My last 30 hours of life...

I have finally had the chance to sit and write a post for Steemit, one I've been meaning to write for a little while...I've had a lot going on in life lately and I thought I'd take a moment to note some of it down, to share it with with you, my awesome followers. Here's a snapshot going back 30 hours...

Leave Whyalla southbound to Adelaide:

We drove to Whyalla to drop my mother in-law to her sisters place for a short stay. As you may recall my wife's mum has just completed six months of chemotherapy and is just now starting to find some normality in life despite the testing she still faces. So, we headed up on Sunday, 400km away from Adelaide, stayed over night and left to return home around lunch time Monday.

Rather than take Highway One I decided to leave the blacktop for some dirt tracks preferring those places less-travelled, with far-less people. As you can see we found some interesting places. Above is Faith, my wife, standing in an ochre gully. Ochre has been used throughout the world by many cultures for its pigment and to create cave paintings dating back thousands of years. Below is a little waterhole we came across which was refreshing considering we're coming out of a brutal summer and at the moment there's not a lot of green in the outback.

Here you can see us as we're just about to say good bye to the dirt and come back onto the blacktop. We had a nice little diversion off the beaten track but it was time to put some miles behind us and make our way home.

Home, chores, food preparation and Game of Thrones:

We ended up making it home by about 1800 (6pm) and after greeting Merlin and Cleo, our cats, unpacking, putting on a load of washing, showering and making dinner we found ourselves in front of the television watching episode two of Game of Thrones season eight that we had recorded. It had been a long day.

Making munitions:

Tuesday (today) stared early for me. By 8am I was in my workshop completing some ammunition I will be shooting on Wednesday. I had to weigh the charge, insert the gun powder to the cases and seat the projectiles as the case resizing, preparation and priming was already done by me over the last week or so. I made 50 rounds and was done by 1000 (10am). It takes a while as I weigh every charge on beam scales for accuracy and consistency.

Below you can see the WIP (work in progress) and the finished rounds. The green funnel in the background sits in a case waiting for me to drop the precisely measured charge into it. Anyway, job done.

Getting powered up:

After packing away my ammunition (must be securely locked away) and packing up my reloading equipment I headed to Bunnings to pick up some essential equipment for the next job on my list. I picked up electrical cable, junction box, connectors, flexible conduit, a double GPO (general power outlet), some silicone and electrical tape and headed home to get to work.

For years my workshop has been powered by a long extension lead plugged into an outdoor GPO on the wall of my house. I have to open my workshop run the extension lead out, plug it in and only then do I have power in my workshop. It's annoying! So, I decided to fix that problem.

I had to cut open an existing power cable, splice into it with a new cable leading to my workshop, chase the wiring through the outside of the shed to the inside and then to the location I wanted to install my GPO. My new power outlet. Below you can see some reels of cables at the hardware store and the right side image shows my GPO wired up and ready to screw down to the base plate.

It took me from 1000 to 1430 (10am-2:30pm) to complete the work including the hardware shop and a brief stop at Dirty Bird for lunch. Dirty Bird is what I call KFC. Yeah I know, it's shit food but I was on the clock today so that's what I ate for lunch.

After chasing all the wiring I turned off the power, checked it was off, checked again, had a Pepsi Max, checked the power was off again and then re-checked the power was off and then I cut the power cable to splice into it with the other new cable. Yes I know, that's a lot of checking but I'm not an electrician so wanted to be sure not to kill myself. I'm still here so it obviously didn't kill me.

Anyway, it all came together well, works a treat and there's now no more running out extension cords for me! I'm fucking stoked with my effort and amazingness. Job done.

Concrete rectification: Time for a rest? Nope...More work. The concrete foundation my house is built on has started to deteriorate in places and so I got to work chipping away at the sections that had lost integrity chipping away the powdery stuff until I reached solid concrete. Once that was done I applied a filler, a mixture of two products designed for just that job and started to apply it.

I used a screed, a tool used to smooth and true-up concrete or plaster to finish it off. Using that tool allowed me to work the concrete mix and smooth it off on the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the foundation and essentially create new, flat surfaces. I have to allow it to set properly for a couple of days before painting but once that's done you'd be struggling to tell which patches I rectified. Clever huh? Sorry, no photos of that...I was flat out trying to get it done before it got dark and my hands were filthy with concrete slurry.

I had started doing that work around 1445 (2:45pm) and by 1730 (5:30pm) I had completed it, cleaned up and packed the gear away. The painting will happen next weekend. So...Job not quite done...But close.

Shower, dinner, the couch and Netflix:

I'm sitting here on the couch writing this. I landed here just after 1800 (6pm) after a shower and started writing this. My lovely wife Faith is making dinner...She's not a good cook by her own admission but I never complain, and I have a Netflix show on called Our Planet which is bloody amazing! It's now 1935 (7:35pm) and I'm pretty tired so I doubt I'll move far from the couch until bedtime.

So, there you have 30 hours in the life of me. The last 30 hours. It's been incredibly productive and I managed to find a lot of enjoyment also, not just in the off-roading on Monday afternoon and a few quick little hikes in the scrub, but also in accomplishing a few chores around the house.

I take for granted the skills and knowledge I have mostly as I just get on with things rarely thinking about the skill required to do them. Looking back on my last 30 hours though kind of hits home that over the term of my life I've picked up a thing or two. Sure, I don't know how the hell the blockchain works, but still...Boy's got skills! Fuck loads of skills, and open to learn more...Always more knowledge to gain right? 😎

Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - @galenkp

P.s. If anyone wants to hit me up on Discord: @galenkp#9209