a99kitten's Musings

Did another 2+ hour walk this AM with Smokey. We go as far as we used to but now a bit slower so more time outside. But I think that is totally OK as he loves being outside. As long as we are not hot. As the sun rises earlier, we will get out earlier but the sun bakes us both.

I dd a lot of work today so was sitting on computer for a chunk of time – like a normal Friday vs a “holiday”. But every time I get up to do chores, etc Smokey gets up too so his naps get interrupted.

Took him to the beach around 3pm for his afternoon walk since it’s too warm this week for neighborhood walks. I hate spring and summer. Hate.

He had fun. We met some other buddies, sniffed lots of stuff, peed on lots of stuff (well..he did lol.) But you could tell he was tired. I cut it shorter than usual. Since we’ve been home he ate 1 treat, but not his normal evening treat “routine”and he ignored his dinner. He does this when hot and/or tired. Completely normal. But I also know he is getting older by the day. He did act this exact same way last year, and the year before, when we switched from winter to spring weather – he just gets hot fast. I do too so I understand. But he can’t take off his winter coat.

He’s sleeping now. Snoring actually :) Senior dogs need more sleep. But they also need their walks, their routine, less stress and things to stimulate them mentally. I think we do a good job on all of those. But I cannot stop checking on him every few minutes to make sure he is all A-OK.

It’s not fair they don’t live longer.

FB just suggested that I follow my ex-husband’s high school, skanky, ex-stripper girlfriend.

I wonder if she gets the same suggestion. LoL. That’s hysterical.

I guess I can relax a touch about Skynet taking over the world just yet.

Yesterday was “National Puppy Day” which is really just a reason to post cute pics of puppies on social media. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I found one of my favorites of Angelus and Storm and posted it. Along with Smokey and Shadow pics. Sucks that I do not have puppy pics of them. I’m sure both of them were truly adorable. Shadow was probably like a baby velociraptor. lol. Smokey – a baby direwolf.

This AM on our walk, Smokey was walking along and all of a sudden his back legs started kind of walking sideways. I stopped him and we just rested a minute. We started walking again and it happened again. I could see the stress in his eyes of not knowing what was happening. We rested again. Then we saw his nemesis in the neighborhood – great. Cannot show weakness around that fucker or his human. Smokey got really low and hackled as we went by – more so than usual. We hate those guys. We went by and I praised him and gave him treats.

But then he was fine. I made him walk slow. Stop and sniff everything. Lots of treats. But thankfully no other “episodes”. The rest of the day, he was fine. I watched him like a hawk. He ate his breakfast. His treats. We went on a nice afternoon beach walk. Ate his dinner, his treats, etc. All fine and normal.

Could be his “old dog syndrome” returned for minute. I know he is getting older by the day – sadly even older faster than us humans. But he ate fine, drank his water, had good poops, was happy to see new pals on the beach, sniffed lots of stuff, and buried 1 of dinner treats in the deck snow. Now he is sleeping.

I can only hope he stays healthy. And happy. For as long as nature allows.

This week is the one year anniversary of the market melting down due to the rona. Or more accurately, the media and politicians’ reaction to the rona. March 18th was the low I believe and we struggled a but but DID continue to go up from there.

I did well in my accounts over the year. Although I think a blind chimp did well in his/hr accounts this past year. People who never invested before in their lives made money in their newly opened Robinhood accounts.

Altho, this past month – meh. Not sure how those same RHers have done in this chop. Or if they gave any thought to their tax implications due soon. Surprise!

Biden has been a pile to stinky crap for the market. Certainly cannot lay all the blame at his feet (although since Libs liked to do that with Trump – I’ll go ahead.) But not knowing what the tax issues will be (though we all know they will raise taxes so F Biden), the still inconsistent state reopening issues, etc. has been a giant pile of suck.

I mean – what good is a vaccine if we all still have to wear masks everywhere? HOW STUPID IS THAT? If I still have to wear a mask, you can keep your vaccine. F off.

Seriously considering cashing up a lot and waiting out the next month or quarter or even through summer. Do small trades, or maybe add to long term positions but this chop fest over the last 4-6 weeks has been sucky.

Trading was fun this past year. Even on the stressful, down days – it had a better feel to it. Hopeful to get out of the “pandemic”. But now that we got to the near-end – a vaccine – the magic jab! – it’s still crap. Actually – worse crap. Biden is not hopeful. Biden is not Presidential. So we have no optimism in our leadership. That’s pretty suck. And please do not get me started on Gavin.

These past 2 months have really been not fun. Even on the good days with good trades – always the feeling in the back of my head of “how fast will this turn?” And in a period of time where we are enforced to not have fun, that really sucks.

Once this quarter ends, let’s see if things turn around a bit. But I have to say – I do not think it will. Eventually. But not yet.

F Biden. F China.

I love the idea of Bitcoin/cryptocurrency. LOVE it. Mostly because I love the idea of keeping big government out of anything and everything.

Does that mean I don’t believe oversight is needed? No. While I hate big government, I am also well aware that humans are retarded and most of them require supervision. That pretty destroys the ideals of Libertarians. You need common sense and decency for it to work. Sadly…that is not common.

I started buying crypto in 2016. I bought a Ledger Nano to store it on. The whole idea of cold storage was you keep it it a drawer (or fire-proof safe) and it was safe from hackers, government, etc. Sure. Sounds great. Crypto was finance embracing technology. Store your money *on* tech.

I take it out and check it every few months. Every single time there is some update that takes forever and I always wonder what if this thing just dies? It’s electronic – of course it will. That’s the nature of tech – you need the new upgrade every 2 years. Just ask Apple.

But the reviews for Ledger are always good. And I have my root words stored away. Because NOTHING says top tier, cutting edge technolgy and the future of money than having to keep your recovery words stored on a FN piece of paper someplace so it can’t be hacked. Sigh.

Today – open up Nano S. Move my ETC because I want to sell it. Get rid of shitcoins. Well – that transaction still shows pending after 8 hours. Fun times.

Also want to move some LTC. Decide to sell some to buy other crypto. LTC is a shifty crypto at best. Move some. THEN Ledger says I need to download/install their update to complete moving. Huh? Fine. Quick download/install. Plug Nano back in – the screen that you need to enter your passcode. Black. WTF? Then it comes back in spotty illuminated fashion – I am able to see it just enough to enter my passcode. After that screen – the illumination is JUST FINE. Only the most important passcode section is basically dead AFTER THE LEDGE UPGRADE. I try to complete the transaction but it says “OH IT MIGHT HAVE FAILED TRY AGAIN.” When I try – the passcode screen – black. DED.

Go online – search for issues about this. Yep – dead. You can order a new wallet. Or use an online one to recover your crypto BUT (and all warnings were strong and in capital letters) if you use an online wallet, you will need to enter your recovery words and they can be stolen, hacked, don’t trust the web, don’t trust online, don’t trust your computer – use a computer you only use or this!, etc etc etc.

So I need to order a new unit (which I did), or use an online wallet, to recover my money sitting in the ether USING MY PIECE OF PAPER WITH MY RECOVERY WORDS ON IT WITH MY PENCIL. Stored in the real world. Kind of like…my $20 bills would be….

You know….gonna start hoarding gold coins. F it.

So…it’s BAD to say China Flu. It’s BAD to say Wuhan Flu. This is per the media (who used both terms until Orange Man used them) and our new President.

BUT saying the UK Variant, the Brazilian variant or the South African Variant is 100% completely OK.

Huh? #middlefinger

Started the day with a hike up on Glacier. Was fun but at 39 degrees (at 8am!) and sunny – too hot for Smokey :( No more hikes up there unless butt cold or cloudy/windy.

Spent the early part of the day cleaning just like if I was having a SB party – lol. But I got crazy! Polished my wood floors. Everything looks so nice now – I don’t want to walk on them!

Took Smokey for an afternoon walk before the game started. Of course saw the a-hole dog. But Smokey is the best so we cruised right by as he barked like an a-hole.

Game was great. Glad Brady and the Bucs won. I actually like KC and Andy Reid and Mahomes. But after last year’s 49er loss in the SB – happy to see them get beaten down. #revenge

But first year in I do not know how many that I did not have a party or participate in any SB Squares, or bets or anything. Sucks. Pretty bummed about it to be honest but oh well. Even my friends who never seem to shut up when I am too busy to participate were quiet most of the night. lol. And I know no one was at a party! Whatevs.

Funny – I have friends who could never come to my party because of travel or work. And yet even without those issues – no one said Hey – let’s do something. Probably best but still. Meh. My days as Cruise Director are over. #underappreciated So unless someone else initiates interaction – oh well…

Smokey would not eat anything all day and had a bad tummy. He didn’t even want his treats on our hike this AM. My neighbors invited me over for the game at the last minute, but I knew that stress would not be good for his tummy so declined. But just now at 8:30pm ate his breakfast. So at least I do not have to stress about that tonight. I always do. #myboy

Sunday night. Market opens in a few hours. Another long week. I think I need to pull back a bit – in my trading, communication, social media. Focus on my process and eliminate noise. Less energy expended I guess. Tired of feeling like I am the one expending so much energy. #hippiedippie

In my mission to stay off “social media” (twitter, FB) I downloaded the Topps Disney card app. I’ve had the Star Wars version for years, although had stopped even opening it for years. But I did it. Downloaded the Disney one, opened the SW one and now I am addicted to collecting “cards”.

Now…I have a crate sitting upstairs in my space bedroom of the ACTUAL physical Topps Star Wars trading cards from when I was a kid and collected them. I have been meaning to put them in binders – be able to look at them. Sigh…on that project list…

But in the meantime I am addicted to clicking on claim this pack and trading up cards to different ones and whatever I need to do to get the rare ones. Short of paying…but I know the minute that ultra rare Chewbacca or Uncle Scrooge McDuck shows up as a possibility in a pack… I do not know how they make money on this. But I guess if a ton of people think paying $0.99 for packs for that possibility of the rare version do it regularly? Oh…did I mention…you can sell the rare ones on eBay because of course you can.

Finally watched this movie and it was cute. I didn’t think it was as good as the first Ralph but it was cute. Best part was all the Disney “cameos”. Those were fun. But not sure if the morale of the story of “the girl needs to not always be attached to friend – a male friend obvs – and search for her own thing – which in this case is rolling with a street gang that commits crime…” is the best but ok.

Altho if the internet broke…would that really be such a bad thing? Really? I mean sure – I use it daily and love the convenience in some things for sure but I tried to stay off my computer, internet and especially social media this past Fri-Mon and did a 99% decent job. And let me say – it was glorious. Social media is toxic. Humans are toxic. Allow humans on social media – ugh.

I’ll be working on leaving social media more and more. It’s clear that unity = conformity in our new magical, glorious world and I say F U to that mentality anyway. I’ll still use it (Instagram) to post happy pics of Smokey because the world always needs more pics of cute animals. And maybe pics of toys. And monitor my FinTwit lists on twitter during market hours. But that’s probably it.

I will post here as my “diary”. This allows me to vomit out my thoughts. But since I am posting no links to this blog – and not allowing comments from the unwashed masses – seems ok.

But otherwise – F y’all (I really hate the usage of y’all unless you were born and bred in the south…)

I just finished S1 of Rebels – OMG! Why did I not watch this before?? The tie-ins for Mando, Clone Wars, THE MOVIES, THE BOOKS!

I simply cannot believe how awful I am for not watching Clone Wars or Rebels as they ran. I mean…I guess not watching Clone Wars until this final S7 was released last year was OK but man – SO GOOD!!!!! And now they ALL tie in to the The Mandalorian and the books (started Heir to the Empire).

GAH! SO GOOD!

Also…cannot help but compare the Empire’s drastic overreach on Lothal to the Democrats. But #nopolitics.