The quest for Lie Group E8

This American, Presidential election is similar to a crashing aircraft's passengers voting to change pilots. You can do it but it's not going to change the results.

I have a weakness for many things French. This includes their pocket knives. My most recent order is a Baladeo Laguiole Variation folding Pocket Knife... 5" in length when closed, Zebra wood slabs with the Laguiole symbol,la mouche, inlaid on the side. There are traditionally 109 steps involved in the creation of a Laguiole knife...This variation knife features non-traditional features such as one hand opening and a pocket clip and these modern features may be the reasons which made this particular model so affordable.

Laguiole knifes

A few lines regarding follow through on previously posted material.


We received rain twice here so far this week in southern New Mexico. This alone is more rain than I believe we had all last spring and summer.
I received my Scalar Hat,described last week, it fits and appears to be excellent for my uses...I now have 3 hats that truly fit me--never been so hat lucky before in my life.
The sentry gun project has run into programming snags and i am taking a break from it for a couple of weeks, after deleting everything I've done so far, to start anew. 
I've nearly completed Windrow's "Our Friends Beneath the Sands" and a wonderful book it is--classic French Foreign Legion. 
My MPG average was 50.7 this week a bit lower due to headwinds on the homeward leg of the commute. 

I need to get my bicycle out of storage this weekend, air up the tires, perform standard maintenance and get it set up to ride a bit this summer...I feel guilty for not having used this excellent item. A problem is that i am going to have to invest in one of those gel type seats--the standard seat is tough on an old man ass--- No matter--i feel good having it stockpiled against the no gasoline times.

my bike

This week, the EDC work bag of choice, is my Tenba, olive green messenger. I'm infatuated with my new, used, IBM ThinkPad and have put it into use as my wander about laptop. The Tenba carries the big ThinkPad and all my required supplemental daily gear very well. These Tenba's are excellent bags, with a durable, clean, low profile design..I can definitely recommend them. This week i am less survivalist and more urban. 

I couldn't resist--not for $12.00. I remember the first time i saw one of these red digital watches. A guy at work had spent $500.00 or some such ungodly amount, on one of the first digital watches manufactured which had a red, read out like this. I remember, so clearly, all of us at work standing around making
ooooh-aaaah sounds, when he would make it light up.  Like Baboons trying to figure out a flashlight.

"There's some asshole at work you have to kowtow to, and you find yourself doing things you thought you'd never do. But you try and minimize that stuff, be the best person you can be. But you set your priorities. And that's the way life is. I wonder if your friend Alex knew that. 

One thing's for sure, he couldn't live with it.

I know I shouldn't talk; you guys knew him. But the thing is......

no one ever said it would be fun.

 At least ....no one ever said it to me."

From the movie the Big Chill

Thabit Formula for Amicable Numbers

In a week of stress, insanity, and bewilderment...a small piece of wonder. 

The next door neighbor moved out---theirs was always a house of being incomplete in many ways. As a child of the city tho--in my mind, their world was theirs and ours was ours. He obtained a dog from somewhere after a relative burglarized his house (yeah, that kind of neighbor), a beautiful dog, an American Mastiff. How he got this dog i have no idea...obviously too good of a dog for the owner. He called him Monster and chained him in the bare, barren back yard...going out there every so often only to feed him a bit and water him. No shade, no companionship, no caring.

JoJo and I would sneak him treats and once a rubber toy from our Boston Terrier's stashes...he would sit on the wall and watch me take out the trash....jojo took the below photo one day.

A very loving dog, no watchdog for sure, Neighbor boy just wanted him because he was big. Well, Neighbor boy moved out over about 4 days and i was taking out the trash to the alley, and stopped by the wall to just look, missing monster and i sort of sighed, and very surprisingly Monster, hiding in a shed came out to look at me, he was still there....this little prick had left him chained up for at least 6 days (that we know of) with no food and no fresh water...ribs sticking out---what a sight. Jojo and i immediately fed and watered him and then the 80 year old couple across the street took him home....in three days what a different dog.  Happy, clean, still skinny but gaining weight....living with 3 other dogs and our neighbors, he sleeps on their bedroom floor-----
finally he's in a pack.
The little prick showed up this morning looking for Monster---didn't find him tho---and left pissed off..... Monster's in the dog witness protection program now....and he has a pack of us to defend him.....
this was the one good thing of the week. Maybe this one thing was more than enough.

American_Mastiff

Trapped on the other side of the looking glass by my workplace.. Insanity there---i arrive home brain dead and unable to purge stupidity from my head....i spent the weeknights aimlessly prowling the web...not really thinking or reading, but attempting to loose myself...and not even accomplishing that.

Having been cursed not only by nature but by my mother as well I'm sure, I have a size 8 head...yes size 8. Technically anything this large should have a stewardess aboard....
Finding both caps and hats are a difficult endeavor..i can remember the few hats that have actually fit me fondly and how i grieved their loss. I took another chance on a hat today,  ordering the below, Scalar cotton blend, black hat in it's largest size XL---it may fit..I never know.

The tomatoes and peppers are planted. This to me is always the symbol that the true growing season has begun. We put out  30 tomato plants and I think my JoJo put out 40 some pepper plants...with the structural changes we made to the gardens this year, in response to climate change in our area, we are hoping for a better result this summer as compared to the way we merely tried to will the gardens to live through the drought last year. The research and engineering we have done may show us the way to survive the future....I was going to stop preaching on individual food production, but i find i cannot---if you are not growing some percentage of your food in any manner you can...you are guaranteeing you will go hungry in your future.  

Claim to be "holier than thou"...you pay the price when you turn out to be human. 

Evangelist preachers and the Secret Service being caught with hookers, pay the price of their daily fraud.
The fraud of pretending to be better than you, the fraud of presenting themselves as being more that human. The FBI for years was the most successful government agency at this fraud...covering their failures, their paranoia, their disregard for the law with the caricature agent, the all-American square jawed, perfect suit and haircut Fed wrapped in patriotism. 

The American theory has always been that it is better to look good, than to be good, at whatever you do. We are, have been, and probably will always be an immature culture here in the United States--shocked to find that individuals who look, talk, and pretend to be holy are absolutely not.... 

My sentry gun control hardware.
True Photo as promised.

I have three or four science projects in the works....all in differing stages, awaiting a hoped for brainstorm to complete...i suppose it is better to have too many projects running rather than none.....

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism,

Dude, at least it's an ethos."

Walter Sobchak

Bakhshali Manuscript

"It's not a mistake. They don't make mistakes. 

They don't do random. 

There's always an objective. Always a target."

Week follows strange week...i notate minor changes around me...yet nothing overall changes. Ever. The world around me is full of things i care not about....but we go on....

38 tomato plants have been planted and---I'll sling up the new rifle and fill the bandoleer with ammunition this weekend....work on two military surplus projects i have....This Sunday--doing nothing but science---weird science but nonetheless science--working on the sentry gun. I've received enough materials to begin phase 2 of the construction--control chip, motorized camera mount...I must now begin to activate the chip and attempt to match the software to the components....I'll lay out the materials i have collected so far during the process and take photographs for posting here later.

Lets review shall we?--- stupid, religious fanatic millionaire white guy as President----how'd that work out for us the last time eh?---lets do it again shall we?--I got fooled the last time---you know that hope thing? No way am I getting involved in this upcoming Thunderdome of the stupid. No way.

My town should be renamed "NO CREDIT CHECK"  that is now the wording on the most prolific sign i observe on my daily commute. Everywhere, everywhere my eyes turn, no credit check shouts out at me...perhaps instead of  "In God We Trust" the words  NO CREDIT CHECK should be emblazoned on our national currency now..only 38% of the American Public believes that they will be able to retire "comfortably". Only 60% of the American public now states that they live "comfortably"

 (the definition of comfort in this survey was stated as having any money at all remaining

 prior to the next paycheck).  

50 years of Republican lying Reaganomics, of the destruction of Unions, of transference of wealth to the 1%---yeah---- our national motto should now be....... NO CREDIT CHECK.....

Driving into work yesterday I spotted a beat up old ford Ltd sedan parked in
a vacant lot next to a pawn shop. Alongside the LTD was pitched a tent.
The sedan was positioned to hide the tent as best as possible---this really, really struck me as the vision of our current time---sleeping in a vacant lot next to a pawn shop----The vision of our future is far worse----

Absolutely outstanding--I've read Mr. Windrow's The Last Valley, which was excellent---this book covers the Legion during the sub-Saharan Africa colonial period and very early Indo-China conquests. Filled with interesting facts------- as an example----the world accepted romantic version of the Legion--joining to forget an affair of honor or a broken heart did not appear until the novel Beau Geste and the subsequent film with Gary Cooper appeared in 1924? Before that the majority of the French did not even know of the Legion much less the rest of the world....i had always thought the "run away and join the Legion" myth was as old as the Legion itself...... 

Beau Geste

As promised a true photograph of the recently acquired Mas 36--- 7.5x54 rifle with bandoleer. 

"I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, i can run flat out for a half a mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that?"

Jason Bourne

Public Key Cryptography

Progress on multiple projects---as well as with the homestead garden planting-- averaging 51.4 mpg for the commuting week in the Prius. 

A sign on a local, downtown business reads--"Open but for Sale". Perfectly summing up the local economic environment here---more and more street side sellers--offering wood, pecans, chili's, vegetables, clean your headlight covers and on and on. My favorite is  hiring people to hold signs on the side of the road--advertising a going out of business sale or diet plan or whatever shitty deal somebody is trying to peddle---these people stand--for hours---being paid to be used as a sign post that is immune to any local  ordinance. I can only shake my head at this "economic recovery" we are having?

 Cash for Gold is the newest business surge (ha!)  with two, obviously temporary, obviously swarmy shops opening up recently in abandoned store fronts.......

So this is trickle down economics eh? 

 Selling shit from the back of a pickup truck on the side of the road???  Holding a sign for 12 hours in the sun? This is how the noble Republican business/economic practices converts the American worker into the American independent business man? Thanks a fucking lot....

This week when the stock market tanked several times--I had to ask myself--why was i happy? I have pulled everything out of the stock market other than what my employer forces me to keep there, which i consider in the waiting room to be stolen by the 1%. But when the stock market tumbles now i get happy..... i discovered the why....

We are bombarded by so much spin on the economic recovery, and wall street is constantly singing this tune of happy days are here again---it never compared to what i was seeing around me in real life---in the local economy i live in...but then it came to me--the 1%, and their lapdogs--those who feed on the drippings of the mouth of the monsters--live in a completely different economic dimension--and when the market tanks it makes me feel better because it destroys that lack of reality of the market that bleeds over into our reality, when the stock market crashes out it matches for a limited time, what the one real economy is truly like. I am happy when the 1% are suffering---even a small amount -- suffering at least a bit from the true economic reality. There are now two economies--theirs and ours---the stock market belongs to them---if we are in it---they view us as a money source--to steal our retirement and savings....50% of the real, us,  now have NO money in stocks---who will they steal from when all of us leave their little devils playground...I hope the monsters feed on each other.....

The latest books in route.

I have it--I located and purchased a rifle which i have been desiring for quite a period of time..a French Military surplus Mas-36 7.5x54mm bolt action. The Mas 36 was the last military bolt action rifle designed, manufactured and issued by any nation. The Mas 36 fought with the French through the Algerian war, and the Indo-China wars....only to be replaced by the semi-auto rifle hysteria of the 1960's. My rifle is in mint, arsenal refinished condition.

I have located and ordered several accessory items for my Mas..original surplus include a sling, cleaning kit with pouch, stripper clips for rapid reloading, slip on black, rubber butt plate pad and a reproduction British cartridge bandoleer the P-08 for mounted infantry displayed below. The Mas 36 holds 5 rounds, and the standard French method of the carriage of spare ammunition was in leather belt pouches. I prefer the alternative method of bandoleer carry, with the British P-08 i can easily carry 2 five round stripper clips per pouch for a total of 50 rifle rounds while still leaving the belt area completely free. My plan is to combine the Mas rifle, bandoleer and my Italian large musette bag (previously mentioned on this blog) into a grab and go homestead defense package.

It is strange how the current breed of black rifles, assault rifles with their large capacity magazines, lasers and lights mean nothing to me....but a 60/70 year old French, bolt action rifle.......beautiful. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAS-36_rifle

The used IBM T-42 Thinkpad arrived and I have it up and running, operating the motion detecting, panning and tilting webcam. Both the laptop and the system works excellent, so far--I've been tracking the dogs and the wife as they move around the house...everything is in the pipe 5x5 on the sentry gun project---the open source software is downloaded and the next steps are-mating the motion cam and programming the control chip---I have mounted the laptop and the motion detecting webcam in one metal briefcase--designated for controlling the system. Next i will order a motor driven camera mount as the future gun platform, and the control chip....the real work begins in mating camera, motorized gun mount, and software to work together as a unit. Photographs to follow once i have everything physically mated. 

"The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before

it leaves the stage of history."

Buenaventura Durruti