After struggling with this all week, I finally got it to work. After my recent success of the podcast short episodes, I thought this would be easy. It turns out that I struggled every day with some issue or another. I literally spent hours trying to edit this and get the files in the right place.
A bad guy is someone that does you wrong. But there is more subtext than that. A Bad Guy not only does you wrong but also there isn’t much you can do about it. Notice the capitalization, this is a named title. So, when you spend your energy outside of your circle of control you are wasting it.
End Your Programming Routine: Am I admitting there is a problem? I sure am. People shouldn’t be bad and they shouldn’t make profit at the expense of others. However, it is easier to lay blame at some enigma rather than take responsibility for something . But when you spend your time fighting constant demons or specters, you fail to advance in the treasure map.
Let us not confuse gases with gas. Fortunately, the options for gases are much simpler. The big boy is propane and natural gas, but there is occasionally butane too. Natural gas is unrefined hydrocarbons, mostly methane. Propane is often interchangeable with natural gas and sometimes liquid fuels as well (more on that later).
First a chemistry lesson. All forms of fuel are hydrocarbons. The smaller the hydrocarbon molecule, the more likely its native form is a gas at human survivable temperature and pressure. In terms of stack ranking size: methane < ethane < butane < propane < pentane (which is actually a liquid a room temperature).
What is also true is that the larger the molecule, the more BTU per storage unit. This means that you can estimate the BTU potential depending on volatility. This means by BTU rank: propane < gasoline < diesel
What I am getting on about is that liquid fuels have more potential energy. And to punctuate that, one gallon of liquid fuel will burn more efficiently or longer than one gallon of propane. The good news is that it is propane is widely available at most gas stations. Many other retail locations also use a cylinder exchange program. It is running quite a bit cheaper than liquid fuels and something like half the price of gasoline.
Natural gas is primarily methane, an even smaller hydrocarbon than propane. The very nice thing about natural gas is that it is piped to your home. It also has a very strong track record of working if the grid is down. Pretty much if the pipe isn’t severed, gas is flowing. Hydrogen sulfide is added to both propane and natural gas so that you can smell it leaking. They are however not the same molecule.
The thing that I am most excited about is that many liquid using appliances can be converted to run propane. This often times means some custom parts, but often significantly cheaper than a second piece of equipment. As an example, my camp stove just needs something called a generator and a pressure regulator and a twenty pound cylinder will be cooking away, literally. Gasoline generators can also use propane or natural gas. This requires a change in the carburetor only. This solves part of the redundancy equation by fuel flexibility.
I am not a fan of the one pound, disposable cylinders. These would typically be the dark green ones that are the size of a fat water bottle. I find them wasteful as most recyclers wont touch them with a ten foot pole unless they have been visually punctured. They often won’t suffice for a weekend camping either. What I can say is that they are ubiquitous (if not in shortage like during the pandemic). It seems like every convenience store and hardware store has them.
I have recently found that there is a way to refill the one pound canisters using some specialized equipment. They are a little speedy once but I have seen the the single use canisters going for $7 each. That means that the system pays for itself pretty quickly. It seems like it was out of stock for years but now seems to be in the supply chain again and is on my short list of purchases to be made.
There are a plethora of sizes that cylinders can be purchased. Twenty pounds is the common barbecue size but there are plenty of 5, 50 and larger sizes at a lot of box stores. The one thing that gripes me about propane cylinders is that they have a stamped date and regulations stat that cylinders are only re-fillable ten years from that date. I am going to talk about that on Monday.
I would be remised if I didn’t talk about safety. If you are burning something indoors, you need a carbon monoxide detector. This goes for liquids and gas appliances. Things like stoves and heaters are generally pretty good about proper combustion but don’t ever run a generator inside. I have a battery operated one that I use in my shop for the kerosene heater. I will bring it inside if I am burning something, including the fireplace. Also, when the power is out, when you will likely be doing these kinds of things, you can’t count on a plug in variety.
End Your Programming Routine: As Hank Hill used to say there is quite a bit to “propane and propane accessories”. Given some of the limitations of portable gas, I don’t use it as my primary fuel. That doesn’t mean I don’t have any. At the very least if you have a propane barbecue, I think you should have a second cylinder. One to use and one to swap or refill before you need it. You might find that it is the gateway to other redundancies instead of a headache when your one cylinder goes empty.
Sometimes we joke that we are going on a Griswold Family Vacation. That is partially based on where we are going and how we are going to achieve it. I myself have some additional business travel that I am not really looking forward to as well as us driving all over the southwestern United States.
I also spend a lot of time talking about the types of trips that I took throughout my life during the Spring Break period. This is to give an idea about the things that we have done and provide inspiration for you to make your own memories.
End Your Programming Routine: Time seems to be accelerating. By the time we get to the Summer, my family is starting to scatter to the wind. I talk about some of the reasons we are taking this trip in the podcast. I am definitely not getting sentimental, but my kid’s futures are starting to get real. Enjoy your time while you have it.
I don’t think that it is too cheap to scan through another article for a podcast. I add content and commentary rather than just reading. Regardless, this is a thought experiment that makes a good point. In order to be well balanced, men should know a variety of skills.
Truth be told, I am looking to shake up my podcast line-up in order to do some work on my softer side. I think that I am going to try this one on because it has a mixture of things I need to work on as well as things I am interested in. I have a number of podcasts that I am kind of hearing without listening. My playlist keeps growing as a number of my routine podcasts keep adding episodes and it just turns into more noise that I am not taking in.
End Your Programming Routine: I certainly agree that men should be versed in traditionally male (or hard skills) and softer skills. Not only is the manly but it is also modern. I can’t really imagine what the world was like when men didn’t know how to cook or do laundry. I just call them life skills.
I did quite a bit of reading on this one. I knew in my head, from trusted sources that things weren’t exactly what they seemed. All that being said, everyone still needs to do their own research. Just because a source is trusted, doesn’t mean that it is always right.
I think that intuitively, we can all see the Ukrainian flag as a symbol of virtue signaling. It is a sign of the times. We have become a society of icons and false bravado when we perceive an injustice. Just like the ‘drop the mic’ podcast, unfortunately I think that society has turned. We have moved into a decadence phase like ancient Rome where we have more interest in other people’s problems than our own. But, that is a story for another day.
End Your Programming Routine: Virtue signaling is certainly a form of programming. The concept implies a level of ignorance or blind faith. Now, is this something that is a major problem? Only when you are concerned with liberty and individual thought.
February 24, 2023 The Survival Podcast ended with a bang. I mean, the punch in the face. When I heard it on Friday, I immediately thought I should cut out that audio. Low and behold, Jack did it for me (at least he put a clip on mewe which prompted me to get it before I lost it).
Right for the wrong reasons is that you don’t get a say on how things go. You are promoting ‘dangerous misinformation’ by disputing the status quo. You don’t get a vote, opinion/facts/truth doesn’t matter.
This is the link to the audio for the show that he refers to as being banned from YouTube for dangerous information. By the way, each of the thirty points is source cited.
End Your Programming Routine: You know that I am not about believing unsupported conspiracies. But when the preponderance of the facts are on your side, we as humans (should) know when right is right. We are in real trouble if we don’t get this concept. I would say one of the most profound presentations I have ever heard.
Today I cheated a little bit and you will be able to tell. At one point, I had figured out how to strip audio from Youtube. This particular clip was on Rumble. My point is, I would like to take video from any source so that I could embed in a podcast format. That would require more than ten minutes of looking and research. For now, just playing over the speakers works but not the best audio quality.
I just happened to run across this video (link below). It immediately spurred me to talk about this because I have had a tickle that something wasn’t right. I was actually talking to a friend about this very subject but didn’t really look into it. Low and behold, one I had an idea about where to look, it didn’t take long to find something.
End Your Programming Routine: What do we do about this? To be sure, I don’t think that we are going to stop it. It is way too late for that. In my opinion, the best we can do is get away from the system. The best way to get away is to not participate, but getting away could also be leaving. So, be warned this is everywhere now it is our move.
Whoops, I kind of flubbed this one. I miscounted how many podcasts I actually needed and how many I had. So, you get one more short. I promise that I really didn’t mean to do this. I guess that proves that my mental clarity is somewhat questionable. But, at least I am home now.
End Your Programming Routine: You don’t get better if you don’t push the limits of your capability. But, even then you don’t improve if you don’t analyze how it went and try to make improvements. I know that there are things that could be better, hopefully you will se that next time.
I can tell that I am starting to lose it because everything is starting to get screwed up. My SSL certificate expired and I really can’t deal with it on the road. I am getting things out of order for publishing and producing more podcasts than I actually need. You probably wont see all of this unless you are really paying attention.
My mind is tired. I explain more in today’s episode but right now I feel like my normal life is a lifetime away. Today is about my perspective on how I feel traveling. I know others that love life on the road, but I could just as soon never go on another business trip.
End Your Programming Routine: Just because there are some perks doesn’t mean it is fun (to me anyway). I have to say that I commend those people that work rotating shift work as a career. Maybe it would be different if I did it my whole life but my brain is starting to get foggy. Long days with little rest is starting to wear me down.
“I ain’t got time for this…” for some reason I am getting a security warning when I try to go to my site. I really don’t have the tools for this on the road. Likely, when this is seen I will have solved the problem but when I am writing, it is still real. To top it off, I am mentally beat. Truth be told is I finished the editing for my podcast yesterday but I ran out of time to publish. That means yesterday was empty. So this was yesterday’s podcast.
I really wanted to title this “Mental Masturbation” but I really didn’t want the title permanently on my feed. Not that I am ashamed of it, but I feel like there is a more dignified title out there. Like I said, I am just mentally beat and don’t have the energy for creativity. Heck, I can barely come up with some half-assed content.
End Your Programming Routine: We need to put rubber to the road. Mental masterbation is everything that I mean. On the right side, we like to talk about CNN drones. Well guess what? On the left side is Fox News drones. Both sides live by consuming content without thought. And the real tin hatters just keep coming back for more. Don’t do that, think about what you are reading and consuming. Neither side is right but there is truth in both.
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