Bushmaster 2012
In the earliest days of my prospecting adventures I invented the Bushmaster 2012. A sluice box of sorts, consisting of layers of screen mesh overlaid weeping tile...
Poorly assembled out of duck tape, found timber, etc, it was the best I could do. I'd counselled a female friend, who promised an abundance of power tools, upon showing up to avail myself of them I discovered that most of them seemed to involve "AA" and "AAA" batteries. Oooops. Clearly I had misread the situation. Nonetheless, with hammer and nails and a bit of savoir-faire, the Bushmaster 2012 was assembled...
Despite appearances, it actually worked pretty good, collecting the fine gold out of the Athabasca River, problems I later ran into involved having to completely destroy the box to recover the fine gold from the weeping tile (really, in the end, not a big deal, but it lacked practicality), and the fact that while the gold accumulated in the weeping tile, the diamonds would just slide right off of the screen mesh. Probably I lost millions.
First attempts, not bad, but not good when analyzed in terms of re-usability or the recovery of things other than fine gold...
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- Category: Miscellany
Of Castles & White Cobras
I'm the king of a castle at the North end of a remote mountain lake, large, several stories, stone, it's at the end of a long road...
And I've received word that there's going to be an insurrection, and so I'm packing my things to flee, at first, only a dinghy, I'll follow the lake down into the wilds, but then I realize that their the wilds for a reason, there's nothing down there, and so I take the car, pack the dinghy into the trunk, and then I realize I have no money for gas, a castle with no money? and I think there must be a treasure some where I should be able to dig up...
Fuck it. I know who's behind this, and I go to his house in a rage...a suburban house, windows, portly wife, it's the middle of the night and I'm banging on the door, go around the back, break the windows to let myself in, the Councillor, he want to know who it is, his portly wife, she's offering me some shepherds pie...
...And now, walking up the shore of the lake I'm passed by a white blur, too quick it whips along the rocks, and when it stops I see it's a magnificent, pure white garter snake with pale grey markings and pink dots, perhaps 6 feet in length, I try to pick it up but it flares it's head, turns in my hand, I let it go, fumble with my phone to take a picture, for my father, we'd been discussing how snakes have been disappearing, another one appears, the same size and colors, but different markings, I recognize it as the female of the species, the first one's mate, they're both sunning themselves on rocks, I'm trying to get a picture, but my camera is loaded with dumb games, stupid software, I can't find the camera app, I didn't install these, don't know who did, the only solution is to reboot the phone into safe mode and restore it...
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- Category: Dreams
Trilby & Oblomov
With cold and wintry days, and not enough gas to get back to prospecting, I begin to catch up on my reading. 2 books - Oblomov, by Ivan Goncharov, a traditional Russian Satire, in the vein of Bulgakov (but some 100 years his predecessor), it's a masterpiece of characterization and a gentle satire on the Russian nobility. Nuanced, romantic, in an amazing translation by Ann Dunnigan.
And the other, Trilby, by George Du Maurier, a bestseller of the late Victorian era, as opposite in quality and temper as could be imagined, full of stereotypical characters (not all kind, the Jewish stereotypes are offensive, the English, absurd, the French, well, you get the idea. Stereotypes.), slight events, now only notable because it introduces us to the idea and character of Svengali.
Oblomov is by far the better book, take Trilby as a curiosity and colorful exaggeration of life in Bohemian Paris. But as good a way as any to while away those few remaining leisurely hours...
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- Category: Books
Nenshi
"What do you think of Nenshi?" she asks, and I'm stuck for an answer. He hasn't been much in the press lately.
Now clearly the man is a lunatic. To expect corporations, especially in Alberta, the dead-end for most migratory birds, ( & here, & here, & here), to in any way bear liability for the destruction of the environment? Where would the Oilsands be? Where would Syncrude be? (or, perhaps a pun on "Crudely Sinning"?).
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- Category: People
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