gottawonder

Today I am grateful for:

May the fourth be with you!

A very nice, warm day.

The electric fence held Wonder in last night, so that's good.

I spoke with my brother T and sister S, and talked to them about Trainwreck sister's hope in buying/scamming Mom's house.

It sounds like my sister S is willing to be firm on this, and it sounds like SHE insisted that my Trainwreck sister must pay fair market value for the house and have to go through a bank to get a mortgage (as opposed to Trainwreck making some kind of "I'll pay what I can, and Mom keeps owning the house, and at some point when she dies I guess I'll inherit it", and not some "sweet deal" like she was hoping to get.

Apparently Trainwreck sister DID try to see if she could "rent" Mom's house (which would mean that she would say she was going to rent it, then move 60,000 tons of shit into it, somehow be unable to pay anything, and force my family to either have her lawfully evicted, which they wouldn't do, or give up and let her live there for free because no one would want to clean out her shit, or "force her to live on the streets").

It sounds like my brother T would have been soft, and was leaning towards just making some kind of deal with Trainwreck sister, and THANK GOD that sister S said she would fight that tooth and nail.

Here's the thing. My Trainwreck sister is NOT TRUSTWORTHY. If you make any kind of "deal" with her at all, be prepared to get fucked over. She will never take responsibility for it, won't even pretend to honor it because she knows family won't take her to court, and she only REALLY cares about herself.

I know we are all supposed to think of her alcoholism, her hoarding, her whole syndrome of self-interest, inability to manage her life, as an addiction that is not her fault, but I get upset about that. A person can become self-aware enough to recognize that they are hurting other people and make changes. You can go to AA, you can start holding yourself accountable, you can recognize your own short comings and be honest about them.

Sadly, this does mean that if she can come up with a down payment and get a mortgage, however unlikely that is, she would be free to hoard the shit out of our Mom's nice little house.

I would be happier if someone bought it, and took care of it, and got some joy out of it. That I could drive by and see someone sitting on the front porch with their dogs, and some pots of happy plants in the summer time.

Once again, I forced all of that off to one side so that I could enjoy being with River.

We had a lesson with R today, and that went well. I did my warm up first while she was finishing her other lesson, so we could move right into "new business" so to speak.

We worked on riding with just the neck rope, so that most of the communication was my body.

Then we worked on him moving just his front end over (turn on the haunches). We got some decent results.

Then I got the opportunity to work with R outside, trying out the courses she is putting together for a show later this summer (for a horse club; she is a member).

One pattern was for Liberty, and fairly simple, but I still used the fly line on his neck. We tried her pattern, and tweaked it a bit to make it work in the small space designated for it.

Then she had a Working Equitation course, with backing up, barrels to go around in a figure eight, pole bending, that kind of thing, and something I hadn't done before which was opening and closing a rope "gate" while mounted. After some practice, we managed it, and I was so impressed!

Then a slightly different Working Equitation course. Some of the same elements, some different ones.

What she wanted, was for River and I to do these classes to point out anything that didn't flow, where to put some of the elements, and to video it so she could post it for the people in her horse club so they could practice before the show and know what was expected.

So, even though it was doing her a favor, it was like getting a free lesson, because she was coaching us on these obstacles and such for over an hour so that we could get it right for the videos she needed.

Today I learned how to open and close a rope gate for Working Equitation. This video is not us, but it is exactly what we were working on today.

https://youtu.be/umq6luHnznM

I also learned about the Kettering Bug, the earliest forerunner to a cruise missile. It was more or less a bomb with wings, and was unmanned. You launched it, aimed it in a very general direction at your enemies, calculated how long it would take to get more or less where you wanted it, and signaled for the wings to drop off so it would fall.

"The Bug was launched using a dolly-and-track system, similar to the method used by the Wright Brothers when they made their first powered flights in 1903. Once launched, a small onboard gyroscope guided the aircraft to its destination. The control system used a pneumatic/vacuum system, an electric system and an aneroid barometer/altimeter.

To ensure the Bug hit its target, a mechanical system was devised that would track the aircraft's distance flown. Before takeoff, technicians determined the distance to be traveled relative to the air, taking into account wind speed and direction along the flight path. This was used to calculate the total number of engine revolutions needed for the Bug to reach its destination. When a total revolution counter reached this value a cam dropped down which shut off the engine and retracted the bolts attaching the wings, which fell off. The Bug began a ballistic trajectory into the target; the impact detonated the payload of 82 kilograms (180 lb) of explosives."

The bug was designed during the First World War, could hit a target 121 km away, travel 80 km/hr, and cost about $400 each.

It was never used in combat because there were concerns of it's reliability, given that it would have to fly over Allied forces to reach it's targets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettering_Bug