2025 June - 5% Diary

 It's a diary of my normal life, the 5%. Just posting my replies to the monthly newsletter questions between the family and cousins. Dragon comments are after, "In the record".  

 

If you were able to travel into the past, where and when would you like to go? About 4 years in the past. Why just 4? Someone needs to tell my past me not to buy LED bulbs for my fluorescent light fixtures. You know, the ones with ballast that are about to expire like this week. And when you want to go and replace the fluorescent fixture they literally don't exist. Which means you are stuck with long lasting LED bulbs for your fluorescent fixture that you can hopefully repair because you spend $100 on bulbs. But you feel even more stupid because you already went through this same exercise 4 years ago and forgot. So you hung on to the 4 year old LED tubes for your non existing fluorescent fixture to remind your future self to travel back in time to undo the money hole of bulbs. LOL...that is the plan at least. 

The other past time travel would be to visit a bank vault that is about to be destroyed. Just need to make a quick trip inside the vault and borrow money that is about to disappear in the explosion. 

How about the future? Would you travel ahead? What do you think you will see or what would you like to see? Just here. The future will look sort of backwards. A lot of the tech we believed in will be gone. Things will be basic. My hope is that the human race will finally be on the DEM path, instead of the path of the 5%, physical matter. (FYI: DEM is Dark Energy & Matter See CERN link here: https://www.home.cern/science/physics/dark-matter) And the planet will be very crowded. All those DEM beings will be with us. Any person who has passed away along with other races we have yet to meet and greet. The future looks bright.

In the record, when I say "bright" it is referencing the fact that when the human race makes physical matter it tends to not be imbued with DEM. From a clairvoyance sight, those physical items are all gray color because they lack any aspect of DEM. 
Do you think that time travel would be a bad idea or are you OK with it? What could go wrong? Why nothing could go wrong, except altered timelines. Now if I only had the Google app to navigate those lines. 

Did you ever make any predictions in the past that came true? No, or I would be $100 richer now.  

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? I am an OP person in many ways. 
Do you have any favorite books, movies or TV shows about time? I like to watch anime. It is the genre that is close to what my life is like. 

Are there any trends or favorite things either from your youth or from the present that you would consider putting into a time capsule? Yeah, my coin, stamp, and 1st day letter collection. When they open that vault in a 100 years from now they may be worth something. 

  

Are there any styles that are back in style now? I remember when I was young, my parents took us kids to the store to buy a down jacket for the snow. See pic. The jacket was horrible. The ends got wet. The down bunged to one end. and the jacket quilting was always cold. I guess the only benefit was that you could squeeze it into a small space for travel. But those feathers would poke out here and there and it would hurt, so you had to pull them out. And you had to keep the jacket away from heat because it would melt. 

So, the new down jackets have smaller quilted sections. I would imagine that all those quilted areas still lose heat. Been there, done that

 

Are there any out-of-business stores, restaurants or attractions that you wish you could go back and visit or prevent from closing? An old Thrifty Drug store not for the store but for the excitement of spending my allowance on stamps, coin collection, models or candy. I did not have much money so it was always a give and take on what I wanted to get. The Big Bag of Stamps was an excellent purchase for $1, now selling on EBay for $30. 

 

Rotaries, a.k.a. roundabouts are in vogue with transportation planners these days. Berkeley is doing the long term planning of getting everyone used to traffic circles. They are in all neighborhoods but with stop signs on all streets for now. The Gilman on/off ramp is an excellent example of a double roundabout that solved a congestion problem. See pic. 

  

Then there is the Marin Circle See pic and link to history.where the pic came from. 

Double Crossover Diamond Interchanges are also popping up around the country. Have you driven on one? Did you find it confusing? Did you get a little freaked by crossing over and seeing opposing traffic to your right? I see why they do it. It is about making travel safe, but if you put the freeway on a bridge over the street you just need a double roundabout. I was on one over in Missouri when I was visiting Dawna. It was confusing because it was new and I did not understand the purpose. 

 

Please describe any confusing roads. I remember being at an intersection and I could not make out where to go because it had just rained and for some reason the street lines all but vanished. If someone could make street paint that was iridescent when wet that would be a money maker. 

Also, the street markings in Berkeley have significantly increased. I like the visual but who is maintaining the paint? See pic. 

Can you sleep on a plane, train, bus or automobile? Could you sleep in a robot car? Nope. Nope, nope, and Nope. 
What are you up to these days? Zone 0 projects. The hardest part of Zone 0, a.k.a. hardening the house exterior, is saying goodbye to all the cool parts of the house. 

 

Moving the geraniums from the steel planter to ceramic post was okay but I spent time and money making the steel planter. See pic. Taking down all the trellises around the house and fence was not fun. See link here for before and after pics. 

 

Denuding the Westside walkway of plants is most disappointing. 

 

 

 

See pics for the transformation of the 908 side. 

But here is the thing, I did not understand how easy it was for the neighbors house fire to catch my house on fire. As I mentioned to the Berkeleyside reporter, "Zone 0 is fire prevention 101 to stop your neighbor's house fire from your home."  Here is the Assembly Bill 3074 going through the CA house now. 

Wish us luck on the journey to Zone 0 and beyond. 

 

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