Adaptive Curmudgeon

I was minding my own business when I heard a sudden outburst of pitiful meows from my woodshed. I texted Mrs. Curmudgeon: “There’s another damn stray. It’s in my woodshed. The fucker had better not take a dump on the wood I worked so hard to stack!”

I like cats in theory but I’ve had enough of them in practice. We’ve already got a barn cat. It spent years pissing me off. As it aged it slowed down on the destruction of stuff (aside from scratching the hell out of our door jam) so we established a détente. I’m nice to it and give it food and water and I even built a nice warm place where it can sleep (outside!). I make sure it has a heat lamp in winter. In return the cat does nothing whatsoever and is still annoying when it can be. It still gets itself locked in my garage if I’m not careful whenever I open the door. On the other hand it hasn’t torn up my tractor seat or my motorcycle saddles… lately.

The cat has lived for what seems like forever. It’s original name was “Lucy” but I call it by every synonym for “evil” or “asshole”. Regardless, I respect all living things, especially in their old age. I treat it well and patiently look forward to the march of time providing me with a cat free life. I’d have a different opinion if the little jerk ever caught a mouse.

You’d think an outdoor cat would be hassle free but the cat bowl attracts all sorts of mayhem. Squirrels, chipmunks, songbirds, skunks, raccoons, you name it. I’d rather avoid the drama but I promised the old barn cat I’d take care of her. Also, I have a soft spot in my heart for chickadees. They’ve got blanket amnesty to steal all the cat food they want. The jays are a bit more aggressive but I can live with it. The rest annoy the hell out of me, including the inevitable arrival of another damn cat.

That stray showed up several years ago. I named it “Intruder Cat”. It’s not a full time resident. It disappears for months and then shows up from time to time. At first it would fight with my old barn cat and bully the thing. I didn’t like that. I’d chase the stray away. Over time the two stopped fighting. Now they mostly get along. Mrs. Curmudgeon “upgraded” his name to “Frenemy”. Frenemy never catches mice either.

I want a third cat like I want higher taxes. Mrs. Curmudgeon is always a few steps ahead of me. She texted “Get a picture.”

It came out of hiding soon enough. A kitten that looks a lot like Frenemy. I’m guessing Frenemy went off and got lucky somewhere. I presume Frenemy abandoned the kittens and wherever the mom-cat lives. He probably wandered off just like any Tomcat would. Much like the lyrics of an old time blues song.

One kitten must have followed him and wound up lost at our place. It climbed up an old ladder I’d leaned against my truck and started fixin’ to make a mess in my truck bed.

There were trash bags in there. The kitten was hungry and very interested. I intervened before it could spread trash everywhere. I sighed…

“It’s a kitten. Probably Frenemy’s genes. I’m making a dump run before it trashes my truck bed.” The kitten scampered away and I rolled out for the county dump.

Mrs. Curmudgeon wasn’t letting me off the hook. “In its defense you left a ladder for it.”

Back home, with the truck properly emptied, I caught another glimpse and snapped a photo. I sent it to Mrs. Curmudgeon. “This is the offender. If it messes up my stuff I’m voting it off the island.”

“He looks hungry. I’ll pick up kitten food on the way home.”

“Wait? What!?!”

So, that happened.

[Warning: I’m all over the place today. I’m cogitating while messing with power tools and it comes out odd. I promise this is the last time I’ll post about old crap from Sears or Montgomery Wards.]

Change comes to us all. All we control is how we react to it.

Not a flake of snow has landed but I already know this winter will be different. (Summer and fall have had their own drama. It has been that kind of year.)

I’m not saying winter will be inherently worse, just different. Diminished health has me on a short leash. I’m improving but may necessarily “take it easy” all winter. Unfortunately, I suck at “relaxing”. I’m prone to “adventure” and will do so if I get half a chance.

The thing is I live where winter is the real deal. It’s merciless. If I don’t carefully monitor myself I risk being a Darwin punchline. It’s bad to wander in barren windswept ice when you’re not in the right physical state for it. (Then again, nothing is impossible. Maybe I’ll heal faster than I’m projecting? If so I’ll finally “camp on the ice”?)

As a distraction, I’m prepping my workshop. I intend it a place to keep me busy (and out of trouble while still nominally inside).

Betsy the woodstove is ready to go. Nothing beats an antique kitchen stove for an inviting environment! It whispers “sit in this rocking chair and relax”. (Maybe I need to build a rocking chair?) I’ve also cleaned/organized some (not all) of the rest of my shit crammed in the single stall workspace.

I hope to lure myself into spending more time puttering around Betsy. Thus, spending less time freezing my ass off in nature.

Planning ahead, I turned my eye toward my least favored power tool. My radial arm saw is from 1973 or so. It runs as it should. It does what it’s supposed to do. It helped me build a whole goddamn sailboat (a very small boat). It has been handy and useful on my homestead for well over a decade. (I do have to recalibrate it every year or so. It occasionally gets out of whack and cuts at 89 degrees.)

Unfortunately, radial arm saws worry me. They’re useable but sketchy; born in a time when “safety” wasn’t the thing it is today. Some of the shit advertised back in the day as “things you can do with the radial arm saw you just purchased” are terrifying! I’m not saying they can’t do all that various shit, only that I’d rather rip with my cheap-ass tablesaw than roll the dice ripping with a table saw.

I’m not the only guy that thinks this. They’re not commonly sold anymore. You can probably only find a new one, if you haunt a specialty fine woodworking venue. (No stores like that anywhere near where I live.)

As far as I can tell, radial arm saws have been replaced with miter saws. Miter saws are said to be “safer” (not that I know from experience).

It turned into almost a superstition. It’s like the saw is just waiting for an opportunity to draw blood. Not that it has drawn blood, only that it wants to. I’m not saying radial arm saws are murder machines (something said incorrectly but often about things like motorcycles and chainsaws… both of which I love to operate). It’s just that some things radiate concern to each individual and the saw does it for me. When your subconscious is telling you something, listen.

Also, I’m not wrong in being careful. Check out old carpenters. Observe how many are missing a finger or two. Pirates on peg legs is a fictional trope, but carpenters with a missing finger is a thing I’ve seen with my own eyes.

Even so, I’ve been dithering for years about buying a miter saw. They ain’t cheap. The radial arm saw has done everything I asked of it. WTF is my problem?

I was locked in analysis paralysis. One day this summer I was talking about miter saws; really just fretting over the cost. My kid, who has wisdom well beyond his years, cut the shit. He listened to me blather over the pros and cons of a new tool and asked the “kill shot” question.

“Which costs more? A miter saw or sewing on a finger at the ER?”

DAAAAAAMN!

Nothing like an external point of view to slap you into action! I got it used and cheap and it served me well, but it had to go. Sometimes you’ve got to park your trusty Studebaker because you want air bags.

I bought a Rigid 12″ dual bevel compound miter saw. It’s overkill. I know that but I occasionally build weird shit. I’m one geodesic dome or another sailboat mast from angles most people would never require. YMMV.

Knowing little about miter saws, I bought one locally at a box store. How does one evaluate a thing which they’ve never used? With uncertainty. I cut the Gordian knot of a question I lack experience to resolve and made a purchase, for better or worse. I made it while I had all ten fingers.

(Warning, Amazon seems pissed off at Rigid. It’ll move heaven and earth to keep you from buying, or even seeing, the saw that I bought. However, if you click the link and buy anything I get a small kickback. The kickback costs you nothing.)

My initial review of the saw is as follows: Wow, it’s a beast! I’ll give more details after I’ve used it for a while.

So you’re thinking I chucked a perfectly good 50+ year old radial arm saw? Nope!

I posted it on Craigslist with a carefully selected price. If I asked for a pittance, some dude strapped for cash might show up and lop off fingers before he even got down the driveway. If I asked too much, I’d have to chuck it. I asked for a middle range hoping to find a skilled woodworker who knew what it could do but ideally was a smart, experienced, geezer who isn’t out of his league messing with the thing.

It happened just like I hoped! I got a call very quickly. The dude showed up and he was just what I was hoping. He almost certainly has forgotten more about woodworking than I’ll ever know. He might have more than one radial arm saw already. He had all ten fingers too! He was delighted over what he considered “a steal”.

I provided not just the saw but the cabinet upon which it was mounted. The tabletop is out of whack. I have to replace it every few years and it’s a pain in the ass. The guy who bought it could probably swap it in an hour. I also included manuals (which I’d never looked at) and a book (which I never read). I threw in a few gadgets for the saw’s more “exotic” abilities. (I’d never used any of that stuff.) Dude got “a barn find”!

I was super happy it went to him. The most important part was that the saw go neither to the dump nor to a n00b who’d get hurt. I sold it for about what I paid for it maybe 15-ish years ago (I forget how long I’ve had it).

You know how they tell kids “we sent the old dog to a farm in the country where it can play and be happy”? I did exactly that for real. I did it for a funky old machine. I’m such a softie.

Pics or it didn’t happen:

July 4th 2026 is coming. This is how it would be in a perfect universe.

Trump and JD Vance perform the following rap duet. It’s a glorious thing.

In the interest of bipartisanship, Trump hands Schumer a microphone mid rap. Schumer flawlessly adds the beatbox track. Nancy Pelosi grabs a microphone and does the panting background. It’s a little skeevy watching an elderly woman pant like a dog but then her husband joins in and everyone just goes with it. Her husband silently does an interpretative dance wearing only underwear while carrying a hammer. He calls it the “gay naked hammer fight shuffle”. The crowd loves it!

There’s an open bar but Trump cheaped out. It serves only boxed wine and Diet Coke. The only food comes from Taco Bell, and it’s cold. This is the only frugal thing that has ever happened in DC.

Hillary tries to drink every box of wine. However, Kamala grabs one of them out of her hands. The two start competing as only angry drunk women can. Oh no! They’re both sloshed and they’re about to come to blows!

Luckily, they find common ground. They join forces to attack AOC; calling her “a basic bitch who needs a lesson”.

AOC isn’t afraid of either drunk geezer and she’s not fucking around. She pulls a knife from a concealed sheath sewn into her cleavage revealing $9,000 dress that says “rich people suck”. She tries to stab Hillary but misses narrowly.

The blade swings wide and nearly skewers Fetterman who was merely standing there looking like a thug in a hoodie. He wails “am I the only one with a functioning brain?”

Millions of Americans, many of whom are livestreaming the event instead of having a real life, agree. An instant poll clocks in at 89% of votes going to: “having a stroke is the clearest sign of mental fitness in DC”. “I’m sure our nation is run by adults” comes in a distant second at 10%. The remaining one percent are divided between several thousand variants of “I’m an FBI plant watching this” and 53 individuals who all specifically replied “I am Sir Robin, the Not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, who personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill”. The latter causes the NSA to have an aneurysm.

Seeing a knife fight, if a half-assed one, Biden joins the violence. He shouts “fuck off Corn Pop” and then wanders away to take a nap. Bernie Sanders does his part by ineffectively chucking a dinner roll at nobody in particular.

Trump tells everyone to cool it and takes the knife away. A circuit court judge from Hawaii takes the knife from Trump and gives it back to AOC, because stabbing Fetterman is a protected civil liberty either specifically enumerated in the constitution or at least implied by penumbras. AOC meekly promises from now on she’ll only stab people who vote like they need stabbin’. The press reports this is a sign of inter-party unity.

Eventually every member of Congress and the Supreme Court is completely wasted on Bud Light and legal weed. They’ve started a bonfire using a print version of the most recent omnibus bill, a single copy of which requires three dump trucks.

Trump, who doesn’t drink, can’t quite keep up with the festivities but Melania is on her third bottle of champagne; from the private wineries of Trump International, which somehow owns most of France. Fauchi, who was not invited and is technically on the lam in Botswana, appears. He’s crashed the gate by commanding the Secret Service “BOW TO THE SCIENCE”; which somehow actually worked. He explains that if Trump International didn’t make the drink in the correct region of France it’s merely sparkling wine.

Melania throws her incredibly fashionable shoes at Fauchi, who goes scampering off into the underbrush. She starts complaining about “dipshits messing up the landscaping”. Alas, she’s speaking in a foreign language and nobody knows what she’s saying. Trump saves everyone from admitting they never studied language in high school by pointing out the next musical act is ready.

Kid Rock launches into a heavy metal/ grunge band / southern fried rock version of the Star Spangled Banner. It’s so over-amped that the Lincoln Memorial cracks and Lee Greenwood gets an erection from three time zones away. Canada begins to cry at the sight of their southern neighbor going full retard. Mexico cranks Lowrider by War and kicks back to watch their northern neighbor continue to be as retarded as it has always been.

Pete Hegseth whips out an unencrypted cell phone and orders the military to put on “the biggest fireworks display ever”. Teenage boys everywhere forget about AOC’s cleavage and wonder how they can get their hands on Hegseth’s phone.

Dozens of fighter jets and bombers fly by, going thunderously low and in formation. Everyone agrees it was the most awesome thing ever. Then an errant A10 warthog comes by at 1/4 the speed of everything else and strafes a dumpster into oblivion. The crowd goes nuts. Precision high tech flight is nothing compared to “machine gun go brrrrrr”.

Terrified that an obsolete plane which doesn’t bring in much funding is the star of the show, the Pentagon pulls out all the stops. Soon missiles and drones and one top secret thing that looks like the UFO from the X Files are all buzzing around the crowded airspace. Every air traffic controller for miles needs therapy the next day but for once everyone is competent. Well, there is one mistake. The State of Delaware is completely vaporized by an errant missile. However, that just makes the crowd cheer more. Everyone agrees nobody cares about Delaware and the best fireworks are nuclear. Biden is asleep and can’t comment.

Twelve hours later the party is over. Roughly 300,000,000 Americans are hung over. Most of congress won’t sober up for a week. Biden is missing. Fetterman has had another stroke, which everyone agrees will make him “a team player” in the next congressional session.

The Army Corps of Engineers is grudgingly cleaning up the mess. This comes after a stern talking to from Melania, who everyone wants to please. She’s somehow acquired Hegseth’s phone and seems prepared to use it.

Kid Rock wakes up in a sleeping bag. He’s in there with a woman but he’s afraid to look at who it is. He doesn’t know if it’s AOC or Hillary. His head is throbbing and so are other body parts. He can’t face the world yet.

The White House is smoldering. The Supreme Court is collapsed. Guam is capsized.

JD Beams happily. “Now that’s how we partied in hillbilly country!”

The ensuing hangover is a month long window of planetary world peace. France has surrendered. The rest of the EU has gone radio silent. North Korea has opened its borders. Germany has closed its borders. The American government is briefly solvent.

Having witnessed absolute mayhem over what’s basically a birthday party, China and Russia decide to lay low for a while. They have secret phone conversations which are immediately decrypted by the NSA. Some excerpts: “Did you see that shit?” “What the fuck is a Delaware?”

The peace doesn’t last long. Soon everything is back to normal. The government is haphazardly spending money that doesn’t exist and the people are bitching that they want more. Congress is debating the “trans-sexual, one legged, albino, kittens and puppies act”. This somehow includes funding an aircraft carrier group, a solid gold mansion for individuals who’s names are classified, and mandatory a cappella singing lessons for every 5th grader in the Nation.

Everyone is pissed off at everyone; just as we’re accustomed to. Trump and Melania witness the nation returning to stupid divisive matters and hug, the kids are going to be alright.

The sole exception is Bernie’s Sanders, Cash Patel, and Ron DeSantis. Those three have had a joint shared catharsis. Sanders now has a tattoo of a cash register in his ass. Cash Patel has a similar styled Karl Marx tattooed on his ass. This came about due to a game of “chicken”. Nobody knows what’s tattooed on DeSantis and he ain’t saying.

The three jointly buy Epstein’s Island, move there, raze all the buildings, and start planting organic garlic for sale on eBay. They build three huts in which to live. Sanders’ hut is made of straw. Patel’s hut is made of sticks. DeSantis’ hut is, inexplicably, made of titanium.

Kid Rock is still trapped in the sleeping bag.

[I finally “fixed” some technical issues. In keeping with “pics or it didn’t happen” I’m adding photos. They should have been in the original post.]

Behold the wheeled tower of milk crates.

From chaos… order! This phot0 is annotated, how awesome is that? I’d already sorted into single cups, double cups, and cups with Milwaukee “add-ons”. Then I added cups with 3d printed “add-ons”. I think my add-ons look way cooler because of a completely unplanned two tone effect. It’s easy to start navel gazing about whether simple PLA is adequate or one needs the tougher PETG. But lets not go too far in the weeds; it started in coffee cans and plastic baggies. (Incidentally, I spent way too much time trying to draw arrows in GIMP and they still suck. Drawing arrows in GIMP is like crop dusting with a B52.)

Donor plexiglass. It might be 30 years old or more.

Marking and cutting. The white stuff is paint left over from when it was painted as part of a rotting garage door.

I think it looks pretty slick.

This tool is about the handiest thing ever. It’s usually used for “post-processing” 3d prints. The blade is replaceable and on a swivel. I had to look it up, it’s called a “deburring tool“.

Whatever it is, it works slicker than snot on both 3d prints AND old plexiglass. The one I bought, only a few months ago, is no longer listed in Amazon. The link goes to what looks like the equivalent and appears to cost about the same. I’d hazard a guess it came straight from the same Chinese factory but under a dozen different random corporate names. 

Unfortunately, I broke the blade on my bandsaw. Was it “bad” to cut plexiglass or was it just a 20 year old blade? I have no idea.

It never would have occurred to me that I had the user’s manual at hand. But there it was, in a plastic bag taped to the saw. I’m so old I can remember the following:

• Sears was once a “quality brand”.
• You’d find a Sears at a shopping mall; which were gleaming futuristic places. It was glorious place to be when you’re of the Beavis and Butthead generation. Malls still exist but they’ve gone so far downhill as to seem sketchy and pathetic.
• Craftsman was once good stuff. It was only a few years after this saw was made that I experienced it as a hollowed out nameplate that Sears was slapping on cheap, Walmart level, shit. YMMV. Craftsman lives on, and so does Sears… but they feel like “names” glued on the same shit you’d find on any other Chinese crap. Maybe better than Harbor Freight, maybe worse than Dewalt. However you define it, the enshitification of Sears/Craftsman feels pretty complete by now.

Check it out. I found the receipt. What a piece of history! This is what things were like the very last moments before computers took over everything (you can see some dot matrix print at the top so computers were already “a thing”). Hand written items and prices and stock numbers. A stamp that says “delivered”.

Compared to 2025, it might as well have been written with a quill pen on a rolled up scroll.

What’s this? The dreaded extended warranty!

I observe this all with a bit of nostalgia. I’m using this saw as “nothing special” in a cold drafty workshop. Yet, it’s 37 years old and still going strong. How much of what you’ve purchased in 2025 will be still functioning in 2062?

As if to underscore the awesomeness of a 37 year old machine running fine, I already have it running again. It only took four days for Amazon to deliver a two pack of blades . I’ve never heard of a company called Ayao. it’s probably one of dozens. Regardless, it was cheap, fit correctly, and it cuts wall (I’ve already used it).

What an odd world we inhabit. I have nostalgia for Craftsman of 1988 even as I think their stuff is shit in 2025. I don’t know if the company selling replacement blades, Ayao, is anything other than a database fiction and I don’t care. It may be replaced by Oaya in a fortnight. I’ve no idea if Amazon, a monopolist in 2025 will still exist in 2062.

Maybe I need to buy a Studebaker?

Just as I traversed backcountry trails in Wyoming last year with the unspeakably obsolete idea of paper maps, I mounted the blades with the help of a printed manual. Part of being Gen X is having one foot in two worlds. A modern person is as likely to use a paper manual as a cavemen is to run a blog. (BTW: I needed the manual. Nothing was obvious to me!)

Everything is a success. Total cost? About $8 a blade.

Happy workshop projects y’all.

A.C.

Yesterday I wrote this:

[Note: I took a bunch of photos for this post, but they’re just not uploading. It is what it is.]

Today I dealt with tech support. I know you’re expecting me to bitch about some call center in Bangalore but it was nothing like that. It was all chat. They were quick, efficient, and spot on. Then something went haywire and I called again. They were quick, efficient, and spot on… again.

Probably burned 45 minutes. Probably first time I’ve contacted them in at least a year.

Since I do absolutely no maintenance other than making posts and occasionally backing up that’s not bad. Every now and then I get a flag and click something like “yeah, whatever… upgrade whatever the hell you want… I don’t care about the details… ever”. I never pay more than the minimum attention, which has worked more or less OK on my current hosting service.

I also found out I’d filled my storage capacity to the complete limit. I “solved it” by increasing my storage space. It was more or less the same price I’ve been paying anyway. I think I spent like $4 to go from one level to another. Not $4 a month, which would piss me off, but $4 a year. (In addition to the usual cost which is like $250 a year or so.)

In a way the storage thing feels like “kicking the can down the road”. In another way I’m cool with it. I live in America in 2025 and the government is currently quasi-shutdown. If congress gets to can-kick my entire lifetime, I can drop $4 a year to occupy a virtual hard drive somewhere.

45 minutes maintenance over a year. Sweet! Pray for me it stays that way.

Added because it’s comedy gold:

[Note: I took a bunch of photos for this post, but they’re just not uploading. It is what it is.]

My workshop is too packed to be useful and most winters it’s froze so cold it wouldn’t be useable even if it was empty. This year I’m trying again. I cleared and checked Betsy the stove. Then I cut and stacked a face cord (1/3 of a real cord) of specially selected small diameter, short length “kitchen stove wood”. We’ll see if that helps.

I’m also trying to Tetris/Jenga the place until it’s useable. (I’m also tossing as much stuff as I can bear.)

One small part of this “space efficiency” is re-organizing and getting rid of my stacks of coffee cans full of hardware. All men have between one and a couple dozen coffee cans of stuff. It’s mandatory. The problem is that its inefficient with space. Plus, I can never find what I’m seeking.

Sometimes I walk past a score of coffee cans and drive to the hardware store. I know I’ve got 3/8″ lag bolts or whatever in there, but I’m in no mood to spend hours finding it!

I’ve made a run at this before. A few years ago I “invested” in Milwaukee Packout “Milk Crates“. They’re stupid expensive compared to a regular milk crate but…

HOLY SHIT! I have to interrupt here to mention my link to Amazon. For some inexplicable reason it goes to a non-Milwaukee knock off that costs… I mean it just…

Words fail me!

I have no idea what lunatic is paying a C-note for a knock off milk crate but apparently some exist. They walk among us? I do NOT recommend dropping a hundred bucks on a milk crate. But I do encourage you to check the link, because some things must be seen to be believed. (*If you go to Amazon and buy anything I get a tiny kick back and it costs you nothing. If you’re crazy enough to buy gold plated milk crates have at it. Heck, for a hundred a piece I’ll almost sell you the three I own! I’m sure I paid like $40 or even much less.)

The milk crates (which shouldn’t cost $100!) stack and have clever features. I bought three some time ago. I stacked them and they lock together very well. Then I bought Packout wheels. (Wow, I have no idea what’s going on with Amazon. Did Milwaukee steal their lunch and now Amazon is getting its revenge? Did I pay that much and then have a black out?) The wheels are not cheap but now my stack rolls and it does improve my chances of a workshop that isn’t totally gridlocked. I added a mid-sized Packout toolbox to the bottom of the stack too.

A milk crate isn’t particularly clever. However, Milwaukee includes little “cups” with many of their organizers and I had several on hand. Turns out you can cram 12 “cup units”* in a milk crate… some clever engineer worked hard on that. (* I have no clear way to describe “cup units”. Some cups are rectangles instead of squares meaning it takes double the space. It makes a 3×4 grid… which was perfectly clear in the photos I can’t upload.)

There’s always need for more. Sometime last year I bought special Milwaukee cups that have upper and lower levels and some split their layer in two. Now one cup can store three things without mixing it all up. Be still my beating heart!

Then I realized I’m a big bad 3d printing nerd. So I made cups that split into 2, 3, or 4 cells. At first I was trying to match colors. Then I ran low on filament mid print. I made “two colors for more hardware awesomeness” and it actually looked cooler than the OEM stuff. I even printed a piece in translucent orange, because why not? It looks pretty damn cool too.

So now my milk crate has more or less 12 little storage spaces which I’d changed to roughly 23. Nice. But wait, there’s more!

If you’re nuts like me, you can add a second layer of cups. Now I was up to… who cares I’m not counting… compartments for stuff. That’s a lot of nails, screws, bolts, etc… I spent a while happily sorting the chaos.

But the top layer didn’t rest perfectly on the bottom layer (it’s designed that way but bulky stuff in compartments had a say in the matter). Meanwhile the top layer kept gathering sawdust and such from the messy environment.

I resolved to make a “platform” between the layers, so stacking is smooth. Then copy the platform for the top so it doesn’t get filled with sawdust. I scrounged up some 1/4″ plywood and was about to hack it to bits.

Then I spied a hunk of plexiglass. It was left over from the garage door which had basically rotted away before I replaced it. For some reason I’d kept the plexiglass. It beckoned to me.

Who am I to resist the call of salvaged materials! I cleaned it off and started marking an outline. Having a clear material means I can see (mostly) everything in every cup without even lifting the lid for that layer. Awesome!

I marked it out and decided to use my old bandsaw to cut the plexiglass. Now here’s where maybe I fucked up? I’m not sure if you’re supposed to do something special when cutting plexiglass. It ain’t wood y’all. Anyway I cut through plexiglass whether it was wise or not. I made enough plastic “sawdust” to give Greta Thumberg an aneurism but it came out OK.

The first lid came out perfectly useable, maybe even cool looking (for some definition of cool). I even used a 3d printing tool meant for trimming plastic supports. I ran it around the edge; effectively beveling it so I won’t be scratching my fingers when I lift the lid. Sweet!

I took about a thousand photos, none of which I can upload. Then I started on the second lid. BANG! My bandsaw blade snapped. So I guess it’s a project that’s half done for now.

I’m not too upset about the blade. I got the saw used a zillion years ago. As far as I remember I’ve never swapped the blade. I could be anywhere from 10-20 years old. It’s probably duller than dirt too.

I tore apart my bandsaw and found all sorts of cool “historical artifacts” in there. It was like breaching King Tut’s Tomb. Think about it; how often do you poke around inside your appliances? Anyway, I took more pictures, which I can’t post. So I’ll say “fuck it” and end the story here.

Have a nice day y’all.

I thought “bootstrapping” had three meanings. The first is a statistical method (which I’ve used and like). The second is a software approach (which I haven’t used because I haven’t needed it). The third was related to machines. I thought “bootstrapping” referred to using a machine to make parts for the machine itself. In effect, for some technologies you can build it from itself.

Turns out I’m wrong. I know, you’re shocked right? I was pretty confident in myself, but that third definition doesn’t show up in a cursory search. It’s either obscure or I just plain imagined it.

Regardless, I just um… not-bootstrapped a 3d printer part. I couldn’t be happier.

My Bambulab A1 printer has a tool head. (All 3d printers have a tool head. It’s the thing that zooms around the plate laying down lines of melted filament.) I had to remove the cover to swap what’s called the “hot end”. This is a slick, toolless endeavor.

Dammit! Is today the day of Curmudgeon using words that don’t exist? The ‘net informs me that “toolless” is not a word. I do not defer to the ‘net on this. I shall define “toolless” as a machine adjustment or repair where the machine was built so you don’t need tools to do the job. For example, wingnuts are toolless because you can use your little monkey hands to remove them. Try the same thing on a car’s lug nuts and you’re doomed. There are very good reasons for either approach, but if you need a big honkin’ tire iron your task is definitely not toolless.

I’m getting in the weeds here. The point is you don’t need a tool to pull off the tool head cover or to swap the hot end. I’m happy about that.

However the tool head cover is flimsy and (IMHO) poorly designed. I broke the little plastic tabs that hold it on. This pissed me off. The printer is less than a year old!

I expected the part to be a bitch to obtain and cost triple what it should. What can I say? I’ve been trained by evil corporate shitheads at places like Dodge and Apple. Fixing anything on either of those brands is absolutely miserable.

Bambulab ain’t cheap but they don’t appear to hate their customers (yet?). It took 5 minutes on MakerWorld to find the part. It was $2.99! I can’t complain about that. But I did. I grumbled a little about S&H and then didn’t order it. (I aggregate all my 3d parts and filament purchases into as few orders as possible to reduce the S&H fee.)

I slapped the broken cover back on the tool head (it held) and set the printer to work again. I’m not 100% sure you need the cover at all.

An hour later I had an epiphany. Am I not a clever inventive maker of things? Doesn’t my blog’s name start with “adaptive”? Why the hell would a guy who owns a 3d printer buy anything that’s simple and made of basic plastic!?!

For that matter, if I broke a part a thousand (million?) other nerds have already broken the same part. Nerds are great at sharing information. Surely an appropriate model is floating around the ‘net somewhere.

Boy was that correct! I searched on MakerWorld and there were pages of appropriate models. People are apparently constantly putting new “faces” on their tool head. (OMG, that sounds so dirty!) Some were extreme, like one that was the face of Hell Boy (I’m not sure the actual superhero/villain name, I’m just not that “plugged into” society).

I should also pause to salute Bambulab. Bambulab posted ways to avoid buying a $2.99 part from Bambulab; possibly because they’re not assholes. If there was a way to make a cheap easy aftermarket Dodge part, the Chrysler corporation would scour the earth trying to eliminate it. Actually they do just that thing. As for Apple, they would have soldered shit down so tight that a broken $2.99 part requires you to buy a whole new $500 device. And they’d offer the part itself for $499.50 just to twist the knife.

Back in happy 3d printing land, the hardest part to making an aftermarket replacement was picking one pattern among the dozens Bambulab itself hosted. I picked what I thought of as a striking black and white “scale” pattern. It’s a compromise. It’s 1000% flashier than anything I’d have done myself and 1000% tamer than looking at some weird superhero demon face.

The 3d printer had been working it’s little heart out on an unrelated task while I did all this surfing. As soon as it was done, I loaded my cheapest half used leftover spools of black PLA and white PLA. The slicer said it was something like $0.18 worth of filament. Yes, you read that correctly, less than a quarter.

It jammed out flawlessly with no major input from me. I popped the part off the plate, removed a tiny bit of support, slapped it on the tool head, and was printing again with a newly improved and slightly prettier tool head. I spent more time choosing colors than I did installing the part.

Also… less than a quarter?

Can that be right? I’ll check the slicer cost estimates just to reassure myself. Whatever it cost, it was a pittance.

Dodge and Apple could learn from this. They won’t, but they should.

A.C.

P.S. I’ll post pics if my cell phone (an obsolete iPhone that’s degrading like all Apple products) ever manages to upload the photo.

Pics or it didn’t happen.

Before:

Cover Removed:

New Cover Installed:

I’m Gen X. My youth was a more or less peaceful and sane time. At least it seemed like that. But I met plenty of what I called “Depression People”. I don’t mean that in a bad way or anything related to the serious mental illness of depression. I’m referring to people who’d come of age during The Great Depression; particularly those who’d been deeply impacted by it.

Even a clueless kid could see the scars. I had empathy and respect. What they endured, I cannot understand. I was carefully humble in their presence; even as I wallowed in the “spoiled rotten plastic plenty” of the 1970’s.

“Depression People” wasn’t all old people, just some. You could tell by how they acted. They hoarded the tiniest resource. I remember seeing a box labeled “small bits of string” that had, you guessed it, small bits of string. It wasn’t a person who needed the bits for some logical reason, say a fly tying hobbyist. This was a person who’d been through The Great Depression. It created a desire to preserve things they might need. I remember other things; jars of buttons, dull needles, bent nails. All available for a song in the 1970’s. All carefully stored in case the “plenty” of 1970’s disappeared.

Our current world is inconceivably wealthy; even for the poorest among us. Despite spastic baying on social media, we are the richest humans to ever exist. (I think the absence of want causes susceptible people to get funky. If you just ate a squirrel for breakfast because that’s all you’ve got, you’re based as hell. Oddly, that comes with a more contented disposition. A whiny barista clutching a thousand dollar phone, who squandered six years of college, and sports tattoos that cost more than my first car will twist themselves in knots over the fact that Bill Gates lives in a solid gold house. I do not habitually compare myself to either the rich or the poor. I’m merely me. Much of modern suffering is mere envy.)

Paul R. Ehrlich wrote the Population Bomb in 1968 and was more wrong about human starvation than any man in all of human existence. Starting right when he got famous for his dumbass book, for the first time in human history, starvation was almost eliminated. If there’s a famine in our modern world, it’s caused. In my lifetime, North Korea has had famines, as well as Haiti, Ethiopia, and (depending on your definition of such things) Cuba. (There may be others, I’m not a history professor lecturing about the details.) The point is that none of those tragedies were a crop failure. Terrible governance creates pockets of misery within a species that seems to have mastered the production of vast quantities of food. If you see a person in America that’s starving, it’s tragic and lamentable but it’s most likely serious illness (often mental issues such as anorexia or drug addiction). None of us waste away because peanut butter costs $50 a jar.

The Great Depression was the last time failure of the backyard garden might just cash an American’s chips. You’d need a heart of stone not to empathize. I wanted to give every geezer stashing bottle caps and cornflakes a big hug.

Of course, none of that affected me. Or did it?

The Great Depression hit in 1929, just shy of 100 years ago. My youth in the 1970’s is about as far away from now as The Great Depression was then. My youth had nothing like the wealth of now. It wasn’t all that bad but it was definitely not like now.

No regrets! I got to watch Star Wars in the theater (long before Disney piledrove a great story into the ground). In 1981 MTV was playing music on Cable TV. I didn’t get cable in 1981 but I would soon. Our house switched from black and white to color TV in time for me to discover the Hulk was green! It’s mostly good memories. If I suffered food-wise it was because my mom bought Tab soda, not because of a potato famine. (*Tab soda, anyone remember that? It was awful!)

Last year I was cleaning house. As a rural fellow, that means stacking shit in my truck, driving it to a landfill, and tossing it on the heap. Amid the trash cans and plastic bags was an old broom destined for disposal. Having emptied my truck, I grabbed it and swept my truck bed clean.

I am not Depression People. I swear I’m not. But the broom was handy so I kept it. It stayed in the truck ready for the next dump run.

It got increasingly battered but I kept using it. My son viewed the broom with suspicion.

“Why don’t you toss that thing?”

“It still does an ok job.”

He shrugged. I suspect his thinking was that I’m such a goddamn fossil that I experienced a real live black and white TV and reminisce about it. Thus, allowances must be made for my weird behavior.

The broom disappeared for a while. I’d used it to brush snow off some firewood. Then it reappeared under an old tarp. I tossed it in the truck again. By now it was frayed and the handle was slightly bent.

“You gonna’ toss that thing?”

“Nah, it still works.”

Several weeks ago, on another dump run, the handle finally got bent completely out of shape. We were chucking things at the dump. The broom had given its all. My kid was up in the truck bed kindly helping me toss something heavy. I forget what it was. He’s a grown man now and helps me because he’s kind and he knows I’ve been having health issues. I much appreciate his help.

He looked at the broom. The handle was nearly folded in half. He looked back at me.

“OK fine”, I admitted, “it’s shot.”

He cocked back his arm to send the broom to the dust heap.

“Wait!” I interrupted. “Can you spin off the handle? I could use a whisk broom in my shop.”

Sometimes you say something and realize you sound like a dumbass. I could almost hear his eyes rolling.

“Just chuck it.” I surrendered.

He hurled it in a flash, lest I come up with some other cockamamie reason to keep it. He looked satisfied and I had to admit he was, in this topic at least, the wiser of us two.

Am I like the Depression People?

A couple weeks later he told me “a broom was on the way”. It was a gift. Apparently he’d ordered delivery from Walmart. This based on DoorDash or some other technology that is not now and never will be at my rural location. It makes sense to buy a bunch of shit all at once if you’re paying delivery. Part of that was a cheap broom.

The thought of delivery from WalMart seems amazingly luxurious. But I don’t mock it. I once lived where I could get Chinese Food delivered. It never got old. One must enjoy things when they can!

Here’s where things get modern. For some reason, known only to computer algorithms, the broom was slated “for delivery” but it was delayed, coming from some other location. There was no additional fee for this.

We discussed the broom. Where was it coming from? Who knows? How was it going to get delivered? No idea? All we knew was the computer said it was “on the way”.

It arrived a few weeks later; in the mail. It came in it’s own box. It was packaged in three pieces. My son assembled it and handed it to me. I can’t remember how much he paid but it was a pittance. I think it was $6?

$6… for a whole damn broom. A broom delivered from God knows where it was manufactured to a mailbox a million miles away. There can’t possibly be much profit in that?

It’s lying in my truck bed right now. It’s not an heirloom, just a cheap broom that through some inconceivable reason was sent via mail. I’ll use the hell out of it and in due time I’ll chuck its battered hulk; probably in the same landfill where the other one went.

All for $6. The mind boggles.

There’s no way a $6 delivered broom is a sustainable model. We all sense such things. On the other hand, nobody knows what will come next and it doesn’t necessarily have to suck. People have been predicting collapse as long as I’ve been alive and it keeps not quite happening. I’ve predicted 7 of the last 4 economic downturns so my track record ain’t great.

It’s nutty that a broom would come in the mail for $6 but nobody knows what comes next. Will it be $150 handmade, organic, hippie approved, locally made brooms? Will they be heirloom quality? Such a broom would require that you care for and maintain it for a lifetime and maybe pass it on to the next generation. Or will it go the other way? Will SpaceX drop one from space for $3? Will it be the bare minimum number of molecules, fall apart in a week, and come in six packs? Disposa-brooms?

I’ve no idea.

Does some portion of each successive generation become “Depression People”?

I do not have a box labeled “bits of string”. I do have a bunch of campfire wood culled from old pallets. I’m damn near there aren’t I?

No shit, there I was…

I was sleeping in a screen tent on a warm, still, moonless, September night; hooked up to my Darth Vader mask and snug as a bug in a rug.

The forest decided to get cheeky. The forest that I think of as my domain just flat out was alive with critters. Normally, I don’t care. This time I didn’t care either; as I explained to the deer, I’m the predator out there.

However, I was mentally prepared for National Park Campsite levels of “nature” and got “Curmudgeon’s backyard” levels of nature. I didn’t see it coming.

Sometime after I drifted off in the most heavenly sleep, I was awakened by… I have no idea. At first I thought it was a fox. Then I thought it was a screech owl. Finally I admitted I had no clue what was making that weird lonesome sound. For all I knew it was a Yeti. Not that I was worried, but I was baffled.

Then my phone lit up. Mrs. Curmudgeon had texted me. I must admit she was probably worried about me out there… but also the sound had woken her up.

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “What the hell are you doing out there?”

Me: “That’s not me, it’s a critter.”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Me: “I haven’t either. Maybe it’s a fox or an owl? If it comes into my screen tent I’ll shoot it and then we’ll know.”

By that time whatever it was had finished doing whatever it had been doing. I expected to ruminate on the oddity that after all these years I still sometimes hear a thing I can’t identify. Instead, my Darth Vader mask and fluffy sleeping bag had me asleep in minutes.

After some further time (I didn’t have a watch and didn’t consult my phone) another deer showed up. It was just as pissed off as the last one. (I think it was a doe though.) It snorted and carried on like it was going to trample my screen tent. I took off the mask and said “fuck off Bambi” and it split.

Good grief. It was like sleeping in a zoo! Even so, it was quite peaceful. I laid still just enjoying the universe. The moon had come out, but only partially.

Something else wandered by. It had the good sense to ignore me and I reciprocated. It was probably a porcupine but I didn’t have my glasses on so I have no idea. It could have been a Mastodon for all I know.

Then I woke up again because the coyotes were howling. I hear both wolves and coyotes from my house; the coyotes are more common. Coyotes have distinct “group howls” and I try to categorize them. Most impressive is the angry “this is our territory and step off hoser” howl, followed closely by the “we think the train is more coyotes and we don’t like it” howl. There’s the somewhat more feral “we’re hunting and feel particularly hard core” howl. Sometimes there’s the “pups are learning and not yet good at it” howl; which is just hilarious. Then sometimes they go completely apeshit. I call this the “we’re having a rave” howl.

They were absolutely spastic. I pictured disco balls and coyotes taking ecstasy. It was the sound of punchbowls filled with tequila and monster trucks crashing into swimming pools. They were having the biggest party of the year.

As I listened, chuckling to myself, I heard our dog (which was in the house and surely sleeping on the bed with Mrs. Curmudgeon) start barking its fool head off. Great Pyrenees are guardian dogs. They are bred not to herd sheep but to kill wolves and coyotes that need killin’. Our dog is a complete creampuff but it’s still a guardian. Some vestigial notion in its mind causes it to bark aggressively from within the warm comfy house… like a massive,og-fur-shedding, fire alarm. This, I suppose in it’s dog mind, will summon me, who is not afraid of anything that goes bump in the night. Our routine is that I check the door and tell the dog she’s done well. The dog literally won’t shut up until it sees me inspect the situation.

The cell phone lit up again.

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “The goddamn dog won’t stop barking. What are those coyotes doing out there?”

Me: “It sounds like they’re doing lines of cocaine.”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Can you shut them up?”

Me: “I’m not leaving my warm fluffy sleeping bag to don night vision shit and go do tactical warfare with coyotes. I’m on the DL list, remember?”

Mrs. Curmudgeon: “The dog is freaking out.”

Me: “Go to the door, peek out like you’re a super hunter sniper, tell the dog she did well. The dog lives for this.”

I don’t know if she really did that, but the dog eventually stopped barking and the coyotes had stopped howling. By then I had to take a leak and stepped out of my screen tent.

Right into the vision of another deer… that promptly tore off for the State line.

It was an interesting night. I think I could camp at the most awesome National Parks in America and see less wildlife than I did that night.

But I still had fun. I drifted off after each animal did it’s thing. I didn’t wake up until dawn.

It was foggy but none of my gadgets got wet with dew. I thought about staying in my cot and sleeping late. Unfortunately, the chipmunks were terrorizing each other in the nearby oak tree and they decided on my behalf I’d slept enough.

I started a fire and began to brew coffee. Mrs. Curmudgeon texted to check that I was ok. I said I had fresh coffee and she showed up, dog in tow, very quickly. We sat in the shade of the trees, sipping coffee and watching the dog make a mess of my carefully piled firewood sticks. It was the perfect ending to a perfect campout. Sure it was a short and lame campout, but I’ll be damned if it wouldn’t take a week in the wilderness to see (or hear) that much nighttime critter activity.

I wanted to stay out another night but a few hours later a weather front blew in and I decided to refrain from pressing my luck. I packed my shit, joined the “real world”, and accepted that I’m not going camping again for a little while.

It was the only night I’ve spent “under the stars” in 2025, which is just about the fewest I’ve done in a decade. But I’ve got plans for October. I’ve planned another mild campout, this time with my hot tent. Snow isn’t out of the question, which won’t be a problem if I’ve setup the stove. The amusing part is I’ll be at a campsite. It won’t be nearly so wild and woolly as my yard.

I did it! I did it twice in two consecutive Septembers! How awesome is that?!?

Last year, I’d had a righteous adventure riding/camping the WYBDR. I was posting about it (many posts in series as I do). In the middle of posts I dropped everything and rode off for a short trip of what I called “tame motocamping”.

I was gleeful to interrupt discussion of one campout with the activity of another. It just seemed funny and also fulfilling to do that. It’s how I came up with the post title: We Interrupt Discussing This Camping Trip For… A Camping Trip.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how even one night doing a lame, tame, in-the-backyard, night was good for the soul even if it was a tiny bit of stress on the body. I remembered how last year had turned out and… whoosh, It just happened. I autopiloted my ass right back out into the yard and setup a tent without really thinking about it. (Yes, this time I used a tent, it has gotten a bit colder.)

This time it was nothing special. No aggressive bucks. No mental and spiritual consultation with Marcus Aurelius or Teddy Roosevelt. [Spoiler alert!] There was no unidentifiable yowling in the distance. The coyotes didn’t throw a kegger. Etc…

It was entirely unremarkable… which is fine with me!

I’m almost ecstatic that I’ve maybe turned a corner. Fretting over a “lost” summer and lack of camping in my favorite month gave way to interrupting one campout with a second. Not bad. Not bad at all.

A.C.

P.S. I want to give a hearty “thank you” to all the nice people who responded with positive vibes and useful info about CPAPs. Everyone says the internet is filled with goons and jerks. But not here. I might have received criticism and mockery but I didn’t. Y’all are the nicest, most pleasant and supportive folks ever! In general the world needs positivity and in specific I did too. I very much appreciate it. Thanks!