Guilt?

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Actually, yes.  Just sitting around sucks.  I know I could be working.  And I fear that resting might cause a problem restarting.  You just have no idea what being imprisoned in your own... pretty much... corpse is like.  I've been out of the limits of the box for a bit.  I do fear falling back in.  Oh, it'll happen.  As it heats up, perhaps as fall or winter hits, maybe off and on until a major setback occurs.  So, while I feel like I could work, it is very difficult to just rest, relax.  Emotions, however, have to be set aside.  I do need rest, or something will break, or I'll simply fall too hard to easily get up.  Pacing, and logic, is more vital at this time than emotion.  But that doesn't mean the old sob doesn't feel.  Not even sure what to do with it.  It's like a woman screaming in my head, when she seems right.  At least I know she isn't.  I'll figure it out.

Some of the recent research has been about what to do once I get to Alaska.  There are several issues.  None of them are simple, or cheap, or always even going to be possible, fully.

In the areas I would like to go, permafrost might well be a problem.  Building on permafrost... well... it's not a happy thing.  Either you mitigate in a number of ways or you simply understand the structure will be short lived.  Even with mitigation, the natural variability takes any real surety off the table.  While their is over-engineering, in an off-grid, off-road, environment, unless you are a major corp or government, you won't have a way of getting in equipment, you won't have access to electricity, and there will be other problems. 

Start by not buying swamp land, though.  However, there are some ways of helping.  My guess is, my first cabin will not last very long.  Just the start-up costs... buying the land... locating the land and looking it over first, will be quite an expense.  Bush pilots ain't cheap, and that is who would be doing those sorts of runs.  Then getting a bid in before it is gone.  Tricky, but doable if I watch p's and q's with great care.  Perhaps cabin sitting for store/service vouchers, then camping hard in the summer, for inexpensive living.  Not a happy life, but... there are some advantages.  Heck, perhaps volunteering as a camp helper for hunters, so as to learn to skin and butcher, for nothing but lodging and food... or if seen as more valuable, for the same as I might ask for lodge sitting...  Tricky, as I suggested, but doable... if available, if I can get fit enough.

The next idea is energy.  Sure, wood for heat.  But having some electrical would be a great help.  Solar in Alaska would be sucky much of the year, but would come into it's own in the summer, when a fridge and/or freezer would become quite useful.  Wind power, however, might well be a good option.  Perhaps a hybrid system.  So, I've been delving into that.  Such a set-up would make cordless power tools less of a luxury, more of standard kit.  Of course, there would have to be a generator, gas or diesel...  I haven't even started looking at those.  Perhaps something better will be out before I get settled and ready for that.

A large part of what I will be doing, when I first get there, is figuring out how to live without spending money.  Camping will work, to some degree, but there would still be food and gas to get food, initially.  Just going up there, and living off the land to start out, isn't a practical notion.  I'll have to earn my way into that.  Just the hunting skills, for there in particular, will have to be learned.  Further, an out-of-state hunting and fishing license would not be possible, I believe... as a means of survival per cost.  Fishing licenses for out-of-staters are limited, and expensive.  The expense may, probably, not be worth the value.  Well, and out-of-state hunting licenses for big game requires hiring a guide.  Poaching?  Yeah, no.  As much as I am not interested in state, I'm also not interesting in that unless something went really wrong, and only as a means of survival.  Camping would cut lodging costs, but food and fuel of some sorts would remain a cost... at least initially.  Money, money, money.  And I don't count on having much when I get there.  Just what I have paired my belongings down to, and what I receive each month.  I will need to make contacts, and try to prove myself out through the summer, in order to get a sitting/caretaker gig as well.  Being there, in person, may help with that.

So far out there.  So much work to get in the kind of shape that is required.  So much hiking, camping, boating, and fishing to do to get some of the skills down.  And, I am hoping, only a few years away, two, maybe three, depending on how I can work up, organize, handle some business, gear up, and save.  There are a lot of balls in the air in this juggle, but...  Heck, who knows, maybe the strain of the push will kill me, and I can sleep, peacefully, with the fishes?  *blub*  It'd make a lot of people happy, I don't really care so long as it doesn't just cripple me and drop me into the mouth of the bureaucratic leviathans or some such other ugly scenario.  No, I'll keep going.  Just wanted to spill a few beans, vent, and...  Chicken.  I think I'll warm a couple of pieces of that, watch some old show from before I realized how nasty H-wood is, then go to bed... or maybe do a little work, then go to bed.

Later or good night.