Year In Review

It was an excellent year for me to travel. I started the year off with the trip to Ireland. Beautiful country and people. Lots of history, good food and drink. I especially liked the southern part of the country with the rugged land and the small farms. I could see me living like that.

Made the trip to California shortly after that with the high mileage team from the high school - fun and educational both. Got to see the Golden Gate bridge and giant redwoods and get state #48 in the books.

Cuzzin Ricky and I went to Kansas to visit my brother and pick up the chickens. Lovely visit with he and his wife and the bonus stop in Knoxville, Iowa for the Sprint Car Hall of Fame and race (we also made the last Hoosier Hundred this year). I really need to get back out to Kansas again one of these days. Spend some time with "fam" and check out the big ball of twine.

Cuzzin Ricky and I also headed farther west on the Amtrak to Utah. Long ride to Salt Lake City but pleasant enough. Saw some beautiful scenery along the way and met some nice folks on the train. Promontory Point was worth the side trip as was Ogden with the museums in the old train station. Wendover and Ely were both well worth the trip - airplanes and trains, beautiful scenery and state #49. Only one left now is Hawaii.

Did the bi-plane ride this year just like the old barn-stormer days. That was fun. I don't know of any motorcyclist who doesn't like flying in small craft, though. Unfortunately, the B-17 I flew in a few years back crashed while I was out in Nevada killing several people. Certainly a tragedy but what a boring existence a risk free life would be.

Got the motorbike operational this year and started on the Rapido. Not a whole lot accomplished on the other internal combustion projects but got quite a bit done around the shack and this-n-that sort of things. As always I've got big plans for the upcoming year but I'm sure this time next year I'll only have accomplished about half of what I planned.

Didn't do much cycling this year. I did do the ruck march and a few 5K events. My resting pulse rate was slowly creeping up, so I'm addressing that and doing a bit more strength training. With the political and financial situations in this country being what they are, we all should try to be as prepared as possible for any scenario that comes along. With a government that's $23 trillion in debt, trying to disarm its citizens and remove the president by any means possible, I don't think it will end well. Or peacefully.

Changed jobs this year. I left the college after seven years and became a handy-man for a local company. I doubt I'll be working there too much longer. I turn 70 next September. As it stands now, that'll be it for me.

Kind of a slow year for reading. Twenty books was all. I spend a lot more time on the computer these days rather than reading. Sort of a mixed blessing, though. Even though I read a daily newspaper, I like to supplement that with info I gather from the internet. Of course there are also the time wasters like Facebook and Free Cell. 

Looking forward to 2020. Even though I'll be70 next year, I'm living pretty large for a semi-retired school teacher. I'm not rich but doing OK. For a middle class guy, doing OK is actually pretty damn good these days. Cuzzin Ricky and I are planning on some more traveling this upcoming year. East to Pennsylvania with a stop in Ohio to see my brother for sure, not sure where else. Definitely a few more races than this past year.  

Best wishes on the upcoming year to all of you. Here's to health and happiness on 2020.

Finishing The Year Strong

The weather has been unseasonably warm of late - no complaints from here. I decided to take advantage of the warm temps and do a couple little jobs in the woodshop yesterday since it's not heated. In the photo is a cover I made for the new propane tank. The regulator that goes into the tank is supposed to be protected from the elements, so this should do it. I just use a small plastic bucket to cover the one for the shop but it doesn't have the protective flanges around the valve like the new one does. I made up a quick hammer form and used a piece of aluminum sheet I had out in the barn. After the photo was taken I welded up the slits on the edges and planished it a bit so the finished product looks a little bit better than in the photo.

I bought the larger mallet in the photo a while back from Garrett Wade and used it on the project above. They have three sizes listed in their catalog. I was real happy with the big one so I ordered myself the middle sized one when I ordered a couple of Christmas presents. If they still have them next time I order something from them, I'll get the smallest size as well. Wooden mallets are just the ticket for hammering on both woodworking projects and aluminum panel work. I think I'll round one end of the smaller of the two for doing shot bag work. Should be a handy size.

The Missus got me a 6" x 6" individual day calendar for Christmas but it was a refill rather than a whole new thing so there was no stand or wall bracket. I made up a quickie stand to hold the sheets out of a 1x6 while I was in the woodshop. Nothing fancy but it'll do the trick.

After working in the woodshop I finished welding the hoop for the bike carrier out in the shop. The humidity was about 100% so I didn't try painting it. In fact, most every thing had a light coating of moisture on it. I'll plan on getting it painted sometime soon depending on the weather.

I repaired a bicycle wheel the other night down in the basement shop. A former student and boxer of mine needed the wheel repaired for his or someone in his family's bike. It's the same size as the one on my rail bike, so I swapped it out and got the broken spokes replaced and started truing the wheel. It's about 95% done. I'll grease the bearings, polish it up with some steel wool and then mount a new tire on it after giving it a final truing.

Supposed to be above freezing most of the upcoming week, so I should be able to get some more done in the shop. I'm going to Harbor Freight today to pick up a few things and hit a couple of other stops along the way. Hoping to still get out in the shop later though.

Almost There

Christmas present from Surly - I laughed out loud when I read it. The hell of it is, I'm relatively certain that's the actual number.

We had a lovely Christmas. I got some nice things and we spent time with the Surly and his clan. The weather was exceptionally warm as was yesterday - it got up to 64 by my reckoning. I did some outdoorsy things and put in a good half day in the shop, no jacket required.

The bike carrier is just about done. I need to drill four holes to fasten the hoop for the front wheel. I tacked the brackets in place to make sure the hoop was where I wanted it. After I drill the holes I'll grind off the tacks, finish weld the hoop and it should be ready for paint. I still need to make a couple of brackets to bolt on the ends for tie downs but those are just two pieces of angle. I would have finished it up yesterday but I had some work to do for my side hustle. I should be able to get the carrier finished up and painted over the weekend. I'd like to get it done before it gets cold again, plus, the to-do list is starting to grow.

Nollaig Shona dhuit

Merry Christmas in Gaelic from Shop Teacher Bob, shown above kissing the Blarney Stone. Lots of Blarney having been posted here over the years, seems only fitting. And here's wishing you Merry Christmas in the native languages of some of the countries I've been blessed to visit.

 In French: Joyeux Noel

Spanish: Feliz Navidad

Dutch: Vroolijk Kerstfeest

German: Frohe Weinacten

And because I've been to Italy twice, a pair of Buon Natales.

Best wishes for Christmas and many blessings in the upcoming New Year from Shop Teacher Bob. And as always, thanks for stopping by.

New Light

One of the fluorescent light fixtures quit working in my shop. I swapped all of them out a few years ago and put in ones that took the T-8 bulbs and were supposed to be good for cold temperatures. When the one quit I tried replacing the bulbs but no go, just stopped working. I went to Menard's and was going to buy a replacement unit like I had but decided to try a LED fixture instead. The fluorescent fixture was $15.00 and came without bulbs, the LED was $35.00 ready to go. By the time I bought two new bulbs the price difference was less than $10.00 so I figured I'd give the LED a try. It's a nice bright white color - 4000K. It's supposed to put out as much light as the fluorescent I replaced. Actually seems a little brighter and its supposed to last a lot longer and use less juice.

I've got a couple of halogen lights in the shop as well. One over the lathe and one over the welding bench. I'm going to see about some type of similar LED for over the lathe. The current light is pretty close to my head and generates a lot of heat - nice in the winter, not so much in the summer. Also the color temperature is more yellow than the white given off by the LED, The older I get the more light I need to work comfortably, especially on fine detail stuff like what one encounters often times on lathe work.

Beautiful weather yesterday and forecast for the next few days. It got up to damn near 50 degrees with sunshine. The weatherman said Christmas is supposed to be warmer than Halloween and Thanksgiving Day for the first time in 65 years. That's OK by me. I took the Himalayan out for a spin after going to the gym yesterday. I wore my new helmet. Still a bit nippy for an open face helmet but I like the fit. It should be just the ticket for commuting this summer.

Going out for breakfast with Cuzzin Ricky this morning and walking 3-4 miles later today. I'm going to work on a few things out in the shop in between along with getting the final preparations taken care of for Christmas.

Libertarian

From here

I received a notice from Social Security the other day. Looks like I'll be getting a raise come the new year - 1.6 percent. After notifying me of what the raise will be, they then detailed out what I'll be receiving on a monthly basis. After taking out for Medicare and insurance, federal taxes, the net take home is about 20% less than what I started with. Since the Fed took 12% of my earnings for 50 plus years right off the top and I had nothing to say about it, it would be nice if they just gave me my money back without paying taxes on what was a tax to begin with.

I would recommend those of you who are still working do a little retirement planning and keep in mind the number you're quoted from Social Security is not the number you'll be able to live off of. Also, if you take an early retirement,  not only will your payout be reduced, which would be expected, they won't allow you to make more than about $18,000 per year until you hit full retirement age without a reduction of your benefit.

With what's going on in Washington right now, might be a good time to consider Libertarian candidates in the future. They don't want to tax you to death or confiscate your guns. I just want my representatives to be fiscally responsible (a $23 T debt load is not responsible), keep us out of senseless wars and keep their hands out of my pocket. The more I see of politics lately, I don't think there is any way we'll be able to vote our way out of this, however. The country is just too far gone. I think my buddy is right. It's the end of the empire.

TCM & I Remember

Turner Classic Movies has their TCM Remembers playing now like they do at the end of every year. I didn't realize "The Man With No Eyes" had passed away. Actually I never knew his name until I saw it on TCM Remembers. The photo above is, of course, from Cool Hand Luke, my favorite movie of all time. Morgan Woodward was in a ton of movies and television shows, mostly cowboy/western things, which makes it even more surprising that I didn't know his name since that's my favorite genre.

Another character actor who passed away this past year is Michael Pollard. That would be him on the left in the photo above, not to be confused with Robert Redford as if that would be possible. The photo is from a scene in Little Fauss and Big Halsy. The film was a 1970 release about motorcycle racers and sidecar racers at that. It's one of the things that got me amped up about sidecar racing. Its been a long time since I've seen the movie. I used to have it on VHS. It's about time I give it another screening. It'd be nice to view it on the new flat screen TV.

RIP gentlemen.