• One of the most difficult tasks economists have is to judge the cost of things. If I’m paying $3/dozen for eggs and you are paying $1/dozen, do your eggs or mine cost more?

    This gets even more complex when you start to consider currency differences.

    When I’m discussing past prices, I like to convert the cost at that time to hours of labor. How many hours of labor does it take to purchase this item.

    In 1976-77 A brand new Apple II would run you around $900. Today, I can put together a similar class of computer for around $1000. CPU, Memory, Disk, Motherboard, and case. In 1976, that $900 was somewhere around 150 hours of my labor, call it 4 weeks of full-time labor.

    Except that I was only working part-time. This means that my actual cost, saving everything, was going to be around 10 weeks.

    Today, that $1000 computer is going to cost me less than a week of labor, ignoring taxes.

    The problem with using hours of labor to compare costs is that the value of your labor varies greatly. At the time, I was working in a computer store, the first in the state. My friends were flipping burgers. I was making twice as much per hour as they were, sitting in front of a monitor typing.

    Whose labor value do we use? When comparing my grandfathers’ salary, I used historical records for machinists, which he was. As a skilled laborer, he was paid much more than the average.

    In 1986, to try to give people a more innate sense of how much the cost of living varied from location to location, and from time to time, The Economist published the “Big Mac Index.”

    Why would an index based on a fast food restaurants’ menu item be of any use?

    The answer is one of consistency and inclusion. If you were to compare a generic “hamburger” from location to location, you would get wildly changing values. That could be because of the cost of the burger to the restaurant, or the hamburgers could be different. Does one have a slice of American cheese on it and the other premium Swiss? Is one made from grass fed organic ground beef and the other from Sysco’s finest? Is one burger 4oz pre cook weight and the other 2oz?

    It makes a difference.

    A Big Mac is standardized everywhere. That stupid jingle is correct for every Big Mac ever made. McDonalds even standardizes the amount of sauce that goes on each sandwich.

    This means we are comparing apples to apples. Or, in this case, burger to burger.

    The second part is inclusion. We know what goes into each sandwich. Those base ingredients are source relatively locally.

    While the restaurant might be buying their meat from McDonalds, they are buying it from a location nearby. This means that the transportation expenses are in the price of the burger. This means that the cost of meat is in the price of the burger.

    The cost of each item that goes into the burger is included in the price it sells for.

    There is a cost of doing business, insurance, property tax, rental costs, undocumented payments to government organizations and NGOs (bribes), heating, cooling, building maintenance. These costs are all rolled into the final price of the sandwich.

    The final cost is that of labor. If the labor market is strong, workers will be making more, if it is weak, labor will be paid less.

    This also accounts for the cost of living in a particular area. In a location where it costs more to live, the workers will want more money per hour. While people in lower cost of living areas might want the extra pay, they are not going to get it.

    I interviewed for a job in California once. As part of the interview process, they flew me to San Diego for a week. I spent the week house shopping and interviewing. I finally found a home that I was willing to live in.

    Even though they were going to almost double my current salary, I would not have been able to afford a house in San Diego. I turned the job down.

    Using a Big Mac equivalent, we can get a better idea of what the true cost is for different locations.

    In Hawaii, the price of a Big Mac is $5.31 while in Mississippi, it is $3.91. This implies that it costs more to live in Hawaii than it does in Mississippi.

    As a final thought on the Big Mac index, I remember McDonalds advertising that you could buy dinner for a family of four for $5.00 and have change.

    That isn’t the case, anymore.

            

  • There’s a difference between thriving and surviving. I notice a trend among those who call themselves preppers. There are two sorts: those who are prepared to simply go on living, and those who prepare to survive the apocalypse. The first sort have plans for growing food, hunting, trapping, collecting water, providing continuing light, creating electricity in small amounts, and a lot more. The second sort treat it like it’s a weekend warrior camp where they get to play commando.

    I am among the first group. I hone my skills so that I can thrive, rather than survive. Yes, survival is important in the early days of any disaster. You have to make it through the mud slides or tornado or tsunami or whatever it is that went boom. The bottom line is, surviving is the easy part. Either you survive, or you don’t, and the answer to that question is going to come up pretty quickly. No matter how much you prep, there’s always going to be some kind of emergency that you didn’t think of that could wipe you out. Thriving, though… or, as I like to call it, “living,” is what it’s all about.

    After whatever immediate circumstances mess up our civilization (because let’s be serious, the Earth, our world, is going to go right on spinning in space… unless the emergency has to do with Vogon Constructor Fleets, but that’s another matter entirely), we’re going to want to focus on getting things built into some kind of new normal. I’m one of the type of folks who hope the new normal isn’t like the old normal. I’d like to see less government, and more growing of food. But that’s me.

    How do you prepare to thrive? Well, you get your life together in such a way that a disaster is only a momentary blip. I’ve chosen to do this by studying how medieval and early Colonial people survived in some of the most terrifying circumstances they’d ever encountered. I don’t need to re-invent the wheel, after all. I can see clearly how they did it. And then I practice those skills, over and over again.

    (more…)

            

  • Our Next AG?

    You have to wonder if Matt knew how much push back there would be? Regardless, he functioned as a fabulous stalking horse.

    Network Nerding

    So when is a cluster not a cluster nor a cluster f___, nor a f___ing cluster?

    When you are talking about OVN/OVS.

    OVN provides for a clustered database. This is what is used to control the OVS network mesh. The clustered database should exist on 3 or 5 different nodes.

    The OVS network mesh is a collection of individual nodes, running a virtual switch, that are meshed via tunnels. This is not a cluster.

    A network node requires OVS-switchd and a copy of the local OVSDB. That’s it.

    If you want OVN over the top, you need to add ovn-controller to the node, which talks to the OVN database cluster and the OVSDB.

    Once I got that through my dense head, this stuff started to make sense. I’m now to the point where I can bring up a 6 node system, 3 OVN controllers and 4 network nodes in just an hour or so. And it all just works. I’m busy finishing some documentation that I will publish.

    50,000 Words

    Ally has been going great guns on her next cookbook. November is national novel writing month.

    The goal is to write a 50,000 word first draft or part of a first draft in the month of November. You can then edit, add to, or finish your novel over the coming months.

    I’m proud of her. This will be the 5th year, I think I have that right, where she has made her 50,000+ words for the Month of November.

    Lever Guns

    I love my lever guns. Has anybody had hands on the new “modern” lever guns? By modern, I mean a lever gun firing a modern caliber out of a box magazine.

            

  • Conversations with friends can be difficult. One of my friends is burdened by the inequity of the world.

    Because he is conservative and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, his issues with inequity are putting him in serious mental anguish.

    What Has Been

    You struck out, westward, when you found a place to your liking, you made it your own. This included clearing the land, building your home, cultivating your ground, hunting, and surviving.

    If you were lucky, you might find an abandoned homestead to take over. You paid for that home with the sweat of your brow. Nothing was easy.

    In other cases, you might be close enough to civilization that you could purchase your home. Be that the wood to build it, or the house itself. You could also buy a house from the previous homeowner.

    As time went on, the areas around the towns became more built up. The houses within the towns became more valuable. People invested in their homes, making them still more valuable.

    Still, it was almost always a buyer’s market.

    With vast amounts of “free” land, land was cheap, if you didn’t want a big house, your house was cheap too.

    When you start seeing more expensive homes, they were passed down from father to son, as was the land. The family’s wealth was tied up in their land.

    It’s NOT Fair!

    But that means that those who came first got it easy! They got it cheap! There’s nothing left of ME!

    My grandparents bought their home in the early 1900s. If I recall correctly, they paid around $5k for it. According to the googler, the average house price in 1929 was $6k. In 1929, my grandfather was likely earning about $1700/year. So a house would cost about 4 years worth of labor.

    My house cost about one year of labor, the year I bought it. My house is actually cheaper than my grandfathers house. And my house is huge in comparison.

    My grandparents, with their three daughters, lived in a two bedroom, one-bath house. There was a living room and a dine in kitchen. There was a full, unfinished basement. My grandfather built the detached garage later. It had a massive porch that extended the entire width of the front.

    Grandpa added a back porch that was closed in to make it 3.5 seasons. Oh, there was a big mudroom off the back entrance.

    When we were looking at houses, our minimum requirement was two full baths, four bedrooms, large kitchen, dining room. What we ended up with was larger than that. And it was still cheaper than my grandparents’ home.

    It is fair.

    But they didn’t have to pay as much!

    It is all relative. My grandparents didn’t spend as much on entertainment. When they did go out, it was often very cheap dates. A nickle movie with popcorn and a soda was a 1/2 hour of labor. A movie with popcorn and soda is about 3/4 of an hour of labor today.

    My friend wanted to buy a house for 2 years of labor, while having “needs” that would cost him 5 to 6 years of labor. And being upset.

    His argument is that if they people that had come before were to stop being “evil” and “greedy”, there would be more houses.

    The issue is that the housing market is currently a seller’s market. The demand is higher than the supply. This means that sellers can demand more money. When they get to where they are going, they will have to pay more as well.

    Listening to people dancing at the “profit” they made selling their homes on Monday, and bitching about how unfair it is on Friday when they have to pay more for a new home, makes me giggle. I feel for them. I don’t understand why they don’t get it.

    If we were just to…

    We have a small lot, for the area, which backs on a few acres of forest. I do not want somebody to build a house right behind us. My options are to purchase the property behind us, risk it, or get the government to zone the land to stop new building.

    I would like to purchase the land outright. That would be the best option for us. The risk is fairly low, there isn’t much demand for new housing in our area. But going to the zoning board…, now there’s an idea.

    The wonder of the zoning board is that you can often convince the zoning board to put limits on the uses of property to protect the community.

    We will zone land as noncommercial to keep traffic out, we might zone an area for single family dwellings to give people a sense of space and property, we might zone an area for high density housing or even trailer parks.

    Zoning laws help protect the community from things like semi-trailers driving down the road in front of your house. The government put a US highway through my grandparent’s town. It was the street in front of their house. When they moved in, the road was a tree—lined boulevard. The first time I saw it, it was a four lane road with street parking on both sides and big rigs running through town all day and all night.

    Occasionally, we find zoning laws designed to protect our farm land. The farm up the road was on the market for 10 years. Nobody was willing (or able) to buy it. In the end, they were able to sell off about 5 acres of the 100+, which became 3 lots with big houses on it.

    Zoning laws kept that farm from becoming a huge apartment complex, or a subdivision.

    If we were just to allow people to build as many houses as densely as they want, then house prices would be low enough for me.

    Conclusion

    I’m wealthy, by world standards. By world standards, I’m part of the “1%”. Then again, so are you.

    The people of the United States are unbelievably wealth. The poorest of the poor in America are obese. They are not starving. Some might be hungry, but they are not starving.

    I’ve been in section 8 housing to service computers. At a time when large, flat screen TVs were running 1000 to 2000 dollars, they had three.

    When I was in high school, at one bus stop the “poor” kids would get off, they would run into their tar paper shacks. These were the kids who got to go to gym class as their first class. So they could use the showers.

    They were so poor that they didn’t have enough running hot water for showers. I don’t know if they had showers in those shacks.

    I do know that there were always two or three late model Cadillacs in the driveway.

    The “poverty line” for the United States is higher than the average income of most countries in the world. Even some 1st and 2nd world countries.

    If what you want as a home isn’t here, you need to look further afield or change your specifications.

    Crying over what has been isn’t going to change anything.

    Complaining that the people with wealth are “greedy” and “evil” isn’t going to change anything.

    If it is the government standing in the way of lower costs, then we can get the government out of the way. That doesn’t mean that all zoning laws are bad, some might be.

    In general, being upset that some people have things you want and are unwilling to give it up, or are willing to fight to protect their property or the value of their property, is only going to make you mad.

    Stop stressing over what others have. Take stock of what you do have and give thanks.

            
  • @notmelissavitelliKeep melting down

    ♬ original sound – MelissaVitelli

    This couple is part of the reason I found the LGB community on the Right. The lady in the back is the Trump person, and the one talking in front is her wife. Her wife did not vote for Trump. Her wife, however, is not an idiot.

    The reason I’m posting this because this is how it’s supposed to work. You can vote differently, think differently, even have different values (to a point), and still be loving partners. For a very long time, I did not back anything Right… and my partner still loved me. I still loved him. Now I have one partner who’s very Right, and one who’s moderately Left, and I love them both. It helps me hear outside my echo chamber, among other things, and it also makes it very clear to me that we often have the same goal but with different ideas on how to achieve them.

    Those who’ve chosen to end relationships over Trump winning are also choosing to enact the stupid Handmaid’s Tale stuff. They’re feeding right into it. They are training themselves to REact rather than to act. I find it difficult to watch. I also find it rather disgusting to watch women cut off their hair or say they’re going to purposefully gain weight “to be unattractive to men.” Excuse me, but there are women out there who have lost their hair because of disease, who have no choice of the matter, and they are still beautiful. There are women who are fat and they are beautiful. I’m fat, and I’m beautiful. 🙂 Those women who are doing the 4B movement are just douches. It’s horrendous, and so against every single thing the Left purports to be for.

     

            

  • Monday, I had an opportunity to visit the SIG Academy/SIG Experience Center.

    In the late 70s, I had a chance to visit NYC for the first time. That feeling of awe, looking up at the skyscrapers. Trying hard not to have pidgin droppings fall into our open mouths.

    That is sort of how I felt walking into the building. I spent a long time in the museum portion of the building. I was surprised at the lack of firearms from the 1700 and 1800 hundreds. Starting in the 1900s, they had a presence.

    One of the people who worked there was willing to discuss the things that are coming out of SIG for the military. One of the coolest is their short stroke piston operated rifles. Using a new caliber, they are getting good velocity out of shorter barrels.

    I want one of those belt feed rifles. They might be out of my price range.

    Part of the coolness factor is that with the dual action bars with the short stroke piston, they don’t need buffer tubes. This allows for true folding stocks. Or, something that was just FUD sick.

    They took this beautiful action and shoved it into a plastic “hunting” rifle. No pistol grip. No buffer tube. It doesn’t look like an AR platform in any way, unless you shove a 30 round magazine into it.

    I’m hoping for a version is 7.62×521(Win .308). That would be a nice rifle. No scaring the mundanes, packs a punch, light weight and reliable.

    Unfortunately, I got to looking at the display case full of pistols…

    Wouldn’t you know it, a cute little black guy followed me home.

    Now, I’m a firm believer in my 1911s. I love the feel of them. I love shooting them. They are tack drivers.

    I think I’ve found a new love. The P365 x macro.

    This guy fits my hand perfectly. It doesn’t point exactly like the 1911s, but close enough. The grip size is perfect, if it wasn’t, you just replace the back strap. The gun comes with three different back straps.

    The one I took home has an external safety, this is to standardize my manual of arms.

    On Tuesday, I went to the range and put rounds down range. FUN!!!

    I have three plates set up. 1/4 torso behind a round gong and a 1/2 torso to the side. One of my drills is to hit the head of the target hiding behind the gong, then hitting the 1/2 torso to the side, then back again.

    With 17 rounds in the magazine, the grip wasn’t double stack wide. It performed admirably. From first to last round, it was consistently ringing steel.

    The only downside is the magazines. You will want to use the loading tool to help load the magazine. Even with the tool, getting rounds 14 through 17 into the magazine was a pain. In some ways, it reminds me of loading the M3 grease gun magazines. Heavy springs to push those rounds reliably all the way.

    The other thing is that I don’t like the bright orange followers in the magazines. I haven’t looked, but I’m pretty sure I can find replacement followers.

    Now for the next bit of coolness, this thing has a drop in FCU. It is the FCU that is the registered firearm. This means that you can pay once for the FCU, then have multiple frames that you can put the FCU into.

    Want a sub compact? Buy the frame, barrel, and magazines, you are good to go.

    Want a full size? Buy the frame, barrel, and (maybe?) magazines, you are good to go.

    I am going to add more SIGs to my collection.

    Two is one, one is none. Have more.

            

  • Image you are a school bus driver. You’ve just picked up a load full of elementary school students to take them home.

    And they start singing “Joy To The World.” Every. Single. Day.

    That is how we tortured our bus driver.

            

  • It’s that time of year. Most of us enjoy a turkey over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. My family tends to do the “friendsgiving” thing on Saturday, but we also have a small gathering on Thursday afternoon. Turkey is ubiquitous. It’s also a bear to cook, if you ask many chefs. I’ve never understood that. My turkey always turns out moist, delicious, falling off the bone, and perfect. Maybe I’m just special? Never mind, I’m going to share my turkey secrets with you, so that you can also have a perfect turkey this Thanksgiving!

    Ingredients:

    • one turkey, 15-22 lbs
    • stuffing of choice
    • Bell’s seasoning
    • bacon or butter
    • fresh herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are popular)

    I prefer to make my turkey in a Westinghouse, because it frees up my oven for pies and other sides. The cooking method is exactly the same, though, no matter what container you use.

    To prepare your turkey, make sure that all the giblets are out of it. Check the main cavity, but also the space around the neck. Sometimes, butchers like to hide little gifts in there, and it’s unpleasant to realize that half way through the cooking process, when the plastic they’re wrapped in begins to melt. I like to rinse my turkey, inside and out, but that’s a personal choice. If you do rinse it, make sure that your sink area is clear of all items that might be besmirched, and do a bleach wipe afterward. Turkeys (and chickens) can carry salmonella and other stuff, and even a little of it lingering on a countertop is bad. Use a lint free towel to dry off the exterior of your turkey. Salt the inside of your turkey well by taking a handful of salt and rubbing it on all the interior surfaces. This isn’t meant to be caking it on. Think of it as like a dry rub for steaks.

    Add your stuffing. My family uses a variety of recipes depending on the year. We have a wild rice and sausage meat stuffing, and a more traditional bread and liver stuffing (nicknamed “heart attack stuffing” because of the “one egg per pound of turkey” rule used in it). If you don’t feel like making a stuffing, add the heel of a loaf of bread and one quartered onion to your turkey’s cavity. You can also add an apple or orange, if you like. Do not leave the cavity empty, as it changes how the turkey cooks. If you are in a rush, feel free to make up some “stove top stuffing” and jam it up inside there. I’m not going to judge you. Put your raw, stuffed turkey into the roaster pan or Westinghouse and tie the legs together with the tail tucked up in between them. Tuck the wings down into the bird’s underarms as best you can. Don’t panic if it doesn’t work; if the wings are a bit crispy at the end, they’ll be perfect for making turkey broth the day after Thanksgiving.

    Using your hands, loosen the skin over the breasts of the turkey. There are several ways you can proceed here. My personal method is to stuff part of my bread stuffing up into the breast area, where it will keep the breast meat moist and help it cook. However, if you’re not using a bread stuffing, you can instead rub the breast meat UNDER the skin with either bacon or butter. Leave little bits of it under the skin. Slide your fresh herbs up under the skin, too, if you like. I almost always slide in a sprig of rosemary and a few leaves of sage from my garden. These will flavor the breast meat, especially as that bacon or butter melts into it.

    Sprinkle the outer skin of your turkey with Bell’s seasoning and a bit of salt, pepper, and paprika (REAL paprika, not the red sawdust that passes for “paprika” in most stores). The skin should be evenly speckled with the seasoning, not covered entirely. Make sure to get some of that on the wings and legs, as well as the breast. Cover the turkey with a lid or tin foil, and put it into the cold oven or Westinghouse.

    Bring your oven or cooker to 450F. Add a bit of olive oil or bacon fat to the bottom of your turkey roaster or Westinghouse pan, to help keep your turkey from sticking. If you want it to be really rich, you can melt a stick of butter in there, but beware that it may smoke due to the high temperature. Once the oven is to temperature, let it sizzle for 15 minutes, no more. Turn the heat down to 300F, and walk away.

    You will not look at your turkey again until an hour before you think it’ll be ready. I mean, you can peek now and again, but you don’t need to baste or anything else. I will sometimes suck the fat out of the bottom of the roaster, if I think it’s getting too much, but that’s an individual thing.

    Turkey cooks for about 20 minutes per pound of turkey, when stuffed. That means if your turkey is 21 lbs, like mine, it’ll take about 7 hours (yes, SEVEN) to cook (20 minutes per pound, that’s 3 pounds per hour, divided into 21 lbs, which gives you an answer of 7). When you get to the bigger end of turkeys (over 18 lbs), the timing gets wiggly. I might only have my turkey in for six hours, so I have to watch it during the last couple of hours to make sure it isn’t overcooked. For anything under 18 lbs, though, you’re safe to count 20 minutes per pound of turkey. Always start checking on it an hour before you think it’ll be ready, though.

    Having a meat thermometer on hand is really handy. I use mine all the time. Turkey must be between 160 and 165F internally to be properly cooked. Turkey also continues to cook and rise in temperature for a full 20 minutes after it comes out of the oven. I always aim for 160F, knowing it’ll go up more as it rests before I slice it up.

    If you don’t have a meat thermometer, or don’t care to use one, you can also do the “leg wiggle” method of testing. As you near the end of your estimated cooking time, wiggle one of the legs gently. You may need to pierce the skin if there’s a lot of liquid inside, which is fine. Your turkey leg should be very loose, almost coming off, when it’s ready. If your turkey leg comes off in your hand when you go to wiggle it, it’s definitely ready. Don’t panic if it does… this method of cooking will result in it not being dry even if you’re a little over in your cooking time.

    Turkey MUST rest for a minimum of 15 minutes before you cut into it. Take it out of the oven, and out of the roaster. Place it on a large cutting board. I usually place a handful of towels I don’t much care about underneath the board, because the juices will run when you start cutting, and it’s easier to clean up if it’s all just drained into a towel. The resting time allows much of the liquid to be reabsorbed into the turkey meat itself, making it taste incredibly moist and delicious. It also lets it finish cooking. While you’re waiting, make some gravy with the pan drippings!

    Don’t forget to take your stuffing out before you carve the turkey. You can do that at the 15 minute mark, if you like.

    I usually cut the turkey up onto two platters: one dark, and one light meat. The breast is the most difficult part to cut up, in my opinion. It’s always at an odd angle. Take a few pictures of the turkey before you start cutting it up, and then carefully (using silicon heat pads if necessary) remove the two breasts and put them flat on the cutting board. It should be fairly easy, by cutting along the breast bone and then just gently pulling downward. Once on the cutting board, your turkey breast meat will slice up quickly and neatly. After that, you can pull off the legs, thighs, wings, and whatever dark meat you can get at. I can’t stress how useful silicon gloves are, because you can clean them in a way that fabric ones can’t be, which means you can grasp the various parts of the turkey more easily.

    I know it seems like a lot of work. It really isn’t. Most of my turkey time is spent doing all the other assorted foods that go along with turkey. We usually eat around 5pm or so, which means I’m not getting up at the crack of dawn to try and do a gyn exam on my turkey before I’ve had coffee. I can get up at a reasonable hour, and set it all in motion by 10am. Once you’ve done this a time or two, it’ll become second nature. It’s such an easy way to prep the turkey.

    A few notes:

    • Don’t pre-stuff your turkey the night before. You can make the stuffing ahead of time and have it ready to go, but letting it sit overnight inside the turkey will be a sure way of getting everyone to the ER in record time. Don’t do it.
    • Do invest in silicone gloves, a decent carving knife (NOT an electric knife), and the Bell’s seasoning.
    • If you use bread stuffing, REALLY stuff it in there. Cram it in. Every chef I’ve watched on television goes on and on about how you should never over stuff your turkey For Reasons. Ignore them. They’re wrong. Over stuffing your turkey will result in the turkey disjointing itself during the roasting process. This makes carving it up later SO much easier. There’s something special about opening the turkey roaster and just looking at your disjointed turkey, held together only by skin.
    • Ignore those stupid pop up timer things that come in some of the turkeys. They often don’t work, and sometimes they pop early. Just pull them out and toss them.
    • Remember to defrost your turkey, folks. None of this will work with a frozen turkey. Don’t try and cook a turkey from frozen, please. Even if you get one that says it CAN be cooked from frozen, just don’t. Whole turkeys should be slow roasted to preserve the moistness and flavor. Here’s a link to a handy defrosting schedule.
            

  • I’ve had a slow leak in the right front wheel of my truck for the last year. When I went to have it fixed, I found that it wasn’t the tire. It was the wheel that was leaking.

    Leaking tire? $20. Leaking wheel? $150+

    Well, that slow leak isn’t slow anymore. Ally asked for a ride to the store. When we got to the truck, the left front tire was flat.

    I could have pulled the air hose to the truck, filled the tire, moved the care to the garage and changed the tire there. But…

    I decided that I was feeling old, so I was going to change the tire using only the in vehicle tools.

    The tools were not where I expected to find them. Which makes sense. I looked for them under the left rear passenger seat. It was empty.

    You don’t put the tools on the left. That would have the driver’s door open for an extended period of time with the driver not paying attention to traffic. Of course, it is under the right rear passenger seat.

    The package consists of a hook on a rod, 2 straight rods, the tire iron, and a column jack.

    I put the hook and extensions together, then went to find the magic hole to lead to the tire let down. Do you know it is designed to be done in the dark, with your eyes closed? There is a cup designed to accept the hook end. Just feed the rod in until it can go any further, rotate counterclockwise.

    This old man was under the truck looking. Trying to find that stupid hole to feed in the rod. I got it done. I got the tire out.

    Then it was time to do the tire change. A trick for youngsters, break the nuts free before you lift the tire off the ground. Much easier when the tire doesn’t spin.

    In the course of breaking the lug nuts free, I manged to break a stud. Not a huge issue. Just another one of those things.

    In the end, I used the car jack to get the tire off the ground. It wasn’t difficult. Surprisingly so. I used the tire iron to break the lug nuts free. After the one stud broke, I did as well.

    I finished using a 1/2″ breaker bar and a floor jack.

    In the end, I felt like I was able to do the task with the tools at hand.

    Practice Your Skills, Even the simple ones

    Is this something I could have done faster and easier with my impact wrench, floor jack and such? Yes. But I would not have practiced a skill I want to have. Practice, practice, then practice some more.

    Story Time

    Years ago, mom took the VW Micro bus in to the tire shop to get new tires put on. She was instructed to tell the staff that she wanted the lug nuts torqued to a specific setting. Per the manual.

    When they were done changing the tires, she asked, “Did you torque them as specified?” To which the manager replied, “Of course we did.”

    Mom got the bus and drove it around to the entrance. Took the tire iron from the roadside tool kit and went back inside.

    She told the manager to come take on lug nut off and replace it on each wheel. The manager shrugged and called one of his guys to take the car back into the bays to do what was requested.

    “No, you do it with this”, holding up the tire iron.

    He tried, was unable to do so. Mom explained that she needed to be able to change the tire if she was alone with her kids. That she wasn’t going to be able to call him to do it for her when on a road trip to Wisconsin.

    The manager “got it”. He sent the bus back in and they torqued the lug nuts to spec.

            

  • Doing work at the Fort is wonderful. It is also an exercise in interpreting what you are seeing vs what you expect to see.

    When you look at the different items in the Fort, it is often surprising to find that they are “modern” items. We laugh when people pick up the wooden cup because stamped on the bottom is “Pier One”.

    It is good enough at a distance.

    We use the tools at the Fort. We use the spinning wheels from the 1700s, we use the warping board from the same time. We use all these things. And occasionally, it isn’t really that old.

    One of the ladies that volunteers is an excellent spinner. She has left her person spinning wheel at the Fort. On my first walk through, I was examining the wheels to see if they needed fixing.

    Hers took me aback. It had metal bearing surfaces. Then I took a step back and realized that the entire wheel is no more than 20 years old.

    Somebody brought me a sickle to sharpen. On of the volunteers was using it to cut some longer vegetation. This is the type of task that worries me. If this thing is 300 years old, I can ruin it by touching a stone to it. I was asked to proceed.

    A few minutes of working on the blade with the stone showed that it was a modern blade. It was both a relief and a disappointment.

    The Froe

    One of the workhorses of an older shop is the Froe. It is a 12″ blade with the sharpened edge away from you. You hold it by the handle to position the froe against the end grain of a log. You then rap the back of the blade with a wooden mallet.

    With a bit of work, you can split a long, straight piece off the log that can be turned into something else. Such as barrel staves.

    I’ve known of them for years. I only got a chance to handle one a few months ago. I was surprised at how thick the blade was. I was expecting a knife thickness. Instead it was 3/8+ inches thick.

    When I set the blade against the log, to split of a slap, hit it hard with the wood mallet, the damn blade bounced back at me.

    The blade was so dull that it didn’t even pretend to enter the wood.

    45 minutes later, it was sharp enough to use. And I was worried that I was modifying a piece of history.

    Then two weeks ago, I received permission to take the froe home to properly sharpen it. Instead of taking it home, the blacksmith Sam sharpened it with a file.

    As we worked on the blade, it became obvious that it wasn’t from the 1700s. It had a wield repair, the fold wasn’t forge wielded. It was a reproduction that really wasn’t a working tool. Close, but not really.

    Sam has been tasked to make a reproduction froe that I can use at the Fort without worrying about breaking something 100s of years old.

    He made a beautiful blade. It looks like a froe blade, it is not.

    A froe is used by reefing on the handle to twist the blade in the wood. By twisting the blade, you can guide the split.

    That is why it is so thick. That is why the handle is so long.

    Sam made this blade from some scrap he had around. It is 3/32’s thick. This is not thick enough. The eye is not long enough. This does not qualify as a reproduction.

    What it is, is a safety splitter for Ally. When you are starting a fire, you need kindling. She uses a splitting stand.

    You put your stick of split firewood in the mouth of this thing, resting on the fixed blade. Then you wack the back side with another piece of wood, driving the wood onto the blade and splitting it.

    This is much safer than holding the stick with one hand while swinging a blade at it with the other. Even people that are good at this will sometimes make mistakes. Mistakes that can be life-threatening.

    This splitting gizmo is a very modern tool. It will pass, but it never existed in the 1700s.

    The froe that Sam made will work perfectly at the task of splitting kindling from a firewood stick. With one hand, balance the stick on an end, hold it there. Use the other hand to position the froe blade where you want it. Your offhand is on the handle of the froe. The blade is on the stick of firewood. You can let go of the stick.

    Pick up your wooden mallet and drive the froe into the stick of firewood, splitting it.

    As long as you are driving it straight into the wood, this tool will work. And it looks great.

    I do have to make a handle for it. Not difficult with the wood lathe.

    Markings

    When I or Sam make reproductions, we mark the reproductions with our marks. If they would not have had makers marks, we hide them. We’ve given our marks to the Fort. This means that they can look at one of our reproductions, 30 years from now, and know it was made as a reproduction.