The Ultimate Answer to Kings

This is a house full of no doubt typical household gadgets, some of which seem weird and almost sinister to an old man who’s spent the past dozen years deliberately lowering his tech expectations to what’s supported by his dependably available infrastructure.

Remember a couple of months ago when I needed a strong cell signal for software updates and I sort of forgot that laptop computers are portable? It’s a little like that.

I was making lunch and wanted some tunes. Before they left, my friends introduced me to their ‘robot overlord…’

…and showed me how it could play any music I wanted, which seems to be the main function to which they put it.

Full disclosure: They were barely out of the driveway before I unplugged it. That goddam thing is creepy – I stopped thinking getting computers to do stuff by just talking to the air was a good idea before I was out of my teens. So anyway, I was going to be spending some quality time in the kitchen and wanted some tunes, right? And I dug around in my goodie bag, and…

…and I had a chuckle at myself because for a long time I thought of these gadgets as high-tech. But at least I’m reasonably convinced this one doesn’t spy on me.

Didn’t wash dishes yesterday, so by the end of lunch there was getting to be a fair pile needing attention. Naturally this kitchen has all the amenities…

And this is hardly new. I more than once owned a house and every one had a dishwasher, I don’t quite that much play the backward curmudgeon. But of course the Lair doesn’t have one, which means I barely recall how to work one. And they’re so noisy. Sudsy water doesn’t make me uncomfortable.

Speaking of noise, I think that may be my biggest complaint about cities: I’m in a middle-class suburb right now, not exactly the Smoldering City, but everything is so noisy. You can hear people noises all around all the time, seldom voices but construction and maintenance banging, big trucks, the constant surf noise of traffic…or you can stay inside and listen to the air conditioning.

I know. You get used to it. But I’m used to silence, and it has brought me to a peaceful frame of mind after many years of always being on edge all the damn time. In the desert if something really bugs you it usually really is okay to just shoot it. 🙂

Okay, I spent yesterday hiding from the sun and the heat, slowly unpacking and de-stressing and generally evaluating what I’ve gotten myself into. By noon two things were clear: It was too damned hot to do anything outdoors beyond the stark minimum, and if I had to stay in this house 24/7 for three weeks I would be painting the walls in bodily fluids long before the end.

I live in the high desert at about 6000 ft and sure, between Spring and Monsoon it gets hot. But this is down in the valley where for reasons I never satisfactorily understood they chose to put this city, and it’s hot. Being desert it does cool off a bit when the sun goes down: Being low desert with all that burden of atmosphere it does not do so to the extent to which I’m acclimated.

The friends for whom I’m house-sitting left a bicycle with a lock and a grocery basket, and there’s plenty of shopping not very far away. The closest, fortunately, is a smallish Wally World a mile and a half away, and even though I haven’t ridden a bicycle in 10 years and that wasn’t a great success I knew I could do a 3 mile round trip on pavement for staple supplies without problem as long as I wasn’t prostrated by the heat. That meant first thing in the morning, and the WW was both the most practical first stop and the best choice for a test destination. Almost certain to be open early – as far as I know they basically never close, but I’ve lived alone for a long time and don’t know everything I need to.

Everything went perfectly well and I was home before seven, sweat-soaked but victorious. A few small caveats: I learned something else my torn rotator cuff doesn’t like to do, and Torso Boy freaked all the way out in my absence and pissed all over the floor. But fortunately the lion’s share of the floor is tiled and he had the decency to avoid the carpeted rooms, and also one advantage of a small dog is a small bladder, so that was a simple fix*.

Now I’ve showered and changed – I should check the water heater capacity because I truly may just move into the shower for the duration – and I’m looking around and wondering how to spend this day more profitably than I spent yesterday.

—
* He’s kind of stressed out, though, and it doesn’t help that I think the hot asphalt and all this gravel hurt his paws yesterday. I let him out first thing this morning, making the mistake of using the front door because it’s closest to our bedroom. He immediately saw a man walking two large dogs, bayed (yipped) his absurdly ineffectual challenge and got so worked up that in hindsight I don’t actually think he took advantage of his morning pee before I left.

Laddie fell head over cliché for my host of the female persuasion, who just left for the airport. He is now rushing from door to door, crying piteously. Less secure feelings than mine would be hurt. 🙂

My hosts’ house has a little room not unlike the little room in the Secret Lair, except cleaner and containing within it yet another even smaller room with glass walls and a tiled and drained floor!

The purpose of this room-within-a-room is so luxurious and decadent that when our new Socialist Democrat Overlords come to power it will surely and righteously be forbidden to all plebes with low Social Credit scores. You wouldn’t even believe it if I told you.

But it certainly feels good.

…is not where I would choose to be. But some necessary business arose, serendipitously at the exact time I was already going to a city where it could be done. Talk more about it later.

In any case I have arrived in the Big City.

Torso Boy seemed to enjoy the ride. I wondered about that, because of course his history with long car rides has not really been very happy for him. But he is taking in the adventure.

Yesterday evening I turned off the well pump, the tank level showing 2000 gallons. This morning I looked at the resting water pressure…

…and it’s indicating 19 psi, the highest I’ve ever seen. Probably I could get it a hair higher if I filled the tank to the cupola. As I’ve mentioned before, for some reason the indicated pressure is higher in the morning than the evening. Increased density, maybe? Doesn’t really matter.

This is mostly private to BB, I don’t know if anybody else is really that interested…

I remember reading about this rifle when it was found and thinking, “There but for the grace of god…”

137-year-old Winchester rifle found in Nevada has new home

BAKER, Nev. — A 137-year-old rifle found five years ago leaning against a juniper tree in Great Basin National Park in Nevada is now part of an exhibit dedicated to the “Forgotten Winchester” at the park visitor center near the Utah border.

The weathered Winchester Model 1873 is in a case designed to capture the way it looked when park archaeologist Eva Jensen stumbled across it on a rocky outcrop above Strawberry Creek during an archaeological survey.

Based on its condition, experts believe the weapon might have been abandoned in the forest more than a century ago.

I have a rule: Unless you’re right in your own yard, NEVER lean ANYTHING against a juniper “just for a few minutes” while you go off to do something else. Every rock and bush looks like every other rock and bush, and every patch of dirt looks like every other patch of dirt, and your chances of ever seeing that bit of kit again are reduced with every step you take away from it. Seriously, when I first heard about this rifle I really felt for the guy who lost it. Could happen to anybody who hasn’t developed that rule.

H/T

Laddie was feeling butthurt this morning. He’d had his breakfast and his little walkie around the yard, but now Uncle Joel was suiting up to go away and he didn’t feel like being left alone. He planted himself between me and the door and put on his Oppressed Minority face.

I don’t normally take him with me because … well, frankly, he’s a townie dog I don’t dare leave off the leash and it’s a pain in the ass. On the other hand I do worry about him becoming a fat couch potato old before his time. And I was only planning to go up to the pump house to get the model number of the well pump charge controller. I can stay on the beaten path for that; easy to watch for dog-eating snakes.

So I asked him if he wanted another walkie, which was patently what he wanted (I speak dog) and he launched into his approving little dance. I hitched him up and we took the easy way up to the top of the ridge. He was so clearly having a good time that I decided a curated tour of a milder part of the boonies couldn’t hurt much.

Sorry about the snapshot quality, I didn’t even think about the sun angle at the time.

Anyway, he had fun and it’s something I really need to work into our schedule together. In the next few weeks it shouldn’t be much of a problem: My friends say they have a fenced yard, which is what he was used to for most of his life, and he might end up not wanting to come back home.

I dipped the tank this morning and we’re down to about 1100 gallons. The tank capacity is 2400, so we’re below 50%. If I weren’t going away for three weeks I’d have left the experiment running longer, but we do have some results…

The resting pressure is a little more than 1 PSI lower now than it was when I installed the gauge almost exactly a month ago…

Which, since the gauge is so absurdly big, is noticeable if you pay any attention at all.

Later in the summer I’ll let the tank go lower, but I don’t want to leave it less than half full for the better part of a month lest it really go empty on me.

They passed $800,000 before the end! What a great start for the book and the future of the company! Well done!

The book is due to be available for retail sale in October, I believe.

I kind of make a big deal about private property, tourists not welcome, “no trespassing” means you.

I make exceptions.

That’s a wasp called a Tarantula Hawk. They’re attracted to water.

I went out after lunch to finish up and clean up. Went up on the ladder with a tube of silicone sealer to patch that one leak in the coupler, then cut the runoff pipe to size, hauled off a whole bunch of dirt (still need to dig out the ditch before Monsoon) put away my tools, then went around with my magnet and filled a bucket with garbage for the dump. Last thing I did was bring the hose up the ladder and wet the roof down good, looking for leaks. No leaks.

And I was putting the ladder away when this lady came by. The males are completely harmless but since I can’t tell the difference I naturally assume they’re all female. And all I can say about that is I’m glad they’re not aggressive, because I give them all the space they want.

Stung by a tarantula hawk? The advice I give in speaking engagements is to lie down and scream. The pain is so debilitating and excruciating that the victim is at risk of further injury by tripping in a hole or over an object in the path and then falling onto a cactus or into a barbed-wire fence. Such is the sting pain that almost nobody can maintain normal coordination or cognitive control to prevent accidental injury. Screaming is satisfying and helps reduce attention to the pain of the sting.

They’re big but they’re not that big.

The weird thing about their venom is that it’s completely nontoxic: It’s the second most-painful known insect sting, but it’s not actually a toxin. Allegedly you won’t believe it at the time, but once the endless 3 minutes pass you’ll be fine if you didn’t injure yourself thrashing around. Nobody has ever been able to analyze the chemical except to say that it’s very weird – the assumption is that since its principal purpose is to paralyze but not kill tarantulas (the spider is eaten alive by wasp larvae, a death that kind of makes you want to find a theologian and discuss the concept of a loving creator) it can’t be lethal. And since no predator would ever dare risk a second sting in its entire life, the wasp’s behavior is its best defense: They have bright red wings which they constantly flip and display as if to say, “Yeah. It’s me. I’ll be here for a while, just go do something else and you’ll be fine.”

The coupler is leaking, which should not have been such a disappointing surprise because I forgot until it started dripping that only one side of it is sealed with silicone. I’ll fix that after lunch.

First thing I did was trench in the drainpipe, because that was going to be the physically hard part…

Then I laid out, measured, cut, bashed to fit, snipped, wiggled, hammered, filed, swore, and went up and down a ladder a million times. At the end of which…

And then the test, which is either the fun part or you spend the rest of the day drinking and swearing…

Ta da! There’s still tweaking to do after lunch: I have to cut the pipe to length, fix that one leak, and there’s obviously some dirt work. But the gutter is effectively done.

This has been fun to watch.

Another neighbor was going to town, and I hitched a ride to get the downspout parts I needed. So now I can finish the gutter before I leave.

Huh. Pictures upload much faster here than at the Lair. Also the Orange Chicken is surprisingly good. 🙂

Since I’m hung up on gutters and don’t feel like painting, I figured I’d take a few and fix the Jeep’s latest busted rear shock absorber.

This is, I swear, the only vehicle I’ve ever used where it didn’t really seem to matter much in terms of ride quality whether the shocks worked, or were even present. But it’s the principle of the thing, if nothing else.

The rears always break in the same place. I don’t understand why I’m suddenly having this rash of them, when the Jeep bashed heedlessly around the gulch with no problems for a long time before the past couple of years.

That chinsy squashed-together pin breaks in half, or breaks its ears off around a bolt, and it’s all over.

This time the only remnant I found was this tiny bit, stuck under one of the upper mounting bolts. Everything else was fine, really.

Delta passenger mauled by emotional support dog files lawsuit

“While Mr. Jackson was securing his seatbelt, the animal began to growl” at him, according to the lawsuit. “The dog then bit Jackson several times.The attack was briefly interrupted when the animal was pulled away from Mr. Jackson. However, the animal broke free and again mauled Mr. Jackson’s face,” the lawsuit alleges.

I confess I never got the “emotional support animal” fad. I guess technically pretty much any pet is an emotional support animal – I can’t quickly come up with any other actual service Torso Boy provides – but “You have to allow my emotional support pig to fly with me or you’re insensitive to my terrible disorder that I just made up” has always been taking Snowflake Nation a bridge too far. And if I was trapped in a window seat when some asshole’s “emotional support dog” decided to eat my face, I would make it my mission in life to see that the fight ended with the dog looking worse than I did.

Personally I continue my research into finding other practical applications for the Lair’s non-human occupant…

Too short – it’s the story of my life.

That’s all the 4″ pipe I have left from the rebuild I did on my sewer line a year ago February. I really thought that shorter piece would be enough to go from the new downspout (to be installed sometime in July, probably, for lack of a couple of elbows) to the front yard gully ditch. And I’m short maybe three inches.

Which means I have to use my one remaining longer piece. Yeah, that’s what it’s for, that’s why I saved it in the first place and yay me for saving smelly used sewer pipe. But still. Curses.

Unless I can scrounge a couple of downspout elbows I’ve gone as far on the gutter as I can. Missed one bitsy detail.

Installing the gutter went smoothly enough. This one is four feet shorter than the first one I did so naturally that much easier, but also the first one taught me how it’s done.

Ended up with more of an obvious angle on it than seemed quite right to me, but it’ll work. The gutter went well but when it came to installing the downspout which should have been the easy part…

…I realized I had to come out away from the porch post at the bottom to avoid the concrete pier. The downspout has to meet the elbow of a buried 4″ sewer pipe running to the nearest ditch. And that will require two more elbows than I have. I’m going to go raid Landlady’s barn right after lunch but I’m not very optimistic.

And they’re comically bad at it.

Particularly landings. Landings are apparently hard. This little guy flew ahead of me around the back of the cabin easily enough but then had a terrible time maneuvering to perch on the solar panel.

And this one had to practice hovering for quite a while until that twig agreed to stop darting out of his grasp.

(Sigh) They grow up so fast.

Anyone who considered getting in on Ian’s phenomenal book kickstarter ought to get on it.

Not that it’s ever going to be considered a failure… 😀

He told me privately at the beginning that while the threshold goal was $25,000 he hoped it would hit $60,000 to give the book a good start. It has already surpassed that stretch goal more than ten times, and will pretty clearly do so again before the end.

(sigh) We’ll have to widen the doorway of Ian’s Cave again…