Adaptive Curmudgeon

[Note: This post has links to Amazon. If you want the same stuff I bought, you can click the link and it’ll be the stuff I was talking about. I figured that’s better than re-inventing the wheel. If you want other stuff that’s ok, click a link and surf to whatever you want. I get a tiny kickback from Amazon no matter what you buy. If you want no material goods at all, more power to ya!]

A few years back I bought a Dewalt electric chainsaw. There are many like it, but this one is mine:

I expected a battery operated saw to suck. I was wrong! It blew my mind. It’s not going to replace my full sized Stihl but the little Dewalt rocks for small jobs. In fact, the electric saw punches well above its weight class. It does much more than I thought it’d be able to handle.

I’ve been beating it like a rented mule ever since I got it. I have a couple chains and a “fleet” of four batteries. Three 5 AH (amp hour) batteries and one 4 AH battery. I’ve been using real Dewalt 20V batteries. As you’d expect the 5 AH is slightly noticeable as having more staying power than the 4 AH, but it’s not a deal breaker. If you’ve got 4 AH batteries just use ’em and carry more spares.

Batteries don’t last forever and saw work is in hard conditions. I eventually cracked the housing on one and “froze” another. Again, I’m not complaining. I’ve worked these things hard. I decided to buy a couple more batteries.

Alas, it’s the Bidenverse and the price of batteries is just as affected by inflation as everything else. I went to a store who’s name rhymes with “Home Despot”. They had 20V 5 AH batteries in stock. The cost was $100 each. Roughly double what they cost when I bought the saw and batteries. Holy flaming shit!

By Crom’s throbbing nutsack I’m not dropping a c-note on a battery the size of a potato!

I walked out of the store, fuming.

Online I found a two pack of 20v 5 AH Dewalt batteries on Amazon. It was a little over $120. For reasons that make no sense you can get a two pack WITH CHARGER for SLIGHTLY LESS? I have no idea why.

I stuck with Dewalt because I’ve had less than the best experiences with Chinese knock off batteries. YMMV but I’d recommend avoiding the knock offs for a big power user like a saw.

OK so, I saved roughly $80 by telling “Home Despot” to kiss my ass. Can I do better?

Sure I can!

One of the old batteries had a cracked case. Why not buy a new case? It was a good case, I just mistreated it. I’ve been tossing it (literally) into the steel bucket of my tractor. My bad. Carrying it around in the bucket; with firewood logs under, on top of, banging into, and of course mud and snow sloshing around in the mix just was too much.

I wound up buying a ridiculously named Compatible with DeWalt 20V Battery Cover Replacement 1 Set Plastic Case 5.0Ah 6.0Ah DCB201,DCB203,DCB204 Li-Ion Battery Case Replacement,10-Cell Broken Battery Shell Repair Kit Cover Parts. This had the suspiciously weird price of $12.32. It is definitely NOT sold by Dewalt. In fact Dewalt is acting like any normal “monopolist” would and has no parts readily avalable for “fixing” a battery. Well played, but still a bastard move!

The Battery Case arrived packaged like someone had shipped a potato from Hong Kong.

This is what the original case looked like.

Undeterred, I opened the broken case using a torx screwdriver to pull out 4 screws. The driver didn’t fit real well but it did work. Note: keep the screws! A Compatible with DeWalt 20V Battery Cover Replacement 1 Set Plastic Case 5.0Ah 6.0Ah DCB201,DCB203,DCB204 Li-Ion Battery Case Replacement,10-Cell Broken Battery Shell Repair Kit Cover Parts doesn’t come with 4 new screws. Silly but it is what it is. That would probably add $0.11 to the cost and they were so cheap they didn’t even spring for a shipping box.

Four screws, don’t lose them!

Also, the battery is dirt simple but it’s not too simple. There’s some electronic shit in there, you don’t have to know what it does, but break a soldered junction and you’ve added to life’s complexity. Just be careful.

Also, people are assholes! (Not that you didn’t already know.) I left the battery torn apart and laying around for a few days. Everyone joked I was making a bomb. Fuckin’ morons see some tubes and a circuit board and think I’m a James Bond supervillain? Really? I have a welder too, does that make me Ironman? A battery is damn near the simplest object this side of a brick. Does their car run on magic and their TV remote have magic spirits inside? Have they ever done anything involving a screwdriver?

Others mocked me for “wasting all that labor just to fix a battery”. My return on investment was about $85 for less than an hour’s work. (The next time it’ll take me 5 minutes!) Unless you’re Elon Musk, curing cancer right fucking now, or a lawyer billing $150 an hour, saving $85 bucks is pretty good use of anyone’s time. Just how much do these people think the average schmuck’s time is worth?

We really are in the dumbest timeline. It’s bad enough living in a world where people can’t drive a manual transmission or read a fuckin’ book but it’s worse hearing them preen about it. I hate that shit! Being incapable of fixing something is not a sign of superiority, it’s a sign of domestication.

It’s just a damn battery!

The replacement housing was not 100% identical to the Dewalt housing. I expected that. I’m assuming it came from a rogue Chinese factory but for all I know it came from a 3D printer in Fresno. It’s close enough, just not perfect.

The photo isn’t great but there are two “voids” in the case in the original Dewalt, that are not voids in the replacement case. I spent 15 minutes trying to squeeze the damn thing together before I figured it out.

A Dremel tool can fix anything. I ground out the “voids” in the replacement. It felt like I was making a functional receiver out of an 80% battery case. Don’t overthink it. I did a sloppy job and it was good enough.

It really is a tight fit getting that battery back together. There’s not much “play” in the fitment. I was probably a bit too rough on the replacement case, but it’s a learning curve and all that.

Before I could reassemble it, I needed to address the “these screws suck with my torx wrench” situation. Turns out there are torx wrenches and “security torx wrenches”. I found security bits in stock at my local store. How secure is it if it’s in every hardware store? The answer is none at all. I feel insulted to live in a universe where you can buy “security” bits literally anywhere and in so doing you’ve thwarted what someone calls “security”. Ever get the feeling we’re some other universe’s punchline?

I got security bits locally. They’re on Amazon here. I paid more in person but was willing to pay because the local guy had the knowledge to explain to me the concept of “security bit”. (Always pay for knowledge. It’s worth it!)

Once assembled it looks 99% like the original.

It charges on my Dewalt charger, just like usual.

If you ignore the cost of bits, I turned a broken battery that costs $100 for a replacement at “Home Despot” into “as good as new” for $12. I know people are bad at math but $12<$100 should be a no-brainer.

Thinking about how the battery got damaged, I bought myself a chainsaw carrying case. If a few bucks on a case saves a bit of damage on useful equipment it’s a decent investment. I sure like the little saw so why not? I couldn’t find anything from Dewalt. I was prepared to spend big bucks on a hard case, like I have for my Stihl. But there was nothing to be had.

I bought a stupidly named Chainsaw Case,Waterproof Chainsaw Storage Bag Compatible with DEWALT & Ego & Greenworks 10Inch 12Inch Cordless Power Chainsaw&Accessories, Black&Yellow. It was $44 which is not the deal of the century but it’s reasonable and I need to get used to living with Bidenverse prices anyway. It is somewhat thoughtfully designed so I was willing to roll the dice. This is a soft case and a cheap knock off from China. It might not hold up. But it was cheap so why not?

It actually looks pretty good. I give it an A for style.

One pocket is perfect for bar oil. (I bought a quart of bar oil too. I’ve been using a gallon sized bottle of Stihl bar oil and that’s overkill for the little saw.)

The other pocket has room for a handful of batteries.

It’s not made for or by Dewalt, but it fits my saw just fine.

One other reason I got it is that my saw leaks bar oil (saws tend to do that). When it was tossed in the back of my Jeep-thing it got oil where I wanted things to stay clean. Now the case will catch the oil… I hope. So far so good.

As always, YMMV. Happy camping y’all!

I don’t usually take a lot of photos but some places demand them.

I hope these share the spirit of the place. Maybe it just looks like foggy brush, but you have to trust me when I say it was gorgeous in the pre-dawn fog.

An unrelated storm that same week:

[Note: I’ve linked to Amazon when I mention various gear. This is because it’s the gear I think is best. You don’t have to follow my ideas but if you do it’ll spare y’all the hassle of reinventing the wheel. Also I get a kickback from the Evil Overlords at Amazon; which costs you nothing. If you’re not into shopping, don’t click the links. Thanks.]

I own an excellent Gazelle Tent (T4). It’s as close to a brick shithouse you can get without spending hours (instead of just a few minutes) setting up your tent. It’s roomy and very good against rain (and it had been raining on and off for weeks). So I brought it. Then I didn’t set it up. Why? Because the human mind (or at least mine) is a strange thing. I’d brought tons of gear. I had alternate options. I felt like experimenting to put myself in a little closer contact with nature.

This wasn’t a motorcycle / testing trip so I’d brought my heavy, (impossible to carry on a bike or backpack) TETON Sports Outfitter XXL Camp Cot, TETON Sports Outfitter XXL Camp Pad, and TETON Sports Celsius XL Sleeping Bag. The combination of those three things is flat out awesome! It’s the most comfortable camping set I’ve every owned. It’s almost as comfy as the bed in my house. (The only limitation is that it’s too heavy for backpacks and motorcycles.) I considered setting ’em up right in the open and sleeping just like that. If it weren’t for rain and bugs it would be perfect.

For the motorcycle I’ve planned on using a Vista 1 tent on the ground. (I can also set it up on top of the cot; it’s designed for the option of deployment on a cot.) There’s a different rainfly for ground versus on the cot use. (I’d brought both.) Unlike the Gazelle T4, which feels like a camping hotel room, the the Vista 1 is coffin sized. Even so it’s very stout tent and pretty reasonable when it’s on top of my much loved cot. I found it amid my jumbled gear. Then, in a fit of pointless “innovation”, I ignored it.

During my packing I’d thought “river + summer = mosquitoes”. In 2022, intolerable swarms of Old Testament level Mosquitoes kicked my ass. (Story starts here: Mosquitoes Get The Upper Hand: Part 0.) In response to that I purchased a Gazelle G5 screen tent. I never took a screen tent seriously before but the bug attack of 2022 was a bloodbath! Now that I have it, I use it more often than I expected. There were no mosquitoes but I couldn’t shake the idea they were going to come out and swarm my ass to death at any moment.  I have no idea why, maybe it was proximity to the river? Mosquitoes are a thing and I was in their turf, I think the only thing holding them back was the chilly temperatures.

I set up the screen tent just in case. Then I thought “why not?”. I put my cot and mattress and sleeping bag in the screen tent. So now you’ve got a tent with no walls, which won’t protect against rain if it’s windy but will handle a mild shower.

Also, it would be the bee’s knees if it were hot out. But it wasn’t hot. I think half my brain was paying more attention to the calendar than the actual conditions.

Despite my random choices, I’d setup camp in a flash. All the gear I’d chosen is tough and fast to setup. I was ideally situated for hot temperatures, mosquitoes, and clear weather. It was a mite chilly, there were no mosquitoes, and it has rained on and off for weeks. I’m a dumbass!

That’s ok. If it got rainy and windy I could put the Vista 1 coffin on the cot. It takes like 10 seconds to setup the coffin tent and with the rainfly on, and inside a screen tent, it would happily ride out a hurricane. The sky was cloudy but only moderately so. I have side panels for the screen tent. If I paid for ’em I might as well use them right? Soon I had a screen tent with wind / rain protection on 3 of 5 sides with a comfy cot inside and a coffin tent stashed under the cot “just in case”.

Unusual? Yes. Well suited to summer camping and yet flexible enough should conditions degrade? Yes! If a solution is weird but works great, then it’s fine with me.

Here’s the screen tent without stuff in it or the side panels:

Here’s the screen tent with side panels (3) and my super comfy cot/mattress/sleeping bag combination. A bit odd but at the same time I thought it was pretty neat.

The forest was wet as can be and I needed firewood. A few years back I bought a dorky little electric chainsaw. I expected a battery operated saw to be an underwhelming toy. I was wrong! The little beast really impresses me. I have been completely converted to battery based saws for small jobs. I take it on most campouts. (I even use it when I’m cutting small diameter firewood at home or when I’m clearing trails.) Of course, I have a big gas saw (a.k.a. a real chainsaw) but the two devices are apples and oranges. The Sthil is good for handling big jobs and full size trees, the Dewalt shines when gathering campfire wood. In fact I won’t take my Stihl camping because it’s louder than Godzilla and I hate carrying all the gas and oil and shit. For camping you can’t beat a (nearly) silent and easy to use little electric saw. Lesson learned.

There was no good wood nearby. I think I fire had gone through a few years ago and burned all the small materials. Grumbling, I started up my now mostly empty vehicle and drove back down the access road. I didn’t return until I’d gathered triple the wood I’d likely need. Why not gather extra? Having a chainsaw made it pretty much effortless.

Back at camp it was a bitch to get wet wood started but once I had a small fire going I used it to heat each piece and everything kept going nicely. The mosquitos were slowly building. The smoke helped and I lit a Thermacell.

It was getting dark but my work was done. I cracked a cold beer and it was delicious. Sadly, my shortwave radio battery died almost instantly. I charge it from a cigarette lighter in the Dodge but my Jeep-Thing has no lighter socket. These are the things you learn by testing your gear rather than making sunny assumptions.

I didn’t have much small wood for the little folding stove. No worry, I used tongs to grab hot coals from the fire and toss them into the stove. Easy peasy! I grilled tenderloin on the little gadget and it was delicious. I didn’t overthink it and I was lazy as I cooked. Some came out perfect, some was a little overdone. I didn’t care, it was awesome just as it was. I had a ton of “side dishes” available but cooked nothing else. Sometimes the best possible mean is grilled steak with salt and pepper. With beer of course. I had a little extra meat left over which I stashed for breakfast.

I could have cooked over the main fire but the little wood stove is a lot more “controllable”:

Notice how everything was smoky? The wood was pretty wet.

While I was eating steak, I couldn’t help but think about Chuck Schumer. If you aren’t aware, the dude tried to tweet that he was grilling on Father’s Day. It was one of those “see, I’m just like you deplorable voters” photos that should be no big deal. Yet it just looked off. He wound up looking like such a freaky weird space lizard that the people mocked him. He eventually deleted the tweet.

That’s a thing about politics right now. I’m just a loser with a firebox and a steak and yet I really did make dinner that way. I don’t look like a lying spaz. The food tasted delicious. Schumer, like so many politicians, is so vastly unlike a normal American that he can’t make a cheeseburger without looking like a fraud. What’s it like to be such a strange and alien being?

A little later three women in three kayaks showed up. They belonged to the Toyota. They arrived just as dusk was approaching.

How times have changed! Once upon a time I’d have chivalrously offered to help. In our current era of weirdness when you meet a woman who’s unknown to you it’s only wise to react with caution. Any male must (in self defense) assume she’ll shriek like a banshee and sue you for sexual harassment if you look her way. Wisely, I stayed in my chair, nodding politely. I made small talk without moving an inch.

I’d say “I let them struggle with their gear” but they had it well in hand. They didn’t need any help from the Neanderthal hanging out nearby. In fact, to their credit, they didn’t freak out about me at all.

There was a kerfuffle a few weeks ago about some women claiming they’d rather see a bear in the woods than a man. This was presented as an accusation toward men (as are almost all things these days). But I had to reflect that there’s greater risk to myself having three ladies around than a bear. I’m not sure I’d rather see an alligator… but bear… yeah I’d pcik the bear.

Politics is so divisive that it erodes us all. People have been trained out of happy interaction with strangers. But rationality still holds in the forest. All four of us were not merely civil but nice. I’m glad when we revert to being just good people. America’s trust is not eroding so much as it’s being deliberately killed by people who are doing so on purpose. Once again I think of Chuck Schumer who can’t make a cheeseburger without generating an uncanny valley.

They had with them a dog. Humans cannot be trusted but dogs are always awesome. I almost broke into song! It approached and with the owner’s permission, I gave it a bit of steak. The dog decided then and there to change teams and sat by my feet. I’d made a friend for life. It inspected my grill about a thousand times hoping I’d dropped some.

Eventually, the ladies had crammed all three kayaks, all three passengers, all three paddles, and assorted get in or onto their Toyota Rav4. They called for the dog. I gave him a last piece of steak and a pat on the head and he wandered over to be crammed into what was looking a bit like a clown car. He was a good dog!

Then I was alone. The sun set. Mosquitoes picked up but it wasn’t that bad. I don’t know if I just stoically bore the bugs, or there weren’t many to fret over, or the Thermacell did a great job. (Pro tip: Thermacells do a pretty good job. I pay a smidge extra for the “earth scent” refills. The pleasant smell is worth it.)

I had cell service (unusual for places I camp) but my phone was dead. I neglect my phone more or less on purpose. (My SpotX is serious equipment and was charged fully!) I plugged the phone into my battery pack / jumpstarter, gave it a few minutes to catch up, and made a call.

I wound up chatting for hours with an old friend. Me sitting by the campfire. Him watching sportsball in a different time zone. We bitched and joked as if we were both sitting out there in the woods. Call it “virtual campfire”.

Eventually, I ran out of beer and a fog came in. Actually it didn’t come in so much as materialize in situ. A dense fog, like Stephen King was prowling the forest. I let the fire die out, stood a long time looking at the spooky forest, and turned in.

I slept like a log. It wasn’t a warm dry night. I don’t have a thermometer but it must have been around 40f. Lucky I’d brought an “overkill” sleeping bag.

I woke to 9000% humidity and fog. Everything was soaked with dew; sleeping bag, my face, everything. Serves me right for using a screen tent instead of a real tent. On the other hand I’d deeply enjoyed the fresh air of the forest.

I had plans to make breakfast or something, but I lazily went back to sleep. A few hours later the sun was beaming through the screen and it was glorious. I stumbled out of the screen tent, got dressed, and had done absolutely nothing when Mrs. Curmudgeon arrived! Awesome!

I’d promised to make breakfast but I’d zoned out and slept late! Mrs. Curmudgeon no longer camps but if possible she comes by for breakfast at camp! Our dog was (as always) with her. It was delighted to tear around camp like a maniac. Dogs love camping!

I brewed coffee and served it. I make better coffee at camp than at home.

I started a fire and we sat happily watching the fire. Then I remembered I was supposed to make breakfast so I whipped up bacon, eggs, and cheese. I chopped up the leftover steak and added it too. It was a delicious breakfast in a mellow place.

We sat there for hours. The wet morning chill turned into noontime heat. It’s nice to rest. A hipster and his wife showed up looking for a hiking trail. They’d been led astray by Google maps. I pointed out the right route to the hipster while his wife took photos of our dog. Two human interactions in 24 hours is more than the “nobody for days” I’m used to. Maybe it’s a popular spot? Then again I’d had it all to myself most of the time.

Eventually, Mrs. Curmudgeon and a very happy but worn out dog rolled away. An hour later I’d broke camp and rolled out. I stopped at the ice cream place and the lady was grumpy. WTF? The ice cream was still excellent. Heading home I took dozens of random dirt roads and I only got home at dusk.

It was the perfect campout! This post is too long but I hope y’all got a secondhand whiff of the happy, cheap, simple fun nature offers. It you can, turn off the internet and go wandering. Good luck!

I went camping! Finally!

I’d found a cool new spot but another week passed while I pined to go. I did some research and the canoe landing was legal for free dispersed camping. Sweet!

Plans to camp Friday night (right after work) went to hell. I’d been to a doctor and he’d done doctor stuff. It’s all good and I’ll live and whatnot but I’d been put through a wringer and didn’t have the energy to pack the Jeep-Thing. Obviously, a motorcycle camping trip was inconceivable.

That night I slept poorly. I woke up creaky. While I’d been sleeping it had rained steadily. At this rate, the forest is going to go from spongy wet to flat out slime-mold!

However, by afternoon the rains were fading. I could stand no more. I’d camp even if it was in a downpour!

I started hurling shit into the Jeep-Thing during brief moments when the sky looked even remotely blue. I ignored my un-mowed feral lawn and hoped the drizzle would cease. It did, grudgingly, and I took off at the crack of 5:00 pm. That’s waaaaaay too late for a sane departure. It’s all I could manage.

I got to the location with limited sunlight left and my gear in total disarray. It was only a week after I found the spot and I hadn’t thought over which gear made sense for that particular location. I’d taken some of the stuff I’d separated from motorcycle camping, crammed it back into my Dodge-based Milwaukee Packouts, and hurled the Packouts into the Jeep-Thing. I wasn’t sure what I’d grabbed and what I’d forgot. However, I brought a lot of crap so I’d be OK. I’m adaptive if nothing else, the mishmash heaped in the vehicle probably included some combination of stuff that would work.

Also, I’d brought cold beer and a huge steak. What more did I really need?

There was a Toyota parked at the landing. Oh no! It would be unforgivably rude to setup camp if someone was already there. I’m not sure I’d have enough sunlight to find somewhere else!

Lucky for me, the Toyota was abandoned. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Someone had either parked it here and was merrily paddling downstream away from it, stationed it here and was paddling downstream toward it, or maybe they were only out for the afternoon and would return at dusk. Who knows? The important part was a logistics vehicle meant they weren’t camping so much as positioning equipment.

For those of you who don’t know; “dispersed camping” is a window into varying human interaction in the hinterland. It’s a whole different world. Allow me to expand upon this…

If you go to a State or Federal designated campground there will be dozens or hundreds of campsites. There will be vehicles, people, dogs, bicycles, kids, RVs, campers, tents, and the lively chatter of happy humans. There will also be rules and social norms. You’ll drop $20-$40 (usually through an online reservation system that takes an unavoidable fee for the service) and in exchange get a smallish spot amid a hive of beings. (Off season is a different thing. Once overnight temps drop below freezing, dogs, kids, RVs, and so forth cease to exist. All that are left are a few hardened self-supporting folk, much rarer and quieter.) Your money presumably pays for the services you get; plumbing or pit toilets, Park Rangers who prowl around looking grim but usually (unless you’re at the mercy of the simpleton bastards at Yellowstone National Park) leaving you unmolested, electric hookups, firewood (which you have to buy), mowed areas, and various other shit.

Dispersed camping is free and you get nothing. You know all those people who say they’re libertarian but never stop bitching about whatever service they demand from the Government? Well this calls their bluff with a two by four. Dispersed camping is your chance to experience true libertarian values. Which is why I love it!

Not everyone can roll with it. You need to be a different breed of cat to be fine with nothing. There are no reservations. No prowling Park Rangers. No outhouses (with some exceptions). Etc… Often, the best places aren’t even mapped. Are there bears? Probably. Will windthrown trees block your egress in the morning? Maybe. Is there cell service? Rarely.

“Campsites” vary from awful to majestic. They might be a tiny nook under a single tree or a vast prairie under the skies of God. The unruled, unknowable, absence of people is a wild card. Dispersed sites are often utterly empty, bereft of humans; which is my goal. Camp alone like that and you might learn things about yourself you didn’t know. I think many (most? nearly all?) people have never ever spent much time completely on their own. If you’re of the wrong personality the vast emptiness of the universe might swallow you up. It’s all up to you and who you are. If you’re like me, you might sip bourbon next to a campfire and laugh aloud at the joy of it all.

It’s a bit of a gamble deciding how close you’re willing to camp to someone else. I usually won’t camp within a mile or two of other dispersed people. That’s just my choice but I’m not the only one who thinks like that. People who prefer dispersed camping tend to be independent, self-supporting, solitary creatures or groups of just a few. If I want solitude it’s only fair to preserve it for others. Thus, it’s good form to actively avoid other dispersed campers. (Exceptions are dispersed “campsites” with multiple “camp spots”. Even then, pick a spot and leave the other spots alone.)

One special exception is if you stumble across a super redneck family clan in a dispersed camping situation. This is rare but it happens. You’ll occasionally find a mobilized multi-vehicle encampment in mid hootenanny… maybe it’s a family group… or a group that’s ostensibly hunting (which is basically the same thing but with more guns)… or even a family reunion (which has the same amount of guns but more old folks and kids). In any case, you’re not going to get a nature experience if you rudely camp nearby. Accept the inevitability of what you’ve encountered. Either clear out or wander over and crash the party… which I highly recommend. If you bravely walk in like a Stellar Jay looking for an abandoned crumb of food there’s a good chance you’ll be loaded with delicious food and awful beer in no time. Hold steady! Tough out the shitty music they’ll inevitably be playing and laugh at whatever jokes they’re telling. Soon you’re in like Flynn! You’re going to have all the fun you can survive. Trust me on this; you’ll never have a wilder time than when you crash a few dozen rednecks all camping at once. Unless you’re a bitchy vegan headcase, in which case you should run.

Anyway I was looking for solitude that night. That’s why, if there’d been a single pup tent near the Toyota, I’d have left rather than “crowd” them.

I staked my claim and set to making camp. I was mildly concerned I’d freak the canoers out by my mere presence. People strategically stashing vehicles at canoe landings might be a mite worried to find some bearded weirdo drinking beer next to a rusty Jeep-Thing. Then again, fuck ’em.

A note about leaving your vehicle in a dispersed camping area: If you park a Toyota and come back to find a bearded weirdo with a Jeep-Thing camping in the area, don’t panic. If he was going to steal it, your Toyota would already be gone. Also, this is the forest not the ‘hood, so raise your expectations of humanity. There’s far fewer thugs in the hinterland than you’ll find in an urban WalMart parking lot. Don’t freak out about rural white supremacist Jesus freak maniacs like the gibbering ninnies on NPR and you might meet an actual normal friendly human being.

Anyway, I made camp and all was well. More to come…

This is what a Redcamp Wood Burning Folding Camp Stove with 4 years of very heavy use looks like when compared to a brand new one. The old one still works, I just use it so much I wanted a “backup”.

First use of the new grill.

They come with carrying cases. New one on the left, old one on the right. Both work fine:

I went camping! Finally!

Well not yet. First I had to find a place to go. During a rare patch of sun, Mrs. Curmudgeon and I went exploring in my Jeep-Thing vehicle.

A word about the Jeep-Thing. I own a creaky, rusty, old, 4×4 vehicle. It’s not a Jeep but it serves the same purpose. It’s not particularly valuable or glamorous but it’s uncommon. If I post details, someone will quickly identify it. In our current clown world I wish to retain my anonymity and obscure mechanical conveyances work against that.

Nor do I want to create an attractive puzzle for someone somewhere who’s an aficionado of old trucks. “That’s a 1968 International Swampmaster Travelall Deluxe Camper-Burbuan with optional Armstrong Steering. Only 5,000 were made, of which only 50 still run. Since Curmudgeon parked it next to an fence with double stitch half twitch woven barbed wire we can isolate it to Cancel County in State X.” That might just feed the trolls of cancel culture: “A Google search shows the only Swampmaster registered in Cancel County lives at 54 Dipshit Road in the town of East Cowschitt. Lets e-mail everyone in the county that the owner is a racist, bigoted, doo-doo head who talks to squirrels. Also, we’ll make sure he’s fired and everyone hates his dog… because that’s how we embrace diversity and tolerance.”

So, for now it’s just a Jeep-Thing. Call me paranoid if you want. In my defense, has there been a better time to be paranoid?

I could just call it a Jeep. That would work flawlessly but it would be lying. Nobody would know but I just can’t do it. I may be lame but it’s a personality quirk that I just flat out won’t lie. So I say “Jeep-Thing” and pique everyone’s interest over my shitty old truck. I’d make an awful spy and I’m unfit for our current era of universal deceit.

Back to the story, my Jeep-Thing is pretty old and it had a long period of “storage”. I’m slowly getting it back to “daily driver” reliability but it’s not like I’m done. I’ve had limited time and money to further the process. However, it runs now and it’s wise to drive it around to see what’s working and what breaks. It took a lot of cranking and choke to get her started but once it was running it ran great. I was delighted.

Driving winding dirt roads is always fun. With the Jeep-Thing it’s extra fun because there are no worries. It’s already beat up so I need not fret about damage and (within reason) it’s unstoppable. I don’t have to fret that I’ll take a road that’s too rough.

We set out to re-locate the dispersed campsite I discovered last fall. I couldn’t find it on foot during a brutal failed January attempt. (Read: Walk To The Edge, Then Walk Back: Part 1 and Part 2.) In my defense, in January I was ill and I was on foot with a bum leg at -10f at sunset. Bailing out was the right call. Driving around on a sunny summer weekend is a whole different universe.

Halfway to the dispersed campsite I took a random turn. Why? Because I noticed a road I’d never seen before. Five random turns later I had no idea where I was. I was sure I could backtrack out of where I’d meandered; but I could’ve been in an alternate dimension for all I could pinpoint on a map.

Abruptly, the road ended in a turnabout. There was a small river nearby. Not an easily accessible rocky streambank but a swampy reedy mess. A muddy walking path went from the turnaround to the stream. It was a good landing spot to put in or take out a canoe or kayak and obviously well used for that purpose.

In fact, there was a guy already at the spot! He’d beached his canoe and was rehydrating. Many people go down this little branch of the river. Some for an afternoon, others for multi-day trips. I was reluctant to mess up this guy’s private solo time in nature, but he seemed happy to see people.

“How long you been paddling?” I asked, trying hard to not look or sound like a scary extra from the movie Deliverance.

“Two days.” He looked beat. I’m guessing the swampy area he’d just paddled was hotter than Satan’s armpit. I know it has a million switchbacks so progress must have been slow. “I haven’t seen anyone in two days.”

“Then you need the fruits of civilization. Would you like a cold soda?”

His eyes lit up like I’d just handed him a winning lottery ticket. He gunned the ice cold drink like only a man who’s been roasting for days would. I’ve been there, I know.

Unwilling to further mess up his solitude, I vamoosed quickly. He was all smiles.

After we’d driven away I realized my mistake. That poor bastard is going to have to haul an empty soda can all the way to wherever he’s going. I should have stayed and retrieved it from him. Oh well.

Mrs. Curmudgeon and I agreed the place was pretty cool. It looked like you were in the primordial wilderness but it wasn’t that far out. Also, the access road wasn’t too bad. I GPS marked it on my SpotX for further review.

By now, Mrs. Curmudgeon was looking a little wilted. There’s no AC in my vehicle and it rides like a cement mixer. Once I got my bearings I made a bee line for a small rural “store” not far away. (I try to mentally map every “service” I find in various hinterlands. You never know when you’ll have an emergency. Indeed, it was handy that I knew it existed.) “There’s a grumpy lady at a place nearby that sells good ice cream.” I said.

We pulled in and got ice cream (which was top notch). I setup our lawn chairs in the shade of a tree. It was a fine afternoon. Mrs. Curmudgeon beamed. I was happy too. We’ve been married forever and yet I’m still super happy when I can do something silly like get her a cone. That’s what life is all about; eating ice cream with your sweetie in the shade next to your rusty old vehicle.

The store lady came out and joined us and talked our ear off. She was super friendly. So much for my carefully filed memory of her being grumpy.

We set out for the dispersed campsite but I was already daydreaming of an overnight at the canoe landing. With a few twists and turns we found the spot which had eluded me in the January gloom. I’d probably been within 100 yards when I turned back. (No regrets! Many things could have gone wrong that day and turning around before they happened was a wise move.) The spot is large but hidden in a pine plantation. You don’t recognize it until you’re right there.

We parked and I busied myself making a bratwurst “picnic”. There was a firepit but I prefer my Redcamp Wood Burning Folding Camp Stove. (I get kickbacks from Amazon if you buy shit from my links. It doesn’t cost you a penny. I only recommend stuff I like, own, and use. Lest you think I’m hopelessly biased by the pocket change I get, I’ve given you proper warning of my devious plans.)

I’ve been meaning to do a “long term review” post about that trusty little gadget. Just know that it rocks! I first mentioned it four years ago. (TW200 Mods, Front Rack) It’s a simple little bugger but it’s super handy. I take it on every campout and I’ve used it on a zillion little “cookouts” in my lawn. After 4 years of hard use, it’s still completely functional but a little warped from the heat.

It’s such a handy thing I bought a replacement (or depending on your point of view a backup). I feared they might become unavailable or more expensive or lower quality. Since it’s cheap and convenient and a good deal at twice the cost why not stock up? In fact I bought a replacement, a second auxiliary spare replacement, and still kept the perfectly good but slightly worn original. I’ve got three! Wealthy isn’t just bank accounts and stacks of Krugerrands, sometimes it feels good to have a “lifetime supply” of a $30 gadget.

I set it up right in the firepit, why not? Fires are legal in a makeshift fire pit. They’re legal if I clear debris from under the camp stove. They about as safe as humanly possible if you put one inside the other. Not that it matters after all the rain, but I’m always cautious.

The camp stove is often more practical than a regular campfire. The little box heats up with a tiny amount of fuel; much less than an unconstrained campfire. It also cooks better than a plain fire. In particular, I prefer cooking food on the included grill over holding a stick like when roasting a marshmallow or making a pan dirty.

Campfire food is always delicious. In that time and at that place, basic brats were food fit for a King.

After chowing down we drove home. The vehicle started a lot faster having had it’s batteries topped off by driving around for several hours. I should “exercise” it more often.

Enjoying a story with no depth and lots of happy? More to come…

I went camping! Finally!

This particular campout had multiple false starts. Two weeks in advance I planned to take my Dodge to a basic State Park on Father’s Day weekend. Alas, it was too rainy. (Also the Dodge is ailing. I joke that Detroit surreptitiously contacted the truck’s ECU and reported I was due to dump money into the vehicle. It’s like that beast has a clock to tell it when I’ve gone too long without a mechanic’s bill. I’m avoiding adding unnecessary miles to the Dodge while I wait on getting it repaired.)

Later, I planned for a short motocamping “test night”. (“Motocamping” is the hip trendy term for camping from a motorcycle, or so the YouTube glitterati imply.)

I was committed! My bike was pre-packed and ready to blast out the instant work ended. I’d hurriedly ride as far as I could and setup camp in the late evening after work. I’d return leisurely during Kwanzaa / Junteenth / Toyotathon. “Cleverly” packing the motorcycle in advance turned out to be a mistake. I’d gone through my wisely and carefully arranged “Dodge camping gear” and raided it for a subset of smaller lighter stuff. Thus, leaving my “truck camping preps” in shambles. Whoops.

On the allotted day it rained most of the day (which was expected). The weather report indicated it would mellow out in mid-afternoon. It didn’t. Disgusted, I threw in the towel and stayed home.

I made the right call! Riding a motorcycle in showers sucks. Setting up camp in dusk during rain would suck worse. Then, a brutal thunderstorm hit just after sunset! For motorcycle camping, I have a tent the size of a coffin and a thin sleeping pad. I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. I’m glad I didn’t spend all night in a wet, fabric coffin, wearing out my back while being woken repeatedly by thunder!

Calling off campouts due to weather is new to me. I’ve been working on this novel concept I call “not beating yourself to death doing stupid shit“. It’s not my default setting and I’m still working on it. Age may encourage wisdom but sometimes I fight it.

The following weekend was still drizzling and I had too much accumulated homestead work to fret over camping. However, it unexpectedly turned sunny on Sunday. I wanted to “exercise” my “Jeep-Thing” vehicle and I elected to completely ignore “adulting” and go play. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I rode off into a humid but not-raining afternoon.

The story continues in my next post…

I went camping! Finally!

A night sitting by the campfire was exactly what I needed. I need outdoor time. Whether you know it or not, you do too. Here’s why; modern society is fuckin’ weird. It’s getting weirder and it wants to take you down with it. Don’t go down the rabbit hole!

Society lacks grounding in reality. It behooves every sane human to interact with the planet from time to time, lest one lose their bearings. Go outdoors periodically and you won’t (can’t!) get as weird as society wants. That’s because we were made (or evolved) for this planet. We belong here. Like it or not, you are doing what you were born to do when you traverse the imperfect, not climate controlled, sometimes difficult, planet we inhabit.

The place that drives us mad is not our home planet with all its dirt and bugs and rain and sun; it’s the mental landscape of the fake that wrecks us. Spend hours awash in an online simulacrum of reality and you begin to believe the bullshit. Spend a lifetime there and you become the bullshit.

Society is drifting as it is because we are living as we are. We don’t sufficiently embrace reality. It’s hard to be a spastic weirdo while tending your own campfire. Even if you are a spastic weirdo, the fire doesn’t care. That’s the point. It does even the most spastic of weirdos a lot of good to realize the campfire, nobody else, and the entirety of the planet itself, doesn’t care about their particular bespoke flavor of weirdness.

More in next post…

Read this: I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again.

I agree with almost everything the author is saying. This includes the part about physically beating douchebags who aren’t smart enough to run a database but who are getting hot and bothered over AI like it’s the next coming of Jesus. The author differentiates between people who do shit and the vast swarms of bullshit peddlers jumping on the AI bandwagon in hopes of harvesting more money to shove up their own ass:

We have a few key things that a grifter does not have, such as job stability, genuine friendships, and souls. What we do not have is the ability to trivially switch fields the moment the gold rush is over, due to the sad fact that we actually need to study things and build experience. Grifters, on the other hand, wield the omnitool that they self-aggrandizingly call ‘politics’.

I’ll add that AI, as it exists now, is a shitty solution in search of a problem which it won’t address. I’ve seen this before. I’m old enough to remember when personal computers were just entering normal households. I remember idiots suggesting housewives might use dBASE to store their recipes. Yes, that was an actual thing spoken by an actual human. Every era has another herd of idiots trying to shoehorn fancy new technology into whatever orifice seems handy.

“Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they’re going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything – or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits.”

It seems to me most of the AI hype is a work avoidance process. Doing a good job with tools that already exist takes effort… and competence. Telling your boss you’ll make straw into gold with the newest buzzword is so much easier.

“How about you remain competitive by fixing your shit? I’ve met a lead data scientist with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive customer records who is allowed to keep their password in a text file on their desktop, and you’re worried that customers are best served by using AI to improve security through some mechanism that you haven’t even come up with yet? You sound like an asshole and I’m going to kick you in the jaw until, to the relief of everyone, a doctor will have to wire it shut, giving us ten seconds of blessed silence where we can solve actual problems.”

And we all know management is mostly herd beasts with great hair; they’ll believe any dumb thing so long as it’s hip and new. Remember other buzzwords like “cyber”, NFT, and blockchain?

“…some of my friends feel that they have to be in leadership positions, and it is because someone needs to wrench the reins of power from your lizard-person-claws before you drive us all collectively off a cliff…”

The best solution probably is a brick to the face.

“With God as my witness, you grotesque simpleton, if you don’t personally write machine learning systems and you open your mouth about AI one more time, I am going to mail you a brick and a piece of paper with a prompt injection telling you to bludgeon yourself in the face with it, then just sit back and wait for you to load it into ChatGPT because you probably can’t read unassisted anymore.”

Hat tip to 357 Magnum.

Follow-up:

I wanted to add this myself. Watch and you’ll see there’s nothing new under the sun. Whenever you hear “AI” in its current context, just substitute “blockchain”, “NFT”, “cyber-space”, “e-commerce”, or fucking “tulip mania“.

Just one of the many cycles of stampeding midwits I’ve watched in my brief life was the dot com bubble. At it’s height, people would put the words “dot com” after anything, hurl money at it, and assume they’d strike it rich. “Rollerskate sandwich dot.com! It’ll make a ton of money!”

At its peak, someone thought it brilliant to sell dogfood over the internet. Between November 1998 and November 2000 this fucking thing was all over TV. The best minds of Wall Street thought riches would come from using “e-commerce” to “solve the problem of buying dog food”. What sane world would use Superbowl ad money to sell fucking kibbles for Fido?

Less than a year later, Pets.com crashed (everything else in the “dot.com bubble” crashed too). Pets.com never made a profit. It turned an IPO price of $11/share into $0.19/share and not a single business executive was thrown off a cliff! That’s part of the game, the dipshits that vaporizing huge piles of money chasing “the new thing” never seem to pay the price. It all burns down but they’re already chasing the next “magic noun”. Our current AI situation is what happens when business dweebs find a new word and pound it to death.