busy monkey

What it's like to be a busy monkey:

I realized that I was not a typical person when very young. Just looking around, and savoring the aromas, and listening to life's sound track was way too stimulating for me. It will be difficult to explain to a reader that is not a busy monkey. Colors are too bright, sounds are too loud, and smells are much more intense than is required to identify the odor. This can be very entertaining. For example: laying on the ground looking at ants while birds sing is like a fantastic movie that lasts all day long. It can also be a huge problem when the stimulation gets too great. The busy monkey is likely to misbehave and to retreat into a protective shell.

I had other senses that I naturally assumed were shared by the human race in general. I could recall past events with unusual clarity. For instance, I was able to purchase my college text books, read them from cover to cover one after the other, and then return them for a full refund. My test scores were nearly always 100% with no studying at all. But, there was no trick to that, because I could look up the answers very quickly in the mentally photographed pages, or recall the appropriate lectures word for word.

I also found that I could tell what people around me were feeling. Again, I thought that everyone could do that, and I wondered what all the talking was about. I found that one person that was in a good mood was no problem. But 3 people nearby provided too much signal. A person that can see auras clearly told me that mine was as big as a city block, instead of extending just slightly past the skin. If I was not able to draw that aura closer to me and stayed in a city, I would literally die.

A good memory is not always disturbing to the owner. It can be like money in the bank. I have been trained for many professions, gaining skills easily. One need keep no records. The down side is that I recall stressful events very clearly. It is hard to be around people when you remember every stressful event that you have shared with them. It helps if you have experienced many positive events together. If you can tell what they are feeling, that makes them very real and 'persony'. You can step into their shoes, and they need to be comfortable shoes.

I do not believe that I am mentally ill. I certainly seem so when overstimulated or trapped. Despite the gifts, my life has been one of constant flight. I can't stay in a city, where people, with their emotions and schemes, are thick. I fear any type of captivity, so that makes personal relationships close to impossible. I have managed a 3.5 year relationship with a woman, but we probably broke up 60 times in that period.  I succeed at nearly any job that I choose, but a formal job is similar to a prison sentence of indeterminate length. The most difficult job that I attempted was field engineer in the oil field. There was a solid 10 months of intense training, with a kind of final exam for the small minority that made it through. I ran a crew for 2 years then, writing bills of up to $120,000, and receiving bonuses of up to $3000 for a single visit to a well site. I learned to care for the crew on the road, controlling their drug and alcohol consumption, and making sure that they were well rewarded. I handled disasters, including a well explosion and a high speed highway accident complicated by explosives and dangerous radioactive 'sources'. The US part of that company [precision drilling] failed, and I was the last engineer in the US to be laid off as they wound down their American operation.

I love to take photographs, and have been recognized with grants and sales of expensive art images. It is very enjoyable to let others glimpse my cartoon world. I have made some documentary films, including one where I was the subject of the film [A desert life]. It won awards, because it allowed viewers to feel like a busy monkey for a few minutes. I was to be flown to the awards ceremony, but of course, I was unable to undertake the trip out of fear of over-stimulation and captivity.

For a long time, I occupied my time scaling cliffs, often with no rope. I have a body deformed by German measles during gestation. I was able to whip it into some kind of shape so that I could travel about and climb the most difficult climbs in the US. I did this for about 40 years, taking a break in the middle to try academia and heavy industry. I traveled a loop along the Rockies, and then back along the coastal mountains. For income, I guided climbers, sold images, and repaired climbing shoes. At the age of 55, I encountered chronic soreness that made it impossible to continue. My friends were nearly all dead by this point. Un-roped climbing is a mostly a self regulated activity. 

I began to take care of remote properties. With my ability to use tools, hunt and endure long periods of being alone, I was the ideal caretaker. Each client told me that I was the best that they had tried. The other caretakers had visited the place infrequently, and did the bare minimum to keep it going. I stayed there, totally content to do my busy monkey stuff. I was then hired by an entire family in Moab, Utah. They gave me a nice car, and bought the old hospital in Moab where I could live.  When the family vacationed, I moved into the parents house. I began to work for a solar installer in Castle Valley, and built my first tiny home in that isolated town.

Moab was very good for panoramic photography, with it's red rocks eroded into all kinds of interesting shapes. The town itself  grew greedy in time, and converted itself into a noisy, unpleasant playground for fossil fueled recreation. I towed my 19 foot travel trailer behind my Jeep to Washington state, to prove a new well at a friends property. The Methow Valley proved to be a somewhat pristine area, with a river that always runs, and is was protected from exploitation by the federal government.

I built more tiny homes, carrying one to California to show to a perspective buyer. I rolled that one on the way back, and injured my pelvic floor in the process. I was able to sell the wreck for a fraction of the material cost, and build more. By this writing, I have built a 10 by 14 observatory, an 8 by 12 bedroom, a 6 by 8 tool shed, the 8 by 16 tiny home that rolled, an 8 by 8 kitchen, an 8 by 10 climbing gym, and a 10 by 12 foot shop.

I moved up the valley from Carlton to Winthrop, and began to work for another large family. I concentrated on operating heavy equipment when not building portable solar buildings. I made trips to the parent's ranch in eastern Washington, serving as welder and mechanic. I received some big city medical care, including the removal of all remaining teeth and the fashioning of dentures. That is where I am at now, having achieved 61 years of age. I continue to build an elaborate castle for myself, become trapped in the castle and then kick the castle down. 

a month at a run down ranch

I was living on an amazing property along wolf creek.

I had fought the neighbors tooth and nail to be able to exist among their elite number without constant calls to the county, the health department, and the fire department.

By being a very considerate neighbor, i had worn down their hate over the course of a few summers and a winter. Now, some had actually started to visit the first tiny home community, and to give me the sort of gifts that rich people cast off like golden turds as they proceed through their privileged existences.

My goal was to improve the 45 acres that dominate the flat center of the valley where Wolf Creek meets the Methow river. Once it was possible to reach all of the 9 non-divided 5 acre parcels in a passenger car, my ambition was to create clusters of tiny homes with large solar energy systems that required little energy input from the outside. Every building would be portable, so that the 5 acre parcels would be subdivided and sold with a well and a septic system, but no other infrastructure.

I was underemployed, because many of the neighbors would not hire a non licensed worker who was also mostly despised. But, being a pretty stubborn dreamer, i just continued to create the buildings while living on food stamps, exploiting the food bank, and enjoying the fantastic health system in Washington.

A young gentleman named Russel was added to the property by the owners. It was done by telephone, without a careful physical inspection of the equipment that he meant to bring to the place. Russel had a ruined Winnebago dumped off of a tow truck in the center of the property, and then hauled in a ruined slide in camper tied with rope to an ancient self made trailer. He had been evicted from the areas lowest quality campground. 

The neighbors became frantic, because they perceived that their flawless retirement hide-out was becoming a low-end camping ground. There was trespassing, photographs, and the county shut the property down. I had 60 days to depart. The ruined RV would remain there, abandoned by Russel.

The owners parents have a large ranch near Spokane. I had been there twice before to help with welding and mechanics. The Ranch is in it's final stages of collapse. There are no buildings that can be used save a metal shop and a metal storage barn. The other buildings are in ruin, with a row of collapsed structures trailing away from each standing structure. There are no machines that work properly, including the passenger vehicles. Just hundreds of wrecked machines and trucks all over the place like a crazy junk yard. I have not seen a meter of good fence on the place, which attempts to imprison several thousand cattle and a few hundred bison.

The ranch has trouble attracting able help, because there is no place to live on the ranch. Capable workers do not do hazardous work for minimum wage with no benefits at all.

Thus, the ranch is worked by ancient hands that get crippled and die by the time they learn how to use the ruined equipment. The owners are now getting too old to work the place, so there is need for a real clean up, and perhaps, a habitable building that could house a young family that might be capable of running such an operation.

A deal is struck with the elderly ranchers. I would pay 10 hours of work per month to stay near a ruined house while i remodeled it. The son and I brought over one of my tiny buildings so that i would have a clean and pleasant place to live while i did the remodel. it would literately take years, so the ranch bought me a nice pick up truck that i had found with cosmetic front end damage. Only, the ranch backed out of the purchase in mid stream, leaving the son to purchase the truck in my name. It is a nearly perfect Toyota Tacoma, but with a smashed front, bald tires and filthy oil. I need such a truck to change between the coast and Eastern Washington, but my Jeep Cherokee is already adequate if i stay on the coast.

I move into the tiny home and spend a few days trying to clean up the area to purchase my months rent. Then, I attempt to begin the remodel of the house that is completely full of hoarded trash, dead animals, and toxic dust composed of asbestos, mold and animal droppings. I have a room mate, who is an elderly worker from the Ranch. He is supposed to help clean the building, but is too self centered and insane to do anything but clean 'his' room, and to play with his hoardings. He begins to bring his stuff to the house, filling the entire room from corner to corner with boxes of old magazines and conspiracy theory paperwork.

The female head of the ranch claimed to be too busy to think about the remodel, even though I had arrived during the last month of good weather for building. I was given no materials, and instead, was disturbed at all times of day with ridiculous tasks like driving the same cows into a pasture with ruined fences each day. There was welding to do, but she was also too busy to get the welder fixed or to order the many things that are needed to weld and do mechanics. I busied myself trying to clean up the shop, which has a dead backhoe occupying the center, and all kinds of junk littering the floor. The tools were in heaps and covered with grease and used oil, even though i had arranged and cleaned them on a previous visit. to get any work done, i had to bring my own tools and safety equipment, and even my own electrical and welding supplies.

There was no way to order parts, and no way to really replace the broken tool attachments and materials that i was using. I just soldiered on anyway. A terrific storm then damaged my tiny home so that it can not be heated any more. I moved into the ruined house after cleaning a room as best as i could. it is still way too filthy and stinky for a sensitive person to live in, but i had hopes that the remodel would soon fix that.

My room mate turned out to be not a worker, but an insane elderly conspiracy theorist. For his work, he seems to be a sort of professional con man that operates on the very edge of the law. He feels that he deserves to live in the house that i am trying to repair because he has successfully attached himself to the ranch as a permanent parasite. He begins to suck my blood, requiring me to rotate his car tires, and to perform each of his tasks at the house after he fails to do it. It is ridiculous, and I realize that no remodel was ever intended.

I run the parasite out of the house. It does not really work, as he returns again and again to beg me to let him stay. Having a human parasite attached is very uncomfortable. He kept pestering me until I blocked his phone, and offered to call the sheriff and have him hauled off.

Meanwhile, the son has arranged with a local lumber yard for me to get materials at his expense. I drove into town with the still wrecked Tacoma that had bald tires and no insurance. I was still putting my own gas into it, but had made no repairs at all. I brought back a truck load of materials, and used my own tools and fasteners to create a roof over the entry of the building. I then pried up the asbestos tiles in the bathroom, and put in a composition floor.  When the ranch woman found out, she was furious. The remodel was then officially over, and i was paid 45 dollars per day for my efforts.

I find myself with a unusable tiny home that should never have been brought across the state to a fraudulent remodel. I have a truck that i do not need, and can not repair or insure with the 45 dollars per day. I finally repaired the wire feed welder, and waited over a week for the inert gas bottle to be filled. I was called again and again to do tasks that should not be done, and required to do the tasks incompletely and incorrectly. It is a very bad feeling for a retired field engineer to work in such dangerous conditions, with no way of getting supplies, and basically no pay. The 45 dollars of 'pay' is actually half of the per Diem living expense that i received when doing dangerous work in the oilfield.

I have been welding for 2 weeks now, and have ruined every pair of pants, and my only hiking boots. The welder now feeds the wire reliably, but it has a further electrical problem that allows it to sputter molten metal all around instead of laying down a good bead of weld. I am able to repair way more complicated devices, but not without use of the internet and suppliers like amazon.com. I used the welder as it is, getting burned, and eventually sputtering molten steel through all of my layers of clothing onto the screen of my cell phone. Two days before this writing, i got hurt monkeying with the parts of a giant feeder. I realized abruptly that i had no support on the ranch at all. If my injury had been severe, i would be treated just like a homeless person that had wandered onto the place and gotten hurt.

I do not enjoy being a captive on a ruined ranch. Luckily a second son lives near Spokane, and he may have some construction work for me. I will get my teeth plucked out and replaced with dentures. i will see a surgeon, and find out if my pelvis can be repaired. And I will travel a bit to see if anything changes on the ranch during my absence. It looks like I will have to bring the degraded tiny home back across the state and sell the Tacoma.  What a gigantic waste! The ranchers will die leaving almost no accommodations or working equipment. The sons are not equipped or inclined to take over the distressed operation. The livestock will be lost, and the leased parcels will be rented to someone else. I am not sure if a ranch in this condition can be sold for the price of totally empty land. The cleanup might cost a great deal, and go on for years.

I have hurt my back severely on the ranch, and now seem to be taking sick with depression and COPD from spending time in the ruined house. I am not tempted to end a fairly entertaining and adventurous life by dying of poverty on a ranch that is doing the same thing.  I am documenting events without naming names; not to punish, but because it seems to reduce the pain slightly.

Trouble along wolf creek

Shame on the elitists of Wolf Creek!

My name is Alf Randell, and I have been working to revegitate and clean up the center of the valley where Wolf Creek meets the Methow river. Thus far, it has taken one and one half years.
From the moment that I arrived to start the work, I have been plagued by the exclusionary and elitist attitude of the less friendly members of the Wolf Creek Property Owners Association. It seems that these part-time residents despise and resent less affluent locals who would like to live near them. Part time residents tend to build huge foolish-looking fake mansions. To me, they look like shoddy double wide trailers, with nearly flat roofs. On the odd weekends that the fake mansions light up, many complaints are phoned in to the county.

In my own case, none of the complaints have produced any citations. Indeed, almost all of them were ridiculous and clearly fraudulent. They have cost the county, and the less affluent permanent residents, thousands of dollars, and heaps of misery. At the conclusion of last season, I received the planner and the building inspector at the same time. They had both wasted many hours of taxpayer fundeed time listening to overly empowered part-time residents cast these absurd allegations. By this point, however, they were simply collecting transcripts of the fraudulent calls, and providing the transcripts to the property owners who had been targeted. The two officials reassured me that they were not processing a single one of the fraudulent complaints. Indeed, they stated that neither of them had found anything actionable at 292 Wolf creek road, despite the barrages of memorial day and labor day phone calls. We walked around, and I showed them the tiny homes that I had been constructing to relieve the boredom of my sunset years.

You can see the documentary about me on the internet by searching for 'Alf Randell , A desert life'. Although I may look like a homeless person, my family owns a pretty nice printing company on 6th avenue in New York City. And, although I seem to be a mentally handicapped geezer, I am a fairly well recognized professional photographer, and a fully trained engineer and physicist. Now, I enjoy building tiny homes that are powered and heated by the sun, and operating heavy equipment.
I imaginemn thatn I see clearly what is going on at Wolf Creek. The area has a group whose main hobby is to gather evidence of wrongdoing on the part of their less affluent and more permanent neighbors, and to report these imagined crimes to the proper authorities. I was astounded to see such behavior flourishing in an otherwise perfect valley. I was reminded of a gang of bullies who like to find the most vulnerable victim, and then work in concert to harm them, and drive them from the area. Except for myself, the victims of the illegal surveillance, trespassing, and fraudulent complaints are families with young children. I can not figure out why these hate crimes are tolerated in a community that otherwise has a lot of cohesion and transparency. It is a case of the least polite individuals winning every single battle. The victims have failed to organize, being the sort of humans who shun legal battles and endless drama.
This came to a head for me on August 18, 2019, when a summer resident trespassed onto the property and conducted her own independent inspection. When I tried to get her to leave, so that I could get back to my work, she refused, and had to be driven [without harm to her] to the property line.
She had been infuriated when the health department would not immediately take action, and had been convinced by her fellow trolls to take matters into her own hands. Ironically, she gets her mail on the deeded land, and has built a long glass house along the edge of the property. Her knowledge of my comings and goings, guests, and habits was chilling, and I realized that she had been observing the property in a way that is not even remotely legal. She also made it very clear that there was a strong group of neighbors dedicated to my removal.
I am a sensitive person, I found it hard to sleep after the illegal search of the property. I began to hide behind my own buildings, aware that eyes were measuring my every move.
Members of the hate group approached me, making it clear that I lower the value of their properties, and am not a good enough person to live in such elite company. I was informed of the large membership and dedication of the hate group. From their point of view, they are doing a public service, and each poor family forced to move to Carlton makes the end of the valley more pleasant for Wealthy Seattle retirees.

To me this looks like a harassment law suit that is already won. The transcripts of the fraudulent calls are freely available, along with the results of each costly investigation. There is a signed letter drafted by the group, and submitted to the county to drive out a family that has lived here for decades. This family also found trespassers photographing their property when they were not there.

I have indications from the county that they recognize the methods of the hate group, and are waiting for someone to get fed up enough to start the court case. Because the hate group overlaps a lot with the Wolf Creek property owners Association, let us sue them until they are forced to disband. I believe that the group partakes in harassment, illegal surveillance, trespassing, and have organized a tightly knit  group with meetings and possibly employees. The attempt to drive out people due to their social class is very likely a federal crime, and the feds might wish to look into such a group. A family left last summer, and a second family is shopping for land down valley as this is written. There are not that many more local families to drive out, and then this end of the valley will contain nothing but empty mansions.

alf randell
292 Wolf creek road
alfrandell@gmail.com 

hostage rescue teams in every school?

hostage rescue teams in every school?

I was thinking about the idea of gun safes in some of the class rooms, and individual teachers being well trained in their use, when i came up with the full scale idea.

Since it is not possible to create an impenetrable wall around schools, it is necessary to deal with armed incursions. Military small arms are very available in the US, and will continue to make their way into supposedly secure locations.

As we deal with this problem of violence in our culture, it might be wise to form heavily armed hostage rescue teams in each school. The equipment would be distributed in a few safes. the team would be distributed around the school during ordinary operations. They would remain in contact and would assemble quickly in the event of trouble.

The idea would be to hunt down the attacker/s immediately, and to pin them down and kill them. I realize that this plan does not fit into any Utopian dream world. It is practical and utilitarian. It should cover other locations where soft targets gather. Hospitals, Public venues, etc.

you can see some weaknesses in this idea that you can finally get enough guns and weapons on the scene that it becomes safe. for one, it would then always be possible to force a teacher to open the gun safe at pen or shiv point, and then participate in a shooting without having to purchase a gun illegally. It would also be simply a matter of time until the trusted rescue team at a school itself stages a mass shooting.

I used to be such a gun fancier. i loved to carry guns and to fire them. now, i am having trouble with the idea of carrying around explosives for the purpose of driving chunks of lead into other folks. Handguns in particular, have turned out to be the suicide method for manly men, so that adds another bad feeling to smaller guns. These school shootings so seem to be suicides that bring some others along for the ride.

I guess that the question of whether suicide should be legal, or should remain illegal is a question to be decided elsewhere. I can say one thing. when you possess a powerful handgun, this easy and often successful suicide mode is always available to you. It changes the way that you think if you can always depart very quickly.  It is weird to make something like suicide or abortion illegal, because it changes the dynamic in a very bad way. Clearly, we have turned captivity into a huge business, with 2 % of all Americans 'safely'  locked away. That is clearly why we are making so many things illegal. it is very good business that creates new clients!

Tiny home life

why would one Live for years in an 8 foot wide building?

I have lived most of my life in a series of tiny buildings that I built for myself. I prefer to stay far outside of cities, and actually feel more comfortable in a dwelling that is small and cozy. I have been looking at tiny home groups and sites, and have noticed some things.

For one, it is easy to tell that many of the posts are insincere. A certain percentage are super rustic cabins that appear to be isolated. It is clearly not a persons house, but just an outbuilding that has been denied paint and attention. The outbuilding is not visited, but is also not remote. The other buildings have simply been left out of the photo. These posts appear to be from city people who are taunting each other. The caption is something like: ‘wouldn’t you love to live here?’ For me, these are both amusing and irritating. I have seen city people trying to live like that for a few days before they go racing back to the comforting press of humanity.

It is also common to see super large and costly homes posted. These are like a good tiny home that is bloated to beyond it's maximum size. Then, a sad type of 'crowing for a free tiny home' ensues. The participants take turns finding flaws with the floor plan and the appliances. They attempt to outdo each other with complaints about the absurdly high price. There are often claims that the commenter could build it way better for one quarter of the price. When I ask, such authorities have usually not purchased materials, used tools, or created anything during their lifetime. They have remained in a large city, squawking into a telephone or pecking at a keyboard. They seem to be trying to shame the builder into giving them the product for free. While this sort of flaw finding seems to be fun for the urban office workers, I can tell you that it is not fun for a builder. This is the reason that one sees many generic and charmless tiny homes for sale, and few creative and charming ones. If one whines about the cost of a long lasting zippo lighter, they end up purchasing a Bic disposable each week.

The homes that get posted are interesting but quite often not livable. What makes them non functional is the lack of space and a sense of unbalanced clutter. The home is a typical suburban house, deflated so that there is barely room for the people. Nothing has been left behind. All the junk is lined up along either wall of a long room that is only 7 foot 9 inches wide! This leaves a narrow corridor or walkway through the stuff. If more than one person enters the home, They will become irritated without knowing why. They can not pass each other in the 2 foot swath of open space down the center. Moving about an overfilled space is an elaborate dance that is awkward rather than fun. ‘Cleaning’ this sort of space is time consuming and complicated. It does not really ever become ‘clean’. Windows must be kept tiny, because there is little unencumbered wall space for openings. And, there is no subsitute for widows!

After living in a series of truly tiny tree houses, cliff dwellings, and vehicles. I have found that an empty building with movable units works best.  Fixed carpet is a total no-no, as is any attempt at a bathroom. Unless one breathes through a different orifice than the one used for detecting odor, there can not be a single paarticle of poop in a truly tiny building!  I use a separate storage space for my stuff. In a trailer, the storage can be underneath, on the roof, or in the towing vehicle. A crew cab pick-up works really well for towing. Fancy stuff can be in the back seats, while smelly, flamable or bulky stuff ride in the truck’s bed. Tiny home life is not for the lazy. There is plenty of shuffling things around and lifting.

Tiny homes are not meant to being stacked like cord-wood in a densely populated area. A great tiny home is the opposite of a prison cell. It is all windows and doors, so that those inside are constantly invited to look out of the windows and go out of the doors. The location and orientation of the building is of the greatest importance. I don’t want to go into great detail, but solar gain, view, sound proofing, aroma, and esthetics come into play. If the building faces the wrong way, smells bad, or is located where the occupant does not want to live, it quickly becomes a prison cell.

The size and shape of the home are important. As Americans, we are often interested in appearing to be wealthy, and in bringing the size of everything we own to it’s maximum. Tiny home folks need to resist this temptation. If the home must travel down the road, the 8 foot width and 14 foot height are constraints. Weight is a  huge concern. While I am amused by the giant ‘tiny’ homes made in factories, I feel that they lack personality, and tend to be non functional containers for expensive appliances and way too much stuff. If they are created just to obtain money, they will never be ‘right’. Many have roofs that do not work in the climate for which they are intended, or ‘lofts’ that will never be used. These Non functional lofts are added to increase the square footage. Solar energy and passive solar heating are typically ignored.

A 10 by 12 foot building that is nearly empty is more functional by far than an 8 foot by 50 foot overfilled warehouse. For me, a 10 foot ceiling is far better than a 6 foot ceiling and a 3 foot 6 inch loft.

And finally, there is the actual purpose of tiny homes. I knew when I started building them that I wanted them to be constructed and used by people like me. In practice, they are sought by back-to-the-land city folk, and sit, unused, beside giant homes just like RVs. The fad provides city dwellers with the feeling that they could leave their confined life at any time with the turn of a key.  And, captive city dwellers have the ability to pay for more and more things that they do not need. Hence, we note the belief that tiny homes are not allowed in the US. They are simply not allowed in US cities. Likewise, a well built tiny home costs as much as several rooms of a really nice house. You don’t build a foundation, but a double or triple axle trailer is just as costly. It is too expensive as a decoration for a rich persons estate, but it is perfect for actually living in.

I was present when the town of Moab, Utah banned homes smaller than 500 square feet. The reasons given were obvious lies. Many homes in Moab are moldy single-wide trailers from the mining era. Yet, it was stated that quality tiny homes would lower property values, and invite the wrong type of people!

The real reason is that there is no room for home ownership in the current degraded version of our society. The folks that have money are the ones that don’t mind harming the earth or their fellow humans. Causing harm is how this type of human has managed to get 'their' money. The poor have been squeezed and squeezed, until they have no hope of owning a decent car or home. They rent these things, and pay the entire value of their home or car periodically, instead purchasing it a single time. The rich have developed an attitude that the poor are infected with a poverty disease, which befell them because they were lazy, drug addled, or stupid. That allows the rich to treat the poor like zombies, with tall walls and machine guns.

I believe that we can fix this. A new sort of business structure can be devised, where human beings are much more important than quantities of money. Altruism can be rewarded, and harm to humans and the environment can be punished and taxed. Cities seem absolutely crucial to the modern person, but a properly distributed network of cottage industries can change that. People could work with tools and valuable materials at ‘home’. They would not be forced to live too close together. The cities would be depopulated in a natural way. A balance between population density and sustainable quality of life would be reached. People would live where they really want to be, and measure their success without quoting quantities of currency. We have seen how well it works when decisions are based on money alone [it doesn’t!]

Mobile buildings that are fully owned and made to last are part of this plan. Solar, wind power, and rooftop water capture would seem clever without our constant ‘bean counting’.  And really small structures would seem large when placed far apart on great ground. Gouging rents and junky disposable products would not be attractive to a population that is mobile and financially solvent.

Folks might prefer to stay home a lot if ‘home’ was a quiet and nurturing spot. The concepts of ‘insurance’, ‘vacation’, ‘pleasure driving’, etc, would fade from memory. These are coping mechanisms for tightly squeezed Homo Sapiens. I suspect that autism would decline, as would drug addiction, crime, and suicide. We must admit that the white invasion of the United States was poorly done. It now looks like we should have emulated the native Americans instead of fencing, poisoning and murdering them. They had it right. Portable dwellings, a tribal structure, and overwhelming respect for the earth provided excellent [if short] lives. Gifting does work better than exploitation, and war is best as a sort of violent recreation for itchy young males.

So, you see that tiny homes are not just a product or possession to me. They are a way to live with less harm to the earth, and a way to arrange ourselves so that almost no motorized travel is required. If We 'stay home' more and consume less, we will find life more rewarding. Can we make the transition? As hopeful as I am, it does not look good. The current ‘haves’ really like being rich! They have shown that they are willing to wreck the whole thing if they can not keep the majority of the toys. Thus, any new type of structure has to exist at the same time as the current 'war on the poor'. By analogy, Einstein had to write the equations for his new physics so that every one of Newton’s laws still worked.

There are rural areas of the US where a network of cottage industries can take root. One can only hope that the members of the current system would see the benefit, and refrain from destroying each attempt. Perhaps, a less exploitive system can be allowed if it is presented as a return to previously held values like good neighborly behavior, self reliance, and barter. Perhaps it would be seen as a form of welfare that takes care of elderly, homeless and disabled at no cost to the super rich. To the desperate, failing bean counters, it has to be cheaper than chasing the vulnerable around as economic refugees. This takes an ever increasing force of police and soldiers. It requires more and more body and street cameras, surveillance systems, and other measures that degrade our quality of life.

In my mind, the question is not ‘why buy a tiny home instead of a used travel trailer?’ It is ‘should I remain in the current system, to live in a sort of dystopian prison city, on the refuse and effluent of the super rich?’ The stuff that the rich throw away is better than our very best stuff. I am accustomed to this inequality, but see beyond it to a possible future where people live where they like without the need to pave everything over.  A possible future where Americans do highly skilled work without all of the captivity. Where they are healthful and filled with vitality, instead of obese, and overly concerned with cars and health insurance.

So, lets do this!

A plan for man; a new kind of industry for the age of automation.

We probably can not break up the giant corporations that have taken over the governments of the world. The events of 911 were engineered to give them nearly perfect control of public opinion as well as a firm hand on the controls of each government.

They have used their monopolistic control of the media to work some real magic. People have used quantities of money to make their financial decisions for a long time. But now, they have been frightened into using money to make ALL decisions.

Human concerns, and ethics are no longer considered when making decisions. That is the result of lots of fake terrorism, fake wars and constant brainwashing. My fellow Americans spend much of their free time soaking up suspicion, violence and fear from their TV sets. If more attention is available, the ugly American is dosed with an overwhelming greed for things and sex.

Now led by a shining example of runaway greed and bad taste, the desire to injure other humans in exchange for money is overwhelming. This is supported by a helpless feeling, where the brainwashed person feels powerless to change what is going on, and too poorly connected to completely understand it.

So, is my goal simply to expose this loss of the pioneering spirit among Americans? It is not! I hope to find a way out. There have been movements of late, such as Occupy, and Black Lives Matter. They are worthy causes, but flawed. We can not vote ourselves into being wealthy landowners, and we will not become safe from brutality through media events and snappy slogans.

The system itself has to change. The corporations will not give up until they hold all the money and power on the planet. Each one is willing to trade the health of the planet, and the quality of life of the humans, plants and animals for a larger share of the collective pie. And, the ‘economy’ supports their greedy attempts. Forceful, damaging groups tend to succeed. Altruistic entities tend to fail, with the notable exception of Elon Musk.

How has the Tesla company managed to make altruism pay on a large scale? In my opinion, Elon is a one off, or ‘perfect storm’, like Einstein. Albert came at a time when theoretical physics was wide open, and he had the tools and motivation to do a complete make over of our way of thinking. Sadly, his astounding efforts were hijacked misdirected, and very nearly resulted in the destruction of Earth.

Elon is a different story. Although he started by learning about money [Paypal], he quickly realized that money is just the water in the pipe, and moved on to the important things that money can do. New forms of energy production and transportation could possibly avert the destruction of earths atmosphere and land. And, he found a way to make them profitable enough to continue his work.

The next step is to change our way of living and organizing ourselves. Yet, our current practices are self reinforcing and deeply entrenched. Altruistic people and groups typically fail economically, and success with money is our measure of value and goodness. Greed and cruelty are rewarded economically, and the best practitioners of selfish deeds are adept at staying slightly ahead of the law.

What is to replace the corporations? How can it be done? We have seen that the folks who have control now will set the world alight instead of relinquishing their wealth and power. So, violent revolution is not the answer. Whatever we try must exist along with the current toxic structure. I send my mind back into history. Things that worked before are likely to work again. What did we have before corporations?

The first groups to be ‘incorporated’ [made flesh] were diggers of canals and builders of transcontinental railroads. We required these improvements in infrastructure to become great [pun intended]. And, we were willing to give these newly fleshed beings extraordinary powers so that they could accomplish seemingly impossible feats. They would have the legal advantages of an individual, without all of the responsibilities. Basically, they were not taxed much, could make a big mess, and did not have to clean it up.

For some reason, we did not dissolve these super beings after the infrastructure was complete. We made more and more of them. Instead of building something that we need, corporations learned to insert themselves between something that people need and the people themselves. They seized control of water, energy, land and political power. Since it is easier to destroy than to build, Corporations switched over to harmful pursuits like Wars and walls [Halliburton], and large scale poisoning and propriety seed stocks [Monsanto].

Again, these groups were allowed to destroy for money, and were not asked to clean up after the destruction. An example is the use of depleted Uranium in the middle east wars.  It was convenient to shoot our spent nuclear fuel at targets in Iraq. One does not pick up ones cannon shells after a war. Sadly, in this case, our cannon shells will poison millions of people for thousands of years. Another is the loss of much of the planet's viable seed stock, and the destruction of many of the pollinators on earth. The most glaring example of corporate greed was the privatazation of the water in Bolivia. Further, when the Bolivians attempted to have water without buying it from Bechtel corporation, a brutal war against the population in general was waged.

What came before corporations then? Did people bang rocks together and grunt? No! industry existed. At first it was dispersed. A grain mill by a river, where energy could be obtained from nature. A group of knitters that were given raw wool, and made sweaters at their homes. It is now called cottage industry. It did not require large cities, or a captive work force, so this form of business provided income without cooersion or captivity. People led shorter lives, and there was still brutality to deal with [the African slave trade, the genocide of the native Americans, etc]. But, at least, people could own some land, and stay home much of the time. Polluted cities with large forces of police came later, when new forms of energy were found, and factories required a steady supply of semi-enslaved labor. A new system of slavery replaced legal ownership of human beings. It was great for the factories, because this new type of slave could be beaten and killed without loosing the value of a good slave. Further, they would feed and house themselves, and prevent themselves from escaping!

That is what is happening now. The poor slaves sit in traffic jams in gigantic cities, waiting their turn to enter into their cubicle prisons. They do not have real work to do. They spend their days like pigeons in a cage, pecking at this key or that, and squawking into devices. There is very rarely anything to show for their decades of wage slavery. Little is accomplished, and they get almost no reward.

Most folks have kids. The system holds the kids hostage, even locking them away from the parents each weekday in sterile concrete buildings. What a system! As the billions of people increase, it gets worse, with no end in sight. It is already much worse that Huxley and others had predicted.

How can cottage industry come back in this situation? Picture an assembly line for a complicated thing like a portable building. But, instead of housing it in a gigantic building, and compelling the workers to live very close together, and to come to the building every day of their adult lives, The product instead moves through their various home shops. A way is found to keep track of the work until the product is sold, bartered, or rented. At first US currency could be used. As long as it passes from hand to hand, it is not taxed again and again. The human parasites that ride the currency without performing useful work get no cut of the proceeds until the final sale of the product.

Cities would empty out in this type of scenario. They do not work without 'modern' industry. The internal combustion engine can finally be laid to rest, some half century after it became outmoded. A bizarre system of captivity and violence underlays our notion of motorized freedom. We think that we love the internal combustion engine in town, but inside, we cringe at the explosions, the bright lights, and the rapid movements. We have made our world dangerous and unpleasant, and then provided lots of fortifications and armed guards. We hold the collective illusion that our motorized steeds provide a kind of escape or freedom.

The internal combustion engine provides neither freedom or any kind of safety. A curious relationship has developed between American people and their motor vehicles. The poor will often spend the majority of their money renting a car and keeping it full of hydrocarbons. This leaves almost nothing for their junky trailer, food, tools, etc. Before the brain washing, people knew how much to spend on their home, and how much should be used for transprotation.

Also, poor Americans have largely stopped eating good food and taking exercise. Their cars, in effect, have become their bodies. So, we see obese, pasty creatures staggering into sleek, gaudily painted chariots. We have become like snails, who are helpless and ugly outside of their shells. Indeed, we are ugly snails that become mean, predatory beasts when charging about in our noisy, dangerous shells. We have allowed the corporations to squeeze us together, and to control us by setting us against one another in large, energy wasting machinery.

Let us design a better way to live, and then pull the rug out from under the banks and the whole idea of the corporation.

THE LAST HURRAH

The upper buildings at The Last Hurrah. To the left side of the main structure is a gathering place with one bedroom.  To the right is a separate bedroom with bath. To the right of the timber building are 2 amazing luxury Hogans.

The gathering room. Large windows provide views of the river.

The detached bedroom

Kick back on a vast porch with bathing pond, sweat lodge, and all the equipment needed to enjoy the desert.

Let us get a divorce from the United States.

There is always a bully on the block. As one is defeated, another steps up to the plate automatically. US citizens tend to forget that we pretty much wiped out a people to come here, purposely destroyed the native creatures so that we could replace them with cattle, and have perpetrated a long list of quite serious war crimes.

The US was set up with a robust system, so that it would work for a long time. The 'founding fathers' [maybe there should have been some founding mothers!] determined that the states would function as separate countries that would unite when threatened from outside by other countries.

This would make foreign wars of conquest unlikely, but would prevent conquest of the continental US. Well, this plan did not work, and the federal government found that they could take the power from the states if they invented fake emergencies, and stayed involved in wars [covert or overt] .

It was also found that the states could be forced to do anything if they were levied with high federal taxes, and then the tax dollars would not be spent in state that were willing to do the bidding of the federal government.

Now, we get to 2017, where the oil companies have taken over the US federal government in a bloodless coup d' etat. The federal departments that would not follow the new regime into intolerance were gutted.
A vast propaganda campaign is being waged from the white house itself.

It seems that Americans need a war on US soil. It was not enough that US soldiers saw Europe destroyed and Germany divided. They long to see that sort of fighting. here. The military thinks that they can win any conflict. This is based on indecisive wars intended to grab oil from weak countries. China is not like Iraq!

We can not leave Trump in power, after he has refused to distance himself from his money making, filled his cabinet with greedy zombies, and showed us that he lacks the ability or desire to govern skillfully.

Yet, there seems no legal way to get rid of this group of abusive oilmen. The answer is for the states to leave the US. Any state that stays in the US wants border walls followed by mandatory participation in a world war. Concentration camps will very likely be used in states that remain United.

California is leading the way. The state has taken over some of the science tasks that were once done with federal dollars. People there are not interested in continuing with fossil fuel, excluding people for gender or race, or fighting in foreign oil wars. Cali will leave the US first, followed by Oregon and Washington. Others will follow, forming new countries that are groups of states bound together. At first, their main enemy will be the warlike US!

If we are lucky, Trump will be left president of the landlocked country of Wyoming. Uniting these states was a good experiment, but it has failed now. We should split up voluntarily before the rest of the world defeats us in war, and splits us up.

The differences between Trump supporters and the more educated liberal people have increased. We are now like a dysfunctional couple that needs a divorce. It is very tempting to stay in the relationship even though it is no longer productive. There is fear of being single, and fear of change itself. As a nation, we have learned that sometimes one has to take action when one's plane is hijacked. In the case of such strong action, remaining calm and in your seat means that you will be flown into a building!

I would like discussion on this, but it must be logical and polite. the comments section is open to non cursing Trump supporters, but not available to any portion of the Trump propaganda machine.

about photography

photography

o sure, We know what photography is!
But, do we really?

From the latin roots for light and writing, we get the feeling that the original use of photography was to trace objects in the real world by standing inside of a huge camera. Using a pinhole, one could create a really accurate shadow of an object outside of the camera to appear unside down inside of it. One could then trace the object in preparation for a painting.

Eventually, someone figured out that a canvas could be prepared with a special light sensitive substance, so that a permanent image of the object could be transfered to the canvas without the need for the artist to trace the shape of it.

We have improved our light writing since those days, and now weild the power to write repeatedly, or even continuously! We have dispensed with the chemicals and the light sensitive coatings. So what more needs to be done to write really well with light? It seems that the thinking is all done, and it is time to just make some files!

Not so fast! I have been writing with light for half of a century, and i can tell you that there is more to it. It is a little difficult to think about, but i will write it down if i can.

First, there is the nature of light itself. Light is a crazy, crazy thing! It barely makes sense, and shows us that our ideas about the universe are pretty much poppycock. A magnetic field and an electric field trading energies very quickly, at right angles to one another, and proceeding through space at a finite speed that sets all of the parameters of our physical universe? Wow!

In one way, 'light particles' exist on their own, and have a given amount of work that they can do. In another way, light exists as a collection of synchronized waves traveling through space together. The particle or the wave description must be used depending on the circumstances, and the math is entirely different!

What this means is that we don't know what light really is. We are missing a piece of the puzzle. It is alright, because we know a lot about the behavior of light. We know that it makes the universe of atoms possible, by allowing an electrons to change it's orbital distance from the nucleus. The light particle is the energy 'change' that the universe must pay so that electron can fall toward, or be driven away from the center of that atom. If the electron comes to a new orbital shell closer to the center, it has less energy. A light particle comes out of the atom to make up the exact difference. The shells are rigidly shaped, due to the special granular nature of energy. Since these kinds of transactions must work both ways, the same flavor of light particle may strike the atom, and be just enough to boost an electron's orbit to the higher state. The light particle goes away, and the electron takes a higher orbit.

So, that is how light is 'born', or how it 'dies'. One must understand that there is no difference between the birth and the death of light. In other words, if you focused a very small camera inside of an atom [you can not do that !], it would not be possible to tell if the camera was going forward and backwards when one viewed a single event. that is how such small events are. Electrons and particles of light have no individual identity. Each one can be any of the other ones. They can not be told from one another. Together with the idea that one can not really tell the direction of time from watching particles of matter and particles of light perform together, this gives some pretty formidable questions about the reality of matter and light!

Professional photographer and guide Chris Conrad enjoys a campfire and a cigar with Jack C. Kirby

What about the stuff that enters the eye, or the lens of a camera? I mean, it seems to be organized in some clever way, and to provide useful information about the universe. We can get our brain, or a computer in our camera, to make sense of the light particles that have entered the respective chamber. We know how the light particle was formed. But, how does the light particle convey information about objects in the field of view?

That is where things get really interesting. Objects 'out there' can absorb light particles, and have their atomic orbits given additional energy, or they can emit particles when the orbits decay. If we are seeing them, the atoms are being struck by light particles, and giving out other light particles. In addition, light particles may bounce off of the object [reflect] in ways that are understood pretty well.

In most cases [outside of a mirror], we do not see the light that originally struck an object. we see the light that it did not want to absorb. The 'color' of an object is really the energy of light that is rejected by that object! The energy of light that was exactly right to lift an electron to a distinctly different orbital shell was kept by the atom. What is cast out, to be 'seen', are particles of light that were not used to lift electron orbits in that bit of matter.


so, light particles are not directly outlining the objects that interest us. The process of looking at objects, or photographing objects is more indirect that we At fist had imagined! It gets a step more indirect after the particles reach the sensor. We still have to organize the particles, and make 'sense' of them! After all, the particles are useless for doing work, other than lifting electron orbits in surfaces that they have struck.

Let that impinge on your mind for a moment! A lot of light particles came into your eye, and they warmed it up in a certain way. And somehow, your brain learned something about the world outside of itself. It can predict things, and choose behaviors that will lead to good experiences. Similarly, a camera can store patterns in a computer chip that have something to do with the world outside of the camera's darkened chamber. unlike the products of the human eye, the camera's patterns can be shared among advanced tool users. This is remarkable, and can be seen as a kind of dream that may be shared. It is another magical thing like the uttering of organized sounds and the recording of those utterances. It allows humans to share their consiousness with other humans over time and distance.

Human thoughts have energy if they are organized. They can do work, and must be paid for in some way.  Organization in one area leads to disorganization somewhere else. I mention this because it bears on the question, should photography be done at all? This is a very difficult question, that asks other questions. What is life for? It is OK to look around, or use devices to look around, while humans are hungry or in pain? Is one here to carry water, or to play around on the internet? Grow food, or hide in a soundproof room and play computer games?

As a verified busy monkey, this author has found that some kind of busy course of action is needed. It hardly matters what exact course that it is. Simply digging holes in the ground and filling them back up would probably work just fine. Fooling around with light particles seems pretty harmless. I dont know. You choose!

real vampires!

Vampires do exist, but they are not set aflame by sunlight, and they do not require human blood to survive. They are ordinary homo sapiens organisms, that were born and raised with insatiable hunger. 

Using reincarnation language, our vampires are the lower animals that hurried into human form without satisfying all of the time consuming requirements. From the soul standpoint, taking human form is a great deal. You may be born a wealthy American, and be assured a life of abundance and plenty. Hopefully, you will not be held captive except during your earliest and final years.

Instead, you will be a great jailer. You will have pets, which are creatures of other species that you have total control over. You will have a series of machines that can do amazing things, so that you do not have to do those things. The machines will go quickly over the earth, getting food and  drilling deep holes in the earth and killing creatures that are not desired.

Hopefully, you will get to 'own' land. This is a really amazing concept! A short lived creature is thought to hold a bit of the planet captive. The human draws exact lines, and they may decide which other creatures cross that line. In some cases, the imaginary lines of ownership extend a certain distance up into the planets atmosphere, and a certain distance toward the core of the planet.

If that is not sufficiently amazing, The islands that make up the dry surface of the planet are also 'owned' or held captive. For these 'continents', the captor is a special group of the vampire humans. The group controls a portion of an island, and the control extends far up into space and down into the ground. Their influence  extends a distance past the imaginary lines, and overlaps with the influences of other groups of vampire humans.

The vampire types keep control of a larger group

of more docile humans. The docile ones are compelled to work with various obvious tricks, including the illusion that they may become a vampire, as well as a kind of hypnosis called 'religion'. The docile ones may also be compelled to leave the imaginary borders of their island, and to purposely harm other humans!

The purposeful harm is called 'war', and it includes the poisoning of the land, the  air, and the water in that other land, so that it is hard for creatures and plants to live there. It is difficult to see how this will work over time, as the illness of war infects lands that are overfilled with humans, where the land and air and water is already badly poisoned.

Can this process be stopped? Wow! It seems to have progressed past a tipping point. Many species have already departed. The atmosphere has been influenced chemically and energetically, so that it needs a few thousand years without human 'husbandry' to calm down.

Perhaps that is the answer. Husbanding has not worked. 'Husbanding' is about harm and captivity and mindless force. 'Husbanding is deep holes and barbed wire and huge fires and cluster bombs.

Perhaps the earth needs to be 'wived'. It is hard for humans to even imagine that. How would largescale 'wiving' look? Do nurturers form armies? How is love 'deployed'. What will become of the NFL?

The good news is that husbanding seems to have run it's course. Within the US, there are areas where Females seem to be loosing rights and becoming the property of men. But, in the world, Women are being given control of countries and companies. Women are shedding the hijab, and donning the trappings of office. It is the most forceful and masculine females that are  encroaching on the all male mandate thus far, but that may change in time.

Real nurturers might get power, and the real 'wiving' of the earth could begin. It is a race, and the outcome is not at all clear. A tiny minority of extremely 'hungry' humans have the upper hand. It is hard to budge them, as they are willing to puncture and burn and cause general harm to remain the 'captor' of their flock. In many cases, they control the news media in their area, and have methods of winning elections and getting laws into place.

One finds oneself in the position of a farm animal, trapped within barbed wire that one worked to put up, and lowing piteously to be set free. How is that supposed to work? It is not that great to be an animal when ones planet has insufficient room for some of it's animals.

The american nightmare

In reviewing a large number of modern movies, I have become disgusted. Most of them are American, and it is pretty clear what Americans [of which I am one] want to watch.

There are lots of movies about stealing money. Probably the second most popular theme is revenge, and the justified captivity and torture of deserving perpetrators. This shows, all too well, the attitude of the average American. The monetary system has failed, because people no longer see money as a reward for very hard work. They think that it does not matter how the money is obtained. In fact, most Americans seem to be involved in handling the money itself rather than in doing useful work.

We are living in the rotting corpse of a once great country. Our people tend to be obese and useless. Our horses have given way to great shiny machines of metal. The machines have replaced our citizens bodies, and fossil fuel powers those bodies. I see parallels with the fall of Rome, with it's dependence on human slaves and continual military expansion.

We have ceased to educate ourselves, except in the acquisition and handling of money. Practical work and resource extraction have been moved to other lands. We are proud of this, and our obesity and uselessness seem like good things. Our remnant of military might is used to grab resources that can not be purchased.

We have allowed the greediest and the least polite among us rule, and this has led to some real world problems. The US should have been the leader in reducing it’s material needs, and in switching to clean energy. Instead, we have allowed our greediest fools to deploy depleted uranium and torture to maintain their monopoly on fossil fuel. We have denied climate change, even while US cities are being covered with sea water.

We reserve real health care and effective education for the very rich. We eject people from their homes readily, and use US soldiers and militarized police to keep our own poor at bay. We are proud of this, and point to a few billionaires as our shining examples. Elon Musk is the only positive example that I am aware of. He has faced our problems head on, using his genius and creative force to tackle obvious problems.

The rest of us remain in chaotic cities, attempting unsuccessfully to get money. We vilify others for what we have done. Here is what we have done: As European rejects, we destroyed most of the native humans, and the larger native mammals of a subcontenent. We did this in a cowardly way, using disease and subterfuge. We imported a race of people to be our slaves. We carved up the land into rectangles, and have controlled those rectangles with brutal force. Firearms and barbed wire and poisons are our favorite tools.

We have replaced the healthful native creatures with mutated and diseased beasts. We imagine that we 'own' them. We make believe that the slaves in their city ghettos have been entirely freed, and that the surviving native humans are very happy in their wasteland concentration camps.

It is time to wake up. The world has seen our rigged elections, and watched us steal oil from any nation that could not defend itself. We have destroyed our own buildings to scare ourselves into surrendering up our semblance of freedom. We pay close attention to a fat and pasty Hitler wannabe, who grabs breasts and promises to lead us in one final pillage of the planet.

Who wants to live in a world like that? Do I have positive suggestions? You bet I do!

We could have real elections, where the most qualified person is elected. I suggest using the internet, and forbidding the use of big money to win elections. We could put up a lot of windmills and solar panels, and allow the oil companies to go out of business.

We could do away with the concept of the corporation. We no longer need 'middle men' to stand between the supply and the consumer. Middle men are worse than useless, especially when they are allowed to set national policy.

We could actually free the slaves, and allow the natives of this land to leave their prison camps. We could attend to our population’s health and education. We do not have a government to steal foreign resources or to read our mail. We have it to make our lives better. We could bring our aircraft and our troops back to the US, and concentrate on defending this place. It would be OK to shrink our military. We have always been able to grow it back at spectacular speed.

As far as borders, well, I honestly don’t know what to do about borders. My own people were chased here by the Nazis. Every group wants to be the last group admitted.

I am not certain that we need such a powerful federal government. The US was originally designed as a confederation of separate countries that could band together in time of war. We have given this confederation too much power, by allowing it to stay in a permanent state of war. We never wanted a king, having finally gotten out from under the British king. Now we have a king, and our once productive nation has changed from eagle to buzzard.

The US need not be destroyed in a war with the rest of the world. It can be allowed to collapse gracefully, as it is doing now. The USSR has already dissolved into states. I wish that I had a more rosy outlook and better suggestions.

Perhaps, if we were healthy and well educated, we could figure out what to do.


 

the case for an immediate switch to renewable fuels.

You will note the photo of the jeep and the solar ATV. Let us concentrate our thoughts on these 2 different types of transportation. It could be said that the Jeep is ready for about a 300 mile journey with it's tank full, and more of the fuel can be obtained [dirt cheap] almost anywhere that it can be driven. Detractors of plug in electric vehicles will suggest that the ATV has a relatively short range, is under powered, and that it's 'fuel' is much harder to replace after it runs out.

Look at the photo again. Right now, neither machine is in use. One is actually fueling up [very slowly], while the other is slowly leaking oil onto the ground, and venting the more volitile benzenes from it's fuel tank into the earths atmosphere. The fossil fuel is, in effect, slowly spoiling, while the plug in vehicle's 'fuel' is slowly leaking into the tank! It is earth's sun, after all, that is filling it up.

While it sometimes seems that the earth's sun is a pretty weak 'fuel', and that fossil fuel is easy to obtain, clean burning, and inexpensive, a closer inspection will reveal that conditions on earth have changed so that solid and liquids fuels should no longer be used within the atmosphere. If we will momentarily divert our genious for war and money-making into this endeavor, we will very quickly be getting about in a silent way, and harvesting as much free fuel from the sun as we [and our decedents] can ever use.

It is important to examine some of the ramifications of a switch to renewable fuels. We are constantly warned that any reduction in the use of grid power or fossil fuel would result in a drastic reduction in jobs, and a collapse in the economy. We have based our economy on the ever-expanding use of coal and natural gas and oil. We even plow the sky, back and forth, with giant metal birds that belch the burned oil into the most vulnerable layers of the upper atmosphere. How could any of this burning effect such a robust, HUGE planet? A planet whose surface is littered with volcanoes, that vent the same gasses that our machinery does?

I am here to tell you, [as a trained oilfield engineer], that decades of study of the the earths crust has not fostered in me a belief in the robustness of our ecosystem. It is the opposite. When ones job is to look deep into the earth, one gets the feeling that they are scooting about on melted rock, riding a very thin skateboard of non melted rock. When you take measurements, the temperature and pressure and chemical toxicity mount very very rapidly as you drill just a short distance down into the thin skin of non melted rock. It is a miracle that fresh water can exist near the surface. The deep holes that we drill into such a hot and toxic environment absurdly risky.

When you look at the big picture then, [including the atmosphere], it is sheer folly to bring flammable toxins to the surface. Burning them directly into the atmosphere is noisy and unpleasant, and we have already overcome the Earth's natural resistance to climate change. Additional burning will work directly against the well being of our children. No financial arguments make any sense. Money is our own concept, but I will attempt to guess the preference of unborn generations:

WE WOULD PREFER TO INHERIT GOOD WATER RATHER THAN MONEY. WE WOULD PREFER A CRUST THAT HAS VERY FEW DRILL HOLES IN IT. WE HOPE FOR AN ATMOSPHERE RICH IN OXYGEN AND LOW IN CARBON DIOXIDE AND HYDROCARBON EXHAUST. WE TRUST YOU TO REDUCE YOUR NUMBERS AND TO CONSERVE YOUR RESOURCES, SO THAT OUR LIVES WILL ALSO BE LONG AND FULFILLING. LEAVE US GREAT SCHOOLS, INSPIRING ART, AND A CAREFULLY THOUGHT OUT RENEWABLE INFRASTRUCTURE. PLEASE HOLD THE WEAPONS AND THE SECRET POLICE AND THE CONSTANT THREAT OF WAR.

In short, there are some arguments for leaving remaining fossil fuel stores in place. Now, we should look at plug-in vehicles and the renewable infrastructure itself. Are renewables just a kind of hoax, along with climate change?

Certainly, renewable energy has changed my life for the better. I switched from the electric grid and generators to photovoltaics some time ago. My little town goes dark pretty often, because we are at the end of a long, and faulty bit of the electric grid. By contrast, my home solar electric runs for years at a time. If the main system needs maintenance, i can rely on two back up systems. Now, i make my own heating and cooking and even some of my motor fuel! That feels pretty good. My choices, freely made, have reduced the number of fires and explosions in the world. I have replaced fires and explosions with little patches of ground that are deprived of sunlight and slightly cooler!

Finally, there is the diffuse nature of sunlight, and the problems with batteries. OK, sunlight is not really that weak! For example, enough sun falls on your house to power anything within reason that needs doing under that roof. Enough typically falls on your car to get you to and from work. Sun or wind are universally available on earth, as long as you make allowances for non-windy periods and night and winter. Only a tiny fraction of the surface needs to be shaded by panels to meet any foreseeable needs that we might have.

Batteries have improved drastically of late, and we should see further refinements quite soon. We are ramping up our production of fairly clean lithium ion batteries now, and these already allow huge travel distances and great performance. Smart neighborhood grids and the new batteries should make our future power systems robust and very efficient.

In summary; it is within our grasp to switch to renewable power almost overnight. We are smart, smart monkeys! The Earth will be cooler and more quiet. We will feel some comfort that we have prepared the way for our descendants in the best way that we could. Stated a different way: Even if you don't believe in God, is it a total waste of time to issue a very brief 'insurance prayer' just in case she exists? Climate change; the future of the energy infrastructure; and the general quality of life for all species on Earth concern us to the point where it might be reasonable to reduce our 'burning' voluntarily.

Einsteins very first paper, in 1905, named and described the photoelectric effect. The atom is described as a slightly more interesting little machine than we initially supposed! Light can strike an atom, and give it that much of a boost in energy. The light is gone then, and it's 'oomph' goes into raising one of the atom's electrons into a higher orbit. If the 'oomph' is great enough, the electron may be free to leave the atom, and to be shared along from atom to atom. It has been suggested that we are burning too much fossil fuel, and harming ourselves. Wouldn't it be a miracle to arrange some way to use these freely marching electrons? O wait..............

How to die happy [No bucket list needed or desired]

How to be a human that dies happy.

Most people understand the idea of a bucket list, which includes the experiences that a person wants to have before their life ends. This idea seems foreign and forced to me. It reminds me of the way that some folks wait until the very last moment to do a thing that they must do. I have always been the opposite kind of person, who does the needed things at the very beggining of the 'due' period.

That is why I addressed my lifes goals very early on, even before i was a teen. When, at age 16, my childhood did not seem to be going well, I forged my parents name on a motorcycle title, and departed the east coast once and for all. Driving west felt correct to me, and I took some care to avoid a traffic stop where my learners permit would come into question.

I was frightened, but far more worried about wasting my life in a region where i did not belong, and doing pointless deeds that were merely expected of me. I recognize that people are driven through their lives by various fears, and later by the compulsion to reproduce. It is not so much that they make incorrect decisions about their lives. It seems like the ship of their life has no captain at all, and floats about at the mercy of winds and tides.

To continue with the analogy, the ship has no destination, and the only steering is to avoid dangers that are very near the prow. These unpiloted ships drift about, directed by greed and fear and community concensus. At the end of their seaworthy days, moments before a particular ship sinks to the bottom of the sea, the captain is finally tempted to point the prow in a direction and stick to it.

Although the mention of death is emotionally catchy, this essay is not really about death. It is about using timing and strength and trickery to balance the fear and greed. There is no religious component to the argument, because, it seems to me that religion most ofen serves to further constrain ones behavior. Instead, I will offer the only real evidence that i have, which are anecdotes from my own life.

Fear of death is overcome to do my first dangerous rock climb.

I started rock climbing later in life, and persued it with my typical single minded zeal. Being slender and somewhat feeble, i knew that genetics alone was not going to power me to the pinacle of climbing accomplishment. So, i purposely sought out the best climbers on earth. I noticed that some of the very strongest climbers would climb tall rock and ice faces with no rope.

I tried some short ones, and was able to do every one by overcoming brief bursts of fear. My first long unroped climb was the east buttress of El Capitan. It is on the right side of the wall, and it's most difficult move is a traverse to the right on small holds. The 'crux' is at an awkward height for an unroped human. At perhaps 60 meters up the wall, it is high enough that a fall can not turn out well, but low enough on El Capitan that the ground is real looking and 'present'.

In addition, quite a few difficult moves occur below the crux, so that retreat is not very attractive. Climbing down is really no harder than climbing up, but the participant spends much of their time looking in the direction of a possible fall to find the foot holds. This can bring on vertigo and dizziness, which will hinder the process. I remember that i was singing a silly popular song about falling, falling, falling as i approached the crux. When i reached it, the look of the moves froze me in place. I felt that there was a good chance that my little song would come true. I thought about starting down, but was disgusted with the idea of being that pathetic guy who fails at everything in life.

After a while, the anger and revulsion at being so pathetic overcame my fear. Basically, i preferred to be dead than to give up any chance of a real life while paralyzed with fear. I headed right across the small holds, finding that i could insert my arm through a sling that was hanging from a piton during the hardest single move. I would not place weight on it, but would have more than one try if I slipped. I got it on the first try, and it felt remarkably easy! It was apparent that the fear had made the holds look smaller and further apart. I still had a few hours of easier climbing to reach the top of El Capitan, but it seemed that i had passed a kind of threshold, and it was easy to remain relaxed. Later, i was to learn some mental tricks that would often reduce the fear and thereby, make the act of climbing unroped much less suicidal.

Getting over a seemingly insurmountable difficulty with leading very hard routes.

After about 10 years of concentrating my efforts on climbing, I realized that no more improvement was happening. When i attempted to lead a very hard route, a terrible conversation would begin in my brain. The cross talk took 99% of my attention, and sapped my confidence. I would always fail, and fall safetly onto the rope. Where was this cross talk coming from?

I meditated on this question for some time, and decided to travel back east and try to make 'friends' with my parents. Perhaps, it was guilt for running away from home, and for depriving my projenitors with the closure that they deserved. I arranged the trip, and carried it off with my charactoristic mixed results. When i arrived back in the west, I set out to climb 'burning in hell'. It was far too steep for my feeble frame, and the holds were simply too far apart to reach! to my delight, i found that the mental conversation had ceased, and i could, at last, concentrate on pulling myself up the rock.

None the less, i continued to fail miserably. In searching for the flaw, i quickly discounted the physical side. I was not a genetically gifted climber, but was highly trained and free of injury. I looked around me, and saw many young climbers attempting to excell. It was thought at the time that lots of pre climb meditation was needed, along with all kinds of shouting and good energy from the onlookers. So, i tried the opposite things. I ceased the pre climb meditations. Instead of practicing the moves in the air, or bragging and beating on my chest, i started bringing a chess set, and found a partner that liked to play games in between our attempts.

There was a huge difference! We would be playing chess, and suddenly, i would glance up at the drastically overhanging wall and notice that no one was climbing. I would hop up and tie into the rope, drag my slippers on in seconds, and begin to climb. My belayer would remain silent, and ask any other onlookers to refrain from the customary yelling. I started to reach the crux of 'burning'. But, being the warmest part of the summer, I would be too hot by then to make a huge reach while pulling myself to the right with my toe under the roof. Obviously, one more ingredient was needed.


One day, i encoutered a large 'possee' from Boulder Colorado in the cave. They were trying 'burning' also, and were attempting to overcome the heat by resting in the shade, and then spraying the climber with cool water just before they began. There was plenty of chest beating and yelling. None of it was working for them, but it gave me an idea for an empiracle experiment. So, seeing that the route was empty, i broke off a chess game, and went out into the hot sun. i began to run up and down hills, and do jumping jacks. I came back into the cave breathing hard and dripping with sweat, and tied myself to the rope. After asking for quiet, i quickly reached the top of burning without any difficulty. furthermore, i could always do it fairly easily after that!

How weed helped me to do Pumparama

So now, i had the basic ingredients to do short, hard routes consistently. I could do long easy routes with no rope, but was still having trouble with routes that are both long and hard. I was in Rifle, Colorado, trying to do the second ascent of a long, very steep route called Pumparama. i decided to quit smoking weed for the season, to see if that was sapping my endurance.

i got good at the lower difficulties, so that i was reaching the final tiring headwall, where i would melt off of fairly easy moves. With some disapointment, I watched the 2nd and 3rd ascents occur while i continued to fall near the top. In the autumn, i finally gave up, and a few superb guys from Oregon offered to help me to retrieve my equipment from the route. Since my quest was over, i could now smoke weed, and we kicked the hacky sack and got really stoned below the wall. The wall was so steep that the only way to get the quick draws off of the bolts was for one person to lead it, and then another person could remove them while climbing the route with a rope from above.

Those guys were smart, and knew more about the issue than i did. So, they convinced me to bring the rope up there myself, even if i had to hang on every bolt. When i started, i heard them begin to say calming things in a conversational volume. They were the opposite of battle cries, and i was disconnected from any expectations of success. Of course, i made the top easily without getting tired at all! I mean, there was never a moment of doubt. Again, I had succeeded because i was willing to experiment. However, in this case, the experiment was to stop consuming a drug that could never be of use to an elite athelete.

To elaborate further, i had quit canabis at an earlier age, and then visited the eye doctor to find that i had the glaucoma that runs through my family. So, quitting canabis for the summer probably lost me a bit of sight around the edges of my visual field. If there is a lesson, it is that there is no magic bullet that leads to triumph and success.

After these experiments, i began to ignore all of the folk wisdom of climbing. I ceased with any kind of special diet or silly sport snacks. As the climbers turned from street people to affluent office workers, i became a object of ridicule; with my ancient ropes, course manners and ripped blue jeans. But, once i had realized that climbing was just a part of ordinary life, i did much, much better. I would feast on boiled eggs and baked potatoes while the others ate power bars and 5 dollar bags of spiced tuna. I learned what to say to the office workers so that they would not yell at me while i was climbing. I learned to choose partners very carefully. One could often find a Norwegian or an American mechanic or farmer to climb with. i learned to hide from the crowds of weekend warriors, and to camp and climb with others that 'lived' climbing.

I repaired climbing shoes out of my truck, so I had no need to travel to a city to obtain income. There was no sense of security, and litterally no safety net at all. There was something else besides sucurity and safety. And here is the catch.... it seems that the safety is illusury. Just like there is no way to get fat enough to live out the rest of your life without eating food again. There is no way to get ones bank account fat enough so that one is 'really' safe. Human safety is not in obesity or wealth. Indeed, it is the opposite! Safety is in avoiding extremes of poverty, illness and injury, and healing from these conditions faster than new misfortunes arrive. It is not so important to entirely avoid hunger, extreme behavior, or risk. Life is like a big machine, with inputs like food and information, and ouputs like poop and behavior [and even new machines!].

Ones machine does not run in outer space. It is emersed in a sea of other machines. That is the complicated and important part. It is the interactions between the machines that is 'seen' by the universe. One's inner struggle takes place largely in secret. There is already a concept of the 'good deed', but 'good deeds' are not strange abberations of behavior motivated by a supreme being upon nearly senseless single cell organisms. 'Good Deeds' are the way that cells of some kind of extended body cooperate to maintain life. Death will be assured if the cells of this proposed body loose all contact with one another, and each cell behaves as if it were alone in a harsh and dangerous environment.

I do not suggest that anti-biotics, bombs, guns and tall walls are of no use in this system. If the universe were like that, there would be only red blood cells needed in the circulatory system, and no need for militaristic [and potentially harmful] white blood cells. How does one deal with situations where love will not work? This question is to be answered in another essay, as this writing is about maintaining a healthful ballence between two extremes. Here are some strange tips for getting older:

All of your friends will die. As tempting as it is to pick one or two humans, and consider them to be all of humanity, this approach may lead to a series of balloon popping events. Eventually, one may just give up the drivers seat after enough of these deflating events. I am pretty sure that I have seen this happen to many humans. As I look around, I see a kind of deep communication between humans that is not easily explained by Physics. As mentioned, I believe that this somewhat unseen 'bobbing of sparks' in the huge darkness is the real business of humans. Avoiding unbearable regret can be as simple as remembering the sparks while wallowing in the earthly mire.

Later, you will not remember the times of total comfort. It will be the times of rapid personal growth that stay sharp and clear in the memory. As long as the growing outpaces the dying, well, that is called 'life'. This should slightly redefine the meaning of 'safety'. I mean, sometimes, a person's way to see beyond themselves is to run really, really far, or to try a dangerous activity. So, there are grades of foolhardyness, that range from attempting to fly from a tall building, to trying a friendship with a human that is not exactly 'inside the box' of comfort. Being too 'safe' can itself be a kind of danger!

So, what is the summary of this essay? Do I suggest that everyone quit their job, and start bungie jumping and hitch hiking about? Well, if you are frozen in place, and no longer growing, some kind of shake up might be in order. But, I am not suggesting that one pilots ones own ship by constantly making random course corrections. One picks far off gails, and heads in that direction. If the ship is not making headway with the sails how they are now, the sails are reconfigured. Although one makes one's own choices, one stays on the radio with the other captains who are out there, themselves making choices in the dark and briney deep.