Tempurature was slated to drop into the basements last night, so, I built ‘one last fire’ for the season,,,

And did a dummy thing.   

The control pod for my amplifier was resting on the wood burner and dummy me didn’t think,,,,

didn’t think, that was the problem.

This control pod is a hardwired to the amp/Subwoofer and is the input/crossover/volume control, so lots of little fiddly bits inside there, even though it looks simple.

and now,,, its sorta twisted up and warped lookin’

and the amps go Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with no other sounds forthcoming,,,,

Amazingly, (or not. depending on your experiance) Zon had a listing for a replacement unit, aftermarket, from some guy that has reverse engineered the things (they are no longer produced and patents are open book now.) for $40,,,,,  Same dude also has a website that lays out the PCB and parts listings for anyone with the knack (and inclination, which I lack currently) so, he isn’t in it for pure profit: more like love of an amazing peice of audio equipment that was left for dead by the original manufacturer.   (note, you can still buy them on evilBay and for not much more than they went originally, to OMG!AYFKM?!?! prices.   For those inclined to great sound in a small package; Logitech Z-2300 system.  check it out.   The replacement designs were always lacking, never an improvement.)

So my house is silent for a short spell while I await replacement parts to arrive.  

yah, I pulled a dummy,,,,

more laters

Just follow along,,,  I dunno where all this is goin’; just gonna type it out like I would with my thoughts before the phones went into our pockets and notebooks and pens where the record keepers.

We’ve gotten soft.   Not just individually, (especially around the middle as we have aged,) but as a species.(modern western culture especially)   We have it TOO GOOD in more ways than are healthy.

Think about it; here in the Ewe Ess of Aey, even our poverty stricken types have better access to food and other ammenities than the peasants of the middle ages had.

And idle time to contemplate how miserable they are.

As a species, we are hard-wired for strife.   Seriously, we expect the shit to hit the fan yesterday, and when it doesn’t, we subconciously start looking for the next failure/SNAFU/Tiger in the bushes,,,   

In fact, I can tell you this: all of my brightest memories are from some of my darkest days.  The days where I had next to nothing to work with, IF, I had anything to work with, and the only solution was to McGuyver the living shit out of something to make it work.    Stuck  in the desert with a busted five-ton sucking air instead of fuel,,,, BUBBLE GUM and I was back on the road.   Sitting on an improvised shitter with dissentary under black skies in Kuwait, thinking, ‘This is hell” and how I became the serious contrarian thereafter.  (yes, that was the beginning of the end for my Marine days,,,,)

We seek strife, and when none is to be had, we create it.  We see the boogieman in everything, from the economy to whats going on in the family.   I think in no small way, we can even make ourselves physically ill so that we have some issues to deal with.

And we build prisons for ourselves striving for something to ease the pain of existence, because our existance is so “MEH!”,,,

Because we have it so good!!!

I know that my next meal is ‘in the bag’,,,

I know that my next meal is a choice.  Multiple of choices in reality.  I don’t have to chase it down unlesss I want to jump in my truck to get something different, and then, I know that what I choose is a given, not a throw of the dice.   I don’t have to worry about whether or not the mammoth are where I expect them to be and if I am going to be able to make that kill when the time comes.   My choice for a meal is right there, no strain or stress involved.   (unless I make it so,,,)

We got it too good.

We have it so good, people have enough free-time to play at being in the dark ages (Renn Fairs) or at war (Civil War re-enactors) or dig into history (I actually like these) trying to figure out what we lost way back in time.  even going so far as to MAKE the tools that might have been used to create the thing we lost in time. 

I have said “we are the most spoiled generations” a time or three, but seriously, we are the LEAST FREE.   Sure, we get to make all sorts of decisions but at the end of the day, we are so ENSLAVED by the pursuit of the almighty dollar to make our other pursuits doable, that we aren’t really at all free.   And the younger ones are in even worse shape than us oldsters.  I think that’s why I see so many of them just dropping out of the race,,, And you will find many of them on Utoob making videos about the very things I already mentioned.  Chasing history, looking for solutions, and making a buck or two if their ‘channel’ starts getting popular.

And its even sort of cool that we are at a point where we can look back with the microscope of humanity (the individual) to figure out what we left back there, and maybe see if we shouldnt have.   Some of it, like socialism, leave it in the dustbin.  but some things,,,,    Maybe they aren’t all that important, but maybe, just maybe they are the key to figuring out something NOW,,,

There are even those that look further back

We got soft.   Those back in the days, even just a hundred years back, were so much tougher and hardier than US,,,   They had to be: Life wasn’t ‘peachy keen’.

And I don’t recall reading about massive amounts of depression (mental type, not economic,,, I know someone is going to bring up ‘Great Depression’) or suicides.    We didn’t have 35% of the population on mood stabilizers (rough guess from some reading,, dunno the actual figures) with drug addiction among the remainder being ‘EPIDEMIC’.

Mark Manson wrote Everything is F*cked and that book keeps coming back to haunt me.  He even says, right in the fore, that his ideas aren’t original, only his approach.   The idea that we NEED strife to be happy is key in that treatise.    It’s when we have it so good that we feel so damned insecure.   But put us under stress and strain, REAL stress and strain, not this contrived trivial bullshit of political kabuki theater:   WE SHINE. 

If we have it all, then what’s the point?   It’s when we aren’t ‘secure’, that we find our strengths.

“what I want is what I’ve not got,  What I need, is all around me.” DMB-Jimi thang

No small part of me wants to ‘get back’, go to the roots again.   Just unload this cup I have built up since 2008 and start over again.   Not because what I have built is ‘wrong’ perse, but because its getting Too Easy,,,  and too narrow at the same time.    I find I am chasing that dollar more, and not exploring enough.  

I feel like I’m on a ratwheel, going nowhere, but time is not slowing down (the hell, its got its foot on the accellerator and pushing it through the firewall!)

and tomorrow, I jump right back on that ratwheel and start pumping my little legs as hard as I can to keep it moving for five more days.    

I’m thinking that this coming weekend, I am going to head to the woods or lake for awhile, leave the phone on the charger in the truck and ‘step back’ for a change.   Take my old ‘thinking tools’ with me: a notebook and a pen; no TECH stuff.  Its time to declutter again.

Live

LOVE

Learn

Laugh

LOAD

(this might explain my recent absence)

Some of my readers may not be aware of who Voodoo is.     #75 Catahoula Cur, ‘cracked glass’ eyes that appear dead white, or Ice-blue, depending on lighting.    And a character,,,  Always has been since we joined paths.

That was back in 2012, when I was working on Pickdawgs place in central Texas.   40 miles from nowhere and that nowhere was 60 miles from anywhere.   I would go two weeks at a time, not seeing a soul that wasn’t in a car moving at 70mph.

One day, while working on the rifle range, I caught myself talking to the scorpions.  Realized I was going just a might stir crazy.   I looked up at the sky and stated, “I just wanna dog!”

A couple of days later, this Furball arrived on my doorstep and acted like he had known me since his birth.   Dehydrated, but not starved.  Pick called around to his neighbors to see if anyone knew of a lost pup, (and he was a pup, maybe 6 months old.)   Nopes,,,, just out of the clear blue, I had a dawg. Here is the orignal post from that time.

Today, around 10:20, Voodoo’s heart beat for the last time.   Yes, I chose to have him laid down, versus seeing him dwindle further and further into decrepitude.   Hip displasia, deaf as a doornail, cataracts forming, and losing control of the back legs, showing obvious pain.   The last couple of days, I had to help him get back onto the porch since he couldn’t get his rear-drive up high enough to climb the single step.

I knew on Thursday that this was the right choice.   I made the appointment, was told “$50 for the euthanisia if you are taking the body home with you.”, and that day, the customer I was working for tipped me a Fifty,,,  Universe was telling me, ‘it’s time to relinquish my gift and let him go home.’

Rest in Peace you inglorious bastache of Dawg-dom.  Go up there and teach the other mutts a thing or three about Catahoula Curs and their reputations.   I’ll see ya on the rainbow bridge when I get there.

No way out but through,,,

I’ll be back when I’m fit for human company

Note to Spud: YES, I say kabuki theater.    From Trump tweeting that he might seek a third term to the caterwaulin’ against Tesla/Elon (which has been, for the most part outside of a few lone Loons BOUGHT AND PAID FOR)

Kabuki Theater………  

Those tweets from Trump: cannon fodder to draw out the lunatics that think he is serious.   The man is a master at media manipulation, as he has proved time and time again.   SO DON’T GET YOUR PANTIES IN A WAD OVER IT.   That we had a puppet president for 4 years seems to have slipped most peoples minds (and yes, there is more and more evidence coming out that NO, SLo-Joe was NOT running things, nor signing things,,,,)  And yet, you didn’t see Conservatives burning dealerships or vandalizing property of the Left, now did you?    

We took it, and when the time was right, crossed our fingers and hoped that the system was going to actually work for once.  

And here we are.   You do not want to see the other option.

As for the rest of it,,,,,

UNTIL I start reading about certain crimimal types in high places being escorted out of home/office in CUFFS, I don’t give a rats ass what carrots EITHER SIDE wants to dangle.  Its a damned circus and WE AIN’T IN IT, and I refuse to give it more consideration than a cursory  pass to maintain SOME semblance of ‘informed’.    I’m just waiting for the arrests or the total collapse of the dollar.    OR, in the remoter parts of this illusion, Iran getting uppity and dropping dirty bombs at random on the east coast.  

And until then

LIVE

LEARN

LOVE

LAUGH

LOAD

Let the goofiness commence,,,

More laters

Thunderboomers threatened this area all day; no one but your’s truly worked at the J.O.B. since shop time doesn’t need to account for weather (as much).

And being Muhndaze, I was sluggish from the word ‘go’.   The more I pushed back against that sluggishness, the more tired I felt.   I accomplished ALL of the points I was tasked with, but brother, I’m beat.

Gonna just let the stuff o the world slide off my backside like a rain off a duck.  Lots goin’ on, but lookin’

KABUKI THEATER

yawn,,,,,

Not up to it today.   Nap time calls.  

Live

Learn

Laugh

LOVE

LOAD

End of March, feels like early March instead.  Not KOLD, but cool and damp and dim,,, Lots of cloud cover up there today blocking ol’ Sol from the surface.

Sorta too bad that I decided to do my set up where I did yesterday, over the origninal plan.  Too many prying eyes where I did set up and didn’t want to stay long.  Had I been able to set up at the point (way far away from put in) I might have made the call to Da “gonna camp out tonight, feed me kats please,,, Cya tomorrow”  

Had that happened, I would be able to give ‘first impressions’ on bad weather capabilities of that ‘Kit’.  Not that its rainin’ and blowin’, but it is damp as hell.    ElBee came in shaking and throwin’ off the damp a while back and called it a day. (he’s now sprawled on my bed, ‘DONE, not goin out, mreow!’)       Granted, I don’t like tearing down gear in the damp.   Would much rather it be dry when I tear things down. BUT, its camp gear, it’s designed to be damp at least every once in awhile.   Would just have to set it up Temp-like to dry out at home.

And I do enjoy paddlin’ in the rain,,,,

But not today.   SOON,,,   Probably in a couple weeks, after the schools re-open from Spring Break.   Clear things out a bit from the campsites before the summer crowds hit. (Also known as BUG SEASON; the flying blood sucking kind and the more noiseum two legged sorts.) 

Speaking of bugs,,,,,   Even yesterday, there were gnats: not swarming like they do in summer, but enough that I did see them.   Won’t be long now and the Skeeters are gonna be out in force.   At least we don’t get the Crow sized sorts like the coasties do: the ones that arrive on aircraft carriers and swarm entire campsites with blood and buzz,,, Bug nets are the only hope in those instances, as the bug spray is a mere intoxicant to those monsters, making them bolder and tougher,,,,

Anyhooozzzz   It’s time for me to be productive and get my cleaning out of the way.   No fun n games until thats done, and looking outside right now, that may be ‘sit and read’ day,,,,

live

learn

love

laugh

LOAD

Update: I thought I had hit publish on this around 7am, ,,    oops