2004-03-01-0718Z


Hopefully this past few days of blogs will get uploaded today... if you see this, then it was!

The day before yesterday was the pits. I won't go into too much detail, because it's pretty disgusting, but here's the gist of it: left for my lot about 1:30 AM from Denny's. Had my bike/flightbag setup as pictured before. Unfortunately, I decided to take an alternate route I wasn't sure of, got delayed by over an hour going this way and that trying to get my bearings, and got caught in rain and sleet. On top of that, I had diarrhea several times on the way. Yuckies. And by the time I reached the last mile-and-a-half of dirt road, it was a nice sticky mud in the places where traffic had not already packed it tight. My bike and flight bag were rendered useless, and it was all I could do just to walk the bike to the tent. Looking back, I would have been far better off leaving the bike locked to something where the road was still tarred. But, hindsight yadda yadda. Anyway, I finally ruined one of the flightbag wheels: 10 year warranted bag done in by Deming, NM in 5 days. Naturally, I can't use the warranty, I abused that bag far beyond normal wear and tear. I might be able to fix it myself though. Anyway, back to the story. I was so exhausted that, despite being soaked with sweat and sleet, and my feet freezing, I crashed for about an hour inside the tent; then, magically reinvigorated by the 'power nap', I walked all the way back to downtown Deming, leaving my bag and bike at the campsite.

Didn't really expect everything to still be there yesterday, but it was. The fact that my tent can't be seen except from a hundred yards away, on an otherwise unused road, probably helps. Anyway, I made it back by about 9-something local time, and here I am at Denny's, where I finally bribed (tipped) the staff enough to find me a table with power.

Oh, forgot to mention that when I finished the UET on that cholla fruit, I ate the whole thing, without removing the little nubbins that contain the hairlike prickles. My tongue, lips and gums were slightly irritated for about 24 hours, but other than that, no problem. Not something I'd do for fun, but it's an option when I'm very hungry and don't have time to peel the fruits.

The eBay buyer of my last gold coin still hadn't paid me as of last night. If I don't see the money there by tomorrow, I'm going to give the guy a chance to back out and just relist; no need giving someone bad feedback just for spite. The positive feedback might just read "good communication but wasn't able to complete purchase". Still honest to other sellers, but not a bad mark against the buyer either. Just hope he's not one of those dweebs who wait a few days then leave negative feedback for the seller, saying "refused to ship" or some such nonsense, to cover their ass for not being able to pay for the item. Yes, they're out there.

(image of Texas Prickly Pear) Found this nopal yesterday, looks like a variant of the Texas Prickly Pear which is common in South Florida, but not the one I gave you a picture of from Hollywood Beach. This was growing at a house in downtown Deming near the library; some Blue Agave, from which Tequila is made, was also there. Someday I'll have to find out exactly how they get the juice out of that woody plant. Probably crush it like sugar cane? Another question: this plant they call Spanish Bayonet is a type of yucca; is this what Cubans call yuca? I ask because my edible plants book doesn't list the root as one of the edible parts, just the stem, flowers, buds, fruit, and seeds.

I've been thinking about what I'd like to have in a wearable or otherwise very portable computer:

Does it already exist? If you know something with all these features. please let me know.

I'm going to try another tack on warwalking, something that doesn't require me to remove the laptop from the case, which tends to attract unwanted attention and calls to police: this onconnect script, which can be invoked as: onconnect tty.freeshell.org ftpupdate tty.freeshell.org. Will try it when I leave here this morning, before it warms up enough for me to get some sleep on the courthouse lawn. If it does warm up, damn it!

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