Adaptive Curmudgeon

When is a standard nighttime dream elevated to a vision? I’ve no idea. A few nights ago I dreamed of a mundane yet pleasant time from real life. The dream seemed to matter.

When I was young (already on the path to curmudgeonhood, but sporting better hair and no backaches) I was living in the middle of nowhere. I worked like a dog all week and stayed away from “town” lest I spend money on the weekends. For job reasons, I had keys to a hunk of land. On this hunk of land was a private road.

It was the weekend and the weather was glorious. At the time I was achingly, deeply, utterly broke. (My current status as mildly and temporarily broke seems so very manageable by comparison.) When you’ve got time to kill and no money, God has a plan… it’s called fishing. If fishing won’t keep you occupied, there’s always camping.

I opened the gate and drove on through, locking it after me. (My employer was cool with this.) I drove several miles down forest roads until I hit the end of my access. There was another locked gate. The road beyond wasn’t really a road. It probably hadn’t experienced a car since the Model T. This was my trailhead.

What mighty overlanding beast had I taken on this glorious quest? A station wagon.

Do you remember when people could get to town and back without all wheel drive? I do. I remember when it was perfectly normal to take basic, stock, rear wheel drive, passenger cars on forest roads. This wasn’t odd. We were practically a different species back then.

I had a battered and ill fitting second hand backpack. I was carrying a smattering of crappy, decrepit, camping gear. I didn’t own a sleeping pad. (My back hurts just thinking about it but I was pretty bulletproof at that age.) I had a pretty good tent and an OK sleeping bag. That was the important part.

I had a compass and a paper topographic map.

GPS didn’t exist.

I couldn’t afford fancy “backpacking food”. I had a can of SpaghettiOs. I remember this very clearly. The can was a special treat for myself. I’d “saved up”. I know I had other food (probably packets of instant oatmeal), but the details are lost to time.

I had a canteen of tapwater. Even back then, it was unwise to drink unfiltered/untreated water. I know I didn’t own a filter. I had some iodine tabs. I viewed them with suspicion. I’ve only used iodine treated water as last resort.

I walked away from a car that was parked at the end of a road behind a locked gate. I don’t remember if I’d left information with anybody but it would’ve been weird if I had. I probably left my name and destination on a paper on the dash, that was common at the time.

Nobody knew where I was. Nobody would notice if I vanished. Cell phones didn’t exist.

It’s strange how much we as a people have changed. I walked straight into the heart of wilderness. Now we carry a communication device to buy butter.

It was a long time ago but I remember it well. I thrashed through some brush to get to a trail of the sort frequented by “normal recreationists”. I feared I would run into gaggle of them; Spandex and Gore-tex clad people that migrate in groups. My solo hiking, denim and workboot self, planned to step silently into the brush and let them pass. This has been my habit forever. It still is. If I have half a chance to not meet someone… I’ll take it.

I crossed two streams on well maintained suspension bridges. My mind tells me I had my dog with me but that’s a false memory. I know damn well my childhood dog wasn’t there. Memory is not accurate, it is a simulacrum. The important part is my rational self knows the dog wasn’t there.

I didn’t hike overly far. Well under ten miles. My target was a lean to. It appeared just where the dot on the map indicated.

It was empty. I was delighted. I didn’t want to share a lean to and I wasn’t in a mood to use my tent.

In fact, I never saw anyone that whole weekend.

I tossed my sleeping bag in the lean to. The tent became a lumpy pillow. I started a fire, popped the top on my SpaghettiOs, and cooked them in the can.

Life was good. It was… complete.

I think I only spent one night out there. Maybe it was two. What’s funny is that I don’t remember so literally not a single human on earth knows for sure.

In a public Adirondack Lean To you’ll usually find a logbook. If there was one, I’m sure I wrote something. I wonder now what I thought to record?

In due time I returned to the station wagon. I was back at work promptly Monday morning. Nothing exciting happened. Yet I remember it as a glorious summer trip.

In a dream, I relived this trip. A half a lifetime away and using technology utterly inconceivable at the time, I investigated. I’m very good at geography. Was I really as remote as I remembered?

I hunted around on Google Earth until I found the spot. When I did I zoomed out. Holy shit! It was just a short trip but the place was the real deal.

It’s easy to have what I call “geographic chauvinism”. You can sit in Montana and think there’s no wilderness in “the east”. You can sit in Alaska and think there’s no wilderness in “the continental US”. You can sit in Whitehorse (Canada) or Harstad (Norway) or Alice Springs (Australia) and think “what are those daft Americans talking about?” But everyplace has some hint of wonder. The Adirondack wilderness in New York State isn’t a city street. The Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges on earth and the Adirondacks is a jagged redoubt slightly west of its spine. It’s a good place.

I was there. Before I was old enough to buy beer I strode terrain where nobody goes solo. The place might kick my ass if I tried to get back there.

The memory has given me the urge to sleep in a lean to. What was good then is still good now. Man I can’t wait for summer!

What a wild Monday! Let’s recap how I got here:

March hit me with cabin fever like a tactical nuke. Blocked out of the forest and sick of being indoors, I found myself sitting on my ass in a coffee shop. I completely failed to write the reasoned, intelligent, thoughtful post I thought the world might want. I wound up watching Wall-E, or rather smiling that a little girl’s innocent happiness wasn’t thwarted and that her mom knew how to set priorities.

Given this golden example, I used a blog donation as my excuse to coax my long ignored dirtbike to life and wallow it through icy mudpits. I wrote about it without any particular thinking behind my actions.

It was a wise move. I was happy as a pig in shit; cold and muddy but contented. Then the weather turned cold, as I knew it would. I decided the internet wasn’t going to help my malaise. I tuned out for four or five days. Who needs a world of blackpills and bickering?

Today, I tuned back in. To my surprise, my blog received a delightful smattering of donations in my absence! Y’all must have liked my goofy little bike ride too?

The response certainly improved my mood! It’s especially good juju during the muddy, icy, inaccessibility of spring breakup. (If you live far enough south to not know what “spring breakup” means… be happy and bask in the glow of your advanced spring.)

I want to thank everyone personally, hell I practically wanna’ give y’all a hug. I also want to preserve anonymity. So here’s a quick rundown but with hardly any detail; y’all know who you are.

Rob B gets the first tip o’ the hat because he has cosmic timing. He sent me a twenty even before I knew I needed it. His was the excuse I needed to buy a half gallon of gas (tiny dirtbikes don’t need much fuel) and seek a trails pass (the office was closed but who cares, the excuse to get the bike out of mothballs was the important part). Well done sir!

John D read the tea leaves and sent a bit. He did so pretty quickly. It was routing though banks or whatever probably before the non-existent, virtual, ink was dry on my happy little “fuck it, I rode my motorcycle” post.

R. M. followed up with a nice donation that has me thinking of a thousand things I can do in the approaching spring. Thanks!

The good news showed up as Patreon or Paypals’ auto-generated notes in my e-mail. Then I checked with “buy me a coffee” (it’s neat that musing about “second coffee” set things in motion). Another surprise!

“Buy me a coffee” is semi-public (somewhere between social media and social media adjacent) so I don’t think I’m “outing” anyone. If I do, sorry.

Bustednuckles (who I assume is The Vulgar Curmudgeon?) told me to quit fretting and buy that second coffee. Thanks man!

Joe Henderson sprung for a couple coffees too.

Then “Someone” became a “coffee” member. A real living “Squirrel Fanatic”! How cool is that? It got my mind thinking of the Squirrels… more on that later.

This was followed by “bob” who sprung for a few coffees too. Thanks!

There’s something I want to say before all this sinks into the “scrum of the internet” (not the best analogy). I know that there are “influencers” that rake in far more in a day than I will in a year; but that’s never been my goal. Those “influencers”… they wind up weird. They chase “the algorithm” until they become the algorithm. I’d say the same of YouTube. Whatever corporate behemoth is behind YouTube’s shenanigans (Google?) randomly “demonetizes” people. It is so aggressive that there’s a word for “demonetize”. It encourages “content makers” to self censor themselves into blandness. Such are hazards I wish to avoid.

I took a different path. I write whatever the hell I want. I hope folks notice but I don’t “market” or “optimize SEO” or anything like that. I put up donation and coffee links but mostly assume I’m pissing into the wind amid a cold and uncaring world. The advantage of all this is twofold:

1. I freak out with joy over every single donation. Every time it’s like Christmas.
2. I learn and re-learn again, over and over, that most folks are just plain nice people.

The second point is huge! I don’t get a lot of attention. I don’t get a lot of comments. I don’t get a lot of “hits”. But I get absolutely no negativity.

Remember when the internet was like that? A new and more or less civil place of discourse? Remember normal people happily chattering away like it was a big goofy CB radio? Remember before social media fried everyone’s mind? Well it still exists. At least here it does. I hope you all sense it too. Thanks!

One last thought. I was speaking with a fellow recently who has been a chain smoker forever. He mentioned that he hadn’t had a cigarette in months. I said “Oh that’s great, you quit smoking!”

He said something that has a lot of wisdom in it. “I don’t know if I really quit smoking. I’m reluctant to claim victory until I know.”

I congratulated him on the months he’s made it so far but I get what he’s saying. Nobody knows what the future holds.

I do something similar on my blog. I’ve got a thousand ideas cooking that are interesting. I should write about them but I’m reluctant to mention half assed ideas on my blog; I hold out until they’re “full assed” ideas. (See what I did there?)

I hesitate to mention something that sounds cool, even as I pursue it; at least until I know it’s going to work. I think that’s a flawed thinking. The fun part of every adventure is when you don’t know what’s going to happen.

“Will I get to Wyoming? Will the cheap, tiny, underpowered TW200 handle the WYBDR?” I didn’t say until I was more or less back home.

“Was I going to successfully build a sailboat and ramble around the middle of nowhere like Huck Finn?” I didn’t say until it worked out. (Best sailboat ever!)

I made a New Year’s Eve resolution to not be so “guarded”. I’ll start to put that in play. I’ve got some cool shit planned. I’ll endeavor to write about it even when it’s still in the “potential crash and burn” stage. Everyone is so nice. I will reciprocate.

The internet is awash in negativity and emotional tantrums; but that’s not here. This blog is for nice people!

Thanks!

It’s March. The thing about March in the north is that it’s a trick. It feels like spring is just around the corner. One imagines robins will appear, ducks will fly overhead towards Canada, plants will bloom, the world will thaw… and it will but not yet. Winter’s not dead until the calendar drives a stake in its heart. You gotta’ hold on!

It’s entirely possible, even likely, that there’s another foot of snow coming. Maybe not, but maybe. It’s just March. Embrace it too much and you’ll be crushed when the snows return. Stay firm!

Which is exactly what I did not do. It was nearly 50 out. I’m only human!

I’d driven my truck (which is built for snow) to town. In town I saw clear open pavement. My motorcycle sent out a silent plea on a wavelength only some can hear. I heard it. I was at a coffee shop trying to bang out a thoughtful post about an intelligent thing about which I’d done much cogitation. But my mind just turned off.

I don’t have a laptop. I was trying to hammer my thoughts onto an old notetaker. What I had to say seemed relevant, possibly even deep. But it’s 2026. Do we need more thoughts? There’s far too much consideration of inner journeys and mental models; far too little walking in the forest and seeing what is actually there. I paused and turned off the battery operated not-computer. Thinking could wait.

I was sipping a cup of coffee. (For reasons which I won’t go into right now, I’m broke as fuck. I was willing to spring for a coffee but a latte would cause me to break out in hives.) Tossing a half drank still hot coffee is inconceivable. So I rested and enjoyed a vignette of life.

There was a TV. (There’s always a TV.) This one was playing Wall-E but at nice low, ignorable, volume.

There was a comfy couch in front of the TV. Waiting at the coffee counter was a harried mom and her charming little daughter. The little girl probably hadn’t seen Wall-E. She was excitedly chattering at mom about what she was seeing. It wasn’t the tragic dopamine drip of a teenager hooked into social media, it was a happy little kid laughing at the funny robot.

The harried mom clearly had things to do and places to be. She was as impatient as anyone. But the little girl coaxed her to the couch. Mom sunk into the couch and sighed happily, then daughter crawled up on mom’s lap and told mom all about the movie they were both watching. Mom recognized the moment. She wasn’t glued to her phone. She hugged the tyke, forgot all about whatever mom shit she had planned, and focused on the kid and their shared moment of watching a little story.

The mom/kid moment was beautiful.

As for me, I finished my coffee and I’ve already seen Wall-E. The clear pavement called to me but getting my street motorcycles from the iced in garage to the pavement would be a slog.

I supposed I could fire up Honey Badger, my little Yamaha TW200. That little beast will go anywhere. Importantly it’s small enough that even if I do stupid things that exceed my skill, it won’t unleash lots of mass and horsepower to mangle me… probably. Given the large-ish chance I’d dump the little monster in a snowdrift in my yard all I was really risking was getting wet and dirty.

Thinking back, I barely moved the thing in 2025. I rode it like a maniac across Wyoming mountains in 2024 and then, very rudely, parked it. It still has bits of the Bighorn Mountains splattered across its underbelly. The chain was sagging and it hasn’t been tightened. Would the 6 year old battery turn it over?

Also, I’m broke as hell. I couldn’t just drive to town and buy another coffee. What to do? Then I remembered the magic $20. Last week someone sent a $20 donation to this blog. I shall preserve their anonymity but you know who you are and you rock!

That was my excuse! Various States have off road and trail permits. I’d let all mine expire in 2024. I could use my $20 to top off what is probably old gas (though I probably used StaBil) and still have enough (hopefully) to get a legal tag for trail shenanigans in what I hope will be a healthier and happier summer in 2026. A perfect “too early in spring” errand!

With a $20 excuse in my heart, I rolled my battleship sized truck back home. I’d trade it for a pipsqueak machine with a heart of gold.

Nothing worked out. The garage door transmitter battery was dead. Mrs. Curmudgeon’s car was blocking the driveway and she had taken the only key that could move it to a different locale. The area I’d need to traverse was a sheet of ice with a thin layer of water on top. You’d trip a speed skater on that mess.

I took a deep breath. Should I wait? I barely rode in 2025. Why hurry? I could just wrap in a blanket and wait. Wait for what? For time? Fuck that!

Sometimes you need to remind yourself you’re just as tough as you really are… or were.

I climbed over junk and freed the garage door. I spread a ridiculous amount of salt-adjacent ice melt. (Which did no good.) I surveyed the ice sheet and convinced myself I could stay upright or at least if I dumped I could dump away from Mrs. Curmudgeon’s car. I put on ALL the safety gear. It’s always dumb to try “trick riding” when you haven’t been on a bike for months. But… I was going to do it anyway.

The gas didn’t smell too bad. There was enough oil. (Probably not changed since Wyoming!) I squirted a random amount of oil on the sagging and stretched chain. (I’ll service the chain when it really is warm weather season.) The battery (kept on a maintainer) wasn’t dead.

The bike turned over. After a few fits and coughs she started up. Yahoo!

I gave her plenty of time to warm up. Then, suited up like I expected to crash double, I rolled straight onto a slushy ice mix, past Mrs. Curmudgeon’s car and out into my driveway proper. Only then did I think about the driveway. My driveway is a small personal road. It’s maintained on my budget of $0 and it turns into a quagmire every spring.

Deep meltwater puddles which cross the entire road loomed! I hardly notice them in the truck (but I do use 4×4). They’re much more “real” to the diminutive bike. Underneath the deep water is an ice sheet, which sucks. Between the water hazards the mud was so soft that a man standing on it will sink an inch.

Am I not a big bad dirt bike dude? Hmm… better not ask that. Was I not a big bad dirt bike dude in 2024? Damn it, I was!

I spun, churned, squished, and splattered my way down a path that had the traction coefficient of a cheese sandwich. It was so soft I thought my tire was flat. The tire was fine, it was the earth that had lost strength.

I got past that, flung mud all over my mailbox, and gingerly made my way to pavement. From then on it was smooth sailing… though I kept it slow and steady lest I throw the chain… which is funny because a Yamaha TW200 is a slow bike to begin with.

I got to town and topped off. I was only 1/2 gallon low but anytime you dilute year old gas you’re doing a good thing. I also stopped at the hardware store to get a battery for my dead garage door transmitter.

I turned to the DMV where I’d buy my trail tag. I parked in an inch of water on top of messy, icy, slop… and they were closed.

Well that’s dumb.

Except it wasn’t.

It was brilliant. Riding was brilliant. Who cares about the DMV?

I wasn’t cut out to watch Wall-E on a couch. But I was definitely cut out to be covered in mud and playing around on a ridiculous but tough little bike. It felt like enjoying life.

I needed that!

The phone in your pocket is fucking with you. We all have one of those snitch / manipulation machines and we all know it’s absolutely chock full of shit trying to make you panic.

Even as we know the thing is lying it still works. I strive to be as based as I can be but I don’t have quite the wisdom to ignore everything that comes out of it. I’ve successfully predicted 9 out of the last 3 bear markets. Clearly I’m not good at separating actual bad news from manufactured bad news.

That’s how it works. Shit in media is always more fucked than the world truly is.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s all puppies and rainbows. I’m just saying I was told things would be so very much worse and it wasn’t. I’m Gen X. Growing up, the world stopped pointedly ignoring me just long enough to badger me. I’d be dead in a thermonuclear war, there would be no fuel for automobiles, starvation through overpopulation was inevitable, and we’d all die of AIDS. That was pretty much the prognosis for a kid in high school in the early 1980’s. Fun times!

If you think it’s different now, you’re wrong. Look at what a high school kid is taught today. Those poor bastards have so much bullshit dumped on them it’s amazing any make it to adulthood intact.

That’s why I increasingly avoid politics on my little blog. Yet something just passed my “deliberately ignore it” threshold. Why? Because it was so dumb I could see it glowing. I like my little 3d printing hobby and media is telling I should panic about its impending regulation.

3d printers, like all tools, are just one of many abysses into which the incapable gaze. Technology, whether it’s a steel chisel or a tomato seed or CNC mill, require mastery. First mastery of the self and after that, understanding of the real world. Nobody in any meeting anywhere can make a chisel cut clean or a tomato seed germinate. Reality is where the bullshit spell fails.

It’s hard interacting with the real world. It’s unforgiving and detailed. This is something everyone is supposed to learn through experience. Yet, for perhaps the first time in history, we’ve got a populace that mostly hasn’t made the leap. People with mental models that lack real world exposure; to them food really does come from the grocery store. A few hundred years ago you couldn’t be that dumb. You’d see your corn crop change (maybe die) based on the rain and if you weren’t paying attention the family mule could kick you. Interaction with the real world teaches humility and wisdom.

Anyway, I like playing with my 3d printer. I’ve just scratched the surface of what it can do. My skill at directing the device has a long way to go. Good clean fun!

Meanwhile, dipshits in Washington State dipped into their bag of insecurities and came up with a classic from 2005; “3d printed ghost guns”. People who cannot change the spark plug on a car think a firearm made by Smith and Wesson is somehow less crimethink than one made on the build plate of a nerd’s 3d printer. That concept alone is worthy of deep examination, but I digress…

The proposed rule is clueless. The idea is that anytime anyone wanted to print anything, a file would be sent to a central database (which does not yet exist). This entity would magically determine whether it’s an allowed thing or a not allowed thing. After that determination the 3d printer would be “allowed” to make the print.

I laugh my ass off thinking about the kind of code that could somehow sort between a batman mask, a dildo, a piece of tubing for an aquarium air filter, and a firearm. Nobody who’s built anything thinks that’s a trivial task. I think the proposal includes CNC machines too. Yah right!

I had a hearty laugh and ignored it. It’s funny when idiots want to shoehorn a government meeting into every silly string dispenser, decorative coaster, dinosaur shaped kite holder, fishing lure, and Garfield themed coffee cup coming out of a zillion printers. It’s even funnier when they interact with real machinists doing real industrial work; piston bores, engine manifolds, and fuel injection nozzles. Very clever people use very impressive machines to keep the world running. Sliding a g-code file back and forth to a cloud server to put the genie back in the bottle is right up there with outlawing 10mm sockets.

For those of you that don’t know, any 3d printer can run completely off grid. And if someone really wanted to nerd out (assuming they’re slightly smarter than the average bear) they could build one from parts. To really go down the rabbit hole, anyone who can machine the nozzles in jet engines at a Boeing facility or to fabricate a part for a Caterpillar bulldozer is so self sufficient as to be basically from Mars.

I joked that they’d proposed a rule with a built in IQ test. It would only apply to people too dumb to operate the technology. I could make a similar rule that your dog isn’t allowed to drive a Maserati.

I quickly forgot about it. (I briefly pondered a fictional short story about a “mechanical pirate”; some dude with an unregistered 3d printer in the back of a van in Tacoma. The last human being that knows math in Greater Seattle. Making and selling illicit toy cars in a place where drugs are legal but manufacturing is not.)

No idea is so dumb that it can’t grow. Supposedly, California joined the same bandwagon. They added talk of “registering” 3d printers so that none can be “off grid”. Which is fucking hilarious!

None of this is real. It’s not workable. There have been no votes or actual real laws. For all I know it’s just the idea of some spastic Karen. Or maybe it’s AI slop oozing from the lofty goals of true artificial intelligence all the way down to making fake pronouncements about bullshit.

Whatever it is, it ain’t my concern. I’m happily learning how to make stuff with my printer. It’s both moral and legal and pretty much unstoppable regardless. I just can’t take seriously anything on the left coast. But it got me thinking, how much of this bullshit only exists trying to stir up good natured 3d printing nerds?

Think about it. Why bother nerds? If a nerd wants to make scale model additions to his model train set that’s the least political human on the face of the earth. A dude like that is good for society. He’s better than ten HR harpies bitching at the HOA about lawn conditions.

I wonder if the real goal to make sure there’s nothing beyond the reach of political chaos? Anyone capable of making a 3d printed toy locomotive is, by definition, well capable of doing whatever the hell they damn well please. If they’re spending their time mounting LED lights in a replica Jacobite Steam Train because they liked it in Harry Potter, isn’t it that good enough?

How much of our populace is threatened by a person fully checked out of politics?

Nor do I understand why idiots prefer “a thing made by a big company” as morally and legally superior to “goofy shit made by maniacs in cluttered garages”. It feels like projection.

I think people who can’t do anything get insecure over the idea of people who can build.

Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing. If it isn’t that’ll be good news too. Nothing would create a huge surge in 3d printing technology like trying to outlaw it in certain states. If Governor Hairgel outlaws basic printers like my Bambulab A1, all printers within five years will be half price, come with pinstripes, run on a single battery, generate filament from old 2 liter Mountain Dew bottles, and be ten times faster.

As the song said: The future’s so bright, I gotta’ wear shades.*

A.C.

*Yes I’m aware the song can be interpreted as an ironic dystopic warning about “nuclear science”. Tough shit, I don’t fear technology. (I might hammer it with a rock as necessary, but fear? Never!)

[Drafting this post has been interrupted a dozen times. Please forgive whatever non-linear chronology has crept into it.]

A month ago my old bread maker died. The motor that moved the impeller lost it’s mojo. No regrets; I’d paid six bucks when I bought it used at least 15 years ago.

I had an even older backup machine. I dug it out of storage. It had a (presumably) functioning motor but the pivot axle in the bread pan had seized up. No worries, I’d swap one pan into the other machine and all would be well.

Alas, no. One pan hooked to its machine with four external studs. The other pan had an external ring. Other than that, they’re identical. So frustrating!

I run equipment as long as possible but it seemed like trying to drill out an axle to swap or weld some shit to something to get it to fit was going overboard. There’s a time when you’ve gone faaaaaaaaar beyond the average consumer and that point of vanishing returns was already in the rearview mirror.

So, I bought a new bread maker. I planned to write a review. I didn’t. Until now… which isn’t planned but just sorta’ happened as I typed.

Here’s a super quick unboxing and Cliffs Notes level review.

The box itself looks like gorillas used it to play rugby. This didn’t affect the machine at all.

It came with an oven mitt; that’s pink and gay and I don’t like it. But I suppose it’s nice.

It also came with a scoop for small stuff like yeast. It came with a regular scoop like for flour. It came with a “nut dispenser” which is a common accessory on bread machines these days and seems to my (possibly uninformed) eyes to be more or less superfluous.

It came with a device to pull the impeller off the axle if it gets stuck. Nice feature! Very super extra handy!

Most awesome of all, it comes with two impellers. It sounds dumb but the easiest way to make a $150 bread machine into a $150 doorstop is to lose the 2″ impeller. Including a backup is good customer service!

It also comes with a detailed manual and a recipe book. Both are terrible. It’s like AI wrote it. No, it’s like a Martian on LSD spoke Swahili into Google translate and then it was printed and bound and handed to me. Great machine, but ignore the recipe book.

Bread machines in general are a bit annoying in that the parts to all of them are functionally identical but not interchangeable.

Check out these impellers. The bottom two are decades old. They’re just different enough that I can’t use them in the new machine.

Check out the mount points on the bread pans. These objects span at least two and possibly three decades. They’re so damn close I can only assume there’s a factory in China that’s been stamping them out since the 1990’s. Yet, the mount points are a little different on each one. I’ll hand it to the new one (on top), it’s mounted with Philip’s head screws. It’s possible I could disassemble and fix if needed. The older two are press fit and un-repairable. (I already checked, I can buy a second bread pan for the new machine if I want… but they’re stupidly expensive.)

Bread machines are “mature technology”. I’m not impressed by any leaps in functionality over the decades. Appearance is different but irrelevant. The sleek black  “iPhone look” on the right doesn’t seem any better than the old “rounded white iPhone of 20 years ago” look on the left.

I felt genuinely sad hauling my two old workhorses to the dump. (Feeling bad about tossing a 30 year old(?) kitchen appliance makes me so non-commercial as to be unAmerican. What can I say? Cheapness is a thing.)

I tested my newly arrived bread maker with a mildly “complex” recipe for “milk bread”. The first round was a PITA but tasted awesome. I did a little more experimentation and mentioned it in Curmudgeon Cooking Research. With a slightly improved recipe (and utterly ignoring the crappy recipie that came with the machine) my bread came out delicious.

Very tasty indeed. I officially have the milk bread situation totally managed!

You know how there’s a “repeatability crisis” in science? Well fuck those lazy bastards! I’ve run about 14 loaves this year and that includes several “milk bread” loaves and they’re perfect every time.

In case you’re wondering, milk bread tastes incredible.

Did you notice that this post was titled “Survival Bunker Wheat Update”? Did you notice I completely went off the rails? I really did try milling 17 year old wheat berries. The resulting bread was edible but not great. I mentioned that in PSA: Voting Age Wheat Is Suboptimal. I really did try milling 5 year old wheat berries, with much better results. I sat down to write this pose, floated off into space, and here we are. I’ll try again later.

A.C.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, the machine I bought is a KBS Premium 2LB Convection Bread Maker and it easily passes my rigorous testing. I recommend it; just don’t follow the manual.

I’ve been cooped up more than usual this winter; partly because I’m being extra cautious with my health. Finally, I decided to take a very simple, low key, short walk. However, I suck at “taking it easy”.

The first challenge was the dog. The dog needed a walk just as much as I did but she’s never mastered the challenge of getting into my tall truck and Mrs. Curmudgeon’s car was out of town. I rigged up a hand built three step “stair”. I put this next to my truck’s rear door and coaxed the reluctant dog up them. Once there, the dog was in heaven!

The truck’s back seat folds flat for cargo. Much more comfy than the large dog trying to fit on a human shaped rear bench seat in Mrs. Curmudgeon’s Honda. The dog has ridden thousands of miles in the Honda but never in the truck. She was absolutely blissful.

The road by our house is totally windswept. It’s packed, rock hard, ice, but easy walking. I planned a place that would have an equally windswept paved bicycle trail. I didn’t bring heavy boots. This was supposed to be, literally, a walk in the park.

On the way there, I passed a snowmobile trail groomer.

I also passed an Amish (?) buggy. I prefer to see a one horse open sleigh but they’re much less common than a one horse wheeled buggy. I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo.

My idea that the paved bike trails would be clear-ish was completely wrong. The bike trail had more snow than the nearby snowmobile trail!

I wasn’t equipped for deep snow. In fact, I usually roam nature “loaded for bear” but I’d specifically brought much less stuff. I wanted to stick with a short easy walk. I reverted to wandering down a plowed road. The dog looked at me like “are you sure you know what you’re doing”?

It was much colder than I expected and I wasn’t wearing good boots or carrying my SatCom. But it’s just a road right?

I know the road I was on pretty well. It led to a lake I know well too. I figured there would be some activity on the lake and I guessed right. I navigated right to the opening of an ice road. (Look in the photo above and you’ll see a truck on the left side.)

I reasoned that the ice would be windswept, meaning I wouldn’t be slogging through three feet of snow. I was correct. The ice road was easy walking.

I wasn’t carrying my safety ice picks. I hadn’t brought my Yaktrax. I should know better than to leave home without such things. But any ice that can hold a truck can hold a dog and it’s dumbass.

The wind was harsh out there. I wasn’t worried but at some point you have to accept that a frozen lake is a pretty hard core location.

The dog gave me the look, as if to say “See here man, you said this was going to be a walk in the park! Why does a winter jaunt with you turn into Robert Peary’s expedition?” She’s a tough breed but individually she’s a sweet fluffy creampuff. Plus, I knew her feet were fine on land but I wasn’t sure if her paws would get cold in the much harsher lake. (My feet were freezing.)

I turned around. I’m not good at that whole “walk in the park” thing.

Even so, an ice road has fun stuff happening. People drive out there with trucks towing ice shacks. One rolled past us; probably wondering why the hell we were there. Wheeled ice shacks have special axles that allow the wheels to raise. The whole shack will squat on the ice; thus fishermen can drill a hole in the ice from inside and drink beer in warm comfort.

More aggressive (or broke) ice fishermen use fabric shelters and tents; bringing them to select spots with ATVs, snowmobiles, or on foot. There were no such maniacs out in the conditions that day. When you’re out where snowmobile based fishermen aren’t; that’s what you call “a clue”.

I got to watch an interesting situation. There’s specific kind of ice shack that’s smaller than the road worthy wheeled version. They ride on skis. I’ve never seen how they’re deployed.

While I was trudging back in the bitter winds, a truck pulled onto the ice with a car hauling trailer. On the car hauling trailer was a ski based shed. A second truck was traveling in convoy. The two men coordinated as only men on a mission can.

The first truck stopped and the second truck positioned right behind his trailer. Two guys hopped out. This wasn’t their first rodeo. One man deployed the gate to the trailer while the other untied the shed. Then they used the second truck to drag the ski shed off the trailer. The first truck and it’s car trailer zoomed for shore to park on solid land. The second truck followed to pick up the driver.

As I hiked close to the abandoned ski based shack, the dog decided this was total bullshit. There are not supposed to be buildings on ice! We’d walked that way not ten minutes ago and there were no buildings, now there’s a building? Not cool man!

The dog growled menacingly at the aluminum and wood structure… which didn’t growl back. Hackles raised, my dog bravely defended me against the menace.

Soon, the second of the trucks returned. The fishermen had “car pooled” to the ski shed. They hopped out and went straight to work. In a flash they’d hitched the ski shed and were dragging it down the ice road. I’d never seen a ski shed pulled by a truck. Pretty slick operation done by two guys with absolute precision. They’d be cracking a beer and looking at a hole in the ice before I got back to my truck.

Soon, my “low key” hike was over. I was pretty chilled. I need to plan better.

I gave the dog half of my bottle of water, which it ignored. Such a waste of store bought water! Then she hopped in the truck like an old hand at such things. While I stowed the “portable stairs” she sniffed the air with the happiest look any dog could ever have.

We must have gotten some exercise. At home the dog conked out so deeply that it allowed the new kitten to use it for a pillow.

So that’s what “a mellow hike in the park” is when I do it.

A.C.

I used to do all the stuff for making super fresh bread. Life intervened. Nobody can do everything and more important things had to happen. My bread stuff was packed away and that was that.

Nothing is lost if you haven’t given up. Life changed again and now I find myself an empty nester with more time on his hands and slightly reduced health so I’m not out there tilting at windmills or whatever (at least for now). Last month I brushed off my bread machines and started baking. One was completely dead, another one made a few loaves and then gave up the ghost.

So I bought a new bread maker. It’s a KBS Premium 2LB Convection Bread Maker. I’m reasonably happy with it. I thought I’d posted about it but maybe I haven’t. Honestly, most bread makers are so similar I suspect many of the components come out of the same factory. There are a few models that cost more than I’d ever pay. I suppose they’re great but I’ll never know. There are a few in the sub $100 range and they’re probably ok but I use a bread machine pretty hard so I wanted to go up in quality. The KBS Premium 2LB Convection Bread MakerI bought is “on sale”. The recipe booklet that comes with it is absolute trash but the heating unit is a little higher wattage and I like that. I recommend my choice but if you’re fishing in the $100-200 range probably all options are adequate.

I made a few loaves and then decided to bring my beloved Nutrimill grain mill out of storage. It runs just fine even after all these years. I’m glad because grain mills ain’t cheap! I’d link to it but either the model I have is no longer made or Amazon is using its monopoly power to kick it to the curb. If anyone is interested I can investigate further.

How about the wheat I stored a zillion years ago? Only one way to find out! Remember I’m talking about wheat berries, not flour! Flour goes bad much faster and when it goes bad it sucks. Wheat berries store a lot better. I figure they’re fine for 5-10 years. But when I grabbed my oldest bucket of wheat berries it was from 2009!

That’s old! The wheat in that bucket is damn near old enough to vote! It would be reasonable to expect it to be completely shot. But why not experiment?

It ground up into flour that smelled fine. I made a very basic loaf with 2 cups bread flour and 2 cups freshly ground 100% wheat flour. I didn’t have high hopes. Wheat bread in general has less gluten and doesn’t always agree with bread makers. Wheat flour from 17 years ago is an unlikely roll of the dice.

To my surprise, it went through the bread machine and smelled right and raised fine. It came out looking good.

But when I cut it there was a bit of an air bubble in the loaf. Also it tasted ok but not excellent.

Summary: bread made from 17 year old wheat berries is OK but also tastes exactly like it was made with stale wheat.

If you’re in a bunker or something, this would be absolutely fine. I’m not living in a bunker so I’ll toss the 17 year old wheat. I’m thinking of waiting until spring and spreading it on some plowed soil. I’d love to know if it would germinate. The nearby wildlife might be interested too.

No experiment is a failure if you learn so I’m not upset. Also, I’m not done experimenting. I scrounged around and found a bucket of wheat from 2021. Five years is a lot more realistic than seventeen.

I’ll report back with further findings.

Wish me luck.

A.C.

I had a thing I wanted to discuss. It wasn’t a knee jerk reaction. It was an attempt to meditate upon, and learn from, events.

It was inspired by the kerfuffle in Minneapolis. It wasn’t strictly about the spastic faffing du jour, it was (at least intended to be) something with more depth. I put a lot of thought into it.

There are parallels between Kent State (1970) and Sonowgadishu (2026) that weren’t formerly apparent to me. They wouldn’t be apparent to a younger man. I’m no longer a young man. They seem obvious now. A real press might try to illustrate the situation but in lieu of reporting we’ve got clowns scrawling graffiti with a crayon. They can’t address the true shape of things because that would acknowledge facts they’d rather avoid. The truth doesn’t vanish if it’s never spoken aloud, but the human mind does fade. Further, the deductions of a wise mind won’t get hits on YouTube.

The internet is unsuited for big picture thinking. Irrelevant dopamine hits of “like and subscribe” are not the purpose of wisdom. An estrogen shitstorm of short term emotional twitching has become the internet’s bread and butter. To deliberately think things through, hoping to use the written word for exploration, is just too hard for the TL:DR universe.

Regardless, I tried. I started writing shortly after the most recent predictable chaos began. Corruption that everyone already knew about became undeniable. It already existed so nothing had really changed. Yet recognizing a thing seemed to give it substance. Distractions were piled upon misdirection until an excitable lesbian had the misfortune to wind up on the wrong end of a pistol. What a terrible thing. What can be worse than a life squandered and lost! It really sucks that it happened. Yet I think maybe that’s what some people crave?

Virtual voices bay for one team or the other, as if that’s relevant. I’m not without my biases. But what if we’d just witnessed a thing that was fated to happen? Is it Satan or man that starts the ball rolling? Why is it so cyclic? Why have I seen this movie before?

Before I could gather my thoughts, another dipshit turned the dial to eleven. He violated the main rule of carrying. Legality and morality aside, wise people do not go to stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people. He’s another… Another what? Another victim? Another martyr? Another moron? It’s a shame he’s dead. I don’t like that it too seems fated.

I don’t want to make light of human tragedy but I wonder about the almost fanatical lack of freewill. One can get up in the morning and go to work like any other day. Or one can say “fuck it” and go ice fishing. But the ones that died could do neither. They were there because they had to be there. What does that say about freewill?

I’ve seen this before. You have too. I thought hard about 1968 and 2016. I thought about a president that was so popular he won 49 states. He was forced to resign. Another president is pretty popular too. He’s been hounded, hassled, sued, and shot. Does it have to be like that?

My mind’s eye can almost see the circle of time which encompasses all these things. It starts with a sea of agitated souls. If I had a time machine I could go to 1968 and find people absolutely losing their damn minds. In retrospect, from the view of 2026, 1968 doesn’t seem so bad. Decent music, muscle cars, cheap gas, there’s plenty of good to be found. I could take a shorter trip to 2020 and find the same thing. People absolutely freaked out about the end of everything, who are living in a world of plenty and (should they choose it) peace. From the view of 2026 it seems a little silly; governors making proclamations about hair salons, lines painted on the grocery store floor, really? If it doesn’t seem stupid to you now, hang tight, it’ll someday seem like cowering under a school desk in preparation for nuclear war. I just wish our cars and music were cooler.

In 2020 cities burned. It feels like they must. They burned in Watts in 1968. And Los Angeles in 1992. Minneapolis had the same “mostly peacefully” 2020 that gripped Portland. None of these are unique. Are Rodney King and George Floyd the same thing?

I think people need drama. I think they crave it. I think peace and kindness is too boring. I think people lust to experience some portion of hell. If war and famine don’t show up by chance, they’ll make their own hell in their own skull.

I reflect on people that are attracted to it. They go from places where life is boring to where life is not. Some get themselves planted and that sucks. I wonder if that’s what  happened because it was always going to happen. We all know it will happen again. Why? That’s a big question isn’t it?

I tried to write that all out. It was too much. Nor was my attempt likely to do good. I mean good in the true sense of the thing. It wasn’t going to be evil, but I could not write good into existence. It wasn’t going to make anyone happier, or give more insight to those with similar thoughts, or elevate the thinking of people sloshing to and fro in their own tide. Maybe I’ll post that draft sometime. Probably I won’t. It feels unnecessary.

We are awash in shallow, emotionally incontinent, fools. Perhaps the best one can do is stand back and let the tantrum wear out the toddlers. Just shut up and let it happen. Don’t bother trying to explain the Matrix. I had to see it for myself. You did too. Those who won’t look, will not see. That’s all there is to it.

For those of us who keep our own counsel, maybe all we can do is acknowledge each other’s presence. A small nod of acknowledgement. A bit of freewill amid the programmed lemmings. Then we pass by; each to our own fate.

A week ago I posted 3d Printing: UFO The Series From 1970.

My friend has received the print in the mail and was happy. He sent a movie of the missile launching properly along with several photos.

Here’s a set of 4 newly printed missiles, including my goofy but fun “fancy packaging”

The missiles fit perfectly!

Here’s the SHADO land based um… whatever it’s called. Pretty cool.

Here’s some moon based (?) ships.

Here’s another set of missiles from the show. I think this is actor Sylvia Howell and I think it’s the “submarine” uniform; but I seem to have lost focus and I’m not sure of anything.

I think this is actor Gabrielle Drake with her famous purple moon hair; among other notable features. In my opinion she’s the first and last woman to properly pull off aposematic hair. Also… damn that’s hot!

I’ve had to rethink my childhood. I thought Nichelle Nichols was pretty hot as Uhura on Star Trek (1966) but I had no idea about UFO (1970). Gabrielle Drake had a sashay that would have made that horndog Kirk explode.