Tag Archives: society

Big Spring Buggaboo Karma on the Half-shell

Posted on November 27, 2013 by | 5 comments

Hi readers.

1967, I’m going to say, though it might have been 1968, my somewhat newlywed wife and I headed from Houston to my home town of Portales, NM, for reasons I no longer fathom.  Driving a 10 year-old Fairlane 500.  Crossed the easy Texas parts without incident, but around midnight pulled over 12 miles outside Big Spring, TX to piss and kiss, most likely.

Shut down the engine and when I went to start it again the battery was dead.  Soooo, we bundled up and tried to sleep, but pre-dawn I was on the shoulder of the road trying to flag down someone with booster cables.  Watching the light emerge and a mesa-like hill across the highway a few miles.

Nice guy in a pickup stopped and boosted us off.  When I thanked him he commented he just couldn’t leave anyone stranded 12 miles outside Big Spring, Texas.  Fixed that hill to the west and the distance in my mind forever.

So last week when I was headed here, saw the sign south of Big Spring, BIG SPRING 13 miles and remembered, began watching for that hill.  There it was, just as obvious as that morning so long ago.

BOOM WHACK CLUNKCLUNKCLUNKBANGCLUNK!

Blew out the inside rear tire on the driver side.

But no way I was  pulling over and shutting down my engine.  So I drove on into Big Spring, eased west toward Andrews.  Didn’t blow the second tire until 15 miles from here.

Some things in this life a person doesn’t need to learn twice.  Even if he’s me.  That place 12 miles south of Big Springs is one of them.

Jack

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Posted in 1960's, Texas

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Buffalo Bill’s Defunct – The Communist Toyota 4-Runner

Posted on November 18, 2013 by | Leave a comment
That old 4-Runner had a quarter-million miles on it when my lady-friend sold it to me about a decade ago. Until then it lived on the Zuni Rez. Somewhere around there are pics of the 1998 Lost Adams Diggings Search, Amy met Gale, Dana and me on Fox Mountain driving it. One more bug on the windshield of life.

That old 4-Runner had a quarter-million miles on it when my lady-friend sold it to me about a decade ago. Until then it lived on the Zuni Rez. Somewhere around there are pics of the 1998 Lost Adams Diggings Search, Amy met Gale, Dana and me on Fox Mountain driving it. One more bug on the windshield of life.

Toyota RV out by the same car dolly later in the day.  At 71 a person can’t be sentimental.

Buffalo Bill ‘s
defunct
who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

by E. E. Cummings

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Posted in 2013, America, Senior Citizens, Trucks

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Second best is fairly uppidy

Posted on November 18, 2013 by | 3 comments
A person can sit right at home indoors and use these. Doesn't have go to into the woods, nothing.

A person can sit right at home indoors and use these. Doesn’t have go to into the woods, nothing.

A couple of days ago when I opened the package Jeanne sent I thought at first it was the best birthday present I ever got my entire life.  But as I thought on it I remembered the Victorinox Swiss Army Lensatic Compass my ex-wife gave me on my 45th birthday.  [Pictured under ‘Compass’ section of the Survival Book link above]

Okay.  There can only be one absolute no-questions-asked-no-prisoners-taken best birthday present a person ever got.  The compass ain’t giving up its position of prominence.

She sent a box of the metal 'Zebras' too. They get lost worse than one sock of a pair. I like the ones you see in the background, black, which I've had a longish while, but they're a bit thickset and rounded on the edges. Plus they break.

She sent a box of the metal ‘Zebras’ too. They get lost worse than one sock of a pair. I like the ones you see in the background, black, which I’ve had a longish while, but they’re a bit thickset and rounded on the edges. Plus they break.

But how about them damned spoons?  Out there the other side of three-score-and-ten spoons step in and declare themselves.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Senior Citizens

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Pension Pioneers – Living the Social Security adventure

Posted on November 14, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Some of you might find this brand spanking new Facebook group interesting, amusing, edifying, or boring as hell with no mitigating and no otherwise redeeming qualities.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/416502788479344/

Jack Purcell

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Posted in Senior Citizens, Social Security

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DST time change toasts another Timex

Posted on November 3, 2013 by | 6 comments
After two years the band will need replacement. Odor, not wear will motivate you. At three years the steel-appearing case begins to dissolve. Underneath is a rough synthetic material which, when exposed to shirt sleeves, wears them out.

After two years the band will need replacement. Odor, not wear will motivate you. At three years the steel-appearing case begins to dissolve. Underneath is a rough synthetic material which, when exposed to shirt sleeves, wears them out.

Hi readers.

Several years ago, five years if memory serves, I bought this watch because my previous Timex Expedition refused to turn loose of the stem when I tried to set in the new DST time.  I forced it and the watch upchucked the entire stem.

I saw this one coming.  The case is far advanced toward dissolving entirely.  I never mess with the stem until time change because I like to get as many minutes and hours out of my watches as possible.

But Jeanne sent me an email yesterday telling me it’s time change time again.  So around 3 am pre-time change I woke, stepped outdoors to pee, and glanced at my watch.  Remembered I needed to change the time.

Yawn.  Began fighting to pull the stem out just enough to set the watch.  Stuck.  Got my pocket knife, pried it out, just a little.  Date window spun, hands of the watch thumb their noses at me.

Sheeze.  Found a small pair of needle nose pliars.  Carefully carefully carefully pull the stem.  Spang!  Whole damned stem-rod came out.

So it seems I’m going to be visiting the WalMart watch department.  Find me a new damned Timex Expedition.   They’re up to $28.95 on Amazon.  Probably save a bit a week from now when they have their DST replacement sale.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2013, America

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Why Snowden blew the whistle

Posted on November 1, 2013 by | 16 comments

Snowden made a grave sacrifice for you, me, us.  He was a person who knew all about computers, electric telephones, all kinds of technology things and what’s going on with FaceBook and Yahoo News and blogs.

He knew when you look down the isles in grocery stores and see people squinting at cans, plastic bags, bottles in one hand, talking on cell phones in the other, the NSA was listening.  Recording.  Storing.  Every word.  Every background noise.  Preserving it for the future.

Snowden worried about that because every moment a million calls between the same sorts of people as those in the grocery store isles are also being recorded, listened to, stored, preserved.  Along with the background noises.

And Snowden knew at a visceral level that anyone who’d want to listen to those calls, record them, store them, could only be profoundly insane.  And anyone working for the profoundly insane person who conceptualized it would also soon be insane after being exposed to the prospect, the concept and the reality.

Snowden also knew countless millions of happy faces and inspiring thoughts fly around the internet every moment.  Billions of inspiring platitudes.  Trillions of “I heart my [fill in blank]” messages and touching pictures of puppies, kittens, and baby whales. 

Snowden knew no nation could survive the onslaught of such chaos except by trying to ignore it.   Listening, recording, storing it to preserve it for the future is the most dangerous activity in the history of mankind, and not only because it’s being done by sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise osterized brains.  Noone, Snowden knew, in his right mind would ever even consider such a thing.

Snowden had to try to save the planet.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

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Why Napoleon’s troops shooting the nose off the Sphinx with artillery in 1799 was a good thing

Posted on November 1, 2013 by | 9 comments

Hi readers.

A lot of you probably think the world would have been just as good a place if Napoleon’s troops hadn’t shot the nose off the Sphinx practicing with artillery in 1799.  You might even think if they’d just stayed home in France and shot the noses off every Frenchman they could catch the world would be better off?

In the interest of science, Napoleon's troops couldn't know what would happen up there without shooting some artillery at it to find out. Same as Hiroshima and Nagasaki later on. Theories are worthless unless they're tested.

In the interest of science, Napoleon’s troops couldn’t know what would happen up there without shooting some artillery at it to find out. Same as Hiroshima and Nagasaki later on. Theories are worthless unless they’re tested.

Well, you’d be wrong.  Napoleon’s troops did just the right thing blowing off the nose of Sphinx.

Keep in mind, these were Frenchmen. All they knew how to do at that point was try to take the heads off whatever got in the way. But they saved the Sphinx. If they'd left it alone until the British took over in 1802 the Sphinx would be in London. Housed in a wonder-of-the-world-sized British Museum. Same as everything else the British could haul off from every country they ever conquered.

Keep in mind, these were Frenchmen. All they knew how to do at that point was try to take the heads off whatever got in the way. But they saved the Sphinx. If they’d left it alone until the British took over in 1802 the Sphinx would be in London. Housed in a wonder-of-the-world-sized British Museum. Same as everything else the British could haul off from every country they ever conquered.

Once Napoleon’s troops finished nobody every had to do it again.  Anyone with half-an-eye could see what would happen if you shot the Sphinx in the nose with a piece of 1799 field artillery. 

And most importantly, Sphinx was flawed.  By 1802 when the British took Egypt they’d become selective, only stealing the most perfect artifacts.  Sphinx got to stay home in Egypt because of French artillery practice.

Which didn’t happen to the Rosetta Stone, which French troops found and got taken away from them by the British.

From the time Cleopatra offed herself with that adder, shortly thereafter, nobody knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.  But thanks to those French troops, someone decided to steal the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London today. It's been there since shortly after British officials stole it in 1802. Most likely it will continue to reside in the British Museum until US troops have finished whatever they're doing in Europe. When we finally bring the troops home from WWII the final act will be to drop the 8th Army into London, take over Heathrow Airport, and bring the Rosetta Stone and everything else in the British Museum to the United States where it rightfully belongs.

The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London today. It’s been there since shortly after British officials stole it in 1802. Most likely it will continue to reside in the British Museum until US troops have finished whatever they’re doing in Europe. When we finally bring the troops home from WWII the final act will be to drop the 8th Army into London, take over Heathrow Airport, and bring the Rosetta Stone and everything else in the British Museum to the United States where it rightfully belongs.

Created 196 BC
Discovered 1799
Present location British Museum

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences among them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

When the contents of the British Museum finally are transported to the Smithsonian in Washington DC the British Empire will finally be a footnote of history, along with Napoleon, the Egyptians, and other backward peoples everywhere.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Education, History, Human Behavior

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Decided to kick

Posted on November 1, 2013 by | 10 comments

At least if I can.

This morning my blood pressure was 107/76, pulse 71 when I was about to take the pill some sawbones prescribed for me back in 1993.  After I quit going to doctors getting those pills has been a considerable challenge.  I was about to renew my passport so’s I could step across into Mexico to buy them instead of ordering them from wossname, India.

But I’ve been taking Serrapeptase, that silkworm spit enzyme about a month now, and Nattosomethingorotherase about a week now.  Yesterday I noticed when I took my blood pressure for the first time in a longish while it was disgracefully low.  High 80s over mid 60s, pulse high 50s.

My bp hasn’t been that low since I was 40 and able to run several miles trying to rid myself of pent up frustrations over being a white male in a society where everything is run by females and minority ethnics and a regular white male doesn’t have a chance to make nothing of himself.

Anyway, I’m going to be checking my blood pressure regularly, and unless it goes up enough to convince me I need those pills India and Mexico pharmaceutical industries can starve if they’re depending on my business to keep them going.  I’m fairly patriotic that way.

Most doctors and other medicos are the fools of books and that guy who prescribed the stuff for me back in Nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-three probably never read the book saying silkworm spit is better.

Old Jules

Note:  10:10 am – 110/71 pulse 63.  Still no Prinivil blood pressure pill taken – Normally I’d have taken it at 05:00 am.  JP

Note @1600 – 4:00pm – BP 111/71, pulse 70.

10 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Education, Senior Citizens

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Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? The Catch 22 Timewarp Conspiracy

Posted on October 31, 2013 by | 3 comments

This might be the most important text you’ve ever read.

It’s certainly more important than Dick and Jane and their dog named Spot whatever they might be up to these days in Centerville, Ohio.  And anything else you might have read since then probably wasn’t all that important.  Instruction manuals written by English-as-a-second-language tech writers in Malaisia, labels on boxes of muffin-mix, even novels by Stephen King aren’t as important as this.

If you are like me you have to think hard to remember characters and dialogues in books you haven’t read in half-century.  But I’ve been waiting that long for Joseph Hellers prophetic novel, Catch 22, to get caught up with by events.

Yossarian to the mental ward physician:  “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

Pages later, to Orr:  “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

Yossarian to Major Major Major Major, pages later:   “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

To Milo Minderbinder, a chapter or so later:  “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”

Today all the spy-vs-spies in the world are asking themselves the same question.  Armed cruise missile operators are whispering those words into their microphones, “Give me the coordinates!”

low volume static, hissing, grumbling.

“Moscow airport?  Am I allowed to target the Moscow International Airport?”

low volume static, hissing, grumbling.

“Well of course you need deniability.  It has to look like an accident.  Rogue drone kind of thing.”

low volume static, hissing, grumbling.

“World War III?  Hell, we haven’t even finished WWII yet.  Snowden was WWII.  We’re all caught in a time warp.

low volume static, hissing, grumbling.

“Yeah, we need to watch for anyone named Yossarian.  And Joseph Heller, if he’s still alive, needs to answer a few questions.  If we see someone trying to corner the Egyptian cotton market we’ll know where to look.”

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, Animals, Books

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It’s an ill wind that blows no good

Posted on October 30, 2013 by | 5 comments

sriracha hot chili sauce

Hi readers. 

I’ve always loved Sriracha Chili Sauce, hate knowing they’ve come on hard times.  I’d guess the people in that California town would live to be 110 each if they’d gut it out, breathing that stuff three months out of the year.

City: Odor from Sriracha chili plant a nuisance

As many as 40 trucks a day pull up to unload red hot chili peppers by the millions. Each plump, vine-ripened jalapeno pepper from central California then goes inside on a conveyor belt where it is washed, mixed with garlic and a few other ingredients and roasted. The pungent smell of peppers and garlic fumes is sent through a carbon-based filtration system that dissipates them before they leave the building, but not nearly enough say residents.

“Whenever the wind blows that chili and garlic and whatever else is in it, it’s very, very, very strong,” Sanchez said. “It makes you cough.”

I’d love to be downwind of it when it’s in operation if it weren’t for the fact it’s in California, and if I went to California next thing I knew I’d be having to get along with Californians.  For me it’s a bit late in the day to take on that job of work.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering what the good is I referred to in the title to the post.  Here it is:

His recipe for Sriracha is so simple that the Vietnamese immigrant has never bothered to conceal it: chili pepper, garlic, salt, sugar and vinegar.

“You could make it yourself at home,” he told a visitor during a tour of the plant on Tuesday. But, he added with a twinkle in his eye, not nearly as well as he can.

The secret, he said, is in getting the freshest peppers possible and processing them immediately.

The result is a sauce so fiercely hot it makes Tabasco and Picante seem mild, though to those with fireproof palates and iron stomachs it is strangely addicting. Thirty-three years after Tran turned out his first bucketful, Sriracha’s little plastic squeeze bottles with their distinctive green caps are ubiquitous in restaurants and home pantries around the world.

Now if those Californios shut him down at least a person has the basics to cook the stuff himself.  Fill the RV up with the odor as many months of the year as he wants to. 

The government hasn’t learned the potential joys of this yet, so they haven’t made it illegal.  I can close all the windows on the RV,  zonk up on it, me and the cats.  Lie back against the cushions and try to learn to play the harmonica.  Or listen to any of about a million songs my bud Rich provided for me to play on an hmmm MP3?  A tiny thing that plays songs – holds a few hundred at a time.  One of the few inventions since lawsuit to really add to the joy of life for the average human being.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in Adventure

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