jc blog - tales of a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer

Follow jcomeau_ictx on Twitter This is the weblog of Intrepid Wanderer. You never know what you might find here; graphic descriptions of bodily functions, computer programming secrets, proselytizing for the antichrist, miscellaneous ranting and kvetching, valuable information on living off the land... if you don't share my rather weird interests you may want to try slashdot instead.

You can consider my Del.icio.us links an extension to my blog, as are my LifeTango goals and my other to-do items. My to-buy list is also public, but only for sharing any useful ideas that might be there; I'm not requesting charity, neither do I offer it.

You can find me easily in google searches, as jcomeau, jcomeau_ictx, or jcomeauictx. There are lots of other jcomeaus, but AFAIK I'm the only jcomeau_ictx out there so far.

If you want to comment on anything you see here, try the new Facebook comments, reachable by clicking the "[comment]" link at the end of each post. If for some reason that isn't working, go ahead and email me, jc.unternet.net. You know what to do with the first dot. Make the 'subject' line something reasonably intelligent-looking or it goes plunk! into the spambasket unread.

This RSS feed may or may not work. Haven't fiddled with it in forever. RSS Feed


2018-10-29-1141Z

took Golden Gate 101 into San Francisco on Saturday and caught my Megabus to Los Angeles without incident. got to the Chinatown Starbucks at just about 4:30, their usual opening time, but since it was a Sunday it didn't open till 5. still, I was able to stay awake through two cups until daybreak. then I got a little sleep in the park across from Union Station. two different groups came through handing out breakfasts, which bolstered my food reserves beyond the jar of peanut butter I had found at a bus stop in SF.

hung around Union Station until 2PM, then took the Metrolink to Oceanside and got some more sleep on the beach. then took the 101 Breeze to UTC with my Metrolink ticket. that was the end of that $10 journey. so I started walking to Mission Valley, but found an Ofo rideshare bike, its locks broken off, abandoned on Gennessee just south of Clairmont Mesa. so I rode it to C street in Chula Vista, and left it there for the next person because my butt was sore. and now I'm in the H street Starbucks on my first cup. [comment]

2018-10-25-1756Z

one thing I learned this year is that leaving greasy pots and pans away from the house generally gets them clean overnight. first the daddy longlegs get in there, and then probably bigger critters. and these are clean animals, not like the rats who drag their tails in the dirt and grease and spread it everywhere. this is how I should have been cleaning my pots and dishes back in New Mexico. [comment]

2018-10-25-0618Z

oh, and that cold I mentioned on the 22nd never amounted to anything. again, the probiotics killed it before it could do any damage. [comment]

2018-10-25-0604Z

not many places to hydrate on the mountain; several ponds but fenced off and/or with "NO TRESPASSING" signs. found one brook that came out of a culvert on the roadside, where I could stick my head just under the fence and drink from my Sawyer water filter straw; then a while later, continuing up the mountain, found about 10 ounces of water left in a Core Hydration bottle and drank it. on the way down, found another brook (or perhaps the same one as before, on the opposite side) and drank from it, again using the Sawyer filter.

didn't have to pee for over 12 hours (about 10:20 AM to about 11:00 PM), presumably because I was sweating out all the water I was taking in; just like that last trip in La Paz to refill the propane bottles. had no urge whatsoever.

I think it was about 20 miles total, possibly as much as 22. really bummed I couldn't make it to Sonoma because of the gate, but now I know for sure, and can maybe do something about it. [comment]

2018-10-25-0252Z

started at 10:27 PST, ended just a few minutes ago at about 19:50. up Sonoma Mountain and back. more later, gotta eat. [comment]

2018-10-24-0314Z

I was mistaken a few weeks ago about Cory Booker, thinking that his "Spartacus" moment was simple grandstanding and that he hadn't actually shared anything that hadn't already been cleared for public viewing. but I was wrong on that. so I've been reluctant to risk making the same mistake again, and haven't voiced my opinion on the new accusations of sexual assault by Booker himself.

but the differences between this situation and that between Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh are sufficient to make me want to stick my neck out again, and risk it being cut off.

first, this guy has no power. he doesn't have a Diane Feinstein backing him. he's taking on someone with connections to Hillary Fucking Clinton, and could be Seth Riched tomorrow and nobody would ever know.

second, he has no political axe to grind. he's gone sour on Democrats due to the experience, but his political leanings are still to the left, and in any case Booker isn't up for reelection until 2020; too far away for this scandal to have any direct effect as long as Cory ignores it as he has been doing.

third, Booker is ignoring it. so far I haven't heard anything directly from his office, only from a lawyer, Laura Ingraham, calls it a smear. Kavanaugh instantly rejected Ford's accusations against him, even though he could have pled the fifth and kept his current judgeship without risk of perjury.

anyway, I'm not going to attempt to predict how this turns out. but it should prove interesting, if Deep Throat doesn't have an unfortunate accident. [comment]

2018-10-24-0202Z

I may or may not have mentioned that I applied some black salve to the remaining warts on my right hand, after scraping off the new growth, something like 2 months ago. well, for at least 2 or 3 weeks now, I've been wart-free for the first time in maybe 2 years. I'd have to search my blog to find out exactly how long. at first I thought it was skin cancer, but found nothing to support that. in any case, I'm free, and that bloodroot formula has performed another miracle cure.

for some years now I've been eating fennel leaves, buds, and immature seeds. tonight I tried the dried seeds, and they're every bit as enjoyable. the only downside is they're a little harder to chew. I haven't investigated their nutritional value, but I'd guess they could be quite useful in a survival situation.

only a few more days until I head south again. haven't made up my mind yet how much walking I'm going to do. I might be really lazy this year. [comment]

2018-10-22-2320Z

that tooth is still making its presence known, but the pain has only been acute for a few hours of the past week. if it stays this way, I can easily handle it without going to a dentist. what I suspect happened is that a tooth broke, and over the next few months will be coming out in pieces. that seems to be the way it worked last time. [comment]

2018-10-22-1921Z

signed the form for Jared Huffman's office using pdfescape.com and sent it using gotfreefax.com, all without paying a cent and without having to get my ass out of the chair. what an amazing world we live in. [comment]

2018-10-22-0301Z

Thursday or Friday I felt that I was coming down with a cold again. so I did the usual switch to probiotics, and it hasn't gotten any worse, just more mucus production than normal and some discomfort in the throat. hoping to kick it completely by tomorrow.

finished replacing my old dirtboard wheel bolts with stainless. drilling out the old rusted M6-30 bolts was a major pain. went through several cobalt bits. wish I knew how to sharpen the damned things but nothing ever works.

another month I'm short almost $200 on my SSA payment. going to recruit my congresscritter to help. [comment]

2018-10-18-0405Z

a few days ago I got a $5 task in my earn.com inbox from HBUS.com. after signing up and passing their KYC (know your customer) bullshit, including sending photocopies of my driver's license, and waiting a few days, I got $15 in USDT (Tether) deposited automatically into my account. I bought Litecoin with it and had it sent to my Coinomi wallet. so overall I made about $20 from that few minutes invested. not bad.

and tonight on my way back from the cabin out near Lassen, I spotted a smartphone in the middle of the street. not long afterwards, a call came in from "Dad" which I answered, and delivered the phone to my neighbors a few blocks away. their son had lost it out on his motorcycle not long before. the Mom gave me a dozen eggs as a thank-you, and I found a package of Aidell's chicken meatballs on the ground outside the dumpster at Grocery Outlet. so my protein needs for the next few days are met, but I was hoping for something better for tonight; spent $3 and change at Petaluma Market for .4 pounds of Progressive Pastures grass-fed beef and made a burger out of it. very yummy. [comment]

2018-10-16-0255Z

got through to Clipper customer service today and got my refund, but it wasn't as much as I'd thought. due to the delay in checking card status online, the $10.35 I'd seen was the previous day's balance. the trip only cost $6.80, and should have been $5.20. anyway, all is well. [comment]

2018-10-14-0404Z

yesterday I got my atomic swap code working with the bitcoin 10.0 client on both regtest and testnet, or at least I think so. today I managed to get it working with americancoind, up to spending the p2sh funds, which appears to have failed. if Americancoin has to be upgraded to be in sync with Litecoin 10.2.2, it's going to need a lot of work. somewhere between 100k to 500k lines of source were changed. hard to say exactly because the Americancoin developers didn't keep the git history showing where they forked Litecoin. [comment]

2018-10-14-0058Z

jogged/walked into Novato today to see if the route along 101 still works. it does, but it's different. maybe if/when I get back next spring the bike route will be complete.

forgot to tag off with my Clipper card when I got to 2nd and C in Petaluma, so I paid the full fare to Santa Rosa, $10. damn. that hurts. I found $3 on the sidewalk in Novato outside a pizza joint, so that mitigated it somewhat, but losing all that money is still painful to contemplate.

that whole Clipper card thing is just evil. the buses should accept credit cards, just like they accept cash, and let you pay in advance for the distance you're going. someday I'll get even and put GGT and Clipper out of business by coming up with a new, personal transit system that obsoletes their stupid monopoly. [comment]

2018-10-09-2307Z

my large hand drill finally broke for good a few days ago. it was the main sprocket, a pot-metal casting. hated to chuck it, but that's something I don't know how to fix.

that sensitive tooth on my left lower jaw is getting worse, but it doesn't hurt all the time. I should be able to make it to Mexico. [comment]

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