11/21/24

 Thursday, November 21, 2024

D+16

1967: General William Westmoreland told news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."

1980 Fire at MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas killed 84

1992 Oregon Senator Bob Packwood issued an apology for unwelcome sexual advances

2002 NATO invited Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to become members.

2017 CBS TV host Charlie Rose is fired after allegations of sexual harassment by eight women

2024 Matt Gaetz withdrew from his candidacy for U. S. Attorney General

2024 Controversial artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall by Maurizio Cattelan sold for $6.2million at auction in New York. The new owner Justin Sun says he will eat it.

I'm only fooling around with this painting which is painted over an earlier paintiing that gave me no pleasure at all, but I've been thinking that although it's not finished, and although I screwed up the chalk and pencil drawing that I started this with, and although the subject is based on Roualt's Sorrowing Christ but looks like a muppet (reminding me of Beecker), it has at least as much originality, creativity, and interesting colors as a banana duct taped to a wall so maybe I should put it on the market for only $6.1 million or even at a Black Friday price of $5.1 million!  I'd give $1 million each to Geri, Sarah, Andy, Steve, and David, and with the leftover $100,000  I could buy some more canvases and paints and brushes and get into offering my masterpieces on Etsy.

In bed at 9, awake at 3:40, and half awake till 5:00 when I got up and went downstairs to reset the router/modem, but no luck.  I let Lilly out into the light snow at 6:40.

Prednisone, day 191, 7.5 mg., day 7  Prednisone at 5:40.  Three slices of toasted Dave's Bread at 7.  Both shoulders are achy and the right side mid-back pain persists.   Diclofenac?  Lidocaine patch?  Triage nurse?  Morning meds at 7:30. 

Internet outage.  We lost the internet around 9 last night.  l started the day hobbling downstairs to unplug the modem and disconnect the router and hit the reset button.  That didn't work.  I connected the laptop to my 'hotspot' iPhone, got the number for Spectrum service, called and got an AI voice that had me down in the basement again, disconnecting and reconnecting which again didn't work.  I'm disappointed that I didn't get an 'internet service in your area is out and we're working on it' message. . . I called again and spoke with a tech rep in New York, went through the protocol again, and had no luck.  He put in an order for a service call between 11 and 12 this morning.  He thinks the modem is dying.  I'm thankful for my "hot spot" connection. . . .  Internet back on around 9:00, with a Spectrum tech working on the power pole between our house and the McGregor's.  I didn't cancel the upcoming appointment because, if the modem is dying, I'd like to get a new one. . .  The modem isn't dying but is putting out too much signal.  The tech installed a splitter to reduce the output.

LTMW; Winter Wonderland.  A male cardinal at the sunflower/safflower tube, a goldfinch at the niger tube, a junco on the ground, and a chickadee on the snow-covered suet cake.  With wind gusts up to 45 mph, the snow is sometimes blowing almost horizontally. . . The snow stopped after a couple hours and melted rapidly, no need for plowing streets or driveways. 

Anniversaries.  Poor General Westmoreland.  At the end of November 1967, he told us we were winning.  Two months later, we had the Tet Offensive and having won all the battles, we nonetheless lost the war.

The fire at the MGM Grand Hotel reminds me of why I'm nervous about living in a high rise, even on the fifth floor of the Knickerbocker.

Putin's an evil bastard but he's not wrong about NATO being intent on surrounding Russia.  Ukraine was the last straw.

Bob Packwood, Charlie Rose, Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, a cast of thousands!