Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

CapnBob

Spring Begins in the Northern Hemisphere

solstice-spring.jpg

Grand Octal Image via archaeoastronomy.com

Today marks the first day of spring North of the Equator. The graphical “Grand Octal” image above shows our planet as of today, passing through the Vernal Equinox portal in its orbit around the Sun. The other portals depicted have special meanings as well, dating back to primitive people whose cultures would depend on knowledge of the position of Earth during the year.

Here in our little patch of Arizona, we have been enjoying occasional spring-like days since February, as well as some not-so-warmish days and nights. Checking with our weather history on this day (courtesy NWS), we find that our forecast high of 65°F will be below the average 78°F temperature for this first spring day while we will be slightly above the record cool for this date (61°F) and well below the record high (92°F). I guess Global Warming has yet to catch up with us.

During these times of the overblown fake news media and democrat demagoguery (but I repeat myself), forecasting doom and gloom, we’re doing fine. We have things in stock, as we always do, that keep our household up and running with all our needs covered. Since we maintain two households on the premises (house and motorhome) there is plenty of everything available until all the bull$#!t blows over.

We hope everyone who reads this has planned accordingly and wish you comfort, safety and good health. We pray for these things.

20 Mar 2020 by Arizona Culture Environment Notions

St. Patrick’s Day 2020

St. Patrick’s Day 2020

We don’t have much in the way of shamrocks or clover in these parts, so I posted a photo of something green that might be seen in Arizona.

I still have a lot of Ancestry/Genealogy work to do to establish our roots, but I now know with reasonable confidence that I had an ancestor born in County Mayo, Ireland in 1717. It is unknown if Irish ancestor “John” came to America, bit the line of descendants from him in my lineage all were born in Monongalia (now Marion) County, West Virginia.

After John (1717), came William (1751), then Francis (1776), then “Squire Billy” (1796), then Enos (1833), then James (1866) and finally My Dad’s Mom, Mary (1891). My Dad broke the West Virginia chain by being born in Los Angeles, CA in 1914.

I’m sure there are more Irish ancestors in other branches of the tree, but having the one confirmed Irish Great(6) Grandfather ancestor entitles me to the festivities and celebrations and traditional eating/drinking (but not TOO much) on this day as a descendant son of the Emerald Isles.

Damsel’s lineage is replete with Irish ancestors, so no need to go into whether she comes by her Irishness honestly. Besides, one of Damsel’s sisters is an expert at the genealogy stuff and has on numerous occasions rattled off a substantial listing of their Irish ancestors. They definitely qualify as celebrants of St. Patrick’s Day festivities and food.

Here in our little desert conclave, our festivities will be mild compared to what other celebrants are doing on this day. We will be having traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage with Boiled Fauxtatoes (turnips make a good low-carb potato substitute) served with horseradish sauce (for the meat) and vinegar (for the cabbage). Dessert will be a small Irish cocktail.

17 Mar 2020 by Arizona Food & Dining Holidays Notions

PI Day

pi.pngNot exactly a holiday, but March 14 has become the penultimate math nerd’s recognition of the (approximate) ratio of the circumference of a perfect circle to it’s radius. I posted last year about approximating the value of PI in the old days using ratios resulting in not exactly PI, but close enough.

Going back even further than the hand-held electronic calculators, we did not need to figure out PI using ratios for programs, because the value of PI was engraved (along with other important math constants) right on most slide rules. You could crank out solutions to equations for radial velocity or any other esoteric calculations using PI by just using your handy-dandy “slip stick.” In those days, one could get answers calculated to three or four significant digits with just the slide rule. For more accuracy, some of us had the option of punching a deck of cards, submitting it to the Computer Lab and wait a couple of days to find out that we had an error in the program. Thank goodness there are now much better ways of dealing with numerical calculations.

In honor of PI day, the Damsel and I will be preparing today’s dinner from a low-carb recipe for “Spaghetti Pie.” The dish consists of a rich marinara sauce and some smoked chicken served in a casserole with noodles from spaghetti squash rather than pasta.

Yesterday, I loaded a couple of chicken breasts in the smoker and cooked them to their desired 165°F internal temperature. When they cooled, i shredded the meat and put it in reserve for today’s meal preparation. I may put up more about Spaghetti Pie later on by updating this post.

UPDATE: PIE ARE SQUARE! Damsel served a square of this with a green salad for dinner this afternoon. Click on the image to enlarge.

PIE ARE SQUARE

14 Mar 2020 by Arizona Food & Dining Notions

Medicare Wellness Checkups

medicare.pngThis is the first year that The Damsel and I have signed up for a Medicare-approved (and 100% covered) “WELLNESS” check up with our local healthcare clinic. Damsel has just become eligible for this procedure and I, after several years of non-compliance, decided we should do it together. Since it is covered, it might be interesting to see what this senior health checkup is all about.

We made our appointments for the checkup for both of us at the same time with our healthcare provider. When we arrived for the appointment we were escorted to a treatment room in the clinic. Our provider was a Nurse Practitioner who greeted us and then started through her checklist of things to discuss. There would be no examinations other than verbal today. She referred us to our Regular Family Physician if we had specific health issues that may require physical examination and/or treatment.

The following topics were discussed for each of us starting with me and the with the Damsel:

  • Wellness Discussion – History of chronic or other past and current health issues
  • Advance Directives – what to do regarding our healthcare desires if we become unable to communicate them
  • Substance abuse screening
  • Depression screening
  • Nutrition discussion
  • Exercise discussion
  • Preventative health and fall risk discussion
  • Immunization record and possible additional immunization needs discussion
  • Adult depression screening
  • Cognitive exam (verbal memory and confusion testing)

We were advised that our response to the latter cognitive exams showed no signs of confusion or memory loss (eat your heart out JOE BIDEN). We were given a detailed printed record of the discussions and exam highlights and it looks like we’re pretty much normal with our petty arthritis and joint pain. Our dental and vision care is up to par and other than a couple of potential immunizations (tetanus, shingles, pneumonia) we’re OK.

The one thing we were short on was advanced directives; we both need to get our health treatment desires in writing via a “Living Will.” Pursuant to that, I prepared a Healthcare Directive and Medical Power of Attorney document for each of us; we will be having them notarized this week and will file them with the Arizona Department of State, the latter which will issue a wallet card for us to direct first responders how to act upon our wishes should we become comatose or otherwise unable to communicate.

The directives are only a start upon our last wishes documentation. We have a bunch of details that need to be ironed out before crossing over the bridge to Paradise. Those will be getting resolved over the next few months.

10 Mar 2020 by Medix Notions Retirement

Family Milestones and Other Events

Beethoven at 10 Years OldFirst of all, Happy Birthday to our beloved Beethoven (a.k.a “Bay Bay”) who is ten years old today. He is the youngest of the two Miniature Pinchers that run our household. We adopted him about eight and a half years ago and, needless to say, is a beloved family member.

Image – Bay Bay at Ten – Click to enlarge

Spring months bring a flurry of birthdays and such to our household and the family in general. Between now and the end of April, birthdays for all three of our granddaughters and one great granddaughter will occur. Moreover, we will probably have another April birthday this year as our middle granddaughter is expecting another little sister to her three year old on her 27th birthday. That will make a total of four great grandchildren. And tomorrow is the 24th birthday of our youngest granddaughter, who is engaged to be married at a date not yet known to us. Perhaps in June.

In other events, we are expecting a call from the Vision Center where both Damsel and I had our eyes examined and ordered new glasses. They typically are ready after a week or so and we will be making a second trip down to the valley (about 35 miles distant) to retrieve the new eyewear.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is being reported ad nauseum by the FakeNewsMedia© who blow it out of proportion mainly to discredit President Trump. The Media and Democrats (repeating myself) couldn’t give a red rodent rectum about the victims of a pandemic and merely use it to try and make the administration look bad – Trump Derangement Syndrome.

In the business news, the misreporting of the virus story has spooked investors to the point where our holdings in mutual funds have declined considerably, but not to the point of despair. We’re looking at it as an opportunity to eventually get back to where it was before because the distributions will now buy more shares at a discounted price. We remain solvent.

Our desert home is showing signs of spring already. There are flower buds appearing on many of the native and imported cacti around the yard. We were supposed to get some rain today, but currently it is sunny with no echoes visible on the radar in our vicinity. Although it will remain cool today thanks to a frontal passage, we will be expecting highs in the 70s later this week. We wish everyone (including ourselves) a nice, early spring.

02 Mar 2020 by Arizona Critters Family Media Retirement

Gold Rush Days Classic Car Show

Olds Convertible

The Town of Wickenburg celebrated the annual “Gold Rush Days” event this weekend; included in the festivities is a lot of Rodeo, a big parade and a Classic Car Show. Damsel and I attended the Car Show on Friday and the Parade on Saturday.

The image above is of a classic 1960’s Oldsmobile Convertible with a very nostalgic accessory (see inset) showing how some of us used to hear the sound track of movies at a Drive-in Theater. This set of Drive-in Theater Speakers was typical of those mounted on posts throughout the drive-ins in those days (I believe there are some active drive-in theaters still in existence today; we saw one in Barstow, CA last year).

The rest of the car show was as per the usual guys that show up with a few items that stood out. Upper left below is a 1930’s Auburn which was sometimes marketed as a Cord. Upper right is a very nice Chevrolet Touring Car. Below lower left is a very clean ans shiny 1940 Chevrolet. Finally, the lower right is of some sort a rust bucket with rip saws for a grill. There were only a few shiny parts including the hood ornament – we felt like we needed tetanus vaccinations after standing close to it.

Auburn Chevy Touring Car
1940 Chevrolet Rustbucket

We both enjoy the Gold Rush weekend; it gets us out of the house, gives us a lot of walking exercise and is always a great #photo-op. Click on any image above to enlarge.

16 Feb 2020 by Arizona Classics Nostalgia

Lincoln’s 1860 Election

This being the 211th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, I thought it would be interesting to post about how he was elected president in 1860.

In the US Map of the Electoral Votes in 1860 (below) the four candidates for President were:

  • Abraham Lincoln – Republican
  • John C. Breckinridge – Democratic
  • John Bell – Constitutional Union
  • Stephen A. Douglas – Democratic

Lincoln won the election with a total of 180 electoral votes and a popular vote of 1,866,452. Breckinridge was second with 72 EC and 847,953 popular, Bell was third with 39 EC and 592,906 popular. Last but not least (look at the popular vote) was Steven Douglas with 12 EV and 1,382,713 popular. It’s interesting that Douglas and Breckinridge were both Democrats but even if their Electoral votes were to be combined they still would not have defeated Lincoln. Their combined poplar votes, however were over 364 thousand greater than Lincoln’s.

Note how the demographics and population shift have switched this old map around over the last 160 years. If only Kalifornistan were a red state today with their current 55 Electoral Votes.

1860ec.png

Map Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1860.svg. Click on the image to enlarge.

1860 Election

The United States presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout most of the 1850s on questions of states’ rights and slavery in the territories. In 1860, this issue finally came to a head, fracturing the formerly dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions and bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power without the support of a single Southern state.

Hardly more than a month following Lincoln’s victory came declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states, which were rejected as illegal by the then-current President, James Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln.

12 Feb 2020 by Nostalgia Politics

Categories

Archives