Hello and Good Bye

Vehicle owners are happiest twice. Once when they buy a vehicle, and once when they sell it.

The camper is gone. Rather than cash, bartered for two items I can use.

The Savage has about 20 rounds through it. The balance of the first 50 round box came with it. Will probably have some kind of “Aimpoint” sight mounted to compensate for my macular degeneration.

The NAA is the mag version. Strictly a close in last resort tool. At my age and level of fitness I won’t be running toward a fight.

Happy camper buyers. Said they have been looking for something to pull behind their Goldwing for years. I’m happy for them.

A friend has a NAA and carries it on a neck lanyard. Says it nestles nicely between his fat “man titties”.

Do you notice the lack of certain words? That is not an accident.

Latter Day Luddite Blogger Angst

For as long as I’ve been doing this blog, all comments have come to my email address. Suddenly, no comments.

 Is it my breath?

Today I found them under “comment”. Hope I got all of them posted. Now to go through each blog and respond.  This will take awhile. Life has suddenly gotten busy.

To my knowledge, I’ve made no changes to the blog settings. Now to try to sort out what happened? That will take some patience.

STOP LAUGHING, SISTY!

Perfidious Internet?

Tyrants have forever tried to suppress and control information. A few, or sometimes many, have forever resisted. The internet has speeded the process, especially dissent.

During the reign of the Lightbringer, the complicit USA press suppressed negative information. Many of us turned to the British press, easily accessed on the internet, for contrary information.

Now the favor is returned in the case of Tommy Robinson, British subject.

ttps://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2018/05/30/the-suicide-of-europe-n2485506

Any Briton with internet access and an interest can learn about his case via USA sources, British courts be damned.

The cockles of my evil heart are warmed each time I envision the anger of the “elites” as their previsions of truth and justice are exposed.

Net neutrality my ass.

Dumb, Dumber,Dumbest

Came upon a collision Saturday that was a jowl shaker in the northbound lanes of E-470. Vehicle #1, a sub compact with the rear end smashed all the way to the front seats off the right side of the road pointing North. Two fire trucks at the scene with jaws of life at work. Vehicle #2 an old school bus with the name of a private school straddling the inside lane, facing North. Vehicle #3 a pickup pulling some kind of trailer pointed South with the demolished trailer in front of it.

Clear day, about 1450, dry road, straight but coming into a slight left turn and uphill. Speed limit 70 mph. No on ramps there but one ½ mile before the accident scene.

There were three emergency vehicles on scene with more arriving. I joined a queue of about fifteen vehicles. We went to the breakdown lane right, past debris, then around the fire trucks to the left breakdown lane, and then on our way.

I’m sure E-470 Northbound was closed soon after.

Just a note. Upper left of the Google Earth screen shot is the principal Denver landfill. Lower right the end of one of DIA’s runways.

What excuse is there for three vehicles colliding in perfect weather on one of the safest, if not THE safest, highways in the Denver area? Being an expensive toll road, E-470 isn’t heavily traveled and rarely bumper to bumper. Makes no sense to me.

People who ride with me can’t believe I won’t use a cell phone while driving. I will pull over and stop to make or take a call. Bluetooth be damned, I have voice mail, and a phone app that announced who the caller or text if from as it comes in. Texting, receiving or sending? Not only no, but hell no!

YMMV

T'aint Easy

That torture device has been in use now for nine months, on an almost daily basis. It is one of the few exercise machines that doesn’t  cause debilitating pain in my knees. Many free style exercises hurt my knees.

Every since receiving a pacemaker some time back, my physical condition has deteriorated. Per the cardio quack, my condition, bradycardia (abnormal slow heart rate) seldom happens but without the pacemaker it could be fatal. Not the heart stopping, the subsequent face plant. The pacemaker has an accessible memory.

After nine months of watching my diet and exercise, my weight is down 50 lbs. Whee, only 1/3 of the loss I need!

Coming up on my 74^th trip around the sun, I cannot expect the body to respond quickly. When I was much younger, it still took four or more months to make the physical changes I was working towards. Stubborn genes, I suppose.

300 yards from my apartment is a long term care facility I pass nearly every day. Each time I pass my motivation is bolstered.

Meditating on what day this is, I am grateful I’m still here to have these challenges.

Worthy Effort

Copied from a Facebook Posting.

Mills Police Department

May 22 at 11:31am · 

To all law enforcement agencies and officers:

A neighboring department to us had tragedy strike recently, and our chief has asked for your help.

As many of you know, two officers from the Casper Police Department were recently involved in a shooting, which left the suspect deceased, and one officer fighting for his life, after being shot five times. Officer Carlson is still in intensive care trying to recover from these life threatening wounds.

The outpouring of support from the public has been tremendous, and makes me proud to live in the State of Wyoming. The outpouring of support I have seen from the law enforcement community make me even prouder to be in this profession.

My chief had an idea, and has tasked me with getting some help from all of you. The idea is to present the officer with as many challenge coins, and patches as we can get, when he is released from the hospital. We do not know when he will be released, but it sounds like he will have a long road ahead of him.

If you, or your department would be willing to send a coin, patch or other department token to this injured brother, please send them to Chief Preciado or Detective Good at the following address:

Mills Police Department
4800 W. Yellowstone Hwy
Mills, Wyoming 82604

Also, please share this with as many departments as you can. We would like to overload him with as many coins and patches as we can.

As I said, we do not know when Officer Carlson will be release, but would like to have these soon. Thank you for all of your support, and please keep Officer Carlson in your thoughts and prayers.

I've passed this on to all my LEO relatives and friends. Perhaps you can do the same?

h/t KM-L

Careful What You Wish For

Prescription drug costs are certainly in the public interest. Can the costs be lowered? If so, how?

Today Dick Morris advocated prohibiting drug companies from advertising.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/16392cee6b193cc1

Sorry Dick, you have your head up your ass. The 1^st Amendment gives them the right to advertise. Slippery slope there, what other industry can be prohibited in the name of the flavor of the moment?

What can we, as consumers, do? For one, ask your care provider for a generic drug if that is a effective.

I’m not an advocate for tobacco products. That said, the “War” on Big Tobacco always struck me as an attack on our liberty.

YMMV

Summer Time, And The Hail Is A'coming

Time to shift my vehicle preparations. 

The frost screen stays in back of  the seat to go over the sun shade.

 

If hail is on the way, the sun shade, mounted outside, saves the windshield. The frost screen goes over the sun shade to keep it in place.

May 22, 2008 a tornado passed over Windsor, CO. A truck I owned was nearby and beaten up by softball sized hail.

That started me considering ways to minimize damage.

Body dents don’t bother me but glass replacement often exceeds what the vehicle is worth when you  are as cheap as I am. Not to mention not being able to drive anywhere with a spider web windshield.

Mt. St. Helens

Flying into an ash plume as a passenger on a Northwest Airlines B-727 wasn’t on my bucket list in 1981. Mt. St Helens blew on May 18, 1980. In the following months, smaller eruptions from time to time would send ash plumes several thousand feet high. Prevailing winds from the West sent the plumes away from the coast.

Returning from Portland to Seattle one afternoon, the mountain was active. Sometime during our taxi and departure the wind shifted and the plume drifted toward the ocean. Typical Portland weather, overcast with tops around 12,000. Somehow we flew into the ash plume.

Being an airline passenger as a General Aviation pilot is a mixed blessing. You can enjoy the view and the ride but detect problems much sooner than the other passengers.

On this flight I was puzzled we hadn’t broken out of the overcast. Usual flights to Seattle climbed to 19,000 or so.  Then we descended below the clouds and appeared to be on a base leg for landing at Olympia, WA. Another course change and we headed North at about 2,000 AGL. Very strange! No cabin announcements. The plane landed at Sea-Tac and taxied to the gate.

I made it a point to walk where I could see the 727. There was no paint on the nose or the engine inlets. The cockpit windows appeared to be frosted. I think the crew earned their pay that day!

Bitching

While making no claims for great intellect, I am irritated by laziness and stupidity. Previous posts have detailed problems with my camping trailer.

For curiosity sake, I put an ad on Craigslist. Included were several pictures and a YouTube link showing a similar trailer being unfolded and set up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzjW9ZnxsXw

 Pictures included were of  my trailer erected and pictures of the broken attachment.

A price was included along with a, “Will trade for IIA items”. Craigslist frowns on firearm sales.

Responses? Questions as to what IIA means. I answer, “2  Amendment”. Then a follow up question as to what 2 Amendment means. WTF????

Latest response.

“Hi, I’m interested in your trailer. Can you give me more information?”

 I haven’t responded. Gad, reminds me of stupid people at the car lot.

My youngest son made a snarky remark on my Facebook page about JB Weld, floor jacks, and redneck repairs. Can’t bitch slap him 1200 miles away but he started me thinking about epoxy and a metal bar. Take the bracket off the frame, epoxy it on top of a metal strip, then epoxy the metal strip to the frame. 

You can take the boy off the ranch but ……………

I want to keep the trailer. The problem is the design is not stout enough for the places I like to go. Maybe I’ll go back to the air mattress in the back of the pickup.

My luck with RVs isn’t the best. Bought this gem, perfect for my needs, but couldn’t keep it running.

My late buddy, Dirty Al Imhoff, gave me a 32’ Southwind after he bought a Prevost. That threw a rod in the Columbia Gorge. 

Around 1999, bought  a 26’ bumper pull.  My youngest son lived in it for two years. That got sold after he moved out because, used car whore I am, a large gross profit turns me to jelly.

Oh well, all the turmoil is keeping me out of the bars.

Well, Shoot!

100 year old story from the local newspaper. Side note. Colorado embraced Prohibition while Wyoming didn't until national prohibition was imposed.

A Ford flivver, a plane Henry Ford called "the Model-T of the air," crashed into a slow-moving Cadillac east of Greeley before dawn this morning, and 200 bottles of booze in the Cadillac were destroyed. The Cadillac was being driven without headlights. The police were called, but the driver of the Cadillac went on to Denver without waiting to be arrested.

Imagine the conversation that followed between the pilot and the bootlegger.

Fliver?

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/07/henry-fords-flying-flivver-the-model-t-of-the-air/

Blessed Rain

Ten days ago this spot was nearly all brown. Amazing the way the range can spring to life. For a few days we don’t need to worry about range fires or blowing dust.

Was in fog most of the day. I was getting paid but this owner wasn’t.

Saw several pronghorn and feral horses getting their bellies full of new green foliage. Even a few bison at the Monkey Ranch on Nebraska 71.  Good day, if  you had to work.

Always there seems to be a spoiler. Getting to work involved doging a driver with her head down and looking to her right. Wish I could have sent her this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v739ZJb-Ibw

YMMV

Did notice the price of diesel in Wyoming has jumped 38 cents a gallon in ten days. Gas, about eight cents.

100 Year Old Lessons

Today’s (P)regressives with their determination to stifle any opposing views have much in common with those living during the “Great War”.

Part of my reading is articles from 100 year old newspapers gathered by various historians. Some examples.

 To make sure there is no hoarding of essential food, all citizens having in their possession more than 100 pounds of wheat flour and/or sugar are required to send a report to the Federal Food Administrator in Sheridan.

John Hammergreen, a Swede claiming to be a personal friend of the kaiser, is in jail at Sheridan and his new gun with which he drunkenly intended “to kill himself a policeman” has been confiscated. 

John Miller, who declared his love and loyalty to the kaiser while at a store in Cody, is in jail for 63 days—an extended sentence after he refused to pay his fine. 

Two foreigners who refused to subscribe to the Liberty Loan drive “because they would be hanged for it when they return to the old country,” were tarred and feathered by the patriotic citizens of Frontier. 

All 200 coal miners at Gebo, 90% of them foreign-born, have entered into an agreement to pay 2% of their wages to the Red Cross and other patriotic organizations. No man is permitted to work at the camp if he does not own a Liberty Bond.

A Bulgarian coal miner working in Erie disparaged the Red Cross to his fellow miners, and they stripped him, painted him yellow and rolled him in straw, which stuck to his body. He was then left at his home. He was not a bad sport about it, made no outcry and said he'd purchased a Red Cross Liberty Bond.

This is a small sampling.

The entry into WWI lead to near mob rule and government agencies blowing by constitutional rights, all with the enthusiastic approval of the MSM of the times, the newspapers.

 If it not for the internet being an unfettered place for opposing views and a means to mobilize resistance, would the same not be true today?

Well Shucky Darn

After the Parkland shooting, I renewed my lapsed memberships in the NRA and GOA. I have “issues” with both organizations but felt, “All hands on deck to repel boarders”. Not a time to quibble.

Now the NRA elects this dude president.

All I will say is, not my president.

YMMV, and you are most certainly entitled to your opinion, as am I.

Abort! Abort! Return to Base

Just a few miles into the trip to Maybell, CO a portion of the trailer separated from the frame. The previous owner had “fixed” this once.

The trailer, made in Denmark in 1958, has seen some hard miles.

Channeled my inner ranch kid and secured the trailer to the frame with a ratcheting tie down. Gave some thought to continuing but decided the prudent action was to return to base. Shocking, I know.

 WSF being prudent!

Will miss seeing all the clan. Won’t miss all the, “Hi. Is Colleen (my sister) with you?” A not too subtle reminder of my place in the clan favorite matrix.

Maybe next year.

One of my buddy Santa Claus' sons is an oilfield welder. Paul will have him look at it and see what can be done. Decision time.

Damn, I have a lot of challenges with RV’s.

While I was futzing around in a turn out area, a man came up and made a welfare inquiry. Said they saw me on my back and were concerned. Nice of them, I thought.

It has been so long since I’ve rigged a ratcheting tie down, after five tries, I got out the instructions.

Damn, frayed the corners of my man card today.

Can You Fix Stupid?

Message on a Wyoming I-25 reader board.

“61% of Wyoming fatalities weren’t wearing a seat belt”.

Isn’t there a sarcastic saying, “We can buy them books but all they do is eat the covers”?