Hey Steemians!!

Another post so soon ladybug? That's not like you...Nope, it's not but enough having conversation with myself but this sets the tone. Yup this a post about nothing and everything, observations both personal and geopolitical. Partly 2019 in a nutshell, maybe some near future plans and outlooks for the year ahead. I don't really have a set plan for this post, lets just type until something half comprehensible turns up...or not...for a post that is made of things inside my head, well...who knows, it's really weird all up in there. What prompted this? Perhaps too much time with my own mind. I do this sorta posts about this time of year when I start to get stir crazy from locking myself in a warm safe place I guess. Cabin fever, now I know what the cat feels like when I refuse to let him out at 3 am. LMFAO

If you take a close look at the picture towards @silvergingerman's hand, you can spot the light rays coming out of the ball, the time I accidentally burned him...oopsy, sorry ginger!

It's now time for our annual cold streak as in, "we are the coldest place on the earth right now" or "Mars and the Moon even space in general most likely have more temperate climate than Edmonton". I could go on with the lame usual frosty jokes that come with living where the air hurts my face but I'm sure you already heard enough of them. Although they are still fun to say because they are actual facts. We always try to book a winter trip to Jasper, we have to book a bit ahead of time to get reasonably priced hotels and we can't tell the temp that far ahead and our trip always falls during this streak in the winter no matter when we go. Like any other year well...of course the tradition continues but more about that later. Last night with the windchill, it dipped all the way down to -39...BURRR...as bad as that sounds, it's soon about to turn to -52 with the windchill. I remember working up north building a new oilsand mining facility outside in the middle of the Boreal Forest at these temperatures a decade ago. fun times! Nothing is functional when it's that cold. I was on the construction of the units that would later generate the power for the site all energy requirement are gas/propane/diesel or solar panels only since there is no energy infrastructure at that point. At these temperatures most fuels just turn to gel and anything hydraulic (cranes and stuff) just doesn't move. Here comes the insanity...

One of my favorite picture from my favorite place,
Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park at -40 from a
previous trip and where we are soon headed. This was
taken before the pine beetle infection that ravaged
the forest killing trees turning it all red.

This is closer to what it may look like now but this picture is still just a couple of years after the outbreak started. Different trip but it looks like it was probably cold then too, the Athabasca river doesn't fully freeze there.

In this enlightened era where fossil fuels are bad m-kay and our energy sector has been thrown under the bus by foreign political interference and competition oil producing nations or corporations not that secretly funded activist groups and over indulgent superstars hypocritically globetrotting on their private jets to lecture us on how we need to think green and we should feel guilty for heating our homes to a tolerable level and to listen to a screaming entitled privileged teenager publicly throwing a tantrum from her high horse while the rest of the un-elite applaud from their not so carbon friendly super yacht. Yet the propaganda campaign decimated our energy sector and investors are fleeing to greener pastures because the social/political price to do business is too unstable at the moment.

This one is a real throwback to another cold spell, probably from a decade ago. I miss that backyard it was huge but it was a really bad part
of the city to live in. Taken with Nikon D40x.

The irony of it all, as all of them are forced to slow down production or to seek greener inefficient technologies to fill their addiction to taxpayer dollars. Nothing like the latest emergency alert on the state sponsored news this morning... "Energy companies are urging the citizens to use less power or they might have to implement rolling outages because there isn't enough power to go around and we are using stored reserves." In other words many of us are out of a job because they are closing down coal power generating units and shelved future natural gas projects but we need to use less power because we might run out since less plants are operational. In what used to be energy independent Alberta, we now have to "borrow" power from producing neighbors as well, really? Exceptional logic from our fearless leaders! Can we just build all those natural gas power project that ya'll shelved now and forget the whole thing happened? We don't hold a grudge, we just want to build stuff and maybe not freeze in our own homes from power shortages(for those who still have a home).

Christmas lights thru condensation on a window.

My greenie friends, sure we do need to find alternatives sooner rather than later, that's undeniable but reality check, to do away from fossil fuels, we need a reliable replacement, this latest "near shortage of power" determined, we are not there at this point and time. Love em or hate em, the very lifestyle, medical advancements and extended quality of life we all enjoy are facilitated by said bad fossil energy sources, lets not go back to the 1800's. I like my home temperate and my tap water in a liquid state during these fine frozen times. I wonder how the climate protesters stay warm at -40? My guess it's probably not derived from a solar panel or windmill. Add a sweater or 10?Nah that aint savin anyone at -40 let alone -52. I say this in my fully heated house with a sweater wrapped in a blanket acknowledging the fact that I can't feel my toes because they are just perma cold at the moment. I feel like I should pull a Kit-Ten and lay on the heat vent directly.

Before you ask the common question if he's cross-eyed, the
answer is yes and no. It's not a permanent thing and he has full
control, can look in opposite directions at the same time. Albino
cats have vision deficiencies so that's how they compensate by
doing funky eyeball stuff.

Other repercussions, after 3 years of hard times homelessness and tent cities continues to rise with Edmonton having the highest unemployment in any major Canadian city with Calgary right behind. Food banks and other local charitable organisation are barely keeping up with decreased donations and increase demand for their services. Many not able to gather enough hours to keep employment insurance going, retail sector also struggling with several closures. Crime and lootings especially ATM's are kind of the norm now. From bold jewelry store robberies during operating hours in some of the city's busiest malls to thugs stealing catalytic converters from random cars in the middle of the night to sell the scrap palladium. Kinda scary out there these days but the creativity of crimes in times of desperation is astounding, some days I could say it blows my mind.

Half of the time I go to my bank in the evening, the foyer is being used by various homeless as a shelter from the cold or a place to sleep...This is actually the first year I witness this. As unnerving as it is at times, I kinda get the irony since the banks keep raking in record profits as the world seems to be falling apart and more homes get repossessed. Getting de-banked for 5 months in a dispute was a reality check as to how much control they can have on an individuals day to day activities and ability to provide, they are not above forging paperwork in their favor either. Yet it's a very real scenario more prevalent than most of you realize. The boldness the banks display lately leads me to wonder if they are secretly more in trouble than they let on. Maybe Alberta's conditions isn't purely political but a sign or a crack in the economy, one that is about to unravel, not just locally but worldwide. They might even know it already and planing their escape...maybe it was by design. Can you see it yet? Are you tired of running on the treadmill trying to keep up in the race for economic freedom that never truly comes, only the illusion of which?

Even thru the great de-banking debacle of 2019, no precious metals were harmed and did well enough regardless. It certainly was no prized year by any means but still slowly strutted along and somehow still made my re-adjusted goals with some super duper belt tightening like it was 1999. I actually surprised myself as to how disciplined I have become thru the circumstances. The threat of sleeping in a tent at -40 is an excellent motivator I might add. The last job of 2019 really saved my bacon with tons of hours in a short period of time just when I thought my year would be a lost cause, I ended up one one of the largest project of the year for the area. Somehow the universe always prevails at the last minute. So learn from my lesson before you have to learn the hard way. IF YOU CAN'T HOLD IT, YOU DON'T OWN IT, that also includes what is in your bank account. Fortunately I already knew as much, for the most part...if not fully then, I certainly do now! 😊😊😊

Full disclosure, that's the real reason I have been quiet on steemit. My mind as been preoccupied with real world shit either directly in my environment or world events and it blocks the creative juices. These are the times where most of my thoughts should probably stay where they are, in my head. Not really sure what to make of the situation since I watched it happen to my home province as a child and it never recovered since most of my generation lives out here now, it will have other future repercussions in a fast aging population further strains an underfunded system in my former home province. We live in boom and bust cycles in the wild wild west but something about this feels different, feels very manipulated is the same thing now happening to my new home? It's kinda worrisome.

Probably what the inside of my skull looks like! Seriously tho
it's an empty Crystal Skull vodka bottle in front of Christmas lights.

I guess that's it for now (after I deleted half my post) haha. Weird times we live in, lots happening locally and globally sometimes it seems like everything is upside down Maybe 2020 things will be less messy. Worst case scenario, I can always relocate where work is, I just don't really want to AGAIN when I know we are getting messed with by billionaires and bad politics based on mostly false narratives for their entertainment and less to do with natural course of events, it's frustrating.

All images taken with Nikon D7000 unless otherwise stated.

Stay warm peeps! xox