Daily writing prompt

What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?

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Has to be “Womens Trampoline Jumping”

I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I can find the door.

Seriously though, I like most of the winter sports. Skiing, downhill, jump, slolem, as well as skeleton, luge, and bobsledding. I don’t care much for the snowboarding thing though.

Also enjoy track and field, as well as weight lifting, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, and ice skating.

I was an active kid. Spent a little time playing intramural sports, basketball, wrestling, flag football, and baseball. Also took part in Little League baseball, and was a damn Cub Sout to boot. Took part in many off the cuff, neighborhood basketball, wiffleball, badminton, croquet, lawn darts, and baseball games. Also spent many a winter day waxing up the sled runners and sledding every chance I got.

When I got a little older I took to riding a dirt bike too. So, I’ve always been a bit of an adventure junkie I guess, but even though I had been involved in sports, I was never the “jock” type. I didn’t like those guys, or even being in the same room with them for the most part. But I still enjoyed being involved in competition nonetheless. But I never tried out for high school teams, mostly because I knew I didn’t want to be around the “jocks.” I loved to play sports, but not that much.

I was also a nerdy type too. School was pretty easy for me really. I absobed the material and tested in the top 95% most of the time.* There was always a few who outdid me on my grades, but I was also out there doing things they were afraid to try. 😉

But, by my 2nd year of high school, family issues at home, namely, my mother divorcing my asshole abusive stepdad, I was uprooted from my neighborhood friends/school and basically lived the life of a nomad until my later teens. I dropped out of high school. But I tested for my GED in Muscatine Ia. of all places. They were quite surprised I tested so well*, and I soon went back and got that GED the year before my class graduated.

Didn’t mean for this to become a diary thing, but that’s an accurate depiction of my younger years.

* Right up until Algebra II! Algebra II kicked my ass.

*I went with a friend who had also dropped out, because for some of us, life sometimes gets in the way of otherwise normal things. We both scored very high on the pre-test. There were some wrinkled eyebrows at that, they found it odd. But, we weren’t your “usual” dropouts. 😉

Daily writing prompt

Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?

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Unique, that is. In order of importance:

1. Personality
2. Intelligence
3. Looks

Some people have the good fortune of all 3. My youngest son, who is home for spring break, went to town yesterday. At the local Sonic, where he was getting his mom a slushy, because he knows she likes them, he reported a car full of girls, waving and calling his name. He didn’t know any of them.

He is the sort of person that lights up the room when he walks in, without even trying. Everbody loves him. Especially us, of course. He is living off campus, splitting rent on a house, working a job, and going to school. We are proud parents.

The rest of us mere mortals are also unique. The abundance of things that make us all who we are, are rarely the same between individuals. But at the same time, no matter how much we may differ, we are all pretty much the same. At least in the capacity of meeting our basic needs of survival.

But there are always a few standouts. The gifted musician, the prose of the writer/poet, the extremely talented in their line of work, the math genius, the scientist, and so on. However, the gifted are often cursed with societal dysfunction, mental illness, etc. So it’s not always a rosey proposition being among that group of uniqueness.

In fact, the mundane normalcy, of most of our pathetic lives, might actually be better than we think it is. The grass might be greener on the other side, but is it really better for you? I’m not sure that our satisfaction with our lives is necessarily based on our unique.

…but at the same time, I’m also jealous of those who have it 😉

For the record, I would call all of my WP pals, unique. If you want to come and kick my ass, I’ll send you the address 😉

My 7″ grinder, that I bought so long ago I can’t remember when, had the trigger switch fail on it yesterday. What I learned is, that the design of the trigger switch has changed, and no matter where I go on the internet, the switch I need no longer exists.

So now I have to buy a new *!#$%&@# grinder.

Not that anyone is probably over concerned what I need a grinder for, but I’m attempting to build a winch to haul my shell sacks off the bottom of the river, up into the boat. The design is based on the capstan I used many years ago as a deckhand on a towboat. I picked up a cheapie 3hp engine, bought a capstan drum off of EBay, and also got a shaft adapter made, to make a 5/8″ shaft on the engine accomodate a 1″ bore on the capstan drum.

I’ve already custom built the base, to bolt on to the front deck of my boat. The boom arm is almost done, I still have to mount a pulley I made from a hand truck wheel rim, to the outer end of the boom, and install the motor, with its new capstan drum, at the boom riser.

For anyone wondering, what the bejeezus is a capstan? A capstan is made with a cylindrical drum, tapered at both ends. This taper allows a rope to feed onto the capstan without fouling. With the drum powered by a motor, you wind a rope around the drum which will generate a pulling force. The relationship between the capstan and the rope is interesting. The more winds of rope you wrap around the drum, the harder it pulls, but how hard it pulls also relies on the person manning the capstan, you have to supply some pull yourself to make the rope cinch up on the capstan, for the rope to gain enough traction to pull.

In a sense it’s a clutched rope pulling device, that uses the pressure of the operator to act as the clutch. With some winds on the capstan, but no pull from the operator, the capstan will turn, but not effectively engage in its work. The number of winds around the capstan will dictate how hard it pulls, when the operator engages a pulling force on their end.

I still do not know if this will work. I will know when it’s time to test it, and prove, or disprove, the concept. I tried this once already, but I went with 12V DC instead of an IC engine. My first attempt to lift my weight belt harness of 45 lb went like this. The rope pulled tight, started to lift, and promptly blew an 80 amp fuse. Thus ending the experiment and demanding another attack angle.

I’m hard headed enough to make it work, one way or another.

Success is often measured in your failures. Which makes me a pretty successful guy 😉

P.S. I’m fairly sure the reason the fuse popped is, I did not have a strong enough electric motor. After researching electric motors, price/weight (last thing you want in a boat is dead weight,) I found that the IC engine weighs about the same as a powerful electric motor, and it actually costs less. So, here we go.

I’m bound to learn something else before this is done…

Daily writing prompt

What is the last thing you learned?

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Way To Go Dumbass!

Ups and Downs and Round and Round

Is it Over Yet?

Pull My Finger!

Been There, Done That

If Work Smarter Fails, Work Harder

…and while I’m at it, some of the wisest words I have ever heard, from a grizzled old man running the sawmill, “Never stand up if you can sit down, and never sit down if you can lie down.”

Daily writing prompt

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

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I’m afraid you are asking the wrong person. There is no city, anywhere, I want to visit. I’ve been all across this great country, and back again. I did not lose anything I need to go back and look for, in a city.

I’ve lived long enough to know most people are full of shit, just plain ignorant, or only looking to see what they can get out of you. I also understand that many people you might think aren’t ignorant, indeed believe ignorant shit. Conspiracy theories, flat earth nonsense, magic crystals, homeopathy, bigfoot, aliens, and that Republicans are upstanding, honest, and fine people! I saved the worst for last, the: “my invisible friend is better then yours, and everyone needs to adhere to MY ideology,” Loon Brigade, which are coincidentally, mostly, Republicans.

The one thing I want for myself in this world is to isolate from the vast sea of ignorance that is embraced by, and thriving with mankind.

Last time I looked, there was a lot more mankind in the cities than I see out in the boonies. And even at that, where I live, which used to be out in the country… Now it’s pretty much a glorified suburb between two hick towns. There are too damn many people HERE!

Why in the HELL would I want to go to a city full of people? When I already can’t stand to be around them in smaller doses?

If the complete moron, to ability to reason statistics, among people in cities, are anything like what I see here, then no, hell no. I’m not going to a city. In fact I think I will go to the river tomorrow. There aren’t nearly as many idiots out there, except the asshats in bass boats doing 70mph, and the 30′-40′ motor yachts peeling off huge wakes behind them. But, the bass boats come and go pretty quick, and the wakes eventually die down. (Hopefully you saw them coming and didn’t get tossed out of the boat. Every year a few uncle Bobs mysteriously fall out of boats and drown. I have a theory.)

Other than those things, which I have learned to cope with, the river/lake is my sanity zone. Come with me. I’ll show you.

Now, if some of my WP friends want to meet up somewhere in a city, and have a few beers, I might make an exception.

Daily writing prompt

What cities do you want to visit?

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Every time I look in the mirror! 😉

Seriously, I can look out over my back deck and see deer, numerous bird types, squirrels, rabbit and such, on a daily basis.

I also work in the wilderness of Ky. Lake. I see eagles, osprey, ducks, geese, deer, snakes (most of which I can easily identify,) loons, pelican, coots, heron, egret, gulls, kingfisher, cormorant, and probably a couple I can’t think of at the moment, all this just getting to where I’m going to dive.

Then when I hit the water, I see turtles, fish, mostly bass/bream/minnow/catfish/eel/and drum, mussel shells, asian shells, zebra shell, (both asian and zebra are invasive species,) unidentified larva hatches, worms, and jellies. Many fish are too concerned about their health to get close enough that I can get a good look at them. Bass are intelligent enough to be curious, they will come and check you out. I’ve had them look me right in the eye. Sometimes, as I’m stirring up the bottom, and little minnow type fish dash for new cover, the bass will use me to hunt by. I’ve even made friends with a bass or two in my day. When they investigate they will swim by in front of me slow, just at arms reach and I will put my hand out to see if I can touch them. The first time or two they won’t let me. Then they might let me touch them for just a moment. Then they get comfortable enough I can touch them as they swim by. Once they get comfortable enough with me, I’ve had them get right up next to my face, and look through my mask, into my eyes. One even rolled over a tad to get a better angle to see me. Bass are interesting if you will take a moment and let them investigate you.

Once I saw a small bass who was lethargic, slow moving. He was just piddling in front of me as I worked. I noticed one of his eyes was terribly cataract. Glazed over badly. I surmised the little guy was hungry. So I took a shell out of my sack, used my knife to cut it open, and I offered the mussel meat as a gift. That bass snatched it up so fast it startled me. That little guy was so happy, he started rubbing up against me like a happy puppy dog. Wiggling from side to side, if a fish could smile I swear he was smiling at me. I cut open two or three more shells and fed him till I could see his belly was stuffed. That bass followed me closely for the rest of my dive. I never saw him again. But I’ll never forget the experience. I was truly amazed that a fish could show an emotion of happiness/gratitude. Did not know it was even possible. But I experienced it. I’ve never really looked at fish the same since.

The jellies, I don’t even know what they are actually. They show up in the fall, and they are a gelatinous blob of unknown (by me,) origin. They range from as big as a half dollar to the size of a dinner plate and can be several inches 8-10″! thick. They tend to be circular, but not always perfectly so, and they feel really creepy when you accidentally grab hold of one.

Was walking the lake bank with the wife recently, and saw some jellies. This is what they look like. Sorry there’s nothing in the shot for perspective, but that large one was at least 6″ across. They can be anywhere out there on the bottom. These just happen to have washed up on the bank.

EDIT EDIT EDIT:

I learned something today, after decades of not knowing what these damn things are, I Googled it! To think, all of these years, I could have just freaking Googled it. The jellies are: “A colony of the freshwater bryozoan Pectinatella magnifica. Freshwater bryozoans are tiny colonial animals that can form jelly-like masses, which are often found attached to sticks or docks.  Bryozoan colonies can be as much as a foot (30 cm) in diameter.”

I have seen these things almost as big as a bowling ball. I talked to another diver once who told me he stuck his hand down in the middle of one like that, left there for a minute, and was rewarded with a very nasty sting. Whether there’s any truth to that I do not know. I decided then and there, not to try and reproduce the same result. 😉 I remain unknowledgeable in that department to this day.

More info, with links and a video here:

https://askanaturalist.com/jelly-like-blob-under-my-dock/

Daily writing prompt

Do you ever see wild animals?

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