A Guide to Surviving the Information Glut

These days we are overwhelmed with news and information and rumors and scammers and outright lies, all thanks to the World Wide Web.

This practical guide gives you the criteria to aide you in navigating that morass.

1.   Be skeptical of everything you read, and hear, and see, like the young fellow in this photo.

 

The Adventures of a Vertically-Challenged Person Trying to Get into a Full-sized Pickup

The last couple weeks have been challenging, to say the least.

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Thursday, I drove to Anchorage for some routine medical stuff and went to Costco to grocery shop. When I pulled up to a stop light, I noticed the oil pressure on my 2001 Dodge Dakota crew cab pickup was low so I checked the oil as soon as I parked at Costco.

There was only a drop of oil on the stick!!! This, along with a strong smell of burning oil, also happened in August. I had the oil changed since then and put 1200 miles on the truck. I drove immediately to the Dodge dealer.

There was no chance to have the truck checked that day. They did, however offer to have the service department top off the oil.

As soon as the mechanic removed the oil cap, I noticed a lot of yellow gummy stuff on it. "Coolant," he said and went to talk to his supervisor. "Park it, " was the recommendation.

They also said I could Not leave the truck there. So there I was. Stranded. They said I'm lucky the truck didn't quit on me altogether. That's scary. A hundred miles from home and temps dropping close to zero. No, getting stranded on the highway in the mountains at night was not what I needed.

My mid-sized Dodge Dakota, more than a truck should be loved.

I was stuck. Mid-afternoon and its was getting dark. I had groceries that needed to be removed. I was advised to talk with a salesman, of course.

No way to get around to other car lots to find a vehicle because they had no loaners. By the time I arranged for a rental, all the car lots would be closing.

I had frozen my credit years ago as an identity theft precaution and had no checks with me, only credit cards.

Long story short: I bought a 2011 Ford F150 4x4 crew cab pickup with matching canopy from them. It is spotless inside and out and a nice sterling gray clear coat metallic color. The canopy, should I have to buy one, would be about $5000 painted to match. It has Blizzak tires, like my Dodge.

Ir drives like a dream. Well, considering the dreams I had last night, maybe that isn't such a good analogy.

Why do I need a pickup? We have no garbage service where I live and have to haul my own, 17 miles RT to one site, and about 26 to another. I also use it for gathering firewood, brush removal and disposal, and to clean up litter along 40 miles of highway in the summer. Plus, with 4-wheel drive, I find a truck much safer in the winter.

During the winter, I put lots of split firewood in the bed and park it in the garage for convenient access to dry wood for heating my house.

Gulp.

Not money I needed to spend, and it just contributed to my anxieties.

I transferred all the items in the Dodge into bags in the 8 degree cold and my hands have been chapped and tender ever since.  

I loved my Dodge mid-sized truck more than a truck should be loved. Currently, I am in the process of donating it to Make a Wish. The repair might be as simple as a PCV valve, and then again, it might be far more serious and expensive. The charity says it takes vehicles that are not running.

Then came the next problem. How to get into this large truck!!!

At first, I tried grabbing the steering wheel with both hands and pulling myself into the cab. That fiasco was not for public observance and falling to the ground in the process is inherently possible.. I am hampered by restricted use of my left shoulder and no handholds built into the truck.

How, I wondered, was I ever going to manage this?

Ah, hah. I have a small plastic step at home that would be perfect. I took it with me on my trip to the post office after buying the truck.

It worked perfectly! Much easier to get into the driver's seat. Then, disaster! How to retrieve the step from the ground that looked to be a half mile down. Could I tie a cord to it to lift the step?

This was getting ridiculous.

Next solution: The driver's seat is power-operated. I can raise it high enough to see over the steering wheel and dashboard, and , thus, by lowering the seat to its lowest extremity, getting in is possible by grabbing the steering wheel and dragging myself up. Not easy, but possible. I would not want to have to do this often, though.

So, I wondered, how long until power-operated seat breaks?

Possible solutions: Have running boards installed. I'm starting to look into that.

If I don't find a solution, litter clean up next summer will be severely and negatively.affected.

The Fur and Feathers Journal, 2024, Day Three, Entry Six, Tides, Tides, all about Tides.

 Been a while since I visited this site.   I am so easily distracted by my self-imposed projects.    The latest was to accumulate  almost 20,000 photos that were on various thumb drives and memory cards.   Now, they are all in one place where I have sorted them by category.   It's a work in progress and I'm taking a break from it for now.

So, let's get back to the Fur and Feathers Journals.

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When last we saw our intrepid travelers, they were at a remote tent camp under auspices of Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, Ronnie and Karl as hosts.   

Oliver, part owner/manager with his parents of the whole operation, had landed his Maule 3 on a gravel bar in the creek in front of camp, dropped off some supplies, took off and landed a hundred yards away on the shore of Cook Inlet.   There, he had much more "runway" available

First to go was Alicia, along with a lot of baggage.   When Oliver returned, Eddie and I piled in the plane for the very short flight to the lodge.   Eddie landed on a narrow trail that fronts the privately-owned cabins.

Photo by Karl.

Our cabin wasn't quite ready for us to move as the staff was still cleaning it from the guests that were leaving that day.

We took  a short ride around the area, looking for whatever caught our interest.

Our ride was restricted by the high tides. The  creek crossings were flooded and couldn't be crossed by the ATV and the trailer that hauled up around.

The dirt/gravel trail is where Oliver landed his plane.

The ATV trailer that hauled us around the area.

We looked for bears and Eddie spotted several but they were too far away to get a lens on them.   We found a bald eagle taking a bath in Silver Salmon Creek and that was the highlight , and. extent, of our late morning game drive.

And, we flushed some mallards.

After lunch, we moved into our cabin, which is actually a house.   The lower floor, where we were, is a complete house--living room, kitchen and two bedrooms.   Alicia and I paired up to share one room.  

Upstairs is another kitchen and breakfast nook,  two bedroom area where Karen stayed.   She would join our game drives.

Well, we couldn't get to the bears, so a bear came to us.   Just as we finished lunch, we were alerted to a visitor ambling along the trail.    

It paused nicely for photos in front of the blooming yarrow.

And came up the trail to the lodge grounds.

We all grabbed cameras and piled out of the lodge to see the bear.   This, frankly , is a common occurance and is one of the things that makes this place so special

The bear checked around the fish cleaning spot and then showed a special interest in the chef's cabin.

Then it strolled along in front of a bunch of us before turning into the forest.   It gave us all a nice face-on look.

I'm about 25 to 30 feet from this bear.

With that, we returned to our cabin for a break and to get ready for a late game drive when the tide was lower.