Political stickers and signs? They really do puzzle me. Do the people that put these signs up fondly imagine that an undecided person will see that sign and immediately say to themselves “Oh my, I should vote for the people whose sign I just saw.”? What insanity. I guess it is just another manifestation of the insane amount of tribalism that is running rampant in this country. “I belong to this tribe! Hear me roar!” How bloody ridiculous. Although, I have seen similar signs of this distressing trait everywhere I go in the world ...

The weather has finally turned cold. Somewhat of a shock to my system. I have been told that the WFR course that I’m taking in Flagstaff sometime in the next 2 to 3 months will be conducted to the greatest extent possible, outdoors. Tracking the weather in Flagstaff, at 7000 feet … I’m shivering just thinking about it. However, it is good to stress the body and make it uncomfortable. It’s a way of being out of your comfort zone and staying tough.

And speaking of that, I’m looking for a local trail, something between 11 and 12 miles, without enormous elevation gains, mainly dirt road if I can find it, that I can use to repeat my rucking test from the military many years ago. Criteria at that time was 12 miles in three hours with a 50-pound ruck (not including water). I’d be interested to see if I can still do it. I did about 4 miles last week in just under an hour – but rough terrain and a much lighter load. Still – no complaints.

Election day is coming up. I have heard that an amazing number of people (70 million I was told this morning) have already voted via early methodologies. Either mail in or early polling centers. I personally think that there will probably be a record turnout for this election. As per my last blog about this, it is a choice between egregiously bad and somewhat bad. Sigh. Again.

I read a book recently called “The Supple Leopard”. By Kelly Starrett and Glen Cordoza. It is all about posture and maintaining your body’s flexibility and capabilities, regardless of age. Really amazing stuff. I’ve been working on it daily for the last five or six days, and it is really interesting how my body is being affected. In a positive way that is. It is difficult to keep it up though. The uphill struggle of breaking 60 years of less than stellar habits.

https://www.howtobeasuppleleopard.com/what-is-a-supple-leopard/

I acquired an Alexa Echo the other day. An Alexa (Amazon listening device) with a small HD screen. Never used one before but honestly it is growing on me. One thing I like? When asking it to play music it will display the lyrics if available.

I’m finishing this post up on the Day of the Dead while I’m waiting online in order to take my HAM Radio Technician License exam. I used to be an 18E in the military (Communications) – thought being licensed as a civilian amateur would be a good qualification to have. Online exam via Zoom. I’m in the waiting room. Interesting bunch of people.

SUCCESS! – apparently with the first perfect score of the batch of people I was testing with. I was approximately 50th out of 67 people being tested. It was quite a painless experience. Over an hour of waiting but only 6 minutes to take the actual 35 question multiple choice test. I used Brainscape (the flash card app) to study. It worked really well as always. I found a number of decks already built for this exam. I studied the pool of 400+ questions for about 5 days. Topics covering FCC regulations, Basic Electrical theory, Radio Theory, Operating practices, Propagation, Antenna Theory, Safety, etc. And the result was as you see.

BTW - the term ‘CQ’ is used on air and means ‘Calling any station’.

Achieving the license (I should have my call sign from the FCC by Tuesday) gave me an inordinate sense of achievement. 😊 I will take the 2nd level test as soon as I can (General level) and get that WFR course under my belt.

The reason for getting higher level Amateur Radio licenses is that the higher the license level, the more frequencies you are allowed to operate on. And at the risk of being grossly simplistic, the more bands you are allowed access to, the longer distances you can send and receive.

And last but not least, I think I do appear to have more energy. It seems the thyroid medication may be helping 😊