Orgone

Immoral failure

Interesting article at the New York Times. The contractor that did the work on the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial is now taking full responsibility for the problems.

The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times.

President Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals wielding knives or box cutters for damage to the pool’s “American flag blue” liner, even after the Justice Department dropped charges that it had brought against people accused of vandalizing the national landmark.

But the documents, which have not previously been reported, make clear that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, found problems in both the design and the execution of the renovation. The documents include Atlantic’s reports to the government as well as daily progress updates from the National Park Service over the past two months.

Atlantic blamed its own errors in a report dated Aug. 14 and then provided more detail on Sept. 2, the documents show. The Justice Department, which had charged several people with vandalizing the pool in early July, began moving to dismiss the cases on July 31.

Because of “human oversight,” workers in some areas did not spray enough of the primer that made the layers of the liner stick together, Atlantic said in the documents. But the bigger problem, the company said, was that the repair plan laid out in the contract called for the layers of liner to include two chemicals that turned out to be incompatible.

The chemical on top reached a temperature hotter than what the compound underneath could withstand, and the heat caused the bottom layer to blister and come loose, the documents show. The contractor said it had not expected that outcome because it was very uncommon to mix the two products in that way.

What I find disgusting, frankly, is that the President continued to call for prosecuting the "usual suspects and Olympic heroes" long after he knew that they were not responsible and that vandalism was not involved. Because it did not fit his favorite bullshit narrative.

This is what happens when you elect a person with no sense of shame or morality and an absolute disregard for taking accountability for his own actions.

Innocent people will sometimes get thrown in jail for a long time.

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Trump snaps at another female reporter after a question about his $5,000 promise to voters: 'You're the worst'

Jonathan Wilson

 

 This is an excellent 2013 cover of Fazon, one of my favorite songs by the band Sopwith Camel. Bit of a harsh intro, watch your ears and speakers!

More from the EPA

I lived in West Texas from 1964 to the end of 1968. I generally liked being a kid there, life had its ups and downs of course. One thing I don't remember was it smelling particularly bad. I will tell you, it sure stinks now. All of those gas wells are not helping its olfactory pungency level one bit.

Take a drive up to Midland some day and get a whiff of the methane, it is horrible. Houston is now the official smelliest spot in the whole country.

Today I read that the stinky Trump EPA is helping their favorite polluters out once again. 

From ProPublica:

EPA to Loosen Methane Rules, Boosting Pollution From Oil and Gas Wells

The Trump administration is poised to loosen environmental restrictions on oil and gas wells that produce very little energy but release vast amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to drastically weaken requirements for leak inspections and equipment upgrades at more than 700,000 low-producing “stripper wells,” according to a draft rule being reviewed by the White House and seen by ProPublica. These wells — which tend to be old, poorly maintained and thus prone to leaking — produce just 6% of the country’s oil and natural gas but are responsible for roughly half the sector’s methane pollution, studies show.

The EPA acknowledged similar figures in the draft. But it said that the cost of complying with existing regulations would force the lowest-producing wells to shut down and that this was “unreasonable” — even though it would eliminate just 0.4% of U.S. oil and gas production, according to an industry estimate cited in the proposed rule.

The proposal, which would also weaken methane controls in the wider oil industry, is expected to save companies $42 billion through 2050. An attached memo says the rollback will help to “unleash” American energy, one of President Donald Trump’s favorite slogans.

If your read the article, you will see the standard corrupt practices between this administration and the pollution industry that we have come to expect. This awful regime can not be gone soon enough.

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Unprotecting American Lands: How Trump Is Dismantling America’s Bipartisan Conservation Legacy

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Trump moves to ease environmental rules for data centers

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Trump administration stalled a survey of PFAS in wastewater, former EPA officials say.

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Inside Trump’s Aggressive Push to Build Data Centers on Public Lands

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The making of a judicial coup.

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Today's favorite screenshot.

Asian duck stir fry with snow peas and basil

Still on the stir fry kick, I decided to switch it up just a little bit. 

I bought two duck breasts from Major Market. 

The last two from the endcap, don't bother looking.

I made criss cross cuts on the skin side, dried them with a paper towel, gave them a shake of salt and pepper.

I put a little peanut oil in my cold dutch oven and put them in skin side down to slow render for about seven minutes at medium high heat. 

Came out beautifully. 

I then cut them into thin strips, all with a nice crispy edge. 

I set them aside on the plate.

I had already prepped my vegetables, last time I went broccoli, this time snow peas. 

Carrots, mushrooms, celery, ginger, water chestnuts and garlic completed the board.

That would be enough.

I cooked the vegetables in the duck fat for a few minutes and then added my sauce.

My sauce tonight was a bit different too. 

1/2 cup water, 1/3 of a cup of soy sauce, two tablespoons brown sugar, two thai chiles, sesame oil, rice vinegar, hoison oil and thai chili paste. 

I added some cumin and crushed red pepper too. 

Snuck in a bit of corn starch for thickening as well as white pepper.

Whisked it all up.

I didn't think it was as spicy as the other night but Leslie said it definitely was and asked me if I had a cold?

Guess I am getting immune.

Anyway I poured the sauce in with the veggies after they had cooked for about four minutes and then re added my duck. 

I adjusted the seasoning and we were good to go.

Leslie made rice, we added cashews and fresh basil at the last second. 

There was some time coordination problems and the duck got overcooked a bit but that was entirely on me and it was still delicious.

Cooking the dish in the dutch oven rather than a skillet definitely made for a cleaner kitchen.

I like this thai duck version. 

Will do this one again. 

And tone down the spice level a skoche for my partner.

Definitely needed lots of water!

It's freaking hot

It is so hot that I am unable to work in my shop, not having a working air conditioner.  It has been the most non productive week in memory, I just can not work.

It is just miserable out there. It was 106° at 4:30 driving back into my valley. You get burned when you merely touch your steering wheel.

Of course I have friends in Phoenix that consider 106° child's play, it looks like igloo city I suppose when you are facing 119° to 122°. 

Never understood the allure of that city but that is probably just me and a lot of wealthy people do live there so it certainly must have its charms. They just don't go outside.

I read this morning that August was the hottest month ever recorded globally or in a tie with July of 2023 anyway.

From NPR:

WASHINGTON — Earth cooked to its hottest month on record in August, blowing far past a key climate threshold, due to the dangerous double whammy of human-caused climate change and a supersized El Nino, according to the European climate service Copernicus.

August's sizzle also helped push the globe and the United States to swelter through the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer scientists have measured.

Last month the world averaged 62.53 degrees Fahrenheit (16.96 degrees Celsius), which technically was one-hundredth of a degree Celsius more than the all-time global mark set in July 2023, but because that's also the uncertainty level, it's considered a tie, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus.

"It is now time to stop acting surprised that our warming planet keeps getting warmer. This is occurring exactly as forecast by scientists literally decades ago," Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler said in an email. "The interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we're going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over."

Well, Andrew, if I had to make a bet, I say we will do nothing and get run over. But I tend to be a pessimist.

I have a buddy on the right that doesn't believe in climate change. His source and the darling of many on the right is this guy John Christy, now retired from Alabama Huntsville. Christy's views run counter to 98% of all climate scientists.

Doesn't believe Greenhouse gases contribute to warming, thinks the thirties were warmer, thinks the problem is that the temperature stations are located on asphalt and that if we do have global warming, it will sure be better than the opposite.

"If it’s just between you and me I’ll just say I prefer the temperature going up than going down… When it goes down we have ice ages that occur and nobody wins in an ice age." John Christy

Christy did something interesting with his data; to prove his point he just created a new graph metric that excluded the really hot days.

Brilliant!

He also appears to have a theological axe to grind.

A devout Baptist, Christy believes that "the use of carbon-based energy" is "needed to lengthen and enhance the quality of human life", which is the "moral imperative." He has argued that efforts to limit greenhouse pollution are "trying to control how others live".

I don't want to control how you live, or think, just don't try to tell me it's not hotter than it has ever been. Of course, he is not the only one indulging in such chicanery, the Heartland Institute is funded by big business to regularly put up a steady load of the same kind of dross.

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So the other day the Federal Judge said that we had no constitutional right to clean water and I assume air and that it was okay for the government to lie to you. I wrote about it here.

It doesn't look like the government is very effective in cleaning up the lead mess either.

I saw today that three states have now made it illegal for people to test for chemicals in the atmosphere.

As the US’s network for monitoring air pollution deteriorates, a Floodlight investigation has found that the chemical industry is going state-to-state to restrict one of the few options citizens have left for holding polluters accountable: low-cost air sensors.

Over the past two years, the non-profit investigative newsroom determined, lawmakers in Louisiana, Kentucky and Ohio have passed strikingly similar laws barring regulators from acting on air-quality data that communities collect themselves – unless it comes from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved equipment that typically costs tens of thousands of dollars. Similar legislation has repeatedly been introduced in West Virginia.

Yet when lawmakers in West Virginia offered a version of a bill that would have let regulators consider community data if it met manufacturer requirements, industry refused to back it.

The bill “essentially codifies what we are trying to prevent”, wrote Jeff Fritz, an official with the chemical giant Chemours, in an internal email. Bill Bissett of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association wrote that the compromise “neuters” the measure and left it “toothless”. That bill died, along with versions in 2025 and 2026.

Ohio slipped its monitor restriction into a budget bill last year, prompting a lawsuit from a group of plaintiffs including Donna Ballinger.

Ballinger has a low-cost monitor in her front yard in Middletown, Ohio, a few hundred feet from a steel plant that she says frequently sends black, white and gray particles on to her property. Fumes sometimes burn her eyes and throat, she said, and she often holds her nose when walking between her house and car.

“My fear is cancer,” she said.

The lawsuit she helped file alleges that the new rules make her monitor’s readings useless as evidence.

Shelby Co. Health Department questions integrity of community air monitoring report data

Community groups say Louisiana is trying to stop them from monitoring air pollution

https://grist.org/accountability/louisiana-groups-sue-over-air-monitoring-law-camra/

I think it is safe to say that you would have to be an idiot if you expect your government, big business, big chemicals and/or big polluters and the unholy tryst between all of them to keep you safe. Much like forever chemicals, or the EPA on lead pollution the official fallback is that they will be in your yards, water, body and air forever, might as well get used to it. 

Somebody is making way too much money to stop.

Planet Caravan

My audiophile music buddies all got together yesterday for our regular listen to. You send in your list ahead of time and after a little editing Kip finds it on tape, vinyl or Qobuz.

It's a good group, I always get a chance to hear things outside my normal wheelhouse.

Chip brought this tape up from Coronado.

I will readily admit that I was never a big Black Sabbath fan. I remember one weird bong filled day in high school where we were drinking peppermint schnapps or something like that where I sort of dug them.

But they were never my deal, too dark and cartoony.

Chip put this cut on, the one before Iron Man and it got my attention. So different from them, so musical. Soft even. Very lyrical, jazzy guitar.  Reminded me of a time I saw Frampton and he was playing sort of like this.

See, I learned something.

Asian stir fry with chicken

Leslie and I had lunch at Yumi one day last week, we hadn't been out together in a while and it was nice to share a meal. 

We ordered a medium sashimi plate, lamb dumplings and something I had never tried before, the garlic chicken.

It turned out that we were so full that we couldn't even eat the chicken but had it the next night for leftovers and it was wonderful.

But then I got to thinking. "I can do that."

I started looking at garlic chicken recipes, settled on this one but then realized that it could be a lot better, it was a little too one dimensional.

So I decided to incorporate everything into a stir fry and landed on this one.

I often combine recipes, grab what I like and omit what I don't. 

Both of these called for a sauce but they were very similar so I only made one.

The dish was delicious.

Here is what I did:

I bought a tray of skinless boneless chicken thighs and another of skinless boneless breasts. I cut them into smallish bite sizes.

I dredged them in two tablespoons of corn starch, white pepper and a little salt and laid them on a plate.

I then started my sauce. I took a half cup of water, 1/3 cup of soy sauce, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, one thai chile, whole, a dash of aji mirrin, two teaspoons hot chile sesame oil, red pepper flakes, chile strips, a tablespoon of corn starch, four cloves of garlic and a shake of ground ginger and whisked it all up in a mixing bowl.

The original recipe called for Shaoxing rice wine but I looked in two stores and couldn't find it and went with the rice vinegar instead. The aji mirren is sort of a fake substitute which I added for good measure.

I would have used fresh ginger but we had run out.

I put the bowl aside and prepped my vegetables. I used what was left of the other night's green beans, two carrots, mushrooms, broccoli florets and the last of the celery and cut them all up into uniform pieces. 

That is what stir fry is good for, cleaning out the fridge.

I then took my Le Creuset skillet and started the arduous job of shallow frying. I am so happy that my wife was not home as as much as I tried to contain the grease splatter it was impossible, even with the splatter guard. I tried my best.

We have an electric ceramic cooktop and woks don't work well on them.

It took me a while to brown and cook the four individual batches of chicken but it finally came out great.

I put the protein aside. I have a small kitchen and there were plates and bread boards hanging out everywhere, as you can imagine.

I grabbed a big non stick skillet and after adding avo oil, started browning the vegetables at high heat, for about three or four minutes. I added four more cloves of garlic, just to make sure. I then poured my sauce in, gave everything a good stir and turned it down at which point I added the chicken back in. Cooked it about three more minutes.

I also added cashews at the last minute, a little salt for taste and we were good to go.

Leslie got home just as the rice was ready to fluff, having sat for ten minutes.

We sprinkled sesame furikake on top and were good to go.

She loved it, we are going to add water chestnuts tomorrow and she wants more mushrooms.

I was the lucky guy that got the thai chile and it definitely opened my eyes and my sinuses too!

This dish takes some work and a lot of clean up but is definitely worth the effort.

Give it a try!

Visuals

 

Oh, brother...

Comfortably Dumb

I was not really too familiar with the Mercator controversy but it goes something like this: 

If you were to look at the normal map of the world that we use you would be under the impression that Greenland was as big as Africa and dwarfs South America. In reality Africa is 14 times larger. You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare,

The Mercator layout was introduced by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors with navigation. Almost five centuries later, it somehow remains the global standard. 

But it has immense failings. Regions near the equator appear significantly smaller than they are, whereas high-latitude areas look much larger. This tends to minimize low latitude areas, which tend to be poorer. This is being called "Cartographic Colonialism."

Some argue that the map has subtly shaped international power dynamics by minimising the physical presence of the global south and visually inflating northern hemisphere nations while shrinking equatorial regions. This is said to have reinforced systemic biases in international trade, development priorities and educational frameworks.

There is a new cartography push for a map called Equal Earth where continents are laid out in true size and proportionality.

The United Nations has voted to adopt a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favor of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. A true orthographic view of the continent is even more startling.

In a session at its headquarters in New York, the UN general assembly officially retired the 16th-century Mercator projection in favor of one based on the more accurate 2018 Equal Earth design.

At the session, 164 countries voted in favor of the resolution. Only the US voted no, with its representative saying the resolution was “superfluous”. There were six abstentions.

Once again we are looking in from the outside and bucking world opinion. Note the tone from our representative:

Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said the resolution was presented as "an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions" but was, in her view, part of a "much larger and more radical ideological project." 

"Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice," Ferencevych said Friday during the 114th Plenary meeting.

Rather than be seen for what it is, a common sense move into the 21st century, it is instead a "radical ideological project." How embarrassing it is to be an American sometimes.

Rain, take 5

 

 Rip it, Ringo

You have no right to safe drinking water...

...and it is okay for your government to lie to you. 

Typical Trump judge in Mississippi. God help us.

On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water. 

The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said. “Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” 

That may be true in Mississippi—but on the state level in at least nine US states, and in more than a dozen other countries, clean drinking water is in fact a protected right. In countries including Uruguay and South Africa, a right to clean water is enshrined in the constitution. New York’s state constitution, as of a 2021 amendment, states that “each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” So too in Massachusetts, where “the right to clean air and water” has been constitutionally protected since 1972.

But according to the Fifth Circuit ruling, the US constitution is too narrow for such a claim. The Jackson plaintiffs alleged that their city government deliberately withheld information about the water’s toxicity, and exacerbated the problem through a series of boil-water notices—a practice that can eliminate some bacterial contamination, but also concentrates lead in water. Engelhardt stated there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” 

Gypsies from Bonsall

Old Fallbrook

My friend Steve found an old Fallbrook yearbook in an estate sale in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

He thinks that the late owner was a Brigadier Marine General.

It included an old map of Camp Pendleton.

He sent me a couple pages.

Nothing earth shattering.

A promo of the 1962 Warrior Bowl against Army Navy.

My late brother Buzz went to Army Navy in Carlsbad.

My old roommate Bob Teague might have played in this game.

Nope. 62, too early.

He was a running back.

Played rhythm guitar in the Nobles.

This insert caught my eye. 

I didn't arrive here for another sixteen years but I remember Jane's Smart Shop.

I remember Bud Swearingen too and Stu Marshall.

Port's, the owner was a dear friend. 

I knew Leighton too but not well.

Don't remember the Coffee Mill or the others.

Don't even remember the rural telephone pre-fix.

I was driving in to town this morning and was thinking about my last blogpost and some of the things that have gone downhill around here since I have been around.

It's not a huge list, I am still very up on my town.

But I drive by the old Nickerson's Nursery and have to say, "Why?"

It was a booming place, a great nursery and they lost their lease.

For what?

For this? Place gone to seed, fences falling down.

How long has it been, thirty five years?

It was so vibrant and beautiful.

Ditto Las Brisas. Have you driven by lately?

Rubble everywhere, trash, crap. I thought that it was going to be a car wash.

Why did they knock it down again?

It's not a long list. I see a barbed wire fence around the empty McDaniels building and think, hey that would be a good spot for a pizza restaurant. We can call it Fallbrook Pizza!

Wait, it's been done?

Shoot.

What am I missing?  

Are all those industrial trucks parked on the giant lot on South Mission going to stay there forever?

I miss Dennis's nursery on Fallbrook Street. The current owners certainly have a different vision than he did.

Time marches on!

Mean Old World

Too far gone

I was sitting on a bench outside my shop the other day when the young man approached me. He looked relatively normal. But when he started talking I knew that there was something very wrong.

"Tell the cops and FBI to stop watching me. They think I am abusing my parents, I am not. I'm a nuclear physicist you know..."

He continued to ramble. The paranoid schizophrenic conversation went downhill from there and I tried to extricate myself as quickly as possible. But it was sobering. Looking at the guy from the outside you would not have had a clue as to the demons he was wrestling internally.

We are getting more and more young people like this on our streets. 

Some say they are getting bused in from other municipalities, I don't know. 

The old Fallbrook hospital treats the psychologically damaged from Riverside County, not sure that they don't get out and join the crazy multitude from time to time, the answer is out of my pay grade.

I was talking to my friend Tony, the P.I. about this the other day. Tony has been around here a lot longer than my forty six years in town.

He was bemoaning the state of the town, the open hard drug use, violence, crime and homelessness. We agreed that it has never been this bad. How do we get back to the good old days?

He showed me a video of a fentanyl user that was stomach turning. 

Too large to post on my blast but this guy was in full junkie lean out of his mind.

People are seriously whacked. 

Tony posted pictures on Friends of Fallbrook and took some grief from people who thought that it was hurting the town's image. Or so he says, I am not on Facebook but will take him at his word.

Tony wants them to shut down the Pico Promenade until they get a little more control of the rampant crime happening there on a daily basis and at Heynemann Park.

When was the last time you walked down Pico Promenade? I haven't for over ten years and I wouldn't, it looks far too scary. It is an open sewer of deprivation. Don't go unless you are heavily armed.

One of the complaints I hear is that the cops do nothing, they know who the dealers are and do nothing. They give the junkies narcan and go on their merry way. 

Tony said that well meaning church goers come to the park and bring the homeless pizza and pray for them regularly, enabling them in the worst way. What a country we live in!

I had a conversation with a friend who regularly gives food to the needy at the library. I asked him if he sees these faces and he said rarely. He mostly sees people who fell through the cracks and really need help.

Not alcoholic, psycho drug addicts that are never going to be anything else and who would never even consider rehabilitation, let alone work. The too far gone.

He said that the majority of the people that congregate at Heynemann are latino yet the no drinking signs are in english. Time to fix that.

I tried to be nice, the street people used to sleep behind my store. And then they shit by my back door repeatedly and told me to clean it up if I didn't like it. I had the block walls that gave them shelter demolished within a day. My empathy is hereby gone. A few were continually harassing merchants and customers. Cops rarely did anything, if they were picked up it was usually for a day or two at most and then back at it.

I will never forget when Maggie, the millionaire in the chauffeured Bentley, rolled up on the  coffee shop and gave us all a stern lecture on how we had to do more to help the homeless. Rich man's guilt, no doubt.

I don't think that the people feeding them pizza and enabling them are helping them or the rest of us either. Help the truly unfortunate, not the drug addled sponges who will never rehabilitate. Are we helping them or punishing the rest of us with our well intentioned but possibly misguided efforts??

Glad my friend Tony had the guts to speak up. Close Pico Promenade until it is safe for the public again. It is clearly out of control. What other parts of town are we willing to cede and give up? Let's be a friendly village but let's not be a bunch of saps.

Leaving Trunk

Air Drop

Well, I had good news and bad news yesterday and today. Let's get the bad news out of the way first, shall we? 

I am sitting on the bench outside my shop, pleasantly enjoying the morning, waiting for a client to arrive, maybe whistling a little tune when a large crow or small raven ensconced in the cape chestnut tree above me launched a prodigious fusillade of poo out of nowhere that managed to hit me like a scat missile from hell.

Splat.

This gift from the avian heavens was beyond disgusting.

I ran into the shop, wiped it off with paper towels and gave my arm a quick rinse.

I swear the bird was aiming.

Little bastard.

My client came and I put on a good game face, considering the ignominy of my morning.

Got a very nice collection of works by San Diego modernists, including sculptures by James T. Hubbell and Jack Boyd.

Later I did a little work on my shop, slowly but surely carving pathways and making things operqtional.

Yesterday I started unpacking my native basket collection, which has some real beauties, if I am permitted to say that in all humility.

I love Native American baskets, especially those made in California and Nevada.

Shop is still not exactly navigable but I am making a little progress every day and I am good with that.

I have been working diligently on a report for a client that is now into its second week and umpteenth revision.

Very difficult and not something I care to do again for a while. 

I hope it is finished soon but it seemingly goes on and on.

Back to the health report. 

My knee is killing me, I have tripped about four times in the last 24 hour. 

Luckily there was a cancellation at Scripps and I get to meet the Doctor Thursday that will do my replacement.

Scheduling is difficult because I am bound to miss a show or three, Prescott, Santa Barbara and maybe Palm Springs Moderrnism.

Need to assemble a little war chest and curtail the buying.

Right.

Today I got good news. My oncologist says that she does not want me to go back on the chemo, considering the bad reactions I have had. She believes that I have had enough of the new drug.

Hooray!

This should make everything a lot easier for me.

Maybe the bird shit was good luck...