I’m still trying to get used to having extra time during the week while Grandson is in school. It’s such an odd feeling to be able to do almost whatever I need or want until 1:45. I’m still not making the best use of that extra time yet, though.
Jimmy Buffett
Flags across Margaritaville are at half-staff this weekend. I thought it was most Jimmy thing he could have done to pass on Labor Day Weekend. Check out the lyrics to “Come Monday” if you don’t understand what I mean. The man was a consummate storyteller and musician, and he lived a life most could have only dreamed of. Singer. Songwriter. Author. Pilot. Sailor. Actor. Father. Simply amazing.
Jimmy’s NY Times obituary called him a “roguish bard,” an apt description, I think. President Biden called him a “poet of paradise.”
My college roommate introduced me to Jimmy in the fall of 1983, playing You Had To Be There a bunch of times. We worked our way through his 1970s catalog after that, usually accompanied by more than a little alcohol, which likely isn’t a surprise. Jimmy made a stop at Miami University in December of 1983, on what I think would have been the One Particular Harbor tour. PJ and I found out about it the week of the show, ran to the box office, and scored 13th-row center tickets. It was a terrific show, that much I remember. Specifics are really hazy though. That’s a combination of age and the alcohol I’m sure we consumed. Yeah, it was a Monday of finals week, but this was Buffett!
Hard to believe that was forty years ago.
I saw Jimmy again on the Banana Wind tour at Buckeye Lake Amphitheater in 1996. My friends and I made the mistake of leaving before the final encore, “The Night I Painted the Sky” but I remember we paused on our walk through the parking lot each time the fireworks burst.
Oldest Son became a big Buffett fan, possibly because I played Banana Wind and Barometer Soup and other albums so often around him. One of my great regrets is that we never got to experience a Buffett concert together.
I hope his family goes ahead with the release of Equal Strain on All Parts. I don’t think he’d want to have spent all that time working on it just to leave it in the can.
So drink it up, Jimmy. This one’s for you. It’s been a lovely cruise.
New Gadget
I got a new computer gadget this week. My pre-2018 Logitech M705 mouse is only barely hanging on to life these days. It’s developed an odd double-clicking issue where I’m trying to single-click but it registers a double-click. Very aggravating, because it tends to happen at the worst possible moment.
I’ve been itching to upgrade for a while now. I’d considered just replacing it with the same model, but the reviews on the newer version aren’t so great. I spent a few hours at /r/MouseReview (because there really is a subreddit for anything) and at RTings.com, reading far too many reviews. I ended up settling on the Logitech G502 Lightspeed mouse. Youngest Son has the wired version and I was able to fiddle with it a little last weekend. The biggest selling point for me was it having an adjustable weight.
I think in the end, task paralysis/executive dysfunction kicked in and I chose the Logitech just to get the decision made. Watch for a full review in the next week or so.
Reading
NPR had a good article this week, Age ain’t nothing but a number but for aging lawmakers, it’s raising questions. It highlights the rising average age of members of Congress, focusing on Senator Mitch McConnell (81) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (90). But Mr. Trump, if elected, would be 79 when he takes office. Mr. Biden would be 81. That’s just too old, especially for POTUS.
I’ve suggested several times over the years that no one should be able to assume an elected federal office after the age of 72. Is it discrimination? Sure, but some age discrimination is legal. We have mandatory retirement ages for air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement and firefighters, and military officers of most grades. It’s not unreasonable to mandate it for federal service. And I’d include Supreme Court justices in this proposal. Yes, it’d take a constitutional amendment to make some of the changes, but I think it’d be a good change.
I was heartened to read at PBS that Departing governor races to move prisoners off death row in Louisiana. It’s always good to hear that a state is moving away from killing people.
Writing
I’m getting more and more frustrated with myself over my lack of fiction production. I haven’t accomplished anything substantial since a couple of thousand-word days in March. Ghost and In Plain Sight just sit there, taunting me over their unchanging word count. Yeah, I’m getting a lot out on the blog, but I can’t yet seem to translate that to fiction, and I don’t know why. Non-fiction here at the blog seems to be easier because there’s almost a never-ending stream of stuff to write about. But with my fiction, I have to understand the characters and how their pasts affect their motivations, and how their motivations affect their actions.
I suspect I need to be reading more fiction to get things moving again. I should work on that.
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