Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Home Depot Strikes Again
Paint On Walls...Porch Lights Going Back In Packaging...
I have a "saying."
It's been often repeated for near twenty five years now since I've been a homeowner.
I came up with the idea myself.
Here it is...
It takes THREE TRIPS to Home Depot or Lowe's (hereafter identified as a "home improvement store") to complete any given "home improvement" project or projects.
Step #1. Go to "home improvement store" and buy the "stuff" you THINK you need.
Step #2. Go BACK to "home improvement store" and buy the "stuff" you forgot or should have bought while in step #1.
Step #3. Make third trip to "home improvement store" and return the "stuff" you didn't need and which was left over in accomplishing your "home improvement" project or projects.
It's just that simple.
The good news is that today we got most of a gallon of paint on the walls of the Master bedroom.
We managed to keep all but a few specks of light grey color off ourselves and Missy the Turbo Pup.
Tomorrow finds me re-coating some thin spots trying to avoid having to install an entire second coat of paint and finishing some cutting in edges and the trim and baseboard painting.
Then I have to take two exterior coach lanterns I purchased back to the store because after installing one light on Wednesday, I opened the second box late Thursday afternoon and found the glass globe CRACKED.
The bad news is that I got a killer deal on the lights and because they were taped closed in the original factory packaging I didn't open them to check for damage before I bought them off the clearance rack.
They were the last two units our local store had, and I need a light on each side of the front door so I have to take the one I've already installed BACK DOWN AND PUT IT BACK IN THE BOX AND TRUNDLE IT BACK TO THE "HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE" WITH IT'S DAMAGED COUSIN.
Dammit...
I have a "saying."
It's been often repeated for near twenty five years now since I've been a homeowner.
I came up with the idea myself.
Here it is...
It takes THREE TRIPS to Home Depot or Lowe's (hereafter identified as a "home improvement store") to complete any given "home improvement" project or projects.
Step #1. Go to "home improvement store" and buy the "stuff" you THINK you need.
Step #2. Go BACK to "home improvement store" and buy the "stuff" you forgot or should have bought while in step #1.
Step #3. Make third trip to "home improvement store" and return the "stuff" you didn't need and which was left over in accomplishing your "home improvement" project or projects.
It's just that simple.
The good news is that today we got most of a gallon of paint on the walls of the Master bedroom.
We managed to keep all but a few specks of light grey color off ourselves and Missy the Turbo Pup.
Tomorrow finds me re-coating some thin spots trying to avoid having to install an entire second coat of paint and finishing some cutting in edges and the trim and baseboard painting.
Then I have to take two exterior coach lanterns I purchased back to the store because after installing one light on Wednesday, I opened the second box late Thursday afternoon and found the glass globe CRACKED.
The bad news is that I got a killer deal on the lights and because they were taped closed in the original factory packaging I didn't open them to check for damage before I bought them off the clearance rack.
They were the last two units our local store had, and I need a light on each side of the front door so I have to take the one I've already installed BACK DOWN AND PUT IT BACK IN THE BOX AND TRUNDLE IT BACK TO THE "HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE" WITH IT'S DAMAGED COUSIN.
Dammit...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Me And My Paint Roller
More Home Owner Insanity...
Well Folks, after a down day yesterday spent laying in the bed, on the sofa, and sitting in front of the computer getting basically nothing accomplished, today finds me moving furniture out of the Master Bedroom and covering everything left over with paper, tape, and plastic in anticipation of going through a couple gallons of paint--smearing it on the walls and trying to keep it off the ceiling and floors and the bed.
I don't know what the heck I was thinking because I just got through doing an epic three month long (not continuous or full time) renovation of the Hall Bathroom walls and cabinetry and I wasn't finished a week before I was standing at Home Depot buying more paint and new roller covers.
For some strange reason owning property, especially if there is a woman around when you do it, causes you to sit around looking a paint color samples in your spare time and speculating about things like gloss or semi-gloss on the wood trim work and darn it if you don't find yourself changing room colors at least once every two or three years somewhere in your abode.
I once painted the entire outside of the house I grew up in--everything but the brick--in return for a set of 6X9 tri-axial speakers and an Audiovox AM/FM radio for my '77 Camaro.
I once painted the entire inside...including the ceilings...of an 1800 square foot split foyer house in return for free rent for three months before I bought the property from the bank in foreclosure.
At least in those two endeavors I got PAID for my efforts, but today I'm reduced to being SLAVE LABOR because I love my Girl and I don't want some fool tracking and spattering paint all over the Turbo Pup and my stacks of back issues of Mechanical Engineering Magazine.
Time now to go put down some blue masking tape...
Well Folks, after a down day yesterday spent laying in the bed, on the sofa, and sitting in front of the computer getting basically nothing accomplished, today finds me moving furniture out of the Master Bedroom and covering everything left over with paper, tape, and plastic in anticipation of going through a couple gallons of paint--smearing it on the walls and trying to keep it off the ceiling and floors and the bed.
I don't know what the heck I was thinking because I just got through doing an epic three month long (not continuous or full time) renovation of the Hall Bathroom walls and cabinetry and I wasn't finished a week before I was standing at Home Depot buying more paint and new roller covers.
For some strange reason owning property, especially if there is a woman around when you do it, causes you to sit around looking a paint color samples in your spare time and speculating about things like gloss or semi-gloss on the wood trim work and darn it if you don't find yourself changing room colors at least once every two or three years somewhere in your abode.
I once painted the entire outside of the house I grew up in--everything but the brick--in return for a set of 6X9 tri-axial speakers and an Audiovox AM/FM radio for my '77 Camaro.
I once painted the entire inside...including the ceilings...of an 1800 square foot split foyer house in return for free rent for three months before I bought the property from the bank in foreclosure.
At least in those two endeavors I got PAID for my efforts, but today I'm reduced to being SLAVE LABOR because I love my Girl and I don't want some fool tracking and spattering paint all over the Turbo Pup and my stacks of back issues of Mechanical Engineering Magazine.
Time now to go put down some blue masking tape...
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
"Asphalt" Ain't No Butt Defect
Butt Getting It (the Asphalt) Installed Can Be Expensive...
Pennsylvania's Crazy Jack Murtha's at it again... this time spending "Stimulus" money on a repaving project at an airport he had built under government mandate with his name on it which serves something like 100 people per day.
(We fly into Pittsburgh and drive to see Pat's Family.)
Pennsylvania's Crazy Jack Murtha's at it again... this time spending "Stimulus" money on a repaving project at an airport he had built under government mandate with his name on it which serves something like 100 people per day.
(We fly into Pittsburgh and drive to see Pat's Family.)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Space Garbage Collector
I'm Submitting My Application Right Now For The Job...
After a little drama and nail biting, this afternoon I watched the Space Shuttle blast off into a 350 mile high orbit to chase down the Hubble Space Telescope and cram some new updated guts into it's 19 year old Chassis. (Remember they originally launched this thing into orbit with metric lenses on a system designed for English unit design measurements.)
The big story was that it seems that in less than 60 years we've already crapped up the atmosphere outside the "breathable atmosphere" to the point where "space Junk" is now an issue when it comes time to launch a couple of humans into orbit or beyond.
The Russians most noticeably had their Mir space station come crashing into the Earth and the US had the old Apollo Skylab third stage piece of junk re-enter the atmosphere without hitting me or my sofa back in the 1980's and 1990's.
Today they say that the Air Force and NASA are tracking a few million truck loads of junk--everything from old astronaut poop to lost nuts and bolts and of course the left over upper stages of rockets and dead satellites that continue to orbit until they lose energy and start dragging into the air and finally burn up on re-entry.
Problem is the little events when you're cruising along at orbital rotational velocity (something my head knows about--about 36,000 MPH) and you meet something going sideways or in the opposite direction at a similar speed.
Let's just say that it will ruin your morning, afternoon, or evening in the event of such an occurrence.
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages, I...your lovely and talented Blogger and Photoshop Artist...have a solution I'm proposing this morning...
Here's a Photoshop proposal offering of my new patented Orbital Garbage Collection System (or OGCS for short...)
And here it is in action after a few weeks in orbit:
(you just have to click on that Photoshop image because I've really outdone myself showing the stuff you might collect in orbit...)
If NASA will just sell me the last few shuttles after they "decommission" them next year I'm opening a "Cosmic Antique & recycling center" down near Orlando and if you want to buy into my endeavor send cash and we'll talk...
After a little drama and nail biting, this afternoon I watched the Space Shuttle blast off into a 350 mile high orbit to chase down the Hubble Space Telescope and cram some new updated guts into it's 19 year old Chassis. (Remember they originally launched this thing into orbit with metric lenses on a system designed for English unit design measurements.)
The big story was that it seems that in less than 60 years we've already crapped up the atmosphere outside the "breathable atmosphere" to the point where "space Junk" is now an issue when it comes time to launch a couple of humans into orbit or beyond.
The Russians most noticeably had their Mir space station come crashing into the Earth and the US had the old Apollo Skylab third stage piece of junk re-enter the atmosphere without hitting me or my sofa back in the 1980's and 1990's.
Today they say that the Air Force and NASA are tracking a few million truck loads of junk--everything from old astronaut poop to lost nuts and bolts and of course the left over upper stages of rockets and dead satellites that continue to orbit until they lose energy and start dragging into the air and finally burn up on re-entry.
Problem is the little events when you're cruising along at orbital rotational velocity (something my head knows about--about 36,000 MPH) and you meet something going sideways or in the opposite direction at a similar speed.
Let's just say that it will ruin your morning, afternoon, or evening in the event of such an occurrence.
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages, I...your lovely and talented Blogger and Photoshop Artist...have a solution I'm proposing this morning...
Here's a Photoshop proposal offering of my new patented Orbital Garbage Collection System (or OGCS for short...)
And here it is in action after a few weeks in orbit:
(you just have to click on that Photoshop image because I've really outdone myself showing the stuff you might collect in orbit...)
If NASA will just sell me the last few shuttles after they "decommission" them next year I'm opening a "Cosmic Antique & recycling center" down near Orlando and if you want to buy into my endeavor send cash and we'll talk...
Sunday, May 10, 2009
If You Have Any Net Worth You Better @#&^%*ing Run
This Crap Is Getting Serious
I have a problem this morning...Ladies and Gentlemen.
More accurately...WE have a problem if I have any understanding of what's happening these days when it comes to ownership of private property and even the value and availability of the money you're more or less forced to keep in the bank.
It's been coming on now for a good while.
I don't know exactly how long because I'm too lazy to Google it but I do know what I've seen in the past twenty years and in my mind--and I'm not a barking moonbat conspiracy theorist--things are accelerating rapidly under the Obamarama administration.
It started when they cut the size of our legal tender down from the $10,000 and $1000 bills to the biggest circulated item being the $100 bill, all under the guise of stopping the Mafia and Organized crime members from being able to conveniently move large sums of money around undetected.
More recently they've use the drug trade as the argument for limiting cash transactions and making banks report deposits over a certain size ($10,000 I think.)
Who's &%*ing business is it anyway how much money I have or take out of or put into the bank if it weren't for the IRS worrying about sucking "their fair share" of taxes out of me and my efforts and assets?
If you've been paying any attention here on this blog you know that I owned a company which was forced into bankruptcy back in the late 1990's, and in the process of attempting to prop up the corporation I was forced into personal bankruptcy also.
The whole ordeal totally sucked, and in retrospect it was almost the end of me physically and mentally but when the financial and emotional dust settled I managed to arise from the rubble and wreckage and here I am today blithering on the Internet.
For the next four or five years after I had paid the lawyers and the other legal fees I ended up being able to keep my crappy continuously under renovation old house and a couple of old paid off cars and the clothes on my back and in the mean time I was forced to operate on a totally "Cash" basis.
I couldn't get a credit card in my name and the banks wouldn't even let me have a bank account--so I was forced to go to a credit union and get a simple savings account to keep money anywhere besides my wallet or an envelope stuck up in the ceiling tiles in the basement.
Unlike the government portrait of the downtrodden and homeless...I still managed to make a little money here and there along the way in spite of my crappy physical condition with Phlebitis et. al.
I did pick up carpentry jobs working for friends and acquaintances and the occasional consulting injuneering project and along the way managed to eat and sleep and until the day I came home from working on an old house built in 1888 and found police tape wrapped around my front porch things were moving along smoothly.
That day my house burned down.
That day my house burned up.
If it wasn't brick on all four sides it would have fallen down--but the shell that was left still looked like my house but all it contained as smelly sooty wet stuff that looked like my possessions.
That fall I moved to Florida in my old Chevy suburban and took pretty much everything worth having with me in that truck.
Fortunately the building was insured, and after a extended argument with the companies involved including a lawsuit where they tried to take all of the proceeds and split it among the corporations involved in the process I ended up with a settlement which again was only in the form of a check.
Understand this...PAPER money--check or cash--is just as useless as electronic money sitting in the bank if and when the government decides to change the value of it or otherwise stop you from getting access to it through a bank account, an ATM, or the Internet.
I managed to convert the check into cash--and to this day I've carefully shepherded my money from place to place and today I'm getting really nervous about having everything in the banks because of the recent government influence thereon.
I remember going to the bank one time with my first bonus check as a young engineer back in the mid 1980's and having a sinking feeling when the tellers treated me like a thief when I wanted to cash my check.
It was for $5,000 and it was drawn on the bank I was standing in but I had to wait on the head teller to come back from lunch and then I had to wait for my boss to come back from a meeting to answer their phone call so I ended up sitting there for something like an hour with everyone glaring at me because apparently some guy with long hair that needed a shave couldn't possibly have earned a $5,000 check and it was probably stolen or forged or whatever and any way...
The government doesn't want you to have money in your hands.
The government wants your money to be electronically transferred from one bank account they're monitoring (THE PAYER) to another bank account they're monitoring (THE PAYEE) so they can make sure they get their CUT.
It's getting so that some places won't even take cash these days. Walk into a FedEX office and try to pay with cash.
They won't let you send anything unless you use a credit or Debit card. They claim it's for "security" reasons but I really think it's just the beginning of a growing trend where you can't use YOUR MONEY the way you want to use it unless the government says so.
...And another thing...
Try walking into a bank or credit union where your funds are stored and attempt to withdraw $10,000 in cash Monday morning.
They will %$^&* freak out.
You might as well be wearing a ski mask and brandishing a AK47 and a Howitzer.
I tried that once (without the ski mask and the artillery)...
Back when I was buying a boat in south Florida they almost called the police on me I think and they had to call around and find a branch office which could give me $10,000 in cash and they looked at me like I was Atilla the Hun or Sodam Hussain or Osama Somebody the whole time.
The bottom line here is, in my considered redneck opinion, that our financial infrastructure is set up for you to make deposits--thereby loaning them money for 0% interest--and charging you a "FEE" every time they can--and then maximizing the effort it takes for you to get your money back out to store or use outside their institution.
PLASTIC IS CONVENIENT...paper is a pain...
So any wayyy...back to my original point...these insidious leaches have progressed over time to the point where today they can tell investors--people that gave a company money in return for an equity position in the buildings/equipment/and future profits--how much they are "entitled" to keep while at the same time the government repackages the aforementioned company and sells rights to future profits to entirely new owners/investors.
How %$#*ed up is that?
Here's a link to the story (all the Chrysler creditors finally caved in):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/09/chrysler-lenders-give-up-in-court/
So the Obamarama empire and the media has managed to spin and bluff and muscle people which had WRITTEN CONTRACTS out of 2/3's to 3/4's of their money just BECAUSE.
Just BECAUSE...it would be "unpatriotic" to demand their day in court.
THATS JUST WRONG.
In closing this rant I ask you this question...
HOW LONG BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT COMES TO YOUR BANK AND DEMANDS THAT, BECAUSE IT TOOK TARP FUNDS OR OTHER BAILOUT MONEY, THAT YOUR CHECKING AND SAVINGS AND 401K ACCOUNT BE REDUCED BY 60% OR 75%, WITH THE BALANCE OF THE VALUE TRANSFERED TO SOME NEW GOVERNMENT FUND OR PROGRAM ?
Don't say it can't happen because the precedent has now been set.
(BUY GOLD)
I have a problem this morning...Ladies and Gentlemen.
More accurately...WE have a problem if I have any understanding of what's happening these days when it comes to ownership of private property and even the value and availability of the money you're more or less forced to keep in the bank.
It's been coming on now for a good while.
I don't know exactly how long because I'm too lazy to Google it but I do know what I've seen in the past twenty years and in my mind--and I'm not a barking moonbat conspiracy theorist--things are accelerating rapidly under the Obamarama administration.
It started when they cut the size of our legal tender down from the $10,000 and $1000 bills to the biggest circulated item being the $100 bill, all under the guise of stopping the Mafia and Organized crime members from being able to conveniently move large sums of money around undetected.
More recently they've use the drug trade as the argument for limiting cash transactions and making banks report deposits over a certain size ($10,000 I think.)
Who's &%*ing business is it anyway how much money I have or take out of or put into the bank if it weren't for the IRS worrying about sucking "their fair share" of taxes out of me and my efforts and assets?
If you've been paying any attention here on this blog you know that I owned a company which was forced into bankruptcy back in the late 1990's, and in the process of attempting to prop up the corporation I was forced into personal bankruptcy also.
The whole ordeal totally sucked, and in retrospect it was almost the end of me physically and mentally but when the financial and emotional dust settled I managed to arise from the rubble and wreckage and here I am today blithering on the Internet.
For the next four or five years after I had paid the lawyers and the other legal fees I ended up being able to keep my crappy continuously under renovation old house and a couple of old paid off cars and the clothes on my back and in the mean time I was forced to operate on a totally "Cash" basis.
I couldn't get a credit card in my name and the banks wouldn't even let me have a bank account--so I was forced to go to a credit union and get a simple savings account to keep money anywhere besides my wallet or an envelope stuck up in the ceiling tiles in the basement.
Unlike the government portrait of the downtrodden and homeless...I still managed to make a little money here and there along the way in spite of my crappy physical condition with Phlebitis et. al.
I did pick up carpentry jobs working for friends and acquaintances and the occasional consulting injuneering project and along the way managed to eat and sleep and until the day I came home from working on an old house built in 1888 and found police tape wrapped around my front porch things were moving along smoothly.
That day my house burned down.
That day my house burned up.
If it wasn't brick on all four sides it would have fallen down--but the shell that was left still looked like my house but all it contained as smelly sooty wet stuff that looked like my possessions.
That fall I moved to Florida in my old Chevy suburban and took pretty much everything worth having with me in that truck.
Fortunately the building was insured, and after a extended argument with the companies involved including a lawsuit where they tried to take all of the proceeds and split it among the corporations involved in the process I ended up with a settlement which again was only in the form of a check.
Understand this...PAPER money--check or cash--is just as useless as electronic money sitting in the bank if and when the government decides to change the value of it or otherwise stop you from getting access to it through a bank account, an ATM, or the Internet.
I managed to convert the check into cash--and to this day I've carefully shepherded my money from place to place and today I'm getting really nervous about having everything in the banks because of the recent government influence thereon.
I remember going to the bank one time with my first bonus check as a young engineer back in the mid 1980's and having a sinking feeling when the tellers treated me like a thief when I wanted to cash my check.
It was for $5,000 and it was drawn on the bank I was standing in but I had to wait on the head teller to come back from lunch and then I had to wait for my boss to come back from a meeting to answer their phone call so I ended up sitting there for something like an hour with everyone glaring at me because apparently some guy with long hair that needed a shave couldn't possibly have earned a $5,000 check and it was probably stolen or forged or whatever and any way...
The government doesn't want you to have money in your hands.
The government wants your money to be electronically transferred from one bank account they're monitoring (THE PAYER) to another bank account they're monitoring (THE PAYEE) so they can make sure they get their CUT.
It's getting so that some places won't even take cash these days. Walk into a FedEX office and try to pay with cash.
They won't let you send anything unless you use a credit or Debit card. They claim it's for "security" reasons but I really think it's just the beginning of a growing trend where you can't use YOUR MONEY the way you want to use it unless the government says so.
...And another thing...
Try walking into a bank or credit union where your funds are stored and attempt to withdraw $10,000 in cash Monday morning.
They will %$^&* freak out.
You might as well be wearing a ski mask and brandishing a AK47 and a Howitzer.
I tried that once (without the ski mask and the artillery)...
Back when I was buying a boat in south Florida they almost called the police on me I think and they had to call around and find a branch office which could give me $10,000 in cash and they looked at me like I was Atilla the Hun or Sodam Hussain or Osama Somebody the whole time.
The bottom line here is, in my considered redneck opinion, that our financial infrastructure is set up for you to make deposits--thereby loaning them money for 0% interest--and charging you a "FEE" every time they can--and then maximizing the effort it takes for you to get your money back out to store or use outside their institution.
PLASTIC IS CONVENIENT...paper is a pain...
So any wayyy...back to my original point...these insidious leaches have progressed over time to the point where today they can tell investors--people that gave a company money in return for an equity position in the buildings/equipment/and future profits--how much they are "entitled" to keep while at the same time the government repackages the aforementioned company and sells rights to future profits to entirely new owners/investors.
How %$#*ed up is that?
Here's a link to the story (all the Chrysler creditors finally caved in):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/09/chrysler-lenders-give-up-in-court/
So the Obamarama empire and the media has managed to spin and bluff and muscle people which had WRITTEN CONTRACTS out of 2/3's to 3/4's of their money just BECAUSE.
Just BECAUSE...it would be "unpatriotic" to demand their day in court.
THATS JUST WRONG.
In closing this rant I ask you this question...
HOW LONG BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT COMES TO YOUR BANK AND DEMANDS THAT, BECAUSE IT TOOK TARP FUNDS OR OTHER BAILOUT MONEY, THAT YOUR CHECKING AND SAVINGS AND 401K ACCOUNT BE REDUCED BY 60% OR 75%, WITH THE BALANCE OF THE VALUE TRANSFERED TO SOME NEW GOVERNMENT FUND OR PROGRAM ?
Don't say it can't happen because the precedent has now been set.
(BUY GOLD)
