Bedtime Preparedness

Just a quick post while I'm thinking about it....

Lately, especially with it being cold at night, I have taken to leaving the clothes I wore that day on the chest we have at the foot of our bed. My thinking behind this is that if we had to get out of the house in a hurry in the middle of the night, my clothes would be right there to either throw on if I had the time. Or, at the very least, carry out with me to be put on later.

The other thing I do is make sure the laces on my boots are loosened up to where I can pull them on quickly. Normally, my boots are fairly tight and it takes a while to put them on. If we have to get out of the house in a hurry, in the middle of the night, in Winter...I'm going to want to have my boots to do it.

I've mentioned this before in a previous post, but I'll repeat it here since it's part of my bedtime ritual now. All the stuff I carry in my pockets goes into a small pouch that I can grab quickly if needed. This is my wallet, pocketknife, lighter, USB thumbdrives, anything I normally have on my person throughout the day.

My EDC County Comm Satt Comm bag is usually on the floor right next to my night stand. It has my bigger EDC stuff like spare Glock mag's, HT, small first aid kit, spare batteries, and whatever else I like to have on me throughout my day.

My G23 is always in the nightstand at night wearing it's Streamlight TLR-1. And there are always at least two flashlights on the nightstand as well. If not more...I have a problem with flashlights. I want to own them all!

The cell phone is on it's charger at night on the nightstand as well. Along with several books I have been trying to finish. Yes, my nightstand is a very crowded place.

That's all I've got for right now.

Be prepared and sleep well. Or...just sleep well prepared.

PJ

God bless you Internet

Yesterday I got an education in Jeep.

I had to get a new exhaust put on the Jeep yesterday. Other than shelling out the money to do that, it went well. Actually ran into a member of my CERT team at the shop and shot the breeze with him for a while.

Next I took the Jeep through E-check. Because, I live in a county that has that nonsense. Don't even get me started...

Another pleasant surprise...the Jeep actually passed the E-check with flying colors. Yay Jeep!

Then, as I was driving around looking for the building to transfer the Jeep title into my name, a not-so-pleasant surpise. A brake caliper locked up. Soooooo...I managed to get it to my local mechanic. I was going to have him do a thorough inspection on the thing anyway. Once he gets it up on the rack, he looks at me and says "You've got a major oil leak here." To which I reply, "Of course I do...it's a Jeep." However, I could have simply answered, "No I don't. It's just marking it's territory."

Anyway...the oil leak spurred a discussion about rear main seals and how you have to drop the transmission to get to them and how that would cost more than the Jeep was worth and how I might not want to fix the brakes if I was going to have to junk the Jeep anyway since it is apparently impossible to fix a leaky rear main seal on a Jeep without pulling the motor and transmission and transfer case, and headlights , and taillights, and spare tire, and right front passenger's seat and...."

Sooooo, now I'm thinking it's going to cost me many thousands of dollars to repair a '92 Jeep which I did NOT spend many thousands of dollars on to buy. "Bummed" does not begin to describe my mood at this point.

The FIL drove me over to a mechanic he used for many a year at his work. We explained the situation. He quickly replied with, "We won't even touch those things. It's just too difficult a job. Because you have to start with pulling the motor and transmission and transfer case, and headlights , and taillights, and spare tire, and right front passenger's seat and...."

Monumentally bummed now, flirting with suicidal depression.

Once I'm home, and properly medicated, I turn to trusted advisor, The Internet. A quick Google search of "Jeep + Oil Leak" turns up aproximately Avogadro's Number in hits. Turns out, changing a rear main seal on a Jeep motor is merely a case of dropping the oil pan and replacing the two-piece rear main seal. Messy, but far from impossible http://www.jeepin.com/features/rearmain/ Also apparent is...Jeeps Leak Oil. It's just their way. To the the extent of, if a Jeep is NOT leaking oil, it must be OUT of oil.

Now, I'm a mix of elation and deep-seeded hatred for those who told me it was virtually impossible to replace a leaky rear main seal on a Jeep. Fuckers!!!

Apperently, Jeep owners replace these things in their driveways on a regular basis.

Now, maybe it's just me, but if I was to make my living as a mechanic...seems to me, with all of the millions of Jeeps on the roads, with all of their leaky rear main seals, and money to be made by fixing them...I might want to actually KNOW what it takes to fix them. Especially since it's apparently not that difficult a job. Dirty Fuckers!!

The other thing I learned from my beloved Internet is that if the valve cover on a 4.0 I6 Jeep motor is leaking around the rear of the motor, and apparently they do this A LOT, it mimics a leaky rear main seal by leaking oil down the backside of the engine right where a leaky rear main seal will. Now, I'm not the most mechanically inclined individual in the world. But, I'm fairly certain even I can put a new valve cover gasket on. If I can't, should have my Man Card revoked. Well...at least suspended for a little while.

I will add this, my mechanic, the one I trust, did tell me I would have to steam clean the engine block to even see where the oil was leaking from before I took drastic measures. I'll give him props for that. He gets dinged for making me believe the Jeep was ready for the junkyard though.

Later yesterday, I talked to a guy I used to work with, who does all kinds of work on all kinds of vehicles. When I explained to him what it took to replace the rear main seal on a Jeep 4.0 I6 engine, he said, "Sound just like the rear main seal on a small block Chevy." Bastard Fuckers!!! Even more proof that my local mechanics should friggin' know how to do it.

Yes, I'm not exactly excited about spending money on fixing oil leaks and brakes and mufflers on this Jeep. I'd rather be spending the money on a 12" lift, monstrous tires and some serious bumpers. Kidding Tonto! I have no such plans. But, I do have some rust on it I would like to get fixed.

It's a Jeep thing, I just don't understand it.

PJ

Things have been interesting the last couple of weeks.

It all started off when I got laid off on Friday Nov. 13. Now, I am officially a victim of our crappy economy. I have no idea how long it will before they will call me back, if ever. I'm making plans toward NOT having a job any time soon. The job ad's have been pretty skinny in my particular profession. Things were crappy before we hit fourth quarter. And things are historically pretty slow in the fourth quarter. So, I don't see getting my job back until after the first of the year at best. Frankly, I would be surprised if I was back to work until after the first quarter of next year.

Anyway...the Mrs. PJ has spent a lot of time looking over the budget, trying to figure out where we can save some money. We're cutting back on all of our extraneous expanses like eating out and entertainment for starters.

The next thing we did was to take a look at our vehicles and see where we might be able to save some money there. As luck would have it, I actually had enough equity in my vehicle to sell it and buy a cheap beater to get me around for a while. I ended up picking up a '92 Cherokee that a guy around the corner from me has for sale. That eliminates my car payment right off the bat. Hopefully I won't have to spend too much fixing things on it. If that's the case, we've saved my car payment every month. Not that I was driving a $52,000 Non-electronic, Diesel Suburban or anything, but my car payment was still a fairly decent chink of change every month. I'm glad to be done with them.

Next, we'll look at replacing the wife's vehicle and try and lower her payment. We still want to have at least one vehicle under warranty. But, if we find something nice enough in a used vehicle, we may go that way. She wants something that is a true 4WD vehicle. I'm glad to have replaced my AWD vehicle with a true 4X4. It would be nice if she had one too.

In case anyone is wondering...AWD isn't actually ALL wheel drive at all. It's ONE wheel in the front and ONE wheel in the back. At least on our vehicles(we both were driving Mitubishi Outlanders). Plus, being compact, car-based, SUV's, they had tire sizes that were virtually impossible to get in a fairly rugged tread pattern.

I'm glad to be back in an actual 4WD, solid axle, honest-to-God, off-road worthy vehicle. Yay Jeep!!

That's about all I have been up to for the last couple of weeks. I have started a couple of projects around the house getting things organized. Straightening up our supplies, cleaning our closets, and stuff like that is good for keeping busy while I'm out of work. It's stuff I've needed to do for a while now anyway. So, for that, I'm glad to have the time to do it.

I did spend about a half a day getting the 8N running again. My father-in-law and I pulled the alternator and the battery and ran them in town to have them both tested. It ended up just being a bad battery and some really crappy gas. The old girl is running fine these days again just in time for Winter. Sometimes she gets pressed into snow removal service at the in-law's place.

We'll keep trying to get the budget pared down even more. We've been able to cut a little here, and a little there by looking at our cell phone service and scaling back the cable a little bit. Each of these is not a very big reduction. But, at this point, every little bit counts.

The biggest thing for us is to simply keep track of where the money is actually going. Mrs. PJ spent a whole lot of time getting our Quickbooks info back up to date. And, now that we are really watching the little, miscellaneous expenses, it will be a lot easier to keep up to date and track where we're spending money and where we can maybe cut back a little bit more.

Primarily though, it's more of a change in our mind set. We just need to be more careful about where we spend our money. We have been living pretty high on the hog up 'til now. Now we just need to NOT do the things we had been doing like eat out as much as we have and buy the stuff we WANT to buy. We had no idea just how much we were spending on that until we sat down and looked at it.

That's it for now.

PJ

Took the BOB's for a walk today....

My buddy Jason and I have been talking about trying to get out once a month to take our BOB'sfor a hike. Partly to see just how far we could actually carry them and partly just for the exercise. We set up our first hike for Saturday.

The plan was to meet up using only 2 Meter radio comm's and GPS coordinates. The radio comm's worked well at first. But, once we got into the park, the terrain worked against us and we both lost contact with the repeater we were using. We should have had a plan to switch to simplex if we couldn't make the repeater. That was lesson number one. Have a backup comm's plan.

We met up with no problems despite the lack of radio comm's. We weren't positive we were in the right place because the coordinates I located using Google Earth were about a quarter mile away from where we met up. That was lesson number two. Google Earth will get you close, but not necessarily exactly where you want to be. We saved the exact location of the vehicles in our GPS's before we headed out. This will be important later.

We geared up at the vehicles and headed for where we thought the trailhead would be. Turned out we were right. Unfortunately, the first part of the trail was a fairly steep climb. That was lesson number three. I'm not in good shape by any stretch of the imagination. Strapping on a 50lb pack only makes things worse. I HAVE to get in better shape. I was sucking wind big time before we even made the top.

The top part of the trail cut through some truly awesome cliff faces. I'm definitely going to have to go back there and do some exploring. It would be a fanastic place to hike into and camp for a couple of days. There were a bunch of ledges and caves that would make excellent campsites. But...there's no camping allowed in this area.

Halfway through the loop we ended up at picnic area. We took the packs off and rested a bit. We found a partial pack of cigarettes and a functional lighter on one of the picnic tables. PAW barter materials!

We reshouldered our packs and headed off down the trail again. The back half of the loop wasn't marked nearly as well as the first part and it wasn't long before we lost the trail. We explored the area a bit and found some really cool rock features. But, we never did find the trail again. So, we just headed out overland using the GPS's to direct us back to the vehicles.

Lesson number four...always know where you left your vehicle. God knows I've lost my way back to the vehicle when hunting before. GPS makes it almost too easy to wander around and not pay attention to where you are. We should have had a better idea of where we were and how to get back to the vehicles.

It was rough going having to cross some deep ravines and climb some serious hills. It would have been bad enough doing it without packs. The packs made it even worse. I was starting to feel a little stronger though. I didn't get as winded while we were slogging through the woods back to the vehicles though.

Jason went down once in some mud. Lesson number what? Five? With all of the leaves on the ground, trip hazards, slippery spots and all kinds of other nasty surprises were hidden from sight. I know I stepped into a hole and ended up to my thigh in leaves. The potential for twisting an ankle was pretty high. Luckily, we both made it out of the woods relatively unscathed.

And that brings us to lesson number six...always make sure your gear is securely attached to you. While Jason and I and MOST of our gear made it out of the woods, one of my HT's did not. I gave Jason my VX-150 HT to use in case we got separated. And, somewhere, way back in the woods, it became separated from him. Even if we could backtrack our path out of the woods, it would be impossible to find with all of the leaves on the ground. Luckily, it wasn't an expensive radio or we'd still be there looking for it. I picked it up used and cheap. It wasjust a backup to my primary HT. On the bright side though, I have gotten a whole lot of mileage out of it for ribbing Jason.

All of our gear seemed to work well. My pack, while probably too heavy, was comfortable. This was the first time I had carried for more than a lap around my own property. I do need to repack it so I can get my goretex bivvy sack in it. I was pretty confident I could have spent the nights in the woods there. Between the rock overhangs and all of the deadfall and leaves, I could have built one helluva' shelter if I had to. Or, simply crawled into my bivvy(if I had it with me) and cover myself up with leaves.

All-in-all, it was a good start to what we hope to make a monthly thing. Once the snow starts flying though, we'll have to find someplace a lot safer to hike around. And I'm goin to try and add new elements to each hike. Stuff like trying out new gear and ways of doing things.

PJ

Nuts to you!

I have Hickory trees on my property!! Hickory trees!! That means...Hickory nuts!

The Mrs. PJ and I bought this property for the trees. Not so much the house, but the property itself. A large part of the property is wooded. We have a lot of Conifers on the property, but we also have a variety of hardwoods. Maples, Oaks, Hickory, and a lone Crab Apple tree.

We've been living here for almost four years now, and I have never seen the first Hickory nut under any of the hickory trees that are on my property. Not until this year that is. Maybe I wasn't looking for them. Or, maybe the squirrels got to them before I did. But, up until now...nothing.

This year, however, I gathered about a 1 gallon Ziplock bag full of Hickory nuts. This was nuts without the hulls. So...being new to gathering Hickory nuts, I thought I would have enough hickory nuts to last the Winter. As luck would have it though, there is surprisingly little meat in a Hickory nut. What's there is really good. But, I'm fairly certain that a person could starve to death eating Hickory nuts.

I'll probably save the majority of them to plant and try and get MORE Hickory trees on the property. I'm thinking that the real benefit of Hickory trees is providing food by attracting squirrels to my property. Then, there's always having the trees around for firewood. And, quite possibly the most awesome reason of all, growing my own bows on the property.

This is the first year I have noticed acorns on the ground under my oak trees as well. I gathered a bunch of them to plant.

The buckeye tree produced a bumper crop too. I gathered a crapload of buckeyes and ended up giving most of them to the neighbor across the street to give to his grand kids. I kept a dozen or so. Again, to try and plant.

Gathering nuts and buckeyes this Fall has me fired up for getting some permaculture going on the property. I should have been planting Apple or Cherry trees all along. I'm going to start for certain in the Spring. I've also been collecting Maple seeds and planting them to try and get my woodlot started. I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I can grow all of the firewood I need each year. But, I'm going to give it a heck of a try. Maple trees nomally pop up all over the property. Usually in the areas where I mow. I've stopped mowing a couple of large areas and am letting them go back to whatever they want to be. I've been spreading the Maple seeds I gather in these areas to encourage the start of my woodlots. Hopefully I can figure out how to coppice these trees and produce enough firewood to heat the house over the Winter once things get going.

Know your trees...Love your trees...Use your trees...Love your trees your trees even more.

PJ

Pandemic Prep's

Over last couple of months or so, the Mrs. PJ and I have geared our prep's toward what the media if constantly telling us is a certainty to occur...a full-on H1N1, no one is going to be spared, we're all going to die, pandemic. Not that we have "drunk the koolaid" as it were, we've just started thinking about and planning around the worst case and the not so worst case scenarios of an actual pandemic.

Don't get me wrong. I am not certain that H1N1 is going to wipe out 90% of the human population. I'm not nearly that lucky. More than likely, H1N1 is simply going to come and go much like any other strain of flu. It will kill some people, certainly. But, the flu kills people every year. Really! It does. Look it up. This is not a new concept. The media is just treating it like it has never happened before in history.

The more likely worst case scenario is that we would be placed under a quarantine that would prevent us from travelling freely. Or, maybe we just decide to NOT make the usual trips into town for our normal grocery runs. And this is what the Mrs. PJ and I are gearing our Swine Flu We're-All-Going-To-Die Pandemic preps toward. We have been stocking up on stuff that we might not be able to simply run out to the store and pick up if we run out of it.

This really isn't any different than any other kind of general preparedeness except that we are stocking up more on what I call Medium Term Storage foods. Since we got the freezer, we have been stocking it up with frozen foods such as meats, frozen vegetables, and stuff we can make quickly and easily like frozen pizza's and other comfort foods like ice cream.

I don't really want to have to dip into my Long Term Storage stocks just because we can't get to the grocery for a couple of weeks. I do tend to store "normal" shelf-stable kinds of foods. I do NOT have a pallet of MRE's in the corner of my basement. So, things tend to get rotated fairly regularly anyway. But, the idea of Pandemic Preps is to make it as invisible as possible.

And to that end, we are also stocking up a little more than usual on the stuff we use around the house. Things like cleaning products, person hygiene stuff, pet supplies, snack foods, anything we can think of. Again, we normally have a significant amount of these kinds of things on hand already. But, I'm trying to think of things that would be nice to have in a short-term kind of situation instead of having to resort to a beans-and-rice kind of subsistence just because I can't get to the grocery as often as I would like to.

We're also stocking up a little more with things like hand sanitizer, and bleach for sanitizing purposes. They're probably something I should have already had on hand before, but we picked up some spray bottles to use if we need to start disinfecting the house.

Mrs. PJ is lucky enough to be able to work from home for extended periods if that should become necessary. I don't have that luxury though. Maybe if things start getting bad, my company will wise up and start making preparations to allow people to work from home. I'm hoping that is the case. Otherwise, I will be out of the income for any time that we are quarantined either by force or by choice.

We're also making sure the fuel oil tank stays topped off as much as possible and we have a decent supply of firewood on hand. This is just to make sure we will have these things if we are not able to get any delivered due to a quarantine. Again, this really isn't any different than our normal level of preparedness. It just gives us a little more focus to make sure we keep these items at maximum levels.

I don't honestly see a pandemic getting to the point where we lose all of our utilities. I am, however, storing an additional 10 gallons of gasoline in case I should have to run the generator for an extended period. I can see the flu keeping large numbers of repair personnel at home making power line repairs take longer than normal.

I am also considering picking up one of those digital TV converter boxes and an antenna just to have in case we lose cable service for an extended period. Apparently, there are a lot of TV channels you can pull out of the air for free if you have one of these boxes. This is something I probably should already have on hand.

We already have a cellular card for the laptops. If we were to lose are DSL internet connection, I should be able to reactivate the card to allow us to still have internet access. But, I don't even want to think about being stuck at home for two weeks in a row without internet access. That would just be cruel!

Well...that's all I can think of at the moment. If there is something I have overlooked, please feel free to let me know.

PJ

The New Bow

I have wanted a recurve bow for just about as long as I can remember. They're just sexy. Don't get me wrong. I lust after really nice longbows as well. But, there has always been something about the curved limbs of a recurve bow that always touched that primal part of my being.

So...I bought one. But first, let me give you a little insight as to my descision making process of this particular purchase. I wanted to buy an inexpensive, modern recurve bow. As much as I am given to traditional, even primitive archery, I wanted a traditional bow in modern materials. I wanted a bow I could take out in any sort of weather and not worry about ruining. I wanted a bow that could be taken down and fit into a small pack. I wanted to be able to run down to my local Walmart and buy accessories and arrows for this bow. In short, I wanted to see just how simple, just how "off-the-shelf" I could keep things.

For the longest time, I have had to buy all of my traditional archery supplies online. Dick's Sporting Goods, Gander Mountain, and any of the other places where you can just walk in off the street and find archery supplies simply don't carry Port Orford shafts, glue-on points or broadheads or nocks or...well...anything glue-on. Forget about finding feather fletching. And, don't even think about finding a Flemish Twist string to fit a long bow off-the-shelf. It isn't going to happen. If you're fortunate enough to live near an archery shop that carries traditional supplies, consider yourself incredibly lucky. I used to...I miss it like crazy.

If you are in need of these kinds of supplies..I can whole-heartily recommend 3 Rivers Archery, or Raptor Archery. I've done a lot of business with both of these places and have always been extremely pleased with their customer service as well as extensive inventory of traditional archery gear. But...I digress.

The whole point of this new bow was to be as off-the-shelf as I possibly could be. Yes, yes. I know you can make a lot of your own traditional archery equipment. And, I've done that in the past. That wasn't the point of this little on-going experiment.

I went with a 50 lb Martin Jaguar Take-down Recurve bow. http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/martin-jaguar-take-down-recurve-bow.aspx?a=548939. At $115 from Sportsmansguide.com(I always seem to have a $10 off coupon from them), I figured it was worth the risk to buy a bow sight-unseen. I had done quite a bit of reading up online if this bow. The vast majority of the reviews were very positive about it. And...regardless of what the compound boys tell you...you do NOT need a bow with a 325lb draw weight. 50lb's is plenty!

PSE also makes some very affordable recurves. But, I know nothing about them. And, I will admit a certain amount of bias towards Martin since I LOVE my Stick bow.

I would have LOVED to just walk into a store and buy one of these bows. But none of the stores around me carry ANY traditional bows...period...for any price. And, the few traditional bows I have seen at sporting goods stores within a day's drive of my place are of the high end variety. I would love to have a handcrafted, custom bow of any sort. But that was not the intent of this project. Plus, the Mrs. PJ is not about to let me spend that kind of money on a bow after spending so much money on radio equipment this Summer.

So...I ordered my bow.

My bow was delivered Monday. That very same day, I walked out of the Walmart near my office with three aluminum arrows and screw-in field points to fit them. Five minutes after I opened the UPS box, I had the bow put together. Not strung mind you. That's another thing altogether with a recurve bow as I was to quickly find out.

The limbs fit into the pockets on the riser perfectly unlike some of the early reports on this bow. And, the holes for the bolts were sized correctly as well. Also, some of the negatives reports about this bow.

The overall fit and finish of the bow was excellent I thought. Especially considering the extremely low price for it. There are some spots on the riser where the camo finsh is a little thin. But, nothing that I would consider a real flaw. I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of camo bows. I would prefered to get it in black. I do plan on using it for hunting though, so...it's probably just as well that it has a camo riser. The limbs are finished in a very nice flat-black.

Once I finally got the bow strung...and let me tell you...this is a real chore without a bow stringer...I bolted in the incredibly cheap plastic arrow rest that came with the bow. This would be my only complaint, if I had one, about the bow. Out of the bow, it has a REALLY cheap plastic arrow rest. It's more than functional. For someone who is used to shooting off of a shelf, it's pretty cool to have an arrow rest that holds your arrow in place. I don't think the durability of the thing is going to be very good though.

I can certainly see why Martin included this particular rest though. It's gets you shooting as soon as you get the bow without adding a lot of cost to the bow. With all of the different arrow rests that are available today, buyers of the bow would probably end up switching out whatever one they sent with it anyway.

So, after figuring out that I had installed the arrow rest the wrong way and attaching a new nocking point to the string a couple of days after I got the bow, I finally got to shoot it. Now, here's the disclaimer...I am NOT an archery expert. I've been shooting my Martin Stick bow off and on for around ten years now. And, I have done a whole lot of reading on primitive and traditional archery. But that's where any expertise I may happen to have ends.

It is a very sweet shooting bow. There is absolutely zero handshock. And even without making any attempt at all to match the arrows to the bow, I can already tell it's going to be far more accurately than I will be able to ever shoot it.

It is a very fast bow when compared to my Stick longbow. And it thumps my target with some real authority.

I ended up buying screw-in broadheads, and Judo points today. Which is exactly what I had hoped to be able to do with this bow. I also found the flipper rest I had been eyeing online as well. I will still need to order the post to mount it to from Martin. But, it's so inexpensive, it's almost a crime.

I could mount sights to this bow if I chose to. For now, I'm going to resist the urge to bolt a whole bunch of stuff to it. I am still a tradtional archery kind of guy after all. But, it's nice to know I can if I want to be able to hunt with it without the need to keep up my instinctive shooting skills. Which are, to this day, still suspect and not nearly good enough to hunt with.

I'm also going to resist the urge to put a quiver on this bow. Being sans-wheels, it's a pretty lightweight bow. Not as airy light as my Stick, but noteven lose to being as heavy as a compound bow by any stretch of the imagination. It feels good in my hand and I'd like to keep it that way.

So far my off-the-shelf archery experiment has been going pretty well. I haven't been able to locate a stringer in any of the stores around me. So, I ordered one on line as well as a spare string. Again...3 Rivers Archery always seems to have what I need.

I could have gone with a Whisker Biscuit arrow rest to keep this little project completely in the realm of off-the-shelf. That is about all any of the stores around me carry these days. But, I utterly refuse to bolt one of those hideous things to any bow I own. I'm sure they shoot great, but they're freakin' ugly. You'd never notice one on a compound bow what with all of the cables, and cams, and slides, and such though.

And while we're on the topic of cables, and cams, and slides, and such...in the spirit of being prepared, if a compound is your bow of choice, I would stock up on cables, and cams, and slides, and such as well as a press and all of the tools you might need to be able to work on all of that stuff. All of those parts that may need to be replaced is exactly what keeps me from ever buying a compound. There is simply way too much that can go wrong with one of those contraptions.

Keep it simple.

PJ