It can't be just me

It started with the petitions. And the facebook groups. Save The Whales. Stop Uranium Mining. Save The South African Police Child Abuse Unit. The last one got me curious, so I checked snopes, and confirmed my suspicion that so many of these feel-good-but-make-no-damn-difference campaigns are worse than useless, and frequently completely redundant, even if the cause is in fact more than an urban myth.

This bra colour campaign got me thinking - although not what the creators or participants of this campaign had in mind. I've been doing a slow burn since yesterday morning when this campaign started, and when I read AllFacebook's claim this morning about a men's underwear campaign, due to the 'incredible success' of yesterdays bra campaign, something snapped, pardon the pun.

This note is not a criticism of any of my facebook friends who participated yesterday. Seriously, I don't want anyone to think that this is a personal attack, it's not. It's that I'm fuming at what looks tome like a damaging campaign. It's a criticism of the people who create the false impression that this kind of simplistic activity, in and of itself, will actually do any good. In my view, breast cancer is decades past needing awareness - I doubt there are many people left who can see a pink ribbon bumper sticker without knowing what it's for. My argument is that, unlike other more rare conditions, no-one is unaware of breast cancer. Let's take awareness as a given, and then take the subsequent steps that move the world closer to prevention and cure.

As an aside, breast cancer kills one tenth as many as heart disease. A tenth. How many of you would have guessed that? Why do you think that is that you didn't realise that? Maybe because tits are more appealing than internal organs, in the way that everyone abhors dolphins and whales being killed for food, but couldn't care less about calves. It tells me that breast cancer 'awareness' campaigns are not only superfluous, but they are diverting energy and awareness from something that is 10 times more likely to kill you. That figure again - ten times. Which disease do you think should have 10 times the recognition of the other? What colour is the ribbon for heart disease? There isn't one - but more than one of you stopped and thought about it, wondered what it was...and there isn't one, what does that tell you?....or a snappy slogan, like the one for the last breast cancer awareness campaign a few months ago, "Save Second Base" (now *that* is a great campaign to raise MONEY - not awareness - for research and prevention programs...I would pay twenty bucks for a t-shirt with that slogan and an appropriate picture...yep, it's crass, but if you have the income to donate twenty bucks to every single worthy charity, you must be Donald Trump...if you want me to spend my limited cash on your passion rather than mine, you have to really stand out from the crowd)...where's the snappy slogan for heart disease? Even the Heartsmart logo on packaged food looks like it's been made redundant because the Heart Foundation accepts cash for endorsement and has lowered the bar below useful as a result...

I have had several friends die of cancer, and more that have survived after having major surgery. Three have had mastectomies. A close friend is, as I write, in hospital recovering from an operation to remove a large tumour from their bowel. I have a dog in this fight. I want to see a cure. I think that campaigns like this take us further away from a cure, by making ineffective lip-service too easy, without the mandatory follow-on link from 2-second status update to parting with cold hard cash, or booking the overdue mammogram...I can recall at least four breast cancer awareness campaigns in the last 12 months...there is a 'turn facebook pink' campaign underway as I write...

The attached article is AllFacebook's self-congratulatory message; the following two are my responses. It has occurred to me that having now spent an entire week dealing with a painful shoulder injury, primarily by taking as much hydrocodone as the doc will give me, that there's an outside chance that I am currently less than my usual light-hearted and effervescent self, and there may be a possibility that I have got it wr...wr-r-r-r....wr-r-r-r-o...less correct than I usually am...I'm interested in what my 76 closest and most trusted friends think...for the record, I draw the line at being lynched...

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Facebook Boxers Campaign Attempts To Duplicate Success Of Bra Color Campaign
Posted by Nick O'Neill on January 11th, 2010 10:35 AM
Share78 3 Comments »
After the incredible success of the Facebook bra color campaign, guys are now being encouraged to post the types of underwear they are using in order to spread awareness about prostate cancer. It’s not exactly a new concept. Within minutes of women posting their bra colors, many guys began posting the colors of their underwear in order to “raise awareness about testicular cancer”. It’s clear though that this was just an attempt to have some fun with the existing breast cancer campaign.

The following message was being sent out to male users over the past 24 hours:
“Some fun is going on,which is also raising awareness of Prostate Cancer Just write “briefs” , “boxers,” “jocks,” or “commando” in your status. Just the word, nothing else. It will be cool to see if this will spread Prostate cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the men describe their shorts in their status.”
We’re copying a worldwide effort started by Breast Cancer activists, who are updating their facebook status with their bra color. In the spirit of emulation being a sincere form of flattery, why not?
So will the campaign for men to post their underwear gain as much traction? Personally I think breasts always generate more buzz, however I’ve had numerous male friends post their underwear color and pattern to their status. It’s a catchy idea and it’s extremely simple. I’ve seen numerous conversations spawned as a result of a user posting only a color and a wink. Last week’s bra color campaign is ongoing and now there is a movement for men to do the same.
Following every successful vial Facebook campaign there are always loads of copycats, although most, if not all, fail to gain a similar traction as the initial campaign. For now we’ll have to wait and see if the prostate cancer (or testicular cancer) campaigns generate similar traction. Whether or not they do, having a little bit of fun to generate cancer awareness is never a bad thing!

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Jack Butler:
An incredible success? By what measure? Thousands of women writing one word then going back to sleep on the issue? An awareness campaign that holds back what it is that we're supposed to be aware of? Where the posters get pissy because 'men' let the secret out of the bag? Did you, 'AllFacebook', read the comments on your own post? Where there is no process by which to donate, or make any kind of contribution? Yes, we are aware that breast cancer exists, that news has been out for a while now. To be effective, campaigns need to offer more than for people to post cute, cryptic one-word status updates and do nothing else.

Show me the money - how did the fight against breast cancer benefit from this banal idea?

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Jack Butler:
Mark, you miss the point; awareness is a first step, and conditions like mesothelioma and benign intercranial hypertension (an FB friend posted a link today, she has a friend who has it) need more of it. People are already well aware of breast cancer. I had a 36 yo friend die of it. She didn't die because there weren't enough people who'd heard of it. She died, as so many others do, because she had an incompetent oncologist, and because research is so dependent on big pharmacy that they withhold information from each other to secure the funds they need. Because people think writing 'RED' in their FB status bar is all they need to do. As Randy points out, "this should save a lot of lives... not really sure how.. but we can feel like we are doing something"...and, having done little more than encourage all their male FB friends to stare at their boobs while they wonder whether you're still wearing the Lilac one, they feel so good about having 'helped', that they do nothing more. No donation, no buying a t-shirt, no offering to volunteer at a cancer ward, reading books to people too whacked on morphine to read for themselves. Sorry, that's just too hard, isn't it? Try the 'turn FB pink' campaign. That looks like a real campaign. It might make a difference. The bra and boxer ideas do more harm than good, by salving people's conscience without them actually having to do anything.

Read these: http://tinyurl.com/yeusctk

and

http://tinyurl.com/y8o7fey

then get back to me.

I'd like to see a cure for breast cancer. I'd like to see a cure for all cancers. Campaigns like this distract energy from things that might achieve that. Without a link or even yet another breast examination chart (is there *anyone* that doesn't know how to do this, after twenty or thirty years of 'awareness' campaigns?) This campaign is great, I have dozens of very pleasant mental images I wouldn't otherwise have had. Given I was already aware that breast cancer existed and regular self examination *may* help (last I heard they're now rethinking the usefulness of mammograms), the campaign achieved very little else....

This was a facebook traffic generator, nothing else.

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YOU ARE HERE ->

Welcome, or welcome back. I've been away.

There's often no better time to spring clean your life than the start of a new time period in your life. I generally don't save changes until 'the Spirit moves me' because my Spirit is a lazy bastard and notoriously unreliable, but I often find that my passing of a milestone inspires me to action. The end of the first decade of the Third Millenium is a milestone that everyone seems to be happy to see pass. I'll probably write more on that later. I might also re-post some of my older stuff, either in it's original format or polished up a little.

This is to confirm that if you navigated here from somewhere else that you're in the right place, and that the blog is still current. It's just lay fallow while I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month, and then had a great holiday season. I love living in America. Anyway. Wander about. Make yourself at home. Have a look through the library. Feel free to comment.

STUFF THE ROAD TAUGHT ME

1.       PATIENCE

It doesn't matter whether you're waiting for a flooded river to go down or an airline check-in clerk to hand over your boarding pass, getting angry doesn't usually help.  It takes just as long, the only difference is you get to be angry while you wait.  And everyone else thinks you're a jerk.  Jerks don't usually get upgrades.  Most things take longer than you expect.

2.       MAPS

You can't be lost if you don't care where you are.  For the other times, there are maps.

An outdated map is a false friend…but sometimes it's better than nothing. I once drove around England and Scotland for 9 days using only the thumbnail sketches in a very small Holiday Inn Locations brochure…it worked pretty okay, really, although London was a challenge…

Any journey requires 3 things - a here, a there and a way of identifying the terrain between them.  Pinning down the direction part often requires a separate, known 'there' as a reference point,  usually 'North' although it can be something familiar to just you and one or two special others - "the old Johnson place" or "the restaurant where we met"….whether you need to find a waterhole or you need to turn left at the third traffic light after the cathedral will dictate which maps you're going to need for today…

Unless I'm on an easy journey that I know well (and sometimes even then), I generally use at least three maps at once -

·         the Big Map that shows the major highways and town names, so you can get an idea of the big picture, the whole trip laid out from beginning to end…it shows major changes in direction, when mountains turn to deserts, swampland to coast…you can't see much detail mile by mile, but you know what the real signposts are…

·         Today's Map, the detailed one, that shows the names of streets, where the rest areas and car parks are, how you get down to the marina or to the tourist info centre from here…

·         the directions I printed off Mapquest…discovery is romantic and wonderful and all that, but as a rule I'm happy to follow generations of navigators before me and learn from the work of others…can you imagine if the great sailors of the Middle Ages, Drake, Magellan, Columbus and the rest had Mapquest?  Making - and stealing -  maps was big business, the espionage war of its day…put it this way - if someone has been there before me, I want to hear what he's got to say about the trip.

Between them I can usually get where I'm going…although you never know when things are going to change…which brings us back to patience, really….


SAFE MOVEMENT ACROSS TERRAIN

Navigate carefully and methodically.  It is always better to take a more measured pace and hit your mark, or close to it, the first time. Rushing gets you tired. Rushing gets you lost. Lost stops being fun when you run out of water.  More about that under Leaders, below. Keep the big map in mind, but notice the details of what's around you…are you now walking slightly uphill? What does the map say? Is that a dry creek bed or a fire trail? If we do get lost, where is the biggest landmark around from here - a mountain, a big river or a paved road, something you can't possibly miss.  You need these landmarks. Something that is so big you can't miss it, no matter which direction you approach it from…a place to get your bearings, find other reference points, re-orientate your map to the terrain, and take off on the new bearing…sometimes it's worth getting lost just enough to recognise what 'close' looks like and whether it's close enough…

It's also worthwhile relating map to ground on a regular basis. I've seen people walk blindly along a trail, fixated on the map and never learning how to discern the signs all around…the signs of life…the things you only really understand by experiencing in the flesh…warmth, colour, depth….

And remember - it's the terrain that changes.  What used to be a river is now just a dry gully. The art deco cinema and roller skating rink is now an office block. Get your bearings. Adjust the map. Take notes. Take pictures. Remind yourself to remember how this smelt. You might not be back this way again for a while….somewhere like it maybe… 

A SPECIAL CASE: THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

Here's a tip for the travel novice - you cannot navigate your way around London using a map of The Underground.  Trust me on this one.  Designed in 1931 by railway employee Harry Beck, the 'tube map' is probably the most famous map that completely ignores scale and physical location in the real world.  It is truly fiendish in its simplicity and it works brilliantly…as long as you already knew exactly where you were and exactly where you want to go - on a real map …it is possible (I know, I've done it) to travel halfway across London using several intersecting and overlapping different lines, and emerge into the sunlight to find that you're less than a hundred yards from where you started…which only goes to show you, again, that maps are just tools, just pictures of one person's vision of the journey ahead…

3.       LEADERS

I was on a one day management course and the ice-breaking discussion was 'Define Leadership'.   After a lot of bollocks backward and forward, the presenter gave the best definition of 'Leader' that I've ever heard - "someone who has followers"….that's not as obvious as it sounds…I think it was back around the early 1990's when every guru was banging on about leadership as distinct from management, and how every corporation had a desperate shortage of the former and a glut of the latter, soft, fat, pasty managers with pastel coloured short-sleeved shirts with outdated ties that were cheap when new…the new would-be CEO needed to be a Leader….military parallels were drawn, sweeping away any doubt that there was little difference between overseeing the landings at Normandy and running a supermarket…

I think much that was good got lost during those years, along with an awful lot of people who followed the self-styled leaders. I saw the Peter Principle in action for years, the theory that people will tend to rise to their level of incompetence and stay there…I watched the meteoric rise of men and women who could not have led hungry wolves to meat, but they could lie brilliantly on their applications for promotion…no-one ever checked with the followers or, for that matter, whether in fact there ever were any followers…

The point of all of which is that I have learned from being on the road that I don't like groups, I don't trust groups, I don't want to be in a group, and I sure don't want to be told what to do and where to go by some control freak with an overactive alpha complex…does that pretty much make it clear? One of the big reasons I don't like groups is that they tend to draw wannabe leaders like dung draws flies…

There are times when urgency is a factor. No argument.  On rare occasions, perhaps only a handful of times in an individual's life, someone has to take control of a situation. Someone has to say "This way" with the authority that people know somehow not to question. I get that. I love that whole 'leader born under fire' bullshit. But. It's rare. The circumstances that require it, and the presence of an individual with the cajones to make it happen, both rare. And unless my life is in danger I really don't like being told what to do. Say please, and say it with a smile. Please. . .

Which brings me back to groups. There is some safety in groups. Some. And sometimes a group just makes a bigger target, especially if they're not being led right.

From what I've seen, I'm better off on my own. I don't aspire to leadership, I really don't. I have enough trouble getting my sad self through the day, I just don't have the time or the inclination to make other people's decisions for them. But, trouble notwithstanding, no-one knows how to get me through the day better than I do. I've had more practice than anyone else, for a start.

Once you've seen your fill of the big ticket milestones, remember that the really interesting stuff is in the backstreets. I missed the Roman arena in Amman but I drank coffee you could stand a spoon up in and smoked untipped Camels and a hookah with a young Greek guy in a little cafe overlooking the arena and I had a lot more fun doing that…it's surprising who you meet when you're not really looking for company…and be very careful of the person who wants you to follow them, it's not unknown for them to have an ulterior motive…I know, shocking, isn't it?

4.       LEAVE CACHES BESIDE THE PATH

You can't carry everything.  Packing well is an art, but even the most dithering eventually appreciate that what you want to take you have to carry.  Some things you have to leave behind, and if you know that you're going to be traversing the same road for a while it's not a bad idea to organise supply drops at certain points.

Some things you can post ahead to yourself before you leave, to be collected at post offices and hotels. There's a lot of stuff you can pick up on the road…just remember to pay the price for quality when it comes to things you need all the time. When the storm sets in, it's always comforting to know your umbrella won't leak.

If you don't stay in touch with people you meet on the road, leave on good terms as much as you can…you never know when you might run into them again, and it's surprising how the journey can change people for the better…

It's important to learn when to let go...and having said that, I must say that I try not to burn bridges behind me until I have no choice, and it has been my experience that stuff you've accumulated on previous trips can really come in handy…however, in the interests of full disclosure, it is now a decade or more that I have carried one of those inflatable u-shaped neck pillows for use on planes and so on…you've all seen them...this navy blue plush-finish blob has accompanied me around the world at least twice, it even has its own little carry case…and I've never used it, not once ever…I blew it up the day I received it as a gift, tried it on, then deflated it and put it in my 'carry on' rucksack…where it sits from one hemisphere to the next, just in case….it's funny the useless things we carry around with us for years, don't you think? We secretly know we're never going to need it, but we're just not ready to let it go…lucky a neck pillow doesn't take up much room.

CACHE BOOKS FOR OTHERS

You can't carry a library. Read the travel guides and the cheap airport paperbacks and then leave them on the train, in a bar or on the bookshelf at the guest house…knowledge hoarded is knowledge squandered, and it's one way you can pay something forward, something nice…

5.       PLANS

Planning can be a fun game when you're stuck somewhere that you can't get a ticket out of and you need to kill time…there is a very old saying that if you want to make the gods laugh just tell them your plans…refer earlier under Patience…

A journey has to blend the pre-arranged and the ad-hoc, and everyone has their own idea of the perfect balance…if you know you're going to be in a certain place at a certain time, there can be advantages in making arrangements before you get there. Book the hotel, it's almost always cheaper over the net. Have someone meet you when you arrive. Cultivate contacts, talk to friends who've been there.

Group people usually don't travel much out of their own familiar territory…when they do, they like other people to have organised everything for them, when, where, how long…jolly good luck to them, I say, and I mean that…having life packaged for you can be a real help at times, and not everyone has the experience or the ability to do for themselves…although it can be surprising how interesting life can be when you set aside some time to just wander around…I found a brilliant old oak-lined pub down a cobbled side street in Dublin, only because I wasn't in a rush and wasn't paying too much attention to the detail map, just meandering in a general direction…almost all of the best experiences of my life have been just down a side street that was off the usual map…

6.       VILLAGES

Everyone needs to come back in to the village sooner or later. Even the most hardened nomads and outlaws need a solid base from time to time, protection from weather and other predators, a place to relax for a time, barter, repair the wear and tear, drink fresh water, trade stories, and get ready for the next leg of the journey.  It is my belief that environments shape the communities that dwell in them…the natural surrounds shape the city, the village, the family as the soil, rainfall and sunshine shape the plants…and their individual fruits…their values, their compassion, their art, what they do to survive, to celebrate, to give thanks, how they live and how they die… which is the reason it pays to choose your village carefully…some places just don't take kindly to strangers…doesn't matter how long you stay there, it will never feel like home…and there's other places at other times when you feel like you just fit right in. They're the places worth coming back to. Where your accounts are all paid up and there's a coffee cup in the cupboard with your name on it.

7.       ATTACHMENTS

Goodbyes suck, and there's no getting away from them, not ever. During the course of a life, everyone's going to get through a bewildering array of parents, neighbour kids, siblings, school friends, goldfish, team mates, parents of friends, dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs, college friends, workmates, lovers, haters, spouses, kids, friends of kids, store owners, the guys at the bar….they all come and go as we move on through, it's just how it is…

I refuse to hold life at arm's length because I'll miss it when it's gone. I'm not generally what I'd call a people person by nature. I don't hate people, I just find a lot of them annoying after a while. How long usually depends a lot on the person. Some people are great. I love some people. I love the contribution that some people have made to my life. It's inspired me to help other people from time to time. I like to think that I've made a positive change in the life of everyone I've ever met - although it has to be said that I'm sure I've improved some people's lives by removing myself from it…

I can't go through life refusing to get close to people, or let them get close to me…I don't think that would be much of a life, not for me…and I can't spend my whole time 'missing' people and sobbing in airports either…so I've learned, as best I can, to know, to like and love, and to let go…I try and make the most of people while they're here, because no-one's going to be here forever…I have some great friends that I've never met, and there's a reasonable chance I never will…there's some people I couldn't imagine ever seeing enough of then whose names I can barely remember now…

That's one thing I've learned from the road. All things pass. Eventually, all things pass. You'll be surprised what you miss most.

ONLY USERS LOSE DRUGS

"Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."   W.C. Fields

As an Army Reservist, for 9 months of the year for almost 10 years I used to parade almost every Tuesday night, one or two weekends a month, and at least two 16 day courses a year...I was a Medic,  as well as being a qualified Infantry Rifleman and an Armoured Corps AFV Commander, and I tried to get in at least one course a year plying my trade, usually as medical support for recruit courses, and a second course to increase my qualifications for more interesting roles...

 Sometimes I could get into the Army mentality and sometimes I found it a little bit harder...on the courses when I could just put on my green skin, 'switch on Army', turn off my creative brain and just do what I was told, I generally had a lot of fun...you know, keeping in mind that we were all being trained to kill people in really quite disturbing ways and all that....but anyone that knows me knows that if there's one thing that fires me up it's incompetence hiding behind rank...so, there were some courses when I'd just feel compelled to liven things up...

Every military training course I ever attended incorporated a lecture on the Army's policy on drugs...as you can imagine, psychoactive drugs are heavily frowned upon when using high-powered large calibre automatic weapons...these are the ultimate power tool...back around the early 1990s I was attending a course for Reservist Corporals to become eligible for promotion to Sergeant...

It was about day 3, and already we're suffering from sleep deprivation... up at 5:30am for PT, and we're showered, fed and in the classroom by 7:30, lectures well into the evening and you're up until past midnight practicing drill and weapons lessons out on the parade ground, writing up lesson plans, spit polishing boots and ironing uniforms...we are Corporals training to be Sergeants and we have an example to set to other soldiers on base, so our dress and bearing must be impeccable... and in my view, it's at times like this that one must have a sense of humour...and, well, sometimes I just get bored, y'know?....

This guy, a career MP, is a Warrant Officer, which means he has come up through the ranks of enlisted men...he's done the hard yards...and he is about to deliver the classic, textbook anti-drugs lecture straight from the Manual...

"The Army has a no-drugs policy"  A selective no-drugs policy...

"If you are caught using drugs or in possession of drugs while on Army property you will be liable to penalties both civil and military that may include imprisonment"  This guy has creases ironed  into his forearms...he hates having to deal with Reservists who are dope smoking anti-war tree-huggers when they're not in uniform...waste of time and money...

"If you experience stress, do not turn to drugs, do as I do and go to the boozer for a few beers"  This guy is a caricature and doesn't even know it...

"There are many reasons why someone would want to take drugs. Can anyone tell me what one of them might be.  Yes, Corporal"  Indicating me

"Well personally sir, I've always believed it's part of man's inherent need to alter his consciousness..."

The silence kind of hangs there. Like a weapon. The WO has me pinned into my seat with one of those cold, emotionless unblinking stares that leaves me in no doubt that he could quite happily slit my throat and then go inside and eat dinner with the same knife....

"What the fuck does that mean, smartarse?"

"People take drugs because it makes them feel good, sir"

"Good answer. Why didn't you say that in the first place? Yes, Corporal Bloggs.....""

You see, this is why the war on drugs was doomed from the start. Drug use is in our nature. The only people really speaking out against drugs are the ones that have either successfully recovered from their habit of choice, or like the MP have never tried 'em, don't like 'em on principle, and will not accept that a few beers after work every day will screw their minds and bodies up at least as bad as most of the alternatives... who knows what the answer is, but the bottom line is that people take drugs, from aspirin to crack, because it makes them feel good...

A few years ago a Close Personal Friend was visiting Amsterdam, a place he'd wanted to visit for years to see what the fuss was all about...after the routine hotel transfer, a quick shower and change, and he's out checking out the famous cafes...one in particular quickly becomes a favourite, good strong coffee, a wide selection of herbal teas and cool drinks, and a nice line in locally grown hydroponic pot and Nepalese hash...it also has a number of nice al fresco tables on the cobbled footpath next to the canal, where one can sip herbal tea and take a nice scone with strawberry jam and whipped cream, as the 60-something English couple are doing...or, like the young Italian guys are doing, roll 3 and 5 paper joints from the large pile of pot in the middle of the table...by Day 2, CPF has settled into a comfortable daily routine; a quick shower and down to the cafe for breakfast; one tourist expedition - Anne Frank's house, a cruise along the canals, whatever, take a few photos; and then just a general dazed meander around the streets....it really is just the way he'd pictured it two or three decades before...

Of course, there's always the things that many innocents abroad don't expect...petty crime thrives in crowds, the pickpockets, the scam artists and hustlers...and organised crime thrives in places where people would really rather not have their wife, mother, neighbour or boss find out they've been...they pay big, they pay cash, they don't ask for receipts or anything else that might reveal they've been there...the red light districts, where prostitutes, cops, crooks and all the other night people love to hang out, nightclubs, strip bars, brothels, casinos...on the first trip into the back of the coffee shop by the canal, where The Reason Other Than Coffee is kept...there's a standup menu for a variety of types of bud on one side and hash on the other, prices by the gram...the shop dude takes out a large wooden cutting block and a very big and what looks like a very sharp knife, cuts an appropriate sized piece from the brick of hashish, slips it on the scales and gives you the price...he won't roll it for you, but there are booths off to the side, painted matt black with bright blacklights to roll by, and ashtrays...be their guest...

If it fails to cross your mind whose guest you are, and who you would be upsetting if your behaviour failed to respect the establishment, there are two large red and white stickers on the wall behind the counter; "Support Your Local Red And White" and "This Business Supports The Big Red Machine".  Hells Angels. These guys are big here, in what has become the major conduit for all manner of pharmaceutical mood enhancers, in the middle of a river of cash and blood....you'll find them all over the world, old neighbourhoods, often revived ex-commercial districts, hip urban cafes by day....darker things come out at night...

In his afternoon meandering, CPF happens across an unexpected bonus - The Mushroom Shop...it's been years, seriously years...the shop is very small, but clean and tidy inside...among the usual paraphernalia is a small glass fronted refrigerator, filled with plastic takeaway containers as you'd find in a Chinese restaurant...except these have a range of magic mushrooms, each with a short summary of what effects one can expect from each..."bright colours", "enhanced sense of euphoria", "for experienced users only".....he opts for possible mild hallucinations and bright colours....

An hour later, he has survived the onset, unfamiliar after so many years of abstinence, traffic, other pedestrians and having been attacked by a mime....I hate mimes, I don't know about you....I hate street theatre generally, anything where you're likely to get singled out for comment or dragged into the performance...an interesting feature of the cafes around the Rembrandtplein is that all the chairs are facing the street...it works well, there's always something to see in the middle of the square...

A pair of buskers sets up on the footpath, a young white guy with a scruffy afro and a tie-dyed t-shirt on a guitar and a blonde female singer...a midget blond....bright platinum blonde hair, a yellow croptop and fluoro purple spandex capri pants, and she is belting out the tunes for all she's worth, "ROLLIN' ! ROLLIN' ! ROLLIN' ON A RIVERRR..."....he's transfixed....,his travelling companion nudges his arm and says "They're great, aren't they?"....to which CPF replies "Oh thank Christ you can see them too...."

It's fun. However you slice it, people do it because it makes them feel better. I have no idea what the answer is, but the cure of prohibition seems worse than the disease.

GLOBAL ALTRUISM THROUGH CREATIVE SELF INDULGENCE

...being  part of an occasional series in which I cast a light on behaviour ordinarily considered by casual observers to be anti-social, when in fact these behaviours, seen in the correct way, can be recognised as beneficial for the entire Societe de Humanitie Masse...what I do, I do for the good of humanity...

Self indulgence, I have often noted, is seriously underrated. Not just as a selfish, personal pursuit, but as a contribution to the greater good.

Sharon and Kenneth Holley have opened a bookshop, apparently it's the first African-American bookshop in Buffalo, NY. The thing that interests me is how Sharon got involved in this project. She likes comics. That's pretty much it.  "I had a real extensive comic collection", she says...one thing lead to another, and now she owns a bookshop. It got me thinking.  Lately I've been noticing people who seem to have led happier lives for having primarily done what they want as often as possible...

Doing what you want as often as possible. It sounds pretty obvious when you just write it down. Thing is, a lot of us really don't do an awful lot of what we want. I'd posit that the response of many to the idea of doing what we want would be that we simply can't - and where would the world be if we all did what we wanted. I'm starting to wonder.

We do a lot of things that are about making money, having a certain standard of living, impressing The Collective Other that we are fit for their company.  There's probably nothing wrong with that. My own philosophy has always been that what we have to do for money should be balanced by what we like to do. What we would do if we won the lottery. I could count on one hand the times when I've thought that, if I won the lottery, I would keep working at whatever I was doing at the time.  I've often wondered if it's possible for the average member of humanity to ever make a good living from what they like to do when they don't have to. I've known a lot of tradesmen and professionals who are highly regarded in their field. Almost without exception, the primary reason they do the job they do is because they realised that they have an aptitude for it and it pays enough to finance their chosen lifestyle. They enjoy the kudos, they enjoy the money, and it is generally a pretty good feeling to know that you're considered highly by your peers...and they'd quit tomorrow if they won the lottery. Engineers who spend all weekend sailing, motorcycling bank managers, the plumber who loves working in his garden.

I had a mate once who was an amateur member of a national sporting team.  Once a month, she'd be flown across the country to train with the elite in her sport. Two or three times a year she would be flown overseas for a week or two to play other countries.  Pretty impressive stuff. I asked her once if her mother used to shout at her to "put that bloody ball away and come and do your homework".  It seemed strange to me that she had earned a college degree and worked hard in a male dominated industry and gained a secure, well paid job - and yet the most amazing thing about her life came out of what she loves to do when she's at home, what she's done whenever she can get the chance.

The Piano Man, Billy Joel, was asked what made him decide to become a musician, and he replied that he didn't know how not to be a musician. He maintained that if you have to force yourself to play scales, or practice this week's piece, you're not really a musician at heart. I thought of my brother, who started learning guitar the same time I did, when we were kids back in the seventies...the guitar never really set me on fire, but Bro couldn't put the thing down...every morning, he'd tune the thing before he went to the bathroom...when he got home from school, the first thing he'd do was pick up the guitar and play...for hours....

I don't know if too many other people are like this, but I find it hard to practice something I'm crap at...it's a major gateway moment for me early on in the piece when I find that things aren't going as easily as I'd pictured them in my mind...and whether the skill I want to learn is important enough to me to struggle through the fumbling early stages of a skill to get to at least a base level of  competence....or, of course, whether I like doing it, even badly...

I also think of the school swimming champion, whose dad had faithfully taken him from a relatively early age down to the pool at 5:30am to swim laps with the club...the kid seemed to have a natural aptitude for it, and with a lot of encouragement and support from dad, he won a lot of medals and trophies...around 16 years old, dad tells the kid that with the last two years of school coming up, the kid can decide for himself at what level he will compete in swimming the following year. The kid says "Thank God. If I never see another swimming pool for the rest of my life, I'll die happy."  Best I know, the kid never endured that black lane line or the smell of chlorine again. It doesn't matter how much fun it looks to other people, I guess - if it's your thing, you'll do whatever you can to get your taste of it regardless of the circumstances. If it's not your thing, you can learn to be competent at it, in a lot of cases we can learn to be pretty good at it...but...we do our best work, we create ART when we do that which we love, and love that which we do....

So, speaking of creating art, among the many activities for  which I don't need my arm twisted, two of my absolute favourites are riding motorcycles and drinking beer.  Yep, a surprise, I know. I don't do either particularly well, but I'm generally happy in my incompetence and even on the occasions I don't perform well, I often end up with a story to tell. It lead to my last two jobs. True story. I took to frequenting one of the local taverns when I landed in this neighbourhood, as one does who wishes to be recognised as a valued member of the local community.  I'd often ride down on the bike or stop in on the way home from a ride around the twisty mountain roads. It's a conversation opener, especially with other people having a similar interest.  One day, out of the blue, the bar owner offers me a job bartending, just filling in during the day on slow Sundays. Interestingly, the offer came at a time when a little extra money came in handy but synchronicity is a whole other subject for another day...

I had just enough bartending experience to get by, and overall I had a great time. I got to hang out at the bar with my mates all day, and the only downside was that I couldn't drink with them until my shift was done. The fact that I used to park the bike out front didn't hurt, either...people who knew me would know I was working and drop in; people who didn't know me saw the bike and thought they'd drop in and see if they wanted to get to know me. For someone who had a tenuous grip on what they were doing when they started, I did good business and averaged 20% in tips...made a bunch of money and had fun doing it - and it just fell out of the sky as a consequence of barhopping. I really think the Universe is trying to tell me something here.

Look, this might be blindingly obvious to everyone but me. Maybe I have been slow to notice, I don't know.  Maybe I have too much time on my hands these days, but just recently it's surprised me how often I meet people who have made a life of doing what they enjoy most.  It's not about financial reward or a lavish lifestyle, although several have been smart enough to combine fun and money...although I wonder whether, say, Tiger can still enjoy a quick back 9 and a few beers on a sunny afternoon at the clubhouse with his mates from across the road... and, after all, there are only just so many paying gigs for mediocre guitarists and trainspotters.

It's more about seeing what it is in life that you get most pleasure from doing - and then organise the rest of your life to give you the greatest amount of time that you can doing that.  More people seem to have started believing that's possible. Follow your Bliss. I think there's worse ways to be.

Sportsters: turning riders into mechanics since 1957

I always wanted a Harley, since I was about 11 or 12 years old. Apart from a very short, sweet sojourn with a Shovelhead in the seventies, I rode more affordable Japanese bikes for close to 30 years....and I promised myself that one day, when I had the time, I would get one and learn how to repair and maintain it myself. The time came last year.

I've been tackling repair and maintenance matters as they come up. I've been learning a lot. I'm proud of the fact that, with very little experience, less aptitude and cheap supermarket quality tools as a base set, I've been able to get and keep my bike running better than it was when I bought it. We're getting to know each other.

One of the best resources I have is an internet forum for Sportster owners, I've had some good advice from them. I like to repay the favour by documenting my misadventures, which might stop someone else encountering the problems that I have. This is what I sent them today. Even if you don't know a wrench from a spanner, you should get the gist of it.

+++

I recently flattened two batteries in a week and after a bit of poking and prodding, I was told that my stator was No Longer Serviceable. Flushed with my successful elimination of gas cap rattle and replacement of rocker cover gaskets last season, I thought it would be a good idea to tackle the replacement myself and get to know the innards of my bike a little better while I was at it. And give you something to read about if, like here, the weather has turned inhospitable.

It was easier than I thought. Tracking backwards and forwards to the auto parts store to buy tools (a multi-meter, large 1/2" drive sockets, 3 separate sets of snap-ring pliers, red loctite, and a few other odds and sods) took more than its fair share of time, but between the HD shop manual, the Haynes manual and the odd website printout, I got it stripped down pretty easy for a novice Harley mechanic.

Thanks to all on the XL-List who offered advice last week about the chipped rotor magnets - I gave the rotor a wipe-over with petrol and a rag and reinstalled it after I installed the new stator, went for a run around the block in increasing circles, stopping to check the battery charge level. Ended up knocking out a brisk 25 miles around the local back roads before the rain hit...so far, the battery is holding it's charge, I'm still trying to figure out how to use my new multi-meter, and once the worst of this rain clears I'll take him out for a spin around the mountain, about 160 miles, and see if anything rattles loose. Once you've taken a primary cover off, it's not hard to see what interesting damage you'd cause if something - like a magnet - went flying about inside there....is this why some people favour open primaries?

Some things I learned, that might be useful to other wannabe mechanics and might save as many trips to the parts/tool store:

• a $50 bike/atv lift from your local auto parts store is a good investment if you're going to be doing big, time consuming jobs like this. This job would have been a real pita if I'd had to do it with the bike on the side stand.
  
• when you remove the primary cover, you'll be surprised at how much tranny fluid is left in the primary case after having drained it....quite surprised....rags and sand will soak up a fair bit, but not a bad idea to have a suitably sized container underneath the bike when you loosen that last bolt....
• I have learned that kitty-litter is a must-have in the amateur mechanics garage...it costs about twelve bucks for a bucket load that should be a few years supply....soaks up relatively large quantities of petrol, motor oil and transmission fluid in a short period of time.
  
• in order to remove the nuts securing the rotor/front sprocket and the clutch basket/rear sprocket, you need to stop the shafts rotating. If I hadn't just told you that, you'd realise it pretty quick. It's not immediately obvious how to stop the shafts rotating. Or, really, obvious after quite a while spent staring at it. Time to consult the oracle.
  
• as an aside, both these nuts are torqued on there pretty well, and as you will learn when you re-assemble they have been secured with red loctite. You can pretty much guarantee you're going to need a long breaker bar. I use my big torque wrench - it puts 'em on, I figure it must be close to perfect for taking them off.
  
• all that you'll get from the HD manual, with understated simplicity, is "Remove the engine sprocket nut"...well, it's the 'How' that we're really looking for, so no real help there. I've worked out that these guys really just don't want you working on one of *their motorcycles unless you're suitably qualified. HD manuals are a necessary evil, in my view, but a Haynes manual to supplement it has been worth every penny of the $25 I spent on it. Anyway, the HD manual does refer to a special tool, a Sprocket Locking Link (Part #HD-38362), but there is no immediately obvious picture or description of the tool or how it is used. Back to the drawing board.
  
• the Haynes manual suggests reinstalling the gear shifter, putting the bike in gear, and applying the rear brake with the back tyre on the ground, which will lock the engine while you loosen the nut.....this is a cruel hoax....I reinstalled the lever and shifted up into second gear; sat on the bike which was still upright on the bike lift, braced the rear wheel with a wooden block, then put my right foot on the brake while holding the 2' torque wrench and socket on the engine sprocket nut with my left hand while controlling the bars with my right hand and trying to stop the bike falling off the jack with my left foot while holding the socket onto the nut with my left knee.........
• in anticipation that you will attempt this and fail, Haynes have a contingency plan: remove the sparkplugs, find TDC compression, back off 1/8 of a turn then fill the compression chamber with thin nylon cord, inserted into the spark-plug hole. Once full, you can then easily rotate the nut with the piston jammed up against the nylon cord.
• you can't really imagine what it's like to feed 48 feet of thin nylon cord an inch at a time into a spark-plug hole, it's one of those things you have to experience for yourself. I experienced it for myself five times. I'm no quitter. A little more each time, but never quite enough to stop the piston moving through its arc. If there is a trick to this, I didn't get it. I did get a smile at Haynes advising "Be sure the end of the cord is still outside of the engine" before turning the nut. I don't know about you, but I get an instantaneous mental picture of a guy who has just watched his compression chamber swallow the last inch of the retrievable end of a large ball of twine....enough people must have done it to make it important to issue the warning....
  
• enough messing around with manuals, time to CONSULT THE XL-List ARCHIVES! Not more than a few minutes later, a 4" brass door hinge (#HD-38362) is installed between the two sprockets, and the nut is off.
• the nuts are different sizes. The one for the engine sprocket and the one for the clutch sprocket. You'd think they would be the same size, really, they're only a few inches apart in there. Not many people have a 1 1/8" socket in their 42-piece Bi-Mart socket set. I didn't. They cost six bucks each. So, I'd glanced quickly at the two nuts on the way out the door to the parts store and figured they would be the same size, but I've never really been good at that stuff. Anyway, once you get the front sprocket nut off, you quickly realise that you need a 1 3/16" socket to remove the clutch basket nut.
  
• it's left hand drive, that's why the 4" hinge works both ways.
  
• the nuts are recessed, so I couldn't measure them accurately with a ruler before I went to the parts store. I ended up getting a piece of stiff cardboard and slowly cutting it down until it was exactly the same width as the nut, then measured the card. I doubt I invented this idea, but it worked for me both times and saved me from buying the wrong size sockets.
  
• you have to route the plug end of the lead from the stator through the side of the primary case and across the top alongside the starter then down through the inside of the cam cover and along the right lower frame rail to plug into the regulator on the front downtube, well...all I can say is that it's easier said than done...I tried tying a long piece of thin nylon cord (I had a bunch just lying around the garage) to the old plug, and pulling it back through the primary so I could pull the new lead & plug back through with the cord (another Haynes suggestion). This didn't work well. The old plug just kept getting caught somewhere up underneath where I couldn't see or feel. Even when I jacked the bike up and lay underneath with a flashlight, I couldn't see what the problem was. I ended up cutting the wire off the old stator just past the sealing plug, then braided the wires around the plug from the new stator, wrapped it tight with a lot of electrical tape until it resembled a small torpedo, then drenched it in WD-40...and pulled the old plug down and through the front, pulling the new plug behind it. Messy but effective.
• when you're almost done replacing everything, there's a point at which you'll encounter an internal spring retaining clip that holds the adjusting screw assembly in place. You'll know the one I'm talking about when you find it. It was pretty easy to get out, using a screwdriver as a lever. It's a little harder to get back in. If you don't own a pair of proper spring clip pliers, may I suggest you purchase some...and pay the extra couple of dollars to get robust, good quality ones...on the third trip back to Schuck's, I got the big, one piece pliers - I could not, for the life of me, get those spindly removable tips to withstand the spring tension without bending or breaking....
• now I come to think of it, the cost of the new tools was more than the cost of the new part....although I believe I saved several hundred bucks by doing the job myself.
  
• don't forget to refill the primary when you're done. A long skinny funnel (I use an empty Bloody Mary Mix bottle) is a help. I'd only changed the primary fluid a few hundred miles ago, so I saved it and reused that. I note that this means that the primary now has 4 ounces less than it had in it before, the 4 'secret' ounces from the primary going on the garage floor, so for the sake of $5 or $6 I'll trundle down to the dealer tomorrow and buy a quart, which will be enough to top it up and have enough left to do a complete change next season.

I get the impression that having to replace a stator isn't uncommon. It's a bit of a time consuming pain in the arse to do, but well worth the effort. Thanks again to the list, without whom I'd be super-gluing magnets back together and waiting for the special tool to arrive in the mail.


Jack the nomad
2001 XLH1200, tax paid

NOMAD'S PEA & HAM SOUP

I was talking with my son about stew the other day. Where he is, spring is just starting after a long, wet Australian winter, and here in America we're starting to see Autumn...I can't recall if I've mentioned it, but I like the Autumn here, the sting gone out of the sun, long enough days and pleasant evenings, just before the leaves start to turn...then we get a real winter, snow and all...comfort food season...

Anyway, I like stews...sometimes they started off as soups, they might officially be called soups, but really what I cook are all probably more like stews, given my own criteria that if it has more lumps than juice, it's stew....I started making them way back in the dark ages (before microwave ovens ) when I'd be home alone on school holidays mid year and needed something simple, cheap and easy but good for you.....no, it would be too obvious...

As the years have passed, I developed a few favourites that have stood the test of time...my philosophy from the word go has always been that nothing should take longer to prepare (ie, peeling and chopping) than it does to eat...I clean as I go, I love being able to see something all the way to "Simmer for a really long time" and have a clean kitchen...time to sit on your arse with a pint and smell the food cooking....

My young bloke asked me to send him the recipe for my pea and ham soup, which was an after-rugby Saturday lunchtime staple...for 6 or 7 years I took him to junior rugby on Saturday mornings all season, and then it was home to my place for a hot shower and a bowl of stew...always served with a buttered crusty roll, with real butter...and pints of Guinness, if that's to your taste...red wine goes well too, a nice heavy shiraz or a cab sav that you can chew and then spit out the skins....but I like it with Guinness best...

Meals can be something special. A lot of my best memories are based around food, with good wine and good friends...and it's been nice while I type this out for a son who's all the way around the world, to find myself smiling and thinking about all those Saturdays standing in the sun and the wind and the rain, steam on our breath, waiting all match for that one blindside pass to the wing and the winning try in the corner....then home and hot showers, rolls, Guinness and a couple of bowls of steaming pea and ham soup....life doesn't get much better than that, so I thought I'd share.

Good eatin'

NOMAD'S PEA AND HAM SOUP

Ingredients:

500 - 750g 'boiling bacon', diced or 1 - 2 bacon hocks or a bag of bacon bones

1 bag dry green boiling peas or split peas

3 - 4 medium potatoes, white or yellow brushed, diced big

1 large sweet yellow onion, diced big enough

3 - 4 cloves garlic peeled & crushed, or equivalent...the stuff in jars is alright and it keeps forever. Avoid the powder.

1 tsp salt

Worcestershire sauce to taste

Tabasco to taste

4 - 5 litres water

Method:

Put all ingredients in large pot.

Bring to boil.

Reduce heat to low.

Simmer for 3 -4 hours until it tastes good

Tip: If using bacon hocks, take out the skin once it peels away from the bone. Otherwise, it's like leaving the teabag in the cup. Except it's fat. Throw it away.

RETIREMENT ISN'T WORKING

"The work is hard
The pay is small
So take your time
And sod them all"
- engraved on a china plate on my father's wall

Work was pretty much always a means to an end for me. That end was generally money, although I've been known to take jobs because of their location, to get experience at something so I could get a job doing something else and, on rare occasions, because I enjoyed the work. But mostly it was money and what money could buy, and work was the unpleasant crap you had to do to get the money. If you were lucky enough to be bright or talented, you could make more money for each hour, but I never really could think of a job that sounded like it would be better than sitting on a tropical beach somewhere, with blond chicks in bikinis bringing me champagne on ice......sorry, where was I?

I remember dreaming of retirement when I was still in high school. I read stories of men who started out selling oranges from a barrow at 13 and ended up being billionaire owners of supermarket chains...I heard of people retiring at 35, of people becoming millionaires in their twenties.

I was pretty good at mental arithmetic as a kid. I knew how much a million dollars was. In cash, it's a thousand dollars a week for twenty years. And they say you can't retire on that? Try me...

Success seemed like a natural progression for me. I'd known I was smarter than the average bear from an early age. I didn't feel particularly gifted, and I was crap at anything that involved hand-eye co-ordination or any activity associated with the generation of sweat. But I can't recall a time in my early years when I didn't take it for granted that I would attend University and roll into some very well paid job that allowed me to live the life of luxury to which I'd quickly become accustomed. The dreams of an eleven year old kid...the downside was that no-one - at least no-one I was prepared to listen to - wised me up that work was involved. I knew I had talent. I knew I was bright. The education systems in two different English-speaking countries taught me to be brilliant at passing exams. Once, on a good day, I scored 148 on an official IQ test. Ask me to catch a fish or change the tube on a bicycle and I'd have floundered.

My own belief in my ability was sufficiently confirmed by secondary education, however, and I had that mental picture of the hammock on the beach and the champagne....I would have taken up smoking just so I could light a cigar with a $50 note...

School was mundane, I was smart enough to be able to cruise and still get decent grades...through high school, I had a different dream every week of what I wanted to do when I finished school for good...travelling loomed large as an idea, but what to do to pay for it was a blank wall...when I'd started high school, guys leaving the senior years were still getting drafted to go to Vietnam; by 1975 and my senior years, the war was over, conscription was over, the best of the hippie era was still hanging around, the sexual revolution had switched from free love to porn and swinging in the suburbs, and pot and acid were making way for speed and coke.....there was a darker edge to the world after the innocence and naivete of the 60s, and Life was just starting to open up for a kid in his mid-teens....ambition? ask me later....a lot later.....to cut a long story short, I cruised all the way to a bare fall-over-the-line pass in my University entry exams, gave away the whole idea of higher education as a bad one, and took a job loading clay sewer pipes on and off trucks... I learned to drive a car, a motorbike, forklift and four ton truck within a year and a half...for over 30 years now, I've looked back on that time, that job, as a watershed... one of those Sliding Doors moments when the path I could have taken took a sharp turn into a whole different life...by the time came around to try the Uni exams again, I was too used to the freedom and to the money.

Well, for a kid who had always been soft and clumsy I took to manual labour like a man possessed...after 3 months, I took up rugby union and played my first senior game the day before my 18th birthday...on the way out to my first game, I asked a mate what a 'second row forward' was supposed to do - "Do what the older blokes tell ya. And if you see a bloke from the other side with the ball, knock him over and kick shit out of him until he lets it go"...I played two seasons, ended up playing men's A Grade alongside ex-internationals, and that was the only rule I ever knew...

The die was cast...I was born-again blue-collar...I worked semi-skilled physical jobs for another 5 years, until my first child announced her impending arrival a few months hence. I dusted off my brain, and went back to being paid for what I knew rather than for what I did...in what could be seen as synchronicity, I got my old bosses job at the sewer pipe yard....less than a year later, I'd moved to the Big City and got me a collar and tie job, and notched the hamster wheel into 4th gear....

I've changed jobs a lot. Regardless of what field it is, as soon as I reach a level of competence that I think is sufficient, the interest factor starts to plummet...in my experience, we learn 80% of all we need to know pretty damn quick if we put the effort in...and in the vast majority of cases, in my book, 80% is plenty good enough to get the job done.

I've never aimed for 100%, not that I can remember...I recognised a long time ago that if Perfect was my bench mark in life, I'd spend a lot of that life being frustrated, angry and disappointed....at University, a 70% mark on a paper will get you a Distinction; 80% gets you a High Distinction...it's the professorial equivalent of awarding a gold star or an elephant stamp on the back of your hand...for all that I've read that adults and kids learn differently, I disagree - you stick 30 adults in a class room and they will revert to acting like school kids before lunchtime on Day One...I digress...so, if I get a 90% for anything in life, I think I'm doing extra-ordinarily well. To me 90% is more than most of us are capable of achieving on a regular basis, even on an occasional basis to be quite honest; frankly, there are times when you'd be happy if you could get staff to turn up....so, from where I'm sitting, once we have achieved 80% of our ability to do a job perfectly, it will take 4 times more effort from here on in to learn and develop that last 20%, and I often question the opportunity cost of being an expert....being an expert isn't something I think I've ever aspired to (although I guess I've had some expertise thrust upon me....but that's a whole other story...)....bottom line, when I get to 80% of my potential in a particular job, that's as close as I need to be, I'm competent, and from here on in every day is going to be pretty much the same....in other words, it's time to move on to something else I know nothing about, yet...that's just me...

It's only been recently that I've been turning my head to this all over again...after a few decades of personal finances booming and busting and booming again, back a couple of years ago I made The Big Decision, the one where I finally put my money where my mouth was and got off the hamster wheel..my kids were grown, owning my own home again wasn't that important to me...so, for those who came in late, I put everything I needed into a backpack, boxed a few sentimental favourites, sold everything else, gave away what I couldn't sell, and flew away...

These days, I have everything I need and I don't need much...I have enough put away so I don't have to sit in the dark eating dog food when I'm in my 80s, but that's a few years off yet....my home renovation skills allow me a roof over my head and all the food I need....but I could do with some pocket money, you know? And there's the rub - after so many years of resenting work as an intrusion on my time, looking forward to an early retirement or at least semi-retirement, and being able to do a lot more of what I want, more often - I'm finding that I enjoy life more when I've got something to do, a reason to get out of bed every so often, a challenge to put myself to and maybe learn something, something new...

I find that I enjoy making things more than I used to....I take my time more, and try and do it right the first time...it's for me now, and I have the time....I've never enjoyed gardening so much...I've never enjoyed gardening, really....and after years of believing that I had the mechanical aptitude of a goldfish, I am actually cultivating the ability to take things apart, fix or replace the broken bits, and put them back together again...I've been riding motorbikes since the mid 70s, mostly Hondas and Kawasakis....I would have been happy to learn how to fix them, but they just never really broke down....hmm...well, last year I bought a Harley Davidson, and things have changed a bit...I've done more motorcycle mechanics in the last 14 or 15 months than in the previous 35 years put together. And I love it. "Sportsters - turning riders into mechanics since 1957" Harleys are very simple to work on. They have to be.

It's something special to take a broken motorcycle, work out what's wrong with it, take it apart and put it back together - and then demonstrate your confidence in your work by taking it down the street for a ride that's fast enough to kill you if you forgot to tighten up something important....it's been a late addition to my enjoyment of motorcycling, but not too late to be put to good measure...

You'll see that at the time of posting, I'm currently wading through 'Shop Class As Soulcraft' by Matt Crawford...his writing style isn't grabbing me, but he and I are on the same wavelength - life is about more than just what's in your mind. There are few things more deeply satisfying than the physical creation of something, whether it be a quilt, a basket full of fresh vegetables, or an armchair...it's a feeling that our high paid desk jobs lack....there's a lot of things I could turn my hand to right now, and I'm as sure as I can be that I could go back to my old life and pretty much pick up where I left off....but I can't think of any good reasons to do that....give me a job that doesn't take up all my time, and pays me enough to pay for gas and put a bit aside for parts, coffee and hotel rooms....preferably a job that, at the end of the day, I can look at something and think "I made that".

Yes, that would do nicely.