Who said you can put lipstick on sows and bucks?

View from the office at about 7:00 AM (on the way to open the Duck Dormitory).

The big news today is that one of hour guests snapped a photo of a male, whitetail deer that was wearing lipstick. Golly, it didn't take those newly elected Progressives very long to start corrupt the local wildlife.

Can video-games be a positive influence?

Most often, our generation sees video-games as a way to disengage from social expectations and we blame games for the perception that many of the gamer-generation are risk-adverse in relationships. We also gripe that the gamer-generation expects endless do-overs and "new lives" and we blame gaming for their predisposition to be enthusiastically risk-seeking in other parts of their life.

The video shown above has a two-minute run-time.

In the video, he very succinctly pulls lessons out of "gaming" and presents them in ways that are likely to get traction with the gamer-generation.

In a nutshell, there is no single super-combination of buttons to push (hacks) that works universally on all characters. If you want to "win" in relationships, you have to study the characters who populate your life in meat-space and learn which buttons to push...and which ones to NOT PUSH. 

Hummingbirds and Innocent-by-virtue-of-Stupidity

The brain of a Ruby Throated Hummingbird weighs about half as much as a standard tablet of aspirin or about 170mg.

The weight of the average human brain is about 1,300,000mg or about 7500 times larger.

The hummingbird knows enough to not kill her chicks.

Progressive judges and prosecutors accept the claim that humans with brains that are 7500 times larger than a hummingbird's brain are not capable of that same feat.

So who are the stupid ones?

Farmer carry notes

My grip-strength is my limiting factor. My left hand is significantly weaker than my right hand. My grip is much better when my hands are dry than when they are sweaty. Friction is "a thing". I dry off the kettlebell handles and my hands every 10m.

It started as an accident. The gym only has one 88 pound kettlebell and the next heaviest ones are 70 pounds, so I ramped up to carrying one 70 pound kettlebell and one 88  pound kettlebell. I kind of like the eccentric loading. In anatomy-speak, "it loads my obliques" and I get double-duty exposure to grip-strength challenges.

The current plan is to add Farmer Carries every third day. Fifty-three pound kettlebells at 40m to warm-up. Eccentric 70/88lb  for 40m, alternating sides every 10m, three sets for the main loading. This level is to be continued until my grip-strength improves or I injure myself.

Tires

We put two new tires on Mrs ERJ's minivan. No, I didn't do it myself. We took it to the grain elevator in Charlotte.

We have been running Pirelli Scorpion All-Terrain tires on it rather than All Season tires. The trade-off is greatly improved performance on snow (but not ice) at the cost of more road-noise and slightly mushier handling on dry pavement. Pirelli was the only brand that made the tire size specified by Mrs ERJ's van.

Pirelli is an Italian tire company and, as the joke goes, 'dey go through snow, 'dey go through mud, 'dey go everywhere. 

Back to the make-up wearing deer

Dental report, cause for optimism, Baby Grace

It was 48 minutes and sixteen seconds from when my shadow crossed the doorstep of the dentist's office until the time I was free to pay the receptionist for the damages.

The left side of my head is numb from my jaw to above my ear. Dr Stone did not go-cheap on the Novocain.

It may be a small thing, but Dr Stone is exceptionally gracious with his assistants. "Chris, if it is not too much trouble, can you hand me the blue matrix with the short probosci?"..."Thank-you, dear"..."Let me use the UV wand, you can't get around the rhombus from where you are sitting"

Like most people, I get tense when I am sitting in a dentist's chair.  I start to worry that things are going pear-shaped if/when the dentist starts snapping impatiently at his helper. How am I to know that he is constipated or that his shoes are too tight? I assume the worst. The smooth and easy flow and the total lack of impatience is a balm to my dental anxiety.

ERJ: Pollyanna extraordinaire

The question came up in the comments that I might be unduly optimistic regarding the trajectory of future events. I want to build a little bit of context around my "optimism".

The readers of this blog are people with a wide swath of world-views and future expectations. I attribute that to the range of topics that get discussed on this blog and to the quality of the comments. Some readers forgive me for my idiosyncracies and simply read the posts that interest them.

With regard to the topic of "prepping", the biggest step is accepting that every "foundational assumption" we have about living might be violated. For example, most people assume that they will always have electrical power that they can switch on and potable water coming out of their taps. Once a person accepts that the power might be out for four hours or that the water might not come gushing out, then prepping for other scenarios becomes primarily a matter of scale because the biggest barrier, the one in our minds has been addressed.

I believe that I am less likely to alienate the occasional ERJ reader by sticking to the middle-road in prepping. Most of the US will not descend to Mogadishu or Gaza overnight.

The other factor is that I am inherently lazy. I like to find communities that are already dealing with SHTF and study how they adapted. They undoubtedly made lots of stupid decisions in the past. We don't have to repeat their mistakes.  What they are doing now is what mostly works. At this instant in time, Ukraine is the place to study just like Spain was the place to study in 1936 and 1937. 

Why not study Gaza? Unlike Gaza, Ukraine's population is roughly within its biological carrying capacity of the country's footprint while Gaza's population is at least 20X the biological carrying-capacity. Ukraine looks much more like Eaton County, Michigan than Gaza does. However, if I lived in the cities of Kalamazoo or Detroit or Austin or Phoenix, then I would be studying Gaza.

Some germane details about Ukraine: Kharkiv, Ukraine averages 8-to-12 hours of blackouts every 24 hours. What that means is that they HAVE power 12 hours of power MOST days. They can recharge batteries, fill water tanks, do the laundry, make ice, do their homework in those 12 hours. The center of Kharkiv is currently about 30 miles from the front-lines of the active, eastern front in the Ukraine/Russian war. It is 20 miles from the less-active northern front.

On the other hand, they are dealing with men getting snatched off of the streets. If you watch videos from Ukrainian's urban areas, there are no men who look like they are younger than their mid-forties walking around. It isn't that they have all been snatched. It is that they are in hiding or walked out of the country and are now working in western Europe, Poland or even Russia.

Taken together, the destruction of infrastructure due to military weapons, the intermittent (although outages are often scheduled) grid function and the disappearance of virtually all men between 25-and-45 and you have a scenario that is grimmer than anything likely to happen here in the near future.

There are differences. Anybody approaching a power-plant or critical infrastructure in Ukraine without passing through check-points is likely to be summarily shot. Presumably, the same would happen to an arsonist lighting a Molotov Cocktail. I don't foresee that happening in the US or France anytime soon. 

Ukraine isn't completely frozen up even though their domestic GDP/capita is about 8% of the US GDP/capita. The people are stoic and keep moving even though conditions would likely immobilize the US population. Most of them have something to eat, access to water that is clean enough to drink after making it into tea and a warm-enough place to sleep.

There is a tremendous amount of learned-helplessness that those of us in North America will have to unlearn if we ever have to survive on 8% of our current GDP. That "unlearning" is likely to generate violence. It is very sad that lack of access to Starbucks Venti Matcha Crème Frappuccinos frozen hot-pockets will trigger rioting, but there you have it.

Sad and heartwarming at the same time

Electric Forest Music Festival is a week-long, counterculture music festival held in western Michigan. 

In June of 2026, one of the people attending the festival gave birth in a porta-potty and left her baby there. The deceased baby was discovered by another fair goer and 911 was called.

As reported by The Daily Mail: 

On Monday, about 350 people showed up in a display of unity at Fair Haven Church to say goodbye to the baby girl as the search for her parents continues.

The event was organized by Fair Haven congregant and father-of-two Travis Byrnes. Byrnes, who was appointed custody of the infant’s remains through Oceana County Probate Court, selected the name Grace. He said it can be changed if her biological family is ever found.

Fair Haven Pastor Greg VanderMeer said the ceremony was an opportunity for the community to turn its faith into action.

‘Baby Grace is loved by God and loved by us. Holding a ceremony for her is what love looks like. This is a moment for us to put our faith into practice,’ he said.

Those attending were visibly touched by the effort made to ensure the baby received a dignified goodbye.

One mourner said: ‘I feel deeply that this was a child that was loved by God and that she deserves a dignified goodbye amongst people that care that she lived...’

The burial plot and a flat grave marker have already been paid for privately.

But Byrnes is now raising money for an upright monument so that anyone searching for Grace’s grave will be able to find it.

He also arranged for more than 50 handwritten notes, submitted by mourners and members of the public, to be buried alongside her.

The messages were intended to give the little girl a collection of loving memories, even though she never had the opportunity to make any of her own.

A pink baby blanket, stuffed animals, socks and other childhood keepsakes were also placed with her.

Fine Art Tuesday

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577 and died in 1640. He was an influential Flemish artist, diplomat and cook. 

 

Eggs, fats-and-oils revisited

We have five girl ducks. When all five lay every day, the eggs pile up quickly. They also eat more when they are laying.

Papillon

This is in-reference to the difference that fats-and-oils can make in austere circumstances. 

The book Papillon was published in 1969 and the author claimed it was an autobiography of when he was imprisoned in a French penal colony of French Guiana between 1931 and 1945.

At one point during his incarceration, he was under the protection of a guardian angel and he received a gift of a half-coconut a day (an additional 700 Calories per day). The half-coconut was a major game-changer. Before it showed up, he was clinging to life by the thinnest of margins. He was cold and shivering even when the weather was hot. After they started showing up, he was filled with energy and doing pull-ups and running in place. Life was good.

In time, the (illegal) deliveries of the coconuts were discovered and stopped. Life once again became grim. 

Link to a three-minute clip from the movie when the first half-coconut showed up. The clip starts when the protagonist (played by Steve McQueen) is recovering from a beating and is at a low-point in his life.

Because we live in a society where access to fats-and-oils is virtually unlimited, the role that they play in brain chemistry and how they impact emotional health is rarely appreciated. If you love movies and have lots of time, the movie "Lorenzo's Oil" might be worth your time.

Raccoons

It was mentioned in the comments that mountain men sought bears in the late autumn just before they went into hibernation because they were rolling in fat.

Raccoons, unlike possum, also pack on the fat and hibernate during the winter. A fully grown, boar raccoon in late fall can be carrying five or more pounds of fat on him.

Paying wages with vegetable oil

I image that some of you did the math in your head after I proposed paying for 1 day's labor with 250ml of vegetable oil. 250ml at approximately 9 Calories per ml equals 2,250 Calories which is less than the laborer burns in a day. Why would anybody work for that?

The answer is that the calculations are done on the increments. 

My reasoning is that it is 2,250 MORE Calories. Somebody else in the laborer's household stands in the bread-line to get his 2000 Calories-per-day that is distributed for famine relief.

Working 8 hours is about 800 MORE Calories burned over the course of 8 hours of work. So he is getting paid with almost 3X times the Calories burned when calculated as (Incremental Calories Received) / (Incremental Calories Burned). That is, 2,250 Calories received / 800 more Calories burned = 2.8 payout or 1.8 net gain per calorie burned.

If the worker walked the entire 8 hours, it would burn about 1600 more Calories and the economics would shift. Most work is less than half "walking" time and is more tedious than strenuous. Pulling weeds, hoeing, watching children for example.

Some kinds of work like cutting and hauling wood in the wood-lot, running a mechanical tiller, chopping weeds beneath an electric fence, bucking bales of hay have significantly higher calorie burn-rates and will require much higher pay-rates to make the economics work for the laborer. 

Delayed onset muscle soreness

Yeah, those Farmers carries are sneaky.

It isn't debilitating but it is noticeable. Mostly in my pecs and quads. A little bit in my forearms.

"And this too will pass." 

Get back on the horse and ride it

Counterintuitively, continued exercise may temporarily suppress the soreness. Exercise increases pain thresholds and pain tolerance. This effect, called exercise-induced analgesia, is known to occur in endurance training (running, cycling, swimming), but little is known about whether it also occurs in strength training. There are claims in the literature that exercising sore muscles appears to be the best way to reduce or eliminate the soreness, but this has not yet been systematically investigated.     -Wikipedia

Mission creep

My smartphone will not up-date to the newest operating system.

Keeping the OS "fresh" is considered a good practice because evolving security risks are addressed with patches.

The reason it will not update is because it requires 17.8 Gigabytes of free memory. The new OS boasts two AI modules which may be adding to the bloat.

A lightweight Linux install requires about 5GB. 

Windows 3.1 Operating System, by comparison, required 3 Megabytes of RAM and 6.2MB of hard drive space. So, doing the math, the OS for my phone requires 2000 times more memory than Windows 3.1 

Donald, take a vacation

I say this with love in my heart, Don, you are acting like a man who is in dire need of some down-time. Take three days off. Take care of yourself. Let the dust settle. Get some perspective. Make a plan.

We will survive three days without you. Heck, the country managed to stagger along for four years under Biden and he was never really all there. 

Today's work-tickets

Deliver Quicksilver to play-date. One of the new kids is named "Felonious". Ok, I fictionalized her name for privacy reasons. But the child does have a name that is listed in the Michigan Penal Codes. Why do parents do that?!?

See if my buddy on Bellevue Hwy has a window of time to sell me the item he agreed to hold for me.

Buy a couple of gallons of vegetable oil and transfer it to mason jars. My current plan, based on information that 10x45mm shared, is to put a layer of polyethylene "stretch wrap" over the glass jar before installing the lid. I doubt that he jar will vacuum seal but I can leave the screw ring in place and that should maintain the compression on the seal and minimize oxygen infiltration.

Buy some rodent poison. 

Clean the truck in preparation for deer season. I would invite Don but I don't think the Secret Service would approve of Don Sr. joining our party. 

Visit the dentist. 

Presented without comment

 

Obnoxious 20 year-old mocks gym-bro because she can lift 2X her weight

Farmer Carries and other random thoughts

Lifting notes

I have been enjoying the Farmer Carry. I can walk with Mrs ERJ during my recoveries, pop into the gym and do a "set" of Farmers Carry and be out of the gym in time to catch Mrs ERJ on the next circuit of the walking track.

A few days ago I was able to catch Darius, one of the fitness trainers, between classes and he graciously gave me five minutes of his time. No sarcasm...he gave up his "getting ready for the next class" time to coach me.

Based on my goals, he gave me a 10 meter long path and told me to walk out-and-back twice (2 x 2 x 10m = 40m). He told me to put the kettlebells down, spin around and then pick them up at the terminus of each walk.

He started me at 30 pounds in each hand. I am somewhat above that now 8-).

I go to the dentist tomorrow

My appointment to address the missing filling is tomorrow afternoon. 

My gut-feel is that I will either end up with a crown or will have the tooth removed. 

A pithy quote about preparing (from a very long essay)

Household braced for the worse one (case) loses almost nothing if the better one arrives. Household braced for the better one loses a great deal if it does not, because the things it would then need are unavailable precisely at the moment of need. That asymmetry carries the entire case for doing anything.   Source

Hidden contempt

The "academic advisors" in the education industry have contempt for today's young people. In general, they have greater contempt for the young men than they do for the young women.

They believe, deep in their black-hearts, that men are not capable of being responsible.

Responsibility is the combination of "Authority" and "Accountability".

Accountability without authority is scapegoating which is the tool of every tin-pot despot.

Authority without accountability is the other face of tyranny.

The education industry coddles young men instead of challenging them. It weakens and emasculates them. It crowds them into a land of fantasy.

While most young people enjoy the coddling, in-the-moment, part of them craves adventure, heroes and challenges. They are being fed unlimited amounts of cotton-candy when they need freshly-killed meat that is charred over an open fire and still leaking red juices from the interior.

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..."

 

"Morning has broken..."

 "One is the loneliest number..."

 

Our local Walmart now carries reloading tools and components!!!

People don't need therapy. They need work.

Scott Galloway said "for most of the young men he works with, a job, friends and a girlfriend would do more than therapy". 

"...get a job, get a friend, get a girlfriend, get out of the house, start exercising".

"That is the equivalent of a nuclear detonation of therapy for 60 to 90% of the young men I deal with."

Galloway is one of the most respected members of the WOKE community.

"A job" is the gateway to self-esteem, discipline, discretionary income, practicing social skills and status within the greater community.

Galloway's public statements are an unexpected dose of reality and represent a shift of seismic proportions in "WOKE" thinking.

I expect it to get disappeared, at least for a while.