Archives 2016

Yesterday my Airsoft AK-47 arrived.  I had Cindy throw the battery on the charger while I was at work so we could try it out when I got home.  I have to tell you, I was very surprised by the gun.

First of all it looked very realistic.  If you did not notice the orange Airsoft band around the muzzle of the gun you would think it was the real thing.  Not only does it look real, it feels real in terms of weight.  I could not believe it weighed between 7 and 8 pounds.  A good portion of the gun appears to be metal. It comes with two ammo clips, each capable of holding over 300 plastic bb’s so if you fully load each one you have a long time between fill ups.

Installing the stick battery that powers the gun is a bit clumsy but I eventually got it all in place.  I went out front and leaned a pretty thick cardboard box I had in the garage against one of our oak trees.   I stepped about 40-50 feet away and took a couple shots in semi-auto mode where you get one shot per trigger squeeze.  I was immediately impressed by the power of the gun which is advertised as 495 FPS, far exceeding the single shot, spring loaded Airsoft gun I bought awhile back.

I then flipped the selector to full auto mode and squeezed the trigger.  I was amazed at the fire speed for this “toy” gun.  It ripped into the cardboard box, quickly filling it with dozens of holes in a few seconds.  Damn this thing was no joke.  Not only is it powerful, it’s pretty accurate as well.  Later Cindy was in the backyard picking off small targets from 90-100 feet pretty easily.

I have no doubt that if we have an opportunity to use the Airsoft gun against a chicken predator it will quickly be running/flying the other direction.  I saw some videos of dumb kids shooting each other with similar guns with less FPS and they had real nasty, painful welts as a reward.  Check out the video if you want to see what it looks/sounds like when you squeeze the trigger.

At the end of the video I reiterated my viewpoint on real assault weapons which may seem hypocritical since I bought a toy version of one.  I would never suggest that the Americans should be denied the right to own guns.  My problem is with the availability of weapons that are clearly for offensive versus defensive intentions.

Yesterday I discovered Virtual Box, a free virtual machine product from Oracle.  The reason I discovered it was after I wasted a couple days trying to get a virtual Windows 10 machine running on my Windows 7 workstation utilizing Microsoft’s VirtualPC.  When I would try to run the Windows 10 install it would bomb out saying I had insufficient memory and CPU power even though I allocated virtual resources far above the minimum requirements.

After a lot of frustration I found other people did what I was looking to do easily with Virtual Box that evidently doesn’t have the same limitations.  I downloaded and installed the product in a few minutes and a few minutes later I had the Windows 10 installation successfully running.  If you are looking for a flexible and powerful VM solution definitely give Virtual Box a look.

I woke up this morning to see that Britain voted to officially leave the EU which is sort of a big deal.  It was a divisive issue very reminiscent to American politics of the last 16 years.  Both sides thought the other were idiots more or less.  My thoughts as an outsider are mixed.  In theory the EU seems like a good thing, free trade between nations with minimal restrictions should be good for an economy.  The standardized currency, the euro, that the majority of EU countries use was again an attempt to promote trade free of exchange rate differences.

Well the downside for Britain has been a loss of direct control in other areas. Being a member of the EU meant some important decisions that affected citizens of the country were being made by non-elected EU officials based out of Brussels.  Some of the most polarizing of these is the requirement for Britain to accept immigrants based on EU requirements which has created a very American-like resentment of these immigrants being granted benefits in the generous British system.

The vote to leave certainly was not a landslide, winning 52% of the vote.  Shortly after the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron who was on the pro-EU side announced he would be stepping down in the fall in a very gracious speech.  The process to leave the EU will be a slow one but it will be interesting to see if it proves to be a smart move down the road.  Britain’s exit could give legs to movements in other countries to leave the EU such as France.

This weekend I will be busy.  I purchased the 8 channel security DVR to upgrade the surveillance of the coop/backyard so I want to get it up and running.  I also would like to take a harder look at electric fence options although that will be a longer term project.  I still have the raw materials in my big shed to build the cover over my wi-fi water sprinkler controller and water equipment but I think I need to wait to get that done until the stitches are out of my shoulder.

On the fun front hopefully Cindy and I can get out to see the new Independence Day.  I was a big fan of the original.

So Cindy’s daughter picked up Tank last night.  Tank was in the backyard playing with Sadie for awhile before they left.  It was the first time I saw Sadie running around at full speed with another dog since the last time she was with my dad’s dogs.  Ever since Nicki lost her mobility Sadie really didn’t have a playmate to run with.  It brought a smile to my face to see them both running around the yard.

The departure of Tank brought tears to Cindy’s face as I knew it would.  She really loves Tank and liked having him around for company the last 10 or 11 days.  Sadie will have to step up and fill the void.

The chickens made it through another day intact but both Cindy and I have a terrible sense of paranoia about another potential attack.  We both spend a lot of time looking out the rear windows at the fence line, scanning for any movement.  Our Airsoft AK-47 arrives today which will allow us to spray any potential predators with high speed plastic projectiles at a rapid rate.  I am also considering upgrading the 4 camera security dvr in the coop to an 8 camera model which will allow me to put pretty much the entire back yard under surveillance.  I also still plan to look more at electrifying the rear fence line to provide more predator deterrence. No matter what we do, anything short of encasing the back yard in a bubble will fall short of giving us 100% peace of mind.

So we got through the day yesterday with all 10 chickens intact.  Cindy kept them in the coop later in the morning and we put them to bed about an hour earlier than they would on their own.  I might be going to Tractor Supply this weekend to look at their electric fence equipment.  I could buy everything I need on Amazon but I’d like to see some of the stuff in person before pulling the trigger.  The dollar expense would be less than $200.  The installation time would be more costly.

So last night was more than likely the last we will have with Tank in the house.  Enough time has passed that he should be able to go back to his normal environment with his brother, Bowser.  Although the first few days were a bit of an adjustment period, overall it has been fun having Tank around.  His personality is very endearing and his appearance is cute in funny sort of way.  The biggest negative has been the sleep penalty both Cindy and I have paid but even that has gotten less severe the last few days.

I know Cindy really loves having him around and I know she is going to be sad to see him go home.  Luckily we have Sadie for the next 10 days so it should help to fill the void.  Of course I’ll miss him too and feel badly he won’t get quite the same level of attention he has been accustomed to the last couple weeks.  He’s a good boy.

I got my new coffee maker set up in my office today.  Even though I am using the same coffee as normal, it tastes significantly better.  I suppose the fact that I did no real maintenance on the old coffee maker in the dozen or so years I had it might make a difference.

The DVR I set up in the house a few weeks ago is offline.  For a week or two I started to notice it was getting increasingly noisy.  I at first was afraid it was the hard drive but it later became apparent it was a fan, more than likely the processor cooling fan.  Since the box is only 4 months old I wanted to get it covered under warranty.

I have been less than thrilled with the support from Night Owl, the company that made the DVR.  I called and sat on hold for at least 15 minutes,  I was then without choice redirected to voicemail where I was told to leave a message after which I was hung up on.  Someone did call me back about 6 hours later and took my info, indicating Night Owl should drop ship me a new box, however the RMA was handled by a different group.  I now had to wait for that group to contact me to actually process the claim, stupid.   As of now I still have not had that secondary contact.  I have a feeling I am going to have a very frustrating experience trying to chase down the warranty repair.

So as soon as I got home last night I went out in the backyard with Sadie to look at the aftermath of yesterdays coyote attack on our chickens.  Seeing the large collection of feathers near the rear of the coop made me sick to my stomach.  The trail of feathers lead towards the east side of our property where the coyote evidently jumped the fence.

I went outside the fence line with Sadie hoping to find more evidence of what direction he/she went.  I saw a few feathers  on the path I just had mowed leading towards the back of the property but that trail died out after maybe 25 yards. I was hoping if the coyote den was nearby Sadie and I would be able to hear/see something.  A few times I heard sounds that in my mind almost sounded like Cocoa although I knew that was just wishful thinking.

After striking out on foot I took my search to the air, bringing out my DJI Phantom.  I did big circles in the area around the back of our property, once again hoping to scare the coyotes out of their hiding place if it was nearby.  I carefully reviewed the 9 minute video looking for anything significant but once again saw nothing.

Last night we put the chickens back into their run earlier than normal as we read that if a coyote does hunt during daylight it is typically going to be closer to dawn or dusk.  We also plan to not let them out as early in the morning to again avoid additional opportunity for the coyote.

I spent some considerable time educating myself regarding electric fence options.  There are a lot of options and it seems most systems are designed to electrify fence lines MUCH longer than what we have.  There are also different fence energizer options.  Along with varying power (shock) levels, you can power them via AC power, a 12 volt battery, or even stand alone solar.

My initial assumption was the best place to put a hot wire would be across the top of the fence posts.  However in a situation where the animal is jumping a fence, if it hits the hot wire while not grounded it has no effect whatsoever.  I read about another configuration that may be more useful where you mount the hot wire about a foot off the ground on the outside of the fence.  The wire goes on insulators that hold the wire a few inches away from the fence.

Typically a predator like a wolf or coyote will pace back and forth by a fence line looking for it’s weakest point.  With this configuration the animal would get zapped before it even thinks about jumping which in many cases is enough to make it steer clear.  So I think for maximum protection a hot wire down low and across the top of the fence line would be best.

This morning I also made another addition to our non-lethal arsenal, buying a high powered, battery powered Airsoft gun.  It is a high end gun with semi and full automatic modes.  In full auto mode it can unload bb’s at a rate of nearly 10 per second traveling at 400-500 FPS.  It should be a very effective way to turn around any potential chicken predators if they show their face when either of us are around. Hopefully our efforts will be successful.  If we would lose more hens they might just have to be locked up for their own safety.

Cindy and I got to watch this week’s Game of Thrones last night.  Wow that was an INCREDIBLE episode featuring the death of a character that I was as happy to see bite the dust as when Geoffrey did.  It is just an epic show.  This weeks episode was as good as a full feature film.

So I got a message from Cindy to call her which is generally never a good thing.  As she was crying, she told me she couldn’t find Cocoa but did find a large collection of feathers behind the coop.  When she sent me a picture of the feathers I knew it was not going to be a good scenario.  There were a lot of them and a trail leading towards the back of the yard.  It seemed pretty obvious one of our chickens was killed by a predator, the question was what kind and how.

My first suspicion was a coyote although typically they are nocturnal predators.  A couple weeks ago our neighbor called me one morning saying he saw a coyote in the back of his property that he scared away. He said it was headed towards our yard.  Of course this news made Cindy and I nervous but we said the chickens have a lot of spaces to hide around the property, thinking that would hopefully be adequate to keep predators at bay combined with our fence.  Unfortunately research showed us that a 4 foot fence is nothing for a coyote to jump over.

So based on where the feathers were I told Cindy that we may be able to see something on one of the coop cameras.  Cindy started reviewing the footage and found a very tragic event right around 7:15AM where you can see Cocoa being carried off by a fcking coyote.  It was a tragic confirmation of one of Cindy and my worst fears when it came to the chickens.

Long time blog readers may recall how much we were affected when our original three chickens, Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles were killed one night by a raccoon that figured out how to open the side doors of our original chicken tractor.  It was their death that made me spend so much time, money and effort constructing the new chicken housing to be pretty much predator proof, which it is, the only problem is the hens are only in there at night.

During the day we have left the birds free range pretty much from sunrise to sunset.  Our success with doing so for the past year or so may have lulled us into a false sense of security.  The realist in me knew this was always a possibility.  Pretty much every source you can find will tell you that if you let your chickens free range it is not a matter of if but when you will lose some to predators. As you can imagine, I feel guilty and very sad that despite both my and Cindy’s efforts to give the hens a safe environment we failed, even if it is just the course of nature taking place.

So now the question is what do we do.  The safest option of course is to keep the chickens contained  in their safe haven 24/7 but I have never been a fan of that approach.  I always felt that the birds having a high quality of life trumped a life of captivity, even if they are kept in the relatively large confines of their coop and outdoor run. I could attempt to live trap the coyote but from what I read they are very tough to trap in a cage like I used to catch the raccoons.  I could try to run an electric wire around the top of the fence but I’m not sure how effective it would be.  I read situations where coyotes cleared a five foot fence (mine is four) without touching it. I could somehow expand onto the outdoor run area of the chicken coop but nothing will match the freedom they have now of course.

Usually in most situations it does not take me very long to evaluate a situation and come up with a viable solution.  This is one of those times that solution is not clear to me.  All I know is Cocoa is gone and the predator that did it is surely going to try again so something needs to change before that happens.

So on Saturday morning I felt I needed to get the mower deck on the tractor put back together.  The grass was already at a shaggy state and in need of mowing.  I was a bit worried about doing the work with the stitches in my shoulder but most of the tension and pulling I felt in the area had faded by that point.

I had bought the stuff to replace the spindle and pulley on the other side of the deck as well.  I decided mid-repair to not bother doing the second pulley since it was was working just fine.  I had a number of challenges putting stuff back together, mostly due from a week passing from when I took it apart.  The time passed was enough for the details of how it all went together to become fuzzy.  Multiple times I pulled the SD card out and reviewed the week old video to remind me of what went where.

It took awhile but I finally got everything back together and functional.  Processing the video I shot of the repair was actually more problematic than the repair itself.  I had to make no less than 15 attempts over two days until I finally got the video ripped.  For some reason Camtasia was bombing out during the process and falsely reporting certain files as being corrupt.  I finally had to do a tag team process to get it produced, doing part of it in Camtasia and the last part in Movie Maker.

We did a run to Rural King Saturday morning even though it wasn’t really necessary.  It was an excuse to let Tank walk around the aisles and have fun.

Saturday afternoon I gave my repair an extensive test.  I decided to mow pretty much EVERYTHING, taking advantage of the lack of standing water on the property.  In addition to mowing the area around the house, I mowed the large back yard area including the parts of the property outside the fence line.  In total I was out there closing in on 4 hours, sort of crazy.  I did notice that my repair seemed to make a dramatic difference in mowing performance.  I have no idea how long the pulley was stripped but the end result of it would be the blade spinning at less than it’s intended speed which meant less cutting power.  I was able to rip through the high grass, in most cases not needing to make a second pass like I have been become accustomed to.

I was worried that I may have torn my stitches when I was moving the 200 and 300 pound tire out of the way to mow.  Both tires were heavier than normal due to the standing water laying in both of them.  Ironically the incident happened when I was trying to lift the lighter of the two tires.  I initially tried to lift the tire just with my right arm to protect the stitches on my left shoulder.  Well as I lifted the tire started to fall towards the left and I instinctively grabbed it with my left hand.  The moment I did I felt a pain and stretch in the incision area.  I was seriously worried I tore some of the stitches loose.  I was relieved when I looked in the mirror later and saw they all seemed to be intact.

Saturday night we stayed home and watched Everest, my latest Netflex rental.  It is a true story about a bad tragedy on Mount Everest where a number of climbers died after being trapped by a massive storm.  The movie did an incredible job of depicting just how harsh and unforgiving the conditions are on the mountain.  Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that sort of torture is beyond my sphere of logic.  Since it was a true story that means that happy endings are not guaranteed as in man-made story lines.  I did find it very difficult to hear some of the dialogue with the repeated scenes involving horrible weather.  It’s a B+ flick even without hearing everything.

On Sunday morning I wanted to get out and run, not wanting to lose the momentum I had from the prior week where I ran three times.  Cindy was feeling lousy after Tank kept her up pretty much all night with his placement in the bed.  I told her I would just go to the track and get a quick run in solo.  I was literally solo as nobody else was at the track the entire time I was there. I didn’t wear a watch but I felt like I ran at a similar pace as I have been in the mid to low 9’s.  By the time I was done with the 13 laps I was soaked from the humidity.  It felt good to get the mileage in although I didn’t feel particularly good doing it.

When I got back we headed out after I took a quick shower.  We stopped at Ali’s place to pick up Sadie who is staying with us for a couple weeks while Ali is away on a trip.  We brought Tank with.  He had a blast going through the four dog toy baskets pulling out as many toys as possible.

Since it was Father’s Day I was hoping to mostly take it easy during the day.  Of course I am not a father in the traditional sense but I am the closest thing the chickens, Tuki and Sadie have to a dad.  I was pretty successful, only doing a few chores during the day.  I bought myself a Father’s Day present at Home Depot later in the afternoon, a 20V DeWalt impact driver which should help me when high torque is necessary.

Last night we watched 13 Hours, the movie about Benghazi.  Perhaps I was just really poorly informed but I knew nothing about the attack on the secret CIA operation that was a mile from the embassy.  I also had no idea that soldiers from that operation were at the embassy beating back the initial attack.  The movie was an eye opener on several levels.

It is obvious that the embassy was woefully understaffed from a security standpoint.  I also didn’t understand why the “safe room” wasn’t all that safe.  That thing should have been air tight and bomb shelter tough.  The movie also depicted why it has to be maddening for soldiers to operate in the region.  There is no easy way to tell the bad guys from the good guys.  You never know if the guy smiling at you has a gun under his robe, ready to turn your lights out.

The movie was long, dramatic, and a sad reminder of the tragedy of war.  The lessons it teaches just never seem to be learned for long.  I give the movie a very somber A rating.

I tell the story about how a call from the NPS on Christmas Eve regarding a 90 second YouTube video lead to almost a $1000 citation. Although I had no prior knowledge of the national park drone ban when I flew my drone I do understand why it was enacted after reading up on some of the dangerous/stupid actions a small handful of other drone pilots performed in Yellowstone Park. What I struggle to understand is why the national park service decided after the fact prosecution via YouTube was a good utilization of taxpayer funds and NPS resources. I also wonder why no subjective/situational judgement seems to be utilized in a incident like this. Finally, I really don’t understand why it was necessary to make the initial contact with me on Christmas Eve, something most would realize was unnecessary and inappropriate. Listen to my story and feel free to add your feedback below. I strongly advocate drone pilots adhere to any regulations/restrictions to flights where applicable.

I just had a chunk of flesh cut off my left deltoid, find out why. http://duf.net

So this week the presidential primary season came to a close with Hilary winning the Washington DC primary.  Although Bernie has still not formally conceded it seems like he has committed to helping the democrats win the election as opposed to him running under a third party which would fragment the vote.

Bernie Sanders has accomplished an incredible amount during his presidential run, going from being an outsider that was an afterthought to the American public to a game changing candidate that generated the most excitement, the biggest crowds, and the biggest upsets.  The fact that he did all of this with grassroots fundraising that was 100% devoid of SUPER PAC mega-dollars such as what funds the Hilary Clinton battleship is amazing.

Regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing with some of his policy ideas, the one thing that you can’t dispute is his honesty and desire for the greater good.  I have never seen a candidate that I found to be more likeable or in politics for all the right reasons.  It would have been amazing if he would have been able to secure the nomination but old school politics and big money made that nearly impossible due to the corrupt super delegate system which makes absolutely no sense to me.

I can only hope that the support he generated turns on the light bulb for the political establishment.  I only wish he would have thrown his hat into the presidential ring a decade or two ago.  Even if Bernie would have won the nomination his odds of being able to implement many of his ideas would have gone nowhere unless somehow term limits in Congress were implemented to get the career politicians out of the way. Fresh ideas could actually be nurtured and flourish instead of being sprayed with Monsanto lobbied weed killer to die on the vine.

Somebody brought my attention to some false flag conspiracy regarding the Orlando shootings.  It revolves around a video clip of two men carrying a third guy with red shoes that has a bandana around his thigh covering a supposed gunshot wound.  Some websites went over this clip with a fine tooth comb, pointing out that the men were carrying the “injured” person towards the club and not away from it.  Another clip showed that once the two men thought they were no longer on camera they sat the “injured” man down and were laughing.

The point I seemed to be getting from this was the shooting was “staged” in order to build more support for gun control measures.  Or to further simplify, “Blame Obama!”.  I think there is a far more obvious and simple explanation.  These were three assholes that thought it would be funny to act like they were heroically carrying away an injured patron for the cameras.  In this social media addicted society, staging of things happens all the time with the intent of personal gain.  Calling it a “false flag” is pretty idiotic in my opinion.

This is not to say that there is not legitimate deception going on about the incident.  I have heard multiple accounts that there was at least two shooters involved and a third person blocking an exit door to maximize casualties.  Who knows if we will ever get the 100% truth.  In a related story, did you know for about $100 you can easily transform any AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. Wow that’s neat.

Cindy and I played some more Overwatch last night.  She has found a new character that she likes to play, D. Va, a little tiny girl that controls a serious pink mech.  We played several team matches last night and had a lot of fun.  If you ever enjoyed first person shooters during your lifetime you NEED to try Overwatch.  It is such a good game.

Today out of the blue my coffee maker at work died.  For some odd reason I felt a small degree of loss in it’s passing.  When I bought the $10 small appliance over a decade ago I never expected it to last long enough to literally make me thousands of cups of coffee over the years.

I will be replacing it with an equally low budget Mr Coffee unit that will hopefully carry me through till retirement age.

This weekend I need to be a little conservative with my physical activity due to my stitches.  I still would like to try to get a run in and I really need to get the mower deck back in a functional state.  My box of replacement parts for it arrived yesterday.

I also received the mile marker signs I ordered for the timing business yesterday.  They will help add a degree of professionalism to events I am involved in as well as getting my branding out in front a lot of eyeballs.  Although I am not interested in aggressively pushing or growing the amount of race timing I am doing, the events I am involved with will get my best effort to make sure they are run well.

I had my skin cancer surgery yesterday starting bright and early at 8:30AM.  This was to be another “mohs” procedure, something I have had a couple times before.  The doctor cuts a perimeter out around the cancerous area and then tests the cells on the edge to make sure he got it all.  If not you get cut on again until the test is clear.  It’s not a fun procedure and can take awhile since it takes 30-60 minutes to get the test results each time.

Ironically the most painful part of the surgery is normally the injection of the local pain numbing which burns pretty intensely as it goes in.  It didn’t take long into the procedure until my embarrassing, excessive sweating reflex kicked in.  This is something that happens to me pretty consistently in a medical scenario that involves me getting poked or cut on.  It only took a few minutes until I could feel the beads of sweat building on my back and few minutes longer until it started to drip off me.  The nurse asked me a couple times if I was ok.  I assured her I was and this was normal reaction for me.

The numbing solution did it’s job as I couldn’t feel the cuts being made on my shoulder but I certainly could hear them.  At times it almost sounded like a box cutter going through cardboard.  I dared not look at the wound as it was being worked on.  Seeing a bloody hole in my skin would have probably kicked my adverse reaction to near pass out level.

So after round one of the cutting I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for results.  I brought my Warcraft book to read to help me pass the time.  After around a half hour the nurse gave me the bad news that more cutting was necessary.  I returned to the cutting floor and had another sweaty session under the knife. By the time the doctor was done this time I had a circle bigger than the size of a half dollar cut out of my deltoid, thankfully the test came back clear this time around.

They said they would be able to stitch me up around 11, some 90 minutes away.  I used the time to go drive to a near by Dunkin Donuts and read a couple more chapters of my book.   When I returned I had a short wait before they called me in to close up the wound.  More numbing was injected before the fun began.  I literally felt like a human football getting it’s laces installed.  I could feel the skin being pulled tight by the thick thread.  The sound of it was even more unsettling.  Again I kept my gaze firmly directed at the wall, I had no interest in seeing the visual that accompanied the sound.

Finally the stitching was complete.  The nurse applied a pressure bandage and I was sent on my way.  The doctor said I should limit my upper body exercise until a week after the stitches are removed to be safe which means a total of three weeks, a long time but I expected it based on past experience.

At first the surgical area didn’t feel like much thanks to the numbing effect lingering on.  As it faded the weird feelings of tightness, stinging, and burning came rolling in, again, as expected based on my prior experiences.  I tried to find arm positions that minimized the pulling on the stitches, letting my arm hang in a normal position actually was not ideal.  I felt rather tired most of the day and even took a brief nap after reading some of my book.  I did make sure I got something productive done, replacing the battery on my Neato and documenting it for the world.

I have had Cindy playing a little bit of Overwatch on my account.  You may recall awhile ago she was playing Diablo with me.  Well I was surprised that she really liked playing Overwatch.  Last night I set her up with the game on her own pc so we could play simultaneously in a group together.  We played a bunch of games and she did well for somebody new to the game.  There is a TON of stuff going on simultaneously in the game so it takes some time and practice to get acclimated.  I’m hoping she wants to play more with me in the future.

We are still dog sitting Tank.  He seems to be quite content hanging with us although I am sure he misses his normal surroundings and playmate Bowser.  Tank seems 100% fine at this point but the concern is roughhouse play could damage the stitches in his nose, so I don’t know how long he will be hanging around.  I know Cindy likes having him there so I know she is in no hurry to give him back. He certainly is a cute little fella.