Life Master

That red thing is called a bidding box

I made it to Life Master in bridge yesterday. That means I have 500 master points with at least 75 silver and 100 gold or red. The silver, gold, and red come from tournaments, but Russ and I were focused on earning our tournament points as we went along, so I have had those for a while. Today is the day I went over 500 total points.

The American Contract Bridge League has created several designations before Life Master, six of them in fact, but these are really just milestones on the way to Life Master, which is the one that really counts. No one ever asks if you are an NABC Master yet, for example, but they ask about Life Master, and that has been a thing at least since I was a teenager learning to play, so this one is a big deal.

It took me three years and five months to get to this point, which I think has to be fairly quick, because last year I placed 27th in the ACBL in points earned for my starting category, and the year before that I placed fourth. Certainly, some people take a lot longer. Some never get there.

There are additional designations beyond Life Master, but I would say those are just the result of playing more, not necessarily something to strive for. My thinking is that every 2,500 points should be considered noteworthy, as even the first 2,500 would be quite an accomplishment. For me, just getting to that one would be a stretch goal.

Just for reference, the ultimate level is called Grand Life Master. To get there, you have to have 10,000 points, 100 of which are platinum points won at a national championship, and one first place finish at a national event. I have met several people who have the points, though I do not know how many have the win in a national competition.

Anyway, Life Master has been the goal for the last two and a half years at least. It feels good to get it done.

May 2026

Castle Valley, Utah

As long as I take another 600 steps in the next seven hours, I will reach 200,000 steps in May, the first month since July of last year with that many steps. The good month is mainly due to finding Linear Park near our house; any walk over there and back requires at least 7,000 steps. Some days, like today, we do not make it over there, but most days we do.

The main obstacle to walking consistently is the heat. After about 10:00, it is too hot to take Arlo very far, so when I have an errand to run early, like today, or morning bridge, like tomorrow, we cannot go for a long walk unless I get up really early and get going, which is definitely an obstacle.

We are somewhere near Castle Vally, Utah, 19 miles from Moab. I have sixteen months to go at the current rate.

I Finished My Puzzle!

 

I always think of my dad, at least a bit, when I do puzzles. He would have been 95 today.

I finished my latest puzzle last night and was happy to have all the pieces. Sometimes one or two come up missing. The picture is called "The Fantastic Street," and it has some magical elements to it, with a unicorn, two dragons, a gnome, and lots of other stuff magical and non-magical.

As you can perhaps guess, this was not a particularly difficult puzzle, but 5,000 pieces is 5,000 pieces, and I started this one right before Christmas, so it took five months. I only finish one of these per year, so it's something to celebrate.

Jackie gets me one 5,000-piece puzzle every year for Christmas. Why did I start it right before Christmas, you probably are not asking? Well, this is the puzzle she bought me for Christmas 2024. I did not get it done last year because at the beginning of 2025, I was working on the puzzle from Christmas 2023. Then The Move started to take over, and I could not start another puzzle until we had settled in New Mexico.

In the next couple of days, I will put this one away and start the next one.

Here is the next puzzle. My first thoughts:

The easier parts will be the green crescent and the pink crescent under it. The hard parts will be everything else. Too many gold and blue pieces. 

Kokopelli's Trail

Kokopelli

Kokopelli is a god of the southwest natives, apparently part of the culture of many tribes. From what I have seen, he is always depicted similarly to the version here: curved back, flute, and feathers going back from his head. The image is popular in art in this area, I suspect because it is distinctive and kind of cool, as well as due to the cultural significance. The one in this picture was in front of a house we looked at but chose not to rent.

Arlo and I are averaging more than 6,000 steps per day for the third month in a row. I have some bad days, but we walk anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 steps some days, so we manage a decent average. From August 2025 through February 2026, we only averaged over 6,000 steps one time - 6,007 in December - so finding a good trail near the house, but not too near, has made a big difference.

We are about 60 miles into Utah, on a 286-mile stretch of the American Discovery Trail where very little water is available, so the trail website says you need to have water drops, which I suppose means some kind person has to bring you water.

The geography of Utah is not the most hospitable. It has the third highest average elevation of any state (6100 feet), after Colorado and Wyoming and just before New Mexico, and a lot of it is rough terrain, dry with amazing rock formations. It's great to look at it and take pictures, but you can drive for miles without seeing a place to put a house, let alone a town. We almost ran out of gas one time long ago on the 107-mile stretch of I-70 between Green River and Salina, because despite I-70 being a major interstate, there is not one gas station between the two towns. When we stayed in Utah for a month a few years ago, Jackie and I got used to that trip: fill up in Salina, drive across the state, fill up in Green River before you come back. There are rest stops in between, nothing else.

Anyway, Arlo and I are in Utah, maybe south of Cisco, where highway 128 comes close to the Colorado River, walking through "desert sandstone and shale canyons" according to the ADT website. And in case you are wondering why we cannot get water from the river, it is difficult to access, and the water is very muddy, so not good to drink. Better to have your friends bring you some.

American Discovery Trail: Utah!

A place in Utah that I have not visited

If I were walking from Washington to Miami again, I would be somewhere in Florida, probably past Auburndale, with only 135 miles left, However, as I have noted before, the American Discovery Trail does not take the quickest route across the country, so I am still left with 1,500 miles to go. Those miles traverse only three states, broken down roughly as 600 miles in Utah, 500 in Nevada, and 400 in California. Google Maps says that Point Reyes is less than 1,000 miles away, but going by that route would be cheating.

We cross into Utah at a place where there are no towns nearby, but on the Kokopelli Trail somewhere between Interstate 70 and the Colorado River, 30 miles north of Moab, where we are going. This section of the trail is 111 miles long and has virtually no access to water, so if you are actually walking the trail, someone would have to deliver water to you. Sounds like fun.

There are five national parks in Utah, and Jackie and I visited all five when we stayed in Utah in 2022. The American Discovery Trail will take us near Arches National Park, then through Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, but we will not go to Zion or Bryce Canyon.

There are several pictures on the Internet of people biking on the Kokopelli Trail, not so many of people walking. Maybe that is because walking it is too crazy.

A Linear Park

 

Arlo and I found a new place to walk near our house, and it's my new favorite destination.

The place is called Linear Park Trail, and it is a very well-maintained trail - two trails actually, east and west - along a concrete waterway. Until this last week, Arlo and I have walked about 90% of the time on sidewalks, through the local neighborhoods and along one busy street. The Linear Park Trail, however, takes us away from the roads, and takes us away from many people.

The trail is not too close to my house - maybe 25 minutes away by foot - which is why it took me so long to think about walking to it. Also, we have to walk a decent distance to find a place where we can cross the concrete canal in order to avoid walking back exactly the way we came. As a result, I have walked over 9,000 steps four times in the last week, which I only did once last month, and going forward I expect to walk more than I have been.

The miles go by noticeably quicker at 9,000 steps per day versus 6,000, which is encouraging, but I am not committing to that many steps every day yet, although I expect my pace will increase. Right now, I am 16 miles from the Utah state line, close to Loma, Colorado.

I access the trail via Chianti Road. South of Chianti looks like the picture above, with nice neighborhoods that have password-protected gates to keep people like me out, more plants and a nicer look. Heading North feels more like you are walking on a desert trail, nice enough but with minimal vegetation. This is a picture of one place north of Chianti with a bench and shade, a little break from the sun.

I made my way down these plastic steps/handles, but I probably will not again. There was no great danger, but I am too old for this type of adventure.

When I was younger, I would have walked or run down the channel and then up the other side, but the sides are just steep enough that I am afraid my foot could slip, and who knows how much damage I would do.

There was a vehicle ramp on the other side of the channel, so going back up was easy.

The north end of the trail on the east side of the waterway. With a walk this long, I stop a couple of times and give Arlo water, more for him than for me. He can definitely outwalk me if the weather is cool, but he gets hot easier than I do.

The bridge at Cabezon Boulevard, one of the places I can cross. The trail continues south of Cabezon, but I have not tested that side yet, as it takes me farther from my house.

These concrete spillways (I think the locals call them arroyos) are common around here. I have not seen any water in this one yet, but we can get intense thunderstorms here, especially in the summer, and the ground won't absorb much water, so they build channels to direct the water and avoid flooding.

South of Chianti, where the trail is a bit nicer.

Piedras Marcadas

 

Last Friday, Arlo and I took a walk at Piedras Marcadas Canyon, which is a little corner of Petroglyph National Monument, a few miles away from the main monument area and barely connected by a thin strip of land, but with a good number of petroglyphs. I tried to take a photograph of every petroglyph I could find, and I took about 60 pictures. The website for Piedras Marcadas (marked rocks, in case you had not guessed) says there are about 400 petroglyphs in the area, but as you can see, sometimes there are several in one photo, so maybe I got most of them. The website also says they are 400 to 700 years old.

There were five marked viewing areas where the drawings are most abundant; however, looking for petroglyphs is a little like looking for mushrooms. Some are easy to spot, but you have to be patient and keep looking. and when you see one, there are likely to be more.

It was a short, easy walk - less than two miles - and dogs are welcome as long as you pick up after them.

Some of the pictures are faint now. Some are to the point that it's hard to be sure you are looking at a petroglyph and not just lichen or erosion. There are several that look similar to this bird. It looks to me like it could be a roadrunner.

This guy took a long look at Arlo and me, but when he moved, he moved away from us.

An early emoji.

The hand is a well-known landmark in the canyon. Most of the petroglyphs are at least a few yards from the trails, but this one is just a few feet.

I like this one, because the man on the right is upside down and appears to be falling. This picture supports my (very unscholarly) theory that the pictures are just graffiti. Signs are unclear about whether the petroglyphs have any particular meaning.

This is the only one I saw where they just drew around a corner.

Bond, Part 2

Alan Cumming in GoldenEye

Let's get this out of the way: The very dumbest scene in all of the 25 Bond movies occurs in The Man with the Golden Gun. Bond jumps his car across a small waterway in Southeast Asia. He is able to do this because on each side of the water there is an inexplicable wooden ramp that does not look like it can hold the weight of a car, but the car goes up one ramp and lands on the other one. Ordinary Bond stuff. However, each ramp also has an inexplicable twist in it, so that as the car flies across, it corkscrews 360 degrees to land on the tilted structure on the other side. The trick is accompanied by a cartoonish slide-whistle sound - even the filmmakers knew it was silly.

(I just read that the jump actually took place. A stunt driver did it one take, which is really impressive. It's still an idiotic moment.)

I covered the Sean Connery movies, other than Never Say Never Again, and the Daniel Craig movies, in a previous post. Since then, we watched Never Say Never, all the Roger Moore films, both Timothy Daltons, and all four Pierce Brosnan efforts. I have no interest in the David Niven version of Casino Royale. As it was, we watched 25 Bond films.

Never Say Never Again came out 12 years after Diamonds Are Forever, and after six of the seven Roger Moore movies. An aging Sean Connery was still better than Moore, and the movie is decent, a sort of remake of Thunderball, including a villain named Largo and a female lead named Domino. Kim Bassinger plays Domino, and Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean and Black Adder) has a small role.

The Roger Moore movies are a low point in the franchise, with at least three clunkers and four okay movies, but no standouts. Moore himself is decent as Bond, but he seems a little too relaxed and cheerful, as if he knows as well as we do that it will always work out. Moore is not the problem with the Roger Moore movies though.

The series gets a little too jokey and silly for too many of these movies. There are some goofy characters that I will talk about more. Some dumb scenes besides the car flip. Lots of sexual innuendo, including endings in which Bond is having sex with a woman and somehow MI6 finds him and gets him on camera, resulting in lines like "I'm holding up England's end!" or "He appears to be attempting re-entry."

Movie by movie:

• Live and Let Die is bad, very bad. More later.
• The Man with the Golden Gun is boring, plus the car jumping and twisting scene, plus the worst character in all of the Bond movies (I'll explain.)
• Maud Adams is in Man with the Golden Gun, as the villain's girlfriend. Sadly, she dies during the film, like so many Bond women, so when she shows up again in Octopussy, it's as a different character (named Octopussy.)
• The Spy Who Loved Me is the first decent Moore movie. Barbara Bach gets the prize for showing off her boobs for more screentime than any other Bond woman.
• Moonraker has a dubious main story, plus a second outing for Jaws, the giant guy with huge metal teeth who debuted in The Spy Who Loved Me, and who can chew through a chain. You have to set aside your disbelief for any of the Bond movies, but sometimes the craziness works (You Only Live Twice), and sometimes it does not (Moonraker, Die Another Day.)
• For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy (despite the name) are not too bad. Topol is in For Your Eyes Only. I like the theme song to Octopussy. Octopussy was her father's pet name for her, by the way - shades of Donald Trump.
• I remembered A View to a Kill as being a bad entry, due to Tanya Roberts as a geologist and the plot to use an explosion to set off a double-earthquake and bury Silicon Valley in a flood (still both pretty bad), but Christopher Walken makes a decent psychopath, and Grace Jones looks the part as his assassin.

To my surprise, I had never seen either of the Timothy Dalton movies, or at least they seemed completely unfamiliar. Both were serviceable, although Licence to Kill - and that is the real spelling, because of the British - has a few too many wild stunts, like popping a wheelie with a semi-truck, but what do you expect? Dalton makes a better Bond than Moore. A young Benicio Del Toro is a bad guy in Licence to Kill. Desmond Llewelyn as Q has a substantially bigger role in that movie than he has in any other.

I like Pierce Brosnan as Bond, although some of the dopiness of the Roger Moore era still seeps in. Daniel Craig's movies downplayed all that - good choice. Judi Dench starts her role as M, making a bigger impact than any previous M ever did. We also have a new Moneypenny, and John Cleese eventually takes over for Desmond Llewelyn as Q. That one's an odd choice, but he is not too bad. Also, Michael Kitchen is in these movies as part of the MI6 establishment.

• GoldenEye is excellent, with Sean Bean as the bad guy, and Alan Cumming in a great role as a quirky Russian programmer. Too bad about the cartoonish ending.
• Robbie Coltrane of Hagrid fame is in GoldenEye as a Russian gangster. He returns in The World Is Not Enough in the same role. Minnie Driver also has a small part, singing Stand By Your Man, badly.
• The plot of Tomorrow Never Dies - trying to create a war between Britain and China by using a stealth technology boat, in order to get exclusive coverage to feed an international media network - is a bit too much. Jonathan Pryce is in this one.
• The World Is Not Enough is decent, despite Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in a bit of stretch. Robert Carlyle, of The Full Monty fame, is in it, and Sophie Marceau is a different sort of villain.
• We watch Demond Llewlyn retire during The World Is Not Enough and hand the reins to John Cleese. Llewelyn was in 17 Bond movies, more than anyone else.
• The movie ends with the Bond line, "I thought Christmas only comes once a year," because Denise Richards' character is named Christmas, and... It's maybe the most cringeworthy of all of the Bond innuendos and double-entendres despite a great deal of competition.
• Die Another Day has some decent action sequences, but the main story - a North Korean military officer converted into a pale-skinned British guy with a British accent through the miracle of gene therapy- is hard to swallow, as is the infamous invisible Astin Martin. Rosamund Pike is good as a bad girl though.

Best and worst movies by actor:

• Roger Moore: Best - For Your Eyes Only, just for the least silliness. Worst - Live and Let Die.
• Timothy Dalton: Take your pick. I liked The Living Daylights a little better, but the Internet disagrees with me.
• Pierce Brosnan: Best - GoldenEye. Worst - Die Another Day.

Time for best and worst movies overall. Let's start with best. The contenders:

• Goldfinger. The song, Oddjob, the golden girl, the Astin Martin, the bad guy getting sucked out of an airplane window. Downside is that the Sean Connery films seem dated, especially the way he slaps women on the ass, or in the face, or forces them to kiss him, and so on. Goldfinger is good though.
• GoldenEye. A good story, lots of action, Sean Bean, Alan Cumming, Judi Dench. I was OK with the tank-chasing-a-car through a city scene, but not everyone will be. The final scene, where Bond and a pretty Russian woman find themselves alone in the countryside, only to find out there are about ten Marines hiding in the grass all around them, is a disappointing ending to a good movie.
• Casino Royale: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright as Felix, a good villain in Le Chiffre. Nothing much to complain about. Some people like Skyfall better, but I'll take this one.

And the winner is... Casino Royale, although any of these will do.

The contenders for worst:

• On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Again, the Internet disagrees with me on this one, but the filmmakers decided to jettison a lot of the things that made the previous movies work and go in a different direction, and they should have stuck to the formula (and they went right back to it afterward.)
• Live and Let Die. The song is not my favorite, but it's okay. The portrayals of Black people may have worked at the time, but now they seem, let's say, anachronous. There is some Get Smart-level nonsense, like Bond escaping a bunch of crocodiles by quickly stepping on the backs of three or four to get to the shore. I would advise you not to try this. There is a sorceress (Jane Seymour) who can actually predict the future with uncanny accuracy using Tarot cards until Bond takes away her magic by taking her virginity. (If you have not seen the movie, you may be doubting me right now, but that's what happens.) Worst of all, there is the worst Bond movie character of all 25 movies, an American, Southern, tobacco-chewing, Foghorn Leghorn-sounding, racist, useless dumb sheriff who I suppose someone thought was funny. Incredibly, some genius liked the character so much that they brought him back for Man with the Golden Gun.
• Die Another Day. As described above, although I did not mention the melting ice hotel or using part of a speedy car and its parachute to kiteboard on a huge wave caused by ice breaking into the sea. Madonna is in this one with a small role, and Halle Berry is fine as a Bond collaborator, but the movie is not great.

And the loser is ... Can you guess? Live and Let Die. Very, very bad.

If I were to watch again, I would skip these movies as not worth the two hours:

• Dr. No
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service
• Live and Let Die
• The Man with the Golden Gun
• Moonraker
• Die Another Day

If I only wanted to watch the best ones, while sampling the different eras, I would watch:

• From Russia with Love
• Goldfinger
• You Only Live Twice
• For Your Eyes Only
• The Living Daylights
• GoldenEye
• All of the Daniel Craig movies

No Kings

I went to No Kings yesterday and took pictures of the signs, chatted with people a little. I did not go with anyone, so Jackie took me and waited while I walked around and took my pictures. There were thousands of people there, but I was there early, so the crowd probably got bigger after I left. There were plenty of people still arriving as I was walking away.

The event said 11:00 to 3:00, which seemed like a long time, but I showed up early, about 10:30. We were supposed to walk on the streets from the park we were in, around in a rectangle and back to the park. At 11:45, I asked a volunteer if we were going to walk. She said that the speeches would start at noon, then the walking at 1:00, so I started back toward Jackie. Four hours is too much for me.

Still, it was a fun day. It's great to hang out with so many people who understand the moment.

Straightforward, to the point.

The real kings showed up.

 

This woman's sign only had one word on it, but the word seems to fit the times.

Hard to say what this one might mean. Looks like some foreign language.

Good for you, man. Aren't we all?

I told her it was a good resisting bitch face.

Who could argue?

True.

I could sing this one.

Found him.

James Bond - Eleven Movies In

 

All of the James Bond movies came to Netflix, so we watched all of the Daniel Craig movies. Then we started watching the rest, starting at the beginning with Dr. No.

The movies are going off Netflix on April 20, so we may not make it through the Pierce Brosnan movies, but we will watch as many as we can.

To date, we have watched all of the Sean Connery movies through Diamonds Are Forever, plus the George Lazenby movie. Some observations so far:

• Dr. No does not hold up well. Ursula Andress holds up though.
• Jack Lord, of Hawaii 5-O fame, is in Dr. No, as Felix Leiter, but only in the one movie. Felix is a recurring character, but they change actors willy-nilly.
• The famous way that Bond introduces himself is actually initiated by another character, all the way back in Dr. No. Bond asks a female gambler for her name, and she replies, "Trench, Sylvia Trench." When she asks his name, he says, "Bond. James Bond."
• The second movie, From Russia with Love, is pretty good.
• Sylvia Trench shows up again in From Russia with Love, although very briefly. It may be the only time that one of Bond's romantic interests shows up in two movies until Lea Seydoux in the last two Daniel Craig films. For the most part, women are tossed aside and forgotten from one movie to the next. If they survive.
• Robert Shaw, of Jaws fame, is in from Russia with Love, as a bad guy.
• The series owes a lot to Goldfinger. It is a good movie with a good villain, but it also debuts several elements that recur throughout the franchise. For example:

• It has the first big opening theme song. Dr. No does not have one. From Russia with Love has a soft instrumental for the opening, then the song is sung Perry Como style at the end. Goldfinger has a good opening song, sung by Shirley Bassey.
• The plot is over the top, with huge international implications.
• It has the first, and one of the best, nearly indestructible henchmen, Oddjob.
• I think it is the first movie in which a Bond romantic interest gets killed. In any case, the golden girl is one of the most memorable, and in subsequent movies, Bond leaves a trail of dead women in his wake.
• It has one of the first, and most blatant, childishly named female Bond collaborators - Pussy Galore.
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the only George Lazenby movie, is a lousy film, surprisingly bad. Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg are in it, but that's no help. If I were watching the series again, I would skip this one.
• The theme song for On Her Majesty's Secret Service is We Have All the Time in the World, sung by Louis Armstrong. It shows up in the middle of the movie. I hope that is the last time we do not have an opening song.
• The two gay assassins in Diamonds Are Forever are fun.

That ends the Sean Connery era, other than Never Say Never Again, which comes after several Roger Moore films. Next film is Live and Let Die.

So about those Daniel Craig films:

• Casino Royale is a good film. The rest are pretty good too.
• The opening music for each of the five films is very decent. Adele's Skyfall is the most well-know, but they are all good. The entire series has an impressive list of performers singing the opening numbers - Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Tina Turner, Rita Coolidge, Madonna, Adele, Billie Eilish, among others.
• Craig is a really good Bond.
• All of these films start with a big action sequence. That has become part of the appeal of the franchise.
• Vesper Lynd and Madeleine Swann are two of the best Bond women, because they are not just throw-away sex partners but rather women Bond actually respects and likes.
• Craig gets so many women killed that even Judi Dench's version of M gets disgusted with him.
• The Craig movies kill off not only Bond himself (um, spoiler alert!), but also Felix Leiter, who first showed up way back in Dr. No, and Blofeld, who is hinted at in earlier films but first shows his face in You Only Live Twice.

Best and worst films by Bond Actor:

Sean Connery: Best - Goldfinger. Worst - Dr. No.

George Lazenby: Worst - On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Lazenby didn't make a best film.

Daniel Craig: Best - Casino Royale. Worst - Spectre. Good theme song though.

Walking: Crag's Crest, Colorado

Crag's Crest, Colorado

I am keeping up with my walking this month, so it's time for a walking post.

When I walked from Washington to Miami, it took 21 months. This trip has taken 31 months so far, and I just passed two-thirds of the way across. If I hurry, I could finish in 14 more months.

We are somewhere close to Crag's Crest, Colorado, at 11,159 feet, 100 miles from Utah, so more than a month away.

I have been taking Arlo out early, as the afternoon temperatures are in the high 70s to high 80s most of the time. Somewhere around 70 degrees, I have to take water for Arlo, as he gets hot. If I take him out at 80 degrees, I will not take him far. In the evening, we can walk when it is warmer, as long as the sun is down. The sun here is intense, I may have mentioned.

I have been walking in Colorado since June. It will be good to move on.

Around About New Mexico

Albuquerque from Sandia Peak

Last Sunday, Jackie and I took one of our first drives around this area, over the south portion of Sandia Mountains on I-40, then up the east side of Sandia Peak, up to 10,700 feet at the top. Jackie did not bring her camera, so all I have are a couple of shots taken with my phone, but the views were excellent, and the weather was clear and sunny, just like almost every day in New Mexico.

The road to the top was not bad - low speeds and lots of switchbacks, but only 13 miles and perfectly decent road surface. It was cold and windy at the top, so we did not stay long. Then we headed north to Placitas on a road somewhat grandly called Highway 165, which was possibly the worst dirt road I have ever driven on (although, actually Jackie was driving and repeatedly blaming me for the road conditions.) Lots of deep ruts and a few places we could have gotten stuck if Jackie had not steered around the worst parts. We learned that, in New Mexico, "unimproved road" means barely maintained at all, so we will try to avoid such things in the future. However, we had some really good views to the east and north, and after ten miles the road changed to perfectly civilized asphalt, and we drove around the north end of the mountains.

One surprise: on the east side of the peak, there are trees, a whole forest of them. On our side, there are only a few scattered mostly stunted trees. I guess the mountains create a rain shadow.

Today, we drove in a longer loop, north to Santa Fe, farther north to Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, west from there to within 50 miles of the continental divide, and then back home. Once again, we forgot Jackie's camera, and this time I did not even take any pictures; we have to go back and take the camera. The views out there are really amazing.

Anyway, we are starting to explore, and if we can get our act together, I will have some good photos to share.

My walking is going OK. Arlo and I have found some longer routes to walk, so I am getting 6,000 steps in most days and managed 10,000 the other day, which kind of sadly seems like a lot now. I am currently about 50 miles west of Redstone, Colorado, 130 miles from the Utah state line.

From Sandia Peak, looking toward the wasteland to the south of Albuquerque. There is similar wasteland to the north, east, and west of Albuquerque and all across the state. Most of New Mexico looks like that barren area past the city, but you know, there are pockets of civilization, and it's pretty, and the weather is good.

In the picture you can see the southern end of the Sandia Mountains, and the peak where I was standing is near the northern end. Similar to the Olympic Mountains in Washington, you can see the whole range from a good vantage point.

Musings of An Old Man: On Death

Me, eventually

I am not dying, at least not any more than I ever was. Just a thing to think about.

I do not fear death, or what comes after. I feel confident enough that when the time comes, I will not know it happened, and whatever comes next, I will not care. "Afterlife" is an oxymoron; there is no life after life. From my point of view, when I die, the universe will wink out of existence, and time itself will stop. There is nothing to fear in that.

It will be quite the surprise if I am wrong.

It is natural, I think, to want to live forever, but in a very real sense we do live forever. From my perspective - the only perspective I have ever known - forever started on July 21 many years ago and will probably end within the next 25 years. Anything before I was born is just stories. 
Anything after is just guesses.

People say life is short, but it isn't. I remember living in Ohio until I was eight, though mostly just in snippets, and that was a long, long time ago. So was high school, which I remember much better. Our minds, I suppose, are made to perceive several decades as a good long run.

The actual process of dying, though, could be difficult. Both of my parents died relatively slowly, and it wasn't how you would want to go in either case. Unfortunately, most of us are probably destined for something similar, because human bodies do not usually give out all at once, but rather deteriorate slowly until we cannot keep going. Also, because medical science can sometimes keep us alive even when our bodies try to quit on us. I hope that, when the time comes, I either go relatively quickly or have the wits and the ability to call an end to it at some point.

If I can see the end coming, I am sure there will be some sadness. I have tried to think of a good metaphor. Life is like a roller coaster, and you don't want to get off. But life does not have as many ups and downs as a roller coaster - most of the time it just glides along. Life is like a day at Disneyland. Same problem. Life is like a long cruise. Not really. Cruises are a lot easier and more relaxing than real life.

I have settled on this one until I think of something better: life is like a long walk, one without an endpoint. You just keep walking until you can't walk anymore. Some days, the rain and wind are in your face, your feet hurt, and you have to walk up a big hill. Other days, the walking is easier, you get to see great sights, you meet people you enjoy, and some of them walk with you. And the good days make you want to keep going.

Maybe retirement is more like that long cruise though. It's a good way to end things.

My Three Memorable Successes in Education

Have I mentioned balloons? There are balloons.

My original title for this post was "Trump Has Got to Go," which is still true, but I am not satisfied with my political writing, so let's try something else.

My College Education, The Big Picture

After dropping out of UC Berkeley, I graduated from Cal State Hayward at age 25. I graduated with honors, because the requirement for that designation was a grade point average over 3.25, which I managed with not much to spare.

Ten years later, I graduated with an MBA, also from CSUH. I had a 3.7 GPA, which was the result of two thirds A grades and one third A minuses, plus an F in a class which required me to write a thesis, which I never finished. The third story below was part of my way around that requirement. I did get an award one year for the best grades in the program.

On to three successful days, in chronological order.

The GMAT

I requested materials to sign up for the GMAT, but they allowed at least some people to sign up on the day of the test, so I decided to do that. I did not study or take a class. I got on BART and headed for the Berkeley campus, where the test was being given, and realized I had forgotten my materials telling which building was hosting the exam. No worries, I figured there would only be so many people on campus on a Saturday morning, and I could spot the activity. Sure enough, lots of people were headed for the science building, and that was the place. I stood in line waiting to sign up and chatted a bit with the guy in front of me and the young lady behind.

I had only brought cash ($80), and I heard the guy taking money at the front of the line say that they could not take cash. I asked the woman behind me, if they would not take my cash, could I give it to her, and could she write a check for me? And that is what happened. (No, it was not Jackie, I don't remember her name, and we never met again. It's not that kind of story.)

I scored in the 99th percentile on the test.

I guess all of these stories are about my being unprepared and somehow doing well. Hmm.

The 3x5 Card

One day at Hayward, I had an exam scheduled. Being stuck on campus, I showed up early, at a common room downstairs from class. A woman and man from the class were on the other side of the room, discussing what they were going to write on their 3x5 card. I had forgotten, for that test we could write whatever we wanted on a 3x5 card and use it during the test. I did not usually study for tests; if I went to class and did the assigned homework, I could pass the exam. Nevertheless, I found a card and started looking through the book that I had not read. In the chapters we were supposed to read, I found a type of problem that we never discussed in class. Nothing too elaborate, but not intuitive enough for me to solve during an exam. I made some notes, the only things I wrote on my card.

Sure enough, one of those problems popped up on the exam, and I had my card. When we got the tests back, the professor wrote some statistics on the board at the front. I think the average score on that test was 59%. The high score was 96%. When he handed back the tests, he gave me my 96 first and said, "Good paper." Then he turned around and said, "It can be done, folks."

The Graduation Test

As an alternative to the thesis I never wrote, I could graduate if I passed a comprehensive exam in addition to my required classes. I could take the test early, so I signed up to take it six months before my intended graduation, figuring I could do some studying if I did not pass it, then take it again. I was given access to previous tests, which as I recall were structured this way: one general question that everyone had to answer; three general questions, of which we had to answer one; and a number of course-specific questions, of which we had to answer two.

When I went through the previous exams, I could always drum up an answer to the one required question and one of the three other general questions. I was taking a class in financial asset evaluation, knew there would be a related question on the test, and figured I could answer it. However, I had taken most of my classes five years earlier, so finding one more question could be dicey. Still, on the previous exams, I could always find one more that I could at least fake my way through. Two questions were always hopeless: Quantitative Methods and Banking, especially since I had never taken a banking class, but the rest at least offered some hope.

I sat for the exam and looked first for the four questions I could answer. The general one, no problem. One of three others, also good. I could handle the financial asset question. And as I looked through the rest, I realized that I was going to get a zero on one question and probably have to take the test again. I could not even pretend to answer any of them. I looked them all over a few times, still not even starting the exam. There was no way.

Finally, in desperation, I looked at the Banking and Quant questions that I had not even considered yet. The Banking question was impossible, as expected. But the Quant question...I could hardly believe it. The Quant question, which had been way beyond my abilities on all of the previous exams, was so easy that I probably could have answered it in ten minutes when I was in the fifth grade. It was just filling in some missing numbers in a production/inventory grid, requiring a little arithmetic and no real business knowledge.

And so I passed. Don't know how good my score was, but good enough. And so I got my MBA.

There were plenty of failures, but those days were good ones.

They had a Valentine's Day balloon celebration planned, but it was too windy on Valentine's Day, so they did it today, February 15. Jackie counted 35 balloons in the sky at one point.

The symbol of New Mexico.

The best balloon of the day, flying almost straight over the house. It has three different clown faces.

Winfield, Colorado

Winfield

Not starting with this post, but this blog is about to turn political for a while. I wrote my representative and both of my senators recently to say that I expected to hear them calling for the impeachment of Trump. That was in response to the capture of the Venezuelan president. Since then, Trump responded to the - apparent - murder of a protester by telling preposterous lies about her, and since then has ramped up talk of invading Greenland. It's crazy out there.

But not right now.

My walking was slowed by a bridge tournament last week, but back to normal today. I had a good tournament, and my partner made it to Life Master playing with me all week, so that was great.

What walking I have done has taken me 3,100 miles, which puts me past milestone 42 on the American Discovery Trail, at Winfield Colorado. Winfield is an abandoned silver and zinc mining town which had a population of about 1,500 in the 1890s, but just a few buildings remain standing. Elevation is 10,240 feet, as we are walking through the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

On my virtual walk, I am just about straight north of Albuquerque now.

 

Weather here in Albuquerque is very cold at night, into the 20s and maybe even the teens this weekend, but it gets up to about 50 degrees most afternoons, and Arlo and I wait for it to warm up before we walk. The forecast for February 1 is already up to a high of 60 degrees, so the worst of the cold is almost over, and really, it has not been bad at all.

I suspect the bad part is coming in July.