shimmy shakers today....

 little buggers but they still catch you off guard.  the quakes continue to rattle through the town and get on plenty of folks nerves.  i think we've had several that were noticeable these past few days so that gets you on edge all over i guess. so far i seem to be faring pretty well. there can be added damage in these aftershocks so i do keep looking for new cracks.  will have to do a good check after the snow thaws later.  my doors seem to be opening and closing without issues though so that is good.

 i don't see any new cracks.  the water heater seems to be holding up since that first day of leaking, the thing is pretty old. 

 these are from a summer trip to Homer still.  always a favorite escape.

 the dogs love being at the beach as well.

 Happy New Year officially i guess. i walked the dogs, i watched the parade and otherwise i did not much else.

 my hometown float got ripped off a bit.  they were about at the end of the parade and a huge float broke down.  i don't think that float really had the required hitch to tow it in the event of it breaking down so that huge thing put a plug on the last part of the parade.  a band that flew all the way in from Sweden did get through eventually and even longer after that my hometown float got through. 

 sadly the coverage of the parade opted out rather than wait for those last floats and groups to go by.  people started to pick up and take off.  i guess crowds were jeering at others for leaving before the whole parade was done.  But for those that stayed they gave our little float and the one behind it as much of a cheer as they would have gotten if everyone had stayed. 

 ironically, my little hometown float was blasting Bob Marley's, "everything gonna be alright".  haha. saw a clip of them bringing the float home to South Pasadena. my sister said she'd drive down if i opted to hit the parade one of these days.  that could be fun. 

 so I chilled around the house watched the parade between other things.  then i put my Netflix movie in. I'd read the book and as i had been reading the book i saw that there was a movie based on it.  i really liked it.  "the story of Ove".  it is a foreign flick, which i tend to enjoy as well.

 today was more of the same. i walked the dogs out at Rovers Run.  a nice loop.  we did some extra training out there as there were several skiers, bikers and joggers.  always good to keep the dogs trained up. Tusker has been slacking these past few weeks. i made a game out of the hold ups and sits and stays.  i think they were nicely tired out as well.

 this evening i gave them a good brushing, which they always enjoy, while i watched an old movie from 1990, Mermaids.  another good movie.

 i posted an opinion piece on the rise of fascism.  it got a lot of discussion.  there were 14 elements that had been found in common in an analysis of 20th century fascist regimes....it's based on research by a political scientist...done back in 2003.  but still i was accused of not checking facts when posting this.  people quickly jump all over it. 

 i suspect the truth in your face just makes you lash out for want of not having to actually have to deal with the truth.  it takes years often for a nation to fail.  it rarely happens suddenly.  it was like 20 years of fighting before the US Civil War came to pass.  the rebels lost by the way.

 no discussion is complete on facebook without folks turning it into an arms fight.  haha. some people are so easy.  fear makes people weak though and easy to manipulate...that is what i always say....and it's true.

 it was an interesting read and one that everyone should be aware of...the signs are there. i don't actually believe we are devolving into that at this time, but there are some pretty solid signs that our nation is in trouble and we won't get through this without a lot of pain and possibly some blood shed.  we are too divided.  it behooves all to be aware...but some would rather ignore the history of others...as they say, those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat it. 

 1.  was the expressions of nationalism.  our current potus even stood up at a rally and stated he is proud to be a nationalist.  it is patriotism gone mad...but in his case nationalism has come to be a term that means white nationalism.  in the article, this first thing was people clinging onto symbolism's, motto's, flags and songs more tightly than is normal I'd guess.  things like freaking out at blacks kneeling in protest during the national anthem do come to mind. this nationalism also includes increased suspicion of other nations.  I'd say this first sign is alive and well here...i just felt it was cause for alarm and observation...

 2. disdain for importance of human rights.  minorities are marginalized and disinformation is rampant.  that sounds familiar.  who can tell anymore who is telling truth.  the potus today had an open cabinet meeting and that shit was full of big whoppers.  the right has made this wall battle out to be a matter of life or death of our nation.  as if we are literally under attack from these immigrants...and plenty out there seem to fully buy in to this. 

 in truth the numbers crossing are less than previously.  most of our illegals are overstays of visa's or people just fly in or drive in.  drugs are hidden in vehicles more than brought in.  walls do not really work.  the iitoo mentioned the Israeli wall.  first off, it is much smaller area and the facts are the black market is alive and well there.  it's more porous than you know.  the researcher was Lawerence Britt and the opinion piece was  by Rick Steiner

 3. identifying others as scape goats...well lets see what the list of scape goats is for the right.  liberals, Obama, Hillary and Bill, the deep state, Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims...i think this list goes on. these are used...and the iitoo is great at this...as a distraction. 

 4. supremacy of the military/militarism.  when funding for military takes all importance over domestic funding.  folks are totally convinced that we are under attack and the strangest part to me is that while they claim our military would never turn on it's own citizens, they insist that everyone needs to be able to have guns in order to be able to defend against a rouge military or government take over.  never mind that the government can't take us over without the military.  fear does seem to be a factor with this.  we fear our opponent so much that we can't ever have enough weapons. 

 5. sexism.  women in their place, fear of homosexuality...that seems pretty basic. 

 6. controlled mass media.  thankfully this is a tougher one to control in our nation.  though propaganda seems to be evident and the current potus rules through TV watching rather than listening to those around him who may have actual expertise.  it is funny that the same who blast the liberal media seem to have no problem with Hannity's obvious open love fest with the POTUS...but Obama...i know i know.  haha.  that or but hillary is the rights answer to everything that they don't actually want to deal with.  he watches fox and then makes policy decisions based on their opinions..because they rarely deliver any actual news.

 7. obsession with national security. i think this is where the word treason is bantered back and forth on all sides.   keeping our government open and accessible and transparent are good ways to prevent this sort of thing.  the right has created a cause of distrust in all things government with their deep state rhetoric.  anyone on the right who breaks rank and bad mouths the current administration may be deemed to be members of the deep state and therefore demonized.

 8. religion and the ruling elite are tied together.  that is never good.  the idea is to keep religion separate and sadly our organized religions are more and more becoming nothing more than an extension of the corporate world.  they run at the top as corporations anyway.  they enjoy tax exempt status while running as corporations.  many radical Christians openly believe that trump was actually sent by God to save American and to save Christianity. that alone, should terrify us all. having faith in God is one thing, having that kind of blind faith in a government is crazy talk.  no government should be treated like a religion. 

 9. power of corporations is protected.  lobbies and corporations in our case here. our votes have become diminished as the corporations and the greed surrounding them have become more powerful.  corporations have been forming into mega corporations.  we are morphing into an oligarchy power in many ways.  this must be cut back before it's too late. 

 10. power of labor is suppressed or eliminated.  there is a bit of a war on unions with this current administration.  currently, government workers are being used as pawns in the rights battle for the wall.  the iitoo initially stated that he would take all blame for the shut down, now he blames others, even going to the point of stating that most who work for the government in these jobs are actually democrats so who cares. they still collect their pay check so what do they care...also oddly, the coast guard is treated differently than other branches of the military so in their paranoia that we are getting attacked from Mexico they are cutting the coast guards ability to do their job via their government shut down. 

 11. disdain and suppression of the intellectuals and the arts...well it does seem like many are suppressing their intellectual sides, but that is another story.  there is a bit of a battle against science.  if you don't like what they say just trash them.  easier to trash the facts they have researched than to admit that perhaps there could and should be things we could be doing to improve the situation our earth finds itself in.  elites they call them...there is disdain for all in the arts as being too liberal...unless they happen to be conservative...if you are conservative and in the arts then you will be glorified...even if your only art is TV reality shows i guess. 

 12. obsession with crime and punishment.  increased power for police forces, increased numbers of citizens imprisoned.  i think overall our police force are upstanding citizens.  our laws have put many in prison.  a prison reform law was just signed, thankfully, but it is just a start.  truth is everyone was fine tossing drug addicts in prison for extended times until more and more drug addicts were white.  now it's hitting too close to home and so laws can finally be softened. 

 13. rampant cronyism and corruption.  i think this has been building in both parties for years..it's just time for a major clean out...sadly, this potus ran saying he'd drain the swamp and people believed him...still do.  what they haven't gotten is that he is worse than the swamp.  he's lived his entire adult life on the edge of illegal..or just flat out illegal and because of the family wealth he's been able to skate by. they seem fine not knowing who he actually owed money to, what relationship he has with put, what put knows of him or could have over him...along with the Saudi's.  he and his crony's are quickly learning how to bilk our nation out of all they can.  it may be a double edged sword though...as i don't think the iitoo is all that smart.  if he had been...we'd be in much worse shape at this time.  his greed may put the spot light on his finances for decades and be his undoing in the end.  he would have been better off not running for potus...and i truly believe his rag tag group of greedy thugs counted on him losing and raking up the cash and walking away.  then he won....

 lastly 14. fraudulent elections.  with the help of Rus we have had voter misinformation for sure.  gerrymandering and voter suppression have been done on both sides, but the GOP is more skilled at it than anyone has ever been and bold.  this is something we should fix...you'd think all would want to...it's the GOP now but it could just as easily be the Dems.  I'd have to say we should do something with the electoral college as it is not as representative of our actual population desires.  our original national elections were only meant to be for land holders, men, those with money.  the times are changing and our elections should adapt to address this. 

 anyway...that generated a lot of discussion...most  of it not really related to the signs and symptoms of fascism...but who actual reads anymore.  right.  haha.

 the comments on the ADN...where the opinion piece was published got a lot of comments...mostly pissed off conservatives...a lot of angry folks out there.  i have no idea how the division gets sown back together...does anyone have magic thread? 

 with humans though it's more likely to be war, death and mayhem before folks remember that war is hell and losing lives on both sides of an argument is no way to win the argument.  perhaps after the bloodshed folks will remember that compromise must be found if people with wildly varying opinions are to live together harmoniously.  life is not black and white...it's all matter of grey.  you are not right and me wrong...we just see things differently.  humans like to be right...i know I'm one of them.  it happens in politics, in religion.  wars happen because humans like to believe they are right, that their truth is the right truth. 

 we can't accept that there are many ways to get to the same truth..i see this in medicine.  some restrict themselves...this is the way to treat that, when actually there may be many ways to go about treating an ailment...different ailments respond differently in different folks so changing it up and trying something old or new may do the trick...but many will say, no, this is how it is, this is the way to treat that...

 if you can't be flexible in life, if you can't dare to think things can be different than what you know them to be...well you may box yourself in.  being boxed in is no way to live, but it is how many live.

 not everyone can find their way out of the box of what is and out into the world of what could be.

 and that is why humans repeat the bad history.  we create it because we fear change, because we fear breaking out of the box of what is in our lives.  i say smash it, tear it down...freedom of the mind is a glorious thing. 

 i guess that is enough words for the day.  i did start to go through my boxed up kitchen stuff and moved some items into cabinets. 

 i will head back to work tomorrow.  see what awaits me.  my friends trying to freak us all out by saying they are predicting a 6.o quake on Friday or Saturday.  we do have the possibility of 6's. I'm okay with all these smaller quakes because in my mind all the smaller ones release the energy bit by bit. 

 be kind and if you can't be kind, be sarcastic...save yourself. 

 snuggle time with my furs...Happy Birthday Miss Breezy Chatterbug.  i don't actually know my cats birthday. it may be more of her guesstimated birthday.  she is 7 though, give or take a few weeks i guess.

thankful for:  A.  freedom of speech  B. freedom of the press C and yes, the right to bear arms...but can we make it rational and with some controls please.

rescued me mail from the Post Office....

 haven't gotten any mail since several days before Christmas...so this time i checked at the post office they did have my mail. not sure when they will begin delivering the mail to our neighborhood box again...not sure if the government shut down will impact this.  will be heading there a few times a week at least to check on mail in the meantime.  figure not much would happen until after the holidays are over.

 happy i didn't head downtown for the festivities.  we had a 5.o quake just after 6pm this evening.  that is the largest we've had in a bit...we did have that 4.9 the other day too. so still loads of aftershocks...or are they really aftershocks?  could these be pre-shocks?  could there be a bigger one coming? or could all this seismic activity  cause another wave of quakes...they do say that aftershocks can have aftershocks which we should be having after a 5.0 for sure...

 love these close ups of the pups.

 with all the aftershocks we keep having i just keep thinking about what those poor folks suffered with during and after the 1964 quake.  i know they had loads of super large aftershocks...i think like 4-6 that were over 6.0's in those first hours post the big quake.  i suspect its what we've been through except way more exaggerated.  our quake lasted less than 2 minutes...the original, theirs lasted over 5 minutes.  the longer a quake lasts the more the sub ground is subjected to possible liquefaction.  that is the big killer.

 we did have our Monday walk though it was a bit shortened as well today.  holiday plus last night in addition to the usual aftershocks we had wind i guess. i slept through it, but we got some good gusts.  the wind has made our snow melt...warm temperatures...into the 40's..so that sucks. a bit slushy out there.  we had fun though. 

 the rest of these are a trip with the pups to Homer in August.  i am still super far behind on photos from this summer. always fun down there.

 the dogs were barking at fireworks.  not sure if they have calmed down or the dogs are just ignoring them more.  i had locked them in here with me and turned the music up as Ivy and Tusker kept barking.  they were getting restless being stuck in here and my brain wasn't liking the music.

 for me it's like a post concussion syndrome with these earthquakes...mixed with some motion sickness.  my brain gets all fuzzy feeling.  I'm a bit woozy at times.  I've noticed it with quakes 5.0 or greater or near that...suppose it depends on how close it is and how much the shake around me is.  i have taken Dramamine with it before which has helped. 

 it is strange, but in quake pages, it's not uncommon.  many out there have strange symptoms, similar to a motion sickness post quakes.

 they started to really look at it after the big quake in Japan that had that horrible tsunami.  they found many residents were complaining of these types of symptoms. it translates to Earthquake Drunk or Earthquake Hangover.  it does feel a bit like a hangover i think.

 i have noticed that sitting/standing during the quake seems to make it worse. for today's 5.0 i was sitting up.

 was just texting with my brother and SIL about starting a group game of Hearts when the quake hit.  we planned to start at 6 and the quake was at 6:03. i had not played before so i had to get set up and logged in.  they played on lap tops so they were able to  see and hear each other...maybe next time...i was just playing on my phone so i could only text them via the game.

 i haven't played hearts in ages.  we always had fun playing cards together as kids so it was fun to play with us all in 3 different states.  considering i haven't played in years and had just had another big quake...i think i did well not coming in last...my brother did that...mostly because he tried to shoot the moon.  haha.  his daughter tried as well, both times i held onto my jack of hearts...they always forget about the jack...some aspects of the game came right back to me.  the computer program tries to tell you what to play as well.  it never picked the cards i would pass along though.  silly computer...what does it know really.

 have been texting with my sister as well today, she had oral surgery so she can't talk right now or eat much, poor girl.  anything in the mouth surgically is pretty rotten. 

 hoping to wake up early and watch the Rose Parade. it's where i grew up and i my life this time of year seemed intertwined with the parade.  as kids we sold the parade programs as a fund raiser for our church.  i went door to door at what would now be considered a very young age...really strange to think about.  we also stood outside the sites where many of the floats get built. 

 so we'd get to run through when the line wasn't long and watch the progress. i never worked on a float though and i do toy with going back down there to watch with family and maybe volunteer to help decorate one. would be fun...and messy.

 i grew up in a suburb of Pasadena, South Pasadena. they have made their own float for years.  many places have turned to float building businesses, but my hometown still does it old school...as a community.  a few others do this as well. it does mean the floats aren't hugely extravagant like many you will see if you watch.  they have done a great job of making them fun, having lots of moving parts and this year it seems to have a music theme along with Bob Marley blasting out from the float.

 at times i even went down early to the parade route and sold programs in the stands and on the bridge....loved that as when those huge marching bands went by the whole bridge took the beat of it and shared it. 

 might not like that this year after all these quakes though.  haha.

 in my twenties i returned to the parade as a young adult to enjoy the 5 mile long block party.  it went on for days...we'd stay out overnight.  friends would drive up and down Colorado Blvd.  in the mornings we'd watch the parade and head home...or for me, more often I'd head to work at the Cat Hospital i worked at or the Emergency animal hospital later.

 the cat hospital was just a few blocks off. the owner eventually allowed me to just park there and block it off, then sell the parking spots in the morning as i headed over to feed/clean all the animals.  i think i skipped the parade a few times to do this.  just chilled with friends all night and then headed over to the animal hospital.

 so New Years had rarely been a normal thing for me.  it was mostly tied to the parade. 

 did hit a few bars as well down there in my later 20's, but i think i mostly tried to duck out before the bell struck 12! too many guys would think they had some freedoms to try and catch a grope or kiss.

 new years resolutions...

 never really taken it seriously i guess. i make goals, but loose i guess.  eventually i get to some stuff, others not so much.  doing the kitchen has been a goal.  so i guess getting it finished is the new goal.  cleaning and re-organizing post remodel is another goal, parking in my garage....another goal. 

 wet dogs playing in the tide.

 overall, dogs seem to be doing reasonable...the worst of the fireworks is still coming though. 

 need to come up with my summer plans. it's coming up faster than you know. if you want cabins you gotta get them now.

 i have been trying to put things in the cabinets more.  hit the grocery store today and put things away in the pantry cabinets.  will still have to adjust things as i figure out what works where.

 some anemones. didn't see many sea stars this year. 

 dog prints in the same.

 chances of a 7.0 quake or more in the next few weeks is like 1:1000, over 6.0 1:100...hmm...we have averaged about 10 quakes/hr, most of these are 3's or less.

 i read on a normal day we average about 10 quakes/day so we are still experiencing reactions to the original 7.0. just reading that  these will all be considered aftershocks until we get back down to our baseline of 10 quakes/day and stay there for a month or so. 

 the fault "patch" that our original quake happened on is roughly located under Point McKensie.  it runs 20 miles long and 10 miles wide...so only quakes along this fault path are considered aftershocks

 music is helping.  will just need to stay in here probably until the bulk of the celebrations have passed. 

 over 750 structures have had significant damage from the quake we had...nobody died so the lower 48 moved on.  another 900 buildings have more mild damage.  the inspectors are still trying to get around to all the growing requests to be checked.  so far i haven't seen anything concerning at my place. 

 the boom of the 80's meant many builders cut corners apparently.  my place was built in that time.   when i had my inspection i thought the guy seemed to think it was better built than others in the same time frame.  some places have settled or had further damage with the aftershocks.  my handyman has been in the crawl space a few times and hasn't seen much.  of course, my crawl space is well insulated at this point so some damage may not be as evident i suppose.  will just keep checking it. it has remained dry though so that is good.  fingers crossed. 

 well, the worst of it should be slowing down.  don't want the dogs to become nervous.  that is always much more difficult.  no panting or panic noted with my pair.  they just seem to want to bark at the intrusion.  clearly they find the noises offensive.  they seem to want to protect more than fear the sounds.  not sure what makes that alter into panic though.  many dogs have issues with the fireworks, from what i hear there are many veterans who also have trouble dealing with the noises.  i can totally understand how that would be possible. 

 America is a mess right now...hoping for improvement in 2019...but we shall see.  no matter what terrible things are found, will they be believed.  facts don't seem to matter to many in our nation, they have already decided that the facts are not really true.  it's scary how easy it is to manipulate the masses. 

thankful for: A.  another year of living on this earth.  getting old can be a bother, but as they say it really does beat the alternative.  i love this place called earth and love that i am healthy enough, physically and mentally to be able to enjoy it B.  the kitchen coming together.  it's been quite the adventure for the year but it's also been fun seeing your dream become reality. C. that my current dogs don't seem to be freaking out...that is a relief.  been there with other dogs, it's very distressing.