Kitchen and living room are the same room in my house. In order to save space, we too have TV on a angled mount bolted on the wall. But you are right, avoid doing weird stuff in front of this 21st century Palantir; the Eye is watching us.

I'll probably get in the habit of turning it off at the switch for now.

Those things are energy vampires when on standby anyway.

Jobs done so far:

- Pressure washed the deck. Staining. Painted it.
- Pressure washed the garage. Epoxy painted it. Put garage mats to protect the epoxy from hot tires.
- Changed all electrical outlets with new ones with GFCI
- After having a crew removing some old trees and grind the stumps I leveled and cleaned the area making it look like it was just fixed with new soil (This is a killer for your back and forearms though even using a nice shovel)

Jobs planned:

- Installing a new camera security system. (Looking at arlo2)
- Fixing the crack that has been formed between the driveway (new asphalt) and the road (older asphalt). Exploring options

Do the gfci outlets have those pop-out reset buttons? cause if one pops then the whole line is cut from electricity and you have to find the one along the line that popped.

(06-07-2018 01:00 PM)spokepoker Wrote:  Do the gfci outlets have those pop-out reset buttons? cause if one pops then the whole line is cut from electricity and you have to find the one along the line that popped.

Yeah they do have the reset/test button.
This is for protection.

Regarding your concern, I think it's not a problem since GFCI are connected in parallel, so if one pops (goes out of service/disconnects) it's just that and none of the other ones.
It depends on your wiring though, if you don't have them in parallel then yeah that is a problem and I think in general connecting them in a series it's a bad idea.

Cleaned, greased, replaced some parts and fired up the swather to start the 2018 hay season. Long hours back and forth chainsmoking, and daydreaming with the tunes turned up. Fun stuff.

A swather is it's like an oversized lawn mower that cuts hay and forms it into windrows so you can bale it.

Fuckin love this video.

My 25 oz morning commute Busch Beer had deers and chickens and other farm animals on the can.

Not exactly this, but similar:



Edit: my point, which I left out, is that I have come to the realization that an open Busch beer and ether "gob bless the USA" by Lee greenwodd or some older country music makes the truck run better. Its n its element.

Aloha!

Just finished pitching my business to a board of investors.

Went to a metal show in my neighborhood

Lifted, went on a couple walks, stuck to my diet (intermittent fasting, 5 hour eating window) and ate exceptionally healthy today: About 2 pounds chicken breast, big tupperware bowl of green beans, and 2 and a half scoops protein

Oh yeah. I almost forgot to mention my jerky experiment. It turns out the beef I used lost half its weight once dried. That means that at best the store bought jerky manufacturers are taking 15$ per kilo meat, reducing it to a $30 per kilo state and selling it for a whopping $80 per kilo. And it's shit besides. Not the real thing. Likely liquefied meat with gelatin added before being dried from what I can tell.

These fuckers are ripe for a fall. If I can somehow dodge the depredations of the snackfood moguls then say goodbye to poorfag Leonard.

(06-08-2018 03:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  These fuckers are ripe for a fall. If I can somehow dodge the depredations of the snackfood moguls then say goodbye to poorfag Leonard.

Homemade Jerky is the best. I have a few other snack recipes that are tasty, healthy, and way cheaper than processed. I will post a couple in the Chefs Lounge this week.

If you've got enough material for a datasheet on masculine snackfood you'll drown in reps.

Do you guys smoke bacon or make homemade sausages? It is a pretty much common way to produce food here in Balkans which you can eat all year, since it doesn't go bad.

(06-08-2018 03:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  Oh yeah. I almost forgot to mention my jerky experiment. It turns out the beef I used lost half its weight once dried. That means that at best the store bought jerky manufacturers are taking 15$ per kilo meat, reducing it to a $30 per kilo state and selling it for a whopping $80 per kilo. And it's shit besides. Not the real thing. Likely liquefied meat with gelatin added before being dried from what I can tell.

These fuckers are ripe for a fall. If I can somehow dodge the depredations of the snackfood moguls then say goodbye to poorfag Leonard.

You don't want to mess with (((Big Jerky))) Leonard. Just let it go man.

Aloha!

Branding is very important for your new jerky empire.

Here are some ideas:

Tasmanian Devil Jerky
Fauster's Jerky
Outback Jerkhouse (could also be a chain of restaurants)
Crikey Jerky
Crocodile Jerky
Koala Jerky
Did yer a du Jerku

I like to make jerky, and you definitely lose weight when you take out the water. Use lean meat. I use moose roasts and a 5 pound roast makes a good pile of jerky that is eaten up quickly. Be sparing with the spices as it is easy to make stuff too salty I find.

If you are buying beef get the round cut. I have a dehydrator which is awesome for this but costs a bit of money and takes up space.

Dried Salmon is great but be sure to freeze it for a couple of weeks first to kill parasites. Never dry bear or wild pig without heating it to 160 Fahrenheit as freezing doesn't kill the trichinosis.

A great one for the guys who grew up in the U.K. or Ireland but no longer live there is to make your own rashers. As good as what you grew up on and way cheaper than you mum payed at the shop. Buy a pork loin (lean meat is important when curing) which can be as cheap as 99 cents a pound at your local store and is always $1.99 at Costco. Buy some Mortons Tender Quick at the grocery store. A bag will last you a long time. Follow the directions for amount per pound and rub it on. Put it in a big zip lock and put the bag in the fridge for 3 days. After three days rinse it off REALLY well. Soak and rinse well. Air dry in the fridge uncovered and on a rack if you have one for a few hours. Slice and cook. Will keep in the fridge for a long time.

If you have people visiting serve those rashers with some fried eggs, fried tomato, regular old breakfast sausage since you will find no pudding or proper sausages in the States, some fried potatoes and soda bread (with kerrygold butter). Your people will be very happy.

I get into this stuff and if anyone wants my methods for salting fish so it lasts for months with no refrigeration, cold smoking fish, or what I consider to be simple but foolproof and delicious soda bread I will be happy to post and share.

(06-08-2018 10:35 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  Branding is very important for your new jerky empire.

Here are some ideas:

Outback Jerkhouse (could also be a chain of restaurants)

Sounds like a chain of places to wank.

It’s now Winter here, and, since I’m often working in an old tin shed, it’s usually a matter of rugging up – what I did last year - but it’s seemed extra cold this year. Still, it’s better than working a heated office job. A friend needed a ride from his work to pick up his car from a garage last week, and when he finally came out to where I was waiting, I said: “You seem to be the only one in the office who isn’t an obese, pissed off looking schlub.”

He nodded. “Pretty much.”

Note that he’s in a Government Health Department.

My mate Bill and I were in the Kitchen area around Lunch, clutching our coffees for warmth. We were both quieter than usual: an alcoholic co-worker had been missing for three weeks, and when we finally located him, we were both, well, deeply-disappointed by him.

Bill finally said, “Seems colder this year.”

At least it broke the silence. “I was thinking that. We need a heater in here.”

I knew what he’d say, and he did. “Lectrickity is too expensive.”

I sipped my cuppa, trying to warm up. “Shame we can’t burn all those damn pallets out the back”.

Bill went into thoughtful pose. “We’d need a fireplace.”

I nodded. “We’d need a flue. If you put it over there,” I pointed to the wall next to the door, “you could run it up and out the roof. No money for either though.”

Bill looked at the space, then up to the roof, and then asked me to go and grab three pieces of a particular wood for him. I know by now that when he gets that look that something is about to happen. (Note that when my Sister recognises that look in me when we’re doing music, she’ll immediately do as I say, understanding I’m visualising something she can’t).

I came back, and he was holding a spirit level, and a bucket of blue metal.

“We’ll need somewhere for the fire to sit.”

We measured and created a box with the wood, then both started packing the edges with blue metal.

I could see where this was going: “So, I should go and do a mix.” [of cement]

He nodded. “One mix would be enough. Make it much drier than usual though.”

Note one of the practical knowledges I’ve picked up from Bill is mixing cement. It was something I’d never done before, but due to my observational skills, I can really read the consistency of a mix – it’s kind of similar to making dough for scones or a cake mix – and, as such, I have ended up better than him at getting it reliably-consistent. It’s a patience thing.

I went and prepped the mixer and took care of it. Bill came out into the yard, hunted around for a bit, put some large chunks of metal on a trolley, then vanished back inside. Even over the sound of the mixer, I eventually heard the sound of a grinder.

I took the wheelbarrow of cement inside, poured it, spread it, warned his pet magpie to not even think about walking on it, smoothed and leveled it out, and screened it once. Perfect. I checked with Bill on the way back out. I noted he didn’t ask to check my work, so I know he trusts my skills now. Good to know. I noted he’d already cut a series of metal legs and was about to start on a flue. He asked me to help him carry something in from the yard in a few minutes after I finished hosing out the mixer and wheelbarrow.

“This should be interesting,” I thought, as I headed out, and when he arrived a few minutes later and showed me what he was thinking of, I could only shake my head.

An old Brake Chamber from a Truck. Solid as hell, weighed a tonne.

“I can put the stoking door here,” he said, motioning.

“It’d be small though due to the shape,” I said. “You’d never get the wood in.”

He thought for a few moments. “OK, anything else?” (Note that now he was asking me to view the his abstract concept from my IQ Level).

I thought. “So you’ll run the flue up to the roof?”

“That’s the plan.”

“You need to put in that thing… it seals the flue off so the cold air doesn’t travel down when you’re not using it. I can’t think of what it’s called.”

He wasn’t sure what I meant, but we took the brake chamber inside and I said I’d check with the girl at the shop in a few minutes, who is always on her mobile.

When I came back, I said “Throat damper,” and quickly drew a sketch for him and pantomimed how it worked.

He immediately-recognised it. “Oh yeah, I should have remembered that.”

Now, I’d have no idea to turn that abstract into a physical component in the space of fifteen minutes, but Bill’s mind can do that. I can identify the need for it, but he is the one who can quickly-translate it into actuality.

I often go to auctions with Bill, and it’s interesting to notice how often he appreciates good tools the way most men would talk about beautiful women. He sees the tool as the potential to realise abstract thought. I’m starting to think this way myself, where I’ll think, that’s not a discarded tumble dryer: that’s reusable wiring, sheets of ally, and a potential firepit.

Two hours of cutting, grinding, bolting and sealing later – I did about 1/5 of the welding, where it didn’t matter so much, in between bouts of screening the cement - this is what resulted. It’s about about 3 ½ feet tall before the stack:



I can't describe how beautifully-functional the throat damper is. It just... clicks gracefully into place.

“So, what do ya reckon?” he asked me.

“You know, we could use one of these out back at my place.” He often smokes out on my back verandah, which can get damn cold in Winter. We usually just tough it out.

“Why not? There’s another three brake chambers. But we better re-seat these foundations before it gets dark.” i.e. the job we were supposed to be doing.

So, we’ll knock another one off tomorrow. I’ll see if he’ll let me do more welding this time.

Ages back, I said I loved hanging out with Bill, because it’s like playing ‘Fallout’ for real. This is the beauty of differing IQ Levels working together where the Higher one doesn’t have contempt for the lower. Women could NEVER do something like this.

I'll never go back to an Office Job.

Top stuff. Nothing beats an open fire but those single piece solid iron back yard jobs pump out an enormous amount of heat, to the point where you have to worry about melting your boots if you leave them too close to it.

Factory manufactured combustion wood heaters give out fuck all heat compared to a unit like that, even running the fan on them. Safety over functionality, but if you want your fire insurance to hold up then you have to play by the rules.

Brilliant project.

Makes me think of gathering around the old 44 gallon drum hobo fire in the middle of nowhere when it's somewhere between freezing and glacial. Great little project AB.

Ya Buddy, that's a sweet stove. Lots of heavy metal there.

Today my height of manliness consisted of fixing the deck on my tractor and grilling some steak. Tomorrow, building a bump out on my deck (for my BBQ, because my BBQ is almost as important as my dog).

Leonard, you US?

I MIGHT, emphasis on "might, be able to reach some grad classmates who work supply chain for some of the large department stores. If the volume of producing is there at that point of course.

I was standing on my porch smoking a cig and the Google Street camera car drove by, so I flipped it off.

Does that count?

(06-10-2018 11:01 PM)Easy_C Wrote:  Leonard, you US?

I MIGHT, emphasis on "might, be able to reach some grad classmates who work supply chain for some of the large department stores. If the volume of producing is there at that point of course.

I'm not sure what you mean. I live in Australia, and a remote part at that. I'm just messing around with the whole mass production thing. If I start this up I'll be focusing on local markets. I'm already good friends with most vendors in the area.

I appreciate the line, though. Cheers.