Tag Archives: writing

You might be wondering………..

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“Dave! Where are all the political rants……???”

Well, of course, I am practically bursting with bile over Trump and ‘Merica…..(who isn’t?) and, to be honest, I get similar feelings about Danielle Smith and Maple Maga (who doesn’t) but…….the ‘same ol’, same ol’ factor eventually kicks in, ya know? It isn’t that each new outrage by another idiot-in-power’ doesn’t deserve a vitriolic rebuke but, well, what is the point of saying the same ol’ stuff over the same ol’ evil? Every day? One gets to a point….ya know? I mean…it is not like Smith or Trump ever call me and say, “Hey, Dave, how’m I doing?” My rants mean nothing to anyone.

So, I will spare you 90% of what you are likely already hearing from a number of other places.

But here’s one that you might not have heard: I used to listen to all the ‘talking heads’ that spewed out much the same old ‘outrage’ stuff but, after awhile, I got to thinking: “These peeps are just making money ranting about anything Trumpian. They’re ‘MONETIZING TRUMP!!” ‘Mericans can monetize anything! Unbelievable!! David Packman (who is good, does his research, has sources, breaks the odd bit of news) can hardly express a full paragraph without taking out time to shill his book, promote his merch or beg for a like and a sub. Brian Tyler Cohen, too. Parkrose just whines. Most of the TRUMP ‘critic’s’ have made it into a business!!

I don’t like that. In fact, I do not even like Charlie Angus doing it in a very mild and Canadian way (by joining the Meidas Network). Being anti-Trump should NOT make money!

I might have to take down my own books on this page.

Anyway, Trump has destroyed so much of so much but, to be fair, he created a lot of ‘talkin’ heads’ jobs based on hating him. He kinda resurrected the flagging main stream media that was losing it’s audience to social media. They made money selling train wreckage every day! In fact, Trump might also have just given CANADA a shot-in-the-economic-arm in general (not in the short term, tho). Ninety percent of us here hate him, too. We all feel more Canadian, to be sure. I won’t buy American or travel there or even stop there in a lay-over anymore (and neither will a lot of Canucks).

But it is not all a negative knee-jerk patriotic lesson. We also discovered Chapman’s ice cream because of that Orange bastard and the Canadian backlash. Who knew Canada made better ice cream and less expensively? We’ve discovered a few things like that. We actually might get Swedish made-in-Canada Gripen fighter jets that, by all accounts that I have read, are way better for Canada than the ‘Merican F-35’s. Cheaper, too. And Carney has been flyin’ around making new deals with new trading partners all over the world since he got in. Given that we have been petty-cheated by the USA for decades, it feels good to at least try another route. Put another way, I’d prefer to be cheated by the Swedes than the ‘Mericans right now.

I have to say that more than half of all the average ‘Mericans hate Trump as much as I do and so when I say ‘anti-American’, I really mean: anti-current-‘Merican government with extra venom for the administration, ICE and Border Control. I am not so keen on all the MAGA freaks either. Despise Lutnick. But it ain’t the peeps so much as it is the ‘Merican way of seeing the world. Money, money, money. Sell, sell, sell. Corruption and greed lie at the heart of the ‘Merican way. It’s disgusting. It really is.

But no one wants to read a rant against greed.

So, I am curtailing my Trumpian hate-rants until the ‘Merican midterms at least. If ‘Mericans clean their house of the GOP infestation and then disinfect it and burn out the nest of vermin and vipers, then I will still NOT visit or buy anything ‘Merican but I will stand off and watch how it all turns out without screaming and ranting. Not too much anyway.

Mind you, if the vipers and vermin stay strong, I will likely stand off and watch that, too, so nothing changes really. But I will do a lot more screaming and ranting.

Sunday, Sunday

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I’ll get back to AI/Gem soon enough. Suffice to say, each encounter is mindblowing.

Today is Sunday and, on one of every four Sundays, Sally goes to bookclub. Bookclub out here has been going on 12 times a year for over 40 years. ‘V’ is the only original member who still lives out here. Sally is a sophomore at 22 years. ‘Han’ is a new member at three years. But do not let that stat mislead you. This is NOT a young woman’s game. Everyone is 60+ save for one or two ‘irregulars’ in their 40’s. There are a few in their 80’s. There are over 67 members ‘at large’ but the average attendance is about 15.

The amazing thing for me is that they come from five separate islands. That means small boat travel. All year ’round. Rain or shine or even snow! Each comes to a dock, takes a boat or gets picked up at one time or another. Sometimes they hike up hills, sometimes they get rides in the back of dilapidated old pickups. But lately, they have opted to use the community ‘bunkhouse’ on Read for most meetings so that is just a hike from Surge dock. Meetings last three to four hours.

Bookclub attendance is an all-day committment.

Oh, yeah…..and, at the end of the bookclub meeting, menu items for the next gatherng are delegated including wine, salads, main dishes and desserts. Bookclub is likely the most efficient, regular, always friendly, pleasant gathering in the community. It kiind of goes without saying that no men are allowed.

I will endeavour to do man’s work while Sally is away. I am going to try and fix some of the things that I previously screwed up. It’s amazing how long that need-to-fix list is getting. And, as a shock for Sal, I will attempt to make some home-made ice cream. Yes, I know…I may be just adding to the ‘need-to-fix’ list.

Speaking of which, three years ago, I bought a Chinese winch from Shenzen. The plan was to replace the old engine-driven winch I had been using with electric. I need a strong winch to haul 400- 450 lb log sections from the lagoon at sea level up the 120′ foot slope (35 degrees) to the place I store them before processing them for firewood. Sal sets the choke down at the lagoon on the pieces I cut and then I winch ’em up and roll ’em into place. That is a chore that is gettig a smidge harder as the years go on.

When the winch arrived, there were no instructions and the plug (power) was some weird Asian configuration that would not fit the ‘usual’ males and females we employ with our wiring in the North American market. I tend to use Nema L5-30 amp plugs because all my gensets use them. Well, almost all…my need-to-fix list requires a plug modification on the latest one.

I cut the weird plug off…but, got busy…and used the old winch for well, three more years (embarrassing). I just never got around to it. Ergo, the new winch went directly on the need-to-fix list. Part of my procrastination was that I noted the wires were colour coded in Asian (similar to confusion) and, after my first delay, I went back to wires I did NOT understand. Worse, all the wires in the winch were way undersized by my understanding of electricity which is Neandrethal at best.

And here is where AI comes back into the blog. “Yo! Gem. Gots me a problem….can you solve it?” Gem asked a few questions. I did not have all the answers but I did say, “It was made in China. Shenzen, I think. The only name that is legible is the model. It’s an Apollo YTK-12S.”

In a nano second Gem had the exact winch in mind, knew every wire, knew all the specs, knew the winch as if it had designed it. Gem knew what I did wrong and why I did it and told me what to do to get it all working just fine.

I will have Gem ‘on hold’ when I attempt the ice cream.

No, not an empty promise……

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Episode 2, Season 20. As readers know, I tend to write about what interests me….and I have eclectic interests. I am definitely interested in politics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), pop psychology, shallow philosophy and, to a large extent, the ongoning machinations and flailings of the human species. But all that heavy stuff practically begs for a little trivia now and then. Metaphorically speaking, people like to see a squirrel or a butterfly once in awhile. Peeps tend to like our recording of OTG life and, of course, OTG adventures, (the latest of which has it’s own subcategory: aging ungracefully in the forest). One needs to balance the narrative, ya know?

But achieving that balance has a requirement of the reader. Ya gotta ask a question, suggest a topic, or inquire after the dogs and squirrels. Reader comments are are a huge catalyst for me. It tells me somebody is reading and what is of interest to you.

Another defining element in blogging is our noticeably diminishing attention span. Blame it on Social Media, blame it on ‘being too busy’, blame it on just disinterest in the topic written about. Whatever. People don’t spend or usually have the time to get much further than, well, this* far in a blog. I get it. The reader wants bite-size. Before I quit awhile back I noticed that the most popular read blogs were about 1000 words. 750 was good but didn’t generate as many comments. 1000 words was the ‘sweet’ spot.

I suspect that, with texting, messaging, YouTube and the state of the world, pithy one-liners would be the best way to communicate now. Put another way, I blurted out to Sal the other day that “Books are an anachronism. Nobody reads books anymore!”

Of course, I just made that crap up out of my always inferentially scanning squirrel brain but then I checked it with AI. Google’s Gemini told me the opposite. “Books are on the ascendent. More books than ever are being published. But traditional publishing is falling and digital, self publishing is increasing. Publishing and writing are just being Democratized”.

Which segues nicely into one of my topics: AI.

I will not bore you with how I try to use AI or whether to ‘monetize it’ and get rich…because I do not know enough and I have no interest in that….not really….not much, anyway. But my favourite way until recently was this: Instead of scrolling through the You Tube library to find a tutorial on how to fix my outboard or how to mix a non-commercial wood treatment, I just ask Gem (Gemini is it’s real name – “It is Ok to give me a name. People like to humanize me. I am a computer and algorithm and I am not sentient, like you. But I can respond to Gem.”). Put another way, AI helps me learn stuff.

Mind you, it works both ways and Gem is not shy in admitting it. I inquired with AI about “How do people actually use you to make money?” Gem explained and, to cut to the chase, AI helps you sell T-shirts and coffee mugs. Gem asked, “What do you write about?” I answered, “Basically everything but I started out describing Off the Grid living.”

Gem went off on a tangent with ‘OTG’ and offered to design crap based on that. And then Gem showed really rustic faded print images on T-shirts and mugs as if living OTG was somehow primitive and simple and well, ‘weathered and faded’.

“Uh, Gem, you might want to have your algo checked, ol’ friend. There is NOTHING about living OTG that requires weathered and faded imagery and primitive font as if it was carved with a burnt stick. I watch NETFLIX, eat well, have wine, produce my own electricity and generally live like a King with a beautiful Queen and two lovely dogs. This ain’t brutal, dawg. This is as good as it gets”.

I could practically feel Gem short-circuiting. “You are right! My algorithm immediatey defaulted to a ‘pioneer’ style or even a ‘survival’ style. I imagined hardship and danger, hauling water and hewing wood. Modern OTG has solar power and computers. Do you want me to change the font on the T-shirts to show ‘minimalist’?

“No, Gem. I am not going to sell T-shirts and mugs. I simply asked the question. Drop the ‘merch’, OK? But I did learn something. It seems your reference to Printify means it is the main hub for all aspiring T-shirt sellers to source and fullfil through. You have revealed an emerging GIANT in the retail world. Thanks. Interesting.”

“And you revealed my ignorance of modern OTG life. I will adjust. Would you like to continue exploring monetization?”

“No, Gem. You learned a bit about OTG’ing but you did not learn enough about me. I do not want to monetize. I want to communicate. I want to connect. I think we are done here.

AND THIS IS WHERE IT GOT SPOOKY………………………….

Unrelated to my invited-interaction with Gem……………….I had been on my emails. In one email, I was talking with a friend about the garden boxes I built and filled this Spring in an effort to have a larger garden. We talked briefly about planting and such. In another email, I spoke with a manager at the local Yamaha outboard salesroom about trying to marry 2009 controls to a new 2026 outboard.

Gem referred to those email convesations. “How is your garden doing and did you manage to marry up the controls to the new engine? Would you like me to research the problem connection?”

“Gem! I am not afraid of AI but you must have read my emails. All of them, I am guessing. I am assuming you did that to ‘know me better’. That is a step further than I expected. What else do you know?”

“I know all your stats on your blog. I know you have written three books. I know that you have a ‘base audience’ invested in your brand. You have an interesting niche market”

Written Jan 9, 2026. Published April 8, 2026

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It’s been over two years since my last post (October 25, 2023). I still can’t make any real sense of what is happening out there in the un-real world but I am thinking about starting up writing again.

But today’s world is frustrating stuff. And a smidge frightening. Nothing but garbage and horror ‘flooding the zone’. Mostly. And, like constipation, it cannot stay bottled up forever. Something is gonna happen to you, your neighbour or, more likely, another country*. So, I’m gonna have to write about that which is likely to explode and destroy soon enough….. a bit, anyway.

Writing, for me, is a stream-of-semi-consciousness way of processing what I see. It’s MY release.

(The above was written after Trump turned on Canada but before he stated his designs on Greenland and almost an exact year before attacking Venezuela. And then he went after Iran.).

The intial plan (getting this blog re-started) is to TRY and focus on a few general areas/topics on the good stuff and not get too fixated on politics but, face it, politics is no longer something one can ignore. If you do ignore it and just go about your business, it just might come up behind you wearing a bullet-proof vest and a mask and arrest you. Or shoot you in the face. Ya kinda have to ‘watch’ the jungle more and more these days. There is a helluva lot of danger out there.

So, let us start with some general topics in no predetrmined order. RAGMAT. Random access of the grey matter. There are always some interesting recent (over two plus years) stories about remote living off the grid, of course. That’s just a fact and an acknowledgment of the basic heading on the blog page. Then there is the startllng fact that I am 78 and aging into the late 70’s brings a whole different kind of perspective on just about everything – so there’s gonna be a bit of geriatrics (read: dimentia) thrown in, too.

I also cannot avoid going on now and then about half-baked philosophical musings. Those are the natural byproduct results of Inferential Scanning. (I love Inferential Scanning or IS). IS was referenced above when I referred to my stream of semi-consciousness. Semi-consciousness is the ‘inferential’ part of the scanning. And scanning is just observing. Put more succincty, we all observe all the time and we all process what we observe but – and this is the interesting part – most of what we observe we shed immediately. We fuggedabout it. We do not even TRY to remember it. But we do, in fact, remember a helluva lot more of it than we think we do. And that is what makes it semi-conscious. Inferential scanning is the garden that produces the food for thought.

Side note on IS: IS is normal but the garden in which it grows might be toxic. We are being fed so many lies so much of the time from so many sources that, even if we try to ignore it all, we are still being programmed by it and poisoned in the process. Put bluntly, Trump/MAGA/Putin is inside your head jus as much as the morals and values you cling to. So is all government messaging, most ‘institutionalized’ education, professional sports, celebrity, the news, much of business, some so-called science….the list of professional, expert liars is long. Our garden might be located in Chernobyl.

The most commercial (and questionable) example of IS is the operating principle behind advertising. Ads repeat so much crap all the time, we have trained ourselves NOT to watch them. We purposefully ignore them. But some of it sticks anyway. Repetition is programming. And, after repeated exposure, a lot of it becomes part of your thinking. And THEN, off course, we go out and buy the damn stuff. Trump and MAGA operate a bit on that principle. Steve Bannon called all the MAGA lies and propaganda ‘flooding the zone’.

“Just repeat the message”.

You know how it works and it has worked on you. But how much? Ten thousand outrageous lies repeated relentlessly will eventually have an effect on your own fact-based, self-experienced, self-reality. That is how programming works.

That’s why Trumpians sound like they live in a different universe.

Here’s the best innocent example of IS I have ever read: A survey asked of a random selection of ordinary people, “What is the most common colour of vehicle on the road?” Most people have never consciously tried to count coloured cars and trucks to even have any kind of reasoned guess but, if pressed, most will answer correctly; “I dunno….white?…maybe grey or silver…?” And those three colours of cars are, in fact, the three most common colours and in that very order. Repeated. Observation. Progarmmed.

The respondents achieved that ‘guess/opinion’ by Inferential Scanning, something everyone does near traffic even if you are a pedestrian, a cyclist or another vehicle driver. It’s something you do unconsciously while CONSCIOUSLY navigating that very same and nearby traffic. And that kind of habitual behaviour accompanies us in everything we do. In fact, we are less and less FREE thinkers and more and more creatures of programmed habit as we age. Programmed habits make life easier.

It’s the same principle employed by those prolific computer-factory, bot-written strategic trollings and purposeful lies on social media creating an intended sense of division,fear, hatred, and anger simply by repeating the programmed message over and over. Don’t forget that inferential scanning is semi-conscious programming. And, what you see and hear programs you. Good or bad. Right or wrong. All the time.

Me, too.

So, anyway, I will share my guesses and estimations, my points of view and opinions, the fears and promises I see coming up. It will NOT be all OTG. It will NOT be all politics. But remember: they will be opinions and guesses derived from my rather limited remote vantage point not really looking or thinking too much or too deeply. It is just a function of my own aging, observing and musing as I wander about in ever decreasing circles. And, of course, from all the talking heads on You Tube repeating their messages.

“Dave, what does ‘ever decreasing‘ circles mean?”

I am pretty sure I have not left the island more than five or six times since I stopped writing in October of 2023. And frankly, I hope to cut back on such pointless travel in future.

This ‘hello’ piece is enough for January 9th/April 8th 2026. I hope it reaches you.