Muck’s Minute #36

What a Pain in the Ass!

Hey, guys and girls and Burning Platform dwellers, just a note from

Ol’ Muck to let you know that I’m being uprooted from 20 lovely

years, living here in Central Florida, and making one-last-

absolutely-final-I-hope-to-whatever move….

My sweet Annette and my oldest daughter got together and plotted

against me.   They both decided it would be best for Muck and my

bride of 60 years to up-stakes from a perfectly usable and very

comfortable community here in the “Golden Triangle” between

Lakes Griffen,Eustis, Dora and Harris and relocate my old self to a

mountain side about 18 minutes from Prescott, AZ in what’s know

as the “Webster” area (mostly because there is a main feeder road

through it called “Webster Rd.).

It is true that the reason we bought this home in the first place was

that Ol’Muck had a grand case of leukemia morphing into

lymphoma that had not been diagnosed, I thought I was dying and

wanted to get my sweetie in a secure comfortable community

before I kicked over the proverbial bucket.  It turned out that the

medical community here – especially the Oncology Center of

Waterman Hospital – is especially sharp because after 16 years,

I’m(knock on wood) cancer free.  That changes the situation..

Now this has caused somewhat of an uproar within Ol’ Muck’s

mind because of a backlog of “Minute’s” and a number of articles –

not to mention some book outlines and initial chapters sitting in a

folder on my iMac, the interrupt to production would be large and

unpredictable.   But will it be positive?  I’ve come to believe yes.

Knowing that any resistance – you know, old man’s tears (just a

few), doubts, miseries, whining and so forth – were fruitless, I did

that which all we humans should do when faced with something

that is defined in the first line of the Serenity Prayer; “Have the

serenity to accept that which I cannot change.”

Off to the strip mall and start hauling home boxes destined for

recycle but will now be reborn as containers for Muck’s jocks and

socks.

So now I’ve spent the first week downsizing from a glorious 27”

iMac to a new 15” MacBook Pro. I was amazed when all the multi-

mega-bytes’s of stuff on the iMac all fit in this new little silver box!

And fast!!!  Leaves the iMac in the dust. Reboots in 15 seconds.

Remarkable.  Too damn small a screen, but I’ve been telling

myself, “Get over it!”.  So I will.

I did have problems porting user ID’s and passwords from the old

machine to the new one (the transfer software Apple provides is not

perfect), but eventually I recovered them all and my desktop has

shrunk down to the size I expect to be working on in future times

(and smaller quarters).  But by-God, I kept my sleek Magic Mouse

and pad because I hate touch pads..  I’ll probably loose the mouse

somewhere and have to resort to the touch pad someday but I’ll

fight it every inch!

My perfectly good HP 6520 inkjet was donated to our Homeowners

Association (the one in the office was busted) and a sign appeared

on the street in front of the house that says, “FREE STUFF” and is

replenished daily with fresh STUFF that is being emptied from

drawers, closets, cabinets, shelves, sheds, et al.  Some furniture has

been sold on Craig’s List – hopefully more to follow and we have

several furniture buyers sniffing around and thrift stores dropping

off their cards in hopes on catching some overflow (which I’m sure

they will!).

As many times as we’ve moved (from the Marshall Islands to

Europe and many, many places in between), it never ceases to

amaze me how staying in one place too long allows one to pick up

STUFF like beggar’s lice on your pants legs when walking through

the brush. Then, instead of just brushing yourself off with sticky-

tape to get rid of it, you pack up a chunk of that damned STUFF and

haul it off with you when you move again..

My daughter, not to be outdone in helping along with the goal of

our moving, drove cross country with a nice 8X20 dual axel

covered work trailer into which, this morning as a fact, about 1/2

ton (well, maybe not quite that much) of boxes and STUFF was

loaded. Now this STUFF consists mostly of things, pictures, a few

heirlooms and other “too precious” belongings for Annette to leave

behind.

Me?  I’d just have soon layered up two suit cases, packed up a box

with two pictures in it, and hauled butt West.

Not to be.  Some of the valuable STUFF will be distributed (“Put that

box closer to the side door of the trailer!”) to another daughter in

Louisiana, grandson in Texas and eventually more grandchilen’

now residing from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. as time

passes, they will come to visit AZ or we get sucked into a fate worth

than death and go to LA.  Ol’Muck just might put his foot down on

doing something like the last part..  I’ve never lost a thing in LA and

don’t intend to get lost there myself!

Now I do grant you one thing important thing.  Uprooting an old

fart from a comfortable 20 year existence and tossing him (with his

MacBook) into the wilds of N. Central AZ just might result in some

interesting offshoots for future Muck’s Minutes and articles for

TBP and others.  I was, in my younger days, an Outdoor Writer,

member in good standing of the Outdoor Writers Association and I

have a scrap book (where did I put that?) full of tear sheets from

Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Trailer Life, Old Bottle Magazine,

etc., the magazines that bought everything I wrote at the time.

Being in the piney woods of AZ with lakes and streams within a

few minutes just might entice ‘Ol Muck to take up outdoor writing

again (at least they all payed me for what I wrote – not like TBP

where you write for the “glory of it” !!!!).

Dipping a cricket in the Lynx Lake outflow creek might not be a bad

idea.  Being able to spend a few hours every  morning writing (TBP

or whatever – hell, maybe dust off one of five book outlines and

finishing a few) will be nice instead of trimming hedges, pulling

weeds (there are no weeds in Arizona) going to meetings of the

HOA and generally keeping our abode up to our homeowner

standards will be a nice change.

It’s going to take another month to get ready (we’re do-it-

yourselfers) and perhaps another few weeks to let my sweetie

recover from a minor surgery she must have before we leave; but

before the end of March, don’t be surprised to see a Muck’s Minute

pop up that originates from Central Arizona.. Fresh views, and if

I’m lucky maybe even some fresh thoughts.

Perhaps by then The Donald will have stirred up sufficient dust and

shit to be worthy of comment – whereas now, all he’s done is

more-or-less start Executive Ordering his campaign promises.  On

that subject, I must admit to be pretty content so far even if he has

gathered about him some scraggly prevaricating staff that could be

improved on (but that’s just my opinion!).

I’ll see you down the road then, unless I get time to unload another

Minute on you before we leave and maybe on the way.

Have faith in the future – but do not expect it to be trouble or

conflict free.  We are experiencing a Liberal Reset of massive

proportions and as The Donald mixes up his actions to take some

things from the conservative camp and some things from the

liberal camp, everyone is now studying their navel and having

trouble keeping their balance and focus about the battles they

expected to fight!  More power to him..

Goodbye Florida! Hello Arizona!

Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes. View all posts by MuckAbout