It shreds!

I think we use our paper shredder more than the average household. Other than documents we shred mostly food boxes, like cereal boxes and the like. The shreds go into a box next to the compost bucket. When food waste goes in the compost bucket we put a handful of shreds on top. The shreds keep the smell down and help the composting when the bucket gets emptied into the bin.

Compost on the left, shreds on the right.

Our old shredder, a Fellows 8 page unit, had served us well for 10 or 11 years. Then a month or so ago it started to make horrible screeching noises. About 2 weeks ago I took it apart to see if I could fix it. I lubed everything up and put it back together but the noises weren't any better. Last Sunday I had it apart again...

This is the drivetrain of the shredder. The motor spins the kind of reddish brown gear on the left. You can't see the motor's gear, its hidden behind the big gear in the center. This picture is taken after removing a cage that holds the gears on, at this point the gears slide easily off their shafts.

This is the front cage off the motor, its got two of these cages, one front and one rear. As near as I can tell they're identical and together they hold the spinning part of the motor. The bushing in the center is held in with a thin steel frame thats staked to the larger frame. I drilled out the stakes to release the bushing.

Well theres your problem lady! This little devil is a "spherical bushing". As near as I can tell its made from a mixture of graphite and PTFE (also known as teflon). It looks like the side load of the shaft was too much for it, that hole in the center is all wallowed out. I like this shredder enough I spent some time looking for a replacement bushing but had no luck at all. I did find something similar but the center hole was too small and you had to buy them in lots of 1,000.

A trip to Amazon got us this Bonsaii 14 sheet shredder. It arrived today and cost more than double what the Fellows unit did. Not only does this unit have greater capacity than the old one its rated for 30 minutes of continuous shredding. I don't know what our old one was rated for but it overheated pretty easily. I don't exactly love shredding so we generally let the paper build up for a week or so and plow through it all at once, the old shredder would always need a break partway through the job. This new Bonsaii shredder chewed through a MONTH of delayed shredding with no problems at all. The secret? Its got a fan. Why all shredders don't have a fan I don't know. Its also quiet, like really quiet, like half the noise of the old one.

I'd like to think that if a $40 shredder can last 12 years then this one will last the rest of my life. In reality I expect that isn't going to happen but if we get at least 12 years out of this one I would be happy...

Best BBQ ever!

I don't know if I've mentioned my friend Jon Bushaw before but back in 2017 when we ran the ICCC convention he cooked for the early arrivals dinner. I don't remember when we first met but it was at one of the cabin gatherings, 2015 maybe. Anyway Jon is an artist with a smoker, his attention to detail makes his product absolutely unrivaled. So I was super excited when Jon announced he was opening a food truck.

Located in Swanzy, NH Jon is setup in a big parking lot. I've never seen him not have a customer at the window. I usually have to wait a couple minutes when I arrive and theres always somebody waiting when I'm done. He tells me his signature brisket always sells out.

And the brisket is fantastic! Here with potatoes and coleslaw. His slaw has a little bit of heat to it, and unusual flavor thats really great.

For Christmas with my mother's family I asked Jon to do sirloin, there were actually two of these roasts. The meat just melted in your mouth, it was so good.

This was Valentine's day at our house, 3 servings of brisket to share.

Anyway, if you're in south western New Hampshire, south eastern Vermont or north central Massachusetts you owe it to yourself to go get some BBQ from Jon. Tell him Curt sent you!

Back to Rome

Our trip back to Rome really showed off how comfortable we had become traveling in Italy. First we tried to take a bus from the hotel to the pier but for reasons unexplained it never seemed to appear so we ended up in a taxi. Then a long wait for the ferry, at least the weather was nice so the ferry was very smooth.

Then an Italo rail trip from Naples to Rome. On our journeys in Italy we first rode Trenitalia, these are the green trains I mentioned before. They varied between the 1950s vintage train we took from Lamezia to Soverato, the fairly modern interurban train/trolley from Soverato to Reggio Calabria and the modern but slow and dirty Freccabianca from Reggio Calabria to Naples.

Italo rail is a whole different train company, these are the super modern red trains you'll see in most travelogs and they are vastly superior to Trenitalia. Faster, more comfortable, and they serve snacks like an airline does. 10/10, would ride again.

I don't have any pictures of the Rome subway but our second hotel in Rome (Hotel Tango) was near a subway stop so it was the easiest way to get there. The Roman subway is fantastic, easy to understand, clean, friendly. I apparently exude a "don't mess with me" vibe, as I've never ever been messed with on a subway. That was comforting as we had our bags and were obviously tourists.

Believe it or not this is the front door of our hotel. By this point we had gotten used to finding hotels by the little brass plate in the wall as an identifier. Opening this door was pretty hilarious using that big doorknob. Hotel Tango is actually a modern building inside of a much larger older building. We picked it because the rooms are all two stories which seemed cooler than it actually was. The inner building didn't have terrific sound insulation and the kids in the room next door to ours were a bit infuriating.

This is one part of the wall around Vatican City about 2 blocks from Hotel Tango which is another reason I had picked that hotel.

Look carefully in this shot and you'll find "The Godfather pigeon" who keep strolling around a restaurant we were eating in. He seemed very well behaved but the staff of the restaurant kept shooing him out in embarrassment.

I should have taken a picture of this pizza/calzone before we started eating it. As you may have heard pizzas in Italy don't come pre-cut, you end up just tearing it apart with your hands. This was half pizza, half calzone which is an idea was should totally bring to the US.

Angie scored us tickets to the Colosseum which is amazing. It starts with arriving off the subway at the Colosseo stop. As you exit the subway and your eyes adjust the Colosseum is right there across the street and its so big it amazes your eyes and it takes awhile to really sink in and for your brain to figure out what you're looking at...

 Our tickets included access inside to the underground portions. This is a reinvention of the elevator used to transport animals (like lions) from the underground portion to the floor of the Colosseum. Theres a NOVA documentary on the construction of this elevator which is worth seeing.

This is one of our guides, our tour package included a tour of the Roman Forum, a tour which we almost missed because we were busy filling our faces with more pizza. This part of the tour included the burial spot of Julius Caesar and the supposed birthplace of Romulus and Remus, the brothers who led to the founding of Rome. Having a tour guide was fantastic, both guides really added depth to our tour.

Angie in Vatican City. We didn't have time to tour the Vatican, this was the morning of our last day. We really needed another 2-3 days in Rome, probably at the outset of our trip, there is so much to see there.

Okay so looking back here are a couple pieces of advice:

1. Ignore most of the advice you see online, its ridiculous, specifically: Italians dress the same as you do, at least mostly. They wear jeans and sneakers, anybody saying otherwise hasn't spent any time in Italy or if they have they've only been in tour groups.

2. When going to a big attraction like the Coliseum get timed tickets. By that I mean get a ticket that has a specific start time. This will save you waiting through the miles long lines.

3. Naples to Sorrento has a local train but I couldn't find a way to buy tickets online. The ferry is difficult to get to in Naples traffic.

4. The Roman subway is terrific but you're limited in where it goes.

5. Not everybody in Rome speaks English but there are so many people that do that its rarely an issue. Everybody we met in Sorrento/Capri spoke excellent English.

5a. Few people in Soverato in the south spoke English but they all seemed excited to play the pantomime game. I think English speakers are fairly rare there and they were excited to see us.

In short if you're afraid of travel to Italy you shouldn't be, its easy. If we can do it you can do it too...

Little Capri

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago but in light of current events I'd like to keep posting positive things. Know that I'm thinking about folks and hope you're doing okay.

Capri is a little island off the coast of Sorrento. There are ferries to go over but our group had chartered a 40' motor yacht. This seemed like a good idea at the time but by the time we left the weather hadn't improved any. Our trip was supposed to include lunch but the cruise company didn't think anybody would be stupid enough to want to go so they hadn't made any. No matter, the cruise was still a go, they just refunded a little of our money.

The ride over was rough:

The pictures kind of give an idea, you can see the clouds. We had a following sea which meant that the boat wallowed and the diesel fumes were pushed back into the cabin. We were all pretty much up against sea-sickness for awhile. Angie leaned over the rail at one point, fortunately she didn't throw up because I think it would have triggered the rest of us.

Fortunately that was the point where the weather cleared enough that we could move to the front of the boat. I didn't get any pictures of that part but things got a lot more pleasant and we made a loop around the island before heading in.

Capri is neat in that the island is basically all mountain. Theres a little ring of beachfront but most of what you want to see is high up. Theres a little train, the Funicolare di Capri which takes you up. A funicular railway like this is one that uses two trains connected by a cable. Since the trains weigh about the same it takes a small amount of energy to move them.

You get an idea how steep it is...

The views from the top were epic and the weather started to clear which was even better.

Capri has some cool old tunnels into the mountain which is where I found the fat man's restaurant.

And coincidentally the only gas pressure lantern of the trip.

LA Cisterna is literally the best restaurant we went to in Italy, no joke. Its hidden away in a tunnel but absolutely worth the trip. We had:

-Lemon/mozzarella toasted bread. I thought this was a weird sounding combination but the bread, cheese and lemons were all fresh, it was amazing

-Fried anchovies: "Caught fresh not two hours ago!" quoth the fat man. I wish I'd taken a picture of them, these were cooked exactly the way my grandfather cooked smelts, they were dredged in flour and fried in oil. We were nervous to order this but the fat man was so enthusiastic how could we deny him. By the way that is him on the wine bottle...

-Gnocchi, Angie still has dreams of the gnocchi.

-Pizza margarita, some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

The fat man claimed the wine was made special for him. I don't know if thats true or if its a generic rebottling but it was really good.

We all ordered and then we all shared, it was a great way to dine. There were only 6 of us, the others had gone to eat at some place with a great view. In talking to them we definitely got the better deal, they paid much more for food that wasn't half as good. We joked that they paid the "tourist tax".

Capri is much like Sorrento in the shopping mall vibe. The "streets" are really just pedestrian walkways, there are almost no cars up on the mountain because there are almost no roads. One of our party told Angie and I that we needed to check out the botanical gardens, he then gave us super sketchy directions and to our amazement we actually found the place:

The views were spectacular, the yacht actually took us around the rocks in the last picture. One of them has a hole in it just big enough to fit the yacht through. When he lined up the boat on the hole I thought "Theres no way he's going to.... Oh, he is..." and through we went, it was super cool.

The return trip to Sorrento was way better than the trip over. We all sat out on the front of the yacht, limoncello, beer and prosecco which is a bit like champagne. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Up Next: Back to Rome and headed home.

Charming Sorrento

I originally started blogging as a way to tell people about good things and in Sorrento we found a very good thing.

Sorrento is a real tourist town. I realize not everybody reading this blog is from New England but I usually tell fellow New Englanders that Sorrento is like North Conway, New Hampshire, which is to say its full of outlet stores. The big difference, of course, is that Sorrento is something like 2000 years old. Wikipedia says Sorrento is known for its "small antique shops". I dunno where they were, I don't remember any antique shops.

Sorrento sits across the bay from Naples, so we took the train from Soverato to Naples but my research didn't give me a way to get from Naples to Sorrento. It turns out theres a train but you can't (or at least I couldn't figure it) book tickets online. What I could find was the ferry so we booked that.

There were two things I hadn't counted on:
#1. Naples is bonkers. Seriously, I'm used to Boston. Compared to Boston, Rome is bonkers, the traffic is heavy, the streets are small. Compared to Rome, Naples is totally bonkers, the streets are way smaller, the traffic is way heavier. Our cab ride from the train station to the port was frantic.
#2. Italy was experiencing unusually cold weather. Later that summer they'd have a heatwave but when we were there the temperatures in Italy were pretty much the same as at home in the northeast US.

So our ferry ride to Sorrento was really bumpy. I don't get seasick but that ride was pretty scary and my stomach was not happy.

Anyway you can spend big money on one of the grand hotels in Sorrento but I've never been a fan of the big grand hotels. Instead I searched around and found "Luiselle Charming Accommodation" and booked it just on the name. Well, I did look at the reviews but lets face it, the name sold me. I was a trifle worried when I told the cab driver where we were going and he said "Theres no hotel there." but we pressed on regardless.

It turns out the Luiselle Charming Accommodation is in an old office building. When I say old I'm not kidding around, the building must be from the '20s. Check out the elevator.

I had to stand outside the elevator to take the picture because otherwise you get:

Its small, its wood. You open the outside doors, open the inside door, step inside, close the outside door, close the inside door and then select your floor.
One thing I was caught off guard by is that in Italy buildings have a 0 (zero) floor, what we in the US would call the first or ground floor. This led to us getting lost, Luiselle was on the "second" floor which is actually what I would think of as the third floor. Fortunately you don't have to "drive" the elevator, you select a floor and listen while contactors slap in relays to make your selection happen.

The accommodation is indeed charming:

As usual I wish I'd taken more pictures. The room was big and well appointed with free Netflix that we didn't use, after all we were in Italy. We went out and came back exhausted.
The first morning our host Andrea offered Angie scrambled eggs and I thought she was going to kiss him. Italians eat a lot of desert and lunch meats for breakfast and she was eager to have something savory that wasn't salty. "Scrambled eggs" turned out to be a fried egg but it didn't matter she was super happy.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this hotel to anyone interested in accommodations a bit off the beaten track that are a little different. Also those who are looking to save money. Although as I say it is a little off the beaten track it was only maybe a 5 minute walk to the main street where all the action was. At night I was actually happy to be somewhere quiet so we could get some rest.

Up next: Capri

Quick one for Friday

I'm stuck in Regan National Airport waiting for a late flight with a bad "h" key on my keyboard. Stupid Apple, the new "butterfly" keyboards suck.

Anyway, I grabbed a bottle of "Bai Antioxidant Cocofusion" tonight with my dinner, I'd noticed it before and figured I'd give it a try.

I like coconut water and they advertise "1g of sugar, no artificial sweeteners" so imagine my surprise when I tasted what basically amounts to sugar water with trace coconut flavor. Its basically coconut flavored Kool-Aid.

My suggestion is to avoid this stuff at all costs...

Powder flasks update

First off a big welcome to everybody from Facebook, thanks for stopping over, have a look around.

Now a couple weeks ago I wrote a post about powder flasks, which is actually my most popular post ever, in which I declared the CVA powder flask my favorite, I said the Traditions flask didn't dispense powder reliably. Well last night I went to the range and my opinion changed a bit.

Yesterday I was shooting this pistol I was given with my Kentucky rifle. The previous owner had really wanted to hear about it being shot so even though the light was failing I ran over to the range to give it a try. You can see the Traditions flask at the top of the shot, I'd forgotten the CVA flask at home.
In the past when I was using the Traditions flask it was for my shotgun which I load with 2Fg powder, the pistol is .45cal and I used 3Fg powder and I'll be darned if the finer powder didn't flow just fine through that flask.

So I'll change my guidance slightly, if you're only going to shoot 2Fg get the CVA, if you're only going to shoot 3Fg it doesn't matter, they're both fine. If you're going to switch between 2Fg and 3Fg then get the CVA, remember its a little cheaper anyway...


How did the pistol shoot? Not bad, the sights are kind of crude and were hard to see in the low light. I think I kept all 3 shots on the paper but its hard to tell, I forgot to bring a piece of cardboard for a backer.

Powder flasks

I want to take a couple posts to talk about things I like. In a previous version of this post I had a link to Amazon. They've decided that they don't want me in their affiliate program, so heck with them. My opinion of the flasks is unchanged, I don't care where you get them.

Actually for today's post I'm going to stretch that slightly, today is a tale of two powder flasks:

On the left the Traditions flask, on the right the same basic flask from CVA.

If you want to shoot a muzzle loader a powder flask isn't required per-say but it sure makes life easier. The flask has 2 jobs:
1. Carry the powder
2. Dispense the powder
A powder flask needs to be made from a material that won't spark, both these flasks are brass which won't spark. Back in history powder flasks were often made from horn and in fact you can buy a surprisingly good powder horn on Amazon, I'll cover that in another review.
The thing about a horn is the dispensing part, you pull the plug and pour out the powder. These flasks both have a mechanical shut off for dispensing the powder. Again thats not required but it sure makes life easier...

The body diameter of the two flasks is the same, they are essentially the same length and thus carry just about the same amount of powder. The difference is the valve.

Traditions:

Its hard to see in the picture but the Traditions flask uses a cross bar valve, theres a push button which slides a bar that allows powder through a hole.

CVA:

The CVA uses a more old school lever that uncovers the hole.

I bought the Traditions first, I think because it had more reviews and there were concerns about the finish on the CVA. The CVA I bought a couple months ago because I'd left the Traditions flask at camp. It turns out that I like the CVA a LOT more. Powder flow is much more regular with the CVA, with the Traditions flask the powder gets stuck, so I need to close the valve, put my finger over the end of the spout, open the valve and give the flask a vigorous shake to dislodge the powder.  Traditions says the spout holds 30 grains so I generally have to repeat the process at least twice to fill my powder measure.
By comparison the CVA rarely sticks the way the Traditions measure does so I can open the valve and flow powder into the measure more easily.

The finish is pretty much the same, I did see a tiny amount of corrosion on the inside of the flask along the seam on the tube but it wiped off with a paper towel. The CVA is slightly (less than a dollar) cheaper than the Traditions flask too so for me this is a no brainer, if you're into muzzleloading and need a flask the CVA is the way to go.

BLARG! An eBay seller to avoid.

You might remember a couple weeks ago when I complained about the NRV pip in one of my Tilley lanterns failing. I think I'd mentioned then that it was the second one which had done it to me, well now I can report a third.

This one was in fact the rubber pip that shuts the lantern off. See how its all swollen with fuel. When new it would just barely protrude from the cup, now it wont allow fuel flow so the lantern won't light. When I tried to pull the pip out of the cup it tore apart, the rubber was just saturated with kerosene. The irritating thing is that the eBay seller I got the pips from denies theres anything wrong with them and now won't even reply to my messages.

Since the seller refuses to make things right I have no problem calling him/her out, so for the record don't buy a Tilley service kit from hootflipflopandfly on eBay, the pips will swell up in the presence of kerosene which is the proper Tilley fuel. The pips are poorly shaped and don't fit particularly well in the  cups anyway. They were made with a cheap cutter and show significant hour glassing which leads me to believe they were homemade even though the seller claims they are "Genuine Tilley". Instead go to Harbor Freight and buy a punch set, then order a sheet of proper Buna-N rubber from McMaster Carr, you'll have enough material to make a lifetime of Tilley pips. I've had my sheet of rubber since 2013 and have used only a small corner of it.

Something to buy

I didn't want to leave you hanging with something I didn't like, I do encounter a number of things in the world that I do like. In fact the other day I was posting comments on Amazon and I was impressed by the number of things I'd bought from them that I really do like.

Anyway on Friday I had one of my favorites:

Its boba tea, for the uninitiated boba are little balls of tapioca, these are about 1/4" in diameter although tapioca comes in all sorts of sizes. So what we've got here is "Tapioca milk tea with boba" which I had been advised to try after stating that I really liked "Thai milk tea with boba". This is at Boba Loca in Burbank.

I don't know what goes into tapioca milk tea but it has a kind of black tea flavor. A little research suggests thats probably exactly what it is. I like it but honestly I probably like Thai tea a little better as the Ceylon tea has more flavor. I'll have this occasionally just to mix things up, I've also had iced chai and iced coffee with boba and I like them both but keep coming back to Thai.

Why do I like it? Honestly its all about the boba, the little bubbles or "pearls" hiding at the bottom of the cup. This is a beverage you eat and the chewy texture really satisfies me. I like the big straw and hunting around for the last couple boba in the bottom of the cup.

Angie hates boba, she likes the tea but doesn't like anything solid in her beverage. For me liking something she hates almost makes it better and its probably good that I mostly only get it in California...