Word For The Day: Triage Mowing

Posted on May 23, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Winter held on doggedly and springtime was as cold and unforgiving as an accountant’s frown. Farmers whined about unplowable fields, the woodpile ran out, and the dirt road turned into a quagmire. (Global warming my ass: this is all because nobody sank a truck through the ice.)

Finally, when all hope seemed lost, the sun came out and everything started growing; fast. Fifteen hour days on saturated soil turned the barren northland into a twitterpated orgy of frenzied growth. The aspen buds didn’t break…they exploded. Brushing against a spruce causes a pollen attack. And the grass is a bamboo/kudzu hybrid threatening to take over the homestead.

Skip mowing the lawn and you'll regret it.

As required by economic law and Country music, the tractor wasn’t running. I used my favorite method of mechanical repair; swearing. The poor tractor coughed to life in terror when I waved wrenches at it. Then I made the initial strike in the summer long battle of the grass. A half hour of pleasant mowing.

Nature doesn’t give in easily and soon it started raining. Defeated, I parked the decrepit tractor. It kept raining all week. By day two I was depressed. I’ve done my time in the Pacific Northwest and that’s enough rain for one lifetime. Besides, I paid my weather dues on -30 degree January nights. Raining on my summertime bliss is just plain mean! I grumbled. Nature rained. The grass kept growing. At least there was beer.

Meanwhile my calendar filled up and I’m scheduled to travel hither and yon. If I leave with unmowed grass I’ll return to a rain forest. I began to fret. Sunday the skies cleared briefly and I set out to rectify the situation.

Which brings me to the “word of the day”; Triage Mowing.

“Triage mowing is when you give up all pretense of a finely manicured lawn; usually due to time constraints.  ‘Triage mow’ is an attempt to flatten the maximum acreage of grass in the shortest time. It is a ‘holding pattern’ action intended to buy time.”

I triage mowed like a madman. Trim was ignored. Areas that require delicate maneuvering were ignored. Any branches too small to damage the mower deck were run over like a tourist at Pamplona. I swerved around larger obstacles; leaving miniature grassy wilderness areas for the chickens to explore. My kid left a plastic toy out on the grass…crunch. The only reason the cats are alive is because they know how to run.

It was ugly.  It was brutal.  It was necessary. Hopefully next time around I’ll have a chance to do better. Homesteading homeownership Life is all about compromise between the ideal and the attainable. That, folks, is the heart of triage mowing.

Posted in Where vocabulary goes to die, Word For The Day | Leave a comment

Because Leaving People Alone Exceeds The Scope Of Their Thinking

Posted on May 21, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Incandescent lightbulbs are a canary in the coal mine.  I’d given them up for dead.

But from Small Dead Animals comes this:

“The Conservative government wants to postpone pulling the plug on incandescent light bulbs, saying it needs more time to allow for technological innovations and to deal with concerns about compact fluorescent lamps.”

I decided to do a Curmudgeonly re-write of the headline:

“The electorate might hand them their ass on a platter but nanny state busybodies can’t change their minds.  Therefore a fig leaf delay was invented to bide their time until things blow over.  In a couple of years they’ll automatically try again to push their bullshit plan.”

Then I did a “imagine a perfect world” re-write:

“Following an epic global electoral beatdown, nanny state busybodies found themselves out of work.  You can continue to buy any damn lightbulb you want because the government simply doesn’t give a shit about your lighting preference.”

Sigh…a government that doesn’t hassle people about petty things like lightbulbs…such a beautiful dream.

A.C.

Note: When the link refers to “conservative” government they’re referring to Canadian parties.  I’m pretty sure parliamentary government, like the metric system and hockey, isn’t inherently understood by Americans.

Posted in Technology of Indignity | Leave a comment

The Unstoppable: Chesty Puller

Posted on May 19, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

In honor of a good friend’s birthday I present something he will appreciate: Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller.

Chesty Puller was the ultimate Marine.

Just looking at this photo makes me think I should get a haircut and hit the gym.

If you haven’t heard of Chesty Puller, stop what you are doing and start reading about him. Now! Click the links in this post or search the web yourself. Ideally you should find a Marine and buy him (or her) a beer. Do whatever it takes to hear the stories. Do it immediately. You must. It’s an order damnit! If you haven’t heard of Chesty you haven’t heard of the mightiest testosterone soaked Marine warrior of the 20th century. And you’re probably a big whiny loser hanging out in a patchouli of hippies. Put down the arugula and tofu salad, rip open an MRE with your teeth, and get with the program!

You’re back. Already? I hope you really read the stories because I wouldn’t want to piss off Marines who revere him. You were warned!

When I think about his exploits they seem so superhuman that they almost defy explanation.  If you wrote a screenplay of his life it would sound unbelievably exaggerated. If it was a book it would be an over the top pulp fiction kill-fest. If I describe him as a Superhero hybrid of Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, Chuck Norris, a herd of Ninjas, and possibly Godzilla…well that’s understating the case. There is an unhinged level of badass toughness that you just can’t type without pounding the keyboard to dust. Puller was that tough when he entered boot camp and he pretty much kept getting more unkillable each year.

I ran though all the adjectives I could muster but words fail me. Finally I gave up.  All I can say is “Holy Shit”.

Puller truly was unstoppable. He put hurt on anything in his way.  Whenever there was a chance to get threatened, attacked, bombed, shot at, or otherwise maimed and pummeled Puller was in his element. It’s as if the guy couldn’t enjoy breakfast without being out gunned and attacked in overwhelming numbers. Then, having annihilated everything that threatened him and his soldiers, he’d be ready for a brisk cup of coffee.

Some quotes:

So they've got us surrounded, good! Now we can fire in any direction, those bastards won't get away this time!

Puller was the most decorated U.S. Marine in history. Including five Navy Crosses and a Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest decoration. What does that mean? It means he was steel…inside and out. He probably scraped shit off his boots that was tougher than me. I suspect all those medals were merely a distraction from his real love; which was apparently kicking ass and outliving incredibly bad odds.

I am not a Marine but I heartily applaud Puller’s balls out studliness because it reminds us that real heroes exist. This isn’t some bullshit fictional character. He really was all that and a bag of chips.

Good night, Chesty Puller, wherever you are.

A.C.

Hat tip to Never Yet Melted and Badass of the Week.

Posted in The Unstoppable | Leave a comment

Word For The Day: Patchouli

Posted on May 18, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Tragically, Nancy at Excels at Nothing was exposed to hippies in their natural environment (a protest of course).

She coined a superb term to use when referring to a group of hippies.

On another note, it was determined that a group of hippies, like a murder of crows or a parliament of owls, should be referred to as a “Patchouli of Hippies”

Posted in Where vocabulary goes to die, Word For The Day | 1 Comment

A Phrase For The Ages

Posted on May 14, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Tam at View From The Porch alerts us to a new and improbably named weapon called the “Elite Tactical Advantage Devastator Shotgun” and then comments as follows:

“We have officially crossed the mall ninja marketing buzzword event horizon.”

That’s some of the wisest snark to have ever been written in the English language.  It should be preserved in written tomes and archived in the Smithsonian. It should be stored in time capsules and beamed into space. It should be carved in marble. I consider it the antidote to tacti-cool marketing drivel.

Posted in Where vocabulary goes to die | Leave a comment

Pretty Blondes and Subaru Fuel

Posted on May 12, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I was in a fast food joint. My enjoyment of non-food, meal-type, calorie portions (I refuse to call it food) was hampered by the many televisions. Who is the pathetic hypertensive adolescent that decided I couldn’t survive a Whopper without telescreens television’s flashing neon palpitations? Are they afraid I’ll realize I’m eating something that no sane person should consume? Don’t they know that I’m aware that fast food is shit and (occasionally) eat it anyway? I wish they would turn off the TV because I’m not a six year old. I can sit still long enough to eat my fries without an electronic pacifier.  It was on mute. I tried to ignore it but failed to block it out.

The manufactured revelation du jour was Congress harrumphing about gas prices. This is an annual dog and pony show hosted by people who deliberately fail to understand economics in order to influence voters who want free cake.

My only interest in this useless enterprise is the scheduling. It’s a few months ahead of it’s usual time slot. (This non-event historically happens simultaneously with the discovery that southern Californian vegetation is flammable and wildfire prone. This year it’s coinciding with the annual discovery that the Mississippi floods in springtime with a little overlap about tornadoes unexpectedly manifesting in tornado alley. Why so soon?)

I’ve been assured that the drivel on the screen was news but I know news and this was not it. This was a video game display overlapping rehearsed reality show theatrics. Soon the screen had two dour looking fellows in boxes, one on the left and one on the right. They didn’t have excellent hair like congressmen so I presumed they were hired economists dragged out of their gimp boxes? Or maybe they were technocrats with titles like “President’s Czar Of Unelected Guys With Job Titles Derived From 19th Century Pre-Communist Russian Government”?

Meanwhile, floating above, between, and larger than these two terribly important individuals was a bolder brighter view of a pretty blond with pretty hair making pretty expressions intended to convey that she was concerned about this important thing they were discussing. Presumably she is an intelligent and incisive journalist with all sorts of gravitas. For all I know she is a genius. Except she looked to me like a porn star pretending to care about commodities pricing. There has never before in the history of mankind been a society so sophisticated that it has commodities markets and so crude that it would broadcast the image of a porn star emoting about it. All this because it now costs extra to fuel a Subaru?

Meanwhile a stream of text swept across the bottom of the screen with frantic announcements about some sort of flag burning protest. Or maybe it was an anti-flag burning protest? Or were they anit-anti-flag burners? I presumed it was in a foreign land; some place where screaming masses of unemployable youths riot because the alternative is a good hard look at their miserable impoverished future and their self imposed conditioning which will perpetuate it. Then I wondered if it was domestic; meaning the youths are probably just rioting because they’re in one of the richest societies on earth and protesting is a temporary amusing alternative to getting a job.

I never caught the details. Apparently the flag thing was important enough to be vomited forth in twitter sized nuggets but not important enough for the pretty blond to read it to us. (Presumably she reads “news” stories for the benefit of those who are functionally illiterate and acts out her emotional response for those of us who are full fledged zombies?)

Then I finished my burger and walked out the door while muttering something about arranging deck chairs. I soon forgot the pretty blond and her “concerned act” because I’ve got bigger issues. The chicken pen has a weak spot and I heard raccoons in the yard last night. Now that’s news of actual relevance.

Posted in Harangue-a-bang-bang! | Leave a comment

Engine Porn: Part II

Posted on May 9, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Dr. Mingo’s delightful photos bring to mind a Curmudgeonly Gem Of Insight:

If you are a man you should rebuild an engine at least once before you die.

There are two exceptions to this rule:

  1. Men are exempted to the degree to which they live in a pre-industrial society. A Neolithic tribesman who spears gazelles for dinner gets a pass on piston engines. This exemption only extends until the man matches the technology of his world. A spear wielding tribesman had better know how to make a flint spear point or his peers will correctly deduce that he’s a loser.
  2. There are no other exemptions.

We live in a technologically advanced society. A world of plenty. Wealth beyond the greatest kings of earlier eras. If you’re a man and reap the benefits of technology without understanding how it came to pass you’re a free rider, a loser, an unaware leech upon the world which supports you. Harsh? Yes! I’ve been called everything from rude to evil. I’m cool with that. Rude or not; I’m right.

Our society is hindered and drained by profligate overfed chimps who can do nothing but operate devices made and maintained by their intellectual superiors. A man who has rebuilt an engine is the opposite. He has demonstrably mastered some of the skills which make civilization possible. Those who cannot fix and who cannot build are expensive costs our society must bear only because we’re too nice to drop them naked on an ice floe in Greenland like we should. Too many “men” deal only in theory and reside too comfortably in it’s infantilizing grasp; they can tear down but cannot build. You can’t swing a dead cat on a university campus without hitting a score of such permanent adolescents.

Engines deal in physical reality; stress and heat, torque and pressure. They are the cure to wishful thinking. The antidote to wanton Utopian idealism. A herd of cappuccino sippers might muse about a windmill powered Pruis revolution. Man who has rebuilt an internal combustion engine knows that ideas alone cannot force the unreal into existence.

A man who has rebuilt an engine also knows that he can build again what he has built before. He is the self reliant opposite of the flaccid suburban cube dweller who calls a tow truck on his smart phone when his tire goes flat. Lawyers and politicians and other useless hangers on make money out of bullshit. But they don’t make reality out of bullshit. Engines prove it. Not even the most skilled orator orchestrating world class Congressional level bullshit can talk an engine into running.

I’m not saying a man has to hurry. Fiscal and other circumstances might delay or accelerate the process. Many a farm boy has taken up the wrench at a young age simply because they’re surrounded by…parts. An impoverished fellow or one mired deep in an urban environment might not get his chance until his golden years. I myself have been dithering with a World War II era engine for years. Every time I try to work on it some distraction comes up that is invariably higher priority; the pipes froze, the kid is sick, the Canadians are amassing on the border, etc… This is a delay and nothing more. The engine will be done…eventually. It must be done…because I’m a man and it is my job to make an engine that didn’t run into one that does.

A.C.

Note #1: Some readers (if I had any) might ask why I mention only men. What about women? I have three answers for this:

  1. I’m not going to touch it with a ten foot pole.
  2. That’s apparently how the universe works.
  3. I’ve never actually met a woman who has rebuilt an engine. Ever.

Note #2: So you’re a man and you’ve built a computer. So what? That doesn’t count. I’ve done it too and it just isn’t comparable to pistons and gears. Unless you made the integrated circuit board in your garage you’re just assembling Legos that use electricity. It’s time to shave the goatee and get over yourself.

Posted in Curmudgeonly Gems of Insight, Libertarian Outpost | Leave a comment

Engine Porn: Part I

Posted on May 8, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

Rebuilding an engine is a big project. It’s an art and it’s a science. Some parts are fun. Others are a pain in the ass. There are about a thousand details to remember. There is risk: It’s all too easy to wind up with an unidentified mystery piece lying on the workbench. And there is glory: It could run so well that every time you fire it up you’ll feel like a God.

Why do it? Because…it’s what men do!

In celebration of this manly endeavor, I present the work of my good friend Dr. Mingo. Beautiful isn’t it? It’s a recently finished 345 cubic inch V-8 that he bored out to a 350. It’s basically stock save the 600 CFM 4 barrel carb and a Comp 260 RV camshaft. It’s installed in his 1975 International Scout II.

Al Gore weeps at night knowing that light rail will never ever be better than a V8.

All the scented candles in the world wont make Ralph Nader forget that he has not yet eliminated testosterone.

In a world where people habitually put their balls in a vice called car payments and drive Tupperware with wheels, Dr. Mingo has taken a better path! He shall be tooling down the highway in his freshly tuned Gaia killing anti-Gore mobile. Well done sir!

Posted in Libertarian Outpost | Leave a comment

Well Done Everyone

Posted on May 4, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I recently went “off grid” for a few days.  I do this often.  “Off grid” means something other than using a generator to power your TV.  It means turning the damn thing off.  It’s a retrenchment in reality.  Listen to the media too much and you’ll start to believe their shit smells like flowers.  Detachment: I heartily recommend it.

Unfortunately, going back “on grid” is always a shock.  No matter how short my absence the world somehow gets exponentially weirder.  Why?  I have no idea.

Big (usually stupid) things go down in short times.  The distance of a few days “off line” put it in contrast and show the hyperventilating yahoos for what they are.  Once I went on a canoe trip.  The fishing was fair and the weather was pleasant.  It was an average week with the sun rising in the east, water continuing to be wet, and all such things as they should be.  I could be forgiven for thinking it was a week like any other.  Yet the nation chose that moment to go apeshit.  I paddled away from a nation that had been seeped in sub-prime loans and unsustainable stock levels that everyone pretended was not a bubble.  It had been so for years and seemed likely to continue (despite my misgiving).  I came back to find a smoking crater where the stock market had been, the Fed was burning non-existent dollars in amounts that require a review of number theory, and inexplicably the government owned two of the three Detroit automakers.

Also, someone robbed my truck while I was gone.  A pox on them all!  I hope they starve to death while honest self supporting folks like me go elsewhere.  I was also pissed off about the truck.

I’d like to say the weirdness is an unusual event but it isn’t.  The last time I went “off line” I drove away from a world where so folks in Egypt were protesting with twitter.  When I came back the many “revolution nations” were a thousand mile geography lesson and we were involved in a “kinetic euphemism” in Libya.

This time when I came back the first thing someone said was “have you heard the news?” Oh shit!  What stupid thing had gone down this time!?!  Had the government nationalized the Twinkie industry?  Did they sell Ohio to France?  Set fire to Wall Street (again)?  Invade Botswana?  Bomb Timbuktu?  Start a war with Luxembourg?  Nothing in my imagination is ever as weird as whatever really happens.  Good grief…what had I not imagined?

Osama?  Dead?  Double tap delivered by one of our fine boys in uniform?

Whew!

On behalf of myself and any other Curmudgeons who aren’t plugged into the 24/7 news cycle I’d like to thank the entire universe (and especially the military) for staying on task and making good news happen.  For a brief time sanity has prevailed.  Tomorrow the foolishness will probably return but good news is always welcome.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Phenology Update II: Climate Modeling Is Difficult

Posted on April 29, 2011 by AdaptiveCurmudgeon

I know the godlike geniuses at the University of East Anglia‘s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) can perfectly model the entire planet’s climate such that the science is settled.  But I’m just a curmudgeon so I’m having trouble with mixed phenological signals.

Arguments that spring isn’t fully engaged:

  • No redneck has sunk a truck.  This is a serious breach of etiquette!
  • I was running heavy equipment Sunday and discovered that if you dig deep enough the soil is still partially frozen.  Did I mention it’s cold up here?
  • A couple robins showed up at my house a few weeks ago.  Then it snowed and I haven’t seen the poor bastards since.
  • Burning restrictions haven’t been put in place.  The annoying public service announcements about “don’t play with fire” haven’t aired yet.  I’m stuck with an extra week of “don’t text message while driving” and I find them especially annoying.  We could get by with one “don’t do stupid shit” announcement and then permanently end the “bitching at citizens with their tax money” industry.

    God will smite you if you play with it…by “it” we mean cell phones.

Arguments that it’s spring:

  • The news recently reported that the poor overworked farmers can’t get into the fields and plow.  Thus causing untold misery and the downfall of humanity.
  • The price of gas, which always rises at the beginning of summer, is rising.  (Note to all Americans, either buy gas or don’t buy gas but shut the hell up.)
  • I got a brush pile burned.  Job well done.  I won’t be burning any fields this year.  (Note: I didn’t destroy civilization and I had a damn burn permit so don’t get all urban and Smokey Bear on my ass!)

Arguments that it’s summer:

  • Obama recently began the summertime “gas prices are too high pointing of fingers”.  He went so far as to launch the traditional “panel to investigate this thing which we don’t understand”.  It’s too soon!  This annual dog and pony show is usually scheduled for the dog days of summer.  How uncouth to change the congressionally established pattern.  The president is not supposed to start acting weird about the price of gas until the corn crop is well established!

    I reduced domestic oil production but I don’t understand supply and demand. I printed a metric shitload of dollars but inflation definitely has nothing to do with rising prices. I’m not even going to wait until August to be surprised about gas prices. Eat your goddamn rainbows and shut the hell up.

So what am I to do?  Mixed signals abound…especially Obama.  Didn’t someone explain that you can’t bitch about unexpected gas prices until the annual bitching about unexpected spring flooding is wrapped up?  Sheesh…do I have to make a chart?

Well there you have it.  Things are just in flux.  Those of you in the south will be forgiven for looking upon our confusion up north with pity and smug condescension.  If any patriotic soul would please sink their truck in a lake I would appreciate it.  Also would someone tell the president that he’s way off schedule?!?

Posted in Phenology | Leave a comment