I Can’t Believe It’s September!

It’s okay. I’m not hurt. Not too much. Sheesh! I haven’t had a sports-related injury since Kovaleski sent me through the meat-grinder in high school. And to think I got injured playing ‘old man’s tennis’—pickleball. No one hit me. I didn’t stumble into anything. I didn’t fall. This is from stretching too far! I didn’t even know pulled muscles bruised like this and this picture of the back of my knee shows the bruise after three full days of icing!

I’m thinking of taking up chess.

It appears that I have found a home for the winter months. I’m headed down to Quartzsite, AZ where the weather is warm and dry and the rates are cheap. I think the RV parks keep the rates down because they know you could just tow your trailer out into the desert on BLM land and park it for $180 for six months. I can dry camp for a couple of weeks, but I’m just not cut out for ‘no services’ camping for the long haul. So, I’ve located a campsite that will let me park for about $200 a month for the six months I’ll be there. It’s called the Scenic Road RV Park and is convenient to downtown, the flea market, the bookstore, and the huge RV Show in January.

I hope Quinne will come down to visit over the winter holiday and we can hop down to Mexico, perhaps Palm Springs, and visit London Bridge at Lake Havasu. I’m thinking this will be a fun winter.

If I can play pickleball.

I managed to get out of camp on Tuesday the 28th to take a friend to the airport at god-awful o’clock in the morning. We were a bit worried when we left as fog slowed our progress for about fifteen minutes. When we headed north on the highway, it dissipated and I got her to the airport in plenty of time. Then I took the opportunity to have breakfast at Frank’s Diner in Spokane.

I had a bunch of errands to run—Fred Meyer, Safeway, Costco—but it was only six in the morning, so after I ate a delicious meal of corned beef hash, eggs, and hashbrowns, I decided to do a little exploring of Spokane that I’d put off for the past three years. I headed for the Riverside Park and Expo Center. The first thing to greet me was the runners.

Of course, the leaders were far off to my right, but this is a pretty cool sculpture in the park. Then I headed for Canada Island where the flags of both countries fly next to a huge totem pole. I hadn’t been to see the upper falls on the Spokane River, so that was a treat.

There was a lot of construction around the area, so I never actually got to the Expo Center itself. Security was all over everyplace, directing traffic and pointing out event parking. I found out ‘Pig Out in the Park’ is this weekend and they were setting up. The first booth I came to, though, convinced me that I’d spend the weekend safely back in my campsite.

Deep fried bacon? Really? Doesn’t it deep fry when you put it in a pan?

After several gloomy and smelly days, the smoke has blown past us. We had a good rain that washed it out of the air and left us with a fresh-looking campsite, if a little quiet in the dawn hour.

I sort of miss the days when I got up at five o’clock and it was already sunrise. Now I get up at five o’clock and have to wait an hour and a half for the sun.

Here’s a not-so-random thought. My former employer, Charlie Cudd, once told me, “There are only three reasons for government: Print the Currency, Defend the Shores, and supply sewer and water to my developments.” Everyone can agree on the first two. The last one is why there are over 5,000 federal criminal laws and up to 300,000 rules and regulations that carry criminal penalties in the US. I use vague numbers because no one can really tell us how many laws there are.

One of those edicts was signed into law on April 11, 2018. It is popularly referred to as SESTA/FOSTA, a combined House and Senate bill to “Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act” and “Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act.” Well, good. We all want to fight sex trafficking, rescue and help victims, and eliminate the sex slave trade. I’m for it. In fact, in the second fully unified act of congress in the past twenty years, only two senators and twenty-five congressmen voted against the bill. The first one, of course, was to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both were mistakes.

Vaguely-worded laws become the haven for persecution. In this case, websites, ISPs, banks, and other service providers (like Patreon) have been enabled to interpret ‘possible sex trafficking’ as any adult content. In other words, pressure is being applied on providers of adult content (visual and verbal) to limit freedom of speech and expression.

None of my work under any name promotes sex trafficking, child trafficking, or illegal adult content. Therefore, I object to banks turning down credit card charges for my content, service providers having to move processing offshore, and Internet access slowing to a crawl if adult content is suspected. Unfortunately, all three are occurring.

Does anyone know what this fruit is? It grows on a bush about four feet tall next to my trailer. Very pretty when it turns bright red, but I have no idea what it is. Do tell!