Not Necessarily Interesting News

We were out in the front yard this evening and noticed a deputy had someone pulled over down the block. Immediately after he was done he spun around and snagged someone else. We watched him over the next 1/2 hour and he ticketed 4 other people. We were rooting him on. He was parking right next to our house on the curve and would wait for some speeder to be doing their normal 45MPH in a 30 zone. In between writing tickets we dropped by and thanked him for making our neighborhood safer. He gave my son a Junior Deputy badge and made his night.

For an example of what these speeding idiots do on our street see my page of wrecks taken near my house. All of those pics were taken no farther than 50 yards from my house and is maybe half of the accidents that happen near here in a normal year.

I replaced the bent track rod on the Defender on Thursday. First thing was to jack it up and remove the tires to get to the ends of the track rod. Remove the cotter-pin and the bolt. Remove the center guard that keeps the rod from getting bent too badly so you can drive it home after a good bend and the rod pops right off. It wasn’t too bad a job other than the ends that were frozen on. It took my father standing on two monkey wrenches attached to the rod while I pulled for all I was worth on the ends with a pair of 16″ channel locks. And after all that they barely came off. The rest of the job was pretty simple. Put the caps on the new rod and drop into place. Shannon took it to PepBoys to get realigned on Friday and the job is done. As you can see by the pic it was only slightly bent. 🙂

The Defender no longer handles like a wildebeest on crack and goes where I point it. I did tear up the tires pretty badly driving it home but they were already near replacement anyways. I’ll probably be upgrading to a bit bigger BFG A/Ts here really soon.

My next job is to replace the turn signal assembly that is broken. Bump it the wrong way and the horn sounds, and keeps sounding until you pull it back out. Quite annoying in traffic. I bought the new assembly on eBay for $10. Not a bad deal.

: Gumbo from the album “Live Phish 10 – Disc 1” by Phish

I’m the 46,777,565 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

I had no idea how rich I was. Now where do I pick up my Ferrari?

I was out working at the ranch this Saturday in my Defender. I went to make a u-turn on a narrow road and dropped my front left wheel into a hole I didn’t see that was covered by weeds. I powered out of the hole no problem and went about my business. I didn’t think anything about it until a few hours later when I was driving home. As I got up to highway speeds I noticed a little wobble in the steering and a pull to the left. I pulled over and did a once over and didn’t see anything so I continued driving. Things only seemed worse. I pulled into a gas station out of the rain and crawled under. This is when I saw the damage. I had managed to bang the axle and track rod. The axle is beefy enough that no damage was done but I had bent the track rod pretty badly.

Sunday I took it to an alignment shop hoping I could get away with just an alignment. No go. The rod couldn’t be spun to adjust the alignment. I took it to a Rover guy Monday morning and he wanted about $300 to replace a $45 part and it would take 4-5 days. Um, no thanks. I ordered the part online and it’ll be here Thursday so I can replace it this weekend.

For now I’m driving my father’s really nice Jag. It is a very sweet ride and it’s for sale. If you are interested in buying a really nice Jaguar see this eBay auction.

A hilarious video of a bear that got stuck up a tree. It was in the middle of town so they decided to tranquilize it to get it out of the tree. Some smart cop decided to put a trampoline under it for our enjoyment. Look at the rebound that bear gets from that height. If you watch in slo-mo you can see the poor thing land right on his face.

: I Guess I’ll Get The Papers And Go Home from the album “An American Icon Vol. 3” by Louis Armstrong

I know it isn’t CNN’s spelling error but they posted it on their front page for all to see. C’mon, folks, it’s ‘you’re’. You are. You’re driving me nuts with your grammatical errors. See how easy that is? It’s=It is. Learn the difference between they’re, their, and there. It really isn’t that tough. *sigh*

I refer you to Bob the Angry Flower’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, you idiots.

For those out there, I’m sure, as with all grammar rants, that there is a grammatical error or two somewhere in this post. Deal with it.

What is it about this stuff? I’ve had a ChapStick addiction for many, many years now. It’s not like I have dry lips or anything but I must always have a stick in my pocket. I constantly apply the stuff throughout the day. If you were to go through my dresser drawers and medicine cabinet you’d find probably no less than a dozen sticks of it. If I’m on my way to work or at work and don’t have a stick in my pocket I’ll stop at the nearest Walgreens and grab another. I can’t go through the day without it. Trust me, I’ve tried. When I do, my lips feel all dry and cracked and nasty. I just counted, I’ve got 3 sticks on or about my person at this very moment. Do I need help? My personal favorite is the old standby of strawberry. I’ve tried their new Flava-Craze flavors but found them too fruity. I mean do you really need a flavor named ‘Blue Crazeberry’?

What’s next X-treme ChapStick? I can see it now: “Official sponsors of the X-Games. It now comes in X-treme flavas like Jumping-Jalapeno and Very-Vegan.”

Maybe I should give ChapStick a call…

If you want more info on ‘Chapstick Addiction’ see the Lip Balm Anonymous Homepage.

A Land Rover Defender, like I own, is a very capable off-road vehicle but it won’t save you from your own stupidity. This is the story of some folks who decided to cross a high mountain pass and got stuck in a snow storm. It details how they jerry-rigged their cell phone to get a signal and were subsequently rescued.

This is why when you go off the beaten path you should always go in a convoy to help each other out of ‘stucks’. The vehicle in the picture sure doesn’t look stuck so I assume it was after they rescued the Defender.

We were over at my parent’s house yesterday after trying out the new boat. On the way home we passed a middle school. I think the photo speaks for itself.

And people ask why we are home-schooling our kid.

My parents decided to buy the family a new toy this week. It’s a 22′ Seadoo Islandia jet-boat. We took it out for its maiden voyage today on Lake Travis. Since it’s brad-new I couldn’t open it all the way up. You need to break the motor in. That means 10 hours of putting around. Putting around meaning no faster than about 30M.P.H. on the water. We cruised around for a while then parked near Devil’s Cove for a swim. We can’t pull tubes or skiers until it’s broken in because we can’t over-rev the engine to get on plane really fast. We should have it broken in by next weekend and we’ll see how she tows.