Monday, March 31, 2008

Pickled Radmul




Today I have been continuing on the cleanup to move theme. took a 20 gallon rubber maid tub of pickle jars to the recycle center along with some old phone books. 55lbs of crushed glass, man that is a butt load of dills. Claussens' are my pickle of choice. Cleaned my closet and got rid of a ton of crap. All while trying to become a, "New Media Douche Bag." I put up a video experiment that I will be working on improving but I need to get A tripod. One of the many Items that wandered away in Mississippi. "Shit Happens" I just don't like having to consume more than needed is all and my guess is that it ended up trashed some place. Enjoy the pictures some of my and my late wife's' work. Don't get fooled tomorrow.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Green Dragon

Here is a little sample of a story I am writing. if it sounds interesting to you drop by my site and you can grab it off the files page.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Trip to the Bike shop




Say hello to Rocky the porch cat. Most days he sits on our porch as we get the most sun and least wind. I have found that online cats and porch cats are easier to take care of than actual pets. Other people feed them and they give me the indignant attitude and looks just as if I owned them.
Got up early and headed to the bike shop. had an appointment for a tune-up and to add an odometer. Dan is my mechanic now that Sean has moved on to bigger and better as they say. The new Gadget is from Specialized. Gives speed, time, distance and a bunch of other things that I will eventually figure out. Shot a little video that is upon the youtube radmul channel. Got all fancy with a title and end credit and fade in. Yes the crisis is trying to up the quality on a regular basis as part of my effort to move into new media douchebaggery. I put a serious post up on the tattoed scientist a windows live blog that I think I will shift the more political ravings onto. Not all things blend well and I will link here when something goes up. This is an article on the state of rape in post invasion Iraq. It contains links to some very disturbing images so consider yourself warned.
Been running errands in the rain all day starting with Prosport. Then had to go to the mall to hit the Radio Shack for a memory card for the cam 2gigs for 19 bucks. They wanted $45 for the same thing elsewhere. Had no idea that those things were so pricey. It gives me another 35 minutes of video without having to load it to the computer so should have plenty of video from the road. Also picked up spare cables for breaks and shifter. Got more batteries the other day and found some new shoes that I liked. Unhappy that they were made in China but the New Balance were not comfy so I had no real choice.
The Cresent city trip should happen next week and then I am looking at the tour of the unknown coast a 100k that goes to the Avenue of the Giants.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Arcata Square and beyond

Don't know if they ever had enough drive-in theaters in the east but they might make an interesting theme. When I was in high school the drive-in was out by the cemetery. We would score a six-pack of whatever was cheap I got Old Milwaukee at the pizza place I delivered for at 90 cents a sixer and hang out on the graves and watch horrible films. Linda Lovelace for President, Enter the Dragon and the Gone in 60 seconds with Ron Howard. I am sure others of my age and a bit older have those same types of memories. Might make a good theme. Did a long ride to Arcata and back with some major detours that added up to close to 50 miles. I am dog tired while I get this ready for the web. The youtube Radmul channel has the new vid if the imbed fails. As always there are more photos at flickr page.
On the charity front I am shocked, shocked I say to find that there are a lot of scumwad types on the net. Since the first couple of groups I started to interact with turned out to be crooks I am going to include links to well established charities like. SPCA international. In the posts at appropriate points and perhaps some of you will donate to the cause.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Jedediah Springfield Smith:

Simpson fans remember Jedediah as the Pirate turned mountain man and town founder. It always reminded me of Jedediah Strong Smith. The redwood park is really beautiful made up of massive old growth trees but Smith was another one of those “First white Guys” that explored the west. I do not mean to say it wasn’t daring and tough and all but it always bothers me when you go exploring where people are already living. It did not work out for the locals most of the time. Matt G being a “Greener” he may have been there or he may have been inspired by something completely different.
The trip to Crescent City was postponed by the December bug is in the planning stage. Day one Patrick’s Point State Park. Day two Jedediah Smith State Park. Day three day of rest and exploration. Day four Humboldt Lagoon right on the ocean. Day five Clam Beach and then home on day 6. Need to go over my supplies and pick up a few items.
More batteries rechargeable.
The Ipod charger from AA batteries.
A mileage computer for the machine.
Bike cover and chamois.
Additional memory card for the camera.
New Running shoes.
Then it is a matter of finding a weather window and stocking the food. Notice I build in rest on the third day. Resting days on the road are when I hope to write and organize updates for the site.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

New Picture Page



This is one of the restored Victorian homes that dot our little berg. I have a new page up on the website so feel free to check that out. That style looks pretty good but I do not think it will be practicle for the road. The amount of time involved online will make it tough. I plan to put an average of 1 day a week in a motel with a net connection. I am going to try to coordinate it with days one of my friends does her cam show. Uplaoding typing just the time involved that requires the net will be the determining factor. probably save that format for special events.
I am also looking to find a theme. A universal thing to photograph in each location to tell a story. I have some ideas like country stores perhaps.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Waste one work one.

Spent most of Friday debating online with a nice Wicca person about the toxic nature of all religion even one as seemingly benign as hers. I remarked about pissing away the day on twitter mainly from the standpoint of people rarely change their minds based on evidence. I ended up being wrong as I often am in that time spent thinking logically and expressing those thoughts on paper works out the writing muscle. Later that evening I wrote a first draft of paper you will be seeing here shortly on the state of women in the wake of our Iraq misadventures. I am doing this in blog style so I need to track down all the links to the stories I cited. I had planned to do that this AM. But instead something got me going on, “the man in the cave.” This you may or may not see as it is an attempt at satire that flowed of my pen for about two hours but if I cannot refine it I may not publish. I was successful at it in “McCain reprises that’s my Bush“ that you can find here.
It is a bit of a style question right now it is part South Park and part children’s fairytale for a slow child. The subject is 911 so if I am unable to get it right I will not be posting. Getting in good rides each day looking for a window to camp. I have regained my compulsion to write I believe. I think the key is to write, today’s output began with organizing an argument on kos that got me thinking about the futility of arguing that led to books for dummies to the man in the cave by way of Fractured Fairy Tales. I will work at it.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Part two "My Night at the Top of the World"


Part Two
The road is up and down but mostly up so it is slow going and a little stressful and as the witching hour approached I pulled in to a snow maze. The parking area had been plowed but the snow was probably drifted to 15 ft maybe. Well above the roof of the RV anyway. It was eerie dark as the working streetlights stopped at the off ramp and I was alone. The cooling rig was the only noise. That tic tic tic as the engine settled for the night faded while I waited for my eyes to adjust.
I went out to walk around and get the blood flowing before I broke out dinner. My lungs were assaulted by the cold at my first breath. Think huffing razor blades in a meat locker. I had to have a smoke to warm up my lungs but eventually I stopped gasping at the air and began gasping at the sky. When Carl Sagan was talking about Billions and Billions this was the sky he was looking at. I do not know if it was being enclosed in the open or thin air but it looked like the stars were casting tree shadows on the drifts.
The cold asphalt making crunchy sounds I stumbled around with my mouth hanging open trying to look at everything at once.
Some time later I came back to myself and now that I was awake in every cell I was starving. I reluctantly went inside and turned on the light shutting out my surroundings in the glare the windshield. I made a salad while the radio scanned up and down the dial landing on a rock station out of Telluride. Never been there but I always found the name cool going back to smugglers blues from Glen Fry. They were playing my style of tunes and so I heated up some devil chicken and chopped some veggies while listening to Floyd and the Stones waiting for a replay of a king biscuit flower hour with Neil Young that the DJ hyped between songs.
I set up a table and chair outside, opened the windows to blast the tunes and slipped into my mummy bag with a tall crown and ginger to fight the chill. I munched and sipped and watched the stars move across the sky mesmerized as people have done since the dawn of man.
Heart of Gold, Like a Hurricane, and The Needle and The Damage Done; songs from better times when death was still a stranger. I took a look at my place in the grand scheme as, “Don’t Let it Bring you Down,” screamed from the radio and the occaisional shooting star flared in the Colorado sky.
I am not going to get into the minutia that divided us. Every family has its quirks and squabbles that seem petty to the outsider but that we cling to like a warm blanket to wrap ourselves in the comfort of old hurts real or perceived. Each has its own dark secrets outsiders are never shown the wounds that cannot be healed because they can never be mentioned. It is a long time since I read Piaget and do not know if he is still in favor but as I remember it all the wiring imprints in the first few years so the things that made me are not the memories I can recall anyway.
If Libet is right I never truly had a choice to make in the first place. Maybe things were in motion and I was just making up the story in my mind to fit the patterns preventing madness from paralyzing me. I simply drifted among the stars thinking that we would all be going back to the stardust from which we began. At one time in the distant future each atom in my being would be as alone in space as I was alone on this spine of the dragon. Would any part retain memory of any of those egregious transgressions? When the last of my nerve endings decayed to carbon and nitrogen and were blown away by the solar winds to the far edges of the universe it was not going to matter so why should it matter now?
In the end I could do no less for my dad than I had done for strangers hundreds of times in the past. And when a month or so later I was sure the time had come I woke my stepmother so they could have their final moments together and I could begin to turn the page

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Rest In Peace Arthur C. Clarke

Brilliant thinker, author and scientist Arthur C Clarke died today at 90.
I first saw this at the old Golden Gate Theater in 70mm Cinamasope for my 14th birthday. Still one of the coolest scenes ever Filmed.

Monday, March 17, 2008

my new virtual pet

Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”


Blog nonsense.
Went out and found a water purifier today so next trip we can avoid the crypto and whatever. A good day for a ride and I got a few more pics of the local merchants I have been finding supplies at.
I have as of yet not been able to get back into the state of mind I found yesterday. The creative process being what I am interested in exploring I thought I would share a little on the subject before I post the first part of that story. I am enjoying blogging and the linking thing is very interesting. Something audaciaray said on twitter got me to thinking, “working with video is interesting in a different way than working with text.” Working in Blog is a subset of text that is unique from standard prose. I think about the telling differently in some ways. I think it has the potential to be very creative but it also has a tendency to break my focus. Looking for the link I have lost the train of the story but that can be part of the fun. The synthesis of original and sampled material can work well but I think it will take a great deal of practice for me to do it well.
I find that I am a bit verbose in some of these posts and I think in this case size is important. Too long can work against readership in an ADHD world 700 or 800 words should be a max I am thinking. On that note here is Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”
It was a bad time for me. I was heading to Newport News to stay with my dad. He had colon cancer and needed more help than my sister or his wife were willing to provide. I had flown out to see them and hung out for 3 wks and they talked me into moving in with them for the duration. I needed to store the motor home and if I was going to deal with my family for any length of time I needed to get some Green. It was a stressful time as I was also giving up tobacco. The quitting smoking stuck after about 6 months of off and on with the help of nasty skin patches and gum. At least as far as tobacco anyway. There were no storage spaces that I could find in a hurry so I took the rig east and stored it in Hampton roads. I will get to my eastern adventures in the future but I felt it important to set the tone a bit before I take you to the top of spine of the dragon.
In Le Morte d’Arthur Merlin refers to a rocky mountain range in Britain as the spine of the dragon. The men that built the transcontinental railway thru from the west, mostly recruited in southern China brought their legends of dragons to the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the valley before it. As a teller of tales I feel free to blend those legends into my own as I tell the story of a cold dark night of the sole spent on spine of America’s dragon.
Vail pass on I 70 is 10,666ft and near its top there is a rest area that I had all to myself on this particular night. The contrast from my day was profound. I had driven thru Arches National Park or as I like to call it Wiley Coyote National Park after the roadrunner cartoons. Out of Utah and up the Rockies it gets greener and fresher and the sky becomes a deeper purple blue as the sun sets in the backup cam. I like driving at night when I am trying to make time and because I didn’t want to get were I was going I had stalled as long as I could without sticking it to my sister. That and when you stop in highway rest areas in a motor home the freakin trucks run their engines all night but they leave early so I like to pull in late.
I will post part two in a few days in which our hero comes to a decision. No mean feat for a world champion procrastinator

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Random thoughts on the Ides of March

I had one of my stories picked up by an online paper so that was cool. I spent some time Googeling Radmul to see if I was beginning to get anywhere and I have gone from zero to something like the youtube channel, 5 subscribers is not much but as I get out I get more hits.
Signed up for twitter after Mina began there and it seems to have some potential to find some interesting things. As a voyeur if find it fun but will it turn out to be like Myspace, people hawking and hyping gets tiresome.
Dragon’s Justice is up at the free site I have begun serializing my book for your reading pleasure. I will keep that site updated but I am shifting my effort to the google blog as it seems to be getting the bigger following. Learning the ins and outs of so many different systems has been sucking some of the enjoyment out of blogging but finding an audience in a community that has everyone speaking and few listening is not easy. I have two reasons for posting it, first to get some objective feedback. Second to put pressure on myself to write more of the story.
Finally I will try to get off the politics and get back to telling stories in the blog, on the blog? One of these days I will either learn grammer or find an editor but as anyone that reads me can attest not knowing something going in has never stopped me from screwing with something.

Friday, March 14, 2008

The Ignorance of Faith

Why are we letting the insane ramblings of the dumbest segment of American society hold so much sway over our elections? In the 21st century why are we listening to charlatans that peddle false hope to the weak and vulnerable?
This round of political discourse was probably doomed from the start as Mormonism and Islam dominated early in the campaign. I think that a Romney presidency would be a disaster with his tax cuts make the flowers grow and the birds sing economics but when Mike “lets make it gods constitution” Huckabee (http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?cat=185) started talking about Mormons worshiping Satan as the brother of Jesus in his best preacher’s wink and nod I was disgusted. I reached the exploding head point when Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber try to get Barack Obama in some sort of anti Semitic gotcha with Louis Farrakhan. We are a nation at war on two fronts on the brink of economic collapse and what are we talking to the democratic parties possible nominee? Are you against saying mean things about Jews? Lets parse the words reject and denounce.
And the beat rolls on with one wacky preacher after another being trotted out to embarrass the candidates and distract from the real issues facing a troubled nation. I thought John McCain got it right back in 2000 when he denounced the likes of Pat Robertson and the religious hate wing of the party but he lost and has now has begun pandering to god squad in efforts to appease them in some messianic belief that only he can keep our nation safe. Now when questioned about people like Hagge he thanks them for supporting his ideas.
When the news cycle spent a day debating Hillary Clintons non denial denial that Obama is a Muslim how can we hope to deal with something as complicated as regulating securities schemes, derivatives, the mortgage crisis and sovereign wealth funds that are taking us into a depression the likes of which we have not seen since the 30’s.
The second part of my argument will get me labeled another blame America first liberal America hater and to that charge I respond that I am an honorably discharged disabled veteran of the United States Air Force and that my late wife died from a service connected disability. We sacrificed for our first amendment rights as well as for those at faux news so I will exercise mine on occasion without fear. This argument is another consequence of the ignorance of faith. When you are unwilling to confront hate and question authority you will never improve the nation. If our actions as a people do not stand up to scrutiny it is not the fault of the observer no matter what Heisenberg says about collapsing the wave.
Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell among other preachers pontificated about the godless gays and secular humanists brining on god’s wrath and now he is McCain’s go to god guy. This Hagee (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNi7tPanUA) spews forth a hate filled diatribe against gays and explains god destroyed the gulf coast cause to many men were kissing and McCain thanks him for his support. Then we have Jeremiah Wright (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080314/ap_on_el_pr/obama_pastor) and God Damn America. Same sentiment but this time the target is not the drag queens and the fornicators but the criminal foreign policy that breads hatred for America. The Iranians don’t hate freedom, they hate the fact that we toppled the only democracy they ever had and that we threw them to the mercy of a savage dictator. (http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html)
I have listened to several long clips of the sermons of Jeremiah Wright what scares me is not what the man was saying but what the talking news heads are saying about it. Why is Hardball’s Chris Mathews convinced America is afraid of an angry black man? Why do the people at fox news conflate holding the government to account on morals grounds with hating America? The type of attacks the man was leveling is hard for the privileged to hear but I am still waiting to hear what in his rant was untrue.
Jesse Ventura spoke his mind (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/10/03/ventura/index.html) and was crushed unmercifully for it so I am not surprised that Senator Obama took the tack he did at the Huffpo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/on-my-faith-and-my-church_b_91623.html) but I wish we lived in an America where the facts actually mattered and superstition was left to the sports arena.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Smart people with dumb beliefs part deux.

I have blogged about this before but watching today’s news makes my head want to explode. Let me first dispense with the Governor of NY and expensive hypocrites. My position on prostitution is that humans own their own bodies and you should be able to sell sex like anything else. I think you should be able to sell Kidneys and other extra parts on Ebay as well in theory. In reality prostitution means exploitation and pain even when legalized for lots of its participants. The legal prostitution in Amsterdam’s red-light for instance while better than the system most places has been unable to prevent the trafficking of poor women from eastern Europe into a form of slavery. Nor has prohibition prevented San Francisco from having Asian slaves in massage parlors. The dualism pervasive in western thought works against solutions as does the puritan sniggling of the talking news chicks. That being said prostitution does not have to degrade anyone and should be decriminalized at least to protect the participants. It is my same feeling, as on immigration making a human being illegal helps nothing. It simply allows those in authority an opportunity to prey on the weak. Spitzer still had to go because rather than stand up and say, “hey I like to bang hookers bare-back in the rear” he gave us some disappointed my standards bull crap. You were putting people in danger of ass rape to build your career for doing exactly what you were doing. My solution for you, don’t drop the soap scumbag. Bang a hooker, blow guys in airport bathrooms, put on a diaper and get your freak on I don’t care but if you make your living persecuting your fellow enthusiasts when you get caught you go down.
Now to the race baiting affirmative action dog whistling that is dominating the campaign news. I voted for the Mondale-Ferraro ticket and at the time thought that Gerri made the case that she was qualified but I have never been of the opinion that men are smarter than women having grown up with a sister that is a genius so I was easily convinced evidently. She seems to actually believe that as a product of affirmative action she was peter principled and so all affirmative action leads to incompetence. If she had not run out this same meme in the 80’s about Jessie Jackson I would give her the benefit of the doubt but unfortunately like Dr. Watson another highly educated pioneer she is stuck in the dark-ages about skin color. Feminists are pissed as their chance at power is slipping away and it may not be fair but going race is to hand the election to McBush. I wonder if the Red phone fear mongering from the Mondale era was her idea. My position is that we can ill afford 4 years of the right as we are already past the tipping point for global climate and the endless war is evil. This subject leaps out at me as a white male of lower middle class background, as my ilk is the target audience I see it sometimes when it may not be there as this is the same thing that the Regan scum used to attract the so called, “Reagan Democrats.” I have made no secret of the fact that I think we are still pretty bigoted and as my black friend from the Daily show so aptly put it, “We are only voting for the chance to vote for a black president. Come November a 70 year old white guy might be just the change they are looking for” And actions like Senator Clinton and her surrogates are part of the problem not the solution.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Eureka

I put together a little page to capture the flavor of Eureka up on the site my http://www.myvirtualmidlifecrisis.freewebspace.com It is practice for future trips, check it out and let me know what you think.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

A quick note

I put a diary up at the dailykos.com concerning my thoughts on politics for today. I read it and the huffington post each day for my liberal news portals. for some reason the video I uploaded didn't show up but it is available at http://youtube.com/user/radmul as are all the crisis videos.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

old town tunes

Here is a video update. Testing out the new cam and a little editing practice.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Springtime for radmul

When did reporting the news and telling the truth become mutually exclusive pursuits? I was watching the reports of the recruiting station bombing and the reporter was saying that there was no sign of terrorist involvement. Hello? Then I see that Susan Powers had to resign from the Obama campaigned for telling the truth about the Clinton strategy.
Spring is in the air?
The urge to begin spring cleaning has hit and the layers of filth are beginning to come down. The last few days the sun has been out and the riding has gotten my energy flowing again. I am way over weight from the layoff but I am still committed. We lost the Mite war and now will be going to the coop but we need to find a local non va doctor to get an Rx form and do paper work and it saddens me. The end of an era deserves to be acknowledged. Dreamsicle has been growing for over three years but is probably down for the count. The final leg of the third man trip to Canada has come to an end with the realization that we will never have that strain again.
On the plus side I found a camera for the crisis. A Fuji s700 that seems to be really cool. The first video from the road will be up soon as I finish configuring the software so the travel video quality should improve. I got a fantastic deal at Radio shack with a 1gig memory card cheaper than I had found it on the web.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

the car door uncertainty principle.

I have been watching a lot of bloggingheads. and they were talking about , Friedrich Nietzsche, he presents the idea of eternal recurrence as an answer to nihilism. “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you-all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust.” Nietzsche. http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/great/projects/Adams.htm if you would like more details. This got me thinking about many worlds and Quantum mechanics. I put up a little video riff at http://youtube.com/user/radmul for those that would like a little more details on many worlds, Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) My point being if there are an infinite number of possible universes with an infinite number of options why did the car door uncertainty principle happen to this particular Radmul?