I think two things much worse than the election are about to happen in my personal life.

I am filled with dread.

I think if he tries to steal the election someone, probably from the military will put a bullet in his head.

A stolen election or the execution of Trump might sunder the nation.

Great work!

Dropping 10 lbs made me feel physically better than stopping smoking.

I need to get back on the weight loss but my life has been too hectic lately.

It wouldn't be an ex military guy.

Might be my album of the year.

We have a plum tree leaning over our yard with maybe a few hundred pounds of plums, I've never seen this thing so burdened.

I made a five gallon batch of plum wine, and damn if it doesn't taste like wine you'd buy at at the store.

This reminded me that I don't really care for wine (what did I expect? Boons Farm?).

I just distilled a gallon of it and I'm sure I'll like it better than the wine.

I don't want to set up a full still cause it's a pain and my still is garbage so I'm using a gallon sized water distiller with an adjustable thermostat.

Honestly, for the home distiller, it's almost legal.

If someone got drunk on your hooch and ran over a baby it'd be your ass. but if you aren't selling it odds are that no one is going to bother you.

I've fermented my own hot sauces before and it turned out ok.

I look forward to hearing how it turns out.

Hey Hubski!

Guess I'm doing an end of year check in, or a beginning of year one.

I'm back in school. I've got a bunch of college credits that never added up to anything and am going to school for something non of those credits apply to (ok, I had 8 credits worth of past credit). I'm doing eighteen credits this semester, which is more than I've ever done at one time but I'm thinking it's gonna be ok. I'm working three days a week on top of all that. I'll go down to two days if I have to but that third day I basically the day that gives me any fun money so I'm not inclined to give it up. Hopefully I'll have an associates and a professional certificate in my hands in four semesters if I keep up the pace.

I'm studying water and environmental technology, so basically water and waste water treatment and distribution. I want a to do something different. The program is taught by just two guys with a few pickup classes on the side. Work hard and they will do everything they can to get you placed in the job you are interested in. It's kind of wild in that I'm studying chemistry, biology, math, mechanics, civil engineering and a big slice of water specific shit all at once. I've never studied so broadly in my life. Lots and lots of excel, which I've learned two other times in my life but never so intensively.

It's an hour long drive in traffic to community college that hosts the program, which just sucks, but it also means that I'm not going to have much competition to get hired in my area because most the people in the program live closer to the school than I do.

There is a wastewater plant about ten blocks north of my house. They don't call it wastewater anymore btw, it's a resource recovery plant now. The Portland Oregon plant pays more than any other facility in the region, the only other place that comes close is working in high purity water for Intel but even Intel isn't as generous. Intel is trying to hire seven out of the thirty one people in my class which puts even less competition in the job market but that job is about an hour from my house. Lots of retirements in the industry right now, easy for a responsible person who can pass increasingly hard cert exams to move up. Starts at around $32 an hour but with great benefits and it's not hard to get up to $40 in five years. There is a strange regulatory incentive to get people to pass certification tests, which increases a persons pay, no more fighting for a raise. four day weeks with lots of overtime if you want.

After I sold my coffee shop I didn't really know what to do with my self, I just kinda kicked around aimlessly for a year. I had an opportunity to buy a decent bar with a partner but realized my heart just isn't into drug dealing any more. I haven't been a regular bar patron for about twenty years, I pretty much stopped going when started bartending. I think being a bar regular is kinda sad. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with sad people. I watched this documentary a few weeks ago, it really enforced the way I feel about that life.

That being said my three day a week job is of course bartending! Where else am I going to make that kind of money without bootlicking and dick sucking. I'm working a little blue collar neighborhood joint. I almost always have fun, I try to see that my customers have fun and stay reasonably safe every shift. I have enough in the bank that I could leave at the drop of a hat and not worry about it, so I take no shit from the owner or the customers but I don't take that shit with a glad heart so everybody seem pretty happy with me. Being able to quit your service job is amazing, it really changes everything. I go to work to have fun and make money, not because I have to pay this weeks rent. Makes the whole thing more pleasant. I've never worked at such a blue-collar joint. They tip much better, they are very appreciative that you are trying to take care of them. I've tended for punks and white-collar people before and they just aren't as generous.

The downsides might be that working people love cops a lot and I really hate the cops in this neighborhood. Policing is a divisive subject in this town, what you think about the mayor and the DA are popular topics around election time. You might have heard that Portland has a homeless problem, they hate the homeless as well, we all hate the homeless but they aren't very progressive in their hatred. A few big Trump fans but not too many. They love to tip their bartenders as well, it's all good. It's a bit rougher there than anywhere else I've worked, generally not physical but sometimes. A month or two ago a guy that I had never seen before overhand point blanked a pint glass into my face, never had any shit like that happen before. I had a bloody mouth and fat lip but otherwise I was fine.

I live on a peninsula. People get trapped on a peninsula. If you are going to move the likely hood that you don't move that far is much more likely when you only have one direction out. Everyone here knows each other. It's strange everyone knowing everyone as much as they know each other here, like no where I've lived. It's a racially diverse bar where every one knows each other from high school or their cousins dated or a million different little ties going back for generations. Every where is unique in it's own way I guess but I think about the effect that living on a peninsula has on the people that live there a surprising amount, it's like an island in a way.

My kid has been playing guitar quite a bit. It's made me play more guitar than I had in ages. They showed themselves to particularly careful analyst of strumming patterns, their fierce precision is in contrast to my sloppy carefree playing. I was impressed enough with their keen sense of rhythm that I offered to buy them a drum kit for Christmas, which they took me up on. They have been playing daily and have a handful of beats at the ready. They would like to get a little band together for the school talent show but it's not going to happen, the other kids just don't care enough, probably something will come together in high school.

The kid is also doing well generally, for them at least. We had several years of unmitigated horror with them. They struggled with intense mental illness for many years, all the help we got from the medical community was of the lowest quality. For so long every road was a dead end. There are many people out there who will help you make a chore chart and charge you two hundred a session but there are very few who seem to be able to come to terms with a nine year old who's trying to kill themselves. I feel like we spent about five years in a constant state of fear, it was very bad for us, I think we still don't understand the damage it wrought on our family, relationships and minds. We finally found a good councilor, who found us a good psychiatrist, who has found us another councilor now that the first good councilor has run their course. Good help is as profound as bad help, it makes just as much a difference. I feel like we must have been swindled out of many thousands of dollars by people unqualified to help our kid and all those people are patting themselves on the back about what great healers they are.

My kid is mostly failing school. They passed everything last quarter but it's not looking good this quarter. I couldn't care, their mom cares, the school cares. They are a chip off the ol' block, I could never get in line at school, I never learned a thing I didn't want to my whole life, I don't suspect they will either. They are going to a special school for bright kids and many of the other kids look down on them, even call them the dumb kid. I think it's the last year for that school. My kid has asked to go back to their neighborhood school next year and I think it will be the right choice. Smart kid school was good for them before the academic rigor really came to the fore but it's probably not the best choice anymore.

While I do have money set aside, I need to get those union benefits. Paying for this kids heath care is slowly digging out financial grave. My wife has a great job with good pay but terrible benefits. We are paying a lot for very little. It would be revolutionary to our budget to stop paying for so much shit out of pocket.

The other enormous drag on our pocket book and to our lives is my sister in law. She has lived in a van for years, travelling all over the U.S. and having a blast but that's all coming to an end. She's got a bunch of tumors in her head and is in constant agony. The doctors are reluctant to operate for a bunch of complicated reasons but mostly because it's likely to paralyze half her face and ultimately not solve the problem. She lives in our driveway in her cute little van with her cat. She is trying to get on disability but it's a long byzantine process and it her lawyers say it will take at least ten more months. We basically pay all her bills and she eats our food and uses our power and what not. I've often not gotten along with her but now that she is so sick I feel nothing but compassion for her situation. She can't hold a job but she pitches in on housework, uses her food stamps to make dinner a few night a week and is good for the kid. I have at many times in my life lived in poverty. It's strange to me that I'm going to pay my sister in law about what I used to live on in year to just sit in my drive, but hell she needs a phone and tampons all the other things a person needs to live in basic dignity. I'm horrified that it's very likely that I'm going to watch her slowly die in my driveway.

In all pretty decent year, not looking forward to the next one. I suspect that 2024 will make us nostalgic for 2023 but I hope to be wrong. I'm feeling happy and enthusiastic for my personal life, looking forward to doing new different work, and becoming a bad drummer. Hope you are all well, I miss the Hubski that was but perhaps I need to show up for that four or five times a year.

I started a new job in a field I've never worked in before but have been going to school for.

It's exhausting to meet so many new people while learning so many new things in a place with many physical hazards. It's also going to be in the high 90's low 100's this week which makes the job a quite a bit harder.

They only way he isn't the Dems candidate is if he dies.

lol, power is a hell of a drug.

Nonsense.

Biden has consistently looked his best when he gets worked up.

You're just echoing the sleepy Biden Meme.

I think Biden has a narrow advantage.

There is a non-zero chance one of the candidates dies or just gets ill to the point that public confidence in that candidate is shattered.

The country will break up eventually, lots of directions that could take, might not be in our life time.

The nation splitting up probably won't be something that is all bad or all good.

Biden doesn't seem to have a decisive campaign ready to persuade voters that he's the man and he's taking a beating from the left and right.

This guy is great.

Thanks for posting.

I can't wear a watch for more than a few hours.

I'll never buy a turtle neck.

If someone gives me a long sleeve shirt has cuffs I donate it.

Thinking about wearing that fucking scuba mask for more than twenty minutes makes me feel nauseous.

Hubski used to be a lively and stimulating place where you could daily be exposed to ideas or positions that you rarely rubbed elbows with. It was a FUN place that could occasionally really get under your skin.

Then it became a dear diary, mutual support forum. It's the place to go when you've got something under your skin.

I heavily disengaged when an active user was shopping some soft peddled red pill content and no one else gave a shit to call him out cause he'd been around for a while. I felt like the whole place had sunk into dreary apathy.

I came back and reengaged a few times to wander away again.

I drop in now and then out of a sense of nostalgia.

I'll see many of the users in RL now and again, I knew a handful of them before this place got started.

Honestly Kleinbl00, you were probably 30% of the reason I'd log in. You were definitely the most enduring reason I've logged in for 4390 days.

I know there are people who say that you are the reason that Hubski died, because your sharp tongue is just too wicked. I think that's bullshit. You've provided me tons of entertainment through hilarious tales and educational explanations of a wildly diverse areas of natural and human endeavor.

Thanks for the memories!

The day will come when I never read anything from you again that that'll be too bad.

Instagram said that its internal statistics show that users see child exploitation in less than one in 10 thousand posts viewed.

With 1.3 billion users that's a lot of kiddie porn.

There are always 9 month waits and there are always alternatives that are pretty satisfactory if you look around long enough.

When ever kids start school there are openings, it's the natural ebb and flow of one out one in.

Twitter was never this much fun.

I guess next time we should try and keep in mind how "tough minded" the people getting invaded are?

Sometimes things shake out in an improbable way.

I would have guessed that the best they could have done is an Afghan style stalemate.

I wouldn't have bet that NATO was gonna show the kind of support they have, that includes from the beginning when it really offered a lot of support, just not as much as they would later. It's way more support than it showed the first time or in Georgia or when the Russians have split off the little splinter statelets.

Betting on the Ukraine would have been like betting on a boxer cause he's the same race as you.

I hoped that it was gonna be a short war that spared as many people as it could, can't believe it went the way it did.

With a nod at everything Kb said the real mistake was not getting Ukraine and Gorgia into NATO or some other strong alliance (fuck it make a new one) sooner.

It's an almost iron clad rule that every country views it's natural boarder as the largest historical boarder it ever possessed. It's was inevitable that at some point Russia would start to try and claw back some of it's lost territory, especially when governed by an powerful authoritarian. Ukraine is the cradle of the Russian state, the center may have moved cause the Mongols but traditionally (like seven hundred years worth of tradition) it's all the same place.

Sach's position that this probably would have worked out if we had just played a weaker hand is pretty laughable when you think about who Vladimir Putin is. Sachs is a United Nations lets talk it out like reasonable people guy, Vlad is a Realpolitik guy, he loves the talkers.

The U.S. couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't have been able to suck enough dick to get Putin to not decide that Russia's natural state is to control those places that have traditionally been in it's orbit of power. Are spheres of power real? Should the U.S. sometimes allow countries to wield power in ways we don't like in someone else's sphere or power? I think that before too long we are going to have to come to some accommodations with China over U.S. interference in their backyard. Do we need to and should we do that with Russia? Sach's says yes, the Ukrainians say no. I vote no, the Russians are a washed up power and letting run roughshod over one place guarantees that they will keep doing the same thing in others. I thought we should have intervened in Georgia cause I was sure that not doing so was going to lead to bigger problems down the line and what do you know.

Ike arguably had the first hit rock and roll song of all time.

He was a successful musician for decades before he met Tina. Great at piano, guitar and arranging.

Easy first ballot Rock and Roll hall of fame.

He must have been consumed by a powerful anger.

I've been facing a lot of adversity and about to experience a lot of change, make me listen to more hardcore.

I've been enjoying a lot of the stuff Nick Cave has been putting out the last year or so.

I really like the Grinderman albums.

In the past two weeks I've listened to "Shivers" by Roland S. Howard with the Young Charlatans two dozen times.

The Charlatans broke up and Roland joined Nicks band The Boys Next Door and recorded Shivers before they became the Birthday Party.

If I was Prigozhin I'd fake my death in a plane crash.

I'll report back!

I was vaguely aware of this brewing method but never given good enough recipe to try it out for myself. It was always "My grandma used to make coffee with an egg and the shells."

I listened to every Supreme Court oral argument one year.

I learned a lot.

Quite often the public has no idea what the issues being argued before the court are really about.

They have their opinion but it often has no bearing on the reasons a case has come before the court.

It's reasonable to be disappointed in a decision but it's also worth while to fine out more about whey things went the way they did.

I'm for people listening to a year of arguments but it's often pretty dull work.

I think the less power the Feds have to mandate and regulate peoples lives the better but I'm not against that power devolving down to the states. I've lost customers to the vaccine mandate debate, I'm for the mandate and I don't mind telling you that you are an anti-social jackass if you are against it (on a state and local level). My city has fared pretty well during the pandemic with it's mask mandates.

I've got a long list of shit that I think would be better regulated on a state level that is interfered with by the feds. I'd like to see these things decided on a local level and I think people in Arkansas would have very different ideals of what to do but would be happier if they could do the same.

Almost all that stuff has a costs and benefits that would be weighed differently by communities with diverse values.

Two dangers constantly threaten our world, order and disorder.

Long discussion of weather wigger was a valid and real class of people is one of the more ignorant things I can remember us kids discussing growing up in neighborhood of gritty white auto workers. We weren't poor, our dads had boats, took hunting trips and could own several different nice guns. We knew that we weren't middle class like the folks on TV (at least not until Rosanne and we didn't really understand Archie Bunker) but we wanted to be better than somebody.

I also remember playing smear the queer in our boy scout pack, not one adult ever batted an eye at us gleefully smearing some queers. I know gay men who remember smearing queers and they never thought a thing about it until I brought it up decades later, homophobia was the air we breathed.

It's so different from the world my child inhabits.

I paid a lot of attention to the news as a kid. I remember Reagans welfare queens and Willy Horton. I loved the word intefada (feels good in the mouth) and wished I could wear a hat like Arafat.

I guess I'm musing.

I reooened the shop this week.

It's good to see people again.