The Keeping of Cars

One of my personal measurements of life satisfaction is how often I have to work on my own cars. It’s not that I hate working on them in general. It’s all the other stuff involved. Perhaps if I had a roomy heated garage it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe add a lift and an air tools to that garage. Anyway, I can dream.

More often than not I’m dealing with either bugs or bad weather. 

One thing about late January in the mountains of New Hampshire -bugs are down to a bare minimum. Then there’s the weather to deal with. However, we just had a couple of days where it got into the mid thirties. Pleasant enough. 

When digging out the last of the ice from under the wipers I noticed the plastic vent cover was loose. Cars these days are snapped together like Lego blocks. The little plastic tabs had broken free. They really are not made to be reused -in spite of what car manuals may say. Instead self tapping screws covered in Locktite did the job. It should stay in place now.

That was a pleasant enough job. What I’m not going to do is fix an exhaust leak, lying on my back in the slush. Nope. Not interested in that at all. The garage was supposed to do the job today but it’s been put off a week. The owner called me and begged to reschedule as two of his techs are out with the latest C-variant. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. 

-Sixbears

The Never Ending Story

Well, you hope you’ve heard the last of our little virus of 2019 but it’s the plague that keeps on giving. 

My local numbers are up. Check your area to see what your local conditions are. My lovely wife got a call from a friend who’s quite sick. She suspects she got it from a big church event. My spouse had planned on going to that event but went with me to visit friends downstate instead. Appears to have been the better choice. 

I was feeling pretty crappy all day. My first thought was that my allergies were kicking my backside. However, times being what they are, I took a home test as did my lovely wife. We both tested negative so that’s a relief. It’s the allergies after all. 

Just a heads up.

-Sixbears

Well that was Christmas

My lovely wife and I were about an hour away from heading south to Massachusetts on 26th to celebrate with extended family. Then we got a call that my grandson tested positive for virus-19. Since then my daughter has also come down with it. They’ll be fine, but that did it for the celebrating with a large group. 

However, one of my other daughter’s invited us to celebrate with them in Vermont. We gladly took them up on the offer. They were supposed to host Thanksgiving this year, but had the same issue my other daughter’s family just had for Christmas. It was darn good to get together with at least some of the family. 

We celebrated with a niece on Christmas day, so that was nice. 

I’ve a third daughter in California so getting together with that part of the family is always difficult. 

I’m one of those people for whom Christmas can be a tough holiday. In 2019 I disappeared into the Everglades to take a break from it. Had I known then what I know I now I might have sucked it up and celebrated it with people. Hindsight is 2020 after all. 

I hope everyone got through Christmas in good shape -whatever that looks like for you.

-Sixbears

Don’t Let a Pandemic Go to Waste

The Sixbears extended family continues to do well. The last thing that someone should do is to wait around for a vaccine before moving on with life. The second to the last thing someone should do is to ignore the virus and pretend it went away.

We are taking all necessary precautions. For example, Tuesday we got up super early to drive 50 miles to do groceries. Our local stores have sloppy disease protocols. The store we went to has a time slot for those over 60 first thing in the morning. We also have a good supply of locally raised meats from a nearby farmer. Fish we can get right out of the lake we live on -can get much more local than that.

This year we’ve improved our garden and are taking advantage of wild plants for food and medicine.

It’s been a time for improving our homestead. We will be putting off extended travel for at least another year. Our relief check has gone into preparing for the coming winter.

Plenty of people I’ve communicated with do not want things to go back to the way they were. Some want to continue to spend more time with their families. Some who work for home want to keep doing that.

While my immediate family is doing well, there are those around us not all that well at all. If you have an essential job, especially in health care, you are under a lot of extra stress. Some friends have lost people to this virus. Others are still suffering from the after effects of this disease. Even younger people have dealt with long term lingering ill health. Personally, I don’t feel the need to take risks to get my hair done. They’ll do that for you at the funeral home.

-Sixbears

Head for the hills

Vacation homes here in the North Country have filled with folks fleeing the cities. That’s all well and good, but I wonder how many of them have brought the corona virus with them? Then there’s the fact that our local hospital can’t even take care of the locals. I just hope they will self quarantine for two weeks like we are doing.

By the way, we got almost a foot of snow overnight. Kinda bummed out to see the boat buried in snow. That’s the reason why we weren’t expecting to come north until a month or so from now.


I’ve been thinking about how the government wants a big slush fund of money to support businesses. Current proposals don’t even have many safeguards. They can pick who survives and who doesn’t. There’s a name for that sort of thing and it’s not Capitalism.

Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if a number of industries were quietly left to die. Take cruise ships for example. They are all flagged at ports of convenience to avoid US taxes and laws. Now that times are tight they want support from the US government? Those polluting disease incubators can all be scuttled as far as I’m concerned.

-Sixbears

Avoiding Injury

Now more than ever it’s time to be careful. Try to avoid doing something stupid and getting hurt.

I thought of that while making my way down to my basement’s outside door. There’s still snow and ice on the ground and slipping and falling a real possibility. If I have to go back down there before the ice melts I plan on using ice grips on my boots. Can’t be too careful right now.

People on lock down are getting pretty bored. Bored people can do some dumb things and get hurt. Try not to be that joker.

It’s bad enough that the medical community is getting maxed out treating Covid -19. No need to make the situation worse by getting hurt being an idiot. Not only will you use up sparse resources, you’ll be in a hospital full of infected individuals.

My local docotors’ offices are trying to restrict in person visits. They are trying to do as much as possible remotely. I’m going to do my part by canceling my scheduled visit. I’m feeling fine. Self care is going really well. No need to take the risk. No need to take up their time and resources.

-Sixbears

Never to been seen again

This pandemic is a big reset button. A lot of stuff will never be the same again. I’m not even talking about the people we’ll lose or those who’ll get sick. Today I’m focusing on society and the economy.

First of all, much of the economy is BS. We need people to shake coconuts out of the trees. We don’t need jobs that essentially amount to shuffling paper around. My guess is that a lot of those BS jobs will disappear. Some of them are required by regulations. In times of crisis those artificial constraints can no longer be tolerated. They just aren’t affordable anymore.

We are being encouraged, in many cases required, to self-isolate for a couple weeks. Most people go through life without much thought. Habit and routine rule their days. Now those routines are broken. Many people will wake up to the fact that they were living on automatic and not living the life they really wanted. Having a brush with mortality will likely jump start the process too.

A friend of mine was looking to retire at the end of the year. Now his 401K is in pretty tough shape. On one hand, financial advisers would recommend postponing retirement. He could earn more money and also wait for the market to recover. On the other hand, this is not a normal downturn.

Maybe he’d be better off retiring right now, no matter how hard the financial hit. That way he could stay home instead of going to work and possibly catching the virus. Like me, he’s in a higher risk category. Better to be poor and alive than rich and dead. Of course, I can’t tell people what to do and don’t want them to blindly take my advice. Maybe financial advisers are right and I’m wrong. It’s a time of uncertainty.

One thing that’s changing -preppers aren’t seen as alarmist weirdos quite so much.

-Sixbears

Sitting this one out

It’s a darn good thing I like isolation. If I’m going to be in a self-imposed quarantine for two weeks, best to be at home. After all, this is where my beans and other essentials are kept. We didn’t even stop at the grocery store to top off our supplies. However, there are couple of deliveries on their way, so that’s good. However, if they never show up that won’t be the end of the world either.

This is a perfect emergency for introverts. They are skilled at staying home and not interacting with people.

Things are moving really really fast, but that’s what I expected when I made the decision to head home. One of my fears was that there would be restrictions on domestic travel. Two weeks ago that sounded like a nutty idea. Today, not so much.

-Sixbears

Cyber War

Iran is having serious computer difficulties from a malicious bit of computer code dubbed, Stuxnet. Among other things, it seems to be attacking the machinery used to control nuclear plants.

So what, you may be thinking. What has this got to do with me? Isn't it better to have nuke plants taken off-line by a computer worm than by fighter bombers with the Star of David on the tail fins?

Maybe, maybe not.

One of the problems with malicious code is the way it spreads. Maybe Iran may have been the target, but Pakistan, India, Indonesia and China also seem to be particularly hard hit. It has spread all around world; even to the US. Computer viruses are as uncontrollable as their biological versions. Mankind has recognized the hazards of biological warfare. We may learn the perils of bad code aren't to be taken lightly either.

Is a computer attack an act of war? Sure it is. Anything that damages the infrastructure of another country is an act of war. Countries being severely affected may certainly feel that way. Finding themselves under cyber attack, they may feel justified in counter attacking using conventional forces.

There are some disturbing elements to Stuxnet. It's a sophisticated program that may have required the resources of a state to construct. Should that state ever be identified, its leaders will lose a lot of sleep worrying about reprisals.

It's not the first time countries have been under cyper attack. Estonia and the country of Georgia have been victims of computer assault. In both cases, Russia was the prime suspect. However, computer code rarely leaves easily followed footprints back to its maker.

One of the dangers of this cyber attack is the threat of cyber reprisals. Many countries in the world have the talent and tools to fight on that battlefield. Imagine the possible collateral damage. The whole Internet could be rendered dangerous and unreliable. Our computer managed world could suffer major disruptions. Since much of the world's infrastructure is controlled over the Internet, times could get really hairy. Imagine, just for starters, power, communications, water, sewer, banking, and transportation systems breaking down.

What actions can a prudent person take? There are the normal ones that serve in everything from floods, to hurricanes, to earthquakes and snowstorms. Have some food and water stored up. Be able to make some of your own power or have battery powered radios and flashlights. Have a general disaster plan and kit. Would not be a bad idea to have some cash ready in case the ATMs go down.

I'm not predicting that an escalating cyber war is going to take place. However, a real cyber attack is going on, and there is the possibility for things to get much much worse.

Good time to take stock of your preps. How could you handle computer and Internet failure, along with all related systems?

-Sixbears