This is going to be a foreshadowing of the life in the future. Recently, I had tenants move out of an Accessory Dwelling (AD). That is a fancy way of saying that we have a small house that we rent out.
This was their version clean (most of the furniture doesn’t belong here). Over the years, I have put in quite a bit of work on this place. After each vacancy, it seems like I need to start over with paint and flooring and finishes. Not to mention deep cleaning. I will announce my final plans at some point in the near future, but for now this is the next project.
The good news is that everything is relatively orderly. People are being helpful, friendly and even kind. Stores are rationing high demand items to distribute them as widely as possible. The bad news is that if you weren’t ‘prepared’ before this it is a woeful time to do so.
One of the categories that is manic right now is firearms and ammunition. I went to a chain sporting goods store just to see the local scene today and there was literally a line to the gun counter, with lots of buyers, not just lookers. I am not sure what people are expecting to happen or why there is panic buying.
I remember the ‘good old days’. Before 2009, ammunition was always available, plentiful and generally pretty cheap. As soon as Obama took office, the shelves were bare. It took two years before a box of ammunition was seen on the shelves. The supply lasted for a year or so and then in 2012, the Sandy Hook tragedy occurred and 22LR was literally absent for four years.
I have talked about my typical consumption in previous posts. So, of course I want to make sure that I can pursue my hobby in the next four years. But, adopting a prepared lifestyle means that you purchase in times of plenty so that you can ride out the lean times. It means that you don’t stand in line or panic buy just because other people are doing it (kind of like paper products as well).
Supplies acquired through the years
Whether building a pantry or pursuing your hobbies, the principles of preparedness are the same. Evaluate your long term usage, set your thresholds, replenish when convenient and plentiful and leave the panic buying to the tin foil hatters and less fortunate.
There are people out there that think they will take what they need/want because they have some weapons. This goes without saying, but that is a poor substitute to proper preparation and downright evil. They might get away with it for a while, but it is a good way to end up with a dirt nap.
I am speaking for myself but I watch out for my neighbors and they do likewise. Build community and redundancy in your life and we will get through this and whatever happens in the future.
Life for the last couple of days has been different. I would say that it has been difficult, but that is not true… it is time for a new normal. We are fortunate in that preparedness is our lifestyle so our pantry is full. I love to cook so I frequently go the grocery store to pick-up items for more exotic/lavish meals. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use the basics or substitute or modify accordingly.
In our area, school has been closed until April 28. I am not the biggest fan of our education system, in fact I think that we can do a lot better. However, we have a big problem. We have hosted an exchange student from Spain since August. Now that the remainder of the school year is up in the air, his program has decided to end prematurely and they are recommending all students return home.
It is more like ‘Peace Out – good luck if you want to stay cause we are out of here’. There is a program release form that we must fill out today if our student is staying, otherwise he needs a flight back to Spain. Most exchange students are leaving and our coordinator is worried that re-entry may be months delayed if he doesn’t leave immediately. But the short of it is that they are dropping all liability after today.
The problem is that if this academic year is not considered complete by Spain, that he may have to re-take his Junior year. We don’t really want him to leave pre-maturely but I understand the geo-politics and if we are stuck at home for six weeks anyway it could be quite difficult. My initial reaction was wait and see but that is when school was only out until April 1.
We are fortunate again in that my wife already worked three days a week from home. Now that has shifted to full time at home until the end of April. But, with everyone at home unexpectedly it is a difficult environment to be focused, let alone productive. I have been intrigued by the concept of un-schooling, self directed learning and goal setting. I am looking at opportunities to incorporate this downtime into something positive for the kids and family as a whole.
Quarantine in our current practice means limiting non-essential interaction. So, no friends or social gatherings or extra cirricular activities like church, boy scouts or trap team. We also cannot take advantage of this time for travel or site-seeing. What we are doing is family games and movies after the work day. In our climate, spring can be pretty iffy. Right now it is beautiful and time to do garden prep and walks around town. I think that we will try to get out into local nature during the workday to give my wife some quiet time.
I will probably be putting some effort into project oriented learning for the kids, more on that in a later post. For now, remember that there will be life after this so take note on what works and what is lacking so that during the summertime you can make adjustments to prevent this from being a difficult time in the future.
When I was in High School, I got the opportunity to work with my Grandfather. At the time, he told me that what he will teach is far more valuable than what I would get paid. The beauty of that situation is that as a seventeen year old, the pay was important but as I got older what I learned was incredibly valuable. Those were incredibly formative years in building my character and who I am now.
One of the phrases that he would frequently use is ‘The Lord hates a coward’. I think what that means is that you cannot be afraid to look into or start anything. I utter that phrase to myself sometimes when there is a task that I don’t want to do, seems like it will be hard or I am in the middle of something difficult.
I ran into that situation two weeks ago. My wife’s car started developing a noise that sounded like a fan hitting or a heat shield vibration. I am fairly early into the troubleshooting and diagnosis period of the problem but what I did notice is that the transmission was leaking, I figured that I would check that first. I found that the fluid was low, so I added one quart feeling like if the noise just started adding some would eliminate the problem until the leak was stopped (if that was the problem).
ATF fluid on the lip of the transmission pan
Adding two quarts did not eliminate the problem, but allowed me to drive the vehicle around and spend some time isolating the variables that cause the problem. I went ahead and ordered the parts to replace the transmission fluid gaskets and all thinking that I would do that anyway since it has been a few years.
Here is where it gets bad. The H pipe on the exhaust was in the way of the back bolts. I spent three days trying to get to that bolt, I tried everything that I could, including trying to remove the exhaust. I brought over knowledgeable and experienced people for opinions and help but didn’t get any further than I already was.
After spending three days, I threw in the towel last night. I got it all put back together in about two hours. But my ego was bruised. I was sure that if I had the right tools and the ‘not gonna quit’ attitude that I was going to eventually succeed. I suppose that if I was made of money, I probably would have cut the exhaust off and replaced it with new. So, it is not like it was impossible but I don’t want to throw good money after bad considering that this may not be the problem.
Where I am at now is how can I move forward from the funk of failure? I guess when you try to add perspective Navy SEALs get killed in the line of duty or NFL ball carriers still get tackled and have negative yard games. So, the best of the best have bad days and fail why cant the average person?
One helpful skill to have in this situation is knowing when to quit. That is something that I struggle with. It has it plusses and minuses. One idea that I heard about that is failure develops that instinct better, like in business. Or said differently, without failure there is no success. Not having a lot of what I would consider failure in my life (largely from never giving up) when I do face it, it is difficult to reconcile and accept.
So, I have made an appointment with a mechanic. Hopefully, all the work I have done will be helpful to a quicker diagnosis and I certainly have all the parts. I will be spending some time trying to internalize this and learn from it. I don’t think that it would stop me from trying to do something like this again, but it may prevent me from spending three days at it. If some epiphany happens, I will write about it. For now, on to something more productive.
Remember back on February 26, I wrote about how things will happen whether we get wrapped up in them or not? Well guess what? Since the legislature was dismissed and the cap and trade bill could not be passed, the Governor has decided to accomplish it through administrative regulation.
For all those people who were worried about this bill being passed, fear not. This is the kind of state that we now live in. So, you can protest, write your representatives, post on social media and so on but you are much better off doing something better with your life than worrying about politics.
Where does the time go? I spent my first post project day at the range and really enjoyed it. The weather was great and time was productive.
This was nothing heavy duty, but I am working on the thousand round trigger job. These were eight or nine shot groups at 15 yards with a Rossi 92 rifle. My plans for next month are to go to the proper rifle range get those iron sights setup for 50 yards.
Based on all the information so far, what would you do? I have that and more, I think the sights are set low and to the left. If this were 50 yards, then there is some definite adjustment that needs to be done.
Everything that I set out to do has been done. I have put in 12-14 hour days over the last week to get there, but here we are.
I learned a lot and I got some good practice in. I had my ups and downs in terms of making mistakes and recovering.
I learned that I couldn’t force my will on some boards with knots and checking because it was good work wasted with split boards as a finished product.
I found that the pressure on tight rips through the tablesaw tended to cause the edge of a board to skew up and not end up with at straight edge (something I will have to solve in the future).
I learned that not all cheap bandsaw blades are equal, I basically did all of the resawing using one blade even though I tried three different blades through the course of the project. One straight out of the box just didn’t cut. The first one spun off and hit the metal covers, I just threw that one out after that and didn’t try another cut.
My jointer is not square. I think that the blades do not sit parallel to the outfeed table. Confession – I have never changed them and that is the way they were set when I bought the tool, used in 2005. But basically, the more passes you make on a wide board, the more it takes off of the outer edge and the shape becomes more of a rhombus. The fence is square to the table, so you have to rejoint the first edge after doing the face.
On glue-up, I need to make sure each individual board is against the clamp face. I ended up with some wavy and curved panels because I was not paying enough attention when I did it.
It is hard to ‘sand out’ unevenness. It takes a lot of work and the results are not as good as a good panel.
Mistakes take a lot more time to correct than doing it correctly the first time. That is easier said than done, but knowing how to correct them is a long way toward a better end product. Doing a side profile drawing would have saved me making the broom cabinet incorrectly and having to build a cap (which I did twice 🙁 ).
I have been loading my 18ga. brad nailer incorrectly since I owned it. The brads load to the front of the magazine, unlike the Porter-Cable which load to the back. This caused a lot of jams and general dissatisfaction with performance until I figured it out, this week.
By now, you have probably nodded off to sleep, so I will stop now. It just goes to show that I have a lot to learn. So, what is next? I have vehicle problems, I have a rental that needs rehab and Coronavirus mania is picking up. I have a follow up on my political story as well.
Maybe I am unlucky or maybe tools go bad after sitting around for 15-20 years with little use. This is another tool repair and casualty of the pantry project.
I have decided that I am going to talk about preparations for life (i.e. Caronavirus) next week. I will also likely finish my project next week. It will be a whole new chapter for me after that. So with that, have a good weekend.
We have an exchange student for the year from Spain living with us. Unfortunately, part of his agreement to be here is that he cant participate in the things that are the most uniquely ‘American’. For instance, no shooting, no driving, no ‘high risk’ activities. We spend a fair amount of time enjoying those activities.
However, for Christmas, he purchased this book for me called ‘100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation’ by Clint Emerson. I have been slowly reading this over the last couple of weeks.
Now, I like to learn and I believe in the philosophy of preparation. Given the recent COVID-19 hysteria, I am noodling going quite a bit deeper into this next week. The title ‘Tacticool’ is denotes something that might look better on the surface than it really is as well as bring a little humor into my work.
Quite frankly, a lot of this book is mental masturbation such as how to ditch a plane, use a flight suit and swim into another country without detection. I learned a few things like cell phone cameras can pick up IR light or how to make a polymer from milk (casein). I think the value of this book is around the idea of situational awareness: where weak points in hotels could be or tactics around kidnapping and escape. Of course the likelihood of this ever happening is extremely small.
If you are a budding Mall Ninja or an untrained SEAL then this is a manual for you. Otherwise, it is primarily for fun. Remember that your brain is your biggest tool/weapon/asset and keep exercising it because you never know when you need recall the best technique to survive a grenade attack.
The end is near… probably not near enough to finish by the end of this week, but maybe if I work into the weekend then I will be done. I am hoping to have the final cabinet assembled tomorrow. I still have the face frame to build and paint as well as the final attachments and painting.
I am going back out to the shop to paint again. Talk to you tomorrow.
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