When it comes to paying taxes, you can check out of Hotel California, but you can never leave.
Back On The Air
We drove back to CA from Colorado this past weekend, and tried to get in Sunday night, but as we approached the California border, we ran into a jam of people returning from Thanksgiving weekend. It took us an hour to get from Jean to Primm at the border (a few miles), so we gave up and turned around to go back to Vegas, which had cheap rooms on an off-season Sunday night (though infuriatingly, the room at the Luxor was only forty bucks, the “resort fee” took it up to seventy). Add in ten bucks for parking and taxes, and it was a hundred, but still a good deal for a luxury room.
Anyway, we drove home yesterday, getting in mid afternoon. My back is quite a bit better, and the painful spasms are gone, but now the problem has migrated to a pain on the inside of my right thigh when I walk, probably as a result of how I was walking when my back hurt. I’ll be going in for epidurals this week, and starting some kind of physical therapy, which will probably just be standard strength training, which I should have been doing anyway.
Of course, the new problem du jour is a furnace that’s not lighting, which apparently started over the weekend, according to our house sitter. Last time this happened it was a bad igniter, and I’m hoping that’s the problem this time as well, because it’s an easy and cheap fix.
But the fun never ends.
[Late-afternoon update]
As I suspected, it was a bad igniter. These things seem to be like light bulbs, in that they have no predictable life, and can fail at any random time. Of course, in a sense, that’s exactly what they are, in that you’re heating a filament with electricity, except not in vacuum.
The FBI
…has been diagnosed with CIA disease.
The War On History
Understanding its leftist roots.
Hong Kong
It has been its finest hour.
Gratitude
I know that posting has been light, but this is the first real vacation we’ve had in a while. We’re in a vacation rental up above Estes Park, within walking distance of the park boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park. We’ve been pretty much house bound since the storm, but it’s OK, because it’s a very nice house, and we do have an all-wheel machine to go down the mountain into town if we want to.
Here is the view from one of the balconies.
That’s the continental divide, inside the park. I think that the pointy mountain to the right is Long’s Peak, the furthest-north fourteener.
But I want to give thanks for my health, which considering all the wear and tear of decades, is still pretty good. My back is slowly recovering, and I’ll probably be back to normal by next week. I’m also grateful to live in what I think is still the greatest country on the planet, warts and all, and despite the desires of some to “fundamentally transform it.”
I’m also grateful for my readers, and all of my friends in the space industry, and the ability to start to accelerate our progress in opening the solar system to humanity in the coming years.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Going To Trial
Others have noted in comments, but yes, SCOTUS has denied our petition for cert.
To first order, after over half a dozen years, the case goes to trial. As I’ve often said recently, this case is old enough to be in the second grade, if it wasn’t so stupid.
Trumps “Progressive” Allies
Despite all their sound and fury, they actually act as though they want more Trump.
Clinton Impeachment History
For those too young, or too ignorant at the time due to the Democrat operatives with bylines, I did a Twitter thread.
Back Update
Well, I’m doing better than Friday and over the weekend, but I’m still getting twinges, that occasionally elicit a yelp. I have a ticket to Houston for SpaceCom tomorrow morning, but thinking I’ll probably just have to cancel and eat the ticket. I don’t want to aggravate it on the trip and not be able to get home Thursday night. I was supposed to have a meeting with some JSC folks, but it may have to be a telecon.
[Friday-afternoon update]
Just got my MRI results. I have a compressed disk (and a little arthritis, but I don’t think that’s the issue). For our Colorado road trip, just got another shot in the ass of a muscle relaxant, and prescriptions for oral muscle relaxant (that they should have given me last week instead of the steroids), and prescription-strength ibuprofen (instead of Vicodin, which apparently isn’t that effective for nerve pain) for pain and to reduce inflammation.
When we get back, I’ll start epidurals and physical therapy (I assume basically strength training) to build up some muscular protection of the spine down there.
[Bumped]