It turns out a bottle jack won’t fit under my car’s jack point. Not with a flat tire. At 10pm. Toward the end of a 5 hour drive. But, I found a place to put it, and got the car jacked up enough that by deflating and mashing the spare I was able to get it on. A police officer stopped and held a flashlight while I finished pumping it back up. I traded in the bottle jack for a floor jack.
I found out one good thing about rap. I don’t mean to sound like a racist, but I have had a hard time enjoying rap as a valid and useful genre. I guess I have been tainted by the stereotype that gives all the law-abiding, peace-loving, self-providing rappers a bad name. So, when a guy I work with handed me a CD, and it turned out to be Christian-themed rap, I had a hard time buying into it. But, I noticed that this artist talked about his faith in common terms—the music was in the same world we live in, not some abstracted higher plane. I found myself reacting to the words in the split second before I could switch into theology mode. My normal music uses a large amount of imagery and non-standard diction. This makes it easier for me to have two different brains: the one I think with all the time, and the one I use when I am spiritualized. Imagery is fine, if it helps you understand. But if it doesn’t, don’t worry about it, and find something that does.
I went to the Ozark Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Expo. It was interesting. I found out some useful information, some from workshops, some from just hanging out with people. It turns out that running Straight Vegetable Oil in your diesel is fine—I used to think that it was better for your engine to run biodiesel. There was a guy with a TDI Jetta that he had put 90,000 veggie miles on it, and had no problems related to the fuel. Another guy had a nice set up in the back of his older VW that was elegant, and primitive. Everyone seemed to agree that SVO was a good alternative. Except the guys selling the biodiesel setup. “Do you want this going through your injectors?” he enthused, holding up a jar with a layer of biodiesel and it’s black, glycerine, by-product. Well, it looks worse when it is pulled off the carbon chains. The guys who sell SVO conversion kits told me about people with cars almost like mine, who had success with Vegetable Oil. One good thing is I could run SVO in the winter—since I have two tanks of fuel, I can start my car anytime it will start on normal diesel. (Biodiesel becomes unusable as it gets cold)
Some people who have different worldviews from me, act in a consistent manner. A total stranger, Luke, and I worked late into the evening on wiring up a PhotoVoltaic system some guy was putting on a little trailer of batteries. It turns out Luke is a vegan. “It is amazing how little you can eat if you eat healthy”. He didn’t want any of the 40% DEET I put on myself, and instead of slapping the mosquitoes that landed on us, he shooed them away. Another guy I talked to was looking into alternative forms of energy, because he lived off the grid (i.e.: not hooked to the electric company) I asked him what he currently used, photovoltaic, wind, generator? No, just primitive—no electric. “I go to third world countries a lot, and when I get back, it’s like I’m in heaven! There aren’t flies, I don’t have to carry my water a long way…was down in Haiti, helping set up solar ovens–a lot simpler than the ones they have here. Trying to make so the people didn’t have to use cow dung for fuel, grow food with it instead—there are no trees, just bare dirt. We were planning to use cardboard for the ovens, but they don’t have cardboard. Most places have at least paper, but they have nothing.” I don’t think he drives a hybrid, but if he had, he could have parked much closer, in a special area.
I found out that cutting your hair with a vacuum cleaner and a scissors is difficult if not disastrous. Even with a spacer taped to the vacuum hose. I also found the clippers at walmart (near shampoo), in the middle of the night. It took two trips and some info from a friend.
So, I learned some stuff, but now I must go to bed. I played Ultimate this evening with people who were way better than me. My body is screaming things at me.
