Website
I have not been posting for a while, mainly because I believed the website was not getting traffic. I would check this metric for the website quite a few times a day. It would show basically that there was no traffic. I would be very disappointed.
However, I had a conversation with someone who I had sent the blog site to, and it turns out that they read it when my metrics were showing zero. I almost had a nervous breakdown. My dashboard is not working.
There is another traffic metric on the website, deeper and harder to get to, and it is showing traffic of hundreds of unique visitors for this month. Good news that it seems there are visitors, but bad news that I have not been writing.
I may have to get some help on what is going on with the metrics. Nevertheless, I plan to post more regularly.
Shed
Some of my days have been spent on doing some work on the property, not much but significant. I have been working on building a shed and have spent a few full days in the sun getting it up. It took some serious work, and I am hopeful that it is a sign that maybe my health is improving.
I have a big list of work to do around the house and I am slowly getting to it all.
I am not completely well to continually work. Most of my free time I spend on the computer. A year ago, after I lost my job, a fraction of an hour on the computer would cause me stomach pain. This is no longer happening. Back then I was not able to do all the browsing that I wanted. Now browsing is no longer a problem.
What I mainly do on the computer is visit news websites. I realized that I check five of the top 6 news websites on the internet, regularly. Lately, I have been running out of content on them. I want to do something productive, however, I really don’t have ideas on something that would be manageable for me. I hope this will change soon.
But just today, I had an exceptional experience. As I sat in the parking lot in my car, I felt much better and started to think on looking for work again. I did not want the intense pressure of my previous career, as an engineer: it is a big commitment. And felt that if I was just able to get a job to have my own place and get by, that would be enough. I am right now, not sure of what kind of job this would be. But this is probably still too soon. I need to have this desire and wellbeing for a longer time before committing to this plan.
Politics
What I would like to discuss next is politics. There has been a big change for me here.
I remember that as a schoolboy early on, I was a Democrat. Sometime later I switched to being a Republican and that has been the way that I believed until recently.
I remember being a Republican and strongly believing in Trump in 2016, when he was running for president. I did not expect him to win. Obama was scaring me with how he was finishing his presidency. When Trump unexpectantly won, I felt like we had a reprieve.
Fast forward to recently, as Biden proposed the Build Back Better Act, I felt it was way too expensive and I worried about its impact on inflation. I was strongly opposed to it and really relieved that Manchin and another senator were stopping it. I had strong feeling on this. These two senators ultimately stopped this piece of legislation.
As Sanders once mentioned after this legislation failed, that the process was a disaster for Biden and Democrats, I was not upset.
Less than a month ago, I had a change of heart. I felt like Biden was the one with the ideas and changes that I agreed with. The Democrats were the one with the accelerator and the Republicans were pushing on the brakes. I wanted change and the Democrats had it and the ideas for it.
So, I started to root for them. It was around this time that Manchin also had a change of heart. The piece of legislation that he just “did everything humanely possible to support and just could not get there” well he started to negotiate a smaller version of it with Schumer which he called the Inflation Reduction Act. Ultimately, they had a bill, and he was able to stand behind it until it passed the Senate. It has passed the House and I believe awaits Biden’s signature.
It may be too early to be sure which party I will agree with more, time will tell if I continue to support them.
Regardless, recently Biden has had a great week with passing the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. It seems that he is making a turnaround. Also, his poll numbers have slightly increased. My biggest concern for him is with his health. I hope he improves in this area.
Shrinkflation
Regardless of the American politics, the world is heading into some difficult times. There are huge droughts that are happening in America and Europe. Where I live, in New York, we have basically not mowed grass in weeks. I remember doing that a lot last summer. The grass is burnt and has stopping growing. When I step outside in the noon, I just feel the sun burning up my clothes.
The city that I lived in, Dallas, Texas, recently had no rain for two months. Cattle ranchers are sending their cattle for slaughter in high numbers because of the drought.
I had a dream a few nights ago, in this dream I believe I was in a supermarket and was passing a large stack of bottles. The plastic bottles had some juice in them and a portion of them were already gone. But what is striking is that these bottles were in single cup portions. I have not seen that kind of size for juice in mass. Generally, I get bottles that have around 8 cups. Is this what shrinkflation leads to?
My point is that in 2023 the food supply may be limited.
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