Grab-bag

Running notes

4.18 miles in 60 minutes. I was shooting for 70 seconds at 6.0mph and then 110 seconds at 3.0mph for recovery. That pencils out to 2.33 miles at 6.0mph and 1.83 miles at 3.0mph. Bpm didn't hit 140 until 20 minutes into the session.

I was on my "favorite" treadmill. The only problems I experienced were right hamstring cramping between 10 minutes in and 20 minutes in. 

Livestock

ISA Brown and Barred Rock pullets

Rabbits, both female. Creatively named "Black" and "White". Unbred, female rabbits are the original "stock option". They are called "does" because one does not need to exercise the option.

 

The bunnies are already at Southern Belle's "farm". The chicks will be heading over there in short-order.

The Charlotte, Michigan Family-Farm-Home has $1 off on one-week old Cornish-Rock meat birds, if anybody is interested in them. They have at least 70 of them when I picked up Southern Belle's chicks.

Sore Throats

Kubota had "something" and the symptom that caused him the greatest discomfort was the sore throat. 

The key point is not the brand but the ingredients.

Several brands offer "max" versions that have 15mg of Benzocaine per lozenge.

Kubota was impressed by the pain relief.

A question for the folks who work in food pantries

I assume that there is some variation in the food preferences of various constituencies who rely on food-banks.

I remember working in a restaurant and one group ALWAYS selected "Orange Drink" over all other soft-drinks. Another example is that younger people almost always choose "American Processed Food-like" slices when ordering sandwiches at Subway, with the hip, 40 year-olds ordering Provolone or Pepper-Jack and the mature, senior citizens being more likely to order Cheddar.

The reason I am floating the question is that food-banks that receive Federally subsidized foods are prohibited from denying food to anybody, even if that person had already visited 8 other food-banks that week or was highly selective and only took the high-cost items. I assume that they are not forced to give food to people who are violently drunk or actively over-dosing.

Personally, one group who I have a great deal of empathy for are the older senior citizens whose purchasing power has been crushed by many years of inflation. Unlike younger people, getting a job (or a second job) is not an option.

The question on the table is "What food items are eagerly sought by older senior citizens but are not preferred by people who, conceivably, could be working?

My (limited) information is that list includes Campbell's condensed soups, canned beans and canned peas, boxed Jiffy muffin mixes, Hamburger-Helper type skillet boxed foods, Rice-A-Roni/Spanish Rice type foods, instant Oatmeal, boxed Jello, cottage cheese, creamy peanut butter.

These are foods that were very popular in the 1960s and 1970s. They require some preparation as they are not ready-to-eat. They are fairly dense in terms of nutrition and they are soft/easy to chew foods. On the downside, many of them are high to very-high in sodium

What are your boots-on-the-ground opinions?

I think more people would be willing to donate food to food-pantries if they had some kind of assurance that most of it would go to people who really needed it. Since the people working at the pantries cannot exercise that control, it must be done by the selection of what is donated.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Laszlo Neogrady born 1896 in Budapest, Hungry and died in 1962.

His only weakness as a painter is that this seems like an improbable location for a water fall.

 A tip of the old fedora to the tireless Lucas Machias for suggesting this artist.

Lent

Blogging will be light for the next 6 weeks or so.

Lent lasts for 40 days various commitments Mrs ERJ and I made will absorb our Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Spring planting season keeps whispering seductive promises in my ear.

Hiccups in the flow of government grants introduced air-bubbles into the flow of food and diapers to people in need. We feel called to help as we can. For instance, we will pull our annual giving forward into the next 60 days to breach-the-gap.

Unfortunately, we are now in a highly politicized and divisive environment and some readers will expect me to slam certain politicians.

I really don't want to go there, but is it really any different than a military force launching missiles from the grounds of a hospital or school and the opposing force flattening the launch site? Who owns the blame?

It has long been common legislative practice to "bundle" projects with dubious public support (like chemical castration and genital mutilation of minors) with apple-pie and motherhood projects like feeding the hungry and providing clothing for the poor. How is that NOT the budgetary equivalent of terrorists using school-children as human shields? How can that situation be painlessly unwound when the funding is so tightly coupled?

All of that is above my pay-grade. Mrs ERJ and I will do what we can to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted and give hospitality to the weary. We try to be flexible, and one of the things that has to "flex" is the amount of time I spend on the blog.

Karma and Long-Shadows

Late in 1981, I rode the escalator from the second floor to the main floor of the engineering building where I worked. The building was almost deserted as it was late in the afternoon.

At the bottom of the escalator, I hooked to the right to one of the east/west hallways of the building. I saw Art Weideman walking east and he was clearly unaware of my existence.

Art was a middle-managers and managed the "Transmission Engineers" for our product lines. In my mind he was at least seventy-years-old (although, in retrospect he might have only been in his fifties). He was about 5'-7" tall, bald with a few remaining wisps of gray hair, his face was lined with wrinkles and he was portly (by the standards of the day).

Art was wearing a dark-brown suit that looked like a "loaner" from a funeral parlor but had probably been chosen due to the color's ability to absorb random splashes of Dexon and 85-140W lubricating fluids and not show.

I saw Art bend over and pick up a random bit of trash...maybe a gum wrapper or a paperclip...from the industrial-grade carpet. He put it in his pocket and kept walking.

He didn't do it because he thought anybody was watching.

He didn't do it because it was his job or because somebody told him to do it.

As near as I could tell, he did it because he was proud of where he worked and it hurt him to see the place be less that what it could be. The stray trash, even as small as it was, made it seem like people didn't care. Art cared. It was within his power to make it better and so he did.

Clearly, that casual (but not trivial) action by Mr Weideman made an impression on me that was out-of-proportion its physical dimensions.

Men like Art Weideman kept the lamp of Western Civilization lit, doing-the-right-thing without stopping to perform economic calculations.

What is in it for me?

I am old-fashioned. I find that term very offensive.

It reduces human interactions into a single dimension as if it were possible to roll all of the benefits into a single, quantifiable number.

How do you quantify Art's bending over to pick up the gum wrapper? Here it is, almost 45 years later and I still remember it. It still informs my actions.

There is also a laziness to the question "What is in it for me?". Isn't it the job of the person who is asking that question to answer it? How can I possibly know what your internal value system is? Maybe the benefit I consider to be the most trivial is actually the benefit that is the most important to you.

The question has the feel of a demand "You dance until I am happy" when the path to happiness is for the person making the demand to dance. It is not a task that lends itself to out-sourcing.

Hayek

Hayek and the economists of the Austrian School contend that Western Civilization is the distillation of "What is in it for me".

It is paralyzing to attempt to calculate all of the secondary and tertiary effects. They height the farmer mows his alfalfa field impacts the number of grasshoppers which impacts the number of Sandhill Cranes which impacts the avian fecal content of the hay which impacts the likelihood of a milch cow getting avian flu which impacts a community's likelihood of being exposed to a novel strain of the flu which impacts it resilience in the face of threats of invasion by outside forces which....

The wisdom gained through hundreds of billions of lived experiences is passed down to us through the miracle of Survivor Bias. That wisdom is captured like a spider captured in amber.

We implement the wisdom of Western Civilization when we do-the-right-thing, even when there is no visible payoff.

Running notes: Not So Hot

Unlike the typical social-media "influencer", I am going to share times when things did not turn out well.

Frankly, I learn more from my mistakes than from when things go perfectly. Not sharing my mistakes or embarrassments is both a lie-of-omission and it deprives all of my readers of a chance of an inexpensive (for you) lesson.

***

I went in for my treadmill session this morning fully expecting a GREAT "run". Today was the two-week mark and I fully expected to have nearly all of the restart issues worked out.

I was disappointed.

"My" treadmill at the gym already had somebody using it, so I had to use a different piece of equipment. And therein lies the story.

I picked a treadmill that was directly beneath a ceiling fan. Being a fat, old man of Central European and Irish extraction I sweat. Sometimes I sweat a lot! I thought some additional ventilation might be just-compensation for not getting my preferred treadmill.

As noted in an earlier blog-post, I was already feeling kind of beaten up. I have been doing a lot. Nevertheless, I had high hopes.

Right from the beginning I was struggling. My legs had no spring to them. My core had aches-and-pains. I was huffing-and-puffing I was really having to work right from the beginning.

My bpm zoomed up right at the first 6.0 mph interval (it usually takes 3-to-6).

I dropped the incline from 1.0% to 0.5% and I was still struggling.

I bagged it at 30 minutes/2.0 miles.

One the way back to the locker room, your humbled scribe stopped by the desk where the staff sits and I commented that the incline on machine I was using seemed significantly steeper than my normal machine. I asked how often they validate the leveling.

The man at the desk said they did it every night.

And then the woman at the desk added...."Some of our machines don't drop back to zero after a client finishes his session."

"SAY WHAT?" I replied.

"Yeah, I have to go up 5% and then manually run it back down to the percent I really want" she elaborated.

Sounds about like what you have to do with a lathe to deal with "slop" in the bed-screws.

I know it sounds like I am making excuses, but my dismal performance would be understandable if I had hopped on a machine that had been running at 2% grade and did not re-zero. Then I added another 1% and then dropped down 0.5% for a net 2.5% grade.

0.5% grade SHOULD be visibly imperceptible. It is a RCH less than a quarter-inch of vertical in 48" of horizontal (useful info if you are using a 48" long bubble-level). If you can see it then it is more than a 0.5% grade.

Tobacco

A useful exercise for refining one's priorities is to play "What if you only had one..."

• One Watt of power.
• One hank of baling twine.
• One bullet.
• One square-foot of growing space.

How would you use that extremely limited resource? In the case of power, you might decide that an smartphone that combines accurate time, communication, calculator functions and photos is the first, best-use of power. There are hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of people in India and Africa that would agree with that.

The twine might go to snares.

The bullet for self-defense

The square-foot of growing space would likely go to "medicinal" plants or to "flavoring".

Community Gardens

I started a community garden a couple of decades ago. As is my custom, I over-analyzed the issue.

In inner-cities, a common community garden plot was about 30 square-feet. In cities (but not the most congested regions) it would be three times that size. In the suburbs, maybe 400 square-feet. In places where subsistence gardening is a way of life and not just a passing fad, 2000-to-4000 square-feet.

The 30 square-feet gardens tended to be very heavy on green, leafy flavoring herbs, hot peppers, garlic and green-onions. Likely, there would also be a cherry-tomato plant planted on the north side where it would not shade the shorter plants. Lots of bang-for-the-buck, or vitamins-per-square-foot in this case.

How does tobacco align with "medical" and "flavoring"?

Medicinal

Let us suppose that approximately 10% of the US population is under supervised, medical care for mental/emotional health issues at any given time. Furthermore, let us suppose that 30% of the population has been under supervised, medical care for mental/emotional health issues at some point in their lives.

What happens if the lights go out?

What happens if Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdone, Paxil, Lexipro and Adderal et al become unobtainium?

Tobacco is not a very "good" drug. It has side effects. It is addictive. It has carcinogenic chemicals in it. 

On the plus side, if you can grow tomato plants you can grow tobacco. Patients are very good about "taking it". And it does help people "regulate" and to deal with stress and it is an appetite suppressant.

Little known factoid, "smoking" is a significant "self-medicating" symptom mental health professionals consider when diagnosing. People who are struggling are drawn to tobacco use because it is a comfort.

Insecticide

Nicotine is an insecticide with acceptable mammalian toxicity. If the lights went off, any loss of food production will really hurt. Even if you had the foresight to stockpile Carbaryl, Bifren and Permethrin, you will eventually run out, especially if you share it with your family, friends and neighbors...

How are you going to control head-lice* after you run out? How about potato beetles? Wireworms? 

Tobacco to the rescue! Two tobacco plants can produce more seeds in one season than you and one-hundred of your closest friends will use in a lifetime. But first you have to have the seeds.

There is an astronomical amount of "leverage" in growing a small patch of tobacco.

Snoose

Rustica Limonka is a Nicotiana rustica strain that was bred/selected in Eastern Europe.

Kubota enjoys using "Smokeless tobacco'.

He has given me permission to try to replicate his favorite brand of commercial "dip". 1.2 ounces of "Snoose" costs him $6.

Generic, moist dippin' tobacco has the following ingredients (by weight)

• Water
• Tobacco (not even the first ingredient so less than 50% by weight!!!)
• Salt (hygroscopic, flavor)
• Natural and Artificial Flavors (Peppermint Schnapps, for instance)
  
• Ethyl Alcohol (Peppermint Schnaps)
• Propylene Glycol (slows drying, increases shelf-life. Typically 2%)
• Sodium Carbonate (pH buffer to slow nicotine solubility. Baking soda is an acceptable substitute)

Given a price of $20/pound for cured, Burley tobacco and 27 "cans" of finished snoose per pound, that works out to a retail value of $160 for an 700% mark-up.

If I GREW the tobacco, then it is almost free. Nicotiana rustica tends to run higher in nicotine than  N. tobaccum species and does not require a long growing season. So, N. rustica it is. And if I let the two best growing individual plants go to seed, then I will have plenty to share.

"No Deal" is better than a "Bad Deal"

Zelensky went "weasel" in front of TV cameras while negotiating with Trump. It did not end well for Zelensky.

From Zelensky's standpoint, he is running out of road to kick the can down. He is running out of Ukrainian cannon-fodder (to be expanded upon later) to feed the Russian killing machine. He is living hand-to-mouth on war-time consumables.

The US green-lighted the Russian invasion when Biden told the Russians the US would tolerate minor incursions by Russians on Ukrainian soil. The Russians did not need any encouragement. Then the US media and politicians acted all surprised and horrified as it happened.

Zelensky knows that he will likely have a short lifespan after he gives up the reins-of-power and have his Trotsky moment. At this point, he is a one-trick pony. He bet all of his poker chips on the war and he has to keep the war going. 

Both he and Trump know that if American combat boots hit Ukrainian soil and one soldier or Marine dies, then it will be almost impossible for the US to gracefully extricate itself from the war on the Asian land-mass. That would be very much in Zelensky's favor. It would suck for all Americans.

Committing US troops is a "sticky decision". Once made it is very complicated to reverse.

So, at the last seconds in the Rare-Earths-for-Munitions deal, Zelensky DEMANDED American combat troops.

I am not sure Zelensky had any other viable options. The "demand" was probably floated early in the negotiations for the deal and instantly shot-down. Zelensky NEEDS those troops, so he thought he could bull-through at the last moment, figuring that Trump would cave to save the deal (and face). Zelensky rolled the dice and didn't get lucky, this time.

Regarding running out of cannon-fodder. I was surprised to learn that the Ukrainian military draft applies to men 25 years of age (and older). The idea of lowering the age to fill the manpower gap has been floated but not acted upon. So Zelensky is unwilling to commit HIS country's 18-through-24 year-olds but he has no qualms about demanding that the United States sacrifice OUR 18-through-24 year-olds to save his skin. Pretty bad optics there, Volodymyr.

One a more cheerful note

Nicotiana rustica "Limonka"

 

Mausers

An auction with many "Mausers" for sale. There are many other firearms offered at this auction. I used the search function to show JUST the Mausers.

The "Mauser" rifle is a fine, military rifle with countless models. In very rough terms, any models after 1895 are anywhere from "pretty good" to "very good" as tough, knock-around rifles.

At one time, there was a large cottage industry converting WWII "bring-backs" to sporting rifles. They were often rechambered to cartridges that were in demand.

Nowdays, it is much less expensive to buy an entry-level Savage or Mossberg rifle that is chambered in a commercially available cartridge and already tapped for a scope mount. The commercial rifle will also have a "better" trigger.

That said, those old war-horses can sometimes be had at a discount, especially if they are chambered in something unusual.

You can click on the image to embiggen it

For example, at the time of this writing there is a Mauser model of 1898 with a 16.5" barrel that is chambered in a "wildcat" called 35-06. Normally, I would shy away from "wildcat" chamberings but the 35-06 is now a commercially available and is known as the .35 Whelen. This rifle, which would be a spiffy brush rifle is currently going for $25.

That is a screaming-deal.

For the newbies, I would stay away from the 1891 Mauser, the "parts gun" and the Spandau .43 (unless you collect black powder cartridge rifles). Any 8mm rifles are good-enough (except the "parts gun") to shoot space-aliens, stray water-buffalo and run-away reindeer about to mow down granny.

Some of the bores might be pretty rough, but if you are shooting with the iron sights and the original trigger, even barrels that look like ten miles of rough road will often shoot good-enough, that is, not much worse that a shiny barrel.

Dragon-asp

Unless something unexpected happens, there will not be an East of Paris segment dropping tomorrow morning.

Life happened.

Physical conditioning

I hurt. Nothing debilitating, but my muscles hurt. My joints hurt. I am tired. God willing, it will be temporary.

The last time I ran on the treadmill I was tearing it up. Pride goeth before fall.

Twenty minutes into the session, I noticed that I had not dialed in elevation. It has been my practice to run with a 1% grade (one foot of elevation with every 100 feet of horizontal, or at 6.0mph, one foot of elevation every 9 seconds). In theory, it is to account for things like wind-resistance, sandy surfaces that absorb energy and so on. In practice, it means that when I actually run on real ground, I might actually out-perform expectations, which is a huge emotional boost.

I decided to compensate for the "easy" first 1/3 by adding 10 seconds to my running period and subtracting 10 seconds from my recovery. So I added the 1% grade and did that for the remaining 40 minutes.

Maybe not my brightest move.

New livestock

Two meat-breed rabbit (does) were added to the ERJ menagerie. The plan is to "gift" them to the Handsome Hombre/Southern Belle household as pets. If things go into the septic tank, they will have the foundation stock to turn forage into meat.

These young does are not particularly socialized, but the fellow selling them to me said that domestic rabbits are social animals and if a human always brings something edible...even if it is a single dandelion leaf, they will be very accepting of humans.

Another reason to select "meat rabbits" is because they aren't pets. That means that they come from a gene pool where the breeding stock was ruthlessly culled for any congenital issues. Consequently, they should be relatively trouble-free. In the livestock biz, they are very likely to be "easy keepers".

Scion wood

My plan is to start cutting scion tomorrow. My high-runners will be Liberty apple, Harrow Sweet and Korean Giant pears. They are sort of like the girl next door. If you can't decide which high-maintenance bombshell to take out (or you cannot decide what kind of aggravation you can tolerate) on Friday night, then that sweet, freckle-faced girl next door is mighty attractive.

Auto-immune diseases

EBL mentioned Celiac Disease in the comments of an earlier post.

Celiac is usually considered an auto-immune disease (or syndrome).

As a group, auto-immune diseases exhibit one of the very largest gender disparities of all "groups" of diseases. That is, of course, outside of cervical cancer and prostate cancer.

Some auto-immune diseases impact women SEVEN times more than men. The average for auto-immune diseases is probably about FOUR times more likely. Not only do auto-immune diseases hammer women more frequently, they tend to manifest much earlier in life for women and degrade their quality-of-life for longer periods than they do for men.

"Celiac/gluten intolerance" is weird because some people diagnosed with "Celiac" can eat wheat products made from wheat grown in Italy.

The knee-jerk assumption is that US and Canadian grown wheat MUST be Genetically Modified (Franken-food). To the best of my knowledge, no genetically engineered wheat is cleared for food in the United States or Canada. Unlike corn and soybeans, controlling the pollination in populations of wheat is difficult.

A more likely culprit is that some regions of the US that grow wheat are more humid than in Italy. Also, we tend to fertilize more heavily and have denser stands which dry-down more slowly than in Italy. That means US grown wheat has more mold and fungi issues AND we are more likely to spray wheat with fungicides.

If we were REALLY concerned about "women's health", then more resources would be directed at Celiac, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, IBS, MS, RA, Psoriasis and Connective Tissue Diseases. It is my perception that far more resources have been directed toward HIV/AIDS and reproductive issues than addressing auto-immune issues.

Evangelism

A friend recently reached out and shared that he was feeling "pressured" to knock on doors and "push" Christianity by his church.

He attends a small, Bible-based church and "pushing" is contrary to how he is wired.

I suggested that he read 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 and Romans Chapter 12.

We have different gifts. Some of us are extroverts and are energized by "selling".

Some of us are planners.

Some of us don't feel called to touch the lives of stadiums filled with people. Some of us don't "friend" wide, but we "friend" deeply.

Some of us "sell" Christianity by being supremely at ease and comfortable within our skin. People look at those Christians and instinctively know "I want what she has".

I think Paul was trying to tell us in Corinthians and Romans that there is not one-right-way to follow Christ. It is almost like God anticipated that this conflict would come up.

Kentucky Rifles at the Battle of Saratoga

Painting of British General John Burgoyne circa 1766 showing "dress" of a British General

General Morgan called on Timothy Murphy at the Battle of Saratoga (October 7) and said, "That gallant officer is General Fraser. I admire him, but it is necessary that he should die, do your duty." Murphy scaled a nearby tree, (sometime after 2:30 in the afternoon) took careful aim with his Kentucky Rifle at the extreme distance of 300 yards, and fired three times. The first shot was a close miss, the second grazed the general's horse, and with the third, Fraser tumbled from his horse, shot through the stomach. General Fraser died that night.

...according to Luzader a frequently told story claiming it to be the work of Timothy Murphy, one of Morgan's men, could be a 19th-century fabrication.

It seems odd that this story includes no details about the rifle (when it was made, who the rifle-maker was, the caliber or amount of powder the shooter used) that made this near-miraculous shot because the rifle was as much of a hero as the shooter.

"Kentucky Rifles" (the vast majority of which were made in Pennsylvania) were a quantum leap in evolution from the rifles that were used on the European Continent where there were wild boars, distances were short, and labor (to carry heavy gear) was abundant.

Given the expense and difficulty in obtaining lead and quality gun-powder, the rifle-makers kept decreasing the diameter of the bore to conserve those supplies. To maintain effectiveness against deer-sized animals (which included humans, wolves and most black bears) the length of the barrel was increased to squeeze every last foot-per-second out of the powder charge.

Given the corrosive residue left by black powder, the (sometimes) casual cleaning and the primitive chemistry of the "grease" used to protect against corrosion, the corroded barrel of the rifle was "saved" by boring out to a larger diameter and re-rifling it. So a rifle might start out its life as a 0.32 inches in diameter (8mm) which was marginal for deer but optimum for treed raccoons and possum and turkeys. Then it might be bored out to 0.36". And then 0.40" and so on.

As a frame-of-reference, 0.32" rifle might "eat" 45 grain lead balls and 30 grains of black powder vs a 0.50" rifle which would use 180 grain lead balls and 80 grains of black powder. It is worth noting that there were far more raccoons and squirrels in the "wild" than there were white-tail deer. There were also fewer regulations that prohibited the us of dogs to find your dead deer afterwards.

One problem with lighter weight, round-balls is that they lose velocity quickly and have rainbow-like trajectories at longer ranges.

For example, in the story at the start of this post, a 64 grain 0.35" round-ball with a muzzle velocity of 1900fps (which is scooting right along for a black powder load) would have dropped to 470fps at 300 yards. Additionally, the bullet is dropping 10" with every 15 feet of forward travel which has implications for moving targets AND range estimation. Every change of 1 mile-per-hour in the speed of the cross-wind (think gusts in mid-afternoon, here) results in 13" change in the point-of-impact.

A 128 grain 0.44 round-ball fares slightly better with a velocity at 300 yards of 565 fps and with 10" of drop every 20 feet change in range. Even more worrisome is that even a 1 mile-per-hour change in the speed of the crosswind would change the point-of-impact by 10".

It is possible that the incident happened exactly the way it was written, but many factors would have to be exactly right for a 0.35" round-ball at 470 fps to penetrate through a wool blouse (and possibly belt or overcoat), skin and thence deeply enough to cause death in 12 hours. The chances of a 0.44" ball at 565 fps seems more likely (although still far from a sure-thing).

All things considered, this would still be a challenging shot at 200 yards but it would be significantly easier to accept the terminal effects and the chances of a "hit" at that kind of range.

And very few stories become less impressive with each telling.

And you thought pineapple on pizza was a travesty

I don't "get" the attraction of cauliflower. I suspect that some people are incapable of smelling certain chemicals in it, much like some people cannot smell the effect of asparagus on the smell of urine.

The first time I was offered a bowl of cauliflower soup (the hostess's pride-and-joy) I may have made a comment about dirty sweat-socks. I was younger and stupider back then.

Anecdotally, the sulfur compounds in all of the cabbage-family as well as the oligosaccharides can cause epic flatulence with extreme "fragrance" as well as very, very loose stools when consumed in large quantities. Cauliflower might be a high FODMAP food which is a train-wreck for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Cauliflower pizza is a hard-pass for me. Thanks but no thanks.

Invest in what is durable

 

 

One minute run-time

How people spend their free time and how it has changed over the course of our life-times.

One of the markers between a wealthy person and one who isn't wealthy is that the wealthy person is more likely to invest his money in items that are DURABLE. For example, they are more likely to invest in new skills than go on a cruise.

Many of the "friends" make on the internet are fleeting. Some people brag about how many people they "unfriend" as a way to seek status and communicate how "picky" they are.

When my parents were old, +95% of the contacts (outside of paid caregivers) were family and the other 5% were from the church.

A little East of Paris: Theater

Gwain thanked Otis for “keeping an eye on Jana”. Otis mumbled something and went wondering off.

“Did he tell you about his Ph.D. thesis?” Gwain asked Jana.

“Only that he was in Israel for a time” Jana responded.

“It is fascinating work. He is translating the work of Mendel Nun into English and you cannot imagine the number of calls Violet gets asking when Otis can visit their campus and ‘defend’ his work” Gwain said.

“He speaks and reads Hebrew?” Jana asked, a bit surprised.

“You bet. Maybe you didn’t know this, but he is from New York City and majored in Hebrew at The City University of New York. He got 4.0s against some very stiff competition.”

“I bet” Jana said.

Seeing Gwain, various faculty members started drifting over to check-out the newest member of the staff. The rumor mill had been churning and due to recent events he was quite the novelty. Predictably, more than three-quarters of the faculty members were women and they immediately gravitated to Jana. Gwain was taciturn by nature while Jana was quite starved for intellectually stimulating, adult conversation.

The conversation turned, as it always did, to the quality of the incoming students (depressingly low), the impact of technology (reducing the status of professional writers), the job market (getting worse) and the dumbing down of the mass-market (“Classes on Graphic Novels; REALLY?”)

Gwain was old enough to remember when the “horrible” technology was electric typewriters and the "dumbing down of mass-market" was movie scripts.

It took Gwain a few heartbeats to recognize the grizzled, older man who was deftly working his way closer. It was Dean Fuchs!

“Professor McCampbell” Dean Fuchs said, directing his words toward Jana. “I wonder if you can spare your husband. We have need of his special talents on the other side of the barn.”

“Well, that is up to him” Jana said.

“I am going to work on that next” Dean Fuchs said. “But I didn’t want to steal him away if you had need of him.”

“I think I can manage” Jana said with joyful lilt, looking at her audience like a queen holding court.

Turning toward Gwain, Dean Fuchs said “It is my understanding that you have a lot of experience in theatrical productions and that you are a bit of a Civil War buff.”

Once again, Gwain marveled at amount of attention “upper” management paid to the minutia of the people at the working level. When he had been a grad student, he had NO idea of how much time the department heads and deans spent discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of various students.

On the the other hand, he had published at least one paper a year, even if it was as a minor co-author. And a couple of them had been about the Civil War. It was all a matter of public record and easy enough to retrieve if it was of any interest to somebody.

“I am hardly an expert but I am more than willing to help in any way that I can” Gwain said. How could he say anything else? Jana didn’t need him and it was The DEAN who was asking for “help”.

“Come with me” the Dean commanded him.

Together they walked across the lawn and past the smoker and the tables with all of the food.

Rounding the corner of one of the sheet-metal buildings (which Gwain later learned was called a “Pole barn”) Gwain saw a raised area.

Dr von Tersch was directing a motley crew to keep filling empty milk jugs with water.

“So, what we have here is a simulation of naval battle where a boarding party takes over a ship. If you want, you can think of it as a ship that was running arms through a naval blockade and is being boarded by force from a Naval vessel” the Dean said.

“The first members of the boarding force takes over the wheel-house and a sailor, the actor, crosses from his vessel to this one…” the Dean said, pointing to a rope tied to a truss on the pole barn above the loading dock“...and he lands on the poop-deck overlooking the wheelhouse. From that elevated position he defends the sailor in the wheel-house who is turning into the ship into the wind where it will luff and then be boarded en masse.”

“With me so far?” the Dean asked.

“I guess so…” Gwain said, a bit uncertain where this was all going.

Looking at the trucking bay below the loading dock, Gwain could see milk jugs filled with water and hockey pucks (he later learned that they were called “clay pigeons) that were painted different colors. Crude representations of swords and spears were laid out on the sand and lines ran back to pulleys and thence “back stage”. A rectangle was outlined with lumber and Gwain assumed that was the "wheel-house".

The Dean handed Gwain a script. “We need to make a few dry-runs before we do this for-real. Do you mind reading through the script? I will give you a tap on your shoulder when it is time for you to read the next line.”

It was a bit overwhelming. Gwain looked around and didn’t see any place for an audience but, hey, it was Texas. Maybe they did things differently here.

“OK, we are ready for our first rehearsal” the Dean said. “Let her rip!”

Gwain looked down at his “script” and barked out in his best Shakespearian, stage voice “ORANGE-TWO!”

Looking out at the stage, Gwain saw a spear and a sword rise up next to the milk jugs marked with the orange hockey pucks.

The Dean tapped him on the shoulder after three seconds.

Gwain barked out “GREEN-ONE!”

A short sword popped up next to a milk jug marked with a green hockey puck.

They ran through various scripts three times.

“OK” Dr von Tersch said. “Time to go ‘HOT’.

“Let me remind you, the gun must ALWAYS be pointed in a safe direction. If anybody sees that being violated you are supposed to yell "MUZZLE!".

"Nobody who has had an alcoholic drink today is allowed to touch the firearm."

"Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot."

"When you run the gun dry, put it in the PVC rack and switch to the pike which will be on the left side of the poop-deck. Misses with the gun will be penalized ten seconds. Engaging an opponent with a sword before an opponent with a pike will be penalized by five seconds. Players over the age of forty will not have to swing onto the poop-deck. Any questions?”

Gwain mind echoed “GUN!?!?!?”

Looking over at the rope swing, Gwain saw Otis standing on a short platform. He was wearing a Civil War, full-flap holster on a belt and was holding the rope and waiting for the starting bell.

Then Gwain heard von Tersch on his phone saying "OK, Debbie. Let the guests know that it is going to be noisy for a while.'

A Brain-teaser

 

Can you think of a way to move ONE wooden match to represent a number that is much, MUCH larger than the one shown?

Answer below the fold

Maddow is having her Khrushchev moment

 

You don't spit into the wind

You don't tug the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger

and you NEVER try to publicly embarrass your boss.  (Apologies to Jim Croce)

Maddow's bosses will see this as a challenge that they cannot afford to lose.

My expectation is that she will be severed from MSNBC within the week due to a "public embarrassment" clause buried on page 47 of her contract.

The Khrushchev joke goes:

One day, a man ran through Red Square in Moscow, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Khrushchev is a fool!" 

He was subsequently arrested for revealing state secrets.

 

Wild boars, "Bring enough Gun"

According to people who live in, and hunt, areas where feral hogs abound, mature boars are endowed with a gristle (cartilage) shield or plate that protects their lower chest.

Another consideration is that the heart-lung area of a hog is very small relative to the animals silhouette. These are not animals that run for miles-and-miles across the prairies. Even if you THINK you got a good hit and used ammo with good penetration, the bullet's path through the body is likely to miss organs that ensure a quick kill or break-bones that will collapse the animal. That can be mildly concerning if the animal is chewing on you or a loved one.

You not only need to bring "enough gun", it needs to "bring enough ammo" to ensure that at least one of the holes you poke in the animal hits the important body-parts.

While the plate is not exactly bulletPROOF, it will stop bullets that are "soft" and highly-expansive before they reach the boar's vitals. Those are exactly the kinds of bullets that are touted as being great man-stoppers. That rules out most pistol hollowpoints (especially the lighter-weight, higher-velocity offerings) and expanding "varmint" bullets in small calibers.

The plate will also stop bullets that don't start out with enough momentum (yes, I wrote momentum, not energy). Examples include .380 ACP and smaller ACP rounds, .38 Special out of short barrels.

These comments only apply to mature boars and does not apply to head-shots. However, in the passion of the moment, in the dark-of-night, one might not be cool enough or have enough time or the "vision" to pick head-shots.

One viable option for those who carry a 9mm (which excels at the "bring enough ammo) is to alternate non-expanding 147grain "Flat-nose" or "Truncated Cone" full-metal-jacket with 147 grain hollow-point bullets. 

Buffalo Bore, Federal American Eagle are viable options for the non-expanding, flat-nose bullets. Like all things on the Internet, use your own brain and weigh your options carefully.

Tuesday "Art"

 

Mixed media, i.e. a photo with additional details "Photoshopped" in.

For historical reasons, today's featured artist is Hunter Biden, born 1970 in Delaware and still alive.

Many of his "paintings" are mixed-media, specifically photographs with other images or textures "photoshopped" into them.

Grab-bag

Two of my children are either in a warm western state or will be flying in that direction in the next 24 hours. I wish them safe travels and productive, renewing time away from their every-day grind.

Hogs

As incredible as it seems, wild hogs are menacing Saskatchewan and some biologists, in all seriousness, suggested importing Siberian Tigers as a method of suppressing their population. The winters of Saskatchewan being on-par with the winters of eastern-Siberia but with less snow depth. Can you imagine Saskatchewan (and North Dakota and Montana and Minnesota) having populations of Siberian Tigers? 

Figure-six traps are one of the mainstays of harvesting feral hogs. The smart money jimmies the trap-door open and feeds the hogs within the trap for a few weeks before activating the trap part of the trap-door. You will rarely catch the smartest, oldest hogs but you will catch the best-eating ones. You are well advised to thoroughly cook the meat!

A decent video link. 

Exercise

I am still working-the-plan: Alternating days on the treadmill and walking 40 minutes with the beautiful Mrs ERJ. Dead-lifting once every three days.

Thaw

We got up to at least 45F today. The snow is disappearing rapidly.

I was able to pry my "transfer cage" out of the ice. It is a dog-crate. God willing, I will pick up a couple of doe rabbits that are California White X New Zealand Blacks and I have need of the transfer cage. While exotic-looking breeds of any species might be "cute", animals that most closely resemble the conformation of their wild progenitors tend to be most resilient in the face of environmental stresses. 

For example, dogs with smashed-in noses (pugs, bulldogs, Boston terriers) have breathing issues, issues with rejecting heat and sometimes issues with natural (non-Csection) births while dogs that more closely resemble Coyotes or Wolves don't.

Breeds of rabbits that are considered "meat rabbits" are not selected for arbitrary, cosmetic traits. Rather, they are selected to be "easy keepers" and to be thrifty in terms of growth/feed.

For the Grammar Nazi

Is a dead Stink Bug most properly referred to as a Stunk Bug?

The wheel turns

What an odd coincidence, a new Administration is sworn in and the first thing they do is that they start poking around, following-the-money.

A month later, (at least) one of the major news networks starts axing staff and payroll as revenue imploded.

Let me suggest that we "zoom out" and look at mass-media in the 1970s, which was before there was any competition from on-line sources.

In the 1970s hosts like Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter invited guests onto his show and he let them do most of the heavy-lifting. He asked questions and then let them sell themselves.

In 2024 the same kind of show has a "panel" of four or five or six "stars" and a supporting cast of affiliate "contributors". They all have their own dressing rooms and make-up artists. They all have their own "writers" pre-digesting the news into factiodal sound-bites. The salaries, not including benefits, for just the talking-heads on The View was almost $19 million in 2022. Only time will tell if this is a sustainable business model in the absence of non-organic, non-grassroots revenue.

It would be very interesting to see the number of square-feet of studio space dedicated to recording the Merv Griffin Show or Art Linkletter and comparing it to the all-in square-footage required for The View of Harris Faulkner.

Chopping at the hamstring in the other leg, there is a very real possibility that advertisements for prescription drugs might be prohibited. That would immediately eliminate about 1/7th the "organic, grass-roots" revenue.

And, in the wings, most people under 50 get most or ALL of their news from on-line sources. How many square-feet do Joe Rogan or Nick Freitas or Joey Swoll use?

Good times are always followed by hard times. Take note and prepare accordingly.

A little East of Paris: An Evil and Fallen World

Jana sat in the shade of the wrap-around porch and watched the swirl of people going by.

They had no sooner arrived than “Sonny” had been leaving with the UTV for a nickel-tour of the ranch. Dr von Tersch had frantically gestured to have Gwain join them.

Jana gave Gwain a wave. “I’ll be fine. After all, how long can it take to drive around the property?”

The afternoon had turned warm and Jana was content to sit in the glider and listen to the babble of happy voices.

A young Black man was passing by and noticed that she didn’t have anything to drink and had no food. Taking in her languid movement and her lack of hair, he asked “Can I get you something to eat?”

“No. No need to bother. I’ll be fine” Jana responded.

The Black man rephrased his question “When I bring you some food, is there anything you CAN’T eat.”

Jana sighed. “Since you insist, bring me something light, and just a little bit of it.”

In a few minutes the Black man unloaded a bewildering load of food. Jana’s plate had just a spoonful of this and a spoonful of that. The young man’s plate also had a modest amount of food, mostly high-protein items.

The man wordlessly handed Jana her silverware, rolled up in a napkin and then the plate. After a mumbled "Your welcome" to Jana's "Thank-you", the man sat next to her and started to eat.

Jana's plate held a little bit of smoked meat. Some mac-n-cheese. A dab of beans. Greens cooked with pork (more pork than greens, by the look of it). Salsa fresca. Some slaw with vinegar dressing. A bit of cornbread. He had also brought her a tumbler of lemonade.

“My name is Jana McCampbell, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart” Jana told him.

“Mine is Otis Grant” the man told her and then returned to eating.

Jana tilted her head a bit as he spoke. “I am guessing that you spent some time in New York City” she speculated.

“Let me guess, you read Pygmalion by Shaw” Otis parried.

“Guilty” Jana admitted. “I grew up in Delaware, so I can hear it in the vowels.”

“Clason Point, Bronx” Otis grudgingly shared.

“Funny how you can go to a big party and find somebody you have things in common with” Jana observed. “Here we are, two East-Coasters in Texas and BAM! We found each other.”

“Yep” Otis laconically noted.

"Do you know many of the people here?" Jana asked. Jana was puzzled that nobody stopped and chatted with him.

Otis briefly raised his eyes and did a quick scan, something he had been doing the whole time they had been talking "Yep. I work with most of them" and then returned his attention to his food.

Pulling words from Otis was like pushing a rope. He wasn't much of a talker.

Whether it was a slight shift in the angle of the light or the fact that she looked downward to better spear the food on her plate, Jana’s brain finally registered the fact that many of the men were wearing guns on their belts.

Tension edged Jana’s voice when she said to Otis in a low voice “Otis...did you happen to notice all of the guns.”

Otis said “It's a barbecue. This is Texas. What did you expect?”

“It’s not a big deal to you?” Jana asked.
 

“Nope. In fact, I am wearing one too.”

Jana’s eyes shot to Otis’s waist and sure enough he was carrying one of those boxy-looking guns in an ornate, leather holster with a basket-weave pattern embossed in its surface.

“Isn’t that one of those automatic pistols like the Cartels use?” Jana asked, aghast.

“It is a semi-automatic, not an automatic. All the difference in the world” Otis stated with finality.

“What is the difference?” Jana asked.

“For one thing, I can hit my target with a semi-auto. With a full-auto, maybe your first one or two shots will hit the target but then most of them fly off god-knows-where because the muzzle climbs" Otis said.

“So you are saying that a semi-auto is even more deadly than a full-auto, which makes it even more evil, right?” Jana pointed out, sure she had found a flaw in Otis’s logic.

“A semi-auto is more deadly to my enemies and less deadly to innocent people...at least in MY hands” Otis said.

“I don’t get it. Why would a grown, mature man feel a need to carry a gun?” Jana asked, bewildered.

“We live in an evil and fallen world” Otis said.

Jana shrugged in disbelief and gestured around her. “Look around you. This is a happy place. There is no evil here. There is absolutely no need for anybody to carry guns.”

“Nova Music Festival” was all Otis said.

“What?” Jana said.

“I was in Israel working on my thesis when Hamas attacked the Nova Music Festival. Minutes before it happened, everybody was happy. They were listening to anti-war folk-music and dancing. They saw no evil. Nobody had any guns. That was on October 7, 2023” Otis said.

“But there is nothing like that here” Jana insisted.

“The Israeli were sure that Iran, which was a 1000 miles away, was their biggest enemy. They couldn’t see the enemies right under their noses.” Otis said. “The attack killed over a thousand people.”

“So you are saying that if everybody was carrying a gun that it wouldn’t have happened?” Jana challenged.

“I am saying that if 10% of the men had been carrying a gun that they knew how to use and if each man had two spare magazines, that Hamas would not have dared to carry out the attack” Otis said.

They ate in stony silence, neither conceding their views. Nevertheless, Otis didn't leave, either.

Twenty minutes later, Gwain joined them.

“Well, that was ugly” Gwain said.

“What was ugly?” Jana asked.

“It is calving season and some wild hogs tore apart a day-old calf. Sonny insisted on setting some snares and hauling away what was left of the dead calf” Gwain said. “Messy business.”

“What do you mean, ‘wild hogs’? You mean like Russian boars?” Jana asked.

“Yes. More or less” Gwain agreed. “They live in the woods near the river* and come out in packs to forage when it is dark.”

Jana shivered. “Sounds horrible.”

Otis nodded in agreement and muttered in a soft voice “Another reason to carry a gun.”

(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved 

*The wild hog population in Lamar county is primarily found in the wooded/brushy areas floodplains of the Red River on the north and the Sulphur river that forms the southern boundary of the county. Mature wild sows in Texas produce over 4 female "replacements" per year.

Creeping loss of privacy

Source

Some search-engines you probably never heard of

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

 

A big tip-of-the-hat to Lucas Machias to shared this information with me.

Are you addicted to comfort?

One of the toughest challenges of managing/supervising is maintaining discipline when everything is going well. The manager does not have critical, time-urgent tasks in front of his workers that will automatically order the sequence of work.

Combat fatigue is widely recognized (PTSD, 1000-yard-stare) but garrison fatigue is also a "thing".

This lady seems to have a handle on that. I don't think she is broke. Never-the-less, she runs a tight ship. She understands that you communicate EXPECTATIONS by what you INSPECT. She understands that resources are finite, even if it seems like you have a lot. She seems to know that to inculcate those values in your kids that you have to walk-the-talk, even though it might seem academic.

The team plays on Friday night the way it practiced on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

She also touches on the need to get comfortable with some degree of inconvenience or discomfort.

Mistakes were made

The poultry netting (aka, chicken wire) was pulled away from the trunk. Rabbits found it.

Multiple layers of newspaper. If the exposed cambium does not dry out, it can heal.

Interesting summary on pain and physical activity HERE

Like the Drill Instructor said, "More sweat now means less of your blood later". Higher levels of physical activity correlated to higher-to-much-higher levels of pain tolerance.

Today was a lifting AND running day. I ran first and then did minimum lifting for maintenance. 

The running went very well. I had very little in my gut and I believe that my volume-of-air per breath was higher than the last run. My bpm plateaued at 143 bpm. 

Twenty cycles of this equals one hour and four miles

I am NOT recommending that anybody else do it this way. Everybody is unique.

If all goes well, the sixty-seconds at 6.0 mph will be bumped up to sixty-six seconds after another week of "foundational" conditioning.

A rule-of-thumb for younger runners is "growing" mileage 10% a week which equates to a doubling of mileage every seven weeks.

 

A counter-offer: 51, 52 and 53 (and now 54)

What if we offer Canada the privileges of being the 51st, 52nd and 53rd States?

Southern Ontario circled in blue, Quebec circled in red, Everybody Else circled in green.

Southern-Ontario, Quebec and Everybody Else. That would entail populations of roughly 15 million, 8 million and 16 million or roughly the populations of New York State, Washington State and New York State. They would get six senators and would split roughly 50:50 Conservative:Liberal and the new states would fall into coherent ideologies although Vancouver and the Maritimes might quibble with Everybody Else....so maybe hold a referendum where they can chose to join Quebec.

Added later

 One of the proposals from the comments. Quebec is made its own, stand-alone country. Western Canada is grouped together based on "like" industries and culture. Southern Ontario is made its own state based on population and "like" industries. The eastern provinces + south side of St Lawrence River are grouped together as kind of a Nueva Inglaterra Norte.