Ted’s essays

greenhouse design

I enjoy old-school mechanical drawing, drafting and design … with paper, pencil, T-square, triangles and such. Having a simple drawing board, perhaps even a genuine drafting desk has been on my short list every time I end up with a home that has space for it. My new studio may well be the place this happens, but not until we are fully moved in and settled. Meanwhile, I have a lot of projects that really require some planning and drawing to insure they fit together well, have the right materials, and in some cases, communicate to the builder when I am subcontracting the work out. In other words, I have a lot of drawings to do before I can get […]

trying to be like a duck

My hands so very tired … I must reduce my demands on them. I continue to be grateful for the most useful one semester class Sonoma State University sold to me: “Stress Management”. In times like these I often benefit greatly from laying flat on my back, telling tense body parts to “let go”, and getting my mind into the zone. “Why?”, you might ask. Our rental became our future home a couple months ago. Our stable lives got real busy. I canceled my ham licensing study group and the trombone lessons I was giving. Those commitments, I had to admit to myself, were just too much. The abandoned, unlicensed pair of non-functioning cars and dilapidated trailer are out of […]

exploding heads

Another one bites the dust… The Snowflake Generation The ME Generation The Don’t tell me NO generation The Everyone is a Winner generation The Trust the officials, don’t trust your parents generation However you slice it, the middle aged people today are not the same as they were a generation ago. A man is as good as his word. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Give more than you receive. It is this latter one that has come into question today after a third close, dear “millenial” blew up on me this year. In each case I have replayed the incident and all the preceding baggage I can conjure up only to find no […]

violence is golden

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.” — Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) “Freedom… refer[s] to a social relationship among people — namely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect.” — Thomas Sowell (1930- ) The above courtesy of http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/DailyQuotes “Strong communities are peaceful communities” — Ted Dunlap

getting to know our good neighbors

Six months ago I bought a pair of custom topographical maps. One is my Area Of Interest (AOI) – that included my super-vulnerable home and our bug-out location, the homestead we bought and “rented” to offspring. The other map was a much more usable scale covering our Area Of Operations (AOO), that is the homestead neighborhood. See more detail here: mapping your neighborhood Because the kids are of the Snowflake Generation, the Me Generation, run to the tune of The World Owes Me A Living, the rental has become our new home. We are as busy as one-armed-paper-hangers cleaning up, remodeling and moving in. This has increased my focus on our AOO. It occurred to me that our podunk county […]

bad news for sitters

I have seen mentioned by numerous researchers that sitting a lot is bad for us. On the other hand, too much time with weight on my left knee with its long-abused thin meniscus makes it increasingly tender. I try to make sure I spend some time getting physical standing or moving on my own two feet, but also avoid excessive time loading that knee. I just read this latest study posted below. It is not really new information to me, but definitely reinforces the message with solid study results. Sigh. I suppose I will review my sitting bouts, and try every 30 minutes to get 5 minutes of walking, dancing (definitely NOT me), or some regular interesting activity that […]

Cozy Cole

About a million years ago, when I was a young teenager, I heard Topsy Part II on my new gift transistor radio. It was a kind of music I had not previously heard, but I liked it in a way I did not understand. Today I know more about the music and why I love it. Regardless, here is the recording that struck me then, and that I still enjoy today. http://www.teddunlap.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Cozy-Cole-Topsy-II-LoudTronix.me-HQ.mp3 And a relative of it that tickles my fancy. http://www.teddunlap.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Cozy-Cole-Ol-man-mose-LoudTronix.me-HQ.mp3

resisting the all-seeing-eye

This came as a newsletter from the search engine I have been using for quite a while. I highly recommend duckduckgo for all your websearches. They have even more suggestions for ducking, at least a little bit, the Surveillance State. -Ted How to Live Without Google Remove Google from your life? Yes, it can be done! Google trackers have been found on 75% of the top million websites. This means they are not only tracking what you search for, they’re also tracking which websites you visit, and using all your data for ads that follow you around the internet. Your personal data can also be subpoenaed by lawyers, including for civil cases like divorce. Google answered over 100,000 such […]

grid jeopardy

Three major actions of the sun may hit the Earth hard September 8th and 9th. The possibility of SOME EFFECT is near absolute. We WILL KNOW something hit us. The likelihood of some damage to electronics and electrical transmission somewhere on Earth is very high. Some communities somewhere will lose their power. The probability of global grid failure is around 10%. It is not likely to be catastrophic. That is also to say that it could be catastrophic. Check your preparations for that sort of catastrophe TODAY. While in the midst of moving, I cannot drop everything and go on a prep-shopping binge today. But I can certainly re-prioritize some of my moving activities focusing on electronics and power-failure gear. […]

I’m baaack

Moving my home and office is taking its toll on my postings here. Today my computer in the new studio finally knows how to log on to my website … one of only 20 billion items on my ToDo list. Meanwhile: The geoengineers got caught with visual chemtrails in the hurricane as it approached Texas and ample evidence of HAARP directing hurricanes in the Atlantic. Online videos keep improving their coverage of the media production that was the car crashing into the crowd near the protest event. Extraordinary wild fire activity globally warms western USofA and other countries around the world spuming record levels of toxic pollutants into our air. A bunch of ignorant people unemployed by deliberate economic and […]

in recovery

Maybe. We spent the last month cleaning up after renters squatters. We have chosen to move from our lovely cabin on the river to the expansive homestead they vacated. We are coming down home stretch on that phase. Though a lot of stuff still needs to be cleared out, there is starting to be room for our household. We have construction contractors well along in some changes to better suit the homestead to us. It is still a construction zone, and will be for a while. Yet moving in there and out of here has begun with trickles. Yesterday I got the phone moved and Internet up… a smokin’-fast, unlimited-data cable connection after years of metered, intermittently-good, satellite. Meanwhile, my […]