Random Access Memories

For decades now I’ve been trying to fill the social hole in my existence. I’ve spent years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars on trying to do things or plan things that I think people might join me in.

And every single one of them has been a complete failure.

Winners never quit, quitters never win, but those that never win and never quit are just stupid.

So, 30-40 years ago in Arizona they stocked arctic grayling in Bear Canyon Lake. But they lost their source of stock fry to grow grayling to stock. They also said that supposedly grayling do not spawn in that lake. The last stocking was sometime in the 90’s.

So someone explain to me how I caught this arctic grayling today at Bear Canyon Lake. 🙂

UPDATE: So I got a response from Game & Fish. Not as rare as I thought, but now we know. Grayling are back in Bear Canyon! 😀

“We have been stocking fingerling grayling in Bear Canyon Lake in May of each year since 2020. You are correct, prior to 2020 we had not stocked them for a long time, but our employees at our Canyon Creek Hatchery have gotten really good at raising grayling from eggs and we now have more fish available than in the past so Department staff figured that stocking those fish into Bear Canyon Lake would provide a very fun experience for anglers fishing the lake.” – RYAN FOLLMUTH | REGION I AQUATIC WILDLIFE PROGRAM MANAGER | ARIZONA GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT

I realized the best way to stop procrastinating is to remove all obligations and responsibilities from your life.
If you don’t have time-based goals you need to achieve in the first place you cannot put them off.
It’s our society that is broken, not us. But people are more than happy to try and sell you something to shoehorn humans into a system they were never intended for. There isn’t much money to be made in disrupting that broken system.

I finished a wooden spoon today.

I coated it in walnut oil. It doesn’t seem to still be oily, but we shall see.

I think it’s spruce, not certain of that. I’m going back to where I cut the wood for this so I’ll have to figure out what kind of tree it was.

I’m going to pick up some lumber in Payson when I visit this week, hopefully I can get a small workbench made that I can disassemble and travel with.

Itching to get someplace nearer to water. I will probably head out Monday or Tuesday and do a little kayaking at one of the lakes that is easier to get to.

Things are alright here, just kind of boring.

https://betriton.com/

Starlink has been working well so far. So long as it has a clear view of the northern sky. Which is kind of funny since the solar needs a clear view of the southern sky. I guess the perfect place to camp out is in the middle of Kansas. LOL

“Nobody will believe you because you’re a man.”, “Be a man Johnny.” This sure doesn’t seem like an abusive man to me.

I guess I’ll be posting more here since Facebook doesn’t like dark humor. It’s not really like Facebook is more than sharing things with people who are already your friends anyway.

You could also say it’s not exactly the best idea to cut somebody off from contact with others when they’re posting something about suicide.

Decided to stay at Chevelon Canyon Lake for another week. Then I’ll head back to Payson and pick up a few things before going to Bear Canyon Lake.

Still recovering from the nasty trip down to Chevelon and back. It’s really quiet here, the place is still totally empty.

The road from Chevelon Lake campground down to the actual lake isn’t a road at all. It’s a moonscape of broken rock.

I made the horrible mistake of trying to take an inflatable kayak down to the lake and back in a wagon. It was grueling. Not a single bite all day either.

That was yesterday, today has been spent trying to recover. Tomorrow will probably be worse, then I’ll start feeling better.

Well, it’s been a long day. Started the morning up near the Tonto Creek hatchery. Went into Payson and did some laundry. Then got all my shopping done, picked up my mail, and drove all the way out to Chevelong Canyon Lake.

I have a total of four additional fishing poles now. One I got at Goodwill for $5, but I need to print a part to fix it.

The road to the lake was horrific. At one point I seriously wondered if I would be able to make it, but it turned out okay. I ain’t going back for two weeks unless some disaster comes up.

One of my Sawyer water bags sprang a leak, so I have to dry out my rug. Not thrilled about that. Need to order a better bag. Perhaps I can fix the existing one for now with the patch kit for my inflatable kayak.

Need to dig out my Otzi grill and try it out tomorrow. Along with getting the kayak to the lake for the first time.

Time to get some sleep.

Well, ordering more fishing poles. I broke two poles in two days. Not exactly terrific, lol.

The Rim Road is open! Finally, I can head futher north away from the heat. Not that it’s been hot so far, but i’m no longer limited in where I can go vs where I want to. I’m debating if I should wait or go up towads Chevelon Canyon Lake now. Decisions, decisions. I’ve got a decent spot here for internet, but it’s not really a campsite. I’ll have to ponder this more tomorrow, time for sleep right now.

I got a new container for my starlink today. The cardboard box that came in was getting pretty beat up.

So I headed towards Bear Flats today and found a nice little pulloff spot. Not near any water, but level and quiet. Plus it’s lower in elevation so the coming cold should be milder.

Shortly after I arrived a truck with an older couple pulled in past me, and got out to pickup trash. They stayed about ten minutes and then drove back out. As they were going past me they stopped and the woman got out.

She walked right up to me and said, “Beautiful isn’t it. You’re going to clean up after yourself, right?” Now i’m not a litterbug and I didn’t have a mess there. She wasn’t working for the forest service, and her tone seemed shockingly condescending. You know, like a mother talking to a child. I replied, “Hello to you too. No, I figured I would leave the place a disaster and try to burn down the forest.” She answered, “You say that, but you won’t, right?” Yeah, I was feeling confronted here, without cause. I replied, “I really don’t appreciate the guilt trip. It sounds like you have an axe you’re grinding, so even if I say I will clean up after myself you probably won’t believe me anyway. Please leave.” She thought a second then turned around and went back to the truck. When she got in I heard her say to her partner, “He just wants to be an asshole.” **sigh**

Slow day today. Cleaning up the van and trying to figure out what more to get rid of.

The rim road is still closed, and it’s supposed to get cold by midweek. I’ve got two packages waiting in Payson so I’ll head back when it gets colder.

I’ve been fighting my Starlink today. When I swap it over to my custom hardware it barely works at all. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. People online keep shoving me back to stupid things that I know are not the problem.

I guess for now I’m stuck using the original hardware that came with the starlink. Oh well, I guess things could be worse. I headed up past the Christian camp and got a much better view of the sky to the north than I had back down by the upper campground. I’m not near the stream here, but I can walk, heh.

I caught and ate two trout today. I’m not sure if they’ve stocked Tonto Creek yet this week, probably not.

I got the POE adapter today. Which is required to power my Starlink dish directly from 12v. I also got the waterproof Ethernet couplers. The rest of the parts came in up in Payson, i’ll be picking them up tomorrow.

Can’t say i’m going to miss Phoenix. It was 95f here today, 11f above normal. I’ve had enough heat for multiple lifetimes. Time to go north and find cooler places.

So the part I ordered to convert Starlink to run on DC POE power should have been here Today. Instead UPS lost it and it will be here Wednesday. **facepalm** Sigh…

I guess it could be worse, at least I have internet. 😀

My Starlink dish arrived today. I’m thrilled with it. Setup was so simple. Plug it in, connect, and that’s it.

Now i’m waiting on some parts to convert the dish to work better in my van. Which is a tad scary, but should work just fine.

I realized today I’ve had a drone for over a year and never flown it. I keep waiting for, “the right time”, which really translates to, “never”. I will charge it’s batteries today and update the software, hopefully that will get me more willing to use it.

Fighting with Renogy support today to get them to fix their damn app.

It’s been pouring today in Payson so I’m just hanging out and handling some tech crap I’ve been putting off.

I bought a dozen eating spoons from the local thrift store today. I’m going to get out the grinder when it warms up and make fishing spoons out of them. Need to look into what flashy paints I can apply to bare metal.

I just found out my Starlink will ship today! I should have it by March 31st. So happy! 😀

Updating electronics and charging things. Shopping day too I guess. Apples, bananas, and oranges, oh my!

Trying to find the emotional excess to work on my novel again. :S

People just can’t find Horton Creek. In the 14 days or so I have been here off and on I have helped over 10 different groups of people find where the Horton Creek trail was. Some of which were even in the Horton Creek trail parking lot.

For some odd reason the forest service does not want to mark where the trail is. Which makes it difficult because the trail is actually across a bridge and across the road from its own parking lot. There are no signs pointing you the way from the parking lot. Only a top down sign that shows the general area.

The reason the parking lot is not closer is because it used to be a picnic area, but they have apparently torn out the barbecues and tables associated with it. When Horton Creek became popular in the ’90s as a hiking trail and fishing destination they repurposed the parking lot.

Part of me is sad about all of this, before the 90s when the pace and paper published the story about Horton Creek there was almost nobody up there. There were hikers in abundance after that. I had pretty much free run of the stream before that point. Then somewhere around 2014 game and fish made the stream catch and release only, and artificial lure and fly only. Which I suppose is a good thing because there are a few populations of wild trout in Arizona, but I say that grudgingly. I fondly recall the days of being able to eat some very delicious wild trout from that stream.

I guess partly I don’t like sport fishing. Sport fishing to me feels too much like a cat playing with its food instead of eating it. If I’m not going to eat it, I don’t usually fish for it. The exception would be when you’re engaging in population control, or removing invasive species. For example someone illegally stocked bass, sunfish, and catfish on the rim lakes in Arizona. Before that they only had trout in them. At this point game and fish has set no limit on those species because they want to get rid of them. And Washington State they also had a price on the head of Northern Pike, which are another illegally stocked invasive species. Money is a great way to get people to do something.

I’ve often wondered who did the illegal stocking of the Arizona Rim lakes. Because whoever it is they’ve done it over quite some time now. Back in the 90s I remember the first instance of this where they were bass in Willow springs Lake, it was inevitable that those bass would flow down stream to Chevelon Canyon Lake. However the illegal stockings were also later done in Woods Canyon Lake, Knoll Lake, and Bear Canyon Lake. Which do not share any breedable waterways with Willow springs Lake.

It seems at this point it would be a good idea to do a total fish kill on these lakes and restore only Gila trout and Apache trout to them, which are the two native species in the area. Especially to Bear Canyon Lake, This lake is rather remote by comparison to the others, and it’s water shed is much more secluded.

I did head back into Payson. Hanging out at Walmart. I will go check my mailbox in the morning and decide the next step from there.

Side note, wordpress does not like emojis, lol

Went down to the streams this morning. Moved one more trout to the top of the little creek, caught another one worth keeping from Tonto. Debating walking down again this afternoon.

Feeding a squirrel by the van, he looks delicious.

Debating when to go back into town. Not having internet sucks. So many basic pieces of information online that we rely on now. Weather, road closures, basic communication, etc.

Went back down to Tonto, not a damn thing.

Caught one fish this morning. A brown trout that I moved to the top hole of the little stream. Nothing else so far. I didn’t see the other two I moved up there. Hopefully they are still there and didn’t die.

I found out that my spare phone still has an old version of the Renogy app. This older version will allow me to check the solar batteries and charger without logging in on the internet. I’m not thrilled that I have to use it, but it’s better than nothing by far.

I still fucking ache today. Not sure if I’m just beating up my body worse or actually getting in shape.

I have some fishing line coming in tomorrow. Several of my reels need a refresh, and no place nearby was selling good braided line. I tried some flourocarbon line, but it has horrific line memory. Never gotten such bad backlash on a spinning reel. Good for casting heavy lures, but shit for my usual ultralight fishing.

I’m thinking I might take some of the old existing line I have and splice 100′ of the new lighter line on top of it. The new stuff has a tiny diameter, and it seems a waste to load an entire spool with it.

Stayed in town and downloaded some media with the intent of going back off-network up Tonto Creek.

Had some annoying trouble with my Renogy solar app. It requires that I log in to do anything. Which is far less than helpful if you don’t have internet access. They just want to sell more shit to you, which should be a secondary use of the app which tells you everything about your solar array. Complained, but I don’t think it’s going to do any good.

Got up to the creek in the afternoon. And found a big mess of garbage in the camping area that the families were using last week. I didn’t want it we believe it was the people that I gave the radios and fishing tips too. But as I was cleaning up the trash I found one of the radios. Can’t say I’m thrilled, they seemed a lot nicer than that. Eventually I cleaned up about 30 lb of trash they’d left behind.

I got to work on the leveling boards I wanted to make for the van. I had a short 2×8 from my father that I had cut in half already, and I bought an 8-ft 2×8 to complete them. I started with a nice angled cut through both boards at the same time, only to find that I had gone far as you and my cutting. I had to recut all four slopes.

Eventually I got them put together and some waterproofing on them. They are enough to raise my rig up 3 in. I need to cut the additional pieces I have a little smaller and then I’ll be able to get the rig up four and a half inches. Combine with a small shovel that should be able to level me just about anywhere.

The refrigerator can work normally up to 5° off level. At the moment I’m off 1 and 1/2° front to back and point 3° side to side. I think that’s good enough.

I’m getting tired of this beat up body. I feel like crap. I don’t know if it’s just getting old, just being horribly out of shape, or both.

It’s only supposed to get down to 37 degrees at Kohl’s ranch tonight. With the new electric heating blanket and can easily handle that. Supposed to be warmer than that the rest of the week. Thankfully the daytime highs aren’t supposed to get above 70f.

Pretty uneventful day. I picked up Mink Oil, a couple more organizing buckets, and a new 12v heating blanket. Trying to refrain from buying more fishing gear.

I think I will head back to Tonto Creek tomorrow after one of my packages arrives.

I ordered Starlink. Hopefully it should give me internet and their most remote places. The geofence on the device was recently removed and roaming has been enabled. It’s not global yet, but it should give me access everywhere in the United States. I am already looking at how to hack the device to make it run off of low voltage only.

Strangely difficult to find a butterfly net these days.

Went to check the temperature my radiator could handle, and found that my radiator was a whole gallon low on fluid. Thankfully nothing blew up.

I biked to Kohl’s Ranch and back. Boy do my legs hate me.

I got online there and ordered a new heating blanket since my old one died, along with thermal underwear and mink oil. It’s kind of silly, the blanket and mink oil could not be delivered to an Amazon locker, and the thermal underwear could not be delivered to my PO box.

Tried to catch more fish and didn’t get anything at all.

Tomorrow rain is predicted, and Sunday night it’s supposed to get below freezing. I might just head into Payson early. Bound to be warmer there.

Glad I didn’t head onto the rim yet. I saw some snow lingering on the south face of the rim a week ago and it gave me pause.

Just spent an hour cleaning up my new fridge. Found out that some of the meat had leaked blood, and that some of the carrots froze. Thankfully the drain plug didn’t leak blood. That would have been a much greater pain to clean up. This probably means I can’t handle temps much below the 20s or the fridge will probably freeze.

So this will just be the ongoing ramblings of my time living in a van. I didn’t start at the beginning, been living that way for six months now. Thanks.

Still at Tonto creek with no cell reception. Which is the primary reason I’m recording my thoughts.

The water is so cold that I have been dealing with ice on my rod guides in the morning.

Last night I snuck into the campground which is still closed for two more weeks and stole some drinking water. There was a ziptie on the faucet, but a tiny screwdriver got me past that. I filled two gallons and put the ziptie back on.

The big shock came this morning, when I realized the ziptie was cautionary. The water had been highly chlorinated, and I didn’t realize this until I had taken three gulps. Bleah! Or bleach rather. There was a slight burning sensation in my mouth, but that quickly went away. Curse my horrible sense of smell, anyone else would have immediately smelled chlorine.

So I drank a gallon of good water I had laying around to cut the bleach in my stomach, and headed off to a little creek to get more good water. You can reach the spring at the top, so it’s about as clean as it gets

My stomach feels fine at this point thankfully. The worst was that my mouth tasted like bleach for a few hours. Bullet dodged.

I guess this is now a personal goal. It’s not like I’m stocking fish someplace they shouldn’t be. The upper pools of this short creek have a 6-ft waterfall below them, so fish can’t move that far upstream. There’s only about 50 ft of creek above that waterfall, but one of the two pools is about the size of a home swimming pool and it seems a shame not to have fish in it.

I wish I had something better to transport them in. Putting the ziploc in a collapsible bucket would at least make my life easier carrying them up the creek.

The creek is a wild trout stream that most people don’t know about at all. Kind of like Horton Creek was in the ’90s, but much shorter and shallower. It should probably be protected, I’ll have to look into what to file with game and fish.

I’m not sure how many fish I should move, I want to make sure I get one male and one female. The top of the two holes is smaller, four fish is probably plenty there. The larger hole below it can easily support dozens.

A family just started camping next to me today. They seem nice. I gave them three extra gmrs radios I had, and their kids are taking great fun using them to call each other “queer”.

Note to self: taking a swig of Drambuie after eating Sriracha is not a good thing.

Sorted decades of fishing gear today, and a bunch I got from my father and aunt. Took hours, but it is so much easier to find what I need now. Also seems that I have enough hooks, sinkers, and swivels for several lifetimes.

I realized today that my father, my aunt, and my cousin all seem to live their lives around saving money. I guess it works for them, but I’m really glad I don’t worry so much about that. As an example, my aunt would give coupons in Christmas cards.

For some odd reason I am reminded of working for Skidata at Deaconess hospital. At the time I was dating one of their valets. The other employees didn’t know. One day I pull up to valet parking and the woman I was dating was there, along with a rather serious ex-military valet. I tossed her the keys and jokingly said, “Park it bitch.” She smirked and rushed right out to the van, leaving her rather serious associate in a state of shock at both of us.

So far so good with my solar and battery bank. I’m running 400 Watts of panels on the roof of my van, and 200 amp hours of batteries. Even with the heavy trees here I still don’t drop below 98%. It probably helps that it’s cold enough the cooler isn’t running very much, and it’s been very sunny lately. Worst case I have a 20 amp DC charger connected to the alternator in the van.

Tomorrow I will probably take my bicycle up to Kohl’s Ranch and get on the internet for a bit. Drives me nuts being this far off grid.

I suppose I will try the external antenna on my hotspot as well. I have to admit I haven’t been impressed with it at all so far.

This is all bullshit. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are just fighting over bragging rights. This won’t lead to space tourism, this won’t lead to new scientific discovery, nor will this lead to new jobs or some new revolution in my opinion.

My guess is both companies will end up defunct in the next economic downturn. Or whenever the first passengers die. Whichever comes first.

SpaceX has a better shot at being sustainable, mainly because they are not focused on tourism for the ultra-rich.

He is a weak man’s idea of a strong man, a poor man’s idea of a rich man, a stupid man’s idea of a smart man.

Lately I’ve been coming to a realization.

I’m in the middle of a war, with two clearly defined sides.

I didn’t choose to be part of this war, but i’ve been in the middle of it my whole life.

One side considers me the enemy. The cause of all their troubles in the world. I don’t “wear the uniform” or “sing the anthem”, but I’m still clearly labeled.

The other side views me as a traitor. I abandoned the cause. I was weak, didn’t do what they expected of me. I violated a code I never agreed to accept as my own. As such I’m labeled by them as well.

So I find myself walking in “no man’s land” between the two sides.

No “homeland” to return to unless I renounce my reason, no opposing lands to call my own because they refuse to accept me.

I’m tired of fighting.

So incredibly tired.

I just want to take off my armor and be done with it.

My only solution is to run away. Far away… I am finally in a position where I can leave the fighting. I can search for someplace there is no battle raging, no hatred shouting, no gunfire leaving blood on the ground.

Because the alternative has only ever been to lay down on the ground in no-man’s-land, and become one more casualty of the war.

I met with an attorney today. She is making some changes to the purchase agreement for selling my house. I’m getting what I feel is a good deal, so that’s good enough for me. She’s just writing up the details that cover my ass since i’m not dealing with a realtor.

Once that’s done I will start the boat search. Tho I feel that won’t bear fruit until after the pandemic winds down. My view is that a lot of people have gotten a boat to quarentine on with the family, and most won’t stay on them after things open back up on land. We will see.

What kind of boat? Well I have some requirements.

• Monohull (A Cat would be nice, but out of my price range.)
• Capsize Ratio < 2 (How likely is the baot to capsize? Lower is better)
• Comfort Ratio > 30 (How does the boat feel in rough water? Higher is better. 30+ is considered stable on the open ocean.)
• Headroom > 6′ (I’m tall and don’t want to hit my head, 6′ is the absolute minimum.)
• Length => 40′ (This is more a general value as to the size of boat I want and how much space I want to have available)
• Sound structural shape (I don’t want anything like a bent mast, damaged bulkheads, blistering hull, etc.)
• Ideal Price < $50k (This one is negotiable, but in general I would be happy with a cheaper boat that has a crappy interior and just rebuild it myself.)
• Location = North America (I don’t want to get a boat in a foreign country. Too many headaches.)

I’ll see what I can find online once I have the cash in hand. It will likely be a major project to get it into shape for long passages, but it’s nothing that scares me.

We do not have an energy crisis in the USA.
We do not have a water crisis in the USA.
We do not have a waste crisis in the USA.

What we have is a crisis of nobody in America willing to reduce their insane consumption.

So, perhaps not the nest decisions of my life, but I moved into a shared house.

Now my intention was to “not live alone”. I could have easily afforded my own apartment, but this was slightly cheaper, and I really didn’t want to just live in a quite room by myself.

So I paid 6 months rent up front to not have to waste money on credit checks and moved in.

Yeah… maybe should have talked to them a little bit more.

There is a couple that owns the home. About 20 years younger than me. And they act like I don’t exist. Now i’m sure for some people this would be absolutely perfect. For me? Not so much.

The male half is extremely introverted. I can see his awkward physical reaction when I even say “hello”. The female half is less introverted, but still very quiet and has not said 3 words to me in 2 months.

There is another tenant here. And i’ve caught one glimpse of him over those 2 months. He literally never comes out of his room.

Now several people have said “Maybe they’re just scared of you” or “Maybe they don’t understand you want to be their friend”.

My answer to this is, “I don’t care”.

That might seem harsh, but i’m really not in the place in my life to spend energy trying to be friends with people who are clearly showing they do not want to be my friend.

This sums up exactly why I am leaving the USA. Because it’s just very unfriendly to a middle-aged single white male.

I think I can do better.

We shall find out.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/arecibo-telescope-collapses-ending-57-year-run

Arecibo collapsed today, but sadly the funding for science in the USA collapsed decades ago.

So, for decades now i’ve almost no real-life friends. I just don’t fit the expectations of what people want me to be socially. This has had a massive impact on my mental and emotional health.

The response from people? “It’s your problem.”, “You have to love yourself before anyone can care about you.”, “Pay a therapist.”, “Take antidepressants”, “Hire a prostitute.”, Etc.

In other words, “I don’t care. It’s not my problem.”

And so it has been for decades. America is a wasteland as far as mental or emotional healthcare goes. I’ve had to deal with my own issues in a vacuum where pretty much nobody else gave a shit.

It doesn’t help that i’m a single white male, so there isn’t any “group” for me except the racists. I mean, there really is no other cohesive group for white males.

Then comes the pandemic and people are saying “Socially distance and wear masks. We all have to care about the group!” Wait, what? Hang on a second, why should *I* care about the group that has not cared about me and still doesn’t?

Even now during the pandemic we hear almost nothing about the mental and emotional toll of all this distancing. All we hear about is the physical consequences of the virus. Don’t get me wrong, those are bad, but don’t expect people to change their tune overnight when society has turned them into selfish curmudgeons.

So forgive me if my response now is, “I don’t care. It’s not my problem.”

Okay, I’m a socialist liberal but there are a few things i’m not happy about with this statewide mask mandate.

1. Fact: Baby boomers have been telling people “individual rights are absolute” for decades, and now suddenly people want to flip the dialogue and say “wear a mask for the good of others”. Regardless of why it’s simply not going to instantly happen. – https://www.businessinsider.com/how-baby-boomers-became-the-most-selfish-generation-2016-11
2. Fact: Testing is returning a VERY high number of false positives, but people are ignoring this. We hear about “asymptomatic carriers” and “Majority of new cases are coming at home” yet the most logical explaination for these two strange facts are that in both situations they are false positives. – https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/15/871186164/what-zebra-mussels-can-tell-us-about-errors-in-coronavirus-tests
3. Fact: In SPokane County we have had 1,144 “confirmed” cases, 37 deaths, and 120 cumulative hospitalizations. Most of these were all during Phase 1. Currently we only have 22 C-19 hospitalizations in a county of half a million people. – https://srhd.org/covid19cases
4. Fact: With so few cases we have over 600 open hospital beds in Spokane County – https://www.ahd.com/states/hospital_WA.html
5. Fact: People have been going downtown in Spokane to protest every weekend. Yet we have seen no masssive spike in C-19 cases – https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/hundreds-show-up-for-the-third-week-of-spokane-protests/293-16d71999-8035-4756-a64a-e23a8da281a6
6. Fact: Cases are on the rise in Yakima county, but not statewide. (Yakima has 7,000 cases for 250,000 residents. and 53 hospitalizations. I urge you to view “hospitalization numbers” as the true spread of the virus to avoid false positives in the numbers.) – https://kimatv.com/news/local/yakima-countys-total-covid-19-cases-surpass-7000-2-new-virus-deaths

Be safe, but don’t ignore the facts due to anxiety or fear.

People forget to check facts. Here are some facts regarding COVID-19 in SPokane.

Fact: People are going to pass around COVID-19 even with distancing and masks. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html

Fact: Spokane County only has 877 confirmed cases, 37 deaths, and 12 hospitalizations of COVID-19 out of a county of half a million people. 350 of those cases and 27 of those deaths occured before Phase 2. https://srhd.org/covid19cases

Fact: The “surge” that people were worried about, and still are worried about, is a spike in hospitalizations, not infections. (Note nobody is talking anymore about a lack of ventilators) The city of Spokane alone has almost 600 staffed hospital beds. https://www.ahd.com/states/hospital_WA.html (Tho this article mentions Sacred Heart saying they have 600 beds themselves https://www.kxly.com/providence-health-not-seeing-surge-in-patients-hospitals-prepared-to-handle-worst-case-scenario/ )

Fact: Hundreds of people have been showing up downtown to protest over the last three weekends. With a majority not wearing masks or social distancing. And we have not seen a massive spike in cases, hospitalizations, or deaths. https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/hundreds-show-up-for-the-third-week-of-spokane-protests/293-16d71999-8035-4756-a64a-e23a8da281a6

Fact: PCR-based testing (Which is what the majority of tests are using) false positives are likely the cause of the people who have tested positive and yet show no symptoms. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/14/876714225/what-mussels-can-teach-us-about-false-positive-covid-19-tests

Look at the numbers and decide for yourself. Are we being reasonable, or are we panicked?

Well, that’s off my plate now.

I’ve been selling off things looking towards the sailboat and I ran into a little issue. I only bank online, so it’s kind of hard to deposit cash.

One new local bank account and a huge cash deposit later and I can breathe a little easier. 😀

I’m going to have to research the best way to handle money when traveling globally.

So, i’ve decided to leave Spokane.

I really only came here because Seattle was too expensive. And because someone I loved lived here. However she is gone now, and the city is just feeling too conservative for me.

So where to? Well, i’m selling off everything, and the house, and buying a sailboat to live on.

Right now i’m waiting for my passport to come back. But I certainly plan to sail around the world.

A few more things I have learned or decided this year. (I welcome your opinions, thank you!)

FYI I will have strawberries and succulents for sale or barter early next year, Stay tuned! 😀

#1 I will no longer plant things that take a long time to ripen or mature. The longer it stays on the vine, the more chances there are for something to go wrong. IE. I have small Bing tomatos next to larger heirloom tomatos. I have been harvesting large amounts of the bings, but the larger ones have suffered from Blossom End Rot. (I could probably fix the end rot, but they don’t taste as good as the Bings so why bother when the Bings don’t have that issue.)

#2 I won’t plant things again that don’t taste awesome. Again my example is tomatos. I have Bings growing that i think taste AWESOME, next to Tiny Tim tomatos that taste, well, halfass. Now people say “Use the Tiny Tims to make things where taste isn’t so important. My reply is “I can grow more Bings and use them for that.”

#3 I need to find a good variety of smaller cucumbers that are best eaten without peeling them. I like raw cucumbers with salt. Peeling them seems to be an extra step I can avoid.

#4 I will let large vining plants like cucumbers to just overgrow my lawn next year. Probably with some heavy plastic underneath. I can’t eat grass, right?

#5 I will plant a lot more Okra. I love raw young tender okra, and the six plants I put in this year have not kept up with my appetite.

#6 I will plant way more carrots. They grew really well this year.

#7 I need to figure out why my snow peas died in July. They were watered well, but they just turned brown and croaked. I had some in a heavily shaded area and some in full sun and both died similarly. They did decently in 2018 tho.

#7 I will plant more Spinach. It could be harvested early by thinning and tasted great.

#8 I will tear out my strawberries. They take up too much space for a very low return.

#9 I will plant more herbs. My basil, oregano, peppermint, and sage did extremely well.

#10 I planted a good amount of pollinators. Every raised bed had several small plants in it to help pollination. Salvia, Cosmos, Bee Balm, etc. And I am not seeing any plant not being pollinated.

#11 No corn next year. It grew well this year (It’s 8′ tall, and i’ll probably get 4 dozen ears off a 10×10′ plot) But it falls under “Takes too long”. I can plant Okra there instead and have an ongoing harvest.

#12 I will keep ignoring weeds. While the plants were small I tried to kill any weed I saw. But once things got established I just pulled the larger ones that might compete and ignored the smaller ones. Doesn’t seem to have impacted the harvest much.

#13 I will get some irrigation lines installed in the beds. They don’t have to be permanent or pretty but watering 15 different raised beds with a garden hose sucks.

#14 I will be ready for the fall planting season. (Had not planned for this in 2019)

I signed up for two years of Discover, Wired, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics.

I always said I would when my finances calmed down, and I totally forgot.

Take a moment and think about this. How many problems boil down to this?

Immigration, refugees, homelessness, mental illness, racism, sexism, bullying, class warfare, taxes, politics, the handicapped, Etc, etc…

It has all grown out of a vision that we somehow have absolute individual authority to live where we want, how we want, with only who we want around us, without anyone else having any right to tell us otherwise.