Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1149
Anecdotal Tesla revolt data, two-week spring breaks please, Jane still won’t go to sleep, Chatham wastewater management, RIP cherry blossoms, Boomer death watch, miter saw saga, permitting nightmare
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Happy Friday. Very exciting. I like Fridays. Gonna be lit. Just back from dropping Jane off, surprise surprise. But boy, I have thoughts from this morning. Guess my mind is racing:
I am very convinced that this Tesla revolt is real. I feel like I’m seeing fewer and fewer Teslas in the school drop-off line. It used to be that one in four or so cars in the line were Teslas. Now I think it’s down to maybe one in ten. These numbers are off the cuff, but it feels real. I have seen so, so many more Mach-Es, but especially Hyundai and Kia EVs. Dozens of new ones. This is all anecdotal but were I stock trading type, I would 100% trade on it.
It turns out that there are two black G-Wagons in the relocation-area-for-Yankees-slash-Truman-Show neighborhood between me and the school. The other one does not seem to be related to Jane’s school. But I am continually confused by people that spent $300k ish for a house and $200k ish for a car. Feels… off.
Aggro van was back today, which means that the new murdered-out black van in the drop-off line is not Aggro Van guy, as I theorized, cuz they were both there today. Which leads me to believe Aggro Van Guy took his family on a long spring break, because he has two kids and it seems unlikely they have both been sick all week this week, the week after spring break.
Speaking of which, there’s a girl in Jane’s class who’s also been out all week, but no one else has caught anything or been sick (first week of the year! Let’s not jinx it) which also leads me to believe she is taking a long vacation. Especially since her parents are immigrants and taking a one-week vacation to another country is BS.
Speaking of which, spring break should be two weeks. One week sucks. I would gladly trade an extra week of summer for an extra week of spring break. I bet other people would too. I’ve seen a few teachers complain that the absentee crisis in schools is not just illneess (though that’s a big part of it) but also “parents who bring their kids back from vacation late). Would be funny if the solution to fixing the crisis was to just… make vacation longer.
Listening to the new Sacred Bones re-release of the Xmal Deutschland early singles, of which I own copies, of course, because 4AD. The Reissue has much, much better sound. And it does have a great cover (80’s big goth hair FTW). But I will, of course, forever stan the old 23 Envelope cover designs.
Mother-in-law’s surgery went well, thank you for your well-wishing. She now has this cool contraption that loops around her arm and then goes to a sort of cooler bucket on the floor that you plug in and it recirculates ice water around her arm to keep it iced. Emma stole one of my Rubbermaid trash can caddies and brought it over so her mom can now wheel around the entire contraption, tethered to the wall with only an extension cord and the whole thing looks hilarious.
Emma is exhausted, since she has been taking care of her mother and it was her turn (again) for Jane bedtime because I had a pool/storage partner meeting, along with our new employee. And Jane still won’t go to sleep. So while I was discussing the intricacies of Chatham County wastewater management (a super interesting topic, since there is no municipal water anywhere around here and any large development has to deal with its sewage on its own, and the aforementioned containment area for yankees has a giant “sustainable” sewage treatment plant that is essentially co-op owned by the residents), Emma gave up and went to bed, and then Jane wandered down into my meeting, which was quickly broken up. Jane sat on my lap and eventually I coaxed her back upstairs and took some of the advice I got from my solicitation to you guys (thank you, Anne!) and got her to sleep. At just shy of 10 PM, two hours after her bedtime, again, for the eighth night.
And this morning she popped right up again and we got to school nine minutes early. Gonna let her sleep as long as she can tomorrow morning since it’s Saturday. This is of course, a gamble, because it might prolong the no-sleep weekdays, but I guess welcome to adulthood, kid.
Had a dream last night about Fairbanks, Fairbanks in the summer, with the big, endlessly sunny sky. Sitting on the patio at the Pump House, and there was a new, giant Frank Lloyd Wright inspired house on the hill across the street on Chena Pump. Everything was so beautiful I even said “I love it here, I never want to leave,” which, you know, is not like me. But then I said “except in the winter,” so, yeah. Anyway, Fairbanks looked really nice. In another… month? Two? It’s gonna really pop off.
Speaking of popping off, the cherry blossoms are almost completely off the tree again. We missed it cuz we were on spring break. I have to really think about this. Am I looking down the barrel of the gun of missing my cherry blossom tree blossoming for the next twelve years while Jane is in school? This might be cause for pulling her out.
Oh right it’s Friday let’s wrap up with Boomer/Silent Gen Death Watch:
OJ: I mean, fine. I did like Naked Gun though. But c’mon man. Ciao.
Peter Higgs, of Higgs Boson fame: Sad.
Rev Cecil Murphy, voice of empathy during the LA riots: Sad
Frogman: Bummer
Internet hero Herbert Kroemer: Sad
Guitar Army general John Sinclair: Probably sad? Hippies are iffy these days
Louis Gossett Jr: Bummer. Enemy Mine was awesome. Iron Eagle had way too much influence on me and almost turned me into a Republican, and his late-career turn in Watchmen was fucking perfect.
Over the last thirty-six hours I have been to the pool company bank twice, and the county permitting office twice, because the county can’t figure out how much to charge us for our erosion control and wastewater permits. They changed the amount twice. We brought them three sets of checks. Because it is 2024, and the pool company (nor its holding company, nor the contracting division) does not have a checkbook. So every time the county did this to us, I had to go to the bank, personally, and get new cashiers checks. Then bring the old ones back to the bank so they would be recredited to our account. It’s been lovely.
But thanks to you guys again, on this second trip to Pittsboro, I did in fact finally suck it up and buy a back-up miter saw, the Bosch. I scheduled it for in-car (truck) pickup at the Lowe’s hardware. And, to really rub into my face that I was being a giant wuss thinking it was to heavy, when the petite woman wheeled the thing out to my truck and offered to help me load into my truck, she said “the good thing is that it’s not very heavy.” So now I have to unbox and set it up on myself, otherwise I am a wuss. So when my back hurts next week, you know why.
So, the items on this weekend’s chore list: Walmart and recycling, of course. I would love to get a haircut, but at this point I think that means Great Cuts, to which I have never been, because I have been a salon snob ever since Team Cutters in Fairbanks, Alaska (do they still exist) played “Desert Inn” by Yello in a TV ad in 1988. But you know what? Fuck it. I am a man of the people. Great Cuts is fine. I would also like to cut, paint and mount a 4x4 so I can get my Hoselink hose set up. Hoselinks are the fuckin greatest. A+ strong Rick Recommends. Oh shit, new feature, Rick Reccomends. I should probably start a page and link to it. Add to the to-do list. If I can get the Hoselink and the Miter Saw set up this weekend, I am happy. Let’s not be too ambitious.
Oh and I need to buy another seckel pear tree because one of mine never took in its transplant, and the one that did is just sitting there all alone with no one to pollinate it.
Poor, lonely pear tree.
Hey you have an awesome weekend.
Oh hey it looks like I finished volume 80 of my famed W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe series. Man I wish some music programming company would call me why do you think I’ve been making these for three four years.
All right, TIME FOR WORK. Work work work work work work is great work is life ta ta.