Reality Distortion Field

I just finished reading a book about Steve Jobs. It was a pretty good read. I have always been fascinated by the Macintosh computer and this book provided a host of background information about its development. Steve Jobs is likewise fascinating, but for his quirks (i.e. he never bought license plates for his cars) as much as for his vision of quality. Another of his idiosyncratic behaviors was termed "The reality distortion field" when he seemed to discount reality and impose his own version of what he thought might be possible if he pushed hard enough. In some sense, this concept has the ring of truth to me because of the nature of humans to push the envelope of what is possible and accomplish what would have been thought impossible.I'm applying this "reality distortion field" thinking to my shopping for a motor home. One is for sale on my street (the Bounder). The price is $3,800. What a deal, dimes on the dollar! Most of my reality based family is telling me it is a mistake, and I know they are right. The snag is that the upside of irrationality tends to be more exciting than the downside of practicality. Woody Guthrie's autobiography, Bound for Glory, bears consideration here too. Well, of course I'm not in that league, but in the back of my mind rests the thought that, "Bounder" would be a lot of fun and fulfill T.S. Eliot's injunction that old men should be explorers.

Day Away

from the rain...

...when it stops

One Log Left

Week 43 ended in blazes with back to back days of burning brush and punk wood. The brush was the result of storm damage through the years, but the punk wood was pure procrastination on my part. It got dark a lot sooner than I planned, so I had to put the fires out before they could burn themselves away.

Watching fire, and being hypnotized by it, made it appear to me that the human spirit is a lot like fire, though not in words that I can articulate.

Trebuchet

Check out what the folks in Lake Orion are doing to prepare for Halloween.

Quality of One

Not verbatim, but a conversation overheard this week, at a prison recycling program. Viewing computers being gleaned of valuable metals and toxins, the touring environmental scientists asks the warden, "Are there any Apples in there?" The warden responds, "Oh no, not a one! We put them in a special pile so they can be repaired and sold later." Steve Jobs would be proud.

Indian Summer

What began as potlatch, seeped into Octoberfest, and continued, "With the slow leakage of time" to Indian Summer. It was perfect in so many ways. Family, beauty, and weather wrapped around week 40 to linger on as a holiday nameless still.

Octoberfest Prelude

Rolling Red and Gold.