Runtime: 6 minutes, 11 seconds.
Soundtrack: Freedom by John Waits.
Day on Magisto, Youtube, or Vimeo.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021:
Sumas – Northgate – Snoqualmie Pass, Washington
Oisin was up by 6:30 am packing for the expedition. He was busy packing up the Mazda 5 from 6:30-9:30, as well as backing up files to his portable tough drive for the trip, and doing last-minute laundry. He was officially ready for the trip. He made some last-minute adjustments to the plant watering system. He set the grow lights to turn on/off every 6 hours, and the water timer to do watering every 20 hours a minute and a half dripping. Hoping that will do it. Out of curiosity, he decided to weigh himself and discovered that over the pandemic he lost weight from 227 to 207 lbs. He was quite pleased. The Portable tough drive was taking forever to transfer files, so he had to drop his morning delivery shifts (2:30 pm 6 pm | 3 hours) with Grubhub he had hoped to do on the way out of town. He pit stopped at the post office in hopes of last-minute mail around 6 pm. Onwards to Ferndale to return Cian’s library books. Then onwards to Northgate to visit Cian before heading Eastward. The journey had begun. Car packed tight. Oisin realized he is going to miss his little town on the border: Sumas. It’s a unique small town with only a few gas stations, tons of mail shipping outlets, a post office, school, library, city hall, and some run-down never-open stores. No grocery stores. On hotel above Bob’s burger joint. The police are always awaiting speeders exceeding the 25 mph speed limit to the border gate. The Edaleen dairy is his and Cian’s favorite Ice cream shop here.
Oisin arrived in Northgate late around 8:30 pm, as apparently, the Baskin Robbins closed as did every other ice cream shop. Oisin picked up Cian from his mom’s in search of an ice cream treat before bidding farewell on his expedition to his son. They settled on hitting a Target, grabbing hotdogs for dinner, and Haagen Daaz to-go from the ice cream freezers. Of course, they had to pitstop in the toy section where Cian picked out a Minecraft Lego set dad bought him for entertainment while he was away. They hung out in the parking lot in the car, playing Cian’s infamous “Ding Dong” doorbell roleplaying game. King Cian, of Cian’s world, a planet in a far dimension, where he is a God-King having made clones of himself. He also divided planets – one world for women, one world for boys. Dad role-played his son Cian Jr. and his daughter Rowena. After dad dropped Cian back off at his mom’s, he had a crying fit, missing his dad already and wanting to go on the journey with him. Oisin really wished he could join him, but it was time with mom.
Runtime: 7 minutes, 35 seconds.
Soundtrack: When We Were by Rosedale.
Day on Magisto, Youtube, or Vimeo.
Dad continued on towards Snoqualmie Pass, heart heavy with sadness as he too was already missing his son. He drove on up into the mountains, seeing snow along the Interstate edges passing through Snoqualmie. There was, of course, a traffic wreck and emergency vehicles right on the pass as to be expected since this is one of the more dangerous passes in Washington state. After passing over Snoqualmie, Oisin targeted Ellensburg as a place to stop for the night. However monitoring weather, the snowstorm was on his heels, so he decided to press on through the wee hours of the morning towards Oregon. Passing through Yakima, then making it across the Oregon-Washington border, stopping for the night at a rest area outside of Pendleton. Car camp sleeping in his little bed in the Mazda. Thoughts of world news from NPR and New York Times, he drifted off to concerting dreams.
Runtime: 3 minutes, 12 seconds.
Soundtrack: Can’t Stop This by Taylor Coggins.
Day on Magisto, Youtube, or Vimeo.
In the news, according to NPR and New York Times: The new president Joe Biden seeks a plan to reshape the American economy. His administration only has about a year to push major legislation through Congress before all attention turns back to midterm elections, so any bill not at the very top of his list is unlikely to happen. Previous new presidents always focus on taxes and health care. Clinton failed with health insurance, but Obama succeeded, and George W. Bush focused on cutting taxes, while Trump tried to cut taxes and repeal Obamacare. Biden seeks to break this pattern with sets of proposals “build back better” to reshape the US Economy and other parts of American life – with the pandemic and climate change high in play around it all. Senator Bernie Sanders says the virus-relief bill was “an emergency response” but we now have to deal with long-term structural problems facing our country, fixing its crumbling infrastructure and address the existential threat of climate change. Climate Change, Infrastructure, Jobs, Highways, Utilities, Education. Biden wants to expand public education making pre-K universal for 3-4-year-olds, and 2 years of college with community colleges as free education for all. He wants child payments and paid leave – extending a monthly child payment of $250 per child and a big expansion of paid family leave. He wants to expand Obamacare extending several 2-year provisions in the virus-relief bill cutting costs for nearly every family receiving coverage and expand subsidies to some making more than $100k a year. He also wants to limit how many pharmaceutical companies can charge Medicare for prescription drugs. He also desires to expand access to government insurance plans through a public option.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial results are being questioned by U.S. health officials stating the company may have released outdated information creating an incomplete view of the efficacy data. Concerns about vaccine availability are high on the list, with poor countries potentially having to wait years for vaccines – which will not squash the pandemic. Long-term haulers from Covid infections claim their sense of smell remains distorted.
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Shocking news in Colorado as over the air reports a gunman killed 10 people at a King Sooper’s grocery store in Boulder. A police officer rushing in to help was gun downed. The suspect is in custody but the motive is unknown at this time. Britain is experiencing an all-time high for protestors, this time in opposition to a bill giving police more power to crack down on non-violent demonstrations.
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