Category Archives: Uncategorized

‘Zona burbs

Posted on by
9

Driving up a suburban main street that is better paved and wider than most of the TransCanada highway, we saw a coyote scamper across the not-too-busy four lanes of traffic.  Very cool.  A real desert coyote.  Desert coyotes are bigger than BC’s urban golf-course coyotes.  About 1.5 times larger.  Almost wolf-ish.

Standing on the driveway of our friend’s home, marveling at all the beige-all-over homes and their all-shiny vehicles, I saw a real Roadrunner (the actual bird) run down the street and disappear into someone’s back yard.  That was also very cool.  He/she seemed to be about the size of a chicken but way-stretched out.  Long neck and tail feathers.

I mention those two sightings because they are, of course, symbolic to the area but also because there seems to be very little wildlife, even though this suburb is far out on the Phoenix metropolitan edges.  Part of the reason, I suppose, is that deserts support less wildlife per square mile than do, say, areas like the Okanagan.  Or even our home area.  Another reason, I suspect, is that there are so many guns and so much shooting.  This may NOT be a society of wanton killers or insatiable hunters but there are definitely a larger bunch of shooters and plonkers here than in most places.  There are a lot of gun stores and ranges.

Arizona is still ‘open carry’, too.  Some residents openly carry their handguns in public.  To be fair, I have not seen any and that is largely because ‘concealed carry’ is also legal and I am sure that many people I pass have guns in their purses or in holsters unseen.  I concluded this because at the giant local swap-meet (more like a giant western dollar store under tents) every fifth booth has some gun-related merchandise for sale with holsters and ‘conceal carry’ purses being amongst the more popular.

There is a third reason for less wildlife.  Roundup and chemicals.  The desert has bugs.  It is home to ants in great, vast numbers.  And people who build here in beige subdivisions do not want ants in their home.  So, they use pesticide.  But they do not sprinkle a little box around the place every spring or even use aerosol spray bombs.  They hire roaming squads of Mexicans who carry double Scuba-sized clear plastic tanks on their backs and spray with battery powered wands a concentrated poison in every crook and cranny you can see.  On any given day, I might see three or four guys wandering our neighbourhood spraying lethal crap.  They don’t wear masks.  Some wear gloves.  Some don’t.  This is truly an exercise in death for both the killer and the vanquished.

But they do NOT vanquish.  When Sal and I go for walks, I often look down and see hundreds of little ant-exit holes.  Walk a block on any street and you will find a dozen ant-exits in front of each house.  Look ahead and you might see the local sprayer applying poison to the dozen or so ant-exits he has found in front of the house he is at.  But the neighbours have dozens, too.  And more spring up as you stand and watch.  This is a battle in which we are likely losing more Mexicans than ants.  It’s ridiculous and, worse, thousands and thousands of gallons of this poison is being released in to the community every month.

But walk through the lovely parks and the grass is green.  Trees look good.  Not a bug to be seen.  This is sterile pretty.  False.

I would say we don’t see many birds, either.  You wouldn’t expect to see any if all their food is poisoned.  But there is one species in relative abundance.  A sort of dove…pigeon-esque but slimmer.  Probably a dove.  It coos.

But, that’s basically it.  The odd Chickadee.  Someone’s cat.  There must be more somewhere but we don’t see it.  There may be plenty of wildlife once you get well and truly away from the manicured suburbs but my overall impression is that wildlife in the area is rare.  And there are hardly any bugs but ants.

Our suburb includes hundreds of homes each on decent sized lots (12,000 sft) and costing on average around US$250,000.  Highest price closer to $400K and lowest around $210.  They are all new and have all the mod-cons.  If there is a ‘character’ to the neighbourhood, I don’t see it but the majority of owners are Mormon and there is a number of large Mormon churches sprinkled amongst the homes.  One could say, this is a very ‘white’ neighbourhood but it would not be accurate.  We have said hello to all hues of skin colour, all races and even some of the Mormon’s themselves.  Everyone has been pleasant and friendly.  Having said that, it is not a pedestrian kind of place.  People in Arizona do not walk much.  They need their car to go anywhere and, since their car is right next to their house, they are only briefly glimpsed.  Now and then.  Not often.

Sal and I were followed by two ‘elders’ on bikes during one of our forced marches the other day (Sal has a routine).  Chatting the whole way.  Very nice young men who came by their titles by having enrolled in the ministry of the Mormon church.  They were young but classed as ‘elders’ as a rank of sorts in the somewhat rigid hierarchy of their system.  We engaged them as any polite person might but declined their invitation to come to services as their guests.  But, I liked them.  They were fun.  They laughed at my jokes and that’s how I judge people, mostly.  They wished us a good holiday, reiterated our open invitation and blessed us.  What’s not to like?

Adventure?  Excitement?  Even novelty or interest?  Probably not.  This ain’t the place for that except in one’s imagination.  And we’ve been THERE in Accidental Fugitives.  There are freeways and shopping centres, fast food chains and faux western imagery.  Flat, straight, sunny. Cheap gas and Costco.  And a bit of cactus here and there.  Maybe a coyote, if you get lucky.  But, seriously…?  This is best for those over 80, maybe over 85.

So, we’ll be back…..

“I did not have sex with that woman…ooops….I meant to say, I never said Mexico will pay for the wall!”

Posted on by
37

Lying.  Blatant, bald-faced lies.  From Clinton, Trump, Trudeau and, it seems, just about EVERY politician.  What the hell is wrong with them?  With us?

That may not be entirely fair.  We seem to have lies spilling out of every political mouth, all the time, but there must be a few politicians out there who not only tell the truth, they do not obfuscate, they hide nothing, admit openly their mistakes and work hard to do the common good.  There must be.  Mustn’t there……?

Our local guy is one, so I know there is one.  ONE.  At least he has been that way to everyone out here in the boondocks for as long as we have been here and, further, he champions us without even being asked.  If there is ‘something’ he can do for the outer islanders, Jim does it. And he tells us the truth.  He tells it like it is.  And he has political smarts.

But, of course, he is an independent and I am guessing he is not affiliated for the obvious reason: you cannot represent the people if you have already sworn to represent the party.  So, he represents no party, just the people.  Simple.  Rare.  Valued.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT.

But here’s the odd part…..we EXPECT them to lie to a large extent.  To quite a LARGE extent, really.  We expect it.  We count on it.  We THINK that obfuscation, fake smiles, jabber-for-the-sake-of-filling-air and spin is simply part of the job.  We think lying is IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION!

Admit it!  You are listening to a politician fill the media time by employing cliches, jargon, non-speak, spin, lies, answer-avoidance and, of course, blaming others.  They are on air for ten seconds.  You get all of the above and yet are left without an answer to the reporters question.   Virtually every time.  Do you yell at the radio/TV?  Do you write a letter?  Do you even tell your friends about the latest politician-crap you just suffered through?

No.  No, you don’t.  That BS is SO NORMAL it just washes over you.  You barely even hear it most of the time.

We all experience a bit of shock each time a blatantly outrageous and obvious lie is told and then revealed to be a lie.  But then the subsequent days of cover-up, dodging, re-phrasing and baffle gab lulls us back in to the feeling of ‘same ol’, same ol’ but the initial expose’ usually shocks us a bit.  Some of us.  Well, me.  It still shocks me when a politician brazenly, without a bit of shame is caught in a lie.  Most are totally shameless.  Some are so deep in their own lies they wouldn’t know the truth if it hit ’em in the face.  Trudeau lies to us all the time.  Still does.  And yet he also still poses for selfies.  I honestly do not think he knows the meaning of shame or the percentage of lies he speaks.

If I was ever caught out in that kind of blatant lying, I would resign, move to another country, change my name and hide.  They don’t.  They just ‘carry on’.  Being caught in minor evasive spin and obfuscation is not enough for me to move, tho – just sayin’.

Don’t get me wrong.  I lie.  Alla time, actually.  Half my humour is spewing crap.  Love making stuff up – especially for kids.  “Why not stay for dinner, Jimmy?  We’re having dog poop and noodles.”  But some of my lies have also been self-serving.  I admit that.  Especially when I was younger.  All is fair in love and war.   One of the joys of getting really old is that you no longer CARE what people think and so you just speak your mind.  I have no guarantees on it being completely and factually true but it will be MY truth, delivered plain and simple.  Often loudly, too.  And repeated a few times to make the point.

I can be obnoxious, it turns out.

I rarely fell to blatant, outright, save-my-butt lies but obfuscation, answer avoidance, topic-changing and spin are an art and I dabbled.  Most men have.  It is a condition related to testosterone, I think.  Some of my best work…. 

Anyway, tiny apology for the rant but Trump’s denial of ever saying that Mexico will pay for his wall is just over-the-top.  Proof of madness.   He said, “…they will write us a big one-time cheque”.

And the new rationale is just as over-the-top.  He now says that the NAFTA 2 deal will pay for it and that great deal is how they will do it.  He does not seem to ‘get’ that the ‘great’ deal includes Canada so I guess he can also say, “And Canada will help pay for that wall!  We expect a big one-time cheque from them, too!”  Or, perhaps, he doesn’t get that general revenue is NOT derived from one single, order-specific bill sent to Mexico?  Who knows?  The guy’s a nut way too long tolerated.

“Geez, Dave…????  Why Trump?  Why now?  Why?”

I am glad you asked.  You see, I have anti-Trump (Trudeau) bile rising in me all the time but I KNOW that is not writing that needs publishing.  There are a gazillion Trump (Trudeau) haters and they are all getting pretty good at spewing insults and recriminations at these idiots.  I am not new.  Worse, Trump and drama queens believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  Name recognition is their goal.  Celebrity is the game.  They WANT to be a household name and they don’t care how they get there.  Think Paris Hilton.  THEY WANT me to write!

So, I keep it to a minimum because I am only adding to their search engine presence.

But a guy can only carry so much bile and poison around inside without having to spew it out at some point.

Apologies.

 

Sweethome Arizona

Posted on by
15

Sunny, cool (10-15C), clean and spacious.  Cactus.  Flat.  No Maga hats yet.  Cars, cars, cars.  Gasoline (from Canada) at $2.69 US a gallon.  First impression: it’s growing.  More buildings.  Newer ‘centres’ and malls.

We came in on the airport shuttle with a young Texan who seemed to be ‘real careful’ talkin’ to foreigners – at first – but loosened up.  He’s a catfish farmer!  Digs holes, fills ’em with water, throws in ‘itty-bitty ones’ and then raises them to adulthood whereupon they are shipped out to other catfish farmer’s regional ‘fattening ponds’ to be custom sized to the regional menu.  I guess Arkansanians like their catfish a different size to Georgians and Kentukians.  Who knew?

There is a lot more to a catfish than meets the eye it seems.

Guy lived for years on the Arizona-Mexico border.  Grew up there.  Wants a wall.  “No problem for good Mexicans.  They good people.  But they gotta apply and line up.  Wait their turn.  Fill out our papers.  It’s those rotten Mexicans who are the ones who run across the border and try to get our services and food stamps and welfare.  They real good at getting taxpayer’s money.  We need a wall to stop them!”

Unlike many who speak that way, he was just a ‘good ol’ boy with little to no REAL animosity except to rule-breakers.  This was more of a ‘law-and-order’ guy than a racist.  Still, he has never been anywhere except the red-light districts of border towns.  “They fun!”  His view of life, people, culture, government and the US of A is somewhat limited, albeit colourful.

But…..so is mine…..so we wished him and his cowboy-hat wearing girlfriend (he had pics of her) all the best and departed our shuttle at another airport east of Phoenix.  My buddy, S, had left his car there for us.  An Escalade.  Nice.

I walked around the rather small parking lot and found it. Then found the hidden key and opened it up.  I felt as if I should take off my shoes!  S is a great and healthy, normal guy who is smart and capable and competent and honest and good.  We have mutual love without having mutual characters.  I do not measure up to all those standards.  But I have always thought of myself as ‘at least’ clean.  I am a clean guy.  I wash and clean up stuff.  Mostly.  I am NOT great but I eventually clean up whatever mess I make (if Sal doesn’t get to it first AND hides all the tools she finds).

But I am a pig-dog in mud-slop compared to S.  The car was so clean I wondered how he even got it parked there.  Surely there must be a hint of road grime somewhere even if he came direct from the car-wash and the OCD surgical detailer!  Nope.  There was not a speck of dust, not a bit of dirt.  The tires were black and shiny with no dirt in the grooves.  The floor mats were freshly armor-alled.  The car was cleaner than the clinic I volunteer at.  I have – I swear – undergone major surgery in dirtier operating rooms.  My appendix was removed in a pig-sty compared to this car!

I pulled up to get Sal and the luggage.  She opened the passenger side while I put the luggage in the back.  I watched as she tapped her shoes on the door-rails to make sure she didn’t trek in any dirt.  Unprompted she said, “Oh my God!  This car is immaculate!”

“How the hell are we gonna give this car back as nice as we got it?  It’s not possible unless we start cleaning now!”

Talk about pressure!

I wrote and complained.

S. wrote back: “Sorry, man.  I like to detail.  It’s kind of a zen thing.  Therapeutic.  If you wanna freak, look in the engine bay.  It’s crazy clean!”

This is a 2005 vehicle!

Arizona will take some adjustment…..

 

 

 

Hello, Murphy!

Posted on by
13

Sal’s boat is already up on the hard (see previous blog). Yesterday was my boat’s turn. Her’s goes up on the lower funicular but mine is hauled up on a marine ways that I cobbled together (after using logs for a few years). It gets the lowest part of the boat about four feet above the highest of tides, not really quite far enough because a storm surge can add two or even three feet but that is what I built and it does the job well enough. I am happy with it.

I installed a block in a cliff face about 50 or so feet away from the top of the ways and through that wove a 3/8″ galvanized cable that is wound on a 5-ton Marpole winch (one old classic from my collection). Given engineers allowances for things, I am guessing that the winch and cable are easily good for the 1500 pound pull. There’s not that much to pull, really. The ways are on a bit of an incline and slippery.

The ways are actually two 6×6 treated beams with a layer of high density polyurethane (HDPE) plastic on top. HDPE is so slippery that (Prairie)kids have it installed in their basements and practice skating on it. It is expensive but it reduces friction like grease.

On this, our most recent fateful day, Sal brought the boat in slowly and nudged the bow in between the two sloping beams of the ways. She pushed up against the 20 degree slope so that the tow-eye on the boat’s bow was reachable for me. I hooked the cable on to that – the same eye that most trailer-able boats have on the stem of their bow. Then I snugged up the cable and Sal crawled over the windshield and off the front of the boat.

So far, so good. AAAAaaannd I began to winch……

The boat started to slowly climb out of the water as intended. We were doing good. Then ‘SPAl-ung!‘ The tow-eye had parted. The cable sprung back. YIKES.

AAAAAAaaand Sal and I watched the boat slip back down the fabulously slippery ways and back into the sea. TTTHHHheeeennnnnn we watched in horror as the boat drifted off.

There it was…about twenty feet from shore and slowly reaching for more distance between us.

There is a reason we have two boats. That reason can be summarized thusly: when one boat goes wrong, we use the other to go get/fix/tow it. But that first boat – that rescue boat – was already up on the hard. NO engine on it.

We watched helplessly as our second boat, the HMCS Pumpkin, float farther away….

I must admit that, for a second, I thought of leaping in and swimming for it but I was wearing enough clothing that, had I leaped, I would have ended up walking back on the bottom fully sodden. Been there. I also have to admit that I looked over at Sally to see what she was going to do and I could see the ‘Should I leap?‘ question etched onto her face, too.

“Sal, you’re quicker. Go over to John’s dock. Get his tin boat.”
“I am not sure I can slide it off the dock and I don’t think I can start it!”
“You don’t have to. Just paddle it. We don’t have to go fast, we just have to retrieve Pumpkin before she gets away.”

Sal was off like a shot and I trudged slowly after her. I got to John’s dock just as she was about to row away. The time difference was spent in her hauling the boat off the dock and jumping in.

“May as well take me. I can help.”

Sal waited. I jumped in. She started to row. We started to sink!

“Sal! The plug isn’t in! We’re taking water. We’re going down! Go back!”

Sal rowed us back and I got out (because she is the weight of a Poodle, the boat immediately rode higher and she then quickly baled it out). Then she found the plug and we started all over again.

I decided that the motor COULD be started and so we changed positions, I started it and delivered Sal to Pumpkin. “I’ll tow you!”

“Don’t be a nut. Pumpkin runs just fine.”

“Oh, yeah…..”

For some odd reason Sal decided to return to John’s dock instead of taking Pumpkin to the haul-out ramp. Fortuitous, it turns out. She tied up as I readied John’s boat to get it back into it’s place ON the dock.

John has a ‘drooping’ part of his float that acts like a ramp. He drives his boat at it at some speed and the boat hits the ramp and flies out of the water landing on the higher floating part of the dock. It is quite a feat.
Not one I was used to.

But, in for a penny….

I hit the ramp in exactly the right place and, if I do say so myself, exactly the right speed. But, it turns out, I was only 3/4 of the way out. The transom was still in the water and, at the new angle and with me at the back, we were perilously close to taking water over the transom. I skipped forward like an aged walrus and jumped/rolled out and grabbed the bow. I pulled it forward a few inches. That act was enough to keep everything fine.

“Sal. You get in. I’m too heavy. And, while you’re there, see why there is so much water still in it.”
“I’m not getting in it.”
“Sal….do you want to explain to John why his boat sank to the bottom?”
“I hate you. …………..oops. Sorry”
“Why?”
“The plug came out when you hit the dock. You were still taking water.”
“OK. NOW we know. Let’s try again. You this time. After baling out the extra water, back up and hit the dock a-flying.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“I am NOT shooting myself out of the water onto a dock and destroying everything including myself while I do it!”
“Yes you are. You can do this. Take a run at it and stop before you hit. I’ll judge your speed. Then, you can back up and try again with more or less throttle depending on what your initial approach was like.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
We did that ‘practice run’ a few times and, on the third attempt, I was yelling “GO FOR IT!” and Sal leaped John’s 14 foot tinny out of the water at about 8 knots speed. The bow hit the ramp and leaped up. She kept the throttle on and closed her eyes. Her instruction was – the instant the bow comes down, hit the kill switch. We had the leg on un-lock and it should just jump up if it hits. I didn’t think it would hit.

You should have seen her face!

It went perfectly. Boat in perfect position. Engine stopped about two inches from hitting the dock. She got out. Shaken and stirred. We pulled it up the remaining foot. Absolutely perfect!

But then it was time to return to our chore.
“We can’t do it without a tow hook.”
“Yes we can. We just run a cable around the butt (stern)end and pull from there.”
“No way|!”
“Yes! We can do this.”
And, so we did. The boat is up. It is good. Serviced and ready for launching in the Spring.

Three hours instead of 45 minutes. The Murphy factor.

Between acts….

Posted on by
4

Hauled Sal’s non-running boat today.  Out of the water, up the marine ways and onto the lower deck.  Removed engine.  Hauled that little sucker further up the hill to the shop.  Sal’s adamant, “We can do this thing!  I do not want to take it into some dishonest mechanic and pay $1,000 for them to blow out the carburetor or something.  We have fuel.  We have spark.  We have at least half a brain between us (?) and a shop full of tools.  We can do this!” 

“OK.  I’m in.  Can you carry it to the shop?”

“No!  And don’t be a smart-alec.  YOU have to do the heavy lifting!”

“Fair enough.  You gonna search You-tube to ferret out the glitch?”

“Nope.  YOU have to do You-tube, too.”

“Fine.  No problem.  But you realize that, if I do the research, you are then just the silent, cooperative, helpful assistant and I am the main mechanic.  Mechanic #1.”

“No way!  It is MY engine.  We are co-mechanics!”

And……..such is life amongst the blind leading the blind deep off the grid and eventually off the edge of a cliff.  Incompetent, but equally so.

I would admit to ‘not having a clue’ as to what is wrong with the motor but, after all this time, we actually DO HAVE clues (but just because Colonel Mustard was in the library does not mean he used the lead pipe…you know what I mean?).  WE JUST have clues.  NO REAL KNOWLEDGE!

Tomorrow, we haul my boat.  Service it.  Tie it down.  Then I service all the engines we own.  Oil, filters, top-ups, etc.  Then we check it all and make a mental note of what we did.  As long as I do EVERYTHING it is just a mental note and I will remember.  But, if I can’t get it all done, I have to write it down which chore was left undone otherwise I am re-doing more than one thing when we get back.

Never had to do that kind of crap before.  Now I do.

Excess food gets gifted to the needy (read: conveniently nearby) and anything vulnerable to the weather will be stored under something.  WE will check.  WE will prepare.  WE will pack and we will worry….for about a day and then put it out of our minds.  Have to – NOTHING can be done when you are a day (or more) away.

AND short term memory is at a premium nowadays.

Book #4 is being talked about a bit.  Not much.  No story in mind.  No clue of a story, really…  I have all sorts of great stories from ghettos, to bouncing in pubs, from sailing boats to working on Skid Row.  I could do travel stuff.  I could do a tome on mediations.  A really thick one JUST on separation agreements.

Stuff?  I got stuff.  I got stuff up the yin yang.  But a writer has to write what a writer feels like writing and cares about and all of that was then.  This is NOW!  So, we will likely do something with Charlie and Nancy in the now.

I have suggested we try a soft porn romance but Sal has ruled that out.

“Why, sweetie?  It’s just fiction.  It’s classed as fiction, presented as fiction and everyone knows it’s fiction.”

“I don’t care!  People already accidentally call me Nancy!”  

“Hmmmm…..no one has accidentally called me ‘Charlie’…..?

“Well, obviously!  Duh!”

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

Posted on by
19

PUTIN is coming to a neighbourhood near you! 

Seems Vlad feels emboldened enough to attempt to re-establish military bases in Cuba.  Great!  I assume Trump’s diplomacy is working out as planned (by Vlad).  His friends want to be nearer to Mar-a-Lago.  Easier to ‘drop in’.  They’ll have a blast!

Maybe an A-blast.

No, but SERIOUSLY folks, Happy New Year.  What?  Me worry?  No way.  I don’t worry.  Why should I?  I’m cursed with a terminal condition that has no real place in the modern world.  I know that.  Worse, I have complications derived therefrom.  I suffer from chronic common sense and suffer expectations of logic and reason.  Trust me…it’s a somewhat rare combination and it inevitably leads to a frustrating existence and ends in death after 7 or 8 decades.

But do not weep for me.  My case is mild.  I have almost enough stupidity to get by, almost enough dull to plod along without bleating and absolutely no power with which to inflict my condition on others.  Save for you, of course…my seven faithful readers.  Poor babies! God bless you, tho.  Bad news: you are likely also so inflicted.  Do you expect goodness, logic, reason and the environment to prevail?  If so, take two bottles of scotch and call no one the next morning.  You are doomed!

Here we go…..

A young woman recently pressed charges against her rapist and he is going to jail.  And, rightly so.  Seems she drank herself black in the face (a weekly routine in her group) and went back to a party house where everyone slept higgledy-piggledy wherever they fell over.  Our boy, drunk-as-a-lord, did the same.  He ended up beside her, like others in the house were beside others.  But he had enough testosterone to victimize her.  She woke up half way and protested but then blacked out again.  The next morning she went to the hospital and secured the evidence.

Good on her!  She should do that.  I am, so far, on her side.

But logic and reason, common sense and personal responsibility are left wondering….“What was she thinking?  Drink to pass out and then go to an orgy house?” 

Back up a bit, Dave! ….drink to pass out on a regular basis?  REPEATEDLY DO THAT AND PLAN TO GO BACK  EACH TIME TO AN ORGY HOUSE!? 

ALL ugly.  IN so many ways.  But the guy is still the evil-doer and WRONG, wrong, wrong.  Go-to-jail wrong.

But, really..?..drink to pass out at an orgy house and then wonder why something bad happened?  I dunno……

Scott Peck in his book,  PEOPLE OF THE LIE, wrote that evil fills the vacuum left by unconsciousness.  We ‘get’ unconscious and then evil slips in.  Or, put another way, you have to remain conscious to keep evil at bay.  In other words again: if you check out of your responsibility, evil will step up.

“Dave!  You nuts?  What the hell are you talking about?” 

I use the two incidents above to illustrate a point – Scott Peck’s point.  It’s obviously a dangerous world.  There ARE dangers we all live with.  We live in darkness and in light.  Yin and yang.

And Trump is an UNCONSCIOUS president.  Stupid.  Unthinking.  He may BE evil but let us just leave the observation at him being incredibly stupid.  AND SO ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE for allowing him to preside!  So…there is a VOID……

Trump’s behaviour emboldened Putin.  Maybe even ENABLED him….. IT WAS HIS behaviour that invited Putin back into Cuba.  No good can come from that.  NO GOOD at all.

Our gal ‘Laura’ (name inaccurate to protect her stupidity) did the same.  And she was invaded.  No good came from that.  We are seeing a ‘dumbing down’ incident on both a macro and micro scale here.

Mind you, our bad boy was convicted and will go to jail.  He was drunk too, but that was NO defense.  She was drunk and that was HER defense!  In the case of WW3, there will be no judge to ‘determine’ right or wrong.  History will write that story.  But the cause of both violations is the same: unconsciousness will result in great evil.

 

First time, Grasshopper?

Posted on by
26

 

You’d think that if Mother Nature was gonna kick some butt, she’d start doing so in Florida, wouldn’t you? Mar-a-Lago, to be more precise? No?

Apparently not. Maybe we are all sinners at some level. Regardless of her sense of natural justice, this holiday was two weeks of wreaking hell-storms on the West Coast and, of course, MOM saved the best for last. We got a pretty good spanking on the 20th and 21st.

Last two Sundays back (bookclub) took out our neighbour’s dock and the main water system and, of course, we wrestled with that for a few days. We are in temporary fix mode. Such is life. And then we went south for Xmas leaving everything in that ‘temporary state’.

When our back was turned, she kicked us again. This time, a bit harder.

But that wasn’t the whole of it.

Mother Nature and Murphy work hand-in-hand.

I had an appointment on the other island scheduled for our arrival back and sensed that, if our return didn’t go well (Murphy) or the weather (MOM) was bad, we’d not have enough daylight to finish the BIG unloading and we’d be in a bit of danger and in the middle of a big job in the dark. So, I cancelled the appointment on the basis of a ‘security allowance’. Good move. Everything that could go wrong, did.

We had a utility trailer full of crap (band saw, gasoline, car parts, etc) plus the usual luggage and food supplies so we had a big load. I backed the whole mess down the steep the hill on the other island and we arrived as the tide was receding. That’s not great. As you are loading, your boat gets heavier and deeper in water that is getting shallower. So, we endeavour to unload vehicles and re-load boats quickly when on the beach. I unloaded the truck and trailer on to the beach and took half the load to the dock leaving Sal’s half on the beach. Sal caught a ride with a good neighbour over to our place to pick up both boats — hers and mine. She lashed hers to mine and drove them slowly back to the loading dock. All good, so far.

But her boat would not start! And all our fix-it tools and tricks were back home. That was irritating but you really need three irritants in a row to make a screw up.

“Oh, well! Never mind. We’ll still use my boat as a mini barge and you can tow me.”

And, so we did. But all that fooling around lost us precious tide-level time and, by the time we loaded her up, she was hard aground. With the tide still falling. Irritant number two?

With modest heroics and immodest strength, we managed to just get the boat into deeper water. Three more minutes of the tide retreating and we would have been a returning tide away from getting it all afloat. Whew!

So, we towed it all home using my also-full boat and nudged our flotilla into our shore. Sal went up to lower the funicular. She was having trouble. It kept getting jammed. Irritant # 3 and dangerously close to screw-up territory. The funicular cart weighs 700 pounds so Sal can’t budge it. I crawled ashore and managed to move it a smidge — enough to see that a wheel had come off. The cart has six wheels and, for some reason, one had lost a retaining nut and the wheel was skewing and jamming. I managed to get it off and we operated with five wheels. That effort ate up time. It was getting on.

And we had to do two loads!

We were now officially in screw-up territory but so far, not so bad. It was just starting to rain and we were getting tired. That is irritant #4.

When we were done getting it all ashore to the lower deck, we covered what we needed to and diverted our energies to our neighbour’s dock. Welcome to irritant #5. The screw up light started flashing in both our heads so we were trying to be careful.

The ramp had jumped the dock again. The wheel had come off the axle again and the new rear float-tube installed this summer had escaped it’s containment cradle and was half-way loose. A very large main cleat holding the dock in place had been ripped off and that retention cable was just a-hanging doing nothing. And a lot of ropes and chains had been worked loose and/or broken.

On the other hand, more ropes and chains should fix all that and so we re-and-re’d everything, levered the ramp back, re-installed the wheel and added a few reinforcements where we could. Barring another weather battering, it should last. When it is not so bloody miserable outside, we’ll add some more reinforcements.

The most challenging moment was when the filled-with-water float started to drift away. A pike pole couldn’t grab it and so Sal jumped into her boat with the dead engine. She paddled out, wrapped a rope around it and paddled back. That was not easy. We then wrestled the equivalent of a baby Beluga onto the dock to drain the water out. That was NOT easy either. That might have been irritant #6 – hard to say.

BUT things were secured for the time being.

THEN we returned home, brought the previously tarped-up load up to the house and got to work warming up. It was 8 degrees inside, we were cold, wet and weary. It was four or so hours after having arrived at the loading dock so we were also pretty efficient in light of the challenges. The main thing: we didn’t get hurt. Getting hurt seems to happen when cold, wet and weary and we managed to dodge that bullet. As Sal said, “I am pretty chuffed about that!”

We were not done by a long shot…….

I went below to start the ‘systems’. The water system would not turn on. No, it was not frozen. Before leaving it, I drained the system. I turned off the pump. I put on the heat tapes. I turned off the water heater. This time I reversed the order and a perfectly working system that had been so properly shut down, remained shut down despite all sorts of ‘checks’. I have one more trick to try but I reluctantly admit that it was my intention to put in a new system this year and, well, it simply did NOT get done. It will. This is definitely another irritant…I have stopped counting!

We huddled around the fire after ‘putting away’ our town stuff and I put a bottle of wine on the stove top. Had to. It was like a popsicle. After about a half hour it was drinkable (not room-temperature because room temperature was also like a popsicle). We re-heated some leftovers and counted our blessings.

Last night, I kept the home fires burning all night long– but NOT raging. So we were only at 13 degrees this morning. It had been a cold night. So far, we are up to 17 and climbing. All is good.

“Dave! Why write that nonsense?”

You make a good point o’ insensitive one. I described it all because, although uncommon, we have a return like that at least once a year. Living with cobbled systems off the grid simply invites glitches and that is to be expected but when glitches line up in a queue, things can get awry pretty fast. This was a bit of an exception. We were surrounded by glitches and challenges and yet managed to eventually get warm, drink wine, have dinner and have things NOT go awry.

There’s a first time for everything!

Batteries are like the rest of us…..

Posted on by
8

….they get old.  Weak.

But, before they pass on to that great recycling depot in the sky, they (like us) strain to do what they used to do.  Which is: give up their energy in aid of comfort (irony).  If you are any kind of decent battery owner, you work ’em til they get a bit embarrassing and then you send them off to the battery rest home.  Out of sight, out of mind……like we old folks.

There is more than just a little anthropomorphism in there, I know that, but that is what we had to do with eight of our old 8D buddies – get rid of them.  And I feel their pain.  I  have empathy. They were no longer pulling their weight.  And they have to do at least that – they each weigh about 150 pounds.

We started about eight years ago with twelve of the monoliths.  THAT was a schlep!  That’s 1800 pounds of lead and acid on small boats and up steep slopes!  Sadly, over the years, a couple failed prematurely and, although I replaced them, that is a fool’s game – you can’t really put new batteries in with old.  But I did it anyway.  I figured ‘gambling’ (sacrificing) with the two newbies would keep the other ten going.  But you can’t do that and not eventually screw up.  Two replacements is about the extent of it on a battery bank of 12.

And then, as the years marched on and more died, I cut back to the best eight.

And, eventually, I bought eight more new ones to form a ‘NEW TEAM’.  They could not be paired with the old team because they would be pulled down by the old, aging group.  So, two groups of eight with one group young and strong and the other starting to limp along somewhat.  A battery switch kept them apart.

And then it was time.  The old guys were just not doing their job.

Batteries are like horses, too.  An old horse can pull your buggy and you just go kind of slow.  Maybe REAL slow but you go.  But, if you add a young, big, strong Percheron, the new guy not only pulls your buggy but he also has to pull the old guy.  It’s actually easier on the new guy to do it alone.

And so it is with us.  We are now relying on the eight new guys (about four years old now).  We took the old guys down to the lower deck this summer and planned to move them off but, well, you know…they are not the only things around here getting old.  We took our time til it was, well, embarrassing.

And that brings us to today.  We are getting off island for a week.  There really was no excuse (trust me) and so we decided to take four of the eight with us when we go.

To the euphemistic battery rest home.…

The logistics of all this aren’t really much…..you lower the batteries to the lower deck (not easy but not complicated).  Then you lower them to the sea when there is a boat there to receive them.  Calm weather is a prerequisite.  Which explains why we chose today.  But…..to get a 150 pound battery into a small boat is particularly not easy.  You can use two people/horses but, really, the one good horse has an easier time of it because two horses on one side of a small boat loading in another 150 pounds is asking to be tipped over.

So…here’s where Sal comes in……. again!  Her boat has about eight inches of freeboard.  That is LOW in the water.  If I stand on one side of it, it tips like a skateboard…resisting the pressure my weight puts on it until it gives up and then everything ‘squirts’ one way or another.  But Sal can walk around it.  She can stand on the gunwhale.  Sal can work on her boat.  I cannot.  The two of us on the boat?  Next to ridiculous.  

So, the plan was to bring two boats around, tie one off to the side for me to use later.  I then lower the batteries to sea level and then Sal puts her little boat-front right smack dab on the cart of the lower funicular.  The question was: “Can Sal move 150 pounds of dead weight from the cart to the boat?”

Bear in mind that ‘ol Sal is only 130 pounds herself!

So, she tied her boat tight to the cart and, with one leg on the bow of her boat and one on the cart, pull-slid the first battery to the edge.  She lifted one half of it an inch or so and then dragged it onto the edge of her boat and then, because of the slant of her deck, slid it down to the middle.  One down, three to go.

After two were in, the boat was kind of low in the water at the front.  So, Sal dragged and pulled the first two to the back of her boat.  And then repeated the exercise to get all four in.  And then, for fun, we added a 100 pound winch that a friend needs to borrow.

Took Sal about 15 minutes to load 700 pounds onto a small boat!

I hauled the cart back to the deck, climbed into the second boat (had I been in Sal’s boat, we would all be in the water at this juncture).  And we proceeded to the other island where our car is.  I got the truck and backed it to the beach.

The tide was higher than usual.  So high, in fact, I could drive right into the sea with only 2/3 of the rear wheels showing.  That put Sal’s boat only about one foot lower when she came up to the back of the truck.  In rubber boots we pull-hauled the batteries and the winch into the back of the truck.  We then took it up the hill to our little utility trailer.  There, we jockeyed trailer and truck so that we could off-load and the whole schmozle went into the trailer.

Weather permitting, we will repeat the whole exercise in a couple of weeks and the chore will be done.

Life needs beach access

Posted on by
11

Bookclub Sunday.  December.  Raining.  Twenty women coming in small boats.  Sal’s turn to host.  She’s in full Chatelaine mode. “Sweetie.  Please go down to the dock, move the boats around and help the women tie up their boats to the dock.”

“Sal!  All those women are more competent in small boats than the coast guard.  They don’t need me.”

“DaVID!”

“Fine!  I am on my way.”

Guests tie up at our neighbour’s dock.  The one we use all the time, too.  It’s a typical non-permanent float tied to shore with heavy lines so as to remain relatively in one place and there is a ramp that slides up and down with the tide and as the currents dictate.  The ramp is fixed at one end, the other end is free to move with the main float.  It has served the owner well for over 25 years and it has also carried our added burden for the last 15.  It’s a great dock.

But…well, everything needs maintenance and repairs and docks are exceptionally needy.  They have to adjust to winds and tides, storms and freezing temperatures  They plunge and strain when the seas are up and, of course, they rot and rust in the expected areas.  Docks require attention.  They just do.

That is why we always refer to it as ‘our neighbour’s dock’.  It is RIGHT IN FRONT of his place so that seems fitting but it is also true that our great neighbour keeps it all afloat and we simply waltz up and down now and then and smile and say ‘hi’.

It’s a GREAT system!

But, he’s away for awhile and the storms coming through these past four days had their way with us.  The first two times we were called to action the ramp had jumped it’s tracks and managed to half-escape the west end of the main float that it is supposed to sit on.  Sal alerted me to it the first time when she was headed off to quilting.  “Sweetie!  The ramp is falling in the water!  I won’t go to quilting.  I’ll stay and help.”

“No, Biggy.  You go.  I can fix it.”  And I did.

The next day Sal was headed to the post office and the winds were howling.  She wasn’t sure whether to go so went over to check the boats.  “Sweetie!  The ramp jumped the tracks again.  This time the wheels came off.  It’s too rough to go to the post office.  Let’s go fix it.”  And so we did.

Last night must have blown even harder.  As I got close to the dock it was obvious that we had a new and bigger problem.  The ramp was now in the water having disconnected itself from the land!  This time, the land side of the ramp had gone askew.  The storm must have driven the floats hard against the shore as far as the lines would allow and that drove the ramp further along the dock than ever before.  Half of it was on the main float when the hinges on the land side gave way and the ramp fell into the water but it did not sink to the bottom because it was held up by the float it had miraculously climbed along.

Still, the ramp was in the water but hanging in it with the broken end about three feet or more underwater.  And the main float was now all askew with the all the new weight draped off the end.  The main float was now twenty-five feet from shore and it was very, very deep there.  Losing the ramp was a distinct possibility.

And twenty women were coming to bookclub.

It is at times like this, a man has to go to his strength.

I went to fetch Sal.

“Sal.  We gotta problem.  You gotta come.  But first, call Doug, call Scott and call Steve.  Tell them the ramp broke.  It’s hangin’ in the water.  We need help.  Then, come with me.  I can’t get over to the float side but you can.”

I grabbed a ladder.  Sal grabbed a rope.  When we got to the site of the calamity, Sal took off her shoes and socks, rolled up her pants and I put the ladder over the gap.  But, of course, it only got her to the two foot deep mark of the hanging ramp.  Off she went along the horizontal ladder like the yoga-monkey she is and got to the other side.  Everything tipped!  She quickly scampered along the barely balancing ramp and got to the main float.

We were about to tie ropes to the hanging ramp when the first of her guests arrived.  “You ferry them in your little boat to the shore.  I’ll receive them and send them up to the house.  When they are all arrived, you go with them.  In the meantime, can you use your boat to get a line on the end of the ramp?”

Sal got a line on, then ferried the women over to the shore.  I sent them up to the house and Doug and Scott arrived just as that gracious operation was wrapping up.  Barefoot Sal followed them up to the house, bookclub began and the three guys stood looking at the problem.

When working with women, one is obliged to discuss and explain everything and then plan for required breaks, what will be served for dinner that night and which tools we will need between then and now.  At the very least.  Consensus must be reached on at least two of the topics, however random, before work can commence.  If anyone arrives on the scene, we are also supposed to down tools, chat politely for at least ten minutes and then beg our pardons because we have to continue our work.  It is de rigeur.  Even the women being ferried the twenty or so feet felt obliged to say, “Hi, Dave, how are you doing?  You look busy.  What about the weather, eh?  When did the dock break?”

There were twenty of them!

The three men said little if anything.  Doug finally said, “Scott, do you know where the tirfor is?”  Scott spun his boat around and was gone.  Doug turned to me.  “You got any chain?  And shackles?”  I grunted in the same manner as Scott had, spun and ran to my shop.  I picked up the shackles and 25 feet of 3/8 chain and ran back.  A minute later, Scott was back with the tirfor (a type of winch that I now need more than anything).  We worked for about an hour, maybe two.  My guess: Maybe five minutes of that had conversation.  Maybe 7.

At one point, feeling the ghost of Sally, I said something completely wrong.  “Say, if you guys want a nice break, Sal and the club have tons of cookies and stuff for you.  If you want?”  Doug and Scott looked at me like I’d just spoken Swahili for “Wanna hear some show tunes?”  Neither answered.

A hour later, the ramp had been lifted and was chained up.  It will last the winter at least.  It may be the fix that keeps on giving.  Not everything has to look nice.  It just has to work.  This works.  And, you know what they say, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Five minutes after the ramp was secure, the guys were gone.  They had both come at a moments notice.  They had dropped everything.  Their reward?  More respect and admiration but they don’t need that.   They have TONS of that! They NEED tons of cookies and stuff.  My earlier Swahili-musical thought was right – the timing was just all wrong.  The club will package up some goodies and drop them first with Doug and then over to Scott’s when they leave.  Sal will deliver something extra tomorrow or the next day.

This was really an ordinary emergency – of sorts.  Altho, there are no emergencies that are ordinary.  Not really.  NO lives in danger or anything like that but it was a problem that, if fixed, would then be seen as a medium challenge.  If not fixed, it would get worse and it would have become a MAJOR challenge.  Doug and Scott are two guys who have been out here a long time and have a lot of skills and a deep repertoire of tricks and ‘hacks’ to get things fixed.  Plus they have tools and know how to use them.  Give them a lever, a block and a length of rope and they can do just about anything.

I am grateful.  I couldn’t have done it alone.  OR even with Sal.  This needed a tirfor at the very least and, by the time Sal and I had discussed it, planned dinner and reached consensus on myriad and sundry other topics, the ramp may have been twenty feet deeper.  We are very lucky for great, skilled, quick, albeit somewhat monosyllabic, neighbours.

Some adjustment may be required

Posted on by
10

It’s kind of interesting watching the world begin to adjust to what has been obvious and inevitable for decades.  We knew things were all messed up.  Is this the adjustment period?

We knew climate was changing, pollution was poisoning, species were dying and things were just generally ‘getting out of whack’.  We knew about the environmental side in our heads ever since Silent Spring (Rachel Carson) in the 60’s.  But, environmental degradation is slow.  It was business as usual for 99.99% of us and complete and total denial for the so-called leaders.  Oddly, poisoned environments didn’t alert us.

Climate and environment is NOT as big as their job or the stock market to many urban people.  It just isn’t.  Out of sight, out of their ever-lovin’ minds. Things are changing on that score, however.  Even Gordon Gekko and Bubba think Green sometimes now.

I remember distinctly when my first conscious thought of the environment occurred to me (although there must have been many hints and clear messages previous to that, they simply did not ‘click’ until then.)  It was back in the 80’s for me.  I was in school.  They did a diagram on the amount of water in the Ogallala aquifer, the underground body of water that serves and supports a large portion of the US.  The news item reported that it was being depleted.  Seems the depletion rate has only increased since then. The Ogallala is drying up.  Takes 6000 years to fill up.

But that wasn’t news for most people.  Not real OJ Simpson-in-a-Bronco NEWS.  There were also the threats of species extinction from the Vancouver Island marmot to the spotted owl, from the Monarch butterfly to wild salmon, herring, sea weed and the list is now endless…..but….that WASN’T news, either.  NOT REALLY.  We had TV.  Soon we would have the Kardashians.  Pop news was becoming celebrity.  Real news was becoming cerebral.  They are different.

And, back then, Sally and I moved next door to Bob Hunter and watched GreenPeace hatch in real time.

‘Course, I do not measure my life by the amount of water underground or the number of owls in the trees either but it was all a bit of a starting point for me.  A slightly different consciousness started back then.  I started to watch for ‘indicators’, ‘trends’, ‘signs’.  I looked for other sources of information.  All of them, of course, had to have some ‘personal perspective’ component otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed. I was busy, too.

I also read, of course.  I listened, too.  But, to be honest, it kind of has to hit me personally to really sink in.  Learning is good – but experiencing, feeling, seeing at a visceral level is better.  I am ‘getting a message’ now and it is not just regurgitated hysteria from amphibian watchers or butterfly counters or pollution measurers.  But, of course, they are absolutely right.  Things are dying.  In great numbers.

I won’t bore you with a litany of natural disasters that have been observed just from living out here but, suffice to say, nature is suffering.  There is less and less of more and more.  And what is left is out of whack.

But it isn’t just about birds, bees and bull kelp.  Some of it is obvious and of interest to all but the naturally disengaged and the truly stupid.  YOU know this.  YOU saw it, too.  Economics went weird over the last fifteen years or so…..

I remember driving to Mexico in the fall of 2006.  We drove through California and saw great swathes of houses (ticky-tacky) spreading like a blight across the inhospitable dessert.  In itself, that is not any more insane than building anywhere inhospitable but the prices were also INSANE!!!  They were being advertised in 2006 for ‘starting at’ $499,000 (Californian minimum wage was, I believe, five dollars an hour).  Close to one hundred miles from any town, crap houses in the dessert were (presumably) selling for way, way more than anyone could possibly afford – especially in the numbers being built.  I did the math in my head.  I did the amortization in my head.  I did the driving to and from work in my head.  “Sal.  This is insane.  Mark my words.  THIS IS INSANE.  Something is wrong with the system.  This does not compute.  This is a housing boom destined to fail BIG time.”  

And, of course, the bank’s sub-prime debacle of 2007/2008 played out and almost brought that ‘which was too big to fail’ to it’s knees.  But it was plain to see.  It was right in front of us as we drove past.  Okay, okay . . . I did not know sub-prime from tranches, credit default swaps from CDOs.  I didn’t know the details, the jargon, the industry and the big government LIES but ………..that it was all adding up to a BIGGER LIE – that was clear to anyone.

BIG LIES show up if you open your eyes wide enough.

Here’s another one…..and this is the main one (personal level) for me, really…..a few years ago, I could buy an inverter generator for less than a nice dinner out with Sally at a fancy place (almost still can).  THAT was truly crazy.  Hard, metal, complicated, high tech stuff for the same price as a dinner?  STUFF was coming in from CHINA so cheap that it seemed like a huge ‘proportional value’ mistake was being made on their part.

Hell, you could get crap from China shipped free that cost one-fifth what a similar North American made product cost and the shipping itself, within our continent, was more than the price of the Chinese product!  My sense of value was turned on it’s head.   ‘How does that make any sense?’

The system was broke.

The system is broke.

AND (it finally caught up with us) we broke the environment.  We broke the climate.  We broke the economy and, unless I am guessing wrong, we broke democracy a long time ago, too.  In many ways, it is currently a free-fall free-for-all, dystopian system that, while it is all still connected, is also currently rapidly disconnecting.  See Trump dissemble.  See Trump dismantle.  See Trump destroy.

See the confused and angry masses………….

We’re in a serious adjustment phase.