Death: The great equalizer

Any wine will get you high. Judge like a king, and choose the purest, not the ones adulterated with fear, or some urgency about "what's needed." ~®Rumi GM. It's -5 out there. I leave for the mail trail in a half hour. Feeling rested. The moon and stars were out last night. I layed in the snow and looked at them while I did stomach crunches. The lines from Rumi above remind me of the algorithms on social media and such. They serve us all kinds of wines. Some are filled with urgency to act now! I've drank them. . . and regretted it. The hard part is to judge like a king. When you fall off the horse you get back on though. There's something reassuring to know they were dealing with similar wines 800 years ago. I hope you have a great day! Morning Fire 109 1..28.26 #gm #coffeechain #soul

"If one steps out on a starry night and observes one's inner state, one asks if one could hate or be overwhelmed by envy or resentment. ... Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime while in a state of wonder?" ~ Jacob Needleman Sharing campfires with friends and family under stars in the sky . Remembering it brings warmth. Being on the back of our land, on the other side of The Bean Brook, still close to home but far enough away to call it camping, are fond memories. Good morning. I'm in front of morning fire 108 reading quotes and remembering. I leave for the mail trail in 20 minutes. It's - 2 out there according to Google. It warmed up to few degrees above zero yesterday and snowed a little. Enough, I imagine, to make the roads slippery on the way to work. I am going to get back to this fire, finish it off, then head out the door. I hope you have a great day! 1.27.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebclhain

How do I prevent the "strings" issue when I post a YouTube link on Nostr? #asknostr

I deliver mail in rural Northwest Wisconsin 5 days a week. I listen to a lot of BTC podcasts. This was my favorite last week. My takeaway: Home mortgages exist to make sure you are employed and pay your taxes to the government. That's why they make you fill out a mountain of paperwork to make sure your gainfully employed. They'll loan you fiat for cheap, but they're gonna make damn sure you're paying your taxes. To say it another way, the process is there to strengthen the fiat money system. Design is destiny. Perhaps the current mortgage system is designed to keep you on the hamster wheel. To keep things as they are. I invite you to give it a listen. #bitcoin #fiat #banking #taxes

GM. "We lose our time because we lose our attention." - Jacob Needleman It's - 18 out there at sunrise. I looked at the forecast. They're saying it's supposed to hit 8 today. Anything without a minus in front it is a positive at this point. This is the 5th day of extreme cold. Yesterday Hayden (16 yrs. old) and I were out starting vehicles. Had to hook the battery charger up to two of them. There wasn't enough juice to turn them over. I have to keep 3 vehicles operable for the mail route. I never know what I will run into with high mileage vehicles while starting and stopping over 400 times a day on a route that's just over 100 miles. Speaking of the mail route. I had a customer bake me a fresh apple pie last week. I have been running boxes up the long driveway to her house for close to a week. I don't have to. Her and her husband got a spot out at the end of their driveway for me to put the packages, Yet, a few months back, when there were leaves on the trees, he said that he was still recovering from a stroke he had a few years prior. The cool thing about it is they're also my neighbors. I get to hear stories from people that live close to me. These people are only a couple miles away. The advantage, I think, of living on the mail route I deliver. It's time turn my attention to my family who is now awake. I hope you have a great day. Morning Fire 106 1.26.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebchain

Guessing I am zapping atleast 10 SATs to most interactions I have on here. Genuinely feeling appreciative of the Nostr network. #nostr #zaps

If you were disappointed by bitcoin’s price performance in 2025, chances are it’s because you are only comparing the price at the very END of 2024 to the price in 2025, rather than comparing the AVERAGE price for the whole year for 2024 to 2025. Here are the average prices each year: 2023 = $28,852 2024 = $65,966 (UP 129%) 2025 = $101,656 (UP 54%) Maybe 54% isn’t 129%, but who complains about a 54% return on their investment? The AVERAGE price throughout the year tells you a lot more about “what bitcoin did” in that year than just comparing prices on December 31 or January 1 ~ Joel Bomgar #bitcoin

GM. 6AM. It's -22 on my thermometer. I went for a run in it last night. Noticed the waxing moon low in the southwestern sky. The wind blew strong out of the north. That was betweenr 7 and 8 AM. Afterwards I added oil to my mail jeep. In a matter of minutes the cold burned my gloveless hands. It's going to be an interesting day on the mail trail. It's supposed to stay way below zero today. Nothing I haven't been through before in my 17 years of mail delivery. But there's still the unknowns. . . . breakdowns and such. I hope you have a great day! Morning Fire 104 1.23.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebchain

GM 🔥 It's 1 degree out there. A fine snow gently falls. The mail jeep is warming up. They're saying it's going to hit 50 below tonight. We're gearing up for that. Last night I layed in the snow and looked up at the faint stars. It was during my workout. I was down to a T-shirt. I watched my breath rise into the air through the light of my headlamp. It was the highlight of my day. It could be July and I think I would feel the same. There is a sameness to it no matter the season. Off to the mail trail. Morning Fire 103 1.22.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebchain

My first ice bath. I have been taking cold showers first thing every morning for the past 4 years. This was of course colder being immersed in ice water. I stayed in way too long for my first time. Roughly 15 minutes with a few minute break in the middle. Immersing my arms made it colder. Afterwards it took me an hour to warm up. I stood in 90 degree sun with a towel wrapped around me and shivered. I didn't think I was ever going to warm up. When I do it again it will only be 2 to 3 minutes to start out. #daily #health #icebath #countryliving

GN Nostr.I am going to sit down with the family and watch some Lord of the Rings while the wind blows snow at one degree out there. I was just over at my mom's loading her outdoor wood boiler. There's a lot of moving parts to keep her house warm. Thankful everything thing mechanical is cooperating this evening. #gn #wisconsin #gratitude

GM. It's Sunday. A day from the mail trail. That's one thing I am thankful for. I have tomorrow off, too. I am thankful for this fire in front of me. It's one above out there. And they're talking cold all week. Some days it won't get above zero they're saying. The last thing is the dinner we had last night. Annie made chili. Daniel came up to spend the night. It was nice he could join us. He was going to spend the night in the woods survival camping, but a few things went sideways.. After dinner they watched some Lord of The Rings and I went to bed. I hope you have a great Sunday. 1.18.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebchain

GM. I need more grace than I thought. ~ Rumi Thankful for three things again this morning. 1 For my job. It gives me purpose. Keeps the bills paid. 2. The freedom to homeschool. To have my wife and kids at home and happy. 3. Bitcoin. For what it has taught me about money, myself, and how we fear change. That's all. I'm off to the mall trail in 20 minutes. It's 13 out there with a light blanket of fresh snow on the ground. I stepped in it barefoot when I set the ash bucket on the deck earlier. I have been laying in it in the evenings while doing stomach crunches. I never regret doing this. Something about the cold. Tomorrow is a day off. Monday too. We drive up to McGregor, Minnesota Monday to get a leg vice for Hayden (16 years old). It's for forging metal. It's got a leg on it. So it transfer the blows of the hammer into the ground. That's the way I look at it anyway. That's really it. I hope you have a great day! Morning Fire 98 🔥 1.17.26 #gm #grace #soul #homeschooling #daily

GM. One degree out there. Thankful for this fire. Time is short. Things to do before I head to the mail trail. Yesterday I ran across a post about Robert Redford. It was about his final days. This stuck with me: " . . . in his last weeks, Redford had recorded a private message for his great-grandchildren. In it, he said, 'This world can overwhelm. But if you slow down, and sit under a tree long enough, it’ll tell you everything. And if you forget who you are, draw something. Or go walk alone. Nature remembers you.'" I hope you have a great day. Morning Fire 96 1.15.26 #gm #coffeechain #daily #plebchain

GM. Don't complain about autumn. Walk with grief like a good friend. Listen to what he says. - Rumi I opened up my journal this morning to see what day my das passed away 4 years ago. I was thinking it was the 12th. Nope, it was the 10th. I should know that. I won't be to tough on myself though. The morning I got the call, around 4 AM, it was 20 below. Anytime it drops below zero at the beginning of January I'm reminded of that morning. The world around me doesn't let me forget. For that I am grateful. Because I know some day that won't be so. I was actually thinking about him on Friday a lot while delivering mail. It was sunny, above 30 degrees, felt like spring. I could do anything I wanted and he'd still love me. I dropped everything in my early 20's and lived how I wanted to live. By that time I owned 100 acres, logging equipment, and had built a house. Everything most parents would be proud of. Son with financial security. I achieved it through discipline, hard work with my hands, and of course luck. Today it would be much harder with the price of land and such. But I was miserable. Depressed and anxious a lot of the time. It got to the point where I couldn't go on another day bearing the weight of it. My mom saw it while they were "up north" visiting. So we closed up the house I'd built with their help. Then they took me home to where I grew up to live with them. During all of it he never criticized me once. I inherited some of it from him. I'm guessing he understood this at some level. One time he told me to never get in a rut like he did. He put 30 years standing on the floors of the same factory. The lines by Rumi that follow the ones I started this off with are: "Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave give the opening we most want." Little did I know the darkness led me to the "opening I most wanted." I've spent the last 30 years following my nose trying to understand what happened back there in my early 20's. I remember James Hillman, the father of archetypal psychology, saying one time some people will spend a lifetime trying to understand a depression. One thing it taught was to deepen. To deepen my relationships with humans and nonhumans. To not forget moments of wonder and awe. My Dad gave me space to do that. There's a good king and a bad king in mythology. When it comes to this Dad had his good king going on. #gm #coffeechain #plebchain #fire #fatherhood

GM from the front of fire 90. A small window of time exists before I head to the mail trail. I choose to randomly open "Time and The Soul," by Jacob Needleman. Enough time to read one page. I don't get through it. I'm moved to write down this quote: "When we love and value another human being, when we look calmly and attentively at each other, we know, we see that there is something in a man or woman that is not of time." Rarity. We value rare things. Thoughts like this are rarely expressed. I'm like a child picking up a pretty rock. LOL. At myself of course. Off to the mail trail. 1.9.26 #gm #coffeechain #daily #plebchain #soul #time #eternity

GM🔥 Morning Fire 87 1.6.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebchain #fire #winter

I am starting my daily notes today. My goal is to do one daily note and a good morning post a day for a full year. That's our european masonry stove. My wife and I built it back in 2006. If you asked me to explain "proof of work" (a Bitcoin term) to a 3rd grader, I probably couldn't at this point. A good indicator I don't fully understand it. Yet it feels to me this might be a good example of proof of work. The stone we collected from the old barn that once stood where our house is now. The mortar we bought at County Concrete in Rice Lake, a small town 40 miles south of us. There were two brothers that worked the yard at the time. I carry mail with their sister now. She shares stories with me about them on occasion. One of them almost didn't make it through Covid. They put him on a ventilator. He has breathing problems to this day. He farms and works for a local implement as a mechanic. We were going to buy pork sausage from a pig he was going to have butchered. Then the pig died of affilixiation along with a couple other ones. His son let the tractor run too long in the building the pigs were in. Too much carbon monoxide presumed. That's it for this note. Talk to you tomorrow. 1.5.26 #daily #plebchain #nostrnote