It is interesting watching Elon Musk tear into the finances of the federal .gov like a hungry badger tearing up a gopher nest . My thoughts are Musk's wonder kids are like an Art of War Vs. revenge of the Nerds mashup . Good Lucki kids ! 

 

 

 

   Sad times around the ranch. Mom passed away last week. She had been ill in December and never really recovered .  We decided to have the memorial service in a couple months when things warm up a bit.  Also at the end of January I had a colonoscopy the prep for them is less than pleasant , as any who have had the procedure  can attest. Hopefully things will calm down a bit now . On a more positive note , I picked up a Springfield Armory S.A.35 9MM It is a Browning HiPower copy with a couple small tweaks . I have wanted one for a while ,and finally grabbed one. I wanted a 9MM but something with a little class , and Lugers are getting kinda spendy. I looked hard at the Beretta 92 but went with the Springfield , I like the SA35 it feels good in hand and the controls are similar to a 1911 which I am familiar with . It is about the same size as the 1911 but 2x the magazine capacity . After I become proficient with it the SA35 will be my primary carry pistol.

 The new basement windows are working well , the subterranean vault is much more cozy and the Grouch Cave less drafty . I'm still working on where things are going to get placed tool boxes benches and power tools are all getting shuffled around . I have a few four drawer file cabinets that I've gotten for free over the years they make great shop storage for cheap . They are usually the same overall size no matter who made them.         Old lockers also make for good storage if you can find them .  Getting and staying organized is not an easy task to be sure , but having a place for things beats having tools rolling around underfoot getting lost or rusted. I have long been using pegboard by work benches to hang things up, but most of the time you grab something from a pegboard, the darn peg comes along for the ride. I ditched some of that stuff and got some of the Milwaukee Packout wall plates and assorted different tool hangers , and that stuff works really well , its Not Cheap though . looks like it might work ok in the truck as well. I'm going to make a removable mount for in the back of the box to keep the tools all contained and organized if I have to work on something away from home.

 There has been a lot happening lately so not much spare time to post. The well pump died last week so I had no water for five days . I was sick as a dog ,and It was as cold as it ever gets and the fellows were out taking the old pipes apart. I just stayed out of the way so as to not slow them down. I remember when the pump was installed , I was just a kid and Grandpa had Bidtner's Pump service put the new pump in. He knew old man Bidtner and knew he did a good job. The pump lasted over fifty years , so I guess they did it right!

 At work they finally got rid of the Problem Child . Dude is 29 years old and acts like an eight year old. Any time anyone offered any guidance on anything job related , he would take it as a personal attack . Usually how things would go down would be Problem Child would fuck something up , get a coaching and get butthurt and not show up to work for a while. Time of absence directly proportional to amount of perceived butthurtedness . The Powers That BE were starting to look his way with the Eye Of Stink but Problem Child wouldn't take the hint , and decided to put his foot down! Well that was not a good strategy being he was already on very thin ice.    

 It's that time of year, I had to dig all of the hoodies out from behind the truck seat run them through the laundry and get them back into service . It has gotten cold here, that is no surprise as it is December Second , but it has been fairly warm until recently . I am looking for a reasonably priced pellet stove to add a little heat to the subterranean lair . The new windows are working well , now I have to clean off the bench so I can move it under the windows. A good friend managed to snag a couple of the Harbor Freight mini toolboxes and he gave me one , how cool is that ! We stopped in later to see if they had any , but they were long gone. If you find any , grab one or two ,they are cool and well worth the ten bucks .