2017 May « The Fixer

fasting

We shrunk my plates, shrunk my portions, mostly eliminated lovely bread and beer from my diet, and so on. Yet old man metabolism methodically added, one gram at a time, more body fat than I could comfortably fit into my wardrobe.

Even if I wasn’t too frugal to replace closet and drawers full of over-snug shirts and pants, I very definitely did not want to see a naked Santa Claus facing me in the mirror.

If I didn’t draw the line at making me fit my clothes rather than my clothes fit a bigger, softer me, where […]

cleared the workbench… again

In the never-ending battle for clear horizontal spaces, I lose more often than I win.

I still have not fully unpacked from our five-day adventure north to a basic long-range rifleman course. But time did not stand still for me.

The PatchWorks business sold. I had to get new designs created and patches produced right away, or forever hold my peace.

Then the local practical pistol match got all that gear out, and added to my collection needing post-match servicing.

My workbench was getting real ugly. It gets that way sometimes, and as often happens, “More Shelves” […]

Paper Poppers

I don’t usually shoot this well… I don’t think I do, anyway.

This one felt good. Hmmm … so did the rest of the stages I shot Sunday. Maybe I’m improving???

I parked “HITS” in my head and proceeded to do almost exactly that. Running on the assumption that I got hits enabled me to complete it quickly. It certainly helped that I made up my mind to shoot EACH ONE ONCE on the metal targets… that is, to go slow enough to GET HITS reliably… while pushing myself just a bit.

I also was prepared to find […]

stove-top coffee roasting

Last July I put up a detailed post describing my home coffee roasting process. I am still roasting the same way and won’t repeat that post here. Go there if you want to know step-by-step how to purchase green coffee beans and turn them into wonderful, fresh coffee to suit your own tastes.

coffee roasting at home

What I am adding with this post is a link to my Vimeo channel where I published a short video clip of the process.

Ted roasting coffee beans on gas burner

Vimeo is kind-of a liberated YouTube; minus the agenda, censors […]

loyal mug

I have a favorite coffee mug.

A couple of days ago, I realized it has been my favorite for a long, long time… that is, in coffee mug years.

My daughters invited me to a paint-your-own green clay studio back in February ’99. How do I remember when they did that? It says so on the cup I painted.

The shape of the lip, and grace of the cup is crucial.

The memories matter.

The theme and art cap it off.

Can you imagine being loyal to a coffee mug for 18 years?

Heck, in our disposable society, […]

my first 1K

I thought of myself as a 600-yard rifleman. In DCM, CMP and NRA High Power competitions, the 600 yard target we shoot at is labeled “MR1”. That stands for “medium range”, standard target. Thus I don’t get an inflated ego from hitting that sucker on a known-distance course of fire.

Upon selling The Gentleman Farmer business I owned/operated for 22 years, my gold watch was a nice trombone and a nice rifle. Two tools I had long wished for but never afforded (best boss I ever had).

My AR-10 and I are awesome at a known distance of 200 […]

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