Paul TIKI

Very nice Twistedwillow. Now I did just spot a place near Glorieta, NM (well, technically Rowe) pretty close to where I went to summer camp when I was a kid. It's a mobile home on an acre and I know that's some pretty country up there. Ah well, this is still in the 5 year out planning stages.

HAHA. To be fair, Not enough water there for an analogue to Reichenbach falls, so I guess there is that I guess one could fall from Sandia Peak....

Gorgeous pics Frosty! Loved the bear. Thomas, I considered Moriarty, The few places I saw there are either a bit too high price wise (for now) or in some case just shells of houses and not really liveable. One was a house that looked like the guy got the exterior but nothing on the inside. another looked like a 19th century collapsing hulk that has "potential". It doesn't have water, heat, electricity, or in some spots, a roof. gotta love realtor speak. Dan, I don't know how people make it in DFW. The traffic is a nightmare and I've become spoiled by rural Kansas, where rush hour in my town lasts fro 5 to 5:10 pm.

I doubt I have the credentials for NM Tech or NRAO. BBA in Information systems is as high as I went, and no post grad work at all. I'm looking more for something along the lines of supply chain, logistics, or process improvements. I'd find more of that up in ABQ, but that would mean, to me, living in Los Altos or Belen. Unless they gave a xxxx of a signing bonus, I wouldn't be able to get a decent house in Rio Rancho or Bernalillo for what I could sell my current house for. Dan, Where in Texas?

Income tax is one consideration, but it's not at the top of the list. Mountains and Hills are actually slightly ahead of it, plus Dry. I've lived in Texas, both Austin and San Angelo and those are OK places. Austin is an absolute nightmare for driving, but it's a beautiful city for all that. The cost of living there is also slightly nuts. San Angelo was nice, but the oil booms of recent years have driven the cost of living there up quite a lot. The area between San Angelo and Abeline are intriguing to me, but that neck of the woods is a bit harder to find the kind of work I'm looking for. I also grew up in Albuquerque so I am familiar with the desert and mountainous climates there. I have seen some neat chunks of land in Belen really cheap, multiple acres for around 5k, BUT no municipal water, so a well and septic system would have to go in first, followed by Electrical service or Solar, not to mention no idea what kind of internet service. Site prep alone would be expensive. Then I found out that there is an HOA according to the listing. NOPE not gonna do that. A shame because the sites look ideal for what I want to do. The other states represent kind of an adventure in my thinking.

I'm glad ya'll were talking about this. I'm doing some very early looking for places to move. I love my house and my current mortgage ($0.00) but I'm getting less and less comfortable working for aircraft companies. They are too sensitive to even the slightest political or financial breeze, and every day has a bit of concern for layoffs and the like. I'm too young to retire. Plus, the wife doesn't love the town. Ideally I'd find a job in a good place and buy a place with an acre or 10. With that comes the concern of mineral rights if I'm going to a place that has that kind of industry. Wyoming is on my list of maybe states, along with Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Texas, or Tennessee. Maybe even New Mexico. Kansas is OK, but I need some changes in elevation

Didn't get to forge this weekend, but I did get to spend the weekend babysitting the Grandson. 9 months old and is getting very mobile. The cats learned to keep out of his way. Now I'm REALLY tired. Oh well. Won't be too long until I get to re do my Zoo membership once again.

The wood looks great. I had to do a where's waldo search to find the supports, they got a little lost in the atv's in the background. Nice job.

But Cthulhu double parked the tentacle mobile before going in for his nap.... I think parking meters are an invention of the Great Old Ones anyway...

I never had a skateboard. I was into the BMX bike thing. Much later I got my kids BMX bikes and could show them a few things. When they got skateboards I tried to remember how to do an ollie and was reminded of why I never took to skateboards with several bruises and a jacked shoulder for a few weeks.

NICE! Thats a pretty deep pull right there.

Was that the one without the nuthatch? Does anyone have "Ethyl the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying"?

If so they might try to crawl back up out of the slot on their own Interesting results.

Maybe that's the problem. I might pile it an inch or 2 higher than the firepot. Most of my problems could be from me skimping on the fuel. pnut With the corn, did you just straight burn it or did you blend it with charcoal.

I was cursed by a wide collared yellow shirt and green polyester sort of bell bottoms for my very first job at a place called 'El Pollo Assado' in Albuquerque. I could have used that collar for hang gliding. I was afraid to walk out in the wind for fear of flying away. At 16 it was a hit to the ego, but at least I could wear my Swatch watch and mullet under the hair net.

I can use my sons hand crank blower for now. It's a nice one. I'm just a little lazy and don't want to turn a crank. Is my firepot design ok? I can't help but think it should be, but it has been the worst performing one so far. Also, I wonder if I'm just skimping too much on the fuel. I never seem to get a big enough fireball and rarely enough heat. I wonder if I'm not piling it deep enough.

Beautiful work as always alexandr Much more frustration in the forge today. With the redesign of the firepot I thought I would get better results but it didn't work out. Neither did the corn. I put up some pics after I reshaped the firepot. Side blast with a bathroom exhaust fan for a blower. I shaped the firepot with soft firebrick in a v shape The tuye pipe is about 1 1/4 inch diameter. It's a chunk of handrail from a dead treadmill. The firepot is maybe 3 inches deep and one brick length wide with the walls sloping up at 90 degrees to each other. I put another brick at the end opposite the tuye to just keep the fuel contained. What I think happened is 2 things, maybe 3. The first is that I was just plain getting too much air at too high a speed. Second, as the corn burned, it was creating very sticky voids and pockets. I'd pull the metal out, get a cloud of sparks and see a hollow area. the steel wasn't even getting more than a low dull red. The corn wasn't coking up like I thought it would. I quit adding any corn and just used charcoal. Heat was little better, but still not where I wanted. I cued that I might be getting too much air so I tried to block part of the tuye from the back side. No change really At this point I'm ready to just quit. I turn to look at my anvil and I'm seeing that what was lat once upon a time is looking pocked and ugly, with lots of dings. I know it's not steel, but it was kind of disheartening, so I put the fire out and went inside.

What a good Boy!

"The more I interact with people, the more I love my dog" The greatest compliment to my cooking is when those I serve act the same way my dog reacts when I bring him a bowl of kibble. May you find someone who looks at you the same way your dog does.

I remember reading somewhere, but darn if I can remember where exactly, that humans and dogs made excellent partners because of complimentary hunting skills. Wolves are excellent ambush and chase predators with the teeth and claws, made even better by the cooperative aspect. Humans, on the other hand, were effective partially for the great big brains, but also because we were an unusual sort of predator, the endurance predator. We are the squishy pink Terminator. The critter may out run us, but it never gets enough time to rest or do anything else. Every time the prey turns around, there we are. That is why we have relatively sparse hair, more effective sweat glands, lung capacity, longer limbs not made for speed, but to keep going. It seems an awful lot of prey is built for fast getaways, not for the long haul. The big brain and opposable thumbs are just bonuses. So what gets away from the wolf gets chased down by the human. That is what makes for a good partnership.

Very Nice tongs Johnnytait. That's a skill I need to work on.

Billy Bones, The white Lady in the background is Suki, our 14 year old White German Shepherd. She doesn't love the forge, it's too noisy. Red, on the other hand, likes to sneak up behind me and steal hunks of charcoal to chew on. It's kind of sad, she's lived longer than most GSD's and has arthritis. She spends most of her time on her soft bed by the couch, always in easy reach of a pat on the head and scratch behind the ears. She still likes to chase her ball, albiet slowly. Years ago, taking her to the park and throwing the ball as hard as I could, she would bound after it, it was like watching pure joy in motion. I'm afraid she won't be with us much longer.

OK Frosty, What is a monkey tool? Honestly I have been all over the place with little projects and ideas and all, each outpacing my skills and knowledge. I really need to dial it back a bit and try focusing. I know it won't all come to me instantaneously. I'm just impatient. Any thoughts on the forge design? Am I missing anything? I'm going to continue to play with corn and charcoal as fuel.

McFadden, the big one in the foreground, and his ball have made me burn steel in my forge. You can't give adequate belly rubs and throw a ball while you are heating steel.

I have not had an opportunity to share my forge buddies. They are outside with me most of the time when I'm forging. The big black dog is McFadden and the other two are the brothers Red and Thud. McFadden is what some might call a foster fail. We took him in from the local Humane society when the cops busted a puppy mill that was a horrendous mess and needed room for 30 dogs. About 4 months later, we gave up and just adopted him. Red and Thud we got when our two elderly dogs (now Passed) were getting older. Since they are Aussie Shepherd/Black Lab crosses, we hoped that they would socialize and learn from our older two, who were very bright Border Collie mixes. It could have worked, except that Red is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. Oh well. what are ya gonna do Oh, I forgot, Mcfadden is about the weight of a smallish anvil 110 lbs or 50 kilograms. He's a Black Lab/Newfoundland cross and he wields the Tail of Doom (+2 against anything on the coffee table and your legs)