Underground Carpenter

National Guard Readiness Center in North Las Vegas, Nevada

2012-01-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

Here is the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Guard Readiness Center in North Las Vegas, Nevada, a 68,000 sq. ft. shoot-the-works-boondoggle that y'all are paying for. And I thank each and every taxpayer for my paycheck.
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I didn't recognize any celebs. Right now this is about the biggest job starting in Las Vegas, so I kinda thought the governor would show up. But no. Photo by my partner Carlos.
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Guardsmen put up this tent for the ceremony. It didn't get used. Carlos took this picture too.
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The superintendent came around and told us we were to stop work and be all patriotic when the trumpets started blaring. We were supposed to ~~sob genuine tears for Dear Leader~~ show respect during the National Anthem and the Invocation. I took my hard hat off and reverently held it over my heart. I took this picture and all the rest with my crappy phone camera. Carpenters Carlos and Gary to the right, rodbusters Jake and Dave to the left.
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Carlos(center of picture) ran one total station and I took the other. Spittin' out points on the dirt.
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I use this pretty Nikon total station and HP48 data collector to lay out the building. Batter boards and string lines are for losers. This is how carpenters do things these days.
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The water tank in the background is for the existing National Guard facility. This is where they spend their one-weekend-a-month training for the next pointless war.
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The first thing we do is to mark the ground with pink feathers and paint lines. Then the backhoes have at it.
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After the backhoes dig the footings, we put in "steel racks" for the vertical rebar. (Verts are not in yet.) If the above pictures seem disjointed and random, it's because they are. I took these pics on break. When I'm working, we're under the gun and expected to keep our heads down and look worried.

Posted by Dave

Moon Slice

2012-01-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

I think the thin crescent moon is about the prettiest thing in the sky. This shot is from December 27 of last year.
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This was taken with an 80mm Orion telescope and my Nikon D3000. ISO 200 and shutter speed of 1/20 second. I have heavily edited this photo in Nikon Capture 2. I rotated, cropped, and sharpened.

Posted by Dave

Lunacy

2012-01-07T06:53:00.000-08:00

Yep. My obsession with moon shots is the very definition of lunacy. As always, click on any pic to embignify.
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This first shot was made last night with a Celestron C6 refractor as a prime-focus lens for my Nikon D3000. ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/640 second. I also used the unsharp mask in Nikon Capture 2.
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A little creepy, no? I had some clouds drift past, and this was the coolest cloudy shot. ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/20 second. Here I used my Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain as a prime-focus lens.
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The setting moon. It would have been a better shot if the mountain was craggier, but I'll take this one. ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/60 second. Celestron CPC1100.

Posted by Dave

By The Light Of The Focally-Reduced Moon (2)

2012-01-06T05:16:00.000-08:00

I was going to get some moonset shots this morning, but I screwed up. I failed to consider where the moon was going to set, and it set on a retainer wall instead of the lovely, distant mountains. Oh well, maybe tomorrow night.
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Click to embignify. This photo was taken this morning when the moon was fairly high in the sky. The best moon shots will be had when the moon is directly overhead; less atmosphere to distort the view. I played with this shot in Nikon Capture 2 by selecting "unsharp mask" and putting the intensity at almost 100% and the radius at 50%. The threshold I left alone. As you can see, the picture looks "grittier", but sharper.

Posted by Dave

By The Light Of The Focally-Reduced Moon

2012-01-05T03:02:00.000-08:00

This last week we've had high, thin clouds and heavy atmospheric disturbance. But last night it was clear, and although not calm, I managed to get a decent shot of the moon.
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I got to try out my new focal reducer with the 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain scope as a prime-focus lens for my Nikon D3000. The focal reducer allows me to get the whole moon in frame.
This shot used an ISO of 200 and a shutter speed of 1/500 second.

Posted by Dave

A Cannon Or Two

2012-01-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

My Grandfather took this photo of a cannon in a fort on one of the islands of the former British West Indies. The date on the box I took this from says March of 1963. Gramps was doing some aerial photomapping in the area.
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Wouldn't it be cool to have a few of these behind the walls of your front yard? Keep your powder dry.

Posted by Dave

As Pretty As A Sunrise

2012-01-04T02:22:00.000-08:00

Sunrises. We never just look anymore.
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This is yesterday's sunrise.

Posted by Dave

Good Form

2012-01-03T04:15:00.000-08:00

Me and my big sister, a long, long time ago.
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Even back then, I kept my finger off the trigger until I had acquired my target. Back in those carefree days, a little happy fire was no biggie. Nowadays, if you celebrate with a little random gunfire, the po-leece know just where to send the SWAT team.

H/T to Art at Failure2Neutralize.

Posted by Dave

Washington, 1953

2012-01-02T04:29:00.000-08:00

My Grandfather took these pictures, back in July 1953.
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These shots were taken in either Ellensburg or Wenatchee. I've been to neither, so all I can do is admire the antique tin.
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Old time stores that people used to shop.

Posted by Dave

The New Las Vegas City Hall

2011-12-26T03:36:00.000-08:00

This is the nearly completed Las Vegas ~~Oppression Center~~ City Hall.

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I had a hand in every molecule of concrete used to build this ~~tragic waste of taxes~~ magnificent edifice, including the sidewalks. This pic is what it looks like when I show up to work at 6 a.m.

Posted by Dave

1955

2011-10-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

My Grandfather was an avid photographer. Everywhere he went, he snapped pictures with his Leica camera.

This is the Utopia Lodge in 1955. It's either in Jackson, Wyoming, or near Yellowstone Park, because that's what it says on the box of slides. I have hundred of boxes of old slides from my Grandparents, who unfortunately are both long gone. I can scan slides, 16 at a time, in my HP Scanjet G4050.
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Undoubtedly, the main drag of Jackson, Wyoming. Check out the antique tin!
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This deer and moose antler arch is the gateway to a park in Jackson Hole.

I'm guessing this is Old Faithful, 56 years ago.

Posted by Dave

Hope For Old Slides

2011-10-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

I'm using an HP G4050 scanner to turn old family slides into jpg pics. I came to a group of slides that were very red. I don't know whether they turned red over time or whether they were always red. Here's what I did.
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In Adobe Photoshop CS3 I clicked Image > Adjustments > Auto Color. That made the biggest improvement. Then I clicked Image > Adjustments > Selective Color > Magenta > -35%. The result is above. I could probably have played with the individual colors for hours to achieve perfection, but the result is acceptable to me.

Posted by Dave

Another Damn Fire

2011-10-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

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This week's fire:
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MOHAVE VALLEY — Heavy winds are being blamed for a fire that destroyed an unoccupied home at the far east end of King Street in Mohave Valley Wednesday morning.

Week after week it happens, yet another fire of suspicious origin that provides steady employment for firemen. Heavy winds? Nope. The real cause of this fire is the flammable sticks used to build the home.

Metaphor time: Don't go in the pool.

Posted by Dave

Bob's Knobs and the Unsharp Mask

2011-10-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

In search of better pictures, but with a mind toward economy, I keep trying different things. On Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes, the major cause of poor performance is bad alignment of the secondary mirror. For my Celestron CPC1100, collimating (aligning) the secondary mirror is a pain. You have to risk scratching the front glass cover with a phillips screwdriver while you're looking in the eyepiece to make an adjustment. So clever Bob made up some replacement screws that don't need a screwdriver. These knobs make it easy to collimate your scope's secondary mirror every time you set it up.
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I replaced the phillips screws with Bob's Knobs. Easy.
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After putting in the Bob's Knobs, you need to do a rough collimation. Stand about 10 feet in front of your scope. See how the circular reflections are listing to the right? Adjust the knobs until things look symmetrical.
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Then take the scope out and find a bright star. Defocus thusly and fiddle with the Bob's Knobs until the image is symmetrical. Just a small improvement in symmetry yields a huge improvement in clarity.
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Here's a moon shot I took this morning. In addition to the improvement from tightening up the collimation, I used the unsharp mask in Nikon's Capture NX2 to get further sharpness. Capture is a must-have if you have a Nikon DSLR.
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The Cause of a Fire

2011-09-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

This is the saddest thing imaginable--A mother loses her son.

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BULLHEAD CITY — Bullhead City Fire Marshal Jim Dykens said he’s getting closer to determining an exact cause of the fatal fire that claimed the life of a 2-year-old boy in south Bullhead City Monday morning, but he said he needs a little more time to be absolutely certain.

Jim Dykens is waisting his time. Every damn week another trailer burns here in Mohave County, Arizona. The cause is ALWAYS the same--a dwelling made of flammable sticks.

Posted by Dave

Unsharp Mask

2011-09-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

I think this has possibilities.

I'm playing in Photoshop CS3 and Capture NX2. Same pic, top and bottom. I didn't do much to the upper pic, but in Capture NX2 I used the "Unsharp Mask" on the lower pic. It seems a lot sharper. Why they call it "unsharp" I haven't a clue.

In CS3 I put both pics together and made a red border. Neat trick, but it's not easy. I had to nose around the Innertubes a bit to find out how. Jerad Hill explains it all Here.

Posted by Dave

Collimation Check

2011-09-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is an out-of-focus star shot. (Capella, in Auriga.)

Ideally, I should have this more centered in the viewfinder. Anyway, what you look for is perfect symmetry. This is pretty close. I'm going to tweak it a bit when I get some special hardware from Bob's Knobs. They're knurled-knob screws to replace the ones in the secondary mirror of my Celestron 11" CST. Bob's Knobs make it easier to adjust--no screwdriver needed.

Posted by Dave

Moonin' Ya

2011-09-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

Just some moon shots, taken night before last.

I didn't play with any of these, no brightening, cropping, or contrast adjustments.

These last two setting moon shots show a distant radio tower. That hilltop tower is at least 20 miles away.

Kind of eerie, all dark and bloody red, huh? Summer moonset shots are redder because the hotter atmosphere has more dust and moisture in it. The hotter air also makes it hard to get a crystal-clear focus with all that turbulence.

Posted by Dave

M79 In Lepus

2011-09-09T04:34:00.000-07:00

Not one of my best pics.

This is M79, a globular cluster in the constellation Lepus, The Hare. At magnitude 7.9, it's not bright, and I had to hold the shutter open for 143.4 seconds to get this much. That's why you see all the red dots in the photo, which are not stars but pixels throwing up their little pixel arms in disgust.

Posted by Dave

Using The FarPoint Focus Mask

2011-09-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a trick to get sharper photos.
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This is the FarPoint Focus Mask, based on the Bahtinov design. It'll show you when you're perfectly focused. This one is sized for the Celestron 11" SCT. See how it just slips over the secondary mirror housing. Then you pick the brightest star near your area of interest. You're looking for the center pattern below. When the pattern is centered, take off the mask and shoot away.
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I used Capella in Auriga for these left, center, and right patterns because it's so bright. You probably won't have such a bright star in the vicinity of what you're shooting, and you want something close by because the farther you swing the scope, the more chance that the focus will change.

Posted by Dave

Nikon D3000 Astrophotography With An Orion Telescope

2011-09-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

I woke up a little past midnight and looked outside. Completely clear skies, a zephyr of a breeze, and temperature in the low 90's. A bowl of oatmeal and a couple cups of coffee later, I was out the door. I had my scope set up, aligned and tracking by 1 a.m. Using a Nikon D3000 with an Orion 80mm f7.5 refractor scope as a prime focus lens.

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The Andromeda Galaxy, M31. ISO 1600 and a 30 second exposure. Click to embiggen.

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Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, a cluster in the constellation Taurus. ISO 1600 and a 30 second exposure.

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Globular Cluster M15 in Pegasus. ISO 1600 and a 30 second exposure.

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The fabulous Orion Nebula. ISO 800 and a 114.5 second exposure.

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NGC 869 and 884, a double cluster in Perseus. ISO 1600 and a 30 second exposure.

These are some of my best shots ever. I take great care in focusing, and I usually take sets of 3 shots just to make sure the tracking motors have settled down. While I'm waiting for the camera to get the shot, I lay down next to the scope and watch the sky for shooting stars and satellites. I use a remote clicker so I don't jiggle the scope.

Posted by Dave

The Purpose of Shelter

2011-08-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

Got to sandbag it up. Yo diggity.

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It's a shame that we build homes to flee FROM instead of TO. Sturdy homes built on high ground, homes that can withstand earthquakes and tornadoes, homes that don’t need insurance. Materials like concrete, brick, rammed earth, steel studs and sheetrock. Sigh.

Posted by Dave

M37 In Auriga

2011-08-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is M37, a beautiful open cluster in the constellation Auriga.
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I took this shot with my Nikon D3000 and a Celestron 11" Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope, effectively a 2800mm, f/10 prime-focus lens. ISO 1600 and a 30 second exposure. I think I could really sharpen these shots up with an autoguider. Perhaps when I go back to work.

Posted by Dave

OK, So It's Hot!

2011-08-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

I think Summer has arrived.

But inside it's a delightful 78 degrees.

Posted by Dave

Civil 3D--Point & Label Styles, Deskeys, and Groups

2011-08-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

Move on. Nothing to see here. Just let me blather on. I'm moving a project from AutoCAD 2008 Land Desktop to Civil 3D 2010. In an effort to firm up my understanding of how styles, point groups, description keys and layers collide, I followed the recommendations of an article on Edward-James Surveying, Inc's website. The particular article I read is Here.
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Start with the Point Styles. Set the Marker and Label to Layer 0. Everything else set to ByLayer.

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Set up your Label Style(s) and set the Layer to 0 again. Notice I've got two Label Styles that display the Point Number only. The 0.10 means 1/10" high letters. The 0.05 Style is for letters 1/20" tall, for when the points get dense or your plot is just a small portion of the total drawing.

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Next up, Description Keys. When I import my points from the other drawing, I want them to land in different layers, so that I can turn those different layers on or off, to show or not show the information I'll be conveying in the drawing. Any drawings I make will be either for me or my layout partner, so I won't have to big-deal the drawing.

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For any points that the Deskeys don't catch, setting up a default layer will herd the stragglers onto a Misc Points Layer. Notice the Deskeys are enabled.

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In theory, I won't have to make any point groups, although I might group points together just to make exporting easier to my data collector. But I should be able to control visibility to my satisfaction without making any Point Groups.

My biggest complaint of Civil 3D is this process of Layer visibility that is supposed to make the program flexible, but I think makes it almost impossibly complicated.

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Here's a screen shot of my drawing in 2008 LDT.

Posted by Dave

How Many More Have To Die?

2011-08-19T04:16:00.000-07:00

BULLHEAD CITY — A 64-year-old woman died as a result of a fire in a local mobile home park.
Bullhead City Fire Department reports indicate the woman was trapped in a mobile home in the Carefree Resort RV park, 350 Lee Avenue, after the residence caught on fire. Neighbors managed to extricate her from the home but when rescue personnel arrived, they discovered her unresponsive. She was taken to Western Arizona Regoinal Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead Wednesday evening.
The fire destroyed one mobile home and badly damaged another. Two neighbors who attempted to rescue the victim suffered smoke inhalation, but refused medical treatment at the scene.
Mohave Valley Daily News

Why, oh why, do people continue to live in shelters made of flammable sticks? Year after year, people will pay any price for fire insurance and a fire department, but damn few see the irony. The above story is a weekly occurrence here in Mohave County. Sad.

Posted by Dave

Marvelous Night For A Moondance

2011-08-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

Being an incorrigible early-riser and it being a full moon nearing moonset, I stuck my trusty Nikon D3000 and VR 55-200mm lens on a tripod. I had to shoot in manual mode because the "night" scene mode wanted to use the flash, and since it determined I wasn't shooting at anything near enough to use a flash on, it refused to snap a pic. Which meant I couldn't use the autofocus either.

This was a 3-second exposure, ISO 200, and an f/stop of 5.6. Because of the totally blown highlights, this shot looks like the sun, but it is indeed the moon and the time was about an hour before dawn's early light. I overexposed to bring out the clouds and the mountain peaks.

Thin mask of clouds in front. This was 1/50 second shutter speed and same ISO 200 and f/5.6. I was hoping for some real drama with the clouds, but this was about my best shot.

Even more cloud masking. 1/4 second exposure. The cloud gods were not kind this morning. They wouldn't give me something stunning.

1/10 second here. There were dense clouds right above the mountain tops, so I couldn't get a shot of the moon setting over a mountain peak. Maybe next month.

Posted by Dave

Nikon D3000 Astrophotography

2011-08-09T04:25:00.000-07:00

I took these shots about 2:30 a.m. I used a Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain scope as a prime lens for my Nikon D3000, shooting in manual mode. Clicking on these pics should make them bigger.

This is M39, a beautiful open cluster in the constellation Cygnus, The Swan. Shutter speed is 30 seconds, with an ISO of 1600.

The Andromeda Galaxy, M31. 25 second exposure at 1600 ISO. I take several shots of everything, and at various exposure times. I also took a 30 second exposure of this galaxy, but the stars "trailed" a bit. I've got to get an autoguider so I can take some seriously long shots.

This is Jupiter, of course. Crappy shot, blown highlights. 1/2 second exposure at 400 ISO. When I backed off the shutter speed to 1/20 second the moons didn't show and Jupiter was still washed out. A shame, too, because the "spot" was clearly visible in the scope. To get a spectacular planet photograph you have to "stack" shots, something I haven't tried yet.
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Can't Open Nikon D3000 .nef Files With Capture NX2?

2011-07-17T03:23:00.000-07:00

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Apologies for the strange title. It's for others who are baffled as to why Nikon's Capture NX2 program won't open .nef files from a D3000 SLR. Rest assured, upgrading to version 2.2.7 fixes that, no problem. Go Here to get it. Be sure to install 2.2.6 first. I think the lack of interagency communication involved in the problem is astonishing and I hope heads rolled.

Shot this photo with a Nikon D3000 DSLR and an Orion 80mm f/7.5 Refractor telescope as a prime focus lens. ISO 200, shutter speed 1/25 second.

This pic is for all of you who doubt the moon is made of green cheese. I greened up this shot with Capture NX2, then I cropped it and busted down the rez with PhotoShop CS3. All in a day's work. Thanks fer stopping by.

Posted by Dave

Werewolves of Arizona

2011-07-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

Shot these photos with a Nikon D3000 DSLR and an Orion 80mm f/7.5 Refractor telescope as a prime focus lens. ISO is set to 200.

Full moon fairly high in the sky. Shutter speed is 1/320 second.

Moon is now fairly low in the sky and getting more orange. Shutter speed is 1/250 second.

Setting moon. Shutter speed is 1/25 second. Heat waves really distorted this pic.

Summer Has Finally Arrived

2011-06-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Summertime.

Yesterday afternoon at 3:16. Sensor is regulation, 4′ above ground and shaded. Death Valley is the only place in the U.S. hotter than here, and only slightly.

Posted by Dave.

Dry Bones In A Dry Season

2011-06-21T03:49:00.000-07:00

I just like the title. It stays with me. Seems to fit the times. The title is lifted from an essay by Richard Mitchell. But plagiarism aside, I digress.

I haven't worked much in the last couple of years. Maybe construction will come back, maybe not. If construction does make a comeback, the first industries to feel the revival will be surveying and civil engineering. And like Garrison Keillor's story about the husband waiting in the "V" of the bed for his wife to join him in sex, there I'll be, waiting. I bought a laptop with AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 from a civil engineering firm that had fallen on hard times. Then I bought a half-dozen books on Civil 3D. So I haven't been sitting on the couch watching Oprah. The above is a screenshot of part of my footing drawing for the new Las Vegas City Hall building, which I worked on last year. I used this drawing to calc layout points for the footing dig.

This screenshot is the street centerline points for the same LV City Hall building. In another week or two I'll go back to work for a couple of months, and these points, which I got from the project surveyor, are what I need to calc points for the first-up project, footings for the Photo-Voltaic "Trees" going in front of the building. After that, bollards and sidewalks and steps. In addition to laying out the locations of these outside features, I'll also be slugging in stakes and doing formwork. After all, I am a carpenter.

Concerned About The Citizenry

2011-06-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

I think our masters are worried.

These bollards and crash-barriers are very common in Washington D.C.

Everywhere you look.

Kinda reflects a paranoid mindset.

Notice the bottom line of this sign. These people will go all SWAT on your ass if you so much as blink.

Posted by Dave.

Moonset

2011-06-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

This morning's moonset. Click to make bigger. Notice the "noise" or graininess in the pic. When I took this, it was still dark out, so my camera automatically compensated and made it look a lot lighter than it really was. The moon's highlights are totally blown. Next time I'll use a tripod and manual settings.

Posted by Dave

Getting Warm

2011-06-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

5:03 this afternoon, and I took our director of security, Charlie, out to check the perimeter. It felt warm.

With temps like this, summer is right around the corner. Typical highs here in July are in the mid-120's. Death Valley is usually only 2 or 3 degrees hotter than here.

Posted by Dave

New Freezer Door Handle

2011-06-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

The plastic handle on our Frigidaire freezer broke. I found a place on the Innertubes that sells appliance parts that had the right handle in stock, but they wanted $32 plus shipping. Mrs. UC said, "Screw that! You're a carpenter, right? Make a damn handle!" So here's what I made.

I have two Underground Carpenter blogs, one with Blogger and one with WordPress. My projects will be posted here on Blogger and my rants will be posted on WordPress. Here.

Changing Spark Plugs on a Nissan Xterra

2011-06-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

I had 95,000 miles on my 2007 Nissan Xterra, so I decided to change the spark plugs. I'm unemployed, money is tight, so I decided to do it myself. I always start with the easy stuff (personal motto: Make a Showin'!), so first I changed the three plugs on the driver side of the motor. These first three easy guys took about an hour. Hey, I'm a carpenter, not a mechanic, and I tread VERY cautiously into the unknown.

Clicking on any of these pics will make them bigger.

This side is the reason that the spark plugs I bought last December($59.94 for 6 NGK platinum plugs) didn't get put in until last week. Look at all this air-intake stuff in the way! My first thought was to remove this stuff so I could get to the plugs. Nope, ain't gonna happen! I never did figure out how to get all this stuff out of the way. I spent an hour scratching my head and undoing a few bolts, hoses and wires. Finally, I put everything back like I found it and steeled myself to the task of being a contortionist. Two hours later, I had this side done, with a minimum of bleeding and a lot of cussing.

Here's the minimum tools you'll need:

3/8" socket wrench and extensions of various lengths. (I used all of these.)
3/8" universal. (I bought this afterwards. It would have saved me an hour.)
Long, skinny screwdriver. You'll need this to disassemble extensions in places you can't reach with your fingers.
Flexi-grabber. (The orange-handled thingy in the pic.) You'll need this to pull the plug out after you unscrew it. If the rubber gripper inside the spark plug socket had worked, I wouldn't have needed it. I use this tool daily to pick scorpions up off the floor. Here in the Mohave Desert, scorpions are the most common insect.
5/8 spark plug wrench. Make sure it has the rubber gripper inside.
10mm socket for undoing the caps over the spark plugs.

Don't forget to put connector grease on the plugs. $1.29.

Here's the old plugs. No oil or carbon fouling, so the motor is probably OK. You can see that a deposit stalactite(stalagmite?) was starting to form and eventually would have shorted out the plug.

Ima Buy You A New Trailer

2011-05-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

Propaganda 101

Notice the intent of this picture. Obammy is comforting this rube like a father would give solace to his son. Camera angle is chosen to make Obammy look taller, an Obammy with jacket removed and sleeves rolled up.

Now if this rube were me and this mess of sticks was my house, I wouldn't have time to talk to Dad. I'd be calling a dozer and starting to design a new home. And my new home damn sure wouldn't be made of flammable sticks!

Cross-posted at UC-WordPress.

Bam!

2011-05-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

Finishing things up around here. Seems like it took forever. 5 years or so to 100%.

I was glad that I could get John to bring over his loader. It would have taken me forever to do this with a wheelbarrow. I had a small mountain in the back yard that John scooped out of.

Here's John, dumping another load of dirt. John is 83 years young and probably won't ever stop working.

This is the end of the retaining wall after I raked the dirt around a bit and "randomly" placed a few large rocks.

This is called "rip rap." I just had to throw some style into it.

It doesn't look like much in this shot, but the wall is over 200' long and it's tough to find the right angle to get it all in a picture.

I took about 50 pictures today, and this is the best one of our house.

Charlie isn't really a lap dog, but he tolerated this photo shoot. His reward was a piece of banana.

Nearing Completion

2011-05-14T16:33:00.001-07:00

This was the view when last we left our intrepid Underground Carpenter.

Pipes and conduits layed. Now I'll cover up the trenches. I'll use that rock screen just in front of the satellite dish to first "shade" the pipes with a fine sand.

This is Jim, owner of G&H Electric. Jim's last name starts with a G, but it's unspellable and unpronounceable. Anyway, after pulling wires through the conduits, he's here hooking up the wires in the circuit breaker box. Jim did all the electrical work on our house. A true craftsman, and his prices are reasonable. In back of Jim, hanging on the wall is my ham antenna. Mrs. UC thinks it's an eyesore, so I only put it outside when I use it.

Gary, Jim's partner. He's hooking up the 110v outlet mounted on one of the pipe bollards protecting our well. If you've got good eyes, you'll see a dangling bare-ended wire in the lower-right of the picture. That's a #6 ground radial for the aforementioned antenna. I'm waiting on a lug connector, purchased this morning on eBay, to attach it. I didn't think to ask Jim while he was here if he had a large-sized lug connector. Oh well, $4 including shipping for two of them.

This is the Astro-Table with 110v outlets hooked up. There's another outlet on the other side of the table. The telescope needs power for the controller that points the scope.

Dustin (sorry, no pic), the satellite dish installer, moved our dish from its temporary location to its permanent home here. You've probably noticed that everything here is old and rusty. That's just how we roll, architecturally. To the right of the dish, against the house, you can see the protected bathroom for Charlie, our director of security. Terrorists, you see. Not Al Queda; Al Coyotes. Charlie is snack-size to a coyote.

So things are looking a lot better. Trenches are filled in. The circular-ish slab (kinda like a square-tailed goldfish cracker) just past the well is where the water tank used to be. We moved it to inside the garage to protect it from the elements (and severe heat of summer). On the bollard to the left is the mount for my antenna. Oh, and the box in the middle of the picture is the power company's transformer. The last power pole is on the street, far enough away to cause a large voltage drop. So we ran the high-voltage lines underground to this transformer which converts the high-voltage to house-voltage.

This is the view looking to the east. Our shoestring acacia trees are doing well, or at least I haven't managed to kill them yet.

Right now these retainer walls are only retaining air. That'll change tomorrow when John shows up with his loader, a Case 950 I think. I have a mountain of dirt in the back that has patiently waited for its purpose in the scheme of things around here.

Be It Ever So Humble

2011-05-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Casa de Underground Carpenter. Click to embiggen.

Trenches, Conduits, and Water Lines

2011-05-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

Trenches are dug, conduits and pipes are in and pressure-tested. Today I backfill the trenches.

It took a week to hand-dig these trenches, and I hated every minute of it. The ground here is dense gravel with boulders–as ugly as digging gets.

Manual valves for irrigation. I decided against automatic timer valves. Too much money. The valve closest is for 4 trees and 12 bushes, the entire extent of our need-to-water plants. The further valve is for a future squash/melon garden, which may or may not happen this winter. These valves will get a cover. The grey conduit that says “irrigation” was going to be for wiring the timed valves, but I though it added needless complication and cost to this project, so that conduit will remain empty. I’m going to add an anti-siphon valve in the house. Then I’ll be able to water without stepping outside and risking bites/stings by reaching inside the valve box. It’s a certainty that there will be either black widow spiders or scorpions inside the valve box within a month.

House Painting and Carpentry

2011-05-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

The latest artwork from David Dees.

I have a few questions. The news reports say Obammy “authorized” the killing of OBL. Where in the Constitution does it say that a president can order a house painting? And did the SEALS also do their own carpentry?

Why didn’t Obammy order a “capture”, then “oopsie”, we accidentally shot ere-body in da house. Wouldn’t it have looked more “American” to say we tried to bring OBL back for a ~~hanging~~ trial?

Several reports said that DNA “confirmed” it was Mr. Nasty himself. If they haven’t been able to find him for the last decade, how did they have a sample of his DNA to compare?

Well, I gotta go now. I’m plum tuckered out from dancing in the streets, you know, celebrating ~~murder~~ justice.

Retainer Wall

2011-04-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

Ha, ha, Blogger! I just post at WordPress, then cutting-n-pasting works here without getting that nasty "form errors" message. Cross-posting, I guess you call it. Anyway, my other blog at WordPress is Here.

It's hard to get the whole wall in one shot. Click to embiggen. The sack-n-patch is done. Now I just have to wire-brush the rusting steel strips, paint, and backfill. The pile of scrap lumber (hidden by the tree) is spoken for. A friend of mine will use it next winter in his wood-burning stove.
I'm planning on putting colored gravel in the center section. I'm not really looking for any more yardwork, like ground-cover plants, bushes, or more trees. But before that gets done, I need to run some conduit to the Astro-Table and run some water lines, valves, and a timer, to automate the irrigation of the trees.

A Country With Laws

2011-04-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

"This is more like a crime gang's behavior than a country with laws." Link.

Ai's older sister, Gao Ge

With laws, huh? Kinda like here?

Links weren't working at my WordPress Blog this morning, so I thought I'd post this here as well. At least the link button is working for now at Blogger. But I still had to hand type in this text. When I try to cut-and-paste I get the "Form Errors" message. And the quote button isn't working right either.

I'm tempted to get my own damn website. Free blogs ain't worth it right now.

Later this afternoon: I've just spent the last hour trying to fix this post. No go. I give up on Blogger.

WordPress Wordplay

2011-03-30T05:04:00.000-07:00

I'm playing with Wordpress, which I tried back in 2008 but gave up on because it seemed impenetrably difficult. I haven't played with any bells and whistles yet, but here's my "alternate" blog.

I got the notion to retry WordPress from Mayberry. He got fed up with problems at Blogger.

In this post, at least, links seem to work without getting the damn "form errors" message.

Posting Problems

2011-03-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

I keep getting "Form Errors" when I try to post. I can't cut-n-paste text, use links, put up pictures, or make quotes. This is a new development, something I haven't run across in over 400 posts. I'm trying to get something going on my WordPress blog that I started in April 2008. Back then WordPress was too tough to figure out, so I went with Blogger. I don't have patience or time for learning something new, so I probably just won't blog until later on in the year. Right now I'm hugely busy.

The only thing that's changed lately is my browser. I upgraded Firefox to 4.0, which totally sucked, made everything harder, and added close to a dozen extra steps, coming and going. So I started using Chrome. Chrome is an easy, no bullshit browser that works well, but perhaps it's the cause of my problems.

. .

Hit The Brakes, Marge!

2011-03-27T03:14:00.000-07:00

BULLHEAD CITY — ... Sepulveda was walking in the middle of McCormick Boulevard around 8:25 p.m. Friday night when he was struck by a Toyota pickup truck... Link.

This is an almost weekly occurrence where I live. The story is always the same, but the reporter never asks the truly important questions: Was the walker drunk, suicidal, or preoccupied by a UFO directly overhead? Is this a national problem, or just local? Why do pedestrians in Mohave County like to hang out in the middle of busy streets?

. .

Kendall On Sharecropping

2011-03-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

Saw this on Dependable Renegade.

. .

Good Stuff From BartCop

2011-03-24T04:15:00.000-07:00

Subject: Hillary & Testosterone (Joe Klein)

Bart -

I'd just like to point something out that most of male-oriented western civilization seems to have missed.

When people say, "sack up", "grow a pair", "get some cajones", etc.... they're referring to the male scrotum.
The weakest part of any genitalia in our species. An organ that attempts to crawl back into a man's body at
the slightest breeze or drop in temperature, and can render a man totally incapacitated with a bump.

On the other hand, the female vagina can stretch to 15x it's normal size to accommodate the birth of
a human, then shrink back to normal retaining it's elasticity. Females are also biologically designed with
a far higher tolerance of pain. We have to be.

So for Hillary and the girls having the VAGINA to make hard decisions comes as no surprise to most females.
Most of us do that on a daily basis raising children, running a family, and putting up with men. We just don't
feel the need to run around flexing our estrogen.

I think the proper term should be VAG UP and GROW A VAGINA.

Pussies are a hell of a lot stronger than a ball sack.
Just sayin...

tally

I'm reminded of what James Carville said in 2008:
"If Hillary gave Obama a testicle, they'd each have two."

Bartcop is a lefty blog, and I disagree with Bart on most things. But he puts up a great blog with lots of funny stuff.

(Carpenter's note: I lean neither right nor left, but at my own rakish angle.)

. .

Kick Me!

2011-03-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

I got this pic in an e-mail. Supposedly it's not Photoshopped. The story goes that the people holding the signs hired a translator to make signs in English saying, "Death to America", or some such; but this is what they got and they didn't know what the signs really said.

. .

Working For Ford

2011-03-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

For that kind of money, we could kill half of the population of every fucking country in the Middle East.

Just who the fuck is in charge of this clusterfuck and I damn well want to know if they used to work for Ford.

Bustednuckles

Busted, over at the Ornery Bastard shed, is one of the most eloquent writers in the Blogosphere.

. .

War Party

2011-03-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

"We anticipate this transition to take place in a matter of days and not in a matter of weeks," Obama told a news conference during a visit to Chile. He did not spell out which nation or organisation would take charge... Link.

Obama is awesome. He can launch a war and party like it's 1999 at the same time. Notice that Obammy always uses the royal "We". No need for you little people to bother your silly little heads about any of this. Obammy is egalitarian, too. He lumps Congress in with the little people. Didn't even bother to tell your "representatives" about his plan to launch another quagmire.And don't worry about the cost of Tomahawk cruise missiles, carriers and Harriers, and a nice long quagmire. Congress will send us the bill, as soon as Obammy jets back to the land of the free.

...the firepower of more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles and attacks by allied warplanes have not yet succeeded in accomplishing the more ambitious demands by the United States — repeated by President Obama in a letter to Congress on Monday — that Colonel Qaddafi withdraw his forces from embattled cities and cease all attacks against civilians.

[British Prime Minister] Cameron said there were no plans to target Gaddafi. "The U.N. resolution is limited in its scope, it explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi's removal from power by military means," he told parliament. Same Link.

Competing ruling classes, including the American rulers, are content to watch their respective pawns slaughtering each other by the thousands, but it has long been the official policy of many "governments," including the U.S. "government," not to attempt to kill foreign "rulers"--i.e., the ones most responsible for making the war happen. In truth, the most moral, the most rational, and the most cost-effective means of defense against any invading "authority" is the assassination of those who command it.

Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

With the above quote, two names come to mind. Two insane motherfuckers that can't be reasoned with.

. .

Occupations That Enslave

2011-03-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

Without "enforcers", I think most Americans would laugh at our slavemaster politicians. Po-lice, IRS, ATF--All of these people share some responsibility for our lack of freedom. But what about other occupations, ones with less-obvious connections to the threat of guns and cages?

Accountants--How many accountants would have a job without the Income Tax?

Carpenters--Without carpenters, how would enforcers build their "compliance centers"? Your favorite Underground Carpenter has worked for the last year on the new Las Vegas City Hall(aka, local-level oppression center).

Teachers--Through all your years in Government Indoctrination Camps, how many teachers lit the light bulb of freedom in your head?

Building Inspectors--How many inspectors ever think about how their job makes affordable housing impossible?

DMV--Compliance for the sake of compliance; is there any other reason for a Department of Motor Vehicles?

. .

Flashlight Rant

2011-03-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

This is the Coast Tacticool Focus Beam LED flashlight. About a year ago, I bought one at Home Despot. $50, it was. It blew me away; I'd never seen such a powerful, compact, solid flashlight, with an LED bulb that doesn't burn out and 3 AAA batteries power it seemingly forever. When I bought mine, Coast flashlights were made in Germany, and everything about them screamed quality--even gold-plated contacts on the switch.

Fast-forward to today. Cheap Chinese knock-offs drove the price of LED flashlights down. So Coast did what every business does, moved to China and cheapened the shit out of their products. Now the switch jiggles and the light dims if you don't hold it just right. And they just don't feel solid anymore.

. .

Expended Freedom

2011-03-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

BULLHEAD CITY — It wasn’t the driver-license test that leads to an era of expended freedom, but kids were learning lessons Saturday at Walmart that could prove useful in the future. Link.

"Expended freedom". Ha Ha. Rodd Cayton, the reporter that penned the above article, is either incompetent or a mole for freedom. You decide.

Bullhead City is the nearest Big City to me. I live in the armpit of America. Mrs. UC calls it the GFFHH, the God-Forsaken-Fucking-Hell-Hole. But even here in the armpit, members of the Police State made sure that "about 90 kids aged 3 to 10 got their bikes registered." Nice, obedient slave children, and thanks to their parents, these kids will never have to fear the animating contest of freedom. Useful lessons, indeed.

. .

Coining Money, The New Threat

2011-03-20T03:59:00.000-07:00

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”

U.S. Attorney Anne M. Tompkins, quoted upon the conviction of Bernard von Nothaus, founder of Norfed, for coining real money.

Read Tyler Durden's take at ZeroHedge. Or the FBI's Official Story about this dastardly criminal. Notice that they immediately "seized" all of von Nothaus' coins and, you know, silver and stuff, because all of it was a terrorist threat. H/T to Western Rifle Shooters Association.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but before the Fed took up counterfeiting operations, didn't most banks issue their own currency? And yet, I've never heard any story of a bank in the 1800's being seized because of it.

Oh, and by the way, Anne, honey, fuck you and your "legitimate", "democratic form of government."

. .

Another Fucking War

2011-03-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama said he was reluctant(note: humorous, ironic word) to resort to force against a fellow despot. But what the fuck, let's start another Goddamn Motherfucking War!

If you're not grinding your teeth in anger over this latest outrage, then you're not human.

. .

H-K's!

2011-03-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

Topeka — A legislator said Monday it might be a good idea to control illegal immigration the way the feral hog population has been controlled: with gunmen shooting from helicopters. Link.

Wow! Great idea! Only, instead of innocent Mexicans, let's target legislators. You first, Rep. Virgil Peck[sniff]. Talk about a feral hog!

. . .

Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

2011-03-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Great Globular Cluster in the constellation Hercules. Isn't it magnificent? I took this shot about 4:30 a.m this morning, using a Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain as a prime-focus lens for my Nikon D3000. The constellation Hercules, at that hour, was directly overhead. ISO was set to 1600 and this was a 20 second exposure. Next up accessory is an autoguider, which will sharpen up the stars considerably. An autoguider takes 3 parts to put together, and I can't find anybody who has all 3 parts in stock. So I wait.

. . .

Open Clusters In Scorpius

2011-03-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

I was out stargazing this morning. Early in the morning, about 3 a.m., the half-moon set, which made for darker skies and brighter stars. This is a shot of M6, an open cluster in the constellation Scorpius. I used an Orion 80mm scope as a prime-focus lens for my Nikon D3000. ISO 800 and a 20 second exposure.

This is M7, another open cluster in Scorpius. Same ISO 800, but a 30 second shot this time. Click on either picture to embiggen.

I do a 3-star alignment to easily slew to any cataloged object in the sky. The alignment requires me to punch in longitude, latitude and exact time. The NIST gadget I put in the sidebar gives me time to the second.

. . .

The Tiny Dot

2011-03-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

Ding, ding, ding! Another good one by Larken Rose.

. . .

The Iron Web, by Larken Rose

2011-03-10T18:42:00.000-08:00

Larken Rose rocks! Here's a taste:

Haven't you noticed that everything the government touches turns to shit?

Even the spectacle of having to choose between John McHitler and Barack Ostalin in 2008 wasn't enough to shake the American people out of their blind faith in the cult of democracy.

Do you think the fact that you personally haven't gotten into trouble yet, because you're too much of a chicken-shit to even rattle your own cage door, means that you're free?

You look around, and you don't see the open strife and violent conflict that exists in many other countries, and you interpret that to mean that we have peace and freedom here. It means nothing of the sort. It means only that most of the victims of oppression here aren't resisting it. And that is not a sign that you are strong and free; it is a sign that you are weak and cowardly. When the peasants quietly do as they're told, the violence underlying all government remains hidden. It is only resistance that brings it out into the open.

The difference between you and a common thief is that the thief has the honesty to commit the crime himself, while you whine for government to do your stealing for you.

You old folks want the government to steal from your kids so you can get your monthly check. You parents want all your neighbors to be robbed to pay for your kid's schooling. You all vote for whichever crook promises to steal money from other people to pay for what you want. …[snippage]... You proudly support the troops as they kill whomever the liars in D.C. tell them to kill, and you feel good about it.

If you call it "taxation" and "war", it stops being a sin, right?

Leaders? Where is it that you think you're going, exactly, that would require you to have a leader? If you just live your own life and mind your own damn business, exercising your own talents, pursuing your own dreams, striving to be what you believe you should be, what possible use would you have for a leader?

You condemn as extremists and fringe kooks those who try to show you the chains you wear, because you don't want to be free; you don't even want to be human. Responsibility and reality scare the hell out of you, so you cling tightly to your own enslavement and lash out at any who seek to free you from it. When someone opens the door to your cage, you cower back in the corner and yell, "Close it, close it!"

Larken Rose, The Iron Web

Buy it Here.

. . .

Consenting Subjects

2011-03-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

. . .

The abundance of campaign signs littering lawns prior to every election are not the sign of an enlightened, free society; they are the sign of a mentally and physically enslaved society, bickering over which slave master they want holding the whip.

Any "government" that had the consent of its subjects would not need, and would not have, "law" enforcers.

How, for example--whether you call it "theft" or "taxation"--would those in "government" acquire the right to forcible take property from those who have earned it? No voter has such a right. So how could voters possibly have given such a right to politicians? All modern statism is based entirely on the assumption that people can delegate rights they don't have. Even the U.S. Constitution pretended to grant to "Congress" the right to "tax" and "regulate" certain things, though the authors of the Constitution had no such right themselves and therefore could not possible have given such a right to anyone else.

Whether the issue is math, morality, or anything else, there is a huge difference between trying to determine what is true and trying to dictate what is true. The former is useful; the latter is insane. And the latter is what those in "government" pretend to do every day.

In the long run, there is no such thing, and can be no such thing, as "limited government," because once someone is accepted by others as a rightful master, and believes himself to have the moral right to rule, there will be nothing and no one "above" him with the power to restrain him. ...[snippage]... The Constitution is a perfect example of this: a piece of parchment which purported to grant very limited "authority" to certain people but which utterly failed to stop those people from going beyond those limits, creating something that eventually grew into the most powerful authoritarian empire in history.

Because a police officer is supposed to "enforce the law," and a soldier is supposed to follow orders, their own values and intentions get trumped by the agendas of those giving the orders. Notwithstanding the military recruiting propaganda encouraging young men and women to join up to fight for truth and justice, the true job of a soldier is to kill whomever the masters tell him to kill. It is as simple as that. How many Americans would, on their own, choose to go to foreign lands and kill complete strangers?

In the United States, about 100,000 IRS employees extort about 200,000,000 victims. Those being robbed outnumber the robbers by about two thousand to one. This could never be accomplished by brute force alone; it continues only because most of those being robbed feel a duty to be robbed, and imagine such robberies to be legitimate and valid.

If the Nazis had had to physically carry each Jew, dead or alive, to the gas chambers or crematoriums, the level of murder would have been dramatically lower. If every slave sold into bondage had refused to work, there would soon have been no slave trade. If the IRS had to calculate the tax due and then directly take it from each "taxpayer," there would be no more federal "taxation." In short, if the victims of authoritarian extortion, harassment, surveillance assault, kidnapping, and murder simply stopped assisting in their own oppression, tyranny would crumble.

Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

Breathtaking, isn't he? I'd like to party with this cowboy! Buy his book Here.

OK, let's review our options:

Option #1: Do nothing.

Option #2: Do something.

In the "something" category, lots of bloggers advocate open revolt. I have a problem with the whole "tree of liberty" thing. Telling me to sack up and stand my ground for freedom is not helpful. Freedom can't be organized. Only tyranny can. Any attempt to throw off current masters will only lead to new masters. I reluctantly comply with the demands of the masters, not because of a lack of courage, but from a realistic assessment of my odds of being killed or caged. Sorry if that bothers you. The only currently viable option for freedom seekers is to sleep on a "concrete pillow 'neath the overpass." Perhaps another option would be to endlessly sail the ocean, an outcast. But how would you get your green veggies without putting to and paying taxes at a grocery store? And buying a seaworthy boat entails earning taxable income. You're back to square one.

The only hope for freedom-lovers is that enough humans come to the conclusion that government is not legitimate. Yeah, that'll happen.

. . .

Waiting To Be Processed

2011-03-05T05:33:00.000-08:00

. . .

On the BBC his last week was a report about refugees in Tunisia. Apparently people in Egypt, Libya, Chad, Niger and some other African countries consider Tunisia to be a bastion of freedom and plenty, or at least marginally better than their own miserable country. So they are flocking by the tens of thousands to Tunisia. The Egyptians had to cross Libya to get there.

Once they arrived, their slave mentality took over, and they meekly submitted to being "processed" at one of the many refugee camps set up by the Tunisian government. Most of the BBC report was interviewing, via translator, the broke, hungry refugees. When asked what they were doing, all responded thusly, "We're waiting to be processed." Said report never mentioned what that entailed. At one point in the report, in the background there was shouting and chanting coming from some Egyptian refugees who complained that the Egyptian military wasn't helping them get back home.

Perhaps in the near future, Americans will be standing around at a FEMA camp, waiting to be processed. I don't think I'll join them.

. . .

For Our Rulers And Beloved Leaders

2011-02-27T04:47:00.000-08:00

. . .

Competing ruling classes, including the American rulers, are content to watch their respective pawns slaughtering each other by the thousands, but it has long been the official policy of many "governments," including the U.S. "government," not to attempt to kill foreign "rulers"--i.e., the ones most responsible for making the war happen. In truth, the most moral, the most rational, and the most cost-effective means of defense against any invading "authority" is the assassination of those who command it.

Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

I love it when a writer surprises me. I've long held the idea that government does more harm than good, but this guy makes me look like an optimist. Hell, he makes Ayn Rand look like a government cheerleader.

. . .

Struggling Just To Get By

2011-02-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

. . .

I cried like a baby when I read this story about a Nevada state employee. Cash-poor states are passing the struggle on to their employees. Short article, please read to the end. Link.

. . .

Astro-Slab!

2011-02-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

. . .

So I got to thinking. In the turnaround part of our driveway, a nice circular slab would be a great place to set up the telescope. And what better time than while I'm pouring concrete for the retainer wall? So Gun Girl and I staked out the center and I played with the diameter dimensions. The inside white line seemed too small, so I used the outer white line, which made a 24' diameter slab. The orange outer line was the excavation line. I dug down enough so that the slab ended up level with the ground. And the orange lines coming from the center were for the conduit trench. Gotta have power for the scope.

After the dig, I ripped up some plywood into 4"-wide strips, calculated the length needed for a 24'-diameter circle (75'-4 3/4"), and connected them together into one long piece. When I was bending it into shape, it broke a couple of times, so I soaked the plywood with water and came back to it next day. Notice in this pic the hole in the middle. Where the power will come up in the center I'll make a concrete table. The hole is for a little thicker concrete where the table will be.

Next step is to get a center nail where I can hook my tape measure to make the circle spot-on curve-a-licious.

Staked! I just walked around the circle pulling a tape from the center and driving in stakes. Nice and round.

The rebar in the middle is for the concrete table. I poured it in with mud leftover from one of the footing pours. That way I had no rebar template in the way of the slab pour. The conduit is inside the column. The 110v outlet will be nicely flush after the column is poured. Notice the white paint marks on the dirt. That's layout for the rebar.

Time to cut some rebar. This is a rebar shear. I had some #5 bars (5/8") leftover from building the house, so I'll use those for this slab.

Rebar is in, dobied-up, ready to pour.

Kenny is finishing the slab. The center of the slab is about 1/2" higher than the edges so that water will run off. Kenny put a nice radial broom finish on the slab just before the concrete set up.

The next day I layed out control joints and then made the saw cuts with a Skilsaw and a diamond blade. Turned out nice!

. . .

Pouring It

2011-02-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

. . .

I had 6 steps in this long footing, so I poured it in 7 pours. Here is Kenny on the float, Roger on the vibrator, and me on the chute. I used a plasticized mix to achieve a slump of 6 (on the runny side). That made it easier to pour. I don't ever add water to a mix. Bad. Against God.

At each step I put a form. Because I poured every day, I had to put in each step's form in the dark just before the pour. Notice the red duct-tape flags that mark how high to pour the concrete.

The milky-white stuff on the footing is cure. Cure keeps the concrete from drying out too quickly. Concrete needs water to achieve full-strength.

. . .

Rebar Phase

2011-02-20T08:08:00.000-08:00

. . .

This is Gun Girl, aka Mrs. UC. She's using this Sokkia SET3A total station and HP48GX data collector to stake out the points I need to place the rebar.

I'm using this prism reflector to set points at the bottom of the footing. Ladies, don'cha wish your husband was hot like me? Don'cha?

These feathers are face-of-wall and the orange paint marks are for the 1'-on-center rebars.

After the footing mat is done, I put the 4x4's across to support the vertical wall steel. Notice the rebar is "chaired-up" with those plastic rebar chairs.

Vertical wall rebars attached to the template, or steel rack. I put 3" dobies under the verts to separate them from the dirt.

Where the wall height is above 5', the footing width goes from 4' to 8' wide. The dirt bank is constantly crumbling, so I'll have to clean out caved-in dirt before the concrete is poured.

There are 6 steps in this footing. Each step is 1'-6". Those bars that look like they're just laying there are to tie the bottom of the vertical wall bars together.

Next step: The Pour.

. . .

The Dig

2011-02-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

. . .

When I was layed off three weeks ago I spit on my hands and started a project that has been delayed about 3 years because of job uncertainty, a 200'-long retainer wall on the south side of our turnaround drive. An unexpected return to work has interrupted this and other projects, but I expect to get back to them in another 3-4 weeks. So here's what's been done so far, starting with the dig.

Thomas Habermel, the best backhoe operator in Arizona, starts digging. That's me, standing there in supervisory mode.

Here I'm checking the grade with the laser stick. You can see the orange spray-painted line on the ground that shows Thomas where to dig. This retainer wall will look like the one in back of Thomas. It'll have the same rusting strips of steel embedded in the concrete wall--Mrs. UC's idea.

See the white "feathers" next to the footing? Those are a 1' offset to edge of footing. Those feathers used to be pink, but the sun faded them over time. I had put those feathers in over a year ago. If you noticed that the footing is not straight, then your powers of observation serve you well. The retainer wall is two long arcs.

After the dig, I compacted the earth at the bottom of the footing with this plate compactor, the "Whumper-Thumper". Noisy beast. Dig completed.

. . .

Ham Radio Saturday

2011-02-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

. . .

I had two weeks off from work, a short layoff that was supposed to be a lot longer. Thinking I had lots of time on my hands, I hit the deck running on a million projects around the house. The biggest ones, a long retaining wall and a stargazing slab, I started on immediately. But I've got some Photoshop work to do before posting those photos. The following pics are of my ham radio receiver and antenna which I've been working on setting up for almost a year.

This is my Drake R-4C receiver and speaker. I bought them on eBay. Getting good deals on eBay takes patience and time, neither of which I have much of. But at least I had enough patience to wait for an R-4C in good condition. This receiver is 40 years old and has old-fashioned vacuum tubes. My other choice, a Collins 75A4 receiver, I couldn't afford. I like old tube radios because that's what I used when I was a ham radio operator in my teens. The new radios are obscenely expensive, in the thousands of dollars, and absolutely out of my price range. I don't know if they work better than the old tube-type radios. Notice the pad and pencil in the pic. I prefer CW (Morse code), but I'm a bit rusty. Back in the day I could send and receive 40 words per minute. Now I struggle to copy at 15 WPM, and most hams seem to send at about 20 WPM. So there's lots of gaps.

I put in some "future" conduit lines into the house when I was building, so I grabbed one of them to run a RG-213 coaxial cable out to the antenna. In the two spots where I stubbed up the spare conduits, I cut the sheetrock and installed access doors. I mounted a SO-239 connector on this access door, because I think wires hanging out of gaping holes are an abomination. I bought the cable in bulk, so I had to put a PL-259 connector at each end, with a soldering gun. I also found some right-angle coax fittings to keep things more orderly. The coax, the fittings, the soldering gun, and the access doors were all purchased on eBay. Oh, and I used a Greenlee punch to make a perfect 5/8" hole in the access door for the SO-239. Got the Greenlee punch on eBay, too.

This is where the conduit line comes up. There's two conduits going into the box, but I'm only using one. I may need another line someday for another coaxial cable or perhaps a security camera. I always plan for future expansion. PVC doesn't take sunlight well, so you can see I spray-painted the two conduits a light tan. I had to mask off the bollard and support pipe to avoid overspray. Yes, I'm anal.

This is my CushCraft AV-5 multi-band, aluminum tubing, trap vertical. I got it on eBay. :) When you put it together from the parts in the 4' box, it ends up being about 28' tall. It's leaning a bit because the wind is blowing pretty stiff right now. I was originally going to put up a long wire antenna or 42' untrapped vertical, which would have needed an antenna tuner. The "ultimate transmatch" I bought sits unused on a shelf. If I don't use it in the next year, I'll put it back on eBay.

The trick was how to mount the vertical antenna. I used two 6" riser clamps to fasten a 4' length of 2" gas pipe to one of the bollards that protect our well. The antenna slips onto the gas pipe, I connect a short length of coax to the antenna, then I'm good to go. Mrs. UC objects to a permanent antenna, so to keep from getting frosty glares, I separate the antenna into two 14' pieces and hang them on a rack in the garage. Sounds complicated, but it takes all of 5 minutes to either assemble or disassemble the antenna.

It's been raining since about 2 a.m. and I couldn't work outside like I planned this morning. Instead, I hooked up my antenna and listened to the sweet sound of Morse code this morning. There was some sort of contest on, where the hams try to contact as many other hams as they can. All the bands were filled. I listened to stations from Japan to Florida to Australia. My preferred band is 40 meters (7 MHz), but I also listened to 80, 20, and 15 meter CW.

. . .

I'm Shocked. (Yawn)

2011-02-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt's military delivered an ultimatum on Monday to dozens of committed protesters in Tahrir Square, nerve-center of a movement that toppled Hosni Mubarak, to leave and let life get back to normal or face arrest. Link.

OK, let's sum up events.

1. People say, "No more!"

2. Mubarak "hands over" power (reins of dictatorship) to the army that enforced his thugocracy for 30 years.

3. People settle back into their nice, comfortable life of slavery.

Did I miss anything?

. . .

A Huge Snowstorm Of Irony!

2011-02-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

The storm was so bad in Polk County, 200 miles west of St. Louis, that emergency officials requested help from the National Guard because local officials did not have enough vehicles to get the elderly and shut-ins to shelter if the power went out.

Article in the Huff Po

Can't you just picture those "local officials" wringing their hands, worrying about all the elderly and shut-ins standing around out in the corn fields? But it does make you wonder why not having power would be a problem if you're outside. You had to be there, right?

This art is chock full of grammatical and spelling errors. The news team obviously gave this boring weather story to the novice reporter, and the editor couldn't be bothered to proof the kid's pathetic attempt at journalism.

. . .

Fiction Rocks, History Sucks

2011-01-30T02:41:00.000-08:00

Fiction is more popular than history because the cycles of history are boringly the same, whereas fiction paints a picture of life as it might or should be.

"The officers and the secret police run the country, but when a mob gathers, it's up to the soldiers to hold them back. If the soldiers choose not to, then it's time for the strongman to get on a plane and escape the country."

Sultan Knish

The pitchforks-and-torches solution to a dictator doesn't work. You just get another dictator. Same for democratically elected ~~dictators~~ presidents. Coups or elections, there's not much difference in the end result. If you're waiting for "the people" to figure it out, i.e., accept your idea of who oughta run things, well, good luck with that. As for me, I can choose the better from the worse, and I know that freedom trumps government every time. I also know that waiting for my brethren humans to embrace freedom from government is pointless. That's why I like fiction. I'm particularly drawn to stories where people escape their chains and head off to a new land to live free.

"Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. The change seems abysmal. Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent — the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free."

H. L. Mencken

. . .

Protect And Serve

2011-01-26T03:54:00.000-08:00

Ding, ding, ding! Saw this on Western Rifle Shooters, which credits Bill St. Clair.

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Crosshairs

2011-01-25T04:03:00.000-08:00

The media with its word madness is another kind of nut. It is natural for people who work with language to believe in its power. Writers believe in the supremacy of the pen like no one else. Creating worlds out of language circularly allows them to see the creative powers of the word. But for a propagandist press, words are not creative, but constructive. They are building blocks in creating the world that they would like to see. The careful use of language and the delineation of forbidden and permitted words allows them to manufacture and market their worldview to the masses. Orwell's Newspeak, written on digital sand. To the builders and the bosses of the worldview, if something cannot be said, then it also cannot exist. Stop saying 'crosshairs' and no one will ever point a gun. It is absurd, but also grimly revealing.

Sultan Knish, In the Crosshairs of the Speech Police

I saw this linked on Western Rifle Shooters blog. Good read.

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Prosperity's Fertilizer

2011-01-22T06:28:00.000-08:00

I get a huge kick out of all the politicians practically climbing over one another to ~~meddle in~~ jumpstart the economy with this or that law, ~~pork~~ stimulus spending, new bank regulations, on and on...

It's so painfully obvious that prosperity requires two ingredients, freedom and sound money. Am I missing something?

. . .

Shined-On Harvest Moon

2011-01-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

Not exactly a full moon. I missed the hunter's moon because of work, high winds, and clouds; nonetheless, kinda sorta full-ish. Anyway, this is a prime focus shot through an Orion 80mm refractor telescope taken with a Nikon D3000; ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/200 second. Nikon makes a really cool wireless remote control that lets me snap the shot without touching the camera and causing jiggle.

I tried a wide range of shutter speeds, from 1/10 second to 1/500 second. 1/320 second was the best, exposure-wise, but the above photo had a crisper focus.

. . .

I Needs Me An Autoguider

2011-01-17T03:00:00.000-08:00

I was looking through the 179 photos I took Sunday morning, thinking how I might get better pics. As I looked at this shot of the great globular cluster in the constellation Hercules, bemoaning its lack of crystal clarity, it suddenly dawned on me that the problem is not with focusing. It's the motors that track the scope. Over the 30 seconds it took to make this photo, my tracking motors didn't stay exactly on track. That's why the guys that get the great shots all have autoguiders. Shit! Another "accessory".

The "smudge" in the middle is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Another epiphany I just had is that, with an autoguider to pinpoint the motor tracking, I could not only get sharper shots, but also get more stars captured with the same 30 second shutter speed. 30 seconds is about the longest shot I can take at ISO 1600. Past 30 seconds the "noise" (graininess) is awful and makes the photo useless. Well, it's back to work I go.

. . .

Give Up Violence? You First.

2011-01-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ted Rall nails another one!

. . .

Moonin' Ya

2011-01-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a little better at focusing. This shot was taken with a shutter speed of 1/60 second. Thin, high clouds plagued me all morning. I set up the scope at 2 a.m. and folded my tent about 6 a.m.

This shot looks kinda like a funky Easter egg. Shutter speed was 1/80 second. This is a "gibbous" moon. Gibbous means "bright enough to screw up your stargazing." The moon finally set about 5 a.m. and I was then able to get some shots of galaxies, nebulas, clusters and whatnot. Unfortunately, none of those shots turned out. Out of 179 photos, these two moon shots are the best.

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Unneccessary Superstition

2011-01-15T02:38:00.000-08:00

Statists, "left" and "right," advocate constant, wide-spread violence against MILLIONS of people, but they genuinely imagine, having been indoctrinated into state-worship, that it doesn't COUNT as violence because it is being done by the deity called "government," which they imagine to be EXEMPT from human morality.

Larken Rose

Damn, boy, how you talk! The link will take you to LR's blog. Interesting reading.

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But That Would Be Zomg Anarchy!

2011-01-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

It’s not a choice between government cops or lawlessness in the streets. It’s not a choice between government social security and old people dying in the gutter. It’s not a choice between government delivering the mail and no mail at all ....

Claire Wolfe

I like people who aren't afraid of freedom. Given the choice between the dull grey "safety" of a police state and the animating contest that comes with unfettered freedom, I'll take the latter.

. . .

Rare Honesty

2011-01-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

The death of Mrs. Gifford was not a huge national tragedy, any more than the hundreds of other murders that happened the same day. Mrs. Gifford was not a great public servant. In fact, she was not a public servant at all. She was not serving you, or me, or anyone else, other than the elite ruling class. She did not "represent" the people. She was a member of the parasitic American ruling class. She was not working for the people.

What she did, along with her fellow political parasites, was use the threat of violence to subjugate, control and extort the general public. Like every other member of Congress, she produced nothing of value, neither product nor service. As a "legislator," her entire job consisted of coming up with new ways to use the coercion of "law" to forcibly control you and me, and use the products of our efforts to serve the agenda of the parasite class.

Larken Rose at FreedomsPhoenix

After all the finger-pointing, blame-deflecting, weepy testamonializing, and there-oughta-be-a-law blustering, this was refreshing. Of course, news reports of her death were at first, greatly exaggerated.

. . .

Shooting The Night Sky With A Nikon D3000

2011-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is M13, the great globular cluster in the constellation Hercules. The photo doesn't do it justice. It's much prettier looking through a small-magnification lens. All photos in this post were taken with a Nikon D3000 hooked to the back end of a Celestron 11 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope in prime focus, 30 second exposure and ISO 1600.

A spiral galaxy on the right side and a binary star in the upper left. This was in the constellation Virgo. Virgo has a pile of galaxies in it.

Another spiral galaxy in Virgo. The little red dot in the lower-left is a "hot" pixel. Hot pixels really come out when you push the ISO to its limits.

This is the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra. It's very faint, so I pushed the brightness as far as I could in Photoshop.

30 second exposures are about as long as I can take shots before I start to get "star trails". The motors that guide a scope are never perfect, so there's always get some drift unless you get an autoguider. More money and complicated instructions. Perhaps this summer if I'm working I'll get one.

Just viewing is great, but being able to take photos makes astronomy more fun. The camera, with long exposures, can bring out the colors and size of nebulas, so you can see more than you would normally. When it comes to clusters and stars, just viewing is better than photography.

. . .

Charlie

2011-01-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

This is Charlie, flashing his most toothsome, fetching smile. Charlie is the director of security here at the Underground Carpenter Mega-Complex, and a more dedicated, hard-working canine you will not find.

. . .

This I Believe. Maybe.

2011-01-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

"I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."

H. L. Mencken

Richard Mitchell used to say that we should examine our beliefs, especially our most closely-held beliefs. He likened belief to an appetite--bellyfeel, I think Orwell called it. And just as our bellies grumble loudly when hungry, so too do our beliefs grumble when deprived of reason. Richard Mitchell described reason as the mind quietly asking and answering in turn, a good way to describe a mind examining itself.

Is the intensity with which we hold our beliefs the measure of our insanity? Would a completely rational human eschew belief of any sort?

Most beliefs are harmless enough, just opinions really. I can't imagine a bigfoot-believer wanting to force you to pay for his study of the elusive monster. But what about people who believe that government is essential to human existence? Those who fiercely clutch government-belief to their breasts are adamant that non-believers pay taxes, jump through hoops, and supplicate government job-holders. Believers will tell you that all problems can be solved by electing officials who will grant just the right privileges to deserving citizens.

But what about the deadbeat problem or the big, scary boogeyman problem? Scofflaws, darkies, and crotch-bombers, oh my! Who will build the roads, school our children, stamp our passports? And dammit, who's gonna pay my social security?

. . .

Galaxy Hunting With The Nikon D3000

2011-01-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

Pretty pathetic, huh? I went galaxy-hunting this morning in the constellation Virgo, and the fuzzy smudge in the middle of this photo is indeed a galaxy. There's supposed to be a good dozen or more galaxies kinda bunched together in Virgo, but this is the only one I found. The photo here is a 30 second exposure at ISO 1600. The Nikon was hooked to the back of a Celestron 11 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain scope (f/10) in prime-focus.

In spite of the clouds, the ass-freezing temperatures, focus problems, tracking problems, alignment problems, and my lack of astral savvy, I like looking at the stars. Most of the photos I take are 30-second shots, so I do lots of gazing while the camera is doing its thing. Star-map in hand, I study the constellations and major stars.

In the telescope world you are always a few thousand dollars short of just the thing needed to give you perfect pictures. Someday I'll get an auto-guider/ CCD combo(which requires a small scope piggy-backed to the main scope) and a program to "stack" photos. In the meantime, I'll try to make do with the toys I've got.

. . .

Even Thinner Crescent Moon

2011-01-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

Nikon D3000 mounted to the back of a Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain f/10 scope. ISO 100 and exposure is 1/4 second. Definitely not a sharp photo. This was the best of 52 photos I took this morning.

The thinner the crescent, the closer to the sun, so this shot was taken when the moon was just above the horizon. And that means lots of atmospheric turbulence in addition to the thin clouds that have dogged my viewing in the last couple of weeks. I brightened up and added some contrast to this shot in CS3 Photoshop.

. . .

Save Yourself

2011-01-02T04:39:00.000-08:00

I know that you've been damaged
Your soul has suffered such abuse
But I am not your savior
I am just as fucked as you

Save Yourself, by Stabbing Westward

What if you woke up one fine morning and had to face the horrible fact that the entire world was insane; and not just a little insane--completely bat-shit crazy to the point of harming themselves. Would you try to help them, gently try to lead them to sanity? The task seems daunting, perhaps not achievable in a lifetime. Might be easier to just save yourself.

. . .

Thin Crescent Moon Shots With A Nikon D3000

2011-01-01T07:21:00.000-08:00

Thin crescent moon, camera hooked to the back of an Orion 80mm refractor telescope as a prime-focus f/7.5 lens. Shutter speed was 1/30 second and ISO set to 100. Cropped and rotated, but no other mods. The clouds which plagued the night sky cleared enough to get these pics. And yes, I froze my cajones off in the 30+ degree air.

1/50 second. I took over a hundred shots this morning, and these were the best two. Focusing is the hardest thing for me. I think my eyes are shot.

. . .

Officer Butterball Risks The Roadways!

2011-01-01T04:22:00.000-08:00

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

"If they're not going to stop for me dressed up as a big, gold-and-orange turkey, they're not going to stop for a pedestrian dressed normally."

Officer Mike Lemley, Officer ButterBall

"It's just common courtesy. It galls me the most in the summertime when it's 130 degrees on the pavement. You're in your air-conditioned couch on wheels, and you can't do some poor schmo the common courtesy of stopping for him?"

Erin Breen of the UNLV Safe Community Partnership, a traffic safety advocacy group

OK, lessee, here's one o' them vector problems. 180 pounds at 2 mph VS 3000 pounds at 45 mph. From a purely scientific perspective, who should yield to whom? And if neither surrenders his ground, who is more likely to survive?

On a side issue, how much is Erin Breen paid for peddling her wares at the UNLVSCP? Who signs her paycheck, and from where did the money come from? Reporter sayeth not.

. . .

Astropics With The Nikon D3000

2010-12-31T07:44:00.000-08:00

Risking bone-numbing cold this morning, Carpenter hooked up his Nikon D3000 (their cheapest DSLR) to the back end of a Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope(f/10) to bring you these shots of things in the night sky. Viewing conditions were bad--50% cloud cover and extremely turbulent atmosphere. Above, this first shot of the crescent moon is at ISO 200 and 1/60 second shutter speed.

1/20 second, ISO 200. This is the sharpest focus that the clouds and atmosphere would allow.

This shot is so blurry, it's hard to tell if that's Saturn or a UFO. Out of ten or so shots, this was the best I could get.

This is the great globular cluster in the constellation Hercules. I was shooting through thin clouds, so I'm surprised it turned out this well. 30 seconds and ISO 1600.

I took this shot a few nights ago. It's the Orion Nebula. 30 seconds and ISO 1600. Lots of noise (graininess) and tracking could be better.

This is the Andromeda Galaxy, I think, also taken a few nights ago. Mrs. UC refers to galaxies as "smudges". Galaxies, and particularly nebulas, are unimpressive until long-exposure photography brings out highlights and colors.

. . .

David Dees' Latest Work

2010-12-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

This is what store shelves look like 15 minutes after a hurricane hits. Are you prepped? For more of David Dees' work, go here.

The Federal Reserve, a private bank, is THE reason for the collapse of America. This insidious bank, with unknown owners, has allowed Congress to "borrow" (i.e., debase and hyperinflate our once-sound currency) the wealth of this country to finance unwinnable wars and unsustainable entitlement schemes. Everyone who holds a dollar is paying for these things right now in spite of rhetoric about how our grandchildren will pay for this ride.

. . .

Lot Of Weather We're Having Lately

2010-12-31T06:32:00.000-08:00

Mrs. UC snapped this shot of a shoestring acacia tree next to our house after a rain a few days ago. The desert is lovely after a rain and all the plants smile, but the clouds kill my stargazing. Click to embignify.

. . .

Ted Nails Another One

2010-12-31T06:15:00.000-08:00

Ted Rall is one of my favorite cartoonists. If I was to tackle this idea in an essay, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting and focused as this cartoon.

. . .

Nikon D3000 Night Sky Shots

2010-12-25T04:39:00.000-08:00

Lots to think about when you plan an evening's stargazing. After a week of solid clouds and rain(I still grieve over missing the lunar eclipse), Christmas eve was the first evening that promised some viewing and a work-less next day. But instead of clouds, we had chem trails which hung on into the evening. Yet another reason for me to despise the airline industry.

The cold, moist air which can form condensation on the telescope is less a problem in the early evening. Also, the half-moon didn't rise with its star-killing luminosity until later in the evening. So early evening Mrs. UC and I set up the Orion 80mm scope with the Nikon D3000 piggy-backed on top. Note that the next photos are taken with a Nikon 55-200mm lens. I didn't shoot through the scope because we were viewing, not shooting. I was mostly just testing how stable the tracking was.

This is Pleides, the Seven Sisters. Technically, a star cluster, but I also consider it a constellation. ISO 1600, f/11, 200mm, 30-second exposure. I tried to take a longer shot, but for some reason I couldn't get the "bulb" setting to work. So 30 seconds was the longest shot I could take.

This is the constellation Orion, the most-easily recognized figure in the night sky and it has plenty-o-bright-stars. ISO 1600, f/11, 55mm, 30-second exposure. (I'm banging my head on the table right now because I just realized I could have "opened-up" the aperture to let more light in. This pic just doesn't "pop" with stars like it should.)

Betelgeuse, the red giant on the left of this shot is in Orion. In the previous shot it's in the lower left corner. ISO 1600, f/11, 200 mm, 30-second exposure. The one success of the evening was figuring out the 3-star alignment to make the scope track the apparent motion of the stars, which is essential to taking long-exposure astrophotos. It took 4 tries and lots of bargle-farging. (Mrs. UC is a saint to put up with my foul language.)

. . .

Attack Of The Jones-Killas

2010-12-24T05:57:00.000-08:00

So the rich keep gettin' richer and the middle class is disappearing. There's also that pesky "disproportionate gap" between rich and poor.

Some questions are panhandling on the corner. Who's doing all that classifying? Without invading my privacy, how can anyone assess my wealth to classify me? If someone does indeed have the necessary information, how did they get it and who's paying them to get it?

Are the poor to be pitied? Are the rich to be hated? If the poor all worked harder and rose "above their station", could we all breathe a sigh of relief at the return of the middle class? If the rich gave away all their wealth, could we stop hating them? If they made a second fortune, would we have to start hating them again?

And that notion of a "disproportionate" gap, is there a "proportionate" gap--some number of poor and rich that's just right? Economist, please!

Anybody Got A Can Of Spraypaint?

2010-12-19T14:14:00.000-08:00

Lifted this pic from Claire Wolfe's blog. Remember, remember......