2024-03
2024-03-08 Friday
Thursday was nice. Older kid graduated across the Arrow of Light into Scouts BSA. What we called “Boy Scouts” in my day but now that girls can join “BSA” is like “YMCA.” I’ve volunteered with the Cub Scouts so I went down to the Scout Shop and picked up a tan shirt and patches to wear at the ceremony. Baby Adult Leader. The guy at the shop said if I volunteer with Cub Scouts and BSA I can get velcro from the craft store to facilitate swapping-of-patches without having to buy two shirts.
I googled and found lunch at the nearby Uncle John’s, which is a pancake shop in this hip San Jose neighborhood. I ate and walked across the street and visited the Bike Store, called Upshift, formerly La Dolce Vella. They had Bianchis out front but I was curious to “ask about bikepacking” and so I did and the deal is you roll up with a sleeping bag and $100 and they’ll roll out to the State Park in a group and spend the night and feed everyone. I need to get on that.
On my way out through the gorgeous mansions adjacent to the hip shopping district I saw what I thought was an Estate Sale but turns out it was a rummage sale for the local Neighborhood Preservation association. If you weren’t a registered NIMBY it was $5 admission. I had somewhere to be anyway so I left peacefully.
We had Pho for dinner, because it was across from the Auditorium, and because we love us some Pho. My belly is still full from drinking the broth. Elder Son walked across the bridge, and the guys from his new troop adorned him with a fancy new bi-color kerchief. It’s weekly meetings from here on out, but led by the boys, and I have some Tigers to lead. Life is good.
2024-03-13 Wednesday
Last night on the TV, a “man on the street” Trump supporter explained that yeah he would love for Trump to be a dictator for four years. I had to pause the video and rant. “That’s not how dictators work, dumbass!”
I think the majority of Americans still figure Democracy is good and worth keeping but this is going to be a year that tests our faith.
2024-03-14 Thursday
Pi Day. Yesterday, in “Ministry for the Future,” a Science Fiction novel about Climate Change, I got to the chapter where they saw the first anthropogenic YoY drop in Carbon Emissions. They achieve sequestration at 475 ppm. What’s that from where I sit? I looked it up. We’re at 420 ppm, going up about 5 ppm per year. At a constant rate, that is … eleven years from now? 2035? Maybe if emissions start to slow, but they seem to be picking up. (The book notes a decade of levelling, so 2045.) What I saw yesterday was that we’re at 1.6 degrees C, or about 80% to the 2.0 C threshold where we become more likely to hit tipping points that lead to an irreversible transition towards a jungle planet. An uninhabitable zone around the equator, and a truly massive extinction that takes a few million years to recover from.
And the refugees! There are so many already and we’re trying to keep them “under the rug” but the number will only grow.
I live in one of those cool bubbles where … we are trying. I saw that near 40% of new vehicles sold in the San Jose metro are EVs or at least plug-in hybrids. That’s something. Incentives to electrify your house. There are trends around the world that may cause the tide to flip. But will it happen in time?
Last century had the Pandemic at year 18. By year 45, they had concluded The Ultimate Battle Between Good and Evil. Their First Battle started in year 14, and that’s when Putin took Crimea. If the Ukraine Invasion counts as the start of our Ultimate Battle … 2028? This century has been gentler than the last, so far. So far.
In year 45, I’ll be an Old Man, if I am still around. I hope to be. I hope along the way to be a force for good. It is my Sons I worry about. They’re growing into Interesting Times and I hope The Ancestors can guide and comfort.
Be The Change you wish to see in the world.
