Dad’s Alaska

12 January 2023

Here’s to China Joe and the secret documents he doesn’t remember.

I can believe that China Joe doesn’t remember that he stashed documents marked Secret and some steps above Secret in an office closet and in his garage. I can believe that because, it is apparent that, unless someone tells him the date or the day, he has no clue. His mental faculties are not failing they are gone. The President of the United States of America is a zombie. A meat sack that spouts incomprehensible gibberish at every speaking engagement. A few days ago he mistook a Salvation Army man for a Secret Service agent and the told that ‘agent’ that he’d once been in the Secret Service. Of course, he’s never been in the Secret Service and the closest he’s ever been to the Secret Service is the agents protecting him. There have been so many gaffes and flights of fancy that it seems impossible that he hasn’t been institutionalized. Any normal American citizen who spoke and acted like this man would be in some institution where he could be monitored to keep him from wandering off and protected from himself. Actually, now that I consider it, he is in an institution where he is protected from himself and kept from wandering off. The White House has become a single patient eldercare facility. In spite of China Joe’s mental impairment, there must be people around him that think, even with his extreme impairment, that he’s better than Kamala. I can’t say that I disagree with that assessment. She’s little more than a brainless, cackling hyena. I though Hillary’s cackle was bad until Kamala came along. I doubt that there is a single Republican or Democrat that would propose the use of the 25th Amendment to remove China Joe from office. The potential of placing the’Hyena’ in the office of the President is reason is enough for even Republicans to be rooting for China Joe to finish his term. This brings me to another point. China Joe is getting the blame for all of the chaos that has ensued since his ‘election’. However, it is obvious that he isn’t cognizant enough of his surroundings and situation to have created this economic disaster or the invasion at our southern border. He is being ‘handled’. They put a piece of paper in front of him and he signs it. He’s kind of like a trained monkey and seems to have the intellect to match. This means that it is a cadre of unelected people are running the US into wreck and ruin. They haven’t just run America into a ‘ditch’, they have driven America into the equivalent of the Grand Canyon. There must be a reckoning, at some point. These people have usurped the power of the people and have been and are destroying America. When the Left Wing partisans are purged from the DOJ, FBI and Federal Prosecutors, some of these ‘Handlers’ need to be arrested, prosecuted and go to jail. Perhaps the Republicans will “Grow a pair” and make sure that this can never happen again. Not likely.

Another beautiful sunrise over Kachemak Bay.

The weather has, according to some of the people I’ve talked with, pretty much normal here in Fritz Creek. We have a few days of single digits, a few days in the teens, a few in the 20s and then a couple of days in the low 30s and then the cycle repeats. We haven’t had a lot of snow, for which I am grateful. We ordered and paid a $500 deposit on a 28” tracked snowblower from Ron’s Honda in Soldotna last June, maybe July. That snowblower has yet to appear. It was supposed to be here in September. I called mid-October and was told November. I called in November and was told that it would be December. I called in December and was put off until January. I called two days ago and was told that the snowblowers had been shipped and that they had been given the serial numbers. So now it look as if we might get this new snowblower sometime in February, I hope. The reason for ordering a tracked snowblower is that the wheeled device that we have gets stuck and has to be pulled backward even though it has a reverse gear. As I am approaching old age (I’m only 78) and Summer doesn’t have the physical strength to drag it out of the trenches made by the spinning wheels, we ordered a tracked snowblower. And that dear friends is why I am grateful that we’ve had but a very little snow.

The first piling bolted to the house.

I have been sidetracked by so many things that I am just now getting to the attachment of the house to the pilings installed by ‘Dangerous’ Dan last October. I will admit that I spent a good bit of that time trying to figure out the best way to make the attachment. 4 inch wide 3/8 inch thick steel strap was what I, finally, came up with. I looked at all manner of attachments at the building supply store. They all looked way too flimsy for a house sitting on pilings in an earthquake zone. They were mostly little bits of galvanized steel on the order of an 1/8 of an inch thick. Like I said “way too flimsy”. The steel reinforced concrete piling to which these straps are attached (one on each side) is 3 1/2 feet into the earth and sitting on a 2’x2’x 6” foundation. It is, also, surrounded by 2’ x 2’ of 2 inch insulation board. The insulation is to prevent the piling from heaving up when the ground freezes. It seems to have worked since the piling has not moved. The bolts through the piling, the support and the house beam are all 1/2” in diameter.

About the most exciting things happening around these parts are our idiot dogs chasing a moose and people driving their cars into the ditch. As previously mentioned, the temperature goes above freezing, the snow melts, the water runs onto the roads and the temperature goes below freezing at night. Then by the early morning when people are trying to get to work the roads are icy and often not yet sanded. Those that aren’t extremely careful end up in the ditch and with a $200+ towing charge. I totaled my truck last year on a patch of black ice. It looked just like water on the road until I started sliding and lost control and slid backward into the left hand lane. Fortunately, no one was coming up the hill before the truck ended up on it’s passenger side and down eight feet of embankment. I was only injured when I did something stupid and released the safety belt without holding onto the steering wheel. I fell to the bottom and banged my hard head. No permanent damage to me—truck totaled.

The refrigerator isn’t new. It was given to Summer by a neighbor. It’s about 5 years old and they didn’t want to repair it. They were quoted a thousand dollars to replace the compressor. I suspect that they paid close to $3000 for it new. I, at first, thought that the unit had a freon leak as I has ascertained that the compressor was not defective. After a thorough examination, I determined that the tiny little tube that carries the freon inside to the evaporator coil was plugged up. How or why? I have no idea. I ordered the new capillary tube assembly ($40) and now Summer has this huge refrigerator (no freezer) where, hopefully, leftovers and the salsa won’t get lost. We have two freezers, therefore a freezer compartment was not needed. The old and the new side by side. The difference is obvious. We still haven’t remodeled the kitchen or put sheetrock on the walls but we’ve got one killer refrigerator.

That’s it. I’ve got to go to town to get some longer bolts. Ciao!

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Dad’s Alaska

30 December 2022

Here’s to 2022 a disaster preceding an even greater disaster.

At the end of each and every year of my adult life, I have been able to look back with some satisfaction at what had been accomplished not only by myself but my country. This year in retrospect has been and unmitigated disaster on the personal level. I totaled my 2006 Dual Cab F-250 on a patch of black ice. I had a utility trailer roll forward and pinch off almost a half inch of my left index finger. This cost me most of six weeks of prime Summer work time. I caught COVID and lost two weeks of work time. THEN as I became well enough to get out and get some of the work done, I caught the flu and lost another two weeks of work time. Then as I got well enough to get out and do some work on the property it started to freeze and snow. All in all I lost about half the Summer. I’m too damned old to be losing 2 1/2 months of my life. On the other hand, America is an unmitigated disaster. The invasion pouring across the Southern border is destroying America. The billions of taxpayer dollars going to the Ukrainian dictator Zelenskyy are putting us evcn further into debt. We’re like a ‘high balling’ freight train rushing past $31,000,000,000,000 (that’s 31 TRILLION) in public debt. That’s a debt we can never pay. Hence inflation. INCREASE THE MONEY SUPPLY which devalues the dollar and since the dollar is worth less and worthless we pay our debts in worthless paper. Millions of Americans aren’t even able to live ‘paycheck to paycheck’ any longer. The US Dollar is the reserve currency for the world. That means that countries value their currency, price and pay their debts in US dollars. When the money becomes worthless (very soon) the Chinese currency will likely become the Reserve Currency. The US Dollar will be good for nothing but wiping you posterior, if a paper dollar even exists. These scumbags are angling to make all of your money digital. That makes it even easier for them to manipulate it to their advantage. The only way to save US Dollar is to go back on the Gold Standard and wrest control of the money supply from the private company called The Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve. It is a bunch of the elites making themselves and their politician friends even more wealthy. We no longer print money. Nope, the Federal Reserve just deems it to exist. American is screwed and that means you are screwed. I’d like to see the government recall all paper money larger that a $20 bill. How would you like to be a Drug Lord and all of those shipping containers full of 100 dollar bills suddenly become toilet paper? Billionaire drug lords would suddenly be broke. They wouldn’t be able to pay their murdering thugs or the crooked politicians on either side of the border. I suspect that some of our Congress and Senate would suddenly become much poorer. What a wonderful thing that would be. Broke ass drug lords and scumbag politicians sleeping in tents on the street. One can only dream.

Fire in the sky but no smoke on the water

After much unavoidable delay and procrastination, I have begun to connect the new concrete pilings to the house. Well that isn’t entirely true. I have begun to attempt to connect the concrete pilings to the house. On the first set of straps that I attempted to install I found that the holes I had drilled into the metal straps were too low at the top. They were not going through the center of the beam supporting the floor and the eastern wall. This sent me back to the drill press. While attempting to drill the new holes the chuck came off the drill press. This set me back for more than several minutes. After pounding the chuck back into place I began to drill again. Then the chuck slipped off again. I figured out after much cursing and stamping of feet that the chuck had been put on in Florida when the metal was much expanded due to the ambient temperature being 50 degrees higher than today. I lowered the drill deck and with a 3 pound hammer and an axe head as an intermediary, I pounded the chuck on at Alaska temps. I finished the drilling just in time for the sun to start getting low in the western sky. It didn’t matter because all of the bolts I bought for this project were either too short or too long. Tomorrow, I’ll rectify that problem, if the building supply store is open. Otherwise it will be January 2 before I get back to this. You can’t hurry perfection.

I won the Ugly Sweater Contest.

The weather has been weird. -2.5 on one day and +40 a few days later. The wavy jet stream has the weather screwed up all over the world. I recommend electroverse.co, if you really want to know what is happening with this weird weather worldwide. We’ve had wet snow, rain, sleet and dry snow all in less than a week. The weather apps seem to be getting it right which is scary.

As a matter of convenience summer and I rented a dumpster from a company here in Homer. We get our water from these people, as well. Their water deliveries have been precise, on time and greatly appreciated. Their water guys chain up their trucks, if our short road looks too icy. They do this all of the time during the winter. It’s regular, not uncommon. The guy who is supposed to pickup our dumpster every other week deemed our road icy and too dangerous. I questioned the lady at the dumpster service and she told me that the driver that deemed our road too dangerous was the Vice President of their company. Their excuse was that it was a different kind of truck than the water delivery truck that comes in every three weeks regardless of the snow ice or lack thereof.. A water delivery truck is likely hauling, at least, 3000+ gallons of water at 8.3 pounds per gallon plus the weight of the truck or close to 60,000 pounds. I doubt that a garbage truck weighs in at anything near that. The driver, I was informed was a great driver with years of experience and as previously stated a Vice President of the company. I wonder if he just didn’t want to chain up because he’s somebody. Our dumpster is about 75 yards from the main road and on solid road bed at the edge of a heavily graveled parking lot. Mysteries. Life is full of mysteries.

2 January 2023

As you may have observed it is days later from the writing of the above until now. I hope each and every one of you had a fun New Year’s Eve. Here’s hoping and praying that our 2023 personal lives will be a better and that our country is somehow saved from looming disaster caused by arrogant politicians and really ignorant people. 2023 wouldn’t have to go very far to be better than the last three years.

This is a young cow and I took this picture from about 20 feet away early this last Spring.

Today, I assumed that the building supply store that charged me an arm and a leg for bolts would be open. That was an incorrect assumption. So I’m still stuck with short bolts that are too short and long bolts that are too long. Not that it really matters today. We’re having some major warm weather and the temperature has been above freezing for a couple of days now. This advent brings us back to ‘Mud Season’. I hate mud. I can do hands and knees in the snow and ice but mud, NOPE! I am not going to crawl around in the mud, even if I had the correct bolts. The trip to town was not a total waste. I picked up a few groceries and some vodka. The grocery prices were outrageous and the vodka was even worse. Summer and I will have to do the COSTCO/Anchorage 450 soon. We need vodka, wine, coffee, dog food, dog treats and some other less important stuff like food. The COSTCO/Anchorage 450 consists of 225 miles to COSTCO and then 225 miles back in the same day. This marathon 2 hour (We limit ourselves to two hours in the store) shopping spree is because of the dogs. We have no one to leave them with and no hotel will allow 4 small dogs. Yeah, we’re probably not smart as we keep adopting dogs that other people don’t want. This time of year this will be a 13-14 hour adventure on icy roads, some through some mountainous areas and some crazy, stupid drivers in Anchorage. And again we’re probably not smart to take this trip but even after expenses we can save $400-$500 over the cost of the same products in Homer. When we go we load the wagon, so to speak.

A warm day in Fritz Creek.

We have about 4 more months of snow and cold left in this winter and we’re going to buy 2 more cords of wood later this week. As I previously said we are in a warm spell. However, the really cold weather is in January, February and the first couple of weeks in March. Because of the unusual cold in November and December we’ve burnt a lot more wood than usual. We’ve burned nearly 3 cords. We have about 5 cords left but like that old saw “Better safe that sorry”. I’ve had more than one person joke that “If you haven’t had to burn the furniture to stay warm, you aren’t a real Alaskan”. I think I’d just as soon stay a real Alabamian.

That’s all folks.