Adaptive Curmudgeon

There are occasional bits of knowledge that I want to preserve, as much for myself as for the blog. Cramming them in the sidebars was getting unwieldy so I created a new page; Quotes & Poems. It is there that I’ll paste them, in no particular order.

Odds are you’ve seen everything there in some other venue. If not, read ’em and ponder. There’s some good shit out there and it behooves us to retain it.

I have changed my tagline. It was this:

“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.“

It’s a wise thought by Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. He wrote it sometime in the first or second century AD.

It was appropriate when I put it up (in 2016 I think). I posted it early in what turned out to be three years (and counting) of screaming shitstorms. Half the voting populace faced cognitive dissonance and they were not handling it well. It was time to for the wise to withdraw and maintain. I was sure the situation would abate.

I was wrong. They’ve utterly failed to work through it. I didn’t see that coming.

I expected most folks to calm down within a few months. Adults learn to deal with adverse knowledge. We suffer through death of loved ones, divorce, health setbacks, lost dreams, bad decisions, aging, and our own mortality. Who thought so many of our people would go full retard after losing the power their team had held for eight years? I thought losing power (even to someone who’s easily perceived as a jackass) would be pretty minor.

“You’re going to die.”

“Meh.”

“An Orange real estate dude from New York City won the election.”

“Rage, anger, and caterwauling. Impeach, impeach, impeach! Burn the world to ash!”

Nope… didn’t see it coming.

Heck, I could get used to rule by Martian space ninjas faster than many have adapted to the Orange Menace. I’m not saying I’d like to be ruled by Martian space ninjas, only that I couldn’t possibly freak out every damn day over it. One day I’d get out of bed and say “we’re ruled by Martian space ninjas, so what?” Apparently that’s not universal. Who knew? I truly overestimated people’s ability to adapt and grow.

The quote was my gentle reminder that drama llamas are bad for you. They can carry on just fine without your participation and it’s best to keep them at arm’s length. As your mom famously said “if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” (In the last three years that question seems more ominous. Hint: the answer was supposed to be “no mom, I’m not a dumbass”.)

At any rate, keep your head and don’t let the psychos project their turmoil into your soul. Also, I was quoting a man from 2000 years ago (though I don’t speak archaic Greek) in the hopes it would offer perspective. This has happened before. It will happen again. Only the myopic think one election in one of a hundred and fifty countries in one year of several millennia of human existence is the proper and reasonable time to lose your shit.

The new tagline seems appropriate to the late phase of what looks to be a minimum of four years of raging insanity:

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

This is Voltaire. A French dude that had a lot of wise thoughts rolling around in his noggin. He died after the American revolution and (thankfully for him) and shortly before France tried their own version but went off the rails and self-immolated.

The point is, this is a 250 +/- year old quote. It’s not some Millennial nitwit that thinks history started after Pac Man was invented. This isn’t life advice from a limp noodle that can’t shift a manual transmission and has a degree in student loan accumulation. It’s a great thinker from long ago. Perspective.

As the election draws near, and to some degree in a gradual increment for as long as I remember, we’ve been told to believe stupid shit. The more stupid shit the better. We are instructed… we are ordered… to believe stupid shit so hard, so completely, that anyone who doesn’t join us in our belief of stupid shit is a science denying bastard that should be intellectually destroyed if not physically beaten.

There is only one reason to force people to believe stupid shit. It paves the way to make them do stupid shit.

Don’t believe stupid shit. Don’t do stupid shit. Especially, don’t do stupid shit to others. I would use the word “inflict”. Voltaire used the word “atrocity”.

We’re human and therefore sometimes make bad choices. If you’re going to be stupid, maneuver your bad decisions to the harmless and personal. Keep your stupid to yourself. Encapsulate your beloved stupid in your own world; where you can enjoy it in peace. Get a dumb tattoo but get it in a place that’s not going to make you unemployable. Purchase a stupid luxury if you must, but select one that won’t destroy your finances. (Yes to the $3k used motorcycle or the $60 bottle of fine whiskey, no to the $200K useless degree.) Get a new haircut, but don’t cut your dick off. Obsess over Game of Thrones until it’s a long forgotten memory, but get off the couch once in a while. Play Pokemon when you’re 30, but hold down a job too. So long as it’s harmless and personal and not irreparable you’re OK.

If you must be stupid, be stupid safely. Enjoy your stupid for it’s own merits and don’t club other people with your stupid. Other people have their own stupid. They prefer their stupid to your stupid. They’re entitled to fuck up their lives with their own choices. That’s how being an adult works.

The thing to avoid is believing absurdities and then performing atrocities. Vote as you wish. That’s just a decision. Fucking over your friends over who voted for whom is drifting toward atrocity. After the first heady rush of mob fun, you wind up in an echo chamber of like minded fools, and later… many years later… you realize you have no friends at all. You have people who shared the same stupid shit, but they’re not your friend… they’re friends of the stupid shit and not you.

Watch out, for it’s a dangerous thing. It’s insidious and crafty. If Satan is real, he wields stupid shit to get you to do things you ought not be doing. Hint: if you get a deep fiery visceral hatred of somebody over their political choices, you’re on the wrong track. You may already be trained for atrocity. Many a person in 2019 is ready to line “Trumpsters” up against the wall. They ought to read up on guillotines. This has happened before. It’d be nice if it happened again somewhere else and not here.

If you’re going to have regrets, be the old guy who decades earlier got a tattoo of Bill Gates. That’s funny. Don’t be an old guy who decades earlier put Jews on a cattle car. That’s never going to heal.

Don’t do that to yourself.

Voltaire hints at the solution; rationality is part of it. The next time you’re presented with a belief system, ask yourself “could this be stupid shit”? If you explained it to Voltaire (assuming you resurrected him and could speak French) would he look at you like a loon? Do you need detailed convolutions to hold that idea in your heart? Is part of your belief that those who disagree are retrograde troglodyte assholes? That’s a big hint!

If it’s key to your belief that those who hold other preferences are irredeemable, use caution. There’s a good chance you’re dancing on the edge of atrocity. Your human inhibitions against doing evil are wearing thin.

I put this up because there’s no likelihood of a sudden outbreak of rationality in the next 13 months. No hints of comity and good will on the horizon. Those in the throes of cognitive dissonance are speaking in tongues and spitting blood. The rest of us are horrified at the sight and recoil from them all the more. They are in pain but we cannot yet help. You can’t hug a writhing snake.

We would all do well to embrace Voltaire and if not tone it down at least stay away from the mob. Good luck y’all. This has happened before, it’ll happen again, we will all get through this. Maybe even, when it stops writhing and biting itself, we’ll have to hug the snake. If that’s what we need to do… be strong enough to do it when the time comes.

A.C.

[nerd]

Several days ago I switched from http:// to https://. This is supposed to keep monsters at bay. Ideally you didn’t even notice? If it’s an issue, someone tell me.

Also, I put up a privacy policy because someone said I ought to. It’s up on the header. It’s pretty much whatever the hosting software spewed out but it’s there. Something is better than nothing right? If y’all have constructive criticism, hit me in comments or with a private e-mail.

[/nerd]

I’m glad this movie is on its way. Ever since Gran Torino I’ve known Clint Eastwood is the go to guy for a real movie. He makes movies that are more. They’re better. Whatever Hollywood might have been (if anything), it’s just a shell now. It can’t do anything more than excrete an endless litany of whiny propaganda and childlike rehashed superhero CGI fests. Until Hollywood grows a pair, Eastwood has to fill the void.

I’m not going to go over the Jewell story, y’all either know it or can find it online in 10 minutes. What I want to note is that it remains firmly in my memory. When I live through an event of note, I make a point of remembering it. What did it feel like? What did people act like? What was the sequence of events? What was the mood in the streets? What can I learn from this?

It’s important to remember. If you lack memory, you lack a frame of reference. Without experience and history you’re a naive dipshit. You’ll fall for the next wave of bullshit because you didn’t remember the last one. There’s a reason kids drift from kindergarten to defaulting on college loans without learning fuck-all about history. It’s because people that know history are a pain in the ass. They’re a wee bit harder to buffalo. Nobody wants that. Our society doesn’t want people who say “I’ve seen this shit before and know roughly how it’ll play out”.

I remember Richard Jewell. He’s history from my own personal timeline. He was just a regular guy and I saw as he was crushed by monsters.

I remember watching it play out in the news. I remember when the press turned on a honest if a bit dull guy. A basic mall cop that did the right thing. They turned on him like rabid dogs. They did it so fast! They did it en masse. They hammered him like a generic fellow with a bad haircut was a supervillain, literally Hitler, and Satan all rolled into one.

The poor bastard didn’t have a chance. He didn’t see it coming. He’d trusted them. He was innocent and assumed everyone was as moral as he was. The press turned from “salute the hero” to “burn the witch” in a heartbeat. I remember it as just a few days. Certainly it took less than a week before Jewell was essentially friendless.

I remember too that I couldn’t understand why people were “mobbing up”. It didn’t make sense to me even as it was happening. I remember reading the news (back when newspapers were a thing) thinking “this sounds like bullshit, why am I the only guy that thinks this is bullshit?”

The press and the FBI wrecked an innocent man right in front of our eyes. This isn’t some ancient history, colonial peoples, old timey thing. It was just a few election cycles ago. There was TV reporting, newspapers (now gone), and even internet news. This wasn’t a far removed alien society.

Keep that in mind.

Witch burners are among us. Folks lemming up and run for the cliff. The inevitable half apology, if it happens at all, never heals the damage. “Mistakes were made.” “Now is a time to move on.” Perhaps a lawsuit and some money changes hands… and the witch burners immediately forget. They empty their mind and prepare for the next round of mayhem… which they’ll perform with the righteous smile of people without doubt.

A crowd is always one step from a mob. Never trust the press or government. Being innocent is almost entirely unrelated to whether you will be treated as such. These are key concepts to keep in mind in 2019. We’re in the third year of a cognitive dissonance shitstorm and witch burners are throwing tantrums everywhere you look. It behooves us all to be mindful. Watch your six and avoid crowds. There will be plenty of innocent victims, don’t be one of them.

I’m very happy Clint Eastwood is making this movie.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

While waiting for them to arrive, I examined my battered old checkbook. (Who writes checks in 2019? People buying firewood!) I’d written a check to my old firewood guy, the one who’s number I’d lost. A year ago, I’d paid $350 for 2 cords.

Soon I’d pay $300 for what was purported to be 2 cords. Is that a deal? Only if it’s true, which I doubted.

Last year’s delivery was rough. It came late, when it was raining and very cold. He dumped it on my lawn just in time for it to freeze to the grass and get covered with snow. It took me probably 5 weeks (working in dribs and drabs) to stack about half of it. Some of it I had to break free of the ground/ice with a sledge. (A seriously shit task!) The other half I used right from the pile to my woodstove. It was also split large. About 15% I had to resplit myself before it would fit in our stove. It was a huge amount of work. Folks have no idea buying firewood still means huge labor.

On the other hand, I wasn’t ripped off. I got a full 2 cords. Not a bit less. I measured it as I stacked & used it. I value honesty.

Stacking this new delivery meant my weekend just got booked up. If I went beast mode and powered though I’d be done but suffering by Monday.

They arrived on time. (My other wood guy procrastinates anywhere from a week to a month.)

A young adult / teenage boy hopped out of a battered truck. I shook his hand. I was wondering what it would be like to meet someone who only communicates via F***book. He seemed normal.

I eyed his trailer. “Your trailer is not hydraulic dump.” I asked. “How are you going going to unload it?”

He shrugged, “By hand I guess.” Then he started backing the trailer toward my woodshed. Ugh, I reached for my gloves. Might as well help. Two people meant I’d be at it for a while.

A teenage girl emerged from the truck. She was wearing flip flops. Bad idea. Sooner or later you’ll drop a 30 pound block on your toe. I assumed she’d stand around playing with a phone and accomplish nothing.

Another guy emerged from the truck. An older guy. The kid’s dad? He wasn’t driving. That usually means a revoked license from various DUI convictions.

He had boots and gloves. So did the both the teenage boy. Things were looking up.

I made a snap decision.

“So long as we’re unloading by hand, lets stack it?” This didn’t gain traction. Tossing wood willy nilly is faster than stacking.

“I’ll add a $40 tip.”

Bingo! Soon the four of us were stacking as fast as we could go. Burning $40 was hard on my skinflint soul but it was worth it for 2 cords stacked! Also, the girl worked just as hard as the rest of us. Excellent!

I have a woodstove. I need fuel 16″+/- long and split small enough to fit in the firebox door. This was the norm for generations. Most residential fuelwood burned in the last century in North America was about that size.

Despite generations of standardization, the situation changed a few decades ago. Possibly due to insurance concerns(?), people got into external wood boilers. Boilers can handle larger wood. Folks load their beefy personal incinerators with a heap of wet, frozen, chunky wood once a day. It smolders a lot because it’s not really stacked as a fire or maintained by a human. Smart folks set up boilers to be loaded with a skid steer. That means they can handle even bigger stuff because the puny human is taken out of the equation. They’ll shove frozen chunks of green wood the size of a city fire hydrant into a burn chamber. It’ll burn… eventually. Folks love it because it keeps messy wood out of the house.

Boilers also the benefit from hydronic transfer of heat. Hot fluid is piped directly to the slab of your house (which was poured around hydronic hose). In a properly built house it’s cozy. My house isn’t well suited to a boiler. It’s old, decrepit, and has a real basement. I have a regular stove that makes warm air in the hose and not warm water at the end of buried plumbing.

There are pros and cons. It’s messy to have wood in the house but nothing beats the ambiance of a real fire. I’d hate going out at dark thirty to hurl cold log chunks into a metal box but I’m always fretting over fuel quality (boiler folks can and do burn anything burnable). To each his own.

(*Virtually all boilers cease to function when the power is out. They need electricity to operate the pump and electronics. Most pellet stoves have a similar dependency. My woodstove will heat just fine without power.)

EPA regulations recently gut punched the boiler market. New models produce less smoke, cost a mint, and nobody buys them. (Which I suspect was the whole point.) As with other over-regulated situations (like car owners in Cuba) folks prefer maintaining old boilers to buying new. (Assuming proper maintenance: boilers last decades and stoves last forever.)

The relevance is that we were unloading big beefy wood meant for a boiler. Some of it won’t fit in my stove. I explained this and started throwing extremely large chunks off to the side. I’ll have to split them myself before they’re useful. They followed suit but I think a good third of the stack is too large for our stove. I’ll “reprocess” as needed. More labor! But I knew this. I’m committed to avoid “best” becoming the enemy of “adequate”.

Soon we were done. Four of us had made short work of the trailer. It wasn’t two cords… which is what I’d guessed.

I took the kid (who seemed to be in charge for some reason) aside to talk wood. I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his girlfriend (?) and dad (?).

“Look, a cord of wood is 4′ x 4′ x 8′. You promised two cords.”

He nodded. He was looking nervously at the checkbook I was holding in my hand.

“If you stack 4′ tall and 8′ long that’s 32 square feet. That’s called a ‘face cord’. Stack 3 face cords and you’ve got 96 square feet.”

He looked like math was physically painful to him.

“That woodshed”, I pointed at the woodshed, “is 16′ long, if you stack it 6′ high that’s also 96 square feet.”

He looked like he was about to pass out. Lectures about the quadratic equation before he dropped out(?) of high school had scarred him.

“See the pile on the other side of the woodshed?” I pointed to the other side, where I’d stacked my own wood. “That’s 16′ long and at least 6′ high. That’s a cord… that’s a full cord.”

He glanced at the row we’d just stacked. It was somewhat less… not even a full row. There was also a crotch high pyramid of “too big to use until I split it again” wood by the door.

“That pyramid will complete the row and then some… but not enough to make a whole ‘nother row of its own.”

He looked confused. I felt like the professor telling Gilligan to quit breaking a radio I’d made out of coconuts.

“Your trailer didn’t come here with two full cords of firewood.”

He looked ill.

“But I’m sure you don’t stack wood very often, so you don’t know how much you’ve really got.”

He smiled weakly. (He definitely knows how much he’d arrived with. I’m just rare among customers in that I own a tape measure and know how to use it.)

“I’m sure you did your best and I appreciate y’all stacking it with me. That’s makes life a lot easier on me.”

I cut the check. $300 for the wood and $40 for the tip. Every penny I promised. Paying for about 3/4 of what I’d been promised.

“Here,” I handed him the check. “I’m paying the full amount, but just beware, you’re not selling two full cords unless you heap up the load on that trailer. Flat isn’t enough.”

The kid looked like he had no Earthly idea what I’d said. He probably didn’t. I mihgt as well have been speaking in Latin. He was friendly, hard working, and blanked out.

I wrote his number down. He promised if I called again he’d get smaller 16″ length wood and have a fully loaded trailer. I’m sure he intends that my next order would be perfect and full. I know, should the time come, he absolutely won’t do any better. Math is hard. Shortcuts are easy. Most customers don’t have a tape measure.

After they left I basked in the glory of my woodpile. I’ve got 4 cords stacked and a heap to split that’ll add up to maybe another 1/3 to 1/2 cord. It’s a great start (especially for September). I’ll surely accomplish more and might enter winter with an adequate (dare I hope for generous?) supply.

A.C.

P.S. Life is an economics experiment, is it not? Last year’s delivery was the full volume but I worked my ass off. This delivery was 3/4 the amount for ten bucks less. It was stacked (mostly) in half an hour. So which is better? I’m only one man. I think I did OK.

I did a desperate thing. Facebook (I like to call it F***book) has local marketplace / social media bullshit. I went there.

Lord help me, but I did it.

I fuckin’ hate F***book! The interface is shitty and the information is pointless, incorrect, and ephemeral. It bitches at me about politics, dumbs down human interaction, and turned the best information communication technology in human history into a spybot floating in an ocean of emotional memes by weepy halfwits.

That said I found one (and only one) local person selling wood. There was a photo of a pile of wood on a trailer and a price. No other details. I sent a PM with my cell #, which I hated doing.

(I hate that my number is now forever F***book associated. This will almost certainly lead to push polling in 2020: “Hello, this is an important scientific survey: Do you think Trump is an asshole, a racist, or both an asshole AND a racist? If you didn’t vote for Hillary in 2016 how much do you suck? A little? A lot? Beyond belief? On a scale of 50 trillion to 100 trillion, how much do you want spent on light rail you’ll never get to use? How much free college do you want? All? Most? Almost all? Also, what do you think is the best solution to deplorable knuckleheads resisting rule by intellectually superior coastal city overlords? Execution? Extermination? Replacement? Or merely re-education and periodic beatings? Press one to make a donation to a politician who loathes you. Press two to hear this survey in Urdu. Thanks, for participating in our scientific poll.”)

But hey, winter’s coming. I did what I had to do.

I never got a call, or a text. A few days later I ventured back into F***book and found a F***book message waiting. They had wood.

OK, time for the song and dance. This is the part of the story where I try to figure out in which manner they’re going to screw me or flake out.

Them: “We have firewood for sale.”

Me: “Your ad says a $150 a cord.”

Them: “Yes, it’s firewood.”

Me: “A cord of wood is an amount in volume to 4′ x 4′ x 8′. Do you know this?”

Them: “The trailer is 2 cord. Firewood.”

Me: “Is it cut into 16″ lengths and split?”

Them: “Firewood, 16-24”.

Me: “Will you sell 2 cords, an amount of wood equivalent in volume to two stacks 4′ x 4′ x 8′ in size… of wood that’s cut 16″ long (no longer) and split?”

Them: “Firewood is $300.”

Lets face it; most human beings no longer pass the Turing test.

I decided to force the issue. “I have cash. Text me by noon or I’ll never buy firewood again.”

My phone beeped within 10 minutes.

“HAVE FIREWOOD. CAN DELIVER NOW.”

Wow, it sounded like someone was desperate. This usually means somone is behind on their alimony payments. Also, I was 100% certain they’d deliver less wood than promised and/or it would be a single uncut log, but there was no point in communicating further. I might as well ask our cat about the structure of the Federal Reserve bank.

I decided to roll the dice.

Stay tuned…

I decided to buy firewood. That means finding someone in my sparsely populated rural area that will work for money. Trees are coming out of our ears up here. The resource is plentiful. But it’s just plan tough to process it and a lot of our modern world is wrapped up in not doing dirty outdoor work.

I miss the classifieds, but they’re gone so no luck with that approach. Nothing posted at the local feed store or gas station. Everything here is word of mouth and I don’t know anybody.

Craigslist turned up what might be Frank’s forest based underworld lair. (If you don’t know about Frank pour a drink and begin reading Firewood Saga: Part 0. You’ll love the story.) I stayed the hell away from that mess! Aside from Frank, the rest was from far away. (Firewood is heavy, it doesn’t pay to truck it far.)

Then, miracle of miracles, I found a business card of a dude who collects Model Ts and (on the side?) sells firewood. I’ve kept that business card for years! I’ve bought firewood from him before and he’s a good egg. He always brings 2 cords in a hydraulic dump box. It is usually good wood (if split a little chunkier than I’d like) and he has never stiffed me. Every time I stack a cord of wood from him it’s the equivalent of 4′ x 4′ x 8′. It ‘aint cheap but he usually shows up with actual wood.

I set the card on my workbench, made a call using my landline. It’s a novelty using a landline. I never get to make a local call. For me it’s a local call to virtually nobody. Except the wood guy!

Annnnnd… he didn’t answer.

I left a message, but I had a feeling he never checks them. (I don’t check mine either.)

Three days later I decided to give it another shot. The bench was cleared. I’d cleaned up and the card was long gone. I’d saved that business card for years and then tossed it when I actually needed it. What a dumbass!

I fiddled with my phone and deduced the outgoing landline number. I called again. And again. And again.

And again.

And again.

The business card had a cell phone number too. I so very dearly wish I’d retained the cell number. I suspect he only answers his cell.

But I didn’t have the number. I suck.

The last few winters kicked my ass. This time I’m in it to win it. I’m not going into that dark night (again) without a goddamn fight.

I’ve been stacking wood every moment I get. The weather, however, has been uncooperative. Also, tragically, I’m only human. The latter is a hard limit. When I talk with people about firewood it’s a Rorschach test that tells me more about them than about firewood:

Me: “Been working pretty steady but I’m only up to 3 cords so far.”

Them: “Buck up little camper. I’m sure you’ll do it. You just need the right attitude.”

Translation: “I’m a nutless dipshit who’s never worked physically. I can’t do a goddamn thing on my own. My whole world view was formed during junior high group projects and it hasn’t changed. I am a pointless waste of oxygen that enjoys committee meetings. I think things are easy because they seem easy in my imagination. When the zombie apocalypse happens, I’ll be a dead by mid-afternoon and a shambling corpse pounding on your door by sunset.”

OR

Me: “Been working pretty steady but I’m only up to 3 cords so far.”

Them: “That sucks. Good luck doing as much as you can.”

Translation: “I’m a solid resident of reality. I’m not going to ask you to sign a petition, bitch about your choice of foods, or make fun of your truck. I’ve got my head straight and when the zombies come I’ll thin out the herd best I can. Now get the hell off my lawn.”

Anyway, I finally limped across the 3 cord threshold. It’s not enough for winter but getting there. That said, I’d like to ride into winter oversupplied… not “praying for global warming”.

I decided to throw money at it. Ugh, I shudder just thinking about it. What a revoltin’ development. I hate trying to do basic capitalism in America in 2019. It’s like my whole society forgot how to do anything. Honestly, if there was a way to buy a cord of firewood via Amazon and shipped from China… it might be worth it to avoid local yahoos.

But I set out to do the deed. Stay tuned…