IGX

I'm currently engrossed in the saga of Shawn James building a log cabin in the Canadian wilderness totally by hand. This may not be for everyone, but the scenery and craftsmanship of using all hand tools appeals to me.

I have some mild similarity with him(very mild) in that ~35 years ago, I designed and built my own cabin in the mountains of Pa. While mine wasn't log, I prefabbed it(along with 4 buddies) at home, and then put the sections on a 30 ft. truck and hauled it 100 miles to our property. It was sort of a barn-style with a twin lofts, 20' x 20' on first floor. We eventually added a screen porch and attached a privy in the back. Our cost back then was about $3500 for 2.5-3 acres plus another $3000 in materials. A lot of the materials were pine tubing boxes (12-20 ft. long) that my old company Borg-Warner threw away. Many cabins were built with these boxes.

Anyway getting back to My Self Reliance, this guy was a successful business man as a sheet metal contractor, who lost his business in the 2008-2010 economic collapse. Canada trailed the US by two years. He was $1 mil in debt and spent the next two years with lawyers in court telling all his debtors he would repay it all. His yearly salary at that time before the collapse was over 300K per year. A year or two later, he started another business and repaid the whole amount in a short time. He has now again accrued a high net-worth(7 figure), is debt free and builds off-grid cabins, hunts, writes for outdoor magazines and markets his own line of camping/outdoor products. His photo/video skills are very high and he is a natural speaker. This last paragraph may not seem relevant, but I'm comparing his financial skills to our current
SCOTUS nominee. Shawn James didn't graduate high school, flunked both 11th grade and 12th grade English class twice each. And he now gets paid money to write, and in a round about way, speak the English language.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIMXKin1fXXCeq2UJePJEog

edit: I forgot to add that some businesses like contractors in Ontario aren't permitted to file bankruptcy.

He sounds like a guy with poor impulse control. Actually, so do you.

I've really enjoyed that guy's videos.

He's like Dick Proenneke 2.0.

Well not quite on topic...you can reasonably figure out how to do just about anything by watching a youtube video made by somebody doing what you're trying to do. A few years back I took our TV apart to replace the light engine (an old dlp tv) only because I watched a youtube video on how to do it. My total investment was 38.00 for the bulb. Who knows what that would have cost me if I'd called someone. Finally did replace the TV. Right now I'm working on putting a complete lab together to make Blue Sky.

you can reasonably figure out how to do just about anything by watching a youtube video made by somebody doing what you're trying to do

YouTube saved me from probably destroying my dryer recently. Needed to replace the thermostat fuse, and the repair manual said you pretty much have to disassemble the whole damn thing to get to the back. Some guy on YouTube had a video showing how if you remove the vent tube out the back, you could easily get in there and replace it that way as long as you didn’t have Popeye forearms.

Lifesaver

Seriously

Oven fix - youtube
Icemaker fix - youtube
Dryer fix - youtube

Replacing turn signal on 99 Accord - youtube