Hot.

Posted on by September 1, 2019

The latest issue of Rolling Stone has an article called “Can We Survive Extreme Heat?”

I skimmed it while delivering mail on a hot day in August.

Whoooo, boy! It’s getting hot out there!

Anyway, in the article, there was a picture of the temperature extremes all over the country this past July.

Did you know that it was the hottest July on record?

The only July’s to come close were in the previous four years.

I was encouraged that it looked pretty cool up in Northern Idaho.

Idaho?

Now, who do I know who owns some property in Northern Idaho!!

Why…..IT’S ME!!

I’LL BE ONE COOL CAT WHEN I CAN HIGHTAIL IT ON UP TO THE NORTHLAND!!

It might be smart to get up there before I get baked out down here in the “cool mountains” of NC.

I wonder how many of the climate change deniers have air conditioning?

It’s hot.

 

Free Jeep….Little Things Kill Them…

Posted on by August 31, 2019

When I go to the junkyard, I occasionally see vehicles that don’t seem to be all that bad.

Most of the time, they’re wrecked.

You can see why they’re totaled….crinkled and destroyed.

Sometimes, you wonder what happened, though.

Here’re some dudes working on a Jeep that was given to them because it didn’t run anymore.

Turns out, it was just the fuel pump that led to its abandonment.

In their case, it was a relatively easy and cheap fix.

On this year Jeep, you don’t have to drop the fuel tank to change the pump.

Sweet.

Anyway….this is all just a long-winded preamble.

What I’m really wondering is…how many vehicles are abandoned because of something small and easy to fix?

Probably a lot.

We give up too easily.

People and cars….we give up too easily.

Here’s the video of the drive home after changing some fluids…

Free Jeeps!

I’d take one.

 

back to the earth and the creativity….Jonna Jinton

Posted on by August 30, 2019

Here’s a new video from a Swedish lady named Jonna Jinton.

Nice.

She started talking about the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall and I thought of Joni Mitchell for some reason….”It’s coming on Christmas….they’re cutting down trees…”

River…

I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

 

I almost filed a grievance with the Post Office yesterday…but the union rep told me that I didn’t have a case that would pass muster.

That’s disappointing…

What does a grievance have to do with picking berries in a beautiful place, though?

My job is a tool….something I do to generate some money to keep us afloat.

Everybody’s in the same boat, too.

Thoreau’s thought about “quiet desperation” hits the mark in a hard way.

Freaking Post Office….

You have to police your life and steer clear of distraction to live a life like this…

I didn’t see a giant screen TV in their Swedish home.

Maybe that’s in the “man cave”?

I need to mix up some dirt paint and get over it all…

 

 

WHO WANTS TO STAY AT HOME?!! (LET’S EAT!!)

Posted on by August 29, 2019

I eat great stuff at home.

Jenny’s a great cook…and I’m not bad, too….but…how much fun would it be to be cooking good stuff out on the road?

The food these guys are cooking looks pretty darn good….and being out camping always makes everything taste better.

I need to go get some breakfast and get on to work….run my 70 mile loop…..and get home again …TO EAT!!

FOOD!! It makes the world go round…even when you stay in the same place all the time.

Trout and Coffee…”Summer in New England”

Posted on by August 28, 2019

Here’s a new one from Kyle Dempsey….who posts on YouTube under “Trout and Coffee”.

It’s good stuff…quiet and measured in tone….beautiful.

But….given an appreciative and artistic eye…most of our lives would look just as beautiful.

Well, maybe not most…but mine would.

I’m working a lot at a job that alternates between being  “perfect” and “perfectly frustrating”.

Perspective and a strong internal fight to see it in the right light is the only thing that keeps it from shifting over to “frustrating”.

It’s all a matter of keeping my head screwed on straight.

No….that’s not right.

My head is attached a different way than “screwed on”.

I screw up….sometimes I get screwed over….but my head isn’t attached by screwing it on.

I’d be some kind of robot if that was the case.

I’m no robot….I’m a MAN.

Like Muddy Waters.

Spelled M….A….N.

I am a free man.

Why do I feel shackled in my head?

Goofy.

Freewheeling: the Van Life

Posted on by August 27, 2019

Here’s a CBS Sunday Morning story about “van life”.

Van Life.

Dang.

This stuff is too mainstream.

There are no cheap vans out in the used market anymore.

Dang.

It’s raining here…it’s early….I’m going to go to work in a couple of hours….and…vans are expensive.

I don’t need van life to be some cool edgy thing….but I do need to find a deal on a van.

Maybe folks will get tired of the new trend and move on to something else….and then I can swoop in….coming late to the party….and buy what they’re tired of?

That could work for me.

Pick up some more castoff cool for a song.

It’s happened before.

a truck like this…

Posted on by August 25, 2019

One of my camp buddies bought a truck like this my first year at camp.

That would have been in the early ’80’s.

He paid a thousand dollars for it and drove it away.

I remember hearing part of the conversation he had with the camp owner about how it might be hard to find parts for it.

Funny how your mind remembers details that don’t even have much to do with your own life.

I remember them standing on the landsports field…talking about this truck.

Weird that I’d remember that.

Old trucks are like old guitars, though….they were a lot easier to find 40 years ago than they are today.

When “old” wasn’t so “old”….it was easier to get ahold of.

Duh.