So a weeks ago I heard about a different type of beef jerky. A kind that my neighbors would let me make because I wouldn’t smoke them out of their apartments! It is called Biltong. It is a South African dried meat.
Traditional beef jerky needs to be smoked. This gives it great flavor. The smoking process also keeps all the nasties off of the meat while it’s drying.
Biltong is treated with vinegar. The vinegar keeps the nasties off of the meat while it is drying.
I made my own drying rack using a HEPA air filter I have. I used some spare aluminum from my PakYak to build a frame. I wrapped it in a plastic bag to funnel the air up past the meat that I want to dry. I strung the meat up using some nylong string I have.
Most people who know me know that I don’t watch much TV. TV is my ADD trigger or something. If there is a TV on, I can’t help myself but to watch it. So, I keep making TVs into fishtanks or otherwise getting rid of them.
I do have 1 TV that I like (besides my fishtank TV). A friend from an old job gave it to me, thanks Trudi! It is a small, black and white 5 inch AM/FM/TV with AV in. It can run on internal batteries. I mean, it’s the perfect emergency TV. Great for Hurricane Country. The best part, is it came with a schematic. I can fix the goofy thing if it ever died.
Well, come Feb of 2009, the antenna won’t work anymore. So I picked up a Digital TV converter with analog pass through. The analog passthrough is important to me because I will be playing with enough old video stuff that not having it could be a pain.
Anyway. I hooked it up. No TV. Didn’t surprise me, as I don’t get regular TV clearly with the internal antenna.
A challenge.
So, I started looking online for quick and easy, DIY TV antennas.
I made one. It took me about an hour. I got to play with my torch. Any night is a good night when you get to play with fire, right? My soldering iron isn’t hot enough to work well with the 12 gauge solid wire I used for the antenna.
I took a video with my Hi-Def video camera of my five inch TV getting High Definition Broadcast Digital Television. Kinda ironic, isn’t it?
I get 10 stations for 25 channels? Is that how you say that? A lot of each station has multiple channels in them. The only really important channel I get is the Weather Channel.
A really good website to visit to see what you should expect for TV reception is TV Fool. I am getting about what it says that I should.
I am thinking I will make a ‘cleaner’ antenna. I want to get a matching transformer on this antenna to see if that works better. I will also be making a few other types over the winter I think. Just stuff to play around with.
I did notice that if I hook my converter box up to the antenna on the foot and a half cable I left myself, I don’t get much for reception, but if I use the 40 foot cable I have, I get much better reception. I will need to investigate cable length for reception and such. I am guessing that the long cable is helping match the antenna to to the receiver. Just a hunc though.
Well, I am crossing my fingers is that the other kitten will get a new home this week. I was really hopeful that they both would find homes this weekend, but no such luck.
I got a message from the new caretaker of ‘lil one’ – nobody ever owns a cat, do they?
Hello Mike!
Just wanted you to know that the kitty is doing great. She’s love it here and gets along very well w/Cuddles my other kitten.
Curious though… did the other person come through to p/u the other kitten? My mil is interested if he/she is still available.. she just fell in love w/ours!
Thanks, ~Kim
So, it looks like the other one will have a home by the end of the week.
It’s bizarre, but the remaining kitten is all cuddly and stuff all of a sudden. I am not sure if it’s because the other kitten is gone and that the remaining one has nobody to rough up, or because I liked the other one so much I was slighting this one.
We took a nap this afternoon, and he was all cuddled up, just a purring away.
He was playing with a toy mouse a bit ago. I have the memory card in the computer or I would take more video of the kitten and Brother rough-housing in the living room right now.
So, I gave ‘lil one’ away today. He has a new blue eyed Siamese kitten to play with. I wish him best of luck. I dropped him off. Made a shopping trip out of it while I was out. I am happy, only spent $11 on stuff, and that again on food. I love Culvers.
A little girl came by to look at the other kitten tonight. The kitten goes all shy on us! Can you believe it? They shy one was all ha[py and stuff, and the bold one goes shy! When the girl and her mom left, I had ALL THREE cats on my lap. They saw the ‘lil one’ leave, and they are like, ‘don’t send me away daddy, I will be good, I promise!’
Everybody seems to LOVE brother. I got an offer to take Brother off my hands. The 2 people that where here tonight thought he was pretty cool too.
