6/13/23

 Tuesday, June 13, 2023

In bed at 10:30, and up at 5:00.  51℉, expected high of 61℉, wind NW at 9 mph, 7 to 16 mph during the day, gusts up to 32 mph, and almost half an inch of rain is expected in the next 24 hours.  Sunrise at 5:11, sunset at 8:32, 15+21.

Approaching the Summer Solstice.  The earliest sunrise of the year is 5:11 on 6/15.  The latest sunset is 8:35 on 6/30.  On June 21, the longest day of the year, the Sun will rise at 5:12 AM and will set 15 hours, 22 minutes later, at 8:34 PM, while on December 22, the shortest day of the year, it will rise at 7:20 AM and will set 9 hours, 0 minutes later, at 4:20 PM.

Hoping for rain.  It has been a very dry Spring around here.  Our berry trees along County Line Road have been dropping yellow leaves, a sign of distress.  I'm wondering what effect the dry weather has been having on SE Wisconsin farmers during this planting season. 

Driveway Resealing.  Merit Asphalt has declined to reseal our two driveways.  The message: "Dear Charles or Geri,  After an inspection of your driveway, it is my professional opinion that the driveway is in too poor of condition to seal coat.  Overall surface condition, extensive cracking, and base failure are all factors in determining whether a seal coat can be properly applied. It is the policy of Merit Asphalt Inc. not to repair or seal coat any driveway which does not pass an on-site inspection.  It is the intention of Merit Asphalt Inc. to protect the homeowner and the reputation of our company by not doing ill-advised repair work.  If you would like to discuss the replacement of your driveway please give me a call. I thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Phil Schuyler  

414-581-6644

Quid nunc?  Asphalt or concrete?  Adjust the grade of the garage driveway?  Sidewalk/stoop in front of the house? $$$$$😩😪😬

Celebrations, American-style.  At least nine people were shot in downtown Denver as people celebrated the Denver Nuggets’ NBA Finals victory early Tuesday, police said. Three of the victims are in critical condition, and a suspect is in custody, police said.  All nine of the gunshot victims, as well as the suspect, were transported to a hospital, Denver police spokesman Doug Schepman said early Tuesday.  The shooting took place around 12:30 a.m. on Denver’s Market Street, where crowds had gathered to celebrate the Nuggets’ first NBA title, police said.

Milwaukee 2021: Three people were injured in a pair of shootings in Milwaukee following the Bucks’ NBA Finals win on Tuesday night, police confirmed on Wednesday morning.  The shootings, per the Associated Press, took place in two locations across the Milwaukee River near Water Street around 12:42 a.m. on Wednesday.  Multiple shots were heard on local TV broadcasts, including on TMJ4, which was covering the celebrations when “dozens of gunshots” were heard. The scene, reporter Ben Jordan said, was “incredibly frightening.”

Three guesses what almost all such shootings have in common.

Pat Sajak's Last Dance.  OMG, the next season of Wheel of Fortune will be Pat Sajak's last!  How will we manage?  What does this mean for Vanna White?  For America?  Will Wheel of Fortune go the way of Jeopardy after Alex Trebek?  Why am I thinking of Carole King: "So far away / doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?"

Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak is hugely popular, on air for 40 years and drawing as many as 40,000,000 viewers in the 1980s, the era before ubiquitous cable and internet offerings were available.  It still draws more than 8,000,000 viewers each day.  News reports say he earns $14 or $15 million a year for working 4 days a month taping 6 shows a day with Vanna White who earns $10 million a year.  They both earn MORE money from licensing their images on Wheel of Fortune slot machines in casinos around the world.  Sajak's net worth is probably in nine figures.

Why does this guy make my skin crawl?  Because he's a weatherman.  Merv Griffin hired him onto Wheel of Fortune from his former job as a full-time weatherman at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.  He wasn't a meteorologist but he was physically attractive and suave.  CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY: suave -  A suave man is very polite, pleasant, and usually attractive, often in a way that is slightly false.  Doesn't that describe our typical TV weathermen?  Suave.  "Smooth as greased owl shit" (as a former law partner of mine used to cryptically say) and slightly false.  Debonair, to give it a French twist.  Or, perhaps more accurately, PLASTICMAN,  INSIPID, SOULLESS, VAPID,  Aren't these prime requisites for a TV weatherman?  Vapidity and the ability to suavely talk to the viewing audience as if addressing a kindergarten class?  And of course the first requisite for any "personality" on a local TV news show: the ability to feign perpetual happiness, cheeriness, ebullience, indeed joyfulness.  "A two-year-old toddler was shot in the head  and killed by a driveby shooter while sitting on her grandma's lap last night in the Harambee neighborhood but, hey, Mark, it looks like we'll have great weather for the Harambee Festival this weekend."  "Yes, Debbie, [flashing a big happy smile] you can keep the umbrella in your closet the whole weekend . . ."  That's what I see when I see Pat Sajak, the KNBC-TV weatherman, a three-time Emmy winner and the recipient of the Daytime Emmy lifetime achievement award.  He's the same age as Donald Trump, a lot better looking, and a lot smoother.  Maybe HE should run for the Republican nomination.  He's got what it takes!😱

Squirrels lose, and chipmunks win.  With the squirrel baffle raised, the squirrels can't jump on top of it to access the tube feeder and suet cake feeder, but the little chipmunks can now climb up the shepherd crook and leap over to the niger tube feeder, climb it, and leap back to the shepherd crooks above the baffle, thence to the sunflower tube.  Amazing acrobats.

Pro-Trump demonstrators in Miami.  Large flags with 'Trump 2024,' 'Soros Criminal,' ''Free Trump,' 'Trump Won,' 'In God We Trust,' 'Anti-communist' etc.  Many flag-carrying women lined the streets leading to the federal courthouse.  Many people were in the plaza in front of the courthouse.  They all look like normal human beings like they could be our next-door neighbors.  What is it that motivates these supporters?  What is it about our contemporary American world that makes them so willing to support a guy like Donald Trump?  For some reason, I'm wondering what gestalt are they responding to.  I say gestalt in the sense of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.  It's not just that these folks are, like Trump, anti-immigrants, anti-NATO, anti-China or pro-Russia, or anti-regulation, anti-tax, pro-this and anti-that. I think it is a general contempt or hatred for government, at least the federal government, the "Deep State," the administrative state that Steve Bannon promised to 'deconstruct.'  It's that generalized contempt or hatred that supports and sustains all the conspiracy theories, and all the conspiracy theories support and sustain the generalized contempt or hatred, all aided by confirmation bias.