Roll this’un out in style
No predictions, not from me this year. I think its safe to say that all the cues are saying this’un’s gunna be a rough one, wyrd one, ugly one, what have you one. No need to delve into all that: far too easy to create self-fulfilling prophecies.
The Boring Old Man has his ducks in a row to “Reverse the Bad”.
Ox is joyridin’ time machines apparently.
My only complaint about the upcoming year: The bad we see forthcoming is not due to anytihng other than simple Selfish GREED of individuals/Narciccists. People that are so full of themselves and have taken nefarious paths, paths that lead ever deeper into darkness, that they can’t won’t try to own up/reverse course. These bad actors know that to do so would bring down JUSTICE and that is something they just can’t face in this lifetime. That justice is coming, and the longer it takes the more severe it will be, and not neccesarily by the hands of those done wrong, but in the hands of the Author of this particular plane.
As I was saying to a fellow Emp at the J.O. B.; “It may not make you a popular person, but it will make you one that everyone trusts: just tell the truth, or say nothing at all.” The people alluded to in the prior paragraph have built empires of lies and the lies are failing as more and more microscopes of inquiry are applied. Unfortunately for the rest of us, those lies are tied deeply into the foundations of everything else. The foundations we were told we could build our lives on.
And as my linked article from yesterday points out, there are many that have built entire world lines around lies, obfuscations, and pure fancy. Those are the ones that prop this fantasy realm up even as it collapses around their ears, all while they blame those of us that see its all illusion and just want the bullshit to stop so we can get on with the REAL build back.
The lines are drawn. The chasm widens. The fun has not yet begun.
But thats where we are. Where we are going? Down river most definitely. They always flow in one direction (mostly,,, but lets not get nit-picky) Time flows ‘thataway’ and thats what this river is doin’. Maybe this river is about to go through some Class6 canyons. Maybe its about to dump us into a tidal race surrounded by cliff faces and deep rocks.
I’m fair certain its not going to lead us into calm open waters with a following wind. Fact, I can say that betting that way is a sure fired loss.
I’m rollin’ the year out on water, the same way I rolled this’un in. Tomorrow, I will be rolling the new one in (metaphorically and actual) on water. I considered taking camp gear and ‘ringing in the New Year’ while sitting next to a campfire on some remote spot only reached by foot or boat.
The only thing other thing that remains the same in my world: I will ring this year in the way I have the last 14; Solo. I don’t go out and party or congregate. I will spend my time with friends next weekend as we don’t all run in the same circles and get our little circle together slightly off centered after fact. I rather prefer it that way. Quietly, sober, reflective,,, Seems a much better way to look forward, and lord knows, we have many reasons to not want to look back.
Looking forward though,,,, I wish you all the best in a world gone mad, may your houses be solid when the houses of the UN-Holy start to fall (they are failing, but not falling, YET) When things look bleakest, look to the streets, look for those kats that carry on when all is lost, look to them as your mentors, Perfect little murder machines that face down bears and lions,,,, Let them be our ‘spirit guides’ in our world gone mad.
And in what Universe does this twit reside?
Sorry, Ya gotta go read this,,,, but keep the brain peroxide handy,,,, may be cooties on this pile-o-turd,,,,
“”Lichtman added: “He gets credit for nothing. It’s just amazing: I’ve never seen a president do so much and get so little mileage on it. He has more domestic accomplishments than any American president since the 1960s. He’s presided over an amazing economic recovery, a far better economy than was under Donald Trump even before the pandemic“”
Say WHUUU!!!! this person obviously does not pay for thier own groceries straight out of pocket,,,, I would imagine thier Butler does the shopping and manages the household budget and the only time this ‘person’ sees a bill is when he is talking to his accountant.
Reality, here in Fly over country,,, SHIT SUCKS, EATING IS GETTING EXPENSIVE, HIRING SIGNS ARE EVERYWHERE, AND BUSINESSES ARE SHUTTERING OR READY TO SHUTTER AT THE NEXT FUEL HIKE.
FUCK JOE BIDEN and his BUILD BACK BETTER,,,,
apologies,,,, I am backing away from the keyboard now,,, shutting down the browser, and going to go get on with living my life (for however long that is still feasible)
Carry on.
EOY thinkin’
it’s the zero darks out there right now, sitting here at my desk, scanning around the netz, thinking
tomorrow is New Years Eve,,, I started this year in a kayak, and I am thinking that I wanna roll it out in one as well.
Won’t be using the same kayak but what the hell, a boat is a boat is a boat, right?
So, today has been designated Domestics day, gonna do the laundry and all the other stuff I usually do on me Suhnday, and I have Muhnday off as well, so I may do a back to back day, roll out one, roll in the new, from a kayak cockpit.
No, I haven’t recieved my Drysuit yet. (it isn’t scheduled to ship until Jan 6, I keep watching for it but,,,, As said to M last night, with where it’s coming from, I won’t start to get uptight about it until late Jan: all reviews mention either super fast shipping or took a month, but nothing in the middle.) But when that comes in, my winter kayaking will take off, let me tell you. Best hold me down if you wanna keep me off the water,,,,
It’s cold out there today; not quite freezing, but a cold enough 36F. Supposed to go up a bit over the next 24hrs but still winter conditions around here. Been there done that with my current winter gear, will again. Just need care and observation: start getting chilled, call it quits. (I think it was 29F last year when I took that pic above.)
Up early, by default. Grizz is busy chasin’ Mamakat, who is in heat again and off Kattin’round. She’s a freemartin,( can’t get preggers) so I have no worries of multiple fuzzies arriving in my life in 6 weeks. And I won’t lie, Grizzy being distracted like this has been a blessing of sorts. Was able to get REAL sleep last night, no interruptions by furry. Love the little bugger, but there are times where all I want is solid sleep and he just doesn’t understand that. (he is the only one, Mama and Zooms leave me well enough alone unless there is lap to be had, or they can see the bottom of the food bowl.)(someones ears must have been ringin’: mama just popped in wanting her mornin’ crunchies,,,)
Dunno ’bout y’all, but there is a serious melancholy in the air this year, forboding even. Maybe its me, seeing all the varied directions things could spin that is driving it (and I would say that is the case) Seems like people are holding their cards much closer to their chest this year, keeping things close at hand, not getting spread out. I know traffic on 25E is down quite a bit,,, Still truck traffic, and no hard evidence, but seems much lower than usual this time of year. Do know that UPS and FedEx did NOT hire additional drivers this past holiday season, and that sent up some red-flags for me. Things are much tighter and appear to be getting more so.
Bah!,,, I need my water therapy or I will start going all morose on ya,,, Just another day, right? (do the domestics first Dio,,, Right, gotcha, ON IT,,,)
Keep on livin’
That time of year again,,,,
When all the bloggers start prognosticating the upcoming year.
Well I ain’t,,, Not this year. The only prognostication I will push forward is what I did yesterday at the end of my post. “The downward spiral of the toilet bowl has commenced” and that things are gonna get worse and WIERDER yet.
That leaves everything up for grabs.
Here’s what I am forcasting for myself. I have spent a goodly portion of cash and this year getting certain gear in place. What ever comes, I have “OPTIONS”,,, I may only be one person in this world, but so long as my brain is functional, my beliefs and knowledge will continue to be used and spread, someway, somehow.
And while I am certain that things are going to get worse (and wierder) before they get better, I still strongly feel that it ‘won’t be that bad’ when viewed in the Macro. You start to focus on one area, one littlle microcosm of the world; yeah, shit will look like Hell on earth. You can do that at any point in time and place and show how horrible things are. Thats hardwired into us: we ignore the blessings looking for that beast hiding behind every blade of grass. Been like that since we came down from the trees and we have never seen need to breed it out of us. (its a survival trait, get rid of that, who knows what this species would end up as. That in mind though, I believe we would make good pets, but not much more, and that begs the question: “pets to whom?”)
As for the political realms,,, Let those fuckers burn to the ground so far as I care. THEY are the reasons we are in the dire straits we are in, THEY are the reason our economy is tattered and bleeding out on the shores of history. THEY, our self-designated leaders pretend, with no fingers on the pulse of reality, THEY THEM Whatever title/epitath you wish to bestow upon them,,, yeah,,,
But I can’t blame it all on them, there were millions of soft=heaed types that believed that pile of steaming dog-doo hype.
Interesting times,,, Those I promise. Specifics,,, Not even gonna probe that minefeild this year, just gonna walk around it and stroll into this new year with shoulders back, clear eyes and mind, and resolve to survive another day,,,,
Whalloped that bear!
thanks to Steve at Techsupport,,, That bear was beaten black and blue and when I left the site at lunch, the job was DONE!!! Gate moving freely, all Fobs programmed, keypads set up (not programmed, that’s the Security guys job now, and I did show him how,,,)
And thanks that fine gentleman at TS, I now have some more arrows in my quiver for dealing with these gates. He probably didn’t intend for me to make certain connections for ‘cheating’, but then, He dunno Dio,,, LOL I now have a way to bypass most of those sensors so I can set up things ‘normally’ and then install the sensors.
What happened? There is a sensor called a bump edge. Its a remote unit so has a Xmitter/reciever thing going on. Well, Factory fresh unit was bad right out the gate, and because it was bad, it fubared the rest of the board and she wouldn’t do diddly,,,, NOW, I not only have a way to bypass that mess, I know how to hard reset the boards, ALL OF THEM,,, Big advantage (these units have a mother board and one to three auxillary boards and they all have different protocols for reset, but I now have that key LOL_)
I also now have certain parameters that I can check with actual expected voltages and resistance numbers, so Tech support may be ‘not as needed’ next time around.
And I do have two more of these units to install yet. Maybe the next two will go smoother,,,,
Scratch that,,,, “The next two WILL go smoother”,,,,
Been a good day, and I learned more and I LOVE learning things,,,, The dopamine rush from learning is purty daggum awesome,,,,
FYI, we switched makers of the units we install after a certain, not to be named maker, pulled a fast one on us with a warranty issue. They claimed that only ‘Factory trained’ installed units were under warranty. The point that drove Bossman over the edge and say ‘never again’ was that they hadn’t even established a training program of such,,,, SO, after (gross estimate) 30 installs of that make, we swap out to a different one and I get to learn NEW systems and protocols. The one today was my third one (fourth one? Losing track already) and I am actually GRATEFUL it fubared on us. I was getting nervous that these things were Unicorn Controllers and not subject to laws of complexity or something. (and boy can they be complicated for something that “opens a gate”,,,,)
_________________________
On other matters, I read this after getting home.
The downward swirl of the toilet bowl has commenced,,,, Fully expect that things are not only going to get worse, but WEIRDER. Our status on the world stage is showing signs like what we see in our current resident pretend,,, Dementia patient controlled by unseen string pullers who care nothing about consequences,,,,
I am expecting to see $4/gal or higher gas prices by end of January, and of course all fuels going higher,, Deisel, Propane, you name it, up up up up,,, And that will trickle down to all the rest. I saw where people were complaining about food costs eating out over at Irish’s place and well, We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet,,,
The flailing of our dying government is going to hit every single one of us, even if they don’t escalate targeting conservatives. (I do expect that though. They need a scapegoat to point at and get the sheep to attack as distraction from thier failure.)
We live in interesting times,,, And even with the world falling apart,,,,,
I’m goin’ kayakin’! Youbetcha!!!!
Keep On Livin’!
Another day at the office,,,,
Somedays the bear gets you,,,,
And today, that bear was a sneaky one. Got around me and then right in front of me and I fought and fought,,,,
to no avail, couldn’t get this one under control.
This bear, goes by the name of a ‘dumb’ motor controller and is probably going to take a group effort to tame and get back in line. I spent a bit of time this eve on the phone with Tech support, hoping that maybe they had some clue if this was user error or some other obvious dumassery.
Nope,,, even the support peeps were like “well, it shouldn’t have done THAT,,,”
yeah, no shit huh?
So tomorrow, I get to call them back, referencing the problem number and we are going to walk through some tests. Me on this end with a DVM doing the manual side of things, them with the technical manuals on thier end directing my hands,,,
AND HOPEFULLY, get this bear back in its box.
but my brainium hurts. I went at this thing every way I know of and that problem just wouldn’t budge.
And to piss me off more, Everything was working perfectly at first; I had high hopes to be able to wrap this mess up quick,,,,
Dashed on the rocks those hopes are,,,, they rode a 40′ swell right into the beach and rocks and are now laying scattered up the coast line of this job,,,
I’ll lick this mess yet, but definitely had to call support in this instance. I don’t like doing that, but even the techs were asking ‘why didn’t you call us earlier?” and I had no good answer,,,, Stubborn I am, and thats the only real reason,,,,(and I fully expect the issue to be ‘something I did wrong’,,,, I’m not above admitting my own errors,,,,)
That first cut is the deepest,,,,
One of the things Brudda B and I discussed while camping, (thats open for public release, not all of what we talked about is,,,) was ‘what to do with Lizzy,,,,’
Final solution is, Do as ye will. I have been watching three other ‘sales’ of a Nordkapp HM (what Lizzy is) and they ain’t movin’ for love or money
I bought a white elephant.
SO, whats the White Elephant solution.
Cut that Cockpit coaming out, make it a keyhole arrangement as I prefer. This isn’t as nightmarish as it may seem, I won’t even need Gelcoat ‘to hide’ my cuts.
My biggest problem with Lizzy is that cockpit. It feels restrictive as all hell. Can get in it, but getting out, I bind up just above the knees and that concerns me ‘in the event of a wet exit’. I’ve one other boat that does something like that and I did get bound up on an emergency exit: Duh!Kee. (and part of me is thinking that was the birth of my flat water anxieties) I did get out, but only on second try and already half out of the boat to begin with. Very disturbing situation that could have been much worse if there had been waves/swells. She even stole my shoes, right off my feet during that fiasco. As an example of why this is an issue, I will illustrate an wet exit I experianced in the ARC on BuckCreek. When the boat went over, It happened FAST; so fast, I was IN the water before I could even react and never felt the boat leave my hips or the skirt come loose from the boat. So fast that I came up with the paddle in both hands still paddling,,,, Much safer situation than being in a boat that could trap you in itself in such a way that you couldn’t effect a roll (like when I capsized Duh!k.)
SO, cut that coaming out, build anew, and give her a go again. Her value is what I make of her at this point, not what I can get out of her. (and if someone reading this feels otherwise, get with me in email or comments and let’s talk. I would rather leave her intact and to someone with love for the boat than destroy her intrinsic value of X to become Y)
BUT,,,, What to do about the skirt and cover I have for her. They won’t fit with the new cockpit. Sell those, there IS a market for them as I found the last time I listed Liz for sale. Sell that bloody bilge pump too as there is a market for them as well. (that WILL need gelcoat to ‘hide’ the hole it would create, OR I make a day hatch out of that hole )(will do that)
WHY? Lizzy (gonna have to change that name) is no tippier than Duh!k, very similar in handling. Duh!k has only put me in the water that once and in hindsight, was circumstancial: high winds, wide blade paddle in wrong position, green newb in cockpit. I have more experiance under my belt now, do have a roll and practicing it, and I don’t use a euro blade anymore (except on white water which these boats don’t see)
And I DO want a 17’+ long boat. Maybe her hatches are too small for winter camp gear, but they are solid, no leaks. She is FAST, and that is what I want far more than a battle barge that will haul all of my gear (thats BJ’s job)
AND (2nd WHY) I want a race boat. Lyssa is a great little boat, but I am technically TOO big for her. My wieght is just below that max payload she is rated for and so putting anything in her along with me maxes her out. And it shows in her performance when I do. She’s an all arounder dayboat for me.
I know, I know, I am talking in circles trying to “justify what screwed me up more and left me breathless on a shredded bed‘ here. Fact is, there is the “you let a boat defeat you” vibe I would have to deal with if just up and sold her. And I can still turn around and sell her later if I find I still don’t like her (have never been able to get comfortable enough to really get to know her, due to that ocean cockpit .) Her value as a boat won’t change any (seeing how they aren’t moving anyways,, zero is still zero) and maybe with a keyhole cockpit, someone would find her interesting at least,,,,
and that gives me a project that I can play with over the next couple of months when things are less than conducive to paddling (will still, especially after that drysuit comes in,,, but you know what I mean.)
Bzzzzzz goes saw! No turnin’ back once that first cut is made.
Posting this on Dec 27th 2023, First cut starts 01072024. IF you would like to buy an original ’92 Nordkapp HM that is sound, contact me before then!
Dio's Workshop 