From Grumpy's Garage

Sunrise over Lake Union, near the Google Seattle office (This is the third in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth . This essay has been edited from its original.  More information ) I love early morning walks. Let me get ready for a busy day. When I worked at Google in Seattle, sunrises over Lake Union always gave me joy. Or, if I’m visiting family in Maine, I’ll marvel at a sunset over Flanders Bay. Those are magical times. Sometimes I like to just sit near the water’s edge and watch wavelets lap the shoreline. Or ships pass by, if there are any. On one of our several visits to Port Townsend, Stephanie and I found a wine bar with outdoor seating overlooking the anchorage. We captured the moment. It speaks to the simple joy of the moment. Being with my soul mate. Watching boats at anchor. Sipping wine. Port Townsend Bay I enjoy hearing my own thoughts. It seems that many people can’t just be with themselves in silence. ...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the second in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth .  More information ) I knew my maternal grandparents (Gowie and Grampa) better than I did my dad’s parents (Grandpa and Grandma Haney).  Grandpa Haney died of a heart attack when I was maybe five or six years old. My only memories of him are of his thumb. I could push on the face of his thumb and make an indentation, like it was Playdoh. I also remember seeing him wearing a carpenter’s belt, he was at church working in a project with other men there (Pilgrim Temple, Oakland, California). All of my other memories of Grandpa Haney were from photographs around Grandma Haney’s house, most taken on their missionary trips to Liberia, where my father was born. Grandma Haney was rather reserved. I’d even go so far as to say she was a little uptight. She had silver hair and a well-kept home in Oakland.  I recall that she had a contraption ...

Mr. Moneybags in politics Image: Google Gemini What is more democratic: letting people choose their leaders or forcing people to obey corporate executives? Would a "Democratic Party" candidate that has close ties to corporate power appeal to voters as an alternative to a supposed billionaire? In Naomi Klein's book,  No Is Not Enough , she posits that one reason Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election was because she has too many ties to corporate interests and old school power structures. Put another way, Clinton wasn't progressive enough. Klein is an author, journalist, filmmaker, and activist focusing on ecofeminism, organized labor, and corporate power [1] . I've been reading No Is Not Enough to help me understand how we got into our current political crisis and how we might extricate ourselves. The Progressive Guard: Sanders and Warren Klein contrasts Clinton's campaign with that of Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and self-described progressive Dem...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the first in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from Storyworth . More information ) I often don’t tolerate advertisements, whether they are on websites that I visit, videos that I watch, or commercial “yard” signs by the side of the road (on public property, I might add). If I’m in the market for something, I’ll search for it online, thank you. My web browser is armed with ad blockers (that I still must disable to get to some websites). That’s an eternal game of Whack-A-Mole. I pay extra to avoid ads on Netflix. (Amazon has just announced that they are going to start showing ads on Prime Video. I don’t watch Prime Video often enough yet to pay the extra $2.99 per month.) I’ve heard that some people get YouTube pop-up nag messages complaining about ad blockers. I say my first one this week. I often look for ad blockers that content sites cannot detect. Yet. In the last week, I’ve installed Pi Hole, a program runnin...

Every now and then I hear a Trump supporter explain why they voted for him: "Because he'll bring market discipline to running the government. He'll run it like a business." But is that really what we want? What would that look like?  Are we seeing that now (April, 2025)? What Trump, Musk, and DOGE Have Done So Far President Trump, "Prime Minister" Musk, and DOGE have:  Identified various divisions (bureaus, agencies, and departments) that they want to eliminate, such as USAID Begun massive layoffs of workers in those divisions Begun massive layoffs even of divisions they intend to keep Started consolidating functions of divisions they want to close with divisions they want to keep Started closing field offices and consolidating functions in larger regional offices Canceled leases and identified properties to later sell off Canceled labor union contracts, including for TSA Canceled contracts and programs that would provide "non-essential" services, ...