Adaptive Curmudgeon

Forgive me for I’m about to shamelessly pull esoteric data from Wikipedia. Relax, I’ll get to the point eventually; and I actually do have one.

There once was a phrase that meant “this thing doesn’t exist”. It popped up in second century Rome as “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno”. (I don’t speak Latin so I’m trusting Wikipedia spelled it correctly.) What that meant was “a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan“.

Everyone in Rome had seen a swan. Probably everyone in the whole damn Roman Empire had seen a swan. Every swan everyone had seen everywhere was white. Black swans simply didn’t exist. After the totality of human existence and all of known civilization examining every swan they saw, the science was settled. Black swans were impossible

A black swan was a good analogy for something that can’t exist. You could compare them to honest politicians, a pizza that has no calories, or drinking a bottle of bourbon without a hangover.

“Did the new politician reduce my taxes to zero?”

“Did you vote for a black swan?”

“Awwww… shit.”

We have similar sayings in modern America. When we want to say “yes, definitely” we can say “does a bear shit in the woods?”

“Yo, Curmudgeon, did you bring your hunting rifle?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

“Cool! Lets go.”

See? Certain phrases just work.

The black swan analogy was so good that it outlasted several languages, the rise and fall of empires, and the passing of various civilizations. The Romans kept using it for centuries. The saying persisted throughout the Medieval period. It persisted through the Renaissance. It was going strong in the Early Modern Period.

Then some asshole ruined everything.

In 1697, Dutch explorers found black swans in Australia. Nearly two thousand years of a really excellent analogy for “this thing doesn’t exist” and then some dude in a boat finds that exact thing. It ruined the whole analogy!

“I’m looking for an honest horse dealer and they’re as rare as a black swan.”

“Well actually, black swans were found in Australia.”

“Shut up Poindexter!”

Recently, the black black swan analogy has taken on a new and more interesting meaning. It’s good for describing something big and important that nobody sees coming because it’s never happened before. Nobody thought it possible or even considered it… right until it came knocking on the front door. When it happens and shocks the hell out of everyone, we retroactively think “gosh, we could have considered that outcome but we just didn’t know it was possible”.

It’s a useful concept. It’s sometimes used in risk analysis and economics. Also, there’s this one blogger that really wants you to grok the concept so he can move on to part 2 of this post.

Remember, the whole point of black swans is because nobody had ever seen one it was  very hard to entertain the possibility one could happen. The human mind isn’t wired that way. We expect tomorrow to be more or less like yesterday.

Yet things that we’ve never seen before occur all the damn time. It makes sense that it would. A thing that hasn’t yet happened isn’t removed from the realm of possibility. We just can’t quite manage that level of thinking.

Bears, presumably, still shit in the woods.

Stay tuned for part 2.

Two years ago I bought a two way satellite communicator. It goes against my grain to have such a gadget, but it was the right call.

It’s wise to develop a reasonable, measured, approach to self-preservation. Smart men acquire and learn to use the appropriate equipment for that purpose. (I carefully phrase myself to differentiate from a society that’s pants shitting hysterical about the smallest risk. Also, I don’t want to be lumped in with the “count on good luck” crowd. Fuck them both!)

Develop a “backup plan”. Pick what you need and have it ready; first aid kits, winches, firearms, a pack of matches, whatever. Most important is the mindset to understand and use these things. Keeping your own ass alive is the first requirement of an adult; don’t outsource core responsibilities!

Also “safety” doesn’t mean avoiding all risk. If you’re wearing a mask while weeping alone in your gated community you’re not safe, you’re dead. Safety means paying attention to risk, not being a whiny little bitch.

If you spend a fair amount of time in nature; especially if you’re like me and go  alone, you might want to consider a SpotX. I prefer the SpotX to more primitive PLBs because I can use it for non-emergencies. That develops trust and habits that will matter should shit get real. It’s not for everyone. It’s an expensive piece of kit. There’s a bit of lag when sending texts to satellites. It sucks as a GPS navigator. It has one main dedicated use and won’t play games or take a photo of the fish you just caught. That’s a selling point to me. Your cell phone does everything which means it does a lot of it poorly. In my opinion, phones don’t cut the mustard. They’re meant for domestic spying on mall walkers and not as a safety device for explorers. Just my opinion of course.

A key part of safety gear is maintenance of the gear AND the user. Use and test safety gear over and over. If it’s an electronic gadget, play with the settings and when it’s not important. Y’all already know this.

Maintenance is easy with a SpotX. I carry it around even on short hikes when I don’t expect to need it. Now that I think of it, that’s exactly the best time to have it. One should never expect to get in over their head! If so, why did you go there?

As for use and test, I occasionally send messages that aren’t important “This is Curmudgeon, I’m at location XYZ. I just took a shit on a tree stump. Just wanted you to know. Have a nice day.” This trains me to send messages. It trains my “response team” to receive messages. I include my own cell phone on the recipients list so I’ve formed a good idea how quickly the message gets to a cell phone that’s in service. (Good info to know when you’re not in a service area!)

People matter too. If you have nobody to call, what good is your ET Phone Home gadget? (There is an S.O.S. button that goes to a professional agency. I’ve never had to use that. I probably never will. That’s why I have lower level “I got a sprained ankle and need a hand” friends on tap. There’s a lot of small shit you could encounter well below the level of “send the Coast Guard with a helicopter” situations.)

One last note, our day to day communication system is amazingly global. Friendly contacts don’t have to be geographically adjacent. If I’m in Kentucky, I can easily benefit from a message sent to Alaska. A friend can make a hotel reservation or try to hunt up a motorcycle part or tell me if there’s a tornado watch at my location. They might render aid having never left their living room; possibly while I’m still trying to get to the road.

For two years the SpotX has been basically flawless. Unfortunately, during a recent “walkabout” it froze up. First time ever! Say it with me kids, this is why we test our equipment.

It had been fine just a few days ago but when I grabbed it to go on a hike, it wouldn’t fire up. I assumed the battery was dead but that wasn’t it. Eventually I had to do a reset; which means pressing the power and select buttons simultaneously for 12 seconds. That fixed it. It is fine again. No harm no foul.

Lesson learned: pressing the power and select buttons simultaneously for 12 seconds resets a SpotX. No big deal but I needed the internet to figure it out. I would never have been able to sit on a mountain top and “figure it out”. Who would?

In case you’re wondering, I went on my adventure that day without the SpotX. I’m cautious but not a wimp. Nor is SpotX my only “plan b”. I got so many backups to my backups I’ll run out of alphabet before I run out of options.

Anyway, if you buy one the reset procedure is a little bit of knowledge to store away. I’m probably going to put a note on the case so I never forget.

If you’re looking for a deeper two year long term review you’ll have to wait. Short version is that it has done everything I’ve asked of it every time in all conditions flawlessly for two years. What more could you possibly want? Drawbacks are that it’s a bit expensive and it feels like overkill for a short hike. The battery is very good but not magic. I’m not great about keeping it charged but that’s on me.

Remember, this ‘aint a cell phone. Cell phones are optimized for teenage dipshits posting selfies on TikToc. A SpotX is specifically designed to save your ass. Don’t confuse the two.

Also, the SpotX is just fine to turn off and ignore. A cell phone messes with your head and it’s hard to trust that it’s private even when it’s theoretically shut down. Given the choice between a handy rugged safety tool and a creepily invasive spying device that has a disturbing dopamine like mental effect on the user… you know my preference! Here’s my cell phone theme song:

Earlier posts about SpotX purchase and in use:

• • Gear Review: SpotX: Part 1
  • Gear Review: SpotX: Part 2: Philosophy
  • Gear Review: SpotX: Part 3: Details Q & A
  • Gear Review: SpotX: Part 4: More Q & A
  • Gear Review: SpotX: Part 5: More Q & A
  • SpotX Privacy / Rockwell, Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)
  • SpotX Pricing: Apples And Oranges
  • TW200: Gadgetry (Mounting a SpotX on a dirtbike.)
  • Flashlight Followup: Part 1 (Charging a SpotX with a dual purpose flashlight.)
  • Flashlight Followup: Part 2

I’m still on a walkabout. I’m still blogging with a pen. Who knows when it’ll get digitized? Time is less important at the moment. As with all things, it’ll be done when it’s done.

Not a minute before.

In the meantime, I’ve got a bit of Wi-Fi and a basic happy thought.

The future is now: Dehydrated camping food no longer sucks.

Sure, it’s not perfect. Sure, you can bitch about it. Sure, you’d rather have a nicely grilled salmon steak served on bone china with a glass of wine and fresh bread on the side. But… for what it is… it’s at least OK.

In my opinion, backpacking food has leveled up. Most of it is entirely palatable. It’s easier to prepare. Relatively speaking, it’s cheaper than it once was. It’s light to carry. It’s easy to clean up the mess afterwards. It’s a matured and all around superior product.

None of it tastes like the revolting constipation machine of a 1990’s MRE.

I for one am grateful for it. If I’ve got to live through a smart-phone addled, inflation ridden, backwards sliding, commie-ific, science fiction dystopic madhouse of domestic spying and faulty logic… at least I can appreciated the handy backpacking food. Yum!

Stay sane. Observe rule#32!Now for a bit of nostalgia. TV Dinners, as originally created, tasted like shit but the one thing they had was promise! We all wanted them to live up to their potential. The little tinfoil compartments for individual components… who didn’t love that? It was so damn classy! By comparison, spooning food from the ziplock pouch of a modern Mountain House seems a mite uncouth. That said, the old stuff  tasted like industrial by-products and the new stuff ‘aint half bad. It took decades but they finally made it work!

I’ve been writing blog posts every day. Have you enjoyed them? This is where I’ve been writing:

On second thought, the processing lag time is significant. It might take a while before they’re online. Please be patient. Thanks.

From Knuckledraggin My Life Away:

Pure gold! I’m just providing the first few lines to pique your interest. Click here to read it all:

Karen: Have you gotten your COVID shot yet?

Me: No, but I identify as a vaccinated person.

Karen: What does that mean?

Me: It means I am a vaccinated person trapped inside an unvaccinated body.

Karen: That doesn’t make sense!

Me: Don’t you deny my truth! That’s oppression! This space is supposed to be free of vaccine-ism.

Monsters like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin couldn’t take a joke. Neither can lesser demons like the Karen screeching at children in the playground, the bully in your HOA, or the human nullity in the HR department. Laugh well and laugh often; it’s for your own health.

I’m not a huge fan of official campgrounds. I prefer dispersed camping. Then again I’m not picky. Sometimes good enough is just fine.

I often want nothing more than a place to sit for the night and a place to have a little campfire. Here’s some life advice from the Curmudgeon; never let the desire for “awesome” stop you from having a “not so bad” trip.

Sometimes it’s just fine to park my ass at a campsite and forget all about the glorious, multi-week, outback trip that ‘aint in the cards at the moment. So, campsites have a place.

I bitch about the $25 (or whatever) fee but it’s worth it. I can set my tent up in 90 seconds (not exaggerating!) and my cot and mattress are the kind of luxury no backpacker has ever seen. I’ll grumble about a crowded campsite and then half an hour later realize I’m fat and happy sitting a tree somewhere and it’s all good. (With the exception of Yellowstone National Park. The cretins that run YP Campsites are just plain assholes! I dunno why that particular place sucks so bad? I assume they they breed their parkies in a pit of smug. A haughty obnoxious breed; formed from the clay of failed dreams and beaten hourly with a book of regulations regulations, they’re simply detestible in behavior and attitude. Yellowstone unleashes the most sexually repressed, humorless, badge sniffing, power tripping, fucknuts they can find. On who? On poor innocent tenters who just want to look at the pretty scenery. If all the parks in the Nation got together and had a competition over who’s staff had the most humorless pretentious fucksticks… the Yellowstone guys would be out in the parking lot writing up parking tickets.)

Anyway, parks generally don’t like you bringing your own firewood and I get that. It’s one of the few rules I actually accept as not some evil illuminati plan to rule the world. They’re attempting (mostly futilely) to cut back on invasive pests in forestland. No shit, that’s a thing. Historically it’s stuff like Dutch Elm Disease, Chestnut Blight, and White Pine Blister Rust. For those, the horse already left the barn. Right now, at least out East… there’s Emerald Ash Borer. I seem to recall a pine borer in the Black Hills too… though I forget the entomology at play with that one. Anyway, shit happens when you pick up stuff from one place and move it somewhere else. I don’t want to cause it.

I’m old enough to remember parks just having a pile of wood hanging around. Detritus from whatever landscaping and hazard tree removal they’d done. That was nice. “A tree fell across the bike path and we chopped it up. There’s a pile out yonder. Grab what you need.” My youth must have been an innocent time because that’s long gone. Now, parks charge ridiculous fees for a little bit of wood. Seven bucks for an armload? The market rate is $150 a cord! Seven bucks for a handful of sticks when a C-note will buy a chest high wall running 16′ linear feet? The mind boggles. Camping is historically supposed to be a good option when you’re poor; count on bureaucracies to mess that up.

I found a personal solution. I started by rooting through my scrap heap and found kiln dried dimension lumber. Aint’ no bugs in that. I also scrounged some pallets (which are also kiln dried and milled). This is all (as far as I can tell) totally allowed.

Here’s some scrounged raw materials:

Pallets pretty much suck in raw form. You need to disassemble the mess and get all the nails out without somehow stepping on one and getting tetanus. Good luck. I figure about 1/3 of the pallet stock was just too messy. I chucked that portion back in the pile. For the rest, I whacked the pallet stock into nice little chunks; carefully removing any hint of a nail. They’re all bone dry. There’s not a nail, nor a staple, nor anything else left. Any hint of crap and the piece got chucked. I wound up with perfect little bits of fuel for a Curmudgeon looking to percolate his coffee.

I sprung for a clean new trash can (park people are tense about such things so I’ll keep everything real clean).

I’m not sure how to strap the can in my truck without having the lid blow off. I’ll improvise and report back if it worked.

It ought to be enough for several little campfires. I’m feeling pretty clever about it. Now I’m off to kick back and read a book by the fire. Where? Anywhere but Yellowstone, because fuck those guys.

I occasionally go looking for sheds. I’m not very serious about it. I just wander around wherever I happen to be; listening to the birds and getting bit by ticks. Maybe I’ll find one, maybe I won’t. Sheds are just an excuse. Just like fishing ‘aint about fish.

More or less by chance, I found a little one. Can you see it?

I’m pretty sure this is from fall 2020. It’s pretty clean.

I’ll leave it hanging about the shop forever, and then probably put it to use in some manner I haven’t yet guessed. I was wondering if it would look cool or lame if I cut it up to sever as a couple cleats on my little sailboat. What do ya’ think?

I can’t remember where I saw this first so I can’t give a proper hat tip. Sorry.

Regardless, I love the story and I especially like the animation style.