added latest notes and brotherhood of the wrench

2 files changed, 56 insertions, 31 deletions

diff --git a/essays/off-grid-brotherhood-of-the-wrench.txt b/essays/off-grid-brotherhood-of-the-wrench.txt
index 1bbc064..4cc5cae 100644
--- a/essays/off-grid-brotherhood-of-the-wrench.txt
+++ b/essays/off-grid-brotherhood-of-the-wrench.txt
@@ -69,10 +69,9 @@ What I discovered after hundreds of cold morning starts is that I like opening t
 
 Every morning before we head out on the road, I open the engine cover and spend some time studying the engine, connecting with it if you will. It's a ritual, somewhere between making coffee and invoking the gods, a small part of my morning that's dedicated to making sure the rest of our day goes smoothly. For a long time I really was looking over the engine every time, but these days I am less looking things over than just spending time with it.
 
-Car ethusiasts often get this way
+Car enthusiasts often get this way. There is something irrational about being attached to particular set of nuts and bolts and cast iron, but it happens. Driving around the country now, when I see broken down cars in someone's yard I don't see junk, I see failed relationships.
 
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-This has become my guiding design principle, my philosophy of technology if you will, the technology must connect me with the machine in a meaningful way. There is no technology for its own sake, no technology that abstracts function for convenience, no technology that removes the human interaction for "simplicity" or "ease of use". Ease of use means I can use it, as well as repair it and rebuild it if need be.
+This has become my guiding design principle, my philosophy of technology if you will, the technology must connect me with the machine in a meaningful way. It doesn't have to be rational, it doesn't have to make sense even, but it must create that connection. There is no technology for its own sake, no technology that abstracts function for convenience, no technology that removes the human interaction for "simplicity" or "ease of use". Ease of use means I can use it, as well as repair it and rebuild it if need be.
 
 Eventually I was able to track down reprints of the original shop manuals for the Dodge M300 chassis, which is the basis for the Travco, as well as many other motorhomes of the era. From reading this in the evenings around the campfire, I know that the designers of the bus meant for it to be maintained by anyone. It's written in simple language, with clear instructions, and explanations of why you need to do something as well has how to do it. 
 
@@ -92,9 +91,56 @@ That's part of why we were at the side of the road that day in Nevada. We were o
 
 Nuts and bolts aren't where most of the work is though. Most of the work I do in keeping this engine running happens in my head. A mechanic isn't someone who blindly turns wrenches, anyone can do that. A mechanic, professional or otherwise, is someone who can listen to an engine and figure out, based on experience, which nuts and bolts need turning. It's the problem solving that happens in your head that separates those who can fix an engine from those who cannot. This is a skill that takes years, even decades to develop. I am still very early on this journey, but it is infectious and exhilarating when you hold something unknown in your head and step through the system until you come up with a hypothesis about what might be wrong. This takes me many miles of driving, many miles of thinking.
 
+It also takes asking many questions of many people. I've been fortunate to have my uncle who knows more about engines than I ever will to help me out, but there have been plenty of others as well. I've met Travco salesmen who knew the original designer, mechanics who've worked on Travcos in the past, and dozens of people who knew the 318 engine inside and out. All of it put together and you have perhaps the most important part of repairing anything: the community.
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+The community of people repairing things is an interesting group, perched on an interesting dichotomy. We are, by and large, a group of people who prize self-reliance. Whether that self reliance grows out of economic necessity, pure enjoyment, or some other factor, it is essential to spirit of repair. At the same time, the community is very hierarchical one, which means those us near the bottom of the hierarchy must rely on and must learn from those above us, which isn't very self-reliant, but I think this is a big part of what makes this an interesting and dynamic community. Self-reliance alone tends to make you isolated and either conceited (if you're good, or think you are) or intimidated (if you know you're not very good). The only way out of these predicaments is connect with other people who know more than you. In the first case they'll quickly put you in your place, in the second, they'll lift you up to where they are.
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+Even within the community of repair enthusiasts we get some strange looks when we say we actually live in a 1969 RV. It makes me smile a little, sitting out here in the middle of the Nevada desert foothills, waiting for the engine to cool enough to keep plodding up the hill. 
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+I go for a walk up the road, to see what's beyond the next curve. Maybe the road crests a ridge and drops into a cool, lush valley with a river running through it. The bend doesn't seem to end though, I keep walking but can never more than the next few hundred yards. I give up and head back to the bus. My wife and kids are back from their explorations, ready to go. The engine has cooled some, so we clamor in and decided to make another push up the mountains. The problem is that now we're starting from well, zero. On this kind of incline, starting from a full stop I give up a mile before we overheat again. I will never know of course because the odometer is broken, but we don't get far. But we get on down the road. After about what I'd guess is a mile I spy a pull out. I haven't smelled radiator fluid yet, but I decide to take advantage of the pull out. Sure enough when we stop the engine is overheating it's just low enough on fluid that it hasn't flooded. 
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+I shut her down and this time the initial silence is broken by the sound of an engine off in the distance. People. 
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+Nevada is a lonely place. The so-called loneliest road in America runs across it. I think the road were on is far lonelier, but it's not as long, so I guess it doesn't rate. We'd had a good drive until we turned onto this road and got some hints of what was to come. The signs read steep, winding roads ahead. Okay, no biggie, probably. We'll take it slow, stop when we need too. Then there was a sign that said one lane road ahead, trucks not recommended. But we’re on a two digit state highway in Nevada, those don’t narrow down to one lane. I thought maybe it meant there was no passing lane. It did not mean that.
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+Up and over the first pass was not too bad, though it was the windiest road we'd been on. We stopped at the pass and had snack. A road work crew we’d passed up the mountain came down and pulled into the same turnout we were in. I took the opportunity to ask them about the next pass. They seemed to think we’d be fine, though one of them did say, "there's one part we call the narrows, it’s only one lane through there." I just stared at him for a minute. "Seriously?" “Seriously.” “Don’t tell my wife that.”
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+Down the back side despite my best efforts at downshifting the brakes started to smell. We took a break to let them rest and enjoy the view. Of absolute nothing. Excepting perhaps some portions of route 50 (the so-called loneliest highway) route 168 is the most remote road I’ve ever been on. There’s no civilization for its entire run over the White Mountains. Just empty desert and one lone building set way back from the road with a huge sign that says “no telephone available.” The only other vehicles we saw were a few empty hay trucks driving way too fast for the road.
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+We said goodbye and hit the road again. Climbing the third pass I started to smell that sweet smell of radiator fluid and pulled into the next turn out. The bus sat boiling over for a bit, maybe a quart, and then it stopped. We climbed out to sit for a while and consider our options. Except that there weren’t any really. With no cell reception to call a tow truck, no real way to turn around, and no where else to go even if we did, we had to get over the pass. At one point an older gentleman on a Harley stopped at see if we were okay. We chatted for a bit and he told us the top of the pass was only about four or five miles ahead, which was encouraging.
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+This is something Matthew Crawford explores extensively in his 2010 book, Shop Class as Soul Craft. Crawford's book is an extended meditation on what it means to work with your hands and abide by the rules of mechanics. There are hard limits, hard realities in the bus's engine that don't exist in the rest of my life. If a few words in this essay are slightly off that's on me to be sure, and I don't look good, but, well, life goes on. If the cam shaft lobes in the 318 are mere millimeters off the entire engine will be nothing but a hunk of useless metal in short order. 
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+"As a group, they have quite varied educational backgrounds and careers. What stands out is how smart they are and how much they enjoy what they do. Most of them were fortunate to find a mentor who encouraged them early on, but they are also largely self-taught, picking up new skills wherever they can. They challenge themselves with new ideas for projects and often share the results via the Internet. Makers are practical, clever, and creative. - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/correspondence-fall-2006
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+Problem solving seems fun after the problem is solved. During the actual solving it’s less fun. Food, sleep, these things seem unimportant when I have a problem that needs solving stuck in my head. I tend to get obsessed about things. Even when I don’t want to. It’s one of the reasons I don’t do much programming anymore. I never let things go until I solve the problem to my satisfaction. Of course breaking a web server doesn't cost much relative to damaging an engine, so with the bus the stakes are much higher, which means the sullen thinking phase I pass through is correspondingly more sullen and requires more concentration.
 
 
-Problem solving seems fun after the problem is solved. During the actual solving it’s less fun. Food, sleep, these things seem unimportant when I have a problem that needs solving stuck in my head. I tend to get obsessed about things. Even when I don’t want to. It’s one of the reasons I don’t do much programming anymore. I never let things go until I solve the problem to my satisfaction. Of course breaking a web server doesn’t cost much relative to damaging an engine, so with the bus the stakes are much higher, the sullen thinking phase I pass through is correspondingly more sullen and requires more concentration.
 
 Something here about the exhilaration of figuring things out. Example with the fuel pump and then later with the exhaust manifolds
 
diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt
index 698c8a2..5b33ba7 100644
--- a/scratch.txt
+++ b/scratch.txt
@@ -1,38 +1,17 @@
 The energy of chaos is required to change the existing order.
 
 # Stories to Tell
-- ice storm, staying longer in one place, snow storm
-
-Long time readers may have noticed we've been moving a little slower than we once did. This was partly a conscious decision on our part, and partly a consequence of needing to stay south until it warms up. And it has not warmed up yet.
-
-I like the slower pace most of the time -- we've ended up spending about two weeks everywhere so far -- but one unintended consequence of both moving slower and making reservations is that you really can't dodge the weather. In the old days I used to study wind and weather maps to figure out where we should go to stay warm or cool, but when you have immutable reservations, and everything else is booked solid for months anyway, the weather becomes something that happens to you. 
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-Our first week at Huntington the weather was beautiful. Warm enough to spend some time out on the beach, though not quite warm enough for bathing suits.
-
-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-26_175623_huntington-beach.jpg" id="image-2779" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-24_164914_huntington-beach.jpg" id="image-2778" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-23_170931_huntington-beach-sp.jpg" id="image-2777" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-23_165640_huntington-beach-sp.jpg" id="image-2776" class="picwide" />
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-Then, the day we were supposed to leave an ice storm rolled through. Judging by the way the chain stores around town shutdown early you'd have thought it was the end of the world. Most of the locals seemed imperturbed, but for some people these days any slight inconvenience seems to be the end of the world. What actually happened was that overnight the world was coated in a thin layer of ice. Beautiful, cold, and windy, but hardly the end of the world. It was all gone by the afternoon.
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-We got up early to see the rime of ice on the marsh, the trees. The birds were unfazed by the cold, picking in the shallows for shrimp and fish just as they always do. 
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-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-22_105735_huntington-ice-storm.jpg" id="image-2793" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2022/IMG_20220123_094515.jpg" id="image-2784" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2022/2022-01-22_105425_huntington-ice-storm.jpg" id="image-2775" class="picwide" />
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-We were due to head out that day, back down to Edisto, but while the storm was mild, the cold was real. The high for the day was only 34 and there's no heat when the bus is running. Suffice to say that I wasn't really looking forward to the drive. But I didn't want to throw away the money we'd already spent on the reservation. I called the park headquarters though and a very nice ranger was more than happy to refund our reservation. I walked over the Huntington Beach park office and pretty soon we were good to stay for another week. 
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-It ended up being a cold week. We spent a good bit of time in the bus, with the heater cranked to high and still wearing jackets. It's a good cozy home though.
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+- jui jitsu interlude
+- solar expansion, back in the woods, inverter woes, broken freezer
 
 
+---
 
+Cameras are increasingly designed to remove the human factor from the act of taking a picture. With the addition over the last several decades of features like autofocus, auto white balance, and auto light metering, the engineering effort of most camera manufacturers has gone into replacing the learned choices of the individual photographer with algorithms. These algorithms turn the act of producing a great image into something that’s no longer a challenge you must rise to or adapt to, but a series of options you can choose between. 
 
+To repair is to join a community.
 
+The right to repair the need to repair the desire to repair is fundamentally a communal desire it's a hierarchical desire hierarchical community of experience being handed down but it's fundamentally communal you can't get this knowledge without it being handed down to you whether that is through books through more experienced people through YouTube through any number of other means of disseminating information it has to come down 3 time from someone hierarchical a above you with more skills than you and it takes humility to become part of that system so you have humility and community and these are two things that are fundamentally opposed pictures of dominant worldview of the modern world
 
 
 ## birds to write about: