I can't stand us any longer...the You's & me's---us---- all of us in this collective anthill we call a society....Take Mitt Romney, as an example of why I hate us----a Republican created Product, who wants to be President of the United States---a multi-millionaire, he has Caribbean bank accounts for Christ sakes and pays only 15% in taxes---because according to him "It's legal". This is an example of the type of ass wipe our society will accept as potential leadership??..The reason I can't stand us is that the people of WalMart contingent will still actually vote for him??? This is how stupid we are. He may, however, be the perfect figurehead for a country which depends on credit card spending by it's population for 60 some odd percent of the gross national product...Perfect just Perfect......

This week---I've been cleaning and organizing our food storage shed...We are so very close to a year's supply of stored food---- combining, dehydrated #10 cans and pouches, MRE's, 5 Gallon buckets of grains, and commercial canned goods. Having this large of a supply requires organization, rotation, and protection from heat-cold-and rodents. So I am pretty much always doing something in there when i am off....

Due to the amount of commercial canned goods we now have and the fact that we are using and rotating these goods constantly--we ordered (x2)- stainless steel shelf racks each of which hold 90 soup size cans. We can simply refill these racks from nearby shrink wrap flats of cans as necessary for standard consumption. Once these racks arrive next week I will re-organize the commercial canned goods shelves for this system...but after two days of work in the storage area already things are looking good.

My wife, JoJo, is the queen of horseshit right now..we unloaded a trailer full of horse shit into the compost area to work for the spring planting and she is so happy---no diamonds for this girl, it's all about manure with my darling....I disassembled our five level worm farm (the worms have been surviving the winter nicely) and filled a small wheelbarrow full of excellent black, black dirt that we'll be using that for seedlings....I rebuilt the worm farm, fed, water and set those little devils back to work. Come spring I may need to get a back of replacement worms just to get things really active in there and we release worms to the garden every year anyway.

The reason all this is viable work towards our spring time, is, that today in my part of New Mexico it's a beautiful 75 degree's today----this for us is the time of year we get work done before the heat comes in during the spring....climate change you know.....

I am rebuilding my work life for my return from leave.

I want to take control of my day to day existence there.

Getting away during a break and cooking a cup of tea from my rucksack will be excellent

but i am planning on adding an additional layer of effort on my return to work from this period of leave. I work at a very large facility, and I am planning on walking/hiking/marching the perimeter several times a week..... Me being me...... i needed therefore to resupply beyond tea making equipment---I will make no excuses for this resupply process---it is essential for me.

To record my distance and hopefully my improvement week by week I ordered a pedometer--now incredibly cheap from China of course...

I remember when Pedometers were expensive scientific instruments used by 19th century explorers to create maps and record distance in their journals---

I also ordered, on close-out, a civilian style day pack from Marmot... for my mental state walking for exercise is just not enough....

I want to be able to cover ground again with a loaded rucksack the way I used to do....so my walking will include a loaded pack. My plan is to march the facility perimeter and then find a quiet spot to refresh with a cup of tea....I hope i can make this happen...I am actually looking forward to going back to work to try this entire process.

"A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life

when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well

he will never sit."

D. Elton Trueblood

My first week of leave and i am delighted....i am knee deep in marking off jobs on the TO DO list...cleaning, organizing...maintaining the vehicles....doing art, blogging, and being free....I have already accomplished much and take joy in the fact that there is more to do....I am spending a bit of money resupplying and purchasing equipment for the coming spring and summer but it is necessary...

My recommendation for Pizza and movie night this week is the hysterically funny

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_%26_Dale_vs_Evil

A comedy centering on two hillbillies who wouldn't hurt a fly, who can barely fish because it hurts them....being attacked in the woods by a group of college students on vacation---because the college kids think the two hillbillies are something out the hills have eyes kinda thing....I know it sounds strange and it is--but it works...this is a very funny movie once it gets started...and smart...taking on the whole Hollywood hillbilly slasher genre.... i can't explain this little gem of a movie well enough, you just have to see it and laugh your ass off---it's on Netflicks streaming at the moment.....

Of course it's Canadian, it's funny and SMART!

I have managed to live up to one of my 2012 resolutions--to do more art. I am less a sketcher..than i am an overly involved doodler i suppose---but whatever i am i am back doing stuff---some good, of course some lousy----with the recent opportunity of time, i cleaned my ink technical pens and my fountain pens today..ordered a dozen 5x7 canvas plates and treated myself to to 5"by 7" wooden artist travel box illustrated below.

I can carry a Moleskine notebook & multiple pencils/pens within---but it will also carry my travel watercolor set and a 5x7 canvas plate to work on in the lid. The entire box will fit nicely in my daily rucksack I take to work.......I've had a small watercolor kit for some time but no methodology to use it---perhaps this will help create art when i feel like it either around the house or on the go......it felt REALLY good to clean my art equipment--and resupply...it's been something i have wanted to do for a long time...and it feels good to being do art just for the sake of doing it again....

Our emergency food storage is nearing a true one year supply. I have tried to mix sources---commercial dehydrated both pouch and #10 cans---MRE's---bulk grains--and corporate canned goods. The purchase this month was six cans of Spam and Cheese for $15.00. A bit over $2.00 per can-- the cheese element was important--I do have a half a case of just canned cheese, but variety items such as this spam experiment are essential if one is living off stored supplies just to maintain appetites. A can of Spam and cheese will also fit fine in a BDU pant pocket and can be eaten cold. Excellent as a stretcher with whatever you may have been able to obtain in trade or gathering as well....Spam is there nothing it can't do??

Required new boots for work--and I purchased Palladium, black canvas high top boots...I have a pair of OD green in canvas high top, but this color is more for off-work time---so I am investing in a new pair in black and 1/2 of a size larger since my OD's are the tiniest bit small...Palladium was the official boot of the French Foreign Legion after World War, and the canvas models have remained unchanged since 1948...I like that very, very much....

I was working on the compost pile and cleaning the side driveway meanwhile my wife, JoJo, was saving us money and expanding the independence of the homestead...apparently in our area of New Mexico, a gallon of standard Tide detergent is now $24.00---hard to believe isn't it?---My wife, found a do it yourself recipe and built our own liquid laundry detergent......... a gallon, for less than a dollar and re-filled and re-purposed two empty, tide, plastic, dispenser jugs with her creation at the same time. As society consumes itself through greed we must become more and more capable of self-creating replacements for every day items. Strange also how things work out----my military surplus clothing requires no fancy detergents to wash so one logical event feeds or assists another.... elements that one can invest in to resist corporate greed, help each other develop systems against that same corporate usury.

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh."

Robert A. Heinlein

I am on leave from work for the next two weeks.

looking forward to owning myself, working on the homestead, reading, writing, and organizing.

Working on myself as well.

Sears, Wonder Bread (maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs) and Kodak are all going bankrupt--they are at one stage of the process or the other...WTF kind of nation are we--when we are not even making fucking Ding Dongs anymore??---yet the spin tries to tell us that the economy is getting better? Hard to grow Ding Dongs in the garden---and there goes my retirement goal of smoking weed and eating Ding Dongs on the front porch all day long.......where will we all wind up?

I sit and try to make sense of things but in reality---what's the use? Our society is flailing about like a fish on the bank hoping someone will take kindness on us and kick us back in the water.....but that's not going to happen....... Our public policy arena is the theater of the absurd-----we are owned by corporations who are in the final stages of looting the corpse prior to moving elsewhere...the corporations will eventually find that the only thing left to profit from with Americans is to farm out organs, selling them to the 1%....Matrix batteries....for celebrities.

My Swiss army surplus flask canteen and cup are in and they are PERFECT--for my upcoming tea brewing at work concept...the canteen is even enameled on the inside. The Swiss military, you have to love them for their OCD tendencies. I am just going to disinfect with bleach and when i return to work start my tea time at work project.

The two books I reported ordering in the last post are being read--neither of them a huge winner--disappointed very much in the PICT------ nothing there for me, a mistake.

The garden is under physical construction right now---we are boxing in all of the beds this year--with larger walls and dividers to protect against both the wind and the increasing probability of drought again this coming year...with climate change you have to do all you can to minimize damage and maximize outcome......

...over these two weeks I am also going to have the last tattoo of this winter applied to my right wrist and hand as a start on my right arm sleeve....

I have to repeat for any new readers,(although I doubt there are any) my Otaku use of Military Surplus Clothing... there is no better clothing in the world for matching my personal weirdness, my demand for practical clothing...and of course price...My latest new stuff for Mil Surplus clothing are displayed above and below. The photo above shows an item I have long been searching for. The Soviet Union was the leader in the development of computer designed camouflage with the first designs emanating from their military. The above NEW, never issued Russian camouflage shirt in forest green with yellow cube pattern, displays both this computer block camouflage design and the all the elements i require most in a shirt---lots and lots of pockets and reinforcements to stress points....

The second item in my recent search and obtain process is the above illustrated, Italian Army V neck sweater in Olive Drab. Military sweaters are just excellent, tough, easy to maintain, warm and outstanding for use here in New Mexico---this state that requires layering ..cold in the mornings and warm by noon. Even tho we are working under austerity planning, the problem with Military Surplus is that when it is available, especially in your size, you must buy it...otherwise you will never see it again. I had to pull the trigger on buying these items...otherwise they would be gone forever....These are two excellent items that i look forward to wearing and using for a long, long time.....

"Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming

better than you are."

Julius Charles Hare

A week of feeling worn, but happy nonetheless....working with my artist on my right hand/forearm tat...to be applied the third week of this month. The last Tat work until next fall/winter----Work is well just work....reading, finally doing a bit of art sketching again....

I have a new project that i am working on to combine every day carry equipment and escape from the mindless confines of the daily work environment....I have ordered the below items: a surplus Swiss army flask canteen with nesting canteen cup...and an Esbit pocket stove with solid fuel tabs. My plan is to make up a small stuff sack to carry these items as well as a stock of teabags in my Maxpedition falcon backpack.

During the crippling, never ending afternoons at work, my plan is to grab up my backpack, go outside, find a restful spot, and being self contained...cook up and enjoy a cuppa tea and a cigarette......a brew up...as our British cousins would say.

An attempt to maintain sanity, get away from the idiocy surrounding me and have a creative moment of peace and quiet...using my edc equipment...that's my plan at any rate....I'll let you know how it works out when all the gear arrives and I get a chance to test it.

My recent book orders, non-fiction above and fiction below...I seem to be on a Roman Legion and Roman Britain jones in reading at the moment.....I'll advise on these books when read.

I find it completely without surprise that LA suffers multiple random acts of Arson while elsewhere... a national park ranger is killed by a PTSD ex-solider...a 15 year old shot by police in school...... 4 people--two of them, Naval Aviators, involved in murder/suicide---one family killer dressed as Santa Claus.......

Our society is being pressure cooked from all sides without possible solutions...under the economic and societal conditions we currently face there is a great description of American societal random violence---the Japanese will close the window and kill themselves as compared to Americans, who open the window and kill everyone else.....it is just genetic with us...we are a society of individualistic violence---violence against ourselves, families and the innocent surrounding us without result. There will be more of it...... We somehow as a culture lack the DNA to put this intense feeling of individual violence, rage or frustration to use against the actual problems that we face....

We Americans turn our personal violence against each other which means nothing...we are a society of cannibals feeding off those like ourselves, those in identical situations....

An outstanding DVD night candidate is THE TRACKER. A beautiful period film set in 1903 New Zealand involves a defeated Boer Commando immigrant hired to track a Maori sailor suspected of murder...the scenery and photography is breathtaking-----the texture of the film is totally 1903---the weapons, clothing and equipment perfectly selected for the time frame...and Ray Winstone is completely believable as a superbly capable, but emotionally damaged, ex-Boer commando, used to living off the land from his single shoulder bag and his rifle...give this little jewel of a film a chance...pizza, a blanket on the couch and enjoy this film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker_(film)

I enjoy finding words or concepts that the Europeans created that seem to specifically fit usual circumstances of the human capability.

In English, for the most part we really do not have complex meaning words such as these...I wish we did...

a French word i ran into the other day while reading------

meaning--- self-reliant-ingenious--to know methods around systems...

I am intent on using this word that fits what we must become....

I placed my order for 2012's pens and notebooks...allied with the plan of noting life--and additional rough sketching ...I ordered two, square shaped, MoleSkin roller ball, black ink pens and two refills--the pens I been enjoying using for writing and sketching are on their last legs and I have been forced to attempt to find a replacement--- instead of my standard order of MoleSkin 3x5 notebooks I ordered a Zequenz pocket notebook as a test replacement...for this year...I can't exist without multiple notebooks around me...I am always scribbling ideas, concepts or little things i want to remember within them... I have an entire carton packed with previous year's pocket notebooks full of notes, observations and concepts...sometimes this OCD practice actually pays off....

"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance,

and to turn around three times before lying down."

Robert Benchley