Funny thing happened on the way to the shop, I didn’t get there. I did discover something about myself though. I need to be learning something new and complicated on a regular basis. If I’m not diligently working on a new skill set I get cranky and, well, I’m just not fun to be around.

I love building and woodwork but that is more for relaxing and just getting some rapid-progress build time in. It helps with the need to see something finished. It staves off completion anxiety as it were, but it doesn’t hit the intellectual mark for me. Not only do I need to see completion, I have a need to learn something new, regularly.

When you think about it, this need to learn explains a lot of my past. It’s why I became a pilot, an instructor, an aviation mechanic, and most recently my climb up the Amateur Radio license tree, and my current pursuit of a commercial radio license along with my self directed RF electronics education.

Now that I have an understanding of my pathological need to learn maybe I can direct it more accurately and bring about that balance I spoke of in my last post. This was just a short musing that inspired me to write and considering one of my goals is to write more frequently… here we are.

Peace, love, airplanes, and electrons,

~FlyBoyJon

A Delicate Balance

I have been working on this for a while, though if you looked at this week, it seems as though Wire was by far the big winner all week, and there is still more to do before Monday.

We went on our first actual go-away-for-more-than-a-four-day-weekend vacation in a very long time and it was great. We did come home early, but that was because we had done everything we set out to do, and besides, the hotel bed didn’t make for a great night sleep anyway.

We spent the week in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Along the way we went to Ashland, Medford, some blips on the map here and there, and Crater Lake. We had a lot of fun and did a little shopping, which also turned out to be more practical than anything else. I found Wrangler jeans for $20 a pair, and Tammy picked up some things at thrift stores in the area. We also found some Pyrex and a skillet for a great price. While in Ashland we bought some books. See, even on vacation, practical. We also managed to come in under budget for the trip, which was great too.

Anyway, back to the balance issue… When we got back it was tough to get motivated and get any real work done. I didn’t do any woodworking in February and I haven’t done any yet this month. I will endeavor to do something wodworkish in the shop next week. I also haven’t gotten back to the day-job project stuff. I have been doing odds-and-ends, just not the projects.

Among the odds-and-ends was the task of taking down this satellite dish from an apartment that vacated this week. Okay, I volunteered to remove it with ulterior motives, thought the former tenant was most likely not prepared to take it down.

And even in this Wire won out, the mast and brackets are very useful and I may be using them for radio work soon. The adjusting frame on the back of the dish may also prove useful. Even the dish has some potential for EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) radio work on 2 meter, 70 centimeter, or up in the GHz range, maybe even other bands… probably not for orbital satellite though. Geosynchronous sure, but orbital would be better served with a beam antenna.

I do want to poke around with the microwave antenna elements though. I haven’t done much in the 3GHz+ range so far but I do have interest in Satcom, Point-to-Point, relay, and other microwave projects. See, Wire still on the brain.

Before I get back to balance, again, I do want to mention a website I set up for radio stuff www.KK6GXG.com (my call-sign) I will be posting radio specific stuff over there.

So, balance… I need to get this whole work-wood-wire thing into a state of balance and keep it there. This may sound like procrastination, but I really do have stuff I need to wrap up over the weekend before actively getting all of my plates spinning equally, so Monday my new mantra becomes balance balance balance…

~FlyBoyJon

First off, I’m going to include December 2013 as a part of 2014. December is the normal transition point in the calendar year but in 2013 it included a lot of beginnings and endings leading up to the new year. Foremost on the list was teaching Aviation Maintenance Technology at Gavilan College. I enjoyed the gig a great deal and I think my students did too. Unfortunately I was not called back to teach the the spring semester. I had finished the AMT program in the spring of 2013 myself and was asked to come back in the fall and teach Airframe. While I was teaching I was also finishing my degree in AMT, graduating in December.

While teaching and finishing my degree I also embarked on a journey into Ham Radio by earning my Technichen Class amature radio license. Along with radio, I decided to do more woodworking this year starting with a big Rubo style workbench, with the intention of using only hand tools in my woodworking, no power tools.

So lets get started with AMT; Since graduating I haven’t done much practical work in aviation. That’s not to say I have been completely out of the loop. I have continued studying and staying current on the day-to-day goings on in the industry. This year I plan on taking a more active roll and get myself involved with some restoration work.

As a Ham I made some headway by completing some small radio projects starting with a 50W dummy load for testing, an RF strength meter, a couple of CW practice oscillators, a rigid 2 meter J-pole antenna, and a flexible 2 meter J-pole. After some study time I passed my General license test followed by my Amateure Extra Class license. For the upcoming year I will continue to study for my FCC commercial radio license that will let me work on aviation and marine radios. I am also studying for my RADAR license as well. The plan is to take all three test elements for the GROL+RADAR (General Radio Operator License and RADAR endorsement) some time early in 2015.

Since I haven’t been teaching, I needed to fill the income gap. Fortunately I have had plenty of facilities work around the homestead to keep me busy. A benefit to doing side work is that I have had the time to move my shop space and start settling in to the new space.

That workbench I started in December 2013 was finished in March and throughout the year I have managed to finish other projects as well; a saw bench, a large rolling shop cart, three draw pins, a mallet, a white-board pen holder, a bookcase for the living room, a shop desk, a French cleat system for the shop, a chisel holder (and a several other tool holders for the French cleat system),  the housing for a CW oscillator with hand made brass fittings, two centering gages, two small-radius compases, a large compass/divider, four free-standing plaques, an enclosed flyer holder with a glass display front, a mirror holder, a rolling baking cart, a plaque with deer antlers, a rolling tool cart, a steel & wood planing stop, a troublesome packing crate, a sign, and a side-board table. There have also been several tool restoration projects along the way. You can see several Flikr sets for pictures of some of these projects here.

Nearly all of the projects have turned out as expected or better. There have been some, shall we say… boo boos, but very few that couldn’t be fixed. The packing crate is one of the ones that can’t really be fixed. I try to learn something from every project. Some I learn a lot from, like the crate. I have a new design to try out for a second shot at it. All in all, it has been a very productive year.

I am looking forward to adding to my skills, making some nice furniture, working on airplanes, and getting in some quality radio time.

Happy New Year from FlyBoyJon!

Over the last week or so it seems as though there have been a large number of Zero Tolerance cases in schools that have resulted in ridiculous actions and suspensions for elementary and middle school students. While I know this is not really anything new, they happen all the time, it just seemed to stand out today.

Just a couple of recent examples are a seven-year old boy was suspended for creative nibbling of his breakfast pastry (link to Youtube news article), a nine-year old boy was suspended for having an expended shell casing fall out of his pocket as he exited a restroom (link to online magazine article), and a ten-year old was suspended for a laser gun gesture with his fingers (link to blog article). Going back a few years when the rush of Zero Tolerance policies began to take over the school systems there were frequent news stories of kids taking aspirin or Tylenol (in some cases by doctors instructions) in school and being kicked out for drug policy violations.

Now, unless I have gone completely crazy, which is possible with all of the B.S. going on, none of these kids presented even the remotest of dangers to themselves or anyone else. In my opinion, the schools are using this broad and currently accepted excuse to jump to ridiculous conclusions and push their personal political agendas on students all while reducing their need to actually think about what they are doing.

Not only is this action producing the whiniest, most self-entitled, and frightened-of-their-own-shadow, all at the same time, generation in history, it is also making it difficult for parents to prevent these behaviors in the home. Granted, many of today’s parents have abdicated their responsibilities of child rearing to the state, but that doesn’t mean the state should be doing what it is doing. Oh, and if you are one of the latter, I don’t give a flying fig about your opinion, you are part of the problem. Stop trying to mandate everyone else’s lives and work on your own for a change.

You can’t teach children to be respectful, responsible and thinking adults when the adults around them refuse to think or take responsibility for their actions. There is no valid justification for Zero Tolerance. It doesn’t work. If pushed, saying or doing almost anything can be made to look like a violation of Zero Tolerance policies; harassment, bullying, drugs, hate speech, they all are things kids need to be cognizant of and how they affect themselves and others, how to recognize the negative effects of these behaviors and how to remove those negatives in society is all part of becoming a responsible adult.

Weapons in the school environment is particularly difficult. Anything can be considered a weapon with even a minimal effort in training or experimentation. Most of the objects in a classroom can be used as a weapon. In high school the possibilities for improvised munitions abound. This thought that a narrow view of traditional weapons with Zero Tolerance is completely insane. The most important issue is intent, “weapon” is a word describing the use or intended use of an object. A pencil is a pencil, until it is used to harm someone, then it is a weapon.

Sure there are things that shouldn’t be brought to school without a specific purpose and prior arrangement, guns are most definitely on that list. Explosives, live ammunition, sure, that makes sense on the list. An obviously expended shell casing? I hear it now, “Obviously. How would I know?” As in the law, ignorance is no excuse. If you can’t tell the difference between an expended casing and a live round, you shouldn’t be the one making decisions. It really is that simple.

Zero Tolerance is a P.C. push whose track record has been abysmal. It has been abused by administrators and teachers to push agendas and by students to exact revenge on other students, teachers, and administrators. Zero Tolerance doesn’t bring anything new to the table. All of the rules were already in place it only changes the thought process in adjudication. Actually it removes the thought process entirely. Zero Tolerance doesn’t contribute to the safety of the school environment it only fosters an adversarial attitude between families and the schools.

Can you guess where I stand on Zero Tolerance?

I have been remiss in my attention to the blog. I have had stuff going on, though little of it has been terribly interesting. My focus has been on getting the day-to-day stuff done around the complex while planning for some big changes in the near future.

We are looking at the possibility of relocating up north to Oregon sometime in or after spring 2016. It sounds like a long time away but it’s a big deal for the family. The wife and boy have always lived locally and nether are big fans of change or the unknown so something like this is really going to mix things up. Like I said, its a big step.

As with any relocation there are a lot of unknowns. One of the major motivators is the reality that I’m getting older and we have never had the luxury of making any real retirement plans or preparations. The chances of being able to retire anywhere locally are slim at best with the cost of living around here. More to the point, since I’m not any younger, it will only get harder to establish a homestead if we wait much longer.

We looked up north because there is land available at a relatively low cost and there is enough flexibility in the building codes that I can reasonably expect to build my own home using natural building materials and techniques. It’s also more likely that there will be the resources we need. Coincidentally I have been doing a lot of studying on these materials and techniques.

I have the skills to homestead a 5+ acre plot and make it work. The idea is to develop the site using permaculture design techniques and establishing a mostly self-sufficient lifestyle. It is completely realistic to expect a five year development cycle to get to a level of resource stability that will allow us to easily live off of less than $500 a month.

The biggest hitch in this plan is to acquire the property. The second obstacle is finding a site that has the resources to make it all work. Water is a must, diverse soil (loam, clay, sand) is almost as important, as is good timber and stone resources.

Once the site is selected and secured, it will take some time to evaluate resources and to thoroughly survey the site and all of its eccentricities. Resources that need time to be gathered or processed will need to be prepared and stored, while other materials are acquired and stored. The process is long and drawn out, but if managed well and planned thoroughly I am confident we will have a well-established homestead in relatively short order.

Right now, everything is still academic.

Not the usual post! This post is one of a more personal tone. If you’re looking for aviation, woodworking, or restoration, this aint it. You have been warned. 🙂

I am posting this because… well… I wanted to. I guess I don’t really need any reason other than that now do I.

Recently my wife and I began actively looking at potential places to move sometime in the next few years. I need to get out of this valley and I really don’t want to be here too much longer. If we have a goal to work towards I can motivate myself to make it happen. Without a goal to focus on, I just can’t get fired up.

The Bay Area presents so many obstacles to everything I want to do. I’m not against working through obstacles. I am against having to plough through the unnecessary tonnage of obstacles developed by civic corporations hell bent on spending the revenues it generates in foolish ways and making deals with corporate giants for kickbacks and phony promises to make things better. The state of California itself is insane in so many ways, the legislature demonstrates in each session just how ignorant and out of touch they have become.

Starting a business, legally, in this area costs a bunch of money for licensing, taxes, fees, permits, and insurance. Each item costing ten times what it does elsewhere. The lack of perceived value in hand-work of any kind is a huge issue and the liability element in our litigious region is out of control. The lack of community in many places (geographical, in the sprawl, where we live at least) is in part due to the highly transient nature of the residents in this area. To top it off there are just too damn many people around here. And last but certainly not least, the real estate market is crazy expensive for no legitimate reason. It is just not practical to think this is a good place for a small hand-work business to make enough to live on, let alone get ahead with any intention of retirement.

I have tried my hand at building my own businesses many times. I have worked with others as they attempted to make something work. I have seen so many ventures circle the drain as the owners pump everything they had into a lost cause. Many times the continued flushing of capital down the drain was directly attributable to the area we currently live in, either civic extortion or just trying to be heard above the noise. I am just not willing to put the effort out anymore.

It’s not that I have become defeatist, I’m not. I am very willing to work, and work hard, just not for the miniscule reward this area has to offer, particularly at the extreme risk it requires. I’ve tried too long, worked too hard, and been kicked in the teeth too many times to keep trying as long as I live in the bay area, or California for that matter. As an entrepreneur I have many ideas still gestating, I’m just not willing to waste them on this area, it’s not worth it.

I have no illusions, I can’t live in Mayberry no matter how much I would like to, but I also can not do this urban sprawl thing anymore. It holds zero value for me. I have no steak in it whatsoever. I have tried, for decades, I just feel like I have wasted all that time, or more accurately, the time spent yielded only a portion of the benefits it might have elsewhere. I have learned stuff, gained skills, but have no outlet or local community to be connected with or give back to.

I have lived in the land of too much, too fast, too many, too expensive, for too long.
It’s time to slow down and enjoy life and what hard work brings, not just survive.
It’s time to move on.

~Jon

“I’m not a living historian; I’m working on my post apocalyptic skill sets” not just pretty words, they are a way of life. 🙂

Something that stuck with me from very early in life was be prepared for likely as well as unlikely events. A big part of being prepared is being as self-sufficient and possible, having the skills to accomplish basic subsistence tasks from the raw material level up to the end user level for as many trades as possible.

In gardening this would be from saving or finding seeds, planting, harvesting, and ultimately preserving for storage or preparing for consumption. In woodworking it would start with the harvesting of timber, rough milling, drying, preparing board lumber, then finally building whatever you need. In textiles it might start with raising sheep, shearing, drying and washing, spinning, weaving or knitting fabric, and finally sewing.

I have spent many years learning a variety subsistence industries, endeavoring to learn them from raw materials to market in their basic forms or as close an approximation as possible. I also learned a broad range of survival skills for a number of environments. While learning these skills I came up with some strategies for living, beyond just survival, based on a combination of time-frame and technology. Most people with survival training are familiar with the “72 hr. Go Bag,” the 1 week or 2 week kit, and the “long term kit” which is usually for 30 days or so. However, generally speaking, anything longer than a few weeks is not considered in training.

My strategy goes further by assigning time-frames starting with survival for the first day or two moving into practical subsistence as quickly as is possible, subsistence begins with long term food, shelter, and security. Basically, with a Go Bag you are starting out somewhere just above caveman depending on what you take with you. Most kits won’t get you much further without becoming cumbersome and unwieldy. Getting from caveman to the 1300s can take a while even with a lot of early trade skills. Getting to the the pre-industrial era requires a huge skill set.

Once subsistence has been established it’s time to start working on advancing technology. As always, survival, subsistence, and beyond depend on terrain and resources so what direction technology takes is based on what’s available. This is where we start looking at available resources for power; in a natural-resource-only environment this would begin with wind and water power. How they are harnessed and what they are applied to is also dependant on the resources available.

To some this may sound a bit pessimistic, maybe even a bit crazy but others will likely be thinking “duh.” The real question is if you had to, could you? If you found yourself out in the middle of nowhere with no outside help available for the foreseeable future could you establish subsistence, then move onward and upward from there?

The reason I am bringing this up is a book I have been reading, Crystal Sets to Sideband by Frank W. Harris (KØIYE) Frank starts talking about building a crystal radio receiver, he mentions finding galina at an abandon mine and using it for the main crystal in several radio experiments. He also goes over the process of making diodes from raw materials. Although I have a limited knowledge of geology, mining, metallurgy, I do have a fair knowledge of processing refined metals, processing copper ore and drawing it into wire would take me a long time to get going. Starting from scrap metal would make it a lot easier and I most definitely have the skills for that.

Another thing Frank talks about in his book is a pyramid of skill levels starting with the collection and processing of raw materials at the the base and the purchasing of completed goods at the top. He references this to the ham radio operators of today, the average new operator these days buys their equipment putting them on the top of the pyramid with the old-timers and the DIY builders being somewhere around the middle.

Looking at franks pyramid got me thinking of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (right). I learned about Maslow back when I started working on my Flight Instructor certificate. This was in essence what got me thinking about extended survival, the “deserted island” scenario and later the “SHTF or EOTWAWKI” scenarios.

The best way to thrive in a situation is to move up Maslow’s pyramid and the best way to accomplish that is by moving down Frank’s beforehand, so to speak. The method for accomplishing this is using the strategy of increasing tech-level as frequently as possible, essentially establishing regular and sustained provisions for food, shelter, and security thereby setting the base of the pyramid allowing for higher level accomplishment. Getting from survival to subsistence as quickly as possible is an imperative, getting from subsistence to “living” expediently is desirable of course.

☮ ♥ ✈ & 73,
~FlyBoyJon / KK6GXG

I have a pile of tools in the shop that need reconditioning and or restoration. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours on an old “Handyman” yankee drill/driver. It was covered in crud and the inner compartment was filled with drywall dust caked with oil. The action was grabby and didn’t want to reverse, and the fwd/rev lever wasn’t working. The tool wast partially disassembled for evaluation a few days after I got it, but higher priorities prevailed at the time so it was bagged-n-tagged then stashed on a shelf with other tool projects.

I had finished some of the stuff on my to-do list when I came across the yankee while cleaning out “modern” tools that no longer work and are not worth repairing. I opened it up and re-evaluated the yankee’s condition. I needed a break and some bench time went a long way in relaxing and being productive at the same time.

Today has been even more productive than yesterday. I started out with a list of stuff to do and got some of it done before getting sidetracked.

There where some other projects that I had planned on doing later, but priorities changed mid stream. The shop is small, so shifting stuff around a lot is part-n-parcel to getting anything done. One thing that was getting on my nerves was having to keep moving my laptop, and the associated cabling, every time I needed to get into my service cart for tools.

Enter the shop desk, or, at least the main work surface anyway. Pretty basic, 3/4″ ply cut to a quarter circle to be held up by two beefy wall cleats. Like I said, basic.

With the desk in place and a place to keep my laptop safely out of the way, the next thing to clear up some floor space and get organized was to get the french cleat strips up on the walls and ready for tool holders.

With the french cleats up on the walls and time growing short, not to mention getting a little tired, I whipped up a holder for chisels and a holder for one of my braces.
 

After that, it was clean up time. Straigten up, clean up the shavings and saw dust, sweep, and gather up my stuff. The ten minute tidy complete, time for a couple of closing shots and head up stairs for dinner. A good productive day.

☮ ♥ ✈,
~FlyBoyJon

Over the last few days I have been moving this site, and others, to a new hosting provider. Somehow something went awry and I lost media files, mostly pictures. I still have the originals, I think, so over time I will copy them back into posts to fix what is broke.

Until then, at least the site is moved, up and running, and loading about 20 times faster than it used to. That makes me happy.

😉

~FlyBoyJon