Thoughts On A Sunday

There’s something I’d like to mention right at the start: For some reason my humble little blog saw over 650,000 visitors in October. I have no idea why. At best I might see less than a tenth of that every month. I only post three days a week, and only one post on each of those three days. My stats page also says I have had over 3.3 million visitors over the past 24 years. (There are a couple of year’s worth of data missing as I did host this blog on other platforms here and there, but I doubt that would have a major effect on the visitor count.) Oh, and I am not boasting as I really haven’t paid a lot of attention to the blog stats. I usually look at the stats to see which posts saw traffic over previous month. I hadn’t paid attention to the weekly or monthly stats

I must be doing something right. Now if I could only figure out how to fix the commenting so I can turn it back on….

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It was Halloween yesterday and the little ghosties and goblins were out last night trick or treating. We generally don’t see any here at The Gulch as we are off the beaten path and we don’t have any families in my neighborhood with kids. The same was true over at The Manse. (Interestingly enough the two are on opposites sides of the same hill.) Both The Gulch and The Manse are in neighborhoods that have about half of the homes being seasonal residences that are not presently occupied by the owners. Many of the ‘seasonal’ families do have children, but we only see them in the summer, something that isn’t all that surprising in a town that is basically a ‘lake’ town.

The kids who were trick or treating last night most likely went to our ‘downtown’ village which has a lot of homes and where the main roads are closed to vehicular traffic, making it safer for the kids walking from home to home. From my understanding it was quite busy which is something nice to hear.

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The first day back on Standard Time has been disconcerting. I know my cat certainly hasn’t liked it as it meant she got fed an hour later than usual this morning and she let me know her displeasure.

I have never cared for the twice yearly change and would be quite pleased to stay on DST year round. That we live on the eastern edge on the Eastern Time Zone certainly has something to do with it. Were we to remain on Standard Time year round we could look forward to sunrise on June 21st taking place at 4:06AM here at The Manse. Thanks but no thanks. I’d rather have a late sunrise (8:15AM) on the first day of Winter and have sunset at past 5PM that same day. Some claim it would be dangerous for kids to be going to school in the dark, but for a lot of kids around here that’s going to happen anyway as some have to catch a school bus at 6AM to get to school on time which is more than an hour before sunrise when on Standard Time. As I have said more than once, I think New Hampshire and Maine should stay on DST year round, or change from the Eastern Time Zone to the Atlantic Time Zone if we have to remain on Standard Time.

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I will be working the polls on Tuesday, being an election official and all that. It will be a long day that starts well before the polls open a 7AM and it won’t end until well after the polls close at 7PM. If history serves as any example I expect we won’t finish the hand counts (mostly write-ins) and finalizing and signing the vote tallies until 9PM. If nothing else, this election will certainly be interesting.

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Is it time to abandon ObamaCare, aka ACA? It certainly hasn’t kept its promises as it has seen health insurance premiums rise while also reducing the amount of health care available. Some are saying that was its purpose to begin with, to force socialized medicine upon us.

The more I look the more I am beginning to thinks that is indeed the case. It doesn’t help that it looks like Obamacare premiums are expected to rise 13% next year.

On Friday, the federal government published the proposed 2027 insurance rates for 30 states with marketplaces managed by the federal government. According to an analysis by the health research organization KFF, the average cost of health insurance premiums in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace is expected to rise by 13 percent next year.

Projections show that premiums for employer plans could rise by about 10 percent in 2027, while premiums for federal workers are also set to increase by over 10 percent.

A KFF poll found that health care affordability remains a major economic concern for voters heading into the midterm elections. Approximately 60 percent of registered voters said they were worried about being able to afford healthcare for themselves and their families.

Of course I expect the Democrats will point their fingers at Trump for this even though this is what Obama wanted the ACA to do.

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Sometimes parody is closer to the truth than most people realize. All we need to do is look to Alaska to see how that may be the case.

Alaska Democrats Caught Busing In Thousands Of Dan Sullivans https://t.co/Lz7bRBBynp

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 31, 2026

Somehow, this doesn’t seem so farfteched.

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This is an abbreviated version of TOAS as I have had to deal with a slight problem rather unexpectedly. It’s nothing to worry about. Rather it’s something annoying that I can’t put aside easily.

This has been the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the weather can’t seem to make up its mind, most of the leaves here at The Gulch have fallen from the trees, and where I’ll have to clean the gutters at the front of the house tomorrow after work.