Aaron's Status

5:52 am

Yesterday was not a great day; not for me, not for my family, not for my friends, and not for the country. I have thoughts, but if you want to skip those, just don’t read the next section.

The day after

Up in my brain things are generally pretty calm and I tend to look at the glass as half-full all the time. If we are to take anything away from the last couple of days, let it be some practical learnings.

More people than anyone seems to want to admit are at their breaking point. How else could we explain the urge to elect such an objectively horrible person to the presidency… Again? The ground truth is that the Democratic Party hasn’t delivered relief for those who have been hurting the most.

Neither has the Republican Party, but they sure do a better job of consistently and openly lying about it. Given the choice between a person directly associated with an administration perceived to have done nothing to help, and a person who claims to be able to break down any wall to solve the problems most important to you… Who do you choose?

That choice is made easier for one surprising Trump voting bloc, the middle-class “wine moms.” An actually shocking number of women who are otherwise doing pretty okay voted for Trump because prices of everything have gone up and because they’re more than a little bit racist.

But that wasn’t enough to do it, either; Trump also won over immigrants who want to deport other immigrants, lower-class people who don’t understand how tariffs or taxes even work, and of course all of the actual 1930s neo-Nazis.

Yes, it was a sad day for America, but what will we take away from it, and will we do anything about what we’ve learned? Anything at all? Ensuring that we do is our work of the next few years.

Recovery notes

It worked out well for me to skip climbing on Tuesday since there was no school and for various logistical reasons we couldn’t go as a family anyway. I have been taking it easy with my back and today it feels okay, back to around 90%.

It’s frustrating to be in this continuous cycle of not really fully being able to trust it, and having to be so ginger with it, and so forth. While I know that some amount of PT and ongoing care is part of the narrative of growing older, I also hope to get to a place where it is less front-and-center in my day-to-day, and I’m willing to accept that that point could still be months away.

All of that said, I’m going to go back to yoga this evening, for my third session with this particular instructor. I have a real love/hate relationship with yoga but I think a lot of the “hate” side is just frustration with my flexibility challenges and that facing that is part of how I make the changes that I want to see. So, more down dogs it is!

Trip planning

I’m now starting to think more seriously about getting ready for this trip to Death Valley. Every time we do a trip I end up making a new packing list, so this time I’m making sure to create a reusable, universal, thorough packing list that I’ll file away where I can find it.

I’ve already packed like 90% of my camera backpack, maybe 99% if I end up going the route of having a separate “personal item” on the plane, which actually sounds like a great idea. Excuse to buy another bag? I really shouldn’t.

The clothing and whatnot will be straightforward, but I also want to rethink our charging situation now that we’ve reached the point where basically everything we bring on a trip is USB-C. Finally. It seems like nobody wants to make a wall charger with four or more USB-C ports so I’m still using this one with four USB-A ports.

Anyway that’s what’s on my mind. Our upcoming trip and the impending collapse of the administrative state.