The Boy and J had a brilliant plan this morning: stall going to the chicken houses by playing Need for Speed: Underground. So J was fiddling with the remote, trying to get the Game Cube up on the TV and only getting the broadcast channels or the DVD player. The Boy said “press the third button down,” but that didn’t work either.
Then Daughter Dearest picked up the remote. The Boy was going, “It’s not working,” but she had the Game Cube up in a matter of seconds.
Do you want to talk to the man in charge, or the woman who knows what’s going on?
Sunday, June 17, 2007 5 comments
Saturday, June 16, 2007 8 comments
(Upper) Floored: Approaching the Finish Line
As it turns out, Nothing Happened yesterday. We ended up watching a couple of movies (Flushed Away and Syriana) and that was pretty much it. The glue supply was getting low; we called Big V since she was at Home Depot, but she was at a different store than the one we usually go to and they didn’t have it in stock. Oh well.Daughter Dearest and I went up this afternoon and used up the rest of the glue, putting down one entire row and two pieces of another before the glue ran out completely. Looks like we’ll get some glue tonight (and Mrs. Fetched will look at floor molding while we’re there) and finish up tomorrow.
If you look at the picture (as usual, click to enlarge), you might notice that the strip on the left is shrinking a little more than perspective would account for. Due to the non-squareness of the room, we hit the gable a little crooked (it’s tapered too) and had to finagle the sides. That's what table saws are for.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 10 comments
(Upper) Floored: Laying it Down
Last time we went upstairs, the floor was ready for us to commence. And last night, Mrs. Fetched and I did just that, laying down two boxes worth.Amazingly enough, Daughter Dearest didn’t see fit to come up and help us out in any possible way… I just can’t imagine her not wanting to make sure it got finished as quickly as possible.
Naturally, we have a few angles and corners, and that’s where the circular saw comes in. We had to slice about half an inch off the side of the board in that protruding corner in front of the closet door. I’m not really looking forward to the gable part; with our luck, we’ll have to slice off both sides. But if we can average two boxes a night, we should have it done in about a week.
UPDATE: I came home last night to find that Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest had been busy through the day. It’s almost halfway done now!
Monday, June 11, 2007 7 comments
FAR Manor, 2058: Crash & Burn
Intro
Vision the First
Vision the Second.
We are heading into pessimistic territory here, but by no means the worst case: Wars abroad and chaos at home tore apart what little of America was left after GW Bush was through with it. Suburbia emptied out, then was repopulated by urban refugees once food supply lines collapsed for good. Climate change hit hard west of the Mississippi; the plains again became a Dust Bowl while sea levels rose roughly 20 feet (and counting), swamping most of the world’s great cities and inundating several small nations. Refugees from the former bread-basket collided with those fleeing the coasts, and the ensuing free-for-all was the final nail in the coffin of the US. The most optimistic estimates put the population of the former nation at just over 40 million; this remnant is scattered along most of the new coastal areas and around the Great Lakes. Planet Georgia’s inhabitants live mostly along the coast and the old pre-Fall city of Agusta (Augusta). Lately, both the weather patterns and civilization have begun to settle into new configurations…
Old Guy sat impassively in the wagon, cradling the ancient carbine, watching over the troop. Four of the younger folk sat or stood around the wagon, keeping watch although the whole month had gone by without seeing any hostiles. This far north, the wildlife had mostly forgotten about humans and made for easy pickings — this much seemed like the only luck on an unlucky trek. Old Guy had directed them north and west from Agusta, backtracking only once to put a wide margin between themselves and the ghosts that surely ruled Ol’ Lanna.
The old roads were more overgrown the farther they went; since skirting Ol’ Lanna, they had to cut their way through much of it. Fallen trees often blocked the way now, and they settled on having one horse pull the wagon and the second ready to pull trees out of the way. Kudzu covered the road; after rolling into a ditch once, Frenk and Tanni walked ahead and poked the ground to make sure the pavement was where they thought. It was slow going, unlucky, and the youths had begun to grumble when they were sure Old Guy wouldn’t hear.
Two nights ago, they had slept uneasily in a crumbling building at the center of a long-abandoned town; Old Guy called it “the old courthouse.” It was a government building, he reassured them, so they would offend no ghosts. But Tanni thought perhaps he had been lucky that the dream he’d dreamed in that place was just out of reach… to grasp it would have perhaps been grasping madness. Ghosts went where they would, Frenk’s da had once said, and those men who were more at home on the job might well haunt the offices and work stations that defined them in life. Since that night, they had managed all of eight or nine miles, going into a place where even the signs of long-abandoned dwellings were thinning out. It was an empty place, one that the kudzu and pines would try to fill in vain.
Around mid-afternoon, they reached a crumbling culvert. Old Guy leaned forward to look at the sides, and grunted in satisfaction. A creek ran under the old road here, quick and clear. “We’ll stop on the other side,” he said. “You can take the horses down for water, and take a break. It’s maybe a mile from here, up that hill and straight on.”
Take a break, the old pre-Fall phrase for a short siesta. Old Guy’s old way of speaking was one thing; the way he spoke person to person, low and almost slurring the words, made him nearly impossible to understand. But when he stood before the people with a song or story, it rang out loud and clear. He wasn’t just the eldest of the people, he was their bard (a word even older than the pre-Fall world, but it had come back in this time). That the people could afford such a luxury was a matter of honor and prestige — and a matter of life and death to Old Guy, whose other skills were suited mostly to a pre-Fall world of elektrissy and cahs. But anyone who had lived his entire adult life surviving the Fall and its aftermath commanded a modicum of respect and obedience; when he had asked the warlord for five young men and a wagon for a winter expedition, all was given without question.
Everyone worked their way to the creek, hacking a path through the ubiquitous plant life, leaving Old Guy to stand — or sit — watch. None of them felt guilty about this; he was often arrogant as a warlord, rude as a drunken teenager, and someone had to keep watch. Besides, they would have had to carry him: both feet and part of one leg were gone, long-ago victims to a pre-Fall disease they called die-beaters (Frenk often wondered at that name; a sickness that ate you piece by piece didn’t seem to have anything to do with living forever). But most of all, he had the carbine: a pre-Fall weapon, even older than Old Guy himself, and as old as he was he could shoot it better than any of the people.
So Old Guy sat in the wagon, under his hat, while the others filled flasks and watered the horses. Clouds were coming and going today; it was warm in the shade and nearly hot in the sun. The heat never seemed to bother him, but he would spend those few cold nights near the end of Janiary huddled close to a fire. After a quiet time, Frenk brought a flask of water to the wagon and offered it to Old Guy. He drank half of it at a gulp, nodded to Frenk, drained it then handed it back. Frenk turned back toward the creek, then stopped and turned back, putting a hand on the wagon and looking up at Old Guy. The old man looked back down and waited.
“You said we are nearly there,” Frenk said. “You know where we’re going then,” he said, looking expectantly at Old Guy. He merely nodded and looked back at Frenk.
Frenk looked back toward the creek, and leaned into the wagon. “Where?” he almost whispered. Asking a direct question, especially of an elder, was a grievous breach of protocol — unless one were inquiring about that person’s health or comfort.
But Old Guy was Old Guy, and only chuckled. “I wondered when you’d finally get around to it,” he said. “I knew those louts wouldn’t have the nerve or the wish to know.
“We’re going to my old home, Frenk, where I lived before the Fall. I’m going to make my peace with my family, since I’ll likely be joinin’ them before long.”
Frenk’s eyes grew to wheel size. “Their ghosts will be waiting.”
Old Guy laughed and shook his head. “Na. They won’t bother anyone but me, if they bother anyone. Tanni might have one of his dreams, though.
“Okay, go tell the others to come back up. We should get there before it gets dark.”
It took nearly an hour of cutting and pulling to make that last mile. Tanni spied the cemetery on a hill to the right, but nobody worried about the spirits of those who had a proper pre-Fall burial. Shortly past the cemetery, and on the left, stood an overgrown post with a sagging cross-piece pointing toward the edge of the road.
“This is it,” Old Guy said. “My old home.”
Frenk wandered over to the post, while the other youths chattered and worked at clearing what Old Guy said was the driveway, and stepped on something smooth and firm. He brushed away the leaves, and lifted a rusting metal sign; the remnants of a pair of chains showed how it had hung on the post. There was writing, which only Old Guy and Frenk knew how to read; it said simply: FAR Manor. He brought the sign to Old Guy.
“My dad called it that,” Old Guy grunted. “He had stupid names like that for everything.”
Finally, the driveway was clear enough to bring the wagon off the road. Old Guy strapped a pod to the bottom of his longer leg, picked up his crutches from the wagon floor, and slithered down to the ground. He paused only to make sure the carbine was secure, then led the hushed group to a large house, bigger than a warlord’s. Time and the Fall had not been kind to it; most of the windows were broken, and a large tree had at one time crushed through the roof of one wing (“my parents’ room,” Old Guy explained). The front door stood open; Tanni (the lightest) went in while the others went to work salvaging the good glass, wrapping the panes in old blankets and storing them in the wagon. Pre-Fall glass was hard to come by, and much better than modern glass. Enough glass might make this expedition worthwhile.
Tanni said the floor was weak but held him. “Go on,” Old Guy said. “Even if you fall through, you won’t go more than a couple of feet. The deepest part is under the bedroom, and I’ll go in there.” He didn’t feel it necessary to mention that the remains of his parents were in that room.
They filed into the house, scaring up birds and other wildlife. The few pieces of furniture were decrepit, moldering things barely suitable for the nests they supported. The walls had been ripped apart at some time, and the wiring was gone: Old Guy was not the first person to visit FAR Manor since the Fall, it seemed. But the looters were only after wire; the bathroom mirror and a glass door going to a porch were intact. The toilets were also whole, but nobody used those anymore.
Tanni went up the groaning stairs to check the upper rooms while the other youths carried their finds out to the wagon. Old Guy made his way down the hall, clearing the occasional spider web, until he came to a closed door at the end. The door resisted and protested his opening it, but Old Guy managed to push it open far enough to slip through. The crushed bodies under the tree had gone to bones, but otherwise the room was as he’d left it. He pushed the door closed and leaned against it.
Old Guy had lied to Frenk, but lying was his stock in trade and one believed Old Guy only at one‘s peril. There were ghosts here, all right. But Old Guy had been truthful about one thing: they weren’t interested in the others.
I told you to take care of yourself, didn’t I? his dad whispered. You’re lucky you still got all your fingers.
Why did you bother coming back? his mom asked. They obviously hadn’t gotten the word about new cultural mores, Old Guy thought.
“I came to wish Dad a happy birthday… today, if I got the calendar right. Your hundredth. And I came to say I’m sorry for all the stuff I put you guys through.”
Dad’s ghost made a sniff sound. You remembered. Good job. So what are you doing with yourself?
“I’m the bard in Agusta. I didn’t go on the world tour, but everyone still turns out to hear me sing and tell stories.”
That’s good, I guess, Mom’s ghost replied. At least you did something with that talent, instead of wasting it on that screaming crap.
“Huh. We all scream on new moon nights now. It’s how we chase away the other ghosts.”
Figures, Dad said. Is there anything left out there?
“Not much. A few cities. They say Chicago has electricity; one of the old nuke plants is still running. Could be a bunch of bullshit, though.”
Probably. I suppose my diary got rotted in the shelf over there, or started a fire.
“Nope. It’s in the library in Agusta. A couple of people, the ones who know how to read anyway, look at it from time to time. They say it gives them strange dreams, though.”
Dreams fade, Dad said. So do ghosts, Mom chimed in. We’ve been waiting for you. We’ll probably move on, now that you came. From the looks of it, you’ll join us before much longer.
“Yeah. They call me Old Guy now. The oldest man in Agusta, if you can believe it.”
A thumping noise came from under the floor, breaking the spell. Once again, Old Guy was alone in the room. The only thing in here worth salvaging was already in his memory, and he muscled the door open and stumped through, yanking it shut behind him. He made his way outside, and followed the sound of voices around the side of the house. Four of them stood there on the concrete between two garages, amazingly clear.
“Tanni said there was a back door down there,” Frenk said. “He’s checking it out. There’s a big old desk in that little brown shed over there — it’s too big to get out, but it was put in some way.”
“Sure. It comes apart. Lift the top off, and there’s screws underneath, I think. You can take it apart and carry out the pieces.”
Three of them went back to take the desk apart, and Frenk poked his head into the detached garage. “Pretty much empty in here.”
“If the roof looks good, we’ll sleep in there tonight, then. Have you looked in this garage yet?”
Frenk stuck his head through the door, ignoring the question; they were used to Old Guy’s ill-mannered ways by now. “Two old-time vehicles. We should get the sheet metal and glass from these, too.”
The others presently came by, carrying the dismantled desk, and then joined Frenk in cutting up the two vehicles. The larger of the two had a single word, Explorer, in chrome on the back. More blankets for the glass; the wagon would be fairly crowded on the way home. At least the way back was already cut. One of them snapped the Explorer off the sheet metal and tacked it to the back of the wagon, watching Old Guy for his reaction. Old Guy simply nodded; he’d lived here in the years before the Fall, and part-way into it, but it was new territory and they truly were explorers.
A sudden shout left Old Guy scrambling to unlimber the carbine, nearly falling off his crutches before the others caught and steadied him. If it hadn’t been for that, he might have shot Tanni when he burst around the side of the house, waving what looked like a red stick.
“Copper pipe!” he shouted. “A whole pile of it, stacked underneath the house!”
The others forgot everything: the hardships of the trip, the bad dreams, the bad luck, their resentment of Old Guy. An ancient wooden desk was a good find, sheet metal and glass were always useful, but copper pipe was treasure. They rushed to the back door, leaving Old Guy shaking his head and getting a better grip on the carbine.
“Damn,” he said to nobody. “I still don’t remember that being down there.” The warlord would take a share, to be sure, but the six of them were now rich. For the youngsters, it meant prestige, wives, all the good things. Old Guy had all the prestige he wanted and the attention of women when it suited him, but it was still good. Perhaps he would have his share made into bracers or jewelry; he could work it into a story. He would go the way of all folk, sooner or later, but someone else could become the bard. Meanwhile, all of them would have a story to tell.
Vision the Third
Vision the First
Vision the Second.
We are heading into pessimistic territory here, but by no means the worst case: Wars abroad and chaos at home tore apart what little of America was left after GW Bush was through with it. Suburbia emptied out, then was repopulated by urban refugees once food supply lines collapsed for good. Climate change hit hard west of the Mississippi; the plains again became a Dust Bowl while sea levels rose roughly 20 feet (and counting), swamping most of the world’s great cities and inundating several small nations. Refugees from the former bread-basket collided with those fleeing the coasts, and the ensuing free-for-all was the final nail in the coffin of the US. The most optimistic estimates put the population of the former nation at just over 40 million; this remnant is scattered along most of the new coastal areas and around the Great Lakes. Planet Georgia’s inhabitants live mostly along the coast and the old pre-Fall city of Agusta (Augusta). Lately, both the weather patterns and civilization have begun to settle into new configurations…
Old Guy sat impassively in the wagon, cradling the ancient carbine, watching over the troop. Four of the younger folk sat or stood around the wagon, keeping watch although the whole month had gone by without seeing any hostiles. This far north, the wildlife had mostly forgotten about humans and made for easy pickings — this much seemed like the only luck on an unlucky trek. Old Guy had directed them north and west from Agusta, backtracking only once to put a wide margin between themselves and the ghosts that surely ruled Ol’ Lanna.
The old roads were more overgrown the farther they went; since skirting Ol’ Lanna, they had to cut their way through much of it. Fallen trees often blocked the way now, and they settled on having one horse pull the wagon and the second ready to pull trees out of the way. Kudzu covered the road; after rolling into a ditch once, Frenk and Tanni walked ahead and poked the ground to make sure the pavement was where they thought. It was slow going, unlucky, and the youths had begun to grumble when they were sure Old Guy wouldn’t hear.
Two nights ago, they had slept uneasily in a crumbling building at the center of a long-abandoned town; Old Guy called it “the old courthouse.” It was a government building, he reassured them, so they would offend no ghosts. But Tanni thought perhaps he had been lucky that the dream he’d dreamed in that place was just out of reach… to grasp it would have perhaps been grasping madness. Ghosts went where they would, Frenk’s da had once said, and those men who were more at home on the job might well haunt the offices and work stations that defined them in life. Since that night, they had managed all of eight or nine miles, going into a place where even the signs of long-abandoned dwellings were thinning out. It was an empty place, one that the kudzu and pines would try to fill in vain.
Around mid-afternoon, they reached a crumbling culvert. Old Guy leaned forward to look at the sides, and grunted in satisfaction. A creek ran under the old road here, quick and clear. “We’ll stop on the other side,” he said. “You can take the horses down for water, and take a break. It’s maybe a mile from here, up that hill and straight on.”
Take a break, the old pre-Fall phrase for a short siesta. Old Guy’s old way of speaking was one thing; the way he spoke person to person, low and almost slurring the words, made him nearly impossible to understand. But when he stood before the people with a song or story, it rang out loud and clear. He wasn’t just the eldest of the people, he was their bard (a word even older than the pre-Fall world, but it had come back in this time). That the people could afford such a luxury was a matter of honor and prestige — and a matter of life and death to Old Guy, whose other skills were suited mostly to a pre-Fall world of elektrissy and cahs. But anyone who had lived his entire adult life surviving the Fall and its aftermath commanded a modicum of respect and obedience; when he had asked the warlord for five young men and a wagon for a winter expedition, all was given without question.
Everyone worked their way to the creek, hacking a path through the ubiquitous plant life, leaving Old Guy to stand — or sit — watch. None of them felt guilty about this; he was often arrogant as a warlord, rude as a drunken teenager, and someone had to keep watch. Besides, they would have had to carry him: both feet and part of one leg were gone, long-ago victims to a pre-Fall disease they called die-beaters (Frenk often wondered at that name; a sickness that ate you piece by piece didn’t seem to have anything to do with living forever). But most of all, he had the carbine: a pre-Fall weapon, even older than Old Guy himself, and as old as he was he could shoot it better than any of the people.
So Old Guy sat in the wagon, under his hat, while the others filled flasks and watered the horses. Clouds were coming and going today; it was warm in the shade and nearly hot in the sun. The heat never seemed to bother him, but he would spend those few cold nights near the end of Janiary huddled close to a fire. After a quiet time, Frenk brought a flask of water to the wagon and offered it to Old Guy. He drank half of it at a gulp, nodded to Frenk, drained it then handed it back. Frenk turned back toward the creek, then stopped and turned back, putting a hand on the wagon and looking up at Old Guy. The old man looked back down and waited.
“You said we are nearly there,” Frenk said. “You know where we’re going then,” he said, looking expectantly at Old Guy. He merely nodded and looked back at Frenk.
Frenk looked back toward the creek, and leaned into the wagon. “Where?” he almost whispered. Asking a direct question, especially of an elder, was a grievous breach of protocol — unless one were inquiring about that person’s health or comfort.
But Old Guy was Old Guy, and only chuckled. “I wondered when you’d finally get around to it,” he said. “I knew those louts wouldn’t have the nerve or the wish to know.
“We’re going to my old home, Frenk, where I lived before the Fall. I’m going to make my peace with my family, since I’ll likely be joinin’ them before long.”
Frenk’s eyes grew to wheel size. “Their ghosts will be waiting.”
Old Guy laughed and shook his head. “Na. They won’t bother anyone but me, if they bother anyone. Tanni might have one of his dreams, though.
“Okay, go tell the others to come back up. We should get there before it gets dark.”
It took nearly an hour of cutting and pulling to make that last mile. Tanni spied the cemetery on a hill to the right, but nobody worried about the spirits of those who had a proper pre-Fall burial. Shortly past the cemetery, and on the left, stood an overgrown post with a sagging cross-piece pointing toward the edge of the road.
“This is it,” Old Guy said. “My old home.”
Frenk wandered over to the post, while the other youths chattered and worked at clearing what Old Guy said was the driveway, and stepped on something smooth and firm. He brushed away the leaves, and lifted a rusting metal sign; the remnants of a pair of chains showed how it had hung on the post. There was writing, which only Old Guy and Frenk knew how to read; it said simply: FAR Manor. He brought the sign to Old Guy.
“My dad called it that,” Old Guy grunted. “He had stupid names like that for everything.”
Finally, the driveway was clear enough to bring the wagon off the road. Old Guy strapped a pod to the bottom of his longer leg, picked up his crutches from the wagon floor, and slithered down to the ground. He paused only to make sure the carbine was secure, then led the hushed group to a large house, bigger than a warlord’s. Time and the Fall had not been kind to it; most of the windows were broken, and a large tree had at one time crushed through the roof of one wing (“my parents’ room,” Old Guy explained). The front door stood open; Tanni (the lightest) went in while the others went to work salvaging the good glass, wrapping the panes in old blankets and storing them in the wagon. Pre-Fall glass was hard to come by, and much better than modern glass. Enough glass might make this expedition worthwhile.
Tanni said the floor was weak but held him. “Go on,” Old Guy said. “Even if you fall through, you won’t go more than a couple of feet. The deepest part is under the bedroom, and I’ll go in there.” He didn’t feel it necessary to mention that the remains of his parents were in that room.
They filed into the house, scaring up birds and other wildlife. The few pieces of furniture were decrepit, moldering things barely suitable for the nests they supported. The walls had been ripped apart at some time, and the wiring was gone: Old Guy was not the first person to visit FAR Manor since the Fall, it seemed. But the looters were only after wire; the bathroom mirror and a glass door going to a porch were intact. The toilets were also whole, but nobody used those anymore.
Tanni went up the groaning stairs to check the upper rooms while the other youths carried their finds out to the wagon. Old Guy made his way down the hall, clearing the occasional spider web, until he came to a closed door at the end. The door resisted and protested his opening it, but Old Guy managed to push it open far enough to slip through. The crushed bodies under the tree had gone to bones, but otherwise the room was as he’d left it. He pushed the door closed and leaned against it.
Old Guy had lied to Frenk, but lying was his stock in trade and one believed Old Guy only at one‘s peril. There were ghosts here, all right. But Old Guy had been truthful about one thing: they weren’t interested in the others.
I told you to take care of yourself, didn’t I? his dad whispered. You’re lucky you still got all your fingers.
Why did you bother coming back? his mom asked. They obviously hadn’t gotten the word about new cultural mores, Old Guy thought.
“I came to wish Dad a happy birthday… today, if I got the calendar right. Your hundredth. And I came to say I’m sorry for all the stuff I put you guys through.”
Dad’s ghost made a sniff sound. You remembered. Good job. So what are you doing with yourself?
“I’m the bard in Agusta. I didn’t go on the world tour, but everyone still turns out to hear me sing and tell stories.”
That’s good, I guess, Mom’s ghost replied. At least you did something with that talent, instead of wasting it on that screaming crap.
“Huh. We all scream on new moon nights now. It’s how we chase away the other ghosts.”
Figures, Dad said. Is there anything left out there?
“Not much. A few cities. They say Chicago has electricity; one of the old nuke plants is still running. Could be a bunch of bullshit, though.”
Probably. I suppose my diary got rotted in the shelf over there, or started a fire.
“Nope. It’s in the library in Agusta. A couple of people, the ones who know how to read anyway, look at it from time to time. They say it gives them strange dreams, though.”
Dreams fade, Dad said. So do ghosts, Mom chimed in. We’ve been waiting for you. We’ll probably move on, now that you came. From the looks of it, you’ll join us before much longer.
“Yeah. They call me Old Guy now. The oldest man in Agusta, if you can believe it.”
A thumping noise came from under the floor, breaking the spell. Once again, Old Guy was alone in the room. The only thing in here worth salvaging was already in his memory, and he muscled the door open and stumped through, yanking it shut behind him. He made his way outside, and followed the sound of voices around the side of the house. Four of them stood there on the concrete between two garages, amazingly clear.
“Tanni said there was a back door down there,” Frenk said. “He’s checking it out. There’s a big old desk in that little brown shed over there — it’s too big to get out, but it was put in some way.”
“Sure. It comes apart. Lift the top off, and there’s screws underneath, I think. You can take it apart and carry out the pieces.”
Three of them went back to take the desk apart, and Frenk poked his head into the detached garage. “Pretty much empty in here.”
“If the roof looks good, we’ll sleep in there tonight, then. Have you looked in this garage yet?”
Frenk stuck his head through the door, ignoring the question; they were used to Old Guy’s ill-mannered ways by now. “Two old-time vehicles. We should get the sheet metal and glass from these, too.”
The others presently came by, carrying the dismantled desk, and then joined Frenk in cutting up the two vehicles. The larger of the two had a single word, Explorer, in chrome on the back. More blankets for the glass; the wagon would be fairly crowded on the way home. At least the way back was already cut. One of them snapped the Explorer off the sheet metal and tacked it to the back of the wagon, watching Old Guy for his reaction. Old Guy simply nodded; he’d lived here in the years before the Fall, and part-way into it, but it was new territory and they truly were explorers.
A sudden shout left Old Guy scrambling to unlimber the carbine, nearly falling off his crutches before the others caught and steadied him. If it hadn’t been for that, he might have shot Tanni when he burst around the side of the house, waving what looked like a red stick.
“Copper pipe!” he shouted. “A whole pile of it, stacked underneath the house!”
The others forgot everything: the hardships of the trip, the bad dreams, the bad luck, their resentment of Old Guy. An ancient wooden desk was a good find, sheet metal and glass were always useful, but copper pipe was treasure. They rushed to the back door, leaving Old Guy shaking his head and getting a better grip on the carbine.
“Damn,” he said to nobody. “I still don’t remember that being down there.” The warlord would take a share, to be sure, but the six of them were now rich. For the youngsters, it meant prestige, wives, all the good things. Old Guy had all the prestige he wanted and the attention of women when it suited him, but it was still good. Perhaps he would have his share made into bracers or jewelry; he could work it into a story. He would go the way of all folk, sooner or later, but someone else could become the bard. Meanwhile, all of them would have a story to tell.
Vision the Third
Friday, June 08, 2007 2 comments
Thursday, June 07, 2007 9 comments
FAR Manor, 2058: Happy Landings
Intro
Vision the First.
This is one of the more optimistic scenarios I can imagine in the next 51 years: Civilization reconfigured itself around natural, locally-produced energy rather than collapsing. There’s still a USA, but it’s a loose federation of independent regions. Planet Georgia was originally part of New Dixie, which was variously a white supremacist paradise or a dictatorship dressed up in a theocracy, but by this time has balkanized into a collection of freeholds and city-states. FAR Manor is now part of the New Hope Freeholders’ Community.
Climate change missed the “runaway” scenario, although a big chunk of Greenland ice let go in 2032 and flooded most of the seaports. Population declined without too much starvation or all-out war…
“Hop it, kids!” Mama yelled down the hall, harvesting some grumbles. “The digester’s clogged! I’ll fix breakfast on the patio while you’re taking care of it.”
As usual, Martina and Bobby were the first two moving, walking through the kitchen while Mama packed a crate with pans and food. “No gas?” Martina chirped.
“Nope,” Mama said, looking her over. Martina had a baby on the way, their first in a long time, and was just beginning to show. “You guys grab the tools and wait for the rest of ’em. Don’t reward ’em for being slow, right?”
“I heard that,” laughed Miguel, entering the kitchen. “You need some help with that crate, Mama?”
“Nah. But you can pump me a bucket of water while they’re getting the tools out.”
Mama had the fire going in the patio stove before Miguel brought the water, and it was starting to steam by the time the rest joined Martina, Bobby, and Miguel at the digester. Thank God I’m upwind, she thought, as the whoops and laughter told her what the smell was like when they lifted the cap. She looked up at the windmill, turning slowly in the morning breeze. They were pretty well off here at FAR Manor — there was usually enough juice for lights, and nearly always enough to run the small refrigerator. Air conditioning was a distant memory, but fans usually worked when needed the most, and they slept outside in screen tents most of the summer anyway. This time of year was pleasant, if a little cool for outside; the first frost would likely come in a week or two, and they would soon be harvesting and canning the last of the warm-weather veggies. With the digester down, though, they’d be cooking outside for a week or so until the methane pressure built back up.
Clad in their work smocks, the kids worked quickly to get the hardened muck out of the digester, tossing it on the Next Year compost heap. Once the biscuits were cooking in the Dutch oven, and the omelets were going, she turned to find all the boys — and two of the girls — standing on the benches around the open digester and pissing in it. Modesty these days was like gasoline: hard to come by, and mostly not missed. (“Boys” and “girls” — they were all adults, but she was Mama and they were the kids. None of them were hers — her only child sailed out of New Savannah on a merchant ship — but in another sense, they were.)
“Throw a couple handfuls of wood chips in there if you’re gonna do that!” Mama called. “And wash up after!”
“We know!” they chorused. Of course they did; the important parts of biochemistry were taught in fourth grade.
Don’t hassle the people doing the crap work, Daughter Dearest, Dad — or the part of her that used Dad’s voice — whispered in her head. You can’t afford to alienate them, especially.
I know, she answered. They expect me to hassle them, though. Just like I expected you to hassle me.
He laughed. You gonna work ’em ’till they drop today?
“All morning, anyway,” she laughed aloud. “This afternoon, we’ll do something really strenuous, like weaving kudzu baskets and deciding what to take to the community Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Plannin’ the day, Mama?” Liliana patted Mama on the shoulder and surveyed the cooktop. Mama was getting ready to start the omelets. “I was kinda hopin’ me and Roberto could get a little sleep here after breakfast.” Roberto stood grinning on the edge of the patio, holding her rifle and his bow. One of the cow dogs sat at amiable attention next to Roberto, grinning just like the boy and reminding Mama of a dog they had when she was even younger than these two.
“Yeah, if you sleep. I know how you two keep yourselves awake all night.” She rolled her eyes. “Newlyweds.”
Liliana just grinned. “I think we finally wore each other out this morning. We’ll sleep.”
“Nothing happening with the cows, I guess.”
Roberto shook his head. “Not even a coyote. We left the other dogs down at the pasture, we’ll hear ’em if there’s a problem.”
“Anything I can help with here?” Liliana asked.
“Nah, you two go wash up with the others. You both can help carry it in after.” A stray breeze carried the sound of the other kids chattering around the pump. “You missed the excitement, by the way. The digester clogged and the other kids took care of it.”
Roberto wrinkled his nose. “Oh, is that what we smelled coming up here? Give me night watchman duty any time!” The couple walked to the pump, arms around each other. The dog followed them a few steps, turned and sniffed toward the patio, then trotted back to lay on the cool stones.
Good bunch of kids there, Dad spoke up again. You’ve done well — I never did make this place home like you have.
“You almost got there, Dad,” Mama said. “You said it yourself. The last thing you wrote, I think.” She thought about Dad’s old diary, the oldest pages printed off his blog from back when Internet was something you could access just about anywhere (not just the occasional day-trip to the library in town), most of it in his loopy scrawl with an occasional photo or drawing pasted in. This was the time of year… tomorrow, in fact, she would gather the kids on the porch and read some of it to them, contrasting those early oft-despairing rants with the peace he’d realized in the last few months of his life. She thought she would end this year’s reading with one of her favorites: We were refined in the crucible of chaos, depopulation, and Pharisee warlords, and have emerged a purer, stronger people. We have come through the fire with hard-won lessons, and this is perhaps the greatest of them all: unbounded energy does not lead to unbounded happiness, quite the contrary. In the end, we have gained more than we lost.
And that was true. People had to travel in those days, just to get far enough away from home and work to rest. And then they would rush from place to place, wearing out themselves and their machinery and never really finding any rest. Compared to those times, every day at home was a vacation.
“Kids!” she called. “It’s ready! Someone come help me bring it in!”
Vision the Second
Vision the First.
This is one of the more optimistic scenarios I can imagine in the next 51 years: Civilization reconfigured itself around natural, locally-produced energy rather than collapsing. There’s still a USA, but it’s a loose federation of independent regions. Planet Georgia was originally part of New Dixie, which was variously a white supremacist paradise or a dictatorship dressed up in a theocracy, but by this time has balkanized into a collection of freeholds and city-states. FAR Manor is now part of the New Hope Freeholders’ Community.
Climate change missed the “runaway” scenario, although a big chunk of Greenland ice let go in 2032 and flooded most of the seaports. Population declined without too much starvation or all-out war…
“Hop it, kids!” Mama yelled down the hall, harvesting some grumbles. “The digester’s clogged! I’ll fix breakfast on the patio while you’re taking care of it.”
As usual, Martina and Bobby were the first two moving, walking through the kitchen while Mama packed a crate with pans and food. “No gas?” Martina chirped.
“Nope,” Mama said, looking her over. Martina had a baby on the way, their first in a long time, and was just beginning to show. “You guys grab the tools and wait for the rest of ’em. Don’t reward ’em for being slow, right?”
“I heard that,” laughed Miguel, entering the kitchen. “You need some help with that crate, Mama?”
“Nah. But you can pump me a bucket of water while they’re getting the tools out.”
Mama had the fire going in the patio stove before Miguel brought the water, and it was starting to steam by the time the rest joined Martina, Bobby, and Miguel at the digester. Thank God I’m upwind, she thought, as the whoops and laughter told her what the smell was like when they lifted the cap. She looked up at the windmill, turning slowly in the morning breeze. They were pretty well off here at FAR Manor — there was usually enough juice for lights, and nearly always enough to run the small refrigerator. Air conditioning was a distant memory, but fans usually worked when needed the most, and they slept outside in screen tents most of the summer anyway. This time of year was pleasant, if a little cool for outside; the first frost would likely come in a week or two, and they would soon be harvesting and canning the last of the warm-weather veggies. With the digester down, though, they’d be cooking outside for a week or so until the methane pressure built back up.
Clad in their work smocks, the kids worked quickly to get the hardened muck out of the digester, tossing it on the Next Year compost heap. Once the biscuits were cooking in the Dutch oven, and the omelets were going, she turned to find all the boys — and two of the girls — standing on the benches around the open digester and pissing in it. Modesty these days was like gasoline: hard to come by, and mostly not missed. (“Boys” and “girls” — they were all adults, but she was Mama and they were the kids. None of them were hers — her only child sailed out of New Savannah on a merchant ship — but in another sense, they were.)
“Throw a couple handfuls of wood chips in there if you’re gonna do that!” Mama called. “And wash up after!”
“We know!” they chorused. Of course they did; the important parts of biochemistry were taught in fourth grade.
Don’t hassle the people doing the crap work, Daughter Dearest, Dad — or the part of her that used Dad’s voice — whispered in her head. You can’t afford to alienate them, especially.
I know, she answered. They expect me to hassle them, though. Just like I expected you to hassle me.
He laughed. You gonna work ’em ’till they drop today?
“All morning, anyway,” she laughed aloud. “This afternoon, we’ll do something really strenuous, like weaving kudzu baskets and deciding what to take to the community Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Plannin’ the day, Mama?” Liliana patted Mama on the shoulder and surveyed the cooktop. Mama was getting ready to start the omelets. “I was kinda hopin’ me and Roberto could get a little sleep here after breakfast.” Roberto stood grinning on the edge of the patio, holding her rifle and his bow. One of the cow dogs sat at amiable attention next to Roberto, grinning just like the boy and reminding Mama of a dog they had when she was even younger than these two.
“Yeah, if you sleep. I know how you two keep yourselves awake all night.” She rolled her eyes. “Newlyweds.”
Liliana just grinned. “I think we finally wore each other out this morning. We’ll sleep.”
“Nothing happening with the cows, I guess.”
Roberto shook his head. “Not even a coyote. We left the other dogs down at the pasture, we’ll hear ’em if there’s a problem.”
“Anything I can help with here?” Liliana asked.
“Nah, you two go wash up with the others. You both can help carry it in after.” A stray breeze carried the sound of the other kids chattering around the pump. “You missed the excitement, by the way. The digester clogged and the other kids took care of it.”
Roberto wrinkled his nose. “Oh, is that what we smelled coming up here? Give me night watchman duty any time!” The couple walked to the pump, arms around each other. The dog followed them a few steps, turned and sniffed toward the patio, then trotted back to lay on the cool stones.
Good bunch of kids there, Dad spoke up again. You’ve done well — I never did make this place home like you have.
“You almost got there, Dad,” Mama said. “You said it yourself. The last thing you wrote, I think.” She thought about Dad’s old diary, the oldest pages printed off his blog from back when Internet was something you could access just about anywhere (not just the occasional day-trip to the library in town), most of it in his loopy scrawl with an occasional photo or drawing pasted in. This was the time of year… tomorrow, in fact, she would gather the kids on the porch and read some of it to them, contrasting those early oft-despairing rants with the peace he’d realized in the last few months of his life. She thought she would end this year’s reading with one of her favorites: We were refined in the crucible of chaos, depopulation, and Pharisee warlords, and have emerged a purer, stronger people. We have come through the fire with hard-won lessons, and this is perhaps the greatest of them all: unbounded energy does not lead to unbounded happiness, quite the contrary. In the end, we have gained more than we lost.
And that was true. People had to travel in those days, just to get far enough away from home and work to rest. And then they would rush from place to place, wearing out themselves and their machinery and never really finding any rest. Compared to those times, every day at home was a vacation.
“Kids!” she called. “It’s ready! Someone come help me bring it in!”
Vision the Second
FAR Manor, 2058: Intro
Here follow a series of possible futures for both FAR Manor and America. Each of them will be set in an oil-depleted world, in late November of 2058, on or near my 100th birthday. (While I’d like to live that long, I might have come to regret that desire in some of these futures. I had planned to be around in at least one of the three, but none of them quite worked out that way. Other family members take the lead role in each of these futures, however.) My Muse is a hard taskmaster, and wouldn’t let me work on anything else until I got halfway through.
Each future vision is progressively uglier, but all of them end on what I think of as a hopeful note. To avoid cluttering the story itself, I’ll lead off each piece with some backstory and add some further commentary to the comments.
Now proceed to…
Vision the First
Vision the Second
Vision the Third
Each future vision is progressively uglier, but all of them end on what I think of as a hopeful note. To avoid cluttering the story itself, I’ll lead off each piece with some backstory and add some further commentary to the comments.
Now proceed to…
Vision the First
Vision the Second
Vision the Third
Wednesday, June 06, 2007 4 comments
Upper Floored: Preparation (H)
In between me buying a new motorcycle and looking about 50 years into the future, we’ve been working on putting down wood flooring in Daughter Dearest’s bedroom. We’d done the hallway before — we know what to do now, it should be a breeze, right? Rip up the carpet and glue down the new floor….
Of course, any job at FAR Manor is going to turn into a complete hairball.
First, we found a mixture of plywood and particle board under the carpet. And that’s not all: I’m not sure exactly what those spots are, but they look like blood. It wouldn’t surprise me that FAR Manor was causing pain even while it was being built.
The instructions for the new flooring specially say that it can’t be put down over particle board. To make things even more “interesting,” there was a pretty significant sag in the middle of the floor, almost two inches (no, I’m not exaggerating). I looked at Mrs. Fetched and said, “I was right about this place.” (While she was going completely berserk, and driving me berserk wanting to buy this place, I saw its many flaws and described it as a pig in a poke. Like any data that doesn’t fit the previously-made decision, she ignored it. At the time.)
We got two opinions on what to do. Our carpenter friend, who advised us on the last floor job, said it would be fine to just glue (and possibly nail) the strips to the floor as it was. A second person, who would be the one to do the work, said it had to be straightened out — we could either jack it up from the ground floor (yeah right) or put some shims between the sub-floor and the plywood that would eventually be the substrate for the wood floor. Cosmic Rule of the Universe Number One: given two choices, Mrs. Fetched is always going to pick the most complicated option. If I don’t fall in line immediately, she’ll besiege me with whines, nags, dire predictions, until I throw my hands up and say some variation of “Do what you want — you’re going to anyway.” Of course it’s not an issue to her: she’s not the one doing the actual work.
In a vain attempt to get some peace, I had The Boy help me measure the sag and mark some spots. I figured I could partially even it out, enough to satisfy Mrs. Fetched’s mania for complicating things. I wasn’t having much luck, and she called in the people who caused all the commotion. Upon inspecting the floor, they informed us that there was a layer of plywood under the top layer, and if we could crowbar it out it would save them some time. Well… taking a crowbar to FAR Manor is a pleasure surpassed by very few things, and one of those is taking a crowbar to the chicken houses. J (the son of our carpenter friend) has been our extra resident for a couple of months now; he tends to be quiet and helpful so he doesn’t get quite the coverage of M.A.E. or Lobster. We spent a happy evening of echar la casa por la ventana (literally, not the Hispanic idiom for a wild party) because the particle board came up in pieces and we could toss the small- and medium-size pieces down to the front yard instead of carrying them. In fact, Mrs. Fetched caught me singing some happy 80s tune, and wondered why I wasn’t mad anymore. How quickly we forget. :-P
Somewhere in there, Mrs. Fetched got one of the farm trucks, and we finished up by loading up the fragged particle board. I got a perfect action shot of J tossing a big chunk on the first attempt.
That got us through the long weekend. Last night, Mrs. Fetched and I cut 1/4-inch plywood to lay down over the new floor (the guy who did the work said it would be best if we did). I was hoping to come home to find it already nailed down, but Cosmic Rule of the Universe Number Two says: if I don’t do it around here, it doesn’t get done. Taking a hammer to FAR Manor is less satisfying than a crowbar, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Tomorrow, we get to glue down the floor… since it’s Daughter Dearest’s room, she gets to help. A lot.
Of course, any job at FAR Manor is going to turn into a complete hairball.
First, we found a mixture of plywood and particle board under the carpet. And that’s not all: I’m not sure exactly what those spots are, but they look like blood. It wouldn’t surprise me that FAR Manor was causing pain even while it was being built.The instructions for the new flooring specially say that it can’t be put down over particle board. To make things even more “interesting,” there was a pretty significant sag in the middle of the floor, almost two inches (no, I’m not exaggerating). I looked at Mrs. Fetched and said, “I was right about this place.” (While she was going completely berserk, and driving me berserk wanting to buy this place, I saw its many flaws and described it as a pig in a poke. Like any data that doesn’t fit the previously-made decision, she ignored it. At the time.)
We got two opinions on what to do. Our carpenter friend, who advised us on the last floor job, said it would be fine to just glue (and possibly nail) the strips to the floor as it was. A second person, who would be the one to do the work, said it had to be straightened out — we could either jack it up from the ground floor (yeah right) or put some shims between the sub-floor and the plywood that would eventually be the substrate for the wood floor. Cosmic Rule of the Universe Number One: given two choices, Mrs. Fetched is always going to pick the most complicated option. If I don’t fall in line immediately, she’ll besiege me with whines, nags, dire predictions, until I throw my hands up and say some variation of “Do what you want — you’re going to anyway.” Of course it’s not an issue to her: she’s not the one doing the actual work.
In a vain attempt to get some peace, I had The Boy help me measure the sag and mark some spots. I figured I could partially even it out, enough to satisfy Mrs. Fetched’s mania for complicating things. I wasn’t having much luck, and she called in the people who caused all the commotion. Upon inspecting the floor, they informed us that there was a layer of plywood under the top layer, and if we could crowbar it out it would save them some time. Well… taking a crowbar to FAR Manor is a pleasure surpassed by very few things, and one of those is taking a crowbar to the chicken houses. J (the son of our carpenter friend) has been our extra resident for a couple of months now; he tends to be quiet and helpful so he doesn’t get quite the coverage of M.A.E. or Lobster. We spent a happy evening of echar la casa por la ventana (literally, not the Hispanic idiom for a wild party) because the particle board came up in pieces and we could toss the small- and medium-size pieces down to the front yard instead of carrying them. In fact, Mrs. Fetched caught me singing some happy 80s tune, and wondered why I wasn’t mad anymore. How quickly we forget. :-P
Somewhere in there, Mrs. Fetched got one of the farm trucks, and we finished up by loading up the fragged particle board. I got a perfect action shot of J tossing a big chunk on the first attempt.That got us through the long weekend. Last night, Mrs. Fetched and I cut 1/4-inch plywood to lay down over the new floor (the guy who did the work said it would be best if we did). I was hoping to come home to find it already nailed down, but Cosmic Rule of the Universe Number Two says: if I don’t do it around here, it doesn’t get done. Taking a hammer to FAR Manor is less satisfying than a crowbar, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Tomorrow, we get to glue down the floor… since it’s Daughter Dearest’s room, she gets to help. A lot.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 6 comments
New Toys
The company stock went up a fair amount in the last week, making it worthwhile to cash in some stock options. Then when I saw this DR-Z400SM at the bike dealer with 170 miles on it, for about $1200 off list, I decided it was time to stop talking about getting a smaller bike (like I’ve been doing for a long while) and do it.
My mental image of a motorcycle goes back to the '70s, when little dual-sports ruled the roads in the aftermath of the oil embargo. There aren’t many bikes that look like those, at least shipped to the US anyway, but this is a sort of modern expression of those bikes.
This bike represents a number of firsts for my adult-life motorcycling: it’s the first sub-liter bike I’ve had, the first (almost) new bike, the first I picked out (as opposed to the previous two more or less following me home), first with a radiator and chain drive (the previous two were shafties), first vehicle with a digital speedometer/console… and the first bike without a tachometer, centerstand, or self-cancelling turn signals (I’ll have to get used to the latter).
The ride is very smooth, which isn’t surprising since it has motocross suspension, and I sit at about the same height as a pickup truck driver. Insurance is actually less than the Virago’s (small engines make a big difference), and it gets close to 60mpg. Unfortunately, the tank is really tiny, so I’ll be filling it more often. Go figure.
Now to get really '70s-retro and replace that little bag on the back with a milk crate…
My mental image of a motorcycle goes back to the '70s, when little dual-sports ruled the roads in the aftermath of the oil embargo. There aren’t many bikes that look like those, at least shipped to the US anyway, but this is a sort of modern expression of those bikes.
This bike represents a number of firsts for my adult-life motorcycling: it’s the first sub-liter bike I’ve had, the first (almost) new bike, the first I picked out (as opposed to the previous two more or less following me home), first with a radiator and chain drive (the previous two were shafties), first vehicle with a digital speedometer/console… and the first bike without a tachometer, centerstand, or self-cancelling turn signals (I’ll have to get used to the latter).
The ride is very smooth, which isn’t surprising since it has motocross suspension, and I sit at about the same height as a pickup truck driver. Insurance is actually less than the Virago’s (small engines make a big difference), and it gets close to 60mpg. Unfortunately, the tank is really tiny, so I’ll be filling it more often. Go figure.
Now to get really '70s-retro and replace that little bag on the back with a milk crate…
Monday, May 28, 2007 6 comments
Duty
Iowa Victory Gardener writes an excellent Memorial Day post.
No matter how low our opinion of the “Commander Guy,” we must never lose sight of the people that he’s sending overseas to die for the glory of his ego. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of our underequipped, thinly-stretched soldiers would rather be home with their families today (you and me) — enjoying a Memorial Day barbecue, or even doing house work — but duty calls, and the good soldier answers. As Gordon Dickson wrote: “Soldier, ask not - now, or ever, where to war your banners go.”
On this Memorial Day, as we are engaged in the Second Oil War, let us all — soldiers and civilians alike — remember that we all have our duty. Let us perform it to the best of our ability.
For those of us who want our troops home with their families next Memorial Day, we too have a duty, a duty to act on our convictions. I don’t use the term “Second Oil War” lightly — the first was Desert Storm, aka Kuwait — as it’s easy to see that this is about nothing but oil. The proof is as easy as looking at Iraq and Darfur — why are we embroiled in one and not the other? I remember a protest sign from the First Oil War: “What if Kuwait exported broccoli?”
So what is our duty, those of us who want an end to this waste of time and lives? If the true reason for war is oil, then it’s up to all of us to make oil less important. It’s not easy, though: oil pervades nearly everything in our lives. It’s in our fertilizers, plastics, (of course) our gas tanks, and the asphalt we drive on is what’s left over when all the other stuff is pulled out of the oil. Manufacturing, mining, shipping, lumbering, agriculture, all require diesel fuel.
Admitting that oil is necessary to our “non-negotiable way of life” is one thing, it’s quite another to admit that we are past — or at best, very near — “peak oil,” the maximum point of oil supply that we will ever see. Supply is dwindling, and will continue to do so, while demand has just kept going up. That’s why we’re already paying post-Katrina prices for gas before hurricane season has even started. We can’t do anything about the supply, but we can — and it’s our duty to — do something about demand.
One of the lasting legacies of WWII is the collection of posters and other artwork, exhorting the civilians of the time to support the war effort — by supporting rationing, growing one’s own food in “Victory Gardens,” recycling scrap material, carpooling (even though we, hard as it is to believe, were the Saudi Arabia of the day), and all sorts of other sacrifices. Quite the contrast to Commander Guy’s “go shopping,” huh? Even during the 70s, we had myraid PSAs on the radio that drilled us with all sorts of tips to save gas. Where are those PSAs today? Well heck, we don’t need them — we know what our duty is. Let’s get to it.
Our friends and loved ones overseas are depending on us.
No matter how low our opinion of the “Commander Guy,” we must never lose sight of the people that he’s sending overseas to die for the glory of his ego. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of our underequipped, thinly-stretched soldiers would rather be home with their families today (you and me) — enjoying a Memorial Day barbecue, or even doing house work — but duty calls, and the good soldier answers. As Gordon Dickson wrote: “Soldier, ask not - now, or ever, where to war your banners go.”
On this Memorial Day, as we are engaged in the Second Oil War, let us all — soldiers and civilians alike — remember that we all have our duty. Let us perform it to the best of our ability.
For those of us who want our troops home with their families next Memorial Day, we too have a duty, a duty to act on our convictions. I don’t use the term “Second Oil War” lightly — the first was Desert Storm, aka Kuwait — as it’s easy to see that this is about nothing but oil. The proof is as easy as looking at Iraq and Darfur — why are we embroiled in one and not the other? I remember a protest sign from the First Oil War: “What if Kuwait exported broccoli?”
So what is our duty, those of us who want an end to this waste of time and lives? If the true reason for war is oil, then it’s up to all of us to make oil less important. It’s not easy, though: oil pervades nearly everything in our lives. It’s in our fertilizers, plastics, (of course) our gas tanks, and the asphalt we drive on is what’s left over when all the other stuff is pulled out of the oil. Manufacturing, mining, shipping, lumbering, agriculture, all require diesel fuel.
Admitting that oil is necessary to our “non-negotiable way of life” is one thing, it’s quite another to admit that we are past — or at best, very near — “peak oil,” the maximum point of oil supply that we will ever see. Supply is dwindling, and will continue to do so, while demand has just kept going up. That’s why we’re already paying post-Katrina prices for gas before hurricane season has even started. We can’t do anything about the supply, but we can — and it’s our duty to — do something about demand.
One of the lasting legacies of WWII is the collection of posters and other artwork, exhorting the civilians of the time to support the war effort — by supporting rationing, growing one’s own food in “Victory Gardens,” recycling scrap material, carpooling (even though we, hard as it is to believe, were the Saudi Arabia of the day), and all sorts of other sacrifices. Quite the contrast to Commander Guy’s “go shopping,” huh? Even during the 70s, we had myraid PSAs on the radio that drilled us with all sorts of tips to save gas. Where are those PSAs today? Well heck, we don’t need them — we know what our duty is. Let’s get to it.
Our friends and loved ones overseas are depending on us.
Sunday, May 27, 2007 2 comments
Smoke from a Distant Fire
The south GA/north FL fires are depositing a thick layer of smoke all the way up here — I was pretty sure at first that there was a fire nearby. Someone at church this morning said she heard on the news that ash was falling on the south side of Atlanta. Supposedly, it’s not so bad on the mountaintops.
All the windows are closed and we won’t be doing much outside today. Today, a 30-mile bike ride could be a good way to get a case of black lung.
All the windows are closed and we won’t be doing much outside today. Today, a 30-mile bike ride could be a good way to get a case of black lung.
Saturday, May 26, 2007 5 comments
PITT (Pain In The Thighs)
Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest went to see Pirates of the Caribbean III this afternoon. Since I haven’t seen the first two, I decided to sit it out. This was my chance to ride the road course that goes by FAR Manor. I packed my cellphone (in case of trouble or photo opportunities), two water bottles, and my trusty iPod. Escape Pod provided a high-tech counterpoint to my low-tech adventure.
I haven’t done a 30-mile bike ride since I was in college, so of course I’m feeling it. I could be feeling one or two of the college-day rides as well. The route isn’t exactly Florida-flat, and gets somewhat remote in some places. This bit of graffiti pretty much says it all.
A stretch of road had these flowers growing along the side. They look like a white belladonna, but frankly I got no clue. Maybe one of the plant experts can identify it? I’d appreciate it.
I started “feeling it” about 2/3 of the way through the ride, so obviously turning back would have been a Bad Idea. I’ll probably walk funny for a little while, but Lord knows I need the exercise. If I do this every weekend, I should get in shape fairly quickly. But I’m pleased with how the pictures turned out — the cellphone camera worked will in bright light.
I haven’t done a 30-mile bike ride since I was in college, so of course I’m feeling it. I could be feeling one or two of the college-day rides as well. The route isn’t exactly Florida-flat, and gets somewhat remote in some places. This bit of graffiti pretty much says it all.
A stretch of road had these flowers growing along the side. They look like a white belladonna, but frankly I got no clue. Maybe one of the plant experts can identify it? I’d appreciate it.I started “feeling it” about 2/3 of the way through the ride, so obviously turning back would have been a Bad Idea. I’ll probably walk funny for a little while, but Lord knows I need the exercise. If I do this every weekend, I should get in shape fairly quickly. But I’m pleased with how the pictures turned out — the cellphone camera worked will in bright light.
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Fetched! (and TFM!)
Birthdays just aren’t the same when you get past 40, I guess. Yesterday was Mrs. Fetched’s mumbleth, and we spent the evening videotaping Cousin Splat’s graduation ceremony. I got her an orchid (Dendrobium), which we had to re-pot right away because it fell out of the pot on the way home.
And I missed the occasion of the second birthday of my blog (May 16). What are the Terrible Twos like for a blog? I guess we’ll find out together….
And I missed the occasion of the second birthday of my blog (May 16). What are the Terrible Twos like for a blog? I guess we’ll find out together….
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 8 comments
Graduation night
Do I really need to say anything more here?
Oh, you want a full frontal? OK, you asked for it:
Oh, you want a full frontal? OK, you asked for it:
Friday, May 18, 2007 3 comments
Friday Night Cinema (rerun)
Gas prices on Planet Georgia had been hovering under $3/gallon for a while — it seemed like nobody wanted to be first. But when one went up on Wednesday, nearly everyone followed suit pretty quickly. Since it’s too danged expensive to drive anywhere, grab a snack and settle in with Friday Night Cinema!
So to (ahem) “honor” the occasion, FNC has brought back an old favorite: Dominic Tocci’s I Can’t Afford My Gasoline.
“Happy” motoring!
So to (ahem) “honor” the occasion, FNC has brought back an old favorite: Dominic Tocci’s I Can’t Afford My Gasoline.
“Happy” motoring!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 2 comments
On Creativity
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” — Genesis 1:26a
Does God look like us? Do we really look like Him? Or does “in our image, after our likeness” mean something different? After all, if God has a head, two arms, two legs, and a torso… well, so do the apes. Some other animals use their front paws as hands from time to time (raccoons, squirrels, etc.). Chimps and even some birds use tools to get food. What really separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom?
It’s not language: bees communicate through dance, chimps through gestures, dogs through body language and scent, not to mention whales and dolphins. But that answer is “getting warmer.”
Maybe it’s more a matter of how we use language. It isn’t just a tool for getting food, or bonding, or marking territory. We do all those things with language, but we also use it to create stories about where we came from, or why we are here, or simply to entertain ourselves and (if we’re lucky) other people. In other words, after God created the universe, the earth, and the ecosystem in it, He populated it with a species that could, in a small way, create worlds of their own! Our creativity isn’t divine in its own right — but it’s an echo of the divine. Call it part-divine.
This I’ve realized for a while now, more came to light as I read Stephen King’s On Writing, specifically when he talked about many writers having a drinking problem, and himself being baked on coke and booze while writing Cujo, to the point that he didn’t remember writing it. That’s when I got the rest of it: I’d always thought that getting a little squiffed was good for the creative part of me… confirmed, so I thought, by how much easier it was to write after a few drinks (or in the middle of a fever, for that matter). It came to me in a flash: the creative part of us is partly divine and thus isn’t affected — either way — by earthly things like self-medication or even sickness. Alcohol and drugs just muzzle that anti-divine part of our minds, that inner nagging spouse or domineering parent, the part that picks at everything, is never satisfied with what we do, and would rather have major surgery without anesthesia than to say “well done.”
And here I’ve done the worst thing to that part of me that can be done: I’ve vivisected the little SOB and laid its pathetic guts out on the stainless steel lab table for everyone to see. Feel free to laugh at it and ridicule it as it squirms under your amused gaze….
Amazingly enough, I’m completely sober tonight. Must be a leftover from yesterday’s virus.
Does God look like us? Do we really look like Him? Or does “in our image, after our likeness” mean something different? After all, if God has a head, two arms, two legs, and a torso… well, so do the apes. Some other animals use their front paws as hands from time to time (raccoons, squirrels, etc.). Chimps and even some birds use tools to get food. What really separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom?
It’s not language: bees communicate through dance, chimps through gestures, dogs through body language and scent, not to mention whales and dolphins. But that answer is “getting warmer.”
Maybe it’s more a matter of how we use language. It isn’t just a tool for getting food, or bonding, or marking territory. We do all those things with language, but we also use it to create stories about where we came from, or why we are here, or simply to entertain ourselves and (if we’re lucky) other people. In other words, after God created the universe, the earth, and the ecosystem in it, He populated it with a species that could, in a small way, create worlds of their own! Our creativity isn’t divine in its own right — but it’s an echo of the divine. Call it part-divine.
This I’ve realized for a while now, more came to light as I read Stephen King’s On Writing, specifically when he talked about many writers having a drinking problem, and himself being baked on coke and booze while writing Cujo, to the point that he didn’t remember writing it. That’s when I got the rest of it: I’d always thought that getting a little squiffed was good for the creative part of me… confirmed, so I thought, by how much easier it was to write after a few drinks (or in the middle of a fever, for that matter). It came to me in a flash: the creative part of us is partly divine and thus isn’t affected — either way — by earthly things like self-medication or even sickness. Alcohol and drugs just muzzle that anti-divine part of our minds, that inner nagging spouse or domineering parent, the part that picks at everything, is never satisfied with what we do, and would rather have major surgery without anesthesia than to say “well done.”
And here I’ve done the worst thing to that part of me that can be done: I’ve vivisected the little SOB and laid its pathetic guts out on the stainless steel lab table for everyone to see. Feel free to laugh at it and ridicule it as it squirms under your amused gaze….
Amazingly enough, I’m completely sober tonight. Must be a leftover from yesterday’s virus.
Taking My Medicine
WARNING: Too Much Input follows.
Mrs. Fetched confiscated the DSL modem yesterday, because The Boy refused to get out of bed and help with the chickens. Not that it mattered: I was awakened a bit too early (after staying up too late) with a bout of what I call LGS (Le Grande Shittes). I had a scheduled checkup at the doc’s yesterday morning anyway, so i figured I’d get that seen to as well, especially when I felt slightly nauseated on the way over.
This checkup was a little more intense than usual: in addition to getting poked for blood (which I hardly felt, they’re good about that), I was also handed a cup. The nurse asked me the usual battery of questions that usually have the same answers, except for the symptoms of the morning. Then when the doc came in, she asked about those and said I probably had a stomach virus that was going around, it would be gone in a day or so, eat bland food and drink plenty of fluids.
Then she pulled on The Gloves. “I don’t enjoy this either,” she reassured me.
“Just like being at work!” I said. Well, maybe the annual review part. She then boldly went where no woman has gone before.
“All the time, people show me things they don’t want to show me and I don’t really want to look at,” she said. I suppose that’s one of the things they don’t tell you about when you start med school. Lord knows it’s the same for technical writers, and probably any other profession: you end up mucking around in things you never really thought about in school.
“No blood in your stool, and your prostate feels normal,” she said. I suppose my dignity was a small price to pay for that good news. “But there was some blood in your urine sample. You need to give us another sample in two weeks, then if it’s still there, I’ll refer you to a urologist.”
The thing she didn’t tell me was to go back home and ride out the stomach virus in bed. Naturally, I felt pretty rough by the time I was ready to go home (probably running a fever) and went straight to bed when I got home. I slept until 10, when the fever finally broke, then read my Asimov’s for an hour or so before turning the light off. The bed was hot; I thought Mrs. Fetched had put a heating pad under the sheet but it was just me baking the virus (and the mattress).
I still have a little LGS, but that’s not completely bad. I haven’t truly been what the old folks call “regular” since I started taking the RIpitmore, and I needed a good purge. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way to lose a pound, but I did that too.
Mrs. Fetched confiscated the DSL modem yesterday, because The Boy refused to get out of bed and help with the chickens. Not that it mattered: I was awakened a bit too early (after staying up too late) with a bout of what I call LGS (Le Grande Shittes). I had a scheduled checkup at the doc’s yesterday morning anyway, so i figured I’d get that seen to as well, especially when I felt slightly nauseated on the way over.
This checkup was a little more intense than usual: in addition to getting poked for blood (which I hardly felt, they’re good about that), I was also handed a cup. The nurse asked me the usual battery of questions that usually have the same answers, except for the symptoms of the morning. Then when the doc came in, she asked about those and said I probably had a stomach virus that was going around, it would be gone in a day or so, eat bland food and drink plenty of fluids.
Then she pulled on The Gloves. “I don’t enjoy this either,” she reassured me.
“Just like being at work!” I said. Well, maybe the annual review part. She then boldly went where no woman has gone before.
“All the time, people show me things they don’t want to show me and I don’t really want to look at,” she said. I suppose that’s one of the things they don’t tell you about when you start med school. Lord knows it’s the same for technical writers, and probably any other profession: you end up mucking around in things you never really thought about in school.
“No blood in your stool, and your prostate feels normal,” she said. I suppose my dignity was a small price to pay for that good news. “But there was some blood in your urine sample. You need to give us another sample in two weeks, then if it’s still there, I’ll refer you to a urologist.”
The thing she didn’t tell me was to go back home and ride out the stomach virus in bed. Naturally, I felt pretty rough by the time I was ready to go home (probably running a fever) and went straight to bed when I got home. I slept until 10, when the fever finally broke, then read my Asimov’s for an hour or so before turning the light off. The bed was hot; I thought Mrs. Fetched had put a heating pad under the sheet but it was just me baking the virus (and the mattress).
I still have a little LGS, but that’s not completely bad. I haven’t truly been what the old folks call “regular” since I started taking the RIpitmore, and I needed a good purge. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way to lose a pound, but I did that too.
Sunday, May 13, 2007 4 comments
A (mostly) peaceful weekend
I was blessed this weekend with less crazy stuff than I expected. The Boy’s counseling session was moved to Saturday morning since today is Mother’s Day. (My mom is out West having a good time on a tour.) I spent an hour & a half taking care of various business, combining a bunch of errands into one trip, finishing up with groceries.
Coming out of the grocery store, I found a message on my smellphone: “don’t get groceries, go by Subway and get sandwiches… [list] …then bring them over to the chicken houses; we have a water leak.” Since I’d already got the groceries, including ice cream, I decided to just make sandwiches at home and take them over. Fortunately, the leak was near the back end of the house so Mrs. Fetched just drove the small tractor in to scoop the wet stuff out and it really didn’t take long. We finished to rumbling noises in the sky, so we went home, unplugged stuff, and several of us (including yours truly) took a nap.
Today has truly been a day of rest. We took Mrs. Fetched out for Mother’s Day, watched A Night at the Museum and haven’t done much since then.
Family Man describes himself as a slacker, but I’ll bet Dolly Freed could teach even him a thing or three. Back in 1975 or so, at age 19, she wrote a book called Possum Living (link to full text) about the extremely low-maintenance lifestyle she and her father lived. I wish I’d run across this book when I got out of college — it could have changed my life. It would be interesting to see whether she’s still living that ultra-slackerly lifestyle now at age 50-ish, and what improvements she might have made on it.
Coming out of the grocery store, I found a message on my smellphone: “don’t get groceries, go by Subway and get sandwiches… [list] …then bring them over to the chicken houses; we have a water leak.” Since I’d already got the groceries, including ice cream, I decided to just make sandwiches at home and take them over. Fortunately, the leak was near the back end of the house so Mrs. Fetched just drove the small tractor in to scoop the wet stuff out and it really didn’t take long. We finished to rumbling noises in the sky, so we went home, unplugged stuff, and several of us (including yours truly) took a nap.
Today has truly been a day of rest. We took Mrs. Fetched out for Mother’s Day, watched A Night at the Museum and haven’t done much since then.
Family Man describes himself as a slacker, but I’ll bet Dolly Freed could teach even him a thing or three. Back in 1975 or so, at age 19, she wrote a book called Possum Living (link to full text) about the extremely low-maintenance lifestyle she and her father lived. I wish I’d run across this book when I got out of college — it could have changed my life. It would be interesting to see whether she’s still living that ultra-slackerly lifestyle now at age 50-ish, and what improvements she might have made on it.
Friday, May 11, 2007 2 comments
Friday Night Cinema
It’s almost not Friday anymore on this side of the country, and payday isn’t until next Friday. FNC to the rescue with short free flicks!
This is one I’ve had kicking around in my archives for a while, forgotten but not gone. As I try to be helpful and informative, here’s a handy tip: How to Wake Up a Drunk Friend…
This is one I’ve had kicking around in my archives for a while, forgotten but not gone. As I try to be helpful and informative, here’s a handy tip: How to Wake Up a Drunk Friend…
News briefs
Looks like the retail industry is now following the home mortgage industry down the toilet.
All the schemes that have been tried to feed Africa’s poor, and the one that seems to be working? Urban Gardens. Get together with your neighbors and plant a garden in the vacant lot next door. I like this quote, for some reason: “He can't grow crops that will get too tall, or else they will absorb too much pollution. Also, bandits might hide in the foliage. Better to keep the vegetables low and leafy.”
And this gem from (of course) The Register: the things that people smuggle into Irish prisons. Not for the squeamish.
All the schemes that have been tried to feed Africa’s poor, and the one that seems to be working? Urban Gardens. Get together with your neighbors and plant a garden in the vacant lot next door. I like this quote, for some reason: “He can't grow crops that will get too tall, or else they will absorb too much pollution. Also, bandits might hide in the foliage. Better to keep the vegetables low and leafy.”
And this gem from (of course) The Register: the things that people smuggle into Irish prisons. Not for the squeamish.
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