TOTALLY RANDOM POST II

[moose eater]

It's lining up to be a banner weekend.

9 fillets of my older son's Kasilof sockeye salmon thawing along with perhaps 25 of my own Copper River sockeye, all to be made into traditional style salmon strips on Sunday, with stripping the filets on Saturday evening, I hope.

About 15-lbs. of sweet, seedless watermelon, 7.5-lbs of high-bush blueberries, ~10-lbs. of combined frozen high-bush cranberries and wild rose hips mixed from the property (wild hibiscus fruit), 4 or 5-lbs of frozen rhubarb from the garden this summer, several lbs. of dates and another several lbs. of raisins, all going into my wife's wine making tomorrow.

A batch of beef and organic refried bean burritos with sweet peppers, sweet onions, and jalapeno peppers.

Only a handful of balsam poplar and green-cut alder poles to peel yet for fish smoking.

And if it's sunny enough, an oil change to be done on the 4th motor vehicle and maybe the Honda snowblower to get it ready for winter.

And a small harvest of potatoes waiting in the potato field to be taken care of before it freezes, as well as carrots, squash, snow peas, cucumbers, etc.

We'll see what actually gets done and what doesn't.

165-gallon load of #1 heating/fuel oil we'd intended to transport and transfer to the main tank had to wait due to the frequent rain most of this last week, so that still needs done, too. I don't transport fuel oil in the rain if I can help it.

Decent size batch of the beef and organic refried bean burrito filling is done and cooling, last tiny bit of the alder and balsam polar are being peeled, wine ingredients are combined and mingling while cooling (1st sizable batch will be blueberry, watermelon and rhubarb; should be DYNAMITE), and I need to shred some cheddar cheese for the burritos before going out to do an oil change on the truck, after which digging up spuds, and harvesting the veggies, to include side-branches of broccoli, which I left off the list earlier..

My daughter and her beau ought to be here this late afternoon for me to show them how to cut salmon strips, with them taking over that job, and me going into brining the batches of strips while they cut, then stringing the strips, and hanging them to form a pellicle in the smoker.

Then getting the heat panel and the oscillating fan set up in the smokehouse for the period of hanging without smoke, which means stringing the 12/3 100' cord again and running it to the smoker.

I think we'll get more done today than I had thought we would. Old age with some disabilities and dulled energy tends to bring these things in spurts. And today seems to be a spurt day.

 

[moose eater]

Didn't do the oil change yet but dug a few spuds of German Butterball and French Fingerling varieties for my daughter to take home, along with some awesome Scarlet Nantes (organically grown) carrots from the veggie garden (original Scarlet Nantes, not the Coreless).

She and her boyfriend helped us cut 4 of my 'bedrolls' of cold-cured sockeye fillets from the Copper River, and 9 larger sockeye fillets from the Kasilof River that belong to my older son, all of which are now stripped, brined, and hanging from strings on wooden rods in the smoker with the fan and heat panel going to develop the pellicle.

Still have either 2.5 or 3.5 larger bundles of salmon bellies to brine in a different brine than the strips, along with maybe 7 or 8 whole sockeye fillets of mine, and 2 of my older son's Kasilof River fish, all to do in a more conventional 'white man brine', and we'll hard smoke the bellies for 2-4 days or so, which just drip with fish oil and fat even after 3 days at 120 to 130 f. The bellies go really well broken up in quiche in place of bacon when done right. In fact, they taste like sweet fishy bacon. Really.

Tomorrow I'll finish cutting up the smattering of green alder and the balsam poplar that remains to be sectioned for the smokehouse wood stove with my wife's smaller chainsaw, and light the smoker fire maybe around noon or early afternoon if the strips are ready.

Then the oil change (if it's not raining again) and more harvesting of spuds and veggies.

Fall's really a busy time now, but it feels good to be knocking this stuff out and being active, instead of waiting around for another medical appointment or waiting to die.

Then comes prepping for the trip to Anchorage for spine surgery... A first-time solo trip into a major surgery. I've always had my wife with me before in these moments. New horizons.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Why do they call it “taking a shit” when you are leaving one?

 

[CharlesU Farley]

Didn't do the oil change yet but dug a few spuds of German Butterball and French Fingerling varieties for my daughter to take home, along with some awesome Scarlet Nantes (organically grown) carrots from the veggie garden (original Scarlet Nantes, not the Coreless).

She and her boyfriend helped us cut 4 of my 'bedrolls' of cold-cured sockeye fillets from the Copper River, and 9 larger sockeye fillets from the Kasilof River that belong to my older son, all of which are now stripped, brined, and hanging from strings on wooden rods in the smoker with the fan and heat panel going to develop the pellicle.

Still have either 2.5 or 3.5 larger bundles of salmon bellies to brine in a different brine than the strips, along with maybe 7 or 8 whole sockeye fillets of mine, and 2 of my older son's Kasilof river fish to do in a more conventional 'white man brine', and we'll hard smoke the bellies, which just drip with fish oil and fat even after 3 days at 120 to 130 f., and go really well broken up in quiche in place of bacon when done right. In fact, they taste like sweet fishy bacon. Really.

Tomorrow I'll finish cutting up the smattering of green alder and the balsam poplar that remains to be sectioned for the smokehouse wood stove with my wife's smaller chainsaw, and light the smoker fire maybe around noon or early afternoon if the strips are ready..

Then the oil change (if it's not raining again) and more harvesting of spuds and veggies.

Fall's really a busy time now, but it feels good to be knocking this stuff out and being active, instead of waiting around for another medical appointment or waiting to die.

Then comes prepping for the trip to Anchorage for spine surgery... A first-time solo trip into a major surgery. I've always had my wife with me before in these moments. New horizons.

Damn shame you don't live down here in the SouthEast mountains!! Harley just said if y'all lived around us, she would watch your dogs so your wife could go with you when you have surgery.

She's used to living in a isolated area with dogs and can empty a clip with my Mini-14 almost as fast as I can!

Glad you all have a high speed internet connection so you can do Zoom... that'll make communication a hell of a lot easier when you're in Lost Anchorage and she's up at the house.

 

[moose eater]

Damn shame you don't live down here in the SouthEast mountains!! Harley just said if y'all lived around us, she would watch your dogs so your wife could go with you when you have surgery.

She's used to living in a isolated area with dogs and can empty a clip with my Mini-14 almost as fast as I can!

Glad you all have a high speed internet connection so you can do Zoom... that'll make communication a hell of a lot easier when you're in Lost Anchorage and she's up at the house.

The more I isolate in later years, and the more our adult children have developed lives and schedules of their own, the more arrangements have to be made or abandoned.

The 11-1/2-mos-old German shepherd female pup isn't socialized with m/any other people, aside from my wife and I; a product of both personality and our being fairly reclusive. She trembled a bit less this last time at the vet's, though. And she'll still be in the later stint of recuperation from spaying, micro-chipping and x-rays for hips and elbows about the time I head to Los Anchorage for slicing and dicing.

Of the handful of long-time trusted folks around the continent, including a small list of Canajuns, I'm not even sure who I might ask to attend to the dogs and house if we were to offer to fly someone up/over.

The 3-year-old German shepherd female would probably be elated to have a whole new somebody to manipulate into extra treats and more outdoor time. Or even videos of dogs and puppies on the tv.

One thought included putting the winter Blizzaks on the van (all the vehicle rims and tires will need swapped out soon, anyway, and I'm likely going to be doing that in the driveway shortly before surgery, as I damned sure won't be up for that task with 4 rigs, post-op), tossing the kennels in it, and having my wife drive down with me, with the dogs, and camp out with them while I'm in a hospital bed, and then later on, camp in the parking lot of the hotel I have stayed at for medical shit, where the rooms have fridges, microwaves and cook-tops, but the hotel has restrictions on pet-size, and our's are too big unless special approval is given, so my wife would need to stay with the pups in the camper van, other than to come in routinely to fix herself some grub, clean up, etc.

Adding a whole new angle on Todd Snider's response to his heckling admirer, "I thought I told you to wait in the truck!"

And it's into Fall now, so night time temps can get chilly; something I often find creates an exhilarating environment in the camper, but not sure my wife would dig 10 days or so of such conditions.

I appreciate the thoughts, though.

Lots of options. Just need to pick one and run with it.

Meanwhile, there's freshly dug spuds of 2 awesome varieties being turned into properly prepped home fried potatoes, with some good quality pork breakfast sausage links, and an easy-over egg with Tapatio Sauce, and I can hear them hollering!

 

[Grow44DE]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am looking for a movie. From the 80s - 90s I think.

The plot as far as I remember. Consists of a family living in the mountains. The family faces dangers like bears, mountain lions and extreme winters. They build their own snowshoes.

Anyone got in idea what movie i mean?

 

[moose eater]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am looking for a movie. From the 80s - 90s I think.

The plot as far as I remember. Consists of a family living in the mountains. The family faces dangers like bears, mountain lions and extreme winters. They build their own snowshoes.

Anyone got in idea what movie i mean?

Sounds like Jeremiah Johnson meets Swiss Family Robinson scenario. But other than that, I can't help you.

 

[mean mr.mustard]

I loved Swiss Family Robinson as a lad!!

My pops was on a plane next to James MacArthur before I was born.

 

[moose eater]

Checked the salmon strips about 11:40 A.M. this morning, and two more strips had fallen, so I dunked them in the brine for mere seconds, just long enough to liquify the surface where the pellicle was nicely forming and used that 'lubricant' to remove the minor amount of gunk from them hitting the concrete floor in the smokehouse.

Those 3 total strips retrieved from the floor and were cleansed between late last night and earlier today, then re-hung, thus they will have a slightly lesser pellicle formed by the time I light the wood stove in there today, coming up in an hour or 2, but not worth holding back all the others on the nearly full-up 2 rods (7' in length each with 4 strips every 2.5 inches,2 on either side of the rods) worth of fish strips in there.

And the Sun's coming out!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like an oil change on the truck and some garden work/harvesting just got closer to real!

 

[moose eater]

At a decent Asian restaurant in Fairbanks on Airport Way, (the restaurant belongs to a very nice woman who has been in the community for many years. MANY YEARS), some POS spray painted 'CHINK' on the side of the building that is home to the restaurant.

Someone's parents did a shitty job, in my estimation...

 

[tobedetermined]

I had no idea. I spent 38 years in the audio industry with the last 10 in Pro. And I had no idea that it was just the low profit margin version of the REALLY seedy side of consumer electronics – hearing aids.

I set out at the end of June to get a free hearing test at a hearing aid store in a local cheap mall. Just for your reference, this is known in the trade as an audiogram.

Yeah, my graph is not looking too good . . . and . . . because those Xs and Os are so far apart, I need to see an ENT who will probably tell me that my hearing is fucked because of 38 years of work-related noise . . . or what I just called loud music at the time.

As I wait for an appointment with an ENT – an exalted profession it would seem – I went back to my original store and to a competitor. The first guy spent 1 ½ hours just talking with us. He was relationship building. Just a relaxed family business who want to help me when I am ready. No pressure. The ole soft sell y’know . . .

And the 2nd store – an aggressive audiologist - which is better than the HIS qualifications (hearing instrument specialist) that the other store had – promptly glanced at my audiogram and plunked a pair of $8K Phonak ha’s on my head and sent me home with the app on my phone. This is the classic ‘puppy dog’ kind of selling. She was Asian and English was not her 1st language so she couldn’t do the ‘soft sell’ with me.

Oh . . . they work btw. While I haven’t tried them in a crowded place yet, general listening is all ‘brighter’ with the addition of some high frequencies again. While music now has the top end back, it has a harsh sparkle - which I attribute to this brand of ha. So I would hesitate to buy these because there are a kazillion brands – which are mostly owned by just 6 companies btw. It didn’t take much digging to start to read that the profit margin in a well-run profitable ha store is very hefty. This level of profit has attracted a glut of independent stores, chains as well as Costco, online vendors and even phone companies.

What a racket . . .

 

[moose eater]

I had no idea. I spent 38 years in the audio industry with the last 10 in Pro. And I had no idea that it was just the low profit margin version of the REALLY seedy side of consumer electronics – hearing aids.

I set out at the end of June to get a free hearing test at a hearing aid store in a local cheap mall. Just for your reference, this is known in the trade as an audiogram.

View attachment 19067332

Yeah, my graph is not looking too good . . . and . . . because those Xs and Os are so far apart, I need to see an ENT who will probably tell me that my hearing is fucked because of 38 years of work-related noise . . . or what I just called loud music at the time.

As I wait for an appointment with an ENT – an exalted profession it would seem – I went back to my original store and to a competitor. The first guy spent 1 ½ hours just talking with us. He was relationship building. Just a relaxed family business who want to help me when I am ready. No pressure. The ole soft sell y’know . . .

And the 2nd store – an aggressive audiologist - which is better than the HIS qualifications (hearing instrument specialist) that the other store had – promptly glanced at my audiogram and plunked a pair of $8K Phonak ha’s on my head and sent me home with the app on my phone. This is the classic ‘puppy dog’ kind of selling. She was Asian and English was not her 1st language so she couldn’t do the ‘soft sell’ with me.

Oh . . . they work btw. While I haven’t tried them in a crowded place yet, general listening is all ‘brighter’ with the addition of some high frequencies again. While music now has the top end back, it has a harsh sparkle - which I attribute to this brand of ha. So I would hesitate to buy these because there are a kazillion brands – which are mostly owned by just 6 companies btw. It didn’t take much digging to start to read that the profit margin in a well-run profitable ha store is very hefty. This level of profit has attracted a glut of independent stores, chains as well as Costco, online vendors and even phone companies.

What a racket . . .

The hearing folks told me about 31 years ago that I had significant tone-loss in specific ranges.

I told them it was due to being 10-feet tall and bullet proof in my mind's eye for a bunch of years of rock concerts, motorcycles, helicopters, chainsaws, machineguns, and so forth, without using available hearing protection... even though it was typically free.. if only the foam plugs one rolls up and places inside of each ear canal. Which I imagine wouldn't have been real prevalent or common in the music or audio business.

Though I did take my now-deceased sister once to see Rush at Kalamazoo, and she wore those type of ear plugs and read her Bible throughout the show.

My hearing hasn't gotten any better over the last 31 years. The most common word hollered in our house is, "WHAT??????!!!!!!

But my perception of the hearing aid market is that a lot of it is a scam (not all of it), often selling over-priced equipment as often as not, to those who've put their relationships on edge through years of not hearing well.

 

[moose eater]

South of Anchorage, heading down to the Kenai Peninsula, there's a stretch and land mass referred to as 'Turnagain Arm'. It's still a winding road, and still beautiful, especially when there's fewer vehicles on it.

The old 2 lane hwy through there was once an even more winding road than it is now, and back then the bluff/cliff walls on the side opposite the saltwater was RIGHT there. It's now a fair bit wider with pull-outs for slower traffic (It's unlawful in Alaska to not pullover if you have more than 5 vehicles behind you when there's no option of a passing lane).

 

[tobedetermined]

a lot of it is a scam (not all of it)

That describes it well. It is something that millions of people need and the profit margins are high so the slime does ooze out. You have to do a lot of your own research.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

That describes it well. It is something that millions of people need and the profit margins are high so the slime does ooze out. You have to do a lot of your own research.

Thanks for the informative post, including prices. While Harley has always been a stone ear, it's getting worse with age and I'm rapidly catching up with her.


Been putting off the visit to the audiologist/salesperson. After seeing that 8K figure, Harley says, "What the fuck, we'll just text."

 

[moose eater]

That describes it well. It is something that millions of people need and the profit margins are high so the slime does ooze out. You have to do a lot of your own research.

I assume you've looked into the newer implant styles? That connect directly to the nerves in the ear, if I understood the tech correctly.

The main problem I immediately foresaw with those is that I believe they have some metal in them, so, MRIs, other scans that prohibit metal on/in the body, TSA screenings and scans, etc., all pop up for me as something to be mindful of.

 

[tobedetermined]

Thanks for the informative post, including prices.

There are 3 price levels (and 4 levels of stores)

OTC – over the counter. These are only available in the US.

On-line. Again this is limited by country. US - yes. Canada - no.

Discount chain stores – Costco, Sam’s Club etc – very limited brands available. Costco is hit & miss it seems.

Hearing aid stores - better quality, better service and higher pricing.

With the exception of OTC, they will talk about fitment. This is the dialing in process where the audio specialist tunes the frequency response and the other parameters – dynamic range, compression, wide/narrow reception etc etc – to match your loss. They can do it in-person or via online. You will be left with an app on your phone with several different programs for different scenarios - restaurant, music, TV etc. DSPs in the units allow for a lot of customization. As the price rises, the noise rejection and ability to comprehend in complex settings improves - in theory.

 

[tobedetermined]

I assume you've looked into the newer implant styles?

This only works for some people since you actually hear differently. And you better have premium insurance from what I have read . . .

 

[moose eater]

This only works for some people since you actually hear differently. And you better have premium insurance from what I have read . . .

Yep, moves the needle from a fly-by-night, hang-on-your-ear appendage, to surgical shit, from what I understand.

 

[tobedetermined]

And I forget to mention Apple - who just made a big deal out of their new AirPods which can equal OTC hearing aids.