All things must change

Been thinking alot about how we got to here.

Two years and roughly five months ago Lisa and I set off in a popup trailer from Twin Falls with a couple of bicycles with no destination and no real intent of ever coming back to Idaho in any substantial manner other than to visit.  We had just survived a short sale of our house and had come through an extremely hard time in our relationship.  I think at the time the plan was just to travel endlessly.  Healing was needed and though it was unrealistic, I thought to myself when we were living in the Rockies 75 miles outside of Denver that yeah, if we were still in the popup in five years living in just such free a manner as we were, hell why not. Was there a life better than to amble through a beautiful forest each morning to buy a paper. Leisurely mornings next to a lake or stream.   Explore by bicycle in the afternoon and visit with the other residents of the campground.  Many memorable people and conversations.  There was also the East Coast, Canada and Alaska to visit.  There was also overseas trips to be made on the cheap.  By thanksgiving we'd already traveled to Mexico and Costa Rica for two weeks to stay with relatives.  This was after long stays in both Missouri and Arkansas.  Then after a six week stint with an odd assortment of folks, we stopped at Port Aransas and loved it.  It and the area.  Shortly thereafter we learned of the possibility of fairly good money in oil field security.  Basicly a second career was born because the last seventeen months we have been working a whole lot more than we haven't  And maybe we should have worked on some financial goals beyond that month long trip to Europe last year.

I may look back at these pictures some day with nostalgia.  With but a few breaks, the austere gate guard life has pretty much dominated our life the past couple of years.  Kind of like a career only more of a lifestyle.  Living full time in the oil patch described as somewhere in North, South or East Texas.  To be honest we have not worked in North Texas yet.  But we have been here through two summers and two winters.   Although Winters tend to me much muddier and nastier they are my preference given the brutal nature of the South Texas summer.  I used to list our locations, but now I suspect the number is approaching three digits. A whole lot of other folks are in a tailspin over the current events.  Lisa is a bit more bummed than I.  Myself, meh.  Kind of like I reminded my late old buddy who would relate ambitious plans he had in his after career career.   Did he think he was going to live forever?

Over the past couple of years after countless visits with Oil men, young, old, executive and grunt, we have a better than passing understanding of what is going on down here.  And a whole lot of innovations like horizontal drilling.  Lisa and I pretty much recognize the different vehicles and equipment and know how they are used.  What "Gel", "Mudd" and "Flowback" terms mean.  The difference between "Workovers", "Fracs" and "Rigs".  What "Wireline" and "Coil Tubing" are. We've been through some training and even recieved our H2S certification. These guys have to communicate these days in order to not collide with another well located a mile away.  Folks my age remember the old JR Ewing and Dallas television series.  That old program was based on the oil boom that went on in Texas for many years but busted out in the early eighties.  Those old rusted relics are all over texas sitting idle in fields so overgrown with weeds there is not even a semblance of a road to them anymore.  Like a whole lot of things that are built in Texas, stuff is put up but rarely taken down.  That's why there are old vacant buildings everywhere.  Unchanged from for instance a gas station from the fifties. Watch the 1971 last Picture Show to get a sense of this.  So anyway, when Oil crossed the sixty something dollar threshold, then fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a process of extracting petroleum from rock now became economical.  And so began the hair on fire time in Texas.  Well, like JR Ewing, that period of time seems to have come to an end.  Although to us, there seems to be the same level of activity, the reality from conversations and sense of foreboding from everyone we meet, well is just a bit of a bummer. Some of these guys we have known the better part of two years. Like one guy said "it's kind of hard to pick another career out of thin air when I have so much invested here". For us anyway as the companies are rethinking how this job will be done in the future.  Sitting in a shack twelve hours a day next to an outhouse with a hundred mile round trip is not something we are up for.  And also, while we have been hearing of Frac related earthquakes in other areas, we got hit by a #3 earthquake the other day.  Lisa and I some fifty miles away did not feel a thing.

We are working a Frac right now, likely the last for awhile.  Even overnight one can expect to be writing in trucks about every half hour or so.  Peppering the drivers with questions, H2S Certification up to date?  Arrived with and in possession of all protective equipment.  A reminder of prohibited items and behavior on site followed by the instruction to sign in at the safety trailer and check with the "Company Man" , or the onsite manager.  

For the most part, with power, water and sewer dump, your RV is pretty much self sustained.  Last night in the middle of a rainstorm the Diesel generator decided to die.  Damn, forced to forgo TV and I had to light the propane refrigerator manually.   It's difficult to get a sense of how much dust really gets into your rig, all I know is it is unlikely that we will ever sell this rig or purchase one that has been used in this fashion.  That being said. I am in a little awe how trouble free our equipment has functioned, particularly when we have learned how many equipment difficulties others have experienced with stuff much newer than ours.  

One of us, usually me heads to town once or twice a week for a grocery or laundry run.  Usually meaning one of us after our 12 hour shift gets to lose sleep to get this done.

In Texas, as I have explained to Lisa while driving, there is never a shortage of trucks "Up my Ass" everywhere I go more dumbass speeding drivers here than anywhere I have seen.  Folks run fifty in School zones for chrissakes.  Seriously though, the influence of Oil production is everywhere.  Somewhat immuned to it I had an eye awakening experience watching a fifty some foot flume over some trees the other day. One also becomes accustomed to the never ending structures and facilities everywhere.  Including huge drilling rigs set near and in some towns.  At least fifteen big drillers from Karnes City to where I am sitting. 

This is a great bird watching area though.  I did manage to take a pic of these beauties.

OK they're Buzzards.  Pretty day though huh?


For the life of me, how kids are raised today, contrasted from mine, and others of my ilk.  I suspect in some ways it is better, but I don't think I would trade.  In this day and age I think, truthfully that most of our parents would be jailed or tied up in some Child Protection thang.  Truth be known, as a Tadpole, I don't think I woulda missed any of those things on a bet.  Eh Glenn? Sad.  Remember this from the day when things, well, were just a little simpler?

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.

Versimillitude

Midnight, somewhere in the Oil Patch stuffing my face with Banana Bread and sipping coffee, again. Lisa is sleeping and I kind of marvel how we just slip back into our schedules. Lisa days, me nights. Almost completely alone here about 80 miles south of San Antonio. Last week I was resigned because of the falling Oil prices that we were all but retired, and our recently contrived Turbo plans placed permanently on the back burner. So we drove some hundred and forty miles to Austin to visit Carl, Loris and Jerrod and basically hang out to get some regroup time. The last time this occurred we were called back in less than two days and whattya know, same thing happened again.

 We're back following a Coil Tubing outfit and feeling lucky. But, to get back here I had to throw some projects together that I had been working on in order to scramble here as fast as we could. Still we arrived here just as it was getting dark and this turned out to be "One of them days". About four hours to accomplish what we usually get done in thirty minutes of hard back breaking work. And in the process of squeezing into our small space the Bronco's little 5.0 started boiling over. Bad Thermostat we found out and with the Bronco disabled we settled into our job. 

 My thoughts are that the day is the harder option but the nights, well sometimes I get to stay up all night, move to another location, repair some item or (as I usually do) the Grocery shopping. Changing the Thermostat out proved to be a bitch but also seemed to fix the problem. Then bed at about two in the PM. The high level of activity with the constant sound of Diesel's, from trucks, generators etc, nor the bells ringing nor the loud greetings from the worker's talking with Lisa kept me from a solid seven hours of sleep. So only now, some four days later am I able recoup. 

 See, I've found nights to be my thing at this stage of my life. I'm busy sometimes but mostly, as in now it's all quiet. Other than for some reason there are a gawdawful number of Coyotes around who every half hour or so set to making a racket. Kind of close too. Think it might set the mood but instead it's just more or less annoying. But it's during this time that I count my own. My nightly activities are not so important as the conclusions that my tired old brain comes too. Sadly, as the axiom goes, had I only known then what I know now plays over and over in my brain. Other "vicious truth's" as my old buddy Ellery used to say:

  That this knowledge dies with us and is non transferrable. Even if we try, our efforts are fruitless because the youngsters, like us in our day, just don't believe us.  (Sad sigh)

 That after a nearly thirty years I finally reached a time when I thought I would retire and do other things. Well, I did and that was over seven years ago and if anything, time flies by even faster.  

 That a lot of folks who have comfortably remained constant in your life, one by one they die off. And if that happens, you are one of the lucky ones. That to be one of the "lucky" ones, the downside is that there are going to be a lot more. Each time will rob you of a tiny little piece, whether you knew them well or not.   And in the back of your mind,  like it or not, everyone is striving for that ultimate goal.  And that is that you are the last one left....if you are lucky.

 Sadly, the only conclusion that answers volumes about questions that arise about one's own life, is that mostly the realization occurs that people are motivated by their own self interests. It's a Machiavellian world out there that one only learns by living in it.  There really is little formal preparation.  Whether it be power, money or fame. It's mostly the attainment of one or more of those goals that accounts for how well or badly you were treated by other people in your life. Or how you treated others. I guess I am talking in an institutional sense. The good experiences along with the bad. Either someone was seeking your good will in order to attain some broader goal, or you were exploited in a manner that helped someone else's ambitions. Or, vice versa. Some tend to be much more skilled in those things.  There just aren't any other answers that make as much sense. And in that vein, one needs to seek responsibility for one's own misdeeds. 

 The above however, does not account for friendship. No friendship, and family is something different. 

 Spirituality exists for me, but not in any of the forms that exist in this world today. It is something that I feel, but cannot define. Yes as I grow older this concept becomes more important to me. 

 Atheists beware. Trash talking religion is one thing. Yes there have been many many bad things that have come about by "Big Church" But there are many many people doing amazing things around the world in the name of religion as well. Tolerance my friends. 

 That people who choose not to have kids, no matter how acceptable that argument is painted, will always regret that decision for better or for worse. Has been my experience.

 And finally Negativity will slowly boil your soul away. I cannot count the times I ruminated on an event where everything didn't just turn out perfect. While putting the countless blessings I have to the back of my mind. In those times Lisa has reminded, no slapped sense into me.  Like most women, Lisa really has no idea how powerful her healing abilities are.

And once again if you got this far, there are no refunds for the last six minutes.

And so, no politics, jokes, pics or quotes. 

Dasvidaniya  (And no I'm not a Socialist)


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We'll see

So I have had a few ideas that didn't work

"There's a guy who fries Bacon naked."

                                                  David Letterman

I'm ashamed to say my initial default technique for getting things done is through the copious usage of profanity.  This tactic has yet to elicit effective results.  An example, It was mid morning when Lisa and I both heard the snap of traps going off in almost syncrosity followed by an, OK I'll say it anguished squeak. ( Actually twin mousetraps positioned tactically in order to outsmart the little *&^tard who had previously stripped the peanut butter, otherwise known as Mouse Crack from the traps in all of my previous efforts).    Lisa and I both froze,  a grin came over my face followed by various utterances like "gotcha you little *&$er and whose your **&in  Mouse Daddy now?  Won't waste time with all the disturbance this guy has wreaked lately but I was just bubbling.  Anyway these were set under the cleaning cover of the stove where we had heard him the most.  Lisa raised the cover and I expected to see a half flattened Rodent as it should have been,  rather I saw him cowering in the corner with only his tail caught in one of the traps. Not only that, but as I bent down to look, the Rodent looked me right in the eye.  Well shit.  At this time I'm ashamed to say I expressed to Lisa that I didn't want to get bit.  An unmanly gesture I guess but hey, a hero can't be a hero all the time.    So  Lisa produces a pair of Spaghetti tongs which I grabbed and started stabbing at the little *&^tard trying to  grab him with the tongs.  F*&^%ety *&hit, F*&^%ety *&hit as I kept missing with him dancing back and forth within the length of his own tail.  I continued vainly at this a few minutes and then decided to grab the trap with the tongs and pull him out that way.  This tactic seemed to work except some genius Engineer in China decided to manufacture this particular RV stove with a copper wire whose purpose I haven't a clue but to offer this Rodent a handhold, or pawhold as the case may be.  Make a long story short, he grabbed on to this wire with all his mousley might and a tug of war ensued.  And with one "Mousley Heave" he pulled his tail out and escaped into a crack. And just like that he was gone.  I thought kind of lamely that maybe he had learned his lesson and would exit the RV from the same way he had found his way in.  Nope I've had to re bait the traps twice now.  Once they had even been sprung.  Couple of minutes ago I heard him scampering across the ceiling. Pissing me off each and every time he makes an appearance.  Seriously, this has been weighing heavily on my mind.  The other night I dreamed of a mousetrap configuration along with the name, I was dreaming remember, the "Hexagon of Death".  Yeah we'll get back on this.

Our emergency NOAA radio alarmed for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  Not to signal a tornado but a severe thunderstorm. It wasn't a fun experience. Immediately a wind I'd guess to be 60mph or more hit and it was a tough time holding the door open to get out. We decided to ride it out in our vehicle in the event we had to make a quick exit and, well I hate to sit blind.  Just like that it was over.  I'm not a denier.  I'm a realist and certainly not looking forward to the crazy weather that it looks like a certainty that we are going to be experiencing here.  Funny, where there likely exists the largest pockets of denial are also likely to experience the worst weather


"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road"

                                                                       Stephen Hawking

One of my evening enjoyments is to peruse blogs and forums.  Everything from A to Z can be learned in these Internet places.  From working on generators, or find the best TV stations using your smart phone, monitoring emergency radio traffic  to working on your own vehicles; to the best place to have lunch in say Cuero, Texas.  Political Blogs, RV Blogs, Gate Guard Blogs,  Travel Blogs, Fat Blogs, Skinny Blogs, Blogs of every race, color or age.  There is something intimate in reading the thoughts of someone else.  And, I'd  further comment some of these Blogs are amazing.  I particularly have an affinity reading Blogs written by younger folks.  I'm amazed at the courage of a young man or woman who travels, often solo to troubled spots in the world.

How to be unremarkably Average

But  phenomena that continues to puzzle me is clicking on an RV blog.  One, say well illustrated with pictures of the authors, smiling at the camera  ( I'll say it here, we are more of the younger set who've adopted this lifestyle),  their family and friends and some of the places they've been.  First, a well written blog tracking the course of a Couple's lives over a significant period will abruptly end without comment. No further posts. No epilogue to explain that maybe a horrible crash killed the couple, or they had become lost at sea during a Disney cruise, or maybe even eaten by cannibals in the backwoods of Tennessee ala Deliverance style. Nothing.  Just a WTF feeling.  Of course the likely cause is somebody just became disinterested but... the mind wanders.

But comically, the thing that also sadly entertains my sick little mind is reading a lot of these same blogs, remember with the pictures of smiling folks in nice campgrounds and restaurants, whose authors go off on the latest greatest fear mongering subject of the day.  Well intentioned writings about getting ready for the latest Zombie Apocalypse.  (my name not their's).  Cartels and Moslems combining to run suicide missions across the Border.  A rumor started by a southern lawmaker that had no bearing to reality.  Ebola infected immigrants making a run for the Border and showing up at the author's RV to sneeze all over them and then blow themselves up.  I'll giggle a bit, click on the next blog button and, with similar smiling and familial pictures, will read about hoarding food AND drinking one's own urine to stay alive.  C' MON.

So we recently made a play to purchase three acres near the water to use as a winter haven.  Didn't work.  And with the price of oil dropping we are finding work a little more scarce and times a bit more uncertain.  The plan is certainly not off the table, but we'll see.

So I couldn't resist.  Heard this earlier today....memories

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