Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux

[rickf]

I have an older auger for my tractor and yes they are heavy but I will warn you, you bought the cheap part. Wait until you price the auger bits!! If you are lucky you got a 8-10 inch one with it since they are the most useful sizes.

[m3a1]

Came with a nice auger bit and I took two salvaged ones (all are different sizes) as payment from working at Nice Lady's place. So, I'm actually in really great shape.

[raymond]

So,.............did you pick your wife up in the truck or the "doctor car"

[rickf]

Note lack of answer, he is still nursing his wounds.

[m3a1]

Oh, the Doctor Car will pull my trailer very nicely. So, seat heat and massage throughout the trip.

Jingle ALL THE WAY, baby!

[m3a1]

Christmas is nuts. I'm exhausted. Can't go on vacation because likely as not, the house will have been taken over by 'migrants'....12,600 'encounters' on Monday in Texas alone not counting those that got away. Lots of new faces in my neighborhood. I've seen most of them as they are headed past mi casa, down to the corner to the laundromat with big sacks over their shoulders. They definitely aren't Santa's wayward elves.

[m3a1]

A DIFFERENT KIND OF VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS

Twas the night before Christmas, and just around back,
One creature was wrenching, despite his bad back;
The tools, they were strewn - strewn all 'round the dank place,
In hopes that they could be used to erase,
All the bad mods and perhaps somehow replace,
The mechanical nonsense that seemed ever the case;
And Rick in his 'kerchief, with visions of heaven,
Tromped on the starter of his POS M37.

Now, WAY down in Texas there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
That terrible ruckus came from the nor' east,
A noise that could only be Rick's horrible beast!
How that racket carried on that dark winter's night,
But from New Jersey to Texas?! It WAS quite a fright.

Then, what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick;
His rein-deer were wigged out by that terrible noise,
And St. Nicholas clearly had lost all his poise;
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up OVER my house top, his coursers they flew
With that sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I observed countermeasures,
And avoidance maneuvers (to protect Santa's treasures).

St. Nick bugged right out, he'd been in some tight places,
What he wished to avoid were those eights, and those aces!
With the set of his jaw and the turns of his head,
I could see Santa was certain he had something to dread.
He took with him my presents and with them, my joy,
I was totally bummed, because this year I HAD been a good boy.
Santa's whip gave a snap, to his team he did whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
Santa had bugged out (probably thought he was in Yemen),
And ALL because of Rick's POS M37.

Merry Christmas you Mutts!

[rickf]

Merry Christmas to you too TJ. And the same to the rest of those who watch these posts. What TJ is trying to convey here is the fact I have not shown any pics of my M37 project. I will get something up within the next week.

[m3a1]

The world watches.....

and waits..

[rickf]

There are some of the pics, look in Oddball vehicles. The picture orientation is really something I need to try to figure out!!!!

[m3a1]

January 1; first day of 2024.

The Billmeister and I decided to take advantage of Harbor Freight's 25%-off-any-single-item-many-restrictions-apply coupon. January 1 was the final day for it. And who doesn't love a ride in the Texas Hill Country on a nice clear day?

So we did.

I came away from HF with a much needed double flare brake line kit since, earlier in the year, I discovered that my old kit (a high milage kit I picked up at a yard sale many moons ago) was only a single flare kit. I discovered that right when I needed a double flare kit, naturally. What I purchased came in a big, blow-mold case that might be mistaken for a goodly sized travel case for a pistol; a case which was WAY bigger than it needed to be. But as far as I can tell, that's the only drawback.

I also grabbed a couple of the blister packed, 95 lb. general purpose magnets (those big suckers with a metal shell and a hole for a bolt) and another box of XXL 9mil rubber gloves which never seem to be where they are needed. So maybe, now I'll have enough glove boxes scattered about the place to keep the work running smoothly without having to call everything to a halt...

just to go get gloves.

And finally, I grabbed yet another plastic caliper because, like the gloves, one never seems to be where I'm doing any particular job. One more probably won't solve that shortcoming but, if I bought all of them at once and actually solved that problem, what would be my excuse to pull into a Harbor Freight next time around just because I wanted to. Especially if I'm with the wife.

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's how to pace myself.....and stay married.

When we got back to town, we vectored over to Tractor Supply just to make a full sweep of things. There, I grabbed another one of their fine tee shirts (also on sale) because the night before, I had accidentally sprinkled bleach on mine and made the thing look horrible which immediately relegated it to the Work Tee Shirt pile. So, I replaced it. I'm moving forward into 2024, in part by repairing the damage caused by 2023..

Happy New Year (again)

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

T shirts are a problem for me. I have been wearing all my shirts from the Aberdeen and Graves mountain rally's for the last 20 years but since the Aberdeen show moved out of range and i have not been able to make the Graves rally's for the last 4 years due to health issues I am running out of shirts. I also have a problem with saving old ones. I have shirts from race teams I built motors for back in the 70's!! And 80's, 90's. I have shirts from teams I drove race cars for. These all hold memories. A lot of the people I built engines for are long gone. I should get rid of them since I don't wear them, they would mean nothing to anybody but me but somehow it just feels wrong.

[m3a1]

All my tees go through at least three phases -
1. Newish and presentable in most informal situations
2. Sullied in some way and worn in situations where their ultimate survival doesn't matter
3. Washed one final time and cut into useful sized rags whilst watching youtube. Sleeves are kept for cleaning up after messy projects like packing bearings.

Entirely disposable after #3.

[m3a1]

This is a bit of old news but possibly a worthy read if you are bored with the endless election year drama.

You may recall all the nonsense with Texas's mandatory Vehicle Safety inspection program that I wrote about in a previous post. Welp, the clock is running out on that and the current plan for the whole thing is to bin the actual inspection and just roll the annual expense to Joe Taxpayer (some $7 and change) into the cost of registration. But, before you begin hoisting the colors and rattling sabers and saying how unfair it is....

.....how do you think Texas manages to pay for all that bus and airfare for THOSE PEOPLE?

You KNOW who I'm talking about.

So, I don't get too hacked off about the money if it's being used to grease the skids. What I DID get hacked off about was the made-up, additional, bull honky inspection items requiring me to retrofit my vintage Jeep (capital J - for Jeeps that were never actual military jeeps) with a ridiculous third brake light that was not required equipment in 1993 and for which my Jeep was never intended...or wired. Yeaaaaaaaah.

THAT.

Anyhoo, 2023 would be the last year of mandatory inspection...or 2024, depending upon who you talk to. And, as per usual, I let my vehicle inspection expire. (I'm not a scofflaw. It expired because I was darned busy putting Doctor Amy's annual Christmas Gala together) So, when a moment finally came when I could catch my breath, I took ol' No.9 over to the Conoco Station....you know the one.

(Where Marshal parks his Plymouth).

There is just a little bit of behavioral science to getting a sketchy inspection, particularly when you have installed a third brake light that functions only when you manually push a button. Chiefly, the best time to get inspected is when there is a line of cars waiting for inspection that extends out of the parking lot, out into the street, and down the block. That, right there is motivation for a lone inspector to cut corners and Git 'er DONE. Of course, it might also be evidence that the inspector is some anal retentive jerk who believes in thoroughness, regardless of the consequences (like the ancient pharmacist's assistant who works the drive-up window at the local Walgreens, who is such a jackass that almost everyone goes inside now). If one of those is on duty, there is usually another employee standing outside with flags doing wave-offs to people hoping to get an inspection.

The good thing is, there is an opportunity to observe the inspections before one gets to the front of the line and if things aren't looking good, or promising, one can always bail out.

In Texas, the inspector checks your insurance, gets in your car, cat-launches it out of the bay, zooms around the building at 34.875MPH, jams on the brakes and (hopefully) stops before running, pellmell, into the banged up dumpster in the back. Then he returns to the bay at a crawl where, as per normal procedure, the owner gets back into the vehicle, drives into the bay and turns on the various lights when told to do so. Then, if everything is copacetic, you pay and get a receipt and your vehicle gets an entry into the State's database as being on the up and up. Now, the bit about getting back into the vehicle is important to me because I'm counting on being able to push the button on the temporary third brake light circuit, right?

RIGHT!

So, this being the beginning of a new month, there was that lonnnnng line I was looking and hoping for and I brought my phone so that I could be entertained while I waited and perhaps play 16 new levels of Simon's Cat Bubble Pop and listen to pop music from the 70's. Timing also factors into this whole scenario. I showed up right before lunch time because 99.999% of these places only have one certified inspector on duty per shift and they wanna take a break and eat just like the rest of us and if there's no one out front doing wave-offs, you KNOW the inspector is gonna be in a big hurry to clean up the backlog before being able to stop for a bite of lunch.

I was also pleased to see that the inspector looked like he was a 'Hella Gnarly Dude'; a guy who is seriously counterculture! Yeah! Right on! This might be the perfect inspector guy for my nefarious plan. Long hair sticking out from beneath a knit cap, shorts, wool socks rolled down and hiking boots. If he's not a surfer, he's probably a base-jumper. A guy whose risk-reward paradigm is so completely out of whack, he probably wouldn't think twice about doing half-assed inspections... and, if my profiling skills were still any good at all, he probably even had several hand-rolled darts stashed, not far away. The inspection line was moving along surprisingly well. All if these were good signs.

Finally, it was my turn. I got out, handed over my insurance card. He said, "nice Jeep" and hopped in. Then, I watched carefully (from a place of safety to avoid getting run down by my own vehicle) as he launched through the building after laying on the horn to warn others. COMIN' THROUGH! I caught the flicker of every light on my rig as it passed over the grease pit. Theoretically, the inspector is catching a glimpse of all these lights in cleverly located convex mirrors AFTER the brake test. Hella Gnarly Dude WAS cutting corners...and (OOPS) I wasn't in there to push the third brake light button.... Dang! I hadn't foreseen this situation.

My nefarious plan may have fallen apart.

Still, the odds were that all that high speed light manipulation was nothing more than his giving nothing more than a nod to the inspection....and I'm a 'bettin' man'. What is the worst that could happen? I'd get failed and told to come back later for "a second bite at the apple" as they say. Happily, my inspector-dude didn't look like the sort of fellow who says NO to much of anything....or anyone. The odds were still in my favor.

About now, Rick is wanting to comment that, for a guy who was in strict government service for more than 30 years, I'm putting a lot of effort into gaming the system.

My reply is - Yes.

Unlike most folks, I spent an unusually large number of years getting paid to walk a very fine line, not only in my professional life but also in my private life. By my reckoning, now that I'm retired, it's party time. They OWE ME. I may even rob a bank before this is all over...although robbing a bank, done properly, seems like WAY more work than it's worth. I'm not looking to completely balance out 30+ years of white hat service. I'm satisfied just try to 'get over on the man' just a little bit and here we are....and grin while I'm doing it.

So, Hella Gnarly Dude rolls back up and drives straight into the service bay and climbs out looking satisfied. I must admit, he looked good (and happy) in my jeep...especially with my radio now changed to some screaming death metal channel. Over the course of the year or two I've owned this Jeep, I haven't been able to figure its radio out much beyond playing my CDs. This fella had it figured out in half a circuit around the building. I'm very impressed.

- BUT -

I'm waiting for the rest of my inspection. Hella Gnarly Dude Counterculture Genius Radio-Guru Vehicle Inspector looks me in the eye and without delay, says...

"You passed. Cash? Or Card?"

My Dude!

Cheers,
TJ

[glcaines]

Great story and a good ending. It reminded me of POV vehicle inspections in Germany when I was based there in the early 70s. The secret there was to take a bottle of booze and lay it on the back seat under your paperwork. You would shortly get your signed paperwork back and guess what? The bottle of booze was missing. I passed every time. I'm glad I live where I do. There are no longer any vehicle inspections in the state and the county I live in doesn't have any emissions tests either.