March Madness

I hate basketball especially when it pre-empts many of my favorite TV programs and especially so soon after having many of those programs in re-rerun status.  Whoever thought of this plan must have been mad.  Even my two movies from Netflix last night were re-runs.  Gawd, I am jinxed!

Return and research

Having been back home a few days I am puzzled by my research on-line today concerning the climate in Thailand as well as other matters I already know about.  Haven't I had enough for now?  I really need to think about going somewhere else next year.  That would be easier if I had a partner who shared the same values I do but that does not seem possible now.  Jeff, who was the party guy, and Richard, the intellectual, were soul-mates who cannot be replaced, especially at my advanced age.  LOL

Morning after the day after

Well, my head is still in a fog, so to speak, and I am still finding it difficult to do everything needed to get back on a normal footing at home.  I wonder how entertainers who are always on the road handle these sort of situations.  This almost makes me want to never go on vacation again.  I guess short ones will be the order of the day in the future, that is, if I am to retain whatever sanity I have left.  At least I got my suitcase back in the closet plus an older and smaller one out (for eventual donation).  My laundry basket is full and the stack of financial paperwork is overwhelming.  Winning the lottery about now would be great.  LOL

Home Alone

Well, after 10 plus grueling hours in the air, I arrived home, tired, but not sleepy.  It is now 9:35 PM PDT and I am ready to got out to see what has changed but of course I won't do that until tomorrow. My ears are still popping but hopefully this White Zinfandel and a good night's sleep will rectify that situation.  And thanks Tim, for your message.

Night all...

Downtown Blues

Guess I just find downtown SF too depressing lately.  For one thing, it is too crowded...too many people in too small a space, etc.  Hopefully my fourteen days in Thailand soon will help in unwinding and getting my act together.  This is my favorite wintertime vacation place but nine hour flights are getting very tiresome, at least in coach.  First class or business class might be better but who the hell can afford those fares?

New projects of interest here in the city are the extension of the T-line Muni Metro line into the Central Subway,  the completion of the remodeling of the Metreon with the opening of Target later this year and closer to home will be Trader Joe's and CVS Pharmacy's move into the old Cala Foods building at Hyde and California.  BTW, that Central Subway project is in its earliest phases of construction but tunneling may actually begin by the end of the year.

Then there is the new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to be built in Santa Clara.  SF sure screwed up on that one especially with so much land available at Hunter's Point including access to the Bay for which ferry service could be launched for games as it is for the SF Giants at AT&T Park.  Also, with the new Muni T-line running down Third Street to a point fairly close, it could have been extended into Hunter's Point for access to and from the games.

Sometimes I think that officials do not look at the big picture here.  Are district elections the reason with each supervisor involved with his or her own fiefdom.  If so, let us go back to citywide elections ASAP.

Oh, this is too much to think of early Sunday morning.

BFN

Life in the City of San Francisco

I have grown very tired of this city during the past 37 years of living here.  It used to be a neat city and it still is in many ways but after traveling the world and seeing other things and how life could be if the government had a spine and would enforce its laws, I get very frustrated with this mess of a city.  The benevolent dictatorship of Singapore is a perfect example of a very well run city...no filth and garbage on the streets, a well run and efficient mass transit system, people not standing in doorways and or on corners smoking pot, no stinky and smelly homeless and beggars on the corners looking for a handout.  Even in the less efficiently run city of Bangkok I do not find such problems either.

Guess I have just burned out on this place but I am too old to move anywhere else now and could not afford it anyway.  Moving across town is hard enough but moving across the country or to another country would be next to impossible.  Oh well, at least I have enjoyed my stay here and have many fond memories and now must make the best of a bad situation here.

Still here...

Haven't done much with this site recently as there have been too many other things on my mind.  Guess part of it is due to sheer laziness but after a ten day trip to Singapore I am reminded of what a chaotic and dirty city San Francisco is, as if I needed to be reminded, and now I am home again to bums, beggars, homeless people, and doing the "poop-shuffle" as I avoid stepping in or on dog or even human excrement.  Harvey Milk's "pooper-scooper" law has done little good.

Sure, this city has its charms, but street life is not one of them.  Public transportation if greatly lacking also.  There is also modern and innovative architectural designs which the NIMBYS in this town would never allow so most everything is rather dull.  NYC is much more interesting in that regard.

Then there is the crime rate.  While it may not be statistically any worse than many U.S. Cities, one does not feel safe anymore here especially at night.  Unfortunately city officials are too timid to do anything about it and all sorts of people from the "hood" (wherever it is located) come into the city to rob, steal, and cause mayhem.
Guess I would prefer to go back to the idyllic life of my childhood if possible.

And now we have the Republidiots conducting debates on who to have as their presidential candidate.
There should be a national primary and a direct vote but those controlling the purse strings in Washington are not about to let that happen.

So what is one to do?   Certainly there will be no changes in this country in the near future and perhaps not in the distant future also.  It's very discouraging to say the least.

This could drive a person to drink and probably has on more than one occasion. 

KA - BOOM

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Wednesday 25 October 2011

I am really getting tired of these protesters. First we have the smelly scroungy homeless people occupying the streets of San Francisco and now we have the occupy Wall Street protesters taking up the remaining good space of the area around Justin Hermann Plaza. This city city has become a garbage dump and I have no idea why tourists want to come here any longer. Sure, there are nice places but they are getting fewer and farther between.  Even Oakland has its problem with protesters who are now marching back to City Hall so for this senior citizen life in the Bay Area gets very discouraging. I have also given up trying to vote as it doesn't do any good.

One thought that's been very pleasant to me recently has been the thought of moving back to my hometown of Boston but leaving this rent-controlled apartment would be very difficult relocating to another space. Oh, what to do, what to do, what to do?

I have thought during the past year that my next visit to Thailand, currently scheduled for January 2012, would be my last.  Now the more I read about the government's inability to coordinate efforts to handle the flood conditions leaves me very discouraged that Ms. Shinawatra will be able to anything useful.  Now I read that some residents are climbing onto flood barriers to disassemble them for their own personal reasons, political or otherwise, which leaves me with a feeling of hopelessness in this matter.  The King is too old and frail now to do much and the government is in disarray so I see very little hope for that country now.  I have been there ten times since January 2003 and I guess that is enough.  Now I must return to my roots in the Boston area for awhile.  I will miss my Thai friends but as they say in France, c'est la vie.

Well, Ain't this a Fine Kettle of Fish.  After trying for years to get a friend here in San Francisco to meet me in Thailand when I am there on vacation, and his inability or refusal to do so, I am now in the position that I might have to cancel my trip there even though he has finally agreed to meet me there.  The amount of water there from the flooding seems to be an insurmountable barrier to an enjoyable vacation most anywhere.  And now I am angered at officials for not knowing what to do or when to do it..  Even the new Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra did not want to declare a State of Emergency which it clearly is and why is the country being left to defend itself.  I certainly have not heard of any other country offering aid of any type.  Looking of the positive side, that trip is not scheduled until the second week of January and things could change for the better by the.  I hope so!

I love this quote from Gov. Jerry Brown on the subject of ski helmets for children:  "While I appreciate the value of wearing a ski helmet, I am concerned about the continuing and seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state. Not every human problem deserves a law."  I think that last sentence should be posted on very large signs within both houses of the California legislature as the nanny state continues to grow and grow and grow while doing nothing to fix the financial problems of the state.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.   While I seem to have many opinions and complaints about many things these days, this site has languished due, in part, to laziness I guess.  In fact, I have even considered terminating this account.  Don't really want to do that so I guess I will plod along. 

Anyway, tonight was a heavy night as I watched the movie "Downfall" on DVD which is about the last days of Hitler.  Very well done but depressing.  It was nominated for some Oscars but I do not remember when or in what categories now.  Should go to IMDB.com to check on that.

Anyway, I feel rather numb after watching the movie so I am having a glass of Merlot before retiring.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day.  Have to go to Best Buy for a computer program and may stop in at the Civic Center for part or all of a free concert by the SF Symphony at 11:30 AM.   I apparently will not be as warm as today which was gorgeous.  There is only one thing I ask. TURN OFF THE DAMN WIND.  That has ruined many days here which otherwise would have been very nice.

Oh well, time to drift off into dreamland.   Zzzzzzzz.......

Oh no, not again

Now we have another religious nut case governor from Texas considering a run for the White House...just what we don't need. Wasn't George W. Bush enough? This country, this world is living in perilous times and too many people think they have the answers when they don't really know what they are talking about but they sure are quick to try to impose their solutions on the rest of us.

Republicans

I do not know how you could possibly think that John Boehner and his henchman would actually do the right thing but as of this moment it looks as if I will not receive any Social Security in August. Fortunately I can pull money from my regular savings for the month but if the jackasses in Congress do not solve the problems soon I will have to dig into "deep savings". Those isolationist racist pigs don't care about anything or anyone else. Why should they? They have it made while in Congress with good pay and benefits. Well, it they can say f--- you, then I will say the say thing back to them and they can all go to hell. They are so thick headed that they do not realize that a U.S. default will bring the whole worlds economy down and would they do this if Obama were white? I think not!

There are some people in this country who do not realize the gravity of this problem and some appear to be living out there in la-la land where everything is pink and rosy and where nothing ever goes wrong. Those people need to get real.

What the hell?????

Sometime between bedtime (approx. 10:30 PM Saturday) and waking up this morning (approx. 8 AM) some critter, varmint or whatever, made a mess of my computer by deleting everything inside my Libraries folder on this Windows 7 computer which has a large hard drive and lots of memory. What is even weirder is that the information has just been moved around. It would be as if someone took all the city streets you are familiar with and moved them to other locations in your city. Also, my Robo Form program is now blank as the 200+ passwords have disappeared and when I try to start entering them into the program new, I receive the error message that i needs a browser in which to save or fill forms. Well, what is the matter with this one, the one I am using right now????

At least I apparently have not lost anything especially my photos from many vacations going back a number of years but how and why did this happen?

Update as of 11-July-2011

Just as mysteriously as did those files and folders disappear from the Libraries folder then they reappeared a few days ago. This is great but I still do not know what happened to make those links disappear nor just just suddenly reappear. Strange...very strange indeed...

Election in Thailand

Editorial from The Bangkok Post

Many fear that today's election could herald a new round of violence in the country. Over the past few years, Thailand has been plagued by political unrest. In 2008, anti-Thaksin yellow shirt demonstrators blocked the entrance to parliament to prevent the administration of Somchai Wongsawat from entering to read its policy statement. The demonstration turned violent and two protesters were killed and hundreds more injured. That was followed by the immensely damaging takeover of Bangkok's two airports.

During March to May last year, the pro-Thaksin red shirts staged protests against the Abhisit administration. The rallies turned bloody and at least 92 people were killed.

The divisions remain and if the results of today's elections are not respected they could worsen as the two major parties are far apart on how the new government should be formed.

The only way to avoid further conflict is for all parties to respect the principle of the election serving as a means to end rifts.

What has occurred in recent years has caused Thailand to lose many opportunities. Since 2006, governments have wasted too much time dealing with divisiveness instead of helping the country to cope with a rapidly changing world.

Fortunately, Thailand survived the so-called "hamburger crisis" caused by turmoil in the US financial system. But there is no end in sight to the world's economic problems. The financial crisis in the European Union prevails, leaving it perilously close to collapse; the nuclear radiation risk in Japan is far from over.

Then there is the fact that Asean is to become the Asean Economic Community in 2015, but Thailand, even though a founder of the regional grouping, appears to be doing little to prepare for it.

Add to that the relentless daily killings in the three southernmost provinces and the seemingly intractable conflict over the 4.6 square kilometre area near the Preah Vihear temple with Cambodia that forced Thailand to withdraw from Unesco's World Heritage Convention.

The next government needs to pay utmost attention to these problems. So, no matter which party leads the next government, let it get on with the job.

---

Pattnapong Chantranontwong is the editor of the Bangkok Post

Pocket full of dust...

Haven't done much lately here even though there are many thoughts on my mind at times. But then too, there are times when my mind seems to be blank. Also, some events just cry out for a comment while others are ho-hum in nature and either I could care less or find the situations to be beyond help by anyone in this city or state.

Other problems are of a personal and medical nature and seem unsolvable at this time. Sometimes I feel like just saying, "Shoot me". Also, to everyone out there, DON'T GROW OLD as you are going to have a whole bunch of problems that will make life less worth living. At least that is the way it has been in my family's history.

My life has been full of diseases which have taken their toll: Alzheimer's (mother), dementia (father), lung cancer (step-father and one uncle), stomach cancer (sister), pancreatic cancer (a friend) and colon cancer (an even closer friend). Now my problems are still being evaluated.

Is life worth living? Of course religious people are going to say so, or, what's the alternative. Well, at age 73 I don't give a rats ass about the alternative if my health is not going to be good. I have had a full plate, as they say, for many years, so now it is time to let go. I am not needed here nor is there anything here that I really need.

Oh, I can just hear some people in religion crowing, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and have life eternal", or words to the effect. Damn, I could of nothing more cruel. These 73 years have been enough. Who the hell would want more? Even in perfect health, that would be cruel. There is only so much that a human being can deal with, mentally, physically, or emotionally.

As some wise person said a long long time ago, there is a time to love, a time to hate, a time to live, a time to die, etc., etc. Well, you get the picture or should anyway.

Am I depressed? Maybe, maybe not. Just tired would be more like it. Right now I just desire better health and while my friend Richard cannot be replaced, a new friend of similar intellect and compatibility would be nice. It has been a lonely life since he died in January 2010 but how does one meet and make new friends at my age? Most everyone I know, even casually, are somewhat feeble, physically or mentally or both, and let's face it, at this age we are too set in our ways anyway. Aint' nothing gonna change me or any other ol' fart out there.

It is really a helluva dilemma when I can't identify with people of my own age or with the younger generation either. There MUST be a solution to this but I sure can't think of one right now.

Well, I am tired now and need to figure out what to do with myself the rest of the day. If tomorrow comes I will have to start all over again but for now I will leave that problem alone.