Later Friday… —
Chill
Friday —
Water —
Just got back this morning from fetching water from the popular Rattlesnake Spring. Usually a once-a-month trek to fill our drinking/cooking water reserves up (9 x 5gal bottles, 45gal total). I got started a bit late this morning (6am), but nobody was there for the duration of time I was there. Took me about 6.5min per 5gal..I usually don’t time the water flow, but I guess I’ve been there enough to where I am curious to start casually tracking it (especially with the drought that’s going on right now). The picture above is a fairly good representation of the flow this morning (though that picture was taken in August 2012).
‘Getting water’ is sort of a special thing for me. I take pride in knowing that I am providing my family with untreated, natural spring water to drink. The atmosphere (besides the traffic) is usually very nice. It is a time when I just relax and try not to rush things. A sort of meditative trip, if you will. I’ll enjoy my coffee and/or trees and just try to immerse myself in the fact that I am taking a conscious effort to better my (and my family’s) health by spending time and gathering clean water. Sometimes I even do some Tai-Chi amongst the trees.
The people you meet are either very conversational or keep to themselves (usually stay inside their car with the windows up until it’s their turn). I find myself one of these depending on the time of day and my mood. One thing is universal, however – everyone that I talk with that has been here before raves about the water. Not one person have I encountered (or heard of from others) that had a bad experience with it. It is apparently checked yearly for quality and marks much higher than the ‘standard’ for water quality. I met one fellow a while back that had worked for the county water district for 15 years and attested to the absolute quality of the water coming from Rattlesnake Spring. I’ve met a number of people that claim it is ‘miracle water’, water which has cured cancer in people they know, bring their family members, pets and livestock from constant sickness to perfect health… that’s about as much proof as I need.
I’ll happily dismiss scare tactics used to try to convince that all untreated water is dangerous. It’s hard to dismiss the overwhelmingly positive response from so many different people I’ve met first hand. I completely understand the possible hazards that can come into aquifers and ultimately out the little spout (which was created supposedly sometime in the 1950’s) such as animal / human feces, urine, dead carcasses, etc.. but for as big as the mountain is that holds this water, I have a very hard time convincing myself that I will personally come in contact with any of that. When Jack was a newborn, we would boil all of the water for his bottles and keep it separately. Other than that, I keep our bottles sterilized, clean and out of the Sun. My next step will be to replace the plastic (a combo of #3 and #7..ugh) bottles with glass.
Shadow (original electronic tracks) —
This is the original song I was referring to in my Shamus song post (originally called, “Creep of the Shadow”). They share few musical similarities but both have their inspirational roots in the old Commodore 64 version of the game, Shamus.
Adorno and the Culture Industry —
I was doing some spur-of-the-moment research on music culture and how it could possibly be manipulated to serve a less than authentic end. I came across this paper and sort of fell in love with it. It very eloquently puts a lot of thoughts I have had in the past, into real words.
I’m adding Adorno to my people list. He seems like a very interesting character with some good insight on what I feel we’re knee-deep in right now. </conspiracytheorist>
tmux —
I used to (casually) use screen, but then desired something that would display multiple terminals simultaneously. I also wanted to be able to type and have it echo into all terminals (useful for updating multiple servers and other general sysadmin stuff). I remember a couple different people (likely including, but not limited to greenfly, ttkay or twm) over in #nblug mentioned tmux. I did some searching and found that it could do all of this, so I kicked the ole brain into write-mode and start learning its personality.
Tmux is really nice. When I build my underground Command and Control center (or NOC for you “standards” types..visualize those quotes as little furry bunny ears) that looks dangerously like the one from War Games, tmux will be what’s on the large screens, some displaying multiple panes (^b + % or “), cycling through various information on the WOPR^Wserver farm. I’ll sit at my terminal and simultaneously (^b + :setw synchronize-panes on) run through other aspects if something strange pops up. 31337. Other screens will display live video feeds from the perimeter and other interesting geographical locations. And yes, everything will be in green terminal font. Because if you don’t do it in green terminal font, don’t fucking do it.
For now, my C64 will do just fine.
shadow —
This riff’s working title comes from the Commodore 64 version of the video game Shamus. My older brother and sister and I would play this game growing up. I still get nervous anticipating the arrival of The Shadow. This loop shares similarities with a song I created in MadTracker a few years ago.
Concur —
A delicate little tune, starting in the higher registers and filling out with a solid lower end. One of my favorites.
first post. —
Ha.