kirabug's idea files

Day 769:

The roads around the border of the new map are connected.

The buttons for my steal-my-minecarts-back project  are also connected.

I feel like I have some control over things again.

Next up: I want to build a brick road from my current outpost up the mountain to my mountain outpost. But that didn’t happen today because I’ve worked really hard lately and it was a good day to spend in the back fence making sure the animals were ok and the pumpkins were growing.

Day 768:

Since I’ve got the borders mapped and know what I need to do to get the sand efficiently (take down a mountain), I’m falling back to a more western place to sleep. I should number them or something for posterity so these log entries make sense. (But not right now. That will require map drawing for the book here and this particular log is almost empty so there’s not enough space.)

I’ve been using the two small rail systems I set up to get from my home base to the easternmost parts of the complex. Problem is that, lacking any kind of switch or wiring, my “brakes” have mostly been ramming into a dirt pile at the end of the tracks.

And now the duckens like to jump into the mine carts while I’m not around and ride them back and forth, which as you can imagine means they’re never where I expect them to be.

I’ve been designing a button switch and a wire which I think will keep the rails unpowered (at least at the ends) so that I can count on my stuff being where i left it. Might try it out tomorrow.

Tonight I had a meal of lamb and fresh veggies, then took a hot bath, and I feel good. Now it’s time to sleep.

Day 767

Okay, the road is across the river and around the lava death traps and almost but not quite met up with the southeasternmost corner of my last map. In other words, I have a really good idea of what’s in this area (quadrant? range? thingie?) of this place.

And let me tell you, these mountains are really messing with my safety.

All the cliffs mean that if I can get up the side of one of these steep steep hills, I can’t necessarily get back down safely. And all the sand I need for glass is on the other sides of the mountains. Plus, lava, etc.

So I’m actually seriously considering “landscaping” the mountains back down to some kind of manageable shape.

Or maybe converting them into a giant castle. I haven’t ruled that out yet.

I mean now that I’ve been here over two years and nobody’s shown up yet I’m thinking that whole “hide evidence I’m here” thing can go straight out the metaphorical port hole and I can build something impressive one of these days.

But not today, I’m exhausted. I’m sleeping far from my bathtub and I could really use a hot bath today. It’ll have to wait.

Day 766:

I spent all day carving the hole in the mountain still. I’m bone tired from hauling stone up and down steps.

Tomorrow I should be able to finish this carving exercise and cross the river. Oh hey, did I forget to mention yesterday that the sheer cliff dumped out at a river? Why yes I did! I also forgot to mention that I’ve found not one but two lava falls coming out the side of the mountain?

At least the lava’s going into the river which I guess is a plus. Hard to tell what’s good these days.

Day 765

One of the big risks of working near mountains is that you lay road up one side of the mountain only to discover that the other side of the mountain is a cliff. Then, instead of a leisurely trip laying road down the side of the mountain, you end up rappelling down a cliff and coming up with a new plan.

Most people would probably build a switchback or something like that, but I am a miner on a deserted rock in the middle of some deserted arm of the galaxy, so instead of doing that, I’m just carving a straight line up the mountain.  I mean, look, I need markers on where my maps end to be accurate, otherwise I can’t really tell where I am. Switchbacks just aren’t the same as borders.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that it’s actually faster to carve a hole in a mountain than build a switchback, and once it’s properly carved it’s faster to use too.

The bad news is I was so busy in the middle of a mountain that I forgot it was getting dark, and I had to run back to my easternmost camp under starlight. If you can call it running when you’re really trying to make your way around mountains and sheer cliffs.