ShopTalk Sunday: Childhood Sets Shop Org Skills

Huge personal insights have been arriving almost daily since I started a course on accessing past lives. Schlepping gear through southeast Africa in overgrown bush like a rail right of way in 1925? A newspaper (like this one) was somehow involved. Me? Safari local laborer?  What the…???  (The George life 1798 story on the Peoplenomics site is also interesting…)

More useful is the “new spin” this kind of self-discovery puts on present life as well.

A “Biggy” insight this week is that my childhood (when men get socialized/home trained and house broken) had a HUGE influence on my shop organization style and work styles – later in life.

It’s a damn interesting perspective that you (and relatives & spouses) may find enlightening. I expect my son (George2) will find this interesting, as well.  Because it explains so much about the differences between our workstyles.

Ruined by Electric Trains?

Part of the past life regression work in this program involves answering some very tough personal questions about yourself.  One of the big stumpers is “What am I here to Learn in this lifetime?

I won’t go through all the ins and outs of the program, but between my son’s frustration with my “everything, everywhere” way of working – plus the regression work – a lot has fallen into place. In my case, my workstyle was mainly formed by Lionel 027-gauge electric trains.

I can hear you now: “WTF? How did you get to THAT?”

Trains and Behavior Training

It all started in that 6–8-year-old range when every boy (well, at least back in the day) wanted an electric train.  Pappy had his eye on this possibility and he was willing to mover his small shop out of a separate wood-walled room in the basement of the folk’s place. It was about 8-1/2 by 11 feet.  Something of an awkward size for a conventional train layout, but the Ure Family over-engineering genes are a well-known trait.

Pappy figured he would use 2-by-4 framing and that there would be an operator center “hole” in the middle of the layout.  Following?  You had to get down on your hands and knees, crawl to the middle of “train layout” where the “engineer” could lord over his burgeoning rail empire for the middle – seeing all sides!

Of course, Pappy and a favored uncle, did this all-in semi-secret. Until one night, I came downstairs and there was whooping and hollering from the basement.  They had put the room together in a few hours (firefighters are hellishly fast when they get focused on an outcome!). Bare walls to train layout with a command position in the center of it in under six hours.  1/2-inch plywood decking.

The cutout area was all of 2-feet by 3-feet.  One grownup and one child, or three children, though usually just The Major and me.

The only design flaw?  It was high enough from the floor that a grownup could crawl in easily.  But that meant the Junior Engineers ended up needing a platform to stand on, otherwise they couldn’t see the whole layout. Some 2-by-6’s on edge and more plywood. Big platform and good to go.

Pappy usually had longer-range plans, too.  Moving out of his “small shop space” he went on to commandeer most of the northwest corner of the basement.  Where we would later build an 8-foot plywood pram.  This was 1957, or so.

“What Does This Have to Do with Shop Organizing?”

Just coming to that.  As part of my “self-work” recently, it became clear that when I was standing in the center of the train layout as a kid, everything was right where I wanted it, all around me!  If I needed a boxcar, turn around and there were a couple on a siding. A switch (over yonder) could be thrown as needed. Reach across and there it was.

(Though The Major‘s standard O-gauge (slightly larger than 027) had a couple of electric switches, the three-rail Lionel manual switches looked more like the ones in the local train yards. We made notes on such things.)

The key is?  My thinking and working styles were defined in no small measure from having “all the trains I’d ever need surrounding me.”  Even now, I’m in that “workstation mentality” in no small measure.

I never built a pop-up train layout for my son. Long one across the back of the garage – 21 feet of HO trackage and a damn fine mountain.

He would do an activity in one place, on the layout, pick up tools and whatever, then move on to another activity. Strangely normal progression.  Comparing father and son 43-years into the adventure of Life, it’s all clear how childhood train layouts influenced our thinking.

Surrounded by everything has served me well.  It’s how I managed to live happily on a 40-foot sailboat for more than a decade, too.  Surrounded by everything one could ever need for sailing, which is the (hidden connection) between successful sailing and success at model railroading. Keep all your shit close at hand, as a place for everything and everything in its place. Need a snatch-block for rigging? Aft lazarette, left side, under the bucket of mooring lines.

Hell of a concept, huh?

Real World Application

10+ years in less than 200 square feet on the boat. Now we’re at 22-years on 1.24 million square feet of dirt. The human factors (and programming) have not changed.  I still like things in a place and right where I can get at them. Each of my “workstations” tends to be surrounded by as much of everything as can be reasonably obtained.

Like a big train layout keeps growing, no matter what.

The Magnetic Crap Collector

Most operational shops have one, or more, of those magnetic strips you can buy for $20 bucks or so.  Over time, kinda like the train set, bits and pieces of doodads magically fill them.  (Anyone else remember Lionel electric train track pins? I had these everywhere. The layout was never done! )

70-years on, the magnetic strip on the righthand side of the main shop bench was really getting loaded down with stuff:

It was time to Organize!

This was (blushing to admit this) very much like those “dust collecting knickknacks that old people had” when I was young.  Useful tools being involved doesn’t change the problem.  So, off came everything and it was sorted into piles.

There were some keepers for the magnetic rack. That self-adjusting multipin impact socket – yeah – that’s useful when you have a small one-off kind of issue.

But notice the (neatly) folded up cloth 60-inch measuring tape?  That and a few other things in bench piles needed to be sent to the Layout Department (right next to the Measuring Department, adjacent to the Leveling Dept.).

The Layout Department is a whole world of hands-on design.  That folded-up purple zigzag thing inside the plastic box?  That is a sewing device used by tailors and seamstresses to space buttonholes evenly.  With one of these around, in mere seconds you can evenly space up to 7 holes at a time.  And it really gives a job more of a finished look about it. Evenly spaced fasteners just look more workmanlike.

Another pile of tools were the splined screw impact driver wrenches.  God knows I’ve seen only a handful in my life.  Torx and star drives have really taken over the market. Maybe because of lawyers and intellectual property – who knows?

But this gets us to another interesting spot in the (surrounding the main bench) equivalent of the train layout: This is the “stuff cart.”  All those impact spline shaft wrenches when to hang out with a wide range of “no one has that size” kin.

The wooden box?  Ah!  Cheap from Amazon – you just need to spend some time looking for wood artist boxes.  U.S. Art Supply has all kinds of things useful for a shop and many don’t require art skills…

You take the box in the picture.  Yes, I bought it.  $35 bucks now and at our age, you can’t build it in $35 bucks worth of labor time plus parts.

The Big Secret  to all this stuff is?  Spend time defining the problem you’re trying to solve.  Then figure out the best solution/price that migrates well into the future.

I was almost delirious when the weeding process was done:  The magnetic strip was considerably thinned out and looking more like someone besides a tool slut/doodad hoarder (or pack rat) was running the show:

Yeah… That now looked like it will support G2’s penchant for clear working spaces.  But he will have no idea where to find a 13/64th’s splined impact driver bit.  Train layout versus 4 desks, I guess.

Clean Counter Decisions

Here’s another peculiar mental illness of having a nice shop.  You often will get something (like a wire shelving rack) that came with 4″ wheels.  Why these were included was something of a mystery. Buy, there’s no place for them to be used, so out they went.  Galled me to toss them, however.

This week’s column may seem a bit odd.  But how many spouses and children have asked “Why isn’t dad’s shop more like a surgery center?”

Well, people don’t drop off fresh body parts often.  And besides, the big Rule of Tools that no one taught me as a child was “For every 10 tools you buy, invest in tool storage as you go.”

Why that’s not in the Big Instruction Book of Life is beyond me.  However, since Life is like a big escape room, I figured this one out, but I still don’t know if that’s the Big Key, or not.

Happy Wife – Happy Life Dept.

Learned something from my old friend Bill Brock, back in the day that was useful.  Always keep a few small gifts around the house that you can spring on your wife when she is least expecting it.

You don’t need to be in the doghouse, to hand them out. Just spring one with a glass of bubbly some evening.  A remarkable “get lucky” strategy.

This week’s Elaine toys included a 1,000-piece crossword puzzle.  (Elaine’s somewhat puzzling at times…) And the coup d gras is an inexpensive electronic violin. (I’m stringing her along?) (rim shot).

Fire Box

Next time you see a cheapo (large) plastic toolbox at the Dollar store, buy it.

For the fire patio, I had one and so in it went a stove thermometer, a hatchet for making kindling, half a dozen propane BBQ lighters, and a plastic tub of fire starters.

I don’t like to think when comes time to using something.  Like all the tools in one pile.  Maybe I sustained brain damage crawling under the train table so often as a child?

Let’s see if I can start a fire now…Big Nor’Wester coming down through Texas today. Ham nets talking about 26 in Amarillo around 6 AM.  High here is right now – 73 – and it will be upper 30s tonight…


One other 1925 note: (which clarified when I went to research the regression…)

Let me just mention, though, there is on page 9 of the PDF file from East Africa, 1924, a most interesting account of action involving a German ship (Koenigsberg) and the wooden Pegasus.  Which sounds like a movie plot of a flick I had once seen. Very archetypical kind of stuff… And yes, more than slightly odd to pop out of a past life session, I’ll admit.

Better stick to trains.

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

56 thoughts on “ShopTalk Sunday: Childhood Sets Shop Org Skills”

      • Again, you’ve squarely hit the nail. Since one objective of life is learning to the Jr. CoCreators with Universe (for when we move on to the next toy box) how is it that we cannot already some inkling and thus a focus on the HO’s as a “first pass at making a world of our own creation” – on a portable scale. In dream realms and beyond it will be bigger but it’s the design build skills – aye, that’s key on this ride. It’s how we become “migratory souls” able to fly many dimensions

        • I made a Z gauge layout (fine German micro craftsmanship) on a 2′ x 4′ coffee table when I was living in an apartment in the big city. Had to have my trains!

        • As a kid, I gave up “electric trains” and began my life-long fascination with girls.

          Much later, as an adult, I took up again with “N” scale — a VERY manageable size: smaller than HO by a good bit, but still interesting and capable of High Reality.

          Taking up modeling (again) taught me to SEE — REALLY SEE — my surroundings to a degree never practiced before. Just how DOES ivy grow up the side of a brick building? How DOES gravel (grey or brown?) best represent ballast for real-looking track? Etcetera. Careful modeling helps one to truly SEE and experience the effluvia and floobydust of Life.

          Sadly, at 80, I now have to give that up from lack of decent vision to do the work — but it was a Grand and Rewarding Journey. Well worth the effort and expense.

          (By the way, I have a HUGE box of “KATO” N-scale tack. Very realistic and reliable, stuff if you know your N-scale manufacturers. Dozens of turnouts. Tons of straights and curves of all KATO radiuses.
          Most of it is still in original retail hook-packs. Must be at least 400 pieces. Including three KATO full double-crossovers –4 turnouts in a single piece. Anybody want to make an offer? It’s for a giant N-scale empire I never did — and now never will — build.)

          I also got a two-cubic foot box full of scenery bits & fragments. Buildings, cars, trees, wee people, etc etc. A goldmine for good kitbashers and creatives. Anybody sane would see it as a box worthless Krappe. Make offer, and it’s yours.

          Another box is full of rolling stock — hundreds of pieces. Boxcars, engines etc etc.

          I hate to dumpsterize it. It’d take me YEARS to eBay it — and I don’t have years to do that. So….

          73

        • @WRR

          I will ask around.

          I have “N” Gauge also. I have one of the Revell Rapido 4-6-2s. I bought it new in about 1969, and have never taken it out of the box.

        • william…I am a grandfather with grandkids that would live something like that .. let G know what you’d like for it and if I can swing it I would definitely be interested.

  1. Your “fire box” sounds like a good idea, IF you store it where it’s not rained on. Those cheap toolboxes leak where the handle attaches to the top. The “Tools Box” that came with my mini-excavator was full of rusty tools because of that fact.

    My electric train was an American Flyer because it only had two rails. My dad was an engineer with Southern Pacific, and the third rail of Lionel wasn’t realistic enough for him.

  2. i never got the log loader to work well.

    i did get the diesel heater going yesterday tho, might heat the whole house!

    Lots of exhaust heat to harvest. Guy on youtube has a 15 ft copper pipe exhaust pipe; another runs the exhaust thru a small radiator before exiting the building.

    • Beware of wood stove flue going through a radiator or other type of ‘stack robber’. As the exhaust cools the soot deposits on the stack robber, which can reduce exhaust flow and increase chances of a flue fire.

      • air conditioning systems use a similar principle but to cool the air.. compression / expansion.. when I made the solar beer chiller that is what I used.. but instead I used the sun to heat the liquid.. then let the vapor expand rapidly to freeze.. worked real good.. you actually had to put ice in it to keep the beer from freezing..

        • https://youtu.be/V3abp-Tw6sI?si=MqFcG4nb6D6ieudP

          That icey ball was the one someone sent to me.. the reason Dan wasn’t getting much out of it is I drained it to ship it.. the bent Finns was an oops with the wife bumping into it in the garage..oops.. I was flushing it so the mixture in it was extremely diluted..
          the system I made was exactly like that with the exception that I had a small paraboll that focussed on the storage container .. I used salt as a desicant the tube went up to the coil in a bucket of water then down to the expansion chamber where it flash freezes or the other ball..in the beer chiller..you seen the beer chiller I made it look like a retro coke machine I sent it to you . with four inches of foam insulation..
          what I didn’t realize is just how cold the ammonia would get.. I was going to make my own ammonia but bought some cleaning ammonia from a janitorial supply house..they have 35 percent..which was perfect and I didn’t get criticized by the boss.. if you notice on the supply side is slightly smaller than the expansion side..
          it was fun to play with old tech..the boss wanted to park in the garage lol.. Dan sells the reflective material and getting a parabolic is easy to..
          this photo shows the layout.. I personally used a dish network dish.. A little small but it worked great.. if I was to build another one I would put an automatic positioned on it..you find an old propane fridge in an old camper you would have the whole system..
          https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.CJD9_qTkwRUjbrZBP3okNwAAAA?pid=ImgDet&dpr=1.5

        • Ok… well I had to go to sent emails way back to 2016 to get the photo.. the computer I had broke down and I lost all of my photos of the unit.. I did find one of the chiller box.. I sent it to you in an email.. I don’t have any photos of the whole thing all together working.. when the computer broke down I lost all of my photos..
          which sucks.. My grandkids had been interested in solar and I decided to show them how to do things.. that the sun is amazing.. that energy is all around us all the time.. anyway I made the horrible mistake showing them how to melt stone.. omg don’t do it.. I had to get rid of that before they burned the house down.. they were melting everything.. we then made a solar oven.. which was a lot safer.. and made the trapazoid reflector.. the cooler was the same thing.. you can cook with the sun and you can freeze with the sun.. so the solar beer chiller came to mind.. I had the crosley.. since I knew how it worked pretty simple stuff.. I decided to use that format.. which I sent you.. and then made the beer chiller.. made it look fun so a pop cooler came to mind.. and that was the design.. the sun would keep the ice frozen then at night it would stay cold.. great idea great project and fun for all.. but unfortunately the boss aka wife wanted to park in the garage.. so I had to decide what was more important.. since I don’t value things as much as knowelege and those around me.. a person is way more important than some thing.. I gave it away.. I can always make another one or have someone make one.. anyway enjoy the photo.. wish I still had one of the whole setup but I don’t..
          like making my bug traps.. that is the best biting insect trap.. nothing to crazy just my version of an ova trap.. the real problem is in making the attractant.. for some reason women hate it if you come up to them and ask them for some pee LOL only a tsp.. for a quart .. need the hormones in it.. and the lactic and uric acid.. so I just buy the attractant LOL it is easier and no one questions when you flop the attractant on the counter LOL LOL

        • what surprises me.. Is the amount of cool he was getting out of Water.. LOL LOL I was flushing out the icey ball… so what he is getting is cold out of the vapor of water.. …
          which I found amazing.. I was going to experiment with lithium bromide or auto air conditioning coolant.. put maybe five pounds of vacuum on it.. see what it would do with that.. non toxic.. high efficiency and low vaporization temperature.. Hmm worth playing with.. two pieces of pipe and four caps and a hose.. could a person make a self operational system.. ????? just another musing from a inquisitive old man for old mans garage speriments LOL..

    • Hydraulics.. there was a guy that noticed how hot his hydraulic lines got.. so .. he made a cavitation fracturing.. to heat his shop.. nothing more than a hydraulic pump and then a motor that would spin a wheel with a cheese grater on it.. and on the inside of the one spinning cheese grater disk he had another one smaller going in the opposite direction.. the two cheese graters created enough heat.. that it actually started to boil the oil.. and then pumped through a radiator.. I wonder if there is a video.. let me check..
      well this isn’t the farmer.. LOL LOL but it has the same principle.. simple as old as time.. FRICTION ….
      https://youtu.be/QFHsJrxwvY8?si=xcWa9cl1Ci_KS5OH
      https://youtu.be/zbd50_hOy0U?si=erRiL8wfb4HX6UgP
      https://youtu.be/M9jUxw-wSV0?si=_w2LwSxngqGL0PzW
      Oh Robert Murry smith made a simple one..
      https://youtu.be/ZDCVcP995-k?si=dZ-FmIi0JxNtMf06
      the one I seen was in an outside work shop.. awesome unit.. and really really simple to make.. and it cost him hardly nothing to heat his shop.. just the juice to run the motor and pump..
      several different ideas on it on you tube.. but the one I seen wasn’t very different.. it had just a tube.. with two cheese grators in it.. an inlet pipe and an outlet pipe.. the pump pushing the oil through it.. then out the hose into a radiator with a fan behind it.. closed loop.. the oil just pumped in then around and back..
      Oh he had a pretty fair sized shop to.. and it was comfortable in there.. friction.. just like letting a cord pull through your hands real fast..

  3. Your narrative skills are top notch. The trip through your shop is captivating.
    My uncle Jim passed away a few weeks back. 99 years old and still lived in the house he and my Aunt lived in since he returned from WW2. Retired after 45 years service working for GM in the body shop. He was “that” uncle” who always brought the best birthday presents, I later figured out that he would put them together and play with them before giving them to me. Sort of test and eval if you will. He was also a pilot, mechanic, builder, outdoorsman, and drove a Corvette until he was 90, you name it. He and my dad could and did build absolutely anything.
    I was tapped to be the admin of his estate. The house is what many would consider a tiny home now. 5 rooms and an attic that when I was growing up going up there where is little workshop was, was a great adventure. I spent a couple days getting things taken care of but when I went up there the clock stopped. I had to take a break after I realized I had been just pawing through the treasures there. Tools, fishing and hunting equipment, model airplanes and cars, and books. Then the walls started talking to me, and I knew then I would need my boys to come help me finish packing all this up. My oldest son told me I was just like Uncle Jim to all my grandkids. Except I never did play with all the Barbie dolls before giving them to the girls but I did sorta with the camper, Corvette and van sets. I’m still digesting that.
    Stay safe. 73

    • you know Jim that’s what my wife says to me all the time.. it’s not your toy it’s the kids.. she swears I only buy toys for me..

  4. George
    Impressive!
    Not one but two paint can lid openers on the magnetic thing of a bob rack.
    What other treasures lurk in your magical mystery tool collection you have hidden away?

  5. If you need some shelving for a table, check out the wire shoe racks on A*zon. Nice and sturdy. I’ve found they make excellent racks for stereo and radio gear; the spacing between the shelves is just right for the majority of electronics.

  6. I think it was the 4th grade. Before that, I was a Standard Undifferentiated Kidd. Normal. My (semi-wealthy) uncle gave me American Flyer trains. (He also thought 3-rail track was odd — and 2-rail track made for more realistic appearance. )

    The wiring of the switches, lights, action accessories, and track was a HUGE intellectual challenge for a Standard Undifferentiated Kidd. My distant olefactory memory can still sniff the melting insulation of bad wiring.

    Ultimately, trains led to the “study” of electronics, and radio, and the entire rest of my life was scientifically bent — like a Bonsai tree. I was a cork in a creek, being drawn along by the currents. I didn’t fight them: I rode them. That took me Everywhere.

    • Every kidd in ‘Merica should read this – because it’s how exceptionalism is born. You fall in love with a thing (trains) and in the process the world opens and you ride, captain, ride.

      I pity those who don’t grab on – like the hoboes did down in the train yard – there’s so damn much of life – 90 percent of it cool – and why does it have to be so short???

    • “like a Bonsai tree. I was a cork in a creek, being drawn along by the currents. I didn’t fight them: I rode them. That took me Everywhere.”

      ^

      This is soooooo sooooo good.

    • William. i was so touched by these words

      “like a Bonsai tree. I was a cork in a creek, being drawn along by the currents. I didn’t fight them: I rode them. That took me Everywhere.”

      i sent them to some Shamman I know. giving you the credit. and they all said,

      That is Big Medicine.

      thank you.

      • As a child of 3 or 4 living in the country, we would drive past radio towers with all the red lights. Lights fascinated me as a child. Mom tells me my first word was “light”, pointing up to the ceiling. So I asked Dad what those red lighted towers were for. He explained that they broadcast the music we were listening to on the radio. That began a life long fascination with wireless radio. By age 10 I was taking apart radios and teaching myself to solder. Like that cork in the stream I went with the flow… and it did take me everywhere… including building TV stations in Hawaii. Big Medicine, indeed!

  7. Thanks for the little trip down memory lane today. I remember my Lionel train set in the mid 50s. I loved it an thought I was King of the railroad for a couple of years.

    I do remember a little hole on top of the engine and a switch to make the engine smoke when you dropped in a little white pill and pushed the switch when the train ran. I am sure it has since been discovered that the chemical in that pill produced cancerous smoke. LOL

  8. George
    I just saw a video that in the future the best states to live in are blue states because they are people oriented. You live in a red state. What do you think of that opinion?

    • The “blue States” will all go bankrupt, because they significantly overspend their budget every year to buy votes by providing services they can’t afford. When the “red States” lose the desire or ability to finance the “blue States’ chronic overspending,” an Indian Reservation may be the only good place to live.

      How’s your Navajo…?

  9. Yo G, love the past life regression data. I have come to the conclusion that we bring forward skills from past life experiences and they shape our current lives much more than we think. I believe my past lives have given me abilities in cooking, woodworking and wordsmithing. My best friend’s mother could play the piano “by ear”, no lessons and absolutely concert grade ability. Concert pianist in previous life? And me, I have all the time in the world, my compliments to the Sub Dudes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_FpMSIBGZQ
    Enjoy my friend….

  10. What hooked me was reading at 8 or 9 when I discovered Classic Comics, which led to the library and worlds beyond my view. I would read a book that sounded interesting, and if I liked it, as many simular books as I could find. My grades suffered because I always had another book to read any time, I could get away with it.
    I never had a train, but did go through model airplanes, and short-wave radio. But I thought the hams I knew were snobs and didn’t go that way. In Navy boot camp I scored high and went to electronics and radar schools. I made a career in electronics, while maintaining my insatable reading habit.
    After retiring for the fourth time in 2011, I started creating books, based on my current interests. Today, I’m getting ready to publish my 26th novel. Writing won’t make me rich, but it keeps my mind active, and my work will be here when I go on to my next adventure.
    I believe our passions, interest, and work ethic are all formed during those ‘growing up’ years.

  11. Unfortunately the kids of today will never know the thrill of jumping off a garage roof with an umbrella for a parachute, or exploring that beckoning trail into the woods. No desire to create something when they can go online and buy it. They can’t see past the end of their arms with attached phone.

    • We were those kids, too, brothers and sisters, capes and umbrellas, jumping off the roofs.

      How about those chemistry sets where you could really learn something when young?

      How about the public parks with swings, see saws, merry-go-rounds, tall slides, and high boards and low boards – all great skills learning and laws of physics teachers.

      How about bouncing balls, and throwing balls, and playing games outside, riding bikes, roller skating, ice skating, swimmimg, hiking, clamming, blue crabbing, picking apples, cherries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, plums, peas, and learning how to get along, pick teams, resolve conflicts, make friends, be gone all day along beaches, rivers, streams, creeks, climbing trees, sleeping outside under the stars, and the million magic moments of youth?

      How about your first dog, purring cat, or sitting on a horse?

      How about stopping at the Continental Divide and your Dad trying to explain what that was and all you could think was how does the water know which way to go???

      Similar to my firsts efforts at map navigation, which way is North??? Dad had a tough one with me, but he was a self educated electrical engineer, above top secret, genius, so he didn’t give up as he had more love than patience, and his patience was boundless.

      How about learning how to drive, how exciting was that? I still hear Mr. Beeman’s voice in my head when I drive, he was such a great man and teacher.

      How about riding in and learning how to fix go carts?

      Same with a dirt bike?

      Because my Dad taught his daughters and his sons how to ride a dirt bike, I rode my motorcycle in my mid 50’s alongside my husband’s, across America, I was the main navigator and trip planner and got the chance to re-visit places I went with Dad, including Pikes Peak, the Grand Canyon, and other wonderful places too numerous to mention..

      I feel sorry for the kids of today, most of the things we enjoyed were free, or inexpensive or second hand, but there were available not behind an expensive firewall.
      Hugging a tree is free. Going to state parks is cheap.

      Right now, heading to the coast of Texas, once you get there, it’s almost free to sit on the beach gotta buy a $14.00 annual parking pass for the beach.

      Looking back, we had an absolutely wonderful Mom, but the secret provider, protector, and purveyor of FUN, was our Dad.

      And that’s the real Secret Missing Ingredient in the kids upbringing today.

      Dad’s.

  12. “Next time you see a cheapo (large) plastic toolbox at the Dollar store, buy it.”

    Or fishing tackle boxes for parts! I got one of the fluorescent green boxes after I saw yours some time back, for the Dremel tool and all the bits and parts. But the jewel is the biggest Flambeau tackle box available where ALL of my coax connectors and adapters and small antenna parts are now organized. It’s a heavy arm-stretcher now, but it goes out in the field with me for ‘radio days’ with the club. I can adapt anything to anything, and plenty of new connectors also for those inevitable antenna repairs.

    And speaking of radio daze… the local club organized a field operations day saturday for the CQ Worldwide SSB contest. We wanted some public awareness and invited the CBers and Tech class operators out to see what HF operations were like for a worldwide contest. I had a ‘hamstick dipole’
    https://firewallsrus.blogspot.com/2017/02/Portable-Dipole.html
    on 10 meters with my solar panel and 512wH ‘ham can’ battery in an ammo box. With my ‘armstrong rotor’ on the mast, I was working all around the Pacific rim. 35 contacts for our 9 hour daylight operation. Great pileup training for the newbies!

  13. Any vegetable gardeners on here who who have an electric rear tine tiller? My 20 year old pony tiller is going to be given to godson because the handles bent (about $300 for the replacement part) because he’s young and has working hands and knowledge and strength to keep it going another 20 years. I’m being forced into the easier to use electric options these days due to body degradation of important parts like hands and shoulders. I’m not sure if there are any good electric rear tine tillers available yet. There’s always the good old shovel and downsizing options but not my first choice.

  14. fucking magical George. just fucking magical. love every bit of it.

    i learned this from that book titled, ~The Secret, The Master Key~

    “take 15 minutes every day. sit in the same spot, facing the same direction. think and feel from your toes to the top of your head. take 3 deep breaths and relsease everything. clearing your mind of all thoughts. just breath. be present in the now, awake but at complete rest.

    once you master this, as you go about your day it will be as if you will stick out your hand and the tool you need will suddenly apear in it as if all of creation is conspiring to assist you in every venture you put your mind to. because every venture you put your mind to, is also the will of All Creation. ”

    i didnt care much for the rest of the book. i apply some of it. but i have found this above quote is true.

  15. George, when i read that section of Emmit Fox’s Sermon on the mount again,

    I already posses The Master Key. it was already present with8n my hand. That the totem or ~ finger print of God~ was pointing me to something i already possesed.

    To Quote, “”the single eye,”
    and it is the Master Key
    to life. It is nothing less
    than the secret of escape
    from all sickness, trouble
    and limitation; the
    overcoming or reversing
    in short, of the Fall of
    Man.”

    amd that it is step by step process inwhich i have already completed 2 of the steps. escape from all sickness and trouble. and am now moving into escaping limitation.

    that was the signal i received as too the next phaze. when i was driving 80mph to work, in the middle of farmland USA with the windows down, singing at the top of my lungs the Gold star flew in the window of my car and landed on my dash.

    the song i was singing was The Pina Colada song. titled: Escape.

    since i have escpaped from ever getting covid and trouble more times than i can count. the next step is logical.

    since the answers always come to me when i let go completely.

    i do wonder, why i am sperated or set appart from my fellows. i dont understand it at times. i dont like it at others.

    you know what my roomate said to me the other day. she said you are like clock work. i said whats that? she said you have been living here for over 6 months. every single day, i watch you get up, say thank you God for another day of life, truly i am blessed and highly fortunate! i excited to see what you have planed for the day God! then go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, back in your bedroom, grab curtens on the window and exclaim Let there be light, rip them open and say Behold! I make all things new!!!

    grab you a big cup coffee, and head to the lake for 2 hours with your books to pray and meditate.

    i laughed and said yeah girl.

    she said have you ever missed a day???? a single time since we lived together? i stopped and thought. uhmmmm no. i never miss that.

    she said i dont even think our bishup at our church even does that.

    i said, Well, I love God. God is important to me. Im important to God. so God is a priotity to me. im a priority to God. and besides. its my favorite thing in life. some people wittle sculptures. some people play video games. some people fish. some people quilt, some people watch a show on Tv.

    i do what i do.

    then i grabbed my coffee and went to the lake.

    great article today George. very cool. thank you!

  16. you George are aware more than most, as i move forward through life. its only a matter of time where intuitively, i will walk into the room with all those “important people” and say exactly what needs to be said.

    im moving more and more in those lines of pattern.

    from leaving Ms. Love (who i am now friends again with on facebook) who lived exactly 2 blocks away from the very first case of Covid in the US, 10 days after my departure. and ending up crossing the city line at the same exact moment Trump on Airforce One passed over me and landed in Palm Springs. to standing in the dry well, durring covid lock downs as the living water, to standing next to Paul McCartney on Stage, to jumping in an elevator with Elon Musk, to going to Atomic Days Rodeo, eating an Aromic Cookie, then driving through the Crators of the Moon National Park in Idaho at the same exact time one of the crators on the moon became hot, then through Sun Valley at the exact moment The Big Billionare retreat started, where i think i stopped accross the street from it anf got out to piss. lol

    to leaving Palm Desert California 6 hours before a Huricane Destroyed it with Flood and wind, to stopping in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to take a break from driving, walking in and getting a coffee and sitting in the lobby while the Fed Meeting was going on in the room next door.

    i didnt even know consiously they were there in the other room. i found out 4 days later the fed was in jackson hole wyoming at the same time i was. then 10 days after that, they were having a meeting exactly where i was sitting, having coffee and a thought.

    and the whole time, i found out these things after they happend.

    except Paul. i knew he was there. i ran protection for him in the Kill Zone. lol

    its only a matter of time, before im at that place where im walking in the door.

    the best part is. im not in the know of these schedules. i dont watch the news much. i dont care about there money, power or titles. i really dont. i just end up where im at, doing what im doing, all the time. its not some consciouse plan. it just is the way things are.

    i wonder if they know im there too. i wonder if they know who i am. i wonder if they know, im moving intuitively in the same patterns. and some point, im going to walk through that door, probably eating cookies and say, what the fuck is really going on? then punch bill gates right square in the nuts and say, you know why! haha

    you remember when i went a did that secutity gig for microsoft and they couldnt find my badge so they said here take this badge. and it said employee #13. i said, okay thanks. they said it will take you through any door on the microsoft cqmpus. any door. complete unfettered full access. have a look around.

    mindful of the bubble cameras everywhere. i didnt venture much there. but when i was in the lunch room. everyone was looking at me and whispering. then one asian girl came up and said you employee numba thirteen. its an honor. im employee 5 hundred and 65 thousand 4 hubdred and nine.

    i said im Andy. this is the badge they gave me. can i get another mountain dew and where can i smoke.

    she vrought me a mountain dew right away and said there is no smoking on microsoft campus but you employee numba thirteen. you legend here. you smoke where you want.

    i said okay weird asian lady. have a good day. and went outside and smoked.

    so, i wander if i was given that badge on purpose or by Divine hand.

    same with all the other syncs..

    being in transition to escape limitation, remindinded of getting badge 13 that day at microsoft. by chance?

  17. That hardware you tossed were the adjustable feet for the shelving unit, should you choose to omit the castors.

    • Oh, I know damn well what they were. What was odd is their being included in a brand new five shelf wire rack with specifically big 4-inch wheels on it!

  18. good morning.

    oh “They know who you are.”

    good. well tell them to quit fucking with me.

    frost on the pumpkin this morning. 11 degrees on the Mountain this morning.

    if ya saw my new hat on my new profile picture for X Man account. it has a lighting bolt in it. ha ha. found it when i was in the desert last time.

    seems fitting.

    o.k.

    on to escape limitation and find a warmer place to live.

    until we meet again.

    que: ~ Space Lord ~

    https://youtu.be/dscfeQOMuGw?si=Wimp3c1-NntSFwv1

    Monster Magnet

  19. I mean you ever stop to think, this could all be just a day dream I had while sitting in the back seat of a 1969 Chevelle SS with some hippy chick named Honey was giving me a blow job while wearing a t-shirt that read free love.

    hahahaha.

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