Here are some pictures from the trip to the Outer Banks that Clare and I took in early October this year.
Category: Commentary
Some Pictures From Trip To Alaska, August 2024
Here are some pictures from my trip to Alaska with my mom to see my Uncle Cliff and Aunt Ruth. I will be publishing more as time permits.
Kayaking In Suffolk, VA
Clare and I were kayaking on the reservoir off of Lake Prince Drive in Suffolk, VA when I caught sight of two fawns on the peninsula dividing a big loop of the waterway. I tried and tried to get a decent picture but didn’t seem to have much luck. On the trip back to our launch point I saw them again, this time with the doe. I tried and tried again to get a decent picture but didn’t feel like I was having much luck. Back at Kim’s, I loaded the pictures onto my laptop and came across this decent one.
Scott And Clare In Europe Spring 2023
Read about our big trip last year…..
Clare and I Go To Paris, France, and Utrecht, Netherlands, In 2023
Happy Thanksgiving
We give You thanks, most gracious God,
for the beauty of earth and sky and sea;
for the richness of mountains, plains, and rivers;
for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers.
We praise You for these good gifts…
Grant that we may continue to grow
in our grateful enjoyment of Your abundant creation, to the honor and glory of Your name,
now and forever. ~ Book of Common Prayer
Clare and I wish you a blessed Thanksgiving hoping that you have quality time with family and good friends. We are so grateful for the love and fellowship of our families, friends, and church who support us unconditionally. We are grateful for our jobs, our good health, and our comfortable home. We thank God for all his great love, compassion, grace, mercy, and provision.
God Bless,
Clare and Scott
Oh Donny Boy, Oh Donny Boy, Show Me the Money!
From this article in the Washington Post dated May 24, 2019:
“In all, American families will pay an additional $767 a year for everyday items following the latest round of tariffs, according to a report by the Trade Partnership, a Washington-based research and consulting firm. If the Trump administration extends that tax to all remaining Chinese imports, that figure could go up to about $2,389 a year for the average household.”J.C. Penney and Kohl’s have failed their most loyal customers: Middle-aged moms
we can see the potential affects of Trump’s trade war on us all. Trump punishes China and I see a loss of nearly $2400 a year? Trump offers up $27 billion dollars in relief to farmers and U.S. Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue, no conflict of interest there, says:
“The package we’re announcing today ensures that farmers do not bear the brunt of unfair retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other trading partners,”Trade impasse: Trump pledges $16B to farmers; markets slump
The latest bailout comes atop $11 billion in aid Trump provided farmers last year. And Donny boy says:
“We will ensure our farmers get the relief they need and very, very quickly,”Trade impasse: Trump pledges $16B to farmers; markets slump
How about showing the rest of us the money Mr. President?
Flooding in Iran in April
Pave Paradise and Put Up More Data Centers
It griefs me to see how much the area by my office has changed. My office is in a data center in a complex of four buildings, nearby is what was once the Verizon HQ which has a few large building, and Amazon has data centers in the area. As of this time last year, there were 6.5 million square feet, about 107 acres, of data center floor space in my area, which is Ashburn, VA, one of the wealthiest areas of the country w/ very high property values. The fact that there are so many data centers here already makes it cheaper to build more data centers in the area. With the property values as they are, the fact that companies can afford to host data centers here means they must be making a good profit though one of the reasons they do build here is because we have some of the cheapest electricity in the country. Why that would be I don’t know.
As Ed can attest to, there was a fair amount of undeveloped land in the area….not virgin forest by any stretch of the imagination but there were maybe 500 acres of unused land. As I watch day by day and month by month, construction (or destruction) vehicles, rip up the trees and bushes to clear the land to build more data centers. It was particularly unsettling to watch, as I sat at a stop light near my office, the destruction of some very lovely flowering trees. More than likely, that section of land will be cleared by the end of this coming week.
I don’t understand why we need all these data centers. What is all this data for? Where is it coming from…besides Facebook? What good is all this data? Can it really make life better for humanity? I doubt it. And what about the damage to the environment. We’ll see more erosion, convert less carbon dioxide to oxygen, diminish habitat for God’s creatures, and certainly not improve the views. It takes power to run all these computers in the data centers. Then it takes power to cool down the computers in the data centers. As of last year, there was 676 megawatts of commissioned power for data center use in Ashburn.
I don’t know what that means really or how it translates into say… powering homes. I am still trying to figure that one out. I do know that it seems like a waste of resources. As regards that data, I am not keeping my personally created files out there in someone’s data center so whatever all this is for, it isn’t benefiting me. Given that, is it really benefiting that many of us that is worth the expense and resources. I would venture to say no.
Blizzard 2016 – Woodmere Drive, Centreville, VA
We got a pretty good accumulation. We’ve been apartment bound since Friday afternoon. Diana must be restless…she is on my balcony making a snowman! Ski areas in the mid-Atlantic got at least 30″ which is about what we got here. Ski areas in Vermont like Killington and Mount Snow got nothing which doesn’t bode well for Sessions in the Snow in early March.
Got Gloves or Mittens?
I saw an advertisement for those packages that you rip open to expose the interior to air so it heats up to warm your hands or other body parts as desired. Really?
The FAQs say the innards are all natural and biodegradable. I don’t know about the packaging but I am going to say it probably isn’t readily biodegradable. Even if it is, what the hell ever happened to gloves and mittens?