A Redo In The Makin's

We went to my Dads house for a dinner to celebrate his 67th bithday. One of my brothers made some tacos with shrimp, chicken and beef. Way good too. We sat around and shot the breeze for a few hours, nothing big. Every body had a good time.
I had mentioned earlier that I was going to something for Dad for his birthday. I can say, or rather, write what it is now. He had acquired a Winchester 30/30 some time ago. It was a nice pre-64 Winchester with the really bright and shiny bluing on the receiver and a real jen- you- wine walnut stock. Some how the gun ended up under a bed, near a window and the window was left open during a rain storm. Uh hu.That's right water and steel don't mix real well. The gun ended up with a rather large patch of rust on the barrel and magazine tube. I checked it out last night when I got home and the rust has already started some pitting. So here's the deal. I'm going to re-blue the barrel, magazine tube and lever. The receiver is still bright and shiny and I don't have the ability to produce that kind of shine or color of blue. I'll also refinish the wood as it is sticky with something or other. Nicotine is most likely the culprit but who knows. I do a really nice job on wood refinishing so I'm gonna do that too.
So after getting it home last night I removed the rust and coated everything in Rem Oil until I can get time to work un-interrupted on it. It'll be lookin' good when I get it done.

New Venture Update

OK, for some reason Blogger added blogger to the URL of our website for the Thrive products. It's fixed now. Sorry for the issue and THANKS!

A New Venture

With the job situation as it is, particularly me being out of work for nearly 3 years now, my wife and I have started a new venture.
With the ever rising cost of food and the uncertainty of the political scene around the world, we decided to become distributors of the products offered by Shelf Reliance. This fine organization produces high quality freeze dried and dehydrated food. We looked at our household grocery expenses and found that we were actually throwing away at least 15 percent of what we bought. Uneaten left overs, spoiled food and out of date products all take a toll on our grocery budget. With the freeze dried products we can use only what we need at the moment. And no more worry about shelf life. An unopened can of freeze dried food is good for 25 years or even more. Once opened they have a shelf life of a year. We have our first personal order on it's way now. I will be giving reports on how our life changes after we start using this food every day.
We have been to 3 Shelf Reliance Thrive parties where we got a chance to taste dishes made from their food, such as salsas, chicken quesadilla's and tacos. We also got to try some of the food that has not been rehydrated. The sweet corn is like eating candy. My wife is really sold on the pineapple chunks and strawberries. I like the raspberries and black berries.

I also look at is as excellent preparedness food. Great tasting, high nutritional content and a long shelf life. Please take the time to look at our web page and check out some of the products. I'm sure you will be as impressed with the food as we are.
www.TempyCarder.shelfreliance.com

The Water, The Tractor and The Dad

Today I went and did some shopping for some basics and then off to Healthy Life Choices for a few gallons of Kangen water. If you have not heard of the benefits of Kangen water, ask around. I have seen several locals that had cancer. After changing their diet and drinking Kangen water they defeated their cancer. One lady had stage 3 breast cancer. She did the diet change and started using Kangen water, one year later she is cancer free. Her doctor is amazed. So, at our house all we drink, well mostly as I still like some bourbon now and again, is Kangen water.

I got to try out the new to me lawn tractor today. Yesterday, I installed the mower deck and charged the battery overnight. Today I mowed up all the leaves. I was very impressed with my new tractor. It's a Cub cadet 2185. In a couple days I'll take the mower off and put the snow blade on as most of the leaves have fallen and the grass ain't growin' no more this year.

Dad's birthday is this week and I'm going to do something special for him but, as he is reader I can't let the cat out of the bag.

A Cut Above

As we all know, times are getting very difficult for many of us. Prices are up for nearly every thing we need to continue our very survival. I can handle most of these increases but some seem way out of line. Things like the announced Jiff peanut butter increase of 60 percent. Or even the little things like razors.
The razor issue is what has been setting me off lately. I have a Gillette that uses 3 blade cartridges. It does give a nice shave. The problem is when I go to buy new cartridges. 3 or 4 packs are 12-25 dollars. That's right. A large chunk of money for razor refills.
I friend and I were discussing this and I commented that I was going to start using an old style safety razor. He said he had just started and got his razor and blades at Walgreens. So, off I go. Walgreens just had a reset. They no longer carry the safety razors. They have the blades but not the actual razor body. I went to Wally World, no luck but I did meet another guy tht was angry at the cartidge price and he too was looking to go old school in the shaving department. We went to Kansas City to a larger Walgreens, no luck there either. At these large drug store I saw shaving brushes, shaving soaps, stypic pencils, bump stoppers but not a razor to be found. I'm looking, I'm thinking, the wheels are turning, the gears are grinding. We made it home later that evening and off I went to dig through my fairly large collection of knives. AH AH! I found it, an antique straight razor. Wow, and it's still sharp too. I then watched online videos of people using a weapon such as this to shave their face the "manly way". In the end I'm ordering a strop and some strop treatment. If I can get pictures to load on this laptop I'll show the equipment. So, wish my face some luck.

THANKS!

I would be remiss if I didn't thank the new followers of this little blog. Thanks folks!

Bad Child, baad!

Ok, I've got the sheet rock hung and the chimney re-gooped. We'll see what happens with the next rain.

This morning I signed up for another gun give away. Maybe one day I'll get that magic email. I don't have high hopes for that though. The last time I actually won anything I was in preschool. I used to watch this local kiddy show on TV in the mornings. They had a contest and my good mother signed me up for it. I won! The prize was a giant cardboard tootsie roll filled with little tootsie rolls and other candies as well as .......a battery operated boat. I was happily gorging on candy and playing with my boat in the bathtub when my little rat bastard brother came in and sank the boat. It no workee no more. Mad as hell. That was the last time I won anything. My brother broke that particular thread in my life. Thanks bro. One day maybe I'll forgive him for that. HAHHAHA! We're both well over the age of forty and that has been forgiven for a long time.
We lived in the country at that time, off of Route O in Ray county. My folks got us a dog, a Border Collie. The folks told me they were used to herd sheep so I named him Baba since sheep make that sound. I loved Baba and Baba loved me. I was, shall we say, a very active little boy. I remember doing something that I wasn't supposed to do and mom came outside to whip me for it. As soon as she touched me, that dog o'mine growled, bared his teeth and advanced on mom. Mom retreated to the house and I laid there with that dog just smiling. I learned a very valuable lesson that day. After that mom had to get real creative on how she lured me into the house for any whippin's I had coming. And I had a lot coming. And by a lot I mean a whole bunch of 'em.

The Moose Is On The Loose

Cherries mom passed early this morning. She was up all night with her mother and is sleeping now. Please keep her in your thoughts.

While she was spending time with her family I worked on some cooking and several computer issues. I got the chocolate mousse done and made some raspberry chocolate sauce to put in the bottom of the dish and drizzle over the top. It tastes like a slice of heaven. Light, fluffy and chocolaty. It will definitely be on the Thanksgiving menu.

I did not get the sheet rock hung as planned. It started to actually rain and the damn roof started leaking again. So I placed buckets and containers at all the drips and sat and pondered my situation. This morning I went to to the Super Duper Home Improvement Center and picked up a five gallon can of roof sealer. I hurried home and put about 3 gallons of goop around the chimney before today's rain moves in. So, I sit here with fingers crossed and a ladder waiting. One of these days I'll get around to posting some shit that matters, but 'til then this is what you get.

Busy Morning

I got up to be greeted by a dreary sky with a promise of rain, one of my favorite kind of days. I called Cherry Pie and found that she diverted to her mothers today instead of going to work. Her mother is in bad shape with cancer and the overnight nurse called her. The nurse says 12-24 hours for her. So that's how her day has been so far. As for me, I have moved the desk top computer off the table we're using for a desk at this time, then moved the laptop to the desk and hooked up the peripherals. The desk top had a fan quit and the mother board over heated. The CPU will only come on for about 15 seconds now. Great. I have years of information stored on that machine. Then I did the daily housekeeping while running a couple of different cleaning style programs on the laptop. Had a meatloaf sandwich for lunch and have started making some chocolate mousse for an epicurean experiment that may become a Thanksgiving dessert. Next I need to hang some sheet rock. Gotta go for now.

Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout?

So we have 14 freakin' meeellion folks out of work, the last week of October saw another 397,000 new unemployment claims and only 80,000 new jobs were created. Yet the .gov and news outlets say that unemployment dropped from 9.1 percent to 9 percent. Now I'm not a mathmatical wizard but it seems to me these numbers don't add up. By the way that 397K is only the 2nd time in 5 months that the number has been below 400K. Forgive me for being pessimistic but something doesn't smell right....

What kind Of Interface? Or A Tale of Two Leaks

After Yesterday's cold front passed and the rain moved on we have a cool, clear blue sky morning.
We are living in a house that we bought at foreclosure. It needed a lot of work but I'm pretty handy and the price was CHEAP. The two main concerns with a house that needs a lot of work are the foundation and the roof. Both are big money items that can cause a large dent in the account. With the exception of a small place on the roof both items appeared good. We had several rains last spring and summer and they revealed a roof leak that terminated in the houses entry. Great. We spent quite a while chasing the leak and finally found a roof vent that had a really crappy installation. Last Sunday I pulled some shingles off, tore out the roof vent, replaced some roof decking, installed a new roof vent and re-shingled the area. Good to go. Last night the rains moved in, light sprinkles followed by a drizzle of several hours. The repairs I made proved rain tight, however, the rain revealed other leaks. Now we had several rains earlier in the year and these places showed up but we applied some roofing tar to the roof/chimney interface (how do you like that phrase) and that leak stopped. So last night the rci started leaking again. Like it has never done before. Towels, buckets and tubs were all employed in catching the intruding rain water. So, here we are in the first week of November. There won't be many good roofing days to come. So, the first warm day we have, I'm climbing back up on the roof with a 5 gallon bucket of sealant and plastering the living shit out of the that damn thing. If that gets us through the winter( remember that song " If We Make It Through December") I'll tear off everything around the chimney and start fresh. Oh, to add fuel to my internal fire, after my ride yesterday morning I found that the base gaskets supplied with the cylinders I installed on my Harley are CRAP. So this winter I get to remove the top end of the motor and install new base gaskets. A blown base gasket is what started this whole rebuild in the first place. Of course, I wasn't in the best of moods last night, but we have a whole new day before us.

Cold and Wet, Hot and Buttery

I got up this morning to see a cloudy 60 degrees. Got dressed, fired up the Harley and headed out. It was a beautiful ride. I got about 40 miles north of home and hit a wall, a wall of wind and cold. I crossed over to the interstate and high tailed it back home. The rain finally hit and the temperature is dropping slowly. A Northwest wind of about 25 is driving cold rain. What to do? Break out the makin's and crank out a pot of hot, buttery potato soup. Fry up some smoked bacon, ya know, for crumblin' in the soup and to give me bacon grease to, all you doctors cover your eyes now, pour into the soup. Only 2 or 3 tablespoons. It's the little things that make the difference.
And you know what? I was packing heat the whole time. You should too.

All Saints Evening and The Holy Grail

Well, we survived another All Saints Night or Halloween. The new neighborhood has 6 kids residing here or rather, 6 kids get on the bus in front of my house each morning. 'Course, I was at a meeting and Cherry Pie was at her mothers tending her and attending a family meeting. So with us gone and the dog in the front yard we have no idea of how many trick or treaters even walked by.

I've been going once a month to listen to a knowledgeable man speak about alternative health care. The first meeting I attended was about a new product hitting the market called Product B. This is a blend of natural ingredients that stimulates your body to produce more of it's own stem cells. If you have been paying attention to the health news for the last several years, stem cells have been the Holy Grail of the medical industry. This product is based on the research the two woman did and received a Nobel Prize for. Right now there are 31 ingredients in this pill. As their research continues there may be more ingredient added to it. The stories of it's efficacy are astounding. Cherry and I are going to sign up to be dealers and I am going to be the guinea pig for all the folks I know.

TSA and Tennesee

So now that all the rumblings over getting a quasi sexual groping to board a plane are quieted, the TSA has now moved to the surface streets. Tennessee has become the first state to start TSA check points on highways. It's not enough that they have to subject every flying passenger to a Fourth Amendment violating search and/or feel up. Now they want to impede your right to travel freely without being subject to illegal warrantless searches. The pictures I've seen also show a couple of very fit men wearing ACU combat fatigue uniforms. Uniforms that have no visible identifying patches or insignia. They are also sporting the ever so popular black wraparound sunglasses to complement their desert sand boots. So the question is... are these Fourth Amendment violation also violating Posse Comitatus too? See for yourself.




See all the nice TSA rat bastards in their blue and black uniforms? See the two military appearing dudes on the left? They appear to be standing "at ease". Feet a shoulder width apart. Hands clasped behind their backs. Where have we seen this pose before other than the Boy Scouts and the Royal Rangers. Who are they? Will they becoming to a "theatre near you" soon? Keep your eyes peeled. If you do a tiny bit of looking online, you can find the video of an actual search that shows one of these mystery men taking part in a vehicle check point.

It's Lookin' Good?

After doing some looking around the good ol' www it seems thing are not looking so great...still.
The One Acting As President has finally decided that he should try and do something about the jobs issue. I mean since it's time for electioneering and all that. So he rolls out a jobs campaign. Then Senate killed the dang thang as there were to many onerous, or should I say, odoriferous parts to it. So the blame game and finger pointing continues.

I see that jobless claims are over 400,000 for the umpteenth month in a row. Supposedly employers have added 72,000 jobs (i don't know where) a month over the last 5 months. The country needs something like 100,000 jobs created every month just to keep up with population growth. So the unemployment still hovers at 9.1 percent.
Then I found that there are over 26 MILLION people that are under employed or actively seeking work. I have seen no numbers for the long term unemployed though I'm sure it's high.
The next thing I found was that the misery index is at it's highest since 1983. How the hell you measure misery , I don't know, but they claim to be able to. Anyway they say it's at 13. What ever.
All I know is that even though I haven't had meaningful employment in 3 years I have enough stuff to keep me busy. We live in a paid for home(it still needs a little work), my truck is paid for, my Harley is paid for, we have food in the pantry and in the basement. My wife works in an industry that seemingly will never fail. We have not always made the best decisions in life but we made the good ones that count at this time. A roof over our head and a deep larder with plenty of beans, bullets and band-aids. And so, we just keep on keepin' on.

The HD Is Up And Runnin'!

FINALLY! My Harley is up and runnin'! I'm going though that ever so dull break-in process right now. The urge to twist the wick is greater every day. But to ensure a good, long life motor I gotta take is easy for the first 500 miles, then I can go a little harder for the next 500 then it it's full on. I can't express how good it is to be back on two wheels. Right now all indications are that it will be a real good engine with a shit load of torque. I believe that next spring I'll make a run to the east coast to see the new grand daughter. Right now though, it's slow and easy. A few more miles every day.
Here's all we did to my ride:

• Bore cases to accept bigger jugs taking it to 88 inches



• Install Truett and Osbourne TorqueMonster flywheels connected with S&S shafts



• Recondition the old rods



• Balance and true the rotating assembly



• Take .o45" off the heads resulting in a compression ratio real close to 10:1



• Install 1.6 inch intake valve



• Install heavy weight valve springs by Isky



• Install an Andrews model 59 cam with .560 inch of lift



• Install an Ultima ignition

Machine work was done by Larson Machine...816-877-1909

Parts from Hyatt's Custom Cycle...816-699-2434

Parts and assembly by KC Cycle Service ...816-591-1731

If you are in the Kansas City region and need work done on your scoot give these folks a call.

Jeep Hope is Closer

Yesterday I had expressed a hope that Chrysler would start building the prototype JT compact truck or the modern version of the Scrambler. Well, last night I got my newest copy of 4wheel and Off Road magazine and while perusing it's pages found a snippet that had a picture of something similar to the JT. Apparently you can use your 4 door Wrangler unlimited or buy one then buy this $5,499 dollar kit to create what Jeep dubs as the JK8. If your not real handy with tools your dealer can perform the transformation. No telling what that would cost. So, shell out 12 to 30 thousand dollars for a used Wrangler Unlimited. Tack on 5,500 for the kit and most likely an astronomical amount for the dealer to install the kit. Woohoo, what a deal. NOT!

There is another way of doing a JT/Scrambler build. Cough up around 13,000 bucks for a Brute kit that actually lengthens the frame of the vehicle. So once again we are looking a very expensive conversion. Using it though, you or your fabricator can end up with something like this.

I like the Brute kit better but it does take a lot more fabrication skills than most people posses. Using purchased skilled labor will send the cost through the roof and that goes for the JK8 too. So, we are back to spending what today amounts to a small fortune to create a compact 2 door 4x4 truck.
If there is enough demand for these kits, both the JK8 and the Brute, isn't that enough demand for Chrysler/Jeep to bring the JT to fruition and deliver a factory made fully warranted vehicle?

Vacations. On who's Dime?

After a lawsuit to get the information we now know that the First Ladies trip to Africa cost over 432,000 dollars. She listed her children as senior staff. With her mother and their rest of her entourage, 21 people went to Africa on our dime. The 432, 000 is only the cost of the plane and bulk food bought for the trip.
You and I can scarcely leave town yet She can take her kids to freakin' Africa, make couple of speeches and then take a safari. And we have to pay for this? Hey, do you remember that infamous date night when Obungler took his wife to New York via Air Force One? Did they ever reimburse us for that jaunt? I don't remember the past president and wives taking as many trips as these two do. Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe the Press is reporting it more...right we know how the press treats this couple. Look at all the concerts that have been held at the White House, add up all the trips. WE are paying for this! This reminds me, we have republican Presidential Candidate that refuses to take part in the congressional retirement program. Do you think he and his wife would abuse the tax payers the way the First Couple are doing?

These Times

So now that I have my rant over with, on with the show.
I just read that Jiff brand peanut butter is going to hike the price of peanut butter by 30 percent. Smuckers announced a 4 percent increase in the cost of their jellies. Will the other makers follow with their own price hikes? This one of the cheapest ways to feed a family, start your food storage with or take care of sudden influx of your children's friends. PB&J is always good at our house. Who hasn't sat with a jar of peanut butter eating it right out the jar with a spoon? Hmmm? I know I've done it many times, how 'bout you? The modest increase of the jelly isn't so bad. Four percent? We can live with that but adding a buck or more to the PB is a wee bit much. So, stock up now before November gets here and these increases take effect.

Daddy Made Me Do It

It took my fathers prompting me to get on the computer and update this blog. I have not had the desire or energy to do anything that resembles creative. I am sick of being poorer than I have ever been in my entire life. I'm sick of not being able to secure work with an outstanding resume. I am tired of hurtin all the f'n time. I am tired of this poor excuse of a democratic government that has taken the place of the proud republic we once had. At least I've got a lot of guns, ammo and food. Hey, I've got a functional Harley sitting in the garage! It's sitting 'cause I don't have the 75-100 bucks to get a new battery to give it the required voltage. Maybe next week I'll be able to swing that.



Speaking of the Harley, I did some trading for the final parts to get it put together and I got a little cash to boot. Then I had to turn around and hand that cash to a guy I ran into the day before. CRAP! The funny thing about though is the guy knows most of the maternal side of my family, has met my brother, ran around with my sisters husband years ago AND dated my aunt for a while. It's a small world after all, eh? I've got insurance BUT, my wallet was stolen the week before and I hadn't replaced my drivers license or insurance card. So I didn't want the cops involved. The other party didn't want them there either. I don't know what his reason was. So in the end it was a cash deal.



I do have hope though. I hope the Chrysler Corporation makes these:

This vehicle is a one off by Chrysler's R&D team known as the SkunkWerks. They used all off the shelf parts to build this capable little truck. Dana 44 axles, 4.10 gears, locking diff's, a 3.8 V6 under the hood, and an OD auto tranny are stuffed into this beast. Dubbed the JT, it never made it to production. With the downfall of the economy and the concurrent downfall of the auto industry maybe this is the time to introduce an all new compact truck. As other manufacturers are selling fewer compact trucks and leaning more toward full size or even giant size trucks is this the time to bring this gem to market? This exercise was done in 2007 so maybe it's a futile hope. But still, hope springs eternal as they say. If you're a Jeep fan or even just a fan of compact trucks, contact Chrysler about the need for this beauty to enter the market at and a reasonable price too.

I have another hope. I hope, if this truck does come out, I can afford one.

Hey, while I'm hopin' and all that I can hope that GM builds a modern El Camino based on the current style Monte Carlo. Now that would be something to hope for.