How to fix all those crappy little LED flashlights

I am always amazed at the engineering of things from China. Brilliant ideas combined at times with terrible execution which leads to head scratching and the inevitable, "what were they thinking," comment. And then other times you get very good quality and design. You just never know.
(Of course China is one of those countries where you shouldn't joke about execution... So perhaps I should have used a different term.)
Anyway...
The little LED flashlights were a great idea. However, despite the machined aluminum housing and the gasket seal and the illusion of them being waterproof they are not and they corrode inside. And they have four little AAA batteries when it looks like one C cell would fit perfectly. But, it won't. Of course that would only be 1.5v and the AAA's bring it to six so I guess that is the point.
But, I digress...
In my efforts to restore aging stereo equipment I came across a product called "DeOxit". I bought a little kit on Amazon which has samplers of the different products.
I figured if this chemical can help audio connections then why not annoying flashlights that you have to bang of the table to get them to work. So, I applied a trop of DeOxit gold to each of the contacts and suddenly I had light. I am quite impressed. You may ask me why I chose DeOxit gold out of the box of products? That happened to be the tube that was open and said on the instructions that it would improve electrical connections.
I also used the DeOxit fader lube on the switches and potentiometers on the Dynaco PAS-2 amp that Muddy Valley gave me and the difference in sound was amazing. Scratchy volume controls are cured quickly and the 40 year old balky slider switches now work.
And... if you put the term DeOxit into my Amazon search box and then buy the product I will get a kick-back. I like to think of it as a bribe or a payoff. Makes me feel edgy... or is that the excess coffee I have consumed this morning?
Of course the DeOxit costs more to buy than five cheap Chinese flashlights but that is not the point...

How hungry am i?

Two quick issues...
1. Got a call from a farmer 20 miles away on the wrong side of the capital city of our fine state. He wants me to no-till 40 acres of rolling hills, red dirt. Will pay me extra to transport.
Do I want to drive 20 miles and across the Willamette river on a crazy bridge and crazy traffic with a 16 foot drill? And tires that need replacing and that will cost me a total of $6,000 to replace? Keeping in mind that rolling hills and red dirt also probably means rocks.

2. The sometimes an employee showed up Friday. He got my pickup dirty, my four wheeler dirty, and filled up with gas. He said he hated to do little jobs but would be back Saturday. Have yet to see him.
Drove the pickup to jump start the neighbor's pickup and couldn't see out the window.
Neighbor gave me a bad of out of date bakery goods as payment. I would rather had him recite that poem about the flying goose.
But, I digress.
Oh, heck... don't even know what I was complaining about....
Have  nice day...

The Harry Truman School of Disaster Preparedness

I've been reading Gorges' Grouse and Surviving in Argentina and I am starting to get a little overwhelmed.
I am thinking about starting my own school of emergency preparedness and call it the Harry Truman School of Disaster Preparation. (HTSDP)
Harry Truman is the local folk hero who refused to be evacuated from Mt. St. Helens before she blew. I watched the Mountain blow and thought of Mr. Truman, but that was before the neighbor built a series of huge hay barns movie screens blocking our view of Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Hood.
I think it all ended pretty well for him and his cats. Or at least it ended well for Mr. Truman. He was obliterated by a avalanche of ash and toxic gasses. His cats probably boiled to death but Mr. Truman was already pickled. They had a well stocked bar at the Spirit Mountain lodge and his plan was preserve himself by pickling in alcohol.
Those statements have been somewhat glossed over in the official narratives...
I am also thinking that instead of firearms and knives I should install motion activated speakers which play "My underwear froze to the clothesline," when intruders approach the house.
Instead of a tazer I will just carry a boombox playing James White and the Contortions.
Sort of my own little force field...
But, I digress...
I give you the ballad of Harry Truman-grumpy mean old codger and possible former gangster

Radish is more than just those little round things in the garden

Our little slice of heaven has a clever little seed organization which specializes in the production of specialty vegetable seeds.
Radish is a popular one. Radish is a weed so after growing for a few years your soil becomes contaminated with radish seed and the seed company quietly drops you and moves on to a bigger farmer with new soil.
For some reason this seed company really feels the need to blow smoke up one's um... Well they do like to encourage their potential growers. As in, we want you because you have the EQUIPMENT to get a field planted in a day. Translation, the neighbor's radish production has not contaminated your fields downstream."  Or, there is a nice discussion about God and honesty and perhaps a Bible Study, Translation: You have ground that has never had radish seed and we want it...
But I digress,
Perhaps that was just downright mean...
Radishes have many uses. People eat the bulbs of which there are many different varieties, from the little red bulbs to big white ones that look like turnips. The seeds can be used for oil production, and that variety also is used in cover crops as the large bulbs work up the soil as they expand and then release nutrients as they decompose.
The reason that the radish growers in Oregon are so uptight is that they are growing radish for seed stock. This seed has to be pure and not contaminated with the pollen of any other variety of radish.
Japan takes a lot of radish seed and they are absolutely paranoid about GMO contamination.
(Which is why there was a lawsuit about GMO Alfalfa in Oregon.)
So in conclusion, I find the psychological manipulation by a particular seed company very entertaining as I have seen the pattern applied for several farmers, but the real reason of course is that that seed company doesn't offer me any lucrative contracts. And I'm mad at them for making me feel guilty and not plant sunflowers because my neighbor got a sunflower contract. It really irritates me because I have been fooling around with growing sunflowers for years. I think they are pretty. Sometimes I put them in one outside row of the planter so I can tell where I am with the silage chopper in strip-tilled corn.

The Route of the Gila Monster

Here is the full text for those who couldn't get the link to work. The full effect is when this is recited by a 80 year old farmer...

The Route of the Gila Monster

HE lingering sunset across the plain
Kissed the rear-end door of an east-bound
train,
And shone on a passing track close by
Where a ding-bat sat on a rotting tie.

He was ditched by a*shock and a cruel fate.
The con high-balled, and the manifest freight
Pulled out on the stem behind the mail,
And she hit the ball on a sanded rail.

As she pulled away in the falling light
He could see the gleam of her red tail-light.
Then the moon arose and the stars came out —
He was ditched on the Gila Monster Route.

Nothing in sight but sand and space;
No chance for a gink to feed his face;
Not even a shack to beg for a lump,
Or a hen-house to frisk for a single gump.

He gazed far out on the solitude;
He drooped his head and began to brood;
He thought of the time he lost his mate
In a hostile burg on the Nickle Plate.

They had mooched the stem and threw their feet,
And speared four-bits on which to eat;
But deprived themselves of daily bread
And slufied their coin for " dago red."

Down by the track in the jungle's glade,
In the cool green grass, in the tales' shade,
They shed their coats and ditched their shoes
And tanked up full of that colored booze.

Then they took a flop with their skins plumb full,
And they did not hear the harnessed bull,
Till he shook them out of their boozy aap,
With a husky voice and a loaded sap.

They were charged with " vag," for they had no

kale,
And the judge said, " Sixty days in jail."
But the John had a bindle,— a worker's plea,—
So they gave him a floater and set him free.

They had turned him up, but ditched his mate,
So he grabbed the guts of an east-bound freight,
He flung his form on a rusty rod,
Till he heard the shack say, " Hit the sod! "

The John piled off, he was in the ditch,
With two switch lamps and a rusty switch,—
A poor, old, seedy, half-starved bo
On a hostile pike, without a show.

From away off somewhere in the dark

Came the sharp, short notes of a coyote's bark.

The bo looked round and quickly rose

And shook the dust from his threadbare clothes.

Off in the west through the moonlit night
He saw the gleam of a big head-light —
An east-bound stock train hummed the rail;
She was due at the switch to clear the mail.

As she drew up close, the head-end shack
Threw the switch to the passenger track,
The stock rolled in and off the main,
And the line was clear for the west-bound train.

When she hove in sight far up the track,

She was workin' steam, with her brake shoes slack,

She hollered once at the whistle post,

Then she flitted by like a frightened ghost.

He could hear the roar of the big six-wheel,
And her driver's pound on the polished steel,
And the screech of her flanges,
As she beat it west o'er the desert trail.

The John got busy and took the risk,
He climbed aboard and began to frisk,
He reached up high and began to feel
For the end-door pin — then he cracked the seal.

'Twas a double-decked stock-car, filled with sheep, Old John crawled in and went to sleep. She whistled twice and high-balled out,— They were off, down the Gila Monster Route. L. F. Post and Glenn Norton*

A short post about farming and human nature.

I am a bit disillusioned with the whole concept of the noble farmer as expressed in the FFA creed.
I believe in the future of farming with a faith born not of words but of deeds... the promise of better days through better ways... and something about the owl being a symbol of wisdom and knowledge and soil judging and public speaking contests where I made up entire speeches in fifteen minutes based on information I had gleaned from Monty Python skits.
But, I digress...
My neighbor came by with a petition to sign and send to the ODA. Some of us want to plant canola.
Canola and other brassica's are restricted in our part of the state due to lobbying efforts of the specialty radish growers.
The specialty radish growers have a pretty sweet deal.
The one seed company that puts out the good contracts has the farmer psychology down pretty well. The field man comes out and tells you what a good farmer you are and kind of intimates that it is hard to find good farmers who can get the radish planted in a timely manner.
Then they micromanage the planting. Everything has to be done at the drop of a hat, but this makes the farmer feel really special. Like they are doing "God's" work or something.
In reality, radish contaminates the ground and the seed company is not looking for good farmers with BIG equipment as much as someone with virgin radish ground and a good sprayer.
Here is the funny part.
Farmers have been growing tillage radish. In my opinion they get by with it because they are the "right" farmers and because it is radish and not canola. The seed company guy just hates canola and mustard and that is what is on his radar.
There was a meeting early in the week and there was a heated discussion.
It is funny because all farmer think they invented the concept of growing what ever crop they read about in some paper from the midwest and they don't want anyone telling them what to do... Unless it is a slick seed salesman who tells them how wonderful they are and what good farmers they are and gives them a hat.
But that is just my opinion and I'm sure I have some facts wrong.
I've never been offered a radish contract so I'm just annoyed.

The Rec-O-Kut plays and I give you Thanatopsis and The Route of the Gila Monster for your edification

I have accomplished something. Goal completion and all that rot.
I put the Rec-O-Kut K33H back together with somewhat mixed results. It is paired with the Dynakit PAS2 and the Magnecord reel to reel so it has the components it grew old with. I am not so happy with the sound. The high range is not what I had hoped.
Part of it is my speakers. The Baby Advents don't sound like I think they should. I have not tried my Dynaco A-25's.
The sound is not as clean as it was before I took it all apart. However I used screw terminals instead of soldering because I was afraid I would have to take things apart again.
The Fairchild tonearm has an old shure hitrack M97 which should be a pretty good cartridge.
I completely reinforced the "plinth" but there was not a lot of rumble to begin with. However, the whole thing was mounted on a chunk of plywood. I see I have the motor drive in the wrong place but I think it was put that way to save space.
Right now I am listening to the Allman brothers do Statebourgh Blues. That sound pretty good. The Kinks Village Green Preservation Society sounded kind of dead in the highs. It is kind of scratchy record I use for doing tests as another scratch or pop won't really matter.
Anyway here is a picture and I'm going to bed.

I think I should clean up my background before I post any more photos of my projects. I have a lot of clutter.
In other news the neighboring farmer quoted poetry at coffee time. He said he learned this one from his father. It is called. "The route of the Gila Monster." It is about a couple hobos and has lots of train lingo. I think this link will get you to the poem.
Last week he quoted us this poem by William Cullen Bryan:

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,--
Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that hourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrend'ring up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to th' insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
, With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.--The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The vernal woods--rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and pour'd round all,
Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
Of morning--and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lost thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings--yet--the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.--
So shalt thou rest--and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living--and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh,
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
The bow'd with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustain'd and sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
1814