Adaptive Curmudgeon

I mentioned here that I was messing around building sawhorses. I didn’t reinvent the wheel, I watched a YouTube video.

I got to use my new miter saw. First to cut everything to length (it takes three 8′ studs).

Then I set the miter at angles to cut the leg spreaders.

Then I marked the “wedge” to remove from each leg (obviously there are four). This wasn’t something I could just dial into the miter saw.

It was a bit of a PITA marking the wedge. I started making a 3d printed “jig”. You can see 3 different hastily designed “prototypes” in the background.

My old bandsaw with it’s fresh new blade was perfect for cutting the “wedge” on each leg. There’s hardly any waste; just a few wedges (which wound up burned in Betsy).

Following the video’s sound advice I put it together with a few tacks from the nailgun before I screwed it down tight with Torx screws. I drilled a pilot hole for every Torx screw I planned to use. Pilot holes is probably overkill but it worked for me.

In fact I think it’s a pretty handsome sawhorse.

I found measuring out the wedge to be a PITA, so I created a “jig” on my 3d printer. Now all I have to do is trace the jig.

Since it was just a “test” object, I experimented with the world’s sparsest infill. (I don’t recommend that much “void” in any object, it was pretty flimsy.)

After some testing I realized I needed a “top bar” to trace a line on the top (wider dimension) of the “leg”. Things always cascade so now I needed supports.

It works exactly as planned.

I tested my silly little jig by making a second sawhorse. Works great.

I had far too much fun making the jig. Pretty soon I was going down the rabbit hole with ideas. I’d improved it (?) way beyond a simple jig. I’ll probably show that in a future post.

I have a few sawhorses. They all suck. Also, I put stuff on sawhorses (usually hoping to keep them above the snow, with mixed success). Thus, all my crappy sawhorses are consumed as redneck storage. I guess I don’t really have sawhorses at all.*

I considered some options to address my sawhorse situation. Expensive ones cost too much. Cheap plastic fittings into which you slot hunks of 2″x4″ are annoying and always off kilter. Mid-tier ones are aluminum folding contraptions that piss me. My least favored sawhorses are made of plastic. They store nice and flat but they’re sketchy at a sawhorse’s core task; holding heavy things. I’ve sprung for some cheap stacking sawhorses at the box store. They’re made of low-rent plywood and the shittiest possible wood. They’re narrow and degrade over time. Mine are shot.

In keeping with my whole “autodidact vibe”, I decided to see what YouTube had to say about building your own sawhorse.

I was pleased to see dozens (maybe hundreds!) of sawhorse designs. I rejected many out of hand. Most are too complex. They annoy me. A sawhorse is a working man’s tool. It should be simple, tough, and cheap. The last thing I want is a sawhorse that’s a marvel of woodworking prowess. That defeats the purpose.

I found a video. It’s linked below. Watch it and you’ll know where I’m going with this.

It’s like they made the video just for me!

At about 3:00 they say: “Sherman used to say when… he interviewed carpenters he would say ‘build me a set of saw horses I’ll come back in a few minutes and if I like them and you did a good job you’ll get hired. If they’re terrible it’s a no-go’.” Holy job interview Batman! I want to live in that world!

Imagine a world before HR! You may laugh but any job seeker will tell you that getting hired and doing the job are almost completely unrelated. Thanks HR!

I ponder the logical consistency of hiring a carpenter based on his ability to make a simple sawhorse! It sounds nice. I pine for glorious simplicities that were rashly disposed in the creation of our current topsy-turvy world.

The evil eye of HR is hell on the productive. It basically eliminated “ability” as a selective factor in any jobsite with more than a few employees. It did it long before I was in the workforce. (Add to that I’m thinking about old-timey “carpenters” when most of the modern economy is thinking “illegal alien who can slap up drywall fast”. A portion of the world is long gone and I’m getting all misty eyed about it. But I digress…)

The video’s silly little story motivated me. Suddenly I really wanted to make sawhorses. I wanted them to come out good enough that in a long gone time I’d have been hired as an apprentice n00b carpenter. (Except I’m just starting out. Any old time, sepia toned, past world carpenter would sense my inexperience and kick me to the curb.)

At about 7:30 they say: “we finally reached irreducible complexity”. Holy shit! That’s a rhetorical kill shot for me. It’s exactly want I wanted! By now I had a man crush for these dudes!

I was searching for something and couldn’t define it. Irreducible complexity is what I’d wanted without even knowing it!

The design requires 3 studs and nothing more. There’s nothing superfluous in the design. If it doesn’t have to be there, it’s not! Adding details to make it “adjustable” or “foldable” or “fancy” would create something that’s more than a sawhorse and not what I wanted. (I may make something like that in the future… but it’ll be just me having fun and not a utilitarian first step.)

So I set out to make a sawhorse. How’d it go?

FABULOUS!

Stay tuned for photos of sawhorses and all sorts of happy thoughts!

A.C.

* Sadly, my homemade boat (upside down and suspended on sawhorses, but exposed to the elements) hasn’t moved in 2 years. It may be rotten or it may be in good shape. I just don’t know. It is what it is. I’ll deal with it in due time.

Autodidact: (noun) A self-taught person.

I intend to “teach myself” some simple carpentry. (Actually, I’ve been at it for a month already.) I know some things but there’s a lot of shit I don’t know. I don’t even know what I don’t know. Being charitable to myself, such honesty would at least make Socrates smile.

The thing is, I’ve got the basic “idea” of some things but I’m not even remotely experienced. Also, I’ve found I’m barking up a different tree than any local carpenters. What we call “a carpenter” in 2025 is really more of a “house builder” or “general contractor”. The guy who puts in new windows, fixes your siding, does the roof, or builds an addition is awesome but he’s not working just with wood. He works a lot more with a zillion flavors of industrial products; sheets of plywood subflooring, Tyvek vapor barriers, fiberglass insulation, asphalt shingles, aluminum flashing, vinyl siding, etc… A modern house is only partly wood. It’s mostly a dozen layers of manufactured materials. Wood studs and rafters and joists only go where industrial processes haven’t yet replaced them.

I’m not discounting their excellent knowledge. If I had that knowledge my house wouldn’t be such a dump. But life is hard enough and I don’t need to pursue another job. I’d like to be a guy who can make wooden objects fully (mostly) out of wood, because he wants to. Dovetails and miter joints are more my style. This is the domain of fine woodcrafters and hobbyists. That’s the shit I like.

For a few glorious months many years ago I made a tiny, ugly sailboat. I saw the wonder and beauty of it all! It was fun and I learned so much stuff. My boat came out very nice and sails like a boss. (Note: the boat has lots of “artificial materials” like epoxy, plywood, and fiberglass, but it somehow retained that feeling of “craft”.) Part of the joy is probably that it’s not tied to the endless chore that I call a house. When I’m doing a project and start dicking around with Tyvek and silicone sealant, the magic is gone. It’s just work. My boat was never work.

Lately, I don’t have the health to go camping or hunting (or even sail my boat). But I have a sweet antique woodstove (Betsy) in a crude but useable “shop”. I decided to hang out near Betsy. I want to recapture the magic I felt when making the boat.

I feel like I can figure out some of it by just “practicing”.

[Warning: rant!] Nobody in 2025 acts like they can “learn” on their own. Nor do they use words like “autodidact”. That’s top level, weapons grade, bullshit!

Aversion to “self taught” is not inherent in the human soul, it’s beaten into us. Innocent children are sentenced to 12 years of mind-bendingly dull public school manipulation. Many follow it with $100 grand in college loan debt. Most would-be learners emerge credentialed and schooled but also clueless, indoctrinated, weak, incurious, and mentally damaged.

We’re so fuckin’ brainwashed about credentials we confuse “authority” with “capability”. That’s how you get stupid shit like Fauchi saying “I am the science”. That’s how you get people mocking Elon Musk when one experimental launch goes bad after several hundred perfect launches. “Appeal to authority” has been shoved so deeply up our ass that most of us think a dipshit in a labcoat is wiser than an honest man sketching details on a post-it note taped to his truck bed.

Our society is intellectually constipated because we substitute social status for ability.[/Rant]

I’m not saying traditional school/college is completely useless but it’s close. How much do you use the “knowledge” you got from school/college? The only thing a credential means is you’re “schooled” not “skilled”. My boat, built by me, floats and sails; no amount of zoom meetings, consensus building, regulations, or team discussion will ever change the verdict rendered by wind and water.

Whew… I guess I’ve got issues to unpack. Oh well. Where was I?

I started by standing in my workshop wondering what to do next to learn. I wanted a new saw, so I’d made a new miter saw stand. Then I decided to work on an old rotten ladder. To do so I needed a couple sawhorses.

It’s almost like God knows and wants to help. A search for sawhorses became “carpentry 101” and things got fun…

More will follow… because of course it will.

All last week the “news” kept braying about SNAP would be interrupted if the “shutdown” wasn’t resolved. As usual, this tiny interruption was presented as the end of life as we know it.

Unfortunately, I lived through 2020. After COVID I don’t see the world the same. I no longer reject the idea of huge groups of people irrationally losing their shit over things I consider minor. On Halloween I ventured into Walmart and bought groceries “just in case” everyone loses their Goddamn mind. (I did the same “pre-bullshit shopping before COVID” and it turned out to be a good call). I don’t like Walmart but it was surprisingly civilized.

Back at home it turned to November 1 and I “tuned in” to see what happened. There were three options:

1. SNAP was interrupted; with or without a pants shitting hysteria and Baltimore imploding.
2. SNAP was not interrupted; with or without a pants shitting hysteria and Portland continuing to implode.
3. A mix of #1 and #2. SNAP was interrupted in some places and not in others. Then I could amuse myself mapping out which states and cities were losing their fucking minds and which were inhabited by sane people.

(There’s a fourth option which I hadn’t considered.

Radio silence.

What the fuck?

Not one source of “news” reported SNAP is still running. Not one source of “news” reported SNAP is interrupted. It’s “Schrodinger’s News”, it is simultaneously interrupted and not. Whichever flake a person out the most is what they believe.

I’d give my left nut for just one “reporter” to post an article that goes like this: “I’m here with Sally Sobstory at the local Dollar Store in location X. She’s trying to buy a six pack of Monster energy drinks and a bag of Doritos using her SNAP (EBT?) card. And the rseult is…”

I had popcorn ready to go!

The best I got is “some random judge in Rhode Island ordered the president, who doesn’t have the authority to spend money not allocated by Congress to spend the money which Congress has not allocated, because penumbras and emanations and shit.” Even that is inconclusive. If a judge says something it doesn’t immediately follow that the thing is done. “A judge in Rhode Island just ordered that Trump shove a kazoo up his ass… we turn now to CNN which has a camera setup to view the…”

I’ve given up trying to figure it out. It’s day 34 of the “shutdown” and it seems somewhat unrelated to reality. Some folks are going without a paycheck, which is something we’ve all experienced at one time or another. Most people aren’t missing their “services”, or if they are I’m not hearing much about it. (The “press” yaps about “air traffic controllers calling in sick to deliver Doordash” but I don’t buy it. It feels like they found the only job that everyone can understand as essential. If there’s someone smart enough to be an air traffic controller and stupidly desperate enough to need Doordash cash just to get through the day, that’s a person with issues. They’ve got gambling debts or a cocaine habit or buy too many Hummel figurines on Amazon. Such a person is probably unstable. They shouldn’t be trusted with flight routing. Also, a whole lotta’ Feds aren’t air traffic controllers.)

Meanwhile it’s day 3 of “SNAP might be interrupted but I guess it’s not. At least nobody is saying “it actually happened”.

Nor do I know how a judge can order the Executive to expend funds which Congress didn’t allocate. But it could be a thing. Maybe there’s some clause somewhere I don’t yet know about.

UPDATE:

I figured it out!

The longest “shutdown” ever was 35 days; December 22, 2018 through January 25, 2019.

If the “shutdown” ends today it won’t be “the worst ever”. Logically, it’s gotta’ go at least another day or two to “set a record”.

I didn’t realize how close we were to greatness.

Well done everyone! I like to see people reach for the stars. Congress is really outdoing itself with a record length “shutdown”. Impressive! You popped my corn fellas!

A record “shutdown” is so awesome that the “press” might stop talking about “balls” (or “ballrooms”. Frankly that’s a shame because I was enjoying talk of ballrooms.

A.C.

P.S. I will leap with joy like nobody ever has if the newly constructed ballroom is opened with this song:

In my last post I explained I felt like buying groceries. Shit might get real. A month too early is better than an hour late. It’s due to our odd world and my reluctant place in it. I’ve reluctantly accepted people are irrational herd animals that recently lost their shit and might do so again.

My logic goes like this. Congress can’t get it’s shit together to pass a budget (which, lets face it, is mostly fiction). Therefore the government is “shut down” (which is also mostly fiction). After a month of faffing about, SNAP benefits might (or might not) pause. This will be the first time a lot of people notice the “shut down”.

Notice that DC is closed (theoretically) for a month and the first time many will notice is when they’re forced to use their own money to PopTarts. That doesn’t apply to me. I’ve never had a free PopTart. It probably doesn’t apply to you either. We both pay for our own damn food… but I digress.

It shouldn’t matter; a few day’s delay in the free Twinkie funding should be minor. Alas, after 2020 I believe nothing is guaranteed minor. Nations (not just ours but planet wide) burned society to a crisp over a fucking flu. Note that it was a human made entity; spawned partly with US funds and created in a lab in China. I mean… does it have to sound so dumb? We had to live through a fucking cartoon plot! Did they hire Lex Luthor to get the ball rolling? Did Mulder from the X-Files just want to believe? What’s next. If folks are willing to crush society over a flu what will they do when free Doritos run out?

Step back and realize the things I wrote really happened. We lived through a genuine mass psychosis. I wish I was just a spastic blogger making up shit! I can’t quite stress it enough; people got dumb and did inexplicable things. I’m going back to put the sentences in italics, because actual events (from just a few years ago) seem unbelievable. We must have the fortitude to witness and understand what we lived through. Did you know a governor can cancel your haircut appointment? Of course he can… peasant! Why not shut down churches? God is totally on board with that. RIIIIGHT. But apparently priests were. Why not close the ocean, pretend third graders will learn fractions on Zoom, and glue little arrow decals on the floor. Arrows will stop a virus? Suuuuure. Just like that crusty bandanna your neighborhood Karen wore while alone in her car. In the end, State and Local governments were totally cool with riots that destroyed various city blocks.

Once you’re irrational, when do you stop?

I don’t know if interrupting SNAP for a day or a week will cause a nation wide pants shitting tantrum. So I went to the heart of darkness… Walmart.

The thing is, I don’t like Walmart. Actually, I don’t like any box store. More precisely, I don’t like anybody. Mrs. Curmudgeon kindly & wisely does most of our shopping.

If it were up to me we’d never have food I couldn’t hunt, raise, or forage. Or maybe I’d buy a truckload of MREs once a quarter (and never take a proper dump again).

I’m rather unreasonable about it; “Want a PopTart? Tough shit. I looked all through the forest and PopTarts are out of season. Here’s a slice of whole wheat bread from my grain mill and a pine cone smeared with peanut butter out of our peanut butter reserve.”

But Mrs. Curmudgeon and I are still human we need at least some processed shitty bad health foods. Plus I bought a shitload of vegetables and stuff. No regrets. I’ve never managed to go hunting and come back with a 10 pound bag of carrots.

Mrs. Curmudgeon was otherwise occupied. She also pointed out we’ve got a lot of food already. She assumed I’d chicken out. I did too. But I didn’t. I went by myself. The Curmudgeon was unsupervised at Walmart! 

Oddly, it was fine. No mayhem. No drama. I’m as surprised as you are. Of course, I’m not a complete Neandertal. And people aren’t always shit flinging spastics. By glorious chance everyone was chill. Nobody fucked around so nobody found out. I even maybe enjoyed it.

I know! You’re wondering who kidnapped me and took over the blog. But the thing is, I like living in a time of plenty. I recognize it. I’m thankful for it. Until a few years ago I’d never seen empty shelves in a grocery store in America. Until just recently, politicians hadn’t nearly beaten the goose that laid the golden egg to death. Then there were shortages. They were as predictable as the sun rising in the east; but I suppose it had to happen. Commies gotta’ commie.

Anyway that was then and this is now. Walmart was as well stocked as ever. No Bidenverse shortages. Take a moment to enjoy that. Be thankful. It’s only a few months since the press was baying about the cost of eggs. I bought 3 dozen. There were hundreds stacked. I love the land of plenty.

People were on good behavior, or at least not any weirder than usual. Some folks were in Halloween costumes, but aren’t many people in costume pretty much permanently lately? The guy with wings and the slutty witch both politely passed me in the aisle. The land whale in the electric cart seemed to know how to steer. The floor was clean. The people reasonable. How very civilized!

I did a thing mostly limited to guys. I entered with a list. I bought exactly what was on the list. And I left. No impulse buys! In and out, stay focused, eyes on the prize. The prize is to return to my homestead and never have to leave for a long time.

Driving home I thought about how paranoid I’ve always been about food. I don’t mind being broke. I’ve been broke before. I’ll probably be broke again. But food is different. If I run out of peanut butter I get fuckin’ pissed!

I grew up a certain time (Gen X) in a certain region (which I won’t mention). The way you grow up can beat certain things into you. I will always have stored food because, to me, food is better than cash. If you’ve got cash, sooner or it’s gone. A car transmission will blow, tax day will roll around, you’ll need a dentist, or the roof will leak. When you’ve got money, wolves circle at the scent. Food is better. Nobody ever wants to steal your peanut butter. Same thing with several cords of firewood and the deer in my freezer. No banker this century has seized a can of beans.

Driving home I remembered the GenX youthful experience that’s closest to SNAP. I remember Government Cheese! There was no account from which you could fund purchase of Pepsi and Pepperoni but sometimes you’d score a big-ass block of cheese. Got a block of cheese? You’re set! I had a few. Never through any repeat thing. A pile of them would show up, inexplicably, and I’d get a chance to scamper off with 50,000 calories of mismanaged tax subsidy. It always felt like a lottery win; all the cheese you need to clog your system for a month! Add a loaf of crappy bread from the “expires soon” pile and you’ve got all the grilled cheese you can stomach!

Government cheese was shit but I loved it. I fondly remember it. I was (and am) grateful for them. If I had my way, every taxpayer would get a big fat block of Government Cheese under their tree on Christmas. “A gift from Uncle Sam, don’t eat it all at once and if you do, report to the ER immediately.”

Back when when I was broke as shit that was a little greasy miracle. The “govt” peanut butter was nasty but I ate every bit. I once got road killed antelope from a food bank in Montana, I thought I was a king! You gotta’ appreciate good fortune in whatever form it takes.

I wondered if other people remembered Government Cheese? I found a hilarious video all about it. (Hat tip to Vern’s Stories.) It’s as stupid and funny as anything else DC’s done. They outlawed beer and that led directly to Reagan releasing truckloads of fondly remembered blocks of coagulation. The secret negotiations involving Pizza Hut was news to me. It’s worth your time to watch.

[I wrote this on October 30th but scheduled it for posting the next day. If events catch up with me, that’s why this post is out of date.]

I’m skipping Halloween. I like the holiday in general but I’m taking this year off. I’m in the mood to be a hermit for a while. Unfortunately, I may have to go grocery shopping. This is what I’m writing about.

Both Mrs. Curmudgeon and I limit our exposure to “the news”. We do this for the same reason we don’t smear dogshit on our faces. However, I have a general knowledge of what’s going on. As I type this, it’s day 30 of the “shutdown”. Tomorrow, will presumably be day 31. Then comes November 1st.

It is said that in some states (no idea which ones) SNAP benefits will temporarily cease on November 1st. I have no idea what the details are. Nor do I know the difference between SNAP, EBT, and what was called “food stamps” when I was a kid.

All I know is the free shit army will temporarily have a little less free shit. For some, this may literally be the first time they’ve even considered purchasing their own food with their own money.

None of this is relevant to me. I’ve always paid for my own food. Plus, we’ve usually got stores of food like a medieval castle prepping for siege. It should be no big deal for anyone. Literally nobody in 2025 America is at risk like a homesteader in 1890.

But we know that’s not relevant. Dependency leads to dependency. Folks generations removed from the labor of feeding themselves will never be as based as a homesteader in 1890. They lack the strength to say “the crop failed, that sucks”. They’ll look for a scapegoat. They’ve been trained (literally from birth) to consider their personal situation someone else’s fault. Dependent people don’t think of themselves as dependent, they think of themselves as entitled. What should be gratitude becomes envy; which soon drifts into rage. Lacking basic restraint, mentally unwell masses in the modern era are a playground for evil. The deliberate replacement of self-reliance with extended childhood has created vast vote farms; sown thickly with the seeds of discontent.

Planning ahead, I told Mrs. Curmudgeon it should be no big deal but as I heard the words I said it rattled my bones. I said this:

“There’s a small chance that some food stamps, or whatever they’re called now, will get interrupted on Saturday. I’m sure it’s nothing but you never know if people will get stupid and overreact.“

That last line… it scares me.

I’ve said that before.

In 2020 we bought my little Yamaha TW200 dirt bike. I’ll always remember because it was February 29th… leap year day. We drove from our little piece of nowhere to a big city to get the bike.

I saved a shitload of money by doing that trip but it wasn’t without hassles. After we got the bike and had it strapped down tightly in my truck, we spent the night at a hotel. What a disaster! It was overrun by busloads of spastic partying young “athletes” and their associated “hoes”. Some sort of basketball tournament had just gone down. I get that people like to party but I got no sleep due to the cacophony of rutting wildebeests in all the rooms around us.

The next day, we were groggy and worn out. We were about to drive home when I mentioned something to Mrs. Curmudgeon. “There’s this thing going down in China. I’m sure it’s nothing but people tend to overreact. Maybe we should buy some groceries while we’re in the city.”

I give Mrs. Curmudgeon huge credit for what happened next. She dragged my clueless ass through a massive grocery store buying shit like the zombie apocalypse was upon us.

I thought it was probably overkill. I did not then (and still do not) fear the pathogen. To the best I could communicate I sensed that a lot of people had spent the last 4 years working themselves into a cognitive dissonance shitstorm and they would eventually do something spectacularly stupid. Mrs. Curmudgeon nodded, ignored my theorizing, and stacked pancake flour and canned goods like it was her goal to crush the shopping cart. (The prices were cheaper than our local store anyway.)

It was possible it would all blow over. Ever since Hillary wasn’t coronated, folks had worked themselves into a lather. So far, they’d failed to destroy much more than their own mental state. Even so, something was going to happen sooner or later. A fuse existed. If not a pathogen, then something else. A kitten stuck in a tree? A real estate market crash? Another 9/11 type terrorist attack? Anything might kick things off.

Still thinking people might react with dignity and intelligence, we drove home with a shiny new motorcycle in the truck bed and the cab crammed to the brim with groceries.

By my count, it was 13 days later when all hell broke loose. I remember that too because it was March 13th and I was 500 miles from home. I remember listening to the radio as one thing after another was closed down. I drove home thinking “they cancelled basketball”? I made it home just fine. That big pile of groceries we’d bought a few weeks ago went well with our other ample stores.

Some folks will never see 2020 the way I do. Sadly it feels like reason is insufficient to find us a common ground. I saw it as a flat out panic attack by people who’d been deliberately brought to madness. Some of it was self-inflicted. Some of it was externally sourced. But it sure as hell wasn’t merely a pathogen from China (eventually everyone gave up and admitted it came from Wuhan Institute of Virology but even that simple fact took years to sink in). Was it social media? Was it propaganda? Was it a people who’d never experienced true risk? Was it too much wealth? Too many people with an external locus of control? Just another witch hunt? I’ll never know.

All I really know is it started with me saying “I think it’s nothing but people tend to overreact” and progressed through closed sporting events, closed schools, arrows painted on floors, fiery but mostly peaceful riots, an election of remarkable statistical improbability (Biden got more votes than any other candidate in American history and I repeat that legally required fact every chance I get), political prisoners in America, unvaccinated in concentration camps in Australia, truckers with frozen bank accounts in Canada, lawfare, assassination attempts (some of which succeeded even quite recently)… and that’s just some of the bullshit that went down.

I will always associate “sometimes people overreact” as leading to this…

Whenever I say “I think it’s nothing” it hits me again. These things happened. They happened over what I think of as “not meriting this level of spastic overreaction”. People driven to insanity do insane things and they’re still just as numerous and insane as always.

Do I think a couple day’s interruption of food stamps is that big of a deal? No, it’s pretty damn minor. But it’s not me making the call.

So, our house is crammed with food (as it often is) but I’ll probably spend Halloween afternoon buying a cart full of generic “stuff”. If people lose their goddamn minds and start looting over toilet paper I’ll hunker down and stay away, just like I did last time the world ended.

That’s my theory anyway. YMMV.

A.C.

[This is a follow-up to this post and these follow-up photos.]

I got a bunch of comments. They’re roughly split between discussion of clever nail removers / other gadgets and folks who are like “pallets are only pallets”. Plus a smattering of “watch out for chemicals”. I wasn’t ready to give up. I gave it one more try.

Unfortunately the tractor repair shop where I scrounge pallets was already prepped for winter. Someone had used a skid steer to push everything into a ditch. I can’t complain; it’s their ditch and their pallets. I grabbed what I could and wound up with a pathetic haul.

Not very promising. I dutifully brought a pallet into my shop.

And disassembled it.

Aside from the hunk of 2″x6″ I’d found, it sucked (and the 2″x6″ wasn’t great).

90% of it wound up cut into firewood. Here’s some nail free firewood.

The rest was pretty nasty… but I burned it anyway.

I’ve made it several more days without dipping into my “real firewood”, so suppose it’s a “success”. It’ll probably last a few more days. I’ve got a couple more very dismal pallets out in the lawn. It all got soaked in a driving rainstorm. I’m in no hurry to drag that junk through the mud into my clean-ish shop. It’ll probably keep Betsy running another week or so.

So that’s it for now. I assume there won’t be any pallets until spring tractor implement sales season.

In related but not pallet news, I’ve been having a ball messing around in my workshop. I finished the miter saw table, made some sawhorses, used them to fix an old wooden ladder, and am halfway through yet another building project. The sawhorses got me pondering some “woodworking philosophy” (I probably think too much!). I’ll post about that whenever I can tear myself away from Betsy and settle back in front of my computer long enough to type it up. (I don’t own a laptop. Otherwise I’d be blogging from my workbench because it’s near the warm woodstove.)

A.C.

P.S. In entirely unrelated “news”, I finally got my white elephant PITA house generator back in service. Just in time, because it’ll snow soon and I didn’t want to be messing with that in mid-winter.

P.S.2. This post goes live just before Halloween. Once my favorite holiday, I’m sitting this one out. I live far too remote to have actual trick-or-treat kids come to me and I’m not “feeling it” to go to a party or whatnot. Even so, happy Halloween y’all.

[This is a follow-up to this post.]

Attempt 1: “Cut the nails with a Sawzall” method.

I started with a sexy lookin’ pallet that weighed just enough to jack up my back when I tossed it in the truck. Whoops.

After some exhausting work I got what looks like a good haul. But look closer. Damn near all of the “long” pieces have splits (not to mention they’re still riddled with nails). It’s pretty close to unusable.

The “crosspieces” stacked on the right, which are also riddled with nails, might be a different story. That wood is dense and strong and not split at all. But because I cut the nails, I have no idea how to use the wood. I don’t want to run my valuable saw blades into whatever unholy metal is embedded in there. I’m still pondering what to do about that.

For those few crosspieces, even the grain is promising. It’s more or less “quarter sawn” and pretty straight. I really want that wood to be useable!

I gave up on the long split pieces. I cut out all the nails and stashed the wood for camping. Then I chickened out on camping and just burned it in Betsy.

The nails I cut out look like this. I make sure to chuck that crap fast, before it finds a car tire.

Here’s where reality intrudes. I spent more on the new Sawzall blade than I “got back” in wood.

Attempt 2: “Balance the pallet upside down on scraps and bash it to death with a block of wood and a hand sledge” method.

This pallet looked a little better than the last one.

The “bash the shit out of it” method is a serious workout!

For my labors I got what looks like a pretty impressive haul. The long pieces are thin and some are split but a lot less. I think the difference is a better starter pallet and not the removal method.

Note those very desirable short “crosspieces” on the right. They’re fine wood. In this photo everything is riddled with nails (though the nails aren’t cut in half by a saw, so that’s good.)

On the long thin pieces I hammered the nails backwards and pulled them. That’s a bit of a workout, but it does work. Then I cut out any obviously shit wood (and tossed it into Betsy… including any remaining nail ridden crap because by then I was bushed).

The left side of the photo below is vaguely useable, low quality wood, with nails removed and not too many splits. Is that a success?

The short strong dense quartersawn pieces on the right are frustrating as hell. I tried to pull the nails and had about a 70% success rate. The rest I plain ripped the nail head off. (These pallets are built with weird spiral nails that were pneumatically “injected”. They were not hammered in. That’s probably why the head isn’t strong enough to pull the nail back out.)

Here’s some more nail-free firewood that would be awesome for camping but I already burned it in Betsy. (It was cold that day!) This is only some of the “haul”. I got a lot more than that but forgot to reach for my camera until I’d burned most of it.

This is some of the aftermath of my workout. The blue tinted board is a true 2″x4″ that had been part of my house before a renovation. At least 50 years old and rock hard. It wasn’t particularly valuable but it was very solid. Blasting away at the pallet was so out of control that I literally beat that strong plank to death. The other bits you see were in the woodstove faster than you can say “BTU”.

Conclusion:

I got a whole lotta’ exercise. I got some shitty wood that’s nail free. I spent more time than it’s worth. My pallet supply is mostly out for the season anyway.

The several very nice quartersawn hunks with good wood grain are almost like a ticking timebomb. They would explode my thickness plainer in a heartbeat. I don’t even want them near my new 10″ miter saw. I’d rather not even put my chainsaw chain through them. So now what? I could cut and hammer any nails to make a smooth enough surface but how could I cut them to length? Maybe look very carefully and make ginger cross cuts with the cheapest blade I can find? It might be wise to say “fuck it” and toss them (they’re not even firewood at that length).

I haven’t decided what to do next. Right now those desirable wood grain but metal impregnated hunks of deadly equipment damage are just sitting there. Actually, they’re mocking me.

Maybe I can design something that matches their nominal dimension? It would have to be something where I do nothing but drive Torx screws into them (on the logic that damaging a Torx screw isn’t that big of a deal… but no pilot holes because drill bits ain’t free). No surface treatment but a paintbrush? It’s possible. I may make a few attempts at a chainsaw crosscut to see what happens? Or I might come to my senses, get over the sunk cost fallacy, and take them to the dump?

If it all sounds ridiculous that’s because ridiculous is what you get if you’ve gone too far on the cheap spectrum.

I’m hanging tight wondering if I’ll have a clever idea. Wish me luck.

A.C.

The government has been “shut down” for three weeks. Can you tell? Can you walk down the street and see what’s missing? Can you smell it in the air? Can you see it in people’s faces? Can you see what important service we’re not getting? Can you see what better thing should be done?

I can’t. If it weren’t for social media (and propaganda wearing the costume of “news”) I wouldn’t be able to detect a shut down. What thing is not happening now that was happening three weeks ago?

I know it’s not without pain to some folks. All chaos is difficult for someone. There is naught that happens but some lose and some gain. But is it really that bad? It’s a hassle for a lot of people but it’s a big world and it’s not a hassle for a lot more. Outside of the self-described “elite” and human cattle in vote farms, there’s nothing missing. We, the people, in some ways aren’t even aware of what is or is not happening. Part of society is perfectly happy being left alone. They might even be enjoying it.

I wasn’t always this emotionally removed. I’ve had times when I blogged plenty about politics. It was fun, like watching MMA in a pile of shit covered in a miasma of stupidity. But it went too far. Gradually but predictably it got dumber and weirder and more caustic. Now it’s flat out poison. Spit it out. It’s bad for ya’!

Better to focus on reality. Whatever the fuck passes for discourse in the modern world is more programming than discourse. Let it happen without you. Your soul knows the right thing to consume for a balanced life. Care for it.

Reality is more fun. I’ve written about everything from building boats, to “raising” butterfly cocoons, to camping, to chickens, to baking bread, to percolating coffee… it’s all meant to keep my soul far from the circus and their monkeys. Including my finished but unpublished Squirrels.

This year is especially quiet for me. I had a health scare. Now I just can’t even remember how I once cared. I mean literally, I can’t recall how my brain functioned oddly enough to think this shit was real.

I’m not alone. Our self destructive “elites” and their budgetary circle jerks lowered the bar and then dove under it; buck naked, with a hard on, while coated in socialism. It didn’t have to go full retard, but it did. It went from a fart in a windstorm to literally shitting their pants.

This is what a shutdown means to me: “In the absence of wise decisions we are making unwise decisions”. It’s funny when you think about it, the government is training us to get used to having less government. Which is good because it’s not doing a good job at much of anything. The more huge and invasive it becomes, the worse it gets at core duties. We’d best learn to get along with less of it. Some line has been crossed and no matter how much of our non-existent fiat currency gets hurled at it, the government is allocated into a finely tuned perfectly balanced gridlock of mutually exclusive goals.

If a health scare finally ended my ability to fret over government that was only the last step. The government itself pushed me away. And now I can’t see what’s missing when it’s shut down.

Just for fun I’m adding some images and videos.

Here’s a guy paddleboarding. Breathing air outside (like everything) was suddenly something the government controlled. Th paddleboarder was hassled for his own good because a man completely isolated on the water is somehow at risk of a virus carried by people. Apparently, it’s the job of the Coast Guard to keep paddleboarders safe from viruses. So they chased him with a boat.

People have been panicked as long as I can remember, but cell phones really turned the dial to eleven. Those who can be panicked were kept panicked and then forced into self imposed house arrest. (Not me, I was riding my new dirt bike!)

Anxiety built up until things got “mostly peaceful”.

Eventually this t-shirt happened. Everyone sane wants to know vote counts are “honest”. How do you prove the count was honest? In 2021 the solution to doubt was to persecute anyone who voiced doubt publicly. Poof! Solved!

I say often and repeatedly: “Joe Biden got more votes than any other candidate in history and he’s got political prisoners to prove it”. I’m on record (repeatedly) as saying I think the Emperor’s new clothes are awesome. Because they are. They’re obviously great clothes. I’m in some ill-defined morally correct zone or protection because I want everyone to know I like the vivid colors of those awesome clothes!

That world class, record highest, vote count, the likes of which has never been bested, lead to this. Equally awesome. This is where President Biden explained that the contents of my bloodstream were his to control. I never knew that before. But now I do.

And eventually this happened. Because nothing says “legitimate” like prosecuting the fuck out of a dude who failed to get the most votes ever recorded. I remember that day. That was the day I was sure Trump would “win” in 2024. I bought a coffee mug to mark the occasion. The future was certain (unless something weird happened, like he got shot or something).

I could go on. Modern society has the attention span of a gnat and the historic knowledge of a methhead in a dumpster, but we don’t have to be like that. I could go back in time to earlier bullshit. I could blather about more recent bullshit. We all could.

Just for fun, here’s one from 2008. It’s been 17 years. $2,500 a year for 17 years is $42,500. What did you buy with your forty grand in savings?

Here’s one from the 1930’s. In case you’re wondering, it’s Walter Duranty, who got the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reports about Stalin and Russia. New York Times… don’t ever change, we love ya’ just as you are!

There’s nothing new under the sun. Here’s Plato’s Cave (375 BC):

I wonder what week four will be like? Will I be able to see the thing that isn’t happening? Stay tuned.

A.C.

Years ago I started hacking pallets apart. I “made” nail-free kiln-dried camping firewood. I’d blast through a bunch of pallets in an hour or less. I’d get about 50% useable firewood (in short lengths) and 50% nail ridden health hazards. The firewood went in a new, clean, dry trash can where it stayed dry and readily available. I hauled the junk to the dump before it wound up embedded in my truck’s tires.

I’d throw the trash can with the useable firewood in my truck and haul it on camping trips. There are campsites at State and National Parks where you’re not allowed to bring in your own firewood. Kiln dried wood (with no nails) is an exception. You can bring that in. (Kiln dried wood has no pathogens, unlike the hunks of tree I chainsaw and split in the usual firewood gathering method.)

I thought it was brilliant. I still do. It burns clean, quick, hot, and complete. I’ve cooked more meals on pallet wood than any non-hobo you know.

I’m not camping much lately but I had plans to “man up” for a late autumn campout. (It’s only October so I figured I could push my health a little.) I hacked enough pallets to make a full trash can of good clean campfire wood. Alas, I just wasn’t up to camping. Sometimes it’s better to listen to your body than push things too far.

Luckily, I have been healthy enough to putter around my workshop. (Which is awesome!)

I dragged the trash can to Betsy (my workshop’s woodstove) and burned it all up. There are worse fates than messing with miter saws and brewing coffee with pallet wood heat in a haphazard workshop.

So far, so good.

I started wondering if I could get good useable “project” wood out of pallets. I’m not low on funds now but I will be soon. Could all this (free!) wood keep me occupied and off the streets? Lots of people use pallet wood but often they’re making decorative things. I don’t make decorative things. Nor do I have access to really excellent pallets.

I gave it a shot. I even scrounged up some oversized (6′ long!) pallets on the logic that a 6′ pallet might yield a 6′ board.

Nope! First of all, a 6′ pallet is just heavy enough to fuck up my back. I have regrets. Second, the 6′ boards were thin and mostly already split. So I didn’t free up anything great.

I watched some YouTube and got more ideas… none of which were particularly miraculous. I got various bits of crappy wood, some with nails and some without, at the expense of far too much labor. Most of my noble efforts wound up tossed into the woodstove.

You can watch YouTube and get the wrong idea. It feels like clever dudes are getting stacks of straight glorious hefty oak planks in eleven seconds. It feels like I’m a dumbass for getting heaps of split, bent, thin, crappy, warped, aspen and pine. The truth is somewhere in between. Either they’ve got pallets nothing like the shit I’m messing with or I’m just seeing the cream of the crop. Did you know, things in the real world are not like the internet? Shocking but true!

Stepping back a bit, I got shitty wood from my shitting starting materials after a lot of work; which is exactly what you’d expect!

I keep trying, and I’ve got piles of “not quite good” wood gathering in my shop. It’s not great but it’s not nothing.

Then I read a bit of prose written by Chirsopher Schwarz, a very thoughtful woodworking guru. I recognized myself in this: Earlywood: The 6 Personalities of Workbench Builders.

The Cheapskate gets down to business: I want to build a Roubo workbench, but I’m tight on fundage. We’ve got these pallets where I work, and I’m wondering if those will work? I don’t know what the species is – something weird – and the stock is thin and filled with nails and spiral screw things.

I am certified in counseling The Pallet People. So I know what to do.

He knows! He satirizes where I was going.

I was drifting into the realm of the pallet people! Time to pump the brakes!

I’d burned hours acquiring wood that’s really not that great. I could get better wood for $25 at the local mill. It would take ten minutes and they’d load it in the truck for me. I’m not awash in cash but I’m not scavenging to survive in a post apocalyptic wasteland either. It won’t kill me to buy a decent pine board once in a while.

I’m not giving up entirely. I’m cheap at the molecular level and can’t go “cold turkey” on pallets. I’ll still hack up campfire wood (and maybe some fuel for Betsy.) I also have some projects that call for shitty wood. I might build them out of the shitty wood I’ve accumulated.* I’ll get some satisfaction out of that. But in my experience there’s no miracle gold mine in scrounged pallets; just a righteous workout and maybe cheap firewood.

I salute Schwarz for putting out humor (and logic) that keeps me grounded.

A.C.

*Mrs. Curmudgeon views this with suspicion. She fears I’ll make shitty projects with shitty wood that look shitty. Which is precisely what I’ll do. I’m not really into “keeping up with the Joneses” and don’t care what stuff looks like so long as it serves its utilitarian purpose. What can I say? I’m happy brewing coffee with pallet wood in an antique stove in a dusty garage so that’s just how I am. HOAs exist specifically because guys like me exist. It is what it is.