Brutal.

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Well, as I see things.  At 21:00 it is still ~84.  I napped again.  That helps.  Nap?  Well, something.  Sleeping from time to time, for some time, until I can face the heat again.  Without the ac the world would be brutal.  By the way, is the pope going to be turning off his air conditioning?  If people don't need it, further, neither do old art pieces.  Let them rot with the rest.  Either put up or shut up.  And I still think they should disarm every politicians', and the pope has become a full-on politician, security forces when they declare arms makers, and those who desire self defense, to be evil.  Remove every defense, and don't even allow their security forces to use force in their defense. 

With the ac, and a few hours of sleep in the cool, I can do a bit more time awake.  But until it actually cools, I can't do much more.  Yes, I am falling behind a bit.  I really might have to consider saving for some things to be installed next summer.  If I installed central air, I would still want to have vents to these front rooms.  Or... figure out how to do it myself.  That is one project that doesn't at all excite me in the diy direction.

Perhaps, if it cools, a drive.  Just to get out, maybe as I suggested to do some shopping and get a meal.  And to cool with the night air, with some hope of beginning work on the kayak.  I'd really like to get that going.  I held up hoping for somethings, but that doesn't look to be on schedule, so I'll just have to do it this way.  I should be able to save for central air.  Don't know if that will add to the value of the home enough to make it worth the cost, but I'll still be here a year or two more.  If things last.  Things are really going down fast.

Had one blogger moan and complain about all us conservative types who realize the attempt (success) by congress to centralize a bunch of governing outside (and above) US sovereignty, and the complete moral and legal clusterfuck the supreme court and other branches have become, but then turned off the ability to comment.  At least for me.  I didn't realize he was a progressive.  I have a brother like that.  No matter what he says, he'll say whatever he is told to get along and not get in trouble.  Which is my guess why he wouldn't allow comments.  I'll check in the next day or two.  Perhaps it is a glitch, that has happened.  If not, I'll dump his blog.  I don't do that.

Later.

Yeah, sleep is just crazy.

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I can't really push or pull much.  I go down when I go down and wake when I can.  I have no idea when I made it to bed, but I woke around 13:30, give or take an hour.  I know I tried to stay up longer, and really I tried to sleep longer.  Right now, it just seems to happen.  There isn't a lot of give or take.  I am in good shape, not miserable, only a little warm as the afternoons hit.  Much better in here than out there though.  At 14:30ish, the thermometer read right at 94, plus or minus a few degrees.  At nearly 17:00 it seems to be about the same.  A four degree discrepancy between digital and mechanical reading is all.  Sometimes they are closer, but usually a few degrees off as a standard... the electric being generally two degrees cooler.

It's too warm to mess around much right now.  I am hoping to do a bit of work on the kayak this evening.  As soon as the highest reading is down to below 75, I'll begin considering it.  I may take a trip to town when it hits that, just to get out, do a bit of grocery shopping, and maybe have an easy meal.  I haven't had a sweet treat in a while anyway.  Might have a regular soda with whatever fast food I choose.  I have dairy kefir grains on the way, so I want to have a couple of extra gallons of milk to use.  Yeah, a strange thing.  I've always suggested that I am a sort of foodie.  Not doing it so much to be different as to expand my experience and tastes so as to be more survivable.  If you can't eat salami because it is too different, if you can't eat beef or port, because all you know is chicken, if you can't eat fish, all of these things are limits.  Sure, you might be able, over time, to get over some things.  Best to do that now.  I just like to keep my options open, or in this case find a less expensive way of having something I already know I like.

A shower already.  I've found a way to shower and "bath" at the same time.  Olive oil has been great for my skin.  The problem is, even with salt, it doesn't seem (to me) to be all that cleansing.  Now, what I use for cleansing does it's job, but it also strips everything off the skin.  It's like using steelwool soap.  So, now I just wash the body, then salt and oil, saving shampooing for last.  The shampoo isn't as harsh as the soap, so it mostly leaves the oil to do it's thing.  Yeah, no, if you itch... if you have dry patches of skin, if your scalp itches?  Give that a try.  Someone recently suggested baby oil, and I will look into a comparison.  The thing is, you can't eat baby oil.  See, olive oil, even if it is a little less effective, does double duty, and perhaps more.  If I'm going to be out and about, one product for many applications just works out better.  Besides, olive oil is biodegradable.  I'm not an absolutist on such things, but I do tend to keep it in mind.  Wherever I will be living will be where I will depend on everything to be usable or easily cleared.  Anyway, so, I got clean and oiled.

I almost forgot to change my nico-patch today.  That, for me, is a good sign.  Actually, the way I realized it was time to drop to a weaker patch, or quit them, was when days had gone by and I had forgotten.  Over time I begin skipping changing, forgetting, and that is when the hunger has weakened.  I had always gone with the more expensive ones, thinking those must be better (nicotine patches).  I was never satisfied with them.  They were problematic putting on, they didn't stick well, they wouldn't stay on in the shower.  As I remember, they were clear and square (I guess that makes them more socially acceptable?).  This time I went with the cheaper sort.  I'm loving these.  They are round, so fit, go on, and remove easily.  They stick very well.  I find them easy to remove from the packaging.  And, I believe the were 3.5~4/5~6ths the price.  Today is my fifth patch.  I have 51 more, though I doubt I will use them all.

Later.

That's odd.

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Not sure, but 390 visits in four minutes?  It doesn't sound like enough for an attack, though I am not sure the date is good enough to decide that.  If I had to guess, I'd say someone is just tinkering with their system to create a bunch of hits for... who knows why.  Perhaps just to say they can do it.  It is a Friday night.  Not sure if it is a full moon though.  I think the highest number of hits I have had in a whole day is around a hundred.  Maybe a bit higher these last few years.  Generally, I get fifty to sixty pageviews, but only have four to six sites show up as having been the source of the visits.  Lots of things don't make sense.  But 400 visits in a few minutes is, at best, suspicious.  I don't care, the numbers are pretty meaningless as I have learned.  Who knows, maybe that is much more usual, it just doesn't show up.

It is cooling, but that just isn't quite enough.  The dog days of summer have returned.  I'd like to get the kayak rigged and going, so even if I can't hike, I might head out to a lake.  Paddle until I get too hot, then swim, or sink a bit.  Cool, boys and girls, that's all Doom wants.  But it isn't going to happen sitting around.  So... I may just start putting the cover together.  I have the sun protecting tarp in the basket for next month and a smaller rain tarp already purchased.  Why two different items?  Air flow.  I want air to get in and pass through when it is just heat I am fighting.

Yes, tomorrow. I will bust out, when I can, when it isn't too hot, and begin putting the cover together.  There are a lot of things I am unsure about.  There are some trick I may have to figure out on the fly.  Some of the joints may simply not work.  It's going to be a several day process, at the very shortest, if everything I expect could go wrong does go wrong.  If everything goes right, it might be a day, two on the outer edge.  I'll know soon enough.  I might be able to get to it before dawn.  Or maybe not until one of the various meanings of "tomorrow morning".  I'll get to it though.

Later.

Ugly sleep and philosophy.

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Okay, sleep is officially tumbling through space as a football punted by an amateur or odd professional.  Though, when you think about it, a professional football player is... well... never mind.  Didn't they used to use the best as blood sacrifices?  Gee what a thousand years difference makes.  Several, but who's counting.  Shut it, you over in the corner.  You really don't know what you are talking about.  Oh, and you, in the other corner.  Sure, you know, but you also know exactly what I am talking about.  Hmm... it looks like those days are returning in a more common way anyway.  Even the West has decided to collapse itself and quit, go naked and native and just die.  Oh, you'll see.

I can't even remember when I was forced to ground.  It wasn't even that the heat was too much.  Day after day of it, though, even at moderate, and it does catch up.  Even when I can keep the temps in here more moderate.  Over, say, 72, and I slowly roast.  Though there may have been something(s) else involved.  Whatever the case is, while I realized it was going to happen, saw it coming until it was nigh onto me like a freight train to a poor fool with no way to get out of the way in time.  But by the time I realized it was coming and that there wasn't an escape vector, I was too focused on it to recall much else.  I haven't blacked out in sleep like that since I don't know when.  It's how I prefer, but can usually only achieve that on special days, when I have been living on six hours of sleep for a week or three and can finally just let go, or lose my grip.

I was almost sure I was awake by 20:00, by my alarm, which should have meant 19:30.  It is already 20:30 real time, so I had some slippage even waking up.  I know I saw the alarm time as 20:00, and thought that is when I woke.  But it certainly doesn't take the machine that long to boot.  Not yet.  This machine, too, is dying.  It has started crashing once to twice a day.  I won't be replacing it.  It's too much hassle for government, and whatever else, harassment and spying.  Hmm... need to check on the phone situation, actually, too.  Pulling the plug on it, probably going to landline.

Oh, right, philosophy.  I spoke with dozens of philosophers in my dream.  Some famous, or you might have heard of them, some not so much, from the last three hundred years, save a fat white-hair.  Some of those who presented the biggest theories, by the way, are not the best at general functional discussions in those areas.  While some who excel at discussing the matters don't really see themselves well to various sized framings of the content about which they speak.  Some few actually do passing well at both.

From what I can tell, from the dreams, but which also relates to what I happened to have concluded while awake as I woke and compared notes, is that philosophy seems to be, for the most part, especially as it is presented in modern times, just another form of an attempt to prove that there is not God.  The many and varied actual realities, statistics, and probabilities that belie human and in fact scientific and other understandings, exist in massive ways.  Little or big, connected or seemingly singular, these counters to sciences and general thought by men abound, and if left to their own devices would often individually, but certainly as a whole, rend all of man's great and small intellectual feats as meaningless as the paper shredded and dropped on the old ticker-tape parade heroes.

As a couple of simple but profound notions that do so, pretty much on their own, assuming man can be right...  We don't know what makes up the majority of the mass of real space.  We don't know what makes up space beyond that.  Nor do we know what energy is involved, or how it works, that maintains distances from the masses we do know about, in regular space (space with matter and energy as we know things, or thought we knew things).  They have two theories.  One is called black matter, the other black energy.  They, by the way, aren't theories.  Not really.  They are names for the things that scientists simply don't know.  The whole of those could be summed up by, well... it has to be something, but we honestly have no way to measure or find it.  Okay.  And a second is that, by all of our calculations, the mass of the universe should not still be expanding.  Actually, it should not have expanded to this point.  More, it should have stopped expanding less than a second after the "big bang" and collapsed upon itself, returning to nothing before some devices could have measured it's existence.  Now, understand, every single field of science, when anomalies are accounted, are ruinous in much the same way.  They know that their fields work right until they don't.  And, from what little they can understand, they don't work, shouldn't work, and couldn't work, quite often.  But lets not interfere with daycare for adult jobs, the bureaucracies devoted to them, the bad government payouts through this and that, and the massive creation of useless debt, oh and the feelings of everyone who know, despite knowing it's bunk.

Ah, that brings us back to the reason for philosophers.  These headcases, for the most part, use whatever psychological tools of psychopaths to invest their more logical but just as perverse associates, with a reason to continue believing in what they themselves have proven can't be relied upon.  Often, philosophers frame things in either, or, when no such base has been established.  Either you walked to school, or carried your lunch.  Either your mother was a red-head, or you are ugly.  Speaking for scientists, that last might be true, minus the requirement of the mother being a red-head.  Seems to be a near requirement.  Anyway...  So, really, as I suggested, philosophers pretty much just try to fool scientists into continuing work they know... doesn't fit it's own frameworks.  They attempt to deny God, when He stands right before them, lacking only a huge radio announcement somehow transmitted in neon lights.  They deny what they plainly see, and pass this to scientists so they can continue denying with their work.

Needless to say, it ended in a philosopher slaughter.  If only they could run as fast as they could bullshit.  I didn't even hate all of them.  Just had enough.  On the good side, in the dream?  Some of them, who realized running would just mean dying tired?  They prayed.  I still killed them.  Might as well do it while they were in a state of grace, is how I saw that.  Though most did just die tired.  Even a fat old white-hair.  I took my time with him.  Bastard just wouldn't run out of air, or just keel over.  Which was fine by me.  I had alllllll night!  You know, when God lets me loose on you through you, it's not going to be pretty.  And, no, it's not just at the apocalypse.  Myself and my brothers have ridden a thousand thousand times, and lived even more often.  We even take down our own.

Why do you think some of the most fabulous societies in history just disappeared?  What we do to our own, when they forget the flood, is far worse than we do to man.  We can work through man, for our own we have to do it the old way.  Fire, flood, volcano, drought, mix and match, and we can.  Some have become so powerful that it takes... a memo to the Director of the Board.  And so be it.  Never quite know what we are dealing with.  I'm... certainly curious about what has gone wrong with these times.  Thankfully I think there are enough uncorrupted among the populace, and they are of the right sort, that this won't be the end of their civilization.  Hopefully just an end to the corruption that would lead to a one-world bureau-tyranny.  They seem to have infected the high in every .gov, .chur, .mil, .aca, .media, et.  On the good side, I don't think that will save them, or win it for them.  Though it isn't mine to really even care, just ride when the time is right.  When the memo is sent, the work begins.  Sometimes I see it all with my own eyes, as now.  Sometimes I only know about it through the veil.  Doesn't matter, either way.  A minor seal while here, though there is an alternate seal when behind the veil.

Crazy dreams.  But lots of fun.  Reminds me of the milder hunts for other men-type who went astray.  Only, in the dream, I got to do it myself, not having to rely upon the dark forces unleashed by the evils of man and nephilim in the past, or nature itself.  It happens, to a degree.  But never even close to in whole.  Refreshing!

Now I am awake.  I suppose I could fix something to eat, or tinker on a project, or... I don't know.  Barely awake, even now.  Tired to the bones.  But it is cooling off.  Maybe that will help.  Later. 

What I wouldn't give for a regular sleep cycle.

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I have had people suggest that sleeping regularly is just a matter of will.  For decades I pursued that.  At this point I realize I can control sleep with willpower about as well as I could grow a lost limb back with willpower.  You know, for some people, maybe.  At least regarding sleep cycles.  I could not go to bed until nearly morning.  I didn't even bother setting the alarm.  Since I would be sleeping with the sun up, I did turn the ac unit on and just let it run.  If I don't I wake in a hot tangle, with a headache, and tired as if I hadn't slept, sometimes worse.  As it turned out I woke around noon and in pretty good shape.

It's not like I'm going to jump and run.  I simply feel pretty good.  Of course, it is just at the point in the day were the temps ramp up.  I have to guess at least mid 90's, maybe higher.  Brutal for us cold weather types.  I still can't believe there are people who wear coats when it hits the 40's, even 50's.  I used to laugh, thinking that was just a southern thing, like in Charleston.  But it's not.  It's rather common.  T-shirt and short weather, those temps for me, so long as it isn't raining.  The wet changes things a bit.  Well, so you can see where the 90's hit me.  Even in here, with the thermal shades, fan, even when I run the ac... I can feel the grip of hot death trying to reach in and get me!  Won't work, even if it does get in.  But the story adds to the post.

Pretty potent dreams again last night.  I only remember one for sure.  It just seems as if there were many others back there.  Women, women, women, sort of.  Not a harem, just all a man might want to know about women in the ways he might like to know, without needing a shower after the lesson.  Well, give or take.  Not that I was mechanically sweating after the dream, but psychically I was.  It sure seemed like I needed a shower.  Which, by the way, I ought to take for general purposes anyway.

Not much else going on.  And I won't do much until it begins to cool... read perhaps, blog.  I notice the government has pretty much said it can enact, enforce, and do, whatever it likes.  It has decided that checks and balances mean nothing, the constitution is not useful for it's purposes, and people have no say.  At this point, it has declared all Americans second class, or less, citizens.  I must assume that, with the cheating in voting being shut down, the federal officials realized that had one of two ways to go.  Either they could submit to the voting class or just take over.  They have chosen to grab control.  It pretty much looks like people have just surrendered to it.  I need to keep focused, time is short.

Well, looking around the world, you see trouble around every corner.  The Greek exit (Grexit for short) looks to be more sure than not.  Many say that won't matter.  Many shouldn't talk out of their asses.  It will.  Sort of like your shoe laces being tied doesn't matter.  Just sitting there?  Okay.  But if you have to walk many miles, we'll talk.  Or even if a major sprint is required for the extension of your life.  Further, if Greece goes, who next?  Italy, Spain, Ireland, France, or some other nation that isn't listed as it isn't seen as important enough?  Or will the Euro simply begin to falter, then fail whole and complete? 

China is playing at being Russia's friend.  Russia is playing like it is a big bad wolf... only if nations surrender without a fight.  Though China is looking at new territory as well.  The truth is, any pushback, and neither nation would consider it.  They are simply hoping Western nations will bitch and moan and do nothing, then settle... splitting the difference with new borders built into them.  Soros is pretending to be Ukraine's friend, but is really just a Russian spoiler, trying to lose Western favor with Ukraine.  He'll get a hefty payoff it if works.  And all the Ukrainian orphan boys he can sink his teeth into, or whatever his hungers are.  Russia and China are weak militarily.  They have nukes, if I doubt their delivery systems, or even their warheads at this point.  More likely to blow up the silo or ship than even achieve liftoff.  And having a six million man army that can't carry it's gear, probably not even a full pack of ammunition and weapons, is not exactly terrifying.  If all you have is a questionable nuclear and general wmd arsenal... they really shouldn't be rattling cages.  Though they may be desperate.  Oil drop hit one, economic fails in the West hit the other, both have very uneasy natives and a land grab might ease some tensions at home... or scare some into compliance.  With Zero in office, though, they might get a surrender.  No one noticed that it wasn't a president bowing to world leaders, it was a black.  Definitely an Uncle Tom.  You would think blacks, or even white libs, would be outraged.  I am sure world leaders are laughing their collective butts off.  Editing in a coffee delivery with the bow?

Hmm... whatever.  I filled my zippo.  Two lighters of various sorts for my kit.  I have disposable bics on the way.  Add in the other forms of fire starting and I should be good.  I have alcohol for that stove, and will be buying coleman's fuel for the whisper international next month.  I really ought to set up camp hereabouts, run the various stoves, make sure everything runs and that I have what I need.  I can do that on some afternoon, or even if I get up just early enough.  Or, heck, even at night.  I have some spray for the equipment I want to put on as well.  Hmm... soon, maybe.  Just too hot for now.  Later.

It's ready.

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No use in hooking it up tonight.  Since the air is already cooling fairly quickly I simply wouldn't be able to gauge it's effectiveness.  Though too, even if the temp doesn't drop tomorrow, if it honestly feels cooler...  Humidity, just a bit more water in the air really, can make it feel much cooler with the same amount of air movement due to the fan.  I am truly hoping it'll do something.  Though, in truth, it may simply not be able to kick enough moisture into the air, or spread that moistened air out of the bucket.  On this one, with this range of things, I am neither a believer or otherwise.  Yeah, it worked at burning man.  But that was when it was hitting well past 100 F, and much drier than even here.  You'd have to run some numbers, and then hope you weren't missing a variable.  I just don't know.

Doing something isn't always about success.  Yes, there is that.  But sometimes the only way to know is to find out!  Further, success on a first shot is... unusual.  How much do you want to succeed?  If the project fails, what can you change?  More air flow, perhaps a water disturbance, or even a minor pump to put the cool water on a screen in front of the fan.  More holes, bigger holes, more powerful fan, lots of variables can be changed, if you have the time, money, patience, energy, and want or need quotients.  I hope it works as is.  Some things are fun to tinker to perfection, or great improvement.  Something aren't.  For me, this is an aren't. 

Yes, a beer, two... but real one or... make that four.  A couple of pickled eggs while I am at it.  Bar food, for you elites.  Probably never heard of such a... quaint thing.  Do you even know what eggs are?  No, not in human female ovaries.  You really need to get out.  Never mind.  I have been acquainted with such food since I was a very young lad.  Not quite tottler aged, but around just at preteen.  To my thinking, then and now, it sure beat school food, more so now.  Depriving everyone of fats won't do a thing about some *cough* parents otherwise only feeding their kids at McDonalds.  Parents, these days, are too busy with their own lives, it seems, to notice that their children are being oppressed by their government.  Better that, I suppose, than having to deal with them themselves.  Wealth truly is a poison of the soul.  On the good side, poison does what it does.

Yeah.  Summer is dragging me down.  I can hope to try to work, do this and that, keep on what I can, and do more than just suffer.  Actually, I am pleased with how things are going.  I am able to remember the day, often the date or close enough.  I am eating, bathing, tending teeth and feet and more.  No great projects, but it's in the mid 80's to 90's outside, and mid 70's in.  I haven't even used the ac the last few nights, as I try to acclimate quicker.  A bit of an upfront loss in energy, but a hope that a bit more can be accessible more quickly.  Suffer through it lad?  Yes, maybe.  If it goes too far off the track, yeah.  But for now no ac.

It's past bedtime.  But, really, I don't have a lot of control there.  Even with the ac, until I almost naturally cool, I won't be able to sleep.  As my days and nights begin to slip, I wish my ac had a timer on it.  Hmm, maybe it does.  No, not the one that shuts it down after a set number of hours, but the one that turns it on at a certain time or number of hours.  I might tinker with it, or look for the manual tomorrow... if that fails perhaps look for a timer plug in... wait, I might have one?  Yeah, but those Christmas light timers are really weird.  Not sure it would work.  Never mind.  If I wake too hot, I may have to turn the ac on anyway.

Good night.

Worked up quite a sweat.

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Not that I did all that much.  I drilled the holes into one bucket, then marked and drilled the other bucket.  I did check the drill bits before I started, comparing them to the pipe, and went with the one that seemed to be the best.  I drilled two holes and was about to go on when... I knew better.  So I checked.  Yeah, no.  Too small.  Luckily I had the next size up, and that did work.  However, getting a mostly drilled hole, in such soft material, to finish drilling was tricky.  Ugly too.  But it'll work.  the inner sleeves will hold it, and some hot glue.  So I finished drilling the holes.  Easy enough.

The next part, I knew, was going to be a bear.  I had to use the sawsall to cut the lid.  But I couldn't really get a good read on what to cut, how far.  I just don't have calipers that big, and the perimeter of the fan is at an angle to boot.  I just did what I could with the saw.  Both cuts were too small, but there really wasn't enough structure remaining against which to try to do more cutting.  So I got out the smaller snips.  Not quite tin snips, more like very heavy wire snips.  And, to it.  One of them just would not fix.  I kept trimming two eights of an inch around, did that twice it seems, and... it still looks like it needs two eights off.  Gah!  So I grabbed the ugly one, the one that isn't as neat, and went to work on it.  When it looked like it needed an quarter inch, I gave it what seemed like an half inch.  Actually... that worked.

Oh, but before I went and glued broken fans in, I decided to test them.  They work.  So I stripped off the bases, and have one read to fit as soon as the glue heats up.  I've never used a glue gun before.  Here is to doing a dozen things for the first time while I'm too tired to probably legally drive!  Hmm... maybe more beer?  Maybe after.  Once the fan is fitted, I will grab some of the inner fittings, to see if I can get the pipes in, perhaps sealed with enough glue, and ready to dry/cure/whatever before the trial tomorrow.  The other lid?  Yeah, I'll wait on that.  But, this time, quarter inch snips.  I'm not going to bother trying to be nice.  Good thing I have been working my grip muscles.  *snip*

Still with the acid stomach.  I hope I can get to the post office, then the grocery store tomorrow.  Antacids of some sort, and more milk/cream... for now.  A little spoiling when I'm making major changes just seems to help.  Later.  Or most likely good night.

A start.

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My stomach is acidic and tumbling just a bit, mostly just not happy about the sense that it is eating itself.  I have not had this particular problem when quitting before.  Jitters, check.  Some greater want of food (though much more mild), check.  But losing my interest in food and acid stomach are new.  Milk and cream haven't helped.  I need to get in to town soon, for milk for an experiment... and that and other groceries for other uses.

To think, Desert Cat and his mother make this, but I chickened out from trying it.  My experiment... kefir.  Some of it will be consumed raw, sometimes I'll blend and add fruit.  I don't really need this, usually.  But I do like it.  Regular yogurt, to me, is okay.  But really only so-so.  For whatever reason, I really like kefir.  But it is grossly expensive at the store.  Hmm... I ought to do a price comparison, of raw (or lightly pasteurized, can't find raw locally) milk in versus kefir out.  And add flavor costs if I go that way... a few ounces of frozen, blended, then added.  Even a few ounces of frozen fruits are murderously expensive.  Still, if you can ensure they aren't falsely flavored, you'll be in good stead.  Ignore "organic", just look for the ingredient lists.  They might have to add water if they clean then freeze, just because water will then be in there.  No sugar, no Greek stuff, nothing a lawyer wouldn't say to confuse you.  No gum that you know you can't chew, no acid or base that you are pretty sure are something else, no nothing.  Organic is just as bad as anything else.  Eating organic food does not make you better than those who eat at McDonalds.  About the same, just that one of you has even more money to toss.

Anyway, beside kefir, I really am thinking about green juice.  The latter being pretty much what it sounds like.  There are quite a few greens you can process.  Kale to char to dandelions to... pretty much anything rich in green.  Some do it because, if they remove the fiber, it is extremely nutrient rich and (without the fiber) extremely easy to digest.  Some use it as a cleanser.  Not sure I need that.  What I do need is heavier amounts of more easily digested nutrients.  My body does not always eat what I feed it.  Sometimes I will keep the fiber in, sometimes I will strain it out.  I might even consider beginning to study what native plants can be juiced in this manner, for on the trail.  Cheap, free, and relatively easy with a smooth big rock on a smooth boulder, perhaps with a little drain and container to catch it.  Something to be careful with, but a provider if caught out or provisions go missing or spoil.

Now that is just silly.

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From two days ago, having a nervous hunger I simply couldn't truly control, to yesterday having just a bit of that, to today, where I have to force myself to eat.  It's just not right.  Still sluggish, otherwise.  I feel good, haven't done much and might not.  I have the list of things to do.  Too many sandbags are in play, for now.  I'll keep trying, looking for a loophole, rolling the dice, and otherwise just enjoying the little slices of life that come my way.

I have been listening to music, watching some of the videos... some nearly compulsively.  Some of the songs remind me just how impossible some things were.  Now I can laugh about things that left scars in their day, or were so horrifyingly perplexing and so close to the limits of a man's ability to accept what his eyes and other senses are showing, that forgetting seems the best practice.  In time, as those things are able to be reviewed, what of them can be, sometimes laughter occurs.  Mostly I am keeping to that side of things.  Avoiding the pit that could occur from falling into it all in the opposite direction.  It's not always a choice, which way one will go.  Sometimes, though, when life is better... and it is even if sluggish... there is some control.  Plus, really, life... on a personal level... is hopeful, getting better, kind, really. 

Political, social, and economic reality is not headed to, but a form of hell and ensuring hell will come.  Whether these elites have sold out, been blackmailed, or never were good, I can't say.  There is nothing I can do about that, save work with my personal hope at finding a way to a place that is safer.  And, pray to God, whether I can make it out or not.  Evil has taken over this nation.  From the Supreme Court to every head of this nation, and many states, counties, cities...  They will drag anyone they can into it, and they have much control over finance, law, and social and civil influence.  And they are absolutely evil.  But... that isn't something I can do much about.  The best I can do is tend myself, pray, and avoid the rest to within my ability.

Still, that baffles me.  The lack of hunger thing.  I even WANT to eat, I just... bleh.  I'll eat something anyway.  A couple of eggs, maybe.  Perhaps something else, but what?  Later.

Neither sleep nor waking are working well.

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There are enough new and old things going on, that I am not terribly worried.  Not worried at all.  Frustrated, sure.  I am just basically back on medicines after a major slip.  Anything over two days is such, this was somewhere between three and five days.  Look, it's going to happen.  Usually I catch it in a day, or even a single dose.  Rarely I just don't.  More when I am doing a bit of traveling, and pushing myself along with it, over the course of several days.  Next, as summer has hit, I am having to figure out acclimation.  I have found a simple system that works very well.  But that takes some time.  I'm, mostly, now keeping the cave in the 75 F range.  So long as I don't have to turn on a lot of lights, or traipse in and out too often, or even work hard so burn a lot of calories in here so turn into a human-like heater, I can keep it pretty level in here.  I don't even need the ac, now, unless I have worked, in or out, or the heat gets much higher for whatever reason.  Fans, always, but nothing more.  So far.  Still, it's busting my balls.  Even that, for me, is hot.  If I go slow, it's okay.  I think I can get more used to it, and perhaps higher heat, but I don't do that quickly.  Toss in quitting tobacco, and I think those are the primary culprits.  Any would do alone, though would be managed more easily, perhaps quickly.  But all together and I get what I get.

I tried to go down at 20:?? but that just didn't happen.  I think I made it in at 22:30 or so.  It just didn't matter.  My body wasn't serious about even attempting to sleep until 0:30, though what time I finally slept I can't see.  Dreams, and probably wakeful spots, haunted my attempts at actual sleep all through the night.  It wasn't a horrible night, or anything, it just wasn't a fast way to rest.  I tried to get up several times.  I had the alarm set for 6:00, but while awake at 5:30 or so, I realized I would no more be getting up at 6:00 than I would probably even make it by 9:00.  Between waking periods, dreaming, and a rather soft-serve sleep as a general rule, I didn't climb out of the bunk until noon, maybe noon-thirty... at least by the alarm time, which is set an half hour fast.  All good.  Rest, like food and medicine, are among the keys.  I know, bodily, if I have slept too much.  It's as bad as not sleeping enough.  Neither, always, have a direct, or regular, time equivalent.  Sometimes six hours of sleep is best, sometimes, like last night, it's twelve hours... with the various stipulations.  I am rested, but not overly so.  Body is a little sore from needing to stay down that long, but... it otherwise feels right.  Nah, I don't like it either.

I just don't know what today will bring.  I know the list.  I also know that there isn't much focus, energy, or tolerance for the temps.  I'll keep the list handy, look for a way to some of it, and just... keep tat it.  Later.

Just about bedtime.

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No, I didn't get to a thing.  Rested.  It's in the mid 70's in the house, mid 80's outside, or was an hour or two ago.  I have been reading an e-mag.  Sci-fi based.

The most recent story was more a conversation about the various Matrix movies.  While I agree with him, on the one hand, in that I too believe the second and third movies were significant, just in a different way (less pop, more thinking), I disagree with him a great deal about what it all means.  Actually, I agree with his notions about what the the sequels suggest, or the questions they present, and some of the possibilities.  I simply disagree with what he sees as the probable solutions.

Is there such a thing as free will?  Philosophy, which has become, to my mind, for the most part, a subset of logic, thus mathematics, can no more decide that than physics or any field of mathematics.  These things, at their very best, can provide a mechanism for how something might happen, not why it might happen.  Being a professor of philosophy probably doesn't give him rise to entertain the hard sciences well enough to understand their limits.  Wine and cheese with wowed undergrads, and various other intellectuals, discussing people from history who honestly understood even less than they, but with a toast as if toasting immortals and gods.  It's just the way of it.  I think, for men who limit themselves in order to have overpaid, underworked, employment, they have to believe in... whatever they are told to believe.  Anything but God, and that would preclude choice, which would also cover their caddish, queer, socialist, behavior... while they live at the wrong end of that line of history.  Dead enders of their own hands, is it?  Yeah.

Never mind.  You do have free will.  That free will may, or may not, have any affect in this world.  It may be canceling, good for bad.  It may purely come down to intent, though I don't believe that is always, or even usually, the case.  Still, it is a possibility.  Such men would have the greatest of faith, mind you.  God alone will know their hearts and judge them in their great faith just so.

While I don't think highly of philosophers, I do admit that they can be greatly entertaining when not trying to foolishly grandstand.  The best are the ones who are honestly still looking.  If they have closed doors, say to God, then they are not still looking.  Usually I find those who have chosen other than God, have chosen so not because God has failed them, but that they have failed God.  They want perfection, but, to them, God's rules are too hard.  Why have sin, which is debt, to hold you down, when denial is so easy.  One might have to do drugs, or be careless sexually, and dig deeper and more often, to offset one sin with another, and attempt to forget so as to have no need to forgive or be forgiven of mind.  The further the deeper, and maintaining a steady orbit just away from God is impossible.  Either closer or farther.

Interesting reading.  And several stories before this, that were more true stories, then with questions the story might have raised.  Some good, some too simple, some just not to my taste, but a bonus feature I rather enjoyed.  Some of the less than favored questions lead me to seek questions that I much preferred, and am consider even now.  On the dark side of my mind... where consciousness does not see.  Who needs to sleep to walk there?  Well, I don't, whatever else the case.  I may not know what is happening to know something is happening.  Sometimes I even get various levels of the results, and can add questions, do a mark up, and send it back through the loop.  If I have the time and interest.  It all comes back, in time.

Good night.

Odd thoughts and music, too.

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It's a slow day, a healing day, a good day.  Rest, mostly.  A bite to eat.  A nap earlier.  Maybe some work on the humidifiers and pack.  I don't mind.  Quitting tobacco is a bit heavier than I thought... remember... but worth the price.  Just to not be in perpetual future debt to a non-necessity.  The mind, in part from the odd dreams, in part from building back up, and maybe just because, is playing enjoyable games with my imagination.  Some things, albeit, less imagination than they might seem.  Pick and choose, even I do sometimes.  I can't know.

A while, a nap, and more.

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I wouldn't say today is a great day.  I think it wise that I didn't try to push out for a hike.  I simply don't have much.  I was up for a while, then crashed so hard I am almost surprised I didn't break something.  Odd dreams to go with it.

The ones I remember were...  Well.  Women on the mind.  In one, somehow, I found myself in a dalliance with an female AI.  A geek girl, but she did have a flesh suit... figuratively in one sense, quite literally in another.  A biological device through which she could interact with the world.  Downloaded into, however, really limited here... and cowed her a bit.  Electrons have no need for fear, a skin suit can.  A few cuts and bruises and she started to understand why people act... illogical.  Missing a step, walking into a screen door that is snapping shut, there is a reason for seeming illogic, more so if there is no way to upload and repair, or even get a new "suit".  Anyway, we started out as fast friends, just enjoying playing logic games.  Neither of us thought we could love the other, it just happened.  No sure how it ended up, I think I got the remote control before she could rewire herself, though.  :p  Nah, just can't remember.

The next dream...  I didn't go looking for trouble, it came and found me.  First, a woman became available.  Now, in the dream, I was pretty much me, as I write.  Celibate, attempting humility, faithful, and... pretty much just me, only in a dream.  So when this woman became friendly, I meant to keep it just as such.  She had no such intentions.  And then there were others.  I ended up having a harem enforced on me!  I will not tell you it wasn't a wonderful dream.  I knew it was wrong, but... soft, warm, round, frisky, friendly, patient, open.  I couldn't, for the life of me, resist.  I ended up with, like, 30 women?  They pretty much created a living center, some of them worked, some tended the children, and I was given a... well... a rather large allowance.  They took care of the the hive, gave me a large chunk of the excess honey, and that was that.  Three to four times a day, save when I was traveling.  I might take a couple of them with me.  Or not.  *breath*  Anyway.

Probably the nicotine patch.  But... something odd has been whirling around lately.  No idea what it is, can't quite catch it.  It's like being hunted by pixies, woodland female spirits.  Just that sort of feel.  Of course they aren't real, just work with the idea.  Women are pixies, and they often hunt like that.  Never see them, but they sure see and watch you, somehow.  Something out there, a whole pack of them.  Not sure it's for love, might just be girls being... girls... or... whatever.  Women do very strange things sometimes.  I know that sensation was in the dreams, if in several distinct forms.

Not as much of a twitch today, with the tobacco patch.  The munchies are much relieved.  Hungry, mostly just normally.  There is a bit more to it, but nowhere as bad as yesterday.  Yesterday it was like the hunger hives.  Today is just... food tastes slightly better, but otherwise isn't in great demand.  I am trying to floss every night, brush twice, and gargle morning and night.  I ordered whitening strips, as a duty to this sacrifice.  I am pleased.  Still twitchy, other than in a way that has been expressed by hunger.  Nervous.  But that, too, is diminishing.  I think smoking those cigarettes just aggravated things.

I am hoping to go to bed earlier tonight, then get up early tomorrow again, and get going.  I may tinker with the pack a bit tonight, replacing the old sleeping back in it's original stuff sack and setting up the new one with the hammock and netting, and putting personals in another stuff sack.  The stuff sack for personals is flat-bottomed, and see-through mesh for the top two thirds, which makes it easier to sort and find things.  Toothpaste, sun lotion, whatever... seeing is finding.  It will fit in the rocket pack perfectly.  Then I don't lose things all over while unpacking as well.  That and maybe making a bite to eat, and putting the humidifiers together.  I've got to keep trying.  Keep them on my list.  Or they get forgotten.

Later.

Yes!

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Not that it means anything, or will, in fact.  However, I was awake by 6:30... 7:00 by my alarm, but my alarm is set an half hour fast (is it?), so that those two times are the same.  I actually had it set for 6:30*, but couldn't rise, and didn't want to mess with the snooze as that isn't a winning strategy in the shape I was in.  So I rest it for 7:00 and did get up.  I am lumbering and uneasy on my mind's feet, but awake.  In theory, I might make it out to hiking.  In reality, I'm not sure I can.  I know my corpse like some people know their old machines.  When they have to do with what they have, they learn to know the sounds and feel.  Some things tell them that the day won't be terribly productive.  That is what I am hearing.

No worries.  That I made it out by 7:00 means I might be able to keep making it to my feet by 7:00.  And, one of those mornings, I will be out there.  I will just toodle around, maybe do some cleaning, perhaps some microfacturing, a shower or bath later, and probably to the post office to see if I want to accept that package.  I have been out every other day lately, and getting cooked.  So I don't mind skipping one of those days out and just taking two days off.  Prepping, one hopes, for another early start and a push back into hiking.  I will be buying a fishing license this next month as well.  More reason to hike, and a way to pass my time while resting.  Might even just eat on the fly, or right off it.  Lemon, salt, a sharp knife, and a good look at the innards first, and I might not even need a cook device.  Hmm... a soy sauce mix wouldn't be bad to take either.  Love me some bait.

One shoe at a time.  And waking at this time is the first shoe.  Getting out the next.  I was missing medicine and food, so I suspect those things caught up to me.  As well, I was pushing it by getting out.  I don't mind, but there does come due a price.  How much better I am doing is difficult to gauge, as improvement really is in fractions of percents.  But given that I have been in a funk, they have been healthy percentages over past non-funk status.  Uhrm, unless it gets worse.  But I'm not seeing that.  If this is as bad as funk gets, I'm... alive again.  Not fully, even now.  Couldn't hold a job, and... yeah... that's the criteria.  I can't guarantee my schedule, I can't guarantee I can be out on any given day, I can't be out daily.  But I can get by much better.  I can, over time, exert some control.  I can focus on short, mid, and longer term goals and keep them in focus enough to walk my way to them.  I am even attempting to stretch that.

I am honestly hoping to make a large part of my way up the mountain.  I believe I heard that it is roughly 10 miles.  It isn't Mt. Everest, but it isn't a flat, across town, hike either.  As long as there is a place to rest, I should be fine.  Not sure about mountain lions, but I am the size of a bigger black bear and a bit mean about rude creatures.  Still, would rather not have to get stitches.  My guess is, rattlesnakes are a possibility too.  On that score, hammocks have an advantage.  Wood against mountain lions if you could hang them high enough... they couldn't balance out on the ropes, really.  Anyway, that will happen sooner or later, and then begin taking on a life of it's own... or kill me.  :p

Later.

Just resting, mostly.

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It seemed cool enough.  But getting out in the heat really takes it out of me.  Yesterday was a light day, and yet it's just hot.  I heard a complaint or two about humidity.  I just laughed, and told them I was from Iowa.  Then they laughed, and we cried.  :p  Today has seemed cooler, and I haven't done much work.  The patch may or may not have something to do with the slow day.  I keep wanting to gobble.  I hope the munchies pass before I eat my way to a new belly.  A nap this afternoon.  All good.

I am going to try to get to bed earlier tonight, and be out early tomorrow.  I just don't know.  If the temps are as cool into the late morning as they have been, I may head out whatever happens.  Twitchy about the heat, I realize a day of hiking will put me down for at least a day... for now, twitchy about tobacco, and just back on meds after... a while off them.  I am not sure how many days I forget medicine.  At least two, up to four days without.  I am doing my best, but that isn't all that good lately.  The heat is a real deal-breaker at times.

Oh, I had heard a comment or two, here or there, when at the shop for a trim and lessons.  Something about, "Who does he think he is, a biker?" between a couple of customers who obviously talk too loudly, and the woman who cuts my hair said something about enjoying my bike.  So I asked her, this time, if they think I am a biker.  That, it seems, is the consensus.  I laughed and laughed, on the inside.  But tried to make a few corrections.  You can tell a woman, but not always much, right or wrong if she has made up her mind, that is that.  Still, she has my side of it.

You read here.  You know how poor my health is.  I don't wear leathers.  I have never owned a motorcycle.  I wear jeans, and either t-shirts or polos.  And until I went with a middle trim, I had a conservative short business haircut.  I do, often, lately, just trim my beard rather than fully shave, but it's very short and neat.  I just, honestly, have no idea where they get that.  Laughed I did, inside.  Didn't want that boom laugh to startle the hens in there.  You know how they can be.

Well... I thought it was all funny.  And I do try to dress civilly, and be fashionably polite, tone down voice and even expression.  The things I do!  And to even then be thought a biker?  I wonder what they would think if I just was myself?  Seriously.  I don't know if there is a term for that.  Not that I am rude, just that my voice can boom reverberate on windows, my laugh can be heard blocks away, and my expressions can cause tears and powerful empathy or fear.  Especially with a booming articulation to support it.  Oh well.  Still, I just chuckle while they cluck.

Have I ever mentioned that I have no tattoos?  None showing, none hidden.  I have never been inked.  Just imagine what an old, mostly dead guy has to look like, without tattoos, to be taken for a biker.  Way too funny.  It did come as a surprise to me.

No work today.  Just really couldn't get to it.  Hungry, all the time, then too full.  And the twitch energy is aimed at food.  I'll try to get out tomorrow.  Later, perhaps good night.

Late to bed, late to wake.

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I had hoped a beer would help.  Sometimes it really does.  Last night it neither helped nor hurt.  Tea, beer, milk, no difference.  Not at that volume.  And by the time I began to sip, I was already beginning to cool down.  Technically it is still cool enough, but would it be by the time I got there?  Doubtful.  Besides, I was out yesterday, and that does drain the system.  Excuses?  Maybe.  But I honestly have made efforts to go to sleep earlier, and wake earlier, and I simply will not test that heat like that.  I won't go after a certain time unless I am sure it won't get way too hot, often quite quickly, on top of what I am working up to internally.  I'll keep trying.  I really am ready, just need the window to match up with consciousness and clarity plus function.

I'm on the patch today.  Okay, I am actually wanting real tobacco.  I don't remember this.  Oh well, I'll take it.  Medicine is back on schedule.  I am out of chewable vitamins, and could use more super-b.  My little system seems to work rather well.  Yeah, hiccups, bumps in the road, and all... given the givens, I'm doing miracles.  They know it, too.  You should.  Just that I can even mostly self medicate in my condition...  Toss in living alone?  Throw in hiking, camping, canoeing, if I ever get to those?  Or, get further along those tracks, I'll be getting there.  Truth is, I am burning off a lot of fat.  I'm not say it's just melting off, but it is slowly being eaten away.  Between diet changes (not dieting) and more muscle use, the fat is slowly going away.  It didn't all go on in a day, won't go off in a day, even a year or two.  And, to be honest, I want to keep some of it.  I don't want a 31 inch waist again, if 34~36 wouldn't be bad.  Fat is a savings account that would take a long time to force withdrawal.  In some cases that would be a bad thing, in many cases it would be good.

I asked my friend how deep he thought the lake up there is.  He didn't know, so I asked him if he floats.  I don't think he trusts me anymore.  I DID suggest I had rope.  I wouldn't leave a friend at the bottom... for long.  :p  Actually, if I get up there, I plan on finding out.  Uhrm, up to a point.  If it ends up being some kind of 300 ft deep glacier lake, I'll just have to get a longer rope, and send my friend down.  Hey, I'm better at retrieving.

Today, to be honest, I am going to try to go low and slow.  I'm not hurting for the beer, but the tobacco thing is a bit tighter than I remember.  And yesterday was another day out in the heat.  A more temperate heat but it wore me out well enough.  I will see if the new stuff bags work as intended.  I can probably, finally, get those humidifiers drilled and going.  Perhaps some cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom.  And, just maybe... nah... if I can get those things done, I will wait until it begins cooling, take a bath while letting the ac run, then try, again, to sleep early and wake early.  Later.

If you have an hour, do drop in.

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Living and dying.  And again.  Time and space and places and people.

Cooling down, should be to bed early enough.

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Not bad.  I filled the camping lighter with fuel.  One of them.  After that I have mostly just tried to calm and cool myself. 

I ordered books recently, and kept waiting for an email.  I checked since I ordered.  Oddly, it ended up in the spam bin.  I do think google manipulates against certain companies.  Any company that isn't leftest, or cowed by them.  Whether it is a managerial decision, or just the typical SJW's who work in such companies doing a solid for their causes matters little.  Still, I figured it out.  Not sure how best to download the books though, or which format.  They suggested one type for android, one type for kindle, but I'm using kindle ON an android.  Bleh.  :p  So I sent off an email inquiry about that and how best to download.  I'm now, again, officially a heavy reader.  Until I run out of their books.

I also received something in the mail, something I have to sign to receive.  I have nothing on order, and already received my medication.  Perhaps this is someone at the V.A. making sure I got my medication?  I don't know.  I'll find out tomorrow, if I can get up early enough.  Still, if it's from someone I don't know, or looks suspicious, I'll simply refuse it.  People are becoming seriously murderous these days, and corruption and some other things from various bureaucracies and other institutions are endangering people.  Do not think I jest.  And do not accept anything you cannot identify.  Just signing and taking might make you guilty, somehow, these days.  Or dead.

Oh, right.  Having eggs and that hash back to easy availability is fantastic.  It sure seems like simple, humble, food.  And it is.  That is exactly what it is and it is wonderful.  I know what it is, I know what is in it (nothing but what I add, all of which I know what that is).  I know how it was cooked.  I know when it was cooked.  And I even know what it will taste like... with butter, or a bit of salt and pepper, perhaps pepper flecks, or with sprouts, bacon, sausage, and-or cheese.  It is food that does exactly what it is supposed to do.  Boring?  Yeah, okay, but not every meal should be a gourmet delight.  Even so, sometimes, after being without it for a few days, it actually is.

Oh, yes.  I might have one beer tonight.  My kind of beer, mind you.  A cheers to the end of tobacco.  Then I'll brush the teeth and head off to a new start at an end to tobacco tomorrow.  Every once in a while, for the next two years, I'll go looking for my can.  Then remember.  It's a weird thing, changing a habit that has existed for that long.  Good night.

No hiking.

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Up too late.  I went to bed at about 22:15, but then realized at about 22:30 that I hadn't taken my medicine.  Okay, but, my medi-sets hadn't been set up.  So I did that.  I do a month at a time.  I was sure hoping furosemide showed up today though.  Anyway, setting up the meds made a midnight sleep time.  I set the alarm for 6:30.  Yeah, I remember hearing it.  Not what I did about it.  I am sure I snoozed it... for a while.  At some point I just no longer got my nerves jangled every few minutes, then woke around 10:30.  A long sleep, but whatever.  Too late to get out, would be too hot.  Beyond, I had the appointment coming up.  As it turned out, today was a relatively cool one.  On that score I could have been out.  Something like 84~87 in the valley.  But the appointment time didn't allow for that, and I wouldn't have expected it either, so wouldn't have gone.  I'll try again tomorrow.

I did get the sides shaved, pretty much, to the scalp.  If I get into using the straight razor, I'd love to learn to shave the pith.  Or... something like that.  Though that will be sort of tricky.  Eventually I'll get a mirror on an arm, in the bathroom, and learn to do that, then learn to do it by touch... or that's the theory.  Yeah, right after I learn to shave my face with that though.  Then again, shaving the head is a lot easier than shaving the face, just takes a bit of acrobatics and training to do it blind.  I'll keep going in for a trim, ever month or two, then get a final one if visiting my brother remains part of the the plan.

After that, my friend wanted to go shopping for music and movies.  He was pretty lackluster about it.  Then again, the thought of movies and music always sounds good until you get in there and have to face stacks and cases full of distracting covers.  It's impossible.  You could ask for help, but for a simple browsing day, what do you even ask?  "Do you know that one group that does that one song?", or "Do you know that movie that has, oh... what's her name in it?"  Yeah... Too much, too much.  Still, he found a Moody Blues cd and a MMonroe cup.  I grabbed three, as there was a buy two, get the third for a dollar.  Problem is, as I was heading to the register I realized they were just dvd.  If you've got bluray, dvd doesn't cut it.  I don't think it looks any more awful played on a dvd or bluray, but dvd just... bleh.

After that, I went to the sporting goods store.  A couple of stuff sacks.  One for the hammock and netting, one for my personals in the side rocket pack.  A pack of alcohol fuel for that stove, some lighter fluid, two types... old school zippos and propane.  Oh, and a bladder for my small pack.  About the same prices as Amazon, easier to return.  Then I took my friend home and hurried home myself.  That heat, even in the mid-80's, is nothing to play with. 

I'll try to go down earlier tonight and get out tomorrow.  Doing what I can.  Later.

Yeah, well, I am ready for in the morning.

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I got the rest of my kit ready.  Beside the bladder, I have two canteens along with.  One is my mess canteen, stailness, with a nesting stainless cup and "near" lid for that.  Just enough to heat two or three cups of water for... anything.  I may test my stove tomorrow too.  Just to see how it does.  If, that is, I decide to stop somewhere.  Or, even if I make it far enough along the trail TO stop.  I have a lot of time, and it should still be somewhat cool, and cooler up there than down here at any given time.  Incentive, and assistance, all in one factor.  I had to wash those out though.  They were new.  Was carrying them just for weight for a while.

Now everything is functional, I think.  Everything is ready.  I have the closes I want changed out, I have everything rigged and placed where I want it, I am sure I have the gear that I want and need and nothing more, water is secured, I even have the clothes and boots I will be wearing ready to go.  Plus, having bathed, the most I might want to do is a quick shower in the morning.  Hmm, and maybe shave.  Meh, maybe not.  We'll see.

It looks like my can of tobacco will last through tomorrow.  I could make it last another day, but...  I don't want to do a half a day though.  So I will try to use it up by tomorrow night, but not have it gone by noon or something.  Then, Tuesday, I begin the patches.  I always worry.  But truth be told, quitting is rather easy for me.  This method has worked three other times.  I just messed up.  The only provisio is that if my teeth start going bad, even with decent care, I will go back to tobacco.  I'm not going to lose my teeth that particular way.

I've got to admit it.  I'm a bit afraid of the pack and the trail tomorrow.  I just am.  Not so much that I'll stroke out, or have a medical.  More that it'll drive me into the dirt, and drop me like a bag of rocks off a cliff.  Just beat me silly.  This pack is almost 50% heavier... wait, it's 100% heavier, though it does handle pretty well even without the belt clip.  It just seems... large.  I don't think that has been my problem getting out.  Crowding really has been an issue.  And heat, and migraines, and burning out on other things too.  We'll see.  In spite of the fear, I have truly been looking forward to this.  And I am really hoping I can get far enough along, and find an out of the way place to pitch a minor camp, whether I heat water or just rest or snooze of a bit.  Just to say I did.  It'll be the first real start to anything else.

I best get on to bed.  I didn't even get most of what I wanted, but I am ready for hiking, and it is the start of a new week.  To do more, I might have to run the ac a bit more in early afternoon, and dress slightly warmer until my heat breaker trips.  I just hate having to fuss so much just to try to get in a little work.  But... fuss I must if I want to catch up, keep up, and even dig into getting ahead.  So many little projects, and big ones.  I'll get there.  Good night.

Part of it.

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I emptied the big pack and went through everything with a fine tooth comb.  I changed some of the clothing out, took out the old sleeping bag and put in two parts of the new one, put snake skins on the hammock and netting, then stole the stuff sack for the old sleeping bag and used it... for now... for the hammock system.  Then I organized what I wanted where, but remembered the repair job.  That ended up being a bit of a letdown.  I was expecting this grand cutting and gluing bonanza, with all attempts at perfection leading to something looking like a third grader had gotten bored then busy.  The buckles just slid off the webbing and the new slid right back into place.

Then I repacked the central section, as I saw fit.  Clothing and then sleeping bag at the bottom, cooking gear and food near the middle (all sealed, then sealed, then sealed), then rain and cold gear near the top, along with the tarp, leaving the outside top pocket for the hammock, ridgeline, and treesaver rigging straps.  The inside upper pocket is empty, waiting for maps and map case.  I haven't gotten the rocket packs loaded yet, but everything is sorted.  As I was getting to that, I realized the time, and decided on a bath.  Since it IS Sunday, and dinner will be arriving before long.  Plus, it'll mean I am ready to just head out early in the morning.  Hmm... might set a pot of coffee to the ready, so I can at least have a fresh punch of joe on the nose to get me going.

I won't be going fast, I might not get far.  I think the trail that heads west is the one that gets steep fast, the other is a bit more leisurely, for a while... or while longer.  I believe both end up on Logan peak, after about a 10 mile hike, though they probably go other places too.  It might actually be easier exploring than just... hiking a known quantity.  If need be, as I suggested, I might be able to get off the track, set up a little camp, and take a nap.  My appointment isn't until early afternoon.

I'll finish the pack, for sure.  And I might hit the kitchen just a bit.  Though I may wait until it begins cooling down in a few hours.  I am hoping to stop at the ranger station on my way back, if I have it in me.  I'd like to discuss fire and cooking, wildlife, and anything else they would like to let me know.  I'm not fully trusting, but I like to give folks a fair chance.  Plus, if they are who runs the show, best to get their side of it.  As I said, I don't fully trust them, but I don't trust the yahoos who think the land is theirs either.  I don't want to be a problem, and I would like to be informed, and maybe even on decent terms with... pretty much everybody, if possible.  Just understand, I don't trust my own mother, not always, not on some things.  I don't trust my friend on all things.  I don't even trust myself, not fully.  Not my area?  Then I seek out the informed, some authority, some men who know otherwise, and compare my experiences with that.

Had to have the lights on, so that heated the place up.  No, I don't use the mercury laden light bulbs!  Beside them being used as spy devices, they are poisoning the land fill, and very possibly careless users.  So, they do heat up.  Had to do it though.  It'll begin cooling off soon enough though.  A drift of clouds has come in and partially shielded the area from full light...  40% off, or so?  That'll help.  Later.

While waking, thinking.

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Yeah, I know.  Afternoon already and yet...  Same as yesterday, and really the day I did get out last.  Afternoon seems to be the time it takes for me to get going.  I suppose I am keeping it a bit cool, with the windows and fans.  Seems, in this season, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.  If I don't make it too cool (relative, sort of) in the mornings, then it gets outrageously too hot by this time.  But in keeping the temp down earlier, it impacts performance.  Stuck in the middle?  Yes.  I'll take it though.  Shaving a few extra, or five, or ten, or more degrees off my already cooler inside than out home is worth a later start.  I am just hoping, when I get ready for a hike, I can just pick up and go before I realize I am out of my league?  Yes to that too!

While I have the dehydrator, and some things planned for it, on hand, and other things yet to be purchased and tried, once I get arranged again for all of that, I am also looking at other tools.  The next item will probably be a vacuum sealer, then maybe a slicer.  Hrm... though I really need a grain mill, so...  Yeah, probably the grain mill next, then those others, in that order.  The goal is to increase storage, but also produce my own pack foods.  To be honest, just what I have created in beef jerky has saved me more than the cost of the machine.  *burp*  And I haven't even, quite, eaten it all.  Yeah, better get that sealer sooner than later.  I'll do what I can.

How much does it save?  Like I said, the jerky has already paid for the dehydrator.  I am guessing, comparing mre's and freeze-dried prices, these devices will pay for themselves in one or two extended camping trips.  Plus, I won't be dependent upon the general tastes of cooks who prepare recipes for a broad audience.  I can make what I like, alter it to my tastes beyond that, and save money doing it.  Plus, I can fill out my food storage for longer prep more fully and better, more affordably, cutting out a lot of middle men, a delivery system cost, and the rest.

As I choose a device, I read, look, compare.  Price is but one qualifier.  Not every higher price is justified.  Do I need stainless when I know everything under it is plastic?  No.  Do I need a larger size, when a little bit of tinkering and minor elbow grease can allow a smaller sized unit to do the same work?  No.  But longevity, replacement parts, and things like that, are a consideration.  As with all things, balance, and a realistic look at my accounts and income plus use by volume and time.  I will never have it all down.  Accounting isn't my schtick.  I could do it, but I won't.  Can't to be honest, in real terms.  Just because you might be able to swim ten miles, most wouldn't do that for love or money.  Just three miles three times a week and I sometimes had to deal with chaffing.  Bleh.

I am also looking at what the device requires, or could use.  As with the dehydrator, more plates and screens.  And, in the longer term, a minor food slicer, for even cutting thus drying times.  Some are needed and wanted sooner, some can just go on the list.  With the vacuum pack sealer, bags of course, but what about mylar bags?  There are round about ways, with the right attachments and tools.  And, desiccants or oxygen absorbers?  The Mormon church has studied, and found desiccant bags aren't necessary.  Good enough for me.  They don't play around on some things.  But oxygen absorbers are recommended, so will be purchased with the kit.  Mylar bags are more of a next step, sometime in the future.  Right now the focus is on trail ready, short to mid-term, prep.

The goal is to, initially, have compact easy to eat foods on the trail, and meals ready for any occasion, as needs or wants might dictate.  As experience is gained, then I'd like to add to my long term stores, learning what can be stored, for how long, and how best to do that.  As well, in time, I am hoping to have enough meals laid up for my trip to Alaska, straight out, and extra.  If I should move to Alaska, I am honestly hoping to have enough food laid up for two years of living before I have to consider buying a single food item... in a worst case scenario.  Which probably means a couple of trips, first with Nandi, then with a rented moving vehicle of some sort.  Doable.

If I don't move?  Great.  Then I'll be prepped for two years, and will probably grow that a bit, then begin living off it.  Replacing as I use, broadening the scope and volume, but no more than a three year supply.  As well, opening up other venues, such as making various soaps and shampoos, maybe growing some of my favored herbs and learning how to collect seed, adding rhubarb, asparagus, horse radish, and other sorts of things around the outside of the cave.  Even if I go, those things might carry into Alaska, or there might be similar types of natural growing things to be developed even up there.  I just won't garden proper.  Too darned much work!

Well... I'll get on to something now.  The bags.  I want to empty the big one anyway, before repairs.  That'll set me up to tinkering with some of the contents and figuring out what will go in which pack.  Later.

Sunday?

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Not sure which day I lost count on in there, Friday or Saturday.  I remember Thursday well enough.  I must have really baked.  Funny thing is, not so long ago, not knowing the day (or date, which I still don't always track) was far more the norm than not.  How odd to be on this side of that affair.  Missing a day is a big deal now.  Sunday?  Well, okay.  I'll fix that in my mind and get going.  I have something tomorrow, an appointment.  Local, easy.  It is later in the day, so I can try to get a hike in earlier.  I don't know if I will be out by sunup, but if I am prepped, I can be out within an half hour of waking.  I don't know how far I will get.  I may explore both ways along the closest trailhead.  I'd like to take my big pack, so that if I need a rest, I can just go off the trail if possible, and if I can do that then rig the hammock and maybe the canopy and just rest or even nap for a bit.  Something about that sounds... good.

I might back down a bit on my workload today, too.  Still, the packs need to be sorted and the big one really needs a new buckle.  And I would like to get the humidifiers running.  Or at least further along in the process.  But I think, once I begin on those, they will kick out in very short order.  Maybe a bit of picking up around the house too, but... not a huge effort.  I really am still resting from the heat.  Not sure why it is hitting so hard, but it is.  Kicking my legs out from under me, and hard.  I'll work through this too.  Sure beats the migraines, if just about as disabling.  Though this, I think, I can get a bit more familiar with, and conquer... a bit better... maybe.  Heat, though... my environmental Achilles's heel.

Yeah, I haven't gotten around to my 'reverted to draft' post.  While the headache is managed, I don't think it would take a lot to set it off.  So, until music is tenable again, I won't be fussing.  I've got to read and listen, both may need editing.  I'll let fly much... just not all.  Some things are private, some things I can get wrong in such situations, and the world is becoming terribly dangerous.  From lawsuits to government oppression to failing churches and "pastors" to nuts with nothing to lose.  Been that last, seen the rest.  Funny?  I never thought murdering someone else would solve any of my problems, ever.  Or solve any problems, really.  Attrition in war is one thing, and actual deaths are less important, strategically, than wounding.  One of the lefties, recently, called me a chump.  Yeah, perhaps.  But... if that's being a chump, I'll take it.

Later.

Headache treated.

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No, the headache wasn't from that little spit o' beer.  When I woke this morning, I knew I would have a headache.  I slept on the wrong pillow arrangement, and my neck arteries, on both sides, were screaming at me as I woke.  A kink in those pipes, through a night, means only one thing.  Well, maybe two... either massive headache, as today, or rarely a migraine.  Painwise, migraines just squeeze out the win.  But side issues takes it so far over the top there is no comparison... when thinking of pain sources as you might aged cheese in a country fair.  It would be like judging not just the taste, but scent(s), appearance, heft, and whatever else.  Migraines are blue ribbon specials.  And can't always be managed.  For some reason, sometimes, otc do it for me.  Though, just the pain, which isn't always wise.

I took a handful of otc, after waking and realizing the problem, then went back to bed.  It's difficult, even with a nasty headbomb having gone off, to go back to sleep right in the morning after waking.  I managed it, for a bit.  Two or three hours.  My main neck bloodways are still sore from being kinked all night though, but that will work it's way out.  It happens sometimes whether I drink or not, and not always even when I do drink.  I guess I just got "lucky" last night.  Other than the neck, feeling pretty good this morning.

Oh, yeah, I posted something last night.  I'll take a look at it, later, for wording and such.  Sometimes I say the queerest things, that really can, often are, often with intent, be taken wrong.  So, I'll do any editing necessary.  No, if Doom suggest queerity, it has nothing to do with bareback nothing.  The queerest I have been is letting her be on top.  Something I don't even allow anymore, and haven't for the last few *cough* women.  So...  At least I haven't thought spurs were necessary.  Just have to have a big enough whip, I guess. 

Today?  Not a lot.  Not so much because of beer thirty last night.  But because I am still recovering from heat tox, and still adjusting to the heat.  Moving a bit slower as summer hits, and deep in winter, is just how it goes.  I think I can still do some big projects, hikes, and such.  They just won't be as close together, and recovery simply takes longer.  And yet, I will attempt to rattle a few cages around here.  Splitting out and prepping both packs, repairing the one, a good hit on the kitchen and bathroom, and working on the humidifiers.  I still think I can get to most of that.  Perhaps all of it.  But first I want to spend time nursing from my coffee cup.

It sure is nice to have a stein that fits my needs.  Battle tested, washed and back on the ready.  Don't always have to use it, don't always have to fill it when I do use it.  Though I do hate starting with a cup/glass/stein half full.  A style, or logic thing rather than a superstition.  So... I can probably overcome that, if I want to.

Later.