Happy New Year

Just arrived back home from a delicious meal with Cherry Pie and one of our friends. We had Italian at a local place called Gino's. We always have great food there. No, really we have NEVER had a bad meal or bad service. We had a great time and got home before the crazies hit the roads.
To all my blog friends and followers...Have a safe evening and a happy New Year!

It's A Big Ol' Truck

While at our Son's house, we got the opportunity to drive his newest ride, a 'bobbed" 2 1/2 ton M-35 "Deuce". I got to take it wheelin' at the local mud hole and it was GREAT! Below you can see Cherry getting ready to take it for a drive. She drove to the end of the street and decided that was enough for her, Son drove it back and went around the house and went to cross the deep ditch in front and, well, the mud was softer than expected . So he got stuck, IN HIS FRONT YARD.

The big ol' front bumper plowed into the road base and brought the rig to a sudden stop. In deference to his better half, he stopped there and asked a neighbor to pull him out.

The neighbor came down in his Dodge 4x4 and kindly pulled him out. Now the Bobber is over 10, 000 pounds, the Dodge, I don't know, 4,000 or so. He didn't even slip a tire pulling the Bigun out. No harm was done and the neighbors had a good time to boot. Son weathered the expected jibbing well. He has crossed the ditch before but from the road to the yard not the yard to the road. I may be going back to attend a military vehicle off road adventure in North Carolina with him.

The Glory Of Travel

On our journey from Missouri to Virginia via Texas, we saw all the usual sights that can be found during travel by air. As for me I saw many things that made me realise the glory that can be found when traveling. I just want to thank all the women that had their bouncy bits shelved and on display this weekend. My oh my, what nature has provided to some of the fairer sex is truly remarkable.

And They Ate

Finished with the little seminar Ron and I conducted. In general, I think it went very well. the men that joined us showed a definite interest in the products and everyone was pleased with the food we prepared for them. We'll see how things shake out from here. We are talking of doing another event after the new year. With the interest this small group showed a larger group may result in some customers. To the men who showed up tonight, it was great meeting you all. And thanks for your interest in these amazing products. Have a great evening and as I'm not sure of my next installment in the life of a Midwest Rebel, Have a Merry Christmas!

Now We're Cookin'

I'm sure by now you have seen the link to Shelf Reliance on my bloglist. Well, another dealer and I set up a mens night to show demonstrate the uses of the various foods. We had a very low RSVP so we cancelled it. Now the woman that owns the business where we were going to do the demonstration said she had 5 men come in and sign up. So after all we will be cooking for a small group of men tonight. I had some great items planned for the bigger event but after cancelling I didn't get the ingredients I needed. So, making do with what we already had, I will be serving a spicy chicken salad on toasted crustini's and Taco TVP quesadillas. The other party to this event is making some desert items. We'll see how it all turns out. I'm confident in my culinary skills I hope the other guy carries his end. I 'm sure he'll make a stellar performance.

Model 94 Update

Still no pictures. Cherry has not uploaded the camera program to the new computer. She's worried that adding ANTHING will slow the new one to the speed of the old one.

Here we go. I have all the internal bits polished on their wear spots. The barrel and magazine tube is polished. I stripped and sanded the buttstock and fore end. The wood is smoothly blended into the metal. Smoothly hell, some of it looks like it grew out of the wood . I took the wood to 600 grit and finished with 0000 steel wool with 3 dewhiskerings thrown in. Any way things were looking towards blueing and staining. Until.....I decided that the factory finish on the receiver would not match the blue going on everything else. So... I started to sand the blue off and found the receiver is dished in the center on both sides. Time to break out the files again. I have one side filed and sanded to 600 grit and it needs to go to 800 or 1000 grit. I wanted to have everything ready for blueing and finishing before we leave for Virginia. I don't know if will happen. I may have to finish the receiver when we get back.

How Hard It Is

I've got his short term work, ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. It's quite the gig. Stand there and ring a bell. That's all it is. Stand there and ring a bell. Last week a lady quit. I guess it was too freaking hard for her. This week a guy got fired, caught him on video doing something. He also was removed from another location by the stores request a couple weeks ago. Removed as in "don't ever send him back here". Ring a bell and be nice. Ring a bell and be honest. Ring a bell and do the right thing. I guess it's beyond some folks ability. Any hoo, I've suddenly got more hours.

Bbbbbblogger. GRRRRRR!

Is anyone else that is using Blogger having problems with the new save/publish/edit function? I'm not liking it very much at this point. I never had to "save a post before publishing it. No I have to save, then select to publish. If I publish and then find an error and go back to the edit function, usually the confounded thing will not save the corrections. GRRRRRR!

What A Quandary

Very soon Cherry and I will board a plane and travel during the peak of the holiday travel season to Virginia. In Virginia I will see my new grand-daughter for the very first time. I'm very excited about this! Next in line will be my wonderful daughter-in-law and then will be My Pride, my son. Then will come the new vehicle in their lives. More on that later.

My quandary is, we are flying with no checked luggage, carry on only. So, I will not be checking a gun case and going through the TSA procedure. That means I will be traveling ungunned and unknived. Now, I can ship the knives but not the guns. I don't see the need to do a dealer to dealer transfer and all that entails. So, I'm thinking the boy might have to lend me a piece while we're there. Further trips East will have to be TSA chaperoned or made by wheeled vehicle. It's been a long time since I was with out a gun or a knife on me.

On to the new vehicle. I've wanted one for some time now. Son has upstaged me. Look at this monster that is his new daily driver. While we are out there I'll get a better picture. It's a 1969? M35 2.5 ton "Deuce" that's been bobbed. He loves it!

I've Been Remiss

Now that things have settled down a little, I need to rectify a wrong. I want to welcome my new blog friends.

Emitt1 over at Standing Outside Looking In, got me to resume regular posting, visiting and friending other bloggers. I owe him a big 'ole THANKS! Please take a trip to his place and follow along on his adventures in life.

Oh, The History

I forgot to mention, if it even matters, the location I normally ring a bell at is right across the road from the cemetery that Jesse James is buried in. The James Family Farm, now a county park, is right down the road. The site of the first daylight bank robbery, committed by the James brothers, is down the highway about 10 miles. Lots of history around here.

I worked for about a year with some good guys that are from the deep south. They kept telling me that Missouri was not really a Southern or Confederate state. They didn't understand when I told them Missouri was fighting the civil war before it ever started. Actually the Missouri delegation DID vote to secede and join the Confederacy and the Confederacy voted to allow Missouri to join. The only thing that no one counted on was a Federal Army moving in to arrest the Missouri Assembly. The elected officials scattered to avoid arrest and a group favoring the North was seated in their place.

As a pre-teen and early teen, my grandfather used to take me to a genuine Civil War era Grecian mansion located in Platte County Missouri. The structure was still standing and down the hill near the creek you could see the foundations of the slave quarters. As he had permission to remove wood from the building, occasionally we would go there for the salvaging of the wood. Everything was walnut, the trim, the floors, the stairs and banisters, everything. Once you entered through the front double doors you were greeted by a huge room with a 16-18 foot ceiling. Across the room was a semi-circular stair case descending from the upper rooms. The parlor had plaster coat of arms, once done in gold leaf, used as crown molding. The upper rooms all had their own fireplaces and dumbwaiters. Upon entering the "staff" area the finishes all got quite a bit more rough. The inside kitchen had a set of stair going to the upper floor that was so narrow that as a teenager, I had to turn sideways to use it. This place even had a "dungeon". The basement, on one side, had three rooms that had iron doors with iron rings and chains set into the stones of the foundation. Grandpa and I were careful about what we removed, unlike the "others" that came there. The midnight pillaging and wanton damage got so bad the owners finally had it bulldozed. Had we know at that time it was going to happen we could have gotten more of the fine wood out of that place. Once while there I was wondering around, hoping to find a child's toy or something. Looking the place over I found a huge stump off from the house a little bit. Inspiration struck and I started to sift through the fine dirt at the base of the stump and lo and behold I found a marble! Another time I was looking around and found a loaf of bees wax. It was about 10-12 inches in diameter and about 6-8 inches tall. I later found out that bees wax, at one time in Missouri, could be used to pay your taxes, so this may have been a tax loaf. I kept that bees wax for years and don't know where it ever got to. Any way, Grandpa used that walnut to make jewelry boxes for all his daughters. Many plaques and candle holders came from it as well as a beautiful grandfather clock. When Grandpa died I got quite a bit of the wood left over from that fine old mansion.

The Week End

Yesterday Cherry and I travelled to the Big City to celebrate and early Christmas dinner with my mother as we will not be around during the actual Christmas season. We had a good time and ate lotsa tasty food. We made it back home with plenty of time to relax with an adult beverage. My drink lately has been Wild Turkey. Mmm, mmm good.

Today Computer Tech Friend and his girl friend(woman friend?) were in town for the weekend and came over for breakfast . I made breakfast for all of us, pancakes and bacon,then we had some good conversation with the friends we haven't seen for a while . CTF worked on the new unit and took the old laptop and the desktop with him. While he was working and looking at the computers I took his pocket knife, cleaned and adjusted it and then gave it a razor sharp edge. His lady friend was amazed that I did all the cooking and cleaning around here. She gave CTF several sharp looks when this was discussed. Any how, we all had a good time and after the first of the year we will go to his house about 160 miles away for another visit and pick up the repaired(hopefully) and updated machines. I polished a few more small parts for the 94 later and I think for the rest of the day very little will be done except for maybe a little Turkey hunting, if you catch my drift.

Try It, You'll Like It

You may have noticed under the heading of blog list I have listed Shelf Reliance. This will link you to my wifes website with Shelf Reliance. The goal of Shelf reliance and ourselves is to provide people with high quality freeze dried food and reasonable prices.

We have received our first shipments of various foods that we ordered and have been trying them out for a couple of weeks now. Let me say, the fruits are disappearing very rapidly. I have had a hard time keeping my hands off the freeze dried peaches and strawberries. My wife likes the pineapple so much that she quickly finished a pantry can of 5.3 ounces. Now that might not seem like a lot but you have to consider, there is no water at all in this stuff. Those 5.3 ounces when re- hydrated would make about a whole pineapple.

We have been using in our everyday cooking, the onions and peppers. They have great flavor and aroma.

One afternoon, I made a light lunch for the two of us. I used a package of Knorr Sides, chicken flavor, and 1/4 cup of re- hydrated freeze dried chopped chicken. The first thing we both noticed was the flavor of the chicken. It was great. Then we noticed that a quarter cup was too much meat for that package of noodles. Here's the best thing, you can generally find the Knorr product on sale 10 for 10 bucks or a buck apiece. The 1/4 cup of chicken ended up costing us eight five cents. That's 85 cents. So for a buck eighty five we made a light lunch that would have feed 3 in a pinch and it fed the two of us nicely with a little left over. If we had used our noodles and some bouillon we could have got the price down a little but no so much that it would make a huge difference.

We continue to work the freeze dried food into our everyday lifestyle and use it for storage food as well. This stuff has a shelf life that can be up to 25 years and some items are longer. Please, visit her site and try a sample or two and see what you think. If you are interested you can order through her site or we can sign you up as another distributor. Think of it, you can get the food cheaper and maybe make a little money on top of it.

Let It Snow Or Not

I finally got hired as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army. I've been picking up 2-6 hours every day. I would have liked to ring for the whole season but there were some typical (for the Salvation Army) snafu's with my application. Anyway, I'm getting to work a little. I got all geared up for the snow that was to come in last night. I put the garden tractor in the garage, ready to drive out and plow the drive way. Filled it with gas and put fuel drier in it. Then I went to ring in front of the Wal Mart, ready to ring in the snow. I saw a lot of new snow shovels leaving the store. But no snow ever came. When I got home I turned on the news and the weather guessers were giddy with the news that no snow was coming. Oh well, at least they helped good old wally world increase their sales.

Model 94 ...Some More

Call me obsessive but I went and finished the barrel and magazine tube to a 600 grit. They look really good too. I also started on the visible small parts. With some of the curves I'll have to get some accessories for the Dremel tool as I'm not getting the same look on the flats as I am the curves doing it be hand. I'll also polish all wear surfaces. That is all for now tired and aching from my stint as a bell ringer today.

Model 94 II

Last night I got the magazine tube polished out to 400 grit. This may be as far as I'll take it. It is much smother than the factory machined finish and I can see my reflection in it.

The goal for today is to get the barrel to the same finish. This takes more time as I have to avoid the sweated on front sight ramp and I have to avoid rubbing out the lettering on the barrel.

I was wrong in stating that this was a pre-64 gun. I found better information that indicates this gun was made in 1974 and extrapolating the numbers gives me a guesstimation manufacture month of November or December. This gun has a prefix number of 401 and 1975 guns started with 411.

Model 94 Project

I got tired of watching the boob tube yesterday so I went to my improvised work bench( we are in the process of rehabbing this house and I don't have an actual work area yet) and dived into the Model 94 project I took on. I got the rifle taken down to bits and pieces and did a lot of filing to remove the pitting on the magazine tube and a little on the barrel. When I took the forend wood off I found a lot more rust and pitting there so I ended up filing the entire magazine tube. Then I did the patches on the barrel and filed the whole thing to bring it back to a smooth contour.All in all I probable took a tablespoon of filings off the gun. As I don't have a buffing machine I do my polishing the old fashioned way. By hand. With various grades of sand paper and a lot of elbow grease. So now the real work starts. Pics will follow as soon as I can get the old laptop repaired. Pictures have been taken but Cherry doesn't want to install the camera program into the new laptop. Computer Tech Buddy is coming to town next week and says he'll fix the old laptop then and take the tower of the desk top computer with him.

It's A Beee You Tif UUUL Day

Awoke this morning to a grey , overcast sky, weeping icy drizzles on parched, brown earth. Wind adds a bone cracking chill to the soul. In my world it's a beautiful day.

You Do The Math

The jobs report came out yesterday. Lots of number being thrown around. and to me they still don't add up. Here's how they stand.

Official Unemployment is 8.6 % down from 9%. New Unemployment Claims are once again over 400K. 402,000 is the number this week. The US Government dropped 4 thousand jobs with state and local government shedding 16,000 jobs. The construction industry fired another 12,000 folks. Government speculation says that another 315,000 people just quit looking for jobs.There are something like 13 Million people out of work. But new payroll only climbed to 120,000. So you do the math. The 120,000 comes from retail and shipping. Can you say Seasonal Jobs? What 'll happen to those jobs in a couple of months?

Day Four

Here we are, four days from the start of the fast. Do I feel hungry? No. Am I continuing? No. Could I continue? Yes. I feel good. I'm not hungry at all. The only thing I have noticed is I'm cold. That in it self is very strange as I always run HOT. I sweat all the time. I'm usually comfortable with temperatures in the 20's. Yesterday I was outside putting the snow plow on the yard tractor. With the temperature right at 50 and the wind blowing about 20 mph I took a chill. Very strange for that to happen to me. I mean I am the guy that used to ride my Harley 11 months a year as long as there was no snow or ice. I have ridden when the temperature was 15 degrees. Sure I dressed for it but I was comfortable. So, today I start eating again and judging from the silence of my stomach I won't be eating much.

Fasting Notes

Day One

Drank alot of water and other liquids today. I did feel pretty hungry in the morning and in the evening.

Day Two

Once again I drank alot of liquids. I was not really hungry except in the evening. Drinking water does get old real quick. In order to keep myself supplied with vitamins and minerals during this fast I made a couple of different drinks. One is just stirring a peach flavored drink mix that came with our first shipment from Shelf Reliance. Man is it tasty! It has several minerals in it and unlike I posted earlier it does have sugar, 28 mg per 8oz serving. The other drink I made twice today was to put 1 cup of chicken broth in a pan and add 1 teaspoon of Dr. Jensens Vegetable Seasoning. It has a ton of nutrients in it. It is really good. I don't know or really care if that is not included in a fast. it;s liquid and has nutrients is all I care about at this time. I gave Cherry Pie a drink of it and she want me to make add noodles and some other stuff late on. With all the liquids and the diuretic I take I have a path beat to the toilet. I bet I have pissed 20 times today. Oh, I weighed. I started the Thanksgiving season at 275. Tonight I weigh 266.

Day 3

Do I continue for another day? I feel good, not very hungry. I realise now that eating takes up a lot of my day. Not eating leaves a lot of day available to me. I told Cherry Pie that I would eat dinner with her. Maybe not. She wanted to go get something for our Daughter-In-Law tonight and then go to Five Brothers Hamburgers for dinner. I told I really didn't want to come off a fast at a greasy burger place. This morning I realised that fasting also prepares you for a time when you might HAVE to go with out food for a while. I know of a man here in town that fasted for 30 days with no health issues from that. In all reality today will probably be my last day. Three days at 3,000 or more calories a day is a loss of 6,000 calories from my usual diet. With my intake of vitamins and nutrients I should not have any health issue as my mother the RN is telling me I WILL have.