I was Thinking, or Not

Would you watch a spectacle fall to pieces, the hanging of an innocent man, or creative process while it is still in its raw format?  Well this is your chance to look inside the insanity that is creation, while I slowly grind the seed into flour, and with that hopefully make my daily bread.  Or beer, failing the making of bread. Check out my web log lowly scribe or Road Scholar to watch an unarmed man deface himself in front of a live audience, for their edification, if you will. Did you see how I did that, a little hint, that is cross promotion, because I am hoping that someone that reads this web log will find enough interest in what I am doing to actually take the time to read another of my web logs, and maybe that way I can reach more people.  What is the point of that, you ask, well I hope someday I can capitalize on this, you know, sell a few books, or get a few articles published, so I can actually earn enough from my craft to support my habits.  Awe wel...

So you have to ask yourself, what is going on here?  There are so many stories being told, and yet when I look around me, it seems they are too far fetched to be believed.  It makes one wonder, what am I to do? Do you ever feel like there is just some game being played, on the world stage, like it is some kind of game that you just can not quite get your head around?  Like the people are crazy, stabbing each other, shooting each other, and even to the heights of government, the rulers seem to be playing a strange game that just does not make sense.  Why when we are supposedly the most advanced people to ever walk the face of the Earth, are we still fighting over dirt?  What drives this sandbox mentality.  Where are all the great thinkers, the great writers, the poets, the artist, the composers, have you listened to the radio lately, or watched the TV, where is our Shakespeare? Has it become that evident to others, or has everyone become so oblivious...

Friday, April 4, 2014 Well today I am going to have to call the guy about the land, and update him on our progress.  Which is to say I will have to stall him while I try to figure out how to raise the money for the down payment.  I had thought it was going to be relatively cut and dry, or at least it seemed so, that we were going to the SSA and they would give us the money that they owe Arleta so we could use it to pay the down payment, our first months payment, and still have enough left over to move our stuff.  No, not so, instead they want to argue about it, like it was their money, like we were stealing it from them.  I mean it is SSI not SSD so I guess it is tax payer money, but really, to the point of being almost belligerent to Arleta, trying to bully her, I mean really, how absurd. I have worked up until October of 2012 when Arleta got really sick, and I had to come off the road to take care of her.  With the exception of a few dry months between I ...

Waffle Hunt I like maple syrup a lot.  Almost so much that even the table syrup that contains 2% or less real maple syrup is good, not great mind you but good.  Maple syrup requires a delivery method however, or it just feels wrong. I also like making maple syrup, the long slow way, outside over an open fire, in a big pot, cooking it down into a rich dark amber.  It gains a lot of smoky flavor from the wood, and it is nothing like the syrup you can get from the stores, not even the stuff that claims to be pure maple syrup.  That stuff from the store is cooked on huge flat conveyor belts, over a gas flame, and you can taste the difference.  Some people like it better that way, I do not.  Sometimes I will then cook it down into sugar, but not often, I prefer the liquid, it fits my favorite delivery system better. Maple syrup delivery is really a simple affair.  It consist of some flour, salt, leavening, oil, eggs and buttermilk, or other liq...

We are considering our solar system.  We are going to be grid tied!  This is necessary because of many reasons, first and foremost, Arleta is on Oxygen and needs it for her concentrator.  Otherwise, it will be nice to have for our computers, appliances, and of course to help with the farm.  That said, we are still looking at getting off the grid, just differently.  We are now going to be moving off the grid over a period of time, much easier to do by the way. So with that out of the way, here is the basic plan to get off the grid. First we are going to get the barn completely off the grid, well because for the most part there is very little that needs to be on the grid.  Even our milking equipment is relatively low demand equipment, and so we can get that off the grid pretty easily.  Initially we will actually start completely off the grid, as we will only have the sheep, and we won’t be milking them.  Therefore, all we need for the first ...

Solar System Thoughts - Google Drive : 'via Blog this' okay I am going to try this blog this method to post documents that I write on Gdrive, but I think I like just posting it the way I have in the past, so I will post it twice.  If I find this works well, then I will just use this, no sense in posting it twice if I don't have to. -James-

I sometimes wonder, if those people you once called friends, but have so long not really considered acquaintances, if for only the strange reason that you both live different lives, does this mean that you are so far apart, that you will never find common ground again. From this simple thought, I look in upon the lives of those I once knew more intimately through this new electronic media, ironically termed social networks.  I am perplexed by it, as it seems to be less social, and more network, but even that is quite sterile and neutered.  How have we allowed our social structure to be reduced to bits and bytes of data that represent the skew of our lives, with little or no connection to any real emotions that is only known through real connections. I do not know the answer here, without these data connections many people would not even know as many people as they believe they do, but through them, they are lead into the false belief that they do know more people than the...

Prologue For a good portion of my life I have worked to create a dream.  Initially the creation was quite different, with very much a strict code of control, very fascist in its design.  I would say that at the age of 14 or so I was looking at the world from quite a different perspective.  I had recently finished several works such as Mein Kampf, Karl Marx, Brave New World, and 1984, among others, and had at that time understood that people were not capable of making good decisions for themselves. Although for the most part, I understand that now the same may be true of people, on the individual level, we should still reserve the right to make our own bad decisions.  Perhaps I would like to see a greater degree of self responsibility, especially from the commercial industries, but still I do not expect as much from people as I might once have.  That being said, my dream has but transmuted rather than changed altogether. It certainly would be quite nos...

Occasionally I read a local paper, and wonder who writes for these things.  I am just old enough that I remember when newspapers and local rag sheets were still bigger than the internet.  Hell I wrote for a few local sheets myself back then, but those were different times.  Today I read a review and wonder, really does the reviewer get paid for this.  It is not that I find the online reviews much better, just that I feel I guess that printed ones should be better than the online ones. Now I should not say much, I have not written in quite some time, much more than my web logs and a few reviews on various sites like Amazon and the like, it is just really, food blogs are better, how did that happen.  I expected I guess that newspapers would still uphold a bit of decorum and not just produce a printed version of a blog. I remember saying back, oh way back, when computers were still mostly business machines and geek toys, that this will change the publishing...

There are so many things we need, silly little things like a bunch of glass pipettes, and other such things.  I can only begin to figure it all out.  I really wish Arleta would help me, but she is not very good at these things, especially when it comes to money.  She is good at spending it, on stuff, but only as an impulse, not as part of a longer term plan.  She does not really seem to grok long term well.  She also seems to have a tactile issue, she has to touch what she will buy, even things that do not matter so much.  She would rather buy from a store than online, because she can touch the package.  She also seems to suffer from long term projects, things that take longer than an afternoon or two is hard for her to grasp.  She prefers short term projects, a day or two at the most.  She can do them, she can wait, she is able to see the future, but she prefers the here and now, the intimacy of immediacy.   That is another subject...