Angry Voters

The news media have made much about American voters being “angry.”

I’m a voter. But I’m not angry. I’m not happy with the state of the country, nor am I unhappy. Is everything working the way I’d like it to work? No, but I don’t expect to get my way in every matter. No one should expect that.

Conservatives are unhappy with Obama. Liberals are unhappy with Obama. If both ends of the political spectrum are disappointed, Obama must be doing something right. Compromise is essential in politics, and compromise means not having everything your way.

Let’s look at a few things that we can be upbeat about:

• We’ve had 79 straight months of economic expansion.
• The budget deficit has been reduced by 3/4.
• We saved the automobile industry.
• We saved the banking industry.
• We averted a depression.
• We have a health care law that is working to lower costs.
• We have two women on the Supreme Court.
• Osama bin Laden is dead.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a barometer of the stock market, has climbed from 6,547 on March 9, 2009, to over 18,000 before falling back to 16,640 at closing on February 26.
• The unemployment rate has fallen from 10.2 to 4.9 percent.
• Gas and heating oil prices have fallen.

Do I credit Obama for every one of these things? No. Nor do I fault him because things are not better than they are.

Do I feel like my country or my way of life is under attack? No. Is my country changing in ways I don’t always like? Maybe. But change is inevitable. Change will always happen. Why be upset when you discover that your hands can’t hold back the tide?

Caro Emerald

The song of the day is 2009's Back It Up by Dutch pop and jazz singer Caro Emerald (Caroline Esmeralda van der Leeuw). Back It Up was Emerald’s debut single. Her next single, A Night Like This, reached number one in the Netherlands. Her debut album, Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, set an all-time Dutch chart record in 2010, spending 30 weeks at number one on the country’s albums chart.

A Particularly Dangerous Situation

The National Weather Service calls it a PDS – a particularly dangerous situation.

Tornadoes ravaged parts of Louisiana and Florida yesterday. Those storms came to my neck of the woods today. My city is no stranger to tornadoes though, thankfully, they’re infrequent. But they have hit the city several times before today, including a storm in 1993 that killed several people when it tore through a Walmart store.

East of me, down highway 460, the small town of Waverly was hit hard and at least 3 people are known to be dead there. They were inside a mobile home that was picked up by a twister and dropped in a different location. West of me, the small town of Appomattox – where the Civil War ended – was also hit hard, with homes losing their roofs.

Local TV meteorologists have been showing weather radar and talking non-stop since about 2:30 PM. Watching the radar makes me feel like my city is a target in a shooting range and Mother Nature is taking potshots at it. We’ve had at least 5 tornadoes in Virginia today, and the count could go higher. Many tornadoes are not reported until the next day when surveys are made.

The last band of storms is moving through my city now. After it passes, there should be only rain. The lights have flickered twice. I’m hitting the publish button now, before the power goes off for good.

[Edit] It is the next day. The storm’s death toll in Virginia stands at 4, with 3 people killed elsewhere. There were 8 tornadoes in Virginia, 5 in North Carolina, and 3 in Florida. City officials decided to sound the tornado-alert siren (a.k.a. the BFS), which is located about 50 meters from my house, at 7:32 PM – approximately a half hour after the storm had passed. Go figure.

Winter Cat

There is a cat that sometimes visits me and sits in my window sill. It lives at a nearby neighbor’s house, but on these still-cool winter afternoons, it likes to hop up in my window sill where it can bathe in warm rays of sunshine. It will face to the left until its right side is toasty, then it will turn and face to the right until its left side is toasty. Oh, it’s a lazy winter cat. It’s only job, which it performs when it is in the mood, is to catch and eat squirrels and moles and birds. I wish it would leave the birds alone, but that is not the way of its people. When it has gotten enough sun, the winter cat will disappear from my window sill and go somewhere else. But it will be back.

Windows 10 Second Try Second Fail

I upgraded my computer’s OS from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 last year when Windows 10 was released. The upgrade went well, but when the computer finished installing the new OS and rebooted for the final time, there were some problems – which I documented here. At that time, I had to rollback the OS to the earlier version; the rollback went off without a hitch. A few programs that are not compatible with Windows 10 had been uninstalled by Windows 10, and they remained absent after the rollback. I got them back by running System Restore and restoring the OS to the point before the upgrade.

So this time, the first thing I did was to create a restore point. Then I went to Windows Update and began the Windows 10 installation. When I installed Windows 10 six months ago, the process took about 45 minutes. This time it took about 75 minutes. The last time I installed Windows 10, everything appeared normal on my screen. A little different, but normal. This time, the first thing I noticed about the new Windows 10 was that my Desktop picture was gone and most of my Desktop icons were gone.

	<< Windows 8.1 Desktop. Some of the icons are links (shortcuts) to programs, but some are folders that contain text and media files.
	<< Windows 10 Desktop after upgrade. The Desktop picture is gone, replaced by the default Windows 10 Desktop. Most of the Desktop icons are also gone.

In addition to these changes to the Desktop, I soon discovered that all my documents and media files were gone. The Documents, Pictures, Videos, and Music folders were empty. I searched for a solution to the missing folders and quickly found a Microsoft blog on which one of their experts explained that the missing files could be found in the old Windows folder, now renamed “Windows.old”. He explained how to get to the old folders and how to copy the contents of the old folders to the new Windows 10 folders. When I followed the instructions, I was able to locate my old Documents, Pictures, Videos, and Music folders. One problem: all of them were empty!

I had enough. If my documents and media were still on my computer’s hard drive, any further tinkering would put them at risk. I decided to rollback my system to Windows 8.1 and, as before, the rollback went smoothly and I recovered all my missing files. The only hitch was when I tried to restore my computer to a point before the upgrade – just to make sure that all my settings were truly restored – I was unable to do a system restore because Windows 10 had deleted all my restore points. But it appeared that, unlike the last time I upgraded, the programs not compatible with Windows 10 were still there after the rollback, so a system restore is probably not needed.

That’s my Windows 10 upgrade experience; tried installing it twice, gave up twice because of problems with the installation. It might be tempting fate to try a third time. But the two installations I tried were so different from each other, it might be interesting to see what a third installation looks like.

February 14

I just returned from a walk around the ‘hood. It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon. The air today is cold; it’s 28°F, and that is the high temperature for today. (Last night was 8°F.) The day is sunny, but it’s a weak sunlight that gives no heat. The smell of burning wood floats in the air. Only one car passed by me while I was out, and I saw no one else on foot. I had no company, except for the winter hawk. It glided quietly and quickly above the houses, circling for a while before disappearing beyond treetops to the south. I cut my walk short because the cold was uncomfortable.

We’re supposed to have snow tonight. In fact, according to the weather radar, it’s already snowing over my city. Peeking through the front window blinds, I see nothing falling yet, but I know it’s just a matter of time. Snow is on the way. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get ice pellets. The day after tomorrow we’ll get rain. For a couple of days and nights, the roads will be messy.

I didn’t watch the Republican debate last night, but I heard there was a lot of mud being thrown. That’s American politics: no thoughtful discussion of problems and how to solve them. No, just throw dirt at all your opponents and hope it sticks. It’s like watching a bunch of children squabbling. On the other hand, I’m sure the candidates know their audience. Most Americans would probably find a thoughtful discussion – devoted to problem solving – boring and simply tune out.

I watched Thursday’s LIGO announcement as it was streamed live. It’s an exciting time for cosmology. Scientists have proven that gravitational waves are real, just as Einstein predicted 100 years ago. They’ve proven that space-time is a real thing that can be stretched and compressed. They’ve proven that black holes exist; previously, we had only indirect evidence, as they are not visible.

Did I mention that today is Valentine’s Day? Well, it is – for somebody, somewhere. In my house, it’s just February 14. I’m okay with that.

Super Bowl 50

Like millions of others, I’m waiting for the Super Bowl to begin. I’m not a fan of either team, but I’d like to see the Panthers win, if only because Charlotte is 270 miles away – a 4-hour road trip – while Denver is 1,690 miles away – six 4-hour road trips in a row. Add to those 24 hours however much time you spend stopping to stretch your legs, gas up the car, put food in your stomach, use a restroom, and sleep, and you easily have a 36 hour road trip. Plus, I’ve lived in North Carolina. I’ve never lived in Colorado. I’ve visited the state, I’ve flown into Denver, I’ve driven across Colorado once or twice, but I’ve never lived there. So for this game, the Panthers will be my home team.

I recently watched the movie Concussion. The movie is based on a true story. In it, Will Smith plays pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovers that football players that suffer repeated concussions develop a type of brain disorder he calls chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The symptoms are severe enough that some retired players have committed suicide. Now that the NFL has recognized that it has a problem, it is finally addressing it. Better helmets, rules changes, and closer examination of players who get hit in the head – all these things should diminish the number and severity of concussions. On-going and future research may enable team doctors to determine who is at risk and how much, if any, brain injury is present. I hope the research succeeds, because I don’t think this game is going away.

Time passes.

It’s halftime. It’s been a defensive game. The score is 13 to 7 with Denver leading. The halftime show is starting.

My halftime show thoughts:

Coldplay is on, Chris Martin is singing. Generally, I don’t like it when singers use Autotune, but sometimes when they don’t, I wish they would. Martin is squatting at the edge of the stage and people are reaching in and touching him. I can almost read their thoughts: “He’s real – I can feel him, I’m touching him. He’s not a hologram!” I guess that settles that debate.

Now Bruno Mars is on. What is his band called? Bruno Mars and the Martians? No, that would be too obvious. It’s “The Hooligans.” Bruno Mars is not his real name, you know. His name is Peter Gene Hernandez, but Bruno Mars is certainly easier to remember. You’ve probably already forgotten his real name.

Now Beyoncé is on stage (full name: Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter). Queen Bey is stealing the halftime show, showing Martin and Mars how it’s done. Gotta go, the second half is starting. More later.

Time passes.

The game is over. Super Bowl 50 is in the history books.

Earlier today I saw this headline:

Orangutan from Utah zoo that's a perfect 8-0 in Super Bowl predictions picks Panthers

The monkey picked the Panthers but the Panthers lost. The Broncos beat them 24-10. I guess the lesson to be drawn from this is: don’t get your betting tips from a monkey.

Sara Bareilles

The song of the day is Gravity from the 2004 album Careful Confessions by Sara Bareilles.

Voctave & Kirstin Maldonado

The song of the day is Disney Love Medley by central Florida a cappella group Voctave featuring Kirstin Maldonado (of Pentatonix) and Jeremy Michael Lewis (of AcoUstiKats). Songs: I See the Light, from Tangled; You’ll Be in My Heart, from Tarzan; Go the Distance, from Hercules.

Ramblings

It was only five days ago that I was complaining about the blizzard and posting pictures of snow. Today felt like a spring day, with a high temperature of 75°. It must be February. The weather forecast calls for cold tomorrow, warm again the next day, then cold again, possibly with snow next Monday. Oh yes, it is definitely February.

I’ve recently become aware that I’m eating too much salt. Specifically, I’m getting too much sodium. So I’ve started reading nutrition labels. Turns out I can’t eat any food that comes in a package or can. Frozen meals are out; canned soups and stews are out. Even bread has a lot of sodium, so I bought a loaf of “low sodium” bread. The nutrition label says it has zero sodium. The downside is the bread is about as tasty as cardboard, which is the reason bakers add salt to bread dough. Actually, I could eat some of these products if I restrict myself to one or two meals per day. And they’d have to be small meals at that.

I’m tired of seeing news coverage of the 2016 presidential election campaigns. I’m burnt out. Will it never end? The Brits have their elections from start to finish in six weeks; why can’t we? Maybe that’s too quick for a presidential election, but surely six months is long enough for voters to figure out who they want to elect. If you don’t know which candidate you prefer after six months, I don’t think having eighteen months to decide will help you. After all, they’ll be repeating the same stuff over and over. How will hearing the same promises for eighteen months instead of six months – promises that will likely be broken, anyway – make your decision easier?

The Donald says he will build a wall on the border to keep out illegal aliens.  Janet Napolitano (former Secretary of Homeland Security) has often said, “Show me a 50 foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51 foot ladder.” And General George Patton once said, “Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.” People will go over, under, or around them to get to where they want to be. Interestingly, the Feds say that since 2007 net immigration from Mexico has been negative; a million more illegal Mexican immigrants have left the U.S. than have entered the U.S. Which may or may not be factual, but there you are.

Have you ever heard of passenger pigeons? When Europeans arrived in North America, passenger pigeons were the most numerous bird species on the continent. They may have been the most numerous bird species on Earth. However, in the 19th century their numbers went from 3–5 billion to zero in only 50 years. The reason: humans. We discovered the birds were tasty. The last wild bird was killed in 1900; the last captive bird died in a zoo in 1910. A Wikipedia article says of the passenger pigeon extinction, “It has been described as one of the greatest and most senseless extinctions induced by humans.”

We’re doing the same thing to other wild animals. For example, in the early part of the 20th century there were 3-5 million African elephants. Today, there are about 470,000 and their numbers continue to dwindle. Despite the ban on ivory, they are still poached in large numbers. The same thing is happening to lions. Fifty years ago the African lion population numbered over 200,000 animals. Today it is less than 25,000 and decreasing. I believe humans’ love of killing other creatures will prove to be our fatal flaw, the thing that will be our undoing. For the animals, it can’t come soon enough.