Everyday Occurances

[eyesup]

I’m with you Bob!

I’m am definitely getting an old vehicle for my next, some kind of 4x, pre-high tech. I don’t want a GPS or onboard comm unit providing real-time data to any one about what I’m doing. It’s not that I’m paranoid, it’s just no one’s business.

There have been places I wanted to go but the maps recommend 4W high clearance. I have high clearance but only 2W drive. It limits my offroad choices.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Good choice Duane. We'll do Arizona!....Red Creek, maybe. It would be great to get together with a naturist 4x4 enthusiast. Some places occasionally. Some of the places that we go make me a tad nervous when there we are alone with no back up, if there is trouble.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

Went to a 4th of July weekend party yesterday. Our friend has a pool and the temps were 105 with 4% humidity. Upon walking in we happened upon our hostess' greeting us as she was finishing up a skinnydip. DF couldn't keep away from that refreshing water and made a beeline after cutting up the watermelon. I had to snack on some potluck first. The water was so wonderful, I decided that I would just spend my day in the pool, and that's just what I did. I got out to pee and try a little of each of what had been brought since my last visit to the kitchen. I figured that eventually, everyone would be in the pool to cool off. If I just stayed put, I'd see most everyone. It mostly worked out that way. I might be nearly alone and then five minutes later, there would be twenty of us and the water would rise. I followed my hostess lead and wore a towel through her house, but DF just stayed as she was comfortably wandering and participating as she pleased. 

It was wonderful. All of these great people that we know and acquaintances, that we had time to sit with and develop our relationships with and some new people. We weren't a young crowd at all. No one under forty. Mostly old ..say...hippies, these people had known each other for many years. Some are sweat community people. Most remained clothed, outside of the pool, but with a been there done that, we're among friends attitude, only a handful didn't skinnydip out of the probably 50 that popped in. It was refreshing. It was just practical and relaxed, no big deal, friendly, just as I'd see a healthy society.

Music was played, sing alongs went for hours. I teamed up and played didgeridoo with a friend and guitar with another.

I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful circle of people around us.
Jbee 

[eyesup]

Getting a 4x4 is actually on our to-do list. It just isn’t at the top.
Hopefully soon! We try to do as little as possible on credit.
We have to save up for these projects. Then I’ll be checking out some less than inviting spots for 2W vehicles.

I think cell phones and other similar types of technologies have begun to erode something important. A person’s skill in self defense, self reliance and ability to survive. If you have to rely on your own wits, you are more likely to have very good reasoning skills. Something that is necessary for critical thinking. Technology should be thought of and used as a tool, not a crutch.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

I noticed when teaching kids, particularly middle school, that critical thinking was pretty innate. They naturally question authority and differentiate. Listed in the State educational guidelines are requirements to teach critical thinking in science and social studies. I have had administration and school boards attempt to stifle my teaching of critical thinking. I wasn't rehired to one job, because I taught kids to exercise this thinking. They don't like it. The bizarrely conservative Arizona legislation has gone so far as to ban certain books, like "People's History of the United States" in all of the schools to that end.

Somewhere, many kids lose and are dulled to thinking, it seems. There are sections of the population which lack effective intellectual capacity...this seems to have been always true. Thomas Jefferson wrote about his concerns for these and democratic process. Nazi Germany depended on having a percentage of these in their power base.

Technology certainly seems to have a hand, as many science fiction writers have presented. It is dulling and controlling the population. I think that prudes tend to fall into this grouping frequently. They are prisoners of mores, taboo, assumptions, following others, limiting their decisions because they limit, or are limited by, their sources of information. "All I know is what I read in the newspapers."
Jbee

[eyesup]

There is also a declining ability at observation skills and being able to evaluate what was observed.
Of course it could be as simple as, that I need to hang with a better crowd.

Duane

[nuduke]

Gosh JBee, that sounded like a superb naturist day in the pool and all the better because everyone had the option so everyone was comfortable with it.  Didn't you end up all white and wrinkly after hours in the water? (or perhaps you couldn't tell the difference from normal!!! )


All you guys with old car preferences .... once upon a time those 15 year old models had all the up to date technology too!  That's what car manufacturers do!  Get into the 21st!  I love gadgets, knobs, whistles and ESPECIALLY front and rear parking sensors.  If I ever can afford it I want one of those cars that parks itself and eventually I'll want one that drives itself!!


Back to everyday occurrences......


It's been hot again for the last couple of days.  Ideal naturism weather - Not too sunny that you burn*, with cloudy but very warm intervals as relief.
The wife has been a bit poorly with 'the runs' yesterday and today, so she's recovering in bed (and near the loo!) leaving me free to roam skyclad.  Neighbour also out yesterday evening so got in some unabashed naked lawn mowing, paying little heed to the other cracks and portals where someone may see in to the garden if passing on the quiet road.  This morning, weeding and bush trimming.  As I was adjacent to the perimeter fence for quite a while, that pretty much guarantees seclusion and here are a couple of pics of me pulling weeds. You will notice I am NOT naked as I am wearing a pair of leather gardening gloves [as some of the weeds were spiny or nettles] and some clogs as I preferred not having grubby feet today.  Often I mow the lawn barefoot and this leads to green soles which wash clean with a bit of scrubbing.  Couldn't be bothered with washing them straight after gardening today.  Clogs ensure minimal foot restraint but house-friendly soles afterwards!

After replacing my shorts to see if the dear one was OK and a coffee and a sit down - Gosh it was humid though, glad I had the opportunity to be naked - the wife, feeling much better, joined me on the patio and quite unusually picked up the secateurs and started helping me.  She usually doesn't do gardening! This kept me on the straight and narrow path of shorts wearing but by this time the neighbour was back and mowing his lawn.  He was not naked...I couldn't see him over the fence but he ain't the type!  


I'm inside now enjoying British Aircon i.e. sitting by a fan! 


John.


* Yes, I am aware this situation doesn't occur in Nevada or Arizona, you get fried in the sun.  But in the UK whilst there is some UV through the clouds I generally avoid sticky old suntan on such days!




 

[JOhnGw]

I've certainly been glad of aircon and cruise control for my drives towards my naturist holiday location in France.
Temperature is about 33C (90F) which is way hotter than we can take - especially with high humidity resulting in the sweat running off us - so having arrived at our overnight stop we are laying naked on the hotel bed until it's time to go out for dinner.
Incidentally the car averaged over 60 to the gallon and 60 miles per hour ocer the entire 200 mile journey from south Wales to Swansea.

[jbeegoode]

60 mpg! wonderful. We get like 45mpg out of a Prius in this country.

I use cruise control, but it doesn't operate half of the time in my truck. The rear auto lockers throw it off. I love cruise control for speed traps.
Jbee

[JOhnGw]

Our gallons are abit bigger!  LOL

[eyesup]

You are a brave soul, John.

Autopilot is ok in an airliner. There’s a pilot sitting right there, just in case and there is no head on traffic in the air like the ground. I wouldn’t want to trust my life to a propeller head working in tandem with a lawyer and a MBA. The perfect definition of a trifecta from hell. Besides, with all that automation at work, you can bet that someone is somewhere listening in and monitoring.

Duane

[JOhnGw]

You are a brave soul, John.

Autopilot is ok in an airliner. There’s a pilot sitting right there, just in case and there is no head on traffic in the air like the ground. I wouldn’t want to trust my life to a propeller head working in tandem with a lawyer and a MBA. The perfect definition of a trifecta from hell. Besides, with all that automation at work, you can bet that someone is somewhere listening in and monitoring.

Duane

I use cruise control to simply keep a costant cruising speed within the speed limit. Without it there is a tendency for speed to drift down or up on long trips and with that taken care of I find that I take more care assessing the speed and behaviour of other drivers cllowing me to simply turn off the cruise control in good time when approaching a hazard such as a bunch of vehicles in all lanes.
On such motorway (freeway/autoroute/autobahn) journeys I believe that if I need to tough either the brake pedal then I have not been concentrating properly.

[jbeegoode]

JOhn, I think Duane is referring to Nuduke John's comment, "All you guys with old car preferences .... once upon a time those 15 year old models had all the up to date technology too!  That's what car manufacturers do!  Get into the 21st!  I love gadgets, knobs, whistles and ESPECIALLY front and rear parking sensors.  If I ever can afford it I want one of those cars that parks itself and eventually I'll want one that drives itself!! "

What fun is there is having something else drive. Give me a stick, rear wheel drive and a monster under the.. uh, Bonnet/hood. Let me loose on a winding road, or a remote straightaway. Let my back slam against my seat as I accelerate into wondering just how much more I have to hold in a turn and mastering that.

All of those years mastering the art of driving and then just throw it away? Next you'll tell us that you wear your seatbelt always!
Jbee

[Peter S]

This discussion reminds me of the (very old) story of the American rancher visiting his long-lost British farmer cousin. "So, how big is your spread?" asks the rancher.

"Well," replies the farmer, "from the bottom of the drive there, across to those trees on the right, then up to that hill, across to the stream there, and back down to the road."

"Wow," says the rancher, "it takes me three days to drive round the orders of my ranch!"

The farmer ponders this for a moment. "Hmm," he says eventually, "yes, I used to have a car like that ..."

[Greenbare Woods]

This discussion reminds me of the (very old) story of the American rancher visiting his long-lost British farmer cousin. "So, how big is your spread?" asks the rancher.

Reminds me of one time I was invited to visit a ranch in Colorado.  The question of "how big is this ranch"? came up.  Well they said, pointing to some mountains in the distance to the west.  (The mountains used in the film Cliffhanger if anyone remembers that).  "From the top of those mountains to the top of these mountains behind us, pointing to some mountains east."  "And then," he said, "across the next valley to the east to the tops of the next mountains beyond.  We actually haven't cleared the road or gone over there in a couple of years."    Great grandfather was a railroader who won the land in a poker game.