Little revenge after last week đ
Magnificent hiking day. Perfect weather.
This time I made it to the summit. Snowshoes + Gaiters definitely helped.
Little revenge after last week đ
Magnificent hiking day. Perfect weather.
This time I made it to the summit. Snowshoes + Gaiters definitely helped.
Passenger – Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea
Acoustic music for peaceful evenings.
Along the trail to Grays Peak. I turned around about a mile away from the summit at 12500ft. I wasn’t really expecting that much snow. Towards the end I was knee deep in snow if not worse. Time to start carrying winter gear I guess…
I’m glad I have that Jeep. The road up to the trailhead was a bit challenging…
Going to Telluride tomorrow. Rock climbing the Via Ferrata Saturday morning. Will do my best to avoid the whole dying thing đ
Just discovered Kasey Chambers. Can’t stop listening to “Barricades & Brickwalls”. Very good album.
One of my favorite pastry chef just turned 30 so I figure it would be a good opportunity for me to bake something for the party. I believe she was pleased.
The stripes on the side are a bit more subtle than I wanted though.
Lemon zest genoise filled with a mix of lemon buttercream and lemon cream.
Top with yellow almond paste and orange tuiles.
I also made some meringue, sugar work and other tuile cookies but ended up not using any of that really.
Thin 3 inch tall sides made of genoise + tuiles dough (up side down here)
After filling, placing the side around the cake and topping with almond paste:
Summer vacations went pretty well. I worked on fixing small things in the house.
Pruned all the trees and got rid of all the branches. Pressure washed the fence and re-stained it. Pressure washed the flagstones along the sidewalk. Refinished a window that was in fairly bad state. Built a window screen from scratch. Cleaned up my front porch adding some furniture. Fixed a few concrete cracks around the house and repainted. Also completely refinished the air intake grid on the floor of the main entrance (it was disgusting really). Refinished the door step. Fixed some electrical, updated the street number and a few other small things…
 The paint looked awful and the wood was in bad shape
Rotten Wood Frame
Building a new window screen in oak
After stripping the paint, using wood petrifier & wood epoxy, repainting the window inside and out and finally reattaching the new window screen.
View from inside
After trimming the trees I made little bundles (like 20 of them) to make it easier to get rid of them. I ended up renting a roll off dumpster with the neighbors to trash everything.
Power washing the flagstones. It took forever but the difference is clearly visible.
Power washing the fence + re-nailing some planks + new oil stain
New street number using the color of the house
Removed the wood grid (picture below) which was disgusting, scrubbed & cleanup the air intake and painted it in black (because you know...)
A century worth of "I don't even want to know what that is" sticky dirt. Actually had to use a dremel tool + hand filing the whole thing
After cleanup. Staining with a tiny brush...
Door step. Wood plank was in poor shape and the paint on the flag stone was just wrong. Who paint such a nice stone anyway???
Three coats of stain later + 2 days of scrubbing the stone with everything I could find including muriatic acid.
Adding some furniture + carpet on the patio. Now I can enjoy the rest of my vacations...oh wait, it's all gone! :)
Fantastic book. An absolute must read.
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defectorâs Story by Hyeonseo Lee
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Seven-Names-Korean-Defectors-ebook/dp/B00JD3ZL9U
Never fall for the the so-called âlaw of unintended consequencesâ excuse by government.
Firstly, intentions cannot be known with any degree of certainty. The logical demonstration is easy enough; Individuals can lie and individual donât read mind. Of course you can always choose to trust someoneâs pretend âintentionsâ but the very action of choosing to do so is a choice and this choice is the sole responsibility of the individuals making that choice. It certainly doesnât absolve the lawmaker in any way.
Secondly, actions should only be judged by their consequences.If you have doubts; just ask the victims and those who are actually paying for the consequences. Whether they were intentional or not makes no difference to them.
This âlaw of unintended consequencesâ has been used quite a lot during the past decade by governments trying to move the focus away from the actuality of their policies to their supposedly good intentions. This is a very dangerous slope as weâre seeing more and more populist politicians (Bernie Sanders comes to mind) making ridicule promises while completely ignoring the consequences of the policies they advocate. As with misdirection in the field of magic, the whole purpose of this trend is simply to move the attention of the audience towards the good intentions of the politicians.
A great example of that is the price fixing of drugs by European governments in order to help keep the price of health care down. The actual consequence of this policy was that for the past three or four decades the spending in Research and Development by drug companies collapsed by two third. Governments tried – and failed – to offset this by financing some (about one third) of the research…with tax money obviously. The end result is that people are still paying the same price but via two different channels instead of one. The unfortunate consequence is that most of the new drugs are developed by American companies. European companies find it cheaper to just buy formulas and sell the drugs in their own markets.
Pretending that these policies actually work for Europe is incredibly short sighted. We live in a global market and judging these policies locally is always a mistake. Trying to impose the same policies in the US would have deadly consequences not only in the US but also in Europe and most likely in other countries who have knowingly made themselves dependent on US research.
This is just one example out of many. For the past century Europe has made the choice of impairing freedom for the sake for security. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple, AirBNB and a hundred others didnât magically appear in the US by accident. Putting in place regulation impairing private companies in the US will have exactly the same consequences that the same policies had in Europe. the systematic killing of entrepreneurship.
Thereâs a good reason why you donât have a single European application running on your phone or your computer today. Pretending that countries of Europe âworkâ just fine with their ever increasing regulations and tax burden is ridicule. They donât. They survive as a parasite would; fed by the incredibly creative engine of the United States.
Unfortunately we live in the world where the majority of people seems to favor reassurance over truth – this not only from the news outlets but also from their politicians. I donât doubt people will elect more populists in the future. Whether or not the last bulwark against the dictatorship of the majority – the US Constitution – will hold is anybodyâs guess. Out of the three branches of government the executive will fail no doubt. The legislative has been incredibly complacent and weak to the point where the constitutionalists in Congress could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Itâs really no wonder then that the focus has been on the judicial branch lately. Ben Sasseâs lesson of civic aimed at Congress last week was brilliant and absolutely on target. Those who expect the Supreme Court to legislate are not doing it by accident. They know that in order to successfully achieve their majoritarian agenda the last domino has to fall.
Iâm very glad to be a Libertarian these days. It gives me the luxury of passing judgment on both main political parties while – I hope – remaining objective about it. With this being said I think there are several mistakes Democrats have been making in their handling of the current situation.
First, attacking a bully is never a good strategy. The current US President pretty much thrives on that. Itâs even more ridiculous considering most attacks are actually personal. Thereâs a reason DJ Trump is toping 50% in the polls. Turns out âThe boy who cried Wolfâ is a very good tale. Almost two years in and those out there supporting the president are not going to change their mind over a video of him banging every single bunny of the Playboy mansion. I would even go farther here and say this; even if Democrats came out with something VERY meaningful against the president Iâm ready to bet nobody would even trust that bit of information and this, right there, is why it was probably overall a bad strategy from the beginning.
I believe negotiation and compromise was the way to go. To say that DJ Trump is not someone that has a very strong ideological foundation would be the understatement of the year. In fact he has changed his mind on so many things over the decades that itâs difficult to keep track.
Libertarians, well, you know, we donât compromise much. When you know what youâre doing, when you know where youâre going, a compromise is essentially something that will weaken your position. âTradeâ is what we do. âCompromiseâ? Not so much.
On the other hand the US President would have given anything to his opponent – under the table obviously to keep face – and brag about achieving less than half of his agenda if it had come to that. Instead, here we are, with DJ Trump going full speed in one direction while the other half is portrayed in the conservative media as being hysterical and not in a funny ha ha sort of way.
The 2016 election was a mess. But it wasnât the Republicansâ mess; it was the Democratsâ. Republicans did the work. They showed up with 20+ candidates from every possible background and essentially just presented a diverse offering for the American people to choose from. Democrats? Well, letâs cut the crap for a minute here; the DNC showed up with one candidate with every intention of shoving that candidate down the throat of everybody. Why? My personal take is that Hillary had to lie about the Benghazi fiasco and essentially took the fall to protect her boss in the very close race of the 2012 US election. In exchange she was promised the presidency. There are other theories but what is clear is that the election was set from the beginning and most people saw through it. Polls with 14 percent more democrats in their – not so representative – sample of the population by NBC? Check. âEstimatesâ by Bloomberg, The Hills and many others popping up every five minutes on my Twitter feed on election night showing a 99% chance of Hillary winning? Check. CNN giving questions to the DNC to tilt the balance towards Hillary? Check. Increase media time for Hillary compared to every other candidates? Check.
By the way, every single one of those things are considered illegal in that beautiful Europe Democrats pretend to love so much. This absolute Freedom of Press is quite unique in the US – and I welcome it – but it requires that individuals be more critical of their media; certainly not less.
It was the responsibility of the Democrats to come out in 2016 and say; this ridiculous media bias is unacceptable. Instead, and if my facebook timeline is any indication, half of the Democrats remained silent on the subject while the other half decided that since a win was assured it would be okay to behave like self righteous arrogant assholes spending the entire year vomiting their hatred of the other half. Well, that blew up in their faces alrightâŚ
Fast forward two years and the reality is that the Democratic Party has made no effort to fix itself. It came out of the 2016 election in a shamble and it still hasnât regained any credibility. Ask a Bernie Sanders voter about it if you donât believe me.
Truth is, Donald J Trump wasnât elected for who he is. The people who voted for him did it for very two simple reasons which remain true to this day; 1) Heâs not Hillary Clinton. 2) He is an âoutsiderâ of the main political parties. Turns out any âbig mouthâ would have won the election. Hell, Iâm ready to bet Dennis Miller would have won. Anne Coulter would have won. Let that sink in. This actually goes a long way explaining why the US President seems immune in the polls. Turns out, the two aforementioned affirmations are still true and will remain true no matter what.
Thereâs an even bigger threat for the Democrats that should be mentioned here. When 2024 comes the Republican party wonât have any problem throwing DJ Trump under the bus presenting him for who he actually is – an outsider – then quietly offer a âreal changeâ embodied by an actual member of the Conservative / Republican party.
My conclusion is that Democrats need to clean up the mess they created. The DNC needs to acknowledge some âdysfonctionnementâ (Iâm being very polite here), chop off a few heads very publicly and regain control of the party. Ideologically it needs to make a choice between mainstream Democrats and far left socialists and take another very public stand in that regards.
With the midterms election approaching fast I think time is running out. I donât see any âBlue Waveâ in the near future. The GOP will gain a few seats – possibly three – in the Senate and lose a few seats in the House of Representative – my guesstimates is nine seats.
As for the Libertarian Party you ask? Well, Iâm afraid it will remain unpopular as long as people refuse to acknowledge the strong bond between Liberty and Personal Responsibility but thatâs a different story.
For no particular reason – that Iâm aware of anyway – I thought about âAtlas Shruggedâ in a new light last night. I used to see the individualist, objectivist and logical aspect of the book and I valued the story for it. But thereâs a completely different aspect Iâve been ignoring so far that seems to be far more important and relevant today. In fact the main question Ayn Rand asks strikes me this morning as the most important one anybody can ask; when would you quit? In other word; how far does a society of Men as to go for you – a self sufficient, productive individual – to say; âStop, I will no longer support this madness.â
Essentially the book is about John Galt refusing to gift his community with his new invention, leaving a society he despises to its own predictable collapse.
Thereâs a certain percentage of individual who are a positive force to their community today. They pay taxes and not to be too blunt but these taxes are used for anything from the financing of K-12 to the bombing of Yemenite children.
Letâs forget about D.J. Trump since by any standard is a pretty melow president regardless of what some seems to believe. Instead, letâs project ourselves to 2024 and the election of a new American president. Letâs assume this newly elected president decides that the starving of the Venezuelan people by Maduro has been going on for too long and starts bombing down the place. Then the US President start ranting about Iran and decide to send an armed force. What else? Bomb Saudi Arabia as pay back for 9/11? Triple the military involvement in Afghanistan to put an end to the longest armed conflict in centuries? Iâm sure thereâs some place in western Africa we could bomb to…
I think by now you see the point. How far your own elected government as to go for you to either leave the country or possibly take up arm against your own government and bring it down?
Obviously if youâre single and have no kids itâs an âeasyâ decision. After all, you just have to pack everything, leave behind your family, your friends and the culture you – used to – love. Then again if you factor in the love of your life it gets more complicated. Adding kids to the equation and itâs a whole different animal.
Talking is cheap. The whining and crying over Trump that has been going on for almost two years tells us that much. “To act” is far more difficult. An hypothetical would be helpful here. Luckily human History provides us with plenty of despicable leaders. We could very well use Adolf as an example – itâs very fashionable these days – but letâs take Stalin instead for the sake of variety. Between the starvation of his own people, the eugenic policies, the systematic killing of jews, the murder of political opponents and the completely random mass assassination of people for the sake of absolute control we have plenty enough for our hypothetical. Let me remind you of the question here; Where would you have stopped financing that society?
Iâll let you in on a little secret. Chances are you would have done nothing different than the previous generations. You would have used every rationalization possible to justify your indolence and docility towards the most murderous system of government. Itâs nothing special really. Most people would. I think thatâs what makes the question raised by Ayn Rand so pertinent even today. It forces every individual to look deeply into the mirror, to gather all the honesty an individual can muster and forces that individual to answer; âwhat is my breaking point?â
There are 58 Peaks of +14000ft in Colorado. I’ve now hiked / climbed 57 of them. Culebra Peak (the private 14er) is left. I have mixed feelings about paying $150 for the permit and the place is closed for the season anyway so I have to wait for October 1st.
Little Bear peak is a whole different animal compared to the other Colorado 14ers. Very short in terms of distance but very steep. There are essentially three parts;
1) An 800ft climb in a steep gully full of rocks
2) A long hike on the southern slope going up 1000ft
3) Final climb through the infamous ‘Hourglass’
I met a group of climbers on my way up so I had some good company for most of the climb.
Since I’m finally on vacations I thought I’d start by a weekend in the mountains. The plan was to hike / climb Ellingwood Point and Blanca Peak on Sunday and do the infamous Little Bear peak on Monday to avoid the crowd. Still lots of smoke from the recent forest fire so the sky wasn’t particularly blue but overall a great weekend…
Been listening to “Missy Higgins – The EPÂ Collectibles” a lot lately.
She’s from Melbourne and she’s pretty awesome.
There are plenty to say about guns. France doesn’t really have a gun culture so it’s difficult to form an objective opinion.
Historically the German occupation of France should never have happened. The complete lack of weaponry is often used to justify the fact that a mere 5000 German soldier managed to occupy a country of 30 million people for several years.
On the other hand; there are crazy people everywhere.
I consider Denver to be fairly safe but I thought I’d buy one to actually talk from experience. This one is not going to kill anyone so at least there’s that.
I’m at the range every other week because practice makes perfect.