Republican Cyborgs Try to Stop Me From Having Electricity

One really cool thing about a blog that I never knew existed, is that there is a little stats page that tracks how many people visit your site. Not only does it tell you how many, but it tells you what kind of operating system they have, what kind of machine they are using, and which country they are in. Much to my delight I have received 50 visitors during the first day, and one of them was even using an iPad. The best part, though, is that while 49 people were from the US, one person viewed from Canada. And this means I am officially an international success. The people who look at my website are cosmopolitan jetsetters flitting hither and thither to glamorous places like Canada with their iPads. Move over Jack Welch, the world now belongs to me.

Last night was the first of my hermitage, and I somehow managed to make it pretty eventful. You see, dear readers, this "cabin" is really a giant straw house in the middle of nowhere, and it is a hungry beast that constantly requires power.


To supply this power there are two solar arrays, a windmill, and a brilliantly blue diesel generator I have decided to name Helga. All of these things run into a giant battery bank, which then does its best to feed the straw beast's insatiable electrical needs. Because of the variety of power sources, Helga only needs to run some of the time, but the only time there is unlimited electricity is when she is running. So if you want to wash the dishes, dry some clothes, take a shower, etc, Helga needs to be running or you will exhaust the batteries. Helga starts automatically, so the only way of knowing when she will turn on is by navigating through this arcane little computer system that has only four buttons and an instruction manual in Sanskrit. I, in the hopes of taking a shower, attempted to figure out when Helga would be awakening from her slumber. What I did instead was press a button that immediately shut all the power down. A mechanical voice came to life somewhere in the other room repeating "All power is off". I waited patiently for him to explain how to fix the problem, but he was only interested that the power was off and that I knew about it. It is a debating technique familiar to me from observing Republicans in Congress, but I didn't find it helpful. I don't know how he got in there, but I'm pretty sure he is the same bastard that tells me my call is important while I'm stuck on hold. Evil exists everywhere.

I ran and grabbed the manuals, realized I wasn't an electrical engineer fluent in Sanskrit, and fell to my knees blubbering, crying out to the Almighty that I would spend the rest of my life perfecting my Sanskritian syntax if he would only restore the power by sheer luck this one time. I rose to my feet and started jabbing buttons. And it worked. The power returned. Helga turned on about an hour ago, and now its shower time. Now, you might not realize this, but I am the author of an internationally recognized blog with an iPad using audience, so I'm no technological dummy. But I swear to God there is a room in this house that looks like Doc Brown wired 4 flux capacitors together, and it's terrifying.


The wind stopped today, and the temperature fell to 33, which is an improvement. As I type I am watching a snowstorm make its way across the valley to the south. Skylar, on the other hand, has had a very rough day. Both of his hands, as well as the vast majority of his face, have fallen off. I hope his sudden attack of leprosy will be miraculously cured, but lets just say that he isn't too worried about his hat anymore. In this photo I think Sancho was considering peeing on Skylar, but at the last moment he chose not to and spent a couple minutes vomiting out of frame instead. I was worried, but then he got that look on his face that seemed to indicate that the vomit looked pretty damn tasty, so I had to focus all my worry on stopping him from eating it.


I spent most of the day doing frontier cowboy type shit, like starting a fire in the hot tub stove and making a mozzarella, tomato, and basil quesadilla. Also, the aforementioned vomit intervention was a pretty big deal. If you are bored to death, then I leave you with a picture of the lake, because it was looking so nice I almost asked it to dance.