FAR Future, Episode 45: High-Stakes Hide & Seek (part 2)

I’m not a big fan of cliffhangers, but I suppose there’s times when you have to do stuff you don’t like. (In my case, that’s at least every other day.)

Sunday, April 5, 2015
High-Stakes Hide & Seek (part 2)

Synopsis: Having been warned about a Pat-Riot group wanting to round up Guillermo’s family, we decided to make it as difficult as possible for them. They weren’t ready for my claim that their quarry had left back in October. One of the 'Riots let slip a clue about an informant.

After some back-and-forth, and Kim barely managing to keep our dog from attacking them, I agreed to show them my own proof of citizenship then escort them through the manor…

I came back out with my birth certificate, driver’s license, and a video camera.

“Hey!” Bad Riot barked, which got the dog barking as well. “You can put that fuckin’ thing away. You ain’t takin’ no video.” Good Riot didn’t look pleased, either.

“Why?” I said to Bad Riot. “If you ain’t got nothin’ to hide, you shouldn’t have a problem with it. Right?”

They squirmed. I love hanging belligerent idiots on their own words. “Dammit, Bobby,” Good Riot finally said, “let him take his video. It ain’t gonna do him any good.”

“Well, let’s get going, then,” I said. And just to tweak them a little more: “Bienvenidos a mi casa.” Good Riot snorted and returned my birth certificate, and we went in the house. I led them to the guest bedroom, with Mrs. Fetched right behind. “Here’s where they slept.”

I pointed the camera and they poked around, pulling boxes out from under the bed and asking “whose are these?” about a zillion times. The closet was full of Mrs. Fetched’s old clothes, stuff she never wears anymore. The desk sported an old Mac and the network boxes, with backup batteries underneath.

“Did they use this computer?” Good Riot asked.

“Yeah, it’s the guest system,” I said. “I wiped their accounts after they left, though.”

“Why’d you do that?” Bad Riot rolled his eyes.

“It’s an old computer. I needed the hard drive space.”

“What’s that room at the end of the hall?”

“My bedroom.”

“I don’t want you in there,” Mrs. Fetched said. “I haven’t cleaned it up.”

“We just need to check the closets,” Good Riot said. “And maybe look under the bed.”

“Fine. Do whatever you need to so you can get the hell out of my house!” she snapped and stomped away.

They went in the bedroom and looked around. “This ain’t so bad,” Good Riot assured me, “you oughtta see my bedroom.” He chuckled and looked under the bed, pulling out a box to make sure there wasn’t anyone behind it.

“Jeez,” Bad Riot said, coming back in the bedroom door, “the bathroom goes around to the hall. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think about it. Anyway, the kids’ rooms are upstairs. Do you want to check those too?”

“We got to,” Bad Riot said, beginning to drop his belligerent attitude. “Let’s get it done.” He sighed, as if he was resigning himself to bagging no Latinos on this outing.

They checked out The Boy’s old room, which was now Kim’s and Rene’s. “Lots of books up here,” Good Riot said. “Your kids read a lot?”

“It was my library before Kim and Serena came around,” I said. “You heard about that, right? People were dropping off their kids last winter? They’re some of those.”

“That was bad,” Good Riot said. “Least we got a government that protects those kids now.”

I said nothing… maybe that was payback for the Spanish welcome downstairs. We moved to the girls’ room, and they finally found something to pique their interest.

“Hey,” said Bad Riot, trying to dig his way through the closet. “Where does that hatch go?”

“Behind the bedrooms to the attic above the garage.”

“C’mon, Mike. We gotta check this out.” Bad Riot started tossing stuff aside until I cleared my throat and pointed at the camera, then he got a bit more careful, muttering under his breath. Mike, aka Good Riot, crowded in and they finally managed to clear a path through Daughter Dearest’s old toys and treasures. They opened the hatch and Bad Riot looked in. “Damn, it’s dark.”

“Light switch inside to your right,” I suggested.

“Um…” click “Yeah. Thanks.” He crawled in.

“Hey! Be careful. You’ll put a foot through the ceilings downstairs if you get off the wood!” I yelled.

“OK!” Bad Riot crawled in, followed by Good Riot. I figured I’d better follow, to minimize damage if nothing else. Good Riot had a wind-up flashlight, and he put it to use as we got past the light.

I heard a thumping noise in front of me, and Bad Riot yelped. “Mike! Gimme the flashlight! Someone’s up here!” Bad Riot reached back, grabbed the light, and scuttled forward. I heard a rasping noise and more thumping, and we joined Bad Riot in the attic. He played his flashlight around, and swooped back as a pair of lights winked back. A squirrel thrashed its tail and chattered at the light, then leaped for a corner.

“You found him, guys!” I laughed. “If you can get that Mexican squirrel outta my attic and deport him, I’d owe you one!”

Both of the Riots just shook their heads. “C’mon, Bobby,” Good Riot said. “They’re gone, just like he said.”

We made our way back to the hatch, then back outside. I helped them get the Dummer turned around, and they drove off. I waited for the engine noise to fade, then pulled out my phone. Meeting in 10 minutes, I texted.

Ten minutes passed — I wanted to make sure the 'Riots weren’t going to pull a head-fake — then I went back to the girls’ room, opened the hatch in the closet, and rapped on the false wall covering the hidey-hole. Guillermo pulled the pins holding the false wall in place, and they came out. Group hug! then downstairs. (“Mexican squirrel?” Rene gave me a look. “That was baaaad.”)

“You heard that?” I said. We all laughed.

We came downstairs, and Christina ran to Kim and hugged him hard, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Kim gave her an awkward hug and me a deer-in-the-headlights look.

Guillermo cocked his head at the two, then looked at me. I just shrugged and suggested, “Just relieved, I guess.” But Christina wouldn’t unwrap until her dad cleared his throat, then she let him go and sulked away while Kim just stared. Maria gathered her up and took her back upstairs to bring their things back out (and perhaps a few words of motherly advice on the side).

Meanwhile, Rene trotted over to Serena. “You’ve got to put this in your play,” he said. “A magic squirrel who can hide people.”

“Sounds nutty to me,” she retorted, and they laughed.

We’ll need to be careful for a while. I’d hate to have Guillermo’s family more or less prisoner here, but I guess it’s a better place than where the 'Riots would send them.

continued…

New Toys in the Manor

As part of Daughter Dearest’s preparations for college, she decided she needed a new laptop. The used G4 PowerBook we got her a while back is getting creaky, and (as G4s do) runs a bit hot. Fortunately, she had been saving her money for a while and realized she had enough for a new MacBook… especially since the stars aligned and she could get a $100 student discount, and Planet Georgia is in its “tax-free weekend” phase where they waive sales tax on school supplies (including computers). Apple is also running a rebate program in which they’ll rebate the entire price of an iPod nano or touch if you buy one with a computer. She is happy with the nano she got for Christmas, and I’m happy with the 5G iPod I bought a couple years ago, but I have no problem getting a Touch if I only have to temporarily pay for it.

So DD is migrating her files over to the new computer, and I’ve been fiddling with the Touch’s wifi capabilities. She’s going to pass the PowerBook to The Boy, who has been wanting a laptop “for school” and has borrowed both the PowerBook and my own MacBook on occasion.

FAR Future, Episode 44: High-Stakes Hide & Seek (part 1)

I knew a long time ago that I would be writing this episode. I just didn’t realize how long it would run.

Sunday, April 5, 2015
High-Stakes Hide & Seek (part 1)

I’m sure the junta has a file on me as a “member of the opposition.” But I’m more interested in helping people on an individual level than tearing things down at the governmental level — so local officials (I presume) give me a little leeway. Pat-Riots don’t make fine distinctions… but even while they don’t put many people between “us” and “the enemy,” the category of “people who don’t share my views but helped out my kin” lands pretty close to “us.”

Being a Pat-Riot, I have to say, has its hazards, especially outside the South. Here, there’s a long tradition of vigilante groups getting up in other people’s business, but that doesn’t make them universally loved. Sammy has told funny stories about 'Riots falling off ladders or even getting frozen to ladders, as they try to peek into “suspects’” second-story windows. Needless to say, the spied-upon can be rather slow to call 911 when they find a 'Riot injured in the bushes or stuck 10 feet off the ground… if they even go outside to check on what the commotion is all about. Even those who otherwise support the junta and their agenda often (privately) think the Patriot Clubs are an exercise in overreaching.

So when a Pat-Troll came to round up Guillermo’s family yesterday, several people let us know in advance and we were ready.

Our first stall tactic was to hang the steel cable across the driveway. The Riots skidded in the gravel, blared their horn for a few seconds, then one of them got out and unhooked it. Up the driveway they came, slinging gravel… in an old green H2 with a flashing red light bar. They had magnetic signs reading “OFFICIAL BUSINESS” slapped on the sides. Going for impressive, managing only pathetic.

They stopped at the front door and climbed out, leaving the light bar going and carrying crowbars. I pointed and laughed at their vehicle. “What junkyard did you find that piece of crap in?” I asked. “I hope you pushed it here. I’d hate for y’all to waste my tax money gassing it up!”

“Look you—” the smaller one snarled, raising his crowbar. He got one step before his partner put a hand on his shoulder.

“Not now,” he murmured; maybe he meant for me to hear it. He looked at me and said, “We are here on suspicion that you are harboring a gang of Mexicans, in violation of the Latino Repatriation Act of 2014.”

“Yeah,” the other one chimed in. “We’re authorized to search this house and detain anyone who can’t show proof of citizenship. I guess we can start with you.”

“You don’t have to search this place,” I said, twisting my hand and waving. They just looked at me… too young to be Star Wars fans, I guess. “There’s me, and I’ll bring out my birth certificate in a minute. My wife was born here in the county, and Kim and Serena were assigned to us as wards last winter. Und I vill get zee paiperzz for us shortly.”

“We’re gonna search, all right,” the little one said, slapping a palm with his crowbar. “And we’re gonna have a real close look at your proof of citizenship. Disrespect us and see what happens.”

“I don’t know if I’ll let you in my house or not,” I said. “Who ‘authorized’ this search? Do you have proof of your authorization, maybe a warrant or something?”

The little Riot got his response cut off by his partner. “Look,” he said. “I can understand you want to protect them — they’re your slaves, or servants, whatever. But the law’s the law, and we’re deputized to investigate violations of the law.

“And you’re right — we don’t have to search. Just bring ’em out and we’ll take them off, and we’ll forget the harboring charges.”

I’m still not sure if they were deliberately doing a good cop-bad cop routine or not. The little guy didn’t look like he had the brains to put on an act, anyway. “So who are these people I’m supposed to be harboring?”

Good Riot sent Bad Riot to the Dummer, and he returned with a clipboard. “Guillermo Cardenas, approximate age 34, male. Maria Cardenas, approximate age 32, female. Rene—” he pronounced it Reen “—Cardenas, age 12, male. And Christina Cardenas, age 10, female.”

“Oh, no wonder I was confused,” I said. “You mentioned a gang. They’re a family. Yup,” I nodded. “They were here. But they cleared out last fall… um, in October, I think.”

“What?” Bad Riot nearly dropped his crowbar. “What kind of horseshit is that?”

“Guillermo said he didn’t want to cause any trouble,” I said. “Said they were going to Atlanta to get an exit permit, or whatever they call those things. It was supposed to let them travel to the nearest border point… I guess in Texas somewhere.”

Bad Riot shook his head, and Good Riot started at the clipboard. “Well…” Good Riot stammered, “um… our infor— our information must be a little out of date. In that case, we could just look around and verify they’re gone?”

“Yeah,” Bad Riot said, getting back on familiar territory. “If you ain’t got nothin’ to hide, you shouldn’t have a problem—”

At that moment, Mrs. Fetched came around the side of the house with Kim, Serena, and the new herd dog (Butthead went to the Great Porch in the Sky a couple months ago). The dog took one look at the 'Riots and went into attack mode, and Kim barely caught his collar. The dog barked and thrashed, trying to get at the 'Riots, and the way Mrs. Fetched held her hoe suggested that she wouldn’t mind weeding out a couple of 'Riots herself. Serena put down her bucket and took a “ready” stance that I recognized from long-ago karate lessons. Kim looked at me and then at the dog.

I shook my head at them. “Ah,” I said to the 'Riots. “Here’s my wife and the kids I mentioned earlier. Are they white enough for you?”

Good Riot sighed, keeping an eye on the dog. “That’s not what we’re about,” he lied. “But this is already taking too long. We’ll waive proof of citizenship for y’all, if you’ll let us search the house now.”

“Well… you’ve already requested my papers, and I agreed to get them. After all, I’m a little more tan than the rest of my family, and your informant might have mistaken me for a Latino. After you check it, if you leave the crowbars in the shitmobile there, you can have a look around. I don’t want any ‘accidental’ holes in my walls.”

Good Riot cut off Bad Riot’s protest. “Fine. Get your certificate.”

“Will do. Let me tell them what’s up though. It’ll only take another second.” I trotted over to the corner. “Go over there and keep them entertained for a minute,” I told Mrs. Fetched, jerking a thumb at the 'Riots as they tossed their crowbars into the truck. “Kim, Serena, you kids stay back here. But if they try any funny business…”

“Cry ‘havoc’ and loose the dog of war?” Serena chuckled. She looked at the dog, no longer trying to get loose but still growling at the 'Riots.

“Yeah.” I trotted back to the front door. “Back in a minute,” I said as Mrs. Fetched ambled over.

continued…

Eating Local

What with the media hype about E.coli and salmonella in produce these days, the idea of a 100-mile diet seems like a smart idea. But yesterday, we managed to go a couple orders of magnitude better than that.

After a quick Saturday morning fence repair, Mrs. Fetched’s mom handed me a plastic bowl. “Can you grill this catfish?” she asked. “[someone] caught it out of the pond down below the house. I don’t want to heat up the kitchen but it needs cookin’.”

I thought for a moment. “I can give it a try,” I said. “I'll wrap it in foil with some onion and peppers.” She handed me a big bell pepper from the garden, and I took them home and added some basil and oregano from the front yard. If I had to do it over again, I would have used more foil and sealed it properly, but I had two pairs of tongs and didn’t lose anything. The body cavities were a little smaller than I expected, so I ended up putting stuff around the fish more than in it.

Side dishes were fresh corn and fried squash, both from the garden. In fact, the onion was the only ingredient that didn’t come from the farm. Next year, we might get the onions from the garden too.

Late-season Lilies

We’re all tired of looking at the chicken houses this week. Fortunately, they were renditioned last night, and they should all be Good Chickens by now… in your local grocery or on the way. No more looking at broken breakers, no more piles of feed caused by a malfunctioning system, no more die-offs in power failures.

For a couple of weeks, at least.

Something a little more pleasant to look at showed up earlier in the week — some lilies decided to hold out for a month and gave us their own version of the Late Show. You know, that allium never did really bloom out — it’s making little seeds already. Maybe it was a short show and I missed it.

FAR Future is set for the next two Mondays — the upcoming episode ran huge, so I split it up. That gives me a little cushion, and I don’t intend to waste it.

FAR Future, Episode 43: Wallyworld Rising

Life has a tendency to get in the way of important stuff, like writing. I expect to be back on the normal Monday schedule next week.

Friday, February 13, 2015
Wallyworld Rising

Poor Rene. I told him he was welcome to write up something for this month, and I’d either write around it or just give the whole post over to him, depending on how much he had to say. He got about a paragraph written up and met Mr. Writer’s Block. He was nearly in tears about it, even after I told him that it happens to everyone no matter how long they’ve been writing. After he calmed down a bit, he wrote a little more and told me to just use it if I wanted… but of course! Here he is, folks:

Holá, y'all! (that's how we say hello at the manor, at least us kids do.) Farf-Dad said I could say whatever I wanted, but I couldn't think of anything. So I guess I'll talk about our nights. Farf-Dad helped with the spelling some.

In the winter, we sleep downstairs in the living room by the woodstove. We put down two mattresses, one for me and Kim and one for the girls. The Mom's say stuff about us being in the same room with the girls but I don't know why. We lay down so our heads are all together, so we can talk if we're real quiet. Sometimes Kim or Christina will say something funny, and we have to put our faces in the pillows to laugh so the grownups don't come out and tell us to hush. We've got a wind-up flashlight if we need to see to go to the bathroom, and Serena's really good at making shadows on the ceiling. We have to put it under all the pillows to wind it up though or the grownups will hear. One of us has to get up in the middle of the night and throw a log in the stove, usually Kim because he's the biggest. Christina likes to hold the flashlight so he can see, if she wakes up too.

I don't know why we can't always sleep downstairs like this. Just because the girls will get boobs won't make us estupidos or anything. [I’m trying not to editorialize; but kid… you have no idea. —FARf] We don't go right to sleep like they want us to, but we get up to help Mom with breakfast in the morning. Sometimes Kim has some problems getting woken up, but that's because he puts the wood in at night. He only burned himself once, on his arm, because he was trying to go too fast. It really upset Christina, but it wasn't bad.

I can't think of anything else.

I got him a spiral-bound notebook and told him to start writing stuff down in it as it comes to him, even if it he runs out of steam in the middle — he might pick it up later and then he won’t lose what he wants to write here. :-) He and Serena, of course, are the ones who do the best in English and the composition stuff I slip into their lessons. They’re all passable at basic math (except Kim, who’s pretty good at it) and biochemistry — but Christina (the youngest) grasped biochemistry faster than the others, making leaps into material they’re not even covering this year. If she gets much farther, she’ll get beyond anything I can teach her by summer. Not bad for a 10-year-old Mexican girl (sorry, I had to say that to raise the blood pressure of any Pat-Riots reading). Between that and her artistic talents, I get some rather interesting flow diagrams for her homework.

Down in Gwinnett County, some folks got together, took over an abandoned Wal-Mart and named it “Wallyworld.” I laughed for a long time over that one. I must not be the only one… it’s already starting to get used as a generic term. Some of the more serious people want the generic term to be “enclosed community,” but you know that won’t win — they’ll be called wallyworlds until the last one’s abandoned. They’ve even picked up on the name out in Pacifica, where they tend to be a little more organized about setting them up. Some of the Pacifica wallyworlds created an Enclosed Community Housing Organization (ECHO, bleh) that passes “best practices” info around and at least tries to suggest a few minimum standards for living conditions. Some of these places already have several hundred people in them… and I imagine the funk has claws if the ventilation isn’t good. ECHO’s website — one of the few Pacifica sites that the junta doesn’t interfere with — has plans for wind-power systems that have enough oomph to run LED lighting indoors. They keep the windmills cheap to build, but good enough to mark out main routes at night when it’s dark in there (the Wal-Mart buildings at least have skylights for daytime). I’m thinking about trying out the design and adding another windmill to FAR Manor, but I’d have to expand the battery bank and that’s expensive.

Each wallyworld seems to be developing its own flavor, depending on the people inhabiting them. All of them are trying different things to keep the great indoors warm through the winter, or at least not cold: indoor houses, closing off un-used sections (which involves lots of tarps), or suspended ceilings (more tarps). Even the junta, which mostly couldn’t care less about homeless people, is rounding up tarps for them.

At least they’re doing something useful with those big-box buildings.

continued…

The Boy Sees Life from the Other Side

After yesterday’s debacle, there were a thousand (actually 1015) dead chickens to pick up. I was long gone to the job that pays something (but I had to ride home through thunderstorms, so it’s all even), so Mrs. Fetched rounded up The Boy and some other denizens of the trailer to help out. Afterwards, he came up to the manor and Mrs. Fetched asked him how things were going. He delivered himself of a laundry list:

1) A friend of his asked if he could stay there too, and he agreed. A week later, he’s told the guy to “get off his ass and get a job, he’s not freeloading off of me.”

2) Snippet skipped school today, complaining of “heavy cramps,” but was somehow OK to go swimming.

3) “I’m the only one who cleans up the place, and I’m tired of it!”

Yes, that hysterical cackling noise you might have heard this evening was probably Mrs. Fetched and me…

Blitzed

The #4 chicken house ate a main breaker this evening. As usual, I had to waste an entire evening doing nothing to solve the problem. Well… I tried, anyway. The in-laws really need to standardize on equipment — like using the same type of breaker panel in all four chicken houses, so they only have to have one kind of main breaker in the spares kit.

This was the first time I was stuck trying to replace a 200-amp main breaker. It wasn’t pretty. Now if they’d actually had the right kind of replacement, I might have been able to swing it. But the closest thing they had was a breaker that ASSumed the “service” cables came in from the top, and the broken breaker was a side-entry type. After wasting about two hours of my life, a real electrician came by and jury-rigged the top-feeding breaker to work. Maybe, just maybe, the whole barking thing won’t burn down tonight or tomorrow (“they” carry the chickens off come Wednesday).

So I’ve crawled into a bottle of rum for the evening, and it’s getting hard to type. Consider this a placeholder until I get the next FAR Future episode done… which, if there isn’t Yet Another Major Problem, should happen tomorrow (Tuesday) evening. (Dang, it’s already 1 a.m. Make that this evening.)

Daughter Dearest Gets Orientated

When things happen, they happen quickly. DD settled on a college: Reinhardt, a flurry of paperwork ensued, and yesterday was the orientation session (which they call SOAR, for Student Orientation And Registration — since their mascot is the Eagles… hey, I didn’t make it up).

Students and their entourage were greeted by a dancing eagle mascot out front of the student center, giving hugs and high-fives… so of course I had to get a picture. DD went along with it, but claimed I was embarrassing her. Maybe it was because I danced with the eagle a little bit (and she didn’t have the camera).

After a brief sign-in, we went downstairs for the greetings. After about 20 minutes, they split the students up into 5 groups and took them around for tours and info. The parents stayed put and got our own version of info-glut. They had the A/C up way too high, and more breaks would have been nice (they kept us for nearly two hours at one point, moving right from one session to the next). We broke for lunch, which was actually quite good (tons better than the dorm food I remember) and then a tour of the dorms. This was well-received by many of the parents, who were itching for an excuse to get out in the sunshine and thaw out.

First stop was one of the men’s dorms. The girls, and the parents of same, hung out in the lobby while the guys went to check things out. We “admired” the seriously ratty pit group in front of the TV. Only one of the girls had the guts to sit on it, and she took a corner. Daughter Dearest’s observation: “It smells of drywall, bricks and men. That’s comfort for a guy.” Ah, dry(wall) humor. On the way to the women’s dorm, I heard one of the guys opine, “my room has a great view of an electrical box,” which reminded me of some of the dorm views I had (a concrete wall, a cafeteria roof). We got to see the room that DD is assigned to: two rooms, one bath, four people. The big picture window looks out into the courtyard — not over the courtyard, into it. Where people can look back in. I think the blinds will be closed a lot. Her dorm is one of the last two that doesn’t have wireless, but does have Ethernet, so I’ll have to send a cable with her. She’s been trying to get in touch with her roomie, to see if she’ll bring a refrigerator or if DD should bring one.

Back to the student center for more sessions afterwards. Someone must have gotten the memo about the A/C, and the room was much for comfortable. We got to split into groups and discuss various situations that students have been known to get into. Our group got to talk about a student getting (and maxing out) a credit card, on music and unnecessary clothing.

Move-in day is August 23, starting at 8 a.m. The dean of the music department will be having a rehearsal that evening, so it’s going to be a looooong day for her. I figure we’ll help her get her stuff in the room, then get outta there and let her get started.

We'll need to pull $5000 our of our @$$ to pay for this, but it’s worth it. Without FAR Manor, it would be pocket change, but you’ve heard enough of that tune by now…

Silly stuff for Tuesday

They named their church after a Star Wars episode! How cool is that?

I’ve been thinking about printing up the following haiku on stickers & putting them on gas pumps:

Here at the gas pump,
I filled my motorcycle.
It cost 10 dollars.

Speaking of which, I had a couple people encroach in my lane this evening, within a minute of each other, ironically on the way to the gas station. First was a mini-van, then a dualie (aka Tiny P***s Compensator). I'm thinking air horns should be my next accessory. I’ve had this happen on a much larger bike and emptier road. It’s amazing how people don’t see the bike, they don’t hear the horn — but somehow or other, they see you hoist your boot off the peg to kick a dent in their door. :-P

There was a minor head-on collision in front of the gas station. One person was turning left to come in, the other turning left to come out, and they both tried to occupy the same space at the same time. Doesn’t work. Nobody hurt, fortunately, and it gave me a little cover to make the turn myself.

Then another minivan pulled off the road in front of me, about 10 miles from home. I stopped and asked him if everything was OK. He pointed at the hood and said, caliente. By the time I got back his way with a gallon of water, his motor must have cooled down… I hope he got where he was going.

FAR Future, Episode 42: Holidays and Happiness

I’ve always cringed at “Christmas in July” events, and here I am doing one myself. Life is like that…

Monday, January 5, 2015
Holidays and Happiness

Happy New Year. Or a reasonable facsimile of happy. We managed to enjoy the holidays at FAR Manor, even if Christmas is no longer the commercial orgy it used to be. Even the kids were pretty happy, even though their only gifts were notebooks and sketch pads, with good pens and pencils to go with them. I told them that they weren’t to be used for school, just their own writing and drawing. Me… I got a great gift in email, and I’ll mention that shortly. Serena’s working on a play now, and Rene started a diary. He found out what I’ve been doing online forever and “expressed interest.” He might write an entry here on occasion. Kim and Christina are drawing stuff, both separately and together. It’s really fascinating to watch them work, each on one side of the paper; they switch sides every so often to make their stuff blend together and look like a single artist did the whole thing. I’ve never been able to draw, and it’s always amazing to me how other people can. Mrs. Fetched loves her Christmas present — Beth sent her a copy of her new book, and she’s already hoping the third book will be out soon.

Working backwards: we invited the neighbors for a Thanksgiving potluck again. I think it’s going to be a tradition. We had steaks, fish, chicken, and gobs of fruit and veggies. And bread, of course. The pasta, goat cheese, tomatoes and onions that a lot of us enjoy through the summer made an appearance as well.

Now that rationing is “by the market,” as the junta mouthpieces insist on calling it, people are buying and hoarding again… and catching things on fire again. Think of it as evolution in action… and proof of sorts, too. I’ve always said that people don’t believe in evolution because they haven’t evolved themselves, and they tend to be the ones losing property to hoarding. The anti-hoarding laws passed before the coup are still on the books, but they’re only enforced when someone’s stash burns something down — and usually not then, given that they’ve already punished themselves.

My Christmas present came in email, and I don’t know whom to thank it, but it was “totally awesome, dude.” Like I’d mentioned before, some of the metro-area Pat-riots have been gunning for The Prophet, and one bunch decided they would set him up and get it all on video. They wrapped a $10-spot around a bottle of water with a rubber band, and dropped it and a can of tuna in his box while they taped it. The Prophet has always refused cash donations, you know. So he looked straight at the camera and said, “You brood of vipers, your ancestors thought to entrap The Lord with their clever schemes, but their plans were laid low. So will it be with you. I say unto you: follow me, and see what The Lord is doing.” And he picked up his box and started walking.

You can hear them on the recording, discussing what to do, and one of them says, “Hey, this is why we came. If he wants to make it easy on us, who cares?”

The video jumps to the inside of a MARTA train. The Prophet appears to be praying (“or napping,” one of the 'Riots suggests). It jumps again; The Prophet steps off the train and waits for the 'Riots to catch up. “Decatur,” the cameraman says. As they step off the train, he leaves the station.

Another jump: The Prophet climbs the steps of a boarded-up church. People from the surrounding area are approaching; the 'Riots whisper among themselves about their safety but stand their ground. One guy comes and talks to them, but off-camera (they’re watching The Prophet).

“Hey, are you the guys that were putting videos of his sermons on the net?”

“Uh, yeah,” one says. “Some of them, anyway,” says another.

“Cool. You think you’ll be able to upload your video now? The dorks screwed up Internet pretty good.”

“Um… we’ll manage.”

Their visitor starts to say something else, but The Prophet starts preaching at that point and he shuffles away. The sermon rips the junta in just about every way you can imagine: Pharisees, den of thieves, brood of vipers, you name it. He saves a few choice words for all the churches that have thrown in with the “godly men” in the junta. “We can turn him in on a sedition charge,” one of them whispers. “He’s giving us all the rope we need to hang ’im.”

“If they can find him,” another says. “Seems like every time someone tries to grab him, he’s just not there.”

Somebody shushes them, and The Prophet goes on speaking. Finally he lifts his box over his head and says, “Let those who are in need: come. He who drinks of the Living Water will never thirst, he who eats of the Bread of Life will never hunger. Come to The Lord’s storehouse, see what He has done through His enemies.” He puts the box to the side, and the crowd moves forward, but orderly.

“Like zombies,” one of the 'Riots whispers.

Then The Prophet starts reaching into his box and pulling out grocery bags, one or two for each person. (“Where’d all that shit come from?” one of the 'Riots whispers. “The box was empty when I dropped our stuff in!”) Then he pulls out a huge wad of money and gives it to a woman, who cries and hugs him. She steps off to the side, but still in view of the camera, and pulls out a cellphone.

“I’ve got the mortgage,” she says. Her voice is steady, but you can see her tears. “All of it, I think. $2400? … Cash. Yeah, I’m gonna want receipts, and I want papers, signed! Saying you’ve cancelled the foreclosure because we’re paid up.” Meanwhile, The Prophet is still pulling bag after bag out of his cardboard box.

The camera tilts, dips, shakes, but doesn’t go off target; the 'Riots are swearing and murmuring things like, “I’m not believin’ this,” and “Where’s it all coming from?” Finally, the last person gets his bag and walks away.

The Prophet looks at the camera again, says, “Bear witness to what you have seen today,” and walks around the side of the church, leaving the box on the steps. One of the 'Riots runs over to the box, picks it up, and turns it upside down. Something flutters out, and he stoops to pick it up.

“It’s the ten we wrapped around the bottle,” he says. “I marked it.”

“He’s gone!” another one yells from off-camera. “No way he coulda moved that fast! We gotta catch him!”

“Forget it,” the cameraman says. The camera droops, points at the ground, then cuts off.

I’ve watched it over and over, and showed it to Mrs. Fetched. Moved us both to tears… it still does, to me. She only watched it once, said, “We know whose side He’s on,” and walked away. Not really much more you can say about that. Except: whoever sent the video gave me the best Christmas present this year.

continued…

Weekend Cinema

If it’s short, strange, and free, it must be Weekend Cinema!

Now I put a lot of miles on my motorcycle, and I’ve gotten pretty comfortable riding it. But this guy is a lot more comfortable than I’d ever want to get!

Raining Buckets… Literally

As I said in the last post, I rode home in the rain. The bike gave me no trouble, and I gratefully pulled into the garage, got my wet things off, then wiped down the bike (the only cleaning it’s had since I bought it). The rain was on and off until bedtime, at which point it stayed on… in spades. It poured most of the night, with lots of ground lightning really close to home. I was really grateful about not having to ride in that… I’ve done it once before and have no desire to repeat the experience. And I should write about that some time, but not now.

Wednesday rolled around, finally. Mrs. Fetched said there were buckets standing in the open that were brimming over. Her dad's rain gauge had overflowed, so we got more than 6 inches of rain. Lord knows we needed the rain, but catching up all at once? It was still raining on & off, but I’d planned to work at home so I didn’t worry about it.

Thursday morning, more (light) rain. I needed to take some stuff that I’d photographed back to work, so Mrs. Fetched let me take her car… the first time I’d driven to work for about a month. I had to repeat the experience Friday morning, since the motorcycle battery was drained — some moisture must have gotten into the ignition switch or other places where it could do unwelcome things. There was also water in the fuel, which was easily fixed by draining the float bowl.

So Jimmy, a guy who helps out with the farm stuff from time to time, has been getting tired of gas prices and bought a Lifan motorcycle — it’s basically a Chinese 200cc Honda clone — and got it plated with just a little effort. After we took care of a tree down across the fence, we brought his bike up to my place to check over. His chain was pretty loose, so we tightened it up a bit and lubed it (which it also needed), then he let me take it for a short putt. The rear sprocket on this thing is a lot bigger than it needs to be, even on a 200cc bike — it would pull from zero in 2nd gear without any trouble, and I joked about using it to pull stumps.

We decided to buzz down to the creek to see what needed to be done about the log barricade (to keep the cows from going around the fence). I learned very quickly that my habit of using the front brake so much was a bad one on dirt, but fortunately it was just pucker-inducing rather than surrender-to-gravity. But I rounded a corner in front of the pond and stopped at the gate… and no Jimmy. I was just about to go back to see if he was OK, when I heard him coming. He came around the corner a little faster than I would have thought comfortable, straightened it out, then went down. I ran back to him; he’d mostly landed on his shoulder but was only scuffed a little. The amber bezel on one of his turn signals broke; you can see it in the picture if you look carefully.

We continued down to the creek. The heavy rains had washed out the bank where the logs were, and they’d floated sideways… but they were there. We’d just need to get the tractor to pull them back into place. By the time we got back to the house, Jimmy was starting to feel a bit shocky from his get-off, so he sat it out while my father-in-law and I took care of it.

I guess you don't just dust yourself off and keep riding, like you did as a teenager, when you’re pushing 60. “He’s gonna be sooooooore in the morning.”

Bike Night

The local bike shop has a “Bike Night” once a month, and they’ve recently added a Vintage Bikes segment: bring in your old bikes, and everybody votes on Best in Show for prizes. They also have a dyno with a horsepower shootout, which is mostly a curiosity when you have a stock DR-Z400 (rated 34 HP) and several bikes there made well over 100 HP.

This was one of the vintage bikes, a Honda Passport C70 with… a NOS canister???? Someone has got an even weirder sense of humor than me, and that’s saying a lot!

I came for the free food, primarily, and to see how much a new front tire is going to run me ($120) when I need to replace it, probably next month. But the good thing about these gatherings is getting to meet up with other people who love motorcycles and talk about them. Two other guys came in (together) on bikes like mine, and so we hit it off pretty quick. Turns out they live in Buford, but come up this way often to ride both on & off road. One guy was laughing about my milk crate, and even offered me a tank bag if I’d get rid of it, but it was a magnetic bag and I have a plastic tank… then we all laughed about the 70cc scooter with the NOS canister.

There was a chance of rain, and I’d brought my rain suit… and it turned out to be needed. A few drops were enough to get the staff moving their bikes inside; some of the sporties clustered under the awning provided by the dyno truck and some of the visitors boogied on out. The few drops turned into an impressive downpour, which was kind enough to wash a lot of the grime off my bike, and those of us who waited it out alternatively watched the owner’s video of a Colorado ride or stood under one of the large metal awnings and watched the rain wash our bikes.

The rain finally let up, so I put on my rain suit and headed home. It didn’t take long to find some more rain, although it looked as if I might get a break closer to town… and in fact, it stopped for a couple miles. But after that, it pretty much rained all the way home. My hands and feet were soaked, but the rain suit did its job well and kept the rest of me dry and comfortable.

FAR Future, Episode 41: Maximum Disruption

It’s kind of eerie when stuff starts happening that you write about happening in the future…

Ghostburbs (video)

Monday, November 24, 2014
Maximum Disruption

The Beltway pundits have largely been sidelined, due to the tight media controls and spotty electrical service… such is their reward for going along with the coup, or at least not taking a stand against it. Serves them right, IMO; if they hadn’t been tut-tut’ing everything the real government did to try holding things together, maybe it wouldn’t have emboldened the militias. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that you can’t reason with a conservative, you can’t compromise with them, you can’t negotiate with them. You can only prevent them from harming you or everyone around them. You can only wait for a few of them to fall into the pit they dug and wait to stop digging it even deeper. I’ll admit, a few people — even one or two I remember as GCM’ers — have told me (in private) that ‘I never supported anything like this.’ Good for them for finally waking up… too bad it’s too late to make a difference.

But if the Rumps were looking for maximum disruption, they couldn’t have come up with anything much more effective than the “Latino Repatriation Act” and all the riders that went along with it. With no president to sign or veto bills, anything passed becomes law after 10 days… but nothing gets introduced without the blessing of the junta. The LRA has really made a mess on this part of Planet Georgia. There are a lot of people directly affected by the law here; many of them came to work in the poultry business, and landscaping, and restaurants, and anything nobody else wanted to do. And if they have less than five years of “legal residency,” they have to pack up and find their way back home. Of course, the junta wants them to leave, but doesn’t want to have the expense of sending them away.

The whole “must carry proof of citizenship” BS is a little more than a backdoor version of a national ID card. It’s also an obvious invitation to profiling — you can bet Ms. Lily White will never be asked to show a birth certificate or voter registration card (unless she’s voting). I expect I’ll probably be carded more than once, not exactly being blonde and blue-eyed myself.

School started in October, but we yanked the kids out after a week — the junta has rolled out a “universal curriculum” that’s indoctrination and nothing else. About a third of the teachers, even in this Red neck of the woods, quit over it. Daughter Dearest, who plans to come home after her school year is over, pointed us to some good materials and we’ve started home-schooling. I’m working at home all week now, for however long the company going to last, and we’ve set up school time for the afternoon and early evening. It seems to work well for us: the kids help with the chores and gather deadfall in the morning, do their homework in the afternoon, and we go over lessons in the evening. Guillermo and Maria are more than a little concerned about this repatriation thing, but I’ve talked them into sitting tight for now — I’m kind of counting on my ambiguous relationship with the GCM to shield them, at least temporarily. Besides, if they left, I think Kim and Serena would try to go with them; the kids have turned into some kind of eight-legged composite creature. :-)

Down in Atlanta, The Prophet has been busy with ministry. A lot of people are getting thrown out of their houses, even though nobody else wants them. Between that and some draconian laws about vandalizing foreclosure properties, the banks are ending up with a lot of real estate. Like as not, the junta is forcing counties to “overlook” taxes on the houses, so the bankers aren’t getting hurt. It’s not just Atlanta, either. But The Prophet is almost daring the junta to come after him; he blasts them from his cardboard pulpit and continues to gather food donations. A suburban Pat-riot Club has vowed to take him down, and I’m seriously worried.

The big-box joints have taken a pounding in the last couple of months. Sales, clearance sales, “store closing” sales, then people break into the stores and swipe what little is left. Some homeless people outside of Springfield, IL took up residence in an abandoned Wal-Mart to get out of the cold, and it was nearly a month before anyone realized they were there. Not much in one of those stores that would burn, especially if the merchandise was cleared out, but trash is free for the taking (who can afford trash pickup now?) and they built some walls inside out of scrap materials, for privacy and to trap heat. A lot of people are picking up on the idea, especially since nobody cares too much about those old buildings anymore… and people have to have somewhere to go. Sometimes it’s slot campers rolling inside from the parking lot; others come from the street. Somehow or another, they’re building a new kind of home.

Winters really suck when people can’t stay warm.

continued…

Weekend Cinema

Moving a church (with music by the choir)

Blackberry Harvest

No, not the fancy phone, the kind you eat or make into jelly or pies.

I was kind of surprised at how good they looked this year, given the drought. The cool spring and summer (so far) must have done them some good.

Now for the fun part: jelly, jam, pies…

Splat! [UPDATED Jul 6, 9pm]

Daughter Dearest (with our blessing) invited her friend Sasquatch and his family over for a 4th of July cookout. Three of us, three of them… six people? No problem. Them Mrs. Fetched invited her parents (eight). The Boy and P.O.D. (Snippet has to work this afternoon, so that’s ten). Not enough? Not for Mrs. Fetched — she invited another family over… fourteen total. (Somehow, I had thought there were 17, but 14 is plenty.) Ummm… we need groceries. Off to the supermarket.

Eventually, we got to the dairy section in the far back corner of the store, and Daughter Dearest said to me, “Look at this fly.” It was a rather large housefly, walking around on the glass in front of the name-brand milk. Next thing I know, she’d removed one of her flip-flops: “Should I whack it?”

“Sure, squish that sucker!” I said.

WHAP echoed all over the back corner of the store. I was surprised an employee didn’t come over there to investigate; it was fairly loud.

Daughter Dearest quickly walked away from the scene of the crime, and then turned to look and started giggling. “It’s smashed on the glass!”

I had a look… sure enough, this big fly was now part of the display. I would have gotten a picture, but A bunch of people suddenly showed up, completely oblivious to the fly, and I didn’t want to call their attention to it. But DD and I laughed and wise-cracked about it {“It was this big,” DD said, making a dime-sized circle with her finger & thumb. “Yeah, but now it’s this big!” I said, making a two-inch circle with my fingers} until we got to the checkout line, with Mrs. Fetched clucking and eye-rolling in counterpoint. On the way out, she swung by the service desk and told them about the fly, omitting our complicity in the situation.

It’s not like people are buying milk anyway, at $4.50 $5.89 a gallon.

[UPDATE: We swung over that way this afternoon for a couple of errands. The fly is still there, and I got a picture. I guess Mrs. Fetched’s message didn’t get passed along.]

You Go, Girl. To Some Other School.

Lovely… and it’s the school I graduated from.

This is a story that sucks on several levels.

Lordy, but I was glad to get out of high school. I blew that town and didn’t go back for a long time. When I did, I took Mrs. Fetched to the Farm House, a restaurant I worked at for a while. I told the waitress I wanted to say hello to the owner, and she got a funny look and said, “Oh… he moved to Grand Rapids with his daughter. And nobody knew he had a daughter.” oooooops

Summertime?

July came in like early April. 55°F this morning and very low humidity, something quite unusual for Planet Georgia in July. Usually, this time of year, people are considering turning on the car A/C during the morning commute. DD’s pal from Norway would have approved.

A more reliable indicator that summer has arrived: The Boy moved out a couple weeks ago. A few weeks ago, he showed us the place he and his friends were looking at: a double-wide with rotting siding (not well-hidden under fresh paint) and a missing central A/C unit. The place was locked, so I can only imagine what the roof & floors were like. So they ended up renting a trailer from Mrs. Fetched’s mom… they agreed to a bunch of stipulations about alcohol and parties (none), although I’m sure they’ll have some booze hidden away somewhere. Snippet is there (of course), along with one of the other band members and his cousin P.O.D.

Speaking of P.O.D., his commute to Canton is eating him alive — why he can’t find an apartment closer to work is beyond me, but he’s Big V’s son and I’ve long given up on trying to untangle what passes for logic on that side of the family. So he started nosing around to see if I’d “loan” him my Civic (which I bought from him so he could get a truck), but it picked this last week for the speedometer sensor to start acting up. Not thinking he’d take me up on it, I offered to loan him the Virago and he jumped on it. I didn’t think a crotch rocket pilot, even a former one (he sold it after a large speeding ticket some time back), would be interested in a large cruiser. But he figured he could save $30/week in gas alone, so maybe it’s not a big surprise.

I let him borrow it over the weekend to get acquainted with it, and he brought it back complaining of it missing and acting weird. I wasn’t in any shape on Sunday to deal with it, but I checked it out last night and it acted just like it had once before, a couple of years ago, and hadn’t done since. Using the strategy, “check the cheap stuff first,” we (P.O.D. helped) quickly stunk up the garage with spilled gasoline and found that the fuel filter was beyond dirty. Mrs. Fetched picked up a new one today while I was at work, and I got it in tonight. I haven’t refilled the gas tank yet, but I’m pretty sure that will fix the problem. I figure he’ll pick it up while I’m at work tomorrow.

The blackberries are already getting ripe — and I’ll definitely be out picking this weekend when it’s not raining. There’s a new stand, where the timber people cleared an ingress point, that looks nearly as big as the one in the pasture I raided last year. There’s a smaller stand in the front yard, and that’s getting picked first because I won’t have to walk as far. :-) I’d like to get 3 gallons total, which would keep us in jelly for a while. If The Boy and Snippet aren’t too lazy to do a little picking, they could get some free food.

In any case, I’m looking forward to a three-day weekend.

FAR Future, Episode 40: What Comes Out of a Rump Congress?

Wow, episode 40… near the halfway point, I think. I appreciate everyone who’s stuck with it and left comments so far!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014
What Comes Out of a Rump Congress?

About what you’d expect: crap. The oil companies are having a party though, after which they will start drilling pretty much anywhere they please. And to hell with environmental concerns, of course.

Their first act — and here’s something you didn’t need me to tell you — was to kill the rationing system. With gas taking a flying leap to $10/gallon, people aren’t exactly lining up at the pumps — it doesn’t stop gas stations from running out, though. The local stations are already putting purchase limits up: 5 gallons at a time for now, which of course is more than enough to fill a motorcycle…

We’re back to 4-hour rolling blackouts; with natural gas production falling, the junta wants to have it available for winter. I have to agree with that, but of course they’re simply continuing the policy of the legitimate government. Of course, I have to wonder whether they’ll actually follow through and deliver the goods. We went ahead and blew our budget to fill our gas tank, in case we need it for some reason this winter.

Are you seeing “Patriot Clubs” in your locales? Around here, they’re springing up like maggots on roadkill. “Upholding our nation’s moral standards,” which means they feel it’s their right to poke their noses in everyone’s business. They’re meeting in some of the local churches here, and Sammy says that’s pretty normal. We had a couple of them try to set up at our church, and I made enough of a stink about it that the board tabled it (permanently). That probably painted a big fat target on my back, but they know I’m somehow associated with the GCM, so they aren’t too keen on taking shots at me. Still, it’s a good thing Guillermo’s not huge… we took his truck down to the North Springs MARTA station, drained the last gallon out of the gas tank, and took the motorcycle (which rode down in the truck bed) back home with him on the back. Call it a hunch.

While most of us are lying low, The Prophet has emerged once more, saying what most don’t dare to say: “Alas for you, you Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you have more than a beam in your eye — how will you take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye when the whole roof is in yours? Woe unto you, for the judgement you visit on others will be paid back unto you as you stand before The Lord on that day! You accuse men, but God will accuse you! Repent of your pride and your false witness, come out of the belly of the wolf that wears the sheep’s clothing, and you will be forgiven. The wolf may devour you in his time, but you will stand with the worthy on The Day.” That has stirred up the local Pat-riots (as the opposition has started calling them) in no small way. I can’t count the number of times some Pat-riot Club has mowed down some poor black guy in Atlanta who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and crowed that they have taken “The Heretic.” This is not going to end well.

Speaking of not ending well, the big box chains are having serious financial issues. Stores are closing left and right — as much because they can’t get merchandise as not being able to sell it. In fact, the local Wal-Mart died (and there was much rejoicing, but quietly so as not to attract the Pat-riots). The only growth outside of food and fuel is RVs… sounds crazy until you learn that people are buying them, towing them to their parking lots at work, and living in them through the week so they don’t have to drive back to the burbs or wherever. The really popular sellers are “slot campers,” so called because they fit in a parking slot. The hitches retract or fold out of the way, and they’re comfortable enough (or can be made to be) for one or two. Some couples who are falling behind on their mortgages (yes, that’s still happening despite all the happy talk from official channels) are blowing off all their other payments long enough to pay cash for the RV, and leaving everything else behind. Sometimes intact, often not. Of course, you can about buy a used SUV for little more than what it would take to fill the gas tank, and some of the “drive-offs” are buying them to tow the RV to wherever it is they’re going. Often, they end up in the parking lots of closed big-box stores or vacated office buildings. Most office park managers let them stay if they don’t make trouble… in fact, the empty building next door to work has a couple dozen RVs in the parking lot and we have a dozen or so in our own lot.

Wonder of wonders, the cell network was up last night, and we were able to reach Daughter Dearest for her birthday. She now has official “refugee status,” which means she gets dibs on a cot in a gym, a shot at a residence (often an abandoned suburban house, shared by several refugees), and a job teaching in a refugee center outside of Seattle. There are several hundred kids in the school, and they organized it like the old one-room schoolhouses of old; the more responsible older kids help the teachers with the younger kids. There are a handful of other teachers, some are local and some are refugees like her. A few of the parents don’t have teaching degrees or skills, but volunteer as assistants… probably to give them something to do as much as any other reason. Refugees are still working their way west (or north), and the junta seems content to let them leave. Why not? Let the dissidents blow off steam from the outside, instead of making trouble at home, right?

Official story: weekend uprisings in NYC and Boston quelled. Sammy’s side: a coalition of gang-bangers, cops, and random interested parties blew the junta right out of both cities. In Boston, they managed to capture three of the junta’s local leaders, and the “Northeastern Coordinator” escaped New York with possible gunshot wounds. They’re supposedly fanning out to eradicate any remaining junta activity (i.e. rounding up Patriot Clubs) throughout the NY/NE region, although I suspect borders will be fluid for a while. Of course, the southeast and much of the southwest is safe junta territory. Outside of those places, people are starting to realize that junta has little muscle to impose their will much outside of Washington (which might be the whole point of the Pat-riots).

The country is balkanizing. And I’m in the wrong piece.

continued…

Weekend Cinema: The Boy, in Concert

Welcome back to Weekend Cinema, where the time is short, movies are free, and you decide how entertaining it all is!

This time, we’re making an homage to Woodstock, with a home-grown concert video… but not just any concert. This is The Boy’s first performance with Ether, a local-ish punk rock band. Here they are: Ether at Gardner Lake (rather huge, sorry about the bandwidth issues for the dialup folks). The lyrics are… well, not suitable. But I know a lot of the regular readers don’t care too much about that.

The Boy is the one farthest from the camera, wearing white & playing the bass. I stood where I did because that’s where the lighting was best.

The Tale of a Temporary Boarder

Daughter Dearest, like her mom, doesn’t do anything halfway. My online buddies hail from exotic places like South Carolina or Idaho… DD brings 'em in from Norway!

I have to wonder what impression someone visiting the US for the first time would get of the country by visiting one of its crazier corners. Late June on Planet Georgia, even a little less hot than normal, didn’t exactly agree with someone who is used to highs below 70°F in the summer. It was in the low 90s Friday afternoon when I got home and met him… I’d checked the forecast and when I told him this was the high for the week, he said, “Thank God!”

He was very quiet, almost too quiet. One good thing was that he got me to poke the G3 one more time, and this time I got Linux to come up (which made him happy). He’s not exactly an Apple fan, but I like Linux too so this was a quirk I could live with. He's in college, majoring in computer science… and like many CS majors, hacks for fun as well as credit.

DD’s friend Sasquatch was around a lot, and after they finished sizing each other up everyone got along pretty well. Those guys are nearly opposites; one's large and extroverted, the other slight and introverted.

But many things are a matter of perspective: I knew that our gas (even at $4/gallon) is cheap by comparison to Europe’s, but most everything else — food, restaurants, WalMart (can’t visit Planet Georgia without taking in the state religion) — was cheap to him as well. Even the $5 million price tag on a Lake Lanier estate didn’t faze him much… and at this point, Mrs. Fetched was ready to take him and DD to a justice of the peace…

I didn’t get to spend much time with him, which is probably how it’s supposed to be. At this point, I don’t know if he’ll come back or not. DD could probably tell more, if she’s willing. Or maybe she’s gearing up to receive a friend from Australia next!

FAR Future, Episode 39: Our Glorious Nation

Drill now, drill everywhere… and we’ll all have magic ponies.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Our Glorious Nation

Bunch of lying so-and-sos. The grid never collapsed, the junta shut it down! I caught up with someone I know who works at the power company, and he gave me the scoop. He was on one of the trucks that went around shutting off power; a junta person rode with them and told them they were trying to reduce the load. He told me (constantly looking around and keeping his voice down) that he thought something was fishy, but couldn’t figure out what and didn’t want to be the first to speak up. Of course, Humpty Gridly was a little harder to put back together, and power is still flakier than usual (even for summer). That had been one of the rumors from Sammy, but it’s tough to pull facts out of all the noise at the moment. It’s hard to maintain a healthy level of outrage in this climate — but I don’t have to worry about boring you with the news… because a lot of you only get the junta’s side.

Between official pronouncements and what I’ve heard from Sammy, I think I’ve pieced together the story of the coup: Congress was out of session for the summer, and the President is (still) in Nigeria, where he was trying to negotiate some kind of treaty between the government and MEND (among others). A bunch of the hard-cores got their guns and made their way to Washington, knocked out power, blocked traffic in a couple of strategic areas, then stormed the White House and the Capitol. They then called the Joint Chiefs, and promised to “uphold the Constitution.” The military stood down, and that was pretty much it, until Pacifica (now calling itself The USA) seceded. When New England (much closer) and New York attempted to follow suit, things got dicey and the junta pulled the plug on just about everything to keep the rest of the country from hearing about it and getting any ideas. Presumably, they’re trying to take down the closer half of the rebel alliance (I’ve always wanted to say that) first. Most of the world hasn’t recognized the junta as the legitimate American government. Meanwhile, the President is arranging to leave Nigeria without getting intercepted by a junta goon squad, and will end up (God willing) in Pacifica before long.

But people need to eat, drink, and stay cool this time of year, so the junta couldn’t keep things shut down for more than a few days without starting riots. At least the “last mile” stuff for cable and DSL has been upgraded to run on batteries for large parts of the day, and they’ve always had backup power at the other end. So once some juice started flowing again, the net was back on line… and Sammy was ready. Supposedly, Russian or Romanian crackers (some of whom might be old enough to remember Soviet-era news controls) have been deploying their assets to bypass our new dictators. Suddenly, there are plenty of anonymizing relays out there, gateways to a shadow Net, easy to find and use. It’s how I’m getting this posted now. A little slow, but it works and might keep me out of trouble.

For their part, the junta is finding enemies everywhere, and a few are actually not imaginary. The biggest technology and media companies are on the west coast — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Hollywood — and the sheer numbers of zombie Dozeboxes around the country could be considered a fifth column. Some of the news orgs in Pacifica have started releasing a daily news capsule as a 10-minute podcast; they compress it hard so it downloads quickly and you can use them with any music player. One group out of San Fran have picked up on the “Sammy” thing, mixing news and entertainment but keeping the primary focus on the news.

Speaking of which, Shotgun Sam has ended up in an interesting bind. So much of his show depended on callers to fill time and provide a sounding board. He’s a dutiful junta mouthpiece, but after the second show last week he had to stop taking callers — even people who would otherwise support the junta want to know if (for example) about heating assistance for the winter, fuel deliveries, and so on… and getting agitated when he can’t give them a straight answer. I really don’t think he knows the answers. So he’s gone from a one-hour talk show to twenty minutes (maybe) of junta-approved news with a little opinion on the side, and he obviously isn’t enjoying himself.

Life at FAR Manor mostly goes on as usual. The kids were worried about things, probably picking up vibes from the adults, but we’ve all settled back into our normal routines. There's the garden to work, berries to pick, firewood to gather, and off to the creek in the evening. Guillermo and I have constructed a little hidey-hole, just in case it’s needed, but other than that we haven’t done much about the situation. Nobody knows whether school will start in September now or not, so we’re working up our own home-school curriculum. Biochemistry, writing (Maria handles the Spanish end of that, and I’m trying to learn enough Spanish to deal), math, all ought to keep them busy. Serena is catching up to the other kids with her Spanish, and they’ve created a sort of Spanglish to speak among themselves. Mrs. Fetched didn’t like that, but it might come in handy with the current situation as it is.

Most of the “99 percent’ers” have been invited to convene as a rump Congress. I got a laugh out of that, because “rump” in that sense means “an unimportant remnant.” Indeed. The news said that congressional elections will still be held this November, but I (and Sammy) suspect that the only candidates on the ballot will be junta-approved. For all the bad-mouthing they do at Iran, they act just like the mullahs.

continued…

Weekend Cinema

Welcome to Weekend Cinema, where you don’t need much time or any money to catch a flick!

This weekend’s selection is a little longer than usual, and I’m probably going to go to Basement Cat for laughing at it, but wotevr. Fire up your chat warez and check out the tale of two kids who got totally pwn3d by the starz: Romeo and Juliet (l33tsp33k tranzlation).

Flowers of FAR Manor: Allium (and a random road weed, and other stuff)

The allium is continuing to tantalize us with a verrrrry slow opening. But the color is looking nicer all the time. Given the size of the clusters — the largest is bigger than a baseball now — it could well be a Giganteum as IVG was hoping.

I ended up staking the thing because it was looked close to falling over — like I said before, the tallest one stands close to 6 feet tall, and the clusters are getting huge and heavy. It still has an onion/garlic smell.

Daughter Dearest is officially an international beauty — a guy came all the way from Norway (Norway!!!) to see her. He was happy to find that my old Mac G3 had Linux lurking on a partition somewhere, and immediately hooked up to the cluster (he said) under his bed back home. I’m having a great time driving DD nutz by describing him as “some guy she picked up on the Internet.” >8-} He doesn’t like MacOS, but at least he’s not a Doze-nut. I can live with that.

And finally:

This roadside weed caught my eye. The perfect campaign slogan immediately (and I mean immediately) came to mind: Republican Light — screwing a third less poor people than our regular Republican!

Such is Historic Forsyth Country these days. Be goplet or be gone.

FAR Future, Episode 38: Coup Coup Land

Yet another echo from the FAR Future: Suburbs de-gentrifying. It would be a shame, wouldn’t it, if those “pot houses” and the like were to catch fire? Goodbye pot house, goodbye graffiti, hello space for a community garden…

Friday, August 1, 2014
Coup Coup Land

They finally decided to start fixing some of the fuel, power, and and Internet problems. Not a moment too soon… it’s kind of hard to get food when the delivery trucks can’t run to the supermarkets, and it’s hard to get any work done without access to the office LAN. Saying these dudes have serious control issues is an understatement, and one that’s likely to get you chucked in the slammer if you say it aloud.

The junta (that seems to be the right word) has really clamped down on the media, but they’re not as airtight as they’d like — the cell networks are mostly up, and good ol’ Sammy gets the word out. Not too many people here ever heard the word samizdat, but they know Sammy (and Sammy’s Data Service). Sheets packed with text and the occasional picture, left here and there. Cutting senryu printed on stickers and slapped on doorways and other high-traffic areas at eye level. Text messages on cellphones, “from” the White House press office. Daughter Dearest was in Seattle on 7/11 when the coup hit, and there she is now. Because of that happy accident, I can confirm the “rumor” that the West Coast states (and Hawai’i) have seceded and formed the Republic of Pacifica. Alaska has reluctantly thrown in with Pacifica, seeing as they were cut off by the breakaway states and a less-than-friendly (to the junta) Canada. Rumors about New England are a little harder to substantiate, but even the junta’s approved news organs (mainly the yap radio dorks and some religious networks) have hinted at pitched battles in NYC. With the power out, they're getting radio stations up somehow, 7 to 8 p.m., to deliver the daily propaganda news. I guess they’ve got some kind of power up to the radio stations, and at least pieces of the Internet now. Sammy doesn’t have radio, unless you count the occasional staticky Canadian radio station that bounces in, but he gets his side of the story heard one way or another. People with wind-up radios or homegrown power are the only ones getting either Sammy or the junta, though.

But enough about rumors for now. What I know for sure is this: Fuel is nearly impossible to get, except for emergency services and those with connections (and money). Commerce has all but shut down, and everyone is living off their gardens and barter. Or hunting — even out of season, squirrels and rabbits have gotten really scarce lately. We butchered a cow (with Mrs. Fetched’s parents supervising, but Lord what a mess) and took the meat into town in several coolers with a little ice. It was gone in an hour, and we got everything we wanted in trade except for fuel. Except for that run, which used half a gallon of gas, we haven’t gone anywhere since.

The electrical grid, or large portions of it, collapsed a few days after the coup. The junta, of course, blames “liberal terrorists” for that and just about anything else… including the weather. Whatever. The only electricity we have is what we make ourselves, anyway. They’re going to try to bring the grid back up this month, they say, starting with the hydro plants and wind farms. I’m not sure how the nuke plants held up… maybe they ran some minimal amount of power to keep their support systems going. Supposedly, fuel deliveries will resume shortly after the power’s up.

Sammy says thousands of people have met the Four Horsemen and didn’t live to tell the tale. War, famine, pestilence, and death cleaning up behind. Daughter Dearest said that Pacifica has the power on most of the time, and is busy setting up refugee camps. I can imagine that lots of people are heading west or north (to Canada). Not a peep about either one from the “official” news source, naturally.

Closer to home… the GCM is obviously some part of the junta, but not the only part or even a major part… visibly, anyway. Col. Mustard knew what was coming, and I have to thank him for the heads-up. Sammy said there was some major chaos down in Atlanta, but now there’s food and water coming in. Barely enough, and the ’burbs get the bigger half, but it’s enough to keep the lid on. A text message came around that is supposedly a message from The Prophet: “Hold fast, Jerusalem, for you will be delivered on the Day of the Lord. Bring aid and comfort to your neighbor, that the Lord may also bring aid and comfort to you. Fear not those who say, ‘the Lord is with us, not you,’ for they will be made to confess their sin. For today, the servants of the Lord must hide away, but tomorrow they will come forth with the Holy Word. Fear not, and again I say, fear not, for in this evil time the Lord will purify his people; those who persevere will be given a crown.” I hope he’s OK. Lord knows the junta will be hunting him.

I’ve got a lot to say, but it’ll have to wait. The net is only up for a few minutes at a time, and I want to get this uploaded the first try.

continued…

FAR Future, Episode 37: Dubbayou. Tee. Eff?

A couple more “life imitates FAR Future” items:

An Outside View column calls for gas rationing.

Companies are considering a four-day work week.

On with the story. This one’s short, and leads into a longer post later this week. I originally had said “tomorrow,” but I had even less time than usual over the weekend to finish it. Some time this week.

Thursday, July 10, 2014
Dubbayou. Tee. Eff?

As nice as it was with just Mrs. Fetched and I at the creek the last couple of summers, it’s even better with a couple more adults and four enthusiastic kids. We’ve moved a screen tent down there with a few chairs, and we eat supper down there quite a bit now. Everyone takes turns on one end of the cooler or the other, then the kids bolt their chow and go straight for the water. The boys, like The Boy before them, have a great time diving for crawdads, and they all enjoy getting cold in July.

Shortly after we got back in this evening, I got a call from an old “friend” — Col. Mustard. “Just wanted to tell you,” he said, “Don’t panic. You’re being looked after. We don’t forget favors.”

“What?” Right there on top of things, that’s me.

“I can’t tell you anything more. You’ll find out. Everything will be fine.” Click.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

continued…

Weekend Cinema

An SUV driver’s day at the office.

(hat tip to Nudge, from Kunstler’s blog)

Bad Product Names

I happened to notice this sitting under the bathroom sink one night, as I was — oh, I have to say it! — doing my own bowl blaster.

Mrs. Fetched was the one who bought it. Me, I would have laughed heartily and left it on the supermarket shelf. On the other hand, it’s more fun seeing it at home.

I see at least three double-entendres on the label. Sing out, everyone, 'cause maybe there’s more!

FAR Future, Episode 36: Political Storm

Life imitates fiction: people hoarding gas set fire to their apartment.

Saturday, May 3, 2014
Political Storm

The government seems to be embroiled in a perfect storm as May rolls in, and temperatures (atmospheric and political) start rising. Between the thousands of people that didn’t make it through the winter (one estimate said it was close to a million), the electrical grid almost collapsing in February, and the “Rationgate” thing that broke last week (not to mention the fuel ration reduction announced just before), the cons have been having a field day. It’s not like they could get control of Congress or anything in November, but they could end up causing a lot of mischief.

It was heartening, though, to hear the Speaker not taking any crap. “The gentleman from Texas ‘deplores the loss of life over the winter’ and wants to lay the blame at the feet of the President and the Congressional leadership,” she said. “But I find that ironic, coming from a primary co-sponsor of a bill to defund heating assistance — if he and his party had their way, those thousands could have been millions. And he would have sanctimoniously blamed the victims for not saving enough to buy heating fuel or a house in the tropics.”

I’m not going to complain about the ration cut — the 8.5 gallons per week we get now is more than most other people got before, and we don’t use it all anyway — but it sure has caused some turmoil on the exchange. Like so many former OPEC countries, ration “exporters” suddenly became “importers.” It was almost embarrassing, what we got for two lousy gallons of stale rations yesterday. I hope things work themselves out pretty soon, or I might sell locally on the private exchange from now on.

The Rationgate thing… jeez. That was just ridiculous. You would have expected it from Bush-league’s appointees, but this administration has been holding itself to a higher standard (not that it would take much effort to do that, mind you). You get one political appointee who decides to “help out his friends” (by jiggering their accounts to make them unlimited) and it can tarnish the whole shootin’ match. If the so-called “friends” had been smart about it, and only bought what they really needed (or even wanted), it wouldn’t have made a difference… but noooooo. They went around selling enough “spare” rations to trigger an inspection, and were busily hoarding more. Until one of them burned down his house, of course. Too bad stupidity isn’t a crime — then again, if you’re stupid enough you’ll eventually do something blatantly illegal, so maybe its indirectly criminal. Hm.

In the “unexpected expense” department, my little motorcycle spit a valve early in the week. I’m hoping to have a replacement motor in before I have to go back to the office, but I might have to bite my lip and take the car. I’d really like to get one of those Yamaha Commuter Scooters, but the waiting list is long and the dealers are getting a stiff premium for them. Someone had his stolen right out of the parking lot at work two weeks ago. The security cameras showed a pickup truck with a lift backing up to it, picking it up, and driving off with the bike dangling off the back. The company is signing everyone up for 15-minute “watch” shifts to prevent that from happening again; if everyone takes a turn, we’ll each have to do it once a week. If that.

The kids finally got up the nerve to ask about their parents last night. You think you’re ready for it, you know you’re not, but you have to do your part. I told them what happened, and how we learned about it. The tears didn’t stop Serena from finally asking, “Were our parents bad people?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Fetched said. “They wanted what was best for you, and made sure you’d be cared for.”

“They did — or tried to do — something bad,” I pointed out. “You can’t justify armed robbery, after all. But they weren’t bad people, just desperate.”

“And with God’s help, we won’t have to worry about you guys,” Mrs. Fetched said.

Indeed. They took it pretty hard, as expected, but Kim said later that they figured something had happened to them but were afraid to ask. Rene and Christina cried with them, and they were all pretty quiet last night. But I went upstairs this morning to find them, as usual most weekend mornings, sprawled around in the same room. At least they didn’t have to get up and go to school. They'll be out after next week, and the school system is wisely letting the kids have an entire summer so they don’t have to run the air conditioning in the school buildings. Things will still be warm by Labor Day, but it won’t be that brutally oppressive heat we’ll be getting all too soon. Daughter Dearest is going to hop the train and see what she can of the country while it’s still possible, mostly the northern half. I’m hoping that when she gets to Seattle, we can get a video linkup with her granddad from the place where he was on the ship when the Japanese surrendered. Talk about good timing on his part.

So this was a little stream-of-consciousness tonight. Life’s like that sometimes, going in several directions at once.

continued…

I Really Don’t Need This

Friday night, as usual, started at El Rio (one of several local Mexican restaurants). I was on the bike, whose odometer turned to 5000 miles on the way. But on the way home, I saw coming the other way: an ambulance (with no lights), Mrs. Fetched’s mom’s van, and an Emergency Services truck. That’s not a good sign, I thought. I got home, called down to the house, and Daughter Dearest answered the phone.

“Is everything OK?”

“No,” she said, “but we’ll be home in a few minutes and tell you what’s going on.”

It turned out to be Mrs. Fetched’s granny, visiting from Rome (Georgia). At age 95, she’s been doing pretty well except for short-term memory and some of the other things that come with aging. She was getting pale and having chest pains, so they called 911. Her blood pressure was also pretty high, plus an irregular heartbeat to go along with that, so off to the hospital in Gainesville with her. After the obligatory repair at the chicken houses, we gathered up some things and headed over there. Granny was in pretty good spirits, considering a very real possibility that she would be leaving the place feet first (the cardiologist gave her 50-50 odds). Fluid in her lungs added another complication. Fortunately, they were able to figure out it was a congestive heart failure issue, so they put her on Lasix and some medication for the blood pressure. In a matter of hours, she looked her old self again — considering that it was 1:30 a.m. by this time, that was quite a feat. They’ll be moving her out of ICU tonight or tomorrow, and into a private room for at least a day or so.

With that out of the way, we got moving waaaay too early. The girlies went to the chicken houses; I went and hunted up some more huckleberries then made pancakes & bacon for their eventual return. I also put some pop rivets in the composter so it wouldn’t come apart, and mowed the lawn. Then I went guy-shopping with my father-in-law while the girlies napped this afternoon: he wanted to go to Tractor Supply for sprayer parts; I needed to get oil & a filter for the bike and an air filter for the car.

It was barely 5 p.m. and I was pretty hungry; high-carb breakfasts don’t stick around very long. I fired up the grill and did some burgers, then back to the chicken houses for more repair work after supper. While we were there, a car belonging to one of The Boy’s band-buddies went out and then in. “Let’s go down and see what they’re doing,” Mrs. Fetched said.

There were four cars parked near where The Boy has built a fire ring… and The Boy and J were in the middle of a beer-chugging contest. After Mrs. Fetched’s dad told him that no drinking was to be going on down there. He didn’t even stop when we pulled up, and should have been able to hear us coming from a long way off because the truck has a perforated exhaust manifold. His excuse, “It was only one.” (TB05) The only one we saw, anyway.

We left, and Mrs. Fetched decided to let her dad know about it. Then she dumped on me the job of riding down there with her dad… she’s really good about letting me take the heat for her decisions. Whatever. He ranted at The Boy for a while, then drove the long way around the pond (perhaps looking for other signs of trouble) and left. This is the guy who wants to put up campsites around the pond — a no-alcohol policy won’t exactly attract lots of paying customers, IMO, but I’m not going to waste my breath.

So The Boy calls the house. “I just wanted to say thanks for ruining Cousin Splat’s birthday party.” (TB09)

“You ruined it. You knew not to bring beer down there.”

“It was only one.” (as if there wouldn’t have been more… lots more… if they were going to have a birthday party there) “But I don’t understand why you have to make a big deal out of it.”

“I didn’t. But don’t try putting this on me. You were the one down there drinking, not me.”

“Oh, it’s on you alright.” (TB09 again) I guess the next time you see me, I’ll be coming to get my $#!+, because you have to be effing a$$h0l3s.”

Very little useful information was exchanged after that. But I’m done with him. I’m even done talking with him, at least until he can apologize and start taking responsibility for his own actions. We’ve also nobbled the Pontiac so it won’t start, not like there’s any gas in it anyway, until we get the key back.

Weekend Cinema

When it costs $40 to fill up a Civic, you know it’s time to forget about driving to a theater. Weekend Cinema brings you the entertaining, the offbeat… and above all, the brief.

Memorial Day is behind us. The presidential primaries are behind us, leaving us with a choice between a young charismatic black guy and some geezer backed by a massive character assassination apparatus. So… let’s put the gravitas behind us for a little while; plenty of time to be campaigning come fall and we could use a little light entertainment.

So thank Daughter Dearest for finding this and sharing it with us all. Watch two guys put on a very clever magic show.

First Fruits

I was kind of surprised to see the huckleberries/blueberries getting ripe already. There were only a few ripe ones, but there’s a lot more where that came from. I think there will be enough by Saturday morning to have blueberry pancakes.

In a couple weeks, they’ll really come on the pipe and we’ll have to figure out what to do with them. Probably a pie or two.

The blackberries will be ripe in another month, and I shouldn’t have any trouble getting all we want and then some.