Long ago, I read a book in which the main character’s father worked on the railroad, and had developed a pace where every step was the exact distance between two ties. This mental image always irritates me because that distance is *not* constant, and as soon as you pick up a rythm, you hit a tie that is off by just enough to make you have to reset your pace. And yet, EVERY time I walk on a railroad, that image comes to mind. Even though I have long since forgotten what book it was, which is a large part of the annoyance, come to think of it.
Simple pleasures
Jacob’s Creek Shiraz, spaghetti, and Yes 90125. All simple, but still a pleasure. I wish everything in life could be this simple.
Benchmarks, trains, other stuff
An important skill, when looking for benchmarks, as opposed to geocaches, is knowing when it is silly, or dangerous, or even lethal, to continue looking. I just came back from looking for this one, and I did not find it. I know exactly where it is, but I’m not dressed for it. For dying, that is. Perhaps I’ll go back some day and look again. It’s at the top of a cutting that the tracks run through, and so I had to go quite a ways down the track to find a way to get up onto the side. But then I could not find it without risking my life on the edge of the cutting, which was crumbling with every step I took.
Yes, I know, I should not be on the tracks. It’s probably trespassing, or something, and a good way to get squished. But I’ve been walking tracks as long as I can remember, and have not been squished yet. Although my grandfather really liked to tell about his friend who went walking on the tracks, and all they found was his nose. There’s something slightly apocryphal about that story.
I’m also perpetually amazed at how far out of their way people will go to throw away their trash. There I am, up on this cutting, sure I’m going to die any minute, and there’s beer bottles, a dinner plate, a hub cap, and a car battery. I mean, come on, surely it would be easier to throw those away at home? I seriously don’t know how someone could have gotten out there with all that trash. On one side is the train track, and on the other is a cow pasture. The area between is heavy brush, barbed wire fence, and a 20-foot shale cliff. Yet someone has taken the trouble to lug their coors bottle out here to dispose of it.
Later today, I’ll upload photos of where I didn’t find the benchmark, and of where I didn’t fall to my death from a crumbling cliff.
Cleaning the press pot
I have a french press pot, in which I make chai.
Note, it is a FRENCH press pot, not a freedom press pot, however amusing and open to satire that phrase might be. Get over it.
Note 2: Chai is Kenya tea. Actually, Chai is the swahili word for tea. And when I make chai, it means kenya tea with milk and sugar. The fact that Starbucks has hijacked this word to mean something else is not my problem, and I mostly choose to ignore it, but I just wanted to clarify.
Anyways, after a while using a french press pot, the screen tends to get grungy, and, since it is a fine wire mesh, it is very hard to clean it effectively.
Finally, I’ve figured out what to do. Burn it. Seems obvious in retrospect. Hold the mesh in a flame – preferably a hot blue flame, like that from a bunsen burner, a gas stove, or a lighter – and burn all the grunge off. Once the mesh gets red hot, that’s probably all the damage you can do. And, because of the composition of the mesh, you can usually hold the thing in your fingers while you’re doing this, as the mesh, for some reason, does not seem to conduct the head around much. Kinda cool, that.
Don Quick Oats
I was wondering if anyone had ever done a parody of Don Quixote, a la Bored Of The Rings, and called it Don Quick Oats. However “Quixote” and “quick oats” give a Googlewhack.
The final match
Last night, I used the final match in a box to light a candle. This may seem insignificant to all but a tiny number of my readers.
Several years ago (I expect it was in 1990, but I’m not sure) a few of us went camping in the Smoky mountains, and then, later, in the forests in north Georgia. I’m actually not even certain if this was the same camping trip, or two trips. I think they were the same trip. Anyways, we bought a package of matchboxes. Rosebud brand. When we came back from that trip, we each had a box of these matches which was largely unused. Being the packrat that I am, I kept that box, and didn’t use any of the matches for many years. I found the box several months ago, and started using it. So this was the last match from that 13-year-old box of matches.
I suppose that this should be profoundly significant in some earth-shaking way. But, somehow, it’s just not. Which is a shame, really. I was almost hoping it would be. It’s sad how some things are just … meaningless. I’m open to deep philosophical interpretations.
Anyone?
Rocinante
I think it may have gotten all the way down to 55° last night., and I had the top down on Rocinante on the way to work this morning.
I began referring to my Jeep as Rocinante a while back. It is, I suppose, symbolic on a number of levels. I was, however, very pleased to learn that John Steinbeck also called his truck Rocinante.
It has been many years since I read Don Quixote, and I don’t think I ever made it through the second book. I’ve added it back to my list of books to read, and I believe I should also add Travels with Charlie to that list as well. I think that I can stick to my current reading list for another year, not buy any new books, and not add anything to the list, and still not quite get done. We’ll see.
It took me a while to find this, but here are some posters of the Picasso Don Quixote painting I like so much.
My first cache hide
Yesterday, I hid my first cache. It was too beautiful to stay indoors, so I went out to Wilmore to hide my prepared caches. However, the place where I wanted to put it has shiny new “no trespassing” signs, which was less than welcoming. I need to speak with the guy responsible for that land, and persuade him of the value of permitting this.
Anyways, after that, I decided to go ahead and hide one anyway, which you can see here.
Nobody has found it yet, so I don’t know if I did a good job or not.
The day’s caching
We found one of the three that we looked for. The others were taking too long, and Sarah did not want to wait any more.
And I found 2 of the three benchmarks I looked for. One was partially destroyed, and the one that I did not find, I’m fairly sure that it was destroyed, but I don’t have any direct evidence of it.
Day 412 …
I have, for a long time, mocked Linux for the absurd difficulty of setting up printing. Well, I have spent much of the last 3 hours trying to get Windows to print to a perfectly-working printer hanging off of my Linux machine, which every other machine on my network can print to. I’m not sure if this is Samba’s fault or Window’s fault, but, really, how hard could it be for Windows to have implemented Unix printing decades ago so that I would not have to be suffering this tormet right now. I’m not amused.