"The people only understand what they can feel. The only orators who can affect them are those who move them." - Alphonse de Lamartine

I read an article this morning in which a FEMA employee said all the data shows the big one is going to hit the Pacific Northwest very soon - perhaps within the lifetime of those currently alive - and it will devastate the entire coast. "Everything west of I-5 is toast." That includes Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Salem, and Eugene. (Note: we live 15 miles west of Eugene.) This article linked to a site run by the State of OR that gives info about The Great Shakeout, a statewide preparedness event on Oct. 20 this year, and that site linked to a site about steps to take before the big one.

Most of that content was irrelevant to our situation so I searched prepare for earthquake mobile home. Turns out those of us who qualify as white trash are in good shape. Because single-wides are built on parallel I-beams they are structurally more sound that typical homes and suffer less damage. Their problem is that they fall off the pillars on which those I-beams rest and drop to the ground, but largely intact. The damage is to the contents that tend to get trashed in that drop. And because ceilings in "vintage" single-wides are only a little over 7' tall there's nothing overhead to fall on an occupant.

The windows will all break, making climbing out easy enough. MoHo sits on a bit of an incline, so we can just roll to the bottom side and drop out onto the soft dirt. We don't have gas or propane and the water heater is in a closet accessed from the outside of MoHo. So yeah, we're good.

This is totally impractical for all sorts of technical reasons, but it's also just about the weirdest and coolest things I've seen in awhile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-TOV-NBD70

I can NOT figure out why anyone needs cameras in their refrigerator. How lazy and/or poorly organized do you have to be to tele-conference with your fridge?

I didn't go to the coffee shop this morning, but I did spend time on the writing project. Today was the inauguration of Fred's lower level as office space and aside from a chair problem it was great. I took my coffee thermos down, spread my books out on my new old desk, and enjoyed the quiet as I read, wrote, and revised.
I'm using a folding chair we have that's unusually short. Eventually I want to get a period correct wood office chair but in the meantime I'll get a pad of some sort to raise my rear end about 3".

I climbed up in the loft to check the two mouse traps I set and discovered both had the peanut butter gone and the the traps not tripped. Wassup with that?! I reloaded them to see if I can win round two.

After working in Fred I took the chainsaw across the creek where there's a stand of about five dead Alder trees. I cut down the one closest to the road, cut the three large trunks that came off of it into manageable logs, carried them out to the road, and then used the Kia to get them back to the area in front of MoHo.

Tomorrow or Saturday I'll cut them into stove-sized lengths and split the larger ones. We shouldn't have any trouble filling up the woodshed which, if my estimates are correct, holds two winters' worth of wood.

This afternoon I took the front wheels off the truck and learned that they are not the problem. We went into town on some errands and I got them filled up with air at Discount and will put them back on tomorrow, then move to the rear axle to see if that's where the problem lays (lies?).

Maybe I should build a Mr. Alder. I've got the legs, so next I should get...


wait for it...


the trunk.