December 12, 2006

Here's Ed with his senior discount, all the refills you want small coffee

A candid shot at coffee. Left to right, Alan, Mark, Phil, and the coat of Ed. Notice my NOT senior discount 16 oz plain coffee for $1.75. Ed and discussed my inability to come to grips with my vanity and or age and go for the senior discount. The next time we have coffee there I'm going to see if Ed will walk me through it once, sort of like a sponsor.

Notice on the picture on the right (it's fun not to have to talk about the picture above) - that I'm driving on the LEFT hand side of the road. All driving in AZ is down on the left hand side of the road ever since the London bridge was brought to Lake Havasu after the war of the Roses. I have to remember to get on the other side every time I come back from California. I lot of people like my truck and honk wave - you're number one, you're number one. Gotta love AZ!

The rest of the day lacked the excitement and drama common to the life and death daily experience of desert dwellers. Left, driving to Blythe in California, 21 miles from coffee. Above, driving back to Q. I made this pictures smaller to try and capture some of the drama that wasn't present anyway.

Becoming a free chicken. Most of the people reading my blog over the last few years, interrupted as it has often been, well know the free chicken story. If you don't, follow the link. I do realize that each of us, even when we see that we are inside a machine looking out (as I am six months of the year working at the hospital) it is difficult to see how we could ever be free to roam and peck and scratch at our leisure, following our interests, sleeping when we would, loving when we could, eating and exercising and being our own person. The process is usually down in this society in one of two ways, retirement or sudden wealth. Retirement is often a death sentence for the habituated slave worker bee. I think we become defined by what we do repetitively, even to ourselves. We become the job. We become the working mom, the computer support technician, the auto assembly line worker. So when we retire, often that is it. Sudden wealth escape is sold a million times a day in ads. It is the lottery ticket, the flipper house merchant, the computerized day trader, the stock investor. I wonder how often these people who are able to find, earn, get lucky and get sudden wealth, how often do they incorporate that into and escape plan from the drone factory? I think not often.
No, I think the way to get your feathers and scratch with the rest of the escapees is to start small. Change what you want. Want less, buy less, do with less. When you get that tax return, buy some solar panels, learn about composting, start a garden. But the most important thing is inside your head. Break your belief that your value is how well you conform to your peers and work life. Learn a new way to value yourself. Love yourself first. Keep your commitments to yourself first before all others. Laugh, dance and be profane more. Unhook and scratch chickies! More pictures later - off to coffee with Ed, Phil, and Mark. I love to watch Ed ask for the senior discount of his coffee. I'm jealous, It is a small thing but the smallest things require courage. I can't bring myself to ask for the discount, but I think it might be vanity (oh no!) or fear of aging (worse yet) or just it seems tooo small. But you know what, Ed's the one laughing.

December 11, 2006
Yesterday's writing was pretty heavy so it's just pictures and a just a bit of yacking. I'm playing with templates so excuse the spacing on the pictures. Too weird, and I I'm not going to fix it tonight.

At dawn (about 7:45 am I'm outside with a cup of coffee considering so many things - where the sun is and will be and how hot was it last year in February. Where is the sun now and where is it then. Will the peak of la casa blanca cast a shadow on my any of my 5 solar panels? If so, how late in the day? What amperage would be lost?

Above you see all the poles laid out in the appropriate spots - only their not - they're all screwed up so I got to build this twice. Too mortified to show you that, I only used the one set of pictures and didn't use the ones with the tears in my eyes as I tore it all down again. Faster going up the second time though.

This is the crucial decision of the day. I want to be able to sneak out to the truck without going out the front of the casa blanca, and at the same time I don't want the poles of the tent hitting the trailer in a wind. I'm hard to please and this was somewhat excruciating. I almost quit and went to have more breakfast.	But my good/bad upbringing finally said good enough and I began my assembly (this is the first time above - I was still in a good mood). ON the left, I look more and more like my father, especially as I loos weight. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but my genes don't care.
Hah! This time it is up right. But look ON NO batman, I'm missing a top pole. I vaguely remember needed some pipe for a project at TJ's. Could it be, gad zooks, yes. Luckily it's quartzsite, and if you're going to put one of these canopy tents together in the USA, you want to need parts right here in Q, home of this exact animal. So off on my bicycle towing trailer and to the hardware store where all was made right for $9.99 (plus tax - what's tax, isn't this Oregon - shit no, its AZ. 10.17 please). At this point I stopped and took an outdoor shower. The water was heating in the solar oven you see behind. IT was GREAT!	As many of you know I can't multitask, but I can serially process pretty damn quick. So I noticed the time, noon, the amperage at max, and batteries were moving toward full charge, called float. After that they can't take as much juice and the controller stops, yes STOPS letting the panels give me electricity. Bullllllshit - so I hook up 4 of the 5 laptops and let them charge up their batteries.
Two sides are up, the missing pipe in place and I'm feeling like I got something done today. I'm feeling sore, but gooooood.	So good I thought I'd let you see it from the other side.
I put the zipper front on and took this from inside the airsstream because I think it looks cool.	But not as cool as from the wash (Tyson's wash is just below me), or actually I'm standing in it when I took this.
I had enough energy to try a three stone fire for supper. Most of the world knows the three stone fire because most of the world has cooked on it. But not me, I'm a middle class American. This was my first one. I intend to build a jet stove from a coffee can and soup can next week and compare it in fuel quanity and speed of cooking to the 3 stone.	Ok hot dogs are easy but I was tired. Tomorrow I'm going to Blythe and I'll stop and get some steaks to give a real test. From the time I went out with my flint (yes, didn't use a match) until the time I ate (after dusting off one of the hotdogs that fell in - no couldn't get it clean -washed it off in the trailer and put it back on and cooked it again, 21 minutes. From striking the flint to dog in the mouth. 21 minutes. Hotdog!