Yearly Archives: 2015

GeekWorld

Nutz

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Samhain                                               Thanksgiving Moon

Aaargghh. Internet. Wi-fi. Loft cyberspace not working. Not working. Makes me a little nutz.

Wondered why. Thought about it. The internet is my direct connection to friends and family, especially those now far away. When it’s down, I feel shorn, perhaps the electronic equivalent of unintentional banishment, exile.

Ever since the later 1980’s I’ve handled my own computer problems, sometimes with a boost from my friends, in particular cybermage Bill Schmidt. When I can’t fix a problem, it leaves me feeling defeated and sad. Where I was last night.

So. Had to face front. This one is beyond me. I’m going to call in a specialist to set up a wi-fi or internet link for the loft that works reliably. It’s too important to me. Working episodically seems the best I can produce on my own and it’s not good enough.

The wi-fi, hardwired links in the house work fine. It’s the physical separation between the house and the loft that creates the challenge. The previous owner had a solution that worked for him, but I don’t understand it.

Another project.

GeekWorld, Our Land and Home

Lotsa Likes

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Samhain                                                                       Thanksgiving Moon

Internet has the slows today. Yesterday, too. I know just how it feels. Though, the tempurpedic has reduced my morning stiffness and I do feel better rested. Still not fast. Not any more.

Had a weird cyberworld experience yesterday. I joined a facebook group called Creative Aging. I posted on it. So far I’m at 143 likes on my post and many replies, some from Australia and India, others from Evergreen and Bailey. This would be more remarkable, but I seem to have been the first male to post on this forum in quite a while. The number of folks living in the third phase grows daily and many, maybe most, have lots of energy for life.

Some of the new cabinets are in place. All the old cabinets went away yesterday afternoon. A nephew of Melanie and Kevin has just bought a new house. Feels good to know they’ll have a home in a new home. Mike Vanhee, the fence guy, comes by this morning to pick up the old fridge, dishwasher and metal bed frame.

Our solar panels passed their final inspection. Now the process moves to IREA, the local electrical co-op that has passed the draconian excess usage charges for new solar. Those new regulations don’t go into effect until January 1. If they get the net meter in before then, we’re under the old rules. That means our return on investment goes positive in year 12. If not. Well.

No snow in the forecast for the next ten days. I’m glad. I may be able to get back out and work on fire mitigation.

Our Land and Home

Making It Ours

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Samhain                                                                Thanksgiving Moon

20151128_071029Todd, Luis and Robert dismantled and stripped bare our kitchen. It looks naked, the old secrets of holes cut for pipes, tile stripped off its mastic, the entry points for gas and water laid bare. And smaller. For some reason it looks smaller to me that it did with the cabinets, sink, stove, refrigerator and dishwasher. Odd.

The wood cabinets, custom made of good quality, will go to Kevin and Melanie. Melanie cleans our house and Kevin will chip our slash, help me cut down tricky trees. The new cabinets are in boxes now, in the kitchen itself where Todd wanted them. The only portion of the old kitchen left is the refrigerator, plugged in but sitting in front of a window, awaiting our final cleanout.

Mike Vanhee, the guy who put up our fence about this time last year, will pick up the old fridge, the old dishwasher and our metal bed frame, the one Kate and I slept on for all the years of our marriage. Certain physical objects accrue affection, like the Velveteen Rabbit. They become a real part of our life, not merely chairs or cars or canoe paddles. Not that old bed frame, nor the remnants of the old kitchen. Just things. Going on now to live a recycled life, the thing equivalent of reincarnation. The karmic wheel of recycle, reuse. Moksha comes in the incinerator.

Today Todd and crew will start installing the new cabinets. On Thursday the countertop people come to make a template they will use to create our countertop out of recycled glass. We may have to get Herb back to move the gas for the stove over about 6 inches. It’s in the way of the stove fitting flush against the wall.

Meanwhile Kate and I have the microwave, coffee pot and toaster oven sitting on a towel on top of the coffee table. The silverware is on the table still in its plastic bins. Paper plates and bowls, too. Some fruit. We’re in a state of self-imposed domestic siege. Familiar. Seems like not so long ago that we did the same thing in Andover.

The new Tempurpedic mattress rests on the new Ikea king sized bed frame. We’ve had it for three nights now. The mattress came on Saturday just before we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner. Lots of newness. The mattress. Amazing. It caresses your body, a firm muscular caress that leaves you confident of your position. Still, it’s different from the old Sears mattress with the hyperbolic name. It was, according to the silky label, the Imperial Ultimate.

We’re making this place ours. Solar on the roof, a new kitchen, new bed, bookshelves in the loft, new boiler, generator installed as something old. The process is disruptive, but exciting, too. We’ll head into 2016 in a changed house.

 

Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Monday, Monday

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Samhain                                                                  Thanksgiving Moon

A midnight clear on a joyous night of old. The waning Thanksgiving moon has a huge moondog encircling much of the sky to the west. New snow, about five inches, so fresh white sparkling. Quiet. Wonderful.

Thanksgiving, our first here on Shadow Mountain, is behind us now. Memories have begun to accumulate, still fresh like the snow. That delayed kitchen remodel gets underway today. Over the last week we’ve been moving pots and pans, spices, plates and cups, flour and tea and coffee to temporary locations.  Todd and his crew will dismantle, then rebuild our cabinets, install a new fridge and dishwasher, a new countertop and sinks, build in some new cabinetry.

Our new refrigerator is in the garage and running, plugged into a wall socket. It will get the last of the old fridge’s contents today or tomorrow, depending on when those get removed. Logistics. The new cabinets come today and they have to go somewhere, probably the garage as well.

IMAG0769With the driveway covered again, I’ll have to blow it since we’ve got the kitchen crew plus the Jefferson county inspector for the final inspection on the solar panels both coming today.

We’ve also got a loan to close today. It will help us bridge the gap between paying the last payment for the solar panels and getting our tax credit money next year.

Hanukkah starts this Sunday as well. That means eight days of candles, prayers, grandchildren gifts. The high holy month will be well and truly underway.

 

Colorado, Politics, US History

Enough, Enough, Enough

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Samhain                                                                              Thanksgiving Moon

This week’s Colorado shooting. Yes, he’s a terrorist. Yes, a black man in a similar situation would most likely be dead. Yes, he lived in the middle of South Park, the huge high plain only 50 miles here. Yes, his home was a trailer without sewer, running water or electricity. Yes, he was from South Carolina.

No, mental illness is not the problem. All but a handful of persons with mental illness, myself included (Generalized anxiety disorder), do not pick up guns and shoot people. No, Planned Parenthood is not the problem. The escalation of the rhetorical war in the so-called pro-life movement is a contributor. No, religious belief is not the problem. The absurd use of religious belief to justify already existing biases and hatred is so clearly a problem: ISIS, al-qaeda, Jim Jones, mongers of all apocalypses.

This is the second mass shooting in Colorado Springs in the last few weeks. In the first incident the eventual shooter was seen walking the streets carrying a loaded rifle and other weapons. When police were called, they said they could do nothing. Open carry is the law in Colorado.

I’ll say again. Let’s put the NRA on the list of those providing support to terrorists. Let’s emphasize the well-regulated part of the second amendment.

I also like making gun ownership applications similar to getting a driver’s license and, like driver’s licenses, make owning a gun a privilege not a right. I also like making gun ownership application processes equivalent to the most rabid right wingers dreams for vetting women wanting abortions.

And, let me say too: Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. Enough, enough, enough.

Cooking, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Holidays, Jefferson County, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

The Year of Two Thanksgivings

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Samhain                                                                     Thanksgiving Moon

Grandson Gabe walked in the door and asked two important questions right away: Grandpop, what’s the password for your wi-fi? This was followed quickly by a pulled down t-shirt. See my new port! It was on his right side, had a small yellow butterfly valve in place temporarily and looked good. The end of a week long saga of hospital, surgery, recovery. That’s what he and his parents did on Thanksgiving day, Thursday.

So, we had a Thanksgiving brunch today: prime rib roast, popovers, squash from Jon and Jen’s garden, a rice dish from Barb, then pecan pie and homemade vanilla bean ice cream.

It was one of those children at the table holiday meals where the kids could hardly wait to get away. God, I remember that feeling. Stuck with the old people talking about grown up stuff. Boring. Really boring. I’m dying here. Let me go, please let me go.

Barb (Jen’s mother) recounted the story of her husband, Henry, and his family’s escape from Romania in 1964. Her father-in-law, mother-in-law and 16 year old Henry plus some other family members got ransomed by a group specializing in getting Jews out from behind the Iron Curtain. Henry’s parents wanted to go Israel. They got a flight to Vienna, then Genoa where they were told it would be six months before they could get papers for Israel.

Old town in Brasov, Transylvania
Old town in Brasov, Transylvania

Henry’s father knew there was a large Romanian Jewish community in Buffalo, New York, so they went there instead. Barb grew up in Buffalo. The rest of the story is Jen, Karen and Andy.

These are the long tendrils that any Thanksgiving meal sends out, connections weak and strong to ancestors who suffered, who triumphed, who slogged out their life and in that way allowed the people around this table to come together.

I’m grateful for each one in that great cloud of past lives who preceded this Saturday Thanksgiving on Black Mountain Drive. Yes, even those we don’t like so much. Without them, we wouldn’t have eaten this meal as a family today.

Oh. And the dogs got the four rib bones with plenty of meat on them. I’m grateful, too, for the doggy ancestors who brought this current pack of ours into existence.

 

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Holidays, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Weather +Climate

Black

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Samhain                                                             Thanksgiving Moon

At 4:30 this morning the Thanksgiving moon hung to the north of Shadow Mountain, obscuring Orion and most of the stars. Luna was the first light polluter. The lodgepoles glisten faintly, the snow on their branches catching a bit of the moonlight. It’s quiet, too, a Saturday on a holiday weekend, so few cars on Black Mountain Drive.

Black Friday has been on my mind. Maybe yours, too. This morning I contrasted the peaceful moments I have looking up at the night sky with those, who at the same time of day, waited in line in the cold for the chance to save big on some item or another.

It’s an easy target, Black Friday. The crazed shoppers banging carts to get there or there or there, first. The notion of a “holiday” devoted to retailers finally easing out of the red into profitability. The mission creepiness that caused Black Friday to ooze backwards into Thanksgiving Day. Trying to find a connection with the holiday of the incarnation or any of the wonderful celebrations of Holiseason.

Yet. For all the blackness and greed and confused motives Black Friday seems more sad to me than blameworthy. The assumption that somehow, if only I can get it, that cheaper something will heal me or make someone else happy. The frantic desire of parents to find the it toy of the season for their kids. The real underlying issue, the squeeze of the 99% by the 1%. Then twisting that squeeze into a way to wring more money out of the 99% and funnel it to the 1%.

Feels more like desolation, despair. Bordering on hopelessness.

Give me the Thanksgiving moon north of Black Mountain. The forest covered in snow. Orion above the house. And the gifts that are my family, the dogs, my friends, this wild and stony place.

 

General
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Samhain                                                            Thanksgiving Moon

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” ―Meister Eckhart, “Selected Writings,” translated by Oliver Davies (Penguin Classics, 1995)