This tree was nearby when Fred and Pat parked their boat at our dock again. A storm is scheduled, but more crucially, they will out of town for a few weeks, and given the gale-force storms that seem to be popping through regularly this fall, they decided to avail themselves of our sheltered moorage while they were gone off to Arizona.
Meanwhile, I made an apple-huckleberry-raspberry cobbler. I hope it’s delicious.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; cobblering, 1hr]
I have configured a new service for my blog, this here website (i.e. caveatdumptruck.com).
Really, I’m testing it, curious as to whether it works. Cloudfare is a service that protects websites from certain types of hacking attacks (typically, what are called DDoS attacks), and also helps improve delivery of webpages all over the world by maintaining a network of caching servers of a sort. I want to know how it works, before perhaps trying it out on the mapping website I am now hosting – I have the unconfirmed suspicion that the mapping site, with several hundred users in 30 countries, is more vulnerable to this type of attack than many other websites, smaller or larger – it’s in a kind of “sweet spot” of vulnerability.
So I thought to use this blog as a low-traffic place to do an experiment with it.
For you, the loyal blog-reader, the change should be utterly transparent. Which is to say, if it’s working correctly, you should see no difference. And if it’s not working correctly, probably you won’t see this at all – at least not in a timely manner! And I’d have to fix it, then, reverting back to the status quo ante.
Anyway, there you have. Caveatdumptruck, cloudflared.
ㅁ I add walls platforms a vague human-made fungus higher and higher
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was there when I completed my rafters for my treehouse.
Here is a view from down below.
Next for the treehouse, I want to put in small stretches of exterior wall covering above the windows, before adding the roofing material.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
We pulled the boat out of the water today, because there was a nice high-tide mid-day. We’ve decided to close the fishing season on ourselves. Here is Arthur, amazed at the low barnacle-count – I’d expected more.
The high today was 39° F. There was frost on the dock that persisted while we pulled out the boat. I found this fish skeleton, likely abandoned by a raven or regurgitated by an eagle, lying in the frost.
ㅁ I'm up high, perched there in my treehouse. See, a mistake needs reversing. I've got to get one screw loose. Being so high is hard. I don't enjoy it. Still, I'm trying. "Don't look down." I say. Oops.
– a nonnet.
This tree was near some water.
I worked on the treehouse a lot today. But it was small things, and in the end the only visible change was the addition of a 4th rafter, and a sort of temporary scaffolding to enable me to more easily reach the top of the south wall. It was a hard day with a lot of reversals and frustrations and acrophobic delights.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; banging and lifting, 6hr]
Sometimes (not really that often) I watch strange things on youtube.
This guy bought a Toyota Hilux pickup truck directly from Japan (they are difficult to buy in the US because they are subject an exorbitant tariff known obscurely as the “Chicken Tax”). Hiluxes are famous throughout the world as being the most durable mass-production vehicles available, and are well-regarded by terrorists and irregular militaries for use as troop transports and improvisational gun-mount vehicles.
This guy decided to test that famed durability through maximized destructive behavior, and he filmed the whole thing. In the climax, 4th video, he drops the Hilux from a helicopter from 10000 feet up. Needless to say, despite the vehicle’s durability, this proves an insurmountable challenge, and given the extensive bonding had formed during the preceding challenges, tears are shed.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.
ㅁ Nonnets can start with syllable-hills, sequipedalianally, with well-entrained thoughts and words, but then metamorphize, into something tight and narrower difficult, gnomic, closed.
– a nonnet.
This tree (on monotone palmtree the right, a bit hard to see) was something I drew on an agenda handout during a boring staff meeting in May, 2013, to provide some shade for a creature I invented called a centipigator.
Here is the entire agenda. You can see how I diligently went through and glossed all the items (Korean-to-English) – I was in one of my phases where I was more hardcore about my efforts to learn Korean.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Between the raindrops this morning (we had about 4 hours without rain), I decided to finally do a small project I’d been procrastinating on for a long time – all summer, in fact.
I did some work on the boat trolley, preliminary to pulling the boat out of the water as is our plan in the next week or so. I replaced a turnbuckle at one end, and added a new turnbuckle at the other. The winch-driven cable that pulls the boat trolley had developed so much slack that I no longer felt safe operating it, because the cable itself had to be held, in gloved hands, when lowering or raising the trolley, to maintain sufficient tension for the winch to work. And that just plain felt unsafe.
The old turnbuckle, that my brother Andrew had helped install a few years ago during one of his visits, had no more room left to take up more slack, so the cable was going to have to be detached regardless. So I detached both ends, installed new, bigger and better turnbuckles, with lots of new slack now. I took out 6 inches of net slack in the cable (though the actual cable was shortened by almost 18 inches, accounting for the length of the new turnbuckle).
Here are before and after pictures.
Before, uphill side (you can see the fully tightened turnbuckle):
Before, downhill side (you can see it utterly lacks a turnbuckle):
After, uphill side (with a new, wide-open turnbuckle):
After, downhill side (with a new, wide-open turnbuckle):
ㅁ No haiku prepares for the world's meaninglessness. It can only show.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was there (with its peers), while I gazed at the luminous clouds and pumped gas.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Struogony is the “mathematical universe hypothesis“: the idea that the universe is first and foremost a complex mathematical object and that that which we experience in it as its physicality, its qualia, its immediacy… these are just immanent from that underlying mathematical reality.
I read that it is a “radical Platonist view” which I find legible – and yet despite my supposed strongly anti-Platonist stance, I find the concept weirdly compelling. Is it possible to be an Aristotelian struogonist? If not, would I consider renouncing my allegiance to Aristotle because I have accepted the struogonist claim?
That would resolve an argument I had many times with Michelle – but a bit late to matter.
ㅁ If I could choose a certain dream I'd pick a house with halls - with corridors that never stopped, with decorated walls.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
This tree is from my past. I took this picture at Jeongbalsan Park near my apartment, walking home from the cancer center, in September 2013.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Given what I live with, with Arthur, every day, I have developed a strong, amateur-medical interest in memory loss issues and possible treatments.
This article I found was very interesting – it’s a bit jargon-dense but I have enough background in biology and biochemistry that it’s not complete gobbledy-gook for me:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221920/
Essentially, the researchers have decided to take a full-on “lifestyle modification” approach to treating early-stage Alzheimer’s and had substantial success at the anecdotal level. They point to next steps in research. Although they often use “AD” and “Alzheimer’s” to refer to the target problem, they seem to have had plenty of success with people suffering cognitive and memory problems who have NOT been explicitly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
I considered this paragraph to be the core, best summary of the findings and direction of the research cited.
The therapeutic system described in this report derives from basic studies of the role of APP signaling and proteolysis in plasticity, and the imbalance in this receptor proteolysis that reproducibly occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. There are numerous physiological parameters that feed into this balance, such as hormones, trophic factors, glucose metabolism, inflammatory mediators, ApoE genetic status, sleep-related factors, exercise-related factors, and many others; therefore, the therapeutic system is designed to reverse the self-reinforcing (i.e., prionic) signaling imbalance that we have hypothesized to mediate Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology.
ㅁ A state of liminality suspended me, alone, and slowly I returned to see I'd made my way back home.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
This tree resolutely refuses to be anthropomorphized.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
I’ve never tried to embed a tiktok video in my blog before, so this is an experiment.
This is courtesy a blog I read and recommend called Garbage Day – if you want intelligent discussion of how crazy today’s internet is, that’s a good place to start.
ㅁ A branch flew past me borne by wind and landed on the ground. The trees were swinging left and right and making whooshing sounds.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Marginally related:
This tree saw me finally finish my wall sections (10 of 10!) on my treehouse over the last two days.
Here is an inside view of the south wall.
I realized I need to buy more brackets before I can proceed to more work on the rafters.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
ㅁ The time for poems is past for now, there's nothing new to say. The rain has tired of being praised, it's staying every day.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
This tree was there when an eagle (on the dock arch) supervised a rainbow.
[daily log: walking, 2km; sawing and assembling, 3hr]
ㅁ The rain, it comes on even days and then it comes on odd; the weather site predicted sun - the forecasts, they are flawed.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
This tree took a short break from the rain to witness a colorful sunrise.
[daily log: walking, 2km; banging and lifting, 4hr]
ㅁ No rhyme is worth it. The matching sounds barge on in, wreck seriousness.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was there as I added wall section 7 of 10 to the treehouse’s south wall.
I moved toward developing a kind of assembly line of parts for my wall sections, finally. That means the next sections after this one should go together faster – but I stopped today because it was quite chilly, overcast, and the rain started again at around 1 PM.
Here is a view of the south wall from the inside.
[daily log: walking, 2km; sawing and carrying, 5hr]
ㅁ Lights pass by bound for town in the predawn dodging the potholes plonking along loudly dispelling small bits of mist noticing reflective droplets suspended like shattered glass from leaves
– a reverse nonnet.
This tree has had to make several course corrections in its life.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
ㅁ Some days, I do lots. Other days, I do little: lucky my bed's made.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree saw my drive past on the expressway, in the direction of a newly snow-covered Harris Peak.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
This morning, there was a lot of ice on the windshield of the car, which needed to be scraped off before I could proceed down the Port Saint Nicholas Expressway to work.
I reached for my oft-used but utterly improvisational ice-scraper, which sits in the center console of the car. My ice-scraper: my Korean National Cancer Center ID card.
Unfortunately, it snapped.
You might think it’s weird that I have used this as my ice-scraper for 3 years. But I have. It’s because shortly after arriving here, when I was first confronted with some ice on the windshield, I’d gone to use the one that Arthur had in the car, only to find it didn’t work well at all.
So I thought: oh, well, a credit card type object works well. I’d reached in my wallet, pulled that ID card out, and continued, to myself: Well, I’m not going to be needing this, anymore, right?
So it became my windshield ice-scraper. And lasted for 3 years of heavy use, stored in the center console of the Chevy Tahoe.
Anyway, that ID card served me well for 5 years in helping me clear bureaucratic hurdles at the cancer center, during my many visits from my first check-in in June, 2013 until my last CT and MRI scan prior to departure in July, 2018. Counting the radiation period and the “bone necrosis / dental disaster” period, probably it served for 50+ visits, total. And then it served me for 3 more years as a sturdy and reliable ice scraper. And now it shall retire.
