Comments

Episode-649- Listener Calls 4-22-11 — 16 Comments

  1. Pond pump question: If you have a lot of vegetation in the pond a submersible is going to be prone to clogging. I would look to a centrifugal pump. In the oilfield we used gasoline powered cast-iron centrifugal pumps. There are also brass pumps. I would shy away from pumps with plastic impellers (swimming pool pumps)as the grit will wear out the pump parts quickly. The down side of centrifugals is they don’t lift very high. If you need high life that would require a plunger pump. Obviously, put a screen on the intake to keep the pump clean as possible. The downside of plunger pumps is getting grit in the packing.

  2. i’ve put my brown rice in the freezer for at least 3 days before storing it thinking that’ll kill any organisms and would prolong the life of the rice.
    thanks for your work

  3. @doug,

    Good suggestions and I never even thought of a gas powered pump. I feel like I just had a DUH! moment, thanks for backing me up.

  4. Bomb Shelter Question: Why not dig out the slab and go down another 18 inches? This won’t be fun and you have to be careful not to undermine whatever footing is underneath the foundation wall. But you could do a section toward one end and stock it as a shelter. Then wall off the rest for storage. Maybe the previous owner who built it is still alive.

  5. I have not yet heard this P.C., but the content looks great… Good and basic Self-Defense which can always be on you is something I’d always like to hear more about…

    Annestacey: The stinger looks interesting… Could you post what the size is like?

  6. Bomb shelter uses:

    Wine cellar
    Cheese storage
    Root cellar
    Brewing lager (lager likes the cold temp)
    Naps in the hot days of summer.
    A really big fire safe.

  7. Pond pump:

    – sewage pump, gas powered from Lowes/Depot
    – cattle trough
    – 2″ black pipe
    – garden hose spigot on cattle trough

  8. I’m not a personal fan of the kubaton, not because it’s ineffective but because its redundant. It requires constant and proper training to be used effectively. Once you learn how to effectively use it, guess what…you know enough martial arts to not really need one in the first place. If you don’t train, you have a tool but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s not as useful. Just like someone who has a gun, but doesn’t know how to shoot…well, they might not be able to operate it under pressure and in bodily danger.
    You might be better off learning how to throw a proper punch, simple kicks, a throw or two and one or two arm/wrist locks.
    Keep it under 15 techniques and master them and practice them until they become automatic and ingrained into your muscle memory. It will also not require you to futz around with your pockets and keys, before you’re attacking.

  9. I studied kung fu and never did any sparing although the academy had sparing classes available. When attacked in a bar I was able to defend myself fairly well kung fu style. I was attacked by someone yet the bouncers threw me out. One key to my strategy seemed to be to pretend I was Jackie Chan at the time believe it or not. I ended up on top of the guy hitting him while yelling “get this guy off of me !”. kung fu is a soft martial art and has many complex moves. It is a good form of exercise, but does not emphasize strength or aerobic workout. My teacher grew up in Chinatown and has been in magazines. It is not a hard martial art like karate, which the later tends to be run like a boot camp and is not the philosophy of kung fu at all ..

  10. Um, regarding putting pepperspray in your luggage, I would strongly recommend not doing this.
    The reasion being that the freight portaon of an aircraft is often depressurised ( usualy unless there is cargo listed as live cargo, namely someone’s pet). Pepperspray bottles are pressurised, and are designed to withstand a pressure diffrence between the charged inside and the usual sealevel ground pressure + a couple of thousand feet.
    There is a good chance that the bottle will fail, when placed in an aircraft cargo bay at 32000 ft. When they fail, they will like a small bomb.

    Bad idea.

  11. @Jack,

    Your point about healthcare/insurance and specifically, insurance payments for COMMON medical costs is 100% Correct. This is exactly what has caused us to have the wildly spiraling costs that we have today.

    Indirect payment (insurance) schemes–no matter who they are run by for things that WILL happen is not insurance–it is a scheme to add layers of middle men that has had the effect of raising prices–skyrocketing them actually.

    In my experience no one wants to even consider undoing this disaster that government has enabled and pushed (see wage controls from Depression-era as to the roots of modern work-related insurance).

  12. Not sure this would work for pumping pond water, but perhaps it could be modified to work using the solar powered water pump.

    Solar Powered Rain Barrel Pump by RainPerfect

    The Rain Perfect TM water barrel pump and solar panel install easily into your rain barrel and provide plenty of pressure to run water through a garden hose. The water barrel’s solar pump provides enough pressure to run most low pressure sprinklers, drip irrigation hoses, wash a car, and pump water to just about anything around your home directly from your rain barrel. The 3.5 watt solar panel captures the energy from the sun to charge the water barrel’s solar pump battery. The RainPerfect solar rain barrel pump kit can be used anywhere, anytime. No more worries about the location of an electrical outlet, damaging the electrical cord or getting an electric shock. Now you can plant the garden with less concern for the location of the electrical outlets.

    http://www.aquabarrel.com/product_water_pumps_electric_dc_solar_3_5w.php pump

  13. “I really wish that you folks up in Canada would make some changes in your government and get your doggone rights back.”

    We’re trying, Jack. We really are. But we’re the minority by a vast margin up here.

    Sincerely,
    A Canadian gun owner

  14. Pond pump…is there a reason why you couldn’t rig up a small windmill? There were originally used (and still are) to fill livestock watering tanks from a groundwater well. I don’t see why you couldn’t put the intake into the pond and run it to the garden, or a cistern located at a higher elevation than the garden so gravity could do the work from there.

  15. I just listened to this podcast I am a few behind, and I am sorry but Jack I think people are messing with you with the windy calls. That one you played in the beginning was hilarious, probably not for you, but I think people are doing that because of what you say in the beginning/end of those episodes. There can’t be that many people that don’t know how to make a telephone call. I am laughing right now thinking of you saying that people call while operating chainsaws and riding on the highway in motorcycles. 🙂