A pleasant day of little successes.

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A simple day for me, I receive a simple little gift, Plans for the coming eclipse

The usual Saturday morning breakfast is with people who are now becoming long-term friends because I have known them most of the six years I have now lived here in Bend, Oregon. We discussed the coming August 21st eclipse and the problems of being in one of the best places in the world to view totality. Our local weather is usually quite clear that day. The problem is that there are very few highways and roads to handle the large numbers of people expected to come here. It is said that local hundred-dollar motel rooms are now reserved for over a thousand dollars per night. A couple of my friends are avid mountain climbers and are considering going to the top of North Sister at about 10,000-foot level for a good viewing place. It is high enough to see the entire shadow of totality go over the land.

Even though I have more relationship to eclipses than most people I am considering just staying home because there will be too much chaos to cope with. I did see the sun rise totally eclipsed in July of 1945. And our family farm 1948-1990 is directly on the center of path of totality. There is no way to cope with a large number of people being out there in those fields. There is only one two-lane road per mile in the area.

I was given a very sweet little gift this morning. It was a beautifully executed credit card size drawing of a busy beaver working in his Bend garden with snow-capped mountains in the background. It has a caption “ ST.CHARLES ♥’S ME!” at the top. This is kind of an in-joke with my friends calling me Saint Charles because I do little things for them like getting chairs for them to sit in, and I use the mnemonic “saint” because that is the name of our local hospital, which helps people remember my name. It seems like such an irony because I’m obviously no saint and often end up talking about unpleasant subjects.

Among the little successes was more yard work done, and four loads of laundry done in our new washer-dryer; although to speed things up the laundry was only partially dried in the tumble dryer and then hung out on a clothesline. It has been a hot dry day with a slight breeze so that made it possible to do so much laundry in one day. The reason there was so much clothing needing washing was that the Ponderosa tree that fell on our house two months ago punctured one of our clothes closets and dumped  lots of blown insulation inside the closet and on those clothes. We just put all of that stuff into big 42-gallon plastic bags and left it to be dealt with later. Well, today was later. It all went well.

Also, I put in a couple of hours on my Love Our Life – Diet book. I have been doing my new diet plan since December 15th, and have lost 13 pounds. My BMI when I started was about 26.5, and after some research I realized that my ideal BMI is 23.5 plus or minus half a point. So, I am going to lose about four more pounds and then stabilize at that weight and that BMI for several months.

It was a pleasant day of little successes, and we lived and lived and nothing happened.

The wildfire season has begun and I prepare.

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Disaster preparedness, Preventing a house fire, We live in a potential forestfire area

I spent a couple of hours around my house today clearing away flammable things. Actually, this is the second round because a week ago we had taken away five 42-gallon plastic bags of yard stuff, along with various things from our catastrophe. Most of that bagged stuff was pine needles, leaves, and wood chips and most of the volume was wood chips that were created by the disaster team’s cleanup of two ponderosa trees that fell in the windstorm of April 7th. The cleanup teams use some chainsaws that don’t leave sawdust, but what could be called saw-chips or saw-slivers because they are much bigger and longer than sawdust.

Because of the fire season, and the idiocy of our local residents on July 4th sending flaming rockets up through our local trees, I decided to do everything I reasonably could to prevent our house from catching fire and burning down. Therefore, I cleaned out things down to bare dirt near our house, and I climbed onto the roof and with a pole saw/clipper cut away all the spruce and ponderosa branches within reach.

A little preparedness may prevent a great disaster.

How should we cope with change?

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Cope with daily life plus slack., Coping with change, Coping with emergencies.

Our personal situation is always changing and we are always challenged with how we should adapt. The obvious answer is that we should look to the possibilities that might come our way and prepare for them now, while we have the time, thoughtfulness and resources. What does that mean? In part, it means to be mentally prepared to adapt instantly to any changing situation. But, being human, we have the ability to think about our future situations and thus to position our resources in such a way that no matter which of the reasonable alternatives actually come into existence we can cope well because we have pre-thought about the situation and prepared for its problems and opportunities. If we have sufficient forethought, things that are destructive to most of those around us can benefit us. Great disasters can also be great opportunities if we are prepared to take advantage of them.

Part of future preparation is to have reserves of the necessities of life — food, water, comfortable living quarters — because if we are weak from deprivation we can’t do anything useful. It always helps to have a buffer of money readily available as even in a disastrous situation money will still be valuable. In some situations “cash is king.”

If we are prepared for Black Swan events and have enough slack to cope easily with them we will also have enough surplus to perform some beneficial actions for ourselves and others. When we are properly prepared in mind, body and resources, coping with unusual situations becomes just another activity that is within our routine abilities. To have slack means to avoid being overextended in one’s daily life; it means having enough to cover everything plus some in reserve. Most of the people of our world are in debt to someone like the bank, their employer, their landlord, even for daily routine things.

People must fear change when they lack the resources to even cope with their daily routine.

Who is my target audience for my diet plan?

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LOL diet, LOL diet development strategy, Love Our Life - diet

The world presently has over a billion overweight people, and the diet industry takes in over a half a trillion dollars per year. If one of those diets really worked well everyone would quickly hear about it and flock to that diet plan. Therefore, none of those current diet plans work, at least they aren’t working for a billion people.

I have been following a diet plan for five months, and I have consistently lost two pounds per month and thus have lost ten pounds. The plan is designed around the idea of being a group of fun games for my mind and body that always leaves my gut feeling happy.

I am working on this new strategy for promoting this diet plan because giving things away doesn’t work. If you can’t sell something for money it isn’t worth anything and people don’t value things that are worthless. Sad. The media don’t promote and sell things that are free, and when they say “free” there is always an offer. The solution to that simple-minded conundrum is to sell my diet plan for money. That way it can be promoted on the media, and thus it can be disseminated worldwide and not be just a few fun and games for my personal friends.

Previously I have been thinking of my target audience as overweight people, but that group isn’t the audience that will get me through to the ultimate audience. It is imperative that the message is disseminated through the mass media if it is going to be seen and heard by billions of people who need to hear the message. Therefore, my primary audience must be those providers of mass media who can reach those billions of overweight people.

These days the most successful promoter of various diets is Oprah on her TV show, and so she is the key person to whom my diet plan must be aimed. I rarely watch Oprah but I do watch Steven Colbert and his show is flagrantly promoting various people and their products, such as new movies, TV shows, Broadway shows and books. I have found that a bit annoying when it isn’t something I’ve been interested in, but now I must pay attention to that aspect of his presentations. Also, I must watch some of Oprah’s shows so I can get a better understanding of what she wants. I need to know what publishers she works with, and thus they to have become a primary audience.

All of this comes back to how I write the book. What the tone is, what the humor is and how the message can be presented so it is accepted. I need a good idea, which I have; a well-written book, which I have started; a great name  – (LOL diet) Love Our Life diet is good; a good iconic logo – I have a background in that kind of thing; and a person to step into the media and represent all these things – I’ve done a little stage work, so that isn’t impossible.

This is an outline strategy for getting the Love Our Life diet rolling.

Think about it, and choose your own goals.

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Avoid doing as they say., Choose your own goals, More thoughts on lying

We always have the problem of having other people’s goals thrust upon us. Some of them are well thought out and tested against our group’s aspirations like our country’s laws. Some things seem like they might be good, such as what our television shows us as appropriate behavior, but obviously, one’s personal morality being learned from several hours per day of TV dramas is unlikely to be good for anyone.

Our society is embedded with an abundance of nonsense. I have written about the common Christmastime lie, Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, and the New Year’s Resolution absurdity about dieting and Epictetus’ thoughts on lying.

The most pernicious lies are probably brought to us by local moral authorities of the various religions telling us what we should be doing. These authorities of virtue are occasionally caught doing things that are directly contrary to their pronouncements. Their standard defense is, “Do as I say, not as I do!” But that means they are incapable of following their own advice although they claim to be on a higher moral ground when they make their proclamations. What that means to me is what they ask is impossible, or they don’t believe what they say and that implies they are only preaching what sounds appealing with the intent of getting control of you and your money.

To base our behavior on what those people say, and to do as they say, is to base our acts and thoughts on their premeditated lies! – Let’s call it what it is! Lies! Therefore it becomes essential for us to learn how to identify lies, and probable lies, and eliminate their influence on our behavior. Think about your personal needs, and choose your own goals for satisfying those needs.

A simple indicator of a lie is when it seems too good to be true, coupled with the probability it will be a benefit to the speaker if you do as they say.

I seek to treat people better.

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Diary, I seek to treat people better., I walked the labyrinth twice today

Today I attended the memorial service for David and Judy Paulsmeyer at the UU Fellowship Church. I didn’t know them well, and our Sunday conversations had always been short and very pleasant. Generally, I spend my time there at the UU finding things to do. Easy little things like greeting people at the door, filling the dog watering bowl, wiping the dust of the benches, opening and closing the huge sanctuary doors, and picking up the collection. Also, I almost always bring a rock for the labyrinth and place it near the front door and pick up an earlier rock left there and take it to the labyrinth and place it in an appropriate location. My ten-minute walk in the labyrinth is a simple pleasure and gives me a bit of time to think in a noncommittal way about life in general.

Today was a special service for the Paulsmeyers who both died in a driving accident while coming back from visiting their grandchildren in Colorado. The service made clear what wonderful people they had been and the kindly service they had provided to their various local clubs, friends, and relatives. They were the salt of the earth in the kindness that they spread everywhere they went. True peacemakers.

I had parked my car a distance from our building but near the labyrinth and so I walked it both before and after the service. I needed the extra time to think about how I can be nicer, kinder and more helpful to those whom I encounter. Actually, I’m pretty good about that already, but I want to be much better, much kinder, and more accepting of people for who they are. I do post this blog with those thoughts in mind for the public to potentially benefit from, and I do lots of tiny things for the public benefit but when I heard today about David and Judy’s life I realized I can do much more.

I seek to treat people better.

The Morocco human fossils are unlikely to be Homo sapiens sapiens.

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Homo Sapiens sapiens, Human origins, Morocco human fossils

The 300,000 year old skeletal remains recently found in Morocco are clearly Homo sapiens, but I would assert that those people probably didn’t speak well. They were not what is sometimes called Homo sapiens sapiens. The Moroccan humans could probably breed successfully with modern humans because other Africans who came to Europe only 40,000 years ago interbred with Neanderthals, and those speaking Africans had probably been separated from Neanderthals for 400,000 years. The non-evolutionary development of Neanderthals’ stone tool technology makes it unlikely that they had the genes necessary for grammar and thus the ability to speak in sentences.

It is likely that neither the Neanderthals nor the Moroccans had the genes necessary for grammar and thus to speak in sentences until those speaking Africans brought that ability to them. The Neanderthal and Moroccan stone tools were sophisticated enough to have individual usages but they were changing noticeably only in a hundred-thousand-year time frame. When the grammar gene appeared about eighty thousand years ago in Africa in some local group it proved to be so useful that it permitted the descendants with that gene to out-compete all the other groups that lacked it. That DNA gene for grammar, possibly came into existence only one time, then evolved into a group of genes which spread throughout all the human populations of the world.

The European Neanderthals were physically isolated until the arrival of the language-bearing people, commonly called Cro-Magnon. These language bearers had already developed a more advanced technology by the time they left Africa. Once a group has language they have a much better ability to communicate what works and what doesn’t and thus to pass a more effective culture to their descendants.

A living person living in a small language-speaking community would see only a few technical and cultural changes in their lifetime, but in a few thousand years of accumulated cultural wisdom, their culture would be able to gather far more food from a given environment and thus to have larger populations. The replacement of the former occupants of an area need not be particularly violent but the more primitive technology of the non-speaking natives couldn’t maintain them against better speaking hunters with a better technology. With only modest violence between the non-speakers and the speakers, there would be inbreeding. In Europe, the genetic interbreeding of the two groups is still observable in the DNA but in Africa, the markers will be harder to trace because of the greater DNA mixing permitted by the ease of continent-wide travel. In Europe, there was a one-time mixing event. It may have been very slow by modern time standards but it was overwhelming and complete.

My point is that these 300,000-year-old Moroccans were not on a route back to the origins of Homo sapiens; our modern species Homo sapiens sapiens came into existence 200,000 years later with the DNA that permits human grammar, that is, the putting together of meaningful combinations of words.

Our “species” origins will be found in the middens where there was a technology undergoing a consistent major developmental change in a few thousand years.

Think for yourself and do the right thing.

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Do the right thing !, Think for yourself?

It is to be expected that everyone will do what they believe is best for themselves. Thus it becomes important to know what people consider to be themselves to understand what they are doing to promote their own well-being. The usual starting point in this process is what is most beneficial to the person’s physical body and their status in relation to the people they consider important.

It is important to know where people’s motivations are coming from because so much of the time they are telling you what to do. We live in a flood of information coming at us from all the media, and it isn’t unreasonable to assume that nearly all of that information is intended to influence us in some way that is beneficial to those paying for the media. That’s okay if what they are telling us is for our benefit, and even if they are only trying to sell us some product that is okay, but this is true only if we need that product and they are giving us a fair transaction.

We are the ones who make these decisions and we make those decisions based on our own thinking about the data input that is coming our way. Thus we must set up good filters to clear out the stuff that isn’t right for us and let the good stuff come through.

What and whom should you believe?

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Whom should believe?

One of the biggest problems faced by every human being is what and whom should you believe? Straight away I would claim no one should believe in the impossible. The corollary to that obvious proposition is that no one should believe people who are promoting impossible things. That also seems obvious, although much of society is based on other people believing people who propose and promote obviously impossible things.

The most successful of the promoters of the impossible are promoting things that you want to be true. Thus, those who say it is possible for you to be rich and beautiful and have perfect health and be surrounded by adoring people will claim that their words are true. That is, it is possible, anything is possible, if you believe, well at least if you believe strongly enough and especially if you believe in the right way.

Now, of course, comes the kicker; if you hang on long enough, and do enough click-throughs to get to the secret message, and of course, pay some tiny sum of money, that will open the fabulous door … and if you are in the right club, it will get you into eternal life. Just give the money, and the time, and the special work for the special community. It’s all so easy.

It is probably easy to spot these kinds of frauds. If you feel like someone is playing you for a sucker, they are playing you for a sucker. If you suspect someone is playing you for a sucker, they are probably playing you for a sucker. If someone is giving you something for free and claiming no gain for themselves, you have been hooked.

The best you can hope for and work toward is a mutual gain for both of you.

 

A disaster isn’t over until it’s all over.

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Disaster recovery, Ongoing expenses after disasters, Ponderosa tree fell thru our roof

During the worst windstorm in the memory of Bend, Oregon’s old-timers, my house was hit by a falling Ponderosa tree. Four other trees fell within striking distance but only one hit the house. Another one took out a chunk of our backyard fence, and in addition, a large spruce tree in the front yard got stripped of all of its branches on one side. It’s the side facing the street so passers-by for the next hundred years will be looking at a damaged tree.

A chunk of the front of the house was knocked off and the guys that restored the roof might have taken it away with the remains of the ruined roof, but they set it to the side of the house. That was finally removed today by a specially hired team who took  it to the city dump. They also took five forty-two gallon bags full of tree detritus, mostly chainsaw chips, which I wanted to be removed before the 4th of July annual fireworks extravaganza. That annual insanity is guaranteed to burn down our tree-covered city to our house foundations, in the long run. So far we have been lucky with our annual fire and only Pilot Butte gets burned. The last 4th I watered everything possible around the house but after watching a YouTube demonstration on how houses catch fire it made sense to scrape everything close to the house down to raw dirt. Particularly dangerous are flammable things that accumulate around the base of the house, like pine needles, tree leaves, and little windblown seeds. They catch fire easily and if the pile is more than a few inches high the flames can reach the underside of the eves.

People generally don’t face ugly facts until they have some personal experience, and a big tree woke me up.