Home is Where the Hurt Is

I have returned, after just over 500 miles on a variety of roads. This is the longest motorcycle trip I’ve ever taken.

Friday morning had me waking up earlier than I expected, amazingly not with a chicken house call. I confiscated a small backpack The Boy had once used for a bookbag — Daughter Dearest offered me hers, but it had a blown-out zipper — and stuffed it with a weekend’s worth of clothes, important stuff from the bathroom (toothbrush, meds, shaver, deodorant), pen & paper, and the iPod. After a little breakfast, I suited up, loaded the backpack on my shoulders, and buzzed away.

Since the summer place is about 4 hours away, and I had all day to get there, I decided to do things a little differently: take my time, stop when and where I felt like it, and (especially since I was on a motorcycle) avoid freeways as much as possible. So at mile 63-ish, I stopped at Tallulah Gorge and got this picture. 20 miles later, I (for the first time) crossed a state line on a motorcycle and rolled on into North Carolina. By this time, the backpack was starting to weigh on my shoulders, and the hard seat was wearing on my butt… but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I had to stop in Sylva for lunch and gas, but with WCU opening up and the fall quarter starting Monday, things were a little crowded. I planned to eat in a local restaurant in town, but the person in front of me pulled into the last parking spot on the street. Rats! I continued on through the thick traffic, finding a Burger King that had a veggie burger waiting for me. The guy behind me in line (and it was fairly long) had rode in on a scooter, so we got to talking and eventually sat together. He was local, and maybe a little “tetched” as they used to say, but we had a good time — I took my time to give my butt and shoulders a break — and then I moved on. (It was in Sylva that I also learned that in stop&go traffic, the DRZ gives no warning at all when it’s time to go on reserve.)

I made my first traveling misstep (there’s a name for a bluegrass band… the Traveling Missteps) by going to US74 instead of staying on US23. This cost me an extra 10 miles or so of I-40… but with the speed limit posted at 60, it wasn’t nearly as scary as I expected (I didn’t have to go more than 75, and the bike seemed quite happy to wail along at 3/4 of its maximum RPM). I jumped off at the first exit that gave me a "to US70" sign. US70 east of Asheville is 5 lanes (4 + left turn lane) and the interstate parallels it for a good long while. I made my second misstep looking for Old US70, which Google Maps shows as winding over Black Mountain. After a couple of attempts, I gave up and got back on I-40. Fortunately, it was only a few miles to the Old Fort exit, and I said good-bye to I-40 for good. US70 west to US221 north, and one more gas stop 9 miles from my destination, and I was there just after 4pm.

The weekend was mostly relaxing — even the parts helping Wicked Stepfather with new cabinets for the basement (some assembly required). We went to a local store/BBQ joint for lunch, and wound up with the table right next to the bluegrass band when they got going. I enjoy most live music — even The Boy’s stuff — if there’s no lyrics. These guys had a stack of CDs for sale, but I’ve forgotten their name.


For the trip home, I decided to give the Blue Ridge Parkway a try. It crosses US221 a few miles south of the summer place; I figured if there were too many slowpokes on the way, I could jump off at US70 and go back the way I came. However, the first half hour or so I was the only southbound traffic I ever saw. The posted speed limit is 45, and the road is curvy enough to enforce it without a lot of help from the parkway police, so I settled into a rhythm (and tried to ignore the backpack and seat). Although the scenic route, plus going past the exit I should have taken, cost me a fair amount of extra time, the ride was well worth it. If you have a motorcycle, you really should ride the parkway, no matter where you’re from. It’s just freeking beautiful. The highest elevations are south of Asheville, and climbs to 6000 feet. Once you get above 5000 feet, the wind gets chilly — even in the middle of August. I appreciated it even more once I got down to US441 and returned to the land of mid-90° weather. The foliage was subtly different in the higher elevations, probably more alpine.

Hot weather, hurting shoulders, hurting butt, all encouraged me to ride at speeds similar to those on I-40. I got home (empty house), called Mom, put on shorts, and took an Advil. Just think, I get to jump on the bike tomorrow morning to ride to work. Fortunately, sans backpack.

FAR Future: Episode 6

Believe it or not, I wrote this before Hurricane Dean was a tropical depression!

This will probably be my last post for the week. I’m leaving for NC in the morning, my laptop is staying here, and Mom might have dialup but I probably won’t get on unless she’s watching some TV show I’m not interested in. See you Sunday, God willing.

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Thursday, August 16, 2012
Down on the Farm

This is the time of year that gardens are in full swing, and it’s no exception on Planet Georgia. The rain has been mostly good, at least up to now, and Hurricane DeeDee will probably bring us a few inches on Monday. But that means we need to be grabbing anything ripe while the grabbing’s good, and canning what isn’t getting eaten or sold. My mother-in-law is the gardening wizard around here, although her idea of a “small garden” is 2 acres. Sheesh. But we brought in a bunch of corn, several varieties of beans, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and zucchini yesterday evening (we wait until dusk to pick because it’s too hot during the day, and those wind-up flashlights give us a little more time to pick).

I hear she had a good day at the farmer’s market; I guess a lot of people were getting what fresh stuff they could with DeeDee on the way. The power situation’s bad enough; I can’t imagine that 4 inches of rain and stiff winds are going to improve matters any. But there’s still a lot to put up, and the county cannery is staying open late through the week (and will be open this weekend) because they expect to be closed Monday and Tuesday. When we start getting Mondays off in a couple of weeks, I’ll be there more often, but this evening was a rarity — the cannery was open and I finished my work stuff early, so I went to help.

Sometimes, my mother-in-law would have the place mostly to herself… not anymore. She had been there all morning, so I jumped on the motorbike — I brought a little cooler with some water and snacks in it for us, so we won’t have to go into town. The place was crowded when I got there, but it doesn’t take much room to park a motorbike and I found a shady spot under the eaves of a shed across the parking lot.

I was there a couple of hours, but never quite figured out the system. It seems easy enough — a long row of tables and steamers down the center, vats and several big boilers along the far wall — but either I still had my head in the battery backup stuff I was writing today, or what I was doing (mostly steppin’ and fetchin’) didn’t let me follow the plot. The wimmin outnumbered us guys by 5 to 1 easily — there were four guys there, and two of them “run” the cannery. The other guy was also steppin’ and fetchin’ (although we took a quick commiseration break once or twice); the women were helping each other with just about every phase of their canning. I think the system runs like this: veggies that need to be peeled go in the steamer; it helps loosen the peels. Then anyone who’s not doing something else helps pull off the peels. If the peeled food is being canned by itself, they dump it into jars (with a teaspoon of salt) and move on… otherwise, it goes to the cooking vats.

The vats are basically big cookpots — and when I say big, I mean like 20 gallons. Someone like Mrs. Fetched’s mom really uses them — that comes to 80 quarts, and that’s a fraction of what she does when she gets going (one year, she brought home 120 boxes, and each box has 12 quart jars in it). So you make your beef stew, or chili, or whatever, in the vats, ladle it into jars, and wheel the jars over to the boilers. The guys running the cannery pretty much run the boilers; I think there’s some liability issues going on there… although Mrs. Fetched’s mom has run the place a couple of times when they couldn’t keep up. If you get this far in the morning, you can take your jars home in the evening — otherwise, you come back for them the next day.

They use an incredible amount of water: rinsing, steaming, cooking, boiling the jars — and the floor has a drainage slot that runs the length of the cannery. They also use a fair amount of gas for heating the water… so naturally, the cost to use the cannery has gone up quite a bit. It’s still cheaper (and better) than the supermarket. I’ve been looking for indications of whether we’ll get winter produce from South America this year, and haven’t found anything. I’m going to assume that no news is bad news.

So I just got home. After spending 4–5 hours in the cannery, the ride home seemed almost cold. I guess I’ll take a French bath, get a drink of something, and go to bed.

continued…

The Solo, 3-Day, No Guilt Weekend

Over the years since moving to the free-range insane asylum, I have come to dread August. The heat is bad enough on its own, but it stresses the chicken houses because everything has to be running — fans and foggers — just to keep the birds alive. Large electrical devices running in the same area as a high-pressure water spray actually works (it has to), but an undetected crack in a PVC pipe or wiring insulation is going to soon be detected under those conditions. And given the situation, repairs can’t wait for a convenient time… it has to be dealt with now. Even when everything is working properly, Mrs. Fetched is constantly over there to raise or lower curtains and open/close doors (ventilation vs. insolation), start or stop the fogger lines… always something.

Add in the usual things that go wrong (and Murphy is the god of chicken houses), and August adds up to one miserable month. I can count on arriving home to find there’s some problem that must be addressed, almost before I can get my helmet and jacket off. For example, this week the downpipe fell off a feed hopper and dumped four tons of feed that had to be scooped or shoveled up.

So it’s not surprising that the best part of August is the one weekend that we escape the manor. Mom has a summer cottage in the North Carolina mountains; they spend the entire month there and we generally come up for a weekend to visit. It’s a much-appreciated break, especially since it’s often 15 degrees cooler there than here. But when Mrs. Fetched’s mom hosed her knee last week, Mrs. Fetched lost her substitute chicken rancher. She bailed out, then Daughter Dearest bailed out (“I need to stay and help Mom”). I’d already taken Friday off as a floating holiday, and I don’t get to see my relatives very often.

As if I needed any further excuse, the phone rang at about 6 a.m. this morning. When the phone rings at FAR Manor before 8, I immediately know: 1) It’s one of Mrs. Fetched’s relatives; 2) It’s not good news; 3) I’m going to be involved somehow. This morning, it was Big V on the line. P.O.D., her son and Splat’s older brother, got busted for 90 in a 50 zone while passing a car with great enthusiasm on his new GSX-R 600. As I’m the only other person in the family with a motorcycle endorsement, I get to bring the bike home while Big V is getting him out of the clink.

The bike was already on the tow truck when we got there, but when Big V gave a name and address, they knew we were the right people and rolled it back off (but she still got to pay the $100 tow bill). So on the 30 miles or so home, I learned why people ride those bikes so fast: your hips and back start hurting, and you have to ride fast just to where you’re going and get OFF the damn thing.

So I’m definitely looking forward to getting out of here for a few days. But now that I’m going by myself, I can ride my own motorcycle. It’s not nearly as uncomfortable as a crotch rocket.

Reality is Stranger Than Fiction

Things can get pretty silly without making up any of it. Check it out…

If a dog has two noses, does it smell twice as bad?

Mexico’s Santa Muerte (Saint Death) gets a facelift. Um… right.

What’s next? Cops wearing Hello Kitty armbands? Oh, never mind.

Hey Family Man, this might be a drastic cure for migraines.

In some happier news, SCO lost the Unix rights to Novell. This should put the final nail in the coffin of SCO’s (Microsoft-funded) anti-Linux crusade.

FAR Future: Episode 5

I’ve been meaning to post two episodes per week — obviously, that didn’t happen last week. I might try doing three this week to make it up.

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Monday, August 13, 2012
Card Sharps

That was… interesting. The DoE must have had everything lined up in advance for the rationing announcement. How they kept it under wraps is anyone’s guess.

But if you didn’t need to get gas today, and you haven’t had the radio on, give yourself a couple extra minutes when you do go to get gas. You’ll have to go inside and show them your driver’s license, they punch in the number and out pops a temporary ration card with 20 gallons on it. That’s supposed to last you at least through the end of the month, so don’t use it up right away. People who planned on some advance warning, so they could stockpile gas, are gonna be pissed. A couple of co-workers were pretty agitated… I think one of them forgot his wallet, so he wouldn’t have been able to get gas anyway.

I just had to catch some talk radio to hear what the double-digit IQ brigade is being told to think about it. Shotgun Sam had one of the Planet Georgia congresscritters on this evening; I didn’t catch which one. Could have been mine, for all I know or care. Pretty much what I expected, oh boo hoo hoo, free market, boo hoo hoo, warnings about “playing politics” with allocations (right wing-speak for “we want more than our fair share”), boo hoo hoo, etc.

(I was going to delete this part, but it’s sort of related, so…) The spew-bots earn their pay by stirring up their listeners; threats and actual attempts on government officials make the news more often than not these days. Figures: conservatives have always been willing to use force when they can’t trick enough idiots into voting for them (and except for places like Planet Georgia, fewer and fewer are falling for the lies). It probably didn’t help when the NRA got designated a “terrorist-sympathetic” organization last year; wingers hate getting their faces rubbed in reality. To them, terrorists are the brown people with turbans who want to kill us, not the goober looking to settle an imagined score with the gubmint.

But anyway, the NFRD site (the URL is printed on the temporary cards, hard to miss actually) is actually well-done, and they gave it enough bandwidth — it probably helps that half the country is blacked out at any given moment. Check it out, you can fill out a little questionnaire and get a pretty good idea of what your weekly allotment is going to be. Oh, if you haven’t figured it out, when you use your new (not the temporary) ration card the first time, it will dock your purchases from the temporary card and invalidate the temp card. Again, don’t go nuts with your temporary! It turns out that since Mrs. Fetched works on a farm, we’ll get a little extra gas per week. Living in a rural area got us a little more, but having an “office job” took most of it back — I’m supposed to telecommute more, I guess (which suits me just fine). 10 gallons a week doesn’t sound like much, but I use less than 3 for my twice-weekly commute, and I can pick up some groceries on the way home. Mrs. Fetched isn’t thrilled, but two trips for shopping a week won’t use more than another 2-1/2. So if we’re careful, we can get by with half our allocation and make a little extra money selling what’s left over on the exchange. But we’ll probably build up a cushion first, in case we have any problems.

Speaking of the exchange, I saw where eBay is threatening to sue the DoE, saying Yahoo had some kind of inside track to getting the contract to manage the NFRD “exchange” site (think auction with fairly tight controls). Yahoo’s response amounted to “sore loser, nyah nyah,” which I suppose is the only real way to respond in a situation like this. Either eBay can prove something, in which case the bids should be re-negotiated, or they can’t and should just shut up. I wonder how much energy they’ll waste on that.

continued…

Wounded Knee and Pinball

I was about finished getting the church bulletin together this morning when Mrs. Fetched answered the phone. “Sure, he doesn’t mind,” she said. I had just been volunteered. “Yeah, you need to go to the hospital,” she continued, which gave me a pretty good idea of what I’d been volunteered for. On Thursday, she and a guy who’s been helping around the farm lately were freeing up a stuck hydraulic lift on one of the tractors. She was working a lever while he banged on something with a hammer: the hammering did the hoped-for job, the lift lifted… and turned out to be the only thing keeping the tractor stationary.

She ran for it, as one might expect, while he scrambled to hit the brakes. As it was all downhill, she quickly found herself just trying to not fall down, heading for her Workhorse (envision a jacked-up golf cart with a dump bed, that’s a Workhorse). She snagged the Workhorse on the way by it — but not knowing proper Pinball technique (more on that in a moment), she let her momentum twist her knee for her. When the pain only got worse over the weekend, it was time to have it looked at.

So I ran over to the church, copied the bulletins, then came back and packed a few essentials (laptop, writing pad, cellphone) and went to get Mrs. Fetched’s mom. We cruised down to the hospital, chatting about the garden and canning and similar topics; I dropped her off in front of the ER and they swooped in with a wheelchair while I went to park. Hospitals, even ERs, being what they are, I had no trouble catching up. (Before we left, Mrs. Fetched advised me, “Don’t be afraid to follow her in to the doctor’s.” I thought, “Yeah, but if the clothes start coming off I’m GONE!”) They looked it over, X-rayed it, wrapped a couple of ace bandages around it, and notified her orthopedist. I could have done the bandages thing and saved her insurance (and Medicare) a good bit of $$$.

For future reference, I told her about Pinball and how to prevent wrenched knees (or ankles). This was a game we used to play at Michigan Tech. The terrain there is much like here — rocky and steep. Pinball is when you go running full-tilt-boogie down a hill and bounce off of trees (by pushing off them) to maintain a controllable speed. You can “hook” a tree that’s about 4 to 6 inches in diameter (smaller and it bends too much, larger and you can’t get a good grip on it) and lift your feet off the ground. This spins you to the downhill side, at which point you let go; your forward (downhill) momentum is mostly gone and you just drop. In her case, I would have hooked the Workhorse and got my feet off the ground, let it spin me around, and I would have been able to stop.

Pinball left us with sore (or numb) hands, but we were young and they healed quickly. The last time I played was when The Boy was about 5; we’d gone up to Rainey Mountain for a Cub Scout campout. Somehow, we missed the group hike up to the top, so we decided to go on our own. On the way back down, he started whining and saying “I’m scared.” After a couple of minutes, I looked at him and said, “What are you scared about? You climb stuff like this all the time!”

“I’m scared you’re gonna get hurt.”

“Son… I appreciate your concern, but let me show you a game we used to play in college.” He watched me bounce off a couple of trees and hook one to stop, and looked at me like I was crazy.

The Boy at 2 o’clock

Thursday is my work at home day. The day begins with much less stress when the commute is from the kitchen back to the bedroom, where I have a small desk. There is the occasional walk across the driveway to Studio FAR, where I can take photos of whatever I’m documenting; sometimes, I get requests for a different angle and I supply those as well.

So I was at the house when an unfamiliar car pulled up the driveway around 2 p.m. I figured it was one of The Boy’s friends — but much to my surprise, The Boy himself was in the back seat. I’m not really sure why he came by, except that he did pick up his glucose meter and meds… after a mere three weeks without them. He stayed about an hour, long enough to annoy Mrs. Fetched about something or another — but one of the good things about the visit was that J’s mom was here trying to find J, and The Boy knew exactly where he was. The Boy and his friend said they’d have a talk with J, but there’s no telling how that will come out or whether they actually had that talk.

One undercurrent that the women picked up on (I had to go back and work) was that The Boy and his girlfriend might be having a little disagreement. Her mom has said she doesn’t want him hanging around if he isn’t going to get a job (she’s working at a restaurant in town) — he said he’s interviewing with one of the manufacturing places on Monday and expects to get the job. His hair is still way too long for this day & age, but at least it looked clean today (even though he and his two friends — one of whom is female — all reeked of hot weather and lack of bathing). The young woman is one who has been around FAR Manor before (fortunately only for brief visits) but has been acquainted with all of the boarders. Makes me wonder. She’s supposed to be fairly intelligent, and can hold her own in a conversation, but I have to wonder if she hangs with that bunch. It’s difficult to carry on a conversation with her — not that she’s hard to talk to, but I have to keep reminding myself to not stare at her, um, rather prominent kanakas. :-P

Of course, his latest band is on the cusp of success, their first paying gig is coming “soon.” The song remains the same.

Back to School — Already???

Yup, Daughter Dearest starts tomorrow. That means school buses will be on the roads tomorrow as well. Suckibus maximus.

The hot item for “Back to School” this year seems to be the TI-84+ graphing calculator. I had to go to three places to find one in stock. It was important enough that I had to endure the soul-erosion of walking into a Wal-Mart… and they were out, too. That was good: I didn’t have to hand them any money. I’ll admit, though, to dropping 35 cents into their vending machine outside to get a bottle of water. It was 96 degrees outside, and I was on a motorcycle, so I needed some fluid.

After supper (spaghetti at Big V’s), I let Daughter Dearest wear the helmet as I rode the few hundred yards up the road to the house — and I had to explain Steve McQueen and Easy Rider along the way. After dropping her off, I went to help Mrs. Fetched’s mom pick and shuck a few bushels of corn. After all, isn’t the best food what you see to yourself?

Stuff that works, Stuff that doesn’t

I’m typing away with the new MacBook battery. It was sitting on the table when I came home from the yard sale on Saturday (and I guess I was so excited I forgot to mention it). I pretty much knew what to expect inside: the battery and instructions for shipping the old one back. The good thing about that it’s all but completely pre-arranged: all you have to do is tape the box shut and call DHL to come pick it up. The other side of that particular coin: Apple will zap you for the cost of the battery if you don’t send it back, probably to keep people from claiming the battery is rotten to get a free extra battery. So unless DHL couldn’t find our office, and I think they bring deliveries from time to time, that’s taken care of.

Less welcome news: the A/C in the Civic lasted all of three days, crapping out on Friday afternoon on the way home from work. Naturally, it croaked in the three miles of stop&go traffic I have to deal with on Fridays (and I guess I was so bummed I forgot to mention it here). Oh well, it was good while it lasted and even mid-90s weather isn’t too bad on a motorcycle (as long as you’re moving).

Yesterday, I finally resolved the plate (or “tag” as they say on this planet) issue for the new motorcycle. The shop sent the tax receipt, and I’m supposed to pick up the tag. I was under the impression that I would get it in the mail. Mrs. Fetched says she’ll handle that today while I’m at work — there’s a pretty good chance she’ll get busy & forget, but right now I have both bikes in the garage and it’s a little tight, and the inconvenience might prompt her to make an extra effort. ;-) So I’m on the Virago at least one more day.

Jumping on the Virago after riding a much lighter and taller bike for a month is a good way to get a fresh look at it. The seat is much more cushy, the engine much stronger (with nearly three times the displacement, that’s no surprise), and the seating position is completely different. Of course, it still takes corners at speeds you wouldn’t dare with most other cruisers.

And with that, I need to start it and get rolling to work. IT has started monitoring web usage at work (naturally at a time when most of my projects are in a lull), so I’ll be coming in at odd morning & evening hours. One more stop to see if Nancy has posted anything this morning…

All I Want Is To Be In the Light

Those 300w halogen light-sticks really light up the driveway at night. Before I started TFM, and for a while afterward, the kids (ours and not-ours) used to play basketball at night (you can see where the goal used to be; Lobster tore it down in a drunken rampage that I neglected to write about at the time) and the light is quite handy for nighttime excursions to the detached garage or Studio FAR.

A couple of weeks ago, the bulb went the way of all bulbs… and since it’s about 15 feet off the ground, it’s not exactly a job one wants to tackle at night. But yesterday afternoon, I was sitting here by myself — me home from the yard sale, Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest doing the tax-free shopping day thing — and after catching up on a few blogs, I figured this was as good a time as any to take care of that business. So:

How do you change a light bulb at FAR Manor?

1) Get the extension ladder out of the cellar, clearing spider webs along the way.

2) Climb up and attempt to remove the glass.

3) Climb down, get a screwdriver, climb back up to (carefully!) pry the glass off the rubber seal. Remove glass and bulb, climb down.

4) Clean the haze off the glass.

5) Climb up with a new bulb (in a paper towel so you didn’t get skin oil on it) and install it.

6) Climb down, get the (now clean) glass, climb up, and snap the glass-holders into place.

7) Climb down & put the ladder away.

For those of you who were counting: yes, four trips up & down the ladder.

You might have noticed that the white trim needs to be scraped and painted. It’s pretty much the same all across the manor. But that can wait for cooler weather.

FAR Future, Episode 4

Family Man brought up something I’ve been thinking about for a while: adding links so new readers can start with Episode 1 and just click to the next one in line. I’ll be doing something about that shortly. Too bad I didn’t have the extra day now…

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Saturday, August 4, 2012
Smart Move

The four-day, 36-hour work week was a smart move, and the Department of Labor really got smart and slipped in the announcement at the end of a Friday to make sure the right-wing spew-bots jumped on it. That’s called managing the press. All of a sudden, all the spew-bot callers have stopped screaming about rationing and started chatting about what they’re going to do with a three-day weekend. The only people I hear complaining are hourly workers losing 10% of their paid time, and they usually stop complaining as soon as they realize they’ll be getting overtime if they have to work more than 36 hours. And Shotgun Sam was sounding a little frustrated last night; nobody wanted to talk about the latest manufactured scandal.

They’re giving businesses three weeks to make the adjustments — starting August 24, the three-day weekend begins and everyone gets Mondays off. All the Monday jokes will have to be changed to Tuesday jokes, but other than that? Most of the minor holidays like President’s Day don’t become Tuesday holidays, probably to placate some business owners. It’ll save some energy, for sure — if all the offices are dark all day Monday, maybe people will have enough electricity to run their A/C once a week.

I’m not sure how it’s going to affect me personally, yet. Monday has been one of my physical-presence days, so if the boss doesn’t have to have me in the office two days out of four, I’ll be down to one commute day a week. Otherwise, I don’t see a lot of change for me. The battery rig I’ve got set up here takes care of my telecommuting power needs, and the solar panels that I have on order (if they ever show up) will keep it charged up — so that’s eventually going to be off the grid anyway. I can see one downside: Mrs. Fetched is already planning my Mondays for me, starting with the chicken houses first thing.

continued…

Yard sale day

Space at community yard sale: $10

Amount sold: $22

Sitting in a canopy chair all morning instead of going to the chicken houses: PRICELESS!



The downside, of course, was getting up way too early for a Saturday. Like 7 a.m. I’m going to take a brief nap, and then I’ll be back.

UPDATE: I thought I wanted a nap more than I really did.

It’s pretty hot today, the hottest it’s been this year (at least where I’ve had to be outside). An ambulance pulled up at one point, and I thought maybe someone was overcome, but they were just there to help load a couch to take it to the fire station. But I offered my seat to people who looked like they might need it — the only taker was a lady who wanted to try on some of the shoes I had for sale. She’s two years younger than my dad, and we’ll just say she was much less limber. I told her that dad does stretches religiously every day, and it helps him a lot. Maybe it’s not to late for her.

I picked up a few CDs from another seller; Daughter Dearest seems to have been listening to a lot of Billy Joel as of late so I got the two Billy Joel CDs in the box. I picked up another one, “Ultimate House NRG,” figuring to share since we both like dance/techno stuff. Then I had a listen… the first song has lyrics that would send Nancy’s “friend” Mrs. Grimshank into a tizzy. Or a dead faint. Maybe I won’t share that one after all. (But I might memorize the refrain and sing it to Mrs. Fetched.)

A Salted Battery

I really love my MacBook, but the battery has never really worked right in it: long before the "fuel gauge" gets to zero, the computer shuts off (it's supposed to just hit deep-sleep mode). When it shut off with the gauge at 50% one afternoon in Michigan, I decided it was time to look up that battery recall I’d been hearing about. And I found it.

After going through the preliminaries, I called the 800 number and talked to BJ. After walking through a couple of things, he said I qualified and they’d send me a new battery in the mail. Yay, no special trip to the Apple Store! While I really enjoy browsing the Apple Store more than just about anywhere else, it’s a significant trip from the manor. I’d hate to burn that much gas just to swap a battery.

That’s one of many reasons I like Apple: if there’s a problem with their stuff, they fix it without a bunch of nonsense. I figure the Battery Fairy will arrive around Tuesday; I can stay plugged in until then.

Bonus!

As I mentioned last night, I went by the mechanic this morning to pick up my car. Mrs. Fetched drove me over, and reminded me to grab my microwave dish full of leftovers on the way out (she’s good about that).

So I jumped in my car, the keys were in it, and I started it up. Reaching over to pull up Album 88 for the drive, I saw the A/C light was on. “Eh, they must have bumped it or something,” I thought, knowing that the A/C hasn’t ever worked in this car. I punched it off, and bumped up the fan because it’s pretty weak on the bottom setting… and some cool air came out. “Naw,” I thought, “it can’t be that. It just hasn’t gotten warm in the vents yet.” I headed on to work, but something just didn’t seem right about the air. It seemed… drier than I’d expect, especially during the Dog Days.

One way to find out, right? Coming home, I turned it on first thing and cranked the fan on high.

Cool air started pouring out.

MY AIR CONDITIONER IS WORKING!!!!

I brought it in for a timing belt & water pump, paid what I was quoted, and got working A/C thrown in! (I wish I’d known, I’d have got the car out earlier and drove that to Michigan.)

Oh, and Mrs. Fetched’s mom got $5 for my jalapeños, and had some left over. Kind of an anti-climax.

Eat to work, work to eat

I suggested stuffed bell peppers for supper tonight — I would have suggested it for yesterday, if we’d had some thawed ground beast. It was quite good, and she invited her parents up to help us eat it. Still, there was enough left over to stuff a microwave dish with a pepper, ear of corn, potatoes, and a slice of Mexican corn bread that Mrs. Fetched’s mom made (hot stuff! yum!). It won’t be any problem carrying it to work, since we’ll be getting my Civic first thing tomorrow.

Since the mom-in-law is going to the farmer’s market in the morning, I cleared the jalapeño bushes of the larger peppers, ending up with over two pounds of biiiig green chiles. Maybe someone will have cilantro and want to trade… I just can’t seem to grow cilantro.

The last of my “restricted” stock just got un-restricted. The HR department sent a memo around saying that they were going to use shares to withhold taxes, and “your net pay will not be affected.” Um… they forgot the Social Security part, which knocked a cool $600 off this paycheck, and I can ill afford to not have that money. I need to sell some of that stock, I guess… and since it’s lost about $2 in the last week, I’ll have to sell more than I needed to in the first place. At least I have the option (pun not intended). Maybe it will shoot back up tomorrow. Maybe pigs will… oh, never mind.

FAR Future: Episode 3

It might be interesting to try weaving the commentary from today into the narrative of tomorrow. Let’s see how this works…

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Sunday, July 29, 2012
The Happenin’ Library

Nancy P asked about the situation at the local library. I’ll have to say, I’ve dropped by on those evenings that I commute to work, and it’s turned into The Happening Place.

Sure, they have the same power issues everyone else does, but that’s actually working in their favor. With the TV out of commission for long stretches of the day, kids are going outside during the day and reading at night (using wind-up flashlights if necessary). If it’s raining, they stay inside and read. So there’s been a lot of volunteer work going into the library lately. Somebody even gave them a generator, and the regulars often kick in some gasoline to keep it (and the lights and computers) running.

The A/C is off most of the time, of course, but people are already getting used to that. Still, I’ve heard there’s been some jostling to get a seat close to a fan. Our library also has an outdoor deck, and they’ve put up tarps and poles to shade it on sunny days. If there’s any breeze, it’s another popular spot.

People in town just come by with their kids as soon as their power goes out. Sometimes, they get really lucky and the library still has power. But however it works out, people catch up on news, books, and each other. The staff shows kids’ videos from the stacks in one of the conference rooms when they can. After a while, people start expecting to see each other, and now the library (or the lobby or standing outside) is becoming the hub for local news and gossip too. The staff is raising a little money by selling coffee — serves the chains right for parking their shops in the retail district instead of putting one downtown. They’d kill for the kind of traffic the library is getting now.

The Internet access is pretty reliable there. They’ve put up a couple more wireless hubs to handle all the people bringing laptops… they have the PCs in the carrels, but there’s usually a line and time limits. I’ve started spending a little time there in the evenings myself, because our DSL has gotten so flaky… I guess the power outages are starting to affect the phone system as well as cable. I’m posting from the library tonight, by the by. You have to assume that the frequent outages are starting to take its toll on server farms as well. If you haven’t already backed up anything you have online, you might want to do that. Printing it out would be a good idea too.

So in a world where most retail businesses have gone to shorter hours, the library is extending theirs. I wonder of the arts council has given it any thought — they could start some writing workshops and we could all get some new, local, reading material.

continued…

Potpourri

Another random-thoughts post, vacation-related and otherwise…

While in Michigan, I saw a couple of Confederate flag symbols and an actual flag out front of someone’s house. Up north, you can’t seriously pretend to “heritage” though. The thing is, while there are goobers and racists up north, they don’t run the show.

Speaking of “up north,” that’s a phrase you don‘t hear “down south.” I remember my parents saying things like, “we’re going up north to Traverse City for vacation this year.” Some other words and phrases I don’t hear on Planet Georgia: wet burrito (the food), smelt (a kind of small fish), snowmobile, ice fishing, dune buggy, or “Harding’s sack.” That last one is localized to southwest Michigan, where there’s a supermarket chain called Harding’s. You can imagine the puzzled look Mrs. Fetched gave me the first time I asked her for one.

Every time I go to Michigan, I learn all over again the rhythm of frost heave strips across the highways: thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk, like a heartbeat. It’s almost hypnotic. While paved roads aren’t as smooth as they are in the south, the road commissions in Michigan really know how to maintain a gravel road. The very best ones are at least as wide as a two-lane state highway; when they’re oiled (to keep the dust down), they pack into something nearly as hard as pavement. Then again, they often develop fine washboards that can rattle your teeth unless you have good suspension. At worst, they’re still better than any unpaved road I’ve seen here. You can usually find a good strip of hard smooth surface if you’re bicycling.

Mrs. Fetched’s mom is going to take some of her cucumbers, and a bunch of my jalapeños, to the farmer’s market on Wednesday. Some of them will probably be red by then; I might keep one of those for seeds next year.

We had some great pizza last night. I made a parsley-pepper crust, Mrs. Fetched supplied the sauce, we added onion, bell pepper (from my supply), and chicken. On the second one, she made a cheese sauce that was really good… I hope she remembers how she did it. For what bell peppers cost at the supermarket, I think I’ve recouped the cost of the plants already, and have a bunch more coming.

The weed-eater is dead at the moment, probably the fuel line. Family Man, if you want to trade, let me know. :-) I was reading something on Kunstler’s blog from a guy who ditched his weed-eater and switched to a scythe — he gets some real exercise and doesn’t have to worry about fuel and so forth. Mrs. Fetched’s dad has two scythes in his shed, but both of them have rusty blades & it would probably take more time to get one cleaned up and sharpened than it would to replace the fuel line in the weed-eater. But I’ve got to do something about the growth approaching and surrounding the jalapeno bed and mulch pile… I’ll probably borrow a weed-eater tomorrow and be done with it in 20 minutes. Maybe I’ll get a piece of fuel line tomorrow and fix mine.

I IM’ed M.A.E. today to see what she’s been up to. Seeing as she’s 3 weeks “along,” I pretty much know. She sounds pretty happy about it; the expectant couple is going to Alabama next week with his construction job and told me she wants us to come to their wedding (whenever it happens). She also told me she saw The Boy’s girlfriend and opined “she looks like she’s 12.” I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d be a bit less pensive about it if she were 18 instead of 16.

What little bits and bobs are happening in your corner of the world?

FAR Future: Episode 2

Wow, now I know how Orson Welles must have felt. Let’s continue with the story…

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Thursday, July 26, 2012
Ir-ration-al Behavior?

Hearing all the roaring and screaming from the right-wing media, you’d think Congress was vivisecting kittens on national TV instead of debating a gas rationing bill. (Worse, actually… they’d probably enjoy watching the kittens.) This is something they should have done last year, instead of listening to the noisiest of the nay-sayers, but maybe we’ll get some action this time.

What’s painful to watch, but unfortunately not surprising, is that the goobers here on Planet Georgia hang on every word and don’t realize that they’re cheering on people who want to make it harder for them to get gas. I used to think this kind of irrational behavior, supporting a “cause” that was hurting them, was a uniquely Southern thing — their dirt-poor ancestors happily marched off to war to support an economic system that made them poor (plantation owners didn’t have to pay a living wage when they owned slaves) — but either the gene spread into the rest of the populace or the American lower class in general has a propensity toward self-destruction.

I guess I have the same gene — I try to talk some sense into people, knowing it’s futile:

“Nobody’s gonna have enough gas when they start rationing!” is the programmed talking point du jour.

“You can’t get enough gas now,” I remind them. “How is rationing going to make it worse?”

“It’ll be worse because nobody will get enough gas!” (In other words, the talking heads and the upper class that owns them will be the in the same boat as the rest of us, that’s what hasn’t sunk in.) Most stations are already limiting purchases to 5 gallons (10, if they got a full shipment) — which, of course, is barely enough to get the SUV or big pickup to the gas station and back — but people will station-hop: five gallons at Citgo, cross the street and get five more at BP, then over to the Exxon for five more, and the stations run dry anyway. Some of them have been threatening to go to a three-gallon limit, but there have already been death threats over five.

This completely leaves out the question of where they’re getting $120 for gas anyway. They must be turning off what’s left of the electricity, and not buying beer or cigarettes. A lot of these people are acting like they’re going through withdrawal jitters — they get really uptight if someone in front of them isn’t moving fast enough. If someone tries cutting in line, getting under your car is a good idea… I’ve seen weapons come out, and some have seen them used. You’ve probably seen similar stuff — worse maybe, in the cities. At least the cities are expanding bus service.

Sigh. I was never able to argue with irrational people. I’ve never been all that great arguing with rational people, for that matter, but at least with rational folks I can think of some counter-arguments in advance. But mostly, these days, I try to keep quiet and go my own way. Just do my work — with people telecommuting so much now, the company is doing really well so I still have a slim hope of retiring normally — live my life, and let idiots be idiots. Hopefully, they didn’t breed too much.

continued…

Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You

We had a rather enthusiastic thunderstorm come through last night. Plenty of noise, but we got to wondering whether there was actually going to be any rain.

While it was rumbling around, I knocked over a pile of stuff in the bedroom — various clothes and some other items that I’ve been meaning to move to the studio. I put away my clothes, stacked the kids’ in different piles for delivery, then stacked up the studio items. As I was carrying them through the living room: flashWHAMMMM!!!! and the power glitched. About three seconds later, the rain started. I figured since I was working at home today, I could take them out when I did some requested photography (battery packs, how exciting).

A few minutes later, Mrs. Fetched got a call from the renters: the power was out down there. She figured the transformer got whacked, then decided the chickens would be OK and went to bed.

This morning, her theory was confirmed. The power company called, said they were going to replace the transformer, and expect the power to go out “for about 45 minutes.” I had enough time to unplug stuff (although the laptops didn’t require a shutdown) although it seemed the power went out a little sooner than the 10 minutes they estimated. Oh well, it came back on sooner too. I just kept working, sans Internet, until it came back, then gave it a few minutes before plugging everything back in.

Was this karma?

The Return

I’m back… we arrived about 12:55 this morning, got maybe 7 hours of sleep before going wide awake.

Vacation posts are below, backdated to the appropriate day.

Feel free to use this as an open thread. Comment on your own vacation plans, my photos, stories, whatever.

Escape 2007, Episode 9: Homeward Bound

Well, it’s the end of my vacation, and I don’t wanna go.
It’s the end of my vacation, and I don’t wanna go.
Gotta get back to it,
Just wish I could say No.

So go the opening lines of the “End of Vacation Blues,” one of several half-baked song lyrics kicking around in my head.

There’s really not much to say about the ride back to FAR Manor. I put air in the tires, gas in the tank (and it had magically dropped like 35 cents in the last two days!), picked up Daughter Dearest and a 5-pound box of Michigan blueberries, pointed it south, and drove. Daughter Dearest slept, except when she was texting her boyfriend or arguing with me about a certain side trip. I let her use my phone for a while, since it has an AIM client & his phone died (forcing him to the computer). There really wasn’t a good point to have her drive, especially when we approached Chattanooga; traffic was much heavier than I would expect for late Sunday night.

People have asked me if I went to Florida instead of Michigan; they can’t believe I got as tan as I did. But I spent quite a few hours outside, and it really does get sunny in Michigan. (You should have seen me in high school toward the end of any given summer; I was pretty dark and the soles of my feet were so tough I could run barefoot over gravel.)

And thus endeth Escape 2007, at least for a month or so. Escape 2007.2 happens in September. Meanwhile, I’ll get back to chronicling life in the free-range insane asylum and posting some of the FAR Future episodes I wrote early last week.

Escape 2007, Episode 8: Kal-Haven

Things have settled down quite a bit in the last day or so, thanks to a couple of fortunate circumstances. First, OB’s father-in-law is feeling much better, and the hospital is going to send him home. This frees up my sister-in-law, in several ways, and she joined us at the lake house early yesterday. Daughter Dearest’s efforts to keep the kids entertained was not overlooked; she got her first pedicure out of the deal (she described it as "different, but nice"). So Daughter Dearest is now free to do… what?

That question was answered by the second circumstance. We had a family meal at a place in Hamilton yesterday, and a cousin (one of the about 20% of my cousins who happens to be female), a little older than Daughter Dearest, was a last-minute addition to the roster. This perked up DD considerably; they had a good time together last time we were in Michigan. Before hearing this news, she had planned to skip the meal entirely. They sat together and DD smiled more in one evening than she had most of the week.

Then, after the dinner, they came over and asked me if DD could go back with them so she could go to my uncle’s party tomorrow. I gave it all of two seconds before agreeing; she had been helpful (if not terribly happy) all week and I wanted her to have a good time too. Besides, it wasn’t exactly like she was going off with strangers. This also answered the question about what she’d be doing while my bro and I were off on our bike ride.

The Kal-Haven Trail is one of the Rails-to-Trails projects, and runs from Kalamazoo to South Haven (on Lake Michigan) — roughly 35 miles. Of the several possible starting points along the trail, we chose Bloomingdale (at the halfway point). That worked out to about 17 miles to the beach; I figured I’d ridden that far on much hillier terrain so I shouldn’t have too much trouble doing it there-and-back on a flat run. (OB is in much better shape, so it wasn’t an issue for him.) There’s only one significant climb on the trail, and it was on the part we weren’t taking.

As you know, I’m not a big fan of cellphone cameras in general, but they do OK on bright sunny days like this. Weight-wise, they come for free with the phone, and I figured it would be a good idea to carry the phone anyway. But sometimes, you just want some zoom.

In the distance, you can see OB boarding his bike. The nice pavement ran out as soon as we got past the depot/museum and into the shade. However, the dirt was hard-packed, smooth (except for the occasional gopher hole), and sprinkled with very fine gravel. My road tires never felt like they were anywhere near slipping at any time.

The trail runs parallel (and across) numerous county roads. Some of the smarter businesses near the trail crossings provide services for the cyclists (summer) or snowmobilers (winter). This particular entrepreneur offers blueberries, soft drinks, and restrooms. The trail has outhouses at various stops along the way, but sometimes you need a break, right?


Approaching South Haven, there’s a covered bridge over the Black River. I took this shot while in motion; it’s blurry, but not in the usual way. Kind of a neat effect, methinks.

We took the westward leg with only one stop to adjust items of clothing; I felt pretty good even after what Jack calls “Accidental Ingestion of Airborne Protein.” (OB managed to spit his out, mine was too far back so I just swallowed and kept riding.) The trail ends shortly after crossing the bridge. OB and I dithered about how to proceed, and figured “west” would get us to the beach. About a mile later, we found a little shop near the beach, grabbed a sandwich and Vernor’s, and crossed the street to the beach.

“Where should we sit?” OB asked.

“In the sand,” I said. “It’ll brush off.”

And so we did. I figured even if I was sore tomorrow, this was worth it. Chow on the beach with your bro, cheeky young ladies walking past, no fishkill — what more could you want in a bicycling destination?

Of course, the trip back was a little harder on the eldest (that would be me). We figured that it was aggregate downhill going west, since the lake is the low point. Seems like downhill going/uphill returning is how I end up on most rides. I had to make a few rest stops on the way back, but after a couple of minutes I was ready to continue. We got back to Bloomingdale, grabbed an ice cream to celebrate, tossed our bikes into Barge Vader, and headed on back.

Escape 2007, Episode 7: Random vacation photos

Wednesday through Friday sort of all ran together. We took turns watching the kids, fended off an obnoxious 5-year-old girl who wanted to walk into a strange man’s house unannounced, had some fun on (and in) the water.

Kayaking

OB has a pair of kayaks, and left them at the lake house when he had to go back to work for the rest of the week. This shot is from earlier in the week; I’m on the orange one. This particular kayak feels very wobbly when you’re not moving, but has the advantage of being self-buoyant and light.

Not shown is the sailboat. I got a little video of him taking an evening sail, but I have yet to upload that.

Mystery sign

Time for a fun quiz: what does this road sign mean? (I’m sure Olivia knows.) This part of Michigan has quite a few of them.

Water lilies (wide)

Daughter Dearest and I took the kayaks out one morning. She chose the wobbly one, even though I warned her it was wobbly at rest, and she managed to not capsize. Many sections of the lake have impressive stands of water lilies, but the flowers were closed up at that time of day. I stuck my camera in a plastic bag, grabbed the green (less tippy) kayak, and got a few shots later in the afternoon. Click this picture to get closer to that yellow lily near the bottom of the picture. This was as close as I could get without tangling the paddle in the lily stalks… but those inner bits look like nothing else from what I could see.


By Thursday, that “the end is coming” sign was becoming visible. We spent a couple of great evenings dining with relatives, running up Dad’s Kalamazoo Brewery (Bell’s) stock, and catching up on things. I was stunned to learn that one of my younger cousins is already a grandmother. Yeesh. It also seems that I don’t have enough cousins by birth (only 20 or so), and so my uncles adopt a new one on occasion. Daughter Dearest hooked up with one of them, but that can wait for the next episode.

Escape 2007, Episode 6: Bored Teen

Daughter Dearest is starting to get cranky. She’s been shouldering much of the burden of watching two small kids through the week; we’ve all taken our turns, but she does most of it through the day. Other Brother comes back after work and takes over for the evening, which should help… but I’m not sure. She spends a great deal of time at night locking herself in Barge Vader and talking to her boyfriend. The mood isn’t so wonderful: she refused to unlock the door for me so I could tell her something, and was not exactly pleased when I used the clicker to unlock the door. I have to wonder sometimes about this whole mood thing: you’d think talking to her boyfriend would make her happy.

She’s also been working on me to go through Bloomington on the way back. I really didn’t want to, and Mrs. Fetched doesn’t think we should (simply because we don’t get included), so it’s not happening. It’s funny though: at supper, she busted my (and Mrs. Fetched’s) chops about how “we” don’t follow through with regard to The Boy. We’re not consistent. Then she wants me to change my mind about not going through Bloomington on the way home, costing us an extra so-many hours on the road? Oops. Well, we’ll see how this goes….

Escape 2007, Episode 5: Baby-sitting

Other Brother had taken Monday and Tuesday off to spend a long weekend with us here. Unfortunately, due to his father-in-law having a health setback, his wife couldn’t come and it was him and the kids (9 and 6 years old). Given the situation at home — she’s a total basket case at the moment, understandably — he’s stuck without anyone to watch the kids and has to be back at work tomorrow. So we struck a deal: he goes home tonight alone, we keep the kids, he comes back tomorrow after work and commutes from the lake house for the rest of the week (or until she can come back).

Other than that, and a night rain that hung into the early morning, things are no different than before. A little water time, a little walking time, a run to town for groceries, and supper. I thought I was going to spend the night in the camper with the kids, but Daughter Dearest took over and is now out there with them. What a great kid. I owe her one: maybe I can not hassle her most of the rest of the week.

Sitting with Dad outside this evening, I saw a rowboat come in a few docks down. A girl, maybe 12, hopped out and ran for the house, leaving the boy (about the same age) trying to keep the boat at the dock.

Dad said, “A boy in a boat, alone on a lake… is king.”

“He probably doesn’t realize it yet.”

“Sure he does.”

Presently, the girl came running back — in a bikini. They threw a ladder in the boat; he swung it around, hit the trolling motor, and they glided away. Pre-teen romance is fun to watch…

Escape 2007, Episode 4: Lake Life

Lake view

Morning on the deck is everything it’s cracked up to be. Nature and humanity combine provide a soundtrack that’s familiar from childhood days at my grandparents’ place (different lake, same county): birds chirp, wind whispers through trees, an outboard motor pushes fishermen to a hopeful spot. The deck faces mostly south, but is cocked just a few degrees east, so the rising sun is filtered through elms and pines to the left before warming the deck.

But today is a golf day. Dad, Wicked Stepfather, Other Brother, and I haven’t played together in a long time. There’s some question about whether to play 9 or 18 holes: Dad (who pulled up some radar on the net and saw a blob of rain coming across Lake Michigan) leans toward 9, WS 18, we brothers are fine with whatever the elders decide. After playing 9, we decided to go for another 9. We ended up playing several of those holes in the rain, although it provided only a convenient excuse for the shots some of us hit. Me, I played like I hadn’t in a year — probably because I haven’t. I didn’t even bother writing in my score for the last two holes. One thing I’d like to do with FAR Manor is to put in some practice areas for golf — a pitching pit would be a great start.

We came back from golf, ready for lunch: leftovers from yesterday’s supper. No problem as far as any of us were concerned. Daughter Dearest and Mom watched OB’s kids, and then he and DD took them to get groceries. Mom and I went for a walk while they were out, then we got out a Jet-Ski that OB’s wife (!!!!) bought. Daughter Dearest actually nerved herself up to take a ride on it (the photo is on Mom’s camera, darn it), and OB and I each took turns riding behind his kids. This particular white-knuckle activity left me needing beer; I sat in a plastic chair and watched the kids play in the water until it was time for supper (frozen pizza, “compliments” of OB; it’s my turn to cook later in the week).

After supper, the kids went back out to play in the water, and Dad brought out a huge water balloon slingshot. It took the kids nearly half an hour to figure out what those big splashes were. The balloons didn’t break when they hit the water, and that was the clue they needed. It was quite entertaining, watching them see the balloons dropping out of the sky, wondering who was throwing them.

It’s so much quieter here than at at the hotel. For one thing, there’s no A/C here. It’s not really needed most of the time in Michigan, and the whole idea behind a lake house is that you’re going to spend most of the day outside anyway. I had my MacBook cranked up pretty high at the hotel — with headphones on — trying to overcome the A/C growl. Here, even the normal volume seems a little loud, even using the tiny MacBook speakers.

I’m having trouble with Blogger. I can leave comments on TFM posts, but I can’t make new posts or comment on other blogs. I can get my primary email, but not Yahoo or AIM mail. I may just give up on Internet this week and focus on what I can do. I have the next four (count ’em!) episodes of FAR Future mostly ready to post (writing in a hotel room really works!), and I can share my vacation with you when I get home, anyway. But now, it’s time for bed.

Escape 2007, Part 3: Traveling

After breakfast at Denny’s, Daughter Dearest bid her boyfriend a tearful farewell, and we hit the road. She was either talking to him or texting with him most of the way up.

Roadside humor

Highway 37 provides four lanes between Bloomington and Indianapolis. Not too many towns on that road though — its primary purpose is to carry all the sports traffic to and from Indiana U. North of Bloomington, the hills tire and all but expire. Finally, we came to I-465 and skirted Indy, going all the way to the top and picking up US31 north. Other than the carnival ride truck on fire, it was just one town to the next: Kokomo (and a zillion stop lights). Peru. Atlanta(!). Mexico. Tipton, home of what is probably the world’s most photographed sign. Logansport. Lapaz (are we back in Peru then?).

Indiana vista

The horizons open up out here on 31; when you top the small wrinkles that pass for hills in this part of Indiana, you can see two miles easily.


Eventually to South Bend, around it, and into Michigan, hooray! Onto the state highways, first M-51 than M-40: Niles. Dowagiac. Decatur. Gobles. Mid-afternoon by now, but the terrain has changed subtly, sandy hills and more trees. The horizons have returned to a human scale. The cornfields south of Decatur look dessicated; the drought has not been good to the corn crop here. Eventually, we turn onto a county road and then a dirt road, and we’re at Dad’s — almost exactly when we thought we’d get there, 4 p.m.

’Most everyone seems to be here at Dad’s: Mom and Wicked Stepfather (staying across the lake), Other Brother and his kids… but — do I hear an echo? — not his wife. I left a phone message when we got to South Bend, but nobody checked the answering machine. Such is life. Mom was happy to see the pile of basil I brought, and I was happy to see a fridge full of microbrew. I can think of only one thing waiting on me to arrive that’s better than beer, and I didn’t bring her with me. Yup, I miss Mrs. Fetched.

Other Brother has brought a large-ish pop-up camper and parked it in Dad’s driveway; it greatly increases the sleeping capacity of the lake house but forces Barge Vader into the grass alongside it. I managed to back it in without hitting either the camper or any of several trees, then back it in even farther when Mom needs to park her van in front of it. A guy I vaguely remember from high school has bought the house across from Dad’s; they’re staying there and fixing it up. Perhaps things aren’t all that different between Planet Georgia and Planet Earth after all. His girlfriend has a daughter who’s the same age as Other Brother’s daughter (6), so they like to visit with each other. I remember going on vacations when I was a kid; it was always great when there were other kids in the same age group as us.

Daughter Dearest went to bed with a bad headache fairly early in the evening, even before supper; I convinced her to try eating at least a banana or other fruit to see if it would help her. She had a hamburger in Kokomo; I had gotten into a mode where I eat a larger breakfast than usual and skip lunch these past couple of days.

Cellphone service out here is spotty at best. I wouldn't usually mind that, except that I wanted to let Mrs. Fetched know we arrived safely. I managed to get enough signal, standing in the road, to leave a message on the answering machine (twice). Daughter Dearest’s phone seems to do better than mine here, so she was able to actually talk to her later. The dialup isn’t that slow, but his Internet Explorer security add-ons seem to have left most of my destinations rather difficult to access — I can leave comments on my own blog, but not log in nor check Gmail, AIM, or Yahoo. Daughter Dearest had similar issues; she couldn’t get her email but was able to use Meebo to IM her boyfriend some more. After checking my home email, the only one I could get to, I was pretty much done for the night.

Escape 2007, Part 2: Bicycling Bloomington

Roadside creek

I never did get a connection in Bloomington. While the Motel 6’s idea of Internet access is to provide a “data port” for whatever dialup service you have (WTF?!!??), its upside is that a bicycle route runs right by it. The highway here has bike lanes on either side, but a side road straight across from the motel beckoned. It turned out to be the old highway, and was quite scenic. I rode past a little park, where a creek ran between the park and the road. Bloomington is very bike-friendly, with bike lanes along many of the main drags and people of all ages riding for exercise or transportation.

Tibetan Buddhist Monastery

As I said earlier, this part of Indiana is somewhat hilly, no killer climbs but there’s enough of an uphill to make you notice. My mountain bike has lower gearing than a typical road bike, but I don’t miss the higher gears on these hills. What goes down must go up — and vice versa, fortunately. As I reached the bottom of one hill, I saw what looked like laundry hanging out to dry but wayyyyy off the ground. I wondered whether it was a park craft project until I saw the sign: “Tibetan Buddhist Monastery.” That’s something you don’t see much of on Planet Georgia.

Our room

Eventually, I turned back and went most of the way toward the IU campus. DD’s boyfriend told me I could probably find an open hotspot on the square; if the coffee shops don’t cooperate then I can bum a connection at the library. However, I hadn’t carried the laptop with me, so there wasn’t much sense in going that far. I turned back and headed for the hotel (the door marked “206” is ours).

Later on, I rode into town (again sans laptop — I don’t have a bike lock, and didn’t feel like taking Barge Vader) and found a little ice cream stand. Just the thing for a hot day in the saddle. I also hung out at the pool for a couple of hours, then went back to the hotel room and finished off the last two beers I’d confiscated from The Boy’s friends. At no time was I invited to meet his family; Mrs. Fetched reported the same thing and was rather put out by it. I was OK either way, but would have liked to have come along just to fly the banner. (This led to some friction with DD later in the week.)

Escape 2007, Part 1: A Day of Strange Signs

What’s worse than no Internet?

Answer: having Internet with no way to access it. Or maybe having unreliable access (so close and yet…)

Thus I sit in my hotel room, in Bloomington IN, sipping a beer and pondering such deep thoughts as I write this post and struggle to get enough of a signal to get online. Daughter Dearest is out with her boyfriend — “we should be back by 10:30,” she assures me, and she has a better track record than The Boy about time. Or Mrs. Fetched, for that matter. They said they would pick me up some socks while they were out, because I forgot to pack any.

But until they get back, it’s me, a laptop with a net connection that works just enough to be frustrating, and my thoughts.

The beginning of this year’s vacation started out much like the last: much delayed by Mrs. Fetched wanting something done. This year, it was the floor molding in Daughter Dearest’s room. Now that we replaced a white carpet with slightly darker (tan) bamboo flooring, suddenly the original molding was too dark. She had said she would get it early in the week so we could get it done before it was time to leave, but somehow the molding didn’t arrive until Wednesday night — which, after Daughter Dearest stained it, would leave us just that one day to do it. Mrs. Fetched enlisted J to help out, and they got one piece down and mis-cut another before I managed to finish my work stuff and get home.

I left work as early as I could (4:30, which is nearly two hours earlier than usual these days) and came home to find… The Boy at Mrs. Fetched’s computer. With his girlfriend, of course. Neither of them seemed to be inclined to help with the floor, naturally, so it fell to J and me. We gamely attempted to do it, but we kept cutting the wrong angle or getting it too short. Such are the hazards of trying to rush the job. After we screwed up several more pieces, Mrs. Fetched said something snide like “I guess since we have all the money in the world, I’ll just hire someone to do it.” You’re welcome. Dear.

Non-tip plant holders

I suppose if I’d been in the mood for a quarrel (extremely rare), I could have pointed out that had she listened to me and not bought FAR Manor in the first place — or perhaps getting the molding earlier in the week, even — we wouldn’t be having this problem. But I had more important fish to fry: packing, for one. Mom had called and asked me to bring some basil, and I wanted to bring some bell and jalapeno peppers, so I had to do a little picking and plucking as well. I also decided to bring two basil plants, because Other Brother’s wife never got around to planting any this year and I still had three in pots. To keep them from tipping over, I appropriated Daughter Dearest’s tennies.

DVD rental kiosk

But with one thing and another, it was close to 9 p.m. before Daughter Dearest and I started Barge Vader and headed out. We drove a little ways past Nashville and spent last night in a town called White House, named appropriately after an inn that once served people traveling between Nashville and Louisville. After a late breakfast at a Waffle House across the road, we stepped out and saw what we thought was the Dumbest Idea Ever: a DVD rental kiosk outside the adjacent McDonald’s. On further consideration, it might not be such a dumb idea after all: if you can drop them off at another McDonald’s down the freeway, it would be a good way to keep the kids quiet.

After getting a couple of pictures, we headed on and were shortly in Kentucky. I marveled at some of the signs I saw along the freeway:

“USED COWS FOR SALE” — perhaps that doesn’t carry such a stigma in Kentucky? (I will apologize to the people of Kentucky when they remove Mitch McConnell from the Senate.) I wish I’d thought to have the camera out before we got to this one.

“THE MOST AWESOME FLEA MARKET IN THE WORLD” — it must be; they say so themselves. Right?

Crossing into Indiana, we picked up US150 West (and north). In between the numerous little towns, the road itself was curvy and hilly — nothing like Planet Georgia, but compared to the rest of Indiana it’s positively mountainous. It would be a nice road for motorcycling. Eventually, we cut onto Hwy. 37 and made our way to Bloomington. While on the way, Mrs. Fetched called: “I was at the Dairy Queen today, and they wanted to know if you still wanted to sell some jalapenos.”

Well, yes… but I don’t remember telling them that. A family from India runs the DQ in town; great people but I’m still trying to figure out where they heard about it — maybe they overheard me saying something last time I was in there.

“How many do they want?” I asked.

“As many as you have to sell.” Cooooooooool. “So how much do you want for them?”

“Um…” I thought a moment. “Find out what Kroger is selling them for, and charge 2/3 of that. That’s probably pretty close to wholesale.”

I probably recouped the price of the plants, anyway. There were plenty of peppers looking for a home, and plenty more are coming. She was making the delivery when we arrived at our hotel.

Ready, set…

It’s almost time to escape FAR Manor for a week+, starting tomorrow evening. Daughter Dearest and I will grab the sigh gas guzzler and head north — first to her boyfriend’s locale for a couple of days and then the ol’ family grounds in Michigan. Mrs. Fetched unfortunately won’t be coming, despite her needing to get away from here more than anyone; the chicken houses have their claws in her and she’s worried about leaving the house empty with The Boy nearby.

Dad has dialup, so I may or may not be online much beyond checking email. I’ll probably have to skip the photoblogs for the most part — I’ll miss ya, Olivia and IVG — then catch up when I get home (or to a place with broadband). If nothing else, I’ll have a pad of paper & something to write with, so I can work on the the next installment(s) of FAR Future. If I get some bandwidth, I’ll post some pictures too.

I’ve been asked to bring basil; I’ll also bring some peppers and a jar blackberry jam. I should probably bring some coffee too; I think Dad drinks decaf.

FAR Future: Episode 1

I got some positive comments about the FAR Manor: 2058 series — I thank you all. As I told Kansas this morning, my creativity has been on the ebb this week… but I woke up this morning knowing how to proceed with this particular series of stories.

Of course, FAR Manor: 2058 was a series of three different visions of what the world might be like on or near my 100^th birthday in November 2058. This new series, “FAR Future,” is actually set in a near future of growing energy shortages. Here at the beginning, five years from now, I look toward Happy Landings as an endpoint… but who knows where it will actually lead?

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Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Blackouts or Whiteins?

Those “four hours per day, max” rolling blackouts they started last month didn’t last long. Mrs. Fetched was on the phone (when it worked) to the power company when it jumped to six hours.

“Oh, just a few glitches,” they reassured her. “We’ll have it taken care of this week.” Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

The power company people should have known what was going to happen, and probably did: as soon as their juice came up in the afternoon, everyone turned on the A/C full blast, trying to cool their houses down right away. Instant overload. The power stays up just a few minutes at a time, and everyone’s mad. I’ve been hearing stories about kids throwing rocks at power trucks when they roll out to replace fried transformers, and some “gangs” have chased off the workers and siphoned their fuel (but somehow, ahem it’s not making the news). Of course, all the neighborhood kids are inside… um, reading. Yeah, that’s it. Our kids know better than to throw rocks at power trucks and steal their fuel, sure.

I put in for a telecommuting exemption, hoping to at least shift our downtime into the evening. I figured even if they cut off FAR Manor for the first and last two hours of the day, the laptop battery would last long enough for me to finish up with a little cushion. It worked for a little while — even with the power flickering all day and crashing the router (until I got a new battery for the UPS). But four hours quickly became six, six became eight, then 10, and now… well heck, you know as well as I do: you can’t count on having more than a few minutes of power at any time from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (and not even afterwards if a transformer blew between you & the sub-station). If it gets any worse, we’ll have to stop calling them blackouts and call the power-up times whiteins. :-P

I yanked a car battery (like we’re driving anything much anyway) and wired it up to run the router and laptop; that gives me enough juice to stay online and working through the day. That windmill I put up isn’t much good through the summer; the air gets still and so does the prop (then thunderstorms try to tear it apart). At least there’s reliable power through the night; I can charge up everything once people’s houses cool off.

The other thing that everyone knows about: tempers are rising with the heat. Like I said, utility workers aren’t the most popular folks on Planet Georgia (or anywhere else), especially since people got a look at their electric bills for last month (when we still had power most of the time). Here at FAR Manor, Mrs. Fetched and I decided it’s really not worth trying to run the A/C at all (too bad most people haven’t figured that out, we might get more reliable power through the day). I work at home three days a week now, and I’ve been spending a lot of it on the porch or in the shade outside. I use a little muffin fan (hooked to the battery) to give me a little breeze inside, and use the thunderstorms as a chance to take a break and cool off. I keep telling Mrs. Fetched that we ought to hike down to the creek after I finish working for the day, but she says it’s too far to walk (and neither one of us wants to waste gas). I’ve gone alone a couple of times, but it’s not much fun being there myself. She spends a lot of time at the chicken houses, so not having A/C isn’t hurting her. What hurts me is when I go to the office on Mondays and Fridays; they don’t run the A/C a lot, but they do enough to keep it comfortable… then I have to stay home and roast the rest of the week. But with gas running $8/gal, when you can find it…

The in-laws reverted to the old days pretty quickly; they just spend a lot of time out on the porch instead of watching TV. Of course, their chicken houses get priority electric service… and the poultry company subsidizes the diesel fuel to run that generator when the power goes out anyway. Not wonderful for me, but at least people can get their roast chicken.

Hope everyone’s coping with the blackouts at least as well. Six or eight more weeks, and we’ll start cooling off. Six or eight more, and we’ll be wishing it was hot again.

continued…

Quiet… (and what’s weird in the world)

Current music: XMusicOnline

The Boy has been gone since Monday, with maybe one phone call in between. A day or so later, he came by (driving his girlfriend’s mom’s truck) and picked up J. He showed up Wednesday, when his family came by for the 4^th, but that’s the last we’ve seen or heard from him too. So it has just been Mrs. Fetched, Daughter Dearest, and me. Mrs. Fetched has had a killer cold lately — and it’s difficult to get a nag going when it gets interrupted by a coughing fit — and Daughter Dearest is too absorbed in hanging out with her boyfriend online to be around very much. So it has been rather quiet around FAR Manor lately.

Since nothing much is going on at the manor, here’s a couple of interesting news items that caught my eye lately:

You’re a bride in India, your in-laws are making life hell for you over a dowry, how do you protest? Here’s one way to get some attention!

The European Union takes the slogan “Come Together” to new heights (or lows?).

I’d relocate to Australia for one of these jobs!

This Belgian will probably cop an insanity plea.

Paris, I got your number.

Food, food, food

We had plenty of leftovers from the 4^th — even though J’s whole family came to help us eat. So Mrs. Fetched, being a kind soul, tossed a hamburger patty plus a bunch of veggies into a microwave dish for me to take for lunch.

That only left one question: how to take it? There was no rain in the forecast, so I was definitely planning on taking the bike. I ended up grabbing the bungee cords off the mountain bike’s back rack and hooking them to convenient protrusions under the seat, leaving the dish pretty well-secured to the rear fender. I’m going to get a cargo rack for the bike first chance I get — I already have a milk crate to put on it, and any lunch items will ride quite happily in that. But until then, this seems to work pretty well.


I’ve been planning to cook some black beans for a while, and finally got around to soaking them Wednesday night. Both Mrs. Fetched and I forgot to do anything about them yesterday, so I clipped some herbs and put them on the beans, asking her to throw them in the crock pot. This she did, adding an onion. When I got home, I put on some rice and we chowed down. Mrs. Fetched said of it, “Either I’m really hungry or this is really good.” I’ll go with #2, of course! Tomorrow, I’ll cook up some more rice and make black bean soup out of what’s left. Mrs. Fetched has a really bad cold, and the cloudy rainy weather has left the girlies chilly (in July! on Planet Georgia!). I’ll mince a jalapeno into the broth; that should warm them up!

Plenty of blackberries out there on the vines, but I don’t know if I’ll get more than what I’ve picked already. I got “only” a half-gallon on Wednesday; it gets difficult to get into the middle of those big stands, even armed with clippers. I dug two deeply-embedded thorns out of my thumb & forefinger last night (it’s not just the heat you have to worry about). But a gallon & a half ought to make enough jelly to make it all worthwhile. Oh, and did I mention I found three or four more blueberry bushes out back? If we can keep the birds out of them, we should have at least a couple quarts of blueberries once we’ve picked them all. Mrs. Fetched likes to freeze them and use them for various things.

Finally… food? Now that The Boy is out of the house, I can start drinking up the beer I confiscated from him and his friends. I found two more bottles stashed in a tool cabinet, one of which was opened and (not) resealed. It might not be food, but beer is nutrition for a guy. That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

Not food: You may not have noticed that I added Kansas’s new blog, Sweet Mystery of Life, to the blog roll. I really need to get a copy of her book sooner or later… good excuse to swing by the bookstore on the way home from work and order it.

Call the Volunteers!

Not the volunteers for the revolution, although if Congress doesn’t put a leash on Bush-league — and soon! — it might come to that. But for the mid-week Independence Day festoovities, I can show off some of the volunteer plants around FAR Manor:

Last year, this was a flower bed. Mrs. Fetched decided she wasn’t going to plant anything in here, so I put in some garlic. The drought nailed most of the garlic, although you can see a couple of shoots managed to survive. I stuck several basil plants in here as well, because I needed to put them somewhere. But the flower (that’s trying to overrun one of the garlic shoots) and the tomato (near the bottom of the frame) decided to appear on their own.

Of the flower, Mrs. Fetched said, “Yeah, I put one of those in there last year… but I thought it was an annual.” It must have self-seeded, because I tilled up that bed pretty good early in the spring.


Several varieties of blueberry are native to Planet Georgia, but I was surprised to find these on one of the more neglected parts of the manor grounds, let alone doing so well. I think the April cold snap may have done them some good. They’re small — pea size or maybe a little smaller — but quite tasty. They take the concept of “low-hanging fruit” to a new low: they’re only a couple of inches off the ground. For some reason, these low-down berries are the first ones to ripen.

The blackberries are also going great guns. I have no clue how they managed to get so big, especially with the dry weather we’ve been having. Perhaps the cold snap helped them as well.


There are three or four bushes out here too, probably of a different variety. These berries are nearly twice as large as the ground-huggers, and still working on ripening. I’ve learned that there’s such a thing as “bird scare ribbon” so I might have to get some of that soon (it will also help us remember the right bushes when we go a-pruning come winter).


I’m not sure if this is a cucumber, squash, or melon — but it came out of nowhere (actually, near the compost pile). I threw half a watermelon in the compost heap last week, but that’s nowhere near enough time for it to grow nearly three feet and start flowering.


I’m about inundated with jalapenos. I’m thinking about picking a bunch of them to take to the farmer’s market on Saturday; I might clip some herbs as well (the parsley and mint especially need a trim, and I have almost as much basil as I do jalapenos) — Mrs. Fetched says I ought to sell them; I was thinking about just trading for produce we (or my mother-in-law, the Master Gardener) don’t have growing. I’ve picked a few bell peppers, and they’re doing quite well too, but we’ll probably use them ourselves. We loves us some bell peppers at FAR Manor, and they’re just too dang expensive at the store.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to get another gallon of blackberries. That (and the gallon I’ve already grabbed) should make enough jelly to get through the winter. One of the few comforts of a cold winter morning is to spread some blackberry jelly on toast and remember just how dang hot it was when I picked those berries in July.

Storms

I wimped out on taking the motorcycle this morning, using the need to carry a laptop as an excuse — so naturally, it didn’t rain much today. It’s misting a little bit right now, but yesterday about this time we were getting some seriously heavy weather. Several storms yesterday delivered downbursts here and there, uprooting a tree onto a highway, flattening this stand of corn about a mile from FAR Manor (it's clearer when you click-to-enlarge), and possibly jackknifing a “portable parking lot” truck in town.

Several of my pepper plants were bent over, as likely from the weight of the peppers as much as the wind. I’m propping them up and relieving them of their burden as best as I can. The bell peppers look very nice — I hope they’re as tasty as they look.