Got a chance to pay back some karma over at D&L’s, helping D stack a palletload of 3/4″ plywood in his workshop for some sort of apparently truly massive closet project. Not sure what sort of closet requires all that plywood, but probably I’ll find out in the fullness of time.
Got back in time for bread baking…
…and other than that I don’t really have anything blogworthy going on today. And speak of the devil, now I have to go punch down my dough.
Later, maybe…
The Lair is a dusty, cobwebby place, for the most part. I blame Obama.
Once in a while I look up and my eye alights upon a particularly embarrassing example of dusty and cobwebby, and then I must break out the broom, or the ladder, or whatever and remove the eyesore from my sight. If an object keeps its state of filthiness to itself, it may retain it. Don’t ask, don’t tell – That is the whole of the law.
This morning I happened to notice that it had been a really disgustingly long time since I’d taken the flags down from their place on the loft bannister…
…and given them a good wash.
But now that’s done for another year. Or…two…
With a little breeze, it takes maybe twenty minutes for them to dry. At this rate they’ll long outlive me.
A couple of longtime readers blessed the tip jar with generous! contributions in the past few days. Thanks very much, you put the eye doctor appointment fund definitely over the top – as opposed to just “probably okay” – removing the last of that bit of anxiety. I do appreciate it.
Standin’ on the Corner Park (opened 1999 in Winslow, Arizona) is a public park, commemorating the song “Take It Easy”, written by Jackson Browne and the late Glenn Frey, and most famously recorded by the Eagles. The song includes the verse “Well, I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me”. The park contains a two-story trompe-l’œil mural by John Pugh, and a life-size bronze statue of a “life sized man with a guitar from the “Eagles” song “Take it Easy””[1] by Ron Adamson standing on a corner with a guitar. The park is surrounded by a wall of bricks, each with a donor’s name on it, and a story by each of the donors describing their fondness for Winslow.[2]
And that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to Winslow since the Transcontinental Railroad stopped using steam engines. I wonder what’s the average age for young people moving away – and which direction they go.
I mean, it’s not sad because Winslow is nowhere. I like nowhere. I’m pretty sure the town was chosen for mention in the song because it’s the very essence of nowhere. And the syllables matched the beat of the song.
No, what makes me sad is that the stupid song came out the year I got out of high school. And it sucked. And whoever’s responsible for this park actually thinks Winslow needs a claim to fame and that this is it.
Finally got back from town, and…
That’s pretty much the last of my winter preps done, right there!
All the way to the front, all the way to the top!
I should have brought the pieces of that fifth pallet I took apart yesterday, that would have done it and more. As it is I had to cheat a little: there’s a pallet of juniper “rounds,” which aren’t round in the least, and I split a couple of those to fill in at the top for the purposes of the photo.
But that is Joel’s Woodshed, filled to capacity very tightly. If a cord is 8X4X4, this is probably only a fat cord and a half. But it’s stacked as tight as I can make it, you couldn’t pour a glass of water in there. Materially I’m better set for winter than I’ve ever been, by far.
Wonder what will go wrong?
Several-going-on-many years ago there was some political campaign or something in which it was claimed – this is absolutely the only thing I remember about it – that if X happened, little old ladies would have to choose between their single daily meals of cheap dog food or getting their vital prescriptions filled, but they totally wouldn’t be able to afford to do both.
Well, I’ve been saving all my nickels because I have what promises to be an expensive ophthalmologist appointment in less than two weeks. And I’ve been saving it at the expense of my little feathered friends. Saturday a friend of the blog – who would not appreciate having his name published here – slipped me a hundred bux that wasn’t in the budget. And you know how I’m always on about synchronicity and things landing in my lap in the nick of time?
Well…
…that’s the inside of the chickens’ food pellet barrel. Which at break of day contained exactly enough for one final day’s food* – and which will be at least mostly filled before day is done.
How’s that for just-in-time delivery? 🙂
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*Yes of course there’s a Plan B, but it involves robbing peter to pay paul and I hate that.
Nothing really new here, it’s just the first thing that happened this morning. 5:30 in the morning here comes the big white Chevy truck down the wash, with Guess Who in the bed…
I guess this is the new normal. He trotted up to the Lair, stood around silently demanding his welcome treat, then went straight to his safe space and went straight back to sleep. He’ll be here through Thursday, according to the plan.
S&L are going to see some real disruption, if I”m ever not here to take care of him for them. He can be a real drama queen, but has chosen not to be so about this.
It took four hours to charge it yesterday*, which since the 2 a/h battery takes two hours, was exactly what I predicted. What I wanted to know is, will it last long enough in a reciprocating saw, cutting pallets apart**, to even work up a sweat?
And the answer is yes it will! I wanted four pallets for the chop saw, assuming that’s what I need to fill in the last gap in the woodshed. I got that, and then kept cutting until the saw quit. And I was more than halfway through the sixth pallet before it happened. This is surprising, given that in several attempts last month I never made it through two pallets before the battery went flat.
So it’s twice as big – and twice as heavy – but it appears to do more than twice the work. I don’t know how that works, but I’ll take it. 🙂
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*CORRECTION: It took four hours the first time, because apparently they didn’t ship it fully discharged. It took at least six hours Sunday, I don’t know, I went to bed and it still wasn’t done.
**This is just cutting the pallets apart at the nails, not cutting up the lumber which is of course much harder on the saw. That’s best done with a chop saw as long as you can avoid the embedded nails.
Landlady got in late last night, and this morning it was time for care package fun.
From Carl came a new Official TUAK Camera, a Kodak point’n’shoot which may outlive its predecessor because of its lack of a mechanical zoom. And with it I hereby take pictures of the rest…
A new folding knife! Which is exactly identical to my present folding knife, a good (ie, ancient) Schrade LB7, except that the blade lock on this “new” one still works well. I don’t know if the hooks got worn or there’s some garbage in there I was never able to clean out, but my blade lock hasn’t worked well in years. So since I’m not a collector, the new and much shinier one will probably supersede the one I’ve been carrying. Thanks!
From Big Brother comes what has come to be the regular maintenance care package…
Canned meat! I’ve got to tell you, I was going over my winter stores just yesterday and for once I’m almost excited winter’s coming. Between improvements in insulation, my bulging woodshed and the state of the pantry, I’ve never been so ready for the season. Stored meat is very expensive by my standards and I went several years with it a once-a-month luxury. But I’ve been saving the cans people have sent me all summer, and between that and the frozen pork roast Landlady brought up a couple of months ago, I’m going to be eating meat this winter.
Also…
A book I haven’t already read is always a treat. For some time I’ve had a lend/swap arrangement going with D&L, which has helped a lot but what can I say, they’re much more into westerns and murder mysteries than I am. BB’s taste is more in line with my own, go figure…
Also, LB has asked me to mention that he likes leather bones.
And finally! Tools!
Remember that issue, last month or August, with the new B&D reciprocating saw with the comically short-lived battery? Well the saw has proven very useful while the battery lasts, and this new battery may double its operating life. I’ve saved a space in the woodshed just for playing with it. So this coming week I may actually be back in wood-cutting mode.
Thanks, guys!
“Then I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing…” What? That I was gone? Nah. I hate winter but not that much.
Just this minute got word from Big Brother that the hurricane missed them; I guess it didn’t officially make landfall until it was way north of them. So that’s something off my mind.
We’ve had a little bit of a cool snap (with nice bright sunny skies) so it’s time to sort out the winter clothes…
…a chore I don’t enjoy nearly as much as putting it all away in spring. But it’s good to know it’s in good shape even if I’m not quite ready to drag out the heavy bedding yet.
Also Landlady is coming up tonight after a 5-week absence, so there are some delayed care packages to anticipate. Hopefully including a new Official TUAK Camera. You’d laugh at the contortions I have to go through to use this one.
I’m interested to know what difference, if any, this new flooring will have on the Lair’s heat-holding ability. Certainly hasn’t had any good effect yet. The cold floor seems to suck the warm out of the room. Plus it’s slippery. I may actually end up with rugs, and won’t they be fun to keep halfway clean…
Bedroom slippers. Fuzzy camo-pattern bedroom slippers, yeah, with sticky bottoms you never wear outdoors…
Gov. Scott signs Florida emergency concealed carry bill
Yeah, this is more than a year old but I only just now saw it, no doubt dredged up because of the hurricane.
Florida had (one of?) the first of the new wave of shall-issue conceal carry laws back in the mid-eighties. Elsewhere that has increasingly evolved into no-permit carry, but not so much in Florida. Now here’s a law that puts the permit aside for a period of time during a mandatory evacuation: If you can own one legally you can carry it legally during the evac.
An odd sort of half-measure, but Florida is one of those places where the weather often comes disguised as a natural disaster. I myself have a family member who has probably bugged out by now…
It’s the rifle on the wall. Nothing fancy, but it’s what I reach for when things go bump in the night. And sometimes things do go bump in the night. I need to know it works.
When I had my eye surgery and couldn’t use iron sights any more, a friend of the blog sent me a scout scope. My buddy Ian loaned me the WASR with the Ultimak rail. The scope worked fine and sometimes I kind of miss it, but…well…
The AK just wasn’t made for a scout scope, is all.
I like it a lot, but there was some anxiety attached. It took a long time to get it zeroed, and I really wondered at the time: Why oh why would somebody crank it so far out of zero? Did he have it mounted wrong?
(Alarm bells in the brain of the person who knows me best: DO I HAVE IT MOUNTED WRONG?)
That’s probably what led to my extended dream, in which I dumped a couple of magazines at something I could not hit. Maybe you’ve got to live in a war zone or wild country before a dream like that will actually leave you laying awake and thinking: Maybe that side-mount can work loose? Maybe I installed it wrong and now it’s slipped out of zero? A few months ago D killed a couple of dogs, including one that – according to L – was in the process of charging him. I’d hate to just assume that red dot is still zeroed…
And that’s the nice thing about having a rifle range only a few hundred yards away.
BANG(pause)CLANK! I feel better now. 🙂
Sorry, guys. I’m around and everything’s cool, but nothing’s really going on and there’s nothing I’m jumping to talk about.
Maybe later.
Police in Utah Recommend Against Shooting Random Clowns
Anyway it’s the specific clowns you need to worry about.
Have you ever seen a troupe of Chinese acrobats? It’s really cool, completely over the top, like Cirque du Soleil with less glitz, no storyline and more Chinese people. I saw it in this theater in Beijing one time, and when it’s good it’ll blow the top of your head completely off.
I wonder what it’s like when it’s bad? Also, I wonder how badly you’d have to piss off the Commissar of Culture for the Directly-Controlled Municipality of Shanghai, to find yourself in a troupe touring the crappy cow-smelling hamlets of the American Southwest.
Defection will not be an issue. Bet there’s not a soul on that bus who isn’t counting the days before the trip home.
This kind of pisses me off. I didn’t do very much on-line yesterday at all. Very little surfing for content. No videos. One – one! – pic download for the blog. Okay, three or four counting the doormats. And yet somehow, according to Verizon Mathtm, I’ve used up more than 5% of my bandwidth allowance. Doing what?
Tablet’s not the culprit here. Wi-fi’s turned off, and anyway the tablet wasn’t even on yesterday.
I feel like a boy getting punished for something his stepsister did. All together now, sing it with me: I’M A VICTIM!!
Also, I must hurry and post this because I have to go to town and (erg) buy a tire. A used tire, hopefully, and not at all pricey. If such things still exist. Jeep needs an inflatable spare so I can remove the one that’s leaking around an old plug. I could just take that one in for patching, but then I’d need to either go a week without the Jeep or learn to drive on three wheels.
Grumble.
In the end, the only way to keep a big EOTW bunker hidden is to either locate it so obscurely that you hardly need a bunker, or put it behind expansive fences patrolled by well-fed and happy troops with strong fighting positions. A government can do that, maybe. For a while. A movie star can’t.
This is a lesson certain now-rich people are going to learn if (may the gods forbid) they ever get a chance to try their zillion-dollar urban bunkers for realsies.
Click for bigger
…a greenhouse? Seriously? Do these people know how much space it takes to actually feed yourself from a garden? Or how much time? Do they know how much electricity it would take to do it underground? Where is this electricity coming from? Where is the waste heat from all that lighting going? (Yes, even CFLs of sufficient wattage to serve as growlights produce a lot of heat.) Ever see a cannabis grow room? Wonder why all that elaborate ducting, just to grow a few plants? There’s a reason greenhouses are always above ground.
“Power technology has improved tremendously thanks in part to Tesla and lithium-ion batteries that only degrade a maximum of 10 percent after 30 years,”
How many batteries would you need to simultaneously light your greenhouse, your game room, conference room, bowling alley, media room, pool room, gym, kitchen, several luxury bedrooms, while running the extensive HVAC system, the pool pumps, the sauna … How are you charging the batteries? With that “power room?” What are you using for fuel? Where’s the exhaust going, that’s not giving away the show to the ravening mobs? Have any of these people ever specced out a power system in their lives? You’ll need to run that generator constantly, using that magically infinite supply of fuel you’ve got squirreled away. What’s the point of batteries anyway? The article never says anything about power generation.
An underground garage for your exotic cars? (I hate to be so repetitive, but) Seriously? Your priorities seem to be missing, Mr. Cruise, Sir.
If I wasn’t a looter after all that booze and high-dollar food you’d stored away down there, I’d just park a truck in front of your blast door, set it on fire so nobody can move it, and let you rot down there.
That packrat nest I tore out from under the lair in June keeps giving. Today I finally stopped procrastinating and crawled back under to re-wrap the vertical water pipe. I don’t contort as well as I used to – go figure – and when I finally struggled out from the crawlspace I got this ice cream headache I thought would put me on my knees. Now I’m just hiding inside for a while … and also pulling cactus spines out of my belly and parts south. Packrats like to chew off chunks of prickly pear and drag them into their nests, for reasons best known to the rats. The spines don’t rake up very well, and they last forever. Pressed against the ground by the floor joists, it was hard to get them out of my shirt. And skin.
Got the pipe insulated, though. Also, the good news is there’s no new nest. So I guess the Lair doesn’t really want to be skirted. I’m just going to sandbag around the pipe insulation and call it good.
ALSO! I see where a couple of people hit the tip jar while I was gone. Much appreciated, and so timely! I’ve got an ophthalmologist appointment in a couple of weeks, it’s going to be an expensive one, and I wondered how I was going to pay for it. This will help a lot. Thank you!
Which I took to mean it resets on the first, showing that I should approach the nastygrams on electronic gadgets the way fundamentalists misread the Bible: Literally.
Looks like I’m back. Looks like you guys had fun in my absence. I talked about going to the germophobic extreme of buying a doormat, which I took to mean one of these…
…eighteen bux at the local hardware, and you guys ran with that in all sorts of antisocial directions. Of which this was my favorite…
That one made me laugh right out loud, being something I would actually say to somebody at my door.
Meanwhile MJR confined himself to inspirational sayings…
Which, as I understand it, is no way for a Canadian to talk.
I’m back! It’s a little before six in the morning and I don’t have anything to say – LB wishes it to be known that the world owes him a belly rub and a walkie, but that’s the only thing he knows how to say at six in the morning – but I’ll be back.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
