How has Covid Changed Your Life?

I got a basic old twin cylinder ( Compound) Steam engine, aprox 40 horse with big assed 400 pound flywheel. It runs around 180 RPM and was originally built to run a mill of some sort. I got it running with a brand new custom built boiler that can run on any thing that burns, PLUS it can be electrically powered ( kinda like a home water heater) in that it drives a large generator with rectifier and inverter to boost the amps and watts up to what the boiler needs! It runs a high efficiency vertical gravity feed condenser into a large holding tank that keeps the water at temp for the boiler! It's 100% mechanical and only needs topped up with water and tallow lube every few days! The whole point is it can not only power mechanical things, BUT, it turns a high capacity Generator to power everything on site, with out needing any boosters. It backs up the Ghrist Mill with it's large water wheel that also drives a large/jhigh output generator, both can power the entire system independently from each other, but both have optimized conditions they run in and makes them the perfect off grid setup! Winter time, the Steam Set is what we run, and summer time is when the water wheel is used, and if there were an over peak, both can be ran, or we can fire up the Diesel gen set to augment ether one! It's a perfect setup, the steam was kind of a novelty until I got the boiler to run electrically, then it became a game changer as it requires little to no fuel of any kind to run, as long as you don't push it, Same with the Water wheel, No input required other then a flow of water, which with the wheel it's running, is below the streams minimum flow!

 

No effect whatsoever.
Never caught it, didn't change much.

But I am a little jealous of @Ura-Ki 's steam engine.
Even if it's not used in a SHTF situation, still a fascinating piece of machinery.

 

That's what got me started, here it was just sitting there not doing anything, I said to my self, man, if a feller could get that thing to run, that would really be something! At first it was a cool novelty, fun to watch and listen to as it ran, then, the brain kicked in and said, what If?
The rest is history! I wanna find a smaller double expansion one that can run at higher speeds, that could really change some things around here! Something in the 10 horse range, but could run around a thousand rpms!

 

I didn't miss a day of work because of CV. I had my "essential worker letter" so I ignored curfews and eventually speed limits for more than a year. There were no police, no Highway Patrol, no traffic. I couldn't access the gym or beach as easily due to shutdowns and restrictions, but by that point my hip had deteriorated so badly that I couldn't really run anyway.

Not much else has changed as a result of CV.
I never got it, or didn't know it. Everybody else did and shook it off . Nobody close to me was vaccinated. I lost a few friends who were, but they were all over 70 and in poor health anyway.

Everything else that's changed since early 2020 has been positive, and more related to aging and economics than any virus.

The tide comes in, the tide goes out.

 

I have a case of shingles that started last November from the vaccine.

 

Been helping many Folks from the 2 years of BS / hell .
Folks are snapping and 3 woman have been rehome for abuse , a few have had their man just up and leave with them keep looking after the kids .
Base Commander call me last tuesday for a afternoon watch over , 3 woman were helping her leave with stuff to survive , black eyes and bruised bad .
My name was not said only rank. Made a late Wed start in the AM due to old man syndrome
Poor ladies
Sill helping many , but they need to do it themselves , I see they are trying , im in to help.
That's the only big thing I've seen ..

Sloth

 

Only caught the Wuh han VD #19 in the right sinus, I'm certain bush hogging and snorting a bucket of dust and pollen had nothing to do with the sinus infection, My Doctor laughed at me about catching #19 on the right side only?

 

Nothing changed for me. Wifey got to work from home for 1.5 years or so, yay for her as she likes that. I got to go in to work every day, I was deemed expendable. We are both still purebloods, no mask, no jab, no fear.

 

I liked it. Many fewer dumbazz libs to irritate me on a daily basis. Rather deal with them online as I can just skip past them. Why I have even clicked past one or two of Chells posts even though I (usually) consider him anything but a dumbazz.

 

I never masked or worried much about CV, I lost my sense of smell at some point but must have had some sort of natural resistance to it. None of my family got CV as far as I know.

I setup all my employees including myself to work remotely with laptops, vpns, and soft phones. I told everyone we would not be doing anything different at work, no vaccines, no masks, etc. and they could work from work or home it did not matter to me. Most people decided to work from home which left me with 5,000 sqft of office space I did not need anymore. Luckily my office space lease was up and I noticed this old historic mansion I had been admiring for years was up for sale so I bought it and now use it for our office space. There was also a cottage included in the deal that has renters that pay more than the mortgage on the entire place. The renters' house was struck by lightning and the insurance company is paying double the normal rent to keep them there. I made our accountant and friend VP of the company and he handles most of the day-to-day operations, I go in 2-3 times a week for a few hours and do a bank deposit and go eat lunch with the guys.

My wife made a baby, with a token amount of help from me during CV. It is the best baby yet, never cries, incredibly intelligent, and maybe pooped once a week for the first several months due to being breast fed.

We are done fighting with the school system over poor nutrition, CV rules, and a host of other poor decisions. We are home schooling our kids this year. We realized how little they were actually being taught during CV when they were doing virtual learning with the school system. We found a simple commercially available curriculum that will allow them to advance a grade every 4 months if we wanted to push them. We are thinking we will have them complete 2 curriculum in each grade, one for summer and one for winter. The kids were both straight A students in school, they were part of the gifted and talented program and in the beta club. We have already started this summer and we are finding that we spend less time helping them with their home school work than we did driving and waiting in the pick/drop off line at the public school.

We bought a 43 foot camper and have been going camping nearly every week. The kids love riding their bikes at the camp ground and meeting new friends. I traded my 12v Dodge Dually to a friend for a newer model with a bigger motor, 4 doors and an exhaust brake. I really enjoy towing the camper and cooking over an open fire for the family.

When CV hit I started work on doubling the size of our house to give the kids each their own room and make a room for the new baby. Some of my friends were sent home from work when our governor shut down the business so I rented an excavator and put them to work. The house is nearly complete and the additional air conditioners have made the house much more comfortable. Basically I added an extension to the house on each side and each extension has its own solar setup, heat pump water heater, and ducted mini split.

My wife's mode of transportation is getting old and tired so I have been looking at the new diesel Suburbans. The problem is that with our current rate of inflation it is getting difficult to find good products. Every diesel Suburban or Tahoe is sold before it hits the lot so I am going to have to order one. I am trying to move all of our vehicles/equipment to diesel to streamline our fuel operations We have a lot of farm fuel on hand that we could use in an emergency situation.

Overall CV has been good to us and I can't complain. We have met a lot more of our neighbors and found them to be like minded souls. God is good!

 

We have seen that around here as well with people who took the vaccine.

 

I wear a mask at the drs and Publix supermarket (Because the talking heads have scared the shit out of our elderly in FL).
I fish, hike, paddle, cook, make stuff, prep, and pray just like 2019.

 

Interesting. I must be the only one with equipment sitting for over a year waiting for once common parts to ship, paying higher prices and experiencing inflation, getting looked at like a plague rat anytime I cough or sneeze in public, not able to go to my favorite restaurants because the threw in the towel and shut down and on and on. Individually small minor and annoying things but still changes from 2019 to present.

 

Agree with ThunderRanch. Have parts on back order since Nov for tools from factory, have them up after 6 months and say we decided to discontinue that part, fuel and fertilizer doubled, lots of farm things just not available. $40 workable China tooling, hand making 20 items not available, $600 USA manufacturing tooling, good for 20,000 is. Just don't try to make it. Pricing for parts etc only good for a few days, no fixed price list to use for pricing, have to go online each day. Fuelm etc have doubled have no firm commitment for delivery in 3 months. Live in different world than 2016 when we elected pur last president rather than having one selected for us.

 

I am experiencing these things as well but I read a lot and I expected it. I ordered a new suburban for my wife today but you would not believe how many options are not available due to shortages. They ship them with backup sensors that do not function in hopes that down the road they will be able to get the parts to make them work and you can bring it in to have it fixed. No entertainment systems, just seats and wheels, very soviet like. The dealer is not even sure if they can order it, there is a quota system of some sort, I am waiting to hear back from them.

 

Seeing the clause in the ordering fine print more and more "Subject to cancellation without notice."

 

I waited months for a head gasket for the lawn tractor. It finally arrived in the dead of winter.
I'd actually forgotten that i ordered a pair of Daiwa Compact backpack fishing rod kits for VTjr and myself in September of last year.
Just got an email the other day saying that the anticipated ship date was no longer Feb 2022 but July 17th and asked if i still wanted to keep it on order or cancel.
Hell, I've waited this long, why not.
Hopefully when they do ship they don't raise the price on me. Those were ordered pre-inflation.

 

Why cant the old one be reused?
Little hi temp silicone goes a long ways
Unless the gasket was destroyed?
120 lbs of compression ain't jack.

 

Old one was blown threw. It was a 2 piece steel gasket with a high temp oring around the cylinder bore.
head bolt streched, causing leak and leak allowed high pressure gas through gap and cut through the gasket and out to freedom.

appears that mouse nest in cooling fins caused uneven expansion/contraction of head and block causing headbolt to strech/lose tightness.

 

I have made a lot of gaskets over the years out of the high temp. stuff from the auto parts store.
Some had to hold 1100 lbs pressure, Even made O-rings for compressor cylinders.
It's possibly doable I ain't scared me.