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I didn’t have time

Many variations of that phrase are popular in our culture, but they are all incorrect.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940-) American author

I did not get to that, or did not get around to that yet, or I have been concentrating on _ _ _ _

There are many ways to soften the word we are avoiding: “NO”, but they are just […]

April 23rd, 2019 | Category: community | Comments are closed

mini grader

I spent over 20 years operating a business based on my 40-100 horsepower tractors and every implement I could operate from them. I had many people in positions to know tell me I was particularly good at it. I was. I am a driver. Tractors are tools to be driven. Of course I was good at it.

But that was another life. I am several times removed from that. Or am I?

The apron to my new shop annex was awaiting the season to hire a truck and tractor operator for the finish grade that couldn’t be completed before […]

April 16th, 2019 | Category: construction | Comments are closed

reloading bench back in business

My reloading bench ran its first set of test loads in the new homestead. Getting it operational tends to be well below the CRITICAL and Urgent level activities. However it sure is nice to get there.

My reloading skills exceed my shooting abilities, but I work to achieve the best mechanical accuracy to minimize the inaccuracies that arrive when my finger starts dancing on the trigger.

My first two batches of load test firings were not as careful as the third one, but all suffer from eyes that cannot focus very well on both the near sights and far […]

April 13th, 2019 | Category: guns'n'gear | Comments are closed

Bitterroot Emergency Radio Plan

BEARS, that is the Bitterroot Emergency Amateur Radio Services, works towards having viable communication resources in place when our neighborhood most needs it. A radio and operator are useless without another radio and operator at the other end.

Two-way radio is by definition a sending and receiving operation. The more operators on the network, the better our information is and the wider we can spread it.

Likely more than 99% USofA adults ASSUME their phones and wi-fi devices will never fail them. In real-life emergencies, they are nearly always shocked and hopeless because those systems do fail.

I print, […]

April 6th, 2019 | Category: amateur radio, community, preparing, radio, technology | Comments are closed

sticker removal

We bought our first new vehicle in 13 years, a Polaris Sportsman 570 with plow. It teamed up with our snow blower to make dealing with a yard full of snow possible. See snow shoveling for old men for a more thorough coverage of that.

Other benefits of this particular tool include a lot of brush clearing on my agenda that by itself did not justify this micro-tractor.

Yesterday I was getting around to installing its license plate and the sticker proclaiming we paid the US Forest Service for the privelege of traveling in our own forests. But where […]

April 1st, 2019 | Category: household, practical, tools | Comments are closed