Uncommon squalor

Ahhh...nostalgia!

2012-02-20T07:36:00.000-08:00

I was talking cars with a kid at work last night and the conversation turned on some of the cars I'd had years back.

My favorite car is, always has been and, always will be the 1969 Dodge Charger.
It was my favorite when my Dad had one when I was a kid and, it was my favorite when I bought one myself the summer of 1988.

The car just had a look and a feel to it that I loved and still do.

When I bought mine, I'd scrimped $900 bucks together and, banged on the door of the guy who had it for sale, took it for a test drive and, paid for it in cash.

As soon as we got back from the bank and the title was notorized, I hopped in and was ready to go do some good old fashioned stoplight to stoplight drag racing down Glendale avenue and, the Anthony Wayne trail...after all, it was Friday night!

As I slid the shifter into drive, the guy I'd bought the car from yelled..."hey man, you're leaking something!"

Leaving the car running, I leaned out the door and looked under the car and, yes...I was leaking something...tranny fluid by the gallon it seemed!

After hauling ass home and parking in the back yard, I learned that I would not be doing any drag racing that night.
The next week was spent pulling the transmission, replacing the front seal and, replacing a dead torque converter.

Never one to leave well enough alone, I noticed that a valve cover gasket was leaking...and if I'm gonna replace that, well I may as well repaint the valve covers and, that carb is crap so I may as well pull the intake and repaint it too and, toss my rebuilt thermo-quad on there while I'm at it...if you're a gearhead...you get the picture.

About a month later after fixing the trans, rebuilding the top end and a rigamaroll of other odds and ends to make it all "just right" while working nights on it in the backyard with a tarp / tent draped over the hood, a junk lamp from the basement for a light and, many forgotten cups of coffee that froze solid in the cups while I was too busy to drink them...at about 4 am one morning, it was ready to be cranked over!

I hopped in the driver's seat, got comfortable, lit a smoke and, turned the key...
RRRR...rrrrr.rrrrr.rrr....click,click,click,click,click!

The fucking battery! After all that work, I'd never once considered the battery as being a weak link in the chain of insanity!

I put the battery charger on quick-fry and went in the house to warm up and grab a cup of non-frozen coffee while I waited...and ended up dozing off until 0730 and went outside to crank it up.

I turned the key and after about 10 seconds, it came to life!

I then grabbed the flashlight and looked under the car...no leaks!

Next, I was checking for valve cover leaks, air leaks, tire leaks, fuel leaks, coolant leaks...nothing! Woo-hoo!

After about 15 minutes of shock that everything was working perfectly, I put it in 1st, then 2nd, then drive to see that the tranny shifted properly...good to go!

So, what does a 18 year old kid do next?
I layed a patch in the driveway!
Tires screeching, tires smoking like a 4 alarm fire and, me watching my neighbor's porch lights all comming on in succession and looking out their doors pretty pissed that some asshole was smoking his tires at 8ish in the morning!

That car was my baby and, I loved driving it and, racing all the suckers at the stoplights on weekends...back when people used to just do that for fun...unlike nowadays.

The car in the picture isn't mine.

Mine was originally the same color but, in doing the body work on it, I'd sprayed the car primer gray and the hood flat primer black while saving for the funds to have it repainted in the original blue.

In August of 1990, a guy I knew wanted the car and I ended up trading it to him for a '72 Barracuda that needed it's un-original 4 speed rebuilt and, top-end work on the 440 motor that was also not the original 318 it came with...and some cash.

Long story short, girlfriend ended up pregnant on the day I got laid off from my refinery job and, I stored the car at my dad's house when I joined the army and left in the fall of 1990.

4 years, I'll be back with a pocket full of cash and, knock it back together...nope.

My Dad was sick of looking at it in his yard under a tarp after 2 years and sold it. My "4 quick years" away in the Army ended up lasting over a decade and, once back with kids and a wife to support, my mopar lust went from taking the back seat on the priority list to being a "one of these days I'll get another one" back burner ideas.

It may still be on my back burner but, gaddmmit, it's still on my stove!

Sustainable government...according to liberals!

2012-02-16T06:25:00.000-08:00

The hundreds of pallets represent what the Greek government has already borrowed...which is about to double with the next bailout.

Only a complete moonbat would look at what Greece needs to borrow in order to sustain it's freebie programs and, see nothing wrong with it.

Greece is about to get it's second bailout because after getting the first one, they continued to keep on doing what they'd been doing that had bankrupted them in the first place.

If we continue to allow the democrat's ( and to some extent their enabling republican allies) moonbattish spending to continue unchecked, we'll be the next Greek tragedy being played out on the evening news.
Anyone with a sound mind would want to prevent that but, all you have to do is read a few lefty blogs or, pay attention to what the OWS clowns are also saying to see that they're indeed cheering on and calling for the demise of the United States as a constitutional republic and, wish to replace it with a another slow-dying socialist system of spending and mandate infested living.

Only in moonbatland can you be mandated to piss in your own drinking water and then, mandated to believe it tastes good.

Hopefully someone here recognizes our own future being played out by the Greeks and, moves to stop it before we too have angry moonbats in the streets burning buildings and tossing bricks and firebombs at the cops "protesting" for the government to keep the handout system rolling.

Then again, the cops in America are armed with more than just shields and fire extinguishers and would probably put a cap in the ass of the first moonbat to toss a molotov cocktail their direction as would a property owner who's home or, business was being set ablaze.

Greek microcosm

2012-02-10T03:59:00.000-08:00

Newsflash...the Greek communists and trade unions are "striking" (vandalizing everything in sight) again in opposition of losing their beloved unsustainable welfare state.

The whole thing seems insane to me since the country is going to go belly up unless the other Eurozone nations bail them out of their self-constructed mess while the communists and unionists are demanding that nothing changes...just keep right on doing the same crap that has caused the entire mess in the first place!

That seems to be a main theme with most leftists.
Create an unrealistic and unsustainable model,
Go deep into debt while trying to sustain it,
Refuse to believe that it never works,
Refuse to believe that it's too expensive,
Resist trimming costs,
Pretend nothing is wrong,
Find scapegoats to blame problems on,
And do the exact same thing all over again when it fails!

It seems to me that the Greeks have become so deeply dependent on the government freebies that they're willing to destroy Greece and lose everything before accepting the fact that their welfare state can't possibly continue.
The rioters seem to think that they should get a bailout while changing nothing...as though the Eurozone will just keep sending a stipend.
THAT is the entitlement mentality hard at work. We see the same style of idiots here in America who balk at the idea that their freebies could be reduced.

Sadly, America could also be seeing the same problems as the Greeks in the future if we continue down the same path we're on.

The national debt over the last 3 years has almost doubled from 8.5 trillion to just under 16 trillion...and few are asking how that is even possible!
The CBO's estimate is that by 2016, we'll be hitting about 18 trillion which judging from the last 3 years, sounds a bit short.

What our government is doing is no more sustainable than what Greece is doing.
We may not be in the same boat but, we're busily rowing behind them while trying to get our motor started so we can pass them.
The problem for America is the fact that there is no country that can bail us out if worst comes to worst.

The latest Obamacare drama...

2012-02-09T05:20:00.000-08:00

Obamacare and the Catholic church had a nice little pitbull / owner relationship until the church recently discovered that the rules apply to them too.
In other words, the church supported something that turned right around and bit it in the ass.

I can still remember the star-struck idiots who belong to the Catholic churches here in Toledo blabbering the democrat party line about Obamacare.
They foolishly believed (as many other idiots out there still seem to) that only the "good parts" of the law that they agree with will apply to them even though the law is pretty cut and dry...but who needs to read a law when the politicians who are trying to pass it are assuring you that nothing is rotten in Denmark?

The church's leadership either didn't bother to study the law or, were convinced that they would get a free pass on areas they disagreed with...as opposed to simply demanding the removal of those parts.

Now they look foolish for believing that the rattlesnake wouldn't bite them while crossing the river.

They also look foolish for ditching God and placing their faith in the word of self-serving politicians while they ignored the evidence that the populace was placing before them.

Even if you're not a Catholic or even religious, this overstep by the government should concern you because, in the mind of a politician, anything they can take from you, regardless of how small is always going to be used as the stepping stone to take something else later.

And, as witnessed over the last few years, any law that is or, has the potential to be unpopular or, unconstitutional is either buried by the media or, propagandized by the media in order to deflect possible public outrage.
And, you can usually bet that if a democrat is involved in the creation of a law, there will always be crap stuffed between the pages that have nothing to do with the law or, be reflected in the law's title.
The Catholic church's leadership swallowed the obamacare propaganda hook, line and, sinker and advised it's membership to support it.
They're obviously just as foolish as the left wingers who seem to believe that supporting a bad idea will somehow prevent it's bad effects from touching their own values later on.

The Soviet gulags and, the Nazi concentration camps were full of idiots who supported the very ideas that came back around to bite them in the ass.
Why?
Because they were dumb enough to believe that whatever they advocated that would harm others, could never possibly be used on them too.

Nice little chunk of info

2012-02-08T01:02:00.000-08:00

Nice eh? After Odickweed and, the Democraps made such a huge stink that the republicans were "hatin' on the working man for opposing their lousy payroll tax extention and the media aided and abetted them into shaming the GOP into going along with the bill...it turns out the the shitbags hid a fucking tax within the bill that costs far more than the tax break saves the taxpayer.
Of course it only effects those of us who are paying a mortgage but, heyyyy those two months worth of tax breaks are worth the years of extra mortgage interest right?
We traded 4 weeks of miniscule tax "savings" for years of an interest rate with a hidden charge built into it!
Smart eh?
Sold down the river by republicans who were trying to save face to sleazy democrats who love to spend our money and will hide any tax they can get away with between the pages of every bill that is never read.

Just bought some new property myself. I think my payroll tax cut garnered me a $100 windfall that I'll be coughing back up in $15 increments for the life of the loan.

Leave it to the ever-scheming democrats to find a way to scam more money out of the country's producing class!

BTW, I knew of this bullshit over a week ago but, had to wait until the msm could no longer hide the story so that my liberal moonbat readers wouldn't be bawling that it was a right wing lie created by racists to harm Obama's stellar reputation of achievement.

Let's knock $15 a month off the welfare parasite's checks too...you know...to be "fair" and all.

A little taste of history that is relevent today

2012-02-03T02:30:00.000-08:00

I wasn't around for the WW2 drive that encouraged Americans to plant "Victory" gardens in order to lighten the demand on the food system and, free up foodstuff for our troops abroad.

Today we have different "fronts" to fight on...inflation, high prices and, the odd chemicals that wind up as unlisted ingredients on the supermarket shelves.

My grandparents were master gardeners before there was such a thing in everyday jargon.
Their yard was packed with the nicest flower beds in the neighborhood and, a vegetable garden with a bit of everything in it. In fact, while I was growing up it seemed that every older person who lived through the war all had vegetables growing all summer long.
It wasn't uncommon in the fall to smell vinegar in the air that told us there were pickles being canned in someone's kitchen.

The old guy a few houses away grew tomatoes like a madman and, his wife would cook them into a sauce, can them and, send me home with an armload of tomatoes.

When they started doing this stuff back in the 1940's, many of them kept doing it years after it was a "patriotic duty" because it was also common sense and, low cost.

What does a jar of Ragu cost in the store? 3 bucks?

For about 7 bucks, you can raise enough tomatoes, garlic, onions and assorted herbs to fill about 50 mason jars of the same thing (minus the cost of the jars, lids and bands) and, have a year's worth of sauce for spaghetti, salsa, a chili add-in, etc.
The only additional cost is the time you invest in it.

A tv show called Crockett's victory garden was on back in the mid 70's that catered to the old school victory gardeners and, was supposed to spur the next generation into fighting inflation and high food prices via planting a garden.

Over the last few years, I've had the space to plant some wonderfull gardens. I also had the opportunity to stop by a friend's place and pick sweetcorn and hour before we cooked it.
If you've never had fresh sweetcorn, you've never really tasted sweetcorn since the sugars begin turning to starch as soon as you pick it and, after a week in a store, it isn't the same.

It's also nice to look out the window and see my kids out in the yard munching on a tomato that caught their eye as opposed to other things that kids would rather rot their teeth with.

My garden this summer should be an ass kicker since I have been composting my lawn clippings, egg shells, coffee grounds, vegatable waste, chicken and rabbit shit, straw and shaved pine in a pile that my chickens have been scratching up and I stirred with a pitchfork for the last 3 seasons.
The stuff falling from the bottom through the fencing is the blackest soil I've seen in years and, contains enough worms to open a bait shop with.
My tomato crop should break records this year!

Paul Harvey...right on!

2012-01-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

"We're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas..."

2012-01-27T21:13:00.000-08:00

I missed out on seeing Obama's SOTU address the other night since I'm one of those folks who work for a living still in this country.

I read the transcript of what seemed like every other speech he's made cut, pasted and spliced together in his usual line of bullshit and a few points kind of stuck out with me.

Natural gas powered cars?
Sure it sounds like a wonderfull way to kiss the asses of your watermellon support base (Green on the outside, RED on the inside) with the delusions of grandeur of everyone owning overpriced, underpowered and, not yet viable natural gas powered vehicles.
And yes, America IS the Saudi Arabia of natural gas...whenever those evil companies are allowed by your EPA to retrieve it but, 99% of our households use gas to heat their homes.

By turning nat-gas into automobile fuel, what do you think is going to happen to the prices we pay for home heating when the utilities can charge more (and will probably be forced to due to govt regulation ) to fuel your car?
The government already coughs up money for the poor to heat their homes in the winter so, does it make a lot of sense to inflate the prices on those who can already barely afford it...in order to push an agenda for cars that only the self-rightous with money to burn will be able to afford anyways?

We're also the "Saudi Arabia" of corn too. We used to produce enough corn to feed the entire world but, since the government began pushing corn based fuels and subsidizing the agenda, edible corn is not being grown in the quantities as before.

Yes, the fields are still full of corn but, it isn't the type corn that you can pick off the stalk, cook and, eat without getting sick!
That is why a company like Monsanto can easily get it's mutated corn into the market, it's not intended for use as food!

Clowns like Obama have turned a nation that was the Saudi Arabia of food into a nation that now grows chemicals waiting to be harvested from what used to be food.
And look at the price of gas. It's supposed to be cheaper now that it's 10% corn squeezins but, government regulation has screwed that up too.
I can hardly wait to see the unintended consequences of turning the means to heat our homes into another form of fuel that will be saddled with regulation, taxed heavily and, made artificially scarce due to enviro-moonbats who use the courts and EPA as roadblocks to building processing facilities...just like with ethanol.

The Canadian tar sands pipeline should have been a no brainer for Obama to decide.
Cheaper fuel, 20,000+ new high paying jobs that never existed before being created from scratch...but he sided with the watermellon moonbats and put their agenda in front of the best interests of the country.

Killing jobs.
Making utility prices skyrocket.
Gutting the military.
Hindering commerce.
Race and envy games.

It amazes me that anyone who is watching this clown with open eyes can still stand and cheer when he claims to be "helping America".

Helping America into what, the third world?

Taking some time off to refocus

2012-01-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

It's all gone...seven years of thoughts, oppinions, debate, squabbles, agreement, good, bad and, ugly...all vaporized into cyberspace someplace.
Why?
Mainly because I'm about to change geographic locations and, the move will require my undivided attention.
Secondly, after looking back at postings I've made over the years, the blog I'd started has drifted away from what my original intent for it was.
When I started, it was about humor and politics because, Toledo's political scene has always been so corrupt that it's comical and begging to be made fun of...to the point where in order NOT to notice, you'd either have to be an idiot or, a democrat.

I'm just not seeing the humor in it anymore.

Laughing at the moonbats has been a fun distraction while they shit absurd excuses and call everyone a racist when their excuses run out.
Picking their excuses for Obama apart has been almost as challenging as beating up a kid in a wheelchair...you walk away winning the fight but, ashammed that you just beat down a retard.

In the last 7 years of blogging, I've discovered that liberals are immune from reason and reality. The only difference between them and the nuts in the nuthouse, is which side of the fence they're standing on.
Most liberals are one butterfly net away from getting that safe, secure, everybodys happy, everybodys equal, everythings paid for environment they keep dreaming of.

I'll still chime in on your sites but, won't be posting new stuff here often until my move is complete and, I'm settled into my new digs.

-Sepp