Industrialists Pledge Heat Relief

I put the call out yesterday for residential industrialists to help their neighbors with the heat. The summer heat has been unrelenting, coming down from the sun in droves, stifling my breath and I know the breath of thousands. It has been uncomfortable to be out in it, so much so that we are seeking respite indoors. With an air conditioner or fan, or, for kids outside, a sprinkler hose.

But there are many out there who are stuck without these things. And so for them, they're like the pioneers, or like the billions of people who lived before we had these, who had to just make do. How they did it, precisely, I'm not sure. The women back then wore long dresses and shawls. The men were in flannel shirts with a beard big enough to stuff a mattress. And they walked the trail from one end of the country to the other, herding cattle, burying dead horses, and taking the wheels off their wagons every time they had to cross a river. It was too hot to build a bridge, which would've been an enormous job anyway! But a lot of those folks back then didn't live as long as we do now. So their comfort/discomfort level was not such a big concern because they knew they were going to drop dead any second.

These days we have a little more sense. We wouldn't set out on a 3,000 mile walk unless we were well trained for it and had a support bus and bottled water. But that doesn't mean people aren't still suffering today, because they are. Just sitting at home can be a death sentence ... seriously ... and that's why we need more air conditioners and fans, and sprinkler hoses for the kids ...

So the call went out, and today the pledge cards are going out. If you're a part of the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM), I'm calling on you, regardless of what you manufacture now, to retool and immediately start manufacturing the items we need, air conditioners, etc.

As you all know, we have a glut of products in most other categories. There are warehouses full of wheels for hospital beds, industrial vats, tires, and disposable diapers. So these things can wait! What we need is relief from the heat! And that's why we need to get cracking on this great effort...

I myself have ceased all production of tires (temporarily) and have been working hard to retool. I'm jumping in with both feet and trying the toughest one of all, the air conditioner. Think about it, an air conditioner is a tough thing to manufacture if you're starting with nothing. I need to make dozens of different parts, all without really even knowing how an air conditioner works. They all have to fit together. They need to be tested. When you plug it in, it has to do something. And instead of having months to do it, like the major industrialists had when they came up with this stuff in the first place, I've given myself a deadline of tomorrow. The need is great and I want to get it going!

Fans are easier to make. Like I was saying yesterday, it's a spinning crooked thing. I want a bunch of you to make those. If you think air conditioners are a little too hard to come up with, no one's going to think you're lazy or shirking or giving just half best. Because fans are still good, and they're seriously nothing to be ashamed of. Of course, given a choice of being in air conditioning or having a fan is a no-brainer, but, still, if you haven't got an air conditioner, a fan is the next best thing. So, if that's what you pledge to manufacture, we can live with it.

Sprinkler hoses is something we threw in because we need to think of the kids. It's basically a hose with holes. If you can quickly outfit your plant to turn out hoses, adding the holes would be a lot of fun. And maybe the kids themselves would enjoy punching them out! This would be a good project for some of our larger RIM families. Just remember, you need to make the holes small enough so the water isn't just leaking on the ground.

If you'd like to fill out the pledge card and bring it by my place, that'd be great. I'm waiving the $10 processing fee. Or if you'd just like to commit to it on your own, that'd be fine too. Just get started doing your part! And remember, if we all do it, that'll be the best, because if we can end up with a real glut of air conditioners, fans, and sprinkler hoses, we can keep the prices dirt cheap. And everyone will be helped!

Hot And Heavy Industrial Works

The temperatures have been soaring recently. The mercury is straining with all its might to make it to the top of the thermometer. Everywhere you look, the sun is relentlessly beating down, making the summer a very hot one. Here's the weather report as the weatherman says it, "Folks, it's going to be another scorcher today! Whoa, Nellie!"

Stepping outside on a hot summer day, it's like an oven out there! Or a really cranked sauna! There's no relief in sight. Everyone's fanning themselves. It's so bad they're even selling iced coffee! We've got so much heat somehow we need to turn it around, if only we can And that's where the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) can pick up the slack!

As far as I can tell, people are literally dying for lack of a good fan or air conditioner. And that's no laughing matter. We can make more! I'm calling on several of my brother industrialists to take this as your call to arms: Please make a ton more air conditioners right now, before the week is out! For those of you who aren't geared up for the full air conditioner, this is also your call to arms: Please make a ton more fans right now. Anything will help!

There's no problem making a fan, right? It's a crooked thing on a central thing and a motor to turn it 'round. You plug it in and it spins in circles. But in the spinning, depending on the the crookedness, it chops the air and separates the cold from the hot. And an air conditioner isn't much trickier. You have a basic unit in there that somehow cools the air, converting hot air to cold by a quick system of refrigeration. I know you guys can do it!

Back in the war, Grandpa used to tell me, companies that made something else quickly retooled and made plane parts, bomber wings, and even bombs themselves. They got the outer shell of a bomb -- someone was making those. Then they'd wheel in the bomb innards, always careful to arrange the various wires that would go to the TNT. More often than not, they were able to get the bombs on trucks which transported them to war zone, where, with some regularity they were used.

And as for the planes needed to drop them, a company might've been making luggage, but they'd quickly retool, and in about a week they were turning out top notch planes with a massive wingspan. That's why they started putting luggage compartments in planes back in those days, because they knew the war would soon be over and they could go back and sell more suitcases...

So we can retool too! We must, as long as this hot weather prevails. Summer is an enemy just as dangerous as Hitler, and, according to Grandma, he was an extremely evil person. He chewed BB's just to keep his teeth sharp! But that was then ... this is now ...

I know something the kids will enjoy, and something I'm calling on some of you RIM patriots to do. Popsicles! If you're geared up to make food items, how about retooling your plant really fast to make popsicles? With whatever you've got! If you're presently canning food, can some popsicles instead. No one's ever heard of canned popsicles, so you've just invented something! If you've got a bunch of sticks, manufacture traditional popsicles by the ton! No one will care they're not in cans. The ones I like are the ones in the little plastic tubes, where you just throw them in your freezer and cut out the middleman. Make some of those and bring me a few!

Heavy industry also suffers from the heat. Workers are overcome all the time by the stifling heat, meaning they would welcome the break if you had them making something cool like air conditioners, fans, or popsicles. So do it! You'll not only be helping your country, but you'll give your workers something to be thankful for!

Residential Industrialism's Philosophical Father

It's nice to be known for something, and it looks like this one's not going to get away from me. No one remembers me from any of the other things I've either invented or originated, but that's OK -- I don't remember them either. I'm sure if I were younger and could wake up with a clear head everyday, I could think of at least one.

But this one I've got by the horns. It's ingrained in my daily thoughts and it's enshrined in the clear reality of the everyday world. You know how everywhere you look, except of course trackless uncharted territory, that there's an industry -- a factory, a warehouse, smokestacks, runoff ditches, and trucks lined up? I'm the guy who got it all rolling! I'm the philosophical father of all that!

I took something I opposed -- industry itself -- and turned it on its head. Like a brain surgeon, who reaches a very refined needle in there and touches something -- he doesn't even know what! -- and a leg twitches... Then he takes a bigger needle and excites another sector node, so that both legs go limp... Everyone's panicking that this guy's never going to walk again, but the surgeon holds the needle steady, knowing it's actually re-channeling other brain vitality to that area, despite appearances... Finally, power is restored to the legs, then the power is doubled and tripled until they're left with two indestructible legs and nothing else... I touched industry, and instead of industry going limp and dying, we ended up with nothing but industry!

I think that's the way to live -- especially if we had more worlds than we knew what to do with. We'd have this one for nothing but industry, and the others for nothing but city parks, vacation spots, fast food restaurants, and Skidrow districts, the unhappy world of clubs, bars, casinos, and bail bondsmen. But as it is, we have this one world, and what better way to bring prosperity to everyone than for each man to have his own industry! One, it gives each man something to do. And, two, it keeps prices dirt cheap, with the glut of goods we all enjoy.

Heh, I never thought of myself as a brain surgeon, but that's pretty good. I suppose I could've been a brain surgeon, if that'd been the specialty I'd thought of back when I was in school. It didn't occur to me. But the guidance counselors we had back then... "Go home and think over your future..." I'm not too sure what his problem was... Very paycheck-driven, no doubt... Since in the school system, of course, they just plug these people in where they need someone... You show up a teacher-type at school and they'll plug you in any old opening, lunch lady, math teacher, football coach, guidance counselor, etc. ... The educational system we have is very wink-wink, putting on a good show and hoping for the best at the other end ... So my guidance counselor, who would've probably been better suited to have been a weatherman, since all he saw was cloudy skies, didn't do squat for me... And now I'm sitting here thinking I could've been a brain surgeon, making enough money in 10 minutes of work to spend five years sitting on one of the resort worlds...

But I didn't get to be one of those. Instead, I had to scratch around, hang out here on Grandpa's half acre, taking care of Grandma. Other people have been driving by in convertibles, their hair blowing in the breeze, but I've been faithful on this land, mowing it, and waiting, waiting, waiting for my day to come. Then it came, and what am I? The philosophical father of the entire Residential Industrial Movement! And undisputed at that!

Yes, I'm looking after my legacy. I've been trained since the time I was a kid to know that if you don't look after yourself no one else is going to do it. I remember when I was a cub scout, there was some kind of mix-up over my two badges, the fox and bear badges, I think they were. These clowns in the scouting organization couldn't keep track of one kid's badges that he'd earned, I don't think I'd want them taking my kid camping in the wild! I had to bring in the paperwork, whatever it was, to prove that I'd finished whatever it was that made sure I could participate in the most basic pinning ceremony! That's a lesson you don't forget: No one's looking out for you, so make sure you keep your legacy in writing!

Someday there's going to be a clown who comes along, probably my guidance counselor, if he's still alive, with a bottle of rotgut on one of the Skidrow worlds, who's going to claim he was behind everything I achieved. You can see where it's going... That since he was the inspiration behind my future path, that technically he is the philosophical father of the RIM.

That's as much as I've got today.

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Attached: The notes for today that I haven't got time to get to:

A 'tooting my own horn' post,
looking after my legacy,
hoping everything is in place as far as the historians getting the right information.

The relative slipperiness of historic time
1) How certain time goes faster than other time
2) How once you hit the downward slope in life it speeds by

How many people I hear of who are celebrating their 21st bday for the 40th time.

I know that I'm going to wake up one day and my life's going to be about over.

When people come asking me if I'm known for anything, I want them to be able to check the history books and find out.

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Note: As best as I can remember it, having literally not thought of it for 50 years, there really was some mix-up about my basic cub scout pins, and I wasn't sure I was going to get them. Someone was crying about it, either me or my mom. The world of a kid is a strange one, and I remember it as a weird blur, where we somehow made it at the last possible second for me to get my pin. And everything has come with its complications ever since!

A Slice Of Industrial Life

I made a mistake before I sat down to write this report, which was to read the news and some folks' opinions on the internet. One major article I read was that the world is coming to an end, and both religion and science agree on that! That's a downer, but I'll believe it when I don't see it...

The mistake means that now I'm a little bummed out. I need the world so I'll have somewhere to keep my stuff. Without the world, where am I going to sleep? Plus, there's Grandma to think about. She's lived a good life and never done anything wrong. The Lord's not going to go ballistic on us while such a soul remains. That much I know.

Anyway, before all that descended on my psyche, dragging my psyche down, I was already off to a good day. Just let me look out the window for a minute and I'm sure it'll revive my spirits. There, I can see and hear the roar of activity in the neighborhood as factories come alive with the new morning, preparing for a new day of industrial work. I'm feeling better now.

Of course I have my own tire factory. Since it's just me, I get to do it all myself, which means I can have a full set of tires (and one to spare!) for you by this time four days from now. Odd sizes and anything other than round take longer. I was in the store last night and discovered rainbow bread -- bread of all different colors. So if you need rainbow tires, that'd take a little longer too, maybe a lot longer. I need to check around and see if anyone in the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) makes food coloring. (My big question about rainbow bread was how do you know when it's molding?)

Bread comes in slices, we all know. So what I'm giving you today is just "a slice" of industrial life, like if you took a cross section of it and cut through it and looked at it from that perspective. Just like rainbow bread, it's a very "colorful" thing, whether the man is making tires, generating electricity (both of which I do), coming up with disposable diapers, wheels for hospital beds, or industrial vats.

In addition to discovering rainbow bread yesterday, I was out in the neighborhood, nosing around. This is a good thing to do, because everyone's proud of the sounds, sights, and smells of the RIM. I was wondering about one place being awfully quiet when I approached -- too quiet -- but old man Spooner started clanking on a random piece of metal with a hammer when he saw me. I love that sound, metal against metal, and I know he does too!

Families are hard at work. Dads who've sired a lot of children are very fortunate these days, because it gives them a ready workforce. No longer are kids just the unnecessary expense they were before, especially sons with muscles. They're out there working hard, clanking things, soldering, brazing, painting, lugging panels and things to the storeroom and finished products to the warehouse. Some of the daughters, the more burly ones, are helping. The daintier ones bring in donuts and keep the coffee pot fresh and full. Mothers, first timers and repeaters, are busy tending to their pregnancies.

Then there's the joy of every family, little kids who aren't quite old enough to be hard at work but not young enough to still be sucking. A lot of these little urchins know my name and they greeted me the best way they know how, yelling to me on their way to the swimming hole. There's a lot of runoff ditches in the neighborhood, and, to tell the truth, there's no better place to cool off on a hot day! At least that seems to be the very firm contention their actions appear to make. I think if they just keep their eyes shut tight and are careful not to get the water in their eyes or any open sores, they'll be just fine...

I'm really proud of the RIM, and what we're doing to make the world a better place and to keep it going a good while longer.

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CRAZY 8's - Post #888 on 8/8.

Those Forgotten Industrial Weeds

When I first started this great foray into the world of industrialism -- now having flown many sorties -- one of my word pictures loomed prominently in my thoughts both day and night. That was the forlorn image of weeds sucked into the mud at the side of the road, having been sucked there by passing industrial trucks speeding past.

A couple of examples from April:

1 - You know you're getting to the industrial section when the sidewalks disappear. And what appears are parking strips next to the road where there's a lot more weeds. They have a dirtier look, since a lot of trucks speed by, sucking them closer to the ground one direction, then sucking them closer to the ground when leaving.

2 -  Some grass, some weeds sucked down into the mud.

I still think about the weeds out there, only not as much, thanks to my busy schedule. Since then, of course, I've been heavily involved in the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM), which has gone from small to large and nothing left to conquer but the world itself. Let alone a few weeds. Still, I know they're out there, somewhere...

What made me think of them this morning was something very similar, the various itches I get in my ears. I've never seen inside an ear. There's folds, a hole, and darkness. If they were any farther down the body, we'd need underwear for them. But being out in the open, it seems quite a bit of wind gets in there. I have a fan here in my room and I can hear it very well. The obvious conclusion is that a lot of wind is finding its way into my ears. And if there's a bunch of hair in the inner ear, like you'll occasionally notice some sticking out, I'm thinking the wind must be sucking it down into the wax, causing itching.

It's just a minor point, but one that I think is important enough to mention. Somehow, if I don't want my ears to itch, I'm going to have to keep the wind down.

How are the RIM's trucks doing with the mud and the weeds? There hasn't been one report of an RIM truck sucking weeds into the mud. I'm not saying it hasn't happened somewhere, maybe somewhere where there's a lot of rain and mud with weeds just happening to be there too. But by and large, if the reports are correct, our trucks are being very very careful.

I don't mind forgetting about some of these things. It's not a pleasant thought to me, the image as it's portrayed. If I am forgetting, that's good because it shows we're making progress. It means everything is a great success.

Our Drive For Industrial Innovation

If you think about the drives and doings of the average species, you easily see they're typically creatures of habit. Some of this is physiological, but that doesn't make it necessarily exclusive or even ideal. One quick example would be walking forward when sometimes it's best to walk backward, like if there's a snake crawling forward in front of you. If we could train snakes to crawl backward, the rest of us could walk forward all the time, unless we just felt like walking backward.

The fact is, we can innovate! I'm innovating all the time, another word being 'making do.' Just yesterday I was 'making do' when it came to a broken piece on an appliance, putting it back together with three paperclips. My innovation came out of experience in this case, having used paperclips before with some success to fix things. But, let me hasten to add, it wasn't just 'creature of habit' stuff, what I was doing, but a true innovation, because the parts I was fixing were different from those of the past. Still, I know, overall, in the meta stuff, this could be 'creature of habit,' because I was using paperclips. The true innovator might've tried dental floss.

I actually have innovated in the past with dental floss now that you mention it. I remember tying up some patchouli plants to dry by bundling them and hooking them to a ceiling hook with dental floss. And of course who hasn't innovated in repairing books with broken bindings by sewing them up the edge with floss? I know I have, many times, meaning, I guess, that I was an innovator the first time I did it but an old hand with experience subsequent times. But this is also true: You're still an innovator the subsequent times, since novelty for the sake of novelty is not always innovation, but it can be just being stupid. I will allow that it's innovation even if it doesn't work, but this is splitting hairs.

So you have the behaviors of species, the usual paths of plants, the techniques that we employ to achieve certain aims, and even the workings of the earth, planets, and stars. Nature isn't much of an innovator, you might say, because the sun comes up in the east everyday. And, we say, if we were a sun we might want to mix it up and come up in the west. I know if I were a sun I might sleep a little later some days. Especially if I knew it was my job only and no one else's. The way the sun works now, except for the sloughing off it does in winter, it's fairly reliable.

But you might say, If the sun stayed in bed, wouldn't it always be dark? No, because the sun is a very bright thing. And since it gets hotter as the day goes on, it'd kick the covers off to get cooler, and we'd still have light to see by. Especially if it innovated and slept in an upside-down bed.

Scientists, falsely so-called, say the sun doesn't actually rise and set. They have some kind of cockeyed explanation for how this supposedly happens, involving the sun staying in place and the earth moving around it. As dumb as that is, since we all know better, at least I give them props for innovation. Because why should everyone say the same thing? It's good to innovate and come up with a different explanation. In this case they're clearly walking the plank to their own doom, but it's their funeral.

We of the Residential Industrial Movement have it over the major industrial powers, who actually are diminishing in power everyday thanks to our spirit of innovation. It's common sense that it'd be this way. You have the major powers and they're unrivaled ... of course they're going to do it one way, the way it works. But if every man has his own factory, that's where innovation's going to come in. Because a guy will wake up one day, just as an example, and say, Why shouldn't I put an extra lever on my invention, so that if you flip it something different and unexpected might happen? That's the true scientific approach to life, not just the laziness that the major powers gave us.

Every product I see, from toilets to cars, I think how we could innovate and open up new markets and expand existing ones. Plus, for every extraneous lever you put on something, that's a job for someone.

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TWITTER UPDATE:

One of the conundrums of what constitutes industrial innovation or not: The starting crank on a car.

It was once considered an innovation to have a starting crank, since before that cars wouldn't start at all.

Then it was an innovation to get rid of the starting crank and put in a starter and key ignition.

But I say it'd be an innovation, albeit a throwback innovation, to put starting cranks back on cars today.

One, there'd be a fortune in the nostalgia market. And, two, it'd be handier than getting out battery cables if your car doesn't start.

Waking Up With Industry On My Mind

I usually get a good night's sleep, but last night I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't doze back off.

Of course I had one topic on my mind -- in addition to an itching mosquito bite on my leg and a possible spider in the bed -- and that was industry. What the major industrial powers might try next. How the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) would counter. What sorts of products we might manufacture. How to take over all the supply lines, not just most of them. How to freeze the major powers out of the big retailers, Walmart, Bud's 5 and 10, Target, etc. There's lots of worries for me over this stuff.

But then I had this terrible itch. I don't actually remember a mosquito biting me on the leg, so it must've done it on the sly. Then somehow had the foresight to bury his venom six inches under, only for it to bubble to the top in the middle of the night like an oil spill. All I know is I had one of the worst itches of my life, I scratched and rubbed, it protruded in a nasty way, and I ended up with mosquito venom all over my sheets. Mosquito or something, anything equally ravenous.

It might've been a spider. I didn't see it happen. But there was a tiny spider on my bed a couple nights ago. This is true, every word: Before bed I was reviewing my causes for future paranoia from that day, things I'd seen on TV, like bacteria on counter tops, the fear that I'd run into that Progressive insurance woman in real life, and bedbugs. I literally saw a report on TV of bedbugs in New York. They pulled back the covers, then the mattress, and there were bedbugs everywhere, disgusting filthy things. Then I went over to prepare my bed for the night with this on my mind, and what do I see? A tiny spider crawling on my bed! I've never seen that! But there it was. I immediately killed it and started looking for others. But I never saw any others. Except when I went to bed and turned out the lights I felt like they were everywhere...

So last night when I had the itch on my leg, then a million other sympathetic itches -- I hope that's all it was -- I went through all the vast storehouse of my worst fears, losing a limb, getting cancer, having scabies, and of course the Progressive woman. The complete, terrible swirling of this whole scene, always worse at night, kept me awake for quite a while, from 1-something to after 3 a.m.

The good news is I eventually fell asleep and had a rip-roaring dream concerning my extended family and we were all in a house that had immense flooding from the second floor, a major river flooding down the road 10 feet from the door, and an old cousin of my uncle who was a terrible drinker. When I woke up, all this liquid mess coincided with the flood of mosquito venom coming out of my leg.

So that's what I had on my mind in the night. That and industry.

I was thinking about the successes of the RIM so far, then worried about how much farther we have to go. Because some of the major powers aren't falling yet. And I believe it comes down to supply lines and stocking shelves, delivery lines. Everyone needs to have a UPC on their goods, and somehow that information needs to get entered into a computer. Until we get that mastered, of course Firestone and Goodyear are going to keep rolling in tires. And when it comes to disposable diapers, we have formidable competitors in Pampers and Huggies. We all want to pull them down but we still have a ways to go.

Vigor Against The Major Industrial Powers

If you want the vigor you have to put in the rigor. Or, you can't be vigorous 'til you're rigorous. Or, the more rigor the more vigor. Or, no rigor, no vigor. Plus, if you want to avoid rigor mortis have vigor more, sis. My gig is rig for the vig.

The rigors of life leads to the vigor of life. You're not an ignoramus, so live with vigor, Amos. Don't ignore rigor for more vigor. The victor has the vigor. A lack of victory starts with no rigor, see. I'd walk a thousand ri to have a little vi. The gor you pick is the gor you've got. More gor? Gor more.

I'm doing the physical and mental calisthenics. I'm up early, getting an early start, while the major industrialists are still sleeping off another busy night at the park. Every member of the Residential Industrial Movement, I believe, is with me. They're up and getting the lines going. You do it one day, it's an exception. You do it a week, it's a start. You do it forever, it's a habit. Rigor and vigor go togegor!

Exercise is the best huffing and puffing a man can do. Hitting a few laundry bags tied to the post. Putting down a ladder and stepping swiftly in the empty spots. A few chin-ups on the door. Pumping iron from the yard. Physical, mental acuity come 'round to you, see?

Thanks to the Hedgerow of Warring Angels making their recent appearance, we're up for a renewed thrust at living right. Putting in the rigor you need for vigor. The Angels have their side in this fight. The major industrial powers are on the ropes, a bloody pulp if not worse will be their fate.

This is the attitude the residentials have. That's why we constantly hear the cheers around the neighborhoods. That -- the cheers -- and the moments of silence, quick hushed prayers, recognizing the source of our power.

Then the whistle blows, and the vigor we have for our task is there. We're working hard! The vigor we have against the major industrial powers is a beautiful thing for one and all.

The Hedgerow Vs. The Industrialists

The sword marks the spot! Our dearest divine friends, A Hedgerow of Warring Angels, have granted us another divine visitation and we are blessed! In their circle of protection, we are safe!

All this time, no matter what the appearances may have been, we of the Residential Industrial Movement have enjoyed a wonderful protection. And with that, we have seen prosperity of the rarest kind. The major industrial powers have been brought low, basically cast upon a junk heap, while we have been raised up and made to prosper.

Every minute from our perspective has seemed like a struggle, but it's looking back on it in hindsight that we can see how, step by step, the goodness from above has given us success. And so it continues, whether at the highest levels of commerce -- turning raw rubber and rubber byproducts into tires or plastic and cushy stuff into disposable diapers -- or in these more incidental skirmishes, fending off a bunch of flesh-crazed industrialists at a local park. We can see the presence...

I didn't know I was being led in this. Just for kicks, I thought I'd superimpose my hedgerow of warring angels graphic over the industrial hole site. Let me repeat that: I did it just for kicks. But when I did, whatever smile I had on my face, anticipating nothing special, was quickly replaced with a look of true awe. I could feel my face transform itself from smiling to awe just like that. I would've loved to've had a video of it or at least been able to see it in a mirror, because it would've been memorable. As it is, the feeling is very vivid still in my mind. It's these kinds of experiences that make life truly worth the living.

Because look what happened! You can see the perfect alignment, which has to be supernatural. The largest angel, the one in the foreground, has his sword pointing right at the purple dot, and, perhaps more important, has his sword covering the place where I felt the hole had to be. That's like someone lobbing at brick at my heart, it hits me just like that. It's like someone hanging out the rug and hitting it, it just hits you where it counts. I felt my spirit soar and land somewhere very beautiful.

In that moment, when I saw that, I knew the industrialists were dead ... or doomed. Because it all lined up so perfectly, without any variance away from a bulls-eye. It's a word, it's a witness from above that these things are all well in hand, and that keeping the faith is and always has been the best course of action.

And it's not just a message to me personally, but to everyone in the Residential Industrial Movement, those who have taken the industrial reins in society and will maintain control. The message of doom to the others is a message of deliverance for the rest of us. How stunning!

Here's what we're dealing with, a movement that could've felt a severe inferiority complex, bordering on pathological. In the beginning, when we were trying to make a tire, let's say, we didn't know tread from lug-nuts. Which side was up, we didn't know. For those trying to generate electricity, we didn't know a turbine from a spinning wheel. We had Grandma there to show us how to kick the treadle. Five men were lost to superficial skin burns and 10 more were injured trying to pull them away.

So while we eventually prevailed, still there wasn't the kind of confidence and savvy, the moxie on the ball, that the major industrial powers could display. But now, what we see in this picture, this is a sign from above that all will be well. Again, that there is doom for the major powers and success for the little guy, the local man with his factory.

The majors got sloppy, you might say. They were out in the woods, over at the park, gathered around their hole, trying to lure us in. Until the hedgerow of warring angels, who gather 'round the righteous, came down and gave us this sign. Now we can see the fiery swords, the thrilling witness that all will be well, and that the victory indeed is ours!

The Industrialist Hole Site

The other day I had a doctor's appointment. The medical student asked me if I ever get dizzy. I said no. But I should've said it depends. Because in certain states of excitement, I do get a sensation of dizziness. I feel it right now as I look at this photo. It could be that I'm just afraid of heights and this picture is obviously taken from very high up. Or it could be the excitement is from making an important discovery!

There's something I really like about doing surveillance from outer space. If only I had my own satellite, I could be guiding it around by remote control, and whatever you were doing on earth, I'd be able to catch you at it. Then, somehow, in some way you weren't expecting, I'd be able to lower to boom and that'd be all she wrote.

Having Google is like that with some clear drawbacks. You're able to do pretty good geographical reconnaissance. You're able to pinpoint with some accuracy the lay of the land. But it's not helpful in most cases if you're trying to catch someone doing something wrong in real time.

In this case, I've zeroed in on a piece of the local park where the industrialists or some of their underlings have been hanging out. What they've been doing there, I don't want to be too blue in my descriptions of it, or at least what I'm surmising, but I'm pretty sure it involves the workings of human reproduction without any hope of actual fertilization. You tell me, I'm imagining the bushes out there look like someone's had a shampoo fight... And since the industrialists are all men, we're talking about some activities that are on the seedy side to say the least, no pun intended.

For someone like me, who's afraid to touch the walls or fixtures in a public bathroom, of course these thoughts of my imagination are quite unpleasant. Add to that the magnificent grudge they're holding against me, and you've got the setting for some pretty sore dealings, were I ever to fall into their clutches, say, in a public place yet among a bunch of trees where no one can hear you scream. But checking it out from the satellite, I'm getting the job done while maintaining my purity. I can scope out the entire park, albeit in a fuzzy, less than distinct photo.

Now, you may remember a couple days ago I was writing about one of the industrialists* who warned me about a hole about 25 yards in. The hole in question has been a source of some mental discomfort on my part, yet if the industrialist* was sincere in his warning, of course I appreciate his gesture. Looking at the picture, I don't necessarily see a hole. Maybe the picture was taken a while back and a hole has opened since then. I've put a purple dot just above what sort of looks like a hole, but it could also be a bush. It seems like it's about 25 yards from the red dot, approximately where I was when the guy said this.

Still, if that's the hole, it doesn't look big enough to be threatening. Maybe, again, it's opened up wider since then. We'll probably never know, unless Google Earth comes around to get a later picture. It'll be up to me, I guess, to keep monitoring their site for updates. Or, assuming I eventually lose interest, maybe this will be it for the hole. I know I don't plan on actually going out there ... unless I can do it discreetly somehow. But how would I do that? Good question.

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*Whether the guy was an industrialist or not is not something I can determine. The fact that he gave an apparently good warning to me means he might've been sent from above to help me, one member of the hedgerow of warring angels we hear so much about, who stand guard 'round the righteous.

My Thoughts On Recent Industrial Eruptions

The last few days I've had a lot to think about, with all the renewed troubles I've had with the major industrial powers.

To a certain extent, it was all quite predictable, but I guess I'm one of those guys who crosses his fingers and hopes for the best. Of course they were going to fight back, like any cornered rabid dog would. And you'd think they'd fight back with everything they've got, which I haven't seen yet.

There's two saving graces for me personally in all this: 1) That I'm quite innocent, but I can well imagine I'm not innocent from their point of view. But I have the kind of innocence that ought to insulate me, if it only will, which is the innocence of a childlike heart. Give me a lollipop and you wouldn't know the difference. And who would hit a kid? 2) The whole 'anti industrialists' campaign has dispersed, been diluted to the point where I'm personally barely noticeable. There's thousands of others who are in it, those making up the Residential Industrial Movement. A lot of these fish are bigger fish than I! (But, being bigger fish, that might open me up to greater scrutiny, since smaller fish are easier to take...)

Whether I've exactly taken advantage of my saving graces, the answer would have to be no. Regrettably. Because, look, I keep putting myself out there! I started as the philosophical father of the whole movement, and when that happens, you hate to be sidelined by all the bigger fish. I made a name for the whole movement through this blog and my efforts against the industrialists. It's tough to just back off for personal protection and accept being sidelined as the final verdict. I still have an ego! And certainly everyone would agree that it'd be tougher to pick up the banner after sitting out than it is to stay with it all along. So putting myself out there keeps me vulnerable to the industrialists' attention.

Having the saving graces is a nice feeling though, whether I'm a big fish or little fish. And I appear to have the option of dropping the blog at any point, along with my nosing around town, if the heat gets to be too much. So some of this, a lot of this, I appear to be bringing on myself for the sake of staying in the game.

The latest industrial eruptions have been among the tougher ones of my life. I'm not ashamed to say I was pretty much consumed by the issues surrounding the park down by the river. But in the last 24 hours that particular eruption seems to be subsided or broken. The fever is only moderately hanging on. My imagination was working overtime on that big hole that the guy told me about. And the fear I had from the SUVs was definitely real, since it couldn't've been a coincidence.

This report brings to a head many issues that are of keen importance to me, and, thankfully, to you, my faithful readers. Please, those who are sympathetic to my plight -- when plight indeed it is -- keep me in your thoughts ... and prayers. And we'll see this thing through together, always the best way to see things through!

The Industrialists Can Keep Their Darned Hole

That was a close call yesterday. I don't believe I'll be going back to that particular park anytime soon!

Reflecting back on it -- I can barely think of anything else -- I can barely believe it happened. It all happened so fast, and it could be my innocence was my saving grace. The timing was such that it could've gone either way, since when I was pulling out I had no idea about the SUVs. Another minute and I would've been trapped for sure.

Had I been trapped I wouldn't've known what to do. It could've been I wouldn't've had any good options. My back would've been up against two inexorable forces, the river and the industrialists themselves. At that point they would've had free reign over me and could've done anything they wanted. And should that've happened, I would've had to've simply given up.

Of course I would've resisted as long as I could've, which likely wouldn't've been long, seeing there would've been a lot more of them than of me. But, like I said, I would've done what I could've. Then as I would've been going down for the last time, I would've rued the day, knowing I shouldn't've even been there. That would've been indisputable.

But there I was -- scoping out the scene of Voice 1, Voice 2, and Thompson's conversation captured on Tape 3. And in the course of that action, I got the very weird word from the guy coming down the path that there was a big hole on the path about 25 yards in. That's so weird. It's an image that I haven't been able to shake.

I'd love to know how big the hole is. Because in my imagination I've got it about the size of a crater. I'm thinking of a big sinkhole that may've opened up from the force of the river and the bend. But then how would it even be a path anymore? What are we dealing with? Men risking their lives to circumnavigate a crater to find the path again? Would it have slippery slopes, meaning once you're in you're in? I clearly saw the guy coming out, giving me the warning that it's there. Somehow he avoided it.

The thing that's going to happen is nothing. I'm never going to know what that darned hole looks like even if it takes me a million years. Unless I can see it on Google Earth. Because I'm not going back there. It's infested my thoughts. I was thinking about it last night of what a life changer that would be for me. In the worst way. To slip down the slope of that terrible hole would be the pits for me. And I actually do have a lot more personal control and personal restraint for that kind of behavior. Even revulsion. I won't touch the walls of a bathroom. So the heck with it!

There's actual people there who stand opposed to me and everything the Residential Industrial Movement stands for. The major industrial powers couldn't be held back when they didn't carry this grievance, so of course there'd be no restraining them now. Let 'em keep their darned hole! I have work to do.

Nosing Out The Industrialists' Path

Shortly after writing The Industrial Tapes - 3 today, I decided on a whim to go over to the park by the river, the setting of Tape 3's most terrifying passage.

I thought, By the light of day there shouldn't be any problem. People ostensibly take their dogs there to run, and since I have Underbrush, she would be the perfect cover. To be extra safe, I put on a pair of sunglasses left over from a recent visit to the dentist -- they give them out to shield your eyes from the dentist's light -- and a floppy hat I normally only use as protection against the sun.

Getting there, there was a couple of trucks already there, like usual. Something's going on down that path, which I may never find out about, because I'm halfway afraid to walk down it. But I can nose around as I generally do in these kinds of circumstances. And, again, Underbrush is the perfect cover.

I quickly peered down the path, looking as far as I could see (not far at all) without going over to it. The frightening thought came to me, Somewhere down there is the very bush that Thompson emerged from!

About as soon as I thought this, I heard some rustling, startling me. So I turned toward the river just to make it look like we were just there. Then a guy came out from the path. His pants had a freshly zipped look. I averted my eyes, since I'm so open people typically can read my mind. I was nervous, more or less with him on one side and a swollen river on the other.

I waved, then blurted out, "So what is that? Some kind of jogging path?" He said it was, but that I should watch out for the big hole about 25 yards in. Like I'm going in! He wasn't dressed in jogging clothes! And what's this about a big hole 25 yards in? Was he threatening me? It sounded like it, since a predator oftentimes likes to play with its prey. I'd get down there, look in the hole and see a naked guy in the exact center like a spider, and that'd be all she wrote!

I just threw up my hands and pointed to the dog, "She's afraid of holes." So he went on his way, got in his red truck and left.

I got back in my car and we left. Just as I was winding around the final turn of the rock-bordered road, I saw a motorcade of anywhere from two to 10 big black SUVs coming from the road to the right. Thinking maybe it was a welcoming party and farewell party for me all at the same time, I gunned it up and over the hill. Right then -- thank God -- there was a train coming, which I just missed on my way across the tracks.

The short story is, I gunned it again and never actually saw them in my rear view mirror.

The Industrial Tapes - 3

Thank God I have you, my most faithful readers, because I'm feeling very paranoid today. I need a long distance hug if you don't mind.

I was listening to another of The Industrial Tapes, a stash of secretly recorded tapes gotten somehow (through a source) from the major industrial powers. My paranoia is this: 1) I know they're reading the blog and they'll do whatever they need to do to get the tapes back. 2) They were talking about me on this latest tape!

When listening to it, I subjected it to my usual discernment process, listening for background noises, to give me a better understanding of the setting. It was only then that I paid more attention to the conversations taking place.

What I heard on this tape was enough to localize it. What I heard made my hair stand on end! At the same time I had goosebumps, felt a chill go up my spine, and needed to go to the bathroom really badly. Without hairspray, I can't do much about my tousled mane; nor do I have any control over crawling flesh or spinal impulses; but ever since I was a kid, I could control peeing my pants; this time was no exception, as hard as it was to stifle.

On the tape I could hear the rushing of the river in the background, a few dogs yipping and shaking, vehicle doors slamming, and the voices of men saying hello or goodbye! You can't get any more local than that! That's the park down by the river! I take my own dog down there, where she can run. And it seems that every other guy in town does the same! (I've never seen a woman there.)

Not everyone has a dog, of course. There's just a lot of guys who show up, probably because it's a nice place to look at the river. I keep seeing them walk a path and then come back, down there probably going to the bathroom. They come back zipping their pants. I had a sudden thought. I'd hate to imagine what else might be going on down there. But one thing it points out very clearly, the city needs more porta-potties closer to the parking lot.

Anyway, the tape was clearly recorded there, meaning these are guys for whom the sense of urgency is obviously a compulsion. There's nothing they're not capable of, given the luxury of two or three minutes of time. They're willing to take this thing the whole nine yards, and whether I stand a chance against them will depend on how willing I am to yield. So this could be my most challenging trial yet, if and when they get a hold on me.

The worst part of the tape was the conversation they were having about me -- that's what makes it so terrible. Of course I knew I was a topic of conversation among the industrial powers. How could I not be, with all I've done to chap their hide over the last few months? But now they're out for a lot more!

VOICE 1 -- Will I see you tomorrow night?
VOICE 2 -- I'll be here.
VOICE 3 -- Ooo, I love the way you say that, very firm, very manly...
VOICE 2 -- Who said that? Thompson, is that you?
VOICE 3 -- Yeah. [I hear some rustling of branches as Thompson apparently emerges from hiding.]
VOICE 1 -- What are you doing here?
THOMPSON -- The boss sent me down to tell you to step on it.
VOICE 1 AND 2 -- Step on what?
THOMPSON -- The plan, to get him!
VOICE 2 -- You mean?
THOMPSON -- Exactly.

I'm sorry, but since I heard that I'm watching my back, and my backside. These guys have official orders to get me. Now you can see why I need that long distance hug! This is a terrible turn of events!