No updates for a while. Not intentional, just been busy doing "stuff" and keep forgetting to write. Now that I've got some time today, I'll put down what I remember.

First off, I've taken a week off. No real plans other than finishing some projects but I have to start using my vacation time as I'm at the max again. I've got a lot of training to do at work, but losing vacation to do it? I dunno about that.

Small project using some of the scrap wood from Jonathan; build this little shelf to hold another layer of powders down in the dirt room. I knew I had a lot of variety, but didn't know it was this much until I actually put them all out where I could see them. All that, and I still just got 3 more to experiment with 300BLK loads. I'm getting smarter though, I only buy one container of each to start with. If it works, I'll get more.

Baked some sugar cookies, and I swear I put them in here already but if so, here they are again. Swapped out some of the AP flour for bread flour, trying to make them chewy without being mushy. I guess it worked, but without doing a side by side comparison it's impossible to tell. They were good, and didn't last long so I guess that's the important thing.

I got my $10 alignment spacers from flea bay ($30 if you get them from any of the usual on-line parts places) and they worked to let me line up the brake on the Ruger. They're silver though, I suppose they're stainless but it still kinda looks ugly. You can't see them very much so I probably won't paint them. I also did the sanding trick on the stock like the internet says to make sure the barrel is truly free-floated, and adjusted the trigger from 5 pounds down to 3.5. It's not bad at all for a factory trigger.

While testing some loads, I had a squib of sorts. An actual squib usually means no powder, but I did have powder, just not enough to get the bullet out of the barrel. It made a funny pop sound and I knew something was up. One tap with the cleaning rod and it popped right out, but the variance between "OK" and "stuck" in the same test batch shows just how unsuitable trailboss powder is for subsonic in this caliber. SE was over 100 fps, that's nuts.

Also on that range trip I had a malfunction with the G34. This is round number 23-thousand something and I think this is legitimately malfunction #4. It has one bumble every 5k rounds or so on average.

Made some serious progress on the quail hutch over the last few days. Modifying the design in the book because I can't (or don't want to make the effort) to make the lap joints. By using 2x2 instead of 2x4 in a lot of places I can directly screw things together and between the screws, the glue and the extra little pieces of bracing I think it will hold just fine. it also makes it lighter so it's easier for me to move around and I'm using 1/2 the wood. Win all around. Since these will be inside another shelter they should last a long time with no direct rain/snow/whatever exposure.

The woman wanted me to get rid of the 'long box' in the back of the laundry room which was actually 3 more LED shop lights I hadn't got around to mounting up. It wasn't the mounting, it was the wiring I was dreading. Well, with my time off it's time to get that done so I mounted 2 in the barn work area and 1 in the coop extension and got everything wired up and working. The lighting isn't that important now, but it's going to be huge come winter.

The woman got me a sign for the generator shed. Not exactly the 4 diamond safety sign I wanted, but it gets the message across. I had to bolt it on so the screws wouldn't be sticking through the back of the door. You know if they were I would catch myself on them at some point somehow.

Joint effort tonight, I made sheets of pasta and the woman turned them into spinach mushroom lasagna. She doesn't like red sauce so this is the compromise. It actually came out really well, I was surprised how much I liked it. Didn't feel as heavy as a regular lasagna, but I'm sure it's just as bad for you. Sure, no meat, but still 100,000 pounds of cheese.

I used some of the Anson Mills flour to make a loaf of bread. I liked it, the woman says it tastes funny. I used lemon thyme (or lemon basil?) flavored sea salt in it, but it's very subtle.

This wire job is messy, with two different angles (roof is angled and floor has to be angled) it required some fancy template work to figure out how to cut and bend the wire. Not doing it that way again, next time, I'll fake it and cover the outside with trim so you don't see the ugly.

It's done now though, complete with the egg drawer. The next one I build is going to be way simpler, no fancy egg tray and no sloped roof. They're going to be under cover anyway, and not all the birds will be laying. We'll use these 3 spots for the layers, the simplified 3 spots for the growing birds.

The salt project had me worried, the tray was looking pretty gross but there were salt blobs forming.

Once they're out of the pan and drying though they look like actual store bought sea salt chunks. I've got these doing a final drying pass on a plate to get them super dry. Wonder if I should run them in the dehydrator for a while? That would drive out the last of it for sure. I've got one of the 'solid' inserts for the dehydrator trays for making fruit roll-ups, it would hold the salt just fine.

In any case, it's time to step it up to phase 2. The larger indoor test. After this... we move outside and harness the sun.

Finished up the bike project, took a lot longer than expected. Not sure if I was just being extra careful, or if being sick makes everything very, very slow. I suspect the latter. USB widget is in and running via the relay / fuse block so I only get power when the bike is on. Everything is wired in with removable connectors so if I change my mind I can make changes easily, but with these USB widgets drawing power all the time it makes switched power a requirement.

With the cigarette plug gone now I needed another way to hook up the charger so I cut up one of the spare harnesses and wired it in. It's going through the aux fuse block as well, taking the place of the original un-switched cigarette plug. Dropped it from a 20A fuse down to the 7.5A that was in the charger port harness from the factory.

Won't even bother to say "lots of stuff going on" because it's only sorta true. The in-laws are here which means it's almost impossible to do anything outside of my office. Gotta 'hide' all the time to work. Lame. Not having a desk in the office at work means I have no where to escape to.

Turns out the award that comes with the Q1 recognition thing is actually a good award:

Yea, no dumb lexan trophy or plaque that you have to throw away when you move desks. An actual good bottle of wine (we're speculating, it wasn't cheap at least) and then you can have the empty bottle on your desk until it's time to throw it away.

Went to music bingo with everyone at Fainting Goat Brewery. Tue bad news is that they don't have the "stiff leg triple" that I like, it's of the menu. That means I won't be going back any time soon. The good news is that I actually won a round of bingo. 60s edition. I know more 60s songs than I do 70s and almost more than the 80s. The 60s was more limited I think and the songs were more distinctive. The 70s started branching out and the 80s obviously got crazy with all the variants of "popular" music.

They didn't play this song, but if you know the lyrics... it's not clear how they could play that in public. The prize I picked for winning was a box of red hots... which I confused with hot tamales. I don't like red hots. Sigh.

The mother in law wanted me to make this recipe while she was here:

... and it sorta kinda worked. I didn't have the right pan, or a pizza stone and they got the wrong cheese at the store... but in the end it actually turned out edible and not too bad. Going to have to try it again with the proper cheese and a different pan.

Once again, lots going on but I've not been updating the journal. Just seems to slip my mind.

Last Friday I went to a charity clays event at Deep River. There were 15 people from Cat there (which is how I ended up going, Jason invited me). I did OK, maybe hit 50%? Which isn't bad considering how long it's been since I've done any shotgunning. Lunch was very good and I won a $25 gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings... which isn't somewhere I would ever go but I suppose I must now that I have a gift card. Can't be all that bad, it's just chicken wings.

I borrowed Scott's wood splitter, which has turned into a huge ass ordeal. First, he wanted to change the oil, not a big deal. Then he wanted to flush the hydraulic system because it looked like it was contaminated. OK, also not a big deal, except he didn't have the right filter. We did everything but the filter swap and I went and got one Sunday morning before getting to work with it.

After installing the filter I fired it up and started splitting elm. Way, way easier than by hand (and not even possible with the larger elm, I had already tried that). Frank the neighbor came over to help, and about 30 min in the engine quit. Figured it was out of gas... but several hours of dorking around later we determined it wasn't gas, or the fuel like, or the spark plug or anything else obvious. Even pulled the head to check the valves, etc. It's basically got zero compression so either the compression ring is gone, or the valves are damaged just slightly that isn't obvious to me looking at them. I hauled it to the repair shop, the guy confirmed it's got no compression, and said it will be about 2 weeks before he can work on it. Damn. Engine is likely blown. :(

Yesterday I got the oil changed in the truck, and today I got it done in the van. I noticed the guy at the oil change place taking a picture under the hood but he didn't say anything. When I got home I checked myself, and the battery is pretty corroded! I cleaned it off, we'll see how fast it comes back. Could have a cracked battery, or a loose vent cap.