Shaman Hammer

Last fall we traveled to Boone, NC to do the usual mountain stuff. We marveled at the leaves changing color... ate some good food... did some shopping... tipped over a few cows... but none of those activities are relevant to this posting. I'm writing to pass on an important safety tip that you probably haven't considered, but may someday save your life. I'm assuming that most of you reading this blog have invested a huge amount of time and effort preparing for the zombie invasion that is to come. If you've been slacking and your preparations are running behind schedule, shame on you! But again, that's not the point. You may have turned your primary residence into the ultimate zombie-proof fortress, but is that really going to help you if the outbreak occurs while you're on vacation? When you're planning your weekend getaway, do you automatically book the first rental you can find? Such haste could cost you dearly. Jackhammer is warning all of you to consider...

1. Beer Brewing / Wine Making / Liquor Distilling . I’m talking about making beer, wine, and liquor from scratch. Sure, I’ve brewed a few batches of homemade beer… but I use pre-packaged, premeasured ingredient kits so that doesn’t count. I’m talking about brewing and distilling from nothing but the rawest of materials… wild wheat, barley, corn, and other grains. Moonshiners will have an advantage here… 2. Farming and Gardening. How many of us know anything about farming any more? The family farms are disappearing rapidly, replaced by mega-farms owned by corporate conglomerates. How many people under 40 know how to prepare, plant, maintain, and harvest a garden? And then “can” the produce in mason jars to eat during the winter months? My guess is less than 5 percent. Why bother when you can buy three cans of green beans for a dollar at Food Lion all year long? 3. Metalworking and Fabrication . Remember when they used to teach “metalworking” in high school? Not anymore… now we just sh...

Last time I heard, the state of North Carolina didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Maybe that explains the aggressive “Powersave” features of my arch-nemesis: the network printer. If this machine isn’t used every 30 seconds, it goes into “Powersave” mode – which basically means that it shuts down and won’t do a damn thing until it warms back up again. I often become enraged when I’m standing in front of it waiting for my document to print. While I fidget in the workroom, the printer’s LCD screen slowly scrolls an endless list of stupid messages every fucking time I try to print something: WARMING UP……….… CLEANING……...… CALIBRATING……...…CHECKING SUPPLIES….…ORDER YELLOW TONER SOON…. VERIFYING……. TESTING….… GENUINE HP SUPPLIES INSTALLED….… PRINTING……. All this drama before printing is very confusing to me. If the printer really does need to constantly clean, calibrate, and do a bunch of bullshit to itself, why doesn’t it do those things when nobody is using it? Why does it wait until...

Okay… I know this post is long overdue. But it’s time for me to comment on last month’s vacation to Sanibel Island, Florida. For those who don’t know, Sanibel Island is located off the West Coast of Florida… almost directly across from Fort Myers. A causeway connects Sanibel to Fort Myers if you can afford the six dollar (!) toll. Sanibel Island is about 12 miles long and 3 miles across… but the majority of the island is a protected wildlife preserve (a.k.a., an alligator infested swamp). There are no fast food restaurants, no stoplights, and nothing to interest someone looking for a wild time. Still, Sanibel provides 15 miles of unspoiled beaches, 22 miles of bike paths, and an awesome golf course -- where I was almost bit by an alligator, no kidding. But let me start with the bike trails, which are truly amazing. The paved trails traverse the whole island… in fact, some parts of the island are only accessible via the bike trails. But you’d better be prepared to peddle because no moto...

Guys, something isn’t right. After returning from my recent vacation I checked the balances in my bank accounts. I realized that taking the whole tribe to Florida had cost more than I expected (expect a blog about Jackhammer’s vacation to be posted soon). Therefore, I concluded that it was time to “economize” for a little while and recover financially. So around lunch time I headed down to the local Harris Teeter grocery store to partake of their latest special deal – a six-inch sub sandwich from the deli counter for only $2.99. I didn’t pull out a tape measure or anything, but the sandwich looked a little small. So I absentmindedly grabbed a bag of chips and a can of Chunky soup to go along with it. Imagine my horror at the checkout register when my lunch purchases totaled $10.87 – and I didn’t even buy a drink to go with it !! WTF is going on here??!! Now I will admit that I never paid much attention to the cost of groceries up to this point. I have developed a bad habit of tossing s...

When I heard that Leroy was stopping in North Carolina to collect a few things on the way to his mother’s house, I was very excited. I immediately started taking mental notes on the location of nearby porta-jons, rows of unguarded traffic cones, big-hair heavy metal rock bands, local auto races, and other sources of amusement. I wanted Leroy to have a good time while he was in town. But when we arrived at Leroy’s storage unit, it turned out that the task at hand amounted to more than “throwing a few things in the back of the rental truck.” Leroy is the proud owner of the 1934 Old Italian Car. Well, as I should say, the remains of a 1934 Old Italian Car. The kind of car that can only be moved by jacking its ass up in the air and sliding furniture dollies under the crumbling tires. So how do you move a car like that onto the trailer? One inch at time. How do you secure it so it doesn’t fall off? With steel come-along cables. And ropes. And nylon straps. And chains. And duct tape. Why hoi...

I hate to think that this posting may join the legions of the “does size matter” opinion columns. But I’m afraid I cannot make my point without addressing this eternal issue. Let me begin by saying that, under most circumstances, size does matter. But just because your motorcycle engine is smaller than your friends’ doesn’t mean that you can’t have any fun. My first motorcycle was a used 250cc Honda Rebel. I wanted to buy a motorcycle and join the two-wheeled community, and was able to do so for only $300 because I was willing to accept that fact that I was going to own something smaller than almost everyone else. Sure, I could have deferred the purchase and saved up more money for a bigger motorcycle. But at the time my poverty status was so acute there was no telling how long that was going to take. Looking back, I see that I made the right decision. I bought the little Honda Rebel and began having fantastic two-wheeled adventures right away. I rode through the mountains. I rode to t...