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Puffy Rice?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

I went through a lot of my preps this weekend, and I found that about 28# of rice I had vacuum sealed was “puffy.” Not the kernels themselves, but the vacuum was gone, but the bags were intact. I’m worried about botulism, and have pulled them from my preps for now. What would cause the rice to outgas? Has anyone else seen this before? I was careful when I packaged the rice, and it looks like it was only the batches I did in 7/09 and 11/09 so far. All the rest of the vacuum sealed rice (about another 30#) seems fine, including some bags from those batches. All the other vacuum-sealed items like beans, lentils, corn, dehydrated fruit, etc. are all still under a vacuum.

Please leave a comment if you know what’s going on!

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Organization

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

I figured I would spend a little time to show some of the tricks I have been working on in order to get myself more organized, and more productive in my work, my prepping, and my personal life.

I’m a big fan of Evernote. This program allows you to make notebooks and pages to keep stuff together. These notebooks are synchronized online, allowing you to have access to updated notes across platforms. I have it installed on my work PC, my personal computer, and my smartphone. Because it uses an external server to sync, I am careful of what I put in there, but for 99% of what I use it for it’s a brilliant piece of software.

I use it for several things. First, I keep track of all the web sites and hard-to-remember commands I use as a computer professional. I have a page where I keep track of what web articles I would like to read later, although I might start using another program ReadItLater for that. I have a Woodworking notebook where I put screenshots of project ideas, and various tips on finishing, tool restoration tips, etc. Another notebook has funny images I’ve collected.

There is a security hole I would be careful of. The data is not encrypted on the server, so if the server is hacked or subpenaed, your data is free for the world to see. The session between the client and the server is SSL encrypted, so man-in-the-middle attacks are not a big threat. I would be careful about what you store on the server, and take backups regularly. Just because the data is not on your computer means the people are backing it up and protecting it properly on their end.  I do not store accounts and passwords for my bank, mail accounts, or this blog on Evernote, my phone, or in e-mail.  Other accounts, like my login to a gaming forum is kept in shorthand. If you use my password scheme (here is the linky) then you can use this shorthand for accounts that are not super-critical. Use the first letter of the password syllable as a refresher. Keep the password syllables in memory, and never commit them to paper or any digital document to keep yourself secure. Also, don’t use the same password syllables for super important sites on your angieslist account or your online subscription to the newspaper.

This is more work-related, but I have started following a zero-inbox policy. This google talk goes over the whole thing in detail, and is worth viewing. The idea is to only check your e-mail on a set schedule, and process everything in your e-mail right then or there. If it is a small task then do it right then and there. If it’s a larger task, then schedule it. Otherwise delegate it to a minion, or trash it. I will be the first to admit this is really, really hard to do. As an IT professional I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day during the week, and most people want a response right then and there. It is hard to resist the siren’s call, when Outlook has that little popup in the corner begging for attention.

Another thing I do, although not related to organization, is to let the phone go to voicemail when I am focusing on a task. Let it go to VM and deal with it later when your free to be interrupted. So hard to do.

I’ve looked at the “getting things done” system. It’s pretty famous and a few google searches should give you the gory details. I don’t think that will work for me, but I am going to steal the idea for checklists. I’m playing around with a few ideas that might work for me, but the gist of it is this: make a list of stuff you need to do, then do it. Sounds simple, but if it was that easy I wouldn’t be so disorganized.

I started on Thursday, and broght home a short list of stuff I had to get done before I studied for an hour then slacked off for the rest of the night. I did the same for Friday, and I have to say I’m pleased with what I accomplished. For the weekend, I picked a few larger tasks, with a lot of smaller ones and got most of them done. I’m working out the strategy and will update later on.

This Evernote is awesome for these lists. Make a notebook called “stuff to do” and add every item you want to do on it.if you tag these notes with tags for heir function then you can search and organize by these tags. I currently have the following tags: PREPS, HOME MAINTENANCE, WOODWORKING, WORK, CERTIFICATION, and FUN. If you include an estimite of how long it will take then when you make your list for the night or the weekend, then you can tailor your list for how much time you have. By using the “Saved Searches” function in Evernote you can have dynamically created lists… pretty handy. Eventually, I want to organize these to-do lists by importance, and urgency. This way I do the tasks that are most important and urgent first.

This is not the end-all one-size fits all solution for everyone. Heck, some people are naturally organized, but I’m not. As I make improvements I’ll share them so you get some ideas for your own use.

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The Zombie Apocalypse Is Here!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

I sat down and managed to get some research done to follow up on a hunch of mine. My hunch is that all the major American banks are Zombie Banks. Truth be told, I bet most of the major foreign banks are zombie banks as well. A zombie bank is a financial institution that has more debts than assets and is kept alive through government intervention (via Wikipedia). I am going to expand that definition to include financial institutions that are kept alive by other banks.

So the Zombie Apocalypse has started, it is just not the way we all joked about.

Every major American financial system has benefited from capital injections from the Federal Reserve. Many are borrowing cash from the Fed at a stupidly low interest rate and re-investing them into government bonds. This provides two benefits. First, the bonds are an asset that can be used to offset debts on its books. Secondly, the bonds have a return higher than the interest payments due to the Fed, and the bank can pocket the difference. This has been a running QE2.5 for the last couple years, which benefits the government first, and the Federal Reserve by keeping the Ponzi scheme going.

This is a highly inflationary practice. In our fiat currency system, the banks create over 99% of the total money in the system. This excess liquidity is driving prices up, which further helps these Zombie Banks as consumers continue to borrow more money on their credit cards to make ends meet. I am willing to bet in more than a couple board rooms this is how they think they can bring themselves back into the black.

Another tactic that has been well documented, is the games these banks are playing with the real estate market. There are millions of foreclosed homes across America that are in their own undead, neither foreclosed, nor in good standing. I have personally seen how the banks are unwilling to foreclose, and are unwilling to work with the current mortgage holder and a prospective buyer to facilitate a short sale.

The banks are doing this because a mortgage is a bank’s asset, and a foreclosed home is a loss – especially in this real estate market.  The mortgage is for the purchase price of the home, and the foreclosed home is adjusted to the current price, which is a 20% haircut at the minimum. The banks are moving through this glut of undead mortgages, but only as fast as the real estate market and their balance sheets can handle. These banks are in such a precarious state that if there are too many foreclosed homes they show their cards to the point the FDIC is obligated to act.

I am sure the FDIC knows just how bad these banks are, but until these bluffs are called, the banks are willing to raise the bet. When the bank’s dirty laundry is showing then the FDIC has to close them down to save face and give us, the customers, the illusion that the FDIC is doing its job and protecting us.

To summarize:

  1. Many of our largest banks are in the red, and are using showmanship and government intervention to remain solvent.
  2. All of the large banks are tied together in a web of derivatives and CDS swaps.
  3. The government regulatory agency is nearly out of funding, and could not cover a failure of one of the Mega-banks.
  4. The consumer/customer is at the bottom of the pecking order when we want to get our funds.
  5. If one bank begins to crumble, the whole system would collapse.

Look how the government handled the recent collapse of MF Global, ensuring the big banks like Lehman Brother’s got paid first, when bankruptcy law states investors should be paid first. I have to ask myself if Lehman Brothers would have collapsed if they did not recover their investment funds? Would they have been the first domino to fall?

 

 

 

 

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The Struggle

Monday, January 16th, 2012

I’ve been struggling a lot of late. I’ve lost my way in several aspects of my life. Ironically, just as I got other aspects heading in the right direction, other things have fallen apart.

Physically, I’m doing a lot better. A recent trip to the doctor’s for my annual physical left  me scratching my head. I’ve lost over 4″ from my waist, which means a LOT more than that from my belly, and I’ve only lost 15# in the last six months. I’m pretty freaking pissed about that. I am a lot thinner, you can see it in my face, and wrists. I now bulge when I flex my arms, the biceps are getting there, but my triceps are going really nuts. I have deep cuts in my legs, the hamstrings are bulking up nicely, and the quads are getting defined. My back is getting bumpy, and the moobs are shrinking. My blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, etc. is all normal, or below. This always freaks my doctor out because I am well over what most would consider a healthy weight.

My diet has improved, but is not perfect. I’m getting fewer urges for junk food, or snacks at night. I had been having healthy snacks at night, to replace the ice cream I used to have. I need to cut back on the red meat, but it is hard to get motivated when you have better bloodwork than your doctor or your health-nut friend.

My sleep is all balled up. I’m awake too late, and I’m having trouble getting going in the morning. I’ve begun winding down early, about 1/2 hour before bed. Low lights, no TV, no computer, no hard mental activity. Still having poor sleep. I’m starting to do some Tai Chi during this quiet time this week and see if there is an improvement. I got to do something. I am so burnt out it is affecting me negatively in many ways.

I have an idea what’s causing this, but there is no much I can do to change it. I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. I’m on my own these days. I have way to much to do to prepare and not enough time or money to do it. I’ve been having money problems, nothing serious, but I refuse to dip into the credit card. I need to focus a lot of mental energy on my career, and these certifications.  I’m frantic with the amount of work I need to do, and the lack of time I have to do it.

Balancing preparing for what may happen versus what you need to do if nothing happens is a reoccurring theme that I think we need to spend a little more time on. Right now, I have a list of preps to do that is well over 200 items long, and these are nothing really crazy. I also have a list of 75 or so items I need to do for my work career to do. I have hundreds of things I need to do around the house to make it better and more liveable. Examples include: Replacing the broken screen door, fixing the plumbing to the bathroom, replacing the flooring the front hallway, and making a welcome sign with my house numbers on it. (I still have the “old lady” one that was on the house when I bought it…) Then there are my hobbies that eat time and in return give me some mental stability and sanity.

There is too much for me to do alone, but I really do not have the time to do the dating thing. I’m on a few of the dating sites, but I am finding that I do not have the patience to wade through seas of bullshit. I need a woman who is independent, not a smothering,  bon-bon eating, Jerry-Springer watching, mindless, souless, tween in a 35 year-old-body looking for the ideal co-dependent. I rather be alone then deal with that crap. It is amazing how well these “women” camouflage themselves via messaging. I hate to use the term, “woman” because I think it insults real women when I use it. At least I sniff them out in a few minutes when I meet them face to face. The ones that have passed muster usually want nothing to do with a man on equal footing, they want some mindless boy-toy. That, or they see $ when they find out I have a house, which sets off alarm bells in my head and cools things down pretty fast. I have to laugh at this afterwards because I am underwater in my mortgage by about $65k.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about freedom. Normally, this isn’t a big deal, but I’ve been obsessing it lately – like a fat kid over cake. The idea is there, in the front of my mind burning like hot brass down your shirt. It doesn’t help that anywhere I turn I see the shackles binding me to this slave’s existence. Every time I spend money I can feel the weight of the taxation’s irons clasp my wrists like a drowning man’s hand. It is tax season, but it feels different this year, it is close and pressing, almost desperate.

I wonder if I’ve seen enough to begin getting that faint notion of what real freedom is, and my mind is yearning for it.  I don’t think I will ever experience what real freedom is, I will not have it in this lifetime. I need to move past this, for my own mental health, but putting this genie back into the bottle is proving to be difficult.

Emotionally I am drained. I’ve had a few situations come up that have taxed me. My brother has added a lot of stress in two paths – directly on me, and to me because I am supporting Mum. I am the support network for a lot of people. I don’t mind doing it, I see it as a moral obligation to give sound advice and emotional support to my friends and family. These days I have been doing a lot of supporting, without my own solid foundation to carry the weight. I have friends with marital problems, others dealing with parents with cancer, and others with job losses all relying on me to give them the support they need. Elementally, I’m earth, and this is the natural way of the friendships I enjoy.

I have my own problems and the pillar of rock that is my emotional stability has been cracked. I’ve lost a group of people who I thought were my friends. I’ve been ungrounded, I feel my connection has been cut. I’m now the only one in my circle of friends that actively prepares, and the “zombie apocalypse” jokes are wearing thin. I see the world unraveling, but the confidence of how and when it will actually happen and what to do about it has been shattered. It’s like I’ve lost my internet connection and don’t know what’s going on in the world.

To try to get out of this funk, I have been trying a few things. First, I’m trying to relax before bed so I can get better rest, and have more energy. Better sleep and reduced stress should get me away from the hobbies more and into more productive endeavors. Next, I am in the process of listing everything I need to do and organize those lists by category and importance. I will then focus on working off those lists, a little each weekday, and a lot on each weekend. To reduce financial stress, I will be recovering capital from anything I can and working on alternative ways to reduce expenses. Because looking for a partner is a time and money sink, I’ll deactivate my profiles and go back into a bachelor hibernation for another few months. After a few months I will re-evaluate my time and money situation and see what I have for options for dating.

I’ve been doing a lot of my hobbies (gaming,woodworking, etc.) in order to try to re-ground myself. I’m going to have to let these people know that my emotional support battery is getting low, and I need to have them carry themselves more while I re-charge. For me to share this with these people is way out of character for me. I just hope they don’t freak and get all touchy-feely with my emotional needs. I can take care of mI need to find others of like mind. Conversation and discussion will help recover some balance between the “real” and “prepper” worlds.

Once I can get back on track I will be able to regain balance between prepping and living. Then I have a very large personal project to tackle. I need to do about 100hours of work to research the possibility of having my own successful business. Then I have to do a lot of soul searching to see if I want to do it or not. It will be a lot of work, that is for sure, but by having my own business I can re-align my life to starve the monkeys while reaping some benefits. I’ll have more time and money to prep, but I will be tied to this area. I have to push this out of my mind, I have too much going on right now to dream of being my own boss.

I know there are many out there in a similar situation. We preppers lead two lives, and one cannot be the master of the other. This blog is an outlet for me to give back to the community. I am working on how I can do more, but that is the subject of another post – after I regain my footing.

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Quick One – Homemade Glue

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

If you are going to stick stuff together then you are going to need glue. Here are two ways to make glue from animal byproducts.

Hide Glue

1) Scrape or sand dried rawhide and collect the dust. The smaller, the better, but you could chop it into small pieces.

2) Make sure the hide is defleshed, and clean off as much dirt and grime as possible.

3) Add to a pot with hot water and simmer (just below a boil) forever. At least 24 hours, maybe 36 hours. Keep topping off with water.

4) When you have a honey-colored syrup, strain out any remaining dirt and undissolved bits of hide with cheesecloth.

5) Return the filtered liquid to heat, and simmer it down to the consistency of honey, or maybe a bit thicker. Commercial plants keep this mixture at 160F for this stage, and use a vacuum to help evaporate the excess water off. Do not let it boil – the glue will be ruined.

6) pour the thickened mixture into a pan, and allow it to cool away from sunlight.

7) Once the mixture gels, remove it from the pan and cut into thin squares. It should be the consistency of really, really thick jell-o.

8) Run a string through the squares and allow to dry away from any sunlight. The resulting flakes last forever if kept away from any moisture and sunlight.

9) To reconstitute the glue, add the flakes to a little water and heat to 140F. It should be the consistency of pasty-honey. keep the glue at that temperature to use it. They used to use glue-pots for just this purpose.

Fish Glue

1) Collect a bunch of fish scales. Rinse them about a billion times to remove any fish smell from them. If you don’t the stink will be unbearable. 12oz of scales makes a couple of ounces of glue.

2) In a sealed, heatproof container, cover the scales with water.

3) Toss the sealed container into a pot of boiling water. Make sure the container doesn’t let water into the container.

4) Allow the scales to boil, then cook on low heat for 6-8 hours.

5) the scales should have dissolved, giving you a clear, strong glue. Keep cool in a sealed container when not in use.

 

Working with Animal Glues

  • Keep your joints tight. These glues have no gap-filling properties.
  • Hide glue needs to be kept at 140F while working with it. When done, allow to cool and just re-heat to continue. You might have to add a little water every now and then to the glue pot.
  • Open time for these glues is about a minute – plan your glue-ups accordingly, and use dry runs to make sure you can pull it off.
  • An advantage to hide glue is you do not need a lot of clamping power. The glue naturally pulls the joint tighter.
  • Fish glue is thinner and less sticky than hide glue.
  • Both glues have poor moisture resistance, use a wax to protect it.
  • The strength of the glue can vary widely. The temperature used to cook down and the amount of water used to reconstitute are the primary factors.

Hide glue can be purchased in granules and kept indefinitely. Five pounds of crystals sell for ~$35.  All other woodworking glues have very short shelf lives. Urea formaldehyde and yellow woodworking glues lose their strength after a year. I’ve stored yellow glue carefully, and managed to squeak it out to the two year mark. I have not had much luck with CA glues – they go bad after 6 months once opened. storing the sealed containers in the freezer does extend the CA glue’s life.

Hopefully this helps! As always please contribute by adding comments or an e-mail.

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Swords or Plowshares?

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

The Greeks are out shopping. Not for new ideas on how to trim their budget or how to frugally squeeze every last cent from each euro spent, but on weapons. This comes via Zeit Online, courtesy of Zero Hedge.

The greek military is planning on spending six of the 80 billion euros from the next bailout payment on a pile of military hardware. Sixty jets, some patrol boats, German U-boats, and some apache attack helicopters.

How could they be allowed to spend bailout money on anything other than keeping their economy afloat? They will be allowed to do this, because most of the money will go into France, Germany, the UK, and America. So do not expect the EU to say squat about this, as they are already on thin ice with Germany, and selling U-boats nets a nice tidy profit for German industry.

The people are rioting in the streets, because their government refuses to listen to what the people have to say. The current Greek administration is now firmly in the pocket of the ECB, because they don’t want their names to go into the history books as the last idiot holding the hot potato. The people have no voice, so they won’t stop it.

A smart Greek PM would start beating the drums of nationalism to direct the peoples anger onto another country. I see this as the first overt move of a Euro-nation on the path of militarism. I expect others to follow, some behind-the-scenes (like Germany) a few others a little more obvious (Baltic States) to build up their military in case the EU breaks down.

We are doing the same thing here in America. We have record under-employment and roughly $60,000,000,000,000 in unfunded liabilities. Our GDP is an outright lie, and we have a presidential race that looks like a pack of monkeys trying to proper fuck a greased pig. The military industrial complex is growing like a budgetary tumor.

China is doing the same:

This chart does not include the aircraft carrier they bought off of Russia or it’s refitting and re-armament. Or the new drone or stealth fighter programs.

I have to ask myself why? Why do countries go buy new weapons and field more troops instead of taking care of their economic mess? The reason is simple, and frightening at the same time. The reason countries turn to arms instead of economic responsibility is because it is the path of least resistance.

I will explain, so please give me a minute or two before you decide I have finally gone totally batshit crazy. It certainly is not easier for the population, as they are trod over by invading jackboots, or stuffed into the jackboots and sent somewhere else to do the stomping. It is not easier for the middle class or even the lower upper class.  Who it is easier for is the elite ruling classes – the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Waltons, etc. The Wall street elite are not going to be stuffed into BDU’s and told to storm a beach.

This has repeated itself throughout history. From Babylon, the Greek city-states, Persia, the Hundred-Hear’s war, War of 1812, and even WWII. History does not repeat exactly, but these cycles of social, economic, political, and generational forces cause predictable events that we can plan, and therefore prepare for.

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The Black Swan

Monday, January 9th, 2012

I’ve mentioned the term Black Swan Event a few times over the years, but I never properly explained what it means. From wikipedia, the Black Swan theory describes:

  1. The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology
  2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities)
  3. The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs

In other words, a black swan event is an event that radically changes your world, but it cannot be predicted with certainty. The impending US economy collapse is not a “black swan event” the evidence is all around us, we just cannot determine when the event will occur. the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back, the seemingly insignificant event that kicks of the pre-hyperinflationary panic, would be a black swan event.

These events are the little things that snowball into the looming macro events that affect great, and usually perilous, change. If you traveled back in time to the 27th of June in 1914 and asked if a world war would start tomorrow, then you would be locked up for being mad as a hatter. On the next day, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, which many historians point to at the start of WWI.

The point of this post is to warn preppers not to waste their time looking for the black swan event. Focus on determining those maco events that are looming on the horizon, and prepare for them, not the tiny and insignificant events that only historians could point to and cry “A-ha! That’s what did it.”

To carry over the WWI example, it was the arms race, the militarization, and nationalism of the European nations that are the macro-level events that are the causes of WWI, not the killing of a man and his wife.

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Quick One – Hidden Door

Monday, December 26th, 2011

I stumbled upon some hinges for creating a hidden door.

Hidden Hinge

Hidden clostes are not a solution for everyone, but for those who are looking into it, I hope this helps!

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Metacognition

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Today, I would like to discuss a topic that all preppers need to know about. That topic is metacognition or how to learn. We have to do it all, or if we are lucky enough to have a group, learn enough skills for everyone to be able to cover all the bases.

Learning is different for everyone. My goal here is to provide some structure on how we acquire, retain, and apply knowledge. I will go over the different learning styles and the processes that can be used. A discussion on how to evaluate your individual learning process, so you can refine the process. I will include what works for me, but my brain is radically different from everyone else’s, so take what works for me with a grain of salt.

That last statement deserves a little additional explanation. I’ve mentioned before on this blog my rather unique experiances with the US educational system. To summarize, as a child I was “diagnosed” by my teachers as mentally challenged and stuffed into special educational classes. No diagnosis by a doctor, mind you, but by the teachers. I’m a space cadet, and because I was smarter than average, I daydreamed all day in school. I was bored out of my skull, not struggling. I spent the fourth grade drawing trucks (Peterbuilts and Kenworths were my favorite) because they determined I would never be able to do anything else for a career. Suffice to say, they were dead wrong. I spent my entire life learning on my own, and only paying lip service to the teachers.

Before we begin, we should discuss nutrition. The foundation of learning is having what your brain and body needs to be healthy. Sufficient rest is obviously going to help you learn. For your diet, it has been proven that the Omega-3 Fatty acids have a direct, beneficial effect on brain development and health. For you vegetarians out there I would suggest adding fish to your diet, or at the minimum fish oil capsules.

Here is where we get into the nuts and bolts of the learning process. Let us form a review process on how we learned, then from there we start to continually review and improve how we learn.  The review starts with the past, or the startign point. Then we look at the present. then we look at the subject matter itself and our relationship with it. finally, we are what we are doint right now: reviewing the process for improvement.

All knowledge begins with the past. What you knew before you started has a significant bearing on what you know now. In the past what methods did you prefer over others? Reading from a book, or experimentation? Learning on your own or with a study group? Instructor led classes or informal learn-as-you-go. Also, take a look at what you knew before you started.

Next, we move onto the present. How interested are you in this subject? What is competing for my attention. Do I have a due date for learning this information, such as an exam date or professional review? Are my circumstances lined up for success? What is inside or outside my control in my environment?

Now we go over the process we used to learn, and the subject matter.What sources of information were most helpful? Did I only use one source (textbook, youtube, etc.) or did I use many sources? As I studied, did you stop and review or summarize. Should you go slower or faster? Did you need to stop and evaluate through experimentation, or needed to stop and think over the material? Do you need to find a SME (subject matter expert) to help you retain the information?

And then the review process. What did you do right? What could you do better? Did your learning plan coincide with your strengths and weaknesses? What times of day were more efficient than others? Did you lose forward progress in your subject because you lacked foundational knowledge? Did you succeed? Did you celebrate your success? Did you follow though and “brush up” in order to keep long-term retention of the material.

You do not have to go through a exquisitely detailed, fifty-page written review to improve your learning process. If you try something new, then take a few minutes to review. The goal here is to learn more information with less time and effort. Using some time to improve the process is key for us to build those skill sets we will need. I also should point out that you will need to be able to pass on that knowledge to others, whether they are your children or another member of the group. Reviewing how that lesson went will allow you to improve the effectiveness of that transfer, allowing you more time to tend crops or whatever.

There are four styles of learning, and every person is at a different point on that line. these axises are

  • Sensory vs. Intuitive
  • Visual vs. Verbal
  • Active vs. Reflective
  • Sequential vs. Global

The first axis is the relationship between meaning and facts. Sensory learners prefer facts. Concrete, practical, and procedural information. Intuitive learners prefer conceptional and theoretical information, or the meaning.

Visual learners prefer graphs and diagrams. As apposed to Verbal learners that thrive when listening to lectures and podcasts.

Active learners prefer to manipulate objects and perform physical experiments. Reflective learners think things through and learn from analysis.

And finally, sequential learners prefer to have information presented in a linear, and orderly format, where Global learners prefer a holistic approach, where they start with the big picture and work down.

I’m going to do another article in the near future about notes, and information management. It’s one thing to learn how you learn, but a synergistic skill is how to manage the information you need. You cannot memorize everything, and collecting the supporting information into a format you can retain and build upon is a skill in itself.

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What’s Going On?

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

Things have been very busy at Natog’s Sekret Bunker. I’ve had to sideline my writing career due to training and certification demands from the “real” job. I’m spending about three hours a night studying for a series of certifications the Job wants me to get. I don’t mind, because these certs are mine, and I can use them to get a different job if things don’t turn around here.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to starting my own computer consulting business. A LOT of thought. I have the skills, and lots of contacts in the field. Customers would need to be pulled away for the incompetent consulting firms in the area, which shouldn’t be that hard. What I need is capital, about $250k for my pie-in-the-sky project. Most of it would be from Uncle Sugar, as I’m a minority I get special loans for starting my own business. Yes, I’m milking the system, but after all the money I’ve put into Social Security that I will never see, I could care less.

There are a few things holding me back.  First, I would be feeding the system of dependence that I loathe. Second, I would need to gain the confidence, i.e. pay off, politicians to keep my business up and running. Finally, I would need to hire employees.

I can do a lot on my own in this business. I can perform all the technical design, provide our internal IT services, and complete the technical work for the customers. What I am not good at is being a salesman and schmoozing customers. I also am a complete rookie at running a business, and have no experience doing it. I’ve managed people before, that’s not a problem – it’s the day to day financing, cash flow, etc. that I have no familiarity with.

So I would need to hire a sales weasel, a part-time bookkeeper, a cute-sounding girl to man the phones, and a help desk grunt to field customer calls & do minor admin stuff. I also would need to hire a business consultant, preferably a retired businessman, to help me about ten hours a week with the business side of the company.

As I have said I have put a lot of thought into this. I have a business plan sketched out, and I’ve done three out of the ten or so technical designs for the various customers completed. These designs are the foundation for demonstrating profitability, and to show customers the options for services my company will provide, the monthly costs, and the TCO (total cost of ownership) of their existing IT infrastructure.

It is so tempting to go for it, but until I have six months of cash saved to cover bills, and I’ve completed the business plan and all the designs, it’s really a pipe dream. It’s funny in that the idea I have is actually helped by a poor economy. Datacenter space is cheaper, and it’s more advantageous to companies to spend a monthly fee, rather than outlay capital on computer equipment.

The big advantage is it will pay a shitload more than a writer/woodworker’s salary.

Speaking of woodworking, I’ve been a busy beaver in the shop. I’ve been doing a series of small projects to make my home more liveable. I built a storage unit for the pantry so all the cookie sheets and such stand vertically. I’m almost done with a plate rack for the cupboard that will let me stack the plates vertically, giving me a spot to put all my vitamins and supplements. This frees up counter space and makes the kitchen neater.

For the basement, I built a weight bench, with snazzy upholstering and a plate rack to store my freeweights. It’s nothing fancy, two 2″x4″ sides with 2″x6″ verticals. I can’t find the pic of the one I copied, I’ll have to snap a pic when I get home.  Next, I am going to focus on storage and organization in the basement. I will make a few shelves from 2×4′s, and then make wooden boxes to hold stuff on the shelves.

I am going to make a jig tonight to cut through dovetails on my table saw. I’ll upload pics and a diagram on how to build it in a future post. The dovetail is the strongest joint in woodworking that doesn’t use any mechanical fasteners. With some quality plywood, this jig, a little glue, and a table saw, you can bang out piles of these boxes for about the same cost as the plastic bins you buy in Target. The advantage is that you can customize the size to exactly what you need, and when target is no longer around, you can make them from whatever wood you can find.

The idea is for me to go through all my computer crap and organize it into bins on these shelves. I’ll sell what I’m throwing out for scrap because motherboards, network cable, etc is worth big cash now. I’ll buy silver with the money I get. I really, really need to get some more precious metals, but the bills are getting outrageous. I had to fill the oil tank and $550 later I have enough to heat the house until the spring. (The secret is to not have a wife or girlfriend — that way you can set the heat at 63 degrees and not hear the endless bitching about the cold.)

I guess I’ve been focusing more on the woodworking and handyman/tinkering around the house because I am already spending between ten and thirteen hours a day in front of a computer. Writing is more of the same, and my brain can’t handle it. I already don’t exercise enough — the last thing I need to do is sit on my ass more.

I have been exercising fairly regularly, and if you are too then keep it up! If you are not then get off the computer and go for a walk. I have been shortening the belt, matter of fact I need to add another belt notch as my pants are starting to slide off.  Muscles are showing through my subcutaneous fat layer, most notably my biceps, triceps, quads and back muscles. I don’t think I have lost that much weight, but rather converted a lot of flab into lean muscle. I’m getting there, slowly and surely. If you change too radically then your body will bounce back. It has happened to me in the past, when I did the Atkins diet. I lost ~50 pounds in 6 months, then gained 75 back the next six months. The better strategy (for me) is to ignore the number (the pounds) and focus on changing my body from fat to lean muscle.

My body type is like a power lifter’s. I make huge gains in mass and strength, but because of my genetics I’ll never be “Brad Pitt” ripped. I will always have a layer of fat. That is OK by me — it keeps me warm in the winter! The goal is to have enough fat to cover the icky veins, while being strong and fit enough to do manual labor all day, and kick some ass if I have to. I gain motivation by watching the amount of weight I lift increase, by putting more holes in my belt, and fitting into a 2x shirt when I was starting to buy 4x. With my frame I doubt I’ll ever get to an XL, my shoulders are way to big. Every workout I push a little harder, every day I curb the cravings for sweets, every meal I eat better calories. More fuel than sweets, more fat and protein than carbs. I haven’t cut out carbs completely, just switched from “fast” carbs like sugar and flour to “slow” carbs like oatmeal and whole grain.
I’ve been looking around for an Uke, a sparring partner, to start re-training myself in Martial Arts. The few dojo’s in the area I called or visited have never heard of such a thing. Of course, they kept pushing me to sign up for their version of kenpo-kung-jusitsu-karate-dragon-ninja-fu bullshit. I might try other means of finding training partners, if you have any ideas please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment. I’m very rusty in hand to hand, and could use some practice with uke’s of different sizes and body types to get comfortable with people swinging at me again.

Time is ticking away. The Eurozone is holding together with duct tape and bailing wire. China is trying to paint over the rot in their economy so investors don’t notice it. Our economy is beyond fixing, and is only functioning because investors are so afraid of the EU and China that they are dumping money into our worthless bonds. We do not have a lot of time, and I am doing my best to spend it wisely in preparation of what is coming, while enjoying life and keeping (mostly) sane about the whole situation.

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