Where's Hazel? Pet Hazel. Hazel needs her dreadlocks
trimmed.
The Other Christmas Baby
No party here. Dinner with extended family
tomorrow. For now I'm baking a banana bread birthday
cake for my late brother Glen. I'll light one candle
before I cut the end slice for my midmorning tea.
Whatchamacallit
And that brings up another point: Oblong. Cellphone?
Ha! A camera you talk to, a road map that plays music, a
calculator on which you compose messages... Phone is
the least of the functions. One might just as well say
I'll write you a message on my camera. Let me ring you
up on my GPS. I'll take a picture of that with my
roadmap. Oblong for the shape of this communicative
Swiss Army Knife makes so much more sense.
Free For All
Strange day at the food bank. Usually during this
Christmas/New Year period there is none of the usual weekly
food boxes. Volunteer hours accumulate as credit in
the Thrift Store. This week, yesterday, just as I was
checking out at the end of my four hour shift, the Food Room
Manager came into the office to announce that a big truck
from Costco had just left off several pallets of prepared
deli meals and there was no room to refrigerate the
load. We have to get rid of this stuff, she said, grab
a box and have at it.
Free for all reigned. Whatever you can carry.
Take it away. Mac&Cheese, MeatLoaf&Mashed,
Stuffed Peppers, Shrimp&Coctail Sauce, 16" Pepperoni
Pizzas, must have been a whole pallet of bananas mostly
still not ready for banana bread. Another pallet full of 10#
sacks of potatoes... My two coolers were
stuffed. The only meat other than the meatloaf was a
bag of foot-long hotdogs.
2023xii29/30
Slept mostly all the way through. Only got up once and
that was more to escape a bad dream than to pee. The
dream was not really scary-nightmare but scary-omen: I
was parked on a street somewhere I knew people. In my
old yellow van or this bus—there were features of both mixed
together. Early morning. Strange scraggly ogre
looking grizzled men were walking to and fro, looking in the
windows. I was running up and down the inside looking
out. I opened the side door, asking what they
wanted. I was not dressed yet and one of them stared
and pointed. Then my attention shifted to the
back. One of the doors there was open. I went
back to close that door but couldn't—something about kitchen
table was wrong... the layers were delaminating. I
tried to glue and clamp the layers but Joan & Roger's
lawyer in Florida said not to bother...no use... the back
door was jammed or misshapen. Then the other rear door
fell off. The frame was rotted and there was a huge
nest of paper wasps between inner and outer walls...the
temperature was sort of cold so the wasps were sluggish when
I went forward to find the hornet spray...a woman was
kneeling on the drivers seat grasping at something on the
wall...I was dragging cans and bottles from under the front
seat where I keep chemicals and such but couldn't find the
bug spray...hornets and ants were crawling about and then I
woke. What does that mean? And what about Naomi?
Happy Screw Year
Of all things: I got caught up in a scam
yesterday. Didn't lose any money, at
least not yet, my bank was watching and intercepted the
charge due to suspicious activity. Gave me a new
appreciation of how one's mind works and pointed up a hole
or two in my usual vigilance.
2024i1 New Years Day
My apologies for missing the Food Bank Gathering last
thursday. I'm not sure where I was or what happened; I
have pretty much lost the past week. Abducted by
aliens? Maybe. Not sleeping off a drunk for
sure. I remember some of the events and things I did
accomplish but I cannot measure or relate to the days.
Now, today, as I think about Food Bank on wenzday and
shopping and mail, I am suddenly painfully aware I've not
only missed that party but friday and saturday as
well. I remember checking out wenzday last and the
free-for-all in the food room; I remember shopping at Fry's
and having part of that nice meatloaf for supper; next thing
is Michael stopping here for tea on his way home from
dialysis last night. I must have been here, there are
entries in my daily journal. They are in my
handwriting, what I did and all; but then they could be
forged.
 Over The Bounding Main
George wrote from his sailing vessel off Puerto Vallarta
that salt spray has damaged the microphone of his marine
radio. Thank you George for that picture of your
mic. I can see why any repair is beyond you.
Beyond me as well. I used to believe that given enough
time and money (mostly for parts) I could fix
anything. But that faith has been beaten out of
me. I don't have the tools to work on Surface Mount
Devices. My magnifying glasses get in the way of my
soldering iron. My doctor says I must wear a mask, eye
protection, and maintain a Beaufort
Scale 4 breeze when soldering: My blood Lead
Level is up to 6.
Twelfth Night...
Came and went. No Wise Men here. No wise
gifts. No dumb gifts even.
Hosen Frozen
28f observed. Last time I saw the water hoses freeze
was years and years and years ago at Eldo.
 Wicked Windy Weather 40-35-20
Arctic Express roared through on Thursday whilst I was out
visiting my ophthalmologist. Drifting and blowing yard
art, twelve-foot sections of corrugated roof steel tossed
about like pick-up-sticks, Gust-O-Meter peaked at
44mph. 40Mph at 35f gives a Chill Factor of 20f.
That’s enough to “freeze
the balls off a brass monkey”. Yesterday’s
annual vision checkup resulted in new scrip for glasses and
additional admonitions for eye care. Nothing yet requiring
intervention however cataracts in the corners and floaties
in a family way do not bode well.
On The Road Again—Sort Of
Reporting from Allan's Tonopah Garage where I am presently
parked not too close to the dumpster out front by the gate.
Have a nice Day? Let me count the ways:
1. Wenzday: The 3208 and the
APU started OK and ran a bit to be sure and ready for
departure. TinyTruck loaded up nicely wenzday
afternoon and I went to bed and dreamt of miles rolling by
under my wheels. (That's three...)
4. Thursday: Unplugged shore
power, filled water, TV antenna stowed, started motor and
moved to hitch truck. Tested lights. No
directionals no hazards, Found flasher bad--installed
spare.
5. Uptown to FlyingPilot. No
propane. They've not had propane for a week now.
I think I have sufficient if the weather is not too cold.
6. To Eldo for a shower and a soak.
7. Post Office and find LF wheel
bearing cover is leaking oil. Uh-oh... Top up
and drive to Allan's Garage where I find the RF wheel
bearing cover is also leaking oil. Remove leaking
cover for Show&Tell and TinyTruck off to
O’Reilly's--closest place. We don't have "anything
that small" but we can order them, take about a week, try
Tractor Supply just up the street; there I learn they don't
have "anything that large". So I called NAPA.
They have that part in the warehouse, be in Buckeye in the
morning.
8. Friday now. New covers
installed. Gasket glue takes overnight to dry-set-cure
before you can add the oil. So I busy my Self
repairing a 4-6-4 steam engine for Allan's HO layout.
9. Mostly cloudy. Not a very sunny
day. Battery got up to only 90%. We'll see if
there is any "Nice Day" remaining for tomorrow.
Rain-Rain Go Away—At least wait until I depart.
Sunday in the tiny town of Quartzsite (population ~1500 in
Summer and well over 15,000 in Winter) at Roadrunner 14-Day
Campground for what's left of my fortnight away from
Tonopah. 0.08" rain overnight, very cloudy now.
Burning propane in the APU to make up for no solar.
22nd January
More rain on tap for today—Monday—I think I will bake a
banana bread. Learning about a new tool for
navigation. A “what3words” address, made of 3 random
words. At w3w.co you can learn that every 10ft square
in the world has its own unique what3words address. The
Cat Drag'd Inn was located at Mile99 in the Roadrunner
camp at
///triangles.wanderer.glades 0.61” of rain, moderate
at times, puddles abound, washes washing knee deep.
Tight budget here. Every character typed costs 17
photons of solar insolation. More later when I return
to sunny days or the grid.
 Rabid-Rabbit... Febter Oncet
What do you call a small bird with a yellow breast that
starts away when you try to sprinkle salt on its tail?
...and that brings me to: oncet there was a boy we
called Dougie who must have been the younger cousin of an
older boy on that particular tour. We had been
wandering the Smithsonian Museums on The Mall and were
having lunch on a sward near The Carousel with
a flock of pigeons sharing our crumbs. Dougie, one of
those kids who could never sit still, was forever poking at
someone to play with him. One of the older boys handed
him the salt shaker and told him to go catch
a pigeon.
Earlier this week on the first leg of my return to Tonopah
from Quartzsite I stopped at the propane store to refill the
tanks for the APU and domestic use. As I shut down the
motor at the pump the old-timer from Maine exclaimed in a
voice that sounded just like Mahty of The Mountain: “You got
some leak heah...” Red fluid was dripping from above
down onto the propane tank and onto the ground. Pissing
might be a bit more expressive. First inspection showed me
the leak was at the point where the one inch copper for the
heater loop comes from the engine, through the propane
locker there on the starboard side, and elbows into the
firewall just by the access door under the right rear window
of the bedroom. See photo.
There are two ball valves which can isolate this heater
loop. One is just beyond the propane tank there and the
nipple from the elbow goes to the right to a hose at the
firewall. When one looks in there at the right angle you can
see the end of the hose and the fluid dripping out. I
closed both ball valves to isolate the heater loop but the
pressure in the loop continued to force glycol out for
another half hour. After that I was able to complete my
drive to Tonopah. Now I have to take apart my bed to get
down to the hose and the leak. Had I not stopped for propane
that leak would have bled coolant for the next 70-80 miles.
High Road Or Low Road
Speed that is. Parts of i10 west of Tonopah are under
destruction; the “Travel Lane” of some miles reminds me of
certain roads in New Hampshire where the road crew was known
to fill in the potholes with bumps. Many vehicles are
travelling in the passing lane and passing in the travelling
lane. Some, like The Cat Drag’d Inn, are
straddling the lane marker and rumble strip and travelling
with the right wheels in the breakdown lane. In an
effort to mitigate further damage to my bookcase I took the
opportunity to explore the road less travelled and turned
off i10 onto old US60 through Brenda and beyond Hope.
Just the way to go for a slowcoach wannabe.
 Ground Hawg Daze
Rain last night: 0.48" in my gauges; 29mph on
Gust-O-Meter. And in my bed, 0.03" from new leak in
roof. At first I thought the culprit was Hurricane
Hazel-Rah however she was adamant in proclaiming "see how
dry I am?" and I knew the water was not mine--wrong colour,
wrong smell. So I was obliged to sit there and await another
drop to fall. Ah-Ha! Water coming in along the TV antenna
wire. I had to give Hazel an extra dollop of milk to
ameliorate Her Royal Miffedness.
A Stroll Between Winter Storms
 That hike yesterday to The Windmill
Caves turned out upon reflection to be a special time for
me. Rooting about in the upper cave where I have on
occasion left tokens in the cavelets I spied on the floor a
token someone else left and for a moment thought to leave
one I had in my  pocket from my late friend
Nita. Except, I found, that the token I would leave
was not in my pocket. Should have been in the right hand
pocket of my jacket, was when I put the jacket on that
morning. I touch the thing, rub the surface between thumb
and finger as if the token were a worry stone or a good luck
charm that fell to me in a time of need. Oh well; fell from
me perhaps to someone else.
On the walk out, where several others were blazing a new
trail off to my left, I was following our outbound track
watching for the only flattened beer can Cheryl and I saw on
the way in. And there in the lug-soled footprint of a size
nine Limmer was the Tree-Token that should have been in my
pocket. The glassy silver half-dollar-sized medallion
fraught with Nita symbolism must have escaped when I stopped
to blow my nose. Now the token has returned to my
pocket, this time on the left side, affixed with a Safety
Pin, removed from commingling with a rapacious bandanna.
 Glycol Leak Reprise
 Most of yesterday (we’re up to 9th Febter
now) was consumed by the process of taking apart my bed to
get at the glycol leak discovered on my return from
Quartzsite. Where the copper pipe comes through the
firewall from the engine to the cabin heater the steel edge
of the hole has for years and years been sawing away at the
copper. Bumpy roads exacerbate the action until the
coolant leak calls attention to the breach. Now I have
the pipe out and have to decide how to effect repair.
At one end of the scale I might try to fill the hole with
solder and clamp a hose section over the patch. I can
do that. But taking account of my mechanic’s
admonition (“put it together in case your the next poor
bastard to work on it down the road”) I should work at the
other end of the scale and have a plumber rebuild the entire
section of pipe. Or replace the entire section of pipe
with hose given the other factoid I learnt about the erosion
of the copper pipe caused by flowing coolant.
Aside from the hole in the pipe, the wall thickness of the
old pipe is perhaps half that of the new. The loss
of copper is due to abrasion/erosion of the flowing
fluid.
 Companions To Sleep With.
Interesting comment on the times of life... Companions to
sleep with: Childhood Teddy Bears have become Oblong and TV
Remote.
Presidents Day Presents
Michael just bought a "new" car. A few years ago, when
his motor car blew its engine again he bought a used
all-electric Fiat and touted the economy of carbon and lack
of gasoline use. But every time he drove 50 miles he
had to recharge four hours before he could drive home.
So now he has gone back to a gasoline car.
Calendar Malfunction
Yesterday I drove an hour to be late to a Poll Worker
training session that was not happening. Wrong
day. The training is today so I'm about to depart
earlier to get there on time. [Some hours and miles
later...] Finished formal Poll Worker Training. A few
homework assignments and I will be fully qualified to assist
and tell voters where to stuff their ballots.
TinyTruck’s Turn To Leak
Clamoring for her share of attention on FoodBank Wenzday,
returning from shopping TinyTruck humming along past the
last exit before NoWhereLand and suddenly the cabin filled
with steam. Well, that’s what BreakDownLanes are there
for, eh... I found the radiator dry. Two liters
of Desert Emergency Water and a half gallon of coolant later
I was able to get off at a truck stop exit and find more
coolant to get me to Paul’s Safe Haven.
Thursday, 22nd Febter, Mom’s & Flora’s &
George’s B’days
A day for fixing coolant leak in TinyTruck. I started out to
do the fix on my own but quickly came to the conclusion I
lacked the tools. So I topped up the radiator and sped off
towards Allan's Garage. Two miles up the road the temp gauge
was creeping up to the red line so again I stopped and
refilled the radiator. Then I figured if maybe I drove
slower the motor might not heat so much. That worked! The
leak seemed to open only when the system was hot enough to
build pressure. So I drove 35 instead of 50 and the temps
stayed down. At the garage Allan put a pressure tester
on the radiator cap and quickly located the leak near the
clamp in a short hose between the block and the heater. Then
the task became one of draining hot fluid and finding new
hose and clamps. All fixed and soon returned to the road at
speed. Just dandy!
Still working on the CritterCam and now a GPS has failed. No
OEM parts available for either so I have to hunt around for
scraps and rebuilds. This throwaway society of Homo
economicus is tiring to say the least. At the New
Yacht Club on Salome Highway berthing in dry dock includes
prestocked flotsam and jetsam so your hulk will feel right
at home. There is sufficient debris laying about to
keep eleven able-bodied FoSM fellow trash pickers busy for
three days filling a ten-wheeled dump truck and a flatbed
trailer. Times such as this serve only to deepen my
resolve that Homo sapiens is approaching an evolutionary
split: Homo
economicus v.s Homo
ludens and my own writing on this matter.
 Phrase of the Day: iPad iSolation
engenders iNability to focus.
Stolen
Focus gets off to a slow start but then becomes
more and more exciting and profound. And scary.
From time to time in my reading I come across a chapter or a
point the author is making that I have experienced in my own
relationship with screen devices I am reminded to
proselytize. "Too
much [screen time] makes you forget how to play."
LitterBox Letters (Inspired by “The Dogeared Page” in
The SUN)
The Purina
Diet (14 years ago) Yesterday when I was
out shopping for a video card I stopped at the Wal-Mart on
the other side of the exit to buy a large bag of Purina dog
chow for my loyal pet, Ms La Gata the Alarum Cat, who has
recently taken to lifting her leg to pee. In the checkout
line a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did
she think I had, an elephant? So since I'm retired and
have little else to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I
didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again.
(You might want to consider this too.) I added that I
probably shouldn't, because I ended up in the hospital last
time, but that I'd lost 17 pounds before I awakened in an
intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my
orifices and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that
the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with
Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel
hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well
and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here
that practically everyone on queue was now enthralled with
my story.) Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive
care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no; I
stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's ass and a car
hit us both. I thought the guy behind her was going to have
a heart attack he was laughing so hard. Wal-Mart won't
let me shop there anymore.
In other current news I've been working up some statistics.
Since I started driving in 1960 my logbooks indicate I have
driven eight vehicles* 700,000 miles. That's about 11,666**
miles/year. Not counting various company trucks and rental
cars, prob'ly an insignificant percentage. (“The
Devil Is In The Details”) And that's only driving
miles. A different statistic would be passenger miles:
Planes, ships, railroad... I'll have to think about that
number.
*1st an unknown klunker worked well enough
to drive onto the lot as a trade-in for 2nd a used
1957 VW Bug. Third was a new 1964 VW MicroBus.
4th a new 1967 Chevy G-10 Window Van with 45 gallon
fuel capacity that by herself went 330,000 miles
before the frame broke. A Honda 800 V-Twin and a BMW
R-100-RT interspersed between deployments to McMurdo
and Palmer. Finally in 1997 my current
/TinyTruck/ 1986 Isuzu
http://thecatdragdinn.org/ajo095mr.htm and this 1964
Superior bus a.k.a. /The Cat Drag’d Inn/
http://thecatdragdinn.org/ajo054oc.htm. And
that’s not to mention my first motor-cycle—Honda 250
with training wheels—and my second, a Honda 450 that I
set out to recreate parts of Persig’s book, and the
Honda 750 that I left in Conway when I ran away to
Antarctica.
**If 666 is the mark of evil, is
25.80697580112788031518842060519 the root of all evil?
 Another Hero Blown Away: Guy Gosselin
1933-2024
The Obs looked like a really cool place to live and work in
1969. I was on the summit of Mount Washington on some
sort of Scout hike then; the details are lost in the fog but
Guy hired me on the spot. He became somewhat of a
father figure to me, more than he was "The Boss", or "The
Chief Observer" of The
Mount Washington Observatory, and I worked for
him—with him—until 1987 when I ran away to McMurdo
Station Antarctica. See First Degree
Page for other late heroes.
Mar10 Day
Another discouraging day here looking at trash in the
desert. Appalling how some asses will drive miles on
rocky sandy roads into the desert to dispose of a fridge or
a swamp cooler rather than stay on pavement fewer miles and
pay a fee to leave their junk at the transfer station.
The same mentality drives some idiots to travel miles out of
their way to save a nickel a gallon on gas.
14 - 21 March, Pi Day, Geocaching, Equinox, Hail,
Voting
 Thursday Pi Day! Friday evening
Hail! Pea-sized hail covered the ground. Food
Pantry on Saturday (not to be confused with Food Bank) Feast
Day of Saint Patrick, dinner at Toby-Sue's. Tuesday
Voting. Wenzday Food Bank. Thursday: Nice day
for a maintenanator visitatator. Two of my caches out
back in the hills were in need of new cachetainers.
R&R the leaky old plaxtic boxes with a shiny new metally
air tight waterproof boxes. For good luck I left a
"Never Lose A Toss" NH State Quarter. (NH quarters
always come up heads.) Bring a pair of needle nosed pliers
to pull the cholla clusters out of your shins. Good
Hunting.
22 March--I had a bite taken out of my right forearm. My
DermaDoc said "Suspicious, needs biopsy." Another old timer
there had a piece taken out of his ear. In the evening
email was a note from an Art Rogers. Subj: Are you
still breathing?? The rest of the page was
blank. I recall an Artie Rogers from Troop
55--1968-70, he would have been 12-13--who eventually became
a truck driver. Met him along the road once upon a
long ago in Florida. He was living in a sleeper cab
tractor with his cat and scuba gear. He must be 65 or
so by now, eh? I sent him a photo from that time to
see if he can recognise himself. I hope he writes
again.
Primary Inverter is sending Error Messages. Biopsy
comes back positive. These are the Straws that break
the Camel's Back. The Solar Eclipse will have to
happen without me; I will not be travelling to TeXas.
So what about that bird? A Gold flinch (Aurum abhorreo).
|
2024 Spring Equinox —
Greetings Virtual Travellers and Pen Friends: 
