The Ultimate Answer to Kings

…didn’t go ideally well.

I said I wasn’t going to settle this time. The prosthetist took my foot/peg off my old socket, mounted it on the test socket, fiddled and fooled around, watched me walk back and forth and then bid me go outside and walk up and down ramps and such. Instead I crossed the parking lot and walked back and forth on the dirt and rocks around the decorative little trees between the lot and the road, explaining that there is no pavement where I live.

And then I pointed out in as much detail as I could – politely and constructively, it was a friendly conversation – everything I didn’t like about the test socket. It’s not a hopeless case, I mean it’s more comfortable than the one I have. But it isn’t right – and I don’t plan to go through this again. I said before that I wasn’t going to settle this time, and I’m a man of my word.

Anyway, I’m going back in two weeks for what was supposed to be picking up my new leg but instead will be a second fitting. See? I can be a diva when I need to be.

I was so excited yesterday morning! We went on a water run Sunday, which we never do but that’s just the way D&L’s schedule has been working lately. In a fit of wishfulness I checked my post office box, and…

Hey presto, the new pilot assembly for my bedroom heater was inside! Festivals and celebrations! Extra gruel for the field slaves! When I got home I practically sprinted inside and started tearing the firebox apart. And then, when I got it all back together and happily relit the pilot…

Hoooly crap, it was a holocaust in there. That definitely wasn’t right, the flame was heating up the bedroom with the thermostat turned off. Bother! What could have gone wrong?

I shut it all down, pulled the firebox apart again. Checked the part number on the shipping tag with the number on the confirmation email: It was supposed to be right. Pulled the manual off the shelf and checked the parts list: According to this, it was the wrong number: this one was for natural gas. Now I was just confused.

And also depressed. I had one last forlorn hope…

Neighbor L lent me a bag of gunspring blanks she had used in the past for rodding out orifi. Maybe one of these would work on the old orifice and get me going again?

No. The hole was too small. But there was nothing to do but put the old assembly back into the stove and see if it still worked just a little.

Well, the pilot lit willingly enough but now the strange magic that had allowed me to somehow manually start the furnace by fiddling with the sightglass cover (yes I know that makes no sense but it worked for a while last year too) was broken and gone. I was totally screwed.

I was going to write this up yesterday but just didn’t have the heart, it was that depressing. But as one last spit in the abyss’s eye I wrote the following email to Empire Heating Systems…

Hi,

I purchased a new pilot assembly, and what was shipped to me was Empire R2890 Pilot (LP) R12796

Which should have been the right part for propane but clearly isn’t: The pilot flame is much too large and hot. According to your website that part number is correct for propane but in my manual the correct part number is R12795.

Could you please clear this up for me? My bedroom heater is kind of dear to me this time of year and it’s not working at the moment.

I don’t know how your life goes but for me this never works. So to my shock, I got a reply early this morning:

Yes that is the correct pilot. We will send out a new pilot orifice for it.

Wait. If it’s the right part maybe it was fitted with the wrong orifice? And now they’re sending me the correct one? Or it’s the right “LP” orifice but they have another one for … propane? I always took those terms as synonymous and life worked pretty well. I’m confused, but I’ll take it as a last reed to grasp until the package arrives (in 8-10 days if their last package is any indication) and shatters my dreams anew.

Incidentally I have now taken the firebox apart so often that the gasket material is falling apart, so in the meantime I have to find new. Hopefully at the local hardware store, but if not online.

…to allow me to get over my mobility problems and help Neighbor L with her – by now much needed – new pallet of pellets.

Happily it went well. I wasn’t sure it would. But it was more a pleasant workout than a painful ordeal, so good.

Probably the incoming new leg will solve the immediate issue I’m having but I have to tell them that at my current rate of physical deterioration I can’t absolutely guarantee that I’m going to be available to do this next winter.

Yesterday my older brother sent me a text about a new gadget he recently acquired in his ceaseless (and annually very justified) quest to perfect his hurricane preps…

We had a little back-and-forth about it, and then I forgot about it and went on with my day. Later in the evening, though, I went on Amazon about an unrelated matter, and…

I’m reasonably sure I never saw the name “Jackery” before yesterday, so it caught my eye when I otherwise might not have noticed that some bot somewhere is reading my mail over my shoulder. Not surprising but I can’t say I appreciate the attention.

…and came upon my Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) tester…

In the process of testing I stuck it in a cup of the well water that comes out of my tap, and…

Hoooly crap, that’s so much higher than the first time I ever tested it. I thought at first the discrepancy might be an error since I have a new tester a Generous reader sent me two years ago – but I published the reading I got right after receiving that tester, and it read more-or-less consistent with the first test.

That’s a substantial rise in TDS in two years. Doesn’t matter that much since I don’t drink the well water, but it’s something to watch. And wonder about.

So I had a stale tag-end of bread yesterday and nothing better to do with it but toss the chunks into the wash and eavesdrop on it with my game camera.

click for moving pics.

This is not “partly cloudy.”

Which is what you promised me. And your promise is why I scheduled this morning for bread day. You are fired.

Happily…

(And I’m not done being delighted by this) I can do this now.

So even though I have to run my powerhungry oven while my solar panels are taking a break, I still have juice to spare.

And so…

Beautiful.

An Unnamed Benefactor gave me that generator in summer 2017, the year I built the bedroom addition, but it only gradually revolutionized how I use electrical power. For the first several years it was only good for running power tools. Which was really great, don’t get me wrong, but I still had no easy way to use it on the overall power system. Two years ago, out of the blue, Big Brother sent me the last piece of that puzzle.

Creeping closer to the first world, baby. Which is good timing because when your body finds it harder to do hard things, it’s nice when the things you have to do get easier.

Yup, it’s that time.

I’ve had really bad tinnitus since my mid twenties: I’ve been a shooter since I was a child and an idiot for about that long so that’s no surprise. So everything I hear, I need to filter past the loud ringing noise but that never stopped me from carrying on conversations until fairly recently. I noticed it before but it never really drew my attention until last week at the prosthetist’s office. I was in a small, very quiet room conversing with a man whose voice I could barely hear. No excuses about background noise or music.

Not knowing anything about hearing aids I was loath to spend a lot of money on something that might not help at all, so I bought these. Stuck them in my ears last night while watching a DVD, and had to admit I could understand the dialog for the first time in quite a while.

If I keep on this way, sooner or later I’m going to get old or something.

Winter returned to the Gulch…

…just in time for my bedroom heater to pack it in, same as it did this time last year.

First it gets undependable, then it stops working entirely. I figured out last year what was the problem: An issue with a clogged orifice so common and predicable the manual actually did predict it.

And so this time I figured fixing the problem before it became terminal would be a matter of a few minutes’ work. As usual, I was wrong.

Last time, I removed the gas tube and the offending orifice fell out on the floor. This time the orifice was firmly stuck inside all the other gadgetry. Which forced me to keep taking things apart till I could get to it.

I never did get the orifice out of the pilot assembly, so I figured I’d try cleaning it in place. I had an ultrasonic brass cleaner a Generous Reader gave me for cleaning pistol cases: Went and got it, and the cleaning solution and some distilled water, from Ian’s place. Set it up, and…it refused to work at all. It had failed in storage. [“Bad word!!!”]

So I soaked the thing in alcohol and blew it out with compressed air, hoping to clear the orifice that way. The result…

I actually managed to make things worse, probably from my initial efforts to remove the orifice from the assembly. Screwed.

I really hate it when my beloved bedroom heater lets me down. I mean, it truly ruins my day.

The bright spot came when I tried to see if I could find a replacement pilot assembly: Turns out that was really simple. Not quite “buy it on Amazon” simple, but simple enough. Another is on its way.

As happened before, the heater hasn’t entirely failed yet. It’s in its weird “if I fiddle with the sightglass cover it’ll suddenly decide to work for a while” phase. Just like this time last year. But this time I have a new orifice and pilot assembly coming. Hope it doesn’t take long, there’s at least six weeks of winter yet to go and I like my bedroom heater.

The local market in the crappy little town nearest where I live just had work done on its roof…

Seriously, just recently. Overnight we had snow and sleet followed by a quick thaw, which is enough to prove whether the contractor you hired was worth a damn…

So my first appointment at the prosthetic shop happened, and was surprisingly pleasant. I haven’t been there for five years, and Hanger Clinic is a big corporate operation so the guy I sat with wasn’t the same guy that made my current ill-fitting leg. He criticized all the things I’ve grown to hate about it, so I was inclined to approve of him.

They make a plaster cast of your stump.

I have an appointment in two weeks for a fitting with a trial socket. I told him the only thing I really liked about the current leg was the foot, which is a marvel compared to the old technology. He examined the foot and agreed that it was generally still in fine shape, so we’re going to re-use everything on my old leg except the socket. Which sucks, and always has.

As surprising as old tech like plaster casts is to me after all these years – I’ve been at this for 53 years – that business of “trial sockets” was new to me five years ago. I should have taken it more seriously then and certainly will this time around. If this one isn’t comfortable I’m not going to assume I’ll just get used to it over time. The leg I had before this one lasted 22 years, and I don’t have that many years left in me. I’m not going to spend my remaining years gimping around in pain, even if that means some unknown technician in the Valley has to do it twice.

The unseasonable mild weather continues, in a slightly moderated form. Like, yesterday it only spent most of the daylight hours in the fifties. I’m feeling better, that sore on my stump has almost entirely left and it doesn’t hurt anymore, which means…

…walkies are back on the menu. Which Tobie doesn’t seem to mind.

I brought a ladder over to Ian’s Cave and finished the indoors part of installing that new cell signal booster…

Not that it makes any difference in how well it works but at least it won’t be constantly getting knocked off the wall now. As to what failed…

That wasn’t hard to diagnose at all. If there was ever a strain relief on that wire it went away a long time ago. I installed the new yagi more carefully, and it should last indefinitely. I also mounted it higher on the mast: The original one didn’t quite clear the ridgetop and suffered from line-of-sight problems. This one’s signal is much stronger even though it only just clears the ridgetop.

This morning I was up rather earlier than usual, no doubt due to nerves because I have to do something I’ve been dreading. This confused Tobie. All winter I’ve laid in bed till light, 6:30 or even seven. He objected at first but got used to it. Now here I was walking around with a headlamp at five in the frickin’ AM, and he’s like…

“You born in a barn?”

I have a first appointment at the prosthetics shop in the big town about 50 miles away today. (sigh) The first time this ever happened, more than 50 years ago, it was a literal shop that smelled heavily of fiberglass resin. Except for the part about being prodded in a sensitive spot by a stranger, I felt right at home. Now it’s more-or-less a bureaucrat’s office, or at least that’s the way it’s run, and I hate it all the more.

I pretty much hate leaving my grubby little gulch for any reason, but this especially. This is a place where a) guns are expressly forbidden, and b) there’s a chance I’ll have to drop my pants so I can’t just ignore the rule.

One of the things I love about my grubby little gulch is that it’s located in a place where nobody cares what’s on your belt, except possibly as a topic of conversation. So naturally it’s 5:30 in the morning and instead of kicking back with a coffee I’m obsessing over what gun to bring and how to carry it.

Oh, screw it. If I can’t wear it I may as well carry the big one.

Wish me luck.

Ian’s Cave is an unintentional but very effective Faraday Cage. It has so much mesh and is so thoroughly grounded that no electronic signal can penetrate in either direction. If you’re working inside or in the front yard, where the mound blocks all signal, you’d better have a signal booster if you want your smartphone to work at anything but playing recorded music.

And until lately, the Cave had a signal booster. It didn’t work great, not as well as the one on the Lair, but it worked.

Until lately. And it didn’t take me very long to diagnose the failure…

Notice that there’s no coax on that antenna housing? Yeah, that’s because the wire that connected everything together in the housing just fell out. No phone, no pool, no pets.

I spend a fairly substantial amount of time working in and around Ian’s Cave, and I like my smartphone, so it was incumbent on me to fix or replace the booster. Happily I have gained some experience with installing them thanks to the one Big Brother bought me going on five years ago. Not that there’s really anything to it. But I did have serious doubts that I was going to be able to handle that threaded pipe mast by myself.

I won’t say it wasn’t any problem, but I got it done. Then it was just a matter of fishing new coax through the conduit, and…

…connecting some simple components inside the Cave.

Tested the connection with my phone, and…

Yup, it works again. I was pleased with myself, and that I found something useful to do with this unbelievable mild spell we’re enjoying. Sweating in a t-shirt in early February! This has to be some sort of record.

I went to the biggish town about 35 miles away with Neighbor L this morning. L is delighted to have her truck back and working right for the first time in quite a while, and the new hasn’t worn off. She mentioned with a laugh that she has taken to goo-boying her truck for up- and down-shifting correctly.

I replied that I was fully on board with the feeling: I still give my bedroom heater a thumbs-up when I hear it ‘foop’ on demand from the thermostat. This time last year it was a hit-or-miss phenomenon that eventually stopped working entirely and it really hurt my heart at the time.

More recently I’ve had a chance to see what I really value about having running water and what’s just sort of a convenience. A working kitchen sink, for example, is a very useful thing to have but I don’t get emotional about it coming back into my life the way I do – even after all these years – with my Real Flush Toilet. Seriously – I can haul water for the sink. But hauling shit is a real blow to your quality of life.

I’m not suggesting that losing basic amenities is ever a good thing to do. But I will observe that having it happen from time to time helps me appreciate them more when I get them working again.

Check this out…

On February 4.

I went around the yard collecting windblown trash, did the laundry, ran the burn barrel, serviced the Jeep (that new inflator won’t top off all four tires on one charge), serviced all the batteries, practiced with my pistol, took Tobie on like four walkies…

In a t-shirt.

On February 4.

It’s supposed to stay this way for the rest of the week.

That’s kind of weird, not that I’m complaining. But I’m going to predict right now that March is going to be a wintry nightmare from start to finish, just to get it out of the way.

There, I said it.

I’ve never been to SHOT Show. Even if I were welcome there, which as a non-press hoi polloi I certainly would not be, you couldn’t drag me screaming to a crowded convention in Las Vegas. It’s one reason I’m armed, to prevent anyone from trying. Some people have zombies, I have convention venues. I didn’t say it was a major reason.

So if I’ve never been and I’ll never be, why do I bother hating on SHOT Show? It’s because I’m a retired boomer with too much time on his hands in winter. I admit I spend a lot of it watching Youtube, and I’m a gun guy so I’m familiar with most of the gun channels though I ignore most of them. But SHOT Show is a guaranteed font of content for guntubers, so…

…during and after that stupid convention, all I see are images of two things: a) Faked-together vaporware that will never actually be sold, and b) Another exciting! plastic striker-fired 9mm!! Now with extra bumpy bits!!!

Just saying, I annually look forward to SHOT Show going away. It’s a personal peeve, your mileage may vary.

And the freeze apparently didn’t damage any pipes, which with PVC is never the way to bet.

The temperature has gone back to freakishly warm: It’s actually supposed to be in the seventies for the next four days. So there was a chance my drain pipe might thaw. I wasn’t sure about that because of course no matter what the sun’s doing it’s always going to stay cold under the cabin. But yeah, I checked and the drainage was back. I was actually reluctant to open the valve to let water back into the cabin, being pretty much sure the result would be a gush of water where it’s not supposed to be. But so far so good. No drips, and the big goofy-looking gauge at the sink says the pipes are holding pressure.

Of course there was the usual brown water and sediment that needed to be flushed out…

…but I’m used to that. Even remembered to take the aerator off the faucet before opening the valve. Now I can put away all the Plan B infrastructure the Lair has been cluttered with for the last two weeks. Till next time.

My brand new kitchen bypass regulator decided no gas for me.

First thing in the frigid morning – which is exactly the same way the one it replaced failed.

Before coffee I had to go out in the cold to rummage around for my filthy campstove…

…and by the afternoon when I went out to replace the misbehaving regulator with Plan B – AGAIN…

…it was apparently working fine. Which tells me it somehow ingested some water – this comes right after the only even slightly substantial snowfall since November, so go figure – which then froze. HOW it could possibly have done such a thing is beyond me: I only installed it in the autumn so the seals should be fine, and it’s covered from drips. But there it is.

On the good news front…

…Neighbor L got her pickup back repaired from the Big Town about 50 miles away, right after I connected my last full propane bottle to the bedroom regulator. So I was able to fill the majority of my empties, which makes Uncle Joel happy.

Less unhappy, anyway. That running sore on my stump appears to be healing, though it hurt like a bitch all day yesterday. Having now finished my morning chores and rarely getting any emergencies on Sunday, I now plan to spend the bulk of the day one-legged in the seated position while reading a book to hopefully let the healing continue.

From several years ago and not really topical, but I only saw it for the first time this morning.

Who just got out of the hospital – again – without anything in his condition improved or even justified. He has a bad infection from his hip replacement, which I suppose no doctor – especially the one(s) responsible – wants to call malpractice. They hold onto him till his white count gets down below “shocking” and then send him home – till next time. Meanwhile he can barely move without pain, let alone walk.

Which, while I won’t say it makes me feel better, at least puts my own situation into perspective. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks barely able to walk, though the past two days have been better as the sore my ill-fitting prosthesis rubbed on my stump* shows some sign of wanting to heal. I’ve mostly been sitting or lying around dreading the next inescapable walk with Tobie, which is not the way I prefer to spend my time. Sorry for the extended no-blog, I just haven’t been feeling it lately.

Winter has re-visited the Gulch, with way-below-freezing temperatures and driving wind. It finally warmed up enough to snow yesterday…

…and overnight, but it didn’t amount to anything.

This has so far been an extremely dry winter, this morning being the first time any snow at all was on the ground since early November. January has tried mightily to make up for the freakishly-warm December, and may I say it has done a damned fine job. First I lost my well water, and then…

…for the first time in several years, my grey-water drain froze up. Which would be a problem, except that I can use the buckets of sink drainage to keep my toilet somewhat functional. I always have one pitcher on the counter for drinking water: Now I have two, the other one filled with well water from the five-gallon jugs I (painfully) drag over from Ian’s for washing and such. And it might stay that way for a while: The next warm spell is due any day and I’ll see what if any damage has been done to my plumbing when I turn the water back on but once the drainpipe freezes it might not entirely thaw again till April. So that’s been the cherry on top of what otherwise wouldn’t have been a premier month in any case.

Needless to say nothing very exciting is happening around the Lair just lately. But I’m keeping up with necessaries…

They say nothing drives innovation like giving the job to a lazy man. Since the prospect of carrying the generator back and forth to the powershed on my bleeding stump has made me re-think this whole “I need electricity” thing, I got a little more creative and ran a long cord from the battery charger to the front porch. The generator has to stay in the cabin when not in use or it won’t start in the cold, but bringing it out to the porch is a lot less stressful than carrying it all the way to the powershed. Probably wouldn’t have bothered working that out in other circumstances, so there’s that.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on. Sorry for the no-blog thing, but when there’s nothing to say you don’t say anything.

—-
*And speaking of that, I have an appointment with the prosthetics shop on the tenth of February in hope of making that problem go away.