Author Archives: Joel

With two inconveniently overcast days I haven’t had a lot of computer time for research on building materials. What I have learned so far, though, in company with your informative comments, has been educational. For example, there isn’t a huge … Continue reading →

Swell. Toymaker Mattel bills Hello Barbie as the world’s first “interactive doll” due to its ability to record children’s playtime conversations and even respond once the encrypted audio is transmitted to a cloud server, much in the way that Apple’s … Continue reading →

Here’s the theme song to Obama’s third term campaign.

Uncle Joel wakes this morning to a bit of an existential crisis… This is the Secret Lair, as of just a minute ago. I couldn’t find a better picture. Yesterday I emoted to Neighbor D that I need to get … Continue reading →

The ink wasn’t even dry on this morning’s plan to spend the day alone when Neighbor D rang me on the phone, asking for help moving a bunch more of those 4X6 posts. A neighbor traded him a bunch of … Continue reading →

Some French guy is supposed to have written in a play I never saw, “Hell is other people.” Personally I don’t take it half that far, but then I’ve never even visited Paris*. Maybe with more experience I’d have come … Continue reading →

I finally decided to just go ahead and do the propane line right. Went half the winter thinking my oven was broke. After much fiddling around it turned out to be a deteriorated hose. I originally connected the oven to … Continue reading →

I’ve a feeling the cattle wouldn’t get the joke. I’m quite sure the boys wouldn’t.

…even though once people might have found the place useful. There equipment is left to rust. Cottontails and elk wander through, unmolested. Rattlesnakes hunt the rats that live under piles of abandoned trash that was once valuable. I’m just a … Continue reading →

…And Ian’s young fruit trees are starting to bud, too early. I hope the next inevitable cold snap doesn’t harm them.

You know the one. The feeling you get when you find the guy who’s going to be watching the new cattle that will be everywhere, that belong to that big soulless cattle operation, the guy who’ll be making life and … Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago commenter Larry R. asked for my bread recipe. I tried to take pictures last week but blew it – it works much better when you put the mem card in the camera before the photo … Continue reading →

Because I had a chance to on Saturday, the first time I ever saw one in person, and there was a problem. I was excited about it at the time, because the gun always seemed interesting. A big problem with … Continue reading →

Note to self: Be more careful what you do. Outdoor Life has this feature called “My Favorite Gun,” where readers write in with paeans to their fancy deer rifles or over-under shotguns or whatever, and they’re always shiny fudd guns … Continue reading →

Even though it was technically my fault, he has this one infuriating thing that he does and he chose to do it the moment I grumped down the ladder this morning. He’s connected to his tie-out cable day and night … Continue reading →

Alert Reader MR sent the following pic of a driver ending up – somehow – where he definitely didn’t belong…

Like anybody, sometimes I need stuff. Unlike most people, I can’t just go to the store. Most times I can’t even go online. So I depend on banking goodwill with specialized people. 🙂 I load all my practice ammo for … Continue reading →

Does that mean M855 is some super mousegun ammo AR shooters should all have been stockpiling? Ian and Karl say…not really.

Overnight body count, that is… The more traps I set under the hood, the more mice I kill. Been several days – in fact maybe a couple of weeks – since I caught a rat, but the mice keep lining … Continue reading →

It seems a company with a long German name has also chosen to revive and modernize the FG-42, the world’s tacticalist rifle, making it tacticaller yet. I say ‘also’ because InRange fans know an American company has been working on … Continue reading →