Adaptive Curmudgeon

Two things of note today:

1. First, happy rainbow sweetness: The chiropractor says I’m more or less fine. My epic faceplant on the ice tweaked me a little, but not much. It’s not a big deal to the universe but it’s a very welcome event in my little world.
2. Second, bitter long awaited relief: Paul Ehrlich is dead. Ehrlich was a grandstanding fuckwit. He spread anxiety and fear like some sort of intellectual vampire. He fed on misery. He twisted everyone’s view of adaptable humans, their fabulous planet, and the nature of humanity on earth. In particular, his bullshit buried Gen X in brutal negativity. He kept it up (despite massive evidence to the contrary) from before I was born all the way until last week when they planted him. The only thing that stopped him was death. His incorrect crap about human starvation was the most wrong that he (or anybody else) possibly could have been. Literally! There was mathematically no way to be any more wrong and no more incorrect timing! Ehrlich’s false inducement of misery pushed the masses into blackpilled doomer hopelessness. Humans could have celebrated the best improvement in food sources in all of humanity’s existence if it weren’t for Ehrlich’s lies. Ehrlich’s was disproven in dozens of measurable ways. He never learned. He never improved his theories. It was all black fates and death with that jackass! He warped at least one and maybe several generations. What he did is evil. When you saw Greta Thunberg gibbering in front of a gullible UN, you were seeing the cost in human life and potential caused by Ehrlich’s poisonous social contagion. His soul is in the hands of God. That’s above my pay grade. But the world of the living is improved with his absence. It will take decades (centuries?) for society to mentally recover from his bad ideas, but the healing starts now.

I had one of those days. It’s been building for a month; it was coming and it hit me like a truck.

For just shy of a year I’ve been feeling battered. I rode out a health scare and that’s never fun. I’ve been getting better in small but steady increments. Except winter has been long and inactive. I feel like progress stalled. The last month or so has felt like I’m going backwards.

I know it’s partly my attitude but trying to be an adult about things has been a mixed bag. My brain theorizes things will clear up as soon as the weather warms up. Surely a little chainsaw based exercise will do me wonders. My soul tells my brain to shut it’s nerdy pie-hole because I’ve been cooped up too long and it’s in no mood for philosophizing. End result, I’ve been irrationally grumpy and agitated.

A single glorious moment on my trusty dirtbike let off steam. I felt good. I thought I’d made it. Sadly, I was grounded again. Just too cold for two wheels even for an idiot like me.

Planning ahead I’ve been salting the shit out of the ice patch that is my driveway. I had hopes I’d roll my cruiser out to the pavement as soon as suitable temperatures returned. I want to shake the cobwebs from between my ears.

Alas, it is not to be… yet. The ice was nearly gone and the snow was mostly fading. Then all hell broke loose. Afternoon temps dropped precipitously. The skies turned evil. I’m in the habit of ignoring weather reports but I can catch a clue when it’s delivered with a sledge. Shit was about to go down.

It started to snow. The wind picked up. The first flakes came down hard. This was not a drill! It stressed the living shit out of me.

I wasn’t alone. A pair of early summer migratory fowl went apeshit. I’m rusty with my birdwatching skills. I’m not sure what they were. A pair of big ass white birds with long necks came hurtling out of the clouds as if to remind me that dinosaurs were here before mammals. They dropped down like long range bombers with iced wings looking to belly flop on the nearest thing that wasn’t a tree. They plunged out of view into my swamp. Where they landed, I have no idea. They were huge and all white with black beaks. I’m guessing tundra swans? The black beak seems to rule out snow geese.

I dithered a bit, feeling gloomy. Then, shortly after sunset, grabbed my sled and started hauling firewood. There was already 4″ of snow!

I’m well aware risk goes up when fatigue and stress loom. Plus there was 4″ of snow (already!) covering slick ice. Treacherous is an understatement. But this isn’t my first rodeo. I was prepared. I wore big boots with beefy tread, a fluffy fur hat, a bulky hunting jacket, and strong leather gloves. I know when to be careful.

I waddled my ass through the gloom, delivering the wood… slipping and sliding with every step. Soon I was done. “There, I did the right thing. Good for me.”

I took two steps effortlessly pulling the empty sled, put my foot down on a sheet of ice at a 20 degree slope. It was invisible, covered with half a foot of wet slop, and precisely where it shouldn’t have been. I went down like a ton of bricks.

You know that sound you hear when a chiropractor does whatever unholy thing they do to your spine? I heard that. A lot of it. All the way from waist to neck. Crrrruuunnnchhhh.

It was a big hit. Hard. Like I’d been walking around with a football in my hand and got unexpectedly pummeled by the Green Bay Packers defensive line.

I spent a few minutes laying in the freezing dark. No stars in my eyes. That’s good. I didn’t fall straight back on my spine or straight forward onto my face. That’s good.

So why was I laying here getting covered with snow? Because I just knew this is going to hurt so damn much when I move. On the other hand my loved ones were almost certainly unlikely to notice my absence for… a while. They love me, but I could be there for hours.

For the first time in years I kinda’ wished I’d stashed my cell phone in my pocket.

Finally, I got up and staggered into the house. There was no blood. I was very addled. Nature had rung my bell something fierce. I was pissed off and made sure everyone heard about it. Then, because there’s nothing you can do but live another hour, I just sat in a chair; very still, for hours. The fire I’d fueled kept me warm at least. God, I felt bad.

Eventually I went to bed. I dreaded it. The next morning was sure to be agony. I’m no longer 19 and hits like that can wreck a guy who’s old enough to care about his 401k. My last thought was a prayer “Please lord, those flexibility exercises I’ve been doing must have banked something? Cut me some slack please.”

It worked. I woke up feeling marginally ok. I mean I’m not hopping around doing the limbo but I’m not weeping in agony either. It was a quiet day. I napped a lot. No bruises. As far as I can tell no cracked ribs. I’m pretty sure every damn vertebrae got a workout, but it all ended up where it should be?

I was lucky. Or maybe those flexibility exercises gave me a +2 to avoid damage on a failed dexterity saving throw. Or maybe God was like “Ok, this one has had enough for a while.” Or, the universe is a void and there’s no meaning to anything.

All I know is I’m up and walking after a hit that felt like it would kill a buffalo. I’m surprised and grateful… and sore but maybe not too injured.

We’ve got firewood for the weekend. So that’s nice. When we run out I’ll replenish with the tractor instead of the sled. I never want to walk in that location again.

In my last post I mentioned an “Adirondack Lean To”. I assumed everyone knows what I’m talking about. They don’t. Time to add a little background info.

Below is a photo of an Adirondack Lean To that’s in the actual Adirondacks. It’s from an article instructing on Lean To etiquette. I haven’t been to this location but there are hundreds that look just like this. This lean to is in very good shape, it was probably recently “refreshed”.

By the way, etiquette is a big deal in the hinterland in general and lean tos in specific. It’s pretty easy; don’t be a fuckin’ animal! If you’re going to be a pain in the ass, stay in the city where you belong. Nature is unforgiving. Out there, it behooves everyone to behave intelligently and avoid messing up what might be lifesaving shelter.

A lean to is a log cabin adjacent contraption. It has only three walls and the firepit is outside the structure. Shockingly, it works. The fire radiates warmth (and hopefully not too much smoke) into the structure. It’s caveman level basic. No chimney. No windows. No plumbing. No electricity.

Despite (because of?) their crude nature, they’re pretty pleasant. You’re sheltered from rain, snow, and most wind. When it’s cold out it’s warmer than a tent. When it’s hot out it’s cooler than a tent. It’s not as weather resistant as a cabin but it’s not as stuffy either. The view is almost always awesome.

A lean to is specifically NOT a cabin! Remote forest cabins generate complications; first from the crude construction (and low budget) and second from being abandoned months at a time. A lean to avoids these issues by being too simple to host them.

For example, lean tos usually just have rocks as a foundation. That’s substandard for a four walled structure but “good enough” for a lean to.

Time for a digression about people and remote cabins/lean tos. (I’m talking about true wilderness and not some dude’s summer home near a suburban park.)

You might think a cabin is more secure to hold your stuff (assuming it’s your cabin) but many remote cabins are left unlocked. Part of this is simple kindness and safety. Shelter is important! You don’t want to find the corpse of some dude of who died of hypothermia just outside a locked a cabin’s door. Part of this is to spare damage, a dude who’s freezing to death will feel justified breaking into your shelter with his axe. He might feel bad about the damage but if shit gets real a locked door is just a logistics issue. On a high level of morality, some cabin owners hope people passing by will use the structure without damaging it… which happens more than you’d think. On a low level of morality, there’s usually nothing in a cabin worth stealing because there is no law enforcement out there.

Depending on the situation, it might be legal (even expected) to wander into a cabin and stay overnight. Staying in a lean to is much less invasive. They’re more reasonably accepted as “available”. Regardless, God is watching. Don’t be an ass!

Note: When you use any remote structure (legally!) act like you’ve got class. It ain’t a hotel and you ain’t a paying customer, you’re a guest! Leave the place tidy. Don’t leave behind food that’ll attract critters unless it’s dry goods in a tough sealed box meant to be in a place like that.

Never leave until the wood box is well stocked for the next person. Leave behind at least as much wood as you found there (ideally more). If you burn all the wood and the next person  freezes or has to gather wood in a rainstorm, you’re going to hell.

Generations of fuckwits may have carved their names in the table. Be better than that. If you feel like carving your name on a wall, punch yourself in the balls until the desire fades.

If there’s a logbook, write in it how much you like the place. If there’s an address of the people/organization that supports the structure, shoot them a donation when you get back to town.

Vagrants and jackwits may wander around cities but in the hinterland you should always be on your best behavior.

Here are some more cabin logistics that lean tos avoid:

Cabins need a heavy (and expensive) woodstove hauled to the location. When the roof leaks (and the roof always leaks) the stove will rust. Meanwhile, a family of raccoons will move into the chimney. Plus some folks honestly don’t know how to operate things like a damper.

Cabins need windows. Windows means glass. The windows will eventually be broken glass.

Animals absolutely love to wreck cabins. A cabin left alone too long will eventually be trashed by six squirrels, two porcupines, and a moose. I don’t know why, but it happens. A lean to, on the other hand, won’t suffer so much. Critters walk in, sniff around, and (usually) leave. Wasps and bees and bats and such are more likely take up residence in a cabin than a lean to. They’re also universally easier to evict from a lean to. Cabins can get supremely funky but ten minutes with a broom will adequately clean most lean tos.  Now that I think about it, human squatters are also less likely to occupy a lean to.

Removing the “completion” of a cabin changes the equation. The missing wall creates something that a cabin is not.

Why the Adirondacks? Originally, Adirondack guides constructed lean tos. It was their job. Hunters appreciated a warm dry place to sleep. Probably trappers used/built them too. They were generally constructed with materials found within a few hundred yards of the build site. The CCC also built a bunch in the 1930’s, many replacing decrepit pre-existing shelters.

They became tradition. People love them. I love them! People volunteer to maintain them. There are a couple hundred publicly available lean tos scattered around the Adirondacks.

Lean tos aren’t unique to the Adirondacks. It’s an idea old as time. Creating handy safe spots in rugged places is “Human 101”. Folks have made rock shelters, emergency mountain retreats, lean tos, fishing camps, line shelters, sheep wagons, helispots, warming shelters, private remote cabins; probably they made such things even in the stone age. Some Norwegian things called a “Lavvu” look like lean tos but not all of them. I’m not sure how that translates. I’ve seen the most “typical” lean tos in the Adirondacks and at Boy Scout events in Appalachia (back when there were Boy Scouts). But I’ve also seen them at (US) National Parks, National Forests, State Forests, ghost towns, old logging camps, and even along snowmobile trails. If you look around, you’ll find lean tos everywhere.

Here’s a link where you can buy a reprint of the historic plan for an Adirondack lean to. It’s from the CCC in the 1930’s.

Here’s another photo of a current lean. This one is in the Adirondacks. Article link here.

While “Adirondack Lean To” is a fairly specific design, there’s a thousand variants. I’ve been to this lean to but I camped elsewhere. (I snagged the photo from the internet.) This one is not in the Adirondacks. It can only be accessed by boat.

Here’s a lean to I found while on a motorcycle excursion. It was a little sketchy. That’s life. Things left in the woods need periodic maintenance or they turn back into the woods.

Here’s a video of Kent Survival making his own lean to on (presumably) his own land. I can’t help but mock his pretentious ear gauges but he makes a very fine lean to. Excellent workmanship! I think he’s in the UK.

Here’s a few videos from Survival Russia. He followed historical precedent as he read from Horace Kephart’s Book Camping & Woodcraft. That’s a book from around 1906-ish. He calls it an Appalachian Shelter. He built his version in Siberia.

Now you know.

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.