Thursday, December 31, 2020

New Year's Eve

There's an 11pm curfew tonight - I assume in Bali but maybe just Denpasar. That's works perfectly with our plans. I remember that there's a custom here to pay at least 50,000 rupiah for a cab ride (about $3.50 USD) no matter how short. Six years ago I didn't know that when a group of us hailed a cab in a downpour rain to go a very short distance to Kayu Manis (Sweet wood, cinnamon) and I thought the cab driver was taking advantage of us and refused the ride when he said it's 50. So we all got wet and later I learned the embarrassing truth. I still feel a little bad about it. 

Have an excellent New Year's Eve. - dc

Friday, December 25, 2020

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Un

Un is a useful prefix that can be used in unusual ways whereas that was a usual way. I just thought I'd made a mistake and said, "Oops." Then I realized I hadn't made a mistake - the oops was an opps. So I then said, "Unoops." Or maybe it's better to write it as un-oops. I thought it was important to make the un part clear because Katrinka had heard me say oops and I wanted her to know that was a false call. Of course this practice naturally extends to un-darn, un-phoey, un-heck, and so forth. These constructions are also useful to set the record straight with ones subconscious and any spirits that are about.  

Monday, December 21, 2020

Solstice Walk

The longest day of the year is upon us - in Bali. It's been raining but not today. Sunny and not hot, not to me. Nice breeze. Walked Bandita over to our little post office nook. Gave Wayan there loot for electricity and water. Don't have to bring anything but some money. She keeps our account numbers in a book. I always leave her some of the change "for your grandkids." Then after small talk we continued on around our block and it's a big block with gangs, alleys, running deep into it from all four sides. Takes forty-five minutes to walk around. Stopped at a little warung, eatery, and got a some local grub. Had just opened our gate to walk back in when a worker at the building site across the street called out. He passed a long bamboo pole to me over the wall across the street. I'd mentioned to him on the way out I'd appreciate one to mend a little bamboo fence we have around the water tank/pump/tool area by the front gate. Then he and a friend passed another. Then another. They were way more than I needed but the right thickness. I asked for nine centimeters, about three and a half inches. Just needed one to rip in two and replace the cap piece on top of the fence. Maybe we can make something for the garden with all the extra, something that will rot away in a year or two. They've got a huge pile of bamboo over there ready to ship out. Used to hold up the second floor during construction. That's the way it's done here - lots of vertical bamboo poles running up hold the next floor till the building can do that on its own. Like that photo grabbed of the web.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Link for yesterday's post

 Darn it. Yesterday's post's link disappeared when I posted it. Don't know why that's happening. I've got to check on it. Anyway, it's in that post now and it's here too. 

Podcast with Dr. Raya

Friday, December 18, 2020

Dr. Raya


Posted a podcast Thursday
in the Life in Bali series with Ida Ayu Narayani, or, Dr. Raya as we call her. Or just Raya. I say sometimes that Bali has about 1/8th the Covid 19 that the US has - per capita. She says that a British study on the reported to actual number of cases per country put Indonesia at twenty actual per each reporter. I'd assume that lots of Indonesia has worse reporting than here. I'm gonna ask her what the US score on that is. Seems it could be figured out by excess deaths or excess hospital admissions. Anyway, she's pretty interesting.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Tips before Entering Prison

 A Q and A from Quora that I thought was particularly interesting with applications in regular unconfined life.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

A Dream

I dreamed I'd tested positive for HIV. Hmm. I should have been more careful I thought. Then - wait a minute. I haven't done anything to get it. Who's gonna believe that. How'd I get it? I told Katrinka about the dream and said it seems like a warning about the virus and said I was a little uncomfortable with some of this socializing even though it's outside and not up close without masks with anyone. A couple of days later we learned that two of our friends from the Tuesday night dinner and music on the beach had tested positive for Covid 19. Now we're past the time when we would have gotten it there. Katrinka just reminded me of that dream. Oh yeah. Did my subconscious know? No way of knowing but I said, "Hey thanks for that. Keep it coming." 

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Negative

People generally preserve the positive over the negative. But when you've been near someone who tested positive, you'll likely be glad that a week afterllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. O0ps. Fell asleep at the keyboard. Let's see where were we. Yes - a week after being around two friends who tested positive one would tend to feel positive about being told they're negative. I know I do. Boy that nose swab tickled and burned at the same time. Left me shaking my head. Was given a tissue. Results in 15 minutes. About twenty-five bucks at a small clinic. Friends doing okay.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Kacak

 The first thing I can recall interesting me in Bali is when Andrew Weil played a tape of Kacak (pronounced Kachak) back in 1978 or so. When Elin and I stayed her for two months with one year old Clay back in 92, we heard it three times outdoors outside of Ubud. I don't recall seats. Pretty rustic and lots of men chanting. Now I only hear it if there's a guest. The one in Uluwatu atop a cliff at the south end of Bali at sunset is my favorite.  Here's a nice video on it - with a firedance.

Friday, December 11, 2020

More Women!

 At the Climate Talks.  - BBC -  Seems like a good idea as men are destroying the biosphere as fast as they can.

Thursday, December 10, 2020

On Chuck Yeager

Friend Gregory Johnson remember Chuck Yeager, the great test pilot, who died at 97 on Dec. 7th.

Have a memory etched in brain pan of walking in early morning fog at Kissimmee Airport in Florida amidst a whole runway full of WWll P-51 Mustang fighter planes parked nose to nose for the annual Gathering of Warbirds. I was looking for my cousin Dick's P-51, Donna Mite, nobody around and then hearing some muffled conversation behind one of the planes, I rounded the corner of a parked plane and there was Yeagers, his squadron mates from WWll, Bud Anderson and worlds best, mustachioed, aerobics pilot, Bob Hoover. They were huddled by the wing root of Yeagers P-51 Glamorous Glennis, named for his wife, having a pleasant conversation, looked my way, invited me over, told them I was Dick's cousin, that I was building an RV-6 and warmly invited me to join in with them. I just slipped into that familiar casual all things aviation conversation with them, these three well known fighter jocks with a lot of accumulated history and felt accepted as an equal in the fraternity of flyers going back to the Wright Brothers , Montgolfier, and all the others that dared to break the bounds of earth for an aerial view and perspective. Truly a memorable moment.


Chuck Yeager Wikipedia page

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Seven years ago today

We arrived in Bali. My my. It's been that long? Maybe someday get back to Amerika Serikat as it's called here formally. When asked where I'm from I say California which has a good reputation and thought of as a happening place - though some country folk won't know what California is so I just say Amerika. Miss you. - dc

Monday, December 7, 2020

Another use of "Happy birthday."

In Buitan on the way to Candidasa, Tanya and Lempot's son Jodi turned twenty-one. I said, "Happy birthday," to Jodi. Katrinka did the same. Then she said, "Happy birthday" to Tanya. Tanya told me later that no one else including her son recognized her role and that it was a birthday for her too. I'd never thought of that and told her that from now on I'll say happy birthday to mothers. And then today as I write this post I remember my sons' births and think I'll say happy birthday to both parents - mother first. So to catch up - happy birthdays going back to the first to all mothers, and happy birthday to you fathers too, acknowledging our lesser yet necessary role. Oh gosh and now I think about the parents of adopted children and don't want them to feel left out. Gosh and now I get a vision of all beings begetting all beings constantly, all that is - being reborn continuously. Mother Earth. Mother Cosmos. But all that is too grand for me to grok. But the woman who gave birth I know. So she stands for it all. Happy birthday to you.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Tech Note

Dropbox paid accounts now have a feature which is so useful for me that I'm giving it a free ad here. That feature is Smart Synch. I have a two terabyte hard drive on my main laptop. There's an old backup one I use when I have to like starting Friday when the new ASUS goes to the shop to get a new touchpad installed just in time to catch the last month of the two year warranty. It always bugged me that I'd put files and folders in my Dropbox folder that then would synch with my Dropbox in the sky and so I had to have those files in two places on my laptop - unless I used Selective Synch which eliminated the file or folder on my laptop. That didn't work well with me. With this new feature I can choose to have the file.folder local and online or just online. It appears there are local files and folders but they're just placeholders. They can be retrieved or added to without taking up any space. That brings me a bit of digital relief and comfort. - DC 

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

A Celebration

 


of the Bali dog - by Ibu Kat

Ibu Kat has written hundreds of columns and published books on Bali.