Nobody Special

I seem to be going the other way. Bad enough what I had in Texas and Arkansas. Georgia and Appalachia just made it thicker and rounded me off with words like sigogglin and katywampus.  I tell my Army buddies I got a bad score on my ASVABs so all they would let me go to DLI for was an accent.

Shoot, that's your parts car?  Reminds me of my dad's 60 El Camino.  He bought a second one for a parts car in the 90s, and ended up using it as a daily driver.

I don't have a lot to add to what's above.  The main mechanical benefit that you surrender if not tempered, is that if you've hardened it properly, or even improperly, you are at serious risk of the edge chipping or the knife breaking. They sometimes even break on their own with no use if you don't temper after hardening.  This can be especially dangerous in a kitchen knife.

On the vehicle side, I'm playing with a 74 Dodge Dart I picked up for a song, and a xxxxxx stern drive Bayliner.  I'd be fine with the Bayliner becoming an artificial reef, but I like the Dart.

Did the head gaskets and freeze plugs, raised the dang torque bars to where it didn't scrape the wheel wells when you make a turn, and we're currently playing with the carburetor and getting rid of all the assorted duct tape and bubble gum from the previous owner.  This is far more literal than I would have believed possible. The vacuum hose is connected to the brake booster with silicon caulk.  Funny things, intake and exhaust bolts work better when they're not just hand tight.

Ain't PTSD fun? I self-medicate for it on occasion. One of the reasons I make mead, although corn whiskey does nicely too. Doesn't fix the insomnia, but it moves it around a bit.

Bees see color, and they orient visually. That's why on a sunny afternoon you'll see dozens hanging out hovering in front of the hive. They're new bees orienting so they can find their way home when they forage. In America hives are traditionally white or light tan for temperature control, and also because it's cheap and easy to spot in a field. In other parts of the world, they paint them all kinds of colors, and that's also more common with hobbiests.

Up here it rarely gets much above 70, so I don't have to worry about overheating, and they stay warmer in the cool months. You also get less drift (bees going in the wrong hive) when the hives are close together if the patterns and colors are different. Also, it's pretty. You wouldn't believe some of the crazy hives out there.  There's at least one top bar hive I saw with a bed and cover built on top.  You sleep on top of the bees.

You mention the Rose of Lancaster, and now you've got me thinking of the Mel Brooks joke about the War of the Roses being the only just war.  "One day we woke up, and all our roses were gone. Hey, where's my roses, you ain't gonna get my roses, mister."

Here's a pic of the hive stand I made this weekend, with the new hive (blue top) we picked up Friday cleaned up, painted, and with a new bottom board and a super added.

19 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

I'm boring normal.

I occasionally see some evidence, sir, to the contrary.

Mr. Welsh, So pink.....so very, very pink...

I welcome pics, btw.  Think of it as a "what did you do outside the shop today?" post.  Here's an old one from making mead.

Afternoon all,

First of all, this isn't a post directly about blacksmithing, which is kind of the point. I was planning to go pick up another beehive today, and started thinking about all the nutballs and weirdo....I mean, wonderfully eclectic people I run into in this hobby, and that a large number of them have other hobbies that are a bit outside the mainstream.  The more obvious trends I see are of course cooks, hunting, fishing, readers, musicians, and brewers galore (although sometimes some very eclectic music), and almost anything homestead related. On the other hand, I've met guys that build cob houses, sculptors, musical instrument builders, linguists, one guy that built robots.

So what else do you guys do?  What other weird talents do you have in your skill set?

I keep bees and chickens, do casting on occasion, and *gasp* I've been known to knit or work a crossstitch needle.  I also like messing with random historical tidbits and recreations.  Trebuchets one month, making garum the next, after that, who knows?

Good evening, there's always the classic, chisel out a coyote sillhouette and curl the end poking out.

And I believe what you all are looking for, naturally, is duck tape. Possibly in 8-track.

Buy the fellow that gave that to you a case or three of beer. You got a thousand bucks worth of anvil for free. And don't listen to them, buy a scratch off now before the streak ends.

 Don't sir me, I are a crusty old NCO.  1999 to present, Currently S-2, HHC, 56th  TIOG, Washington NG, M-day status only. Got 15 yrs of full-time and don't need the stress anymore.  Did a few years at Hood and had buddies in 4 ID.

Lasts forever in marine environments too, way better than galvy.  I'm on an island here, and it never fails to amaze me how many wrought iron chains and anchors are sitting out as yard art.  Also, a perfectly good post vise just up the road from me holding up a yard sign. Sigh... sometimes it sucks not being a kleptomaniac...

BTW Welshj, ya've got four lieutenants pointing north on your avatar.

I could argue that it delayed service, although it's likely to be outweighed by COVID delays, but I would also say that failure to state the charge is fairly prejudicial.  How do you prepare for a trial or discovery if they've failed to say what they're taking you to court for?  At any rate, I don't lose anything by making the motion, and I might gain something.  If it gets tossed here, their only recourse is to go to the superior court, and up here they often refuse the case out of hand if the lower court kicked it back.

Also, the plaintiff is being a...umm...fourth point of contact, and I want to irritate them and point out that they don't have their act together before we discuss that two-thirds of their move out charges are illegal under state code.  The legal ones are maybe a third of the deposit, and I offered repeatedly to let them keep the whole thing.  Hopefully they get tired of it before mandatory arbitration.  I hate arbitration.

I dunno, ask Seymour Krelborn.

With the beards, you might try a beard butter or beard oil.  I hate calling them that, but works wonders for the itchyness/scratchyness when it's coming in. I grew/regrew one every month for a couple of years between drill sessions with the Guard, and had one most of the time I was in Iraq.  I prefer having a beard, but I'd have to win over wife number three, and I'm still worn out from convincing the first two.

Give beards time.  Mine grew in lousy until I was in my mid-30s.  Patchy, and the middle was missing out of the mustache.

Cool video Joe, you never fail to impress.

They admitted it, and figured it wouldn't matter, and that they were free to change their minds.  Yah, been helping my wife out getting a paralegal degree, which basically means I've been auditing the classes and doing all the homework alongside with her.  Good for the marriage, but add one more skill that I have zero accreditation for...

We're also filing a motion about insufficiency of process, (didn't serve us remotely right, no certification of delivery, complaint was wrong, address was wrong, no notice of retaining lawyers, defendants were wrong, and how do you get the plaintiffs incorrect?) but the whole thing was delayed til next month due to COVID.  Whee....

Yes, when I've up in the middle of the night sicking up from reflux and ulcers (not at all booze and ibuprofen related, right...) my first thought was, 'but man, how alive I feel!"

I'm going to go out on a limb, and get to the root of the problem by saying if you've got a vegetarian bill, you're hooked.  Could be barking up the wrong tree though.  Meh, I'll just leaf.

Used to happen to me a lot in the Army because we ended up working weird hours, and they wanted to see what we were doing out at two and three in the morning. 

I finally got so I'd tell them, you can just ask me what I'm doing if you want to know, you don't have to say I ran a non-extant stop sign, and I'll blow in your Breathalyzer if you want, it doesn't bother me.  A couple laughed, and one got mad and gave me a ticket for running the stop sign that wasn't there.  Which would have been embarassing for him in traffic court if he'd bothered to show up.  "You swerved a little back there" was one I got a lot.

Except that the UCC is a recommendation for a uniform code of law that isn't law itself until adopted by individual states.  The UCC includes the Statute of Frauds, under § 2A-201 although Statute of Frauds did originate under common law, surprisingly recently.  Prior to its development, it was caveat emptor out there except for food adulteration.  Many states adopted parts of it word for word, but there are variations in many places from the UCC.  Auction law for one is especially fun.

In Wyoming, Statute of Frauds is covered by Wyom Stat §34.1-2.A-201, and veers off a bit from the federal UCC, such as changing the $500 limit to $1000.  Where I'm at in Washington state, it quotes it verbatim, under RCW 62A.2-201.  Like I said, in court, it's not the witnesses, it's getting the guy ya had the agreement with to admit it existed.  I'm going through a lawsuit right now that hinges on this more or less exactly, (they said we could break the lease because they wanted to sell the place, then they changed their minds after we moved out) and they admitted it.  Oopsie.  Lucky me, I paid attention during business law.  Yay...

If you have to consider looking like a minivan, perhaps it's time to switch to salads?  A ham can be cured, but can you imagine the veterinarian bill?

If wer're blue skying damascus wish lists, I'd love to see a full size anvil done in it.  Raindrop pattern for choice.

Statute of Frauds in most every state says anything over $500 must be in writing or it's invalid, although if they're dumb enough to admit it in court, an oral contract still stands. There must be an offer, agreement, acceptance, and consideration discussed, but full details don't have to be written.  And an advertisement isn't an offer, but an invitation to do business, although consumer protection laws may apply.  All of which I'm definitely just commenting on, not advising about.  Promissory estoppel is kind of a principle that if there's a serious reliance on the information provided in an oral contract or agreement it might apply, but it's a lot harder to meet the standard in court.

For me personally?  I don't really care for most things under $100, unless it's a pain to make or work that I can't resell to someone else if they default.  I don't require a deposit most of the time for that amount, but I will for anything over, and anytime up-front money changes hands, I like to have it in writing, even if it's just a receipt/agreement with the outline of the details.  Even if I didn't want to take it to court, sometimes just having it in writing brings them around.  Little stuff, meh.  I kept having people flake on bottle openers and wood carving tools, but they were easy to resale.

The thing that really convinced me about written agreements was the time I loaded about 120 chickens onto a guys truck, and then he tried to renegotiate the price to $4 or $5 bucks less a bird after  it was loaded because he figured I wouldn't unload it again.  He cussed me when I wouldn't take the decreased price, he cussed me when I started unloading the truck, and when he really cussed me again when he started to throw the money down and drive off and I told him I'd call the cops on him for theft if he left with my birds on the truck.  He finally paid what I wanted, plus an extra $30 for making me load the truck twice in the rain, then left a strip of rubber in the driveway and posted a bunch of fake complaints for the next eight months about us on FaceBook and Craigslist saying our chickens were diseased and mistreated, going so far as to rip off photos from the PETA website and claim that it was our birds.  After that?  No writing, no sale.  My birdies were clean and well kept.

I also do it on the buying end.  My ex put a deposit down on a horse one time, and then had a call two days later from the lady saying that God had spoke to her in a dream and told her to keep the horse.  God apparently didn't have any problem with her selling it a week later for $500 more though to another buyer.   I also insist on writing for any business done with family.  Although when you try to hold them to it, you never hear the end of it.

On 6/4/2020 at 4:02 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Does India have their patents online?

They do, in a system called InPass.  More countries do now because they want people to search before trying to get new patents. 

I don't forge and sell as much stuff as youse guys (although I've finally been picking it up again), but I've done all kinds of nutty work or made stuff for people.

Deposits are a must, but over the years, I've also gotten more into having it in writing.  Changes are also in writing.  I've found that the ones that avoid written contracts are also the ones most likely to be the troublemakers when it comes to changes or payment.  Of course, you tell them that it's for their protection, as it also binds you to your word.  If it goes to court there is also no (less anyways) argument over terms, or whether the oral contract is valid under the Statute of Frauds rule because the value of the work is too high.

For awhile, a lot was made from old railroad track. Pain in the rear to work.  You could also cut a piece and make a test coupon, heat treat it and see what it does.

Well, you start by hardening until a file skates across...with a glassy sound.

Are you sure it's punsters?  We also have a lot of ham-sters.