We were on this bridge today. I was here a few years ago, right after one of that day or two after a major earthquake.
Every time I cross on the bridge, I am amazed, and pleased

we made it

It was a fairly fast rather boring trip.

A bunch of hours, a lot of gas and two egg salad sandwiches, and we are in SanFrancisco.

OK, fast may not be the right word. I drove pretty close to the speed limit, and it took 11 elapsed hours to make the run, but we made it.

It is good to get to where you are a going!

When I started this blog there was a group of AD caregivers who kept in touch.
But their loved one was further along than Miriam and they are all gone now, and once gone they really needed to take on a new life.
So readership of this blog has dropped off. But, since I am a compulsive writer, who cannot stop, I will keep writing.
Subject matter may be a bit more scattered, since if I have few readers, I have few to irritate!

my fear

We elected a new Prosecuting Attorney a cycle back.

By all indications, he did his job well. He streamlined the office and made it work better.

Of course there was a fly in the ointment. The job paid a whole lot less than he had been making as an attorney, and his financial house was not in order when he took the job.

He negotiated a deal where one of the entities he oversaw paid him directly (I don’t understand that one), and he would repay someone else. But when he missed a huge payment he resigned.

Now he has declared bankruptcy. He shows debts of over a million and assets of little more than his house and car, but he owes more on both than they are worth.

But what caught my eye was that he still has $122,000 in student loans from the 1990’s. It seems he has been paying on them for 11 to 19 years and he still owes that much.

Payments on those loans would be in the $1400 a month range.

What scares me about my grandkids future is not their intelligence or their social skills, but that to get what they see as the necessary education for their chosen life, they take on too much debt.

I read that the average student graduates with about $30,000 in debt, and one estimate is that the repayment rate is about the same as payments on a decent car, which would not be bad, but the now ex-student probably has one of those too. Another estimate was that about half the student loans in California are not being paid down (interest only payments, or less).

If my brilliant grandkids all get high paying jobs they may be in tall grass, but if one of them would like to follow a less financially rewarding career, they better know how to cook beans and eat cheap.

I quit growing Russet potatoes, they require more gardening control.
This year I grew Cal Whites, which makes me some kind of a socialists or anarchist or something.

russet potatoes

I live in the state of Idaho.

Part of that is a mine (or mind) state, but that is a different subject.

We used to have the most one sided government in the US, but now we are only the 2nd most. We have one dominate church and one dominate governmental view point. And, we grow mostly one variety of potato.

Our governor is named Butch, and out next governor is likely to be Little. (Our back up governor, who is in line to be the big guy, is Brad Little.)

Our new congressman is named Raul, and was born in Puerto Rico, which some argue is not a part of the US (it really is though). He replaces a wealthy businessman who was born in the same village as my grandfather.

Remove one letter from our senior senator’s name and it is a slang word for excrement. Hmm.

Our other senator was reported to be the 12 richest in our millionaire forum we call the US senator. That is logical since his name is one letter beyond Rich, but is pronounced pretty much the same.

So I am going to go to south for a week. Their new governor was once the youngest governor his state, now, a long time later, he will be the oldest.

He is less than a year younger than I, and obviously has a lot more energy.

Briefly, I am envious.

this is a tile job I did a long time ago.

grumpy grandpa

Last week went off daylight savings time.

In my warped mind it is winter when the sun goes down at 5:30 and by 6 it is dark.

Then Friday I got my first seed catalog in the mail. It is a good company, one I buy from each year, but in early November? By the time I actually plant seeds, I expect to get a bushel of catalogs, that cost someone more to make and send than I spend on seeds each year.

Yesterday i opened the home page of my local newspaper and across the top was a banner ad for a radio station that has wall to wall Christmas music, before Thanksgiving even. There is not a lot of new christmas music each year and after listening to a dozen versions of "little drummer boy" over the period of a few hours, one might be tempted to retreat to silence. How anti american/christmas is that!?!

So now, I will avoid commercial radio and tv (having just come through a particularly nasty political season, that is an established habit). I will be careful.

I fear I only have a few drops of this precious Americhristmas stuff to begin with and it must be carefully hoarded.