Author Archives: Joel

When you’re transferring speed dial numbers to a new phone, and you realize the only retailers in your phone list are a feed store and a junkyard? (and btw, is there a drearier chore anywhere than building a new phone … Continue reading →

Claire Wolfe on the calamitous 17th century. When I’m in a, shall we say, mellow mood with friends, I can occasionally launch into accounts of politics in seventeenth-century England. This usually results in incredulous stares, followed by, “Oh, so sorry. … Continue reading →

…so I won’t be retiring my low-resolution digital point’n’pray any time soon. On the other hand the small file size may help the whole ‘couldn’t send this pic with the cell phone no matter how badly you want’ thing. Atmo … Continue reading →

Ever since the state where I live dropped the requirement for a license to carry concealed pistols, I’ve started covering mine whenever I go to town. It’s not for any big tactical reason, it’s just that I’m never at my … Continue reading →

So a friend of the blog sent me a nice nearly-new qwerty phone to replace my old faithful Tracfone whose battery has gone perilously tired. Unfortunately it turned out it wasn’t actually a Tracfone at all but something from Not-Quite-Tracfone … Continue reading →

…and whether it’s related in any way to Tracfone? A reader sent me a nice used cellphone last weekend, which asfaik both of us believed was a tracfone. But when I tried to activate it I was informed that it … Continue reading →

A couple of days ago there was a nice big flood that tore up all the wash crossings. Most were back in service within hours, as whoever lived closest with a tractor went out and did his or her thing. … Continue reading →

I Shall Return.

Tryna make some money.

And all the time I was working on arsenic caps this morning I worried about LB flooring the Lair with liquid shit because he didn’t do his chores first thing this morning. He didn’t, thank heaven. And he still didn’t … Continue reading →

So I’ve got a paying gig making arsenic caps, which ought to be done Friday or even tomorrow if I push. That’s about $150 in my pocket but it’s already spent because I’m running out of glaucoma goop. So that’s … Continue reading →

1. Clean Water 2. Dirty Water 3. Salt Water 4. Fresh Water 5. Chlorinated Water Just piling on.

It’s only me pursuing something I’m … Wait. What did you just say? So I finished the changes I wanted to make to the enclosure formerly known as my pathetic garden, and then this afternoon at the usual time for … Continue reading →

Or why I will never have a discussion about NAP with ANYBODY EVER EVER EVER, no matter when or where, no matter who, I don’t care if Friedrich August von Hayek shows up at my door with a bottle of … Continue reading →

It’s much smaller now, and that makes me feel a little validated and a little sad. Such a whimsical thing, to be so useful. My neighbor J is the sort of person who just can’t stand piles of stuff lying … Continue reading →

In the real world, none of these bozos could hold a job organizing parties at Chuck E. Cheese’s. How on earth did they convince anybody they could run the country, and ought to run all our lives?

Ghost is disgusted with my chronic mismanagement. Bad enough when it t-storms in the afternoon, which is the usual Monsoon pattern. But when it dawns drippy and gray and everything’s wet and the mud’s everywhere, well, that’s just beyond excuses. … Continue reading →

So a couple of weeks ago there was this big fire, and D&L boarded a horse to get it out of danger. That turns out to be pretty common around here. So we hauled out their stock fencing and set … Continue reading →

Ian has posted a quick video with footage from our quadcopter experiments, featuring a certain AK which is not actually the World’s Ugliest Carbine but another I borrowed because it already had a rail in place of the upper handguard … Continue reading →

Oh, yeah. Monsoon’s here. I don’t know why, but they’re always bad when they come from the north and this one roared in. Hail, gale wind and rain so thick all the gullies decided to skip the whole ‘saturated ground’ … Continue reading →