Post Race!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Another storm is letting me down. So far, only an inch of snow. Bright and sunny in the valley, snowing on the mountain, but it won't amount to much.

[dilettante]

I thought those were just jelly filled doughnuts. Having learned this new thing, I will promptly forget it.

Sort of inescapable around here. Even day-old baked goods shelves had them here last week. I suppose it is just another one of those things that varies based on your local distribution of ethnicities, religions, and traditions. For example we have to drive a long way north before we can buy pannukakku for breakfast in a restaurant, something rarer than roadside venison pasties everywhere else.

[dilettante]

Reminds me. You can hardly even find real windmill cookies most places. All I saw on Amazon and in most grocery stores in the center and east parts of the State are a weird imitation. Too thick, wrong texture, wrong flavor. You have to go west for the real thing.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Sort of inescapable around here. Even day-old baked goods shelves had them here last week. I suppose it is just another one of those things that varies based on your local distribution of ethnicities, religions, and traditions. For example we have to drive a long way north before we can buy pannukakku for breakfast in a restaurant, something rarer than roadside venison pasties everywhere else.

We have squid-filled doughnuts. It's a fusion thing.

[dilettante]

Not to wander too far into food here, but I think I've finally perfected my microwaved from-scratch scalloped potatoes recipe.

It only makes 2 to 4 servings and I'd made a bigger batch. But by the time I had sat down myself the couple from across the street I had over polished all of it off. The tandoori chicken they'd brought over made up for that though. Not to mention the fresh mango, lime, and coconut fruit salad. I'd never thought of lime chunks in a fruit salad before.

[dday9]

Mardi Gras was a hit here, but I got a phone call that my grandfather has taken a turn for the worse. So I’ll be traveling tomorrow to go visit him.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Mardi Gras was even mentioned here. I found that odd.

[dday9]

I imagine that they throw potatoes in Idaho instead of beads.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Well, we do drop a potato for new years, and potatoes are often quite throwable, but you're probably not going for distance when throwing beads.

[dilettante]

Just listened to a huckster from California who does a daily vlog that basically trumpets that "the sky is falling" these days. He's big on "side hustles" of the kind even the BBB used to do PSAs about in earlier times. More or less a Barnumesque promoter and a hustler himself from his description of his income sources.

Today he went on a whinge about mint chocolate chip ice cream being a "punishment" when he was a kid. I guess the "reward" ice cream had dark fudge and real-booze cherry cordial stripes in a natural vanilla base and churned by virgins over glacier ice.

Man, you grew up hard when you got punished through your ice cream.

[dday9]

I love the idea of side hustles and don't fully agree working as a W2 employee. I don't like the idea of having a single client (your employer). At the same time I completely recognize that this approach isn't for everyone.

I know the type you're talking about though.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That really IS some harsh punishment. I'd have done a lot for punishment like that.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm not really a fan of side hustles. I'm a fan of liking what you are doing, and being paid enough that you don't have to look for other work on the side. Doesn't work for everybody, though.

[Niya]

Side hustles are a way of life where I'm from. In fact, you can't make it here without the "hustle mindset". Making a living doing what you like is actually a luxury few people have.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, that's a problem. When I lived in the Florida Keys, it was the same way for a whole lot of people. There were a lot of retirees, and a lot of non-retirees running an informal business.

[Shaggy Hiker]

We put tires on a van that way. They were funky, smaller than they should be, tires, but they had good tread on them. Made the van look kind of funny, though. We had a low rider work van.

You could buy clothes that way, too. So, you could buy a tire and attire, not necessarily at the same place, though.

[Shaggy Hiker]

So, you could buy a tire and a tire at the same place, but couldn't buy a tire and attire at the same place. It all depends on whether the space fits to a 't'.

I think I've tired out that line of puns. I shall tread there no more.

[Niya]

Yeah, that's a problem.

I wouldn't say that. Most of the world lives like this and you can certainly get very rich as a hustler. The ruling class in my country came here from some Arab country, Syria I think, and started out as street hustlers and in just a couple generations, they rose to the top of the food chain. Everyone here knows not to mess with them because they are richer than God and won't hesitate to pay your own best friend to kill you. They also have the political class and business class on lock. Quite an impressive achievement for uneducated immigrant hustlers.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Not unprecedented, though. There are plenty of 'leading' families in the US that can trace their wealth back to some form of hustling.

As a general rule, immigrants are not the members of a society who said, "life here isn't great...but whatever..." They're the ones that said, "life here isn't great, I'm going somewhere else."

[Niya]

As a general rule, immigrants are not the members of a society who said, "life here isn't great...but whatever..." They're the ones that said, "life here isn't great, I'm going somewhere else."

There's a little more to it than that. Life isn't easy where I'm from but it's very far from the worse place on Earth. So what happens is that people from far tougher environments come here and thrive, many times far better than we can because they were forged in far tougher conditions so it's easy for them. Of course the strongest and most determined of them stay where they are and thrive there but those that can't, go to some place in the world where conditions are easier relative to what they are used to so they can have a natural advantage.

I've seen it repeatedly. In my parents time it was the Arabs, then in my time it was the Chinese and now Latin Americans are doing it. They all come here and end up doing better than us and when we hear their stories it's very clear why. The kind of conditions they left is basically hell so here is like heaven to them. We relate in a similar way to Americans and the British. We have a lot of people that leave here to go to America and end up with a life far better than they would have ever dreamed of having here and many times, better than most Americans simply because we are used to playing the game of life at a slightly higher level of difficulty. The Mexicans that flood into America are doing the same thing. Relative to the conditions they are leaving, America is easy mode for them.

You know as much as I rag on leftism here on these boards, if I had designs to come to a place like America to try and make it, I'd be the biggest leftist there is. Not because I believe in any of it but because it's where the money is. I would say a few platitudes about racism and women's rights and they would bend over backwards to open doors for me. It's just another hustle to me and all it would require a bit of acting. I wish it were that easy over here lol...

Anyways, this is how immigration works. If you can't hack it in the land where you were born, you find a place with conditions that are easier relative to what you're used to and chances are you will end up with a higher quality of life. It's not a guarantee though. You could could still fail in a foreign land.

[dilettante]

For a lot of western Europe the colonies were used as dumping grounds. Some of it was to dispose of convicts, but there were also trends in agricultural mechanization even while still powered by horse and steam. That created a large population of rural serfs no longer needed or desired.

By the 19th Century some countries got "scientifically" precise about this. Eugenics was in vogue long before the 1930s. It is no accident that the Netherlands saw such a radical shift toward its population's stereotypical characteristics today. Partly through selection, partly through redistributing available resources including education, housing, nutrition, and sanitation. Most of that accomplished by Church and State working hand in hand to dispose of the "excess population."

[Niya]

Yep and those ancient practices have far reaching consequences on how the world is setup today in terms of culture, sophistication and even economics.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The Brits left behind their mercenaries after the revolution. I'm descended from the Hessian mercenaries on my mother's side.

[Niya]

I'm descended from the Hessian mercenaries on my mother's side.

So this guy was your ancestor:-


Wouldn't want to mess with you.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Good of those soldiers to all attack in single file, and nicely spaced out. Very polite.

[Niya]

He was probably very charming. Steven Segal seems to have the same charm.

[homer13j]

I am almost as smart as everyone says I think I am.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I almost understand that statement.

[Shaggy Hiker]

We got a stealth snow storm over the last two days. Nothing more than a dusting on the roads, and it was mostly sunny for two days, and yet we got about eight inches on the mountains.

Living in this desert valley is weird.

[dday9]

Headed home tonight.

[dday9]

It’s a bit rough. My grandfather is having difficulty remembering people and where he’s at. He just walked from his room to the kitchen and when he got there is oxygen was down to 72%.

It’s a hell of a reminder of why smoking kills.

[dilettante]

Sorry to hear he isn't doing better.

It sucks to get old and encounter reminders of your mortality around so many corners. No picnic for those close to you either.

I hope his condition improves.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Is it all just reduced lung functionality? Oxygen that low is pretty severe, so it would make sense if that was sufficient to cause trouble.

[dday9]

He smoked all his life and has COPD. He also had colon cancer when he was in his 50’s. And he also has severe heart damage. They can’t add any stints because he wouldn’t survive the surgery but that combined with the COPD is what’s killing him.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Life will be the death of us all.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The storm that is pounding the southwest is getting all the news, but we're getting our own storm, and so far it's been a good one. Might not be quick to leave the house in the morning, considering the amount of ice, earlier. We certainly needed this.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Another storm hits tomorrow night. Hopefully, it will be even better.

[dday9]

It seems like y'all have gotten quite a bit of snow/ice this year.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Not nearly enough. California has been getting loads of it. Idaho has not. We started the winter pretty well, but then January and February were fairly dry. It's better than last year, when we got nothing at all for those two months, but it's not much better.

On New Years, we were at between 120% and 150% of normal. We're now at 100% in some basins, and less the further north you go.

It really matters in this state. The mountain snowpack provides water for the summer. We might get rain in May and June, as we have the last couple years, but that just runs off. The snowpack will melt slowly across the summer, providing a slower release of water in a land that doesn't have all that much of it, and generally gets no rain at all during the summer, with the exception of brief, violent, infrequent, downpours.

[dilettante]

Should be an update here in a day or two: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/