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Foggy, busy Tuesday ๐
Somewhat foggy this morning, going to ride in fairly early once I the black beans are good and soft that are boring down on the stove. Apple-carrot pancakes this morning.
The upcoming weekend looks rainy ๐ง๏ธ especially going into Sunday, so maybe this isn’t the weekend for the Potholers after all. ๐โโ๏ธ I guess dream on, only one other weekend remains this summer – and then September 4th bright and early, it’s off to Speculator to remote work hopefully from Hardwood Hill ๐ชต over Labor Day Weekend. Never done Snowy Mountain, might hike it that Saturday during the weekend.
Got my insurance bill for the F-350 SuperDuty, ๐ฐ and it’s fairly reasonable figuring it’s a newer truck but I also increased the deducatables to adjust for inflation and got rid of the unnecessary insurance riders. I think it’s like $720 compared to $630 I was paying for Big Red over six months. That one I’ll have to pay immediately, but also I have blog hosting contract, which I’ll put on the card and won’t be due until October. โ๏ธ Which is good, I have only like $220 bucks left in my checking account after paying last month’s credit card bill. Hoping when I get paid next Monday I won’t have to dip into savings or the raining day account to pay my rent, but it is what it is. Finally built my savings up to where it should be. That said, I can’t complain that much about paying the blog hosting contract, after all it’s kind of nice to get paid for making some maps up, and dreaming about hick towns that smell Iike cow shit ๐ฎ and people have burning barrels for their plasticky garbage. ๐ข๏ธ Memories of backroads Pennsylvania, living life the way it should be. Hey, I still recycle my cans in my parents bin not that I buy much in them. โป๏ธ Paper and plastic? ๐ฅ Oh, and aluminum beer cans for the deposit.
Riding in early this morning, ๐ด that is once the black beans are ready, as I have to do and I did not go down to the library to do more work last night, ๐ as it was hot and a good thunderstorm โ๏ธ rolled in shortly after I rolled home on my mountain bike. I had originally planned to take the bus in yesterday, ๐ but I forgot my laptop, had to run home, and ended up deciding riding the bike. Saved a $2.60 that way, I know big deal when the SuperDuty guzzles $120 gas every chance it gets, and it just seems like I need more and more expensive, basic foods packaged in burnable plastic from the Supermarket. ๐ Still, you should try to save whenever possible as some day I want to have cows, that wooden off-grid cabin with the burning barrels and manure piles for the garbage out back. Smile, deep breath, off we go, training class I’m teaching ๐ฉโ๐ซ today, and then back home to do more work. Buy more plastic, watch go up in smoke, dream more of those days with off-grid cabin. And onwards.
Monday after a weekend that went up into smoke ๐จ
Grooving on a Monday morning. Apparently another big flood back in the office, snake bite on the coffee maker did not bite over the weekend and things got flooded. But they did get coffee going eventually in the office, and apparently a lot of blowers too. But I couldn’t hear them from my desk.
Good morning, Happy Monday. Where the hell did that weekend go? Probably up in smoke like that parmesan cheese container and the empty cottage cheese container – or that 1/4 tank of gas in the SuperDuty. ๐ฅ Carbon dioxide, dioxins, and furans. ๐งโ๏ธ Or maybe buried in the dirt like that shit and banana peels from the weekend gone by, slowly rotting away up on Burnt Hill, probably long gone by the time I get back there next summer. It was nice getting away to swim this weekend, some stoned hours looking at the wildflowers ๐ป and just hanging out. Weather was pretty good until the very trippy-tipsy end of the weekend, rain Sunday evening when I was out at the folks, but whatever. ๐ Swimming was pretty nice both days on Mine Kill Pool though I’m sad to think that’s done at least as far as I’m concerned for the year.
Washed the mud off the SuperDuty with a quick 4 minute wash at the car wash, ๐ฟ and ran over to Wally World ๐ after visiting the folks to hand them another $60 after spending $40 bucks there on Friday, to get sunscreen, mantles, oatmeals, bananas, and yes the first batch of white garbage bags since autumn. ๐ฝ Not camping all winter, โ๏ธ without a fire or trash service or using them for bucket shitter. ๐ I saved a lot on those bags. Needed more food, I eat a lot. But I still forgot parmesan and onions. Crazy thing is I thought about getting onions when I was at Shaul’s earlier in the day, but whatever. ๐ง Things are so expensive. Life was cheap before the SuperDuty, as no gas bills, and yeah, I didn’t buy all that food and plastic to send up into smoke. That said, I do like the Wally World Picante Sauce on everything – it’s cheap, tastes good, and the fact that plastic is No 7, doesn’t phase me much.
I dream of heading out of town on Thursday and taking off Friday to spend floating on a tube ๐ in the East Canada Creek, smoking dope ๐ฎ๐จ but yeah the rain gods are saying you got stop spending all your money on gas for the SuperDuty โฝ, beer ๐บ and maybe you clean up your shit apartment. ๐งน Shovel out more of that crap to turn into smoke. I always dream of having a gutter track in my house, preferably a straight tube down to burn barrel. ๐ข Kind of like the old apartment incinerator shoots. Maybe something to build into my cabin. And like get caught up on work. ๐ป But the last chance at a summer trip, and honestly taking time off from work until November, though I do plan to remote work ๐ Labor Day Weekend hopefully from Hardwood Hill or somewhere nearby, but yeah, that’s work and by then, probably too cold for much swimming. ๐โ๏ธ And things will be busy.
Built to Last, Not to Throw Away, Skipping the Vinyl Suburbia
I spend a lot of time scrolling through pages of log cabin and wood house builders.
There is something fundamentally grounding about looking at a structure made of solid, raw material. I really like the idea of a log cabin, or at least a house built with plenty of wood tongue-and-groove on the inside and deep wood on the outside. It stands in stark, beautiful contrast to the vinyl, asphalt shingle, and drywall claptrap that dominates the suburban landscapes sprouting up along endless miles of asphalt.ย
Maybe part of my preference comes down to self-awareness. I know what a dirty hick I am, and how quickly anything pristine and white gets dirty and dingy in my hands. But it goes deeper than that. I associate vinyl and plastic with disposability. To me, plastic is something you use for a few minutes before chucking it into the fire to get rid of it. Wrapping a house in it just feels wrong.
Modern building materials are often praised for being durable and “zero maintenance.” But that phrasing is a corporate illusion. What it really means is that these materials are engineered to be used for a fixed “material lifespan” with no upkeep possible, until they are inevitably discarded at a local or distant “regulated” dumping ground. Zero maintenance usually means zero maintenance is possible. You cannot prolong its lifespan with honest care. Any fix you try to apply later is an afterthought, a hack.
Wood is different. It is not to say that wood doesn’t require more workโit demands painting, staining, and eventually replacing rotten pieces. But it is also repairable. It is fundamentally not disposable. When you work with wood, you enter into a long-term relationship with the structure. You can preserve it, mend it, and keep it alive.
Most of the buildings you find in the cities and suburbs are covered in that generic white vinyl crap I hate, and sadly, itโs bleeding into the mountains too. I am not saying a pure log cabin is the only way to build a life, but I know exactly what I want someday when I finally have my own land, my own homestead. I want a home that can be fixed with basic tools, weathered by the elements, and built to endure rather than fill a landfill.