Topic: NOPVMNT: H8PVMNT's new job...

[Lewis Hein]

Sounds like you're livin' the dream right there. I don't suppose your boss needs any more help?

[AZ Rockit]

Sounds like you're livin' the dream right there. I don't suppose your boss needs any more help?

Sounds like hardwork and cold to me...the stuff that makes you feel alive.

[ryantowry_81]

congrats on the new job. I am really jealous of the farm life style. I fantasize about changing lifestyle and leaving the food processing life behind  for a farming lifestyle just have never seen the opportunity.

I recently just moved from Ca to eastern WA though (for a slightly more steady life style) so if you ever head this way or want some Toyota wrenching help I am closer!

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

-13 F most of the day.  Wednesdays low is supposed to be -22 F.  Pretty much just keeping cows alive right now.

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Here is what -27 looks like...

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Here is what it feels like...

[redneckcustoms13]

Fork that! Mike you are a bad son of a gun if you do this for "fun". I'd have a smut pot fired up in that barn and be building when the weather is that cold.

How are the tractors starting in such cold situations? Block heaters?

[Slabzilla]

You're the Man!  My cheeks are clinching just looking at the photos.   

[Lewis Hein]

My new Miller welder is so powerful it heated Wyoming up to 25 today as I was working. I needed it too because when I bought welding gloves I got the ones with minimal insulation for summer use

If you want summer to come in MT, get a better welder and build more truck accessories!

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Fork that! Mike you are a bad son of a gun if you do this for "fun". I'd have a smut pot fired up in that barn and be building when the weather is that cold.

How are the tractors starting in such cold situations? Block heaters?

Well the one we are getting started is in a small insulated shop and has to have the block heater plugged in and anti-gel additives in the diesel.  Even then the hydraulic fluid takes a while to get limbered up.  I had to haul hay for the neighbor today to feed his cows because his block heater quit working and his tractor would not start.   The '08 duramax we use with a bale bed on it started that morning but the drivetrain was non-functional at that temp.

I must say the Weber carb with the manual choke has been a champ for the cold start.  I have a block heater in the Toyota but a cold start at that temp is still challenging.  I am going to add an oil pan heater too so I can get oil pressure sooner.  It's sketchy.

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Sounds like you're livin' the dream right there. I don't suppose your boss needs any more help?

Well I just gave 2 weeks notice so he might.

[Prismo]

What will you be doing next?

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Haha I don't know yet.  I've never done this before where I quit before having a new job lined up. 

We just can't seem to reconcile the amount of life this gig took with my priorities as a husband and father or even out hours vs. salary. I don't want more money in life, I just expect to have a certain amount of time for myself and my family besides work. This was "the slow time" of year and I still worked 208 hours in January.  I don't really mind working hard or long but I only want to sell so much of my life every year.  It only gets busier looking forward this year.


As my boys get closer to getting out on their own I just don't want to finish our time up being an absent father.  I want to teach them more Toyota stuff, fish, hunt, wheel and continue building our debt free living we were working on before Caleb's medical problems derailed us.


I may go back to working for the state as an appraiser like I was before. I may just work on our life for a bit. This could get wierd .

[Gnarly4X]

What will you be doing next?

H.....

Geezz.... I can't imagine living in that climate!!  I realize that anywhere you live has trade-offs..... BUT man.... ICE & SNOW is too darn COLD!! ....you spend 6 months of the year in "survival mode".   

I spend 7 months of the year in shorts and a tank top!!  We don't salt our roads here.... we salt our margaritas!! 

Make a trip out to Arizona with your family.... you might not want to go back to MT. 

Gnarls. 

[redneckcustoms13]

I need a road service mechanic, I can get you hired in. Bounce down here and come hangout on the river with us. Fair warning though, snow is once every 20 years, rain is 4-5 days a week, and it stays hot.

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

I need a road service mechanic, I can get you hired in. Bounce down here and come hangout on the river with us. Fair warning though, snow is once every 20 years, rain is 4-5 days a week, and it stays hot.

That's pretty tempting...

[redneckcustoms13]

I enjoy it here. If you dont like the weather, just wait tomorrow is always different.

[Prismo]

Montana is 10 times better than Arizona in my book. That is only my opinion as I have been all over both states.

[Gnarly4X]

Arizona is known as a "fools paradise" Though I did hear they have really good meth https://www.pinalcentral.com/arizona_news/extreme-heat-expected-to-get-worse-in-arizona/article_4850d7da-5b15-5a35-9256-becd2187f25b.html

OMG!!! THAT article is SO full of male bovine feces it's pathetic! ....written by left wing radical morons. 

I've only lived here in AZ for 26 years.... I know a little bit about this State! 

   You can find any amount of BS on the internet.

For me where you live boils down to one word "comfort" (Quality of Life).

MY comfort list is obviously different than Prismo's.

Bill Gates sees something in Arizona:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont,_Arizona   

Here's a list:  https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/top-10-us-states-with-best-weather.php   

If I look at the pros and cons (what makes a person comfortable or uncomfortable) of those States I can narrow down the list to the top 3.... Arizona will be at the top of the list.... NOT just for the incredibly great weather.   

With all that said... there is an often unspoken attitude here that we, Zonies, should discourage anyone wanting to move here. 

Gnarls.

[Slabzilla]

Arizona's not too bad if you don't mind living in a pizza oven for 9 months a year, winter is great there, though.  I've been visiting my Mother-in-law in Sun City for 30 years and perusing the local landscape, quite fun I might add. Thank you Toyota A/C! Wife and I always look forward to the great escape Westward, back to humidity and Much Cooler air.  Sorry Gnarls, I'm glad that someone appreciate those temps.   

[Lewis Hein]

Become a Youtuber and create videos of Toyota carb tuning, rebuilds, and EFI-carb swaps. With the occasional bit of debt-free off-grid farm life thrown in

[Gnarly4X]

Arizona's not too bad if you don't mind living in a pizza oven for 9 months a year, winter is great there, though.  I've been visiting my Mother-in-law in Sun City for 30 years and perusing the local landscape, quite fun I might add. Thank you Toyota A/C! Wife and I always look forward to the great escape Westward, back to humidity and Much Cooler air.  Sorry Gnarls, I'm glad that someone appreciate those temps.   

Hahahaha...yes that's the rumor we want to perpetuate.... "pizza oven for 9 months"!!  That will keep the over population concerns down. 

Ok... I won't list the top 50 reasons I live here.   I don't want to publicize why Arizona will become the most desirable State to live in.  That will happen within the next 20 years. 

Yeah... everyone has a different perspective on their reality and their concept of living. 

You couldn't blow me outta here with a hydrogen bomb!! 

Gnarls. 

[Gnarly4X]

does anyone else see the irony in this?

Bill Gates lives in Washington, NOT Arizona. He could live anywhere.
no there isn't. you made that up. anyone that has to move there is already discouraged.
my area is flooded with Zonies every year escaping the oppressive heat. You spend an awful amount of time trying to make people think you live in paradise as if any of us have never been there. We know what it's like. Maybe it's you that needs to see what else is out there. AZ is nice to visit in the cooler months and does have some decent areas, but living near where you live is a whole different story. Living in a place where you would literally die if you didn't have air conditioning is not paradise.

liveoak.... thank you!  That is perfectly stated commentary.   

Your comments should go a long way to help keep the progressive liberal morons out of our "paradise"!   

Gnarls.

[Slabzilla]

Some people like living in that heat just like the shrimp that live at the volcanic fumerols ay the bottom of the sea.   

[Gnarly4X]

Since H started this referring to a job, and very well documenting how and why he is looking for different employment, I'll just add a little more, and perhaps different, perspective to living in the good ol’ US of A….

For the past 5+ years several members of my family have been seriously and methodically searching to buy (with cash) a large piece of land, USA only (100 acres or greater).  For about 3 months I did parallel research on a number target states where our family could live.  There is a specific list of requirements on the list of “must have” and “highly desired”.  Climate, comfort, sustainability, being able to “live” off the land, if necessary, were some of the considerations.  Travel, environmental health and safety, population density, infrastructure, economy, social culture, schools, etc, were also considerations. 

However, weather was one of the most vital considerations.  Example… it is really hard to grow plants or food when the morning ambient air temperature is below freezing 6 months of the year.  States that were in the path of catastrophic weather (hurricanes in Florida) or frequent destructive events (wild fires in California), tornados (Iowa, Oklahoma, Alabama), were obviously a "no-go".

Certain less desirable environmental factors could be mitigated, like drinking water.  We don’t drink the water out of faucets, we drink and use filtered water.  Air quality is obviously a concern since mitigating the risk of breathing bad air is very difficult.

I was amazed at how many states and regions in the USA were quickly eliminated.

Then there are the simple “trade-offs”.  I trade 3-1/2 months of really hot weather for 7-1/2 months of really nice weather.  I trade the lush green flora, moldy, 9 months of drizzle wet climate of Washington for a dry heat, no fleas, mosquitoes, and Phoenix averages 0 inches of snow per year, and I wake up to sunshine 299 days per year.

Several years ago, a few days before Thanksgiving Day, I decided to heat our pool up and go for a swim.  It took 3 days to heat up the pool to 92 degrees F.  On Thanksgiving Day my wife and were skinny dipping at 9pm that evening!!     

Gnarls.

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

Spring officially started with a butt load of snow.  We really only have maybe 14" but the wind blows it around here and then you can have areas with 1" and areas with 10'.  Saturday I was attempting to go to work.  Our way out of here had 3' drifts in the road.  I was doing pretty well except with the white and the lack of terrain I could not see this one big corner.  The ditch caught my rear tire, then I powered out of it when the other ditch caught my passenger front.  I was doing about 30 mph so I got sucked into the deep.

Ended up making one huge snow fort to dig the passenger side out, then I still couldn't get out of my hole until I aired down to about 7 psi and crawled out.

Need to figure something out with the open element filter on the weber.  In the deep stuff the snow gets flung up into the engine bay and cakes the carb in a snow cocoon. 

[H8PVMNT [OP]]

And I might not be looking for employment at all for a while.  We don't have a mortgage and my wife has a good job teaching online.  Might just hop off the hamster wheel and see what happens for a while.  God willing, we should be able to make it if we don't have the gas and expenses associated with going to work every day.  Life is to short to spend in in misery.

I have really missed my boys working so much the last year.

[Prismo]

I ran my intake into the fender up by the front door using the black plumbing pipe & the possible clogging problems went away. It also helps in deep water

[Lewis Hein]

Don't clean that snow off the air filter, It's the latest in backwoods cold air intake technology! +50 mousepower ya know, thereby doubling the POWER of a yota 

[Gnarly4X]

And I might not be looking for employment at all for a while.  We don't have a mortgage and my wife has a good job teaching online.  Might just hop off the hamster wheel and see what happens for a while.  God willing, we should be able to make it if we don't have the gas and expenses associated with going to work every day.  Life is to short to spend in in misery.

I have really missed my boys working so much the last year.

H...  you are a good man! 

 I like you.  I'd like you more if you were closer and living here in the desert.  We'd be building stuff and making carb'd engines run like raped apes.   

You'd have a minor problem here though.... deciding which 4-wheel'n trail to run... there's lots and lots of trails here, every terrain you can think of.

Oh.... hunting and fishing too. 

You can be standing in your tank top and shorts with sunshine at 75 degrees at 1,100 feet elevation, then decide to go on a snow run and be in 5 feet of snow and 30 degrees at 7,000 feet elevation in about 2 hours..... you would not be in your tank top and shorts. 

Sometime in the future I would love to make it up to Highwood to visit you all. 

Gnarls.