TINY HOUSE LIVING IN WASHINGTON AND OREGON, AND A NOTE ABOUT THE ENDOCENE TO ROUND THINGS OUT

POST # 168

The computer blog gods didn't align last week so I didn't get to write, and now it's time for a bit of catch up.  Meandering up the coast through Oregon to Washington eventually landed me at the cabin pictured below which is located on Whidbey Island in Washington.  Carol, the woman who owns it, is a friend of my friend Mary, and we were offered this little piece of paradise for a few days.  It has to be one of the cutest cabins, that I've ever come across, and I've seen plenty of them in my travels.

From Whidbey Island, Mary drove me to Anacortes, where we said goodbye, and I continued my journey to my current accommodation, called "The Raven House" which is situated on Orcas Island and which will be my home for about the next two weeks.

My purpose for being here again on Orcas, is to take care of three of my favourite furballs, Felix, Oscar, and their little sister Ziggy.  I've had the pleasure of their company three other times, and I am looking forward to our time together.

Here they are last night, waiting somewhat impatiently for their dinner.  We will get to play out this little dance, twice a day while I'm here.
Felix and Oscar prefer to sleep in the Raven House, so I have plenty of company during the evening.  They have given me "permission" to sleep in "their" house for the time being.  It's a good trade off, they provide the accommodation and I feed them.  Everybody's happy.
After breakfast, Oscar and Felix always find time to hang out in the sunshine on the front deck.  Ziggy is nowhere to be seen.

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I guess that just about gets things up to date for now with regards to my latest wanderings.  But moving right along to other things, I came across this comment today in response to the latest posting at Nature Bats Last which is titled,  "Edge of Extinction: Endocene"

It seems to sum up pretty well our situation here on our only home, earth.  It's been quite the ride, however as each day passes it looks like the show will be coming to a close in the not too distant future.  At least some of us will have the good fortune, if you can call it that, to be here at the end of the show. Step right up and get your tickets for the greatest show on earth, "The Endocene".

Endocene is the short epochal period following directly from the anthropocene.

During the Endocene, the species Homo sapiens caused its own extinction, as well as the total extinction of thousands of other innocent species & life forms.

The primary causal chain for this mass extinction was the human species’ total obsession with growth.

Humans developed the ability to extract & consume enormous amounts of energy from the carbon based fuels buried in the bowels of their various planetary ecosystems, especially coal, oil, & natural gas.

Using their evolved large & creative brains, the human species developed very effective exosomatic tools both to extract & burn the increasingly sacred buried fossil fuels.

Only about twenty percent of the total human species, one & one half billion people, profligately consumed these sacred ancient fossil fuels in sophisticated, ingenious, & massive industrial plants & intricate machines.

The elitist controllers of the gleefully consuming humans in rich countries developed all manner of convoluted intellectual supports, justifications, & high sounding rationlizations for their obsessive & rapacious consumption & pollution.

The elitist engineered system of never ending growth was known as continually expanding free market economics.

The entire growth mania/economic system was completely based on borrowing money from banks at compound interest.

Compound interest, of course, was not well understood by the innocent & bamboozled borrowers.

Most bewildered borrowing pilgrims only knew it as qualifying for so-called credit.

Depending on the rate of interest, compound interest required that the borrower must repay the banker/creditor much more than he borrowed – usually around three plus times more than he borrowed.

As a handy rule, the compound interest system/religion can be summed up by the game of 72 – a very simple but monstrously perverse, deadly, & bloodsucking game.

If we divide the rate of interest, say 7 % into 72; we get slightly longer than 10 years.

Ten years is the length of time it takes for the original investment/debt to DOUBLE.

At 10 % compound interest any original investment doubles in about 7 short years.

It is a completely logical “system” & even considered “a science” by practicing well dressed priests, also known as economists.

The supply of physical money has to grow/expand to pay the bankers mathematical/mystically expanding interest.

Therefore, all development & expansion; including basic living & survival, requires continual consumption of finite resources, in order that the debtors repay their lawfully incurred contractual debts to their banker/creditors.

All consumption by the most indebted twenty percent in the “rich” countries was inevitably based on using & burning fossil fuels.

But, disaster & collapse was written into the mystical & “impossible” system of ever expanding resource extraction & consumption

The profligate burning of fossil fuels led to the equally profligate production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The CO2 pollution was so readily & cavalierly exhausted into the atmospheric commons in such massive amounts that it caused the entire plane to abruptly heat.

The priestly economists called carbon greenhouse gas pollution an “externality.”

It was NOT even considered part of the continually growing economic system.

The economic priests had esoteric equations as proof.

Nevertheless, the increased planetary heating from CO2 forced the release of other methane rich carbon stores in the Arctic Ocean Sea beds & Northern latitude permafrost.

In short order the perviously sleeping methane in the Arctic Sea beds & permafrost melted.

The escaping methane perfused into the atmospheric commons, where it abruptly increased the deadly heating – releasing even more deadly methane.

Evenually, planet Earth became too hot to sustain most froms of life, including all Mammalian life.

It was called the Sixth Great Extinction &/or the Endocene.

Some wise asses call it the ultimate bummer.

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I guess that's about it for this go around.  More news next month as I will have a computer for June 7th.

Happy trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

SO LONG SOUTHERN CROSS AND WELCOME BACK, URSA MAJOR (aka THE BIG DIPPER)

POST #167

Here is the final photo of Ali, taken as I was walking out the door to head to the Armidale airport, after completing my final house sit in Australia.

The look on her face can be described in three words-  "But why, Paul?"

After a month of spending every day together, and playing ball, she probably couldn't work out why I would want to leave.  But such is the life of a house sitter- always on the move.

However, just prior to departing this country house sit, I was invited to go along to a get together with some of the locals.  It was a wonderful afternoon spent with some very friendly and interesting people.

So it was time to say goodbye to the Southern Cross constellation, and hello to Ursa Major ( the Big Dipper), as we crossed over the Equator en route to my next destination.  But before I left, I had time to say so long to a couple of friends, Brian (top), and David (bottom).  I met Brian way back in 1988 through my friend Victoria, and I met David after applying for a job ad in a newspaper back in 1990.  In 2003, David, myself and another sailor named Anthony would spend 43 days sailing across the Indian Ocean from Durban South Africa, to Fremantle, Western Australia.

Above, is a rather grainy photo of the wing of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I had read an article only a week or so prior to this flight, that Boeing had discovered a glitch in the computer software of the 787 which had the potential to shut down all the power to the aircraft at any time without notice. If it happened while cruising at 39000 feet over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it would have been a long glide to a watery grave.  This news, along with the documentary that I linked to a few months ago on this blog, with regards to the manufacturing of this jet, had me wondering whether or not I would make it all the way from Melbourne to Los Angeles, but for anyone who has been there, this next photo confirms that we arrived safe and sound.  I arrived in LA, three hours BEFORE, I left Melbourne, due to the crossing of the international dateline.  May 9th was an extra long day.

 After a few hours layover in LA, it was time to board a different aircraft and continue my journey to Seattle airport.  I had a great view of Mt. Baker as we were on our final approach into SeaTac airport.

The stop over in Seattle would be a short one hour, before boarding a prop aircraft to make my final flight for the day, to Redmond Oregon.

This was taken just after we departed Seattle,  and I managed to catch another glimpse of Mt. Baker, as we headed south.

Finally, here is a video taken en route.

The weary traveller, ah, that would be me, arrived safe and sound in Redmond, at about 6:30pm where I was greeted by my friend Mary.  A short car ride would be the final travel for the day and would have us arriving in Bend around 7pm.

I have some precious time off before I journey to my next house sit which will once again be on Orcas Island in Washington.  This will be my fourth journey there, and I am looking forward to caring for my three furball buddies, Oscar, Felix, and Ziggy.  However, I won't be there until late in the month, so I will have another post on May 21st, as long as I have a computer to use.

Until then,

Happy trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer

A PHOTO FROM 2013 ( I AM CURRENTLY ON THE ROAD)

POST # 166

I'm in between housesits at the moment, and on the move, so I will keep this short.  I was going through some old photos the other day, and I came across this one, which was taken on March 9th 2013, just over a year after I fell down this exact hill.  From this angle, one gets a much better view of the terrain that I tumbled over on my way to the bottom.
On this particular day, I decided to re-climb the hill from the side that I had fallen down in 2012.
It certainly was a memorable experience.

Happy Trails,

Paul
The Thoughtful Wanderer