more normal than not

That’s where the zombies in the movie “I am Legend” come from…..a good idea gone wrong.

Who wouldn’t want to cure cancer?

I would.

But….I don’t want a bunch of zombies chasing me down the street….even if they’re cancer-free zombies.

Zombies are pretty darn creepy…..scary.

So….how about that fracking?

That’s a good idea, too….right?

Drill some deep holes……shoot it off in another direction deep in the earth…..and then pump enough water and goo down the hole to fracture all the earth that’s around the deep, deep hole you drilled.

What could go wrong?

And….if it did go wrong, what’s the worst that could happen? Water problems? Or…..maybe….

EARTHQUAKES?!!

We need the gas…..we need the gas…..we need the gas!!!

If we get the gas, we’re OK for a while.

We can drive all over the place.

We can drive all over the place delivering the gas we produce.

It takes money to make money, right?

We need gas….it’s what we use to get around….unless we ride a bicycle….but you can’t ride a bicycle as fast as you can ride a car.

“Fracturing”…..that sounds harmless…..deep, deep in the ground….tear it up….open up the channels with some poison goo.

I don’t know the science….maybe drilling deep holes and fracturing all the earth around them…deep, deep down in the ground….would never cause any instabilities.

Maybe it’s just hype mongering to say that it might cause earthquakes.

Besides….what are you going to be doing up in North Dakota, anyway?

Farming?

You make better money drilling the big holes.

Some big wig money bags is sitting in an interview somewhere saying, in response to the question about solving our energy worries and whether fracking has solved the problem…..what was I saying? That was a long sentence….what was I saying?

Oh…..big wig saying something like, “Well…..yes. Yes….I suppose that we have solved the problem…”

Just like Emma Thompson before she accidentally created all the zombies.

Just like Emma Thompson.

 

Here’s a link to the outfit that REI is using to help the people of Nepal.

In the old movies, they’d circle the wagons when the Indians came pouring over the hill, arrows flying and horse hoofs pounding.

Of course, these were American Indians I’m talking about.

They weren’t the Indians from India.

Those are different Indians.

That would have been a different kind of situation….the Indians coming over the hill, swaying and clapping in some Bollywood fantasy….singing…smiling….helping the Cowboys fix their computers.

The West would have been a different sort of place if the settlers had been confronted with that type of Indian.

The white man probably would have figured out a way to put that kind of Indian down, too, though….no matter how many delicious curries their new friends turned them on to at Thanksgiving.

I don’t see any Indian people up here in Detroit….only a far-out chiropractor (in this video, at least).

This is the new Wild West….up in the middle of the country….up in the cool North.

This is where the crazy wildness is.

We’re still cleaning out the property that we bought down the road from where we live now.

Jenny said this morning that we need to rent the giant dumpster again so that we can fill it up will all the trash in the creek bed.

Dangit.

That’s the smart thing to do.

Dangit.

It’s smart.

While we’re in the mode, we should just keep going….but I don’t want to drag all that crap up the hill.

It’s not going to get done unless somebody does it, though.

Anyway….back to this Detroit thing….

Holy Smokes…it’s insane up there….whole blocks of nothing but tall grass, derelict houses, wild packs of dogs, and crack heads.

Sign me up.

I’m kidding. Renting a giant dumpster isn’t going to make that situation any better.

But…it’s all so cheap….all so cheap and dangerous.

I could put my rose-colored glasses (I almost wrote “roast colored glasses”!!) and let my cheap side color how I saw it all…..convince myself that it might be a doable situation even though the arrows were flying all around me.

Speaking of arrows….I almost bought a place….no, I looked at a place….up in Asheville when I was looking for a place to buy….that was pretty bad.

If you didn’t know what you were doing, you might think that you’d lucked into something kind of cool.

It was an old house ….maybe 900 sq. feet…..little old house….with an additional 5 lots included….joined an old park with basketball goals and a soccer field grown over with weeds.

My friend Steve told me, “That’s up by Pisgah View Apartments….I don’t know about that one….”

“You might like it….”

If you see a news story about people killing each other…or a big drug bust going down….or someone being kidnapped and held in their apt. at knife point ….there’s a good chance that it’s up at the Pisgah View Apartments.

That house….with its extra lots….up in Asheville….was 24,000 dollars.

I wonder if I’ll ever learn that you really do get what you pay for?

“Come with Me (Instrumental Edit)” Kami K

 

If I lived out West, the thought of the hantavirus would be a total freakout.

A      T…O….T…A…L…F…R….E…A….K….O….U…..T.

Period.

But….we live out in the green and moist “East”….so the thought of the deadly, rodent-born virus is only a partial freakout.

What I don’t understand makes me stronger.

Ignorance makes me bulletproof.

We’re cleaning out the old barn on the property we bought….trying to get over the disconcertion of seeing decades worth of crap….literally and figuratively….that’s piled in and around the old place.

How does that happen?

How do people live like that?

Maybe it’s just that it’s hard to get to a landfill.

Maybe it’s just that, when you live on a bunch of land, anything that’s not right next to the house is your own private landfill?

What could be better? “Your own private landfill”?!!

The thing about it that’s disappointing is that most of the crap is just crummy crap.

I’m a crap connoisseur….I know my stuff….I like cool old crap….but this stuff is just old crap.

It’s not so cool.

Maybe it’s been cherry picked over the years….all the good stuff is gone already.

That’s why it’s exciting to dig down through all the layers of detritus and mouse poop to see what nobody else was willing to risk excavating?

Did I say “exciting”? I meant something else.

Jenny said that she thought she saw a rat scurry across the top part of the barn yesterday.

That’s the more benign of the possibilities.

My imagination could conjure much worse options.

Maybe the rat isn’t so benign if he messes up our respiratory systems with his diseased poop vapors?

There’s always something to worry about, I suppose….but it’s a pain to have to worry about all the bad things that can happen from stirring up the dust in the old barn.

It’s nasty enough to just clean it up without worrying about dying because of some fermented feces.

And….don’t even get me started on all the junk down in the creek bed….the one down the steep bank….the one that’s hard to get to.

I think that junk is the junk that hides the snakes.

But….but….but….you know? In its way….it’s all beautiful.

The trash is nasty.

Nasty, nasty, nasty.

But it’s really pretty out there if you hold your head right….pretty if you don’t look at the trash pile.

Maybe a better way to say that would be to say that it’s really pretty if you don’t hold your head wrong? It’s all so pretty…beautiful….if you don’t get your head in the wrong place. Maybe…..

What a victory it will be to clean it up and NOT GET THE HANTAVIRUS!!!

I can’t make any promises about that….only the one where I say that I’m going to do my best to keep my family out of the rat poop.

I can’t really understand what I can’t see, anyway.  Bacteria eludes me.

I do know that I’m going to make my kids wash their hands…. a lot.

I’m going to pack that dumpster out and get my money’s worth out of my rental, too.

We’re going to beat this rap….come out the other side….smiling.

Stupid hantavirus….making me worry about even more than I usually do.

“the mystery” Idaho

 

Here’s a place up in Asheville that I’ve driven by for years and never had the chance to go into.

Never went in.

Never.

But….it looks as cool as I expected it looked inside.

I don’t need another bike….but this is a cool thing that these folks are doing….fixing up bikes that might go to the landfill….making sure that they don’t just die in somebody’s garage….fixing….repairing….making whole again….getting bikes into the hands of folks who might have a hard time buying an expensive one “brand new”…..getting bikes into the hands of folks who might find more pleasure in rescuing something good that isn’t as “shiny” anymore.

Recycling….

We have the bins to fill with cans and bottles….that part makes sense….turn in your waste paper to be recycled….but we don’t talk as much about keeping the bicycles on the road….keeping the cars going….fixing up the old houses before they rot into the ground.

That makes good environmental sense.

That makes good economic sense.

I’m going to have to go into this place sometime soon….maybe stop in at the French Broad Co-op when I’m done looking at the bikes.

The Asheville Recyclery…. a pretty cool operation.

 

 

I can’t imagine that the little flag keeps anyone really all that safe.

But, you know? What totem really keeps any of us safe?

It’s what we think keeps us safe that only ever buys us any peace of mind…..

It’s only what we think…..

I’m still trying to figure out this “cycle touring thing”.

I’m not going off somewhere by myself, either….so what I’m really working at figuring out right now is how to do it all with children.

What parent hasn’t had to figure out how to “do it all with children” before?

It’s an age-old quest.

I read a blog post recently in my searches for information where the guy writing it had the attitude that you needed to “just get on the bike”…..and, you know…..he was right.

Don’t overthink all this stuff….just work at getting on the bike…as often as you can….just….like Nike said….and what’s become a saying we can’t use anymore without being connected to Nike somehow…..just “do it”.

Nothing all that hard.

Of course, it’s better somehow if you know what you’re doing….if you have the right equipment…if your bikes are cleaned and in good repair….but lacking any of that…..the breeze is going to feel good on your cheek inbetween breakdowns and minor disasters.

Jenny helped me do some automotive repair last night.

She’s a little more clear-headed than I am, sometimes.

Most times, actually.

I get low blood sugar or something….start running around like a headless chicken….crashing through the china shop…..figuring out how to do things the most frenetic and willy-nilly way I can…..causing a commotion where there doesn’t need to be any conflict….and then she reaches out and takes the part and puts it where it needs to be and says, “You need to calm down. You need to go eat something….”

She told me that if we’re going to do any of this cycle camping that we needed to be sure that we worked together at it.

Dang.

I better learn how to do that better.

I better not get so frantic…..chill out some.

If I’m going to be out on the road with a small tool kit and some bicycles and some little kids….I better get better at holding it all together when things hit the fan.

I better learn to not squeal like a stuck pig when I have to roll with what I think are solid punches.

This bicycle touring thing could be so good if I can figure it out.

At any rate, even if I can’t figure out how to do it, it’s a fantastic excuse to buy some more gear.

Buying stuff….I’m good at that.

That part I can handle.

 

 

“old pine” Ben Howard