How to make simple antler beads

Simple antlers beads are easy to make and can be used for primitive
and mountain man style jewelry and accessories.

Tools needed:

A fine toothed saw, a coping saw will work just fine.

A drill, an electric drill is ideal but an old fashioned hand drill
will work.

Drill bits, Depending on what you plan to string the beads on,
1/16" to 1/8" are the best sizes.

A belt sander, This will make rounding the ends of the beads go
faster but if you don't have one, you can use a variety of sand
papers and a bit of patience.

A power buffer, If you want to polish the beads to a high shine one
of these is ideal but if you don't have one you can use fine steel
wool.

A sturdy table vise, You will need on to hold the antler while
cutting and drilling the beads. If need be you can clamp the antler
to a sturdy table top with C clamps but make sure the antler is
locked down before you start working.


The first step is to clamp your antler into your vise, it is
advisable to pad the vise with some soft non-marring material like
a piece of suede or rubber inserts. You will want to decide how
long the beads will be before you begin so you can maintain a
consistent size. Anywhere from 1/2" to no more than 1-1/2" in
length should be about right for most beads. You may want to
use a Sharpie to mark off your beads so you have a visual
reference.

After you have cut as many beads as you want you will now be ready
to drill them for stringing. With antler beads you have quite a few
options for how to string them. Most commonly you will probably
want a hole drilled through the longest part of the bead but you
can also drill a hole through one end if you want the bead to
dangle. Just take you time and decide what you want to do with
them. Pad your vise as you did for cutting the beads to avoid
marring the surface of the antler and mount your bead so it is at
a comfortable angle for drilling. Try to drill your holes as close
to the center as possible.


An inch and a half is about as long as you will want to make a dangling bead.


A smaller dangling bead about 3/4" long.

Now that you have drilled your beads you will want to sand the ends
where you cut them and the ends will likely be rough and in many
cases have sharp points that need to be removed for both looks and
the comfort of the person wearing the beads. This is where that
belt sander and sand paper will come in handy. Depending on your
personal tastes you can simply round the edges or you can round the
entire end of the bead.


Note the ends of this bead are flat with just the edges rounded


The ends of this bead are rounded off

Finally we get to the polishing, if you are using a power buffer I
would recommend using a soft loose cotton buffing wheel with Brown
Tripoli as your buffing compound as it is well suited for natural
materials like antler and wood. You won't need to use much pressure
on the antler but try to maintain a solid grip on the beads to
avoid the buff snatching the beads out of your fingers. The ends of
the beads will be where you will want to focus most of your
attention since you will want to maintain the antlers natural
appearance as much as possible. depending on want kind of look
you are going for you can either give them a light buffing to give
them a gentle shine or can polish them to a high glossy finish.

If you don't have a power buffer you can use fine steel wool to
buff the beads with as well. It will take a little longer but you
can achieve a very fine polish with steel wool. One thing you may
need to look for when using steel wool, some brands of steel wool
use a silicon coating to prevent the steel wool from rusting, this
will sometimes make what you are working on look a lot shiner that
it really is so you will need to wipe the beads with a soft cloth
to remove the silicon residue. You'll know when it has silicon on
it, you're fingers will get a light oily film on them.

Now you are ready to string them!

~Fin~

Is the current financial crisis being made worse by “Expert Opinions”?

ust before the presidential election the stock markets looked to
be recovering a bit. Yet now that it has past they have nosedived
again.

Why?

Did all of them suddenly decide that our new President Elect’s
message a hope and change were suddenly no longer valid? I have
noticed that a lot of the so called financial “experts” keep making
dire predictions that only seem to turn into self fulfilling
prophecies as soon as the Wall Street crowd hears what they have
said.

Maybe they have a point and are correct but I do not think it is
necessary for them to continually tell people “We’re f*cked!” so
loud and so bluntly. One thing I have learned over the years is
that the Wall Street crowd are basically a brainless mob when an
“expert” tells them things are one way or the other. And telling
them that the market is about to crash is a great way to get them
help make sure it happens!

I am not saying that they should lie about it. Anyone that buys
food or has bills to pay can pretty much add the numbers up and
figure out that something is rotten in Denmark. Or more correctly
on Wall Street and at The Fed.

What I am saying is that they need to remember that most of the
people on Wall Street are much like small children when it comes
to what the “experts” say. They tend to believe them without
question and will act accordingly. Meaning of course that they’ll
politely piss their knickers and start selling off shares so fast
it makes the market drop like a rock.

I doubt any of these “experts” will ever actually read this blog
but I feel the need to say this anyway…

For heaven’s sake people, think before you go spouting your dire
predictions and try to not make a bad situation worse than it has
to be!

The media drives me nuts…

I noticed that a video clip is making the rounds from Youtube
regarding an increase in gun sales recently. The media, of course,
is showing it’s natural fear mongering bias by pointing out that
some people are, to be blunt, pissing their knickers over the fact
that Barack Obama has taking a strong lead in the presidential race
of late and are a afraid that another “gun grabbing liberal” is
about to be the next US president.

That may be so but the media is the problem here. Historically
speaking, gun grabs have only come after someone has gone nuts
and it made national news; Pearl,MS, Colombime,CO. I won’t say
that there isn’t a chance Obama may decide to try his hand at
gun control but right now some of the media are acting like this
is a key issue in the grand scheme of things. Usually gun grabs
are knee jerk crap designed to make soccer moms feel ’safe” instead
of actually deterring crime.

Personally, I have a hunch that more than a few people are buying
guns because right now, things look like crap from a financial
point of view for most of us. And thus some of them are buying
guns to ensure that they have a chance to retain what they have
from people that are desperate and stupid enough to try stealing
food and other essentials from their neighbors.

I won’t say that there are some that aren’t worried that their
rights to own firearms will be trimmed by the next administration.
Every new president poses that possibility. And it would be there
whether it is a “conservative” or a “liberal”. Under the current
(Conservative!) administration we saw a huge blow to our rights
and freedoms thanks to the U.S.A. PATRIOT act and other laws that
came to pass after 9/11/2001.

So if you watch TV news, take it with a huge grain of salt and
try to see through their load of biased crap.

SMF Global Moderators Permissions

Having Global Moderators on your forum can help you
as an Admin since they can take of a lot of day today
matters, like moving posts to the correct board or
deleting spam from the forum. With SMF you need
to pay a little extra attention when setting up the
permissions for Global Mods though.

The default settings for Global Mods are missing a
few important things that should be corrected early
on to save you a lot of work and your Mods a lot of
confusion later. GMs can not see the default General
board until you give them permission to view it. You
can fix this by simply modifying General by checking
the box beside Global Moderator and saving the new
setting by clicking the modify button at the bottom.

Next you should probably look at the Group Permissions
for Global Moderators. You can give them a wide range
of permissions that will let them do a lot more. One thing
you will want to do is make sure they have the permissions
needed to view and post attachments if you allow your
regular members to do so. By default that permission is
not checked.

Depending on how comfortable you are with it, you
can also give you Global Moderators some access
to your Admin panel. This can come in handy if you
will be away for an extended period of time but don’t
want to temporarily promote someone to full Admin.
Just remember to give them what they will most
likely need and not give them access to something
where they might accidentally damage something.

If you add any new mods to your forum make sure you
check your Global Moderators permissions too. On occasion
the members will have the needed permissions to use the
new mods by default but the Global Moderators won’t.

The Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin

Let me state again for the record that I hate politics…

However, I feel the need to say a few things regarding this
little matter. I just got through reading about the latest
part of the interview at Digg and they are politely mocking
her into oblivion.

Normally Katie Couric is not one of my favorite journalist
but I have to give her credit for being extremely professional
during the parts of the interview I have seen so far. A lot
of journalists would have been picking their teeth with the
legs of Palin’s eyeglasses after they finished chewing her up
and spitting what was left back onto their plate. She’s lucky
that Tim Russert passed away, he would have eaten her alive
and never broken a sweat doing so.

I have seen people commenting on various sites that Palin
is a “dumb bitch”. I can’t say that I disagree with them
even if it is a less than polite thing to call any woman
publicly. However, anyone presuming to run for the Vice-
Presidency of the United States should be a damn sight more
world wise than she has shown herself to be thus far.

Not knowing what Hamas is is a strong sign that she should
have declined when asked to be McCain’s running mate. There
is also the current matter of her evading the question of
what newspapers and magazines she reads. I skimmed over a
transcript of Couric asking her three times and getting, “all
of them” as a reply each time. All of them? Does she even realize
just how many newspapers and magazines there are currently
published world wide? Nevermind just the ones published in the
U.S. alone.

I’m not even going to go into her remarks regarding Russia
and Putin.

I have also seen her and McCain’s, supporters slamming
Obama and Biden for their own failings. They are politicians.
There ain’t no angels in politics.

I am reminded of a question someone asked regarding her
meteoric rise from small town mayor to Governor of Alaska
to being tapped for VP. How? Most people in politics tend to
take a long road to even get close to The White House. Palin
has gone too far too fast IMHO. And looking at her answers
to Katie Couric’s questions, she needs to stay in Alaska
or run for U.S. senate and gain some much needed experience
before even considering such a thing again.

Right now,I am kind of cringing at what will happen when she
debates Biden tonight. saying it ain’t gonna pretty is putting
it mildly.

Beans and Rice

There are any number of recipes for this simple dish, so here
my contribution to the list...

Ingredients:

Beans: 1 cup of dried beans or one large can if you are
in a hurry. What kind? Pinto or Red Kidney are best due
to their general size. But don't hesitate to experiment
with your own preferred kind.

Sausage: 1 large smoked sausage sliced into pieces about
1/2" to 3/4" long. You can use most any kind you like but
I personally recommend Polish sausage.

2 or 3 Bay Leaves. These can and should be removed before
serving.

One large coarsely chopped onion

One clove of garlic, crushed

One cup of rice, instant or regular depending on your preference
and how soon you want to eat.

Optional:

One teaspoon of hot sauce. If you prefer it extra spicy
add a few dashes on cayenne pepper.

One teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

One bell pepper coarsely chopped

Cooking instructions:

Add the beans, sausage, bay leaves, onion, garlic, and if you want
them,the bell pepper, the hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce to
your pot. If you are using dried beans, prepare them according to
the instructions on the package. If you are using canned beans,
just cook it until the sausage and onions are tender.

The longer it cooks the more time the flavors will have to mingle
properly. So if you want the best flavor, cook it in a crock pot
overnight, this works best with dried beans rather than canned
beans.

The rice should be cooked separately from the beans and used as
a bed for the beans to be served on. You can also mix them together
after they are both done if you want the rice to pick up the flavor
of the juices from the beans and sausage.

Quick one bowl meal

Ingredients:
California style mixed vegetables: About 2 cups (broccoli,
cauliflower, and carrot slices)
Rotini or egg noodles: roughly two small handfuls
Polish sausage sliced into 1/4" thick pieces
Cheese sauce: Reciepe here

Put the vegetables, noodles, and sausage in a 2 quart pot and
cover with water. let the water just starts boiling and turn
it down to about half and let it simmer. Cooking time is roughly
five (5) to ten (10) minutes after the heat has been reduced.

The cheese sauce can be prepared while rest is simmering or
you can cheat and use Cheez Whiz.

My suggestion for serving is to simply drain the veggies et al
and mix them and the cheese sauce in a bowl and serve.

What is a “fringe” topic?

I’ve noticed that some people have referred to some of the topics
in the forum as being “fringe” topics.

Why?

What makes the paranormal, conspiracy theories, or alternate
spiritual and religious beliefs and ideas “fringe” topics?
Because they don’t follow the “established” ideas? Or maybe
because they make you have to pull your head out of the sand
and consider the possibility that what you were taught as a
child might not be all there is?

It has been my observation that many people falsely assume that
expressing an interest in such things means you must be, by
default, some wacko that wears a tin foil hat and believes that
“they” are watching your every move.

No.

Many people that are interested in “fringe” topics are actually
quite normal. Some would even say bloody boring in their day to
day lives. The part of it that amuses me is that as soon as
some people find out you are interested in such things they
think they need to distance themselves from you or shun you for
fear that they will be seen as “tainted” in the eyes of others.
Or worse, they treat like you are some sub-human creature that
somehow managed to escape a lunatic asylum and need to be treated
like you were somehow ill.

Then there are the ones that use the term “lunatic fringe”. What
makes one person a lunatic and another one normal? Politically
speaking, many consider me to be a lunatic because I think our
current government(s) don’t have our best interests in heart. Nor
do I believe this is how the original founders of the various
governments intended for things to be for posterity.

Looking at my traffic reports has shown me something interesting
about this site, the so called “fringe” topics are of greater
interest than the supposed “normal” topics. And believe me, there
are more “normal” topics here than there are “fringe” topics.

One prime example is the topic Pagnor posted about Odinism,
Asatru, and Heathen. I see many visitors looking at that one so
it makes me have to ask the question, If there are that many
people regularly looking for such topics online, how can they be
considered “fringe”? In fact I just looked, that one topic has
had 484 views since he posted it in January.

Link to Pagnor’s thread

So the next time you see something referred to as a “fringe”
topic, ask yourself, What makes this a “fringe” topic? Because
Katie Couric isn’t blathering about bigfoot on the evening news?
Or they aren’t offering you tips on the Today Show on best way to
set up a cleansing ritual for your house before your new baby is
born? Oh wait, they do that if it is Feng Shui.

Good liberals and good conservatives

In modern (US) politics there are three primary groups, Liberals,

Conservatives, and Pretenders. I’m not going to go into the various
political parties as there are many even though the media acts as
though there are only two, Democrats and Republicans.

Many people automatically associate liberal politics with the
Democrats and conservative politics with Republicans. In my
experience that isn’t entirely accurate. I’ve seen plenty of self
proclaimed Democrats that were and are very conservative in their
views and almost as many Republicans that were surprisingly liberal
in their outlook. Then there are the pretenders. They claim one
name or the other yet their actions tell the tale all too well about
where their loyalties lie. Their loyalties usually lie with themselves or
some special interest group who’s interests are usually at odds with
everyone else’s best interests.

As a general rule I detest politics and politicians. It always seems to
be the same song and dance year after year and election after election.
One candidate points an accusing finger at their opponent and the
other counter attacks by digging up more dirt on the other. This
cycle continues until we go to the polls and cast our votes. After the
election is won or lost we get a little peace and quiet for a while
before they start it over again.

I have been told be people on both sides that I am crazy because
my views don’t conform to either set of ideas. Maybe I am crazy for
seeing both sides as being in error in their thinking. However, I see
that there are good liberals and good conservatives and then there
are just idiots that wear the name without knowing what it means.

A review of Google’s Chrome beta browser

I downloaded Chrome beta after having read a bit about it on Digg.
The general consensus on Digg is that it sucks. So far I have to agree
with them for the most part. It has a few annoying problems and what
I have to call design flaws. These may only be typical beta problems
but they still might discourage a user from dropping IE or Firefox in
favor of Chrome.

Installing it went fairly quick and smoothly except for a hiccup that required
me to shut down Firefox so it could import my settings, bookmarks, and other
information from it. It did offer the option to not import any or all of my
information from Firefox but I wanted to see if it would do it and get
everything right, so far so good on that point.

Several people have commented on Chrome’s UI (User Interface) as being
very clean. It is clean, a little too clean if you are used to having all the
options and normal buttons and tabs readily available. The site tabs are at the
very top but it has only back, forward, and reload buttons next to the
search/address/bookmarks bar. You do have the option of adding the home
button from the options menu under the wrench icon. It allows you to
set a home page or you can just use the default new tab page.

The bookmarks can be a pain in the butt to get to where they are located
if you are used to being able to quickly navigate around your favorite sites. You
do have the option of adding a bookmarks tab to the browser but it is located
to the right side and that is not where most people look for their bookmarks
as far as I know. It will also allow you to drag and drop your most used bookmarks
to the left side but it still leaves a lot of room for confusion until you get used
to the lay out.

It also lacks a constant status bar. This is replaced with a fading tab that
shows you where links lead and if a page is still loading. While this may not
be a problem a lot of the time it is still a minor distraction if you are used
to glancing down and seeing the status bar. Their pop up blocker notification
bar will also display here when a pop up is blocked.

As far as I have been able to determine, the beta version does not support
RSS or ATOM feeds and I have seen no buttons for any kind of feeds. I am
hoping this will be corrected in the final version.

I also noticed that some sites that use a lot of widgets that are dependent
on Flash and Quicktime seem to hang up or drag when trying to scroll. This may
only be a problem with the beta but it does tend to make me want to go right
back to Firefox. On most sites the scrolling is very quick and smooth though.
One other problem I noticed was that if you have only one tab opened and
accidentally close it the entire browser will close.

And finally I will address the incognito window they have come up with
for more private surfing. Personally, I can’t see any real need of it since
you can just as easily clear your browsing data from the controls under the
wrench icon.

In closing, I know there are a lot of things I haven’t addressed but these
are the things that drew my attention. It may be a good general purpose
browser after it’s final version is released but I think Google still has a lot of
work ahead of them if they plan to give Internet Explorer any serious competition.

If you would like to try the beta of Chrome visit:
Google Chrome Beta download