Category Archives: Home Life

Stuff going on in my personal life.

A kids gun

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Barb spent soon time in Idaho with me this week. Dad wanted her to see how much better the room in basement was since she was there the last time. After Dad showed off the improvements I saw something in the gun cabinet I wanted to show her.

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It was the old Winchester 32-20 that had hung on the wall of my bedroom for many years as I grew up. It had belonged to my grandfather and my Great Uncle Walt (Grandpa Huffman’s brother) had shot his first coyote with it when he was 10 years old.

Under some of the more repressive laws in this country it is banned as being an assault rifle because it has a capacity of greater 10 rounds. But as it was originally used it was a great gun for kids because of it’s light weight, relatively low cost to shoot, and light recoil.

Open source maps on Garmin GPS?

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I got a Garmin GPS for Christmas, a hand-held one ideal for backpacking. Pretty neat. But then I looked closer, and had a “what the hell?” moment. It has no topo maps. Not even regional low-res 100k maps. Nothing. A few political outlines, major roads, major water obstacles like Lake Washington. You have to buy topo maps as extras. I thought the whole point of a GPS was not to point at a spot in a blank area and say “you are here.” Heck, I can get that with pencil and paper, and know general direction with a compass.

So I went to the Garmin site. They want a hundred bucks for a Northwest 24k topo map. Another hundred for a CA/Nevada topo. Another hundred for “mountain west.” Another hundred for Alaska. Another hundred for 100k US. And so-on. Holy COW! If you get around much, you could easily spend far more on maps than on the GPS unit itself. The unit I received had been bought on sale; any two of those are more than the unit cost.

I dug around a little bit online, and there are some references to using open source (USGS, TIGER, or whatever) topo maps, but nothing very specific or detailed that seemed like the right path. Anyone know any good sourses for free open source 24k topo maps and directions for putting them onto Garmin handheld GPS units? If I can get pointed to some that look like they will work, I’ll try it and let readers know how it goes.

Random thought of the day

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I’ve been hanging out with my great-nephew Jared (nicknamed Jar Head) who has recently mastered the word, “No!”.

I am tempted to believe that if the word meaning “no” were three symbols long the parenting of children would be dramatically different.

Enders Game

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On Saturday night Barb and watched the movie Enders Game. We had both read the book and enjoyed it but had a minor conflict about watching the movie.

I kind of wanted to watch it. I had skimmed through a lot of the physical description of the zero-G games and was never really able to visualize the setting very well. If nothing else I wanted to see what that was like.

Barb was concerned the movie would spoil the book.

I agreed that movies are seldom as good as the book but they can be good even if they aren’t as good as the book. We agreed to see it anyway.

I enjoyed it. Barb was disappointed because a lot of the team building was left out but she thought they did a great job on the special effects.

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Update: After reading this post last night Barb mildly protested that we didn’t really have a conflict about going to the movie. It was a very short polite discussion about whether we wanted to see this movie or something else. And we came to the same conclusion without any flaring of emotions. I agree with this but I didn’t, and don’t, have a single word or short phrase to describe that conversation. “Minor conflict” is prone to misinterpretation of the reality of discussion but with a strong emphasis on “minor” it does describe it.

Mugme Street news

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As I have mentioned before Barb refers to a street close to where I work as “Mugme Street”. It’s a pretty rough place at times:

A man sustained minor injuries after a group of women assaulted him and stole his wallet while he waited for a bus downtown.

…

Seattle Police officers responded to the scene, assumed control of the incident and investigated further. The victim told officers that he was waiting near the bus stop at 3rd Avenue and Pine Street to catch a bus home. A female suspect approached and asked him for a cigarette. The victim declined to give one to her. The female suspect got angry and began striking the victim with her fists. Some of the suspect’s female friends joined in on the attack and then stole the victim’s wallet from his backpack before fleeing the area on foot.

One block away is Westlake Park with more criminals as Seattle Police report:

Two men are now in custody after detectives identified and located the suspects wanted in connection with Friday night’s robbery of a First Hill gas station.

…one of the suspects, an 18-year-old man, was observed by officers as he was walking through Westlake Park.  He was taken into custody and interviewed by robbery detectives.

Tell me again that it’s safe here and people don’t need to carry tools to defend themselves.

Simple homemade gift

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I hadn’t done any reloading in a couple years so it felt really good to crank out a few hundred rounds. My last rife reloading was done in 2001.

The picture below is a sample of the result. It is a gift for a friend. It was simple, shiny, and you can’t buy it in stores:

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Plus it should give the anti-gun people heartburn.

See also this video:

Cold Starts

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It’s been a little chilly around here recently. Nothing serious, just mid-teens at night. But I drive a VW diesel, and they don’t much like the cold. It’ll start and run, but for the first ten or fifteen minutes there isn’t enough extra heat from the engine to defrost the windows or warm the cabin efficiently. If I only have to drive six miles to a school, it’s not good for the engine or oil, bad for fuel efficiency, and not overly comfortable because it’s just starting to get warm by the time I get there. I had a small oil-pan heater similar to this one, but it no longer works, and I need a new oil pan anyway. So I investigated what the possibilities were. None looked particularly good to me for, until I came across FrostHeater, an independently developed aftermarket part that fills a need. (Hmmm, seems I know someone that did something similar. If I could just remember who…)

Basically, it splices into the coolant circulation system with a small pump and a 1kw heater. Put it on a timer, and you get hot water circulating around your engine block starting an hour before you plan on having to leave. Sounds like a pretty good idea, and the reviews I can find are fairly positive. So, I ordered one. When I get it installed, I’ll post how the install went, and how well it works.

Ordered thought of the day

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You know; ordered as opposed to random, just because I feel like being a smart ass.

The most ignorant, uninspired person in the room is the one who’s most interested in running things.

The person who’s doing nothing, seeing the person who’s doing something, will become irritated and try to tell the person who’s doing something that he’s doing it wrong or that he shouldn’t be doing it, and/or that the doer is victimizing the non doer with all his inconsiderate and irresponsible doing. Failure in that strategy requires falling back on plan B; taking credit for the works of the doer that could not be redirected or discouraged.

The non doer views the mastery of this simple strategy as incontrovertible proof of superior intelligence and worth.

This is the basis of all politics, in the same sense that space, time, matter and energy are the bases of life– It is a fundamental law of nature.

Overheard

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Barb: I got all the kinks out.

Joe:  When you went to the gym?

Barb: Yes.

Joe: What did you do with them when you got them out?

Barb (after no more than a half-second pause): I put them in the corner for later when I want to get kinky.

Brunch at Tam’s Place*

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Barb and I went to Idaho this weekend and as we were leaving the area on Sunday we had brunch at Tam’s Place in Pullman (Washington) with daughter Kim and Jacob.

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I had a bacon and cheese omelet. I was impressed. The inside was mostly bacon with only enough cheese to fill in the gaps. I opted for the French toast on the side. I could have had hash browns or regular toast. I really liked the meal.

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Kim and Jacob seemed to enjoy their meals:

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Barb had eggs benedict and said it was marginal.

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* No. Not that Tam. But that is what I wanted you to think with the title.

Epson MX-80 dot matrix printer

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I bought this printer when I got my first computer in May of 1984. It’s nearly the identical age as my son James. And, appropriately, I stored it in James’ closet for many years before he moved out. From my discussion with him last night that was a bit of a sore point with him over the years. He told me he frequently uses the story about the printer in his closet of an example of me being a packrat or something. I’m not sure why he would think it is evidence of that but whatever.

As I was unpacking in my new Clock Tower residence I came to the printer and decided it was time for it to go to the great recycling pile in the sky. But it was painful. It still looks to be in pretty good shape. Barb L. offered to try selling it for me which eased the pain some.

She has a bid of $50 for it! Amazing.

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Thwop-thwop-thwop-thwop!

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Last night there was at least one helicopter going up and down the Palouse river, very low and very slow, over and over again. I could hear the tail rotor wash, which is unusual.

It was out again this morning at first light. I spoke to a neighbor on the way out the door and didn’t know what they were doing, but he did notice that our local fat cop was down by the river. While I was driving in this morning my wife left me a phone message. She’d heard on the news that they were looking for a kayaker who’d failed to return home last night. Dang.

My son and I have floated that river in a canoe, and although it’s a very small river there are lots of rocks and things that can snag you or flip you over at the worst times when the current is strong. Then again it’s very shallow most of the way this time of year, such that you could usually stand up if you were dumped out. But this is November and it’s been COLD these last few nights, getting WAY down below freezing. There are also places where brush and trees overhang the water.

I’ve found no updates since around 8:30 AM Pacific. If they haven’t found her by now, someone needs to get down on that water, up close and personal.

Hopefully she’s holed up at a friends house, or warm and snug in a tent, and it’s just that her phone isn’t working. There are plenty of cellular dead zones around here.

Update 12:51 PST; I got a call from my daughter, and checked on line to verify. They found a body. I just don’t get it. It was really cold last night. You don’t get wet in that kind of cold and last for very long unless you’re wearing one of those insulated dry suits they use for diving in ice water, and you don’t go kayking for miles on a river if you plan to stay dry. Something’s not right with what we know so far. Official weather report says it was down to 14 F in Palouse, but down on the river in still air like that it’s going to be the coldest place for miles around. Tragic, and sad. I guess we could all tell stories of how we did some daring thing or other, just for fun, where it could have turned out very bad but somehow didn’t. I was hoping this would be one of those stories, but alas…

I’m at ground zero

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Every day I go to work I see the park where this admitted Socialist Seattle Council person gave her speech the other night:

Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.

There are people, ironically, selling communist newspapers on many of the street corners near here.

One street over, 3rd Avenue, is what Barb L. calls, “Mugme Street”. The Seattle Police department says that location is one of the crime hot spots in Seattle. All the warning alarms go off in my head as I walk on that street to get to my bus. Things “just aren’t right” there. It is rare not to see at least two cops on that street when I briskly walk through “the danger zone”.

The SPD and King County Sheriff’s Office just finished doing some street cleaning in the park and on Mugme Street:

Just in time for the holidays, Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Office have wrapped up more than 30 drug dealers and suspected gang members following a months-long undercover operation around Westlake.

“This operation was about helping downtown businesses and their customers as well as Metro Employees and transit riders downtown,” says Sgt Thomas Flanagan from the KCSO’s Metro Police Unit.

In September, members of SPD’s Gang Unit, Narcotics, West Precinct Bikes Anti-Crime Teams and deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office’s patrol and Metro Units began Operation Happy Holidays after receiving numerous reports of drug dealing and gang activity near the 3rd Ave corridor. For months, police documented hand-to-hand drug deals and purchased crack cocaine, powder cocaine, pills, and marijuana in the downtown core and developed cases against 40 people. This week, police began making arrests.

Last night when I was leaving work I saw two police officers with a guy up against the wall just outside the parking garage for our building. They were going through his pockets.

This morning I looked around some. I didn’t see any of the usual shady people hanging around. Maybe it will stay clean around here for a few days.

I really wish I could earn the kind of money I’m addicted to back on the farm in Idaho. This is ground zero for criminals and, redundancy alert, Marxists.

Old Rations

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You often hear the phrase “rotate your supplies” from experienced preppers. You have to use what you store, store what you use, and check things regularly to that you know you really do have what you think you have. Great idea, doesn’t always work exactly as planned. I came across a couple of these the other day.

OldRations 004 Continue reading →

Dang; that’s over a thousand years!

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March of 3014. Dang!

March of 3014. Dang!

That’s some mighty good food preservation technology, right there.
(Yeah; I know. Don’t try to correct me. I though it was kinda funny, OK?)

Bricks

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When I worked on Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft there sometimes a risk you could load a new version of the O/S you had just built on the phone and it would fail so catastrophically that it couldn’t even boot up enough to load a new O/S to replace the broken one. We called this “bricking your phone”. You had turned your smart phone into an object that was about as useful as a brick.

A few days ago Barb L. decided she needed to use the self-cleaning feature on her oven. The oven is fairly new and she had always cleaned it by hand and sometimes with oven cleaner spray. But this time she “dinked around” with the controls and got it to do a self-clean. After about two hours she decided it was probably done and turned it off. She went back to the oven a while later and the door was still locked. The display was off and all the controls were dead. She went to breaker box and cycled the power. It was still dead. She left the power off over night and turned it back on. It was still dead with the door locked.

Barb is the only person I have ever heard of that is able to brick an oven. That takes some special talent. She’s a keeper.

High Sloth

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While riding in the family 4×4 pickup with my daughter today, I spied a bumper sticker; “Moscow High Pride”

“I wonder what that means” I said. “What kind of pride is high pride?”
“It’s Moscow High School pride” she said.
“Ah yes of course. I was thinking that high pride was being preferred over, say medium or low pride. (pause) Isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins, and so why is it being promoted? We might as well promote some of the others then. How about Moscow High gluttony?”
“Moscow High sloth?”
(Laughter)

Pride is pretty popular among the seven. We’re to appreciate the claim, “Made with pride in the U.S.” or “Proud to be an American” or “The few, the proud, the Marines.” We are expected to be proud of our work and so on. We’re taught pride. Maybe “something you could be very proud of, but aren’t” is a better way of looking at it. Objectivity may allow me to recognize that I’ve done something good, but pride has nothing necessarily to do with accomplishing good things, and it can certainly be a factor in doing bad things.

Update on shirts

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A fair number of people previously expressed some concern about Barb counting my shirts. As I said in an update to the post and in the comments I don’t really think there is anything to be worried about. A few days ago she gave me two coats, two sweaters, and a pair of pants for my birthday.

The only way I can resolve the present data in an adverse manner is if Barb is trying to get my closet rod to break due to excessive loading then suggest it was my fault for having so many clothes. That would be far too subtle and complicated for her personality. She is very direct.

Terminal ballistics and truck skinning

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Got some pictures, some are kind of graphic – if you don’t like images of meat processing or bullet holes, don’t click. Continue reading →

It must be that eclectic thing

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The other day Barb was helping me unpack my stuff at the new clock tower. She was out of sight for a while then came back, walked up to me and said, “You have 242 shirts.”

“And your point is?”, I asked. No verbal reply. There was some body language but it was indecipherable to me. Okay. Whatever. Her Match.com profile did say she was eclectic* so maybe this was an example of this. I thought maybe she just liked to keep count of things like that. She has a great head for numbers. So I asked, “Did you include the ones in the dirty clothes? And I think there are some I left at your place.”

She had not included those and a couple of days later she reported, “You have over 250 shirts.” Again I asked, “And your point is?” Again I got silence and that indecipherable body language.

I thought about it a while and thought maybe she was trying to say I had too many shirts. So I went into my closet and looked. Nope. I still have room for more:

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Today she told me she was going to count my gloves.

It must be that eclectic thing again.

Update: Okay. To cut down on the comments and private email telling me to “watch it!” or “run away!” keep in mind that 90% of this post was intended to be a joke. Barb laughed at it as much as I did. I deliberately withheld a lot of context and dialog to make it funny. There are no “lies” in it but there is a great deal of deception in it for dramatic and humor effect.

Thanks for all the concern but I really think people should “chill” just a little.

* Originally it had said, “eccentric” but her daughter suggested “eclectic” instead and so it was changed before I saw it.