Christmas with the Quirks

Once again, my Christmas and Christmas Eve were spent with my faithful light-up pink flamingo lawn ornament and Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  I really should name the flamingo, given that I’ve spent more Christmases with it than with my family...by probably 3-4 times.  The nights’ soundtrack was provided by Lindsey Stirling and Piano Guys on Pandora, since I sadly could not get jouluradio.fi radio to stream.  I made up for it by streaming Raskasta Joulua IV on Pandora, though.

It’s a pretty bleak way to spend Christmas, but fortunately, “A Grander Snuffy’s Christmas” had dropped, which brightened up my Christmas Eve. The Political Orphanage has become my podcast of choice for basically it’s entire existence. It is, as the name suggests, politically-oriented, but unlike the Red Team/Blue Team personality- and identity-driven soundbite shoutfest that most of the political world consists of, the Orphanage actually engages in long-format discussion of not only policies, but also underlying worldviews and epistemology. It is also humorous. Very, very humorous. Much of said humor revolving around horses, which I can only assume is an Oklahoma thing. The third Christmas special was once again “sponsored” by Snuffy’s off Route 44, “Where everything tastes better...on a horse.” While much of the humorous “ad copy” has--sadly--fallen by the wayside for the duration of election season, the team made up for it with this year’s Christmas episode. And if the minimum wage ghost of this year’s Christmas Carol did not rise to the genius of the unlicensed angel Wonderful Life or if the Horse Nog Christmas Cards didn’t quite finish as strong as the review of the Nutcracker on Ice (with horses)...well those were a heck of a high bar, anyway. Plus it definitely won on sheer quantity, clocking in at over an hour...as long as the previous two specials combined. During a brief monologue towards the end, Heaton brought up that George Noory always has live programs on holidays for those spending them away from family, which I had completely forgotten, so I tuned in briefly on Christmas night to get a second fix of quirky individuals. I don’t listen often now, as there are no local stations carrying Coast to Coast AM, but when I switched to thirds for the last year or so in Tennessee, I listened fairly often. For those who are unfamiliar, Coast to Coast AM is that supernatural/conspiracy theory radio program you hear in the background of every movie scene where someone is driving across the desert at night. It’s the show whose guests will tell you everything from who really killed JFK and which crystal to use to deter alien abduction. The callers come off as chronic substance users and/or mentally ill. Yet I greatly admire George Noory. It’s always impressed me how he can listen to all the crackpot theories from both his guests and callers with a straight face. The only time I ever saw him cut off a guest was the guy who called in the night after the Sandy Hook shooting claiming it was a red flag operation. Even more impressive is when he has two guests on in one show back to back with mutually exclusive theories, yet still gives each of them a completely credulous interview. He truly embodies respect and dignity, and I just do not understand how he does it. All in all, there are worse ways to spend a Christmas. Sure, it’d be nice to have a job where I spend Christmas Eve assembling children’s presents and knocking back a couple mugs of Christmas cheer, but it was nice to spend my nights listening to a couple men who display a level of grace that I really wish I could attain.

To err is human...

 ...but to really [redacted]-up takes a computer.

Usually, that’s just an excuse for a person’s mistake.  As one friend who used to work in hospital IS to me, most downtimes are caused by “EBKAC”:  “Error Between Keyboard And Chair.”

Occasionally, though, computers are allowed to run free, applying their algorithms to make all-new original mistakes.  Today’s case in point was found while Christmas shopping.  The Shieldmaiden recently read Hattie Big Sky and recommended it.  I went to Amazon to locate it for order and was surprised to find it listed as a series.  Even more surprising was the series it was listed as, “That Night with the Alpha Billionaire: Chasing Love.”

So, obviously, what we have here is an algorithm fail that has lumped a historical fiction series in with a YAFSKO (“Yet Another Fifty Shades Knock Off”).  But, being the kid of guy who can’t look away from a train wreck, I indulged my morbid curiosity and clicked on the link.  It got even funnier.

As you can see, the algorithm erroneously lumped not just two, but three series together!  And while George Graft here assures us “If you are searching for "R" rated romance look elsewhere. Hattie's story will appeal more to the reader with strong christian values searching for self improvement or help in finding a new career path” that “contains no vulgar language or vivid sexual scenes,” I somehow suspect that “Hattie Black”’s “BWWM Interracial Romance short stories” are somehow less chaste in tone.  

Just a guess.  But then, I am judging the books by their covers, so I could be wrong.

Hey, this is a family blog!

Of course, between those two series, the YAFSKO is probably still better-written than the Christian(ish?) romance.

Anyway, kids, this is why we don’t have to worry about AI ever taking over the world.  

On the other hand, I suppose this is also precisely why we have to worry about AI ever taking over the world. I recently caught a podcast interview with Lord Martin Rees in which he asserted that AI would be a great boon to China in helping them run its planned economy...just as long as said economy never has a book whose author has the same name as characters in other series, apparently.

47 Hours

Once again, I am making an attempt to return to blogging.  And, given the title of this blog, it seems appropriate to start with a post on the return of Theseia.

A bit of background is in order.  Theseia, my second wife, and I have been sadly separated for longer than we were ever together.  It's all my fault, really.  I replaced her 258 some years ago with a 304.  The oil pump housing was cracked, so I replaced it.  Unfortunately, I forgot a needle valve bolt and blew out all her oil across the backroads of McMinn County on the test drive.  The engine promptly seized, as engines are wont to do when they have no oil, and my beloved jeep turned into a giant paperweight.  That was 2011.

I never was able to squeeze the funds out of my Tennessee pay to replace the engine (again), and so she sat.  In 2013, we moved to Montana.  In 2014, my parents were kind enough to haul her in their dump trailer to their cabin in Munising, Michigan, where again, she sat.

Over the years, we got our finances in order, but still never managed to get the funds to ship her to Montana or the time and funds to get her ourselves.  Until now.

The old saw as I heard it is, "a good friend will help you move a couch; a great friend will help you move a body."  Somewhere between those is the kind of friend that will help you move a 1976 CJ-7 across the country.

Said friend, in my case, recently purchased an early 2000's Ford Econoline 350 ambulance with ye olde Powerstroke diesel.  We put in to our respective employers for time off and worked on getting it ready for the road trip.

The first task, of course, was debadging, which, it turned out, went much more smoothly than feared.  It only took about an hour at a shop with a heat gun and a plastic scraper.

The real trick was getting a receiver hitch installed.  Those, shockingly, are not standard equipment on ambulances.  The original plan called for taking it to the local Uhaul, but, when my friend went to schedule the appointment, it turned out that the local dealership was shutting down due to lack of volume.  As my friend was on the phone with a local car dealership, I happened to look over to his other van, a gas one that he had used to haul his own CJ Scrambler the previous year.

"Hey," says I, "What model is the Vanbulance based on?"

"Ford Econoline 350."

"Hmm," I muse, "And what model is the Free Candy Van?"

"Ford Econoline."

"You know what I think might be worth a try?"

And so, about an hour later, the hitch problem had been solved.  Unfortunately, during the install, we found no exposed wiring to tap for the light hookup, so that did have to be referred to a professional the following day.

And so it was that on October 9th, my friend pulled up to our house in the Vanbulance at 0500.  After about 10 minutes of loading my travel gear, we pulled out into the early morning headed east on US 2.

The trip out was largely uneventful.  We took shifts driving, buckling in to the bench in back for naps.  About the only real issue was rescheduling the Uhaul car trailer pickup.  We were making great time, so we decided to prepare for a possible through the night push by rescheduling the trailer pickup for my parents to get it and have it on site in the morning.  Unfortunately, rescheduling messed up the pickup location.  It took several calls, but I finally secured a trailer at a close-ish location to my parents.

The Shieldmaiden and I have driven through the night to Michigan once.  It was a white-knuckle adventure dodging deer through two states, and we swore off ever doing it again.  That said, my friend was on a tighter clock than I, and it was his rig to risk, so while I offered my cautions to pushing through, in the end, it was his call.  In good news, apparently the deer in Wisconsin and da Yoop only prance across the roads in July.  We saw a whopping three deer and one corpse the whole way.  We arrived at about 0200 local time and promptly passed out.

We were up at 0600 local time.  We hitched up the trailer and ran into the first real problem:  the hitch we'd brought was too low.  The problem with small towns is that nothing opens until 0800, and most places until 0900, but we headed in to town anyway to see what we could find.  And also get breakfast at Falling Rock, the greatest coffee shop/used bookstore ever.  A quick trip to NAPA, and we had a straight-mount, 7500-pound-rated hitch in hand.

Back to the cabin, hooked up the trailer, backed it up in front of the jeep, and ran into problem two:  a jeep sitting in Upper Peninsula soil for 6 years makes quite the holes.  But, with the appropriate use of leverage, a side-by-side with winch, chocks, and a whole lot of elbow grease, it only took...the better part of an hour to get it on board.

Finally, though, we were good to go.  I said my goodbyes to my parents, and we hit the road again.

It only took about an hour to realize that we were not getting as good of fuel mileage as the 24 mpg or so we got on the trip out.  Unlike Northeast Montana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Eastern Minnesota have these things they call "hills."  With that kind of load, we had to turn off the overdrive, and watch the needle drop depressingly fast.  That said, the drive was beautiful.  I'd never actually been in da Yoop for the fall colors.

The really are quite lovely.

There was a nice little bit of chop to the Big Lake, too.

We still managed to make it through da Yoop on the first tank.  I dropped the windshield and pulled the doors in the hopes of cutting drag.  More on this in North Dakota.  We fueled up on the western edge of Wisconsin and drove through the first half of Minnesota.  Once the ground leveled out, we were able to reengage the overdrive, and fuel economy improved substantially.

Eventually, we reached North Dakota.  We stopped to fuel up.

Now, the attentive eye will note something here.  Didn't I put that windshield down in Wisconsin?  Let's take a closer look:

Why, yes, that is a broken hinge.  And the other side is fatigued.  Unfortunately, I did not have an attentive eye after that much time on the road and we continued to drive.  Fortunately, God loves idiots, drunks, and children, and we did not put the jeep's windshield through somebody else's.

We continued to drive, and this time, I was the one who wanted to push through.  My friend was pretty well tapped out, so I took over the final leg in Williston, ND.  Again, there was a remarkable lack of deer, though there was one hitchhiker outside of Poplar who thought he should get out into the lane to make sure I saw his thumb.  I managed to dodge him, and was very awake for the rest of the trip.

We rolled into Glasgow just shy 0400.  We parked at my place at just under 47 hours from our departure.  I drove my friend to his place and returned to find the door to my house locked.  And I don't exactly carry keys.  I had to call the longsuffering Shieldmaiden to let me in.  I promptly passed out in bed, with an alarm to get up at 0800 so I could victoriously go to church the following morning...which I slept through.

And that was the adventure, with the short epilogue that a few weeks later, I took the Vambulance and a utility trailer and engine hoist on a much shorter road trip down to Billings and picked up a pair of AMC V8s for both Theseia and my friend's Scrambler.  I hope to have her back on the road under her own power sometime in January.