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I love the English language. Yes, I understand I have a lot to learn, and it isn’t as romantic as French, but neither is it as barbaric sounding as some of the Slavic languages (not saying these people are barbarians, just the sound to me grates a bit).

English, to me, seems for some reason (I am obviously no linguistic expert) to be one of the easiest languages to twist and turn for modern usage. I have a vendor that manufactures their products in Germany. The manuals come in several languages, and you can see heavy English usage in the foreign languages, mostly for technical terms. I asked my wife about this – she is fluent in German. Her response is typically that “there isn’t a word for that in German”.

Does anyone remember slide projectors? Of course we do. Such a hit they were in the sixties and seventies and eighties. You could actually put a slide in a slide projector and project an image on a screen of the Pyramids, or a product, or a photo of good old Aunt Sally from that vacation you took at Niagra Falls.

Today, we have Power Point to replace the pictures and modern ways to project images on a screen. But we still call the separate pages of the presentation “slides” and the unit is still a “projector”. I have some young admin assistants that on occasion help me to create Power Point presentations and I have asked them before if they have ever seen an actual “slide” or a slide projector. Most of the time the answer is no.

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The Montreal Protocol is a document signed by many nations that gives us in the HVAC industry (and other industries as well) the road map as to how certain chemicals will be phased out over time, due to their ODP (Ozone Depletion Potential). Whether this is scientific or not is a discussion for another day. The fact is that the nations that signed on are obliged to follow the phase out.

Of particular interest to my industry over the last couple of weeks has been what is going to happen to R-22. Any of you reading this in your homes or office buildings that have air conditioning probably have a machine that uses R-22 within rock throwing distance. With the quicker phaseout of refrigerants R-12 and R-502, many commercial refrigeration applications moved to R-22 as well.

In addition to this, I have one more sidetrack to make before I get to the main point of this post. A few years ago there were to be no more new units made that used R-22 refrigerant. The Chinese exploited a loophole in the poorly written law and kept making units that used R-22, but shipped them “dry” – in other words, the technician in the field would put the refrigerant in the unit upon installation.

The OEM’s in the US put up a huge stink and demanded the EPA either close the loophole, or let everyone do it. They let everyone do it. These units were enormously popular last summer. In a central air conditioner for home use, contractors were once again able to “cut ‘em out, cut ‘em in” like they used to do. Before the availability of the dry R-22 units, contractors were forced to swap out the evaporator coils on the inside of the house since the new condensers, charged with the new refrigerant R-410a, are not compatible with old R-22 evaporators. To be honest, the new dry R-22 condensers aren’t either, but that is a different post for a different day. They worked, for now, and everybody was happy.

This brings us to January 2012. The previous rule for R-22 phase-out written by the EPA allocated 100 million pounds for 2011 and 90 million pounds for 2012. The EPA decided to accelerate this and was proposing anywhere from 55 to 80 million pounds for 2012. But the EPA sat on its hands and didn’t issue a ruling at all! Worst case scenario. This from one of the manufacturers of R-22 on January 5:

As of today, no producer or importer has the legal right to manufacture or import R-22 for refrigeration or air conditioning use. Under such circumstances the EPA is expected to issue ‘non enforcement’ letters to allow business continuity.

Consequently, given the current absence of non-enforcement letters and the possibility of significantly higher than previously expected reductions in allocation rights, (company x) must now evaluate the impact such a reduction may have on our ability to meet customer demands.

Meanwhile, since then, the EPA has proposed cutting the R-22 allocations by FORTY FIVE percent. This does not help business continuity, to say the least! In addition, no final ruling has been made, and we still don’t know the true allocations.

So what are the results to the market?

It is destroyed. Manufacturers are not accepting orders for any price right now. Consequently, guys like me (distributors) are halting all large quantity sales until we can figure out what is going on. Oh, the price? Since the first of the year, it has tripled to the street.

The market for R-22 is completely locked down and in a total state of chaos. Rumors are flying, and contractors don’t know who to believe or what to do.

In addition, it is time for us to begin ordering our air conditioning equipment to sell this summer. Nobody has any idea at all what to do about the dry R22 units. Will they be allowed to be sold? Will the cost be prohibitive with the new allocations/pricing on R22?

All this and more, courtesy of the Environmental Protection Administration.

So if your air conditioner conks out this summer in your house or business, or if you own a convenience store and a refrigeration unit goes down, or if you work in a restaurant and a walk in cooler goes down, expect that bill to be WAY higher than you thought it would be.

Not judging, just sayin’.

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Seen today in Madison on a grocery run.

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Somewhere buried in a comment here someone mentioned that Stefan Zweig wrote a book about Magellan. I have always loved reading about the famous explorers and with my new found interest in Zweig I had to have it. I went to Amazon and found a used copy for five bucks plus a little freight. The copy I received is a very early edition, as it has a picture of a nice boat on front of the style that Magellan used and the pages had that old book smell and feel.

To cut to the chase, this book is absolutely fantastic. Zweig is just so easy to read, it is almost like the guy is sitting across from you reading the book for you.

There are some spoilers below but not too many. If you don’t care for the spoilers, put this one on the top of your reading list. It is a breeezy three hundred pages or so and won’t take long to get through.

The first part of the book, approximately one third of it or so, describes in detail how Magellan had to wind his way through the political labyrinths of the day to get his very secret mission underway, and how he was spurned by the Portuguese and turned to the Spanish to, as we say today, “get ‘er done”.

It took a LOT of money, time, materiel and manpower just to get the mission underway, and Magellan didn’t even tell his crews where they were going. The crew thought for the most part that they were going to the Spice Islands – they were, just not the way they thought.

Five ships set out from Spain.

They set sail across the Atlantic Ocean and eventually hit South America. Expedition after expedition was sent into inlet after inlet and they simply could not find the passage to the Pacific Ocean. They were forced to winter off of South America and a mutiny had to be taken care of.

Eventually, finally, Magellan found the passage and they sailed west, all the way across the Pacific Ocean and made it to their destination.

Zweig describes the voyage in painstaking detail and also talks about what absolute misery the men were in on those boats.

Magellan was killed in the Phillipines in an insane battle that I don’t want to ruin for you. You must read about it.

Of the five original ships, one made it back to Spain after the enormous trip all the way around the world (other boats made it back, but they had turned around). The crew were lauded as heroes.

Of course this book has so much more to it than my paltry writeup can provide. If this subject interests you at all, or even just the generic genre of adventure writing, this book is definitely for you. One of the best books I have read…since the last Zweig book I consumed.

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I heard on the way in to work this morning that Google was blacking out today in sympathy with Wikipedia, over the legislation currently working its way through the Democratic controlled Senate that supposedly will censor the internet. I haven’t had the time or energy to read what the actual legislation says, so I really don’t have a comment on that.

I checked over at Wikipedia and they are indeed blacked out.

So I went over to Google and as of this writing, their NAME is blacked out, but the search engine functionality is working the same as always. Oh huge stand Google.

I have been using Bing for a while now and it works just fine.

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A friend on facebook posted the video below and asked for comments:

I sent my friend the following email (proper names redacted):

Hey xxx,
You solicited comments on the video of the guy who loves Jesus but not religion. This is a fairly lengthy reply, and I didn’t feel it appropriate to put in your facebook comments to clog them up. First a little background on my life.

My parents raised me in a Baptist church. I am sure you are familiar with Baptists being in xxx and all, but to say the least it was a very strict, but loving environment at that church. I also went to the Baptist school that was attached to the church until 9th grade.

There was a falling out with the Baptist church when I was a freshman in high school. I transferred to an Assembly of God school. We never returned to any church.

The crux of the falling out was twofold. First, my dad was putting in excruciating hours at work to get the xxx store moving (sound familiar? haha!). He simply didn’t have the energy to attend the Baptist church anymore and we didn’t have the money to give as we had previously. My parents started feeling heat from the elders at the Baptist church for this and couldn’t believe what was happening. My father thought that it was more important to take care of and feed his family than not get any sleep on his one day off so my parents told the Baptist church to “pound sand”.

During summers when I was little, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, who were Lutherans from the old country (Germany). I attended the Lutheran services with them.

I am prefacing my reactions to the video with this background to show that I know my Bible a bit, and also have some experience with organized religion. Most of the experiences were good. Some were not so good.

In general, I think the video is interesting and I see his point. But he paints with too broad of a brush in some spots.

You really cannot worship a man like Jesus without being in a religion yourself. The man in the video claims to despise religion, but if he is worshipping Jesus, well, hate to break it to you, you are participating in a religion, and it is called Christianity. Christianity takes many forms – Lutheran, Baptist, Catholicism, and scads of others. You can call it anything you want. Heck, you can call it “Dave’s religion”, I don’t care. If you worship Jesus as the man in the video says he does, you are participating in an act that requires a leap of faith. There is no scientific way to explain miracles that Jesus supposedly performed while on earth, or to prove (or disprove) things like the resurrection.

I did not like the way the man in the video broad brushed all churches. Yes, bad things happen in churches. They are run by men and women and there will always be politics. Throwing out an accusation like he said in the video of “why are there poor/hungry people when we have churches” (I paraphrase, of course) is just not fair. Some people don’t want help. Some people, help cannot be had (iron regimes, or whatever – are you going to start smuggling guns into Tibet to fight the Chinese? I’m not). In many places I will admit, religion and superstition are the causes of poverty and social stratification (typically not in the United States). However, so many churches do so many good things I thought it was disingenuous at best for him not to say that. The Lutheran church I attended with my grandparents did absolutely everything they could all the time for disadvantaged people here and abroad. The Catholic Church is the single largest charitable organization in the world. There are many more examples, but all churches aren’t all bad. Period. Are some churches bad? Perhaps. I would rather hear the guy say that certain individuals in certain places are bad, such as the Catholic priests who molested the children. This doesn’t make all Catholics or the church itself any more guilty than if someone who worked for me robbed a bank and then all of a sudden people began saying that xxx folks were all bank robbers.

As for the point he makes that Jesus says there doesn’t need to be a church, it isn’t as simple as that either. There is debate on both sides as to what exactly Jesus said and wanted and a lot of it comes down to translations of different versions of the Bible. This is why we have so many different sects of Christianity – different people translate things differently. I don’t need to bore you with that but again, I think it is disingenuous for the guy in the video to make that blanket statement.

Why did he bring politics into the video? I don’t understand why the line “what if I told you voting Republican wasn’t his mission/voting Republican doesn’t = Christian” was WAY out of place in a theological discussion and gives me a hint as to exactly where he is coming from (more on this in a bit). Why did he single out Republican voters? Does he not think that there are no people that vote Republican that aren’t Buddhists or Jews? Does he also not think that there are no Christians that vote Democrat?

Also of note is that Christianity is the only religion he takes a swipe at. Does he not think that Islam or Judaism or Buddhism have issues? I understand that his points need to be compacted into a short video but again, why the hate for Christianity alone?

As for me, today, I have been an agnostic at best for quite some time. My feelings are the same that my father had when I was a boy. My family is the most important thing to me. It is my responsibility FIRST to take care of my wife and kids. If that means that I can’t go to church, so be it. And that is what that means. I work usually 60-70 hours a week and by god, if I want to ride my bike on Sunday morning to relax or workout instead of sitting in the pews, that is what I will do. And that is what I do. In the end, I believe if you live a good life and there is something or someone to atone to when it is all over, I will be fine. Jesus would think so, I believe.

My children go to a Catholic school, and they and my wife will likely be turning Catholic very soon. I refuse to do it and not only is my family OK with this, the Catholic church is absolutely supportive of my decision. I just have too many things I don’t accept about Catholicism to convert to that religion (or any religion for that matter). The congregation at that church and the attached school is made up of fantastic and wonderfully supportive people.

As for the guy in the video, I think he is full of crap. The bashing of Republicans and singling out Christianity for his anti religion screed smell to high heaven to me. But that is of course just a guess. Your mileage may vary.

It was an interesting piece and I understand where he comes from, since I have been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

I know this was long and that is why I didn’t want to put it in facebook – these issues take a lot of thought and are much more complex than a short comment can allow.

Looking forward to seeing you (and xxx?) in San Diego!

Best Regards, Dan.

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I do miss Ian from time to time.

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My clan spent the weekend in Chicago. We had a fabulous time and really packed in a lot of activity into 48 hours or so.

Our first stop was the observation center of Sears Tower. Yes, I understand it is now the Willis tower, but I am old school that way and to me it will forever be the Sears. Sort of like some people still call the Aon Center “Big Stan”. The kids were blown away by the view up there and we had a nice day for it. The kids went out onto the “Ledge”. I was getting a bit of vertigo and couldn’t do it.


Next stop was Macy’s (yes, the old Marshall Fields) to see the windows. My wife used to come down here when she was a child with her grandparents. The windows were entertaining and there were also some street performers down there to try to suck some tourist money.

Inside, Macy’s was decked out wonderfully. They must have needed an army to get it all together. We signed up for dinner at the Walnut Room – one hour wait but the ambience was spectacular. Sorry I cut off the top of the tree here, but there was really no way to get it all in.

Dinner was surprisingly affordable, with most entrees between ten and twenty dollars. The menu was limited – I had the beef short ribs and they were delicious. I think they limited the menu due to the enormous crowds which was a smart move. They had fairies circling the crowd and granting wishes and spreading fairy dust around on the patrons which also added a nice touch.

We later went to the Auditorium Theater to see the Nutcracker. It was great as always and the Auditorium is a wonderful place to see a show. So beautiful.

On Saturday we woke up and hit the Field Museum. My kids have never been there (nor even to Chicago) and my wife and I hadn’t been there in a quarter century. There is literally no way you can get through this place in one day. After about five hours or so we were all on information overload and gave up.

Of special interest to us were the dinosaurs, minerals and wild animal exhibits. Disappointing to me was the fact that many of the cultural exhibits have succumbed to political correctness. I don’t really want to get into that part too much though as there is so much positive to learn at the Field, that I really encourage everyone to see it. The cost for my family of four was $90. This is the new scam they have – it is actually cheaper to purchase a family membership to the museum than to pay for four admissions if you include all of the special exhibits – right now they have whales and chocolate. The whale display is highly recommended – I really didn’t learn much from the chocolate exhibit, but I have read several books in the past about chocolate production so you may be interested in it.

Below is yours truly with the official dino of ChicagoBoyz, the Parasourolophus.

The Field Museum looked great:

And I enjoyed the details of the building from an age long ago:

We then went to the Christkindlmarket on Daley Plaza. It was an absolute mob scene. We shuffled through one aisle of that and got out of there. You literally could not fit one more person in there.

For dinner this night we went to Emilio’s for tapas. It was fantastic. If you enjoy this type of food I highly recommend it.

On Sunday we went to Ed’s for breakfast. The tone there was not as caustic as for the typical lunch or dinner, but the wait staff still was disprespectful as always, referring to my children as “brats” and tossing straws on the table, etc. It was a great time. The food was quite delicious and reasonable.

On the way home we stopped at IKEA in Schaumburg as my wife wanted to get some ideas for the house we are building. This was a punishing two hours for me and the kids as this is like valhalla for a person like my wife. The kids liked looking at some of the things, but we were all completely drained after this and even my wife admitted that she had to call it a day. We left with about $40 worth of flotsam designed by Swedes, made in far eastern countries.

My kids were absolutely amazed at the El. My wife and I, having spent a lot of time here in the past sort of shoulder shrugged it, but whenever a train went over our heads (loudly) the kids just stopped and looked up in total amazement. I told the kids that this is the best transportation system the 1890′s has to offer. They didn’t get the joke, but when I told them how old it was they were once again blown away. They had never seen anything like it and couldn’t understand why the train was above us instead of on the ground. I will be getting my oldest a book on the subject for Christmas.

The kids were also amazed at the noise level of the city. People, trains, cars, trucks, ambulances, buses, bikes, etc. I also realized that the kids had never seen bums before and they wondered what was up with that. The kids also enjoyed the hustle and bustle of getting cabs and such. Eventually they wanted to hail them themselves which was fun.

We stayed at the Wyndham on North St. Clair Street. We got a nice rate for $139 a night, which netted out to around $220 a night after parking ($52 per night) and the outrageous taxes. I don’t recommend it because it is right by Northwestern Hospital and the wife and I were awakened several times a night from the ambulances wailing. Nice place though, if not a bit tired. We didn’t eat or drink there.

In general, Michican Avenue and all the sights looked fantastic. Chicago seems to be doing a booming tourist business, even in this tough economy. We had a lot of fun and I recommend if you can, to spend a night or two there this holiday season and do some stuff or if you already have plans, to do it next year.

The only thing I really regret was not being able to see the Lexington Green library. That is on the bucket list though.

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Rock and roll review under the fold if you like.

Tuesday I saw Social Distortion here in Madison at the Orpheum theater. It has been a very long time indeed since I have seen a real live rock show.

Sx Dx is one of my favorite all time bands going way back. They have always been on my short list to see live, so when I saw that they were coming to Madison I was thrilled. Not so thrilled that it was on a weeknight and me having to go to work on 4 hours of sleep, but I just don’t care. Had to go. I will deal with the lack of sleep later.

I was meeting some folks at the show so I got there around 7.15 – the show was supposed to start at 8 and surprisingly, started a bit early. I met my crew and we had a nice conversation while the two warmup bands were doing their deal. The first warmup band, Suedehead was like an Oasis clone that sucked more (believe it or not). Pretty lukewarm reception.

The next band was Chuck Ragan. It was a trio that had a guitar, violin and upright bass and did that Irish rock thing. Not my deal, but the crowd sure did like them.

I should add that at the first notes of the opening band I realized that I forgot something at home – my earplugs. Damn. I am getting old and just can’t handle the volume of these shows anymore. I had to laugh because just 20 short years ago I was the first idiot up front and stage diving and all that insane behavior.

Social Distortion came on with a rousing roar from the crowd that was well lubed by that time, and a huge cloud of marijuana smoke enveloped everyone. I hadn’t smelled that odor in a long time indeed and laughed.

I was stone sober having to work the next day, so it was interesting to notice the drunk and disorderly behavior of the crowd. The crowd was interesting to say the least. Many had that fifties greaser/mod look that Mike Ness has made a living out of for so long. A lot of the ladies looked like pinups with tattoos, always a good combination in my book.

I lasted two songs and couldn’t take the sonic level anymore, and had to excuse myself to the foyer and watched the rest of the Sx Dx show from there. I could still see the band perfectly and the volume was cut in half which was about perfect for me.

The sound was dialed in wonderfully from back there (not far from the sound guy, of course) and I enjoyed the show immensely. It was good to see Mike Ness looking better than he has in the past. His voice is still in one piece too. I have seen some live clips of Sx Dx on youtube where he is a bit hoarse.

Ness did a bit of politicking as most artists tend to do these days, and as expected it was for the Dems blah blah. I didn’t let it ruin my good time.

I highly recommend catching these guys if they come close to your area if you are a fan. The song “Bakersfield” was my favorite of the night, along with the classic “I Was Wrong“.

I am going to suffer a bit today from lack of sleep, but it was definitely worth it.

Cross posted at LITGM.

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Below the fold, a review of the Kindle Fire ($199), if you are interested.

I have had the Kindle Fire for two weeks or so now and I think I have formed a pretty good idea on how I will be using this tool.

My initial hope was that this would replace my laptop. That will not be the case. It can still get my email and surf the net on the Fire, but the touch keypad has limitations. I just can’t type fast enough nor accurate enough with it.

Also, when looking at certain sites, the places where you need to push things, such as to access comments are very tiny and hard to “push”. My hands are pretty large – I can palm a basketball so this is an issue for me.

Even in Amazon’s search box I have hit the wrong thing a million times. I am surprised they didn’t include a stylus with the device. I will probably get one, or use a pen or something in the future.

All of that said, I really like the device. The screen and colors are very clear. I think that in the future if I decide to purchase a book (I already bought books from Amazon anyway) it will be through this device. I felt comfortable reading with it laying down, sitting, etc. It is a tad heavier than I would like.

Some titles you can’t buy for the Kindle yet – those, if I am inclined, I will still buy dead tree copies of. But almost every new book is available for Kindle.

I am amazed at the unbelievable amount of free content for the Kindle. I immediately downloaded thirty or so books (all classics) that I need to either read, or re-read. Everything from Mark Twain to the Federalist Papers to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. There are literally tens of thousands of works that are free.

For me, this device will replace the actual buying of books, if they are available for the device.

I don’t have any experience with any of the other tablets, but I can tell you I am pretty happy with this one. And my kids like playing Angry Birds on it.

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Starting November 15 the official Recall Walker campaign began. I have to admit these people are going at it 100%. In Wisconsin (unfortunately) there is no standard for a recall. No crimes need be committed. You simply need to gather enough signatures and you can force a recall election. This must be changed, but that is a different subject for a different day.

Driving home from work they have set up signature gathering posts on busy streets. Even on Thanksgiving day I saw a guy standing outside trying to gather signatures.

They were at Best Buy soliciting signatures from the Black Friday campers but they were chased away by the Best Buy management.

The people who want this are, apparently throwing everything they have at it. I have a few thoughts below the fold if you are at all interested.

All of the above is true, but then again, I live in Madison. I would find it hard to believe the fever is at such a high pitch in, say, Rhinelander or Eau Claire as it is here.

Once the low hanging fruit is collected, the job gets much tougher. They need over a half million signatures to force a recall election. That averages out to over nine thousand a day (the deadline is Jan. 15). Toss in days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and that makes the average higher. Throw in cold weather, snow days and the like and the task gets tougher yet.

Still, I think the signatures will be gathered. The signature gatherers would be wise to book about a 10% safety cushion because there will be challenges. The GAB (Governing Accountability Board) must then verify the signatures. I don’t know if they have computer software to do this and I imagine the Walker folks will have some serious legal challenges to the signatures. I am sure some idiots will forge signatures, sign twice, and the like.

After all that, if we have the recall election, who is running? From what I have seen nobody stands a snowballs chance against Walker besides maybe Russ Feingold, who has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to do it (a loss in that election would end his political career for sure). The Democratic bench is very thin.

Scott Walker’s agenda passed. We have conceal carry, voter ID, and the unions are spending all of their time and energy fighting a rear guard action. Times are still good. Oh yes, we also have a Christmas Tree in the rotunda once again, after several decades of having a holiday tree.

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The Mayflower Compact:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

I am thankful to Jonathan for allowing me to post here and I am also thankful for our commenters who make this a great place. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

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Below the fold, information on the barn that we rehabbed at our farm, if you like.


I really, really wish I could find the “before” photos of this barn. They are somewhere and I will probably find them when we move. Carl has been out there so he can frame a mental picture, but lets just say that this thing was in pretty bad shape. Some portions of the barn had to be torn off – we used recycled old barn boards to re construct it to try to keep as original (in color and spirit) as we could. We re-roofed, sided, shored up the foundation, and did a lot of other things as well that I will get to in the post.

Below you see the finished product inside. We had the windows put in there for natural light. There is a simple HVAC system installed as well. It is used mainly to keep the place above freezing in the winter and to keep it at a respectable temp in the summer when we spend the nights out there. Our main desire was to keep as many original architectural elements intact as we possibly could. The floor is pine – not the best floor material, but we are enjoying how it is wearing. It adds character to the whole thing. Also, we got it as surplus from a job somewhere else that went south so we got it for a song.

We also had uplights installed on the upper beams to cast light up on the ceiling, which creates a wonderful effect at night time.

If you look at this photo carefully, you can see the wooden pegs that were used in the original construction to hold the beams together.

We put this photo of my grandmother out there – she would have loved it.

As I said, we tried to keep as many of the original elements as we could. This door was perhaps used when they filled this loft with hay all the way up to the top. There is an old pulley system there that seems to indicate that perhaps this barn goes all the way back to the loose hay days. Back then they would being carts of hay, back them up to the barn with horses and use a claw type of mechanism to load the hay into the barn. We are guessing this barn was erected before WW2.

While we were doing this project we stumbled upon an immense amount of garbage, and the occasional nice find. We kept this dairy herd monitor and used it as a decoration. The farmer used to have to keep track of each cow by hand as to where they were in the cycle.

This is the old milkhouse – it is now used as a tack room. We used jet-crete to make it look nice and installed the windows and flower boxes. Previously, it was broken stones and ugly chipped cinder blocks.

This is the long view of the barn, featuring more jet-crete work on the milkhouse and the foundation part of the barn.

This is the old dairy itself. We also jet-creted the insides to shore it up and had the manure trenches filled in. We aren’t sure if we are going to do anything with this space yet. Currently it is used for storage and is the home for our four cats that are our rodent control, along with traps and poison. That is a never ending battle.

This was an interesting project and it turned out well. We are very happy with it. We kept the old silo up for decoration. The equipment inside it is completely non functional. We also added the screened porch you can see in the first photo. We spent a lot of nice summer meals out there.

Currently we have our permanent house under construction at the site.

Barns like this are rarely used in modern day dairy operations for anything but storage. They just cannot support the number of head you need to make modern dairy operations viable.

We enjoyed preserving this bit of history that reminds us what the land was used for in a day long gone.

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Rather than posting about sad subjects such as the imminent explosion of the supercommittee or Europe’s sovereign debt problems, I choose to start this Monday morning with a bleg of extreme importance. Below is Jameson, the dog, as a puppy. We got him from the humane society.

Below the fold, you can see a couple photos of him all growed up.



This dog is extremely high energy and has a very high prey drive. He is the perfect farm dog. When my wife goes out there to feed she just lets him go. He knows the boundaries. He doesn’t eat the chickens. He basically chases anything that moves, including squirrels, birds, cats, etc. We can leave him out there all day and he won’t run away. He will walk around and play with stuff, but basically just does his job (we have surveillance cameras out there and it is fun to see what he is doing when we aren’t there).

The dog’s teeth are huge.

Inside, he is like a bull in a china shop but he is learning.

As of today he is about one year old and 75 pounds. We are praying he is done growing.

There is an endless debate between us, the vet, the people at Mounds (a feed store) and others as to what this mess of a mutt is. We think he is a Bouvier/German Shepherd cross, but others say Airedale. We have Airedales in our neighborhood and Jameson towers over them and the coat is a bit different as well. Any help out there from our esteemed commenters?

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Huzzah! My Kindle Fire arrived just in time for the weekend. I ordered the (p)leather holster for that but it appears that it may be on back order. Oh well. Full report to come after I play with this thing.

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This is a terribly boring post I am writing so I will put the rest under the fold for those of you who are interested in our job market here in Wisconsin. So, just how is Wisconsin doing under Governor Walker?

Pretty well, from what I can see.

Here is the link to the document put out by the Department of Workforce Development. I have never really read one of these before so I found it quite interesting. The reason I found it is because I saw a headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to a story that said “State Loses 9300 Private Sector Jobs in October“.

That seemed like a bummer to me so I decided to take a look at the full report, and I was able to get some interesting facts from it:

While the total jobs number decreased in October, so did the overall unemployment rate.

Even figuring in the 9300 job loss for the period of September to October, October 2011 versus October 2010 private sector employment increased by 14,500 jobs.

Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is unchanged from October 2010 to October 2011. We are beating the US over all by a considerable margin – 7.7% unemployment vs. 9% (again, seasonally adjusted).

I look at this as a lot of pretty good news in this economy. A lot of my manufacturer vendors have a new mantra that “flat is the new up” – in other words, companies holding the line are actually gaining market share right now. I think from what I am seeing, this is right. Of course if you just look at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s headline you would think that the Walker administration is a job destroying machine – even though the report issued above says we have an overall job gain over the last year. Big surprise from the MSM. Not.

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New York metero contains 15 million people. There are probably more people there having appendectomies today than “protesting”.

From this comment thread.

My thoughts on “occupy” below the fold.

I liked reading Lex’s thoughts when the Occupy movement started in Chicago. The people seemed intelligent. Unfortunately it took just a couple of weeks for the entire movement to get co-opted by leftists and other agitators and now “Occupy” has officially jumped the shark. They are now disrupting traffic, creating unsanitary conditions, trashing parks, destroying private property and acting basically like a bunch of idiots. I was done with them a while ago, but I am thinking that most normal adults now are looking at these people and hoping they all just go home and take a bath at this point.

I believe that the arctic cold, unsanitary conditions and flu season will wipe “Occupy” out in the northern climates pretty soon, and we will only see “Occupy” in the West and South. Sorry San Diego and Miami.

It was a good idea, ruined by the same old claptrap idology of the left. When you have guys like Ayers giving lectures to the Occupiers, you know what is going to happen.