Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Butterfly Curve



I save chopsticks and napkins when eating out---they go into our supplies against the future...I also fill up the car with gas prior to a weekend..weekends are always the time we invade somebody or pull some economic repair blunder---I find myself wanting to save plastic containers--staring at them thinking that it will not be long before we no longer have something like this---that we now have no appreciation for. In the mornings i watch the water run in the sink--thinking, how am i going to haul that which we take for granted? 


My wife surprised me with several EDC presents for my recent birthday--including the two items displayed below...first a Boblbee Amphib 30 backpack---which is hugely marvelous---and excellently weird..this pack is something that i have been desiring for a very long time...how she found one, I'll never know since they are tremendously hard to obtain...



And---A Braun BN0035 Flat black Chronograph. Classic--beautiful---Germanic..nothing here but time and the ability to track it as needed. 







BBC 4, via the computer, is all I listen to for radio now. I am attempting to get my wife hooked through the garden shows they routinely have....So much in my country has just turned to pure shit--radio being one of many elements which resembles what an untrained dog leaves on the pavement. Thank you computer, otherwise, i would be out in the yard with a cheap SW radio staggering about trying to find a spot with BBC reception...stumbling over shit.




Just ordered FREERUNNERS by Joesph Chandler Cain...


Zombies-------------------Check
Streampunk---------------Check
Parkour--------------------Check
Airships--------------------Check 

What could possibly go wrong with this selection then?




The link below references an article on people living in storage units. A quick search on the subject displays newspaper articles from across the United States with numerous examples. Not at all surprised am I. This form of living actually makes excellent sense if one is left with or can obtain, a very small monthly income. One could set up and operate a logical squatter system very well in such a place. Electric would be no problem. Evading the closed-circuit visual systems at these places might be difficult but then again this could be handled. If one had sufficient survival/camping equipment remaining in their possession after an eviction and layoff-- as well as,  chooses a facility with nearby public latrine capabilities, such as a 24 hr. fast food franchise...this is one of the best solutions when compared to street living. 



Staying completely below the radar of the employee's, coming and going only during "normal" hours...and one would be required to live inside totally stealth, as if one was a reconnaissance submariner on the ocean floor...
but all and all eminently doable. 
What stuns me is that in the 1992 Stephenson novel SNOW CRASH--the main character of this dystopian future lives in a storage unit in LA. Stephenson creates an entire cultural scenario from this circumstance in 1992 he was predicting our true future. There is not far remaining to fall, as a society, when life in a storage unit, is living large....




I have been organizing, shelving, separating, cleaning, retrofitting, polishing, refuse-ing, establishing new notebooks, all over several days---to many this would be agony-- but to moi, it is a pleasure. I am rebuilding almost everything i deal with---attempting to attain a more perfect system of interacting with daily existence.. 




Viewed the latest--Sherlock Holmes and the game of shadows last night and it was excellent--good plot, great fights, very very steam punk, perfectly researched weapons from 1900--everything you could want in a film. 
It will take several viewings to catch everything presented---but we loved it. I recommend---especially since Holmes has taken to drinking embalming fluid, and is developing urban camouflage. Much Bartitsu as well..



A film I am awaiting on DVD release, with baited breath, is the new, 3rd Bourne film, THE BOURNE LEGACY...Jeremy Renner is the newest element in the series..There is an August 10th US Theater release date...hopefully it will not take forever to hit DVD?





I have a couple of years left working due to delayed retirement---because of this my thoughts again turn to purchasing a scooter....not one of the expensive Vespa's but one of the 49.5 cc, legally a moped, have it shipped to you via the Internet, scooter, as is the one displayed above.
There are multiple advantages and disadvantages to buying a scooter this way. Advantages include tremendously lower initial costs at approximately $700.00 which includes shipping to your house. Getting to know your scooter intimately by doing the out of the crate dealer prep yourself--the initial set up, tuning, changing fluids, etc. In New Mexico, Mopeds require no license, personal or vehicle...and the only restriction is you are held to roads with speed limits of 40mph or less. Since this would be only an around town vehicle for me there would be no problem there---plus these less than 50cc scooters get approximately 180 miles to the gallon....the disadvantages include everything mentioned above--zero dealer assistance with problems..getting the heavy crate from the curb to the area you are going to use to set it up. What if it won't start etc...I believe tho that if i were to fail in the set up I could have someone locally repair my damage...and the rest to me is the chance one takes with doing something---outside the norm.....and why not?
I am really going to look into this---an excellent project for my last few years of working although I am not going to wrap this in practicality since we already have bicycles for the coming breakdown...shall we just call it, a possible payoff for continued work eh? The Bakeesh? 



"Merciful Allah, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness."


Ahmed Ibn Fadhlan---The 13th Warrior


1 comment:

David Scott said...

Warren - excellent post. - Congrads on bday in June so is mine - I dig the watch - read Snow Crash years ago and took note of the storage sub-culture in his book and thought it might be possible - on reteriment you may think a few years but life has a way of intervening. It did for me. - The scooter ideal I have been giving thought to myself but not sure about the effect it would hacpve on wore out knees.