Friday, January 28, 2022

Just Killing Off A Few Idle Hours Here...

 



















More terribly bored than terribly busy. Happy, healthy, solvent, productive, and alive is something little of the world has all at once for any length of time, and are blessings worth recounting daily.

Doing some busywork. Loose ends. etc. My Amazon queue is down to a manageable level; what's left is the pricey stuff, so I'll be knocking those things off more like one item at a time.

When I have the chance, I've got a selfie, sort of, to post, that took a while to track down. (And to prove I was internet-famous before there was even an internet. No, really.)

Otherwise, things are mostly SSDD. Working on tying off some debt obligations, so I can focus entirely on Camp Snoopy. Retirement (if the world lives that long) is a good ways off yet, but still coming on relentlessly, and the minute I can punch out and retire to a garden and a library (literally behind my own moat and drawbridge - no, I'm serious - with treehouse and pirate ship optional, but highly likely as well) I'll leave skidmarks from Big Surburbopolis, which stretches unbroken from San Clemente to Oxnard, but very broken by any sane sociopolitical measurement.

It will doubtless astonish those unfamiliar with the region to find that there are many places still within the Golden State that are far from most of the notice or predations of the nanny government, if you know where to look, and how to mind your own business.

I've even worked out how to live in my library, which by no small coincidence will look nearly exactly like this, to the extent it lies within my power to make it so:









And sound like this on a dark and stormy night...

Though with rather fewer candles, and no untidy papers strewn about the floor, but otherwise, yes, just so.

Sorry about the temporary lack of inspiration for free ice cream, but I'm sure you all can entertain yourselves in the interim, assuming you've already provisioned yourselves for the Zimbabwean inflation nightmare towards which our society continues to slouch, and but one of many ways the current banana republic seems designed to reduce us all to absolute serfdom.


19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Familiar with the region from my childhood and being stationed there a few times over the years. There are places ... fewer of them and farther but yes there are.
Our own library will be more modest but will suffice as will our armory.
Boat Guy

Anonymous said...

You deserve a break today. (Just not at McDonalds)
.
NSF

Don Shift said...

Please do not mention Oxnard. It offends me. It should offend anyone who knows Oxnard.

Stealth Spaniel said...

Please invite me to that library-just once! I can get lost in places like that. You promised to tell us more about Camp Snoopy. It's amazing that San Clemente used to be big mansions with few people and Oxnard was farms when I was a kid. It breaks my heart that it is wall to wall houses and McMansions where my mom took me hiking through forest-like areas and we would stop to pet the loose horse. Looking at California from a 1940's angle-no wonder it was the place of dreams. My mom's family in Ohio thought she was spinning stories about desert lizards and the ocean and farms. There are still hinterlands here in the Golden State, you just need to know where to look. Nothing says a life well lived like your own septic, well, and solar.

SiGraybeard said...

Love the library. Books outnumber everything in this house, with the possible exception of screws and nails, but arranged completely differently. Being one story demands that, though.

LSP said...

"Retirement (if the world lives that long) is a good ways off yet"

I get that. And I love your library! Jealous :)

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

Libraries made famous by hollywood. I like this one better it is real. Yours may have been based on it.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/7b/74/987b7405a8614c203152717707840c12.png

Anonymous said...

There is a quote that I am fond of, attributed to Virginia Woolf:
"I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure."

Grayson

Aesop said...

@BCCL,

I think it's just a living-room sized version of the Library of St Gall, in Switzerland:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/beautiful-libraries-around-the-world-105801884.html

https://i.imgur.com/mjJrZod.jpg

Aesop said...

At any rate, if I can't have the Trinity College Library, I'll settle for the one I picked out.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

Their all beautiful. I would choose Switzerland for the dames myself. My Dad was a serious book collector always first editions mostly western history. The boxes overflow a 6 foot truck bed. I took them to my brother then I brought them back on a trade for my kids. One day I will move and bookshelf a room to display them along with all my hardback non collector edition especially Unintended Consequences.

Funny story a book about Frank Eaton the real pistol pete was sought by one of my dads friends as a gift for him. He called the historical society looking to source an original. The man told him to contact $%&&^ $^##(& my dad. He did not know he had five first edition copies already.

Thank you for what you do. I always stay tuned in.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp said...

ps Ireland on my bucket list and now trinity library. If your ever in Ireland there is a pub in Dingle Ireland with the heritage name of my ancestors. Some drunk Irishman dropped the third E between 1702 Maryland Delare border and 1868 Oklahoma.

RHT447 said...

May I suggest a copy of this print--

https://www.artthatmakesyoulaugh.com/workszoom/562856/heaven#/

Plague Monk said...

Personally, my ideal spot of heaven would be a library full of histories and other books, with plenty of places to sit and read, along with the cats(and a few dogs) I've had in the course of my 65 years of life. With the exception of my wife, people, not so much. That's the way that I want to spend eternity.
I also want a unicorn.

Avalanche said...

Looking at those GORGEOUS libraries, I thought: the g.d BLMantifa would just try to burn it down -- and I think it would be found legal to shoot them all as they approached!

Aesop said...

In my case, they'd have to breach the walls, the moat, and the gatehouse first.
And I have fields of fire measured in sniper's range.
I like my odds.

John Wilder said...

I like your library picture. Mine is just along the walls. For forty feet. I'm betting that more than a few volumes overlap. It's my bedroom I've gotta clear out, though - I've got a stack taller than I am in my "too read" pile. I've started working on that one, finally.

Aesop said...

Same here. But eighty feet. And the "pending" pile is similarly stacked.
I'm about to mezzanine the current space to gain another 50 feet of shelf space.
Not counting the BD/DVD/CD assortment.

I want the garden for balance, and sunshine time (at least 10 mos/yr.). Not to mention to replace the grocery store.

And Uncle can't tax knowledge, nor my back 40.

Anonymous said...

Lord GOD what I wouldn't give to be "bored".....!!!!!!
Got 2 young children; I've no clue what "boredom" feels like...!!!
Haaaahaha.... :-/