Sharkey's blog

(Lights come up, illuminating a lone figure on the stage of an otherwise deserted auditorium)

Hello and welcome to the third coming of Mr. Sharkey's presence on the internet, or as I like to call it, the re-resurrection. It's not entirely coincidental that this post comes to you on the ninth anniversary of the sudden end to MrSharkey.com, my first full safari into the wilds of Netland. That it comes on the third anniversary of the last saved post from the second coming, is indeed coincidental.

Presently, my life companion is a miniature horse named Camellia, who is the sweetest equine of any size I've known in 40 years of horse ownership. When I have to be away from home overnight, I have to arrange a "horse sitter" to feed her and check in to see that everything is alright. This task has usually fallen to helpful neighbors, but there have been instances when they have not been available, and I've had to cancel travel as a result.

This won't take much of your time.

There isn't any. Advertising, that is. Probably never will be. I think that modern man is inundated by enough sales pitches without my adding to the background noise.

Before this site went belly-up those few years ago, there was a banner at the bottom of every page announcing the Tip Jar, where conscientious readers of the site could click through to leave a small donation via PayPal. Other than a few generous submissions by people who I already knew, no one bothered to leave a gratuity for the information and entertainment that they experienced on the site.

It is still possible to donate via the link above, but at the present, I'm not hammering people about it by putting up the banner. I might never, finances are a little bit better than they were during the recession.

The best way to be not disappointed is to lower your expectations to the point where they are already met.

Just today, a popular blogger that I read often (Lloyd Kahn) came to the revelation that his privacy and even his ownership of his own photographs and content were being compromised by his participation in social media. Long ago, I realized that Gooble, Yahell, Facecrook, and all the others were only out for themselves, and were mining the content of the entire internet for their own gain and purposes.

In the typical fashion of my projects, progress on the water system and penstock pipes in 2016 was exactly none for the first seven months.

After a couple of additional short trips around my local area, each a bit longer than the previous, it was time to take a trip into town the first week of July.

Drove slowly past the fire station and out to the intersection with the road into town. Looked both directions and turned left onto the road through the yield sign. Once I was fully on the road, I caught sight of a loaded log truck bearing down on me from behind.

It would be somewhat inaccurate to say that I've always wanted one of these. Earlier in my life I wanted a model railroad, and a little later, a decent pair of headphones. I got the train set, but had to wait until I was on my own to purchase the headphones. Too bad about that, it would have meant that I didn't need to hear my parents yell "Turn that damn music down! Why do you have to listen to it so loud, anyway?"

But I digress (can you digress if you haven't even started discussing the subject? Uh..)

Last time we checked in on my Crown bus conversion, it was getting use as a home theater and guest quarters. The focus has curved a bit, but that's still a close description.

It was unavoidable, the time had come to try the car out on the road. I washed the windshield, put on some shoes I could hike in in the event I had to walk home, and drove down the driveway and across the bridge.

Out on the road, the car performed normally. It was actually kind of peppy. I decided to drive it east to the end of the pavement, where I turned around.