That Lurching Feeling

My better half's truck crapped out a few days ago. Apparently it either decided it was just too nice at the drug store to leave, or it took one look at rush hour traffic and said NO. Can't say that I blame it. Phone calls are made, meaningful and expensive items are transferred to my faithful steed, and the tinkering begins.

Me, I'm not Sherlock Holmes. I like to think I'm observant enough to get by, though. Popped the hood on that truck, and couldn't spot anything wrong; No dangling wires, belt was in good shape, no corrosion on the battery, no obvious leak points on the head or exhaust manifolds, fluids at good levels. Turning the key gets a *click click click*.

Near as I can figure, the truck has spark, has compression, has no issue with the battery or the alternator. After having attempted the near sisyphean task of shoving the lame beast uphill (Got about three quarters of the way up hill before Random Old Guy gave a helpful shove with his car bumper), we know that the engine isn't knackered because we got it to roll start. So, it's either a computer issue, or the starter motor is going pear-shaped. I say going because apparently it works when it feels like it.

Side note: Pushing around a truck on level ground isn't that bad. Pushing a truck down a hill feels like you are deliberately trying to screw up your vehicle, except you know someone you trust is inside to stomp the brakes if things get hairy. Pushing a truck uphill has a suck factor of say, 4. I've done things that I hated more, but it's noteworthy. But there's no-way you can physically push-start a truck with one guy without having a nice hill to give a gravitational assist. We ended up using my car to shove the thing around until it finally lurched to life during the roll start. I saw the thing jump some as my better half dumped the clutch and I mentally subtracted a 500 miles from the expected lifespan of the transmission box. Not something I'd recommend relying on permanently.

Figure we can't trust the truck if it's being so willful, so right now it's grounded at the top of the steepest portion of the driveway just in case we have to nudge it back to life again.

Squirrel Aggression

Squirrels have a special place in my life. Specifically, I like them field dressed and cooking over a spit.  Brush on a little garlic and butter, serve on rice. I haven't met a squirrel yet that I wouldn't prefer to have either actively cooking, or zip-locked in the freezer waiting to be cooked. When I see a squirrel, my eyes glaze over in bushy-tailed wrath. The urge to bulldoze entire forests overcomes me. I envision sitting on my porch and taking them out, one by one, sniper style, from cover with a .22 loaded with sub-sonics. If it wasn't a waste of meat, I'd use frangibles and blow their little squirrel asses away. Nothing but a pink mist and a bushy tail bouncing down from the limbs. Beady-eyed little bastards.

This is a relatively recent opinion of mine, though. I used to like squirrels (other than when they are over a fire, of course). What has caused this sea-change of private opinion? Well, it comes down to squirrel communications. Squirrels have three modes of communication; dead silent, chattering, and repetitive shrieking. The squirrels around my place must be a rather special breed, because all they do is shriek. They hang outside of my window, and inform me of all the injustices that plague their rodent minds. It's like the Secret of NIHM, except with squirrels that are only intelligent enough to sit in one spot for hours and say "Poop" over and over again before they lick the windows of the short bus on their way home.

5 AM and a cat is nearby? Let me sing you the song of my people. One of the nut bearing trees has dried out? Let's cuss about it for four hours. Songbirds hanging around? Let's join in and get a jazz session going. These squirrels are busier than a coms center in WWII, and I can't help but think of the amount of nuts they'd have stored away if they spent less time bitching and more time being the gatherers that they are supposed to be. Most likely they're just pissed at all the stray cats, but in their endeavors to tell the cat exactly where they are, they are also pissing off me.

And man is the most dangerous predator of them all.

I've gone full gangsta twice in the past few weeks and capped two squirrels for trying to send word on the grapevine for hours on end. Both ended up on a plate. Revenge, it turns out, is a meal best served hot and with a salad.

Back to Basic (computing)

Some times I like to crack out my old Asus Eee 900, just because. To be fair, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old war horse.. It still boots up, holds a 6 hour run-time charge, connects to the WiFi and gets me online. I've booted it up to type this blog entry, matter of fact. The only problem really is that I've got enough spare tech laying around that I don't generally think about cracking out the Asus unless I really need to, or I just feel like putzing about on it. It's the tech equivalent of dicking around the woodshop, to be honest.

Talk about first world problems. I'd really like to find a use for the thing. I might just be able to use it at UGA, provided I can get the browser updated (not an issue) and get some basic capabilities put on it (like reading .pdf's, also not an issue). It's not really much of a jump from .docs to typing things up in Google Drive anyway, and it gives me some measure of being able to roam about campus as I need to, without worrying about my nicer laptop getting high-graded.

Atta Boy, Utah

Browsing through news reports before going to class, I happened upon this gem. I heart civil disobedience in the face of national government stupidity, so the folk in San Juan county get a gold star in my book.

Never understood of public lands being closed to the public anyway. Let me just sign a waiver that says that if I die it's my own damn fault for being stupid and let me go in. That way no one gets sued. If folks have got the money to go, and the land is still physically there, I don't see what the problem is.

A German Nigerian Prince Wants to Publish Your Thesis!

Got an email over night from a publishing company out of Germany. Some person I don't know sent me this passive aggressive email, being all butthurt that I didn't respond to their first scammy email. And make no mistakes, there are scams aplenty for recent grad students to blunder in to.. Fake honors societies (make a one time donation to become a member!), publishing companies that would like to be so generous as to offer to publish your thesis for exorbitant fees and full sign-over of rights..

Critical thinking and common sense are not currently in vogue with the masses, and that's doubly true for the students that have graduated in the last couple of decades. Triple true for any politician, since creating unique problems to provide solutions for is more profitable than solving existing problems. So, it makes sense that these sorts of scams have popped up over the years, especially since emailing because cuts their advertising budget down to practically nil as long as they have a decent front*.

Here's the thing though; grad students are supposed to be well versed in critical thinking. It's one of the requirements of putting out innovative material; you've looked at all these papers and looked at your data and synthesized it into something new. I guess I'm just a little sad that there's overwhelming evidence, in the form of scams, to tell me that these same grad students are shutting off their critical thinking skills when they aren't looking at papers.

*Webpage

Politics; The Ultimate Peril of Academic Ambition

It's not really a secret that I teach Geomorphology at the University level, but what courses and where I'll leave up to the fickle anonymity of the internet. There's not a code of silence that you have to sign along with your first born child and a year of Associate Professor salary in order to work in academe, but there might as well be. If your political views are right of center, for example, it would probably be best to heed the advice of your first amendment lawyer and shut your damn mouth before your political opinions wreck your chances of getting hired by a left-leaning department (pro-tip; most departments lean so far left that they look like Michael Jackson berating a dropped penny on the floor).

Damn you penny!

Got to walk a fine line when it comes to politics, then. I mostly keep my opinions to myself, but participate in like minded groups when I can (quietly). I can pitch group membership of innocuously named groups easily enough without getting myself in trouble, but getting ostracized for loudly being pro-2nd is a good way to get off tenure track. Then again, that's what this blog is for; it's a pressure release valve for things I can't say on campus.

At least until I get tenure, then I can say whatever the hell I want.

One is an Anomaly. Two is a Coincidence. Three is.. Probably Not a Trend.

Scientifically speaking, I guess you'd need about 60 articles or so all pointing to the data and forecasting water woes country wide in order for it to be a trend.Still, water news tends to run dry (heh) right about this time of year and yet I keep seeing articles like this, and this.

When water scientists are talking shortage forecast, without raising alarm bells, they are typically looking at a multi-decadal planning horizon that takes net population increase trend lines (and therefore water consumption trend lines right along with trend lines for increasing efficiency) into account. Gotta make the argument here (which is probably why I'm not an Urban Geographer); if no new resources can be brought online, and increasing efficiency standards can't meet demand, why would city planners keep trying to bring in more population to increase the city's tax base? Money can buy water, it's just that to engineer your way to a solution could take more than most people are willing to shell out for.

And while you can raise the price of gas and milk and most people won't tear their hair out, I know for a fact that politics gets real ugly, real quick, when managers start seriously considering jacking up the price of water to pay for public waterworks to increase supply. Some congress-critter with a smarmy smile and greased back hair will claim his respectable opponent wants to force little old ladies on short budgets to die of dehydration in order to line the pockets of his friendly neighborhood construction company.

Georgia... Sweet, Georgia

The secret lair has moved from its undisclosed location in North Carolina to a second undisclosed location in Georgia. The primary reason for the move is so that I can go to grad school to start on my PhD (which, surprise, I've already started on my PhD!)

Moving kind of sucks. Everything has to be packed just so, everything has to get moved, then unpacked. Meanwhile, there's yards to mow, things to fix, and, oh yeah, school work to be done too. Driving back and forth across a couple of states every weekend is starting to be kind of a drag too.

Then again, at least I'm down here in GA, actually working on getting a PhD instead of thinking/wanting to work on it. The difference between motion and action, then.

Still, I'll be glad when this moving business is over with.

Stupid Name, Cool Service

Just a head's up that services like this exist. Need to get a spare key to your place to someone out of state? Too busy to go by a hardware store? Have a weird key that's hard to get a match on? This seems like a pretty good deal. There's been times in my life where arrangements had to be made on getting a key to a person, and it involved having to hide the damned thing in odd places and giving them directions on how to find it. Seems like this is much more secure.

Shloosl is still a pretty damned stupid name, though, no matter how you slice it.

Doesn't Seem Like a Credible Expert, Does He?

<sarcasm>Joe Biden looking elated after hearing that his advice to his wife on home defense landed her in jail.</sarcasm>

You know, I kind of figured that this would happen.

 People are really ignorant about what the appropriate, narrowly defined corridors are for using a firearm for self defense. This leads to all kinds of wild and silly assumptions about what is and is not legal, and what gun owners can get away with. Let this be a lesson to folk of all stripe; you can't just blast some rounds in the air and expect everything to be copasetic.

At the very minimum, don't take self defense advice from someone who makes their hay by lying for a living.

Yard Sales!

My better half and I are conducting a series of yard sales, both to raise funds and to reduce the volume of objects that we'd have to move to Georgia this fall. So far it's going pretty well, aside from the house being a complete wreck and initial crankiness because neither of us is used to 4:30 am wake ups.

Yard sale customers are an interesting mix, makes for good people watching. Folks range across the political spectrum and in apparent income. Plenty of folk drop by that either speak limited English, or rely on their children to translate for them. I've seen people dressed up like they're heading to a social event, and folks who look pretty far removed from their Sunday finest. The one thing that they seem to have in common is an eye to buy some used stuff, which we have plenty of.

Been mighty pleased with the results of the initial yard sale, despite heat, annoyances and the odd biting bug. If we do half as well today as we did yesterday, I'd be tickled silly.

Pretty Good, but...

I liked this video, it was pretty informative. My only issue is that they left out the estimate five to six earths oceans of water being stored as deep water within rocks in the earth's mantle. (Deep water gives the rocks the pliability needed to allow subduction, and volcanic eruptions are mostly super-heated water coming back up to the earth's surface as steam).

Pro-Tips; What to do/Not to Do at Disney

You wouldn't think it from the photo, but this is one the most crowded places I've ever been.

Very shortly after my better half and I got hitched, we high-tailed it south towards Florida for warmer weather and singular experiences. We got both, though I was more stricken with nostalgia than she simply because I was older than her when I last went (I was around 9). We had an absolute blast and I thoroughly recommend everyone go to Disney at least once.

Caveat major; there are some things that I learned from the experience that can only be gained by hindsight, and weren't mentioned in any of the preparatory literature I read.

1.) Stay in a cheaper room, but get one of the better meal plans.

This one alone could make or break a trip. Food in Disney is most definitely not cheap. You can't even leave for lunch and come back, since parking has a fee all its own. Staying at a Disney resort avoids most of this mess, but the trick is to avoid the higher tier "specialty" rooms. We stayed in the "Royalty Suite" at Port Orleans, but to be honest we didn't spent much time in the room nor much attention to the detail therein. We'd have been just as happy in a cheaper room. The meal plan that we payed for, the deluxe, was awesome and worth every penny just to know that we had scheduled meals and plenty to eat with no worries during the stay. Just make sure you book your reservations at the restaurants well in advance, at least for dinner.

2.) Don't be stingy with the snacks.

Seriously, meter out enough each day to burn them up. Doesn't matter if it's just for a cold drink, get what you paid for. That being said, try to use snacks as a slow down point during your day. Imagine, you are tired, hot, and harried. Now imagine breaking away from the crowd, sitting in the cool of the shade, and enjoying some ice cream or a cold drink. It can make a world of difference in your mood.

3.) Back packs are a bad idea.

Don't carry a purse, knapsack etc. They are too heavy and require you to go through a baggage check to get in. The "No carrying" line is a breeze, you just walk straight through. More to the point, carrying things in a backpack just gives you more to lose. So, clip your phone to your belt, a water bottle on a carabiner, and some extra sunscreen in a cargo pocket just in case. Perhaps some chap-stick as well. Guys should carry the park tickets in their wallets.Women folk should carry an additional hair tie or something to put their hair back in a pocket. That's it.

4.) But smartphones are a good idea!

Used my phone a ton at Disney; taking pictures, reading books while my better half used the restroom, using the Disney app for navigating the park and looking up wait times, and knowing the weather conditions. Judicious use of the Disney app in particular kept us abreast of the shortest wait times and saved us fruitless walks across the park just to check the time at that ride.

5.) Sun screen & Hats & Bandannas oh my!

No brainer here; I saw lots of toasty folk all over the place. Sun Screen up every morning, and after getting drenched if applicable. Wearing a hat helps keep the glare out of your eyes; can't tell you how many pictures of me exist where I'm squinting like a constipated cowboy out on the plains. My better half got a sunburn on top of her noggin, poor thing, from leaving her straw hat in the room one too many times. A bandanna would be a good option for covering your nugget, and you can wet it and throw it around your neck to help cool you off to boot.

6.) Explore and pay attention to detail.

Take your time, try not to rush. That's the way to stress. Look around and enjoy it. One of the best meals we had at Disney was at a restaurant called the Rainforest Cafe, which we stumbled upon while exploring. Look in nooks and crannies, try to find the hidden Mickey Mouse symbols all over the place, and notice all the details all over the place that make Disney such an experience.

7.) Get up early, leave early.

Get to the parks first thing in the morning, and try to ride the biggest draw rides first. Have some lunch, and then go back to your hotel for a couple hours of down time. Grab a shower, read, cool-off during the heat of the day. Then go back around four in the afternoon for more play in the area where your dining reservations are for the evening. You'll be more relaxed, and have more fun that way!

8.) Drive yourself.

Disney transportation was pretty good... within limits. I can see it being a good thing for parents with young kids; no messing with car seats and such. But for childless adults, it was by far faster and less stressful to just get in Traveller (my faithful steed) and drive to the park of our choice. No screaming kids, no waiting for buses to and from. If you stay in a Disney hotel with a multi-day park pass with the park hopper option, you can go to any park at any time without paying for parking or separate tickets.

9.) Try to schedule an off day

One of the things I really wish we had done was scheduled a down day in the middle of the week. We rushed far more than I would have liked, and by the last day I was so sick of crowds, heat, and rushing that I just wanted to go home. If we'd taken a break mid-week and relaxed we probably would have stuck around for the entire last day and really used our time to the fullest. So, book your tickets for six days and five nights, and rest on day 4. Hang by the pool, read in quiet, whatever it takes to recharge and enjoy the rest of the week.

10.) Take pictures. Lots of pictures.

Abuse the ease of storage that a smartphone provides you. Take three or four pictures of everything you find interesting; you'll have time to go through the photos and delete bad shots later.

Book Review; Have Space Suit, Will Travel

You might think that I would get tired of Heinlein, but nah. To tell you the truth, when I was younger I didn't care for Heinlein too much. As I get older and crankier (or as I slowly morph into my father 2.0), Heinlein's writings speak to me more and more. The times, they are a changin'. Good to see that so many of his novels are available on the Kindle for a pittance, otherwise I'd ultimately end up trying to figure out where to put 30 some odd Heinlein novels.

It's easy to figure out why I liked this one. Imagine that you had this career choice that sung to you, but no real way to get from where you are to where you want to be. How do you get there? Or do you get there at all? That's the whole point of the book, in a nutshell.. A high school kid trying to make his way forward in the world, armed only with guts, intellect, and raw effort. Heinlein always tries to make the point that these things pay off in the long haul, despite how things look at any given moment.

Have Space Suit, Will Travel is one of Heinlein's Juveniles, a series of books written especially for young men and women. To that end it is kind of a watered down version of normal R.H., but make no mistake! This book is an adventure yarn, and Heinlein makes no bones about throwing in lots of technical details. He even slips in his criticisms of the (then) current generation of spacesuits and how they could be improved. He also chucks in some quick math problems, and note scales. He really did seem to think that the average high school student should have an excellent grasp on Physics, Calculus, Latin, and possess a wide variety of journeyman level skills (electronics, navigation, mechanics etc).

Guess I should brush up on my Latin.

Given that this book is many decades old now, it was as expected rather devoid of grammatical, spelling, or other editorial errors that can make reading books more of a chore than a pleasure. R.H. did rely on some technological deus ex machina in order to advance the plot on several occasions, but I'll allow it because he does make some attempt to explain geometrically how a ship could travel across the universe breaking lightspeed laws by traveling linearly in a noneuclidean fashion (has to do with the curvature of the universe and space-time, as well as extra-dimensional travel). Plot devices with an attempt at explanation trump plot devices with no apparent explanation every time.

I'd rate this book on my standardized bell curve about a 57 or so. It was better than the average book, but not enough to put in the realm of some of my more favorite R.H. novels, like Starship Troopers or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Aw, Jeez.

Youch. That's a damned shame, such a pretty car.

Emptying my Pockets

Ran into this article a while ago while doing my normal blog readings. The gist here is that civilians tend to be significantly better on a statistical level at hitting their intended targets, capturing bad guys after shootouts, get wounded less often, and mistake innocent bystanders for the criminals less often. Good reading.

Foot note to TTAG, your math is bad, and you should feel bad.

(4702 bullets fired - 323 ND's) * .78 Miss Rate = ~3415 bullets fired at suspects and missed.

3415 + 323 ND's = 3738 Total Number of Missed Rounds

3738 Total Missed Rounds/4702 Total Rounds Fired = 79.5% Total Miss Rate

100% - 79.5% = 20.5% Total Hit Rate for NY Police

*This is under the assumption that the study removed the ND's from the total number of bullets fired to boost the NYPD's accuracy rating.

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Here's a well written article on the logical fallacy of orienting maps Northwards, what we can do about it, and what the likely outcomes of making any changes would be. I can't help but think that this is an extremely cool but really impractical idea, just from the standpoint of trying to change a globally standardized and accepted method of displaying maps. 

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Never be surprised when bureaucracy is idiotic. That's it's natural state. 

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Pretty dang cool article on why the commonly held theory of the passive continental margin is probably wrong. The way the earth moves is just more complicated than we had originally thought, and I'm glad to see modeling that takes that into account.

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The perils of letting computers do too much of our thinking. A good read, but since higher efficiency is always the ultimate goal, quite a few more things will become the domain of algorithms in the future. Should break points for life and death decisions be put in so that the outcome is determined by a human operator? Absolutely.

My Top 10 Survival Tools

Again, your mileage may vary.

1.) Firestarter (any, and two different types)
2.) A belt knife, full or quarter tang. Rambo knives need not apply. Look for at least a five inch blade, and good retention on the hilt. Make sure you toss a sharpening stone into your kit.
3.) A multi-tool. Make sure it has a saw, scissors, and pliers. A leather awl is a bonus.
4.) A sportsman's emergency blanket. Two of them. One for shelter, the other as a blanket.
5.) 100 feet of true paracord. Shelter building, trapping, nets etc.
6.) A container for boiling water. Quart sized or better. I like the liter sized stainless steel bottles.
7.) A decently stocked first aid kit. Leave room for basic medications.
8.) Several large bandanas. For treating wounds, cooling off, and protecting your head from the sun.
9.) A food gathering kit, including snare wire and fishing gear. Just line, hooks, sinkers, floats, and a few lures.
10.) Gloves. A good pair of impact or cut resistant gloves are more than worth their weight. Hard to do anything without the use of your hands.

My Top 10 Survival Capabilities

Some things to bear in mind; I'm not a survival expert or some sort of guru. I'm not a military trained badass of any kind. I haven't spent extensive time in varied climates. However, these are my opinions and thus far in the relative wilds of North Carolina they have served me well. This list is subject revision as I gain experience, but I believe that it covers the basics pretty well.

1.) The will to live
2.) The ability to think clearly under stress
3.) The ability to create fire using modern and primitive techniques
4.) The ability to create an edged implement
5.) The ability to create a brush shelter out of found materials
6.) The ability to filter & purify water using a variety of methods
7.) The ability to create cordage and tie a variety of knots (rope craft)
8.) The ability to create and set simple snares and traps, and fish
9.) The ability to provide emergency first aid and preventative care
10.) The ability to signal for rescue using both modern and primitive techniques

This list is in a loose order of priority, but priorities have a way of changing based on actual field conditions. If you can signal for rescue, and expect it relatively quickly then you should do so. Active bleeding should be stopped prior to doing anything etc. Just use this list as a guideline and think for yourself.

Thoughts on Survival

Studying the craft of survival is to be well versed in understanding paired dualities. Getting your food for the day seems like it shouldn't be too hard, but it is. Getting fresh, clean water seems like it should be hard, but relatively it isn't. There is fantastic complexity involved with simply starting a fire, or understanding the physics behind thermodynamics while building a shelter, which to the common observer seems like just throwing some sticks together. What my reading and practicing has taught me is that there is no activity, no matter how simple, that cannot be improved upon with increased knowledge. Survival therefore becomes a metaphor for life, where the proper application of power (knowledge) is the most common and probable solution to any problem. Thinking of force and power as abstract derivatives of mental prowess/preparedness turns the tripe "violence never solves anything" completely on its ear.

Studying survival also begs for the student to approach problems with the simplest solution available, and increase complexity over time for greater day to day efficiency. Simpler, lighter survival kits are more likely to be successful partly because they are more likely to be carried, but also because the likely user has substituted materials for knowledge. Yet, the average person off the street cannot simply walk into the woods with nothing but a knife and expect to live much past 72 hours. Again, paired dualities.

Survival is something that technically anyone should be able to achieve, but only a minority of the population exposed to extreme conditions does. What allows them to succeed where others fail results from a mixture of psychology, luck, and available resources. I'd argue that it's possible to survive with just the survivors mindset, but instant death scenarios are difficult to refute. Regardless, having mastery over your own mind and possessing the ability to think clearly under trying circumstances are the ultimate survival tools. Having additional physical tools or resources should, in theory, just make things easier. However, the beginning survivor would, given the choice between spending $200 either on equipment or on training had best opt for the training.

At some point in the near future I'll put up my short list of essential survival equipment; cheap and cheerful yet tough and multipurpose.

EDC Bags

I've always been a firm believer in being prepared for the slings and arrows of modern life, which can range from minor inconveniences like waiting in an office to (albeit extremely rarely) full blown emergencies. To that end I try to carry things on my person that I'll find useful the vast majority of the time, and a set of additional gear in an EDC bag.

However, in the environment I currently labor under, carrying a bag around without raising suspicions as to the bag's contents is exceedingly difficult. Also, a grown man my age can't wear a fanny pack without advertising to all in the know that he's carrying something significant. Add into the mix thanks  most small backpacks and over the shoulder bags are "tactical", so they are kind of a giveaway too.

Comparatively speaking, it's easier to carry EDC gear around if you work at a place where messenger bags are relatively common, or at a university where such bags and backpacks are likewise common. Not so much at my current job, where my bag might get rarely searched to help prevent employee theft.

I'm at the point where I need to reconsider how and what to carry, based on my experience over the past year, and taking into account the types of conditions I'm most likely to encounter in the span between home and work, as the distance between the two being used as a radius initiated from my house would describe my range of movement on a daily basis 99% of the time. I'll type up what I come up with later, but I should be approaching a result by the weekend.

Book Review; Let the Great Axe Fall

Robert Blecker's "Let the Great Axe Fall" was formally a kindle single that was available on Amazon for a pittance, but for some reason or another is no longer available. That's a shame, because I really enjoyed reading this long form essay about the author's philosophical journey towards understanding why he inherently stands behind and for the death penalty.

The basic premise for accepting the death penalty as necessary in some cases is pretty straight forward; any rational person should be able to agree that there are certain people with monstrous behaviors that deserve to die. Hitler, Bin Laden, Hussein, Pol Pot, Manson, McVey.. on and on, there's a list of notorious criminals both in and out of war who committed heinous crimes without any feelings of remorse.

I won't get too far into explaining the essay, because I can't really summarize it further without writing a long form essay myself. Suffice to say that I think that Mr. Blecker has submitted to his readers a convincing essay and series of arguments for the death penalty. However, in the interest of full disclosure I myself didn't have a problem with the death penalty in the first place, so he was kind of preaching to the choir with me.

As far as other basic points on my standard review goes; the essay was written and edited well, with little to no grammatical and/or spelling mistakes. The subject matter can be interesting, but I wouldn't exactly call the essay a "page-turner". It's more of the kind of essay where you have to read a few pages, and then put it down and think about it. Repeat until you reach the end. This made the essay a rather slow read for me, rather than the quick read that it's 40 some odd pages would suggest. I needed time to digest what I had read, and compare it against my own moral compass.

On my corrected bell curve scoring system, with a 50 being perfectly average in all regards in terms of editing, effectiveness, readability etc.. This long essay by Robert Blecker was about a 55. I don't think it's destined for the "classic" reading level for the type of reader that I represent. Certainly the essay has much more meat to someone who studies the law in a professional capacity. However, it was still a thought-provoking read that I was satisfied with at the end.

Book Review; After London Or, Wild England

A lot of people tend to think that post apocalyptic novels are a by product of the cold war between the United States and the now defunct USSR. A sort of cultural outlet for growing fears of impending nuclear warfare that promised worldwide devastation. Richard Jeffries book, After London Or, Wild England, is a refutation of that premise, being that it was written in the very late 1800's.

Well, Mary Shelley was writing post apocalyptic fiction before that, but that fact is neither here nor there. Although this book is relatively modern in comparison, the word choice in this book is kind of ye Olde style, so expect to crack out the dictionary occasionally.

Richard Jeffries was by training and inclination a Nature writer, and the forward for the book, which describes the local environment and geography in detail is indicative of that. He's short on ability to effectively describe dialogue, so he made up for that short coming by simply leaving out the vast majority of dialogue that one would expect. To that end, there is little to no character development for the main character, Felix, and no development at all for the secondary or minor characters. Don't expect a coming of age story with this novel.

It is, however, a pretty decent adventure yarn. One man sets off to explore the world around him and earn his fortune through wit and skill. What's not to like about that? Set aside arguments for better development, ignore the antiquated terminology and shoddy characterization, and I end up with a book that I liked more than I should have. Synergy isn't dead, I guess, but I will still knock the book down a peg for not treating human physiology more realistically. The main character should have died a dozen different times from hypothermia or dehydration but marvelously, inexplicably didn't. That's just plain bad writing.

On my corrected bell curve, this book is a 40. It's still a good book that is an acceptable read, being that I didn't waste my time when I read it. Still, I can't help but think of what the book could have been.

*Radio Static*

Back from unavoidable duties, obligations, responsibilities, and road trips having nothing to do with the aforementioned, your humble author has plenty of things to write about but limited time in which to do so. Nevertheless, posts be incoming!

Multiple book reviews, thoughts on weddings, being newly married, planning honeymoons, proper gear for a road trip, and more musings on things in general are heading your way.

In the meantime, watch this space and my twitter feed as I wind things back up. It's going to be a blast!

Observations on Working Poverty; Janitor

Many moons ago (but somewhat more recent than my stint unloading trucks), I worked as a Maintenance Tech at a truck-stop for a major gas station chain. You see, it's a pretty reliable fact that crappy day jobs have nifty titles so that, upon introducing yourself and your station, you don't have to bluntly admit that you are a glorified janitor that is occasionally asked to fix things.

That being said; in some ways I actually liked working at the truck stop. Management had a way of not bothering me too much (Either I was doing such a good job that they stayed off my back, or I wasn't important enough to mess with. Your choice.), so I had a lot of independence and a pretty wide degree of latitude to roam about the store and associated grounds how I saw fit. I basically got paid to do whatever I wanted (as long as my work was done by shift's end), how I wanted, and with little to no oversight. Cold outside? Stay in where it's warm and get stuff done inside. Blasting hot outside? Stock the cooler and enjoy that 40 degree temperature. Too crowded in the store to get anything done? Go pick up trash outside until the crowd dies down. We even had pay showers, so I could use the restroom with a certain measure of peace and privacy. Kinda like having my own office bathroom, in a way.

As far as crappy jobs go, you can't really beat that sort of deal. The work wasn't really meaningful in that position, but at least I wasn't being harangued by a some feckless idiot who would only make things worse by getting in the way. And, to be blunt, if (and this is a might damned big if) someone was willing to pay me to keep doing the same job, under the same operating conditions, indefinitely, on a reliable schedule, for $75k a year, I'd do it. The work was easy, low stress, and not all that taxing physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Well, sometimes someone would get rather anal expulsive all over the stall walls, but that's a hazard accepted concurrent with the position.

I got pretty good at doing a quick clean-up under a pretty wide variety of conditions. Being outside in all kinds of weather became much less of an issue as I acclimated, and I got some more experience learning how to fix things I'd never looked at the guts of before. That's not a bad set of skills to acquire.

Here's the thing, though; my job experience was abnormal. It is not the natural state of crappy jobs to allow underlings to roam around free and unfettered. It was bound to end, the ultimate fate of micromanaging induced entropy was inevitable. That's why my memories are fond.. I quit that position for another before it got to that point. Recon intel from the same store tells me that more requirements, more work, more duties, and overbearing managing became the "new normal" within six months of my departure.

Takeaway; I quite enjoyed working as a truck stop janitor, but ultimately the pay was simply too low to stay there long term. I'm glad I got out when I did.

Observations on Working Poverty: Unloading Trucks

Many moons ago now, back when George W. was a freshly minted president and was more libertarian than compassionate conservative, I worked at a Big Box Store unloading the delivery truck and stocking shelves during the graveyard shift.

First, there's two ways a truck can be loaded, by hand or by pallet. Sometimes, often actually, it's both. Pallets are easy and convenient, but they tend to dislodge things that make ominous crunching and shattering sounds as you pull them out. There really isn't anything for the hand loaded stuff but to pull it all out, one by one, miserably, by hand. Better stores will have fans to help keep you cool, and manual conveyor racks to help things along, but best you don't count on them being there; creature comforts for the worker bee have a tendency to break down and are typically low on the priority list to be repaired. Any squeaky wheels for the management  or day shift folk will quickly bump off slated repairs that would benefit you.

Even with fans, unloading a truck is hot, sweaty, poorly lit work. It's exhausting, and handling so much cardboard without wearing gloves will quickly chew up soft hands. So, keep on wearing gloves and try to stay hydrated. Wear shorts, even in winter, but wear good boots to protect fragile toes from falling merchandise.

This sort of work isn't without rewards, as such. Playing jenga with boxes as you unload is rather entertaining, as is clogging up the conveyor racks faster than the rest of the crew can unload them. There is also a satisfaction to be had by picking up that last box and admiring dirty work done well.

Night stocking, however, is miserable work and should be avoided if at all possible. You are working against the clock, are often alone and devoid of conversation or companionship, and rarely receive help when it is needed. I derived no pleasure from stocking shelves full of useless junk, knowing that the task would be repeated again the next day.

Third shift work itself requires a certain amount of conditioning, and until you get used to it, a process that could take years, you will always feel tired and irritable. Lack of sleep suppresses the immune system, causing you to get sick more often than you would normally.

Such jobs are then a mixed bag, but are disproportionately bad. Try to only work positions like these for short periods of time.

Book Review; The Art of the Rifle

Spend enough time learning about firearms and their practical applications, and you'll run across the works of Jeff Cooper. The (late) Lt. Col. Cooper was a retired Marine, hunter, and scholar, founder of the Gunsite Training Academy, and Civis Americanus. He was the warrior-poet of his generation, the likes of which I haven't seen in my own. Whenever Lt. Col. Cooper comes up in conversation with other "gun guys", opinions are often divisive (or worse, unformed). It's strange to me that his teachings are somewhat seen as antiquated, when in reality they are quite forward thinking even lo these many years after his death, at least in terms of the use of force, and the practical skills required to run a rifle well in most conditions.

 Full disclosure; this is not the first time I've read "The Art of the Rifle", and it probably won't be the last; it's a pretty short book that is low on story or verse, but long on practical skills and guidance. Think of it as kind of a "How-To" manual for the self-taught rifleman, who due to circumstance can't get out to a proper shooting school to get a finishing education.

The proper audience for this book are those who wish to know how to use a rifle, and want to learn firing positions and undertake drills that will make them more apt to impact their chosen target at distance under field conditions with their first shot. Those who cannot understand the utilitarian, societal, or environmental benefits of hunting best steer clear, same for those who cannot fathom the use of force in human conflict. Lt. Col. Cooper doesn't dwell at all on gore or violence per se, but still this is not a book for the soft-hearted.

Taking the book as it is, it's about a 63 to 65 on my corrected statistical bell curve of literary enjoyment, if 50 was perfectly average in all respects. This is a well written book with lots of useful info and advice, but it's  short, could use more and clearer diagrams, and is sometimes a little dry. Still, it's a great book from a excellent source who was and still is a clear expert in his field.

Fox Crackdown on Jane Cobb Knit Caps

So; here's the thing. Fox has an intellectual property (Firefly) that they need to defend. Nay, they *have* to defend it otherwise they could technically lose the license for it. So, the object of the recent crackdown has been to eliminate third-party sellers infringing their license, which they've gone about in a pretty easy going manner (considering it's cease-and-desist notices rather than full-blown lawsuits coming after profits).

No use in mincing words; it still sucks to trample on your fan-base/customer-base, and generally it's not good business sense. Not that Fox has ever really been concerned with expanding upon or advertising Firefly , but that's neither here nor there.

Still, there's a couple of positive resultants here. First, fans are pissed and are probably going to keep making the hats and selling them underground anyway. Second would be this;

“@pirateknits:Captain, looking to unload illegal hats. twitter.com/PirateKnits/st…”You got a job? We'll do it. Don't much care what it is.

— Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) April 11, 2013

Note that in this case, Nathan Fillion chose to retweet this from one of his fans, and the "You got a job?" quote is from him and not the original poster. It's tacit approval of their activity and the boldness in which they are going about it. In this day and age, it does the cochleae of my heart good to see an established actor standing with his fan-base, rather than with profit, and sticking with the spirit of the character that his fans came to love. Good show!

Some Random Observations

-After looking at several universities, visiting each, talking with people, weighing other factors, talking with my better half, and tossing in my own opinions, I'm exercising my option to attend a University in Georgia starting this Fall for my PhD. This decision, of course, has allowed us to narrow the field of potential variability in our short-term planning horizon quite a bit. There's still plenty of wiggle room, but knowing the state, general area, and goals has helped a lot.

-Georgia's Weapon's Carry Laws are similar to NC's, but different all the same. You need a license to carry in Georgia (open or concealed), but that license covers just about everything; it allows for open and concealed carry of firearms, it allows for open and concealed carry of knives above five inches, and it allows the owner to bypass NICS checks (a nicety). The Georgia carry license also allows the owner to keep a firearm in a locked vehicle in a parking lot of a campus...

-Looks like Marlin started making the 336-Y "Spikehorn" again, which is awesome! I finally got to handle one today at the local Gander Mountain, and it was a pretty nice rifle. Considering that it's effective accurate range of the 16" barrel is only about 175 to 200 yards, I'm not terribly concerned with the loss of ballistic efficacy inherent in the 30-30W round. Of course, a nice .308 would be great, but at that light of a weapon I think it would jump around like a pissed off bass out of water.

-First mowing of the season tomorrow. Looking forward to getting it done, actually. Having a freshly mowed lawn makes the day more enjoyable, and it's good meditation time to boot.

-There's no such thing as a stupid question, but whether or not the question makes the initiating party appear stupid to the casual observer is a different story altogether. Like everything else, it depends on context. For example, an 8 year old asking if the princesses seen at Disney are real? That's not stupid, that's pretty damned rational for a child. Now, an adult asking if the princesses are real is a different thing.

A New Classification System to Correctly Identify the "Nerd" Sub-Species

Although widely used in modern media, the term "Nerd" is nebulous and lacks definition. In order to use Nerd as a descriptor or as a sub-species classification for the species Homo Sapiens, criteria must be established to determine whether the term is applicable to the individual in question.

Currently, the sole criterion for determining the applicability of the term is that the person in question should have some sort of interest, hobby, or method of dress (Their "exuvia", if you will) that places them at odds with contemporary society. While this criterion reflects a certain inclusivity that would be admirable in realms other than the scientific, by nature classification schema must be exclusive and seek to limit the number of individuals from a significant population in order to clearly identify and address the particulars of that sub-species.

As this is the case, the goal of this paper is to establish better criteria based on empirical data to limit the field of individuals to the Homo Sapiens sub-species which is currently loosely classified as "Nerd". Additionally this paper will discuss potential alternate sub-species classifications which would better suit members of the population which self identify as "Nerds", but to not meet the criteria to be discussed.

The criteria for identifying "Nerds" are as follows:

1.) The individual in question must be either of above average intelligence or have grades superior to the population at any level of education (G.P.A. of 3.5 or above);
2.) The individual in question must consistently reject superstitions;
3.) The individual in question must not hesitate to pursue a scientific or mathematical approach to problem solving;
4.) the individual in question should always willingly accept additional data while formulating an opinion or deriving a solution to a problem;
5.) The individual in question must, when faced with overwhelming evidence, reject their previous understanding of that subject in favor of the understanding based on empirical data.

Note that the individual being observed must meet all five criteria in order for the term "Nerd" to be aptly applied. Self-identification without meeting this criteria is insufficient evidence to support classification. Also note that there are no physical characteristics that must be met, and that there are no mandatory realms of study in order for the term to be correctly applied. The following syllogism underlines the flawed logic of mandatory realms of study for classification in the Sub-Species "Nerd";

A. All Biologists are Nerds
B. Peter is a Biologist
C. Peter believes dinosaurs and humans co-existed, contrary to overwhelming evidence.
D. Peter is a Nerd.

As you can see, Peter cannot possibly be a nerd because Peter has failed to meet the criteria for the term, specifically criteria numbers 4 and 5, and possibly 3 as well depending on whether or not Peter has an underlying belief in the Creationism mythology. Peter may be better described as a "Pseudo-Nerd", a member of a group of persons which display intellectual or scientific leanings, but have failed to mature into a credible professionals in their chosen field because of flawed logic and inconsistently applied scientific principles.

Physical characteristics of the individual, such as height, weight, build, race, sex, method of dress, hair style or lack thereof are insufficient and totally inapplicable in determining whether an individual can correctly be identified as a Nerd. The criteria discussed above stress that the critical factors involved are methods of understanding and viewing the world, and have nothing to do with physical appearances. The author of this paper submits to the reader that while the aforementioned criteria are sufficient for narrowing the population field to a much smaller group of individuals which can be correctly identified as "Nerds", the term "Nerd" is probably best understood hierarchically as a grouping, rather than a sub-species in and of itself, and that further terminology is required to separate this grouping into discrete populations. These classifications may well involve the use of mandatory realms of study, as the population has been sufficiently narrowed to this point to reduce the field to those who can be regarded as credible professionals, scientists, or individuals of respectable opinion. For example, the term "Geek" may be aptly applied to individuals which pursue an interest in all things technological. Note, however, that while the possession of a degree in this field is not requisite, the degrees held by the individual in question should range from 0 to 1, to allow the the classification of non-classically schooled but respectable professionals.

This paper suggests the use of the prefix "Uber" to describe a group of individuals which meet the "Nerd" criteria,the sub-species realm of study criteria, and additionally possess multiple degrees in any realm of intellectual pursuit. Prefixes can be added to the term depending on the realm of study to establish sub-species, such as "Uber-Music-Geek" to describe a degree'd professional studying techno music. In this instance, the author could be identified as "Uber-Geomorphology-Nerd".

Classification systems are prone to overlapping boundaries and ambiguous criteria that can lead to false identification. The author of this paper stresses that these are suggestions for a new classification system and not a wholly formed system. Further study and input is required before the proposed system can be effectively utilized.

Learn From My Fail; Car Keys

I've been driving since I was 16 years old, and in that time period I've locked my keys inside my car exactly once; just two days ago. On my way home from Georgia. While I was still in another state.

It was stupid, really. I was driving on I-85, heading north from Spartanburg, and thinking about a math problem (I'm a nerd). I really wanted to stop and put gas in the car prior to leaving the state so that I could fill up on cheap gas (30 cents cheaper than in N.C.!), and so that I could scribble out the math problem on a note pad real quick and get the answer (It was a combination problem in which I needed to estimate the mileage driven in the Civic before the increased fuel efficiency zeroed out the repairs cost. I came up with the formula in my head but there were too many numbers flying around to get an accurate answer, although I did come up with a rough estimate of 10,500 miles mentally. The accurate answer was 11, 352 miles.) so that it would stop bothering me. I put my car keys in the passenger seat while I wrote down the actual numbers and solved the problem, and then jumped out of the car while locking the door to put gas in the car. It wasn't until after I had finished topping of the tank that I realized I had locked myself out (I wanted to get the mileage from my odometer to keep track of my fuel efficiency, 38.4 mpg on that particular tank, which included city driving in Athens).

The ironic thing is that I had mentioned to my better half that I really needed to stash a copy of the Civic key on my person, probably in my wallet, to better guard against doing just that. Irony is hard to laugh at, however, when you're locked out of your car a couple hundred miles from home, with no one friendly within a two hour drive radius to come and help you out.

Fortunately, I got hold of a local business called "Pop A Lock" (Stupid name, great service), that came out and for a token fee got me back in the Civic and on my way.

Since I'll never put up a picture of myself, here's Soren Bowie locked out of his car instead, since he understands the issue.

Mission Debrief: What Went Wrong, What Went Right, and Thoughts on Future Prevention
First and foremost, violation of my personal rules, #9, which is "Keep a Spare". I do this a lot, I have backup ways to start fires, to get water into my system, back up knives, back up magazines.. I even had backup motor oil in the trunk of the car. What I didn't have on me was a backup key for the car, which is inexcusable because, frankly, a single key is lightweight and easy to carry at a secondary position on your person. I have corrected this by putting the car key that was originally on my key ring (it was somewhat bent, but still serviceable) in my wallet, and putting the original Civic key on my key ring. I do sometimes leave my wallet in my car (about 1:100 car rides), but the odds of leaving both my keys and my wallet in the car are astronomical.

Second; I have an illogical conditioned reflex to lock the car while getting out of it. It's a simple procedure of lifting the handle to open the door, and while that handle is being actuated I can reach out with a few fingers and easily lock the door. However, this does not work in the favor or insuring that I have my keys on my person prior to closing the locked door. My proposal to eliminate this issue is to simply recondition my locking reflex into one where I lock the car after closing the car door using the key. If I cannot accomplish this, it would be because I have left my key inside the car. Once this reflex has been so ingrained that it is automatic, I will have added another layer of defense onto the statistical odds of being completely locked out of my car.

I am happy to report that possessing a smart phone has paid off once again, as it allowed me to search for local locksmith companies on the fly, once locked out of my car, so that I could get home in a timely manner. This prevented my better half from having to drive four hours from our home into South Carolina in order to bail me out with one of the spare keys for the Civic. It also gave me access to my kindle library to read during the relatively short duration between securing the services of a locksmith and their actual arrival time. I was also able to get a hold of my better half with the phone, and even though I ultimately did not need her to drive down to South Carolina, it was comforting to know that I at least had a solid, non-destructive plan B. ( I actually had about a dozen plans lined up on how to deal with the situation, but they get more undesirable as they increase in letter count away from Plan A).

Book Review; There Are Other Rivers

The perils of shopping for books via Amazon are relatively few and easy to enumerate. First, unless you read the proffered sample, you don't get the same experience as you would in a bookstore. Second, it's far too easy to add books to a wish list without properly vetting them first. Third, which is really just an extension of the second, it's far to easy to just snap up cheap books.

I've fallen prey to all three perils, and Alistair Humphreys "There Are Other Rivers" is an example of the second one. This book loosely tells the story of the author's foot trek, following a river from the Indian Ocean up into the Himalaya mountains. It only tangentially deals with the people and experiences he has, however.

Book wishlists are, by definition, self selected. Look through my wishlist and you'll find a lot of survival fiction, woods lore, and travel journals of the epic adventure variety. When I put this book on my list, I thought that it was an example of the latter. It wasn't.

That's not to say that it wasn't a good read. I enjoyed reading the book, even though it was quite a bit shorter than I thought it would be. Rather, it was more like the "out of season bird alighting on my shoulder". An unexpected pleasure, momentarily pleasing, but not the sort of stuff that epics are woven from. Unless the bird talks, that is.

This book is more of a collection of diary entries than a travel journal. By which I mean that it doesn't have a real narrative, lumps of time are lost due to the nature of journal writing, and it focuses more on what the author thinks and feels rather than what he did. This isn't necessarily bad, but because of that second peril I had thought that I was getting into something else.

And, let me be frank, I'm not terribly interested in delving into another man's feelings without good reason. There were some high points and morals to derive, but mostly I found myself skipping ahead, which is never a good sign.

I'd give this book a 45 on my new corrected bell curve scale. It's within that time range of entertaining and enjoyable books that makes for good reading, but ultimately it was somewhat underwhelming.

Twitter; Shucks and Other Comments

I've been fighting with the ruttin' Twitter timeline widget on this page for perhaps the last week, trying to get the thing to work. Turns out it was user error; one of the applications I use to bar internet services from tracking me was also not allowing Twitter to incorporate the code into this blog.

Grr. I think the application (Disconnect) should be smarter than that, but I'm not a computer programmer (any more). I guess I shouldn't be too picky, since I've barely touched the code on this site other than a few tweaks and clean up operations here and there.

Anyway; Boo Hiss to the programmers for Disconnect; for not making a product that's smart enough to tell a tracking code from a useful javascript code. Then again, the application is FREE, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. The takeaway is that those NOT using a tracking blocker, and who have updated browsers, should be able to see my twitter feed now. This is a good thing, right?

The Trudge

You know, about a month ago I was pretty much bored and looking for stuff to do to take up my time. Well, when it rains it pours, and now I've got something planned for every day for the next few weeks plus. No real time off either, just "go, go, go!".

I'm not complaining, really, but the truth is that I know I'm going to get tired eventually, and then the bout between my schedule and I will stop being a slugfest and become instead more of a test of my endurance. My ability to trudge on.

I've got work hours lined up on mid-shifts, appointments for a few wedding related things, a couple of trips out of the state on school business, a party to plan at the secret lair, papers to read, and at some point I'll need to look over the final draft of the manuscript for my own paper before it's sent to the publisher. Also! The lawn could use a pickup, put up, and a trim. Yikes, maybe I'd best stop typing and get to it.

Civic Minding; Errata

I've been driving the Civic for a few weeks now and I'm happy to report that it's functioning at full capacity again, albeit with somewhat lower fuel efficiency than I expected. Since I have not undertaken a long road trip to this point consisting of primarily highway miles, I'm left with the hypothesis that the type of mileage I am putting on the car while going back and forth to work is not conducive for achieving peak fuel efficiency for this particular make and model of vehicle. I'm sure a hybrid would shrug off stop and go traffic, but the Civic hates it.

I will be putting the Civic up to it's first real road trip soon, in order to visit the universities that have offered me good award packages to pursue a PhD. I guess I'll get a taste for what the repairs and cleaning have done for the Civic then. In the meantime, it could use another cleaning; I missed a spot on the shifter column that has been triggering my faux-CD, and apparently there was some more tree sap down in the driver's side window slide that has gotten back onto the window that I need to clean off. Other than that; vaccuming never really hurts, right?

Other thoughts on the Civic;
- No clock on the dash means I've gotten used to wearing a wristwatch again, to avoid the fumbling of pulling out my phone to check the time. I'm not really looking forward to having a lily white patch on my arm whenever I take off my watch, but watches don't really help you tell time if you don't wear them.
- All other things being equal, the Civic is a pretty easy car to break into. There's nothing to be done for this, of course, but it does give me cause for concern in an Op-Sec point of view. I'm considering putting one of my smaller safes in the Civic and using a metal cord to lock it in place underneath the passenger seat. There's a ridge underneath the passenger seat that should prevent the safe from sliding forward under braking, and it would get things out of sight. The rest of my EDC bag and it's associated contents can go either behind the driver's seat for short time periods, or in the trunk for extended time periods. Not sure what else I can do.
- I burn my running lights constantly, because it's a rather small car, painted a dark color. That makes it hard to see; the only issue is that I run the risk of burning out my running lights. I need to pick of a replacement bulb for each and store them in the trunk to be armed against that. I'd rather avoid being pulled over by the Police for a fishing trip if I can.
- My better half hates driving the car, because it's too low to the ground. Not really much I can do about that.. OR IS THERE?

Jesus, look at that. I'd almost think it was awesome if it wasn't so ludicrous. 

Speaking of my better half, I think it's time to get my rear in gear for the day. She's got a crippled coffee maker and some errands to run. Better go get her some coffee like I promised, and get started on my own chores.

Book Review: Rikki Tikki Tavi

Man, do I love me some Kipling. It's not a joke to say that I spend a pretty decent chunk of my younger life, book or verse of Kipling in hand, sword branch in the other, swinging my way through the wilds of rural North Carolina. Adventure, combat, philosophy, reason, ideals for manhood.. all to be found in Kipling's body of work.

To say that I have great respect for that work is to put it mildly.

Rikki Tikki Tavi is one of those "books" (It can be had as a separate book, but it's really a short story from one of the Jungle Book collections) that really stuck with me as a kid. It's about a young Mongoose that finds himself, after being cast from his home by a swollen river, embroiled in a small war for control over a compound in India where a family lives. The war, of course, is with snakes.

Great book. Short! But great, simply because it gets right down to the damned point without much knocking about. Does the Mongoose need a reason to fight a snake? No, because that's what Mongoose do; they fight and eat snakes. You do get the sense that the Mongoose (Rikki) knows what he is doing is gallant, but that kind of takes a back seat to his just wanting to rise to the challenge. A sentiment that I can appreciate.

It's about time to revisit my scale for reviewing books, because I think that they are getting skewed away from the low to medium side in favor of mid 70's reviews. This may be an artifact that my book selection has been edited to only books that I think I will enjoy, but that being said the average enjoyment really should be an even 50, not a 75. A 75 should be *really* enjoying a book, and a perfect 100 should mean that I enjoyed the book immensely, then turned around and read it again and found no flaws in it. Rikki Tikki Tavi really, then, falls right in the mid 60's because while I did really enjoy it, it could have been a bit longer. Oh, not much longer, perhaps a second chapter where the children of Nag and Nagina from a prior clutch of eggs come to exact revenge. Consequences and whatnot. Still, it's a great book, and one would do well to read it.

Tiger Style!

When the tiger is being friendly, let's all work hard to keep her that way.

Getting Orientated

Today, at my first day on the new job, part of the orientation session was a scavenger hunt for a short list of things that are pretty common purchases. I think the whole thing was pretty clever... Get the new hires out, talking to their coworkers, finding the common stuff so they know where to send customers, and learning their way around the store. Slick!

Civic Minding Day 1

Finally got the resources pooled together to start fixing my old Honda, which is a relief. Watching the net forces of entropy chip away at it while it sat in the driveway unused was chipping away at me, too. It feels good to be crawling in/around it and mending things. And boy howdy does it need a lot fixed. The short list of major stuff includes changing the oil, changing the coolant, replacing all four tires (one has a knot and I'm pretty certain all four are chopped), changing both CV axles, front brake rotars, and the brakes themselves.

To be honest, I had done some work on it previously over the past few weeks, here and there, but that mainly involved getting it cleaned out and detailed (I like my cars to be clean). Today was the first day of actual honest to god repairs.

That being said, I didn't really do much today other than buy parts and figure out how to get things done and in the process of doing that, figure out exactly what tools I'll need to work on the harder tasks. Going to need a breaker bar and a floor jack, for sure, but also a good ratcheting socket wrench and a few socket heads couldn't hurt. However! My dad's extended me an open invitation to raid his tool shed for tools I might need on this project, so I'll check what he has first before making my purchases.

Today I changed the air filter and windshield wipers, polished the oxidation off of the headlights (I can see!), and figured out I'm woefully ill-equipped to remove the two bolts that hold the muffler in place. Ugh. Those are rusted in place, so that might be something a mechanic's shop gets to do for me. We'll see after I get better tools. The main problem is getting the leverage right, which I might get with several larger wrenches.

Book Review; As You Do

I ought to feel ashamed, since I actually finished reading this book several weeks ago, but to be honest I just haven't felt like updating the blog. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book; I enjoyed Richard Hammond's "As You Do" immensely. I guess I've just been lazy.

Still, my better half is snoozing and I feel like being mildly productive. That, and I'm patient enough to write this review entirely on my phone, so it's lazy streak over and away we go!

"As You Do", by Richard Hammond is one of those books that drew me in immediately, just from reading the description that would be included on the jacket (in this case, it would be the Amazon product description). I mean, come on! He writes about the race to the north pole, the trip across Africa in a tiny little car, and meeting Evel! How cool is that!? Hammond has a particularly conversational writing style, and since he's on Top Gear it's pretty easy to hear his voice while reading the book. Since this book is a behind the scenes sort of affair, that writing style is well served. I could see how that style could be grating in other literary formats, though.

I loved the humor in the book, I don't think I've laughed that much while reading since the last time I read Bill Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods". Completely different types of humor, mind, since Hammond derives his humor from interactions from others while Bryson's humor is more internally driven. Still, giggles while reading is a good thing, and I was happy to have a book that put me in a good mood after reading sessions.

No obvious grammatical or spelling errors that I could pick out, though the book has a way of jumping around in time that I didn't like. I also didn't really appreciate Hammond's negative attitudes towards hunting, and Americans. Then again, he's British, and those folks just seem like they are born to be arrogant and condescending.

All in all, it was a jolly good read that was quick to get through. Hammond is no Heinlein, not even close, but he holds his own. I'd give this book a 77 on my scale, which could have been several points higher if he'd kept some of his sillier opinions to himself.

30 something.

I remember when the Lion King was in theaters, what the world was like before the internet or ubiquitous remotes, and one of my cars doesn't have power windows. 30 isn't a good number. I like prime years, 29 was a prime year, just like 23 and 19 before it. It's nice for your life to be neatly indivisible. I'll get another prime year soon enough at 31, but I won't get another one until I'm 37. Meh.

Oh, Joe.

Here's our current Vice President saying that a shotgun will keep you safer than an "assault" rifle. *Maybe* so, depending on the ranges involved, the armor of your attackers, and how many there are. I can think of a lot more circumstances, however, where greater ammo capacity, shorter carry length, and ease of reloading can really save your hide.

Of course, I believe most proponents of civilian disarmament have no earthly idea what they are actually talking about, because my .22 Walther meets the criteria to be an "Assault" weapon. (Detachable magazine, and a barrel shroud? EVIL.)

However, let's not deviate. There's something else that made me start typing, and it's this quote from the above article right here:

“Guess what? A shotgun will keep you a lot safer, a double-barreled shotgun, than the assault weapon in somebody’s hands [who] doesn’t know how to use it, even one who does know how to use it,” the outspoken vice president, a shotgun owner himself, replied. “It’s harder to use an assault weapon to hit something than it is a shotgun. You want to keep people away in an earthquake? Buy some shotgun shells.”

The VP is betraying his true sentiments towards American Citizens in this statement, and the ultimate goals of civilian disarmament with this statement. He thinks that two rounds in a break-open double barrel is more than sufficient for us poor dumb schmucks who can't hit a humanoid target at close range with a rifle cartridge. Then again, Joe et al would probably be happier if civvies couldn't own weapons at all (see Australia's new push to ban single shot rifles). It seems that Joe also believes that we "civilians" are incapable of learning basic marksmanship, and that the folks with "Assault" weapons spend a lot of time wildly spraying rounds around, ineffectually.

Kind of like the police do, constantly, but that's an aside.

That's the thing; the only way for the them to win is to paint us (folk who carry for life and liberty) as irresponsible, ineffectual, and incapable of handling a firearm proficiently. The stats on the first two don't bear out.

The truth on the third front is far less convenient for the disarmament folks; people that buy guns typically know how to use them. Really well. I've seen the scores posted by the local PD at the range I used to frequent, and I know for an absolute fact that under slow and fast fire I score *well* above them at pistol ranges. And I'm not some gun wunderkind by any means; there are plenty of regular, non-uniformed folk out there who are better shots than I.

Folks; email your senator and tell them that you are firmly against any bill that limits the 2nd Amendment, and that your vote will reflect that at the next election. Most democrats aren't going to be swayed, but there are some Republicans out there that need to be kept in line.

Work!

Spent today doing odd jobs at my future in law's place, which mostly involved being dirty and climbing up onto high, dangerous places. The pitch of their roof approaches 40 degrees in some spots, making it hard to keep my footing. So, I did the butt scoot maneuver that I normally reserve for mountains with similar gradients. Looked silly, I suppose, but I didn't fall off the roof. Guess that means I win!

My better half was there the entire time, though we mostly worked on separate projects until the last few hours. We generally work well together, at least until one of us gets hungry, then its just a cranky fest.

Anyhoo. Glad to get some work done and make some money, though I'd be happier with a full time job. Regular paychecks have a way of making life easier, you know?

In the meantime, it's nice to have a little down time and to get some things done that have been on my list for a while. Next project, now that it's stopped raining buckets around here is to finish cleaning up the glorified woods in the back yard. Considering that it's after midnight, that's probably a job for tomorrow.

Snow?!

Snow in NC is kind of a rare thing. Most of the time, winter is really just rainy, muddy, and cold. Snow is a nice turn around, really, because everything gets a clean white coat and looks cheerful for a bit. What makes it rarer still is that we don't generally get *just* snow. It's typically associated with sleet, freezing rain, hail, and other unpleasantness that makes Yankees wonder why we make such a big deal of it until they find themselves sliding sideways off the road on a sheet of ice.

So, according to the weather folks portions of NC can expect an inch or three of just snow in the next few days, which would be fantastic! We could use a little dusting, make things look pretty for a bit. Got to remember to check the batteries in the flashlights and such, just in case.

Geez, Amazon, get it together.

Oddly enough, whenever I see this picture I hear Chris Tucker's voice going "The fuck is wrong with you!?" instead of Jackie Chan's.

I noticed the other day on my smartphone that the Kindle app is nowhere near as good as the normal Amazon app for shopping for new books. Well, due to an involuntary vow of poverty, I wasn't shopping per se, but I was looking for books to add to my wishlist.

Anyhoo. The Kindle app itself is actually pretty meager for shopping for new books; no ability to separate out large categories into smaller ones ("You just wanted Fiction, right? Who cares if you have to paw through ten pages of Romance novels to get to one or two Sci-Fi."), no ability to save books to a wishlist, no ability to view your wishlists...

I'm sorry, but for a dedicated app that's just plain rubbish.

If you look at the Amazon app though, all of those issues are gone. It works *much* better for shopping for ebooks than the native Kindle app. Hell, using the shopping feature on my damned Kindle 4 works better than shopping on the Kindle app.

Poor form, Amazon. Poor form.

Book Review; Lucifer's Hammer

If you run a Google search for some iteration of "best survival fiction", Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven is bound to show up somewhere on whatever list you dig up. That means that at some point, my path had to cross with this book because I think I'm on a trajectory to ultimately read every survival fiction book in existence. (That statement may be somewhat composed of hyperbole, but it's close.)

Speaking of trajectories; nice to read a book about the TEOTWAWKI being brought about by something as quaint as an asteroid strike. Nice to see a throwback to simpler, non-biologic end times. Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic for the late 80's, though. 

As nostalgic as I'm getting, this book is truly a throwback. It's set in the late 70's, way before the space shuttle missions, the Challenger disaster, lots of world events etc. This book still holds as being a pretty good bit of fiction, but it's in desperate need of an update to make it viable. It was kind of silly to read about cold-war politics, IBM punch cards, and other errata that have been abandoned well within my life-time. The characters make the black astronaut out to be a big deal! Please, the damned president is black, but that's not impressive to me because race just isn't an issue anymore. (It is to some, but that breed is dying out.) The engineers are proud of their pocket calculators, for pete's sake! This book would jump up 5% in my final review, easy, if it was simply updated.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. We don't ask editors to update Shakespeare, right? True enough, but Shakespeare this ain't, and if we're trying to make a story about how mankind adapts to a global tragedy through reason and scientific endeavor, perhaps it would be best (if you want to make loads more money), to make it relevant to current technology.

The book was otherwise written well, both technically and figuratively. It was nice to see a complex cast of characters with interweaving story lines, and wondering when it was that each character's line would intersect with another's. I do wish that Nivan and Pournelle had a better outlook on marriage, though. The way they describe it, it sounds like a trap.. The type of trap that you might expect to see gnawed limbs still hanging in, from desperate attempts to escape. Not having been married myself, I can't say for sure that this is true, but from my vicarious experiences it sure doesn't seem like it.

Still, it's a good read. I think I liked several other books better than this one, "The Old Man and the Wasteland" is an immediate example, though really only because I read it rather recently. Keeping that in mind, I think that Lucifer's Hammer gets a well deserved 70% on my scale. 

Speaking of Hatchets... Kobalt Sucks!

Normally I wouldn't feel a need to review a Hatchet, but in this case, the hatchet kind of forced my hand.

$%#@^% Hatchet

Whilst working on clearing the land today, my hatchet decided it would be a good time to give up the ghost, by snapping off just below the head. Shucks and other comments were allowed, though I think the neighbor's dog might have taken offense. Luckily, it snapped immediately after embedding in some peach wood, so there wasn't a hatchet head flying around. That could have been slightly dangerous. This really and truly sucks, as I hate to break good tools. Then again, this was a Kobalt brand hatchet, so I wasn't really expecting much out of it.

Note the circular wedge and the thick blade profile.

Not sure if I can replace the handle, since they used this circular wedge that's a royal pain in the butt to take out. Even if I did remove it, the hatchet profile isn't exactly ideal. It should be taper to near edge thinness immediately after the handle slot, to make it better for chopping. Cheap metal too, it chips on the edge a lot, even on soft-woods. Probably 420. Hmmm.

Folks, with the lifetime warranty on Kobalt I'm kind of locked in here.. I could go spend more money on a hatchet (which I'll probably do eventually anyway), or I can just get the free replacement, and if I don't, I'm leaving money on the table. And since my Scottish ancestors would haunt me if I wasn't frugal, I'll go get the replacement. But dammit, I wish I had spent more money to begin with on a better hatchet!

Damnit, Facebook

Really thinking of just getting rid of my damn profile. Seems like every time I get the thing tweaked so that my information stays as private as it can, get for being on the internet, Facebook cooks up a way to make sure that the general public can still get to it.

The main issue here is that if I like or comment on something, it shows up on my wall, even if that post originated on someone else's wall. Everyone that is my "friend" on Facebook is automatically suscribed to see all comments and likes I make, because it'll show on my wall. It's pretty asinine. The kicker here is that this is not something that I have control over; the other person has to go through a somewhat complicated series of steps in order to remove that access themselves. I went and looked, and I can't find a universal "off" switch for that.

Well, there is an "off" switch, and it's called getting rid of my Facebook profile. I'm very seriously considering it too, since I don't exactly need the thing and anyone that wants to get a hold of me can call or email me. These points of information aren't exactly stored in a Top Secret dossier, you know?

With Hatchet and Saw

Been spending some time over the past few days cleaning out a thin wood line behind the house that's been rather overgrown since I came here. I always felt like it was a sure enough haven for no-shoulders and varmints that I'd rather not have in the yard. Same for the overgrown grape arbor, and monstrous bushes. Every time I get close to one of them, I expect to hear a snake rattle or a raccoon hiss at me.

I'd much rather do the work, than have my better half or myself go to the hospital for snakebite or rabies treatment. No thank you, sweat on my brow for me!

It's been going pretty well, but the downside is I've got a brush pile going that could conceivably get as high as the house if I don't do a better job spreading it about. Aside from the obvious fire risk that it poses, I'm really just substituting one habitat for another, so after all the cutting is said and done I'm going to have to do something about that pile too.

Some of the drier stuff can go on a second pallet next to the split wood to be used for fire. I've got a couple of stakes from my dad's land that I'll use as retention poles to keep things from rolling off the edge. That's still a lot of green wood left, though, that's going to have to season for at least half a year before it burns worth a damn.

Right now my plan is to drag some of the green stuff out before every fire I make so that it can be chucked on after the burn is going good and hot. Not sure how well that will work out... Green wood doesn't burn worth a damn, but without a chipper I can't think of a better way to get rid of the stuff. There's always a good chance that we might need to be moving soon... ish. Probably better to not have a big brush pile taking up a significant chunk of real estate.

I will say that it's nice to get outside and do some real work, though. Been cooped up in offices too long, it's a damn pleasant change of pace to be out in the sun.

Book Review: The Old Man and the Wasteland

Let's be honest with each other for a second.. The selection of amateur novelists on Amazon goes kinda like this; Horrible, Smut, Meh, and Shockingly Good. To be blunt, when you pick up a cheap ebook for the kindle you're rolling dice that are loaded for snake eyes.

That's why I was surprised that I liked The Old Man and the Wasteland, by Nick Cole as much as I did. I didn't have high hopes; I let that particular title season on my kindle for about a year before I decided to risk a  couple hours of reading on it. I'm actually pretty glad that I did, and it's helped to give me some clarity about how to cherry pick good books on Amazon without touching the dice. (Pro tip: If it's got less than 10 reviews, let it season. If it's got more than that but only two stars, let it go. If it's got three stars or better, give the sample a shake. If you like the sample, spring for the cheap book.)

I'm pretty well versed in survival fiction, and I've read enough to know that the destruction of society can come on in Baskin Robbins style, with 31 flavors guaranteed! Fire, Ice, Meteors, Nukes, Floods, Pandemics, Loss of Technology, Invasion, Aliens, Economic Collapse, Active Rebellion.. I could go on for days. Cole decided to throw it down old school with ending the world with Nukes, which is a nice throwback to my earlier days of reading books that were written mostly in the seventies, during the height of the cold war, when kids were taught that desks could protect them from the A-Bomb.

I digress.

The Old Man and the Wasteland is written in the style of the Old Man and the Sea, which is fine in and of itself but I do wish that the title wasn't so on the nose. I like to be a little surprised by books, not bludgeoned with the obvious.

The book is basically about an old man going out for salvage after a long dry spell of coming back with nothing. He talks to himself, which is not a big deal for me since I do that too. He encounters environmental hardships and faces foes, and during all of this he displays some goddamn adaptability, survival knowledge, tactical thinking, and uses his head. All good traits for a heroic character. Damned good.

The writing was technically good, and the plot moved along with good action from multiple perspectives. I was actually quite pleased with the plot in and of itself, since it didn't take the course I quite expected it to (bonus points!). Okay, so some of the plot points were utter nonsense, but it was good fun anyway so I let it slide. Mostly because I was in an apocalyptic sort of mood. I thought the ending was a little.. much. Not horrible, but he was trying to make a point out of a five foot diameter oak tree, when a limb would have sufficed.

Given all of that, I've give The Old Man and the Wasteland perhaps a 76 out of 100, which is really good on my scale (if 50 is neutral, 1 is horrible, and 100 is astoundingly good). I do recommend this book.. if you're in a mood for