We can has Fire! and Battery!

Working at home is always useful.

About 4:30, I grabbed the w0rNg battery and took it back to the motorcycle shop, and got a new one. Ironically, the smaller battery cost more — WTF? But now I have it and I’ll be ready to ride as soon as it warms up again.

After returning from the shop, I ran a chain down the chimney and it was clear all the way down. I should have known that by the way the sheet I put in front of the fireplace was getting sucked into the chamber. I brushed off some more of the accumulated crud above the damper, shoved the insert back into place, and Mrs. Fetched let 'er rip. Just in time: Winter #5 is upon us, after a rather ugly line of storms yesterday evening. The insert is burning better now than it has in a long time, nice and clean, and it’s warming up nicely in the living room.

Maybe the storms carried the Vortex of Suck™ away with them.

[Holy moly… post #900!]

Random thoughts

I haven’t just brain-dumped for a while… probably because I dump things on Twitter instead. It’s long past time.

One of the things that turned out pretty well this past weekend: I made kotijuusto (Finnish for “home cheese”). I got the idea from my bob-sister Faboo Mama, who settled on making kotijuusto after a fruitless search for rennet. It’s a simple recipe, but it makes a lot of cheese. It has a consistency much like ricotta, which gave both Mrs. Fetched and DoubleRed the idea of making lasagna with it… which turned out pretty good (and it’s good and gone!), but there’s plenty of cheese left. DoubleRed just cooked some into her scrambled eggs and gave me a taste… dang good. We’ll have to use that stuff up soon, and hey I can always make more. Here’s the recipe I got from Faboo:

3 eggs
5 c buttermilk
1 gallon + 1-1/2 c milk
salt

Whip eggs and buttermilk until fluffy. Bring the milk to a boil, add the egg mixture, and beat well. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool slowly. (Liquid will form on top, and the cheese will settle on the bottom.) mostly… some of it floats

Line a strainer or mold with cheesecloth. Remove the cheese with a slotted spoon and put it into the strainer, sprinkling a little salt between layers. Cover with a plate as a weight, and refrigerate for 12 hours. put a bowl underneath, you’ll catch at least a cup of whey Turn out into a serving dish. Serves 4-6.

Monday, I spent the morning at the office then went to the doc and got a shot for the poison oak I contracted 10 days ago. The shot works quickly… a little pain for much gain. While I’ve decided I’m through giving 300% to the company for crappy raises (or no raises) and no promotion, I’m still pounding away at a to-do list and I’ll be working at home tomorrow taking a few pictures for a rough-out of the new wall-mount template. A word of advice: if you ever consider technical writing as a career, hit yourself in the head with a hammer until you think of something else.

The choir director settled on the Easter cantata this year: something we did… oh, 6 or 8 or 10 years ago with a few modifications. Someone said, "10 years isn’t that long ago." I pointed out: "10 years ago, my kids were 11 and 9 years old!” And I didn’t have a blog… then again, there was no soap opera to write about back then, just Chicken House Hell.

Snippet tried calling The Boy like two days after we bailed him out. Fortunately, he was smart enough to refuse the call. Like I said, he only did what all of us would like to have done, with much less provocation. If there wasn’t a potential kid involved, I’d dance for joy if the judge made the “no contact” injunction permanent. I might dance anyway.

Republicans are such hypocrites. I mean, how does a conservative these days manage to get through a week without drinking Drano or something? “The economy? Um… Oh! look! a fag in a wedding dress! Vote for us, quick!” Yes, having no imagination is almost required for a conservative, but c'mon. I could make six Republicans with a 7404 chip, a toggle switch, and some LEDs. (I told that to a right-wing engineer back in the Clinton years… he didn’t want to laugh, but he knew it was funny. And true.)

Mrs. Fetched is down in Decatur, visiting Big V at the hospital. Big V’s husband came home from his truck-driving job last night & she took him and her mom down to see her. She’ll be home late tonight, if at all. Big V got her foot put back together yesterday; she has a long recovery ahead of her and it remains to be seen if she’s willing to do her part.

Daughter Dearest wants to go to Florida for spring break. Good idea, sez I, except for the (lack of) money part. I’m thinking about going with her, but making a pact to leave the laptops at home and trying to discover (perhaps with some help from Mom and Solar-bro) some of the local attractions. It might be interesting. I know the original Hooter’s is around there, and DD has one of the more tasteful Hooter’s shirts, so we could hit that, the beach, a bird sanctuary, the beach, a park or two, the beach… you get the idea. I could cheat with my iPhone, of course, and post stuff to Twitter and TwitPic if nothing else.

DoubleRed just got a fling dot com popup, so she’s installing Spybot. And this is why I don’t like Dozeboxes in my house.

W00T! Mrs. Fetched just got home. Big V might get transferred to the long-term facility on Friday if her foot doesn’t get re-infected.

FAR Future, Episode 73: Serena’s Chautauqua Story

Monday, June 5, 2023
Serena’s Chautauqua Story

Here’s Serena’s chautauqua story. It’s partly about me, but I just blew her cover is all.

Hola, y'all. (I got out of the habit of saying that when I was in the service, but now that I'm home it's coming back to me.) I know Rene liked to say it a lot, and still does.

We all got home just in time to miss spring planting, aren't we lucky! I was kind of surprised that Kim and Christina made a point of spending their days with everyone else instead of each other — those two will still be going at it when they're old and decrepit like Dad (gotcha!). [Watch it kid, I’ll whack you with my walker as soon as I remember where it is. —FARf] But they fall asleep on the couch in the living room a lot, so I bet they don't get much sleep at night. It's good to have everyone home again; I missed helping Mom and Maria with the cooking, and all the other stuff. But it's different now; we're adults, done with school and all that. I guess Christina's going to be teaching at some college or another by next year, and they'll be gone. So will I. I'm not sure about Rene yet.

Anyway, we had a pretty good time at the chautauqua last week, even if Rene hooked up with an ignorama for a couple of days. I'm glad they started the chautauquas, it's a lot easier to bring culture to the people than it is to bring people to the culture nowadays. They did different things on different nights. Dad liked the drum&brass performance; he said it reminded him of the electronic stuff from when he was younger. I could tell he liked it, the way he was bobbing and twitching to the beat. There's a lot of beat in that stuff, and not much else. Give me a good marching band any day. But it was amazing how the two drummers would switch back and forth, one played while the other one rested. I never realized drumming could be so physically demanding.

I volunteered to help with security for the week, and it came in handy with Rene on Wednesday. It figures, the only time I was really needed all week and it was my own family! The sheriff was happy to have a volunteer with some MP experience, and even deputized me for the week. But I walking by the stage Thursday evening and overheard some of the troupe talking:

“Paula can't finish a line without coughing her lungs out.”

“What do we do then? Nobody else can play Susanne.”

“Well, we can't just cancel. We have a commitment.”

Curiosity got the better of me. “What's wrong?”

They looked me over, with the orange SECURITY vest and the Army patrol hat I like to wear when I'm out. “Our leading lady's sick. She can't perform.”

“That’s too bad. What were you presenting?”

“The Discomfiture of Lord Riot. We figured people would like it.”

“Oh. Um… I know that play. I did Susanne a couple of times. I'd be glad to step in.”

The guy they had playing Kip ran through a few random lines with me, and was satisfied with my delivery. “There's not going to be a problem with you doing the play and working security?”

“I'll let the sheriff know. I'll be able to see better from the stage anyway. I can probably bust a troublemaker without dropping a line.”

They laughed, and we shook on it. I went to let the sheriff know I would be sort of undercover for the play, then came back, scanned the lines just to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and got dressed. Paula's costume was a bit big on me, but we got it to hang all right and the show went on. I saw the family down in the crowd, grinning like a bunch of clowns.

So of course Dad and Mom came by after the play, and of course Dad had to open his mouth.

“She's your daughter?” the guy who'd played Riot asked. “She really did a great job.”

“She should have,” he said. “She wrote the play.”

“Dad!” I yelled.

“What? You didn't tell them?”

“Wait…” the guy who’d played Ronald said. “You… you're Serena Broward?”

Dad about fell down laughing, and Mom just looked at me. “I can't believe you weren't going to tell them,” she said.

The hubbub grew until Paula came out of the trailer. “What's going on?”

“Your sub,” the guy who played Farfet said. “She's Serena Broward!”

“Serena?!” she squealed like a fangirl, then started coughing and fell back inside.

How the word spread, I have no idea, but the entire troupe was suddenly out there mobbing us. I got Dad back, telling them how he'd played both Farfet and Riot in the very first production, and then the actors were all over him wanting details and critiques.

One thing led to another, and they offered me a job with the chautauqua writing new material in between acting or directing (everyone takes turns). I'm shocked; I never knew that my plays Dad uploaded to the samizdat were spread all over the place and performed so much. I figured a few people put them on, but to hear these guys talk I'm some kind of cult figure to the New Chautauqua movement.

I'm thinking about it. Dad said I should do it, and if I didn't like it I could always come back home.

She ended up taking the job and I’m happy for her. She’s always loved writing plays and putting on the Thanksgiving productions. I told the troupe about those, and they offered to come this year and do a play for us. That would be nice — we didn’t have them the last couple of years, since Serena was in Germany and nobody else took the initiative. I had to tell them about The Dialogues, in which two people (i.e. Serena and I) would do the stage equivalent of flash fiction serials, and they wanted us to tell them all about that too.

So I guess our growed-up foster daughter is about to leave the nest, not too long after coming back. That’s life.

continued…

This Week [UPDATED]

This was our week:



Things began their spiral into the Official FAR Manor Vortex of Suck™ Sunday morning, although (as usual with such things) it seemed like a minor incident at the time. I’d charged the battery on Little Zook Friday night and Saturday morning, and it fired up fairly quickly that afternoon. I ran my errands and parked the bike, figuring I was set for the ride to work Monday and Tuesday mornings. (Wednesday and Friday had rain in the forecast, and I work at home on Thursdays.) Since nobody else was ready for church Sunday morning, I jumped on the bike and hit the starter… and got the zzzzzzz noise that indicates a weak battery. As I’d been using it only a day ago, that’s a pretty obvious clue that the battery needs replacement.

After church, the Evil Twins’ family came to visit and to help cut up a tree that had gone down by the pond. I had completely forgotten about them coming, and they were making noises about having to leave in a few hours, so Mrs. Fetched offered to pick up the battery for me while I was whacking at the tree.

The Vortex began accelerating: a vine growing up the side of the tree turned out to be poison oak; I figured it was February so it would be mostly dormant, and (after cutting into some of it with the chainsaw) I peeled it off and threw it in the brush pile. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fetched had neglected to get her purse out of the truck… and used that as an excuse to not get the battery. (Had this been important to her, she would have found a way to retrieve her purse.) We cut wood until the chain got dull, loaded up all but the biggest pieces, and got it up to the house. The Twins decided that the event they were attending was not that important, so they ended up staying through supper.

Monday dawned; I headed to work. Mrs. Fetched said she was going to get the battery before the chicken catchers showed up late in the evening, but when I came home… of course, it hadn’t happened. Her excuse: she spilled her purse in the truck, and the check she was going to cash slid under the seat and she didn’t find it until much later. That’s so lame it’s probably true… but her dad had earlier offered to loan us the money to get the battery. Once again, if it was important to her, she would have gotten it done. The chicken catchers came for the birds that night; I just got well-acquainted with Mr. Bacardi.

Tuesday afternoon, I noticed the first poison oak blisters on my arms, which did nothing to improve my outlook. Even more annoying was the phone ringing every few minutes that evening, just after I started thinking about going to bed. Everything finally settled down, and we went to bed…

…and the phone rang at 3 a.m. Mrs. Fetched grabbed it on the first ring, before she was even awake, and answered, "mm haaaooo?" To make a long story not quite so long, Snippet had another one of her psychotic episodes, ostensibly because The Boy was in another room with a friend for a drink and light conversation. After she whacked him across the head with a Guitar Hero controller, he tried to wrap her up until she calmed down. Didn’t work, and after she started drawing blood… he hit back. The upshot is, Snippet plays the innocent little girl card extremely well (the only people who like her don’t know her), and The Boy was the one who got busted. It took pretty much all day Wednesday to get him bailed out… which we did because we know Snippet and how she operates, and The Boy only did what most of us want to do without nearly as much provocation. But here’s the upside: They’re enjoined from having any contact with each other until their court date in May. We’re hoping he’ll lose interest in her before then and get on with his life.

There’s one little complication, though… yeah. That Complication. The Boy wants to do the right thing, but Snippet (and her mom) are making it just as difficult as possible… threatening to take the kid and disappear. Nice people, huh? I give it a pretty fair chance that it’s not The Boy’s kid, and the doctors gave as high as 50/50 odds of a miscarriage.

Next to that, the poison oak from my hands to elbows is a minor annoyance. I’ve got an appointment with the doctor on Monday if it doesn’t start drying up.

Thursday evening, we got a broadcast email at work: “Blah blah, great quarter, blah blah, anticipating problems, blah blah, we’re canceling merit increases this year.” The sub-text: the economy’s crappy, what’cha gonna do about it? Suckaaazzz…

And now: the high point of the week. I saw a bumper sticker that said, “When life gives you lemons, get a bottle of tequila.” Excellent advice. I suppose it was too quiet around here lately anyway.

FAR Future, Episode 72: Adventures at the Chautauqua

Things are weird now. In a much weirder FAR Future, I wouldn’t expect that to be different.

Sunday, June 4, 2023
Adventures at the Chautauqua
Sunday, June 4, 2023

The chautauqua was in town last week. It’s a great idea, one they revived from the 19th century but without the Sunday school part (churches are somewhat out of favor these days, except in this region and a few scattered outposts). The local one is based in Gainesville, and they travel around northeast Georgia from late spring through late fall. So we got our screen tents together, loaded up the wagon, and made a week of it since the town was letting people camp in the park.

Rene got a little more than he bargained for, but I’ll let him tell the story…

Holá, y'all. Monday afternoon after the chautauqua troupe set up their portable stage, but before they started the performances, they asked all the former service people to come up on stage to be recognized. There were a bunch of people besides Serena, Kim, and me, and most all of us felt the same way about it — we'd had our fill of military life, but even after you're out you still have to do your duty, right? Their little band played the national anthem, everyone cheered, wave the flag, USA, USA. I guess I should be less cynical since they offered my family a lot in return for a couple years of my life (and I got out early anyway), but you could also say that the junta shouldn't have given us so much grief in the first place.

The good part, at least for me, was getting noticed by all the girls. They noticed Kim too, but he still only has eyes for Christina, and she can be a little territorial anyway. One of the girls hung onto me, it was kind of flattering and I'm not used to that. Half of my life, the only girl I knew who was my age was Serena, and she's been my best friend instead of anything romantic. I never had time to meet anyone in the army — boot camp, EDID training, deployment, then the war heated up just as I got a little leave… they say the truth is the first casualty of war, but my love life was the second, jejeje. So I palled around with Amber for the next couple of days. Farf-Mom didn’t look too happy about it; she said that Amber’s family has a long history of being troublemakers in the county. Papa just gave me The Look — the one that says, “This won't end well.” Of course, Christina might say that hormones speak louder than parents (and I would say she should know!).

Things were cool until Wednesday night. That's when the troupe's band started playing some mariachi music, and Mama and Papa got up to dance. I was about to point them out, but she was shaking her head. “Bad enough the damn wetbacks live here,” she said. “I don't see why they have to encourage them.”

I was stunned, and she was on a roll. “Stupidest thing the junta did was to let 'em stay —”

“Hey,” I said. “Those are my parents! And I'm one of those 'damn wetbacks' who took the army's bargain, if you hadn't figured it out. Does 'Cardenas' sound like a gringo name to you?”

“I'm sorry — I — but you —”

“Save it,” I told her. “I don't think I want to see you anymore,” and walked off.

Of course, she went crying to her family, and a couple “representatives” came by our tent shortly after supper. “Who's the beaner that's been messing with our sister?” Bubba One demanded.

I was still mad about the whole thing, especially not listening to Farf-Mom. I stood up and faced 'em — two big lugs, slow and not too bright looking. “That's Señor Beaner to you, Billy Bob,” I said. “And I never asked her to hang all over me, by the way.”

They swelled up at that, but next thing I knew Kim was on my right, Papa on my left, Farf-Dad had my back, and Serena walked up behind them. She’d volunteered to work security for the week, and just happened to be on duty. I know that she learned some tae kwan do when she was little, and got a refresher course with her MP training, so I don’t doubt she could have taken them both herself if it came to that.

“What seems to be the problem here?” she said. They turned and sized her up in her security blazer — she nodded at them like they were dropping by for a friendly chat, but at the same time you knew she wouldn't take any crap off them. The MPs in Dooby were like that — it didn't matter what your rank was, or how big you were; if they had to take you in, it was going to happen. Respectful and authoritative at the same time.

“Ain't no problem,” Bubba One said. “We just came to tell this —”

“Good,” she interrupted. “Because I'd hate to see you guys get hurt. This guy took on three Iranian tanks in Saudi Arabia; I don't think he'd have much trouble with two rednecks.”

I opened my mouth to say something like “Your move, bubba,” but Serena gave me one of those looks and I kept quiet. She does that authority thing pretty well, did I mention that?

“Stay away from Amber, y'hear?” said Bubba Two, already moving off.

“No problemo, niños,” I said. Bubba One paused, but Bubba Two nudged him and they kept moving. Serena shook her head at me and went back to her rounds, and she had a few words for me when she finished up for the night. She took her volunteer job seriously.

After she finished lecturing me, she, Kim, and I set night watches for the rest of the week in case they wanted to try to surprise us, but we didn’t see any of them (especially Amber, gracias a Dios) for the rest of the week. I think they just cleared out. Farf-Dad took the motorcycle back to the manor to make sure they hadn’t tried anything at home, but either they don’t know where we live or they wised up.

Such is life on Planet Georgia. I hope Rene doesn’t have to re-up just to find a girlfriend.

continued…

Meow? and Odd Jobs

A week or so ago, one of Big V’s horses got mauled and killed behind her place. We contacted the DNR people at the state park, who said, “there aren’t any big cats in this area. It must have been something else.” Um… claw marks on the horse’s neck (the photo we got is rather graphic, and would have been beating a… never mind) say different. As does the four-inch paw print one of the people helping with the lawn-care business found this morning — on the manor grounds no less. We went out and got a few pictures. Denial ain’t a river in Egypt.

Anyway…

If I’d thought it through, I would have painted the bottom of the cold frame last week — then I could have dropped it where it's going to go and painted the top. Oh well. I need to run to Home Despot to find some spinach (and maybe lettuce seed), plus a grocery run for some other stuff, so I can let the last of the paint dry while I'm gone. I’m thinking about taking Little Zook… it needs a warm-up run because it looks like I’ll be able to ride to work at least Monday and Tuesday.

It’s nice to have the sun making things warmer for a change.

Prediction followup: Score One for FARf!

On New Year’s Eve, I posted my Predications for 2009. Looks like I got one of them partially right anyway: Congress just voted to postpone the digital TV cutover.

The automakers have two more months to admit they’re failing. I hope I’m wrong about that one.

FAR Future, Episode 71: When Johnny (and Kim, Serena, and Rene) Come Marching Home

Just because it’s Groundhog Day doesn’t mean I’ll be posting the same thing every day from now on…

Sunday, April 30, 2023
When Johnny (and Kim, Serena, and Rene) Come Marching Home

There’s some major downsizing going on with the military now that the Reunification is over. Kim and Serena were due to be cut loose anyway, but Rene got out a year early. Ironically, they stop-loss’ed Kim for 30 days to help with the mopping-up in Dallas, which gave Serena time to get over here on the boat, and all three of them met up in Atlanta on Thursday. They took the RoadTrain together, catching up with each other, and Christina and I met them at the stop in the old retail district. Kim and Christina had, shall we say, a joyful reunion… I offered to get them a hotel room and come back for them later, but they both wanted to get home. (Can’t blame Kim for that.) She insisted he show her the scar from the riot; it’s healed up of course but it’s still kind of ugly. He joked about getting a tattoo around it, but Christina did a very convincing imitation of Daughter Dearest and threatened great bodily harm if he did. “Yes, dear.” Smart guy.

Rene and Serena have the same mutual respect they’ve always had for each other, but now it’s an adult version. They’ve never been attracted to each other the way Kim and Christina (still) are, but they’ve always been best friends. The three of us batted things around on the way home, while the other two mostly took in each other. Rene is still pretty reticent about what he’d been up to, although he was able to say he, the major, and Sammy T defected from the junta and started listening in on their comms. Manny went to RoT, and presumably he got swept up in the amnesty (if he survived). Major Shevchuk, he said, was acting strange ever since they left Saudi… maybe PTSD. Rene and Kim both say they’re OK, and Serena is fine since she didn’t see any fighting anyway.

Not really much to say about the end of the Reunification — it was your basic street fight, block by block, building by building. I’m glad Kim wasn’t involved in the fighting. The rulers tried to keep the Rotter troops going, while they made a run for it themselves. They might have gotten away if they hadn’t used a helicopter; the noise attracted attention and the army just followed them until they ran out of fuel and had to land. They were the three televangelists that were running things from inside, and a few other high-level militia types. I dug around and found out that General Mayhem and Sgt. Pepper were killed in the fighting. :-( Col. Mustard survived and accepted the “amnesty” program: he has to do some jail time and stay out of the oil business and politics for the rest of his life. As for the televangelists — both the ones in Dallas at the time and the two aiding things from outside — I don’t know if they’ll ever get out of prison. I know their assets were seized; I wonder if they’ll do what they did to Robert E. Lee and turn their estates into cemeteries.

Now that the war’s over, I guess I can safely say that I got a “visit” from some FBI people earlier in the year, checking up on my junta connections. Just being an officer in a church is enough to make you a suspect now to begin with, but that little trip to Nickajack made me doubly suspect. Amazingly enough, they had an entire printed copy of my blog… all the way back to 2005! (Good Lord, my blog is old enough to vote?) It was much of what made for a rather thick file the junta had on me. Even using nicknames for everyone, I guess someone managed to link me and the blog… I always figured someone could make the connections if they wanted to badly enough. They told me I’d be getting an entire copy of my file pretty soon, to comply with the Personal Data Ownership Act, and then they’d destroy everything but the tax records. What it came down to was, did the blog reflect my real thoughts or was it a front? I was tagged by the junta as a “D0,” aka Dissident, Threat Level Zero (aka all talk), but that could have been part of the cover in their thinking. They left satisfied… at least I hope they did. Harboring the Cardenas family probably helped with that — as well as The Boy being shipped to the shale mines (another thing I didn’t dare mention before now). He’s been around some, but spends a lot of time down at the pasture keeping an eye on the cattle. I just hope nobody tries to steal a cow while he’s down there… I think he’d enjoy giving a junta-symp the 3 S’s.

Our church pianist works in a tax firm, and she hasn’t been to church in the last few weeks — they changed the tax code so that donations to churches (and charities) can only be written off in proportion to the percentage of money they actually disburse outside the organization, and the IRS had to extend the filing date to May 15 to give everyone a chance to figure out their donations. That’s going to whack a lot of churches, and (I hope) put an end to the charities that pocket most of the donations they get. Most churches, especially the small ones like ours, use pretty much everything they take in to keep the doors open. The mega-churches have a little more leeway, but I bet their members are going to take a really hard look at how much their preacher(s) pocket from now on… especially when they start telling everyone to kick in some more. Then again, a lot of those preachers have either been arrested for aiding and abetting the junta (aka treason, but they’re steering clear of that word so far) or are under some very close scrutiny. I doubt that being a Penitent church is going to give us any kind of lenient treatment… if it did, all the wing-y churches would claim to be Penitent too, just for the tax breaks. It’s really a shame, how those people — whether directly connected to the junta or just Satan’s Little Helpers – corrupted so many churches for their personal and political gain. Now we’ll all be paying for it, as soon as we can figure out the percentages. I’m just going to assume my donations won’t be tax-deductible from now on.

Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen any video or other missives from The Prophet the last couple of months. I hope he’s OK.

continued…

Smokin'

The wood stove has been increasingly smoky lately… until Wednesday night, when the smoke stopped going up the chimney altogether and started coming out from around the trim panel. We closed the damper and draft down completely, choking off the fire in the box, and let it dry out.

Today, we got around to having a look at the situation. We pulled the insert out and found chunks of creosote here and there, but not enough to choke off the draft; I got out a paint scraper and ended up with an impressive amount of gunk. We swept it up and put it in a bucket.

Mrs. Fetched’s uncle said a “home remedy” was to swish a chain around the inside of the chimney to loosen up deposits… but like I said, it was clear all the way up. We decided to try it, so she went to get something for the chimney while I went up on the roof to see what getting a chain (or a chimney brush) down there would involve. I found a mesh of dog wire covering the exit, which was covered with creosote deposits, so I called Mrs. Fetched to tell her I found the problem.

I went down, got the paint scraper, and got the crud off the top of the screen. This didn’t do much for the stuff underneath, so I lifted the screen… and found about a centimeter of gunk like a blanket across the top of the chimney. This I removed then replaced the screen.

We lit a piece of paper, and it caught and went up the chimney… so Mrs. Fetched started a bigger fire. And the smoke’s coming right back into the house. I guess we’ll call a chimney sweep.

The Road to Irrelevance

Amazingly enough, I’m not talking about the Republican party. Compared to the latest moves by the Catholic Church, the goplets are actually taking their wilderness experience to heart. But there are a lot of similarities: two institutions that have both seen better days, and are now increasingly the demesne of old men — or at least people who think like old men… little or no imagination nor willingness to acknowledge that things are changing out from under them.

Not being a Catholic, I don’t see the Catholic Church as anything but another Christian denomination… even if they were the denomination at one time. They may be the oldest, largest, and richest denomination, but that’s it. But their insistence on placing tradition on an equal footing with Scripture is driving them down the road to irrelevance, step by step. Any outfit that still wants to ban birth control in an era of overpopulation is simply not going to be taken seriously by anyone outside the institution… and many inside, for that matter. An institution that still refuses to let half the world’s population advance beyond secretarial or janitorial work, based on what’s (not) between their legs, is severely limiting itself by cutting out half the labor pool. (There are other denominations with the same self-limitation.)

Looking at the history of the Catholic Church, it’s fairly obvious that a church can have one of spiritual power or political power. The early church ministered to the lowly, even the slaves, and grew in spiritual power until it displaced the pagan religious structure of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, this was the seed of its downfall: when the Empire collapsed, the church was sucked into the power vacuum and it accreted political power without even trying (although there were certainly ambitious priests who helped the process along). Being literally the kingmaker of Europe, it grew corrupt over the centuries until the Protestant Reformation forced some institutional soul-searching and internal reforms, which culminated 450 years later in Vatican II. But the last 20 years or so have seen some backsliding (heh) from the reforms, back to a more hard-line and hidebound set of doctrines.

Tradition serves a nation or institution well, during times that things aren’t changing much. It has been said that you could pluck citizens from ancient Rome and drop them in 1909, and they would be able to adjust — and adults living in 1909 would have a harder time adjusting life in 2009 than the civis Romanis would with 1910. The institutional memory of the Catholic Church reaches all the way back to Imperial Rome, and nothing that large or old can change course quickly even if they claim the desire… and it would require a truly impressive change to jettison the very things holding them back the most.

Remember… for every Catholic that insists that Protestants are going to Hell, there is a Protestant that insists the same about Catholics. [For the record, I take neither stance.]

Weekend Cinema

Fast, easy, free… with Weekend Cinema, you don’t have to settle for only two.

Today’s selection was a 2007 finalist for the YouTube Awards. It has a Twilight Zone feel to it, although the ending might be a little obvious. See what can be done with two actors, a desk, a key… and a Black Button.

hat tip to Daughter Dearest

Big V, Off On (With?) the Wrong Foot

It seems that Big V took a tumble in the shower a couple weeks ago, and broke her leg near the ankle and a bone or two in the arch of her foot. Now it must be remembered that Big V isn’t the most stable isotope on the periodic table; she has diabetes and lives on junk food anyway. So it’s no surprise that she didn’t do anything about her foot until infection set in… and she’s already lost a toe on one foot (not sure which, relative to the broken one). So by the time she finally got around to seeing the doctor, she ended up getting sent to a hospital in Decatur. Her glucose level was around 500 by then, so Job One was getting that down to something approaching normal while Job Two involved tackling the infection.

Meanwhile, there’s a lawn care business to run. Cousin Splat has been doing a lot of the work, but he doesn’t have much management skill (and will blow off a day of work for whatever reason). Big V’s husband has taken up truck driving — staying away to keep the marriage together, perhaps — so guess who got stuck managing things? Yup… Mrs. Fetched. Big V gave her power of attorney, and she’s busy trying to reassure clients that they’ll get serviced while trying to dig the bank accounts out of an impressive hole. “You think we have financial problems?” she reassured me. “You ought to see this.” She’s been spending a lot of time down at the hospital with Big V, just to keep abreast of what’s going on there and partially to keep her from talking someone into getting her a bag of sugar bombs. She keeps asking for this and that, Mrs. Fetched keeps telling her no — it’s likely that she’s going through junk food withdrawal. Seeing as she’s going to be in some kind of managed situation for the next couple of months, maybe she’ll have a chance to develop new habits before coming home. There was some doubt at first that Big V would come home with both feet attached, but at least that outcome is starting to look more likely. In the hospital, they can control her diet.

So last night, Mrs. Fetched asked me, “What do you think? How is this going to work out?”

“The same way it always does for people who get involved with Big V,” I said. “Badly. It’s going to turn into a big hairball and end with some kind of screaming match.”

“Yeah, well… I couldn’t just let them lose their house.”

True. The attempt has to be made, although it’s not going to end well. Now if Cousin Splat can get a clue about how serious things are…

FAR Future, Episode 70: Not a Bang, but a Whimper

A while back, Yooper pointed out that the “FAR Future” is not even 15 years from now. It’s like that Don Hendley song, In a New York minute, everything can change. Sounds implausible, even… FARfetched? [sorry, couldn’t resist] But things elsewhere have changed even faster and more drastically, even in modern history: Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984 and was Hell on Earth by 1993.

Monday, March 6, 2023
Not a Bang, but a Whimper

The Final-We-Hope-Offensive is underway. The Rotters have been pushed out of Fort Worth and Grapevine, and the airport is no longer surrounded. Fort Worth fell so quickly that some thought perhaps the Rotters had been bluffing all along, but Arlington was the other think coming. They might not have much of an air force (a few choppers), or more armor than what they were able to loot from the TX National Guard, but they do have artillery and trained (and motivated) grunts. Lots of ex-army and ex-Marines, some of them active duty until late last year. It doesn’t help that our side is trying to minimize the ever-euphemistic “collateral damage” (i.e. “oops, we scrogged some civilians”), and the Rotters know that, and are taking advantage. The air force will still splatter an artillery placement in some neighborhood even if the explosion takes out a few houses, but they try really hard not to miss and follow up with fire-suppression choppers. But if we try not to damage people’s houses, the Rotters try not to damage the freeways. That gives the good guys an advantage too… we have tanks placed on their southern flank (I-20), and eastern and northern flanks (I-635) — blocking major in/out routes, and they’re not taking any artillery fire.

As they did in Houston, the Guard is in Fort Worth to heal various battle scars and get the lights back on. If the Rotters have electricity now, they’re generating their own… one of the first things a reunified neighborhood gets is electricity, and that makes most of the people there pretty happy to be back in the USA. The broadcast TV is being jammed right now; the self-styled Minister of Moral Values was clogging up all the Dallas stations anyway, exhorting people to fight on for the glorious “Christian Republic” and (worse) recommending stuff like “all Christians across America who support the traditional values taught by the Bible are to rise up and take their country back.” I guess they can still exhort their grunts on cable, but at least the real world is left out of it. I think they were saying something about re-opening a station in Fort Worth, but maybe they’ll just have the cable on there too.

Kim’s still in Tulsa. He called us on Friday for his normal chat with Christina and the rest of us. Mrs. Fetched asked him if things were getting any better there, and to our surprise he said they were. “I went into a coffee shop yesterday to get our morning joe,” he said, “and a couple of the locals were in there talking with the barista. They let me get my order in, then one of them offered to help me carry it out. He said the preacher asked them in a prayer meeting that if God wanted the Rotters to win, why are they losing? So maybe things are starting to look up.”

Amazingly enough, I got an email from Col. Mustard over the weekend too:

Typing this on a cellphone. Dont know if youll get it or not. I guess you know whats going on down here. Me and a couple of the guys were talking about Nickajack last night, and we were joking about getting you down here to film the final battle. They probably wont let you in though, haha. I know you didnt support us, but hope youll pray for us anyway. You were an ok guy. Got a war to fight, hope Ill see you again.

Yeah, we all said a prayer for them, and I emailed him back saying we did pray for them and I hoped to see him as well. We also prayed that their leaders will come to their senses and surrender, but I didn’t bother telling him that — he probably knows. Heck, for that matter, he might just be hoping for the same thing himself. Like I said, those guys weren’t stupid, even if they had some far-out ideas about how things work (or should work). I hope the guys I was with that day are all smart enough to stay alive. But when I showed Mrs. Fetched the message, she looked at me and said, “You’re not thinking about it, are you?” I wasn’t… at least for more than a couple seconds, anyway. 64 is too old for that kind of stuff.

Farming is getting to be a reasonable way to make a living again. We’ve already taken enough orders to account for all the herbs we plan to grow this year. We’ve got our own garden started in cold frames… and wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Fetched has a flock of chickens again. At least it’s only a dozen or so, a few layers and a few broilers, instead of 80,000. And a rooster to keep them reproducing. We had to fence in a place for them, because the dogs kept wanting to chew on them. At least we can move the fence around; we have them in the garden beds now where they can scratch out the weeds and eat all the bugs (and fertilize it). We’ll probably have to move them in a couple of weeks and let the poop mellow with age.

Heh. If things had gone the way everyone expected them to (i.e. endless growth), I’d be retiring this year. I gave up on retirement long ago, but with Guillermo and Maria to help, it’s not terribly hard work. But we’re all getting older, and Christina’s work is too important to throw it all on her, so we’ll probably have to get some younger faces in here eventually. Maybe Kim and Rene will take over once they get out of the army.

continued…

Spring #3 Comes In Like a… Wildcat? a Bird?

This is one way to visualize spring #3 on Planet Georgia:



The real spring is on the way, the one that all too quickly turns into summer. You know this by the birds you have to chase out of your garage:



Of course, being a thrasher, it’s a contrary little SOB. Even with the garage door wide open, we couldn’t get it to leave. I’ll try again in the morning… and it will leave even if I have to toss its mangled corpse out myself. It’s not going to nest in there and crap all over my car.

Because my car already has enough crap all over it… and it’s sad:



Meanwhile, things have gotten ever so slightly dangerous out there on the grounds of the free-range insane asylum. It seems that a cougar (and not the kind you drive or buy a drink) or other large cat has wandered into the area and has decided it really likes to snack on horses. Big V had a horse killed night before last, and another nearby farm has also lost a horse. There’s some speculation that it might be an escapee from a nearby sanctuary, since it doesn’t seem to bother cows too much. Not that the cows can relax… there are coyotes after them. A young guy helping Mrs. Fetched sighted some today, and wasn’t happy about it.

It would be nice if the wildcat came and ate the stupid bird, then ran off the coyotes before finding its way back home. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Intentional?

I wander into Burger King for a veggie burger, and see that they have a new sandwich they call the “Angry Whopper.” It's your basic Whopper with jalapeños, hot onions, and an “Angry Sauce.” Of course, you can get it with a combo.

So you can go to McDonald’s and get a Happy Meal, or go to Burger King and get an Angry Meal.

DoubleRed suggested you could get a Horny Meal at Wendy’s, forgetting that The Boy and Snippet work there…

FAR Future, Episode 69: Besieged

Tomorrow, a rotter rides off into the sunset. And America rejoices. In 2023, it’s taking a little longer.

Friday, January 27, 2023
Besieged

I expected this to be over by now, but I don’t guess it will last until spring. It looked like it would be over in a week at first… the feint from Oklahoma drew the Rotters north and gave the Navy SEALs and Marines pretty much free rein for the landing parties all up and down the coast. Houston saw some fighting, a few oil rigs got sabotaged, but by the end of the week the Rotters had retreated to the maze of freeways that make up the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Another contingent of Marines secured the DFW airport, but in a telephone interview one jarhead described it as “a siege within a siege.” I can imagine that’s got to be hairy… you’re surrounded by enemy troops who are in turn surrounded by your guys. I don’t think either side wants to see the airport take a lot of damage, which might explain why there hasn’t been an effort (yet) by the Rotters to re-take it.

Our guys are allowing in food and water shipments, some of which come in through the airport. Some people thought that was a bad idea, and would let the Rotters hold out longer, but the way I see it you don’t starve out your own citizens. We’re also allowing them a few hours of electricity per day, and broadcasting offers of amnesty for Rotter troops who want to surrender. Those that slip out to the perimeter get processed, put on a bus, and shipped up to Tulsa. Kim is still in Tulsa, thank God… bad enough, but starting to get better. He told us a couple weeks ago that the people there are behaving (they started cutting off water and sewer for a day to any neighborhoods that make trouble, and word got around quick); all they’re doing is debriefing ex-Rotters and sending them on their way. The grunts get a ticket to wherever; officers have a do a little jail time and sign an agreement to stay away from the oil industry and politics for life.

The Reserves are doing a lot of rebuilding work in Houston right now. People whose windows got broken during the skirmishes, for example… a team comes, assesses the damage, and brings repair materials. Lots of abandoned houses have been torn down, and glass is glass. It also seems to go a long way toward reconciling the residents with being part of the USA again — the President of late has been hammering the message “we take care of our people” on the airwaves. I know a lot of people on Planet Georgia have reconciled too; even here, a lot of people had gotten frustrated with the stupid maneuvers of the junta in general and the ham-handed antics of the Pat-Riots in particular. There was some Riot-cleansing in Atlanta, but The Prophet spoke against it: “Forget not the words of the Lord, therefore forgive your oppressors. Do not lift your hand against them, but pray for their salvation that they might be reconciled with God.” His chroniclers posted a video showing two of the guys who tried to trick him a few years back, going to Corettaville and accepting his baptism. They claimed to have been changed by what they saw that day, and perhaps they were. Up north, it was a different story. Not even a Prophet can be everywhere, I guess, but I suspect if Riots on the run asked him for sanctuary they’d get it.

The new Congress got sworn in, and after some getting-acquainted time they’re starting to hit their stride. A lot of the old staffers were still around the DC area, and got pulled back into a new version of their old jobs. The President met with them all, as a body and in small groups, and now the reps are starting to form caucuses… both by region and by interest (with the lottery-based House election, there’s a pretty broad base of interests and skills). This might evolve into the old committee system, or it might turn into something new, an ad hoc committee system where members either know or are interested in the subject matter. The administration was letting them get their bearings before sending legislation, but the newsies tell us he sent them a huge stack of bills today, collectively titled the Restoration Acts. It’s not really an omnibus; the various caucuses will be looking at relevant parts of the stack and working with the administration to modify them. One exception: the Latino Repatriation Act was repealed pretty much right away. One caucus is looking over the legislation passed by the junta’s rump Congress, and recommending changes or repeals as needed… if I were there, I’d propose repealing everything they did and starting over from scratch. Fortunately, though, my name wasn’t drawn for the job. “FARf Goes to Washington” would be an OK name for a blog, but I’m glad I don’t have that issue. Those guys (minus the Texas contingent, which will be drawn after the Reunification) are plonking away at legislation, but nobody’s paying attention. I suppose if something controversial comes up, with a close vote, they’ll revisit it once the Texans are seated.

Anyway, we got a call from Serena yesterday. There was some kind of incident last week — junta plants were plotting to steal a bomber and aid the Rotters — but they got caught before they had a chance to try it, and Serena was one of the MPs in on the arrest. Ironically, none of the Texans she mentioned before were part of the plot, but they were all figuring they would be implicated. In fact, several of them simply walked into the MP post and said, “arrest me if you’re going to.” Much to their pleasant surprise, they were sent back to their barracks.

Now if we could get the kids sent home…

continued…

Weekend Cinema: Crass Free Advertising Edition

If it moves, and it's free, we want it for Weekend Cinema! Or something like that, anyway.

Now if these demonstrations don’t convince you that the iPhone is the Best. Thing. Ever. — well, you’re probably not a guy. I mean, for 99 cents… well, just watch the demos!



Or…



I’m just… shook up. Can’t decide which app I should get. (I must also find a suitable photo of Mrs. Fetched to, um, animate.)

Hat tip to The Register, always carrying the most important technology news.

An Open Letter

From: FARfetched
To: “Climate change skeptics” and other Global Warming deniers

Undoubtedly, many of you have been strangely warmed by the first Alberta Clipper to come south in about five years. Those video clips of snowbound New Englanders and Chicagoans, even if you’re one of them, have given you that warm fuzzy feeling of vindication… here’s your “proof” that you know better than those intellectuals — what do they know? After all, they’ve only spent their entire careers studying the incredibly complex system we call the Earth’s climate.

Well, here’s a news flash for you, Bubba… have you checked the calendar lately? This is the season known (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) as “winter.” The birds fly south to warmer climes, snow falls in the north, people put away their boats and get out their skis? Remember? It’s cold because it gets cold this time of year. Do you really think that global warming means palm trees will start growing along Buffalo’s Lake Erie waterfront? Don’t be silly.

Winters are a lot less harsh than they used to be, not only in my lifetime but since I moved to Planet Georgia in 1982. Back then, hard cold snaps like this were a yearly occurrence, and below-zero (F) temperatures something you’d see roughly every other year. Not any more — the weather dudes tell us our single-digit temps are the first in 5 years, and we haven’t seen below-zero weather for 10 to 15 years. In Michigan, people now complain bitterly about large amounts of cold and snow that were commonplace when I was a kid.

Don’t take my word for it, look at what’s been happening to global temperatures over the last 160 years or so:



Sure, there are blips either way, but since the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear the trend has been up. This year might be a blip down, maybe not. I noted last year that August was a lot more pleasant than usual; only the first few days were over 90F here.

There’s also that little minor detail about the Arctic ice cap, and how it seems to be getting smaller nearly every year. By the way, the chart above depicts average temperature rises; the Arctic is warming much faster than… say, the southeastern US.

So enjoy your shot of cold weather; it will be gone in a few days. I know I enjoyed a milder than usual August last year; if a few days of bug-killing cold is the price to pay for that, I’ll pay it. None of us know exactly what the weather is going to bring us in two weeks, let alone a month; the farther out we go, the more we have to rely on trends (which suggest warming overall) and computer models (ditto). But I do know that we’ll all be bitching about how hot it is in 6 months or so.

Full of Empty Buildings

Winter #3 has arrived on Planet Georgia. I bundled up and took a little walk around the block at lunch yesterday.



Empty parking lots, quiet shop floors… It could be a Saturday. But it was Wednesday at lunch, and this is one of several buildings, within a short walk of the office, that stand empty. Of the businesses within sight of the office, three of them went away in 2008. Sure, they might have found bigger or cheaper digs, but it’s more likely — since the buidings remain empty months later — that they simply faded away.



So what do developers think of this? Why, put up more office space, of course! This went up in the last year, down a cul-de-sac across from the office. The awnings and faux towers at the corners, in my mind, give it a sort of retail-ish look. It’s huge, it’s pretty… and empty as a politician’s promise.



Traffic during rush hour gets pretty horrendous along this stretch of road, that connects two major thoroughfares, so they’re working on four-laning it. Of course, that’s not stopping “them” from putting up more construction alongside. That’s a retail development on the left, so far with only one State Farm office and a restaurant “coming soon.” Just about all the buildings on the right are “medical office” space, with the last two buildings empty and the closer ones maybe half-occupied.

So this is what the beginning of a recession looks like… new buildings going up while the old ones are emptying out.

The Riches of Doing

Yesterday, Merlin Mann wrote a thought provoking blog piece: Re-Potting with Resources: What Would You Make? (43 Folders). He asks the question: If, tomorrow morning, you had 60% of the time and resources you needed to start making anything you wanted, what would it be? And, what would you do first?

Then this morning, my blog-buddy Nudge wrote a piece she called What is Wealth?

These two posts started resonating with each other, forming a chord that was greater than the sum of the two notes. The context, or key (as in the key of G) if you will, is what Mann calls “a blood-curdling recession.” Nudge speaks of the laid-off millions, wondering how they’re going to keep the lights on and their heads under a roof… and Mann asks them all you have plenty of time, and you have some resources… now what do you do with them?

My answer to Nudge’s question sounds flippant, but I was dead serious: screw the dictionary definition, wealth is whatever you say it is — because wealth means not only different things to different people, but different things to the same people at different times. For a long time, my personal definition of wealth was “not having to work for a living” — but that’s a binary definition of wealth. That definition says you either have it or you don’t, when in fact you can have some wealth, but not enough to give employment the finger and walk away. Before allowing myself to be saddled with FAR Manor, we had the old place paid off and no car payments, just a bunch of credit card debt that we were working off. I wanted nothing to do with a mortgage before getting rid of all other debts and building up a decent down payment, so we could make a house payment and still put some savings away. Way-ell… anything that wasn’t “yes dear” was summarily ignored until I wore down enough to say “to hell with it, if we get foreclosed we get foreclosed.”

These days, my personal concept of “wealth” is simply the time to do what I want to get done. Subtract sleep time, commute time, work time, meal time, cleanup time, then whatever little “surprises” wait for me when I’m home, and there’s very little left over for wealth. Sure, I have all the “stuff” I want and then some, but what I don’t have is the time to do much of anything with it. In this vein of thinking, getting laid off would make me wealthier, simply because I’d have more time to work on my own stuff (whatever the heck that is now). The way things are now, I have a hard time taking Mann’s advice to Imagine you have almost what you need. Then, just start something. — if I don’t have the time and materials to finish what I start, God only knows when I’ll be able to get the last remaining time or materials to finish the job. My garage and studio are littered with projects that died half-finished, simply because they got derailed for so long that I either forgot about them or lost track of where I left off and what I needed to finish. I was able to finish the cold frame because I had 100% of the tools & materials, and insisted on making time for it, before I really started. But it’s not really finished; I still need to paint it and I either need to scrounge or buy some paint (and, again, make time to apply brush to wood).

What I can do, though, is make plans for doing things if/when I get laid off. And there are things that I can nibble on a little at a time… for example, I’ve nearly completed FAR Future, a work that will end up at least the size of an average novel, in odd hours or fractions of hours over the last year & a half. Focus on the positive, look for things that you can do, and (most important) use your successes to kick-start the next project.

FAR Future, Episode 68: Starts Off with a Bang

This one’s a little shorter than usual, but that’s how they go sometimes. There’s a longer one coming up that will partially make up for it. :-)

Sunday, January 1, 2023
Starts Off with a Bang

On Planet Georgia and other places, there’s a tradition of shooting off fireworks to begin the new year. I guess they couldn’t get fireworks in Tulsa this year, so they firebombed two refineries instead. The fire department managed to get the Conoco fire under control pretty quickly. Sunoco… not so much. Kim texted us before we even knew anything had happened: OK here, wasn't anywhere close. Christina is still worried sick. The rest of us… we’re just worried.

Of course, most of the nation got the word when they went to watch the first Rose Parade since 2015, and were instead treated to night video of a raging refinery fire and the President blaming Rotter terrorists for the incident. The news ran an interview with a refinery employee who said something along the lines of “a bunch of guys in masks came in, pulled guns on us, then drove us outside the fence and set off their bombs.” They also said that the army has imposed a 72-hour curfew in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and various curfews in other cities around the country — Atlanta’s is fairly minimal, midnight to 6 a.m., but they have checkpoints and random searches for anyone crossing I-285 in either direction right now. (Which makes the “Perimeter” truly a perimeter, at least for now.) Local media are broadcasting contacts for anyone who needs food (in the total clamp-down areas) or emergency services. As a “balance,” they provided a press release from the Rotters denying responsibility for the bombing.

Some Rotter-symp blogs are claiming it’s a false-flag incident — in other words, the government bombed the refineries to have an excuse to clean out the RoT. Um… you mean, like trying to assassinate the President and inciting riots isn’t reason enough? Putting any kind of crimp in the flow of what little fuel we’re getting would be grounds for violent overthrow, and insta-polls are suggesting that nuking the Rotters outright wouldn’t be considered objectionable at the moment, even in the more junta/RoT-tolerant parts of the country like here. The news isn’t carrying much of anything but the refinery fire and the reactions, but I’ll bet the columns are already rolling toward Texas.

Rene is incommunicado — probably working double shifts — and Serena was able to get a quick email to us: Calls home suspended for a few. Sorry. Hope Kim's OK. I'll call when they let me.

Anyone else remember a book called The Texas-Israeli War: 1999? Only 24 years behind schedule, and Israel has too many problems of its own to be doing mercenary work for anyone else. At least they got the oil part right.

continued…

Cloudy days

Spring #2 is winding down, with Winter #3 set to arrive Sunday or Monday. It has been rainy except when it was relatively cold. Yeah, the sun comes out and it gets cold. Even the weather is psychotic on Planet Georgia.



This was hanging over my head yesterday morning on the way to work. A little blue sky poked through here and there, but mostly it was dark and threatening. I thought I’d get to that lighter edge, or even past it, but it was either moving in the same direction (things were moving quickly yesterday) or was farther away than it appeared.

When Animals Annoy

Being at FAR Manor, an in-law freakout wasn’t necessary to cut my staycation short and get me home — they were right there, after all.

The last few days, basically the weekend, was spent being farm labor. The poultry company decided to try putting four houses’ worth of chicks in two houses, the idea being it would cost much less on heat and they could move half of them after they got a little bigger. Sounded great on paper, but the crowding caused a rather large die-off — about 3000 chickens per house, more than usually die in an entire grow-out, croaked in the first week. Thus, much of the weekend was spent getting the other two houses ready; Sasquatch and Jar Jar were there to help as well. But a chicken house screw-up, as long-time readers probably know, is not unique or even much noteworthy.

Saturday afternoon, I was getting ready to take a nap when Mrs. Fetched piped up: “Call Dad, ask him if he’s going to feed the cows and see if he needs you to help him.” ARRRRRRGH!!! The timing is… incredible. How do they do that, and how do you make it stop? Anyway, the drill is that the helper goes down in the truck to open the gates. So I went on… and found eight cows already in the hay barn. I opened a gate and cussed them out, which got two of them out right away. Six to go… I climbed up over the hay, nearly falling down a hole of unknown depth once, and cussed out the other ones. Three of them left right away, leaving the three all the way down at the far end. I climbed across the hay and got them moving… and the $#!@$%!!! stupidogs chased them right back in! Lather, rinse, repeat. By the time my father-in-law got there with the tractor, I was entertaining thoughts of butchering a cow with my bare hands and BBQ’ing it on the spot, and launching dogs in a trebuchet to entertain myself while the beef was cooking. We got the dogs away, got the cows out, and fixed as much of the fencing as we could before it got too dark to see. I hadn’t planned on making any New Year’s resolutions, but I thought about resolving to eat more beef this year.

Went to bed Sunday night, hoping to get some sleep and get a good start back at work. But at 4:30 a.m., I was awakened by a plink plink plink sound from the bathroom.

“Oh, crap,” I said, waking Mrs. Fetched. “The toilet’s backing up.” I got up, not putting on my glasses, and went to see if I was right and how bad it was going to be. The water level was normal, but there were what looked like two “floaters” in the bowl. But… one was swimming.

“It’s a rat!” I bellowed, and slammed down the lid. “Or two of them!”

“How big?” Mrs. Fetched asked. “And how did they get in there?”

“I don’t know.” I was already looking for something heavy to sit on the lid, in case one of them managed to get to dry porcelain and tried to get out, and found a magazine rack. I dropped that on and went back to bed. I considered flushing for a moment, but was afraid it might clog the drain… and who’s to say it wouldn’t climb right back up?

“How do you think they got in?” Mrs. Fetched asked again.

“No clue… but I haven’t seen any rat droppings in the house. Maybe they got in through the drain vent — or maybe it was a squirrel that got in — and they came up from below.”

A thunderstorm an hour later pretty much put the kibosh on my getting any sleep, especially when Mrs. Fetched’s alarm went off at 6 (she had to be there to greet the chicken moving crew). Since the plink noises had quit a while back, I figured whatever it was had drowned, but I wasn’t taking any chances — I slipped a piece of glass between the lid and bowl, then raised the lid to find:



One small squirrel, not exactly alive. I grabbed the fireplace tongs and a bucket, and got it back outside where it belonged. I also managed to feel a little pity for a brief moment… but that was all. Not only had he taken a third of my night with him, he’d gone crawling into someone else’s den.

Only at FAR Manor.

I’m sure if I stuck my face in a squirrel’s nest, I’d get it bitten and scratched. Think of it as evolution in action.

FAR Future, Episode 67: Letters on the Eve of War

Funny how this episode mentions Detroit, with all the Detroit-related chatter on some of the blogs I read. But I wrote this one in mid-October. Go figure.

Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Letters on the Eve of War

I suppose the government was willing to ignore the “Texas oil is for Texas” rhetoric coming from the Rotters — that kind of thing is often meant for “domestic” consumption, and a recent Gallup poll suggested that even Texans would be willing to ride the train and drive fuel-efficient cars if exports meant lower taxes for them. The government was probably willing to overlook their keeping a “little” extra oil for local consumption.

What they aren’t willing to overlook is an attempt to assassinate the President, and their agents provocateurs torching off riots in Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Detroit.

Things got a little tense at FAR Manor last week: Kim got re-assigned, sent to St. Louis to help restore order, and got wounded in the riots over the weekend. “Not much,” he said, “shot in the arm, a little flying glass, it looked a whole lot worse than it really was.” Christina was halfway to hysterical, but Mrs. Fetched and Maria got her calmed down. He was able to call and let us know what happened, so we knew he wasn’t seriously injured, and that was probably the point the ladies hammered on until it got through to her. Christina is in better spirits now, fortunately. This morning, she told me, “As soon as Kim gets home, we’re going to have a baby. I’m not going to pass up another chance.” I think she was joking. Rene is still doing whatever it is he’s doing, probably cracking Rotter traffic. He sent us a text message the other day: Holá, y’all, we scored a big one for the good guys! Later! We’re guessing they intercepted some chatter about the assassination attempt, which make Guillermo and Maria really proud of their son. Heck, we’re all proud of him. And Kim, Serena, and Christina, in no particular order.

We’re all worried about Kim right now… after the frying pan of St. Louis, they’re sending him into the fire of Tulsa. Tulsa and OKC are both Rotter-symp, and Kim tells us:

Maj. Buckley was in Iraq, and he said it’s a lot like Baghdad was. Most of the time, the civilians just glare at us, if they pay any attention at all. But every once in a while, someone will throw a Molotov cocktail or just a brick or something. We’ve got orders to not retaliate for bricks or rocks, but if there’s ever gunfire, look out. You get the sense that things could boil over at any time, for no good reason, and everyone’s on edge. Everybody knows that when we go after the Rotters, we’ll be using Tulsa as a staging point. We expect trouble, and lots of it, when the roll-out orders come.

We’re all on edge, and not because of the rock-throwers. Nobody really wants to shoot at our own people, as the junta found out, but now it’s working against us instead of them. We’re enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and we have to disperse assemblies of more than five people. It got really tense the other day when we had a couple dozen peeps gathered in front of a theater. I thought it was going to turn into a firefight for a minute, but then they finally broke up.

The Rotters want a fight, and it looks like they’re about to get one. I wondered whether they were going to bring in some of the bomber groups from Europe, but Serena tells us there isn’t any activity like that over there. Just a bunch of guys wanting to get in on the action, and a few Texans more than a little conflicted. We have plenty of Air Force bases in the country if it comes to that, anyway. Speaking of Serena: I had one of those dreams where I’m wandering down hallways and through endless doors and rooms, trying to get somewhere. In this one, I was in a theater or some other kind of venue, and trying to get to the stage. These dreams always feature me talking to someone I can’t see, and this was no exception. Somehow, I ended up down on the floor, looking at rows and rows of empty seats and a stage raised too high to climb onto. “So what’s the sense of getting on stage if there’s no audience?” I asked my invisible companion, then woke up. I emailed Serena about it, figuring it would amuse her. She replied, “You’re having acting withdrawal because I haven’t been there to put on the Thanksgiving skits! I’ve got something this year for when I’m home.” Obviously, she’s doing well.

Rene sent a pretty funny message too:

Holá, y'all. Sammy T got picked to be one of the Congresscritters from DC, so he got a discharge! Lucky SOB! Another EDID unit lost their commander (retirement), so they reassigned them to us. Maj. Shevchuk made me his second, so I’m getting promoted to corporal. At least I won’t be a grunt for my last year in, jejeje.

Other than that, we’re still doing our thing here. Very busy! Will write more when I can.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of activity in and around local churches. The Rotters, so say the rumors, have turned a lot of the more conservative ones into a fifth column and using them as recruiting centers and command posts. It does seem like a lot of the people caught trying to sabotage infrastructure and the like are affiliated with a right-wing church. At least none of them (that I’m aware of) are associated with Penitent churches like ours. Unfortunately, it looks like a major backlash is building — and I hope it doesn’t turn into full-fledged persecution. There have already been cases of arson against certain churches on nights when nobody is around, and tires being slashed (or outright car-B-ques) in parking lots during services. We haven’t seen any problems yet, but we’ve started to assign people to watch the parking lot during services or meetings. In some places, congregations have added “A Penitent Church” to their signage… no telling if it will be the pass-over sign or not.

We’re worried for our kids, especially Kim, and praying for them all. Christina stays worried these days.

continued…

My Predictions for 2009

Jim Kunster posted his “Forecast for 2009” on his blog Monday morning. What follows is based on a comment I left in response, with my own predictions. I’ve done some rearranging and expansion on that original comment.

January → March

The year will likely begin with a quiet period, relative to the rest of the year, after the inauguration euphoria. Retailers are declaring bankruptcy (Circuit City, KB Toys) now, so it would be inaccurate to say the implosion starts early next year. But it will start picking up steam. The Obama administration, even with a high initial approval rating, will dribble out bad news slowly to prevent panic.

Most everyone will admit that the auto manufacturers, currently on life support, won’t recover. GM will break up, maybe voluntarily, into three companies: budget/consumer/sport (Chevy/Pontiac), luxury (Buick/Cadillac), trucks/industrial. Auto workers will own a significant portion of the companies, which will help with wage concessions (the best way to bust a union, after all, is to turn the workers into owners). Ford will swallow some of Chrysler, the rest will wither and die. The Japanese companies will scale back their operations. The job losses will ripple through the supply and dealership chains, and outward from there. Herculean rescue efforts will slow but not stop the hemorrhaging.

Some thousands of people will be caught out without converter boxes when the analog broadcast TV signals are turned off in February. There will be much noise made, and much pressure put on the FCC to push out the date. Eventually, the networks and local stations will dish out freebie converter boxes. But some people will find out they really don’t miss TV at all.

April → June

Fox Spew will begin referring to the “Obama depression.”

While mortgage resets continue declining to a summer 2009 minimum, job losses in retail and (later on) auto sectors will lead to increased defaults. The Obama administration will likely enact a law requiring the actual owner of the mortgage to initiate foreclosure, so there will be a mad scramble to figure out just who the heck owns the paper on all those houses.

Republicans will obstruct, spin, and do anything they can to tear own Obama (and the country be damned). Obama and a mob of angry constituents will begin forcibly implanting a spine in congressional Democrats.

July → September

The first steps toward universal healthcare will be taken. We won’t get there immediately, or even quickly.

Rolling blackouts may begin in isolated regions, but they won’t be seen nationwide until around 2012 (see FAR Future #1). A lot of people will leave their A/C off as much as possible to save on electric bills. There may be some spot gasoline/diesel shortages in various regions, like the upper Plains saw last summer (and the Southeast in the fall), based more on refinery or pipeline issues than any kind of crude shortage.

Through the summer, some dozens of unemployed bloggers will take cross-country road trips, talking to people and photographing the economic devastation. They will travel by various means, including hitchhiking or just hiking, and eat from government-supplied food pantries (below). One of them will break through to a book deal, and be hailed as “the 21st century Kerouac.”

Mortgage resets bottom out and begin the next wave in late summer. A foreclosure moratorium will be imposed, probably 60 or 90 days, followed by tax incentives for surviving banks who voluntarily refrain from foreclosing (with partial success). Squatting in abandoned houses will be widespread, but most squatters will keep up the properties they occupy and nobody will worry much about it. There will naturally be a few druggies and bangers taking over abandoned houses, and they’ll get all the media attention.

The government will either buy or seize food stocks in response to reports of small pockets of hunger/starvation. Agribusiness will take a big hit, and perhaps be nationalized to prevent an ongoing food crisis. The “victory garden” concept will make a comeback, under a new name like “food security garden,” and people will be attending classes and gathering information and tools for spring planting.

October → December

Argentines will begin consulting with unemployed American laborers, explaining how they took over shuttered factories and began producing things of value. It will mostly stay under the media radar in 2009, though.

There will be a mad scramble to ensure people have enough heat to survive the winter. Some low-income northerners may be relocated south and installed in otherwise abandoned dwellings for the winter, triggering howls of outrage from right wing locals.

General Economic trends

Inflation? Fuhgeddabotit. Whatever money is printed to keep the economy afloat will follow the old money right down the rathole. There’s just too much money evaporating in the finance sector to worry about inflation. The only way inflation will be an issue in 2009 is if Obama declares it a Jubilee Year and wipes out all debts, public and private, with the stroke of a pen. That would free up all the money going to service debts for buying stuff — and is about as likely as commercial fusion power being deployed next year.

Part & parcel with (lack of) inflation will be a more stable oil price regime, compared to 2008. OPEC will continue to chase demand down the price curve; whether they actually catch up is the question. Cash-strapped producer nations might tell OPEC to go pound sand (not oil sand though) and keep pumping. Leaving out so-called Black Swan events, as the 800-pound consumer gorilla (the US) continues to lose weight, oil prices might fluctuate between $40 & $80/bbl (you may remember me saying we’d probably never see oil under $100/bbl though, so add salt as needed). Spot shortages will have external causes such as refinery fires.

…and Beyond

Mortgage rate resets, according to a couple graphs I found online, will be less widespread in 2009 than in 2008. Last year was the year for major sub-prime resets; 2010 will see the Alt-A and Option ARM resets balloon though, and mostly keep climbing until autumn 2011, dropping off precipitously by summer 2012.

Given the current lower demand for oil, new sources won’t be developed and the more exotic sources (tar sands, deep water) will be too expensive to continue producing. Production cuts are currently aimed at a stable market; in the next couple of years it will shift to an economic base (i.e. uneconomical to increase production) then hit physical constraints (the whole point of peak oil). The initial parts of FAR Future are merely extrapolating current trends a few years ahead.

FAR Future, Episode 66: Farewell, Sammy

Back to work, shortly after this post goes up. Happier times in the FAR Future?

Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Farewell, Sammy

Summer’s over, no doubt about it. We’re back to sleeping inside. At least it won’t be just us next summer… Kim and Serena at least should finish up their hitch(es) and come home this spring. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss having the house full of people. OK, I’ll be honest: I wish they were here to help cut firewood. Does that sound more like me? ;-) But that’s only half-honest. I expect Kim and Christina will be moving away next year, probably to Atlanta or maybe Athens (GA) or some other college town. Mrs. and Mr. Daughter Dearest are already out — they grabbed a place in town so DD can walk to school and teach. They’re talking about moving back to Seattle, but with fuel the way it is Dean has to do his training gigs remotely — and as long as he has a lectern, a video camera, and a decent Internet hookup, he can do that from anywhere.

The publishers are getting ready to start printing Christina’s biochem textbook. It will be available for the next school year, which is really something… and has already garnered her several assistant professorship offers from various colleges. Having done some work for Corettaville, which is probably going to take the first “Enclosed Community of the Year” award from ECHO this year, she’s also getting a lot of queries about doing consulting work for other wallyworlds. She’s not all that interested in consulting for a living, although she could certainly swing it, given the number of queries she’s had. Still, she would like to do occasional side jobs like that… she thinks it would help her keep her research practical and give her a chance to get out and see a little of the country (once things get a little more stable, of course).

With the junta gone, there’s suddenly more traffic than you’d expect going east and west on the highway just down from FAR Manor — mostly bicycles and walking tourists, but you see the occasional scooter. Someone opened up “Luke’s at New Hope Corner” — a sort of combination tavern and hostel for travelers who want some food or a place to rest — at the crossroads. Since it’s a 2-minute walk from the manor, Guillermo and I are getting to be “the regulars” there — Luke buys food from us (except beef, not too many people can afford that) for the business, so we have a good excuse to walk down there in the evenings and get the order together for the next day. He also brews a pretty good hooch, but we haven’t told the ladies of that reason to visit. As if they haven’t seen their two old men come wobbling through the door, with the evening’s revelry on our breath? Our old Happy Hound gives us an escort there and back, and enjoys the attention from the travelers (not to mention the scraps he gets from Luke).

Of course, the shale mining prisoners have been freed and sent home. I hope the people running the camp (and the rest of the junta, for that matter) are put to work mining shale themselves, under the exact same conditions they provided for the prisoners… yeah, vindictive. But we need to make an example of the junta, so nobody else ever gets any stupid ideas, which I suppose would mean we’ll have to go into Texas sooner or later. I understand that the cheerleaders at Fox Spew, and even a lot of the DC punditry, have bolted for their various ratholes or “gone to RoT,” as they say. I’m not sure where Shotgun Sam got himself off to… maybe he’s gone to RoT too, or he just wasn’t all that important and isn’t being bothered. Asset seizures have taken the place of taxation, at least for a few months.

The President and his caretaker government have been scrambling to get things to the point where we can have elections in two weeks, but now they’re talking about having a lottery: all registered voters ages 25 to 70 (you have to be 25 to be a reprehensible, so says the Constitution) get thrown into a hat and the “winner” gets to spend the next two years in DC, but I don’t know if they’d do the Senate that way or not. The election date isn’t specified by the Constitution, so as long as the elections happen soon enough to get the votes counted and the new congresscritters sworn in by January 3, no harm no foul. A lottery just seems a little drastic, but it would give the new reps a couple months to get their affairs in order and get on a train. As for the President himself, everyone seems to be content to let him serve out the current term (through 2024).

With the junta no longer a problem, outside of one (large) place, Sammy has pretty much stood down. Of course, there will still be samizdat for the Rotters who want it, but Sammy is redundant in the rest of the country since there’s a free press once again. Still, I wouldn’t mind if we keep an underground press in this country; Lord knows how quickly things can change. I think the new Congress will be doing a lot of clean-up, and it’s going to be important to have a news source that isn’t too chummy with either the old old gang or the new old gang. I just hope the new government can look beyond the junta’s trainwreck and start moving us toward some kind of civilization that doesn’t involve heavy dependence on fossil fuel.

continued…

Staycation, Winding Down

Now it’s Christmas Past. And the staycation is entering its final weekend (although I only have a two-day week next week, good way to ease back in after two weeks off).

I’m SO glad to have “all Christmas music all the time” in my rear-view mirror. They didn't do that when I was younger; they'd just mix in holiday music with the normal programming & that was fine. But I get burned out real fast on the same stuff constantly, and I about went nuts the year “Christmas Shoes” came out because they played it over and over… and over… and over… seemed like 3–4 times an hour. And I’m not a big fan of depressing songs anyway (I mean, come on, the kid’s mom is going to die at Christmas, and how is that going to affect his outlook in the years to come?). On the other hand, there are a few holiday/Christmas songs that I could listen to throughout the year — the instrumental version of “Sleigh Ride” comes to mind — just as long as it wasn’t a steady diet.

OK… I know I was good this year, but this good?



This (Canon EOS 40D) was the camera I wanted to get before my old PowerShot died… and would have, if the company stock hadn’t tanked in front of the rest of the market. I had pretty much hit the limits of what the PowerShot could do, and I used it to take photos that ended up in my documentation. According to the counter in iPhoto, I took just short of 5000 pictures with it… of course, I deleted a bunch of shots that didn’t turn out or were redundant. When it died, it wasn’t quite like losing a hand — maybe a finger or two. You can mostly get by without the missing pieces, but there are times when it gets annoying and a prosthetic (i.e. cellphone camera) doesn’t quite get the job done. It’s been too rainy for a photowalk, but maybe I’ll have a chance tomorrow. Fog in the morning may make for some interesting shots.

When I got Clickzilla, it came with a Metz flash. The battery pack is all but dead (good for like three shots), but looking around I find I can get it rebuilt for $60. That’s a dang sight cheaper than $300 for a new flash. Interestingly, with the Metz flash attached, I have to hit the shutter button twice: once to flip the mirror back and once to get the shot. I’ll have to go through the camera manual again to see whether that’s normal or if I can change a setting. There will be some learning once I get the battery pack rebuilt, but with that I’ll be set… this flash can reach out and light stuff up.

I think the camera might have seen some service as a floor model… there was a 2GB CF card already in the camera when I got it out of the box and there were a few pictures (that looked like stuff shot in a camera store) on the card — but hey, a free 2GB card is nothing to sneeze at. I also found an old Pelican bag that had a dead camcorder in it (a Sony, Mrs. Fetched’s first DV) and dedicated it to the EOS. Mrs. Fetched has some interesting stuff in her XL-1 bag, including some close-up filters that will fit. The lenses are supposed to be interchangeable between the two cameras, so I might have to borrow the humongo lens off her camcorder and try it out too. I’ve also heard of adapters that will let me use Clickzilla’s lenses with the EOS, and that would be nice.

Mr. Sunshine is up to play some Wii Golf. Hope everyone had a good Christmas. The new year will be quite happy about 20 days in.

Christmas Eve

More rain, and even a thunderstorm a couple hours ago. I don’t remember ever having to yank the DSL on Christmas Eve… but on Planet Georgia, even the weather is a little neurotic. Winter #2, as I expected, is over after two days; Spring #2 is drooling all over us again. But if I bundle up, it looks like I might be able to ride the motorcycle to work Monday & Tuesday mornings (and then we’ll be out the rest of the week… too bad all work-weeks can’t be two days long).

We spent much of yesterday afternoon cutting and splitting wood, then stacking it behind the manor. The pile is fully replenished, and should last us a month if we don’t cut more sooner… we probably will though.

Daughter Dearest’s boyfriend Sasquatch (yup, it’s official… they’ve been “dating” since October but waited to tell us although we expected it anyway) has been spending a lot of time here. When he’s been gone, DD has been with him. I’m OK with it, and Mrs. Fetched seems to be. He’s somewhat transportation-limited, but he got over to the college once or twice somehow. I suspect that she gave him mono, but it didn’t hit him nearly as hard as it did her. But both of them are pretty much over it & (at least to me) are highly entertaining to have around.

Today was much less strenuous… A package from Mom arrived (which I’ll open tomorrow) and I took Jam down to Woodstock so she could pick up her car. She, Brand X, and Evil Lad NOT are headed north, into some much colder weather than we’ve had here at all. So is DoubleRed, although she’s going elsewhere.

Maybe the kitten can wait up for Santa, but I’m pooped regardless. See you in the morning.