I live. I am alive.

Winter was interesting. I measured a bit over 8 meters of snow during the nominal winter wet season, and was isolated in the trailer on the hill for a bit over four months. The road up here is not conductive to travel in inclimate weather, something I need to pay more than ten grand to fix. Problem is now that everyone that can spread gravel is making double what they were two years ago and are booked solid up to two or three years out. Fortunately I have a vehicle that can make it up and down the mountain as long as the road is mostly dry. We had a wet spring and it was not until late June that I was able to make a visit to civilization.

There is no internet on the hillside. Anyone offering up Starlink as a solution can go sod off, and keep going to where ever you cunts huddle together, you shitheads. To the hells with that degenerate and his garbage companies. One of the first stops is the library to download books, then a quick look at the news. The librarian that worked here in the fall got a better job paying almost tripple librarian wages somewhere out of state. Good on her for getting the fuck out of here. My brief rundown of news since fall? The heavy snowfall I got this spring looks like it did a proper fuck of Yellowstone and that area. Jame Webb launched, so that was good, was wondering if they were going to make it or be delayed. First image is going to be Stephan's Quintet, one of my favorite visual targets. Looks like Russia is trying to rebuild the CCP, including waving commie flags on the ISS. People are still stupid about Covid. The election this year looks to be a shit show. Corporate profits are so high that they tanked the flow of capital, removed too much cash from the bottom of the economy and shot the stock market in the face. The democrats are exactly what you would expect them to be. Mostly Useless. Oh, and the supreme court says federal agents can kill you in your home and not face consequences. And they fucked over the EPA, along with the ability for government agencies to govern. And as a not off topic, Lake Meade is dying. But hey the liberal states cannot regulate CCW's anymore so FREEDOM! One of the cases not really being talked about is the case that murdered public education, then again education is no longer a priority in protestant murica so I'm not all that shocked. All this and I'm constantly accused of being the doom and gloom asshole needing perspective. OK perspective it is, for you cunts, let's look at the 538 election forecast shall we? Yeap, you're all fucked. Ukraine has until November to win the war else the incoming Treason Congress is going to start arming the Russians. I almost moved to the high desert of southern Utah or Nevada, and man, thank the fucks of my monkey brain for all the smarts of not moving to a desert. Lake Powell and Lake Meade are fucked to the point they have 5-10 years before then are no longer viable. Eat shit Arizona, maybe god will flood you sinners again. Fortunately for me, but bad for all you other suckers, nobody wants to fight the agriculture lobby so I can get all the water I want even if it means murdering the local aquifers. I kinda want to see what I can grow up here to accelerate the aquifer collapse, but I'm not sociopathic to actually do it.

Story time. One of the first places I end up is the closest gas station, about an hour from the paved road turnoff to my place. Here, I had my first real laugh. I figured diesel would go up, and was right but man was not expecting that high. Fortunately, Diesel stores well, much better than gas, so next time down the mountain I'll have to grab an extra 60 gallons for the gear uphill. Nearby is the local post office. I've made arrangements to deal with mail. I was concerned that the same few people in the office last fall would either get smart and flee, get Covid and die, or otherwise move on. All of them are there now. I walk in and immediately, the guy at the counter yells to the people in the back "That NASA guy is here for his mail." This seemed ominous and not a good sign. Turns out all the work I did and submitted to researchers, the citizen science stuff I did with my old gear, and a few other projects I don't care to share on the internet? All that work came to fruition nearly at once. I'm now in almost two dozen scientific papers by name. I got some notes asking for help since I was a sucker once they figure they got me for life now. There were rumors that a few not-for-profits were going to give out some "atta-boys" and I received a couple of those. I chatted with the postal people for about an hour as I tossed the sales and maketing garbage into the recycle bin, chatted about space stuff a bit, and pulled all the tax paperwork I was expecting to the side. One of the people I helped a few years ago got their PhD and sent me a copy of their grad picture and a thank you, so I'll have to send them a congrats. I like to check in with the post office people because for at least a few brief moments, I can forget I live in a budding protestant theocratic shithole. Also in this run of mail was the final word on my journey home. My VISA and travel papers were rejected, again, and in a very final way. If I ever end up in Ireland, it will be in an urn for someone to dump my ashes unless the IRA takes the country back from the bandits. So, yay me.

Speaking of the inevitable march of death, I checked in with the local hospital, gave blood, got weighed in. I now weigh less than at anytime since I was homeless a million years ago. When I wear a normal shirt my hips do not touch the fabric. I'm all arms, chest and legs now... the stretchmarks and saggy flesh from losing so much weight as an old bastard are all but gone. Ribs and hips are visible for the first time in decades. My face has hollowed out a bit and I now look like my relatives in the old pictures from when they escaped to America after being starved by the saxon barbarians in the 1850's. My internal shit is still not working like it should and I still should get treatmentes, and part of me wants to walk from this crap. But then I figured out that every time I walk into a hospital I cost two Gen Z kids and at least one millennial their retirement. So I'm back to bullshit again, timing multi-hour travel, multi-day adventures to go get prodded. The irony is that being off the internet these last few years have done more for my health and well-being than just about anything else I could have done. Turns out, for me at least, checking out of all ye all's bullshit is extending my life. They put me in a machine that should be banned as a war crime; I was able to maintain a 160BPM heart rate for 10 minutes for the first time in, fucking hell, maybe forever. Farm work is not easy, but evidently good for stamina and strength. And the longer I live the more I help implode this shithole country.

While at the library, I looked at real estate prices in the general area. AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH And once again I say yer all fucked if people are paying these prices for shit tier land out here. Everything has at least trippled. Rents are unsustainable, which is why every business has help wanted and shortened hours signs. Everyone under 30 with a brain and a tiny bit of ambition has run the ever loving fuck away from places like this. Everyone under 30 without a brain either joined the military or are working on the local farms and living in campers. This is something I did not notice at first, but there are no young people working the typical jobs that demographic would flood. The restaurant employees are all 40's and older. The gas station people are all retirees that came back to work to get out of the home. The post office people have been there since the 90's. The hospital has a contingent of college-age children working for school credit, or are there temporarily to pay off loans. Few if any of the people under 30 are the same when I return. Looking at rents in places people want to live? places even considered livable before the pandemic? Man, I'm glad I own this place. I'd not be able to sod off if I was making that choice now. If you are under 40 my advice is vote Republican cause they'll kill the unions and bail out the landlords and bankers that are keeping you poor and houseless. Seriously, however, it looks like at least one Amazon center unionized. Unions have until January to get their shit together before the traitors take the congress again. If they are not crushed into gravel, or have tanks rolled over them, or killed in no-knock raids, the new rise of unions is the one maybe bit of hope. I suggest reading about the mostly Irish people that unionize the mines and factories in the early 1900's to see what lays in front of you.

The one bright spot in the last few years, if you believe it, has been the local bank. They have handled everything, and I am able to send bills to them for payment. Fortunately, the homestead is paid off, taxes are due in the summer, no water bill, no power bill. Turns out there are a whole community of people with property that don't come down to town regularly, and they have a business model around taking advantage of people like me. The one darker spot? The Sheriff's office. Since I am somewhat isolated, and still an outsider is a VERY rural area, I made the decision to introduce me, explain what I am doing, asked about gun ranges, hunting regs etc, and LARPED as a good, honest productive citizen. The Sheriff office still has Cuntface's picture as the US President, and at least one of the cops has a confederate tattoo. All police are vermin. It takes a special mentality to be a copper any more, stupid, easily let, aggressive, violent, asshole. No encounter with a cop is ever going to be good unless they think you are one of them. After every interaction in this office, I feel dirty and mentally unwell. Sometimes, even now, the correct decision is to eat shit and like it.

I live. I am getting healthier, moving in the right direction. I am also alive. Not being in the center of the coming chaotic shit show, I'm looking forward to the next ten or so years. I've made a whole string of choices to get me to this point. Many of them I doubted. Even more were "wrong" in the sense that I might have been able to choose better. I'm going to be angry about not moving to Ireland when I had the change before the door was slammed in my face, and that mentality will be around forever. It would be nice to live in a first world country again. Still, I am alive. I am in a look of planning for things in the future. I chuckle at every disability check that hits my bank account and salute the sucking at the teat of the national treasury. I've even overcome the guilt of taking the checks since my retirement funds in the stock market are hurting. The only thing I am missing on my road to total nihilism is a MAGA hat and 10 of those big "I'm an uneducated fucking traitor asshole yeehaw" flags on my truck. At least my local gun store does not have confederate flags all over the place like some within driving distance, even if they are associated with the local shit-church with Gun totin' Jesus slogans on the walls.

This post completes my promise to come back on the internet for a year. I've called the people I made this promise toward, told them this is about all I care to do or say online, except maybe a "I FUCKING TOLD YE CUNTS SO EAT SHIT" after the election in november, depending on weather. People like me do not belong in the new online world, and I don't. fucking. miss. this. shit. Yet still, that is not fair for a closing statement. Some of you will read this and think I am talking about a societal collapse. Fallout level desolation. that is not what is coming sooner than you think. What is going to happen is that the wealthy are going to do fine. The not wealthy are going to have to slug through a denser and more disgusting pudding of liquid shit every day. Health care is going to suck more as all the nurses quit. Roads won't get fixed and get worse. Food safety will falter. Air quality will get worse and worse. Fires in the summer will be bigger. But the lights will mostly stay on. Water will mostly be safe. Store shelves will mostly have goods for sale. Wages will be shit, rents will be uncontrolled, and buying a house as a normal person will become a memory fading into the rear view mirror. Retirement funds will be raided more and more. Social security will be allowed to fail because we have two parties that are owned by people pissed that trillions of dollars are out of their reach. Gains in environmental laws are already rolling back, and national parks will be turned into resource extraction zones. the rule of law will only mean anything if you have millions in the bank to defend yourself. But mostly, life will go on. Every step will be a bit deeper in an open sewer that never ends, but you will have the feeling of progress. Spending money and political capital on the policies to make things better will slog in our government halls, and what meager bullshit half measures that DO get passed will be nuked by the courts. America won't outright fail. You will simply continue to not rise to your obligations. Your allies will come to depend on you less and less until one day you put down your phones and take a look around and see nothing but shit. Civilization is a very complex, very fragile, very delicate thing that is currently being held together by cellophane tape, spare wire, hopes, and good feelings. America has two political parties. One fucking evil that wants to take a hammer to everything and sell off the pieces, and a part of wall street bankers afraid to do anything that is going to fuck with stock prices. And both parties are ruled over by old people that should have retired or died decades ago. I'm not going to call you stupid for having hope, but I am going to call you ignorant and not paying attention.