North Park Assignment

                40°57’26.05”N 106°15’28.85”W  Elev 9;093

                To 40°26’59.83”N 106°12’17.63”W Elev 8,865

 

My client wanted me to do an assignment in Walden, CO that they were willing to pay for 124 miles automobile expense. I declined, citing the route was up and down slot canyons and a high mountain pass. Further, I said when I go to that town I go by way of Laramie, WY and the route is 161 miles (which is also 20 minutes faster, driving time).

They then asked me if I would do the assignment if they paid me for 161 miles. I said, “yes”. Much to my surprise, I was given the assignment.

My acceptance was along the lines of, “Shucks, I thought your supervisor would say, “No”. Now I’m stuck doing it. Per feedback, that caused much laughter in their office.

Friday I did the assignment. Luckily, I was able to do two other assignments on the return trip for a total distance of 350 miles. A profitable day.

North Park was formed by an ice dam several thousand years ago and faint outlines of the ancient shoreline can still be seen. The waters drain into the North Platte River near Saratoga, WY.

ATTN: “Earth Guardians

Graze it, log it, or watch it burn.

Cute

Walden

A small town that somehow survives on tourists, hunters, logging, oil drilling, local ranchers and isolation from any big towns.

The local rodeo has taken place during a snow storm.

I took some time to pay my respects to maternal relatives resting here.

In my youth I spent many summers working relative’s hay fields.

Wyoming Gas Price

Gives firearms owners a bad name – Jerks!

Guts and Determination

A branch railroad  connecting to the Union Pacific mainline in Wyoming operated here for almost one hundred years. Today we can admire the grit of those railroaders. To them it was probably just a job of work coping with blizzards, sub zero temperatures  and rock slides.

Fall Colors

This doesn’t look like a great year for fall colors. Most of the aspen have lost their leaves and the cottonwoods aren’t much.

US 287

Transitioning from Wyoming into Colorado.

Proud Grandfather

From Facebook

Cadet LCDR White and I attended the annual Military Officer Association of America dinner tonight at the Piedmont club in Spartanburg, SC.

Cadet White gave an awesome 5 minute speech on the unit and her plans for the future. Cadet White gave a Very Impressive speech and the audience loved her.

Great Job CO !!!

Senior this year and an honor student since 1^st Grade. She is in the marching band, too. Her older brother is in the South Carolina National Guard as a 5^th generation soldier. Younger brother is now in the marching band but is, alas, far from honor student status. He is just a good hearted kid and that is ok with me.

Camp Hale

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/biden-designates-camp-hale-continental-divide-national-monument-preserving-history-and-conserving-precious-landscapes/

Last Wednesday FJB locked up 53,804 acres of public land with no regard for existing water rights, grazing permits, or public access to public lands. Since the US Government stole the land from ranchers Frank and Pauline Byers one could say nothing has changed.

Where was someone with a 81mm mortar?  

As always, YMMV

Mid Term Elections

Cliché: Elections have consequences. Seems the (P)regressives will have a harder time stealing the midterms than the Presidential election.

https://www.greeleytribune.com/2022/10/10/colorado-election-deniers-clerks-voting-fraud/?utm_email=2324337475602411D46EA5DA6A&g2i_eui=Lx4rIdmvnRa7A%2bqYE6zWoV9Xr2DQfA63

Seen to recall reporting recently our Clerk and Recorder was looking for election judges and poll watchers. Strange.

The “reporter” can claim, with some justification, he wrote a fair and balanced piece. The fair and balanced part is several paragraphs down and the sensational (P)regressives buzz words fill the first paragraphs. How many will read the whole piece?

At least he refrained from quoting the Southern Preposterous Lie Center.

As always, YMMV.

A Canary in the Financial Coal Mine

Democrats buying votes is getting closer to biting all of us in the ass, IMO.

Starting with Willy Wanker,  we had the sub-prime debacle.  2008 was when the shit really hit the fan.

The side effects killed the used car business, at least for me, and I started a new career securing abandoned/foreclosed homes. Turn off water, drain pipes, change locks, board up windows, and write reports along with many digital photographs. Many houses still had furniture and personal belongings that I sub-contracted to a couple who ran a second hand store to clean out. Not the most uplifting work but I had bills to pay.

A few years ago as a part time job, I became, legally, a debt collector. The essence of the job is to deliver the borrower a letter from the mortgage company encouraging them to pay attention to their delinquency. I take a few photos and submit a short report.

During the COVID nonsense the work was a trickle. Now it is a flood.

Last month I was paid for 30 jobs. Already this month I’ve been paid for 32 jobs, have 12 pending payment, and have six current assignments with just 1/3 of the month gone. (The payment schedule is convoluted so I’m doing averages here)

I’ve been forewarned by the dispatcher that, due to some HUD programs changing, much more work will be coming after the first of the year.

I do not seek out information, beyond a current phone number, from the people I contact. First, I don’t get paid to do it, and second, I don’t want to get embroiled.

During the 2008 crash, a common practice was for the mortgagee to start stashing cash and seeing how long they could live in the house without making payments. They recognized their credit was trashed so they went into a survival mode. I will guess that is happening again.

Most likely, these folks aren’t aware of some of the provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act which will allow banks to save themselves by seizing their customers accounts to include safe deposit boxes.

The last place I will ever have assets is with a commercial bank. Credit Unions are safer – different rules and less risky lending practices. Safer, of course, isn't safe.

The (P)regressives running the Democrat Party are making money out of thin air; buying votes. A Ponzi on an epic scale.

Many people more knowledgeable than me are warning of a complete financial meltdown. I fear the warnings are correct. How bad will it be?

As always, YMMV

For anyone wandering by from the Sequin, Texas area a cousin is running for the school board. Solid man, retired Master Chief whose career didn't have soft jobs. Please check him out.

Cheapskate Ways

 During the car biz years my mantra was, “I give car payments, I don’t make them”.  In fact, the last time I had a car payment was 1984.

Over the years so many cars and trucks have passed through my paws I can’t remember all of them. Being a white trash mechanic, making repairs was what kept me from spending real money on something to haul my ever expanding butt down the highway.

Another factor was my 26 year marriage to a complete mechanical nitwit.

  “Honey, the red light came on in the car so I turned around and came home while it was still running. I made it but the car sounds funny”.

Location where she first noticed the light was nearly fifty miles from our house.

    “Honey, the car isn’t running right. After I stopped at Sinclair and filled the tank it barely made it up the hill”.

 That happens when you put gasoline into the tank of a diesel powered vehicle.

 Should I mention her night blindness? Her dozen pair of glasses she could never find? The wrecks she had driving at night without her glasses?

Age has caught up with me and I no longer can physically do much in the way of repairs. Add I am more of a parts changer than a mechanic.

I use a mobile mechanic now. Last weekend the rear brake pads needed replacing and the caliper pistons were frozen. It took two days to get new calipers. Gee, just because the car is 27 years old is no reason for the parts store not to have parts sitting on the shelf!

Total cost was less than one month’s car payment.

With only 198,000 on the odometer I should be good for many more miles. That GM 3800 V-6 has to rank high among durable engines. Too bad many of their other engines are crap.

Cheapskate that I am, I still adhere to my Dad’s words of wisdom.

   “Grease is cheaper than machinery”.

Sisty recently stepped up and bought a Kia Sorento off the showroom floor. As an insurance adjuster in demand for her skills investigating truck accidents, she needs AWD and the ability to go at all hours and weather conditions. She has written wavier from Wyoming to travel on closed highways. Too many times she needs it.

Her new ride is impressive and I’m happy for her. Also, happy I don’t have the monthly stroke.

Yes, from time to time my cheapskate ways bite me in the ass. I’ve learned to live with it.

 As always, YMMV

 

Cobalt, EVs and Unicorns

My apologies in advance for not extracting the pertinent information from the many links in this post. Blame it on Latter Day Luddite computer skills.

Electric vehicles are the coming thing according to the (P)regressives and evironazis.  Not so fast Bucky. Buried in Xiben’s master plan is a smoke and mirrors “tax Incentive”. Those vehicles require batteries of which 40% must include minerals sourced in the USA. Those quantities don’t exist!

https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-bill-would-create-roadblock-for-full-ev-tax-credit/

Key point. The climate deal struck yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin would significantly expand consumer tax credits for electric vehicles by offering a $7,500 tax credit to people buying an EV made with a certain percentage of minerals mined or processed in nations with U.S. free trade agreements, or recycled in North America.

But there’s a catch: The EV supply chain required for the tax credit doesn’t exist.

Minerals required to make market-ready EV batteries — lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel — are primarily mined, refined and processed in China and Russia or in less adversarial nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia that aren’t parties to U.S. free trade agreements (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

Should your stomach tolerate it, here is the official White House bill of goods.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/14/fact-sheet-president-bidens-economic-plan-drives-americas-electric-vehicle-manufacturing-boom

One of several key materials needed for the batteries is cobalt. While batteries can be made without cobalt, they then operate at higher temperatures which decreases efficiency (and increase the risk of fires).

Go EV and support child slavery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJ8me22NVs&ab_channel=SkyNews

Develop our own sources? Not that easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXEjBXp0lPY&ab_channel=ABCNews

Another metal needed is lithium. We have a potential domestic source. From an older blog.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5926528617816553064/2737377660155309278

Why would we want to exploit this source? The existing infrastructure (highways, railroad) are nearby. A skilled labor pool of experienced workers doing similar work is in place. The raw materials needed for the extraction process is nearby in large quantities from mining operations operating for decades.

To answer my own question, too many rice bowls will be broken and the owners of those bowls wield vast influence.

Enter now a key player, the Environment Protection Agency. While some estimates place the number of lawyers in the agency at 1,000, the agency officially acknowledges 185. How many mining engineers?  One clue is a letter from 2015 in response to the Gold King Mine mitigation disaster.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-12/documents/gkmaddendumattachment3.pdf

This is our reality. The regulatory oversight is so burdensome ten years is the expected time for securing all the required sign offs. Large sums must be invested by the private sector with payback measured in decades. At anytime the political winds may change and the projects halted.

“If you build it, they will come” might work for baseball. That is no guarantee for anything else. My take is the environazis pushing this agenda believe, if there is no other choice, people will make it happen. Personally, I can envision other outcomes.

As many other bloggers have pointed out, the generating capacity needed to charge all those batteries doesn’t exist and will take decades to create. Even if enough electricity is available to individual house (people will want to charge overnight) those homes were never wired to handle the amperes need. How many people will sit for an hour at some charging station? There are many charging stations I drive by and I seldom see any in use.

As always, YMMV

Triangulation

You may wish to clutch your pearls as I’m about to say something praising Bill Clinton.

 The current political climate is uglier than anything I remember. The strident personal attacks and rigid ideology positions is dividing our country in ways I never imagined.

 Clinton faced big problems after 1994 with the election massacre of the Democrat candidates and the Republican control of Congress. He turned to triangulation, which Dick Morris claimed credit.  It worked by sidelining the extreme wings of both parties. We need something like this now, IMO, before our country implodes.

 For all I bitch about (P)regressive trust fund snots I recognize they have strongly held beliefs that should be respected. On the other spectrum you have the Lauren Boeberts on the right . Their strongly held beliefs should be respected.

Triangulation is a way for a compromise all can live with, grudgingly, instead of the current climate where one side believes, rightfully, they are disrespected and positions anathema  to their beliefs are shoved down their throats.

My hope is the midterm elections will bring something of a balance and more level headed politicians will use triangulation to get our country moving forward.

As always, YMMV

Aimless Wandering

OCD

If you are afflicted this post may not suit you as it is an aimless ramble.

352 Miles

The company that employees me as an agent often can’t find people willing to travel outside their self imposed comfort zone. Me? If the money is right I will go most anywhere. Monday was a trip through Northeast Colorado and the Nebraska Panhandle, returning by way of Cheyenne.

Highway 34/Weld County Road 49

Blocked this morning by  truck vs car crash. Not uncommon and I know the detours so my delay was minimal.

Briggsdale

Being dead center in the oil patch, and the only place for miles, this place does a brisk business. They make their own burritos in the back and I’m a sucker. The food plan goes out the window.

Pawnee National Grasslands

Bladder call, and I noticed this plant in the ditch. There were several along the road. I can’t remember noticing one before and I don’t know what it is. Any ideas?

Chimney Rock

Alongside the highway between Bridgeport and Gering/Scottsbluff this was an important landmark for wagon train travelers. I’m too cheap to pay the $20 admission to view it close up.

Good Excuse

When nobody answers the door I leave an envelope taped to the door with the owner(s) name and stamped CONFIDENTIAL.  As I was taking my notes a young lady across the street, retrieving her garbage cans called out, “Sir, you won’t get a response. He passed away”. Just a guess on my part but that might be why the payments are in arrears.

Things seen

There is always something interesting to see in most small towns.

Banner News

Now ten years old, he has a lot of gray hair. Next month is his annual physical. Poor dog, he will require several shots and a new rabies shot. Along with a year’s supply of heart worm medicine, it won’t be a cheap visit. He is worth it.

Delayed Hike

I think we will wait for colder weather before exploring this area.

Should you make it this far, thank you for reading. Perhaps the muse may visit me and something more pointed will get written, probably political.

I feel blessed that I can still, at 78, do useful and productive work. The knees hate stairs and the bladder rules the clock but I can still work around the challenges.