Month: May 2022

May 17, 2022 – Does Preserving History Matter?

May 17, 2022 /

I had an experience over the weekend. Quite out of the blue, my mom called on Saturday and said that the TV wanted to interview me about my experiences with the North Palestine Church. Not all of those details turned out to be completely accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. I swung into action to gather memorabilia to share and rushed out of the house to participate.

We called it Palestine Church growing up. It was about half a mile from my parents house. This was about as close as anything was. The only other public space was Fir Grove Elementary (about the same distance). The reason the church was in my life is that we used it as a meeting place for Boy Scouts during the summer time. It was also the fallback camping location for our monthly campouts (mostly wintertime).

The church was moved in 2012 from it’s cemetery location where it was built to about three miles down the road to Adair Village. The county now owns the building but it has essentially been closed since the move. They are slowly making improvements to get it ready for eventual use. However, there is no current vision on what it will be used for or even what needs to be done to make it usable.

As it turns out, the county was taking a video record of some of the people that were involved with using the church throughout the years. This is where the story I have been writing and my story intersect. Since Boy Scouts was such a fundamental building block of my youth, having a place to meet was an extremely vital component to having the entity exist. It also helps that it was extremely close and didn’t require a ride to get there every week.

Being speculative, would I have continued if I couldn’t easily get there? Would the troop exist without a permanent meeting place? If restored, will it ever hold the significance in the new location that it did in the old? These are all questions to be asked and not everyone in the troop many hold the same regard that I do.

These are photos inside the church at my Eagle Scout Court of Honor June 28, 1992. Each individual was asked what we would like to see the use of the church be. My response was that it maintains to be a venue that impacts people’s lives the way that this one did to mine.

End Your Programming Routine: If I am intellectually honest, the significance of Palestine church had a context of time, place and my personal interaction with the building. Just maintaining it as an available venue may never reach people in the same way. A fact that it was moved from it’s very rural location to a much more populated location removes the intimacy that us near it had. It could be anyplace anywhere really. So, while I have a strong emotional connection to the building, my real wish is that people make those connections wherever they are.

May 16, 2022 – Another Tough Week

May 16, 2022 /

I had about 80% of Friday’s post written but couldn’t quite get it over the hump before I ran out of time. I will do my best to use it this week. But, I have another long week ahead. I am not making any promises.

I would be remiss not to mention that summer is approaching quickly. For myself, I have one month before we are off for a family vacation to Spain. I will be away for ten days on that trip. That will put us into July and I will need to spend between July and August working on my summer project.

Summer is always a super busy time. I addition to what I am planning to focus, there are other activities like Boy Scout camp, gardening, family gatherings. Don’t forget, there could be be a funeral thrown in there at any time. What I am trying to say is that as busy as I am with work, there are certainly opportunities to accelerate everything outside of that as well.

End Your Programming Routine: I will do my best to keep up. Ideas keep popping up all the time. I keep taking pictures and building a war chest of ideas. I am sure that the volume of things that will happen over the summer will generate plenty of material for the coming months. I hope that I can keep my head above water.

May 12, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

May 12, 2022 /

I hate to start out this way, but I didn’t make much progress with my chronograph work. I did give it a shot, but I couldn’t get a viable reading. Mind you, I only shot some pellets in the basement.

My current operating theory is that the light is too dim and the projectile is too small to register. I understand this device to work with two optical sensors. I think that it sees the projectile pass over each sensor and then calculates the time difference. So, if it is not being seen then it doesn’t calculate.

There were some warnings about using it in low light, and this situation definitely fits. My particular model actually has LED lights on the background reflector (the white plastic strips). I think that the lights are an attempt to extend the useful light and projectile size. Yet they didn’t seem to work on my initial attempt.

I have plans to test my son’s nerf gun just to see if something will register before I get too carried away. If I can get some measurements, then I can experiment with the light conditions. There is also technical support because it is supposed to work with pellets.

End Your Programming Routine: Due to the fact that I am out of town this week, I am not going to make any progress while I am gone. I haven’t totally decided but this would be a good weekend to also go to the range. Likely, since I am just getting back I will need the time to do stuff around the house. But, I could probably squeeze in some trigger time outside, if the weather permits.

May 11, 2022 – Genetics

May 11, 2022 /

If you think you are just going stash a survival seed bank and survive the apocalypse by starting a garden, I think that you another thing coming. I come at gardening from the aspect of food quality and the potential of what you can do the with the bounty. This means that I have less interest in the care and maintenance of the plants and garden itself.

I don’t know if my poor results in seed starting this year are the results of my skill or my interest. Particularly last year, I kept telling myself that I will water tomorrow or I will plant tomorrow. The results of that were no garden at all. I do have interested in studying the variables in making the plants grow.

All that being said, I have one tomato plant that survived and one cabbage plant that has survived. Both of them happened to be on the outside of the light bank. I have a strong suspicion that had a lot to do with it. I already observed that the light was to intense before I repotted the survivors.

Whether I am right or I am wrong, I wanted to talk about the survivors for a moment. Let’s say that I needed to start tomatoes from seed (because the world has ended). If I get tomatoes and I pick the best one, in theory those seeds would have the genetics to survive in my particular conditions the next year and provide the results that I want from a fruiting standpoint. I am really considering doing an experiment next year by saving seeds from this plant. I also want to plant seeds from the original packet and check those against my new one.

I have heard that for most vigorous results, taking the seeds from plants that you grow will do better because they are adapted to your soil, climate and personal habits. The theory of survival of the fittest is in play when adapting plants that you grow. How did we get all of these varieties anyway? It was by people performing dedicated breeding.

Cabbage is a different story. You have to wait for the plant to go to seed, not just fruit. But in theory, the genetics are the same principal. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower are all related. First they flower and then seed pods are formed. It is difficult to let it go that long because in theory, the plant is past it’s prime. I suppose that if you harvested but let the plant grow, you might get the best of both worlds. I don’t know, I haven’t tried it.

End Your Programing Routine: I know that my theory is solid, I am not sure about my practical application. I suppose this is where the rubber meets the road and time will tell. I am not ready to give up on the garden but I don’t think it will be a majority from my own started seeds. In the interest of science, I am going to protect my one surviving tomato to see if I can save some seeds and maybe get my own customized genetics.

May 10, 2022 – Tapped the Keg

May 10, 2022 /

My Cinco de Mayo debut turned more into a Mother’s Day dinner. I had to travel for work on Sunday. And because of Mother’s Day, we did our trap shooting on Saturday. That didn’t leave a lot of time to honor mom and have a fancy dinner party. Even though I don’t consider tacos fancy, the prep work can be extensive.

The meat I chose for tacos was beef. This was not just any cut, this was a challenge. It is cheek meat. I had a 10 pound block of beef cheeks. These are filleted of the head. You can imaging how many head it takes to make 10 pounds. A lot of those pieces are pretty tough and gristly. To make matters worse, the trimming was mostly done, but there were bits of bone, the inside of cows mouth, globs of blood and membrane still remaining. Sound good yet?

I personally don’t care for the meat. Mostly, I have had it when we prepare the whole beef head. I am not real interested in tough and greasy tacos. I can’t say the same for my wife. The fact of the matter is, this was meat that my father-in-law purchased and he liked it too. When we cleaned out his freezer last year, this was one of the items we packed away in the freezer.

I had plans to put some smoke on it, but I plum ran out of time. I made salsa and guacamole and the ensalada (the fixings) for the tacos. The plan was to pair it with the beer. What did I learn about the keg?

I did quite a bit of farting around with the carbonation. I had visions of simply applying CO2 and it would be ready to go. My first go was flat. Then I switched the inlet and outlet fittings to for the gas down the draw tube at higher pressure. I pressurized the keg four or five different days as it was not holding 20 psi. It is holding something less than that but not the full amount.

So, my fittings are leaking slightly somewhere and I didn’t feel like I got the carbonation that I wanted. Everyone else said that it was good, so maybe it was alright. It just wasn’t quite what I had in mind. That being said, I think it is probably worth pursuing some more experimenting and probably some new o-rings

End Your Programming Routine: Believe it or not, I am somewhat of a risk taker. Throwing a dinner with things that you have never done before is risky, especially if you won’t know the final results until you are serving. The tacos tasted great and the beer was a good compliment. I didn’t have the time to make the sides that I wanted, but we had plenty of taco fodder. I think it came out fine, even though I wanted things to be different. And, I will never quit pushing my limits. I find that motivating, inspiring and exciting.

May 9, 2022 – Lots of Content, Little Time

May 9, 2022 /

I am going to be proactive and anticipate that I am going to have a difficult time keeping up this week. Last week I worked six out of seven days and put in twelve hours a day, plus family, plus everything else going on. What helped me was that I got a head start on the weekend and I had all of my posts written before mid-week.

This last weekend, I did not have the same time to get a head start on writing. Between Mother’s Day and travel all day Sunday, I just didn’t have enough free time. I am going to have five long days of work as well.

End Your Programming Routine: This isn’t about excuses, it is about covering my bases if I don’t get anything else published. I have planned talking about my keg experience, how my chronograph work has been going, lessons about maskless travel, observation in my plant starts and my new reading list. So, it is not lack of ideas that are going to cause me problems this week.

May 6, 2022 – Free Speech for Friday

May 6, 2022 /

It is a very interesting time we are in. I have heard from two different sources independently that all of a sudden, Twitter posts are reaching new audiences and gaining new subscribers. This is an unprecedented rate of change for both. One person said that he rarely gets more than 100 views despite having over 15,000 followers. All of a sudden subscribers are getting added several a day doing nearly nothing and views are going into the 1000s.

Another media personality said that he posts nearly every day and friends didn’t even know that he was active on the platform. It was said that those posts were never seen. Something very devious has been happening and we have just accepted it. We have been manipulated by the mysterious and unexplainable algorithm. Yet, all of a sudden there is a potential change in leadership/ownership and the first amendment is alive and well.

Make no mistake, I am not certain that Elon’s motives are altruistic. In fact, I would be willing to bet that they are not. However, that is the hammer being used to usher in a new algorithm. Discredit the old way and bring in trust for the new one. I can just say that this deal won’t even be closed until June and yet the writing is on the wall for the current batch of useful idiots.

These platforms have been lying for years using subjective labeling like ‘Medical Misinformation’ and ‘Inflammatory Speech’ as if the moderators are doctors or scientist or even subject matter experts. This is the zero tolerance approach to life (kind of). It is zero tolerance if you disagree with the establishment narrative regardless of your facts or arguments against. Yet, watching YouTube videos I am still trying to be convinced that I need to get a vaccine while wearing a mask. This is paid for by the State of Oregon, my money.

In my opinion, any sort of value judgement on someone else’s statements being visible is censorship. I have stated many times, it is not criminal to believe wrongly. There are so many people that think colloidal silver or high pH water is the fountain of youth that it is laughable. Plenty of people believe masks reduce the transmission of the virus despite having the data saying there is statistically no effect.

Or do they? Is this policy an attempt to reduce liability? Is this better to do something even if it is wrong? Have you seen those politicians without a mask on? There is literally no one that actually believes this or they wouldn’t do it, period. Who goes into space without a suit, no one because you will die, period.

If you do an internet search for ‘facemask efficacy’ you are going to find a lot of studies preporting that they do. However the top results are sources like CDC, Stanford Medicine, Mayo Clinic, etc. These are the same sources that have built a legacy of pharmaceutical managed, chronic disease treatment. I am not disputing that there is a lot of knowledge, but how smart are they really? Smart enough to dupe all the regular people that we need drugs to survive.

By the way, how did we get chronically sick? By trusting the science and by eating the food pyramid that is a majority carbohydrates. This is a non-traditional way to eat. Sure, we are getting plenty of calories to give 50% total obesity rates and skyrocketing type 2 diabetes over 50. It is not that someone or an institution cannot be mostly wrong and occasionally right but what is at stake here? How about grant funding?

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to end on face masks even though I devolved. I am all over the place and for that I apologize. Some days I just start writing and something else comes out. Today is one of those days. My point was really isn’t it interesting how the cockroaches are moving away from the light as quickly as possible? Elon isn’t even in charge yet, the deal has not even been completed and all of a sudden speech is becoming more free at Twitter. I find this extremely deplorable. Clear, transparent and equally enforced policy is the way to build trust, Twitter et al. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

May 5, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

May 5, 2022 /

It’s been a while since I did some math. For those of you that don’t remember, don’t care or are not interested, that is fine. These are real experiments and real life applications of physics and mathematics. Guess what, they are pretty simple as things go too.

I picked up a chronograph this week. This is a tool that measures how fast a projectile is travelling. From that, I will be able to calculate energy and measure the consistency of my reloads. I think that I am going to get some interesting data from this. Energy is the real life equalizer when comparing different calibers like fast and light versus slow and heavy or bullet to bullet size.

Sir Isaac Newton figured it out a long time ago. The formula for kinetic energy is 1/2 mass * velocity * velocity. At the risk of being boring, mass and weight are not the same thing. Mass is really how much space something takes. Weight is mass plus gravity (really mass times gravity). So, when we measure something in pounds or grains, we need to divide by a constant of earth’s gravitational pull as well. If we were to use the metric system, we wouldn’t have to do this extra conversion.

This describes the energy calculation above.

Essentially, all I have to do is know my bullet weight in grains and measure my velocities and plug it into the formula above to calculate energy. I am going to demonstrate some more math later when I get more data but I will talk about it when I get there. I don’t want to get too heavy too quickly.

You don’t have to understand my math to use it, just plug in values into the formula and calculate. My math was proving that the formula for kinetic energy was applicable to my situation. The actual scientific unit for energy is a Joule. You will have to convert all those units to metric to look at it in that unit. That is a whole different post, but it can be done.

Here are some quick examples for perspective

  • 22LR – 130 ft lb
  • 9mm- 355 ft lb
  • 357 magnum – 583 ft lb
  • 30-06 – 2913 ft lb

The above are just examples with nominal weight bullets and velocities. Energy can change with different weight bullets and particularly more velocity (because it is a squared value). This mean shooting a 22lr from a handgun and a rifle are going to have dramatically different energy values because in theory, you are going to get a more efficient powder burn from a rifle and have significantly more velocity.

I do have some planned experiments in mind first. I want to measure velocities of my pellet rifle. The first thing I am interested in is how consistent are the velocities shot to shot. The second thing I am interested in are how much the velocities change with different pellets both weight and design. I am also interested in velocities at the muzzle vs the target or how much loss there is over distance.

I have some other experiments planned for my BB/Pellet rifle. It takes 10 pumps to get to full power. I want to see the velocity difference in each pump and the consistency of that particular rifle. Or said another way 1 pump = x fps, 2 pumps = y fps, 3 pumps = z fps. I plan to use that data to tell me how much difference there is (or isn’t) for follow-up shots and accuracy.

Finally, I want to do some checking of my reloads. I want to know how consistently I am making ammunition. I would be interested in checking factory loads and comparing my work to the published data. There is a ton on science and information that can be gained from this tool.

I definitely don’t see myself using this each time I go to the range. However, I do see myself using it until I get a comfort level of consistency. Once I establish a baseline that seems to be predictable, I will be an informed shooter with data rather than what I think I know.

End Your Programming Routine: It has been a long time since I tried to type math equations into a word processing program. I had to do it routinely in college, but I really haven’t had much use since then. Word has improved quite a bit in twenty-five years. I know, it is kind of hard to get excited about reading someone else doing math, but for me it is like reviving old brain cells. I wont have a data set this week, but soon.

May 4, 2022 – The Details Matter

May 4, 2022 /

Do you know why I am skeptical about all of those makeover shows on TV? It is pretty easy to make something look better but have be done poorly or improperly. There have been a number cosmetic improvements made to my house that did not have sound building practice implemented. This one is a continuation of my apartment remodel I talked about in 2020.

This leads me to my summer project. I have a major problem with my siding on the garage and it looks a lot like what lead me to a summer rebuilding the cottage. I guess we will see when I get into it.

The first problem is visible on the left. The facia is rotting to pieces. I cant claim that I didn’t know about this. In fact, I saw signs of the problem before the house was painted in 2016. They of course painted right over it and didn’t say a word. This one I cant really claim is an improper technique but a failed material since I can only assume the pair were applied at the same time and have the same exposure.

My biggest challenge with this part of the project is going to be how to attach the facia again. I can only assume that it is nailed through the decking at the edge since there are only two attachment points sticking out of the structure, at the ridge and at where it meets the side facia. This may mean a roof job as well, it wouldn’t hurt but we will see.

The far more insidious problem is the one on the right. From what I know, this garage was built in the late 1990s. The pictures we have of the house, the band of lap siding was added by the previous owner (not the one that built the garage) as an attempt to spiff up the place. They only owned the house around a year and he claimed that he got interested in airplanes so this wasn’t a flip. But let’s be honest, T1-11 was an inappropriate siding choice for a Victorian.

The construction detail problem may not be evident from the picture but I will cut to the chase. The Hardiplank was applied over the T1-11. That bead of caulk hanging down was on top of the edge. That was the single line of defense for water getting behind the lap siding. Once water got behind the siding, it was trapped.

I suppose the good news is that it lasted at least 17 years. The other good news is that this is the last place I have to deal with this problem. This detail has failed everywhere else on my house, my apartment and the garden shed. The bad news is I really don’t know the extent of the damage. So even thought I knew about this weakness I think good advice is don’t go looking for problems that you don’t want to deal with.

Also worth noting since we are talking about good practice is if that detail was sufficiently protected (as in an eve or overhang) it would have never failed. The two sides of the garage look rock solid because they don’t have the same exposure to wetness as the face that I am showing.

Another thing that you can see from the picture is that there is drywall behind the panel. Interesting… this may be a code requirement. I notice that on the inside of the garage, there is drywall on the exterior that is facing the house. I am sure that the intent of this is as a fire barrier between the two structures. However, I find it curious that the exterior wall perpendicular to the house also has it. I think what is worse is wet drywall is a sponge for water. I am concerned about structural damage.

End Your Programming Routine: Now you can see why I am not going to work on the fence. The fence needs to be done and quickly. This one also definitely needs to be done, but I can use the warmer and drier months to do it. I also want details that I would never get from a contractor like back priming all of the siding that replaces it. I want proper flashing and I want to solve this problem permanently. I hate to say it but hiring it out will get me another 17 years or less.

May 3, 2022 – Knowing When to Say Uncle

May 3, 2022 /

I come from a long line of never give up, I can do it men. It kills me to pay for something that I can do. But, it is a matter of my time and what I can do (efficiently). For years our fence has been in poor shape and inexplicably part of it fell down last week.

This is a topic that has been coming up about once a year for the last five years or so. My neighbor has done a lot of shoring up in that period. The truth is, he is the cause of much of the damage anyway as there is a lot of weight against the fence so he has a vested interest in keeping it functional. There are wires anchoring it to trees and sistered posts. This is all on his side, so I cant see it.

In fact, I had spoken to him about a month ago that we planned to replace the fence this summer. I wanted to get a rough lumber cost to see if I wanted to do the job or not. After I saw it was $6 a fence board, I was hoping it would last another year. But, now that the fence has fallen down, we need to get it repaired quickly.

We are looking at getting five bids (still waiting for the first one however). What I can say is that five different people showed up to take measurements. Almost all of them we have some kind of affiliation with. Even so, I was surprised to get attention and action so quickly. Maybe it is the season is still slow or maybe things have cooled down quickly? I can’t really say.

The heart of what I am trying to get at is that while I can do it, I cannot do everything. We have a trip planned for Spain after school is out and I have another problem (project) that I will talk about tomorrow. In addition, with all of the family activities and business travel plus we need to keep our animals in the yard as well as the neighbors animal out. Plus, the weather is not great right now anyway.

Some times I do things because I want the experience. Other times I do things because they are in my wheel house and it is cheaper and faster for me to do them. Lastly, there are times when it is far more economic for me to do them because there is no real deadline. I know myself and my commitments and things always take significantly longer than I expect because I do not spend the time I would like doing the project. There is also the opposite opinion of what would you rather do?

With the price of materials, most of the cost is going to go to that. I have a feeling that labor is going to be a relatively small portion of the bid. There is also the factor that it will probably get done in a couple of days and I think all the debris will be removed. For me, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took all summer. If I had nothing else to do, I would love to do the job and save the labor cost. But the reality is I don’t really want to spend my entire summer doing this job.

The economics of the situation says in theory, if I can pay someone less than what I can earn with the same time, then possibly you save money. There is also the potential of having to buy single use tools and even skill deficits. I can’t use those excuses nor will I have another job to do instead of building a fence. I would say it is more that we need it done sooner rather than later. The truth is the adjacent fence has been broken for at least seven years as well. It has literally been sitting on the ground for years hanging on by a nail. So, it is time.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe it is getting older and wiser or maybe it is becoming more confident that I am having a slight mindset shift. I would never consider paying someone to do something that I could do. But, since we have paid for yard maintenance, I have come to understand that I do things that I want to do rather than out of obligation. Hiring someone to replace the fence is not because I can’t but because I want to spend my time elsewhere.