Man, I am lovin’ my subscription to Popular Mechanics. For the McGuyver/BurtGummer types like me this thing is incredible. The articles are, obviously, great (last issue was pebble-bed nuclear reactors and this issue is about hydrogen fuel production) but whats really cool are the advertisements. New tools and devices out there that I’d otherwise never know about. Example: the new Crescent wrench that replaces the old and slow dial adjustment for jaw width with a new, speedy slider. Must have. And Dickies workgear (the poor man’s Carharts) has their ‘Arctic Shield’ line of work wear which incorporates “patented RE-tain lining, a thin yet heat resistant barrier that captures up to 97% of body heat with no added bulk to restrict movement.” Hmmm…gonna have to go try one on.
Yay for information.
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Gasoline dropped another seven cents overnight. Average around town is $2.38/regular.
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Had my buddy, the 1000-yard competitor, measure my uber-group from the last outing with my CZ. Five shots into .512” at 100 yards. Love me that CZ. (By the by, dealer price on that CZ550 ‘Varmint’ w/ the H-S Precision Kevlar stock is around $650. The Leupold scope can be found used at most gun shows for around $100. So for $750 a fella can get a pretty darn good rifle and not have to hock his armored car.)
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Although the daytime temps here in western Montana are close to 55-65 degrees, the nighttime (and pre-dawn) temps are close to 35 degrees less. Time to fill the kerosene heaters and dig out the parkas. Montana has some enormous temperature swings and you can really have a summer-like daytime and a bitter arctic evening…especially in the higher-ups. We did, after all, have a blizzard on the Fourth Of July one year.
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In timely news, didja know the worlds grain stockpiles are at their lowest in 25 years?
Notes From The Bunker
My experience with tools has taught me not to buy snifty new tools based on snifty ads. What seems like a great idea when you see a picture often doesn’t prove out in practice. I prefer hands-on or at least recommendations by others who have used the tool and whose opinions I have more or less calibrated.
I’ll give you one example. A company I worked for had patented a ratchet wrench and gotten a design award. The gimmick was that it not only worked like a regular ratchet wrench, but if you twisted the handle, you could turn the socket without turning the handle – neat for use in tight spaces. So I bought one.
The clinker? It didn’t reverse – you had to push the square driver back through the wrench and put the socket on the other side. Why did that matter? You could loosen a nut in tight quarters, backing the top of the wrench up against something and not be able to get the socket and wrench out non-destructively because you couldn’t reverse the action. Ask me how I know ;p
I still prefer Cool Tools as an interesting tool reference over neat ads, because the entries are based on at least one person’s actual review.
Unrelated question
Have you noticed that ammo dump explosion in Iraq affecting price/availability of 5.56?
I had one of those slider C-wrenches when I was a theatre tech.
It’s extremely user friendly especially when you’re holding onto an A-Frame ladder 30 ft up and you don’t want to fiddle with the thumb screw…and lord help you if your thumb screw is stiff and you need to use both hands to move it…
However, I’ve seen several of the slide mechanisms stretch over time (8-10 months of semi-heavy use, and I’ve even seen one that even broke inside of 1 year. In fact, I had to return mine inside of a week for a replacement when the slider broke (I chalk that one up to manufacturer defect). Perhaps this one is of superior quality than the one I had, but I wouldn’t trade sockets for anything…unless I’m hanging off an Aframe or dangling from the catwalks.
problem
with nifty new tools is that they often a year later wind up in a discount store for a lot less. and the quality can be described as “cheapo” versus the price. am perferable to stick to the old style stuff built for the long term use.
as for food reserves in grain, alot is being converted to “biofuel”; while some grains are not reaching record crop levels due to droughts and fire. if you didn’t stock your reserves now, you might face a future starvation famine diet the hard way. right here in the good old us of a. have fun folks, Wildflower 06