Cold Turkey

                                                               A sad..., sad message

 No…, not by choice.  An early morning lightening storm over a week ago Wednesday (8/10/22) caused a loss of CenturyLink phone and internet service here on The Ranch.  I am still not sure how big an area was effected…, with no phone or internet access we couldn’t determine if it was just our place or if there was a bigger problem. On a trip to town for mail and groceries I asked a convenience store clerk, grocery store clerk, post office clerk, public utility district clerk, and hardware store clerk if they knew anything about the CenturyLink outage…, to no avail.  That evening Julie had her daughter use her cell phone to call the CenturyLink toll free number and we found out via automated response, that there was “an outage in our area” and it was estimated that it would be repaired by the following morning.

No big problem…, we thought.  But by Friday afternoon we still had no phone or internet access.  I generaIly spend a few hours on the internet every morning with my coffee…, checking the weather forecast, stock market, oil price, Google News, email, several blogs that I follow…, and of course…, Facebook.  I really did not want to miss my Friday Nite Video song posting on Facebook.  I do it regularly because I don’t post much or share much during the week.  So…, I went to town to the local library and asked to use a computer.  I showed them my 20+ year old card…, that I was actually surprised that I still had in my old wallet.  On the CenturyLink website I was only able to get the “canned” response of…, “sorry, there is an outage in your area” and the estimated repair date was…, you guessed it…, “tomorrow morning”.  I wanted to communicate with someone in person so I could find out how large an outage and just what the problem was.  Yeah…, right.

I really didn’t expect the problem to be resolved over the weekend…, but nothing Monday…, or Tuesday.  I began to wonder if maybe the big problem was now solved…, and maybe we had a personal issue.  One lightening strike was particularly close and lit the place right up.  I was afraid that it had fried my computers…, but the power surge just shut them down.  It did knock out the phone and internet service though.  I was missing the internet…, but my biggest worry was the phone.  A month or so ago Julie’s doctor called a couple days after an appointment and said the the lab report on her blood work had come back…, and she should get down to the hospital emergency room right away.  It proved to be unnecessary…, but something like that or a family emergency could occur.  So we went to town to our friends house and Julie’s friend said that she had called five or six times and left messages and was beginning to worry when Julie had not returned any of the calls.  I got on their computer and got the “canned” response again…, “sorry, there is an outage in your area” and the estimated repair date was…, you guessed it…, “tomorrow morning”.  There was a link for…, “if you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain further”.  Of course I hit the link and got a little testy with the verbiage I used.  I got a little automated “canned” response that I didn’t care for…, so I submitted another even more testy “complaint”.  

Blue Mountain Improved

Blue Mountain Rock Festival - Moscow, ID - 1974

A Pirate Looks at 70 !!!

 Well…, I graduated High School in 1970…, and now some 50 plus a couple of years later…, I am turning 70 on my birthday.  Yeah…, I figured that I should retire at 70 to secure the top level of Social Security dividends.  A few hundred extra dollars a month may not seem like much…, unless you need it…, for food or meds or beer.  But as important as that stipend was…, the fact that Julie and her health problems would be 65 years old and Medicare eligible just a couple of weeks after I turned 70 were a major financial consideration.  I planned to keep the job and the medical coverage it provided until then.  But our WA state governor decided that it was within his authority to mandate experimental “vaccinations” for COVID-19 for state employees by October of 2021…, or termination.  It cost us over a thousand dollars a month to keep the medical coverage in effect and a few hundred a month off SS retirement and probably less than a few hundred in reduced WA state retirement benefits from the early retirement.  And that isn’t all…, unused annual leave is paid at full rate…, and I could have garnered close to three or four thousand extra dollars for six or seven more months on the job in addition to the decent salary during that time period.  Sick Leave was only reimbursed at 25%…, it would have added a few hundred dollars to the stash that already measured nearly 15K.  Yeah…, I didn’t abuse…, or even use much sick leave over just short of 25 years…, little things add up.  It was put into an untaxed medical account that we have been using to pay the extra medical insurance premiums that the “early” retirement has cost us…, and there will be a little left over now that Julie will be Medicare covered in less than a month.

Yeah…, refusing to bend over and take the jabs cost Julie and I a pretty penny…, but I am feeling better about it every day.  If you voluntarily took the jabs…, and now the "boosters"..., or if you were forced to…, I recommend that you don’t read a certain book by a well known deceased political figure’s son.  It scares me for all of you…, but I want to make clear that I hope with all sincerity that he is as wrong as the main stream media and the powers that be who are shielding you from his investigation by censoring coverage of the book and labeling it “misinformation” and "propaganda"…, even though it is meticulously footnoted for authentication.

Back in 2017 I signed off on my birthday blog post…, “Now…, let’s all hang on…, and I do mean hang on tight…, and do our very best to enjoy our remaining rides around the sun.”  And three years later I started my birthday blog with…, “Well..., you can’t say I didn’t warn you to hold on tight three years ago..., when I last updated The Blog.”  I commented on the medical healthcare system, climate change, The Chump…, and COVID-19.  I said, “Yeah..., take some common sense precautions if you are healthy..., and more precaution if you are at risk..., but I don’t believe that there is reason to panic or carry things too far.  The thinking that we can keep this lockdown and mask up routine going  until they find a vaccine is pie in the sky hopium.  We have never found a vaccine for the common cold virus and we won’t find a miracle cure for this one.”  I’ll stand by that statement…, but I ended the piece with this warning…, “Oh..., and don’t forget to hang on tight..., this ride is going to be one to remember.” 

I was more worried about the world financial situation and the “growth at any cost” neoliberal capitalistic push…, and it appears very near now.  In the 2017 piece I said, “And the military industrial complex…, or as I refer to it…, the Bomb and Bullet Builders, are about the only economic engine still firing these days.  I have always contended that the Wee Bush drug us into the Iraq War with lies about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds on the horizon in order to ‘get the economy going.’”  Still true today…, we poked the bear with a shape stick for so long he had finally had enough and no choice but to turn around and confront the stick.  We don’t care…, we will just supply our surrogate with more sticks and we won’t have to wield them ourselves…, but our “defense industry” will reap the profits.  Not to worry…, the folks screaming nuclear war don’t have a clue.  The “shot callers” are only in it for the money…, and nukes would end that game.  Yeah..., I have been making fun of the big bad bear stories since 2016…, but we have finally managed to to poke him to the point we think we can blame him for the consequences…, and it is sad that so many have bought that line.

Well…, I guess your take away on this birthday post could be…, OH MY GOSH…, things are still getting worse…, climate change, medical coverage, COVID-19, war games and financial manipulation…, or you can say that none of those things have killed us yet so I am just a screaming Karen and pay no attention to me when I say again…, “Hang On…, Hang On Tight”.  

Yeah…, these ’20’s have not been kind to us personally…, a house fire in the middle of winter in 2020…, lost an unforgettable partner in late 2020…, lost my only brother in late 2021…, and now a forced early retirement in 2021.  But we are hanging in there and are as happy as we can be and looking forward to better times ahead here on The Ranch…, and wishing you all the same…, better times that is.