AN ACT OF GLOBAL BIO-TERRORISM

As an Uber driver, I talk with around a dozen different people a day.  We don't *all* talk about the pandemic anymore (as we used to during peak-panic), but the subject still comes up a lot.  And it is interesting to me that so many people confidently *know* stuff that may or may not be true. I guess that's just human nature: Thanks to the internet, we think we're smarter than we are. I'm guilty of it too, if I'm being honest.  But as I've gotten older, I've become much more skeptical and suspicious about things that are delivered to us as FACTS that we are supposed to believe without question.

To wit: Was the coronavirus pandemic a planned event? I now tend to believe so. The U.S. government (in the form of NIH/NIAID) has been working with the Chinese for a long time on this controversial "gain of function" research (GoF) - even when it was prohibited by U.S. law!  I suppose the thinking was that the Chinese were going to do the research anyway, and so it was better to be involved and cooperating with them so we could see the results of their work. But then, there was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they were also working on gain-of-function research.  Since the government grant for said research had already been issued, UNC was allowed to continue their GoF work even during the time it was prohibited.  Back in 2015, UNC published a chilling paper on a new SARS CoV virus they discovered which originated in a type of Chinese horseshoe bat (surprise!) and that could transfer to humans (but - at that point - not human-to-human).

Good ol' Doc Fauci failed to mention these things during his various denials (some under oath) that GoF research really wasn't really GoF.  The wiggle room...the small technicality he was exploiting was that in his view, "GoF" was simply related to animals and not animals-to-humans, when Congressional inquisitors were saying that yes, GoF *was* being used to manipulate a virus so that it would jump from animals to humans and then human-to-human. In other words, from Fauci's warped point of view, those researchers in Wuhan, China weren't deliberately trying to cause the virus to jump from human-to-human, even though that's exactly what "accidentally" (heh-heh) happened anyway.  Clever, that Fauci guy!  And then, as we know, this manipulated virus also "accidentally" got released to the world. Shocking!

I could be wrong, but at this point, no one will ever convince me that the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 was anything other than a deliberate act of global bio-terrorism.

New SARS-like virus can jump directly from bats to humans, no treatment available - UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

UBER DRIVER SHORTAGE?

Both Uber and Lyft are complaining that they do not have enough drivers.  Every time I log-on, I'm bombarded with bonus offers for recommending other drivers sign-up.  Not only that, but it's been really busy lately.  However, many of the trip requests I get when I'm out and about are often 18 or 20 minutes away.  (I always reject them; no need to drive for 18 minutes to pick up a passenger who's only going five minutes from his house.)  Uber came out with a notice to us drivers that said, basically, Enjoy the extra money now, chumps, because once the pandemic is over and things get back to normal, your earnings are going to decrease!

Uber is operating under some assumptions.  A couple of them are, I believe, false.  First, they evidently believe that their drivers are standing-down out of fear of catching the coronavirus.  They also assume that some number of regular Uber drivers have switched over to delivering food (which is correct).  But they also feel that once the pandemic is over, food deliveries will be reduced since people will stop ordering out.  Thus, drivers will return to actual passenger runs.

I think they're wrong.

Not so long ago, generally (in most of the country that wasn't New York City), just about the only food you could have delivered to your house was pizza.  People certainly could just drive out to the pizza place and pick it up themselves.  But they put up with the extra cost of having it delivered due to the huge convenience it provided.  Now we can get just about anything we want delivered to the house.  Even restaurants like Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden (which previously didn't even have the availability for you to order to-go food over the phone or internet and have it delivered) have stepped up their game. It's great to be able to order stuff that previously would have required a visit to the actual restaurant.  The future is now!

A cabdriver friend of mine recently ditched the taxi and switched over to doing ride-share.  He did it for a couple of weeks before concluding that it was too many miles of driving for too little money.  He switched over to delivering food and, voila!, now he makes more money and actually drives less.  Most likely, he won't come back to delivering people.  I have heard this before from other drivers: "Delivering food simply gives you better revenue-per-mile."  Which it does.  (Me, I just don't want to deliver food - I like the people aspect of ride-share driving too much.)

Very simply, Uber and Lyft are going to have to pay their drivers more to entice them to keep working on the "legacy" apps and not defect to the food delivery side.  To do that, Uber will probably have to raise their rates.  But remember, one of the big selling points of Uber was that it was "cheaper than a taxi."  Nevertheless, rates have come up.  Uber/Lyft may still be cheaper than a taxi, but not by much.  And in some markets, not at all.

Personally, I believe that customers have become so accustomed to using Uber/Lyft that they will pay...whatever.  Even if ride-share rates rise above those of conventional taxis, people will pay them.  There are a number of reasons: Convenience of using the app; knowing who your driver will be, seeing his picture, and knowing what kind of car he's driving; knowing that the car you'll be riding will be clean and well-maintained; seeing the car's progress as it comes towards you; knowing the price of the ride up-front; and not having to pay for the ride while in the car.  These are not small things.  And exactly none of them have been available to a customer calling a conventional cab.  

So there is a huge benefit to using ride-share.  And I think people will realize that it's a premium service which justifies premium rates.  Customers have been lucky that the "introductory" ride-share rates have been so low. But now that the taxi industry has pretty much been made obsolete, the party is over.  Will some riders rebel and go back to regular taxi services?  Perhaps.  I could see that happening in certain areas of town where price-point is most important.

In any event, I am enjoying the fruits of this "driver shortage" right now.  It means that I do not have to work as long to make my meager target daily revenue.  Less work for more money = good thing for Bob.  I'm not worried that the coronavirus pandemic will suddenly be over and Uber/Lyft drivers will rush back to work.  I only envision that happening if food deliveries drastically drop off - but as I said, I don't think that's going to happen.

Highpointers

It occurred to me that in all of the nine summers I spent in Washington State, I never once visited their tallest mountain. That would be Mt. Rainier, which towers up to 14,411 feet. Imagine my surprise to discover that here in Florida I'm living in the veritable shadow of the tallest point of the state! Britton Hill is in Lakewood Park, which is just 54 nautical miles to my east as the crow flies. Now, it may not have the snow-capped grandeur and majesty of a Mt. Rainier, but hey, I'll take it.

I figured that riding the motorcycle out to and climbing Britton Hill would be the adventurous thing to do, because I am an adventurer at heart, and...well, adventure! Since I'm not really in peak mountain-climbing shape anymore (the dreaded "COVID-15#" - you know what I'm talkin' about), climbing from the base was, as the kids say, OOTQ*. I was hoping that there'd be a road I could ride on leading up to a point where I could park and maybe hike the rest of the way. Or maybe one of them cable-car thingees...that would be cool.

So I packed me a bottle of Gatorade and some honey-roasted peanuts and headed off on a beautiful, chilly Monday morning, eastbound and dowwwwwn (obligatory "Smokey and the Bandit" reference) on Interstate 10, opposite the flow of the hordes (well, dozens) of rush-half-hour commuters heading into Pensacola. Sadly, that has always been my lot in life: I'm going thisaway while everyone else is going thataway... I am never in sync with the crowd. I took my "big" Harley, the Super Glide (aka "Stupid Glide," officially the FXDBi Street Bob)....the one I desperately want to sell. There is a woman who sells Harley parts in the town of Florala, Alabama which is coincidentally right near Britton Hill. I wanted to see if she maybe had a better seat for my bike. I don't really want to spend another dime on this P.O.S., but I hate the "stock" seat on it so much that I'd rather not inflict it on a future purchaser. I'm not that depraved.

I did get to Britton Hill and managed the arduous climb to the top. Well... as luck would have it, I was able to drive all the way up. And even "up" is an exaggeration; the stone marker is right by the side of the road. Spoiler Alert: It's not very impressive - 345 feet. Turns out that Florida has the lowest high-point of all 50 states. Delaware is next, with a high-point of only 448 feet. Even flat and swampy Louisiana has a higher high-point than us: 535 feet. I know you're wondering... Alaska has the highest high-point. It's Mt. McKinley at 20,320 feet.

Here's the view you get from the parking lot at Florida's highest point. Pretty much the same view at you get anywhere else in Florida.

They call them, "highpointers": People whose goal is to visit the highest point in every state. Their website has a list of all of the highest-points in all 50 states. You can look at it HERE. And now I've joined the club! I'm in, baby! I got my first one out of the way! Only 49 to go.

Okay, so it might not have been as much of an adventure! as climbing Mt. Rainier would have been, or Mt. Kilimanjaro as one of my friends wants to do for his 40th birthday. Sometimes you have to make do with what you've got. This is Florida, after all. Everything is flatter here: our beer and our women. And most certainly our mountains.

*I don't think kids really say this.

Dear Diary

I used to blog a lot.  But now I do most of my writing on Facebook.  There, I make semi-regular posts.  I jokingly started referring to them as my "Morning Coffee Rambling" because I'd post them as I drank my...you get the idea.  I actually stole said idea from my friend, Russell Madden, who usually posts long daily missives filled with common-sense and wisdom.  To differentiate myself, I formalized, titled and dated my posts.  And as goofy as the name is, it stuck.  I do post other crap on Facebook during the day, but my serious ruminations are generally reserved for my "column."

I try to keep my Facebook posts short, but at four paragraphs in length (or longer), they can be challenging for the typically impatient short-attention-span social-media reader.  Even close friends admit that they do not read my posts.  They sigh, roll their eyes and go, "Too long."  I understand.  Facebook is usually not a long-form medium.

I don't spend a lot of time on "analytics."  In fact, I never really researched the actual numbers until starting to write this post.  It turns out that I have 155 Facebook "Friends," and another 150 or so "followers."  I don't automatically approve every Friend Request, although my profile information is public.  So my posts are searchable and "shareable."  And sometimes (rarely) they are.  Theoretically, 300 people or so could see my posts...*if* they show up in their Newsfeeds.  But I doubt that 300 people view my crap, given the small number of "Likes" each post gets.  Facebook's algorithm is weird in the way it selects what you see each day.  And Facebook doesn't let us see how many "hits" our individual posts get.

But there are tracking programs for blogs that allow you to see who has visited your site and where they are.  By comparison, each post on this here blog gets very, very few views.  The sad reality is that I don't reach a large number of people through this blog, but I reach way more people on Facebook.

So is the blog format dead?  Oh no!  At least, I hope not.  I do like the blog.  Facebook posts are very temporary; they evaporate quickly in the daily clutter of everyone's Newsfeed.  On the other hand, blogposts stay up as a permanent record.  For me, they become a running commentary on what's going on in my life at any given time...a diary as it were.  

I started this blog way back in 2006 when I went to work for a guy who was trying to restart the production line of an old helicopter from the 1970s.  (Unfortunately, we were ultimately unsuccessful.)  Back then, I used to lead an interesting life, or so I thought.  Now, fifteen years later, things have kind of calmed down.  I don't fly much anymore...and I may not ever fly for a living again, in fact.  The pandemic cancelled the motorcycle trips I had planned for 2020, and I'm not even riding as much as I'd like here in 2021.  So my life - like yours, probably - is kind of on hold.  There has been little personal crap to write about.  Maybe that will change!  

Maybe the coronavirus pandemic will fade and our lives will return to some sense of normalcy.  And now that I'm retired and don't spend so much time up in Washington State, I can start doing some fun stuff here in Florida.  If I do, I'll certainly blog about here...whether anybody reads it or not.

CORONAVIRUS: Some Numbers

Let us be very, very clear: The death rate from COVID19 in the U.S. is 1.8%. In other words, if you get the disease, you have better than a 98% chance of survival.

It is reported that 547,649 people have died from COVID19 in the U.S. That number is arguable, but let's accept it for this exercise. It is also reported that 29,632,042 people have tested positive for the virus. Okay, this is easy! If you divide 547,649 deaths by 29,632,042 infectees, you get 0.0181...or 1.8%. That's how we derived the above survival rate. 100% minus 1.8% equals 98.2%.

But wait, there's more! Estimates are that, over and above those who've tested positive for coronavirus, X-number of people have it but don't have any symptoms and haven't been tested. Some experts put that number at "8X" the number of who have tested positive. But let's be conservative and just use a multiplier of 5X. Okay, so if we multiply 29,632,042 by 5, we get 148,160,210 people. Stay with me. Now if we take the number of deaths (547,649) and divide by 148,160,210, we get an actual death rate of...(drumroll)...0.37%. *POINT* three-seven percent....basically just under four-tenths of one percent. So turn it around. It means that your actual survival rate from COVID19 is in the area of 99.6%. Pretty good odds, I'd say, even without a vaccine that is said to be 95% effective.

Will those number I used go up? Certainly - we're not done with this virus yet. But I believe the relationship of those numbers will remain the same. Fake news outlets like the fear-mongering CNN and such are trying very hard to panic us into thinking that COVID19 is some horrible, deadly threat to humanity. The hard numbers tell a different story.

I do not get a flu shot every year, because I never get the flu. Apparently, I have a pretty good immune system or something, but seriously, I never get sick. So guess what...I won't be getting the coronavirus vaccine either. I just don't believe that COVID19 presents that much of a threat to our health. At least, not if you go by our government's own numbers.

WHAT ABOUT THE FLU?

We do know that a number of people die from the regular ol' flu each year. The trouble is, we really don't know how many people get the flu each year, because so many people simply self-medicate without going to the doctor. So it's very hard to come up with a reliable death rate for the flu. Any number would be a guess. Similarly, we really don't know for certain how many people have the coronavirus but don't have any symptoms and have not been tested. Again, it's a guess. You might point to positivity-rates of those who do get tested, but I would counter that people who have no symptoms are very unlikely to be tested in the first place unless it's a job-requirement. And so many of the "asymptomatics" remain invisible to the statisticians. But either way... If you go by the numbers we "know" (i.e. number of people who tested positive and number of deaths attributable to COVID19), the threat of you dying from this disease is tiny. This is obviously no comfort to anyone who's had a family member die of the coronavirus. But as horrible as that is, I think the threat to the general public is vastly overblown. Why is this? I do not know.

CORONAVIRUS: Hey Abbott...!

In discussing the coronavirus pandemic, one of my friends sighed, "I just want this to be over." A sentiment shared by all of us, I'm sure. I expressed my doubts that all this will ever be "over." I think that mask will still be required in certain places from now until...like...forever. And as a society we will always be suspicious when we're in the presence of someone with a cough or cold. Our economy may never fully recover and return to the pre-pandemic glory days. To the dismay of parents nationwide, kids may never go away to college anymore now that online classes are not only "a thing" the *the* thing. The nests will stay full and jobless junior may never move out, living in the basement, playing video games and intending on inheriting the house upon his parents' (surely accelerated) demise.

On the other hand, some "medical experts" say that the coronavirus will become like the common cold or flu: an annoyance we'll all just have to live with (pun intended) as we move forward. It is obviously not a hugely fatal disease - I think we can admit that now - although a shit-ton of people have died from it worldwide (or so they say). Older people with the infamous "comorbidities" will probably always have to be cautious and accept the fact that they may still get the COVID and they may still die "from" it, especially if they're in their 90's and get hit by a bus. My advice: Don't get old.

Apparently, Texas Governor Abbott feels the same way as my fatigued friend in the first paragraph. Abbott is lifting the mask mandate in his state, and has expressed his desire to get Texas 100% open, 100% now. This, even as the scaredy-cat mayor of Austin is calling on the governor to continue and extend existing restrictions.

So is this smart of Governor Abbott? The spread of the disease does appear to be abating here in the U.S., but Italy and Brazil are seeing increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. And our amigos in France? After peaking at nearly 89,000 new cases per day in early November of 2020 (merde!), France has seen a decrease but is still chugging along at around 20,000 new cases per day, showing no signs of slowing down.

So...I dunno. The sad, ugly truth is probably that X-number of people were always going to die from this coronavirus and, vaccine or no vaccine, there wasn't a whole lot any government could do about it. And so we'll see - probably shortly - if Texas Governor Abbott is right or wrong.

TACO TUESDAY

 I had a hankering for Mexican food last night. Instead of going out, I made some shrimp tacos, which turned out great if I do say so myself. I know that Tuesday is official "taco day," and so I may have violated some law by having them on a Monday. Oh well, sue me.  Anyway, it reminded me of the Tuesday nights in the summer up in Washington State when all of the cherry-drying pilots in our company would descend on one of our favorite restaurants in the area, The Club Sports Bar and Grill in the town of Okanogan. They had a deal where you got three tacos for $3.00.  

All of us...usually twelve or thirteen...would amass and terrorize Connie and John (the proprietors) and their hapless but unfailingly accommodating staff.  We'd eat tacos and drink beer until the wee hours, playing Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat?" over and over on the jukebox until the regulars got frustrated and left...until we were all good and drunk and the female pilots would be up on the tables, dancing topless.  Well, usually the female pilots.  The owner of our company stopped coming to Taco Night.  Even he didn't want to be associated with us.  The "clippers" (the kids who worked in the nearby marijuana fields trimming the product) always eyed us suspiciously.

"Bruh, I think those guys over there are helicopter pilots!"

"No bruh, they must be sailors.  They're drinking and cursing and partying like they're on shore leave."

"Bruh, that one chick's been dancing on that table since we got here."

"Bruh, the chick in the blue polo shirt with the gray hair?  That's a dude, bruh.  He's, like, the ringleader or something. And he's got them...whaddya call 'em...manboobs."

"Bruh, no way!  Maaaaan, they should just smoke weed like we do and chill out."

"Bruh!  Pilots can't smoke weed - it's illegal for them!"

"Bruh, the FAA ought to make alcohol illegal then."

I was usually designated to make the reservation because we need a very big table.  Very quickly, The Club began recognizing my phone number.  If Connie answered, I'd hear a long, exasperated sigh followed by, "Bahhhhhhhhhb...." (Another sigh) "How many tonight, Bob?"  I mean, you'd think she'd be happy to hear from us!  Then again, twelve pilots ordering two "sets" of (3) tacos apiece meant that they'd be making up to 72 tacos - just for us!  They would sometimes run out of taco shells, or meat.  And even if they didn't make money on the loss-leader tacos, they certainly made money off us on the beer...which is, I think, the point of Taco Night.

Anyway, when we finally left, usually as the sun was coming up, the 17 year-old grandson of our owner had to drive us back to the compound.  He was the least-drunk of all of us.  He didn't drink at the bar, but what he did before he got there, we didn't know and we didn't ask.  The other pilots were all, like, "Bob, you should drive!"  But Bob is not stupid. Or so I tell people.

Yes, we had some great times up there in Brewster, Washington, eating and drinking (mostly drinking!) at great places like The Club, Smallwood Farms, and of course, the Sweet River Bakery.  That episode of my life is over now, but I think back fondly on it every time I eat a taco.  Even on a Monday.

Political Advice From Actors?

The headline in my newsfeed read: "ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY REACTS TO TRUMP IMPEACHMENT."

Hmm.  I don't know about y'all, but I'm really kind of tired of *actors*...let's say, "all people in the entertainment industry" trying to tell me how to think.  I mean, I really don't give a shit.  What makes friggin' Alec Baldwin an expert on anything, much less politics?  George Clooney?  Come on.  I might cut Arnold Schwarzenegger a little slack because he was actually governor of California.  Then again, seeing the idiot who currently holds that office, I'm not sure the hiring standards are all that high.  So stuff it, Arnie, nobody cares.

Why do some people listen to these nitwits?  Do we think that the ability to act and communicate (or host a late-night talk show) imbues them with some special power or insight that nobody else has?  Puh-leeze. 

There sure was a lot of scoffing about Trump  I'm tempted to cue-up that video...I'm sure you've all seen it...from back in 2016...the montage of people (both inside and outside of politics) who were ABSOLUTELY SURE that Donald Trump would never become President.  Oh, how confident they were!  And they were all...umm...what's the word?...oh yeah, *WRONG*.  Remember Nancy Pelosi? "Take it to the bank, Donald Trump will not become President of the United States."  I wonder if she regrets being so vocal about that now?  For it's quite embarrassing.  

Given the abject hatred of Donald Trump by Liberals...  Given the repeated failed attempts at removing him from office... It would not surprise me in the least if the DNC spent the last four years concocting a way of making sure Trump didn't win re-election.  And yes, that begs the question: Can a election be rigged?  Some people say, "No way! Not in America!"  But 74 million or so other people suspect the opposite.  74 million people think that politicians actually could be that devious!  And before anyone dismisses Trump supporters as unwashed, uneducated, deluded, cultist boobs, let's realize that there are some pretty smart, highly-educated people both inside and outside of government people who agree that the election was tampered with.  Do we just cast them aside as kooks?

I don't know.  But I certainly don't need Alec Baldwin to give me political advice.

"Simple" Jobs

I walked into my laundry rooom the other day and thought I'd entered a sauna.  Most of the year, that's not a totally unfamilar sensation here in Florida.  But in January?  Something was wrong.  You've probably already guessed that the dryer hose had become disconnected.  Not a big deal, right?  Pull the dryer out, clean up all the lint and lost socks and other crap behind it, reconnect hose, push dryer back against wall.  Simple, right?  Riiiiight

The hose that connects the dryer to the wall is not that long.  So the dryer cannot be too far away from the wall with both ends connected.  (So there's not a lot of space to work in back there, is what I'm saying.)  There's a plastic cap with a 90-degree angle that slides onto the dryer outlet.  There is a little hole in the thing, providing a way so that it could be secured with a set-screw, I suppose, but there is not a corresponding hole in the outlet on dryer and it would be a bitch drilling one.  So I, like probably most of you, just pushed it on hoping it would stay there.  Then I pushed the other end onto the wall inlet.

Now the only thing to do was get out of there.  Turned out I could not lift my fat ass up and over the dryer.  One complication was the shelf that is installed on the wall above the dryer, which blocked any vertical movement by me.  So I pushed the dryer out from the wall...and the hose disconnected again.  And I'm thinking, "How the hell did we get all this crap together in the first place?"  If I owned a small child, I could hold him/her by the feet and dangle him/her upside down behind the dryer to hook things back up.  No such ruck.  Dammit, being single sucks!

In the end, I did get the hose reconnected and the dryer pushed back into position.  But it was not easy.  It was one of those deceptively "simple" tasks that ends up being a sonovabitch.  At least now all of the wet heat from the dryer goes outside of the house like it should.  And with our daily temperatures down in the 50's, we need all the help we can get!

Lesson In Humility

It was Saturday, January 2nd and I was out Ubering, now that that's a verb.  I had both the Uber and Lyft apps on.  I get a Lyft "ping" to pickup at the ghetto Walmart out on Mobile Highway.  We Uber/Lyft drivers usually decline such trip requests, even at the non-ghetto Walmarts.  Most WM shoppers live pretty close to the store.  The trip usually involves a ton of grocery bags for a $3.00 fare.  And they never tip.  Not worth the time and effort, in other words.  But I took this one.  Sometimes I am a cold-hearted, money-hungry bastard; sometimes I am a glutton for punishment.  

I roll  up and see two Black women with the typical grocery cart full of crap, PLUS two small girl's bicycles with training wheels.  Warily, I get out and see that many of the grocery bags are full of toys...Christmas toys?

After years of doing this job, you learn a lot about people.  Not all assumptions are correct, of course, but most of them are.  If you get a "ping" to pick up "Destiny" at one of the fleabag motels in town, you can expect the girl to come out with her "luggage" consisting of plastic garbage bags.  She will reek of cigarettes and weed and God knows what else.

At Walmart, the heart-breaking realization dawns on me that these women (a single mom and her mother, I'm guessing) probably had a really austere Christmas, and they've gotten their stimulus money, and so they went out and bought the stuff to have a "delayed" Christmas for the kids.  

I could have told them to call for an Uber XL and "noped out of there" as the kids say, but the Jetta has a huge trunk.  And what am I, Scrooge?  I  had to get creative, but we somehow managed to fit it all in.  "Where we headed?" I ask as we start out.  "Bobe Street, across from the Fast Lane gas station," the older woman says. "You know, the trailers."  Ahh, The Trailers.  Indeed I do know The Trailers.  They're right around the corner.  It's a big ghetto trailer park...mostly tiny, old, rundown FEMA trailers left over from some past hurricane that were never intended to be anything but temporary shelter while your real house got rebuilt.  There are actually a couple of trailer parks like this here in Pensacola. This place ain't exactly Beverly Hills.

We pull up, and I start unloading. The women bring the bicycles in, and I can hear the squeals of joy from the little girls (twins, I think).  The "Christmas wrapping" of the other toys and gifts is just grey Walmart bags, but it'll have to do.  The kids probably don't care.

A lot of people got their stimulus money early, deposited right into their bank accounts.  Mine took a while last time, and will probably take a while this time too.  Not that I care.  Money is not much of a problem for me these days, and I've been sort of scoffing at this pathetic $600 handout.  When I was younger, I could blow that much on coke and booze on any given weekend.  But this one Uber trip reminded me of those who are less fortunate...those who couldn't give their kids a proper Christmas - but were now actually able to.  To some people, this stimulus money is not a "handout" at all, but thank the Lord, it's a little New Year's windfall.  Lesson learned...again.

CORONAVIRUS - NEW YEAR'S EVE UPDATE

As for the coronavirus...heyyy, it's been a while since we talked about it!  So let's.

At one point, the "experts" were saying that for natural "herd immunity" to kick in, something like 60% of the population had to be infected.  I don't know if that's still true or not; they keep moving the goal posts.  You never know what numbers are going to come out of Dr. Fauci's ass (or hat, or wherever he gets them) on any given day.  In any event, it's instructive to look at the raw numbers for where I live: Escambia County, Florida.  Please refer to the chart above.

The Florida Department of Health reports that we've had 22,008 people turn up positive for COVID-19.  But remember, it is generally assumed that *eight times* more people actually have the virus when you account for the asymptomatics.  Conservatively, that would mean 175,000 people in the Pensacola area have already been infected.  If we divide that number by the 315,000 people who live here, we get 0.555 which works out to be 56%.  So we're getting really close to that 60%.

As you can also see from the chart, 372 people have died here.  That works out to be 0.12% of our population.  A little over one-tenth of one-percent.  Oh wow, what a horrible, deadly epidemic!  Now, statisticians will argue that such a figure is horribly inaccurate and doesn't take into account...blah blah blah.  It doesn't matter.  The number of new infections and deaths are rising so slowly that using the raw data is perfectly fine to give us a snapshot of what the virus is doing right now, today.  In other words, deaths have not gone up "EXPONENTIALLY!!!!" as some feared and predicted.

One last calculation: Percent of infected people who've died.  Now it gets tricky.  Do we use the "official" number of people who've tested positive?  Or do we use the "people who've tested positive times eight" number?  For the sake of argument, let's use the latter.  372 divided by 175,000 equals 0.021, or 2.1%.  So basically, 2% of the people who get coronavirus die from coronavirus.  Turn that around - 98% of people who get coronavirus survive.  

You know what?  I never get the flu.  I mean *never*.  At this point, I'll take  my chances with getting the coronavirus.  I don't believe in asymptomatic spread, and so trust me, the minute I start feeling sick I'll self-quarantine.  And just to be on the safe side, I'll cover my coughs and sneezes...LIKE I'VE BEEN DOING ALL MY LIFE.  Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to live that life.  

I suggest you do the same.  Happy New Year!

Suddenly I See

Country singer KT Oslin died the other day; she was 76.  When I heard the news, I initially thought it was another singer, KT Tunstall who died, but the latter KT is much younger and is still with us.  It reminded me of a funny story though.

Picture it:  We're in Brewster, Washington back in 2012, not long after I met my friend Brandon Arago.  We both love music, and over the years have turned each other on to various artists and songs. Brandon is more of a heavy-metal kind of guy.  But like the saying goes, you can't judge a book... 

This one particular time, I came to him with a song and music video I'd just discovered that I was certain he didn't know of.  It was KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See" - a bouncy, extremely catchy tune about female empowerment.  I love the song and the very creative music video that she made for it.

Anyway, I said, "Hey Brandon, listen to this!" and hit "play."  Within literally two notes (I swear), Brandon screamed, "AAARRRGGHHH!  KT Tunstall...turn it off...TURN IT OFF!"  He was holding his fingers in his ears and had an expression on his face like I was performing an appendectomy on him without anesthesia.  Kind of like the expression peope get when forced to listen to Nickelback, same thing.

Apparently, the song was from 2006.  I'm always late in discovering music.  And in 2006, a teenage Brandon was working on the ground/maintenance crew at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.  KT Tunstall was set to perform in concert one night, and Brandon and his crew were getting the place set up during KT's sound-check.  The song she used to calibrate the mics and speakers and such was, "Suddenly I See."  Over and over.  And Over.  Brandon said, "I must've heard that damn song a hundred times.  I hate it!"

I must admit that Brandon has turned me on to way more music and artists than I have recommended to him.  It was he who introduced me to the group, Stick Figure whose album "Set In Stone" literally changed my life.  But back then it was funny how he'd heard of KT Tunstall and her song when I didn't think it possible.

And so here, for your listening and viewing pleasure (I hope!) is KT Tunstall with "Suddenly I See."

Car Smells

A lot of Uber drivers eat in their cars, but I don't.  I don't want the car smelling like food.  Which is also why I don't do Door Dash, Uber Eats, or any of the other food-delivery services.  It's bad enough that the car smells like me.  I don't need people getting in and going, "So you had McDonalds for lunch, eh?"  And then I'd go, "Uhhhhh yeah, *four hours* ago!"  The smell of fast food does linger.

Having said that, yesterday I went through the Wendy's drive-thru.  For some reason, they up-sized my fries.  It's okay, I like Wendy's fries.  I went over to the airport to sit in the queue and eat.  Since I wasn't number one, and this is Pensacola and not LAX, I knew I had some time to scarf down my oh-so-healthy lunch (with the windows and sunroof open) before I got a run.  

Upon pulling said container of upsized fries out of the bag, the damn thing literally exploded!  Don't ask me how.  I mean, fries went everywhere! What the...!  Mostly all over my passenger seat and a few on the floorboard.  I rounded up most of them, but one little bugger slid down between the seat and the center console. I tried to fish it out with my crossword puzzle pen, but it only got worse.  Then I dropped the pen down there too.  Now I had a french fry *and* a pen lost in the bowels of my car.  The errant fry had slipped down *under* the seat track, out of sight and very inaccessible.  It was *GONE* baby!  Dammit.  Now I'd have to go home and take the passenger seat out.  Don't want no decomposing french fry stinking up my car.  I finished out the day, angry at myself for not being more careful.

And so this morning I figured I'd try something.  I straightened out an old wire coat hanger and slid it in from the front, between the console and the seat track and floorboard.  And by Jove, that did the trick!  It worked a treat, as the Brits say.  That little french fry fucker came pooping right out the back of the seat track, along with my ballpoint pen, thankfully, as I wasn't done with the crossword puzzle yet, and also a dime and a penny, which is odd, because I can't remember the last time I carried any coin change at all.     

Some drivers over-deodorize their cars with powerful air fresheners.  They must think the passengers like it.  They don't.  The passengers just assume the driver is trying to cover up the smell of the weed he just smoked.  Not me.  I just want my car to smell like car.  

Hypocrisy When We See It

1) California Governor Gavin Newsom recently implemented pretty strict lockdown measures in his state, and then was caught attending a birthday party at a super-fancy restaurant.  Initially, Newsom *LIED* and said it was a small gathering that was held outdoors.  Turns out there were 24 people in the group and it was held INDOORS.  Did Newsom exhibit any shame or embarrassment?  Of course not.

2) From the CDC we have heard conflicting, often contradictory claims.  In the summer it was, "Outdoors:bad/Indoors:safe."  Now it's winter and they say, "Outdoors:safe/Indoors:bad."  Or is it the other way 'round?

3) We are told that there are numerous ways of spreading the virus other than coughing/sneezing.  But we allow malls and big stores like Walmart and Costco to remain open, and it's safe - AS LONG AS EVERYONE WEARS A MASK!  Yet we do not see employees of these stores dropping like flies.

4) We know that in the U.S., if you die for whatever reason (e.g. car crash) and you happen to have the coronavirus, then your cause of death is listed as: CORONAVIRUS.  We know that this isn't logical, but we are told that it most certainly is the way it should be done.  In our tiny brains, we wonder if that's also the way COVID-19 deaths are counted in every country...and if not, perhaps that's why the numbers in the U.S. appear to be so much worse than everywhere else?

Many people have full-time jobs, and families, and other interests.  They don't personally know anyone who's either had - or died from - the coronavirus.  They're not obsessed with this disease and have not made a PhD-level study of it like so many "internet experts" do.  And if you consider my first four paragraphs above, all that crap adds up to a huge level of skepticism and confusion among the American people.  We see the inconsistencies...the things that do not make any sense.  And it is hard for us to know what or who to believe.  

We know and don't deny that a lot of people have died "from coronavirus" so far.  But we also know that if you're reasonably healthy, the coronavirus is just not a big risk to your life.  We also know that people die - some would say, "prematurely" from a great number of things every year.  And we know that sooner or later, everyone is going to die.  Logical, intelligent people understand that it doesn't make sense to quarantine the healthy to save those who might get sick.  Doing that cripples a society, and ultimately does more harm than good.  

So right now, if you're in any of those at-risk groups (which are well-known at this point), or if you're a type of person who is always so paranoid and afraid of everything, then by all means, if you leave the house you should take all reasonable precautions.  

The rest of you, get on with your damn lives.

Hunter Biden's Supposed Laptop

So back in 2019, Hunter Biden supposedly turned in a water-damaged laptop to a computer store in Delaware.  For some reason, he left it and never went back for it.  Eventually, the snoopy store owner (a Trump supporter) delved into the hard drive and found...supposedly found all sorts of questionable material, including some incriminating pictures (or videos) and emails.  But not only that!  Supposedly, the emails implicate Hunter's father, Joe (who was Vice President at the time) in some shady dealings...not only with Ukraine, but also in China too!  If true...IF TRUE...these are pretty damning allegations.  People like the President and Vice President are prohibited by law from making personal financial deals with other countries.

The computer store owner supposedly made a couple of copies of the hard drive.  He says that he gave the laptop to the FBI, and a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani.  Supposedly, the FBI did nothing with the computer.  Finally, Giuliani gave the hard drive to the NY Post (which by the way is the oldest newspaper in the country, founded by Alexander Hamilton if that means anything).  The Post came out with a big expose.

Suddenly, everyone scattered like the participants in a Zoom call when Jeffrey Toobin logs-on.

At first, the mainstream media basically ignored the story or actively tried to sweep it under the rug.  However, after the NY Post published their piece and that became national news itself, other media outlets simply had to say something about it.  All of them, and some high-ranking politicians (like Adam Schiff) were falling over each other, dismissing the NY Post story as fake, claiming with no proof that the contents of the computer were a "Russian disinformation campaign."  We can understand the politicians for making a claim like that, but shouldn't the media be more objective?  Is that too much to ask?  Apparently so.

For their part, the Biden's never denied that the laptop actually was Hunter's.  Nor have they denied the contents of the emails.  But they did call the whole thing a smear campaign.  That wording is curious.  Instead of calling the emails and such a big hoax, they used the term "smear campaign."  Why does this matter?  Well, a hoax would be something fake; a smear campaign might be factual information used in a harmful way against someone.  Hmm.

Then John Ratcliffe, the Director of the Department of National Intelligence (and a Trump appointee) came out and said categorically that the contents of the computer were genuine and *not* from Russian disinformation.  Although no official statements have been issued, "government sources" say that both the Department of Justice and the FBI agree with the DNI.

Okay...  But the story gets weirder.

For some reason, Rudy Giuliana showed up in Delaware on Tuesday of this week, trying to get the state's Attorney General to take the hard drive.  The A.G. did, but turned it right over to the FBI, which the A.G. said should be handling the case anyway.

So.  What's the real story?  Is this real dirt or fake dirt?  Was Hunter Biden taking money "for himself" (wink-wink) but funneling some of it to his father?  Were the other sketchy things on that hard drive genuine?  If so, both Biden's are in a heap o'trouble.

This whole situation is very strange.  To me, it all shakes out as dirty politics as usual.  I look at it this way: Donald Trump has had to endure four years of the Democrats using every trick at their disposal to undermine and nullify his presidency.  He is pissed, and undoubtedly wants to get back at the people who've been against him.  I think that the Democrats didn't know who they were dealing with.  Because when it comes to dirty tricks and getting back at people, Donald Trump is a master.

Life On The Gulf Coast

Every area of the country has its downside.  California has earthquakes and mudslides and forest fires.  The midwest has tornadoes.  And New Jersey has...well...just being New Jersey is bad enough!  

Down here on the gulf coast we get hurricanes.  (We don't even worry about tropical storms.)  During hurricane season (June through October), we anxiously watch the tropics for these inexplicable low-pressure waves that are spawned in Africa and then come barrelling westbound across the Atlantic. 

A wave will morph into a "depression," then grow into a tropical storm and ultimately a hurricane.  Once a storm enters the eastern Caribbean, weatherguessers will then start to predict where it's going to go.  Might it turn and go up the Atlantic coast?  Or will it come straight across into the Gulf of Mexico?  Here in Pensacola, Florida, it is those latter ones that capture our attention.

The various weather services - and there are many - produce predictions of a storm's track.  They are collected into what are called the "spaghetti models" because if you superimpose them onto a map it looks kind of like a bowl of spaghetti.  People more knowledgeable than me then choose the path-model they think is the most likely candidate.  

Spaghetti Models from KHOU Houston

Right now we're looking at Hurricane Delta, which at the moment is a "strong Cat-2" storm down by the Yucatan Peninsula.  Forecasters say that it will intensify into a Cat-3 or Cat-4!  Its current track takes it into the Gulf of Mexico.  Then it's anyone's guess as to exactly where it will make landfall, except that it will be along the gulf coast somewhere, probably around New Orleans...and that could be 100 miles east or west of there.  As the crow flies, Pensacola is about 150 miles east of New Orleans.

There are many variables when it comes to hurricanes.  Overall strength, actual track and speed of the storm across the ground are the most obvious.  But upper-level steering currents and the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico also play a part.  And right now, the Gulf is pretty warm.

So yeah, we're a little concerned.  If there is anything hopeful at all with the approach of a Cat-3 hurricane, it is that the last hurricane took down the weaker trees and branches.  So maybe this next one won't cause so many trees to fall on so many powerlines.  That might be the only good news, but we'll take it!

The Easiest, Most Delicious Casserole Recipe

Do you like tacos?  WHO DOESN'T LIKE TACOS!  Why, that would be un-American!  

This is not a cooking blog.  But being a single guy who loves to eat, I occasionally come across a recipe for something that tastes really good and that even I, with my limited abilities in the kitchen, can cook.  There are a few "standard" dishes that I make when I have company over.  And I found a new one!

I came across this recipe online for a...kind of..."southwest salad" type of thing.  I don't know what you call it.  And of course now I can't find the video to share the link.  It is incredibly simple and easy to make.  And it is the most delicious thing I've ever eaten.  Yes, in my life.  It's so simple that even a basement-dwelling 20-something who can't even make toast can cook up this dish on a hot-plate and make it come out incredible.  Trust me.  

YOU'LL NEED:
1 pound of ground turkey
1 can of black beans (rinsed)
1 can of corn
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 big bag of shredded cheese (your choice)
1 big bag of tortilla chips (I prefer flour to corn)

OPTIONAL:
1.  Two avocados, cut up and put in a bowl with some lime juice
2.  Sour cream
3.  Salsa (mild or hot, your choice)

DIRECTIONS:
1.  Cook the ground turkey.  Drain, return to pan, add the taco seasoning and 2/3 cup of water. Mix it all together.
2.  Mix in the corn and black beans.
3.  Add a generous handful of shredded cheese.  (I use a "Mexican blend."  You, use what you got.)
4.  Cover and stick in a 350 degree oven for ten to fifteen minutes to let the cheese melt.
5.  Done!  Bring the whole thing to the table.  Be careful, it's hot!  Use a trivet and pot-holders.

NOTES:

You'd rather use ground beef or ground pork?  Knock yourself out.  In fact it would probably taste better with ground beef.  I just like to limit the amount of red meat I take in, and ground turkey works fine.   

If you don't have a fry pan with a cover that you can stick in the oven, no problem.  Once you get everything all mixed up, just transfer it to a casserole dish, cover with tin foil and pop it in the oven.  (But seriously, go buy a good quality fry pan - a big, oven-safe one with vertical sides and a cover.)

I serve this over broken up tortilla chips (nachos style).  Or you could serve the chips on the side.

After I scoop out a huge mound onto my plate, I'll top it with salsa, sour cream, avocado, if I have that stuff.  (And of course, MORE CHEESE!)  But the dish by itself is awesome.

I like the fact that there's no rice or potatoes in this dish, although you could certainly serve this over rice.  And of course, while you're cooking, you could add cilantro, or chili peppers, or onions, or cut up tomatoes...I mean, the list of things you could add to this dish is endless.  But me, I keep it simple.  The turkey (with taco seasoning), corn and black beans (and cheese!) all by themselves served over tortilla chips is marvelous.

This size of this basic recipe works if you live alone or there are only two of you in the household.  There won't be much left over.  I usually double the recipe.  It will get eaten.

No, this is not high-class, gourmet food.  You won't see Giada De Laurentiis making this dish on her Food Network TV show.  It's about as basic as can be.  But trust me on this... if you're in the mood for some easy, delicious comfort food, it doesn't get much better than this.

Willful Amnesia

I'd like to expand a bit on my post about Slavery just below this one...  

A friend of mine and I were talking about Slavery, especially as it applies to the U.S. here in 2020.  He sent me a link to an interesting article on a website called "The World," which is a part of PRI (Public Radio International). You can read the article HERE. 

The article is about Africa's role in the slave trade, and how it's only recently that Blacks have begun to come to terms with it.  It focuses on the story of one woman, Mona Boyd.  Ms. Boyd and her husband were both successful business people in Boston, Massachusetts before deciding that they did not want to raise their son in the U.S.  So they moved to Ghana. 

Blacks don't like to talk about the role that their own ancestors played in the slave trade.  But for every buyer, there had to be a seller.  And who was selling their own countrymen to the European buyers?  Right, African kings and tribal leaders.  Here's an interesting section of the article:  

“There is a willful amnesia about the roles that we played in the slave trade,” said Nat Amarteifio, a local historian who’s also a former mayor of Accra, Ghana's capital.

Let's be honest, the U.S. didn't invent modern Slavery.  It had been going on for centuries, certainly well before the 1400's when the Portugese arrived in Africa with guns to trade for people.  This was, we might note, also well before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  Now, eventually the British colonies in "the New World" (later, the United States) would become a major participant in the slave trade, for sure.  So it's not like we're completely blame-free.  And we ultimately did abolish Slavery - at great cost. 

The point of all of this is that we need to keep things in perspective.  Attributing the blame for Slavery to the U.S. might make you feel good, but...  Remember who it was who willingly sold their countrymen into Slavery in exchange for guns and things that would help them in their never-ending wars against other tribal leaders.  It's time that somebody stood up and said, "Whoa...wait a minute...there are two sides to every story."

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-20/willful-amnesia-how-africans-forgot-and-remembered-their-role-slave-trade?fbclid=IwAR1lieSw-87upXxJiI_9kdqxm1-UuFmzPHBarNW3o_3qu49RVrwNZbUGXxo

Black Privilege

There are these things called unintended consequences.  It's when you do something, and it has the desired effect.  But then there are..."other" things that happen as well that you did not predict.  Sometimes the unintended consequences are good...sometimes not.

Let's take Slavery.  Bad, right?  No question.  A horrible stage in American history...something for which we should be deeply ashamed but at the same time glad that we rectified a terrible mistake.

But...with Slavery, like with most things, it's not that simple.

First, let us acknowledge that America did not invent Slavery.  It had been going on for centuries and for the purpose of our discussion here, its origin is not important.  But let's also admit that for the concept of Slavery to work, there had to be complicity among the African leaders of the nations which supplied the slaves.  I mean, white Americans didn't simply sail over to Africa, round up a bunch of Black people..."Hey, you wanna go for a little boat ride?  Come on, it'll be fun!"...and ship them off to the States by the millions.  No, it wasn't called the "slave trade" for nothing; slaves were purchased from their original, uhhh, owners.  

So there had to be a certain amount of cooperation by those in charge at the time...meaning: other Black people.  Let's say it out loud: Black people sold each other into Slavery.

Okay, never mind the sordid history.  We all know that Slavery was a grievous mistake.  It was corrected.  And like it or not, the United States has ultimately become one of the richest nations in the world...a democratic republic in which anybody can pursue their dreams and "make something" of themselves....the place where everyone wants to be.  In fact, to be born in America is a huge advantage over being born anywhere else.  You don't see hordes of people risking life and limb, marching down to and jumping over the fence to get into, say, Honduras.

Modern-day Blacks are still angry about Slavery.  But we must ask: Where would they be without it?  Would they be living in Africa somewhere?  Would they even have been born to begin with, and would they have survived?  And if so, why would they even come to America?  (That one's easy: To pursue the American Dream, the equivalent of which did not...and still does not...exist in most of their home countries.)  

The unintended consequence of Slavery is that modern Blacks have a life that is infinitely better than they would have if Slavery had not existed. 

I'd say...and this may sound like perverted logic...but I'd say that Black people here in the U.S. ought to be damn glad for Slavery!  It was that horrid, despicable institution that paved the way for them to be born here in the greatest country on the planet.  One might even go so far as to say that today's Black people have, well, "Black Privilege."  

But don't tell them that!  They're too busy being angry, and telling us what an awful country the U.S. is, and demanding reparations.  Hmm, come to think of it, maybe they really should be demanding those reparations from the descendants of the African kings and tribal leaders that sold their ancestors into Slavery in the first place.

CORONAVIRUS: Jumping The Gun?

With regard to my post just below this one - in the interest of fairness I may want to rethink things.

I posted something similar on my Facebook page about the decreasing number of new cases and deaths here in Florida.  But ultimately took that post down.  I may have spake too soon.  A friend reminded me that the coronavirus testing centers in South Florida were closed for a couple of days to an approaching tropical storm.  So...fewer tests means fewer results, right?  And fewer results means fewer positive on the chart, right?  Right.

Now, given that it usually takes up to a week or more for the average person to receive their test results, I'm not at all confident in the currency of the published data.  In other words, if Florida reports today that there are, say, X-amount of new cases, how recently were those tests administered? 

As the storm trucks off to the north, and the testing resumes in South Florida, it will be interesting to see what happens to the numbers.  I will keep you posted.