Recession or Depression?

So are we going to have a recession or a depression in 2026? You’ll notice that economic prosperity is not one of the options. It appears to me that at bare minimum a recession is already baked in the cake. 

It all comes down to Congress. Will they ever grow a backbone and do their job? The mind boggles when one considers how completely they’ve given up their power. Enough politicians have become nothing more than a rubber stamp for the executive branch. That, my friends, is them not doing their jobs.

Personally, I think that we’ll only end up with a recession. Most of our economic issues the government has inflicted on the nation. What they did they can mostly undo. I say only mostly as old trading partners and former allies won’t forget their poor treatment. However, politicians want to get reelected so many will get their act together. 

It’s either that or follow a lame duck President down the road to ruin.

-Sixbears

Bringing the Country Together

Can most people agree that ICE is out of control? Isn’t straight up murdering people on the street reason enough to hate them. They are a tool for tyranny. 

Might as well put them in brown shirt uniforms. 

One day, not that far in the future, these people will have to answer for their crimes. While that will happen remember they are just tools. Tyrants will not rest easily.

-Sixbears

Is That all There is to the Snowstorm?

So we had that big snowstorm. One nice thing about living in the Great North Woods is that snowstorms aren’t unusual. We have the tools to take care of it. 

The final total was over a foot of snow. Fortunately it was light fluffy stuff due to the very cold temperatures. Another nice thing about the light snow is that it doesn’t overburden the electrical wires. The grid here never even blinked. 

Not having anywhere special to go I sat it out and waited for it to be over. Only then did I fire up the snowblower. It ate through all that snow and didn’t even slow down. Nice. 

I much rather have snow than freezing rain. Actually, it would be nice to get a lot more snow this winter. We had a drought during the summer so a good snowpack would go a long ways toward replenishing our ground water. 

-Sixbears

Snow and Cold

Looks like winter is here for real. Currently dealing with subzero temperatures soon to be followed by significant snow. It other words, it’s pretty much a normal winter in the Great North Woods. If I’d have to choose I’d take the snow over the cold. 

Especially since I now have a nifty battery powered snowblower that does a fantastic job.

A recent news article on WMUR listed the age where someone should no longer shovel. The age they stated was 45 to 50 years old. Right. I’m 67 so I guess getting a snowblower was a fine idea. Last winter I pulled a muscle in my back that never quite went away until shoveling season was over. I’m perfectly happy to skip that this year.

Another consideration is that I’ve been pretty inactive for months while awaiting surgery. Since the surgery I feel ready to tackle the world. That’s great and all but I really should also pace myself. However, just being able to move and do things again has done wonders for my state of mind. Now all I have to do is avoid overdoing things and creating new injuries. I guess if I want to keep getting older I’ll have to be a bit wiser.

-Sixbears

Good News From the Doctor

 I'm back home from Boston. The doctor had good news for me. I'm healing well and he was able to remove the stitches.

 Another encouraging bit of news was the elimination of the five pound lifting weight limit.  That will allow me to finally catch up on a huge backlog of home projects.

 It's going to take time before I'm back to 100% but things are really looking up.

 -Sixbears 

Lucky Break

Just before I went into surgery Medicare sent me a copy of a letter they sent to the hospital. They rejected covering my operation. 

I went ahead with the surgery anyway. Worse come to worse I was willing to refinance the house. Excuse me for wanting to be able to walk again and lower my pain level. 

The surgery went well. Today the bill came in. The operation itself cost close to $40,000. There are other bills have haven’t made it through the system yet but those should be much smaller. The good news about the bill is that Medicare did cover the vast majority of the expense. Not only was the bill much smaller, the hospital offered interest free payments. 

It’s nice to get a break now and then.

-Sixbears

Healthy Disconnect

I’ve a phone I almost never answer. It’s a landline number through a voice over Internet system. The phone service is really cheap. It has caller ID and voice mail. This is the number I give out 99% of the time. It’s main job is to catch all the spam and junk calls I don’t want to deal with. If it’s someone I actually want to talk to I can check the caller ID or they can leave a message. Normally, if I’m home, I call them right back. 

One of the beautiful things about a landline is it doesn’t follow you around everywhere you go. When I’m out all those junk calls aren’t piling up on my cell phone. 

The cell phone number is given out to those who I really really want to talk to. Unfortunately, I find I have to sometimes give that number out to things like doctor’s offices. If I’m waiting for important test results or appoints I don’t want to miss it. 

Eventually, someone gives that number out to the wider world. Junk calls arrive in greater and greater numbers. When that gets too annoying I change my number once more. It’s my phone and I can do what I want with it.

There are time when I long for the days when I’d disappear in the deep woods to my dad’s hunting camp. Being cut off completely from civilization is nice. Most of the time I didn’t even bring a radio. What I did bring were some really good books.

-Sixbears