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| -rw-r--r-- | school-bus-notes.txt | 12 | ||||
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| -rw-r--r-- | theanalogreview.com.txt | 89 |
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diff --git a/school-bus-notes.txt b/school-bus-notes.txt index 7f58ff6..1a962a3 100644 --- a/school-bus-notes.txt +++ b/school-bus-notes.txt @@ -1,5 +1,12 @@ # School Bus Notes +1/2" XPS: $22 (need 7 for floor insul, $154+ tax) +1.5" XPS: $34 +2" XPS: $46 (project 12 for roof and walls, $555 + tax) +15/32" ply: $24 (wood for subfloor, need 7, $170 + tax) + +total insulation and subfloor: ~$900 + 32-35 ft school bus 6.6 duramax (chevy) buy from a desert area. direct from school district. tucson. @@ -12,20 +19,18 @@ have diesel heater if not weld in truck-style boxes - Use mini split for air??? Or go rooftop air units - have roof storage on left to avoid trees which will mainly be on right -- rear master bed on platform over water tank. or engine if rear engine. +- rear master bed on platform over water tank. - Kids beds forward of that, two bunks, one with storage under - slat beds to keep mattresses dry - hold couch cushions in place with velcro, just the hook side in strips - convert a chest freezer to fridge with a Inkbird: https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Temperature-Controller-Controlling-Fermentation/dp/B07PVBG8K1 - room in kitchen for gamma seal bucket of flour? - 3 propane canisters -- wood burning stove maybe or dickenson propane heater (what's condensation like with that?) - 1400 watts solar on top, 400 portable / 600 to 800 Ah batteries - 3000 W inverter to standard RV dist panel (or do with all-in-one solar/inverter/charger) 110V stuff: - aircon unit in back - 2-3 outlets - - fridge - These are the best way to splice wires and make branches: https://www.amazon.com/Wago-221-413-LEVER-NUTS-Conductor-Connectors/dp/B017NQWDY4/ - Diesel battery charging??? - run 12V wiring external to walls as much as possible for access. ceiling lights are the exception. @@ -47,7 +52,6 @@ have diesel heater - frame with 3/4 ACS plywood cut into 2 inch boards and run lengthwise to mimimize contact with steel frames. Double up if you want super strong points to hang stuff from https://inv.vern.cc/watch?v=codc32FDTZA - frame with teks self-drilling wood to metal screws. - use lightweight garnica poplar for overhead cabinets https://www.metrohardwoods.com/products/plywood/garnica-lightweight-plywood/ -- use rock wool for insulation: https://havelockwool.com/van-insulation-products/ - put in wood strips the height of instax prints for putting up prints in some organized way or a strip of wood with a slat the stick them in diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt index 27ec90a..c007e6d 100644 --- a/scratch.txt +++ b/scratch.txt @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ requirements for property: at least 10 acres. Water. existing well. ability to capture water. Spectacular views. on a slope to -pleasure in the job, puts perfection in the work -- Aristotle's prescription for excellence +Pleasure in the job, puts perfection in the work -- Aristotle's prescription for excellence every essay needs a story to hang it on. And an audio/visual podcast of it. @@ -30,9 +30,6 @@ The good and the true are convertible with being, they are fundamentally the sam The counter argument is that God should not be constrained by his own nature. Therefore something is good because god wills it. (voluntarism). But this then leads to the idea that Not the nature of a thing, its being goodness and truth, determine reality, but the sheer act of a will. e.g. Schopenhauer. The problem is overemphasis on the will leads here, where we are divorced from the world as it really is. If I decide entirely what is true, then I can decide what is true then I can weigh 600 pounds and declare myself healthy. I can say I'm a cat and force my employer to provide a litter box. - - - ## Seems Like a Lot of Folks Gave Up or Got Out, Except For the Truly Devote Spend a some time in the environment around you, really spend some time. Lose the headphones. Maybe put aside some of the plastic sports gear. Just walk with no plan, no goals, not for your health, your mental health any of that stuff. Find a quiet place to sit, somewhere near you. Sit with the rocks, the trees, the dirt, the sky, the plants, the animals. Then think of all of it, pretend for a moment, that these things are valuable to you like other people are valuable, and more importantly, that you matter to them. That your presence is important to the rocks, to the trees, to the sky, to all of it. Now what sort of life would you lead if you really believed that? Go live that life. @@ -569,24 +566,111 @@ People have forgotten how important the sun is. You can die from lack of sun. # Stories to Tell -## Something Needs to Change +## April White + +The mild winter of 2023-2024 gave us the opportunity to go up to Lake Superior much earlier than usual. Last year we arrived after Memorial Day. This year we headed into Wisconsin April 1. So far as I have been able to discover, there is only one Wisconsin state park that opens this early. Luckily for us, it's right where we wanted to be to visit some friends in Plover, Wisconsin. + +We headed north from [Ferne Clyffe](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/03/illinois-cliffs), stopped off for a night in Rockford, and made it up to Hartman Creek State Park the day it opened. The forecast called for some rain that afternoon, but on the drive in I hit a few snow flurries and the temperature dropped to unpleasant levels for driving the bus (the heater in the bus has never worked). The last few miles the "rain" alternated between sleet and snow, and by the time we pulled into camp it was steady snow. It didn't let up much in the night and was back at the next morning, continuing all through the day. + +We had the campground to ourselves. Two other people had brought out their rigs, but they seemed to be locals. They left their rigs and went (I assume) home. It was just us and the snow. + +It had been some time since I'd been a snow storm like this and Corrinne and the kids never really have. I forgot how utter silent the world is when it snows. + + + + +## Ferne Clyffe + +If you look at a map of the U.S., there's a few routes that will get you from Pensacola FL to Wisconsin. They all have one things in common: they pass through Illinois. Unfortunately, there isn't much camping in Illinois, and what camping there is... is generally not great. We've stated in [small town](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/06/prairie-notes) [city parks](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2023/05/going-up-north) the last couple times through, which were nice enough for a night, but not someplace you'd want to spend any time. + +But nothing is all bad either. We call the route we take Maximum Illinois since it enters at the southernmost point and exits at the northern most. Somewhere in there we knew there were great places and we were going to find them damnit. + +One of the things we figured our very quickly in our travels is you should never camp within 20 miles of the border in a state where marijuana is legal. This is where every meth head from the surround states will camp when they come to get their weed. The campgrounds will be run down, trashed, sketchy, and full of meth heads. That's just how it goes these days. Cross those off the list. If you do that for Illinois (and you should because this is absolutely the case in Paducah, Rockford, and anywhere around Lake Michigan) you're not left with a lot of camping options. + +We considered harvest hosts, but those are generally only for 24 hours. We needed somewhere to stay while a snow storm (hopefully the last!) dumped a foot or more where we were headed in Wisconsin. This is how we ended up at Ferne Clyffe State Park, which had never quite fallen at the right mileage point for stopping. This time we did an extra long day and made it. It's good we did because Ferne Clyffe is without a doubt the nicest place we've been in Illinois. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_144552_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3975" class="picwide caption" /> +<div class="cluster"> + <span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_120937_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3977" class="cluster pic66" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121141_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3976" class="cluster pic66" /> + </span> +</div> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122646_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3978" class="picwide" /> + + +We pulled into a nearly empty campground, which was fortunate because we hadn't even thought about making reservations ahead of time. I can't tell you the last time we did that. I loved the place already. + +It was still very much winter when we arrived the last week in March. The tree limbs were still leafless, skeleton arms scratching at the still-wintery sky. But Ferne Clyffe was lush with lichens, moss, and ferns growing in clusters wherever water leached out of the limestone cliffs and beautifully carved canyon walls. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_152848_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3981" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145021_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3979" class="picwide" /> + +After six weeks in the tightly-policed, don't-even-think-about-climbing-it "nature" of [Fort Pickens](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/01/microcosm), the kids were eager to get climbing all over Ferne Clyffe. Happily there were no signs telling them not too, and no one around to tell them otherwise. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and climb they did. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_121249_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3982" class="picwide" /> + +There seems to be a fundamental human need to climb. I don't mean technical rock climbing, I mean getting to the top of things. I have no idea why. To add to Edmund Hilary's famous quote about climbing Everest, the best I can think of is, *because we're alive, and it's here*. But then asking *why?* rarely leads to interesting experiences, *why not?* is a more rewarding guide to life. + +Whatever the case I've noticed that when there are rocks or trees to climb our kids are happy. Almost all their favorite spots, like [Valley of Fire](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/valley-fire), [Zion](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/zion), and [the place in Utah I never named](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/08/canyoneering) among others, all have rocks or trees to climb. + +Ferne Clyffe had a network of trails running through the various canyons (one main canyon with a couple of offshoots). It's not a huge place, but it was enough to keep our days filled with hiking and climbing and birding. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_151148_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3980" class="picwide" /> +<div class="cluster"> + <span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145656_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3984" class="cluster pic66" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122605_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3988" class="cluster pic66" /> + </span> +</div> + +I got the kids loupes as part of [a larger project](https://www.theprivateeyestore.com), for observation and sketching. The endless moss and lichens of Ferne Clyffe gave them a chance to use them. Studying moss through a loupe you quickly discover that the form of the surrounding forest is repeated in the carpet of moss. What we call moss is in fact tiny forests living on the rocks and fallen trees, living at a different scale, but nearly identical means. + +"Learning to see mosses is more like listening than looking," writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book [<cite>Gathering Moss</cite>](https://bookshop.org/p/books/gathering-moss-a-natural-and-cultural-history-of-mosses-robin-wall-kimmerer/8632077?ean=9780870714993). "A cursory glance will not do it. Straining to hear a faraway voice or catch a nuance in the quiet subtext of a conversation requires attentiveness, a filtering of all the noise, to catch the music. Mosses are not elevator music; they are the intertwined threads of a Beethoven quartet." + +We looked and listened, hiked and climbed. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121551_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3986" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121543_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3985" class="picwide" /> + + +## Growing + + +Welcome to this channel. My name is Scott Gilbertson. + +Seven years ago my wife and I sold our house, all of our belongings, loaded our three children in a 1969 Dodge Travco motorhome and set out to explore the united states. + +Our twin daughters were 4 years old. Just learning to ride bikes. Our son was not yet 2. + +We spent 18 months traveling, breaking down, repairing the bus, traveling some more, breaking down a little less and traveling some more, from Florida, across the gulf, through texas, new mexico, colorado, Utah, Nevada, Cailfornia, and then back east through Arizona, texas again, the midwest, the great lakes. Last time I counted we'd been through 27 states. + +We took some breaks. We spent 9 months living in Mexico. Then we rented a house when the world shut down in 2020. But we've never had a home aside from the bus as we call it. + +Before we left, when we were selling our house, I was walking through it with the buyer's inspector, he asked about our plans, and I told him we were planning to live in a 27 foot RV. He stopped and stared at me for a minute. Then all he said was, Y'all are going to be close. + +He was right. We are close. We've had a wonderful time sharing our lives and traveling. But we've also grown. Well, our kids have grown. When we left they could sleep all three sideways in full bed. Now our daughter's are nearly 12, half grown women, and our son is growing every day too. We needed more space. -I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime -- Henry David Thoreau +After talking it over for months. Years really. Debating every kind of rig we've ever seen or heard of, most of which we knew we did not want, we decided to go the school bus route. A school bus is a blank slate. We wanted to design our home to fit our lives, to add the things that are missing in the bus and above all, to never, ever have to put up or put down beds again so long as I live. -Pastime \Pas"time`\, n. That which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably -- Webster's 1913 +Which is how I came to be here. -I enjoy making things. The things are often irrelevant though. It's the making that I enjoy, it reminds me of traveling. When you make something you are completely absorbed in that process to the point that you forget everything else, forget the world, save this tiny part of it that you are reshaping. Your concentration becomes sharplyh focused on the task at hand and everything else that makes up you, fades away momentarily. There is a freedom in that reminds me of traveling. -When traveling there is only right now, a complete absorption, obsession even, with the world in front of you. The food on the plate, the bumps in the road, the birds calling in the morning air, whatever it is, there is only that. It's a state of ease, relaxed absorption, freedom. Realizing that you have nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to do to maintain yourself in this world, save to be where you are, doing what you're doing. That is a kind freedom. The more often you can do this, the better life will be. -If done properly everyday tasks can be lent this same holiness. This is why there are elaborate ceremonines around tea, coffee, food, perhaps cleaning. All ordinary things made extraordinary by focusing attention on them and exluding everything else for a moment. +Certainly this is how writing is for me. Not that I am a great craftsman, but I do know that experience of knowing what to write not because I thought of it consciously, but because it's there, one word after another until they all fit. I am merely transcribing. +That's not to say it's easy. The opposite actually. Usually this is presaged by struggle. I can't figure out how to say what I want to say. I write, I re-write, nothing works. I step away. I do something else. I try to get the whole thing out of my head, and when I finally do I either forget it entirely, or it comes crashing out in one long burst, all there for me, all I have to do is type it up. Did I think of it? Was it given to me from elsewhere? I don't know. + + + + +I must backpedal on the statement I opened with, that it doesn't really matter what you make. That's not entirely true. It doesn't matter what the thing is, but the person making it must want it, must need it. Inspired making of the sort I am thinking of leads to things of beauty. Useful or purely ornamental doesn't matter, but to invest something with the thumb of God cannot result in anything other than the beautiful, and you have to want it to get there. In that sense the thing matters. + +It's possible to go further than with this than just making things. If done properly everyday tasks can be lent this same holiness. This is why there are elaborate ceremonies around things like tea, coffee, food, even cleaning. All ordinary things made extraordinary by focusing attention on them and excluding everything else for a moment. -Whatever the case, I believe these experiences, making, traveling, they are cut of the same cloth I think, one of the many threads back to the gods. -That's the joy in making, the things are often incidental. That said, the best is when the making leads to a things that beautiful and satisying, perhaps even useful. @@ -628,6 +712,43 @@ if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are st We sprinted across Florida in two quick drives over to the far end of the panhandle. We stopped in the middle at the Tallahassee Car Museum, I weird little museum that has a few campsites out front (not everything in Harvest Hosts is a farm) +## Spirit of Craft + + +> I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime <cite>--Henry David Thoreau</cite> + +I enjoy making things. The things are often irrelevant, it's the making that I enjoy. It reminds me of traveling. When you make something you are completely absorbed in that process to the point that you forget everything else, forget the world, save this tiny part of it that you are reshaping. + +Travel is the same way, there is only right now. A complete absorption, obsession even, with the world in front of you. The plantains and steak on the plate, the potholes in the road, the birds calling in the cold morning air. Wherever you are, there is only that, the rest of the world pales, ceases to exist. It's a state of ease, of relaxed absorption, of freedom. Realizing that you have nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to do to maintain yourself in this world, save to be where you are, doing what you're doing. + +This is freedom. Doing things. Making things. Same thing. + +Yet one of the current cultural ideals is getting others to do things for you. Outsourcing your life. Someone else mows the lawn. Someone else cleans the house. Someone else fixes the car. This is called success. + +I ran across Hegel's paradigm of servant and master the other day, which I don't think I've thought of since I dropped out of college in 1994. I was struck though at how well Hegel defines modern culture. If you're not familiar, in Hegel's story the master grows increasingly impoverished through idleness while the servant grows daily in skill and wisdom because he is doing things for himself. So one starts dependent on the other, the other ends up dependent. The pivotal moment of Hegel is when the servant realizes he no longer needs the master, what he needs is to perfect his skill further. + +We're in danger of becoming the "master", who is really master in name only. I'm not saying you have to get out an mow your lawn to achieve freedom, but I am not alone in thinking that in the pursuit of "freedom from" we're losing our "freedom to"... to do, to make, to say, to think. + +It's not just that we're becoming masters of nothing, it's that we've lost the very resourcefulness that marks a truly free human being, one who is independent and capable of solving problems on his or her own, thinking for his or herself. Contrary to what marketers are selling, freedom is in doing, in making, growing in skill and wisdom. + +The more often you can do this, the better life will be. + +Why? That's the question isn't it? + +When making your concentration becomes sharply focused on the task at hand and everything else that makes up you, fades away. The chattering I that is usually busy thinking and analyzing is set aside while someone else drives the ship. It's an odd thing when you experience it. Something working through you. A kind of communion with the gods perhaps. The Greeks held this to be true of great craftsmen[^1], that Athena, or Hephaestus, or whoever governed the craft at hand was in fact working through the craftsman to create the work. In this sense the craftsman is no longer there. They become a conduit for the gods to move in the world. + +Most people I know who are great craftsmen speak in these terms, saying that they do not know where their ideas come from, nor are they conscious of the particular skills they're using at any given moment, they simply do, they simply are, or are not in this case. As a skilled woodworker I know says, the key to being good at anything is to get out of your own way. + +This is how making things becomes a spiritual discipline, an act of letting the gods move the world through you. "For true masonry is not held together by cement but by gravity, that is to say, by the warp of the world, by the stuff of creation itself," writes Cormac McCarthy in *The Stonemason*. "The keystone that locks the arch is pressed in place by the thumb of God." + +[^1]: This is a gendered word where I do not intend a gender, anyone can be a creator, a craftsman, but English has no better term that I know of, sorry. + + + + + + + ## Darktable shortcuts: @@ -854,6 +975,159 @@ https://www.vagabondjourney.com/you-cant-get-lost-anymore/ # jrnl +## Mobile Bay + + +Welcome to all the new subscribers. I'm not sure how so many new people came across the site lately, but welcome. I'm in the process of catching up, so this entry steps back in time a couple of months, when we were still down south. Anyway, please, enjoy. + +We maxed out our time at Fort Pickens. After six weeks, it was time to move on. We had planned to go to New Orleans, and then up into the Ozarks, before heading back up to Wisconsin for the summer, but given how mild the winter turned out to be, we decided to press north sooner than usual. + +Our first stop was not far away, Mobile Bay. We've driven by Meaher State Park a dozen times by this point but we'd never stopped. This year we decided to see what it was like. We were a little early for bird migration, which is one of its claims to fame, but it's right in the middle of Mobile bay, so it had great views. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-12_185010_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3967" class="picwide" /> + +It's also right down the street from the battleship Alabama. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-16_093900_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3968" class="picwide" /> + +The USS Alabama was a lot like the [battleship North Carolina](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2023/12/winter-storm), but without the cool paint job. + +What it did have, was the nicest ice cream bar of any of the three battleships we've toured. All things considered, the kids decided the Alabama was the best place to be stationed. Not only did it never take any significant hits in its lifetime of service, the ice cream situation was unmatched in the Navy. So far as we know. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-16_103719_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3972" class="picwide" /> + +The mess hall on the other hand left much to be desired. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-16_103556_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3971" class="picwide" /> + +Like the North Carolina, the Alabama's main gun turrets were open to explore. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-16_094147_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3969" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-16_094333_mobile-bay.jpg" id="image-3970" class="picwide" /> + +We'd planned to check out the city of Mobile too, but the weather conspired against us with rain and thunderstorms most of the time we were in the area. We never did make it to downtown, but one of the great things about living this way is you don't really have to worry about missing something, you can always come back. + +Despite what you often hear, I've come to feel like the road is long, that life is long. There's plenty of time, and no reason to rush. That feeling that we need to hurry up comes from living in the future. We're in a rush to get to the futures we imagine. There's nothing wrong with planning for the future, but I try to make sure I'm living in the here and now and not rushing through today to get to tomorrow. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-03-18_071347_dewayne-hayes.jpg" id="image-3974" class="picwide" /> + + + + +We split up after Mobile, Corrinne and the kids went to visit her parents just south of Atlanta, while I went north, bound for Wisconsin. + + +A week later we met up in Alabama and pushed on up to Illinois. + + + + +## Fly Navy + +The one upside to [getting kicked out of Fort Pickens for a storm that never hit](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/01/microcosm), was meeting the pilot. + +The bus, wherever it goes, is conspicuous. It is especially conspicuous in the middle of an otherwise empty parking lot. Next to the parking lot was a collection of condos, and several people came over, curious about the bus. One, who was walking two dogs, stopped to let the kids pet them. + +We got to talking and mentioned that we were headed to the recently re-opened Navy Air Museum, and he said, "oh, a couple of my old planes are in there." Say what? It turned out that had he been a Navy pilot and flight instructor at NAS Pensacola for many years. + +Elliott is currently fascinated by war, as I think most young boys are at some point, but he's especially fascinated by planes, which is why we were headed back to the Navy Air Museum. Knowing that he was talking to someone who had actually flown the planes he has models of was almost too much for him. + +Later the pilot brought out some of his old flight logs for Elliott to look at, and then, when we were leaving to go back to Fort Pickens, he gave Elliott a pair of his Navy wings. It will be some years I imagine before the significance of that sinks in, but I put them in a safe place in the mean time. + +We [went to the Navy Air Museum](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2018/03/island-sun) once before, but the kids were young enough that they don't have many memories of it. We tried to go back last year, but the base has been closed to the public since the [shooting in 2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Pensacola_shooting). This winter the museum finally re-opened to the public. After a couple of days back at Fort Pickens we had to leave for 24 hours (you can't stay on federal land for more than 14 consecutive nights), so we went over to Big Lagoon State Park, which is just down the road from the Navy Air Museum. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_123004_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3959" class="picwide" /> + +Like most men my age, I wanted to be a naval aviator. After Top Gun came out, who didn't? I went so far as to apply to the Naval Academy. I even met with my congressman to get his endorsement (required as part of the application process). I was pretty sure I'd be accepted, but unfortunately, junior year in high school, when I was doing all this, it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to hide my less than perfect vision. + +I ended up with glasses and my dream of flying for the Navy went away as soon as I put them on. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do in the Navy, so I dropped my application to the Naval Academy and moved on to other things. But I never lost my awe for flying, or my love of naval aviation history. + +The Navy Air Museum has an immense collection of planes spread across three huge buildings, with a few outside as well. It's the best collection of navy planes I've ever seen, and to have someone we knew tell use where his planes were made it that much more fun. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_135512_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3962" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_121845_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3957" class="picwide" /> + +At this point I think I sound like a broken record, but what makes the Navy museum great is what makes any museum great: letting people actually touch things. The Navy Air Museum has plenty of cockpits to climb in, fuselages to crawl through, and even a presidential helicopter where you can sit down inside. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_122704_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3958" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_135330_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3961" class="picwide" /> + +There's some good historical information too, including a few of my favorite museum displays, the diorama. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_130239_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3966" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_112558_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3964" class="picwide caption" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_112458_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3963" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_124335_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3960" class="picwide caption" /> + +The dioramas, and more broadly, history according to the Navy, would lead you to think there was nothing so exciting as war. My first thought was that that's ridiculous, but the more I walked around the museum, the more I wondered if maybe the Navy is right. + +While some people would like to deny it, there is a part of human beings that seems genetically hardwired to enjoy fighting. Every culture I'm aware of has produced a warrior element dedicated to fighting. And yes, many people in those warrior elements like it. I understand that feeling. I feel it in JuiJitsu. It's satisfying to submit someone, I imagine the satisfaction is even greater the higher the stakes get. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-10_113958_navy-air-museum.jpg" id="image-3965" class="picwide caption" /> + + +The kids were drawn to the dioramas because they gave a glimpse of life as it used to be, from wooden huts of the world wars, to a Vietnam era berth on an aircraft carrier. I'd be lying if I said those glimpses of life didn't look appealing. I'm sure sitting around drinking wine in a wooden hut in France, circa 1917 *was* fun when nothing else was happening. The part where people came and dropped bombs on you, killed your friends, possibly killed you, that's the part left out of the diorama. But what if that part only served to make those moments of peacefulness more valuable? What if you need struggle to appreciate the lack of struggle? + +What if when we're looking back at earlier times and finding them more appealing than our own, we aren't looking at history through rose-colored glasses? What if what appeals to us isn't the so-called simpler times, but the opposite, harder times? What if hard is good, struggle is good, and that's why the past is so appealing? + + + +## Microcosm + +We sprinted across Florida, from St. Augustine to the far end of the panhandle in two quick drives. We stopped in the middle at the Tallahassee Car Museum, an odd little museum with a few campsites out front (not everything on Harvest Hosts is a farm). + +<img src="images/2024/2024-01-23_145543_car-museum.jpg" id="image-3944" class="picwide" /> + +The kids and I wandered around the museum for a while, checking out the cars and other antiques, but the extremely dry air was weird and uncomfortable. I understand the reasoning there, but it's a bit much to go from tropical Florida humidity to Arizona desert dry in the span of six feet. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-01-23_152131_car-museum.jpg" id="image-3945" class="picwide" /> + +The next day we were at Fort Pickens, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and one of my favorite, and least favorite, places in all our travels. + +Fort Pickens is an oddball spot because the natural aspects, the beach and dunes, the crystal clear water, it's hard to really say anything bad about the place. Who can argue with this? + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-02_155549_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3946" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-21_151247_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3954" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-18_174813_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3950" class="picwide" /> + +The problem with Fort Pickens is that it's the most mis-managed public park we've ever encountered. Everyone sees it, except the managers of course. From the park employees to people camping with us, everyone feels it, but we put up with it because of the location. + +I think this year will be our last for a while though. I can deal with asshole camp hosts, rangers who do nothing but yell, but when the park shuts down at the hint of a storm, with no warning, no refund, and nowhere to go that just doesn't work. + +We were lucky because some locals told us the sheriff wouldn't care if we spent the night in a nearby state beach parking lot. That's where we waited out the oh-so-dangerous storm. That never showed. But I felt bad for the people who'd driven a thousand miles and now either had to spend $400 a night on a hotel room or just go home. Either way, your vacation is ruined. + +I tend to take a philosophical view of these things, since the alternative is, well, there isn't an alternative I can see. We've reached the stage of civilizational collapse where you get what you get and there's nothing you can do about that. So I take the philosophical, or perhaps abstract view is a better way to put it. + +To me Fort Pickens is a microcosm of the collapse of our national government. The distant park managers, ensconced in their posh homes in Atlanta, 350 miles away, attempt to decide what's best for the park, for the visitors, from a distance that makes it impossible for them to know what's actually happening. That's if their intentions are good. I am unconvinced they are. Much as we don't like to admit it, some leaders suck at leading. Some are just in it for the status and power. + +Sound familiar? It's how you get this. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-03_152735_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3947" class="picwide caption" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-04_140807_ft-pickens.jpg" id="image-3948" class="picwide" /> + +The storm was supposed to come in on Friday, but of course no one who makes decisions about these things works the weekend, so once the park was closed, it wasn't opening again until Monday at the earliest no matter the weather. Never mind that the storm never hit, and the sun never stopped shining. The TPS reports required to re-open weren't done until Monday. And then the park forgot to send out an email and tell everyone it was open. We only knew because we were sitting there watching the gate. + +The sheriff I talked to (who was very nice about letting us stay in the parking lot for the weekend) had a few choice words for the feds, they were accurate, but I won't repeat them here. Just don't forget that we, my fellow taxpaying American, we own this place. + +And it is a beautiful place. + +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-18_185157_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3953" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-24_132218_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3955" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-13_132218_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3949" class="picwide" /> +<div class="cluster"> + <span class="row-2"> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-18_175850_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3951" class="cluster pic66" /> +<img src="images/2024/2024-02-24_151247_fort-pickens.jpg" id="image-3956" class="cluster pic66" /> + </span> +</div> + +This is why I call it a microcosm of the nation. America is a beautiful place, the land, the cultures, the people. Unfortunately we've let a very small, selfish, malignant minority take it over. And no, I am not a democrat, or a republican (I see no difference), a leftist or a rightist. They're all the same. The solutions to the problem won't come from the people who created the problem. The current managerial class is out of ideas, that's all. Eventually they'll collapse, some one new will step in with some answers and the process will repeat itself. As it has, for millennia. + +In the mean time, I try to keep my children in mind. They're going to live further down this timeline than I am. It may get considerably rougher, it may not, who knows. All I know is that I want to hold their hands for as long as I can, and show them some beauty before more damage is done. + + + + ## Fortified From Edisto we worked our way south, stopping off a Hunting Island for a few dismal days in the cold and rain, camping in a site that was just a smidge above actual bog. We escaped that dreariness for the much more uplifting Fort McAllister, the first of a string of forts we wanted to check out on the Georgia and Florida coast. @@ -3940,7 +4214,76 @@ The right to repair the need to repair the desire to repair is fundamentally a c # essays -We saw sticker on the sign to the Henry Miller library that said, "Safety Third". This became our antidote to the endless rules of public spaces. It was a good family joke. Whenever we do something other people might frown on, one of us will invariably shout, "safety third!" before plunging ahead. But safetyism is a real problem that we all struggle with. I think you beat the safety game by playing a different one. You play the personal responsibility and risk management game. You go slow, you learn your limits, but then you keep playing. You push your limits. You do things that scare you because they also call to you. You keep expanding and growing. You can read more in the essay [*Safety Third*](https://luxagraf.net/essay/safety-third). +## We'll Make It Work + +The title of this post comes from my wife. I'd more likely say, *We'll Figure It Out*, but that's very different. Sometimes you do need to figure things out, but more often you have to take them as they are and Make It Work. + +We'll Make It Work. This phrase, her way of thinking about problems essentially, is the only reason we're still out here. + +Broken down in the [high desert of California](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/12/terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-week)? We'll make it work. Lost my income right after moving to Mexico? We'll make it work. [Blown a head gasket](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/10/going-down-swinging) in the middle of nowhere Colorado? We'll make it work. [Brakes failing](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/03/more-adventures-travco-brakes)? We'll make it work. [Brand new Jeep dead](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2023/12/repair-fail)? We'll make it work. World ending in a rain of fire? We'll make it work. + +I never really thought much about this attitude until recently when it started to come up a lot as we contemplate some big changes in our lives. I would raise potential objections to plans, and Corrinne would shrug and say "we'll make it work." Other times she would say, "how the #%$& are we going to do that?" And I'd shrug and say "we'll figure it out." It works both ways, we complement each other in this regard. Things I worry about she does not. And things she worries about don't even cross my mind until she asks about them. + +And then we each shrug at the other. *We'll make it work*. + +This I realized is what makes us able to do this. We're not rich. We're not all that smart. We're not particularly skilled. But we're willing to do whatever is necessary to make things work. + +Sometimes that means sacrifices are made. Sometimes that means working really hard. Sometimes that means letting go of preconceived ideas. Sometimes it means really accepting that something has happened. You'd be surprised at how far accepting the reality of your situation goes toward getting you out of it. [There is no cavalry](https://luxagraf.net/essay/spirit/the-cavalry-isnt-coming), the sooner you accept where you are, the sooner you'll get going again. + +Sometimes making it work might mean coming up with a new plan. It might mean you don't make it out west one year. It might mean you spend some extra time in California. It might mean you camp in a mechanic's driveway from time to time. + +I am very leery of the word compromise. The way most people use this word it seems to me means "mutual defeat by concession." No one gets what they want, no one is happy. That's no way to live. If you're compromising by making concessions, you're doing it wrong. + +A good compromise is when you say yes to everything, even to things you don't necessarily want to do. Sure, we'll go over here to the Biggest Week in America Birding and we'll also go over here to the diamond mines. We'll cross this bridge, but we'll also cross this other one even though I might want to avoid the second one. Doesn't matter what I want. Make it work. Everyone gets what they want. Are there times when that's not possible? Sure, but we'll make it work. + +What *We'll Make It Work* always means, more than anything else, is being flexible and fluid in your thinking and actions. It means not clinging to preconceived ideas when it turns out the facts on the ground are different. Making it work might mean you need rethink the path to your goals. + +We'll make it work does not mean it's going to be easy. That's okay, the easy way is rarely [the way](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/01/path). The internet loves to make memes of Bruce Lee's dictum, *be like water*[^1], but few people think this all way through. Sure, water flows, water carves canyons with its patience, but water also doesn't only goes on its path. It never stays where it is and it never takes a route that it is not meant to go. Some routes that it does take mean it smashes into rocks and is pulverized until it becomes mist, barely water at all anymore. Then it slowly falls back, becomes flowing water again, but is different somehow, changed in unaccountable ways. You want to be like water? Be prepared for the world to turn you into mist at times. Make that work. + +Above all else, We'll Make It Work means that you have to have faith in yourself and whomever else you're with that you can make it work. You have to know it in your bones. You can (and should!) second guess yourself on the particulars of making things work, but know that you can. Everyone can. It just take faith and discipline. Learn to make your own choices and craft your own life. Commit to making it work and you will find a way to make it work. + +[^1]: I could write thousands of words unpacking this simple idea, because there is so much here, but I will spare you. + + +## Simple Machines, Complex Tasks + +I picked up my dad's Pentax camera sometime in the 1980s and was hooked from day one. By high school I was committed. I set off to college with the vague idea that I would major in photography, but I dropped out before that ever came to fruition. + +Like most photographers I made the jump to digital cameras some time ago. I sold my last film camera right before we left on this trip. It was a sad moment, but I hadn't shot with the camera (a Nikon F3) in years. I knew there were people out there still shooting film, and I wanted the camera to be used, not sit around gathering dust, so I sold it. + +I didn't give film much thought after that. From a technical standpoint 35mm film is massively more expensive, has less resolving power, and it's more difficult to work with, develop, print, etc. + +Then, about six months ago, an editor at Wired reached out and asked if I would put together a guide to film photography. This caught me a little off guard. Film? Did you really say film photography? + +I said I would so long as Wired bought me a new film camera because I didn't think they would do that. Surprisingly, my editor agreed. I went on eBay and bought an old Nikon FE2, which was sort of the less pro version of the F3. It came with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens. I bought some Tri-X, and some Velvia, and went wandering around the Outer Banks trying to remember how to shoot film. + +Film photography is not like riding a bike. Everything I once knew... I forgot. But the technical hurdles didn't really bother me much after the first (embarrassingly bad) roll I developed. + +I realized pretty quickly that more than nailing complex exposures, what I really needed to do was slow down my whole way of working. I was trying to shoot film as if it were digital. It is most emphatically not digital. It has a very different process. Film has to be shot calmly, carefully, and consciously. + +This I realized is also what elevates something to a craft, doing it calmly, carefully, and consciously. + +Could you do with with a digital camera? Sure, but it's not required. The digital images that aren't quite right can be easily fixed later on your laptop. Film cannot. My experience has been that if something doesn't require me to work at something more like craft, often I do not. + +What the Nikon FE2 forced me to do was slow down. You can't just mash the shutter, you have to take everything in first. Look closely at where the light meter is reading on the subject vs the background, which raise the question, what is the subject? Should I recompose? What if I moved so that it was better framed? And so on. Then you have to turn the dials to match the light meter's reading of scene. Then check your composition again. At this slower pace there is more space to reflect on what you're doing, what you're after, and this sharpens your vision. It gives you room to think. You can wander through your memory even, remember other images you've seen or made, and use those reflections to steer your hand now. It's almost like the process becomes similar to reading a book, you generally don't rush through a book, the world of the book just unfolds at the pace of your reading. + +Why would a 40-year-old camera enable all that? I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has something to do with the simplicity of the machine and the complexity of the task. There must be a balance here, but I think on the whole what humans really need are simple machines that enable complex tasks. + +The FE2 is very simple. It lets me make the complex decisions. I am in charge of focusing the lens. I am in charge of figuring out the correct exposure. The camera gives me a light reading of the scene in front of me, but it's an average, and doesn't take into account the characteristics of the film I'm shooting, the range of light and dark in the scene, where the subject is, or any other of a dozen things I am expected to take into account. The machine is very simple, the task is very complex. + +Digital cameras are the opposite. They are very complex machines that can do 80 percent of what I have to do myself with the FE2, all I really have to do is press the shutter button. The machine is very complex, the task is very simple. While the result may be equal, or even better, the satisfaction in the task is less. + +We often focus on the results without giving much thought to the process. I think taking the opposite view, that the process is what matters, is the beginning of entering into a craft. Not this is a *thing* I am making, but this is the *process* that makes this thing. In many (most?) cases this approach also leads to better outcomes. + +It's tempting to think that it is a luxury to have the time to fully engage the process like this. It's easy to say, well, sometimes I just want to get the shot of my kids blowing out the candles or perhaps dinner needs to be ready before the kids are off to juijitsu or baseball or what have you. I don't have time to make this a process, it just needs to get done. But if I'm honest with myself, these are cop-outs. If I'm short on time it's because I didn't allot enough time for what I needed to do. Okay, start sooner. You have to give yourself the time to slow down by carving it out. Calm, careful, *conscious*. + +And sure, not everything needs to be a craft. Not everything needs to be raised to that level. I had a friend who would get all zen about doing the dishes. Maybe you do that too. That's not me. I just want the damn dishes clean. But if there's something you do a lot, I find that my enjoyment of it goes way up when I slow down and really, carefully sweat over the details. The results are usually better too. + +I made an offhand comment in a post about [Pensacola's Navy museum](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/02/fly-navy) that I think is related. I was wondering aloud really, but I wrote: what if hard is good, struggle is good, and that’s why the past is so appealing? + +What if that's what makes something a craft rather than a task that must be done? What if it's supposed to be, if not hard, then at least laborious, done carefully rather than rushed? Isn't that the whole point -- to do things well? And doesn't that usually mean doing them slowly, carefully? I think that's what film is trying to tell me: it's the complexity of the task, the difficulty of the task that makes it enjoyable, and more broadly, that the more I slow down, the more I can do carefully and consciously, the better life will be. + + ## Do It Yourself diff --git a/theanalogreview.com.txt b/theanalogreview.com.txt index dfb5a31..61e9d9b 100644 --- a/theanalogreview.com.txt +++ b/theanalogreview.com.txt @@ -75,6 +75,58 @@ There's no such thing as managing time. There's only so much you can do in day. ## EDC # Craft ## Return to Film + +I grew up shooting film. I first picked up my dad's Pentax in the 1980s and was hooked from day one. I set off to college with the vague idea that I would major in photography, though I dropped out before that ever came to fruition. + +Like most people I made the jump to digital some time ago. I sold my last film camera just before we left on this trip. It was a sad moment, but I hadn't shot with the camera (a Nikon F3) in years. I knew there were people out there still shooting film, and I wanted the camera to be used, not sit around gathering dust, so I sold it. + +I didn't really give film much thought after that. From a technical standpoint 35mm film is massively more expensive, has less resolving power, and it's more difficult to work with, print, etc. + +About six months ago an editor at WIRED reached out and asked if I would put together a guide to film photography. This caught me a little off guard. Film? Did you really just say film photography? I said I would so long as Wired bought me a new film camera because I didn't think they would do that. Surprisingly, my editor agreed. I went on eBay and bought an old Nikon FE2, which was sort of the less pro version of the F3. I didn't need the TTL and interchangeable viewfinders of the F3, so I went with the lighter weight FE2. It came with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4. Good to go. + +I bought some Tri-X and some Velvia and went wandering around the Outer Banks trying to remember how to shoot film. Film photography is not like riding a bike. Everything I once knew... I forgot. But the technical hurdles didn't really bother me much after the first (embarrassingly bad) roll I developed. + +I realized I was trying to shoot film as if it were digital. It is most emphatically not digital. It has a very different process. Film has to be shot calmly, carefully and consciously. + +I've come to think that this is cornerstone of craft. What elevates anything to a craft is that you do it carefully and consciously. + +Whether it's laying stone, stitching leather, carving toys, drawing fish, or making coffee, there is a calmness to the process of craft that comes from the care and consciousness. Even in the midst of stressful deadlines, the process itself remains a thing of calm, even calming. + +What the Nikon FE2 gives me is the need to work slower. I can't make good images on film at the same speed I can with digital. Having to slow down gives you more mental space to reflect, remember -- sometimes technical details of process come to mind (expose for the highlights, careful with that tk Tri-X is unforgiving with tk, Velvia is going to render this sand dune more magenta than it is, and so on), other times I end thinking in tangents, just wandering through memory, almost like reading a book, but with the sense there's no need to hurry, you just let the world unfold at the pace you're reading. + +Why would a 40-year-old camera do all that? I'm not entirely sure, and willing to admit that it might just be me. And don't misunderstand, this isn't a nostalgia, the process is actually difficult and sometimes annoying. If you just want results, definitely stick with digital photography. What keeps me shooting film isn't really the results, it's because the process leads me to interesting places, both mentally and physically. + +I think it has something to do with the simplicity of the machine and complexity of the task. There must be a balance here, but I think on the whole what humans really need are simple machines that enable complex tasks. + +The FE2 gives me a light reading of the scene in front of me, but it's an average, and doesn't take into account the characteristics of the film I'm shooting, the range of light and dark in the scene, where the subject is, or any other of a dozen things I must take into account. I am the computer. The machine is very simple, the task is very complex. + +Digital cameras are the opposite. They are very complex machines that can do 95 percent of what I have to do myself with the FE2, all I really have to do is press the shutter button. The machine is very complex, the task is very simple. While the result may be equal, even better in many instances, the satisfaction in the task is less because the task is too simple. + +Photographer Galen Rowell has written at length. + + + + +A craft is a process over which we have total self-determination. There is no "rushing", even when producing something for a client on a deadline. + +of the process and outcome. + + + + + +Something about this process dovetails + +everything is done +calmly, carefully and consciously. This is not about training but about attitude and total self- +determination + +wander a bit, reflect on things, travel through memories. like reading a book – you create a pleasant space for yourself. -- Doolaard + +I try to focus on the moment all the time. Planning traps you. Arriving at a goal is only exciting in the short term. At some point my home will be finished, +but that won’t last. That’s why I enjoy the journey so much. + + ## Instax Printing ## Postcard Project ## Carving @@ -157,9 +209,46 @@ Also, Benjamin Franklin didn't say it. People did not talk like that in the late You don't need me to tell you you need a plan. It should be blindingly obvious that without a plan you're ## Why shoot film + + +Photography is one of the first things in my life that I took seriously. That's not to say I didn't find it fun, I did, but it was also the first time I recall being really driven to do something (like get up before sunrise) that I didn't otherwise need to do. + +I first picked up my dad's Pentax SLR in the mid 1980s and was hooked from day one. I loved documenting the world, the things I saw. I was already into backpacking, rock climbing, and adventuring in whatever form I could find, photography became a way to document all that and share it with others. Sort of. There was no real way to share your images with anyone but friends and family back then, save getting published in a magazine. + +I started reading magazines and books, trying to work out how one got published. Somewhere in there I ran across Galen Rowell and it all clicked for me. That's what I want to do. If he could do it, so could I. I bought more Kodachrome 25 and Fuji Velvia 100 than anyone should and went traipsing around the Sierra Nevada shooting alpineglow like no one had ever seen it before. + +My main problem was that it turned out people had seen alpineglow before, and my images weren't adding anything to the story. In hindsight I can see that my images didn't really have a story at all. They were just pretty things. People like photos of pretty things (witness Instagram), but professional publications need more than that and I didn't know how to deliver it. + +I turned to music instead, telling stories with sound and words. This worked out better. I kept taking pictures, but it took a back seat to the music and writing. Eventually the music began to take a backseat to the writing. Writing didn't require anyone else. It was just me. Maybe it came more naturally too. Whatever the case I produced a lot more of it and people started to buy it. Writing then. Onward. Upward. + +This continued through the early days of this site. Then two things happened. The first was the digital camera surpassed 10 megapixels. This was where the quality of a 5 x 7 print looked the same whether you shot it with film or digital. Without giving it much thought I bought the best camera I could afford and starting shooting digital so that I could make images for both the real world and the digital. + +The other things that happened is that I read W.G. Sebald's *Austerlitz*, which is one of the best books I've ever read. The description of Antwerp railway station is one of the most stunning things I've ever read. As I recall there's a nearly five page sentence somewhere in there as well that I didn't even notice the first two times I read the book. But that's not the lasting impact of the book on me, the last impact was that the book, which a strange blend of fiction and non, used images, but in a way I had never seen anyone do before. Sebald illustrated tiny details of his story with these images -- a knapsack hanging on a wall, a photo of a rugby team, butterflies mounted in a case, a partly disassembled pocket watch, the horsehead nebula. The list of strange images goes on. + +Sebald drops these images in with no captions or any other insight. They act as a kind of documentary evidence that make you feel that the fiction characters really did the things the narrator describes. The images are always things mentioned in the story, but they aren't necessarily major things in the story, until the image puts the emphasis on them. + +If you go back and look at the early journal entries on this site, you'll see the influence of Sebald loud and clear in the images I used. The thing about these images, these little details that augmented the text I was publishing, is they didn't stand on their own at all. I didn't print them, I didn't want to print them. They were there to fit with the text, without the text they were nothing. At the time (2005) self-publishing a book was financially inaccessible so all my writing for this site exists only on this site and my digital backups. + +Digital photography got me out of the habit of printing because it let me take so many images. Currating them became overwhelming. + + + +which bothers me even more today, when self-publishing is not financially inaccessible anymore and is in fact really easy thanks to places like Blurb. + + + + + +I sold my last film camera almost 10 years ago and until a few months ago my main impression of film images I see online is that the photographers are more enthralled with shooting film than making good images. There are exceptions, but by and large, in the online world, film is the province of attention seeking hipsters. + + + ## Why print artifacts ## History as a harder time ## How Repair Skills Foster Self-Reliance and Independence + +"In modern times when everything a person needs may be bought in a store, there are very few hand-made things left. So we are robbed of that rare and wonderful satisfaction that comes with personal accomplishment. In Noah's time nearly every single thing a person touched was the result of his own efforts. The cloth of his clothing, the meal on the table, the chair he sai, and the floor he waked upon, all were made by the user. This is why those people had an extraordinary awareness of life. They knew wood intimately, the knew the ingredients of food and medicines and inks and paints because they grew it and ground it and mixed it themselves. It was this awareness of everything about them that made the early American people so full of inner satisfaction, to grateful for life and all that went with it. Nowadays modern conveniences allow us to be forgetful, and we easily become less aware of the wonders of life." + --diary of an early american boy, p40 ## Simple is Better than Complex. Complex is Better than Complicated ## There is no nature, because there is nothing unnatural, only ugly things ## Against data -- do you really need someone else to test everything for you? Do you really trust that their "expert" conclusions are right for you? Why not try things for yourself and see if they work? |