heard a loud crash. He observed the mailbox destroyed and laying on the ground, and a white box
truck going west on Rock Springs Rd. Mr. Jones then got into his vehicle and located the truck down the road a ways broken down.
Mr. Rangel was cited for hit and run(13076), driving without a license, failure to exercise due care, and registration to be carried. He was cited and then released. The vehicle was towed by R&R Towing”

So we are on the hook for a new mailbox.

 

 

The 2020 coronavirus tour

During the planning for this trip it was identified more as the 80th birthday celebration for “Grandma and Grandpa”, Chinese New year tour. As time drew near reports began to come out of China of a new virus. By the time I got there on Tuesday the 21st it was a serious item although the temperature checking station at the airport was not manned. We spent Wednesday  just wondering around central Beijing and although it was slow and lightly crowded that is not unusual for the New Year period. There was not an unusual amount of mask wearing or anything like that but it did start to pick up later in the day as more news started to be reported about deaths and the spread of the virus. That night was the big birthday dinner about a block from Marys sister and Grandma and Grandpas apartment. Here is Mary on the way to prepare the table.

She got talked into the mask. As you can see here earlier in the day there was no mask. There is a reconstruction of old Beijing in the basement of a department store that we went to. The Buddha was in a refrigerated room with water and snow.

It had a replica of the type of house she lived in for 5 or 6 years with the wash basin in the front.The front door.

So we got to the room to prepare the table and order food (which in China is always an hours long event).

The bucket of roses was added to the center piece.

The long task of ordering food got underway.

This thing, which I’m still not sure what it is, got unwrapped.

I contemplated why tea cups never have handles thus burning your fingers.

The group photo was taken.

First of many toasting things.

A couple of the food items devoured.

Many pictures were taken.

The mystery centerpiece was packed up.

After event activities took place.

The next day we spent some time at Tiantan park (Heavens Gate) which is the park just over it’s wall from where Mary grew up. This was the day that Wuhan was put on lock down but the park was lightly populated (for China) and not a lot of masks being worn.

Mary’s apartment building is being redone or tore down or something. This is the rooms she grew up in (2 windows on the second floor).

Her grade school.

While on the walking street leading from Tiananmen square I noticed this China coffee chain sign that, in my opinion, for a Chinese sign maker that does not know English they would be just 2 small lines from disaster.

Thursday night we had a hot pot dinner planned at the hot pot place in the Beijing News building. When we got there we had to have our temperature taken to get in. We all got there in preparation to the big hot potting.

The pots got heated and the event was on.

A hot pot.

The many rounds of toasts starts.

and the finale.

New Years eve was spent just hanging out. When we went back to the hotel about 10pm there was absolutely no one around. Between not allowing fireworks anymore and the virus I guess everyone decided to stay home. The next morning it was back to he apartment for some dumplings and then on to the airport for the flight to Japan.

Everything went well until we got on the plane. We passed our temperature checks and were on time. We were almost ready to fire up the engines and leave when the cabin crew started going back and forth to the back of the plane. After a long time they took a bunch of people off and then after waiting for another half hour or so all of us had to get off and stand in buses while guys in the white environmental suits did stuff.

Then they took us back to the gate. It seems that a couple people had temperatures and/or someone knew someone in Wuhan, or something so they kicked 12 people off the flight, sterilized the plane and replaced the food. We finally took off and got to our hotel about midnight 6 hours late.

The next day we started touring Osaka. We hit the Koromon market a 2 or 3 block shopping street with food stalls and other type of stuff.

Mary had some seafood thing that I don’t remember what it was.

I took a picture because it was OK.

We had some Kobe Beef that is way to expensive to eat. It needs to be framed and hung on the wall.

While in Japan we had a couple teppanyaki dinners and a couple 2 hour multi course big plate small food dinners. Soup for the one in Osaka looked like this  as did the one in Kyoto.

 

The one  in Osaka was on the 10th floor of a random building in the back corner. It only had room for about 10 people and no one spoke English and the other in Kyoto in a little place near the hotel that was French Japanese, whatever that is. It also only held about 10 people and also basically didn’t speak English and the desert course was not pecan pie.

While in Osaka we did visit the Osaka castle which was basically another old big building.

When we got to Kyoto Mary had learned that the opening of the plants had been delayed for at least a week and that the city of Wuhu had been locked down. So we spent a couple mornings buying masks and going to the post office to mail them back to China so the plants would have them on hand whenever they started back up. About this time a run on masks was starting in Japan and many places were limiting how many you could buy. Also Chinese tourists were hitting the stores with their suitcases.

In Kyoto we spent quite a bit of our time in the small alleys where many of the restaurants were.

Friday we left for Tokyo via the bullet train.

Mary had an early Saturday flight. Her business in Europe got canceled as I guess they didn’t want to meet with any Chinese at this time and she couldn’t find a reasonable flight directly home so she revised her European flights to get home that way. My flight was early that evening so I spent the day in the lounge before boarding. I got home Saturday night and Mary got home Sunday night. Neither of us had any issues questions or searches coming through customs so I guess ol’ Trumpster didn’t get that worried about the virus after all.

One last thing. With the dinner we had in Tokyo we had a bottle of wine.

May have to get a bottle so that we can drink while sitting on Beauregard de bathroom.

Just another God dam

The year of 2020 and the decade of the 20’s started off with a lovely sunrise over the Estate d’ Yusmith.

Because it was going to be a nice day it meant that an item leftover from the last decade needed to be taken care of. A couple of days ago we got what was apparently he heaviest rain in 9 or 10 months as the creek was running full. As a result there was another God dam.

So early afternoon I got the chuckmobile, the chainsaw, a hoe and went to undo God’s dam.

Because this had not happened in almost a year and we had a lot of wind breaking tree branches the creek water had plenty of material to build the dam.

The main culprits were a 6″ diameter log that perfectly wedged itself in the middle hole and an 8 foot long 1×4 that covered the left hole and part of the middle.

After some hard work, getting my feet wet and my pants muddy most of the obstructions were removed. What remains is just muck and leaves that will gradually wash away, unless we get another creek riser this weekend, which is possible.

If that happens there is only one thing you can say.

God Damn

 

Sampling of the post Thanksgiving week activities

During the week after Thanksgiving Greyson spent time doing things with balls.

Running around the yard.

Standing in the yard contemplating the meaning of life.

Running from people in the yard.

Throwing sticks into the creek.

When not doing all that he could enjoy a fine lunch of mac and cheese and avocado.

Go on a big trip to the zoo to look at things.

Look at the bears.

Or not.

Take in a little flamingo action.

A walk across a big ol rope bridge.

There was more checking out the creek.

There was the need to check the water temperature.

Finally it was about time to go to the airport so one last round of picking up sticks and stuff while wearing the new backpack.

So good by sticks, good by yard, good by creek.

Thus ends another holiday season. Everyone is back scattered around the globe ready to start another year.

 

The Thanksgiving weekend extravaganza

This years Thanksgiving was set up to be a record breaker. Thanksgiving day had 17 people representing something like 7 states and 3 countries. Ages from 2 to 70 and, I don’t know weight 20 to 225. Oh, and 2 dogs and 1 cat. Yuki was the first to arrive on Tuesday, and then her friend from high school that goes to Michigan arrived on Wednesday with Randi and Chris arriving later that day as did Ashley and Dylan. Mackenzie Trevor and Greyson got in noonish on Thanksgiving day.  With everyone in place the food prep started and later in the day Dylans’ parents and sister arrived as did Mahalia her sister and a Russian friend. With that the activities began.

Greyson worked on getting in party mode.

Mahala’s Russian friend was amazed by our anti gravity wok.

Ashley and Yuki did some posing with Yuki, of the lesser Big Ten School, looking on.

Ashley and I did some posing.

The Turkeys were prepped and ready to enter the cooking procedure although I’m not sure that green is the appropriate color for a precooked turkey.

Something was being cooked in the anti gravity wok.

Might have been some of this stuff.

Geyson woke up from a nap and was working on getting back into party mode.

Kitchen discussions continued.

The reenactment of the classic joke “how many Chinese people does it take to carve a turkey” was performed.

Finally the food was done and everyone went to eat leaving the kitchen empty.

After a fine meal and another hour or two of talk the day visitors left to continue their trips and the kitchen got cleaned and the day ended.

The next day was just lounging around and more cooking until that evening when the younger folks went to Nashville but not until after Greyson demonstrated his mad skills with the new stuff he got called Play Dough.

While that was going on the 2 Yukies were preparing a Shower loofah to cook.

The Play Dough got put up in preparation to eat some delicious mac and cheese.

Of course it is required to say cheese when eating mac and cheese.

And, of course, the move of discriminating mac and cheese connoisseurs everywhere, the coat your nose move.

Before everyone headed for home we had to take the group photo but because it was a dark day and I was having problems with the flash and the remote control I had to use ISO 6400 which generated a crappy grainy photo but no the less it became the award winning cover of this years calendar.

Everyone but Mackenzie Trevor and Greyson was gone by noon Sunday and we settled in for a week of doing stuff with Greyson.

Just call me El Septuagenarian

Preferably with a bad fake Spanish accent. It is a title I have been working on for about 70 years and now that it has been awarded it should be used. While there are many that earned this title in the past there are also many that never achieved this title. So it seems that the title carries more weight (both literally and figurative) than say the title of The Tricenarian. When you turn 30 its no big deal I guess because the ratio of those that make it vs. those that don’t is pretty high. Of the original 100 there are as of today only 77.7 have made it this far. And I’m sure I saw that .7 guy at the grocery today. By the time the rank of Octogenarian is achieved only 57.3  will make it to that level. Something about this decade of ranking up eliminates almost as  many as all the previous decades combined. I may have stumbled upon something that science should look into.

One thing that as a septuagenarian that you have more of is an appreciation for the length of time. Of course we are all aware that time has been going on for quite a while now but it’s not until you have been through quite a lot of it that there is an understanding of how long time is  and how much can happen in a short amount of time let alone a long time. While working on scanning old pictures for the family history thing, right over there to the right on this very page, I got to thinking about my great grandfather Nixon, born 1833 died 1920. What changed in his 87 years was pretty significant. His family moved to New Mt. Pleasant in 1936 cut down some trees and built a cabin. (of course it wasn’t New Mt. Pleasant when they moved there because they were one of the first to live there) During the first half of his life the steam shovel, the self cleaning plow, repeating rifle using casings, pasteurization, all of Edison’s stuff, were invented. Railroads went from nothing to a major way to move goods and people around and across the country. Photography went from nothing to somewhat common. During the last half there was the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, electrification, and many of the first plastics, solar cells and wind turbines were developed. He lived through two wars that in themselves created new and inventive ways to kill people. The point being as he got into his eighties he must have said something to the effect of “holy crap I’ve seen a lot”.

So now as I begin my 8th decade when I look back and remember that during the last 7 decades TV has gone from 13 inch black and white showing 3 channels, in the best of weather, to the current 4K wall size bazillion of channels. Not only did seat belts get invented but they invented air bags. We’ve gone form 4 engine prop planes for long distance travel to jets that can get you anywhere in the world within 15 to 18 hours. I bought my first computer in 1982 about 30 years after the cutting edge room sized computer was put into use. Now I carry more computing power in my pocket than was in existence when I was born. The highest anyone had flown in an airplane when I was born was about 60000 feet. 19 years later we were on the moon. We have had 2 spaceships leave the solar system. All kinds of stuff has been developed in medicine ranging from drugs to control various chronic diseases to artificial limbs and organs to Greyson’s implants. Holy crap I’ve seen a lot.

I did learn one thing thinking about this. The urinal was not invented/patented until 1866. To think that humankind lived without this until then in mind boggling. Although I suppose urinals were called trees before that.

Assuming that the climate thing or the interaction of some of the batshit crazy leaders in the world today don’t do us in it would seem that the rate of technological advancement is continuing to increase and one can only imagine whats next. I won’t take time here to do that imagining  but this time it might actually finally deliver the often promised flying cars. When I reach the next rank up I’ll make a point to review the big advances in the coming 10 years that by then will be the last 10 years.

So stay tuned (they used to say that in the old days when you had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel on the TV) as it won’t be long until you can call me Ol’ Octogenarian preferably with a bad fake hillbilly accent.