CAMPFIRE GOSSIP

[grubworm]

Green over white is a trawling vessel w/ nets in. Green, white, white, red is a trawler pulling nets. Green, white, white, white is a trawler shooting nets. I spent a few summers growing up on shrimp boats.

I’m not familiar w/ any that have a single red & 3 whites.

I know that variations of 2 red & 2 white vertically indicate a vessel aground.

Its a dumb joke that stuck in my head. I was qualifying as Lookout on the USS Shark and had to know light configurations and what they mean. The Quartermaster asked me questions then hit me with "red over white, over white, over white". I looked everywhere for that and went thru navigation books, etc. Finally after hours of not finding it, I went back to him and he's laughing and tells me red over white over white over white means a whorehouse on the 4th floor. That joke cost me a few hours of my life trying to lookup non-existent information...

When you were new on the shrimp boat you probably got some of the same stuff I did being a new diver on dive boats. Getting asked to go get a bucket of prop wash, go get some relative bearing grease, etc.

 

[Sasquatch SC]

Its a dumb joke that stuck in my head. I was qualifying as Lookout on the USS Shark and had to know light configurations and what they mean. The Quartermaster asked me questions then hit me with "red over white, over white, over white". I looked everywhere for that and went thru navigation books, etc. Finally after hours of not finding it, I went back to him and he's laughing and tells me red over white over white over white means a whorehouse on the 4th floor. That joke cost me a few hours of my life trying to lookup non-existent information...

When you were new on the shrimp boat you probably got some of the same stuff I did being a new diver on dive boats. Getting asked to go get a bucket of prop wash, go get some relative bearing grease, etc.

Ha, yeah. I didn't get hit with too much of that. Their favorite thing to do was to put the 15-year-old (me) on the radio when we weren't recovering nets. I'd have to call out our net line coordinates and any non-commercial traffic - then get heckled by pretty much every shrimp boat and commercial fishing boat on the Carolina coast. Good times. I learned what it was like to earn my own money with real, hard manual labor. I also learned a lot of dirty jokes, became a pro at piloting a 95' boat even in the worse weather, and I can now read the weather and the water like a book.

 

[grubworm]

Ha, yeah. I didn't get hit with too much of that. Their favorite thing to do was to put the 15-year-old (me) on the radio when we weren't recovering nets. I'd have to call out our net line coordinates and any non-commercial traffic - then get heckled by pretty much every shrimp boat and commercial fishing boat on the Carolina coast. Good times. I learned what it was like to earn my own money with real, hard manual labor. I also learned a lot of dirty jokes, became a pro at piloting a 95' boat even in the worse weather, and I can now read the weather and the water like a book.

yeah, thats what made boys into men...not sure what we got going on these days...

 

[Sasquatch SC]

yeah, thats what made boys into men...not sure what we got going on these days...

No kidding. The only way I knew to make money was through manual labor until I went off to college. My parents helped us out when it was necessary, but they made us work for what we had. Both of my parents came from farming families. They both had college degrees and good careers (my mom in education and my dad worked for the SC Agricultural Labor Commission), but we still lived on the family tobacco farm. We could either work on the farm or when we were old enough we could find a job from somewhere else on our own. It builds character and gives you a lot more knowledge than the next generation will have. I have a masters degree in international business from the University of South Carolina and I have a great career as the Chief of Operations for a company that sells valves and controls used in pharmaceutical, chemical, mining, power, and industrial plants - but I'm still a good ole boy. The city life wasn't for me so I live in a rural area where I still carry on with my own much smaller hobby farm.

 

[Baipin]

yeah, thats what made boys into men...not sure what we got going on these days...

For myself (probably one of the youngest members here, in my early 20's) I went to university... but was never satisfied with how mundane and thoughtless much of the work was. It felt like you were working to please someone else, through learning skills that benefit you in a potential job, rather than skills that'd benefit yourself, throughout your own life. Hands on skills. Time-honoured "life skills".

I think your youngest years, while you're in the best of health, are best spent exploring (hence Overlanding) and experimenting with all the many ways you can spend your time. I love learning but dislike a lot of the ways you're "supposed" to do it in "higher education". I've always liked the idea of self-sufficiency and find the idea that I can just rely on someone else to get my food, or cook my food, take care of my safety, repair my stuff, to be precarious. This is why I decided to to teach myself metalworking, auto repair, bushcraft, woodworking, electrical diagnostics, circuit design, and most recently stick welding (though I did MIG in high school). Soon, I hope to grow more of my own food. It practically ran in the family: my grandpa was a blacksmith/cobbler from Russia, cousins are farmers - being handy is in our blood. For a long while, I've been developing film for myself and others, and teaching kids in my old highschool how to make real silver prints too. I recently completed a steel bumper for my Subaru, and fabricated an aluminum sculpture for a friend, while teaching her how to do it on her own next time (it was great to see how enthusiastic she was)! To the credit of my generation, plenty seem interested in "maker" activities like 3D printing, sewing, clothing repair. But over here, relatively few of us know how to take apart an engine or lay beads of 7018. On the other hand, those skills are in demand.

I definitely get weird looks going to uni with the occasional arm and shirt covered in grease... but there is a feeling like no other when you make something with your own two hands out of nothing but raw steel, and there is immense pride in knowing that thing you designed and built, can practically improve your life, make your rig more capable and be able to see more sights, or just be plain beautiful. Especially with my generation, it's something a lot of people are both fascinated and confused by; if only because they can't imagine how you could possibly design and build something out of seemingly nothing...

 

[Sasquatch SC]

For myself (probably one of the youngest members here, in my early 20's) I went to university... but was never satisfied with how mundane and thoughtless much of the work was. It felt like you were working to please someone else, through learning skills that benefit you in a potential job, rather than skills that'd benefit yourself, throughout your own life. Hands on skills. Time-honoured "life skills".

I think your youngest years, while you're in the best of health, are best spent exploring (hence Overlanding) and experimenting with all the many ways you can spend your time. I love learning but dislike a lot of the ways you're "supposed" to do it in "higher education". I've always liked the idea of self-sufficiency and find the idea that I can just rely on someone else to get my food, or cook my food, take care of my safety, repair my stuff, to be precarious. This is why I decided to to teach myself metalworking, auto repair, bushcraft, woodworking, electrical diagnostics, circuit design, and most recently stick welding (though I did MIG in high school). Soon, I hope to grow more of my own food. It practically ran in the family: my grandpa was a blacksmith/cobbler from Russia, cousins are farmers - being handy is in our blood. For a long while, I've been developing film for myself and others, and teaching kids in my old highschool how to make real silver prints too. I recently completed a steel bumper for my Subaru, and fabricated an aluminum sculpture for a friend, while teaching her how to do it on her own next time (it was great to see how enthusiastic she was)! To the credit of my generation, plenty seem interested in "maker" activities like 3D printing, sewing, clothing repair. But over here, relatively few of us know how to take apart an engine or lay beads of 7018. On the other hand, those skills are in demand.

I definitely get weird looks going to uni with the occasional arm and shirt covered in grease... but there is a feeling like no other when you make something with your own two hands out of nothing but raw steel, and there is immense pride in knowing that thing you designed and built, can practically improve your life, make your rig more capable and be able to see more sights, or just be plain beautiful. Especially with my generation, it's something a lot of people are both fascinated and confused by; if only because they can't imagine how you could possibly design and build something out of seemingly nothing...

If you're looking into growing food, check out aquaponics. My hobby farm is mostly livestock. The family farm was closer to the coast on flat fertile ground, I live in a holler in the foothills. Aquaponics uses two connected tanks that you can scale the size to your availability. One tank you raise fish (I have crayfish) and their waste goes into a tank with a soil bed for growing food. The live tank fertilizes the soil in the grow tank. The plant tank then returns fresh oxygenated water to the live tank. I did it as a random trial and it has been a big success. So much so, that I am soon going to have to find a farm-to-table restaurant to sell some of the crayfish to. All of my plants have been great. Just make sure you pay the extra money for heirloom seeds and not the hybrids.

 

[grubworm]

check out aquaponics.

yeah, that is a great way to grow food. i know a place in chicago where they took an old warehouse and did aquaponics and supplied the attached restaurant with fresh veggies and fish.
i designed a hydroponics system at my house in a shipping container. i went pretty hard with automation and designed my own set up using Arduino and taking it to where I could microdose nutrients with peristolic pumps after reading the light coming off a plant leaf (raman spectroscopy) and using that info to determine specific deficiencies. the stuff grew crazy big in no time

 

[Baipin]

Amazing! I wish they weren't so anal about shipping containers around here. Apparently they're always an eyesore, no matter how you use them. They're legally difficult to own. I've thought about setting one into the side of a hill though and covering the top with a grass roof though. It's a waterproof metal box with excellent year-round insulation if done right.

 

[Sasquatch SC]

Amazing! I wish they weren't so anal about shipping containers around here. Apparently they're always an eyesore, no matter how you use them. They're legally difficult to own. I've thought about setting one into the side of a hill though and covering the top with a grass roof though. It's a waterproof metal box with excellent year-round insulation if done right.

I have mine setup in a open horse stable with an enclosed storage shed built on to the side. Mine is nowhere near advanced as what @grubworm has. The structure I have mine setup in is mostly open to the elements. For my grow system I just added on and built essentially a huge screened in area that faces an eastern horse pasture. It'd be a shame to not take advantage of the natural temperate climate I have here in South Carolina. Totally understandable to have the enclosed system in Canada. I use hoop covers and the raised beds for maybe the 2½ months of weather that is cold enough to kill plants.

I wanted to tear down the whole thing a few years ago (this was before I got into the grow systems) and start over. It was just a shabby stable with a bad roof and a shed attached. My plan was to rip the rusted out tin roof off, pull the old clapboard siding off and save it, and then demolish the rest of it. I wanted to bring in a shipping container or two and set them beside each other and then build a stable space to the side of it. I was then going to put a new gabled roof over the whole thing and I would reuse the clapboard siding to hide the shipping containers and keep the whole "old house in the holler" look I have going on. I didn't go through with it because I would have had to build a tractor shed because it stood no chance of fitting into a container.

 

[grubworm]

Amazing! I wish they weren't so anal about shipping containers around here. Apparently they're always an eyesore, no matter how you use them. They're legally difficult to own. I've thought about setting one into the side of a hill though and covering the top with a grass roof though. It's a waterproof metal box with excellent year-round insulation if done right.

That sucks. Louisiana is a spin off of French Canadian up from the Halifax area (Acadians), so its weird that the state and local government is so cool with them here. Shipping containers are everywhere and since New Orleans is so close and is a HUGE shipping port, these containers are to be had for cheap. I am even working on outfitting a 40' container and then moving it up into the mountains as an off-grid cabin. If you are going to bury one, just apply a mastic underneath since the flooring is wood on metal joists. Seal the bottom and you will be good to go.

 

[Baipin]

That sucks. Louisiana is a spin off of French Canadian up from the Halifax area (Acadians), so its weird that the state and local government is so cool with them here. Shipping containers are everywhere and since New Orleans is so close and is a HUGE shipping port, these containers are to be had for cheap. I am even working on outfitting a 40' container and then moving it up into the mountains as an off-grid cabin. If you are going to bury one, just apply a mastic underneath since the flooring is wood on metal joists. Seal the bottom and you will be good to go.

I wish I was in French Canada for these reasons exactly. The Quebecers seem a lot more accepting of this sort of thing than do us boring Ontarians to the west of 'em. ;-)