Who's yr Gurl?!🤪

 Me 'n my jacks just got the axles reattached and everything is hanging properly. I did it! I fixed it! YAY! Who's yr gurl?! WAHOO!!!😘

But who really did all the work? This guy who's passed put on the floor🤭🥰

Just trying to be better than particle physicists 🙄😵‍💫🥴⚛️

 I am currently reading Sabine Hossenfelder's new book "Existential Physics", and it is great. The whole subject has been my mental foil for the past month while I have been making necessary repairs to one of the most important parts of my moving castle...the part that could put me in prison for vehicular homicide if something goes wrong....the running gear.

 This is my 3rd time's the charm assembly. I am tasking myself with taking full responsibility, and giving myself enough time to do so.

 The 1st assembly was done by the 2 people I was working with at the time. They put it together while I was at work, as a nice surprise, but they didn't measure twice.😑 The distance between the center to front and center to rear shackle hangers was not the same, 1 was 28" from center, 1 was 29" from center, which caused them to hang unbalanced as I kept building and weight was added. At least they were equally wrong on both sides.😕

A few years later I also needed more clearance for the tires.  I wasn't parked on level ground at the time, in more ways than one. I was working for a non-profit environmental organization, and one of the board members offered to let me park at the back of his property....where I discovered in closer quarters he is an alcoholic who started sexually harassing me. I was hit by a car for the 1st if two times while riding my bike out there, then I fell off a waterfall quite by accident. I over estimated my physical strength while climbing near one and fell into and down it. After recovering enough from all this to be able to address the issues that kept me trapped with that creep I was more than anxious to get my house out of there.

The 2nd time this was built (1st time by me) I was in a hurry and made the faulty assumption that the current position was basically right, just kinked due to the ground. I was very wrong.

This is the near conjunction of the moon, Venus and Jupiter of February 22nd, 2023. 

Now, under more auspicious stars, and with the conviction that my years of experience in construction and as an over the road trucker I am competent to fix this right. At the very least I am holding myself to a higher standard than apparently most particle physicists. Maybe because I know if I get it wrong, and something goes wrong, my liberty is at stake. I deeply value my freedom, including the freedom to learn from these past mistakes in trust, discernment of others, and fabrication.

Step 1: jack up the house and under the axles, and remove the tires. Disconnect the leaf springs from the shackle hangers.  

Step 2: Cut off the taller shackle hangers I had welding on in fix #2.

Step 3: Cut prep a piece of 2"x 4" tubing to allow space for it to fit around the remaining plates of steel welded to the chassis. I double and tripple checked my measurements as I positioned the new shackle hangers, screwed them and then welded them to the new tubing. The tubing will add some height for clearance. 

Step 4: I made some holes large enough to allow me to attach the tubing to the chassis, and then I double and triple checked the position and measurements in place. The most light weight non-stretchy material I found to use was gift wrapping ribbon. 

 

This guys came out from under the house and gave me the stink eye so hard I thought he was going to burn a hole right through me. 

"Heck ma lyfe! I NEED PETS! If I gets no pets I'm gonna PAWYER UP! C U in Court & then puppy jail for U lady!"

So we went downtown to a cafe and he literally sat in the middle of the sidewalk looking cute so people would pet him.

 

Step 5: With the tubing anchored mechanically I also rented a 250 LP stick welder and welded the tubing in place for some extra security. 

It took a few practice lines:

These are just my practice passes. Not anything that anybody would be like 🤯 about but solid technique...will hold and not have my wheels come popping off...and that's my goal. No vehicular homicide charges. I doesn't have to be pretty.. just No prison.👍 

FULL RECOVERY: No loose screws!

 An update on a major creative construction project I've been working on since December 2017, when I got hit by a car for the second time while riding my bicycle.

 Through diligent attention to many details of my health, and lots of hard work, I am incredibly proud to have made a full recovery! Having regained all my physical  strength and mobility, and especially able to enjoy running again, the screws were backing out of my bones, protruding up from under my skin. So, in October of 2022 I had them removed, and now I am completely pain-free with greater range of motion in my ankle.

 Having grown up with a parent addicted to opioid painkillers, I was terrified of using them  throughout this many year's experience.  I would like to say:

Yes, it is very painful to live through and recover from orthopedic trauma and invasive surgeries. However, the ongoing pain and suffering caused by opiates and their powerfully addictive consequences, not just for the patient but for everyone in their life, is far more unbearable than any physical discomfort could ever be. Mind over matter is possible. IMHO the character development that can come from living through, managing, and overcoming chronic pain is a far better option than throwing away the potential for you to discover the power of your own body's healing abilities by papering over it with drugs. Is it not the case that all medications are only tested against what we call the placebo effect , which is really our own ability to heal, recover and find natural balance? 

For those who suffer from chronic pain, I'm not suggesting there is shame in medicating through it. I'm only saying that all of our choices have consequences. When it comes to our health and our interaction with modern medicine we must have as much agency as possible. In my experience, the horror and trauma of dealing with the abuse of a drug addicted family member is not worth the relief from personal physical pain.

Speaking specifically about character development, I am a big fan of the five factor model of personality, which I remember through the acronym CANOE or OCEAN: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.  The trait I most closely associate with the character development I am refer to here is Conscientiousness. Here are a few of my thoughts, not informed by any formal study, just personal observation and layperson curiosity about how modern social science describes psychodynamics.

Firstly, it is the easiest trait to fake, and whether you want to seem less creepy, live to 100, or kick a drug habit, the expression "fake it till you make it" goes a long way. It takes time to build up good habits, just as it does with physical abilities and tolerances, so making a conscious effort to be conscientious is a reasonable effort in the short term.  It basically comes down to short term impulse control, which has a knock-on effect of helping curb neuroticism. Who doesn't want to feel LESS neurotic?! 

Secondly, being conscientious has a two fold benefit in that it makes one seem more trustworthy to others. There are obvious benefits that come from being viewed by others as safe and reliable, regardless of if someone is faking it or not. It might seem that agreeableness would be more closely associated with being seen by others as a good company,  a lovely trait to have naturally. But, it much harder to fake if it doesn't because body language and facial tells come MORE naturally, and worst yet, being too agreeable makes a person prone to being taken advantage of. Being someone who is not easily fooled because they are aware and alert, through their efforts to be conscientious, while also attracting the benefits of being prosocial, helps develop a sense of personal security and confidence. Again, this helps decrease neuroticism, and who doesn't want to feel LESS neurotic?

Thirdly, and this is based on research, if someone is trying to abstain from drug use the number one strongest determining trait that predicts a positive outcome is conscientiousness. This trait also helps give someone the willingness to work hard to achieve their therapeutic goals, be they mental, emotion or physical. Circling back to neuroticism, this trait has the lowest association with favorable outcomes for treatments because of the resistance to making necessary changes, and the lack of impulse control that characterizes drug use. I personally believe that drug use and addiction is a person's attempt to regulate the nervous system. But they are attempts that are doomed to fail in the long run, only leaving a trail of wreckage and destruction behind them.

Dr. Grande & his YouTube channel is a personal favorite of mine. He posts a lot of true crime content these days, but his earlier videos really delved more into psychology study and research. His delivery is VERY dry, but when it comes to information delivery, and humor for

 that matter, it's a style I prefer. 

Here's a video about conscientiousness.

Here's a video about Extroversion.

Here's a video about Openness to Experience.

Here is a video about Agreeableness

Here's a video a video about Neuroticism..