September 18, a few good rains but monsoon is over now, one of the poorest in history.
I finally replaced my muffler, had to scrounge parts, 'replacement' wasn't even close.
old muffler
I made a sleeve for it so it wasn't so loud, needless to say, the truck ran like it was powered by firecrackers.
front of muffler
A few tips, some of which I learned in EMT class- Are you wearing BSI? which is 'body substance isolation', in welding it's gloves, long sleeves, long pants, apron, the darkest glass helmet you can find. 'Is the scene safe?' Look for sharp things you can intersect with and move them out of the way, especially under a truck. Should probably wear a hard hat under a truck but I don't. Those EMT gloves are pretty good for car work also.
A disk wire brush you can put on your drill is handy for removing paint, a recipro saw, a vise.
I knew a guy who was killed by crawling under a truck and cutting into what he thought was a water tank only it was a gas tank. If you are using a flame welder you're supposed to wrap the gas tank in wet blankets also. If using an electric welder on a vehicle, disconnect both battery cables, you can fry something.
muffler
My welder didn't weld any of the parts, just spattered metal on them, which was good, because it didn't fit the 1st time, and came apart easily. I ended up putting 3 clamps on it.
back_end
Sandy's gps
It has the roads (that address is wrong) and you can touch-scroll across it.
sandy's backup cam ,that's Shelley and her dog.
It's a Toyota Venza, and yes, it's brand new and expensive, although I bet there are aftermarket backup cams that will fit any car.
I made a trailer I can move myself, no backing necessary.
August 24, finally a rain, only 5 this 'monsoon' , worst ever.
I met a guy at EMT class who said he took 2 ounces out of his claim in Knapp Gulch, about a half mile from here. He sells it on ebay for full price. He has sluice boxes and other stuff . I stopped and bought a gold pan on the way home, they're $10 for some reason, just a piece of plastic. The next day gold went down $90.
Aug. 28, I did find some gold, it's very very tiny.
baby deer on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5hl_9WybdY his momma, or is it backwards?
baby horny toad
big horny toad
If you get tired of spraining your wrist rolling paint. You need a wire the thickness of a bucket handle, 2 pairs of pliers, a vise, a wire cutter, 2 hose clamps. Drill a hole in the roller end, bend the wire, clamp it on.
Found a rich vein of flat rocks for the incinerator, see if these are any more fireproof than concrete blocks.
Tip: look for black widows and brown recluses, I think they may have large tan butts, anyway, I leave these rocks where they lay, and any other rocks with large insect populations under them, you'd be surprised what's going on under rocks.
How weird, I was up in the middle of the night listening to the paranoid's favorite radio show, coast to coast, they had the author of 'When gadgets betray us', this morning I found some one had sent a bunch of emails from gmail, they got the addresses out of my Sent box I guess.
Anyhoo, if you post a photo taken from your GPS mobile phone the guy at 'Icanstalkyou.com' can tell where the photo was taken.
Why architecture blows nowadays
The architects are insane
There's a lot of beautiful architecture out there, but most of it is a waste of money, useless as shelter.
Like this
What is it?
Jesus Love? Don't think I'd want that responsibility.
Garden July 26, 2011, hope we get more sunny days, so far no tomatoes
A new road at the end of Blue Jay
By the way, there's a terrible stretch of Sheldon loop just uphill from Grasshopper Lane.
Watermelon bug
Dinosaur skeletons
Wow, only $200,000, but wait for a sale. Heck, they're not even real!
real skeletons
A Coyote femur is $5?
My youtube channel
Mostly fire training and motion capture, the most popular is Larry's purple player piano with 13 views. All but the fire training are short. I just noticed I have 2 subscribers, what does that mean?
Trouble in Quartzsite
This is a little blip in the desert on the way to California
Ghostit
You can make any window translucent, good for copying walk cycles. You can capture walk cycles, or anything else moving on your computer, with Camtasia. There's probably a free capture program out there also.
Why anyone would store their data online is mystifying, isn't that what all these spyware antivirus programs are supposed to prevent, data theft?
When I was a kid, it was a standing joke that people hated to watch other people's home movies.
Now they put them on youtube and expect people to watch and 'like' them.
Fresnel lens cooker
I'm hoping to boil water with this to melt snow this winter.
Upgrade, doesn't work at high noon, would burn the frame.
Water lilies, 3!
Garden June 2011
Wasp eye
My microscope won't quite go down to the amoeba level.
Agave, it dies after producing seed, reminds me of...
The tragic cuttlefish, after he deposits his sperm in/onto the female, his sperm depositor, uh, falls off, and then he dies. The female lays her eggs on the sea bottom, and yep, she dies too. Mother nature isn't too concerned with individuals, only the species.
Finally got hot June 20 or so.
Phrases, words I think should be outlawed or taxed heavily. "Limited only by your imagination", 'The possibilities are endless'. Who cares if they're endless, I'm not endless! 'awesome'. Hardly anything is 'awesome', the word is now meaningless. 'Sweet' for good. I'm not going to comment on this, it's just weird. It's bad enough there are no books to read anymore. I've owed the main library $14 for 5 years, no reason to pay.
The government is drug testing sewage! No joke, the state of Oregon 96 cities all tested 'positive' for methedrine.
Step right up by Tom Waits
1 of my favorite lyrics
Only 9 percent of British sailors in the 17-1800's were killed by the enemy, the rest:
50 percent disease scurvy, tb, pneumonia,alcoholism, typhus, yellow fever ,malaria
31 percent accidents- falls, snapping cables, wind, storms, lightning.
10 percent fire, sinking , wrecks
No wonder they used to abduct people to do this job
prickly_pear_buds
Alien pod plant
July 5, 1st good rain, a little early, still have a couple of severity shifts, change it to 'mildness'? Now I have to put the hail screens over the garden.
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