Here’s an episode of a series that the shoe manufacturer Salomon produces called “Killian’s Quest”.
Trail running.
More than a sport.
Zoe came home in her little car today and I told her that I’d fix the squeaking power steering belt and check it all out while she was here.
It’s not a big deal to tighten the belt a little and add some power steering fluid, so I got out my tools and brought them down to the lower part of the property, and got going on the little Sentra.
When I’d finished the job and went to move the car, it wouldn’t start.
Apparently, I’d broken the thing while fixing the thing.
That kind of stuff happens.
Before the internet, you were flying blind.
If you didn’t have a father or uncle….or aunt or sister or mother….with a lot of mechanical experience, you didn’t have anyone you could call on for guidance.
The internet gives you access to a ton of people with problems….and some of the people have even figured out how to fix them.
I spent the afternoon looking stuff up….jiggling wires….and finally got it to start and up on ramps so I could crawl underneath it and see if I could see anything that I might have bumped while I was working on the belt-tightening.
I never did figure out what was going on….even though, until the last bit of jiggling….and unplugging and re-plugging, the intermittent cranking was getting me pretty bothered.
In the end of it all, I must have jiggled the right thing , because I couldn’t get it to “not work” again, and I felt OK about sending them on their way later this evening.
That’s the trouble with something that sometimes happens….you lose faith….and, when you have lost faith in something, you’ve really lost everything.
I got her car to start pretty consistently….and she and Isaac should be able to make it back up to school without any problem.
I wish that I could know that it will always start in the future, though.
Wondering is a pain in the rear.
Knowing that things break makes me less confident about a lot of stuff.
(The picture is of the starter and the wires going to it. If you crawl underneath the car….if it is up on ramps and you can fit underneath the car….you can see it if you are on the passenger side of the vehicle. You have to take it out from below….if the starter is bad and not just a bad connection. You have to lay in the gravel to take it out from below. Don’t break stuff fixing stuff. What a pain in the rear….)
Here’s a couple from Atlanta showing off their school bus home.
Cool.
There are so many different ways to live….a bus is another good one.
More info on the bus and the couple can be found at their website http://houseb.us/
From the YouTube description…. “Imagine an Island in the Indian Ocean: mountains, rainforest..a population passionate about trailrunning, a race going on it’s 20th edition. We are on the Island of La Réunion, A Trail Running Island – enjoy !”
Cool.
I’m still not running….in fact, I’m stiff in the back, having hurt myself contorting last Monday, trying to organize a pile of huge packages in the restricted space we have in our office.
So….right now, I’m stiff in the back.
Of course, it only flares up if I sit for a long time.
A long time…like delivering mail for 6 hours at a drive.
Oh well.
Here’s Killian….out in the world….enjoying his friends and the new people he meets….enjoying running.
That sounds good.
I like to listen to anybody who’s enjoying their life.
Man….I enjoy my life, too !
I need to get this “back thing” back to normal.
I have a lot of stuff to do.
Our youngest child, Sparrow, is expressing her occasional displeasure more vocally these days.
That’s what happens when you’re three.
A person is just getting up to speed when they’re little.
They’re learning.
Anyway, Jenny said that lately, if Sparrow gets a booboo that needs to be kissed, that it’s hard to get it right.
Even if Sparrow points to the exact place on her head that needs some comfort, you can never kiss it right.
Maybe it’s just a ploy to get a bunch of kisses?
I don’t really know.
Anyway, you have to try and try and try….kissing a concentric circle around the injury, until, either the saturation point of comfort has been reached or you actually kiss the spot that needs kissing.
That’s funny.
Of course, Sparrow yelling, “NOT THERE!!! NOT THERE!!” doesn’t necessarily make her radically kissable.
Who wants to kiss somebody who’s yelling at you?
Probably….a parent.
Probably a parent, I guess.
You keep trying until you get it right, maybe.
Anyway.
I was thinking about all this and thought that Sparrow isn’t really so unusual with her demands.
All of us “big folks” have our own ways of screaming for comfort.
But until the comfort matches what we think we need, and we get it in the way we think is going to help us, we want the comforter to circle around the booboo, all while we’re quietly crying out, “not there….not there…not there…” ….sometimes not really understanding what “there” is….or, even, where “there” is.
I don’t really know….just something I was thinking about in between mailboxes.
That’s funny, though, that when we’re “hurting” or in distress of some kind, often we’re farthest away from being able to tell anyone what we really need to heal back up.
Maybe it’s all a ploy to get more kisses?
I don’t know….
Just because we don’t kiss the “booboo” on the first try doesn’t mean we need to give up.
Maybe we just need to do the best we can….when we can?
The best we can.
Man.
I was 24 when this first came on Austin City Limits.
That was a while ago.
Eric Johnson….so good.
Here’s a more recent video…..
Discovered this site the other day…looking for different ways to live.
“Different ways to live”?
What the heck does that mean?
They’ve built up a nice place.
He said in the video that living offgrid in parts of Colorado was illegal.
I’m sure there are parts of Colorado where that’s your only option….so that would be a way to get around that rule…but…
Check out his chicken house!
Check out his beautiful blue outhouse!
Somebody is going to be watching what you’re doing…all the time….if you live in the “right” place.
Better move somewhere where nobody cares what you do.
Where’s that?
Check out their site at www.anamericanhomestead.com
When you fall asleep during the second half of any performance, no matter what happens, for you, at least, it’s going to be a cliffhanger.
That Super Bowl was a cliffhanger….big upset.
And…how about that Lady Gaga performance?
That was actually pretty impressive.
I wouldn’t want to jump off the lip of something high up like that.
I’d be making a lot of noise, but it wouldn’t be anything like singing.
I think that it would be more like squealing than singing.
Oh, well.
Whether I was really into the music or not, from a performance standpoint, that was a pretty high energy and interesting show.
She’s a great artist.
I just don’t really care.
All this noise….it’s all too much sometimes.
We bought Nate a little mountain bike yesterday at the Goodwill.
We already have an old Marin that’s jet black….muy macho….but it’s a little big for him, so this will be a good option for a while.
When we take off the pink bell, it will transform into a boy’s bike….with flowers on it.
Boys like flowers, too.
That’s cool.
I’m glad the bike was blue.
I love these cheap bikes.
Where can you have as much fun on something that you spend seventeen dollars on?
Freedom.
Of course, on our road there’s a million giant trucks….some flying rebel flags from the beds….driven by teenage boys seeking masculine identity and their own high-speed place in the world….so we worry about letting the kids out to ride around on the street.
But, still, a bike is a great freedom inducer.
Sometimes, you find a bike that’s a great deal.
That’s the beauty of the thrift store workers not really knowing what they’re doing.
If he doesn’t crash it and mangle the bike, Sparrow should inherit it at some point.
That’s good.
It’s a blast to have some bikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_YqJ_aimkM
Watched this tonight….and it was pretty good.
I’m a sucker for a movie about a bunch of naifs getting a band together.
It was a nice surprise to see how enjoyable this movie was.