BrianK

Cold the past few days and will be for at least a few more. Running the wood stove because of the quality of the heat. We love burning wood over the oil furnace or even the heat pumps.

I lost 50# but I did it by not eating carbs, or very few carbs. I counted them to make sure. I didn't do it overnight nor did I intend to. Fast weight loss means it's unsustainable in most cases. I had many reasons for entering ketosis and my Dr. fessed up the last time I saw him and told me that he agreed with all the reasons I gave. He continues to tell me to kepp doing what I'm doing. Easy to do 'cause I never felt better.

Heck, you're doing great too. 👍 I know I've come a long way since I started my therapy 3+ years ago. Back then I had a hard time walking in my dooryard w/o calf pain that would bring me to a halt. Just today I got my app't for another vascular study to find out just how much I've done. I was getting 33% blood flow in my right leg and slightly more in my left. I know it's not 100% but it IS better today. I don't think they allow cameras in the gym. Maybe I can get one of the folks behind the desk to do it for me so that they know I'm not intending the biden routine. Whoops, sorry, no prepubescent girls so it can't be bidens routine.

I don't think this is the first time they tried this. I seem to remember a push in this direction maybe 20-30 years ago and it didn't work back then. Here it is again, what a surprise, huh? A different bunch of anal sphincters but the same idea from out of the freedom stealing catalog.

Stay warm SB ! Last week or so we were teased with warmish temps and did lots of melting but it was just a tease to make us think we were going to get an early spring. In Maine? No way! Snow here today also Sagebrush. Not much though and that's good, but it's cold. When I woke up it was 20°, not more than 1/2 hour later it was 14°. We've been hovering there ever since. I have no idea what the wind chill is, but the wind is gusting, or it was. It'll be colder tonight and more snow is forecast. At these temps I use the heavy duty heat "system" called a wood stove. It delivers steady heat with no short term fluctuations. But it delivers too much heat if it's much warmer outside. Cold for the weekend is also predicted. I have no idea when the cold will break. But the sun is getting higher in the sky and is delivering warmth, so the battle between cold and warm will begin in earnest in the next month or so. We can also get the worst weather of the winter as the moist southern (Gulf of Mexico) air collides with the cold arctic air and dumps on us. But the end of winter isn't far away. Yipppeee! In years past I liked winter, not so much anymore.

Thanks. The biggest difference between rowing when I was a child and now is the moving seat as found in racing hulls. As a child it was just a rowboat and the seat was stationary. Now I can add leg muscles to the stroke. Thanks for the thought to help me get it right. This is not a complaint, I like having no one competing for time on the rowing machines, but I wonder why more folks don't use them? "My" gym has 6 of them and I've only ever seen one other person using one. Again, not a complaint, just curious. The other part of my rehab is the treadmill that is Rxed for me (1.8mph @ 15% grade at this time) and there are times when I wonder if I can find one to use and they must have at least 20+. They're very popular when right outside is a place where the scenery sorta changes. After I max out my Rxed treadmill rehab I plan to walk out there when it's not hot or icy cause the real world is more difficult than the treadmill for some reason I can't fathom. Maybe the moving belt vs non moving pavement? IDK

Ha, 50 years later! Don't I wish!

I have no doubt that you'll get squared away. FWIW, I absolutely HATE raking. Yes, it's lots of labor. Every year we have a leaf drop, same as you do in Wisconsin. I let the mower handle any "raking". I maneuver the discharge to blow it into my forest. Edit: Yes, that looks like my stroke unforgiven. I rowed a great deal as a child and brushed up on it 2 weeks ago to make sure I was doing it correctly today, 50 years later. My biggest problem is throttling back my mind. I want to speed up too much and that's not what it's about. So I keep track of the spm and keep it between 16-18. Nice and leisurely but effective. I never started to sweat in cardiac rehab, but I do a little when rowing. I'll get better.

How'd it go Sisco? Still going slow here but doing more each time. Now I rest for 2 every 5 minutes, and I row for 10 minutes. I'm liking the rowing machine and working all of my body. At the hospital all of the exercises worked either the legs or arms and that's it. Still working on the walking; 1.8mph @ 15% grade. It's slow going to get the circulation rerouted but I know how far I've come so I continue. It took me over 3 years to get to where I am so it's not an overnight sort of thing. Went to the gym 2x this week and maybe again tomorrow weather permitting.

I love 300BLK. Did my research and built my own. It runs supers and subs, but, and here's the catch, I handload for my gun. I tried the S&B subs they mention and they just won't function the gun reliably. Supers? If a 300BLK doesn't run with supers just give up, they all do, or at least should. The fly in the ointment is if it'll also run subs as they correctly asked. But build a gun to run subs and it's probably not going to run supers the way it should. But handload and you've got it. At least that's the way I see it and that approach worked for me. Or one could try various loads until a load or loads are found that work reliably. If one needs a crash course in 300BLK it's found here: https://www.300blktalk.com/forum/index.php Everything you wanted to know about 300BLK is there somewhere. Its where I got my info for what I built and I came away with the understanding that I might need to adjust the pressure curve of the ammo to make it work with subs. That's my way of saying don't ask me, instead go to that site to find and learn what you need to do for what you build. Is it worth it? They got it 100% correct that it's a niche cartridge. But on the 300blk talk forum you'll find folks who use it for all sorts of things, including hunting. It isn't a bean field rifle, but used within it's capabilities it works fine. It didn't exist back when I was hunting, but knowing about it today I wish I'd have had it back then. FWIW, my 10" build is a HD gun for exactly the reasons they give. But I don't use subs for HD for at least 2 reasons. IMO they are the wrong load for indoor use. I shoot an 85 gr copper (Maker) @ 2300fps for 1k ft/lbs out of my 10" barrel. Yes, it wears a blast can but that doesn't make it quiet it just stops the pain of the eardrums from concussion. It does keep the firearm shorter. OK, why supers and not subs? A SD gun should ideally have stopping power and that begins at about (if my memory serves me) at around 2000fps. Below that the best we can hope for is that the bullet expands, dumps it's energy to produce trauma, and allow bleed out. The worst, and here's where a sub comes in, is that a tiny hole is drilled, maybe many tiny holes, and a slowish bleed out happens. That could allow a perp plenty of time to do more evil, and stopping that was the entire purpose of deadly force in the first place. At least that's my thinking on it, with absolutely no real world experience and I hope I never get any. That's why I use Maker 85s, they have stopping power, dump a huge amount of energy, produce a perfect 3 pointed mushroom, and gel tests tell me that they'll penetrate about 6" and remain inside with no exit. If I didn't use the 85s I'd use a 110-125 grain bullet, probably a varmint bullet to make sure I got expansion if it was copper jacketed lead at the relatively low velocity we can expect from a short barreled 300BLK (2k fps or lower). IMO, there is no reason to have a long barreled, meaning 16", 300BLK. That just defeats the entire purpose of the cartridge but lots of folks have them and it's one way to get more velocity than I can never hope to get from my shorter barrel. I trade velocity to gain a smallish firearm. OK, a bit more re: subs... There ARE bullets that expand reliably at subsonic velocity. I haven't tried them yet but they look promising. I shoot cast for subs and IMO are a no-no. Those cast bullets, and many others intended for more velocity and their tougher jackets is what I base the above comments on.

Today in the low 40s (central Maine) bright sun and not much wind, a mild gust now and then. It's a nice day for outside chores. I picked up some cut wood from a tree that blocked my driveway 2 months ago and reloaded the inside wood rack. Normally I use the truck for that, but it's kaput and no one at the Toy' garage is smart enough to diagnose an engine that isn't running so It sits on the lot awaiting being traded for a new truck. It's either that or pay $100/hr to have them tear the engine apart looking for what I think is a pollution control problem. That dealership used to have good mechanics but covid hit and now the good ones have found better paying jobs (so I was told). When will my new truck show up? No one knows. Back to weather. Some sort of snow is forecast for later in the week. Again, no truck; since it has the plow my neighbor will take care of it if we get enough accumulation to be bothered with it. On a bright note, yesterday was also a decent day so I sorta sighted in the 10/22 SBR that got the new barrel and parts a month+ ago. I use it for steel challenge and it should be close @ 40ish yards. I'll fine tune it in a month.

After getting mine I've been looking at those Sagebrush. How do you like it? Can you compare it to a manual trimmer? Sisco, I never burned anywhere near that amount of wood in a season. But in my younger days I absolutely loved getting out into the forest and working up our winter heat. Back then we could easily see -35°F, today not so much. I won't light the wood stove unless it's going to be cold enough to justify that amount of steady heat. We love wood heat because it's so steady, the closest we come today is the heat pump. The worst is the oil furnace with it's constant up and down and either being too warm or too cold.

We were getting spoiled thinking an early spring was here (Maine). The temps had been climbing and it was in the mid 50sF yesterday. But we're headed back to winter weather and temps. Heck, it's only February and we can still get anything including the worst weather of the winter. The warm days sure were nice while they lasted though! The forecast says northern Maine can get up to 12" of snow in the next 24 hours. I don't envy them. I've grown to hate snow.

Yeah, I agree. Text makes it somehow more dangerous. Ridiculous! The politicians who wrote that law are a bunch of anal sphincters! Welcome to the forum Lefty308.

One thing I have found, and it's a bad habit on my part. Any saw should be up to full rpms before touching the chain to wood. The centrifugal clutch needs the rpms so as not to slip and due to the power my gas saws have I hit the throttle and immediately start cutting before full RPMs. But they are only the barest split second behind. The battery saw needs full rpm or it'll stall. That's good corrective therapy for my bad habit.

Yeah, now that's one heck of a saw! I think I'd want a spotter if I was the pilot though. I really hate putting a blade in the dirt and rocks as it looked like he did. Chainsaws.... We heat with wood when it gets really cold. It'll drive us out if I light the woodstove when it's much above 20°F. So I have chainsaws to support the wood heat with the 45 acres of wood growth that we own. One is a 5 hp and the other 3hp but I really don't like to fiddle with gas mix when I just have a small job or 2 so those jobs never get done. Heck, when I did have the gas saws ready to go for bigger jobs I never remembered the small jobs and again, they never got done. OK, I'm going to write exactly what I told a neighbor, we'll get back to that. Don't laugh is what I told him and I suggest it here. The wife asked what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a battery powered chainsaw. I had experience with an electric chainsaw 50 years ago, none of it good. But I had been hearing about the new crop of battery saws and all of it was positive, so after a mess of online research I asked for one. I'm in the Makita system and don't need a bench full of chargers and various batteries that exist for orphan tools, so I specified Makita and was told to buy it. I got a 36v saw; it takes 2 18v batteries and has a 16" bar. I used it very briefly to get a fallen trees limbs out of my driveway at the start of the cold season and I was surprised. Based on my previous negative experience 50 years ago it actually was capable of cutting wood and doing a credible job. The saw 50 years ago was just a POS and not worth a nickle. The Makita wasn't any of my gas saws with huge chain speed, but it was decent. Battery draw was minimal but I have yet to use it for a really big job. OK, back to my neighbor. He was over and the conversation got turned to saws and I asked him not to laugh, but I also had a battery operated saw, yada, yada, and it was a decent performer. OK, now my neighbor cuts trees and sells to the mills. I was surprised to hear that he had one too (MIlwaukee) and he liked it. Told me that he puts it on the back of his snowmobile to get trees out of the trail so that he doesn't need to play with gas mix. OK, for cutting trunks into stove length I'll keep my bigger saws, esp' the 5hp* but for limbing the lightweight battery saw is going to see use. Also for the previous mentioned small jobs. It always has charged batteries in place and bar/chain oil in the tank and is ready to go. No ear protection required either, just grab and go. *I don't remember the Husky model number (I think it ends with an "XP") but it has special mods so that it revs up higher for higher chain speed. It's a beast. As I age I appreciate lighter saws when their use is appropriate, like limbing and felling smaller trees.

And do NOT give them any notoriety by using their name.

👍 Good for you! The feces has hit the fan with lots of stuff going on "at home" so I haven't gone as often as I like. But as soon as I get caught up (very soon, Monday hopefully) I'll not make up for it, but I'll go at least 2x a week. Last time I went I went I spent a bunch of time on the rowing machine after doing my rehab on the treadmill, and did something I haven't done in quite some time at Cardiac rehab at the hospital, I started to work up a sweat. Not doing anything outlandish for a workout just rowing at a decent pace (19spm) and resting for 1 1/2 minutes every 3. At cardiac they didn't like us to exercise too hard. 😆 I assume they didn't want to have to get out the paddles or worse yet, do the paperwork if we croaked. They just wanted us to exercise the heart muscle and no more. But I went easy on the rowing expecting to be a hurtin' unit the next day, but nothing was sore. I'll work my way up slowly with both resistance and time monitoring my vitals as I go. Heck, I haven't rowed anything for over 1/2 a century and I was VERY surprised that I wasn't hurting. I also expected my calves that don't get normal blood flow to be hurting as I was rowing, but I guess it's slow enough so as not to be an issue. That's not the case with the treadmill and that's exactly why I do it. For me just going to the supermarket is also rehab for the calves. I walk at my military pace, it's just so hard to slow down, and when the calves start to hurt I stop and let the blood catch up. My point is that normal everyday movement is also rehab for me.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum from central Maine! No experience with flat wire on an AR10, but I have one in a .300BLK AR15 and it works fine.

I forgot! There's more. Despite therapy and exercise I'm losing muscle mass. Another thing I've done is to sell many of my long long guns and buy bullpups and SBRs. Without the barrel mass wayyyy out there they handle so much better.

Well, age and medical conditions caught up to me. I never thought I'd get to be this old. I doubted I'd live to be 20 and back then I was superman. But I have, and this is now, it's real, and all of a sudden I have this old worn out body with heart disease and peripheral artery disease (drastic lack of circulation in the extremities). My hunting and days of walking very far are behind me due to those medical conditions I briefly mentioned above. Before I started with therapy I couldn't walk very far at all w/o pain showing up not long into the walk. The alternative is having my femoral arteries sliced open, scraped out, then 2 months of bedrest. I would be able to get out of bed for no more than 15 minutes at a whack and only for taking a dump. But the therapy is working and I'm doing better to the point where I surprise myself at times with what I can do. Therapy doesn't have a rowing machine so I quit last week to take out a membership at Planet Fitness where I'll continue my therapy and use other cardiac machines to include a rowing machine. My last day of therapy at the hospital was Jan 31st and when I said goodbye to the nurse on duty to tell her my plans she suggested to me that I was moving into Phase 4 therapy from their Phase 3. Not only do I get the use of more exercise equipment but I can go as often as I want. Previously I was limited to 2x a week on the hospitals schedule. If weather dictated that it was closed on one of those 2 days, tough luck. Now I can work around the weather and still get in my therapy and exercise. Sure, I'm doing it for health but I also like to stay sharp for Steel Challenge and USPSA Action pistol, and they help me stay sharp for self and HD. Shortly after therapy began I decided to lose weight. I did a bunch of research into heart disease, fats/carbs, and such and decided to put myself into ketosis. Some may not know what that is. It's a drastic reduction in carbs consumed and that forces the body to begin to burn fat. The liver turns fat that is either consumed or stored into ketone which the cells can burn. If you've been following along you caught the "consumed fat" part and may be thinking, "But he has heart disease!". Yup. The common knowledge about heart disease is probably wrong. Fat, good fat, does NOT cause heart disease, carbs do. At least that's what my research turned up and what I acted on. Going into ketosis and flipping the bird to common knowledge was the hardest thing I ever did (Am I going to kill myself??). After all I'm betting my life. But my PCP Dr has told me that he agrees with what I'm doing. One positive spin off from radically restricting carb intake is... I was pre diabetic. Now I'm so not pre diabetic that my Dr has removed it from my medical record as a concern. I've lost 50# and and happy with my weight today. I could lose another 20# and still be happy, but those around me have told me that if I lose any more I'll look emaciated. Yet that would still be over my warrior weight 50+ years ago. For those inclined to choose keto... My GI (not the VA ) Dr told me that it's so difficult that she couldn't do it. I agree, when I first started into it it was very difficult. But now after having learned a great deal it's not terribly difficult to eat and stay in ketosis without a boring diet. But at first it was "What the hell can I eat!!???". I've been in ketosis for 3 1/2+ years and I still crave pasta, bread, pizza, fruit, pie, cake, yada, yada. Carbs are a difficult addiction to break.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum from central Maine! In general terms where in Maine is your AO? I'm near Skowhegan.

I have function tested it and it works fine. But accuracy testing will need to wait until warmer weather.