To Keep The Fire Interesting

On The Non-Birth Of The Fire Channel

At one time, years ago now, I used to have "Flashback Friday" every Friday, where the post had to be something that happened well in the past. I thought about reviving that institution as perhaps "10 Years Ago, Today" and then regurgitate a ten year old timeline and maybe try to put it in some perspective, given the advantage of ten years of "experience."

I am bound to come upon a day, ten years in the past, where I was pondering the question of: "Where do I see myself; ten years from now?" or something similar. A lot of the self help type books that I collected and eventually read had worksheets and quizzes for the reader to do. Your score on the quiz would determine which type of person you were, or they would force whatever type of person you were to physically write down things such as beliefs or goals; and this has proven to have been the key to connecting the side of the brain that physically writes stuff down with the side that just daydreams about things, bringing the two hemispheres into harmony.

And so I scrawled out plenty of long term and short term goals; I imagined when I breathed in, I was breathing in omnipotence, and in that One-ness with The One, I could see my long term goal was to have an orchard, at the top of a cliff, overlooking an ocean, to the west (so we would get the spectacular sunsets, just no spectacular risings) with a windmill that may or may not also be a lighthouse. And there is to be a thick orchard with pears and apples, peaches, cherries, and kratom, plenty of kratom trees.

And that is the long term goal.

First I have to buy that burner phone,

Then I open a new Google Account.

Now, the algorithm doesn't know a thing about me; except my phone number, and, pretty soon by the gmail address I use the phone number to get.

Then, the first things I do, the first thing I search for -those baby steps that I take- will become the first iota of wisdom that the algorithm will have filed away under my account..

So, I think I will search for something like: "what is the range of the House Wren in North America?"

Then, I'll just let that sit, maybe I will click on one of the results which are labeled as being ads, and maybe even look at the products, and might even buy a bird feeder that attaches to windows by suction cups, as I am in the market for one. I would have to get some little step ladder thing to go out and replenish the thing, but I think it would also entertain Harold, when he is inside..

And so, that will be all the Google algorithm knows about me at that point.

Do I start to get spam in my newly opened gmail account, from the marketers of discount bird feeding supplies?

When I open my brand new Youtube channel, are there going to be bird videos featured in all the suggestion boxes?

The Fire Channel

When I was living in the woods in an upper middle class part of Jacksonville, the nightly fire was, at some level, the highlight of the day for me.

I had taught Karrie how to recognize the best woods for cooking -hickory, pecan, and my favorite, red oak. And she typically could be heard, sometimes from several hundred yards away into the protected wetlands, just before sunup, snapping away. 

And those hardwoods burned with the slowness that you might expect from the wood of trees that produce fatty nuts. And they impart the best flavors through their smoke, to foods cooked over them, and makes the camp smell more like a fine steakhouse; less like a house on fire.

Part of the longevity that I was able to achieve living in that huge patch of forest, which is cut off by a pretty substantial creek from the rest of the upper middle class area; declared a "protected wetlands" on the "official" maps of Jacksonville; was by doing things like that. If we are building a fire for heat; why not make sure that any smoke that might drift across the substantial creek into the upper middle class subdivisions, smells the same as what they might catch a whiff of, from the nearby Ryan's Steakhouse when the wind is blowing the other way.

But, sometimes, sitting by the fire at night, I would envision The Fire Channel, where a camera is aimed at a fire somewhere, my fire, on this episode, and people can tune in from everywhere, once broadband becomes available, to watch the fire. From when the newspaper is lit under the kindling, all the way up until embers about 140 minutes later...

The fire would burn and a commentator would every so often, make observations such as: "Yeah, that top log that he laid across a minute ago; might have been a little green, it was throwing some smoke before it caught, but now you can see how well it's going! ...starting to get a good bed of embers, now..."

"I have a feeling that when we come back from our first commercial break, that red oak piece with the bark on it facing us, will have caught. Don't go anywhere!" type of thing.

Those incredibly aromatic woods....

The Puzzle Channel, I thought was a stupid enough idea to be funny; but then I got the idea that a competition between people live streaming themselves all putting copies of the same puzzle together, and having a worldwide race going on. It would be sunrise in Japan, as one lady is working on the cafe area in the puzzle picture, while, somewhere else, where it is midnight, another contestant is working on his own part of the puzzle.. That's not such a bad idea; and one that might put The Puzzle Channel on the map. 

And then it can rely on the format of the some grumpy guy working on a puzzle in real time, who is really slanted and opinionated in his political views, and so while he is working on the puzzle he's mumbling about anarchy, and revolution, etc.

But, The Fire Channel would need some really interesting commentators in order to keep the fire interesting, I would imagine.