Adaptive Curmudgeon

I recently expounded on my theory that people need dreams & adventure. I also gave a personal example (links: 1, 2, 3, 4). What was the example? I bought a hot tent* and stove* with which I intend to camp solo in “freeze your ass off” weather. (Note: the links to hot tent and stove go to Amazon. If you buy anything from those links it costs you nothing extra and I get a small kickback from Amazon.)

I want to make something perfectly clear. The goal is not to survive in a battle with nature it is to enjoy myself. (Any jackoff, including myself in younger ages, can huddle under a spruce bough; shivering around a smoky fire while wrapped in a cheap tarp until the dawn comes and a tired, beat, camper hikes eagerly for the truck. I’ve done that. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it sucks, but it’s never comfortable. That stage of life is in the rear view mirror for me. I got nuthin’ to prove to nobody about me and my drinking buddy Mother Nature.)

As for blogging and photos, today I’ll try to strike a balance. This particular Curmudgeonly tilting of windmills is still in the “getting feet wet” stage. I’m entirely a clueless n00b but there are details of the technology I’m still learning. I don’t want to nudge any impressionable dreamers into following my foolish notions before I can offer more reasoned analysis. On the other hand, pics or it didn’t happen. On the third hand, I got sick of taking photos so all I’ve got is grainy snapshots. On the fourth hand… it’s been super fun!

Remember when American goods were top quality and Russian goods were a punch line? Yeah, I remember it too. It’s over! Don’t weep for it. Don’t complain. Don’t try to pretend otherwise. That time is gone like trustworthy elections and cheap gas.

Don’t cling to the past; adapt! I paid top dollar for more or less the best, toughest, tent I could buy for my purposes… and it came from Russia.

Russian tech was just right for my needs. Strong and designed like I might find myself hunting polar bears in Greenland. This isn’t REI shit. No man buns were harmed in the making of this blog but that’s only by chance. The tent was brutally expensive but it’s so damn macho it makes me smile.

The stove comes in a shipping box. A wood box. Holy shit!

The box isn’t an heirloom. It’s just plywood. But that’s a hint that they’re not screwing around.

The tent came in a cardboard box that looked like it had been trampled by wildebeests. My dog is suspicious of the battered box.

Inside the box, the woodstove has a very nice carrying bag. Pretty solid; which is good because the stove has all sorts of jagged edges that would eat a thin nylon bag.

Hot tent woodstoves sometimes have oils and residues leftover from the manufacturing process. You’re told to fire it up outside of the tent for an hour or so just to be sure that’s all gone.

I unpacked it and found all sorts of cool goodies. Now only did I have the titanium stove and pipe (as expected) but I had various gadgets and necessaries. Very thoughtful. It was packed like the box might be air dropped to a cast away on the coast of a lonely Norwegian Fjord. It has all you’ll need save matches.  The beige folded thing in the included materials is a heat/fire resistant mat. Put that under the stove if you use it on top of a fabric tent floor. The black shrink wrapped thing is replacement materials in case you break a fireplace window while in the hinterland. Losing a heat source is a very serious thing so it was wise to include it and the part is much appreciated by the buyer! The plastic bag is a smoke detector with battery. The green thing is a carrying pack with the stove’s four legs.

The sides of the stove have removable heat shields that are also protection for the glass windows. They’re easily removable or I you could leave them on if you wished.

The glass is not merely for show. Glass will not warp like metal will, thus keeping the stove more dimensionally sound. Plus the glass is vastly more efficient transmitting heat.

On a purely emotional level, a stove without a window to watch the pretty fire would be a tragedy.

There’s a heat shield in the back to keep the stove from burning the tent material that will be near it. The tent also has flame/heat resistant material in the appropriate place; much like a welding blanket. There’s a heat shield/ash pan on the bottom too.

There’s lots of nice details like the logo carved on the stovetop. (I’ll be cooking on that logo in due time.)

The front vent/door is weird. Nobody copies the Russians and the Russians don’t copy anybody. Then again the first part to go on small portable stoves are the hinges and the air vent apparatus. This design eliminates all hinges. The air intake control, despite looking funky, works like a charm. I had my doubts but it’s perfect.

There’s a spark arrestor for the top… because duh.

Here it is, all set up.

My cat came by to assist the burn in process. Damn cat.

The tent’s box looked like shit but the tent was pristine.

It’s a very nice carry bag. If you need to haul a body… this will do just fine.

The tent is a weird umbrella design. I’ve never seen anything like it. You set a 50 pound lump of fabric upright on the ground and release a strap. It pops out like a strange camouflage origami starfish. There are more details to the setup but you can see it on YouTube if you want the details.

It sets up ridiculously fast; especially considering this is a two layer, four season tent.

I set it up in an easy spot on a perfectly reasonable day. No wind, it wasn’t snowing, I set it up on frozen grass I’d plowed cleared of snow, etc… This was intended to be a relaxing overnight… not a backwoods forest challenge. I was close to a structure in case I needed to bailout.

At sunset it was smooth sailing. I kicked back in the toasty warm tent with a bottle of bourbon and a smug smile on my face. At midnight it started snowing hard and I got nervous. Around 3:00 am all hell broke loose. It was a genuine, no bullshit, hang on to your britches or you’ll be blown out of them, blizzard.

I should check the weather report more often.

The tent rode out a full on blizzard for many hours. I was warm and snug all night long. I was a bit nervous since I hadn’t tested the tent before but the tent was a damn fortress.

This is the lee side of the tent! This is the vent. I kept two vents open while I was operating the fire. All that snow fell in one night while I was in there!

The tent has an optional (you can install it or not) “hard door”. It’s a feature I’ve never seen in any tent. This is supposedly so you can’t freeze in if a zipper gets iced up. It’s also convenient. That’s the door right there.

A few days later, when the weather wasn’t trying to kill me, I set it back up and installed the optional um… It’s not really a vestibule. I’m going to call it an “airlock”. It appears to be a hexagonal hallway thing that allows this tent to link seamlessly to a very expensive vestibule that I didn’t buy. (The “vestibule” is practically a whole different attached tent.)

The airlock is crazy elaborate but I can see how it would make the vestibule / tent connection very warm and secure.

The tent is an octagon. There’s an anchor point at the base of each corner. There’s an anchor point at each “mid wall”. Do the math. That’s 16 places to stake it down at the base.

There’s a nearly equal number of waist high guyline anchor points. I rode out a “balls to the wall, Dan Rather clinging to a fencepost” blizzard with only 8 base points anchored and 7 guylines. The tent was very solid.

I bought cheap carabiners so I can clip guylines to whichever part of the tent most needs to be secured. The carabiners are my idea and I think it’s a good one. I will have anywhere from 8 to 12 guylines in the tent bag and simply use however many I think I need wherever is best. In most calm weather that number will be zero. An absolute outrageous amount of line is included but it’s not cut to any reasonable length. Maybe you need 30′ guylines to anchor it to an iceberg or something?

This has nothing to do with the tent. It’s about fuel for the wood stove. While camping this summer I was carrying pallet wood. A trash can of pallet wood in my truck is waterproof and enough volume for several days of brewing coffee, cooking food, and watching the flames.

For no particular reason, I started keeping “the good stuff” for future woodworking projects and tossing “the not good stuff” in the garbage can for camping. It took less than an hour of chopping up pallets to fill the whole trash can and also make this pile of rough cut kiln dried pine.

One warning. I was afraid that kiln dried, milled, pine would burn too hot for a small portable woodstove. I used some of the pallet wood but also mixed in a lot of not-kiln dried wood harvested from the forest in general. Such fuel still put off plenty of heat and once the fire’s going, it didn’t seem hard to use the colder slightly wetter fuel.

This is a squirrel’s ass…

So there you have it. The tent (and I) passed a brutal “maiden voyage”. There will be additional stories as I gain experience and camp more.

A.C.

*Note: Amazon gives me a small kickback if you buy something (anything!) from a link on my blog. It costs you nothing but I get beer money out of it.

It’s the season of giving and I had a present in mind. It was a present for you (all readers). Alas, it’s delayed. Sorry about that.

Unlike most delayed deliveries, I can’t blame supply chain dumfuckery. It’s all my fault. I’ve been doing other shit with my time. What can I say, I’m a busy guy and apparently unfocused. (If I’m honest with myself, the whole “vaccine mandate” breakdown of social norms did a job on me too. One can do the right thing as they see it and yet still emerge from the challenge beaten and weary.)

Y’all deserve a present. I know you’ve been good (for certain definitions of “good”). I also hear stockings have been hung by chimneys with due diligence, fresh snow is exhibiting high albedo under moonlight conditions, and so forth.

But… there was cool shit to do! I bought a fancy tent and wanted to test it. In order to do this I camped out in a legit, no kidding, blizzard; which was both unwise and yet a success. That’s a story all it’s own. Then, I just had to crack open a bottle of tasty bourbon this weekend. Well, you know the story.

My plan was to launch the next chapter of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels with 12 posts culminating on December 25th. A sort of squirrely 12 Days of Christmas; with Extreme Greeters and disco instead of sugarplum faeries. Unfortunately, today’s the 13th and it’s not ready. Whoops!

Maybe I’ll get it flying next week. Maybe it’ll be a New Years Day present. I don’t know. The intent is there if not the delivery. Santa specifically told me to get my shit together and if Billy weren’t fictional he’d gladly kick my procrastinating ass. Regardless, about a dozen posts (give or take) are in the pipeline.

Thanks for your patience and Merry Christmas.

A.C.

P.S. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, you may want to read my ongoing serialized novel: Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Depending on how you measure such things, it’s about 400 pages. If you’ve got a comfy chair and better sense of humor than a woke jackwagon, you’ll love it. It has all the basics; violence, stupidity, a terroristic skunk, a racist bear, the dark secret of Swedish disco, the origins of the DudeBro, fractional reserve K-cups, the death of Rodney “Wet Pant” Slovosfeld, a trans-species raptor, semi-automatic assault style police shotgun revolvers, the explosive ruination of Billy’s Church of Plenty, a mink speedo worn by a creepy poacher, and of course, an examination of the most powerful force on earth… bullshit. It’s free (unless you care to donate) and if you start reading now, you’ll be up to speed by the time I finish typing the next chapter.

“I make three times as much money as him and I’m totally miserable.”

I’m not writing this to piss and moan about outrageous fortune. I’m trying to offer what clarity my limited, pointy, little skull has come up with. (Including ending a sentence with a preposition.) This is a thought experiment. If it pisses you off, I’m sorry.

Part 1: Torture:

Early in 2020, I watched a video that asked the simple question “does what is happening right now constitute torture as defined by the Geneva convention of 1949“. That seemed a pretty overwrought analysis!

At the time COVID stuff was limited to mask mandates, shutdown schools and businesses, and various forms of “lockdown”. Mandatory injections were not yet in the mix. At the time, nobody had been fired. Though, famously, surfers and joggers had been arrested for being alone on a beach. Meanwhile, convicts were being put out of jails… possibly to make room for surfers? (I forget the link to the video, the point is the question seemed odd at first but then made me rethink my assumptions.)

I didn’t really like the tone of the presenter. But I listened and she articulated her point well. What she had to say changed my point of view. My knee jerk reaction was “of course this isn’t the same as a beating”. But that’s oversimplifying. If you listen to the definition in an actual damn treaty that came about after the Nazis were defeated there was something to it. The ever evolving lockdowns with rules and regulations emanating from not law but more or less just what some guy said under emergency powers for whatever reason… well that’s not business as usual (or at least it wasn’t back then). It started seeming eerily like the definition fit. Torture isn’t always physical. It’s also mental. There’s a spectrum; it might end just short of a bullet to the head but it starts with “privileges revoked at will by an all powerful entity”; especially if they’re temporarily restored for “good behavior” and then revoked again for infractions both real and imagined. That stuck with me.

I was like… yep I’m being tortured and didn’t acknowledge it because that sounds so weird. If nothing else, it steered me toward a different way of thinking. (Before y’all go pedantic on me this is just a thought experiment. I get it that a cloth mask isn’t a crowbar to the teeth. Also there are legal issues about civilian versus soldiers and international war versus domestic oppression and all that. Nor is one bad thing equivalent to a different also bad and much more painful thing. I’m just talking about a way of thinking about events that would have been unthinkable in 2019 and were happening in 2020.)

It’s easy to forget that there was one world in 2019 and a different one in 2020. It bothered me a lot how quickly everyone succumbed. If you’re wondering who’d hide Jews in the attic and who’d make a list to help load the cattle cars… now you know. You also know how far you’ll personally go. Or at least you know how far you’ve already gone.

And yes, for some definition of torture, we’ve been tortured. If some Governor suddenly has the ability to make big changes in our life… based on whatever strikes his or her fancy… that’s the slippery slope. Part of the issue is forcing people to do something that has no clear reason. It’s legal to run a liquor store but not host a church service. Really? Wear a mask from the front door of a restaurant but then you can take it off to eat (because the virus is afraid of dinner?). That’s some weird splitting of hairs going on… or in other words it’s arbitrary and capricious. Most of us know it’s stupid… but how many of us comply anyway? What about closing a corner grocery store but not Walmart? What about chasing down a dude surfing on an empty beach? How about stopping people in one place that has covid from interacting with people in another place that has covid. Why? Is covid a different flavor on the other side of a line? My favorite illogical issue is a curfew. Are viruses like vampires in that they only cause harm at night? What does a clock have to do with a virus?

Consider when a governor (or whomever) somehow has the power to force you to do illogical things… that’s not normal. The dude in a suit announces “you have not done as I recommended, so I have taken away schools, movie theaters, and more. If you continue to be disobedient I’ll shut down your job.” Is that not the same as saying “you are my bitch, do my bidding”. Is it unlike demonstrating power over you specifically so you know you’re not calling the shots?

Remember, this was all before mandatory vaccines were even a glimmer in Fauchi’s lying eye. By the time Biden invented the ability to fire anyone in America who doesn’t get the shot we’d been eating shit almost two years.

Incidentally the 2020 video was about “torture”. A portion of the Geneva convention covers medical procedures without consent. Lets face it:

If there’s a line, a needle in the vein crosses it.

Part 2: Force Versus Compliance:

Forget all about the heebie jeebies I get when the “Geneva convention definition of torture” starts seeming relevant. Here’s a second topic that’s even creepier. (I forgot the source of this too, but bear with me.)

Back in very early 2021, someone somewhere said “the one thing that’s guaranteed not to  happen is some big burly goon grabbing you and holding you down while someone physically vaccinates you with a dart gun”.

Interesting.

So far this is true.

At least in America, all this vaccine mandate stuff has involved forcing you to “choose” to comply. You might be threatened with firing, kicked out of college, hassled at the grocery store, publicly outed, called bad names, hear speeches about “lost patience”, fined, denied services, denied medical care, denied travel, hassled and manipulated in all sorts of brutal ways… but you’re still going to have to personally walk into a venue and offer up your arm. Why? Why not just whip out the tranquillizer gun and fire a round into your ass?

A big guy just grabbing you and holding you down while another one hits you with a dart gun is just not happening. And before you mock me, I’ve seen how reasonable that could be. I’ve worked with livestock. I know precisely how effectively a little brute force can be when creating herd immunity. (See what I did there?)

If they’ve gone this far… what held them back from the next step? Six mounted cowboys and one immoral veterinarian could sweep through a WalMart and drive everyone through a chute. At the chute you’ve got five seconds to produce the vac card or WHAM… vaxxed! Laugh if you will, but does Fauchi seem like a guy that wouldn’t enjoy that?

Of course, there are manpower and logistics issues. Someone somewhere might actually have some sort of kindness left in them. Plus some places and groups are more resilient than others. You might be able to sweep a suburban mall full of gutless puffballs or a college campus full of woke soyboys but ‘aint nobody got the balls to try it in Compton. Now that I think of it, if you pull that sort of shit in a Kentucky hollow nobody would even find the bodies of the vax enforcers. So maybe it has to be limited to the weaker parts of society. A Starbucks, for example.

Is it they know that every so often they’ll encounter someone like me? I’m not immortal, they could get me down if they use enough people. But once it’s on, I’ll give it my best go. It seems only fair to give an opponent a good challenge. Maybe it’s hard to know when a guy like me is in the cattle chute? I don’t look like much and ten beefy cops could get me down but I’d rip someone’s eyeball out on the way to the pavement; just ’cause.

Yet it’s still a puzzlement that nobody is trying it. Mistreat a guy without the vax until he breaks but always always always make him walk to the shot delivery station on his own.  Perhaps there’s a certain line that even the most evil overlords are reluctant to cross?

As far as I know, nobody’s doing it… nowhere. Not China, not England, not Russia, not Japan. There’s something to this. Show up at a vaccine required situation… they’ll turn you away or bitch you out. Why not whip out a hypodermic and throw down right there?

There’s something to it.

Australia is putting unvaccinated people in concentration camps… why?

Australia seems intent on being the worst so think about what they’re doing. Stormtroopers dressed like Robocop. Shields and helmets and no holds barred. We’ve seen videos where they grab someone, throw them on the ground, handcuff ’em… and then thrown ’em in the Paddy Wagon. Why?

Why make a concentration camp at all? It’s expensive to operate a minimum security jail. Why do it?

After they’ve got someone subdued and lying on the ground why not then? If they insist on inflicting the vax… there’s nothing stopping them on the person they’ve just physically beaten.

Yet something stops them. What is it?

For that matter, why did the Nazis make concentration camps? The evil bastards eagerly hunted innocent Jews… but then handed their terrified prey off to a bureaucracy. A pistol weighs 20 ounces and it’s sitting on an SS guy’s hip. A cattle car weighs tons. Is there something wired into the brain that the most unhuman of monsters still needs to feel like their victim chose their fate?

I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea why it is so, only that it seems more important that they break you to compliance than the vaccine hits your bloodstream. If there’s some unplumbed depth of human evil that modern man (so far) hasn’t effected; it behooves us to know what it is and why.

In case you’re wondering what started all this. I was set to rumination by three sources:

The Time is Now: Differentiating “Force” from “Choice”

and

The Babylon Bee

and

Fight Club

I have taken up the hobby of hot-tenting. (A hot tent is more or less a winter specific tent with an internal wood stove.) To facilitate this new adventure I’ve ordered this* and this*. Once I overcame the stroke induced by the price tag I’ve been nothing but smiles since.

It’s gonna’ be awesome!

Like anything else I do, this isn’t for everyone. Just as my beloved TW200 dirt bike can give you a broken collar bone, overnighting in the winter can lead to:

• Spending too much money on gear.
• Figuratively freezing your ass off.
• Literally freezing your ass off.

If you are inspired by me I’m delighted. However, I implore you to go into this with open eyes. A certain personality (myself included at times) can be perfectly happy crouched under a spruce bough in a blizzard… but if you’re of that ilk you already know it. Mother nature is a harsh mistress and she’ll kill you dead if you’re poorly equipped (or mentally unaware) in true winter. I don’t want to hear about it when you are down to eight toes.

As for me, I’m working on the learning curve of new (and quite impressive gear). I’ve already slept overnight and already nature has gone batshit insane on me. Sorry but I don’t have many pictures yet. Then again I don’t have hypothermia. So far so good.

Here are some videos that explain the ridiculous objects I just purchased. Note that they’re filmed in Alaska and Siberia. Also, two of three were filmed in snow. This gear isn’t for snoozing in Florida during a mild freeze.

The first video is from Far North Bushcraft and Survival:

The next two are from Survival Russia:

*Note: Amazon gives me a small kickback if you buy something (anything!) from a link on my blog. It costs you nothing but I get beer money out of it.

Dreams are sneaky buggers. They’ll come up from behind when you least expect it. You’ll be minding your own business when WHAM; the dream is already in your mind.

It’s fuzzy at first. Undeveloped, incomplete. But the idea will grow. You’ll imagine all aspects of it. You’ll imagine all the fun times you’ll have. You’ll imagine the feeling of accomplishment, or beauty, or peace, or fellowship… whatever makes your clock tick is what you’ll imagine. This is good. A man without dreams is already dead.

You’ll try to ignore it. “I can’t do that thing right now. I’m broke. I’m tired. I’ve got to mow the lawn.” Still the idea will grow; the more spirit you have the greater the dream’s pull. Along the way a funny thing happens; the dream grows from your spirit but the spirit grows from the dream. Directed toward healthy ends, the dream is good for you.

Then comes the part where almost everyone fails. They fail to act. Actions don’t have to be grand; even the simplest step on the path is enough… just to take the step is the point. It’s when you begin to shake off life’s inertia. Fail to act, and you’ve done yourself a disservice. The brain learns your dreams are silly distractions. It stops having them. Deny yourself enough times and you’ll stop trusting your own heart. Then, five or fifty years after you’ve already died, they plant your ass in the ground.

Got your attention? Good, I take stupid dreams seriously and here’s a new one for me.

Many moons ago, as a young Curmudgeon, I loved camping in the winter. The forests were all mine. What others perceived as hassles, I experienced as adventure. As a Boy Scout I earned the Year Round Camper patch. I was proud of that. It did nothing to advance rank. I didn’t care. Ranks aren’t my motivator.

Later, as a young man, I’d drive whatever crappy vehicle I owned to nowhere in particular, wander around the frozen wood, sleep somewhere like a vagabond, and return home feeling renewed. It was pointless and I was always alone… which is to say it was deeply meaningful and I became at peace with myself.

I was limited to shitty equipment purchased on a budget of zero. The exception was my sleeping bag. I scraped and saved to buy the best damn sleeping bag I could afford. That was enough. Good boots and a top quality sleeping bag will get you pretty far. Sometimes I’d toss a cheap tarp on top of a snowdrift, plunk my sleeping bag on top, and nestle in as the bag sank into the drift. I’d pull the tarp over me, hope my nose didn’t freeze off, and sleep like a baby.

Time came and went and the distractions of life did what they do; college, and work, and broken down cars, and moving from place to place all seemed important. A job became a career, and there were kids, and marriage (to the world’s most delightful wife!). Day to day focus, took my optional winter camping trips out behind the barn and put a bullet in them. I still camped sometimes. Maybe one campout per winter at best and a lot of camping by canoe. However, a canoe (like my motorcycle) is a creature of warm months. I was generally trapped indoors until the waters thawed enough to float canoes once more.

Recently, I’ve been camping more often. I’ve enjoyed ridiculously easy “State Park” summer camping. Nothing impressive, just a base camp from which to sail my homemade boat or ride my off-road motorcycle. Those simple campouts felt like a “renaissance”. Perhaps the wisest use of my time is to sit under a tree?

All was well until two months ago.

I was sleeping in my wonderful “Supertent“* with my awesome cot*. I was on a motorcycle ride / grouse hunt trip. When I rolled out of bed, it was chilly. I shivered. It was a shot across the logistical bow!

I wound up huddling by the fire cursing at how long the coffee took to heat. It wasn’t a big deal. Within an hour I was nice and toasty. By mid afternoon it was sweatshirt (not T-shirt) weather… but I’d gotten the hint. Winter was coming.

That was to be my last campout of the year. Soon the motorcycle would be stored, unused and inert. The tent too. It was a downer in a tough month. President Potato’s vaccine mandates were worming their way into my life. All has been chaos with society for years. My off grid solo campouts had become less a luxury than a necessary line to sanity. I felt a stab of cabin fever. So soon! Before the first flake of snow I already felt trapped.

This is when the dream snuck up on me and stuck a shiv in my head.

I camped in the winter when I was young and stupid. Why not camp in the winter now that I’m old and stupid?

Why indeed?

I unpacked good memories of winter camping and examined them. I’m no longer that guy. My back aches just thinking about lying in the fucking snow. Was I tough or dumb? Perhaps both. Regardless, laying on snow is officially done for me. I like my cot!

The idea wouldn’t leave. In retrospect the idea has been growing for years. Just simmering beneath the surface.

Something about that morning a few months ago pushed it over the top. Probably because it was paired with the threat of losing my job and the friction of a society that’s slowly crawling up its own ass; the need for escape to nature seems more urgent than ever before.

Do it now!

The Universe was offering the adventure. The heart wanted it, the spirit craved it, and the body was on board so long as the cot came with the package deal. It was the moment when one makes their choice. Does one drift in a state of catatonic loss or take action knowing the attending risk, expense, and hassle?

You already know how I roll. I’ve ordered this*:

And this*:

Wish me luck. Things might get interesting!

A.C.

*Note: Amazon gives me a small kickback if you buy something (anything!) from a link on my blog. It costs you nothing but I get beer money out of it.

Some years ago I wound up idly watching Emporium Outdoors. The host and his charming dog were rambling about in a Honda Pioneer. (*Note: he has since evolved through an Argo, a tracked and untracked CanAm, and now he’s in a Jeep… the vehicle is not the journey.)

There’s so much harmless fun in seeing someone having happy little campouts in the Canadian outback. The idea took hold.

Could I regain a thing I’d lost? I’d done much camping and even more rambling about forests in earlier stages of life. All that got put on hold for certain family obligations… all men know this story. Yet here I was, emerging on the other side of my allotted time… if a dude and a dog on YouTube can ride an ATV to a campsite why couldn’t I?

This is the dream. It resides in many of us.

That’s all it takes. You simply gaze at the Universe and think “there is this thing I wish to do, how shall I act upon that idea?”

Everyone has their dream but not everyone takes the next step. A third are lazy and never try. Another third don’t get the chance; unavoidable external forces keeping the leash tight. Most of the rest let finances or inertia chain them to a couch. A few… the madmen, do it.

In this case, it was perfectly attainable. An ATV and a dog. Well my ATV is very old and unsuitable. Then dog died. That’s OK, I knew that was coming.

I sought a new and tougher ATV to facilitate the dream. I test drove several. They weren’t weird enough for my tastes. I went so far as to test an Argo and wind up getting bitched out in a ditch in front of some guy’s house. (Not my finest moment.)  I settled on a specific CanAm but my fiscally conservative mind was visited by the Joker and I knew I couldn’t spend the scratch.

Then I watched this. FortNine knows how to explain the dream:

Fast forward a few months and I was rolling about on a TW200. The adventure had begun. As with all adventures there were mishaps. Almost immediately I misjudged both myself and the trail and I’d submersed it in water. Later I smashed it against trees, leaving my turn signals in tatters and terrifying my mirrors. As this was happening I’d upgraded safety gear and various bits on the machine. I got a better front tire and adapted my pavement skills to dirt riding. In short I was doing what I’d set out to do.

The dream is not to get there… it is to journey.

Everything coalesced this summer. It’s my second year of dirt bike riding and stuff just seemed to work out. Nothing too adventurous. Nothing too fast. I’m not going to impress anyone… which is fine because that’s not my purpose. I was out exploring; enjoying nature. What better thing is there to do?

I wish I could take the whole world on a nice relaxing campout. Society has spent two years cowering in fear, and it’s doing them harm. If not physical, most definitely spiritual and mental. Rather than go down with the ship I started swimming. I routinely leave the world behind. It’s not that hard once you start doing it. The real enemy is inertia.

A gallon of gas and I’m in heaven. The tiny tank is cheap to fill and will sputter down the trail to a world of peace (and fun). Check out my “Walkabouts” stories and you’ll find 36(!) posts about just this year’s ramblings.

Here’s the cheap little toy that got the ball rolling. Isn’t that the cutest bike you ever saw?

None of this is without risk, mind you. Oh heck no. Soooooo many ways things can go wrong. But that’s the adventure part of the dream. Adventures are risky. The trick is to mitigate, anticipate, adapt, overcome, and learn. Alas, sometimes when it all falls apart you just plain take the hit. This is what separates the adventurer from human barnacles on the couch of life.

There’s a thing I didn’t anticipate. Unexpectedly, I was inspiring people.

I wrote about my adventures… however mild and peaceful they are… because people enjoy them. I hoped to make people happy. In this, the time of a manufactured global COVID panic, it’s nice to hear about rabbits and pine trees.

Just as Filthie building a balsa RC plane makes me think I may do that sometime, other people read about my ridiculous little bike and thought they might do that. Like I said, most people don’t take the leap, but some to. At least two of my readers actually did.

Look at this happy photo a reader e-mailed me. Is that not a fun little adventure in the making?

Did I mention risk is part of this. The barnacle on a couch stays perfectly safe until they die of heart failure… but the adventurer is not safe. Here’s a photo a different reader sent:

Daaaaaaaamn.

Let nobody say I sugar coat things! Also, this particular photo has inspired me to do something else this spring… buy more safety gear!

Anyway, life is never safe but it’s always glorious. Do what you can while you’re still standing. I’d also like to add a sincere thanks to the two readers (who remain anonymous) that contributed the photos. They’re both in good humor and I’m glad to hear it.

They’re adventurers. Good for them.

Over at Filthie’s Thunderbox an adventure is taking place. Dude’s building an old school RC airplane. He’s making a classic “balsa wood and glue that fries braincells” design. I’ve been enjoying the story as it unfolds (lurking?).

Filtihe knows the score. Every endeavor is an opportunity to soar and also an opportunity to crash and burn… in the case of an airplane, literally. Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. The harder you try the further you skate on thin ice. He begins with a second hand story:

“When my ship was in Tokyo a bunch of years back, I was watching Nip TV. There was a guy who had built a HUGE R/C plane. I’m an aircraft illiterate, but this thing had four engines on it. The guy started all the engines, taxied onto the runway, and commenced his roll. As soon as he rotated the plane did a huge wing-over and AUGERED into the ground. The camera panned back to the pilot. He stood there for a few seconds, and then just began to bawl. The plane had apparently taken YEARS for him to build… Yeah; keep it simple this time, Glen…”

It is true. Build a thing that can fly and you have built a thing that may break your heart. Filthie knows that it would be wise to have a certain amount of emotional reserve… and also knows it’s impossible:

It’s too late. My heart is lost. I’ve glued up the wing of the Filthiebird, And … it is a thing of sheer beauty.

This is what the world is all about! Build and do, try and learn, soar and (sometimes) crash. Good for him!

Filthie’s braver than me. This is the cruel world of the internet, where some pajama clad toadstool with literally no accomplishments can (and will) gloat at your downfall should things go belly up. They’ll phrase this as “advice” but it’s not as constructive as one might hope. Much is preening by the otherwise inert. “You used the wrong glue, everyone knows you need XYZ Style Adhesive or the thing will crash. Ya’ dummy.” No, everyone doesn’t fucking know that XYZ Adhesive was necessary. Nobody’s born with that knowledge! Never gloat when a person who tries what you have not, struggles to accomplish it!

Which brings me to one of my favorite accomplishments. I built a sailboat. Yes, it’s a small odd little contraption but the fucker sails like a beast. It carries me wherever I’m brave enough to point it. I haven’t yet drowned.

Did I post about the construction process? Not until after the thing floated. I’d worked too long and too hard; too many late nights pondering laminate strength, lofting measurements, and yes… XYZ Epoxies. It would have been a hell of a blow to mind, soul, and ego if it had sunk on it’s maiden voyage. If I’d posted about my progress in advance and then it sunk? Some fucknut on the internet would almost certainly have mocked me and I’d have been crushed!

I only posted a photo after I had succeeded. Even then it took me a whole lot of hemming and hawing to explain my motives; Check out the “Walkabout” menu on this blog. It was spring of 2019 when I finally let the cat out of the bag.

I added some Curmudgeonly advice about building a boat:

If you’re considering it, do it. Start immediately.
Don’t wait another day. You will have the time of your life.
However, if you just want to own a boat and not build one…
…run away from the workshop like your hair’s on fire.

So as much as building a boat was a wonderful thing for me, I faced the prospect of disaster quietly and in obscurity. Like I said, I’m not as brave as Filthie.

You might think I’m done, but I’m not. Folks of a certain mind (or addled mind) are always seeking the next adventure and Filthie’s struggles with balsa and aerodynamics has me thinking about adventure. There’s more! Stay tuned for the next post.

As far as I can tell there are several vax mandates. They’re all aimed at different populations based on President Potato’s ability to hassle that group. One to affect private employers with more than 100 employees… through the misuse of OSHA. One to affect military personnel… through the misuse of Commander in Chief powers. One to affect Federal Employees… because the President is the Chief Executive and most Feds work for the executive branch. It is that one that (I think) is somehow extended to contractors… which can probably be bent folded and spindled to apply to lots and lots of people you’d never think of as contractors. I’m not sure how it’s explained but airlines get Federal money and are Federally regulated and use Federally subsidized airports, but they are not contractors so… um I dunno maybe Biden has a magic wand? Another line of attack (I think) applies to medical people through some Federal medical system.

The point is there’s no official “because I said so that’s why” clause in the Constitution, so President Potato (or his handlers) using an array of methods.

The one that applies (somehow) to all medical people, just got a kick in the balls. Here’s the quick explanation from Raconteur Report:

Dogpiling onto yesterday’s federal court ruling blocking any vaccine mandates for healthcare workers in 10 states, today another federal judge expanded that injunction against the vaxx mandates to all 50 states.

So, 10 states said “fuck this let’s go to court”. The court said “those 10 states have a damn good argument that’s likely to yield a win for them… so the action is blocked until this thing is sorted out”. Then, and this is a new one to me, the court said “fuck it, you can’t pull this shit on the 10 that came to me for a ruling but you can’t do it on the other 40 states either. Let’s put all the chips on the table.”

Wow! I didn’t see that coming! But that’s what Federalism is supposed to do. In this case, the rights of people in 40 states are “protected” by the 10 that have balls. Or at least it does until some dipshit “activist” judge somewhere tries to say “it’s just a tax” and therefore a “penumbra which emanates” (from Brandon’s ass?) makes it OK.

That strange and unusual sensation you’re experiencing; it’s called winning. For the moment and for medical employees, it’s a win. We who care about freedom are not used to it. It’s nice. Raconteur Report sums it up:

In short, the federal judiciary is functioning as intended, and has told the Biden regime to go fuck itself.

And it only gets worse for Poopypants from here.

Also, every argument cited applies to federal workers, and all private employees. Vaxx mandates are effectively dead UFN.

Ahh… yes. It feels good to see folks remembering the difference between a President (you know, the Geriatric Zombie who got a record number of votes in a series of “DON’T FUCKING QUESTION THEM” statistically improbable events) and a King.

We don’t have a king. Thank God.

Also, this does not stop anyone who wants to from getting whatever vaccine they desire.

May we live in interesting times indeed.

A.C.

P.S. Hat tip to The Last Refuge.

American Thinker is on a roll and also they’ve got something to say that’s pretty darned optimistic. Click over there to read The Frogs Have Begun Fleeing the Government’s Boiling Pot. I cut out just a few excerpts, you should read the whole thing:

The federal government spies on every email, text, and call you make.

…

Now, whom does the government fear most under these conditions?  Hint: It is not the millions of illegal aliens who pour through our uncontrolled borders

…

Rather, it is the person who has no problem walking away from the government’s panopticon to go hunting in the woods, who decides to pay in cash, or who has woken up to the reality that the federal government is in the business of control.  It is the solitary American capable of questioning the government’s official State narrative and willing to think for himself who scares the bejesus out of the powers that be.

Yes!

I have to repeat it because it’s such a simple beautiful concept. The thing an oppressive Government fears most is the person who has no problem walking away from the government’s panopticon to go hunting in the woods. 

There is nothing to be found in the woods, save yourself; which is everything.

It’s not just a matter of leaving the panopticon… it’s a matter of leaving the thick morass of propaganda and letting your mind actually think. Take three days fishing off grid and you’ll return to the endless soup of propaganda with new eyes. You’ll do the unthinkable… you’ll ask questions. “If the vaccine is awesome, why do they care if I take it?” “If COVID is the worst thing since ever, why aren’t the streets filled with dead bodies.” “The Amish didn’t get the shot and the Israelis did, who’s doing better?” “What’s the real reason there’s 100+ cargo ships sitting off the coast of California? And how wise was it to make ourselves dependent on that long supply chain?” “How did we go from exporting oil in 2019 to begging OPEC for oil in 2021?” Left, right, or center; if you’re in the usual 24/7 marinade of propaganda it’s affecting you.

There’s more! The article has a wonderful discussion of how brittle and hollow a top down, created by force, society becomes. If you ever wonder why America in the 24th month of 2 weeks to flatten the curve seems barely capable of stocking the grocery store shelves… this is it. Coercion may get grudging minimal compliance but it never gets more. The Soviets learned that too. The USSR didn’t collapse because America went to war… it collapsed because the “Glorious People’s Widget Factory” couldn’t maintain society.

When coercion and surveillance are required to artificially keep society intact through a top-to-bottom tyrannical squeeze, the whole system is at risk of collapse from a single dissenting voice that chooses to throw sand into the rusting, brittle cogs.

This is why President Potato can shrug off a zillion new illegal residents charging across the border, ignores a doubling in the price of gas, and doesn’t give two shits if Seattle riots for the umpteenth time, yet he loses his shit over moms at a school board meeting or unarmed, truly peaceful, January 6th, protesters who walked in an open door and tracked mud on the carpet.

Like the author, I think the tide is turning. The “get an injection or we will punish you” approach was their Waterloo. When many thousand citizens simply said “no”… the whole thing ground to a halt.

Of course, the thing is not done. President Depends will never stop. His puppet masters will never stop. But they can’t move forward either. Australian cops are herding people into concentration camps. The American government would love to do it too… but can’t.

That puts us all, but especially the authoritarians, in the vapor locked twilight zone between an order that cannot be enforced on a free people and an small but significant number of people who are still free. Once Americans stopped oppressing themselves, all their devious plans stopped working. Jamming a third or fourth booster into a Prius driving masked up Karen won’t matter if Bob the mechanic is vaccine free and still in business. When some large and visible portion of society is still free the contrast becomes obvious.

Watching the government lay down fresh mandates and executive orders demanding that citizens submit to its will or suffer the consequences should be seen not as a sign of unstoppable power, but rather as evidence that its grip on power is spinning out of control.  For the time being, even its most important objectives — training Americans to accept forced injections and digital passports — have been put on hold because too much of the workforce has said, “No.”  What’s the lesson here?  That pushing back on the immoral and unconstitutional dictates of a government exercising illegitimate power works!  And, even more importantly, that the government is more afraid of the people than the people should ever be of their government!

What a breath of fresh air.