Building a Smoker

 "Building" is perhaps misleading.  The challenge of creating a homemade smoker isn't a matter of construction, but rather of materials.  The idea for the project came from Alton Brown and the execution was helped by several different blogs and websites.  Essentially the challenge is to come up with some combination of parts that is both cheap and effective.  It took me about a month but I managed to meet both requirements.  Right now my smoker is manually controlled, and the list reflects those parts, but I'm playing with the idea of adding a PID and making the temperature auto-controlled.

The essential idea is to use terra-cotta as the insulator, but trying to find large terra-cotta for cheap is not easy.  I built my smoker in the Winter when the selection is much smaller but the price tends to be lower. I found a 20" pot (huge!) from Home Depot for $10.  It was on massive markdown for some reason (not the individual pot, all of that kind) and when I saw it, I knew I had to buy it and start building my smoker.

Then the question became what to get to go on the top?  Alton Brown used a terra-cotta bowl of the same diameter but I couldn't find one.  At least not for under around $150 which would defeat the whole point.  I toyed with different ideas of what to do; at one point I had the idea to use a trash can lid filled with dirt but I couldn't figure out what to use to seal the bottom.  I thought about just buying another 20" pot and inverting it but it was simply far too heavy.

Finally, a very helpful Home Depot associate found one last concrete paver they had in stock that was 20" square.  It had a chip on it so he sold it to me for 50 cents: perfect!  I drilled a hole through it so I could put a thermometer in that I could read.  I got a charcoal grate (cheaper than an official one) some u-bolts to pick up the grate with, a hot plate I could take apart and a pan to put the wood on.  I had a thermometer to use already so I didn't price that, but here's my list (hyperlinks when possible):

Item

Quantity

Price

U-Bolt	2	$       3.98
Masonry Paver	1	$       0.50
Bricks	3	$       1.47
Ext Cord	15 ft	$       2.69
Terra Cotta Pot	20 in	$    10.03
Pot Feet	3	$       2.79
Charcoal Grate	1	$    10.99
Hot Plate	750W	$    12.16
		$    44.61

Under $50!  I used the bricks and pot feet to elevate the pot above the ground which both leaves room for the hot plate (which I disassembled so I could put the heating element inside the pot but leave the plastic controls down on the bottom) and so that you can get air-flow through the drain hole at the bottom.

I got 16 pounds of boston butts from Sam's club (which is two of them) and 5 pounds of smoker wood chunks from Home Depot for under $20 and under $7 respectively.  Which made for two full smokes in total.  I found soaking the wood for a few hours prior led to hotter, longer smokes from those chunks.

Porcupine Mountains: December 2012

I took a little, two-night backpacking trip through the Porcupine Mountains at the end of the year, and here's my report.  I left Saturday morning from the Milwaukee area and managed to slide off the interstate by about 8:30am, 2.5 hours into my trip.  Had to get a tow truck to pull me up from the bottom of the embankment, which took about 1.5 hours from when I called to when I was out.  So that was an auspicious beginning, and between the delay and the road conditions (I drove really slowly after that) it ended up taking me 8.5 hours to get there instead of the 6 I had planned on.

But I got there, self-registered and got on the trail by 2:30pm.  The sun set at 4:15pm so I had limited time.  I left from the park headquarters (one of the few places you can get by car) and was hoping to at least get to the flats below Government Peak before I set up camp.  However, due to the 2.5 hour loss I realized that was no longer feasible.  I went up through the cross-country ski trails at first, until they forked off from the hiking trails and then it was up to me to find my way.  It was snowing and getting dark but they've done a great job marking everything so it really was not that bad.

One of the cross-country ski trails I followed

I got a bit worried about light and cold.  It was in the teens or high single digits the whole time I was there, and colder in the valleys next to the rivers.  The problem I had was that the sun was setting and I was still right next to a river.  Plus I had never set up my little back-packing tent up on snow before (it's not designed to be set-up that way) and I was nervous about doing that in the dark.  So when the trail began to climb out of the ravine above Trap Falls I found the first, vaguely flat spot and set up camp.  It was 4:30 by that point, snowing and pretty dark.  Still I got everything put together and myself in the sleeping bag by 5:00.  One of the advantages of not bringing a stove: you don't have to cook anything.

My tent the next morning.  A clever use of twigs and one long piece of string I had brought along is what held this thing up. As you can see, it snowed an inch or two on me that night.

I had forgotten how long winter nights are when you can't do anything in the dark.  Sunset at 4:15 and sunrise at 7:45 doesn't just mean you only have 8.5 hours of daylight in which to get where you're going, it also means over 12 hours of lying in your tent at night, not doing anything.  It gets a little chilly and claustrophobic knowing that, especially since my tent isn't exactly roomy.  But I got more sleep than I anticipated and when the day came: I was ready to go!

Up and over Government peak I actually met two parties.  One guy who had gone to the peak the previous night and was hiking out that day, and a couple who went to mirror lake and were going to spend sometime wandering around in the area.  I was surprised: I figured I was the only one dumb enough to backpack in these conditions!

View from Government Peak

For warm gear I wore my thermals under my normal hiking gear along with some light, utility gloves.  I also brought a very warm jacket, a rain coat and incredibly warm mittens.  I didn't wear any of those things while hiking and as long as I kept moving I was fine.  It was amazing though, how fast I cooled down if I stopped.  I found if I stopped hiking for more than 30 seconds, I could feel my core temperature dropping.  More than about 3 minutes and I'd start shivering.  My breaks were pretty short as a result.

Me on top of Government Peak.  I backpack with the old-school, exterior frame pack (they haven't made any in decades). The clothing is what I hiked in for the whole trip: baseball cap, ear warmers, hiking shirt and pants with thermal under-layer  light gloves, gators and hiking shoes.  If you kept moving anything else was too warm and made you sweat.  If you stopped it was far too cold.

One big surprise was having to ford a river: everywhere else I'd been in the park had bridges.  In fact even the marshes were bridged!  But not this river: it was ford or go back, and I didn't have the supplies for turning around.  It ended up not being that bad.  Lower water levels in the winter meant that if I was careful I wouldn't have to step anywhere deeper than 4-6 inches of running water.  Which is good because I only had light hiking boots and gators so I couldn't really handle anything more sever.  I ended up literally running across the whole thing.

The ford I had to cross (I actually crossed downstream, just out of picture). Trust me: it was worse than it looks.

I made it down to the shores of Lake Superior and kept walking.  Two things were in my mind: I didn't want to have to drive through snow and dark the next day after my experience on Saturday (this turned out to be a non-event but I didn't know it at the time) and I was running out of water.  I'd brought three liters, which should be enough for a about one day in the winter (I typically use 5 liters for just a day hike in the summer), and a pump.  Only, other than the river I had to ford (and where I was not in a mental state to think about pumping water) there were no really feasible places to pump water.  Probably a few that would've worked if I had to make them, but no good ones.  And since the pump can break if used improperly in sub-freezing temperatures I just hadn't used it.

So I kept walking as long as I thought prudent (I had a headlamp, but the idea of losing the trail after it got dark...)  Around 5:15 I finally stopped.  I was pretty thirsty, as I hadn't been drinking enough water all trip, but I had less than a quarter of a liter left, and about 10 miles to go the next day.  So I skipped eating anything and set-up camp.  I camped right by the shore (next to "Buckshot Cabin") and so I took some time before heading into my tent to admire the stars and the shore.  It is gorgeous, and the ice build-up there just added to the majesty.

The shore of Lake Superior

The sun setting as I tried to get as far as possible before I couldn't see the trail.

The stars over Lake Superior.  This was actually pretty hard to get without a tripod, but what an experience to be there!

Off to bed and a lot of rolling around until morning.  I got out around 6:15am and used my headlight to get everything packed away.  It took a little longer because the wind had picked up quite a bit by then, so by the time I was going we were already into nautical twilight, and I was able to put my headlight away after just 15 minutes or so of walking.  The trail winds up to the road and dead ends there.  A little ways down the road you can get back on a trail, but it's a sequitious route with a non-trivial amount of climbing (at least for the Midwest) and I was worried about water.  I drank my last bit just before I hit the road and I could tell I was experiencing some effects from dehydration.  So I stuck to the road.  It's closed to everyone except snowmobiliers, and I didn't see any of them the whole way back.  I did see their tracks though, and the hard snow made for a very fast pace.

I finally turned off onto a little side trail and followed it back to the park headquarters: success!  Of course the water I left in the car was completely frozen so it was still a while until I had anything to drink (and even then it burned my throat) but I had made it, and had a great time out in the wilderness.  Plus: I stayed on the road the whole way back: amazing, right? 

Changing the Odds

So far, most of my entries have been about general analysis of probabilities and their consequences. I don't have access to anything like the database I would need to look at anything more than the "average" single. Do we represent a standard probability curve, or are we perhaps, bi-modal? Do two deviations (~90%) stay within a few percentage points or does it cross over into probabilities so extreme they're virtual guarantees? I simply have no way to determine this. I know in a very vague way what the odds are based on standard bell curve distribution and I see that the results are that some are married and some are not. Experience from other areas strongly suggests that some that are not married actually had a very high probability of getting married but due to unlikely situations: did not. And of course the reverse is true is well: those who got married who really didn't have a great chance to do so also exist.

However, experience also suggests that a differentiation does exist. Some aremore likely to pair up than others. Which means we can change the odds in our favor. So Let's take a look at some fundamentals.
I'm currently single but wish to be married. In order for that to happen, to basic events must occur. I must come to the point where I want to marry someone (someone specific) and she must come to the point that she wishes to marry me (not true for all societies, but true for mine and for most who are likely to read this so I'll stick with it). Let's stay with random variables for now. There exists some probability, Let's call it P_m (P sub me) that a particular girl who has crossed my path will interest me, cause me to take action, and ignoring her wishes on if she wishes to date me or not, after I date her I will wish to marry her. Then there's some probability, P_h (P sub her  ) that a random girl would have the same experience (again ignoring if I'm interested in her at all) would end up wanting to marry me. In this situation the chance of me marrying any random girl is as follows:

P_m*P_h

So if I would want to marry one out of every ten girls, and one out of every ten girls would want to marry me it would be:

0.1*0.1, 0.01, or 1% of all girls (Note that this is half as likely as I calculated the actual value is in other places, and that's if I actually wanted to marry 10% of all women!)

Since marriage only happens once, the chance of being married after encountering 'n' people is this:

1-(1-P_m*P_h)^n

Again, if the chances were 1/10 in both directions and I encountered, let's just say, 15 girls, the chance I would marry one is:

1-(1-0.1*0.1)^15 or about 14%

A few words about definitions; key words are "encountered", "girl" (or "guy") and "want". The definition of all these words is very important for calculating probabilities. For example, if "encountered" means "saw them" then the number of encounters goes sky high. If "girl" or "guy" just means "anyone of the opposite gender" then the probabilities, likewise, skyrocket. If "want" means only that we would have a successful marriage, once more the probability goes up. But of course it doesn't, because in any of those cases P_m and P_h go down to compensate. So I will pick situationally meaningful definitions. 

“Encountered” means, let’s say, spending 6 months in my ward. Thus the barrier for “encounter” is very high. “Girl” (or for those playing along at home “guy”) means someone who is the appropriate age and LDS (again, high entrance hurdle). “Want” means that there would be enough desire before dating to spark dating, enough sparks to begin a committed relationship, and enough love to ignite a proposal (or acceptance thereof). So another high entrance requirement. These high requirements allow P_m and P_h to be quite low. If, for instance, we didn’t require “girl” or “guy” to mean LDS, then P_m would drop almost to zero, as I’m only interested in LDS girls when it comes to marriage. So it makes more sense to require it, as we would merely have to do an extra step of computations and arrive back at the same, basic number.

Now that I’ve lost almost everyone’s interest, let’s hit a bit more qualitative point and ask: so what? I do not intend to try to estimate either P_m or P_h, meaning I will not be calculating the actual probability, so again: so what? Well I want to use this set-up to look at what we can do to alter the odds.

The key equation has 3 variables, but I actually hid a 4th variable in it that you didn’t see because … well I hid it. The three visible ones are: P_m, P_h, and n. The odds I like someone, the odds someone likes me, and the number of someones I meet. The hidden variable stems from the fact that I assumed P_m and P_h are independent variables; meaning I assumed that the fact that I like someone makes them no more likely to be interested in me. This is not true; being liked makes you more likely to like (follow that?) and if I like someone it’s probably based partially on shared interests. Meaning the reverse is true. So P_h is actually a function of P_m (P_h is a function of P_m) and by changing the dependence of these variables, we can again alter the final probability.

So conclusion one is this: to increase by chance of marriage I can change any one (or any combination) of these variables:

1) How likely I am to love a random female.2) How likely a random female is to love me3) How many females I meet4) How correlated my loving someone is to that someone loving me

Death is what waits behind every door; it is what hides in the dark, waiting behind my eyelids.  It is the pressure that pushes back in the night.  Not the unlikely outcome of some dangerous venture but rather the inevitable conclusion of all that I have done.  Built into every creation, the border of every achievement it is the answer to every question I have asked.  All things end, death has dominion over every story.

Beauty in the dark, scarlet lace sewn into every hem.  Moving on her throne she can survey it all.  What is it too rule but too destroy?  The end of ever story, yes, the final noise in every cry torn from every throat.  What is beauty but death: is death not beautiful?  No great work survives itself, we must find fulfillment in our endings.  The story of the heart can not be judged until the beating ceases.

New Home

Well, I moved in.  Finally.  And after work on the home from the construction side and work on the home from the putting everything where I want it side, I finally took some pictures.

Front View

View of the (West) Side

View of the Back (With Leaves!)

View from the Front Entrance

The Kitchen from the Entrance

The Kitchen from the other Corner of the Kitchen

The (West/Front Entrance) Side Hallway (Main Bedroom on the Right)

Master Bedroom from Hallway

Master Bedroom from Corner

Living Area from Same Hallway

Living Room from Southwest Corner

Living Room from South-Center

Living Room from Southeast Corner

What to Take Backpacking (List and Weights)

Here's the list I put together for a standard, 3 day backpacking trip.  I got all the weights using a digital, kitchen scale that is accurate to the nearest 0.05 ounce (or I assume it's accurate, these things tend to be pretty good).  I tend to go heavy on food since I'm always concerned about running out, and since I enjoy photography, my camera equipment tends to run heavy as well.  On the other end, I choose not to go with a stove (and thus no freeze-dried food).  I found it didn't bother me in the slightest to not have a hot meal and I enjoyed not having to deal with the pain or extra time of cooking.

Item	Count	Weight (oz)	Total Weight (oz)	Included
Advil (1 day)	3	0.20	0.60	o
Air Mattress	1	39.85	39.85	o
Bear Bells	1	1.30	1.30	o
Bear Spray	1	15.00	15.00	o
Bear Spray Holster	1	1.30	1.30	o
Boots	1	43.80	43.80	o
Bug Repellent	1	2.00	2.00	o
Camera	1	36.50	36.50	o
Camera Bag	1	10.25	10.25	o
Candy Bar	10	0.60	6.00	o
Cheese (1 day)	3	3.87	11.60	o
Clothes Pin	4	0.05	0.20	o
Duct Tape	1	0.45	0.45	o
Ear Muffs	1	1.35	1.35	o
Energy Goo	10	1.50	15.00	o
Gloves	1	2.15	2.15	o
GPS	1	5.30	5.30	o
Hat (Sun)	1	3.60	3.60	o
Hat (Warm)	1	1.80	1.80	o
Headlight	1	2.80	2.80	o
Keys	1	1.45	1.45	o
Knife	1	2.60	2.60	o
Map	2	2.15	4.30	o
Matches	2	0.25	0.50	o
Pack	1	66.50	66.50	o
Peanuts (1 day)	3	2.00	6.00	o
Protein Bar	2	2.60	5.20	o
Rain Coat	1	2.75	2.75	o
Raisins (1 day)	3	3.00	9.00	o
Rope (ft)	48	0.05	2.25	o
Sleeping Bag	1	47.10	47.10	o
Socks	2	1.80	3.60	o
Straps	2	0.60	1.20	o
Stuff Sack (Extra)	1	2.35	2.35	o
Summer Sausage (1 day)	3	3.00	9.00	o
Sun Screen	1	2.60	2.60	o
Tent	1	51.75	51.75	o
Toilet Paper (1 day)	3	0.30	0.90	o
Trash Bag	1	1.40	1.40	o
Wallet	1	4.45	4.45	o
Washcloth	1	2.45	2.45	o
Water (Liter)	5	33.81	169.07	o
Water Bladder	1	7.55	7.55	o
Water Bottle	2	0.95	1.90	o
Water Filter	1	13.30	13.30	o
Water Shoes	1	17.10	17.10	o
Ziplock Bag	3	0.07	0.20	o
			637.32
		39 lb	13.32 oz