onward...

Since my last post, things have moved forward a bit. Only measurable in geologic time, but measurable.
Last Saturday, my ceiling was 'finished.'

Beauty eh?

I don't care. I'm leaving and don't have to live with it.

Last week also brought good things...

Fully half of the friends I've made while living in the great State of AZ.
Mr. Twoshoes (Mike Johnson) left and Perry right. I will miss them both dearly.

Goodbye brothers. I loves ya both.

Mike is a brother. Period.
I have taught more than a few good folks to make bamboo in my life and it has always been my pleasure. Mike is one of the very few who took it and ran. Mike makes some of the finest rods one could hope to own...again, period. I wish I had one.

Perry is a kid. LOL. He's like 28 or something but a good heart, easy smile, and makes a damn fine bamboo rod. I was once 28...no really.

I feel like I can leave this State knowing that it's in good hands. If only one of them was the guberner instead of some nazi.

Perry leaves the shop with my set of quad forms. Mike leaves the shop with my very first set of forms.
The wall where they leaned is empty except for the one set I use(d) almost everyday.

I will miss both sets of forms for different reasons...see below...

The quad forms I bought from Kyle Druery when I lived in CA. Kyle was a most excellent rodmaker and made some of the finest quads (hollow and solid) one could purchase...again, period. I haven't heard from Kyle in about ten years. He was going to start back teaching. He lived in Bakersfield. I have no idea where he is now. Kyle made these forms from scratch in his garage. By hand and file, sweat of his brow, strength of his back. In case you don't know...quad forms consist of THREE bars. All three have to be flat and square. The middle bar has no taper to it. The outer bars have a 45 degree bevel cut in them on two sides, tip and flip for butt. The two outer bars MUST be square and equal to each other and the middle bar. Sounds easy...it ain't...and he did it by hand. With a freaking file...just beauty forms. I miss them already. Not that I make or made quads, just that a friend and contemporary made them, used them, and I got to have them.

The set that Mike took were my first set. They aren't perfect. They were made by Lon Blauvelt in Maine. He's made definite improvements to them over the years. I was able to buy these when I first started about 15 years ago. I likely never would have finished (not that I'm anywhere close to being finished) this bamboo journey if it had not been for Lon and a reasonable price for a set of forms which are essential.

Those two sets of forms meant two things to me... both purely sentimental.
First, they were my first set so...you know...close to (or over) a hundred rods on those forms. That's some time and energy, I can't get either of those back. Now the forms are gone as well.
Second...those were the only forms I could make the Lil Debbie on.

Debbie is a real person who lives in Florida. There's a story there that can't be put on paper...sorry.

...And they had to be modified to even make that happen. The first 20 or 25 inches of the tip were modified to make a tip that could go down small enough (.022") to make the ought through 2 wt taper required. It's a modification I hope I make to my Bellinger's, which I love for their smoothness and consistency of taper.

Fwiw...I had to make adjustments with a hammer on the Blauvelt's. It's all about where you place the pins in the forms. The forms would hang up in between stations because the pins were set between each set of adjustment bolts (instead of between the push/pull bolts at each adjustment station) and you have to smack them with a hammer to set set them.

Mike really didn't need the forms and I know that. He just bought a set of nice Bellinger's which I guess he hasn't received yet. He only bought them to put a couple of bucks in my pocket, but he did it out of the kindness of his big damn heart. So did Perry I think.

So...thank you both for some needed cash...I hope you both think of me when you decide to use them and I hope this hell hole of a State treats you fine for the rest of your days. Never forget to pay it forward.
I will miss you both...I look forward to visits whenever either of you can make it up to paradise. Until then...have fun fishin' in the gutter.

Little Goldens (and I) await you.

crap...

OK...
1/12th of the year is almost behind us...time marches on and all that.

As of this morning...I have a roof again. The work isn't finished, I don't have a ceiling, but I'm hoping I'm water tight. This is good.

I have spent the last month packing stuff, storing stuff, surviving. There's still a boatload left to do. It'll happen.

A couple few of the things I have been working on are;
fuel pump for the truck (No luck on that yet,) an estimate to put a well in at the cabin, propane delivery to the cabin, and a very "small" solar array.

Where to start?
Let's start with the truck since it's the most pressing...
I have a nice (at this point, old) 2000 F-150. It's a "Lariat", nice trim package if I do say so. Bought it used in 2002. I have yet to own one single brand new vehicle in my life. I give up on that little dream. Oh sure I have paid for a couple in previous lives, but they were never mine, always seemed to be "ex's" so they don't count.
Ford made two fuel pumps for that year. I can buy either of them on fleabay for either 50 bucks or 250 bucks but you have to know which one. You won't know until you actually pull it from the fuel tank. To do that, one either removes the bed to access the tank, or drops the tank to access the pump, pull the pump, buy it, reinstall whatever choice you made in the first place. I'm a rod maker damn it, not a mechanic! Did I sound like Scotty in Startrek?

OK so nothing has happened on that end. My neighborhood mechanic wants $700.00, the Ford dealer wants at least $700.00 WTF? 700 freaking dollars for a stupid POS fuel pump. OK...it's gotta happen, but it ain't happening right now obviously.

On to the next problem. Water at the cabin.
I am fully prepared to drink water from the river. I've done it before, I'll do it again. A little Giardia doesn't scare me. But since a companion may also make this trek with me I thought it would be a good idea to at least get a new estimate to sink a well. I mean, it would be nice to have a flushing toilet ya know? Not one of my priorities but the last estimate I got was about 15 years ago. The estimate I got was pretty reasonable as far as I was concerned. $10.00 p/ft +$301.00 county permit/fee. My Uncle's well was about 250 feet deep so I figure I'm going to have to go at least that deep. So there's $2800.00. I then asked how much a pump would run. $2000.00. so five grand...shit.
Really not that bad I suppose as it was about the same 15 years ago. And they seem like good folks. Put a lot of wells in up there for people over the 30+ years. I trust 'em.

Edit thing...I looked up the #'s again...30 bucks a foot not ten so 7500 to drill +2000 for a pump...shit...

Onto the next problem...
Propane...
My old man bought himself a 170 gallon propane tank when he was alive. I guess he obviously didn't buy it after he passed the bend in the river.

When I was last at the cabin, I turned on the tank to see if I could fire anything up. I turned the valve all the way on and it leaked like a sieve. A new valve is in order.

Now there is one company that will deliver propane to Kennedy Meadows, Suburban Propane out of Lake Isabella (Nice damn lake for you bass guys btw). What follows shouldn't be taken as any kind of knock on Suburban. It's just what I am dealing with. I call "Janine" (who refuses to call me Mike but refers to me as "Mr. Shay" I hate that.) and tells me that "Robert" delivers to KM every Thursday. She will have Robert go to the cabin and check the tank and let me know. In the meantime she sends me a credit check and delivery contract. It says that repairs are 85 bucks an hour plus parts...fair enough. I'm thinking 30 minutes to pull an old worn out valve, 40 bucks for a new valve, 30 minutes to install, and 125 dollars later, I'm in biddness.
Wrong...
Friday I call Janine and ask about things...she'll look into it.
I get a quite impersonal e-mail telling me that "the tank isn't worth fixing." WTF does that mean? I mean...don't I get to decide? The simple answer is "No." Yes it's my tank, no I don't get to decide. I can rent a new tank for $65.00 per year for the rest of my life though. Fuck that. I tried asking her what the actual charge would be. I NEVER got a straight answer from her. She was trying to sell me a rental agreement and that was that.

Now just across the road from me in Congress is an "Amerigas" dealer. I mean the place where a propane truck pulls up every day and fills it's tank to make deliveries to guys like you and me. I walk Bonnie past there every day and I see about fifty old tanks sitting in their yard. I call Amerigas and ask about a replacement tank. I get a price of $486.00 AZ dollars. 500 bucks and I can get a brand new tank! The guy, "CJ" is treating me just awesome and I know it. Good vibes from the guy. He also tells me that he'll look into finding me another new tank someplace closer to the cabin. I'm thinking "good stuff right there!"
He calls me back in an hour with an Amerigas dealer in Lake Isabella. I call, and that dealer tells me the very same tank that CJ was going to sell me would be 900 fucking dollars picked up from him! Huh?

So I call Suburban and tell them I would like a price from them...next day I get a call back and am quoted over a grand. Over $1000.00! $1000.00 for a 120 gallon tank!
I tell Suburban Janine that I can get a brand new, never used, certified tank for $486.00 in AZ. She really had no response to that. I stewed over this again for awhile and thought about all those tanks sitting in the yard across the street.
I called CJ back the next day and told him his compadres in Lk Isabella wanted 900 bucks for the same tank he was offering for $486. Expressed my gratitude for all his help and what I considered a reasonable price. You know...folks you deal with don't seem to get enough praise these days for good work. I told him he had my biddness as soon as I could make it happen...then I asked him...
"Hey, what about all those old tanks in the yard across the street from me?"
His reply, "Oh all those tanks need re-valving"
"How much to do that?"
"Well, we don't really offer those for sale but I can sell you one for a buck and a quarter a gallon. I have a 150 GA and a 250 GA tank I could re-valve, test and repaint for you for $187.50..."
Freaking stick a fork in me...I'm done! "I'll take it! Er...it''ll be awhile before I can pick it up but don't sell it!"
CJ tells me not to worry about it.
OK!

Now I own four fridges...three are actual refrigerator/freezers, two are in storage. One is a "Kegerator" a small little thing that was supposed to be exactly what the name implies. I found it on a guys  patio who I fumigated about 10 or 12 years ago. I looked into having it hooked up to dispense beer from a keg but somewhere along the line in the last 50 years, they changed the way beer flows from these things and a keg one buys today doesn't hook up the same, doesn't use the same C02 cylinders, etc. But the thing still stays cold inside so I keep it next to the bench for 'refreshments.' My companera needs to have a freezer as well. She raises rats and mice as feeder things for her snakes and lizards. I try and stay out of that. Makes me queezy over all the death these poor little bastards suffer. This from a former pest control guy who killed the furry little fuckers for a living. I'm just so done with "gruesome." But she wants one. Fair enough.

My old man had a "Servel." A propane powered fridge/freezer. Don't even think of asking how a lit and flaming fire makes things freeze OK? It just does...that's good enough for me. Think of the book "The Mosquito Coast."
I tried making this thing fire up 20 years ago. My Uncle (who I now susspect is long dead) was a refridgeration guy in LA. I had him look at it, he couldn't get it to fire up. I gave up. The cabin is loaded with rodents...mostly Kangaroo rats. They get into everything. I couldn't bring a box of food or anything thing up there as the rats would have been into it before I could blink my eye. Since the Servel didn't work, I just used it as rat proof storage. Works great for that.

Now in the meantime...there was a guy named Larry Mills who advertised that he did solar installations. I figured "How much could a small solar setup cost for a fridge/freezer, TV/dvd player, computer cost."
I called 411 got the number only to find it was disconnected. Larry was a friend of my Dad's and was the guy who called me when my dad finally went down the last slippery slope before he died.
I looked all over the internet for his number and couldn't find anything. I decided to call "Bill" since he worked for the phone company up there and probably knew everyone that lived there. So I called Bill and he told me that Larry also passed away...shit...

So I sucked it up and asked if he knew anyone who was installing solar and how I might get in touch.
He gave me a name and small warning that they "are good, but pricey." I also asked him if he knew anyone servicing Servel's? He replied "No, But I have a nice one for sale for a hundred bucks. I snapped that up to with the prevision he didn't expect to get paid real quick. He didn't seem concerned and gave me an assurance the thing was mine.

I called the solar guys 3 days ago, laid out what I was looking for and was told "a guy" would call me back. Waited the rest of the day and into the morning of the next. Called back griped about no one calling me back, was assured that some guy would call me...again...and at 4:00pm he did. Quoted me 12 grand to run a fridge on solar! 12 panels, 16 batteries, used converter, the actual "adjustable" array, etc...I flipped out! All used equipment and it was still $12,000  to run a fridge!
This morning I got a call back from a gyrl and she asked me for my email, a minute later I got an estimate in writing. They reduced the number of panels and batteries and gave me a price of ten grand...I'm feeling SO much better!

SO...CJ gets $187.50 for a refurbished tank, Bill gets a hundred bucks for a used propane fired fridge, SWMBO gets a freezer, Suburban gets 85 bucks an hour to run a mandatory system check on a fuel system I know doesn't leak and gets 3 bucks a gallon for the first fill up on a 150 gallon tank...
What do I get?
Outa here...fish in the Spring, and a haul to get a shop into some kind of usable space. Oh and since I'm NOT gonna pay 10 grand to keep something cold, I'll have to run a teeny generator to run a TV for an hour or two a day. Big deal. I can buy a HELL of a lot of fuel for $10,000!

Now I realize that this is by far and away the longest post I have ever written here. I appologize.
I will try and make updates more frequently than once a month...but really...who cares?

OH!
I never even touched on Cargo containers! LOL
Wait until I tell you about that! Jus' trying to cut down on storage bills and consolodate! LOL

Luv,
Me