Coping: Saved by the To-Do List

I call it my LOSTD (list of sh*t to do) and it gets updated every morning after this morning column is done.

I also do a “master list” of things I want to fall into place this week.  One of these is get the airplane finished (a designated engineering representative has the ball on that while we ask for a minor/trivial variance from an airworthiness directive (AD) which is just another way to turn an annual airplane inspection into a money-sucking pit. The payoff is a safe airplane.

The week’s master project list includes the 6-month, 50,000 chew tooth inspection.  I have to remember to floss for the next couple of days.  Easy to do when dieting, so no food in means no clean-up…

Then there are lots of real work projects…all of which need to happen and it’s just a matter of putting them on the list and then knocking them off one at a time.

My point is (ah, one of those, huh?) No matter what your age or station in life, a to-do list is a great stress reducer.

When I find myself worrying about this or that in the middle of the night, I’ve been known to write it down on the LOSTD which then allows me to promptly get back to sleep.

The second point about the list is a little harder to implement…but I find it’s the most important part of To-Do listing:  Do the things you hate – first.

Remember our conversation about laying brick (or concrete block)?  Do the brick laying and then drink a beer.  Do another course of bricks of block and then another reward?

The same principle applies to the LOSTD:  Do the thing you have been delaying – first.

If you don’t start the week off with some kind of agenda, the week will drag on aimlessly.

Of course, it will anyway, but having The List will make it even more apparent.

{Premonitions}  + {Personal Noise Floor}

OK, I thought to myself on Saturday morning, upon reading the early reports on the massive earthquake in Nepal, definitely some Buffalo Springfield stuff going on.

Explanatory note to troubled youth:  Roll the video from 1967 of For What It’s Worth and maybe (just maybe) that remark will make sense.  Or, not….

If you’re late to the party, go back and re-read my January 13th about the big April earthquake.  Or, the piece about it in Friday’s column.

All of which was before the ground started jumping in Nepal.

Reviewing the data on this “quake which I knew was coming at some level” is a very frustrating thing.  Yes there was a big quake in April and west, relative to the US, and big but not a 9.

What went wrong?

Near as I can figure it, people have all kinds of “extra-sensory” abilities, but we don’t do well when comes to being able to pick out the “right signal” from the high background noise.

I’ll give you an example:  Last night (*between lightning strikes and downpours) I had a most peculiar dream about “missing a train” which was in aq Latin country.  The “train, missed” was going back to a safe country (presumably the USA). 

Myself and one other figure were going to be on the train, but we’d somehow become lost in this foreign station and our train – with our friends on it – pulled out before we were able to get aboard.

The next train through was reserved for government officials and their families only.  It was an open air affair and the officers/officials worn black pants, red short jackets and had on caps that looked almost fez like.  Bandoliers, too.  Not the kind of characters to wander through a dream all the time…

A conference with the stationmaster turned into a real ball of yarn because he kept insisting I was George with a last name that was spelled hyphenated something like Alloyicious-Hibernia.

After the second train with the officials came through, my companion and I got on the third train just as it was getting to be mid to late morning.

And now comes the problem:  First, what is the train stuff about and secondly, was there a hint about a train accident in Spain to come?

www.dreammoods.com has a pretty good dream dictionary.  And it says of missed trains:

To dream that you miss a train denotes missed opportunities. It also suggests that you are ill-prepared for a new phase in your life. You may be procrastinating or putting things off that should have already been completed.

Which is interesting because I had recently gotten out of the habit of using my To-Do list regularly and perhaps there was a “stub” of thought that needed completion.

Another possibility is that it’s a mix of a thought-stub and a premonition about trains.  There didn’t seem to be any qualifying news stories on the wire…but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did have some big train story in the next day, or three.

The problem of serious “dream work” is to find ways to reduce your “personal noise floor”.  Effective precognitive or remote viewing work is like trying to tune in to a very week AM radio signal in a big city.  Lots of noise.  You can tune around the signal, a little this side, or that, but it’s still not going to come through perfectly, no matter how you fiddle with the dials.

Still, to get “bgi quake in April” back in January wasn’t a bad hit.  But it’s not that good since we get a major quake like this once a year, or so, on average.  So a 1 in 12 chance of getting April right was baked in the cake.

Longtime reader (and master data-cruncher) Tony R. keeps us posted on his periodic updates on the trends in quakes.  As you can see in this chart (of 7.0 and larger) quakes going back to 1963 that there has been a gradual rise from a period of quiescence that ran (very roughly) from 1977 to 1995.

The reason this is so interesting is that one could take this view of things and hypothecate that Einstein’s E-MC²  is not a “one-way street” at all.  It’s very possible/likely that the output from the Sun (or some other source) condenses in the center of large planets.  This being the case – which we don’t know for sure – builds an interesting model of energy/mass relationships which as the Trinity Test in 1945 conclusively showed, works in the other direction, too.

As if this isn’t enough grist for the mill, here’s a couple of emails from our news analyst fellow up in Winnipeg that are really interesting…

Dear Mr. Ure,

Randi Zuckerberg, an elder sister of the founder of Facebook, delivers some messages in her book, “Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives”, that will surprise you. She hones in on the notion of being connected, but still remaining in the moment.

With a tip of the hat to woo-woo, or the current edges of neuroscience, “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow is an enlightening read of how our conscious minds can be manipulated subliminally.

Spoiler alert – the title when the cover is held to a light reads “Psst…  Hey There. Yes: You, Sexy. Buy This Book Now. You Know You Want It.” (Leonard Mlodinow) All-Time Favorite Writer.

One imagines the subliminal mind can appreciate the comedic flourish.

[On another related matter]

Here is a tweet from a University of Cambridge study group presenting at a geologic conference in Nepal earlier this month. Drawing a line around the globe through the joined hands may render a design appearing familiar to your Chilean musings?

If you are not a Peoplenomics™ subscriber, what he’s referring to is my “string around the world” that was laid out Saturday.  Since earthquakes kill a bunch of people, it’s worth sharing this bit from Saturday’s Peoplenomics report because it makes an interesting point:

“One reason to pay attention to this quake is that if you take a (digital) string and run it around the world from this location of this morning’s quake in Nepal and run it through the vicinity of Bio Bio Chile which has been volcanically active, there’s a circle around the earth that crosses the Hawaiian Islands and comes down through the quake prone parts of China.

Sobering thought, isn’t it?  Noticed how this “hot line” goes through the Japan area, as well?

Especially interesting when we read how the lava lake in a Hawaiian volcano is rising…

This line is only 200 miles off Fukushima…

And if THAT doesn’t all add up to something to worry about, let’s also recall that this line runs through the southern terminus of the East African Rift.

All in, it makes a pretty good case for a 37-38 degree slippage of the crust, something that is considered pseudo-science by some, but we can’t help but notice how this line seems to play an important role in Hawaii, Fukushima/Japan, northern China, Nepal, and the African Rift plus let’s not leave out Chile…”

The way I figure it, if a lame-brain like Ures truly can pull the digital string around the world and see it transits the Japan hot zone, Hawaii, the African Rift and such, then a major crustal shift of 35-40-degrees might be out there in the geological future, somewhere.

Rain?  We’ve Had E-NAoF!

The rain gauge here in the heart (or liver) of the East Texas Outback has close to three inches in it from this weekend.

I would have spelled “enough” differently, but the computers over at www.wunderground.com are offering some humor to start the week – something that is much appreciated…

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the “going to hangar to test June bug repelling ideas” wasn’t the only factor.  There’s the little matter of Elaine feeding the birds yesterday and that is sure to open up the heavenly faucets.

Our nearest “official” weather place (KTYR) was reading  22.24” through midnight.  Seattle (Boeing Field) has reported 12.53” while less than 10-miles away (half an hour in Seattle Traffic) the SeaTac airport gauge had collected 15.36”.  (UW microclimatologists must have an answer…we’re just not sure what the question would be….)

Almost without a doubt, when  this morning’s line of storms finishes up, we will cross the 23” level. 

It’s only a matter of time until climate migrations begin in earnest and people who’ve gone nomadic early – RV’ing or live-aboard boating – will thank their lucky stars that they got ahead of events.

A Million Dollar Idea – Free…

This reminds me…been  a while since I have dispensed a million dollar idea…which I like to do now and then so people can see how easy innovation can be if you put your mind to it…

Is anyone making a big RV that could actually be self-sufficient?  Like with a small air-tight wood heater and enough solar on the roof and mobile water filtration system?  Wood-fired hot water etc?  Small diesel or wood cook stove?

You see, RV’ing is nice, but as presently configured it’s a high-impact business.  But if they came with water filters, composting toilets, 3-KW of pop-up panels, a wind machine and mobile satellite access, even if they only had a top-speed of 50 MPH, they’d  sure potentially actually be worth a $200,000 price tag.   Ham radio with 30-foot pop-up tower for the multi-band dipole and 2-meter antenna?

Does it have a nice recliner and is there a Mantis Gas-Powered Tiller/Cultivator (CARB Compliant)  tiller and fuel in the cargo area along with a bunch of prepper gardens in a can?

How cool would that be?  The problem?

If they’re out there, I have yet to see one.

It’s terrible to live in an imagination-impaired world, ain’t it?

I mean take this RV thing.  Why aren’t people/companies smart enough to marry the nomadic concept and sustainable living?  Beats the hell out of me…but there you have it.  Imagination-impaired planet.

Hell, I could slice up our lower 16-acres and put in four plots for nomads.  You get a water pipe and good ground to till.  That’s it.  $100/month but you need your own power and solid waste system.  I expect a family could live nicely on 4-acres.  Show up after the summer heat, put in a winter garden.  After the hard winter up north, return to a water rich area (Wisconsin?) and repeat up there for the summer garden.

Drop by tomorrow and we’ll re-invent the National Park System….all part of my plan if elected…oops!

Write when you break-even…

George    george@ure.net