Author: alohawild

The night was sleep and more sleep. I can’t remember a time when I slept so much. I have been having trouble sleeping, and I have been sad. I wake up and feel better. I figure out how the shower works in this hotel room. Why are there so many ways to run a shower in one of those hotel mysteries I have never dared to try to solve? I am content with just getting the shower to work. The water pressure is intense and excellent. I am soon clean, shaved, and assembled for the industrial breakfast. The same eggs and bacon and plenty of coffee get me started. Deborah called me, and it was nice to have her help begin my morning.

I took my bag, computer, and coat to Air VW the Gray and slipped them on the ice. There was no fall. The car was frozen. I decided to delay my start and plug into the ChargePoint charger at the hotel. At these temperatures, the charge takes more than an hour and will get me only 188 miles. I talk to Deborah and listen to my book as I charge.

The EV melts a bit, and I feel good about the hour-long investment. I leave, and snow greets me as I watch the black butte disappear in my mirror. The snow was short-lived, and soon, I was dropping a thousand feet every twenty minutes. The drive is terrific; every turn is another postcard view of the rolling hills with clouds. The fire damage turned some forests into burned sticks and blackened hills. Still, there is now green here and there as the earth reclaims the fire loss.

I also write the blog while I melt. I started it at breakfast and had time to publish it in the car. Interestingly, the EV supplies the network.

The twists and turns require attention, and I do not listen to a book while driving the descent. Shasta Lake is the end of the mountain passes and twists. As with every drive-through, I promise I will come back and try the lake and the caves—maybe this time. I have to get to a nearby Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Sacramento looks lovely, and I swear I have been there for a train connection. The first charging plan is next. The first one fails to work on two tries. A Tesla leaves, and I take its spot. It is only 150, and I take an extra 20 minutes to charge it to 100%. A huge Hummer EV (they make those!) shows up. It takes two places to charge. A petite gal pops out of the giant monster car. It is from Oregon! She plugs it in to charge. Wow, it is big!

My VW showing its love…

After a few hours of driving, it is time to take a charge break. Every station is full! I wait ten minutes, and one comes open, and I connect. The Tesla’s owner told me he was unhappy with his car. It seems like a gadget to him, and like my choice of a VW, it is a more practical car in his mind. Interesting.

I used the nearby Walmart restroom, had another snack in the car, and listened to my book more. Scott recommended it, and it is fantastic: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to A by Yuval Noah Harari. It explains how information and people interact and covers why networks can run without truth. It is fascinating to me. Recommended.

I have enough charge to make it to the hotel, with a remaining 50% charge. Excellent. The last push is hard as I get tired, and the pouring rain is hard at the end. I make it to Visalia, turn onto a five-lane one-way the wrong way, get turned around, and find my hotel.

The room was fine. I parked the car according to instructions and found Rookies, a local bar recommended by the hotel. I had a large beer to celebrate surviving the drive and to remember St. Patrick’s Day. Their Reuben sandwich is enormous and contains freshly cooked corned beef. Excellent.

Thanks for reading. Tomorrow, I’m driving to Long Beach to meet Deborah. It will take just four hours. Air VW the Gray has handled well, and the charging has been good. Forced breaks are not bad.

My morning started with me waking at 4 and then waking late again at 6:45. I meant to be out by 6:30-7, but I managed to get out at 7:30. I got a message about constructions and found myself rerouted through Portland to avoid 217, but I drove that way anyway, and it was fine. The Nav reset, and soon, I was on my way.

The Air VW the Gray Nav included finding and routing to charging stations. Mostly, Electrify America stops, which I have credit for as a new VW driver. These are fast-charge stations, but not as fast as Tesla stations, which I still cannot use (there are after-market devices to breach this, but they are not approved by Tesla or VW). I wait about 45 minutes each time and charge 100%, not the 80% often recommended. The cost is zero, but the amount is about $32 a charge, which, when I translate it into 22 miles to the gallon, is about $3.20 a gallon. This is stiff pricing; remember, the state gas tax is NOT included. This is all going to the corporation that made the charging station, but new infrastructure is never cheap, and there are few government programs to defer this cost. Also, the type of energy production is not visible. I could fill the EV with power for coal-fired plants! The charger is green energy at the house and at a much lower price. It is also a level 2 charger and takes twice as long to charge. Best to use overnight when power use is low in the Pacific Northwest and time is available. Travel pricing is what I am facing, just like buying gas on the turnpikes in the old days. Always the highest price paid on a trip.

Deborah detected that I was sad today. Depression and grief sneak up on me. There is a strange letdown when I finally start something I have planned. I was also more tired than I realized. I got some coffee and food and was better. Just something I will have to watch for.

Weather is my challenge, and the snow and the rain is harsh. My wipers run at full and still have trouble clearing. Passing cars or, when I pass, throw water, blinding you for a moment. The EV slips on some water, but even at high speeds, it handles well. Unlike the Volvo, I must be careful as the steering is tight. My attention is entirely on driving once the passes approach and temperatures fall. I get down to 38F but with clear roads. I have socks as traction devices, but I do not need them. I never feel at risk, but it is an exhausting drive for four hours in the mountains.

Two charging stops, one in Medford, Oregon, put good breaks in my trip. I have some food at each stop. I also take a rest stop at Seven Feathers. The rest stop road is covered with sand and rocks as the mountain streams overflow and cover the streets. Back to driving and get to the other side of the storm!

The storm became less on the other side of the 4,000-foot pass that leads to California. Four inches of snow fell near the road, the roads were clear and wet, and the winds closed Ashland ski lifts, I read later. I nearly run the EV off the road trying to take a picture of the sign to California! Oops!

The rest of the trip is easy, and I arrive in Weed, California, and find my corporate Comfort Inn. I miss the fact that there is a fast charging station there! The desk clerk, Preston, suggests dinner at American-Asian BBQ. I am shocked as the rain and clouds clear, and a perfect image of Black Butte is at the hotel!

It is a hole-in-the-wall place, and I spend $35 for two perfect beef ribs. The best I have ever had. But I would seldom pay that, but it is open, and I am there. I eat it there on a plastic chair and chat with the cook.

Yes, we are in California!

I return to the hotel. I was talking to Deborah on the charging stops and at the hotel. I rest and sleep until 11. A surprise. I take my meds, close my eyes, and do not wake until 4ish. Roll over and start at 6 with my alarm.

Thanks for reading.

I wrote this while charging at the hotel. It was icy, so I decided to let things melt a bit and then travel, which allowed me to get charged.

 

Saturday, I rose at 6:30 and watched the gray become lighter. That is the sunrise in rainy Oregon. The day is less dark. I wrote the blog and made coffee. I had to grind the locally roasted coffee beans and put them in my French press. I had an English muffin with jam (yes, I know how old the jam is; it expired in 2024!). I added a banana while I wrote the blog.

I stripped the bed and ran it in The Machine. I emptied the dishes and hand-washed any new dishes generated from today’s. I also washed any clothing and towels left. I packed and filled my suitcase, remembering to include T-shirts and a few other items I remembered at the last minute.

I cleaned the sinks and the kitchen. I want the house to be clean when I get back. I have already cleaned for the past few days.

Lunch was at BJ’s Brewhouse. Taylor was the bartender today, and she brought me a red ale and soba noodles with chicken, spices, veggies, and almonds. Excellent. I remember Taylor as she was doing all the work last time, and the other bartenders just talked and made a few drinks. She was working non-stop cleaning and getting the bar ready for the evening. Nice to see a clean bar!

The beer went to my head, and I ordered a coffee. It was that or a taxi! Soon, I was fine and headed back home in Air VW, the Gray.

I finished packing and put all my stuff in the car. The night before, I had unloaded most of the board games in the cargo area of the EV. Mail was already held for Monday, and nothing important came today. I have two orders coming that Corwin will put in the house. I have replacement Guy Buffet plates (I use them more often now than I microwave leftovers) on their way from eBay. Interesting used plates can still be found here and on eBay. I thought it would be nice to have a complete set again (I have two chipped plates left). More jars of couscous sauce, North Africa-style, are also coming.

I read more of my collection of Elric stories, including the murder of his love and the sack of the Dreaming City. I am now reading the last story in the book. These stories drive me to write my own story in my created Fantasy setting. I am enjoying just writing short descriptions so far.

After the cleaning, the laundry was put away, and the suitcase and snacks were loaded. I put ice cubes in bags to put in a cooler. Ready. I left early and stopped by Burger King for a Jr with cheese, fries, and a diet drink. Their fries are never good. I keep hoping they will get better.

Ready to start!

I am off to Richard’s in Portland. I eat that while I drive through slow traffic in Beaverton, but Portland moves, and I am soon thirty minutes early. Lauren is feeling off, but she joins us. Kathleen’s bus trip is a few minutes late, but soon Richard is explaining Xia: Legends of a Drift System, an efficiency and worker placement game with elements of 4x and a sci-fi theme.

The rules are a mess—sort of a blending of 4x, train games, and an efficiency game like Concordia. It is hard to know what to do. Richard won the game by ten points. I am not sure what I did wrong or what Richard did right. Kathleen and Lauren were a few points behind me.

It was an interesting game, and replaying it would provide many ways to win or at least get a different outcome. It looks like Richard just ran cargos with extra engines, realizing that you get a victory point when you sell all your cargo. So he bounced all over.

While not a favorite, Xia was an interesting challenge wth options to be the bad guy we did not try out. I would like to play it again.

Next, I got Kathleen home. The wet roads were nasty, and some closed lanes slowed my return. I was finally home before 11 and quickly went to bed. In the morning, I was driving to the Mount Shasta area in California.

Thanks for reading.

I rose late and started around 8. I had a few plans, but time is running out, and I am headed to California, Mount Shasta, on Sunday. Today, I planned to shop and clean for the trip. I started on the blog and started to pack; laundry was in The Machine, and dishes were stacked in the dishwasher. I like to return to a clean and ordered house.

Without finishing the blog, I headed out in Air VW the Gray and soon picked up my Rick Steves’ Iceland travel book at Barnes and Noble. I also received a new tote bag and a discount as a club member. I had checked Powell’s website, and only the local Barnes and Noble had the book in the area. Next, I stopped at Trader Joe’s and got snacks, water, and other items (I needed TP and toothpaste for the house). I added instant coffee to my collection. Next, the EV wandered to Whole Foods, and I picked up a few more items, including some bread, smoked meats, and cheese. These items will be in my small cooler with ice on the trip. I am unsure if I want to stop for lunch anywhere on the trip. Instead, I may be at a charger, reading and eating my snacks. The newest Analog Magazine is in the driver’s door of the VW.

I ordered a sandwich made at Whole Foods. I have just one bag of items. The gal behind me was buying four dozen eggs. I guess the prices are better now. I had everything in Air VW, the Gray stacked on the board games still in the cargo hold. I got this and my sandwich with a terrible cherry carbonated drink in the house. I spilled my drink on the stove, but I did not think it was a great loss and cleaned the mess.

I got out the ingredients for a pumpkin pie and assembled the pie. It is March 14th, Pi Day, and one has to celebrate.

Pi Python for you coding nerds:

#!/usr/bin/env python

“””

    Copyright 2017 by Michael Wild (alohawild)

    

    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”);

    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

    You may obtain a copy of the License at

        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

        

    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software

    distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS,

    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

    limitations under the License.

============================================================================================================

This is a pi calculation process using Monte Carlo or simple random process.

Imagine a circle in a box. The edges just touch the box. Lets make it a circle of radius 1.

Thus any point on or within the cirlce are 1 unit or less from the center.

It should be possible to randomly select points in the box and determine if the point is in the circle or not.

The ratio of points in the box over the number of randomly selected should be 1/4*Pi

“””

__author__ = ‘michaelwild’

import os

import sys

#import numpy as np

import math

import random

from time import process_time

def howFar(x,y):

    

    distance = (x ** 2) + (y ** 2)

    return (distance)**(1/2.0)

def runtime(start):

    return process_time() – start

piGuess = 0.0

piLoop = 10000000

inCircle = 0

begin_time = process_time()

for i in range(1, piLoop):

    #x = (np.random.uniform()* 2) -1

    #y = (np.random.uniform() * 2) -1

    x = (random.random()* 2) -1

    y = (random.random() * 2) -1

    if (howFar(x,y)<1.0) :

        inCircle = inCircle + 1

piGuess = 4.0* inCircle / piLoop

piError = math.pi – piGuess

print((piGuess))

finish = runtime(begin_time)

print(“Run time:”, finish)

I spotted a tiny spider in my empty sugar bowl. I carefully carried the carnival glass, an early 190os antique, outside so the spider could find its way elsewhere. Corwin, who stopped by to get his mail and was surprised I was still here (I leave on Sunday, not Friday), commented that the spider was in uranium glass and I missed out on my chance to be bitten by a radiation-exposed spider. Like in the Big Bang Theory, “He is one lab accident from a super villain” has also been used to describe me. Corwin enjoyed some pie for Pi Day.

With no spider updates for me, Deborah and I work together, moving to Zoom, to book a trip to Iceland in July. It took two tries on Delta’s website to lock in a trip to Iceland from Detroit (the first time failed with unknown errors). We have flights with seats, hotel, and three-day trips set now. We have a few days open for a week in Iceland (six nights). We wanted to lock it in as we saw hotels selling out. The sun barely sets in Iceland in July!

Thu 10-Jul-25
Reykjavik, Iceland (KEF) – 8:00 am – Golden Circle & Sky Lagoon
Fri 11-Jul-25
Reykjavik, Iceland (KEF) – 1:00 pm – Whale Watching Tour
Sun 13-Jul-25
Reykjavik, Iceland (KEF) – 8:00 am – S Coast & Glacier Lagoon
Sun 13-Jul-25

Deborah and I chatted on Zoom for a while. It was soon late in Michigan, and we ended our Zoom travel planning meeting. We will see each other in California on Tuesday.

Dinner so far has been pie, but I finished the pasta and sausage, washed the dishes, and stacked some to run in the dishwasher. I finished the laundry I could do. I cleaned the toilets. I vacuumed the carpet (I did not move the furniture). I moved more items into my travel bag and into the luggage in the guest bedroom where I am packing.

This was a free evening; if I wanted to see the Marvel movie in theaters, I needed to go today. I called Jack, but he was tired, so I left him alone at the last minute. I got popcorn and a drink and watched the movie. It was excellent: CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD (2025). I enjoyed the mix of jokes and seriousness. I laughed often and enjoyed even the couple of speeches. Recommended.

I returned home late, nearing midnight, and soon fell asleep, but it was still tough dreams. It was now forgotten; it woke me at 1ish. Sleep is still elusive. I proved hydration and managed to find sleep again and dream forgotten dreams.

Thanks for reading!

Sleep is still hard to come by, and when my alarm went off at 7, I turned it off and rolled over. When I rose, it was about 8. I found the kitchen; it had not moved, but putting on my slippers and locating the kitchen was non-trivial this time. “Yes, it is down here somewhere!” I do not have stairs. Hmmm.

Once I found the kitchen, I poured the locally roasted coffee beans into the grinder, with a few that had to be rallied when they fell to the stove and not the grinder. That and hot water in my French press made coffee. I am over grinding to dust, but it feels good after reading the headlines, a liberal doom scroll, and grinding something to dust: “DOGE this!”

I returned to my Apple laptop, a maxed-out 15″ M2 Airbook 2023 ($2,500 in 2023, now about $1,800 for about the same with more cores), and started writing the blog. I was surprised when Jeff appeared at 9 to finish the work, and I was still in my PJs. He painted the door, redid the broken tile grout, fixed the toilet, and blocked the bird access into the attics (the garage and house). We’ll do the deck sealing and cut down some scrub trees that are now large enough to lean against the fence in the summer. We settled the bill, and Jeff was off until the summer.

While this was ongoing, I realized late that I had lunch with Scott, quickly showered and dressed, skipping a shave, and headed to Cedar Hills McMenamins after boarding Air VW with the Gray fully charged. Scott later pointed out that I had left the charging flap open, which I have done a few times. I will try to be more conscious of closing it! I was fifteen minutes late.

Scott and I had a nice lunch, and I went for a burger. We talked about money, dealing with parents, and their issues. We talked about some of our friends at Nike with whom Scott had lunch. It was all good. We both agreed that Wall Street was crazy, and we could not do anything but surf the chaos. Scott and I are in more conservative positions and will follow a less risky direction.

I returned home, completed the blog, said goodbye to Jeff, and put out the trash containers to be emptied on Friday morning. I was happy that I remembered it was Thursday; this week has been rushing by. I sent a note to the mail carrier to hold the mail for two weeks starting Monday; I just write a memo instead of using the yellow card as this seems to work better. I reassembled the vacuum, and now it is clean and dry. But instead of cleaning and grocery buying, I spent the afternoon with Deborah on travel planning.

We both are comfortable planning trips, which became a contest between Iceland Air and Delta for the cheapest flight. Deborah found it was more affordable, by a lot, to fly me to Detroit on a direct flight than to fly from Portland to Iceland. How strange. We also ran Iceland Air and Delta vacation offerings and found that Delta was $500+ cheaper and is, sadly, better rated than Iceland Air (I had hoped it was something worth doing, nope). Deborah had to listen to me mispronouncing Reykjavík. We plan on a visit to Reykjavík and day trips there. We will pass on driving our own car. Dear reader, expect us in Iceland in July around 8-17. I will likely be in Michigan on the 9th and return to Oregon on the 20th.

Deborah rang off, and I headed back to Cedar Mills McMenamins. I was early for our room for ten and the Theology Pub monthly meeting at 7. We had fifteen, including one remote person in Utah. I had a pizza I shared, shared some of Dondrea’s humus plate, and a Sazerac to drink, remembering New Orleans (NOLA) and ignoring Lent. I was thinking of those NOLA vampires now on the other side of the tourist season until summer.

Lent was the topic, and we talked about how even folks are returning to the practice of denial and self-reflection as a means to find peace. This is not a Christian practice but a universal human practice. There is something good about stopping, looking at the sky, nature, or even a light, and losing oneself for a while. We agreed that one needs self-reflection and denial to become more centered, but the quiet time was inherently good. Others called out, as a Christian practice, to remember God and Jesus and their place in your life as you reflect. We also said God’s grace was found in Lent, denial, and self-reflection.

Most of us are liberal, and we felt we needed a break from the current noise. We pray that the world will be granted some of God’s grace.

After this, the three wise guys (including myself) helped Z with her algebra, doing an ugly problem that resembled 25¹°¯²ª = 5³¯ª; find a. Ugh! It took us a while to remember the rules of this math (order operation and process for exponent algebra), and then we did the problem twice, got a better result on the second try, and got it right. It was an extra forty minutes after Pub, but we got it. Z was happy and understood what we did to solve it (hint: 25 is 5²). I was sorry, but I got it mixed up the first time, and Michael R got that fixed on the second try. Dondrea said Z was happy with the results. Watching us struggle to remember made her day; it is not just her.

With the math problem solved (correctly) and Z understanding the magic used (same base for exponents) to solve it, we said goodbye with some hugs, as I am away for a few weeks. I was reading when Dondrea texted me that the lunar eclipse had started. The clouds had parted, and we could see it begin.

I went outside with a coat and binoculars for star events and whale watching. With these, I could see the rings of Saturn and the planets around Jupiter. My neighbors came out, and we shared the binoculars. Just as the moon reached totality, it disappeared in the clouds. Later, I returned and saw the blood moon.

Sleep was hard to come by, and nightmares, now forgotten, woke me, and morning came too soon, again.

Thanks for reading!