Twentynine Palms, July 2011
Page 2: Concrete, Thunder, and Computers
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Fell asleep fatigued, but woke up ready to go, before sunrise.
The time difference between here and Florida works out really nice that way.
I’ve been laying off with the camera on this trip, trying not to let it get between myself and everything around me, and I begin my day today in similar fashion.
Newt’s up predawn too, and coffee’s on, and before too long I’m back on his computer, tweaking away.
After enough of that, we head out to the slab by the trailer, and do a little work on the Bottle Wall.
Ranchin'.
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Mixing concrete and then working it down onto the existing partially-built wall, laying another row of bottles down into it, working the stiff wet concrete mortar into all the nooks and crannies, and then repeating.
Bottle wall.
Newt starts off, and has me retrieve more bottles from the Ship of the Desert.
Maybe I’ll take a picture of it later on sometime, and let you see it.
Eventually we run out of material and head on into the Yucca Valley Home Depot to get another ten bags of concrete mortar mix.
Today starts out with plenty of debris clouds left over from yesterday’s weather (none of which made it out here), and with the sun blocked, it tries to stay nice a little longer before the heat comes swelling down out of the sky and puts a stop to all outdoor activities till just before sundown.
When the heat gets here, I expect it will be less than pleasant, ‘cause the humidity is up.
Does not feel like the desert.
None of that crisp tang in the morning air.
Feels just like Florida, in fact.
We return with the bags, unload them, and cease and desist then and there.
The heat has arrived.
Back into the house where the computer awaits in air-conditioned comfort.
Finally, I’m done with it, and Newt is quite pleased with the way things have turned out.
The new machine sings and dances.
Fast as unto a speeding bullet, it is.
I depart for the trailer, and while walking toward it, I cannot miss the unmistakable signs of a thunderstorm developing over the Twentynine Palms Mountains, back over the Pinto Basin somewhere none too far away.
I’ve always wanted to see a desert thunderstorm, and missed yesterday’s rain, so I immediately go get the camera and begin shooting.
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The storm develops fully and the air crackles and roars with lightning and thunder, just a few miles away.
Looks like town is getting hit pretty good with it.
From where I’m walking around out beyond the fence line, the storm is exactly the right distance away, and nicely fills the frames I’m taking. Not too close, not too far away. Just right.
I remain dry, and continue to shoot.
Very nice.
I’m a little spooked with some of the closer lightning strikes, and am very careful not to lean up against the metal fence wire, but remain outside, shooting away at the phenomenon.
The storm finally plays itself out and after a while, me and Newt go and attack his old Mac which has died, with the intention of extracting the hard drive from it so I can take it home and, with luck, recover the pictures and documents that are still on it, intact.
And I immediately get yet another lesson on Why I Hate Macs.
It’s all proprietary fasteners, none of which are susceptible to the persuasions of any kind of normal tool.
Not one damn bit of it.
Apple has, with malice in its heart, designed and built this stupid piece of shit with the full intention of keeping everybody out except for an exorbitantly-priced official Apple repair person. Either that or just go and buy a whole new machine. Yeah, I can very easily see upper management rubbing their hands together and hissing, “Exxxellent,” during the design review process, as these “features” were explicated.
Fuck you, Steve Jobs.
The machine isn’t only merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead, so I determine to go at it with Main Force.
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And in short order, I find myself disassembling a computer, for the first time in my life, with a literal hammer and a literal chisel.
No, I am not kidding here. I used a fucking hammer and chisel to get it apart.
But it’s not quite as bloody as you might imagine.
The Apple shitheadedness is, for all intents and purposes, only skin deep.
Goof-ass metal fasteners with bizarrely intractable heads, screw directly into PLASTIC attach points.
Duh.
Apple machines are expensive, but they’re cheap, too.
Place chisel blade just below head of fuckwit proprietary fastener, whack chisel sharply with hammer, and the little plastic doodad the fucktard proprietary fastener is embedded into promptly disintegrates, and it’s a piece of cake to lift and remove stuff from that point on.
Fuck you, Apple.
Because of your shit-ass attitude, you have lost yet another computer customer, and I’m sure you could not possibly care less.
Apple, you see, is rapidly moving away from being a Computer Company, and is plunging headlong toward becoming a Consumer Electronics Company.
Once upon a time Apple computers were the Gold Standard, but no more.
They’re crap, and they’re being walked away from by the company that builds them, customers and all.
It all began with the mePod, and has accelerated with the mePhone, and where it all may wind up going, I cannot know. Let the monied lemmings purchase what they will, and let Apple pursue its profits wherever it chooses.
And so it shall be.
The hard drive is exposed and lifted out from within its confines. And, as one final damning piece of evidence that Apple machines are nothing special (aside from the horseshit way they’re assembled), the drive comes out and is revealed as a perfectly ordinary Hitachi Deskstar hard drive, made in China just like everything else is. It truly is only skin deep with Apple.
And we are now done with them.
See ya.
Cathy has returned home and informs us that she got hit directly by the storm, teaching at the college, and in addition to a torrential downpour, they also got hail. The hammering of hail was sufficiently loud that, at a couple of points, the clattering roar rendered her incapable of continuing to deliver her lecture to her students because they could no longer hear her over the din.
Most very unusual, to say the very least.
Glad I got those pictures of it.
And then, after sitting down and writing all of these words, a rumble of distant thunder caught my attention and I walked outside to see that the weather was trying, once again, to bring some rain my way.
Pretty much in the same place as the last time.
Makes me wonder if the pointy end of the Pinto Basin isn’t somehow funneling things up into the same place every time as the moist southeast flow proceeds upslope.
But this one didn’t have as much oomph, and it was fizzling out long before it crested the mountains.
That said, it was very easy on the eyes, and I grabbed the camera, and went after it. Some of the clouds out here look completely fake, and have an almost cartoonish aspect about them. Solid masses with a high base and lots of light getting underneath, intensely blue sky, excellent air clarity, and fine hard edges make for a visual delight.
This place has a very nice sky.
Or at least it does when there's clouds in it.
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When I was done with the clouds, I decided to take myself a little walk down to Godwin Road and back,
and more or less shoot whatever caught my eye, here, there, and wherever.
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So I guess I’ve finally decided to pick up the stupid camera and go to work with it, like I’m supposed to.
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