The Diver's Christmas...

The kids thought every day was Christmas when I was diving heavily a few years ago. Any given night could bring new toys and interesting modern urban artifacts. I slowed down and then stopped entirely when I nearly got caught and had to lead some cops on a merry chase. Not that the diving itself was an issue, but my five vehicle, a P.O.S. suburban had no valid plates. I have had various phony and semi-phony plates on it for the entire roughly 6 years I have owned it. I dumped $3500 into it and it never did pass emissions. I think it would now except for a smog pump, but I am loathe to spend any more money on it. I once put it up on eBay. A good running Chevy small block 'crate' (factory replacement) 350 with a NEW Edelbrock Carburetor should have been worth more than the top bid of $600 so I never did sell it. I had some outstanding tickets and a suspended license from said tickets so I had to balance the risk of finding myself once again in lock-up over what I might find in the trash.

I think I mentioned previously that I am more inclined to see diving as a fun pursuit, a modern anthropological excursion when I don't "need" anything. When times are tight it can really help supplement, and I have no conscious qualms about providing for my family in that way, but sub-consciously it digs at the psyche a bit.

I have been virtually unemployed for two year, living off a healthy home equity credit line, telling myself each month that I had to dig deeper for professional licensing fees, data, software, business insurance, hardware, gas, communication points etc, that next month will be different and the income will exceed the expenses. It never happened. I have an upcoming job that pays one tenth the hourly rate of my profession, but it has benefits and a steady paycheck even though the hours are horrendous, I am looking forward to being gainfully employed.

Mean time, I have no cash and no way to get cash. I got some help from the church with a mortgage payment, and knowing our dire circumstances they passed the hat and came up with several hundred dollars towards Christmas. Their generosity overwhelms us. I smiled that we didn't spend that much in a good year. (Although we probably did, it just is harder to notice where it all goes when several checking accounts debit cards, credit cards and cash are involved.) I resolved we wouldn't spend it all and have a cushion after wards. We spent it all. pretty much. We had already purchased at very low cost several nice items for Christmas, including the Knives below, a Gray's Anatomy (the anatomical dissection book not the show) Book, and other relevant volumes to the kids interests, clothing, games, and small toys. I had my car packed with items that were dove for, stuffed animals mostly. Never buy a stuffed animal they are thrown out by the train load. A little carpet cleaner and elbow grease and they are clean and fresh as they were the day they were packed into a box in a dirty sweatshop in a third world country.

Christmas Trees are something I have always scrounged. Usually in the forest. But with gas at $3 a gallon I cant justify spending $60 in gas to get a free tree. We often buy the tree on Christmas eve if we have to. This is usually done when we don't have a vehicle we trust to take up to the cold. For $5 at closing time you can get the trees that they will have to pay to dispose of the next day. This time I went later, after they closed. This season there weren't nearly as many lots. Many locations that have lights strung up and an RV selling them were out of business this year. The nearest lot was completely bare. I finally found one, stacks of trees, the salesman asleep in his truck. Up and over the fence and back with an 8' spruce. I hope when he wakes he appreciates the fact that he has one less to haul to the dump.

Culinary experimentation.

Culinary experimentation.

One of the fun things about diving is that you find yourself in the kitchen with a box of random produce. For example I once found a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes. I didn't have any idea what they were had to look them up to find out that they were neither from Jerusalem nor were they in the artichoke family. They are in fact tubers like potatoes or yucca root. The come from the root system of a variety of sunflower plant. After searching for recipes, I cooked them up and they were delicious. I have never seen them before or since in a store. ~shrug~

SO tonight I was looking at a box of sweet Vidalia onions. Eating fairly healthy lately I wasn't going to deep fry them, but I had a hankering for onion rings. I sliced them, sprayed them with Pam and then dredged them in flour (from the survival stash I dove for a couple of weeks ago). I had seasoned the flour with seasoned salt. I baked at 350 for a while. They weren't crisping so I raised it to 400. Meanwhile I cut another up Blooming Onion style. I gave it the same treatment and baked it for a little longer.

Tasted good, not as crisp as I would have liked, and a little bit of an flour-y taste. The beauty of this is I didn't spend $2.50 a lb to find out if the recipe would work. Peeling them is easier to if you waste an extra layer or two, which costs nothing since they were free. I think next time I'm going to try a batter made with corn muffin mix. What gave me that idea is that I once found an entire case of Jiffy brand muffin mix. The case had been water damaged at one corner so I tossed those boxes and ate the rest. Unfortunately those are long gone. Thats the thing about diving. Manna aside, it isn't like shopping you don;t plan menus and take a list, you get the stuff and then adapt your meals to include what inspires you from what is on hand.

Culinary experimentation.

Diving, you find yourself in the kitchen with a box of random produce. I once found a bunch of Jerusalem Artichokes. I looked them up to find out that they were neither from Jerusalem nor were they in the artichoke family. They are tubers like potatoes or yucca root. They come from the roots of sunflower plants. I cooked them up and they were delicious. I've never seen them before or since in a store. ~shrug~

Tonight, looking at a box of sweet Vidalia onions, I had a hankering for onion rings. I, sprayed the slices with Pam then dredged in flour with seasoned salt. I baked at 400 approx 10 minutes. I cut another up Blooming Onion style. I gave it the same treatment and baked it for a little longer.

Tasted good, not as crisp as I would have liked, and a little bit of an flour-y taste. The beauty of this is I didn't spend $2.50 a lb to find out if the recipe would work. I think next time I'm going to try a batter made with corn muffin mix like the case of Jiffy brand muffin mix I found . Manna aside, it isn't like shopping you don't plan menus and take a list, you get the stuff and then adapt your meals to include what inspires you from what is on hand.

An edged beauty in the scap pile.

I regularly go to Goodwill (Thrift Store) on dollar day, but for items that are close to a dollar anyway, every other Saturday is better because its 50% off day. I was browsing kitchen utensils looking for Chinese cookware to go with a nice Chinese cuisine primer I bought for the twelve year old for 50% of $1.99. I found a strainer, and as I tend to do I browsed knives and found as per usual nothing but cheap stainless steel knives. Stainless is actually a great material for a knife from a metallurgical point of view. It resists oxidation and is pretty hard on the hardness scale so once sharpened (pretty much need a diamond wheel to do it) it holds an edge for longer than most other knives, hence the claims of "lifetime" knives. This works until the knife finally wears (actually the edge tends to fold over ever so slightly) and the owner has no diamond hone to true up the edge again. It occurs to me I should check the dumpster at Goodwill, since they undoubtedly throw away the better quality high-carbon steel blades because one of the characteristics of high carbon steel besides the ease of honing it to a fine edge is that it oxidizes easily if not used frequently. When they get them they probably appear rusty, which is why there are never any good chef's knives in the cutlery bin.

This time however I found two Santoku Knives. I should have taken a "before picture" but I forgot to. Some Nimrod had used these extremely high quality molybdenum vanadium steel implements of destruction to pry with and had snapped the tip off of both and bent one of them in a discernible curve. Being the last of a long line of blacksmiths, I reached for my trusty sledge. I couldn't find it. I found a hardened crankshaft from a bicycle. Since the harness scale for the heat treated crank exceeds CMV steel of the blade it would work. I dragged it over to my anvil. Wait I don;t own one of those..do you know they sell for $1 to $4 a pound???? and they are REALLLLY heavy. I went to the top of my 1950's era Sears Roebuck Table saw. The Cast iron top is heat treated so its fairly hard, the knife will likely dig in to the surface a little (It did) but, that will just add to the charm of the antique.

The blade now straight and work hardened was ready for the next step. I then broke out the 7" grinder, placed it on the floor..(mine has a backing collar that makes it ideal for this work this is an honest to goodness old made in America Ingersoll-Rand one. I laughed at the thief that stole my $100 Chinese made air compressor and left the several hundred dollar grinder behind.) I got a large tall vase and filled it with water. I needed that to quench the steel between passes. If I had overheated the blade it would have annealed (softened) the steel. It is a long and complicated process to heat temper a blade if you have to do it by hand. I reshaped the blade, following more or less the original lines. I ended up with knives maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 inch shorter but properly shaped. Balance wasn't particularly noticeable since these aren't throwing knives anyway.

I plan on gifting one of these to the 12 year old, and saving the other for the 8 year old for when I think he is ready to begin edged weapon...I mean kitchen prep training. She will love the time with Dad in the kitchen and she seems to be gifted in that way anyway. She isn't really old enough to fully appreciate the true value of this knife bought for $.98 and a couple of hours of my labor of love re-shaping it. In parts of Asia such knives are revered as the highest achievement of thousands of years of forearm-rippling, furnace-heat-bearing craftsmanship.

Oh, and completely off topic - the backdrop is finely woven virgin wool in a sport coat from a custom men's wear shop from Virginia. The price? $1

Sherrif's task force.

I did some grocery shopping at 8:30 because we needed some things right then. As always I checked the bin behind finding as I expected that it was too early for the produce, bakery, and deli culls.

I was going to go back just after 10, but some marital canoodling delayed me till after 1:00 am. The grocery had a couple of self-rising pizzas in there packages tat needed to be popped in an oven soon, 3 racks of ribs, 2 meat loafs, some fried chicken and two huge roast turkey breasts. The dogs are going to eat better than we are this week.

I am tempted to see if the smoked ribs can be salvaged for human consumption. That seems dicey. IN these situations, I use my stomach as the guinea pig. My highly developed olfactory receptors haven't failed me ye, and I will probably err on the side of caution there. I baked the pizza's, fed the dogs some hot wings and fried chicken that I de-boned for them. I have a plate of deli sandwich innards for their breakfast prepared.

I also got several pounds of hand made, marinated mozzarella in individual vacuum sealed packages. I have a chunk of that marinating in my stomach at the moment with no ill effects.

Christmas is coming and it is a very lean year. I decided to hit the drugstore for Christmas bric-a-brac that they tend to throw away this time f year. As expected I got several strings of lights, candy canes and a little three pronged massager that one of my daughter always wants to buy from the impulse bin next to the register. I got three of them, one works, one probably has dead batteries and the third is good for parts.

Encouraged, I drive another 3 miles to the next one that usually has parallel culls. As I pull into the deserted parking lot I see a couple of old-style hawgs with the lights and fairings driven by a couple of burly shapes going the other direction. The turn in with me and hit the lights. I wasn't expecting that. The local police drive Kawasaki's and BMW's/ Yurns out it was some of Sheriff Joe's finest out looking for holiday drunks. This seems a worthy pursuit so I don't give them too much attitude. I try a little obfuscation with them though when they inquire about my destination and plans for the evening. It really isn't any of their business and I have no legal responsibility to tell them, nor do they have a right to expect an answer. We established together that I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol, that I lived about 8 miles North of where they had detained me. Despite the fact that again it is none of their business, I listed one of my planned destinations, omitting a couple of planned stops for dumpster in between. Slightly suspicious, the younger one asked how I had come to decide to get gas in my car at 1:30 in the morning. I explained that I hadn't I had noticed it low as I ran other errands. Tiring of the exercise, though I could have kept verbally entangled if I had wished to, I decided to out with it. I explained that my primary mission for the night was dumpster diving. The older cop smiled, having no doubt seen a reasonably articulate and apparently not indigent diver before. The younger was puzzled but didn't know what to say to that.

Had they come upon me actually in the dumpster ignoring the no trespass signs the conversation would have been about the same but with a bit of explanation of what it is I intend to do with my finds and a caveat about my ethics in general about privacy issues and leaving the surroundings as I find them or better. I have had maybe a dozen conversations with cops in the middle of the night over the years in and around dumpsters and it generally goes amicably.

Later I found several stuffed animals, some more legos, and misc toys that may or may not be something that will interest Santa's elves.

Boots and Heels.

My wife grew up in a small town where cowboy boots were de rigueur She had a pair of good quality pointy tipped style boots when she was 13. Three to four years later the boots had held up but local fashion, slow moving as it was, had moved on. Justin "Ropers" were the boots to have. They come to mid calve and had rounded toes and frills. This was when Urban Cowboy came out and the country folk were going out of their way not to look like that. No fancy stitching or adornment of any kind. She wanted a pair too.

Her family couldn't afford Genuine Justin Roper's so they got the next best thing for about $125 she was proud to own a pair of ACME (like the coyote's supplier) "Ropers". This was a birthday present they got her even though they were rolling change to meet the mortgage. So she loved those boots.

As of late we have considered moving to the country. My new job will take me out there every other week as it is. The 12 year-olds biggest hesitation about moving out to the country is the lack of dumpsters, but I think she'll adjust to scrounging off the land when I show her how.

I haven't dove much lately, so I thought I'd write about some earlier finds. The first pair of serious grown-up heels that the 12 year old got came from a dive. She still gets compliments on them. She now has at least a dozen pairs at least 1/2 or more of them came from various dives. If not for the first dove-for pair I might have vetoed the idea of a 12 year old in heels.


One night we found some shoes of various descriptions and what looked like a plain pair of boots. I got them home and they were - you guessed it - a pair of Genuine Justin Ropers in my wife's size. Today we found me a pair of Gen-you-wine Justin "Western" pointy toed boots at a thrift store for $7, which wasn't free but cheap at twice the price as it were.

Here we are in our dove-for and thrift-store finest! Now, when I have an assignment out in the country, I have "dirt road cred". I think I will include our thrifting finds on this blog too in the future rather than starting yet another blog about that subject.