“The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy.”
the current occupant of the Oval Office, in a cynical, hateful commencement address delivered yesterday at Howard University
Awhile back, after we’d returned from Ohio, I decided that I was on too many e-mail lists. I began unsubscribing from the useless and the irrelevant, daily as they rolled in. After a couple of months my inbox was manageable again, free of 90% of the junk I’d been getting.
I still don’t read most of what I kept, even though they’re causes I want to follow and businesses I’ll patronize eventually. Going through my e-mail early yesterday afternoon, I almost deleted a message from Harbor Freight. For some reason I opened it.
The promotion included a coupon for the company’s highly respected line of Predator generators. We need a strong, reliable, quiet generator for the fifth-wheel on The Mountain, and I’d pretty much already decided on the Predator 3500 inverter generator.
I was hoping for a sale, though, and there it was.
The coupon offered 10% off, or 15% off for members of Harbor Freight’s “Inside Track Club.” I investigated the cost of the club ($30 a year), did some quick math and determined that even if I never used the club discount to buy anything else, I’d still be $15 ahead (as opposed to settling for 10% off).
So I joined the club. Deb and I got our shit together, hopped in the truck and headed for the closest store, which happens to be in Mountain Home.
It was a gorgeous afternoon for our spontaneous trip. We covered the 60 miles in just over an hour, got what we came for and turned back west toward The Mountain. With the still-boxed generator safely tucked away in the shed, we returned to Harrison.
I gotta tell you, we feel really good about this. We did our homework, considered our needs and made our choice. Patience made it possible to get a sharp price. And that, my friends, is what a win looks like.
In our travels to and from The Mountain this past week, and while on the property, we saw a curious assortment of wildlife. Neither of us was surprised, of course, at the sight of whitetail deer or red-tailed hawks. That blacksnake on our road wasn’t unusual, either.
I chuckled at the skink that skittered past my feet as I sat at the picnic table on the homesite Wednesday morning. It was the first lizard we’ve noticed on The Mountain.
The real puzzler was the largish bird that crossed in front of us on the county road Friday afternoon. Not a turkey. An escaped pheasant or peahen? We’re still trying to figure it out. A close encounter of the strange kind, for sure.
The trailcams have been pretty quiet.
We’ve scheduled our fifth-wheel “orientation” for Tuesday afternoon. Provided everything checks out, we’ll set up delivery to The Mountain. We have until the following Wednesday before incurring storage charges, though I suspect that the dealer will flex by a few days if we ask.
I doubt that’ll be necessary.
Pulling the five-ton rig up our road will be a challenge, though not an insurmountable one. We’ll suggest a spotter (in addition to the tow vehicle’s driver) to keep an eye on overhead power lines. Once at the north end of the driveway, it’ll have to be backed up onto the pad. That may be the toughest part.
One task that Deb and I will complete before delivery day is giving the road a haircut. The fifth-wheel needs a hole roughly nine feet wide and 13 feet tall, ideally, and in many places branches intrude into that space.
We have all the tools we’ll need to open it up. Deb will drive the Silverado and I’ll ride in the bed — one pass to do the trimming, another to catch what we missed the first time and pick up what we cut. A couple of hours, I figure, and it’ll be done.
To be honest, I’ll be resting my aching back ’til Wednesday (at least) before tackling that. I’m looking forward to doing the job, if only for the sense of personal accomplishment.
Yes, we have a whole bunch of stuff goin’ on (and no one else knows the half of it). Everyone does. It’s tempting, I guess, to rev-up and attack all of it at once — but ambition is the enemy of achievement and multi-tasking is bullshit. We do best when we set our own pace, call our own shots and take one step at a time.
Focus. Finish.
A lifetime of achievement and excellence testifies to what works for me. I won’t do it any other way.
“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?”
Henry David Thoreau, from the “Conclusion” of Walden
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB
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