Rod

Welcome back to those of you who may have been scared away by Google’s warning that the Alter Ego was an “Attack Site”. This is like flagging Mother Theresa as a terrorist.

I removed various malware, and submitted a formal request to Google for a new review of the site, in order to have it removed from the “no surf” list.

Sheesh.

Meanwhile, we waited in the Anchorage airport for our plane to Maui. The latter being ninety degrees warmer than the former.

Later, free decadence in first class at thirty six thousand feet above the Pacific. “Would you like another Mai Tai Mr. Nibbe?” Yes, plz. Bring one every fifteen minutes until I doze off, then bring one every thirty minutes.

An inconvenient truth.

I want to lose 185 pounds and get back to my original weight. Fat chance. Ha!

When you’re young it’s all about growing up, getting bigger, clean your plate, etc. Somewhere around your thirties the great reversal arrives. Someone notes your Milwaukee tumor – “Dude, you’re getting a paunch.” You resolve to slim down, exercise more, eat less and less often. Beaches and skinny jeans terrify you.

Here in Alaska in winter we battle another urge, the ceaseless voice inside imploring you to eat! eat! eat! Hard times are coming. Time to store fat. Yaddy ya. You feel helpless to resist. A bag of Lays and a pint of French Onion dip disappears in under an hour. Before you realize it you can barely bend over your tumor to tie your shoes.

And it has been cold. And snowy beyond usual. Look.

Ugh. Time for another bag of Lays. Krinkle cut.

I had the perfect email ready to go. No body, merely a subject line: “Say Cheese, Baby!”

The recipients had been carefully selected. Hitting the send key was going to feel like opiates flooding my brain. My pregame giddiness was almost pathological.

No mail was sent. I feel today as if I need a treatment center. There may be nothing so difficult as coming down. Reassurances from loved ones help but do not heal.

What the hell happened? I do not know. Who wants to bear witness to a train wreck. It was like the contradiction of a near death experience: It happened so fast yet seemed to unfold in slow motion.

Tomorrow will come. When it does, I will be here, a Cheesehead for life.

This site is moving to a new server. Don’t worry! I backed up every schnibble and bit in the database in order to preserve and restore, for the sake of posterity, every pioneering and prescient post. Why? Because the newest version of WordPress will not run on the old the server, due to its  underlying software being out of date. Poor old server. It will never experience the revitalizing makeover that comes from a new feature set. Don’t despair; one day the new features will be old features,  the new server the old server, and the circle of freshness will begin anew.

In other words: This Better Be Worth It.

Stand by.

Until then, Happy New Year all.

… from all of us at Rod’s Alter Ego.

For those of you not on the snail-mail recipient list of our annual and ever-so-tacky “Year In Review” newsletter – lucky for you!

For a limited time it is available here (0.5 MB pdf).

Best Wishes in the New Year to all of you.

Classic Lileks.

Well worth your time to read.

So they say. Especially these two.

Shown here exhibiting no gumption to go for their morning run because morning hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe at 10:30 or so it will. I heard the newswoman remark that even today, winter solstice, expect the sun to set nine seconds earlier than yesterday. Ohh kay. So I’ll need to gather up my towel, the sun block, and the fold-able chaise lounge and leave the beach today at 3:41:09 instead of 3:41:18. Gotchya.

In reality, today I am housebound. Waiting for UPS to arrive to deliver the wine. Eighteen bottles I think. They demand an adult signature else it’s back on the big brown step van where it will get cold and bounce around for hours until finally it’s delivered back to the warehouse, scanned and scheduled for another try the following day. Failing that, they will leave a Post-It style admonishment on the front door: COME GET IT YOURSELF. And then add, somewhat passive-aggressively, Merry Christmas. Because it always happens this way. You wait and wait and wait, and then think, Okay, I can sneak out for an hour and run the dogs. Sure enough, you get back home and see a little yellow sticky on the front door: Sorry we missed you. Inevitably!

As if there were not enough triggers this time of year to point our mood toward the doldrums, the Packers had to go and lose their first game. So long 19 wins in a row. So long perfect season. I pity the Bears coming to Lambeau field to play Christmas night. My guess is the Cheeseheads are going to bring out some special kind of Whoopass for that game. Look out. And then we (yes, “we”, much to the chagrin of my sister who insists that since I no longer live in Wisconsin I have no business inviting myself into the collective “We”) will have locked up home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Meaning the road to the super bowl necessarily will go through the Frozen Tundra.

Worried that a police state in this country is imminent? Here are some rather sanguine tips for what you and your family and community should and should not do. Among them: Don’t be a foreigner; stay anonymous; don’t think it’s better “over there”; assess the basics; know some skills, and get prepared. I found the specific advice on “Why Texas” (the author lives in Austin) both surprising and informative (bold is the author’s emphasis, not mine):

If some enemy force was foolish enough to try to enter Texas, they would be obliterated by a mass of Texas farmers, ranchers, National Guardsmen, law enforcement officers and ex-military men who are all locked and loaded to the hilt. That’s where I feel safest, in the midst of the best-armed and most well-skilled riflemen in the country, most of which are upstanding, community-minded citizens who defend life and liberty. Texas is a fortress of determined men and women who will not, under any circumstances, willfully surrender their freedoms or their Bill of Rights.

Interestingly, Austin is also a progressive town with lots of raw foods, vegans, yoga studios and amazing artists. It’s a progressive, almost liberal town, surrounded by conservative country folks who ultimately serve as a safety buffer that protects the city of Austin itself. When SHTF time comes, you can bet all the unarmed Austin residents will be begging the rural cowboys to protect them from looters and armed gangs.

That’s why people who don’t own guns dial 911 — because they want men who DO own guns to arrive as quickly as possible and solve their problem.