……..the saga continues.

As expected, the massive recent show of airborne force and over-the-top stupid bureaucracy has wafted away into the ether of office work. I am sure there are meetings being held somewhere and paper is being shuffled to and fro from office to office, from desk to desk. There are committees being formed, of course. Meetings.  Some of the paper is sitting on desks, of course, ‘because Madge is on holiday’ and ‘Bill is on sick leave’.  But the process is on. The wheels of justice, intimidation and due process grind slowly and expensively.  And, not in the least, mind-numbingly ineffectively.  But it is all slowly grinding, I am sure.

With luck, the main perpetrator will pass away before anything further happens.

And given that he is unwell, insane, in his sixties and walking amongst the domestic equivalent of IEDs and bear-traps that he calls home, such a statement is only a bit exaggerated.

There’s a book in it.  There really is.

On other matters, I am now attending to a little dog called Yacky, Yappy, Zappy, Zippy or something ‘appy’ or ‘affy’ like that.  Doesn’t matter, he doesn’t respond to any of it anyway. A pair of neighbours asked Sal to care for their dog while they were away.  Sal, of course, enthusiastically agreed.  “Oooooh, look!  A puppy!”  And then she left for the weekend to go see her sister.  So, it is just me and Daffy.

There’s a book in that, too.  There really is.

Prior to her most recent escape, Sal and I have been shingling our way through some battery-bank work.  I have some new ones coming soon but the old bank will have to do for now and they were simply not holding up their end of the deal.  Going a bit lame, they were.

Which is odd……?

I know they are old geezers.  I get that.  I can even relate.  I am sympathetic.  Empathetic, even.  But it seemed like they were fading a bit too fast even if they had the lead-acid equivalent of Shingles (which is called ‘sulphation’, by the way).  So, what the hell…..?

We took eight of the twelve off line, separated them into two groups of four and left them for a day.  We tested them when they came off-line and one in the first group was bad so I put it on a separate charger.  The other three in that group seemed OK so we just noted their state of charge (SOC to the battery hip).  The second group had a bunch of differing readings so we left them for the day to see how they ‘settled out’.

By the next day, the good three of group one were the same (one down a smidge) and the bad one – even with the charge – was still bad.  So, that told me I had a weak link in that first group.  The second group had two that dropped a moderate amount but two that stayed up.  So, after finding the best four, we put the system back together with eight batteries instead of twelve.

I now have one bad one, two OK ones and a moderately good one sitting on the bench. Almost 600 pounds of do-nothing.

Satisfyingly, the eight are working very good.  Of course, they are working better than the twelve had because the ‘dead’ guy is now out of the loop.  One dead guy requires two healthy guys to carry him.  So, it makes sense, really.  But none of my guys are young and healthy. They may be healthy for their age but they are old.  For lots of energy, it is best to go with young guys and my new recruits are on order and should be here within the month. In the meantime, we are paying special attention to our old guys.

Well, I am.  Sal is away.

Oh?  The Shingles….. you want to know about the Shingles?  Well, it’s boring but since you ask…… mostly gone. Some weird nerve pain here and there (I feel my appendix scar from almost 50 years ago!).  A few lingering symptoms.  Nothing horrendous. Diminished sex appeal it seems, being the most cruel and obvious.  A guy could get lonely with only batteries and a dog called Dippy for company.

I can’t wait to get cute again.

Not to make too big a deal about it but it is kinda weird….we have so much room out here between people and there is so much tolerance for eccentricity, that what occurred recently is pretty rare.  NOT without precedent, mind you, but definitely uncommon.

Someone made a complaint the other day to the authorities about a distant neighbour.  It wasn’t personal. Not really.  It was an act of civic duty.  A bit reactive, perhaps, but not entirely without reason.

The complaint must of had enough descriptive language attached, I guess, that the government decided to send in armed thugs by way of a helicopter.  Mind you, previously submitted complaints only resulted in hapless cops arriving in boats and standing around. So, this was an improvement, I suppose.  Movie-script-wise.

The chopper landed far enough away from the ‘crime scene’ that the two lead SWAT-types had to cover some considerably rough ground as they rapidly approached the targeted area through the forest on foot.  The alleged ‘perp’ was not home but his immediate neighbour was.  So, our government guys, Bruce and Willis, snuk up on him instead. (“Well, we have come all this way.”)

In a bizarre circumstance of timing, the second neighbour was out in his yard naked.

Such gamboling au naturel is not unusual out here and it is the main reason people are most often hailed by visitors from a hundred yards away on approach.  We expect different out here.  And we expect different to be occasionally unclad.  The authorities did not.  Nor did they announce their arrival in any way.  They just popped up out of nowhere.

It was a surprise of the worst kind.  No cake.

Neighbour #2 was more than just a bit shocked.  And, so were Bruce and Willis (I can imagine the PTSD claims now). Unfortunately for the SWAT team, neighbour #2 is male. He is also bigger than the two SWAT team members by a considerable margin.  So, of course, they remained in armed ‘attack’ positions (guns holstered, tho) while neighbour #2 tried to get his heart started again and, presumably, adopt the modest, two-hands-over position while looming darkly over two uniformed idjuts.  A few words were exchanged with a third bureaucratic-type and tensions eventually subsided. After awhile our flak-jacketed fools and their intrepid leader left neighbour #2 alone to reassess his life and reevaluate his dress code.

“So, what was the big deal?”

We have a bona fide, ten-out-of-ten whack-job out here, occasionally threatening folks, but who is currently more of a threat to himself than anyone else. He and his living space are a disaster waiting to happen in some way like spontaneous conflagration, plague, infestation or all three. Maybe more. Plus the adjacent sinking dock and disintegrating outbuildings are becoming an unholy garbage-mess of biblical proportions, a public danger to the unwitting and a hazard to navigation.  The authorities should act.  I am glad they did.

But, really? Helicopters and guns and flak jackets?

Two nurse Ratched-types could have handled the problem quite easily.  Thin hard lips, a clip-board, sensible shoes and a cattle-prod at the very most and the problem soon becomes part of local history.  If they follow that up with a heavy regime of sanitarium-type meds dispensed from some type of sanitarium, he’s handled.

The derelict docks and wharf will still need addressing, tho.

They’ll eventually get to it all.  Mr. Whacked will be tagged, bagged and medicated.  And relocated, hopefully.  The mess will all get ‘taken away’ at great expense to the taxpayer. And bureaucrats will continue to collect their monthly stipend.  It will take great gobs of time and countless thousands of dollars to ‘make it happen’ but the bureaucrats now have a bone (read: ‘client’) in their teeth and they are not letting it go – too good for business.

Can you imagine the cost of the helicopter, cops and lead-bureaucrat?  And that is just the smallest part of this slowly unfolding debacle.  By the time this asinine soap opera plays out, what with lawyers and all……..counting salaries……?  Probably $500,000.

If there is a counter-madness to it all it is that these same ‘civil authorities’ will ignore the mess and danger while they go through ‘due process’ (read: paperwork) dismissing any infrequent or accidental incursions of common sense into their slack efforts for as long as they can. So, it will drag out and the nut job, his mess and the danger to the public will persist and increase until some point of brinksmanship has been reached.

Canadian job creation at it’s best.

I, for one, applaud my neighbour #2 for maintaining his composure at the same time as our reputation out here.  In a single moment of self-exposure, he re-affirmed not only the general impression the outside world has of our area, he reinforced it.  They came for nut-job #1, met naked neighbour #2 in all his glory and then went off to file a report.

For the flak-jackets, the report writes itself.  With luck, our island will be designated at least Mar-Sec 1.

And neighbour #2 held up his end of things, if you’ll pardon the phrase.

Good on ya, #2!

I wrote a blog a while back.  I liked it. Sal didn’t.  “You can’t say this!”

“Why not?  No names.  Nothing bad.  Hell, I even made one guy sound great when, in fact, all he really did was just stand there.”

“No.  Too soon.  Too raw.”

“Raw?  This ain’t Pulp Fiction, Sal.  It’s rural crap.  It’s basically just what happened.  How can you veto the truth?  You working for the government now?”

“Nope.  Can’t do it.  Just can’t.  Someone might get upset.”

“Well, I’m upset.  So, you are right about that.  But, just so you know, you aren’t the boss of me.  I can publish what I want.  So, nyah, nyah.”

“Fine.  Go ahead.  But you  asked.  And I answered.  And that’s what you get when you ask.  You get my answer.  And my answer is, ‘don’t publish that!'”

“Well, thanks for the input.  Which I will ignore.  I will probably publish it because I want to.  And it will be just fine.  And, for the record, you are a nut.  No one reads the blog anyway except Margy and Derek.  Sometimes, Sid.  They sure as hell won’t be upset.”

“You know what I mean.”

So, like a flaccid doormat made from pussy fur…….I didn’t publish it.

Hey!  I’m not myself right now.  I’m ill.

She is NOT the boss of me but, well, who needs the extra grief, ya know?  I mean, remember, I got Shingles.  I don’t need more aggravation in my life.  Ya know what I am sayin’?

But, seriously….she is not the boss of me.  An influence, maybe.  OK, an influence to be sure. OK, even a bull-headed, dominatrix-type strong influence.  Scary, too.  But she is NOT the boss of me.

Officially?  I just chose not to publish it.

This time.

Maybe tomorrow.  Or someday.  Maybe.

Don’t bug me.

Susan Juby’s Republic of Dirt won the 2016 Stephen Leacock award for humour.  She deserved it.  It is good.  I was not going to read it, out of spite and jealousy, but I had to know.  I am glad I read it.  R of D is good.  It is funny.  And it is well written.

Which is also kinda irritating.  Juby writes about stuff I was writing about.  We’re off the grid on a piece of granite and she is off on a hardscrabble farm.  Not the same but similar in many ways.

Worse, she used a style that I was going to use in our second book.  Kind of a dialogue. Sal would talk and then I would talk and the story would get told by two different ‘voices’ on things.  In that way, readers would get to know Sal more (she was more popular in the first book anyway and, generally speaking, in all aspects of our social life.  It just made sense to give her more ‘stage’ time).  But Juby did that with four characters.

So…..bloody hell!

To be fair, our dialogue wasn’t working anyway.  Sal talks less than I do.  My chapter would go on for ten pages and then Sal’s chapter would be three paragraphs.

“Sal, you can’t just write a one hundred word ‘take’ on what I took ten pages to write.”

“Why not?  You already said it.  If I say it again, it is just repetition.”

“Not if it is in your own voice.”

“That was my own voice.”

“Maybe.  But there just wasn’t enough of it to know.  Normally, you have tons to say.  That was three paragraphs.  Come on, try writing more…”

And so she did and she wrote five or so pages.  But when it was complete, it was not her voice.  It sounded familiar but it was not hers.

“What?  This doesn’t sound like you.  This sounds…..kinda like…..well, you are kinda writing like me!”

“I know.  I hate that.  I have been editing you so long now that my voice automatically turns out sounding like yours.  It’s sick.”

“Calm down.  Maybe my voice isn’t me either.  Maybe the voice I think I have is a Sally-edited version of me and you are really the one speaking…?”

“No way.  I wouldn’t say all the crap you say.”

“Hmmmmm………that’s true.  So, who is writing this stuff?”

Dancing with Shingles is pretty much a full-time occupation.  I seem to have little time for much else and so the blog suffers from lack of content, OTG type or otherwise.  Plus, I am grouchy.  Still, despite the unpleasantness, the show must go on, eh?

So, let’s do something mundane: batteries again.  My old set is just that – getting old.  8D’s are expected to last five years if you are lucky and I am pretty sure we are well into our 6th year. And it is showing.  Where the batteries would fully charge during a long sunny day and ‘go to bed’ that night with a charge of say, 50.4 volts or even sometimes, 50.6, they are now retiring for the night at 49.6 or even less.  Well, actually 49.6 is good.  49.2 and even 48.8 are more common.  Clearly, the batteries are showing their age.  I am not going to go’dark’ anytime soon but now is the time to start looking for a new set.

Although, knowing me, I will stretch it out a bit longer.

A friend is representing Discover batteries and he is keen on them.  They will ‘cycle’ twice as many times as will 8Ds and L16s.  Or, so it is claimed.  If that is true, they will last twice as long.  Instead of stretching my battery bank to last six years, I can count on ten or twelve and maybe even a year or so longer.  Maybe.

8Ds and L16’s come configured for about 200 amp hours and the ‘replacement’ Discover battery is rated at 10 to 20% less so that will have some bearing on how many cycles are required.  So, it’s a bit of a trade-off.  An 8D is $300.  A Discover is $600.  So, cost-wise, it is a wash.  Still, there is something to be said simply for NOT having to do it again for a longer while.

“Geez, Dave, this REALLY is mundane.”

OK, here’s the part that might interest you: I can’t use just one.  I need a minimum of 8 and would prefer 12.  My choice: $5,000.00 or $7500.00.  To me, that’s a big number.  I bought my last car (a 2004 Pathfinder with 100,000 miles/160,000 kms) for $3500.00.  That car will likely see me out, as the Brits say.  Not the batteries.

Is it just me?  Doesn’t the cost/benefit/complexity/weight ratio seem all wrong to you? Eight batteries cost more than a car!  And get this for weird….twelve years ago when I first started this OTG thing, the BIG expense was solar panels.  I paid $5.00 a watt and got a good deal at the time.  Today, I can buy better panels at $1.00 a watt.  Solar panels cost 20% of what they did just twelve years ago.

Twelve years ago, I bought batteries for $100.00.  Admittedly, they were not as good as what Discover claims to be but the same ‘size’ battery (weight and dimensions) is now over five times that.

We’re still talking basic plates-in-acid technology!  Methinks there is something wrong with this picture.

Yes…………….the technology is improving.  Yes, five years from now better batteries for less money will be available.  Yes, the best plan is to wait.  But, by then, I will be in the dark so waiting is NOT really an option now, is it?

OK…so I have a bad attitude.  I blame the Shingles.  I will try to calm down.

So, my new plan is to wait………..but wait only until I have shed the Shingles and then I will start making some decisions.  If I make decisions now, I will do something irrational and punch someone at the very least.  Right now I want to punch Discover Energy.  And Elon Musk. And China. And MIT.  And Aquion Energy (sea water battery technology).  They are all failing my expectations of them.

That feeling is just not rational.  I know that.  That feeling is just plain silly.  Mind you, I advise giving me a wide berth just now.  Better for everyone.  Chalk it up to the Shingles.

Yes….I would like to punch Shingles in the face, too.

I have a huge interest in economics.  Fascinating topic.  Not because I have much interest in money, however.  In fact, I have no interest in that medium of the devil since I am minimally comfortable.  Well, comfortable enough to get through the foreseeable future, anyway. After the basics and the necessities of life are handled, I lose interest in what is simply greed and hoarding by another name. On the other hand, I like economics.  Go figure.

Well, the figuring is easy, really.  Here it is: Economics is really just the study of group behaviour; it is psychology in an area that has lots of indicators and variables.  One could study, say, sports-watching fans and there are a lot of indicators to watch and measure in sports but for variation, surprises and drama, there is little to compare with the human story as told through economics.

I hate to admit it but economics is a much better story teller than even Cheap B shoot-em-ups.

So, what is economics telling us these days?

Lots.  And all of it interesting.  But before we go down that road, a little side-bar: money is not really economics and economists even say that.  They are mostly wrong but they say it.  And they are partly right too.  Money, to them, is like an indicator rather than the force or variable it really is.

I say that they are wrong because money is so fluid, so transitory and so much out of the control of people, economics or our business group psychology as we know it, it is not really a measurable a factor anymore but it is a huge influence, nevertheless.  An almost invisible one. Put another way: any government can simply print any amount of money they want and call it quantitative easing.  Money that is NOT there can be borrowed on a signature.  Money has become more than ephemeral, it is almost conjured-at-will.  Money is a con-job.

So now money is too easily produced, hidden, diluted and converted and so it is. So easily, in fact, it is done all the time and most money sources are way, way out of control.

We don’t know how much money there is out there.  Literally: we don’t know the numbers. Trillions, Gazillions, Bazillions?  M1?  M2?  M3?  M4?  (the ‘M’s are types of money that are not money but are used like money – like credit card debt). If you try to use the ‘measuring sticks’ they give you, you’d have to be way out in front of the ‘money counters’ and employ huge computers and you’d have to factor in debt and credit and gold and, well, it is an impossible task.  So, they mostly don’t do it.

And yet, you have come to rely on the common understanding that a pair of shoes costs $100.00 and so does a nice dinner for two or a tire.  We are still exchanging goods using a medium that has no credibility.

To the neo-classical economist, the study of the economy is based on the continual rationalization of group-think as it applies to product and services.  The idea being that the consumer or person-in-the-market does rational things with their money, the purchase of the odd line of coke or a diamond ring notwithstanding.  The simplest discrediting fact to that premise is that we do not, as individuals or as families or as groups or even first world society’s always act rationally.  We just don’t.  So the classic economic model is founded on a faulty premise.

Worse: money has no credibility to us consumers anymore.  That fact is slowly seeping into the collective psyche, too.

That we are all as, as Adam Smith might posit, rational, is patently ludicrous.  And that has been proven so often time and time again.  We do not always act rationally even when we have all the information to make a rational decision and we have never had all the information with which to work.  No one has – but especially the last and lowest man on the chain, Joe Six-pack.  Too many variables.  Too many filters.  Too much play money. Too many inside traders in too many industries.  In fact, any real study of the economy would conclude that, for the most part, the market is not all knowing and all-wise but vulnerable, blind, stupid, easily manipulated and fickle if not out-right mad.  And Joe watches too much TV and drinks too much beer to think right anyway.

The market attracts too many crooked people as well.

Studying markets is a waste of study time.

But studying people, on the other hand, is easier, more fun and the results are likely more accurate.  Economics is, after all, the study of people.

So, what are the people saying?  What is our collective group-think thinking? They are saying, “Fuggedabout numbers, stats, GDP and money supply. Fuggedabout what the government tells you and what the corporations tell you and what you read about as fact and data-based research. What are the other average people saying?  As a group?  What is everyone’s mood?”

I don’t know how much they listen to Trump, Netanyahu or the latest shill for hate but I listen too.  I hear them saying they don’t trust BIG anymore.  They don’t trust their governments, the corporations, their laws, their police, their schools.  They don’t trust foreigners.  They really do not trust banks.

I do not see revolution in all that so much as I see some rejection and some withdrawal. More than just a little fear and trepidation,too.  People are stepping back.  It seems to me they are saying that the trajectory society is on feels collectively wrong to them.

Britain Brexited the EEU.  The reasoning was irrational, it was instinctive.  It was protest. Greece wanted out but were already too indebted so they were forced to stay. Faith in the EEU has waned.  Is it faith in the EEU or is it faith in institutions?

Syrians are adding to the ever increasing amounts of refugees.  People are fleeing their countries.  That’s raw fear, plain and simple.   Chinese money is fleeing Asia.  That’s a form of fear.  There is a lot of that out there, it seems.

Refugees and immigrants who made it to other countries are also now feared.  Trump wants a wall.  So does Israel.  Both want some people kept out, others sent packing. Trump doesn’t trust anything because he is so ignorant but how indicative is he?  Quite indicative given his following; they are insecure and feeling like victims.

And face it – some of them are victims or, at least ‘collateral damage’ from a system that didn’t deliver!

We may have lost the faith.

We aren’t borrowing and consuming like before.  We are afraid to do so.  We aren’t reproducing like we did.  We are pessimistic.  We aren’t investing in our country or even our children.

And how is our society reacting to court decisions?  How are we reacting to police actions?  What do we think of public education?  Who feels safe in a hospital?

Generally speaking, I think we are losing trust in our international, national, provincial and regional institutions and, to some extent, in our own future.  Our fear levels are increasing. And climate change doesn’t help that in the least.  In fact, climate change may have been the last straw.

When people lose hope, despair becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And THAT’S economics.

So, just a little extra preaching to the converted: about solar panels.  I am repeating well known information here only because there has been a subtle but significant shift in the technology and the pricing (lower) meaning the argument to make the jump to solar is just getting stronger.  That shift is: panels used to be 17% efficient now they are 22/23% efficient and, even better, more efficiency is already on the market – just not competitively priced.  Not yet.  We will likely see 40% efficiency within the decade.

Portugal reported they recently went four days straight without consuming any fossil fuels for power generation. Germany claims to be approaching 80% non-fossil fuel power generation year ’round* (cars and trucks not included).   Many countries are announcing all sorts of electrical generation coming on line with less C02 generation than coal, oil and gas.  The world seems to be responding to the pleas for alternative energy. That’s gotta be a good thing.

I suppose a good portion is nuclear and I see more and more ugly industrial windfarms all over, but, really, solar is the way to go.  Especially for the single household. It works for me.  And no power outages!  Solar panels are a proven concept and are now pretty affordable.  Well, the ‘generation’ part is, anyway. Storage capacity is still prohibitively expensive and not consumer friendly.  They will eventually have to improve batteries by a factor of 500% and they have yet to get there. But they are working on it.

Typically, sadly and stupidly, Canada is not doing anything on any front.  Canada does nothing to assist the alternative energy shift.  According to one recent report, Canada does the least of all the developed countries in this regard.  Our government does not even give sales tax relief. California used to pay for half of an installation by way of a household grant.  And, of course, we lament publicly and practically daily the poor oil prices Alberta and the petro-industry are suffering. Poor babies.

Personally, I don’t care.

Oil is something like 3% of GDP (don’t quote me.  I know it is much lower than is portrayed but it may be 5% or something).  It is NOT the biggest portion of Canada’s GDP by any stretch.  And we domestic oil consumers pay world prices anyway.  Canadians don’t benefit from pumping their own oil. But Canada subsidizes the private companies that do. Canada sends the oil industry billions in subsidies and grants and tax breaks.  So that they can charge us higher prices than they do the countries they export to?  We are so tragically stupid that we are now contemplating doing the same thing with LNG on behalf of such private companies.

Canadian governments are managed by the most crooked of politicians or the stupidest of Troglodytes.  I am thinking a combination of the two.

Still, it matters little to me that we pay more for everything, are taxed more than many and receive even less for our money than say, the USA.  So long as the bastards leave us basically alone, I will pay the exorbitant premium to be a Canadian and be relatively quiet about it.  But, really, we can do something on a personal household basis about that giant rip-off if we want to.

A good start is investing in solar panels.  Even with the battery problem still being unresolved, it is a good way to get the corporate monkey off your back.  Get enthused and improve your house insulation, get more efficient appliances and swap out your lights for LEDs and you can almost shed the giant monkey that is BC Hydro.

And, make no mistake: the corporate and government leeches are sucking more, not less. You owe it to yourself to give alternatives another look.  Jus’ sayin’…………

Still having it’s way with me.  But all good things come to an end.  I’ll be fine.  I was considering setting up a FIGHT Shingles charity until I realized that there must already be half a dozen.  So, mine would instead be a charity titled “SURRENDER to Shingles”. Makes more sense, really. You can’t really beat this thing, you just have to make it comfortable until it is as bored as you are and it leaves.  Fortunately, I am relatively boring and I think I see signs of it packing up to go irritate the hell out of someone else.  Still, my new charity needs money for administration and educating the public, ya know? Especially administration.

Funny how stupid we all still are in so many ways despite all the educational efforts of NGO’s and governments, eh?

Here we are on the eve of the longest day of the year and it is absolutely beautiful out. Sun, sea, wind and wildlife.  Sal and I have been courageously blazing a gourmet menu and Netflix supplemented lifestyle in the wilderness now for almost thirteen years and it still feels better than the best of vacations.  It’s great.  Gorgeous. Wouldn’t change a thing. For a guy generally considered somewhat taciturn and even occasionally grouchy, I am actually more happy and content than I ever hoped to be.  This was a really good move.

The best part?  It is not catching on.  No great exodus from the madding cities detected yet.  In fact, the opposite is true – they are still leaving the countryside and going urban.

We get a new household or two every year and we lose a household or two just as frequently. This community is a rural loose-gathering of a few families spread over hundreds if not thousands of acres existing in a form of peaceful stasis. It’s not changing. Maybe someone gets a new outboard.  A kid leaves home.  People get older.  The odd new puppy.  It’s basically the same.

Same beauty, same quiet, same lack of stress, same ol’, same ol.  I love it.

Having said that, I need to DO something now and then.  NOT a lot.  Just a little something.  If all else fails, I’ll build something.  And I can drag that on forever.  The greenhouse is currently serving that purpose for me now but even I have some limits on the duration of a project.  And, with the help of Mr. Shingles, I have managed to do nothing on anything for a new record length of time.  We are same ol’, same ol’ with cobwebs. Time to get some muscles moving.

Don’t want Sal to get all soft on me………………

I think I have turned the Ch ch ch Chicken Pox corner.  Still ugly.  Still pox’ed.  But I am pretty sure the worst is over.  Doctor says, “You are half-way.” This malaise is NOT over, but the worst is, I think.  What a fascinating two weeks.

But enough about my pus and horror….time to write about other things pus-y and horrible….

When we left the city to go walkabout, go feral, walk on the wild side, we pretty much stopped our old habit of following the daily news.  Cold turkey.  It was not a conscious decision, really.  We simply had very diminished radio reception (none) and little to no time anyway. If we got ‘news’, it was by way of a comment-in-passing from a neighbour or maybe a newscast on the car radio when we went to town. We were simply ill-informed for the first few years.

Ignorance was bliss.

Of course, with time, we eventually upgraded our lifestyle conveniences.  It was automatic to get the radio working again and, with the satellite, we got Google News as well.  Oddly, the desire to be up-to-date was not a very strong one, but it eventually crept back into our lives. Sal would turn on the radio when cooking and she would often turn the volume up when the so-called news came on.  I, too, would ask for more volume on some matters. We started to follow the news again.

As I write this, I noticed that, when I start my day, I first check e-mails, then I check Google News.  It’s automatic.

It is also stupid.

The news is NOT truth.  We know that.  It is filtered through a number of editors and editor-like processes not the least of which is the need to entertain so as to generate an audience.  And there is, of course, the even more dominant need to then sell product. There’s also editorial policy. Owner’ biases.  Time constraints facing journalists, reporters, copy editors and hundreds of other forces also alter the facts and re-write the true news into the infotainment version. The news that is actually delivered  is a cursory sound-bite at best, a means for marketing product all the time and lies and propaganda much of the time.  If there is anything actually true about the news we get it is the fact that none of it is accurately true.  It is all a distorted lie in aid for some other agenda other than the dissemination of truth.  It is also overwhelmingly depressing.

Of course, their polished and packaged lie is not all pure fiction.  It is simply and mostly just not accurately true. Fifty people were shot to death at the gay night club in Florida by a madman.  That is likely true.  But that simple fact of horror will be ‘milked’ and ‘packaged’ and ‘sold’ and ‘exploited’ for reasons economic and political.  The ‘news’ machine will feed off it like a vulture.  The information will not help mankind.  But it will help some whose agenda feeds off of pus and horror.

The worst part is that we have come to know the news as 90% pus and horror, ten percent ‘celebrity’ and one hundred percent inaccurate.  We have no idea what is really true anymore.  None.

And get this: Kim Kardashian was interviewed about the nightclub shooting.  And, of course, Trump was asked about it as well.  Is that news?  Or is that just pure, sensationalistic and opportunistic exploitation of the tragedy for some unknown but likely profit-making or political agenda?

Doesn’t matter.  Not to me.  Not anymore.  I am going to try cutting the link again.  The news is not good for me.  It is not informative.  It is not educational and it is not necessary to living my life. In fact, it is detrimental.  It is unhealthy.  It is the voluntary digestion of evil and lies in the form of packaged misinformation for purposes that serve the dark side more than my own illumination.  Yeah, you  can quote me on that.

I have other interests other than just living off the grid.  I am interested in China.  I like new inventions.  I am intrigued with economics.  I’d like to know more about those topics.  The problem is that every time I read anything in the media I actually know something about, the content is wrong.  And, where it is not obviously wrong, there is so little real content I learn little to nothing.  Worse, I suspect I am reading lies even if there aren’t any.  My cognitive filters are now so clogged with brainwashed media debris, I wouldn’t know an honest, accurate report if it bit me.

I am going to have to stick with books.  In books, I have somewhat more faith.

Who would have thought that deepening cynicism would be a side effect of Shingles, eh?

If you were a kid and caught Chicken Pox at some point, you are liable to re-encounter the disease when it re-invents itself as Shingles later on in your life.  Shingles is adult Chicken Pox redux.  You don’t catch Shingles, you already had it in the form of a dormant virus. It’s part of you.  And then it wakes up and kicks the crap out of you.

But, it doesn’t really matter how it all happens, it is simply mildly horrible.  I say mildly because many people suffer much worse diseases and it is only polite and respectful to acknowledge that.  But, between you and me, Shingles is Hell.

I should know.  I reacquainted myself with my virus about five days ago and, it seems, it intends to stay on for awhile.  A couple of weeks they say.  Feeling like I am gonna die has cut into my expressive side. The whinging has increased but that’s about it.  I don’t really have much to write about.  There’s the pain. Then there’s the nausea.  And, of course, there’s more pain with more nausea every day as a recurring bonus.  Shingles is not only Hell, it is boring hell.

At our age, we are more susceptible to this sort of nonsense.  Aging, eh?  What’s not to like?

I’ll write again.  I will.  I know I will.  But not right now.  Not for awhile.  No one wants 1000 words of mewling and whinging.  I am sure you understand.

……..of sloth.

Funicular Cart operated using the winch and electric motor at right (under deck) plus tons of intricate electrical wiring by James

The lower funicular works and today we put it to the test.  We didn’t have much.  A couple hundred pounds.  Six cases of wine and some building crap.  We have our priorities.

Cottonwood Blockade

So, I went down and checked it out.  There was a heavy freelance Cottonwood making a peaceful protest across the tracks and, like a heartless corporation, I just chainsawed the blockade to bits.  I felt like Kinder Morgan.   “Release the Leviathan!”

Sal pressed the button and down went the heavy 700 pound cart, slowly descending the galvanized rails we had previously put in place.  Grrrrrnnnnkkk!

“It’s stopped!  Hung up!  So I took my finger off the button!”  

“Yeah, well, I was gonna grind off a smidge here and there but I am surprised any of that would have held it up.”

Sally pointed to a thick bar acting as a ‘stop’ and we both wondered how we could have missed something that obvious but, then again, we ask ourselves that all the time.  So, I got the grinder and trimmed it off and a few other edges.  “Round two!”

Pulling boat up alongside the lowered funicular cart

And down she went.  Got to the water….and….then she started to submerge.  Then the deck was at the right height….one foot or so off the water’s surface. “STOP!”

Sal took her finger off the button and the cart sat half submerged.  It was a beautiful thing. I jumped in the boat, swung it up against the cart and began whipping boxes on to it.  And a few other things.  I pulled back, “Press the up button.  Make sure it’s the up and NOT the down or else we will have sodden wine boxes.”

Slowly it began to climb the ramp.  One minute later, Sal stopped it at the lower deck. Hard to believe but it was even prettier sitting up there.  I smiled and pushed the boat towards home dock around the corner.  With that small event, we had made a milestone.  No more with the heavy, heavy, slippery and sharp beach climb.  Schlepping made easy.  From now on, a piece of cake.

A piece of cake!

We have entered the Slothecine era.