Above 1200 Sq/FT Smart *** Garage, aka: It's finally going to happen

M.Brane · Nov 25, 2025

NakeDiesel said:
Ended up working a few hours yesterday for work and damned near all day today except running to get stuff my wife ordered for turkey day. Get 20 miles from home (30 minutes from picking up the stuff) and the wife calls me, they forgot to give me two things, so turned back around and off I go to get the last 2 items. Ended up back at the house an hour later than I planned.

I did stop off at Ace and bought a new Stihl 261 c-m pro model chain saw. I've been looking at them for a while and it was either this one or one of similar size in the farm and ranch line, but after reading about the f & r line having bar oiler problems, I went with the pro line for 200.00 more. Comes with a magnesium case instead of the plastic one the f & r line uses, plus quite a few more things included with the pro model.

I'd planned on trying my hand at making Jalepeno Popper sausage balls tonight for us to eat, and just now got the bacon to use in it on the smoker. I'll get it smoked, then see how late it is whether I cook the balls tonight or wait till the morning.

Also trying something else out. I took 2 cans of apple pie filling with some carmel small ball pieces in each spoon full, filled up ice trays with the mixture and froze them. I'll then mix up a batch of pancake mix and coat the frozen mixture and deep fry them in oil to make an apple pie beignet with a little powdered sugar on top....

That looks a lot like the saws we have at work. We beat the **** out of them, and they just keep going.

NakeDiesel · Nov 26, 2025

I prepreped our breakfast yesterday. I made caramel apple beignets this morning. Took apple pie filling and little caramel roud pieces and mixed together then spooned them into ice cube trays and froze them. Then mixed up a batch of pancake batter and coated the frozen filling in the batter and deep fried them. Little powdered sugar on top and they were a big hit with the wife, mother in law and grandkids at the house.

I smoked some bacon last night in prep for the next item. Chopped up the smoked bacon, 2 lbs of hot ground sausage, 3 cups bisquick, 2 cups of shredded cheese, 2 packages of softened cream cheese and 8 ounces of diced jalapeños and some of the juice. Mixed it all up and made balls out of the blend and grilled on the smoker for about 30 minutes at around 400 degrees. Pretty tasty I think, girls thing they are a tad warm but they sat there and ate them... Granddaughter loved them.

Got the turkey almost thawed out and the bacon to wrap it in. I need to figure out if I can fit it into the fridge in the shop when it's in the pan I cook it in.

My hvac buddy came out today and replaced the capacitor and added a hard start module onto my shop outside unit. Lets see if that fixes my locked rotor error I was starting to get very frequently.

Also cleaned out the grill and got it prepped for running 8 hours tomorrow.

M.Brane · Nov 26, 2025

NakeDiesel · Nov 28, 2025

Smoked the turkey for 8 hours yesterday, there was hardly any left after the line of plates passed it. All the wife and I had left were 1.5 quart ziploc bags full.

They all loved how tender it was and the flavors it had.

This is my favorite part, the ultra smoked bacon after I pull it off the turkey

sawduststeve · Nov 29, 2025

NakeDiesel said:
Smoked the turkey for 8 hours yesterday, there was hardly any left after the line of plates passed it. All the wife and I had left were 1.5 quart ziploc bags full.

They all loved how tender it was and the flavors it had.

This is my favorite part, the ultra smoked bacon after I pull it off the turkey

Johnnie
The next time you’re over we ain’t going out, your cooking, or if we ever get the R66 trip
organised, 8 hr roasted turkey thanks.

Glad you made it home with no drama.

Steve

NakeDiesel · Dec 1, 2025

sawduststeve said:
Johnnie
The next time you’re over we ain’t going out, your cooking, or if we ever get the R66 trip
organised, 8 hr roasted turkey thanks.

Glad you made it home with no drama.

Steve

I think the soy latte vegans would all fall over from the smell of my smoker being brought into the country....

NakeDiesel · Dec 1, 2025

Worked out in the shop a bit this weekend as it was too cold to do much outside. I did get a broken bale out to the cows with the skid steer and another one with the feed truck. Think I've finally fixed the power drain on it, it sat for 2 weeks without dead batteries with the tender plugged in. Before even the tender couldn't keep up with the drain.

Bought a small crockpot and scraped up all the wax from this year that wouldn't melt in the solar melter as it got too cold out and added water to the pot. Let it melt and dredged out some of the slumgum out of it. After it all melted, shut it off and let it cool overnight. I'll pull it out today and wash it, then clean out the crock pot, add fresh water and run it again through there.

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Unboxed my bigger wax melter I'd order that I will use for playing with making candles to possibly sell at some point with the wax I have here from previous years harvests.

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Got the 4 - 50lb bags of sugar stored in food grade buckets with screw on lids.

Cleaned up some things that needed washed and stored some other tools we used for harvest as well. Unboxed the 5 nuks I bought for me to attempt creating my own splits this next spring with just ordering queens. I can order queens for about 50 bucks each where a package of bees is about 200 to 250 each.

Bought adjustable control arms for the mower, need to get them put on and still need to put the new throttle cable and choke cables on as well. I'm going to try and get that done this week if possible.

Bob Heine · Dec 2, 2025

Johnnie, you had me at bacon on turkey. I've cut back on bacon in recent decades so it's always a big treat. For "Near Bacon" I put already cooked chicken skin on a paper plate with a paper towel over it. If it has no chicken fat on it, a minute in the microwave provides a crunchy treat. A minute and a half or two minutes if there is a layer of fat under the skin for the same result.

NakeDiesel · Dec 3, 2025

Tried several times to get the skid steer started yesterday, finally got warm enough at 45 degrees to start it and unload the auger off the back of my truck. It was delivered on Monday. No way I was getting the skid steer started then as the high was barely 30f. Easy enough to back my flatbed up to the loading platform of the semi and roll my pallets off with their jack onto my truck. The chipper should be delivered today sometime this afternoon.

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Think this is the first time I've had every dewalt battery charged and up on the wall in their spot. Spent more time cleaning on the shop and doing odd things that needed done.

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Finally got the screech owl boxes put up into trees yesterday, now to see if any decide to take up residence in them.

Did the final cleanup of the wax. Used two paint mixing cups with cheese cloth over them to filter out the junk. Once that hardened, threw the hardened pieces into my hot plate melter and then poured into the block molds that are smaller and easier to work with.

Took the feed truck in town and bought a 1000lb's of feed for the feeder on the truck and filled up the fuel tank with winter diesel. So it should be good for a few weeks taking care of the cows.

NakeDiesel · Dec 3, 2025

The wood chipper was delivered today, then when it finally got warm enough a few hours ago, got the skid steer started and unloaded it, then worked on starting to dig the dirt out to setup for a pour for the 2nd door of the shop. I'll dig out both doors so they are both ready then form up the 2nd and pour it. After it's poured, I'll setup for the first door and man door.

Also dumped out the wax blocks I poured last night.

For some reason the skid steer isn't wanting to lift right, I need to figure that out. Tilt and forward/reverse work fine so it's not hydraulic flow, acts like it's not getting full fluid to the lift cylinders so I'm thinking the foot pedal might be the issue.

NakeDiesel · Dec 8, 2025

Been working on the road and the area before the shop doors as my back allows. My lower back has been killing me, got x ray on it last week. Dr wants me to do 6 weeks of pt, then get mri on it.

Got the road from the house up to the gate rebuilt with the ditches and sloped to the sides. Switched from the angle blade to my landplane and smoothed it out better. Ordered 3 loads of 1.5" crusher run since none of the quarries are making 3/4" right now.

Today I worked on the road from the gate to the county road with the landplane. Got all the holes filled in and it's good to go for a while.

Then hopped into the skisteer and worked on moving more dirt from the door entrances. Then spent a while with the shovel and rake at the 2nd door clearing out from the shop side.

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NakeDiesel · Dec 11, 2025

Got the 3 loads of gravel delivered. Really need 2 more dropped off, so will order more next monday. That should set the road up in good condition for a while.

Been working on digging out for the entryways to the front of the shop. Got it all dug out and the forms built over the last two days. Now just need to see how much rebar I have and get it layed out to get the first section poured next week.

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Stopped by my tattoo artist today to discuss getting my right arm done. Will start on that arm next month, then will spend quite a few sessions getting it all done. This will be focused on my life. Starting with the wife and I as a walrus (me) and egg (wife) as bikers. We've had a thing with the beetles song, I am the walrus for most of our marriage. The other components 69 camaro in rat fink style, my race truck, refreshing my af tattoo on that arm. A steam punk bee and the the upper background will be chips and circuits, lower will be bee comb with bees.

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jbmatth · Dec 12, 2025

That is a very intricate tattoo, I look forward to seeing how it turns out, how many sessions will it take?

JB

NakeDiesel · Dec 12, 2025

jbmatth said:
That is a very intricate tattoo, I look forward to seeing how it turns out, how many sessions will it take?

JB

Each picture will be its own session, then tying it all together. The circuitry i want to do will take atleast 3 sessions. First for the black, then the colors. Final will be the white to make it pop.

Screenshot_20251210_164002_Chrome by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

NakeDiesel · Dec 13, 2025

Had another hockey game last night, so I drove the wife into work and then hung out in T town all day waiting on her to get off so we could go to the game. So how did I spend my day? Went and had coffee/bfast and relaxed for a bit, then went to the Tulsa Farm show at 9am when it opened up to the public. Spent a few hours there looking around at the equipment and booths. Did get to look at the 3pt Chain harrow I've been looking at buying to help with overseeding my pasture with crimson and white clover:

After that, went to bass pro shops and looked around. Picked up 6 boxes of .410 critical defense ammo, I haven't seen it on the shelf in years. Then took her dirty jeep to a drive through car wash. I ended up making 3 trips through it trying to get it clean. It's mostly clean but won't be wasting my time with that again.

Stopped by barnes and noble and looked at books, it pretty much ***** as a book store anymore. Found a couple of books by authors I like, but they only had the 2nd books of those series and not the first ones. They go, we can order the first one for you. I just shook my head and told them I live an hour from Tulsa and I can order my own stuff online. I didn't come to a box store to order things they should have on hand. Oh well, should have expected that. Ended up going to a cigar store and picked up a nice supply that will last me a long while no more that I smoke them. Then off to see the grand baby in NICU, she's doing great. Hit 4lbs today and starts bottle feeding on Monday. Basically all that's needed to get her home is for her to successfully take to bottle feeding, maintain her own temp and keep her O2 concentration good while sitting in a car seat. So that's her goals over the next few weeks. I got to hold her Thursday afternoon when I went to see her and pick the wife up from work.

Hit the hockey game and they finally broke their 8 game loosing streak, but not before they became last in the division, last in the conference and 3rd from last in the league. Hopefully they start turning it around.

Slept in today as we've been going hard last couple days and getting to bed late because of the games.

Hooked up my 25+5 gooseneck trailer and went and picked up 28 sticks of 3/8" or #3 rebar for the shop entrance pads. Got the first batch cut, holes drilled into the existing pad and the rebar glued into them. Started tying them up, but the cold front hit and I decided I'd had enough when it hit 34 degrees outside. Took the feed truck and put out 2 bales for the cows and gave them some cubes. I haven't had the trickle charger plugged in in 4 days and the truck started up just perfectly. So the power drain is on the feeder/bale spike. Now I just need to keep remembering to turn off that switch in the back of my truck.

The cigars I picked up:

[URL='https://flic.kr/p/2rLBC4j']

NakeDiesel · Dec 17, 2025

Ordered 2.5 yards of 4000 psi with fibermesh, it will be delivered tomorrow. I calculated id need 2.39 yards, I'm sure it will take all of it, but incase I have extra, I closed off and setup a small pour to extend the side concrete.

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After that, I got out the dewalt tree trimmer and went to butchering the trees along the south fenceline. Tired of getting scratched up while mowing. Ended up with 3 piles of limbs to be chipped up.

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Finally I started unpacking the wood chipper and laying out the parts. I'll work on putting it together tomorrow.

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Took some of my wax and played with making candles.

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NakeDiesel · Dec 18, 2025

Concrete truck showed up about 12 today. While waiting on it, I started bolting together all the pieces of the wood chipper. Got the 3pt bars on, feed chute and a few other pieces. Need to finish putting it together tomorrow, then run and get some hydraulic fluid for it.

We had a bit of wind today that I fought while working the concrete. Winds were 30+ mph out of the north. I was pouring on the south side of the shop, but it was swirling, so I fought leaves and grass flying into the pour.... it's not perfect, but it will work fine as an entrance ramp to the shop.

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NakeDiesel · Dec 20, 2025

Yesterday, pulled the end forms on the inside where the next pour will happen. Going to wait a day or so more before I drill in to tie the rebar into the next pad area.

Finished assembling the chipper, made the run to tsc to pick up 5 gallons of hydraulic fluid for it. Filled it up. Setup the pto shaft, trimming 1.5 inches off each section. It's now ready to use.

Started laying out the rebar for the next pour, will get it in place over the next few days and then order another load of concrete. The last batch was 220 per yard.

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Mr.zippy · Dec 20, 2025

I'm anxious to know how the chipper does!

sawduststeve · Dec 20, 2025

Mr.zippy said:
I'm anxious to know how the chipper does!

And what size the body is you can get through it.

NakeDiesel · Dec 20, 2025

Mr.zippy said:
I'm anxious to know how the chipper does!

Me too, will try it out this week on the piles of branches I've got down.

sawduststeve said:
And what size the body is you can get through it.

It will take up to 6" pieces in diameter, so arms and legs should fit as long as the thighs aren't built like mine. Once had a neighbor comment that I had cypress stumps for legs. Course I used to deadlift huge amount lbs. The body core would need to be chucked up, but that what the chainsaw is for...

Had a grandkid over for a while today, so once she left, I chopped up rebar and drilled into the slabs. Used every bit of rebar i bought to finish it out. Had a few 1' pieces out of 28 joints at 20' long. I'll start tying them tomorrow.

We have hockey tonight and tomorrow afternoon.

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NakeDiesel · Dec 22, 2025

Between yesterday and today, I got all the tying done on the rebar. Just need to add the chairs. Ordered 3 yards for delivery tomorrow.

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Got 2 brush piles chipped up. First load from first pile I mulched 7 trees. Got the weedeater out and cleaned up the grass around the trees as well. Works pretty good ran a few 4" pieces thru it just to try them. Love the hydraulic feeder on it.

video

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nakediesel/54999405452/in/dateposted

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jbmatth · Dec 23, 2025

That was satisfying to watch, I want to mulch stuff now, you may have a Tom Sawyer job there. haha

JB

Grizz1963 · Dec 24, 2025

No rest for the busy.

Merry Christmas

NakeDiesel · Dec 28, 2025

jbmatth said:
That was satisfying to watch, I want to mulch stuff now, you may have a Tom Sawyer job there. haha

JB

Yeah, this thing just munches away and can feed huge clustered branches thru it.

Grizz1963 said:
No rest for the busy.

Merry Christmas

Happy late merry Christmas.

The weather has been unreal for the last week, we have been hitting 80f or 26.67c for those across the pond. Didn't expect to be sweating my *** off at this time of year. Cold front started moving in last night, high today in the 50s then down to the teens tonight.

Tuesday, had 3 yards of concrete delivered. Had some issues getting it all finished before it got too hard. Not my best work, but it's functional. Yesterday I mixed up some sand based concrete and attempted to fix a few spots. I'll see how it turned out today.

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Granddaughter is doing great. She hit 5lbs and still growing. She's up to 4 bottles a day with 4 tube feeds. She has to get to 8 bottles a day. Also has to maintain her own temp and be able to maintain O2 while in a car seat as well. She's getting there. Got to hold her again Friday.

Been trimming trees up since I got all the branches from the south fenceline mulched up and put out on trees. Finished up the west fenceline yesterday, also finished trimming the fruit trees and the ones along the dry creek. Need to trim the ones by the bees today, then I'll start mulching the huge pile of branches I've piled up.

I've almost worn out 1 chain on my tree trimmer. Sharpened it a couple of times.

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Was supposed to have a hockey game fri, but the playes union went on strike. They announced last night they had reached a tentative agreement, so will see if the games next weekend happen as scheduled. Will be interesting to see how many teams fold with the new expenses with the new contract as some were barely scraping by as it was.

Anyway, late merry Christmas to everyone and a happy new year.

Mr.zippy · Dec 28, 2025

Place is looking great!
We have had incredible weather as well, at least for late December. Does this impact the bees in any way?

NakeDiesel · Dec 28, 2025

Mr.zippy said:
Place is looking great!
We have had incredible weather as well, at least for late December. Does this impact the bees in any way?

Thanks.

If it stays warm too long they might start building up numbers too soon and run out of resources, so glad it's turning cold again. I do keep feeders on to give them extra in the winter. Late Feb. Ill switch the hard sugar for 1:1 sugar water feeders.

NakeDiesel · Jan 14, 2026

Happy New Year everyone, where has the damned time gone? Let's see where was I... oh yeah, I spent the last bit of my holidays off tearing out our old pig pen setup that I'd built 15 years ago across the dry creek when we raised a few pigs off and on. Got all the fence rolled up, posts pulled, ramp and house torn apart and out of there. Just need to finish cutting down the scrub brush and get in there with the land plane to level it a bit and knock the tops off rocks hopefully.

Hockey is back on and the team still ***** ***. They need to fire the coach, nobody good wants to play for him is what we have heard.

Got my bee hives treated for varroa mites, 3 different treatment days 3 days apart, so they should be able to go gung ho when the weather turns to spring.

Started back to work on the 5th, haven't gotten a damned thing accomplished on the farm since then other than treating the bees. They rushed the new granddaughter to the er/children's hospital yesterday. She is now in PICU there. They haven't determined the actual issue yet but started her on antibiotics and she is starting to do better but they are still running tests to try to determine the actual problem.

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zanyad · Jan 14, 2026

NakeDiesel said:
They rushed the new granddaughter to the er/children's hospital yesterday. She is now in PICU there. They haven't determined the actual issue yet but started her on antibiotics and she is starting to do better but they are still running tests to try to determine the actual problem.

Best wishes for a quick & full recovery for her!

NakeDiesel · Jan 15, 2026

Been some long working days over the last few days trying to get live streaming data tested and ready for production. Been starting at 5:30am and worked till after 9 last night. Back at it again at 5:30 this morning to find a job I kicked off last night failed due to a data type change that occured on the source system in a new batch of data, so about 9 hours wasted processing time....

Payton is doing better, they took her off npo yesterday and was able to eat. I guess she sucked that first partial bottle down in 5 minutes flat. She was hangry. The antibiotics seem to be helping, but they still haven't determined the cause, they have ruled out a bunch of things though.

I've got torture this after noon, I mean physical therapy on my lower back... This will be the 2nd one this week with 3 more weeks to go 2x a week to see if the exercises/stretches help it out.

1SG · Jan 15, 2026

That's good news about your granddaughter.

NakeDiesel · Jan 16, 2026

1SG said:
That's good news about your granddaughter.

Yes, looks like she is still going to need a heart procedure in a few weeks to go in and close the hole up in her heart, but from what I've heard they should be able to go in thru her leg and fix it that way without having to open heart surgery. Will know more about that once she's out and gets going with cardiology to follow up on this. She was able to maintain her own temp yesterday so she is still improving and will likely get to go home in a few days

NakeDiesel · Jan 22, 2026

The grandbaby got to come home from the hospital Sunday and is doing really good. Had a bit of another scare Tuesday as Blaine's wife is 15 weeks pregnant and the dr didn't like the scan results and sent her to the er, but she and the baby are good so that was a relief.

Had monday off, ended up working part of it due to work issues, same as I ended up working most of Saturday as well and probably close to 80 hours last week. Needless to say I haven't accomplished much. I did clean up on the shop Sunday. Monday I made a trip to Catoosa and bought 2 whiskey barrels.

What am I going to do with 2 whiskey barrels? I'm going to turn them into Cold smokers. Got the design in my head, just need time to get started on them. Picked up some SS bolts, hinges and fasteners. Going to cut a door in the side and then install 3 racks inside. Still figuring out how I want build an adjustable chimney on them. Plan on keeping one for me and selling the 2nd one.

sawduststeve · Jan 25, 2026

Evening Johnnie
How's the weather, has it turned a little chilly.
Keep warm.

Steve

NakeDiesel · Jan 25, 2026

sawduststeve said:
Evening Johnnie
How's the weather, has it turned a little chilly.
Keep warm.

Steve

It's colder than a witches tata here.... Down to 6f at night, that's -14.4444c for yall brits. High yesterday was a balmy 10f and today we hight 16f. Supposed to get down to -4f tonight (-20c)....

So what fun have I been having in the snow and cold? Well the well house froze up yesterday, so I put an oil filled radiator heater out there and got it thawed out. My heat tape quit. I went into town in the 6" to 8" of snow we have on the ground and bought a new one. Replaced it yesterday afternoon and found that the old one had been chewed up by a damned packrat. I'd already put rat poison blocks out there, 1 in each corner of the well house. Yesterday I found them all moved under the pressure tank. So hopefully the SOB got a belly full and is dead.

Left the water on a small stream on the kitchen sink overnight, it's the most exposed on the north side of the house. The hot runs great, but the cold water is just a small stream. I've added a small heater blowing under the cabinet to help it out.

Supposed to be below freezing for the next 9 or so days.

The 2 lane highways here are packed snow, so the wife decided for me to take her to work this afternoon and we picked up an air mattress and sleeping bag for her to keep in her office. Took the 2 lane highways at 45mph in 4x4, once on the 4 lane, there was a clear lane to drive in so I dropped to 2wd and ran about 55.

Friday was my first tattoo session on my right arm. Started on the most complex image I'd picked. My artist said it was going to take him days to get his eyes uncrossed after getting all the details inked into it. So the first piece is a mechanized bee and 2 smaller real looking bees. Next session will be to add a couple more small bees, the honey comb and to reink my AF tattoo. Then we will work further up my arm.

NakeDiesel · Jan 30, 2026

It's already friday and I'm sure I've topped out over 80 hours working this week. I did a complete procedural rewrite of my data loading code, removing Synapse from the equation and it's now fully implemented inside Databricks using Autoloader technology, checkpoint tables, etc... Streaming logs is much faster now and I'm able to keep things running quickly with it running every 15 minutes and taking around 5 minutes end to end. Now I'm just waiting on the source system to fix their bug we uncovered yesterday where the update logs they were sending us had changes with the wrong timestamps so early updates were applying after later updates that occured within the same second. Sounds like a lot of fun doesn't it.

The wife is now officially the Director of Case Management at one of the largest Ardent hospitals and one of the 3 big ones in the Tulsa area. She's been swamped handling the director tasks as well as her manager tasks since they now need to hire a replacement manager to allow her to do the director job.

Travel is approved for my next London trip and will be flying out March 20th, arriving on the 21st. Then flying home the next Friday. I could have travelled the week before but didn't feel like flying on Friday the 13th for some reason. Didn't figure I needed to press my already strained bag of lucky charms....

Less than 30 days now till we take the grandkiddos on the Disney cruise, they are getting excited about it.

I've accomplished nothing this week outside of work and 1 pt session, the monday session was cancelled due to weather. Been feeding cows and that's about it.

NakeDiesel · Feb 23, 2026

I haven't accomplished anything this month except work and feed cows.... I also somehow managed to fracture the 5th meta bone thingy on the right foot, so I've been hobbling around for a few weeks and once I got an X ray, started wearing my Das Boot to help it heal around here at the house unless I was going somewhere or feeding the cows. Not wearing that while walking around cow ****....

Been having hell finding a Sr Databricks engineer contractor to bring onto our team for a 6 month contract, me and one of my guys have gone through 20 resumes and interviewed I think 15 people so far and well, their resumes were all nice, but when you start asking detailed questions about certain techs within DB, they couldn't answer them or had never used the feature.

Now they have it in their bright minds we need to hire contractors in Poland because they are half the price of contractors in the UK or US and I've gone through 7 resume's from there, all were mid level at best in Databricks. Scary that I knew more than most and I've only been hacking my way through it for 6 months or so.

I ordered a cabinet for the kitchen to put my coffee and whiskey on... I bought a coffee grinder to start grinding my own Joe and didn't have anywhere to put it. We also located all the wife's tea stuff there as well and off the little shelf she had been using.

Got it all put together and setup. Think it works pretty good.

Have 4 more days before we leave for a week of vacation where we are taking the 2 oldest grandkids and the mother in law on a disney cruise out of Galveston. The wife and I are both ready for a week of relaxing after the beginning of this year, once back, I'm home for 2 weeks then off to Jolly ole London for a week.

NakeDiesel · Mar 13, 2026

I'm back, sortof. Took the grandkids, mother in law and daughter/son in law on a disney cruise out of Galveston last week for 5 nights. It was a great trip and everyone had a blast doing it. Got back this past weekend and we caught up on laundry and the like then I started feeling like caca the first part of the week with a sore throat and sinuses backed up. Still feeling like dodo today but a little better. Now the wife is starting to get sick...

I did make my Tattoo appt tuesday before I started feeling totally bad. So the next level of details is done. This session basically reworked my existing tattoo on that arm to outline it and fix the color issues on it. Looks great. Then he worked on getting all the comb inked in with black and 2 more small bees added. Next session he will work on adding the color in to the comb, a skull recessed into the comb and add my race truck on to my arm.

Head off to Jolly london in a week, so hoping this **** I have is done for by then.

NakeDiesel · Apr 10, 2026

Haven't accomplished much other than work the last few weeks. I did make a trip across the pond and caught up with the famous @sawduststeve while there. It was just a quick trip there, fly over on Friday, get there Sat morning, do the shopping for the wife and grandkids, sleep. Sunday went to Covant garden area and looked around and went to the Transport musuem. Worked in the office Monday thru Thursday, drinks with the team Tuesday night, met up with Steve Weds night and then Team outing and dinner Thursday night. Flew home Fri morning.

Last monday after getting back, had a VA Dental appointment where they pulled 1 molar on the left and my 4 front lower teeth and I got my temp partial. I bet that guy cranked on that molar for 20 minutes, it did not want to come out, ended up splitting it and taking it out in 2 pieces, it still hurts over a week later.

The 5 queens I ordered arrived last night. So I unloaded the concrete blocks I picked up at my dads place my brother wanted to get rid of and unloaded them at the bee patio. Layed out for a bunch of locations for future hives and then setup the 5 nuk boxed and insert the queen cages into them. Then robbed bees out of 5 hives to get them going. Let the nuk's closed up overnight and went out at 5am this morning and opened them up so they can begin building out the frames. I used old frames I had out of dead hives so they had pre built comb and should be able to begin filling them out pretty fast.

We have 4 home hockey games left in the season, 3 of which are this weekend with the last being a makeup game on next friday.

NakeDiesel · Apr 20, 2026

Did some things with the Bee's this weekend, then cleaned up the shop and bee room Saturday and Sunday. Hauled off the trash that piled up over a while and filled up the dumpster with it. Put the first coat of paint on 3 new top feeders I got in a while ago. Also unboxed and assembled 5 more Nuk boxes. A bee keeper my buddy knows is quiting, and I've bought 5 more nuks from him that I'll pickup Thursday evening.

Above 1200 Sq/FT Smart *** Garage, aka: It's finally going to happen

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