Often, my gutter-crawling through politics and the history of revolutions, government, racism, and nastiness, leave me so sad and angry that I don’t know what to do. Add on top of it my leg hurting and the clot-buster drugs, which seem to be making me a bit stupid and low-energy, and I’ve got a real motivational crisis. Oh, yeah, and looming over it all is my certainty that species extinction and the collapse of civilization is hurtling toward us at an accelerating rate. “Why bother?” doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable question; trying anything at all seems to be an act of denial.
The last couple of months have not been great, for me. I’m working on painting the shop doors and I have a first coat on about half of them. That’s just painting, and it’s boring. Right now I can’t stand upright for the hours it’d take to complete the job, so I’m doing it a bit here and there. I’ve set up some sawhorses and jack stands so I can put the door being painted at exactly a convenient height, and I got some chemical gloves to wear so I don’t wind up with paint under my fingernails, which bothers me much more than it should.
I have too many projects going on and that’s what’s bothering me. It’s the downside of being retired and having the means to embark on too many projects, so I can’t complain about that part. But it’s weird, how time-wasters (what Robert Pirsig used to call “gumption traps” in Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) can suck your motivation dry, while leaving your work queue untouched. Yesterday, I had one of those days: I tried to replace a hard drive in my desktop computer and Windows 10 keeps crashing whenever the drive lights up. Frustrating as hell, so I put it on the shelf and am continuing to work on a drive that may be dying. Then, I went downstairs and thought “I’ll cast that bog oak in resin like I’ve been meaning to” Oh, yeah, that turned out to be a quick project: I mixed too much resin for my paint cup and when I hit the vacuum it foamed over all over the bottom of my vacuum chamber. So I had to reach in, pull it out without spilling any, and – naturally – got it all over my arms and hands. Then, I got to spend a completely unproductive hour cleaning up gooey resin with denatured alcohol.
That complete, I decided to head out to get some painting done, and mixed myself a jug of water/juice. To keep pushing water through my bloodstream (clot busters, right?) (and gout) I drink a lot of crystal light, diluted 2x past where the vendor recommends. So, basically, it’s colored water with a hint of sugar – but mostly the color tricks my brain into thinking I am drinking delicious juice instead of flavorless water. So, I filled the jug and went to shake it vigorously to mix it, and the cap popped off and I sprayed red water (with a hint of sugar) all over the kitchen. Fuck me sideways. It took most of a roll of paper towels, some windex, and an hour including crawling around on the floor, to clean up. Totally wasted, dead, time. Just wasted because I was too slow and forgetful to double-check the tension on the cap before attempting an operation I have completed successfully hundreds of times. I wound up sitting on the floor, sobbing a bit with my back to the stove, then eventually shook it off, stood up, and discovered that I had soaked up another puddle of the stuff by sitting in it.
It’s dreadful to me, that feeling that the situation is slipping out of control and that I’m going to wind up being that guy they find buried in piles of unfinished projects, who died when something he stacked on top of something else fell on him. That’s a problem with working with heavy steel (and sharp steel) stuff: things falling on you can mess you up, bigtime. Let me show you a thing you would not want to drop on your foot – a thing which I will have to move safely around my shop multiple times.
That is my new forge body, made for my by the folks at TD Fabricators in Clearfield. They are patient with me: I go in with messy sketches and wave my hands around, and they make something more or less exactly what I had in mind.
At the time of the photo, the raising/lowering front door table has not been completed, though you can see the threaded mounting-blocks on the workbench, ready to weld on. All of the material is 3/8″ mild steel, but that’s quite a change from a typical forge body, which is 16 ga (maybe 2mm?) thick. I communicated to them the importance that the welds be thick and tight, so that no blow-by happens, which would oxidize the steel at forging temperature. That weld around the front is the kind of welding I do in my fantasies, only.
The big “ears” that hold the front and back on are so that I can remove them to cast and shape the refractory cement jacket that needs to be built inside of the main body and the end-caps, to insulate it when it’s running. That’s the next big step and I admit I am not looking forward to it. I’m going to need to build a form for the interior, then weld cut pieces of angle-bracket to the inside for the cement to mechanically lock onto, then cast an outer layer of refractory based on cast-o-lite, which is lightweight and fairly strong, but not strong enough. My plan is to further loft up the cast-o-lite with the addition of pearlite and shredded carbon fiber (sourced on ebay) My thinking is that the carbon fiber will serve as a strengthener that is dimensionally stable, heat resistant, and oxidization resistant. When that’s done, I’ll make another form, and cast a layer of “mizzou” – a much stronger but less insulating refractory, which is known to be fairly resistant to flux. Then, I’ll paint that with some stuff called ITC100HT which is a very high temperature-resistant material that reflects infrared well.
Once that’s all done and cured I can rig up the propane feed for the burner, and I’ll also be making a curved wooden tray that fits the bottom of the forge-body, from which I can make a silicone mold, and cast mizzou replaceable trays for flux, etc.
This is a huge project, and I wonder sometimes if I am crazy to have taken it on. But, we must do what we must. Setting up the whole shop the first time was a huge project (remember I built all those benches and did the electrical system in the room, etc) Actually, I don’t wonder if I am crazy. I have to remind myself that I decided to build out a metal-working shop and it took me almost a year before I was able to light the forge the first time. And, in that case, I bought a pre-made forge and basically my problem was “hook up the propane tank” – this is a different beast entirely.
Oh, and I’ve been (slowly) working on the interior propane feed. I got a really lovely cut-off ball valve from China, with a stainless body and a long stainless lever – it’s built like it belongs on an Abrams Tank or an F-35 (but it was $20) (which is a lot for a ball valve) – it’s stiff and large and I’m going to need some kind of heavy bracket to mount it on the wall where the propane line enters the building. That’s going to require some red-painted plywood and brackets and all the valves and pressure regulator will have to be nicely arranged for emergency access.
So many things to do! It’s daunting. I can’t just stare at my “to do” list like a deer in the headlights, because it’s not going to get any shorter that way.
A suggestion for your leg, and for your state of mind: Reserve one hour per day for a walk outside. Pirsig would approve.
Jörg@#1:
A suggestion for your leg, and for your state of mind: Reserve one hour per day for a walk outside. Pirsig would approve.
Everything points toward: lose weight and improve cardio. I’m on the walk thing, and am also working out a new home diet which is about 3/4 vegan and much less caloric than what I have been eating since 2016. I’m not sure if it’s going to be an improvement in terms of quality of life, though. We’ll see!
Walking is good but I need an option for muddy and hunting season(s).
Yes!
I started improving my health by leaving out meat from mammals, and heavily spiced food.
Make sure to vary meals. Always have several types of fruit at home, and eat at least one with most meals. Your sense of taste will improve.
Loosing weight, and gaining stamina, you’ll be able to breath more freely. Speaking from experience (Ike was still in power at my birth), your quality of life will improve!
Marcus @ 3
If there were a swimmable lake, I’d suggest swimming for the muddy season (and all other seasons). However, that isn’t cardio in the muddy and snowy season and it’s an acquired taste in the winter and you need other people for company. If you can be in the water for long enough time, it’s great, easy on leg joints and works most of the muscles.
I reserved a weekly sauna time (1 hour for the whole thing, both sitting in the hot room and showering) for myself recently as I haven’t been able to go to public saunas because of the Covid restrictions (and the risk of catching the virus when the incidence was high and I was unvaccinated). The clean, steamy heat and sweating has a positive effect on my mental health and blood sugar levels (sauna lowers blood sugar, it’s no substitute for exercise, but it’s nice). The public saunas are opening soon and I’m vaccinated so I may be going to them soon (we’ll see). The massive pre-heated stoves (with literally about a tonne of stones for storing the heat and releasing it as steam) they have give much nicer heat than a continuously heated electrical stove with a few dozen kg of stones.
I got less than I shold have out of time spent in a chemistry lab. The one thing I did get was a strong aversion to shaking anything without holding the stopper in place while doing so. Doesn’t matter if it’s just a stopper or screwed, glued, bolted, welded or cursed in place – or all at the same time. I’ll still be holding it down. It’s the sort of safety precaution where I may never ever know if it actally did any good, in which case I’ll consider it a great success.
There are lots of simple exercises you start right away with: knee bends, push-ups, pull-ups (put a bar in a doorway that you often pass through), …
Look for inspiration on YouTube.
Important: Start slowly, e.g. with one push-up! Within a few days, you’ll see improvements.
How I started walking was to, early on, set small goals. Perhaps down the block some. Easy goals. Within a day or two it got too easy, but I didn’t want to over do it.
So I shifted to simply walking every day until I started to feel the first touch of fatigue. Then I turn around and walk back. At first I didn’t even worry about numbers or distance. Inside of a week I was walking faster and covering a lot more ground. I shifted to walking for half an hour and then back.
I figured it didn’t matter what the numbers were. I was doing my thing, for me, and as long as it worked for me and was improving it didn’t matter if it was down the hall, down the block, or a thousand miles.
As it was over time I established a few regular routes I would alternate between them. After some months I was walking an hour a day, more less. Faster pace when I was feeling good. Slower when I wasn’t. Later I found out it was really close to three miles. To keep things interesting I added side loops for variety and a longer walk of about two hours if I was feeling extra frisky.
I started carrying a half-liter of water. On really hot days I would pre-freeze a liter water bottle. It would stay cold and keep me hydrated in the Florida summer as I sip the melt.
Regular aerobic exercise is a powerful anti-depressant. I tried listening to music as I walked, and planned on some recorded books, but in the end I just observed the things around me. I picked up about $50 in dropped money. I saw a lot of wildlife. Including a good number of poisonous snakes others failed to notice. But just getting out and observing a little nature was helpful.
Walking is really good.
#6:
–>simple exercises you could start right away with
That does it – I’m going to stop whining about the brake job I had to do this last weekend on our child’s car, complete with replacing seized calipers. No resin was spilled.
That is a nice weld. It probably took a skilled welder all of twenty-five minutes, and it would have taken me several days and a lot of scrap.
Are my eyes deceiving me or do you have two cylinders of steel so that there is a lip around the join between the min body and the ends? I can’t really tell if there is a lip, or just a butt joint for the body to the ends.
I would have thought a side-swing door would be better than a drop door, but maybe you’re thinking that the door will be open if you are working it, and you won’t need to lift it to close it except on rare occasions. That’s going to be a 40 pound door and it would be tiring to have to open/close it 20 times a day.
TGAP Dad@#9:
No resin was spilled.
Seized calipers suck. I used to do my own car work and decided that if I did that, I’d never get any time to do my other stuff. Cars are a pain. So, chapeau to you for getting it done.
My worst unplanned resin excursion was back in 2012, when I was gluing up some carpet using foaming resin (poly) glue. It was simple enough: trowel glue on the back, then position the carpet where I wanted it, and tack it up with a piece of oak trim screwed into the backing board. At one point in the process, the carpet slipped and flipped but I (yay!) caught it before it hit the floor, and got it hung and everything was fine. That was… until I put my hand up to my head and discovered that in the course of the flip it had flung great big gobs of glue into my hair. Where it had foamed up and hardened. It turns out that if you are careful and crush the glue with pliers you can pull the hair out without breaking it. But it’s painstaking work and it all had to be done by feel because I was too mad at myself to go ask for help and I didn’t want anyone to see it.
Then there was the time I somehow split a 1gal bottle of silicone and it leaked into the radiator where I had left it to keep it warm. It’s one of those big iron radiators and the stuff ran all down inside before pooling on the floor. It took me nearly 4 hours with paper towels and alcohol to clean that up.
I seem to spend a lot of time with paper towels and alcohol. And, not the good kind of alcohol.
Ice Swimmer@#4:
If there were a swimmable lake, I’d suggest swimming for the muddy season (and all other seasons). However, that isn’t cardio in the muddy and snowy season and it’s an acquired taste in the winter and you need other people for company. If you can be in the water for long enough time, it’s great, easy on leg joints and works most of the muscles.
I’d love that, except I’ve seen the kind of infections that immediately spring up from getting any of the local water in a cut. I have no idea what’s living in the ponds and lakes but I won’t set foot in one. There’s a lake 30 miles from here, but it’s the local jet-ski park – Pennsylvanians will immediately ATV all over anything beautiful, see, and they’ll crush anyone who is trying to non-invasively enjoy the place. They call that “enjoying nature” out here.
But, yes, swimming would be great.
Saunas are also great. I could actually build one – I have the space and it’d be … yet another project. Let me not go there. I also have considered building a furo bath, mostly because rigging up a one-shot heating system would be fun. Until winter something something and everything splits. Unless I could do like the Japanese do, and teach the orangoutans to feed the wood heater. Maybe not.
I have to keep things a bit simpler. I’m probably going to be going with my rowing machine and audiobooks for the bad weather, and walks for the better weather.
There is an aikido dojo in Altoona that has beginner classes on mondays. I am still considering that, mostly for the falling lessons and the forced attempts at flexing my body. I am really stiff. When I was in high school and college I used to bicycle 20-30 miles a day and never did stretching before or afterward. I haven’t been able to touch my toes since I stopped doing karate, back around 1979. Ugh. Even when I was fencing, I was not that flexible, which meant my lunges sucked.
Hugs and sympathy.
How long have you been on the thinner now? I mean are you still in the settling in stage? Because if you are things may well get better, if you aren’t there are alternatives and they may suit you better. Different people do react differently to the same drug, it’s one reason there are a lot of similar versions of many of the drugs that get taken long term; what one person will take with no side effects will make someone else feel awful, even what actually works at all varies from person to person for several classes of drug. Also it’s worth talking about the drug combinations with a phamacist, they sometimes pick up things that shouldn’t be mixed that the doctors don’t notice, it’s why it is advisable t get all of your prescritions from the same place, but also sometimes when you take a drug as well as whether with or without food can be very important in reducing side effects and pharmacists usually know more about that than doctors.
More hugs and sympathy, especially for the feeing stupid and slow, getting used to taking new drugs can be hard work.
Maybe a fat bike? At least for the mud.
Building workshop equipment is a tiring process; it’s not a project you start for fun and if you do a good job you don’t notice it once you’re done. All my time last weekend was taken up with building a material storage rack. Once i’m done it’ll go in the corner under all of my junk.
oh, if you do get crushed by a pile of unfinished projects i shotgun that forge. it looks like a beast
(i hope you don’t, but if the worst were to happen)
Do more smithing? Swinging a heavy hammer for a couple hours has to count for something, no?
But all that aside, starting an exercise routine is hard, maintaining it is even harder. It’s one of the things I like about my current job, as I get a fairly easy/safe bike commute out of it, and I occasionally move some heavy stuff around. It’s nothing like what people get from dedicated exercise, but it’s not bad for just being part of my day-to-day activities.
I used to do a bit of running, but then I overdid it a bit, beat up some joints, stopped for too long, got a bit heavier, etc., etc., and just had a lot of trouble every time I tried to start again. I could go out and do three, maybe five miles. and again a couple more times that week. But two weeks or so in, and something would start hurting, I would stop, and just never get started again. :/
Once read some quote something along the lines of “nobody dies with their inbox/todolist empty”, and after having some pretty trying years recently, I’m considering accepting that challenge…
Your day yesterday sounds like any day I attempt to do anything. One of the reasons I’m an incorrigible procrastinator is that I’ve learned no task is ever as simple as it should be. The general rule of thumb is that “before you can do anything, you have to do something else first.” Then I get stuck in priority loops, trying to decide which of the things that need to be done first should be done first, and how each of them will go wrong and require doing a different thing before I can do that thing.
.
Should I manage to fight my way through the loop somehow, the main task will invariably blow up in my face in unforeseen ways – broken or stripped screws I don’t happen to have a replacement for in my bag o’ screws, plastic snapping off instead of properly popping free, dead batteries, dead batteries that have leaked and ruined the piece of equipment I need to use, etc., etc. The universe is vast and bristling with infinite traps.
.
I watched a video about replacing the plug on an electrical cord (which had been eaten by my hedge trimmer. So before I can trim the hedge I have to repair the cord. Before I repair the cord, I have to buy a new plug. Before I can do that, I have to take a shower and clean up and check the light rail schedule… you see how this works.). The host happily chirped at me, “This should take you about 15 min and you’re done!” I was watching the video because the colors of my wires didn’t match any of the options I was expecting, among other things. All told, once I’d finally gotten to the point of actually working on the plug and not just preparing to work on the plug, it took me over an hour to replace it. Then I realized I’d grabbed the wrong one (I have one cord needing a male plug replacement, and another needing a female end, due to a different set up fuckups). At least with the wires stripped (my pos wire-stripper couldn’t cut a cake), redoing it only took another half hour. I’m afraid to tackle the other cord now. I will likely lose a finger this time. I only need one power cord, right? If I need another one, I’ll just buy a new one. It will be cheaper.
I very much agree with this attitude. A small goal that you actually achieve is worth more than a big goal that you never get around to. A regular habit adds up over time, no matter how small, and a small habit, once in place, is easy to expand on.
Marcus @ 12
That sounds like a setting for a horror movie, but I guess also the former part is true in many parts of the world. I’m susceptible to erysipelas, so I’m very careful in water and there are places in which I’m not swimming (the local marina here* is one of them, because it’s difficult to enter and exit water without getting some cuts).
Jet skis are a nightmare. I developed a hate of them as a snorkeling teenager. Nothing ever happened, but they were an existential threat and unlike boats, they would go back and forth aimlessly, not keeping themselves to the marked boating or navigation lanes.
As for the sauna thing, I realize it’s more much difficult there than it’s here.
The rowing machine sounds fine enough, listening to audiobooks and rowing to China and back.
__
* = The marina has a slipway and a small pier outside the gates. Local students do go swimming from it at night time.
Ridana @ 17:
There are two color schemes for flexible cable: brown for line, blue for neutral, and, if present, green/yellow for earth; and, in Japan and North America, black for line, white for neutral, and, if present, green for earth. (For 4- and 5-conductor cable, add black and grey to the worldwide scheme, and red and orange to the North American one for the additional phases.) If it’s anything else, I’m super-curious.
dangerousbeans@#15:
oh, if you do get crushed by a pile of unfinished projects i shotgun that forge. it looks like a beast
(i hope you don’t, but if the worst were to happen)
I can’t imagine what it’d cost to ship to you. At least it’s solid. I guess it’d be one of those “crate it up and put it on a boat” deals.
Ridana@#17:
Should I manage to fight my way through the loop somehow, the main task will invariably blow up in my face in unforeseen ways – broken or stripped screws I don’t happen to have a replacement for in my bag o’ screws, plastic snapping off instead of properly popping free, dead batteries, dead batteries that have leaked and ruined the piece of equipment I need to use, etc., etc. The universe is vast and bristling with infinite traps.
Ah, the wildly out of control expanding project! Those are terrifying.
I remember one particular one, in which some jackass smashed my mailbox and I went to replace it. Then, I found out that the wood post it was on had rotted. So, that meant a trip to the store for some pressure treated post and cement. Then, I fired up the tractor and installed the post hole digger (I got my PHD!) went up there, applied too much down-force, bent the PHD and it started to thrash around and hit one of the tractor’s hydraulic lines and blammo I was in a cloud of oil-mist. So, I had to disassemble that, and get to the hydraulic shop (this is mining country, they have those out here) for a $200 custom hose and then get more hydro fluid and clean off the glass on the cab and – the battery was dead. I didn’t have my own hydraulic press at the time, but the machine-shop in Clearfield straightened the PHD beam pretty fast (making sniffy comments about Chinese-made machinery) Jump-starting the tractor with its funky Ukrainian 24-volt system was no fun, but THEN I got to dig the hole and plant the posts – 6 hours into the project and night was falling. I needed paint and got a can of all weather paint, and was out there painting the damn posts at about 2:00am. It was a quick 15 minute job.
https://xkcd.com/1739