"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
. . .the thing I dislike about February the most is people who say “Feb-YOU-ary.”
#gagamaggot
I am of two minds about the January weather we’re having in the middle of FebRuary, though. On the one hand, bitter cold with freezing rain, followed by snow does tend to keep me housebound, for the most part. On the other hand, bitter cold with freezing rain, followed by snow does tend to keep me housebound, for the most part. *heh*
So, yeh, I hardly ever let go of a book I own. Have more hardcopy books now than I have shelving for. It’s a problem. Ebooks to the rescue? Well, sorta. First, not long after it was up and running, I requested a CD of all the books Gutenberg-dot-org had at the time. Offloaded those text files to other storage, stored the CD and had LOTS of reading to do.
Not enough, though.
When downloads from Gutenberg became available, I began regular searches for ebook duplicates of my most significant hardcopy books, other books I wanted to read but had not yet obtained, etc. About that time, Baen-dot-com lsted its free library of sci-fi books. I’ve been a sci-fi reader since third grade, so. . . Got ’em all (and read ’em, and updated as new freebies became available). Then I started also buying eARCs from Baen in their bundles of six or more eARCs for $18. Then buying others at list prices. (Crafty, crafty Baen: sucked me in all right!). Then I just started looking for freebie ebooks in general. Found military manuals, preparedness books, all kinds of how-to and craft books, history, theology, math, science, etc., all over the web, oh, and and free books from Amazon, as well.
I am now behind on my reading quite a bit. I have also been storing all ebooks in multiple formats (when available or convertible) on different media on different storage devices, some of which are ALWAYS offline and relatively safe from loss by various means. Different formats, in part, because I enjoyed correcting the text of the eARCs from Baen. . . in the html formats (mobi format is a PITA to edit–for me at least).
So, now my thousands of hardcopy books have much, much more than been surpassed by double in my ebook collection, and I NEED to read faster. . . The more I learn, the more I discover I don’t know. Of course.
From a year of dealing with tree waste.
Yeh, the five sycamores still standing are going to HAVE to come down this year, but I need to clear out the rest of the wood waste, first. Luckily, just about all of what is left standing will cycle through a chainsaw lumbermill setup pretty nicely, I think, if I can get an arborist to cut them down in about 10′ chunks. (that size is about the maximum I can move around, even with block and tackle, and rolling–with a peavey/timberjack– even that size up onto a modified sawbuck for milling will be. . . fun).
Learned some new limits, mostly age related, I suppose. One: do NOT tire out my “bad” knee. It is too susceptible to reinjury (ACL). Wear appropriate knee braces, too (yeh, yeh, and back support, and “arborist’s safety equipment,” and gloves, and. . . *heh*).
OK. Have what I need for lumber milling and have milled some out of this mess, but getting better equipment will speed that up. Check. Making mulch? Check. Burning other? Check. Learned a few things there, remembered others.
So, I just need to keep at it and pay attention to processes, both great and small. There’s always room for improvement.
. . refer to CwaZy (pervy) UnKa JoE and Kamawa (Fweedom!) Hawwis as PINO and the Ho. Oops.
. . .and thus to be expected of DC pols and the Hivemind: just another day of completely, totally, and absolutely ignoring and disrespecting the primary foundational document of our nation. Regardless what I think of Trump, as a person (and I can’t imagine a circumstance where I’d even want to hold a casual conversation with the man–seriously), these Enemies of the Republic who have decided to hold a show trial, a SHAM show trial if that’s not too redundant, these evil (yes, evil) children of Satan* (and yes, I mean that, too), these despicable, rotten, asshat slanderers were what convinced me to vote for Trump in 2020, even if I had to crawl over broken glass to do it. Yeh, yeh, while in office, his actual policy decisions and actions on the national and international stages effected more good for both the USA and the world at large than all the best of the previous four presidents combined, but that might not have been enough to convince me to vote for him “come hell or high water” instead of a third party candidate. But these evil asshats convinced me to do so.
Here is the initial filing of Trump’s lawyers in answer to the spurious, ridiculous, slanderous articles of impeachment:
THey thump the constitutional DISqualifications for the impeachment trial bone pretty hard, but how many in the Senate give a rat’s ass what the Constitution actually says, when they have their own lies?
I am tempted, now that voting at all is a sham, to simply take myself off the voter rolls and let the country burn to the ground.