I seem to be fairly well balanced this past week(month)---although disturbed about the economic news i am preparing for the future as best as possible. I am learning to relax at work and apply the Chinese proverb that at work "in confusion there is profit."

I have finished all my projects other than the repair of my Rovio, either the company has gone out of business or they are simply ignoring my request for replacement parts. If i don't hear from them soon i will try and hack a solution for that problem. I have given up on my French military Bag as a no go for what i wanted to do----but i will use it as a range or utility bag.

Thoughts and actions follow:

This month, August, i located and stored, a half case of Kraft canned cheese!... i was beside myself at finding this...It's easy to put away standard goods like beans or rice..but stockpiling the foods or flavors that will keep you wanting to keep eating over a long term problem time is difficult.

This cheese is manufactured by Kraft subsidiaries for overseas markets where refrigeration, or power for refrigeration, or local milk products are ify at best. This is now available on Amazon. I'll pick up another half case next month or when the opportunity presents itself. But no matter how much i will have stored. During an emergency, being able to eat canned cheese and canned pilot crackers could make all the difference in the world mentally.

It is getting more and more difficult for the media to happy spin the economic news. A national growth rate of 1.6%, which is basically standing still. Less and less consumer spending, not one, one, new MacMansion was sold anywhere in the United States in the month of July...let me repeat that---not one new MacMansion style house was sold in our country in the month of July.

Blockbuster video is going under along with several clothing retailers. I only mention these due to the loss of what i would call teen jobs within those business's. If a young man or woman wished to help the family out while in high school these are the target employers and they are dying out. Let's not forget that the Government Stimulus is due to expire in the Autumn..and many jobs were only saved by an influx of G money.

California is economically still in the toilet and I am so hoping that the disgruntled Californian citizens legalize Marijuana by vote this year. That'll upset the G at it's breakfast.

Our food manufacturers continue to poison us due to greed. First hamburger, then eggs, then 380,000 pounds of poisoned lunch meat at Walmart. I simply cannot understand the corporate mind that would poison their customers for short term profit....we may deserved to be destroyed. In China, although corrupt, at least they walk these guys out of their factories and shoot them in the back of the head. Here the poisoners walk away because they buy the justice system.

This poisoning of our commercial foodstuffs has completely reinforced my belief in my urban homesteading lifestyle...we trade tomato's for local eggs, we don't eat meat so an entire realm of potential commercial food poisoning is removed from our existence. We eat meals direct from our own garden, washed by our own hands....unspoiled by greed.

There are still commercial foodstuffs that we purchase of course and that we store against the uncertain future---we cannot as yet be completely out of the system. But just applying our lifestyle this summer made us free from worry. I absolutely know and accept now that We are correct in following this lifestyle. It's the world out there that is fucked up and will only get worse.

I have been devouring books again----just absorbing the printed word requiring me to have a continual supply line in of new books....I just received my reading for next week----"Dismantling the Empire" by Chamlers Johnson, "Off the Grid" by Nick Rosen and

"The Coming Famine" by Julian Cribb.

Dismantling the Empire I found recommended on Huffington Post and in reading the reviews it appears the author and i already agree on many points--first and foremost is our national need to retreat to fortress America to heal our wounds. Let the rest of the world work out their own problems without us.....I am very interested in reading this book.....

"Off the Grid" is written in a very humanistic style by Mr. Rosen, a Brit, who traveled throughout the US staying with independent homesteaders old and new...i am enjoying this book.

I'll rate all three of these books when read.

Recent books read and rated:

"The Witch of Hebron" by James Kunstler (Fiction) 8 out of 10 if you like end of civilization novels. If you are into this type of fiction you will enjoy this book if not stay away from it.

"The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan (Non-Fiction) 9 out of 10. Excellent history of the Dust Bowl of the 1930's I recommend.

It has been quite a while since i have written on watches...Nothing has perked my interest since the huge Timex Expedition digital i received as a birthday present from my wife. Nothing until recently that is......

I just received my Casio G-Shock GA-100a9 in "rescue" yellow"...I've been working on my Geezer tactical clothing line which is primarily black, olive green and desert tan. This screaming yellow watch puts a little color in the every day carry personal equipment.

I have been changing my way of doing things, thinking, acting and dress. The way to finalize the process to me is with a new watch. This G Shock has 30 functions, timers, alarms, world time,stop watch, day of the week, day date, world time etc....although it does lack Casio's newest technical features of solar power and linkage to an atomic clock to insure accuracy....The Ga-100 provides the data i require in a large readable, rugged package---it is simply an excellent watch which i highly recommend in any color---although believe me the Yellow is spectacular----I also ordered a clip on compass for this band and a 10.5 foot, braided, para-cord bracelet. Having 10 feet of para-cord available on my person at all time will be excellent. My Everyday carry equipment is evolving nicely.

"Bottom line is, she looks at me funny one time, I'm putting her down. OK as far as I'm concerned, number eight is a meat by-product."

Reading: The Witch of Hebron by James Kunstler and Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith

The world is producing strangeness faster than one can input the information. Climate change continues to display just an advertisement of what really is to come.

Amazing how the concept of a nuclear Iran makes people run in a circle and bite their own ass....Iran is supposedly firing up it's nuclear reactor this week---- Nukes give a nation entry into the world's national country club...without nukes your nation is immaterial on the world stage. So of course nations with historically huge ego's and power hungry individuals at the controls will do anything to join the club....why is Iran's demand for nuclear power surprising to nations and individuals? Did the world really believe that this situtation would never eventually happen with any number of particularly hostile states?

Our previous diplomatic proceedures with Iran were worthless sound bites that only pushed Iran harder to be considered an equal...George's stupidly named axis of evil of course did nothing to help the situtation...and encouraged rabid fundamentalism as a defense? Does a nuclear Iran bother me? yes ....do i think they will make deadly judgements in it's use---yes---do i understand why this is happening.....yes....and as with so many other problems we are now facing do i believe this to be the result of previous stupidity....ignorance...and Bubba diplomacy? YES............ Do i believe someone will attack their nuke sites........yes.

I wondered at the fall of the Soviet Union--who would become our national enemy. I knew our stupidity could not embrace the opportunity that was present for us to live in a world without an enemy...we did all we could to help create one...fundalmentalist Islam..... and now we pay the price....one way or another. Being an isolationist my belief has always been...pull out, pull back, be capable of defending yourself, stay out of others problems, stop blindly supporting Isreal----solve your own problems and manage your own affairs first----lead by example and not by demand. This is Danger close time.

Continues unabated. My recent order due in the end of August is this British solider 2000 field jacket, in desert DPM camoflauge in XL.

I had to order this... British and French equipment is my favorite followed closely by South African...whenever i see anything produced by them available in my size i buy it. Now luckily this run of British Field Jackets supposedly runs Larger than the normal production range according the the write up and was available in sizing XL . I am making myself believe that the notorious French and British tiny-tinee Xl's may be OK for me this timeout. These are reported to be "like new" and with fall around the corner i am hoping to get serious use out of this item.

I am packing up my French surplus Military shoulder bag (see previous posts for photo) with all my work stuff this weekend and putting it into service Monday....It has been sitting outside for 3 weeks, purging the Monkey ass smell that came with the bag at no extra charge-----the stink is now very tiny--to the point where i don't care i just want to use the bag. I'll take photo's as i set it up.

Odd random net articles which peaked my interest..............

They will be big, we will be small............

http://io9.com/5614523/in-twenty-years-china-will-have-221-cities-of-over-1-million-people

Our lights probably will not work..........

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/09/smart.grid/index.html?iref=obnetwork

We all want out...............

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/17/poll-opposition-to-iraq-afghanistan-wars-reach-all-time-high/?hpt=Sbin

The worst is yet to come..............

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/17/news/economy/cities_risk_double_dip/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

Some thing new hit the world stage this past few days. International blackmail based on the possibility of the success of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan and supported by the concept that a nation suddenly underwater has not only insurgent problems but also has nuclear weapons that can be lost to these same insurgents if they gain power. So you had better get my aid moving...... the implied, subtitled, undercurrent demand is to make sure you give my country enough aid money...... and if the aid money does not appear fast or deep enough be sure that the fundamentalist's gaining strength through disaster possibility gets great attention.

Believe me i wish no ill toward the Pakistanis---it is just that a nation 55 billion dollars in debt to the world bank and who basically lives from world bank loan to world bank loan (with American aid money to sweeten the pot) cannot help but crash when millions of acres of farmland is underwater and millions of persons displaced. The context of Climate wars includes such items as flooding in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh with the movement of populations and destruction of agriculture.

The item that was overlooked was blackmail.

The world has already become deaden, numb to the cries for more and more aid to more and more disasters to help nation-victims and will only become more immune to increased future requests and pleading as our climate tries to kill us and we kill our economy.

Blackmail is an interesting new development within the protocol. The Pakistanis have something most 3rd world national disaster victims do not have-------Nukes>>>>and the position of the United States is that money can buy you a country that resists Islamic fundamentalism....not so.

Pakistan is hitting all the proper buttons. I am somewhat depressed that i had not seen international blackmail as part of the process that would occur. Help me or else your worst nightmares will happen...we'll make sure of it. Pakistan is going to go fundamentalist---their people apparently wish it to be so....like the Bush free elections in Gaza not too long ago---set up democracy and free elections---- and what happened? The people voted in the terrorist group Hamas as their government !!!! Old George never saw that one coming.

The rainy season in this part of the world is changing....India is already building a wall on their border with Bangladesh----getting ready for the hoard---------

"She says... the jungle came alive and took him..."

You may have problems if you are attempting to communicate with me by the email address posted here...it's a dead drop.....if you wish to contact me use the comments section and i will respond. Old habits die hard----

Our world becomes interesting as our temperatures rise..........Wildfires, drought and scorching temperatures in Russia lately. The end result of which is the Russian statement last week that it will not export wheat this year...requiring all it produces to feed it's population. Russian wheat exports are 25% of the world wheat market.....Pakistan is deluged in floods and the world seems numbed by having to give, give give to disaster areas. The Pakistani floods and lack of monetary assistance by the rest of the world is an example of the shape or things to come---we cannot help everyone with everything that is happening.

An interesting piece in the Newsweek from a European describing that the US is considered so 3rd world and out of the real game of life on the planet that we are no longer even the subject of protest--we have destroyed ourselves, our process, our reputation, to the point that we are no longer considered the world leader in anything---which means protesting against a lame giant is useless, just no fun.....................what i find really interesting is that it is in Newsweek. If that still means anything of any importance?

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/09/post-anti-americanism.html

The NewYork Times follows with its own doom like piece.... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html?_r=2

As a nation, (if you can actually still call us that) we go down the highway towards the uncertain and threatening future much like dumb and dumber. As a group, we Americans are unable to really do anything any longer. We are unable to put down our personal agenda's, unable to produce leaders untainted by the problem they are "attempting" to solve. We are unable to see a Nationally universal project through to completion at it's proposed original cost or to deal with matters that require personal or regional sacrifice. So the alternative is individual action. To protect yourselves from what is coming. We seem to have even lost, or had bred out of us, the hunter gather ability to work in even small groups. I cannot see a small group working together today...i would stay away from anything involving multiple individuals. Work for and by yourself because it does work.

I understand that some have the desire through groups to work on personal and societal issues that may arise, and that my advice of remaining alone may go contrary to everything else one may have heard....Survival and adaptation to the long descent is not an issue that will work the way of the commune, the coop, or the church tribe working as a group. Cooperation should be limited to trading with those outside your individual unit. Human cooperation for United States citizens would have to be taught to us before releasing us into the wild, much like zoo kept and hand fed mountain lions must be taught to hunt. This is why merely banding together with those "like" you will be a disadvantage not a positive.

Alone you can produce enough to eat, alone you can maintain a specific standard of operation, alone you can plan and carry out the future requirements of stealth living.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10912658

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10770674

The Jojo cruiser bike project:

is basically finished (photo below). I am awaiting only a new chain and yellow water bottle for 'walk away finished status'. Sorry for the horrifying Hoarder type background...i had no choice with that. To recap this was basically a frame wheels and parts that were given to me....i painted, cleaned, added a few accessories and reassembled in reverse order...

The Nokia N810 Keyboard Project:

Done! I was like a ferret in a phone booth trying and trying and trying and trying to get my Nokia Internet tablet to pair up with any of two different blue tooth keyboards I have....Finally after much swearing, and combination of trying this and trying that I accomplished the pairing of my N810 to my iGo portable keyboard.

I will try to get some pictures of the mini system in actually use at my coffee shop etc. I believed for a while that I might not be able to accomplish this paring of machines...but stupidity and perseverance won out!

Where's the French Military messenger bag you might ask? Outside airing out for another week now! It came in last week, beautiful condition never issued. Perfect for my new

Ultra Mobile Personal Computing (UMPC) accomplishments. There was one small problem tho..

IT STUNK FROM MILITARY STORAGE LIKE A MONKEY'S ASS! So it's been receiving plenty of fresh air and sunshine to attempt to make the monkey ass smell go away. Hard to be a Geezer Techno Tactical man when people hold their nose and run screaming "Monkey Ass!!! Monkey Ass!!!" So once the smell level drops down to Ode Du Old Guy levels i will transfer all my necessary items to it and provide photo's. The smell is not giving up easily---so the bag is banished to the out of doors for at least another week....

Being the ex-President does not stop George from being kinda weird and/or stupid. I'd really like to know what is going here while he was in Haiti recently? What it looks is.......... "That's a mighty fine backside on you there, young Man, hey you, come over here an look at the bootee on this here youngin!"

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Blaise Pascal