Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Those Dreaded Words

There are three words that give me a feeling of foreboding. Words that make me wonder "WHAT THE FUCK NOW??" Words that at times have me cringing while waiting to hear what follows. Words that have me thinking, "Shit, what now??" And what am I in for now?? It has gotten to the point where the person saying those words will chuckle when saying them, not that that makes it any better.

And what are those dreaded words you ask?? It's when The Old Lady says, "I've been thinking!!"


Monday, September 17, 2012

You're Fucked

Stolen from YellowDogGranny

Ditto


This one shows that there is still hope. Maybe we're not quite so fucked.

Thank you Frothy Boy for stating the obvious!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Michigan Idiots



I like where the people jump out of their cars when they see they're about to rearend the vehicle ahead!!

Winter's Coming

Scab Refs



 Watched Sunday's Packer game and to say the refs were incompetent is too kind.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Prepping for Winter


Last Saturday I cleaned the stove pipes to get ready for the wood-burning seasons. I had already cleaned the chimney and the stove and pipe were the last things that needed to be cleaned. Last winter I made the mistake of burning some spruce (maybe two or three pieces while getting the fire going in the morning) and it left a ton of creosote-like deposits (more like clinkers they were so big) in the pipes and chimney. Last spring I noticed I was having a problem with smoke coming in the house whenever I opened the door on the stove. Took the plate off the bottom of the metal chimney outside and found it almost totally blocked at the transition point from horizontal to vertical. Pulled what I could out by hand and that improved the situation for the time being. Later I bought a brush for cleaning the chimney. At the time I bought the brush they didn't have the extension rods that screw onto the brush, but after looking at it and the 1/4 pipe threads on the brush, I figured if I got a 1/4 pipe tap I could cut some threads in a 1/2" CPVC pipe and use that. Which is what I did ('cause I'm a cheap old fart, if you don't believe me, ask The Old Lady) and for about the price of one extension rod I got a tap and a couple of fittings to screw the two CPVC pipes together which allows me to reach up in the chimney all the way to the top while standing on the ground. I would have had to buy 4 or 5 extension rods to do the same.

Latest Project on the Truck

Yesterday I finished working on my truck (for now). I took the old fender off and put another fender on. The fender had had a line of rust showing thru the paint like the right fender in the last picture below. The other year a deer ran into the side of my truck and hit the fender just behind the front wheel and knocked the rust lose which then accelerated the deterioration of the fender.
Old fender showing rust damage.

Closer look at the rust.
The above picture shows how bad the rust had become. I got a fender from a junkyard (or is it a salvage yard) in Hot-Lanta before we moved back UP on the Tundra last year. It was too late in the year to replace the fender by the time we got things sorted out then as I don't have a garage and do my mechanicing outside.
Replacement fender installed.
This is the replacement fender in place (did a pretty good job of matching paint, don't you think??). Still need some kind of supervisor tape (that two-faced shit) to attach the F-150 emblem and the lower trim piece. Didn't bother putting the chrome trim piece around the wheel opening as it isn't in that good shape and all it would do is attract rust.


While the fender was off, I replaced the emergency brake cable. The end had pulled off the cable where it hooks up to the pedal mechanism. When I took the fender off in the junkyard, I also took the brake cable off and figured the easiest time to replace it was when the fender was off. It was a lot easier than it would have been if the fender was still in place. The total at the junkyard for fender and cable was less than $50. Not a bad deal!!
Right front fender with some rust showing thru the paint.
This is the right fender. The other fender looked like this before the deer hit it. Looking at the truck now, I'm wishing I'd got both fenders. The truck I got the fender from only had the one, would have had to find another truck for the right fender.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Immigrants

Stolen from Squatlo
We are a nation of immigrants, but it seems like once we get here we don't want anyone else to come here. I have a cousin whose grandparents on his father's side (and probably on his mother's side too) were both immigrants and barely spoke English. As a kid he spoke a language other than English to speak with his grandfather and yet, now he is all about "English Only"!! He's also anti-illegal immigrant and when I would remind him his grandfather was an immigrant, he would reply that his grandfather came here legally. That may or may not be true, that was back in the early part of the last century and things were a lot looser then. There were many cases of multiple people using the same passport to come here and other ways people came here that would not be allowed today, but were ignored then. Because he is accepted as a "Murikin", he forgets he belongs to an ethnic group that was severely discriminated 100 years ago because they had to nerve to organize and fight for better working conditions.

This attitude isn't just about immigration between countries, it can also be about movement within the country. People will move somewhere, discover they really like the area and maybe they'll tell friends and relatives about it, but they don't want anyone else to move there. They'll actively work to keep others out. They all want to be the last troll to escape the Downer Peninsula or the last Californian to sneak into Oregon or Washington.