Adaptive Curmudgeon

Background:

This winter I bought a KBS Premium 2LB Convection Bread Maker. I posted about it in Survival Bunker Wheat Update. (An oddly cryptic title, what was I thinking?) I compared the new machine to two very old machines (which I’d legitimately “worn out”). I think entry-level bread machines are nearly identical and exotic machines cost more than I’ll pay. That’s it. (Also, bread machines have nearly identical yet maddeningly non-interchangeable parts.)

I also experimented grinding flour from very old wheat berries. Cliff notes summary: 17 year old wheat berries made machine bread that was edible but not great. 5 year old wheat berries were pretty OK. I mentioned it in PSA: Voting Age Wheat Is Suboptimal. Who cares to investigate further? In case of nuclear Armageddon you can make bread by grinding really old wheat. If it isn’t Armageddon, “wasting” $30 of wheat berries you forgot about when the kids were born isn’t a huge loss.

Update:

It’s been half a year and I’ve made 25+ loaves in the new machine. I’ve learned some stuff, here goes:

1. The machine is “paid off”. I’m too lazy to calculate the amortization of a couple bags of flour versus buying 25 loaves. The payoff is either done or nearly so.
2. “Sandwich loaf” is a code word for “simple”. Elaborate recipes like “Japanese milk bread” are great but overkill. You’ll put in more labor than necessary. I wanted the simplest recipe I could find. The term for that is “sandwich loaf”.
3. Simple bread is delicious. Even the simplest dumbest “sandwich loaf” is delicious. When the machine beeps, announcing the loaf is done, everyone in the house (including the dog and cat!) materializes in the kitchen looking for a slice with butter.
4. Use real butter. Don’t be a Neanderthal, put real butter on your real bread. Unless you’ve a legit health issue, find all the margarine in the house and throw it out. Don’t smear good real bread with “I Can’t Believe Whatever Concoction Is In This Plastic Tub”. You may want “unsalted butter” as an ingredient to some recipes. “Salted butter” is the stuff that goes on your toast. They are not the same.
5. Get a scale. I spent years measuring flour in cups. I repent of my stupidity! Cups measure volume. Depending on how you scoop/sift flour it has varying density. Grams are mass and measure correctly no matter what unholy compression you accidentally did to the flour. Quit fucking around like you’re a homesteader in 1880. Get yourself a postal/diet scale and grab a random recipe in dreaded commie-euro metric units. Learn how the “tare” button works. You’ll be glad you did.
6. The KBS Bread Maker is excellent. 25 loaves and every loaf is tasty. I can’t imagine a better recommendation. (Other machine brands are probably just as good.)
7. Small loaves may be more efficient. Most recipes are for 1 1/2 pound or 2 pound loaves (this is reflected as grams or kilos in your European gram-unit recipe). There is a corresponding setting on every bread machine. I used to think that once I’d put in the effort why not make a max (2 pound) loaf? But real bread goes stale fast (a feature not a bug!). Smaller 1 1/2 pound loaves get consumed faster and none of it hangs around long enough to get stale.
8. Creativity is overrated. For years I’d go to the store and buy X brand bread in Y variant. Same damn thing every time. But when I made my own bread, I had this weird idea I should “experiment” with different loaves. That was dumb! It’s a healthy staple food, not a psychic breakthrough. Making the same loaf over and over is OK.
9. Fuck government advice! Is excess bread “bad for you”? Who knows? We applaud like barking seals over government food “guidance”; which may or may not currently advise to eat less “grains”. But have you seen the results of said guidance? Americans generally look like they’re just barely able to waddle from their car to Walmart! Plus, there’s bread and there’s “bread”. Your own bread has nothing but (for example) milk, wheat, yeast, salt, and sugar. Google tells me Wonderbread has; wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, and salt. Your delicious bread with five ingredients feels filling, will go stale in 3 days, and is probably ok. The store’s tasteless foam concoction lasts three times as long but who the hell knows what thiamin mononitrate does to humans?
10. Make choices among realistic options. I didn’t really answer if you should heed the advice of some midwit government advisor in a theatric labcoat (though you can guess from my tone). Here’s my heuristic, if you’re going to eat something you know to be better, eat the good stuff. If your alternative is junk, consider fresh bread instead. Everyone imagines lunch will be wild caught fresh salmon they stole from a grizzly bear but they’re really going to eat chicken fingers and curly fries. Or they’ll cram their pie-hole with stale donuts from Monday’s staff meeting and wash it down with a Dr. Pepper. Egad! As for me, sometimes I’m looking for a midnight snack. If fresh bread distracts me from Little Debbie’s Cosmic Brownies that’s a win! (Little Debbie’s are a weakness of mine. I assume they’re made with industrial by-products and crack.)

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” Friedrich Nietzsche

…

“Some stuff beats your ass pointlessly.” Adaptive Curmudgeon

Nietzsche had some good thoughts, but still I think he’d have benefitted if he’d been stuffed in a locker a few times.

Having completed a PC800 cargo run in blistering heat I was feeling pretty tough. Maybe I was back to my baseline; whatever that might mean. Wrong! I’d blundered into the slippery slope to overconfidence! I should’ve kept with my planned gradual incremental process of edging into things. But, in life you gotta’ roll the dice and so I did.

It was even hotter than when I’d cooked myself on the bike. Our house isn’t well cooled and it was no fun being there. I was impatient be somewhere else and doing something active. Plus, my doctor had “mumbled something about “mild walking exercise” and I interpret that as “Hike a million miles a week or die trying!”

I fetched my trekking poles, wandered out to my garage, and strapped them on my Honda PC800. Damn it was hot! Just strapping down the poles had me panting for breath. I convinced myself it was good. My doc didn’t use the word “aerobic exercise” (I don’t know if that’s a phrase anymore) but breathing hard is the goal and not a side effect. “Powerlifting” activities like cutting logs and stacking firewood don’t fit the bill.

I was gasping for breath just walking to my garage. How efficient!

I have a little daypack for hiking shit and for regular days. To lighten the load I tossed out my little Linux laptop and a few other things. I kept what I think useful for brief hikes. It’s minimal but it’s a more than some people carry; waterproof matches, a hat, a small flashlight, my SpotX, the cell phone (which might or might not have reception but has a relevant off line functional map loaded up), TP, a Cliff Bar, etc… I know there are runners in spandex who carry a bottle of water and nothing else. I’ve been on search parties for some of them. I carry more because I solo a lot (always!) and learned from Gilligan’s Island that “a three hour tour” can last three seasons.

I’m not an idiot, I added two bottles of cold water. As an afterthought I tossed a bottle of Gatorade in the saddlebag.

Before I zipped my phone into the pack I checked the weather. An extreme heat advisory and red flag weather for forest fires. Excellent! I rolled out.

Within the first mile I’d acknowledged the heat advisory as the real deal. NOAA tends to overreact but not this time. Wind from the moving bike was utterly baking me. I was wearing my lightest motorcycle jacket, it’s literally mesh but it is protective (ATGATT!). I’ve worn that very motorcycle jacket in Death Valley.

Strangely, it felt hotter now than that trip through Death Valley. Either memory fades or I’m getting old.

20 miles out I stopped for gas. I didn’t go inside. If I went in I’d never leave. I typed my PIN on metal keys at the gas pump; they burned my fingertips.

I had an appointment for a zoom meeting around sunset. I had ample time but the heat was so incredibly rough. Uncertainty loomed. I texted my contact: “hiking in extreme heat, I expect to be on time but if I’m slightly delayed, start without me”. They know me. They’re used to such things.

The hardest part about being tough is being tough. I kept riding.

I’d sought a challenge and was getting one, good and hard. As for the hike, I still could handle it. I wasn’t summiting Everest. It was going to be fine.

I passed a campground I’ve been considering for a CPAP camping test. I rolled around the loop inspecting the scene. In the middle of peak season it should be packed. It was nearly empty. There were no children on bikes; no families bustling about. A few RVs roared with struggling AC. Wan faces looked out from their desperate last stand behind Plexiglas windows. All tent sites were abandoned. The tents remained but the people were gone. Everyone had piled into vehicles with AC and found an excuse to drive somewhere. (I assume they were at the nearest swimming hole.)

One spot had three guys, sitting in the shade (which was still blistering hot). They were in a wide circle some 20′ in diameter. In the center, a smoldering fire gave off a small wisp of smoke that scarcely moved in the still air. Each man had his own cooler. They looked determined, immobile, wilted, and drunk.

I wasn’t the only one dumb enough to be out there, but it was a select crowd.

Soon I parked at the trailhead. I made sure the kickstand was on a rock instead of the asphalt (which was soft and mushy). I swapped my motorcycle boots for light sneakers, chugged half the Gatorade, crammed my jacket & boots in the PC800’s ample bedonkadonk, and used an old bike lock to secure my helmet. I sent out a “I’m leaving the trailhead at location X, all is well” message on my SpotX. The whole process should have taken two minutes but it took ten. The heat was slowing me down.

Swinging my trekking poles I strode out. The Rocky theme, Gonna Fly Now would start any minute. That would get me going! Maynard Ferguson stepped out of the dense woods. Excellent! Maynard looked around; sniffed the air. The air was dense and humid. I was coated in sweat. There was no breeze. It was deathly still. No birds were chirping. Deerflies orbited me like little fighter planes. The forest wasn’t welcoming, it was a dead zone.

Maynard shrugged as if to say “I work in studios, loser” and vanished.

Chuck Mangione didn’t even try to materialize. He was an urban civilized being.

A mission like this required heavy metal, or banjos. No inspirational music came to me.

I’ve (literally) hiked in jungles. This was somehow worse. I was just about breathing. The deerflies were murderous. I reached in my pack for bug spray. It wasn’t there. I’d left it on top of my little Linux laptop. I’d already been bit several times.

It was too hot to maintain any speed, but every time I slowed the deerflies took a bite. Desperate for some relief, I grabbed two small branches, each with a few leaves each. I checked that they had no ticks (they didn’t) and clutched one in each hand. The branches pointed up while my trekking poles pointed down. I swung in large arcs slapping my face and ear left and right as the poles moved. It looked dumb and felt dumb but it worked. As long as I moved, the deerflies couldn’t land. My attempt at mimicking a horses tail really did work.

When shit’s going bad and I’m solo I like to slow down. Take it easy. (If only Foghat would come to my rescue!) But the flies were harassing me. As a serious note, rushed people make dumb mistakes; slow people deliberately tortoise their way home. Never forget that.

It sure wasn’t fun. The deerflies wouldn’t let me stop or slow. The heat was almost literally pushing me to the ground.

I drank one of my bottles or water, reminding myself I was doing this on purpose. I had nobody to blame. I sent a “I’m just fine” breadcrumb on my SpotX. I kept moving.

I had plans to do a specific trail. I had the chance to take a much shorter loop. I took it. There’s tough and there’s dumb. I shouldn’t have ignored the extreme heat warning! I never saw anyone on the trail.

Getting back to the bike wasn’t so hard (it was downhill). At the bike, I drank the last of my Gatorade, suited up, sent a SpotX message “back at the trailhead, all is well”, and rolled out. The ride home was just as sweaty and exhausting as the ride out.

I’d planned ample time but I got home with only 15 minutes to spare. I used 5 of that to step into a cold shower. I got to my zoom meeting on time, which I think is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking clearly the first half hour. The miracle of AC helped me recover quickly though.

It wasn’t a “failure. Nothing bad happened. There was no emergency. I did a stupid thing, but I’ve done stupid things before. It worked out fine at the price of a few deerfly bites.

I think I’ll wait for it to cool down before I try again.

Forgive me. I’m about to roll in politics.

I post less about politics every year. Whatever the media / internet once was, it’s now a manipulation factory; designed to push us into emotional excess. I don’t want negativity to infect my blog. I won’t try to invoke emotional torrents. I’m not out to hijack the amygdala and pump it full of fear and hate.

But… I’m only human. I might fail.

Please join me. Spit out that black pill (from any political side) to be happy about a disaster that didn’t happen.

First some background: During the teetering decrepit failure of late stage Soviet socialism you couldn’t tell who was in charge. Geezers barnacled into the system were either wicked sharp thinkers or drooling octogenarian losers. Sometimes we didn’t know if this guy or that guy was even alive!

This phase in a system’s decline is when I hear this term:

“Dear leader is fit and healthy until he was dead two weeks ago.”

I happens in all human decrepit organizations. Young, vigorous, transparent systems aren’t like that.

I’ve witnessed that phrase for Popes, for Fidel Castro, for the USSR, and I see it in America.

Sigh… I just know this is going to freak people out. I just want to be happy a specific issue is less actively pissing off a smaller number of people. Please try to join me celebrating the reduction of distraught unhappiness.

“Fit and healthy until dead two weeks ago” happened with Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It sucked. (If that triggers you, I’m very sorry.) The media reported she was very pinnacle of physical and mental fitness but it got weird. Time passes for all things but Ginsberg’s state was cemented in amber.

Every now and then there’d be a photo of her. It looked like they’d propped up a corpse. I’d be told she was as fit as a fiddle but all I could think was “There’s a person who’s earned the right to retire but they’re going to ride that pony into the ground”. Witting or not, intentional or not, Ginsberg become a human wrench in someone else’s political toolbox.

Imagine such a fate! Regardless of your politics you can see that she was stuck in office; unwilling or unable to leave. It was a “dear leader is fit and healthy until she was dead two weeks ago” situation.

What a fate! Imagine being old and frail and 87 but still either going to work or lying about going to work. It’s a self made hell and it’s corrosive to society as a whole.

I hated it. I lived through a lifetime of angry debate about penumbras which emanate. It was exhausting. Every election and every debate and especially every SCOTUS nominee was always about abortion. It never changed, one way or the other.

Then, finally, she was dead. I wonder if it was a relief for her too?

Now it’s 2026. We’re going through a mid-term election and nobody is freaking out about abortion? Have you noticed that? Have you really taken time to appreciate that one thing that was the one thing which steamrolled everything all the time for decades is simmering instead of boiling over? Can we agree that the endless debates sucked? Shrieking about a thing which never changed has faded. That’s good. I’m not saying it’s resolved because such a thing can’t be. But I sure going weeks at a time without someone screaming about it.

I’ve skated on thin ice. Maybe I’m not a good enough writer to walk this tightrope. Neither side is happy now, just as neither side was happy then. I’m just saying both sides are a lot less riled up. That’s good right?

Lets back away from one minefield and probe another. Ready? Here goes…

Lindsey Graham, Senator, is dead. He was in office 33 years. That’s forever. It looks like an old dude dying is really the normal case of an old dude dying; that’s sad enough. It’s unfortunate but not statistically improbable. Graham, because he was in power too long, had already drifted into “fit and healthy until he was dead two weeks ago” terrain. His quick departure was at least clean. I’m neither happy nor sad that Graham is dead. I am relieved we don’t have to go through he “can he fog a mirror” phase of his career.

Which brings me to the unpleasant alternative.

As I type this, Mitch McConnel, Senator, is said to be alive. He’s what “fit and healthy until dead two weeks ago” looks like. Various stuffed shirts said they’d had 20 minute conversations with him. Like some kid talking about their girlfriend in Canada, it’s probably. There are pictures of the Mitch, propped up and looking rough. One might look rough if hospitalized at any age.

I’m not saying he’s dead and there’s a cover up. I’m saying if you have to pose in a photo as proof of life. You should be out of the game.

Mitch has been in power since 1985. The photo below is advanced technology from 1985. Mitch was cementing his ass in his office when this was sexy-tech:

Hospital photos are only the recent phase of Mitch’s endless decline. He’s been blanking out at podiums and occasionally looking like a stroke victim on live video for years. Before they finally unearthed him at a hospital he’d been missing… for weeks. That royally sucks for the nation.

We can agree, regardless of our political bent, that McConnel is decrepit? Life isn’t fair.  Some old people are spry and mentally active. He’s not. Mitch could’ve gracefully stepped away from power when he was still fully in control. That time passed and he force the “is he or is he not in charge” game.

Here’s a legitimate question; who’s Chair of the Senate Rules Committee? I mean who’s actually doing whatever is happening. It’s probably not Mitch? Is it a harried 27 year old staffer? We should know.

I’m thankful Graham (71) just plain died clean and simple (not to downplay any sorrow his loss causes his loved ones). I’m pissed with Mitch (84) for dragging the nation through bullshit. I was pissed when Ginsberg (87) did the same thing.

Here’s the big one.

Are you ready for this. Have you thought about it? Are you sitting down?

Joe Biden absolutely wanted us to live through a “Dear leader is fit and healthy…” presidency. He failed. Have you been grateful for that?

It was never entirely clear how “with it” Biden was in 2020. It was more or less illegal to ask. He got more votes than any other candidate in history and was sworn in behind concertina wire… as one does. How “with it” was he?

Here’s Biden in 2022. Is that a strong leader? Is it too much Adderall? That speech pissed me off! Was he “in charge” in 2022 when he actively pissed me off? Was he in charge when the work restrictions he ranted about didn’t happen?

Here’s Biden in 2024. I don’t know why it happened at that exact moment but this photo is from when it happened. People decided en masse Biden wasn’t mentally capable, and things happened.

The photo above is from June 27, 2024. That’s 2 years and 2 weeks ago. What if it hadn’t happened. Would VP Kamala be desperately trying to pretend that President Biden was totally managing everything and shut up about the autopen.

I can’t find a current photo of Biden. During his presidency, you never really knew his condition or location. So much was kept secret. Were you looking forward to legitimate hearings about presidential incapacity? They’d be happening right about now.

Biden also has serious cancer. Did you think about that. Cancer was announced exactly after it was a moot point and not a minute before. Except it was only a moot point when he wasn’t president. Were you looking forward to announcements about which oncologist did or did not visit the white house?

If Biden hadn’t face planted in that debate he might have “won” the election. (Maybe with another record high vote count!) We’d have been stuck (again or still) having no idea who’s in charge.

Whether you like Trump or froth at the mouth at the thought, lets all just say we can tell for damn sure the dude’s alive. We can tell he’s exercising power. When he walks in the room everyone knows who’s boss. Nobody makes jokes about Trump’s autopen.

Take a moment to enjoy what didn’t happen.

McConnel is forcing uncertainty on the Senate. Ginsberg did it to the Supreme Court. Biden tried to do nationally but failed. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt probably did it too.

We actually know who’s in charge. It could have been worse. It has been worse.

Appreciate when disasters don’t happen.

A.C.

A while ago I had a side gig. It was/is legal and moral to have a side gig (or three). A lot of people freak out about that shit so I kept it on the downlow. I even had a side gig computer. It was almost but not quite air gapped from everything else (it shared WiFi).

Then a lot of changes happened.

They ghosted me (which was ok, it was just a part time gig and at the time I was pretty sick). I kept checking my corporate e-mail. Originally they’d desperately wanted me to be full time but back then I only could do part time. Now that I was retired and getting healthy I could do more… but I wasn’t eager to “push it” with my health. I made a few quiet inquiries about getting some hours of work. When I got no firm response I thought maybe it was for the best. I’m probably not the only one that was cut off. The place had been through a takeover and shit was chaotic. Plus the economy changed; it wasn’t a “growth sector” anymore.

Months later, my corporate e-mail login was denied. I’d expected this. They’d “fixed the glitch”.

I resorted to old fashioned voice calls and badgered my way through the phone tree. Eventually I contacted someone in person who was well meaning and polite. It went like this:

Me: “Hi, do I work for you now?”

Them: “Who the hell are you? I’ll shoot you over to HR.”

HR: Random noises and many paragraphs…

Me: “So, no?”

Them: “Are you going to make us say it?”

Me: “I like clarity. I’m no longer employed right?”

Them: “You are no longer employed. And now that we’ve spoken a simple true thing aloud we all have to go to six more HR training sessions!”

Me: “That’s a shame. I’ll miss you guys. Have a great future.”

Them: “You’re not going to freak out?”

Me: “Um… no. Things change. You’re an employer, not a girlfriend.”

Them: “…”

Months later I made another call.

Me: “I still have your crappy obsolete computer. Why don’t I pull the hard drive and send it to you? That way you’ll have any and all data that ever existed.”

Them: “OMG we need that computer!”

Me: “It’s not real valuable… it was pretty basic when you sent it and that was years ago.”

Them: “We need it! Now! We need every molecule of IT assets. It’s life or death!”

Me: “OK, tell me where to ship it.”

They ghosted me for a while. After several weeks I heard from them again.

Them: “The people that run the IT for the people that bought the company that you no longer work for because they don’t exist need the important IT asset computer back.”

Me: “Remember when I asked where to ship it? Maybe you could tell me this time?”

Them: “Ship it here. Use this account at the local FedEx store.”

There isn’t a FedEx store within a hundred miles of me. Being a loyal former employee I made plans to drive half a day to ship the white elephant.

Them: “It’s been two days, why haven’t you shipped it?”

Me: “The nearest FedEx store is a long drive, I’ll ship it this weekend.”

Them: “That’s slow. We need it asap. Can you take it elsewhere?”

Me: “There’s a place that’s just over an hour’s drive. It’s not FedEx but they might do the job. How about there?”

Them: “We’ll call them and make arrangements. Do it.”

Me: “OK.”

That’s how, a dude who’d “speed retired” and was also “glitch fixed” found himself boxing up a low end workstation. It was a bit of a sad day. I didn’t mind the work when I had it. It would’ve been great to have it again given my increasing health and crappy finances. But as the Rolling Stones say “You can’t always get what you want… but you just might find you get what you need.” I’m not unconvinced God kicked me out of the workforce to force my ass to focus on health. Who am I to ignore fate’s hints?

I wasn’t happy about the long drive to ship it. I could just toss it in the trash. What could they do? Fire me?

But that would be rude. I don’t want to be that guy. It’s a slippery slope of moral shortcuts. It starts with an obsolete computer in the trash, progresses to being the jackoff who doesn’t put the carts away at the grocery store, and (when things go too far) turns you into a Senator. The side gig hadn’t become the awesome career change it might have been, but I’d done good work and they’d been nice to me. That counts for something.

Plus, I absolutely want all former work related gear a million miles from me. I can truthfully tell any lawyer at any time “that shit is gone, I don’t have it, go away”.

I’ve always felt scandalized when people get all skeevy and can’t separate work and life; especially involving data. Even if it’s not corrupt it looks like exactly like corruption. And it’s creepy, low class, bullshit. I don’t want to be Hillary Clinton using an illegal secret server and making up lame excuses. Or Joe Biden with stuff in his garage. Or John Bolton who’s better at growing a mustache than keeping shit clean when hiring a ghost writer. It’s also a lawyer trap waiting to spring regardless of truth. Trump had the most secure storage a billionaire with Secret Service backup can have. He had the best reason to have access to data that a human can have, as a former (and current!) president. Yet they used it as an excuse to lawfare his ass. If they can fuck over a billionaire what could the do to me? Or you?

Be nothing like any of them. Strive to be free of such entanglements.

I had to mail the damn thing; for impractical but moral and mental wellness reasons. That dumb old computer was the last tie. Best to get it done. There’s no valuable data of any sort on it (never was), but the reality of data security is irrelevant. Otherwise I’d ship a hard drive for five bucks and be done with it.

Even so I resented running errands for a former employer. To make the day fun I decided to turn the task into a motorcycle ride.

The mighty PC800 has huge saddlebags (the bedonkadonk) but the monitor wouldn’t fit in it. I said “fuck it”, boxed everything up, and strapped it to the cargo rack. It fit very securely on the PC800’s cargo rack (which I installed last year before I was taken completely out of commission). I uttered the magic words “that’s not going anywhere”, and started my impromptu mini-road trip.

At first I was worried; what if the load shifts? The precious obsolete computer could get rattled. Then I realized it didn’t matter. Were they going to cut my pay? Tell Santa to put me on the naughty list? Take away my birthday? Nobody will ever use this computer again. It’ll sit on a shelf somewhere until it’s (maybe but probably not) wholesaled to a recycling program. Its sole purpose is to populate a cell in some IT department’s “infrastructure depreciation” spreadsheet. I had to ship this crap (at their expense) to maintain an image of, but not actual conditions of, efficiency.

Deep in the bowels of corporate bureaucracy, such things make sense.

I stopped to check the load. To my delight, the package was riding like it was part of the bike’s frame. Just flawless! I’ve ridden many miles on various bikes with all sorts of loads, but this was the easiest it’s been to haul anything that encumbering. Go PC800!

If I didn’t live in the hinterland I’d probably start another side gig with Door Dash.

Anyway, I dropped off the package. It went to wherever it went for whatever goofy reason it was needed. I’m done with it and that’s a relief. I’ll miss the job intellectually but I worked too hard at too many jobs for too many years. Letting go is a deliberate act.

It was meltingly hot. I stopped at a place with good food and better AC. I wisely drank an absurd amount of ice tea. Then I ventured back out in the blast furnace and rode home.

It wasn’t the PC800 motocamping one part of me had planned. It wasn’t the sweet side gig another part of me had planned. But it was a good day.

A couple days ago I wrote:

…it seems wasteful to toss a whole can over a 3 ounce cap… Then it dawned on me I’m a big bad 3d printing homesteader nerd!

Did it work out? Hell yes it did!

Most of my cans are “Wedco”. There are other brands. Also, if your fuel can isn’t filthy you haven’t been using it enough.

I don’t know where I picked it up but the slang term for the spout is “donkey dick”. I will always refer to it as such. I’m not allowed in public for such reasons.

This is a second generation donkey dick. Meaning the first one wore out a long time ago and this is an “aftermarket replacement”. It is also worn out, it leaks all over the place! [Insert inappropriate joke here.]

Here’s a replacement printed in Bambulab PETG-Translucent. There’s no reason why you should choose translucent but there’s no reason why you should not.

Note: I did not design this. I downloaded it off Printables.com. Here’s the link. The guy who made it did a good job I think. It’s on a wide open creative commons license.

This particular donkey d… spout… is meant for ventless post-California enshittified design gas cans. It has an internal vent and there’s an adjunct air tube that goes into the can. You can see it as a little worm sized thing on the print bed. The internal vent arrangement is more complex than necessary but I don’t think that’ll make it pour worse. I made my first print using the standard model rather than tweak it. If it’s not exactly what I want, I can always take out that bit and/or just make my own design.

A note about vents:

Every red blooded American either has pre-Enshittified cans (like I do), has manfully drilled a vent hole in their enshittified can, or has bought a “water” can that they use for gas. The latter option is what I call “Soviet workaround”; even in the most totalitarian situations “loopholes” appear. They’re tolerated because sometimes you simply have to get shit done. That’s why Amazon and others used to list a variety of “water cans” that look exactly like they’d be perfect to fill your (non-electric) lawnmower.

Another workaround are little “vent kits” that you can get on Amazon and other places. They’re specifically made so you, the homeowner, can drill into an enshittified gas can and “convert” it into a useable gas can. If it freaks you out that there’s a kit to do exactly what the factory isn’t allowed to do, wait ’till you hear how they sell 30 round mags in Colorado.

But I digress. I’m not sure the California can is still law of the land. I no longer care. I just don’t buy new cans because I don’t need to fund stupidity. I’ve basically left the market; possibly for life. (I suspect Ayn Rand would take that last statement and turn it into a 50 page monologue.)

The donk…… spout is held on by a “nut”. (Don’t blame me for what you’re thinking, I didn’t name these things. The dirty jokes are pitched across the plate!) I downloaded a model for “nut”… ugh this is killing me.

The nut printed out great but didn’t match the thread on my jugs. (That still sounds dirty!)

The silliest, crudest, most improbable solution I could think of was to rescale and print a larger nut. I scaled to 105% and it fits the threads flawlessly. I can’t believe that worked!

For some reason I took no photos. I also forgot to preserve the link. You can find it with a quick search on Printables.

When you remove the d…… spout, you need an insert to block the hole in the nut. It’s at this link. I scaled it at 105% to match the larger nut and it fit perfectly.

I took the gasket off my old… spout. And put it on the new… spout. A gasket makes the seal a lot better.

I wanted a gasket on the insert. There were comments that this one was a finicky print. People complained it was too small. (Dammit why is everything a setup to a punchline?) The link is here. The commons license says no sharing without attribution. Since I’m not sharing the file I’m still within the license. Also it’s just a disk, you could design your own in a few minutes.

I printed a series of gaskets, inflating about 1% between each one. Then I selected the best fit. It worked great. Calibration is science!

Gaskets should be made of “squishy” material. I used Bambulab TPU 95A HF. It’s good with solvents and it only took about $0.11 to make a plate with every possible size.

Real gas cans have a vent. This is the vent cap file I found at Printables. It worked fine with no need for scaling.

I find it absolutely bizarre that they even made unvented gas cans. It’s such a weirdly Utopian madness… but it happened.

Here’s a few gas cans. Some cans have newly 3d printed bits. Some remaining bits are still useable and don’t need replacing. Others bits are crappy and are waiting while I count and print more pieces to swap in.

It’s also a cameo by our elderly barn cat.

None of this is rocket science, but it’s proof of concept. I needed a thing and within a day had printed precisely what I wanted. I can print essentially infinite numbers of those items and they don’t use much filament so they’re dirt cheap. How cool is that?

Another 3d printing happy moment.

I was out trimming branches with what I call “chainsaw on a stick”. I didn’t notice at first but I was using a battery that had been damaged but then I fixed it with 3d printing.

I did that about a year ago. The OEM housing cracked, I replaced it with a knockoff housing that lasted about a year but then it too cracked. I printed a new housing (choosing red and black colors probably at random) and it’s holding together fine. (I also swapped the batteries and electronic gadgetry.)

It worked so well that I didn’t even notice it at first. It looks, works, and feels as good as the OEM stuff. How cool is that?

String trimmer (weed whacker) “line” is nearly the same thing as 3d printing “filament” (with some caveats). I’ve seen videos of people running weed whacker line through their 3d printer. It’s not particularly high quality material but it does indeed work. I’ve also seen videos of people printing from cut up 2 liter soda bottles. That’s pretty impressive I think! There’s nothing quite as clever as a dedicated 3d printing nerd. (I wanna’ be like them when I grow up.)

I’m glad they’re figuring all this stuff out. If society collapses and we all go Mad Max, there will be nerds scouring the wasteland for old weed whackers. They’ll gladly rescue the line to print… stuff.

The amusing part (to me) is that I have been soaking some string trimmer line to add water. This makes it more flexible (less brittle) for when I bash weeds. At the exact same time I’ve been running my filament dryer to remove water to make 3d filament about 10-14% relative humidity. That makes the prints more pristine.

Yes, such details are deep in the weeds. But they amuse me nonetheless.

I have a “fleet” of gas cans. I use them more than most people seem to use gas cans. I don’t know why. I’m always schlepping diesel, unleaded, saw mix, furnace fuel, etc… There’s always a good reason. What does everyone else do? Is there a two-stroke saw mix drone delivery service I don’t know about?

My gas cans are precious. Most are “pre-Californicated”; meaning they’re from back when you could pour fuel without messing with a spring loaded aberration that invariably spills fuel either on a hot muffler or my pantleg… presumably Gaia likes absolutely spilling liquid to avoid hypothetical vapor loss.

Trump made some warbling about kicking the EPA in the ass until us peasants could pour gas properly. I don’t know if it happened. I assume not. It’s a politician and the EPA so it’s safe to bet that the ratchet never stops tightening. We got legal weed and lost incandescent bulbs and high flow toilets. Who could have imagined the future would be like that?

All I know is that my cans are fine (Wedco brand mostly) but the caps and gaskets (and especially the fuel filler nozzles) are all beat to hell. I’m on the second generation of replacements for most accessory parts.

To buy all new cans would set me back a C note (or more!) and I don’t want to think about replacing useable cans with enshittified ones. Also it seems wasteful to toss a whole can over a 3 ounce cap. I’d rather refurbish what I’ve got.

Then it dawned on me I’m a big bad 3d printing homesteader nerd! Time to quit bitching and solve my own problems; whether I can blame them on the EPA or not!

I set out to print my own:

• Gas caps.
• Filler nozzles.
• Gaskets.
• Vent caps. (Vents are the thing that got Californicated.)

From my research PETG is adequate (even good) at resistance to solvents. Diesel is the thing I use most and it plays well with PETG. So that’s what I’m using.

Gaskets need to be flexible (squishy). The only solution is TPA. I have some TPA 95A, it’s very squishy. It can’t go through my printers AMS, but it’s ok if I set up an external feed. They say TPU is very good with diesel and gas too. My slicer says I’ll need $0.03 each to make as many gaskets as I want. How cool is that?

I’ll probably have to tinker and make sure the thread pitch of the caps is right. Nothing is right on the first try. But I think I can figure it out.

That’s challenge du jour. It might take a week to get around to it. Does that make it challenge de la semaine? I don’t know; I only speak languages for places with lots of air conditioning. 🙂

Wish me luck.

“Landscaping” at Curmudgeon Compound isn’t really landscaping. Nothing was ever graded, or seeded, or really anything. (Putting down sod would be hilarious out here!)

My “lawn” is basically cow pasture that was mowed on and off for several decades after the cows were gone. It’s a de facto lawn. There has never been a single thought put into anything other than dragging a mower over it.

Since moving here I’ve “lost ground” on some sports but other spots I reclaimed from literal cows. (I pulled down temporary electric fence and in a few instances “discovered” stealth hunks of barbed wire when it wrapped around my mower deck.)

Nature is not wimpy. You gotta’ keep up the fight! If you don’t mow at least a few times every year all hell breaks loose. If the rain is sufficient it’ll go to chest high weeds in one season. It’ll be tree saplings and shoddy ill kempt forest in ten.

The thing is, anyone can manage a 1/5 acre suburban lot but land is hard work. (Though I don’t have huge tracts of land.)

It’s precious space. It’s a firebreak and “working area”. Working area means “whatever isn’t appropriate for indoors”. For many years I had free range chickens (and a corral of pigs). Last year I “camped” there. When I plow snow the “lawn” accumulates mountains of the stuff.  You have to stack wood and gut deer and have bonfires and park dead trucks somewhere.

If you don’t have a lawn, where does the dog shit?

The last few years things degraded from “shabby” to “emergent wilderness”. I allocate resources as best I can and health came first. I barely managed to keep the grass hacked down. Though last fall I did do some firewood cutting and that made me happy. I even cleaned up some trees that had windblown on the lawn (though a few downed trees are still moldering along the edges).

This year I’m starting to “turn the boat around”. I mow with a tractor so “trimmed lawn” ain’t a thing. It’s a 3 point hitch, I can only be so accurate.

Years ago I cleaned up the yard with a weed whacker; just like a civilized person. I decided to do that again.

I dug through my garage and found two gas weed whackers. One is a Ryobi I bought sometime around 2003. The fuel hose would always pop out and spill gas on my pants. I remember it broke down a lot, I knew it was at least 23 years old, and it was a lame little turd even when it was brand new. It pissed me off but I’m too cheap to chuck it.

The other was a Stihl. I got it used about 17 years ago. I’d guess it was at least a decade old when I acquired it but I didn’t ask. That puts it just shy of thirty years old? Can that be?

It’s strange, I remembered nothing at all about it other than it existed and where I’d stashed it in the garage. I must have used it or I wouldn’t have put it carefully in the garage. Right? Right?!?

The Ryobi needs different gas mix than the Stihl (which is same 50:1 as my chainsaw… also a Stihl). I couldn’t even remember if the Stihl trimmer ran. But if I got gas for it and it didn’t run I’d easily use the mix gas in my saw. I suspected it was dead because I have some sort of machine amnesia about it. But what do I know?

I bought pre-mix from the store to maximize the odds it would start. A scandalous extra expense! I picked up a new spark plug because why not? (The plug might fit in my saw too.)

I expected a total fiasco. I decided I’d limit my efforts. I’d try to pull start it (and do all the things a man tries to get an old machine running) but no more than half an hour. I’m a shitty mechanic and I don’t need the drama. Should it fail, I’d throw it in the trash like a normal American disposing of a thirty year old hunk of junk.

Choke, fuel primer bulb, figure out the cryptic 1/0 switch (would it kill them to use the letters “on”/”off”?), hold the throttle. Pull…

Three tries. It was running in three tries.

HOLY SHIT!

I went apeshit cutting grass like a maniac. Fifteen minutes later the string ran out. I drove to the store and got a pack of string. I was so stoked I was probably speeding the whole time.

It took a bit to figure out the magic spell to load string but after that, it’s like a brand new tool. It’s running like a top!

In a world where my battery pack demanded a firmware update in a campground, let’s give thanks for machines that weren’t made like shit!

This doesn’t mean my lawn is trimmed and pretty, only that I’ve another tool in my arsenal. I’ll gain ground with time.

(Some of the weeds in my leach field were head high! The string in the trimmer just isn’t stout enough to handle that.)

I trimmed around my flagpole in time for Independence Day! I’m pleased as punch.

Another note: I have a Dewalt 20volt pruning saw. I call it “chainsaw on a stick”. It was also unused for a few years… though I have made some use of the 20v batteries with a small Dewalt chainsaw. I got it out and was pruning any tree branches which are the right height to batter my tractor cab (which is a hell of a lot of branches!). The ungainly device beat the hell out of my arms but it does its job well.

I’d slapped on a battery without even thinking about it. It was a battery that I’d “rebuilt” by 3d printing my own housing. How cool is that?

Owning a 3d printer means that you’ve the means to fix virtually anything but there’s a lot of learning and design and tinkering before you’re the mechanical wizard you’d like to be. I’d fixed the battery and forgot all about it. It’s neat to see the DIY battery just doing it’s job like no big deal.

Two wins in a week. Can’t complain about that!

Normally, I’d whoop it up on July 4th. I often made annual “patriotic posts”; sometimes I posted the full text of the Declaration of Independence.

This year is different. It’s so much bigger and so much happier.

The enemies of liberty, often attacking from the inside, are fading out lately. I once thought they were deadly serious horrifying intellectual monsters. They turned out to be useless losers and raving lunatics. What a relief!

I’ve so much gratitude. I’m still here. America is still here. It’s so damn wonderful. I don’t need anything more. I’ll touch off fireworks and have a sip of whiskey and spend all day grinning but I won’t be howling at the moon like my younger self.

I witnessed, as a child, America’s 200th anniversary. I’m going to see the 250th. I’ve seen the circular nature of things. I’ve seen attacks on my beloved nation; they’ve been so long and so continuous and so inept and so pointless… I no longer worry the clowns will wreck the circus.

Think of all the stupid negativity that has come before and how much remains to arrive… and think about how it’s all a fart in a windstorm. Liberty and freedom glow brightly from the soul, being a clown is just makeup and mental illness.

Step back and enjoy that you’re not nuttier than squirrel shit.

They act out the fiction that our nation is always going to hell in a handbasket. The world is always doomed. The end is forever nigh.

That’s because despair is a tool to wound the self-reliant. Despair turns a citizen into voting livestock. Media (starting with newspapers and daily news on my black and white TV as a kid and continuing to the spyware on my cell phone today) is always hammering at the same thing; give up hope. Feel doomed. Feel helpless. Do not strive. They hate men that are self reliant and growing. They want human shaped holes of despair. They want you to bitch that the Government should show up on a magic carpet to serve you breakfast and then bitch more when it doesn’t.

Don’t let them pull you down. America rocks. The nation was amazing and continues to be so. The media and most politicians are a collection of sullen, unskilled, nutsacks. They’re too pathetic to build something new and splendid. They compensate by attacking your mental health. (Notice what they do to their own mental health. They’re sad, unfulfilled, bitter people.)

Back in ’76 the world was officially going to shit. Did you know that? Did you know the forces arrayed against freedom were doing it in the streets and scaring the horses?

The nation had recently crawled up it’s ass over Nixon (an event I see differently with perspective), it had shoved it’s face into a blender over ‘Nam, it had barely shaken out the hangover from the 1960’s, the 55 MPH national speed limit was law, inflation was high, the beer was crap, TV was black and white, and the people were about to elect a president who would be considered the worst president ever (until very recently).

Not long after the bicentennial, Captain Weaksauce (Carter) fucked up everything domestic and foreign like it was an Olympic sport. Meanwhile, I was told the Russkies were a mighty juggernaut. They’d surely drop the bomb and turn me into a radioactive skeleton. Which was only one of dozens of ways my youthful self was completely fucked; overpopulation was unavoidable, climate change (upcoming ice age!) would kill us all, and the worst horror of all, we’d run out of oil long before I was old enough to have a car. Later they’d tell me I shouldn’t get laid in said car because AIDS would be a virtual death sentence. (Fauchi had a long career.)

Do all those lies sound familiar? They should. It’s the same shit they’re serving today.

What’s the success rate of their predictions? Did overpopulation starve us all. Did the Russkies nuke Baltimore? Did the ice age freeze our balls off? Did Fauchi’s dramatics turn AIDS into the bubonic plague and depopulate 2/3 of Europe? Did privately owned cars go away? Did they (as promised) make us eat ants? (That was a thing when I was in elementary school. Do you think it’s new?)

Life isn’t all puppies and roses. AIDS really did suck for a lot of people. The Soviet Union really was awful.

Some stuff declined. Movies have become so derivative they’re unwatchable. Much of our music is autotuners and losers who can’t read sheet music. Universities quit being places of learning. New good books are rare.

Some things got mired in stasis. Cars are still regulated mercilessly, and they’re still huge, and commies still hate that they’re privately owned. Cuba is still Cuba. We never got back to the moon.

Some things improve, but only marginally. The replacement to the horrific USSR isn’t perfect but it’s not worse. (Don’t bark like seals over Ukraine unless you can name all the USSR satellite nations that are now significantly freer.) Pot is somehow absolutely not legal and definitely legal; which is weird. Unlike the end of prohibition we just can’t get our shit together and make a clean decision.

Some things improved so much nobody remembers how much they seemed insolvable. The 55 MPH speed limit is gone and forgotten. East Germany and West Germany merged. The Cubs won the series!

Some things were predictable but funny “self owns”. We all stopped smoking, and we all got fat. We got generous welfare so a lot of people quit working (and got fat). Food got cheaper and cheaper and less and less healthy. Did I mention we got fat? Clinton’s Assault Weapons Ban riled up rednecks so much that everyone bought many more guns than anyone imagined. Beer went “microbrew” and got so good that Bud Light tried going gay to compete. (I remember New Coke doing about the same thing.) Obamacare was passed; nobody remembers the $2,500 a year savings we were promised but at least we can bitch about poor quality and longer waits. Alaska gave up on the bridge to nowhere. California built exactly zero miles of its wonder train.

The prediction in 1976 was unmitigated doom but life is never as simple or as tragic as threatened. Life is a mix of good and bad and many unexpected consequences; as it should be.

Predictions now are the same unmitigated doom of 50 years ago. If you’re pissing and moaning about how “America won’t last another year” you’re eating the same shit sandwich I tasted in 1976.

They’ve been so spectacularly wrong that the jokes write themselves. This Independence Day they’re pissed about algae. Theoretically adult human beings are freaked about how Trump made water clean. If that’s their biggest fear it’s a pretty weak fear. I grew up expecting to fight a ravaging horde for the last can of beans in a Malthusian doomsday.

If your nightmare is clean water in a pool and Americans enjoying a mixed martial arts event on the White House lawn; you need to read more Lovecraft.

The enemies of freedom got too silly. They made themselves spastic, then foolish, and inevitably they drift into irrelevancy. A jittery neon parade of pompous, unaccomplished, imbeciles has been squawking my whole life about one panic after another. It’s a “them” problem, not a “real world” issue.

When someone shrieks that rabid zombie space elephants will disembowel me with a weaponized Dorito it’s second nature to tune it out. All normal people do the same. Insane people just plain got too weird. They’re not even creative. If you’re fretting about algae you’ve run out of ideas. Find a new hobby.

Nobody knows where the flood crested and began to recede. I think they shot their wad in 2020. The plague didn’t kill me. The absolutely amazing statistical marvel of No Malarkey Joe’s record vote count accomplished… what exactly? Sure, a lot of damage was done and for a while the biggest human trafficking scheme was either our government or organizations illicitly funded by our government. But then what? We didn’t burn down. We didn’t implode. We didn’t meet at Gettysburg and flatten each other. The promised utopia of gay rainbow unicorn farts didn’t materialize. The free shit army looked ascendant but didn’t have a plan to actually run things. Now we see them as merely NGO graft spread like butter over the young unaccomplished and old never-accomplished.

You know how I mentioned 1976? Seems a million years ago right? Just this year the groovy fossils were protesting with their heavy hitter… decrepit octogenarian Jane Fonda. It’s 2026! I didn’t know she was still alive. They’re trying to “get the band back together” but unless someone hands them graft money, all they’ve got is… cat ladies? Really?

So it’s with great pleasure that I’ll celebrate, with contentment and gratitude, my nation’s 250th birthday. Years ago, I expected that I’d be drunk this whole week in sheer ecstasy, but now that it has arrived, I’m even happier than that. Join me in embracing the deep abiding joy of watching something good endure while the forces of evil piss themselves.

I’d gone camping and (despite several minor mistakes) didn’t feel like coming home yet. How to handle it? The online reservation thing won’t go on my old cell phone. My iPad makes their web site break out in hives. Back to basics; I found a Park groundskeeper running a weed whacker and interrupted him. “Is there a human somewhere that does campsites?” Indeed there was, the park had more than one campground and there was a human manning the one I wasn’t at.

It was a short drive. There I interacted with the most bored human you’ve ever seen.

I was at site X, could I extend another day?

Nope, someone else reserved it. Get gone by late afternoon.

OK. I decided to go home.

Or you can rent a different site.

That’s how I wound up pulling down my tent and tossing all my shit in the truck, driving it a couple hundred yards, and then setting back up. It was my own fault so I didn’t complain… much. I clocked the whole hassle at 27 minutes. All hail my easy to setup system! I also learned that making a reservation on the day of occupation saves me a few bucks. Good to know.

Fretting over the battery, which seemed to no longer draw from what I suspect is a toasted cigarette lighter, I came up with a plan. There are campsites with electricity. I hadn’t rented one, but several were just sitting empty. I’d charge up illicitly and grift back to my tent ghetto like an electron thieving nerd!

I picked a spot that was empty, plugged in the battery into AC, and it started charging. I know this takes less than an hour. I expected a half charge would take half an hour. No big deal.

The battery has a Bluetooth link to an app on my phone. I turned it on. It worked in the past but not now. I didn’t formerly need to remember a damn password but there had been an “update” to the software. What in the name of enshittified asshattery is wrong with companies these days?!?

I clicked, “forgot my password” and began the ritual humiliation of re-establishing a login. I used my cell phone as a wifi hotspot so my iPad could get the email and go to the website and reset the password. All this to monitor a device close enough I could walk over and piss on it.

What’s this? Time to upgrade the firmware? On a battery? Really… there never needs to be improved software on a battery! What improvements in Ohm’s law happened in the last six months? Do they really think charging a battery is cutting edge technology in constant flux?

Accepting defeat. I clicked “upgrade firmware”. Shit began to happen. The battery, connected to my cell phone via Bluetooth, which was connected to the internet via cell service, had initiated a three way orgy of privacy violation and pointless digital wheel spinning.

I was in no hurry so it was… whoops a car just pulled up and now I was indeed in a hurry. A sweet elderly couple asked if I was the departing resident of this campsite (which I was not). Should they wait a few hours to check in? Good grief no! I turned myself inside out trying to be polite, explained that I was a useless loser grifting free electricity, and I should be tossed into a volcano for my sins. They laughed. Whew! I moved my truck, they pulled their car in. I was fatally embarrassed by the whole thing.

I wanted to bail out completely but my battery was doing God knows what with its digital junk hanging in the breeze. I didn’t want to risk interrupting the process. It might brick and then I’d be SOL! Imagine a world so dumb that a battery that might brick over a pointless software update.

Eight minutes later the firmware uselessness was done. I grabbed the battery and scampered away. It was now at 65%. Mathematically that’s plenty. Which is good because I only had two ideas for charging and had used both. (I can get solar panels. But I don’t have them yet. Given that I’m too broke to buy a hamburger a solar panel may take a while.)

I went back to my (new) campsite, grilled two of the gas station brats (delicious!), and suddenly I was exhausted. It hit me pretty fast. I sundowned like Biden after he was out of ice cream. I dunno’ why? Perhaps there are after effects from last year? Perhaps the bad CPAP situation was a real issue. Perhaps I’m a whiny little bitch. Regardless I was plum tuckered out.

I got in my tent, plugged in the CPAP, turned off the humidifier and turned off the hose, and collapsed to sleep. I was out like a light! While I was conked out, the sun shifted. My tent wend from shade to fully heated like a greenhouse. After one hour the heat woke me. It was a good hour. I thanked the CPAP for keeping me alive. Then I got of the tent before I got completely cooked.

I decided to skip exercise hiking. Nothing had worked all day and it seemed wise to quit tempting fate. I need exercise but I won’t die if I skip a day.

I found a few beers in my cooler and that gave new purpose to life. Soon the sun set and the air chilled to that perfect summer evening temp. I cooked more brats, along with a single serve can of beans. I’d found two small cans in my chuckbox. One can of beans expired two years ago. I didn’t use that. The other can expired a few months ago. It was delicious. (I gotta’ update my chuckbox.)

Sitting by the fire for the second consecutive reset, I decided all the minor bullshit that had gone wrong was perfect. It’s good to get crap sorted and a tame park was the place to do it. I’ll thank myself for this on some remote adventure when shit’s real.

Somehow I’d burned a hole in my pants. When had that happened? Who knows? My leg wasn’t burnt and these weren’t a pair of my “good” pants, so who cares? Girls spend a fortune getting jeans that are “fashionably” cut to tatters. I’m a geezer with real life holes burned in his jeans. Serves ‘em right to be stuck in the same universe as me.

In the darkness, beneath the shadow of my lantern, something shifted. Another raccoon? This one was 10” from my foot! He waddled off quickly. This campground needs to set a few rednecks with air rifles loose on the overly confident critters!

I turned in with 65% on the battery, ran a CPAP with no humidity and no heated hose. There was no “rainout”. When I woke I’d only used about 25% of the battery. So “barely two nights” with all systems on turned into “barely four nights” with humidity and heated hose off. Good to know.

I felt rested but I checked the CPAP. It begged to differ.

“You had a huge leak of air, your treatment sucked last night, and the raccoons are forming a union to protest your chip embargo.”

“But I feel rested.”

“You’re not. I’m a CPAP, I know.”

While I was pondering that, I checked the clock on my phone. Mrs. Curmudgeon had sent a text. “Big rainstorm is coming!”

I wondered how long ago she’d sent the text. That exact minute I heard the first drops of rain on my tent’s roof. Excellent comic timing.

I’d planned a long leisurely morning of percolated coffee with bacon and eggs. Instead I packed shit like I was fleeing an oncoming army. I wasn’t the only one. Several other campers were rolling up tents and awnings. Luckily my stuff is well selected for quick setup and take-down. I got everything packed just seconds before it really cut loose. When it did it was epic. Through the windshield I watched the rain beat down like I ought to build an ark.

Back home it was the second afternoon in a row when I ran out of steam. I guess the CPAP hadn’t lied. I conked out for a 2 ½ hour nap, much to the cat’s delight (it slept on my shoulder). Being at home, the CPAP had regular settings in a regular house with regular power. It worked exactly perfect. A night or two sleeping in “normal” conditions put me back on an even keel. Again, I don’t know if this is a real thing or just me being a huge whiner.

I thought of the ADV guys and how I wanted to be doing that. My truck based campout wasn’t smooth enough. I have to work up to being more chill (mostly the sleep issue… murderous ideas about raccoons is fine). It’s a necessary step before I can “graduate” to smaller more primitive motorcycle gear. I love my huge Teton XXL cot and mattress. If they weren’t sufficient, my motocamping pad (which served me well a few years ago in Wyoming) will probably kick my ass. I still think I’ll figure it out. Maybe I need a fancy camping pillow? At least I’m trying.

Next time I won’t forget the bratwurst.

A.C.

After delaying as long as possible I faced the night of camping with a CPAP. Since I had a big ass battery I might as well use all the CPAP’s features. (I did run the CPAP off a 12v plug in instead of it’s regular AC plug. They say it reduces battery consumption to avoid the AC conversion. I’ve verified that is true.)

Night was colder than expected. The temp dropped probably 40 degrees. Snug in my sleeping bag I didn’t care.

The CPAP cared. It pulled in air, humidified it, then pushed humid air through a hose exposed to 45 degree conditions. That exceeded the hose’s heating capacity. It became filled with condensed water. People with more CPAP experience apparently call this a “rainout”.

It’s not fatal, but it’s annoying as hell. First it made dumb sounds, just enough to make me half awake. Then it spewed water all over my face! Nobody can sleep through that! It sucked being all wet and the hose kept making gross gurgling noises! Water was all over my sleeping bag. It was in my hair and all over the tent. It was like a thirty foot Labrador Retriever had ducked into the tent and slobbered on me.

It was condensed distilled water, the cleanest water ever to get thrown in my face. But I’ve had better nights.

I set the heated hose to a higher setting and the humidity to a lower setting. I cleared out the hose (which spilled even more water on everything) and tried to go back to sleep. I fell asleep. I’d solved it! Nope. Two hours later the Labrador Retriever of doom returned.

Dammit! I sat there in the bad lighting of a flashlight trying to dry off and tweaking CPAP settings. Then I heard the neighbors launch into commotion. I heard someone say “Eek, a raccoon!” The exact words I’d imagined. You can’t make this shit up! Other voices joined the commotion. There was the clatter of a campsite being hastily cleaned. I felt pretty smug. I keep a clean camp. All my food is locked in a raccoon proof (not bear proof) cooler or a Milwaukee Packout that could stop a rhino.

I felt smug about my clean camp, and that I’d been willing to go full Thunderdome on raccoons. I like to think that’s why they left me alone. (It’s not, but it’s a nice thought.)

I drifted off to sleep. Then the hose did another “rainout”. Now I didn’t feel smug about anything. It happened several times in the night.

This is probably a good thing. Just as I’m touchy about the CPAP, I’m uptight about sleep. Most people accept that an occasional bad night’s sleep is no big deal. I was that way myself for my whole life until I wasn’t. Last year it got in my head that if I miss a nights sleep I’ll rebound into a state somewhere on the spectrum of between death and exhaustion. Mock me if you want but we’re made by the things we experience. I ain’t afraid to throw down with a raccoon but missing sleep had me worried.

The point is, I got up sleepy and unrested at the ass crack of dawn and… nothing. I was fine. Like a normal healthy person.

Wow! I don’t know what I was expecting, but mildly groggy was better than all imagined outcomes. I was almost giddy with relief. That’s what recovery is all about!

I forgot the brats but sure as hell didn’t forget the coffee. While that was percolating I found out I’d also forgot my toothbrush and toothpaste. In the chuckbox, I found dehydrated toothpaste pellets and a travel toothbrush. They worked fine. I think I tossed that junk in there in 2024? Past me was a stand up guy!

I percolated several cups of coffee and drank them happily. Then I tried to go back to bed and sleep a bit more. I was defeated by another “rainout”. The CPAP was self identifying as a lawn sprinkler. I thought about the guys motocamping. I have things to figure out with the CPAP before I can go motocamping.

No complaints, it is what it is. Rather than sit there all moody, I cooked half my bacon and eggs. Delicious. The rest I saved for later.

After that it was time for a new gadget test. I’d borrowed a cellular WiFi hotspot and was (uncommon for me) camping in geography with (weak) cell service. I turned it on, then turned on my old decrepit MacBook Air that’s now a Linux box. This was going to be awesome! It wasn’t. The WiFi hotspot didn’t give me internet. My cell phone can be a WiFi hotspot too but I don’t like to use it too much. However, it did work. Different carriers? I used my old cracked iPad to post a short message to my blog. It was proof of concept if nothing else.

I was looking forward to another advantage of campgrounds over dispersed camping. This campground (like most) has showers. How civilized! More dumb mistakes ensued. I forgot to pack soap. I forgot shampoo. I had a towel and that’s the only thing my dumb ass had remembered. I stood under the water and called it good. Getting sprayed with water was the theme of this trip.

With my CPAP’s heater and humidifier running as normal but also air leaks and general mayhem, I’d used a lot of battery. I was at 53%. In theory, anything over 50% means I’d done one day and was set for a second day. But 53% is too close!

I have a 12v charge line for my battery box. I plugged it in to the cigarette lighter of my truck. The truck pushes 20 amps, the box pulls 10 amps. So long as I run the motor, it’ll be fine. It was already lunchtime so I set out to drive to a burger place for lunch. Then I remembered I’m broke. I’m not complaining, I made decisions I don’t regret but which do have repercussions. There was no burger budget.

I really wished I had those brats! Instead of the longer trip to a country bar I made a short one to the nearest (and only) gas station / convenience store. When I stopped, the charge cable felt warm to the touch. That’s not good. I unplugged it. I was at 56%.

I bought a pack of brats and an ice cream sandwich. Nine bucks total. Frugal me! I started the truck and plugged the line back in but now it wouldn’t charge. Did I fry my truck’s cigarette lighter? Seems like I might have.

I’d only reserved the campsite for one night. I’d planned all along to extend another night but hadn’t committed until I’d found food and verified I had slightly more than half a battery left. OK Curmudgeon, lets try a second CPAP camping night.

More in part 5.