Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts

Friday, September 15, 2023

I know how.

I have lived in a cramped camper van with my wife and our cat for 8 years. Here's how we make it work.

You never had children, that's how.

The article was from Business Insider, which is on my news feed for some reason, even though I'm not really a fan of it. The headline comes from a blog entitled:

Van Cat Meow

Now, I'll be frank that at my stage of my life, having worked since age 13 and now 60, a life in which I could take my wife in our camp trailer and go annually from Alaska back home, catching the seasons (fish, hunting, etc.) would appeal greatly to me.

It wouldn't appeal to my spouse, so this will be another dream unrealized.

But two young people living as vagabonds with a cat?  Well, it's not for some reason.

Let's be even more frank. This trip is made possible only by the pharmaceutical industry as it's made possible, probably, only due to birth control.  There's something weirdly narcissistic and self focused about it, therefore.

In a prior age, being an adult for most people meant taking on adult things, and that meant for most people, given the nature of nature and what that means, ultimately meant getting married and having children, the second following from the other.  Chemicals made the first possible without the second, which ultimately radically muddled the minds of many as to the true, deep, existential nature of the essential act that goes with that marriage.  In turn, that really gave rise to the "alternative" definitions of everything we have today, as the deep natural nature of that relationship became one for self defined entertainment, although at some level the deeper meaning is never lost.

Also lost, however, that going forward with the true nature of the relationship is deeply adult.

Or, in a former era, for one reason or another, it meant going into adult life on your own, and plenty did it.  But that was a pretty serious affair in and of itself.  People like to say "marriage is hard", which it isn't. Being on your own, as an adult, and as you age, is hard.  Frankly, for most people, it got pretty hard in all sorts of ways by the time a person was in their late 30s.

Traveling by van around Australia?  I'm sure it's fun.  But is also dropping out, in more ways than one, including dropping out of a part of nature while viewing it. The cat?  Probably not a conventional pet the way pets were in prior decades, but a substitute child, that instinct never really gone.

Dropping out, however, also says something about the state of our world.

Some people have always dropped out of the active world, to be sure.  But it's become a sort of post-pandemic pandemic.  Quietly Quitting, Laying Flat, and this. All symptoms of a world we've built that we don't like.

In an earlier era, this very British couple (and I know that one is Australian) probably would have met and farmed.  They seem to be angling for a simple life.

One pretty hard to achieve in our world today.

Related threads:

July 29, 1968. Humanae Vitae

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part X. The Camp Stove Edition.

August 28, 2022 

It's always been the case that California has tended to drive a lot of legal developments in the country, simply due to its size and population.  Current environmental trends are not an except.



We mentioned this a couple of days ago.

August 26, 2022

California will require all cars, trucks and SUV's sold in the state after 2035 to be electric or hydrogen fueled after 2035.

Some Republicans at the Federal level are threatening to take away California's ability to independently regulate automobiles in this fashion, but they lack the power at this point to really do anything about this.

Now comes news that Yosemite has banned non-refillable 1 lb propane gas cylinders for use with camp staves, and the State of California is about to.

Shoot, I use those things all the time for camp stoves.

How does this relate to the theme of this tread?  Well, because I use these things all the time, and in spite of what people think, they don't make propane cylinders, or cars, for Wyoming.  What California does, matters.

September 2, 2022


Wyomingites will have the highest percentage of residents in the country with student loans to be completely forgiven under President Biden's plan to do so, assuming that the plan is legal, which it likely is not.  Nearly 40% of Wyomingites who received students loans stand to have them forgiven.

This is not without irony.  In my view, the forgiveness should not be done as it will be inflationary, but the irony would be that this would be a Federal handout just after a primary election, which for all practical purposes determined many of the wider races, in which Wyomingites expressed a "no handout" view.

In another topic, the largest decrease in reading scores in 30 years, and the largest drop in math scores since testing has been conducted, has been experienced. This is no doubt due to the disruption in education caused by COVID-19.

September 3, 2022

The Federal District Court for Wyoming found that Federal postponement of oil and gas lease sales was legal.

September 8, 2022

OPEC is cutting production by 100,000 bbls a day, a symbolic amount really, in an effort to keep oil prices from continuing to decline.

September 11, 2022

The State gave out $6,600,000 in rent relief, funded by the Federal Government, last month.

Project Bison will commence construction in the state.  It's a direct carbon removal from the air project that will remove annually the amount of carbon generated by 1.2 coal-fired power plants annually.

September 16, 2022

A nationwide railroad strike that would have gone into effect on Friday has been avoided.

September 17, 2022

Yvon Chouinard, who has a close association with Teton County, and who is the founder of Patagonia, the clothing company, is converting the shares of the company to be held in trust with the profits, approximately $100,000,000 per year, to support environmental causes.

The Treasury Department is supporting the creation of U.S. digital currency, to be backed by conventional currency.

September 18, 2022

Among the resolutions that the GOP will consider this weekend is one it will pass, providing that it will refuse to recognize those running as independents or in other parties as members of the GOP.  This comes about as some extreme right wing member of the party have become candidates in third parties, and some moderates and others are running as independents.

The resolution will pass, but it won't matter.  A person can make any registration of party affiliation they want for voter affiliation, right up to the polls.

September 20, 2022

In an article penned by the Mayor of Cheyenne, it was announced that Cheyenne may be getting a meat packing plant with a construction value of over $1B.  The plant would be one of the largest in the United States, if constructed, and would employ 2,500 people.  No other details were available.

We've often urged the construction of a plant or two of this type in the state, although on a locally owned basis.  It'll be interesting to see what the details of this plant are, should it advance further.

September 21, 2022

The legislature is looking at solar panels for schools as a means of cutting infrastructure costs for the same.

October 5, 2022

OPEC is cutting production by 2M bbls per day.

October 8, 2022

October 5, 2022

OPEC is cutting production by 2M bbls per day.

This turns out to be "OPEC +" which includes not only the formal OPEC members, but additionally Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan and Sudan.

Hmmm. . . . 

Russia.

And Mexico?

Well, in some ways 2M bbls/day isn't that much really, but it will cause prices to rise and that's exactly what it's designed to do.

The OPEC daily target was 44M bbls per day, but they're not meeting that now.  So this is in fact more significant than it might seem.

Now, I know that some politicians from Western states in particular are going to come out with the "unleash" American energy line, but as much in that category as can realistically be done already is being done.  Eventually, the US could more than make up the slack, but at a higher price per gallon pump price.

The turnover rate in state government in Wyoming has doubled from what it was a decade ago.

October 11, 2022


A law which would have fined coal mines in Montana in certain ways designed to keep them in operation were found unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

No surprise there, but this should be of note given similar proposals that have been floated in Wyoming.

October 13, 2022

The Tribune reports various mining activities can be expected to boom in southeastern Wyoming.

October 22, 2022

This year's Federal budget deficit, which should be quite frankly $0, was cut in half, which means that it's still $1.4 Trillion.

That's real progress, but not good. It's sort of like a diehard alcoholic going from one fifth of booze per day, to one fifth every two days.

October 26, 2022

Wyoming has been sponsoring a project to find other uses for coal, such as an element of building materials.  A study of using it for biochar has also been underway.

Apple is requiring all of its suppliers to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

Jennifer Sey, a Democrat, and the former Chief Marketing Officer for Levis, has come out with a book claiming that wokedness has taken over corporate boardrooms.

Ryan Busse, a former executive with Kimber, the firearms' manufacturer, has published a book taking on the combat focused gun culture as it relates to the industry.

The Lancet, the famous medical journal, has published that health is at the mercy of fossil fuels.

November 11, 2022

Inflation has dropped to 7.7%

November 17, 2022

Revenue to the State of Wyoming from oil and gas lease sales is the highest it has been since 2018.

November 22, 2022

A railroad strike is looking increasingly likely.

November 23, 2022

A new Federal oil and gas leasing provision passed under the Inflation Reduction Act requires Federal agencies to offer “the lesser of a ‘sum total’ of either 2,000,000 acres or 50 percent of the acreage for which have been submitted for lease sales during the previous one-year period,” before it offers leases for renewable energy projects.

November 26, 2022

Wyoming is pursuing a $2,000,000 under the Federal infrastructure bill in order to build a hydrogen hub.

Hydrogen is viewed as a potential replacement for vehicle fossil fuels.\

December 1, 2022

The House of Representatives voted to impose the results of negotiations between railroad companies and unions that were reached last September, but rejected subsequently by the unions.

The agreement which was reached, but which was subsequently rejected by the unions increased pay 24%, but did not addressed on call schedules, under staffing and a lack of paid leave.

Last prior edition:  

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part IX. The Russo Ukrainian War edition.

Sunday, May 23, 2021

May 23, 1921. Cities on the Red River, Harding on Memorial Day, the Seeger's go camping.


Moorhead, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota, are a across the Red River from each other.  On this day in 1921 they were photographed. 



In Leipzig, war crimes trials commenced. Only twelve Germans would stand trial, but the concept of trying an enemy combatant was a new one which became established as a result of the Great War.  The results were mixed.

Also on this day, President Harding issued a Memorial Day address, which stated:

Our republic has been at war before, it has asked and received the supreme sacrifices of its sons and daughters, and faith in America has been justified. Many sons and daughters made the sublime offering and went to hallowed graves as the Nation’s defenders. But we never before sent so many to battle under the flag in foreign land, never before was there the impressive spectacle of thousands of dead returned to find eternal resting place in the beloved homeland…

These dead know nothing of our ceremony today. They sense nothing of the sentiment or the tenderness which brings their wasted bodies to the homeland for burial close to kin and friends and cherished associations. These poor bodies are but the clay tenements once possessed of souls which flamed in patriotic devotion, lighted new hopes on the battle grounds of civilization, and in their sacrifices sped on to accuse autocracy before the court of eternal justice.

We are not met for them, though we love and honor and speak a grateful tribute. It would be futile to speak to those who do not hear or to sorrow for those who cannot sense it or to exalt those who cannot know. But we can speak for country, we can reach those who sorrowed and sacrificed through their service, who suffered through their going, who glory with the Republic through their heroic achievements, who rejoice in the civilization, their heroism preserved. Every funeral, every memorial, every tribute is for the living–an offering in compensation of sorrow. When the light of life goes out there is a new radiance in eternity, and somehow the glow of it relieves the darkness which is left behind.
Never a death but somewhere a new life; never a sacrifice but somewhere an atonement; never a service but somewhere and somehow an achievement. These had served, which is the supreme inspiration in living. They have earned everlasting gratitude, which is the supreme solace in dying…

I would not wish a Nation for which men are not willing to fight and, if need be, to die, but I do wish for a nation where it is not necessary to ask that sacrifice. I do not pretend that millennial days have come, but I can believe in the possibility of a Nation being so righteous as never to make a war of conquest and a Nation so powerful in righteousness that none will dare invoke her wrath. I wish for us such an America. These heroes were sacrificed in the supreme conflict of all human history. They saw democracy challenged and defended it. They saw civilization threatened and rescued it. They saw America affronted and resented it. They saw our Nation’s rights imperiled and stamped those rights with a new sanctity and renewed security.

We shall not forget, no matter whether they lie amid the sweetness and the bloom of the homeland or sleep in the soil they crimsoned. Our mindfulness, our gratitude, our reverence shall be in the preserved Republic and maintained liberties and the supreme justice for which they died. 

Warren G. Harding

 The professor Charles Seeger family went camping.


The baby in the photo is Pete Seeger.