Journal Entries
What is Cancel Culture?
Posted Jul 11, 2020
I finally took a look at Twitter...look like Woodpigeon is active. I apparently followed him when I set the account up in 2009.
There are some neat gadgets worth stealing on twitter...here's an example...https://twitter.com/i/status/1280981785367597056
One funny one posted what is Cancel Culture? (wrong answers only) ...one I liked was "when you order too much kefir"...I liked it because I have a new word.
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Latest reply: Jul 11, 2020
Let's Make the Water Turn Black
Posted May 8, 2010
RVs must be able to function on a self-contained basis. Among other things, they have three holding tanks:
- One for fresh water,
- One for "gray water" (sink and shower drains),
- A third tank is for "black water".
The plumbing on my RV has two places to connect a water hose:
- One allows me to fill the freshwater tank or, by moving a lever, connect the RVs plumbing directly to the fresh water supplied by the hose.
- The other connection is used to flush and clean the black water tank. A warning sign says to be sure that the black water drain is open while the flushing process occurs.
In a rush to get setup, I accidentally connected the water supply to the wrong port. After a few minutes, a brown soupy-looking liquid begins to spew and cascade energetically over the roof and down the awnings and both sides of the RV.
The hose water has completely filled the black water tanks and forced the contents of the tank out the roof air vent.
I call Mrs. Phred at the grandchildren's house, explain the situation, and ask her to give me a few extra hours to get the tanks dumped at the Park dump station. Then I climb up on the roof to hose off the disgusting mess. I wash down the sides carefully.
S#$%!
Happens
S#$%!
Happens
It happens, it happens
S#$%!
Happens
S#$%!
Happens
DON'T WORRY!
'cause S#$%! will always happen
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Latest reply: May 8, 2010
Columbus Day Rant
Posted Oct 12, 2009
Monday, 12 October 2009
On a Yet to be Named Continent....1142 AD
I went to the bank this morning to take care of the debit card fraud only to learn that it was Columbus Day and the banks were closed. What a worthless holiday. Like it doesn’t matter that 80 million people got here first over the Siberian land bridge, eating hairy mammoths and battling saber tooth tigers. We just go ahead and celebrate good ole Chris who arrived somewhere in the Caribbean and enslaved the natives.
I decide to do something about it. First a trip to Wall Street to cash in 5 billion in credit default swaps. I’m glad I saw the credit crunch coming and bet heavily against AAA rated collaterallized debt obligations made up of baskets of toxic sub prime mortgages. I wondered for awhile if AIG would cough up my winnings. With the cash bundles of cash I can buy the suppressed energy technology owned Big Oil.
Adding the wormhole drive to the RV is no big deal. The cold fusion power plant slips in neatly in place of the big Ford V-10 and provides the power of a mini-sun. The really tricky part was generating a black hole the right size and then programming the laptop to send us to the right time and place.
Wrapping the whole thing around the RV made a lot of sense because we can use the RV generator to make turkey soup in the crock pot when we travel to the past and also because we need to keep the laptop powered up for the return trip. The navigational math is a little complicated, but I've been doing sudoku for the last few months to sharpen my wits.
We arrive on the beach of "San Salvador" on the morning of October 12, 1492 and set up our offensive positions. Mrs. Phred is checked out with the black market RPGs that are stuffed in the RV storage compartments. Mrs. Phred suggests adding orzos, celery, onions and carrots to the turkey soup while we wait. We grab a few coconuts, splash naked in the surf for an hour and eat the chicken sandwiches we packed for the time jaunt. We catch a few big spiny lobsters for the RV freezer. Eventually we hear voices cursing in primitive Spanish.
The crew was cursing because Chris had promised a fat lifetime pension in gold to the first man to see land. Chris claimed to have seen lights several nights before and put the promised reward in his own pocket. Considering the recent behavior of bankers, perhaps the "Columbus Day" bank holiday is understandable. His ethics were a model.
We let Chris and his boys pull their shitty little boats into range and then hole them at the waterline. The RPGs blow big holes in the hulls and we watch the crews swim to shore with no weapons. We figure they’ll have a good time learning to live with the natives this time around.
We hit the return button for the morning of October 12, 2009 and drive back to the bank. The building style has changed to Mediterranean and the bank’s name is now Banco Popular. A sign in Spanish says that the bank is closed to celebrate Vasco da Gama day. Da Gama now gets credit for discovering the new world. He landed near what was New York City on October 12, 1498.…the whole continent is a diseased and corrupt Spanish colony. It's called Gamaland, of course. The city that was New York is now the cesspool "Neuva Madrid".
Da Gama sailed the ocean great
In fourteen hundred and ninety-eight
This is not what we had in mind when we scuttled the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria. We’re going back again. We’ll go back further this time. I’m determined to teach what were the Iroquois Nations of what was to have been New York State about advanced metallurgy, steam engines, central banking, medicine, agriculture, credit cards, ice cream, sliced bread, nuclear energy, Teflon, steel ships, velcro, gunpowder, Pink Floyd music, aquatic mines and radio.
The Iroquois also refer to themselves as the Haudenosaunee, which means "People of the Longhouse." Oral tradition indicates that the six-tribe nation was formed prior to 1142 AD. This estimate is based on a tribal stories about a solar eclipse. It's a shame that we'll miss The Great Peacemaker, Ayonwentah, but we need to get an earlier start to crush and subjugate Europe. It should take maybe 60 years. Sorry about that, Beowulf...Sorry Shakespeare...Sorry Mr. Hitler...Sorry Douglas Adams.
I'm making several trips back with a complete curriculum of home-schooling textbooks and advanced engineering and scientific textbooks. I've got firearms to show them from the simplest antiques to the best modern weapons I can buy on the black market. The Iroquois had a Nation going that rivaled Athens. I think they'll see the point of the AK-47 and night vision goggles and be motivated to study hard, especially when they read future history.
I'll show them Chief Joseph's surrender speech after his brilliant 1400 mile fighting retreat...I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
We're taking benign philosophy books like Santayana (no Germans, no Kafka) and geologic maps that show where the richest deposits of strategic materials are located. It may take us a lifetime, but we’ll just see who discovers which "new world" and if it is to be the Last of the Mohegans or the Last of the viciously inappropriate bank holidays.
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Latest reply: Oct 12, 2009
Hell's Canyon and The Craters of the Moon
Posted Aug 2, 2009
Along the Snake River-Eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho
We did the 200 mile Hell's Canyon scenic loop yesterday. We saw miles of fertile farmland and winding US Forest Service roads.
Hell's Canyon is the deepest gorge in America at 1.5 miles deep. It was formed as part of an arc of undersea volcanic mountains in the South Pacific about 300 million years ago. Limestone rocks formed over the igneous rock on the sea bottom.The chunk of tectonic plate floated 2,000 miles north and collided with America. A vast uplifting and new igneous rock intrusions then took place amid considerable volvanism. During the ice ages, vast lakes in Montana repeatedly broke though glaciers and formed rivers with 1,000 times the volume of all the present day rivers in the world...at least so say the geologists. A strange and twisted history...geologic time runs on a different scale than human time.
Lewis and Clark crossed the Rockies and made their was down the Clearwater River to the Snake and then on to the Columbia.
I was a little surprised to see the Snake flowing north, but the Columbia is that way so it makes a certain sense. Lewis and Clark passed by here in the summer of 1804. The dams and locks make the rivers much easier to navigate for the most part.
These wild blackberries along the riverbank were very good.
Today was a fantastic driving day. Mrs. Phred did most of it. I discovered my old box of compilation CDs that I made while drinking Wild Turkey, late at night, back when I had to work. We listen to Pink Floyd, Alvin Lee, The Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hot Tuna, Santana, The Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, The Platters, Randy Newman, Jimmi Hendrix, etc. and watch the mountains, rivers and Idaho farmland roll by. For a change we hit the road at 6AM and make 450 miles by 3PM. The drive to the Grand Tetons tomorrow will only be a few hours more.
Suddenly we run into a blizzard of yellow grasshoppers in Idaho. Smack! Smack! All over the windshield. Just past that we drive through the the hundreds of square miles of The Craters of the Moon National Monument. Strangely, I'd been trying to remember the name of this place and where it was located for several days....there it was.
Blasted, torn, jagged black lava as far as the eye can see. Totally worthless desolate wasteland. What genius it was to turn it into a National Monument. I love it.
Pictures Here http://thefirecloudreport.blogspot.com/2009/08/hells-canyon-craters-of-moom.html
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Latest reply: Aug 2, 2009
Chevy Volt Seen in Secret Desert Test Drive
Posted Jun 13, 2009
Death Valley, California
It's a long way between service stations in Death Valley. Dante's Peak at 6,000 feet offers a spectacular view of the desert floor 300 feet below sea level.
The 13 mile spur drive up to the peak is a hard climb with slopes of up to 15 degrees. We have to drop the Toyota down to first gear for sections because it lugs and threatens to stall in second gear.
Three white cars pull in next to us in the viewing area. They have masking tape over what appears to be Chevrolet grill and trunk emblems. Telltale 120-volt male plugs dangle near the front bumper.
The teams of drivers rev what sound like a high performance electrical generators. They plug laptops into the dashboard perhaps to analyze battery levels and generator output. Hoping for more privacy, they move to a more remote area and open the hood of one vehicle. I wander over and see a FUCHS logo on one mechanical part. FUCHS makes high performance air filters.
The driver slams shut the hood. I ask if these are Chevy Volts and the driver grunts, "NO!", but he is lying. The Volt is a all electric plug-in with the performance of a 260 HP V-6. It runs 40 miles on electric. When the batteries get low a generator kicks in. These cars are a long way from an electrical socket.
Death Valley National Park is the largest park in the lower 48 states. We were surprised by the geological diversity and beauty of the desolate landscape.
Pictures of Death Valley and Volts in the link below.
http://thefirecloudreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/chevy-volt-seen-in-secret-desert-test.html
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Latest reply: Jun 13, 2009
Phred Firecloud
Researcher U1293358
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