Haven’t visited the game camera in 10 days. I have just shy of 450 frames of a family of elk – 3 cows and 3 … calves? Fawns? Dunno … just hanging around shooting the shit. Kept hoping for a gangbang or a mountain lion attack or something, but these were some placid damned elk.
But here’s a brief glimpse of an owl…
Heavy-duty sucker, too.
And as somebody pointed out, it may not be working. The bracket isn’t just ripped off the axle, the part still attached to the strut/arm/shock is torn nearly in two. Something pretty stressful went on under there: I was bouncing around on the Bumpy Road but not in a rock-climbing competition. Probably it’s been ready to go for quite some time.
Also – as somebody pointed out – the axle situation may not be a dire as I made it out to be. There’s a solid upper strut connecting the axle to the frame, so the axle can rotate slightly on this shock absorber to absorb severe jounces but it shouldn’t be able to actually leave its normal conformation. Which is what I’ve been expecting it to do since Wednesday morning.
Well, bad-luck gigs happen. Sometimes the trouble is worth the money, sometimes not. At least so far the axle has stayed more or less at right angles to the direction of travel. That’s important – I learned that at mechanicing school.
Only took about half an hour before the engine would re-start. It’s just flooding or vapor locking. Pain in the ass but nothing that’ll cause me to spend a night out in the desert.
S&L are still on the road, due back home tomorrow if everything goes well. And bless her heart, when I texted to say I had watered her plants but now I was stuck there until the Jeep would start, she offered me the loan of her own car. Considered taking her up on it, too – but that car is no more capable of climbing T&S’s driveway than the Jeep currently is, and the Jeep is working – with a few caveats and addenda. So we’ll carry on as long as we can.
ETA: Oh, and lest I forget: Various Generous Readers hit the tip jar to the tune of over $200 for Jeep repairs, and along with a check that’s in the mail from BB that should put us over the top for axle repairs and to catch up on all the maintenance needs the engine has accumulated. So thank you very much! Something to consider when you think of going off-grid and off-economy: How far can you walk? Because that’s a problem for me and has been since sometime in 1972.
Should have just taken the key off the ring. I’ve had the key to S&L’s place since before I accumulated enough of other people’s keys that I needed to carry a ring around with me. So the last thing I said to the Jeep when I left it was “Please re-start.” It didn’t listen, and now I’m stuck here for a while.
My life doesn’t suck. My level of technology sucks. Or maybe it’s just my standard of maintenance that sucks.
A little of the tension from yesterday’s Jeep travails is fading. I got through two trips without any new thing going wrong, so maybe disaster isn’t imminent and I can limp through this after all. I do believe I’ll take somebody’s advice and take that strut right off the Jeep tomorrow if the nut will move.
I actually turned this afternoon’s climb into a nice little walky all by myself, it turned into such a pretty day…
But speaking of bad timing – all this extra walking has put me in mind that I’m nearly out of clean stumpsocks since Neighbor L has been gone for two weeks. First rule of being one-legged: Don’t run out of clean stumpsocks. So tomorrow’s domestic chore is breaking out the hand-washing stuff.
But that’s tomorrow. Right now I’m tired and (almost pleasantly, for once) sore. I’m taking Laddie for a walk, then maybe I’ll watch a movie and crash.
Yesterday’s misadventures have turned every trip to T&S’s place into a very uncertain expedition – uncertain when or whether I’m making it back home under Jeep power, that is.
I was almost to the top of the plateau this morning when there was a BANG!! and a terrible lurch and I thought, there goes the front axle. Turns out my gloriously strong wire-wrap job on the broken strut didn’t last… Continue reading
If you zoom in and look close you can see the Jeep WAY down there. And I wasn’t at the top of the mesa when I took the pic.
This is like one of those stairways you read about that are the only way to get to some half-mythical lamasery where you will find true enlightenment but first you must prove yourself by making it to the top. All I found were two dogs and a cat. The dogs wanted to be fed, the cat wanted me to evaporate. Also somebody took a dump in the courtyard.
Getting back down with one leg and a blown-out back was even more fun. I have officially had my excitement for the day. Beer me now, and I swear if one single untoward thing happens for the rest of this calendar day I’m responding with gunfire.
As I suspected it would, the Jeep started right up once it had had a chance to cool off. Man, I really need a trip to the shop.
So now it’s safe on the top of Ian’s ridge – I won’t take it to the Lair or too far from a graded road until I can have that strut mount welded back to the axle – and the strut is more securely wired up and out of mischief.
That means I should be able to do the afternoon run anyway, though I may choose to walk up the mesa rather than risk the bumpy ride down their driveway. Weather’s improving and I keep telling myself I could use more exercise. If I can limp on through tomorrow, other possibilities for a ride might arise. There’s no choice about finishing the gig, even if I have to beg rides from a neighbor – it’s not like I can just say, “Gee, sorry all your animals are dead, T, but you see the Jeep broke down.” And if I can get paid for this gig without having to split it with a neighbor, I might have enough to get the strut mount welded and even at least whatever ails the engine diagnosed. Continuing to put off service is no longer an option if it’s going to start stranding me.
Went up to the mesa and did my morning chores. There are two ways to get there: The long and easy way and the short, steep rocky way. I took the long way up but the short way down. I’m always concerned about the Bumpy Road (its actual name) because the Jeep isn’t young anymore and bits keep falling off. But I still had to do chicken chores at Landlady’s and check in on S&L’s place, and the Bumpy Road takes me right there.
Bad move. Should have gone around.
About halfway down the Bumpy Road the Jeep started dragging something. I found a relatively rock-free if not at all level place to get out and have a look…
Aw, crap. I’m pretty sure the front axle needs that strut, but it was just going to have to be all right. I rummaged around in the rear, already kicking myself ’cause I’d never packed a roll of wire. I did have plenty of rope in the Jeep kit but it was quicker (and I wouldn’t have to cut off a good piece of rope) if I just to grabbed one of the lengths that tie the shovel down…
The strut was shoved as far to the rear as it would go so I backed the Jeep till it faced front again, then tied it to the shock mount. The Jeep would either make it down the mountain without torquing the front axle or it wouldn’t.
Turns out it did, so I went ahead and paid my visit to S&L’s birds and plants and then drove to Landlady’s. Tended the chickens, and that’s when the Jeep decided it didn’t want to start. At all.
It’s been doing this for a couple of months now, not wanting to start hot. I chalked it up to vapor lock, and eventually I could always get it going. But not this morning. This morning it would not re-start. Back feels like it’s broken, front axle support is broken, and now there’s nothing to do but hike back home. At least a) the Jeep got me down the mountain, and b) it stopped raining.
I’ll go back around lunch to see if the engine starts after it cools down. If it won’t, I have a serious problem. That was the first of at least 24 trips that absolutely must be made across the plateau and up the mesa, no matter what. If the Jeep is really out of the game, I’m not sure I have a working alternative though a couple of stopgaps come to mind. I’ll worry about calling for help if the Jeep doesn’t start this afternoon.
…probably with the help of some expired pharmaceutical products sent me by [name redacted] the last time my back went sprong. Woke just now feeling very stiff but not as if I’d been sent to Room 101 – and a good thing too, because this morning I start a new paying gig up on T&S’s mesa. They’re going on a trip for the next week and a half and need their animals fed and looked after and what’s left of their plants watered. Not an especially onerous chore and it has always paid well, but it wouldn’t be any fun jouncing up to their place in the Jeep twice a day with my lower back the way it was yesterday.
More later, probably.
Sweartagod sometimes it feels like we’re the last generation before the decline and failure of the species.
50 years of increasingly fearful and cowardly behavior in the halls of higher education has created a generation of students who are expected to be afraid of their shadows, be intimidated by any ideas that are in the least bit outside their comfort zone, and who run for official protection at the least provocation.
These sniveling little worms are so afraid of freedom that they cannot tolerate being near it, and have to be sent home to snuggle under their blankies with a cup of warm milk and a teething ring when the demons in their heads get too loud.
As I recall, our parents’ generation thought we were degenerate, drug-addled, sex-crazed morons with lousy music and a weakness for communist rants.
They were dead wrong about the music.
I thought after yesterday’s water-hauling that I might do well to put my back brace on. Woke up feeling no better and actually planned to put the brace on – but didn’t quite get to it in time. Now I can stand or sit or lie down but transitioning between them is torture.
Fortunately it’s the lower back and so will probably last only a few days. Early summer something went sprong around the level of my shoulders and I was months getting over it.
Truth is yesterday just generally wasn’t a good day. I got home from the water run and then actually slept through a good part of the afternoon. Laddie approved of that, for what it’s worth, but it’s true what they say – gettin’ old ain’t for sissies. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage and the collision damage.
This paradigm has been shifting so quietly and so gradually I’m always surprised when somebody shoots a cop in self-defense and gets released without charge.
Early in the morning of October 10th, 2018, a young police officer and an armed Kentucky homeowner were involved in a shootout. The officer was searching near a fenced area on the homeowner’s property for a suspect he had been chasing when things went south.
David Turley, the homeowner, saw suspicious activity in his backyard at around 6 a.m. What he didn’t know was that it was Zachary Morris, 23, an Owensboro police officer. Turley was holding a handgun at his side. Officer Morris, seeing a person with a gun, shot at Turley, who returned fire and took cover. Morris was hit in the abdomen below his bullet-resistant vest.
Apparently the cop had a good reason to be there at least. Not sure I’d go so far as “every right,” but he was doing his job. Probably the adrenalin was running a little high? A little tunnel vision going on? Too bad they don’t train for that in those police academies we hear so much about, the ones that turn out infallibly competent paladins of justice.
Anyway, the cop saw a guy with a gun and jumped to the conclusion that this was the guy he was hunting and that he was now in a fight for his life. So instead of identifying himself or even confirming his target – something trained “civilians” have beaten into their brains because the consequences of getting it wrong are so horrifying – he just opened fire. Bad move: The “civilian” was a better shot.
David Turley was taken in for questioning but was released. At this time there have been no charges filed against Mr. Turley. The Kentucky State Police Critical Incident Response Team is now conducting an investigation into the shooting. This independent probe was requested by the Owensboro Police Department.
And this is that paradigm shift I mentioned, the first thing that came to mind when I read this article. There was a time when Turley would be looking at major time in a major pound-you-in-the-ass prison, because shooting any cop under any circumstances whatsoever had seriously existential consequences. Legitimate self defense? No such thing.
Sometimes this brave new world confuses me by doing something I don’t entirely disapprove.
So, concerning our exciting new header…
I get this email from Ian’s IT guy who I think is not enjoying his opportunity to be a part of my cavalcade of obsolescence…
The problem you are now experiencing is due to a plugin (“Exclude Pages”) that hasn’t been updated since 2010:
> === Exclude Pages ===
> Contributors: simonwheatley
> Donate link: http://www.simonwheatley.co.uk/wordpress/
> Tags: get_pages, navigation, menu, exclude pages, hide pages
> Requires at least: 2.2.3
> Tested up to: 3.4
> Stable tag: 1.92…
> = v1.8.1 2010/4/19 =
>
> * BUGFIX: Check for existence of parent object before attempting to use it. (Thanks to Robert Kosara for the bug report.)
>
> = v1.8 2009/10/27 =
>
> * BUGFIX: PHP 5.3 doesn’t like the fact that parameters marked as passed by reference as passed as value. Params now not marked as passed by ref.
>
> = v1.7 2009/7/29 =I could not find this plugin in the current wordpress.org/plugins repository. It has likely been abandoned by the plugin author. You should now be on version 4.9.8 of WordPress (well beyond the “Tested up to: 3.4”) spec of the plugin.
You will likely need to find another plugin to perform the function for which you are using Exclude Pages. It isn’t a theme problem.
On the one hand this is good news, since I started using WordPress in 2012 which means the current problem is NOT related to me pushing a wrong button – or failing to push a right button – sometime in the dim past.
Of course that leaves all the ways it’s bad news…
For the record I have indeed updated the WordPress version (I hate that, they always move things around) and all the updateable plug-ins. So that leaves exactly no clue as to what I’m supposed to do to fix the header. Maybe a new theme?
With the door we brought yesterday from the big town about 50 miles away.
You wouldn’t think it would take as long as it did – we spent more than 3 hours getting this thing attached to the building and functioning. First we had to build a wooden frame for the opening of the right size, fastened to the concrete blocks. That turned out more complex than expected since the original opening wasn’t as symmetrical as you’d think the doorway in a block structure would naturally be. Also – I don’t know, pre-hung doors are always harder to get right than they seem like they ought to be.
But it works now, and locks, and should keep the rats out. Which will make the powershed a hundred times more useful.
Landlady and I have been working at Ian’s, and today’s assignment was to dispose of the junk we recently cleaned out of the powershed and then acquire a new powershed door. The first required a trip to the county dump, the second a journey to the big town about 50 miles away.
We got to the big town in time for an early lunch. Laddie and Dharma came along, so we needed to find a rather more upscale than usual restaurant that was happy about people showing up with dogs…
mmm – I don’t remember the last time I ate fish and chips, and happily these were pretty darned good.
Then to Lowes, where we acquired the door. I recently rehabbed the Jeep trailer with new tires and lubed hubs, and it behaved perfectly well there and back.
I was going to wait and see what developed concerning a replacement for my beloved but mortally wounded cordless drill, but while at Lowes I passed a display with exactly the right sort of drill…
…and I took that as a sign. Hurts to spend money, but as fortune or coincidence or synchronicity would have it just this week a long-time Generous Reader sent me a package containing more than enough green stamps to settle the matter. So thank you very much, Generous Reader! I’m back in the saddle.
In hindsight, those Disney cartoons sure are creepy. No?
I mean, think about it – most of the male characters aren’t characters at all, just objectified plot devices furthering the creepy sexualized appetites of the female protagonists. Body shaming, classism (“some day my prince will come?” Seriously?) and sexism are everywhere in these damaging films aimed at innocent boys. When there is a male protagonist he’s cast as a thief, or a shithead who’s been transformed into a hideous beast because he’s a shithead, or in some weird relationship with a satyr. These films are anti-male and should be condemned as such.
Er…wait. What was I saying? No! No! Of course I meant the films are evil tools of the patriarchy, existing only to lower genderfluid children into thralldom to an empty search for toxic masculine protection, as if there could be such a thing.
I mean, look at that image. The overly sexualized female protagonist may sing about painting with all the colors of the wind but she’ll be doing it in a wooden boat cut from a living tree, while eating all the cute animals gathered at the banks of the river – which her tribe probably pollutes – to do her some sort of perverted anthropocentric homage. There is nothing about this image that isn’t problematic.
Thank Gaia we have these enlightened Hollywood actresses to set us straight at last.
But as the white male – but allied – writer Matt Walsh points out, there is so much left to do in removing these corrupting films from the lives of our wonderful children, whichever of the many properly acknowledged genders they may eventually choose.
I applaud both women for protecting their children from this highly-objectionable material. I only fear that our conversation about problematic cartoons has not gone far enough. There are several other Disney films that should be thrown on the ash heap of history alongside the ones mentioned by Bell and Knightly. Indeed, I would argue that it is actual child abuse to let your son or daughter watch any of the following:
Signed, Joel (who today identifies as a genderless Sycamore not yet carved into a boat by aboriginal male oppressors of color)
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
