Nov 22 2016 - The cost of doing things, has changed for me.

Sun Nov 20 2016 – 07:10

Brrr. 5C(40F) I am a wimp.

The bear outside my RV doesn't seen to think the cold is unpleasant.

There were bears outside when I went to bed, and there is a bear outside now.

Last night I had a good shower. I made out of some shelving, a seat between the edges of the bathtub. I can slide from the toilet onto the shower seat. Now I need grab bars.

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Monday 21 November

On my buddy's property where I am staying, there is a shower. A very rustic shower, but well made, and it even has an electric hot water heater. It is used by people that camp or hunt on the property. 

There is a WW2 re-enactment next week, followed by a huge DJ party. The shower will be used lots.

I decided to get the shower all clean for those people. 

The ground if covered with tree debris from the hurricane. Normal walking is difficult, and walking with a prosthetic leg is very time consuming. Because of the high grass and the thousands of branches laying around, my prosthetic leg seldom swings forward enough to lock. I use a walking stick to smack the leg forward to lock the knee. This requires balancing on my good leg while pushing the prosthetic leg into lock. At least when I fall, it is on soft ground. The property is mostly clumps of grass growing in sand. Now everything is covered with a few inches of pine needles and branches.

First 10 minutes was walking between the shower and the shed trying to find the key to the shower. 

Next 10 minutes was getting the hot water heater on.

The inside of the shower was all moldy, dirty, and full of little green frogs.

There is a hose pipe that looks like it has not been used in years. It is all kinked, and the temperature last night was 38F (4C) so the hose was stiff. 

It took me almost 1 hour walking back and forth to unkink the hose, to get the water flowing.

Then I went back to the RV to get spray soap, my grabber bar, and a sponge. I sprayed the shower, (and frogs) and used the grabber bar to hold the sponge, and wiped down the inside of the shower.

Now the shower is much cleaner, and so are the frogs.

All in all, I spent 2 hours doing a job that would have taken 20 minutes a few years ago.

All this hard work reminded me about the Russian Socialist movement of many years ago. They figured that a fair pricing of an item should be a reflection of the amount of labor necessary to make the item, or complete the service. Equal pay, for equal work.

So, if it takes 20 man hours to grow 20 tomatoes, then each tomato should be worth one hour labor. If it takes 100 hours to paint a house, then you can compare tomatoes to painting a house.

The problem was, of course, that if someone grows tomatoes in a computerized, hydroponic system, then each tomato only costs 10 minutes. So you had tomatoes at the market for 1 hour cost, right next tomatoes for 10 minutes cost. Both are fair prices, and both are worth what they are charging. But which would the people buy?

I used to earn about $100 an hour. So for cleaning of the shower, I should be compensated about $200. (R 2600). 

My buddy could have got someone to clean the shower for the price of a beer.

I struggled for 2 hours, and fell, and got wet, and probably got a blister on my stump, and all that effort is worth the price of a beer. 

Because of cancer, and an amputation, my labor has gone from being worth $100 an hour, to about $1 an hour.   

My labor is worth about 1% of what it used to be worth. 

Of course sometimes, the labor is worth it. Last night the football game was on, but my TV antenna on the RV roof was pointed the wrong direction. So in the dark and cold, and with the prosthetic leg on, I climbed up onto the roof of my RV, and re-pointed the antenna. This is something that 2 years ago would have required caution, and planning. But now it was exhausting and dangerous. 

I think that sometimes I get so fed up with being useless, that I just don't care about the risk, and do stupid things.  

This shows that I should concentrate my energies on thing that I can still do with the same effort as a few years ago. So instead of cleaning showers, I should be setting up DNS servers. :-)

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Tuesday 22 November 06:30

Temperature inside the RV is 4C.(about 40F)

I no longer take care to be quiet in the RV just because there are bears around. They seem to be getting used to the noise.

This morning is a mother with one small cub standing under the big tree. I gave up trying to tell them apart. It could be the same bear over and over :-)

A small cub came by all by itself. I wanted to capture it and give it to a friend. :-)

I have 5 credit/debit cards that don't work. I'll sort out the ones I can today.

I will also get my guns and spears from the shop.

I need to install my grab bars.

My mind is full of thoughts about my car. I tried to drive the beetle in Pretoria. It was not possible to push the clutch. I want to try to drive my Metro, but it has a foot clutch also. I love that car.

I might be able to build a hand operated clutch.

I might be able to make it electric.

My buddy has loaned me his car for a few days. I need to zoom around lots to get thinks done. His car is a Ford escape Hybrid. It is one of the very few automatic transmission cars that can be towed with all four wheels on the ground. I like playing with the electric drive part of the hybrid system.

The Escape get about 30 MPG (7 L/100km) which is good for an SUV.

Later