SHOPSMITH MARK V

A few weeks ago, I realized I needed some tools for a project I want to do.  I started looking on craigslist for these tools and came across a few people selling a thing called a "Shopsmith Mark V". 

This is a shop multi-tool.  It has a table saw, lathe, drill press, band saw, and a horizontal bore (sideways drill press).  The one I ended up buying was not working right.  It has a speed adjuster for different settings.  The speed at which you run a lathe is a different RPM from a table saw. 

Today I did some tinkering and discovered that it only needed to be lubricated and cleaned.  It works like a charm.  I hope dad is jealous :-)

BIRDS!!!! BIRDS!!!! BIRDS!!!

I decided I wanted some bird this week.  So I got 3 chickens, 2 ducks, and 2 turkeys.  I read on the internet that ducklings are supposed to get a supervised swim every day.  They sure are cute swimming around :-)

Unknowingly, I did manage to purchase everything I would need for two Turducken...coinsidence, I think not. 

I made a plane!!!

This is the first flight at the state trust land at the end of my street.  

I got a dog.  I'd been thinking about getting one for a while.  I ended up going to the animal shelter here in Cheyenne and found this little guy.

 At the shelter he was known as "Singer".  They found him on the street about a month earlier. No ID or anything, so they knew very little about him.  They think he is an Australian Shepherd Mix and they think he is about three years old.  I think he's a little younger than that, but still a pretty mature dog. 

 This was him sitting in the back of the truck on our ride home. 

 I got him a little bed.  He would sleep on it for a little bit.  As soon as he thought I was asleep he would come jump up on my bed. I didn't really mind until he has an accident.  One night he was fussing around trying to wake me up.  I didn't respond.  And then I heard a sound that should only occur on top on a porcelain bowl...my dog had just let go a massive diarrhea on my carpet. In hindsight, I figured he had tried to tell me something was wrong and that he needed out, but it was 2 in the morning.  So shame on me. 

I made some changes.  We made sure to take him out one last time before bed time to take care of business and then he started making it through the night a lot better.  Then a few days later, it happened again.  Only this time, he didn't make the commotion to wake me up.  I wake up in the morning and he had poo'ed semi-circle of diarrhea around my bed.  Luckily, Dan has a Hoover carpet cleaner.  I grabbed it out of the garage and went to town.  

But that was the last draw, something had to change.  That's when I decided to try a pet carrier (kennel).  I had read a lot of stuff online that said a lot of dogs are very receptive to them.  Having never owned a dog before that seemed a little hard to imagine that a creature that loves the outdoors that much would be comfortable and happy in such a small confined space.  But I wasn't going to let a dog poop inside my house anymore and I wanted to try one last thing before banishing him to the outside kennel.  So I bought a pet carrier and it was an instant success. 

Our daily routine now is something like this:
I wake up and let him out of the pet carrier.  We go outside for a quick potty and the get him some breakfast.  He Stays confined to my room (which is pretty well dog proofed) while I'm showering and getting ready in the morning.  While I cook and eat breakfast, he just chills out.  Before I leave for work I take him out to the outside kennel.  When I get home from work I go get him (unless one of my roommates already has) and we play in the yard for a little bit.  Around 6 to 7 I'll feed him dinner and we hang out till bed time.  I'll usually give him a few snuggles before bed and then its off to his bed in the pet carrier where I lock him up for the night.  If he has to go while I'm sleeping, this forces him to wake me up.  Its worked out very well and we're getting into a pretty good routine. 

He's a big time snuggle buddy.  A very affectionate dog.   After hanging out with him for a week, we decided to call him Pippen, like the Hobbit in The Lord of the Rings. 

 Zeb and I took some pics of his first bath.  He does not like getting baths.  And he looks kind of scrawny when he's wet. 

 Wet and clean dog. 

 We made a trip to Ryan's.  He loves playing in the snow.  We had a few additional lessons learned.  On the way to Ryan's, I learned that Pippen rides in the pet carrier for road trips.  I learned this when he poo'ed on my suitcase in the back of the truck.  To say I was mad is an understatement.  Another lesson learned from the Idaho trip is that Pippen has some serious guard dog tendencies.  I heard him bark for the first time at Ryan's.  As the week pressed on he got worse about barking at anyone that came near Ryan's house.  Luckily, I don't have any real close neighbors so his barking is fairly well limited. 

One of the missionaries living with us described Pippen as the most affectionate dog he has ever seen.  Which given how I am with dogs probably makes him the perfect dog for me.  He will frequently come sit right next to you and plop his head down on your lap. 

He is a very intelligent dog.  I think that was one of the things that attracted me to him at the shelter.  I played with a few other dogs, and they just ran around mindlessly when I played with them.  With Pippen, he was running around very excited, but there was also some interaction with him.  About two weeks ago, I decided to start training him a little bit.  At Craig's recommendation, I tried using treats and overwhelming praise to get him to do tricks.  In less than two weeks, I have got him to respond to "sit", "shake hands", and "lay".  I'm trying to think what the next trick will be.  I should probably teach him to fetch since he would really love that game, but I can't get him to bite anything... and I'm not sure I want to introduce that behavior :-).

Someday, I hope you'll all get to meet him.

 I BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!

So Wednesday I closed on my first house.  I'm pretty excited about it.  Zero buyers remorse.  It needs some TLC but I think it will be a nice home after I've given it some time to work on it.  I currently have four room mates and will be adding a fifth in August.  Here are some pics:

This shot is right inside the door to the shop.  The shop is broken up into three rooms.  There is a bay for the first garage door.  The door on the right in this picture is to a storage room with shelving.  The door on the left is to the other bay that has 2 overhead doors.  

 This is from the other corner of the first bay.  Yes, there is a little mold on that wall.  I'm figuring they washed a car inside or the snow blew in during the winter time.  Easy fix. 

 This is the storage room with shelving. 

 A shot of the two bay room. 

 Second angle of the two bay room.  That's my coworker Joe checking the place out.  In the corner next to Joe there is a 220 connection. The former owner used it for an air compressor.  Both bays are heated by overhead natural gas heaters.  Processing our hunting kills will be much easier this year. 

 This is the two car garage that is attached to the house.  Its not big enough for my truck so I don't know what I'm going to use it for. 

 This is a shot from right inside the front door. 

 Alternate view of the front living room. 

 This is a shot from the dining room into the kitchen.  My master bedroom is through the door at the back. 

 My kitchen.

 Upstairs bathroom. 

 Upstairs front bedroom. 

 Upstairs back bedroom.  It has a bay window. 

 Master Bedroom. My bathroom is on the right.  

 Reverse angle of my room. 

 My bathroom. 

 The water heater is right next to my bathroom.  Kind of weird. 

 Spacious laundry room. 

 Hallway into the garage. 

 Stairway downstairs. 

 So the basement is what I would classify partially finished.  It has sheet rock, and fixtures and electrical outlets.  But the flooring is simply painted concrete.  It needs a little work.  This pic is at the bottom of the stairs. 

 Downstairs bedroom #1.  My new room mate Jason has already moved into this room. 

 Reverse angle of Jason's room. 

Downstairs bedroom #2. 

 Reverse angle of bedroom #2. 

 Downstairs living room.  That is a natural gas stove.  Its not very impressive.  It barely puts out enough BTU's for the room it is in. 

 Wider angle.

 Reverse angle of the downstairs family room.  The door on the left is kind of a cold storage/mechanical room.  My water system goes through that room.  Joe is standing in the bathroom door.  Bedroom 2 is in the middle door. 

 Downstairs bathroom and location of project #1.  I have already done some demo in the room.  I will be installing a shower this week to make this a 3/4 bathroom. There is some dead space in the framing at the back left and that is where the shower will be installed.  The thing in the floor is a sump.  The basement is lower than the intake of the septic tank.  So the sump acts as a lift station to pump waste water into the septic tank from this bathroom. 

Reverse angle of the bathroom downstairs. 

That's my new house.  I just mowed the yard yesterday.  That was a chore, it took me 2.5 hours.  I'll try to post some pictures of the outside some time this week.  Hope you like it :-)

14 April 2012 - Day at the Range

So my buddy Dan and I started our day by going to lunch. After lunch we went to visit our buddy Zach at Sam's Club. While there, we had Zach show us some camera's so it didn't look like he was just talking to us.

We ended up looking at a video camera with 70x zoom. After about 30 minutes of dinking around with it, I decided to buy.

When Zach went to get the camera, he said he had good, medium, and bad news. The good news was that there was a shipment of eighteen cameras coming. The bad news was that they were out of that model of camera. The medium news was that there was one model left of that camera, but it had been "repaired". So I took the medium news and bought the "repaired" model for less than half price (little over a hundred $$$).

Here's the initial test at the range (using grandpa's old tripod).



Testing the zoom on some deer.


First shot on camera. Camera is positioned behind shooter at the range on grandpa's old tripod.


Nice vapor trail at 400 yards.


Tag the 600 yard gong!!


Destruction at 600 yards!!!

Well that concludes a fun day at the range. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a video of the big dawg (.300 RUM)!!!