2025: marzo
Screenshot by Nick M.W. (WBN)
Where the eagles cry on a mountain high.
We have completed twenty-five percent of 2025, which means were closing in on twenty-five percent of this century gone. History. The 21st century has mostly been a mess. It’s been a long time (in the U.S. at least) when things felt normal, when things were calm. Socially in the U.S., it’s been a clusterfuck since 2016. Perhaps aliens are messing with us. Maybe it’s all their fault. I’m talking about the ones from space because nothing of this world can be so wonky. We must be experiencing alien intervention. E.T. phoned home and told his friends how crazy humans are. In an attempt to help steer the world back in the right direction, they reanimated Joe Biden’s corpse and planted one of their own in the husk of that man’s body. No one was fooled. Things got worse, and here we are now. Big Brother times. Nothing makes sense, and the more you try to figure out what’s going on, the less sense anything makes.
In spite of this, we are tasked with two things: just keep moving or just give up. That’s real. Team “Give Up” makes a compelling argument, especially when they lean into the hard truth that none of this matters, so what’s the point? That’s a dark way to look at the world, but it’s a sentiment that is usually shaped by the nature of the world as it intersects with an individual’s reality. If that is your truth, it is difficult to deny. On the other side of the coin, there is Team “JKM”. These folks have the superpower ability to steer their attention away from negativity, from suffering (past regret and pain, anxiety about the future), and just keep moving along. They get over something by leaving it behind and forgetting about it. Is that healthy closure? I think so. Does it make everyone feel better? No.
Wherever you’re at in your life on March 31, 2025, I hope it’s a place of peace and a place of worth, as in you mean something to someone. As in you are making some positive contributions to humanity, even if it’s just making people smile. Even if you’re just a crutch to lift up others. There’s seventy-five percent more of the year to go, so just keep going.
Where Eagles Dare
Shout out to the Friends of Big Bear Valley (FBBV) for hosting the “Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest Cams”. It has been a fascinating watch all month long. Jackie and Shadow are local bald eagles who have a nest up in a tree near Big Bear Lake (Southern California). There are two cameras that are fixed on the nest to capture these eagles’ daily lives—one camera is just above the nest, and the other one is in another tree just off to one side of the nest. Jackie and Shadow have been in this nest since 2017, which was when the public was introduced to them.
Screenshot by Nick M.W. (WBN)
The FBBV have a nice audio/visual setup. The sound picks up all the action in the nest and in the surrounding woods. It’s mostly other birdsongs, but there must have been a few moments in the past eight years when the microphones on either camera picked up a coyote yowling or some drunk hiker brazenly swearing out loud. The backdrop for the nest is something to behold. Majestic Big Bear Lake in the distance, shimmering on sunny days. It’s breathtaking and serene. There is an infrared light affixed to the camera for night time viewing. We are told that the eagles and other animals can see the light, so it doesn’t disturb them. However, a recent snowstorm jacked up the infrared light, and it hasn’t been working since then (and at the time of this blog’s publishing).
The first week I started watching the live feed was a few days after the third and final egg had hatched. I missed the pipping, which (apparently) was bad form on my part. The egg-hatching was on the local news, but I hadn’t yet been swept up in the birdwatching zeitgeist. I got with the program kind of on a whim, and I was immediately captivated by the majesty of nature. That first night (March 6), I watched Shadow bring a coot to the nest, and then Jackie fed it to the eaglets. It was rad. Later that evening, I threw the feedback on for ambiance while I sat at my desk to write. I let it run for around two hours. No music. Just the night wind and some rain while I wrote.
Screenshot by Nick M.W. (WBN)
The following week, the mountains were hit with a snow storm. The nest was encased in snow and ice, except for the section that Jackie kept warm for roosting. While the scene elicited a strong sense of coziness and contentment, as I observed from my warm, safe home, viewers were reminded of how brutal nature is. There is no fairness in how things shake out. One of the eaglets was lost to cold less than two weeks after it joined this mortal world.
I noticed Jackie and Shadow were down one eaglet on the morning of March 13. All three were there the last time I saw them, which was the night before. I scanned the overnight footage to see what happened, as did thousands of other people, and no one spotted the precise moment when the eaglet died. There were three of them being feed at sundown. Jackie and Shadow switched places, with Jackie settling in for the long night shift, and that was it. But, at some point one of the little eaglets was pushed out of the nest. Its body would be visible about a week later when the snow started melting.
Au revoir. Life moved on. Jackie and Shadow had the two other eaglets to care for, and what does an eagle’s funeral look like anyway? Viewers didn’t get to find out, but we did watch Jackie fly away with the little body. Hopefully, these two kids can make it out of the nest, and perhaps one of them will return there one day to raise a family of their own.
The Ol’ Ball Game
Baseball is back. I wrote about it on FarFromProfessional.com. Shameless plug, but is it a plug when there’s no audience to see or hear it?
Here are my division winners and Wild Card picks for MLB 2025:
American League
AL East: Baltimore Orioles
AL Central: Kansas City Royals
AL West: Texas Rangers
AL Wild Cards: Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees
National League
NL East: Atlanta Braves
NL Central: Cincinnati Reds
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Cards: San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies
I’ll save the playoff predictions for an article that I’ll never write because I stopped making predictions after two bummy postseasons for the Dodgers when I predicted them to at least win the pennant. I’m too much of a homer to bring that bad juju on them again, but I’m not completely blinded by my fanaticism to suggest that they are easily going to repeat because of the talent on their roster. The road to one championship is hard enough. Repeating as a champion is next to impossible, like they share a wall.
Castle Park
“Temu Disneyland” is a harsh way to describe a beloved local (Inland Empire) amusement park, but it’s not far off. No one expects a little spot like Caste Park in Riverside, CA to be able to hang with Disneyland, so it wasn’t as if I set high expectations. I’m familiar with Castle Park. I know what the deal is. Still, the place is in need of some TLC. A touch of paint here. A kiss of cleanliness there.
Photo and image by Nick M.W. (WBN)
My wife and I had a date there once, around fourteen or fifteen years ago, back before we tied the knot. We had some beers and played miniature golf. It was a fun night. Yesterday, we brought our two kiddos there for a few hours on the last day of their Spring Break. With the family, even Temu Disneyland is a fun time. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we have cool kids, and that’s because they have cool parents. We can have fun wherever we go. We’re not pretentious, and our kids follow suit. There’s a caveat here. Our little guy has autism, and he finds a lot of joy in the simplest things in life, so we don’t necessarily need to “go big or go home” when it comes to entertainment. Sometimes, the bigger and louder and more extravagant something is, the less likely our dude is going to be into it.
I read that the ownership group who runs Dollywood recently bought Castle Park and Raging Waters, a classic local water park from my childhood. Hopefully, the new ownership can infuse these parks with some cash and modernization because they offer local families a more affordable option to have a good time together. The demand is there; Castle Park had filled up by the time we left in the late afternoon. What families need are cost-friendly options. Disneyland is a fun time with the family, but there’s no saving money at that place.
Photo and image by Nick M.W. (WBN)
Saturday Night Special
Yeah, I’m still doing this. There’s no purpose for it to exist, which is probably why no one bothers to watch it, but I have fun doing it. One day, it’ll mean something, damnit!
