Occupation of Independence

  It used to be impossible to add a rack to a fully-suspended mountain bike. So if you wanted to bring your canine companion along, you needed to get a bike-trailer. Today there is at least one rack for a fully-suspended mountain bike from Old Man Mountain. I got their (American made) Divide Rack. Even a dog who is a bit of a cry-baby can easily take to a rack, since they are with their man. Almost touching him, actually. I won't go through the obvious details, but there is one thing that goes against common sense. It helps to move the rack/box as far to the rear (aft) as possible. For instance, the photo shows about 5 inches between the rear of the saddle and the front of the box. Sounds like plenty. But it would be nice to increase this distance so the bicyclist can scoot rearwards when descending hills. The magic in this rack is the fact that it doesn't need eyelets (that is, screw holes) built into the frame of the bike. Most of the weight of the rack rests on a customized

The world seems surprised by the effect that fanatical sanctions (against Russia) are having. What a shock this is for the West. People in the West have become almost completely detached from physical reality. They have forgotten that food is grown in the ground, after fertilizer and agri-chemicals have been dumped on the ground. And then the food is put in trucks that burn fuel. Where does the lumber come from?, that is needed to build their 4000 square foot house. Surely it doesn't come from cutting a tree? That would be so awful. They have forgotten what steel and stainless steel are. Does that require mining? Wouldn't that be bad for the environment? They heat and air condition their oversized homes at 72F all year long. Most of the crap in their house is made from petroleum. All of these comforts just magically appear to them. They don't know from where. Nor do they care. To the West, reality is just an assembly of pixels on an electronic screen. 'Work' consis

It is important to choose the right year to be born in. In Europe and North America, you have to give credit to so-called Baby Boomers for choosing to be born between the end of World War II and 1960. Today Baby Boomers might be fairly close to death but at least we really lived when the gettin' was good. In fact I think we experienced peak freedom, peak education, peak female attractiveness, peak mobility, and peak prosperity. There were some setbacks along the way. Case in point is the decade of the 1970s. Still, we caught the last decade or two of Good Times in America: lucrative corporate employment -- stability, pay, pensions, and benefits. We were even able to retire early. But with raging inflation, how will young people be able to retire early from now on? Look at the risks they will be running! My (Baby Boomer) age group could invest during a long bull market on Wall Street. Do you really expect a replay of 1980 -2020 on Wall Street?  We still could look forward to Social

If a dog is serious about her outdoor-lifestyle, she has to learn how to cross cattle-gates. My first dog, Pancho the miniature poodle, acted wary when he encountered his first cattle-guard. Then he walked right across on his first attempt. My second dog, Coffee Girl, is a Nervous Nellie, but she was fairly confidant in crossing cattle-guards.   I had an easy time with a friend's dog. I don't know if it was his first attempt:   So how was Q.t.𝞹 going to do on her first attempt, this morning. My goodness. She locked up and her feet were unwilling to touch the steel bars. I levitated/dragged her across the cattle guard. At least she didn't do that squeal thing of hers! It was oddly funny. Still, she does get credit for acting a little curious about the steel bars on her second effort. There is hope. Of course a dog can usually run around the cattle guardby crawling under a barbed wire fence. She is small enough to do that easily. But that requires training me to let go of th