Tag: miscellaneous

Some Government Bureaucrat . . .

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Some Government Bureaucrat . . .

. . . will come along and quash his dream:

Teen’s DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village New Hope

Some people see lemons and make lemonade. William Kamkwamba saw wind and made a windmill.

This might not seem like a mighty feat. But Kamkwamba, who grew up in Masitala, a tiny rural farming village off the grid in Malawi, was 14 years old in 2001 when he spotted a photo of a windmill in a U.S. textbook one day. He decided to make one, hacking together a contraption from strips of PVC pipe, rusty car and bicycle parts and blue gum trees.

Though he ultimately had big designs for his creation, all he really wanted to do initially was power a small bulb in his bedroom so he could stay up and read past sunset.

But one windmill has turned into three, which now generate enough electricity to light several bulbs in his family’s house, power radios and a TV, charge his neighbors’ cellphones and pump water for the village’s fields and household use.

Now 22, Kamkwamba wants to build windmills across Malawi and perhaps beyond. Next summer he also plans to construct a drilling machine to bore 40-meter holes for water and pumps. His aim is to help Africans become self-sufficient and resolve their problems without reliance on foreign aid.

(My emphasis.) There’s his first mistake.

RTWT, though. Kid’s got a future!

(h/t: Instapundit)

I Knew They Couldn’t Stay Away

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I Knew They Couldn’t Stay Away

A while back Kim and Connie du Toit stopped blogging, about ten months ago, in fact. At the time I knew that they’d not stay away long – they had too much to say, and too big a fan base to abandon.

Well, they’re back, but in a slightly different medium. Via email:

From the “Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Roam The Internet” department:

Connie and I have decided to explore this strange new technology called “radio.” Starting on Saturday October 3rd, we will begin a weekend Internet radio show on BlogTalkRadio.com.

The show will run on Saturday and Sunday evenings, at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central. You can find a BlogTalkRadio widget to listen to our “preview” show at our new site: www.kimandconnie.com.

I expect their new show to be as interesting, provoking, and fascinating as their blogs were.

Recipe Blogging

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Recipe Blogging

It seems to be all the rage among other gunbloggers. I’m actually a fairly enthusiastic cook, but I don’t do anything really fancy. For my initial foray into recipe blogging, I will give you the simplest bread recipe I know: Beer bread.

Now I don’t drink, but I will use alcoholic beverages in recipes (white wine in my chicken & wild rice; red in salisbury bourguignon; beer in both marinades and in this recipe).

Ingredients:

3C Self-rising flour (must use self-rising, not all-purpose)
3Tbs sugar
12 oz beer – use something you’d otherwise be willing to drink.

1 regular size bread pan is required.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Mix the flour and the sugar in the bread pan. Pour in the beer, and stir until all of the dry components are thorougly mixed. The result should be a thick batter. Scrape down the sides of the bread pan so the batter is uniform across the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350º for one hour.

No kneading, no rising, not much to clean up, just bread. It’s heavy, but damned tasty. Last night I picked up a 2lb package of self-rising and a 24 oz. Bud. I also got three of those little disposable bread pans you use for banana bread and the like. Two lbs. of flour is right at six cups. I doubled the batch and it made three perfect mini-loaves. One was dinner last night. This morning I toasted some under the broiler in the oven. Give it a try.

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Hammerbach, you CAN use all-purpose flour, just add 1-½ tsp of baking powder (not baking soda) and ½ tsp of salt to each cup of all-purpose flour to make it self-rising. Mix thoroughly before adding wet ingredients.

As Promised

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As Promised

Here are some pictures of my new (20 year old) Pony. (Look! A pony! 😉


It’s originally an El Paso car, but it ended up in Surprise, AZ a few years ago, made a short trip to Missouri, and then came back to Arizona for me to buy. Like I said, not bad from twenty feet away, but it needs a lot of stuff both inside and out. Should be fun!

I Feel Better Now

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I Feel Better Now

Almost a year ago I sold my ’67 Mustang. I’d had it almost eleven years, and it had been sitting, collecting dust in my garage for the last five of those years. It was time to pass it on to someone who would run her and enjoy her. I was too worried about wrecking her, or some other disaster to really enjoy her.

But I love Mustangs. My first one was a 1988 LX 5.0 that I bought in ’88 with about 5,000 miles on the clock – a repo, I’m pretty sure. I drove it until 1999 when I traded it in, with about 130,000 miles on it, for a brand-new Ford Ranger pickup. But I already had the ’67 in the garage.

So, in the midst of my mid-life crisis, I decided I needed another Mustang. I searched for a couple of months on eBay, Craigslist and local auto-trader magazines, and didn’t come up with much. For one thing, Kelly Blue Book goes out the window on Mustangs. Either that, or people are freaking crazy when it comes to what they think their pony is worth.

But I found a 1989 GT just South of town in fair shape, 193k miles, still runs pretty strong, though it needs a lot of work. It’s going to be my project car for the next four or five years. I’ll try to post some pictures tomorrow – it’s black, and I didn’t get it home until almost dusk. It looks pretty good from 20 feet away, but it’s definitely a car that’s seen almost 200,000 miles. Plus it got a Maaco paint job a couple of years ago, and it’s not the best. It needs lots and lots of little things, and a few big ones, but that’s half the fun.

Damn, it feels good to have a Mustang again.

Light Posting

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Light Posting

There’ve been some changes at work recently. My boss has left the company for a really terrific opportunity, and as a result a lot more responsibility has landed in my lap. We’re still light on work, but what we do have is on a tight deadline. I’m still a little wiped out from last weekend, too.

A lot has been going on in both the gun world and in politics, but I just can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm necessary to write about it. And, of course, I was waiting for a response from Joe Rothstein “after the holiday,” but it would appear that I’ve dropped off his journalistic radar.

Odd, that.

If I can muster some gumption, I might vivisect his original piece and send it to him for commentary, but for some reason that idea just doesn’t appeal at the moment.

Oh well. The nicest thing about being a blogger (besides posting from your mother’s basement in your pajamas) is that if you don’t want to write, you don’t have to write.

More later.

Maybe.