Adaptive Curmudgeon

I’m Gen X. My youth was a more or less peaceful and sane time. At least it seemed like that. But I met plenty of what I called “Depression People”. I don’t mean that in a bad way or anything related to the serious mental illness of depression. I’m referring to people who’d come of age during The Great Depression; particularly those who’d been deeply impacted by it.

Even a clueless kid could see the scars. I had empathy and respect. What they endured, I cannot understand. I was carefully humble in their presence; even as I wallowed in the “spoiled rotten plastic plenty” of the 1970’s.

“Depression People” wasn’t all old people, just some. You could tell by how they acted. They hoarded the tiniest resource. I remember seeing a box labeled “small bits of string” that had, you guessed it, small bits of string. It wasn’t a person who needed the bits for some logical reason, say a fly tying hobbyist. This was a person who’d been through The Great Depression. It created a desire to preserve things they might need. I remember other things; jars of buttons, dull needles, bent nails. All available for a song in the 1970’s. All carefully stored in case the “plenty” of 1970’s disappeared.

Our current world is inconceivably wealthy; even for the poorest among us. Despite spastic baying on social media, we are the richest humans to ever exist. (I think the absence of want causes susceptible people to get funky. If you just ate a squirrel for breakfast because that’s all you’ve got, you’re based as hell. Oddly, that comes with a more contented disposition. A whiny barista clutching a thousand dollar phone, who squandered six years of college, and sports tattoos that cost more than my first car will twist themselves in knots over the fact that Bill Gates lives in a solid gold house. I do not habitually compare myself to either the rich or the poor. I’m merely me. Much of modern suffering is mere envy.)

Paul R. Ehrlich wrote the Population Bomb in 1968 and was more wrong about human starvation than any man in all of human existence. Starting right when he got famous for his dumbass book, for the first time in human history, starvation was almost eliminated. If there’s a famine in our modern world, it’s caused. In my lifetime, North Korea has had famines, as well as Haiti, Ethiopia, and (depending on your definition of such things) Cuba. (There may be others, I’m not a history professor lecturing about the details.) The point is that none of those tragedies were a crop failure. Terrible governance creates pockets of misery within a species that seems to have mastered the production of vast quantities of food. If you see a person in America that’s starving, it’s tragic and lamentable but it’s most likely serious illness (often mental issues such as anorexia or drug addiction). None of us waste away because peanut butter costs $50 a jar.

The Great Depression was the last time failure of the backyard garden might just cash an American’s chips. You’d need a heart of stone not to empathize. I wanted to give every geezer stashing bottle caps and cornflakes a big hug.

Of course, none of that affected me. Or did it?

The Great Depression hit in 1929, just shy of 100 years ago. My youth in the 1970’s is about as far away from now as The Great Depression was then. My youth had nothing like the wealth of now. It wasn’t all that bad but it was definitely not like now.

No regrets! I got to watch Star Wars in the theater (long before Disney piledrove a great story into the ground). In 1981 MTV was playing music on Cable TV. I didn’t get cable in 1981 but I would soon. Our house switched from black and white to color TV in time for me to discover the Hulk was green! It’s mostly good memories. If I suffered food-wise it was because my mom bought Tab soda, not because of a potato famine. (*Tab soda, anyone remember that? It was awful!)

Last year I was cleaning house. As a rural fellow, that means stacking shit in my truck, driving it to a landfill, and tossing it on the heap. Amid the trash cans and plastic bags was an old broom destined for disposal. Having emptied my truck, I grabbed it and swept my truck bed clean.

I am not Depression People. I swear I’m not. But the broom was handy so I kept it. It stayed in the truck ready for the next dump run.

It got increasingly battered but I kept using it. My son viewed the broom with suspicion.

“Why don’t you toss that thing?”

“It still does an ok job.”

He shrugged. I suspect his thinking was that I’m such a goddamn fossil that I experienced a real live black and white TV and reminisce about it. Thus, allowances must be made for my weird behavior.

The broom disappeared for a while. I’d used it to brush snow off some firewood. Then it reappeared under an old tarp. I tossed it in the truck again. By now it was frayed and the handle was slightly bent.

“You gonna’ toss that thing?”

“Nah, it still works.”

Several weeks ago, on another dump run, the handle finally got bent completely out of shape. We were chucking things at the dump. The broom had given its all. My kid was up in the truck bed kindly helping me toss something heavy. I forget what it was. He’s a grown man now and helps me because he’s kind and he knows I’ve been having health issues. I much appreciate his help.

He looked at the broom. The handle was nearly folded in half. He looked back at me.

“OK fine”, I admitted, “it’s shot.”

He cocked back his arm to send the broom to the dust heap.

“Wait!” I interrupted. “Can you spin off the handle? I could use a whisk broom in my shop.”

Sometimes you say something and realize you sound like a dumbass. I could almost hear his eyes rolling.

“Just chuck it.” I surrendered.

He hurled it in a flash, lest I come up with some other cockamamie reason to keep it. He looked satisfied and I had to admit he was, in this topic at least, the wiser of us two.

Am I like the Depression People?

A couple weeks later he told me “a broom was on the way”. It was a gift. Apparently he’d ordered delivery from Walmart. This based on DoorDash or some other technology that is not now and never will be at my rural location. It makes sense to buy a bunch of shit all at once if you’re paying delivery. Part of that was a cheap broom.

The thought of delivery from WalMart seems amazingly luxurious. But I don’t mock it. I once lived where I could get Chinese Food delivered. It never got old. One must enjoy things when they can!

Here’s where things get modern. For some reason, known only to computer algorithms, the broom was slated “for delivery” but it was delayed, coming from some other location. There was no additional fee for this.

We discussed the broom. Where was it coming from? Who knows? How was it going to get delivered? No idea? All we knew was the computer said it was “on the way”.

It arrived a few weeks later; in the mail. It came in it’s own box. It was packaged in three pieces. My son assembled it and handed it to me. I can’t remember how much he paid but it was a pittance. I think it was $6?

$6… for a whole damn broom. A broom delivered from God knows where it was manufactured to a mailbox a million miles away. There can’t possibly be much profit in that?

It’s lying in my truck bed right now. It’s not an heirloom, just a cheap broom that through some inconceivable reason was sent via mail. I’ll use the hell out of it and in due time I’ll chuck its battered hulk; probably in the same landfill where the other one went.

All for $6. The mind boggles.

There’s no way a $6 delivered broom is a sustainable model. We all sense such things. On the other hand, nobody knows what will come next and it doesn’t necessarily have to suck. People have been predicting collapse as long as I’ve been alive and it keeps not quite happening. I’ve predicted 7 of the last 4 economic downturns so my track record ain’t great.

It’s nutty that a broom would come in the mail for $6 but nobody knows what comes next. Will it be $150 handmade, organic, hippie approved, locally made brooms? Will they be heirloom quality? Such a broom would require that you care for and maintain it for a lifetime and maybe pass it on to the next generation. Or will it go the other way? Will SpaceX drop one from space for $3? Will it be the bare minimum number of molecules, fall apart in a week, and come in six packs? Disposa-brooms?

I’ve no idea.

Does some portion of each successive generation become “Depression People”?

I do not have a box labeled “bits of string”. I do have a bunch of campfire wood culled from old pallets. I’m damn near there aren’t I?

No shit, there I was…

I was sleeping in a screen tent on a warm, still, moonless, September night; hooked up to my Darth Vader mask and snug as a bug in a rug.

The forest decided to get cheeky. The forest that I think of as my domain just flat out was alive with critters. Normally, I don’t care. This time I didn’t care either; as I explained to the deer, I’m the predator out there.

However, I was mentally prepared for National Park Campsite levels of “nature” and got “Curmudgeon’s backyard” levels of nature. I didn’t see it coming.

Sometime after I drifted off in the most heavenly sleep, I was awakened by… I have no idea. At first I thought it was a fox. Then I thought it was a screech owl. Finally I admitted I had no clue what was making that weird lonesome sound. For all I knew it was a Yeti. Not that I was worried, but I was baffled.

Then my phone lit up. Mrs. Curmudgeon had texted me. I must admit she was probably worried about me out there… but also the sound had woken her up.

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “What the hell are you doing out there?”

Me: “That’s not me, it’s a critter.”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Me: “I haven’t either. Maybe it’s a fox or an owl? If it comes into my screen tent I’ll shoot it and then we’ll know.”

By that time whatever it was had finished doing whatever it had been doing. I expected to ruminate on the oddity that after all these years I still sometimes hear a thing I can’t identify. Instead, my Darth Vader mask and fluffy sleeping bag had me asleep in minutes.

After some further time (I didn’t have a watch and didn’t consult my phone) another deer showed up. It was just as pissed off as the last one. (I think it was a doe though.) It snorted and carried on like it was going to trample my screen tent. I took off the mask and said “fuck off Bambi” and it split.

Good grief. It was like sleeping in a zoo! Even so, it was quite peaceful. I laid still just enjoying the universe. The moon had come out, but only partially.

Something else wandered by. It had the good sense to ignore me and I reciprocated. It was probably a porcupine but I didn’t have my glasses on so I have no idea. It could have been a Mastodon for all I know.

Then I woke up again because the coyotes were howling. I hear both wolves and coyotes from my house; the coyotes are more common. Coyotes have distinct “group howls” and I try to categorize them. Most impressive is the angry “this is our territory and step off hoser” howl, followed closely by the “we think the train is more coyotes and we don’t like it” howl. There’s the somewhat more feral “we’re hunting and feel particularly hard core” howl. Sometimes there’s the “pups are learning and not yet good at it” howl; which is just hilarious. Then sometimes they go completely apeshit. I call this the “we’re having a rave” howl.

They were absolutely spastic. I pictured disco balls and coyotes taking ecstasy. It was the sound of punchbowls filled with tequila and monster trucks crashing into swimming pools. They were having the biggest party of the year.

As I listened, chuckling to myself, I heard our dog (which was in the house and surely sleeping on the bed with Mrs. Curmudgeon) start barking its fool head off. Great Pyrenees are guardian dogs. They are bred not to herd sheep but to kill wolves and coyotes that need killin’. Our dog is a complete creampuff but it’s still a guardian. Some vestigial notion in its mind causes it to bark aggressively from within the warm comfy house… like a massive,og-fur-shedding, fire alarm. This, I suppose in it’s dog mind, will summon me, who is not afraid of anything that goes bump in the night. Our routine is that I check the door and tell the dog she’s done well. The dog literally won’t shut up until it sees me inspect the situation.

The cell phone lit up again.

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “The goddamn dog won’t stop barking. What are those coyotes doing out there?”

Me: “It sounds like they’re doing lines of cocaine.”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Can you shut them up?”

Me: “I’m not leaving my warm fluffy sleeping bag to don night vision shit and go do tactical warfare with coyotes. I’m on the DL list, remember?”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “The dog is freaking out.”

Me: “Go to the door, peek out like you’re a super hunter sniper, tell the dog she did well. The dog lives for this.”

I don’t know if she really did that, but the dog eventually stopped barking and the coyotes had stopped howling. By then I had to take a leak and stepped out of my screen tent.

Right into the vision of another deer… that promptly tore off for the State line.

It was an interesting night. I think I could camp at the most awesome National Parks in America and see less wildlife than I did that night.

But I still had fun. I drifted off after each animal did it’s thing. I didn’t wake up until dawn.

It was foggy but none of my gadgets got wet with dew. I thought about staying in my cot and sleeping late. Unfortunately, the chipmunks were terrorizing each other in the nearby oak tree and they decided on my behalf I’d slept enough.

I started a fire and began to brew coffee. Mrs. Curmudgeon texted to check that I was ok. I said I had fresh coffee and she showed up, dog in tow, very quickly. We sat in the shade of the trees, sipping coffee and watching the dog make a mess of my carefully piled firewood sticks. It was the perfect ending to a perfect campout. Sure it was a short and lame campout, but I’ll be damned if it wouldn’t take a week in the wilderness to see (or hear) that much nighttime critter activity.

I wanted to stay out another night but a few hours later a weather front blew in and I decided to refrain from pressing my luck. I packed my shit, joined the “real world”, and accepted that I’m not going camping again for a little while.

It was the only night I’ve spent “under the stars” in 2025, which is just about the fewest I’ve done in a decade. But I’ve got plans for October. I’ve planned another mild campout, this time with my hot tent. Snow isn’t out of the question, which won’t be a problem if I’ve setup the stove. The amusing part is I’ll be at a campsite. It won’t be nearly so wild and woolly as my yard.

I did it! I did it twice in two consecutive Septembers! How awesome is that?!?

Last year, I’d had a righteous adventure riding/camping the WYBDR. I was posting about it (many posts in series as I do). In the middle of posts I dropped everything and rode off for a short trip of what I called “tame motocamping”.

I was gleeful to interrupt discussion of one campout with the activity of another. It just seemed funny and also fulfilling to do that. It’s how I came up with the post title: We Interrupt Discussing This Camping Trip For… A Camping Trip.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how even one night doing a lame, tame, in-the-backyard, night was good for the soul even if it was a tiny bit of stress on the body. I remembered how last year had turned out and… whoosh, It just happened. I autopiloted my ass right back out into the yard and setup a tent without really thinking about it. (Yes, this time I used a tent, it has gotten a bit colder.)

This time it was nothing special. No aggressive bucks. No mental and spiritual consultation with Marcus Aurelius or Teddy Roosevelt. [Spoiler alert!] There was no unidentifiable yowling in the distance. The coyotes didn’t throw a kegger. Etc…

It was entirely unremarkable… which is fine with me!

I’m almost ecstatic that I’ve maybe turned a corner. Fretting over a “lost” summer and lack of camping in my favorite month gave way to interrupting one campout with a second. Not bad. Not bad at all.

A.C.

P.S. I want to give a hearty “thank you” to all the nice people who responded with positive vibes and useful info about CPAPs. Everyone says the internet is filled with goons and jerks. But not here. I might have received criticism and mockery but I didn’t. Y’all are the nicest, most pleasant and supportive folks ever! In general the world needs positivity and in specific I did too. I very much appreciate it. Thanks!

As I’ve said, my house is in a rather natural environment. It’s not even remotely urban. It’s not suburban. In fact, the whole area is nicely uncrowded. My county is not “unpopulated”, but I can drive to “no-shit, not overstating the case, actual, textbook definition, real- life, unpopulated” places pretty easily. (Normally I’d be in such a place during September!)

Live like this long enough and you become a different kind of person. I crave the silence and love the space. When the foliage is gone and the wind is just right I sometimes see a glimmer of my neighbor’s pole light in the distance; I immediately wonder if I need to move. I’ve lived in cities but now I’m not that guy. I don’t really know how I did it, only that I won’t ever again.

The side effect of this is that my yard is probably a thousand times “wilder” than a campsite in most National Parks. I forget that. Wildlife started encroaching on my dark little universe. A deer, possibly a very stupid deer, approached the obvious, bright, light of the lantern. It snorted aggressively; as if to say “this is my path to the apple tree, get your ass off my path”.

I said nothing, which pissed it off more. I didn’t move and the air was still. The deer was baffled. It pawed the ground, as if to charge. It had antlers. It’s going to have to get a grip on it’s testosterone or it’ll be whacked on opening day (not too many weeks in the future). Possibly it’ll get shot by me. “You are prey.” I announced. “I’m not.”

The deer had no idea what the silent brooding thing under the lantern was. But it sure as hell knew human talking when it heard it! It turned itself inside out trying to run for its life. It tore off into the forest like a missile. You could hear it crashing through the brush for several hundred yards. I wish him well. Then again, in a few weeks the cycle of life rolls around and we will play humanity’s most ancient game. I’m in no condition to go thrashing through the forest like Rambo, but I’ll still hunt. I’ll shoot that buck (legally) if he continues acting unwisely enough to get in my scope. Marcus would approve. Teddy would’ve attacked the buck with a knife right there in the dark; just to see if he could take it.

It was time to turn in. Here’s where I admit to a medical detail. I need a CPAP. It pisses me off to need anything but it is what it is. It’s not a minor thing either. I was so ill and the CPAP so helpful that the fucking thing is perhaps the most important physical object I possess.

I’m well aware that I have only one CPAP. If I fuck up and break it, the medical bureaucracy and the cretins at my insurance company will jointly form a circular firing squad and start the game of foot dragging. Acquiring a replacement CPAP is possible but it would entail significant delays. It worries me. Damage that machine and I’ll suffer without it for weeks or a month or more. I do not want to deal with that kind of shit. (At least for now. I wonder if I’ll wean myself off it in a few years? There’s always hope.)

Like so many things, this is a place best filled with gratitude. The dumb little plastic box winched my ass out of a grave. (I took a lot of meds, some of them surely helped. I’m not so sure about the doctors I consulted. They meant well but human fallibility seems baked in the cake. They seemed to mostly rule things out based on expensive tests; which was much appreciated. They weren’t particularly good at forming hypotheses that pointed toward true causes.) So if a football sized gadget is such a miracle, it’s rude of me to complain but I still do. Marcus and Teddy would tell me to shut the fuck up. I get it. If you’re not dead, don’t bitch about why. I’m working on it.

Sorry about that digression but it was necessary to the story. The thing is, I’m unreasonably uptight about the CPAP. It must be protected at all cost. It must have all the power it’ll ever need. (I’ve had one extended power outage once since my dependency on it and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.)

Knowing how important it is, I bought an Anker SOLIX C1000. I bought it literally before I had the CPAP in my hands. I’m not saying you need a battery device to go camping, obviously you don’t. But if you have a CPAP and it’s a big deal to you, buy a battery device yesterday. You don’t have to buy exactly what I bought (there are dozens of similar devices), but get something. Mine protects my CPAP constantly. Grid down is the worst possible time to indulge medical weaknesses!

The Solix works very well. I’ve tested it carefully. It can easily run one CPAP for two nights. That’s two long, complete, sequential, night’s uninterrupted sleep with no charging in between (there’s a cushion of juice left over, I might ration it to three nights). It can do that while handling mundane crap like charging your cell phone. Mine also has a light (as most do) and that doesn’t seem to unduly stress the battery. I intend it for both indoors and out. If it’s plugged into AC and the grid goes down, the CPAP won’t skip a beat. If it’s not plugged into AC and just sitting there silently doing its thing; the CPAP still won’t skip a beat. In case you’re wondering, it’ll charge in an hour from any standard AC outlet. It also has a cigarette lighter plug and can charge that way. It’s also setup to accept solar panels but I don’t have that kind of scratch to spend. BTW: It charges in an hour via AC on the “low” setting. There’s a “fast” setting if for some inconceivable reason you needed that. I don’t use it because I don’t want to unduly stress the crappy old circuits in my crappy old house.

The battery is just one layer in my defenses. I acquired an auxiliary 12V cord (which insurance balked at so I paid cash) for the CPAP. I can therefore run it off most vehicles (just as I can also charge the Solix) though in either case you’d best be running the motor. I suspect a CPAP could kill a car battery overnight(?). I also have two generators; a whole house powering white elephant PITA and a small handy reliable 2000KW Honda clone (Powerhorse). I’m planning ahead. I ain’t going easy into that dark night.

This was the first “real world test” and I was sleeping in screen. It was humid. There would be a lot of dew in the morning. Everything would be soaked. I gingerly covered the Anker with a rain jacket and the CPAP with another rain jacket. I didn’t bother covering me with anything but an old sleeping bag. I’ve been wet with dew before, it’s no big deal. I don’t matter, it’s the gadgets that mattered.

I grimaced at the jumble of jackets. “This isn’t going to work.” I thought.

Then I settled back onto my cot, pulled up my light sleeping bag, and completely changed my mind. I felt as cozy as I’d felt in months. I was home. I like camping. A cheap sleeping bag in a screen tent suits me. I was pleasantly surprised how quiet the CPAP was. Nearly inaudible. The Solix is silent as well.

Something rustled past me in the dark, unaware of me and my Darth Vader mask. A good sign.

I fell into the best kind of sleep; the slumber of those who’ve let go.

Stay tuned for Part 5.

My yard, so close to the “civilization” of my house, is far more empty and quiet than any State Park. I forget that I live every day closer to nature than the average “outdoorsy” American experiences when they park their Subaru at a trailhead. I lit a Coleman lantern and hung it on a branch. It was a moonless night and the starlight, often so grand in my light pollution free sky, was obscured by clouds. It was pitch black. The air was warm and close and very still; a bit claustrophobic.

I tried to read the same book I haven’t completed reading for years. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It’s a good book but it’s not a page turner. Much of it is fairly obvious. I often read a passage and think “no shit Sherlock”. It floats around on the dash of my truck only half noticed.

When I was dating Mrs. Curmudgeon (a time so long ago that trucks had clutches) my truck’s dash had a battered and dusty copy of The Death of Ivan Illich by Tolstoy. If that wasn’t a red flag to scare her off nothing would. (I eventually waded through Tolstoy. I think some long forgotten English teacher assigned it. It wasn’t a good book.) The important part is Mrs. Curmudgeon married me, either despite or because of my bad taste in books.

I was only 100 yards from my house but the Coleman lantern might as well be the solo beacon in a planetary sea of darkness. I pondered one of the half remembered, partially read, chapters of Meditations. My man Marcus goes to great lengths ruminating over the proper Stoic way to face death. Don’t bitch. Don’t make a fuss. You always knew it was going to end.

How’d I been doing? Meh. This spring I went all out on medical shit, bludgeoning my way through layers of uncaring, unresponsive, unskilled medical bureaucracies. Accelerating timelines, bitching out labs that dragged their feet producing results, dropping one doctor for another if one of equal skill was available sooner, driving miles and staying overnight in hotels I could ill afford, to get tests and treatments now instead of “scheduled three months from next whenever”. I burned my emergency fund. What is money if not a thing to use? I refused to let the system distract me into the weeds or delay me for months. I grilled doctors about drug interactions, sought second opinions, and paid well for unpleasant tests. I did in six weeks, what the bureaucracy would’ve dragged out for eighteen months… or forever.

Did it work?

Yes.

It did work. I spent lavishly of money, time, effort, and attention but it did indeed work. I’m on the mend.

Sitting in the dark, by a tiny campfire, I measured myself according to the ethics of the most powerful human on earth of 1,800 years ago. Marcus was no bitch. He was a conqueror of worlds. He wouldn’t fold at a minor illness unless it was unavoidable. If he could do better he’d try to fix his situation. Just as I had. This in counterpoint to Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. That weirdo went half mad seeking the elixir of eternal life. In so doing he stained his otherwise amazing life story with a pathetic last chapter. Spoiler alert, Qin Shi Huang died just like any other mortal man.

Marcus died during a military campaign, probably in a tent, possibly of the plague. I’m sure Marcus would rather have been cleaved with a barbarian’s axe, foreshadowing some overwrought Sabaton lyric. But there’s no record he bitched about cruel fate. For that matter Teddy started off behind the eight ball physically. He worked his ass off to overcome dire health issues. That’s probably why he grew to become an absolute animal. Teddy was damn near unkillable until he died in his sleep, no muss no fuss. That Teddy wasn’t ripped in half by a grizzly isn’t because he didn’t give the grizzly a fair chance. Neither Teddy nor Marcus fretted over how, or even when, but they used now like the bosses they were.

Tough guys to follow. I’m doing my best. I haven’t gone off the deep end of hype and fashion. I’m not drinking vegan Kombucha from Whole Foods on my way to Yoga class. (Though I haven’t had a glass of bourbon in a while and I miss it.) So long as I’m cutting firewood for exercise instead of posing in spandex at the gym I think my soul is safe. I can’t camp (yet!) but that’s by my definition… which isn’t a common baseline. In a year I’ll be “adventuring” again. Sooner maybe. But I’m not in charge. Fast gains fade into slower gains. In my math-mind I say I’m approaching full recovery asymptotically.

Perhaps next September I’ll be camping in some dispersed spot that most people would call “God forsaken desolation”. I’ll once again convene a performance evaluation with Teddy and Marcus. I don’t think they’ll be too disappointed with my methods or goals.

That’s enough philosophizing for today. Stay tuned for Part 4.

The weather was great and I wanted to go camping (despite not really being “up to it”.) So I announced to Mrs. Curmudgeon “I’m going to go set some shit on fire” and sauntered out the door. This caused absolutely no drama. She’s used to me. I have a genuine forest that’s all my own. It had rained recently so it wasn’t high fire danger. Given pretty much unlimited campfire wood and a place to use it… why not have a campfire?

Ten minutes later I was sitting in a lawn chair next to a very tiny fire. A storm knocked down several trees, some in my yard. I’ve been beavering away at one of them, processing firewood in tiny increments. (I call it my “workout routine”.) The place it fell made for a fine little clearing amid other shading trees. My coming and going (hauling the debris away) had cleared it fairly well.

I didn’t want to damage any tree roots so I parked a Redcamp Wood Burning Folding Camp Stove on a hefty chunk of wood. (Don’t fret, it didn’t burn into its base, which will become firewood in due time anyway. I was merely sparing root damage on already stressed trees.)

It wasn’t cold. Logically, I didn’t need a fire. Psychologically, I did.

I had incomplete ideas about cooking brats but I wasn’t hungry. I just basked by the little fire. My dog loves camping. She defines it as me sitting by a fire and cooking treats she’ll get to sample. She rolled in the leaves; happily picking from the pile of firewood I’d gathered and chewing her selections to bits.

That’s all it took; sticks, a match, a chair, a dog. It was a good day.

Mrs. Curmudgeon eventually texted “If you’ve got a campfire, I’d like to join you. Where?” I texted “in the yard”. Imagine our strange technological world. We send mini-telegrams halfway around the world, to get snooped on and archived by our own government, only to land not 100 yards away. I wandered to the garage, gathered a spare lawn chair, and returned to my post; monitoring the little fire.

Even after decades of marriage I don’t always pick up the feminine vibe. Mrs. Curmudgeon can sense a mosquito from 20 miles, swears it will find her immediately, and often explains to me that this is unacceptable. I hardly notice bugs… because I trained myself not to. Mosquitoes are like rain or lightning, things that happen in our turbulent planet. Things happen with or without us and that’s all there is to it. Approval by over-clocked apes with awesome power at their command and mind control devices in their pockets is neither sought nor required. I take measures about mosquitoes but if I get bit, so what? (Another thing about which I should be thankful, malaria isn’t endemic where I live.)

I gradually realized Mrs. Curmudgeon expected more than a chair. I setup my Gazelle G5 screen tent and mostly ignored it. I also had my little shortwave radio playing (just FM). By the time I’d gathered a second pile of sticks for the dog to wreck, Mrs. Curmudgeon was there.

She brought food! Holy shit! Food delivery to a campfire?!? How sweet is that? We ate in the warm breeze while the dog begged indiscreetly and got more treats than any dog needs.

Now I had momentum. If there’s a screen tent and it’s warm, why go back in the house? I dragged out my cot, mattress, and a cheap sleeping bag (no need for a “good” bag in such mild conditions). The sun was about to set. Mrs. Curmudgeon detected a mosquito and disappeared in the house, trailed by the dog. I was alone.

That’s enough typing for today. Stay tuned for Part 3.

September is my favorite month for outdoor activities. Missing it sucks!

How a year can change a man. Here are a couple images from just a year ago. This is from the WYBDR (story link):

This is from roughly the same time period. It’s a totally different motorcycle in a completely different place (story link):

Wanting something doesn’t make it so. I’ve taken a hit in 2025 that puts me below my level in 2024. It’s naught but a fact. Unlike current society, I’m not at war with truth.

Also, every time I bitch I know that I’m being insufficiently grateful. Gratitude is key! I’m alive. I should be overjoyed! I am overjoyed. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d see autumn.

It’s hard to quantify such things. Maybe I was overreacting. Medical people, soaked in death, decline, and misery, are cynical and worn down. Their baseline is not mine. A doctor might have a dozen patients enduring chemo and many others on the way out for things that can’t be treated at all. Maybe they did time at the ER; frantically patching together bits remaining after car wrecks and farm accidents. They’ve witnessed situations I can’t fathom. I don’t blame them that they didn’t fret much over me. As for the rest of the system, the goal seems to be to shoo the bearded whiner out the door. In the facility, I’m a hassle, if I die one step beyond their parking lot it won’t mess up their stats. Plus, a man can endure a lot more suffering for a lot longer than I was willing to ponder. Thank God (literally) I didn’t have to plumb those depths.

So, if I want to camp but don’t feel up to my usual method of dispersed camping in the middle of nowhere, what should I do? Bitch about it? Well… I do that but it’s definitely uncool. Should I dial back to a State or National Park? Good answer but I’m not ready for that either. So I did what I could. The words of Teddy R are always in my head. They come out in times like these.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

It was a glorious warm September day. I quit letting “ideal” be the enemy of “good enough”. I muttered, “Fuck this, I need a campfire.” And headed for the door.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Background: I installed a flagpole around 2001. The pole is aluminum but the mechanism had plastic bits. The plastic gradually wore out. A storm finally broke the very worn pieces. I can’t complain, it held up for 15 years.

What I did: In April I made my very first “invented from scratch & fully utilitarian” 3d print. I designed and printed replacements for the broken plastic bits. I was rather proud of myself. Was it worth the effort? I think so. I consumed a little over $4.50 in filament (counting an initial misprint). The equivalent parts would have cost $58 plus tax & shipping.

Nice start but…

…how has it worked out?

That’s what today’s post is about. I doubted my n00B 3d design skills were up to the task. I was right. There’s almost nowhere more extreme than the top of a flagpole in my homestead’s climate. A few months after installation a killer storm nuked one of the two parts I’d made. (It also knocked out the power for 15 hours!)

I’m not upset. Every failure is a lesson in how to improve.

Upon inspection, the part that broke had the stress of not just one flag but two. Makes sense that it gave out first.

The second observation is that it broke exactly where an experienced 3d guy would’ve predicted. I should have seen it coming!

3D printers lay down thin, precise, layers of filament. The layers fuse together to make the “in the round” object. Thus the term “fused filament fabrication” (FFF) or “fused deposition modeling” (FDM). This means 3D printed objects have planes of greater and lesser strength… just like wood.

[Warning: Rant Ensues:

For the few 3D naysayers out there “grain” is not a deal killer. FDM’s “grain” is very much like wood. All materials have good and bad characteristics (and sometimes the same characteristic is “good” or “bad” depending on what you’re making). Material properties are merely a fact of life, not a reason to ditch 3D.

Pine has grain. Vertical pine studs create strong walls. Horizontal pine studs aren’t strong enough. Pine logs, peeled and laminated, become plywood. Now it’s dimensionally stable on two planes but weak on the third. None of this is a flaw with wood (or FDM) it’s just details. For some reason this eludes anti-3d print people.

So long as I’m being grumpy, I also note people flake about 3D printing efficiency. It’s pretty high but some filament is wasted. Folks who shrug at a pile of chips under a CNC machine or the sawdust under a chainsaw, freak out when they learn a 3d printer “poops” waste when switching colors. I have no idea why.

Anyway, understanding “grain” in FDM is my idea of “fun”. It’s rising to the real world from the “frictionless constant” of theory. Forgive me if I’m preaching to the choir. I’m sure similar things were said by the first guy that rolled a Model T through town in a time of horses.

/Rant off.]

Anyway, here’s an excerpt from the April post:

…the “middle anchor” …has two anchor points. Here it is in Fusion 360.

Here it is in the slicer. (Notice the “tree” supports that hold up the “overhang” on the two loops.)

Here it is in real life.

Do you see my mistake? In retrospect it’s obvious! I carefully aimed to reduce support material. (That “efficiency” thing again. Reduced support means the object consumes less filament during printing.) Printing in that orientation didn’t address “grain”.

Based on the use, where would be the most stress? On the top loop where it’s anchored to the highest flag. Where’s the weakest point of a stack of horizontal layers? On the top of the top loop.

Where did the object break? On the top loop; right where it’s weakest. Duh!

Life is more interesting in the real world. There’s always something you didn’t anticipate.

[At this point I turned my garage inside out looking for the broken part to illustrate the situation. I couldn’t find it. THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS WHEN I CLEAN MY GARAGE! Then I found the broken part still on the flagpole. I apologized to the garage.]

Here’s the image. It snapped like a knife cut it:

I could make an improved design, but I decided not to do that. I got excited about a “controlled experiment”!

I pulled up the old file and loaded the rest of the same spool of PETG. I setup a print of the exact same object changing only the orientation. My plan is to put the new object back up the exact same flagpole. Accepting the caveats of unpredictable storms and seasonal variation, I’ll see how long the object lasts with nothing changed but the “grain”.

Place your bets!

Another image, this time with supports. (The black layer is PLA plastic which doesn’t adhere to the red PETG. This makes it easy to snap off the supports.)

Dammit! I fucked up.

I changed orientation and hit print. Seems logical but I forgot a detail. In mid-print I realized I’d left “infill” on default (I think it’s 10%).

Just about any solid made from a 3d printer is partially void. Plastic is strong enough to do internal voids so why wouldn’t you use that feature? (Note: This is not possible with casting, injection molding, or milling.)

Did I do that last time? Nope! Here’s my own text from last time:

I made it thicker, beefed up the infill and other slicer settings, and so forth. I think it looks better than store bought.

My new print with only 10% infill (90% of the object’s volume is void) is going to be shit! My “controlled experiment” was officially the same level bullshit as the media reporting the newest thing that cures cancer in rats!

Rather than give up I decided to burn money (actually filament and not much at that) to learn. (Is not learning the whole point?)

I made it again. Still the same model, still horizontal orientation, but this time with 50% infill and I switched from boring “grid” infill to snazzy “gyroid”. There are mathematically inclined nerds who spent their life on these patterns. If awesome gyroid infill is an option, it only seems logical to try it.

Here’s the finished product (of course you can’t tell the kind of infill by just looking at it):

Just for fun I “destructive tested” the 10% infill, horizontally printed object. I twisted it by hand. Indeed it snapped along the different “grain”, just as it should. In this case, I’m not sure the weakness matters. There would be a flagpole in the center so the torsion I applied by hand would be impossible. Maybe I’m overthinking it?

I took a photo of the two broken parts, to compare how they broke. The right broke in real life over months and the on on the left was mangled by it’s creator for fun. Maybe I should read Frankenstein again?

As soon as the horizontally oriented, 50% infill object came off the printer, I hoisted the flag. There’s no better test than the real world.

I was really impressed with how nice the Milwaukee Packout labels came out. (Sometimes a little thing can make your whole day.)

I decided to make more. This time I made “handles” for Packout boxes with pull out drawers. These come in various flavors; 2, 3, or 4 drawers and even some with unequal drawers. All I own are modules with 3 identical drawers. They look like this:

I grabbed a model from MakerWorld and jammed out several handles.

Time for a nerd note. I didn’t make the model myself. Someone named “marioalvarez.214t” posted it as “Packout Drawer handle”. Whomever that is did all the brain work and deserves accolades, not me. However it’s licensed under “Creative Commons License”. There are several flavors of the license and the creator chose one which allows me to make as many copies as I want, modify as I see fit, and even sell them*. I hope this post acknowledges the author adequately, I’m not trying to screw anyone. I encourage anyone who wants to go search the model up on MakerWorld and get the data “from the horses mouth”**.

*Now there’s an idea! Anyone who wants to buy a handle or three, shoot me an email.

**Do people say “from the horses mouth” anymore? It’s meant as a compliment and attestation of veracity but I live under a rock so what do I know?

I made up four of them (inserting my own text and whatnot). I printed with cheap red PLA with cheap black PLA letters. PLA is not particularly awesome or exotic but I suspect it’s plenty good enough and if I need to reprint with better materials it won’t be a big deal. The print plate looked like this:

It takes a little practice to get the old black plastic handles off. I had to resort to watching a YouTube video (how embarrassing!) Once I got the hang of it, I could tear off the old handle in maybe 90 seconds with minimal swearing. Should you try the same thing you’ll figure it out by the second handle.

Here’s a comparison of the new handle (fresh off my printer) and the old handle (pried out of a two year old Packout).

Tearing out the old handle is a fairly brutal operation, but you can insert the new handle nice and easy with a C-clamp.

The end result looks so damn clean!

BTW: I seriously considered making a set of “wiseass” handles. I like the idea of a workshop where the drawers are labeled “skulls of my enemies”, “cans of whoop ass”, and “last fucks to give”. However, my workspaces are plenty chaotic enough without a layer of sarcasm muddying things up. Shame, because it would be hilarious.