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I am guesstimating that I will live to be 100, since I am more healthy now being 50 than I was when I was 30.
Farm life has been good to me, and I always choose the hard way to do everything.
Hand shovel snow, carry large logs out of the bush, hold a shovel near the handle, run everywhere instead of walking, etc.

At 100, I will probably forget to unplug some crazy electrical device I am working on, and make it quick!
Perhaps this old project, that has been sitting in my shelter for the last 10 years!...


At least it won't hurt..... zzzzzzphttttt!!!!!!!... lights out!

Brad

vk3ckc said:
Where did you get your "50 more years" date from? Do you have access to information that the rest of us don't? If you have, don't look mine up as I don't want to know.
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Thanks!

Actually, I tuned up "Gator" 3 years ago and tried to get a grant from GoldCorp.


That extra $500k would have been great for my lab, but I didn't get it!
That room it is in is exactly where I am sitting right now... my basement office.
During that video, I cracked one of the windows in the basement and shattered some glass plates in the upstairs cupboards!
I no longer play with half a million volts in the house.

So far it has dissaggregated : Kimberlites, Diamonds, Emeralds, Amethyst, Graphite, and Gold from rock cores.
I was also looking at trying to make thin fibre wood pulp, but again... need a funder!

My nerdy side doesn't usually spill over here, but is some of my other spare time insanity projects...


Brad
 
This is the type of thing I have been doing for a living.
The problem is that R&D is hot and cold, so I have decided to give that up in search of a stable career.

Along with "Gator", I also did a robotic grain picker and an automatic micrograin measuring system using machine vision.
I don't have photos of the measuring system, but here is the robotic grain picker I did...


I would take on this kind of work again if I could find a project that was good for at least a year.

Brad

edspedalcars said:
Brad, did you miss your calling?
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At your age, with your talent, with your abilities, and with your resourceful mindset, all I can say is....

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME.

Go for ' it '. No matter what ' IT ' is.

Maybe that 'stable career ' is before you now, and it just hasn't been recognized or capitalized on.
Or did you mean by 'stable' , that you were going to board horses ?
 
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Thanks! Hmmm... working in a stable on a farm may actually be better for my health!
By stable I mean.... I just hope to find a job. Since March, I have put out over 60 resumes!
It's not as easy as it once was out there, and "practical experience" is worth nothing to recruiters now.

Brad
 
Radical Brad said:
Thanks! Hmmm... working in a stable on a farm may actually be better for my health!
By stable I mean.... I just hope to find a job. Since March, I have put out over 60 resumes!
It's not as easy as it once was out there, and "practical experience" is worth nothing to recruiters now.

Brad
Click to expand...

I was born on a 300 acre dairy farm back in Vermont, until I was 9. I have fond memories of those times, and life style.
 
You might consider teaching. You're already good at it. There are many sites (udemy.com for example) where you can upload video courses for people to take, and you get $$ when they buy them. There also may be a local college interested in someone with your background to teach some classes. Probably wouldn't be as lucrative as an R&D type of job, but stable is stable.
 
I looked at the teaching gig here, and almost took some part time work at the College. The problem is that they keep you on call and on a sporadic schedule. Living an hour from town, I might as well just save the gas money and use my time to grow more food. They are always looking for part time profs, but if I could afford that luxury, I wouldn't be looking for the work in the first place. probably why they never fill the positions. Oh, and there is this pesky beast called a union in there as well, a foe that is well beyond my battle skills!

At this point, anything full time will do just fine, I don't care what the work is. I have been applying at hardware stores and everything else that comes up.

Brad
 
Ok, it's only been FIVE years since I posted this question, but I have decided to implement an all access membership to the 40+ DIY Plans and put them in this forum as online content.

I am just working out the code for this, but the goal is to have a category just like the "Tutorials" on the main forum list.
I will also link to the original PDF files in case builder's want to print something.

Thanks to everyone for adding to this discussion!

Brad
 
Got to be honest but this is a shock to me. Last week when I came here I was on the old site and suddenly tonight everything is changed and I seem to have missed the changeover completely!
I'll have a good look round but reading this topic it seems I really have missed a lot of activity. What I can say is that it seems to be way more speedy than it has been of late. Sometimes had to wait 30 seconds or more for a page to load which made surfing a tad slow to say the least- much better now.
Re. the idea of a payment system of some kind- I'm happy to oblige as this is probably the friendliest site I use and despite the low level of activity, is always good to visit. I'd also be very keen to get some transfers/stickers for my builds to brighten them up.

I guess most of us have our own ideas about what might improve the popularity and my own would be much more coverage of electric power systems. There's no doubt that ebikes are increasing in popularity and a visit to 'Endless Sphere' shows what an enormous range of interests there is. Everything from straight 250W legal e-assisted bikes to the several killowatt powered machines. Personally I prefer not to attract the attention of local Law enforcement so stick to modest (almost) legal power. I have two standard bikes and two trikes all with electric power and enjoy them. Mostly the building but also pottering around on them. My next build is to be a semi-recumbent two wheeler with 250W (or thereabouts) power. I can't pretend to understand it but lots of interest is shown about a home build ESC with programmable perameters (power, speed limiting, regen braking etc). Brad could probably design one that's easy to build and program and not too costly and that would certainly attract attention of enthusiasts???

AZ is mentioned on various sites and very often when looking for bike/trike info on Pinterest there'll be at least one pic of Brad or Kat or both on AZ machines with AZ mentioned as the source. ES also names AZ as a good place for noobs to start when they come and ask questions about building a bike/trike. I'm not sure why all this doesn't translate to increased site users but maybe, as others have said, the thought of building a bike just seems too difficult to most. A real shame. I do think that the welding puts some people off as it's quite a leap for someone who's never done or considered doing it before. I still think a simple wire fed welder is favourite for the steel we use. Brad is an excellent welder and some of his stick welds are very impressive indeed. I doubt many of us and certainly not a beginner, could manage anywhere near as good a job.
A video tutorial showing simple welding for beginners might go down well? In fact any video tutorial is a good idea for those of us used to youtube tutorials! Brad's written instructions and pics are very good but a video would interest more beginners I would think.

A bit of a downer but just to say- my wife suffered a brain bleed on new years eve last year and died a few hours later. Needless to say the bottom dropped out of my world and I pretty much lost interest in everything. I am left with a senile and incontinent dog who will only do his business outside if I'm there with him. So every morning as soon as he wakes I take him out to my workshop where he lays in front af an electric fire mostly but does wander outside when nature calls. I then get on with chopping and welding and planning which helps keep my brain occupied. Evenings I sit and research on the PC while he sleeps beside me. We are doing OK and will slowly get ourselves together again and AZ is helping so please keep up the good work Brad.

PS if you get around to carrying on with the velo that would be good...............

John
 
jonrev said:
Got to be honest but this is a shock to me. Last week when I came here I was on the old site and suddenly tonight everything is changed and I seem to have missed the changeover completely!
I'll have a good look round but reading this topic it seems I really have missed a lot of activity. What I can say is that it seems to be way more speedy than it has been of late. Sometimes had to wait 30 seconds or more for a page to load which made surfing a tad slow to say the least- much better now.
Re. the idea of a payment system of some kind- I'm happy to oblige as this is probably the friendliest site I use and despite the low level of activity, is always good to visit. I'd also be very keen to get some transfers/stickers for my builds to brighten them up.

I guess most of us have our own ideas about what might improve the popularity and my own would be much more coverage of electric power systems. There's no doubt that ebikes are increasing in popularity and a visit to 'Endless Sphere' shows what an enormous range of interests there is. Everything from straight 250W legal e-assisted bikes to the several killowatt powered machines. Personally I prefer not to attract the attention of local Law enforcement so stick to modest (almost) legal power. I have two standard bikes and two trikes all with electric power and enjoy them. Mostly the building but also pottering around on them. My next build is to be a semi-recumbent two wheeler with 250W (or thereabouts) power. I can't pretend to understand it but lots of interest is shown about a home build ESC with programmable perameters (power, speed limiting, regen braking etc). Brad could probably design one that's easy to build and program and not too costly and that would certainly attract attention of enthusiasts???

AZ is mentioned on various sites and very often when looking for bike/trike info on Pinterest there'll be at least one pic of Brad or Kat or both on AZ machines with AZ mentioned as the source. ES also names AZ as a good place for noobs to start when they come and ask questions about building a bike/trike. I'm not sure why all this doesn't translate to increased site users but maybe, as others have said, the thought of building a bike just seems too difficult to most. A real shame. I do think that the welding puts some people off as it's quite a leap for someone who's never done or considered doing it before. I still think a simple wire fed welder is favourite for the steel we use. Brad is an excellent welder and some of his stick welds are very impressive indeed. I doubt many of us and certainly not a beginner, could manage anywhere near as good a job.
A video tutorial showing simple welding for beginners might go down well? In fact any video tutorial is a good idea for those of us used to youtube tutorials! Brad's written instructions and pics are very good but a video would interest more beginners I would think.

A bit of a downer but just to say- my wife suffered a brain bleed on new years eve last year and died a few hours later. Needless to say the bottom dropped out of my world and I pretty much lost interest in everything. I am left with a senile and incontinent dog who will only do his business outside if I'm there with him. So every morning as soon as he wakes I take him out to my workshop where he lays in front af an electric fire mostly but does wander outside when nature calls. I then get on with chopping and welding and planning which helps keep my brain occupied. Evenings I sit and research on the PC while he sleeps beside me. We are doing OK and will slowly get ourselves together again and AZ is helping so please keep up the good work Brad.

PS if you get around to carrying on with the velo that would be good...............

John
Click to expand...
Very sorry to hear of your terrible loss John.
I know it would knock me for six if it were to happen to me I would be so crushed. :(
 
Thanks Danny. Yes it does hurt bad. Joan was 67 and only retired a few months ago after working all her life as a carer. I'm 70 and we had great plans for our retirement. Seems very unfair right now but then life isn't fair is it?
I find keeping myself occupied as much as possible does help a lot and having Ben ( who was always Joan's dog) to look after is also good for me. Things will slowly improve I know. My first wife died of cancer in 2002 so I've been here before. 'Life's a bitch and then you die'.

Anyway enough of this. As long as you guys keep posting your ideas and struggles I can keep reading and planning and struggling too. There's a lot to be said for this 'interweb' thing and the AZ site is a kind of 'family' group where you can get an insight into other members and their ideas as well as Brad and Kat's lives and aspirations- good therapy. My other regularly visited site is Endless Sphere. Much busier and lots of info and ideas but less 'cosy' somehow. I can heartily recommend reading through some of 'amberwolf's' threads. He's a guy who knows what struggling is all about. His builds are....well..... interesting! Also a bit scarey when you study his welds but he is a real 'doer' and you have to admire his knowledge and persistance.

Keep grinding on you Zombies.

John

PS Don't know if I'm just missing it or what but I can't find the 'donate' button thing anywhere???
 
Hi Brad, we just found your video today and are interested in purchasing two of your plans (Dump Trike and portable poultry Coop). I tried to contact you via FB but that feature was not available on your page, so I joined the forum.

Is there a way to still purchase individual plans while the web site is under construction?

Thanks!!
 
jonrev said:
Got to be honest but this is a shock to me. Last week when I came here I was on the old site and suddenly tonight everything is changed and I seem to have missed the changeover completely!
I'll have a good look round but reading this topic it seems I really have missed a lot of activity. What I can say is that it seems to be way more speedy than it has been of late. Sometimes had to wait 30 seconds or more for a page to load which made surfing a tad slow to say the least- much better now.
Re. the idea of a payment system of some kind- I'm happy to oblige as this is probably the friendliest site I use and despite the low level of activity, is always good to visit. I'd also be very keen to get some transfers/stickers for my builds to brighten them up.

I guess most of us have our own ideas about what might improve the popularity and my own would be much more coverage of electric power systems. There's no doubt that ebikes are increasing in popularity and a visit to 'Endless Sphere' shows what an enormous range of interests there is. Everything from straight 250W legal e-assisted bikes to the several killowatt powered machines. Personally I prefer not to attract the attention of local Law enforcement so stick to modest (almost) legal power. I have two standard bikes and two trikes all with electric power and enjoy them. Mostly the building but also pottering around on them. My next build is to be a semi-recumbent two wheeler with 250W (or thereabouts) power. I can't pretend to understand it but lots of interest is shown about a home build ESC with programmable perameters (power, speed limiting, regen braking etc). Brad could probably design one that's easy to build and program and not too costly and that would certainly attract attention of enthusiasts???

AZ is mentioned on various sites and very often when looking for bike/trike info on Pinterest there'll be at least one pic of Brad or Kat or both on AZ machines with AZ mentioned as the source. ES also names AZ as a good place for noobs to start when they come and ask questions about building a bike/trike. I'm not sure why all this doesn't translate to increased site users but maybe, as others have said, the thought of building a bike just seems too difficult to most. A real shame. I do think that the welding puts some people off as it's quite a leap for someone who's never done or considered doing it before. I still think a simple wire fed welder is favourite for the steel we use. Brad is an excellent welder and some of his stick welds are very impressive indeed. I doubt many of us and certainly not a beginner, could manage anywhere near as good a job.
A video tutorial showing simple welding for beginners might go down well? In fact any video tutorial is a good idea for those of us used to youtube tutorials! Brad's written instructions and pics are very good but a video would interest more beginners I would think.

A bit of a downer but just to say- my wife suffered a brain bleed on new years eve last year and died a few hours later. Needless to say the bottom dropped out of my world and I pretty much lost interest in everything. I am left with a senile and incontinent dog who will only do his business outside if I'm there with him. So every morning as soon as he wakes I take him out to my workshop where he lays in front af an electric fire mostly but does wander outside when nature calls. I then get on with chopping and welding and planning which helps keep my brain occupied. Evenings I sit and research on the PC while he sleeps beside me. We are doing OK and will slowly get ourselves together again and AZ is helping so please keep up the good work Brad.

PS if you get around to carrying on with the velo that would be good...............

John
Click to expand...
Thanks for all of your ideas, and for being part of this great community.
Sorry to hear about your loss, and hope you find joy in your DIY projects.
Brad
 
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