There's a Mob at the Gates – Waving Money

Why you should invest in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency

Imagine yourself standing in a big box store dickering with the salesperson about the price of a big screen smart tv. It's on sale, but you want it lower, you are a savvy shopper in this marketplace, and you know the salesperson wants that commission.

But you can't seem to talk the price down any further, and why? What's that noise?

Turn and look. There's a crowd outside the main entrance, pushing, budging, beginning to pound on the locked doors, and on the street, more are searching for parking. It's a mob scene. Word has gotten out, it seems.

Demand is growing so fast the doors were locked against the incoming mob.

This is the Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency market at the moment. All evidence suggests we have reached the tipping point into early adopters sooner than expected; and as they rush into the marketplace, it is at a pace so furious that the infastructure cannot support it. The highways and bridges – major exchanges and fiat entry points -- cannot carry the traffic.

Many major exchanges, including Binance, Bittrex – and others being added daily –have shut down new account creation. What was once as easy as entering and confirming an email address and sending in some BTC LTC or ETH has become impossible overnight. Before the shutdown exchanges were processing 250,000 or more new account requests every day, meaning millions of new buyers per week, and when Binance attempted to allow new accounts once more, they received 240,000 requests in a single hour and had to pull the plug again.

These aren't players who have tons of coins and tokens they want to sell. These are new people looking to get in. Holding their first BTC or ETH or LTC in their hands, they want to get in on the altcoin market, where instead of 100 times they expect to gain 1000 times or 10,000 times.

They've heard the stories and they want in. Now.

So on the recent market “correction” which entailed a 50% pullback on USD price for Bitcoin and most other altcoins, we are seeing some signs of the new pressure building in the speed of the bounceback. Traditional technical analysis is becoming less and less accurate due to this influx of millions of new players to the field every week. They don't behave traditionally, they don't “follow the rules” and they often want to buy at today's price, whatever it may be, and hold long term.

I was one of the geeks trading cryptos when cryptos weren't cool. We were a small group, internationally speaking, trading with one another and watching the rather predictable moves of the “whales” as we attempted not to be squeezed out or rekt in the pump and dump ecology. We were, by nature, the risk takers. The Innovators who knew we were playing with fire but were taking our burns and going on. After a year and a half, that ecology appears to be changing.

Climbing the Charts – It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

This last year the crypto market followed some of the basic principles of Forex trading, and in 2017 those methods, adjusted slightly, worked amazingly well in predicting the highs and lows. Learning those basic methods I stopped losing money and started gaining rapidly. But I have witnessed many expert chartists I follow recently having to come back after the fact and say some version of this: “I was wrong on how high it would go and how fast it would get there, I underestimated the exuberance of the market.”

I think what's being underestimated is the pressure of that crowd outside the doors. They can't get in, they want in, and those of us on the inside look over our shoulders at that demand kept at bay, and we HODL stronger and buy at a higher price with more confidence. We know that cryptocurrency is not going to disappear and/or drop to zero. In the old days that was still a possibility, but now the market has gained enough of the world's wealth to become immortal.

Kiss my butt Powers That Be. We are coming for you.

As new exchanges open and existing exchanges attempt to scale up to meet the demand, this pressure will find it's way into the market. Some will find a way around, or break through, or buy someone else's account – these buyers will find their way in eventually. If the existing exchanges don't up their game quickly enough, and begin to shine by being responsive, easy to use, and with reasonable support ticket response times, then they will find themselves made obsolete.

Peer to peer exchanges, atomic swaps, wallets with exchange capabilities, all of these projects exist or are already in the works. The beauty of decentralization is that what the customers demand, they will be provided. What they need and support will thrive, because they will invest in it themselves. Any attempts to stop the tsunami of early adopters will be overrun by sheer demand and the ability of blockchain to respond with working products faster than any slow moving corporate behemoth can roadmap a new project.

Welcome to the market, newcomers! Watch out for scammers and projects with no real business or social usefulness, identify some to believe in, listen to sound advice, then make your own decisions. And when you've made good choices, listen to everyone and HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE (HODL). The best piece of advice, and one I wish I had listened to at the time, was given to me in an exchange chat box in 2016. A wise man said:

“Buy cryptos, all you can, then go down to the pub.
Come back in a year, cash out, and buy the pub.”

Those days are coming, those dreams are reachable for the common person for the first time in many centuries. And unlike other “investments” this is a game where your knowledge, skill and patience actually allow you to win – and if you don't have the first two you can likely win by throwing darts at the top 100 coins and having patience, given the overwhelming flood of buyers seeking to get in. Mass adoption is still years away, and you are here early.

Welcome indeed – This is the right place, the right time, and the right equal opportunity moment. Get yourself setup to purchase, even if you don't have funds. Get on Coinbase or Gemini and get verified. Spend time learning what you can. When exchanges allow new accounts get one on every exchange you know is legit. Then, cash out your change jar, your savings bonds, return your Christmas presents – buy a spread of solid coins, and come back in a year and tell me which pub you bought.   

#Vanlife Lesson #1: Mountain Make Me Strong

Sleeping Ute Mountain - Colorado
You know it's cold when the mountain puts on it's blanket.

We are 9 months into #vanlife now, and it's time to recap some lessons learned on the road – ones you won't find in all those preparatory YouTube videos you may be watching. There's so much more to it than learning how to potty in every possible outdoor environment--more to it than having the right cook stove and a generous supply of babywipes.

Although I would never, ever, dis on the babywipes. 

This train runs on them, no doubt.

When I left on this journey I was a stressed out-crust of a person, crumbs crumbling right and left. I was fat and out of shape, with a host of bad habits. Walking a mile was a stretch assignment. Climbing a hill was out of my league.

This life has changed me, physically, mentally, spiritually. It has washed me in cold creek water, rung me out, and hung me up to dry in the hot desert sun.  It has taught me gratitude and frugality. 

Most of all, it has made me strong.

Climbing a rocky desert hill at 5000 feet was the first challenge. In order to get to the gold panning grounds, we had to walk this hill, everyday, (both ways!) carrying all of our equipment. Pounds of it and my own extra padding dragged at my every step. I couldn't breathe. 

Anasazi ruins, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, CO.

My heart beat at a speed it never attained no matter how stressful the business meeting.

I started by praying for strength, when I wasn't berating myself for a wuss or worrying about which arm aches in a heart attack. But it wasn't long before I realized that you don't pray for strength, you earn it. 

You pray for determination and strength will come. I stopped saying “Please make me strong enough to climb this mountain” and started repeating

“Mountain, make me strong.”

And it did. Every step up that mountain rebuilt me. Now I scamper around on cliffsides and hop from rock to rock. 

Yesterday we forded a creek and hiked to ancient Anasazi ruins on an unmarked trail. We found untouched ruins, hand tools, petroglyphs, and shards of black and white pottery. We drank a jug of water where the ancients sat on the “steps” outside their home. We looked at the view they saw with not a work of modern man in sight.

An ancient Anasazi dwelling, Water storage?  Canyons of the Ancients NM

By the time I was strong enough to do it, I was ready to be blown away by the experience. You will be, too, if you have the right chance and the right stuff to jump off. 

By the way, we left all of the artifacts there for you to see when you come this way.  Canyon of the Ancients, add it to your "must boondock" list.

Anasazi Pottery Shards, Canyons of the Ancients.  Left onsite as the law and good stewardship requires.

To experience freedom for a year, or the rest of your life -- consider it. 

There's no life like this one, I participate and am present in every day of my life now - and it has made me strong, thrifty, grateful and wise.

What #vanlife challenges have transformed you?  

If you haven't jumped off yet, what do you expect to change?

The Smoke of Dreams Burning - #GoodwinFire June 24-July 3, 2017

The Goodwin Fire from Prescott.  6/27/17

“That's a funny cloud.” I said to Joe as the Turtle Van climbed up the mountain toward camp. A few more feet showed us this cloud was nothing but serious. Smoke billowed up the hillside to meet us, just a mile or so from our mining camp. Instant adrenaline, the smell instinctively dangerous, the sight makes your belly tighten up and your heart race.

For a moment the logical brain rebels against reality, it insists this must be a bonfire or a controlled burn or perhaps part of the restoration project in the area --but lizard brain is right this time, and puts the stunned, stammering, useless logical brain down. This is real, an actual emergency, and driving forward is definitely wrong.

As we stop the van we hear the helicopter rotor and see it on the ground, out of place, another sign we are in the heart of a wildfire, just beginning. The helicopter lifts and we see the reason it is down, it drags a bag of water on a long rope from the pond at a nearby ranch and carries it, streaming mist and vapor, at desperate speed toward the smoke.

The stunned logical brain tries to wake up and process a meaningful plan. Most of what we own is back at camp, this was just a water and grocery run, mining and camping equipment is ahead, but the lizard brain insists we should run. A quick discussion and we move toward the fire, careful on every corner, expecting fire engines any moment, but the road back to Mayer is long, narrow, and primitive, they have not had time to get here.

On the downside of the hill we can see the fire, it is definitely upstream from our camp--perhaps a mile or two--it's black cloud already blowing back toward the pine flat ranches and town. Two rangers are parked in the road, and they answer that yes it is a wildfire, and we can go no further.

The fire from just outside Mayer, 6/24/17

It looks small, but furious, and it grows before our eyes, logical brain finally becomes useful in the crisis, and reminds us that we have all we need: each other, our dog, and our home – all can drive to safety. Things are things, and they will be there or they will be gone, and life is what matters now. As we drive out towards town we see others evacuating, and firefighters driving in. By the time we find a place on the edge of town to park the van 3 helicopters are picking up water and the sun is setting.

Ranchers bring out trailers of what livestock they can, miners and campers who have not been seen in weeks congregate (against their nature) and even speak to one another on the edges of the forest they love. Those with homes in the forest have the most to lose, and we speak in hushed tones our hopes their land is spared. The officials that speak to us have fear in their eyes, their voices also low, this solidifies the feeling of dread.

There is a period of waiting, watching, and worrying while an emergency becomes a disaster. Every single person we meet is doing all they can, exactly what they should, responsible and brave, and yet nothing stops this progression. The smoke plume grows until it dominates the sky. As it gets dark the glow of the flames is visible--it shifts, waxes, wanes, but in the end only grows larger.

We have seen disaster spawned, seen it take its first few tottering steps, and already it was too late to stop it. There is only time to flee with what you can save. We retreat in steps, staying close until the fire pushes us out – evacuated three times now-- but it is still flight, we are running in slow motion, unsure if we are still miners or now only campers with literally not a pot to piss in.

We wait at Copper Basin. A kindred spirit ranger spent a little time helping us, but the advice is painful. Wait for the summer monsoons to start, that may be all that can stop this fire now. 1% contained means the fire is choosing its own course. We must choose ours. Logical brain – get on that.

Packing Light

Trudge, trudge, trudge, lift each foot with its heavy boot, step over a moss covered stone, and place it down on the pine needled trail.  Thud.  Your feet are leaden and sweat is running into your eyes bringing with it a burning drop of bug repellent.  You need a rest.  Don't stop now, make it to the top of that rise, then you groan as you let the straps slip off, and your pack hits the trail with the clanking sound of your cook kit as it settles.

You bend over, breathing hard, many pounds lighter but without real relief.  You sit on a nearby stump and look at this collection of things you carry.  In a moment you will need to pick it up again, and you dread it.  What is in there?  All the things you need to survive.

You stare at the dirty scuffed thing, like a medieval invention of cruel intent, with its aluminium bars and tightly cinched straps.  You hate it in this moment, and everything in it.  It's HEAVY.  Everything in it is heavy.  Early on your journey you lightened it several times, you let go of things that were nice to have, when you realized what it meant to carry them.  It meant you would not survive, under the extra pounds and ounces you once thought you could not live without.  That stage has come and gone--every piece inside is essential.  There is nothing you can leave here by the side of the trail, no luxury or nicety you can let go of.  These things you must have.  They almost define you at this point.  They are a part of you.

It is not true that you are never given a burden you cannot bear.  A pack will be filled at the start of a trip with more than you could possibly carry, emptied, repacked, emptied again, re-evaluated, and hard choices made.  You decide what you will bear.  It is true that if you can carry it a mile, you will grow strong under it, until you can carry it all day.  But you must be able to lift it up yourself and tote it a mile before you can say you are ready to travel.

Your companions care for you, you know they would take something to lighten your load if you asked.  But they have their own packs, their own choices made, and you will not ask unless you are hurt or sick, these are your things, your survival, yours to carry.  If you weren't that kind of person you would not have come down the hard trail at all.

Exhale, stand and stretch.  Balance the pack on one knee and find the strap, then with a grunt and a swing you put it up on your back, scrabbling for the second strap until your hand finds the opening.  You hook the waist belt so that most of the weight rests low on your hips instead of your shoulders.  It's weight is familiar and tolerable again.  You check that nothing is left behind of your precious load, and hike on to make camp.

By the side of a lake you take out each item, each thing from your pack a treasure, a sustenance, a comfort.  Soft sleeping bag, warm meal, coffee-glorious coffee, a candle, a book, an ax, your fire making kit, your tent set up and laid out with your foam sleeping mat and dry clothes for sleep.  The burdens you carry that are now what enlightens you, feeds you, shelters you, keeps you safe.  You love these things that you carry, you could not rest without them.  You pick up the empty pack and carefully stow it out of the wet, securing all of its pockets and covers.

Tomorrow you will fill it again with all of the things you love, and shoulder it onward.  Your pack is all important, it is everything.  It is life in the wilderness.  It makes you strong and shelters you when you are weak and tired.  You carry it willingly, for the joy it holds.

Pack light.  Remember why you bear these burdens.  Choose them and cherish them, for they define you and your journey.  Why do you carry so much?  Because this path is precious and will never be seen again.  Because it is your fate to travel it, and you will traverse it.  This is the path with heart.

Where are you headed?

Passing through customs, your vehicle packed full of gear, under the watchful eye of men who's entire purpose is to be suspicious, you explain.

"I'm going hiking.  No, I'm not meeting anyone.  Pukasaw.  I've done it before."  They do not ask the question they want answered, which is "Are you crazy?," instead they make you pull over to the side so they can look through the vehicle.

Surprisingly, they give it only a cursory inspection, a once-over.  The purpose of the request to pull into the inspection area appears to be a closer inspection of YOU.  Is she for real?  A woman, with a dog for a companion, heading alone into the woods?

The remaining questions ensure that you do not intend to stay in the backwoods of Canada forever, the computer confirms you are not a fugitive, and you climb back in and drive out of the checkpoint with the ultra extravagant care of the pardoned criminal.

Apparently drug mules and gun runners have more believable stories than your truth.  You chose this hardship voluntarily.  You have left behind civilization, comfort, and its protection.  Civilization's entire purpose is to protect you from the raw untamed world.  Primeval, primordial, and -- lets face it --  deadly.  Why would you chose this over a dry, warm, well stocked life?

The Path of Destruction

You are secure, confident, you know these woods and their pitfalls.  Your canteen is always filled, your boots are broken in, your pack strap is fixed with a piece of wire.  Your flint is well worn--as smooth as your fire building technique.   Your companions know your talents and your quirks, and you make camp each night in a well-oiled routine.  Efficient, practiced, unthinking.

Some might find your world to be harsh, dirty, dangerous, and filled with annoying mosquitoes but you KNOW it, you grok it, you are in your element and you know you can survive within it.

You know if it sounds like a bear its probably a squirrel.  You have learned you won't hear the bear, you'll see it first, and have to decide if you stand it off or retreat slowly.  Bears are campfire conversation now, an ever-present danger which has--by familiarity--become little more than a nuisance.  Your fears have been numbed.

You have reached a zen-like oneness with the reality of your environment.

The next bend in the path brings you to the edge of woods, too much light through the trees, and your boot comes down in a soft silent puff of ash.  Before you the forest is gone, burned, a smoking wrecked landscape.  A forest fire, unfought.  A controlled burn, they call it.  When there aren't enough resources or interest, when there isn't enough care, the fire is allowed to take all in its path.  There is not a tree left standing, not a living thing, the river is choked with burned wood and the water is bitter, it tastes of ashes and death.

There is one half burned log bridge, your party starts across, but it will not hold you all, like the ruined landscape, it cannot support your tribe.  It breaks midway with a gut wrenching sudden crash, you pull a few on your side to safety, and those left behind catch the coats of their own and pull them in.  You stare at each other across the gulf.

You wonder which troop will find shelter first.  They turn back, back toward the forest, to find another path, but you and your happenstance survivors must go on.  There is no way back for you.  Into the lifeless smoldering future you step.  Relying on faith that there is something on the other side, that you can reach water and shelter again before your canteens run dry.

You huddle beside a fallen black stump and make a cheerless camp, sharing what you have with the survivors.  You fill the holes in the practiced routine clumsily, you miss them--their laughs and their stories and their skills, but mostly you miss the innocence of the time when you were together and all you feared were mosquitoes and bears.  This total devastation was not on the map, it was not in the travel guide, and there was no preparing for it.

You tell tales of your lost ones, and they of you, at their fires.  Sleep is fitful.  You will not forget, and you will never be the same, but you must believe in their abilities to survive as you shoulder your burden again.  You know them, you grok them, and you know they will not fail.  Not bears or bugs or bullies can stop them.  This is what you have faith in as you trudge on--the journey has made us all strong enough to survive.

How to Make Fire

Without fire there's no comfort, little safety, and so, no joy in camp.  You gather birchbark, tiny spruce twigs because they are dry under their canopy, neat piles of dry twigs roughly sorted by size, and envision the flame.  Wishing won't make it so, though.  Fire must be created.

Fire can be made with friction and pressure.  By sheer force of will and untiring work.  This is rubbing two sticks together, your hands working down a carefully chosen spinning stick, palms almost as hot as the tip of the twig as it grinds into the groove of another perfectly dry branch.  This is a solitary endeavor, your focus intent on the friction point.  You dare not pause even for a moment, or let up on the downward pressure as you spin.  Sweat drips into your eyes and doubles your vision.  No one can help you do this, and any wavering of intention will lose the small steady gains.  Your palms might blister, your shoulders ache, the sweat (or is it tears?) drip from the tip of your nose.  A waft of smoke, thin as spiderweb, begins to drift up from the contact point.  You have forced fire into the world.  This is the most difficult way, serving when your journey is solitary...without a guide, by choice or by chance.  Your joy in this fire is knowing you are self-sufficient, determined, and powerful.

Fire can be made with a spark.  By a tiny miracle of ingenuity.  This is striking flint to steel, or focusing the sun through a lens or in a reflective curve polished to mirror finish.  Literally brilliant, like an inspiration, the spark must be cradled in a perfect bed of ultrafine tinder.  You prepare tiny shreds of single layers of birchbark, dry grass as thin as hair, bits of found paper or dried leaf.  Only in perfectly laid plans will the spark live long enough for the flame to take hold.  You strike the flint again and again, sparks flying and bouncing off the shielding wall of dry rock blocking the wind.  Again, again, again.  Until the moment you drop the flint and steel, quickly leaning in to blow the caught spark into life.  Your heart pounds, your breathing quickens, all hinges on this moment.  The tinder catches, a tiny flame is born.  You have inspired fire into the world.  This way serves when your journey is well prepared and your mind is sharp.  Your joy in this fire is in triumphing by your talents, inspiring yourself and your companions.

Fire can be made with an ember.  By accepting the gift of fire from one who has it.  This is a coal from their fire, cradled in dry moss inside a hollow branch.  You must carry it, a precious jewel of potential, and keep it alive with your breath until you reach your own hearth.  You must be willing to accept it, and make it your own.  The same banquet of fuel must be prepared for your ember, a place for it to breath and eat and grow strong.  You lay the coal on the shreds of birchbark or red crackly dry pine needles and blow your spirit into it.  You feed it with tiny spruce twigs and more birchbark, careful not to smother it.  Too much food will kill it faster than too little.  A perfect balance of wood and air is needed.  Your fire grows into an upright blaze, new embers popping from the pine sap and landing up against the edges of the firepit.  You could gift these embers now, as you sit back and admire the dancing tongues.  You have shared fire with the world.  This way is the sweetest way, when your journey happens upon the right companions.  Those who share and inspire and encourage, who are willing to give of themselves.  Your joy in this fire is in honoring the gifts you are offered, nurturing them until you can share the light and warmth with any and all, whether they sit at your hearth or carry your gift away to their own.