whilst walking the rip and dreaming of valhalla i was possessed by a spirit that led me to a recycling bin and as fate would have it, i found the final piece of my puzzle. i had no choice but to retrieve the object and take it home. at first i wondered, what is this thing and what am i doing with it.
then after a little quiet comptemplation i was possessed once again by the spirit and woke up to find this......
i now have a path to valhalla.
i haven't posted anything for a long time. i haven't been busy, just slothful. it was a long hot summer, we had the hottest temperatures in recorded history due to something called a heat dome and that contributed to my slothful ways but i did accomplish one thing; lots of fish!
the weather did not co-operate so the final product is not top notch. it will be a few months until the final judgement is in but i'm not very optimistic. we had a very wet spring which got things off to a slow start followed by a super hot summer which helped but the fall weather was abysmal and that is what sunk the ship. the final few weeks are crucial for high grade fish and we had rain followed by more rain and that was followed by more rain. not only did the rain hamper development of the magic ingredient, it resulted in some moldy flowers.
here are the fruits of my labor. there is also a tub of trim which will used for baked goodies.
one of the reasons for my absence is my inability to remember the basics of blogger and that ties in with my slothful ways. i just don't have the energy or interest to figure out the latest curve balls from google.
billy still loves you sons of bitches.
how hot is it?
i really wish rodney dangerfield was still with us to answer that question. it's been super hot around here lately with a lot of people saying it's the hottest weather ever. the so called experts like to factor in humidity levels and wind etc to come up with an adjusted "feels like" number, much like they do in the winter when they add in the "wind chill" factor.
why don't they ever factor in the "hangover" factor. it's really hard for me to compare this weather to that of 20 years ago because i no longer have hangovers. but i still have a great deal of sympathy for the poor buggers trying to deal with 100 degree weather while they're dehydrated and have a pounding headache from the previous night's adventures with the demon rum.
this morning i rode up the supermarket and after completing my shopping and unlocking the bike i was trying to decide whether to put rip's sack of potatoes in the backpack or just ride home with the bag hanging from the handlebars when something wonderful happened. a stranger approached me and asked if i was ok and if there was anything he could do for me. this gesture could be interpreted two ways.
1. in my glass half full universe i smiled and said no problem, i'm doing great but thanks for the concern.
2. or i could have sat back and said, do i really look so pitiful that a stranger looks upon me as a homeless man with no apparent means to look after myself?
a few times strangers have offered to give me a few bucks when they see me going through trash cans in search of empty beer and pop cans. once when i stopped to pick up cans on the side of the road a man stopped and insisted that i take some of his groceries. i ended up riding away with a few cans of soup and some nachos.
these are the good things that happen to me when ride around on my bike like a poor homeless man but there is also a down side. it can be hard to get service in a store when the clerks think i'm nothing but a nuisance and don't enough money to buy their junk. and i occasionally get some really dirty looks from fellow shoppers when i try to talk to them. usually i say nothing when a stranger looks down on me but there's a good chance i'll say, well fuck you too.
and tomorrow i have an appointment to receive my second dose of the covid vaccine. i was one of the suckers who took an astrazeneca for the first dose but now i'm going to get either pfizer or moderna. i'll have no choice and won't know what i'm getting until i show up.
i'll be bringing a book and a bag of ju jubes with me. if there are any good looking women in the waiting area, i'll be ready to break the ice with ju jubes. fuck, i might even comb my hair and iron a white shirt.
erosive osteoarthritis
if that isn't painful, what is?
my fingers have been painful for a while and the doctor usually blew me off but he finally took me seriously and ran some tests. he was perplexed by the results and referred me to a rheumatologist. the x-rays showed mangled fingers etc that looked like rheumatoid arthritis but i tested negative for the r.a. markers and that's what stumped my family doctor.
the rheumatologist asked me countless questions, then his old nurse asked me more questions and they said they would get back to me. the next time he asked me more questions and he seemed to know more about me than i knew myself. he had my complete family history at this fingertips. ain't technology wonderful. the result was a diagnosis of erosive osteoarthritis. a good news, bad news diagnosis.
it's better than rheumatoid arthritis but a lot worse than other forms of arthritis. i didn't pay much attention after he told me that i didn't have rheumatoid arthritis because i was happy that my immune system wasn't running amok. but the next day i read all about erosive osteoarthritis and got a little bummed out. it looks like my hands will be pretty fucked in 5 years.
my fingers are very sore and if i do too much work or lifting, the pain lasts all day and i get wonderful streams of pain going up my arms. the doctor asked me how much tylenol/advil i was taking and happily told me not to worry, i could up my dosage a few times before thinking about other options.
i was bummed out for about a day but luckily i decided to shift realities. my new reality will feature the biggest tv i can fit into the bat cave and an upgraded killer sound system. i'll also do a lot of fishing.
we live in trying times and unfortunately there are some things in life that can't be fixed by shifting realities. last year i bought some expensive weed seeds, 6 seeds for $70, and i wasted 3 seeds before figuring out the correct procedure. basically it was a total failure, not only did i blow money on seeds, i also bought grow lights, fertilizer and assorted other accessories. but i still had 2 seeds and the plan was to grow a mighty weed tree this summer.
i got a seed to grow and nurtured it for 2 months waiting for the spring weather but disaster struck. my 4 legged partner in crime decided to have a weed salad and i came home to charlie brown's christmas tree. the plant isn't dead but it's on life support in my basement ICU.
and this morning reality bit me in the arse again. a few months ago i had the drive train replaced in an old kona lava dome i bought last summer after having another old classic kona bike stolen. as i was riding home this morning my rear brakes started acting up and the only thing i could do was disconnect the brake cable in order to ride it home. once i got home and put on some strong reading glasses, i discovered the problem, my rim blew out. it's a real let down because it had a brand new cassette attached to the rim with the new drive train. the smart move would be to dump the bike and buy a new one but i love old classic konas so it will be a tough decision.
my old electric lawnmower finally croaked a few weeks ago. it was a long and painful death that took a few years but she lived a long and fruitful life. i thought the motor had burned out a few years ago but it was a sears craftsman mower and it refused to die. this year it was the 2 rust holes that had me thinking it was the end of the line but trying to cut heavy wet grass killed her before she could rust away.
today the adventure was trying to dispose of her which turned into an unplanned adventure. the usual recycling depot was shut down and the city told me to take her to a commercial metal recycling facility that turned out to be very difficult to find. in hindsight, i should have taken the new phone with me and used the map app but the phone hasn't left my desktop since i activated it.
it was a huge commercial operation with a steady flow of huge trucks dumping stuff and there i was walking around with a lawnmower looking like a migrant gardener until a employee came out of the office to tell me i was in the wrong place. when i told him that the city directed me there, he sighed and told me to leave it by some large bins. upon reaching the bins, i noticed 2 bicycle wheels and being a hard wired scavenger i crawled over some junk and retrieved them. son of bitch, they had brand new tires and were rock hard! of course i snagged them and took them home.
some realities might change, but i'll always be scruffy scavenger at heart.
so far i'm really enjoying my journey into shifting realities, it's almost the highlight the of my day. i've read a few articles on shifting realities where the *fool is instructed to have a destination in mind before beginning the quest. so far i've resisted thinking about a destination or goal, instead the only constant in my quest is my companion. my companion has 4 feet and really needs a bath.
one great benefit of the shifting reality is it's allowing me to see my problems and challenges from a different point of view. having a different approach to a problem can make life a lot easier. seeing my problems from a different point of view allows me to separate mountains from mole hills. hopefully i'll have a lot more mole hills than mountains in my future.
the one major change in my current reality is i am now a member of the collective. i hate to admit it but for the first time in my life i am the owner of an activated cell phone, something that i've resisted for decades. when i was working at the cracker factory, i refused the benefit of a free cell phone. the reason for now possessing an activated cell phone is my doctor ordered me to get one. i've had it for a week now and it hasn't left my desktop. in a few months i'll be taking it out to the back yard to take pictures of the fish.
getting the phone was not a simple task. it would have been easy to contact one of the large providers and pick a plan, but i'm hard wired to find the cheapest alternative. i found cheap third party provider that was basically an on-line service with no human assistance. the company had a directory of physical locations but the locations given were nothing more than mail drops. the first place i went to was real shithole with trash everywhere and an asian guy sitting at a desk covered in used electronic parts. when i tried to get service the only thing answer i received was "he not here". when i asked if there were any other stores around, without looking up he said "go to mall".
the mall was like being in hong kong. there were probably 50 stores and about 20 were phone repairs and service. i thought that walking into a store and asking for directions was a simple and straight forward task, but no, not one person was willing to help me so i had to hop on the bike and pedal home to get the store number. armed with the store number, it was easy to find what i was looking for and luckily a young woman spoke english and was willing to sell me the service and install a sim card into the old iphone my princess gave me. all the signage in the store was chinese but through the miracle of modern technology she was able to hand me a contract and instructions in english.
*fool - i like to think of myself as "the fool" from a deck of tarot cards.
the search continues
as luck would have it, the journey in search of a higher power took an unexpected turn. i can't remember what led me in this direction but i'm giving credit to my lucky coin which is giving me a lot of comfort. the source of the comfort is irrelevant, the bottom is i need all the comfort i can get.
what i have stumbled upon is shifting realities. my default reality can be challenging and if i am unable to change the terms and conditions of my present reality, why not shift realities? there are many ways to shift reality but it's not something you can buy on line and to truly shift realities and it should be done without the use of drugs. in other words, shifting reality requires a little work which is a good thing. if it was possible to snap your fingers and shift reality, it would be very difficult to take ownership of your new reality.
on a very basic level, cable news in the united states presents different realities. one network praised the actions of past president while a different network condemned the same actions. neither network presented a unbiased account of the person's actions, a simple statement of truth was not as profitable to the networks as was shifting the reality of the person's actions. this is why a shifting reality is something that you must acquire by your own actions, it is next to impossible to find a human without ulterior motives.
in the new pope, john malkovich does an outstanding job of presenting his new reality.
a few weeks ago my brain did its best microsoft impression and decided to do an update and restart. all updates are not created equal and i found myself thinking that i was in a forest beside a fast moving stream. when my operating system was fully restored i found myself lying on the kitchen floor with water streaming out of the faucet at full strength. i was perplexed and as it turned out, quite thoroughly bruised.
after getting to my feet i remember checking the clock on stove and it was 5:02 pm. the big question was, what time did the update and restart begin? my best guess was 4:45, so there were about 20 minutes to account for and the rip wasn't giving me any clues. i can't remember much of that evening but 5:02 is imprinted in my mind. being unstuck in time can be challenging.
several days ago i had this desire to find a higher power. did the update and restart of my operating system plant a virus in my brain that was prompting me to find a higher power? or perhaps the higher power took notice of a lost soul and gave me a nudge. i find myself having more questions than answers but that can be said of any right thinking person so the bottom line is i'm just another brick in the wall.
my first thoughts of a higher power revolved around jesus but i quickly realized that was because our society continually bombards us with religious rhetoric. it's wonderful that we have have the internet because it allowed me to rule out organized religion very quickly. jesus is still an option but if i head in that direction i'll cut out the middleman and seek a direct line.
is there a god? as a young man i was a devout atheist but i now realize that there are millions of people way smarter than myself who believe in god so although i'm a non believer, i do realize that there is a good chance that i'm wrong.
however, if there is a god of the universe i am 100% certain that the version of god we have been sold is not the true gospel.
if god created the universe, the real 10 commandments are the laws of physics, not the stuff organized religion uses to try and keep us humans in line.
at first i thought the goal was to find comfort in a higher power but after a few days of contemplation i remembered that the best way to ruin a good project is to finish it so for now i just hope to enjoy the journey and a journey is no more than a very long series of connected moments.
so for now i'll just "enjoy the moment".
everything old is new again.
several years ago the blog became tiresome and the quality of bullshit i posted seemed to morph into horseshit. bullshit is one thing but horseshit was a real wake up call.
so now i'm back, big whoop eh?
why am i back.......... ?
i have no idea why i'm back but the real question is how long will i stick with this before some other shiny object catches my eye and lures me away.
now that i'm back, i need a new theme. no, not a theme.
i need a good gimmick.
any suggestions?
no? well then i better log out and google gimmick.
hopefully i'll have a decent gimmick for the next post.
i feel this poor guy's pain.
