Small victories.

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Cycling: Still riding every day, but haven’t gotten out for any real jaunts. I didn’t start this morning with a bike ride as I properly should have – I started it with a slug of left over wine, a chainsaw and a ladder.  Drinking: The Columbia river Valley’s wines are hit or miss. This $8 score is a Food Pavillion winner – Vintage 2006 Snoqualmie Syrah:  If you see one, get one.   Just came back from my coffee/water run, that moment where I sit down in a cafe around people.  Then it is back to my working alone, puttering, slowly gaining ground.  Sitting down now, too – and though my hands and forearms are in terrific pain, I’ll share with y’all what I’ve been up to.  I’m about halfway through that container of FAST ORANGE.

Wiring, carpentry, painting. Lifting the 77 up to cut plywood. Setting up the space with style and grace. I hurt myself getting the solar panel on the roof alone, but it’s up there and I connected it to the controller box. In a few seconds, a little green LED started to blink and I knew I had achieved a small victory. It’s also an amazing feeling to leave the light on, on purpose, to bleed off extra juice. Soon I’ll have a micro-fridge to do that, maybe a radio. Tinkering into the night, listening to the BBC World Service, to 8:00 or 9:00 GMT, inside my box with a lovely halogen light, off the grid.
The engine – no start, no run, and I haven’t yet found the cause. Upon the advice of people that know more than me, I went and bought a (summoning up a redneck dialect) Holley four barrel on an Edelbrock manifold. At the auto parts store, I just looked for the biggest air filter box on the shelf. Had to go back there twice for the throttle cable, and still, still, STILL I don’t have the ability to make this ‘easy’, ‘simple’ engine run.  I need someone dumber than me to help me with it, or something, because the lawnmower won’t start for me, neither.  It’s as though I’m trying to destroy my back and arms – the joint pain gets intense for me.

When this bad machine starts a-going, I should get around 300 horsepower. Do I need that much? Hell no, but my rationale is – if it’s there, the system may be more efficient when I ‘baby it’… plus I don’t have much choice in the matter. In my hands, it will get driven less.   This fucking thing is a power plant, and I respect its power… to drink gas and pollute.

Still having Arizona dreams, and heard twice of someone leaving this cool green paradise for Arizona.  And I ask, incredulously: “Now?”  I guess the grass is browner everywhere but where you’re at.  I know better.  After 9 or so drives across this continent, the road no longer beckons.  It is the quiet of evening air, and the little ideas that lead to small victories that call to me, it is multiple walks with Lance and sorting my tools so they’re there, *ping*, when I need ’em.

This is *a few* of my tools.  Suffice it to say, I need a box truck to be what I am: damn good. You’ll never catch me pawning these to pay the man rent.

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