Protocols were disrupted this week. Extreme weirdness by those in control at work...as if the hive queen died or something...no walking this past week but hoping to get back on the protocol this coming week. I am rebuilding my everyday carry pack for hiking in hotter temperatures with the change of the season, and hope to catch up on a few minor homestead jobs tomorrow. With the coming of Easter here in New Mexico we will begin planting...and with it the hope for a growing season that will provide us the vegetables we need for the year, both for us and to give away to neighbors and friends.

My new goal is to actually take photo's this year for posting on the laptop---i have been truly negligent in posting photo's of our homestead, our vehicles and my projects...i am going to get onto this.....

This week i conducted an examination of my aging and coolness quotient--the fact that I am now old--is not important to me--I enjoy being old and the advantages that being old compared to your suddenly younger, co-worker, neighbor and practically everyone else around you, brings.

The coolness quotient in aging, however, is extremely important to me.

When I was a kid there seemed to be two categories of old people...the cool and the uncool. The uncool we all know--shouting for their senior discount at Ihop--and who speak of nothing but their ailments and how fucked up everything is now. The cool old people tho--still had a life..and could appreciate the world around them...never gave up styling...never lost their sense of humor. In conducting a recent, honest, review and examination of my current old + coolness status I came away pleased...I am happy, non-grumpy but honest about the world around me, I blame my generation for the way things are, rather than blaming the younger people around me...and I don't look, think or act like a clone of some elderly TV Evangelist...Age has given me a freedom from the social requirements I have always hated and I am taking advantage of it....and will take advantage of this freedom to be old and cool even more, if and when i do finally retire....and am finally, totally, free.

The blame game for this relatively minor first stage of peak oil is going on--activated by our election cycles---blame anyone but ourselves for the price of gasoline---our stupid society that continues to purchase huge, gas hog suv's so that soccer mom's can drive purposelessly about all day at 12 mpg cannot be the fault---of course not...the people racing past me constantly at high speeds in these types of God fearing true American vehicles---while i doodle along at the speed limit in my Prius at 50 mpg---have a right to complain....right?

I'm seeing more and more long distance hitchhikers on the side of the roadway while commuting. One in a wheelchair last week....this coincides with an observed increase in begging at Walmart's---you know, the guy out on the grassy area as you turn in with a cardboard sign telling you he's a veteran asking for money? I guess I should just turn on the news and reassure myself that things are getting better...that the economy is fixing itself and happy days are here again? Or maybe I should listen to a few of the political soundbites from both parties telling me they have the answer--bought and paid and mouthed for the 1%--that should make me feel more secure? Right?

I never knew there was an Irish Martial art? Being full Irish and as a child observing my relatives I assumed the Irish Marital arts were ---first get drunk--then get pissed off at anything---and then hit each other until somebody passes out...

The recent acquisition of my reproduction Blackthorn walking stick led to an Amazon recommendation and ordering of the book below. The cover art sort of leads me to believe that my childhood observations are probably correct tho.............

"One may know how to gain a victory, and know not how to use it."

Pedro Calderon de la Barca