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Monday, May 11, 2009

FAR Future, Episode 86: Generation 3

I’ve finished up the first draft in real life, but even at two posts a week it will still be a while… and I’m not going to put up two posts every week…

Saturday, June 28, 2036
Generation 3


The tradition continues…

Hi everyone. I'm Bobby. I found Granddad's printed blog, I guess that makes it a diary. Mom and Dad both said he would probably let me write something for it. I said I couldn't think of anything, and Dad laughed and said that happened to him the first time too. Granddad said that it happens to everyone, just not all the time. Mom said to just talk about what we do during the day, because people like to hear about that. She said not everybody lives like us, I guess she meant Uncle Kim and Aunt Christina and Little Mo and Robin, down in Atlanta. So this is what our days are like.

Me and Martina get up before everyone, most mornings. I don't know why, but we both wake up around 5:30 or 6 and we're just not tired anymore. So I go downstairs, and Martina comes in from her place, and we talk or read or do our homework until someone else comes in. Sometimes we play checkers. As long as we're quiet, nobody minds. We only woke everyone up once, in February when we got 10 whole cm of snow! Martina had to walk through it to get in the house, and she told me about it, so we ran outside and got a little noisy. When it was still cold out, we also brought in firewood to keep the heater going. Mom said we should fix breakfast for everyone, but she was just kidding. She doesn't want us getting cut or burned or something.

Sometimes, Martina wants us to make a story, so we have to go outside. That's OK in the summer anyway, because we can see and it's warm out. If it's our turn to weed the garden, we do that while we make the story. The grownups don't like when we go to the garden ourselves, but we take the dogs and there's never been a problem.

Whatever we do, when the grownups get up we have breakfast. Martina's place, and Ray's, have kitchens but mostly everyone eats together in the big house. Granddad gets out what he calls the duty roster, which is what everyone's supposed to do that day, and sometimes the grownups trade jobs if they want. If we got a head start on our job, they tell us if we have to help someone else. But most of the time, we go looking for fell-down trees for firewood. We mark the big ones on a GPS and drag smaller ones out if we can. Robin and Little Mo get to come with us sometimes, but they’re not used to how we do things so sometimes they’re just in the way. But they’re a lot of help when we drag trees out of the woods.

In the afternoons, everyone goes down to the creek. It's not as hot as last summer, but that's OK. We just take our clothes off and jump in. Sometimes the grownups jump in too, but they don't always take off their clothes. That's so weird, they have to walk back with their clothes all wet! Ours get a little wet, but we mostly dry off first so we don't squish in our shoes. Martina says the grownups are embarrassed, but that's silly. What do they have to be embarrassed about? Clothes are to keep warm or keep from getting scratched up when you're outside.

The other weird thing grownups do is spend a lot of time on computers or watching TV when it comes on. Granddad thought I was going to type this into his computer, but that's what old people do. I can use a computer, but I don't do it for fun.


I’ll have to say, he has good penmanship. Mine was never that good, even before I learned to type.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen two earlier-rising kids than Bobby and Martina… ever. But when you’re a kid, the greatest treasure of all is having a friend who’s completely simpatico. Rene and Serena and I had a little powwow one evening about them. “So how’s it gonna go down?” I asked them. “Like you two, or the Kim/Christina extreme? Or something in between?”

“More like us than them, I think,” Serena said. “Even when we were that age, the dynamics of the relationships got established pretty quickly. You just had to be looking for it.”

“I saw it,” Rene said, “but I didn’t realize what it was at first. I wasn’t thinking of my little sister being in love with Kim… I just thought she was acting weird.”

I laughed. “So we have like ten years before we need to start worrying?”

Sean and Mary, Martina’s parents, are less sanguine about the situation… which is normal for the parents of daughters. But it should be at least a couple of years before the hormones start flowing, and even they have to admit that the two of them act like a normal pair of kids. Serena told them about Kim and Christina, and the ways that Bobby and Martina are not like them, and that seemed to help.

“And when they get to be teenagers, they’ll probably start sleeping in,” Sean suggested. “Early morning’s the only time I know of that they’re not being supervised.”

“That and when they’re hunting up firewood,” I added. “But we can always put them on a different job if we have to.”

The kids will be getting The Talk in a couple of years, I think, whether they need it or not. At least I won’t have to be the one to do it this time. God willing, if it comes down to it, I’ll be around to perform the initial wedding service though.

continued…

13 comments:

  1. Nice update, FarF! I really like how you give us different character's perspectives in your ongoing saga. I especially liked the bit about "only old people type on computers". This was an excellent way to take the edge off a Monday.

    Thank you!

    Bri2k

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice little story Far. Of course, I don't believe Bobby will have better penmanship, than say the average today, however I suppose their could be exceptions...Ever read the signatures on the Declaration of Independence?

    As you've probably noticed, I've been real distracted from commenting on the posts. I've been focusing on the evidence that supports a view coming from a man who I regard as one of the brightest intellectuals in the U.S.. Actually, we've been doing searches for perhaps a little over a year now.

    I'm much more optimistic regarding "our" future. It's really much like viewing what some consider reliable information more critically. I was groomed to think in such a matter called "deductive reasoning".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning

    Anyway to put a long story short Far, even though there will certainly be great changes in energy consumption and where that energy may come from, I do believe their will be more adaptability than I dared imagined before.That is, I don't believe we're even close to overshoot... I fully believe the population will continue to expand well into the future, as much as 50 years out. Even at a much greater rate of consumption,there is very strong evidence that there may be more than enough conventional and nonconventional fossil fuel sources (along with the greens) to support it... There's just a mountian of evidence supporting it, and is basically derived as "how" this information was viewed in the first place.

    A lot of investigation and sharing of ideas have went into this. I'm throughly convienced that the die-off will not likely come in our lifetimes and perhaps not even Bobby's!

    So unlike your pal Knustler, it won't be the same ol', same ol',

    yooper.

    (btw, I have reason to believe that guy is gonna look like a real dope, once again...)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Re: The new auto industry rolls on
    « Reply #175 on: May 09, 2009, 07:00:06 PM »

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I might have found my concluding piece here on what I am trying to look into.

    This piece ran in World Oil November 2005 issue

    It depends on what you call "oil " by Perry A, Fischer



    The opening paragraph.

    " Another title this could have is Oil just peaked and no one cared. In most of the doomsday forecasts that the "peak" cottage industry puts out, one thing that is sometimes lost is that innocuous adjective,conventional. It's always conventional oil that is about to peak. The term unconventional doesn't even have a good definition, but it clearly has something to do with profitability. With rising prices, the line of economical production shifts,and the gap between conventional and unconventional oil resources narrows. Most often, conventional oil refers to crude that is above 20 ( degrees) API gravity, and relatively cheap to produce. Everything else that refers to liquid hydrocarbons is, therefore, unconventional "oil". "


    Thus, the Bentley definition of light crude oil for purposes of measuring peak oil is all oil above 20 API not extracted by enhanced oil recovery methods. Now there is, at last, a succinct definition.

    OK, all other Petroleum , not in a gaseous state, is unconventional oil because it is a "liquid" below 20 API plus any above 20 API crude derived by enhanced oil recovery methods.

    These liquid petroleum's not included in peak oil calculations are: Using CERA numbers because they were easy to find.

    Deep water 61

    Arctic 118

    Enhanced Oil Recovery 592

    Extra Heavy 444

    Oil Shale Extract 704

    Grand total 1919 bn bbl


    Plus remaining Bentley oil 1066 bn bbl

    Total with no new exploration 2985



    NO GAS even though it is petroleum.



    Total liquid oil extracted to date 1078 bn bbl




    Fighting over who get's it is a very interesting subject. But gas gives the edge to North America. They got it and it is theirs .

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://www.patternliteracy.com/apocalypse,not.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Oil_Recovery

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's just a sampling Far. It's high time to completely throw Hubbert's Peak Oil Theroy out the window...and all the scare tactics that go along with it...

    Do you think the Peak oil movement is a form of "political psychosis"? a belief that cannot be questioned? Just a doctrine and stagnate?

    ReplyDelete
  7. KNOWLEDGE and TECHNOLOGY, again trumps this day. However, it's this technology that "dumbs" the multitude down. A utopian future with it? Not likely, Far. It'll very likely lead to a dystopian future, when man becomes part of the machine, dominated by and cannot exist without it (as Spengler suggested). Do you think we're almost there? That "writing" is on the wall.... Thanks, yooper

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey guys!

    Bri, thanks — I hoped it would be more interesting to include different POVs, and I'm glad it's working. No matter what or when, there's always going to be "old people" stuff…

    Yooper, I'm glad you're back! Bobby's penmanship is just good… mine was always sloppy and living on a keyboard hasn't done it any good!

    I've always thought we'd adapt, and the sooner we start the better. Certainly a lot of people won't survive the changes, but many of them will go as part of the natural course of things — old age, accidents, sickness, none of it cares about energy abundance or the lack thereof. Other people might live even longer, as I alluded in Episode 84, because changes in lifestyle and food could eliminate a lot of the diabetes and heart disease we see now.

    Ironically, one of the last episodes will address your last comment, the one about the "dystopian future."

    ReplyDelete
  9. You'll need to be Yoda's age to perform that ceremony, Far. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Yooper! Glad to see you back.

    There are definitely other views than PO out there.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHZRSlhJxY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFi8FpBDrDo

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm shocked Nudge! Thought you were solidly in the "peak oil camp"! ha!

    Oh, you bet peak oil isn't the only view out there. Regardless where we are at from a worldwide perspective, some countries like China and India will be confronted with energy shortages/resources just to maintain the populations they have now.

    At that point, it'll likley become our problem as these people will have no choice but to fight for their own survival. Just when that happens depends on many factors...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hiya FAR,

    I agree with Bri that I like the different POVs. I also like how the parents and group are already discussing Bobby and Martina's future. It sort of reminds me of how a large and extended family looks after each other.

    Looking forward to the next installment.

    Take care.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Boran, good point… unless, of course, they pull a Kim/Christina & get married really young. But that doesn't look like it's in the cards.

    Nudge, those were pretty funny!

    Yooper, either there will be shortages, in which case China & India might find it difficult to bring the fight to use — or there won't in which case there's nothing to fight about. :-)

    Hey FM, it really is an extended family… one that grew by accretion rather than genetics.

    ReplyDelete

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