August 2004 Archives

But I'm not feeling much better...

This weekend was great. Made plenty of bbq'd brisket, which vanished surprisingly quickly given how much of it there was. It was good to see everyone, even though I missed Huck, and was unable to pay him the 5$ I owed him from last weekend.

Sunday we fired up the forge, and managed to forge-weld roller chain. Then we folded it over, and got a partial weld on that. It think that if we go for it again, I can complete the weld, then I can polish it up and use it for something. It was going to go into making a knife for Hairball, for all the tools and stuff he's gotten for us, but I don't think that there is enough there for a knife. I'll probably end up turning it into a piece of jewelry or something.

It seems for some reason, that I am currently running a fever, which is a less than happy occurance on only the second week of school. I refuse to get the Outer Mongolian Death Flu again.

Finally got down to brewing the plum wine. It tastes dry and tart, even after the sugar I put into it. It should mellow out some with age, but I'm predicting a dry, tart, blush, with a medium alcohol content. Speaking of which, it now occurs to me that I didn't check the specific gravity of the brew before I put it into the carboy. Oh well, knowing the a.b.v. of a brew was neat in the beginning, but I'm currently more interested in flavor. Should be interesting.

I also picked up 25 lbs of brisket for the barbeque this weekend.

And now, to sleep. There are upsides to having class starting at 2pm.

I didn't work out on Monday, and consequently felt like crap, so I went and worked out today. Tomorrow I have but one class, as the instructor has cancelled the other one for the day. I plan on spending the extra time I have working out with Bart, changing the oil in my car (long overdue), and maybe, finally, perhaps, getting around to making the plum wine like I've been wanting to forever.

Gah. I wish it would hurry up and cool off in Missouri. The downstairs window unit AC started making wonky sounds the other day, so we turned it off, thinking maybe we could salvage it before it blew up. If so, we should probably get on that before it ceases to matter, but it's damned hot down here, especially with one's door closed. I leave it open a handsbreadth when I'm sleeping, but that still doesn't help too much. The downstairs itself is rather warm, and is only cool by comparison to my room.

Other than that, the bits of track that Hairball dug up for us to use as an anvil cleaned up really nicely with my incredibly cheap angle grinder with a rust removing disk. I should probably use the same attachment to clean up that last knife attempt. I also need to get some borax for use as a flux when forgewelding.

In other random tidbits, I've been looking up Missouri's hunting and fishing seasons and regulations. I would like to get out more, as well as have some fun, and save the house a bit of food money.

There's really no way to wrap up this random collection of thoughts. It's time for bed.

Went to Mr. Huck's lan party this Saturday. A good time was had, there was much making with the headshot. I spent the night at my parent's house, because I felt a little bit too tired to be driving back at 3 in the morning.

On Sunday Adam and I cleaned up some pieces of railroad track that Hairball found for us for use as an anvil. We also mounted it onto a stump, and moved the forge a bit so that someone can still use the driveway. Vegetarian curry was dinner, which is getting better every time we make it. It would still be better with chicken, but it's really quite good.

Today it stormed heavily to commemorate the first day of classes for the semester. Fortunately, I managed to get a lift to campus and borrowed an umbrella. When I walked out of my first class, it was raining buckets, people were walking in the door completely soaked to the bone. Fortunately for me, I had the umbrella, and sandals dry out faster than shoes. According to the weather reports, this type of weather has about a 30% chance of continuing all week.

Party time: First, this weekend, we're going to be barbeque-ing two briskets, making a mess of baked beans, potatoes, and corn on the cob for everyone to come enjoy. A good way to relax after the first week of classes.

Today however, is the anniversary of the last day of Pompeii. So drink a little vino and have some Greek, Roman, or Italian food. It's a pretty good reason to party...

I'm still keeping up with the workout stuff, as well as work. I still have yet to start the plum wine, which I have been promising to do for over a week now. Maybe I will have time for that tonight. I hope so.

Worked out in the weight room Monday. Golfed today. Getting some work done. Life goes on. Have some ideas for smaller knives to make out of the scrap from the last project.

My brother has picked up his cider, and I have 4 of the 5 bags of frozen plums from the tree back home. I should pick up the last one this weekend, and start making some plum wine whenever I get it all back here.

"OK, the voices in my head are starting to sound like Simon and Garfunkel. It's annoying." -Kat

Got up today and got some forging done, made what I call a double integral knife. An integral knife is one where the pommel, grip, blade, etc are all made of a single piece of steel. I call this one a double integral knife because when viewed vertically, and from the side, it somewhat resembles an integration symbol.

It's a kind of neat knife, made for skinning game, and it should look very cool once I get it filed, ground, and polished to a shine. No clue on how long that's going to take through.

My brother should be dropping by tomorrow to pick up his birthday gift and drop off 4 or 5 gallons of frozen plums. Then I get to figure out how to make plum wine. Should be fun.

Went in yesterday and ran through a quick set of exercises to determine my single rep maximum. I should have done this in the beginning, because an effective workout routine is based around knowing how much you can do, if you only have to do it once.

My SRM on the bench is 150lbs or maybe a touch more. (I had to work my way up to it.)
SRM on the sled is 308lbs+body weight.
SRM preacher's curl is 100 lbs.
SRM on thigh abductors and adductors is 120lbs.

This means that if my goal is to build muscle and strength (and it is), I should be doing 70-80% of my SRM in 3-4 sets of 5-8 reps or until I can't do it any more, whichever is first. The breakdown as follows (rounded to the nearest 5lbs).

Bench 105-120lbs (triceps)
Sled 215-245lbs (quadraceps)
Curl 70-80lbs (biceps)
Thighs 85-95lbs (abductors and adductors)

I'm not really trying to build muscles in my chest, as I already have plenty of muscle under my gut (enough to surprise plenty of people), and building any more will just push my gut outwards. I prefer to think of it as having stealth abs, or keeping my six pack in a cooler.

I need to find my pectoral max, and then work it as well. All other muscle groups are small enough, that I can continue to work them as I have without concern for building mass, except as it applies to the other exercises.

As for DefCon, as soon as I get my notes together, there ought to be a post on the festivities.