Thursday,
January 11, 2007 9:42 PM
Well I was very bad today, or perhaps yesterday as you'll
see in the pictures below, so tomorrow will start, but not
too early (8:30ish) with a little Burger King senior coffee
(free refills) and a Whopper Junior, heavy all ($1.67 total).
Then a truck trip to Parker to the bicycle shop searching
for spokes! Count five clockwise from the valve stem. If
that was an X-ray we'd be in surgery, compound fracture
reduction.
George
of George and Tioga often shows you a picture of his
food. See why I don't, usually. It tasted much better
than it looked. Stale French bread morphed into French
toast with 1 egg, condensed milk, splenda and cinnamon.
|
I
road out to the petroglyph site and noticed my rear
wheel was wobbling, which is often indicative of a broken
spoke. I went gently and took the pictures below, fielded
phone calls about various web work issues (I shouldn't
take a phone with me when I go there) and then returned
very gently back home where I found 8, EIGHT broken
spokes on the drive ring side. Ouch! |
I found we didn't have pictures of this grinding basin
and yet I remember finding it with my brother. I'm nervous
about this one because I do not think it is attached
to the other extruded bed rock and therefore could grow
legs. I wanted to get a picture before it walked away. |
I was on the phone looking at the grinding basin to
the left when I realized there was another one hiding
under this creosote bush about four feet to the right.
Wow! I find new glyphs and grind basins in almost every
trip. |
I ordered a new stronger 36 spoke wheel complete with the
drive gear already mounted on it, but it will take 8 or
9 days to get here so I'll repair the other wheel if I can
find spokes locally or in Parker that will work. I cannot
let you leave thinking that the drive gear is what broke
the spokes. I already told you the real reason below. Owner
abuse. Cuff him.
Kim,
thanks for the pictures of how dismal it looks from the
window near my cubicle. It is good not to be there. It is
windy here but not too bad.
Gary wrote another letter and clarified points and said
it was OK to post whatever I want, thank you Gary. I'll
put your points up tomorrow after the great spoke hunt.
You people in Eugene do have an advantage when bicycle parts
are needed. No great insight tonight chickies but I hope
you looked at Ed's Bighorn sheep pics. You can live an entire
life without getting anywhere within miles of them and he
was that close. Wow.
Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:21 PM
Hey Ed went to look at a place called Bigfoot (a foot impression
in sandstone) here and for the first time in the twenty
years he has been in this desert he saw ... go
see. Cool.
Personally I found another grind basin this morning and
noticed that my rear wheel had a bit of a wobble. When I
returned I found 8 broken spokes on the drive gear side.
I have been abusing the hell out of the bicycle (not the
engine - lots of oil changes and air cleaner maintenance)
but the wheels and frame and forks - hooo boy - jumping
six foot cliffs to the wash bottoms, sliding and smacking
all sorts of things. I'm amazed the spokes held up this
long. I've ordered a heavier wheels, more spokes and new
drive gear to fit, but it won't be here for 8 or 9 days
so I'm headed to town to look for spokes. I can true it
up enough for gentle work so that I don't have run the truck.
This is the sort of thing that playing with technology teaches
me and why I do it now instead of later. It is easy for
me to improve the bicycle now, just a internet connection
and a cell phone call and I'm good. Later this would be
a real ankle buster. Not only do you have to have the future
technology, you have to maintain it fix it and find out
what breaks. Or, like, Phil, walk away from any technology
because you don't really need any of it. I know, but I really
really like my bicycle and it is so MUCH FUN!
Pictures a little later. The wind has started. Also Gary
has written to gently chide me, his words were meant for
me and hadn't been organized enough for public display.
He may rewrite, or I may use some of the points he mailed
me a few minutes ago. Later gator.
Thursday, January 11, 2007 8:13 AM
Good morning sunny desert dwellers. The doves are swooping
around the trailer, there is a mild wind and the storm is
delayed, so it looks really nice here this morning. I am
adding some comments following Gary's article and for anyone
who wished to comment I will add yours in the order that
they arrive. Different viewpoints, contention, ruffled feathers
make the flock, not agreement. If we build a tribe, a community
of light footed flexible people when then we are building
our future, your children's futures, they fun, discussion,
argument and MOVEMENT are the result and should be. One
little thing I've learned despite my frozen insect like
intelligence is that people are reading and being influenced
by our frank discussions here.
I could be more civil, I don't have to use the word "fuck."
It certainly will continue to make the site invisible on
the search engines. But though I've given it little thought,
it seems that civility, and careful well thought speech
are the ways we keep space and distance in this crowed world.
I personally would rather have you angry, me angry, hurt
and hearing the real you, than have you be kind to the crazy
fuck who is obsessed with the world ending. You know, maybe
in this early shocking phase it may seem like that to some,
but in fact I am obsessed with the new world coming, not
the old world going. I get that it is going and the speed
is immaterial to me. What is important to me is that I have
close people who are so different from each other, yet all
hold the keys to our future, and I want to give you a place
to build that. You don't have to every day; that I do is
my choice because I want to and this is fun to me.
So if Gary makes you mad, respond. If you agree, why? Are
you an obsessive fuck too? What connections of the mind
and heart are not being seen here. Maybe you believe that
all this is exactly as it should be and that all matter
is alive and at some level, cognizant of us. Do you? Tell
me.
Meanwhile remember civility is just another way to box your
fear and box your heart. Take down the curtains, open the
blinds, let your pain out and the sunlight in. John Muir
used to climb into the tops of trees, I have read, in the
middle of violent storms to be close to "nature."
Do you know what is more insanely courageous than that?
Exposing your heart and what you think. Shout. Shout something
smart, shout something stupid, but for our sakes, shout.
You'll make us think, and oh shit, maybe we with feel too.
I cried quite a bit yesterday for friends' pains. I know
I'm pretty far from healthy, I'm pretty far from in balance,
but there is one thing I know, but don't know why. When
I cry, or laugh, or dance alone to music that makes me open
up, or when I sand my walking stick, I am closer to something
we all share, we all need, and we all want. You put a word
to it.
You all know that I love linux even though I'm not very
good in that operating system, and most of you know that
my favorite Linux distribution is Ubuntu. The meaning of
this word bears repeating and understanding. I'm told it
is Swahili and it means "I am who I am because of all
of us." That deserves a moment, doesn't it?
Wake up chickies it is another morning in paradise.
Wednesday,
January 10, 2007 10:23 PM
The wind has started tonight. It is supposed to be windy
and rain tomorrow. I re staked and tightened la Casa Blanca
and filled water and charged all batteries. I'm settling
in a 24 hours of thinking and writing and spreading myself
all over the ideas and feelings of the desert, my friends,
their disparate troubles, and tonight several of them have
heavy hearts and hard decisions to make. It is oddly comforting
to know that despite the world's problems, our global concerns,
people get sick, run out of money, get old, get hurt, and
everyone adapts. You know it is what we do best, even with
tears in our eyes; we adapt. I know it is trite to say I
am blessed, but I am blessed with a certain distance or
"pedestal" as Gary points out in his rant below,
which allows me to be somewhat independent of the some of
the "rock and roll" of "normal" life.
Yes I sometimes have that distance, that independence, I'm
allowed to be quiet and read and think, but at a heavy price
as many of you are well aware. Good night free chickens
everywhere.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 9:54 PM
I made a promise few days ago to avoid the aftershock part
of our discussions and I will keep focused on what future
we can create. Yet I won't stop you from going where you
want in what you write me. Tonight I received a letter from
a free chicken and friend, Gary, which is part rant and
part a vision of a a possible future. I disagree with some
of his premise, but he has creative ideas and the beginning
of a plan. There are many head busting thoughts here such
as "Remove
credit from the equation. Make everyone give back everything
they don't own outright." I
particularly like that one. It is well worth reading the
entire thing, more than once.
OK,
let me say this before I continue - I don't believe
that it's all going to hit the fan and be as bad as...
I WISH it would be. That would, after all, justify my
seemingly crazy actions over the past 4 years...
There are too many of us out there that are quietly
and patiently waiting for things to change for the better.
A certain amount of chaos is inevitable (and good) in
my opinion... It makes people take a step back and re-evaluate
what is important and what isn't. The problem is that
the people most likely to step back and re-evaluate
their situation are likely to be from a country other
than America. Americans are typically too busy to notice
things like wars for oil resources and the like. Oh
wait, didn't we happen to bury a deep oil pipeline from
somewhere in the middle-east through Afghanistan as
part of our war on terror? Shit, I can't remember because
they dropped that story to announce that the new PS3
just came out . . . read more
from "he's whose name must not be mentioned"
|
My
comments on Gary's rant are at the end of his page - alan
- suns out I'm off this computer!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 7:16 AM
Every
job, no matter how small makes a disproportionate sized
mess. There is some sort of law at work that underlies
my nature. If I can conceive of the job clearly in my
head and it appears to be a 15 minute job, I should know
it will take 2 hours to do right. This was only drilling
one big hole for the female 12V socket and running two
wires, positive and negative from the battery bank - continued
RIGHT >> |
But
wait, oh yea, I need to have a fuse in the line just in
case I get something metal down in there and short it
out and burn up the trailer. Stop being so lazy, in the
picture above left you can see a little black fuse box
from some RV salvage. I just went there and picked up
a hot line, plugged in a 5am saber fuse - but which line?
Go get the test equipment, crimpers, cable holders, drill,
shrink tubing, wire cutters, silicone caulk, and above,
you see it done. Betraying nothing of the two hours the
job required. |
The
reward for living in more primitive conditions than you
might is that I get to be in the sun, and it was hot in
the sun by 2pm yesterday, though the wind was about 10mph.
La Casa Blanca provides a wind break from the North, and
give me a little solarium of sorts between the truck and
the wall of the canopy tent. I find myself there almost
every afternoon stretched out like an Oregon rust bucket.
But the rust is going and the tan is coming back. I love
the sun and the desert. |
Left:
That is how the water gets from the 55 gallon barrel that
I fill, 4 miles away to the 30 gallon tank in the airstream.
The repair I made with silicone apparently is working
fine, and water is topped up. I use about 55 gallons every
5 or 6 days now that I am slowing down.
Above: I sanded the Barstick down through the finer 150
grit, but stopped there. I have only two 220 grit sheets
and I want to use them for sanding between the varathane
coats. It was fun putting it on and it only took a few
seconds. I'll be sanding a lot of that shine off before
the next coat goes on. |
TJ has
shipped the chinese thin film solar panels to me and I'll
have them up and testing next week. For those of you like
Mike W who are looking at panels right now, please look at
Unisolar. The have some very interesting characteristics compared
to my panels. They are not as efficient per square inch, but
they absorb a wider band of light frequencies. The panels
above me as I type really like the frequencies of the direct
sunlight and don't do well with blues and browns from instance.
The thin film has more sensitivity to light that has come
through a cloud for instance, maybe 1/3 more sensitivity.
Now don't get confused, there is nothing like direct sunlight
for making solar power, just like in wind, you need to talk
above 15 mph if you want to spin the meters.
However I have been thinking about my own bias on solar and
wind, which is the cost/performance bias. I always want to
the cheapest cost with the most power. I got to thinking about
this yesterday, and that only makes sense when there is choice
of panels and parts and wind motors and when you have income.
I'm trying to make my six month income stretch farther all
the time because I want more of the technology of the future
than the technology of today. But when you look at any situation
where you have to have power and there is no grid power, it
is not how much energy you are producing per dollar, ONLY
how much energy you are producing.
That got me to thinking. Each of us has to make energy production
our hobby. I can't tell you the value of NOT knowing or caring
if grid power is working. I always have electricity and it
is not dependent on what you do or anyone else. I get to type
here this morning with a light on the keyboard to watch my
mistakes unfold, and look out the window at the dawn that
is breaking. My satellite transmitter is receiving and sending
information to a satellite 22,000 miles up in space. My wireless
frees my five laptops (all old and recycled) to be anywhere
inside or out of the trailer. I doing all that with energy
I captured from the sun yesterday and the days before.
So I'm going to look again at wind. It is more complex, has
more moving parts, and like my installation of that little
12V receptacle I find that it is simple in concept and very
difficult in reality. But maybe I should look at smaller wind,
like 200W output, small mast, low height, small cheap plastic
blades and shorter runs of smaller wire. Some people have
told me that you should have two or three small wind generators,
spreading the failures and increasing the power, but staying
cheap. If you price wind you will see that it soars as you
try to reach for 800-1000 Watts - it jumps into the thousands.
Meanwhile we are surrounded (check ebay on wind generator
motor) by cheap DC motors that put out some electricity.
If I can build something that does not require constant attention
(which is what I love about my solar panels - they need nothing
from me on a day to day or week to week basis - they just
keep making electricity), then I wouldn't mind building several
of them. Hmnn. Well I'm meeting Ed and Phil for breakfast
at the Burger King (senior coffee, whopper Junior). If you
are a hungry poor person who is trying to get the most value
for your Burger King dollar the secret mantra is "heavy
all." That gets you double up all all lettuce, tomato,
cheese and condiments. A well know secret of the desert rats
in Q. Secrets revealed, only here, on Aftershock!
Tuesday,
January 9, 2007 9:17 AM
Oh the sun is out, the doves are outside my window doing dove
like behavior - lots of neck craning and feather fluffing.
The desert is alive, as there are more people coming in for
the RV shows, but it still seems a small fraction of last
year at the same time.
I'm installing a new 12V receptacle in the trailer concurrent
with writing this as my bed rebuilding during the summer took
2 of the 12V receptacles and hid them under the bed. This
way I can charge my phone while we talk (for you long talkers
and you know who you are).
Also I sanded the Barsik walking stick down through 100 grit
and made all the cuts and changes I wanted. It is quite relaxing
to sit in the sun and sand. It is a time for reflection, but
just as when I was a house painter, I never do reflect. When
I paint houses I think about the next spray, backroll or brush.
When I sand, I think about sanding and how smooth it feels.
It is so great to blow sanding dust off and have the piece
revealed. It is simple, sun, and doing something I want to
do.
There is a fun and interesting piece of
Idle time theory here. Basically it proposes that evolution
does not like stressed and busy all the time organisms because
they have not energy to meet change with. Organisms that are
full time staying alive are just barely alive. It proposes
that the goal of every organism is to minimize maintenance
and maximize idle time. See what you think.
There are a few pictures today and then some thoughts on feet.
My feet your feet. Pictures first for the caffeine deficient.
Above,
even though the number of people here are much less this
year. The LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) provides an excellent
example of the hidden flow of material goods that lay
just out of our sight almost all the time. We may feel
disconnected at times and free and unattached without
our world here in the USA, but the smallest interruption,
and systems collapse and the flow becomes visible. This
is one day that the garbage trucks did not pick up. What
do you want to bet that 9/10's of that is made from oil
and almost all of it a treasure if we knew there will
be no more. |
Barsik
walking stick, ever more abbreviated as, "Barstick"
at the 100 grit stage. |
Yesterday
morning, still recovering slowly from that horrible cold last
week, I headed back irresistibly to the petroglyphs. I found
more, as I do every single time I'm back. I think I found a
solitary one one the east side of the wash below the grinding
basin area, but I couldn't not get a decent picture in the morning
light to tell. There is something important to me, sitting in
that spot, on the rocks where life that was intimate with the
soil and sun and plants and animals all around, went on. Centuries
and centuries ago, peoples feet felt the same rock and pebbles
and sand that mine do. They shifted this way and that. They
had no jobs except life. They weren't separate, they belonged
here. They belonged here in a way that I will never belong anywhere.
 |
To
the lower left you'll see the main glyph of the East face
of the hill. What my brother and I could not see and can
barely be seen here, is the glyphs that are in the center
going to the upper right. Figures, different and smaller
figures. I'm calling this one story glyph because I think
it starts with the two different bulls eyes to the right,
and perhaps it is a story? |
Above
is the east side of the petroglyph hill, and in the upper
right corner you can see the only glyph that faces this
direction. The stone does not photograph well that is
the foreground but it is the eeriest blue-green. One of
the grind basins, the only deep one on petroglyph hill
is just behind the bush on the left. |
Here
is a close up of the that glyph, that when the light is
right you can see is at least five glyphs. There is the
every present water/serpent glyphs, and in the upper right
a female fertility symbol. (not my guess, but other more
studied guesses from other petroglyph sites courtesy of
the Quartzsite library. |
Ok so
lets talk about feet. My brother got me thinking about this,
and there are many preparedness sites that tell you what you
should carry for emergency, but lets look at the one thing
that I see and have read that stops people cold. They know
about water, shelter and fire, even if they do nothing about
that because we just never get around to it, but there is
something very simple that needs to be with you, in your trunk
at least.
Boots.
You have to be able to walk, even if slowly. I can tell you
that shoes and cute plastic boots with fuzzy fur last a very
short time in the wet or rocks. We did not grow up running
over rocks and it is unlikely that you and I will develop
tough enough feet to just head out cross country as we may
very well have to do, when something strands us or requires
us to hoof it.
So get some leather boots that lace up and fit your feet.
Get them big enough for two pairs of wool socks to fit in
there with you and jam some moleskin blister tape in there
where you can find it. Oh and wear them once in a while to
break them in. But get them. I know Phil will be covering
things like this - I think - and he may have some other ideas,
but I wore mine yesterday just to put a mile or two on them,
and boy was it easier climbing that crumbling hill. My feet
were happy.
Enough
for now, the sunlight calls and in the winter (I must remember
that it is winter) there is only so much sun time. Later chickies.
Thanks for all the words kind and otherwise on my "fear"
rant. Nice to know I have an impact. - mcnalan in the Sonoran
desert in the sun.
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