I wonder if my journal software is going to handle the new year transition or not. I think I tested that, but I guess we'll know in a few days if I did the right thing or if I have to write some code on January 1.

Also, Sean may really want to reconsider getting a pickup... his Prius just isn't cut out for much lumber hauling:

Vet came by today to cut off Decker's growing horns. He's been extra dopey as the sedation has worn off over the last few hours but now he's mostly acting like a normal goat again.... which is just sorta dopey.

All hell is breaking lose, I just opened a bag of cleaning patches that I've been saving since 1993:

You can't watch days and days of the mythbusters marathon and not end up wanting to build something. Anything. So, I got to work on some of the projects that have been languishing, and some new ones that were just dumped on me via giftmas gifts.

First up was to mount the new weather station. The old one died, and I'm wondering if it's because I mounted it on the HAM radio mast. Perhaps sitting right under the 2m antenna and getting blasted with 50w or 100w on occasion was messing with the transmitter in the station? Could happen. This time I went simple and just mounted it on the gazebo because the rain gauge is part of the main unit instead of a separate piece. When pine needles clog the gauge I have to be able to easily clean it. Likely I'll move this around to the 'front' where I can climb up on the railing to get the pine needles out rather than needing a ladder.

Next up was to use the last of the porch step scrap from the neighbour to build a wobble board for the goats. They're bored of the old platform and the stairs (unless you're there to play king of the hill with them) so a new toy is in order. It doesn't look like much but Lugnut has been standing on it for hours during the day just rocking back and forth. It's main purpose though was to give them something to do while I did the roof extension.

So this was the actual real thing I wanted to get done. When it rains the outdoor manger gets wet and you have to pull all the hay out. That's annoying, so I ignored the woman's protests and built an extension of the roof that will keep rain from rolling off the barn roof and going right into the manger. It should also keep light rain and snow out, but obviously if it's windy it won't help, but oddly it's usually pretty calm when it rains here.

Of course now that she's seen it she wants to know why I didn't make it bigger so that it kept the rain off the goats while they ate. Sigh. Typical that she craps on my ideas and then complains later that I didn't do more. I thought about doing an actual extra roof section supported by poles that went all the way to the ground, like a little lean-to extension of 4-5' to keep the whole area dry, but I didn't have enough matching roof metal so I didn't go that way.

The last little build was a larger poop sifter. The woman uses a cat litter box sifter to get the goat poop out of the shavings, and that's fine but it takes a while. I wanted an industrial sized sifter.

Vareck posted these to the foo21 Timeline a while back, and I just now noticed them. Pictures of me from the early 90s. Hardly recognisable.

Check this out though, in the background of one of the pictures is a picture of my AK! I don't have that printed pic anymore but now I at least have this picture of the picture.

Mom's pattern of finding strange gifts continues.

Getting serious with the jerky though, brought some batches over to my parents so I could run it during the day, and use mom's dehydrator too and get 2x the processing rate of mine alone.

The woman flew out yesterday so now I'm stuck taking care of all the livestock. Took me about 45 minutes to clean and feed everyone, what a pain. The woman's methods are very inefficient, I'm going to have to figure out better ways to do the cleaning as I don't want to spend so much time every morning dorking with poop.

I did knock out some barn projects this morning as well. First off, one of the floorboards in the shavings area had somehow popped up. No idea how it was suddenly 1" too wide to fit into the space it was in. All the other boards are screwed down so they can't really shift so I have no idea how that happened. The board had a split in it so I just cut that edge off and now it fits back and is screwed down. Again. So strange.

The next was to modify the outdoor manger. The goats won't eat the bottom 1/3 of the hay in the manger and in the outdoor one that means you have to clean out that last bit when it gets wet. That's a pain, so I decided to just block off that bottom 1/3 of it so no hay goes in there. Now it will be easier to clean out.... let's just hope they're not afraid of the shelf or decide not to eat it because they can't leave 1/3 of the new area alone.

Last two were quickies. Set a ring in the goat barn wall so the woman can clip the bucket handle to something (in case they try to tip the bucket I guess) and put a latch on the hay room door so you can latch it from the inside. If you leave it open when you're trying to move hay around the goats come in to visit and cause all sorts of trouble. Now you can lock yourself inside and work in peace.

I ordered a black lightning cable for the car, that white wire sticking out of the console is kinda ugly (and I'm short a cable anyway since the woman finally busted hers and had to take the one off my desktop system).

Holy crap, Ryan got a new job. He's now part of the liberal elite...

Mission complete. I'll take some better pictures when it's light out.

The woman's prep for her trip continues. She's making sure I understand all of what needs to be done every day...

Pictures. I forgot it has carbon fibre trim. Ricey.

More pasta for mom's present today. This is a batch of the sweet corn ravioli and because I got the extruder to work with the leftover dough, some random macaroni to do something with. Got a huge batch of it, maybe the woman can make mac and cheese for lunch!

Tried to take some better pictures of the refinished shotgun, but the light isn't very good outside today.

The last few days have been non-stop car shopping. I've driven everything that I think I might want, and built this crazy spreadsheet to try to help me decide. I've come up with a number of categories and given them point values, and each car can score 1-4 in the category which gives it some percentage of the points, and all those are totalled at the end of the row. Conditional formatting auto highlights the top two choices. Once I eliminated a car I removed it and now I'm down to my top 2, and I'm pretty sure that even 'emotionally' they're the top 2 regardless of the points. I think.

I forgot to take a picture / screen grab of the sheet before I started deleting choices, but I have this picture I texted to someone when it was in its earlier stages so it gives you an idea of what it looked like:

Every time I type "category" my brain tries to get me to type "catalog" which is one of the first thing I remember touch typing on the //e as opposed to hunting and pecking. Not sure why that happens but it really flies off the fingers even if it's not the right word.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll take the woman down to the car lots and show her the top 2 cars: 2017 Civic Hatchback and the 2017 VW Golf. I'm strongly leaning toward the Civic. The VW is more fun to drive, but the Civic has more storage spots for crap, more features and gets better MPG. I'll likely never make up the price difference between the two in just gas savings, but the Honda guys here also give you lifetime oil changes with the cars. The VW is $150 per service, which while not huge is still annoying and shows that everything on a VW will cost more than on a Honda... except the initial purchase I guess.

I did totally take the old Subaru off the list. The big service is $1500 on the low end, $2300 on the high end and even if that's one it doesn't mean that it will last. The motor "lasts forever" IF it's properly maintained so it doesn't burn a ton of oil and you do the big service. Not worth the risk, I don't want to break down anywhere like ever. I have enough going on in life not to need to test AAA's service quality in BFE.

A few weeks back my mom asked for pictures of the goats. I figured it was just to show her friends, but it turns out it was so she could paint some goat ornaments up. We haven't been able to find goat ornaments but she found some little goat toys at tractor supply and whacked their horns off to make them match the real goats and then painted them. She then drilled holes in them and glued in the string so they're like legit ornaments. She did a pretty good job, that's exactly what the goats look like.

Today I traded the flare gun I had up for sale for this automatic knife. I have no use for it, but it's smaller than the flare gun and I don't have one so why not trade? It's a high quality knife, but it's not legal to carry here. Laws are pretty dumb like that.

Some excitement around the household. I got my Utah CCW in the mail today, and Bleu, the bird that hasn't laid yet but is supposed to pop out blue or green eggs finally produced something. She didn't lay in the nesting box, but hopefully she figures that out so we don't have to hunt around the coop for random eggs every day. Dumb bird.

I tried to buy another Forester yesterday, couldn't come to terms on price. Guess dealers don't want to sell cars, he wanted his full $2k over book value asking price plus another $600 on top for the 'doc fee'. Um, no. Enjoy sitting on the car.

The bed seems to be getting better about recognising when I get up, it was pretty much right on the money this morning.

Quite the productive day. Woke up early and got to work on the next batch of pasta for mom. Today's was a cheese/mushroom/chive ravioli. This was a family effort. The chickens gave us the eggs, the mushrooms were from the garden and the chives were from the front yard. We're going to say the goats contributed the chives since they 'found' them and didn't eat them all leaving some for us. That's about as much help as a goat will be. Kristen made up a bunch of batches of sauce yesterday and froze them in little containers for 2 servings each, and we did have to swing by the dollar store to grab those little containers.

On the way to the dollar store we stopped by Sean's and I got a scuff pad to try to take the rust off the shotgun. It worked amazingly well, far better than I thought it would. With the rust off and the finish scuffed up I hit the whole thing with BBQ black (of course) and then set it in front of the fire to dry. I found my linseed oil (a new can) and redid the stock a bit and it turned out OK. Some of the scratches were deep and will require real work with some steel wool and stain. I'm also going to have to fill in and re-drill one of the butt-plate screws that was stripped. The wood is really shitty and soft so it's not that surprising.

Here is a before and after shot of the barrel and receiver. The case hardening is fine, just needed some cleaning but you can see the night and day difference in the barrel.

I put some thought into the car thing, and I find myself being drawn to a cheap solution again. The montero was fun, the 4runner was a great vehicle, so why not try to do the same thing and find an older Subaru with some life left in it and go that way? Compare the 2017 Impreza from yesterday with the 2003 Forester I looked at today:

I found a small dealership / mechanic shop that has at least 6 Subarus in their small inventory. They mention each has the timing belt service done, so I'm wondering if they get them at auction and then clean them up and do the service. Shops used to do that with old 4runners too, find ones that people blew the motors out of and then rebuild them. That might work for me.

Mixed news all around. First off, Clayton and his woman came to an agreement and he doesn't have to sell off all his guns now. So I went from making money and getting a free single shot.... to just getting the free single shot. He gave it to me for my attempt at helping him out. So while it would have been nice to make some extra cash on the deal, I at least got the free part.

The receiver is case hardened so it's not rusted, but the barrel is as noted before. It's just surface rust, nothing that can't be repaired. The firing mechanism is dirt simple and seems to work, as does the extractor/ejector. Thing throws a metal snap cap out of the chamber with authority, should be no problem with actual fired shells. The wood is in OK shape, I'm thinking some linseed oil is all it needs. I used to have some for the flintlock, can't remember if I had to toss it before the move. I think so, but did I replace it? If not, home depot can help me out there.

Last night we went to Sean and his woman's place for games night, but didn't end up actually playing anything which is fine with me. Jonathan and Blair and their rug rat were there, kid was pretty well behaved but I guess he can't really do much but sit there and crap himself. Didn't cry or anything.

Sean, dad and I were supposed to go to a match today, but it was 22F out this morning so I sorta called it off. Dad thinks they cancelled the match, he didn't understand what I said, and that's fine. He was ready to go into the cold, but I don't think he would have enjoyed 4 hours of exposure with his lack of an actual winter jacket.

So with the day free, dad and I went car shopping for the prius replacement. I made a big spreadsheet of stuff, and it came down to 3 real choices. Of sorts. The Kia Soul, the Toyota Corolla, or the Subaru Impreza. There are a shit ton of 2016 Souls at the local dealership, like at least 50. Literally 50, no lie. I wanted a white "plus" trim version and there were no less than 6 of that exact car on the lot. They were offering $3500 off MSRP but when I called later to enquire they didn't seem to be honoring that. I'm sure it can be had if you fight them and show them their own ad, but whatever, they're just sleazy car dealers.

I actually test drove a 2017 Impreza and kinda liked it. It's very basic, not a lot of flash/electronics/widgets, requires an actual key to start it, etc. However, it gets very good mileage, is AWD and seems about a normal as the Corolla. The Corolla had more features obviously, don't have to burn all that COGs on the AWD hardware. Car and Driver hates the Impreza (unless it's the WRX or the STI) but I'm not sure I care about their opinion anymore. I'm not a boy racer, and unlike the media I actually have to pay for the car. Things probably look a lot different when you're just handed new cars every week.

Friday dad was all hot to get an iPhone 6 to replace his 5, so at lunch (and hours after) we ran around to used cell phone places to find him one. I don't know if he got a good deal or not but he's got a 6 now and I spent a good hour or more trying to get his crap moved over to it. The backup/restore method of moving your files apparently no longer works. I had to use iCloud to sync his contacts. Apple stuff is just getting worse and worse, they're trying too hard to keep a grip on access and it's starting to make their own products not work with their own products. It no longer "just works". Steve would be sad.

I got the software for the bed installed, let it update the software on the actual bed pump/controller thing and let it talk to the internet. Once I've got the sleep number figured out I'll block it at the firewall, or perhaps I'll move it to a private guest network. That's probably the best answer, I should do that now actually.

Night #2 on the new bed. Sure isn't much to it for the price we paid.

The dude that went with dad and I to the BUG match with the new 380 is now being forced to sell everything. His wife gave him the "sell the guns or I'll divorce you" ultimatum and he's chosen to sell the guns. I tried to help him sell some of them but it's hard to get random people to buy random crap they don't want unless it's cheap. Eventually I ran out of leads at his prices so I made him a bulk offer for 3 of them. I'm buying the TCP, the 12 gauge pump I sold him, and a single shot 12 gauge he got from his dad for a total of $300. He paid me $200 for the shotgun, so really I'm paying $100 for the single shot and the TCP. Sean wants the TCP for $125. If I can re-sell my pump for $200-250 on the forum then I'll have made money on the deal and gotten a free single shot 12 gauge out of it.

Now, of what use is a single shot 12 gauge? Well... it's kinda rusty and could use a refinishing so I can clean it up and hit it with BBQ black (which does prevent rust!) and then stage it in the barn somewhere. If there is a snake or other critter than needs a quick dispatch it would be handy to have a shotgun close at hand. A single shot isn't ideal, but it's good enough for a snake/raccoon/etc and.... it's essentially FREE. Hard to beat free.

Not going to call success yet, but.... I came out this morning and the fireplace fan was still running and the box was still hot (so the fan switch didn't just stick "on"). There were coals in the bottom and I've sorta managed to get a fire going just from that. When they talk about "adding lots of wood" for an overnight slow burn they're not kidding. Perhaps when I've got some better wood (ie oak) then it won't take such a huge volume to keep it going overnight.

Went to a giftmas fare (faire/fair/?) with the parents today, mom really wanted us to come. It was a European church in Cary, so at least the food would be good since most of it was Polish and German... except they didn't start serving lunch until long after we left. So mostly we looked at craft junk and got to smell good food cooking. Fail.

When we got home, I fixed the roof on the goat barn (some of the edges had been torn up by the hurricane winds and I wanted to lock them down before they flew off), changed the oil in the generator, brought some wood in for the fire tonight, split kindling, etc. Basically keeping busy.

I also wanted to run some stabiliser through the bike gas since it's too cold to really go ride, so I ended up riding in circles around the property. Inappropriate riding gear to say the least:

The house network went nuts again, not really sure what's up. I thought maybe the new AP was faulty, but it was connecting to the network OK. The security PC freaked out again and the Ethernet dropped to 100mb instead of 1g, but wasn't actually working at 100mb even though the switch seemed to think it was. I disabled/enabled it and it came back up at 100mbit. Uh, what? Maybe I should lock that port at 1gig?

The other thing was that I couldn't initiate outbound connections. I could ssh in to the house, but not out. WTF? I rebooted the router and it picked up a new IP from AT&T, so maybe something was going on there (they handed out the same IP twice or something). Not sure, but it's all OK now as I type this.

Hey look, I made our 2016 ornament! :)

I'm sitting in the EBC with a customer and the partner SE is Colleen Katzberg, this quasi hottie that smells like springtime. It's very distracting.

The match last night was a disaster, I went first on a stage and totally screwed it up and ended up with a bunch of procedural errors. Can't recover from that. I always tell the woman that hitting a "no shoot" or dropping a required head shot is like hitting a rail in jumping. You basically can't recover from it, one error and you're out of the running. Last night's procedural is more like falling off your horse during a round... you can't even halfway recover from that.