Sunday, August 30, 2009

If 52% was a landslide

Like all those Obammatards keep saying.
What will they say about that 52% who now disapprove of his preformance?

Or the 57% who would recall the entire Congress? A tsunami?

Well, now we know how Michelle at least didn't know what was coming out of the right Reverend Wrights moputh when he was preaching. Just fast forward to 6:15 in this St. Kennedy clip. I wonder if she snores?

Oh joy

This is what I get to look forward to doing soon.

I'm glad the guy took the time to make a vid of it, but it would have been better without the rap-crap in the background.



It's a blazer, but I'm assuming an S-10 will be pretty much the same.
At least I won't have to disassemble the evaporator like on the Ram.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Bad tires and good service

Several months ago I ran over something on the way to town (San ANtonio) and by the time I realized it, I'd gone through Castroville. By the time I got turned around and got to the tire shop, my sidewall was gone. I talked to the tire guy and decided on two new tires for the front -the most important ones, and changed my two worst tires out. The left rear had a plug in the shoulder and had at least two cans of fix-a-flat (that I know). Last month the truck started pulling to the right, so I stopped at my tire shop to have him look at maybe repairing a leak.
He took one glance at the right tire and walked right over to my left one and sair 'you've got a bulge on the shoulder'. I told him I didn't feel anything in the wheel and he told me it was almost around the entire tire- making it taller, so it would pull to the right.
OK, that makes sense. He remembered selling me the tires, and after calling his supplier replaced that one for free- cool, huh?

Today I had the other one go and was lucky enough to catch him while he was still open.
He told me he still hadn't heard from his dealer on the other one, but would replace this one gratis, too- except this time, since I'd been driving them for thousands of miles, I'd pay labor and ballancing.
I think that was pretty fair.

I'm talking about the guy ijn the blue building on the west side of town, not the one across from Super-S that ripped off my wife, or those thieves at Moreno's who charged me $45 for an engine scan they never did, and then tried talking me into rebuilding an engine for a $600 truck.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

In the next round of Democrat finances

We have the latest iteration of "we can't throw your money away fast enough" in the latset 'a 'cash for (latest politically favored business)' program as the appliance makers payback.


Because we all know the best way to be fiscally responsible is to encourage people who may loose their jobs is to encourage them to dump what they have paid off for more monthly payments.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Cindy, Cindy, Cindy

Just to let you know, you're bothering the wrong people now.
The lapdogs at the Lame stream media are done with you until another Republican is President.

As of now your 'absolute moral authority' about running wars is taking a back seat to our head neophyte and you should just go away until they call you.


"Peace proponant"?
Wasn't she a greiving mother just, like eight months ago?
I wonder what happend to change her status?

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Cross your fingers

Lets hope the parking lot lights we"ll be working on today aren't as f*cked-up as the other two sections were.
I know they will be, though- because all the joints were made up by the ex-foreman who screwed up the entire job from the beginning. I've already had to re-pull different wire into three of the same poles three times as the incoming identification tape changed.

Jeez, I'm getting tired of climbing in and out of the bucket truck.



AND I'd like to do get something non work related done this weekend.



UNRELATED, but I saw it on my home page...

'Why do Muslims fast from dawn till dusk during the month of Ramadan?'
Why should I care and when are y'all going to start doing PR for Judeo-Christian values?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

More jobblogging

Sorry.

Roberta had a good post up yesterday about what her guys go through in maintaining their TV transmitters.

Our stuff isn't as high, or time consuming, and we only have about 10% of the height to work at.

Besides, we







Cheat.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

How to be a d1ck

in two steps.

Step one- be a cop.

Step two- sit at a four way stop sign during morning rush hour.

That way those clueless people who usually want to wait untill the sign turns green will wait an additional three minutes to go through the intersection.

AND -I forgot my wallet this morning and had to borrow the wifes debit card.
I don't know if the S-10 has a 16 or 17 gal. tank, but I ended up putting 15.8 gallons in it.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tam wants to get a 'movement' going

So to make it easier, just cut and paste this:

"You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant."

over here.




You young ones who don't know, might need to listen to the song first, so you know what you're getting into. If things go all pear shaped, you may even end up sitting in the "Group 'W' " bench with the mother raper and father rapers.

I thought it was done

and the lamestream media had moved on, but I was slapped with this smirking picture as soon as Yahoo opened up. Now, I guess we're in for another month of the Media's orgy of grief over his burial and retrospectives on the first outburst of overkill.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Naming names

And using the right titles.

Ok, I was a little put off when I heard Bush the 1st designating someone as a -something-Czar, and the occasional additional Czars.

Now that our version of Lennon Lenin is going back to his philosophical roots, lets get our nomenclature right.

A Czar was the inherent monarch of the Russian empire.

What we now have in D.C. are political appointees with absolute authority answerable only to the Lightbringer. Normally it would be accurate to call them the nomenklatura, but we Americans are lazy, and it's a hard word to say, so how about either apparatchiks or commissars?

Not as accurate, but the meaning comes through all the same.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine!

"All hands! All hands! Heave ho! Heave ho! Heave ho! Lash up and stow,
lash up and stow! Wakey, wakey; rise and shine, the morning's fine;
you've had your time and I've had mine! The sun's scorching your
bleedin' eyes out! Beautiful dreamer, lash up and stow! The cooks to
the galley have gone long ago! Show a leg! Show a leg! Make a move!"


I'm off to work today, but heard a snatch of music as I was turning off the alarm.
It wasn't this song, but close enough that it's now an ear worm.

Enjoy, because I'm nice like that...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

What could possibly go wrong?

The worlds smartest negro is looking at Michigan to house his Gitmo guests while they cool their heels waiting for trials.

Michigan, the second largest concentration of moslims in America. Who'd ever think that there might be an invisible sign saying "Cause trouble" anywhere near the place?


Also, I'm not any kind of a lawyer, never got paid to pretend to be one, or teach the constitution- but doesn't just being IN the U.S. give them some kind of rights they wouldn't have in Gitmo?

A copper mine

We were at the new stadium yesterday working on the parking lot lights when my leadman called me over to do a pull for the scoreboard.
It was about 400 feet long with four #4 stranded and a #6 ground in a 1" conduit. Then they added another circuit of #12s, so I was now supposed to pull seven wires through a 1" hole, 400 feet long.

So I get set up with my boom extended to all of it's 55 feet to get above the framework of the target megatron screen and drop the winch line. As I'm on the phone, I tell them they need either a rope or a triple mule tape pull because of both the distance and I *know* how some of that conduit was bent (ovalled) when it was run.

They said they couldn't use a rope because they couldn't fit a made-up head inside the pipe, so I pulled two tapes through and told them we were going to have problems because I was feeling lots of tension on the truck just pulling that head.

I don't know how many 90's I pulled that wire through ( ths code calls for a max of 4 in a single run) but I know I had to idle down and let that wire decide by its self when it wanted to come through some spots- or I'd for sure lose it.

I finally got to the last 90 going up the base of the scoreboard when I hit a something that didn't want to give. I tried everything I could to coax it through the problem and it seemed to be working as my boom started regaining the foot it got sucked down (think of a 55' fishing rod) and I took up slack again and popped both those mule tapes. The guy at my end caught the tape and we retied, and after gaining about a foot snapped that, too and lost it in the conduit.


Today, they tried pulling it back for another try, but no matter what they did, it was unmovable, so there is about 500 pounds of abandoned copper under a brand new stadium in San Antonio.
Of course it's under the press box, parking lot and the astro turf field it's self, but if you want to try for it......

Monday, August 10, 2009

So I get to the yard this morning

I'm all laid out as to what my plans are for the day- when one of the service guys asks if I'm the one taking the boom truck up to Belton?

Um,,,,never heard about it, where is it?
Up by Tyler.

Oh, it's not (a local high end car dealer)- better call my boss.

As I'm dumping my tools into the first truck- his boss is calling mine.
As I drive my POV past them, my phone rings...Oh. look it's (bossman)!

You need to take the boom truck and yellow trailer with those light poles up to Belton and help service swap them out. You'll be up there several days.

OK.

To their boss- ok I'm yours, of course it would be nice to bring some clean stuff with me...
**You don't have anything?
Nope, this is the first I heard about it.
**Ok, go home and get your stuff, we'll get the truck sorted out.

I took a two and a half hour round trip to do a quick grab of what I'd need up there, including the internet unready laptop and took the most time looking for the birthday present Karen only watched one episode of.

Then back to work to drag the trailer from work to the HEB in Belton, Tx.

So,,, 2 1/2 hours later we pull in and drop the trailer so we can move poles when....
Those bases don't look right, they look too small.
-So out comes the tape and they're an inch and a quarter too short...so the phone calls start.

We end up pulling a pole, making a template of the bottom and resetting the pole. Then resecuring the new poles and hooking up the trailer for the ride back to the yard.

I ended up with 11 hours today- 75% driving nowhere.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Ice road truckers in the back ground

I thought Hugh Roland was supposed to be some kind of super trucker?

L:ast week he got hit on his logs, and now he just found out his Jake brake isn't working---on a downslope, being pushed by 55K pounds of drill pipe.

I'm no super trucker, but I kept my jake brake on just for GP where I'd find big hills.
That way I'd know it was working when I needed to use the #3 position when I was going down big hills. Not just turning it on when I'm going too fast already....Hugh.


But then, I never wanted to be called a super trucker.
If anything, I'd rather be a steady trucker like Alex.

Cash for clunkers- do over

So this *NEW and IMPROVED* just got another $2 Billion to go for another four weeks huh?


How long did the FIRST Billion last?

And out of curiosity, we know that about 60% of approved apps (when they weren't crashing the site filling out the book like forms) went to foreign firms, then Ford and lastly the Peoples Auto factories. How much did each application cost us our great grand kids?

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Speaking their own language

Grahm Norton is on the BBCAmerica now.
He was late starting because of some bogus 'breakthrough' show about a vampire, werewolf and a ghost trying to be normal.

Anyway, Graham has some guy that (I guess) is a big star over there and Sarah Ferguson- remember, the fun one of the two princesses of the 80's.

Anyway, the British wife is laughing to some (to my American ears) unintelligible mutterings and slang as an Irishman, a fun girl and some comedian trade colloquialisms that I have absolutely no idea of what they're saying.


Seriously,,,,which of these two do you think would be more fun in your favorite bar, man cave, range or strip club? The Ice Princess or 'the other one'?

I'll take the real sized red head who's down to earth TYVM..... hey guys, curves are good.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Correct me if I'm wrong

But wasn't this guy collecting a salary for being the Illinois Senator for four years before he got where he is today?



I also seem to remember the Dems taking control of BOTH houses of Congress in 2006.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Down here, CPS is looking at more nukes

And the newest mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro (Dem) is now balking at the idea of building two new nuke plants down at the South Texas nuclear project.

The freaks up in Austin are already up in arms about basically *ANY* new power, but nukes especially.

At least they haven't gone the 'safety' rout yet. Maybe it's because someone will point out that in the ENTIRE history of nuclear power production there has only been one incident that cause death or serious injury....and THAT was caused by a plant entirely designed, built and operated by GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.

Those anti-nuke people aren't against all new power, however. They'd like nothing less than to cure our growing population and energy problems with conservation and renewable energy.

Ok, that's a nice thought, but do me a favor and get out your 'Big Chief' notebook and a #2 pencil.
We'll make it simple, say we have a plant that puts out 100 units of power and the customers use 95 units, we have 5 units in reserve.
The energy company wants to ad another 100 units so we can have 105 units to sell to other power companies and to have plenty for our ever growing population.

The greenies want to ad maybe 40 units on a plot of land 20 times larger than the nuke site- that will ONLY work during the day and if it's windy enough- which it seldom is both. we'll be optimistic and call it 15 units online.
So we have 20 reserve units that we need to withhold from selling because it's unreliable.
Lets review because some aren't good at word problems.
Nukes- 4 of them giving 200 units of power, with 105 to sell to offset the huge construction bill.
Renuables- 2 nukes and solar/wind farms with a 120 peak output and (maybe)25 in reserve that you can't sell to offset the HUGE construction bill.

Now lets add the reason for the discussion- an additional population that will demand electricity ion the future. I don't know, but since they keep coming, lets say 40 new units of power in the foreseeable future.
BUT they'll be required to build green!
Ok, we'll knock off an unrealistic 15 units there and have a combined demand of 95 plus 25 gives us a demand of...130- cool, we're in hot beans.

EXCEPT....solar doesn't work at night, windmills need a minimum (and maximum) airspeed to operate. There could be days without enough wind. Darkness happens every night and in the heat of this summer, demand isn't going down because it's still hot at night.

So we either have a massive bill with 200 units available and able to sell 105 to offset the HUGE bill
-OR-
A massive bill with 120 units of power and a questionable 25 in reserve- barely enough to meet our needs and none to sell to offset the huge bill. Then we have those HURRICANES we have here that'll shut down those eco-friendly power plants for weeks at a time- not to mention some tourist throwing bread up and getting the windmills shut down because of the massive seagull kills.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

That reminds me

Eric has a C.W.McCall ditty to clan an earworm from an earlier post.

Well, after last Saturdays work and moving a trailer to another jobsite- with a balky release valve. I knew how those trailewrs could deal with dragging brakes from my trips over the Rockies and the Appalachians. especialy since it was less than five miles to the new jobsite, so I drug (literally) that trailer with dragging brakes and could only get to 35MPH.
When I got to the jobsite they. were. smiking.
Not as bad as I've seen on the downhill sides of some famous slopes, but still pretty hot. The old plastic wheel hubs broke and spilled lube oil all over the rims.



Anyway, that reminded me of this song..




THIS.............

Is why you don't tailgate.


If that red truck is a semi, which it looks like it is, the front bumper was inside that car before the air even started the rear brakes working.




Bigger and better pic at Dicks.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Operation 'Supply Our Students' is on again

You probably have something going on around you with a similar name.

I know these disadvantaged poor kids need school stuff. Probably more than those that are better off.

BUT--- when did it become *MY* responsibility to be guilted into buying them cr@p that their parents should be?
The stuff they're asking for doesn't really cost all that much. I know what's on the required supply list, I had kids in school lately.
These social-economically disadvantaged adults could forgo their carton of cut rate smokes and get their entire brood school supplies for a year.
-Or put off a payment on those low profile tires gracing your hoodmobile or the preamp and base that pisses-off people for a quarter mile around you,

What all those 'disadvantaged' people need is someone to kick them in the ass whenever they fall down in the parental responsibility department.
But we know that'll never happen because it might cause them to be uncomfortable and now-a-days America is all about fast fixes and feelings.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

HI! Did you miss me?

It seems I haven't put anything here in forever, but I see I threw something up just last Thursday.

Not much worth writing about in the news it seems. Michael Jackson is still dead.
So is Tim Russert.
The Newest Auto bailout is broke and showing how badly the .gov can run anything.

We're working 7 days a week and I'm usually gone from the house 11 to 12 hours a day.
I haven't been able to change the oil in the trucks, and they're about three weeks overdue.
We're running on reserve food at Casa Trainwreck because I haven't had a chance to do any *real* food shopping.

BUT, I did send the tax cheat Tim Geitner a quarter of what he says I owe for checking one extra box for the 18-yr-old.