This is what a Redcamp Wood Burning Folding Camp Stove with 4 years of very heavy use looks like when compared to a brand new one. The old one still works, I just use it so much I wanted a “backup”.
First use of the new grill.
They come with carrying cases. New one on the left, old one on the right. Both work fine:
I went camping! Finally!
Well not yet. First I had to find a place to go. During a rare patch of sun, Mrs. Curmudgeon and I went exploring in my Jeep-Thing vehicle.
A word about the Jeep-Thing. I own a creaky, rusty, old, 4×4 vehicle. It’s not a Jeep but it serves the same purpose. It’s not particularly valuable or glamorous but it’s uncommon. If I post details, someone will quickly identify it. In our current clown world I wish to retain my anonymity and obscure mechanical conveyances work against that.
Nor do I want to create an attractive puzzle for someone somewhere who’s an aficionado of old trucks. “That’s a 1968 International Swampmaster Travelall Deluxe Camper-Burbuan with optional Armstrong Steering. Only 5,000 were made, of which only 50 still run. Since Curmudgeon parked it next to an fence with double stitch half twitch woven barbed wire we can isolate it to Cancel County in State X.” That might just feed the trolls of cancel culture: “A Google search shows the only Swampmaster registered in Cancel County lives at 54 Dipshit Road in the town of East Cowschitt. Lets e-mail everyone in the county that the owner is a racist, bigoted, doo-doo head who talks to squirrels. Also, we’ll make sure he’s fired and everyone hates his dog… because that’s how we embrace diversity and tolerance.”
So, for now it’s just a Jeep-Thing. Call me paranoid if you want. In my defense, has there been a better time to be paranoid?
I could just call it a Jeep. That would work flawlessly but it would be lying. Nobody would know but I just can’t do it. I may be lame but it’s a personality quirk that I just flat out won’t lie. So I say “Jeep-Thing” and pique everyone’s interest over my shitty old truck. I’d make an awful spy and I’m unfit for our current era of universal deceit.
Back to the story, my Jeep-Thing is pretty old and it had a long period of “storage”. I’m slowly getting it back to “daily driver” reliability but it’s not like I’m done. I’ve had limited time and money to further the process. However, it runs now and it’s wise to drive it around to see what’s working and what breaks. It took a lot of cranking and choke to get her started but once it was running it ran great. I was delighted.
Driving winding dirt roads is always fun. With the Jeep-Thing it’s extra fun because there are no worries. It’s already beat up so I need not fret about damage and (within reason) it’s unstoppable. I don’t have to fret that I’ll take a road that’s too rough.
We set out to re-locate the dispersed campsite I discovered last fall. I couldn’t find it on foot during a brutal failed January attempt. (Read: Walk To The Edge, Then Walk Back: Part 1 and Part 2.) In my defense, in January I was ill and I was on foot with a bum leg at -10f at sunset. Bailing out was the right call. Driving around on a sunny summer weekend is a whole different universe.
Halfway to the dispersed campsite I took a random turn. Why? Because I noticed a road I’d never seen before. Five random turns later I had no idea where I was. I was sure I could backtrack out of where I’d meandered; but I could’ve been in an alternate dimension for all I could pinpoint on a map.
Abruptly, the road ended in a turnabout. There was a small river nearby. Not an easily accessible rocky streambank but a swampy reedy mess. A muddy walking path went from the turnaround to the stream. It was a good landing spot to put in or take out a canoe or kayak and obviously well used for that purpose.
In fact, there was a guy already at the spot! He’d beached his canoe and was rehydrating. Many people go down this little branch of the river. Some for an afternoon, others for multi-day trips. I was reluctant to mess up this guy’s private solo time in nature, but he seemed happy to see people.
“How long you been paddling?” I asked, trying hard to not look or sound like a scary extra from the movie Deliverance.
“Two days.” He looked beat. I’m guessing the swampy area he’d just paddled was hotter than Satan’s armpit. I know it has a million switchbacks so progress must have been slow. “I haven’t seen anyone in two days.”
“Then you need the fruits of civilization. Would you like a cold soda?”
His eyes lit up like I’d just handed him a winning lottery ticket. He gunned the ice cold drink like only a man who’s been roasting for days would. I’ve been there, I know.
Unwilling to further mess up his solitude, I vamoosed quickly. He was all smiles.
After we’d driven away I realized my mistake. That poor bastard is going to have to haul an empty soda can all the way to wherever he’s going. I should have stayed and retrieved it from him. Oh well.
Mrs. Curmudgeon and I agreed the place was pretty cool. It looked like you were in the primordial wilderness but it wasn’t that far out. Also, the access road wasn’t too bad. I GPS marked it on my SpotX for further review.
By now, Mrs. Curmudgeon was looking a little wilted. There’s no AC in my vehicle and it rides like a cement mixer. Once I got my bearings I made a bee line for a small rural “store” not far away. (I try to mentally map every “service” I find in various hinterlands. You never know when you’ll have an emergency. Indeed, it was handy that I knew it existed.) “There’s a grumpy lady at a place nearby that sells good ice cream.” I said.
We pulled in and got ice cream (which was top notch). I setup our lawn chairs in the shade of a tree. It was a fine afternoon. Mrs. Curmudgeon beamed. I was happy too. We’ve been married forever and yet I’m still super happy when I can do something silly like get her a cone. That’s what life is all about; eating ice cream with your sweetie in the shade next to your rusty old vehicle.
The store lady came out and joined us and talked our ear off. She was super friendly. So much for my carefully filed memory of her being grumpy.
We set out for the dispersed campsite but I was already daydreaming of an overnight at the canoe landing. With a few twists and turns we found the spot which had eluded me in the January gloom. I’d probably been within 100 yards when I turned back. (No regrets! Many things could have gone wrong that day and turning around before they happened was a wise move.) The spot is large but hidden in a pine plantation. You don’t recognize it until you’re right there.
We parked and I busied myself making a bratwurst “picnic”. There was a firepit but I prefer my Redcamp Wood Burning Folding Camp Stove. (I get kickbacks from Amazon if you buy shit from my links. It doesn’t cost you a penny. I only recommend stuff I like, own, and use. Lest you think I’m hopelessly biased by the pocket change I get, I’ve given you proper warning of my devious plans.)
I’ve been meaning to do a “long term review” post about that trusty little gadget. Just know that it rocks! I first mentioned it four years ago. (TW200 Mods, Front Rack) It’s a simple little bugger but it’s super handy. I take it on every campout and I’ve used it on a zillion little “cookouts” in my lawn. After 4 years of hard use, it’s still completely functional but a little warped from the heat.
It’s such a handy thing I bought a replacement (or depending on your point of view a backup). I feared they might become unavailable or more expensive or lower quality. Since it’s cheap and convenient and a good deal at twice the cost why not stock up? In fact I bought a replacement, a second auxiliary spare replacement, and still kept the perfectly good but slightly worn original. I’ve got three! Wealthy isn’t just bank accounts and stacks of Krugerrands, sometimes it feels good to have a “lifetime supply” of a $30 gadget.
I set it up right in the firepit, why not? Fires are legal in a makeshift fire pit. They’re legal if I clear debris from under the camp stove. They about as safe as humanly possible if you put one inside the other. Not that it matters after all the rain, but I’m always cautious.
The camp stove is often more practical than a regular campfire. The little box heats up with a tiny amount of fuel; much less than an unconstrained campfire. It also cooks better than a plain fire. In particular, I prefer cooking food on the included grill over holding a stick like when roasting a marshmallow or making a pan dirty.
Campfire food is always delicious. In that time and at that place, basic brats were food fit for a King.
After chowing down we drove home. The vehicle started a lot faster having had it’s batteries topped off by driving around for several hours. I should “exercise” it more often.
Enjoying a story with no depth and lots of happy? More to come…
I went camping! Finally!
This particular campout had multiple false starts. Two weeks in advance I planned to take my Dodge to a basic State Park on Father’s Day weekend. Alas, it was too rainy. (Also the Dodge is ailing. I joke that Detroit surreptitiously contacted the truck’s ECU and reported I was due to dump money into the vehicle. It’s like that beast has a clock to tell it when I’ve gone too long without a mechanic’s bill. I’m avoiding adding unnecessary miles to the Dodge while I wait on getting it repaired.)
Later, I planned for a short motocamping “test night”. (“Motocamping” is the hip trendy term for camping from a motorcycle, or so the YouTube glitterati imply.)
I was committed! My bike was pre-packed and ready to blast out the instant work ended. I’d hurriedly ride as far as I could and setup camp in the late evening after work. I’d return leisurely during Kwanzaa / Junteenth / Toyotathon. “Cleverly” packing the motorcycle in advance turned out to be a mistake. I’d gone through my wisely and carefully arranged “Dodge camping gear” and raided it for a subset of smaller lighter stuff. Thus, leaving my “truck camping preps” in shambles. Whoops.
On the allotted day it rained most of the day (which was expected). The weather report indicated it would mellow out in mid-afternoon. It didn’t. Disgusted, I threw in the towel and stayed home.
I made the right call! Riding a motorcycle in showers sucks. Setting up camp in dusk during rain would suck worse. Then, a brutal thunderstorm hit just after sunset! For motorcycle camping, I have a tent the size of a coffin and a thin sleeping pad. I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. I’m glad I didn’t spend all night in a wet, fabric coffin, wearing out my back while being woken repeatedly by thunder!
Calling off campouts due to weather is new to me. I’ve been working on this novel concept I call “not beating yourself to death doing stupid shit“. It’s not my default setting and I’m still working on it. Age may encourage wisdom but sometimes I fight it.
The following weekend was still drizzling and I had too much accumulated homestead work to fret over camping. However, it unexpectedly turned sunny on Sunday. I wanted to “exercise” my “Jeep-Thing” vehicle and I elected to completely ignore “adulting” and go play. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I rode off into a humid but not-raining afternoon.
The story continues in my next post…
I went camping! Finally!
A night sitting by the campfire was exactly what I needed. I need outdoor time. Whether you know it or not, you do too. Here’s why; modern society is fuckin’ weird. It’s getting weirder and it wants to take you down with it. Don’t go down the rabbit hole!
Society lacks grounding in reality. It behooves every sane human to interact with the planet from time to time, lest one lose their bearings. Go outdoors periodically and you won’t (can’t!) get as weird as society wants. That’s because we were made (or evolved) for this planet. We belong here. Like it or not, you are doing what you were born to do when you traverse the imperfect, not climate controlled, sometimes difficult, planet we inhabit.
The place that drives us mad is not our home planet with all its dirt and bugs and rain and sun; it’s the mental landscape of the fake that wrecks us. Spend hours awash in an online simulacrum of reality and you begin to believe the bullshit. Spend a lifetime there and you become the bullshit.
Society is drifting as it is because we are living as we are. We don’t sufficiently embrace reality. It’s hard to be a spastic weirdo while tending your own campfire. Even if you are a spastic weirdo, the fire doesn’t care. That’s the point. It does even the most spastic of weirdos a lot of good to realize the campfire, nobody else, and the entirety of the planet itself, doesn’t care about their particular bespoke flavor of weirdness.
More in next post…
Read this: I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again.
I agree with almost everything the author is saying. This includes the part about physically beating douchebags who aren’t smart enough to run a database but who are getting hot and bothered over AI like it’s the next coming of Jesus. The author differentiates between people who do shit and the vast swarms of bullshit peddlers jumping on the AI bandwagon in hopes of harvesting more money to shove up their own ass:
We have a few key things that a grifter does not have, such as job stability, genuine friendships, and souls. What we do not have is the ability to trivially switch fields the moment the gold rush is over, due to the sad fact that we actually need to study things and build experience. Grifters, on the other hand, wield the omnitool that they self-aggrandizingly call ‘politics’.
I’ll add that AI, as it exists now, is a shitty solution in search of a problem which it won’t address. I’ve seen this before. I’m old enough to remember when personal computers were just entering normal households. I remember idiots suggesting housewives might use dBASE to store their recipes. Yes, that was an actual thing spoken by an actual human. Every era has another herd of idiots trying to shoehorn fancy new technology into whatever orifice seems handy.
“Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they’re going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything – or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits.”
It seems to me most of the AI hype is a work avoidance process. Doing a good job with tools that already exist takes effort… and competence. Telling your boss you’ll make straw into gold with the newest buzzword is so much easier.
“How about you remain competitive by fixing your shit? I’ve met a lead data scientist with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive customer records who is allowed to keep their password in a text file on their desktop, and you’re worried that customers are best served by using AI to improve security through some mechanism that you haven’t even come up with yet? You sound like an asshole and I’m going to kick you in the jaw until, to the relief of everyone, a doctor will have to wire it shut, giving us ten seconds of blessed silence where we can solve actual problems.”
And we all know management is mostly herd beasts with great hair; they’ll believe any dumb thing so long as it’s hip and new. Remember other buzzwords like “cyber”, NFT, and blockchain?
“…some of my friends feel that they have to be in leadership positions, and it is because someone needs to wrench the reins of power from your lizard-person-claws before you drive us all collectively off a cliff…”
The best solution probably is a brick to the face.
“With God as my witness, you grotesque simpleton, if you don’t personally write machine learning systems and you open your mouth about AI one more time, I am going to mail you a brick and a piece of paper with a prompt injection telling you to bludgeon yourself in the face with it, then just sit back and wait for you to load it into ChatGPT because you probably can’t read unassisted anymore.”
Hat tip to 357 Magnum.
Follow-up:
I wanted to add this myself. Watch and you’ll see there’s nothing new under the sun. Whenever you hear “AI” in its current context, just substitute “blockchain”, “NFT”, “cyber-space”, “e-commerce”, or fucking “tulip mania“.
Just one of the many cycles of stampeding midwits I’ve watched in my brief life was the dot com bubble. At it’s height, people would put the words “dot com” after anything, hurl money at it, and assume they’d strike it rich. “Rollerskate sandwich dot.com! It’ll make a ton of money!”
At its peak, someone thought it brilliant to sell dogfood over the internet. Between November 1998 and November 2000 this fucking thing was all over TV. The best minds of Wall Street thought riches would come from using “e-commerce” to “solve the problem of buying dog food”. What sane world would use Superbowl ad money to sell fucking kibbles for Fido?
Less than a year later, Pets.com crashed (everything else in the “dot.com bubble” crashed too). Pets.com never made a profit. It turned an IPO price of $11/share into $0.19/share and not a single business executive was thrown off a cliff! That’s part of the game, the dipshits that vaporizing huge piles of money chasing “the new thing” never seem to pay the price. It all burns down but they’re already chasing the next “magic noun”. Our current AI situation is what happens when business dweebs find a new word and pound it to death.
Whatever circle jerk CNN’s pet sycophants cook up won’t be a debate. Debate is supposedly an attempt to suss out truth, or at least test knowledge. Sigh, ok fine, it’s really just nerds doing word based rhetorical gladiatorial combat. Still it’s nothing of the sort when “officiated” by biased mental nullities like CNN’s staff.
I imagine an ideal situation where it’s better. Join me in a flight of fancy!
I ponder learned men and women discussing issues of great import. I imagine Socrates rocking a Greek toga while Cicero in Roman garb that’s basically a hipper version of an old Greek toga strides about. Everyone there is smart, civil, and intelligent. Any moderator who interrupts gets stabbed. You need to swear on your mother’s grave that you’ve read at least three books per quarter just to watch. If you’re lying, the Oracle of Delphi knows and rats you out. Liars are thrown down a well… which, now that I think of it, should be applied to Congress starting now. We might need to dig more wells.
Socrates is a stone cold asshole who answers every question with a question. The crowd shouts and complains. Thinking is hard. They don’t like it.
Cicero is such a mental bad ass that he can share conjecture with a re-animated a 200 year old dead philosopher. On the other hand, he’s an elitist douchebag.
Cato the Elder seizes the microphone and shouts; “Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed” and drops the microphone. (The microphone has a function which is unclear to a man from 2,200 years ago but it looked cool when he watched rappers drop theirs and he wants to look cool.) The Republic of Tunisia exclaims “not cool dude” but nothing happens. This is because almost nobody in America knows Tunisia exists and of those only eleven people know Carthage was an ancient city there. Those eleven people are all killed when a single elevator mishap at a Holiday Inn Express kills the entirety of the “East Wichita, Mensa / Carthage Special Interest Group”. However, Cato’s words incite Syria to invade Iran which attacks North Korea which assassinates the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, for reasons nobody understands.
Confucius tries to calm the crowd, imploring them to use their greater reason and morality; which seems to work. Then Socrates askes another damn question “Oh yeah? And how do we know you even exist?”. Pandemonium breaks out!
Then, because it’s my imagination, Diogenes shows up stark naked and carrying a plucked chicken. The scene fades as the greatest minds of humanity help Diogenes beat the cameraman with the chicken.
CNN has a 5% boost in stock value that lasts for exactly one day before the whole thing is forgotten. Meanwhile, the United States has the greatest debt ever assembled in all of human existence, so Congress wisely passes laws about transgender street signs.
Would that be worse that what’s going to happen tonight?
Today is the day of the “debate”. Ugh! “The Thing That Haunts Dem’s Nightmares” and “Totally Legit Joe” are going to “match wits”. I think I just got sick.
It’s bullshit and you know it:
First of all, nothing happening in the CNN studio is going to change anyone’s mind. It might be fun to watch “Ow My Balls” on TV but don’t think that makes you a better or more informed voter. Both players have had approximately 10,000 hours of press over the last 50 years to demonstrate what they say. More importantly if you’re not dumber than a sea slug you have seen for yourself what they’ve done. There’s no need to examine words, you’ve seen both do the job for 4 years and you’ve seen both through their long public careers.
Folks who make decisions based on a “debate” (if they ever existed) haven’t been paying attention since JFK’s hair was better than Nixon’s on black and white TV in 1960. In 2024, you’ve either hardened your opinion into granite or you’re a flake who’ll serially agree with whomever you last interacted.
This election is more or less over. What “uncertainty” there is comes exclusively from the 6% of the populace that is either in a coma, stoned, or so clueless they can’t identify the two participants. That and the 2,938% of the ballots that will be found at 2 am November 6th. They’re probably already in the back of a truck which is already idling outside of whichever counting venues have the greatest statistical influence. But of course, such conjecture is de facto illegal in 2024 so I’m just saying it as satire.
The thing that won’t happen but would be cool:
Orange Man Bad is one hell of a showman. I wouldn’t put it past him to use the 11.3 seconds his mic is live to drop the name of his VP pick. That alone would send everyone scurrying for Wikipedia while Captain Depends sought to regain attention.
I picture Biden shouting: “Hey fat! I’m still here and I fought in the trenches of WW1 in Delaware to earn this attention. I didn’t take enough shots of meth to kill a trailer park in Tennessee just to be ignored! I’m relevant gosh darn it!” He begins to shake with anger as Trump’s smug smile shreds his brain until he comes off the drugs like all of Fleetwood Mac going straight in a heartbeat. Biden pictures his signature accomplishments from decades ago; Amtrak. “I like trains.” He mutters. Jill swoops in to shuffle him back to his recliner, while flipping the bird at Trump, who is trying to browbeat the cameraman into voting for him.
But what I really want to hear is this:
“Today I’m announcing my VP pick; Mike Rowe. You know the guy. He did the TV show Dirty Jobs. Very good guy, the greatest really. Our first joint announcement will be the ‘if you aren’t currently wearing scuffed work boots, you ain’t getting shit from welfare’ initiative. God bless you all and would someone bake me a cake with a file in it next week. Thanks!”
I won’t plow with my truck because it’s a Dodge and product of Detroit. It’s hard enough keeping the steering straight. Plus, plows for a dually ain’t cheap. I could easily drop many grand on a plow only to beat my truck to death. In the timeline where I live right now, the truck is irreplaceable. Financing a new truck under current inflation rates and paying it off with Bidenbucks might sink me financially.
It’ll be my tractor or nothing. I didn’t plan on being a plow guy. What would I need to turn it into a side gig? Long term I’d need to get to more customers, which means a trailer I can’t afford. Short term I can lumber down the road to a few nearby potential customers. That’s legal if annoying. I’d need flashing lights to avoid getting creamed by highway speed vehicles. And I’d like a radio so I could monitor weather and (hopefully) not get too bored.
Installing a radio:
My tractor is a Kioti and it’s a fine tractor. It has a few quirks. First of all, they rigged the world’s most inconvenient terminal access onto an otherwise decent battery position. It’s the first time I’ve used a 12mm short combination wrench. What a weird setup.
Tractor cabs are brilliant. So much better than freezing my ass off! And look here, it’s already setup for a radio!
And what’s this? A tiny little antenna! (Note, having tested it a while, it doesn’t get the best reception. It works and it’s small enough I haven’t smashed it into a tree yet, but it’s sub-par.)
I popped off the cover and spent a few brain cells analyzing this ridiculous wiring harness.
Then I bought a radio off Amazon. I tried very hard to get exactly what my tractor needed. This whole “wiring harness” thing seems excessive. The last radio I installed, in a Buick, was from before CDs. It had power / antenna / speaker. No harness at all.
They used to be so universal I could just buy one and jam it in. I think I got one from K-Mart (before Walmart even existed). Does that date me?
Bad moments in engineering, the fuse is in the back of the radio. I’d have to pull the whole damn unit to replace a fuse?
Great moments in engineering. The rear of the radio has a generic wiring harness and there’s an adaptor to match the vehicle I requested. I expected something like that. The radio came with a “pigtail” converting directly to my tractor’s wiring harness. There must be a factory somewhere with a bunch of people creating “pigtails” (possibly on demand, as they are ordered) for every conceivable harness system.
The vinyl (?) on my roof was too tight to allow the mounting hardware. I trimmed it with care you’d associate with defusing a bomb. I really don’t want to fuck up my almost new tractor!
Now the “receptacle box” is installed. Once I figured out the little press fittings it worked out nicely.
It doesn’t look like a gorilla installed it!
I don’t like the six exposed screws. I paid a few bucks extra for the “face plate” and I think it was worth it. To my dismay I had to drill it to fit. Luckily, I didn’t screw that up either.
Not bad eh?
There is even a snap on bezel to really “clean it up”.
I was reluctant to tweak my tractor, given that it was so very damn expensive to buy it. But the install is complete. I like it.
If the world goes to hell, I’ll plow driveways for anyone who can pay more than the cost of diesel. I’ll probably need the money.
If the world doesn’t go to hell, I can happily listen to books on CD while I plow my own driveway.
Win, win!
P.S. The tractor came with a “slow moving vehicle” placard. I kept bending it against tree branches so I removed it. I can re-install if needed. Legally, that’s all I’m required to do. (The tractor came with headlights and all that!) Realistically, I’m not leaving my property without a blinking light. I haven’t yet installed a blinking light. There’s time. Winter is coming, it ain’t here yet.
[I planned to slack off but I got another donation. Suddenly I’m motivated! Y’all are the greatest! Also, I set out to write about a tractor but veered into philosophy. Why? Because I modified the tractor due to philosophical thoughts. There is no reason why “preparing for the unexpected” has to be naught but canned beans and stacked ammo.]
I reflect on how we got here. In the swirling currents of current instability I can’t deduce where we’re going. You can’t either. Recent history suggests that absolutely nothing is “impossible”.
So long as society is in disarray it’s good to be humble about one’s predictions. The two things I’m most certain of are that it snows in winter and anyone who says they know what the future holds should be kicked in the balls.
Sit back and think of all the many possible timelines we’ve skipped from and to in the last few years! It’s mind boggling!
Most of us don’t take enough time to think. I implore you to do so now. Allocate to your soul the necessary time to process and digest what you’ve so recently experienced. Sit down, shut up, and think about it. Think about how you got where you are. Isn’t it weird?
Writ large, the nation lurches from timeline to timeline… each more perilous and weird than the last. It’s good to remember the madness; the stumbles and reversals. Settle it into your mind. You must do that or the gaslighting of the present and future will erase your awareness. Remember what you personally witnessed or you’re nothing but an NPC on someone’s vote farm.
Things were churning along one path; the economy was roaring back after 16 years of Bush / Obama. Half the political landscape was furious at all the… prosperity? Endless shrieking was touched off when Hillary’s Coronation in 2016 was denied. People dressed up as vaginas and broke glass windows in the streets. For some reason this wasn’t considered odd. An orange menace paid attention to American citizens outside of DC and for that unforgiveable sin, he became an avatar of hate.
The Gutenberg sized revolution of social media drove most of us mad. Words turned from communication to tools of control. Pretty much everything spoken in public now had shaded meanings; often implying the exact opposite of what the words were defined as. Consult a printed dictionary from a saner past; you’ll be surprised. The word “true” and “false” were twisted into “misinformation” and “fact checking”. Notice how the press never says simply “this fact is true and that fact is false”? Reality was bent on the anvil of ideas.
Then came the “Pants Shitting Hysteria of Covid”. It hit like a freight train and upended us onto a completely different timeline. After a few months it still wasn’t ok to leave the house to work or hug grandma but it was totally patriotic to burn shit down. Thus, we stepped on the altered path of “The Summer of Mostly Peaceful Protests”. Summer chaos led directly to “Statistical Improbabilities Which Shall Not Be Named”. (Indeed it is within the letter of the law to discuss such things but not the defacto application of such. The formerly free speech zone of USA reels under the weight of things which cannot be said.) Statistical anomalies created the next step. Now we’re stumbling along in the hot sweaty armpit of existence that is the “Bidenverse”. All this is right and proper and D.C. has the political prisoners and deployable mobile concertina wire perimeters to prove it.
Imagine that! Now it’s three years later. Gas tripled in price and we blithely pay. Meanwhile the press is actively “fact checking” whether the President did or did not shit himself on stage. (I’ve no opinions on sharts versus old men trying to sit in invisible chairs. Heck, I’d look stupid on camera if you followed me 24/7 so what do I know?) Regardless, that’s the timeline of our lives now. The Bidenverse drifts into the Shart-opia and we have convicted opposition party leaders to prove it.
We all have to live in a world where things are dumb. Unverified octogenarian bowel movements are a legitimate political discussion but things the National Debt is ignored.
What’s next? I’ve no idea. You don’t either. Anyone who’s lived through the last few years should be very humble about “what is simply impossible”. Do you think you really know what’ll happen? Did you predict, in 2019 while experiencing the lowest unemployment since 1968, that mass hysteria over an effect that originated in a Bio-Lab in Wuhan China would close your bowling alley? If you didn’t make that call in 2019, you don’t know what the rest of 2024 holds in store.
That’s ok. Life would be boring if it were too predictable. Knowing where you’re going is denied to mortal man. Unless you’re into pre-destination and have a direct line to the almighty, you’ll find out just like the rest of us… when it gets so weird that you notice it.
Where am I going with this? I’m grasping for things that I know to be true (extremely likely) for my own personal future. One thing I predict with full confidence is that it will snow in the winter. Neither of the shitweasel parties can change the planet’s orbital procession (though they sure talk like they can!).
Spastics like Al Gore and Greta Thunberg proselytize that 1.) Winters will cease and 2.) it’s your personal fault. But they don’t count. Anyone dumb enough to believe that shit is too dumb to be relevant. (I’m speaking here of the Nobel Committee and the UN, both of which are about as wrong in everything as a Paul Krugman economic prognostication.)
So back at the ranch… Mr. Curmudgeon accepts that anything from a return of $2 gas to invasion by space aliens can’t be ruled out and the only sure thing is snow. What to do with this information?
If winter is coming. Make winter your business.
Every human endeavor north of a certain latitude involves pushing snow. It was true of the Germans trying to invade Russia. It was true of the Russians trying to invade Finland. It’ll be true even if our economy and society crawls up it’s own ass and dies there. Commies, capitalists, rich, poor, sophisticated, simple, urban, rural… everyone pushes snow.
I plow my own snow. My driveway is huge and I spent a fortune on equipment to handle it. Maintenance ain’t cheap either. It’s a choice I made and I’m glad I did. My tractor and plow will work equally well under Orange Man Bad, Captain Poopy Pants, or Lrrr the Ruler of Omicron Persei 8.
Right now I don’t plow driveways as a side gig. I have too many irons in the fire. But…
Suppose shit goes pear shaped… I mean goes even weirder than now? (Which is hard to imagine but is clearly possible!) Might as well gear up to be Mr. Plow.
Even if I don’t need to be Mr. Plow in this particular universe, I’ve already decided we don’t know what timeline comes next.
The next post is when I break out the screwdrivers and power drill and actually do something.
