ㅁ I walked down the road until... a bird passed, fluttering fast, the air still... no more will.
– an englyn cil-dwrn.
Month: October 2020
Caveat: Tree #637
This tree is seeking attention.
Arthur and I pulled out the lower two rails from the boat rail assembly with a nice low tide at around 5 this evening.
I found the original pulley that broke, camouflaged among the seaweed and rock – corroded and barnaclized, as I’d suspected.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1537 “As night will do”
ㅁ I like the autumn. The clouds become substantive. The night gnaws day's feet.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #636
This tree found blue skies.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #1536 “What I saw”
ㅁ At one AM: stars. Then before dawn it rained hard. First light saw gray, gold.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #635
This tree has got it going on.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #1535 “Their beady little eyes”
ㅁ The trail led uphill. I imagined bears made it. Perhaps they watched me.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #634
This tree reflects on the passing river.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1534 “Twenty-fourth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon boarded the tram down the block. Brownstones and brick walls began to stream past: cold-windowed churches, a tall, pensive clock, human creations - the city seemed vast.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Kiamon lives in Ohunkagan.
Caveat: Tree #633
This tree felt itself to be in contrast with the sky.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1533 “Amateur signifying”
ㅁ I've been uninspired so I just put some words down, representations.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #632
This tree is about two miles from the house.
[daily log: walking, 8km]
Caveat: Poem #1532 “I can’t tell them apart”
ㅁ Farther down the road, the trees are still all the same. So I take pictures.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #631
This tree is leaving.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1531 “Time’s flavor”
ㅁ The chill felt the air. A bit of my breath hung there. And fall tasted time.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #630
This tree is not exceeding the speed limit.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1530 “Try turning it off and on again”
ㅁ The computer sighed. So many bits all stirred up! No meaning was found.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #629
This tree shows its true colors.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Poem #1529 “Unmarketable”
ㅁ The spam felt despaired with the content of this blog: such disappointment!
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #628
This tree is along the road less taken.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #1528 “There were a lot of trees”
ㅁ I put feet-to-road and went along for awhile noticing the trees.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #627
This tree is in a forest.
[daily log: walking, 3km; jogging, 1km]
Caveat: Escapism
The last few days I’ve been engaging in escapism of the purest sort. Frustrated with the world, with my “productive” projects, with Arthur’s curmudgeonly chaos, I’ve retreated into my own world.
After a long time away, I’ve returned to my mapping project for the imaginary city. This is cross-posted from my “other blog.”
I keep doing small historical edits for the city’s Metropolitan Area. I’m up to the year 1904 or so.
I made this cool gif of the mapping progress so far:
Here’s the transit network, on the same frame:
Here is a wider area view – I’m going to start a time series of screenshots for these, too, to show the growth of the metropolitan area.
I have been placing lots of industry and factories and such. I’m most proud of the rail-car factory, here.
Caveat: Poem #1527 “Tell me ahead of time”
ㅁ It's my shortcoming: not liking to be ambushed by complex projects.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #626
This tree provides a backdrop to fall.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Poem #1526 “Thrice dead, at least”
ㅁ I'm not really here - I witness I drift I dream - rather, I'm a ghost.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #625
This tree found the sun.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1525 “The evidence is clear”
ㅁ God is omniscient maybe omnipotent too but not too clever
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #624
This tree witnesses the shapeless sky.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km]
Caveat: Poem #1524 “But what is a dream?”
ㅁ In dreams the clouds creep In dreams the struggle is hard In dreams the sea sleeps
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #623
This tree dwells near the pond.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Caveat: The Saga of the Boat Rail
As mentioned before, last Friday the boat rail pulley on the lower end failed.
On Tuesday morning, Arthur and I got up super early (4:30 AM) to catch the low tide and install a new eye bolt for a pulley to anchor the lower end of the boat trolley cable.
I didn’t take any picture, but this is what an eye bolt looks like.
After I went to work, Tuesday, Arthur tried to pull the boat out of the water on his own at the mid-day high tide.
The new eye bolt failed. So it looked like this.
It left us questioning our choices. Not to mention, it looked like a question mark, right?
Yesterday morning (Wednesday), we got up early again, and tried to re-engineer an anchor for our pulley. We drilled a second hole, and installed a U-bolt.
It looked like this.
Then I went to work, and though the boat was out of the water, Arthur decided to lower the boat back into the water because the boat was crooked on its cradle.
As Arthur attempted this, there was a catastrophic failure of our U-bolt. I found this piece of our rail, and the loose pulley, near the tide line when I got home.
And this was the base of the rail in the morning.
So now there was no chance of getting the boat back into the water to “re-float” it and straighten it out. You can see the crooked boat, here.
Instead, we decided to use a come-along and chains to pull the boat around on its cradle. I didn’t take a picture of this process, because I was working hard. But this is a come-along and a chain, which we used (somewhat blurry).
We got the boat straightened out and up into the barn using the come-along and the trolley winch (but only “uphill” would work, because of the broken pulley at the bottom, so each time we needed to “reverse” we had to set up the come-along).
We paused during the uphill trip because Arthur wanted to wash off the boat. I said it would be a multi-day job, but he plowed into the effort.
After about two hours, he said he agreed it would be a multi-day job, and decided on second-thought he’d just like to get the boat put away in the boat house. So we did that.
Yay.
Caveat: Poem #1523 “Fish spirits”
ㅁ Then, further along, the fish's cool spirit rose... and decoalesced.
– a pseudo-haiku.
