Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the category “Navel Gazing”

18 Aug 2014
12 Comments

Friendly Fire

Barnyard Commandos toy from the 1980s. It was a flop.

Barnyard Commandos toy from the 1980s. It was a flop.

In reviewing the thread of my life over the years, I’ve discovered that I’m the kind of person who prefers to find common ground in relationships, and to work in harmony in order to reach common goals. It’s not unlike how daily employment or work is supposed to be. Cooperative relationships, common goals. All else are details that must not detract from the whole, or eventual disaster follows. Notice that I said “supposed to be”.

When you have friends, you accept that they may not share all of your convictions or viewpoints, but you mutually gravitate toward relating to each other on the remaining common ground and take it from there. Thus you can have relationships with many different kinds of people who are not “in your camp” on some basic issue or other, but who are intimates of some degree nonetheless. You affect others not like you, and allow their lives to affect yours.

This can be dicey ground in reality, but in principle, the differences serve merely to allow you to learn things you hadn’t considered, question your own convictions, and to either reinforce your own views or make you reconsider them. At times, I’ve had to widen my views of things considerably after playing Read more…

Posted in Navel Gazing and tagged
01 Aug 2014
15 Comments

The Delusion of Grandeur

The HMS Surprise.

The HMS Surprise.

I’m departing Sandwich, Illinois today for points West, and will likely take just over a week to get to northwest Utah. Unlike previous trips, I won’t be posting day-by-day travelogs since I intend to route my trip along stopping points I’ve used earlier. So, I will post only if I find something uniquely notable along the way.

The departure itself will be as the opportunity presents itself: thunderstorms and frequent rains will hopefully present me with a window of opportunity for one last commune with the dump station a little later. Travel is limited to empty waste tanks only, as the Innsbruck’s frame rails are already bent quite enough from travel with full tanks, apparently. If I can’t dump those tanks, I won’t travel. Since Wunderground Weather at the moment says I’m enjoying clear skies and 3 MPH breezes, it may be entirely up to me to seize any opportunity, since actually it’s pouring both heavy rain and hail in a wind stiff enough that the trailer is bobbing about. That wouldn’t be notable except that the wind is coming in straight from the nose of the trailer. This patch of turf gets pretty soggy with rain, so I may use the Mighty Furd’s 4WD to ease out, just to avoid unnecessarily tearing up the grass.

Having always been a homebody, I’ve found it surprising that I’ve recently felt a growing impatience to get back out west. The quiet urge is not to get back on the road per se, since the peculiar  Read more…

Posted in Navel Gazing, The Defiant, Travelin' Man and tagged ,
15 Jul 2014
3 Comments

Quote of the Day

“I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire.”

–  Avram Grumer

(The original quote upon which this quip is based was actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre in “The Friends of Voltaire” in 1906, as her own summary of her idol’s attitude.)

Posted in Navel Gazing and tagged
06 Jul 2014
8 Comments

Two Little Surprises

I didn't do time-elapse shots, just snaps. That's a campground light to the right.

I didn’t do time-elapse shots, just snaps. That’s a campground light to the right.

Camping in Sandwich, Illinois does have its unexpected moments. I’ll describe both of the most recent ones out of order, the first being that people in and around Sandwich are seriously into Independence Day fireworks. The night of Friday the 4th was met with homeowners and surrounding farmers setting off their own ware. That’s not so surprising. What was surprising was the Boom Factor. These people don’t settle for the pathetic, fizzing state-approved sparklers, nor the stacato popping of illegal firecrackers. I heard rounds of those maybe twice all night.

No, these folks go for rounds that sound for all the world like an artillery barrage prior to the Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Daily Life, Navel Gazing and tagged ,
30 Jun 2014
11 Comments

The E-bike Dilemma

Nope, I didn't choose this one. It's a home-brewed, bike-based electric motorcycle with pedals that's been clocked at 66 MPH. What - do you want to live forever?

Nope, I didn’t choose this one. It’s a home-brewed, bike-based electric motorcycle with pedals that’s been clocked at 66 MPH. What – do you want to live forever?

Choosing an e-bike is normally easy. You know how you want to use it, then pick something that will do the job for you, hop on, and go. But when you need to chop, blend, baste, puree, knead, bake, and broil, you’re forced to prioritize for the base features that can’t be changed, and then alter what you can change to come as close as possible to what you need.

I’ve already outlined a rather tedious and overly-long list of tasks, must-haves and wants in my previous article. I won’t dupe that here, thank your lucky stars. I’ll only mention Read more…

Posted in Daily Life, E-Bike Pack Mule, Mod Squad, Navel Gazing, The Defiant and tagged , , ,
27 Jun 2014
11 Comments

Adieu, Old Friend

The ol' Raleigh MT200, with mods that help me stay on it longer.

The ol’ Raleigh MT200, with mods that help me stay on it longer.

Well, I’ve been trying to use my 1993 Raleigh MT200 as my pack mule over the last two years, as you may know. The goal is to avoid using the $45,000 Ford diesel pickup for errands and grocery shopping trips, campsite scouting and area exploration. I simply won’t be able to afford to replace it unless I’m willing to give up some other costly activity like, oh, say, eating.

The trouble with using the Raleigh has been that my bad ticker limits my range even on level pavement, and I’ve found precious little of that in my travels. As a result, I’ve had to use the Ford for too many short trips that a bicycle could normally handle, and that kind of driving adds up mileage in short order. This violates the Defiant’s Prime Directive, which is purposed to preserve the vehicle over the long haul, as well as decrease fuel and repair costs to a minimum. It also violates my doctor’s directive to get sustained exercise at controlled levels. For me, daily walking is okay a few times, but then gets monotonous. Something in my DNA wants to cover ground.

My realization that the Raleigh wasn’t going to cut the mustard came in Read more…

Posted in Daily Life, E-Bike Pack Mule, Mod Squad, Navel Gazing, The Defiant and tagged ,
27 Jun 2014
4 Comments

I Recommend…

ScreenshotThis post is just a reminder for you, while I finish up my next award-winning post. You know, living your life outside the chains of societal norms in a way that nurtures you personally does not have to include forsaking it all and hitting the road. Not at all. There is no pre-established path to follow, because you are uniquely you. If you want to consider your own values and needs, and explore an alternative approach for yourself – but without the crazy – consider visiting The Art of Non-Conformity and begin sawing your way through some of the mind-prodding posts. It used to be more centered, with just one writer, but the new change-up to having contributing authors isn’t all that bad either. It’s also a refreshing change of pace from hearing me whine about how how my A/C broke in the heat and humidity of the Midwest, or how awesome the Mighty Furd is.

Just recall that no one has a step-by-step formula, a “live this way” recipe for you to mindlessly follow, mimicking their own paths and mirroring their own outlooks and values, whether bright or dark. Giving you unfamiliar things to ponder can be good. Urging you to become their clone can be bad, because it’s your life. We all want easy answers, a guide and a map, but a life worth living doesn’t come that easily. Simply exchanging sets of chains doesn’t cut it. Stay true to yourself along the way, and you will be better able to separate the crap from the diamonds as you face each day. Life is a gift. Take advantage of it.

Posted in Navel Gazing
22 May 2014
11 Comments

Just an Interlude

So, I'm sitting, enjoying an appetizer before dinner while watching a DVD, and discover that the sunset view out the window is more interesting.

So, I’m sitting, enjoying an appetizer before dinner while watching a DVD, and discover that the sunset view out the window is more interesting.

The three days of high winds are over, and without mishap. Might get some significant rains tomorrow, so I’m taking yesterday and today as an interlude between possible weather events. Sunny and 74 outside yesterday, with a manageable breeze. So I scraped myself off, refilled the trailer’s water tank, and headed for the Market Plaza inside the south entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park to access their Post Office and General Store (which includes a grocery store). I skirted the suicidal $25/vehicle to get in by brandishing my free-admittance America the Beautiful Geezer Senior Pass that cost me all of $10 and never expires. I almost got breathy as I went through that gate!

Wow. The paved drive in, the signage, the architecture, and the manicured mix of rustic and polished reminded me of Disney World’s Frontierland. Now I know where Disney got the look. I expected it to be unpleasantly packed, but it was lightly busy, and tons of campground space lies unused. Perhaps this is not yet the heavy season. There’s a whole lot of folks not speaking Engrish, and everyone had a relaxed and pleased look.

My trusty Garmin GPS had the Post Office as its target, and promptly steered me into a residence area for park workers, citing mobile Read more…

Posted in Campsites, Daily Life, Navel Gazing and tagged ,
08 Apr 2014
4 Comments

A Farwell to Arms?

What's wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ever notice something minor that just seems to bother you out of all proportion to its physical significance? I bought a DVD at a local second-hand shop, a two-disc pack with three early Gary Cooper movies and a promotional short. Gary Cooper was a popular Academy Award-winning actor with a unique “everyman” style, and who eventually hit a few out of the park, like the classic High Noon. This set included A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway’s depressive look at love in the midst of the opposing traits of mankind. Except for the breakthrough cinematography, it’s a workman-like effort that deserves some respect – especially for Gary Cooper, who’s the reason for the DVD’s issuance by Genius Entertainment, a division of Genius Products.

Now, a lot of DVDs have misspellings on the electronic disc identification, something only the device will see so it hardly matters. This is the first time I’ve seen a DVD menu muffed with a “don’t care” attitude. It’s not so much the slept-through-that-class miscreant who screwed it up, as the lack of any second set of eyeballs to make sure the DVD was good to go before it went into production. Not a soul in the Genius hierarchy nor AMC bothered to expose it to anyone above a party-animal intern or minimum wage go-fer once the lowest-price graphics house puked up their sloppy work. This tends to kick me right into the standard “and this is what’s wrong in this country today” tirade in regard to business practices, but you get the picture, so to speak. For some outfits, the most effective way to promote themselves is to emphasize cost, and not let anyone see their past work.

Posted in Daily Life, Navel Gazing and tagged , ,
30 Mar 2014
7 Comments

Quote o’ the Day

“Education will never be as expensive as ignorance.”

– Fortune cookie at a local Chinese restaurant

Posted in Navel Gazing and tagged

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