Starbucks on Hastings

I stopped at Ralf’s Radio on Venables. They’ve moved. I had to replace the charger for my Iridium Extreme Satellite phone.  Amazing device. When my mast broke midway in the Pacific I was able to use it to get advice on a jury rig.  The coverage is much more extensive now than when I first got the phone a decade back.  I just needed some more minutes for BC. I’d not even used my last package a few years back but always felt better having it out hunting with me.  Now I’ve a satellite phone and a ham radio 2 meter.  We’ve got a week’s vacation and I’ll be up in the mountains alone. I never thought it at all when I was hunting alone in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s but now I’m a whimp.  I don’t want to be lying in the woods waiting days to be found should something bad happen. I don’t think it will which is why I have insurance policies. I think of insurance as the means to avoid negatives. 

It’s a bit twisted, but I really believe if I didn’t have insurance, bad things would happen. I was indoctrinated in cub scouts and Boy Scouts,  “Be prepared.’  So sailing alone at sea I had a life raft and emergency survival container to grab but never needed them. Thank God. 

Ralf’s has done my car and truck stereos over the decades. Great company. Great people. Lee must be getting near as old as I am.  This young Julius Roye was incredibly helpful. Turns out the reason my charger was hooped was because of the abuse I gave the connection.  There’s a simple solution and hopefully I can avoid having to buy another one any time soon. Despite the overcast which used to ruin iridium reception completely in the past, Jules was able to call Ralf’s on my phone. I now have to charge it fully and enter new phone contacts. A couple of my emergency contacts have died so they really need to be replaced. 

At Vespa, they’re short a technician again.  Same happened last time but with Covid, even a minor cold means workers stay home.  Be Safe. I’m still waiting but at least I could leave the bread I’d bought in my Vespa boot.  

That’s how I’m here at Starbucks.  Trying to avoid washrooms by drinking a double espresso this time rather than an Americano.  Washrooms are the greatest risk for covid so I’m sure to wear a mask in them and wash my hands with soap and use my elbows to open door. If I do touch anything I clean my hands with the little hand sanitizer I carry in my bag.  

Laura is with Gilbert. I sent her a copy of the video I got when her motion triggered security.  It shows the little guy jumping up and down running in circles because she’s arrived. I’m superfluous when she’s around.  I enjoy watching her mothering in action. Mother and Grandmother and dog mom, she actually pays attention to all his little games and activities. I figure he’s blind so I keep reading or doing whatever I’m doing while throwing him his ball or giving him partial attention. She gives him her undivided attention.  

A friend told me her breasts cost $7500.  Amazing.  I told her that they’ve probably doubled in value since she got them 10 years ago. Indeed I thought there might well be a possible resale in silicone inserts.  Given the amount of money the old clothes of Elvis and Elton John sold for, the possibilities for women in old age wanting to pay for nursing homes expenses is a consideration. I’d be impressed with a girl who said “these used to be Marilyn’s  or “Rita Hayworth’s. In a sci fi future every body part will be replaceable. Already Xi Jinping is harvesting the body parts from the millions in his gulags today.  Macabre times.  I read heroin addicts in Africa sell one kidney for drugs.  Thankfully with stem cell advances we already can grow skin and organs.  I’m ready for so new parts, my lower back could be replaced for one. My ears aren’t what they used to be which is made more obvious by all the Covid masks.  

If our government wouldn’t waste so much money on frivolous low brow Trudeau shit then we’d have more scientific advances appropriate for the 21st century. It’s the 21st century.  We don’t need more abortion clinics. Killing babies has been something we’ve done as a species for hundreds of thousands of years.  Today we have the capacity to put people on Mars and the Moons of Jupiter. But instead we have a Luddite Pretty Boy playing silly hoax games and criticizing the Columbus’ for saying there’s a new land  just waiting out there. Buckminster Fuller showed that the sea habitat would be a marvellous place for condos and that there was infinite energy and solutions if you could think beyond your pelvis.  He spends money like there’s no tomorrow but won’t support the energy sector where genius really does reside.  

I actually liked waiting for the Vespa as it got me walking on Commercial, having brunch at Havana and getting my phone fixed at Ralf’s. Now I’m wanting be home. I’d go back but there’s no place to sit there. Here I fill guilty now having overstayed the unspoken ‘time’ one gets with a coffee.  There are only a few seats available. So far no one has been mulling about but I’m feeling a need to pee. Covid concerns.  Time to move along.