candle in a cold tin box

CANDLE IN A COLD TIN BOX

I don't know what but something has gone wrong with the gadget that links Amazon products to this blog. Until it is fixed, I've added a daily links page to my web page. I'll give you the link and when you are ready to buy from Amazon please go through that page first. Just like if you'd gone through a link in this article, I'll get credit for your purchase. You pay no extra, I get paid from commission to keep writing. Here's today's link:

www.bisonpress.com/dailylink030911.html
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I hadn’t been to the book store for probably over a month. It might even have been closer to six weeks. It just got to the point that there were so many books piled hither and yon that there was little point. I mean, you go to the book store, they have a ten cent “no-return” book sale and you grab so many used paperbacks that you have enough for a year of unemployment just from that one trip. Even a packrat is going to take a break at some point. But I had a hankerin so we went in. And I picked up a copy of “The Backwoodsman”. Well, usually I just grab a copy when I see it is new. This time, the cover photo threw me a bit. I’m used to seeing a painting. And I’m leery since I remember when Mother Earth News went from painting to photo-it was the beginning of the end ( MEN used to be in our public library when I was a kid- as did Playboy, unguarded. A curious mix of new liberal attitude with old fashion trust ). I hemmed and hawed and finally bought the copy. Well, let me tell you, this was one of the better issues they’ve had in the last year. And Richie gave his explanation on why they went from pulp to slick interior paper. Same cost, less printing errors and postal destruction. It’s amazing how much better the photos inside are ( I remember not being able to decipher the address to the ammo adaptor ad ). Bravo, a better mag with improved content.

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Okay, don’t get the idea I’m going to start blathering about movies every article here. I usually don’t watch that many, mainly due to the fact that I hate vampires, chick flicks and 95% of the comedies out there ( how hard is it to be close to perfect, fall down and roll about funny like Animal House or PCU? ). I prefer to read and just watch stupid sitcoms on TV. If you want brain candy to relax at the end of the day, TV has it down to a science. However, I did watch two DVD’s this week. I liked The A-Team. But when I watched the new Wall Street ( what could go wrong? Stone and Douglas ), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the hell it was trying to say. What was the point of the movie? Anyone? Was it, greed is good in the eighties but not now with derivatives? Was it that the banks should have been allowed to fail? I couldn’t understand what I just saw. I loved the original Wall Street, but couldn’t comprehend this new one.

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Remember I told you about my co-worker moving off grid? I was trying to shame you. Yuppie job working mo-fo can’t figure out how to get off the gerbil wheel before you get pink slipped and here is a part time, minimum wage, single mom with no child support moving out of town on to a non-grid lot in a motor home. Well, I’m sure that didn’t work. You’re still in town, still hoping that Obammy will reveal his true extraterrestrial identity and promise that fusion generators will be shipping out of China next week. Okay, I understand. I moved off grid since it was a step up in existence. I went from working a full time job with weekly overtime plus had to throw in my writing income to barely scrape by paying a trailer lot rent. Sixty or seventy percent of my take home pay went to rent. Insane, and continuing was worse as the rent went up every summer. So my moving wasn’t brain surgery. My co-worker doesn’t confide too many details with me but I can imagine that she was in the same boat. Trying to raise kids and coming up with rent in town ( very expensive living expenses here within the city limits ). Moving just a few miles out of town should have halved her “rent”, even with a land payment and a motor home payment.

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Well, as events unfold, she is having one problem after another. The land had a well casing but the pump is plugging it and she doesn’t have the money to get it pulled out. And she is having some kind of electrical issue so she is forced to use candles for lighting. She is making payments on land that has a well priced into it, but is non-functional. And she is making payments on a motor home that is turning out to be not much more than a dark tin box. But do you know what? She is still better off. It may not seem like that now, but think about it. As petroleum still flows, any contrived shelter can be made livable. And being out in that craphole of a home, you have the motivation to fix the problems you are having. And, because you aren’t flushing your paycheck down the mortgage/landlord rat hole, you have the resources to do so. Yes, there are still payments to be made. For less than five years. After that it is all gravy. Staying where you are, you make payments for thirty years, yearly the value of the home drops so you will always be underwater, but yearly property taxes continue to go up. Wow! You sure are better off than if you moved and took a pay cut. Ask yourself this. Will it be harder to move now, having to declare bankruptcy and foreclose on the home, while unemployment is 20% , making finding any job difficult, or will it be harder to move in five years when bankruptcy is illegal, unemployment is 60% and filling up the U-Haul costs $20 a gallon?

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You can move to any junk land lot for a first months payment ( E-Bay sellers are owner financed- your credit can be worse than nuclear meltdown status and it doesn’t matter ). For shelter you can take two 2x4’s, nail them together, sink them in a hole full of $6 worth of Quikcrete creating a post. Repeat a few more times, stretch plastic tarps out to create walls and a roof. An instant shelter for under $100, big enough for the family. The pioneers moved to an area and used the canvas from their wagons to cover a stick frame for a tent. As they could built it/afford it they put up something more solid. Sure, if there are constant winds you need a lattice backing. During storms there needs to be a watch to keep poking the roof up to shed water or snow. It ain’t perfect, and obviously there are a few more details to it, but shelter isn’t a huge deal like you want to make it out to be. With LED lights, propane cooking and a heater as simple as a Dakota hole and a smoke flap in the tarp, you are all set. Hell, if the women folk are afraid of creepy crawlers, lay down a few lengths of chicken wire and ferro cement a floor.

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Primitive living as we know it now would have made yesteryears kings envious. Use the temporary petroleum reserves left to us to make transition to off grid easy. As a bonus you unshackle yourself from wage slavery.

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The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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