Going QRT here.
By jimrob on November 20, 2008
After much thought, we of the family budget committee have decided to pull the plug on the internet connection. Things are tight, and we can’t really justify paying $35 a month on a second-tier entertainment source when we’re having a hard time buying groceries.
I’ll be sending out alternate contact information to those of you who communicate with me regularly. If you don’t get anything, please don’t be upset. I don’t mean to slight anyone, I’m sure you were just overlooked. If you want to make sure you aren’t, drop me an email and I’ll let you know how to get ahold of me.
My gmail account will still be active, so everyone can still send me messages. I’ll only be checking it about once a week now, however. Certain stuff will be filtered to my phone, but not much.
In a few weeks, I’ll have a packet-based email thing setup so I can at least do that much and stay in touch with everybody. Just remember not to send photos or dirty words. Dave would like to keep his ticket.
It’s been a fun time here. Five or so years ago, I started out with “The Lair of Confusion” over on blogspot. I changed that to “Ramblings of a Bearded HIllbilly” when someone accused me of being an overweight, self-righteous Dungeon Master wanna-be.
I soon smarted up, and after getting my first job and a bank account (complete with plastic money) I signed up with godaddy. I purchased my name (which I have no plans to relinquish) and setup a Moveable Type blog. I think it was still ROABH.
I changed that to my long-running blog, “The Hometown Conservative.” That was when I lived uptown and over in Atlantic. Those were fun times; remember the old Wal-Mart stories? The lesbian with no toenails. The gassy taxidermist. The retarded guy buing a shotgun. All the TLE horror stories. Ah, good times.
Then I moved on to the sorta-green theme. “The Last Link.” It started as a quasi-survivalist blog with a ham radio backbone. What would YOU do if the phones didn’t work? Exactly. Then I brought back THC, and ran both. One for radio, one for politics.
That didn’t last long, and I merged the two back together. That brings us to today! I have no plans for taking the blog down, so feel free to peruse the archives if you’d like. It’s all here for your enjoyment. Some stuff is in sub directories that aren’t linked to; most of the old Wal-Mart stuff is there. Someday I may shove it all here for some prospective employer to read and decide not to hire me on.
So long for now folks, it’s been fun!
Topics: Site News 'n' Updates | No Comments »
How and what to stockpile in your pantry…
By jimrob on November 16, 2008
Consumer’s Guide: Preparing an Emergency Food Supply Long Term Food Storage
This is a very nice page detailing the nutritonal requirements of an emergency food store, and provides information on what to rotate out and at what rate.
Consider stocking some of the items listed as examples below. Amounts are suggested quantities for an adult for one year.
Flour, White Enriched 17 lbs Corn Meal 42 lbs Pasta (Spaghetti/Macaroni) 42 lbs Beans (dry) 25 lbs Beans, Lima (dry) 1 lb Peas, Split (dry) 1 lb Lentils (dry) 1 lb Dry Soup Mix 5 lbs Peanut Butter 4 lbs Dry Yeast 1/2 lb Sugar, White Granulated 40 lbs Soda 1 lb Baking Powder 1 lb Vinegar 1/2 gal
Here’s a neat little schedule of how often to rotate out certain food stuffs in your pantry:
- Use within six months:
- Powdered milk (boxed)
- Dried fruit (in metal container)
- Dry, crisp crackers (in metal container)
- Potatoes
- Use within one year:
- Canned condensed meat and vegetable soups
- Canned fruits, fruit juices and vegetables
- Ready-to-eat cereals and uncooked instant cereals (in metal containers)
- Peanut butter
- Jelly
- Hard candy, chocolate bars and canned nuts
- May be stored indefinitely* (in proper containers and conditions):
- Wheat
- Vegetable oils
- Corn
- Baking powder
- Soybeans
- Instant coffee, tea
- Cocoa
- Salt
- Noncarbonated soft drinks
- White rice
- Bouillon products
- Dry pasta
- Vitamin C
- Powdered milk (in nitrogen-packed cans)
Topics: Livin' Simple in a Complicated World | No Comments »
Well-intentioned governmental stupidity.
By jimrob on November 16, 2008
I’m currently working on job building a new library. It’s a state of the art, modern-day “green” masterpiece. The lighting in this place runs off of 277V to reduce I2R losses. I personally don’t think there’d be that much of a current loss between 120 and 277 to merit the difference, but what do I know.
Also, there’s a $250k solar array system on the roof, complete with three charge inverters that convert the generated electricty to 277VAC to power the lights. Supposedly, this thing will pay for itself in ten years. Now, I don’t know what kind of library has a $25k/yr lighting bill. This one certainly won’t/wouldn’t.
Also, the lights automatically dim themselves based upon the amount of light flowing into different areas of the building. For example, the lights on the East side will dim when sensors detect sunlight flowing into that part of the building. The lights on the South dim when sunlight is coming in that side, and so on. Ironically, this resulted in a massive amount of wire being pulled at a much higher cost. All the lights are on the same circuit, but some have an emergency backup and all are on different dimming zones. Essentially different circuits, but not really. Factor in the cost of light sensors, computerized lighting control, etc… you get the idea.
Almost all rooms have occupancy sensors which turn off the lights after ten minutes of no movement in the room. The rest have sensor-containing light switches that perform the same task. I hope nobody decides to sit down and read a book for too long.
The cost of all this stuff is baffling. The cost of this relatively small building is over $9M (but is assessed at $6M…). A rediculously large amount given the size of the place. But, this being a government project, cost isn’t of the utmost importance. Besides that, it’s butt ugly. To minimize “environmental impact” by the usage of “excessive building materials,” most of the building has an exposed underside of the roofing deck and support beams. Think Wal-Mart. Yep. That’s how the inside of this place looks. Heating ducts, conduit, water pipe; all out there in the open.
Then there’s the paint scheme. We couldn’t have a traditional look - oh no. All the walls, except for two, are painted in varrying shades of green. Dark green, light green, puke green, diarrhea green. Green to make Mamma Earth so happy she could cry acid-free rain drops.
The six closet spaces to the front entry, three to either side, are reserved for the handi-capable folks who want to check out the latest Dan Brown menopausal mastrabatory aide (to quote Stewie Griffin.) The two spots to the North and South, respectiviely, are reserved for “fuel efficent vehicles.” A little green sign with a tree informs the fact.
How exactly does one define “fuel efficient?” My 2000 Chevy Cavalier gets about 35 m.p.g. Does that allow me to park closer to the door? Can I park a rascal in that spot? It gets infinity m.p.g. Besides all that, wouldn’t you want to reserve spots for non-fuel efficient vehicles so they don’t have to drive all over the parking lot trying to find a place (like crowded parking in a modern-day American library would be a problem anyway.)
The best part of this modern-day, energy-efficient, environmental wet dream is the massive amount of accent lighting we installed. Why go to the trouble of installing a non-standard, solar-powered lighting system when you’re just going to crap electricity right down the toilet by putting lights up just to illuminate a blank green wall?
Then there’s the tower, good grief the tower. There’s a two-story tower over the entryway with nothing inside of it It’s hollow; I presume it’s there to make the entryway look bigger or something. Anyway, this whole thing is made of glass and is illuminated 24 hours a day. I bet that’s a great way to save on the heat bill.
Of course there’s all kinds of brain-dead city council persons constantly wandering about the place getting in our way, admiring their well-intentioned stupidity.
Topics: Solar Power | No Comments »
How to hide categories in your wordpress sidebar
By jimrob on November 16, 2008
If you’re like me, you don’t like a bunch of clutter in your sidebar. Or, also like me, you change the topic of your blog often and feel the need to remove old stuff that no longer pertains to your mood. What I did was move all my non-conforming stuff to a category called “archives.” Then I modified my sidebar PHP code according to the instructions on this page to hide that category (and the posts within) from display.
Now, the stuff I no longer wish to display is hidden but still exists. Neato.
Topics: Site News 'n' Updates | No Comments »
John Seymour on local economics and self-sufficiency
By jimrob on November 14, 2008
From the introduction to “The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It”
Unless we come from a race of traveling people, we are all pretty much “locals.” We live somewhere, and what goes on in the locality of where we live is much more important than what goes on in Paris, London, or Washington, DC. If we could once again run our world on a local scale, with decisions made on a local basis, then many of our problems would be stopped in their tracks. Let me explain “local” by comparing two villages: these are in Crete, but they could be anywhere. One village is high up in the mountains, just to the south of the cave where Zeus was born, according to Greek myth. It can only be reached by an unpaved road full of potholes and [is] quite unsuitable for buses. The only contact with the outside world that I could see was that a man with a very tough truck would brave the potholes once each week and bring a load of fish from the small fishing port down on the coast. Sheep were exported from the village to bring in the cash for this transaction.
Apart from this exchange, the community on this mountain was self-supporting. There were enough tiny terraced fields to grow wheat, wine, and olives. There was an oil mill for pressing the olives. There were plenty of nut trees as well as lemon groves, fig trees, and many other kinds of fruits. There were beehives, and the sheep provided meat in abundance. The mountain village houses were beautiful, simple, and comfortable in that climate. Clothes were made by the women. There was a loom-maker in a neighboring village, a boot-maker in another, and a knife-maker in yet another. Was there culture? Well, there was singing and dancing and music aplenty. There were few books, but if the villagers had wanted them, they could have been made available. The villagers paid no taxes, and had just one policeman. They knew their own laws and kept to them.
Now the other Creatan village I wish to describe was lower down the mountain and had a “good” road. This gave access to the city, but also gave the city access to the country. City money came in and bought much of the land, uprooting the old trees and vineyards and planting quick-growing olive trees, so providing an olive crop for cash sale. Now the villagers had to pay for their olive oil and were dragged quickly into the money economy. All sorts of traders had access to the village, and a small supermarket opened. Suddenly the villagers found they ‘needed” all sorts of things they had never needed before. Television arrived and brought with it aspirational visions. Young people in the village no longer sang or danced; they wanted Western pop music and Coca-Cola. Even though their fine road looked like a road to freedom, it was actually a road to sadness, wage slavery, and discontent, from which the youngsters could not return.
Topics: Livin' Simple in a Complicated World | No Comments »