Coping: What’s a Better Hobby?

Been meaning to pass on just a little snip out of last week’s Peoplenomics report which was really neat.  As part of a discussion about “Fight, Flight, and Diaspora” I mentioned tripping over a previously undiscovered hobby:  Railbiking.

You can find a whole lot of images on Google which ought to give you the basic idea:  You get a bike.  Cobble together an outrigger on one side of t’other, and then put a guide wheel on the front of the bike.  First thing you know, you’ve got a railbike.

Got an old Honda 50 dirt bike?  Even better – you have potentially a 40-50 mile an hour here-to-there ride which would get what?  50-80 MPG?

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Railbiking was still rattling around my head this morning since I have one of those 80-CC gas engine conversions off eBay that needs to be installed on a bike here – one of those ‘fixin’ to get to it projects).  Usually, that’s how Universe tells me “ought to mention that to the general public side, don’t you think?

It’s usually accompanied by a couple of reader emails, hinting at that too.  Like this one:

“George, Appreciated your insights on escape or flight this week. Being a pilot it occurred to me when you mentioned the railroad maps, that sectional charts would be quite handy. As you know since your a pilot; it shows elevations, railroads, powerlines, and etc. Just thought you might want to mention it next time you approach this subject.”

Best I can figure, the Big Hint is that I’m maybe supposed to point out hobbies that make sense and those that don’t.  What’s a hobby the ‘makes sense”?  Railbiking.  Especially if you order something like the current and 1936 railroad maps of the USA from www.railroadmap.com.   Just find a little abandoned trackage and off you go.

In the event of the smelly stuff hitting the rotator, while streets and highways may be inhabited by whatever the new troubled times version of highwaymen will be, seems to me that a railroad hiking or railbiking adventure, or three, would be something to have under your belt.

The more general concept is “Are your hobbies reinforcing your ability to survive whatever Universe throws our way?  Fishing and boating make sense (along with having a boat in the backyard should some way out of left field event (continental subsidence) come along.  Hunting?  Perfect way to sneak up on steak-to-go.  Karate?  Never have to worry about falling prey to highwaymen or street thugs, but takes more rigorous  maintenance that, oh, say working out with the iron sights on an SKS at 100-meters.  (I got ribbed about my grouping so I’m resharpening that.).

Hobbies like woodwork, camping, metalworking, bike riding are all darned useful and highly adaptable skills.  Even if you think you’re too old for it, a copy of the Boy Scout manual picked off eBay and maybe a copy of The Field Book are excellent.

Knife-making, metal casting, gardening…there’s a whole range of hobbies that contribute to a personal’s adaptability.  Boating, sailing, and swimming put bodies of water under your personal control.  Orienteering, geo-caching, off-road biking and such do the same with land regardless of terrain.  Foraging for things like mushrooms (with expert teaching) is a plus.  Sewing, cooking, I mean the list goes on and on.  Even reading well-researched fiction.  Clive Cussler’s latest series (The Wrecker, etc.) set in the early 1900′s certain adds a little interest in railroads.  When things like this pile up, I figure it’s a hint about something.

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Then there are hobbies that while maybe ‘fun’ don’t serve much business purpose.  For example, I got all whipped up at some point deciding that I really wanted to build a model of my little German sports car.  Got the model kit (took some snooping) and the right (Guards red) spray paint, and ever since, the box (and paint) has been gathering dust. 

This being a weekend and all, something to think about when the coffee is perking tomorrow morning:  How are you investing in your own future on the small amount of time each of us has when we’re not on the gerbil-treadmill of life?  Absent plans to wind tunnel test some far-out aerodynamic ideas on a car which already has an aero factor of 6.27, damned if I can think of a reason to build the model.  Which is why it sits unbuilt with computer and gardening projects well ahead of it..  Something to think about if you own any of your own life over the weekend.

 

Lawyers Wanted!

Not normally, but this ain’t normal:

“Hi George,

People everywhere need your help.

A law firm in Nevada has begun a Class Action Suit against an electronic mortgage registration service and 60 million homeowners have their mortgages through it.

It does not matter who services the mortgages – that could be Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Litton Loan, etc.

The Supreme Court in Kansas has ruled against them along with the Ohio Supreme Court and Federal Judges in many states, saying they have no right to foreclose on anyone.

They are not the owners of the mortgage – they separated the Deed from the Note. No one knows who the owners are, because one mortgage may have been sold in many different bonds.

Here is the problem. The law firm in Nevada – NEED lawyers in each state, willing to file in that state and be part of the class action – it is the 29 non-judicial foreclosure states for the class action suit.

They also need a representative in each state, who has had foreclosure papers filed against them.

I have been desperately trying to find a lawyer in the state of Tennessee – but have had no luck (the papers have been filed against me and they are fast tracking it – it seems)

PLEASE, for the sake of Millions of people out there, who have lost their jobs and are not able to pay their mortgages – Please, put out a plea on your site asking for Lawyers in all non judicial states to come forward and be part of the foreclosure class action suit. We are talking about Millions being helped!

You  can give them the lawyer in Nevada’s email and phone number, who has started the class action suit:

Treva Hearne <thearne@hagerhearnelaw.com> 

Hager & Hearne thearne@hagerhearnelaw.com  (775) 329-5800

A chance for there to be good lawyers for a change, huh?

Real Terror: PC Moving

Every couple of years, I move from one PC to another and this year it’s time to move from one box to another.  Buying a PC is a no-brainer.  You go to TigerDirect or Amazon and a very expensive click (or four) later, here comes the new super-computer.  In my case, the new box is a Systemax with 1TB of drive space, 12 GB of ram and support for four high-end (DVI/HDMI) monitors.  Under conditions of 20-years ago, this would be the Nirvana Box.  But, as anyone in the past few years has learned, it’s now anything but since moving from the old PC to the new one will involve countless hours on tech support getting licenses squared away.

In fact, last time I migrated from one box to another, the secure Peoplenomics database ( in ACT! by Safe SW) was the most problematic.  Don’t know how many calls I made to India on that…and Adobe Professional wouldn’t support the box-to-box move at all.  I ended up buying a cheaper piece of software that has worked fine – at a lower price point.  Granted, without some of the bells & whistles.

Don’t go telling me “Open Source!”  I have (and use open source, but when working on client projects, nothing beats the integration of Office and I don’t know whether open source is supporting the newer .docx and .xlsx formats.  I also don’t know if proprietary products (like ACT!) are supported by MY-SQL although the new Peoplenomics access portal (under construction, more on that early next week) works fine with it.

To try and make things easier, I bought the PC Move product from Traveling Software.  Comes with USB-to-USB cable and threatens to take some of the sting out of software moving.

One joy of the new Systemax super-box:  Nothing other than the basic OS installed.  No 18-gazillion crapware programs to be uninstalled and scrubbed from the registry.  No trial versions of this or that not only have to be removed (and the registry then cleaned up and re-edited, defragged and the list goes on.  Just a straight-ahead screaming fast computer.  Not even a chunk of anti-virus sample.  Just a nag screen saying something like “Don’t forget to install your antivirus software…”

Cool.

The only disconcerting thing about the new box is that it is so fast it’s disconcertingly fast.  Tasks that I’m used to having happen a seconds – or sometimes two – after clicking are onscreen instantly.  It’s almost disconcerting because suddenly I’ve gone from a thought-style of thinking while waiting for the next screen to “George, aren’t you done screwing around, yet? I’m waiting for a click or a file name over here!”.

Don’t know whether I need the fancy neon lighting (come with the computer, I wouldn’t have spent money on it) but in terms of brute processing power it’s tres cool.

Now, instead of spending money on full-body scanners, if we could please just take some of the terror out of software license transferring…that’d be some real ‘change’.  I’ll let you know how the PC Move software works.

Down At the Wujo:  Timewave Zero, Redux

Reader sent in this little gem to be tossed about our mental dojo on the mat where masters of reality/science face off with masters of reality/esoteric:

“Hi George,

I believe I do like charts and figures as much as you like . I’ve come across McKenna’s Timewave Zero theory. He cracked the code behind the I-Ching and developed a mathematical model in which time as a wave can be calculated. No surprise that this wave cease to exist at 12-21-2012. It is very clearly explained by himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6WFr61I-g 

Peter Meyer made a computer model (Fractal Time) based on this theory which draws great graphics. http://www.fractal-timewave.com/index.html 

I’ve been playing around with this software lately and discovered convergence between this calculated timewave and the predictions in Linguistics. Let me show you, by looking back at 2009 and then forward to 2010.

The theory in short describes how closer the graph is to zero how much more change is experienced in the universe. When the graph goes up tension is released a bit. Sharp bends indicate events.

In the 2009 graph you can clearly see that the timewave goes down to exactly: 25th October 2009 and then goes up again (“building up pressure”). In the 2009 q4 graph two specific bends are indicated that match exactly with date mentioned by yourself at Urbansurvival: 19th of December and 29th of December.

Looking to 2010 the first sharp bend is January 12th, the quake in Haiti. March 1st until May 8th we will experience lots of change, followed by the entire second half of 2010 from July 7th onwards, exactly as described in Linguistics. Tipping points on short notice will be the 24th/25th of January, thats coming Sunday/Monday, followed by 2nd/3rd of February as can clearly be seen in the graph.

To grasp the increase of change we will experience the coming year I’ve included a graph from 2008 until the end of 2012.

From the license agreement: “images of the timewave produced by this software may be used on websites (or in other media) only if the source is acknowledged with (at least) a link to the Fractal Time website: http://www.fractal-timewave.com . Any rights not specifically granted by the licensor are reserved. http://www.fractal-timewave.com/readme.php 

Am curious what your read on these Timewave graphs is.

Ah…here we get into a really interesting discussion.  But first, in answer to your question my reaction is “Dire, huh?”

I actual bought the software a while back with the intention of putting company-specific information into it – along with market information – to see if there would be anything tradable out of it.  Haven’t gotten to that yet.

Second observation is that the chart is of what McKenna calls “Novelty” and while the technique of software spiders and massive processing of language off the internet is different than the numeric/computational outputs from the TimeWaveZero software, you’ll see that in terms of our discussion this week of “The Gap” that there’s a significant decline from the March 2011 high to the November 2011 low.

In Cliff’s work, we bounce along the bottom of linguistic structures’ from that March 2011 high period which gets me to thinking “You know, that ‘high’ in novelty may not be good novelty…”

And closer to today, remember I told you that the astro-economic guys like my friend Arch Crawford have star charts that point to a really ugly period developing from late July of 2010 through early 2011 and guess what?  TWZero agrees!

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The problem with a computational engine like this is that while it quantifies something I-Ching’ish, there’s a lot of personal projection possible.  In other words, objectively speaking, if I put in my birth date, does the software show major incidents/development along my life-path?  Does it show the ‘right ending’?  (Not going to spoil that for you, LOL).

But like Tarot, Astrology, I Ching and other methods of skrying (e.g. divining the future) – and let’s not forget Nostradamus stoking up and staring for hours into a pot (sic) of black oil to get his visions of the future which may have been anything from stream-slipping to automatic writing – who knows, right? 

Point is that even a reality/science type (who runs a Wujo on the side) acknowledges that when the astrologers, Tarotists, skyers, TimeWavers and time monks all show up at the same place on the calendar, you have to sit back and go “WTF?”

Or (looping back to article #1 in the Coping section today) “What are you ‘hobbying on” this weekend which will make you smarter/more prepared/resilient for the coming anarchy?”

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Drop by again Monday for an update here.  www.Peoplenomics.com subscribers get Saturday and Sunday content. 

Oh…and no railbiking on main lines…ok?  Don’t want your survivors coming after us for not mentioning “DON’T BE STUPID WHEN RAILBIKING!”…besides the CSX and BN/WB folks have good legal departments.

Mr. Funny is back, but isn’t sure if next week will be more “Funny – haha…” or just more “funny – weird” but a new week will bring that into focus.

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Send your comments to george@ure.net

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Shop Till Your Drop Department:

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