jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

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2013-10-31-2023Z

got my 2nd job as a wetback in BCS. good while it lasts, and if I get deported I've got work lined up again back in the Estados Bandidos as well.

La Paz Starbucks has a new password, machiato79. username is same as before, starbucks@infinitummovil.

can't find the fatboy propane containers for camp stoves here, and just paid MX$169 for a thin, soldering-type container. ouch! better build me a solar cooker quick. [comment]

2013-10-31-1541Z

left the router out in the rain yesterday; all afternoon, all night. amazingly, it didn't fry but the power brick did. [comment]

2013-10-29-2202Z

today I mashed a few neem fruits, both fresh and dried, with my new molcajete and spread the paste on my hands. mosquitos have been hovering around me all day since but have not landed on my hands. I'm guessing it's working. [comment]

2013-10-29-2040Z

natal plum (Carissa macrocarpa) is growing all around the church at the Zócalo. looks as though many will be ripening in a week or two. problem is, they need to be washed to get the diesel goop off, and the skin is typically very thin and tears easily, and the inside is soft and mushy. oh, for a world without fossil fuels. [comment]

2013-10-29-0513Z

bought some fish, dorado y pierna, at the mercado today and fried 'em up in lard tonight after making a big batch of totopos. made a great dinner, we both stuffed ourselves and still had leftovers. all for MX$39, or about $3.50.

app.net was cool about refunding my money after I downgraded to a "free" account, but I don't remember ever setting up a subscription to begin with. I thought I was making a one-time payment. [comment]

2013-10-28-2353Z

tried something else with the rest of the roasted palo verde beans: ground them up and made "coffee" out of them. nutty and delicious. no substitute for coffee, of course, lacking caffeine or the equivalent, but makes a nice afternoon drink and might work 50-50 with coffee beans for a flavor-enhanced, low-caf morning brew. [comment]

2013-10-28-2310Z

did some foraging today here in La Paz. found a few types of amaranth, some purslane, coast almond fruits, tiny local figs, and dried pods of palo verde. added a couple of tamarind pods from the tree in front of the house to the greens and fruit, chopped it up, and sauteed in olive oil for a bit. very tasty. then roasted the palo verde beans until they popped, and ate a few. nothing to write home about, but at least they can (barely) be chewed after roasting. it takes about 3 to 5 minutes over high heat. [comment]

2013-10-28-1529Z

in a recurring dream I am being ferociously beaten by a young black kid. he has an amazing arsenal of tactics designed to throw me off balance and weaken my counterattack while he lambastes me with punches and kicks. one I remember is tickling my ribs as I'm about to punch. [comment]

2013-10-26-2002Z

so all my coins finally got delivered, though one of them still showed "Manifest" even after the buyer let me know he got it. that free USPS tracking is worth every penny.

starting to settle into the Baja lifestyle again. still a little hot here, though. there's a tamarind tree in front of the house, and a neem tree in back; both have valuable food, medicinal, and other properties. recent storms dumped lots of rain, which resulted in lush growth of native amaranth and purslane, among other flora. I dumped some sunflower oil into the cistern yesterday to try and prevent further mosquito breeding in it. dengue fever is prevalent around here.

siphoning Internet from a nearby hotel using dd-wrt in repeater mode. one of the few forms of theft that don't much bother my conscience. [comment]

2013-10-25-1101Z

great sysadmin I am. NOT. I had tested Freenet some weeks ago and couldn't figure it out, so just killed the process and figured I'd look at it another day. well, as I was troubleshooting a networking issue I ran find / -newer /etc/network/interfaces and found a bunch of files in my own directory, under Freenet/, recently modified. curious, I did more searching and found this in /var/spool/cron/crontabs/jcomeau: @reboot "/home/jcomeau/Freenet/run.sh" start 2>&1 >/dev/null #FREENET AUTOSTART - 8888

gots to be more careful. perhaps this wasn't malicious, but something else may be. [comment]

2013-10-24-1937Z

free as in beer. the guy behind me got the last Modelo, so I got Corona Light, no problem. just passing Balandra, should be at the airport momentarily. [comment]

2013-10-24-1617Z

now at the gate after having been thoroughly fucked over, humiliated and robbed by airport security in Tijuana. the Parcel Blue Light called over an official (whose name and agency I was too distraught to notice) said the large bottle of Kirkland olive oil was unacceptable because they don't allow oil of any kind; the liquor because it had no label, but I'm sure they could have come up with another excuse to steal it otherwise.

if the luggage compartment of the plane ever reaches the flash point of olive oil, I'd guess that bottle would be one of the least of their (and my) worries. [comment]

2013-10-24-1535Z

instead of waiting for two hours before boarding as I was told up front last night, I decided to go directly back to checkin. good decision, as I would be entering the line about now instead of being almost to the front. a Volaris guy told me the auto check-in machines should be working next month. [comment]

2013-10-24-1412Z

exchanged $20 at a dismal rate of 11.something to one, and bought a coffee for 23 pesos which tastes like nescafe. finished off the loaf of bread from Ralph's and that was breakfast. I still have sunflower seeds for the flight. [comment]

2013-10-24-0306Z

frugality and temperance just went out the window as I bought a 12-oz Victoria for four goddamned bucks. but it should help knock me out quickly after the hectic 3 days I just put myself through. [comment]

2013-10-24-0245Z

so it turns out I needn't have fret about the visa; I could have gotten it and paid for it right here at the airport. I just did pay it, and these guys say there's no need to return it. just about every other INM agent lied to me then, and that explains why I had such trouble in the past trying to do it. the visa cost me MX$295, for which the agent returned US$13 from my $40, so $27. no doubt he kept the change. exchange spread is very wide here at the airport, I should have changed money in San Ysidro but was hurrying, not knowing I could get my visa hassle-free here 24 hours a day.

anyway I'm grateful, I got here alive and unmugged. if I don't sleep through the checkin tomorrow, I'll be in La Paz in the afternoon. [comment]

2013-10-24-0133Z

got lost for an hour or so in Tijuana after priding myself on making the first few turns correctly and on finding a date palm laden with fruit. some people I asked were helpful while others were obviously trying to get me totally confused or perhaps mugged. anyway I pulled out my compass, headed north and east, and am now enjoying adobada y cabeza at Tacos del Paisa. paid MX$26 plus MX$4 tip. [comment]

2013-10-23-2237Z

constant crisis mode. forgot I need a tourist visa, and for that I need to get cash. just bought a $2.50 ticket from the one working machine at America Plaza and am on the Blue Line to San Ysidro. [comment]

2013-10-23-2208Z

San Diego is tearing up and resurfacing perfectly good roads. crony contracts? this is such an old, old ploy to funnel "public", i. e. stolen, wealth into the coffers of the 1%. [comment]

2013-10-23-2139Z

god damn, these Metro services are getting more tightwadded every year. got the 150 express to downtown but no transfer without a day pass, so have to pay another fare after all. and the express is $2.50 instead of $2.25 like the other buses. [comment]

2013-10-23-1955Z

looks like rain coming. no sleep today, I'm afraid. [comment]

2013-10-23-1940Z

spent $2.18 at TJ and $1.65 at Starbucks at La Jolla Village Square. and someone left part of a cheese and spinach wrap I might be tempted to eat besides the banana and sunflower seeds.

there's another choice of bus, the 30. the 120 doesn't stop at the VA medical center.

got to find the Staples to print my boarding pass. it's supposed to be here but I don't see it. [comment]

2013-10-23-1706Z

decided, after finding out the train is $5.50 and doesn't transfer to the trolley, that taking the 101 to the VA medical center and then taking the 120 to America Plaza and getting a transfer to the trolley would work out far cheaper at $1.75 plus $2.50 is $4.25 to the border. [comment]

2013-10-23-1541Z

the NCTD bus added up my 3 quarters as $0.70, so I had to add another nickle to make fare of $1.75. cute.

I wimped out and just showed my ID to the Marine at the gate, and answered his unconstitutional question as to where I'm going. I figured he was a willing oathbreaker or he wouldn't have accepted the assigned duty.

oh, and the driver of the 395 said he doesn't give transfers except in cases of emergency. so I've got to either pay full fare in Oceanside or research other routes. [comment]

2013-10-23-1250Z

sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits, 2 for $2.22 plus tax at Carl's Jr. in San Clemente, total of $2.40. drinking water instead of coffee, as I'll be wanting to use a restroom later and will have to buy something then; let it be coffee.

let's see how much of my 4th amendment right I'll have to give up today going through Camp Pendleton. I can see the POV of the Marines -- they don't want to let someone on base who's going to kill anybody or raid the armory -- but at the same time, do we as a country want freedom or safety? I choose the former. [comment]

2013-10-23-0859Z

met a crazy old guy named Al on the bus. crazy in a good way. he bought me a burger and hung out with me some of the time tonight in San Clemente. as it turns out, there aren't NCTD buses to meet the OCTA buses past a certain point, which I obviously reached. [comment]

2013-10-23-0233Z

made another trip back to Ralph's and got a marked-down loaf of French bread for $1.59. why don't Petaluma grocers mark down their morning baked items after 4PM like this store does?

anyway, with the bananas I bought the trip before, that comes to $2.20 food cost tonight, for a total of about $8.80 for the day. add $2 for the OCTA #1 bus to San Clemente and it's under $11 total expense. if I can get to Oceanside tonight I might opt for it, though. San Clemente would be a horrid place to spend the night. [comment]

2013-10-23-0211Z

got to the VA hospital too late for the 6:30 bus, will have to catch the 7:40. chances of getting to SD tonight are slim. [comment]

2013-10-22-2154Z

the USPS tracking info from my silver coins is certainly not confidence-inspiring. only two shipments of 6 were delivered; one is marked "Manifest" with my Columbus, NM address which I had forgotten to change before printing the first few labels; one is marked "in transit" last update being Saturday; and the other two are marked "Shipment created" which basically means no updates at all since I printed the labels. looks like I might be refunding most of the money and maybe losing the silver. the USPS has certainly gone downhill since I left. [comment]

2013-10-22-2145Z

finally reached Willow Station long after emerging from the ghetto into the rarefied, gentrified air of Bixby Knolls in uptown Long Beach. relaxing at Starbucks after relieving my bladder. had to pass up a couple of nice nap spots due to that little problem. [comment]

2013-10-22-1959Z

I think that was the LA river I crossed back there. wild tobacco was growing next to the sidewalk and Ricinus communis was down in the wash. seems people were living next to the outer bridge supports; on the north end were lots of potted plants and water storage bottles; on the south end was just garbage. [comment]

2013-10-22-1909Z

got two packs of snacks at the Shell Food Mart on LBB and Artesia, $1 total. ate the sunflower seeds, saving the spicy peanuts for later. [comment]

2013-10-22-1819Z

not long after that last post I passed a Bank of America -- although it looked pretty ghetto -- and a Compton "pocket park". I got maybe an hour, possibly more, of sleep and feel somewhat refreshed. now to find a Starbucks. [comment]

2013-10-22-1639Z

one thing you can't say about Long Beach Boulevard is that it's been gentrified. no parks. no banks. not a single Starbucks since I left Union Station. the fog has almost all burned off and I'd like to find a place to take a nap. [comment]

2013-10-22-1454Z

urban foraging win: chicken and rice plate with steamed cabbage and broccoli left at the bus stop a mile or so back. it probably wasn't more than 12 hours old. scarfed it all down quickly and moved on. [comment]

2013-10-22-1324Z

wow, still about 23 miles to the VA hospital where I pick up the OCTA bus. my feet are so blistered and hurting already from yesterday. maybe I'll get some sleep somewhere today and make it to the OCTA first thing tomorrow morning. [comment]

2013-10-22-1303Z

having a $1 sausage McMuffin and free water (in my own cup -- zero waste as much as is practical) with wifi at the McDs at Santa Fe and Florence. [comment]

2013-10-22-1232Z

cut over at Randolph to Santa Fe Ave. in Huntington Park. picked up some drops from under a fruit tree. guava! at least I hope that's what those were. [comment]

2013-10-22-1144Z

freakin' hotspot didn't give me an IP. damn. that rarely happens with Linksys. [comment]

2013-10-22-1139Z

had coffee and a croissant in 7-11 on Alameda, $3. continued walking a few more miles till I found a concealed place to pee, in Vernon. my iPod has latched onto an AP. Linksys Intergalactic Network perhaps?

just checked. yes indeed! right outside True World Foods, 4200 Alameda. sounds like a Moonie operation. [comment]

2013-10-22-0245Z

got lost in the Presidio, and made it to Caltrain with only minutes to spare. wasted about $5 on beer (Anchor Steam), water (Calistoga sparkling with lemon) and Planter's salted peanuts. I only made one or two other stops for water today; I only remember the fountain in Sausalito. and this was the only food except for what I foraged. [comment]

2013-10-21-2348Z

about two hours till my bus leaves but I'm in northern SF now so I should make it. at some point I realized I left my coffee home, where it'll probably get moldy. also, I noticed out the bus window that the Ghilotti guy had lied: the barriers are still blocking the shoulder. [comment]

2013-10-21-2024Z

came to a dead end, but with a W.A.S.T.E. trail over the hill, where I took a leak, coming out on Central Ct. in an apartment complex. found Milland but there was no hardware store, just apartments. someone is probably selling EasyKlip from eir apartment. no time to deal with that, so I'm on my way to the Mill Valley-Sausalito trail and on to the city. [comment]

2013-10-21-1825Z

stopped at the marsh in Larkspur to rest, take some notes, and eat some of the mandarins someone dropped on the bridge.

turns out 101 doesn't stop on Seminary, near where is a hardware store that carries the EasyKlip, so I decided to walk from San Rafael. good choice! not far south of the bus terminal I saw to the left a black chain fence like those that line bike paths. walked over and sure enough, it was the new SMART trail to Larkspur. crossed Sir Francis Drake and started following another bike path, but I asked a pleasant elderly lady if it went to the bridge and she said no, so I doubled back and crossed the bridge, where I found the oranges. so far I've also munched on some of those decorative Asian pears that people plant everywhere around here, and some rose hips.

turns out the dried blackberries don't stay sweet. the sugars might be leaching out in the rain. guess I'd better gather them, and rose hips, just after they start to dry next year. [comment]

2013-10-20-2239Z

forgot about eBay's fees, over $20. damn. so I did lose some money after all.

my jerky will be gone by tonight. so much for my travel food. guess it'll be McDonald's nasty $1 burgers, or something similar, for a few days. [comment]

2013-10-20-0035Z

planted 8 cuttings of Chinese holly on the hillside, after soaking them in water for a while and then adding some rooting liquid. turns out it is just fertilizer, no hormones. I guess the guy at the shop didn't understand English very well, and I didn't bother reading the label then as I should have. [comment]

2013-10-19-2226Z

tarp clips, once I find some that work well, are hopefully going to be the best device yet for prototyping clothing, ad-hoc repairing of lawn furniture, and testing out of different ultralight HPV designs. so far I've tried these shark clips but they don't grip well enough. I can still use them for something, though, such as holding the reflective side of a sun shade together with some wire or webbing to a 45 degree angle around a cooking pot. [comment]

2013-10-19-0453Z

so my silver sold basically for what I paid for it; no net profit to speak of, but I don't believe I lost anything either. just the fact that you can liquidate a few hundred or a few thousand dollars of silver online in a little over 24 hours is a win.

rode my bike to Santa Rosa today to pick up something from REI and shop around here and there. got some rooting compound for that Ilex cornuta from the NAPA Auto Parts store downtown and asked their permission to take some clippings, to which the guy at the cash register assented. and of course, restocked my Kerrygold butter at Costco.

road rage seems to be getting worse, or maybe it was just the fact that it was a Friday afternoon. only one guy blasted his horn at me, but a few tried their damnedest to push me into the curb. it looks as though they're putting in a nice wide bike lane on the repaved Old Redwood Highway but of course that will be used for lots of other things: garbage left for pickup, road signs, overflow parking, lost motorists checking maps... [comment]

2013-10-17-2334Z

procedure: mix some soy sauce, black pepper, and red pepper flakes by hand into a pound of fresh ground beef. make patties by hand, flattening to about 1/8 inch, onto the waxed butcher paper in which it came wrapped. lift off and place overflow onto other things such as a barbecue grill grid. place out in the sun. flies and wasps may land on it but I rarely have a problem with them laying eggs. you'll notice fly eggs as a raised whitish or cream-colored area on the jerky, and you can just rub them off with your thumb. if you start early enough in the day, the batch will be dried well by sundown; otherwise put it in the fridge overnight and finish the next day, or place in the oven at the lowest heat setting and with the oven door stuck open with something for a few hours. [comment]

2013-10-17-2314Z

just turned another pound of local organic ground beef into jerky, a necessary step because the last batch turned out too good and I've been nibbling a bit too much of it. [comment]

2013-10-17-1837Z

the pagoda trees in Putnam Plaza are dropping their pods. like a string of grapes, with a copious amount of very acrid liquid surrounding each seed. [comment]

2013-10-17-0543Z

actually, in the particular context of what I'm doing (figuring out the Kanji characters in a Japanese VX7 radio from a graphic), it seems to be more fruitful treating the entire character as a radical, then falling back on the previous process if that fails. [comment]

2013-10-17-0501Z

getting better at looking up Han characters by radical. does the top or left look like a radical? search on it if so, after counting the strokes, remembering that a stroke across and down often counts as one. if that fails, does the bottom or right look like a radical? search on it if so. if that fails, the whole thing may be a radical. [comment]

2013-10-16-0002Z

bought a telescoping antenna, part number 20-006, for my VX7R at Radio Shack today for $14.99. tested great on the local 146.91 repeater, and hoping it will work on 6 meters as well. it connects to the adapter I got off eBay the other day. [comment]

2013-10-15-1921Z

note that when the write "takes", the radio instantly reboots and shows a Vertex Standard logo instead of Yaesu. this never happened on the failed uploads. [comment]

2013-10-15-1918Z

finally! using the library computers and VX7 Commander, I cloned my old radio's settings to both the old and new radios. freeband all the way, baby! [comment]

2013-10-15-0525Z

oh, this is rich. the reason I'm no longer getting crash logs from MobileSafari is because creashreporterd itself crashes when MobileSafari dies. [comment]

2013-10-15-0505Z

the pain in my upper right gum, between two teeth and then spreading to a large area, slowly subsided over the last two months and is now gone. my laissez-faire self-medication has worked out well. the pain in my left ankle was gone over a week ago too. and this last time the cracking in my right heel got painful, I did: nothing. no pumice stone, no soaking, no nothing. and it healed. it still looks ugly, for sure, but it doesn't hurt. I've got a brain, and I've got the Internet; who needs a goddamned doctor or dentist? I may someday; but I'm not going to worry about it. fuck Obamacare. [comment]

2013-10-15-0212Z

oh, and I re-learned that this is the wrong time of year for cattail heart. even the innermost core is too tough to eat. I guess springtime is the right season for it, but these were obviously young plants so I can't explain it. [comment]

2013-10-15-0051Z

rode my bike out to the east end of town along Corona Creek and foraged some watercress, cattail heart, fennel, mallow, sow thistle, salt weed (Atriplex triangularis) and wild rose hips. along the way I ate some lychees that I found along Sonoma Mountain Parkway between Lynch Creek and G&G. regarding that beef heart I got for 17 cents: it was pretty stinky when I opened it, but I've got it marinating in sherry and soy sauce now, hoping for the best. it's an ecological disaster as far as packaging goes, but if it works out as food, perhaps I can mitigate my landfill footprint eventually.

my ground beef jerky finished drying today, and it's really tasty. one of my best batches yet. it'll be my travel food into Mexico.

I stir-fried my greens and chopped-up rose hips with a small clove of garlic in some beef fat I had left over from the other day. interesting taste, lots of character but I wouldn't call it tasty. and it left a strange feeling in my throat, as if I'm coming down with a bug. [comment]

2013-10-14-2210Z

G&G sells organ meats as "pet food" for 49 cents a pound, e.g. there's a third of a pound of what's obviously beef heart for 17 cents. on a budget? yeah! [comment]

2013-10-14-2124Z

some bright blue goop is floating at the far end of the Lucchesi park duck pond. and the water splashes the same color where the fountain hits it. what could it be? doesn't seem to bother the ducks much. [comment]

2013-10-14-1953Z

the crash logs in /var/logs/CrashReporter/ ought to help me locate the MobileSafari bug. strangely, the newest such crash log is dated 2010. the low battery monitor has crash logs as current as last month though. [comment]

2013-10-14-1639Z

no back pain at all on the paddle yesterday, from Nick's all the way out to Aviles beach and back. zero. the only thing I can think of that was different is that I had so much in my back pockets, perhaps it forced better posture.

but, this morning I had the runs. 3 times so far. I ate a lot of sugary stuff yesterday, but that usually has other deleterious effects on my system, not diarrhea. I guess it could be the rice. I've still got at least another day's worth of that. [comment]

2013-10-13-1328Z

inline with that "free the tatas" netmeme I saw the other day: international "free the nads!" day, inviting all men worldwide to experience the freedom of a kilt, once a year. in the interest of fairness to our friends down under, a spring or fall day close to the equinox should be chosen. a July day might not be so good for our Aussie and Argentine brothers. [comment]

2013-10-13-1307Z

so MAC addresses don't get propagated past layer 2; or so I thought. noticed a particular variable this morning after signing onto Starbucks wifi: http://digital.starbucks.com/?MacAddr=, and there was my iPod's hardware address, urlencoded but plain as day. so even if you don't log into anything, you're being tracked by that unless you randomize it before you move to each new AP, all day, every day. wonder what good that does Starbucks, or if it's solely at the behest of the NSA. of course they could have easily hidden it in an encrypted hexadecimal string, or base64 encoded, and few would ever notice. [comment]

2013-10-12-2347Z

ate one of the unfinished pieces of jerky raw, and put the rest into a mesh bag and into the fridge for tonight. yes, it's cheating but I can't afford the risk of wasting the meat. next time I make jerky, it'll have to be a morning with no fog, got to go buy the meat at 0700 when Petaluma Market opens, mix it with soy sauce and pepper and flatten it right away and have it starting to dry by 0900 at the latest. [comment]

2013-10-12-2322Z

I experimented with plastic bag welding just now, with my butane iron and largest bevel tip. started getting good seams after a few minutes. gonna give it a rest for now, but looks like a good option for making an ultralight $5 drysuit out of garbage bags. the parchment I got for $1/pack at Grocery Outlet isn't scorching, the tip is staying clean except for the one time I touched it directly to the plastic (oops!), and the square bump pattern on the cutting board underneath seems to help rather than hurt. [comment]

2013-10-12-2220Z

got by on my 4 foraged figs and a few oakworm pupae until now. need to scrounge up some food. rice won't be done for an hour or so, and the ground beef jerky probably won't be done by sundown. [comment]

2013-10-12-1821Z

found one of the things that crashes mobile Safari on my iPod: certain HTML entities like those Japanese characters I used in yesterday's blog. but not the plus-or-minus sign. disassembling the binary and locating the bug would be a fun project. that's how I found and eventually fixed the LynxOS terminal driver in the 90s; that escape-sequence bug, running at kernel level, actually crashed the system. [comment]

2013-10-12-0754Z

also, all that disappears after a power cycle. then pushing V/M simply changes the upper left letters from VFO to MRP, and the rest stays the same. so it must be a failed write even though the radio didn't show an error. [comment]

2013-10-12-0733Z

noticing that when I write back the vx7 image I downloaded earlier today, I get some of the same weirdness I get from the default.vx7 file included with VX7 Commander. I'll show it for those who might have a clue. I won't use <BLINK> tags but the EEE.EEE flashes as does the 430.000. and this is the screen I get right after the CLONE RX goes away and the display lights up.

MR  EEE.EEE
 1        ##
VFO 430.000
         NFM
  ±ーフニ S

the ## is really two graphic characters that look Han (Chinese), but I can't tell which; the plus-or-minus sign and S are in inverse (white-on-black), and the Japanese characters I'm not exactly sure about. [comment]

2013-10-11-2147Z

it's easy to imagine motorists in general as a bunch of cartoonish Elmer Fudds all walking around in a daze with their shotguns straight out in front of them. a few hundred times a day one of them accidentally pulls the trigger, hitting something, and occasionally killing a wabbit (pedestrian or bicyclist) or another Fudd. then he says "oops! sowwy" and goes wandering off in another direction. then of course there is the occasional wide-awake Fudd that deliberately goes gunning for wabbits. [comment]

2013-10-11-2014Z

just finished Cole Stryker's Hacking the Future, a manifesto on online anonymity. it introduced me to some projects like Freenet with which I wasn't familiar, and helped me to appreciate the myriad legitimate reasons for anonymous and pseudonymous communications. but I still fucking hate trolls. [comment]

2013-10-11-1854Z

VX7 Commander thinks the upload works. block 2 shows as E0 01 02 01 01 FF FF FF 06 with mods disabled. about 20 seconds after vx7c says "data write complete" the radio goes to the normal screen or to "clone error", but in both cases it didn't take. [comment]

2013-10-11-1845Z

was able to install VX7 Commander to the library computer under the Documents folder. and it has a serial port. still no luck freebanding though. [comment]

2013-10-11-1819Z

forgot to bring my thumb drive to the library. damn. but used ps2pdf.com to convert the postscript file I had linked from my blog, and printed it for 15 cents. win. [comment]

2013-10-11-1609Z

this morning noticed that under certain trees, notably evergreens like pine and coast oak, the fog condenses into a slow but steady "rain". setting up a system for collecting this should yield drinkable water in places where there isn't too much toxic air pollution.

I found two unused garbage bags along the road the other day on my bike trip, and put them in my pocket. pulled them out under the fig tree that overhangs the sidewalk a block west of the high school, and shook the branch; got 4 figs out of maybe 10 that fell. need a bigger tarp for sure. [comment]

2013-10-11-0745Z

final version of code. for tonight anyway. [comment]

2013-10-11-0655Z

wrote a program to make a template I can paste onto a chunk of steel stock to drill/cut out a sprocket. code is at pastebin.com, result is here. [comment]

2013-10-11-0018Z

all libertarians who believe there should be no commons, and every square inch of land should be ownable and owned: what if every one of your neighbors decides to no longer permit you on their land, and won't sell you right-of-way at any price? let's further assume that they claim ownership above and below their property, so that if you attempt to tunnel or fly out they would still shoot you down for trespassing. just a thought exercise. [comment]

2013-10-11-0003Z

also, Google Maps shows Ahern Lane goes through, although the road sign indicates it's a cul-de-sac. guess I'd better find out the old-fashioned way. [comment]

2013-10-10-2358Z

next time: Roblar to Canfield to Bloomfield to Pleasant Hill to Bodega, right turn into Sebastopol. if I can remember all that. [comment]

2013-10-10-0627Z

those dried blackberries ought to be a useful winter food just about anywhere, even if you have to dig down through the snow along creeks to find them. lots of sugar in them, tasty and chewy, and it seems no other animals bother with them. [comment]

2013-10-10-0603Z

didn't mention, on the Joe Rodota trail almost to SR, I found lots of blackberry bushes with dried berries. ate a handful, which lasted me, food-wise, till I got home.

approaching Rohnert Park, entering the road to turn left, a driver with license plate 5KFV827 blasted his horn at me, and when I approached him at the red light asking him "what the fuck", he tapped on his chest. what the fucking fuck does that mean? fuck all these motherfuckers!

got somewhat lost in RP. TJ was just closing when I got to Petaluma. luckily the water fountain in Putnam Plaza was working. tired and sore. but a good ride and a great day. [comment]

2013-10-10-0100Z

I should carry my LifeStraw and I could have rehydrated in one of the many creeks. in Santa Rosa now, at Starbucks, about to head home. [comment]

2013-10-09-2149Z

Roblar, Petersen, Blank, Henning, Hessel to Gravenstein. dehydrated. stopped at Hardcore Espresso and had a Yerba Mate tea for a buck seventy five. [comment]

2013-10-09-2026Z

sweet, juicy apple-shaped pears on Roblar behind Washoe House. ate my fill. [comment]

2013-10-09-1951Z

found big, meaty, easy-to-crack English walnuts growing on Liberty Rd. here on Jewett are some heavy-duty plastic shelves but I've no way to schlep them. [comment]

2013-10-09-1726Z

praxis: when refrigeration fails, simply heat food to boiling temperature at least once a day. my cooked beef liver will have lasted a week by tomorrow this time, using this method. some things may need more often re-heating. [comment]

2013-10-08-2200Z

both ABC and Aguila sites don't work for me with either Chrome or Firefox. goddamned Mexican websites are still all made for use with IE, I guess, even though ABC says it's optimized for Chrome and Firefox. meh.

I can get a ticket from TIJ to LAP on Volaris for $130. I might just take it; only one search rather than 4 or more on the bus. and research shows that on a long flight, the carbon footprint per passenger mile is significantly less than for bus transit. [comment]

2013-10-08-2106Z

sweetness: ripe lychees on D St. East, and ripe figs on English Street a block west of the High School. urban foraging FTW. [comment]

2013-10-07-2051Z

to celebrate finally having a somewhat-usable bicycle after 2.5 years, I took the ever-treacherous route 101 to Novato. there is, finally, a posted detour onto the San Antonio road exit to skirt the dangerous, shoulderless bridge at the county line. But then there's an additional bike detour sign at S. A. road itself, pointing west.

eventually I got to where the shoulder just abruptly closed, with a sign and a concrete barrier. lifted the bike over that, and continued riding in the shoulder until that, too, disappeared and I carried it again over a cloth fence to the road under construction. approaching the landfill exit, a Ghilotti boss waved me down and in a friendly way told me the how to get around the next few obstacles, and said I really shouldn't be there. I told him the detour sign didn't meet the CVC requirement to prohibit bicycles and pedestrians from using a road. he said I should tell Caltrans, that he was just doing what they told him. I said I had, and that they ignored me. anyway, he said the concrete barriers would be removed in a few days and I'd have the shoulder again.

past Oolompali, another sign said the shoulder was closed but there were no concrete barriers, just those orange plastic poles. and just before the Day's Inn I saw a hole cut in the fence, so I took it and bypassed the Atherton Ave. exit. home free. I'm resting my sore butt in a soft armchair at Starbucks. [comment]

2013-10-06-1900Z

jogged 2.69 miles in about 32 minutes, 10:04 to 10:36. too hot to continue. walked into Pt. Reyes Station. [comment]

2013-10-05-2316Z

camping with some friends in Point Reyes Station. unusually sunny and hot. walked into a lot for sale adjoining national park land and engaged in some civil disobedience. how was I to know the government was shut down anyway?

the neighbor is growing some trees with fruit that looks like a huge strawberry, and smells like squash or pumpkin on the inside. my host tells me it's Chinese dogwood. [comment]

2013-10-05-1817Z

Oak moth pupae are delicious raw, with a sweet, nutty flavor. They seem to love latching onto bicycles for some weird reason; don't remember seeing them anywhere else so far. [comment]

2013-10-05-1743Z

found Ilex cornuta growing right outside NAPA auto parts, right next to the 4th and C southbound bus stop! enough for all the tea I can drink. [comment]

2013-10-04-1936Z

lots of ducks hang out on the dock at the yacht club and under the rotting trestle. and the pigeons that hang out at under and around the footbridge don't spook easily. food for thought... thought for food. thwap! [comment]

2013-10-04-1927Z

the theatre district has a free parking garage with no time limit. looks like a good option for homeless people with a car.

speaking of homeless, someone has left eir luggage roller, piled with stuff covered with a black garbage bag, locked on the fence at the end of the footbridge across from Dempsey's brewpub, for long periods at a time and it seems nobody messes with it. I might have to try that nearby, with stuff that I don't mind losing. [comment]

2013-10-02-1756Z

while at Meeks Bay I was jumping the 4 or 5 feet from the wall down to the beach; I suspect it was this, and not the 5-mile or so jog to Homewood, that caused the pain in my left ankle. if I hammered the ligaments, I'm not likely to recover very easily. [comment]

2013-10-02-0027Z

I listened. the next batch of quince, which will be at Ray's birthday party tomorrow, has lots of real honey and cinnamon in it. [comment]

2013-10-01-1803Z

did 1.5 miles on my sore left ankle. the muscle pain in my right leg was mild in comparison. [comment]

2013-10-01-0233Z

in a dream last night I was given a name "Sandusky" that was somehow supposed to be related to the Matrix. googling it, I found this freak. I fail t see a connection. [comment]

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