GMAFB! On wind power.

I’m doing a cause and effect essay for my comp class that talks about all the ways environmentalists are fucking things up by demanding the impossible from energy companies. You know, large scale renewable zero impact power. Like I said, impossible.

So I was looking for large scale wind power info, something that would give me some numbers to work with, like the size of a given wind farm, turbines, power generated at what capacity factor, avian species exterminated, etc. Instead I found some website that has all these podcasts from pro-wind power scientists who, despite BEING scientists, still seem fucking stupid.

Hmm, enough wind power to easily replace 40% of ‘polluting electricity’ in the UK huh? And it’s not only inexpensive, but so full of awesome that it will actually cost less than zero dollars per MWh!!!!1

Wow! That’s awesome, sign me up buddy!

Of course, they don’t explain why energy companies aren’t jumping all over wind power if it is such a great thing. You know, those profit motivated sleazebags that only want to make a quick buck before going home to their mansions heated with the souls of children and baby seal carcasses?

Why does it cost less than zero dollars, anyway? Simple. Government subsidies. It’s not free, imbicile, it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than regular power. If it wasn’t, wind power wouldn’t require subsidies to be competitive, and does anyone really think the government cut for handling that tax money isn’t significant? I’ll be generous and say only 30% of the money collected to fund those subsidies is lost in the system.

If the government was subsidizing wind power to the point where the energy companies could offer free power to the consumers and simply get reimbursed above and beyond by the government, they would be ALL OVER THAT SHIT. But… they’re not. Because it’s bullshit.

I’m not citing a god damn thing in this post because the premise is just so stupid. It requires you to believe that the only reason energy companies aren’t expanding into the renewable energy sector is because they take pleasure from harming the environment, not because it’s impractical at large scale and expensive even with subsidies.

In the meantime, I maintain that the energy company pricks are like, totally jealous of my perpetual motion machine, and that’s why they’re not giving me a chance.

Can haz plow?

Apparently Alaskans scoff at winter road maintenance as a lower-48 pussy move.

It started snowing about 48 hours ago. We’re up to about six inches, and most of the roads in town are total shit by now, because it has been getting a degree or two above freezing midday, and that’s plenty to melt a bit of snow and turn the roads to ice.

I saw a little evidence that a plow may have gone down the main street I live off on my way up here tonight, because the–for lack of a better word–SNOW DRIFT in the middle of it was smaller.

All the turning lanes and most intersections are pure ice. It’s bumpy ass ice too, so making a turn is more like a barely controlled slide in the general direction you’re traveling. God help you if you stop, because it takes about twenty seconds to get up to ‘fast walk’ pace again, if you can get moving in a straight line at all.

If it’s that hard to accelerate, you might draw the conclusion that stopping is pretty touchy too. Right in one! But are the yellow lights any longer? No, they’re not. They’re still about four seconds, which is barely enough time to stop on completely dry pavement at some of the intersections around here. It has never occurred to me that maybe in winter, yellow lights should be longer, but it seems pretty fucking obvious now. I’m just going to keep going if I don’t feel I can stop, but it’s hard to fight the slam-the-brakes instinct I have when I see a yellow light just barely inside my dry weather stopping range.

The streets on campus are much worse than in town. I guess they figured that after 5 PM, they could stop running the gravel trucks, because when I had to make a turn after a stop on a very slight incline, I could barely get any traction at all. I’m just leaving the truck in 4WD constantly, and I’m definitely getting some studded tires ASAP. I’ll probably spring for some chains as well, if this is the way they do things here.

I really thought that in a town where winter is half the fucking year, they would have a handle on road maintenance. Maybe they could run some plows around the city so they hit each road twice a day, and they would be significantly improved… Perhaps they just got caught with their pants down, but I’m calling bullshit on that idea, because this is a late snow. Normally we would have had snow for a few weeks, I guess.

I dunno. I’ve never thought I would compare NY favorably with Alaska, and maybe this is premature, but while I’ve seen roads this shitty in NY, they never STAYED shitty for so long. Even the fucking highway was clearly untouched by public works. They don’t salt here, which is awesome (and why my 1995 K1500 still has an awesome frame and body), but for fuck’s sake, run the sand trucks at least!

On this whole open carry debate:

I’m calling serious shenanigans on the idea that open carry actually harms RKBA. That’s such a non sequitur, I’m confused why anyone is taking it seriously at all.

I open carry probably every other day. My decision to carry openly or concealed has to do with whether I expect to be disarming or not, and nothing else. If I know I’m going to the gym or the post office or something and need to disarm, I’ll conceal, simply because it’s a lot easier to slip the concealment rig off than take my belt half off to get my belt holster off. If I had a comfortable paddle holster, maybe I’d wear that instead, but I don’t like the way paddle holsters interact with my belt loops.

I don’t go out of my way to display my pistol; if I’m carrying in a regular strongside holster and I’m wearing a jacket, you’re not going to see my gun, but I’m not shy about taking the jacket off either. If I’m wearing a sweatshirt or sweater, the gun is displayed. BFD.

I’ve had no negative reactions, and only a few weird looks (from the same person, a greeter at Wal-mart). I’ve received more compliments on my nice, custom Kimber than anything else. Most people don’t even notice it.

Now, you might say that’s only because I’m in Alaska, and you might even be right. I open carry when I’m in PA, but the land we own is in such a rural area hardly anyone would see me anyway. However, I don’t give a shit where I am, if open carry is legal, I’m carrying openly. It’s infinitely more comfortable, and access to the pistol is MUCH faster–40% faster on the draw, in my case. If some cop sees fit to tackle me or some shit because he’s a gun fearing control freak, well, thanks for paying for my house, buddy.

If a cop draws on me with no provocation, I’m going to draw my own pistol and move for cover. I’m sorry, but your badge does not mean you get to wave your pistol around freely at people who have done nothing wrong. Cops have killed people over nothing before, and I’m not about to be one of them. If a cop is such a fucking pussy that the idea of a civilian legally carrying a handgun makes him shit himself, well, I’m in mortal danger the second that pistol comes out, because he is almost certainly not cool and collected enough to keep his booger hook off the bang switch, and could easily shoot me on ‘accident’. How the fuck am I supposed to know if he’s even a cop? Anyone can claim to be a cop and carry a badge. It’s not like anyone has ever impersonated a cop to commit crimes or anything, right?

It’s also not as if real cops ever commit crimes themselves…

I don’t think a regular dude carrying a pistol to the bookstore and buying a few books is an evil image in anyone’s mind. It’s just a regular dude, standing around, being regular. With a gun. Never has open carry lead to ‘blood in the streets!!1 or any of the other bullshit antis trot out. I’m not going to say everyone should open carry, because I’m a little too enamored of freedom for that, but I think it shows a clear commitment to RKBA that goes a hell of a lot farther than getting a CCW permit and taking pains to hide your firearm. If you treat carrying a pistol as something to be hidden, something shameful, then why should the general public not agree with you?

As for the tactical ‘disadvantage’, I’m calling BULLSHIT on that one. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, the goblins are going to try to rob the guy who is carrying a condition one 1911 in a well used belt holster, who is alert to his surroundings and doesn’t just let people approach him without turning toward them and making eye contact. Right. Because goblins want to fight instead of victimize. What a dumb fucking argument. I’m sure so many bad guys would rather fight to the death to acquire a pistol, rather than buy one from a thief who robs houses while the occupants are at work.

Think about that. If that was the case, why wouldn’t they just kill cops and steal their equipment? All cops are armed. That way they could get a pistol, rifle or shotgun (from the cruiser), and body armor all at once. Because they’re not fucking stupid, that’s why, and they don’t WANT a fight.

The wiper mystery is solved.

So I finally figured out where the interior accessory fuse box was in my truck, and it turns out the fuse for the windshield wipers wasn’t even in there. There were a few convenient extra fuses in the fuse box, in the exact amperage I needed even, so I popped one in and voila: wipers work.

I was pretty concerned about not having wipers with the snow season coming up, so it’s a relief that for once it was a simple fix. I wasn’t looking forward to ripping apart the steering column and replacing contacts or some bullshit like that, if the switch itself was the problem.

Just ordered a new passenger door handle (the other one doesn’t work right) and a new catalytic converter. I said fuck the welding and just ordered some pre-formed exhaust bands from Jegs. It’s too fucking cold to lay on the ground and try to weld an exhaust pipe that’s right next to the frame.

I wish my piece of shit Jeep hadn’t crapped out on me. Maybe tomorrow I’ll give plugging the leak another shot. What I really want to do is just replace the block heater with a regular frost plug and call it good, but I don’t have the time or work space to do that.

I really don’t need tickets for having an expired I/M tag, which is why I want my Jeep running again. I thought I was fucked yesterday when a cop pulled up right behind me at light (I/M tags are on the rear plate and windshield) and followed me for a mile or so, but I guess he wasn’t in the mood to give me a ticket.

Sub-par data

In my chem lab this past week, we were doing an experiment in thermochemistry. Basically, we were burning food under water and measuring the temperature change, then figuring out how many joules were imparted to the water. This is supposed to measure how much energy is in the food, with obvious flaws, but whatever. It’s freshman chem.

The other part of the lab was measuring the change in the temperature of a solution of water and a salt when the salt was dissolved.

Each pair did one food item and one salt. We put our data on a spreadsheet, and it was posted online for us to use to complete our labs. So you see, we have to use the data the whole class put together to finish the lab, and I’m not happy about that, because apparently some of the people in my lab are stupid.

Since we wanted to figure out how much energy there was per gram of food burned, we measured the food before and after burning and calculated the mass burned. Now, this is a normal undergrad chem lab, with pretty decent scales available. I think they go out to the thousandths of a gram. Given that, why the FUCK would you only record to the hundredths? Will it matter? No, in this case, because the thermometers are only accurate to 2 sig figs anyway. But seriously, that’s some shitty lab work, and it makes my data look retarded.

Two groups did that. Another entered two sets of data to the proper thousandths (four significant figures in this case), but entered the third set to the hundredths.

Really?

Don’t even get me started on the group that calculated the molar mass of their salt wrong. How do you get 175 odd grams per mole of CaCl2? They wrote the formula down right, but fucked up adding three numbers together. Calcium is about 40 grams per mole and Chlorine is about 35 grams per mole, two moles of Cl… let’s see… 35+35+40 is fucking 110. It comes out to 111.0 g/mol or so, with some variation depending which periodic table you use (the test version is a shitty hamstrung one that rounds shit off randomly, for example, like people can’t handle three decimals and round at the end). Good job on that 58% error, guys. I hope you’re majoring in Bio, not engineering…

So I’m going to be pretty fucking pissed if my grade suffers for this. I’ve got a 96% average in lab, and that’s contributing greatly to the A I’m going to get in Chem (you only need an 88% to get a clean A). I thought I was safe in lab when I secured a good lab partner, but I guess you can’t escape stupid entirely.

Just for a taste of how awesome my chem class is, consider this: the last test average was a 62%. There were people who scored less than 10%. How the fuck do you get that kind of grade if you were in class at all? Oh wait, there’s my mistaken assumption right there…

I got a 95%, without studying AT ALL beyond the normal homework online, and the only reason it wasn’t a 100% was I was an idiot and read a question too fast, and assumed that iron would have the normal charge of 2+ instead of the 1+ indicated by the iron(I) oxide they stated.

I dunno, guys. I’m not a genius here. Chemistry is very simple; it’s nothing more than attention to detail and a bit of memorization. There is no excuse whatsoever for fucking up the math, unless you just don’t understand the concepts underlying the equations… we’re talking about very basic algebra here. I just don’t get it. Stupid fucking teenagers. If they were paying for this shit themselves, maybe things would be different.

My wallet is crying.

The piece of shit block heater that I wish I had never installed in my Jeep is leaking horribly now. Every time I drive it I have clouds of coolant steam billowing all over the place. I’m about ready to sideline the Jeep entirely until I can take the time to fix it. It’s pretty involved thanks to the compact engine bay; I imagine Jeep dealerships employ contortionist midgets to work on them or something, but I seem to have misplaced mine in the move up here.

Good thing I got that truck, or I’d be riding a fucking bike to school.

I could have my truck ready to pass I/M next week if I had a mechanic fix the exhaust, for the previously mentioned $400. It might be worth it, since my ‘reliable’ car decided to tell me to fuck off. God, that pisses me off. If you’re thinking about installing a block heater, for the love of God, get a solid body version or super glue that bitch together or something.

I also need to check the circuit on the windshield wipers, because I’m not getting anything from them at all now. It pretty much has to be a blown fuse or loose wire or similar, because there is no response at all, not even a shudder or a whine from a damaged motor.

Worst case scenario is the switch itself is damaged, but if that was the case, why would my turn signals and brights work? All that shit is on the same control arm deal.

I’m happy with the truck for the price I paid, but I was really hoping to have a little more time before it became critical to get it legal again. Paying the muffler shop prices, plus winter tires (and wheels) and my windshield wiper issue, I’m looking at maybe $1250 or so. Fuck.

It’s amazing how of everything I did to my Jeep, a list of probably 150+ items as I recall, some quite involved… the only one that’s giving me shit is my block heater, and the only reason that’s giving me shit is it’s a stupid fucking design. I wish I could go back and just permatex the thing, but I didn’t realize that the shitty design would require it. Chalk that one up to inexperience; I’ve since discovered it’s best to just permatex every joint with fluid near it.

It’s snowing!

It already snowed once here, but it didn’t stick. This is unseasonably warm weather–it’s been getting above freezing every day for two weeks!

Went outside to take a leak, and it was snowing a bit. Just enough to dust the trucks overnight. It’s nice to see winter might finally come to Fairbanks, though we’ll see how happy I am when it drops another sixty degrees.

Oh, and since I’m in a shitty mood at still being awake at 3 AM… what the fuck happened to the northern lights? I haven’t seen them yet. Seems like every time I look at the sky, it’s cloudy as fuck. Unfortunately I live south of the main part of Fairbanks, and the city glow might be making it much harder to see the aurora. You’re supposed to be able to see it 2/3 of the year up here, and since I’ve been here for two months, well I should have obviously seen it by now. Oh well.

Step it up, VA.

So another Tuesday morning has passed with no money from VA. Everyone at my school got fucked over, because our VA representative decided to hold all the GI bill claims until the very last minute to ’save paper’ by using one envelope. Thanks, dumbass, I’m glad I sent everything in six weeks earlier than the average vet so it could sit around passively saving the rain forest. I was pretty pissed when I got an e-mail six days before school started that my registration confirmation was just then sent out, and knew right then that I was fucked financially this semester.

She no longer works there. That probably has nothing to do with her incompetence, though, unless she got promoted for it in the finest bureaucratic tradition.

I had hoped when one of my buddies got his money, oh, ten days ago that I might get SOMETHING soon. He’s received BAH and his book stipend by now. I’m sure I will get something here in the next 10-12 weeks, just in time for the start of spring fucking semester, but in the meantime, I’m down to $5400 and without any income, I’m pretty hesitant to spend my money. Is this what it’s going to be like every semester?

I have no real homework area here in the cabin, because this shitty little desk is only big enough for my laptop, mouse, and empty beer bottles. I really like to spread out when I’m working, and in the library I normally use half or better of a table designed to seat four, so even without my laptop this desk is way too small. My classwork is starting to suffer because I do almost all of it at school, and the 23 hour study area is always packed so tonight I couldn’t even get space to work. I’m spending a shitload on gas as well: it’s five miles to school one way, several times a day usually, in a shitty, poorly geared Jeep that gets 13.5 mpg downhill with a tailwind. It adds right the fuck up.

I’m no longer remotely enamored with sleeping on the fucking floor after seven weeks. It’s comfortable enough I guess, but it is time to get a bed. Tomorrow I’m going to eschew homework in the afternoon and go buy a bed, a kitchen table, and some chairs. I might pick up some 1×8″ pine boards to make some shelves as well, and get started building my reloading bench. Forcing myself to work uncomfortably might pay off for one day, but getting my place all nicely set up so I can stay here and do all my work will pay big dividends over the rest of the year, not to mention the money I’ll save on gas and food by staying here more.

I figure I’ll spend $1200 or so at most (that would be with a really nice bed), so I’ll have enough money to see me through this semester, but boy would I love to get some more furniture in here. I have nowhere that’s really comfortable to sit, and while wood chairs are fine for homework, my aching ass really needs a nice recliner or a sofa or something. I write a hell of a lot quicker when I’m comfortable, and my natural writing habitat includes a recliner. I have lots of writing to catch up on; that’s the majority of my homework the rest of the semester. I need to write an average of an essay every three days through the end of classes if I start tomorrow.

If VA doesn’t stop fucking around, not only am I probably going to have to get a job soon and royally fuck my grades over, but I’ll just be able to afford to furnish this place when I’m ready to move out. Un-fucking-acceptable.

If you’re a soldier reading this and planning on VA ever paying you on time, don’t even consider that as an option. Plan for the worst. I had some financial leeway coming up here because my parents were nice enough not to call in the loan they gave me back in fucking May (I had to clear some debts in El Paso and get home after the Army fucked me on my final paycheck). First I had to spend that money because I didn’t get my student loans for a month longer than I’d planned (the school mailed the checks to my El Paso address, for some unknown, dumbass reason, despite the fact that all my other UAF mail went to NY). When I thought I would be able to pay them back out of the loans, VA didn’t pay me shit and I had to pay rent and insurance and whatnot, so I still owe them over $3000. I’ve had the money three times, but if I had paid them back, I would have had to borrow it right back again because the other money I should have received didn’t come through in time. Good thing my parents are nice, because I’d be fucked without that buffer.

Too bored to work

So here I sit in the library. Bored BY the work, and thus not doing it.

I made some of Kevin Baker’s beer bread last night. I used Widmer Hefewiezen, my current beer of choice, and it is pretty damn good. I’ll make up two more loaves with the other two kinds of beer I have in my fridge to see what I like best tonight (Silver Gulch Fairbanks Lager and Alaskan Amber).

Having never made bread before, I underestimated the difficulty of mixing the ingredients in the bread pan. I made a mess. I think it would be a lot easier to just mix in a bowl and transfer it, because I more or less had to pick the whole wad of dough up and flop it around anyway to get all of the flour to contact still-wet portions of the dough. Plus it would be nice to dust the bread pan in flour for easier loaf extraction. Not sure why he specifically said to mix the ingredients in the pan, anyway.

In other exciting news, I bought a new pair of running shoes and ordered a second pair this morning. I like to have a set of trail shoes for XC and dirt and a nice pair of indoor shoes as well. I went with the old Asics GT series that I’ve been using since, oh, 2000 or earlier: the GT2140 and GT2140 trail. Why fix what isn’t broken? If I end up running outside through the winter, I’ll spring for a set of spiked trail shoes too.

I’m pretty excited to get into running again. I hated the army style running, and didn’t miss it when I got hurt, but now I miss my power and speed. The exhilaration of an all out sprint is hard to beat; few things make me feel quite so powerful. Since I’m in great cardiovascular shape, I really don’t mind endurance running either anymore, because I can deal with pain in my limbs and back and legs a lot more readily than feeling like I’m going to puke because my core can’t handle the strain. That’s what turned me off to XC running, you see: the horrible feeling of death in my stomach mid way through a distance race even though my legs felt awesome. I discovered the importance of core strength and endurance in infantry OSUT. Why the hell didn’t my XC and track coaches ever emphasize core strength…? Dunno.

So instead of doing work, I wrote this, and did some persuading to get my freshman friend to switch from mechanical engineering to mining engineering. Hopefully he does, because I think he’s going to hate mechanical, and mining is awesome, pays well, and offers many opportunities for hard working people who don’t act like douches and get bad reps in the very small mining engineering community.

Now it’s gym time. Stupid gym closes at seven on Sunday, and I have no excuse not to go since I bought my new shoes.

Rationalizing a light carbine

I want another M4gery, but I’m probably going to go for a 6.8 SPC rifle this time. I love my M1A, but it’s a bit too cumbersome to stash in my truck or Jeep in a hidden, yet easily accessible fashion. Maybe when I get my Sage stock up here and a second M1A I can have a full power rifle in a smallish (but heavy) package suitable for dedicated vehicle use.

The fact is I can get a new 6.8 SPC Rock River with their awesome match trigger, quad rail, and a trick stock for $400-500 less than a regular walnut stocked M1A Scout. Not only is that a lot of ammo (considering I reload), but I can actually use my Aimpoint CompM3 and 3x magnifier set on an AR, which have been gathering dust since I redeployed.

I would just throw my Marlin 45-70 in the vehicle, but given the way things are going in this country, I’m more worried about having to fight off feral humans than runaway dumptrucks and other dangerous northern wildlife. Twenty five rounds of 6.8 SPC on tap with a bandolier of fast reloads goes a lot farther than five rounds of 45-70 and the slowest reloading method ever devised in a repeating rifle. Besides, if I’m going out in the wilderness, what’s to say I can’t throw the 1895G in there too?

A shotgun is not appropriate because of the size limitations I’ve set on the new goblinwhacker. Besides, while it would be awesome to have the versatility and power of a shotgun on hand, I want more range, quicker followup shots, and faster reloads.

It’s good to have an AR on hand anyway. I enjoy teaching new shooters, especially women (because they actually listen to my advice…), but all of my fighting gear is designed to fit me, a 5′11 man with a large frame. Most women I’ve taught weren’t comfortable using my M1A, 870, or 45 ACP 1911s (I’m well aware that there are plenty that do, just generally not the ones I’ve met), so it’s useful to have a light carbine or two around, with a progression of increasingly powerful pistols as well.

I consider a solid 50% of my guns training tools: I specifically bought my 9mm STI to fill an equipment gap when teaching new shooters, for example. It’s convenient for me, because it’s nice to have a step between 22LR and 45 ACP in training, and it’s fun in competition, but those are just side benefits. I bought it to teach new shooters on. Right now my least powerful rifle is my M1A, so clearly I need a carbine.

The final argument in favor of a 6.8 SPC AR is the whole ‘girlfriend rig’ issue. Not being prescient, but realizing I will almost certainly be married at some point, I have no idea what my probable-future-wife will be like. Assuming she at least tolerates shooting (and let’s be serious, why the hell would I marry someone who wasn’t interested in learning the skills to defend herself and our family, even if she’s not a gun nut), she will have her own set of gear. That gear might include another 6.8 SPC or 5.56mm carbine, and everyone knows two is one and one is none. So you see, I’m really just planning ahead here.

Oh, and in case the FTC is around:

I have no affiliation with Aimpoint, STI, Remington, Springfield Armory, or Rock River Arms. I have never received any promotional material or free services from any of them. That should be pretty fucking obvious because I only get a few dozen hits a week, but hey, who knows. I might be the worst scam artist ever who makes no effort whatsoever to lure people to his site.

Oh, I forgot Marlin and Sage Industries. No affiliation with them either. What else… no affiliation with Jeep or GMC either. I think that’s every company I even made a passing reference to, but hey, let’s include RCBS since they made 90% of my reloading gear and I mentioned the word ‘reload’. Oh, and I think I own a few Lee products, Forster made my case tumbler, Rooster made that shitty lube that got a 308 case stuck in the die… and I usually use Sierra and Hornady bullets. I order my reloading shit from MidwayUSA. None of those companies have any undisclosed influence over me.

Is this silly enough for you yet, FTC cocksuckers? Hope so, because it’s the only time I’m fucking doing it.

From now on, any readers of this blog are directed to assume that if I do not mention an affiliation with a company, there isn’t one. Innocent until proven guilty, I think I heard that somewhere once…