“So there he is,” she said into the phone, watching from the kitchen window. “Standing in the backyard, in a tub of ice, under the sprinkler, because apparently he’s having hot flashes now.”
A pause. Then a muffled laugh from the other end.
“Oh no, he’s serious,” she continued. “He said—and I quote—‘It’s basically the same as menopause, babe. Just… manlier.’” She rolled her eyes so hard they nearly rattled. “I told him if he started crocheting mood journals and crying at commercials, then maybe we could compare notes.”
Outside, her husband stood like a tragic Roman statue, water pouring off his stubbled face, chest puffed out as if enduring some noble trial of nature.
“I swear, this is a man-cold on steroids,” she sighed. “He read one article about testosterone levels dropping after forty-five and suddenly he’s a medical case study. Next thing you know, he’ll start blaming the moon.”
Her friend snorted on the other end, owning the same model at her home.
“I don’t know,” she said, softening as she watched him refill the tub with another bag of ice. “He’s ridiculous, but he’s kind of adorable. Like a confused Labrador in human form.”
She smiled. “Still, if he mentions ‘hot flashes’ one more time, I’m turning off the sprinkler and handing him a brochure for empathy training.”
3 - 0
Whelp, beets has begun!
This is why I'm not going to be all YouTube-In-Your-Face for a bit. These sugar beet piles will eventually get to 40' tall, over 200' wide, and be the length of a football field each. Trucks come in nonstop to the machines, dump their loads, and a conveyor feeds this long boom which swings back and forth creating the massive pile. And of course the machine slowly rolls back as it does. (Sorry for the bad pic, I'm technically not allowed to use a cell phone on site. LOL!)
Nikki is ground crew, so she directs trucks, cleans, takes samples, and a few more things. I drive a skid steer which is used to set steel culverts under the pile as it gets created so they can blow freezing air under it to keep the beets frozen until they get processed.
We worked yesterday just over 12 hours and the fastest they ever got all the crops harvested was 12 days, so this is our October. But I promise I'm going to successfully sneak in a GoPro and share this with you guys. :-)
PS: Oh, I have to link this to the channel, right? Man Logic and all that? OK, so here's the first line in the next video's planning card: "The idea is to play up how a guy who has spent his entire life in a cubicle or in a recliner makes the grand man-choice to actually work for a living. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. In North Dakota. Outside."
3 - 0
A new video has dropped! (And there was much rejoicing!)
Sometimes you wake up convinced that today is the day you’ll finally turn it all around—eat better, exercise, hydrate, and find the version of yourself that used to bounce back in a week.
But somewhere between the plan and the execution, reality (and perhaps trail mix with a lot of candy in it) sneaks in.
Ahem … the video is Members Only for now (it releases to the public on Saturday the 5th) … but don’t let that stop you from signing up. (Hint hint)
watch video on watch page
1 - 0
Bob had finally had enough.
Enough of the strongmen. Enough of the bullies. Enough of the HOA president, the regional manager, and—oh yes—his boss’s boss’s boss. Every headline he read was another log on the fire. Every email from corporate was another nail in the coffin.
So he did what any sensible man on the brink of righteous defiance would do ... he went to war.
Not actual war, mind you. Not like the Animal House avoidance kind of war—long, drawn-out, sure to cost lives—but definitely with a speech about destiny somewhere in there kind of war.
Bob stood in the bathroom, mentally imagining chainmail glistening in the soft light of the 60-watt eco-bulb, one hand on his helmet, the other gripping the sink as if it were a shield. He gazed at himself in the mirror. This was it. This was how you stared down evil.
“The HOA meeting is tonight, and I’m going to protect our fence line regardless of the cost” he declared to himself in the mirror.
Bob visualized his glorious campaign: storming into the conference room, flipping the donuts table, drawing a line in the carpet with his sword. Neighbors would applaud, the treasurer would resign, and order—true order—would finally be restored.
In reality? He’d probably just sit in the back row, muttering under his breath about insane bylaws while balancing a paper plate of cookies on his knee.
But in his head, Bob would be a general, ready to face the dark armies of bureaucracy. And honestly, it has to start somewhere. Might as well be in mental armor and a declaration that enough is enough.
---
And if you want to see a real villain in action (we promise he won't hurt you!):
The SECRET CONFESSIONS of a Failed Villain
https://youtu.be/bsbmD8UiL3E
4 - 0
Whelp, I finally dropped a new show for ya. Sorry for the delay, but planning world domination apparently takes up a lot of ones time. watch video on watch page
2 - 0
My Man-Brain is thrilled this morning! Why? Because ... I'm now making $1.50/hour more than yesterday! LOL!
Allow me to explain. And to give you some good news. The "'splain" is that we are at the beet harvest, we are fully trained and orientated, and are now just waiting for the weather to cool down enough for the farmers to start pulling those giant orbs from the ground.
AND! I'm no longer just "ground crew", working the piling machines and scraping dirt and fallen beets for 12 hours a day. Nope, I'm now a Skid Steer Operator! All hail and worship me! LOL!
I'll drop a pic of a machine below, but basically it's a little mini-tractor-bulldozer. I get to set deep-freeze culverts, pile beets that have gone wayward, and sit inside of a cab with air conditioning, heat, and a stereo ... all while watching my girlfriend stand outside in the North Dakota weather without any of those things. (Oops!)
And yea, for the responsibility of not running over the ground crew with heavy machinery, and for keeping the beets viable for processing, I now make $21.50 an hour. Only about a quarter of me in my prime, but hey, it's a salary.
Ain't quitting your career to nomad in a bus just the greatest?
Such is man logic.
Anyway, the good news is that we have a week, maybe 10 days, before harvest actually starts. And I somehow managed to finish a video script last night. So if I can get my now-blue-collar-ass out of this recliner, I'll have a new video out for you tomorrow.
It's only been a couple of weeks since I've done this. :-(
And yea, don't worry, I'm going to sneak a GoPro into the cab of my HVAC-enabled machine and take you guys along for the ride. Although that video will have to be somehow worked into my 90+ hour workweek.
PS: Oh! And we got day shift! 8am to 8pm, which frankly is what we wanted. For while I may be able to swap a white collar for a blue one ... giving up my beauty sleep habits would require at least another buck or two in salary! :-0
11 - 6
While I'm waiting for my new (and blissfully temporary) beet harvest job to begin ... I'm working on the next video for your viewing pleasure. And as usual, it all begins with an article.
Now, I'm not going to bore you with the long version (it's at 2ndhalfmastery.substack.com/ if you're interested), I'm instead going to bore you with the Readers DIgest Condensed Version!
Ahem ... ready?
MEN will fight over anything. Who grills the best ribs. Who has the bigger … umm, truck. Who controls the AC on a road trip. I’ve seen full-grown adults nearly come to blows over Star Wars vs. Star Trek. (Spoiler: it’s obviously The Fifth Element)
And this same instinct doesn’t go away when men swap backyards for palaces. Nope. It just comes with a wider blast zone. Trump? Elon? Netanyahu? Do I really need to hand out examples?
The thing is, this isn’t new. From Thag the Spearmaker with his slightly longer stick, to Caesar rage-quitting the Republic, to Napoleon still short after conquering Europe — it’s all the same story.
The throne itself? The apex to which men aspire? It never existed. It’s plastic lawn furniture, painted gold. But men will fight for it anyway, yelling “I’m the one!” while the rest of us roll our eyes and turn up the radio.
---
OK, maybe that was a little too condensed. Please go check out the full article if you're into satire or perhaps enjoy poking fun at those staring at themselves in fun-house mirrors.
PS: As far as the video below? There's an update ... I got promoted! I'm no longer just a guy with a shovel, I get to drive heavy machinery! LOL!
watch video on watch page
1 - 0
I pride myself on being prepared. Prepared for anything. Zombie apocalypse? I got the crossbow! Power outage? Generator, check. Nuclear winter? Enough canned chili to kill me in ways radiation never could.
So when my wife and I decided to take a simple weekend camping trip, I applied my usual “better safe than sorry” philosophy. The back of our SUV looked like a scene from an outdoor gear catalog colliding with a hardware store clearance aisle. Tents, tarps, first aid kits, bear spray, lanterns, spare lanterns in case the lanterns failed, and a third-tier emergency lantern for when things really went south.
I also brought hedge trimmers. Why? Because who knows what kind of hedge-related emergency might strike in the wild. A crockpot? Of course—I like my chili to slow-cook for eight hours whether I’m in the forest or in the bunker. I even stuffed a small space heater in there, just in case camping suddenly involved subarctic tundra. My vest looked like a fishing tackle box had exploded onto it—pockets bulging with duct tape, multi-tools, compass, fire starter, a backup fire starter, and… hedge trimmer oil.
My wife, on the other hand, was wearing yoga pants and a hoodie, carrying nothing but a smile and a coffee. She glanced at my towering wall of preparedness like it was performance art, and I swear she was both impressed and quietly horrified.
And then came the fatal blow. The only thing I didn’t prepare for.
Keys.
Where were they? Oh, right. In the pocket of the third jacket I had so responsibly packed into the very first box I wedged into the car. At the bottom. Beneath 14 boxes, two duffel bags, three coolers, a folding table, the hedge trimmers, and the crockpot.
So there I was, halfway into the trunk like some deranged archaeologist digging for relics of my own incompetence, when I heard her laugh. Not cruelly. Joyfully. Like she’d just been handed the universe’s best punchline.
“Looking for these?” she said, dangling her own set of keys, the ones she’d had in her purse all along. The purse she carried as casually as if it weren’t the single most useful survival tool of the trip.
And that’s when it hit me. For all my tactical prepper bravado, the one piece of gear I really needed was already packed: her.
3 - 0
I Wasn't Expecting This
Fall, Golf, and Flies (Oh My!)
So we’re working our way from Point A in South Dakota to Point B in North Dakota … and somehow found ourselves on a golf course for the night. Yes Dear Readers, apparently you are allowed to camp overnight ON a golf course up here in the Badlands.
Well, kinda.
We are actually in the rough, just inside the treeline off the 9th hole tee-box in the middle of Nowhereville USA. I would tell you the name of the town, but I don’t think it has one. You just drive for hours and hours past corn and sunflower fields and somehow, magically, a small golf course appears out of nowhere.
My guess is money laundering, because no one is out here playing.
But conspiracies aside, something unusual has happened. Apparently Autumn arrived this afternoon.
With nothing to do but decompress from two days of miserable travel, I decided to go for a little walk and discover what else might lie around this fine “campground”. And lo and behold … I found a feeling I haven’t felt in a very long, long time.
Before this grand adventure of non-9-to-5-life started three years ago, I lived in Miami. We have two seasons: Hot and Hotter. One of them includes daily storms and snowbirds. The other does not. And that’s it.
Last winter I lived in the desert just outside of Yuma Arizona. Again, the only change was dust storms or no dust storms. I haven’t seen anything resembling autumn in perhaps a decade.
But I felt it today.
At exactly 4:16pm Central Time, while looking over a lake and a marsh, the light hit just right at just the correct angle to trigger the memory. I had a rush of long repressed images about people, places, and the inevitable dying of the light. The fading of vibrancy and growth, leading to dead leaves and bleak winter months. Thoughts of those short few days where life is lived on the cusp of joy and the unknown.
I didn’t like it.
OK, for a moment I actually did. Some of those memories were bittersweet and it was nice to dig them back up, if only for a very brief return.
There was a reason I moved to Miami. A reason I’ve lived in Spain during the winter months. A reason for the Arizona desert. I do not like the transition towards death. And that’s what Autumn always reminds me of. Green growing things about to die. Stark empty trees against a gray and bitter sky.
The things I’ve lost, never to be found again.
Jesus, I think we’re all going to need some antidepressants soon.
OK, let’s just skip to the flies.
This place is stupid with them. Big black ones. Tiny little ones that will one day grow into big black ones … unless I kill them all first. For some reason they are loving on the hood of the bus. Two dozen or more, just hanging out. So I go swat them with impunity, over and over. Wait five minutes and the hood refills. Lather, rinse, repeat.
There are so many dead carcases and goo spots on the hood that it’s hard to tell where paint ends and organic matter begins.
We can’t open the doors because the only thing they like more than our hood is the inside of The Huckleberry, And even with windows shut, I’m doing interior battle with a couple of the little effers.
So yea. Just parked on a golf course in the middle of nowhere. Fighting insects and depression. How’s your Saturday going? LOL!
3 - 0
Well, something unusual is upon us. Beets.
Tomorrow we leave our lovely campsite here in the Black Hills National Forest and drive to North Dakota, there to spend all of October harvesting sugar beets. Not as in picking, but as in working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week. Operating large machines that take truckloads of these oversized blobs and pile them up into football field sized mounds.
Let me explain. It's a once-a-year gig a lot of nomads do to earn funds. It's hard work, but pays extremely well. The biggest issue is that with 12-hour-a-day shifts, every day of the week, there isn't time for anything other than eating and sleeping and repeating.
It makes being a YouTuber a tad difficult.
So videos on the channel are going to be ... affected. I don't even know if I'm day shift or night shift yet. We do get days off for weather sometimes, but again, there's a lot of variables in play. And as much as I want to make videos, I have a feeling that for a bit things are going to be ... strained.
Anyway, just wanted to drop a note updating everyone in case you think I've fallen into a volcano or something.
Wish us luck. LOL!
7 - 0
The ultimate survival guide where questionable Gen-X wisdom, bad male logic, and copious beverages collide—like Dr. Phil meets The Onion at a bus stop and avoids getting pregnant.
Hi, I'm Rick and I'm a Gen-X male ...
What? NO DAMMIT! I AM NOT A BOOMER! I identify as a Pre-Cusp, Transitional, Gen-X Man of a Certain Age and I'll thank you to use my proper pronouns (he/them/dude).
Now where was I? Oh yea, the pitch to get you to stay, watch my show, and then join Membership. (Feel free to skip to Part III if you're pressed for time).
I don't have many YouTube skills to share. I don't own or operate a table saw, I have zero financial guidance to offer, and I've been banned from giving relationship advice until the latest lawsuit gets resolved. But what I do have are opinions based on being born on the edge of a generation that knew what it didn't want to be. And that's what I can offer you.
Well, that and a first beverage on the house.
13 February 2014