Sunday, January 27, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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Hopping from gotcha to gotcha
Maybe, maybe not. As long as my TP gotcha had me at Wal-Mart yesterday anyway, I thought I'd see if I could find an upgrade for the cheapo hand held vacuum I've been unhappy with. There wasn't much to choose from but I picked up a little Dirt Devil Power Reach that looks like it will do the trick. It looks to be more powerful, easier to empty, and more versatile than the cheap little thing I've been using. So far so good. I gave it a test run when I got back to the park and it works pretty well with good suction and the hepa filter catches the dust instead of letting half of it blow on through like my old cheapo vacuum. The crevice tool could have a longer hose but I think it will be ok as a tradeoff I can work with.
So here's the gotcha
When I went to Amazon.com to get the links to put this paragraph together I found the consumer reviews there almost universally pan the Power Reach. Gotcha - I should have read the reviews first.
But then again what do I care? My needs are different from those of the average consumer who seems to be largely unhappy with the short hose for the wand and a lack of power to the rotating brush. Aside from those shortcomings, which I think I can live with, the thing seems to be pretty well built and there is little on the market to choose from in the handheld vacuum category these days that is not cordless. I don't think I want a cordless vacuum for the RV.
Night camp
Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.