Random Acts Of Patriotism linked to my article about the Japanese Reactor and explained it all as a function of monkey poo. Actually it was his second poo posting in his poo series which pretty much covers the situation. Very wise indeed.
Random Acts of Patriotism is now on my blogroll.
We’re remodeling. I’ve been laying Gray VersaBond under Hardibacker. In layman’s English that means I’m gooping some crap on the plywood subfloor that glues the cement floor underlayment down…so eventually I can add more goop and put on tile and then grout tomorrow. Screws are involved too. I’m not sure why but it’s fun slamming those little bastards in. As for the cement, not so much fun.
Maybe that’s not clearly communicating what’s going on? How about this: I’m experiencing massive monetary blood loss while putting layer after layer of obscure voodoo materials on what I hope will someday be a bathroom floor.
If you ever want to remodel a bathroom, do yourself a favor and build an outhouse. It’s less complex and nobody has ever gone broke crapping in a hole!
For reasons which nobody seems to be able to explain, VersaBond (mortar?) is made in any of several colors. I arbitrarily bought gray. It turns out to be a pleasant chocolate color. None of which is relevant on a subfloor.
After glopping this crap all over the place I’ve decided it has the precise appearance and texture as Nutella. I’m totally dying for some toast and a jar of the stuff.
Could this be a tasty building material. I hypothesize...you decide.
I’m disturbed when I hear anyone talk about “creating jobs”. It’s not just that I doubt their sincerity (though I usually do). It’s that it’s a dismissive attitude insulting to those of us who honestly presume that we’re paid because our work is worth our salary.
Nobody wants to be a widget hired as a form of welfare…at least not for long. In theory a job exists because something has to be done and for no other reason.
I don’t take pride in having a job. I take pride in getting things done. You can’t get that from a job that was invented to keep you entertained. Adults are not children to be given a coloring book and set in a corner. We do things because they need to be done. We get paid because we earned it.
If, for some reason, my current job no longer needed doing…I’d be hunting for something that needed doing and figuring out how to get paid for it. There are always things that need doing. Sometimes they’re awesome and more often they’re mundane. Often the pay isn’t what you’d like. But there definitely is stuff that needs to be done.
That’s the magic of taking pride in getting something done; it’s without pretension. If my services designing integrated circuits are no longer needed, perhaps someone has shit that needs shoveling? Would you like an entrepreneur to deliver it as compost to your tomato patch? I’d derive pride from a properly mucked out horse stall just as I’m pleased with a finely tuned algorithm. Because it had to be done and I did it as well as possible. I wouldn’t expect a job to be invented to keep me off the streets any more than I’d expect free cake on Wednesdays.
In recent years this has sounded so out of touch that even my dog thinks I’m archaic. But I believe it.
Then I read this on Maggie’s Farm.
People with true grit create jobs, they don’t look for jobs.
Precisely!
From Stephen Bodio’s Querencia via On A Wing And A Whim comes this:
That is correct! A fur clad falconer on a horse is all that and a bag of chips! Stephen Bodio is into falconry and On A Wing And A Whim is into airplanes. So much for my tractors and homestead chickens. There is no keeping up with the Joneses in that crowd.
I also posted because it looks (to my uninformed eyes) like authentic Mongolian garb and I’ve always been interested in going there. Ideally for the purpose of riding across the Gobi on a motorcycle. Why? Because I like motorcycles more than horses and I’d rather die than go to Euro-Disney. I can’t imagine anything more fun than wandering the harshest of environments. (Some say this is why my wife supervises me carefully when planning family vacations.)
I’m not the only one. Apparently Mongolia/Motorcycle foolishness has struck more than one person.
This is EXACTLY how I'd like to travel!
Note: The motorcycle image is from The Timeless Ride. Hubert, the guy from that site has been everywhere and done it with a Ural Motorcycle. Anyone who appreciates going to the middle of nowhere with a sidecar should click for endless inspiration.
For the gearheads among us; Urals are a vehicular Rorschach test. A person will either conclude they’re useless Russian crap or the greatest thing ever. I once test drove a used Ural but couldn’t afford it. Giving the keys back nearly killed me. Now you know my opinion of Urals.
I’ve always wanted one. And now it’s here:
Finally! A pistol so ugly that your opponent will shoot themselves at the sight of it.
I totally want one!
Because I’m too Curmudgeonly to take up golf as a hobby I raise chickens on the side. It’s a little extra cash for a little extra work. Life is like that. We sell eggs and recently started taking orders for meat birds. The latter is a simple arrangement where people give me money now and I give them a bird for the BBQ in summer. It’s a new expansion of my patented plan to rule the universe through homesteading™.
I expected little or no interest and really only wanted to fill our freezer. Instead we immediately sold out. Apparently free range meat birds is an unfilled niche? Maybe I underestimated the expense and priced too low? Who knows?
To my surprise several people wanted to “visit their birds” during the summer. Huh? I generally don’t like anyone on my property but I’ll readily make an exemption for paying customers. I think I’ll go with the ecotourism model. I’ll keep a shovel ready and ask them if they’d like to experience a couple hours of genuine homestead shit shoveling. I aim to please!
One customer also asked: “Do you take good care of your chickens?”
This question intrigues me. Of course I take good care of my chickens. I pride myself on it. On the other hand they’re chickens; destined to be killed, disemboweled, and eaten. I’m nice to them and they get a great living environment, good food, and (being free range) more freedom than any factory raised chicken gets but I’m not going to send them to college. The guy was honestly worried and I calmed his concerns…but I scarcely contained the thousand funny responses that popped in my head. I’m including a few here because blogs are the natural home of sarcasm.
Q: Do you take good care of your chickens?
A: No. We beat them daily. We also do the following:
Addendum:
21. We keep an authoritarian boot firmly on the neck of their proletariat uprisings.
From Dead Man Dance and A Trainwreck In Maxwell is an excellent video. It shows literally every nuclear weapon detonated on earth. In time scale too; very clever. It’s oddly poetic. (Of course it’s SFW too!) I didn’t know how large that number was and you probably didn’t either.
After you watch it you’ll calm down about Japan. I’m not saying tsunami damaged reactors are good news but I’m pretty sure it’s not the end of humanity either. Also the worst case scenario is nothing like the impact of an actual weapon explosion and the world has endured far more of them than I thought. I also suspect that Japan, having been on the receiving end of two bombs, is as well prepared as anyone for a big earthquake followed by a tsunami on their reactor. Imagine that, Japan has had actual explosions and they still use nuclear, Americans went apeshit over three mile island and decades later burn coal while telling themselves stories about windmills. We could learn something.
Being that I don’t watch much TV, I’ve been wondering why the media is so wound up. A quote from Trainwreck In Maxwell says it better than I can:
Good luck Japan. We’re rooting for you.
Behold the mighty device which I have acquired!
Ralph Nader and the rest of the OSHA gang crap Twinkies when they see the tools I posses!
That’s a 48″ Timberjack. Or as I like to call it; “Thor’s Pincers Of Amageddon”. I have a desire to carry it around on Halloween or weld it to my truck’s hood. I like it because it’s cheap, has steel teeth, has a handle strong enough to beat a wolverine to death, and it’s ugly. That last part is key. I expect it to keep working so long as I’ve got a strong back and the need to chop wood.
I really wanted a wooden handled Peavey. One with a macho 2″ thick Hickory handle that was carved with obsidian blades and varnished with the tears of vanquished foes. Yellow paint and fiberglass isn’t as cool. Nor does the fiberglass reduce weight…that bad boy is heavy.
Alas this is what I could find locally. I tried calling a wider area for a better selection but talking to the people who answered the phone was like trying to explain the French Revolution to a Labrador Retriever. Trust me on this; you don’t want to explain log rolling hand tools to the pierced wonder manning the phone at a hardware store. They own iDevices with the battery compartment sealed at the factory. Using muscles to leverage tons just doesn’t compute. I live in a whole different reality. I have logs that are too heavy to move by hand and a chainsaw. They have student loans and a Kindle. It’s a big gap.
Remember this when oil prices fluctuate in the Middle East. Our nation is populated by people that think that propane comes from a factory, windmills will run their Prius, and apparently they think I can harvest firewood using magic robotic space elephants.
No matter; ignorant rednecks like me can always use a fulcrum and a lever to get shit done. Try that when you need propane.
Incidentally the tool works wonders (not that I had any doubts). You grab a log with those nasty teeth and give a manly shove. You’re rewarded with a log in motion. Do it right and it’s a ballet. Screw up and the log will break your ankle. I like it when life has simple feedback loops.
I’ve got some logs that I’m eager to cut up for next winter. This winter ‘aint over (no trucks have sunk yet) but next winter isn’t far off. In a world where the Government has been on continuing resolutions since 2010, homesteaders plan ahead like they always have.
You might be wondering what the “kickstand” on the back is for? It’s a removable (and sure to be removed) device that lifts the log off the ground so your saw chain isn’t as likely to hit the dirt and get dull.
A smallish log soon to be cut into 16" stove bolts.
One of the joys of self reliance is tools. Enjoy them!
My old truck has a superb user interface. The headlight switch is big, obvious, and not surprisingly labeled “headlight”. When I flip it “on”, the lights go on. When I flip it “off”, the lights go off. If you leave the lights on when the engine is not running the battery will go dead. You had it coming.
If your vehicle's headlights have a mind of their own don't turn your back on it.
I also have a modern SUV. A stalk on the steering column sports endless functions including lights, wipers, cruise control, and possibly downloading videos from YouTube. There is unforgivable excess “logic” behind the control. When I turn the engine off before I manipulate the control to “off” the insubordinate lights stay on. After a maddening delay they dim slowly like the fading of a politician’s soul. Likewise, the switch overrides my decision to turn the lights on when the engine is off.
I might have a good reason for wanting the lights on right now. A twenty gauge and instantly lit highbeams is my chicken coop’s front line defense against raccoons. The SUV, mired in complexity, can’t handle the task of being a flashlight.
The enemy!
Why am I telling you this? Because if I rant about headlight switches you can imagine my distaste when I boot up a laptop. When I am King Of The Planet all computers will start at least as fast as the headlights on a 20 year old truck. Boot up procedures that involve passwords, fingerprint recognition, genuflecting to Bill Gates, updates, downloads, and scans belong in a 1970’s Soviet dystopia not Starbucks.
I’ve spent years pining for a tool closer to a ballpoint than a bloated Windows shrine to marketing. One day I read about the Dana and it’s cousin the Neo on Munchkin Wrangler. It was as if the sky opened up and a ray of sun shone upon me. (Actually it wasn’t that great but I was pleased.) Because I’m a creepy lurker I never thanked Munchkin Wrangler for the information. A few weeks ago he mentioned it again.
My Dana. Pictured with another tool of similar complexity, reliability, and utility.
I can’t recommend a Dana (or Neo) highly enough. The pleasure of using a simple single purpose device is visceral. They are “word processors”. They otherwise leave you alone. The Neo does nothing but process words. The Dana does more; none of which is important. What makes them different (and better) is what they aren’t. They are not smart phones, internet surfers, netbooks, game pads, laptops, or iDevices. Here are some advantages:
I carry everything I need on my motorcycle. This is a photo of me taking my child on his first raccoon hunt.
As with anything mechanical, there are some drawbacks.
One final trait cannot go unremarked. It’s different. People are flaky about the polar opposite of their $400 smart phone which plays videos on a two inch screen. It becomes a tiny Rorschach test. It’s practically a sin to text messaging mallrats. But it’s so dangerously uncool that it’s delightful to Curmudgeons like me. I lovingly call my Dana “The Bit Shovel”. You’ll either impress or disgust the pierced barista at Starbucks but you won’t go unnoticed. Whatever you do, don’t tell them you bought it for $20, run weeks without charging the battery, and just used it to write a blog entry… it might make them cry all over their expensive new laptop.
These things take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day. At first it was too cold out. Then the ladder was frozen so I couldn’t expand it (I live in a cold climate…this actually did happen). Though the dark winter months it got dark too early (and I wasn’t about to deal with it at night). Plus whenever I was willing to risk my neck on a snowy roof there were ice dams to remove. Finally, I just didn’t want to do it.
But at some point I had to get off my ass and get the job done…so I have taken down the Christmas lights.
