Oh For Heck's Sake

Oh yay! I found my screen, my spline, and my spline tool, all of them in different places. This thanks to multiple moves. I bought these like 3 years ago.

Oh wait, no. I take it back. These are the ones I bought 5 years ago. The ones I bought 3 years ago remain missing.

Now I can go fix the screen door.

I've had a lot of uncomfortable showers in my lifetime, but the one I just took wins the prize.

I mixed the temperature as normal, turned on the spray, and got lathered up. And then the temperature went haywire.

I don't know what my roommates were doing in the other bathroom, but it meant a wild swing to freezing that lasted long enough to require a remix. Then a wild swing to scalding, again long lasting enough to make me readjust.

I'd step out of the stream the way you do when someone flushes a toilet in a dorm or barracks, but each change went on much longer, only to swing once more once I was getting wet again.

I would have just got out. But I was all lathered up. And my scalp really needed a treatment. It could not wait.

Thankfully I have a CON of about 16. So it's ultimately okay.

I was listening to a thing on the radio that suggested that conservatives should want ranked choice voting because it empowers states rights. The two party system favors Washington, but ranked choice voting reflects better the will of local constituents, thus shifting the balance of power back from Washington and toward the states. That's an interesting concept.

Progressives and leftists like rank choice voting because it enables coalitions to get more things done instead of getting bound up in the gridlock of a two-party system.

If I were to accept these two premises, then the only people who would not want ranked choice voting would be mainline Democrats. Because the status quo benefits them financially. That's a very interesting concept.

No, wait, I take it back. The alt right also wouldn't like ranked choice voting because they benefit hugely both in power and financially from the two-party system.

I sometimes forget that my truck has always listed to port. I tend to mistake it for a tire problem. It's totally a suspension problem.

So after enjoying the free trial, I accept. This will be my blogging home now. I have finished migrating my Native Front Yard Project and will migrate Papaw Dew's Deer Camp soon. I'd love to get all my stuff out of the evil tech empires, but I may have to just settle for not putting any of my new stuff there.

Well, that was an adventure. We were just about to the eating phase for the first wave of ribs when the storm blew up. The fellows got some ribs but the wind and rain were too heavy by my turn and we all retreated to the screen tent that we use for a movie theater.

As the storm progressed, the screen tent we use as a kitchen faced immediate collapse. I ran out again and grabbed the guy line to hold the tent in an upright position. When the wind let up for a moment, I ran into my tiny house and grabbed one of the new stakes that I like so much. I used it to change the angle of the guy line to pull more southward than westward. That stabilized the tent, and I went back to shelter.

I got thoroughly drenched. I did finally get ribs, but the ones I picked out of the grill had been overcooked to leather and dust. I got some more though.

Now it's all sunshine and steam. The last wave of ribs is on the grill now, the previous two waves in a pot to cool so that we can put them in storage bags.

I get some great boxes, and I like to keep the strong ones of convenient sizes for future use, but of course that takes up space.

The problem with breaking down boxes is that it's hard for me to tell the size of a flattened box to use again. Intact boxes are obvious. I have a whole lot of broken down boxes in the shed but I still keep some intact boxes on hand under the crafting table anyway.

“Don't get distracted on the way to the box cutter.” This is the kind of self-talk I engage in if I have to go to another room. Or the other end of a big room. Like, to fetch the box cutter. Is this ADHD, getting older, or both?

Camo net is fantastic. I love a piece of shade that lets the breeze through. I like to drape it over tents to reduce the heat.

Delighted to find some stakes online made of rebar but with the tips cut at an angle. My dad loves rebar stakes but I can't use his because they are blunt cut. You have to be testosterone poisoned to be able to drive them in.

I have decided today's policy is no chores. I mean care tasks. No care tasks not directly related to picnicking.

Can you learn from other people's mistakes?

People talk about this all the time. But I don't think everybody has the same concept of what the question exactly is.

I always thought I was able to learn from other people's mistakes. And maybe that sort of was true. But my mindset was all wrong.

When other people got something wrong, I always thought that if I do what they did with more effort, or do what they did with more perfectionism, or do what they did with different timing, then obviously I've learned from their mistakes. Right?

What I needed to do was something else entirely. Just do another thing. If I want to achieve an objective, use a whole different method.

Ultimately, it turned out that I need to confer with my Higher Power first of all about whether I should do the objective. I need to lay out a rough draft of my plan and ask God to block it or bless it.

If I get immediate and obvious obstacles, then God is blocking it. If the plan executes easily, God is blessing it. If God blesses it for a while then suddenly starts blocking it, that means I need a change to my plan.

But I do need to observe other people's mistakes and failures and try to see exactly how and why it failed. Almost always, the answer is not to apply more precision or more effort. It means a change of method. Or even a change of objective.

Just some thoughts while I'm folding laundry.