TubaOrNotTuba

There it is. A dreaded warning.  Apparently, the fob to start the car has a low battery. Who even knew there was a battery in there. Anyhow we will order a new battery probably from Amazon and then we’ll watch the video again and do something that requires magical tool dexterity and a little cover will open a new battery will go in and all I can wonder is with all we’ve learned to do in the 21st century can’t we have batteries that last longer than a year I mean seriously excuse me three years still needs to be changed and if you don’t change it you won’t get in your car and then you can’t drive to buy a new battery and on and on and on.

For most of my life I have been surrounded by a lawn. From a farming point of view probably the worst investment you can make. The market value of grass clippings seems to be 0 and the various rabbits to come through area ignore the crop that is available. They seem to prefer flowers. Anyhow through the years we’ve had various machines to take care of this worthless harvest. There was the Rotary model that sharpened itself and the small electric more that had to have the blade done by someone else where and now, we have a BGM or big green machine. I assume that sharpening is still part of the game but when I checked underneath I found that there were multiple blades and multiple pulleys and multiple belts and all of it beyond my level of competence. I hoped as I get older that there will be less things to learn but that does not seem to be the case. I have thought about the tools I have around here for sharpening metal blades. There’s a small wet stone that can be used to put an edge on a skate. Probably not appropriate. There is a large flat file that would work if I could see what I was doing but that is also not the case. I wonder what do people around here do? Should I go door to door and see who does this for fun or profit. Maybe just ask a friend. Or take it as a given that grass is less solid than lawn more blades and then I’m good for another few months. At least winter is coming and I’ll have a few months of re spite. A whole snow season to plan for the next growing season. As you can tell, I am not there yet. What if we just let things be? Right now the line is still getting shorter and we’re still managing to keep it looking like a golf course. Confession not me someone else. I have never driven the BGM. I know how to start the motor and where to put the gas but the machine is an alien creature to me. It does have a headlight apparently so that I could go and practice in the dark but I think I’ll let that be too many other bad things could happen along the way.

Like many I took e-mail for granted for a very long time period years and years. I received too much e-mail and most of it was boring but at least I received e-mail. I am now in a new phase and I cannot depend on getting any given message on any given day. My fault I don’t always see them anymore and they can be cryptic because people avoid putting headings on their messages. Just for fun I’ll say that’s my fault. Anyhow this evening we were trying to find a statement from our propane company. We knew it had come. We just didn’t know to what account or on what date. And so we spent time trying to load the message from you found it and it would not load because e-mail can be really ignorant sometimes. As stupid as if it was run by a machine period now i took care of e-mail services for over 8000 people for many years and I thought I’d seen all the problems. Remember that old line about physician heal myself? Well i was a technician at everything came back to my desk eventually. As i say i’ve moved on past that point and I now get emails that come someplace. One of multiple devices. Should I fix this problem? Obviously. But I’m not there yet. Maybe tomorrow or maybe the next day. Keep an eye on me because I can work miracles when I put my mind to it. Anyhow we now have the bell and it has been paid and they will not be coming back to reclaim their propane. Is that even a thing? I’m sure they’ve thought of it. There’s probably a repo truck summers that comes and pumps all the gas at your cylinders. I have never seen it but i believe because they are a company and that’s the way life rolls around here.

This is a request. To all of you who share living space with me. Please do not ask me for directions to anything. It seems that I am under the illusion that I still remember where things are found things like stores. Today I tried to give directions to a bookstore. A large bookstore. And it seems that since i haven’t been there for about a decade it’s changed names and location. If you go there who knows what you will find end of rant. Moving right along at least at home I know where most things can be found. Not all and sometimes the refrigerator throws me for a loop. I know where I left the tub of yogurt but there might be something else in its place. Please show great patience as a search tactile rather than visual for things I will get there you can wait that little extra time. Again thank you outside I’ve learned not to depend on where things might be. Instead I am going to advertise for a permanent guide. Maybe a dog. Apparently they do that much better than me. There is, of course, a waiting list. I did try to recruit a new dog night before last and he was good while he was here but he was easily distracted and went home. I need something more regular in my life. Please do not suggest cats as I am very allergic to their fur. As for the fox is outside all they seem to care about are biscuits I throw an they retrieve. End of the game. No fox has ever brought me back something I threw which means I’m only going to get as much as I put out there myself. How long until we have reliable robots? You know, like those shows from the 60s. The ones that tried to convince us that we’re all going to live much better in the coming years. I feel cheated because I did not get a flying car either.

I’m getting too old to adopt another generation of Star Trek seriously right now we’re watching I think pre-history as in the time before Kirk and I have no idea where I am or why or how long this can go on it’s as if there’s been Star Trek for most of my life. Do they ever get where they’re going is there an end to the story I imagine that for the producers that’s the last thing they want best to have generations of people who watch because it seems familiar someone point out that this is a star stark contrast to start wars. There also there are many epics there are many different casts but the music is the tying factor if you watch a Star Trek movie you know you’re watching Star Trek if you watch Star Wars you know you’re watching Star Wars only because of the soundtrack that is pretty good. We never had that kind of thing back when I used to watch westerns we just assumed that people rode horses all the time up and down the valleys. The music told us nothing the idea of something happening in particular  unlike Star Trek and Star Wars, we had no idea history is a learned process.  I think I should go back to watching nights as in Knights there I know the history came before me. I know it ends and I know that armor does not save you from everything, nor is living in a castle unless you count the drafts, but for those in the Star Wars and Star Trek worlds they depend on their ships to get from here to somewhere. That’s the difference we don’t know where they’re going or where they’ve been or where is in the world of Knights and castles we can pretty much figure out it all happened in England.

First a little rant. A corporate rant. We have a telephone that belongs to the system of let me see spell…hell…that gets it. I think anyhow on today’s bill, there was a new charge; an attempt to let us pay a monthly fee for «visual call waiting ». Why is this important? Our only reason for keeping their system around is to be able to call in an emergency. I don’t want to watch myself on call waiting trying to see what’s going on, senseless, like many of their things anyhow rant off.

Another week another set of indictments for the man who used to be leader of the free world. He is still free because there have not been any trials yet. The rest of us are waiting meanwhile the party that would like to own the world is chasing shadows in this case the son of the current president, someone who is never been in public office, who has never been actually involved in anything political but did own a gun.  More American that I don’t know it’s possible yes this is great theatre much more real time then the stuff with Watergate back 1/2 century ago. To be fair I was confused when that part was going on and I’m confused now can we get around to something real like jail, I’m waiting. Outside, more rain. It has been  like this for  most of the summer but not enough to worry me. I am not building an ark in the garage but I realized that such things might be needed if the current trend continues. How many days? Again I really need to get more local news to know what is going on in the big city. Other than the midway which is nothing more than a signal that summer is over for the kids and they will have to go back to school. I wonder what it would be like to ride a Ferris wheel with wet seats; never did that, never will. Anything else of note today? Well the big truck came and took away all or blue bags, that is a good thing because we had stored up about two months worth. Good to see them gone, good to see a reset. We will not have to worry for another little bit about the house being overtaken by bags of empty milk bottles.

Imagine yourself in the kitchen. The serving of pasta. Just for a change. You decide to try a whole different sauce. Think of this as an analogy. From time to time, I find myself listening to my own story. As given by someone else. Remember, the pasta is there, but the sauce will be different. We all have memories of how things happened. But sometimes you have to step back. And hear the story. From a different viewpoint. It can be really interesting if you give it a chance. In my case. I was listening to stories of when I was younger. As seen through the eyes of a very close friend. This could work for you. But don’t do it with someone that you barely know. Pick someone who is familiar with your background over a long period of time. Sometimes it is just what you need to introduce yourself to complete strangers. My story is not that different from anyone else is. It is not a direct line from then to now. There are little detours along the way. I find it interesting to hear someone else talk about what I experienced. With their flavor. Not a complete change of menu. Just enough to be novel.

For some reason the keepers of the keys over at YouTube are convinced that I need to learn more about history. They’re not wrong. My high school history was a long time ago and very vague. But what I’m learning is that England in particular had a lot of Henry. As in Henry who begat Henry who begat Henry who fought and then begat another Henry. Hard to tell one from the other especially since some of it happened a very long time ago. Today on the menu Henry 6. Now how long ago was this? Well Columbus had not yet sailed into view and here in Canada we were still 200 years out from our first invaders. In other words these henrys never came to Canada but they certainly had an effect upon us. I think they handled things differently back then. In the case of Henry 6 he was to put it mildly a bit of an imbecile. The easiest way to become leader of the country was to take Henry as a guest. We’re not supposed to say hostage. So you marched in a town with a couple of 1000 armed men and took the king home with you to put him in your version of a jail. And a short while later the other team would march back with their 2000 men and take Henry home with them a bit like chess. I imagine no-one  told us what Henry thought of the whole affair. I’m not going to spend much of my life studying old history but I am puzzled by the fact that our school system thought it was so important for me to know which Henry begat which Henry. I can count and it seems quite logical that one begat two. That is how it works. And we no longer worry about such things. There is a new king in town whose name is Charles 3. I notice that one and two lost their heads literally that’s the way history works.

From time to time I give into my curiosity about history. One way is to watch documentaries that deal with modern archaeology. You know, when you get out with a shovel and see what’s in the backyard. Some of the best programming comes out of the United Kingdom of course and what I’ve learned is that I can apply the same rules to my own area. Let me elaborate. In most of the documentaries that I watch the scientists are dealing with an area that has been settled for up to 2000 years. Multiple groups of people multiple changes. In sharp contrast my own area has a timeline that barely covers two centuries. And I’ve already been alive for a third of that. We have some decent records available. Aerial photography going back almost 90 years. Land use records. Photos taken in various villages showing the housing. If I applied those same guidelines to the village where my father was born, I know that the family was there since roughly 1840. Not quite two centuries but close. I know the boundaries of the family farm and where most of the burns sat having seen them myself. I know the roads have not shifted greatly over that time. I imagine that if I was to take my shovel and go dig in the backyard of my grandfathers, I would probably find some common artifacts. He was a blacksmith so there might be nails or pieces of machinery. I have not done so because the land is no longer owned by my family, but I could always sneak in undercover of darkness and see what I would find. Would the owners be puzzled by new holes behind the house? Would it seems there was buried treasure being sought by someone else?  I really don’t know. On my own piece of land, we know that our house is the first building ever. No sense in digging around the foundations. We also don’t throw away shards of pottery or old tools or anything else that would make for an interesting documentary. All I can do is dream up stories to tell my own children that they can pass on to their children and so on. We went to visit my nephew who is in a vacation house that is on the same piece of land where my mother went to school almost a century ago. Not the same building but the stream was where the class would go to get water during mealtimes. That has not changed and the road going by the main entrance is the same road that people have used for again almost two centuries. I find the continuity to be intriguing. Probably not enough to inspire the English film makers to come this way but if they ever ask, I will have some answers.