Musings
Friday, October 13, 2006
Do you feel ashamed of being an American?
Do you wish you were born somewhere else?
When asked if you have any pride in your country, does the word 'No' come easily and immediately to mind?
Do you feel obliged to apologize to the world for how bad the country you were born in is?
Do you think that the root cause for theocratic despotism, poverty and unrest in other countries is ultimately because America is greedy and self-serving?
Do you think that it's the reponsibility of each American citizen to acknowledge that and work to end suffering in other places?
Do you think that it's part of your responsibility as a progressive thinker to support legislation that compels compliance by others who do not share your insights?
Do you wish that Al Gore didn't have the election blatantly stolen from him?
Do you believe that you are open-minded and thoughtful people committed to moving civilization to new heights, but the current US government is in the hands of stupid, oil-rich, intolerant Christians who aren't sensitive to the needs of the underprivileged?
If you answer 'Yes' to these questions, then I might have some folks I can put you in touch with here in Vermont who would be eager to offer their emotional and verbal support in a politically and socially oriented circle-jerk. For me, the inherently terminal aspect of my own life helps me adhere to a more individually-oriented perspective.
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his. – John Locke
It's no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty. – Albert Einstein
Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. – Mikhail Bakunin
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. – Aldous Huxley
Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free. – Harry Browne
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H.L. Mencken
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
It’s 78 degrees here in my loft. And it’s 51 degrees and raining outside on my hill here in Vermont. This time of year, nature’s chill is impotent in the face of my woodstove. Sometime in January, it’ll be a more even contest, but usually the woodstove wins out in the end if I keep it full of logs. This year, that’s my plan. Propane runs the furnace, and it costs money. Wood stokes the woodstove, and I have more free wood than I know what to do with since about 8.5 of my 10.5 acres are woods. I’ve still got a good pile left over from last year, and I dropped two standing dead trees this week that are in good shape to split, so I think I will have enough to really keep the stove going this year and hopefully significantly reduce my furnace/propane consumption.
In other news, I am buying a second car. I drive an F350 diesel for work, and while it’s a big, honkin’ truck that is fun to tool around in, it gets about 15 MPG and diesel costs about 15 cents more than the most expensive unleaded these days. Not sure how that works, given that diesel is two steps away from raw crude, and it costs a shitload less to refine thereby, but that’s pretty much how the price has been since things got really shitty last year. So between those two variables, the price of fuel for my truck, like fuel for my furnace at home, is something I am looking to reduce. I am going to accomplish that by getting a 2001 Subaru Outback. 20-something MPG and I can run it on regular unleaded, which is going for $2.29 around here right now (That’s 35 cents cheaper a gallon than diesel). Even with the additional insurance expense, I figure I will eventually break even on the purchase.
Let’s see, what else? I am going to Tarrytown, NY on Friday to see a Pink Floyd cover band at a club with an old friend from high school. Then on to coastal CT for a visit with my dad. Then back here to VT for next week, trying to get things in ship-shape for the winter in between working on the horses I have booked. That’s about the whole deal from a practical standpoint. If I can think of any ethical or metaphysical points to ponder, I’ll post them. Else, talk amongst yourselves…
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Have you ever noticed how sometimes you miss stuff? I mean there's all kinds of stuff you can miss. Implicit meaning in someone else's tone, a high fastball, the train home after a hard day. You can really miss anything. It's a tough word too. Is it a miss as in a swing-and-a-miss, i.e. not connecting, or is it a miss as in I-really-miss-my-old-friend. I suppose that's not connecting too. Maybe it's not that hard a word.
Here's something I miss a lot: Everything around me. The world moving along. The bird on the sidewalk eating a french fry. The West River flowing down inexorably toward the Connecticut, August low but still moving around the rocks that pave it's course. I often just don't see, or maybe feel, or maybe experience things as much, or as deeply, or as meaningfully as I would like. And I miss it in both the fastball and yearning senses of the word.
My head seems to be the place that I live, and what gets into my head is pretty haphazard I guess. Or maybe not so much haphazard as dependent on where I am at mentally and emotionally at a given time, or over a given period. I guess that where you are living on the inside at any given moment impacts how much of life on the outside that you are in tune with. Now the outside might not be anything more than mundane details that don't seem to touch the strategy by which I am trying to move my life forward. But here is the tricky part I think - the life that I am trying to 'move forward' is sometimes (often?) being missed (ignored?) while I plan and strategize and worry and execute and plan some more. Like someday if the magic something is arrived at, then all the mind work will cease and nirvana/utopia/bliss will magically invest itself in me, replacing the thinking with peace and contentment.
While this may be something I perpetually struggle with, and it may be more physio-chemical in it's sources than it is a mighty spiritual issue, this is not news to some folks.
To wit:
Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter... This is it... If you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here's the place to have the experience. Joseph Campbell
When we are capable of living in the moment free from the tyranny of "shoulds," free from the nagging sensation that this moment isn't right, we will have peaceful hearts. Joan Borysenko
Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today. Marcus Valerius Martialis
Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream. Kahlil Gibran
All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Dale Carnegie
There are fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of someone less fortunate. Today you can make your life - significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with as you will. Grenville Kleiser
But missing moments slide into missing days, or days simply breathed through but not lived. So it seems that focusing on this day is still to large for me. I remember something I read once that said 'how we spend our days is, after all, how we spend our lives.' I would suggest a more discrete unit of measure. How I spend my moments turns into minutes, turning into hours, into days, and into my life. It's truly the present moment that needs my attention. Not my nagging and wanting and hoping and wishing. Just my attention. And maybe my appreciation. But gratitude is a whole other topic that needs some space of it's own.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
I have a Labrador retriever.
I was buying a large bag of Purina at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out.
A woman behind me asked if I had a dog?
On impulse, I told her that no, and that I was starting The Purina Diet again.
Although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time,
but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward
with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet
and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets
and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry
and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.
Horrified, she asked if ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me.
I told her no; I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Ok, I decided not to spend any more time thinking about my cousin's wedding. It was kind of like a cross between Caddyshack and Dazed and Confused. A clash of cultures between older affluence and 30-somethings who never got over their stoner college days. On the plus side, the drinks and food were free and excellent, and I got to spend some time with extended family who I hadn't seen in many years, so that was good. Had an uncle tell me stories about my dad, back in the days when they were young and stupid. That was cool. Got to luxuriate in the lap of, well, luxury for a few days. That was nice too. All in all, I guess it was worth it to me. Whether or not the family consensus is positive remains to be seen. I'd probably fall off my chair if there wasn't a torrent of evil, gossipy nastiness rippling through the matrons and patrons of my clan. Such is the way the world turns in that alternate reality...
I had another date on Tuesday. Went to the Altamont, NY fair. I had thought it would be fun, but it turned out to be really, really fun. Got to see a bunch of draft horse cart-pulling events, talk to a blacksmith about the differences in anvil dimensions for smithy work vs. shoeing work, eat some apple cider donuts, get a new straw cowboy hat, ate a nasty corndog, have an enjoyable conversation with my date about the defining characteristics of something being considered a 'sport', and kissed a pretty girl (same girl, dumbass). Really, it beat the living snot out of a family wedding. Funny how a day can go way too quick when you'd like it to go on forever.
I guess I'll have something more deeply philosophical to muse on at some point, but right now all I got in the tank is day-in-the-life updates. Maybe I'm using a different part of my brain right now. Whatever. It's working for me.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Haven't sat down and finished my thoughts about my cousin's wedding last weekend, so here is something to hold you over...
A census taker in a rural area went up to a farmhouse and knocked. When a woman came to the door, he asked her how many children she had and their ages. She said, "Les' see now, there's the twins, Sally and Billy, they're thirty-two. And the twins, Seth & Beth, they're twenty-six. And the twins, Penny and Jenny, they're twenty-four ... " "Hold on!" said the census taker, "Did you get twins EVERY time?" The woman answered, " Heck no, there were hundreds of times we didn't get nothin."
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Today is going to be a good day. I've got a good book of horses, the sun is shining, and I've got a hot date tonight. I am not sure what I did to deserve this, but I'm going to go with it and hope the Karmic bean counters don't find out, or I'm going to owe big. Remember, my friends, be open to the good things. Bad things happen, and you have to suck it up and get through that, so why not take the same tact with the good stuff? Man, this whole life thing is a little beyond me...
And then there are these two cannibals eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Shod a few horses over the last couple days, and have a few trims and a half shoe tomorrow. Already have 5 or 6 horses scheduled for next week too, so things are moving along pretty well. After 3+ months of the first season in a new area, my actual revenue has exceeded the business plan projections month over month. I'm not a patient man, so I still have to remind myself that exceeding expectations is success, even if it's not the immediate perfection that I am targetting congenitally.
Had a really nice zen satori kind of moment today shoeing a horse down the road. Each shoe took one pass at the anvil and it was a spot-on perimeter fit. This might not make a ton of sense if you are one of the few who hasn't ever done any blacksmithing, but time is eaten making multiple trips back to the forge to re-work and re-work the same shoe, trying to optimize the shape to the conformation of the particular animal you are working on. Getting good at taking a mental picture of the hoof shape, then turning that hot metal into the same picture without ever going back to the hoof to look/check again, now that is expertise. So, when it happens, it feels good. Like a buddy of mine is fond of saying, 'Even a blind squirrel gets a nut now and then.'
In other news, I am on the road yet again this weekend, heading back to CT for my cousin's wedding. It's going to be in a very old-school yacht club down on Long Island Sound. Needless to say, I am going to comport myself appropriately. That does not, however, imply that I am going to refrain from sitting on the veranda and drinking rum and coke until I get pirate drunk. Arrrrrr! Prepare to be boarded!
Here's a joke that involves both bad beer and horses. What more could I ask for?
"Two elderly gentlemen spend their afternoons sitting on a bench in front of a barber shop arguing about current affairs, debating political issues and discussing life in general. Among their favorite arguments concerns which of the local brands of beer is the best. The one gentleman has his favorite, while the other gentleman favors a different brand. After several years of listening to this argument, the barber in front of whose shop the two gentlemen sit says, "There is a way you can resvolve this dispute once and for all. Why don't you send samples of each brand of beer off to one of those new-fangled laboratories where they can test them and determine which is actually the better quality of the two."
The gentlemen find this suggestion appealing, and so they walk across the street to their favorite saloon and ask the bartender to scrounge up two jars, fill them with the respective brands of beer, and package them up for delivery to the laboratory.
After a few months, an envelope arrives at the local post office. Eager to read the test results, the two gentlemen scury over to their favorite bench in front of the barber shop and open the envelope. Inside is a letter which reads, "Gentlemen -- Thank you for submitting the two specimens. We are happy to report that both performed very well under testing. In fact, it is our conclusion that both horses are in the best of health."
Last word: some bundle cigars are a nice deal, some are real crap. Choose wisely.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Have you ever heard the classic tune 'Fools Rush In'? It's very beautiful. One of those songs that always brings me to a time and a place in my head before I was born. 1940-something, dancing around and around on the hardwood floor of some elegant ballroom.
I actually have a picture of my dad at 16 or so in 1954, doing exactly that in Madison Square Garden with a beautiful girl. First time I saw it, I didn't even know it was him. I'd never seen a picture of him as anything other than my dad. But here was some good looking kid, dressed to the nines, ballroom dancing in Manhattan. It makes me a little teary, thinking about how much of his life I don't know, and how he is 68 now, struggling with the fact that his body isn't the reliable machine his head and heart think it is. I had to help him on and off his boat a couple of months ago. It's not that he's decrepit. He just expects everything to work the way it always has, and it doesn't always work out these days. I am glad I was there to help, because he's my dad and I owe him more than I can ever repay.
He wasn't the perfect dad, or the perfect man, but he stuck with me the best he could both while I was a little kid and then later when I was out making my own messes, or life was just being life. He has always stepped in, giving what he had to give whenever the shit had hit the fan. He also taught me things like a handshake is your word, and there is a right way to be, regardless of what the world is doing. The funny thing is that his and my version of what that right is isn't always the same, but the issue of being true to yourself, true to your word and doing your best to live up to standards is still there.
I think I may have also inherited some of that timeless self-vision from him. Somewhere inside, I am just me, and am the same guy I've always been, physically, emotionally and mentally. At least, that's the way I think of myself. The reality is that I'm 38 and have definitely put some serious mileage on this old frame. Maybe it's just a delayed maturation process. I dunno. If it is, then I am definitely running on the same track my dad laid out 30 years ago.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
It's late and I can't sleep, though I'm tired and I have some unruly horses to shoe in the morning. Damn. Maybe Benadryl would be a better option than typing.
I saw a deer in my lower field today. That was cool. Not that they aren't around often in this area, but she was contentedly eating for 10 minutes about 100 yards from my porch, so I got to sit there and drink sweet tea and she got to eat green stuff.
Speaking of sweet tea, I have a bone to pick with Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington, MA. They have some mighty fine BBQ. Probably the best in Eastern MA. What I can't figure out is why the dispenser marked TEA contains a foul mix of sugar, granulated tea flavor and water. Thank you, Lipton. I had already prepared myself to endure the slight offense of having to sweeten my own tea (it being here in the North) but to endure patently false advertising that the swill in that tin container was tea at all was only partially mitigated by the fact that the pulled pork sam-ich was, as always, very nice. Hmmmnnn...Ok, the pork completely obliterated the tea problem. Still, can I get some sweet tea please? Somewhere? Anywhere north of DC? Please?
Speaking of BBQ, I have bought a whole pig and a half steer from my friends who own Sleeping Dog Farm in Whitingham, VT. Soon, the pig is going to it's very timely end, and I am going to have a freezer full of things that will inexorably pull me to smoke them until they are falling off the bone and I fall down dead in Hog Heaven. With quality BBQ (the real kind, not the ribs you covered in KC Masterpiece and cooked in a pan in the oven. Shame on you), I strongly encourage you to try Rauchbier. Literally, the translation of this German is "Smoke Beer". They smoke the malt over peat before roasting it, and the beer has an absolutely unholy smokiness that was born to BBQ. Really. I'm not kidding. Try it. If you fall down dead too, then we can compare notes sitting in hog heaven, with an endless supply of pulled pork and Carolina red sauce to keep us comfortable for eternity.
Ok, it's benadryl time. Over and out.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Been on the road for a couple of days now...
Worked pretty solid both Tues and Wed. this week, then headed out of town for a break. Made decent money and felt good about the quality of the work I did, which is always a good feeling. Then I got back in the truck and went to visit some friends from high school down in CT, since this is allegedly our 20th reunion year. Man, that was weird. I hadn't seen some of these folks in two decades, but sitting down around a backyard table and shooting the shit made it seem like nothing had ever changed. It kind of blows my mind. My best friend from high school, who I haven't seen or talked to in probably 17 years, is a bartender up in Boston, a place I lived for 12 years. He lives a couple blocks in Somerville from where I lived for 4 years. Knew the same stores, the same bars, the same restaurants, but we'd never seen them together. Yet he and I did some STUFF together back when we were young and STUPID. Like I said, weird.
Came up to Boston myself to see the Dixie Chicks last night. The show was kind of ho-hum, but I got to go with 2 women, so that was nice. This, despite the fact that one of them was a best friend's wife and the other a co-worker from back in my corporate days. Still, they are both sharp, funny and pretty, so I had that going for me. Better company to a concert would be hard to imagine.
Today is a rest day, then back to VT tomorrow to pick up the work thread for the coming week. I am looking forward to shoeing some horses, especially for the new client I have on Tuesday. I hope the weather holds, because I would like to get out on the lake and do a little swimming / fishing too.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Where, oh where, to start...
I am recovered from the accident and the farrier business is picking up significantly here in Vermont, so I've got that going for me. It's not as busy as I would like, but it's good to be adding new clients on a regular basis and still have some time to enjoy the weather. Honestly, I am not looking forward to next winter here. Maybe I'll have to go to Florida or South Carolina or somewhere else where there are lots of horses and a lot less snow. Or maybe I just need to let the passage of time move my mind past the wreckage of the recent past.
I recently took a trip back to Missouri to visit some folks. It was a very happy trip for me, seeing friends and comrades whose relationships I forged under extraordinary conditions. I got a real sense of welcome across the board, and was reminded that there are people who enjoy having me around and who I have fun with. That may seem a strange thing to say, but I failed to mention that I recently finalized a divorce. Adding that to the car wreck I had in January, I have been floating around kind of emotionally overwhelmed for awhile now, wondering where and when this hot air balloon of surreality is going to set down. Being around good people helps a lot to remind me that life itself is good and there are always more good things to come if you are open to them.
Right now, home in Vermont feels like the scene of a crime, complete with yellow tape around it. I don't know when, or if, that will change. Every chance I get, I am hitting the road and visiting with old friends who I hadn't seen in too long. Between the growing business and the road trips, I am keeping pretty busy, which is nice. Only time will tell if my distaste for this place will fade into faint memory, or if it will continue to grow until I finally pack up the truck and split to other parts.
It's a good thing I like country music.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
My life has been a bit like Clockwork Orange in it's surreal outlook for the past 10 months or so.
Short version: I got home from horseshoeing school around labor day '05, spent much of the fall and early winter shoeing with a farrier down in Massachusetts who turned out to be a grand waste of my time from a business perspective, then I got into a big car accident just after the holidays that about put my name on a headstone. I have been recovering from that since it happened, and hopefully will be able to get back to doing some work around mid-April.
It's been a long, long winter, what with being cooped up in the house and mostly completely broken in body and often, also, in spirit. I am eager for it to be over, and to re-engage my life, albeit with a somewhat different outlook in a number of fundamental areas.
I'd wax poetic about that, but I need to think about how to write it down since it mostly has to do with the feeling-state within which I had been addressing my life. It turns out that, in light of an almost-dead experience at the ripe young age of 37, I am not happy with the internal framework I had come to lean on in dealing with life. Apparently, I don't have as much control as thought I did over what happens.
Beware 17 year old drivers and don't forget to tell your friends and family that you love them. That about all I have to sum things up.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Got a note today from my friend Chris. He works at Fidelity Investments, where I last worked before embarking on my new career. He's a good guy, which made me think about all the cool people I know and also made me wonder how they are doing since I came out here. Life here is really strange. There is an aspect of it that is amazingly freeing because no one knows you, you don't know anyone, and everything is brand new. Now that I've been here awhile, though, I am starting to think more and more about how I miss my home, my friends...it's getting time to say goodbye to this relatively brief interlude and get back to the business of my life.
This sure has been one hell of an adventure. Something I couldn't have really imagined before I got here. I have made friends who I hope to be lifelong. I have learned a whole new trade, a craft that requires manual expertise and artistry, something I didn't know if I could pull off. And now, with a shy year of adventure under my belt, it's coming time to go home and begin the next phase of my epic journey. I'll miss my brothers-in-arms who struggled through this beginning with me, but as most of them have already left for their homes across the country, I am feeling the inevitable pull of goodbye to this place.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
It’s been awhile since I have posted anything. Been kind of busy. Making a trip down to Joplin just to post is a pain. Since my last post, I have passed the second written test (my average for the two tests is a 95), I passed my practical mid-term (two handmades with clips in under two hours. I got it done in 1:40), I went to an AFA certification in Beebe, Arkansas and passed the written test (still have to pass the shoe display and the practical), and have gone and come back from a 4th of July vacation week at home in VT. Busy, busy, busy.
The week home was too short. Did a lot, saw a lot of people. Had great weather for the first couple of days, and had a great 4th of July party at home. Also went and saw the Vermont Symphony at Grafton Hill Ski Area and saw those fireworks, which was cool. My fireworks after the BBQ at my house on the actual 4th were better IMHO. Who knew that you could buy fireworks like that for your own personal consumption? Mental note: get some more fireworks next time you are home. There is no reason to limit gunpowder-based fun to the 4th.
I trimmed a new draft horse while I was home. She is a leaner, which is exhausting with large horses. We’ll see what can be done to break her of that habit when I get home for good. Rode her a couple of times, too. Other than a bad alignment problem she has (she pulls hard to the right when you take your hands off the wheel) she’s very mellow, which is good for an inexperienced rider like myself.
The next, and final, two months are all about handmade shoes and getting ready for my final practical test, as well as one short paper I have to do, and the final comprehensive test. I expect that these last 8 weeks will go the fastest yet. I have already met, made friends with, and said goodbye to two sets of people. I am getting tired of that part. We’ll see how many FNG’s come in this last 8 week class who I feel like talking too. They show up tonight, as the next class starts tomorrow. The heat here is truly scorching. It’s going to be a real sweatfest as we head into the dog days of summer here in the mid-west.
I posted a couple new vids on the misc media page. More ‘day in the life’ type stuff. The downloads range from 14 mb to about 90 mb, so you better have broadband if you want to see them.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
We had a six foot black king snake in the bunkhouse today. I put a picture up of the captive serpent, held by Miguel, our Uruguayan snake charmer, on the pics page. Turns out they are all over the place. They seem to particularly like foundations. It also turns out that they eat rodents and other snakes, especially poisonous ones, so we are squarely divided in opinion: those of us of reasonable and sound mind are happy to have the new tenant, but the hysterical snake-a-phobes can’t stand the thought of it. (what’s the word people who are scared of snakes? Without internet access, how can I possibly find it?)
The other big item is that I ran a 29.20 for 4-miles. I know it’s no Olympic record, but I soundly broke the 8 minute mile over the stretch, which was a nice deal. Weight is at 177 with 15% body fat. That’s not great either, but it’s better than it was by a good bit. More to come on that front as the time goes by…
The tenants moved out of the house that’s for rent on the school property and I think I am going to rent it. It’s got central air, which is going to be important as the heat starts to pick up here. I posted a pic of the house too on the pics page.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Saturday morning...a day to rest, a day to do laundry, a day to drink coffee and pilgrimmage to the Walmart.
We trimmed 25 miniature horses yesterday. That's the first time I had to deal with them. My verdict? They are a grand waste of time. They are tiny horses, standing about as high as your thigh, and the people who have them are likely the same people who as adults create elaborate Victorian doll houses out of hobby materials.
Earlier in the day, we trimmed or shod 10 or so young stud colts who hadn't hardly been touched. A young horse is a stupid and dangerous horse when it comes to farriery. They kick, they pull at their lead lines, they rear and buck. They are alternately terrified and aggressive. I am sure going to be glad when I don't have to deal with horses this stupid in my private practice. As a student, we take whatever business we can get, which means the horses of the people who are too cheap to pay a decent professional farrier. Usually, they are the same people who don't believe that excessive grass can cause founder, or that a horse needs to be shod more than once every six months, or that owning a horse entails a modicum of responsibility. It's just plain irresponsibility from where I sit. It will be interesting to see how long I can improve my client base when I get home to weed out the people who for whatever reason aren't willing to take good care of their horses.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Well, where to start? Lots of changes since my last post. I’m off the Starbucks/Energy Drink shooters. I recently replaced them with Hydroxycut, a weight loss supplement that has about 2 cups of coffee worth of caffeine in each dose. That was screwing up my sleep, so I dropped that too. I am back to a fairly regular regimen of morning coffee and decaf English breakfast tea at night. Been running almost every day. Usually 4 or 8 miles, depending on how my shins are feeling. Got a couple running buddies, Miguel (Stitch) and Ed (Chuckie). They are both harder men than I, so it keeps me on my toes, trying to hang with them. Ed basically goes out hard and stays that way, which is a bitch. Miguel starts slow, so slow you often lose sight of him behind on the 8 mile loop, then he comes on strong, invariably passing you at a ¾ pace with a half mile to go. Rotten little fucker. I’ve lost about 15 lbs and have gone from a 35 waist to a 32-33. I’m pleased with the progress, but I am targeting an overall weight of 170 by the time I am done. If I can hit that weight, I should be pretty ripped, be within the BMI for my height and be able to get a tattoo, my reward to myself for finally hitting my target weight. I’m thinking about one of those tribal arm bands that all the porn stars have. Not that I’ve ever seen any porn.
No, really. I’ve never watched porn.
OK, maybe just a little.
Really, just a little.
C'mon.
The first class of 8-weekers graduated a week ago. A bunch of people I now consider friends went home. It kind of sucked. It felt a lot like the end of summer camp when you are little. You promise to keep in touch, but you never really do. Goodbyes are something I have never really got comfortable with. The new class showed up on Monday. I was a little worried that they might be a bunch of jerkoffs, but it turns out that they seem to be motivated and serious for the most part. There is a whackjob, Luanne, who we all hope will quit. There is also a 19 yr old kid from Michigan who spends all his time trying to let everyone know how much of an expert shoer he already is. It remains to be seen whether he will stick around and wise up, realizing that we are here to learn, not talk smack, or whether he will bail. Either way is fine by me.
I am a little behind on my forging projects. I am hoping that I can catch up tonight and be ready for the next batch we get assigned this week. I am also feeling a little shaky on some of my shoeing technique basics, which is a little weird, since as ‘seniors’, those of us who have been here for 8 weeks already are doing a lot of counseling and correcting of the new guys. I guess I do know a shit load more than I did when I got here, but I am nowhere near where I need to be. I have almost 4 months left to raise the bar. I should be in very good shape by the time I am done.
A couple interesting items: Last week I shot a .40 caliber Glock pistol for the first time. Bitch was loud. It was fun. My buddy Giggles showed me how to do it. It was pretty impressive to watch him shoot. I also went out the other night and cut the legs off a dead horse for dissection use at the school. In case you were wondering, it’s not a whole lot different than butchering a whole chicken into parts, just a bit bigger. The poor bastard had been put down by a vet in the middle of a pasture. Miguel and I just drove out there with boning knives and took the limbs in plastic grocery bags. I think I know now what it was like to rob graves for anatomical study back in the day. It's nice a closing of the loop to be using my knowledge of how to bone a chicken, learned in another career in Boston, here in a pasture in Missouri.
I put up some pics of this place and what I am doing here on the picture page. They are on the bottom. Go check them out. I have some mpegs too, but they are about 50mb. I’ll see if I can get them online.
Final word for today’s post: do not take up running to ease your sex drive while you’re away at school. Apparently, physical exertion actually increases your libido. I could punch a hole in sheet metal some mornings. I’d be beating my dick like it owes me money, but there isn’t much privacy here and Gandhi wouldn’t approve.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Well, it’s tax day. I did mine before I came out here to Missouri, so no stress for me. I do have a head cold though, which is not a good thing. Given the physical demands of school, getting sick is a luxury I can ill afford. I had a stroke of good luck in the form of one of the other 6 month students here. Miguel is from Uruguay, where apparently antibiotics are sold over the counter. So I am taking some South American drugs, which have seemed to really knock my cold back on its heels. Thanks to Miguel for that. He got his nickname, Stitch, because he cut himself pretty badly in the first week of school, severing an artery in his wrist. Apparently, there are several arteries in the area, so they just sewed up the two ends and stitched it up. System redundancy is a good thing.
We shod about a dozen horses out at a Tyson chicken farm the other day. It was pretty fowl. 8-)There were several large compost-type bins that were filled with dead chickens. We had to shoe the horses right next to them. Believe me, it smelled even worse than you think. Chicken shit was everywhere, as were the flies and the maggots. It was pretty nasty stuff. I also smacked my thumb with my driving hammer while I was trying to set the nails on a shoe, shearing the tip off my thumb. It bled like a bastard. I had to keep wrapping it in tape until I finally got enough on it that the blood couldn’t seep through. A chicken farm isn’t the ideal place to get an open wound, but luckily it didn’t get infected. Another couple of days and it should be healed all together. The lesson of the chicken farm is this: don’t be the cheapest farrier in your area, because all of your clients will be the client that no one else wants. As a horseshoeing school, that’s pretty much the only type of client we get. The upside is that when I get home and get to start working for myself, it will likely be a very rare day when I have horses and working conditions as bad as some we have had out here.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a big day. We are working a charity gig and we have about 30 horses to shoe. It’s going to be a slog. It will be the most I have done in a single day, so it ought to be a good benchmark of both where my skills and stamina are at. Hopefully, I will be able to pull my weight, do a quality job and not get sick all over again.
I had a dream last night that I quicked a horse I was working on. Quicking a horse is when you draw blood either by driving a nail into sensitive structure in the hoof or taking too much sole and get into live tissue that way. In my dream, I was nipping off the dorsal (front) surface of a hoof in the same way you would for a foundered pony. This part was probably because we had worked on a foundered pony yesterday. But I nipped too close, past the white line, and could see a spreading dark stain in my dream. Not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I haven’t quicked a horse since my first day here and I am not planning on doing it again any time soon.
The weather is getting real nice. It’s been in the mid-70’s and the leaves are really starting to pop. We’ve all kind of fallen into a daily groove. I need to spend a little more time in the forge and re-visit the books. It’s time to re-focus and re-motivate. 1 month down, 5 more to go.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Yesterday completed 4 weeks of school. 1 month down, 5 more months to go. It’s Saturday morning, it’s sunny and 72, and I have a cup of Irish breakfast tea (a little milk and 3 sugars, plz) and Claude DeBussy on the CD player. Life is good. Things have settled in a little. We are all shoeing between one and two horses a day, plus the forging projects which consist mostly right now of shaping basic shoe shapes, adding nail holes and forging basic farrier tools like forepunches, pritchels and clinch blocks.
Injury-wise, I am in pretty good shape. I have quite a few superficial cuts and scrapes, but all the deeper wounds and bad burns have begun to really heal up. I don’t know if I am getting better, or just luckier, but either way it’s cool. The only really persistent issue is my left middle finger. It still locks shut on it’s own and I literally have to pull it open again, which fucking hurts. It’s kind of curled now and hard to straighten too. I have to figure that one out, but at least it still is working. In the meantime, more knuckle candy.
Having settled in a bit, I’ve begun to run a little. There is a nice 4 mile loop from the bunkhouse and back that goes down a couple farm roads with nothing but cattle and pasture on either side. It’s a good distance, and I think I am getting a little stronger most times I run it. Chucky and I have agreed to do a 10k charity run on Sat. May 7th here in Lamar. That’s about 6.2 miles, I think, so we’ll need to bump up our training distance over the next couple of weeks. One of the great benefits of this new career is that it gives me a reason to workout, both cardio and weights. The stronger and fitter I am, the better I will be at my job. How fucking cool is that? Time in a gym or working out anywhere is no longer stolen time trying to add some modicum of fitness to an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. It’s a requirement for top work performance. Sweet.
That’s about the whole nut for now. I finally got my email issues sorted out at the local truckstop, so I should be able to send and receive mail now, as well as post updates now and again.
