Confounded Tapers

For the first time in like ten years, I have real, paid-for antivirus software. I ran Bitdefender the other day (free version), and I found out AVG Free had missed stuff. I looked around to see which program the nerds liked most (or hated most, in the case of evil nerds), and I installed it and ran it. It turned out I had PILES of viruses.

I didn’t realize it, but a big percentage of those 419 emails have viruses in them. And if you use Thunderbird and delete emails, the emails don’t really go away. You have to compact your folders to kill deleted emails. So I’ve done all that. I had a whole bunch of deleted 419 emails hiding somewhere. I believe they’re gone now.

I may have lost real emails, too. Sometimes people you know send viruses by accident. I don’t care. I don’t know why I keep emails to begin with. The commercial ones can be useful. You may want to know where you bought something a year ago. But the personal emails tend to be trivial and not worth keeping.

I see no point in saying which program I bought. If someone out there hates me, the name of my program could be helpful to them.

I am still considering going RAID1. And I may do it for my dad, too. He emits some kind of radiation that kills hard drives. Last time it happened, I took him to a retailer which runs a well-known computer repair service. Actually, it was probably a software issue, but they decided it was his hard drive, so they replaced it. And DIDN’T CLONE THE OLD ONE. Wow, that was really worth $300. If he had had RAID, he could have tested his drives himself, popped the bad one out, stuck in a fresh one, and continued with life.

I didn’t try to fix his problem myself because my attempts at cloning hard drives had always failed. But this week I managed to clone mine, and the software was free.

People say RAID isn’t a backup tool. Whatever. I don’t want to get into nerd semantics. If your data is in two places, I call it backup. The fact that the hardware is also backed up just makes it better. A virus can screw up two RAID drives at once, but isn’t that also true of software backup on a slave drive that isn’t on a RAID system? I fail to see how RAID is inferior. I’m sure it’s not as good as paranoid backup in a vault in your basement, with all sorts of hardware safeguards. But neither of us is willing to work really hard at saving data, so it’s either slave disk or RAID.

He’s definitely getting real antivirus software. I set him up with AVG, Spybot, and Ad-Aware, but I had those things, and look what happened to me. And AVG was like big government. It kept growing and causing problems. “Here, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi would like to help you search the web! Let’s go look at fictitious graphs about declining polar bear populations!”

If the shopping mall computer repair crew was right (dubious), my dad’s problems tend to be hardware issues, not viruses. Although he once got a virus that sent his business contacts porn ads. He informed them that it was a virus, and that he was not a porn magnate. All I said was that this was his story.

Yesterday I got back to work on the soft-faced hammer I was trying to make. I had to give up. I utterly butchered the 304 stainless I was trying to use.

Here’s a link to the plans, so you can see what I’m talking about.

Let’s see. First, I have no steady rest. So I assumed that meant turning between centers. But I have no lathe dogs; everyone says I should make them when I get a mill. Fine. I decided to grip one end in the chuck and put the other on a dead center. That worked.

First problem: how do you get the length right on the various features? For example, the flange below the hammer’s head is 0.20″ thick. Great, but my lathe has no graduations in the lengthwise direction, and it has no DRO. A dial indicator has a measuring limit of about an inch, and you can’t mount it on anything really stiff when you’re using the tailstock right up against the work. I tried moving the compound and tool post around (so I could use the compound graduations), and I eventually came sort of close, but if this part had to be within even ten thousandths, there is no way I could do it.

Second, how do you do the taper on the handle? I have no taper attachment. I tried setting the compound so it moved in as it approached the headstock, but the tool goes deeper and deeper as you go, and the pressure increases, and the work pops off the tailstock. Also, the taper is 3″ long. How do you arrange it so a tool coming in at an angle hits the work at a point precisely 3″ from some other point? It seems impossible. You can get within a sixteenth or so by guessing, but the point of all this is to learn how to be precise, so that’s worthless.

Third, how do you get the little radius on the head side of the flange? I ground a tool 0.20″ wide, with a radius on it, but it really didn’t work.

I don’t know what tools I need or what to do with them. The plans don’t say what to use, and the instructional materials I have really are not adequate. They show how to do operations, from a very basic standpoint, but there is nothing in them that would enable you to machine things to specified sizes, except for threads and plain old cylinders. So I think it’s time to hang it up and do something easier. The infamous jack screw project looks pretty dumb, but I have hex stock.

I’m not sure why people say you should learn to use a lathe before you get a mill. The mill seems much simpler. To get your measurements right, you have edgefinders and wigglers and indicators and a DRO, plus graduations along every axis. If I had use the lathe to make a simple round rod, say 2.250″ long, I’d be stumped.

Speaking of mills, I do not have one. Still. It’s probably enjoying a leisurely drive through Arkansas right now.

I have to learn how to do this stuff. You can’t buy nice tools and let them rot. Maybe things will be clearer when the bulk of my lathe DVDs gets here. Other people have learned turning and threading, so I’ll eventually get it, too.

I’m Back

Here’s a post that will help explain why it’s hard for computer nerds to get women. The boredom may actually stop your heart.

I got my new hard drive installed. I can’t believe it. I’ll put the information here in case some Googler needs it.

I tried to use Acronis Migrate Easy to move my old stuff to a new 500 GB drive (cheap!), but Acronis could not find the new drive when I tried to run it from Windows. With this program, you provide your instructions in Windows, and then it reboots your PC and moves the files, possibly in Linux or some other OS. Nerds can fill in the blanks here. When I rebooted, Acronis could not find the drive.

The remedy for this is to make a boot CD using Acronis, and do it from there. Sadly, Migrate Easy refused to cooperate, saying I had to get the pay version in order to do this.

The answer? Lifeguard Tools from Western Digital. It’s free, and you can find it online. I hooked the new drive up, told the program what to do, and in a few hours, I had a clone of my boot drive.

What happened when I tried to use the PC? You can guess. I took off the old drive, put the new one in its SATA hole, and hit the switch. “Error Loading OS.”

I figured I was toasted. But I was wrong. Here’s the answer. You boot from your XP installation DVD, go to the recovery console, locate your Windows installation, and fun FIXMBR. After that, the system worked.

Now I have to throw out the old drive. I’m not sure there’s a problem with it, but new drives are very inexpensive, so I don’t need to take a chance. I hate throwing out hard drives. You practically have to melt them in a kiln to be sure no one gets the information on them. Some idiot could raid my trash and take over my life. I’ll make sure nobody but Harry Potter could read this one. Have you ever tossed an old drive in the trash without messing it up first? I think you have to be nuts.

Whenever I travel, my hard drives come out, and I put them where no one will ever find them. The security is more than worth the aggravation.

I found some more good information. AVG is not the greatest free antivirus program. Something called Bitdefender is better. I installed it and ran it, and I found a Trojan. Irritating. The Bitdefender folks just changed their software to nail this one, and AVG can’t even find it. Same for Spybot and Ad-Aware. I also ran some cleaner programs and deleted a lot of trash, but only Bitdefender did the job.

I suspect that AVG was my problem. The PC doesn’t seem to be overheating badly enough to freeze it (it stays under the critical 60° C mark), and I haven’t read anything about this particular virus locking up computers. AVG, on the other hand, has been throwing off crash reports, and it has been taking over. They installed a ridiculous search bar and a bunch of other things I didn’t want.

The computer was on all night (virus scan), and it worked fine. Maybe I’m in the clear. Or maybe I have more viruses, which Kim Jong Il will one day use to launch DDOS attacks on the South Park guys.

I am considering taking out my motherboard and replacing the idiotic Intel plastic pins with real bolts. The CPU should have much better thermal contact with the cooling thing. Why they chose plastic, I will never understand. It was guaranteed to fail.

I managed to put off getting a Mac for maybe another year. When this thing finally croaks, I don’t know what I’ll do. I have a million programs. I can’t even remember all of them. PC Study Bible, Word, Wordperfect, image programs, Mathcad, Firefox, you name it. I’ll forget I own half of them.

I am wondering if I should set up a RAID system. I’m going to look into it. I can’t imagine a thing like that running without causing problems. Surely it has to be slower.

I was up until the ungodly hour of 12:15 last night. I got up at 9:30. I hate that. But you know how computer problems are.

Now I have to clone my storage drive. Surely Bill Gates will permit me to do that without blowing up the PC or setting the house on fire. He makes things difficult these days, but I think I won a victory last night.

New Drive the Answer?

My computer is annoying me with its incessant freezes. I don’t know if it’s a software issue or what.

I just checked, and huge hard drives (bigger than the one I have) are very cheap now. I may go buy one, clone my old drive, and see if things improve.

Of course, this may result in days of agony while my computer refuses to boot. We’ll see.

I tried to find a decent hard drive test utility, but it looks like they don’t exist.

I’ll see you if I see you.

China Wins Again

Today, as a favor to my dad, I sat through a Cutco presentation. Cutco is a knife company, and the knives are marketed by an outfit called Vector. Maybe it’s the same company. I don’t know. They hire college kids to go around selling knife sets to people they know. The daughter of one of my dad’s business contacts asked if she could show this stuff to me. Supposedly, she would get paid whether I bought anything or not.

I hate having things sold to me, unless it’s something I already know is worthwhile. I also hate wasting a salesperson’s time. And there was no way I was going to buy anything. I have so many knives. Two Japanese cleavers. A santoku. A Forschner chef’s knife. A $20 Chinese cleaver which is probably the best kitchen knife I own. A 14″ Forschner scimitar. Two bird’s beak paring knives. Two cheap Henckels chef’s knives I rarely use. A Japanese chicken knife. A Tojiro nakiri. Other knives I can’t remember.

I was asked to bring out a steak knife, my favorite serrated knife, and my favorite straight-edged knife. I brought out the Forschner chef’s knife, a cheap Henckels bread knife, and a Henckels steak knife. The rep brought out a piece of rope–same material as baling twine–and asked me to cut it with my chef’s knife, with only one stroke. The idea was for me to get halfway through and look like a boob, so I could then try the Cutco, which would go through effortlessly. Sadly, this is not what happened. I had given my knife a few licks with a diamond hone in the kitchen, so it slid through the rope like it was a Vienna sausage. The cleaver would have bitten into the cutting board as well.

My other knives didn’t do so well, but then, they’re crappy knives I never sharpen. If meat requiring a sharp steak knife ever makes it to my table, I’ve done something very wrong. I don’t use serrated knives for cooking. A really sharp knife will go right through bread without deforming it; serrations are for people who can’t sharpen anything.

The rep also cut a penny in half with a pair of Cutco kitchen shears. This is impressive, although the shears lacked the notch kitchen shears ordinarily have, which catches and holds chicken bones so the shears will cut them. I would not want to cut chicken without that notch.

A lot of people on the web say nice things about Cutco knives. Perhaps many of these things are true. However, it’s very obvious that a lot of these people are shills. Or at least they look that way. Check out this quotation I found:

Besides that though, Cutco knives are really better than ANYTHING else. My parents have owned their set for over 30 years and they are still sharp!

Yeah, I’m sure that’s an honest comment. This person also claims he used to be a rep, and that he sold 29 sets in 40 tries. No salesman is that good. If he had done that well, he’d still be doing it, wouldn’t he? Maybe not. If you have talent like that, you need to forget knives and move up to something like commercial real estate or private jets.

He’s probably telling the truth about his parents’ knives. They stay sharp, because his parents always use their other knives.

Here’s how sales works, in the real world. Make 50 calls, get 5 responses, make 1 sale. Maybe this guy is the Mozart of sales, so the rules don’t apply to him. But I am skeptical.

The Cutco pitch goes like this. Henckels knives retail for $1500 per set, and they sell for $1000 per set, and our way better knives sell for $749 per set, and we’ll sharpen them free, forever. A quick Google reveals that a 9-piece Henckels Five-Star 18-piece set can be had for $560. That’s not the cheap Henckel line, either. Wusthof Classics–better than Henckels–cost about the same amount.

Henckels and Wusthof have forged blades. Consumer Reports says Cutco blades are stamped. Hmm…

I should also point out that the Cutcos look cheap. The web says they’re 440A stainless, which is the cheap grade of 440. What you really want is 440C. And they’re thin. The handles look like plain old plastic to me.

As I have said before, I am no longer a sucker for expensive knives. I have two Shuns, and I would never buy one again. They chip if you look at them funny. The ergonomics are weak. You absolutely cannot put them in the dishwasher under any circumstances, regardless of what the ads say. And a good price for one Shun santoku is $80. These are not knives. These are toys for people who can’t cook. If you spend a lot of time serving bad pretty food prepared with expensive equipment, Shuns are for you. If you want something you can use, get Forschner.

Don’t let what happened to me happen to you. That’s what I’m saying. I was an idiot. Learn from my example.

My two favorite knives are the Chinese cleaver and my Forschner chef’s knife. The cleaver takes an edge fast, so sharp you can hold a sheet of paper in front of you with one hand and swing the cleaver all the way through it. It minces garlic into tiny particles, with shocking speed. You can make sheets of ripe tomato with it. The back side tenderizes meat. The side knocks the peels off garlic cloves. The Forschner sharpens fast, cuts beautifully, and comes out of the dishwasher looking like new. The Shuns…I’m not sure where they are right now.

Total cost for a Forschner and a cleaver, including shipping? About $45.

I’d use the cleaver all the time, if it were stainless. I hate washing things by hand.

I wished I could have bought something the Cutco girl showed me, just as a kindness, but $749 to relearn a painful lesson…bad idea. These knives may be great for people who can’t use a stone or a hone. I can put a razor edge on a dull knife in under a minute. I don’t need something that has to go back to a factory to get an edge.

I admire anyone who has the guts and determination to go into sales, but this product is not for me.

Dow Creeps Toward 8000

I’m checking the stock market. Looks like it’s still headed down.

My gut tells me this is bad news. We took a big hit when the housing hysteria fizzled, and then Bush and Obama gave us a painkiller, in the form of bailouts and socialist “stimulus” spending. That calmed us down for a while. But there was no reason to expect it to work in the long term. We were spending money we didn’t have, and which we were obligated to repay to hostile nations, from future earnings, which we had no reason to expect. How can that be a good plan? If you lose your job, you can have a couple of great months anyway, just by maxing out your credit cards. But the third month…that’s when reality will set in. And you’ll be worse off than you would have been, had you done nothing. If you’re going to borrow, you should either have the money in hand before you take the loan (which is an odd thing to do), or you should be very sure you will earn enough in the future to cover it. We’re not sure at all. In fact, even Obama says the worst is still ahead.

I am reminded of a story about a Ferrari. Someone I knew bought a car when he was living on student loans. It
was not an expensive car. But his friends called it “the Ferrari.” Why did they call it that? Because of the interest. In the end, he was going to pay enough to buy a fancy luxury car. Maybe not a Ferrari, but certainly, something a lot nicer than what he got.

I won’t claim to be smarter than he was. I’ve bought stupid things, including nice stereo speakers, with loan money. But his story serves to illustrate the inadvisability of going into debt when it’s not necessary.

The stock market and the economy run largely on optimism. When the government started slapping Band-Aids on our problems, it made people feel good, and I’m sure that fueled the recent rally. But what’s going to happen when the placebo effect wears out? If Obama gives us a false sense of security by passing out money, and then we have another downturn, isn’t it safe to assume that passing out money will not have the same effect in the future?

If that’s true, where are the brakes now? The only answer is true productivity. Something Obama-style government smothers.

Unemployment is high. People claim this is a lagging indicator, meaning it tells you what has already happened, not what will happen in the future. But can that really be true? Wealth comes from work; there is no other source.

If there is less work, how can there be more wealth? I’m no economist, but it seems to me that unemployment figures have to be powerful omens, barring an unforeseen change that creates jobs.

I put my hope in God. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do. I still think our country’s current problems stem from rebellion, and I am going to be surprised if we ever resume our spot at the top.

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I think that if you lead a godless life and you believe you succeed because of your own strength, you are buying a Ford at Ferrari prices. Like Esau, you’re selling your future to pay for the present. This has to be why the Bible calls that kind of life “vanity” and “leasing.” All these things are stripped away from you at death; none of it follows you. It’s like a rented apartment. You don’t own it, so you will eventually have to get out. But the good things you do follow you into the next life. The Bible says that; I can’t recall where. I read it yesterday. I do recall the phrase about storing up riches in heaven, which amounts to the same thing.

You have to find out what lasts and then invest in it. That’s how I see it these days. I hope I can find something useful to do, which will meet my needs and help me to meet the needs of others.

I’m Back

I am home from the sea.

We took Val Prieto and his uncle out again today. Sadly, the only fish we hooked while trolling got away. Val thinks it was a wahoo; I only got a glimpse of it. I love wahoo steaks.

We did a little bottom fishing and caught two groupers, but they were below the legal size limit, so we threw them back to die. I caught a few disgraceful fish not worth naming.

The boat has been vibrating lately. Val volunteered to go down and look at the shafts, which is great, because I hate driving with water in my underwear. Guess what he found wrapped around the left prop shaft? Some woman’s bathing suit. I realize Miami is full of perverts, so the skinny-dipping is not a surprise. But usually, you don’t expect them to remain naked all the way home. I’m glad she wasn’t fat. If her suit had been bigger, instead of making the boat shake, it might have stopped the engines entirely.

I don’t know what a woman’s bathing suit costs, but surely it’s worth retrieving with a boathook after you’ve had your fun.

It’s a tremendous privilege to get out on the water on your own huge private boat, regardless of whether you catch anything. Val’s uncle is fighting cancer, so it’s always good to learn that he’s in good shape and able to go. Val says it’s in remission. His uncle doesn’t speak English well, but as he left, he said that with luck, he expected to be with us again next year. I sure hope so.

Back to real life. My computer is acting up. I think it’s overheating. Intel supplies very cheesy plastic pins to connect this type of chip to the heatsink, and mine are so messed up, if you breathe on them hard, you have to take the computer apart and put everything back in thermal contact. I assume I knocked something loose when I installed the new burner. Let’s see what the CPU temperature is. It should be under 40° C.

Of course it’s 50. Time to yank a bunch of cables and clear space on the kitchen table. I swear, if I could get a C clamp onto the motherboard, I’d do it. Anything to hold that stupid heatsink on.

I smell, I need water, and my computer is probably about to conk out again. So goodbye.

Over the Side is Best

I got up today and wrote a big long piece about how things are going between me and God, and my PC locked up and killed it. What a bummer.

After that, I left and fixed a toilet on my dad’s boat. Needless to say, I have showered twice today.

Now I’m just tired.

Harley in Fine Shape

I got the Harley out today and took a ride. Down to Cutler Ridge, up to South Beach, through South Miami, and home. South Beach is a real minefield for a Christian. Everywhere I looked, there were young black women wearing what appeared to be paint. I guess they wear actually wearing shorts, but the difference was negligible.

I have missed riding. And now that the bike is running flawlessly, it’s more of a pleasure than ever. It was like flying. Every time I get on that thing, I wonder how people can complain about Harley seats. My behind has never been so pampered. I always compare it to riding a motorized couch. It’s an ergonomic masterpiece.

Because I used to ride so little, I had minimal insurance on the bikes. I called up today to get a quote on an increase. A while back I bit the bullet and got a nice medical policy, and today I asked what it would save me to dump uninsured motorist coverage. The answer? Only about TWO THIRDS of the cost of my policy. I had no idea it was so much. Insurance is utterly mysterious to me; I just figure out what I need, get the best quote I can, and pay. I generally don’t know what each component costs. If I switch companies and lose the unneeded coverage, I can get much, much higher coverage for a third of what I used to pay.

I think I should get rid of it. It pays for things like pain and suffering, IF you can prove them, and IF you can show the other driver caused the accident. Guess who will spend tons of money and time trying to prove you have no pain and suffering, and that you caused the accident? Your insurance company. Do I know that for a fact? No, but I know this for a fact: I was not born yesterday.

It also pays for lost wages. I can imagine how much fun that would be to prove, as a writer. No, I don’t think uninsured motorist coverage is for me. My regular policy covers my car, the other guy’s car, and the other guy’s medical costs. My medical insurance covers my injuries. Uninsured motorist sounds like a black hole I will never get my money out of. It made a little sense when it was a cheap alternative to a medical policy, but now it’s not so good. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The “pain and suffering” and “mental anguish” angle is not appealing to me. Opportunistic tort litigation makes me vomit, even when I stand to benefit from it. And payment for whiny, nebulous reasons like suffering doesn’t really make sense to me. I don’t want to be part of our country’s disgusting litigation burden, just so I can get a few more pennies to rub together and fondle and worship. My self-respect is worth more than that.

When my mother died, we suspected her death was hastened by a nasty technician who intentionally burned her esophagus because she complained. After her treatment, she couldn’t eat, and she starved. Did I have any interest in suing? Uh…no. We weren’t sure this guy burned her on purpose or even negligently. And regardless, a lawsuit would have prolonged the pain of losing her. We would have relived it every day for years. And litigation is a shabby, sleazy business. Better to count on God to balance the books. Suing for wrongful death or torts resulting in death is morally questionable, anyway. You take a loved one’s death, which is supposedly a source of pain for you, and you try to turn it into a pinata party.

I also had an opportunity to cash in on the cigarette lawsuits. As the son of a woman killed by lung cancer, I was entitled to thousands. I did not want that money polluting my bank account and my soul. I would have felt like a vulture. And I don’t really blame the tobacco companies for my mother’s death. She made a bad choice when she was young, disobeying her parents and becoming addicted. The people who sold tobacco at that time did not fully understand its addictive and carcinogenic nature. My own family grew tons of it. We don’t have clean hands, and it won’t bring my mother back, and I’m not the one who died of cancer, and I don’t want to be part of the tort system. How can I criticize it if my greedy, unworthy snout is in the trough? And Christians are expected to be merciful and forgiving, if they want God to be merciful and forgiving to them.

Speaking of my snout and troughs, I have to get food before church. Adios.

96

Is there anything more wonderful than being up on a Saturday morning, chock full of McDonald’s food, with 96 brownies chilling in anticipation of later use? I think not.

I don’t know what McDonald’s puts in this stuff to elevate my mood like this, but I wish I could buy a pallet of it.

My diet is going well. I’m losing slowly but continuously, and it’s not a strain. I shouldn’t call it a diet. I’m planning to live like this forever. It’s the plan I was on before Mike and the cookbook ruined me, except that I upped the calories. I used to eat 1500 per day, with unlimited Saturdays. Now it’s 1800, which is more realistic over the long term.

Mike really destroyed my life. He showed me how to make pizza. I made it worse by making it fast and easy. Controlling myself was just not an option. I could still eat pizza for two meals every day and never get bored.

As noted yesterday, I decided to make brownies for church. They’re putting on a feed after the service tonight, and I figured this was a good way to be helpful. Maybe people will start to realize I’m there. I just sneak in and out.

It was tough making all those brownies on a diet day. I didn’t cheat, although I did have some batter and include it in my daily allotment. When I woke up this morning, I had brownies on the brain. I could almost hear them giggling at me.

I’m not really a brownie freak. Having made so many of them, I have managed to blunt my enthusiasm. Still, when you’re dieting and you have maybe twenty pounds of them on hand, it’s a little hard to stay on the path.

I decided to update my surprisingly old Garmin handheld GPS. I still think of it as new, and it looks new, but it’s three years old, so it’s an antique. I got my map software running on this computer (I used to have it only on the laptop, because the laptop can be taken on the boat), and I got the updates going, and it turns out you can now put your tracks on Google Earth.

Hmm…the tracks don’t show up, but the waypoints and so on do.

HA! Mike knew I was blogging about him. He interrupted my writing with a long phone call.

I better take a look at one of those brownies. QC is what I’m all about.

Pass the Salt

I never thought I’d be saying this, but I am really sorry for making fun of audiophiles. One look at this site, and you’ll be a high-end believer, too.

http://www.nathanmarciniak.com/elemental

Many, Many Brownies

As much as I would like to be dodging hot strips of 304 stainless, I am up to something else today. Making brownies for church. Tomorrow they’re having some kind of feed after the service, and they solicited food from the congregation. I was hoping Mike would come down so we could do ribs, but he’s been delayed. So it’s all me. That means something easier than ribs.

I just plopped two trays of brownies in the oven. The full boat recipe. Nuts, chips, and coconut. I’m resting while they cook. I can’t fix the next bunch until these come out of the pans.

I tried to save time by making two batches at once, but it doesn’t work all that well. I’m going to have to face the fact that the recipe is a little light on batter. If you put coconut in the middle, you have to reserve half the batter to put on top of it, and if you’ve done this, you know how hard it is to spread. The oven’s heat helps, but it’s still a pain. And if you’ve mixed two batches at once, it’s worse, because you are likely to screw up and put too much batter in the bottom layer. If you do that, fixing the top layer is nearly impossible.

My solution: extra batter on the side. Hope it doesn’t mess up the cooking time.

Nonstick foil is a gift straight from heaven. I used to bake these in wax paper, and I always ended up peeling parts of it off with a knife. Now I line the pan with foil and lift the brownies out. Once they’re cold, the foil almost falls off.

It’s a real pleasure, being able to give something back, apart from dry monetary contributions. I hope people enjoy these. I can’t really recommend they buy the book, but the food is spiritually harmless, if taken in moderation.

Here, Have a Piece

My area is enjoying 93% humidity right now, according to Weather Underground. Is that a typo? Let’s see. It’s 87°, and the heat index is 111°. I think that means it feels like 111.

I suppose there are some whiny people who would have the temerity to call this weather unpleasant.

This is one of those days when, as soon as you go outside, you feel like you’re swimming. That’s how thick the air is. You could fashion it into a club and hit someone with it. This is what like would be like, if the world were a bowl of warm oatmeal.

The bugs are overjoyed. They’re partying. If there’s one thing I really enjoy, it’s setting a heavy saw up in the driveway, putting a heavier piece of metal on it, putting on earmuffs and glasses, turning the saw on and running it with one hand, and having a dozen mosquitoes buzz up and attack me in some area (like inside the glasses) I can’t reach with the free hand. While sweat begins to puddle in the glasses and obscure my vision.

That’s living, my friends. It’s the kind of adventure you will never see on a commercial featuring the World’s Most Interesting Man, because it is the opposite of interesting.

By the way, rumor has it this man saved Chuck Norris’s life with a partial beard transplant.

It’s kind of fitting that this guy hawks beer, because when you drink enough beer, you become convinced that you, yourself, are the Most Interesting Guy in the World. Or at least the most interesting guy on the floor of the bar.

“I always drink beer. And when I do, I prefer what’s on sale.”

Not funny unless you watch beer commercials. They were the only thing I ever enjoyed about watching pro football. I haven’t seen a game in forever. A few months ago, I learned that the World’s Most Interesting Man was still on the air, and it amazed me. That’s how out of touch I am, with important stuff everyone else knows about.

I am sorely tempted to get a horizontal band saw. A guy in my area is selling a good one at a reasonable price. I don’t know too much about these things, but I know enough to suspect that I was an idiot to buy a dry cut saw instead. A horizontal bandsaw is like a miter saw with a band blade. Apparently, you raise it, stick the metal in, turn on the saw, drop the handle, and go eat cookies while it cuts. When it goes through the metal, it shuts off. And you’re in front of the TV, and you’ve had cookies.

I am told that I could cut my 4″ bar of 1018 steel with one of these things in around 15 minutes. SOLD! Especially if I don’t have to be there when it happens.

I’m not sure what I’ll use the dry cut saw for if I get this thing. It gives gorgeous cuts, but if you have a mill and a lathe, you should be able to clean up any cut a band saw makes.

The dry cut saw might turn out to be my first idiot tool buy. My sliding miter saw may be the second; I rarely use it. Oh well. I got great prices on both of them. If you’re going to buy something you don’t need, you should at least get a bargain.

Weird things keep happening to me. It seems like I had a rough spot in my life for a few weeks, and now it’s over. Things were going great, but not as great as the weeks preceding this time. I took care of a few obligations that I felt might be holding me back, and now I feel like I’m on top again.

Last night I saw Perry Stone on David Cerullo’s show. I flopped on the couch because I was tired, and I turned the tube on, and there it was. It turned out to be very helpful to me. This has happened three times this week. Twice I turned on the tube, not knowing what was on, and found myself watching a show produced by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which is one of my favorite organizations. I am highly suspicious of many ministries and programs, but I like Perry Stone and the IFCJ a lot. I don’t know of any problems with David Cerullo. People complain that he makes too much money, but that’s not sufficient to upset me.

Stone was talking about Joshua. He led the Hebrews into the Promised Land after the death of Moses. I had forgotten the details. He had the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant across the Jordan, and the waters stopped and stood up like a wall until the Hebrews all got across. Stone believes this (like the flood) is symbolic of Christian baptism. He also suspects this is the place where Jesus was baptized.

He pointed out some things I had not heard before. He said the Jewish priesthood in Herod’s time was not fully legitimate, because it was no longer hereditary. The Romans chose the high priests and forced them on the Jews. John the Baptist was the son of a real priest. Stone believes he therefore had the authority to baptize Jesus and initiate a change from one type of priesthood to another. It’s a long story. You can find out about it in Stone’s DVDs. He also thinks Caiphus, the Roman-approved high priest, may have been aware of the significance of the crucifixion, and that he may have been a sort of silent co-conspirator. Every reasonable, informed Christian knows that blaming the Jewish people for the crucifixion is evil and stupid (It was God’s idea, not man’s), but it may be that even the Jewish leaders many of us routinely criticize were not what anti-Semites portray them to be.

Stone is going to be on Cerullo’s show again tonight.

Many Old Testament stories prefigure New Testament events. For example, the Passover prefigures the crucifixion. Shavuot is a shadow of Pentecost. If I understand Stone correctly, Joshua’s leadership in Israel prefigures Jesus’s leadership in the lives of individuals who live in the kingdom of God while here on earth. Joshua and Jesus even had the same first name; it was just translated differently in different books. And if you see what Zechariah says about “Joshua,” you will see that the connection is even stronger. It’s not even clear that he has the earthly Joshua in mind.

I used to wonder exactly what God was trying to tell us with the stories about the cities Joshua destroyed. It wasn’t done purely by human force. For example, Joshua had the people march around Jericho once a day for seven days, with seven priests blowing seven horns. At the end, the walls fell without human effort.

I think I have an inkling what this is all about. Seven is the number of the Holy Spirit; it’s in the Bible over and over, notably in the structure of the menorah, which has seven lamps fueled by olive oil, which is also symbolic of the Holy Spirit. I think the story of Jericho symbolizes what believers are now expected to do. We are supposed to fight our battles primarily with God’s strength, not our own. Even after we find our way into God’s kingdom, there will be strongholds (like Jericho) we have to get rid of, if we want true dominance. We don’t just flail at them with our puny human tools. We use faith and prayer and so on. And God honors that by moving them for us.

I decided to read Joshua last night, and I found a very startling piece of information in it that relates to my own life. Lately I’ve been asking God to set my family’s feet on the throats of those who try to harm us. Not so we can destroy them, but so we will have the power to resolve things properly. I thought I had come up with this metaphor on my own. But when I read Joshua, I found it there! Look at Joshua 10:24:

And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them.

You can imagine how I felt, seeing that. My life is like that of the Hebrews. I’m trying to walk in the kingdom, but there are things I have to conquer through faith and obedience, just as they conquered their enemies through faith and obedience. And in prayer, I happened to choose the image of an action that Joshua and the Hebrews actually performed while living out events presaging the challenges I (and other Christians) would face.

Too strange. But very welcome. It’s hard to ask for a faith-builder any stronger than that.

Christians can’t fight unbelievers on their own terms, because unbelievers have no rules. They will do or say anything to defeat us. They cheat. And our rules are very restrictive; we are encouraged to avoid tactics the rest of the world considers legal and morally right. We have to get connected to God’s power in order to turn back those who attack us. That’s how Jesus got away from the mob in Nazareth. It’s what destroyed Jericho.

This is the difference between merely being saved and living in the kingdom of God. I think so, anyway. So I am working on improving. Sure seems to be paying off.

The Bible does make sense. The problem is that it is being explained to us very slowly, over centuries. We have to believe that the parts we don’t understand yet will eventually be made clear to us.

I think I’ll throw some brownies together for the Fourth of July thing at church tomorrow. I was planning to do some machining, but three or four batches of brownies would be a more profitable product at this time.

Plus Power Feed

I think I finally have the power feed on the lathe figured out.

Reader and fellow blogger Andy recommended a site that has a few projects for beginning machinists. I decided to take a whack at the soft hammer project. I wanted a shorter one, and I don’t know if I want to put synthetic faces on it; I was planning on plain old brass. But this seemed like a good place to start. I’m probably going to end up with a shorter one anyway, because I cut the stock pretty close to the finished length, and I’m almost sure to lose some.

I have a fair amount of scrap now. I decided to use 1″ 304 stainless. I bought a 6′ bar the other day, because it was fairly cheap. I cut it on the vise, using a grinder and cutoff wheel. It was either that or take the dry cut saw out and set it up in the rain.

The steel cut easily. No problems there. I stuck it in the 4-jaw chuck and cleaned up one end. First I parted a tiny bit off, and then I faced the place where I parted it. It worked fine. It seems like I don’t push the metal hard enough, and it affects the finish, and it slows the work down. So I put a good deal of pressure on the 304, and it worked great.

I don’t have any lathe dogs, so I did something that may not be kosher. I center-drilled the tail end of the stock and I slid it out and fixed it so a little bit was clamped in the chuck and the other end was on a dead center. Then I started taking passes by hand, and the results were bad. I knew the tool was centered well, because I had just used it to face the steel, but I had to raise it a little to get it to turn well. Or maybe the problem was shallow cuts. I also increased the cut depth. Whatever helped, helped. But moving the carriage by hand was just not working. It was jerky, and it left a bad finish.

I started screwing with the controls, looking at the notes I had made and the so-called manual. I still don’t quite get it. There’s a speed control on the feed screw, and it has three settings, A, B, and C. B is the fastest. Okay, I’m sure that makes sense.

I kept trying different combinations of knobs and levers, and finally I sort of figured it out. I made a pass that wasn’t half bad.

At first I took 10 thousandths. Then 15. Then I went nuts and took 25 at a shot. Every time I increased the depth, the performance improved.

I wasn’t sure how to reach the final 0.875″ measurement. I haven’t seen any videos or texts explaining that. I know you can sneak up on milling measurements, but on a lathe, going too shallow on a cut will ruin the finish. I decided to go for broke when the calipers said I was 0.030″ away. I cranked the knob 0.030″, and I threw the feed lever, and I turned on the lathe. I ended up within a couple of thousandths. I am as close as I can get without using a mike; the calipers are never better than maybe 0.002″ for me.

Someone warned me about 304 chips, and they were right. This stuff SHOOTS steel at you. It’s like watching snakes try to jump out of a box. And they never end; the chips are three or four feet long before you know what’s happening. I had two bird’s nests so bad I had to stop the lathe.

Now I have a 0.875″ rod of 304 stainless. Tomorrow I’ll try to turn it into something. I don’t know how to do the tapered part. I guess I’ll have to use the compound and set it at the specified angle. The taper is less than 4″ long, so the compound should have enough travel to do it.

My big concern is that when I have to move the work to do other operations, I’ll mar the earlier operations. I suppose planning is the only answer to problems like that, unless you have instructions written in chronological order.

It was very satisfying, and I’m glad to see that the 304 wasn’t a waste of money. Machinists rate metals in terms of how well they respond to tools, and 304 is not a favorite. If it can be worked this easily, I shouldn’t have problems with things like aluminum, 360 brass, and 12L14.

Power feed makes a world of difference. I was going crazy, trying to turn that silly knob smoothly.

Behold my Feet and Drink Your Bathwater!

I hoped to do some work on the lathe today, but I ended up welding.

I started getting the garage ready so I would have some empty horizontal space and not go crazy from clutter, and while I was looking for a spot for my 13″ face plate, I realized I could make a hanger and stick it on the wall.

I can’t even guess what kind of steel and/or lead and melamine and plutonium is in the Chinese 1/2″ dowel I bought from Home Depot, but it has been unbelievably handy. I use pieces of it all the time. Today I sawed one off to use as a prong on the hanger.

I took another piece of scrap and cut it down for a standard (I guess you could call it), and I welded the two parts together, using a makeshift rig that would make Rube Goldberg hang his head in shame. I have a lot of welding magnets, but small parts are hard to deal with. I ended up making the first tack weld while holding the prong at the correct angle with a ballpoint pen. After that, I was home free.

I welded pretty nicely. It doesn’t look bad enough to justify a grinding job.

Once the lathe is in its final position, I’ll run a screw through the hanger and put it on the wall. For now the face plate sits on the floor under the lathe. Oh well.

I tried cutting my huge lump of 1018 steel in pieces today. I thought I would see how fast my dry cut saw did the job. After maybe fifteen minutes, I quit. This saw is great for many things, but you don’t want to cut a 4″ square steel bar with it. I got a third of the way through. I would have made it, but I don’t want to spend an hour on every cut and wear out the blade in the process.

I should go and have it done at a machine shop. HOWEVER, there’s a good used Jet band saw for sale near me. I am told a smaller band saw would do the job in maybe 15 minutes, so this one should be at least as fast. If I can get it for $125, it’s a great deal. The floor space is an issue, however.

I love welding because it’s so forgiving. Getting the angles exactly right is just a matter of using magnets, and sometimes you can even add metal to replace material your stupidity has destroyed. And if your welds aren’t perfect, just make them bigger. Eventually you’ll have something strong enough to work.

I got George Moneo all excited today by letting him know that a man with a lathe can make pointy things to use as feet on snob audio equipment. These things don’t really improve the sound; that would go against everything high-end audio stands for. But audio nerds think they do, so they sell.

He showed me a site that sells brass ones. I can make them a little cheaper, but not much. However…this is the fun part…I told George that what he really needed was cast iron, because it’s known for its inability to transmit vibration well. That would put him one up on the other addicts, and that’s really what it’s all about.

Where would you get a cast iron rod? Beats me. I understand it’s not much fun to machine.

Hammer Time?

Today has that “garage day” feel to it. I’m trying to come up with stuff I can do.

I need to see if I can cut my huge 1018 block into smaller pieces for tool holders. I am also thinking it might be fun to make a hammer from 360 brass, although I don’t know what to use for the handle. I saw a short-handled brass hammer in a machining DVD; I can see how that would be useful to knock things into line on the mill. Maybe I should make an aluminum handle about 4″ long. I hate to use nice brass for the handle.

It’s funny, but when I have to pay a lot for materials, I don’t like to use them up, because they’re expensive, and when I get a good deal, I don’t want to use them up, because they were so cheap.