Hi. I puchased a Dell Inspiron 9200, and it arrived Friday. I loaded it up with Sysmetrix and noticed the screen refresh was slow and didn't always refresh the entire screen. I ran dxdiag and it would bomb out on the DirectDraw test. I got to checking the programs I'd loaded, disabling them one by one, each time running dxdiag. When I disabled Sysmetrix, dxdiag ran fine. I checked that a couple of times, as I really want to run Sysmetrix. Nope, all of the evidence does seem to point to an inco...

True, I can't just sit outside the camper and send things to the digital tower now. I have to slip the laptop into a knapsack, slide the cell phone and cables inot my bush vest, and hike up to the top of a nearby hill. But that's still OK. I compose what I'm going to say in Word, do a copy, then suspend the laptop and hike, then access the blog and paste. Works pretty good. The new campsite that I'm in is even more isolated. That's good in that the BLM rangers probably won't find me for a ...

The local BLM ranger drove up this morning and asked me how long I've been here. I shrugged and said I didn't really know, but it's been a couple of weeks. He grinned and shook his head, then told me that he was sorry, but I"d have to break camp and move at least 50 miles away from here; 14 days is the limit. Well, rules is rules, I guess. Besides, I'd about explored this country out anyway. The problem is, I don't know if I'll be able to find a place as isolated as this is that also has digital...

I've not made any entries for the last few days, because I'm having fun. I was out walking a couple miles from the truck, went over a ridge, and here's some old mine tailings and evidence of a small mine many years ago. Oh, there's a 'powder cabin', just a tiny wood and stone shelter where they'd store explosives, a few rusting bits of metal, and a hole. My uncle didn't raise me to be an idiot, so I don't go into abandoned mines. But I've spent quite a bit of time prowling around here and sortin...

If the day is reasonably sunny, my batteries are fully charged by noon. Damn, but getting free power is cool. Well, it's not free, but all my expenses are up front. I've two AGM batteries, one 2000-watt inverter, and two 75 watt solar panels. I could have gotten by with less than a 2000 watt inverter, but I got a hell of a deal on it. I run my laptop in the afternoon after the batteries are charged up, as then the solar power being generated just goes to waste otherwise. I have rechargeable ...

The wind has certainly raged today. If I didn't know what the old Bob Dylan line 'the wind howled like a hammer' meant before, I sure do now. Under the impact of some of the harder gusts the camper would certainly rock. One of my two panels gives an annoying moan to the wind, and the mesquite bush waggles and makes a scratching noise against the saguaro. Yeah, there's a cataphony of noise out here, alright. The skies are a little murky because of all the damned dust blowing about, cutting down o...

Ah, this is more like it. I'm sitting here in my camp chair, admiring the sheer beauty of a crimson sunrise. There's a mild east wind whipping through the saguaro by the camper, making it wave occasionally. Sasquatch is nearby, stalking a wayward stick that waggles in the wind. I'm sipping a cup of cowboy coffee and just allowing my mind to wander where it will, without barriers, without focus. Yeah, company is nice, but my privacy is damned nice too. Oh, I s'pose that I'll have company again ea...

This morning Jody kissed me goodbye, playfully squeezed my butt, then climbed into her VW van and chugged back down the dusty road. I did hate to see her go, but I breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Hell, I think I'm about all talked out, and my ears feel battered from listening to her. I let Sasquatch out, then popped a Guinness and stretched out in one of my camp chairs. I'd just as soon no one else came by for a while, and I'll probably get that wish. I've only a couple of other frie...

We were lying about in the warm desert sun this afternoon, in that pleasant afterglow. We were nude, but out here there ain't no one to see. Jody was exploring my body with her hands and her eyes when she stopped and took a closer look at my upper thigh. Jody: "Jeez, what's that?", she asks, pointing to a roughly circular scar on my right upper thigh. Me: "I didn't pull m'leg out of the path of a bullet quick enough, I guess." Jody: "Jimmy! Are you kidding me? You got shot? Where? When?" M...

Jody told me a couple years back that her daddy had died and left her a couple of million bucks. Well, now she wants to buy me a largish motorhome and then we can go traveling. There's too many things wrong about that deal for me. First, although we have a good time together, I can't imagine making a long-term commitment with her. Second, I'd be uncomfortable with the idea of having something worth a couple of hundred thousand plunked in my lap. Third, I wouldn't be able to camp out in the deser...

Jody dropped by today. She had dropped me email a few weeks ago, so I gave her instructions on how to find me. Yep, she still has the old VW van. I heard it coming for quite a ways, and figured it was her. She's a kick, but sometimes her mindset is a little odd. To her, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead still rule. Hell, I like them too, but I also like U2. The inside of the camper is going to smell like incense for the next month, I'll bet. But I still love to see her. She's a free spiri...

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, boondocking (or dry camping) is the art of camping wihtout benefit of hookups. You furnish our own power and water, and take care of your own waste. Science has certainly made this more confortable. We have solar panels to turn sunlight into current, controllers to feed that current into batteries, and then inverters to convert that battery power into 120 AC. We have laptop computers that are small enough to pack anywhere yet powerful enough to do most...

I'm not sure why, exactly. It's not like anyone reads this tender missives, but what the hell... Anyway, it's a cloudy day out here on the Sonoran desert. Time for me to go a little easy on the power use, as the panels aren't bringing in a great deal of current. There's a small pack of coyotes somewhere close by at night, causing Sasquatch to thrash his tail violently now and then. I wonder if he thinks he could go out there and kick coyote butt. No, I tell him. You stay inside where it's saf...

Self reliance and living off the grid are all well and good, but sometimes one gets so caught up in the whole silent desert experience that things are forgotten. Perhaps that's the lesson here, that in order to be self reliant one simply can't afford to forget things. Live life perfectly, or something like that. Case in point: I have a small inverter that supplies 110 AC when I need it. I usually have it on to power my little TV and satellite receiver and recharge my cell phone and laptop (in...

I did get an interesting email from one of my friends. I had sent an article that I wrote to him, and he fired back asking how I sent that when I was a long way from power, let alone a land line. Well, I have a cell phone with a data cable. I found a .pdf on my cell provider's web site that gave a few instructions how to set my cell phone and laptop up to dial up my provider's ISP (it's even free!). Sure, access is only 14.4 through my cell phone, but I get things done.I'm sure in no hurry. Fort...