Battle of Antelope Hills

 

  The beginning of the end for the Comanches in Texas?

  There were comments to the effect that at some of it was bravo sierra.  But "Rip" Ford was the real deal, so what really happened?  I can believe that AI changes stuff around, and it seems to be factually incorrect in spots---yet the story is plausible.  If it was false, an entirely different reality would exist today.

  I've got a Texas History book with an essay written by this Rip Ford.  Interesting how he got the name "Rip".  It means "Rest in Peace".  This wasn't a man to be trifled with.

  One thing I remember in his writing about Comanches in Texas: a bow and arrow in the hands of a Comanche was the equal to a six shooter.  One may question that, but this was from a guy who was in more than a few Indian fights.  Comanches were described as rather bad dudes.  The video describes fairly enough how quickly things could've gone sideways in this battle, and some would say that it wasn't as significant as it was being described.

 The Civil War delayed the inevitable.  By 1875 or so, the American Frontier was tamed.  It would've happened a bit sooner without the war, but history shows that it did happen all the same.

 The Palo Duro Canyon was said to be a very important place for the Comanches. This battle wasn't far from it. Just sayin'.

Ghosts of Christmas's past

The more things change, the more they stay the same

I noticed that on some of these I looked at, I did not post anything at all.

Christmas 2016 was pretty rough. I didn't post. There was a pretty good reason why. Things are somewhat better this year. I should be grateful for that, but why not? Well, at least some spirits didn't show up last night. Or I'm worse off than what I thought...

 

Notice: New blog

7/22/24:

This post was completely forgotten. I should've just deleted the darned thing. Not sure if it still exists. But no posts have been made there. What's the diff? I DID revive another blog. Sorta revived it. Hopefully I won't forget about it again.  Update: 7/23: The private blog has been deleted.  Or shall we say, moved to the Brax.Me site.  Brax.Me is all about privacy.

8/10/19: Actually, it is an old blog.  It is repurposed to go into another direction.

The old address was the "Cheat You Fair" blog.  All posts were deleted, and the blog is now a private blog.

It is called "Private blogger".   Only those who I allow to read it can read it.  Right now, there is nothing there.  If there's any interest in reading what's there in the future, if anybody, can leave a comment here on this blog.

I will consider each person on their own merits.  I reserve the right to refuse anybody or to allow anybody on the Private blogger if I so choose.

If nobody is interested, then there's no harm done.  Nothing is there anymore, anyway.

Caution urged in viewing the Eclipse

4/8/24:

It came, it bored, it went. We got some darkness, as advertised. Some yahoos out there made noise, the dogs barked, and it was over. Whoop, de, doo!

Your previously scheduled blogging will re-commence soon. I feel a little overwhelmed at the moment.



end update of yesterday's post of 4/7/24

The best caution is to not view it directly at all. As for me, I'm in the region of totality, and I'm definitely opting out of it entirely. The eclipse has no bearing on anything at all, as far as I'm concerned. Better to avoid the risk of self-injury, and to skip it altogether.

Avoid eye damage: caution urged for viewing Monday’s eclipse https://t.co/R9iOWcbw2U via @JustTheNews

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) April 7, 2024

Police State flick

Linking from Instapundit.

I must have missed it in theaters. I did look it up earlier this month. To see it, I would have had to have driven an hour to get to the theater. No thanks.

It must have cost a lot to produce this flick. I can see charging admission, but why watch it? Just to feel angry all the time? Somehow or other, there has to be an approach that doesn't make you feel bad all the time. There was a small victory in the choice of Speaker, so I felt a sense of relief. It's not that I disagree, it is that better outcomes through other means might be achievable. I don't think I'll spend the bucks. I don't need convincing that there's a big problem. The polls don't need to persuade anybody that anything's wrong. The direction of country poll has been underwater for most of the last 20 years.

“Police State” was a massive hit in theaters. What’s next? The Virtual Premiere. This Fri. Oct. 27 at 8 pm Eastern. Watch the film, followed by a live Q & A with Dan Bongino and me. Get your tickets now at https://t.co/L3EAH8QJTZ pic.twitter.com/xJOA3IktiL

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 26, 2023

Big Crash On I55 in Louisiana

I did a lot of driving in Louisiana. Like the people, hate the roads. I got stuck on I10 between Lafayette and Baton Rouge once. No way to get off that thing. That delivery was so late that I didn't make there until after dawn the next day. Several hours delay. Lots of phone calls too, asking me where the hell I was.

Horrible situation on I-55 with multiple vehicles on fire, at least one death and emergency responders on the scene. I-10 closed in both directions at the Bonne Carre Spillway to enable first responders to get to the scene. pic.twitter.com/buppTR292l

— WWL-TV (@WWLTV) October 23, 2023

I missed the eclipse

10/15/23: Update on yesterday's post:

This may not need discussion, but here's an explanation for the use of that song. The eclipse had a "ring of fire" this time. Probably because the eclipse took place with the moon at its furtherest distance from Earth. That means it didn't cover the full disk of the sun. Consequently, the sun looks like it has a hole in the middle of it. Hence, "black hole sun".

end update:



Drat it. I wasn't careful enough about it, and was busy doing other things.

Update later...

Here it is on X

The Ring of Fire is awesome. Watch. pic.twitter.com/s0tEuYeOEz

— SweetPeaBelle (@SweetPeaBell326) October 14, 2023

The real crisis

Recent events have gripped the nation.

My reaction has been fairly consistent over the years that I have been writing this blog.

There have been fears of a civil war, but I disagree. This isn't a civil war, it is a coup. If I've written it once, I've written it a dozen times that it isn't a civil war. In order to have a war, there have to be at least two opposing ARMIES. There is only one army in this nation, and at the moment, the left has nominal control over it. The Generals may rebel if Trump should call upon them. This is a very serious threat. It is symbolic of the power play in motion.

The Establishment is on one side, the people are on the other. The people won in 2016, and the Establishment will not accept it.

The punditry on the side in opposition to the Establishment is not organized. Neither de jure organization nor de facto. It simply does not exist. If the left regains power in November, they will only be doing what they have always done. Sadly, so will those who say they oppose them. This might well include Trump himself.

This isn't a rebellion of the proletariat. It is the rebellion of the bourgeoisie. These guys are trying to put a popular front upon an Establishment face. The rioters are their muscles to bring the plebes back into line. They seek to overthrow the legal and rightful head of state over pretended crimes. The riots are just an extension of the same old tactics. That is to delegitimize and ultimately remove the POTUS from office by "any means necessary".

Trump for his part has assumed a populist front, but he courts the Establishment which hates him. The Establishment for their part has a mob of "brownshirts" to reinforce the discipline that they wish to regularize over the entire population. Trump's people are a bit too timid to organize themselves into a real army. The leftist mob is already organized. These riots have been planned for a long time. The George Floyd affair, assuming that it really happened, is just an excuse for what they wanted to do all along. If the Trump people would just organize and take control, this treachery could be crushed.

So we have a nation full of scared people right now. Scared of the rioters. Scared of the virus. Scared of Trump. Maybe these people are just scared of their own shadows. Fake shadows being paraded before them nightly in the news.

One way or another this thing gets resolved. I wouldn't count on the election working out the way the Trump people think. If these people can disrupt the nation this much now, what makes anyone think that they plan on stopping?

There is no Covid-19 health crisis. There is no police misconduct crisis. This crisis is being completely cooked up to disrupt the democratic process and the peaceful transition of power. The Democrats never accepted Trump's victory in 2016 and dragged the country through the phony Mueller investigation for much of these past four years. They impeached him over a nothingburger. They've wrecked the economy with a phony health care crisis and now they intend to disrupt law and order right on up to election day. The crisis is manufactured, but the divisions within the Establishment are real.

What will things look like in November? Will we be able to vote? It's not looking good right now. The real crisis is a political one. The Establishment is losing its grip. Pelosi has lost a grip over her people and decided to "take a knee". This symbolic move demonstrates who is really running the show now. It isn't the so-called moderates. In order to keep their tenuous hold on power, they had to submit to the wildest, most uncontrollable faction of their party. If they are victorious in November, there will be a debt to pay to their foot soldiers.

Trump may be playing for a victory at the polls. It may not happen. The Establishment has too much to lose. They are prepared to unleash the dogs of war upon the public at this very moment. The Generals have spoken. The People must answer. Hiding out in your homes is not a very good answer for these desperate criminals.

First day of summer

Technically, it is about now, which is a little after 4pm Sat. 6.20.20.

At this time of the day, the sun is still fairly high in the sky, but the longest day of the year is winding down. According to the source, the sun is nearly at 270 degrees, which places it due west.

In the winter, it never gets to this point in the sky. It sets about 17 degrees south of this position. The highest the sun gets in the sky in the winter is lower than what it is now. In fact, most of the summer day, the sun is higher in the sky than at its highest point in the winter.

At its highest point today, the sun was at 83 degrees high, which is just 7 degrees short of vertical. The latitude here is also about 7 degrees north of the tropics. This is likely not a mere coincidence. Seems like in science class, it was mentioned that the sun goes directly overhead in the tropics. This location is 7 degrees north of the tropics. Consequently, it is 7 degrees short of vertical 90 degrees on its highest point.

This short little essay is probably quite boring, but it has real world applications when building something. If it is placed just right, the sun will work in your favor. Otherwise, you will have to fight it. That costs more energy for air conditioning or cooling. In the winter, the sun can warm up and thus reduce heating costs.

That is makes me interested in it. This is in reference to my off-grid project. Resources will be limited out there, and it behooves me to plan everything so that there will be enough energy to run the place.

That is all.

Sneaks up on me a lot

Daylight Savings time ends tonight.

I've made this mistake before.  It almost got me again.

Thaz okay.  I am usually drunk by this hour anyway.  /not

Funeral today

Perhaps I should attend, but I am not going.  It is a long way over and a long way back.  That last trip to Houston took a lot out of me.

Hopefully my absence will not cause a problem.  I suppose I could show up.  However, I have decided to follow other priorities.  My regrets are genuine.

I liked my brother in law.  He was good natured and was hard to dislike, if you were so inclined.  He gave no reason to me to be so inclined, and I am not.  He was pretty good to my sister.  He and my sister raised two fine young men ( not quite so young now ).  He liked to work and felt pretty badly at the end when he couldn't do it anymore. 

Time will have its way with us all.  I think I can say he led a good life.  I hope the same could be said of me when it is all over.

Update:

It's over now.  All went well, so I have heard.  His appearance was good for the viewing.

He had a conventional service, for want of a better description.

Valentine's Day

Whaddaya know?  Another day has gone and snuck up on me.  But no need for me to worry about this one, lol.

Thinking long and thinking hard cuz time is running out.  I gotta get outta here by the end of March, and that is only about six more weeks.

This may not seem like one of my off-the-grid posts, but it is now.  Most of today has been spent getting my stuff together.  The plan now is to build the cabin, install a septic tank ( doggone it ), build a carport next to it, and run back and forth between El Paso and the hacienda.  The car will come with me, which will save on storage space.  That's what having the septic tank will do for me.  I can't get around that one.

So, I've been looking up all the RV joints in the El Paso area.  I plan on parking in one of those and "boondocking" while in the city.  You can do that for a few days at a time, then you have to go.  I'll do that for maybe a week at a time, then head back to the hacienda.

It's a plan.  I think it could work, but plans have a way of not working.

BTW, Happy Valentines Day, ya'll.

Prev   Next

David Bowie- Space Oddity Original Video (1969)

David Bowie has died.  He was 69 years old.

I was just thinking about this song not too long ago.  Don't think I embedded it, so here it is.  Of course, it is one of his hit songs.

Memorial Day Holiday

I'm not great about holidays.  To me is a day off which I use to work!  Those were one of many thoughts I had this morning that I can remember.  Most of what I think about gets lost cuz I forget.

I figure that I ought to start back to work on my off-the-grid project.  This sitting on my butt in front of a computer screen is just not good for me.  Yet, when I was working out there, I nearly worked myself to death.  Not kidding either.  I could barely get into an out of my van when I went into town.  I must have looked like a slow motion movie or something.  My very bones ached.

I guess I always figured if I worked hard enough, then I could relax.  But it never seems to happen.

No, I will always work, and since I will, at least I will try to remember when to stop.

Fall of Saigon, 40 years ago

Who won? Judging from the results today, communism lost.



But what I didn't know is that the military defeat of the South was completely unnecessary.  My impression was that the South wouldn't fight.  This article says that they couldn't fight because America wouldn't supply them with the supplies that they needed.  But when they could fight, they did fight, and they fought well.



Vietnam is how the far left got their foot in the door in this country.  Yet it was all unnecessary.  A victory there would have made a difference.  Yet, even a defeat didn't help the far left.  Why can't they be defeated here, for heavens sake?

Summary of the trip out West

I'm going to make a new series out these video posts I made about the trip.  This will be the first of those, and it will serve as the introduction to the series.  ( UPDATE and NOTE:  Blogger will not let me add another series, so this one has to go into the off-the-grid series that already exists.  Since it already exists, it will classified as in the General subseries.  The previous post for that subseries is here, and the Next one will be here.)

The trip took a little over 12 days.  I spent nearly all those nights at a motel room.  That is to say, after working on the quonset hut at the ranch, I came back to town and stayed overnight and went back out again, day after day.  This wasn't the plan, but the van was too cramped to work in, and the overnights were much needed.  It looks like `10 ( gasp ) overnights at a motel room.  My goodness, what an expenditure of money.  I'm going to freak out when I see the bill.

Since I went into town so much ( El Paso three times ), I did a hell of a lot of driving.  Much more than I planned for.  Another reason to freak out.

The product of all that work and expense is this rather primitive and modest little quonset hut.  I am embarrassed to put it up.  It could have used a lot more work, but I decided to come home instead.

Back of hut looking east

Side of hut, looking south

Front of hut, looking west

Side of hut, looking north

Here are the posts for the trip.  I made links for them in case you'd like to watch them.  I didn't do this on the road because of limited internet access and my equipment was inadequate for the job.

1. Left Houston, and stayed at a motel in Fabens, just outside of El Paso.  Very grueling day, as I recall.  I had to make two trips into El Paso for the cattle panels because two wouldn't fit in the van at the same time.  If I had bothered to check, the hardware store in Van Horn had some cattle panels, but not exactly the same as I used.  Those may have worked just as well, and I would have saved a lot of time and money for the driving I did.
2. On the second night, I find myself back in Van Horn because I forgot some plastic spoons that I needed so that I could eat out there.  This kind of extra driving was key to understanding what went wrong out there.  Mistakes were costly in terms of time and money spent correcting them.
3. The third night ( Wednesday ), I spent on my property for the one and only time.  For the rest of the trip, I would spend my evenings at a motel room.  It cost me a lot more than I planned on, but it is necessary for the success of the trip.  Found out that the van was too small to live in.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.   Note to myself:  The battery was fine.  The inverter was fine.  The solar panel and charge controller were not.   Problems start to accumulate.  Weather changes caused delays.
4. The fourth night was after a rain out.  I avoided the wet dirt roads like the plague because the dirt turns into mud, and then you could have a big problem.  Key themes here:  staying organized and informed.  Both were big challenges.
5. Starting to feel it.  I'm pressing for results and it is starting to take a toll on me physically.  Now I have to go into town just to recover from the grueling work outside.
6. Some progress being made, but more work is necessary.  That's the understatement of the year on this here blog.  By the way, another weather delay coming up!
7. Good grief, Charlie Brown.  There was a cartoon of Charlie Brown trying to fly an kite.  That what it felt like out there, with the tarp being flipped around endlessly, so as to get the strings all fouled up and tangled.

   

   The wind is a tricky thing

8. Probably the low point of my trip.  I planned a day of rest only to get bored and worked anyway.  Even though I did, I didn't get much done because of the weather.
9. Starting to contemplate the downside of the trip in terms of costs.
10. Starting to evaluate the value of the trip in terms of its costs.  Time to go home.
11. Finishing the job.
12. Back home, safe and sound.  ( I think )

The most important achievement of all is to get back safe and sound.  The rest wouldn't have mattered if this didn't happen.

Next

Thoughts on the timetable for moving out west

Back to considering an early move yet again.

The thing that may convince me to make the move would be if I can come up with a product that I can make and sell.  What would that be?

Spirulina.  I'm already going to make the stuff for fuel.  I don't want to eat it, but if I am going to sell it, I'd better eat it.  Not exactly looking forward to that, though.  But it must be done to reassure customers that my products are fit for human consumption.  If I can't nor won't eat it, neither will they.  If I do, I may have a chance to sell it, and earn some cash flow.

The Spirulina will be grown into separate batches for human consumption and for fuel.  The fuel can use the lower quality water that I can no longer recycle.  The batch for human consumption can be grown with distilled water, provided that I can make enough of the stuff.  My progress this past weekend on my water filtration ( see video below ) gives me optimism that I can reach this goal.  But I'm not there yet.

A business is going to require going to town more frequently.  I cannot ship from that place in the desert.  I don't think I'll ask anybody to come out there to get the stuff I'm shipping.  It may ship out of the post office in Sierra Blanca.  If somebody wants it faster, I may have it shipped by mail to a location in El Paso, where it can be overnighted anywhere.

There may be regulatory hurdles.  I'll have to look into that.  If all this can be made to work, which is a big "IF" right now, I'll be moving out there sooner rather than later.

Update:

Here's a video of the filter system as it stands now:

Water filtration reminder

This is a reminder to myself, and to anyone who is interested, that I am continuing to work the filtration problem.

If I have the time, which is always in short supply, I am going to conduct another condensation experiment this weekend.  This will be a "full test", with filtered greywater this time.

If the results seem to be good, then what?  How do I know the quality of the water?  That is the subject of this post, something I don't want to forget, hence the reminder.

That is to say, I want to be able to test my results.  There are obvious tests

• is it clear, or is it cloudy?  Duh.  It has to at least look clean, even if it isn't
• does it have a smell?  Yeah, duh again.  If it smells bad, who wants to drink it or wash in it?
• if those two pass, it may not be safe even then.  You need a couple more tests 1) for infectious stuff and 2) for chemicals

Now, I just thought of how to test for chemicals.  Use an evaporation test.  Look for water stains after an evaporation has taken place.  If the treated water is leaving a stain, it has chemicals in it.  The treatment hasn't removed those.

If it passes the chemical test, then just add some bleach and that will take care of the rest!

Now, I'd like to be even more sure than that.  I would consider a test in a lab, but that costs money.  I'll have to wait for that after having run several "successful" experiments with passing tests.

Update:

The water filtration experiment is underway as of 7 pm local time.

Early indications is that it's not going to be as efficient this time.  I'm guessing that the reason is that I've plugged up all the escape ways for the vapor, and I've not added enough cooling in the container. It may take a few hours running this thing in order to process most of the water.

It's only 1 pint of greywater that I filtered earlier this week.  The greywater is mostly clear and yellowish in tint.  No doubt the coloring is from the charcoal.   The sudsy quality is reduced, but still present.  This is a lot like the initial test several weeks ago.  Now, the thing to determine is if the yellowish tint is gone in the condensate, and whether or not the chemicals were removed.  That's the big question to answer.

Back with results perhaps tomorrow morning local time.  I don't know how long this thing is going to run, and once it is through, I'm going to "sack out".

Update ( one hour later ):

As I thought, the efficiency is way, way down.  I'm going to run this thing a lot longer in order to capture enough water to determine if it is getting cleaned up any.

Update ( three hours into experiment and halted ):

The halt is happening because it just isn't processing the water.  Only 3 ounces in 3 hours.  Probably less than an ounce was recoverable.  Of the water recovered, it looked good, but there's so little.  Don't know if this is a malfunction, or a setup that was self-defeating in some way.  First indications are that it won't process the water very well in any case.  It is either because the humidifier is malfunctioning or it won't process this type of water.  I'll do a test on distilled or tap water first thing in the morning.  As of now, I've gotta get some rest.

Update ( Sat. 10/11 ( next morning ) ):

I did the water droplet test on the little amount of water collected.  It did leave a slight residue, which suggests that the water is not pure.  Also, in the container, there are water stains all over the saran wrap.  Clearly, the condensation is not producing pure water.

Secondly, I did a test on the humidifier in order to determine what was going on there with the low output.  No question about it, tap water does much better than the filtered greywater.  The efficiency drops noticeably.  It may not account for all of the bad performance, but it does explain a significant part of it.

Of all the experiments I've run so far, the humidifier problem seems to be the show stopper.  This method of purification does not appear to work well enough.

I may do some more tests, but the verdict is starting to look negative for this method.

Update  ( maybe an hour or so later this morning ):

The rate that the humidifier worked with the greywater was measured just now.  It is not precise, unfortunately.  However, I did measure it precisely last night.  Heck, I still can, wait a sec.

Between 11 and 12 ounces was collected, and 13 last night.  That means over an hour, and it has produced less than 2 ounces of mist.  Clearly, this is much, much less than last week.  Didn't I get about 10 ounces?  It was far better than this.  Too lazy to go look it up, but it isn't really necessary.  The greywater doesn't mist as well, no doubt about it.

To top all of that off, it looks like the greywater has to be filtered more than once in order to get it to clear up.  Dirtier water will work even less well with this humidifier.

Final conclusion:  Too early to shut this down, but it isn't looking good at the moment.  I've got some activated charcoal coming and I could try to improve upon the filtration from the sand.  But as it stands right now, this isn't good enough.  Not by a long shot.  The greywater has to be filtered significantly better before it can go through the humidifier.

The Travis Letters Requesting Assistance In Defense of The Alamo From Mexican Forces

The Official Alamo Website

Quote:

On March 11, 1836, General Sam Houston arrived at Gonzales to find nearly 350 men assembled and ready to march to the Alamo’s aid. Sadly, shortly after Houston’s arrival word reached the community that the Alamo had fallen five days earlier. The news set off the Runaway Scrape. The volunteers gathered at Goliad became the nucleus of the army that Houston took to San Jacinto. Thus, it is little wonder that their battle cry became “Remember the Alamo!” 

Comment:

After receiving the news of the fall of the Alamo, Sam Houston began to retreat, which did not go over very well with his men.  During the retreat, there was a massacre of Fannin's men at Goliad.  But victory was achieved at San Jacinto about a month later.

I want you to see this purchase at Amazon.com

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