Tag Archives: culture

Trapped by Time

Posted on February 25, 2012 by | 15 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I had the vague, but mistaken notion I wouldn’t post on the blog today.  I awakened fresh and full of energy, went out onto the porch to chat with the cats and none were available for comment.  So I went back indoors, put coffee on, did my usual getting started routines and bounced around as though I’d become a young man of, say, 60 or 55 during the night.

By the time the coffee was prime, Hydrox spoke outside the front door.  But him being an old guy, when I let him in he promptly headed for the bed and crashed.  Caused me a moment of concern, because the cats here always demand a few moments of quality time, each, me talking to them, scratching them behind the ears, holding them upside down, then finally pulling their tails while they pretend anger and trying to get away.

But there he was, curled up on the bed without so much as a sidle-against-the-leg.

So I plunked down at the comp to begin the daily download ritual and glanced at the time.  3:35 AM.  Sheeze!  3:36 by the time I pulled my eyes away.  The damned computer clock must have gone wokkyjawed!  So I pulled up the sleeve of my sweatshirt far enough to show my watch, which promptly sided with the computer, despite the fact I’ve tried to treat it well.  All I demand of a watch is loyalty when it comes to a crunch, aside from occasionally telling me what time it is.

5:00 AM is when I get up.  Not sometime after 3:00.  I sometimes awaken at 4:30 and lie there a while savoring being alive, but I don’t hop out of bed like some fool and start making coffee.

So I’ve somehow hornswoggled myself.  Might just as well see what’s blogworthy, thinks I.

The NASA site reports Spitzer’s still out there dragging surprises out of the Universe:

NASA Telescope Finds Elusive Buckyballs in Space

Astronomers using NASA‘s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered carbon molecules, known as “buckyballs,” in space for the first time. Buckyballs are soccer-ball-shaped molecules that were first observed in a laboratory 25 years ago. They are named for their resemblance to architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, which have interlocking circles on the surface of a partial sphere. Buckyballs were thought to float around in space, but had escaped detection until now.

“We found what are now the largest molecules known to exist in space,” said astronomer Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. “We are particularly excited because they have unique properties that make them important players for all sorts of physical and chemical processes going on in space.” Cami has authored a paper about the discovery that will appear online Thursday in the journal Science.

But I see by the date that was 2010.  Nothing there worth blogging.  Out-of-date old news.  Sheeze.

Old Sol’s UV pics on spaceweather.com don’t get updated weekends, normally, so a person’s left looking at how it was October 25, 2005 compared to yesterday, instead freshly dressed and spiffed up for a Saturday in February, 2012. 

Any port in a storm, I reckons.

As you can observe for yourself, the drama continues.

Anyway, I see time’s moved right along and it’s 4:59 AM.  Won’t be long before the data’s posted on the various sites so I can download it.  Probably just time for another cup of coffee, another moseying around outdoors to see if any felines have discovered the world made it through the night.

5:04 AM, Yeah, Niaid’s up and around, came in and had her morning hissing/swatting match with Hydrox, rousted him off the bed and stole his place.  Now he’s wanting back outdoors to see what’s in the news.

The Invader-cat doesn’t know how things work around here yet, so it’s out there under the window meowing to itself in puzzlement, hoping I’ll be putting out some viddles.  And the various roosters must have picked up on the house activity noise enough to get them crowing, wondering what-the-hell’s going on.

About all I can tell you about what’s in store for today is a nap.  I don’t care what the Mayan calendar says.

Old Jules

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Today on Ask Old Jules:  Are We De-evolving?

Old Jules, are we de-evolving?
The rules of natural selection and competition don’t really exist now. Everything is pretty much given to you as long as you have money. Could this mean that humans could be different in the next hundred years?

 

15 Comments

Posted in 2000's, 2012, Animals, Astronomy, Country Life, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Something fun from the Recovering fine and Micron Gold Group Newsletter

Posted on February 24, 2012 by | 1 comment

Messages In This Digest (2 Messages)

1a.

Got some ore soaking in warm NH3Cl and NH3NO3

Posted by: “james” james122964@yahoo.com   james122964

Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:04 pm (PST)

Got the old “new” leach thing working on some ore, this is real ore to test its ability to handle mixed compounds in in the leach.

I am running it at 145 degrees temp controlled for long slow soak as this solution is not going to be a aggressive type of leach.

Jim

1b.

Re: Got some ore soaking in warm NH3Cl and NH3NO3

Posted by: “scottt” Scotttygett@juno.com   scotttygett

Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:51 pm (PST)

Almost no one here is qualified to tell you how not to blow yourself up, but one of our favorite members and one of the Group’s founders, Art Corbitt, would rail about ammonia in lraches being explosive. Keyword fulminate.

Cyanide tailings are the wirst offenders, so one really has to process that out before extraction.

Geology degrees I am told could have morr chemistry and mechanical engineering, so this may be normal for the industry.

1 Comment

Posted in Adventure, America, Country Life, Current Issues, Education, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors

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Culinary Risk Taking – MSG – Root Hog or Die

Posted on February 24, 2012 by | 17 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Socorro, New Mexico, isn’t long on good restaurants.  But during the several years I lived there, I had a favorite restaurant, and a favorite menu item.  The place was owned and operated by an elderly Chinese man with whom I was on friendly, bantering terms. 

This lasted until the discovery that MSG in food causes my blood pressure to skyrocket.  A few times per week I’d sit myself down, they’d bring the usual, and a couple of hours later my pulse would be visible almost anywhere a blood vessel showed.  This was accompanied by a pounding in my head, maybe audible, maybe only seemingly so.

After I figured out the connection between my favorite food item and the blood pressure problem I attempted to discuss it with the owner, though we had a language barrier.   The result was an outburst of anger and indignation.  I didn’t know yet the MSG was the cause.  Just that particular menu item.

I solved the problem by eating elsewhere, but eventually learned that Chinese restaurants, particularly, lean heavily on adding MSG to their foods, and that a surprisingly large number of people have reactions to it similar to mine. 

I also began watching the labels on food I bought to prepare at home.  What I discovered was that a person sensitive to MSG had best carry a magnifying glass in his pocket and read those labels carefully.  Almost everything a person might buy in a can is loaded with it, but especially soups and soup-bases.  If a label slips past and gets inside the vehicle it notifies the owner by the rods knocking.

But I was going to say, I love oriental food, and I was in town yesterday, so I clenched my teeth and decided it was a day for risk-taking.  There’s an Oriental buffet I’d never tried, so I pulled in.  I tried asking whether they had MSG in their food, but it was clear she didn’t understand me.  So I went root hog or die.

The food was mediocre, but I didn’t die.  I took a couple of extra blood pressure pills when the pounding in my head started, and by the time I got home my blood pressure was so low I didn’t have any business being alive.

I found myself wondering why the FDA cops who faint and revive themselves over one-in-a-billion risks to human health otherwise haven’t jumped on this like ugly on a monkey.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: 

Historical Events Duplicated Today?

Old Jules, does any time in history correspond to what’s going on within the US today?

17 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Current Issues, Gambling, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Politics, Senior Citizens, Survival

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Quick News Break – February 23, 2011

Posted on February 23, 2012 by | 5 comments

Good morning readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.  I wasn’t going to make another post for today, but I thought I’d better in case some of you haven’t been visiting spaceweather.com to keep current on news events.

As you can see, Old Sol has a few magnetic field issues he’s trying to work through.  Astrophysicists and Mayan priests are trying their best to walk him through the tough spots and get him back on track.

You’ve also probably been having nagging questions about what else is going on in the solar system.  Nothing to get excited about though.  Uranus and Saturn are standing off opposite one another with their seasonal spin axis configurations and their ‘not fully understood’ offset magnetic fields whirling around firing something a bit strange at one another and Old Sol just found himself downrange.  No big deal.  It will pass.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably also been asking yourself what the Galilean moons are up to today.  As you can see, Europa and Ganymede are somewhat lined up down-orbit, Io’s sort of off to the side and Callisto’s way-to-hell-and-gone back the other side of Jupiter.

Other than that, there’s not much going on.  I hope this helps you through the day.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: 

Mental Illness?

Old Jules, what is the most beautiful mental illness or mentally ill act there is?

 

5 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Astronomy, Country Life, Science

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Why Superstitions are a Bad Thing

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | 16 comments

Accidental Posting.  This is the post for tomorrow I was working on when I hit the wrong button.  It’s still the post for tomorrow.

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I suppose there are a lot of good reasons to be tolerant of the superstitions people hold, but it’s not always easy to put up with it. 

For instance, a lot of people are so superstitious about this and that, they don’t help bring up Old Sol mornings.  That naturally puts a heavier load on the rest of us.  Not being sure someone else is going to cover it requires iron nerves if we decide to sleep in, or happen to croak during the night.

Last time I flew anywhere the airport security folks were so superstitious one of them wanted to physically touch what’s in my  medicine bag.  Can you imagine that?

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember when that was.  I don’t think I’ve been through airport security since sometime before 1998, but I think I must have been later than that by several years.  It’s only since people got superstitious about other people of Middle Eastern extraction, I think, that anyone’s gotten that submerged in his fantasies he’d do something quite that far off-the-wall.

But it shows up other places, maybe worse.  For instance, I’ve got this stuff made from red clover, bloodroot, galangal, and sheep sorrel I use on myself to get rid of skin cancers popping up from time to time because of my not protecting myself against a particular insecticide when I was a young man.  The easy way was to buy it because making it is a considerable chore.  

But a few years ago the FDA got all uppidy and superstitious about it.  Went out and attacked the bejesus out of all the websites where a person can buy it, ran them off.  Even the name is verboten.

Then a few days ago Gale was telling me about some stuff his dermatologist was having him rub on his face to get rid of skin cancers.  That is one horrifying face old Gale’s putting on at the moment, same as you’d expect if he was using the same stuff I’m using, but doing it on his face.

It appears to me what Gale’s putting on his face is the exact same concoction the FDA was so superstitious about people using if they were buying it off the web, or making it themselves.    Maybe it was the fact every Native American tribe on the continent’s been making it and treating themselves with it for all manner of carcinomas since before Columbus.

That ought to be enough to make anyone makes a living off treating people for cancer, or selling pharmaceuticals to them for big bucks superstitious.  It goes against every superstition the medical and scientific communities hold dear.

I suppose a person just needs to be especially conscious and tolerant of scientific and medical superstitions, more than others.  After all, they’ve got an army of police and other people carrying around guns willing to use them if anyone violates their superstitions.

The Tale of the Dreamsheep Mother and the Y2K War Gods

Sometimes I think the whole reason people have those superstitions is just to give them an excuse.  An excuse to explain how their particular brand of enlightenment is the only one anyone has any business adopting as a superstition.

Because it’s the one they believe.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2000's, 2012, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Solitude, The Lone Psychiatrist

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Powdered Horse Milk

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | 16 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

After I finished my morning download ritual this morning and prepared to go outdoors to bring up Old Sol and turn out the chickens I checked Ask Old Jules Biggest Regret? to see which of my brainstorms of the past she’s picked for the day.  I take a lot of things about myself for granted and occasionally one of my answers rattles me a bit, gets me asking questions about me and what makes me tick.  This morning is one of those.

Sitting out there under the tree I found myself asking, “What in the dickens is wrong with me that I feel so content and can’t come up with anything to regret?  It ain’t as though I haven’t gone the last mile to assure myself of plenty any sane person would prefer to be otherwise.”

I can’t guess how many people live the way I do, close to the cuff, physically having to force myself to maintain a comfort range that includes whatever the Universe tossed my way.  Probably a lot do in the poorer countries, but likely not too many within the boundaries of the US.  But when I see some evidence of them, I generally find myself on the edge of feeling sorry for them.

But meanwhile, I’m about as content, almost euphoric about my own life most of the time as a person could be.  Yeah, there are nagging things need doing, need changing, forever being pushed forward in time for one reason or another because of limited options.  But they whisper from the wings and mostly I don’t pay them any mind.

“Would I like, or trust someone like me if I came across him?”  That’s what I finally found myself asking.    And the answer’s a bit confusing to me.  “No,” I’m forced to admit, “I probably wouldn’t.   How the hell could you trust someone like that? “

“So, do you want to change it?”

“I’d hate to.  I’m more-or-less fond of being happy.  But it might be better to cultivate some regrets, some yank-your-heart-out-things I wish I’d done differently.  This satisfaction thing can be taken too far.”

Cultivating regrets, yearnings, deep feelings of loss might just be what it takes to live a life of fulfillment.  It would open the door to finding things to be scared of, frightened they’d happen.  Angry because they did, or didn’t.

Old Jules

 

16 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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Shinola, etc.

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | 22 comments

I’ve been coming across the word disambiguation somewhat frequently on the web lately. It always brings a smile when I see it, gives me a momentary ambition to disambiguate something.

But the problem is that I don’t know anything much.  Even inside the 21st Century where uninformed opinion is respectable, almost universal, and carries the certainty and power of positive speaking, I just don’t know anything much.

Besides, the dialup connection, or WordPress is being a pure D Communist this morning.  It’s taking me forever to even load the site.  I’m rolling on the floor with joy everytime it tells me it can’t find the webpage.

So instead of disambiguating you readers on some uninformed opinion I have, I think I’ll give you a quick and dirty on something I know something about because I’ve discovered it around here and watched it happen.

I’ve told you about the Great Speckled Bird and how he’s in decline because of something he did in his youth to cripple him up something awful.  One side of him just doesn’t work the way it ought to, and it causes him a lot of pain and distress.  I’ve expected him almost every morning to be dead when I go out to turn them out for free ranging.

But  I’ve been making up orange-peel tincture and treating him with it for a longish while, and it always makes him feel better after I’ve done it.  Sometimes when he’s in particular pain he actually volunteers, gimps over and sits around near where I am, hinting.

I don’t have arthritis troubling me, but if I did, the Great Speckled Bird testifies it’s the way to the truth and the light, orange peel tincture.  He says it’s the difference between Chit and Shinola.

Costs almost nothing to make, too.  Just put your orange or grapefruit peels into a jar of vinegar instead of throwing them away.  In a while you’ll have a tincture.

Chit and Shinola disambiguated.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  State of Democracy?

22 Comments

Posted in 2012, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Science, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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Taking Off Downwind

Posted on February 18, 2012 by | 21 comments

If it hadn’t been for an old friend who was a pilot telling me I could fly an airplane as cheaply as I could spend an hour on the range practicing with a large-bore pistol every week, I’d probably never have thought of doing it.  But something about the idea grabbed me.

I went out to the Killeen, Texas airport and took a few lessons to find out whether flying was one of the adventures I wanted to give myself this lifetime.  Turned out there was no question in the question.

But being a man of ideas, not much time passed before I decided I could buy an old aircraft and save a lot of the cost of renting one while I learned.  A 1947 Cessna was sitting on the strip with a for sale sign on it, that one at the top of the post, so I bought it.

But finding an instructor to teach me to fly a taildragger cut down a lot of my options.  I ended up with a guy named John Rynertson, who introduced himself by saying he was one of the best pilots around.  He owned a Cessna 120, and John taught me enough to get me started.

But we had a falling out, him not soloing me in a timely manner, me thinking he wasn’t doing so because he wanted to maximize the trainer fees.  One day we landed, me thinking this was the day of the solo, and he sneered I wasn’t ready yet.  We were standing by the airplane, so I climbed inside, started the engine and taxied down to the end of the runway, gave myself my first solo flight, illegal.

John and I didn’t have much truck with one another after that.  I flew that old Cessna without having a ticket allowing me to do it, while he flew his C120 up one day and pulled the wings off it in a snap-roll, killing himself exactly the way a man ought to do if he’s going to pull the wings off a Cessna.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d taken off downwind for the first time.  I couldn’t find another instructor, and I was relocating to another town at the time, where nobody knew me.  So for several years I flew that Cessna, 500+ hours flying time, as though I was entirely legal.  Flew out to New Mexico, over to Savanna, Georgia, sleeping under the wing along the way, with no license to pilot an aircraft.

But eventually word got around the Georgetown Municipal Airport and someone cautioned me the FBO was going to rat me out to the FAA.  I decided it was time to complete my training.  Found an old outlaw pilot to sign me off and made an appointment with the FAA examiner in Austin.

When he looked at my log and saw I had 500 hours he shook his head a longish time.  “I’ve been checking out pilots for thirty years.  Before you the one with the most flying hours I’d ever seen was a guy with 100 hours, and he almost killed me during the check ride.  Couldn’t fly an airplane.”

I grinned at him.  “You care to watch me take it around the patch a few times before we do the check ride?  I’ll get the numbers every time around and turn off by the first taxi way.”

We did the check ride and I flew back to Georgetown legal, for the first time.

Almost felt as though I’d lost something.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Mistakes and Regret? 

Old Jules, what mistakes have you made and regretted?

Previous post about the flying phase: Misplaced Worries

 

21 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Flying, Transportation

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Waiting for Joe Chink – All Dressed Up and Nobody to Fight

Posted on February 17, 2012 by | 10 comments

NCOs dressing down fresh arrivals who didn’t clean their rifles or had Frito Lay in their gas-mask bags always began, “When Joe Chink comes across that line [fill in the blank].   Joe Chink.  The imaginary Chinamen poised across the DMZ sharpening their bayonets.  We were there to scare them into not coming South, and whup if they did.   50,000 of us.

They’re still over there waiting, those GIs, 25,000 of them, but nowadays I doubt they’re being threatened with Joe Chink.  Joe Chink makes the parts for all their weapons, ammunition, their boots, every item of their equipment.  Joe Chink loans money to their overlords to pay for it and pay their salaries.

And back in the God, Country and My Baby heaven Joe Chink’s athletic shoes carry America’s finest boys and jerseys up and down pastures carrying Joe Chink’s footballs for the edification of cheering spectators wearing Joe Chink’s clothing, head-t0-foot.

Back then most of us who had any knowledge of the Republic of Korea military didn’t have much doubt the ROK Army [South Korean] could whip the pants off the US Army if they wanted to, and have plenty left over to take care of Joe Chink if he came across the DMZ.

But nowadays it’s probably North Koreans the US Army’s scaring into not doing anything ugly to all those factories in South Korea making the rest of what US consumers need but can’t get from Joe Chink.  Factories, and the ROK Army which could almost certainly still whip the pants off those 25,000 GIs still over there.

“Thank you for your service,” romantic patriots are fond of saying.

“Kiss my ass,” I’m fond of saying back.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Is Just One Religion Better?

 

10 Comments

Posted in 1960's, America, History, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Learning How to Not Be So Stupid

Posted on February 16, 2012 by | 12 comments

Morning to you readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.

If I’m going to get anywhere in this life I think I’m going to have to learn how to not be so stupid. 

Yesterday I made that post about the F350 wiring, which I’d been fretting and gnashing my teeth about for months.  Ben offered to try to find me a wiring diagram, and tffnguy recommended a Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forum.  I felt fairly uppidy and hopeful, but not sky-high enthusiastic because I’ve learned the hard way to suppress my melodrama.

But I went to the Forum site and immediately remembered I’d been there before, several months ago.  The reason I remembered was the popup advertisement for Phoenix University that blocked the entire screen and came back as soon as I clicked the X, every time.  The site took forever to load on a dialup, too.  So I blew it off and spent the next few months twiddling my thumbs trying to find ways to fix the immediate problem.

But yesterday, because of tffnguy’s recommendation I fought my way through the esoterica, waited while things loaded, killed popups as though I could dress them out and have them for supper.  Registered, posted a question about the wiring, along with pics, and asked for any help anyone could offer.

In a matter of hours I had a reply and a wiring diagram.  Now I’m back where I could have been several months ago if I’d had the patience and determination to wait for that site to load and posted an identical request back then.

Gale’s fond of saying that during the 40-odd years we’ve been friends every mutual acquaintance, if asked to list my traits would have had, “If there’s an easy way and a hard way, he’ll pick the hard way and stay to the end.”

Maybe I’m beginning to understand what they were talking about.  If I can get that grapefruit out of my mouth I might try to sort it out and change it.

Old Jules

 

Today on Ask Old Jules:   World Ending in 2012?

Old Jules, is it true that the world’s gonna end in 2012?

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, Senior Citizens, Survival, Transportation, Trucks

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