Sunday, December 31, 2017

The Celebration

The motley  crew of brush hackers will celebrate New Years in Payson.   The plan is a movie, and a dinner.  Kadizzle and Mrs. have been watching a Netflix series.  The series is A PLACE CALLED HOME.  The setting is in Australia in 1953.  The story is in the style of Upstairs Downstairs.  It is always amazing to see something that is put together with no car chases, shootings, or the usual drivel that keeps churning out of Hollywood.

The story revolves around a rich family that has a gay son.  The son married to cover up his homosexuality.  His wife gradually catches on.  It is interesting to see how attitudes have evolved since 1953. 

So here comes a new year.  It will be hard to surpass the insanity and unbelief of 2017.  No one would have ever guessed how deep stupidly runs in our country.  The number of Hoopleheads and the ease with which they can be manipulated is something that took every thinking person by surprise.  It is like finding our your house is infested with termites.  Europe should have given us a clue.  The British voted to leave the European Union.  English Hoopleheads showed us how easy you can shoot your own foot off.  Of course our Hoopleheads had to out do them.

So the question is will we come out of the fog in 2018?  Will the Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity liars prevail or will science and reason come back?  There was something called the Dark Ages is this era coming again.  The depression was brought on when greed got out of hand in the thirties.  Social safety nets restored sanity.  Now with glee the prosperity we had from a healthy middles class is being shattered in the name of trickle down economics.

The Heart Attack

Early yesterday Cliff took Bill to Globe.  Poor old Bill was having a painful heart attack.  This morning Bill will have surgery.  Bill is a skinny little guy that cast no shadow when he turns side ways.  Bill has been volunteering for a long time.  A retired machinist Bill is a great guy to have when you need something fixed. 

So this is the world we live in.  Bill works for free, and contributes to the goodness of the world.  Our leader the most vile man ever elected president, and his Republican buddies want to screw Bill out of health care and anything else they can. Trump will give every person with an income of one million dollars a year an additional $69,000 dollars. Meanwhile people don't have a pot to piss in and work for free.  What kind of a country gives a four percent tax break to someone who doesn't need it and a one percent break to those on the bottom.  The greed driven insanity of the Republicans is hard to take when you see a good person with nothing working for free while the Republicans set it up so the Walton family of Walmart can pass on 52 billion tax free.  The insanity only gets deeper when you read how the  " Christians "  ushered in this reign of greed.

There are so many people doing so much good with so little, then you have people like the Koch brothers, some of the richest people in the country, waking up every day trying to destroy the working class.  From the Republican perspective poor people are just lazy welfare cheats.  Perhaps Republicans should spend a day picking fruit or trimming trees.  The Waltons have no problem with grandma standing at the door of their Walmart making minimum wage while the CEO gets $8,000 per hour.  That blasted lazy grandma should have gone to Harvard and become a nuclear physicist.  It was grannies fault her parents could not afford to send her to private school.  So along comes the Republican Jesus who approves of all this.  After all the Pope lives in splendor while the peasants in South America pick the coffee beans by hand.  One of the Walton ladies built a 600 million dollar art gallery in Bentonville Ark.   Who cares if the bridges are falling down and the subways in New York don't work, enjoy the art.  So this year the Republicans will try to take away social security, health care for poor children, and build up the bloated military.  Meanwhile Bill has surgery today and maybe he can recover and come back and work for free so more money can be available for Trump to golf.

Saturday, December 30, 2017

A Run to town

The horse ladies in the articles below are coming for dinner, so we have to make a run to town for supplies.  Looks like another perfect day.  Yesterday Bernice the horse lady said she has been bathing in the lake.  Bernice is 64, Kadizzle has jumped in some cold water, but would not voluntarily get into the lake to wash.  There are solar showers in the campgrounds here.  Even a lukewarm solar shower would be a great leap over the lake.  It is amazing how people can acclimatize.  Since we come from North Dakota our idea of warm is different from the people who live in AZ.  On a lot of days we are in shorts and a T shirt, the natives are bundled up like it is a blizzard. 

Friday, December 29, 2017

Montana woman riding horses across the country and back

Lady Long Rider

When old Kadizzle gets bored he takes a short ride on his one cylinder steed.  The trip often starts by visiting the horse camp down below our encampment.  Today as Kadizzle rode through he met Bernice.  Bernice did an 8,000 mile ride across the country last year and is working on another this year. Bernice lives out of a tent and packs her stuff on two horses.  Right away Kadizzle knew Mrs. Kadizzle would have to cackle Bernice.  So the cackling started.
So Kadizzle hauled the Mrs. down to the horse camp.  Bernice's friend another adventure lady shared stories with us.  If you want the full story you can go to Bernice's facebook page or check out her story at www.endofthetrail.com.  Strangely Bernice was formerly a classical ballet instructor.  Ironically she knew the woman that taught our children ballet in Hazen.  Little did we know the woman who taught our kids was a very well know dancer.  Bernice will soon be riding and camping alone on the Mexican border.  All the brave gun totting hombres should take a lesson from this woman. 

Strangely some of the most famous long distance riders by horse come through our horse camp.  The people who made the movie Unbroken stopped at the horse camp.  That was the guys who rode  from Mexico to Canada.  

Talking to Bernice it was interesting to note that the horse culture is like the RV culture.  Some well to do horse people stop and fiddle with their horses, combing and pruning and then go for a 45 minute ride.  Returning to their elaborate horse trailer and motor home that was the day.  You see this with the RV crowd.  Old willy pulls up in his half million dollar mother home and immediately gets out and starts to polish.  On the other end of the spectrum you meet hikers with nothing buy what they can carry on their back.  In Bernice,s case she has nothing but what she can carry on two horses.  Apparently the horses only food is what they can forage.  The horses of the rich get taken to a McDonalds at the end of the day for straw and hay burgers. 

Well Mrs Kadizzle and Bernice are out riding each with a can of beer, so Kadizzle will just have to live on peanuts till they get back. 


Can you smell a scam?

Yesterday Kadizzle was contacted on Facebook by an old friend.  It was not really an old friend, but someone who had hacked into his account.  The communication had the smell of a scam.  Sometimes it is fun to play along with scammers.  Kadizzle would get the call from the guy in India doing the Microsoft scam.  The fellow with a strong accent would say punch this key and that key to fix the so called virus. Kadizzle would pretend like he was doing it and act confused.  The whole thing took up a lot of the scammers time and eventually the scammer figured out he was being scammed.

There are more sophisticated scams like the ones the Republicans do.  They tell a bunch of idiots they can get rich by giving tax breaks to the rich.  Religion has always been the most productive scam.  Look at how religious leaders have raked millions from ignorant poor people who think they can donate their way to heaven.

Casinos are the next best thing to religion for scamming people.  Both religion and casinos are legal, but only religion is tax free.   Casinos do let a few people win to make the scam look legitimate.  Republicans let a few people win to promote their scam.  All good scammers know you need to make it look like you can win.  Every good Republican will say that all you need to win is persistence and hard work.  Usually your persistence and hard work come out better if you father gave you a bank or a car dealership.  Donald Trump brags how he is a self made man with a gift of a million dollars from his father and a loan of another eight million.  Didn't your dad give you a million and lend you eight.  No, problem, just work hard. 

Imagine a hundred yard dash where your competitor gets a fifty yard head start.  Now your Republican competitor will tell you when he wins you were just lazy, did not practice enough, and were not motivated.   So the poor are a bunch of welfare cheats.  The guy born in a mansion just cannot understand why the ghetto dweller ask for help.  Now want some whipped cream on your fantasy.  Republicans feel they do not have enough of a head start so they want to do away with  the inheritance tax.  At one time you could only inherit one million dollars tax free.  It went up to 3.4, but that is not enough of a head start.  Republicans want to totally eliminate the inheritance tax, which will mean the Waltons who own Walmart will pass on 52 billion tax free.

Back to the hundred yard dash.  Imagine being in high school and lining up for the race.  The referee tells you competitor he gets a 50 yard head start.  You object and ask why.  The referee explains it is just like the inheritance tax.  You competitors father won the race when he was in high school, so his son get the fifty yard head start.  Seems like perverse unfair logic, but Republicans believe this and have sold it to the working class as part of the greatest scam on Earth.  Now every good Republican will tell you " They earned it they can do whatever they want with their money".  Now comes the problem.  The people who inherit the cash did not earn it, but they can do whatever they want with their money.  If they want to give it to their kids remember it is their money.  So now it goes on for generations. 

What is welfare?  Most people believe welfare is getting something for nothing.  So if you are the sperm of a rich man and you win the race to the egg chances are you will get welfare, or should we say something for nothing.  What happened to good old fairness and equality.  Well we all stand an equal chance of being born the child of a rich person. 

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Find the Trail

The clock says five thirty A.M.   Today's mission is to go to the top of Four Peaks turn right and find the top of the trail we have been working on.  Five of us with Kadizzle driving the jeep will make the trek.  Kadizzle will try to come up the trail from the bottom after he drops off the top crew.  This year the mission has been to complete trails at the top.  Many of these trails have gone into disuse and will be lost forever if we do not re establish them.  An interesting aspect of the mountain trails is how they go through exospheres.  On the top the trails are in a pine forest.  As the trail descends the vegetation changes from wet to drier and drier.  By the time you reach the bottom you are in a much more desert environment. This all happens in a matter of five miles. 

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Overwhelmed

Someone said the current drought in Arizona is similar to one that ended the Anasazi culture.  People can obliterate the natural environment that sustains them.  Get your little computer thing out and put an app on it called Flight Tracker 24.  The app will show  you every plane in the sky over the United States and a lot of the world.  Until you zoom out the entire country is covered with planes.  Usually there are 6,000 jets in the air at any given time.  Think about the amount of fuel being spewed into the atmosphere. 

Kadizzle spent a major portion of his life in the coal industry.  Few people realize the rate of coal consumption in this country.  Until you see coal pouring off a conveyor belt into a power plant volume is hard to comprehend.  Our mine produced 23,000 tons a day.  The power plant burnt that much.  The plant we supplied was just one of thousands in our country.  A coal train leaves the Powder River Basin about once every 15 minutes.  Each train has one hundred, one hundred ton cars.  So that is ten thousand tons.  Think of  your bedroom.  One train car of coal would fill your bedroom with coal.  That is a lot of carbon.  Most of us think electricity just magically happens. It does not.  The carbon dumped into the air every day took millions of years to be sequestered by turning into coal.  What took five hundred years to put in the ground we will take out in one hundred years. 

This is just the tip of the problem.  If you went up and looked down from a satellite you would see a line of oil tankers coming from the middle east to the United States.  lt would be one long line bringing us fuel to burn in our cars.  At any given moment at least 20 million cars are running. Then there are the trucks, trains, buses, and who knows what.  Can you dump all this crap into the air and really expect nothing to happen? 

On the other side of the game are the plants trying to suck up the carbon we a spewing.  The problem is we are wiping out the plant kingdom at an alarming rate.  The jungle is being destroyed, the oceans are being polluted, and the system that cleans the air we pollute is being blasted.

The entire mess reminds Kadizzle of a story he was told two nights ago.  A fellow trail crew member told of a man he had as a friend.  The man's wife disappeared.  The wife was a hoarder and had a separate house where she did her hoarding.   Searching for the woman cadaver dogs were used. They checked the hoarding house, but did not find her.  The husband decided to clean out the hoarding house and found her body buried under the stuff she accumulated.  There is a lesson in this.  We will be buried under the stuff we accumulate that we don't  need.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Little Spaces

While many wander about their McMansions the Kadizzles visit friends living in boxes.  RV life basically involves living in a little box.  Simplification has it's rewards.  Everything is close.  Stumble out of bed and right into the living area.  Nothing is far away in an RV.  The coffee pot is an arm/s length from the easy chair.  The dining room, living room and kitchen are all about four arm lengths away.  Keeping things orderly is important in small spaces.  Inventiveness thrives in small spaces.  The place heats up instantly in the morning.  Usually we put out a heat puff, that is we turn on the real furnace for a few minutes.  After the big heat puff a little electric heater does the job.

Yesterday we had another dinner with friends. Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and yams.  We gathered around a little table in a small space.  It was a cozy and nice visit.

Today it is back to trail work.  Kadizzle will probably drive the crew deep into the wilderness to drop of Mrs Kadizzle, Rita, and Ken.  The plan is they will hike down the mountain and Kadizzle will meet them at the bottom.  The radio is saying this will be the coolest day of the week 68.  That is great news when you hear there is a wind chill in North Dakota of forty below.

There are starting to be hints that the bubble may burst.  Trump and income inequality are setting the stage for a disaster.  It would almost be worth it to see Trump and his gang of robbers get their comeuppance.  The old question of when to hold them and when to fold them is the theme. 

Monday, December 25, 2017

Pray for prime rib

Our first Christmas away from home in 35 years, but a nice one.  Last night a bunch of volunteers sat by the campfire eating delicious prime rib cooked to perfection.  All the other goodies were equally a delight.  Sitting by the fire sharing adventures and stories one could not help but be amazed by the diversity of experience a bunch of old travelers can conjure up.  People with the urge for wandering and change are always fun to gather with.

A lot of talk centered around lumbering.  Jim and Valerie raised their kids deep in the Canadian woods.  all the lumber for their home they cut and milled themselves.  As a sideline Jim and Valerie have become loggers.  Stories of dragging logs out of the woods with a horse stir the imagination.

A lot of people spend their life with their head in a book or just looking out the window.  Some people open the door jump through and see the world that is out there.  So the sun is working it's way up over the eastern mountains, the coffee just finished brewing, and here we go.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Home made bread

The Christmas spirit is striking the Arizona desert and friends are showing up at the Earth Module door with goodies. Rita and Ken stopped by with home made bread.  It was still a little warm.  It brought back memories of Kadizzle as a child on a farm in West Virginia.  The old farm women would make fresh rolls every morning.  Butter and home made black berry jam drew out the wonderful essence of the bread.  Cory and Nicki came by with cookies.  Today some campers invited the Kadizzles to a prime rib dinner. Oh life with friends is good.

The sun is up and bright and it should be a nice day.  Winter is doing it's worst to the desert, but bad is pretty damn good. It will get to the high sixties or seventy degrees today.  Yesterday the Native Americans poured off the reservation into Globe to stock up on all the poison white men have invented for them.  A modern attack on the natives would involve flying over them dropping potato chips, sugary drinks, and alcohol.  The best defense for the natives has been casinos that empty the pockets of the white man.  Selling cheap cigarettes to the white man has also been a good defense.

Up the road a couple hundred yards Johnny is hunkered down with his daughter and son in law. Johnny was here when they built the place in the 90's.  Johnny does not do much, but he is a living breathing blueprint.  When you need to know where a water line or electric line is buried Johnny is the one to ask.  Johnny is an American classic. He is just a nice old guy with a little white dog named Bessie. Bessie and Johnny seem to spend a great deal of time just driving around.  Johnny at age 87 is painting his motor home by hand.  It is turning our fairly well.  Johnny goes to Alaska for the summer and catches fish for everyone.  Johnny gave us some nice salmon  and cod.

The Kadizzles have been winter traveling for 18 years.  We have met so many nice sharing people.  A lot of Canadians have become good friends. Canadians have figured it out.  They take care of each other and don't bitch about taxes.  They have health care.  Don't recall ever meeting a mean Canadian.  Back here where we love to drive people into bankruptcy and poverty we all have to carry guns so no one steals our Christmas cookies.

When all is said and done it is our friends we treasure the most.  A shiny car, a big house, or a private jet will not bring you cookies.  A dog will treat you better than a Republican.  A dog will try to scare away a bear.  Dogs lead blind people around.  Republicans would steal from the blind and leave you in a wheel chair with a bear after you.  So merry Christmas enjoy getting trickled on.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Tax Cut or better world?

Kadizzle just drove through the ramshackle south.  Would Kadizzle be willing to pay a couple thousand more in taxes to help clean up the mess we now call America?  Yes.   What would it be worth to know children were taken care of?  Kadizzle is willing to pay?  What about decent schools?  Kadizzle will pay. 

Now some good Republican will be reading this and say " Go ahead, just send the government more money".   What good would it do if one person sent a check to the government for a couple of grand? Really no good.  It only works when everyone chips in.  Imagine if you didn't think people should smoke in an eating place and the owners said, " Well then why don't you just stop smoking?".   The silly argument of Republicans just does not work.

How many people have had a nice vacation ruined by having to drive through a poverty stricken area? That poverty was created by greed, and people like Donald Trump.  Dance, sing, watch Fox News, but the reality does not change. Poverty is caused when one group take way too much.  The slaves worked hard all day, but they had nothing because the plantation owner took it all. Hard work did not solve their problem, but Republicans say that is the answer.  The poor old bastard at the door of Walmart greeting you gets if he is lucky minimum wage.  The head of Walmart gets $8,000 per hour.  So the problem is the person at the door just does not put in enough effort. It is not the greed of the CEO.  Who buys that shit? Who thinks one man deserves  all the cheese and the other guy is supposed to get by on Welfare?  The answer is all the good Christians.  All the good Christians voted for Trump.  Trump just gave the rich the biggest tax cut in history and did all in his power to destroy health care for children.  Good Christians?  There is no such thing.

What fun is it to live in a world full of suffering, suffering that is totally unnecessary, suffering that is caused by greed.

Friday, December 22, 2017

They passed an Ordinance in this town

They passed an ordinance in our town they said
we would have to tear it down.
That little shack out back that is so dear to me.
Though the health department said it’s day was over and dead.
It will stand forever in my memory.


Don’t let them tear that little brown building down
There is not another like it in this city or the town.


It was not so long ago I went tripping through the snow
Out to the house behind my old hound dog.
Where I would sit me down to rest like a snowbird on it’s nest
And I would read that Sears and Roebuck catalogue.


Oh I would hum a happy tune peeping through the quarter moon.
As my daddy’s kin has done so much before.
It was in that spot daily cares could be forgot
And it gave the same relief to rich and poor.


Now it was not a castle fair, but I could dream a future there
Build my castle to that yellow jackets drone
I could orbit round the sun fight with General Washington
Or be king upon a golden throne


It was not fancy built at all we had newspapers on the wall
It was airconditioned in the winter time
Oh it was just a humble hut but it’s door was never shut
And a man could get in the door without a dime

Put the hat on

Yesterday Kadizzle put on the green Forest Service hat and headed up the trail with the trail crew.  It was refreshing to be deep in a natural setting away from all the insanity of a country covered by cars, asphalt, and fast food places.  The southwest is dry, but about two miles up the stream there was some water squeaking out of the ground.  How do the plants make it?  As always there were no animals. It seems so strange to travel through so much land and not see any deer, bear, even squirrels.

In order to make America great Kadizzle and his crew try to make the trails great.  One controversial thing on the trails is carrion's.  People pile up rocks to mark trails.  Generally this is a good thing, but some purist feel it is an intrusion on nature so they kick over the markers.  These people are known as carrion kickers.  Well it seemed like a carrion kicker had been on the trail so Kadizzle re established  many of the carrions.   Besides building rock markers Kadizzle cleared brush.  The cat claws are the meanest most determined brush.  In the course of removing the little bastards Kadizzle's hands are chewed up and bleeding. 

The great thing about working for free clearing trails is knowing that it frees up money for the federal government.  That means there is more money to give tax breaks to the rich.  Out there in the fresh air helping the rich is a great feeling.  It would sure be nice to think we were freeing up money so people could have health care, but the rich are going to trickle on us.  Getting trickled on is a wonderful experience.   To see the happy people at Walmart getting trickled on, and the counter people everywhere getting their massive tax breaks cannot but help one get in the Christmas spirit and love the Republican Jesus.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Raping the ignorant

Kadizzle slept at a rest stop expecting the tractor trailer to start in the middle of the night. Sure enough the driver got cold and the rumbling of the truck continued through the night.  Ned and Kadizzle took of very early and made it back to the Earth Module by afternoon.  The tour of the south has ended.  The impression of stupidity and poverty lingers.

The flourishing of ignorance has really been driven home.  If you have read this blog earlier you know during the tour of the south we spent time at a hoarders house.  The hoarder shocked Kadizzle by telling him she believed the shooting of children at Sandyhook never happened. It was fake news.  Of course this woman was a Trump supporter.  Now Kadizzle sits here shocked that Trump pulled off the biggest robbery in history with his tax fraud.  The abundance of the poorly informed, and easily fooled is frightening.  NPR just had a segment about how the life expectancy is going backwards.   Laying in bed last night Kadizzle realized the United States is a third world country.  Driving along the border as  we did you could see no difference between Mexico and the United States.   Trump has assured the status of our country as a third world country.  The every day working person will slip into poverty and the rich will reap the rewards of trickle down.  Simply lying and lying was all Trump had to do. Hitler did the same thing. It works.  People want to hear lies that let them believe a fantasy. Tell a fat person they look great and what are the odds they will believe you.  Tell some dolt they can win the lottery, it works.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Today's mobile excitment

Weavers, jammers, and sniffers in abundance.  Weavers are the aggressive drivers that shoot for any opening on any side just to advance three car lengths in the race to nowhere.  It is the jammers that the weavers take pride in defeating.  The jammers get in the left lane and slow the weavers down.  A weaver is a frustrated idiot that imagines he is a race car driver.  Now the sniffers drive behind you and get so close they can smell your underwear.  Usually a weaver first comes up behind as a sniffer.  All sniffers are not weavers, but most likely they are.

So Ned and Kadizzle are watching the game of sniffers, weavers, and jammers on the way to Pensacola.  To add to the adventure it was raining.  Suddenly the tractor trailer in front and to the right had the front wheel on the left start to wobble.  The entire wheel came off the truck and headed across the median strip into oncoming traffic.  Fortunately there was a large deep puddle in the median strip that stopped the truck tire before it made it to oncoming traffic.  Someone more than likely would have been killed or badly hurt hitting a truck tire at 75 mph.  Kadizzle believed the entire wheel came off including the rim.  Ned thought only the rubber exited.  The truck managed very nicely to get off the road, but with no wheel it did throw some debris onto our windshield. 

Today we begin the entire journey back to Arizona.  We have to stop at hoarding headquartes and pick up some items.  Two wrecks per day is the standard for the run so let's see what they have scheduled for today. The dingers have no respect for speed or physics.  Of course half the drivers are on the phone which only adds to the roller derby fun.  Kadizzle wishes he had brought his motorcycle helmet.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

What does it feel like to be an idiot?


Ever wonder what it would feel like to be an idiot? Kadizzle thought he would give it a try.  This morning with the idiot hat Kadizzle went to a car dealer, sure enough he was treated like an idiot. At the gun shop the guy just beamed as Kadizzle walked in the door.  The payday loan guy started drooling. The insurance salesman could hardly hide his glee.  When the vacuum cleaner salesman showed up at the door he must have spread the word.  The scammers seemed to come out of everywhere.  That special look seemed to appear on people's faces that says you are not too bright.  At the right wing coffee shop Kadizzle was treated like a professor.  Too sweeten up the experience Kadizzle said "Fake News",  and Bigly, and so much winning you will be tired of winning.  The Klan guys asked Kadizzle to join.   Strangers would go by on the Interstate and give Kadizzle the finger.  Do you think Kadizzle was dumb enough to wear the idiot hat into a place where the waiters were black?  Not taking that chance.  The taste of spit on a hamburger ruins it.  People come up to you and say " How's that tax break working?".   How can one red hat make such a difference?  Try it for a day.  Be an idiot just for a day and see how many are in the club. 

Friday, December 15, 2017

Van Hotel

Kadizzle slept well by himself in the van.  After a forever drive from Pensacola we made it back to Dickinson, Texas.  The two predictable slow downs in traffic were not that bad.  What was amazing to see was the weavers.  Weavers are usually young extremely stupid drivers that act like they are in a race they can win.  The weavers zip across lanes and love to panic normal drivers with their dangerous moves.  An occasional weaver would come by us on the trip and it was fun to see the idiot jockey for position.  As we approached our final destination the weavers got thick.  Weavers cause wrecks and of course they did cause a final wreck which was being cleared up.

With modern technology weavers could be caught by computers.  The erratic driving of the weavers could be spotted by a computer and modern cameras could capture the license plate numbers.

We are once again at the hoarders house.  Three adults are discussing and admiring the hoarding stash in the garage.  The hoarder assistant is calling the garage their own grocery store.  Kadizzle has seen small grocery stores that have less.  If one of anything is good 16 is better.  Maybe Kadizzle can sneak a picture of the garage hoarding.  Thankya Jesus this is a clean hoarding association.

This house is ready for either Armageddon or the apocalypse.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

David Suzuki speaks about overpopulation

Will the Bubble burst?

The stock market is cooking.  Who knows why? Some nagging voice tells Kadizzle the bubble is going to break.  It always does.  The United States has become a country that produces nothing.  People spend like drunks, so many have nothing but service jobs, and low Walmart jobs.  How can we sustain this mess. All messes are usually sustained by borrowing.  Now the Trump gang has come up with a scheme to give the rich a tax break and put it on the U.S. credit card.  Sounds great, but will the world buy it. When one really thinks about it our country is falling behind. We have the worst health care, we are behind in education, and by most measurements the country is no longer even in the top five on most major measurements.  Yet we cruise along blindly thinking we will never run out of gas.  Our prize dolts will not address climate change, healthcare, science, or the fact that we are slipping into a third world economy.  The band played as the Titanic sank.

Our economy is based on grow, grow, grow.  It simply will not work.  There is an interesting experiment where you put some bacteria in a test tube.  The number of bacteria double every minute.  Everything is fine until 59 minutes go by.  The last doubling in the last minute kills all the bacteria. We live on or in a test tube.  Every so often the pollution doubles, the population doubles, and we all pretend like the planet is limitless.  An economy that works on more, more, more consumption is doomed to fail.  The cat lady starts with one cat, then two, then three, and soon she is overrun with cats.  The cat ladies belief in cats eventually creates her demise.  Bulletin, I found the youtube video. It appears above this. Watch it, there will be a test.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

I pity the country

Stranger In My Country

The margin is thin

Recently Kadizzle remarked in a letter to the Bismarck Tribune that the United States was in danger of becoming a third world country.  After touring Pensacola, Florida today it looks like the margin is very thin. The ramshackle poverty in the southern U.S. is widespread.  Kadizzle used to marvel at some of the messes he saw in South America, but you could substitute too many  communities in the south in a picture and you would never know the difference.

It is inconceivable that our country would build a 21 billion dollar wall, spend so much money on military nonsense, and give more money to the rich when so many have so little right here.  The sad thing is so many in our country don't travel enough to know what a mess the country is.  Ned and Kadizzle will travel four thousand miles in 12 days across the south. The shot up, run down, junk infested mess is like a cancer on our country.  Those with money fly over the mess, drive around the mess, or simply never see it.  As a country we have wasted so much, and piling garbage everywhere has become a way of life. Junk cars, billboards, and the detritus of prosperity has stained the place we live.

Kadizzle has had battles with the commission in the city of Hazen about the slumming that goes on there, but the Hazen slummers are armatures compared to their warm climate friends.  When the oil boom broke out in North Dakota the southerners rolled in.  Kadizzle was mystified about why they parked in the yard, on the sidewalk or with no regard to the zoning laws.  Seeing their home base explains it all.  Zoning and ordinances don't exist in the south.  If you can park or pile it, you can keep it anywhere on your property.  So as usual you have the haves, and the have not's.  Trump wants the have's to have more, and the have not's to have less.  Waking up the Hoopleheads seems impossible, but Alabama has given people hope.

What are they thinking?

Here Kadizzle sits deep in the south.  Kadizzle just completed his first visit to a nice nursing home.  Ned has an aunt there we will drive to the Houston area for a memorial service.  Ned and Kadizzle ate breakfast at the nursing facility.  Every person in the care of the facility was white.  Almost every person that was giving the care was black.  Now think about this.  You are white, you have been mean and nasty to black people your entire life.  Now you are an old fart and guess who is going to take care of you?  That's right, the very people who you did everything in your power to drive into poverty and misery.  To Kadizzle's amazement the black staff was so nice, and so accommodating.  All the old white people seemed to love the staff and everything was peachy. 

This all brings back memories of George Wallace.  George Wallace sold racism like few before him.  Remember when Wallace got shot in the back?  Guess who took care of George and pushed him around in a wheelchair for years.  Yup, a black man.  As mean and nasty as old George Wallace was he finally came to grips with his racism and gave it up.  Before he died he was a civil rights advocate and his daughter went on to be a good person. 

The long and short of it is when you get in a bind you never know who you will need.  In the south you can pretty well bet when you are old and shot up some black person will be your care taker.  Do you want the person you abuse today to be your care taker?  Do you want to let the black person pushing your wheelchair in the nursing home to know you voted for Roy Moore?  Very strange world we live in. 

A long time ago when old Kadizzle worked in southern West Virginia in the mining camps, black people and white people seemed to get along pretty well.  There was a simple reason.  Even the dumbest brick could realize that if you were underground and a rock fell on you and pinned you, it might be a black man that had to get the rock off you.  So no matter how stupid you were you did not insult or defame the black people you worked with. 

The nursing home tour this morning was like a preview of the future.  Kadizzle really had never been in one of these places.  This one was pretty upscale and had a lot of amenities.  Lord help you if you go to some busted up place because the Republican stole your social security.  The rich can afford nice black people, but it seems certain all the rednecks might end up in some sorrowful place where the help is not well paid.   Imagine and old Klan  member in a nursing home staffed by black people.  There is some sort of strange justice in this world and the racist may have their comeuppance.

Everyone at the home seemed to be friendly and doing pretty well.  Two old goats were sitting out in the sun smoking cigars.  Everyone had wheels hooked on them somehow even if seemingly they did not need them.  The staff must somehow convince each tenant that at any moment they might collapse. If you were not in a wheelchair they had you push a walker.   Some old coot went by pushing his walker faster than Kadizzle could run.  There were many people pushing walkers who probably should have been pulling golf carts.  Several people seemed to be in the home because of sheer laziness.  This could happen to Kadizzle.  What are you in for?  Oh, I just got to lazy to cook my own breakfast or make the bed.  At this point Kadizzle has no made up his mind.  The two choices if it ever comes to that are ask someone to shoot me or join the gang at the home.  All things considered the inmates did not seem to have it so bad.  Boredom would be the overwhelming problem, but a good case of dementia or Alzheimer would solve that.  In summary be nice to everyone, you never know who will have to pick you up off the floor or leave you there.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

The Fog of Ignorance lifted in Alabama

Kadizzle did it. He swung the vote. For the first time Kadizzle drove through Alabama today.  Miracles happened. Something was special about the day. When the car in front of us did three NASCAR flips and landed upside down Kadizzle knew it would be a special day because the woman driver crawled out the window unhurt.  God took the curse of stupidity off the state long enough to get rid of Trumps molester cohort.  Does this mean the fog of ignorance will lift from the country? Will gravity be put back in force?  Will science become real again? Will people respect the truth? It can happen.  The Republican Jesus of guns, cradle robbers, and vagina grabbers fell in the south.  The clouds parted, light shown upon the lies of Trump. Please let this spread.

What would it be like to be an idiot?

Kadizzle is sitting here and about four feet away is the " Make America Great Again" hat.  The hat will go with us.  Kadizzle is wondering if he has the courage to put it on and go through a day disguised as an idiot.  What is like to publicly pronounce you don't have an ounce of brains, morality, or decency? It might be fun to walk around knowing a lot of people will look at you and figure you have lost your mind.  What would happen if you went to a car dealer?  They would lick their chops.  Every where you went people would see and know right away you were an easy mark.  We are deep in the land of the people who brought us Trump.  Who knows maybe we will get a free donuts.  Will the hat work when we get stopped for speeding?  Well it remains to be seen if we will get the courage to wear it.

Undisclosed Location

Kadizzle would rather not disclose where we stayed last night, but suffice it to say it was with a hoarder.  Kadizzle slept in a room with yarn skeins stacked to the ceiling.  Estimated there were five hundred or more in the room.  This house is about a 7 or 8 on the hoarding scale.  There are themes.  A large stockpile of food, lots and lots of tools in the garage, and seems like chairs.  There are chairs everywhere.  Of course stuff is stacked on the chairs so you cannot use them all.  No shortage of fribbles.  Six little wiggling fribbles greet you on the refrigerator.  Incidently there are three or four refrigerators.  In the bathroom there are spares of everything.  Six brand new tooth brushes on the counter, and cans of shaving cream everywhere.  Thankfully the place is clean.

So off we bust towards Pensacola today.  At this point we switch vehicles to a nice Chevy Tahoe.  The ride should be nice and a little quieter.

Hold the press, hold the press.  Kadizzle just forgot there are hat's here and we scored a genuine " Make America Great ".  This is going to be fun wearing the hat. 

Monday, December 11, 2017

On the road

Kadizzle is up at six in San Antonio.  Awakening in the Garage MaHal.  Ned and Kadizzle wandered into San Antonio after dark and met with an old childhood neighbor from Wheeling. Thankya Jesus he put us up for the night.  Kadizzle got the very nice garage apartment all to himself and got a good nights sleep.  A vast improvent over sleeping in the van.  

Yesterday was one of the longest drives ever.  From Demming, New Mexico we drove and drove.  The striking thing about the the southwest is the vastness, and next is the ramshackle disordly developement.  One cannot help as you drive along the border,  which we did all day, that 21 billion could sure make a lot of improvements other than a wall.  Ned hates Trump so much he does not permit Kadizzle to mention his name.  Trump must be reffered to as 45.  Trump is an amazing idiot, and the man has never even visited most of the United States in any meaningful way.  Trump has flown over a lot, but until you get out and walk, drive, sleep, eat, and live on the ground you never see the country.  Trump like so many of his ilk have no idea of how vast the poverty is in this country.  People living in shacks will get to see billions go up in flames with the great wall. L

Driving across America you cannot help but think what a vast mess it is.  So many cities with the worst developement and zoning.  Each rat infested town is pretty much the same with the strips of car washes, hamburger friers, car dealers and the normal mess of check cashing, Walmart nonsense.

Maybe it is winter and that makes things worse.  A few green leaves hide a lot.  Today we bust on over to Houston.  

Yesterday’s big thrill was a motorhome on fire beside the highway.   The thing was cooking pretty good and it was surprising the police let people drive by so close.  It occurred to Kadizzle that  no down there were some propane tanks in there cooking.

Saturday, December 09, 2017

No liftoff

Well we are getting nowhere. Ned is still getting up to date and it is 8:30.  Patty and Ned watch too much simple minded TV, but some of it is funny.  Below Kadizzle posted Father Ted.  If you need a laugh watch it.  Some of the Irish humor is always good.  Kadizzle has been on the Facebook with other liberals trying to figure out how to fight back. Tony Bender who runs a newspaper he owns is a good focal point for intelligent rebuttal to the Hoopleheads in North Dakota.  Yesterday there was a very good editorial about the Republican rot in the New York Times.  The editorial has a lot of people stirred up and hoping the Republican rot will eventually lead to the demise of the greed driven outfit.

So if we ever do get going we will stop to see Mrs. Kadizzle and pick up some supplies.  Mrs. Kadizzle said on the phone she invited a young lady hiking the Arizona trail to spend the night.  Mrs. Kadizzle enjoyed talking to the youngster about her adventure.  It is a very long hike from the Mexican border to Utah.  Some of the toughest parts are right where we work on the trail.  Mrs. Kadizzle and the trail crew have finally busted through the Deer Creek Trail.  Two started from the top and two started from the bottom.  They met and each group kept going to get the vehicle the other group left.  Now that the trail is re established the clearing can begin.  A big job.

Are you bored and do you need to laugh

Friday, December 08, 2017

The routine

As the big trip across the south looms Kadizzle engages in the routine.  Up before the sun to get fresh coffee Kadizzle wanders from the Casita Patty runs as an AirB&B to the big house.  The screeching rodents meet Kadizzle at the back door.  Ned will have the coffee ready.  Coffee is the real goal.  Ned sits by his computer getting up to date, Kadizzle with coffee flumps down to get up to date. What are the Hoopleheads up to today?  Keeping up with Trump insanity means a good check of the NYT.  Patty wanders down the hall and does her coffee and update so she can go do some substitute teaching.  After boredom sets in time to report to work at the patio.  Tuning the stones so they fit is a hopeless job, but will while away the day until noon break.  Noon will mean an update and then some final rock tuning.  The surrender at the quarry  comes and perhaps a shower.  Dr. Phil starts the afternoon run towards the evening.  Next Judge Judy.  National News, an hour of Netflix then the real prize Jeopardy.  The day is shot the brain has turned to fudge, but one more update and start all over in the morning.  Breaking the routine Saturday will be great.

How about a little ranting to start the day?  Today's rant will be the Republican attack on clean energy.  Trump insist on going backwards in every regard.  Solar and wind power have made monumental progress in helping save the planet and clean the air yet Trump and his hoard of dolts want to get back to the good old days of fossil fuels.  If you really care read the NYT today.  Disrupting anything good seems the goal of Trump.  Satan himself would be hard pressed to take food and healthcare from children to give tax breaks to the rich, but old Trump has no problem with it.  If you need the Russians to win the election so what?  Of course the Hoopleheads are dancing with glee.  They get to carry their guns concealed in every state now.  Hoopleheads love Jesus, but know their real faith is in Smith and Wesson.

Thursday, December 07, 2017

The Stone Mason

Sister Patty is not a niggifidle.  Patty wants to get the Pattio finished.  Just for review a niggifiddle is someone who has to have everything perfect. Kadizzle would like to end up with some sort of acceptable product. To cover his rent at his sisters AirB&B Kadizzle has been assigned the task of helping lay stone for the Pattio.  Of course with the family genetics this job will be like most, mass confusion.  First, the damn stones are laying all over the backyard.  Brother in law Ned and Kadizzle have had to move the massive stones with a hand truck.  Of course like every hand truck this one has leaking tires.  You fill the tire put the stone on and go like hell to get the stone to the work site before the tire is flat.  After two days of that nonsense Ned bought a new tube and now that the job is almost done we have a tool that works.  To make the job fun none of the stones are the same shape, thickness or quality.  Today by himself Kadizzle will be doing tuning.  Tuning is when you try to get sand under the stones to make them create a flat even surface.  AirB&B customers will have a premade lawsuit walking on the stumbling mat we are creating.  So as the sun warms the air Kadizzle will soon have to get out there and start tuning the stone.

Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Sell each other Hamburgers

How does the American economy work? Once Kadizzle called his sister in West Virginia and asked her how the economy was in the Ohio Valley. Growing up there jobs existed, jobs like steel mills, chemical plants, coal mines, big machine shops.  Now that is all gone. My sister replied things are fine we just sell each other hamburgers.  Arizona is a case in point.  So many people do absolutely nothing.  Kadizzle sits in Cottonwood a town without any industry of any sort.  Phoenix has millions of people who just play pickle ball and shuffle board.  The biggest industry in Arizona is people waiting to die.

How can a country exist when most of the young people sit at computers tapping out programs to figure out what day it is.  The answer must be you borrow money.  Who lends you money? China owns us because they land us the money to buy their fribbles.

Think about how many people don't produce anything.  You have a gazzilion old people who do not make widgets.  You have a gazillion young people who do not make widgets.  At any given moment about twenty million people are in a car driving.  They make nothing but a mess.  In the sky at any moment over the United States there are six thousand aircraft full of people doing nothing.  How many people are tied up in the military doing nothing but wasting what we do produce?  Think about how many people are producing absolutely nothing you can wear or eat or sleep in or something that will keep you warm.  The answer is most people are very non productive. Go to a large city and see the large buildings full of people.  What are they doing?  You have insurance companies acting as parasites.  You have the banks creating petty crime on a massive scale.

Drive across the main southern route of BNSF railroad.  A train load of fribbles from China will go by about every fifteen minutes.  Trainloads of stuffed animals, back scratchers, and  vegimatics.  That train is just part of a shipload of junk from the far east.  In a couple weeks that train load of junk will first go to Walmart and then soon to the city dump in every small town.  Is all this sustainable?  How much shampoo can you dump in the river before the fish have clean hair?   How many plastic bags will it take to kill a tree when the bags blow across the parking lot.

Who benefits from the insanity?  All the money trickles to the top.  The people on top who sell the gas for the cars and the hamburgers need help, so The Donald is going to give them some tax breaks.  In the end it will trickle down.  We will be able to buy stuffed animals with our tax savings. and the cycle will keep going if the Chinese lend us the money to buy some neat Christmas lights to throw away in a month.

Tuesday, December 05, 2017

The Watermelon rodent

As Kadizzle opened the door to his sister's back porch he knew what would happen.  The standard screeching of Patti's pet rodents.  The damn little dogs could drive Donald Trump into sanity.  One dog looks like a watermelon with legs, one acts like Adolf Hitler, and the other just screams like it't testicles are caught in a mouse trap.

In Cottonwood Kadizzle is awaiting blast off on a trip of mercy.  Mrs Kadizzle is back at the ranch with the trail crew.  Brother in law Ned has an aunt in Florida that needs a ride to a funeral in Texas. This all means Kadizzle and Ned will head out on Saturday to haul a 93 year old lady in a big blue van from Florida to Texas and back.  It will be a long insane drive, but Kadizzle has spent very little time in the deep south.   A visit to the land of the Bubba's and the Roy Moore teenage dating club.  In the strange land of the south where people love to vote for those who abuse them.  On Kadizzle's last visit to the south poverty was rampant, now their hero Mr. Make America Great is going to smack them with a tax cut for the rich.  Dumb seems to thrive if  you keep it warm.   Ignorance does not do that well in the cold.  If you have to figure out how to stay warm and pay for it you may as well move to Arizona or Florida.  Sadly global warming is allowing ignorance to spread north.  North Dakota is now full of the red hat Republicans that thrive on guns and Jeeesus.

Cottonwood is a case in point.  Yesterday Kadizzle went with sister to the Walmart that made the national news about a year ago with a shoot out.  The bums living in the parking lot got in a gun fight with the police.  Cottowwood  has an abundance of mutants.  In warm climates the cast offs meet and breed.  Once Trump really puts the hurt on them they may get much more violent without government cheese to keep their bellies full.  One simple fact Republicans have never been able to grasp it that poverty breeds crime.  Once you make it impossible to earn a living with a shovel, then a gun is the next best choice.  So move into your gated community and get your assault rifle the Trump tax breaks are about to stir up the game.

Monday, December 04, 2017

Up Early

Kadizzle got up early.  The laundry did not dry all the way in the dryer last night so he gave it another shot.  When Kadizzle went out the door at five in the morning to the Forest Service laundry.  Mrs. Kadizzle thought he ran away.  Mrs Kadizzle is up watching the Netflix show " The Young Pope".   Anyone who has spent one moment studying the history of the Catholic Church and the outrages of the popes cannot help but wonder about the complexity of the fraud.

Now we have the Old Pope, Donald Trump.  Trump is openly as rotten as all the popes were in secret.  The Hoopleheads love it.  Trump lies with impunity.  Lucky for Trump his followers feel the New York Times is fake news.  The NYT has shredded Trump. Today Billy Bush, the guy who listened to Trump say grab em by the you know what wrote an editorial.  Read it. 

How do people with functioning brains watch public figures lie, and acquiesce to the fantasy it is truth? They want to believe.  They want to believe some lying scoundrel can make America great again. They want to believe in streets of gold.  Wanting to believe is the first step in getting fooled, the requisite for going to a magic show, and the underlying principle of casinos.  Trump like Hitler knows the bigger the lie the better. Stir in some hate, and you have Republican pie.

Sunday, December 03, 2017

Magic

Yesterday we had a vegetable feast.  A couple of the volunteers have discovered Peter Bigfoot's floundering hippie commune up Campaign Creek with our help.  Bigfoot gave a generous amount of fresh vegetables for the donation Larry and Salindra gave him.  Little Mike did the cooking and the old fogies had a good meal of veggies and salmon.  It was a nice gathering.

Somewhere in the conversation the discussion evolved from solar power to using hydrogen to power your car.  When it comes to car talk there are two legends that will not go away.  One is the old hundred mile per gallon carburetor the car industry was paid to squash by the oil industry.  The other favorite is the canning jar contraption that converts water into hydrogen for you engine.  The alternator of the car breaks the water down into Hydrogen and oxygen which is fed into the engine.  Anyone who has a rudimentary understanding of physics would know this just will not work.

One fellow at the dinner said why not use a battery to run a generator and thus produce electricity that will charge the battery?  Well the sad news in all of this is that there are millions of people out there that believe this total nonsense.  Now think about it.  Trump got elected. Who did it? Yup, the people who think perpetual motion is just a simple matter of wiring or putting a jar of water under the hood you can turn into hydrogen to run your car.   More than anything this points out the fundamental failure of our education system.  However, keep in mind there are millions and billions of people who believe nonsense equally as absurd under the religion label.  So as we think civilization is progressing the same people who believe in perpetual motion think you can give the rich more and have more yourself.

Saturday, December 02, 2017

Caution, this is going to be a rant

Two days we were in the wilderness enjoying the serenity of isolation.  Returning to civilization only to find the Republicans have pulled off the most massive fraud in history.   Kadizzle is livid about how the Republicans have exploited the ignorant using the most basic tricks of lying, fear, paranoia, and all the regular arts of con men.  The Hoopleheads signed up in droves to get taken to the cleaners.  Our children are doomed as the Republicans put tax cuts for the rich on our children's credit cards.  It was just too easy to go along with the raving lunatic we call president.  This whole scam will plunge our country into third world status.  Most people have no clue how far behind our country has fallen in every major statistic of social well being.  The most amazing part of the entire fiasco are the people who are going to get hammered the worst.  That is the crowd of gun totting fools that elected Trump.  Trump drained the swamp and put his own rodents, alligators, lizards and fungus in to replace the old swamp dwellers.  Trump lies on average five times a day.  His followers believe him six times. 

People are supposed to learn from history.  Did anyone ever read about the depression?   The depression was brought on by the robber barons.  They took everything and all the money went to a select few at the top.  People were actually starving to death in Texas and the rich debated if they should be helped because it might encourage welfare.  So here we are once more watching the rich rig the game for themselves by buying congressmen by the dozen.  No one notices, the Hoopleheads have their guns and Jesus, the pickup has gas, and we can watch football on a big screen TV, what is the problem?  The problem is the next big move is for the Republican to destroy social security and the other things that keep peoples heads above water.  Of course when it all blows up, which is surely will, it will all be the fault of Obama and the snowflake liberals. 

We now live in a country of " I got mine".   I got mine the hell with you.   One thing that has ruined the world for everyone is the spread of poverty.  What fun is it to go to the best place in Mexico, but have to wade through destitute people to get there.   Islands of the rich surrounded by slums, that was never fun, and never will be.  Was it fun for the plantation owner to sit on his porch and watch the slaves suffer with nothing?  If it was the plantation owner was a rich psychopath.  Sadly that is a description for Trump, the Koch brothers, Rush Limbaugh, and the whole bunch of greedy dogs.  They have no mercy for the poor, or anyone who was not born with a rich daddy.  Well sit back enjoy a nice drink and wait for the explosion.   Wait hold the press Kadizzle forgot the bonus.   You also get to watch the environment shred as the world blows up with global warming.   I thought I could stop, but one more thing.

The other day Kadizzle read a story in The New York Times (Fake News).   There is a section of Peru that is having a wonderful economic boom.  Crops are blossoming in the desert.  The glaciers are melting and providing plenty of water.  One minor problem the glaciers will be gone in 15 years. Then what?  Ask Trump his tax plan works the same way.  You get a little prize up front right before they hammer you.  Just like the Trump delusion there is an environmental bonus.  Under those glaciers are a lot of toxic minerals.  So when you get down to the bottom of the melted glacier you get some poison with your water.  What a deal.

Friday, December 01, 2017

Report from the mountain

Well, we went up on the mountain, we did not bring back any tablets.  Did not see any burning bushes.  Matt 26, Emily 38,  Mrs Kadizzle 67, and Kadizzle 68 did some serious trail work.  Matt is like a mule and he hauled the chain saw up and down some powerful steep slopes.  On Thursday we made the long drive way, way back into the heart of nowhere AZ.   Deep in the Mazatal Mountains we decended into the canyon.  As we did we cut logs off the trial with the chainsaw, and Kadizzle did some work on the tread of the trail  The ladies with loppers  did what they could to make the trail passable.  The Deer Creek trail is steep.  By three we made it out.  Old Kadizzle needed all the steam he had to get out of there. 

Back up on the ridge we set up camp. We found a spot with a great view and it was a nice place to camp.  A few drops of rain fell, but not even enough to settle the dust.  Kadizzle decided to sleep in the back of the Forest Service pickup truck.  Mrs Kadizzle kept talking about bears, but they never showed up.  Emily strung a hammock between two trees and Mrs Kadizzle set up her tent.  Matts set up his tent.  After a nice dinner Emily and Mrs Kadizzle sat around the fire.  The men went to sleep.  The night was warm and a decent pillow would have been a blessing for Kadizzle.  About four in the morning hunters went by in their zoom zoom machines. 

Up at first light the crew had coffee and a rudimentary breakfast.  Now back down that steep trail.  Since we had left tools and the chain saw there the day before there was no choice but to go down and back once more.

The trail goes through a designated wilderness area. You cannot use a chainsaw in the wilderness so we cleared what we could up to the wilderness.  Again today we had to make the hard hike out.  The youngsters had no problem.  Matt with a heavy pack and the chain saw beat Kadizzle out.  Kadizzle is just too old and fat for this work.  Moving Little Joey up many contour lines is taxing to say the least. 

Well we had a good time and feel like we got some serious exercise.  We made American Great Again the old fashioned way by doing our share.   Experiencing the remote land we all own is an experience.  There are places you own so remote and still pristine.  You need to protect them from Trump and his thieves.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Mountain Adventure

Tomorrow the trail crew will have our first overnight adventure.  The plan is to go to a trail head way up in the mountains.  Up early we will make the drive to the trail head. It will take about an hour and a half just to get there.  Our goal is to cut fallen trees from the trail with a chain saw and re-establish the trail.  After a long day of trail work we will hike out of the steep valley and back to our camp.  Friday we will once more head down the trail.  Perhaps some of the crew will try to hike all the way to the bottom and be picked up there.  Part of the trail is hard to find and our goal is to re-establish the trail.

Two old giesers, the Kadizzles and two young pups will make the trip.  Emily and Matt are the youngsters. So if all goes well you will get a report Saturday morning.

A long hike

Up on the mountain early in the morning Kadizzle set out to hike Pigeon Trail and on down the Oak Flat trail.  Our trail crew stopped to clear brush on an adjoining trail.  The long and short of it was the long of it.  The whole hike was about 9 or ten miles, but mountain hikes are not at all like level hikes.  If you have done a lot of hiking you realize going down is about as bad as going up.  You legs take a beating going down.  The brakes take a lot of abuse.  Sore Kadizzle finally trickled out at the bottom.

Later the gang went for pizza and then a long night of snoring.  The hike made Kadizzle sore, but Mrs Kadizzle doing her snore kick didn't help.  Mrs Kadizzle claimed the old man snored all night.


Tuesday, November 28, 2017

The Time Share

A couple times Kadizzle and his wife have sat through a time share presentation.  We did it just to get some free goodies.  Once a bi plane ride, once a ski trip, and once a great breakfast.   The Republican scam on tax cuts reminds Kadizzle of a time share presentation.  It all makes sense until you think about it.  As you realize how the whole thing works you realize what money falls into the hands of the operators.  You pay to maintain the place, you pay for the place, and they essentially sell the same apartment 52 times at an inflated price.  The lying, dodging, and scamming of the Republicans as they shovel money to the rich is as shameless as the time share.  Just like the time share the  Hoopleheads will feel warm and fuzzy with the purchase, then a few years will go by and they will see the stupidity of their decision.  Republicans have structured their scam so the simple minded can feel they won a little prize in the first round, when the game is full on the rich will walk off with everything.

Monday, November 27, 2017

Lake Life

Cool air spills in the windows as life comes back to the Earth Module in the morning.  Sunshine gradually warms everything and another day begins.  The peace and quiet here is enchanting.  Slowly all the volunteers are coming back from Turkey day and the buzz will start again. 

Yesterday a minor miracle at the dumpster.  Kadizzle has long thought an extra key for the cycle was essential.  A hidden key on a vehicle is a life saver in the wilderness.  Kadizzle ordered an expensive key blank for the Yamaha so he would have it in an emergency.  Finally the key came in the mail.  Kadizzle threw the package with the key on the table.  Mrs. Kadizzle took it for garbage and threw it out.  By some miracle Kadizzle was inspired at just the right moment to find the key.   After an afternoon nap Kadizzle awoke and was inspired to find the key.  Kadizzle suspected the key had been thrown out so he headed to the dumpster.  The key was found just as the garbage truck was roaring toward the dumpster.

Sitting here for the morning update NPR is reviewing the lying technique of the president.  The liar in Chief.  No one lies like Trump. His lies are indiscriminate and even called lies by his own admission. Yet on he goes lying to the loyal idiots.  After he apologized for advocating groping women he now claims it was all fake news.  The good news is Wall Street loves the scoundrel .   The market is up again today.  So let the bulgine run.  It is up to you to find out what a bulgine is.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

When I Go - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer



We all have to go sometime, but why not make a grand exit.  Enjoy the words, enjoy the music. Enlarge the video.

It was a different time

At this age who can remember what age you were when you did what you did, but it seems like 11, or 12 would be a good number, maybe younger.  In the old days kids could hitch hike.  Today a parent would be terrified if their kid walked down to the end of Poplar Avenue and stuck out his thumb, but that was how you got to the pool at Oglebay  Park.  No one picked you up and molested you, no one murdered you, or abducted you. In the early sixties molesting and killing kids was considered impolite and unseemly.  So after a long day swimming at the pool you walked up to route 88 and stuck you thumb out.  It never seemed to take long before someone saw you with your swimsuit wrapped in a towel and took you to the end of your street.

Most adults in those days had so many kids of their own they would be crazy to steal one more.  Probably if anyone abducted me and called for the ransom my parents would say " He is to ornery we will not pay to get him back, besides we have eight more, so just keep him if you want him."

Hitch hiking worked in those days, and I did a lot of it.  Twice I hitch hiked to the west coast and back.  Once I left Wheeling with ten dollars and made it to California.  It is a long story, so I will skip most of it.  Remarkably two long rides just about made the whole trip.  In both cases the person providing the ride was a man running from his wife.

My father got the strange notion to purchase land in Ritchie county which was about a hundred miles south of Wheeling, east of Parkersburg.  Many times I hitched a ride down into the boondocks.  The trip took one down the Ohio to St. Mary's where you go onto route 50 and headed east.  I always thought it was fun to get to ride in a big truck, but there were some other strange rides.  Once doing the trip with a friend a guy in about a 53 Ford gave us a lift.  The entire inside of his car was redone with shoe polish, black and white shoe polish.  Another may gave me a ride once and I remember his entire dashboard was an ash tray.  Cigar buts were covering the entire dashboard about an inch thick from one side to another.

The most fearful ride ever was coming back from out farm in Ritchie county with a friend.  Some strange men picked us up and the roads were icy.  We had to drive toward Wheeling on the road which was very narrow below Moundsville at the time.  The men were driving extremely fast and we sat in the back scared to death.  The car was doing close to 100 and for a moment they would lose control passing a truck.  This ride about broke me of the hitch hiking desire.   Listening to the conversation of the men in the front it sounded like they were some sort of escaped criminals from New England.  The one man kept saying to the other man " Remind me to shoot his windows out",  From what we could piece together of the conversation the man had fallen asleep in a barber chair.  The barber cut his hair to short and now he wanted to shoot the window out of the barber shop.   By some miracle we made it to Wheeling.  As we passed under what was at that time the B& O railroad station the car approached a red light.   In front of us was an old lady waiting for the light to turn green.  The light turned green just before the man driving smacked her car from the rear.  It did not seem to hurt her car other than giving her a very quick start.  Neither of the guys in the front reacted at all as if it was a normal thing.  The old lady must have just thought her car was perky.  The  nonchalant manner of the episode had my friend and I laughing hysterically.

Another story from the past occurred hitchhiking home from college.  A gentleman picked me up on a windy country road.  As we drove he told me about the last guy he had picked up.   He said he picked up an older guy who seemed like he had a lunch with him in a brown paper bag.  The driver told me the man kept fiddling with something in the bag.  The driver asked the man what was in the bag and he said nothing just his lunch or something like that.  The man giving me a ride said it sounded to him like the man he had picked up was loading a handgun in the bag.  Then he went on to explain to me how he solved the problem   He said he knew the door on the passenger side was ajar and not closed all the way.  As he went around a sharp curve he lifted his leg and shoved the old guy out of the car.  At this point I said to my driver " Well you did not know if he had a gun or not?".  "No" he responded.  He said he just saw the guy roll across the pavement.   Sad way to have you lunch ruined.  I assured him I was unarmed.

Almost forgot my favorite story.  Once coming back up the river from New Martinsville.  A red Corvette convertible pulled over to give me a ride.  The first thing they guy asked was" Where were you going? "  I replied" Wheeling. " Then the driver said to me " You would never believe what happened to me in Wheeling when I was going the other way.   I stopped at a house of ill repute to acquire the services of a prostitute,  and who did I end up with?  The girl I sat behind in high school.  That must have been a very strange high school reunion.

It was a different world in those days.  People trusted people, and people trusted strangers.  It worked then, but now no one relies on what Mr. Smoot used to call Shanks Mare.

The Tribes wander back into the desert

Here we are in the Earth Module.  Mrs. Kadiizzle is making some hot cereal.  The sun is shining and it will be a warm day.  Kadizzle is contemplating his next letter to the editor of the Bismarck Tribune.  A good subject seems to be how the Trumpster has totally destroyed religion.  Religious people voted for Donald Trump.  Trump is a lying, pussy grabbing, con man.  How can anyone claim to be religious and not renounce the fraud.  You cannot go to an AA meeting drunk, yet so called Christians feel they can go to church and brag about their lying hero all week.  How can you read the Bible and conclude Trumps destruction of health care is what Jeeesus wants.  How can you support trickle down economics which we all know is trickle up.  Who would join a church that so clearly goes against what it professes?  Religion takes a leap into delusional thinking to make religion possible.  How far from common sense and decency can religion stray and still have any semblance of believability?

No president has ever disregarded the truth like the Trumpster.  Today he is calling the video of him advocating grabbing women's genitals fake.  First he claimed it was locker room talk, now months later he says the whole thing was faked and he never did it.  Just like his accusations that Obama was born in Kenya.  First he said one thing then admitted he lied.  No problem.  Trump declares himself a liar and his fans still worship at his feet.  The truth has completely disappeared from Trumps administration. 

Trump appoints foxes to guard the hen house every day.  Trump is the ultimate con man, yet the religious of all people look to the swamp drainer and don't see a man that has drained the swamp and filled it with super mosquito, and serpents of the worst sort.

Back here beside the lake we will enjoy a casual day.  Kadizzle may go for a ride in the mountains. In such an idyllic setting it is hard to understand the world is melting around us.  Some of our city slicker relatives went into the wilderness on a hike with Kadizzle.   At least they thought it was wilderness.  Sure it was away out of town, but no where near the real isolation one can achieve.  It was evident they were out of their element.  We have become disconnected from the planet that sustains us.

Saturday, November 25, 2017

TRUMP vs Stone Cold Fight WWE (goes with post below)

Fake News

Kadizzle just finished his morning library read in the thunder room.  One article was about fake reality TV.  Fake reality seems like an odd phrase, but since the old Trumpster came up with Fake News it makes more sense.  The Kadizzles do a lot of hiking in Arizona and there are few areas we have not explored.  Near us at our summer encampment they must have filmed a "Dual Survivors" episode.  Before we came south for the winter Kadizzle bored out of his gourd watched one of the spine tingling idiotic shows.  The two great survivalist were lost in the desert.  The scenery began to look familiar. Kadizzle had hiked the area and motorcycled through it many times.  The stars of the show said they were lost.  If they got on any high point they would have seen Lake Roosevelt.  If they went in just about any direction they would hit a road.  In fact they could not have reached the point where they were without crossing a road.  At the top of canyon they claimed they would have to go down into the canyon to get water.  It might have been easier asking the tourist next to them for water before they made the treacherous decent.  The one guy always goes barefoot.  Barefoot through the desert would be just about impossible. Even the natives had to weave sandals.

Trump has led us into an era where facts no longer exist. The truth is simply what you want to believe. If you want to believe these two dolts really were in danger in the desert from lack of water that is your choice.  Trump received large help and donations from the WWW association. What is WWW?   It is the World Wide Wrestling association.  That is the organization that promotes the fake wrestling. In fact you can go on Youtube and see Trump participating in the fakery.  Kadizzle will post Trump doing the wresting fake news.  It should appear above this.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Soreness

Getting old means losing flexibility, hiking and being sore, and on it goes.  Yesterday Kadizzle set out with Uncle Ben and Josh to find some pictographs.  Last year when we were at Sedona someone told us how to get to some Indian art at the base of a cliff we had been looking for.  The pictographs are not easy to find.  When an Indian site is hard to find that means it will be well preserved.  The degenerates like to deface and ruin Indian remnants.  Degenerates usually will not hike far or put in any effort to get to anything so that is the good news about well hidden sites.  Kadizzle thought he could remember where on the main trail one turned off to get to the site. Unfortunately for Ben and Josh Kadizzle got mixed up.  In his head Kadizzle tried to remember last years hike.  Last year Sylvie made the hike, so Kadizzle remembered being proud how far Sylvie had hiked.  Next Kadizzle remembered the turn off was some even mile point.  For some reason he thought the mile point was one mile.  Anyway we hiked well past where we should have turned off the trail.  Luckily we encountered and older couple sitting on a rock having lunch.  They knew of the pictographs and sent us back down the trail to the turn off.

The National Park Service knows that ancient sites are endangered by idiots.  In an effort to keep sites from being defaced by Trump voters the park service does not mark trails or maintain trails to the sites. In fact the Park Service tries to obscure the trails.  That is why we could not find the beginning of the trail.  Additionally the Park Service is happy to let the trails fall into disrepair. In the end we did find the art.  Sadly vandals have over the years also found and destroyed some of the art.

Thursday, November 23, 2017

The Quest

If all goes well Kadizzle will head out with his brother in law to find some pictographs early today.  Somewhere out there up a canyon are some pictographs many never get to see. We were there last year with Sylvie and her family.  Remembering how to find them will be the key.

Last night we had our version of Little Big Horn.  The massive tribe gathered for a pre-Turkey day feast.  Oldest sister of six Melissa and youngest sister Patty came with their spouses.  Add to them Mrs Kadizzle's extended family of Ben, Bonnie, and Josh.  Now throw in Sylvie, Erin, and Fran.  A pinch of Megan, Sam, and Evie and you have a vast gene pool.

The men got to sit around the fire pit late into the evening.  Ben is a Civil War expert, one of the top three Civil War appraisers in the country.  Brother in law Ned is a pretty good expert on the history of this area.  A lot of speculation and history were discussed.  Ben has been an avid Civil War relic hunter and has found several civil war bodies.  In his quest for relics he also found the body of a modern murder victim, a young girl.

So here Kadizzle sits among many great cooks, as if he needed more good food.  Hopefully a little hike today will make some belly room.  Little Joey is so excited about the prospect of pumpkin pie, and stuffing.  Little joey loves stuffing.

Kadizzle dreams to the extend it is a disorder.  Elaborate detailed dreams fill his head at night almost like going to the movies.  Last night was special.  Trump's motorcade came down the street and Kadizzle got to personally tell the Trumpster what he thought of his policies of destruction.  For the grand finally in the dream Kadizzle got to slap Trump.  Cannot wait to go to sleep tonight to see what happens next.

Now if you are a bit bored today read Gail Collins in The New York Times.  She is doing one of her quizzes today.