Where's Hazel? Pet Hazel. Hazel's coat is "trip-over
grey".
Summer
—One of the top four seasons—soon to be
available year round. —Peter Sagal on
Wait-Wait
In late breaking news I have been reading and watching
squibs and examples of Preferred Personal Pronouns. And
the ongoing debate(s) about Black v.s white (the
capitalisation thereof), and the Singular
They. Should you care to make note: My Preferred
Personal Pronouns: [She, He, It, They: Human!] Cadged from
Richard Dawkins in /The God Delusion/ "She or he must ask himself
or herself whether his or her sense of style could
ever allow herself or himself to write like that."
Summer Solstice
A whiff of petrichor on the air yesterday and the day
before. A total of seven raindrops on my windscreen marked
the beginning of Monsoon season. 14.4 hours of daylight at The
Cat Drag’d Inn.
Riddle me this: Take charge of this charge and charge the
appropriate charge.
First Adventure of The Summer of 22
Fun day at the Food Bank. Sausage was the main course. Ten
pounds of sliced ready-for-pizza pepperoni, five pounds of
skinless breky links, four pounds of Jimmy Dean HOT sausage.
As well as the usual assortment of things and stuff to
share.
Fascinating time cracking into a donated Dell laptop that
has a BIOS/Setup password. Someone unknown donated the
machine cos they had forgotten the password without which
the machine cannot boot up. Cannot get into setup. Cannot
even boot from USB or CD. NADA. BIOS passwords are most
secure to prevent unauthorised boot and impossible for the
casual user to get around. But... Pop the hard drive out and
connect with a IDE to USB adapter and the drive can be read
or used in a different computer. So much for security.
On the drive, in the Documents folder, I found school
lessons and resumé with the owners name and address. They
still don't know the password and apparently have no
interest in the contents of the drive. However the owners
name and address may be the key to getting Dell Tech Support
to grant me a backdoor password so I can unlock the BIOS and
wipe the disk. May make the machine saleable in the thrift
store. Busy day.
 On the Home Front
The photo herewith is of the advancing front wall of a dust
storm about to engulf the T/A two miles to my south. Close
the windows, furl the awning, lower the telly antenna. A
short while later the dust arrived and visibility went down
to about a mile for a few minutes before gradually returning
to normal as the sky cleared.
Exertion-cycle
Just as I am getting accustomed to sharing the road with big
smelly iron monsters my bicycle reports for sick call with
flat tyre. This turns into one of those
before-you-do-this-you-have-to-do-that sort of projects. I
know right where the tools I’ve not touched in years are hid
but the light in that locker lacks luminosity. Blown circuit
breaker resulting from rummaging in the vicinity of bare
wires. Can’t be reset cos of a crumb of oatmeal cookie. The
glue in the patch kit is dried into a lump of jelly. After
three days of intermittent attention I finally have all the
bits and pieces of tools and parts necessary to effect
repair. Surprisingly I remember how and am grateful those
Downsize and Döstädning rules do not apply to tools unused
for years.
 Field Day NU7DE Last Weekend of
June
Twenty-four hours of simulated fun and games contacting as
many stations as you can to exchange call sign and contest
data: NU7DE 2E AZ. QSL QRZ? Next! I made 42 contacts in
digital modes RTTY and PSK; ME0W contributed three voice
contacts using PURR mode on SSB. Not bad considering I had
to do my own logging and eating and napping.
27 June Over the River and Through the
Construction... 
...To the Dentist we go to be crowned. Weeks ago broke a
tooth. My dentist has been after me for years to have this
tooth crowned. Takes longer to save for that than to drive
cross-country. Except this year. With fuel costs doubled and
the new dental technology and material available the cost of
a crown has reduced by half. When my tooth broke on a peanut
butter sandwich that cinched the matter. Watching the high
tech equipment at work designing and creating this crown was
nearly worth the pain and discomfort. Fascinating process. A
laser scanner draws a full colour 3-D picture of the tooth
to be crowned on a terminal where the tooth designer can
then build the crown. The image of the crown is then sent to
a mill in the Waiting Room that sculpts the tooth. A dab of
epoxy and all done. About an hour and a half and 500$
please. This
video shows the scanning process.
June started out where May left off in the Days Without
Measurable Rain count. Then during the penultimate evening
of Wenzday, June 29th, with all the boxes and bags of grub
from the Food Bank piled on table and tailgate, there came
upon a midnight cloudy one thunderstorm. Paltry tho the
rumble and flash was, the rain gauge, being for over 150
days without moisture to measure, suddenly had to remember
how to accumulate Rain Drops! At the observation the morning
of June the Last there was 0.03" of water in the glass. The
Days Without Rain Counter has been reset.
 Bike tyre is flat again. Or
still.
Seventy some dollars for two each tubes and tyres. Heavy
duty. Cactus resistant.
Now We Are July
The days are getting shorter now... But not yet cooler.
Happy Independence Day? 
... independent of what, of whom? Thoreau wrote: “Men
have become the tools of their tools.” And Michael Parenti
wrote: "...The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of
shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralized humanity is
kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.”
These Disunited States have become a Third World Country.
“Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially
only two drugs that Western civilisation tolerates: caffeine
from Monday to Friday to energise you enough to make you a
productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to
Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that
you are living in." —Bill Hicks
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work
and driving through traffic in a car that you are still
paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for
the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all
day so you can afford to live in
it.”
—Ellen Goodman
... independent of what? Democrats celebrate April 15th;
Republicans celebrate July 4th. Or as Ronald Reagan put the
thought — “Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of
July, but the Democrats believe every day is April
15.” And six people were killed—gunned
down—celebrating Independence Day in Chicago.
The Ides of July
Nap nipped by naked notions of nattering negligence.
Leftover Spring Cleaning task shaking and rotating throw
rugs begging completion. Needless to say before one can
complete such a task one must begin, get beyond the idea,
the concept, the plan. Well, that's done. Next time around
these rugs are going to require replacement. They have been
on the deck since November 1998 and of late have been
showing significant bald spots. Every time I Hoover them
more pieces of the pattern disappear.
The Sunday After
Finally a really exciting thunder storm last night. 0.38" of
rain and rain. Dramatic drop of temperature from 117f to 79f
in less than an hour. Fantastic
fascinating lightning show. Drifting and blowing
construction debris. Puddles! Real puddles on the ground no
less.
And now two mysteries. One solved, one un-. The 11m radio
(CB) was not chattering away as usual this morning. No TX
output either. Watt meter to dummy load indicated normal
output. SWR indicated 2:1 from 15-50mHz. Antenna problem?
Found the long WiFi beam had moved and was laying against
the CB whip. Short circus. AOK now.
Unsolved mystery is The Towel Who Ran Away With Her Clothes
Pins. Last seen last night in a lull between the rains,
soaking wet hanging from the drying line, dragging her hems
in the mud. I rearranged her orientation from portrait to
landscape, made a futile attempt to wring out some of the
water, and left her pinned to the line. This morning she and
her pins are MIA. AWOL. Blue, Bath, a.k.a. Shower Towel,
occasionally dry, most likely laying in a sodden heap. But
where? The wind was reported as high as 45mph from the
SouthEast during the thunderstorm last night.
The Man Who Mistook His Frog for A Cat.
That is the title of Mikey’s book, a memoir of his adventure
in the aftermath of the only real rain of this Monsoon.
(Thus far anyhow.) After buckets of rain had refilled
Lake Maryland Road and wind had downed power lines and left
his neighbourhood in darker than darkness... A synopsis:
“Went outside around one-ish to look around. A few empty
boxes were redistributed, and the cat feeders (bowls
strapped atop overturned milk crates) had been tossed about
and found several feet from their usual locations. Car [his
electric Fiat] was flashing "goalposts" as it does when
power is cut off while charging cable is still connected....
“While I was outside, I heard what sounded like a cat in
distress, so I embarked on a rescue mission, beginning with
an acoustic foxhunt. That led me next door to the garage,
where I determined the cries were coming from across the
street to the east. I went back inside to grab a wrap for my
bottom half on the unlikely but possible chance my lack of
dress might startle a passing motorist or APS [AridZona
Public Service] worker and headed back out. The closer I
thought I was getting to the sounds, the further away they
seemed to creep. Eventually I made my way along the narrow
northern shoreline of Lake Maryland Road until I ran out of
shore about halfway to 418th Ave. At that point I could
plainly hear two individuals, apparently in some
conversation of alternating loud, low-pitched cries. “I
decided they couldn't be cats. ...they must be toads,
awakened/released from their underground chambers by the
sudden appearance of a lake above them. While I never
actually saw them, I greeted them and wished them well,
reminding them that this was only a short-lived reprieve...”
Happy 22/7
That was yesterday and I forgot all about the specialty of
the day then. Thank you for the reminder! I did however
remember that 22722 was a palindate. So happy that as well.
Pi Town
I am edging closer to a possible departure in that
direction. Beyond all the travails delineated in my Springquinox
letter I have now only to complete the self appointed
task of Poll Worker for the Primary Election on 2nd August.
The main motor of The Cat Drag'd Inn test started OK
a few days ago so I should be able to drag out of Tonopah by
about 5th August and a week or so later arrive in the Town
of Pi. Poll Worker for a Day and the training thereof
qualifies me to officially tell the voters where to stuff
their ballots and the recompense might about half fill one
of my fuel tanks 302 miles worth.
Counting Down The Days
Last night in the midst of rain and thunder, whilst the bus
electric was disconnected from shore power, my primary
inverter failed. Still raining now so I have yet to start
troubleshooting.
Yesterday my main power inverter failed. Still
troubleshooting. The device has been in faithful service
since 1998 converting solar energy into power useful to the
fridge and computers; now The Cat Drag’d Inn is at
the mercy and vagaries of the grid. But my extension cord
will not stretch to Pi Town. Why does anything fail. Could
be a simple corroded connexion or a failed component. Could
have been caused by static—there was a thunderstorm lurking
in the neighbourhood—but the bus power was isolated from
shore power. I'll badger the manufacturer rep for a while
longer. A new replacement costs on the order of two-grand.
In the meanwhile two spare inverters of lesser capacity and
functionality will sort of fill the gap with greater
involvement of my attention span.
August First...and then Septober
The last week of July was particularly exciting. I’ve come
very close to spending close to two grand (...all my Summer
Mad Money and then some...) on a new inverter plus a few
accessories. Given up on the support for the old one.
Twenty-two years of continuous duty has left the
manufacturer and service people in the dust. Still one more
trick to try before I press the Buy Now button.
There’s A Hole in The Roadside Dear Eliza 
 Last week on my 3-mile bike ride I found a
great hole in the ground just off the side of the road. A
manhole cover was missing on a cable vault. Could be a death
trap for an unwary kid or critter. Took a few photos and
reported the location to AridZona Public Service. I’ll give
them a few days and then escalate the matter an echelon or
two. Then the weather happened. This is Monsoon Season and
we finally received some rain enough to measure. And wind
too. Drifting and blowing lawn furniture. Dust obscuring
visibility to less then three miles. Nothing all that
exciting compared to east coast hurricanes but anything more
than hot and dusty hereabouts is more than enough for
talk-abouts.
Food Bank contributions to my comestibles this week included
a 14-inch pizza. A few days old and hard as a Frisbee,
HRH-HHR took a slice for a spin. Then the feral dog pack got
in on the act and after that the rain soggified rest.
 Sunday 7 August—Worshiping at the Altar of
Roadside Trash
 On my bike ride Saturday morning I chanced to
see what I took at first to be the opening of a new Maricopa
County Landfill Operation. On this nice country lane in
Tonopah, in a low place where the road grader had pushed a
blade's width for drainage into the east side off the
pavement, someone had left a load of cardboard and Styrofoam
enough fill a small pickup truck twice-over. Many bits of
Styrofoam had already escaped the pile into the surrounding
mesquite. Looks like a job for Super Geezer.
 7 August—Sunday morning
service...
For the collection I picked up Styrofoam packing material
scattered over 10,000 square feet of the east side of the
road, and some from the west side of the aisle as well.
Filled nine big orange trash bags. In the words of Officer
Obie I wrote a letter to Customer 55977265 c/o Big Lots
Store #4504: "We found your number on a credit card receipt
under a half a ton of cardboard taped to the packing crate
of a kitchen waste basket." [As of this writing a
month and a half later Big Lots has not answered.]
I wore my Red Hat on the Red Planet 
Sending my selfie across the vastness of space to Mars is
fairly frigid for a bare butt boy in boots. However NASA
recently made hiking
ala Colin Fletcher a much easier experience with
this exercise in AI.
14 August—Sunday Lesson: Staying Cool In A Red Hot
World
Bad yesterday. Over the edge. Or at least on the cusp
thereof. I hope I can find my way back. Find my center
again. At bedtime last night I wrote in my Journal: "Right
now I really don't give a shit. Up to here with all this
bullshit. Not just the “phone” but that is the crux of the
matter. Artificial Insipidness. Artificial Idiots. Only a
thin veil keeps me from smashing something. I know that
because I know I cannot be all that far around the bend, but
close—oh so close. The wheels are skidding on wet pavement.
This morning I am feeling a little better. Instead of a
two-mile bike ride I did a half-mile trash walk along the
road out front and filled a big orange AZDOT trash bag with
the rubbish of arse-holes who shit in their own beds. In
some respects picking up after these People helps me feel
better but in other respects I end up feeling worse. At
least with this activity I feel in control and not awash in
the vicissitudes of "phones" and politics.
19 August—Yikes—I need a nap!
Yesterday I drove Paul's big pickup—as opposed to my tiny
truck—and trailer twenty-some miles to a Food City to
retrieve 112 empty banana boxes for the Food Pantry
tomorrow. Then UPS delivered my new DC/AC inverter. 40
pounds of electronics and pretty blue enamel at 36$/pound.
As soon as I get a spare day—or three—after sewing a hole in
my bed sheet and fixing the Very Important Bug Zapper I'll
get the inverter installed and then if there is any time
left and money in the bank I'll get on the road to Pie Town
before I have to turn around and return for poll working the
general election. Phew!
20th Open Air Food Pantry Operations
Different operation to the weekly Food Bank tho they are
both under the same Saint Mary's umbrella. At the Bank I
spend 4-5 hours once a week in the shop checking and fixing
donations to the Thrift Store. Anything with wires or
batteries has to be tested. For four hours of my time I
receive about 35# of tinned foods, day-old bread stuffs, and
often a ham or rack of ribs or steak.
Different storey entirely at the Pantry. We set up a row of
6-8 tables under the solar array in the high school car
park. A 55' semi from St Mary's arrives and off-loads
several pallets of product. Yesterday there was one pallet
of 64 crates of quarts of chocolate milk, one of a similar
load of Propel, another of carrots, then melons, several
bread stuffs, canned goods, store brand sodas... Volunteers
fill banana boxes with some of each, then clients drive the
gamut and a box is placed in each car. My task is Box
Wrangler—unloading the empty banana boxes from our trailer,
checking to see that they are sound, and feeding them to the
volunteers who come past with shopping carts to go up the
line and get loaded. Once a month, two-three hours, usually
100-150 clients drive through, and then we volunteers get to
share any left-overs and go home. Yesterday was unusual,
there were no remainders; we ran out of food before we ran
out of cars and my box count indicated about 170 cars before
the last few were turned away hungry.
21st Sunday
Getting started on the new inverter installation project. So
far mostly mulling over all the options and ideas. This
device is a different shape and size to the old one so I
have to rearrange all the stuff in that bellybox. Good
opportunity for some serious cleaning. A folding table and a
pair of bear-paw snowshoes that I've not used in 20-30
years. And a waffle iron too. The snowshoes I need to keep
in case I ever get stranded in Donner Pass but the other two
items I will donate to someone else's storeroom.
22nd A few minor delays. 
Too damned hot (105f) out there after lunch. The stainless
steel sheet metal screws that were supplied for the mounting
bracket are not suitable for running into the material of
the bellybox bulkhead. The screw's threads are too soft and
strip and will have to be replaced—something else for
tomorrow's shopping list after food bank. I might get in
another hour doing some wiring later but I'm done outside.
There are some inside projects to do anyhow. A bug zapper
lamp needs fixing. That can be done in the cool-cool-cool of
the galley.
27th Footlockers Return
This one has been from Vermont and New Hampshire to McMurdo
Station on Ross Island at least twice. Now I am doing some
serious housecleaning. Döstädning one might say in
another language.
The time has come, the Walrus wrote, to
write of many things,
I've had this stuff for long enough; time for another to
tote.
28th Finally the Inverter Is Installed
Failed first turn-on out of the box. And if that is not
sufficiently unsettling the failure mode is unacceptable.
Suddenly September 
Surreptitiously silently sliding into the middle of a busy
week. Three days passed before I realised my calendar was
out of sync with my oblong. Between the aborted inverter
installation, the arrival of two “Silver Trunk” time
capsules (first buried beneath the irony of my sister
Ann-Marie’s laundry room in 1997), and the fruit of
Paul’s date palm coming ripe for the picking, I have been
running in circles. Outside to do something, inside to cool
down; sunglasses on - sunglasses off; sweating – sleeping.
Remembering When A Half-Gallon of Florida Orange
Juice...
...was 64 ounces of juice from trees in Florida. 100%
Premium Not From Concentrate Non GMO. Today Florida orange
juice is a blend. There must be still a few orange trees in
Florida, the label on the carton of The Incredible Shrinking
Half-Gallon (now only 52 ounces) still proclaims “Florida
Not From Concentrate” but then adds “and The Best Orange
Juice From Mexico.” One wonders: In what proportion? At
least the “Non GMO” is still there on the label.
Monsoon Ends With Rainy Week
Maybe not the Official End of Monsoon Season but the RH was
down to 20% on the 17th. 1.78” rain last week and
progressively clearer and dryer since then. Heat was on this
morning for a few minutes. Good test of furnace. Outside was
65f at dawn.
Report On A Socking Situation
Steven’s stockings submitted to a simulated situational
survey survive soaking. For want of a puddle a basin was
employed.
Did you know that ‘s’ is the most used first letter in the
English language? Many esses have been recycled hundreds of
times in various scenarios. Thrice-used esses often show up
as last letters.
22/9/22 -- Another Palindate
...and Autumnal Equinox at the same time. Will wonders never
cease?
"How 'bout we open up a big bottle of red wine and have at
it until our standards are reduced to a reasonable level of
expectation."
—PHC, The Last Show.
|
2022 Autumnal Equinox —
Greetings Virtual Travellers and Pen Friends: 
