Journals: 2005(5)

by Ric Carter

TRANSCRIBED NOTES ETC:
Are We Going North Soon?

Despite unexpected events, it looks like we might actually be able to afford the drive towards (but not across) the Arctic Circle starting around the end of July. NOTE: This is not a bLog so you don't have to read it upside down, except for the CONTENTS list.

Click here to see what happened before.

Chomping At The Bit

A Very Hot Weekend

Saturday 16 July 2005:   And another day of sleep and work and heat, but with an evening topper: we make part of a picnic dinner and assemble with Bobbie and Sharon and Fred at the Volcano Theatre to munch in the ampitheatre and see SHERLOCK'S SECRET LIFE, directed by cousin Beth. I only dozed a little. This was the final performance so afterward we partied with the cast and crew until Maureen's ears hurt.


Sunday 17 July 2005:   And yet another day as above, without the theatre picnic. Relisted some eBay stuff. We'd have headed uphill for a couple cool nights in the RV at Blue Lakes but we must ship stuff tomorrow and see a dentist the day after. So it's the same old hot same old. Bother. Maybe we can get away Tuesday night, maybe.


Saturday 17 July 2004:   A year ago today we were finishing our pre-packing for the move to Bisbee Arizona. Here's how I documented that move. (click here). An awful lot of hard work but the results were good. If only ALL results were good, eh? What a wonderful world this would be. La la la la. OK, tea time is over, back on your heads.

Enough complaining. There's so much of that to do later. I don't want to use it all up now. I always have my eye on the future. —Peter Swanson


And a Very Hot Week

LIFE UP HERE: Our Take

Maureen remarked on how much she likes being here in our Sierra Nevada homestead. I considered that, and noted some good points. It's good to have family near by; having access to the cousins' pool frosts the cake. It's good that the house is paid for, and it's a decent retreat for chugging away at homey projects or even doing computer stuff. (Except, mandatory eBaying is fatiguing.) Air is usually clean.

But there's a downside. The neighborhood is mostly dead boring. (It doesn't help that we're not terribly social.) It's a fairly long way to anywhere, and local stores are generally expensive. Conifer forests rather block the scenery. Temperatures are too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. Some of the neighbors suck. Bitch whine kvetch...

Maureen agrees with the above, then reminds me that we have it good. All I want to do is travel, she says, and we can't afford it. Look at all the nice stuff we have. EAT THOSE VEGGIES, CHILDREN IN CHINA ARE STARVING! All the above is true. And???

In the words mouthed by Bogart in CASABLANCA, "the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." I guess that means I should stop complaining.


Monday 18 July 2005, homebound

Read THE FUTURE IS A NO-SHOW and consider the (im)possibility of time travel, at least in reverse. Going into the future is easy — just wait around and suddenly it's tomorrow. If you're in a hurry you can get in a rocket, accelerate up towards lightspeed, and time contraction takes care of the rest, especially those you've left behind. But travel into the past? Well, humans have a propensity for poking-into and focking-over things. If time travel was possible, some human would poke into the Big Bang and fock it over, and then we wouldn't be here. The fact that we exist is proof against time travel, QED.

Not so funny: Suicide Terrorism. The article "Are you ready? Tom­or­row you will be in paradise" superbly documents the motivation and training of would-be martyrs. The book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (more) studies the facts about who explodes them­selves and why (hint: quasi-democracies occupy their land) and shows that such tactics WORK. This view is bolstered by the subject of It who explodes them­selves and why (hint: quasi-democracies occupy their land) and shows that such tactics WORK. This view is bolstered by the subject of Iraq war support puts UK at risk. And despite reports like The Logic of Suicide Terrorism and Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war, most suicide bombers AREN'T Islamic fundys, but non-Muslim seculars; the tactic has most actively been used by the Marxist-nationalist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Almost everything you think you know is wrong.

And what's your legacy if you're a victim? See YouBlewMeUpYouBastard.Com and shudder.

Then there are the usual political scandals like the treasonous Rove-Plame affair, which would be forgotten in a year or a month except that it bears on the false pretenses for the Iraq invasion and occupation, which fuels some of that suicide terrorism. I see the latest news daily; this is the stuff I didn't miss whilst traveling through Central America and only reading some news once or twice weekly. Just wait for some more poltical crap to serve as a distraction — coming soon, from a cesspool near you.

"But what did you do today?" you may ask. The usual. Sleep, work, swim, eat; repeat as needed. What work? I'm editing our old Amalfi pictures and Maureen's dubbing our VHS library to DVD to clear shelf space. How swim? In warm water; for long periods with a snorkel, face-down and eyes-open in the chlorine, dodging drowned bugs. Eat what? Hot-weather food. Sleep how? Fitfully and intermittantly amidst the heat.



Science: Telling Stories
Hopefully, they're truer and worthier and more grabbing than romantic fictions.

Cretinism: Pathological?
Remember, those that don't evolve will likely be devoured by those that do.

Camoflage: Science+Art!
A Cubist plot to deform the world beyond recog­nition — abstracton unto death.

Al Qaeda Training Manual
Start your own terror net­work, savage heathen soci­eties, change the world.



  • Jihad Travel Guide:
    Let's Go Terror
    (& Terror Travel)
  • Strange Travel Tales
  • Weird Wanderings



    • Old West Blows Away
    Bisbee Bookstore Boffo
    film.doc: Border Woes
    Some Minuteman Crap
    More Minuteman Crap

    Tuesday 19 July 2005, waiting

    AY YI YI: Troubles, troubles... my gateway to the world, the maxi-laptop Toshiba P25-S487 (GOLIATH) has been emitting terrifying messages like DISK FAILURE IMMINANT - REPLACE IMMEDIATELY, and working VERY slowly with a maximum of thrashing. And I haven't even got all my digital pictures backed-up to the external disk. Working on that...

    LATER: With some fiddling, I get a backup going. Then we leave for the pool, for the dentist (who tells Maureen to come back in a week), for Sharon & Fred's rental (cute little countryish place, not at all their usual grandiloquent style), for shopping. It's still so damn hot and there's no relief until we leave — no time for quick escapes uphill. Aaargh.

    SHOPPING: We make our second visit to the new discounter in Jackson, COST-LESS. Buying anything up the hill has been like practicing for Alaska or the Yukon, with astro'l prices. But people wander around COST-LESS in reverse sticker-shock. We can actually afford food without driving to Folsom! The soundtrack is all now-obscure 60ish oldies, so aging boomers can sing along to I WANT YOU or RED RUBBER BALL or LONG TALL SALLY or MY GAL IS RED HOT (YOUR GAL AIN'T DOODLY-SQUAT).

    YET LATER: The backup has gone well, all my pics are safe(er) now. Now time to backoff the system structure, then run tests to see if the drive actually needs replacement. All it takes is time and money. Sigh. I should have returned the damn Toshiba when I had the chance; I'll buy no more Toshiba laptops. But JVC is more prominently placed on my shitlist.


    JVC GR-DV1: Hideously exp­en­sive digital miniDV cam­cor­der. It never worked right and after shoo­ting about 12 hours of tape it hardly works at all. JVC's service abso­lutely sucks. Almost any­thing else would be better. The service: first it took them 6 weeks to clean it. Next, a tape jammed; 10 weeks later it came back, minus the tape. Tape lost. No apology. Merde.

    Toshiba P25-S487: Just a few weeks after buying this big fat booger, the D key broke off. I didn't do anything vigor­ous or weird, it just caught on a fing­erprint and flew away. And guess what? Plastic parts don't fall under the Toshiba warranty. Cheap buggers.

    Wednesday 20 July 2005, stewing

    Yet Another Hot Day (YAHD) with more of the usual: sleep (under the fan), ship (more eBay items), swim (watch the ripples), fret (over the damn Toshiba computer). A new harddrive seems mandatory; a few dozen of my Amalfi picture edits seem to be lost. Bother. Just a year ago we were Rolling to Bisbee (click here). So far away...

    And sad news: Scotty Beams Up (more). That's more personal than the hundreds of Iraqis blown up in the last few weeks, or hundreds of people in [some 3rd world country] dying in bus-train plunges, or whatever.

    How come you say how come when you mean why? -Tracy Hamby How come you say why come when you mean how? -Ric Carter


    I'm almost through reading THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: The Prospect of Europe by Margaret Aston (1968), a meta-history of cultural change. She notes that the early renaissance was about rediscovering and reclaiming the glorious past, to apply it to the decadent present.

    Then new works, new achievements surpassed the ancients — those old moderns could produce better than their glorious classical prede­cessors. "They began to see the past as finite, the future as infinite," writes Ms Aston. This view still suffuses modern liberal thought. This optimism is the antithesis of the fatalism of millenialists, dooms­dayers, end-times believers, who hold that the future is limited and that Armageddon is imminent and should be welcomed and encouraged or even instigated.

    If you look forward to a future, you should tremble when end-timers attain power and try to force society to fit their fatalistic doctrines. "Jesus is coming, cut down all the trees!" is not a formula for sustainable devel­opment. Remember, they want you dead, soon.


    ABSURDITY:
    A statement of belief mani­festly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

    ACCIDENT:
    An inevitable occur­rence due to the action of immu­table natural laws.

    ADHERENT:
    A believer who has not yet obtained all he expects to get.

    ADMIRATION:
    Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

    ADORE:
    To venerate expectantly.

    ADVICE:
    The smallest current coin.

    AIR:
    A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

    ALLIANCE:
    In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot seperately plunder a third.

    ALONE:
    In bad company.

    ANNOINT:
    To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

    APHORISM:
    Predigested wisdom.

    APOLOGIZE:
    To lay the foundations for a future offence.

    APPEAL:
    In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

    APPLAUSE:
    The echo of a platitude.

    APRIL FOOL:
    The March fool with another month added to his folly.

    ARCHBISHOP:
    An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

    ARENA:
    In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

    ARMOR:
    The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

    ARRAYED:
    Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamp-post.

    ARREST:
    Formerly to detain one acused of unusualness.

    BAIT:
    A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind of beauty.

    BAROMETER:
    An ingenious instrument that indicates what kind of weather we are having.

    BATTLE:
    A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

    BIGOT:
    One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

    BIRTH:
    The first and direst of all disasters.

    BODY-SNATCHER:
    A robber of grave-worms.

    BORE:
    A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

    BRAIN:
    An apparatus with which we think we think.

    CABBAGE:
    A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

    CANNIBAL:
    A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the naural diet of the pre-pork period.

    CARNIVOROUS:
    Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

    CHILDHOOD:
    The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth — two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

    CHRISTIAN:
    One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely insp­ired book admirable suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

    COMFORT:
    A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.

    COMMENDATION:
    The tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own.

    COMMERCE:
    A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

    COMPULSION:
    The eloquence of power.

    CONSERVATIVE:
    A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distin­guished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with new ones.

    CONSULT:
    To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.

    CORONATION:
    The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.

    CORPORATION:
    An ingenious device for obtai­ning individual profit without individual responsibility.

    DAY:
    A period of twenty-four hours, misspent.

    DEBT:
    An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.

    DECALOGUE:
    A series of commandments, ten in number — just enough to permit an intelligent selec­tion for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice.

    DECIDE:
    To succumb to the prepon­der­ance of one set of influences over another set.

    DEFAME:
    To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.

    DEFENCELESS:
    Unable to attack.

    DEGENERATE:
    Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.

    DEGRADATION:
    One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

    DELIBERATION:
    The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

    DESTINY:
    A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

    DIAPHRAGM:
    A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

    DIARY:
    A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

    DICTATOR:
    The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.

    DEGENERATE:
    Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.

    DIGESTION:
    The conversion of victuals into virtues.

    DIPLOMACY:
    The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

    DISCUSSION:
    A method of confirming others in their errors.

    DISOBEDIENCE:
    The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

    DISTANCE:
    The only thing the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.


    Friday 22 July 2005, broasting

    YESTERDAY: Same old same old: you know the routine. More time in the pool, chatting with Brad; less time online; yada yada yada. Gathering up more travel literature, more bombings in London, slightly diminished temperatures. And Maureen's tooth hurts again; the root canal DIDN'T TAKE! Bother.

    TODAY: Back down to the endodontist in Stockton, who tells Maureen not to worry, that her rooted-out tooth will "settle down" very soon. This dental incident should conclude next week. Otherwise we're shopping, stocking up on journey supplies. See my latest trip prep report (click here). We hope to go in a week.

    TOMORROW: Dare I say it? Another hot day much like others recently, without driving or swimming or much else. Gather more books and maps, keyboard inanely, contemplate change and coolness. Like us, passing deer and rabbits are lethargic. Yet I seem to have much to do. Hmmm...


    Yesterday I heard a bit (on NPR) of a TV backbencher (critic and/or producer and/or whatever) previewing the upcoming season, calling it more awful than usual, He noted that the usual story pitch is on the order of X-FILES MEETS BLUE VELVET or CSI GOES TO MAYBERRY or CELEBRITY CHEFS WRESTLING — in other words, blending and tweaking of existing formulae. More sitcoms and procedurals and realities and revised games. How often is a new formula introduced? Why are the vast majority of offerings the result of plagiarism? Is creativity bad for business?

    Awhile back (in Antigua Guatemala) I read an old NEW YORKER article on Hollywood, about how the hot-dog vendors have a better idea of how their products will sell than do entertainment executives, who generally don't know fock-all about how audiences will really react to THEIR products. And of course there's little room for experimentation and innovation — the process is too expensive for that. So, remake what sold before and hope it sells again.

    With such tediously inane entertainments being offered, is it any wonder that US cinema and TV audiences vote with their feet (or eyes) and go elsewhere? The Web and games are much more interactive and engrossing; their consumption rises as the older media stagnate and shrink. But you knew all this already, right? Right.


    Monday 25 July 2005, scrambled

    We've been thinking. That's always dangerous, but it can't be helped. So we were floating around in B&B's pool playing BELUGA or whatever, me frog-crawling with a snorkel (no mask or fins), and we thought, "This is nice." And we thought, "Hey, if we weren't already planning on going to Peru-Bolivia-LakeTiticaca-Cuzco-MachuPicchu after XMas, we might do something about swimming around in warm water." And we thought, "We're not in shape for the Andean Altiplano and we won't be right away." And we thought, "We could buy snorkels-masks-fins and underwater camera and drive the little RV down to the Mar de Cortez (Golfo de California) and splash happily over the winter and it wouldn't cost too much, right?" But it wouldn't be as dramatic to write about. So we'll see.

    YESTERDAY: The eBay sales are over, results disappointing but vitally needed. The hard drive on GOLIATH the Toshiba mega-laptop dies The True Death. We proceed as best as possible, including the above-noted BELUGA session. Then downhill (only an hour late) to Sharon & Fred's rental for a pleasant gathering, food and discussions of events and economics and e-stuff. More family socializing is planned prior to our departure next weekend. Busy busy busy.

    TODAY: The day we've been waiting for: to Sacto for Maureen's thyroid biopsy, the reason we've hung around here so long. Drop off GOLIATH for repairs on the way down; should be ready tomorrow. [The biopsy initially looks good; full results in a couple weeks. We'll call before we enter Canada, see if dire news (unlikely) requires a quick return.] Then back uphill and into the pool again; not many of these sessions left to go. And I got a nice fan email (click here) about the Harry Oliver site (click here). It's nice to be appreciated, eh? Oh yeah, I *will* take my DRSB's along on this trip and hopefully get more texts entered. Busy busy busy.

    Wednesday 27 July 2005, glazed

    When we travel I am typically very neat and organized and tidy. When we don't travel, I generally find myself surrounded by piles and debris. Is this genetic or was it learned? Can/should I be cured?

    Neocon pundit David Brooks coins a disparaging term, BoBos (Bourgeois Bohemians), a diverting synonym for liberal effete yuppies, folks in con­ventional places living unconventional lives. Happy folks. What's wrong?

    YESTERDAY: Another drive down the hill to deal with petty crap; suffer disappointments in shipping and computing; we're both so tired. But I manage to cook tolerably well. It's a habit by now. Good thing.

    TODAY: Shipping accomplished; repaired computer retrieved (now in process of reloading it); a jump in the pool. Unfortunately I jumped in wrong, munged my ankle. Just call me Gimpalong Crotchity..

    TOMORROW: I don't think we'll go anywhere, except when Bobbie takes us out to dine. We might have to delay the start of the trip for a couple days too. That's SOP by now. Ah well, a bit more time to finish up.

    Thursday 28 July 2005, dazed

    Does this sound familiar? Sleep early, wake & work early, sleep late, work more, drive over and jump in B&B's pool. Goliath is muchly reloaded but not everything works together. I hate it when computers outsmart me. I am the HUMAN!! I am the MASTER!! Right...

    Late afternoon the Abuelitas arrive to waft us off to the Jackson Ranch­eria in that big dark Cadillac. En route we talked of kin etc. Someone marries: "Did she take his name?" I muse on names and culture. Shall we be known by patronymics or matronymics, or identified by genetic code, or what?

    We pass an all-too-clever church signboard reading: ETERNITY: Smoking or Non-Smoking? This of course depends on just what is ETERNITY. Not to mention the validity of some specific theologies. Whatever.

    We meet Sharon and Fred at the darkly corporate Lone Wolf Restaurant in the Rancheria's giant casino-hotel complex, hidden away among treed dry rolling hills above Jackson. Bobbie is buying dinner for us all, happy to have her daughters and sister gathered about. We talk of weather & health & PO'd parents & events. We listen to Sharon (mostly) talk about furnishing their yet-to-be-completed home, just down the road from Las Abuelitas.

    We eat what's apparently the best food in Amador County. We skip the Michael Bolton concert that has the Rancheria's parking lot filled and head over to Sharon & Fred's rental for a postprandial chat. A cooling evening (85°f) that East Coasters would die for, say our former East Coasters. I regard North America east of the Rocky Mountains as uninhabitable — yet it's infested with people!

    And such people! Sharon tells bizarre tales of bizarre New Jersey people, says she'll miss them, but not enough to stay there. Maybe we can convice her to write the stories? Right...

    I assume you have better taste than I do, but then I grew up on a goat farm while pretending I was Cher, so I've been scarred. —Peter Swanson

    Friday 29 July 2005, phazed

    About the same, yada yada. This won't last much longer; Sunday we have to start actually getting ready for departure. Scrub the RV, prep the bikes, load stuff, etc. Our target is now midday Tuesday. Right.

    POOLSIDE ENTOMOLOGY: B&B's pool has a little hydraulic 'droid that scoots around under water and sucks up debris. Yet many bugs are to be found floating on or near the surface: hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants), moths, non-house flies, beetles. These aren't necessarily pleasant to encounter whilst backstroking, so I sometimes swim laps looking for critters to evict. Most are dead. Most that aren't are wasps and bees; one approaches them gingerly, quickly snapping them towards the horizon.

    I've lately taken greater notice of the non-venemous living guys. I'll flick them gently up on the pool edge. They usually land on their backs and flail, so I'll softly turn them over. Flies and beetles and ants all perform similar rituals, first bouncing around like they're shaking chlorinated water from their little spiracles, or maybe the sunny concrete is hot on those small feet; then a grooming protocol, brushing themselves all over. Those with wings spread'em and flicker. A few moments later, they quickly depart.

    POOLSIDE THEOLOGY: I am thus a miraculous, super-natural saviour of random insect lives. But do they bother to worship me? NO!! The damn ingrates! I'll have to work up a fire-and-brim­stone protocol, eh?

    Saturday 30 July 2005, lazed

    No pool today. Some keyboarding. Some waiting while a DVD of old home movies takes FOREVER to be decoded and copied. (The audio decoding is a real time pig.) I have yet to find a DVD ripper that handles noncommercial video adequately. Bother.

    And late morning, down to Sutter Creek for brunch with Fred & Sharon at the musty, overpriced Corner Cafe — but we had a discount coupon, so it was cheap and breezy (sitting next to the A/C). Still no luck with exchan­ging Lempiras — thanks for trying, Sharon.

    Then back home, sleep, more keyboarding. Tomorrow we start cleaning and loading the RV. This phase is almost over. Any further events (before our return) will be recorded in the NORTHERN EXPOSURE II Journey Journal click here. Sayonara.

    Click here to see what happens next. If you dare.


    MORE-TO-DO LIST:

    Lay in supplies of meds for the trip. Get the little DVD burner to work. Prep the recumbent bikes for the trip north. Edit & post trip pics. In MUSIC, do an index for my CW (cowboy-west­ern) songs. Will these all be done?

    heading for midnight sunshine

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