Welcome to my brain. It’s messy. It’s interesting. And it’s all connected if you stick around long enough. "Believe Nothing: no matter who said it, even if I have said it, except it agree with your own reason and common sense. Siddhartha Guatamo, the Buddha.

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And it begins,,,

Pulled BlooTwuck down to Da’s this afternoon upon returning from the J.O.B. Backed her into the basement garage and started tearing into things. All the wireing harness is out of the way, accessories out of the way, radiator out of the bay, and considering pulling the hood. Its just four bolts at the hinges,,, just a heavy sumbitch and Da isn’t capable of helping me with that.

But the swap has begun. Tomorrow is the ‘heavy lifting stage, and I should be able to have the newer block in place.(not done mind, just in place and the spiral back up to running truck started.)

So, My thoughts are all wrenchy-like, and not on much other at this point.

Here is what I DID find. All the plugs on the odds side (drivers side) were oil fouled, and I mean DRIPPING,,, Something went really south on that side and its not valve stem seals. I say that because a blown seal would only foul one cylinder,, not all four. What I haven’t found is the cause yet, and I won’t be looking for it just yet. I want Bloo up-n-runnin’ FIRST. I can take my time on a teardown and find the problem. And like I said to Brudda B, “I might find I am the proud owner of heads and other parts without a block,,, ” Will see.

Sorry, no pics,,, was too focused,,, Not that you’d seen anyting of interest anyhow at this stage. Its just another engine sitting in its bay, looking a little more neked with each passing moment I am underhood.

Funny for ya though: Da came down and was watching for a moment. He quipped “Looks like you’ve done this a time or two”,,,,

and y’all wonder where I get my smartassed nature from,,,

Updates tomorrow when I return from the greasy side of living.

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Posted by  |  April 17, 2026 | Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Gettin’ grubby in the rafters (unrelated addendum below ))

I promised a post for the readers with already standing structures. That would be the majority of us, I’m sure.

But I have to start with a little highschool science lessoning, or much of what I am going to tell you won’t be adaptable to your situation. I want to push a new mantra at ya too: Insulate Insulate Insulate!!! More on that shortly, first the lesson.

AIR is a great insulator, seriously crappy conductor. In the Electronic world there is a term “air gap insulator” and it takes huge power or high frequency to bridge the gaps, more so as the gap widens. Now, thats not to say air won’t conduct ‘heat’. We heat air and move it around in our ‘modern’ homes enough that it is considered a conductor. Only that isn’t correct thinking. Its a transporter, It does pick up temperature differences and can be used to relocate that difference to somewhere else, but it does not do so willingly.(in the out of doors, we call this ‘wind’: just mama nature moving things around, the same way we do indoors.) And there really is no difference between ‘hot and cold’, except in degrees, and we call those differences degrees for a reason. Hot is just an absence of cold, or to put it another way, Hot is just a higher energy level than Cold. Those ‘degrees’ of difference are what we want to capture, store, and move around, or isolate from so we don’t require mad levels of energy to remove that higher energy level. (Do you see the problem of modern homes now? That last statement says it all.)

Termperature energy moves through three methods: Conductive, Radiant, and convective. Conductive requires ‘contact’. Radiant is what you get sitting next to a fireplace, and Convective is in air movement (heat rises, cold falls, or specifically, the density of the warm/cold object changes and is effected by gravity differently.). Its why a room can be cold and hot at the same time; hot at the ceiling, cold on the floor.

Now, I don’t know how your current structure is set up, but I can make some assumptions from the last 50 years of building code. Stick frame home, some sort of sheeting on the outerwalls, rafters of 2×6 lumber (not timbers) and a sloped roof using similar lumber covered in 3/4’ sheeting (or that 13/16” particle board popular lately). Actual roofing could be asphalt shingles, tin/sheetmetal, some sort of tile etc. BUT, there is likely one constant in that factor. THE INSULATION. More than likely the ‘pink stuff’ if your home is older than 30 years. Might be blown in, or laid blankets, could possibly be the Polyurethane stuff but thats more recent and mostly in walls. Chances are, that insulation is ONLY in the ceiling joists, not up in the rafters. And thats a problem. One addressed by vents and ventilators, and my all time favorite “Ridge vents”, (yes, there is some snark in that statement.)

What this does, and you may not have thought about it, but you HAVE experienced it, is it creates a solar oven right on top of your home. Solar ovens heat or COOL by what energy differential they are exposed to. You can use a solar oven at night to make ICE from less than freezing conditions. Many people are not aware of that. This is great when you want to cool your house down on hot nights, but not so much when you are trying to KEEP a house cool on scorching days. That insulation just laying up there in the attic joists slows the heat transfer into the living areas, but it can not stop it. Recall I mentioned the term ‘Thermal Creep’ in my post on Mud castles? Same thing applies here, the dead air spaces in the insulation don’t readily move the heat around, but it DOES move through the medium. (and thats why you want thick walls in a Cobb styled home. To ‘time’ that creep for proper parts of the day.)

Vents help keep that solar oven’s effeciency low, but they don’t all work as well as you might like. RIdge Vents in particular; and this is my opinion, I am no engineer, but experiance tells me that ‘Those don’t work!”. Let me clarify why I say that, and see if it meshes with anything you may have seen. When I had my home in Sin-Sin-Nasty, we had a new roof put on, and chose to run with the Ridge Vents, thinking it would help pull the heat out of the attic better. What we found was our electric bill went up about 10% instead. Our HVAC was working even harder after the vents were installed. What happens (purely emprical thinks here, no math on my part) is that the shingles heat up, and create convection currents up the roofline. Where is that ridge vent located? Right at the top on the peak and right inline with those HOT currents of airflow. They are literally pumping hotter air into the attic space, NOT pulling it out. On.windy days, they may actually work like they were designed, that whole venturi effect thing happening, but on still days, with the laminar flow of air along the roof, BAM! More heat, and your hovel is getting COOKED.

IF you have ridge vents, don’t freak out, there is a solution to make them work, its not highly expensive, though it does require some labor (all of this stuff is labor intensive: anytime you are trying to compensate for engineering failures gets labor intensive.). You know that mylar coated bubble wrap they sell at the local brick and mortar place? Yeah, that stuff. What you will want to do is get in the attic (early spring or late fall when you aren’t cooking your brainium) and staple that to your ROOF JOISTS, not the sheeting that makes up your roof. You want that barrier between the attic and the roof as its going to be doing some work for you. Don’t put the stuff all the way down to the soffit, you want about 6” of joist exposed down there. You DO want the barrier to lap the ridge though. What this will do is reflect the heat from the roof back at the roof, and it will create a heating area that creates a pressure differential to force that hot air out that vent, When the pressure differential favors the heat outside over the inside, it creates a space between your living quarters and the roof, slowing that radiant exchange that cooks the attic. With that gap at the soffit area, any cooler air (cool air falls) has somewhere to go and its nearer the outer walls where it can be drawn off. This might only gain you a small percentage in difference, but even a few degrees difference in the living quarters will be noticeable; especially in how hard your climate controls work.

For further assist, you can do that HOT Stand pipe thing I mentioned in an earlier post. (south-southwest facing wall for maximum effect at the hottest part of the day.) This is just a metal pipe 4-8” diameter, painted ultraflat black for maximum heat absorption. This will have a duct into the house that draws off air from the interior. You can duct this to the attic, or you can duct it to the living spaces, your call, I suggest living spaces myself. FYI,, that duct work needs to be at the higher part of wherever you run it. Ceiling in living areas, peak of the attic,,, you get the idea.

BUT, that pipe doesn’t work alone. You want to draw in cooler air while you pump out the hot. This is where basements and crawl spaces come into play. You can put a floor vent in and cooler air is drawn in as the air in the pipe gets heated up and expelled out the top. I suggest putting the floor vent at the opposite end of the house so you get a draft effect. I would also suggest having some way of shuttering BOTH the vent and the ceiling draw as at night, that air flow WILL reverse direction. One scorchers, this is a plus, in winter months, bad ju-ju.

Another thought: A small 10watt solar panel powering a fan in the soffit. When the sun is shining, it will power that fan to push air INTO the attic,,, That may be enough pressure difference to force the ridge vent to do it’s job. Mostly passive (still a mechanical process of moving air, so parts can/will fail eventually)

Now,,, INSULATE, INSULATE, INSULATE! I’m gonna toot my own horn here for a minute. When I built my house, I already knew the ridge vent scam and I had an idea in mind. One, I didn’t put in an attic. My ceiling is vaulted to the roof truss. I used 2×10’s not 2×6’s for the truss. That gave me MORE room for insulation. I used the 3/4 11ply sheets for the roof, thats covered in the 80# tarred felt, and on that is where my TinRoof sits. No gap between as I didn’t want to hear my roof (its sounds romantic, but try living in a tin-roofed house during a hailstorm,,,). Inside, I ran 1/4” mylar faced styrofoam boards between the joist (small air gap made by using strips of the same) and then I ran a double layer of the pink stuff in blanket form. Slightly compressed (shoulda used 2×12’s) but alternating layers so any gaps between blankets are covered by the next layer. Then the internal sheeting, which I used was 1/4″ paneling. I wanted to use the tongue and groove stuff but the costs were already reaching past my budget.

Walls I used Rockwool: at the time, it was about the same costs for sq/ft, and I wanted the fire resistance of rock wool. Its only slightly lower R value over the pink stuff, but does not give you the itchies like the pink stuff. (don’t breath any dust though, Silicosis is real.). I did not insulate my floor joists. My reasoning was “critters”. I have access to my crawlspace that critters can get into easy enough.(and try to make a place critter proof! HA!). I decided the lack was in my benefit. Just make sure to keep the air flow under the house limited.

It was 90 outside at three this afternoon when I returned from the J.O.B. My interior was 71. NO A.C. My only consolation to air movement is a 12v ceiling fan that only gets turned off for cleaning.

And guess where I found the Cozzie? Right smack dab under that ceiling fan, looking quite comfortable on a hot day.

look at the time on each. steady state climate in the house over a 24 hr period. Insulate, insulate, insulate!

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I hope this helps some of you. I know “gotta spend money”, but hey, if it cuts your bills down enough in one season to pay for the ‘fix’, then next year, it pays for itself again, but thats money in your pocket, not the utility companies.

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ADDENDUM: IF, like me, you are something of a music afficianado, Get over to BOM’s blog,,, jump into the conversation we have going.

Posted by  |  April 16, 2026 | Categories: preps, tips for the kids | 2 Comments

The odd at odds

(written last night, and no, not AI modified,,, Follow along.)

Nothing is sitting well today: my lunch, my thoughts, my music feed even feels off. I am at odds with the world and can’t quite sort the why of it.

Looking around at the big picture (and no, this is not going to turn into a rant about current events.) and some of my liberal upbringing is trying to escape the pen I keep it in.    The “every body should/could” thoughts that seem the lifeblood of liberal thoughts.

Utopia for me might be your poison.   The why I keep the internal liberal under lock and key.   We are all individuals with individual drives and desires.   No two will ever agree, or at least not for so long as to make peace a constant.  Differences WILL arise, and not all are flexible in spirit.

I don’t see a world of scarcity.   I DO see a world where resources are hoarded at the expense of others.   OR Restricted and regulated out of existence for the everyday Joe.   OR, people being indoctrinated into “this is how it is, there is no other”.    

But we know that isn’t true.    Take the building code thing.   There is no reason for anyone on this planet to be homeless except by personal choice.   Some will choose that, I nearly did at one point.   I came real close to being the wandering hermit, mostly so I could find somewhere where I ‘fit’.    (I found out there are no such places,,, I’m too ‘odd’ to fit unless I make my niche.  Which I have been doing). But building codes have made homeownership onerous.   Mortgages and property laws have made it worse.   And in some ways, yes, even Capitalism has gone awry and made it so some own much, while many own little or nothing.    That isn’t due to “Free Market” enterprise, but that regulatory monster of GOVERNMENT interfering (usually funded by the few with much to keep their edge.). 

Here is a truth: a person, an acre of undeveloped land and one year of solid effort on their part, CAN have a durable and comfortable year-round shelter and a revolving food source for next to no money.   A few tools, a little learning, and LOTS of drive, thats all it takes.   But we have others build our houses, we have others grow our food, we have others do for us, that which we can’t do for ourselves, and no, there is nothing wrong with that, except for one thing.   So many forget what they are capable of and depend on others for everything.   And it has evolved into a growing welfare state where people are dependent on the FORCED welfare of others for their basic living needs.  Maybe I should rephrase that part: So many have been taught they are not capable and to depend on Government for everything.

I don’t find the capitalism world at odds with natural rules.   If someone is capable, I don’t find it sinful that they would want compensation for that ability.   Such as the fact that I have black thumbs.  I would happily pay others to run my garden, or better yet, build a shop in place of said garden and provide skills They lack for the Food I can’t get to grow.  I’m not alone in that either.   I know people that are natural talents at tasks, but completely inept at some of the most basic functions.   It was said Einstein couldn’t tie his shoes, but look at the mental experiments he did that literally changed how we view the world.  (is the shoe tying thing true?  No idea, probably not, but it makes a great point to my missive here.)

“self-reliance has been systematically underrated and discouraged, and that’s the real scarcity problem”. Our modern systems of education have created disability, not grown sovereign peoples such as built this country. Those that have the sovereign drive are driven out of the discussion.

Here’s the real rub: We’ve been there before. Right after the Civil War/War of Northern Aggression. The Wild Wild West times. When the territories were lawless (they weren’t, but the law tended to be more precise and abrupt.). No Building codes, no real infrastructure interference except for RR right of ways. You typically knew the asshat you were trying to vote into office as your representative. You most likely knew where they lived when they weren’t ‘at the office’ which, at that time was NOT a full time job and they were paid Per diem, not a salary with lifetime bennies.

People built their houses out of resources from their land. Sod, Stone, Wood, Cobb, all of the above. No permits, no inspections, no inspectors to bribe, no Home Owners associations to dictate what condition your yard should be in,,, Typically every home had a small ‘truck’ garden to keep food on the table, and people depended on each other, locally, when things went sideways. How many even know their neighbors these days? Not saying it doesn’t happen, but everywhere I have lived the last 30 years, it was not as common as it was back in the 80’s. Everyone knew everyone in the hood back then. You may not have liked the Curtis’s but you knew them, and they knew you. You knew if you got in trouble at the Smiths, the word would beat you back home, and your butt might get a beating then. When I owned a home in Sin-Sin-nasty, I knew one neighbor: the elder retired lady across the street. That was it. No one attempted greetings, and it felt highly discouraged to meet them. And that was one tight packed neighborhood; 1/4 to 1/3 acre lots. I had more relationships in the neighborhood of Oceanside California where I was a renter.

Is that a symptom of something else? Like our reliance on tech these days? Or that most people tend to sedentary activities after the day wraps up in ‘the real world’?(again, a tech thing for the most part). Or is it a symptom of ‘Social Programming’?

Maybe things really haven’t changed as much as I perceive them.

And somethings are coming closer to reality and showing their true colors.

Stay tuned tomorrow. Posting up something for y’uns that have existing structures and looking to alleviate some of those huge utility bills. Not as glamorous as building a Cobb house with your very own two paws, but ‘something’.

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Posted by  |  April 16, 2026 | Categories: anarchy or liberation, preps, random misfires | Tags: | 1 Comment

the “No post today” post

minds awhirl, and I am writing, but what’s coming out on screen is gobbldigook. Amagonna need one of the AI’s sort and break it up into coherent something (see,,, even that sentence is backwards!)

More laters when the words start to make some sense,,,,

LLLLL!

(, ‘)

Posted by  |  April 15, 2026 | Categories: Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Building Mud Castles

I said that this was going to become something of the “main theme” of this’a’here workshop, and I wanna run with it.

Now, let me tell you, you really need to do your local homework, as I can’t and WON’T do it for you. Specifically, local building code: Every place is different. Here in KY, (or at least the county I reside in) if you are not going to tie into the grid, you are purt much free to do as you will, shy of builing a tower of Babel or somesuch. Single story or split story don’t draw much attention, and if you aren’t going Grid,,, I didn’t even need a permit for the septic (and funny enough, you DO need a permit for an outhouse,,, Go figure.)

Another example is in Texas, at least along the border with Mexico, and this may be different in specific locations; I don’t know specifics. To the best of my understanding, if you are building your own home, no outside help/contractors, no permits or inspections needed.

All of that being said, I can tell this. If you build alternative housing, getting it insured may be the worst headache you have ever encountered. I can’t get homeowners insurance on my house; only Renters insurance for my belongings within. Had I gone through a contractor with all the permits and inspections, No problem, I didn’t and the insurers politely, but strongly, tell me to get fucked. Keep that in mind.

But heres the fun part of the equation. If you are doing earthbermed, pounded earth, or Earthship type building, chances of your house buring down, or being destroyed by anything short of a Divine flood, are pretty miniscule. “Poured” homes using a mixture of portland and quicklime will last centuries, as the quicklime makes the concrete ‘self-healing’

There are so many alternatives to how and what you can build with, and none of it is new. People have been building their personal caves for millenia. Builds like the Earthship design, using old tires filled with packed earth and covered in shotcrete,,, yah, sorta new, but really just a new mixture of old ideas. Your choice is yours, if you are building from scratch. Your costs may be under the 10K mark depending on if you are using your local resources and your own labor or all the way up towards the million mark if outsourcing everything.

And this post is written with the builder in mind, not already standing residences. That will come later in a different post.

SO, you wanna build an earth shelter, and you want it as near self sustaining as possible. Underground, partial underground, above ground as thick walled as you can. Those three aspects are the key. Above ground, you want those walls at least 20″ thick. The idea is to let temperature changes crawl through the walls, NOT ISOLATE. In other words,,, when its hot and nasty outside, the inside will be nice and cool. As the day cools down (think summer in the high desert, it gets damned cold at night.) the heat the outside walls has picked up will be working its way in to the interior, slowly warming the inside (actually maintaining a constant or near so.) (the actual term is “thermal creep”) Cool inside during the day, warmer than outside at night, and you spent nothing but building costs to get that. No extra HVAC or central air environmental techno hoopla to maintain comfort. No added utility costs! That right there will save a homeowner several hundred dollars a month alone. It may cost more to make the house that way, but the long term savings will adjust it out.

As for heating the house. Thermal mass!!! Your walls are already massive, making a thermal mass heating option for when the outside temps drop and stay there is only ‘smart’. Here’s the thing though. You can build so that the walls are more protected from sunlight in the summer (so they stay cooler) yet still get massive amounts of sunlight in the winter (when the sun rides lower in the sky.) and get some solar heating that lasts all night. You can even do a solar battery setup where the light coming through a glass wall heats sand silos or water tanks, that will slowly release that heat out after the sun sets.

Think of it as designing a machine that you live in, not designing a box you live in and bringing in machines to keep it livable. And this ‘machine’ doesn’t need to be mechanically complicated. Passive is the goal here: Mass is your friend, moving parts are not.

Our current Federal Building Codes are not interested in designing homes in this fashion, no matter how much the politicos sing the praises of “Green this that or the other.” The whole mass of building code is meant to keep Economic Currents Flowing; its that simple. I’m not harping on those industries as evil or whatever, but they have enough pull to be able to get rules written in their favor and that puts people like me, possibly you, at odds with the system. Why we will have hard odds of being able to insure our homes against catastrophy. Why we must, if we choose this route, be our own engineers, plumbers, electrician, Construction managers, and lowly hobb loader, all at the same time.

The good news, This is a GROWING COMMUNITY. There are small outifits out there for hire, or contract, that can either do the work for you, or you can consult with to get primo results without need of researching a new degree from HardKnocks University. Sone key words to use for looking around the nets: “permaculture”, Earthhome, Earthship, Permies, Cobb building, etc

And here is another upside. Like the growing list of alternative teachings to Religion (The kingdom is inside you) the growth of alternative living arrangements is growing too. People are getting a might bit sick of the “in your face” Top down Control freaks, and being told “NO, you can’t do that (without paying US through the nose and giving us a lifetime of support to keep it.)” I see things around the globe; people stepping out of the ‘tried and true’ nature of modern building code that essentially makes every home owner a renting landlord. I see more and more push to eliminate property taxes for the same reason; “I bought it/I built it, I own it! keep your mitts offa my stuf!”

Ok, slight shift of content here. Went and bought a used block for BLooTwuck this weekend. Long drive of 200 miles roundtrip. I saw several broke down hicles along the way, and the shocking part,,, most of them were less than 10 years old. I think only one was a used up beater that probably just needed gas in the tank. I’m seeing more and more in my feeds of people telling the dealerhips to go get fucked, we aren’t subscribing for a car; we want to own it, and ownership means I get to deal with it on MY terms, not dealership terms. I’m watching the prices of OBS chevies going through the roof. A truck with a bluebook value of $4000 going for 15000 or more. Used vehicles selling for more than they did when they were on the dealer lots, brand new.

But they are still cheaper than a new 2026 Chevy 3500, and they don’t have all the computer gee-gaws and kill switch that are in the new. A guy with a basic tool kit can work on them. Aftermarket parts are still out there, and there are some places starting to make them since some of our sources are highly questionable these days.

The New Paradigm of “you will own nothingg and be happy” is not surviving first contact. Maybe in the younger generation, who don’t know anything but this modern world of ‘subscribe and like’. But us oldztimers? who grew up in a world where the phones were secured to walls and surveilance was “own recognizance”,,,, Yeah,, we ain’t dead yet and we still get a vote in the future.

More laters about building stuff or making current work better

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?

Posted by  |  April 14, 2026 | Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Muhnday musin’

Some of y’uns might know Jay, aka “The Boring Old Man” from comments.

What some of ya might not know, is he is also a blogger. He doesn’t post much these days, but man, when the guy has a wordspill, he HAS A WORDSPILL!

I posted a comment over there on that subject matter, and to illuminate for those of you that don’t catch such stuff, I’ll embed one here.

(Karen is her name, not a derogatory thing.)

Admit it Peeps!, We grew up in the best of times, especially when it came to music. Doesn’t matter if you were a teen in the 60’s 70’s or 80’s,, heck even into the 90’s with Grunge and Industrial explorations,,, But come the 20-aughts,,, something shifted down,,,,

Maybe its all the streaming ease? That for under a couple grand, a body can put together a hell of a studio, synth all the instruments, and splice together a complete track, master it, and publish it with no more overhead or ‘trial by fire’ than the “hit the publish button and pray”

See, all, and I do mean ALL, of the bands we grew up with; They didn’t get that ease of function. They were there, in the trenchs, playing every downtrodden bar, finding what worked, what got the girls shaking their hips, what drew the yawns, and they did it FOR LOVE. Maybe there was the calling of making it big (Selling out as the industry used to call it) but that rarely was the opening bid. The opening bid in most cases was LOVE OF MAKING MUSIC. Even Boston, who, initially, was just two guys and a multi track with some serious techy gee-whiz stuff cobbled together in a basement. They went straight to label, but THE LOVE was buried deep in that music. Try to convince me otherwise, and I will point you straight back at the opening of the track those two above listened to. No one makes music like that without loving every aspect of music FIRST.

Anywhoosabobber,,, go Give Jay some love on his site (link above)

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Posted by  |  April 13, 2026 | Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Haulin’ block

What I picked up.

clearing off the extra in prep.

gonna roll to Da’s and use the hoist to clear the bed. Bee-otch is HEAVY! LOL.

Up notes: Green coolant, quite clean looking. Oil is dark, but not gritty on the stick nor imitating tar. Haven’t drained it yet, so,,, I may find I bought a turd, but so far looking good. Has obviously been ran recently (fuel in rail smelled new, in addition to ‘brite’ bits on the drivebelt and pulleys.)

A peek into the intake was as expected: some carbon buildup, but not the goop I saw in Bloos case.

I shoulda listened to Y’all back in November when she started knocking. Live n Learn.

LLLLL!

(, ‘)

Posted by  |  April 12, 2026 | Categories: Uncategorized | 8 Comments