Sixty and still Slogging

Wow, this drought here has been really bad.   NOT.  I still don't get it.  Guess I would have to see the figures.  And maybe that would classify me as a "Drought Denier".  Twenty to thirty mph winds and the hot water heater pilot light worked flawlessly and we were never without hot water during this multi day storm.  Wind stops, Pilot light goes out and we have cold water.  WTH.  Anyway recent (this morning) Pics of our world. 




                       Samsung just does not give this Sunset justice.  It was all in the colors.  

Our Floor at the entrance

Mud to the right and left

We have been relatively busy the past two weeks working Rig moves.  A  gig of just a couple of days each. It pays though. Still trying to stay busy as this entire industry seems to be shutting down incrementally each day.






















But it is what it is.  Price of Oil dropping out of sight.  Checking various blogs from other gate guards reveals rather dismal news that many are idle and dropping out of this business.   Apparently unemployment in the Oil states is going up.  Not likely going to be very different for us.   I've paid more than casual interest to the many forecasts from the financial networks.  I suspect barring anything weird, the price will eventually rebound, or the Oil companies will figure out how to extract cheaper. Still, ironic that in past jobs the hundred dollar price per barrel proved crippling, now that I have moved on it has dropped under two bucks a gallon.  So we will probably continue trying to work as the alternative is not encouraging.  We would be OK but living subsistence only.  Borrrrrring.  And since we are both college graduates,  how hard can Hamburglar college be.  Just kidding.  But if I were starving, yeah I'd ask if you wanted fries with that.    Either that or fishing professionally.  Yuppers, think that's what I'll do.

I thought a bit before writing this and a bit embarrassed to throw in my two cents because really, I'm not qualified.  But shit.  I just finished reading American Sniper.  I enjoyed it.  Little did I know it would be a political flashpoint.  Opinion pieces written daily relating "what is wrong with our Culture" to this movie and sir Eastwood  (What he's not been knighted yet, he should be)   And Jesse Ventura won some kind of defamation suit against his estate over what has been reported as a fictional "punch in the face" .  (Ventura, who I used to grudgingly admire, well no longer enjoys that status unless he were to turn around and return any deniro he receives to the widow of Chris Kyle) In addition there have also been reported unsubstantiated, yeah "fantastical" claims that Chris Kyle stated he killed two thugs trying to rob him, for which the bodies were never found and also that he had also claimed shooting several bad folk during Katrina.   Of course diligent attempts to verify that info has turned up nothing.  I don't know or care.  What is substantiated is that he became a SEAL, something only 10 out of a hundred actually accomplish.  (Could be less, I'm not an expert)  And that he served four tours and killed something like between 160 and 255 bad guys).  Oh, and received a slew of medals and the thanks of many for what they believe was preserving their lives. And was shot three times, blown up six times and survived two helicopter crashes. And after all of this, he was killed by an unstable veteran whom he was attempting to help.  


Look, I'll round it to this.  I live in Texas now and have a bit of a feel for the people here.   I also have had the good fortune to meet or know truly remarkable people. Not just here but everywhere, people who during their lifetime had faced truly daunting times.  And some of those people, whether it be a knack for storytelling or some residual affect of those experiences they had endured, have embellished when no embellishment was needed, for whatever reason.  They had my awe at hello.   But  it happens and I am mostly puzzled during those times.  Easily detectable I have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Actually, the guys I have known like this probably were spinning some stories from the time they were thirteen.  They are known as "Bullshitters"  Lies told in humor to friends over Beers.  Where Peco's Bill and Paul Bunyon came from.  From all accounts Chris Lyle was larger than life in almost everything he did.  In his book he talks at length of the pranking and unrelenting hazing directed at his peers.  Competition of a certain group of people that yeah, maybe I do worship at the altar of.     So, is it possible that a couple of whoppers leaked out from a session, or given what he had been through psychologically, that maybe reality became confused with fantasy. I don't know. And really I could be wrong about everything.  But when I see some, not all of course, but a sizeable number of media types who place everything about a man's life under a microscope over a couple of fantastical stories (on balance with what we genuinely know) that got out as a chink in the armor to bring down an icon of a movement or group they dislike.  Besmirching a man of this stature is not just a little wrong,  It's reprehensible.  





So, uh anyway, guess I'll end it there.   Mike n' Lisa's quest blog UA-20271220-1 ga(‘set’, ‘&uid’, {{USER_ID}}); // Set the user ID using signed-in user_id.

Five miles down a crappy muddy road

Where we camped the last week  Best of camping in South Texas youbetcha.  We squatted in this spot serving a gate during a rig move.  Actually the place was quite picturesque but because of several days of rain the countryside, and particularly the road had been reduced to a muddy, soupy mess.  Because the large tanker trucks travel these gravel roads 24/7 large holes becoming small lakes formed in the roadway necessitating a top speed of about two mph, otherwise known as first gear in low 4x4 range.  Gonna miss this old Bronco some day.  Someday's I just don't get this Texas is in a drought thing.  This pic was taken several days after the rain and the mud still hadn't dried out.

When it's like this, the outside soon becomes the inside.  Nothing sticks to shoes like this clayish combination of mud and gravel.  Cleaning is not an option because thirty to forty trips in and out checking in vehicles, well let's just say the mud migrates back in as fast as you can get it out.  Really it's not so bad except when getting out of the shower or getting into bed with dirty feet.


Eighteen months ago borne on the fear of the legendary size and number of Rattlesnakes indigenous to Texas we meticulously adhered to  remedies sworn by other RVer's as effective in protecting one's space from rodents and snakes.  I purchased a weed whacker to trim down areas of long grass and we spread moth balls copiously under and around the trailer. We routinely sprayed the area with bug barrier and I inspected the underseal of the RV on a regular basis.

Well, complacency does have it's costs.  In short order we got invaded by mice.  And boy do  I hate mice.  Currently we have about five types of traps all scattered around.  I've located the little bastards where they lurked and cleaned out the last vestiges of them, I hope.  As well as finding and plugging any possible entrances into our little adobe.  In the process I came across this behind a panel at the foot of our bed.

Dried up skeleton of a Scorpion that had made his way in but died.  Hopefully because of the Insect barrier.






Speaking of snakes, in one of our recent postings, we were told that the type of snake on this youtube video had been displaced to this property and cautioned that they posed no threat to people.  Check it out.

Sooooo, what's going on?  We've approached a few banks and are applying for prequalification to buy a place down here.  Hopefully close to the water, for fishing purposes and where the "someday gonna have a boat" is going to be stored.  

For some reason this song keeps going round in my brain.

Well, maybe it's seeing a couple of members from my  "old days" crew.  But for some reason every time I close my eyes, I hear a fart machine too.  WTH, I'm sure it will come to me.




"Go to Heaven for the Climate, Hell for the company".
                                                                                  Mark Twin

   

                                                                                               s/Mungo

Mike n' Lisa's quest blog UA-20271220-1 ga(‘set’, ‘&uid’, {{USER_ID}}); // Set the user ID using signed-in user_id.

The five stages of losing your damn wallet

If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.

Mark Twain

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html#UZhw2suI2W0cklLE.99

It finally happened.

Oh it had happened before.  Just not in this way

Yup.  Lost my wallet. Permanent Like.  Oh not like it might show up in the mail or something.  For all intents and purposes it's gone and not coming back.  Got up two days ago and Lisa wanted to check our lottery tickets.  I said they are in my wallet.  She said "I know"  "Where is it?"  "Usual place I said"'.  And she said: "No it isn't!"  I didn't appreciate this because I had just woken up and had not yet had a cup of coffee.  Lisa for some reason drinks the instant stuff first thing in the morning and had already had hers.  Thoughtlessly, I mean really thoughtlessly ignoring my needs and digging at me about my wallet. "Woman" I told her "you are starting to make me panic". And that's when she told me that she had already looked "nearly everywhere for it".   Lisa is the bloodhound of the two of us and is called on, alot, to find various articles I continue to lose.... alot.  But the wallet permanently lost? I don't think that has ever happened before. And so it started.  At first:

 DENIAL:  It had to be somewhere.  We just had not looked everywhere.  Just a couple of days ago I had watched her go through it and take out the credit cards,  and other things she thought might be too valuable and left in our insurance cards plus my Drivers License, Fishing License and a couple of Debit Cards,  So in reality she had in fact minimized the loss somewhat.  I have two other credit cards and they were not in it.  A Pin number is required for the Debit Cards.  But it was that Texas Drivers License that was really making me panic.  We are more than three hundred miles from our permanent spot and possibly on the verge of picking up some extra work.  That Drivers License that I had worked so damn hard to get.  So we backtracked, tore up and asunder and looked in every nook and cranny everywhere for two days. And it just wasn't anywhere to be found.  

ANGER:  This can't be happening to me!  I am gifted and OK, special.  Wasn't it just a couple of years ago when the same wallet had fallen out of my pocket (knocked out if you ask me by some unknown assailant.) during a long bike ride of about fifteen miles.  Someone had found it, picked it up and taken it to my residence and tossed it in my front lawn.  Somebody else, (actually a couple of kids came by my house, not knowing that it was me who lived there, spotted my wallet and went door to door until they found my neighbor, who happened to be  home at the time and held it for me.  He called to tell me he had it before I had even ridden my bicycle back to the house.  (How did I know that it wasn't me who left it on my lawn?  Because I had used it during the trip. The wallet had been found on a lightly used canyon trail that was one of my favorite trails located over five miles away.) The lost wallet had actually beaten me home. Now thats Luck. Now normal people don't get that wallet lucky.  Yep, lucky me.....I'm gifted. One things for sure above all else, I'm wallet lucky.  Therefore it's reallly gotta be somebody else's fault.  LIIIIIIIISAAAAA.  Who responded: UUUUUUUUUUP  YOOOOUUURRRRRS.  Well, maybe even a little more profanic than that.  So I sulked a bit and glared at her.  And she glared right back.

BARGAINING:  Last year when my Backpack and Computer were ripped off, What? OK, I left it on the train accidentally but the sonofabitch that RIPPED IT OFF could have left it there.  But.  Since, I now have my Android and new computer loaded with the latest and greatest anti theft programs.  I can GPS locate them.  Wipe them, shut em down, change the password, send messages, moon the thief and/or take pictures.  All remotely.  Did I think of doing the same thing with my wallet.  No, I've never lost my damn wallet. So why the hell would I do that? So all I gotta do is find it one more time.  God?  You listening?


DEPRESSION:  Lose yur damn wallet. It's depressing. It's depressing as hell.  I was depressed for two solid days.  It's just damn depressing.

ACCEPTANCE:  "ShitCrapShit"  Now I gotta do a bunch of damn pain in the ass stuff.  They're gonna shut down my accounts and I won't be able to get at my munny.  Oh woe.  But I guess that goes in the depressing category.  

So anyway, make a long story short, Though Texas, who like to brag about no regulations and stuff, actually do have a lot of regulations and stuff, and can be damn bureaucratic at times.  To get your DL replaced however,  easy peasy.  And after a two hour wait at the local DMV, a rather amiable and pleasant DMV clerk made the process relatively stress free. Same for my Fishing License and Wally World.  Ten bucks for a replacement.  Debit cards were cancelled easy enough and thanks to Lisa, the damage has been minimized.  Now I just gotta apologize, you know.  Without showing weakness.  She's still got to respect me dammit. 

Moral of the story?  Don't lose yur damn wallet!

Under the $ sign means the Dollar beverage has too be purchased with another hot item.  Hard to see here as it was when I walked in. Driving by it's like "Heyyy.  Big Soda's.  Only a Buck!  Gotta get me one of them".  Buuuuuut, I got bushwhacked for another forty cents or so and faced with a poor clerk likely making little more than minimum, I more or less kept my comments to myself and paid the difference.  I really don't have any beef with Stripes overall as far as convenience stores go, but just for giggles I looked Stripes Inc. up on Wiki.  565 Stores.  This is one of the larger signs out front.  Guess I can't even imagine the number of folks who just pay the extra forty cents like I did,  .0?  x 565=?  Better'n Las Vegas.

K, if this doesn't make your day, well it makes mine.  This is my grand daughter.

The following YouTube video is supposed to sound like Authentic ancient Babylonian music.  Really kind of haunting. 

So, till next time, I'll just hang out here on the beach in Texas, in the rain and nonstop twenty something mph winds.  Where it's supposed to be a lot nicer than everywhere else in the World. 

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please
                                   
                                   Mark Twain

Mike n' Lisa's quest blog UA-20271220-1 ga(‘set’, ‘&uid’, {{USER_ID}}); // Set the user ID using signed-in user_id.

New Years Day

I was up 28 hours straight on New Year's eve.  We pulled in, leveled and I slept for four hours to finish in the morning. Woke up, had a couple of glasses of Champagne, watched the celebration in San Antonio on Telly and dropped back into bed for nine hours.  The perfect amount of time off is hard to calculate, you just feel it when it's time.  What would be nice is to have a bit to complete some longer needed repairs.

Last four months since my best Bud Jeff passed.  I haven't yet deleted the various phone numbers he had due to his chronic condition of cheapskatonia.  OK, to be fair Jeff was also a really generous guy in a lot of ways.  But god, I don't know how many times an argument would sprout over a pizza bill, or who owed the next pitcher of beer. And, I guess call it denial or dementia there have been a few times I almost called.  Give him a bad time about dieing after a more strenuous yoga session.  The conversation I suspect would go a little like this:  First I would convey my feelings about the incident, in the words of the great philosophers it would probably go like this.  "Pussy".  To which he would likely argue that there existed a yoga based martial art used by various special forces around the world.  I'd say "Bullshit" and we would both set to Googling.   He would usually declare victory on the first Wikipedia finding that Yoga never caused death or dismemberment.  More likely a latent cause of his exposure to my liberal politics.  But then that was half the fun of our relationship.  Guess that's what they mean by living on in the minds of those who knew him.  An honor I guess I would covet.  Still, I have only four months to go to out live him.  What? What?  Whad I say??????


Last couple of days have been wet and cold.  Me as the night guy in particular, cold I mean. Not as bad as working nights in Idaho however.  This type of employment can be a grind, but truth be told, when we are away from it, well, we kind of miss it.  Lisa in particular seems to have much greater social needs than myself, a somewhat anti social grouch.  She gets those needs met doing this.  Something that only myself and a few others know about is that she also adores older folks.  Folks, yes older than myself.  Matter of fact, older the better: seventy's OK, eighties better,  ninety's and she is almost bubbly.  As in the case when one of the last landowner's came around.  There have been cases where she has had such meaningful talks with some of these folks that they have come around to say goodbye. And although she is usually the youngest when we have visited retirement type communities, she tends to fit in much better than myself, dragging me to the various social's, though she has yet to get me to sit down for an all night Pinochle.  Yesterday after being released and during the transition of a new crew replacing the old, pulling her out was much akin to pulling teeth as the landowner came around as well as the new crew pulling their own guard's.  As it usually is a confabulation of the missuses.  A thing no man in his right mind dare interfere.

Something, I hesitate to talk about but feel compelled.  (As in most cases where my mouth just opens up without benefit of cerebral input), but as in the words of somebody else, it is currently "Dark Day's" for law enforcement.  After reading Radley Balco's "Rise of the Warrior Cop" I was alarmed as anybody else would be.  My perception is much different having served in an occupation that I did for so many years.   I can honestly say, rarely did I ever witness or even hear of the crazy stuff Balco has in his book where I came from.  Sure there were mistakes, but nothing like this.  And for that you would have to read it yourself. But in my heart and in my head I truly believe that 99 percent of the folks in law enforcement are good and honest folks.  As I see it, that One percent is somehow setting an agenda. But the comparison that comes to mind, is the nonstop reporting of the problems of the professional athlete's whose legal problems are as widely reported as the occasional lawless cop.   And many years ago what I personally observed in college athletics.  A time when steroid use was legal and probably encouraged and personally living in a dorm situation, myself and other's learned to tread lightly weekends when some of the more notorious athlete's after a night of partying often liked to top their night off with a brutal beating of some hapless student. Many a misdeed was  expertly covered by coaches and administration. As this almost occurred to your's truly a couple of times, I think I know whence I speak.  But the public demanded more and I would guess those times are long gone.  Lessons could be learned by administrators from Collegiate coaches now, the ones who do it right (Think BSU's Chris Peterson) who work tirelessly to train the young men under their charge a better and more honorable way. And the results are amazing.  During the respective season's ,the news seems to be always reporting some new athlete involved event such as visits of athletes  at childrens hospitals and senior homes. Volunteering in charity events, I've even read of some over the top stuff of some folks, men and women volunteering to work in poor countries during summer breaks and immediately following college. And on the flip side, the also hold their players to a higher degree of accountability.  And there is no tolerance for violence, the hallmark of the old days. Lately, I've seen more and more involvement by high school coaches with their student athletes doing much of the same positive activities,  which is probably the best way to survive in this new education averse environment. Sure there have always been an annual police basketball game or two, but while working in the private sector I have painted houses, picked garbage and other things.   And to be fair, lately I have seen and heard of more involvement from Department's whose progressive administrator's recognize the problems and are more inclined to fix the problem than to stubbornly cling to the bad habits that have more or less secretly embedded the past ten or more years.  Maybe there would be more opposition to benefit and pay cuts to public workers.  And if there is one overriding factor that would serve to prove my point above all else is:  Do you know what Chris Peterson's salary is?

3.5% Rule


Such a low key start to a new year.  Believe me, a lot lower, and sober I might add than past New Year's.  This one is a bit more meaningful though.  Frankly, some instances this past year have been disheartening.  And I would really like to ask folks to take care of themselves.  Do their best to realize what's really important these days.  Listen to the great one's and ignore the fear mongerers.  (Think the Pope,  Dali Lama, Malala,) celebrate the bravery of the Ebola worker's and the troops.  But the latter, to finally get them out of harms way for good.  And for better or worse to all my friends and family I hope the New year is full of health, hope, new adventures and prosperity.  

I also really miss the music of this man.  He died way too young. Music from my youth.  A very melancholy but staple song for me.