Monthly Archives: March 2018

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Typing like Kerouac

Today was the first time i ever stepped into a Hobby Lobby store. I had loathed the place after the supreme court ruled in favor for them in the ability to discriminate against their employees, but i digress. Sarah needed to pick up some items for a project so i decided to make the most of it and do the same thing. on YouTube a man named Joe Van Cleave had been tinkering around with figuring out a way to run a roll of paper through a typewriter, in order to writing a constant stream of consciousness. he had played around with several forms of paper and created devices to hold the roll of paper. I took the “fuck it” approach and rolled it into the carriage and plopped the paper on the table. a few feet of paper later i i was running into few, if any, issues with the set up. I an using an old Royal 1930s desktop KMM and the weight alone is enough to move the paper how it deems fit. The machine is a beast and works long after many typewriters f a younger age have seen their demise.

I have been a fan of Kerouac for a few years now, truly reading his works in the past couple of years and learning about him and the rest of the beat generation. After On the Road I went onto The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. Kerouac lived a life that would surprise most being the young good looking man that he was. His style of writing was as tough on his mind as his drinking was on his body. endless hours spent behind the typewriter drinking coffee and taking whatever drugs were available to keep him awake. the life of a writer is not an easy one and it can only become harder when one decides to take the path never traveled before. today I continued on that path and started to write a book that had my attention long ago. the rough draft needs to be written and this is the way I decided to get it done. the paper won’t be changed until it runs out. 50 feet stands between me and a break. I don’t have the option of devoting weeks to finishing the piece or the majority of a day for that matter. it won’t turn out like On the Road, a steady stream of thought placed on paper, instead it will be broken up and continued when time allows. maybe, one day, when the chance arrives, i can take that break and torture myself doing something that most people would never dream of doing.

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The Last Rhino

I feel like I have been here before. Looking at the news and thinking we are next. The last male white rhino died earlier this week and I find myself thinking about it over and over again. What does it take for the planet to wake up to what we are doing?

I went on a walk with my daughter today. We climbed Westnedge hill and looked over the city. I thought about the flood that happened a few weeks earlier. Places like the north east and Denmark are seeing record lows as the arctic tries to figure out what to do without any ice to hold the cold polar vortex at bay. The jet stream has shifted, no longer assisting jets on their travels. This is a lot to take in.

Since i finished the Self Authoring program I have seen some changes in myself that i thought I should share. In the past 3 weeks i have had 1 beer. for those that know me that will come as a shock. also, while i have been debating on when to enjoy my pipe, I came to the conclusion that the pipe and my tobacco cellar should be retired until a moment comes my way when I can relax and enjoy the hobby again. So what the hell do I do for fun? I guess I will have to figure it out.

I pulled an old Remington portable model 1 typewriter from my basement, a project I picked up a few months back but set aside due to time restraints. The black body and well preserved case caught my eye when i first saw it. Usually i prefer the Royal desktops but I thought having the portable would encourage me to write in public again. I had to sand down some of the rubber rollers that had flattened out and was keeping the paper from working over the platen. There are several books I would like to write, adventures and characters that are becoming impatient as they run around in my head.

The more I listen to the news the harder it is to comprehend everything that is happening. I looked up climate change podcast and found myself disappointed in what i found. One in particular that was recorded in Michigan ended up being a denial show where the host spit out free market rhetoric and how renewable energy was a fraud that would hurt poor people. Having said all of that, I am seriously considering bring back my old podcast. It won’t be the same podcast exactly, but a revised version that I get to run. the last podcast I ran was on American Prepper Radio and as far as I know you can still find the show and episodes on there, but I don’t recommend it since it is outdated by a few years and the content no longer applies. I was thinking of doing a shorter show, three days a week, 15-20 minutes covering the latest in climate change, economics, and societal collapse. i don’t know when it will start but the idea is there and I already know how to start and record a podcast having do that two years ago. i can’t be the only one needing to talk about this. There has to be others out there hearing what I’m hearing and wondering what the hell is going on? The collapse experiment was a nice test run, I liked the idea, maybe it’s time to improve it now and create something worth sharing.

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Mosin vs. Voting (or) Who Really Won the Coldwar?

I own not one, but two, Mosin-Nagant rifles. At one time i thought this was the ultimate symbol of winning the Cold-War. The spoils heading to the American market at a cheap price and sitting in the racks of the victors. That was how I used to think about this.

It has become apparent that while the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR fell apart the repercussions have been the revenge of using free market capitalism as the ultimate weapon. While the US trades stocks, bonds, commodities and people in the free market the Russians have learned how to manipulate every aspect of our system. let’s step back for a bit.

In most of the world the governments of most countries will dictate policies to protect the welfare of the people and companies. Countries like China and Russia are great examples, who have the ability to directly manipulate markets at a moment notice. When the Asian markets crashed in 2009 the Chinese government stepped in and dumped a ton of money into the market, devalued the Yen, and balanced the loss in less than a day. meanwhile, in the US, congress had to rush together, debate a bill, kiss the ass of Wall Street, and eventually do something that would eventually work, over the next 8 years. This is the difference between a functioning government and a country taken over by a religious idea. That is what the free market is, a religious idea. With the rise of the conservative right during the Reagan years, the idea that the markets need to be unregulated and left alone returned as the survivors of the Great Depression died off leaving a group of adolescent buffoons to run the country. These ideas ruled the day before and created the greatest economic disaster the world had ever seen. Sadly, Republicans don’t read much, not history and not the bible.

The national debt hit 21 trillion dollars this week, the first time ever in the nations history and every day is a new total debt that is a first in our history. this is not an amount that will be paid back by my generation or the next but my grand kids will still be trying to pay off this huge pile of festering feces. 21 trillion dollars and what did we get out of it? 2 wars. thousands dead and that is just on our side. Bailed out banks. The list goes on and on. While following this religion of free market capitalism we were blind to see the soft underbelly that we had created. the supreme court declared that corporations were people and could use their money has free speech. I think Putin was listening. companies were hired, adds were placed, fake accounts were started, and like the suckers we are we voted for the worst possible choice on the ballot. so while I sit here with my Mosin-Nagants thinking we had the spoils of war the real spoils was beating us at our own game. Globalization and free trade came crashing down around us and we were powerless to fight it. The system is broken and the people in power are the same ones that continue to say it will correct itself. “Just leave it alone and it will straighten out.” I have never had a car with a strange sound just straighten itself out. Eventually there is a louder noise, a crunch or whining sound, then the smoke appears. Our car is slowly coming to a stop on the side of an abandoned highway with no one in sight to helps us. We will be stranded on the side of the rode because we let dad, who isn’t a mechanic by the way, drive the car and continue to tell us nothing is wrong. all of this after stopping at a commie gas station, hey it’s a free market after all, and Putin put sand in the gas tank and drained the oil from the pan.

Things need to change, and if the gun control debate has shown us anything it’s that congress has no plans to change anything any time soon. The Cold-War never ended. the names changed and the players may have new faces but the old problems of the last century still haunt us today. the only difference is that the Russians continued to learn and became better at this game than we have. While the US has continued playing checkers all over the globe the Russians continued to play a long game of Chess and had their checkmate with the 2016 election.

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Retiring my pipe

Smoking a pipe has been an on again off again hobby/ habit for the last twenty years. granted the majority of those years I didn’t smoke. there were several years in between where a pipe was lost or willingly thrown out thinking it was done with it. a little over a year ago i picked up the hobby again. The big difference this time was that i had learned about the difference between pharmacy tobacco and higher quality tobacco. I was only familiar with Captain Black until that point and wasn’t well versed in the other pharmacy tobaccos. I thought Half and Half was the next best thing the first time i tried it, then I found a whole new world through YouTube. Companies i had never heard of before were selling styles and blends i had never heard of before. there were English, orientals, aromatics, and vapor tobaccos. I searched through reviews trying to find something that sounded good and a year later i have a cellar filled with all kinds of blends I am waiting to try, and wait i will.

Pipe smoking doesn’t fit into my life these days. Having a little one at home leaves little room to enjoy a few minutes in solitude. I tried using my lunch break to enjoy a smoke only to have people asking “who was smoking a cigar?” No, that wasn’t a good blend. Weekends i want to spend as much time with my family as I can therefore getting the pipe out is usually not on the list of things to do. Instead of getting frustrated I have decided that it is a good time for the pipe to join the rest of the cellar and age gracefully until they are dug up a few years from now. Maybe when the little one starts school? There isn’t going to be a big loss in taking a break, hell half of the tobacco in the cellar isn’t being made anymore. the only thing I really want to do in the meantime is make a last order for a few blends that might not be around when i take the old pipe back out again. Wild Hare by Lane Limited has become a personal favorite. Founding Fathers is an enjoyable blend that might find itself on the chopping block with the way things are going. I know there will be a few that I haven’t tried yet that i will wish i had more of later but such is life.

The pipe will be cleaned one last time and the rest of the opened tobacco will find itself in mason jars to spent a few years aging. This appears to be a repeating trend in my life. today i noticed that in the past two and a half weeks I have had one beer, one. I was sick with the flue two weeks ago and since then i had one drink on St. Patrick’s Day. i wasn’t that excited about it either. Who knows, maybe that will be tossed to the wayside as well. Couldn’t hurt, i could lose a few pounds.

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Tell the Truth or at least don’t lie

This weekend had me going to the store with a list of things that may come in handy in case the world decides to take a huge dump on itself and fling its poo into the ceiling fan. after hearing the news about the chemical attack in the UK and learning that Trump is planning to fire all of the people that talked him out of going to war with Iran, I decided to take a few things into my own hands and filled the trunk of my car with $120 of food. Granted, this is all in the moment and hopefully it will amount to nothing.

The other piece of news that had me concerned was regarding the lack of ice on the north pole on how the “polar vortex” has been out of whack, sending the north east into abnormal icy conditions while places like Alaska and the north pole saw temperatures above freezing. This is what concerns me most about having a child. what exactly do I tell her while she is growing up. “sorry kid, we tried our best but driving pick up trucks and dumping oil into rivers was just how we did things. good luck!” as the month progress and the news continues to flow in the time line for several things that were supposed to happen decades from now are already happening. We will see heat waves. Crops will fail and people will die. So yes, i bought a shit ton of canned goods (and a few hundred bullets) just in case one day the supermarket shelves are bare.

I have heard all kinds of advice on what to teach or tell children growing up in this world. Constantly move, be nomadic in how you live your life and move to where the resources are. Learn a trade to make yourself valuable. Invest in gold and silver in case the dollar collapses. then there is the crazy stuff. dig a bunker. Be prepared to marry your sister. find recipes for cat and dog.

I won’t lie to her. It would be nice to give her the bad news in a way that won’t make life feel pointless. Do I think the human race will go extinct? The way we currently live our lives not giving a shit about the debt that will be paid by future generations, sure. We are facing famines, heat waves, rising oceans, refugee problems, and diseases we have never seen before. Do I think the next generation may have a shot at changing things around? No, but i think they will be the crafty ones that learn how to adapt.

The start of Zoey’s life was tough and knowing that I can’t help but think that she will have a natural callus to tough it though the hard times. I can stock up the basement pantry and make sure that we are able to defend ourselves if needed but the real work comes when i start teaching Zoey how to thrives in the apocalypse.

 

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Can I get a Ramen? (or) Stocking up for the Apocalypse

My grandmother died on Tuesday. A morbid or uncomfortably personal announcement to start out with, but one to set the mood for the rest of this post. She was 79 years old and i was only able to meet her four times during my life. I found out her health had declined and that she might leave us soon just before the weekend. the next day i came down with the flu that had me out of commission for four days. On day number four, the one that i was finally starting to recover I received the call that she had passed. Times like this come as a reminder of how quickly our life can change. One moment we think about retirement and the years ahead for a goal that we may never reach. the next moment someone we know is hit by a bus and we say “fuck it, I’m eating this bacon and enjoying that beer because YOLO.” I don’t know where the balance is and this is something I have always struggled with. At the same time all of this crazy business is happening my girlfriend’s dad is in the final stages of colon cancer. The world is changing all around me. The polar vortex that keeps all the cold air at the north pole can no longer stay where it belongs because all the ice is gone. Russia is using chemical weapons in foreign lands. Trump is meeting with Kim Jong Un to discuss which country has the best porn stars. Congress is willing to vote on saving puppies in planes but not on gun control to save the lives of children. the list of crazy goes on and on.

I’m stocking up. I have my list ready. Canned goods and non perishables are on there of course. Ramen supplies to keep my hobby going during the apocalypse is on there as well. .45 APC ammo since my supply has dwindled from practicing. And baby food, lots and lots of baby food. I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I watched a documentary called LA 92 on netflix and the damn thing freaked me out. I kept thinking “well if that thing with trump…” “If a cop shoots a black kid here…” “If this global warming thing kills the crops this year…” Ya, I’m not too positive about the future. Having a child changed a few things. Now I worry about her having food. I think about the world that she will be growing up in. I live in a small city that thinks it’s a big city. We had the Uber shooter and the Cyclists that were run over by a drugged out douche bag. We had a giant oil spill in our river and the city’s response “let’s brew beer.” I know we are not immune here from the problems of the world. I know that whatever the future brings my daughter will have to face it. In the meantime I will keep the basement stocked, just in case, and when i’m not thinking about the end of the world you can find me in the kitchen making ramen. Maybe that is what the world needs. Momofuku Ando, the creator of instant ramen said “feeding the world will bring it peace.” So maybe, if we all try a little harder, and clean off our pots and pans, we could bring some peace to world by making some ramen and slurping away our problems.

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Self Authoring for the Apocalypse

The weekend didn’t start out how i wanted it to. Zoey wasn’t acting like herself on Friday with a long drive to the doctor’s office an hour away. The appointment started late and we were back in town by one o’clock. Zoey didn’t eat much that day and threw up all of her food that morning. I found out later she did the same thing that afternoon and slept most of the day.

That night was the usual for me. I left work at midnight and had to be back the next day at one in the afternoon for some overtime. all morning I didn’t feel right, my joints ached and my stomach felt funny. I finished my shift and closed the building. On my way home I called Sarah and told her that I didn’t feel good. A few hours later i was running to the rest room. My palms were sweaty and my weak arms were heavy, no I wasn’t in a rap battle, everything felt cold and my breathing was quick shallow breaths. At some point i found myself in the bedroom with my phone in hand, sending Sarah a text downstairs since i was unable to talk. I wrote “help” and a few minutes later she appeared in the doorway. “What the heck!” she said finding me half dressed and delusional. I thought about telling her to call an ambulance but being the cheap ass that I am I knew that dying would be cheaper, hey at least life insurance would pay out. That night was a long journey through hell. every movement hurt. all my muscles and joint ached. walking 20 feet to the bathroom felt like a Crossfit competition being performed by a morbidly obese man. There were a few moments i seriously thought I might die.

I woke up the next morning, still alive. My stomach hurt and I knew I was dehydrated. This time around Sarah came down with the bug and it was her turn to sleep for 14 hours. We were both scared that Zoey might catch whatever we had but looking back she might have been the first one to catch it.

The day that followed had me waking up at 4AM. I couldn’t sleep anymore. My body hurt from being in bed for too many hours to count. I went down stairs and turned on the Self Authoring Program. If there is one motivation to change your life it’s thinking that last night might have been your last. Remember that scene in Fightclub when Tyler robbed the store and asked the kid what he wanted to do with his life? That was how the flu felt to me. Already this year a nurse at the local hospital died after catching it, she was 40 years old. I finally sat my ass down and finished the Past Authoring program, long overdue by the way. Next came the hard part, the future authoring program.

This program changes everything, no longer able to wing it, or stumble through, you have to sit down and shut up to figure out what you want to do with your life. Saturday night i remember thinking about all that I had accomplished until then. I wrote a few books, had a daughter who’s life I wanted to see, and well, not really much else. What the hell had I been doing with my life? I sure as hell hadn’t been enjoying it.

For three hours I worked through Jordan Peterson’s program and figured out some things about myself and my life that i really wanted to accomplish. Some of the goals I wanted to start right away, feeling encouraged by the event, but the flu had other plans for me. It may take time for me to recover but when I do at least I have a layout of what I want to do in the near and distant future. Finally, the task is finished and I can move ahead to something worth bragging about when the boatman comes to pick me up at the river Styx.

So what is my plan you may ask. I will save that for another time. The flu is not done with me yet. Until next time, clean your room.

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Pursue what is meaningful

Another Jordan Peterson post here covering rule number 7 from his 12 Rules for Life. While i was growing up the opposite was told to me. when i said what I wanted to do with my life the response was, “You need to think about money.” I had, what i was told at the time, a good job. I worked for a well known organization and reach the top of the ladder in my department. That was it. no raise. stuck with nowhere to go and it wasn’t something i enjoyed doing. Regardless of my years in the department i had supervisors who hunted down things they could find wrong and in some cases made up something, anything to justify their position. after 14 years, I quit.

I currently have two dreams that I am pursuing. 1 is establishing a writing career. the second is to eventually work for myself in something that I enjoy doing and will become better at over time. I don’t find meaning in what i do. I think about the benefits of my position, the security, insurance, and of course the paycheck. But it isn’t something that i can look back on and proud of. My books give me a sense of meaning. Making a delicious meal and sharing it with those i care about give me meaning. Being able to support myself and the ones I love doing something I enjoy gives me meaning. There are necessities in life that you can not go without. Having something meaningful in your life is one of them. I don’t know how long it will take or how it will happen but eventually one or both of these things will become a reality.

There is more on my plate these days. Being the primary daycare of a preemie baby, taking care of two houses, and staying up late to write a little, like this post, his how my time is spent. I haven’t even finished the self authoring program that i paid for. I don’t know where to go from here, and that is why i haven’t continued. the future portion of the program expects me to know where i want my life to go. that is something new, scary, an unexpected change from the normal day after day grind that has defined so much of my life. to be in control of where my life is heading is fucking scary. I have had so many people over the years tell me what the right choice is, the safe option of any dilemma. When i was ready to sail into the wind and explore new territory there was always someone close to tell me I couldn’t, I shouldn’t, or you have go to be out of your mind. In the end it is my fault after all I am the one who let these people into my life. Maybe I should be concentrating on something else. Rule number 3, Make friends with people who want the best for you. It sounds like a solid place to start.

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A Day Late and a Dream Short

Two Days ago a friend of mine sent me a message stating that a spot had opened up on the downtown mall. The small walk up window has been a home to many businesses over the years. every summer something comes and goes. Sunday night i took a picture of the sign in the window with my phone, took a quick look around, and thought it over.

A dream that i have come to cherish is having the first Ramen shop in Kalamazoo. We have several Asian restaurants, sushi joints, and Chinese buffets. One thing that is missing for a town that is home to three college campuses is a Ramen place. I have poured over recipe books, raided the local Asian market for ingredients, spent countless hours cooking broth on the stove, and in the end I am still waiting. There was a spot attached to the State Theater i inquired about only to learn they were never renting the spot out again. Did i mention they said NEVER! I continued my search for great recipes and played around with new ideas.

Monday I tried to figure out how i would be able to cook the broth and noodles in such a small space. The toppings could be prepped easily. The noodles would need a boiling pot to cook in. The Broth would have to stay on a burner of some kind. there was the issue of using To Go containers for Ramen that is served hot and loses it’s freshness as the minutes tick by. By Monday night I had almost everything figured out and if not I would eventually figure it out. I called the number Tuesday morning only to learn that the spot had just been rented. I was crushed. Sure, i was having doubts about the whole thing. what to do with the baby? would i be working 12-16 hour days with my other full time job? What if my Ramen sucked?

Like i said, this spot opens up every year with a new business. maybe this year isn’t mine but that gives me another year to work on recipes and figure out how to make Ramen To GO with out making sucky ramen. Plus I have to buy T-shirts for work, something reading “the only men I like in me is Ramen” or “Send Noodz.” I still have a lot of work to do.

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Three Days of Hiking

One of my goals on this page was to start hiking at least once a week. Considering the weather and flooding that happened last week the hikes that I have been doing involve walking a few blocks from the house and up a large hill to a park that overlooks the city. I didn’t have the stroller so my daughter was harnessed to my chest and I climbed the hill 14 pounds heavier. the walk wasn’t as bad as it sounds. most of my job is spent on my feet and walking around the building finding things to clean or fix. The goal of these hikes is to become fit to some degree and lose some weight in the meantime. when the weather stays reliable and I’m able to travel further out of the city i would like to see Chipman Preserve again and bring a weighted pack. The preserve is covered in rolling hills and steep climbs. the scenery changes from prairie lands to hard wood forests. It’s common to see tree stands left from the hinting seasons. Deer or often seen in the middle of the day and during the mid summer months you can find all kinds of black and raspberries to pick for later use.

Cooking has become a hobby of mine this year. While it is not healthy, Ramen has caught me attention again, sending me to the local Asian market for supplies and trying out different recipes to see what I like. bags of fresh-cut noodles sit in the freezer and instant packs fill a box on the shelf waiting to face my judgement. My curiosity has taken me on YouTube binges lasting several hours watching cooks, reviewers, and vloggers eating ramen all over the world. I have come to appreciate the 7 minute egg and have come to see the major differences between instant and fresh noodles. the broth is the hardest part of this hobby, taking several hours and learning the subtle differences of certain ingredients.

My cheap hobbies have kept me from spending cash lately. Overtime is coming up and I plan to put that into savings where it belongs. Nine months after Zoey was born the insurance is starting to decline certain visits since it is the new year. already bills are coming to the house and I doubt the money I’m planning to save will stay there long. For more on Zoey visit The Proud Preemie Poppa on The Good Men Project website. For being 9 months old Zoey had a long journey already so i can’t complain when i have to pay out for something she needs at this point.

I worry about the world that will be left for her. the trash we walked past on the side of the road. the items i saw floating in the pond that supplies our drinking water to the city. the needle i walked over in the park today lead me to believe that humans, for all of our genius and technology, have not learned to keep the only planet we can live on. The city is a mess. There is a loss of pride that once came with life. Leave this place better than how you found it, is no longer a motto anybody believes in. temporary gains are better than seeking longer term solutions. why wait when i can have it now. that is the motto we live by these days. our kids, who cares? they can clean up our mess after we are gone.

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