September 18, 2008. Eight years. in A small but passable life.

Yesterday marked the eighth anniversary of this current bout of unemployment. Eight years since the factory closed and I clocked out for the last time. The plan was to max out the twenty-six weeks of unemployment and then find another time clock, somewhere. And little did I know that the whole economy was on the verge of collapsing. The twenty-six weeks turned into ninety-nine weeks as millions of people found themselves unemployed.

After the ninety-nine weeks were over there was no more gas for the van so I parked it for the next four years. It was about six months after that that the small amount of money I’d saved back for groceries was gone and I applied for food stamps.

During all this time the whole “looking for work” paradigm was shifting to algorithms instead of people making the hiring decisions. I gave up trying to figure out how the game is now played.

Anyway, ancient history.

I finished reading the novel “Finder’s Keepers” by Stephen King. It was number two of a trilogy and I’d already read number one and number three. He did a good job of breaking a good story into three good sized novels. Good stuff.

I finished reading “Who Rules the World?” by Noam Chomsky. I’ve read many of his books and I believe he’s right in saying that neo-liberalism has reached its endgame. Politics have become a circus and the corporations have taken over the game. But he does express some hope that things could and are changing. There are struggles people are undertaking that may not change things quickly but at least are causing more people to realize that change is needed. There is always the hope.

I went grocery shopping and bought enough for a thirty day stay in the woods:

32 packets of noodles with a few rice and mashed tator packets thrown in.
15 pouches of tuna.
15 small cans of chicken breast meat.
8 quarts worth of powdered milk.
30 packets of instant oatmeal.
20 packets of hot chocolate w/marshmellows.
2 packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips.
1 jar Folgers coffee crystals.
18oz. of pure honey.
3 18oz. jars of creamy peanut butter.

All that was $121.46

I never did a calorie count, but that was basically the larder I had for the thirty days I did during March 2015. And I didn’t starve. It is more utilitarian than exciting, but oh well.

I ended up having to completely fill two 35lb. cat litter buckets. After they were filled I weighed them. 15.6lbs. for one and 16.4lbs for the second. A total of 32lbs. And that couldn’t be more perfect going by the tried and true maxim of “one pound per person per day” baseline.

Now the only dilemma is how to pack them in two hours down the trail from the trailhead. The easiest solution would be to cache them somewhere near the trailhead and then retrieve them one at a time in the backpack. That would only be three roundtrips for a total of twelve hours hiking.

Or, the more I think about it, I could put a week’s worth in the backpack and leave the rest in the pantry at home and just go for a week in the woods.

I’ve got about three weeks to decide.

Anyway, I need to find something to do today since I’m out of reading material. Unless I want to pick up that Masterpieces of World Philosophy once again.