I rose and nearly forgot to get a card out to Mom Wild. I rushed a postcard out to the mailbox and made it before the mail was picked up. I had slept late again and did not rise until after 8. I had slept poorly, as the sunrise was bright without clouds, which is not a usual sight in May in the Pacific Northwest (PNW).
Our sunrises should be damp, gray, with green colors seemingly glowing from rain and our limited gray light. Folks can deny climate change all they want, but I am a witness to climate change. For over twenty-five years, I never saw a sunrise in May in the PNW, no, really. Until the last two years, May and June were marked by “Pineapple Express” storms and Oregon mist; every day and every morning were gray. I have never seen the sun so much in May.
With the sun blazing, I started on the blog in my office. I see the hummingbird and other small birds enjoying my plantings while sitting at my desk. It was a short blog as yesterday was not busy; I continue to take it easy after being ill over the weekend. But I am now bored with this, and now I start to get some things done.
First, I purchase a ticket to the HOPE_16 2600 The Hacker Quarterly convention in Queens near NYC. I have always wanted to attend. Deborah was OK with me doing that alone (school starts in August and Deborah will be busy), but the invitation is open for her to hop a plane from Detroit to JFK and join me for a long weekend. I found a Delta flight direct to JFK from Portland for just over $400, and that was not for the cheap seats, done! The hotel, a Fairfield Inn, is a few miles from St. John’s University, which is hosting the convention, and there is a local bus that makes the connection work. I also read that there is a dive bar open until 4 within stumbling distance of the hotel and becoming a thing at HOPE. The hotel, at a stunning $250 a night, is the most expensive part of the trip. HOPE does provide housing in dorms, but I am getting too old for that, and I suspect they do not have AC. I will be in Brooklyn for a week, traveling on Tuesdays starting on 12 August. HOPE is over the weekend.
With the blog done and Tripit.com updated with my August travels, I soon find my way to the shower. Shaved, dressed, and all that, I board Air VW the Gray and head to BJ’s Brewhouse and have my favorite red ale and a California club sandwich with a side of fries. I have tried some other BJ’s Brewhouse locations, and I find this one’s food to be better. The steaks are delicious and perfectly grilled. The prime rib and pork chops (now relegated to only Sundays) are excellent, but a caloric disaster. My sandwich was almost too large. It had the avocado, but also a grilled split chicken breast instead of the usual lunchmeat, just stacked on the sandwich. Only two pieces of excellent toasted bread. The bartender was mostly quiet, and I spent my time on my lapt and enjoyed the solitude of a late lunch. The bartender asked me if I was on my lunch hour (meaning, did she have to rush my check), and that got a smile from me: “No, I am retired.”
Much of my surfing and searching, using my iPhone’s hotspot (I trust no local networks), was related to healthcare. The COBRA coverage runs out in December, and according to my planning, I should start looking for a replacement mid-2025 (or, in other words, now). I am looking at $1,300 a month (I am currently paying about $740 in COBRA) with me finding independent dental and vision coverage for an additional couple of hundred dollars. F**king lot of money. It would be bizarre to return to the workforce solely for coverage, but that is what Corporate America wants, and these prices drive us all to work. Another reason to get Social Security started in 2026 for my 62nd birthday; I will need it to cover the cost to bridge health care until I am 65. Unless Elon and company strip the SSA of workers to prevent the ability to have new claims, “Sorry, but we have a year backlog.” Or Trump and the nutty folks in the Senate refuse to pay the National Debt with the Red hats cheering, only to discover that most of the Debt is owed to the Social Security system, and eliminate SS that way. However, to coin a tired phrase, I suspect cooler heads (and a desire to be re-elected) will prevent most of that.
More to come on that. I paid the bill and returned home. I found on Apple+ that Natalie Portman had done an Indiana Jones or The Librarians style movie for Apple, The Fountain of Youth, and I gave it a try. I felt the pull of a Dan Brown-like rewrite of history and the Hollywood version of exploring taking over. Slicing a bit out of the somehow now intact HMS Lusitania wreck (now sitting upright, in near perfect condition, and with funnels still attached and still showing Cunard Red!), refloating it, and finding a nearly intact staircase hinted back to Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic! book and movie. And then, there are secrets in the Great Pyramid that man is not meant to know, which is actually a theme from H.P. Lovecraft’s ghostwriter stories for Houdini. More on that here. Of course, the young billionaire, who resembles a mix of Elon Musk and Tom Cook, is involved and paying the bill (ala the shipwreck hunters for the late Paul Allen). Without giving spoilers, it was entertaining and amazed me with its adventure telling. I would not recommend it sober, but it was not terrible.
Between the movie (I stopped it for a while and finished it when I got back — no reason to miss anything for this one), I reheated the couscous and baked chicken I had made the day before. It was still good. I still have some couscous sauce left.
Back to playing games at First United Methodist Church near the fountain in Beaverton during choir practice. It was just Z and me for this game, and Z picked a small map for the board game, Concordia. This one is from Salsa, and we had to adjust it as we don’t play with the salt commodity (I don’t find it adds much and often distracts). We play fast and furious, as this is a favorite, and we both know how to play. We include the Forum in the game, and I collect a lucky set of choices that lets me grab personality cards faster. Z claimed that a few mistakes caused a loss of points at the end, but I was running fast to keep up the whole time, and my winning score, over 50 points, was from grabbing the Farmer and Weaver personality cards. I paid high for the Farmer, and then my Forum ability let me get Weaver cheap (turning my Senator into an optional Console card). We looked over The Age of Steam for a future game, and played only a round of Furnace (the base game).
Z had a great time, and it’s always lovely to revisit Concordia. I will review the new complex boards so we can give them a try; the Rome board is quite different. It also reminds me that we need to get a game night going.
The EV got me home without events. The pound cake is all gone. I haven’t stopped by the store to pick up some items to make a cheesecake (for an unbirthday) and an orange-flavored cake. Instead of eating pre-processed sugar food made by some uncaring multinational with suspect ingredients, I make my own. But this evening I had only leftover chocolate in the fridge. Still, it was good, but not helpful when trying to sleep. Cakes and warm Sleepy-time tea are a better choice. Cakes will soon be made!
I went to bed, tried to sleep, and somewhere around 1, I slept until 4. I woke at 5:15 to Deborah’s text (I usually sleep through it — I don’t mind waking for them), and finally surrendered to Thursday at 6.
Thanks for reading!
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