Bird Watching

I'm certainly no "birder." I enjoy watching hawks soar and hunt, but I'm not much into using binoculars and.trying to classify what I see. I just try to enjoy the majesty and power of the more predatory birds.

I was highly impressed with a picture I found on Facebook - it shows the freedom and fire behind a falcon perched in a tree. Pic is below the fold if you are so inclined.

This Is New

Found this in the spam trap first thing this morning:

After I initially left a comment I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now whenever a comment is added I receive four emails with the same comment. Is there an easy method you are able to remove me from that service? Appreciate it! Feel free to surf to my web page on (redacted).

Mmmmkay, let's look at this right here. Y'all commented anonymously, so no email address was required nor given. So, you ain't been getting any damn emails. Kinda tough to do that. Plus, if you did comment logged in, the "notify me" controls are all on your end, oh spammer genius.

Since this was caught by Blogger's spam filters, you need not worry, your post has not seen the light of day until now. I will not be promoting your web page. In fact, I feel free NOT to surf to your web page, which was your point all along.

Gonna have to do better than that, genius.

Sweet Karma

Oh, please, God - let this be the truth of the matter!

Seems Logical

Your results:
You are Spock

Spock

---

82%



Jean-Luc Picard

---

80%



Geordi LaForge

---

80%



An Expendable Character (Redshirt)

---

75%



Data

---

66%



Chekov

---

60%



Worf

---

55%



Mr. Scott

---

50%



Leonard McCoy (Bones)

---

50%



Will Riker

---

50%



James T. Kirk (Captain)

---

45%



Beverly Crusher

---

35%



Uhura

---

30%



Deanna Troi

---

25%



Mr. Sulu

---

20%



You are skilled in knowledge and logic.
You believe that the needs of the many
 outweigh the needs of the few.




Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...


H/T Cybrludite

I Am Not Amused

This ad, or a variation has been appearing on my timeline on Facebook. Lessee - they know I'm single. Probably figured out I'm capable of scaring small children with my looks. Perhaps they're just thinking of me? Trying to help me out? Match me genetically so we crank out ugly kids? And the ugly women?

The are DESPERATE. Oh boy, this means I'm practically guaranteed to get laid, doncha know. If we have fun dates. Well hell yeah, happy endings are always fun, I say.

So they think I'm looking for big boobed ugly gals? That's pretty insulting to me and to women in general. Frankly, I'm thinking if this gal looses the glasses, she's pretty nice looking.

I'm for thinking Facebook's algorithm for matching ads to users is flawed in two directions - one, they still have a problem picking out appropriate stuff, and two, I'm not really sure they have very many ads to choose from. Sooner or later, they're gonna have to pass off some of the more questionable stuff to get paid, so here they put this crap on my feed.

Just in case I'm a complete creep.

And don't you for one second think I've clicked on that ad. I'd be afraid the 'puter would pick up something pretty skanky at a site like that, and I don't mean a social disease either.

G.R.O.S.S.

I'm feeling like crap, I'm fat and lazy, and it's my birthday. So I'm not very creative. So, here is a complete Calvin and Hobbes story arc.

I think we can safely assume that Suzie has Calvin's number, regardless of his high opinion of his own intellect. It's strips like this that made me a comics nut so many years ago.

My Obsession

As I said in the last post, I bought a pickup. I have been driving a 2000 Chevrolet Silverado Z71 LT extended cab, and it had 185k on it when it puttered off into the sunset. I loved that truck - it was classy, it rode nice, and it ran like a scalded dog, Pass everything but the fuel pumps, because it had the tow/haul package with the tranny cooler and 4.10 limited slip rears. When I bought it, gas was $1.39/gal. Yes, I'm obsessive and kept track of every expense, repair and so on. I also had it chipped, a lower temp thermostat, cat back duals, and a K&N intake setup to let 'er breath a bit better. Before I loaded it down with a ton of crap in the toolbox and in the extended cab, it would fry the tires.

So I was all set to buy another Chevy. But, as I got to looking around, I got the impression that the new ones were not as well done as my older version. The interiors seemed more cheaply made, and finding out they didn't even have a change holder in the console anymore only heightened that impression. Plus, I got to seeing how ALL the other manufacturers offered a console shifter with their bucket seats, but not GM. Column shifter all the way, baybee. Even their new revamped 2014 doesn't have that available. I noticed on a USA Today article that there were a bunch of commenters that were looking for just that option in the all new and improved model only to find out there would not be one. I'm not the only one that figured they'd buy something else.

Plus there was the whole Government Motors thing, along with Ram trucks. Sorry, but I'm of the opinion that I should get a taxpayer's discount when purchasing one of their products. I'll always feel that way. And frankly, from what I've seen, the Ram's have one of the better powertrains, but after that not so much. Their cabs just can't handle being rode hard and put away wet - the doors rattle and have to be slammed, stuff is always falling off, and so on. The heavier ones with Cummins diesels can't be beat for towing, but the cabs are still junk. My neighbor has also broken his frame a couple times. The truck is falling apart, but that Cummins keeps right on pluggin' away.

I don't need a heavy pickup.

Toyota and Nissan don't make very good mileage, and their designs are dated. I was wanting a certain set of options, and they both seemed to think the luxury stuff I was looking at required DVD players for the back seat.Yeah, like I need that.

You can probably imagine how obsessive I was looking at trucks online and trying to find what I wanted. Cars.com and AutoTrader kinda suck, because not all dealers pay to be on their sites. Plus it's hard to fine tune searches there - yeah, you can weed F150s out of the others, but finding extended cab FX4s with the luxury package not so much. Edmunds.com is where it's at to find a specific vehicle. Much better.

I was also looking for an extended cab, but in these days of crew cabs, they are kinda hard to find. So, what I was looking for was a four wheel drive crew cab pickup with the luxury seats. I was pretty well spoiled by the power leather seats in the ol' Z71, and my butt wanted the same thing. Ford has ten way power heated/cooled leather seats with power foot pedals. Check!

I was also pretty well impressed with the looks of the FX4 - comparable to the Z71. It has skid plates standard. The real off road Ford is the Raptor, but it comes with the 6.2 L V8. I like power, but I'm more into better fuel economy. The Lariats, Platinums and Limiteds all have skid plates as an option, but most do not have them installed. Another thing is that all those other trims have is fake wood interiors. I'm not into the tons of plastic chrome slathered all over the outside, nor am I into fake wood. The FX4 has none of that.

I was also really wanting a tail gate step. Ford offers a step that pulls out of the tailgate when it's dropped, then it angles downward with a flap that flips over giving your foot some purchase. A fairly tall rod handle is folded into the tailgate, and flipping it up gives you something to grab to climb into the bed. The dealer I went to had a Platinum equipped just like the FX4 but with the tailgate step, 3.23 locking rears instead of 3.55s, the power retracting running boards (which I think is a bit much). No skid plates. I was really into the idea of the lower gears, but not so much having a four wheel drive pickup w/o skid plates.

So I went with the FX4.

That is ruby red metallic clearcoat - it's an extra cost option. I also was considering black or gray like the ol' Z71, but this is the color I really wanted. FX4s have an option called the FX Appearance Package, which is flat black painted 20"wheels (the same ones as these but different paint), red piping trim on the seats, red trimmed FX4 badging, and some hockey stick shaped stripes on the side plus a big patch on the hood. I was all for everything but the stupid decals. Were I to find one of those, the decals were gonna be history. But I like the low key low gloss silver/gray these wheels have.

Just about everything has a backup camera these days - that is what the eye is for on the tailgate badge.

The view from the cab.

Free Sirius for a few months.

The home screen. The little bucket seats are for heating and cooling. There is an electric trailer brake controller built in, and the knob controls the four wheel drive and locking rear. The two buttons at the top are for a hill descent program and for turning the traction control off.

Not even 500 miles yet, and I'm averaging 14.2mpg. I did fill it up in Dodge after coming back from Wichita, and it was windier than you know what. It said 13.8mpg, but actual was 14.0. Of course there are several other screens for different stuff there as well.

This thing has the Ecoboost 3.5 L V6 with twin turbos and a six speed auto. This setup has more torque and hp than their 5.0 V8 that is offered, and has much better mileage than the 6.2. I can tell you there is some turbo lag, but not much. I took it out to the old back road today, and ran it through were I thought our old quarter mile marks were. Probably over eighty five through the quarter, and it is electronically governed at 100mph. Runs good! I think the Z71 would take it at first, but on down the quarter the Ford would suck it's doors.

I sure thought about changing out the air intake, adding a low restriction exhaust, and chipping this puppy. "They" say it really unlocks a bunch more power and torque, but I've got a warranty to consider. Ford isn't gonna stand behind their turbos if I put something upstream from them that ain't factory. And used to be, you could tweak the chip, and if you had some trouble, change it back before taking it to the dealer. Not anymore - they have telltales that let 'em know if it's been messed with. I may have been a fool, but I purchased an extended warranty, just because I'm pretty sure all this electronic crap isn't gonna make it for six years trouble free. After all, this thing is using Microsoft Sync, so there ya go.

For sure I'm getting some brush guards - the plastic crap on the Chevy up front looks stouter than this thing. I don't think it will take a pheasant hit very well. And I still may get a cat back exhaust - the service manager I talked to said they didn't have any conflicts with the warranty if I did that because I would be replacing all the parts that the warranty would cover, plus they didn't affect the other factory parts.So I got an unofficial go ahead there, more or less.

So, I'm hoping this thing lasts as long as I tend to keep vehicles. I really don't want to get something else for a long, long, time.

Well, Crud!

My old DROID2 has been giving me a few fits lately, so I knew it's days were about done. A lot of times, the touchscreen would refuse to work unless I shut down the display, then opened it up and unlocked it. So it was getting flaky.

It was acting like a new battery was in order - not a big deal to buy on eBay, but a pain. Hey, guess what?!? I had one in an old laptop case - I always order a spare battery when I get a new phone, but it was in the house. One more thing....

I really think I just got it wet - I had it sitting on the kitchen counter while rinsing dishes, and noticed some droplets on the screen. I guess the dern thing sucks up moisture like a drypak, because it started opening apps, buzzing all the time (every time you open something, the vibrator lets you know you opened it), and I couldn't get the return button to close anything. So I pulled the battery, and when it rebooted, the phone managed to call a number I should have probably deleted - the Mennonite who organized the cleanup of the old burned out farm. I was disturbing his Sunday, dang it. I tried pulling the battery several times for hard reboots, but the final straw was just watching it open apps with nothing touching the screen.

I'd sure been looking and had decided on a Samsung Galaxy S4 but I kinda wanted to keep my outdated all you can eat data plan. Which meant I'd be buying the thing at full list price. Which I don't have today. I was able to put off buying it - it will show up on my next bill. Whee. But - I seem to be unable to live without a smartphone while trucking - Google Maps and the internet for finding motels and such is very very valuable to me. If I couldn't have this one, I'd be getting some sort of smartphone. My credit with Verizon is good, though.

So, I had to go to a 2gb data plan, but looking at my past usage, not gonna be a problem. Not gonna have to buy the all share plan, because PDA.net works on this phone like it did on my old one - so using it as a hotspot won't cost extra every month. The old memory card dropped right in, so all my pictures and ringtones were right there. All my chargers and USB cables work on this phone, too. Major plus.

And I can tell you this thing is bloody fast compared to the ol' Droid. It has 4G service, plus a ton more computing power, so it really is responsive. I found myself getting irritated with the Droid for about the past year because it was getting sluggish.

I also popped for an Otterbox - cell phones in my possession tend to lead hard lives, and something to help with the shock of being dropped sure has helped me in the past. So, really, I just had to cough up for the phone and the Otterbox, and no memory cards or charging equipment. Had I decided to go to the dark side and get an iPhone, all that would be required.

So, it's new toy time for a while, trying to figure out all the goodies this thing has!

This Puppy Haz Axles

This is a "B"Train grain hauling setup. Most of the grain haulers "up north" just have a shorter front trailer with a ring and pintle hitch for the rear trailer on a dolly (fifth wheel on an axle with a tongue hitch), but this one has a whole series of axles that act as one unit at the rear of the front trailer. This one did have a hitch of sorts separating the front and rear gangs, but it was a solid shaft that only allowed transverse swiveling - movement in only  the vertical plane. There were five or six axles there, so I'm sure that's an advantage on rough terrain - if it were solid, the torque on the trailer would probably be excessive and it might crack. This way, stress is relieved.

I hate how my phone camera makes things seem further away - I had to put the thing down to keep control while pulling beside him. Literally, this was a last second shot, and I wasn't going much faster than he was.

And I was so wrapped up in trying to get this shot that I missed the northbound tank haulers coming at me! They weren't ours - who knows who they belong to. But, they're all part of a steady stream of tanks going up US 83 every day headed to the Bakken, which is where I went. The Montana version thereof, that is.

Plantin' Milo

Ya ever wanna know what it's like running one of those big four wheel drive tractors? This is a Ford New Holland pulling a planter seeding grain sorghum, or milo. I've talked about this crop before - it's mostly used as cattle feed and there is anADM  plant in Dodge City that mills milo into flour that is mostly used for making sheetrock. It can be used as a food item which is more popular these days since it it gluten free.

At any rate, you get to see the various controls, gauges and the GPS system at work. The planters have folding marker arms that leave a trail for the next round, and since the planter is so wide, they have to fold. Our old planter markers just picked up and rode vertically, but these things would be quite unable to clear power lines if they did not reduce their vertical presence. You get to see the graphics showing the large band of freshly planted ground moving next to what is already planted and is not - plus the warning when he reaches the end of the row.

He's pretty busy then - folding up the marker arm, lifting the planter out of the ground, unfolding the other marker arm, and resetting the GPS. You can also see he is rocking around in that seat - that ground may look smooth, but it is assuredly not, and tractors have pivot articulation on the front axle only - the rear is completely solid. About all that does is make sure the tractor has all four sets of wheel on the ground when it really gets uneven - if the front did not pivot, one or more corners would be off the ground and the tractor would be stuck right there.

And compared to what I ran, this puppy is livin' in the lap of luxury. It's all pushbutton, super quiet well sealed and extremely temperature controlled cab, better seat, and some real legroom. I'd hate to pay the fuel bill, though.

Hope y'all enjoy this peek into farming on the prairie!

Blatantly stolen from Joey Woods on Facebook

Geekery. Pure D Geekery

Over at Startrek.com's page, they have a weekly poll. It is always on the home page on the right side and then down some. The current one kinda captured my eye, and since there is no way to link it directly I just figured I'd recreate it right here, where we can play amongst ourselves.



Now I gotta admit, I'm not that big of a Star Trek geek, because I had no idea what Rihannsu was. So, it turns out it's from a series of non canonical novels that portray the Romulans, and that is "their word for themselves."

Mmmmkay.

And they missed rather a lot of other languages one might wanna know - like Andorian (which was big in Enterprise), or Breen. If the human throat could reproduce what they utter. Thus, I added the "other" category.

So, anyhow, which one for you?

Rowhrrrrr!

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Just in case you wanna know the latest thing Jeri Ryan is up to, well, this is it. You may have guessed that she still starts my motor. Yes, yes she does.

In My Best Johnny Carson Voice

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"I did not know that."

Nine cylinders, 150 hp, read all about it here.

Yeah, it's only 150 hp - not much for a bike. But criminy, how can you not love the sound? I'll bet the torque makes it a bear when ya crank on it anyway. Plus, probably not street legal at all, with the drive belt so close to the rider's thigh.

But when she sings, man, does she ever sing!

Such A Geek

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I don't care, sometimes certain scenes from movies make me sad. And it's hardly a secret how I like Star Trek, particularly the The Original Series. Actually, liked em all, but probably Voyager and Enterprise the least. And while this clip isn't as moving as Spock's death, it's still noteworthy (for a geek).

I mean, how can you go wrong? The Next Generation was definitely blessed to have Sir Patrick Stewart as a regular cast member, and Bill Shatner - what a career! He definitely gave Captain Kirk style and personality. To see him die, well, it was rough. Spock, last I knew, is still alive even in the rebooted movie franchise.

Speaking of which, I'm quite sure I'll find my fat butt parked in a theater near me next weekend if at all possible, to see Star Trek Into Darkness. I liked the first reboot, even if it was a tad busy for me, and hope this one has some more character development. The usual interplay between Kirk, Spock and Bones that was the hallmark of the original series was pretty sketchy. I'm hoping J.J. Abrams has taken on that task.

So, what do you fellow fans out there think of the "new" "reimagined" Star Trek?

Science!!! Ain't It Great?!?

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What happens when you wring out a washcloth soaked in water while in zero gravity? Now's yer chance to find out!

I gotta admit, it was different than I expected. I figured the water would sort of stick together, and it would end up getting sucked up by the now squeezed washcloth. The surface effects, not so much. Yeah, I learned all about surface tension and the molecular bonding that makes it possible, but it still didn't occur to me.

They Helped Me Make Up My Mind

Been looking at new phones lately. I'm with Verizon, but that's not who I started with. Originally, it was Kansas Cellular. Then it was Alltel, who I really liked. Now Verizon. Not the same.

But I and every trucker I know from this area gets far better service in points unknown than anyone else. Period. When the iPhone first hit, one of our lease drivers had, absolutely had to have one. We ran together up to North Dakota, and ran most of the way back together. He lost service in Nebraska, and only got it around certain parts of I94. Granted, that was a while ago, and AT&T and Sprint have improved service in that area. Another one has service from our local telco, and they're hooked up with Sprint for the rest of the country. He can make phone calls while in ND, but not text or get online. Sprint apparently has no data agreements there. Verizon does.

So, I'm not gonna switch carriers. If I get a subsidized phone, I'm gonna have to ditch the grandfathered all you can eat data plan. For now, Verizon still lets me have it, and if I want to keep it, I have to pay full price for a new phone. Considering the way the industry works, I'm skeptical that I will be able to keep it long term even if I do purchase at full price. One day, they'll just announce that the grandfathered data plans are history.

So, not sure about keeping my buffet data.

And I've really had good luck with Motorola phones over the years, but I'm sure leaning towards the new Samsung Galaxy S4 that will be out this summer for sure. Worth a try.

So, since my phone is paid off, and they're pushing me to buy a new one and offering discounts. One ad caught my eye the other day - "trade in your old phone for cash!" it said. So, I looked up what I'd get from my Motorola Droid2.

Fifty freaking cents. Are you serious? Why didn't they just tell me they didn't want the damn thing? I'm not letting 'em have it for fifty freaking cents - they can stick that, well, yeah, you know where.

So I'll be keeping that puppy as a spare. Screw 'em.

Very Irritating

Google is irritating me again today. I use the crap outta their stuff, but wow, can they be any more leftist than they are?

Okay, fine. Caesar Chavez's 86th birthday is today. He is a labor hero, as well as a Hispanic hero. Seems like today is something else as well:

 

Oh, I dunno, maybe it's just Easter. You know, that holiday that is considered highly important to Christians world wide because we celebrate the rebirth of Christ. You know, the cornerstone of our religion. I guess farm workers belonging to labor unions and Hispanics who admire Chavez are ever so much more important than the freaking rest of the world. Dunno why I'm surprised, Google is behaving normally. Leave it to the outfit that claims to commit no evil to snub Christians on a regular basis. Because recognizing a Christian holiday would be evil, apparently.

Biiiiiig Ship

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Time lapse photo sequence of the building of Maersk Line's biggest ship. At one point, the ship is floated, pulled out, and several ships pass through. Then the dock is drained, refilled and the unfinished ship is brought back in. I suppose the ships that moved out were being built "behind" the biggun? Got no idea.

H/T Nukle Kim

Tears In Rain

This cartoon made me larf right out loud when I saw it today. Of course it's a parody of this scene:


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If you are any kind of geek at all, you absolutely know this is Roy Batty's (played by Rutger Hauer) death scene in Blade Runner - also starring Harrison Ford. It's also known as The Tears In Rain Soliloquy.

In Blade Runner, the dying replicant Roy Batty introspectively makes the speech during a rain downpour, moments before his own death:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.

In the Channel 4 documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner, Hauer, director Ridley Scott, and screenwriter David Peoples asserted that Hauer wrote the "Tears in Rain" speech. There were earlier versions of the speech in Peoples' draft screenplays; one included the sentence "I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate"^[5] In his autobiography, Hauer said he merely cut the original scripted speech by several lines, adding only "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain"^[6] although the original script, displayed during the documentary, before Hauer's rewrite, does not mention "Tanhauser Gate":

I've known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I've been Offworld and back... frontiers! I've stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching the stars fight on the shoulder of Orion...I've felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I've seen it, felt it...!

Hauer described this as "opera talk" and "hi-tech speech" with no bearing on the rest of the film, so he "put a knife in it" the night before filming, without Scott's knowledge.^[7] In interview with Dan Jolin, Hauer said that these final lines showed that Batty wanted to "make his mark on existence ... the robot in the final scene, by dying, shows Deckard what a real man is made of."^[8]
When Hauer performed the scene, the film crew applauded and some even cried. This was due to the power of the dying speech coming at the end of an exhausting shoot.^[9]

Hauer as Roy Batty had been a ruthless killer, but he did have the capacity to feel some sort of love - for Pris (Darryl Hannah) and Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). Hauer really did do quite a job here, it's quite moving, particularly in the context of the movie. Which you should see, even if you aren't into science fiction.

Blade Runner is noirish in the dark and gloomy way it's presented.Always raining, always night, and you cannot trust anyone. It's in the future for sure, but it's not a happy one. Scott really set the tone for many future science fiction flicks with the mood he set here. The special effects aren't really central to the plot or the action - it's all character driven.  And, if you've ever read Philip K. Dick, you can understand where a lot of the tone comes from - Blade Runner is based on his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Just a quick plot summary - Deckard (Ford) is called back from retirement to "retire" a group of rebelling replicants who have escaped their planet and made it back to Earth. Replicants are engineered humans who have a limited shelf life. These were a bunch of enhanced specimens looking for a way to live longer. While Deckard is a cop, he is essentially a government assassin. And as the movie moves along, the question of whether Deckard himself is a replicant becomes an issue that is never answered. In fact, the female replicant he falls for (Sean Young as Rachael) asks him if he's taken the screening test he gives to determine replicant status himself. Makes ya wonder.

There are a lot of quality actors in this - Brion James, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, William Sanderson (other brother Daryl) are among the cast, as well as those mentioned earlier. Vandelis handled the music.

In short, Blade Runner is truly a cult classic.

March Dadness

My father was a big time college basketball fan. The sun rose and set upon the Kansas Jayhawk Empire for him, but he was always up for watching a good game on television.

He really came into his own during March Madness when I had a 4DTV C and Ku Band satellite system. You know, the huge dish that had a motor to move it across the sky to receive different satellites. He always claimed not to know "how to run the damn thing" and usually made me switch satellites to find whatever it was he wanted to watch. The 4DTV had one of the first interactive program guides on it, and it worked quite well.

But when I was off at work, he had no choice but to learn, and he did. At the time, one could purchase a package that showed all the games, but the kicker was that you had to pay. Or you could surf the "wild feeds" for the games. Wild feeds were usually dedicated to syndicated programming - they'd broadcast the Jerry Springer Show at a certain time each day on a certain channel for local stations to receive and record for their own broadcasts. However, the major networks also used them for programming like March Madness, where just a couple channels for east and west weren't enough. When they had several games going on at once, they had to find a way to send out the signal for each game so the local affiliates could broadcast the game they wanted to show. However, at the time, they weren't scrambled - they were "in the clear" meaning all you needed was a standard receiver to watch.

But the networks weren't completely altruistic. You would think you had the game tuned in and all of a sudden, the picture would go snowy. They'd switched to another channel, usually on a different satellite. Of course all the affiliates had a schedule of the proper channels and the times to switch, but us consumers were purposely left in the dark.

After a couple days, Dad had 'em figured out. If I happened to be at home watching a game with him, all at once he might reach for the remote and tune to a different channel. Sure enough, there would be the game we were watching. He never even wrote any of this down, like I'd surely had to do.

He passed away before the networks finally locked it all down and scrambled all their feeds, period. I was highly impressed with his memory and his ability to learn a new to him technology so well in so short a time. He wanted to know, so he learned. Before, he had me to mess with it. When I wasn't around to do it for him, he figured it out.

I cannot help but wryly note that this is the same man who "forgot" all his promises with regards to my transportation - like fixing up the old pickup he had purchased for me, or the promise that he'd buy something a little better. Yep, forgot all about it, and should I remind him, I got yelled at and my name was mud for the rest of the day and perhaps a week. It was ok for him to spend thousands on his hobby - model airplanes, but that largess didn't expand to me or any other members of the family.

And we're closing in on the fifteen anniversary of his death in April of 1998. I most definitely miss him, and I loved him dearly. But Lawdy, was he ever a pain in the ass, and he wasn't even trying.