Miscellaneous Bits And Pieces

I've been working on a post in reaction to the Covington High School buzz.  (I'm trying to think of a reasonable name for the many social media/mainstream media phenomena that cause a temporary ringing in our ears, then are gone as something else gets our attention.  This is clearly not a good way to get an understanding of what's happening in the world.  Well, this is my problem.  This parenthetical comment was not what I was writing about, but could become a whole post on its own.  And the Covington post is raising so many issues that I can't tie it all together.  But maybe that shouldn't be my goal, since the world itself is messy.  But the whole point I used to think, was that a blog post should make at least a small part of the universe a little less opaque.)

Also working on the lack of useful instructions for people who sit in the emergency rows in airplanes.

My daughter invited me to her Barrecor exercise class yesterday and it was much easier than the high intensity workout my son took me to three years ago in San Francisco.  After the one - in which I made it through the routines without embarrassing myself - I ached badly for three days.  But today, no new aches or pains.

Today I did a bike ride, which here on Bainbridge Island means lots of ups and downs through big trees.  And water.  There was a raft of water birds at my turnaround spot, and a view of Seattle.

And the sun came out and lit up downtown Seattle across the channel.  Here are two different pictures - one from my old Canon Powershot and the other from my new used iPhone 7.


I like the Canon result better, but maybe it's because I tried to enlarge the iPhone image too much.


Getting good granddaughter time while we're here.







And Murkowski voted to open the government without requiring $5 billion, or is it $7 billion now?

And Dunleavy's new commissioner of administration apparently lied to the a Senate committee about his background.  But, hey guys, he went to a Christian college, that's all Dunleavy had to read.




And finally, I recommend this video be shown at the School Board meeting when they discuss the minimum times kids should get to be at recess and lunch.  Right now it's being whittled down to nothing, which means teachers have kids with way too much unused energy who can't sit still in class.  (I couldn't figure out a way to embed the video itself, so you get the whole tweet.)

#MostWatched Principal gets students up and dancing pic.twitter.com/Yc7cDmtpAN

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) January 24, 2019

So, it's not that I don't have anything to write about, rather there's too much, and I'm trying to write the posts so you can read and get the bigger sense of things.  Not easy.  Remember that once each day ends, it's gone.  So don't complain about waiting in line - take those seconds or minutes and enjoy your life.  Try thinking about something important.  Text your members of congress what you're thinking they should do.  Send a note to someone you care about.

[UPDATE 10:14 pm:  And the ADN had an article today about how three major oil companies have carbon pricing already built into their long term plans, the House has reintroduce a carbon fee and dividend bill, and the Senate is working on one too.  There is good news.  But as Vox notes:

"But what’s gone largely unnoticed is that Exxon’s proposal comes with a massive catch: In exchange for a tax, the company wants immunity from all climate lawsuits in the future."]