For us it’s a pleasant, although hot, Saturday morning. Our go-to television weather guy is promoting a ‘Heat Advisory’ – all done up in a lovely, pinkish colored map.

It did make me realize just how much we are influenced by color and how it can change our perception of things.

Europe is having a hot spell and I came across these two maps of Western Europe. The first is from 2017, the second 2022. Temperatures are much alike. However, the 2017 map displayed in a standard green background. The 2022 is filled with yellow, pink, and flaming red colors. Are your reactions different looking at one and the other? And the reason is?

I am detecting that the hype surrounding Covid is quickly fading. As replacement, a even more disastrous, ‘the-world-is-ending’ event seems to be the push on Global Warming or the even more encompassing; Climate Change. Could that new hype play into seeing more colorful weather maps on our TVs?

Morning coffee trivia: Unlike Europe, in the US when a restaurant’s wait staff comes by with an orange-handled coffee pot it means ‘Decaf’ (coffee with reduced caffeine). Correct, no? So what exactly is caffeine?
Answer: Caffeine is the coffee plant’s natural defense against bugs. And apparently it also affects many of us – but not everyone to the same degree.

More and more like a Greyhound Bus: Yesterday I watched one of Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets being launched from their Vandenberg Space Force Base on the West coast. This was the 32nd launch this year and many of these launches were on their reusable rockets. With this launch they have placed nearly 3,000 Starlink communications satellites in orbit.

I am enough of a kid at heart to stop what I am doing and take time to chant with control people; “ten – nine – eight – seven ……”

If you haven’t seen a launch from Vandenberg watch this 40-second video which I captured from yesterday’s launch – it’s a totally different looking launch venue.

The Corner of Chaos & Mayhem is so exciting! Last Sunday we had a demonstration of how anyone can ‘blow’ many thousands of dollars in mere seconds, just by driving crazy!

The driver careened through one of our all-corner Stop signs and then mid-way through the intersection opted to make a hard right-hand turn. Actually this is all probably conjecture since I didn’t see it happen; however the end result is totally accurate.

Anyway, the net outcome was parking his car on top of a section of a three story power pole which resided adjacent to our condo bedroom (after snapping it cleanly in not one, but TWO places). Of course the airbag went off, and the vehicle is now valued at whatever electronic chips can be salvaged.

Here is a photographic run-down of the event. Luckily we kept power until the energy company turned it off as a new pole was placed. A crew of about ten along with four cherry-pickers and a pickup truck worked throughout the night to replace the pole, replace two transformers, rehang three tiers of power and electronics cabling, one street light, and then restore our power. And they did just that! Amazing efficiency!

Tuesday morning our internet was restored by our Internet service provider laying a temporary line alongside the sidewalk – extension cord style / third world look.

”You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” ~ Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome

Marcus Aurelius – A few weeks ago I opened the curtain and displayed my summer reading list for my Canadian stay starting next month. On top of that list is a book called “Meditations” written by Marcus Aurelius, an early Emperor of Rome (161AD – 180AD). He was a Stoic and one of the greats in Roman (and human) history.

What I have been doing is look up ‘stuff’ about the man from a number of different sources to gain a better insight prior to reading his material. Along the way I ended up watching a short interview from “The Joe Rogan Experience”. Rogan has a sit down with Ryan Holiday of Daily Stoic and it is something you will enjoy. Please take the time!

Fini –

• Dinah is on her way for a week with her cousin in San Diego, California. It’ll be a week of Rowing Camp and a mega-ton of fun and good times!

• Heading for Canada shortly I came across this piece mentioning that Canada’s Environment minister had to cancel an across Canada climate train tour after he realized that several big cities are not served and several other only once or twice a week. Whoops!

• “If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery.” Bill Maher

• Dr. Eli David; “97% of scientists agree with whoever is funding them. The other 3% are banned from social networks.”

• June 29, 1989 newspaper headline; “U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming is Not Checked”

• The oldest door in Great Britain made from the timber of the original Anglo-Saxon abbey making it around 1,000 years old.

• Russell Brand; “It’s a scam…The objective is not to get the (Dutch) farmers to behave in an organic, responsible, ecologically apposite manner. Far from it. It’s in order to bankrupt the farmers so that their land can be grabbed.”

• Do you find it not interesting that Biden’s DOJ will not prosecute the Steve Colbert crew for committing the same ‘crime’ Trump supporters were tossed into solitary confinement and bankruptcy while being labeled as terrorists? No, that can’t be, there is only one legal standard.

• Well lookie here what I got in the mail. Snail mailed at 57-cents postage. Two weeks of travel into the city to be present from 8:30 – 4:00, park, eat, and do so for $6.00 per day. And for me to request an exemption it’s my stamp because the internet hasn’t yet reached our courthouse. What a lovely system for the year 2022. The idea of Jury Duty is great, the implementation here sucks.

Ciao. Daylight has arrived and it’s a new day; stay strong, stay involved, and stay happy. Keep on storming the castle. Pray for Peace.

Dirk