Teh boy is alive, alive I tell ya!

.
.
Okay, I'm not doing wind sprints, benching weights, swimming, or... much.  But I did hit the first load of dishes.  Well, I didn't FINISH them, but that wasn't possible.  After sitting in a soak for a very long time they had to be washed off first before being washed.  And that has gone forward and they are sitting back in a fresh soak, to be completed tonight/this morning.  It killed my legs and lower back, but that is the way of it when the 'machine' has been out of commission for a while.  Cranky, rusted, and such, but I will deal with that.

I have other things I am beginning to plan.  Grocery shopping tops the list.  While I have been doing okay, food-wise, it has not been optimal.  No one died, unlike other less than optimal outcomes, but...  I have been barely keeping in bits of food.  If it weren't for incoming food I would have been in serious trouble though.  Milk, tobacco, caffeine, all being kept at marginal levels.  I am working on keeping more food available that I can simply supplement the real meals on wheels.  I am probably going back to those breakfast bars.  After being off all of that for over a month my diabetes is staying solid at 130-140.  While high, it is better than 200-400, or even well over 600-700.  Plus, those bars are really easy, were helping me lose weight, and just work.  I think my diabetes will do what it does regardless of what I do.

We got our first snow tonight.  It has been raining the last two days, I believe.  It just turned to snow sometime tonight.  It won't stay, most likely.  Being a winter man, I do like seeing that first snow.  I can deal with the cold, it is that heat that gets to me.  I am keeping my home just a bit warmer this year though.  Not really for comfort, more so that if the window of opportunity to get to things or get out arise, I can leap on it.  I would love to get out, after the first snow, and just look at the local world, go up a pass, enjoy the crisp air.  I do love it here.  This is where I like to love and will probably die, someday. 

Yes, back on track perhaps.  We will see.  Good day/night/morning... something.  Whatever it happens to be for you because those things mean nothing to me.

Politics? Bah! Bleh! Meh?

.
.
No, I don't like the choices.  A moderate versus a slightly less moderate.  No, I do like Romney.  He's out of my circles, but... not really.  Just where he has gotten in life, not in who he is.  He is a common man, just a hard worker, who had goals, health, and parlayed his life well.  As a man, fine.  I would give him the shirt off my back in need.  But as a pol?  Nice guys finish last.  Then again, from what I believe I saw between the lines in this election cycle, he isn't... truly nice.  No, not a bogeyman either, just... rather... insistent, persistent, intent, and willing to do what it takes... within true reason from what I can tell.  Still, politically, I am... simply not convinced.  The Bush's burned me on politics quite a bit.

Of course, Zero HAS to go.  And, Romney is the ONLY one that can make him go.  R. Paul, Johnson?  They have zero chances.  And, regardless of what Vox suggests about a vote for Paul being a vote for Zero, the truth is half of that is true.  It IS one less vote for Romney.  Then again, and in truth, I think Romney has it in the bag.  I don't think more Republicans are going to turn out, I think more everybodys are going to turn out, save maybe Dems (though many indies will vote for him, shielded by the ambiguity of being an indy).  I believe Romney will win huge, and the numbers voting will be larger than we have seen... probably ever, and possibly even by ratio for the last several decades (meaning, at one time nearly everyone who could vote, did... that has changed, it is down to... what... 60% of voters?  summit like that).

Something almost kicked over today.

.
.
I wasn't able to capture it, but for about an hour this morning I almost felt alive!  It doesn't seem like much.  Contrasted with not being able to sit or lie comfortably, while in a gray fog, for the last hundred and eleventy days it... was a kindness.  Perhaps I am trying to pick up a bit before my mother arrives.  An old dog, trying to wag his tail for his old master?  Dunno.

Then, the fellow that brings me meals saw that... the house was a bit ragged.  So... he and son scoop in, vacuum trash and recyclables into a dozenty bags, hauls it all out to the bins, and takes the bins to the street!  That gives me room to breath.  So, I set the dishes to a soak and hope to get to them soon.  I'll keep the soak fresh until I get to the dishes.  A shower wouldn't hurt either.  And some laundry.  Something needs to break.  Mom is coming!

I've been tinkering with the heat.  I keep it 72 all of the time, kicking it up to 76 when my bones hurt from cold, turning it back down when the heat makes me break out in hives, and with my bedroom being an ice cube factory for sleep, it works pretty well.  Not much else has happened, but maybe a few things might get kicked over soon.  Oh, and I am staying right at around 260 pounds.  I quit much of my snacking because it was fueling my diabetes, which I haven't checked in a while.  If it is back under control I need to find a new set of snack foods to add nutrition, which fuels weight loss.  I'll keep tinkering with that until I have a load of quick easy foods that don't bugger my diabetes.  In any case, I think the 'fever' might be breaking.  I might be able to get my feet on the ground and get some things done before my mother arrives.  I do hope, someday, to have a clean home to invite her to visit.  It's possible today, it just wouldn't be MY home.  :p

Good day... evening... fine, it's night... uhrm, morning already?  Never you mind.  But I'm not a gonna go to bed!  Though I hope you sleep/slept well.

Still alive.

.
.
I do realize, as you must, that it isn't just gaming that is keeping me away.  Winter coming on plays it's part.  But there may be more.  We all realize that I am, and have been, alive for a very long time exactly on the edge of The precipice.  It is like death has been suspended.  A minor move forward and that will be that.  As I said, I believe that when my heart finally stops thumping at it's mouse-like pace it will never start again.  I won't say that is beginning, only that... while usually I feel good, spry, even young... sometimes I don't.  This summer has been a bit slow and it is slowing more.  Oh, I still think I have a good twenty years in me, doctors, probability, and the rest be damned.  Still, all it would take is a catch that didn't undo itself.

I am enjoying my game.  There is little else I can do.  I did remember to call my brother the day after his birthday, but for a reason.  They had an emergency room visit for the wife, and his cellphone was dying.  So my mother said as I called her before I was going to call him.  But I was headed to bed and wouldn't be awake until well past their bedtimes.  So... the next day it was.  I have finished two loads of laundry but I haven't been able to fold them.  They are dry.  Good enough for now.  Not much else is happening.

At least I have bread and sandwich meat.  No, not my favorite either.  But when nothing else can be arranged, that will do nicely.  Hunger being one of the finer spices, herbs, condiments, call it what you like, the food goes down easily enough.  And it does add just a bit to my life.  Cold and hot... I can't seem to get that straight.  I can be freezing with the furnace at 76 or burning up with it off, if the latter is rarer by far these days.  A jacket, sweater, dressing a bit more, goose down "camp" booties, I'm working on it.

Yeah, just so you know.  The beast is still kicking, the ogre is still grumbling, the cats are being fed, life is still good... just... slower, a bit duller, and a lot more listless.  Later.

Oh, hey, right!?!

.
.
Yeah, no.  I'm not dead, mostly.  Or... did I write that correctly?  Anyway, I am still mostly dead, just no closer than before.  It is just that some games suck, and Skyrim is one of them.  Oh, not suck in a bad way.  They simply suck me into them and... well... there I go!  In three or four days of playing I have gained 28 main levels and many levels of the various skills.  I have explored a good bit of the map, for my level.  It isn't a huge world, it is a large one though, with many things to do, places to go, people to meet, and things to kill.  Time, in the process, is slain like a gimped dragon too old to even see me coming.  *bam*

I am, again, planning.  Nothing is happening, but I am planning.  It seems the backhoe has 'gone down'.  So the hole is still not filled.  I may have to get out there with a shovel and begin putting some dirt over the pipes, bit by bit.  I fear a freeze as the weather is turning.  That is the last thing I need right exactly now.  If I can just get a foot or two one time, then another foot or two another time, that... would hopefully be enough for a bit.  I think the frostline is between three and four feed here, but I also am not sure loose soil is the same.  I might not be able to get all the dirt back in the hole, but to cover the lines and that weird t-intersection, with three to four feet... it would at least buy some time for the machine to come back in.

Dishes, laundry, ugh.  And my mother is 'approaching'.  In less than a month she will be flying out.  She just wants me, if nothing else, to have the dishes washed.  Okay.  But I would also like to freshen her room and clean the bathroom.  I would love to have my bathroom kitted out by then too, but...  Maybe, probably not, we know that score.  I just like her having her own powder room, she does too.  Oh, that damned showerhead has already failed.  Don't ask.  I won't bother taking it back either, even if I could find the receipt.  Plastic connections simply never work.  Now I need to look for another type of showerhead that would work, with metal on metal for the connection, as a minimum.  If I had any power at all I would force corrupt businesses that manufacture and sell this junk to label the stuff as liable to fail during simple use!

Well, just... an update.  Be well.

Sleep, naps, relaxation.

.
.
I am not certain about that last, relaxation.  I'm always a bit tight, internally.  Even if I don't exhibit the signs as some do, in grumpiness or such.  I am always ready, if there is little I can do.  I have enjoyed the sleep.  Cool weather, as Jean suggested, has helped with that.  And, when wanted, I simply took naps as if I had a right to them.  They are wonderful little snippets.  I won't say they have allowed me to feel more rested.  I am tired whether I sleep, nap, jump, or shout.  But perhaps naps allow a more mental, or a slight physical, readiness.  Whatever.  I took naps at my leisure, not trying to burn through the days staying conscious like a good little drone. 

Tomorrow it is back to planning, tinkering, doing, and whatnot.  Being a weekend, it should be an easy intro.  I am not even going to think about what to do, I am STILL on vacation, I'll worry about worrying then.  Just so you know I haven't died, that is what this post is about.

I have finished BioShock 2.  And, really, I think it was a good game.  In some ways it had greatness attached to it.  While not an epic game, it was rather lengthy.  It was extremely well made, written, and voice acted.  For that alone it would get a solid A.  But for the content, creative thought that went into the story and art, and just the oddness, uniqueness, the game gets boosted to A+.  I would give it more but that is all there is.  Simply, I didn't have programming flaws to contend with.  I didn't have to worry about the game working, at all.  I didn't fall through floors, I didn't have to perpetually restart the console, I didn't lose or get corrupted save files.  That is coming from someone, who when I first started playing the game, I wasn't sure I wanted to play it.  It was so... foreign, in concept.  Oh, and on top of that, I was not forced to do things I didn't want to do in order to get all the trophies.  I really despise 'moral choice' games that offer no choice in order to gain all the trophies.  Like I said, all I can give it is an A+, or I would give it more.

I have started Skyrim.  It is, potentially, quite buggy.  They have patched the thing for PS 3 twice or more.  And I still have my doubts.  I remember the games in the title before it.  Even on computers they could be quite difficult.  Memory problems, or something, glitch the whole thing.  I hope, unlike some other games, when a save is corrupted it doesn't corrupt all of the save files.  Whoever programmed that mess should be fired and expelled from his profession.  I have hit my first glitch or two.  After many hours of playing though, well...  And I do give continent-sized games some wink-and-nod.  It is simply impossible to have that much going on and not have some problems, overlaps, and the rest (which should be a clue to "scientific modelers" out there.  This, even with all variables accounted for absolutely, means that in a real model... it is fail.

Skyrim is pretty good, so far.  It is on the edge of too hard, playing at the default (medium) setting.  And the game scripts death to simply drop on you.  Unfortunately it also allows unscripted random to continue as well.  I'll work it out, but it isn't a favorable thing.  A dragon dropping in on my, on a mountainside, where I have to flee to where I can get to level ground in order to simply try (and probably lose at my level, they aren't supposed to drop until 15th level), fine.  I'll try that.  But don't add in a half dozen random encounters on my way back from where I just came with a four independent, potentially lethal, encounters!  Clear those scripts.  Meh, these things fix themselves.

I am learning by reading a bit, but mostly by playing.  I simply can't focus to read much.  When I can, I grab a snippet or two.  But the game is so massive, and the patches have rendered former good advice to the trash bin.  So getting the 'straight dope' takes almost as much care as trying to figure out what these OCD game advisers are trying to say with their garbled fifth grade writing skills!  Hmm, someone is a tadge grumpy today, innit?  *grins*

Hey, back to the game.  Enjoy a wonderful Friday, or just... find a can to kick.  Make it a light one, if a sore foot adds to the wonder of unhappiness. 

How odd. Vacation you say?

.
.
With nothing to concentrate upon I find myself shutting down.  Here it is, 20:15, and I may be going to bed.  My mind isn't spinning it's wheels trying to figure out how to... do anything.  I will simply allow sleep and wakefulness to happen as they will.  I have never been a lay-about, per se.  While my flesh sometimes commands rest, and sometimes I have chosen a bit more sleep if I believed it necessary, I generally rise as soon as I can, spiffy or not.  My guess is that will be true even on my vacation.  Some things will not change, cannot change.

The difference between now and any time before in my life is huge.  I am finally to a place, disability and all, where I can truly rest a bit.  I don't own a house, I have a home.  I am not religious, I am on the path to salvation.  I don't have enough to eat, I have stores of food should they be needed.  None of it is perfect, or finalized, nor will it be until I am laid to peace for my part and within this world.  But the clarity of simply living, enjoying, doing...  I finally have it, here on earth, and in preparation for the big time.  I wonder how much good I can do here, in what time is left?  For I am truly rich in all ways that matter to me, I have been blessed with a unique form of wisdom, and I am a master of my illness in that I live with it not against it.  Even pain and suffering have uses at this point.

I never thought I would bring a bit of heaven to earth.  I didn't think it was possible.  But I tell you, that is what I have done.  Not without Graces, for sure I did not know heaven of my own accord.  Not without leaning on God like a lame man leans on his crutch.  Not without many people bolstering me in ways I would never have imagined.  But... I see clearly that is how it was meant to be and how it will be, always.  Though I do believe, in time, after heaven, we will be given much of that to own.  Children of God, all grown up.  But... that is just a possibility, if a probability.  While I look forward to that day, I do not let one day go without enjoying it here and now.  Almost, in a way, as if I was allowed to go back to the gentler, more ignorant and innocent days of grade school.  By coming back I get to be sentimental about life, but as I live it.  It is interesting, to me, as I think about it this way.

Yes, rest.  I think I shall sleep quite well tonight.  Tomorrow and the next day might find me casting about for something useful to do with this newfound oddity called free time.  I might even try my hand at reading again?  I wonder about model building?  Perhaps a puzzle?  It has been so long since I haven't been so focused on getting to things that...  Well, we will see.  Good night.

The first day off.

.
.
It feels odd not to be pushing to get something done.  Oh, there are things I could be pushing to do.  Dishes and laundry need work, I still need to speak with the people at the hospital about a bill they billed incorrectly, there are dozens of things I could be pushing.  As I said though I need time off from pushing.  Regardless how successful or not pushing is at any time, I have spent months, years, decades, pushing.  Since I was accomplishing little I didn't ever think I should stop pushing, ever.  I have changed my mind.  No, not a permanent stoppage of effort.  I merely need to take a few days off once or twice a month.  I AM getting older.  I have always been ill.  I have never learned how to... simply relax.  I am not even sure that is possible.  But I am going to start giving that a chance.

Sleep for the last two nights has been very good.  Yesterday sleep was broken with a call, but that was fine.  I slept later than usual (in my recent sleep history) for some reason.  Today I woke at 14:00 or 15:00, and easily.  Heck, I'm dressed and ready for... a day of relaxation.  I just don't know what to do on a day of relaxation!  I... simply haven't ever had a day where I wasn't planning something, when I have been aware enough to think.  What... do you do on such days?  I am a bit lost.  Oh, I'll figure something out.

Once the last two pieces of gear, and the year supply of grain arrives, I will be backing down on stocking up.  I will complete the storage, try to arrange it and begin putting it into rotation.  I will begin using the devices for those ends, such as grinding my own wheat and canning meats, as well.  But for the most part, my job will be nearly at an end.  Yes, I may, more slowly, add to stocks as I use them.  And I will look to other needs as time goes by.  There are circles yet to be squared.  And I would like to figure out minor medical training, getting into communications, and possibly welding.  As well as the stock and equipment for those.  But... 

I have read where some in the prep community "feel sorry" for those of us who are like, at best, poor house pets.  The thing is, given my health, I am doing quite well if I will only ever be about that good.  I am not sure what some people expect from others?  Do they expect us to go live in a mountain top commune, like what David Koresh wanted to create?  Seriously, more than having some tools, some food, some this, some that, and the equipment by which to utilize it, there is only so much people can do.  Some of us possibly less than that.  What I have done is a miracle for my health.  It does make me angry at such people.  But I realize they are deluded.  Even if they are as prepped as they think they should be?  It won't be enough.  If these are the end times, or even the end of society as we knew it, there is no way to prep enough.  All of their preps will be as of nothing before the naked faces of the four horseman or their fellow man turned into a mob.  And while I appreciate their zeal, I believe they may have... lost something along the way.

Well, onto my day off.  Yeah, even I grin at the notion.  And while it is true in ways you could never understand simply by looking 'at the numbers'.  If you know me at all, half so well as you may think, you know that this is... a big first.  This is a sea change.  I am not sure if I can handle three days of it, but... that's the... plan.  It's okay to have it as a plan, since I planned it before my days off?  I should have been a lawyer, but I hate the profession.  Yes, yes, I have some friends who are, too.  So shush.  It's the profession I hate, much like a sin... not the people.

Later.

Late, but bearing gifts.

.
.
I simply could not move fast enough to grab edibles and be there on time.  With traffic as it was, and an accident or two to navigate on the way, I was even later.  And, instead of taking food since I didn't think I would, I ended up running into two convenience stores (one did not sell beer due to it's proximity to a school, if that law has changed, company policy is slow to catch up... yeah... I ask questions), I did buy some beer and snacks.  Again, no one ate.  Though it is difficult to eat in a meeting where we are really involved with plans, hopes, dreams, and sorting these things out.  There is a notion that having an half hour social hour before the meeting might be the way to go.

Late, as I said.  Very late, a good 20-30 minutes.  Now our meetings often go three hours, so...  Though that may be changing, with officers meeting either on another night to sort out what will be brought to the general members for voting and further discussion or such.  But bearing jewels (officer jewels for the stations of leadership) and food and drink, plus a KoC flag, softened the blow.  Still, they don't like late comers.  I would have skipped save I had to... show up and at least represent the office I co-hold with another man.  So bearing shame is the price of office at times.  Oh, since the group will provide the flagstaff and stand, I didn't ask for any returns.  That money would have just gone for the flagstaff and stand anyway, so...

I also, again, in the full group, let it be known that I would be more than willing to start calling lapsed members, as the retention officer.  I am hoping, if that is successful though, that we can get a larger room for our meeting.  As is we are in a small classroom.  Ten guys in there pretty much eat up the oxygen and heat the place like a sauna.  In any case, it looks like this will be going forward.  I need to contact one of the officers in about two weeks.  Until then he is quite busy.  Fair enough, and I have marked it in my smartphone calendar.  I have all day of little or nothing.  And while I can't do what others can, I can call men and discuss... whatever.  I have no intention of being a bully.  I hate that type of call.  But if I can be a friend, let them know we could use them and miss their fellowship, and maybe get to know a few of the guys...  I would enjoy that.  Whether they return to the meetings or not.  Oh, and I expect some... awkward calls.  I know what it is to hide myself. 

I see the KoC not as a 'social group' but as the engine for real charitable work.  I see it as a device.  And while I definitely enjoy the company of fellows who I hope are on the same or a similar path, that isn't the majority of it, just a fruit off the tree.  I will do what I can to grow that tree.  I hate to say it, but the Church is, and maybe always was, more for women.  I still need to go more often, true, if that isn't quite the issue.  There needs to be a place for men.  We are doers, thinkers, planners, makers.  We are actionable.  And, no doubt, women not only can be but are, they are in a much more passive... different... manner.  Men need our own pasture lands within the confines of the Church, and this is it.  A place were we can be productive, creative, entrepreneurial, for a common good.  Charity not at the end of a gun, like taxes and redistribution.  And we can choose who receives through means that make sense.  Yes, the engine must be primed, stoked, fired.  Oil must be checked, drive train checked, and finally it will produce. 

Next meeting the recorder will be absent.  He has asked me to fill in for him, so I told him I would.  It was murder getting to this meeting, but perhaps my sleeping patterns will have altered enough that this won't be as much of an issue next month as this month.  I simply couldn't get going, and woke up so very late to boot.  Ah well, I did what I could.  And it was appreciated.

Hmm, off to... tinker.  The meetings always fill my mind with all the business related to charity events, regulating money, making contacts and appointments, and meeting needs as a group, an individually, and personally.  I need time to relax, to come down.  That can take a long time, almost as bad as when I physically heat up.  Meh, it's all good.

Gah! Who turned the sun on?

.
.
No, really.  I was sleeping along quite nicely today when something started buzzing, alarming the heck out me in my nice little slumbering retreat from reality.  It took me a while to wake enough to figure out where the problem, or even what the problem, was.  Ah, my cellphone, on mute.  It vibrates like a... well... a vibrator I suppose.  But it sounds more like a bee, a big one.  Anyway, by the time I did all that, unplugged the thing, got it to within viewing distance and realize what it was all about, the call ended... of course!  It is amazing how hard it can be to figure out how to unplug something coming from such a far away place sometimes... I feel like a newborn babe when waking like that, often.

It turns out I am needed at the KoC meeting.  I had hoped to be there tonight anyway, I have some gifts to deliver.  And, while I had hoped to be there as a long-standing plan, I really didn't think I would be able to make it tonight, as a shorter term understanding.  Still, I called my fellow warden back to let him know I would be there.  Why?  Because.  Really, too, I need and want things that demand of me what I would not otherwise give.  A wife?  Kids?  I don't have those yet.  But I do have this group and Church.  I have been falling down this summer, but... this... I will do this.  It only took four phone-calender warnings and two phone calls to get me to go, plus need.  *sigh*  Yeah, God really has to work with me to get me going.

On another front, I looked over some of what D.C. suggested, including a propane camp grill.  And, actually, with some thought, I think that is workable.  While I don't like not being able to use it indoors, I think with my back walled-in (always walled-in) porch area, with it's own door to the rest of the house and many windows, if it was truly cold and snowy outside I could use that area, with the windows open, for the camp stove.  I also didn't like the little cans of propane.  Those things are monster expensive.  So... I looked a bit and found an 8' hose that would transfer to a #20 tank (typical grill sized tank) and a leader poll that would transfer up to three connections from tanks to whatever propane appliances might require it.  Plus, I looked for a propane lantern.  Okay, that puts the canner back into contention for the next short-term item... if the sale lasts long enough for me to check my finances.  I say short-term because propane would go exceedingly fast in a grid-down, with no way to refill.  Gah!  Double Bah!  and some other stuff.  I am running, but on empty, confused, alone, and cold...  But I think I am getting closer. 

Life is such a nagging thing, no matter how beautiful.  Like a wife, or a mountain top, or anything else that offers great things, there is all the work to make it so.  Still, the vastness of the beauty of love I saw while dead makes it so much easier.  I sort of got a sneak preview, and a lesser one at that.  But I tell you, if what I saw was the lesser form...  This time, I will not be satisfied with it.  I will do my homework.  While I can't get an A+, with the right teacher there is no need.  I still have to do my part, be a saint, impossible without the Grace of God, but...  The work is harder, the way is narrower, the castigation may be the mortal end of me.  All good.  I wouldn't trade even what I saw for everything available on earth, even if they took away all the bad that comes with so much of the "good".  This mortal life, even this planet, only last just... so... long.  There is eternity.  Then again, it isn't about what I could get there or here.  It was the symphony of true love I felt there.  It was knowing good, without a doubt, there.  It was... is... the only home I have ever known.  Which sort of means I am stranded here.   But I can bring a little of that here, within the confines of my fallen flesh into the realm of fallen men in a fallen world, albeit.  Perhaps this, and just being patient with things as they are for me, is a form of pennance?  A second chance?  So I try to relish it.  Mustard, strong, if you please.  :p

Hey, I best get showered and on the road.  Be good, be right, believe that there is truth, and know you can be a party to it.  Never stand in simple or complex Truth's way.  Good day.

All right, time to think.

.
.
I had to check my last order, the year supply of grains and legumes, from Emergency Essentials.  It has been placed.  I haven't heard that it has been shipped yet though.  Which is fine, as long as it eventually gets here.  Just... like I said... I'm a bit itchy about things.  Something(s) is/are terribly wrong.  It isn't my health, although that isn't doing really well.  I have been rather laid up.  No, this is just a sense that things are very potentially about to go very wrong in and everywhere sort of way.  Too many people are out of work.  Too much is going on in the Middle East.  Our government seems to only get in the way when it is wrong and steps out of the way for the wrong people and ideas.  Too many things are hanging by threads.  When one big thing drops, lots of little things and possibly even other big and bigger things will drop.  That is just the way it is.  We haven't seen this kind of intensity since the worst parts of the Cold War.  The stakes are the same but there are too many players, actors, and problems to make a good accounting.

I have been looking at the canners, All-American type.  These really are the best, for many reasons.  The problem is, currently, I have a glass-top stove.  While it is a wonderful device it isn't made to handle that kind of weight and size.  It isn't just the weight, either.  These canners are extra wide at their bases.  This would leech heat into non-heating element glass.  Not good.  D.C. suggested getting a propane burner, or some such, but that would require canning outside.  If I had a place I could build up, at least in the warmer parts of fall, that would be one thing.  As is, it would be a bit of a mess.  The other option would be to build a gas/propane burner system into a minor island.  And that might be of interest, but the hammer is reaching high-noon.  I am not sure there is time.  Squeezed, I tell you. 

For now, I think, the canner is off the books.  As such, though, I may be able to save what I would have spent on that and buy a good grain mill shortly after my mother leaves.  I would get the bike attachment as well.  I had, at first, thought against that, thinking I would then also need to buy a smaller bike.  It seems the previous owners left one of suitable size out back.  While I do have a bike, it is sized for me, so will not fit the grain mill's attachment.  Funny how it all works out sometimes anyway.

I have been enjoying BioShock 2.  Hard mode has become somewhat easier.  But it entails a LOT of saving, careful planning, and very judicious use of goods and services offered within the game.  I still think it is a bit too lean, but that is just me.  I don't mind running a bit lean.  I hate knowing that one of the many required big fights could leave me completely dry, or even some random encounters.  There isn't a "smarter" way to play.  It is just a fact of this game in it's most difficult mode.  Of course, if a fall comes, it will be like that.  Easy access to food is a luxury no American I know has ever missed.  The same goes for clothing, tools, even electronics now.  Poor people have televisions, smart phones, dvd players, hand and console game systems, and cars.  Really?  Did I say "poor people"?  The very people who are demanding more from the rich?  More?  For... what?  Bah!  An interesting part of the game is it sets atheist types, one of the communal sort and one of the complete self sort, against each other.  To be honest, if I must lean, I would lean to individual.  But they are both flawed, terribly.  One is just less flawed.  While the story itself isn't the greatest, other things within the story are superb.  This is a fine thinking man's game in what it offers other than the play.

Well, it's about bedtime.  I hope you slept well.  Good night, Jean.

A few days off.

.
.
While that may see way too funny coming from a guy who has every day off, it holds some truths.  The thing is, while I do very little, much of my life activity centers around TRYING to do things.  Whether I mean to get the garbage out, the dishes done, the hydrant in the ground, the water heater installed, the bathroom cleaned, or even just making a dinner, my whole life is all about the effort.  That little often comes of all that internal push is a whole different story.  I have been pushing to get dozens of things done and I have done many of them.  Not enough, of course, but... that too is another story.

So, for the next several days, I am going to take a break from trying to shove the mostly dead body of mine around like it could actually do something.  I do need a break.  I need some time where I am not worried, pushing, shoving, striving, thinking, planning.  Buried alive but alive.  And sometimes I can move.  Sometimes I can do.  And sometimes, if somewhat rarely, I can still hit the ball out of the park.  But not tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.  Then I will be back at the struggle.

The Russians are coming!  Actually, they are already here.  They keep trying to put advertisements on one of my older blog posts.  Why just that one?  I have no idea.  They keep trying and trying and... failing.  Spam-a-lot just doesn't work.  Most of it is a spambot, stuck on stupid.  But I have seen some intelligence behind there.  Someone is... tinkering.  They don't seem all that adept at it, but...  It is just odd to watch, over the years, the behavior.  And why that one post?

I have been keeping my home a wee warmer.  At 72 I seem a bit more functional.  When I tried 68, then 70, they just weren't enough to kick over the 'machine'.  However, when I am sort of wrapped up for the winter, done with trying to do too much, I can kick the furnace back to even 64 or 66... and slog around in my skivvies.  Hey, it's what crippled old retired ogres do.  Saves on wear and tear on clothes from actual wear and washing.  Plus it keeps me homebound and less likely to go out and spend money I don't want to spend.  Now all I need is a massive club to carry over my shoulder... and perhaps a loincloth instead of my standard boxer-briefs.  I'll... get right on those things.

Later.

Done! For my part.

.
.
I did get out today.  I had to heat the house up for a good four hours to get going.  I got dressed right when I woke, so that wouldn't... slow me down or get in the way.  Anything CAN get in the way.  Now, I spent a good half hour digging of the hour and a half I spent in the hole.  The rest of the time was spent trying to negotiate very large rocks under the pipes.  I negotiated, they didn't.  I wasn't sure how much of a hole I really dug.  What I do know is with the care I was having to take with the pick-bar, pick, and shovels, so as to not damage a pipe, and having immovable rocks the size of my all in one printer, I finally had to call if off and just go with what I had.  It turns out I was able to do about three to three and a half inches of fill, at about three square feet.  It isn't the six inches I had hoped but it will do.  I put the rest of the gravel on top, so the thing is sandwiched a bit.  After I finished, I ran the hydrant for the first time, I believe. 

So, back into my home to rest a bit.  Dinner arrived a bit later.  I was telling my neighbor about the water issue in the kitchen.  I took him out, he turned it on, and... it ran like normal!  I was quite pleased.  I asked only that he not start charging for these house calls.  So, no need to mess around there.  I do need to get on laundry though.  And dishes, now that I can, if I can keep this roll going just a while longer.  I would like to wash the dishes, then clean the whole kitchen, then try to keep it that way until my mother arrives.  Well, I can dream.  I know I want to make menudo between now and then, at least.  And a clean kitchen with freshly washed dishes, pots, and pans, is an irresistible temptation for a gourmand who borders on the gourmet.  

My game is going well.  But the hard mode... well... you have two choices.  Go impossibly slow, saving and replaying each and every fight, or simply die and just get 'rezzed'.  I hate dying all of the time.  Actually, I hate games that force that.  I suspect as powers grow that this will improve, but... not by a lot.  And keeping any weapons in ammunition is nearly impossible.  So I end up using a drill type weapon... as a huge club.  It isn't my favorite game on hard mode.  Further, I am not sure I will get the trophy for doing hard mode.  Something seems glitched.  I didn't get either of the last two trophies that I earned.  I have decided to just play it through.  I will know I have done it and will just leave it there.  Irritating though.

Let me see.  A hole dug, gravel put in, the fellow with the back hoe called.  The sink "fixed".  That may have been from me running the hydrant, come to think of it.  Perhaps it allowed a pressure release that allowed the grit to settle back, drain down the pipe, opening the passage.  That sink has never flowed really well, and still doesn't, but it isn't a literal trickle, either.  Some laundry done, more on the way.  A showerhead installed.  Tools have been put up (never could find my small handsized garden rake and spade though).  Oh, and all the grains, plus legumes for nearly two years, arriving shortly.  All good.

Later, or maybe even good night.  I might make a few burritos, then hit it.  With blocks off my mind sometimes sleep is just easier.  I seem to no longer internally be "pushing".

Up and at it.

.
.
Going down at slightly before 8:00, waking between 13:00 and 14:00, I think(?) closer to 14:00.  My mind simply wasn't able to make sense of the big hands on my watch when I crawled out of the sleep psyche.  I don't know what is going to happen today.  I've read blogs, for as much as they make sense to my mind, and a bit of 'right-news'.  Now I simply have to try and wake up.

The hope is to get some digging in, finish laundry, and deal with that faucet.  If I can turn the engine over I think I can deal with all of that in one day.  I just have to be able to walk, talk, and chew gum all at the same time.  I am going to set the alarm for about three hours, just to... try to keep me aware that time is slipping.  Sometimes that is all it takes, like remembering to open a door rather than just sitting there in the rain.  My life is a bit odd.  Imagine a device that can do almost anything.  The problem is it can't see what needs doing, or even gets lost on the way even when travel only takes moments and is only a few steps away.  Now, at some point, performance capacity degrades.  I have no idea how badly that has occurred either.  Heck, I don't even know, literally, if my sentences actually make sense or are correct to anyone but me and maybe a few kind souls who happen to have known one such as me before.  Seriously, I have no means of... self-testing.  And the world doesn't tell a gimp he is a gimp, they tell him everything but that.

Regardless of what I know, what I suspect is another thing.  Watch yourself, little one, for the dragon's tears can merely be salt for the meal... once the liquid has been steamed off.  All I am saying is, don't fret for me, but for thee.  I do pretty good for being skeletonized.  Heck, I even have a little plump to prove it.  It's just that it could have been so much more.  Another reason to look forward to heaven, a place where I will be whole.  A place where I can once again work to my large and full capacity.  A dragon in heaven, you ask?  Many, I tell you.  And lambs too.

Well, a bit of tinkering then... maybe something else.  Work!  Good day, good Sunday.  A holy day, but I know God will understand that if your ass is in a hole, you have to work on the Sabbath.  And... mine should be...  Lordy but I hope the Lord likes a little pun now and again.

Something just isn't working.

.
.
A little after 6:00 and I'm still up.  I won't overstay another day.  That is just plain hard on me.  I seem to do it mostly effortlessly, but my heart... yeah, it takes life away from it.  And the sleep after?  While good 50% of the time, this last good sleep... the back of my throat is still sore from snoring.  Hah.  I bet the girls HATED me.  I let them sleep with me too.  No, it is nearing bedtime.  I hope to get to work today, but I am making no promises.  Simply put I'm beat up, more so than I thought, from my trip to town.  Carrying two or three hundred pounds of good around, driving here and there, just trying to stay awake... yeah... it got me.

Never mind.  I am still going to do what I can.  And if not today, Sunday, then Monday will see the digging and gravel put in.  The rest will happen sooner, I think.

I had meats I had forgotten about.  Pork chops and beef strips plus hamburger from my last grocery shopping trip.  I had meant to break them into smaller packages and freeze.  All but the hamburger was bad.  And yes, I sniff, poke, pinch, and really test meats, especially hamburger.  Not really because it will make me sick, but because cooking it stinks the house to high heaven and I have enough problems.  I cooked the hamburger, pretty sure it was good.  Yep.  And I made an excellent melody of spices to mix in with it.  Usually I use allspice when I want a bit of interest.  And I did again.  But this time I added just a little bit of cinnamon too.  Now, cinnamon is usually to drying for my tastes.  It dries my mouth out something awful.  But the way I did it, it worked perfectly.

Hmm, I best get that in the fridge.  I have decided, rather than to keep looking for glass/ceramic freezer items, that I am simply going to buy the disposable ones.  I quit.  I can find glass ones that are good for everything but stove-top, but they don't come with lids.  Or I can find them that are good for two but not three, or some other pairing as such.  I simply can't find the good old ones they used to make.  Ah well.

Good night. 

Hmm, almost coming back to life.

.
.
With neighbors feeding and helping with major chores, with some mental blocks and task clogs getting cleared up, and with some other things going on, life is starting to move forward again.  A little heat to start the process is helping as well.  I can sleep in a freezer, pretty much, but I need some heat to kick off my day.  That is just the way of it.  If I have nothing going on I can just live in an icy wonderland.  I am keeping the temp at 68, for some baseline, until some things go forward at least.  The heat doesn't go into my bedroom, so that works for sleep.  Yes, 68 is too "warm" for me to sleep, save when it is otherwise blazaing outside comparatively.

The new showerhead is in place, but... yeah.  They are expensive for the cheap plastic they really are.  It will work fine, I am sure (dubious).  It is just that paying as much as they cost for cheap, pseudo-performing, plastic fixtures (junk) is quite frustrating.  I know it will please my mother, for the most part, though.  And, that is why it was bought.

I woke several hours ago but forgot to turn the heat on.  And, no, I didn't get to bed by 22:00.  I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 again.  It amazes me that for two "days" in a row I can stay up a full 48 hours (or more) with just a normal sleep cycle between.  I have no ill effects, either.  If my heart wasn't in such bad shape I would be a freaking dynamo, you know it?  Anyway, heat has been jacked to try and get some blood flowing so I can get out and dig.  This won't be heavy digging if I may need to carefully use the pick to loosen the dirt and rocks under the pipes from time to time.  Hey, it ain't perfect but... it's what I have.

If I can't get to that, I will at least be ready tomorrow.  Regardless of how that goes I will be doing work on the faucet, to get that going, and finishing another load or two of laundry.  What a miracle a little heat can help bring about.  I should be ready for a bit more life before too long.  Or, maybe, a reentry into life.  I have been dogging it this summer.  Between heat, cold, and illness, it has been brutal.  Buried alive, indeed.  Alive being the key word, and not quite being able to just surrender, makes life at least interesting. 

Good day.

Bedtime at 22:00?

.
.
I don't take this as an omen.  My sleep and waking has been all over the place.  I have the furnace, when it is on, to provide a good dose of heat in the morning.  I may set it up to run again like that.  I just need an hour or two when I first wake up, or stay up overnight.  The cat food and the gravel were both weighing heavily on my mind.  I was simply stuck.  I knew about it much of the summer, too.  Usually I won't do too much in advance because I can often come through.  Not this time, almost.

I will sleep until I wake tomorrow.  I have no idea when that will be.  It wouldn't surprise me if I wake at 6:00-10:00, or even that I not be able to grasp reality good enough to get up until 15:00.  I simply have no clue.  With milk on supply again, and meats quite available, plus a few other things, I think I might try to cook and clean tomorrow, after I get the digging done.  There were no roots that deep that far from the tree.  So it should be pretty straight forward.  There were rocks there, as if someone had put a drain bed in, but... it could be sixty or more years old for all I know.  They certainly didn't have water here when the house was first built!  This was one of, if not THE oldest house in town.  Dating back to not even two decades after the civil war.  The main part of my home anyway.

It was simply fantastic to get out and get going and do things.  I might even get that showerhead up before tomorrow is through, it is easy and everything could be in play.  Who knows.  Now that I have broken the blockade, and figured out how to do it, repeat performances, and better since I don't have to drive in heavy traffic or deal with lots of memory, social skills, hunting, pecking, and all that stuff.  Even if some women don't like to do that sort of thing they usually do it much better.

Just blathering as the elevator goes to the sub-basement floor for the night...  Good night.

Another double day up, nearly. But I made it!

.
.
I couldn't figure out why I was having such serious failures to fire.  I had the prep, the attitude, but something just wasn't... working, hitting, clicking.  Then I noticed it, just this morning.  It has been cooling off so gradually that I hadn't realized the problem.  Like a snake in a slowly freezing freezer, I simply didn't notice.  Not this morning.  I jacked the furnace up to 76, when I warmed enough, I took a shower and shaved out my chops again, this time leaving the hair just below my lip... looks... better, I think.  Then a load of clothes in the washer, worked on my feet and heals with the grinder while air drying and planning.  I still wasn't sure I could pull it off.

An hour after dressing though, I was on my way.  I decided simply to buy gravel for the pit.  I bought enough to cover three square feet to six inches.  I bought two types, two bags of smaller stuff and one bag of bigger stuff, though I am not sure which I will place where if I think big should go on top?  Yes, if I put the big stuff on the bottom, the little stuff would settle right through it.  I also purchased a shower head with a removal middle section, a wand.  That was a request of my mother.  She works so hard I want her to enjoy the little things.  Oh, and I had to buy another strain cap for my sink faucet.  On D.C.'s advice (if I thought it to be incorrect and was right), I took off the screen cap, ruining it in the process.  The water runs no faster with or without it, if there was sediment built up it wasn't blocking (yet).  Well, live and learn.  Though, from what I hear, there is no good way to get those off, especially brand new ones.  It is advised to put them on just tight enough that the water won't leak... in hopes of changing it out rightly the next time.

Then on to the store.  I bought enough dry cat food for six months or so, and enough extra wet to have the normal two month supply plus being able to put up about a month and a half in the larder.  I will be working on that as part of my ongoing preps.  Then milk, tortillas, and other such just for daily.  Finally, I drove through McDonalds on my way home.  It wasn't too bad, but I pushed it to get in, done, and out.  I doubt if the gravel will go in today.  But I have it, sitting right near the hole.  Tomorrow.  I wish I could do it tonight but I am done in, period, if I won't be able to sleep for... a while yet.  Finally, most of the way there.

Good day.

Romney won, eh?

.
.
Oh come on.  That was never a question.  The question I had was, would Zero cry on stage.  Literally.  Romney went easy on him, is my guess.  Well, and Zero will always have the moderator trying to plug for him.  No, I haven't seen it.  Remember, I don't have television.  Besides, I was busy.  If I find it somewhere online I might watch it.  But an hour and an half is a lot of time for me.  While I have all the time in the world, I only have a limit to 'quality time'.  What did you expect from a tycoon facing off against someone whose only real qualifications if you get rid of quota and forced allowances for that would be as a bellhop or busboy?  Seriously people.

So, what was I doing?  As I said yesterday, I was going to stay up and try to get to some things.  That never happened, nor did sleep, until 6:30 this morning, two and a half days of awake time.  Why?  Why? is a tricky question.  I got on a mental path I could not extricate myself from.  Let us call it a bio-psychic trajectory.  Once all energy was spent there was remained only momentum and my shell.  But that momentum was out of my control.  Oh, sure, there were a few things, like mental wing flaps.  But those could only correct in a very minor way.  They certainly couldn't stop that mental sky bus.  Sleep, when I finally got to it, was actually pretty good, this time, though.  I feel better than I have in days, weeks maybe.  So perhaps it wasn't all bad.

Still, I have those things to do.  *grumbles*  I will... get them done.  I have to!  Or not.  I'm not an idiot, I am not lazy, I just don't function sometimes.  That is all.  I will keep... plugging at it.

Things to do, no time for sleep.

.
.
Then again, in spite of my trouble with sleep, I can stay up.  I have packages arriving today.  But that isn't all of it.  I am also planning to get to town.  I need to buy more cat food, dry, but I will pick up more wet as well.  Two bags of dry will last me as long as 12 or 15 boxes of cans.  And, really, I ought to start getting an extra bag when I do buy, for storage.  I ought to get milk, hamburger, and soda too.  I haven't been keeping up on coffee like I should like.  But I need milk for that.  Ah, what a mess sometimes.  As well, gravel must be obtained and a space beneath the pipes needs to be dug.  That is minor work, I really think I can do this.  When I finally get to sleep... well...  It doesn't matter.  Sleep has been rather wretched.  Whether I go to sleep on time, stay up really late, or even go to bed early.  It doesn't even matter if I sleep long, just right, or short.  So... fuck it.

I won't have to do laundry before I do my stuff today.  But... that is the end of that.  I HAVE to do laundry tomorrow if I want to wear underwear or socks.  I have several pair of slacks, some shirts (but no t-shirts), and other things to wear.  I might even have a few pair of shorts here or there that might sort of work.  But for the most part, I am out of 100% of underwear that I would normally wear (just some long-johns available) and 70% of the rest is needing washed.

Oh, I'm having some water problems.  My toilet, bathroom sink, and shower work fine.  My extra sink in the back of the house, and everything else I know of works fine.  But my kitchen sink is just allowing a trickle out.  I ran it a while, 20 minutes, in case there was simply some sort of air blockage.  Nope.  Now, I have my reverse osmosis system under there, but looking at the pipes, that is merely split off from the main pipes going into the sink with a t-intersect, so it shouldn't be impeding that flow at all.  I'll... figure it out.

My mother called today.  She was zoned, she had just gotten back from her foot surgery.  Yeah, okay.  All good.  I had certainly been worried.  As long as there was a reason, I was fine.  If not... something would have to be done, or the situation watched.  She is, regardless of what the medical world my wish, healthy and happy.  Well, as happy as a woman can be at times.  *chuckles*  She has a lot of life left in her.  Straight up she has about as much life in her as I do in me.  I've got the youth but she has the health and that whole female thing.  I'm racing her to the grave, but neither of us is going all that fast, for our own different reasons.  I suspect it will take us a good fifteen to twenty years.  Even then, one or both of us might even stretch that by a goodly lot.  Assuming neither of us is hit by a meteor, struck by lightning, or run over by a burning Chevy Volt.  Both of us have the 'oddest' luck.  And if I were about to have a massive stroke, a smoking Chevy Volt strike seems preferable, no?  And, that is how my "luck" works.  It's pretty good for being pretty bad.  *grins*

One last thing, about dreams.  Last night I dreamed I was back in my foster home.  My foster mother admitted to me, though out of anger not in a sharing way, something I had never suspected in real life, but now think was true.  She was always a bit sore that I was... slow.  The analogy of lining me up with the corner of a building to see if I was moving, I think, was her baby.  Anyway, she told me in the dream that it made her so mad, and the only person she had known that was worse was... her eldest son.  Thinking back on that, I actually think it might be true.  But what I didn't tell her, nor would her son have told her, but the reason we moved slowly was in part because she expected too much.  As well, she expected the wrong things and or at the wrong times.  She expected me, at least, to be right on top of things.  I was doing school, taking serious prep courses.  I was in atheletics every season as well.  And, my guess is, I was already having more minor heart problems.  As I said, I think I was hit once, in my earlier teens to late preteens, with a mild dose of a viral attack on my heart.  It wasn't until I was in the Navy that I got hit with the actual debilitating level of it.  And she was a battle-axe when and how she wanted something done.  Yeah, I love her, still do.  Moms, what can you do with them though, sometimes?  Bleh.

Later, or maybe good... night?  Yeah.  At least, this may be my last post.  If I pull it all off, then need to chill before sleeping, I may bring my bragging rights worth of work here and, well, brag.  Or just crash, we will see.  Later or goodnight..