Month: March 2021

March 31, 2021 – The Move From Winter to Spring

March 31, 2021 /

Spring started 11 days ago. I can’t say with certainty that we are moving to a new season. The more I look, the more I am surprised that we seeing long term supply chain disruptions. I attribute it to both the ice storm and the pandemic reactions. The following are items that I have recently had trouble with.

  • Propane and propane accessories (couldn’t resist)
  • Firearms, ammunition and reloading components
  • Bicycles and bicycle parts
  • Electrical components like wire, breakers, gang boxes, wire clamps, etc
  • Recreational vehicles, including boats

The first four categories I have been looking for in the last couple of weeks. I have talked a lot about the first two, now I am surprised to learn of new categories.

With school going back into session, it was time to get the bike situation sorted out. If you own a cheap bicycle and you ride it a lot there is a common problem. The slot to hold the crank arm into the bearing cassette will deform with constant pedaling. The crank arms are made of a softer aluminum and this is probably the fourth time we have needed to make this repair. Left unrepaired, the crank will eventually become unusable and typically fall off.

In a similar vein, looking for a bicycle for my other son. It turns out that bikes and bike parts are unavailable. I went to three different local shops and they all said that they had 300-1000 bikes on back order with about a year’s worth of lead time. Parts had no ETA. The store owners said that with the shutdown of gyms, people bought bikes in record numbers. We were able to make the repair with a used part.

I don’t know what is going on with electrical items, but I went to three box stores and two hardware stores to get new work gang boxes. In addition I have been having problems finding all electrical items as I start work on my new office. I heard from one source that PVC was in short supply and that it was effecting not just work boxes but also paint. I heard from another source that some electrical components have been out of stock since last summer.

I was also shocked to see the price of sheet goods. Last year, a $14 sheet of 7/16 OSB is now $40. 3/4″ plywood is not $67 a sheet, I would say at least double from last year.

I went ahead and started my plants despite the fact that I haven’t built the beds like I stated earlier. I think that I have a place to put them in the front yard anyway, at least a small garden. There is some question as to whether that would be a good decision depending on whether we are staying at this current house. If I don’t start them, then I won’t have the plants come planting time, so I did it anyway. I can give them away if I want to.

The question remains, are we moving into a new season or is this the new normal? Has our economic climate shifted such that shortages are a fact of life? Has our economic climate shifted such that we are still in the winter of the pandemic? Winter is nature’s rest for new growth, at least in temperate climates. There is no doubt that future impacts will result from this experience, I am not totally sure what they will be at this point. I don’t think we are in spring yet.

March 30, 2021 1984 1:6

March 30, 2021 /

Good Tuesday. I am again running behind, this is the third time I have tried to finish this post. It was my intent to write this two Friday’s ago but time got away from me. I am now trying to read at the pace that I am writing because I forget things as time goes on. In this case, I read this chapter about a month ago. I wrote down some key concepts so that it would jog my memory when I came back but I essentially have to reread again.

This chapter has Winston writing in his diary. He clearly is torn between the right/wrong dichotomy. He is recollecting treasonous events and thoughts but is unable to rectify human emotion and permitted behavior.

The themes in this chapter center on what we learn is a former marriage. Winston at one time had a wife named Katherine. It appears that the focus of marriage was on creating children for the purposes continuing the empire of Big Brother. Because Winston wanted more out of the relationship than just procreation, he became dissatisfied in the union and Katherine disappeared, status unknown.

Love- Orwell is strongly suggesting that love is a necessary human emotion. Despite having a willing wife for the mechanical aspects of sex, it is not enough to fulfill the complete emotion. Winston was turned off to Katherine if you will because he had no connection. They didn’t share the same interests or even the same goals in life. I suppose that you would call it loneliness.

Prostitutes– Despite knowing the risks and the fact that it was wrong, Winston still had a rendezvous with a prostitute from the proletariat. This behavior is probably driven by loneliness and the fact that Winston spends a long time celibate. I think the point here is that despite all the potential downsides, strict adherence to the laws is impossible when you try to isolate human emotions.

Not having a lot of experience or research in this area, I would say that this chapter re-enforces the long held understanding that totalitarian societies often permit minor discretions despite the fact that activity may be illegal. Think free trade in China or the black market in the USSR. As long as the activity is not perceived as harming the establishment then there is only selective enforcement.

Even in the worst of situations, life continues. Babies are born, commerce happens and jobs get done. The scale and focus may changed but not necessarily the drive for life. I would say that points to the fact that there are characteristics like emotions that make us human whether they are good ideas or not.

March 25, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

March 25, 2021 /

I have shotgun shells on the brain. Getting ready for the upcoming Trap season, I and some of the coaches were trying to get our strategy together to keep the team supplied with enough ammunition to do the five weeks of competition.

The first order was ‘you have to supply your own’. Even with me having some and buying a little, I cant find it reliably and in adequate quantity. The second idea was to try and buy reloading components. I wrote about that last week. When we were getting the club ready, we found we had a whole bunch of reloading components, but not everything. So I went down that rabbit hole of looking up loads that would work for the components we have and what that would cost. Finally, I have been working on a bulk buy of shotgun shells for the team and managing all of the moving parts that go along with that.

My contact that I have been working with said that he provided another local team with a pallet of shells. That is over 100 cases, in which there are 10 boxes per case and 25 rounds per box. That is over 25,000 shotgun shells. He was pretty sure that he could get us what we needed. I found some random picture of pallets of shotgun shells for perspective.

Needless to say, I am in the midst of negotiating a deal between the supplier and our teams’ board of directors. I still have on my long term goals to learn how to reload. I have a line on some powder, so I have all of the components I think I need for personal use.

You would be surprised at the dizzying array of component combinations for shotgun reloading. Not every primer, wad nor even hull combination allegedly can be mixed and matched. The thing about reloading is that chamber pressure is king (think safety), then accuracy. However, it seems that there is discrepancy between the flexibility of the plastic material in the wad and ambient temperature. Flexibility drives sealing and sealing drive pressure. Some hulls are tapered, some are not, so not every wad fits into every hull (properly).

All the component combinations have little known impact on the shot pattern. Every shotgun will perform slightly differently with every combination. For reloading, it is literally a matter of trying the different combinations until something works. As you can imagine, this can get expensive and time consuming.

I suppose I can talk about this some more some other time. Especially when I get more knowledge on the subject. My last item about shotguns is that I am planning on going to the range this weekend. I have a red dot sight that I want to get sighted in at 50 yards for slugs and then I want to test buckshot. I want to see the difference between what a field barrel will do and what a self defense length barrel will do. I may even try different chokes. I can’t get too fancy because I am only bringing 30 slugs (that was $100) but I would like to see the impact of different setups.

The point being that I want to be able to ensure the sight is somewhat accurate in case I ever needed a self defense tool. Just like shot pattern, every brand and weight, etc will perform differently with sight accuracy. What is dead on in one scenario may be six inches down and left in another. Looking forward to that.

March 23, 2021- Rapers Gotta Rape

March 23, 2021 /

I heard this phrase a couple weeks ago, at least I think the link below was the right episode. I listen to this podcast mostly because it entertains me, but in a humorous way. Paul Wheaton is a big character in his words and heart so I believe that he is coming at his angle for the right reasons.

podcast 524 – The Click – Part 2

For those of you not familiar, “Permaculture” is the combination of two words, ‘Permanent’ and ‘Culture’. It is often misconstrued as ‘permanent agriculture’ which is about half of the equation. The premise as I understand it anyway is building a sustainable life which includes community and agriculture. Further, it seems like there are two camps in Permaculture. One side seems to focus on the community and the other agriculture bringing quite a dichotomy of interests together.

As I stated above, Paul has quite a way with words. He runs a forum and often uses the rant as a form of communicating his feelings. This particular rant is all about how people ‘let others do bad and get away with it’. Hence the slippery slope from ‘haters gonna hate’ to the extreme ‘rapers gonna rape’. You can read the post here.

After I got a chuckle out of the podcast, I went and read his post (several times) to see more context. I have to say that I struggled a bit following along. I have been listening for years so I am familiar with the trials and tribulations of what he is trying to accomplish. The post was pretty ‘rambly’ so it seems like he was triggered by two things. One was a video that people name the ‘Fouches’ put out and the other incident was a lackluster response to a presentation that he made at a conference called ‘Permaculture Voices’ a few years ago.

After reading the post, I watched the Fouch video (not linking to it, but is easily found on YouTube). I did find it a little petty, but for the most part it was a timid, critique of their experience. Paul has treated this as an all out assault and has pushed back with his media with extreme vile and anger. I guess you would say this is where the story ends about Paul and the real lessons begin.

If you know that you are doing something different (trying to change the world), know that there is going to be pushback. I know that when I got my first negative comment on YouTube, I was kind of PO’d about how rude it was. But, the advice is that if you do not have detractors, then you are not making a difference because you are not reaching enough people.

In my last job, I was literally running circles around the establishment to the point that they were sabotaging my customer relations and interfering with the business I was in charge of. I was making money out of written off customers, salvaging impossibly damaged projects and building a very successful team with cast-offs. I was so upset that my methods were clearly getting results and making a difference yet they would be allowed to behave unethically with no consequences, I quit. I did everything I could to get away from those people, moving divisions and going all the way to the president with my concerns. I now know that they were threatened and that by quitting I didn’t prove anything to the business. I suspect that there will come anther day in my career or whatever I do that I will be faced with this again, I have to refer to my first point above.

There are two kinds of criticisms, constructive and trolling. When I watched the Fouch video I did not see trolling. I suspect that if Paul would have followed his software engineering training rather than getting all emotional and had done a ‘root cause analysis’ he would have a better understanding of why they were not happy. I do not subscribe to the theory of pleasing everyone, but at least attempting to understand their discontent he would be in a better place.

When I looked at my YouTube comment, I understood that the guy was saying I didn’t show every nut and bolt part. I never intended to, I made the video for this blog and I was working out how to edit, embed and so forth. I get it that it wasn’t an exhaustive how to, nor did I promise that it was. Such is the way of the world so I didn’t respond back. Maybe I should have offered to help personally because he was so distraught about his situation, who knows.

I guess that where I differ from Paul is that fighting back is rarely productive. As much as I have written about government overreach and related items, has it changed one bit? Focus your energies on supporting the positive and causes/people that agree with your values for sure. But, spending time on your detractors wastes energy to that could be used to move forward.

March 22, 2021 – Stole this from MeWe

March 22, 2021 /

I know that I was behind last week. I got a sad chuckle out of this, so I thought that I would quickly share. Humor was definitely something that I wanted to keep in the forefront. I also realize that I have been 99% serious over the last year. Hopefully it will be a better week on the content front.

March 18, 2021- Ice Storm’s Lasting Effect

March 18, 2021 /

Every day that I sit down in the basement, I get more and more motivated to get started with my office. It is usually 57 degrees when I turn on the lights in the morning. The heater that I wired in barely makes sitting for long durations bearable. Usually, by lunch time I am ready to take a hot shower just so I can warm up my feet.

A little over a week ago, we won a Little Buddy propane heater in a raffle. It came with two, one pound cylinders. I thought that it was a good temporary solution to add supplemental heat. The problem is that one pound cylinders only last for five hours according to the literature.

One of the area’s that I am not too prepared is heat and generally comfort. I always imagined that I would put on more clothes and do manual work. I have a kerosene heater that I use in the shop and I figured that was my fall back heater. Running for two hours, the shop is heated to the point that I can turn off the heater.

But, kerosene is not common in this area of the country. When we lived in South Carolina, you could buy kerosene at the gas station running about the cost of diesel. Not here, I am paying $8/gallon. And to top it off, to buy in volumes of 2.5 or 5 gallons, it is only seasonally available at the stores. From a runtime perspective, a 2.5 gallon jug will last about a week of working hours in the shop.

Propane is a much more prevalent option. The thing that I am noticing is that propane is scarce. It has to be the after effects of the ice storm. There are no one pound bottles anywhere. There are also no larger, refillable containers in stores. Stock is out online as well. I was able to buy a hose that attaches to a 20# cylinder for my heater and I do have one cylinder.

It has been on my list for years to get some more cylinders and attachments. I bought propane conversions for my camp stove so I could also use one pound cylinders. So I have always thought this was a direction to focus but it never seemed like a priority. Probably because I only had one item that used propane and maybe once a year do I use that burner. Now, I am looking to augment my heat and it cannot be found.

I guess what I am trying to say is that preparing is about evaluation, discipline and recognizing opportunity. For instance, the best time to buy gasoline to have on standby is in the winter time when the price is usually lowest. But the worst time to buy it is when the power is off and everyone is either trying to fuel their generators or running the car to stay warm. I evaluated my needs but I didn’t execute the discipline part.

The opportunity part is knowing that some fuels (and parts like wicks and adapters) are seasonally available, the time to buy is when you can. I was able to take advantage of a seasonal close-out and save $4 a jug on kerosene this week. It is unlikely that I will need too much heat until next fall but just like propane you don’t know when you will not be able to buy it, if you wanted it.

I am grateful that I have one cylinder, but I would like to have at least two. One to use and one to fill-up. Some people in my area were without power for a week, so it is possible to have a long term outage. An generally speaking, the outages are because of some weather event be it too hot or too cold or flooding or whatever, so not the best time to have no heat. An event like what happened in Texas was so catastrophic that even natural gas was frozen in the pipes. A lot of things don’t like to run real well when that get that cold either like engines, so consider that.

Finally, related to heat and cold. If you are without power in the winter, don’t let your items go bad in the refrigerator. Put them outside! I am amazed at how many people just let the fridge go bad when they could have shoveled ice from outside into a cooler or even just put stuff outside. When all you’ve got is cold you should at least be able to keep stuff cold. The freezer might be a different situation but the same thing applies.

March 11, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

March 11, 2021 /

I am already feeling the pull of the weekend, wishing it was here, longing for more freedom. I would rather be doing something else than reserving time from 4:30AM to 3PM for working. I know that even when I was at my last job there were times when I was engaged and happy to go to work and there were times that I was disconnected. I suppose when a human is in this position, it is a natural tendency. Even though the way I was working, of course not financially, felt more right. You do things because you have the opportunity or it absolutely needs to be done, not just clock 40 hours or more a week because you are expected to.

Regardless, that is not a Tacticool topic. Today I was going to write about what happens when my son is part of a trap team and there are no shotgun shells to be found. Typically there is a fee that covers shotgun shells or at least they are available for purchase through the team. This season it is bring your own. Irrespective of all the details, I need a minimum of 14 boxes of shotgun shells to make it through the season.

I suppose the good news is that I had six boxes already from last year and I just remembered that I have six boxes of steel shot for a specific fish and wildlife range. Plus if I really got desperate I have 20 gauge as well. I don’t really want to shoot it all up though.

I went to the local gun store here in town and talked to the owner. He is one of the coaches on the team anyway. He told me that he is buying shells at Walmart to sell at his store and that he can’t get any either. I asked about buying online (at four times what we were paying last year) and he said that even though inventory is showing in-stock, there is a high likelihood that it really isn’t and that it would be backordered. Shoot, my two best ideas were already dashed.

We went to a local box sporting goods store on Sunday. They did have some inventory. It wasn’t my preferred load but hey, we can’t be too choosy at this point. The biggest problem and the reason they still had inventory is that I could only buy two boxes at a time.

My next great idea was to reload. I already had primers and hulls but I didn’t have shot, wads or enough powder. I was able to get shot and wads but I still need powder. Looking online at auction sites, powder is going for $100/lb or more. When I do the calculations, 1 pound should yield at least 300 shells. When I do the math, for everything not including the primers I already have it is going to cost $10/25 to make. I paid $7 per box at the store last weekend.

Looking at the optics of the situation, reloading might be a position of having versus not having. I already have enough shells to barely finish the season and I am not sure that I want to commit to $100 worth of powder yet. Even though reloading is on my long term to-do list, that is why I didn’t have what I needed I don’t think that I can justify the cost at this point. The truth is, reloading shotgun shells has not been economically feasible in the recent past either.

  • 25lbs of shot
    • 25# = 355, 1 1/8oz loads/bag
    • $42 per bag = $0.11 per load
  • 1lb of powder
    • 7000grains/lbs = 466 loads/lb @ a nominal 15 grain charge
    • 7000grains/lbs = 280 loads/lb @ a nominal 25 grain charge
    • $100 per pound = $0.21 – $0.36 per load
  • 500 wads
    • $12 per bag = $0.02 per load
  • 1000 primers
    • $35 = $0.04 per load
    • Note: this is the price I paid, not the current price. I have seen 1000 primers going between $100 and $150
  • Now the truth
    • ($0.11 + $0.21 + $0.02 + $0.04) * 25 = $9 a box at the low end
    • ($0.11 + $0.36 + $0.04 + $0.15) * 25 = $16.50 a box at the high end

Shooting trap at this level, we are buying the cheapest thing we can get. Last year, I paid $5 a box on sale and $6 a box regular price for run of the mill target loads. There are other grades of shells however. I think Remington STS was more along the lines of $8 a box. I really don’t know what the true difference is but I heard a podcast about shot makeup and supposedly the alloy makes a difference in how many pellets deform leaving the barrel which in turn impacts patterning. In theory, reloading could make a more premium product at an affordable price. I just don’t think the trap season is the time to experiment yet.

March 10, 2021 – 1984 1:5

March 10, 2021 /

Back to the grind here, today we are taking another look at George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Chapter 5 is an interaction between Winston and some co-workers at lunchtime in the cafeteria. The significance of this chapter reveals Winston’s opinions about some of his closer relationships and the constitution of his character.

The best description that I would give is that Winston tolerates his co-workers by circumstance. Meaning, he begrudgingly accepts the company of others even though it seems like he cant stand being around them. Not only does Winston have difficulty empathizing with their opinions but also it seems that the general scarcity has caused some self-protectionist behaviors. There are several questions about the availability of razor blades for instance where Winston denies having a few.

As we dive a little deeper into the subtext of this chapter, we see the betrayal of human emotion on the goals of Big Brother eradicating descent and non-conformity. I will talk a little more about those things when I analyze the chapter concepts below.

Chesnut Tree Cafe- It seems like there is a place in the allowable world that decenters are permitted to gather. Of course, there is risk in associating with such a place. I find it a little strange that such a place is allowed even though in all totalitarian societies venues are underground. My speculation is that it is easier to monitor the activity by permitting it.

Face Crime- Just as it says, the face implicates a person for a crime. The truth is, you don’t even have to be guilty but facial expression is probable cause for a crime. It would seem that guilt or innocent is irrelevant to the act, but rather suspicion. Even worse than that, anyone can report a person for suspicion based on appearance.

Newspeak Dictionary 11th ed- Another reference to changing the language. A sort of silly, sort of make sense discussion takes place about the elimination of idioms and the peculiarities of the English. The stated goal is to simplify the syntax but the reality reinforces language as a tool of freedom and self expression.

Our New Happy Life- This is the current propaganda campaign. With this slogan, it signifies everyone’s struggle together to achieve a higher plane and stated goals. Once again, propaganda is used to simplify and summarize Big Brother’s goals.

As we get to the end of the chapter we see some foreshadowing. This woman with the dark hair seems to be appearing frequently. Not only does it seem like she will play a bigger role in the future, but I cant help but think these are references to loneliness, sexuality and repression. I guess that we will have to keep reading to see.

March 9, 2020- Personal Security in the Digital Age

March 9, 2021 /

I was first exposed to an open source password manager called KeePass a number of years ago. When I worked in support, I had to have many different accounts at the ready, often on a moments notice. One of the biggest disadvantages was that it was limited to a computer, at least I was smart enough to only put work relevant information on it.

A couple of years ago, I thought that I would want to start using an application like this again. I found one for the phone called MiniKeePass. Early in 2020, the app makers announced that it would no longer be supported by the end of the year. So, I have been ‘riding dirty’ every since.

The problems are, one that there is a lot of information currently saved in MiniKeePass. I also had an old system using Evernote. How to get it out before it is lost forever by an OS update or some other problem. You would be surprised the number of job board logins, etc I have accumulated over the years. According to Apple, it can be backed up, but how do you access the database?

As a result, I am in the search for a good password vault. I need to get these things moved before something happens. I don’t have a lot of requirements, just a few. I don’t want to pay for a service but I am willing to buy an app. I don’t want cloud back-up and potential security vulnerability of someone else storing. Lastly, I would like to be able to access it from multiple devices.

Searching around, I found this app Myki. It is free and it shares across devices. The biggest downside I have found so far is that you have to purchase additional categories. So, for instance I don’t really want to have 400 accounts in one view because I only use four of five routinely.

I am taking a sort of hybrid approach. You can create custom ‘Notes’. I create a note on the category that I want to keep track of. Then I add all the seldomly used accounts under the custom notes. The drawback of such an approach is that you will not get the auto-fill functionality on a webpage. Or said differently, Myki will not fill in account information automatically. I am OK with that, these are accounts that I may never use again.

On a slightly related note, I have been trying out the Brave browser and the Duck-Duck-Go search engine. Post the Capitol riots, I found out that Mozilla is not the patron saint of freedom like I previously thought. One interesting thing about the Brave browser is that you are awarded cryptocurrency for using it. This is one of those things that may never amount to much but there is no harm.

I have known about Duck-Duck-Go for years. This is a search engine that values privacy. So far, I have been happy but I have heard that it is not quite as diligent as Google. I guess we will see.

So, those are some new options for privacy and security. My preference would be to have the same ID and password everywhere, but that is far from secure and a best practice. I am trying to change habits now before something happens.

March 8, 2020- It’ll do for now

March 8, 2021 /

I suppose that you could say that this is my second official weekend since I began my new job. While working for Amazon, I don’t think that I had an entire weekend but I did have blocks of two consecutive days off, I just never really knew when they would be. We would get our schedule for the next week (starting on Sunday) on Friday. I pretty much kept every kind of planning in limbo.

So, now that there is some normalcy, I am feeling the pressure to get stuff done when I have the time. It is also the appropriate kind of stuff that needs to be done like I finished pruning the apple tree on Saturday. I needed light, I wanted reasonable weather and I needed it to be done before it starts budding out, which is coming fast. One more thing about that, I haven’t done that job in probably over ten years, it took a lot more effort than I remember or expected.

I have stated that building an office is a priority. I can’t build an office if I am spending all of Saturday pruning and all of Sunday with the family. I talked about pruning already but my boys have a campout this weekend with the Boy Scouts and despite all of our previous efforts, they still don’t have adequate gear. We had to get that sorted out before next Saturday because they need pack weights and meal plans to be made, etc.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been working off the dining table. That works to a point, but we need that space to eat. That means that I am daily setting up and tearing down. I have also added an extra monitor to my routine because the workspace on a single laptop display is not good for comparing two documents or having a meeting and viewing other documents at the same time. For productivity reasons, I needed an office sooner rather than later.

I decided last week that part of what was holding me back on starting was that it was such a mess in the basement. Stuff is piled everywhere. One thing that I have to do during the rainy season is make sure that anything that could get damaged is off of the floor. That leads piling stuff on stuff to protect our precious junk. It is not just that, it is also I am the only one who manages anything in the basement. It becomes the refuge everything that has been rotated out of service, but still has value including nick-knacks, clothes, seasonal items, etc. I cant even start until I have room to start and I have no room to start.

Sunday night, I started clearing the way and just organizing. I thought that if I could just clear enough space to work, it would also help get me motivated to continue. The other bugaboo is that the basement is essentially unheated. It is tempered by being mostly underground and there is some leaking heat, but too cold to want to sit for hours. I figured that would also push me to work faster. Here is what I came up with.

After sitting through my first one hour meeting, I knew that I was going to have to make some changes to the heat situation. I have a sweatshirt and a jacket on as well as wearing a hat. My upper body is OK, but not my legs and feet. I have a baseboard heater that I salvaged out of the apartment remodel that I was planning on using in the office, but I need heat now. I also have an empty 240V circuit that had a baseboard heater in the bathroom which I removed years ago because the bathroom has central heat now.

I quickly wired the baseboard heater under my computer table to see if that will make a difference, I think it will but I need to be more in front of the heater and not to the side like I am currently setup. So, more junk organizing to come. I may also need to add some deflectors to keep the heat originating under the table and not defusing in all directions.

I will want to shut-off the heat at the circuit breaker each day because a baseboard will continue to heat if the temperature drops below a minimum level, nominally 50 degrees F. I also want to get a thermometer down here to monitor the daily temperature swings with and without heat. My ultimate office plan includes insulation, so this heater will be completely adequate for that use but there is no way for it to warm a leaky basement. Right now this is only a comfort measure.