One year ago today: October 23, 2021, flavored coffee sucks.
Five years ago today: October 23, 2017, PWM is now commonplace.
Nine years ago today: October 23, 2013, a better view.
Random years ago today: October 23, 2010, looking at music gear.
There’s the bamboo barrel. Right? There’s a barrel cactus, so why not a barrel bamboo? And the society that gives flower arrangement awards are a reasonable bunch of fellows, I’m sure. All the deer get to go through the back yard without being observed half to heaven and the doggies can do their business in semi-privacy. The Reb isn’t having any of this nonsense, so I strung out the garden hose and had a big fire just like the good old days. Make sure you close the patio door or the inside of the house will stink like smoke for days, maybe longer. Centuries. Folks in 2122 will walk in and wonder how people lived back then. Now it is done, so woe to anybody who interrupts my coffee between now and noon.
[Author's note: this picture is hard to see. It's the burn barrel stuffed with bamboo up to ten feet high. You can barely make out the barrel on the lower left. This is the bamboo I dried out for a day, then burned up in an hour today.]
We took them for a big hike when the sun got warm, but my old back strain decided when to head home. The dog run is important and to that end we may have discovered his limits. Around a hundred yards, beyond that he cannot seem to see or hear the Reb calling him. He knows to run in the general direction but same as last day, until he is within obvious range. Of more immediate use to me was finding his endurance, at around a hundred fifty yards. A dog like that needs to run every day and there’s nobody around here can keep up. He has to be on a leash all the time outdoors.
Sadly, we pass houses all the time where the dogs are not walked. Hey, this is a cul de sac and we know who’s out there. Many of them pets she knows by name and they are let out in the yard once or twice a day at best. Our immediate neighbor walks his wiener dog to the corner, maybe 75 feet. The poor tyke is beyond out of shape, more like a sausage than a wiener and still gaining. Let me click on the news and get back to you this afternoon.
The off-grid bunch are at it again ahead of the elections. Get back to nature, plant a garden, there is a persistent rumor you can buy 40 acres and build a cabin. Try it. The lowest price 40 acres in Tennessee is a listing in Hardeman County for $95,000 and next to a prison farm. Most states have minimum square footage laws, code enforcement, and most of the available land has no surfaced roads. If you read the accounts of people who really did stay off-grid more than a few months, you’ll find they had access to an off-road vehicle and a Wal*Mart.
I did not look up Hardeman County on this computer. Google Maps has an annoying feature if you open it but it hangs, you cannot close that window without losing your session. I think it’s fifty miles east of Memphis, which is becoming a real crime center lately. What I’ll look up is Cheatham Lock A, it’s a new campground that Lem has found. He’s got a big fifth-wheel all ready stocked up so we did not do any apprenticeship hours this trip. I looked up the campground around Lock A and it not something I’d pay $28 to park at. It’s nice but really an area of hiking trails.
Mini-wind turbines.
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Part of my studies on military history involves defensive campaigns, noting two things that work. One is to block the enemy solid, the other is a fighting retreat to prepared positions. I’ve lately heard mention of the “Araket Line”, but where? By deduction, it won’t be on the eastern front, which leaves North Africa or the Balkans. Maybe I’m spelling it funny, but the phrase “it cannot be outflanked” tells me it is either in the mountains or has a body of water at one end. Will I fine this? Stick around and find out. Blog readership is down again and encouragement is nice.
While keeping files closed after a war isn’t new, what’s mystifying is some of the facts kept secret for all these years. The true kill ratio of the Tiger tank is twice what they admitted. Rommel never intended to conquer North Africa, rather to tie down Allied forces which he did indeed. Sherman tanks did not explode because they had gasoline engines, but because they ammunition was kept in the open fighting compartment. And most T-34s knocked out had less than 80 km on the odometer, indicating they were meant to be sacrificed in a war of attrition. Nobody wants to admit how advanced the Germans were or how their defeat was actually a close run contest achieved only by overwhelming material production.
There was, of course, the atomic bomb. Built according to theories by German physicists and using scientists educated in Germany. But in the end, made possible by the fact Germany never intended to conquer the west, evidenced by their lack of ships or airplanes that could reach that far. However, that is a complicated separate issue to what I’m looking at here.
There seems a reluctance to admit the Germans were better at all-arms cooperation. Even today the US military still competes rather than cooperates. Worst is the Air Force, which seems to consider itself a separate fiefdom within the US command structure. The Germans were first to use armored cars to scout well ahead of the battlefields. The reasoning is sound, the enemy was bound to use only existing roads and rail lines to move forces. A vehicle with six or eight road wheels could race ahead far ahead of the panzers, easily able to outrun anything the enemy could field to attack it. This is different employment that an American jeep with no armor and used mostly for transport.
One could argue the Allies relied on airpower for their forward observation. But they were taken by surprise just too many times to claim it was as effective as a German car with a trained crew. For that matter, I have seen numerous examples of these reconnaisance vehicles with what appear to be three or four high-ranking officers atop.
Later, after dark, we chose to head over to the Thai place for saki, which I do not drink. So I had green tea and appetizers. Quite a few Thai phrases came back to me. Most I learned in southern Thailand and I’m not so sure I pronounce things the same as back in Bangkok. It turns out the Reb never knew I’d spent time in India and we talked about this for hours. I have no favorable impressions of the culture over there, it seems unnaturally cruel to me and geared to give an advantage to those who lie and cheat a lot. She was only aware of the trip to Agra, which cost a surprisingly hefty $91 if I recall. It’s just a bus that drops you off for six hours and it takes only 90 minutes max to completely tour the tomb.
The rest of the time me and a couple travel companions spent trying to find a spot to have a cold beer in the nearby city of Agra. I don’t think we were successful but I recall buying souveniers and such while there. There are modern department stores where the locals cannot afford to shop and the sidewalks outside are covered with desperately poor street vendors. For all the publicity, the Taj Mahal is not that popular a tourist destination. Our bus of around 28 people was easily the largest group of that day. I can’t even recall what year that was, probably 1984 because I was on a stopover toward Thailand. I got stuck in Delhi for nearly a week and walked around the city.
The downtown had been built by the British and not much had been done since. The saddest thing to see was how the city had ground around the old British graveyards that had once been well beyond the outskirts. The Hindus have left them go to rack and ruin. But they have no problem riding the same locomotive railways the British built.
ADDENDUM
The latest set of documentaries publish on youTube show the devastating effect of non-white propaganda on the historical process. Time after time, ordinary German soldiers and weapons are referred to as “Nazi”, this is normal. But portraying the Poles as innocent victims is ridiculous, same as the inference that Germany was out to conquer the world with a measly nine underequipped tank regiments with enough fuel to travel 125 miles.
One enduring myth is the neutrality of Belgium. How they refused to allow the Maginot Line to extent to the coast because it would violate their neutrality. Yet they had open published plans to allow the French army in the moment the war started. Talk about have your cake and eat it too. You can’t lift a finger to defend yourself on their territory, but once they are invaded, they are 100% on your side. Because their average time to surrender is 120 hours. You can’t build any defensive works on their soil, but once the war starts they welcome the French with open arms.
