Why do I get sick at vacation?

 I hate Oregon winters. Non-stop rain and then nasty wet snow. It was fine when I had my daughter to play with but nowadays it just ain't the same.

Then I got sick. I have like two weeks vacation time coming and if I am going to get sick I can fake it at least one day at work. Hopefully infecting multiple people and then when I am getting well, take three days off and get paid for it.

It started Monday with a cough. I didn't realize it was a real cough. I thought it was the result of me eating lots of my sister-in-law's Chex mix. It hit me in the middle of the night. The headache is the worst part. Tuesday morning I took a Wu-Flu test. According to the test, I don't have the virus which originated in China. 

It also could have been the result of being cold and wet for a couple days. Or stress at Christmas or I got it from my wife who was sick a few weeks ago.

The problem is that while I am lazy and welcome a chance to set in the easy chair, I want to use that time reading a book or listening to a record or something other that trying to sleep.

My wife says I am at the grumpy stage and that is a good sign.

Almost a white Christmas

Eight years ago I would be out playing in the snow with my daughter. We would be figuring out how to ambush the cousins across the machinery lot.

I miss my daughter. 

She came home for Christmas and we played board games and had a nice Christmas I suppose. Then she left as she had to work today. Or perhaps it was the discussion. I don't know.

My wife got me a record cleaner for Christmas. A lady from Church has given me a box of record albums for evaluation. She won't say if she wants to sell them to me. They are incredibly dusty.

Spin-Clean record cleaner which actually works!

I was never into late 60's rock but I really like some of it. Cream, Quick Silver Messenger Service, there are a couple Beatles Albums, Eagles, John Harrison boxed set, and of course "John Barley Corn Must die" album by Traffic.

I took the box just for that album. I don't really like the song I just like the title. But, record collecting is a silly emotional pastime anyway.

It was amazing how dirty the records were. Of course the original owner was blind and perhaps couldn't see how badly he was treating his records. On the positive, all the original posters and paperwork are there. Obviously, he did not hang the posters. Not much point I suppose.

I don't know if I should buy the records or just tell her to sell them. They were so dirty I couldn't stand to listen to them so I cleaned them and put them in plastic bags.

Speaking of records.

I have been trying to sell a turntable which I rebuilt. No one wants to actually buy it. No one has a "stereo" any longer. So you would have to buy a phono preamp, amp, and speakers. I suggest just getting a CD player. Probably why I have not sold my turntable.

I think what I will do is get a cheap preamp from Phonopreamps.com, connect this to a cheap china amp that has bluetooth, and redo a couple of my little Bose monitor speakers. The problem is the price would be $250 to $300 so I am probably just throwing good money after bad.

Christmas is past.

My daughter is gone.

There is snow.

I have a great book to read that my brother gave me for Christmas. Perhaps I will retreat to 1945 when people had real problems...

I hate to live with regrets but I do. I think I should have quit my job after my father passed and we did all the accounting and realized we still had a farm. I just don't know if I should have gone back to farming or never came back from Florida. Somewhere and sometime I took a series of wrong turns in life and while it is fairly entertaining for observers. I am no longer as entertained as I once was...

Where I was six years ago and wish I was today!

Death of a Uni-tractor

 

My father built this swather attachment for the Uni-Tractor. It features an Owatonna cutting platform with modifications. Variable speed reel and drapers, adjustable height reel has a rotating drum with fingers to pull material through center. Top of the line back in the day.

By the time I ran it in high school it was pretty frustration to run. Rather horrible to run, I might add. It has sat in a shed for all these years and now the shed is falling down. The nephews decided to clean out the shed.

There is no where for Mr. Uni to go. Since there was calcium in the tires, the rims are shot. I seriously doubt anyone thought to put air in the tires before moving it anyway. 

Sort of an end of an era... I mean, before we could always get it running, for parades and stuff....

I just can't do it anymore...

 Today I checked my University Email account. This is always a worrisome chore. I never knew when I will get sent to a re-education camp, get put in charge of a re-education camp, get a letter so ineptly informing me of a raise that I start looking for other jobs, or just generally shake my head at the utter ineptness of the whole shebang. I would feel better if I thought they were actually sampling the fruits of the wine program but I suspect not.

I was quite unexcited to see the campus wide sort of newsletter/communication. It has replaced most of the bulk emails which is good but you have to wade through a lot of BS to find anything that pertains to you. 

This is what I found today. How to talk to your less enlightened relatives about the Wu-Flu. This is better than the original statement of get vaccinated or get fired, followed by a lessor threat of get vaccinated or get tested every week. 

We have a mask wearing policy. I wear the mask whenever students are with in eyesight. Other departments don't wear them at all. I usually wear mine over my mouth this is the correct way of wearing a mask as aforementioned mask only deflects germs being expelled from your mouth. If you are a total dumbass you can wear two masks which laughably do not work. Or perhaps I misunderstood my PPE training. (Putting two filters of the same mesh size does not filter out more than one filter of one mesh size.)

I now officially know of a person who legitimately got the virus China let loose into the world and has died from it. I am actually rather sad about it as he used to read this blog. He was a rather decent fellow.

I attempt to boycott the bastards but everything cheap comes from China and I am cheap...

In other news, last week my wife discovered my job description listed on Indeed under groundskeepers wanted. I asked my supervisor about it and apparently they were just too lazy to write a new help wanted advert for a different opening. I was working on my resume and cover letter but thought I would let my five readers get a laugh at my expense. I would just go with the incompetence angle but my specific job has not been listed for probably ten years. That was not the job I applied for when I got his job. It was never advertised, I was just installed.

Also, last week I was put in charge of the sexual harassment and Implicit Bias and micro-aggression training. I am pretty good at micro-aggression and gas lighting. Sort of a minor hobby of mine. I try to avoid sexual harassment although after being told certain types of jokes were not funny there is now a temptation.

The story i am about to tell is anecdotal and unprovable.

For some unknown reason i was put in charge of hosting our racism and sexual harassment training videos (which are produced by Vector training solutions. )

The grounds crew at present consists of four people who immigrated from Mexico, one old white guy like me, and our supervisor who is of Hispanic background but born in the USA.

I think I was put in charge because it is presumed I both speak English and run a computer. This is only partially true.

We got the training started and the newest worker insisted that he had taken the training on his own. (Cause he is just very conscientious about his job) so I excused him but did not let him sign the training sheet. (This was intended as a Micro-Aggression.)

(A Micro-Aggression is where you piss someone off with the hope that they will punch you and get fired. A macro-aggression is where you have the balls to punch the idiot yourself and don't care if you get fired.)

I got about three minutes into the neomarxist claptrap about unconscious cultural racism and micro aggression and i stopped the video and asked my coworkers, ok look, i am an old white guy, but I don’t feel this way about you! What do you think? I think this is a load of horseshite. How do you feel about me?

The agreement seemed to be that the training did not quite reflect our work environment and i was ok, as long as i was laughing with them and not at them. Well of course.

Then they wanted to watch Speedy Gonzolas cartoons on YouTube, which we did until I realized that there was no way i could explain my way outta that one to HR. We also got 100 percent on the assessment quiz. Took it three times till me got it right!!! I am an excellent teacher!

This training has sparked a lot of discussions. I don’t have good Spanish so it is hard to relay the stories.

Apparently, local schools have been giving some sort of assessment test to young students. Those who seem to be confused about sexuality or gender roles are picked out and given counseling reinforcing any tendencies which go counter to stereotypical/traditional gender roles.

Two examples, a boy who had strong feminine traits was encouraged to consider switching genders rather than to retain his masculinity but also understand his tendencies towards the feminine side.

A 12 year old girl was encouraged to identify as a lesbian and have a girlfriend, much to her parents consternation.

Parents who complain are threatened with termination of custody.

These parents are recent arrivals with poor English skills. They will not speak up out of fear.

Now if i take what I learned in racism class and apply it to White Liberals if makes a lot more sense. This is classic oppression. A social class with all the power of the State backing them. White liberal “intellectuals” who are teachers, inherently a “power class,” vs people without monetary resources or cultural power. Not native speakers, no acces to unbiased legal representation, fear of retribution, fear of deportation. The oppressed class that people like me are not supposed to identify with.

Honestly, Hispanic’s are pissed.

(Also, do NOT refer to Hispanic males as Latinx!!!!!!)

Of course i could never prove this. The person who told me would suddenly not understand if confronted.

In conclusion,

Republicans are missing out on the Hispanic vote. This is essentially a cultural civil war.

Hispanics who are here do not want the crime and corruption they left.

They want working path to citizenship, they don’t want their kids to be turned against them, they do not want to be forced to sell drugs to pay for getting to the USA, they would like a guest worker program with a path for citizenship. AND they don’t want criminal gangsters streaming across the border.

Is there a single Republican that speaks Spanish??? I don’t…

Sweet white female school teachers are screwing up your children! It is absolute insanity.

I don't know what to do about it. Obviously, no cell phones and private school or homeschool your kids.

Pre Christmas jitters.

We had one heck of a storm! Rain and wind and the power went out. I hooked up a generator so my wife could have light to wrap presents. 

I am sure that crazy weather across the nation will result in people asking forgiveness and redoubling their faith in their gods. Science and Climate change. Hopefully they will respond with more yard signs. I especially like the one that says they believe in Science, Women's rights are human rights, and Black Lives matter. Also, I hope this weather reminds everyone to vaccinate and to wear a mask. 

Obviously the god of Science is displeased.

(I am personally worried that Clyde Lewis is right. The projected change in the Earth's magnetic poles has caused devastation in the past eons as has the increase in Solar activity on the sun.)

But, I digress! More legislation is required to stop manmade global climate change. Everyone who grew up in the 1960's and read the Hobbit knows the internal combustion engine is the root of all evil and must be banned.

We also need to blindly plow ahead with mandatory Wu--Flu shots because once we are committed to a course that half the world hates, we must continue! The party line must not be questioned!

In other news... My wife is watching the TV. I hate TV. It makes me angry.

The Portland Timbers didn't win. Soccer is not a real American sport anyway. Baseball, American rules Football and Ice Hocky, are real sports. Timber fans are all obnoxious arsehole. 

I cannot concentrate. 

I gotta go...

Note: The title of this blog has nothing to do with the content. It was originally to be about my annual quest to a cheap Christmas tree ending in failure, rebuilding a KLH model 20 for my daughter who no longer cares, and me being put in charge of the Racist programming at work. Perhaps another day when the %$&*# TV is off...

Have a nice day...

Monday I take the day off and start to talk about farming and then go off the rails

I took the day off work. My supervisor gave us a talk about the purpose of Personal Time Off. We are to use it to relax and rejuvenate ourselves. 

So, I am blogging at 8:30 am on a Monday.

Further plans for today are to make more pig feed, look at a couple fields someone wants no-tilled to wheat, and mow the lawn.

I have inadvertently gotten back into the feed making business. I have 3,000lbs of peas which were tested at a whopping 40% protein, a couple ton of triticale, six big bags (700lb bags?) of oat screenings and a Pearson's Square App on my phone. 

Saturday I started calling previous customers. I have one person that wants 500lbs today. I had a 1200lb bag left over from my previous misadventures and so I thought I would mix it with my new batch which has a lot of alfalfa in it and make 3 mm pellets. The peas in the old batch were extremely dirty and thus horribly dusty when ground. I had the bright idea of turning the mix into 3 mm pellets.

I started at 4:30 and finished at 7:30 p.m. Ran the tractor out of diesel at 7:28 p.m. Then when I was moving the bag of pellets I spilled the bag. Then I was grumpy with my wife. Not a good evening. Plus, the Sunday sermon was about not being angry so I pretty much proved my Mother correct. Don't work on Sunday!

However, I did discover that 350lbs per hour is mindnumpingly slow for pellet production and my little White 2-60 (Fiat 560?) is a bit thirsty even when it is not working hard.

The pellets come out of the pellet mill at 150-170 degrees F. The drop onto a conveyer which is covered and has two 12v radiator fans which blow cooling air on the pellets. The pellets are about 100 degrees when they drop into the bag.  I previously used an auger and no fan which I think worked better but was harder on the pellets. But I loaned my auger to my neighbor and he wants me to grind corn for his distillery and I haven't gotten all the hemp cleaned out of my mixer grinder yet. So I have been avoiding him.

And now for some moralizing...

I saw this on my facebook page. I really used to like the lady who posted it. She seems to have turned into a bit of an Alberta Scrubb in her old age.  I see this post as an example of a typical leftist/progressive viewpoint.  

Part of the social action concept of the left is to Redefine cultural values in a negative light and then criticize those values based on YOUR previously defined stereotype.  Listen to this speech by Barak Obama. It sounds good. Just like the old Cold War appeal, "Why can't we all just get along, We all want the same things, don't we?" 

We don't want the same things. Jesus was not a socialist. Saying Jesus was a friend to the poor is not even correct. The message of the New Testament is how to survive and even flourish in any situation. If you are poor, a slave, under an oppressive regime, or you are richer than Daddy Warbucks, your responsibility is to show the Love Of God to your fellow man. Jesus upset the money changers in the Temple because they were perverting the institution/mission of the Church. The brotherhood of believers as well as individual Christians have responsibilities to help one another and to reach out to the unbeliever. But, society is changed one heart at a time and not by social action or legislation or force of arms. 

Know your enemy:

Rules for Radicals 

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In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way: What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. His "rules" derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege.

For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don't have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.

According to Alinsky, the organizer, especially a paid organizer from outside, must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization."

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a "mass army" that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals. 

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. 
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat. 

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. 

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. "You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It's hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. "If your people aren't having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic."

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage."

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O'Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city's reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, "Okay, what would you do?"

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don't try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength."

See also 10 Principles for Public Media
And Co-operation First
And IAF Organizing pdf
And Post-Alinsky Organizing 

The Citizen's Handbook / Home / About / Table of Contents
The Citizen's Handbook / Charles Dobson / citizenshandbook.org

A Sunday speech about books and events

My brother found some old photographs. Thirty years from now will it be that my daughter finds and old MacBook?

Thirty years ago I thought I was going to be somebody someday. Didn't think I would be a groundskeeper and still poor!

In 1990 something I repainted this 1964 Minneapolis-Moline M670. It had something link over 10,000 hours on it then. I think we put another 10,000 on it since then. It is interesting that now our newest tractor is a 1986 White 2-155. 

I listen to books on my phone at work. I started with detective fiction from the 1960's, (John D. MacDonald) and continued through modern fiction, Adrain McKinty, Lawrence Block, Olen Steinhauer (don't remember other names)

I was amazed at the changes in values. Travis Magee had a flawed but distinct moral code, his author still believed in a positive moral outcome. Wrongs were righted and after a misadventure Travis and Meyer hung out in the Busted Flush with Plymouth Gin on ice and pontificated and philosophized. 

Their discussion were (In my opinion) part of the on going discussion that made pre-twenty first century, country music, blues, jazz, an reggae so interesting. The degeneration of tradition Christian values and the old codes of honor and integrity and stewardship of God's creation. Essentially the understanding that we are only here for our limited lifespan and our decision is to preserve life, live honorably, virtue for the sake of virtue, vs living for the moment as the moment is all that there is. Generally they follow the 1960's values of living for the moment but retaining their hints of "dear old Momma, bless her soul..."

Modern authors just kill everyone and random bad stuff happens. The hero's deal with random death and destruction. Old values are hollow. Their friends turn on them and must be killed. They are continually faced with impossible moral choices. Do you shoot the child or the woman or die your self.

I was listening to Adrian McKinty who incorporates Northern Ireland and the "Troubles," into his work. His characters are a bit more nuanced than a lot of the modern escapist fiction. There are vestiges of Catholicism and Protestant beliefs that give them moral conflicts as they navigate an incredibly high body count.

I tend to binge listen so perhaps I get too involved in my books. After the last Michael Forsythe murder/betrayal (Bloomsday Dead) I downloaded a book on CS Lewis and then moved on to a 40 hour marathon of "The Chronicles of Narnia."

I suddenly have realized that my whole train of thought is slightly off and that Olen Steinhauer is actually Cold War Fiction and I need more coffee.

Not to waste five paragraphs of random thoughts held together with a thin line I can't quite follow I will make some concluding observations.

First, Eustace Scrubb's parents and their horrible socialist friends have taken over the world. They are the Progressives that censor Hucklberry Finn and take "1984" an "Animal Farm," as textbooks.

Second, the reason the Children in "Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe," and "The Magician's Nephew," knew what to do in Narnia is because they had read the right books.  "Lord of the Flies," would not have happened to post WW2 British school children but happens every day in the modern America.

Third, I have been reading about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I watch much of the events as they happened before the censorship took over. Mobs focus on a perceived weakness and will run that person to the ground. Kyle was obviously young and inexperienced, the rioters targeted him because he had the AR and they didn't think he would use it. Leftists/Progressives have always provoked a fight and then claimed to be victims (See back to the actions of Eustace Scrubbs)

People have gone through Progressive/Socialist revolutions before. There is a lot of history. Fascists in Italy were a reaction to violent Socialists. The Spanish Civil war could never have had a good ending.

If Kyle would have been convicted it would have meant that you could no longer defend yourself in times of social disorder. In fact, there will be a push to eliminate your right to self defense.

Read what what state leaders have said about the trail and note how they lie about the actual proven facts of the event.

The words of the Governor and Speaker Tina Kotek are pretty amazing.