Nothing's Really Moving Me Right Now

Nothing that I can properly talk about anyway.

Sorry.

I really need to be inspired to make good posts, to write with feeling.

Just not feeling much right now.

I have been working on my beekeeping blog a bit lately, check it out if you're interested in bees at all.  They really are fascinating creatures.  In beekeeping, there's an excellent opportunity to practice organic farming right now.

Once again, I ask for suggestions on subjects about which to write.  I have been thinking lately about the literal-ness of the Bible.  It could make for a lengthy post, but quite interesting.  What do you think?

WiredForStereo

Recent Trip to Oregon

Over Christmas break, I went to Oregon to visit my family for the first time in about a year and a half.

Last time I visited was in the summer, and the difference was depressing. In the summer it's very hot and dry which is fantastic for a guy who has become accustomed to the south with heat and high humidity. In the winter time here, it is often very cold but often dry or at least frozen dry. In Oregon, it was wet and nasty.

But I got to do some awesome stuff and brought back some awesome stuff as well.

I got to see Randy Grubb's Blastolene "Pissed off Pete" custom truck hot rod in person at his home. He's the guy who built the Blastolene Special which Jay Leno owns. He was also on Monster Garage where he embarrassed himself a little bit, you'll have to see the episode.

I got to ride quads on the dunes on the Central Oregon Coast. It was tons of fun even though it caused my cold to take a nasty recurrence.

I brought back 24 bee hive deeps which brings my total collection up to 54 which is enough for about 11 full beehives.

My youngest brother gave me a good quality welder for Christmas which I brought back.

My dad gave me some parts to finish my generator project. I now have a working CS-144 alternator with a double v-belt pulley to generate power with. I also bought from him a single cylinder air cooled Lombardini diesel engine to make a future generator upgrade with as soon as I figure out how to get it working.

My dad and other brother gave my son and I a bunch of HO scale freight cars and an engine. My son loves trains, and so do I. I'm working on a double layer 4x8 foot layout now.

They also found a little wheelbarrow my dad built for me when I was a young boy and refurbished it, replacing the wheel and powder coating it for my son. Now he has the same little blue wheelbarrow that I had when i was a kid. With the way it's built, his son is likely to have it as well. I think in about 25 years, I'll have it sandblasted and re powder coated and give it to my grandson for Christmas.

I also found a great plastic barrel for use as a water barrel. It has a removable lid with a wide mouth.

I built a way to attach the spare tire to my trailer.

And finally, I got to build a bunch of fires in three different wood stoves which I haven't done much in the past five years. I love starting fires.

Too bad I didn't really have any Christmas break to do any thing here.
WiredForStereo

Facebook and Twitter can Die and Rot.

Back before I signed up for Facebook, everyone was trying to get me on there. When I finally did, a guy I know said something like "you are finally drinking the Koolaid" or something like that, so I said "well, you've been a tool for months."

Let me tell you why I don't like Facebook or Twitter.

First, though this kind of service seems to increase the volume of interpersonal communication, and connection, it really superficializes what interpersonal communication is. There is so much more to communication than words. Most important are facial expressions. You can tell so much about a person by their facial expressions innately as a function of your natural coding as a human. Non-verbal communication is huge and when you just type, you lose it. Another thing is the voice. Your voice communicates so many things, and not the words, the tone, inflection, timbre, and numerous other characteristics. Something people often forget is hormones and pheromones that are released when we communicate. You may know that oxytocin is released when you hug or touch someone. But there are other hormones that are released into your body when you communicate and you lose those with a Tweet. Smell is a huge factor because your body releases smells and pheromones depending on your mood, attitude and stress level. Also, smells are the sense most tied to memory.

Another reason is the seemingly voluntary loss of privacy. Facebook statuses and tweets tell people what you want them to know is going on. And there is this expectation for you to tell more and more. I also think there can be a draw to be untruthful with them to make them sound more interesting. And I'm tired of people using Facebook instead of email or IM. So now you send me a Facebook message, and Facebook sends me an email so that now I have to go to Facebook and sign in to reply to the message because I can't simply reply to the email. Email me dammit! I've got an iPhone, I get it right away. Stupid Facebook app, told me I had a message for weeks, but I couldn't find it, finally pressed "refresh" and there it was. Then I got updates when Robbie was sick. Everytime there was an update, I got five different updates, two from Facebook groups and two from everywhere else.

There needs to be some privacy, at least for me. There's a reason why I moved out into the country. It was to be away from people who could see what I was doing in my own back yard. But the thing is, if you want to see what I'm doing in my back yard, just come over and ask. I don't know how many people who know me realize, but I'm here all day long and I'll talk to ya. I have a cell phone, and if you call me, I'll talk to ya. If you want to come over and see what the inside of a bee hive looks like, I'll show ya. If you want to fart around in the garden, please do. You can't do any of that stuff on Facebook. Also, you can't get a computer virus in the garden either.

Finally, like with email, it's just too easy for there to be a misunderstanding, but unlike email, it's just too public. When you leave a comment on someone's status or on their wall, everyone sees it and is free to comment on it. And it is just too easy for something to be misunderstood which can cause divides between people.

So I'm done with Facebook, and I never got started with Twitter. If you want to get ahold of me, email or call, or do the unthinkable and write a letter. Drop by my house, there's a pretty good chance I'm here. I'll keep my Facebook account in case anyone wants to contact me for high school reunions or something, but I'm not going to actively take part. And I'm going to stay away from Twitter, because as you can see, I don't do micro-blogging.

WiredForStereo

So Honeybees Right?

While I was in Oregon, I built a trailer to bring back my five remaining hives that were still there, as well as a 1978 Troy Bilt rototiller. I am doing the no-till thing lately, so the tiller will be for preparation, not tilling every year. Anyway, the bees.
Back when I lived in Oregon, before I got the chance to go to college, I was planning on becoming a commercial beekeeper. I was also using the very harshest method of organic beekeeping which I call "Let Live and Let Die." It was essentially a survival of the fittest kind of thing. Some of you are confused right now so let me explain. Over the years, beekeepers in the pursuit of a better bee did a number of unnatural things. They enlarged the size of the bee's cells, making the bees themselves larger, and they used chemical treatments to "cure" diseases. So as new problems arose, mites and other diseases, the bees had lost their genetic advantage regarding their ability to fight disease and pests on their own. It was only a matter of time before the cumulative effect of all these maladies would take their toll as we have seen in Colony Collapse Disorder. My plan while costly in terms of time and bees, is to reawaken the survivor genetics in the bees by letting them fight their diseases with no help. The bees that are strongest in terms of genetics survive while the ones dependent on chemicals die. The plan is to multiply from the survivors so that eventually, all my stock are survivors and in no need of chemical treatment.

Anyway, so I decided to do organic beekeeping, first because I think organic is the way everything should be done, and secondly, organic honey fetches a higher price.

When I moved to Arkansas, I had to leave my bees behind, so they have been in Oregon for three and a half years, in which time my Let Live and Let Die philosophy took its course and yielded five hives from the twenty I started with. So, hopefully, I am left with five really good survivor hives, however now that I have moved them to an entirely different climate, they are no longer acclimated to the region they live in and may suffer further difficulties.

At any rate, I now have six hives here, and hope to make some honey. I have all the equipment I need with me to keep six large healthy hives, and I plan to buy a few queens to start some nucleus hives next spring. For now, I need to get these hives up to snuff for winter. Unfortunately, we had a two week drought while I was gone and all the clover died leaving very little for the bees to forage on. It has been raining every third day or so recently so the clover is beginning to come back and will hopefully start blooming again soon.

Those of you that know me personally, keep your eyes open for some upcoming organic honey for sale.
WiredForStereo