Oogiem

Starship Troopers is great, every middle schooler should read it.

 

I vaguely remember reading Friday, and there is one part in it where Heinlein basically described Google and the internet. Cool stuff.

When Friday retired briefly from courier duty and became the person feeding the elephants child aka following any rabbit trail she wanted to when asked questions. I love that part and yes, very google like. 

Evicious has it down, Situational Awareness will be key to survival. in addition to NRA stuff if possible look into IDPA, IPSC or any other shooting sport that focuses on self defense scenarios. Even if you never plan to carry a weapon, it would behoove you to practice so when the SHTF you can acquire and use whatever weapons present themselves to you by way of your enemies. Practice with tactical rifles, shotguns shooting slugs and 00 Buck and as may types of handguns as you can. Personally I think I'd do some research on what are the popular weapons among the folks killing and attacking people in your job and be sure I knew everything I could about those weapons specifically. But you must have the mindset that you WILL use it if necessary to defend yourself or don't bother.

There are numerous places to get basic battlefield triage and first aid training. Create your own BOB and also do some practical surtvival training. Mindset is 85% or more of the battle to see whether you will survive. 

Go take a look at this chart:

http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/meatcharts_photos/BeefMadeEasyCutChart2009.pdf

Has all the major cuts and what comes from where. What you are getting is called a split half. 

This has the typical amounts of retail meat in each of the major primal cuts. 

http://beefresearch.org/CMDocs/BeefResearch/Beef%20Cutout%20Calculator.pdf

Hope that helps.

Just had yearly checkup. Doctor is prescribing a fish oil and CoQ10 supplement and red rice yeast supplement for me. She's also pushing me to go far more primal than I am currently (still drink beer and eat some bread).  I'm wondering if anyone is taking these and why?

Doctor's reason is to reduce my triglycerides and LDL numbers while keeping my HDL high like it is now. 

I'd love some khaki or tan or brown options in colors of t-shirts etc. I look worse than death warmed over in black and it's awfully hot to be working outside in black. SO I'd love a few options. 

Yeah I think it is a woot. Combining farming with programming and hobby electronics. Now if I can just get the GitHub weirdness worked out so I can push my latest code easily... ;-)

For the last 6 months or so we've been working hard on a sheep EID tag reader and database and user program for our sheep flock. We presented our demo SW and HW last week at our state woolgrowers convention.

The entire system is Open Source and I am a novice Android/SqLite programmer so it's been really slow going.

However, we made the local news this am!

http://kvnf.org/post/local-sheep-farmers-unveil-open-source-diy-tracking-system

Well having grown up with the Doctor, in all incarnations, I  personally want an older amalgam of Tennant and Davidson. But I have

 no clue who could do that.

Some folks on Tumblr really want Chiwetel Ejiofor as the next Doctor, which would be cool, although in my head he is always The Operative in "Serenity".

My mind got blown after seeing him in Kinky Boots, the juxtaposition of Lola vs the Operative was just too much! I don't think I could take him as the Doctor!

We were still lambing in May so a light reading month:

So who would you like to see as the 12th Doctor?

And do you think they'll change the 12 reincarnations limit?

Yes, tried reddit, Android Developers tutorials,  StackOverflow etc. Lots of various threads but again no complete examples that actually run in the latest Android development environment. 

Try localharvest.org for a source of local grass finished meats direct from the farmer. And become one with your freezer :-) 

We just did something we said we would never do... We bought 2 steers to raise up for beef. When we got rid of our cows we swore we'd never get any again but we need something to eat the less than wonderful hay that got wet this year so need some cattle. Our plan is to sell one and keep one for ourselves. 

I've basically been MIA here since March. We started lambing the first week of April and I've been going flat out since then. But we have 86 lovely lambs for my troubles. Down to the last 5 ewes to lamb should start this week. In other news, diet is getting better and better all the time and with spring farm work Iv'e gotten in better shape and have lost about 2 inches on my waist and another 2 or so on my hips. We also now have a gym in town, almost no aerobic equipment at all (1 small elliptical and 1 stationary bike and 1 treadmill) but lots of weights, free weights, dumbbells, squat rack benches etc. I haven't been yet as we've been so busy here but I am planning on joining as soon as I can. $35/mo unlimited access 24 hrs a day!

Been missing the NF boards though so glad to have things slowing down a bit so I can participate again. 

OK I HATE that NONE of the example code on the Android developers site actually works. 

So... Can someone who really understands Android Service/binding/messaging help an ancient programmer out whose last real programming job was in Fortran with some Pascal who is trying to get a Java Android system up and running in time for a demo by the first of July? I have 2 working programs, an EID reader that uses bluetooth to read an electronic ear tag on a sheep. And a LambTracker program that queries a SQLite database using an ear tag number and pulls up lambing data and health records. 

I need to get the EID  reader to send to the LambTracker an EID tag and have the LambTracker automatically pull up the data as the ear tags are read. 

I've been tearing my hair out on this because none of the examples work and I'm just getting lost in the differences between services, binding, broadcast etc. etc. etc. 

April was a slow reading month, we've been busy with lambing.

Also started a bunch of books in April but not done with any of them yet. 

R.A.H. is one of my favorite authors. His books are the ones I turn to for comfort and to make me re-think life. I have

 every thing he ever wrote, sometimes on my 3rd-4th or I think 6th copy depending on the book. I am slowly buying kindle version and taking the DRM off them so I can read them again and again w/o buying a new paperback. 

I love his later strong women characters, Friday and Deja Thoris for example. But I also like the way he makes you think. SOme of his non-fiction are also good, his address to the graduating class at the Naval Academy and his article on Rare Blood types are great. His book on how to take back your government, long out of print, is now avail on kindle and is an interesting treatise on how to make your votes count in the political arena. He was very active politically for a number of years and while some of what he proposes is not PC and it is way before computers it is still useful. Since I am being forced to become more involved in politics due to threats to our farm I've found his notes and comments accurate, disturbingly so I might ad. 

One of my favorite books when I was young was Tunnel in the Sky, although I haven't read it for many years now. 

Its still one of my favorite books. and I just re-read it for the umteenth time. Part of planning what goes in my BOB bag ;-)

I'm loving my Carhartt Easy Fit Carpenter's Pants. Fit perfectly except for having to shorten the legs about an inch (I'm short) and durable. Decent front and back pockets.

For other's I've been buying Travelsmith pants.

Or BDU's if I can find them

Agree on the decide on goals first.

But for me I'd  start saving 10-15% of your paycheck until you have 6 months to a year of expenses saved in an interest bearing account somewhere. That's your rainy day fund, the SHTF fund and so on. Don't use t until you have to and keep it topped up as your expenses change.

Once you have the emergency cash fund covered then put as much as you can possibly afford up to the limits allowed by law into a ROTH IRA or 401K and leave it alone, just adding to it as you go.  Your time horizon for retirement is long so you can afford to be a bit risky with it but you shouldn't do stock picking yourself. I'd find a nice medium risk fund and invest in it for the long term. Target funds can be a good choice. 

If you don't have one yet find a decent accountant and ask them their opinions. Stay away from ones who get paid by the investments they suggest. 

Sad to say the choices for old horses are few. We've had to put down 4 in the last year and are down to 3 left. Our rule was to not get or breed a horse unless we were willing to care for it for its entire life. If we had a major issue I'd euthanize them before risking my own financial security. Sorry to be harsh but that is the way it is. 

For February and March I finished

Seed is very good as is everything I've ever read from Craig Childs

Finished in February

posted update in thread over on main board, aspirin is only things stopping pain right now. Can't get out to drug store to pick up anything else, no aleve in house nor any tylenol. Just trying to keep us and sheepies and dogs fed right now. 

Update, ibuprofen isn't touching the pain at all, no tylenol in the house, aspirin keeps me mostly vertical. Worst is now both hubby & I are REALLY sick with a horrible cough, so bad I felt and heard my muscles in back and side and arm go ping during one particularly bad coughing spasm so now really crippled up. I can feel them twitching and spasming but can't seem to get them to stop no matter whether heat or ice. Had to text msg a neighbor (can't talk at all) to come help feed sheep as unable to lift or drag hay bales. Thank goodness for small towns where you can actually send a msg and have help arrive immediately! one hurting puppy right now :sigh: