Finding Miss Right

[HiTemp]

The other day I needed to run into Wally World for a few items. When I came back out, there was this weird van parked near me with a bunch of furniture and a lawnmower and such tied down all over it. The tires were all under-inflated or just overloaded, not sure which. I was thinking WTH is this, the Beverly Hillbillies or something? That's when I noticed the signs on it.

On the left side, it had a huge (like 2-ft tall) "No Smoking" sign in each of the van side windows, and a smaller 6-inch sign in the driver's window. I'm thinking okay, this guy has one of those early model Flux Capacitors that put out a lot of oxygen or something. Then I spot the sign on the driver's door itself. There is a matching sign on the passenger door. The man is trolling for a wife (or maybe just a lady with a storage locker, who knows).

Now my son just recently got married, and since then there has been a lot of back-and-forth with one of my daughters, you're next, when's your turn, that kind of thing. So I sent her these pics and told her the number is in the picture if she felt moved to call for an "appointment." She replied, "Uhhhhhhhhh, no thanks. I think I saw that episode of Criminal Minds!"


You gotta admire a guy who trolls for women with a lawnmower and dining room chairs tied to the vehicle with string.



Thought you might get a good laugh. Hope all's well out west and all the cow heaters are passing the annual pre-winter function checks.




Here's the van as seen from my parking space:





Here's a closeup of the signage on each front door:

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Ha, how is that guy still single? He even gives the an up front look at his lawn mower.

[HiTemp]

Hehe, when I showed the pics to my son he says, "That dude not only isn't gonna score with Miss Right, he doesn't even have a chance with Miss Right Now!"

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Did you miss the worst of the storm that rolled through this summer?

[HiTemp]

Oh yeah, it might as well have been in Europe. I'm at the very western tip of FL, and we're about a 6 hr drive all the way east to Jacksonville, about 375 mi or so, and the storm is another hundred or more miles off shore. It didn't even get cloudy here. Unless the storms turn into the Gulf of Mexico, we're pretty much spectators.

In the eastern part of the state some of my pals reported stations running out of gas, not a sheet of plywood to be had at any price, the standard pre-hurricane idiocy. These news channels and the Weather Channel are just dying to have some weather catastrophe, it's so pathetic to watch them.

From up in North Cackalackee where they took some significant flood damage, all you hear on the news around here is about how the flood waters have flooded hog waste pits and how the waste is going to spread germs and we'll all be dead before anyone knows it. Can you imagine? Like a pile of animal dung has never been hit by a bout of severe weather where some humans managed to defy the odds and live. Makes me want to toss a brick at the TV. Probably explains why the Admiral won't allow me to keep any bricks inside the house. Flooded hog waste pits. Geeze!

This summer I managed to get my chicken coop built and got 16 chicks to go in them. Few weeks ago, red-tailed hawks took out two of them, but now they're a bit bigger and a bit more aggressive so hopefully the remaining 14 will do the job. They should be ready to start laying within a month, maybe 5 weeks. Man those little tilling machines can de-bug a yard chop-chop! If I could only teach them to jump up and eat mosquitoes I'd be all set. No roosters, the country won't allow it unless the land is at least partial use for AG, which mine is not. So I can have up to 50 birds, but all have to be hens. If mine was partial AG use I'd have a couple hogs too, despite the danger to mankind should my hog's waste pit become flooded. At around 41 lbs of bacon dressed, it sure is an enticing proposition. I'd try my hand at two.

The chickens are for eggs but also a source of waste for the compost pile. I have access to plenty of horse manure if I want it but I don't have my trailer anymore so when I can borrow one I go get a big load that lasts me a year. Now with the chickens I won't need much of that. Between my daughter and I we'll be growing several beds of winter crops, greens and lettuces mostly, kholrabi, broccoli, that kind of stuff. I want to try and grow my tomatoes off-regular season this year, start them in Feb, harvest in May-June. By the end of June it's so hot outside it just saps the strength right out of you with the humidity and all, and that makes it hard to keep them weeded and feeded and pest free. So it's early crops for me this year. I started them in March this year and I think I get away with growing them in Feb if I keep the greenhouse warm, which isn't hard. The goal is to grow two crops between now and 4th of July, with only corn and sunflowers to worry about after that date.

You know, when I was working full time and people wanted me to do something and asked when might I be free, it was always a matter of this weekend, next week, sometime in the not too distant future. Since I retired, I swear I don't have time to fart anymore. I have the gardening and the chickens and all, and I'm still doing a lot of woodworking and other projects. Ha, I told myself I was going to take it easy this summer and loaf around a few months... that plan didn't work out. Not complaining about being busy, just stating it as fact. I just don't remember ever having so much in front of me to do.

What about you? I keep hearing Yellowstone is gonna blow any day, it seems to be racing the San Andreas for all that TV news catastrophe spotlight. My daughter just went out there to MT a few weeks ago and told me there has been a few people killed from falling into hot pits and such. Who goes into a place where you can fall into a pit and die just to be a tourist?

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

I figured you missed this last one, I heard earlier this summer on the news they said Pensacola got hit with some bad storms and had some damage. Of course being Johnny on the spot in asking, you could had rebuilt the taj mahal by now if you have to. I have a cousin in Palatka and she sent some video of some wind, which I could have matched with ours today, so I think it was the usual sensationalising of the last storm.

Oh and don't worry about the water hazards in Jellystone, if you stay on the nice boardwalks they built and are not trying to get an up close and personal look at 250 degree acid pools, you will probably be fine. I swear people are extra stupid some days. "Oh look I'm going to get a selfie with this buffalo" or "I need a picture looking down in the water, so I am going to walk across the crusted over calcium layer of a hot spring" I suspect these same people would meet their fate on some city street eventually for the same reason and you would never hear about it.

But the yellowstone super volcano is going to erupt and kill all life in the northern half of the country anytime now...geologically speaking.

We are doing OK here, had an uneventful summer, cattle prices tanked this year, so it made it a little leaner than we were hoping, but it's been worse for us. We are awfully dry though, bordering on drought conditions. We have had a couple cools days here and there this fall, but mostly 80s, even still, it was 80, windy and teens humidity today. But there is a lot of winter to get through before I will worry too much. i just have to endeavor to keep my head from splodin until the election is over, and I got it made.

[HiTemp]

Yeah, earlier in the year we got lots of rain and the low areas flooded pretty good but there is kind of a natural funnel formed by Mobile (AL) bay and the way the lands to the east and north are low and stay low for quite a distance. As rain systems come up from the Gulf they naturally seem to follow that lowland area. That 25-mi wide swath of land is where all the tornadoes seem to touch down and where the big rains seem to fall. Same this year, that area got most of the rain, the rest of us got pelted but not too bad. There was a group of condos on Pensacola Bay that got hammered, but it was by flooding. Same bunch got flooded out in Hurricane Ivan, it took out the ground floor of each unit (which are garages). My property is kind of on the crest of a hill where this crest is about 3/4 mile in radius. Just a nice high spot, so not much chance we're going to flood unless Pensacola is already submerged.

Palatka is a nice little piece of country over the east side. Right up the road a piece is a town called Hastings and that's where I buy my beef when I buy a side or a quarter. Guy there was just starting out when I lived in Orlando in the late 80s early 90s, and I met him at a Turkey shoot the local range near Orlando sponsored. Just one of those things, met as strangers, our wives were over there chit-chatting while we were waiting our turns to shoot, etc. So I ended up driving up to his place later that year and bought a side from his first batch of cows. We picked out the one we wanted (like I'd know the difference between any two of them LOL) and he called me weeks later when the meat was all processed and we picked it up in Seville which is a full 1/3 of the trip closer to Orlando. When my kids were still living at home I'd buy one a year, but now it would take me and the Admiral three years or more to eat half a cow, so I buy a quarter every now and then and drive all the way out there with every cooler I own in the car. Funny, I'm the only one he will still sell to like that because he's now into one of these food co-op things and sells his meat that way. I guess he'll still accommodate me because of our history. Apparently it's a PITA to sell direct like that because of the feds and state AG folks rules for selling meat and such, but I don't know, you'd know more about that then me. .

Palatka ia also on the St. Johns river, and when I was going to nuclear power school in '78 we used to drive up and rent canoes or kayaks on the weekend and go down the St Johns a couple dozen miles south of Palatka. Beautiful, you see lots of wildlife, deer, manatees, etc. and only the occasional snake. Never saw a full sized gator there, only little 4 or 5 inch ones which you stay well away from. You can be sure momma gator is only a few feet below them ready to defend if needed and it won't be pretty. If I was going to live in that part of FL again, I'd live around there, probably as close to the Ocala National Forest as I could manage. It's all farms and ranches in that region, and if you like buying stuff fresh like I do, that's the place to be.

The price of beef tanked this year? Geeze, you'd never know that from the supermarket. I went to go pickup some nice ribeyes for when my son came home and I was wondering if a mortgage was going to be necessary. Is this the end result of some chain of events like feed being more/less available or is this more the work of the salad-eaters continuing to make people think they'll keel over dead if they have a hamburger? I remember last year reading a report about how cattle prices were low (in the fall) but we wouldn't see a change in the supermarket until May. Well I guess I missed it because I sure didn't notice any big drop in prices.

re: the fools in Jellystone, I figured it had to be something like that. I suppose it's the same as these knuckleheads who try to take selfies sitting on the rim of some part of Grand Canyon (ignoring the "Don't go past this sign" signs and end up taking the plunge. Seem like a lot of folks have died trying to be great photographers. Hope it was worth it for them.

It was 78 here today and the really hot weather broke about two weeks ago. This is a great time of year to do stuff outside because it's tee shirt weather but no oppressive humidity. Skeeters still bad in the early morning and around dusk but I wear long sleeve tees so not a big problem. I've got woodworking projects lined up months ahead. I made a windmill this past year and a friend of mine told me "you should sell those down at the Farmer's Market." You know that kind of friend, the kind who is sure it'll be an easy chore and a big, big moneymaker, you just need to follow his suggestion. Never mind that you really don't relish sitting every Saturday morning downtown in 90+ degree temps until 2pm. Never mind you have to cart these damn things down there, set a few up for demo, and have a bunch more ready to go. LOL

Well after so much arm-twisting I decided to try a little reverse on him and I told him I'd build him 30 windmills and sell the whole lot to him for a grand. He can then sell them at the FM and "show me how easy it is." He thinks he can demand $90 apiece for them, easily. I dunno, I see people down there bickering with people selling fresh veggies for 3/4 of what they sell for in the supermarket.

This is what they look like.



So I'll start on them about mid Nov and should have all of them done by Dec 15th. They cost me about $12-$13 each in materials and hardware to make, not counting the iron pipe they sit on which I won't be supplying. Ninety bucks each... I gotta see that. I think he's basing it off this other guy who sells potting benches and outdoor furniture out of cypress for a pretty penny ($350 for a potting bench that's nice but basic) but doesn't sell but maybe one in a month.

Got another guy wants me to make him 2 dozen bat houses, and those are pretty easy. I am going to do them after the windmills and that'll take care of my woodworking jobs for the year. Maybe then I'll make something I want. LOL

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Is this the end result of some chain of events like feed being more/less available or is this more the work of the salad-eaters continuing to make people think they'll keel over dead if they have a hamburger?

Heh, nothing that direct, its futures speculators manipulating the market again. They were blaming the feedlots for not buying, which they are not, but its because the futures contracts are not following the boxed beef futures, so they don;t want to put money into it I guess. end result is there is more cattle for sale than they are looking for, so the price comes down to make it more appealing profit wise. I wish our bank, machinery parts dealers and fuel suppliers would understand that concept, instead if they are losing their profit margin, they just jack up the price. And you're right, I have heard of no bargains in the grocery store or restaurants over cheap beef.

Cool windmill, I think it would need some good ball bearings to run here today, or it would be a fire starter. That whole woodworking thing is just confounding to me, at least when welding I can fill the gaps and make it look OK.  

[HiTemp]

its because the futures contracts are not following the boxed beef futures, so they don;t want to put money into it I guess. end result is there is more cattle for sale than they are looking for, so the price comes down to make it more appealing profit wise.

Now that right there sounds pretty profound and I don't have the slightest doubt it's a well-informed opinion. I just have no idea what that means. I don't know much about how cattle futures work, and have never heard of a boxed beef future. What's boxed beef?

The bearings on the windmill head are just plain ol' roller blade/skateboard wheel bearings. I buy them in a tube of 10 at the skate and surf shop for about $7, and it takes two bearings per windmill head. I lube them with bench oil before installing the bearings, and there is a thin disk of metal I put over them to keep most of the rain out. The horizontal arm has a hole with a bronze sleeve it in that fits around a 3/8" bolt and it's just a nut with a backing nut to adjust how tight the friction is (or isn't).

That particular windwill I've had outside when it was blowing 61 mph according to the weather station over at the airport, maybe 4 miles as the crow flies. The problem wasn't the bearings it was the vertical block that goes around the iron pipe that was groaning and ready to split. I took it down at that point so I don't know just how much it could take. Probably not 100mph, maybe 80-85. Still, pretty good considering it will start moving with as little as 3 mph wind. If less than that, the tail will move to point direction but the head won't rotate yet.

I hear you re: the welding, filling in the gaps, etc. The secret to woodworking is to make something kinetic, something that moves, that way the gaps are always in motion and no one can see them. If they do spot them, they just assume they have to be there. It also helps to have some good vocabulary handy for those persistent eagle-eyed types. "Hey, why is there a gap there and why is the surface uneven?" That's not a gap, sir, that's a cantilevered offset designed to add... strength. Notice the unevenness is equal front and back? Notice what appears to be a gap isn't changing in size? It's supposed to do that.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Heh, well I am not the one to be telling anyone how markets work, if it was not for the market reports on the radio I would not know boxed beef futures existed. Basically beef on the stock market is sold in contracts as live (ready to be butchered), hanging carcass and boxed beef. The problem with the futures market is it all just paper when they trade these things, there may be x amount head of cattle they trade, but whether they actually could be brought to the term and numbers is subjective and fluctuates, but its not breach of contract if it doesn't turn out the way promised, they dock the price to the seller for over or under weight, or for less pounds of certain grade etc. If its a trend the demand goes up to fill contracts short term, that's why you see those short term gains and falls in price daily or weekly. If its true market shortage we get sustained demand which eventually makes even the producers end increase in value. So see, clear as mud. All I know is when they are not buying boxed beef like its a new viagra, they tend to depress the market, and boxed beef has been falling for most of the year.

Hmm, I bet I can import that term thing. When someone comments on my birdshit welding, I can just say that on purpose for stress relief.

[HiTemp]

Sounds like what ya got there is interstitial connectivity. What appears to the untrained eye as a bunch of excess weld material is in fact the bridge that relates the strength of the metal structure in one point to that of another point. That way it's strong all the way through.

Sounds good to me.