The Ultimate Answer to Kings

So how come I’m so cold this morning? Maybe it’s just a subconscious reaction to the date. Winter isn’t the physical ordeal it used to be, what with incremental improvements in the Lair finally achieving real-house-like standards. But I still don’t like it.

Don’t like typing in gloves, either…

…but that’s just the way it is. Of course if I were really all that uncomfortable I suppose I could close some of the windows. But damned if I’ll give in to reality without a fight! And anyway, yesterday afternoon it ended up damned near 90^o in here.

TB photobombed that last pic to let me know he was done with breakfast and ready to go for his walkie – which we did, and now my fingertips are really tingling…

Just sayin’…

…and also I need to wash it with vinegar again.

Okay: as of just after noon today, the water tank is absolutely as full as it can be*. One more molecule would fall right out the overflow pipe.

I just took this picture: The pressure is higher first thing in the morning for some reason, but 19.25ish psi in the middle of the afternoon is pretty high.

I’ll bet it reads 20 psi or better tomorrow morning, which will be an all-time high. So it’s official: Big Brother’s prediction was correct and pressure at the sink has a direct correlation with water tank level, and with a big enough scale you can use it as a warning of problems at the tank.

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* For the record that’s 2500 gallons, about 50 feet above the Lair’s sink.

“What the hell is wrong with all the people standing around photographing this?”

Insert chest-thumping drivel about what would happen if anybody behaved this way (bravely facing down a little old lady with a walker!) around here…

…Uncle Murphy wouldn’t be on it.

Had a few move-it-around chores to knock out this morning. First I had to move the cutting table from the Lair to the woodlot so I can chop up some knocked-down pallets for firewood…

Normally this would be very simple: Hitch up the trailer, back up to the cabin, load up the sawhorses and tabletop, drive to the top of the ridge, unload, etc.

Except now there are two things that can go on the Jeep’s trailer hitch mount and to accommodate the bicycle rack I had to take the hitch off the Jeep. You’d think the logical thing to do with it while it was unmounted would be to store it in the Jeep behind the driver’s seat where it’s safe and available, right? Yeah. Me too.

Can’t really blame this one on Murphy, it’s just me having a senior moment. But let’s just say the chore could not proceed until I figured out where the hell I’d left the hitch.

But having finally gotten that done, I had to do a small chore for Landlady I’ve been putting off. She’s getting ready to put rock on the wall behind her potbelly stove, and needed a sack of mortar. “Do we have any?” she asked. “Sure,” I breezily replied. “There’s two sacks in Ian’s powershed. I’ll bring one to the barn.”

And there were, too…

I am literally getting too old for this shit. And you know perfectly well that if the stacking order had been reversed, the first thing somebody would have needed would have been a sack of concrete. Because that’s how that bastard Murphy swings.

But the best part, the cherry on top, was when I finally got the stack reshuffled and hauled 75 pounds of mortar sack to the Jeep, drove to Landlady’s barn and backed up to unload – I found I could put it right on that other 75-pound sack of mortar I’d forgotten was already there.

Another reason I don’t get as much use out of the bike as I should, given the changing season…

…I’m a soft touch.

I took a trip to the dollar store with D&L this morning, and before I even went home to put the groceries away I took the bike out for the specific purpose of taking this picture…

We’ve crossed a hundred miles. And all in all I’m delighted with the bike, which in this environment I really wasn’t expecting to be. I had serious questions about how useful it would be, but I was wrong not as right as I usually am.

One small technical problem: A week or two ago the front tire went flat for no apparent reason (seriously the tube is still holding air) and unable to find any explanation I replaced the tube with my one-and-only spare. Apparently with fat tires it’s important to make sure you get the tire bead even on the wheel before fully inflating, which I don’t recall ever having any problem with on any conventional bike*. But after re-inflating the tire and replacing the wheel on the bike there was a definite bobbing sensation, and looking down as the front wheel rotated it wasn’t hard to see why: One part of the bead was seated more deeply than the rest.

So I took the front wheel off, which is very simple and easy (note to self: practice removing and replacing the rear wheel), deflated it, and fiddled with the bead until it appeared even all the way around. Took it out to the Jeep to inflate it with the Jeep’s air compressor because doing it with a hand pump is a really time-consuming and strenuous bore. Looks right now, we’ll see in the next couple of days whether it is right.

Big Brother, bless his heart, heard about the “mystery flat” and promptly sent me two more spare tubes.

I was just as happy to take the compressor out of the Jeep because then it was time for the next scheduled chore…

The bag in which I keep the Jeep kit is only two years old but recently the zipper has begun to fail. Last weekend it failed big-time and I ended up opening the bag by just ripping it open, pretty much obviating any possibility of getting it back together. Since the Jeep kit is important and often used – and in an extremely dusty environment – the situation called for immediate replacement.

I debated about getting the next bigger size bag, because this sort of thing can get out of hand and there’s only so much room in the back of the Jeep. But the old bag did kind of strain its seams a bit which might have caused the zipper failure. The new one is much taller but not much bigger around and will be fine – and maybe more long-lived – as long as I don’t find excuses to fill up the empty space.

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*or any automotive tire for that matter, and I started out in a tire shop and have mounted many hundreds of tires. But these fat bike tires are a different breed of cat.

I have a bridge over the drainage ditch for the gully behind the Lair. It used to be for the burning barrels, and now it’s for the woodshed.

Since I traditionally knock them together out of whatever’s lying around, they never last more than a year or two. And this one’s about done.

This spring I figured I’ve got more substantial materials left over from the porch roof and floor projects, so I really ought to build a more substantial and maybe slightly better-looking bridge. Continue reading →

The Lair is down to just a couple of die-hard hummingbird freeloaders, everybody else presumably having headed south for the winter. And after they’ve sucked this last feeder-load dry I’m going to take it in, clean it up and store it for the season to encourage them to get their minuscule asses in gear.

I enjoy watching the ridiculous fairs of hummers fighting over feeder rights, but these two have settled down to peaceful coexistence for the most part: With only two tiny birds and a five-station feeder, there’s nothing left to squabble over.

But it’s time for everybody, including them, to start moving into winter prep mode.

If it seems as though I’m not posting very much or with any real enthusiasm lately, it’s not because of any loss of interest in the blog. It’s just that nothing really happens here most of the time, most of what does happen is quite routine, and I have most definitely lost interest in filling in the blanks with quasi-political quacking as has been my practice for lo these many years.

Example: Here’s an unusually busy morning so far at the Secret Lair… Continue reading →

So now I’m sitting in D&L’s pickup outside the surprisingly well- attended physical therapy joint in the little town nearest where we live, waiting for Neighbor D to finish up, and it’s likely to be quite a wait because I only had one reason for coming to town…

…a new grain barrel/garbage can (which I had to order almost 2 weeks ago because nobody in town stocks them) and a couple of sacks of cracked corn to replace the moldy bunch I had to throw away earlier in the month. The old plastic barrel with the cracked cover has been demoted to carrying barn trash.

Gotta say, though, sometimes it’s fun living in the future. I’m thumbing this post out on my telephone, something the fifty-years-ago “futurists” did not predict. Kinda resent the thing about the flying cars, though.

…it rained.

Although several gullies ran into the wash, there weren’t any cloudbursts up on the plateau so the wash proper never ran. Would have been surprising, given how dry it’s been overall. Lots of mud on the road but things didn’t get into 4X4-only territory, at least not in my immediate stomping ground.

This morning the weather doesn’t seem able to make up its mind whether it’s done raining or not.

The monsoon season, which is normally over by now, almost entirely gave us a miss this year. But it has rained all day today. Never especially hard and sometimes only a drip; the gully to the east of the Lair only ran a little bit in the late morning. But all day. I’ve gone out only to assist in the relief of certain internal pressures inherent in the Corgi physiology.

No adventures have ensued, nor any Deep Thoughts.

Here’s a funny article.

Nation’s Murderous Psychopaths Undecided On Whether They’ll Follow New Gun Laws

Jake Foster, who is planning a shooting spree, expressed similar concerns about the ban on “high-capacity” magazines. “Having to do a shooting spree and reloading after every tenth shot does sound irritating,” said Foster. “Despite the law, I might just use a high-capacity magazine anyway. I guess the question is whether I’m willing to deal with a possible fine on top of the multiple counts of murder.”

…for the first time in years, I think.

The very first thing most mornings, Torso Boy waits politely for me to signal that I’m officially awake before presenting his list of demands. This morning he pounced the moment I stirred, and when I looked at the clock I saw why: It was already quarter after five but almost no light was filtering past the curtains. Some of that is just the shorter days of the season but most was the very heavy cloud cover that quietly rolled in overnight…

…aaaand that settled it: I thought last night there was really no reason to go to town this morning except to fill water bottles, and I have plenty of water. I’m obliged to go Wednesday anyhow (Neighbor D’s physical therapy has tripled D&L’s fuel budget for trips to town) because a new galvanized barrel should be waiting at the local feed store. But for today – why? Tradition? I laugh at tradition.

I’m pretty much going back to bed now, to listen to the rain on the roof.

A big deck.

It covers half the side of the house twelve feet deep…

…and the whole front eight feet deep.

Plans for how we’ll build a ramp/stairs to get on the thing are still pending. Landlady and Neighbor S did the frame yesterday, and then this morning we three did the joist hangers and joists. The actual decking has to wait three weeks for its turn to come up: The intervening two weekends are already taken with neighborhood building projects.

And now I have to wash up and bake bread for this evening’s celebratory party.

I just spent over an hour on a bummed ride to the big town about 50 miles away for an appointment that lasted less than 15 minutes, because the doctor isn’t here and hasn’t been in all week. So I got a visual field test, and then shown the door.

And now I’m sitting in a parking lot, where I’ll be for the next half hour or more while my friends finish shopping.

It’s a nice parking lot, I suppose. If you like parking lots. Do things like this happen to normal people on a regular basis? I don’t recall.

I tried transporting the new ebike on the Jeep’s trailer one time and it was a disaster. The trailer is so light it spends half its time airborne, and the banging and bouncing scratched up my nice new bike. I was hurt at my heart.

So BB sent yet another gift…

A regular bicycle rack wouldn’t have worked, the ebike is that big. It’s a little small for a motorcycle rack, but it does work. I just need to get a couple of shorter straps for my tie-downs, of which fortunately I have an abundance. I took it for a bumpy ride up and down the road and the Lair’s driveway, and it seems to work great.

Private to Jay Bee:

Care package received! Thank you very much. And (synchronicity alert) thanks for the knit cap! I woke up this morning thinking I needed to resume my search for a cap that fit, since with one elderly exception mine come in the traditional two sizes of too big and too small. This one is perfect and is destined to become a favorite this winter. Appreciate it!

And now I have to go do something I really hate doing: I have an eye appointment in the big town about fifty miles away. Pray for us sinners.

Because even I know the Babylon Bee is a parody site, and I don’t even read it much.

Exhibit A:
Liberty University Criticized After Unveiling Stained Glass Window Depicting Donald Trump

The window is featured prominently in the chapel, allowing students and faculty to pray to their lord and savior Donald Trump as they escape the pressures and worries of campus life for a few minutes.

“We wanted the renovated prayer chapel to really help students think about what’s important: President Trump and His anointed agenda to make America great again,” said school president Jerry Falwell, Jr.

Okay, right, I don’t really like the Falwells either but a bit of fact-checking might be in order here before anybody else runs with the story.

But no. Exhibit B:

Sigh. Humor is dead in America. Politics killed it.

I have often mused that when powerful elements in government make serious threats about banning certain firearms, and sales of those firearms immediately skyrocket, it probably isn’t because the new purchasers simply wish to have something they can righteously surrender to the government on demand. And yet sales of the threatened guns invariably do increase out of control whenever they’re newly threatened.

Yesterday I watched a video* in which Karl of Inrangetv suggested that AR and AK pattern rifles, though a thing at the time, didn’t really become a big thing until the “assault weapon” ban of 1994-2004. It’s an interesting idea that might have some validity, I’m really not sure. But it’s certain, judging from clear facts, that a helluva lot of people have no plan to get caught in another ban.

And here we go again…

The Streisand Effect. Palmetto State Armory Is Introducing The No-Beto AR-15 Kit Just In Time For Christmas

AZ Gun Store Owner Responds To Beto’s ‘Hell Yes’ By Offering ‘Beto Specials’ – And Sells Out Of AR-15s, AK-47s

In response to Beto’s declaration, one gun store owner in Arizona decided to offer a ‘Beto Special’ on AR-15s and AK-47s – and the response was overwhelming:

When O’Rourke made the claim during Thursday night’s Democrat presidential candidate debate, Alpha Dog Firearms Owner Matt Boggs was outraged, he says in an interview with The HolloNet:

“I saw the comments that he made, and I was kinda like, ‘You know what: the Hell with this guy.’”

I have a hard time believing that our Beloved Protectors at all levels of government are quite as dumb as they sometimes appear – that they really have no sense of history at all and simply persist in making the same stupid mistakes over and over and hoping for different results.

On the other hand I also can’t quite believe they really believe they’re going to reduce “gun violence” by disarming only the people least likely to commit that violence of only the weapons most seldom used in its commission, but they keep repeating that they really do.

So maybe they are that dumb.

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*For the record the point is made early in the video, after which it becomes footage of some guy’s performance in a match and never gets back to the point.