Christmas coming

Ah, the material madness descends.  But at least this Christmas I'll get to see some family.  One cousin died, whom I had not seen in many years.  That felt pretty bad.  I'll have to make more efforts in future to keep in touch.  So much going on, though. 

I'm getting more and more ideas for my next book, provisionally called "Plenum".  It's about Time, it's about Space, it's about Love and the Human Race!  That sounds familiar, somehow.  It's fun to create the future.  Sometimes I wake up sweating thinking that if I do a good job, it will all come true. 

And I'll be responsible!

I do wonder what the eventual effect of Duck Dynasty will be on the shape of the future.  The descendants of those guys will need at least a whole planet to themselves, full of swamps and ducks and shotguns.  They can book holidays in.

Retirement

Been reading about all these people who want to leave their cubiclejobs to start free-lance writing as a career.  They seem to be concerned about how to leave their jobs and survive.

I don't have that problem.  I am retiring in April of 2015.  I will have a pension - if the financial system survives Obamacare and QE and all the other governmental idiocies abounding.  

I want to stop working in a cubicle, but I have no desire to stop doing things and be a pasha surrounded by flunkies.  

My idol is Lord Acton, who spent most of a long life in his superb library.  He tried being a Member of Parliament, but found it bothersome and humiliating.  He even became a Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria.  That job was undemanding and had many social benefits, which he did not need.  He preferred to stay in his library.  I can understand that.

I cannot wait to get free of my cubicle.  I will not suffer from that uneasiness most of the would-be writers I've been reading about have.  Retirement, even with a pension and a working wife, though, may pose other challenges.

I'm sure many men look forward to retirement as a time to do exactly nothing.  But how many do that?  And is that what most men want to do?  Sit around and do nothing? Even pashas have flunkies so they can be free to indulge their fondest occupations.

Since finishing the first draft of my historical book, 1870, I have realized that I would like to research and write when I retire, full time.  It struck me that my road to full-time writing was a bit different from that laid out in the usual blogs and books you see on Amazon and the Web.  

"I'm too old.  I could have been a writer when I was 30, but not now at 65."

That thought does run through one's mind.  I've put in a career which I heartily disliked.  Why not putter about the garden and pat the dog until Death comes calling?  These days, though, a man of 65 can live twenty, even thirty more years without being one in a million.  Plenty of time to build a business.  Colonel Sanders is the idol for us old guys who want to start a business.  He didn't even start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 65.

I'm lucky to have this opportunity.  Maybe I'll write an article about the challenges facing retirees who want to find their muse and go into writing full time when most of their friends are playing games on Facebook and watching for the Scythe-bearer out of the corner of their eye.

Cold again

Forgot what it was like to be cold.  Taking Jack the dog out, I could actually see my breath.  For the first time this fall.  Reading about the Rougon-Macquart makes me a bit contemptuous of Zola.  I  do much prefer Balzac and Stendhal.  They are so much more connected to reality.  Zola comes off as an hysteric.

Oh, sure, his tale of the people of the family rolls right along.  But what does it teach?  What insights into human character?  That man can be foolish?  Who did not know that.  I wish to know how and when and why man can be astute and courageous.  That teaching takes an eye for reality, the hard facts, as in Cousine Bette.  Might as well read Samuel Butler.

W H Mallock

Reading Mallock's Socialism criticism, I am marvelously impressed.  All the modern arguments answered.  Nay, not just answered, demolished!

Also absorbing the Rougon-Macquart saga par Zola.  Bit hyperbolic, compared to Balzac and Cousine Bette.  What real drama, personally characterized with spirit and insight and humour as well!

Interplanetary frivolity

So busy at work.  Did my 3000 yesterday, though, on the interplanetary colonization
 idea.  And I do have the tax deed article going.  And the germ of a Paris apartment idea.  Maybe if I sell enough e-books, we can buy an apartment over there!

I want to explore space through theology.

Clock nonsense

Woke up at 3:45 when I meant to wake up at 4:45.  Tricked myself again.  And then I get mad at whoever dreamed up this "Daylight Savings" nonsense, which is inconsistent and inexplicable.  I realize it's like getting mad at the sky or elections or other inexplicable annoyances.  At least the sky is beautiful while there's nothing uglier than an election, even one you win.  You just KNOW there's no logic, no legitimacy, just crazy peer pressure there.  Protest and the liberal screechers kick in.

Dark early

Ah, the good old time change.  Actually, time doesn't change.  How can it?  The government, for no clear reason, just tells everyone to change their clocks.  And they all do it, because everyone else is.  What nonsense!

Preface

Doing an Introduction or a Preface or a Foreword - subtle distinctions - is much harder than a continuing historical or fictional narrative.  It has to set up the story and "pre-qualify" the reader.  I don't want anyone even trying to read my book who isn't a good fit for it - that is, who isn't historically literate and highly skeptical, especially of sacred cows such as the Enlightenment.  And I want to give an  accurate idea of what's contained and what great ideas may be contained.  Tantalize and excite but don't give everything away - that's the idea!

Pictures - maybe some maps and graphs - would seem to be vital.  My gosh, but a book is a lot of work.  Lots less with the Internet, though.

Football's coming on TV today, but I'll still get some stuff done. 

Jury duty

Boy, the contact with the unwashed masses makes me deadly tired.  Why is it so large a proportion of the population is fat?  And I do mean fat?  Not just the 198 I am living with now, but, not, I hope, for long, but an extra century rolling about.  How do they get around corners without falling over?

Anyway, I didn't get picked for jury duty.  I guess that means I'm good for a while.  Maybe Airplane Repo helped.  And I got a part of a day off.  That's extra good.  Back at work now trying to have fun.  Getting my calls up to date, reading a bit.  I have really been keeping up lately.  Becoming effortless.  Can't wait for my last year - I think it might be good.  And then that big tank of water comes off my head and I get a nice long drink.

Talking to a legislator today was fun.  Would I like to be a consultant?  Sure, to a publishing firm for megabucks.

Money

I feel like a man dying of thirst, who is forced to carry a huge tank of water on his head and who is forbidden to drink any of the water. 

Enjoying David Warren, (Essays in Idleness) as always, and Bruce Charlton, a "usually enjoy".

Lots of intelligent people out there on the web.  Maybe it's my choice of reading, but it does seem that the men who strike me as intelligent are invariably religious.  They have interesting, quirky things to say about religion.  It is too bad that religious discourse is dying out in everyday life, but it certainly seems to be alive on certain parts of the Web.

Just happened to think what an apt analogy the "Web" is.  We are all either spiders, laying in wait for prey, putting out feeler threads and hoping someone will come along and pull them, or prey caught and sparkling with spider filaments, hanging geometrically, wrapped up and waiting to be eaten.

Cooler and cooler

A front came through today to usher us into November, almost.  41 tomorrow at S-ville!  David got a deer!  It truly is  fall.  I love it.  One more summer going into a cubicle every day.

Nothing on tv tonight but Duck Dynasty.  Bit of a oe-trick pony.

Rain brings cool

70 degrees this morning going to work at 6:30 and at 5PM coming home.  Sticking with the low carb diet this week, anyway.

Trying some abuela añejo.  From Panama.

Do I dare to smoke a pipe?  Will I ever become ripe?

I do love old movies, like The Lady Vanishes.

Gout day

I  do not like being out sick on Mondays.  Monday always passes by as in a dream.  So it's easily endured.  Thursday is the day I would prefer to take off, if I had a choice.  Already having Friday taken care of, am I getting greedy?  Perhaps.  But these ten-hour days are not that much longer, to me, than the eight-hour days I used to start at 6:30 anyway, so I could get a good parking place.  That will be the best thing about being retired.  I can avoid the crowds.

Football and writing

Found a much better way of watching football.  It's so annoying to root for one team and find them falling behind for stupid reasons.  So I'm now on the side of the offense, only.  I root for the side with the ball.  After all, I only like to see offensive plays, good runs, long passes, loong field goals.  No more agida at the score.

Slaw Dogs

I know.  That sounds like a violent Western movie by Somebody PickenPacker.

Drining brandy and watching the Clemson FSU game  Flambé!

Relaxing with Youtube

Watching Edith Piaf videos on Youtube.  Frustrated because Netflix is not working.  We will make it work, sooner or later.  Splendid chef's salad for lunch.

Got a tire for the wife's golf cart.  Now to put it on!

Could be the last warm day.  Or at least the last hot one.

Allocating resources

No TV last night either. Saw "A Fistful of Dollars" last night. Can't beat Eastwood. Didn't know, though, that he had 8 children by 6 different women all the while he was having a long-time affair with Sandra Locke.  Only married twice.

So he's not the hero I thought.  Not mine, anyway.  No more than Van Gogh or Picasso.

My resources are my attention and my energy.  Same thing, really.  Haven't got unlimited supplies of either.  That's why it's so ennuyant to be forced to pay attention to things that don't matter, couldn't possibly matter.

Now chess is something I need to pay more attention to.  And those little logic puzzles.

Back to work

Overslept almost exactly one hour today.  Meant I discovered a new way to cook sausage - in the oven with the bacon.  What?  You don't cook bacon in the oven?  Oh, yes, much the easiest way, if you get the timing and the temperature right.

Contacts

Chatting at lunch with some serious powers in property tax.  How could it be different if I was scmoozing with writers and historians instead?  Of course, I would probably have some serious disagreements with whatever historian might show up.  Even Nassim Taleb, who sees himself as economist, trader, philosopher, statistician, historian, linguist and whatever else you've got going.

Horseshoes

Haven't played horseshoes for, probably, thirty years.  Chris and David were into it, so I tried it, too, out in the back forty.

It's tricky.  You have to able to replicate the same movement easily.  The stakes are forty feet apart.  That's farther than I thought.  I can barely see that far!  But I did hit the stake couple of times.  Dilemma:  spin or flip?  Learned a lot.

Peeling eggs

Thank goodness for the internet.  I now know how to peel an egg easily and quickly.  Just google it.

Watching Le Million (1931)  Good for my French.  Musical about a lost lottery ticket. Weird.  

Thinking about buying a book about scarcity and how it affects one's psychology.  Find it on Amazon. I love it.  With all these modern tools, one doesn't need to cite anything completely any more.

Canadian and hot wings

Good weekend coming up with my darling.  Hunting season coming up means the deer are slated for triage and political examination.  Just think how few could escape Stalin's show trials!

Heinz 57 sauce and Sriracha

Great discovery: Heinz 57 and sriracha go very well together, in appropriate proportions.  To taste.  The hotness and savory flavors combine well.  Good on beans.

Government still shut down.  What if they shut down the government and nobody cared?  People could spend their time doing useful things, like trying different combinations of hot sauce and steak sauce.

Mencken

"Nine men out of ten would be quite happy, I believe, if there were no women in the world, once they had grown accustomed to the quiet."

H. L. Mencken In Defense of Women.  #32, The Woman Voter

Mencken is on Gutenberg!  But not all of him.  Now who needs the rest of the "manosphere"?

Rain on the highway in the morning

Heavy rain today.  Hoping it would stay under 80 degrees, but no luck.  Not too bad, though.  Monday Night Football should be more relaxed now that I've got my writing and my blogging done.  Sorting through pictures for the website.  Might be much better.  Need some more travel photos!  Now that I'm looking forward to a reasonable monthly income again, I'm ready to travel!!

Have to get the low carb regimen up to speed again.  I did find Bakenets pork rinds to be edible though.  But only that brand.  Sherry suggested that.

Electronic nightmares

Website worries, telephone tension, Netflix nonsense.  Every electronic thing we have is sub-optimal and takes far too much time and effort to salvage.  Bring back the quill pen!  I used to use a steel nib and inkpot at St. George's.  Perfectly functional, once you learn to avoid blotting your copybook.

Lots of personal insights.  I have realized I'm not any good at things that require constant attention to fine detail.  Or, I'm not great at detail.  I can do it, but I'm far better at big thinking, connecting ideas.

Football with the girls away

One of the great pleasures of life is to watch football when your wife is out shopping with her girlfriends.  You know she won't be back any time soon.  I got my writing done early.  

Georgia plays at 3:30 against Tennessee, always a good one.

Sam's club

God is on the side of the big packages.  And Sam's has BIG packages!  It's so good for having more than you really need.  The Albany Sam's, though, does not have a liquor store.  No good!  Back at the library I got ost but found a favorite Agatha Christie.

Odd incident in DC

No real idea what that was all about.  The Congress is an excrescence on the American posterior.  Debt ceiling and government shutdown related??!!  Duh!

Shutting down the government

The oddest thing about shutting down the government is how little difference it makes to anyone.  Gee, you'd think most of those six-figure jobs weren't necessary!

The political gamesmanship is appalling.  Everybody's trying to be a hero to a particular constituency.  This particular shutdown is a perfect storm, coming as it does in the first days of Obozocare and in the middle of the debt ceiling debate.  Hmm, maybe all these things are related!?

October finally

Stayed up watching Monday night Football until almost midnight.  Then up at 4:03, which I thought was 5:03, because, oh, let's say I just hope I remember to change it tonight because I really don't want to get up at 3:03 tomorrow, thinking it's 4:03.

Good busy day, despite the tired flashes at the backs of my eyes.  3000 words, too.  Not as hard as I thought.  Not deathless prose, perhaps, but the living word.

It's obozocare day!  And the mountain labored and brought forth - a little spinning circle with an arrow on it.  And millions of lives are saved because they can't go to the doctor who, through sheer reductionism, would kill them.

End of the month

Those ends of months come around so slowly!  Only 18 more until retirement.  Putting myself back together.  Martha sent an email from Leiden, NL. September successful, though, in a couple of ways.

Found my E. Tufte graphic design book.  Lots of info AND white space.  Makes me want to design a book.

Dinner out

Sherry and I going to dinner with Uzma and Jean-Marc.  Last day of utterly unnecessary grammar lessons.  When is a colon not a colon?  Friday is a joy.

Watching Morse again.  Love that Jaguar.  Ned out tonight, going to a geo-party, I guess.

Airplane Repo

Great cable show on the guys who "swipe airplanes" for a living.  Just goes to show that a great idea, well executed, can be an instant hit.  Who would have thought this particular niche would be so exciting?  But it's at least as good as Duck Dynasty!

Morse redivivus

Discovered the old Inspector Morse series on Netflix.  Haven't seen those for years.  John Thaw is a grumpy old detective with a beautiful old red Jaguar saloon that gets banged into at least once every episode.  He likes classical music and good Scotch, and always has to have one up on his lieutenant, Lewis.  Colin Dexter, the author of the Morse novels, was an interesting fellow.  Crossword champion or something.  I need to write a detective story.

Enough sleep

Only had five hours last night.  Not enough, even at my age.  They say as you get older, you don't need as much sleep.  I haven't noticed that.  I still need my eight hours to feel right.

So nice to have Monday off

I love my 4-day weeks.  And now that I can take Friday or Monday off, life is just that much more - flexible!

Trying to make the Google books app work on my iPad.  Crashes all the time.  Would be nice to have another whole source of books.  Multiple libraries I can carry in one hand.  Useful.

Learned to cook bacon in the oven, too.  This is going to come in handy!  And for Sherry, it means she doesn't have to stand at the stove tending bacon. 

One more long hot summer before we're free to avoid a good deal of it.

Football and more football

Porkchops and cognac make our Sunday perfect.  And Duck Dynasty!  World's largest duck call.

Still re-reading Antifragility, too.  Fed the veggie plants and it rained, too. No fires.

Saturday fire

Almost had a fire when some oil got overheated on the stove.  Makes one realize how uncertain life is and how quickly things can change.  Luckily I got it out without any great danger.

Football Saturday went on as usual.  Florida and Georgia won.  So the season goes on towards Thanksgiving and the bowl games.  Just like every other year, despite Obama and the other know-nothings.  Life goes on in the United States of America.

Raise

Stiil glowing after getting a little raise at work.  Bigger than I thought.  Nice to be appreciated.

Becoming very enamored of my writing skills, or, at least, my persistence. The three thousand words a day take precedence over everything else.  But they don't take so much time that I can't have a life, too.

Splurged on some Courvoisier.

Ned's not home yet after a light day of classes.  He's taking Geohazards and Mexican history.  So he'll be all ready if Mexico is swallowed up by a giant sinkhole.

Hints of coolness in the air, but still too darn hot.

Russian exceptionalism

Right.  So Putin has been telling us how we think too much about how America is exceptional.  What does he want?  Everyone gets a prize?

We all know what Putin wants.  Piece.  A piece of Ukraine - no, all of it.  A piece of Belarus, or White Russia to us traditionalists.  The Baltic Republics?  Not so much.  Too much trouble.  Moldova?  Too small, not worth much, full of Bessarabians.

Now I'm not saying Putin wants to reconstitute the Soviet Empire.  He would be satisfied with the extent of Catherine the Great - and really mean - from the 1700s. And he might even forego Poland.  Too much bother.  Full of Poles.  Right next to Germany, never a good idea.

So, no, Russia isn't exceptional today.  It's just doing what it's always done, being Russia.

Proper history

I like Mencius Moldbug:

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, he doesn't post much.

Standardized tests

Vox Day today was going into the nature of standardized tests, in connection with his continuing (NOT "ongoing") war against a Mr. Scalzi.  So I thought I'd trot out my credentials, however irrelevant they may be .  I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist.  I got an 800 on the Graduate Record Exam (verbal portion, in 1974)  I passed two state bar exams, eighteen years apart, one in New Hampshire, one in Florida at the age of 55.  As to IQ, my parents wouldn't tell me the number.  They said there wasn't one.  I was "off the charts".

There, now, aren't you impressed?  C'mon, admit it!

Personally, I can't think of much of anything less relevant to my everyday life than standardized tests, except for the bar exams, which have enabled me to eke out a precarious living.

I am grateful for intellectual power and grasp, though, which, when combined with long-overdue persistence and perseverance, have enabled me to start writing something I think might be good.  See my other blog:  Europe1870.blogspot.com

Remembering twelve years ago

9/11 marked the first time I used internet news services instead of Dan Rather and the boys.  It happened in the morning, so the daily news wasn't able to deal with it.  But Drudge and Instapundit were.  No need to listen to local news to get a distorted picture of events.  Now we could get raw facts, from a lot of sources and do our own analysis.  Talk about scales dropping from eyes!  Even the New York Times would never be the same.

September coming on

September is such a traitress.  Promises cool breezes and delivers 90-degree humidity.  But at least we know there's something cool out there waiting for us.  I am looking forward to some tap dancing tomorrow trying to fit Nietzsche into the events of 1870.  There must be some connection, right??

Back to Work

Is Obozo still whingeing about Syria?  Will a real man called Putin have to pull his donuts out of his coffee?  Well this is the first Monday night football game and my wife is out doing something called Zoomba, so, hey, does it get any better?  I think it involves automated vacuums, so when She (who must be obeyed!) gets back, I expect the rugs to be really clean!

Will Australia emerge from down under?

Heard that Tony Abbott will be Prime Minister of Australia!  Now I have to go read Tim Blair.  Haven't read him  in a while.  Excusable, since who wants to read about Julia Gilliard or Kevin Rudd?  Nobody sane.

Go check it out.

Jobs numbers - an incompetent delusion

I love the first Friday of each month, because hen we can delude ouselves anew that government job numbers have any meaning except as a cryptogram encoding some demonic prediction of the end of the world.  Well, then at least we'd know what the future held.  I especially like the people asking themselves, "Gee, I wonder what the real numbers are?" As though there are real numbers out there.  Reminds me of people opposing global warming who think there really is some number corresponding to the "Temperature of the entire surface of the world".

Money for blood and iron

So now the Administration says its ok to go into Syria because the Arabs will pay for it!?   In what universe is that a policy  for a major power?  I always ask myself, "what would Bismarck say?"  In this case the explosion of German cursewords, from a Godly man, would be difficult to believe.  "You do not have a nation," he would say once he had calmed down.  "You have a force of mercenaries serving a bankrupt butt of international ridicule."   And what could we reply?

Still waiting on Syria

It seems like weeks now since Zero got all excited about going into Syria, or at least bombing it with a stern expression.  Will he ever figure out whether he's going to do anything or not?  Oh, and then he'll have to figure out what to do.  Could be a while.  I bet he just votes "present" with his thumb in his mouth!

Aaron Clarey

I like Aaron Clarey's blog, Captain Capitalism.  (http.captaincapitalism.blogspot.com)

I even like his podcast, though I do object to his overuse of expletives.  I favor civil language at all times, maybe with an exception for the presence of idiot liberals (but I repeat myself).

I am "enjoying the decline" (the name of Clarey's book) although I am hoping the decline may hit bottom and come back up, perhaps while in the mean time moving the clock back a couple of hundred years.

He is certainly right about the proliferation of useless college degrees (Worthless, another one of  his books).  Still some good ones out there, though.  Everyone's looking for that golden ticket.

Minimum wages and strikes and robots

Lots of stories lately about fast food workers striking for higher wages.  For flipping burgers?

I also found a story about the new robots being developed to drive trucks, and flip burgers!  Now what could influence McDonald's to buy a few million dollar robots who (which?) will work all night instead of paying ten workers $15 an hour who get sick, show up late and give surly customer service?  I know, how about a strike?  Where will all the truck drivers and burger flippers go?  What will they do to keep entertained?  Time to move out of any conurbation?  Now!

Syria and Schleswig-Holstein

I cannot help but be struck by the contrast between the diplomacy of Bismarck in the 1860s and our so-called administration today.

Bismarck always had a goal and always realized where he was in the progress toward the goal.  That is why he was always so nervous in the middle of military action.  He knew very well how important military success was.  He also knew he could do nothing to assure military success.  His painstaking and highly ingenious diplomatic preparations depended entirely on the luck of battle.  This often caused him much anxiety, notwithstanding his run of astonishing success.

By contrast the pathetic mess in Washington - one can hardly call it an administration, since it refuses to administer anything, much less the medicine this poor country, sunk in debt and hopelessness, needs.  John Kerry?  Hillary Clinton?  Please.  One won't even mention Buraq the White (!) Stallion of Mohammed!

Counter-Revolution

During my reading of Bismarck's Table Talk for my book, one of his quotes sprang upon me some wonderful wisdom.  "What we want," the old Junker said, "is not a counter-revolution.  We want the contrary of the revolution!"

And that's exactly it.  The Enlightment cannot be undone by another, different kind of Enlightenment.  For what was the Enlightenment, much like the Sixties, but an angry, childish rejection of traditional religion, of reality itself?  What would the true contrary of that sort of thing be but an embrace of tradition and reality, of a re-establishment of old religion, old truths and old, enduring reality?

So the best way to build for the future is to reinforce the lessons of the past.  The so-called Enlightenment must not be fought.  It must be ignored and bypassed, allowed to slip into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Partant pour la Syrie

Odd, isn't it, that the French have been noodling around about sending bombers and cruise missiles and all those wonderful new devices into Syria?  From the point of view of a historian with an addiction to the "Carnival Empire", Napoleon III's reign as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870, this is particularly ironic because the theme song of that Empire was "partant pour la Syrie", making the point that overseas adventures were part and parcel of the greatness of France and of Louis Napoleon.  Whether in Nouvelle Caledonie or Pondichery in India or Algeria or Central Africa, bringing the benefits of French civilization to the heathen was a privilege, nay, a duty of every Frenchman.

And the US, of course, must tag along.  Even the supposed anti-imperialist Zerobama must tag along, again, as a duty or a privilege or yet another stupid mistake it's difficult to tell.  Perhaps he'll just go along with whatever the military suggests, as he did with the attack on Pakistan to get Osama, of which I fully approved because of the light it shone on the empty hypocrisy of Zero's attacks on the Bush way of doing things in the Middle East.

No, not empty hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy full of meaning for those who seek insight into men's souls.

Conundrum again, or still.  We have not solved the puzzle of life.  And I still own Swiftcurrent!  Not in the best of shape.  Still getting too many flat tires.  It's a bit dangerous to ride with all these big SUVs around.

Speaking of dangerous, I started this blog shortly after the 9/11 attack.  Here in 2013 we are about to start another war that may lead to more attacks.  One thing you can say about these Islamic terrorist  characters, though, they sure don't seem to care if they accomplish anything to, for instance, spread Islam worldwide, which was supposed to be their job description.

But Obama's going to do something unspecified to Syria to accomplish some (secret!) unspecified goal.  But at least he accomplished something, or will no doubt take credit for it.  He found George W. Bush's weapons of mass destruction!  I, like Hillary Klinton and John (Magic Hat) Kerry, always knew they did exist.  But nobody still seems to know what to do about them.  Anything effective, that is.