Nuthin’ much goin’ on here
And I have nuthin’ much to add to the fray in the great wide right now.
When I woke, it was -1F,
254K think I’m gonna stick to that measuerment for a bit,,, looks ‘warmer’ and that may ease the mind a bit,,,,
Gonna have to get out and reseal my foundation,,, I think Voo pulled the one skirt the lower foundation as the floor in the kitchen is COLD as ice. Not forming frost but cold enough to leech warmth off sock covered feets,,, and the furries are giving it a pass, even when I am in there making coffee,,, (usually in there begging for cream,,, not today, they stood off and rowrled at me, but wouldn’t come in,,,)
Day three, No work today
Looks like I’m dipping into savings this week,,,, dammit,,, Won’t kill me, but much more and I am going to start considering alternatives (and maybe I need, or should say NEEDED to do that already,,,,)
At least I own, not rent, and I don’t have a utility that can be cut for non-payment They get cut,,, like when there is no wind or sun showin’,,, Or the lines from the water tank freeze. That hasn’t happened since the first year. BUT, its at the whim of Gaia, not some knucklehead in accounting,,,, Hard to argue with Mama-Gaia and her whimsical weather choices.
(and for wind,,, the blades of my turbine are rolled aircraft aluminum, not Fiberglass,,, even in the coldcoldcold winds, they don’t deteriorate like FG blades do. They may show some erosion, but not enough to effect performance.)
As for “Goin’ Green”, I said it in my book,,, Renewables do work, but only at the highly localized levels, IE Your own home,,, Anything else (Large scale hydropower being an arguable exception) is foolish and vain (or a scam to milk the gullable) Alberta Canada is finding this out in a hard way this week. Dallas Texas found it out a couple of years back,,, (Something I find incredulous is how they word the article headlines. One was ‘Alberta hits new record in power generation’: sounds GREAT if all you are doing is skimming headlines,,, not reading the article to find that record is an all-time LOW,,,,)
One thing I figured out fast when setting my system up, was that HEAT is not on that list,,, You don’t use electricity to generate heat unless you have copious amounts of power that would be wasted otherwise. Tis why I have a woodburner and now a propane wall heater as a back up (and shockingly, they are both running today,, its cold enough that the T-stat is showing need to engage (and I think that has something to do with that cold floor in the kitchen,,,,))
Ok, I may not be making money today, but I have stuff to do to make sure I am not burning (literally) through what I do have. Gotta fix that foundation skirt and keep the BITTER cold out from under my house.
Y’all try to stay warm, even y’uns in FLoriDUH where I see your getting a taste of our lovely arctic love,,,,
Keep on livin’
((update: Fixin’ that skirt did it. one hour later, the wall heater is off, the air temp in the house is up 10F and a certain draft has gone buh-bye,,, NOW, how to fix it so a certain dawgum doesn’t destroy it again. He likes to get under there in the summertime,,,))
Well, that kinda sucked
Made it out today,,,
Simple run for the store, mostly to check my heat issues,,,, Good news (for me) : thats FIXED!!! I has heat again I did some backflushing on the heater core, using a 12vdc pump, my old 1 gallon stew pot, a campstove to keep said water near boiling, and I cycled the water through the heater core until the amperage on the pump went to half an amp. No resistence. Took about an hour. May be some gunk down there still, but the vents were blowing warm air out, and thats what counts. Anything down there still may work loose over time and things will improve even more. Or it won’t,,, With the miles on this truck,,, I’m good with what I have now.
AH, but what sucked,,,, Getting BACK up my hill on the return trip. 4×4 is working,, Just fine actually,,, with a slight exception,,, I changed that rear differential back in the summer. I knew then that it was a different ratio gear box,,,
and what that means is my front wheels don’t turn at the same rate as my rear wheels so the back is spinning wildly while the front is trying to pull the whole load,
It works,, But don’t slow down or your spinning on packed ice.
And there ain’t a danged thing to do about it right now. I need to rebuild the old Diff
OR
Replace the front differential with the one from the donor-truck to match the current rear,,,,
As for ease of swap, the rear is MUCH easier to access, but there are some VERY expensive parts that need to be replaced before I can do that, and right now, my take is;
LIVE WITH IT.
So I came home, swapped out the tires with the older ones that have actual offroad treads (narrower than the street stuff, but don’t give a damn right now) and am sitting put waiting on word as to if we are going to work tomorrow or not. Main roads are clear,
so far.
Not a single side road was scraped, NOT. ONE. That included downtown, which is a county seat, NOTHING was scraped but the main highway. And that was in process while I was out and there were still lanes not touched (nearer the county line, like where I live,,, Scrape what? thats ‘their ‘ job,,,, ) There is about a half mile of unscraped highway because there has been dispute as to ‘Who’ has jurisdiction over it. So neither claim it,,,, LOL Has a feeling that area will continue to get wider as time goes by and budgets continue to shrink,,,,
sure do hope we have some hours coming tomorrow,,, two dead days kills a paycheck,,,,Three would make me quite uncomfortable. I can only imagine the other boys are feeling VERY pinched right now,,,,((UPDATED: No go! lovely,,, won’t be hurtin’ but not comfortable either… will dip into savings if need be, but I ain’ta goin’ nowhere blowin’ money either, so there is that,,,,,))
Not many talkin’ bout this stuff
While surfin’ round yesterday (webs, not waters,,,, As if!!!! Brrrrrr!!!!!!) I saw something about some CCP Shill having a huge bite in US Agricultural real estate.
Now, there are many problems with this, first being that it shouldn’t be permissible, that some ‘hostile foreign party’ could even make the offer, let alone the buy,,,
But then I got to thinking about the sellers. The Farmers that are unloading,,,
Think about it,,, You own the property, you mostly own the equipment (as much as the banks allow you to that is,,,) and you have spent 20 years ecking out a living on such. Every season, your P&L is nearly a zero-sum race; Some years, you’re up, some, you’re down, usually ‘enough’ up that it works out for you.
But is never much, just enough.
Then some guy comes along and offers you 20% over value for EVERYTHING, all you have to do is sign and collect,,,
Principles get bound and gagged and tossed in the trunk when those figures are in tens of millions,,, Suddenly you have the means to retire, or go into another line of self employment that has a better P&L outlook and walk away. The Check is good, the debts are GONE, and you have clear sailing seas ahead,,, Fuck principles, right?
Yeah,,, thats a problem. Our Government has no principles anymore (or they have them skewed, and are counter to the Health of the Country,,,) And when it comes to ‘keep the struggle alive’ or ‘I’m tired of the game’,,, Yeah,,, not hard to compromise,,,, and ‘since the government can get away with it,,, I’ma gonna too!”
ROL? whazzat?
Look at the inner cities and tell me that there is Rule of Law still functioning? There is if you aren’t one of the chosen, or one of the tools to destroy the foundations,,,,
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Trump took the Iowa Caucus by storm last night. Left everyone else sucking dust.
Note,,, That is the REPUBLICAN CAUCUS,,, not a lead off against multiple parties. There are OTHER Candidates out there,,,,
BUT,
Enemedia doesn’t want you to think abouu THOSE,,,,, You’re too stoopid to make decisions like that, let Mama-media handle those kinds of things,,,
This two party, no choice shit needs to stop, You wanna run, RUN, there are certain rules for placing your bid of such that have NOTHING TO DO WITH PARTY AFFILIATION, and anyone can run under those rules, The REAL PROBLEM is Coverage,,, And that is slowly being pushed aside with Social Media. Oh so slowly though,,,,
I would rather see some No Namer take the Actual seat with only 2% lead over his/her nearest rival, in a race with 50 contestants for it. NO, it wouldn’t be majority votes, but the Swill that is what makes up our political class would be diluted down to nearly safe to drink,,,, And there would be so much rivalry within the halls, that stoopid legislation would become GLACIALLY SLOW in production,,, Not these 6000 pages Legal-eze nightmares that are passed one week after introduction, that are so full of pork and graff,,,,,
sigh,,,,
maybe someday,
maybe after I am dust on the winds,,,
It’s still snowin’,,,, Its still colder than my Ex-wifes soul, (ok, maybe not THAT cold,,,) and I need to get on the erg and start workin’ up a sweat,,,, OR,,,,,, I am gonna go a lee-tle stir krazee and start writing that self-help book,,,, And if I open up that rabbit hole, there ain’t no coming back until its complete,,,,,
Keep on livin’,,, stay warm, stay safe,,,, And all of y’uns in FLoriDUH,,, Don’t, PLEASE do not tell me about the 70F weather you are having,,,,
Still snowing
Hasn’t let up once today, might have thinned out some, but never stopped, and now, is really coming down. (Not whiteout, been in those)
Looks like we have a reprieve followed by another smack down a day later,
Then things drop through the basement floor Satyrday night
Blech.
February is gonna suck,,, I can already tell.
And that will make the Spring oh so much sweeter when it hits.
March 20th, Spring Equinox,,, usually followed with 3-4 weeks of near winter ICK, cycling up and down. Different ‘Springs’ that take place as the locals call them: Redbud, Dogwood, and Blackberry. About one week before redbud Spring, I see the lilies; sometimes even poking out of clumps of snow. THEN, I know spring is coming on fast.
Eight more weeks of my least favorite season,,,12 more weeks before the waters start to warm back up (winter run offs are COLD,,,) Not that ‘that’ will stop me,,, But it does make for ‘more gear’ and that dampers my enthusiasm some.
I’m in full winter mode now. Woodstove going, propane backup at night or when I am off working. Have the storm lantern lit, turned down low, as lighting for moving around sprawled furries. Takes a lot less ‘tricity: juice that isn’t being replenished very well right now (no wind, no direct sun, panel voltage was at 13.4 at high noon today. .1 amp flow rate from that. Thats not even maitenance charge rate.)
Yup,,, more time on my hands with little to do,,, reading/writing/thinkin’ takes much of it, and I do have the Erg and isometrics for when I start to get ‘twitchy’ with boredom. I have to keep a sign in the fridge too: “you aren’t hungry, YOU’RE BORED” or I will eat myself out of house and home and get round like Voodoo in short order.
So when those warm(er) days arrive, I have things I CAN do on the porch, but as I found today, epoxy ain’t likin’ that cold. Its curing, but its soft still. No removing clamps YET,,,
And the annual cat box cleaning will start again. Kittehs don’t like the box, but its there for times like these, when they will hold and hold and hold because they don’t wanna go out in ‘that white stuff’ to do the bizniss,,, I can go all summer and fall and not need to clean that box, but when the snows start to blow,,, poor babies, finding need of that evil box,,,,
Shuffled Buffalo around in her stall. She’s now facing outwards, 4×4 already engaged and ready for the morning. Only one ‘hicle been up this way, or out for that matter, and that was a Cuz visiting with Unk. At least the snow has been broken once before i have to leave out in the mornin’.
ANDdddddd,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I just recieved a text from Son of Bossman,,, No work tomorrow either,,,,
ok,,, I’ll figure somethin’ out,,,, Hope y’all like reading my drivel,,,,
Keep on livin’
Enough guilt to start a religion
Hard nod to Tori Amos in the title there.
Reading back over my morning post, I realized that, yes, I have enough going on in my head/soul/quantum reality, that I could write one of these myriad ‘self-help’ books that are so all over the place. And a new one every month,,, And next year, there will be a new grand name that sells a million books in one month and everyone thinks ‘this time, I got this,,,,”
Yeah,,, Got enough guilt, to start my own religion,,,,
One reason I have been enjoying Jordan Petersons work is in his use of the bible, the oldest ‘self-help’ book (still in circulation so to speak) I like his interpretations of things, versus the evanglical “ONE WAY< THIS WAY<NO OTHER or you’ll burn in hell” take on things. Sorry,,, words have meanings, and can be interpretted many ways, and sometimes a deliberate omission is more damning than a mistranslation. Of which there are many in the KJV,,(the goto version on these shores )
Now, my ‘religious’ side is quite odd, but then, I am quite odd,,, I don’t go into it much here, though more here than elsewhere as this is my catharsis site. And I don’t expect anyone else to take it to heart when I do discuss it. It’s just my formulation that doesn’t create dichotomies, or conflicts inside me. It’s been borrowed and quite literally stolen from every danged ‘religion’ I have studied: some from Christianity(ethics) some from Buhdism (afterlife) even quantum mechanics (afterlife/overlife) and more. I then toss it all into a blender and see what comes out the other side. And there are always new ingredients being added as I learn more and more.
The deeper you look, the more you will find me.
Thats a bible passage though I don’t know if its verbatim or paraphrased, but it IS the one passage that comes to mind when you start looking into Quantum mechanics and how most EVERY Scientist that jumps on that bandwagon, becomes ‘Born again’. (don’t believe me, look into it, you’re in for a shock,,,) It’s a lot of why I started believing that we are only,,,, stop, let me explain the “we” part first. we= what we percieve as us on THIS plane of existence,,,, It’s a lot of why I started believing that we are only AVATARS of ourselves, and the REAL us exists in the Quantum cloud. This avatar is only capable of so much retention and processing so our true memories are locked away from it. Those that have acheived ‘messiah’ status in history were able to access more, MUCH more of that cloud and that brought them to their ascension points, be it peaceful or violent.
BUT,
WE are all a part of that Cloud, be it a quantum cloud, or what some call GOD, (we were all created in his image,,, right? )
This is a simulation, for entertainment, for education, for self-fulfillment, whatever you need it to be. Re-read that. WHATEVER YOU NEED IT TO BE. The rules are simple, Improve yourself,
And know, that no matter what your self-image, the rest of the world sees it differently. EVERY. TIME. and there are as many translations of you as there are people that observe you. Reality is internal, make it what you want, the rest of the world will interpret it however they see fit and you have no say in that.
I like Elon Musk. Here I get another chancce to ‘prove a point’ using his personna. So many people see him as ‘the wealthiest man in the world” or some such. Some see him as a greedy capitalist. Some see him as a scammer of Tax revenues in government kickbacks.
Some people have good views of him, some negative, but everyone that knows his name has an “impression’ of him. And they are all ‘right’ and completely ‘wrong’ at the same time. Oh, there may be a bit of truth in each view, but its only a grain of sand that makes up the whole pile.
What I see is a man so intensely focused INWARD on his dreams, that his visions percolate outward and effect the rest of the world. I see a man that spent 2(3?) years sleeping on a cot on the production floor of his factory, to make sure HIS vision was pushed out correctly. I see a man that looks to the skies as ONE solution to the many things that ail this planet (IE US,,) and while he may not get there himself, IS trying to create something that will propel us outwards. (DD Harriman-esque for the Heinleinians among my readers)
When I saw Elon tell the world “go fuck yourself. if you think you can blackmail with money, GO! FUCK! YOURSELF! I hope thats clear enough,,,” I loved it. The man can’t be bought now,,, his DREAMS are too real, they have become self-sustaining.
And his enemies can’t see that because they are focused on what they want reality to be, not realizing that reality isn’t. They can’t see that each of us IS a reality unto itself and we only borrow from others as needed to ease the passage along. You can NOT, SHOULD NOT, attempt to push YOUR perceived reality on others as thiers: its wasteful of your time and energy, its never acccepted well, and its just down right fuckin’ rude as well. Polity is the grease that keeps things civil in a cloud of chaos. Present your vision and let others adopt or reject as they see fit. If your vision only gets rejection, maybe you need to reassess it,,,,
Perfect is the enemy of GOOD
Don’t try for perfection. just be the best you can be, and strive for a little better, everyday. Doesn’t matter if you are a burn-out meth-head starting over, or Elon Musk at his peak. A little better than yesterday, every day. Kindness carries further than anger (though anger can carry you quite a ways,,,with a high price) One day at a time. Its what we have: the future is an illusion we write on, but there are other authors writing it too.
One day at a time,
keep on livin’
Go kayaking, get wet
write your world with all greenlights
Don’t worry about happiness, find joy where you are and work to grow THAT. Learn to not Give a fuck.
see, all those self help books,,, they percolate the same damned message.
BE YOU AS GOOD AS YOU CAN BE
Hi, my name is Dio and I am a kayaholic!
Hi Dio,,,, welcome to LIFE.
(tip jar is on the right, help yourself,,,, I’m here all week.)
It get’s us all eventually
And my friend The Boring Old Man posts his views on it
Funny that. We all make choices, sometimes so spur of the moment, long term thinks can’t come into play. And No One knows the future,,, Prognosticate all you want, you will most likely be wrong.
Too many variables.
I own a home. No mortgage, heck, no utility bills,
but I have regrets of taking this road. Hindsight is 20/20, its part of that Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge curse we took on back in the garden. We found Self-Awareness, We could see how we hurt, why we hurt, and KNOW how we apply that to others.
And we can see the past.
Unlike our pets who live RIGHT HERE< RIGHT NOW, and only enough memory to form loyalties and to do tricks. Pain is felt, but not in the same ways as we feel them. Hurt your dogs feelings and 10 minutes later, Still your bestest friend, no grudge, no resentment. (unless you make it the norm,,,)
Not so much with peoples,,,
We can’t go back and fix our stoopids, we can only use those as lessons learned and try to not repeat them. But we will, in some way, or come up with completely new ones. We are merely human afterall. Across the windows of time, you can see that the Human Race doesn’t really learn ‘The Hard Lessons” all that well. Societies rise, Societies falter, Societies fall. and the cycle continues apace. Life goes on.
And when you are living in the moment, its the absolute worst that you can imagine: until it gets even worse.
or comes to its conclusion and the cycle starts upwards. Sometimes that moment can seem to be the downturn since we, as humans, resist change with bullheaded determination. I am sure the horse breeder of 1900 felt that the automobiles were the worstest thing ever,,, And was absolutely correct for his particular ‘Reality’.
Reality
Time
WE are both
and neither.
we wander this world doing what we were put here to do, not knowing what that was, nor given and instruction manual, and most will make a return to ‘try again’. and again, (Apologies, my take on things, yours may not mesh too well with it. ) One theory that I read say’s that we are souls being ‘trained’ to be harvested for some nefarious purpose. And when I look around at the froo-froo kray kray of the world, I wonder if that isn’t just the point and that we are nearer that harvest point. BUT, I don’t particularly like that idea, just keep it as a ” what if I’m wrong ” point in case new data comes to hand. I personally think we are here for one of two purposes. Educational, or entertainment. Some of us come here to learn something in particular in such a way that we don’t blow up the universe. (our quantim selves have that ability, so they contain us in this compressed energy form to keep the universe safe: like teaching chemistry in a controlled classroom. Might blow up the lab, but the world is still alright.)
But in some cases, its as entertainment,, like a mini-vaca from the ‘reality’.
But we never KNOW,,, no instructions, no users manual, NO MEMORIES from former times (this may be a false statement, but for the most part and most cases, I stand by it.) We are here, now, and moving forward into a quite fuzzy blurry future that we manipulate in some way, and don’t always know HOW. Or even WHY.
As BOM states, getting older, you get to see the ‘regrets’ a little clearer and you begin to understand that, no matter how many they are, they are what brought you to this point, right here, right now, and there is no changing that. What CAN be changed is how those points will carry you forward. Do you let them weigh you down and hinder your progress, or do you learn from them and improve. (hopefully that last) And you never know if ‘that one’ that makes an huge impact on the world will have been inspired by something YOU said or did, in passing through thier small sphere of reality. I would imagine there is some primary school teacher that takes great pride in having been the one that taught Elon Musk how to add numbers. He is ‘just a man’ as they say, but his life has intersected countless others, directly and indirectly, and somewhere in there, someone had some ‘sway’ in how that man moved forward. No one knows AT THE TIME, when they are making an impact of that magnitude: its the butterfly wings creating hurricanes half a globe away.
You never know. So how do you ‘fix’ your self to reduce the bad influences and increase the good?
Attitude and carriage. Fix the bad attitude that everything is “shit” (working on this myself, everyday, and its a fight) because your mindset, SETS the stage for how you deal with others: if everything is shit, you will treat others accordingly. Start by being kind, smiling, and holding eye-contact when speaking to others. (fake it till you make it,,,, it does work) And stand tall, shoulders back, confident that you are a child of the Universe/God/insert your chosen higher power here, and that your time here has PURPOSE. It will find you,
and remember this one thing, stated best by Mark Twain. “The two most important times of your life: the day you were born, and the day you figure out WHY.”
——————————————————-
Ok, enough ‘introspection’ on my part, on with the frivolity of living,,,,
——————————————————-
Snow day. No work. That injun that was creeping up on me with a knife in his teeth yesterday ended up being a blow up dummy with a rubber knife,,,, Still up before the sun, And the world outside is blue and white right now. Pretty decent sized snowfall for this region,,, Might take Rio sledding today, certainly won’t be kayaking on water. (they don’t clean the boat ramps and those bastaches is steep. No wanna know if Buffalo can swim, yaunnastand?)(THOUGH, if I had a Drysuit, that would make a seal launch a flippin’ blast,,,,whoooosh down the ramp and BA-Whoosh!!! into the water,,, ROFLMAO,,,)
Kold, Meme’s, Confuzzed
Wanna print that’n up and post it at my driveway,,,, For those less than ethical types that think ROL isn’t on the rocks and protects them.
IT’S KOLD (like No Shit, Sherlock,,, What clued ya?) out Workin’ on the Nordkapp today,,, cleaning up that hole, removing the Chimp Pump (aka bilge pump) All the stuff from her for sale is now boxed, ready to ship, IF it needs shipped. Makes it easier to keep track of on my shelf, and less likely to get tossed into a corner to be forgotten forever,,, Flippin’ KOld out,,,, Have one small section under clamps and thick plastic as the basis of shape, holding a small section of matte and epoxy in place. FIgure leave it there this week and maybe was the sun hits it, it will cure some.
Or I scrape it all off next weekend and figure something else out. Sort of a trial by Ice experiment here. I did have the epoxy parts sitting near 90F when I mixed them, so they should have started catalyzing before the cold air got to them,,, once they start, the process continues, cold only slows it down.(updated 9pm: epoxy is currently ‘tacky’, sticky to the touch but not coming away on fingers. GOOD! will cure just fine, just takes longer.)
NOW, about that confuzzed thing. Gotta tell ya, there is a lot going on of late that I keep looking at, reading about, and the more I look and read, the more confused I get. This whole Israel/Palestine dust up, that has kicked off Massive Anti-semitism and so much more world wide,,,, I don’t get it,,, I can see arguments in all directions but,,,,
It seems more like a Cancre that has been festering for a LOOooooonnnnnngggggg time that has reached Boil stage and is now getting lanced, and all that poison that has been building up inside is pouring out in some rather unexected places.
And then you have the Pro-Palestine protests,,, Gays for Palestine,,, Feminists for Palestine,,, Do these people not understand that Palestine is MUSLIM???? Ie, Anti-Gay,,, Anti-Feminist,, Hell females are usually considered PROPERTY in most Muslim countries,,,,
Don’t get it. Just do NOT get it… Either I’m an ignorant innocent simpleton,, Or the world is bugnutz insane, or some combination that just,,, I dunno,,,,,
I keep saying it. WE (America) have enough problems and the Current KlownKar Shaminstration just keeps pouring more kerosene on the fire. Kudos goes out to Guv Abbot for actually growing a pair and sending in Texas National Guard and taking back part of his state from Federal Traitors. Wanna see a LOT more of that,,,, Maybe if the Guv’s start showing true mettle in thier spines, the Illusion of legitimacy the FedGov clings to will vaporize. (I don’t see it as anything remotely legit these days, but I am one person, and there are many that still are in ‘awe’ of the blob.)
Hat tip to Orvan Taurus for this Link. Yup, the TRUTH always comes back, it may take time, but it doesn’t need ‘support’ like a pack of lies does. It WILL COME out,,, Bastard needs to swing: preferably at the end of piano wire around his testicles for starters.
Not gonna rub it into anyones faces, DIRECTLY,,, you know who you are that fell for the sham, I don’t forget, can forgive to some extent, but don’t EVER try to shame me like that again,,,, I won’t be so nice next time around,,,
but its Sunday, the workweek is creeping up on me with a knife in its teeth, stealthy like, Gonna jump me at first light,,,
And it’s gonna be KOLD week,,, Maybe two,,, That may mean low hours because I won’t weasle around to get hours in when I am freezing my arse off.
Weeks like this, I wanna hibernate in someplace like this
FAR far away from all the muss and fuss of the world. Don’t need much, and what I see there looks just dandy,,,, Toss in a small garden, a black powder rifle, and 50 miles from nowhere thats 100 miles from somewhere,,,,, yah,,,,
Keep on livin’
Dio's Workshop 