Christmas and the holidays is always a special time of year. We think and act on helping others this time of year and we really should do that throughout the year. But this is a special time, always has and always will.
I think about our military being away from their homes, family and friends and can’t help but reflect on my own time when I was away doing what they are now. Different place, same time, same issues.
We had our mission and that kept us busy, but when we had some down time thoughts of home swelled each of us with the memories and the “what are they doing at home” thoughts. We would sit around drinking our drinks and telling our personal home stories.
One thing I recall was that it didn’t matter what the person’s background was, it didn’t matter what their religious beliefs were, it didn’t matter whether they liked other guys or girls or if they were attracted to the opposite sex, it didn’t matter if they were 18 years old or 50 years old, it didn’t matter if they had been in a lot of trouble in their past, it didn’t matter if they didn’t have many friends…each one had their favorite remembrance of Christmas and what they or their family did to celebrate the Birth Of Christ.
Some were so poor they only received gifts that were either hand me downs or hand made. And those guys were the most grateful when and if they received a new pair of shoes. Most grew up in average families with lots of friends and plenty to eat. The stories were always interesting and very telling about America and the way we have all been brought up to care.
None of the guys in my “outfit” had much money and I guess that was one reason they were there in the first place. We were sort of a family of misfits, each with our own way of doing things and we became pretty good friends.
I wish each and every one of our soldiers, no matter where they are in the world a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year….2013 is going to be a very good year for us all!
If you are like me you will go through a pair of hip waders or chest waders about every three or so years. In the past, if the lower portions of the boots are still good and don’t leak, I will cut off the top part of the boot and save the lower portions for sloshing around in ankle deep water or snow or maybe for irrigating. They are really handy for doing those sorts of things.
Well last year my brother had a pair of hip boots go bad on him and I asked if I could have them. He has bigger feet than I do and I thought maybe the foot portion of my boots would go inside the foot portion of his boots. I’ll tell you why.
Last ice fishing season caught me off guard. When it finally came on it was very clear ice and very slick ice as well. Fall down slick as a matter of fact and as I age I can’t afford to be falling. So during the season I broke out the pocket book and bought a pair of ice gripping slip on things that stretch and go over my winter boots. They work wonders. But, if I didn’t have the kind of cash to lay out for that kind of thing I would have been SOL if you know what I mean.
So, with my brothers old boots, I cut the bottom of the foot part off with ice cleats in mind.
Today I saw where one of the local lakes was frozen enough that people were out on it fishing! YEEEHAAAAA! But again it is that very slick, no snow on top of ice and here again ice spikes of some sort are going to be a necessary item.
Back home I pulled out the old cut off boots and went to work.
I’m a scrounger most of the time and I had saved up some of those nylon straps that have a male and a female end to them and when you want to tie something down or wrap something up, you need a good strap to do it. I figured those straps would be just the ticket for strapping some old boot bottoms to the bottoms of my ice fishing winter boots.
I first cut some strap width slits in strategic spots on each side of each of the boot bottoms (feet). See the picture.
Notice how the slits are cut where the boot is reinforced? That should give them some strength and afford them to last a few seasons. The strap on the toe end will go across the toe of the winter boot, while the one in the middle will actually go around behind the back of the winter boot.
Once I had both of the feet loaded with the straps, I cut the straps off to accommodate winter boots of various sizes and/or tightness’ of how the straps are going to be hooked down to the winter boot. If you take on this task to make your own be sure and leave some slack in the strap inside the foot so that the bottom of the winter boots can set right on top of the inside of the foot.
Finally, I drilled some regular old grabber screws straight down through the bottom of the foot and out the bottom. After all something has to grip the ice right? Today I only had 1 1/2 inch screws and they seem to be too long. I’ll change them to one inch before I actually use them, but for this story I had to show you.
The longer screws actually look like they will work in the heal portion just fine, it’s the front ones that will need to be replaced.
Now let’s examine some of the details and I’ll explain why I did what I did.
The strap that will go around the back of the Winter Boot is placed higher than the one at the toe. That is to allow the winter boot some movement in the foot even though the strap itself is resting right on top of the inside of the foot. The toe strap is cut right at the inside of the foot so that the winter boot will set right on top of it and the bottom of the foot at the same time. Notice too I cut the foot with two little tabs at the back side. Those are to facilitate pulling up on the foot, making it easier to get over the winter boot.
Number of screws? Well this is still in the experimental stage, but I put three in the heal and 5 in the toe area. My thoughts are that when you step out on the ice, your heal will hit first and you don’t want a whole bunch of screw points hitting the ice which might cause you to actually slip worse. And with slipping in mind, you don’t want too few screw points in contact with the ice at the front of the foot, as you extent your stride and cause your rearward foot to slip backward. I intentionally put one screw in the middle and forward of the other four screws in the toe end.
So, without actually testing these on real ice, I think they are going to work just fine. I hope to get out and try them just after Christmas, like next Wednesday. I’ll post up the results positive or negative. As I was putting them together I thought of other positive things about these cleats. The biggest thing I thought of was that they will offer another layer between the bottom of my foot and the cold ice underneath. It should help to keep my feet a little warmer.
No alarm was set last night because…..well because there wasn’t supposed to be a sun this morning. I recently read where (supposedly) NASA had predicted a three day/night of darkness as the universe was aligning to block the sun light from hitting the earth. Pretty wild imagination by someone.
And as usual, the hoaxters really went out on a good long limb with that one.
Meanwhile some 2,000 years before Christ, the Myans were looking up and one of them decided that the earth was born through an opening in the Milky Way, a hole among all those stars. They must have been up all night eating peyote buttons and drinking weird juices because whenever I look up at the Milky Way there isn’t any possible hole in and among all those stars. What if the Myans would have had computers and the internet?
We live in a great time, where we can share information at the drop of a hat, better yet at the drop of a key stroke (hit enter). It is a great time but people can abuse it quickly and they often do.
I like to scan the internet to find strange things that people are doing. And trust me with this one, they are trying all sorts of strange things. Even making stuff up and going to great lengths to get us to believe them…fire starting using an orange is one…..and since I fell for that one I do a whole lot of investigating before I post up on here about it.
I have to tell you another story, completely un-related.
I just bought myself a Christmas present, a new digital camera. This little baby is just what I have needed for a long time. It is dust proof, crush proof, drop resistant (proof to 5 ft) and water tight. It can be used to take pictures underwater down to 40 ft.! I will not be swimming that deep, but I plan on taking some pictures underwater with it.
On the dream hunt it got a little dusty at times and my old camera, which is a good one I might add, started sounding a bit like a gravel crusher when I zoomed in on something. So this new little guy will do me well. I have needed a camera that can take the abuse I give out. It even came with a life jacket in case I drop it out of the boat.
It can take pictures out to infinity, just like every camera can, but it can also focus on something as close as 1 centimeter! That is right on the deck, trust me! I shot a picture of the back of my hand and then cropped the picture and you can see that I could use some hand lotion.
I’m just kidding of course, men don’t use hand lotion.
Pentax Optio WG2, 16 mp, 5X zoom and it even takes HD movies! Works down to 14 degrees F. too, so you will see it out on the ice! I’m pretty excited.
So, I’m actually very glad that the world didn’t end yesterday, I have some pictures to take.
Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy! Today is THE day of days and I know two guys who can really dig into this day…..me and Wapiti Dung!
The National Holiday today is a very special one in my mind and anyone who knows my fetish will understand.
National Flashlight Day!!!! Shine on big boy…let the lumens light the way! To go along with that it is also National French Fried Shrimp Day AND National Hamburger Day! How can one day be so filled with joy?
It is going to be so bright outside today, the sun just might stay home.
OH DEAR! It is also the end of the Mayan Calendar day…..doom, doom, doom.
So let me add right now that I declare among all the other National Holiday events of the day….I declare it National My-An Day! Of course it will only be for this one day only…like a midnight madness sale. Let’s hear it folks….just say “my an” over and over and over all day…there was a movie out once with a bunch of seagulls in it saying that word, I’m sure in preparation for this day! Only in seagull brogue it sounded like “mine, mine, mine”…..
National Flashlight Day! I thought it would never come. Better than Christmas for sure and I’m going to shine all my flashlights at the same time.
Trust me when I say that this is not all the flashlights I have. Every vehicle has at least one in the jocky box, the toy has one in the saddle bags and in the tool compartment, my hunting fanny pack as two in it just in case I’m caught out after dark, my work bench in the garage has one hanging in a strategic spot and no doubt I have forgotten where some others are. I love flashlights….pick me, pick me!
Looking at the picture above you sure can tell which flashlights have the Duracell batteries in them….dull yellow light. I’ll have to change them over to EverReady batteries.
Let’s recap what day it is today…National Flashlight Day, National Hamburger Day, National French Fried Shrimp Day, National My-An Day….oh and I almost forgot…It’s Fat Ducks Birthday! Happy Birthday Fat Duck!
Fat Duck! Stomp your feet…. Fat Duck! Stomp your feet… Fat Duck! Stomp your feet!…Fat Duck! Stomp your feet…Fat Duck!
Fat Duck in Spanish…according to Baby Boy on the Dream Hunt is “Gordo Pato”…I just thought I would throw that in for fun.
Now listen to this idea…Take Fat Duck out to an all you can eat place, have a cake with about 80 flashlights stuck in it and enjoy all you can eat fried shrimp and burgers. Then after the song…Happy Birthday to you….Gordo Pato….. everyone starts saying “My-an, my-an, my-an” until the management throws you all out. What a celebration it would be!
Sherry and I were trying to decide what RSVP actually meant we searched the web and found that is was French for :
R.S.V.P. stands for a French phrase, “répondez, s’il vous plaît,” which means “please reply.” The person sending the invitation would like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? Etiquette rules followed in most Western cultures require that if you receive a formal, written invitation, you should reply promptly, perhaps that same day. For hosts who are planning a dinner party, a wedding or a reception, this is important from a practical point of view, because they need to know how many people to count on and how much food and drink to buy. More important, though, is the simple courtesy of responding to someone who was nice enough to invite you, even if it is to say that you regret that you will not be able to attend.
Well in todays language RSVP is replaced with WYFLMK.
I just got the word that it was alright for me to show these big old buck pictures taken by Mike Bass. These bad boys moved into where we were hunting right after the season ended. I think you will like them!
Very nice pictures Mike! Thank you a million for letting me post them up on here. My buddies will love them! What an awesome place to take pictures.
Two Tennessee Rednecks, Bubba and Jim Bob, are sitting at their favorite bar, drinking beer. Bubba turns to Jim Bob and says, “You know, I’m tired of going through life without an education. Tomorrow I think I’ll go to the Community College, and sign up for some classes.” Jim Bob thinks it’s a good idea, and the two leave.
The next day, Bubba goes down to the college and meets the Dean of Admissions, who signs him up for the four basic classes: Math, English, History, and Logic. “Logic?” Bubba says. “What’s that?”
The dean says, “I’ll show you. Do you own a weedeater?”
“Yeah.”
“Then logically speaking, because you own a weedeater, I think that you would have a yard.”
“That’s true, I do have a yard.”
“I’m not done,” the dean says. “Because you have a yard, I think logically that you would have a house.”
“Yes, I do have a house.”
“And because you have a house, I think that you might logically have a family.”
“I have a family.”
“I’m not done yet. Because you have a family, then logically you must have a wife.”
“Yes, I do have a wife.”
“And because you have a wife, then logic tells me you must be a heterosexual.”
“I am a heterosexual. That’s amazing, you were able to find out all of that because I have a weedeater!”
Excited to take the class now, Bubba shakes the Dean’s hand and leaves to go meet Jim Bob at the bar. He tells Jim Bob about his classes, how he is signed up for Math, English, History, and Logic. “Logic?” Jim Bob says, “What’s that?”
Bubba says, “I’ll show you. Do you have a weedeater?”
I just have to put my 2 cents down on this subject.
The incident in Connecticut was horrific to say the least. The worst kind of thing to happen in a grade school in American history. I came to tears as I read and continue to read the stories and watch the videos being published. Truly an extremely sad and awful thing to have had happen. I offer my deepest sympathy to the people involved in every way possible, from the victims, their families, the close friends, the surviving teachers and others in the school at the time, the dispatchers and emergency personnel… the list goes on and on and on.
Closer to home Sherry works for Smith and Edwards, a local all purpose type of store catering mostly to outdoors things. One of the long time employees of that store had his Granddaughter killed in that awful event and she will be buried this weekend here in Ogden. When it gets that close it is even more heart wrenching.
BUT…..
The healing process will take a long, long time for those very close to the incident and we have to be sympathetic to them and help where ever we can. For most of us we are too far removed to be of much help in that regard. So the best we can do is be vigilant in our effort to be the eyes and ears to try and stop another tragic event such as this one. AND trying to stop such an occurrence from happening does NOT include increasing gun control laws, banning gun sales, at any level, or destroying the weapons we currently have in our personal possession.
We have upper level government officials trying to put a stop on the sale of certain gun types…this is WRONG! Just because that type of weapon was used in this attack does not mean the rifle type was the problem. The problem was the man behind it. He could have easily been using a knife and done the same damage. Do we ban all knives?
This man stole the guns and ammo he used. He killed his own mother before he went to that school. He broke into the school to do it, the door was not unlocked for him to enter. He was a sick man! Beyond help in my opinion. Why he did what he did will never be known. But, again in my opinion, he had mentally decided he needed to do something that would put his name up in lights. Something that had never been done in his entire life. To shoot himself in his own basement was not how he wanted to be known. He needed to do something bigger and badder than the last big bad deal. And unfortunately he succeeded.
It is now in our hands to stop the ridiculous thinking by our government leaders that is tending them to initiate laws banning the manufacture, sale and/or distribution of certain gun types and the ammunition needed to make them operate. It is our job to let our media people know that they too are part of the problem. If the newspapers and news casters would change the way they report this type of tragedy, the next person thinking along those lines would not try and one-up the event that just took place. It is our job to let the people opting to drop the gun and ammunition sales in their classifieds ads know that we are a people who know how to control ourselves and our choice of what we want to purchase and use.
Right now the anti gun people really think they have all the aces in the game. They are playing up the crying and the horror of the event that just took place. They are letting their political power guys know that they helped get them there and they will use that against them should they not push the issue of stronger gun legislation or the banning of certain rifle types.
Along with that, we, ourselves are falling into the trap of “guns will be banned, ammunition manufacturers will be bought by anti gun people and not be made anymore” and so we are hitting the gun sales stores by the thousands, paying prices never before heard of for these guns, stripping the shelves of the ammunition even if we don’t have a gun that will shoot it. We are standing in line at the pawn shops hoping that when we finally do get to the counter there will be a gun left for us to buy. And here again we will pay an exorbitant price and not even know if it will fire a shell or not.
We need to stop…right here…right now! Take a deep breath, evaluate the situation and get on with our lives. The kids going to school need to think more about learning the lessons being taught and not about carrying in a gun to protect themselves and their buddies. Or worse yet, staying away from school because they think a situation like the last one will happen in their school.
Also, in all fairness to the kids and families in Newtown Connecticut, put back up your Christmas lights and get the tree back out and decorate it. Christmas is a time meant as a “new beginning”. Say an extra prayer and get back to your lives.
For us old people not in tune with what the younger generation is up to especially when discussing texting. I have often wondered how they can click those keys and suddenly begin laughing at the return text and then one day I looked over a shoulder and saw that they were not spelling out real words in most cases, but that they has some sort of secret code they were using. It made me wonder also just how everyone out there had discovered this code and were using it. How did the word spread so quickly?
Last Christmas Sherry and I ran into these little “code” books that told us what things like “lol” meant, or “lmao” stood for…that list goes on.
I discovered this web site that will help us all and I hope if you are one of the minority, like me, who don’t know the secret code that this site will help you to better understand what someone is saying if you ever get a text with all the garbeldygoop written in it. It might take you a while to figure it out in order to respond back, but at least you will be able to.
http://www.all-acronyms.com/cat/9
Put it in your favorites or bookmarks or whatever it is called where you can click on it and look for the sites you like to visit on occation. This one might get used a lot!
If you read my earlier post about the 4100 lumen torch flashlight you will get a kick out of this one as well.
I had a little bit of an issue with sleeping last night and my head was reeling into all sorts of different things. One of those things had to do with starting a fire using my mini mag light. My thoughts during the sleepless portion of the night had me holding a magnifying glass up and concentrating the flashlights light onto my char cloth and getting it glowing. In my dream it worked perfectly and so would be very useful to start a fire after the sun went down.
This morning I gathered up my char cloth and my flashlight, went to the fireplace and gave it a go. I was able to get the light concentrated just like you do using the suns light, but even after 3 or 4 minutes of that light being concentrated it did NOT get the char cloth to glow…sorry about that.
So I went on line and searched “starting a fire using your flashlight”….here is what I got.
There are basically 3 different ways you can use your flashlight to start an emergency fire.
Two of the ways utilizes the batteries and “0000” steel wool to get the fire going. One of these ways forces you to have on hand two small gauge wires. And the third way makes you use some char cloth from your flint and steel fire starting kit.
Battery way number one:
The video I copied the link to and will post up here shows the man using one of the large square type batteries to accomplish the task. By using some deductive reasoning you should be able to see that any battery with say 9 or more volts would do the same. I will leave it up to you to try a “AA” or “AAA” size battery, they probably would work just as well but would take a bit more time to figure out how to do it.
So, in essence what happens is you are using the “0000” steel wool to short circuit the battery. Any time you take a single small gauge wire and touch both the positive and negative ends of the battery, the current traveling through the wire will cause it to get very hot where the two polarities meet (usually the middle part of the wire)…that is exactly how a flashlight or light bulb works. Current is coming through a single wire, positive on one side and negative from the other. The center of the wire glows and gives off the light you see. Flashlight bulbs and light bulbs in your house have the wire encased in an oxygen free vacuum so the wire can not actually burn, it just glows.
If you have something really hot and glowing and you introduce oxygen and some combustible substance, fire will be the end result.
So, by using the steel wool and touching it to the two ends of a battery, the steel wool gets so hot it bursts into flames because it is a really fine and fluffy type of steel and there is a whole lot of oxygen surrounding it. Be careful when handling this. You will see in the video, he has placed the steel wool into his tinder nest before touching the battery to the steel wool.
If you are trying this with a smaller battery, make sure you have a way to get the battery away from the burning steel wool quickly as a fire could cause it to explode and then your emergency situation will instantly become a worse affair. I take NO responsibility for your actions.
Number two way to use your flashlight to start a fire:
Take the top off your flashlight, the cone shaped shiny part with the plastic or glass lens cover. If your flashlight bulb stays inside the cone shaped part, you will have to remove the bulb. Please be careful not to break the bulb as you will still be able to use the flashlight once you have a fire. Take a piece of your char cloth from your fire starting kit and roll it tightly in a long shape, the end of the char cloth is going to be placed up inside the cone where you just removed the bulb.
Now face the lens portion toward the sun and you should soon see the char cloth smoking. The sun rays will focus down onto the char cloth just like using a magnifying glass to accomplish the same thing.
Of course now you know to put the glowing char cloth into a nest of tinder and begin blowing until it bursts into flames and then add small twigs etc. to build your fire up. See video on these two methods:
Number three way of using your flashlight to start a fire.
This again requires the use of “0000” steel wool, and it also involves the other two small gauge wires.
A flashlight like a mini-mag light is best for this. Take the top off the mini-mag flashlight and pull the little bulb out. Set them both aside as you will want to re-assemble your flashlight for use as a flashlight later on.
The bulb comes out and you will see two small holes in the end of the flashlight. Stick the ends of the two wires, one into each of the two holes and make sure you do not allow them to touch each other.
Now you touch the two wires to the steel wool nest and suddenly you will have flame and be able to build your fire up. The two wires make the connection of the battery’s positive and negative poles and shorts it out against the steel wool causing it to get hot and burst into flames. The following link shows you this method:
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Now in my search I did find a fourth example of using your flashlight to start a fire, but in this way you will cause your flashlight to be useless for anything else but perhaps a “one time” fire start.
This method will only work with a larger bulb type flashlight as the mini-mag lights and LED flashlights will not work.
Be very careful with this one: Break or remove the glass or plastic lens out of the end of your flashlight. Break the glass bulb without breaking the wire inside (not an easy thing to do). Place extremely dry and fine tinder in the cone and around the fragile wire of the bulb, be careful you only have one try with this method. If you are able to do this without breaking the wire I commend you highly. Now turn the flashlight switch to “on”. The wire inside the bulb will get very hot and glow and hopefully start your tinder on fire. When it does, tip the flashlight down and dump the ignited tinder into another larger pile of tinder and begin your fire build up.
With God on your side, the wire that is exposed from your bulb will still be in tact for another attempt later on should you need it. If it breaks you had best keep the fire you just started going and hope rescue comes soon.
Again, I take no responsibility for what happens to you while you are using these methods to start an emergency fire. I place it on here as information only and hope that if you are ever stuck in a place and need to build a fire and all you have is a flashlight that you will be able to start a fire and get warm, cook some food and eventually be rescued.
Utah Fishing Reports
