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too much punk
Tuesday, February 9 2016
There had been some snow while we were in the Galapagos, and pockets of that snow can still be found in a few places (mostly dumped into the bushes from the roof). But there has been almost no frozen precipitation since we returned. This morning, though, there was about an inch and a half of snow on the ground, giving the outdoors the appearance it normally has at this time of year in this climate. Happily, it wasn't enough snow for me to have to do any shoveling before Gretchen drove off for work.
She had to leave early, and so it was my job to walk the dogs. I took my firewood salvaging gear with me as I trudged through the shallow snow. Though there wasn't much on the ground, it was enough to make firewood salvaging noticeably less pleasant than usual (mostly due to lack of traction when carrying a heavy load). Today's tree was a Chestnut Oak I'd felled earlier in the season just above the Stick Trail maybe 300 feet south of the Chamomile. Its sapwood had all rotted into a thick punky layer containing a lot of unwanted moisture, requiring me to gradually "shave" it (using my fingers and also a handy chisel that is part of my woodburning toolkit) after leaning the pieces around the woodstove to dry. I spread the resulting punk all over the woodstove pedestal so it would eventually dry enough to be burned. This is a common thing for me to do, but today there was so much that it eventually drew Gretchen's attention; she said that it was ugly and that she wished it wasn't there. Fair enough. (Today's load, by the way, came to 118.15 pounds. )
This afternoon, I painted a small painting of a pink flamingo based on a photo my father-in-law had taken at the lagoon on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. In my version, the sky is lit up with a purplish glow, perhaps due to a sunrise or a sunset.
[REDACTED]
The results from the New Hampshire presidential primary, which had been going on all day, started solidifying at around 10:00pm. As I sipped booze and kept checking various news sources, I found these results much to my liking. Donald Trump had a wide lead on the Republican side, which was terrible news for a terrible political party. Meanwhile Bernie Sanders (whose electability concerns me) had a commanding lead over Hillary Clinton (whom I will never like but for whom I would happily vote). But what was most interesting was how the other candidates on the Republican side had done. I was delighted that Marco Rubio's hope of capitalizing on the momentum of his third place finish in the Iowa caucuses had been utterly dashed by the shallowness of his programming (as revealed by Chris Christie during the debate on Saturday). He'd been hoping to finish second or perhaps even first, but instead he'd come in fifth, just ahead of Christie. Evidently the service Christie had provided in exposing Rubio's algorithmic limitations hadn't resulted in much in the way of personal benefit. There's some delicious irony in that, given how little altruism figures in Chris Christie's moral code (or lack thereof).
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