Hurricane Hilary Increases GOP Membership

Yep. There may be such a thing as coincidence but … whether related to the afore mentioned storm, I will let you decide.

Yesterday, I took the wife to the County Clerk’s Office, and we registered to vote. A recent law went into effect in Idaho that prohibits anyone from registering to vote unless the registration address matches a person’s address on their driver’s license. Apparently, this verification must be done by the Clerk. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans were accepting voter registration cards at the County Fair that we attended about a week ago.

Also, we learned that Republicans in Idaho have abolished their Presidential Primary.

Last, I had heard, Republicans were floating the idea that nobody registered as a Republican less than two years could vote in the upcoming Primary. Apparently, that idea was scrapped in favor of an in-person Caucus on March 2, 2024.

If you recall, in 2020, Democrats ripped a page from the Rush Limbaugh playbook and ran their own “Operation Chaos” in the Republican Primaries of several states. They elected Trump supporting candidates that were never supported in the General Election by either Trump or the GOP. In essence, these guys were abandoned, and the seats ceded to the Democrats. Virtually all lost in the November Election. In my opinion, it was shameful that they were sacrificed without any support. In a rational world, this failure should be grounds for not supporting Trump—as would the Covid disaster—but the Democrats have made Trump the GOP frontrunner for 2024; something they will rue if he prevails.

Anyway, Idaho Republicans seemed fearful of Democrats changing registration to select their primary candidates and then reregistering as Dems for the General Election. This was their motivation to push for the two years in the GOP or you can’t vote rule. The Caucus idea was likely a compromise solution. I get a sense that this was one of those divide the conservatives and then get snookered by the RINOs.

Anyway, the wife and I are newly minted members of the GOP for the first time in many years and now look forward to our first caucus.

As for our former state, the so called “republicans” are dumping Life and traditional marriage from their platform.

This is just more proof that people in places like California that think they are conservatives are really Liberals and part of the problem. These are the guys that move to other states and try to make them into California and think they are “Good Republicans” while undermining traditional values. Idaho is free because it rejects California—or more correctly San Francisco—values. Oh, my sister in Texas says the same thing; namely, if you want to turn our state into California go home ‘cause we don’t need you here Quit ruining our state.

Really Right Now in North Idaho

Photo above is Rusty Rex and our storage shed.

Yep, the wife and I have been busy finishing our house in North Idaho. (Don’t say “Northern” just “North”.) Right now, it’s mostly livable, except the stove is not operational yet. The glass for the shower will be here in early September. The cabinet guys will be here whenever they feel like it. So, yes, there are a few loose ends out of my control but mostly the downstairs is about done. Upstairs is functional … to a point. We still need to install flooring and cover the ceiling joists.

The California house is now sold. We have cut ties to the once “Golden State”. Sadly, Johnnie Does and the rest of the gang are still in Elk Grove. I do miss them and a few of the local restaurants. Gone are the editorial board lunch meetings at the local salsa bars. However, I have gained much by leaving. I have my Second Amendment rights restored. I can now open carry a sidearm with no permit. I can cast a line into the local river without leaving my property. I plan to register as a Republican again as the Party here actually stands for something other than “democrat lite”. Oh, I have found that the John Birch Society is alive and well here too. Deer are abundant on our property. We enjoy watching three young bucks as their antlers continue to grow. They come daily to eat apples from the lone apple tree on the property.

It seems like half the folks in our county are formerly from the Left Coast state that is rarely named here. Many have been here for decades and are not necessarily refugees of the horrible governance of Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown. All these folks have one thing in common and that is that they will not allow Idaho to become like the place that they left. It is my observation that most folks in California claiming to be conservative are really liberals and they don’t fit in with folks that are actually conservative. Most California “conservatives” love big government and can’t comprehend a world where “The State” doesn’t dictate their every move.

For example, my dad is totally appalled at the lack of permits and government oversight that we are under while building our home here. We didn’t need an architect or engineer to stamp drawings to get a building permit. We didn’t need T-24 calculations. We don’t need a Certificate of Occupancy to move into our house. I can go on, but I think you get the point. Also, we didn’t have to pay north of $100,000 in taxes and fees to get a building permit like you must do in Elk Grove. Our building permit was less than $1,600. I hand drew several pages of the permit package and used a computer for the rest. Any additional questions were answered verbally over the cell phone. There were fees to connect to the power grid and city sewer but compared to where we came from, the cost was minimal. Had we lived outside the city limits, these costs would be even less. The only big expense was putting in a well since city water was not readily available.

The thing I do miss the most is that my son is not here to share the wonder of Idaho with us. He is attending college in Arizona. Nothing against Arizona but his poor life choices are proof to me that he is ungrateful and immature. I am praying that God will kick him in the butt and get him back on the straight and narrow. Sadly, all my wife’s offspring are insistent on doing things the hard way.

The people here are nice but not in much of a hurry. This is frustrating for many, and I just have to roll with it. There is more work here than workers. Working with contractors on our house has been a juggling act. Two contractors really have been a joy to work with and a third has been a good one overall.

The church we are attending is small (less than 100 people). The pastor went to college with our dear friend George Fincke. George ended up in the Reformed Episcopal Church while Leonard (the pastor here) stayed in the Bible Presbyterian Church. Bob Jones produced a couple of great pastors in these men. George died almost 8 years ago. Leonard is very involved in the community here.

I will start blogging more frequently in the weeks to come. I still have to get a few projects done before I can devote more time to writing.

The Truth About “The Big Steal” of 2020 Continues

Folks, I am posting a link to an article about voter fraud in Michigan in 2020. On election night, we all went to bed with Trump leading in this state and most other swing states and when we got up the next morning the vote totals mysteriously flipped to Biden. This article may explain why. Oh, please note that as soon as the FBI got involved, the investigation stopped. Also note that this organized vote fraud was known in October 2020.

Pet Pride Hypocrisy

Saw this display at the local pet store recently. It says they support gay pride and this corporation supports people being whatever gender they desire. Now they want pets to show your pride.

I took the photo and then it occurred to me what hypocrites they are, the pet store only recognizes two genders, spayed and neutered.

Satan Respects Pronouns

This is a real quote from the Satanist that designed the transgender children’s apparel currently on sale at a Target store near you.

Yep, it’s my turn to opine on this issue. Let me preface what follows with this comment, the very fact that transgenderism is even an issue in our society is an indictment on how far gone we are as a people. If reading what follows makes you angry, don’t get mad at me, I’m just the messenger. Get mad at the people preying on others by deceiving them into participating in maiming and mutilating the weaker among us.

My first observation is that transgenderism is not a valid issue among Atheists. Atheists have no room in a worldview built on “survival of the fittest” for those that do not reproduce and thus improve the gene pool. For the atheist, homosexuality and transgenderism are a burden on continuing the species and diverting resources in unproductive ways to unproductive members. Given this, it is logical and necessary for China, North Korea, and Cuba to imprison or execute such people.

Furthermore, a consistent atheist does not acknowledge the value of the life of a homosexual or transgender person. The life of an individual does not have value except as measured by what they do to benefit the group. Any person claiming that an individual life has significance or value is stealing that value from a biblical worldview—usually without attribution.

This brings up my second point. While there have always been a few people in society that have been homosexual, this has always been a tiny fraction of the population; however, the modern push to convert people to homosexual or transgender lifestyles is part of a conscience effort on the part of Marxist/humanist people to eradicate Christianity from the public square. Eradicating Western Culture and White Privilege are phrases for the same thing, tearing down Christ and the influence of His followers.

As noted previously, atheists and Christians both have a disdain for the current transgender movement. Atheists may hope that abolishing Christianity will promote a society based on science and knowledge, but the opposite is happening; the abolition of Christianity has resulted in a proliferation of various forms of neo-paganism, witchcraft, Satanism, and other false religions as well as a populace that will fall for just about anything they are told, Covid-19 being the easiest illustration. Without belief in ultimate Truth, our culture now thinks the notion that “everyone has their own truth” is a valid idea instead of a bald-faced lie and a really weak logical fallacy.

We spent a few years on Covid, then about nine months on Ukraine, and now the fad is transgenderism. Tens of thousands of people are destroyed by each fleeting idea that fascinates pop culture but sooner or later, it will lose its shock-value and then the slayers of all that is good will move on to something else. Meanwhile those harmed are ignored and discarded; left to fend for themselves.

Another way of stating this is that the sheep need to be continually agitated and scattered. With the coordination of the mainstream media and big tech the attack of the wolves has gotten much faster and more coordinated.

The Bible is clear that God made mankind male and female; as I quoted above, Satan is responsible the false notion of other genders. The Bible also says that sexual roles are to happen within a marriage relationship. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation. The Bible takes a dim view on sexual relationships that occur outside of marriage. Scripture repeatedly condemns homosexual relationships. Enough other people have written on this that I won’t waste space repeating what has already been made clear.

God made male and female. He made you the gender that you are when you were born. The notion that gender is a choice is false; with only one exception, gender selection abortion. In this case, the parents make the choice, usually to terminate female babies in utero. As stated in other posts, abortion is in fact mentioned in the Bible and condemned in the strongest terms.

The idea that you can select or change your gender is false. The best you can hope for is to mutilate your body to the point that folks can’t tell by looking at you. Sorry, but this level of deception is still deception. The irony being that you are trying to deceive yourself.

Transgender folks are saying by their actions that God is wrong, stupid, and incapable of knowing what He is doing; in essence you are calling God a fool and a liar by saying that he made you incorrectly, and it’s up to you to fix His mess. This hubris is setting yourself up as god—knowing good from evil. Aren’t those words first spoken by a reptile in The Garden?

This brings us back to the quote that I started with, “Satan Respects Pronouns.” This is just another lie from the father of lies. The ease with which the idea of transgenderism has gained traction in our society is horrifying.

Leaving Sodom

I know that I haven’t posted much lately but life has been hectic. The wife and I have been packing up the house and parting with lots of accumulated stuff. Chief beneficiaries of this process have been the cancer society store, Goodwill, and the Kiefer landfill. We are going from about 2,100 square feet to 880.

The amount of photos, genealogy stuff, old yearbooks, and the like is ridiculous. In one room we packed six large boxes that weighed 30 to 40 pounds each. We still have to tackle one closet of photos plus the stuff currently hanging on the walls. For the sake of space, most picture frames are being discarded. Eastman Kodak had no idea what a mess they would be creating for my family.

Officially, we are whittling down the furniture to 11 pieces, half of which are for the bedroom. The rest are for sale or already sold.

Much of the rest of our stuff is books. We started with several thousand books in the house. I have parted with many that I have had for decades. A few are being packed but designated as a donation to the local church library at our new home. Our neighbor will be getting a box of vintage sci-fi stuff after the next garage sale. Goodwill will likely be getting a few hundred pounds of tomes as well.

XBOX is no longer part of our lives. The original console was traded for credit at a local store a few days ago. The 360 and One are going with my son to college–along with the remaining games in our house. I doubt they will survive to the end of the first year of college.

We are parting with more than half the clothing and linens in the house.

Two items remain in the attic, a red wagon and a dedication plaque for a bank that once existed in Elk Grove. (Update:  The plaque left us last week.)

Many of the children’s school papers that we had saved have been sent to the landfill. We saved a few plus the usual—report cards and school photos.

Reducing the amount of stuff, we have is something that is long overdue. I’m glad we are doing it now. However, my choices of what to keep or part with have been colored by the stupid decisions that my son has been making lately. This will be a topic covered elsewhere on the blog. I just want to be on record that his bad behavior has consequences now and not just in the future.

The truth is that we should have left California many years ago. Due to stupid financial decisions, we probably couldn’t have done it but … I’m glad we are getting out now. Gavin and his fellow travelers are turning this place into a third world hell hole.

Two more weeks and we’re outta here.

Search for Duke Nukem Trigged Detonation of My Family

Warning: The following post contains mature content and is not for the under 18 crowd.

The wife and I have been prepping to exit California for freedom. As part of the process, we have been selling a few potentially valuable items on eBay. I am liquidating some old computer parts as part of the purge of material goods.

One item that I possess is a vintage Duke Nukem video card. Originally it also came with a game and belt buckle.

As far as I know, the game is vaporware—we have no idea where it might be—however, the belt buckle was recently encountered but we couldn’t remember where. In an effort to find it, I searched a few drawers in my son’s room that still have things from the previous occupant—his brother. Some stuff he inherited from his brother still lives in this particular dresser.

I looked in the top drawer, just a bunch of old school notebooks. The second drawer had more miscellaneous papers and junk. About what I would expect from a teenage boy. The next drawer was disturbing. It contained stuff that I would expect for sale in your local Adam and Eve store—not that I have ever been in one, just speculating. Drawer four was the shaving kit that he got from his grandparents a few years ago. It felt very light and stuffed with paper. I was thinking, in the last few years I thought he had used this so why is it still full of paper? I opened it just to see. (I don’t like trash in drawers and was going to purge the paper to make more room in the drawer … or so I thought.) After it was unzipped, my first reaction was “oh crap” and the second was to call his mother into the room.

I found a small vial with a prescription label on it and a shaving kit crammed full of syringes. I didn’t recognize the medicine but knew immediately what it was. I also recognized the address of the place writing the prescription as being the address of Planned Parenthood. As a prolife person, I know where enemy HQ is located.

My wife looked up the drug name on the Internet and sadly, I was right. My only biological son was taking drugs to become female. This was a week ago. More has come to light in the last few days.

On Friday, I arranged for some one-on-one time with him. He said he was not attracted to males or females. I tried to tell him that many of his feelings were normal for a teen and had nothing to do with changing gender but part of growing up. Whoever was filling his head with lies had done a good job of conditioning (grooming) him. Later he also told me that he rejected the Resurrection of Christ as being an historical event.

Talk about grade A hypocrisy and heaping divine judgment upon yourself. He has taken Communion at every opportunity since he was born and recites the Lord’s Prayer and the Historic Creeds every Sunday. He is also on the worship team at school.

No wonder he is a mess. Never double dawg dare God to place his judgment on you.

For those of you not up on your Bible verses, this one is speaking of partaking in Holy Communion. The reference to sleep in these verses means physical death.

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.

I Corinthians 11:29-30

Oh, I did follow-up on his problem with the Resurrection. I read all four accounts of Easter morning to him. After consulting his cell phone, he responded that it wasn’t true because there were slight variations in the details given of the event by the four Gospel writers. My response was that if you had four different people, on four different corners, observing the same traffic wreck, they would agree on the big details but would recall slightly different ones. It was the same way in the gospels; some authors were eyewitnesses and others were written based on interviews with eyewitnesses.

 I offered him information if he wished to research it, some of which I had given him several years ago, but of course he declined. This was just a bumper sticker excuse because he has never done any actual research on the issue. It’s easier in the Internet age to believe something that affirms your presuppositions, than to intellectually engage in any issue. (Plus, he lacks the life experience to know truth from error when dealing with such questions.)

Once my wife came home, I fired up the movie The Case for Christ on Amazon.

My son sat on the couch dithering with his phone for the whole movie. About halfway through it, this exact topic comes up. The argument against the Resurrection was almost verbatim what he had said while my response was almost the same as what the movie gave. On this at least, Holy Spirit one, dumb as dirt kid, zero.

Two days later at church, he still recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed but did not go to Communion. As I understand it, he thought I was stupid for crying all the way up to the front of the church, taking Communion, and then returning to my seat still weeping. He’s too self-absorbed to know that I was crying over him and not for the first or last time. He has excommunicated himself and I was crying because this was a visible sign that that he rejected the faith and is under the judgment of God.

I Corinthians 5:5 comes to mind but may not be the best reference.

To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I wonder if he will repent or perish in his sin.

It’s even worse than all this but I must leave a few cards in my hand un-played, at least on this forum.

My wife wonders if we had banned the Internet years ago if this would have happened and sadly my answer is yes. Covid made everyone get the Internet. That genie was out of the bottle with or without any past action on our part.

Secondly, this trans mania is a marketing campaign by Planned Parenthood as the demons that control that organization regrouped after the overthrow of Roe. They are Satan’s most loyal servants. Planned Parenthood exists only to maim and kill those made in the image of God. Trans crap is their new mission field to destroy those that missed destruction in the womb. A one third kill rate is just unacceptable in the era of surgical and chemical abortion.

Lastly, I did look up the vow that my wife and I made before God when our son was baptized. We did teach him the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, and everything necessary to know the Christian Faith. I still remember the joy I felt the first time I heard him recite the Lord’s Prayer in Church. I cried that day too. But tears of joy not grief as I am now.

PS: Many years ago, I angered a family member when I wrote about other people that lost their children to “the world”. My point in writing that blog was to say that I hope I do better. Clearly using that metric, I have failed more than them all. I just want my son back.

Thoughts After Seeing Jesus Revolution

I saw the movie on Sunday. It was a real treat to see. The short version, 10/10 Go see it.

Seeing the movie brought to mind the following:

Some of the background was a great touch. Yep, they had Janice Joplin and Timothy Leary at a beach concert and a host of period music in the soundtrack, some of which you will recognize.

The movie was grounded and a blast from the past. Just a few short years after this movie was set was when many people on my mom’s side of the family gave their lives the Christ (1974-1975). I think religious faith was portrayed as a struggle and not an end.

I knew of Chuck Smith and the many music groups that began at his church, but the origin of his youth-oriented church was fun to watch. Talk about the ungrateful death (his congregation) being given life… From what I recall of the 60’s, the counter-culture movement was a bunch of rebels without a clue. After many years of trying stupid stuff (drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll), many finally found what they were looking for, a lively faith to fill the God-shaped vacuum in their soul.

Not everything coming out of the Jesus Revolution was orthodox but some great theologians did come to prominence during this time period. If you can dig up some sermons by David Chilton, on a few recordings, he discusses some of the abuses on the fringes of this movement.

The other comment about the Jesus Revolution that I heard recently from Gary DeMar was that it was a movement that emphasized an internal transformation as opposed to previous revivals which were also culturally transformative.

One result of this period is what I call the franchise church: Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, LifePoint, Hillsong, etc.

Another and different version of Christianity coming out of this movement was Jesus People USA. They are still around today. They are a cooperative community—think baptized commune—that specializes in ministering to the poor in urban communities. I don’t know how many locations they are in, but Chicago and Milwaukee were ones that I remember.

Kelsey Grammar was really good as Chuck Smith and Jonathan Roumie did a great job as Lonnie Frisbee. I guess Jonathan plays Jesus in The Chosen; sorry, I’ve never seen the show. There is a line in the movie about him trying really hard to look like Jesus, guess that has more than one meaning.

Final thought, I’d see it again and plan to buy DVD once it goes on sale.

Upgrading Dell Alienware m17 R5 Laptop Hard Drive

I bought a nice laptop that will end up going to college with my son.

Here are a few of the features of the Alienware m17 R5 AMD:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen (TM) 9 6900HX (8-Core /16 Thread, 20MB Cache, up to 4.9 GHz max boost)
  • RAM: 32 GB (2) 16 GB DIMM, DDR5
  • Video: AMD Radeon (TM) RX 6850M XT 12 GB GDDR6
  • Hard Drive: 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

The specifications are good except for the Hard Drive which is puny by today’s standards. I decided to upgrade it. The laptop motherboard supports the 4th generation NVMe type hard drives. These little guys are smaller than a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum, measuring about three inches long by one inch wide and about as thick as a nickel.

NVME Hard Drive

They are 48 times as fast as a standard mechanical hard drive. What’s the old saying about dynamite and small packages?

Anyway, what I discovered is that the laptop will support two hard drives; however, the documentation says that drive one can be up to 4 TB while the second drive can only be 2 TB. As a result, I opted to get a 4 TB drive by Western Digital. I bought it on Amazon before I got too mad at them for not refunding the money I had spent on my electric razor—which by the way has still not been refunded yet.

WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive – Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 7,300 MB/s – WDS400T2X0E

M.2 is the slot size on the motherboard and 2280 is the size of the hard drive circuit board.

These drives cost over $1,200 from Dell but are $399.99 from Amazon and Newegg and similar places.

What I am slowly learning is buy lower specifications from Dell and then upgrade them to your heart’s delight. At least with their Alienware computers, upgrading them yourself does not void the manufacturer warrant.

One purpose of this blog is to document a few things missing in many of the instructions-written or on video—that are necessary to do this upgrade.

One reason to get the Western Digital drive is for the software. Which I will start to explain now.

Before upgrading the drive, it needs to be cloned otherwise you will need to do a full install of Windows and all other software. Alienware software is a royal pain to install.

Western Digital provides a free copy of Acronis software, the caveat of course is that it can detect at least one Western Digital drive in the computer. As a result, you need an enclosure to house your M.2 drive so it can be cloned. The one I bought connects via USB-C. There just so happens to be a USB-C port on the back of the Alienware PC. Once attached, you must partition or initialize the drive and/or format it.

Then install the Acronis software and clone the drive. In my case, this took about 8 minutes to clone the 1 TB drive. (Please note that my drive was not full so your mileage may vary.) Then shut off the computer.

One of the unique things about this laptop is that it never truly shuts off. Furthermore, the battery is not removable.

In the old days, you typically just opened a small cover on the bottom of a laptop to upgrade RAM or hard drives. These designs often had a quick release to remove the battery. Neither is the case with the Alienware laptop. No, you have to remove the entire bottom of the laptop.

Please note when doing this that many of the screws remain attached to the bottom cover and are not fully removed from the cover.

Second, the cover will not willingly come off once screws are removed.

When working on the laptop, I had the vented area at the bottom and the area near the touch pad at the top. There are eight screws that must be loosened. Four across the top, two in the middle, and two on the bottom. Circled in red in my photos.

Screws 1, 4, 5, and 6 will loosen but not be removed from the cover while screws 2, 3, 7, and 8 will come completely out.

At this point the cover will still not come loose. This next step is not shown on videos or in written instructions. You need a small flat head or standard jeweler sized screw driver. You must gently separate the cover from the rest of the laptop.

Be gentle or you will scratch the plastic cover. Start on the sides near the openings for USB or HDMI cables. Once these begin to separate work in both directions until cover is loose. Again, be gentle. You only need the halves to separate slightly. Once you have worked all the way around the outside edges of the cover, pull and it should come apart.

Once cover is off, gentle disconnect the battery from the motherboard. This connector (labelled MB) is circled in green. It slides toward battery to remove. Failure to do this step may result in destroying the hard drive or other components in the computer.

Oh, another undocumented thing is that both M.2 slots come with their own heatsink. So don’t fret about buying one either with the drive (only available for 2 TB model) or from a third party vendor.

The drive slot on the right is the C Drive. Again, the new drive can be up to 4 TB.

Remove the cloned drive from the enclosure and replace the factory drive with your new one.

Due to the heatsink, you must remove two screws instead of the customary one on the NVMe M.2 drive. Seat the drive and replace the screws.

Reconnect the battery and then close the cover.

When booting the new drive, I was taken to the BIOS program and asked to set the time before it would boot. After that it should behave normally.

Lastly, Western Digital also has another program (Western Digital Dashboard) that you can install to help with the drive once it is running. I recommend installing that.

Amazon Getting Fat, Dumb, and Lazy

I guess it’s natural that once you get to the top of the heap that you lose your edge. Amazon has really lost their edge in the last year or so. They have more warehouses in more locations but their service is becoming subpar. Often utilizing their competitors, I can match or beat their price, and sometimes their deliver schedule.

Even when they have a good price on something, their delivery is terrible or nonexistent. Here’s some recent examples.

I don’t appreciate buying a $700 lens for my camera and having it sent to me in a plastic bag. Yeah, no packing material or box, just a plastic bag with a note printed on it that they are saving the environment. Sorry guys, first, I don’t give a crap about the environment and second, if I spend that kind of money, I think I deserve the respect of having something I worked hard to purchase packaged well enough to have a reasonable expectation to arrive safely.

I bought an electric razor on Amazon on February 20th. It scanned out of a warehouse in Maryland and then disappeared. OK, first why does it ship from Maryland? Does nobody this side of the Rockies shave? Second, how did they lose it? Third, where’s my refund? My wife is not a fan of facial hair and Amazon is causing me disruptions in my marital bliss with there incompetence.

Some prices of stuff that I buy regularly for my family have literally doubled in the last six months. Sometimes its cheaper in the grocery store than on Amazon but some things that we purchase aren’t carried by the local grocery stores any more. Covid wiped a lot of items from grocery store shelves that we may never see again. Thus, we are often forced to buy grocery items online.

Amazon’s delivery is also taking much longer that it used to. Many types of items that used to be next day are taking up to two weeks between ordering and delivery and as mentioned earlier, they are selling at much higher prices.

The bottom line is that Amazon is forcing me to shop elsewhere to get the price and service that they used to offer. I have a much longer mental list of things I won’t ever buy from them anymore. Amazon is moving to become my last resort to buy something instead of my “go to” retailer.

However, I have found at least one exception to the above complaints and that is a shop vac that I recently bought at Lowe’s. The shop vac needs vacuum bags when fine dust such as that from drywall is cleaned. The manufacturer has a “marketplace” on Amazon and their Amazon prices are less than buying the exact same item on the manufacturer website. I think thy would rather let Amazon take care of all the paperwork than having their own list of customers. My recollection is that the shipping was significantly less from Amazon for the same item.

In conclusion, a decline in Amazon’s service is an opportunity for other enterprising folks to exploit. I’m just surprised that Amazon is making it easy to let others be competitive.