Ted’s essays

filthy lucre

Money, in the sense of being a product or source of greed. The phrase is Biblical in origin, and the word “lucre” comes from the Latin word lucrum, meaning “profit.” In an amazing twist the normal prepper did not predict, paper currencies have become less desirable than electronic transactions. Hoo-Duh-Thunk??? We were always encouraging each other to keep some ready cash in the cookie jar for the initial phases of TEOTWAWKI where people still trusted their central bank paper, but couldn’t make their regular electronic money transfers function. In today’s Topsy-Turvy world, EVERYBODY KNOWS that THE VIRUS can live on paper currencies for over a week, making it a great vector for spreading DARPA FLU. Your cookie jar has just […]

The Health Ranger yanks me off the Coronovirus fence

I have refused to get sucked in to either side of the virus reality debate. Partisans for both sides have long, well-established, thoroughly-warranted reputations for exaggerating, understating and flat-out lying more often than truthing. My guarantee has been that the second- and third-order effects will be dramatic and life-changing for all of us. That is still true, but having read the article and watched two ten-minute videos from Mike Adams has convinced me the very real effects of COVID will itself kill, sicken and weaken huge swaths of the world population. I highly recommend you review his look at the medical and political situation in the article and videos below. He is calm, thoughtful and absent the excesses typical […]

RADIOGRAM

The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) began as volunteer radio hobbyists relayed welness checks from war zones back to families stateside, quickly morphing into passing information traffic back and forth using the budding radio technology. Amateur radio has been innovating ever since. Among the tools developed to insure accurate message handling is the RADIOGRAM. A form that insures the intended message reaches the target intact. Here is a .pdf of that form so you can see it full sized and print your own. RADIOGRAM There are a number of very good handling instructions on the world wide web. Shop around for your favorite: https://www.qsl.net/mingoares/forms/instructions.html http://www.ws1sm.com/Message-Handling.html https://emcommeast2011.s3.amazonaws.com/RadioGram.pdf I made a copy that is as brief as I could while maintaining the […]

playing in the mud

Sean called his Darby Adult Ed class “Mud Made Mankind”. He gave us a wonderful introduction to working with clay, glazes, potter’s wheel and much more. We found ways to mold clay that didn’t work. We found ways that did. He was a wonderful teacher, cheerleader and assistant. I entered the class with a specific project in mind. I didn’t care if was the only creation I made, but I was focused on getting this one done. As you can see here, we pulled it off… and I do mean WE … Sean was a big help in many ways. I have a carnivorous pitcher plant that seems to like its home, rewarding me with a fly-free laundry room […]

ICOM IC-F3161DS handheld radio SALE

My wife has transitioned from carrying one high-end VHF (Ham 2-meter) ICOM radio as well as one high-end UHF (GMRS+FRS) Connect Systems radio to a single dual-band Chinese TYT radio. That means her very well maintained Ham radio is available on a first come, first served basis. The CS radio is not worth enough to sell. I will just add it to the pool of GMRS loaner radios. Her ICOM IC-F3161DS HAM radio comes with a charger and two batteries that are in excellent condition. While she carried this radio in her travel bag, it has very little use and no scars or marking anywhere. I do not know where the cover for the speaker-mike connection is, but fifteen […]

Spring full moon

My organic gardening mentor encouraged us to plant on every full moon. Not so much that it favored the plants themselves, but because it organized us to do regular plantings whether that was seeds, bare-root, or transplants. Get something started every full moon and you will always have a good garden. In Montana that assumes you have a greenhouse. We simply have too much winter cold to allow year-round outdoor plantings. What a blessed place I grew up in where we could. Lovely Nature was unfortunately taken over by lazy minds. Today, March 9th is a full moon. That is my trigger to consider planting something. Other signals from nature: The little budgies have returned to our neighborhood. The glaciers […]

dimbulb savings time

You would have expected us to be smarter than that, or have our politicians under better control by now. Nope. A Tulsa publisher looks at it: ‘Spring forward’ has lots of haters, so why has daylight saving time been so hard to change? Bitterroot Bugle looks at it: My post three years ago. daylight savings Sure is a shame about the hour I am losing this weekend. It was the one I intended to spend worshiping our government. While there is even a .gov website describing circadian rhythms, other than the governments of Arizona and Hawaii, the rest of the governments within the USofA seem to be clueless about it. I’ll put it in simple terms even a legislator can […]

non-handshake greetings

My wife sent me a video link on fist-bumping as a major improvement in social hygiene. You can see in the clip to the right that handshaking is a significant disease spreading vector. I confess to having hand-shaking deeply embedded into my cultural norms. My circle of acquaintances are probably similarly programmed. I’m not sure this can work. Of course the lamestream media onslaught of virus fear-mongering should make this an opportune moment in our history for a cultural shift in greeting and deal-making rituals. I suppose that is assuming we don’t want to regularly challenge our immune systems. I share with you here a photographic set of cultural alternatives to the western handshake. I think a hands at […]

two-way radios

can be indispensable in emergencies and other times normal communications tools are not working. For my current amateur radio Technician Class students, I just bought 7 of the make/model I feel gives the best cost/benefit for ham radio operators. The TYT MD-UV390 operates on both the ultra-high-frequencies (UHF) of the FCC’s family radio service (FRS) and general mobile radio service (GMRS), it also transmits and receives on the very high frequencies (VHF) commonly used by hams, public and private agencies for regional communications. Their MD-UV380 is the lower cost version of the same radio without the water-proofing. TYT, also known as Tyterra builds well-reviewed radios in relatively affordable price ranges. The transmitters, receivers, speakers, microphones, displays, controls and antennas all […]