1/3/23

 

This may be a short one today. Spent time attempting to create exposure. You can help by sharing, and even interacting with the pieces that are conversational. As this journey continues, the content and the quality might improve. The content may be all over the place, and to many may seem boring. Boring? Yes! That brings up today's topic.

 

Boredom is not a four letter word! Of course it is not, it is a seven letter word. But I am not one for formalities and normally will say “fuck it” and continue along.

 

For as long as I can remember one thing that would create fear among parents is a bored child! “I am bored” would send most parents into a level 4 alert.

 

Bored children get into trouble they claim. That brings up another great point, define trouble.

 

Trouble for many kids was stealing parents cigarettes, being late for dinner, going someplace you was told not to, hanging out with the ‘bad’ crowd, only names a few.

 

I, myself was exempt from hanging out with the bad crowd. Myself and my close friends was the bad crowd. We had no curfew, often missed dinner, we went everywhere we wanted too, and did so many “un speak able” things I do not have the time to list. We were labeled as wild kids, I accepted that title, but I never accepted the things that we were incorrectly blamed for. I suppose we were guilty of associtation. Association of having no boundaries. We never did anything really bad. Well, occasionally slightly illegal. But, it is not illegal if you never get caught, right?

 

If I ever claimed to be bored to my parents, I would be shooed away. “Go outside and play”. So I did.

 

Off I would go, 80% of the time alone. Donnie's brook, the desert (a hugenormous sand construction sight) and its surrounding woods, whites road were typically the places I would disappear too unless I remained on our tiny 1/3 of an acre lot, exploring every inch or building a new contraption that would propel me too far away unknown places. I was probably the only kid ever who had his own “lab”. Not a dog(that is another story) but a lab to do experiments and create some pretty cool things. Mostly experiments, and 16,492.3 failures. The point 3 was included in the calculation due to the failures that only partially happened due to “adult” intervention. Nothing ever exploded. A few small fires did flare up, rapidly being extinguished before the house caught on fire.

 

Looking back, we never read warning labels. “Adequate ventilation” was opening the door for a few minutes. I do not believe any daim bramage ever tool place. Most of us turned out alright.

 

Blood was shed a few times as there was always sharp objects.

 

We don't need no stinkin “adult supervision”

 

We created a firing range in the basement and tested a variety of weapons in a controlled laboratory setting. We had various bows and arrows, throwing knives, spears, air rifles, and even tested a firearm or two.

 

One extremely successful was penetration test with a Marlin .22 rifle fired into stacks of magazines. The recovered bullets were recovered and the results documented. Unfortunately, foreign spies infiltrated and stole the classified documents. I have a suspicion that a Mole existed in our organization, tipping off the foreign spies in exchange for a new bmx bike.

 

Model airplanes was also a thing. The first few I followed the directions, that was dull. So I began with experimental aircraft design. I longed for a wind tunnel, but the only fan we had could not produce wind more than 12 MPH. A few modifications and an ass chewing from mom we did achieve 14 MPH, which in hindsight was quite remarkable for the time. Those documents also went missing.

 

Crash test began, so did fire resistance. I may have lied, I meant, I forgot a small fact I left out earlier. I said there was no explosions and only some small fires. Well, we did blow up a few airplanes with fire crackers, that then creates a few fiery infernos of molten plastic spewing clouds of black smoke. These test were conducted safely (mostly) outdoors. We did learn that hot molten plastic will stick to skin and hurts really bad. But later popping the blisters that formed was sort of fun.

 

A few planes and a model of a purple KISS van were subject to air rifle test. Both steel BB’s and lead pellets would fully penetrate the vehicles. There were no survivors. We learned that if being shot at do not seek cover in a purple KISS van.

 

So then Later, about the age of eleven, hand-loading my own ammunition was added to capabilities of the lab. Measuring out precise amounts of gun powder, and lead shot for loading shotgun shells was very beneficial to my education.

 

Learning units of measurement and the math skills required to calculate correct loads, chamber pressure, and muzzle velocity. Cool shit for an eleven year old!

 

Another advancement was building a long range rifle and creating accurate loads for it. Calculating terminal velocity, downrange trajectory, and the affect that wind had on a bullet at 300 yards was so interesting!

 

The sad part of all this was that I had no physical range where this could be tested in real time. At the most we had a sloping field that was 80 yards long. Bummer. A buzz kill. After all my hard work in the lab, I had no way to prove my work was correct.

 

So, like any scientist, I improvised. I created spreadsheets (before they were called spread sheets) that scaled my short range tests up to longer ranges. All of this was done before computers!

 

Was any of this work real? Yes, it was. Was it accurate? I thought it was, and that is all that mattered.

 

Now, if a 12 year old kid was carrying .30 caliber scope sighted rifle through the hood while walking to this 80 yard field to test out a few dozen freshly loaded rounds, SWAT teams would be called, and my parents would be tossed in prison. I would be sent to a loony bin for kids and drugged.

 

Times have changed. After a few years and to the dismay of many, I abandoned those research projects. Trucks and girls became a new focus. The girl part was an experiment gone bad. I had no clue where to begin, or how to be a boyfriend. Trucks! Now that was a new and exciting frontier! Something mechanical, something I could envision and understand. I could make a change to my truck and receive instant feedback! I did receive some instant feedback from girls, but that involved pain and suffering.

 

I understood trucks. Suspension, engines, drive train, tires, and how to navigate mud-holes! Yes, mud-holes! My new love was off-road driving.

 

Mucho dineros were spent. Dad and I argued constantly and fought about my truck. He was sadly not into the off-road scene.

 

Broken parts and occasionally broken egos became the norm. Dad and I grew further apart from the constant never ending criticism over my life choices.

 

After a few years of the off road thing, I began to dive into tournament Bass fishing. Oh yeah, girls made a re appearance to my life. Let's just say that for the next several years the fishing was more successful.

 

Skipping ahead to current times, and after a lot of growing I can honestly say that I am not the same scared kid that I used to be. That is a whole different story in itself.

 

Losing track of the original topic of boredom, I will attempt to return. With all the gadgets and sources of information, we never are truly bored any longer. I force electronic free time on a regular basis. NO phone ever at bedtime. It is off and out of reach. That is a time to read and often write. I have even been creating this time for the mornings. I have to write down things that I think of in these early morning times. Or else, I will have forgotten them when my brain becomes fully awake. When I am in this subconscious state, almost dreamlike, the best Ideas come to mind. Do not waste that shit, it is too valuable.

 

I could go on and on about the benefits of boredom, but I feel I am not qualified to do so. I see benefits of boredom in my life and I am constantly searching for ways to create more boredom. You may be bored out of your mind reading what I write? Thank you for that! Seriously, you may see my writing as boring, however if you are still reading this then I have been successful .

 

By the way, I do not condone or encourage young people to do anything potentially dangerous as I did. Times were different then. Without coming off as cocky I would like to think I was different, and 90 % of the weapon work was done alone. It really did happen and to the day I feel confident that it was conducted safely even though un supervised. I have to thank my parents for allowing and enabling my learning process. Mom used to say it kept me off the streets and off of drugs.

 

You may think “how could learning weapons be a good thing to learn” well, I learned to respect the danger and power. The power of destruction. I also learned to be thorough, and safe. Always be ready to implement plan b, c, d, and e, or what ever it takes. Always have a safety net. I learned problem solving, how to improvise when you did not have everything that you needed. I learned to be resourceful, how to do research, and some of the most important aspects was to never take NO for an answer or to let anyone to ever attempt redirect you because they do not believe in what you are doing. I was told so many times “you cannot” Fuck them, I did it anyway. One of the most insulting things ever was hearing you are “just” a kid. The funny part of that is I still have people attempt to intimidate me due to my small frame, youth-full good looks, and quiet nature. Oh well their loss. My gain because I will continue without them.

 

 

Boredom is good. Boredom is when Ideas appear from the clutter. Are you glad you read this all the way to the end? Too bad for those who did not. They will miss out on more from the lab. Cooking!

 

Here is a super yummy recipe!

 

Orangie schweet taters

 

Boil and mash schweet taters. Do not peel! The peels are yum.

 

Zest one or two whole oranges. Then squeeze the juice.

Note: Here is an experiment for you. After zesting the oranges, place them in blender and pulverize to a pulpy juice. Better hurry, I may beat you to this experiment and you will lose out on the fame and fortune for this incredible idea!

 

Mix all orange matter with taters adding a little coconut oil, honey and PURE Vermont maple syrup (there is no other)

 

Mix well. Spoon into a baking dish that is coated with a little more coconut oil and bake at 383 degrees (I like that number, I always wanted to build a 383 cubic inch Chevrolet V8 torque monster!)

Bake for 45-60 minutes, maybe stir a few time along way. Or don’t. I don’t care. And it will be yummy either way!