A few thoughts at the end of 2022

 "If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." - Friedrich Neitzsche

Creepy Stuff!

 "Obscurity and a competence - that is the life that is best worth living." - Mark Twain

Victorian era kerosene reflector lamp

 "It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare." - Mark Twain

The Greatest Opponent Ever Faced by the ruling class: Reality

 "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot." - Mark Twain

Merry Christmas 2022

 "If you don't read the paper, you are uninformed.  If you do read the paper, you are misinformed." - Mark Twain

Thermodynamics!

 "What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?  For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed, whatever years are behind us are in death's hands." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Heirloom Shotgun

 "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

Snowpocalypse 2022 - Updated

 "There is no shame in making an honest effort." - Epictetus

Mercedes Stereo Upgrade

 "If science can't be questioned, it's not science - it's propaganda" - Aaron Rodgers

Better Public Relations will not fix this

 "You can't talk your way out of problems you've behaved yourself into." - Stephen Covey

Transitioning to renewables - a realistic take

 "Anger and the sorrow it produces are more harmful than the things that make us angry." - Marcus Aurelius

Headlight renewer

 "You will do the greatest services to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens; for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses." - Epictetus

" 'Normal' is a setting on the clothes washing machine"

 "Do not get too attached to life, for it is like a sailor's leave on shore and at any time, the captain may sound the horn, calling you back to eternal darkness." - Epictetus

It's too early for Christmas Music. Stop it!

"If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them." - Epictetus

Space Stuff

 "He who is discontented with what he has, and what has been granted to him by fortune, is one who is ignorant of the art of living, but he who bears that in a noble spirit, and makes reasonable use of all that comes from it, deserves to be regarded as a good man." - Epictetus

Acid Rain, Cold End Corrosion, HHV and LHV

 “Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance.

Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a secular winter. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Critters on the loose...

"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him." - Epictetus

"Make an assessment."

 "Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty.  For what task, then, were you yourself created?" - Marcus Aurelius

Road Trip!

 "The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you.  Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere." - Marcus Aurelius

It begins...

 "Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Stabbing in the stakes

 "Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish?  Nothing else." - Epictetus

Home away from home

 "If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance - doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth - If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as Empedocles says, 'a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness' and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present)...then you can spend the time you have in tranquility.  And in kindness.  And at peace with the spirit within you." - Marcus Aurelius

A Subaru Day

 "When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Lithium and Submarines

 "The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process.  We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Gloomy outlook for the economy

 "There is no genius without a touch of madness." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Diesel and Modern Society - a brief update

 Back in March, I discussed heavy crude oil, its relationship to diesel, and the importance of diesel in modern industrial society.  There is a great write up on OilPrice.Com about a widespread shortage of diesel at the current time.  

Have you had your colonoscopy recently?

"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal.  Many of them are so normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.  They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society." - Aldous Huxley

"You've Got This!"

 Do you really?

This disturbing Public Service Announcement was put out by the New York City's Emergency Management Department.  It ends with the cliche "You've Got This."  I'm pretty sure that most civilians don't 'got this' for more than a day or two.

And... Wait for further instructions.  LOL. 

"We aren't smart enough to avoid a nuclear war.  But we are smart enough to reassure you about radioactive fallout."  There will be hardship, famine and disease shortly after the event, and this calm-sounding lady will no longer be there to reassure you.

Good luck, everyone.  Hopefully someone takes an off-ramp from the highway to hell.

A New Radiation Detector

"Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses.

Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes.  Your life is too short and you have important things to do.  Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind.

If you yourself don't don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.

It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity.

But there is no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap." - Marcus Aurelius

Eyes on the German Economy

 "A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying "You are mad; you are not like us." - Saint Anthony the Great

Weekend update

 "He who eats my bread does my will." - Marcus Aurelius

A trip to Tacoma

 "Kindness is unconquerable, so long as it is without flattery or hypocrisy.  For what can the most insolent man do to you, if you contrive to be kind to him, and if you have the chance gently advise and calmly show him what is right... and point out tactfully and from a universal perspective.  But you must not do this with sarcasm or reproach, but without anger in your soul." - Marcus Aurelius

The Beatles, then and now

"To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Lighting up the fog

 "Forget everything else.

Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.

The past has been lived already, and the future is impossible to see.

The span we live is small - small as the corner of the earth in which we live it.

Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead." - Marcus Aurelius

Getting old and gaining/losing weight

 "Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Subaru EVAP valve replacement

 "Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power:  Your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas." - Epictetus

Fun day on the lake

 "True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.  The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.  A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Erin Brockovich, cooling tower chemistry, and scientific fraud

 "Life is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil." - Marcus Aurelius

Geothermal Power Plant - Interesting Operational Issues

 "The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie." - Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Wheel bearing do-over - Ford Explorer

 "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" - Marcus Aurelius

Everything I touch lately turns to...

 "Do not be ashamed of help" - Marcus Aurelius

Summer Wildfires and Air Quality

"Think of yourself as dead.

You have lived your life.

 Now, take what is left, and live it properly.

What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness." - Marcus Aurelius

Great sunset this evening!

 Accompanied by thunder, lightning, and some light showers.  Sat outside under the overhang and enjoyed the wind, weather, and the show. 

Vintage Square Tool

 "When you run up against someone else's shamelessness, ask yourself this: 'Is a world without shamelessness possible?'  No.

Then don't ask the impossible.

There have to be shameless people in the world.  This is one of them.

The same for someone vicious or untrustworthy, or with any other defect.

Remembering that the whole world class has to exist will make you more tolerant of its members". - Marcus Aurelius

EVAP system and troubleshooting

 "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

North Idaho Fair - 2022 Centennial

 "I have often wondered how it should come to pass, that every man loving himself best, should more regard other men's opinions concerning himself than his own.

For if any God or grave master standing by, should command any of us to think nothing by himself but what he should presently speak out; no man were able to endure it, though but for one day.

Thus do we fear more what our neighbors will think of us, than what we ourselves." - Marcus Aurelius

More wheel bearings

 "You always have the option of having no opinion.

There is never any need to get worked up or trouble your soul about things you can't control

These things are not asking to be judged by you.  Leave them alone." - Marcus Aurelius

A different kind of compressor

 "Anyone can build a bridge that will stay up.  But it takes an engineer to build a cheap bridge that just barely stays up." - Unknown

Winter tires and rims - replacement

 "Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief." - Epictetus

August update

 "It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him." - Marcus Aurelius

How to find happiness! Or not.

 

Yard Sale and opportunistic wiring

 "We are members of one great body, planted by nature.  We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

First ride of 2022

 "Restrict yourself to choice and refusal, and exercise them carefully, with discipline and detachment." - Epictetus

More motorbike brake stuff

 "If a person gave away your body to some passer-by, you'd be furious.  Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving you disturbed and troubled - have you no shame in that?" - Epictetus

More car stuff

 "Remember from now on whenever something tends to make you unhappy, draw on this principle: 'This is no misfortune, but bearing with it bravely is a blessing.'" - Epictetus

Productive Day! Pressure washing and motorbike brakes

 "People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What's Up - Late June 2022

 "Everyone prefers belief to the exercise of judgement." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Career Autobiography part 12 - Hermiston Generating Plant

 "Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you." - Marcus Aurelius

Dead Pool

"We are mad, not only individually but nationally.  We check manslaughter and isolated murders, but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Career Autobiography Part 11 - Elk Hills

 "Don't let yourself forget how many doctors have died, furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds.

How many astrologers after pompous forecasts about other's ends.

How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality

How many warriors, after inflicting thousands of casualties themselves.

How many tyrants, after abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they themselves were immortal.

How many whole cities have met their end: Helike, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others.

And all the ones you know yourself, one after another.

One who laid out another for burial, and was buried himself, and the man who buried him - all in the same short space of time.

Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.

To pass through this brief life as nature demands.

To give it up without complaint.

Like an olive that ripens and falls.

Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on." - Marcus Aurelius

Living a Lie

 "But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to sufficiently grasp the full force of true friendship." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Tonsils and Three Albums

 "As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.'  But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself?  He ever follows himself as his own most burdensome companion.  And so we ought to understand that which we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Career Autobiography part 10 - La Paloma

 "Whether you are shivering with cold or too hot, sleepy or wide-awake, spoken well or badly, dying, or doing anything else, do not let it interfere with doing what is right.  For whatever causes us to die is also one of life's processes.  Even for this, nothing is required of us than to accomplish well the task at hand." - Marcus Aurelius

Yanmar 155D Tractor update

 "Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now, and those that are to come.

Existence flows past us like a river:  The 'what' is in constant flux, the 'why' has a thousand variations

Nothing is stable, not even what's right here.

The infinity of past and future gapes before us - a chasm whose depths we cannot see

So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress.  Or any indignation either.

As if the things that irritate us lasted." - Marcus Aurelius

Institutional Failure

 "Small-minded people blame others.  Average people blame themselves.  The wise see all blame as foolishness."

I am working on a post :)

 Thanks for your patience!

Don't say you weren't warned...

 "So you must match time's swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Subaru nuts, bolts, and rust

 "Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day - especially death - and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess." - Epictetus

Telstar

 If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct it.  If it be a lie, laugh at it." - Epictetus

200K page views

 "Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for crisis." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Dispatch, pilot vs. operator, and leaks

 "Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do.  Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you.  Sanity means tying it to your own actions." - Marcus Aurelius

Balance Shot

 "For mankind, evil is injustice and cruelty and indifference to a neighbor's trouble, while virtue is brotherly love and justice and beneficence and concern for the welfare of your neighbor" - Gaius Musonius Rufus

Trickle Charging and Boosting dead batteries

 "Don't hope that events will turn out as you want.  Welcome events in whichever way they happen; this is the path to peace." - Epictetus

Struts on the beater car

 "Give your heart to the trade you have learnt, and draw refreshment from it." - Marcus Aurelius

First day off in a while

" Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit.  To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying or thinking, or scheming - in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you - means a loss of opportunity for some other task." - Marcus Aurelius

Hot Steam Turbine Thrust Bearing

 "It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do by example.:" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Do you even Lith, Bro?

 "It is silly to try to escape other people's faults.  They are inescapable.  Just try to escape your own." - Marcus Aurelius

Submarine video I found on Youtube

 "A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Steam Turbine Valve Maintenance part 2

"What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed.  Whatever years are behind us are in death's hands." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Steam Turbine Valve Maintenance

"Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can.

Associate with those who will make a better man of you.

Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.

The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Trapped with nowhere to go - Compressor Installation part 7

 "No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity.  For he is not permitted to prove himself." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A Rational Mind requires a Media Bullshit Filter

 "A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path - he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off.  You must also show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow.  But so long as you do not show it to him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity." - Epictetus

When do the wheels fall completely off?

 "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." - Ernest Hemingway

Recent developments - not much!

 "Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The elites and the media have gone insane

 "War imposes suffering on everyone.  The difference is that the winner suffers less than the vanquished." - me

Air Compressor Room - Part 6, and a bunch of completely unrelated stuff

 "You could leave life right now.  Let that determine what you do and say and think." - Marcus Aurelius

Compressor Stall on Industrial Gas Turbines - Inlet Filter Replacement

 "Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art." - Marcus Aurelius

Extreme Games: Virtue-Signalling Competition!

 "Never  value anything profitable that compels you to break your promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect others, to curse, to be a hypocrite, to desire anything that requires walls and curtains to hide." - Marcus Aurelius

The Unraveling

 "God has entrusted me with myself."

"No man is free who is not master of himself."

"A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."

"The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going." - Epictetus

Air Compressor Installation Part 5 - Mechanical

 "To refrain from imitation is the best revenge." - Marcus Aurelius

Ukraine Conflict: Qui Bono? (To whose benefit?)

 

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war, why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?  Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”- Herman Goering

Preparing the Air Compressor Room - Part 4

 "He who spares the wicked injures the good." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Childhood Trauma and Vaccine Hesitancy

 "Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself." - Epictetus

We are all mortal

 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" - The holy gospel according to St. John, Chapter 15, verse 13

Excel Project at work

 "If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus

Steam Turbine Expansion

"The present moment is the only thing of which anyone can be deprived, at least if this is the only thing he has and he cannot lose what he has not got." - Marcus Aurelius

Preparing the Compressor Room - Part 3

 "Wealth is the slave of a wise man.  The master of a fool." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Preparing the Compressor Room - Part 2

 "Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years.  Death hangs over you.  While you live, while it is in your power, be good" - Marcus Aurelius

NOTICE!

 This is a courtesy notice to readers.  I have installed Google Analytics.  This is not so that I can track you across the internet - Google is already doing that.  It's so that I can better understand what readers are interested in, and attempt to improve on that content.

So it will be monitoring what search terms are used in the search bar, where you arrived from, what search terms brought you here, and what links you click while here.  That's it.  Just trying to get a better sense of your interests, to be better.

Preparing the Compressor Room - Part 1

 "Even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view." - Marcus Aurelius

Ready for Action! Abused Craigslist Husky Air Compressor

 "Is it your reputation that is bothering you?  But look at how soon we're all forgotten. 

The abyss of time swallows it all. 

The emptiness of those applauding hands. 

The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. 

And the tiny region it takes place.  The whole earth in space - and most of it uninhabited." - Marcus Aurelius

"Fixing" The Yanmar Tractor Steering Knuckle (Update)

 "Remember that all we have is 'on loan' from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission - indeed, without even advance notice.  Thus, we should love all our dear ones, but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever - nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Yanmar Tractor re-assembly

 "Every hour be firmly resolved... to accomplish the work at hand with fitting and unaffected dignity, goodwill, freedom, and justice.

Banish from your thoughts all other considerations.

This is possible if you perform each act as if it were your last, rejecting every frivolous distraction, every denial of the rule of reason, every pretentious gesture, vain show, and whining complaint against the decrees of fate.

Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life?  Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more." - Marcus Aurelius

Replacing a Mercedes ML320 oxygen sensor

 "The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." - Epictetus

Chilling out with the snow melt

 "The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts." - Marcus Aurelius

The difference

 "Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy.  Their continual attention to others' behavior shows how they are boring." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Sea Story #1

 "While we wait for life, life passes." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Neat Christmas gifts...

 "You will earn the respect of all if you begin by earning the respect of yourself.  Don't expect to encourage good deeds in people conscious of your misdeeds." Gaius Musonius Rufus

Compressor Stall on Industrial Turbines

 "Never value the advantages derived from anything involving breach of faith, loss of self-respect, hatred, suspicion, or execration of others, of insincerity or the desire for something which has to be veiled or hidden." - Marcus Aurelius

More darkness, corrected. Plus Air Compressor Parts!

 "I laugh at those who think they can damage me.  They do not know who I am, the do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live." - Epictetus

OMG Omicron is making employees quit!

 "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.  Skillful captains gain their reputation from storms and tempests." - Epictetus