Ruminations, perturbations, and observations
Scanning through the webs today, just to make sure I have a finger on the pulse of the rest of the world, I ran across some things, things that make you go ‘hmmm?’ and other things that stopped me cold in my thoughts. Enough things that I thought I should get them out to share with others.
This whole Corona/beer/batshit virus thing is off the chain. Never have I seen our government going so far for something so little and the actions I have been witnessing vicariously through blogs and the occasional glimpse on the MSM’s seemingly doesn’t match the reality around me. In the words of Bugs Bunny, Something stinks! Assessing the situation, knowing that this is still early in the usual growth curve of viral anything, maybe I am jumping the shark here, and maybe those running things know things we don’t. Time will tell. But, as was mentioned in comments over at Irish’s place, has anyone reading these blogs met or know personally, any one person that has contracted this virus? We hear reports of “some un-named person” coming down with it locally, but,,, Hey, news is what news is, right? (and like I said to my sister, the Media is geared for fear mongering, not news) We also know that Major American News Networks are not going to tell a truth if it smears our government.
And that brings be around to the ruminations of Vaping again. Y’all know that I have been fighting the smoking thing for years now. Since last year, I was doing very well by switching to a vapor pen type nicotine source. I know that its not ‘quitting’ if you are just transferring the addiction to another source, but by God, the difference in my breathing was fast, and I had dropped the coffin nails completely. THEN,,, Suddenly there was outcry against Vaping and how it was killing people (less than a thousand last I heard) and even schills in DC were talking about how Vaping was a pandemic that needed stopped. (notice a parallel conversation here???) Finding the pods for my Vapor-pen has become an increasingly difficult task, and I have started picking up the cancer sticks again. And I find my breath is getting shortened, yet again. (Yes, I know. I really just need to quit, but honestly, the body count if I tried to go cold turkey would be staggering!) and then I read this article, about Disease investigators trying to track down Patient Zero of the CovID19 virus It’s only mentioned in passing about the potential connection of Beer bug and Vaping and possible misdiagnosis, but that along with some of the other stuff, and all of which checks as fact,,,,
I don’t believe in Coincidences,,, The Government shuts down a BioResearch lab ran by the Army, Some people get sick and its blamed on the newest Fad in smoking, and then some athletes from that same area attend an event in Wuhan China. Four weeks later, people are dropping like flies, and the world shits itself and begins shutting down living. There are other articles with similar content, but that one covers most of it. Please, read the whole thing.
Hollyweird can’t make shit up like this. Every aspect can be tied together and all of it stinks of a government trying to cover its ass by shifting the blame and slinging poo at the watching crowd. Keep watching, but I bet that this thing fizzles out by August and it will be on to the next disaster of epic proportions.
Then you have the fight between Commie Bernie and Dementia Biden,,,
God, if that’s the best the opposition can come up with,,, I can’t even,,, No words,,,, It’s just disgusting.
Tying all of that above together gave me another thought to ponder. People are shitting themselves over a what may just be a hyped up bug, clearing store shelves like Armageddon is right around the corner, and we have a presidential election coming up that has the absolute dregs of high society for Candidates running. Have the American people really devolved into such SHEEP, that someone blowing their nose causes them to lose their collective fucking mind??????
Now for the thing that stopped me cold.
Taken from The Woodpile Report.
Prayers for Remus. Stay dark as long as you need Brother, we can wait. Take care of yourself, don’t follow to closely behind her.
I’ll leave it at that for now. Question everything,
Gonna do it!
I shared in another post that I’m contemplating another Kayak. Well, I made my decision today.
Took Duh!k out for a spin on the lake after attempting to repair the leaks she acquired on that last scrape run down the river.
Nope, leaking worse. Not enough to sink me, or not enough to sink me fast, but definitely leaking more than I am comfortable with. The scrape marks aren’t the issue. Its the seams at bow AND stern. I buggered the welting up good, scraping along the Cumberland river two weeks ago and the leaks are graduating from drip to dribble.
So, while Duh!k can still float, for awhile, before needing bailed out, she isnt going to be trustworthy of a longer run. My fault of course, so she hasn’t been ‘trashed’, and there may be some strange thing I come up with to seal these leaks from the inside. (Can’t just reach back in those cubbies, they are 6′ from the cockpit)
Besides, she was the learning boat, and she has taught me well, and still has that potential for more, like the rolling thing! What little water she is taking on is minor compared to what I will deal with when rolling.
So! The other boat is on the drawing board, and the plans are being laid. First order of business is to go ahead and get all the little geegaws and stuff together before hand, unlike with Duhk, where I ended up waiting for stuff to ship, and one one occasion ‘over-engineered’ out of antsy-ness.
I’ve already discussed the details I am looking for in previous posts, so no need to go there.
As for why the sudden ‘git-r-dun’ shift. It spurred from a conversation. Someone mentioned failure/success and talked about how they’ve never been successful: and I thought to myself ‘only because you’ve never Failed! And only because they never TRIED!” (And there are those that say ‘I could never do that’ and I have to clamp down on my tongue to keep from saying ‘You’re right!’. Most people would take it as arrogance but its more agreeing with them, because they have already talked themselves out of “Do-ing”.) So, while Duh!k was a success for a first time boat where I had no real experiance to support me, she has failed. The failure is due to my inexperience, both in the build and use, so I take that failure, learn from it and make this one that much better. More elbow grease, more research, more materials, combinations thereof, but this one WILL be better.
I won’t bore you all to death with continual updates, but I will post the occasional pic as things go along. Thats in the near future: gonna order all those geegaws and bric-a-brac before the saw blade touches one gunwale. Those geegaws are extra sinew, skin and dope kit, more pigment, and another sprayskirt for a larger cockpit opening. I’m considering ordering the coaming and skirt together from Brian as the coaming takes way more clear wood than I have available currently. It requires a piece over 8′ long and I do have sections that length, but not clear. Pin knots sneak out on you when steaming them. I have had three attempts and had each attempt split out on me ; so far. Thats fine as the wood can still be used for ribs or lammed up for deck beams; it wont go to waste.
Addendum: I started writing this just after returning from the lake. Next Yak is still on, but I managed to fix the leak in Duh!kee. I mixed up a batch of 5 minute epoxy and injected it (killing a good 50cc syringe) into the skin of the area where the dribble was at. I then clamped off the area with a handclamp and a section of polyethylene cutting board, tipped Duh!k tail high and poured 5 gallons of water into her. The water was to force the epoxy back out any offending holes. I waited 20 minutes, removed the clamp and had to pry off the plate. Sanded the exposed epoxy smooth, but no leaks! Then did it again on the stern.
She should be good to go now.
But I’m still going to follow through and make another one. Just improved from all the silly mistakes I made on Duh!k.
Just thinking
The more I get the Duh!k on water, the more comfortable I become and the more we ‘fit’. That odd rib beside the point, things are getting better. I did a little edging today and while she seemed sluggish, I did find that if I leaned enough to get the gunwales in water, she would turn. And thats not quite roll zone. I have to have the gunwale and some of the deck and cockpit submerged before she hits the “lets duck daddy in the water” mood. Granted, thats flatwater only. You start tossing the surface around and things can get squirrelly fast. That was one aspect I wanted to learn today by going to the bigger lake. Power boats make wakes and thats the one thing I don’t get at the small lake I usually head to. Even with a 6″ swell abeam, she stays stable, though she feels goosey. I’d venture she could ride much bigger with no issues. Driving into the swells, I found that timing my dip and stroke to the bottoms worked great: reach the top and set up for the next stroke, hit bottom and pppuuullllll,,, repeat on next swell. She would hit that next swell, slice right into it and raise her nose like a breaching whale and I would set the next stroke up. Waves abeam were ok, so long as I was moving forward: goosey, but not hateful. Getting caught standing made her wallow like a pig and really taxed me on supporting strokes. I only let that happen the once. I wasn’t out long enough for a try with a following wave; maybe after I get the leak fixed and hull retrimmed… All in all though, I am not sure I need to make another kayak. The Duh!k is filling my ‘needs’ quite well, and the Carolina fills the gaps. The only real downside to the Carolina is weight: no load, she comes in at 63 pounds. Thats a beast when you’ve been paddling for several hours and you need to climb a hill to get to the take out. And those climbs are frequent enough around here.
If I do build another, and it is still quite possible, it will be as proposed already; wider in beam, slightly longer and flatter mid-hull. But I am thinking that I want to experiment on bulkheads and hatches in a Skin on Frame design. I have seen Tahe Marine Greenlands with hatches and am pretty certain they are SOF. Having separate chambers for gear would be nice, but the addition of a pair of float chambers in the event of a capsize is an even bigger incentive.
Change is never permanent
He knows that changes are not permanent, but change is. Tom Sawyer by Rush.
The only true prediction is that shits gonna change. How is where things get murky.
The book I was reading (The Rational Optimist) was published in 2010. The author kept bringing up climatechangeglobalwarmingnexticeage hoopla throughout it, but towards the end showed how it didn’t really make a dent in his perspective. What struck me was how quickly thoughts have shifted from one paradigm to another in such a short span of time.
Yeah, I’m a global warming/climate change denier, and proud of it. But thats not the point here, its about how shifty ‘collective thought ‘ is. More so since the advent of the internet. Even more so since the near ubiquitous use of smartphones.
This is also in no small part due to news sources, the above items are only vehicles. It shows me that programming is even easier once you put the source closer to the person. The flip side of the programming is that having the source closer to the person also allows for them to have counter-programming available.
But not always.
One example I’ve personally seen is in a friend of mine. No net, no TV, no smartphone (oh yes, this is a real person, I’m not making this up.) Whose only news source is NPR. You can probably imagine how specific his opinions on world events are since he does not recieve any counter-viewpoints through ‘reliable sources’: my points don’t count because he knows me. Its funny how that works; he accepts as word of god, the opinions from people he has never, will never meet, over someone he sees everyday and works with and knows.
“Why would they lie?” He’ll ask. “People would call ’em out if they were lying”. To which point I say “people do call ’em iu, but you don’t hear that because you don’t see/hear/read those sources.” Its not 100%, but more information access should help a person form better opinions.
Not.
Most people don’t want to think for themselves and the newsie types and their controllers are well aware of that fact.
Another item I have heard frequently is how there is a growing concern that a majority of people have zero savings and live paycheck to paycheck. They talk about it but never offer any solutions. What burns me about is ‘the problem’, as they put it isn’t a problem, but a symptom. I was there where they are talking just a couple of months ago. Zero savings, one check away from catastrophe. The problem, as I see it, is education or lack thereof. I didn’t understand how fluid money is and the reason for that was I had been taught wrong. Those questions I had made me learn. Maybe too late in life to leverage them properly, but I am seeing improvements now. I have money set aside, and its not hurting my day to day.
That just goes to show, that even with a plethora of information available, its not the information, but questions that matter. If you arent asking the right questions, the answers don’t mean anything.
So how do you know what questions to ask? That’s the real trick. My answer is ‘just keep questioning everything!’. Don’t settle until your answers answer themselves. No one can ‘know it all’, that prospect is just way too big, but a body can know enough, if what they know answers the questions of their days. I despise specialization, but it does have its merits in many cases. The main reason I despise it is in scope: a specialist has a narrow scope on the world and there are times when a broader scope will provide solutions unable to be seen by said specialist. Points of Merit: a Doctor specializing in Cancer Research. Points of Failure: a Poitical Scientist specializing in Socialism. One of those benefits humanity, the other is a parasite.
Seating (more yak-stuff)
Pulled out the horses so I could work on Duh!k at a reasonable level. Pulled all the old foam out of the seat area and cleaned things up. Found one of the ribs had taken a convex curve on the width at the bend and that was what was riding on those nerves, bones and blood vessels. It was definitely the problem all along as it was that cheek that was aching. A strip of 80 grit and some elbow grease and I smoothed that lip out and rounded all the corners just a bit more. Not too worried about structural issues as there is another rib 2″ forward of that one. Touch up the area I just worked on with some tung oil and spent some time looking at things, thinking.
I gathered up some materials, 550 cord, another sheet of 1/4″ foam, contact cement and I was ready. I laced that cord between the ribs and snugged the lacing tight then locked it with a double hitch on the end to hold it all in place, then moved the boat to the floor for a test fit. Much better even without the foam pad. Back to the horses, cement and foam layed over the lacing and a bag of sand to hold it in place while things cure. Without taking her out and doing a long run like I did this past weekend, I can’t know if this ‘fixed’ the issue or not, but things definitely felt better. I may find my balance point is higher too and that will effect handling. Maybe she’ll turn now. Maybe she’ll roll like a spindle on a lathe. Can’t know till she’s afloat with my knock-brained self in it.
I will use this for the next Yak before it gets skinned as its much easier to access the area then.
I also flipped her over to really get a look at those wear marks and was even more impressed by this skin. There are three places where the outer urethane was rubbed off right to the nylon! She never leaked! Not one drop! The water I had in her when I got out was from my shoes when getting in her. Not enough to reach the end of the bilge pump and barely enough to get with the sponge. What was in there flowed out when I hefted her up to portage up the bank for pick-up. (Note: the bottom finish was done in three layers. The first to saturate the cloth, the second to fill any odd spots and the final to smooth it all over.)
I’m going to go ahead and order the touch up kit anyways, but it is not essential, more cosmetic; and peace of mind as where its worn won’t take as much to wear through. $15+s/h is cheap peace of mind in my opinion.
Now I’m anxious for another day on the river. We had a little rain today, and are expecting more this week, so it could be the water level will be up some. That makes for a more enjoyable run for certain. Even if I don’t get things touched up, I’ll get out and see how my modifications worked out.
Happy socialists day
And another year agone. Interestingly enough, this year has seemingly crept by for me. Maybe its due to all of the wonderful things I have been stuffing into my cranium; from building kayaks, learning how to use them, figuring out money matters, and how to use that, among a multitude of other stuff. My reading list has been completely off the chain this year. I had to add another bookshelf to my wall, and thats only for the deadtree editions. My kindle app is about to burst at the seams from all of the ones I picked up in electron form.
My writing has not only picked up, but improved, if only in my opinion, but definitely picked up. Far too many nights where I am pushing my eyelids up with fingers and seeing that it is almost dawn, yet again, and I still have to work the regular “one good Day Job” (thank you so Very much Gin Blossoms for such awesome ‘songs to work to’ to keep me motivated when my batteries are about depleted.)
I have some bad news though. I have to cease posting chapters from the upcoming book due to licensing agreements with Amazon. Yeah, its my intellectual property, but to publish, I have to agree with their policies. Sorry, thats just the way it is. That last post was the last up until I go live with the whole thing. Luckily, I don’t have to take any of it down as it has changed ‘just enough’ to fall outside the agreement. What hasn’t changed is small enough to be ignored.
So, its Socialist Day, no work arranged, and I have a date with a Duh!k. C’y’all tomorrow.
PS: I have been cigarette free for 11 days now. Yay me!
Random misfires from Dio
Nope, not relating to mechanical things or boomsticks, just one of my random word-spill posts about everything and nothing.
I really jumped into the rabbithole with those questions I posted a few months back. With that in mind, I gotta say it: our educational system is WOEFULLY inadequate. Here’s a simple example; did you know that Sir Isaac Newton was the progenitor of the original Gold Standard? Yup, the guy that created Physics, defined several natural laws, etc was also a Treasurer of England and helped usher in an economic evolution by tying a commodity to a fiat currency. I had no idea until recently.(wasn’t the first I’m pretty certain, but was the first documented Name of such.)
So where does that lead to, Rothbard? Mises? Keynes(if you can decipher his dribble from his drool.)? How about Rush!?!?! (The band, not the talker.) The song ‘Lessons’ is one of my favorites. Or “The Trees“; a perfect analogy to the lunacy of government interventions in race issues. “The trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw.” is the closing line in that one. What a way to use analogy to state that all government policy is backed by a loaded gun. (Billy Beck said “at the bottom of every government stack of papers is a loaded gun.” Sadly he stopped posting years back, and now I can no longer find his site.)
Book writing is work, but something I don’t find as exhausting as other things I have done. In fact, I have to set an alarm on my phone to get me out of the chair and doing some stretching to keep from getting all stiff and achy. To keep the muse from blowing away like dust on the winds, I have to have the alarm ease in to full volume. If I didn’t, as I found out a week or two ago, I’d keep going until I was not worth a damn the next day. Sorry, not giving away any hints of what I’m writing currently. Maybe later when its near finished and I need it screened by an unbiased source, but not yet.
The How to book is going back to the printer for its second round of proofs. I could probably make this easier on myself by using Kindles creator, only,,,
Kindle doesn’t have a Linux version of it and I really have zero desire to go back to a win’doh’z unit. Not the first time and won’t be the last, that I have had to ‘make do’ due to my ‘puters OS. I’ve never had luck with the emulator ‘wine’, it always crashes my system.
Ok, now i have to spill it all out. My current rabbit-hole has my teaching urges itching like a mess of chiggers. I’ve even found myself scoping out apartments near my daughter so that I could be closer to teach the granbehbies, or at least try to teach them something. I know my bloodline: we are all stubborn, thick headed mules when it comes to learning. We do learn, eventually; usually after the 2×4 has broken over our skulls, but we do learn. And we NEVER forget the lessons. But the stuff I want to show them is stuff that will never be shown to them if their education is similar to what mine was. (More than likely its worse now. In some instances, I know it is worse.)
My moving back up there is an idle thought, and not likely to happen; I’m rather anchored in here with a house, shop tools, fat dog, and preggers cat. But slaking my thirst to teach is becoming a distraction in other areas.
And its not helping that about half of my bookshelves are buried under educational texts that I have purchased so that I have tools for teaching the grandkids. If I have never stated it, my dream in high-school was to become a teacher. Its been a rather convoluted journey so far, but I never let that dream go. With that said, I wouldn’t want to be a white male teacher these days: to many ways a disgruntled student could ruin your career, especially with it being so easy to do things with cell phones. (Locally, a male teacher was recently sent to jail for receiving a ‘sext’ message from such a disgruntled student.) As I am white, and quite certainly male, I’ll pass on getting set-up for annihilation like that.
Maybe if I were to say I self-identify as an owl. 😜 Naw! I’d still have to deal with the libtard delusional mentalities running the incarceration education hellholes. Pass.
NEXT!
When does one stop worrying about collapse and start embracing it? How about when you realize that we our well into year 10 of it? Yup. That was my conclusion after I posted up that chart the other day. FYI, a rumor flew across my emails a day or two ago about Trump “possibly” re-establishing a gold standard. No idea if its real or not but a little digging and I am seeing reactions that indicate its either possible, or the rumor is wider spread and people are reacting accordingly. If it is real, get gold now. Not certificates, but the hold in your hand heavy stuff. (Quick check this AM and gold was sliding up again. $45/gram and rising.) The reactions from the Keynesian side will be worth documenting if this is real. If you can’t get gold, go for silver as it will likely scale up as well. And if you can’t get silver get the other three precious metals; lead copper and brass, because you never know. Note: a gram of gold is slightly smaller than a US dime: easier to store, carry, and use if need arises. One dealer I know of sells a ‘credit card’ perforated in 10- 1gram squares. If you can find them, you’ll likely pay a premium for them as they aren’t common. Said dealer has a 10% markup on the ask level for his ‘cards’. I mentioned in the post talking about “life after google” that blockchain is likely the wave of the future in finance, and this doesn’t change that opinion, it would only delay it, maybe. It may even accelerate it as I think going back on a gold standard at this juncture, especially if the rumor is accurate about fixing it to a $10000/oz mark (no typo there, 4 zeros!). I can only see turbulent times for all; savers investors, and business. Banks are going to be fighting this tooth and nail because it would kill fractional reserve banking; at least at the level they are used to playing. Note, the last two times that something of this ilk was proposed, the President was either killed or shot at. JFK proposed a silver certificate and died. Reagan started discussing it and was shot shortly thereafter and the whole matter disappeared. I am not saying there is a correlation but it sure is pretty coincidental.
Again, I have zero information of the reality of this,,,
Money may not be the root of all evil, but large quantities do attract a shitload of evil.
NEXT!
Stoopid is as stupid does, Right? I can’t figure don’t want to figure out how the stoopid has become so prominent in our world, and there are days where I feel I am an extra in the Idiocracy movie. Its scary. May be that the area I live in is just a little thicker in dumb than other places, but I hear from others that they witness the same. Good lord, we need something drastic to happen if that’s the case. Yah, seems a little ironic coming from a guy that wanted to grow up and be a teacher, huh? That isn’t the cause of that itch though; I know one person can’t make that drastic of a change without an exponential amount of violence first. I’ll pass on that too. I read something recently over at Irish’s place that fits. “If I lived everyday as if it were my last, the body count would be staggering.” Yup, I can say that would be fitting.
ayup! when the intelligence vampires are about,,,,
Dio's Workshop 
