Post 100! I used "yonder" in a senence the other day. That was exciting.
I don't have anything really deep for all ya'll today. Instead, I have a Garth Brooks video. I would have a Billy Joel viedo, but all of those were either crappy karaoke or had embedding disabled. So here we are.
Speaking of Garth Brooks:
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Advice I never got... and that I won't tell my kids
"You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself."
My grandfather never told me that.
My father never told me that.
My mother never told me that.
In fact, they never told me shit. But that's okay, because most of the things parents tell their kids are lies. They tell you you can be anything you want to be. That the sky's the limit. What they don't tell you is that, to borrow a phrase, you have to paint the inside of your box the right shade of blue. They tell you that if you try hard enough, you can go to an Ivy League school. They don't tell you the truth, that you'd better work extra hard or you're stuck right where you grew up. They say that if you tell the truth, you won't get in trouble, but you always do anyway. They say that timeout is a position of shame when it really means you thought for yourself.
My dad told me that if I worked hard, he might be able to help pay my way through community college. And that I'd damn well better graduate, or he won't waste his money. My mom explained just how much shit life can throw at you when you haven't earned it. They never told me I could be anything I wanted, because they knew it wasn't true. They saiid I could be anything I made myself. There's a critical difference.
Half of what I learned, they didn't come right out and say. That wouldn't have made sense. They showed me. They made me learn that I'd better either take action to make something better, or shut up about it not being to my liking. They proved that sometimes you just had to tough it out, but you'd better not give up, because the world will just kick you in the teeth when you're down.
They also showed me that hard work can change almost anything. Grandpa was a self-made man. You might say that dad was a self-destroyed man, but that's not really a fair assessment. Point is, this man hit the road with $100, a car, and a girlfriend, and made a success of himself, despite the best efforts of physics. Between them, my parents showed me that the only one who could destroy you was you. Even if you told yourself that it was someone else.
Growing up with my parents, I learned that when you can't change the situation, you've got to get out of it. If you can't leave, you're fucked. Make the best of it.
Shit happens.
More shit happens.
So stop whining about it.
Crying at Costco doesn't help anything.
"You ain't dead, get it off yourself."
If it looked like a bad idea at the time, in hindsight it was a horrible idea that you're lucky to have survived.
Even if it looked like a good idea at the time, see above.
Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't join the Army.
People die. Death is forever. Adults can't explain this, so don't ask them to.
They didn't tell me any of this, they showed me. I don't know if they meant to, but I'm glad they did. I learned it better that way. Of course, the other half of what I learned were things I taught myself. Like when to leave a room. How to heel. How thinking for myself was the only way to keep things straight, when everyone else wants to manipulate you.
That calling someone a manipulator and then acting like the good guy, the savior from this evil manipulator, makes you just as guilty.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... until someone picks up sticks or stones because of those words.
People lie.
Hit back.
Screaming does nothing when nobody will come running. They will ask why you didn't scream for help, like having screamed instead of defending yourself would have been better. Then you'd have been creamed by the other guy, and then offered no protection OR retribution.
Even if someone comes running, they can't be there forever. In the 15 minutes in between the call and the flashing red and blue lights, a lot can happen.
Getting the police involved rarely reduces your problems.
Sometimes street justice is the only justice.
Sometimes there is no justice.
Justice is most often about revenge.
That when it got right down to it, you were no better than anyone else. Get used to it.
You don't deserve shit. Nobody does. Earn it or shut up. But be confident in what you've earned. Don't let anyone take it. Don't let anyone tell you it's any less. If they do, don't believe them.
Lives are like national parks: people walk in and out, leaving their trash and leaving tracks, but you can't keep them out. You wouldn't want to. Whenever you're a guest in someone's life, no matter who they are, try and leave them a little better than you found them. Same with national parks.
Squirrels are good judges of intentions.
Goals are like the ice cream truck: when you finally reach it and get your ice cream, you realize it cost more than you expected and isn't as good as you remembered. But like when the ice cream truck drives by every Saturday, don't stop chasing your goals.
Live for the moment. The next one isn't guaranteed.
Grandpa practically let his kids raise themselves, just stepping in to guide them when they were truly lost. My parents didn't mean to make me raise myself, but I'm glad they did. They showed me more than they ever probably knew about themselves.
Back to the quote I opened with, "You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself." That's the most important thing I ever learned. School doesn't teach you the true meaning of respect. You parents sure as hell don't. They mean "blind obedience" when they say respect, when really that's not what it's about at all. Martial arts doesn't teach you what respect means. They can all teach you the symptoms, but fake sincerity is hardly sincere. You have to learn it for yourself.
I intend to raise my kids by example. Even a bad example can turn out a good kid, you know.
My grandfather never told me that.
My father never told me that.
My mother never told me that.
In fact, they never told me shit. But that's okay, because most of the things parents tell their kids are lies. They tell you you can be anything you want to be. That the sky's the limit. What they don't tell you is that, to borrow a phrase, you have to paint the inside of your box the right shade of blue. They tell you that if you try hard enough, you can go to an Ivy League school. They don't tell you the truth, that you'd better work extra hard or you're stuck right where you grew up. They say that if you tell the truth, you won't get in trouble, but you always do anyway. They say that timeout is a position of shame when it really means you thought for yourself.
My dad told me that if I worked hard, he might be able to help pay my way through community college. And that I'd damn well better graduate, or he won't waste his money. My mom explained just how much shit life can throw at you when you haven't earned it. They never told me I could be anything I wanted, because they knew it wasn't true. They saiid I could be anything I made myself. There's a critical difference.
Half of what I learned, they didn't come right out and say. That wouldn't have made sense. They showed me. They made me learn that I'd better either take action to make something better, or shut up about it not being to my liking. They proved that sometimes you just had to tough it out, but you'd better not give up, because the world will just kick you in the teeth when you're down.
They also showed me that hard work can change almost anything. Grandpa was a self-made man. You might say that dad was a self-destroyed man, but that's not really a fair assessment. Point is, this man hit the road with $100, a car, and a girlfriend, and made a success of himself, despite the best efforts of physics. Between them, my parents showed me that the only one who could destroy you was you. Even if you told yourself that it was someone else.
Growing up with my parents, I learned that when you can't change the situation, you've got to get out of it. If you can't leave, you're fucked. Make the best of it.
Shit happens.
More shit happens.
So stop whining about it.
Crying at Costco doesn't help anything.
"You ain't dead, get it off yourself."
If it looked like a bad idea at the time, in hindsight it was a horrible idea that you're lucky to have survived.
Even if it looked like a good idea at the time, see above.
Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't join the Army.
People die. Death is forever. Adults can't explain this, so don't ask them to.
They didn't tell me any of this, they showed me. I don't know if they meant to, but I'm glad they did. I learned it better that way. Of course, the other half of what I learned were things I taught myself. Like when to leave a room. How to heel. How thinking for myself was the only way to keep things straight, when everyone else wants to manipulate you.
That calling someone a manipulator and then acting like the good guy, the savior from this evil manipulator, makes you just as guilty.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me... until someone picks up sticks or stones because of those words.
People lie.
Hit back.
Screaming does nothing when nobody will come running. They will ask why you didn't scream for help, like having screamed instead of defending yourself would have been better. Then you'd have been creamed by the other guy, and then offered no protection OR retribution.
Even if someone comes running, they can't be there forever. In the 15 minutes in between the call and the flashing red and blue lights, a lot can happen.
Getting the police involved rarely reduces your problems.
Sometimes street justice is the only justice.
Sometimes there is no justice.
Justice is most often about revenge.
That when it got right down to it, you were no better than anyone else. Get used to it.
You don't deserve shit. Nobody does. Earn it or shut up. But be confident in what you've earned. Don't let anyone take it. Don't let anyone tell you it's any less. If they do, don't believe them.
Lives are like national parks: people walk in and out, leaving their trash and leaving tracks, but you can't keep them out. You wouldn't want to. Whenever you're a guest in someone's life, no matter who they are, try and leave them a little better than you found them. Same with national parks.
Squirrels are good judges of intentions.
Goals are like the ice cream truck: when you finally reach it and get your ice cream, you realize it cost more than you expected and isn't as good as you remembered. But like when the ice cream truck drives by every Saturday, don't stop chasing your goals.
Live for the moment. The next one isn't guaranteed.
Grandpa practically let his kids raise themselves, just stepping in to guide them when they were truly lost. My parents didn't mean to make me raise myself, but I'm glad they did. They showed me more than they ever probably knew about themselves.
Back to the quote I opened with, "You can't expect anyone else to respect you until you can respect yourself." That's the most important thing I ever learned. School doesn't teach you the true meaning of respect. You parents sure as hell don't. They mean "blind obedience" when they say respect, when really that's not what it's about at all. Martial arts doesn't teach you what respect means. They can all teach you the symptoms, but fake sincerity is hardly sincere. You have to learn it for yourself.
I intend to raise my kids by example. Even a bad example can turn out a good kid, you know.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
lolsbians
Like lolcats, only sexier.
I have done that. Just recently, even. It is very true. Good news is, most of my arm hair grew back. Which is a perfect segue into our next picture:
I would have been caught. Please be gentle, mistress!
Or not, if I've been bad and need to be punished.
Or not, if I've been bad and need to be punished.
On that note:
Friday, September 19, 2008
I've been busy
Perhaps it's a little tough to read, so here's a zoomed-in version:
FEATURED! I am extremely proud of myself right now, to have written a featured instructable. Maybe my first two 'ibles ever weren't featured, unlike my buddy Skunkbait, but then again the rest of mine have been quick and tossed together. So again, hooray for having my first "serious" 'ible featured!
In other news, meet my second-favorite fish blog.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Baseball, anyone?
Whoever the two people are who have actually played Moldy Pumpkin Machete Baseball, would you please stand up? Was it as fun as it sounds, or more so? If I built a small air cannon and shot a pumpkin out of it at a machete I was holding, would that be as stupid as it sounds?
What else?
Oh, yeah, I feel like an asshole, but I really don't hate you. As far as I'm concerned, things don't have to be weird, or awkward, or anything else but friends.
What else?
Oh, yeah, I feel like an asshole, but I really don't hate you. As far as I'm concerned, things don't have to be weird, or awkward, or anything else but friends.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Redneck philosifizin'
Have you ever sat and just watched a fire? I mean really watched it. It's tough to start at first, and sometimes it seems like the harder you try, the farther away that magic spark is. Of course, accidental fires are notoriously easy to light. But once the fire is lit, it's alive. It's got a mind of its own, and its both stubborn and fickle.
The flames leap up from the fuel, dancing across it like the northern lights brought to the ground. No two tongues of flame are ever exactly alike, but there are patterns that they always follow. Its interesting to note, however, that once the initial flush of flame dies down, the entire pile of fuel begins to glow. Looking in amongst the sticks, it is obvious that the air itself, everywhere in that space, is combusting. The fire is comprehensive, all-encomappassing in amongst its fuel. Most people fixate on the leaping flames, but it is obvious where the real beauty lies. The true elegance of a fire rests in its heart.
After forest fires and lightning strikes, snags and stumps have been found smouldering, even after heavy rain and weeks of time since the main fire passed through. The fire crawls into the heartwood, into the roots, into the secret nooks and crannies that every tree has. In some respects, fire knows trees better than any other being on this earth knows them. Putting out a smouldering stump can take hundreds of gallons of water, or a dozen people hacking it into little bits and spreading it out to cool, or both.
But fire isn't actually free. It is bound to systems and rules, just like we are. There are certain paraneters within which an enber can live, grow, become a flame. there are other parameters where fire dies quickly of exposure. Without its food and its air, the fire starves. If put in too small a space, it snuffs itself out. Embers and flames love company, but if you put too many of them in the same space, none of them have the resources to live.
Wildland firefighter and priest Peter Leschak wrote that when he dies, he hopes he may return and roam this earth as a wildfire, turning up wherever lightning or a careless match might strike, engaged in an earnest battle with firefighters, but extending them a certain professional courtesy, so to speak. He understands that although a fire will always burn itself out of its own accord if not snuffed sooner, fire will always be back. It's an integral part of earth's natural balance, here before we were, and here long after we're gone.
The flames leap up from the fuel, dancing across it like the northern lights brought to the ground. No two tongues of flame are ever exactly alike, but there are patterns that they always follow. Its interesting to note, however, that once the initial flush of flame dies down, the entire pile of fuel begins to glow. Looking in amongst the sticks, it is obvious that the air itself, everywhere in that space, is combusting. The fire is comprehensive, all-encomappassing in amongst its fuel. Most people fixate on the leaping flames, but it is obvious where the real beauty lies. The true elegance of a fire rests in its heart.
After forest fires and lightning strikes, snags and stumps have been found smouldering, even after heavy rain and weeks of time since the main fire passed through. The fire crawls into the heartwood, into the roots, into the secret nooks and crannies that every tree has. In some respects, fire knows trees better than any other being on this earth knows them. Putting out a smouldering stump can take hundreds of gallons of water, or a dozen people hacking it into little bits and spreading it out to cool, or both.
But fire isn't actually free. It is bound to systems and rules, just like we are. There are certain paraneters within which an enber can live, grow, become a flame. there are other parameters where fire dies quickly of exposure. Without its food and its air, the fire starves. If put in too small a space, it snuffs itself out. Embers and flames love company, but if you put too many of them in the same space, none of them have the resources to live.
Wildland firefighter and priest Peter Leschak wrote that when he dies, he hopes he may return and roam this earth as a wildfire, turning up wherever lightning or a careless match might strike, engaged in an earnest battle with firefighters, but extending them a certain professional courtesy, so to speak. He understands that although a fire will always burn itself out of its own accord if not snuffed sooner, fire will always be back. It's an integral part of earth's natural balance, here before we were, and here long after we're gone.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Wristwatch motorcycles
I just ran across this post showing all sorts of motorcycles, made entirely of old wristwatch parts. They are amazing in their detail, even when the artist took liberties with the laws of physics. The sheer aura of coolness is overwhelming.
If I can't get one of these pre-made, I need to go make friends with a watch repairer and try and build one myself.
If I can't get one of these pre-made, I need to go make friends with a watch repairer and try and build one myself.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The greatest hot rod song ever written
I will gladly explain it if you don't get why it is the greatest. What other song has epic sports cars, totalitarian governement, high-speed pursuits, and the unparalleled musicianship of the three men of Rush? It's not just a good-time song like the Beach Boys wrote, it is an intricate tapestry of nostalgic pleasure in the midst of the Priests' dystopic rein. I cna't think of another song where the protagonist risks a death at the hands of the mountain, or worse, a non-death at the hands of the Thought Police. I could go on about how much I love this band, but I really have to sleep sometime soon. Good day.
Gonna buy me a Mercury and cruise it up and down the road.
I am a diehard Mercury fan. Any Merc, big, small, new, old, running, rusted out, I don't care. I believe in american cars and American bikes. I don't like the fact that they're not built in America anymore, but the Big Three are classic American marques. That's why every car that's ever occupied the driveway has had Ford, GM, or Mopar badges, even rentals. There just is no beating them. Of course, at hill climbs and rallies, I do occasionally love to hear an Italian engine wail and howl like it's tearing a hole in Hell itself. But it's the growl, roar, and bark of the American V8 that I love the most. If I can't get that, a well-tuned V6 can do a tidy job. Dare to be different, right?
You should have heard the fellow on the other end of the phone at a certain famous mail-order parts company when I asked about anything that might maybe kinda work on a front-drive 1993 60 degree six inhabiting the engine bay of a Cutlass. He tried to help, first by trying to talk me out of it, then by giving me prices and sources of parts that might not work, but might just do the trick. The target is around 400, so it might never happen, but he helped all he could. I've got my work cut out for me if I want a high-power V6, offroadable tow rig/city cruiser.
Of course, the other car is already a "little hot rod." It's a '07 Merc Milan six. 220 horse out of 183 is pretty good. But I get the feeling it's being held back. The low end is great, but the transmission is a bit shifty. It tends to pick the gear I'd like it to, you just have to speak its language. Off the line is great (even with the auto, you can pull a great holeshot. The converter stalls around 900 if you go easy on it, or up to about 1300 if you stomp on it. By the time it shifts gears, the engine is already making as much power as the four-banger does wide open. Like I said, the pull at low rpms is pretty fun.
Handling is crisp, predictable, and smooth. I find the power steering to have a good amount of resistance. I've only felt the vehicle skid once, and that was on a wet road with the traction control off. I call it "active Positraction." I mentioned the responsiveness and low end earlier, but that's on a good day. On a bad day, things are jerky, opening the throttle is just a suggestion (the computer gets final say, since it is infuriatingly drive-by-wire). Response is not crisp, but compared with the ocean-liner handling and throttle response of the Olds, it only annoys me when the person in the right seat is being impatient and wants faster starts, later stops, and general disregard for gas milage and parts longevity. Well, she should know her daughter better. When she gets impatient and says "speed up to 60 faster" she should know that that means all four windows down, pedal to the metal, engine spooling up past four grand, exhaust note loud. I may be a hotrod enthusiast, but I'm secure enough in the machine's ability to not have to show it off. My mom just likes to get there now, even if "there" is a red light. She doesn't like not being in control.
So back to what I like to call "on-ramps with a pissed off nervous backseat driver." The Milan is not a straight-line car. It does the quarter in 15 seconds at a hair over 90, or so I'm told. I intend to get it up to Bandimere soon and get timed in an E.T. class sometime this year. I'm confident it'll lose. 0-60 in nine seconds. Those numbers are bad for a car of this magnitude. Where's the lead brick?
The car itself is the lead brick. Coming in at over two tons, it's one heavy mutha. The speedometer goes to 120, the revs are limited at 133, but the car doesn't even want to do 90. I'm sure with a long enough road 133 could happen, but I don't know where that blacktop would be. I felt it complain at 87 and asked to do more last summer out in the flatlands with my dad at the helm. Besides a Corvette or a red Barchetta, I can't think of a better mountain backroads rallymobile. But if fast acceleration is needed from 55 on up, it's not gonna happen. The low end is promising, but the stock tune can't deliver.
Of course, none of that amounts to a hill of beans, the favorite thing for my family to do in that car is to cruise it up and down the road.
You should have heard the fellow on the other end of the phone at a certain famous mail-order parts company when I asked about anything that might maybe kinda work on a front-drive 1993 60 degree six inhabiting the engine bay of a Cutlass. He tried to help, first by trying to talk me out of it, then by giving me prices and sources of parts that might not work, but might just do the trick. The target is around 400, so it might never happen, but he helped all he could. I've got my work cut out for me if I want a high-power V6, offroadable tow rig/city cruiser.
Of course, the other car is already a "little hot rod." It's a '07 Merc Milan six. 220 horse out of 183 is pretty good. But I get the feeling it's being held back. The low end is great, but the transmission is a bit shifty. It tends to pick the gear I'd like it to, you just have to speak its language. Off the line is great (even with the auto, you can pull a great holeshot. The converter stalls around 900 if you go easy on it, or up to about 1300 if you stomp on it. By the time it shifts gears, the engine is already making as much power as the four-banger does wide open. Like I said, the pull at low rpms is pretty fun.
Handling is crisp, predictable, and smooth. I find the power steering to have a good amount of resistance. I've only felt the vehicle skid once, and that was on a wet road with the traction control off. I call it "active Positraction." I mentioned the responsiveness and low end earlier, but that's on a good day. On a bad day, things are jerky, opening the throttle is just a suggestion (the computer gets final say, since it is infuriatingly drive-by-wire). Response is not crisp, but compared with the ocean-liner handling and throttle response of the Olds, it only annoys me when the person in the right seat is being impatient and wants faster starts, later stops, and general disregard for gas milage and parts longevity. Well, she should know her daughter better. When she gets impatient and says "speed up to 60 faster" she should know that that means all four windows down, pedal to the metal, engine spooling up past four grand, exhaust note loud. I may be a hotrod enthusiast, but I'm secure enough in the machine's ability to not have to show it off. My mom just likes to get there now, even if "there" is a red light. She doesn't like not being in control.
So back to what I like to call "on-ramps with a pissed off nervous backseat driver." The Milan is not a straight-line car. It does the quarter in 15 seconds at a hair over 90, or so I'm told. I intend to get it up to Bandimere soon and get timed in an E.T. class sometime this year. I'm confident it'll lose. 0-60 in nine seconds. Those numbers are bad for a car of this magnitude. Where's the lead brick?
The car itself is the lead brick. Coming in at over two tons, it's one heavy mutha. The speedometer goes to 120, the revs are limited at 133, but the car doesn't even want to do 90. I'm sure with a long enough road 133 could happen, but I don't know where that blacktop would be. I felt it complain at 87 and asked to do more last summer out in the flatlands with my dad at the helm. Besides a Corvette or a red Barchetta, I can't think of a better mountain backroads rallymobile. But if fast acceleration is needed from 55 on up, it's not gonna happen. The low end is promising, but the stock tune can't deliver.
Of course, none of that amounts to a hill of beans, the favorite thing for my family to do in that car is to cruise it up and down the road.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Din't rock the jukebox-- play me a country song!
I have come to the official conclusion that you probably don't have enough country music. No matter who you are. I intend to fix that. Montgomery Gentry have got some great songs, like "Back When I Knew it All," "What Do Ya Think About That" and "Hillbilly Shoes."
Embedding is disabled by request on some of'em, so here's the links. Check the fiddle in Hillbilly Shoes.
What Do Ya Think About That?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QytPoRLEhF0
Back When I Knew it All
Hillbilly Shoes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glyGjAyw9sM
All Night Long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWu911G7RxA
Embedding is disabled by request on some of'em, so here's the links. Check the fiddle in Hillbilly Shoes.
What Do Ya Think About That?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QytPoRLEhF0
Back When I Knew it All
Hillbilly Shoes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glyGjAyw9sM
All Night Long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWu911G7RxA
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Can you beat this?
The other day I was having a debate with a friend of mine over who was whiter-trash. We've set the bar pretty high over the course of trying to one-up each other. So here's a short list.
You might be white trash if:
You have ever watched someone beat a belligerant drunk party guest with a string of dried chiles.
You were ever on the recieving end of such a beating.
You have ever heard a tornado warning and hid under your trailer.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup at 75 miles an hour and were still able to hear the Alan Jackson song playing in the cab.
You once went two months without eating anything that hadn't been microwaved.
You have ever bought breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a 7-Eleven.
You have ever proudly sang the song "Upper-Middle-Class White Trash".
You began singing the chorus when your friend said that.
You know anyone who actually "stopped to pee, got some gas and won the lottery!"
You will drop whatever you're doing to go to a pig roast.
You have ever seen roadkill and thought "I bet that'd be good with some A-1 on it."
You keep your James Bond tapes in an A&W box.
You can name twelve barbeque joints within driving distance of wherever you are.
You have gator meat in your freezer.
You have a snakeskin belt from a snake killed by anyone you know.
You know anyone who goes by the name "Cornbread".
You know how to ride a non-riding lawnmower.
You have ever gone to Wal-Mart in search of shoes, because you accidentally left on vacation with no shoes whatsoever.
You're not ashamed to wear a bright red Rocky's Autos hat.
You will drive 900 miles to watch someone drive 500 miles.
You will drive 200 miles to watch someone drive 12.42 miles uphill.
Freestyle Snowshoe Boulder Jumping sounds like a good idea.
You have ever hit a tree. While walking. In the summer. On purpose. More than once.
And, most of all, if you have ever participated in a contest over how white-trash you are.
You might be white trash if:
You have ever watched someone beat a belligerant drunk party guest with a string of dried chiles.
You were ever on the recieving end of such a beating.
You have ever heard a tornado warning and hid under your trailer.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup.
You have ever ridden in the bed of a Ford pickup at 75 miles an hour and were still able to hear the Alan Jackson song playing in the cab.
You once went two months without eating anything that hadn't been microwaved.
You have ever bought breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a 7-Eleven.
You have ever proudly sang the song "Upper-Middle-Class White Trash".
You began singing the chorus when your friend said that.
You know anyone who actually "stopped to pee, got some gas and won the lottery!"
You will drop whatever you're doing to go to a pig roast.
You have ever seen roadkill and thought "I bet that'd be good with some A-1 on it."
You keep your James Bond tapes in an A&W box.
You can name twelve barbeque joints within driving distance of wherever you are.
You have gator meat in your freezer.
You have a snakeskin belt from a snake killed by anyone you know.
You know anyone who goes by the name "Cornbread".
You know how to ride a non-riding lawnmower.
You have ever gone to Wal-Mart in search of shoes, because you accidentally left on vacation with no shoes whatsoever.
You're not ashamed to wear a bright red Rocky's Autos hat.
You will drive 900 miles to watch someone drive 500 miles.
You will drive 200 miles to watch someone drive 12.42 miles uphill.
Freestyle Snowshoe Boulder Jumping sounds like a good idea.
You have ever hit a tree. While walking. In the summer. On purpose. More than once.
And, most of all, if you have ever participated in a contest over how white-trash you are.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Getting in the Holiday Spirit
This is the coolest Christmas light display I have ever seen. That includes the concept of Tim Taylor's 12 million candlepower house, and the decorations the people down the street put up every year.
This allegedly cost that guy $10,000 to set up and program, using 88 different control channels. In order to not annoy the neighbors, he put up a sign instructing viewers to tune into a low-power FM station to hear the music. As far as I know, he does this every year now.
Last year, I scotch-taped a few LEDs to the window, and hung one string of lights. Badly. It's not quite the same.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tips for salesmen
Funny story. Don't be this tool. Seriously.
A few weeks ago we had just pulled into the driveway and gotten out, when a door-to-soor salesman walked up to us. Of all the rotten timing, we manage to get home just as this guy's walking through the corner of our lawn, now making a beeline for the car. Too late, he's spotted us. We can't just throw it in reverse and gun it. Remove your hand from the gearshift please.
I figure we'll let him say his piece and scurry off, since that's usually the fastest way to get rid of a salesman, short of acting like you're not home, or audibly cocking a gun.
"Have you ever considered vinyl siding?"
My mom says, "No, we don't want any."
"You never have to paint it, it's weatherproof, and affordable."
"I really don't think we're interested."
This guy just wasn't getting the hint. Then he said it. "It's available in a variety of colors. It'd be real easy to cover up some of this ugly brick."
The whole neighborhood is brick ranch houses. No siding to be found. This tool just didn't get it that he might be barking up the wrong tree. There's a reason we live in a brick house. Mom's approach wasn't working. My turn to talk.
"I don't know who you think you are, but let me give you a word of advice. Don't go callin' my house ugly and expect me to want anything from you except to leave. Now get out of my driveway. And stay off my grass while you do it."
He didn't want to leave, but this time he got the hint. I don't think he ever called someone's house ugly again. At least not that day.
A few weeks ago we had just pulled into the driveway and gotten out, when a door-to-soor salesman walked up to us. Of all the rotten timing, we manage to get home just as this guy's walking through the corner of our lawn, now making a beeline for the car. Too late, he's spotted us. We can't just throw it in reverse and gun it. Remove your hand from the gearshift please.
I figure we'll let him say his piece and scurry off, since that's usually the fastest way to get rid of a salesman, short of acting like you're not home, or audibly cocking a gun.
"Have you ever considered vinyl siding?"
My mom says, "No, we don't want any."
"You never have to paint it, it's weatherproof, and affordable."
"I really don't think we're interested."
This guy just wasn't getting the hint. Then he said it. "It's available in a variety of colors. It'd be real easy to cover up some of this ugly brick."
The whole neighborhood is brick ranch houses. No siding to be found. This tool just didn't get it that he might be barking up the wrong tree. There's a reason we live in a brick house. Mom's approach wasn't working. My turn to talk.
"I don't know who you think you are, but let me give you a word of advice. Don't go callin' my house ugly and expect me to want anything from you except to leave. Now get out of my driveway. And stay off my grass while you do it."
He didn't want to leave, but this time he got the hint. I don't think he ever called someone's house ugly again. At least not that day.
Monday, July 21, 2008
The redneck to-do list
First of all, I would like to know how I wound up with the honey-do list. I was snaking the drain of a sink I don't even use today when I realized, "Holy crap, I've been doing stuff my mom has been nagging my dad to do. When did that happen?"
So to counteract and delay the honey-do list's evils of pulling weeds, returning dog shit to our neighbor's yard where the little shitter lives, cleaning dishes that have been soaking against my explicit request, and watering the lawn, I have drawn up my own official to-do list, which is as follows.
So to counteract and delay the honey-do list's evils of pulling weeds, returning dog shit to our neighbor's yard where the little shitter lives, cleaning dishes that have been soaking against my explicit request, and watering the lawn, I have drawn up my own official to-do list, which is as follows.
- Complete portable jacob's ladder for sparking motorcycle helmet
- Get another motorcycle
- Get it running
- Go to the Rocky Mountain Concours d'Elegance and dig the Munro Special '20 Indian Scout 45
- Get the rest of our motorcycles running
- Join a high school rugby team
- Aquire and hotrod a 50cc scooter to do an honest 55 for any sustained period of time, more than once
- Attach a tow hitch to our Olds
- Hotrod the Olds
- Get Brushfire Customs off the ground as a business
- Graduate high school
- Build a machine to race up Pikes Peak
I'm not sure whether those are in chronological order or by drop-everything-else-and-do-it priority, but whatever. There's some NASCAR-watching, NHRA-following, family reunions, shooting, barbequeing, wild-game-eating, and all that in there, too, but that's kind of par for the course, y'know?
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Weekly Gearing
Seeing as I build crap as a hobby and an income (and build even more crap when I'm bored... they know me at Home Depot), I've been hanging out on Instructables with other people who like to build stuff, too.
If we're given the choice between an easy solution and a free solution using junk we already have, rednecks will usually pick using the junk we already have. And trust me, your average redneck has a LOT of junk. The people on Instructables like to take the DIY approach, too, and write step-by-step directions so that anyone else who has the same problem can fix it themselves, too. Even if they decide they want to turn an old Apple computer into a toilet paper dispenser, which has since been dubbed the "iPood" by the commentors. However I think we all agree, nobody would want an iPood Shuffle or Video.
Me and a couple of other people on the site have decided to put together a weekly podcast of interesting happenings, contests, and notable inventions we've run across. We really don't plan on talking much about the nitty-gritty of how to do it, since the steps are already available and illustrated on the site, but we will be talking about the great, the awful, and the just plain "WTF?" inventions on the site. Kind of a weekly digest and who's-who.
The infamous Killerjackalope of Northern Ireland, the not-so-infamous spoonty of Australia, and yours truly of Colorado will be hosting.
So if you'd like to listen to "Weekly Gearings," we expect to have the first episode put together and available by sometime next week. More details pending. First we have to figure out who's paying international rates for a conference call!
(Just kidding, file transfer is both free and magically delicious)
If we're given the choice between an easy solution and a free solution using junk we already have, rednecks will usually pick using the junk we already have. And trust me, your average redneck has a LOT of junk. The people on Instructables like to take the DIY approach, too, and write step-by-step directions so that anyone else who has the same problem can fix it themselves, too. Even if they decide they want to turn an old Apple computer into a toilet paper dispenser, which has since been dubbed the "iPood" by the commentors. However I think we all agree, nobody would want an iPood Shuffle or Video.
Me and a couple of other people on the site have decided to put together a weekly podcast of interesting happenings, contests, and notable inventions we've run across. We really don't plan on talking much about the nitty-gritty of how to do it, since the steps are already available and illustrated on the site, but we will be talking about the great, the awful, and the just plain "WTF?" inventions on the site. Kind of a weekly digest and who's-who.
The infamous Killerjackalope of Northern Ireland, the not-so-infamous spoonty of Australia, and yours truly of Colorado will be hosting.
So if you'd like to listen to "Weekly Gearings," we expect to have the first episode put together and available by sometime next week. More details pending. First we have to figure out who's paying international rates for a conference call!
(Just kidding, file transfer is both free and magically delicious)
Kiteboating
If we had wind and water (mostly consistent sea-breeze type wind), I'd probably be first in line to attach a boat to a kite out on the reservoir. But since we don't, I'm trying to design a ducted-fan-powered wagon-like-object to take out on the plains. Like an airboat, only funner. But since Tim Anderson is out in California, where sea breezes are common, him and all his friend kitesurf. So it makes sense that they'd decide to attach a big kite to a little boat and see what happens.
That's what happens.
No, actually, I hear that it worked pretty well. they did drive to the beach like that, though. Note the guy riding hood ornament up top of the truck. Who knew anything would be able to make a Ford F-series pickup look small?
That's what happens.
No, actually, I hear that it worked pretty well. they did drive to the beach like that, though. Note the guy riding hood ornament up top of the truck. Who knew anything would be able to make a Ford F-series pickup look small?
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Redneck decoration 101
http://myredneckworld.com/
Ran across that the other day while I was looking at the Google Analytics for this page. I want that wooden motorcycle! That is badass. The real "riding" lawnmower is pretty cool, too. If our yard weren't so damned hilly and obstructed, I'd have to see about getting me one of those. But the last thing I'd need is to lay it over, 'cause we all know it'd be too heavy to pick up alone, and the mower blade would be spinning.
In fact, WAY too many of those photos look really familiar.
I like the gingerbread trailer, too. The front lawn on that one is spot-on perfect. And it's not just trailer park folks that do that, either. I've never had to live in a trailer park myself, but I've crashed with a lot of relatives who do, and it's true, everything you hear. We all have stuff in our front yards like a gigantic truck, or a car that's getting washed, or a car up on blocks. One feller (whom I believe is my 2nd cousin's husband, or maybe he's my second cousin, I'm not sure) who comes to my uncle's Thanksgiving party every year really likes old tractors. So we sold him one. It was an old Ford that had been used as a mountain logging tractor. See, they'd put the wheels on backwards so they got the most grip going backwards, then they'd drive up the hill in reverse, since that was the lowest gear. My grandpa bought it in the late 40s or early 50s for use in his construction business. One time he nearly ran over my dad with it. He parked it on the hillside that day, in 1956, where it sat and rusted for fifty years.
Then my dad told cousin Jim the tractor story, and Jim said he'd pay cash for the tractor if it was for sale. Why what a coincidence, it just happens to have gone on the market.
So the nest weekend, it's still hot as hell, even though it's November, and now the whole family is up halfway up the hill looking at this tractor. Jim brought his wife, his truck, and a trailer. You guessed what that means: papa's goin' hunting and bringin' back a big'un. And what a catch this tractor was. Thing is, it was about 40 feet from the road, grandpa parked it in gear, and now we can't get it out of gear. Oh, this thing was going nowhere.
It took a couple of hours, four people, a truck, a tow chain, and a prayer, but we got the tractor off the mountinside and onto the road without tipping it over. We just had to drag the stubborn hunk of rust. Then, with more effort, we got it onto the trailer and got it chained down. Tractor in his possession, cousin Jim payed up in cold, hard cash.
The next Thanksgiving, Jim had wallet-sized photos of his new favorite tractor to pass around. He had gotten it back out to his kustoms shop way out in flat ranch country, wrestled it off the trailer, and left it where it landed.
Right in front of his porch, next to the mailbox. It had a couple of field-find cars and what might have been some sort of railroad equipment to keep it company. Over turkey, he informed us that it was quite a conversation piece.
The final test will be next Tuesday. It will be multiple-choice. A score of 70% or better means you pass Redneck Decoration 101 and will be able to move on to Redneck Decoration 102: Proper uses of cinderblocks.
Ran across that the other day while I was looking at the Google Analytics for this page. I want that wooden motorcycle! That is badass. The real "riding" lawnmower is pretty cool, too. If our yard weren't so damned hilly and obstructed, I'd have to see about getting me one of those. But the last thing I'd need is to lay it over, 'cause we all know it'd be too heavy to pick up alone, and the mower blade would be spinning.
In fact, WAY too many of those photos look really familiar.
I like the gingerbread trailer, too. The front lawn on that one is spot-on perfect. And it's not just trailer park folks that do that, either. I've never had to live in a trailer park myself, but I've crashed with a lot of relatives who do, and it's true, everything you hear. We all have stuff in our front yards like a gigantic truck, or a car that's getting washed, or a car up on blocks. One feller (whom I believe is my 2nd cousin's husband, or maybe he's my second cousin, I'm not sure) who comes to my uncle's Thanksgiving party every year really likes old tractors. So we sold him one. It was an old Ford that had been used as a mountain logging tractor. See, they'd put the wheels on backwards so they got the most grip going backwards, then they'd drive up the hill in reverse, since that was the lowest gear. My grandpa bought it in the late 40s or early 50s for use in his construction business. One time he nearly ran over my dad with it. He parked it on the hillside that day, in 1956, where it sat and rusted for fifty years.
Then my dad told cousin Jim the tractor story, and Jim said he'd pay cash for the tractor if it was for sale. Why what a coincidence, it just happens to have gone on the market.
So the nest weekend, it's still hot as hell, even though it's November, and now the whole family is up halfway up the hill looking at this tractor. Jim brought his wife, his truck, and a trailer. You guessed what that means: papa's goin' hunting and bringin' back a big'un. And what a catch this tractor was. Thing is, it was about 40 feet from the road, grandpa parked it in gear, and now we can't get it out of gear. Oh, this thing was going nowhere.
It took a couple of hours, four people, a truck, a tow chain, and a prayer, but we got the tractor off the mountinside and onto the road without tipping it over. We just had to drag the stubborn hunk of rust. Then, with more effort, we got it onto the trailer and got it chained down. Tractor in his possession, cousin Jim payed up in cold, hard cash.
The next Thanksgiving, Jim had wallet-sized photos of his new favorite tractor to pass around. He had gotten it back out to his kustoms shop way out in flat ranch country, wrestled it off the trailer, and left it where it landed.
Right in front of his porch, next to the mailbox. It had a couple of field-find cars and what might have been some sort of railroad equipment to keep it company. Over turkey, he informed us that it was quite a conversation piece.
The final test will be next Tuesday. It will be multiple-choice. A score of 70% or better means you pass Redneck Decoration 101 and will be able to move on to Redneck Decoration 102: Proper uses of cinderblocks.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Oh, shit.
If I haven't already made you sit through my whole gun-rights opinion (oh, you'd know it if I had), you don't know that I believe in the right to posess, carry, and use handguns if it proves necessary.
But this is going a little far. Don't get me wrong, I know several people who might buy and use a pair of these pants. There's a reason I don't visit these people. They're generally a little trigger-happy, and I'd rather remain bullet-hole-free.
If you've never spent some time in the South, be it ranch country like Texas and parts of Colorado (yes, I know that's a geographical screw-up, but the culture's plenty similar), or the plantation country of the Deep South, then you don't know what I'm talking about.
Without getting into the "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" speech, let me just point out that rifles and handguns are an integral part of America's collective culture. There's a reason Colt called it the Peacemaker.
Of course, we all know that guns (and the nutcases that own them), can contribute to some real old-fashioned hell-raising. We don't want that, now do we? And that's why the sort of people who would buy pants just so they can keep their Colt ready to kill with at a moments notice are probably the sort of people we really shouldn't be allowing to have a handgun.
But whether or not they have a screw loose is irrelevant. What really matters is the fact that even though it's a little dangerous for everyone involved, these people have a right to own their guns, and pants to carry them in.
But this is going a little far. Don't get me wrong, I know several people who might buy and use a pair of these pants. There's a reason I don't visit these people. They're generally a little trigger-happy, and I'd rather remain bullet-hole-free.
If you've never spent some time in the South, be it ranch country like Texas and parts of Colorado (yes, I know that's a geographical screw-up, but the culture's plenty similar), or the plantation country of the Deep South, then you don't know what I'm talking about.
Without getting into the "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" speech, let me just point out that rifles and handguns are an integral part of America's collective culture. There's a reason Colt called it the Peacemaker.
Of course, we all know that guns (and the nutcases that own them), can contribute to some real old-fashioned hell-raising. We don't want that, now do we? And that's why the sort of people who would buy pants just so they can keep their Colt ready to kill with at a moments notice are probably the sort of people we really shouldn't be allowing to have a handgun.
But whether or not they have a screw loose is irrelevant. What really matters is the fact that even though it's a little dangerous for everyone involved, these people have a right to own their guns, and pants to carry them in.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Mountain Rednecks
A little while ago I mentioned Jeeping in an MG 1100, towing a big trailer with an Olds Cutlass, towing someone out of a ditch with a Mustang (with the tow rope just tied to the back of the frame). We've also driven a Mercury Milan all over Hell and back on washboard dirt and Indian reservation roads... at 80 miles an hour. By God, if we're going to break it, we'll break it during the warranty. My grandpa has hauled lumber and bags of concrete up dirt Cascade backroads; I know because I was in the bed of his El Camino one time for a supply run. You'd think he was haulin' shine or something.
Mountain rednecks may not always have four-wheel drives, but we'll act like we do. Cars can take a lot more than you'd think. Guys in a Subaru 4WD drive like little old ladies offroad. Of course, they're trust-fund hippies mostly. And not like one little old lady from Pasadena, either. Boy, she drove that Super Stock of hers. Give a mountain redneck that same car and he'll be going rock crawling. Give an average flatlander a dry creek drainage and a Volvo and he'll be parking the Volvo. Give a mountain redneck those same two things and he'll show you a fun day.
Remember this guy? I figured I'd give him another time around on the front page. It's just so....perfect.
Mountain rednecks may not always have four-wheel drives, but we'll act like we do. Cars can take a lot more than you'd think. Guys in a Subaru 4WD drive like little old ladies offroad. Of course, they're trust-fund hippies mostly. And not like one little old lady from Pasadena, either. Boy, she drove that Super Stock of hers. Give a mountain redneck that same car and he'll be going rock crawling. Give an average flatlander a dry creek drainage and a Volvo and he'll be parking the Volvo. Give a mountain redneck those same two things and he'll show you a fun day.
Remember this guy? I figured I'd give him another time around on the front page. It's just so....perfect.
If you're offroading on an impromptu cross-country road trip, the proper way to drive is, contrary to what that jumpy man with the clipboard told you when you were 16, actually with one foot on the gas, the other on the wheel, no shirt on, and the entire upper half of your body out the window. Even if you're driving a damned Prius, this gets you cred.
Like this man.
According to him, Priuses have enough ground clearance that if you're not all uptight and greener-than-thou about it, they make okay off-road vehicles. Plus, having your Prius towed out of a boulderfield five states from where you live is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This one made it through that trail okay, though, apparently.
Now I want to put a Chevy truck IFS with a four inch lift under a Prius, weld on a skidplate, do a mini-tub, put on 20-inch beadlocks with offroad tires, and take that to the next offroad competition just to see if it works. This comes from the same place as my desire to put a 426 Hemi in a Geo Metro, with Positraction rear and a four-speed close-ratio box and watch Corvette guys embarrass themselves.
I think I need professional help with this. I'm not sure whether that should be psycholog-i-mica-tal or someone to hold things in place while I weld. I'll get back to you on that.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
You might be from Colorado if
A winter statistic: 98% OF AMERICANS SCREAM BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD. THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY, 'HOLD MY SODA AND WATCH THIS!'
For rednecks, especially those of the mountain trailer trash breed (you've met us, even though you might not know it), that above sentence is usually uttered while at the wheel of a 12-year-old sedan.
NOW: You're from Colorado if you'll eat ice cream in the winter. Are you kidding? I stock my freezer with popsicles first thing in December. And we're not the only ones in the Costco line with a jumbo pack of Orange Dreamsicles, either.
When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt. That's in the spring. In the winter, the shave-legs-and-wear-skirt point is 47. Shorts for guys (and those of us who wouldn't be caught dead in a skirt) is at a clear 42 degree day.
It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be canceled. No shit. Five with seven more on the way means get an early start, the school won't be starting late.
You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature. No, we'll wear Birkenstock sandals. Flip-flops don't happen until late May; the snow will suck them off your feet.
You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. Actually, I must disagree here. Colorado has a few accents, which no non-Coloradan can pick up. Mostly, you can tell if someone's from the Front range, ranch country, the Western Slope, or right up Jack Frost's asscrack on the Divide. You think I'm kidding. Spend a winter in a trailer in Buena Vista.
And then you make fun of them. Okay, we'll make fun of people's accents, but mostly northeaserners. "Hey, nor-easter! That 'sat-ah-lights' means snowplow. No, you don't get snow where you're from. You ain't seen nothin' yet." Sometime's that's followed by "Hold my soda and watch this."
'Humid' is over 25%. Damn straight. And this constant 45% we've been having means our swamp cooler won't function, except to give us new and creative mold problem. Really, the other day, I held a board meeting with all the various strains of mold that want to live in our bathroom. The toilet mold isn't getting his damage deposit back, the shower mold is getting evicted before he even gets to move in, and the mold that wants to happen on the ceiling because of the damn swamp cooler malfunctioning got hit with agent orange.
Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and away from the mountains. Is there any other way? March me across a compound hill leading into a drainage that will run 40 miles before it hits flat land, and I will be able to point where we came from. March me out on flat land and ask me the same thing, and I will get it very wrong.
You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one. Well, we only have two. Say "the highway" and everyone knows what you mean, too. Just give a number, like "24, 25, 285, 17," (ut-hut-hike!), and folks will know whether you mean Interstate, U.S., or Colorado road, too.
You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard. June's pretty normal, too, in Jack Frost's asscrack, oops, I mean the Divide.
You buy your flowers to set out on Mother's day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father's day. There's any other way?
You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat. I went as a fireman one time just so I got to wear heavy canvas duds. Another time I went as Chewbacca just so I could wear fur to stay warm. We only had three dry Halloweens when I was growing up, and one of then was 17 degrees.
You know what the Continental Divide is. Who doesn't?
You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal. They bought the whole town, of course it's a big deal. It just isn't any good from a beer or supply chain standpoint.
You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, and as an adult. And take every visitor there, too.
You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities. Can you say "Jeeping in an MG 1100?" How about "Towing a big-ass trailer up a dirt mountain road with a '93 Olsmobile Cutlass" Been there, done that. How about "Towed someone out of a mild Colorado ditch with an '83 Mustang?" Hell yeah. I always say, if you get stuck anywhere in Colorado, wait and a local will help you. If you get stuck within 90 miles of Denver, call me, we'll get you out.
You always know the elevation of where you are. 5373 feet.
You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow tomorrow. Or thundersnow. I didn't know that was possible until it happened. I thought the Reds had attacked. With a nuke.
You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.
Every movie theater has military and student discounts. Seriously, is that abnormal?
Everybody wears jeans to church. Some folks ride quads to church. I saw one feller ride a horse one time.
You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place not just a show on TV. You also know that the really weird people are just over the pass on either side of South Park.
You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder. Drinking Fat Tire Ale and saving the whales.
But where else do you have such a Postcard view from you front/back porch! Somewhere that's NOT Boulder.
You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags. Fuck Six Flags. It will always be Elitch's, (both spellings are acceptable), and not to see Elitch's is not to see Denver.
A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you. It does tend to bother other people, though, so you'll probably throw a firecracker at it. Tom did that once, the bear jumped straight up out of his dumpster, hit the ground running, and never came back.
Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders. Except last season. The Broncos were' not on that list last year, but Elam was. Trading him was the dumbest thing that franchise has ever done.
When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state, too, you just laugh. They're hills. That's why y'all are called hillbillies. We've got hillbillies here, too, but here, they live in the FOOThills, and the real dangerous moonshiners, hunters, and general backwoods boys live up past the foothills, in the front or second range of the MOUNTAINS.
You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky' and you notice the sky is no longer blue. It's been sticky around here lately, too. Wouldn't it suck if the overall change in climate patterns that "global warming" is going to cause put us smack dab in the middle of a cold, wet zone?
For rednecks, especially those of the mountain trailer trash breed (you've met us, even though you might not know it), that above sentence is usually uttered while at the wheel of a 12-year-old sedan.
NOW: You're from Colorado if you'll eat ice cream in the winter. Are you kidding? I stock my freezer with popsicles first thing in December. And we're not the only ones in the Costco line with a jumbo pack of Orange Dreamsicles, either.
When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt. That's in the spring. In the winter, the shave-legs-and-wear-skirt point is 47. Shorts for guys (and those of us who wouldn't be caught dead in a skirt) is at a clear 42 degree day.
It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be canceled. No shit. Five with seven more on the way means get an early start, the school won't be starting late.
You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature. No, we'll wear Birkenstock sandals. Flip-flops don't happen until late May; the snow will suck them off your feet.
You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. Actually, I must disagree here. Colorado has a few accents, which no non-Coloradan can pick up. Mostly, you can tell if someone's from the Front range, ranch country, the Western Slope, or right up Jack Frost's asscrack on the Divide. You think I'm kidding. Spend a winter in a trailer in Buena Vista.
And then you make fun of them. Okay, we'll make fun of people's accents, but mostly northeaserners. "Hey, nor-easter! That 'sat-ah-lights' means snowplow. No, you don't get snow where you're from. You ain't seen nothin' yet." Sometime's that's followed by "Hold my soda and watch this."
'Humid' is over 25%. Damn straight. And this constant 45% we've been having means our swamp cooler won't function, except to give us new and creative mold problem. Really, the other day, I held a board meeting with all the various strains of mold that want to live in our bathroom. The toilet mold isn't getting his damage deposit back, the shower mold is getting evicted before he even gets to move in, and the mold that wants to happen on the ceiling because of the damn swamp cooler malfunctioning got hit with agent orange.
Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and away from the mountains. Is there any other way? March me across a compound hill leading into a drainage that will run 40 miles before it hits flat land, and I will be able to point where we came from. March me out on flat land and ask me the same thing, and I will get it very wrong.
You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one. Well, we only have two. Say "the highway" and everyone knows what you mean, too. Just give a number, like "24, 25, 285, 17," (ut-hut-hike!), and folks will know whether you mean Interstate, U.S., or Colorado road, too.
You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard. June's pretty normal, too, in Jack Frost's asscrack, oops, I mean the Divide.
You buy your flowers to set out on Mother's day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father's day. There's any other way?
You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat. I went as a fireman one time just so I got to wear heavy canvas duds. Another time I went as Chewbacca just so I could wear fur to stay warm. We only had three dry Halloweens when I was growing up, and one of then was 17 degrees.
You know what the Continental Divide is. Who doesn't?
You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal. They bought the whole town, of course it's a big deal. It just isn't any good from a beer or supply chain standpoint.
You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, and as an adult. And take every visitor there, too.
You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities. Can you say "Jeeping in an MG 1100?" How about "Towing a big-ass trailer up a dirt mountain road with a '93 Olsmobile Cutlass" Been there, done that. How about "Towed someone out of a mild Colorado ditch with an '83 Mustang?" Hell yeah. I always say, if you get stuck anywhere in Colorado, wait and a local will help you. If you get stuck within 90 miles of Denver, call me, we'll get you out.
You always know the elevation of where you are. 5373 feet.
You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow tomorrow. Or thundersnow. I didn't know that was possible until it happened. I thought the Reds had attacked. With a nuke.
You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.
Every movie theater has military and student discounts. Seriously, is that abnormal?
Everybody wears jeans to church. Some folks ride quads to church. I saw one feller ride a horse one time.
You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place not just a show on TV. You also know that the really weird people are just over the pass on either side of South Park.
You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder. Drinking Fat Tire Ale and saving the whales.
But where else do you have such a Postcard view from you front/back porch! Somewhere that's NOT Boulder.
You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags. Fuck Six Flags. It will always be Elitch's, (both spellings are acceptable), and not to see Elitch's is not to see Denver.
A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you. It does tend to bother other people, though, so you'll probably throw a firecracker at it. Tom did that once, the bear jumped straight up out of his dumpster, hit the ground running, and never came back.
Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders. Except last season. The Broncos were' not on that list last year, but Elam was. Trading him was the dumbest thing that franchise has ever done.
When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state, too, you just laugh. They're hills. That's why y'all are called hillbillies. We've got hillbillies here, too, but here, they live in the FOOThills, and the real dangerous moonshiners, hunters, and general backwoods boys live up past the foothills, in the front or second range of the MOUNTAINS.
You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky' and you notice the sky is no longer blue. It's been sticky around here lately, too. Wouldn't it suck if the overall change in climate patterns that "global warming" is going to cause put us smack dab in the middle of a cold, wet zone?
Saturday, June 21, 2008
It's a BOWL of MEAT!
And your point is?
Hey ya'll, if you have ever been called weird by your neighbor while he was grilling a squirrel, we might have the same neighbor. He's got no room to talk, he's grilling a damn squirrel.
Everyone knows, squirrels are best when fried.
One of my friends has a great recipe for pigeon. It's a little gamey, but that's a plus. Brazed rotisserie pigeon is actually very good.
That's the kind of friend I should be hanging out with. I don't know why I have nearly vegetarian friends. Actually, yes I do. You're alright in my book... even if you won't eat beef.
I can understand somebody not liking rattlesnake kabobs, or maybe broiled ostrich, but beef replaced chicken as the main meat staple of the American diet sixty years ago. Maybe going to a place called Noodles and ordering two sides of beef (no pasta) is a little carnivorous, but you would be amazed how good and fall-apart juicy their beef is. But, no, "It's a bowl. Of meat." Like that's somehow wrong. And you call me weird. It is a bowl (a tiny one for $4.32, at that). Of meat. People need meat to survive. At least this people does.
If you think PETA means People Eating Tasty Animals, we're on the same page. We didn't get to the top of the food chain just to eat plants. So let me just put together a list of critters, cuts of meat, and good ways to cook them.
Ostrich: I like dark meat when it comes to poultry. I'm not entirely sure how Craftwood Inn cooks it, but their ostrich is worth every penny. It is tasty, fall-apart juicy, and glazed in some kind of amazing sauce. If you want to have this big-ass bird, don't try and do it yourself, go to Craftwood Inn in Manitou Springs, Colorado and get their ostrich, off of the dinner menu, not the appetizers. You'll need a reservation and a collar. While you're there, get the cheese soup. Or maybe buy that for your less adventurous friend.
Squirrel: I said it already, fry it. Non-native squirrels are considered invasive pests, in addition to good when battered. I personally recommend without batter, though. Make sure it is done through: wild critters can have all sorts of nasty things. Fry in vegetable oil, not fatback, in order to get the most squirrel flavor. take the guts out before cooking, but you could leave the fur on if you want. Cooking/cleaning-wise, it's somewhere in between rabbit and fish.
Rabbit: I have limits. Rabbits are pests to farmers, and multiply like, well, rabbits. Farmers will shoot them on sight, and then either leave them twitching to die, or take them home. If you ever see a farmer shoot a rabbit and leave it for dead, go find it and break its neck. Don't let it suffer. I won't eat a rabbit that was purposely killed in front of my eyes so we could have it for dinner. But if I saw it shot and left for dead, or I know it was killed just for dinner purposes, but I didn't have to watch, I'll eat it. They're big enough you need to drain the blood. Clean and cube. Make rabbit stew. Let it sit on the heat for at least four hours. Six if you can.
Rattlesnake: Best when pregnant. Then you get eighteen for the price of one! Although a funny joke (if slightly macabre... I do love a girl who can shoot sarcasm from the hip like that, though), don't do it. First of all, rattlers can bite poisonously for more than an hour after they're dead. Let someone else get the snake. Only ever kill snakes if they pose an immediate threat to people or livestock: snakes control the rodent population, and a rat problem is worse. If you want to kill a viper, shoot it with a low-speed firearm, but not from too close a range. It will strike at the hot bullet. You can try to use a shotgun, but you'll put a lot of holes in the purty skin, and you won't be able to make a belt out of it. Cut the head off (if it isn't already blown to smithereens) and hold the mouth shut. Tape shut, even, for at least an hour. Incinerate, not in a cookfire. Snake, especially rattler, but watersnakes are good, too (good luck surviving a cottonmouth hunt) is very good when put on a kabob and fire-roasted. You can also pan-fry, make jerky, or make a meatloaf or crabcake-like dish. Keep the rattle and display.
Pigeon: My friend won't share his recipe, and I'm not in the mood to bag a pigeon and experiment. As far as I can tell, it is citrus-marinated and fire-roasted or rotisseried like a chicken. I think he bastes with a simple syrup every now and then. Fully cook it. Don't be afraid to burn the outside if you have to in order to get the inside done.
Antelope, deer, elk, or moose: This is an art in and of itself, but jerky and old-fashioned barbecue are popular options.
Wild Boar: As with all wild animals, especially ones that forage through trash and scraps like pigs do, take your grandmother's advice: make sure it's good and done or you'll be good and done! Trichinosis is very real, and very insidious. Cook your meat well done and that risk is eliminated. Wild Boar is good cooked like a Hawaiian pig, roasted on a spit, or butchered and cooked like a beef roast. Craftwood Inn also has great boar. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure precisely what they do, but it's magic.
Frog: Egg battered and lightly fried is popular, but I find that the legs are still a little off in terms of flavor and texture. I personally prefer cooked on a griddle. Make sure it's well-greased, preferable with bacon fat, fatback or other animal grease. Cook until browned, but do not burn.
Snail: Not escargot, snail. The kind that eats your garden. Cook like the meat course in a fondue meal: in boiling oil (maybe it's an oily beef or chicken stock, I'm not sure). Think of the meat course at The Melting Pot. Make sure it's salty (the oil, not the snail). Use one of those tiny forks to get the snail out of its shell once it's all cooked and dead and stuff.
Fried ant: Crunchy, nutty, and delicious. Don't do it yourself, buy it ready-made. I wouldn't eat the ants in my yard, that's for sure.
Mealworm: Yes, that is the worm in the bottom of the tequila bottle. No, you don't want that one. Tequila is mean stuff, and getting to the worm means drinking a lot of it, and then arguing with a bunch of other drunk-on-cheap-tequila people over who gets the worm. It's an honor in some circles. I've seen the cops show up to break up tequila worm fights. Don't mess with that. Mealworms are tasty, but put them in an eggroll or spring roll in place of another meat, like chicken. Fry. Enjoy.
Prepare for complaints from a dainty friend or two.
Hey ya'll, if you have ever been called weird by your neighbor while he was grilling a squirrel, we might have the same neighbor. He's got no room to talk, he's grilling a damn squirrel.
Everyone knows, squirrels are best when fried.
One of my friends has a great recipe for pigeon. It's a little gamey, but that's a plus. Brazed rotisserie pigeon is actually very good.
That's the kind of friend I should be hanging out with. I don't know why I have nearly vegetarian friends. Actually, yes I do. You're alright in my book... even if you won't eat beef.
I can understand somebody not liking rattlesnake kabobs, or maybe broiled ostrich, but beef replaced chicken as the main meat staple of the American diet sixty years ago. Maybe going to a place called Noodles and ordering two sides of beef (no pasta) is a little carnivorous, but you would be amazed how good and fall-apart juicy their beef is. But, no, "It's a bowl. Of meat." Like that's somehow wrong. And you call me weird. It is a bowl (a tiny one for $4.32, at that). Of meat. People need meat to survive. At least this people does.
If you think PETA means People Eating Tasty Animals, we're on the same page. We didn't get to the top of the food chain just to eat plants. So let me just put together a list of critters, cuts of meat, and good ways to cook them.
Ostrich: I like dark meat when it comes to poultry. I'm not entirely sure how Craftwood Inn cooks it, but their ostrich is worth every penny. It is tasty, fall-apart juicy, and glazed in some kind of amazing sauce. If you want to have this big-ass bird, don't try and do it yourself, go to Craftwood Inn in Manitou Springs, Colorado and get their ostrich, off of the dinner menu, not the appetizers. You'll need a reservation and a collar. While you're there, get the cheese soup. Or maybe buy that for your less adventurous friend.
Squirrel: I said it already, fry it. Non-native squirrels are considered invasive pests, in addition to good when battered. I personally recommend without batter, though. Make sure it is done through: wild critters can have all sorts of nasty things. Fry in vegetable oil, not fatback, in order to get the most squirrel flavor. take the guts out before cooking, but you could leave the fur on if you want. Cooking/cleaning-wise, it's somewhere in between rabbit and fish.
Rabbit: I have limits. Rabbits are pests to farmers, and multiply like, well, rabbits. Farmers will shoot them on sight, and then either leave them twitching to die, or take them home. If you ever see a farmer shoot a rabbit and leave it for dead, go find it and break its neck. Don't let it suffer. I won't eat a rabbit that was purposely killed in front of my eyes so we could have it for dinner. But if I saw it shot and left for dead, or I know it was killed just for dinner purposes, but I didn't have to watch, I'll eat it. They're big enough you need to drain the blood. Clean and cube. Make rabbit stew. Let it sit on the heat for at least four hours. Six if you can.
Rattlesnake: Best when pregnant. Then you get eighteen for the price of one! Although a funny joke (if slightly macabre... I do love a girl who can shoot sarcasm from the hip like that, though), don't do it. First of all, rattlers can bite poisonously for more than an hour after they're dead. Let someone else get the snake. Only ever kill snakes if they pose an immediate threat to people or livestock: snakes control the rodent population, and a rat problem is worse. If you want to kill a viper, shoot it with a low-speed firearm, but not from too close a range. It will strike at the hot bullet. You can try to use a shotgun, but you'll put a lot of holes in the purty skin, and you won't be able to make a belt out of it. Cut the head off (if it isn't already blown to smithereens) and hold the mouth shut. Tape shut, even, for at least an hour. Incinerate, not in a cookfire. Snake, especially rattler, but watersnakes are good, too (good luck surviving a cottonmouth hunt) is very good when put on a kabob and fire-roasted. You can also pan-fry, make jerky, or make a meatloaf or crabcake-like dish. Keep the rattle and display.
Pigeon: My friend won't share his recipe, and I'm not in the mood to bag a pigeon and experiment. As far as I can tell, it is citrus-marinated and fire-roasted or rotisseried like a chicken. I think he bastes with a simple syrup every now and then. Fully cook it. Don't be afraid to burn the outside if you have to in order to get the inside done.
Antelope, deer, elk, or moose: This is an art in and of itself, but jerky and old-fashioned barbecue are popular options.
Wild Boar: As with all wild animals, especially ones that forage through trash and scraps like pigs do, take your grandmother's advice: make sure it's good and done or you'll be good and done! Trichinosis is very real, and very insidious. Cook your meat well done and that risk is eliminated. Wild Boar is good cooked like a Hawaiian pig, roasted on a spit, or butchered and cooked like a beef roast. Craftwood Inn also has great boar. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure precisely what they do, but it's magic.
Frog: Egg battered and lightly fried is popular, but I find that the legs are still a little off in terms of flavor and texture. I personally prefer cooked on a griddle. Make sure it's well-greased, preferable with bacon fat, fatback or other animal grease. Cook until browned, but do not burn.
Snail: Not escargot, snail. The kind that eats your garden. Cook like the meat course in a fondue meal: in boiling oil (maybe it's an oily beef or chicken stock, I'm not sure). Think of the meat course at The Melting Pot. Make sure it's salty (the oil, not the snail). Use one of those tiny forks to get the snail out of its shell once it's all cooked and dead and stuff.
Fried ant: Crunchy, nutty, and delicious. Don't do it yourself, buy it ready-made. I wouldn't eat the ants in my yard, that's for sure.
Mealworm: Yes, that is the worm in the bottom of the tequila bottle. No, you don't want that one. Tequila is mean stuff, and getting to the worm means drinking a lot of it, and then arguing with a bunch of other drunk-on-cheap-tequila people over who gets the worm. It's an honor in some circles. I've seen the cops show up to break up tequila worm fights. Don't mess with that. Mealworms are tasty, but put them in an eggroll or spring roll in place of another meat, like chicken. Fry. Enjoy.
Prepare for complaints from a dainty friend or two.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The redneck garden & lawn
It's true: I garden. I'm secure enough to freely admit it. Thing is, I don't garden like most people do. I also apparently don't garden like most rednecks, but that's because I encourage plants, then let them adapt to neglect. It works. Just neglect the yard that came with your house, and you'll get a dirt lot. The lawns that developers and homeowners plant are like your ex-girlfrined: high-maintenance and moody. Don't mess with that. Get a new one.
Most people have gardens that involve plants that would normally not be caught within thousands of miles of each other, require constant attention, and tremendous amounts of water. These gardens are often immensely beautiful to look at, but I wouldn't be caught dead having one. The effort of maintaining it alone would probably kill me.
I don't see how they do it.
I can't say that we don't have some out-of-place plants, but the ones that we do have fend for themselves. Between the front and the back, our yards have two grape vines, three maples, one locust, two stands of aspen, two apple trees, two cherry trees, a plum tree, an apricot tree, a pear tree (no partridge, though), incredible numbers of evergreen shrubs, seven dwarf spruce, a peach tree, enough lilac bushes to form a wall of lilac 100 feet long and three feet deep, sumac, five rose bushes, one "wild tea rose," at least thirty crocus flowers, a planter full of King Irises, one small iris of unknown origin, three snowball plants, blue columbines, three huge clover plants, lots of grass, dandelions, huge amounts of morning glory growing in the sandbox (of all places!), an unknown blue wildflower (a lot of 'em), and the most thistle you have ever seen in your life. Huge amounts of moss, too.
Some of those are "weeds." The only one that I'd get rid of, though, is all the thistle.
None of those get watered, except by rain and snow, and with a very light shower with the hose if we haven't gotten any rain in two weeks, and right before the 4th of July (we want it damp in case a firework goes awry).
All of them are thriving. Last year we had so many grapes that we literally couldn't give them all away before they went bad. We had three crispers full of grapes in the fridge for a while. We froze some. And I'm not even counting the parts of the vine that have grown onto our neighbors' properties. In fact, we talked to them and said that all the grapes that grow on their side of the fence are theirs. Feel free to cut the vine at the fenceline if you choose, too. They chose the first option. That vine is 15 years old, and has never gotten more water than Colorado naturally provides for the last ten of them.
The grass doesn't even get watered. How do we do it? First of all, we didn't buy grass from the hardware store. We got it from the side of the highway, when that grass went to seed. That grass knows what's up. Most of the grass grows in partial shade from our house or one of our huge maples, which, I'm sure, helps.
I don't know how much water fruit trees are supposed to get, but I'm sure it's more than ours get. They are all 15 years old, but still very small in comparison to what a "properly cared for" one would be. The fruit is smaller, too, but that trees are used to it, and the fruit's just as good!
In fact, most of what's growing in our yard got to be there by natural selection: that is to say, it was planted next to a lot of other plants, watered unti it took hold, and then very carefully and strategically ignored. They had to earn their spots. Now the surviving, hardy plants have choked out the less hardy ones. In fact, I feel that we are very close to perfecting the Emerald Green Zero-Water Colorado Yard.
It's true. Every spring, I let the grass grow as tell as it wants until it goes to seed, and once those seeds drop and have been rained on, I mow. The H.O.A. bitches about it every year, but we just ignore them. We don't rake our fall leaves, or our grass clippings. We let them insulate the ground and trap water. The un-raked yard, come spring, sprouts faster than the raked yard. I checked. The un-raked grass clippings help hold hater in the soil in between summer rains. They kae a big difference, too. Both of them put nutrients back in the soil, meaning no need to fertilize. That alone is invaluable.
Come the height of summer, the grass turns brown, except after rains and the obligatory two-week sprinkle. Then it turns green and grows a few inches. The rest of the plants, being green at High June, balance out the brown highway grass in between storms. If you're considering this method, mow right before a certain(!) rainstorm, or a regularly scheduled watering. Don't mow it when it's grween, and definitely don't mow the brown stuff and then let it sit without water. That's very bad for it. You'll sprout dirt.
Remember how the H.O.A. would always bitch about my yard looking like an abandoned property? Well, once we showed them our water bill for July of one year that our yard was particularly green, greener in fact than most of our neigbors' yards, they backed off. The yard is ugly as all hell in spring, but come summer, this style of gardening is cheaper than xeriscape (and looks better, too), uses less water than any other yard in the area, and frees up enough water to do better things with.
Any of ya'll remember the watering restrictions we had for five years a little while ago? We filled a swimming pool, ran a swamp cooler, washed two cars once every two weeks, had a very green yard (including the grass!), and continued all our usual household water use, and still came in with the lowest water bill. We even got a letter from Denver Water thanking us for using less than the target they had set! Go figure.
You should have seen the neighbors steaming mad after they saw us do all all of that!
------------------------------
Funny story, in fact. For a while there it was actually a ticketable offense to wash your car in your driveway, but we could legally water the lawn on Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour or two. Car was dirty, lawn was brown. Solution?
You guessed it, repark the car on the front lawn, wash, dry, repark in driveway. Park other car on other part of lawn. Wash. Dry. Repark in driveay.
In fact, one time Denver Water came around while I was washing the car, did a double take, and started fixin' to write a ticket. I just told them that we park that car on the lawn, and I was just watering the lawn around the car. The guy thought about it, chuckled, and asked why we park on the lawn when we have a two car driveway with only one car in it. I just explained, "Park it on the lawn, don't gotta worry 'bout bumping doors, got all sorts'a space, an' plus, it ain't like we was gonna park it on the street, where it's more likely to get hit or sumthin'."
I'm sure he didn't believe me, but it was plausible deniability for both of us. He just siad, "Alright, that's a new one" and went on his way.
--------------------------
So that's green gardening: the redneck way. Using mostly native, hrady plants, even a semi-arid zone can be green with almost no effort or water.
Ya'll have a great day!
Most people have gardens that involve plants that would normally not be caught within thousands of miles of each other, require constant attention, and tremendous amounts of water. These gardens are often immensely beautiful to look at, but I wouldn't be caught dead having one. The effort of maintaining it alone would probably kill me.
I don't see how they do it.
I can't say that we don't have some out-of-place plants, but the ones that we do have fend for themselves. Between the front and the back, our yards have two grape vines, three maples, one locust, two stands of aspen, two apple trees, two cherry trees, a plum tree, an apricot tree, a pear tree (no partridge, though), incredible numbers of evergreen shrubs, seven dwarf spruce, a peach tree, enough lilac bushes to form a wall of lilac 100 feet long and three feet deep, sumac, five rose bushes, one "wild tea rose," at least thirty crocus flowers, a planter full of King Irises, one small iris of unknown origin, three snowball plants, blue columbines, three huge clover plants, lots of grass, dandelions, huge amounts of morning glory growing in the sandbox (of all places!), an unknown blue wildflower (a lot of 'em), and the most thistle you have ever seen in your life. Huge amounts of moss, too.
Some of those are "weeds." The only one that I'd get rid of, though, is all the thistle.
None of those get watered, except by rain and snow, and with a very light shower with the hose if we haven't gotten any rain in two weeks, and right before the 4th of July (we want it damp in case a firework goes awry).
All of them are thriving. Last year we had so many grapes that we literally couldn't give them all away before they went bad. We had three crispers full of grapes in the fridge for a while. We froze some. And I'm not even counting the parts of the vine that have grown onto our neighbors' properties. In fact, we talked to them and said that all the grapes that grow on their side of the fence are theirs. Feel free to cut the vine at the fenceline if you choose, too. They chose the first option. That vine is 15 years old, and has never gotten more water than Colorado naturally provides for the last ten of them.
The grass doesn't even get watered. How do we do it? First of all, we didn't buy grass from the hardware store. We got it from the side of the highway, when that grass went to seed. That grass knows what's up. Most of the grass grows in partial shade from our house or one of our huge maples, which, I'm sure, helps.
I don't know how much water fruit trees are supposed to get, but I'm sure it's more than ours get. They are all 15 years old, but still very small in comparison to what a "properly cared for" one would be. The fruit is smaller, too, but that trees are used to it, and the fruit's just as good!
In fact, most of what's growing in our yard got to be there by natural selection: that is to say, it was planted next to a lot of other plants, watered unti it took hold, and then very carefully and strategically ignored. They had to earn their spots. Now the surviving, hardy plants have choked out the less hardy ones. In fact, I feel that we are very close to perfecting the Emerald Green Zero-Water Colorado Yard.
It's true. Every spring, I let the grass grow as tell as it wants until it goes to seed, and once those seeds drop and have been rained on, I mow. The H.O.A. bitches about it every year, but we just ignore them. We don't rake our fall leaves, or our grass clippings. We let them insulate the ground and trap water. The un-raked yard, come spring, sprouts faster than the raked yard. I checked. The un-raked grass clippings help hold hater in the soil in between summer rains. They kae a big difference, too. Both of them put nutrients back in the soil, meaning no need to fertilize. That alone is invaluable.
Come the height of summer, the grass turns brown, except after rains and the obligatory two-week sprinkle. Then it turns green and grows a few inches. The rest of the plants, being green at High June, balance out the brown highway grass in between storms. If you're considering this method, mow right before a certain(!) rainstorm, or a regularly scheduled watering. Don't mow it when it's grween, and definitely don't mow the brown stuff and then let it sit without water. That's very bad for it. You'll sprout dirt.
Remember how the H.O.A. would always bitch about my yard looking like an abandoned property? Well, once we showed them our water bill for July of one year that our yard was particularly green, greener in fact than most of our neigbors' yards, they backed off. The yard is ugly as all hell in spring, but come summer, this style of gardening is cheaper than xeriscape (and looks better, too), uses less water than any other yard in the area, and frees up enough water to do better things with.
Any of ya'll remember the watering restrictions we had for five years a little while ago? We filled a swimming pool, ran a swamp cooler, washed two cars once every two weeks, had a very green yard (including the grass!), and continued all our usual household water use, and still came in with the lowest water bill. We even got a letter from Denver Water thanking us for using less than the target they had set! Go figure.
You should have seen the neighbors steaming mad after they saw us do all all of that!
------------------------------
Funny story, in fact. For a while there it was actually a ticketable offense to wash your car in your driveway, but we could legally water the lawn on Mondays and Wednesdays for an hour or two. Car was dirty, lawn was brown. Solution?
You guessed it, repark the car on the front lawn, wash, dry, repark in driveway. Park other car on other part of lawn. Wash. Dry. Repark in driveay.
In fact, one time Denver Water came around while I was washing the car, did a double take, and started fixin' to write a ticket. I just told them that we park that car on the lawn, and I was just watering the lawn around the car. The guy thought about it, chuckled, and asked why we park on the lawn when we have a two car driveway with only one car in it. I just explained, "Park it on the lawn, don't gotta worry 'bout bumping doors, got all sorts'a space, an' plus, it ain't like we was gonna park it on the street, where it's more likely to get hit or sumthin'."
I'm sure he didn't believe me, but it was plausible deniability for both of us. He just siad, "Alright, that's a new one" and went on his way.
--------------------------
So that's green gardening: the redneck way. Using mostly native, hrady plants, even a semi-arid zone can be green with almost no effort or water.
Ya'll have a great day!
Bring your own beer... to the steakhouse
While I was in Alamosa, chowing down on some prime rib, two men walked in. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I could have met one of 'em before... his face looked so familiar.
He was the one carrying the six pack.
And they let him do it.
He was the one carrying the six pack.
And they let him do it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Off-topic
Please read my newest post on my off-topic blog. I know it's kind of out of the way, and the content that I post over there is usually much more of a drag than what I've got to say in this blog. I can't say that this one will be any different. But please read it anyway. You don't know how much it would mean to me.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Don't need no accurate terms!
The term "redneck" originates from the fact that we are generally white trash with blue collar jobs which require us to work outside, or we happen to hunt, fish, and four-wheel, enough to have essentially a perpetual sunburn. My dad has that problem. He's got a permanent sunburn in a "v" on his chest from keeping the top bottons unbottoned on his shirt when we went hiking one time. Never went away.
But we rednecks also wear mullets a lot. Short in front, long in back, covering our neck. I don't know about ya'll, but I've never gotten a sunburn through my mullet. So the literal use of the term doesn't fit. Ha!
In fact, I am two shades more tan than dracula. I don't know why. My dad burns a beet red very quickly, and my mom tans deep as can be. I don't burn or tan very much.
Don't get me wrong, both have happened, but it takes about twice as much sun exposure as most white folk, and the burn or tan fades very quickly. I met several people on the Dunes that had burnd more through SPF 15 in one day than I did in three, no sunscreen required. I'm pretty sure this is not a good thing. My dad burned through SPF 70.
I know that a sunburn happens when the UV rays have damaged cells. It's actually a mild, topical radiation burn. Tan happens when cells produce a chemical, melatonin, that helps block those rays. So if I don't burn or tan much, it either means that my cells aren't affected by the radiation as much as most people's would be, or they just don't react properly. As far as I know, I've done the kind of damage that UV can cause, but without the redness and inflammation reaction that leads to healing. Or maybe my skin just doesn't overreact. But when I do actually get a sunburn, which only happens from long periods of very intense exposure, even a mildly red one itches and burns like hell. Think poison ivy with a saltwater loofah chaser. That probably isn't good, either. But in any case, this is knida freaking me out. Anybody else got this problem?
But we rednecks also wear mullets a lot. Short in front, long in back, covering our neck. I don't know about ya'll, but I've never gotten a sunburn through my mullet. So the literal use of the term doesn't fit. Ha!
In fact, I am two shades more tan than dracula. I don't know why. My dad burns a beet red very quickly, and my mom tans deep as can be. I don't burn or tan very much.
Don't get me wrong, both have happened, but it takes about twice as much sun exposure as most white folk, and the burn or tan fades very quickly. I met several people on the Dunes that had burnd more through SPF 15 in one day than I did in three, no sunscreen required. I'm pretty sure this is not a good thing. My dad burned through SPF 70.
I know that a sunburn happens when the UV rays have damaged cells. It's actually a mild, topical radiation burn. Tan happens when cells produce a chemical, melatonin, that helps block those rays. So if I don't burn or tan much, it either means that my cells aren't affected by the radiation as much as most people's would be, or they just don't react properly. As far as I know, I've done the kind of damage that UV can cause, but without the redness and inflammation reaction that leads to healing. Or maybe my skin just doesn't overreact. But when I do actually get a sunburn, which only happens from long periods of very intense exposure, even a mildly red one itches and burns like hell. Think poison ivy with a saltwater loofah chaser. That probably isn't good, either. But in any case, this is knida freaking me out. Anybody else got this problem?
1/1000 of a mile in 30 seconds
Sandboarding worked both better and worse than I expected. For a prototype made of skates, a shelf, and a couple of chunks of plywood, it exceeded expectations. I was pretty much the only one on the sand capable of going downhill for a distance. Trouble is, that trip downhill was always slower than just walking, and turning was impossible. I knew that sand had a higher friction coefficient than snow, but I didn't fully appreciate the difference.
I have come away from this experiment with many lessons and ideas for improvements in my design. For one thing, I would make the board much lighter. It was a bitch to carry until we fashioned a shoulder strap system. Lighter would also mean that there would be about 20 pounds less weight on the board/sand interface, meaning less friction.
The board needs to be much bigger, in fact. Preliminary calculations have shown that I would need 11 square feet of contact to get some serious speed, at least using wood. We can't make the board any longer, since then it won't fit in the trunk, so it needs to be wider. Almost three feet wide. That's not going to cut it, but it would be worth a try.
Also, sand is extremely abrasive. You knew that. I just spent four days sanding my sandboard with 80-grit the hard way, and it removed between three and five coats of latex paint (I know how many times we painted that shelf). This reinforces my descision not to use an actual snowboard, even the P.O.S. that I have, since it would have ruined it, and the odds of finding another $25 P.O.S. are slim to none. I want that board for snow. I was going to go to Wal-Mart and get some Teflon kitchen spray for the board, but further thought revealed that if steel spatulas scrape off non-stick on pans, the sand would make short work of the whole can of teflon spray. That idea was scrapped.
Steel plate seems like the logical idea, since it can be thin and strong, but the weight kinda worries me. It was suggested that we could attach a steel plate to the bottom of the wooden board and see what happens.
We knew that whatever we put on the bottom would get scratched to hell, so we had to come up with something durable and slippery. The possibility of custom-pouring a glass bottom onto a rigid steel board was tossed around. That would be hella fun, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Our neighbors chuck enough empty bottles onto our lawn to more than make up for the glass requirement, though! If only they knew that I've been making glass nick-knacks out of them and selling 'em for a pretty penny, maybe they'd stop doing it. Nah!
Since there is always at least a 10mph prevailing wind at the Dunes, often faster, and quite a bit of flat land, I do believe that it would be an excellent place to kiteboard. That's basically kitesurfing, only on land in motorcycle gear. Falling sucks, and will rip you up! I'm tossing around the idea of putting footstraps (not boots, straps) on a board and attaching large tires. Balloon tires. The Sand Dunes Visitor Center has two sand wheelchairs. Brilliant inventions. They have huge soft rubber tires, easily two feet in diameter and eight inches across. Turns out they only take two to four pounds of pressure, and that they had to get a special pressure guage in order to be able to check them, which they got from an ATV supply store. I'm pretty sure that ATVs use inner tubes, and if so, I would be using an inner tube as the outer tires on my kiteboard. I'm a bit worried about puncture-resistance, though. Does anybody have experience on the subject? In fact, does anybody have experience with handling a power kite, or own a mountain board?
Even as it is, the sandboard was a people magnet. There's something about being both brilliant and batshit crazy that just draws people and questions. I love talking to people, even fielding questions about my various schemes. Really, don't avoid someone who's doing something that probably means they're a few grains short of a sandpile, ask 'em about it! Hot rodders may build cars because they love building cars, or driving their dream car, but we do love it when the person at the other gas pump strikes up a conversation. Whenever you invent something cool, it's nice to know you're not the only one who thinks it's cool. Or even just weird.
I have come away from this experiment with many lessons and ideas for improvements in my design. For one thing, I would make the board much lighter. It was a bitch to carry until we fashioned a shoulder strap system. Lighter would also mean that there would be about 20 pounds less weight on the board/sand interface, meaning less friction.
The board needs to be much bigger, in fact. Preliminary calculations have shown that I would need 11 square feet of contact to get some serious speed, at least using wood. We can't make the board any longer, since then it won't fit in the trunk, so it needs to be wider. Almost three feet wide. That's not going to cut it, but it would be worth a try.
Also, sand is extremely abrasive. You knew that. I just spent four days sanding my sandboard with 80-grit the hard way, and it removed between three and five coats of latex paint (I know how many times we painted that shelf). This reinforces my descision not to use an actual snowboard, even the P.O.S. that I have, since it would have ruined it, and the odds of finding another $25 P.O.S. are slim to none. I want that board for snow. I was going to go to Wal-Mart and get some Teflon kitchen spray for the board, but further thought revealed that if steel spatulas scrape off non-stick on pans, the sand would make short work of the whole can of teflon spray. That idea was scrapped.
Steel plate seems like the logical idea, since it can be thin and strong, but the weight kinda worries me. It was suggested that we could attach a steel plate to the bottom of the wooden board and see what happens.
We knew that whatever we put on the bottom would get scratched to hell, so we had to come up with something durable and slippery. The possibility of custom-pouring a glass bottom onto a rigid steel board was tossed around. That would be hella fun, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Our neighbors chuck enough empty bottles onto our lawn to more than make up for the glass requirement, though! If only they knew that I've been making glass nick-knacks out of them and selling 'em for a pretty penny, maybe they'd stop doing it. Nah!
Since there is always at least a 10mph prevailing wind at the Dunes, often faster, and quite a bit of flat land, I do believe that it would be an excellent place to kiteboard. That's basically kitesurfing, only on land in motorcycle gear. Falling sucks, and will rip you up! I'm tossing around the idea of putting footstraps (not boots, straps) on a board and attaching large tires. Balloon tires. The Sand Dunes Visitor Center has two sand wheelchairs. Brilliant inventions. They have huge soft rubber tires, easily two feet in diameter and eight inches across. Turns out they only take two to four pounds of pressure, and that they had to get a special pressure guage in order to be able to check them, which they got from an ATV supply store. I'm pretty sure that ATVs use inner tubes, and if so, I would be using an inner tube as the outer tires on my kiteboard. I'm a bit worried about puncture-resistance, though. Does anybody have experience on the subject? In fact, does anybody have experience with handling a power kite, or own a mountain board?
Even as it is, the sandboard was a people magnet. There's something about being both brilliant and batshit crazy that just draws people and questions. I love talking to people, even fielding questions about my various schemes. Really, don't avoid someone who's doing something that probably means they're a few grains short of a sandpile, ask 'em about it! Hot rodders may build cars because they love building cars, or driving their dream car, but we do love it when the person at the other gas pump strikes up a conversation. Whenever you invent something cool, it's nice to know you're not the only one who thinks it's cool. Or even just weird.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Der uber-pumpkin
Have you ever had a pumpkin last seven months without rotting? Neither had I, until this year. Last October, we went out to the pumpkin patch to buy a pumpkin, which we intended to carve into a jack-o-lantern. What wound up happening was we set the pumpkin in the kitchen and proceeded to walk around it while we did other things.
Such was the state of things for several months, until some time after New Years we realized that that really was a pumpkin from two months ago, and it hadn't turned to mush all over the floor yet. At that point, a friendly competition began over who could guess the date of the pumpkin molding the most accurately.
Even our furthest prediction only got us into mid-March.
So we proceeded to watch the pumpkin carefully for a few weeks. Weeks turned into a month, and a month into several. Finally, between Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day, the pumpkin (which we had now dubbed the Uber-Pumpkin--I'd like to buy an umlaut, please?) finally got a few spots of mold. The mold didn't actually compromise the structural integrity of our friendly neighborhood uberpumpkin until Memorial Day weekend, at which point we declared an end to the experiment and proceeded to remove the toxic gourd from our back patio (we had decided to put it out there) in "the best way possible." You know what I'm getting at. Moldy Pumpkin Machete Baseball.*
Originally invented by Wes Sturr of Eastern Wyoming, the game consits of taking turns lobbing the moldy pumpkin (usually a jack-o-lantern in November, but this was a special case) at one another, and swinging at it baseball-style with a machete. Once the peices are too small to hit anymore, or all the parties are too grossed out to continue, the game is over. Whoever got the last hit wins.
We don't keep machetes around (shame on us), so we just ground a coarse edge onto a peice of steel flatstock. Ta-da!
With der uber-pumpkin eliminated, life could continue.
*I honestly thought I'd never get to use that tag again, but I actaully did.
Such was the state of things for several months, until some time after New Years we realized that that really was a pumpkin from two months ago, and it hadn't turned to mush all over the floor yet. At that point, a friendly competition began over who could guess the date of the pumpkin molding the most accurately.
Even our furthest prediction only got us into mid-March.
So we proceeded to watch the pumpkin carefully for a few weeks. Weeks turned into a month, and a month into several. Finally, between Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day, the pumpkin (which we had now dubbed the Uber-Pumpkin--I'd like to buy an umlaut, please?) finally got a few spots of mold. The mold didn't actually compromise the structural integrity of our friendly neighborhood uberpumpkin until Memorial Day weekend, at which point we declared an end to the experiment and proceeded to remove the toxic gourd from our back patio (we had decided to put it out there) in "the best way possible." You know what I'm getting at. Moldy Pumpkin Machete Baseball.*
Originally invented by Wes Sturr of Eastern Wyoming, the game consits of taking turns lobbing the moldy pumpkin (usually a jack-o-lantern in November, but this was a special case) at one another, and swinging at it baseball-style with a machete. Once the peices are too small to hit anymore, or all the parties are too grossed out to continue, the game is over. Whoever got the last hit wins.
We don't keep machetes around (shame on us), so we just ground a coarse edge onto a peice of steel flatstock. Ta-da!
With der uber-pumpkin eliminated, life could continue.
*I honestly thought I'd never get to use that tag again, but I actaully did.
Redneck sports
Give me a baseball bat and a baseball, both about three inches in diameter, and I can't get them to connect to save my life. Give me a broom handle and a soda can, and suddenly I have a .900 batting average. I don't get it either.
So I'm building a sandboard. I've modeled it more off of the "snurfer" than modern snowboards, but it has elemets of both. Not having bindings that I can fit my workboots in and not having snowboard boots, I decided to bolt the uppers from a pair of inline skates to the board. This way or may not work, I'll find out sometime between tomorrow and Sunday, when we go to Alamosa and I actually get it on the sand. So all ya'll ain't gonna hear from me for a while. As a matter of fact, I hope the dunes are as big as I remember them. That could be a dealbreaker.
As for the truck and the wheels from the red wagon, I have taken the regular wheels off of a longboard-type skateboard that I have in order to be less likely to be tempted to try something that will result in more road rash. What I really need is a mountainboard. Those things are cool, and much more useful and fun than regular skateboards. Plus, they don't have the same talent that skateboards have to almost break my neck.
The plan is to put the wheels from the wagon onto the longboard deck, bolt on some straps like a mountainboard of wakeboard would have, and do the land version of wakeboarding. It is really a pastime in the flatter areas of the country, to get dragged by your buddy's truck as you stand on something with wheels. In fact, I don't even need a truck, I just need two people: one to watch me from the vehicle and make sure I'm alright, and the other one to drive the vehicle. Motorcycle, truck, car, El Camino, I don't care.
Alternately, if I can figure out how to work and obtain a kite, I intend to kitesurf on land with it. That would be fun beyond words, and would even be worth driving out to the flatlands to do it. Or even hilly open space.
So I'm building a sandboard. I've modeled it more off of the "snurfer" than modern snowboards, but it has elemets of both. Not having bindings that I can fit my workboots in and not having snowboard boots, I decided to bolt the uppers from a pair of inline skates to the board. This way or may not work, I'll find out sometime between tomorrow and Sunday, when we go to Alamosa and I actually get it on the sand. So all ya'll ain't gonna hear from me for a while. As a matter of fact, I hope the dunes are as big as I remember them. That could be a dealbreaker.
As for the truck and the wheels from the red wagon, I have taken the regular wheels off of a longboard-type skateboard that I have in order to be less likely to be tempted to try something that will result in more road rash. What I really need is a mountainboard. Those things are cool, and much more useful and fun than regular skateboards. Plus, they don't have the same talent that skateboards have to almost break my neck.
The plan is to put the wheels from the wagon onto the longboard deck, bolt on some straps like a mountainboard of wakeboard would have, and do the land version of wakeboarding. It is really a pastime in the flatter areas of the country, to get dragged by your buddy's truck as you stand on something with wheels. In fact, I don't even need a truck, I just need two people: one to watch me from the vehicle and make sure I'm alright, and the other one to drive the vehicle. Motorcycle, truck, car, El Camino, I don't care.
Alternately, if I can figure out how to work and obtain a kite, I intend to kitesurf on land with it. That would be fun beyond words, and would even be worth driving out to the flatlands to do it. Or even hilly open space.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Listen up dumbass!
This is a public service announcement brought to you by Common Sense. If you are unfamiliar with Common Sense's portfolio, let me direct you to such stunning works as Run When You Hear Police Sirens, Get Underground When You Hear Tornado/Air-Raid Sirens, Come in Out of the Rain, Don't Smoke Near the Tanker Truck, and Stay Off Other People's Property After Dark Especially in Texas.
It has recently come to my attention that wrist injuries are by far the leading injury among snowboarders. I suppose this shouldn't suprise me, since experience has shown me that snowboarders are just as dumb as skateboarders, only snowboarders' brains are chilled, making them run even slower.
I really hate skateboarders. No, let me rephrase. I really hate skateboarders who think the ability to not fall off makes them better than anyone else. But they always forget that apparently the process of learning involved several sound smacks of the head on pavement when they calculate that opinion. Unforunately, that cooler-than-thou attitude prevails among them.
Of course, afficionados of one boardsport are likely to try and enjoy another, so it is only natural that that same keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-and-trying-to-out-dumbass-each-other crowd would be drawn to snowboarding, which is basically skateboarding, only different. Both cultures seem to love the idea of doing tricks, or as I like to call them, temporarily breaking up with the ground and then getting back together, only now she's pissed. I've skateboarded. I've snowboarded. They're not the same. Don't tell me they are.
Of course, when I say I've skateboarded, I mean to say that I have gotten one foot onto a skateboard, and sometimes two, before going some small distance and landing on my ass.
In both skateboarding and snowboarding, it is commonly considered cool to teach yourself. I think that's really just a great way to prove yourself to be a real world-class tool. Formal lessons? Fuck those. I'll just ride up this mountain strapped to a board which changes the physics of my body entirely, then discover that I have to come back down somehow. That somehow is probably by spending most of my time on my face, ass, or hands, and spending very little actually upright and in control.
Ever seen a car parked on a hill, but without the parking brake set? Seen it slowly take off and pick up speed down that hill, all the while being an unguided two-ton missle? Unlike in skateboarding, where you run out of hill, in snowboarding, the inexperienced boarder has basically made himself into the human version of that car. Trouble is, the car doesn't unexpectedly catch an edge and slam windsheild-first into the pavement. People do.
People who never learned to fall properly, which is an accurate desription for most participants in all land-based boardsports, will stick out their hands in front of them when falling. If they fall backwards, their stick their arms out behind them. No, no, NO!
I've done it couple of times. Precisely twice. Both times I failed to catch myself onto my wrists, for which I consider myself lucky, and instead injured my shoulder such that I couldn't even lift a glass with that hand for a couple of weeks. Every other time I've fallen, I've tucked my arms in. It's only when you're tired or uninformed that you will want to stcik a hand out. That will do one of two things: one, it will put a tremendous shock through your wrist and quite easily break it (give up that piano, guitar, drum, or video game career!), or two, it will act as a large lever and turn you into a human slot machine. It will wrench your shoulder back and leave you in too much pain to move, eyes rolled back in your head, making all sorts of strange and otherworldly noises, not to mention the new and creative string of obscenities you will suddenly find yourself employing. You've just hit the inconvenience jackpot!
It is everyone's natural instinct to stick a hand out when falling. I dohn't really know how this got naturally selected, since sticking a hand out never results in something good.
When you catch an edge snowboarding, it is like you have been tackled by a pro football defensive lineman who hates your guts. Really, try it when you're going down a slope at speeds otherwise only attainable in a car. Not gonna do that again, are ya?
But it happens again and again as you're learning, and as you traverse terrain you don't know, even as a hot-shit "expert." Especially icy spring slopes. But if you fall once onto your hand and once the proper way, you'll immediately learn what not to do. No more having to think about it. Trouble is, nobody seems to even know how to fall, let alone employ it.
Pull your damn hands in!
Now you got no excuse. You know what will happen if you keep falling the way you have been, and you know how to properly fall. Flailing about like an uninformed animal and breaking your wrist is not cool, and will not attract the ski bunnies.
Besides, they're already in the hot tub with me.
It has recently come to my attention that wrist injuries are by far the leading injury among snowboarders. I suppose this shouldn't suprise me, since experience has shown me that snowboarders are just as dumb as skateboarders, only snowboarders' brains are chilled, making them run even slower.
I really hate skateboarders. No, let me rephrase. I really hate skateboarders who think the ability to not fall off makes them better than anyone else. But they always forget that apparently the process of learning involved several sound smacks of the head on pavement when they calculate that opinion. Unforunately, that cooler-than-thou attitude prevails among them.
Of course, afficionados of one boardsport are likely to try and enjoy another, so it is only natural that that same keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-and-trying-to-out-dumbass-each-other crowd would be drawn to snowboarding, which is basically skateboarding, only different. Both cultures seem to love the idea of doing tricks, or as I like to call them, temporarily breaking up with the ground and then getting back together, only now she's pissed. I've skateboarded. I've snowboarded. They're not the same. Don't tell me they are.
Of course, when I say I've skateboarded, I mean to say that I have gotten one foot onto a skateboard, and sometimes two, before going some small distance and landing on my ass.
In both skateboarding and snowboarding, it is commonly considered cool to teach yourself. I think that's really just a great way to prove yourself to be a real world-class tool. Formal lessons? Fuck those. I'll just ride up this mountain strapped to a board which changes the physics of my body entirely, then discover that I have to come back down somehow. That somehow is probably by spending most of my time on my face, ass, or hands, and spending very little actually upright and in control.
Ever seen a car parked on a hill, but without the parking brake set? Seen it slowly take off and pick up speed down that hill, all the while being an unguided two-ton missle? Unlike in skateboarding, where you run out of hill, in snowboarding, the inexperienced boarder has basically made himself into the human version of that car. Trouble is, the car doesn't unexpectedly catch an edge and slam windsheild-first into the pavement. People do.
People who never learned to fall properly, which is an accurate desription for most participants in all land-based boardsports, will stick out their hands in front of them when falling. If they fall backwards, their stick their arms out behind them. No, no, NO!
I've done it couple of times. Precisely twice. Both times I failed to catch myself onto my wrists, for which I consider myself lucky, and instead injured my shoulder such that I couldn't even lift a glass with that hand for a couple of weeks. Every other time I've fallen, I've tucked my arms in. It's only when you're tired or uninformed that you will want to stcik a hand out. That will do one of two things: one, it will put a tremendous shock through your wrist and quite easily break it (give up that piano, guitar, drum, or video game career!), or two, it will act as a large lever and turn you into a human slot machine. It will wrench your shoulder back and leave you in too much pain to move, eyes rolled back in your head, making all sorts of strange and otherworldly noises, not to mention the new and creative string of obscenities you will suddenly find yourself employing. You've just hit the inconvenience jackpot!
It is everyone's natural instinct to stick a hand out when falling. I dohn't really know how this got naturally selected, since sticking a hand out never results in something good.
When you catch an edge snowboarding, it is like you have been tackled by a pro football defensive lineman who hates your guts. Really, try it when you're going down a slope at speeds otherwise only attainable in a car. Not gonna do that again, are ya?
But it happens again and again as you're learning, and as you traverse terrain you don't know, even as a hot-shit "expert." Especially icy spring slopes. But if you fall once onto your hand and once the proper way, you'll immediately learn what not to do. No more having to think about it. Trouble is, nobody seems to even know how to fall, let alone employ it.
Pull your damn hands in!
Now you got no excuse. You know what will happen if you keep falling the way you have been, and you know how to properly fall. Flailing about like an uninformed animal and breaking your wrist is not cool, and will not attract the ski bunnies.
Besides, they're already in the hot tub with me.
Monday, June 9, 2008
You coming to the rave in the DC-9 tomorrow night?
"We laid rubber on the Georgia asphalt. Got a little crazy but we never got caught. Down by the river on a Friday night, pyramid of cans in the pale moonlight. Talkin' 'bout cars and dreamin' 'bout women. Never had a plan, just a-livin' for the minute!" --Alan Jackson, Chattahoochee
_____________________________
It can be incredibly stressful to be in a combat situation for months on end. A lot of the time, the only way to stay sane is to go a little bit crazy. What would you do when you're off-duty? How about on-duty?
Some pilots, just for the fun of it, would get buck naked over Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Ever been in the cockpit of a fighter? From the looks of it, that would be tough but not impossible. That's what the cruise control is for.
On the Carl Vinson, pilots and trainees joke that the soft serve ice cream that comes out of the machine in the mess hall is dog feces. Now that I think about it, the way it comes out of the machine does bear a striking resemblence. I don't think I'll have soft-serve ice cream for a while.
Dark humor really is the only way to deal with the fear and stress of walking the line between life and death, where the only way you get to stay on this side of it is by working out your own salvation. When you're climbing a rock face that will take you more than one day, you'd have to sleep in a suspended sleeping bag called a bivvy sack. Mountain rescue workers call body bags "long term bivvy sacks." macabre, but necessary.
So that's really the only way I can explain these guys. They may be flying a mission, but that doesn't mean that they can't goof off a little, too. I think this is a very good reason that military airplanes should not have CD players. Of course, tank guys found a way to patch a CD player into the onboard audio, so you never know...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGl0LNohfb4
The embed code is acting up again. Just for reference, that is a C-130 cargo plane the're flying. Or not flying...
_____________________________
It can be incredibly stressful to be in a combat situation for months on end. A lot of the time, the only way to stay sane is to go a little bit crazy. What would you do when you're off-duty? How about on-duty?
Some pilots, just for the fun of it, would get buck naked over Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Ever been in the cockpit of a fighter? From the looks of it, that would be tough but not impossible. That's what the cruise control is for.
On the Carl Vinson, pilots and trainees joke that the soft serve ice cream that comes out of the machine in the mess hall is dog feces. Now that I think about it, the way it comes out of the machine does bear a striking resemblence. I don't think I'll have soft-serve ice cream for a while.
Dark humor really is the only way to deal with the fear and stress of walking the line between life and death, where the only way you get to stay on this side of it is by working out your own salvation. When you're climbing a rock face that will take you more than one day, you'd have to sleep in a suspended sleeping bag called a bivvy sack. Mountain rescue workers call body bags "long term bivvy sacks." macabre, but necessary.
So that's really the only way I can explain these guys. They may be flying a mission, but that doesn't mean that they can't goof off a little, too. I think this is a very good reason that military airplanes should not have CD players. Of course, tank guys found a way to patch a CD player into the onboard audio, so you never know...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGl0LNohfb4
The embed code is acting up again. Just for reference, that is a C-130 cargo plane the're flying. Or not flying...
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Spare some soap?
It just hit me that my parents keep a glass jar full of soap next to the bathroom trash can. I've walked past it for years. I've stubbed my toe on it. But it just registered that it is the soap equivalent of a spare change jar, only more useless.
Every time we'd empty one of those big jugs of Softsoap, we'd trun it upside down on top of this spare soap jar and let the last few drops drip out. Over the past 15 years, we've saved--wait for it--alomst a half a gallon of soap! A buck-seventy-five! And we never have used this soap, either. In the process we've stubbed our toes countless times, wasted probably what amounts to an hour just trying to get the one bottle to balance on top of the other, and managed to totally forget about what this little redneck modern-art sculpture was originally for. Maybe we're saving it for the apocalypse, or when the store is sold out of soap. Yeah, right. You spend three decades dead broke poor, though, and I guess old habits die hard.
I got to thinking, what is this even here for? Nobody could tell me. It just seemed like a good idea to keep doing. Why are we keeping this? If we got rid of it we'd have a lot more space.
So of course I emptied the trash and turned another bottle upside down on the jar.
Gotta be good for something, right?
Every time we'd empty one of those big jugs of Softsoap, we'd trun it upside down on top of this spare soap jar and let the last few drops drip out. Over the past 15 years, we've saved--wait for it--alomst a half a gallon of soap! A buck-seventy-five! And we never have used this soap, either. In the process we've stubbed our toes countless times, wasted probably what amounts to an hour just trying to get the one bottle to balance on top of the other, and managed to totally forget about what this little redneck modern-art sculpture was originally for. Maybe we're saving it for the apocalypse, or when the store is sold out of soap. Yeah, right. You spend three decades dead broke poor, though, and I guess old habits die hard.
I got to thinking, what is this even here for? Nobody could tell me. It just seemed like a good idea to keep doing. Why are we keeping this? If we got rid of it we'd have a lot more space.
So of course I emptied the trash and turned another bottle upside down on the jar.
Gotta be good for something, right?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Apparently I'm a freak.
I recently had to fly to Sacramento for some urgent family business. That meant four hours on a plane each way. I hate airports. Last year I flew back from D.C. through Chicago-O'Hare. I'm never going there again. O'Hare, I mean. Even if that means a five-stop redirect. That airport has the largest number of delays, and those delays are on average the longest in the country. It's up north and near enough to the lakes to get very consistent foul weather. And y'know what the best part is? The seats they have at the gates are not designed for long-term seating. They're not like the seats at Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, San Deigo, Washington-Reagan, Phoenix, Ontario, LAX, and all the other airports not managed by Catbert. The seats at O'Hare are designed to get you up and out of that seat as quickly as possible and, since your plane still isn't here, into the shops to spend money you can't afford to part with.
That said, I love flying. I'd rather not have had to fly at all these past couple of days, but you take what life gives you and make the best of it. And that means the opportunity to enjoy being in a large metal object on top of thousands of gallons of fuel, going 600 miles an hour eight miles above the earth. That scares most people shitless. It makes me happy. I don't know why. Ever since I saw an airliner coming in for a landing, I've liked that concept. Then when I got to fly in one I discovered that there really is no feeling quite like the one you get just after the plane has left the runway, where it settles and then --whoosh!-- powers into the sky. That is really an unmatched feeling of raw power.
Flying is such a fragile state. You're either flying or you're not. There's no grey area. If any of the precious set of circumstances that sustain flight go awry, the flight ceases and the forcible reaquaintance with the ground begins. There's not a damn thing you as a human can do about it. Much like life itself. But you're high enough in the air that you get to enjoy the ride in a somewhat macabre way. Every time you leave the earth in an airplane (or on a motorcycle, for that matter), you are gambling. You have bet everything you have that that fragile set of circumstances will hold. And that's actually kinda comforting. It's impossible to have a bad flight that landed in the intended manner.
But here's what's really bizarre. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet that finds airplane seats comfortable. I'm not talking about just the sort of comfortable where you can live with it, but the kind of comfortable where you begin to seriously consider buying one and installing it in your car. Really comfortable. And I mean coach seats. Not even business class. I flew Southwest this week, which is all one class and open seating, but even on United where coach packs you in like you're in the backseat of a mid-90s extended cab pickup, it's comfy. Ya'll can shoot me with the tranquilizer dart, radio-tag me, and take me in for further study now if you want.
This wasn't always the case. When I was younger I practically had to schedule a chairopractor visit at each end as a part of a vacation. Now I'm five foot four and not getting any taller (I come from a large family of small people). Seriously, our family reunions have an average height of 5'5".
My point is, airplane seats were apparently designed for someone with my precise build and set of bone/soft tissue injuries. For everyone else, they are desgined to give you those injuries. Seats in cars nowadays are like forward controls on a motorcycle--a big fuck-you to short people, since both assume you're at least 5'6". The one pleasant exception is the Chevy HHR, which has sensible seats and a headrest that doesn't actively attempt to break your neck. Seats on airplanes are a big fuck-you to all human beings, or at least they're supposed to be. I'm sure if the airlines read this, they'll commission a redesign of the seats. But until they do, the infamous airplane seat is incredibly comfortable to me.
It was funny, when we got into San Diego, I stood up to let the people next to me out. Quickly. In the middle of this motion, I began to anticipate a sound whack on the head from the overhead bins. As it turned out, the bins were barely higher than the top of my head and I did not crack myself in the skull. I did literally come two paper-thicknesses away from it, though.
Wild, huh? I never woulda thunk, but this little discovery of being the same size as the crash dummy they designed the plane around means that the actual act of flying is a blast.
Well, except for the bathroom. So damn tiny you can't even put both feet next to each other, but have to put one foot half on top of the other.
That said, I love flying. I'd rather not have had to fly at all these past couple of days, but you take what life gives you and make the best of it. And that means the opportunity to enjoy being in a large metal object on top of thousands of gallons of fuel, going 600 miles an hour eight miles above the earth. That scares most people shitless. It makes me happy. I don't know why. Ever since I saw an airliner coming in for a landing, I've liked that concept. Then when I got to fly in one I discovered that there really is no feeling quite like the one you get just after the plane has left the runway, where it settles and then --whoosh!-- powers into the sky. That is really an unmatched feeling of raw power.
Flying is such a fragile state. You're either flying or you're not. There's no grey area. If any of the precious set of circumstances that sustain flight go awry, the flight ceases and the forcible reaquaintance with the ground begins. There's not a damn thing you as a human can do about it. Much like life itself. But you're high enough in the air that you get to enjoy the ride in a somewhat macabre way. Every time you leave the earth in an airplane (or on a motorcycle, for that matter), you are gambling. You have bet everything you have that that fragile set of circumstances will hold. And that's actually kinda comforting. It's impossible to have a bad flight that landed in the intended manner.
But here's what's really bizarre. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet that finds airplane seats comfortable. I'm not talking about just the sort of comfortable where you can live with it, but the kind of comfortable where you begin to seriously consider buying one and installing it in your car. Really comfortable. And I mean coach seats. Not even business class. I flew Southwest this week, which is all one class and open seating, but even on United where coach packs you in like you're in the backseat of a mid-90s extended cab pickup, it's comfy. Ya'll can shoot me with the tranquilizer dart, radio-tag me, and take me in for further study now if you want.
This wasn't always the case. When I was younger I practically had to schedule a chairopractor visit at each end as a part of a vacation. Now I'm five foot four and not getting any taller (I come from a large family of small people). Seriously, our family reunions have an average height of 5'5".
My point is, airplane seats were apparently designed for someone with my precise build and set of bone/soft tissue injuries. For everyone else, they are desgined to give you those injuries. Seats in cars nowadays are like forward controls on a motorcycle--a big fuck-you to short people, since both assume you're at least 5'6". The one pleasant exception is the Chevy HHR, which has sensible seats and a headrest that doesn't actively attempt to break your neck. Seats on airplanes are a big fuck-you to all human beings, or at least they're supposed to be. I'm sure if the airlines read this, they'll commission a redesign of the seats. But until they do, the infamous airplane seat is incredibly comfortable to me.
It was funny, when we got into San Diego, I stood up to let the people next to me out. Quickly. In the middle of this motion, I began to anticipate a sound whack on the head from the overhead bins. As it turned out, the bins were barely higher than the top of my head and I did not crack myself in the skull. I did literally come two paper-thicknesses away from it, though.
Wild, huh? I never woulda thunk, but this little discovery of being the same size as the crash dummy they designed the plane around means that the actual act of flying is a blast.
Well, except for the bathroom. So damn tiny you can't even put both feet next to each other, but have to put one foot half on top of the other.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Laundry day... and the next three days
Sunday is laundry day. On sundays there is not a cloth towel to be found anywhere in the house. So of course it is logical to hang up a replacement towel. But after you've cleaned the towels, should the paper towel still be on the towel rack on Thursday? You be the judge.
I think it's classy, though, that my dad actually went to the trouble of hanging the paper towel on the rack, rather than just letting us exert the tremendous effort of PULLING ONE OFF THE ROLL that is literally four inches above this towel rack.
It didn't even register for me that a paper towel on the towel rack might be a bit odd until after I had washed and dried my hands, at which point I had to grab a camera and do a writeup.
I think it's classy, though, that my dad actually went to the trouble of hanging the paper towel on the rack, rather than just letting us exert the tremendous effort of PULLING ONE OFF THE ROLL that is literally four inches above this towel rack.
It didn't even register for me that a paper towel on the towel rack might be a bit odd until after I had washed and dried my hands, at which point I had to grab a camera and do a writeup.
Oh good god, it's brilliant.
So I was clicking around on Instructables, and I ran across a guy who wanted to heat his pool. One of the commentors pointed him to this site. I evny the fact that I didn't think of it, but it is something I would have invented on my own if I wasn't okay with having cold water when it's hot as hell here. I just wear a wetsuit.
The guy who wanted advice on how to heat his pool wanted to put a 55 gallon drum in it so it's just above water level and light a huge fire in it. Big fire in your pool. Brilliant. I told him to seal the barrel, pipe in compressed air, and submerge the barrel, therfore getting the pool hotter faster. The concept of (gasp) a proper pool heater has not been mentioned. Of course, sealing and submerging the barrel takes away most of the fun of having a bonfire in the middle of your pool.
If we ever have an inground pool installed instead of our aboveground vinyl Thing, I'll make a point of biulding in a firebox. I want a fire in the middle of my pool, too. I do declare that's the best idea since flashpowder in small paper balls shipped in unpadded boxes. (a.k.a. Popper fireworks). Maybe I'll even install a full barbeque firepit in the middle of the pool. Forget swim-up bars, how about a swim-up rib roast?
The guy who wanted advice on how to heat his pool wanted to put a 55 gallon drum in it so it's just above water level and light a huge fire in it. Big fire in your pool. Brilliant. I told him to seal the barrel, pipe in compressed air, and submerge the barrel, therfore getting the pool hotter faster. The concept of (gasp) a proper pool heater has not been mentioned. Of course, sealing and submerging the barrel takes away most of the fun of having a bonfire in the middle of your pool.
If we ever have an inground pool installed instead of our aboveground vinyl Thing, I'll make a point of biulding in a firebox. I want a fire in the middle of my pool, too. I do declare that's the best idea since flashpowder in small paper balls shipped in unpadded boxes. (a.k.a. Popper fireworks). Maybe I'll even install a full barbeque firepit in the middle of the pool. Forget swim-up bars, how about a swim-up rib roast?
Friday, May 30, 2008
Get up and get out of here. Now.
You are never too poor for good toilet paper. Even if you have to steal it. Some folks, when leaving a hotel room, go down a cehcklist: Ashtray? Check. Towels? Check. Shampoo? Check. Coffee? Check. Toilet paper? Check. Personally, my checklist is, Shampoo? Check. Coffee? Check. Styrofoam cups? Check. Toilet paper? Check. Apparently I'm not the only one.
If your suitcase contains all the shampoo and coffee from every hotel you've ever stayed in, you might be a redneck. Of course, you're paying to have consumed that stuff anyway.
One time we even took the Do Not Dsturb sign because the damn hook part ripped off while we were trying to get it over the doorknob. We duct taped it to our car window while we slept in our seats the next night.
I've noticed that the coffee quality decreases as hotel fanciness increases, and vice versa. Seriously, have you ever had Sheraton coffee? You don't want to. The only exception was the fancy hotel in Kona Hawaii, but that figures. The Motel 6 in one little podunk town in South Dakota that we stayed in on our way to Sturgis had the best coffee I ever had. I made a point of getting six bags.
My theory about this is that the shitholes want you to get up and get the hell outta there as soon as possible, so that they can move the next people in. And they know you'll come back for the coffee if you're ever in town again.
Of course, hotels actually have functional toilet paper. Truckstop toilet paper is translucent. You want a couple of rolls in your suitcase that won't get number two all over your hand. No wonder so many people keep a stock of toilet paper from the hotels they've stayed in on a road trip.
If your suitcase contains all the shampoo and coffee from every hotel you've ever stayed in, you might be a redneck. Of course, you're paying to have consumed that stuff anyway.
One time we even took the Do Not Dsturb sign because the damn hook part ripped off while we were trying to get it over the doorknob. We duct taped it to our car window while we slept in our seats the next night.
I've noticed that the coffee quality decreases as hotel fanciness increases, and vice versa. Seriously, have you ever had Sheraton coffee? You don't want to. The only exception was the fancy hotel in Kona Hawaii, but that figures. The Motel 6 in one little podunk town in South Dakota that we stayed in on our way to Sturgis had the best coffee I ever had. I made a point of getting six bags.
My theory about this is that the shitholes want you to get up and get the hell outta there as soon as possible, so that they can move the next people in. And they know you'll come back for the coffee if you're ever in town again.
Of course, hotels actually have functional toilet paper. Truckstop toilet paper is translucent. You want a couple of rolls in your suitcase that won't get number two all over your hand. No wonder so many people keep a stock of toilet paper from the hotels they've stayed in on a road trip.
Gearhead habits and redneck lawns
If you cried at the end of World's Fastest Indian, you're probably a bit of a gearhead. I'll pass you the Kleenex.
If you sell cowboy furniture, walking sticks, and steel roses to pay for your Indian habit, you might be a gearhead.
If you have over five hundred horses in your garage and none of them are animals, you might be a gearhead.
If the first time you saw your house on Google Earth you couldn't help but say, "Man, what a dump!" before you realized, oh, that's our house, you might be a redneck. In my defense, that was right after we bought it as an abandoned property.
If, fifteen years later, your house can still be mistaken for an abandoned property at first glance, but hey, it's a mighty spiffy "abandoned property", you might be a redneck.
If you have more lawnmowers than grass but your lawn is covered in green plants anyway, you might be a redneck.
If you have the second-greenest lawn in the neighborhood and all you do is ignore it, you might be a redneck in a yuppie area. They work so hard on their yards that the yard can't live without them.
If you've ever had a yard that consisted entirely of poison ivy, you're probably that poor fella in the Reader's Digest last April. That was a freakin' hilarious article. Life lesson, don't take off your clothes when there's poison ivy around.
If you sell cowboy furniture, walking sticks, and steel roses to pay for your Indian habit, you might be a gearhead.
If you have over five hundred horses in your garage and none of them are animals, you might be a gearhead.
If the first time you saw your house on Google Earth you couldn't help but say, "Man, what a dump!" before you realized, oh, that's our house, you might be a redneck. In my defense, that was right after we bought it as an abandoned property.
If, fifteen years later, your house can still be mistaken for an abandoned property at first glance, but hey, it's a mighty spiffy "abandoned property", you might be a redneck.
If you have more lawnmowers than grass but your lawn is covered in green plants anyway, you might be a redneck.
If you have the second-greenest lawn in the neighborhood and all you do is ignore it, you might be a redneck in a yuppie area. They work so hard on their yards that the yard can't live without them.
If you've ever had a yard that consisted entirely of poison ivy, you're probably that poor fella in the Reader's Digest last April. That was a freakin' hilarious article. Life lesson, don't take off your clothes when there's poison ivy around.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
If you're in a hole...
...Stop digging. Don't get me wrong, I loved Boyd Coddington's taste(rest his soul) and thought he was a good, salt-of-the-earth man (ironic, no?), but this guy did everything ass-backwards when he went out to Bonneville.
For the past 40 years, there has been a mining operation going on near the Bonneville racecourses, where the miners collect the water runoff from the flats and direct it into huge setlling ponds, collecting potash from it. Then the salt would just sit there, when it should have been sitting out on the racecourses, building up a foot and a half thick. At one point, there were just a couple of inches of salt on the Flats. That's nowhere near enough to have Speed Week. That's the recipe for Stuck in the Mud Week.
Salt, when it has been wetted and allowed to dry, forms a surface very similar to concrete, or maybe plaster of paris. Anyone who went to Southmoor while they still had the Upper Field is familiar with this--it was dirt, but practically concrete. Out on the Slat Flats, though, the mud underneath the salt is frikkin' quicksand, just about. We can't have vehicles breaking through to that at five miles an hour, let alone 200.
Starting in 1997, Save the Salt was started; a program where the water from the holding tanks would be pumped back out over the Flats. In other words, they been repaving.
Of course, if rain hits right before Speed Week or the salt pumping hasn't deposited enough, the courses and the whole shebang have to be moved somewhere else.
You standin' on unstable ground, boy.
Here's the story of Boyd Coddington's visit in 2007, as published on the Bonneville website, http://www.saltflats.com/
_______________________________________
For the past 40 years, there has been a mining operation going on near the Bonneville racecourses, where the miners collect the water runoff from the flats and direct it into huge setlling ponds, collecting potash from it. Then the salt would just sit there, when it should have been sitting out on the racecourses, building up a foot and a half thick. At one point, there were just a couple of inches of salt on the Flats. That's nowhere near enough to have Speed Week. That's the recipe for Stuck in the Mud Week.
Salt, when it has been wetted and allowed to dry, forms a surface very similar to concrete, or maybe plaster of paris. Anyone who went to Southmoor while they still had the Upper Field is familiar with this--it was dirt, but practically concrete. Out on the Slat Flats, though, the mud underneath the salt is frikkin' quicksand, just about. We can't have vehicles breaking through to that at five miles an hour, let alone 200.
Starting in 1997, Save the Salt was started; a program where the water from the holding tanks would be pumped back out over the Flats. In other words, they been repaving.
Of course, if rain hits right before Speed Week or the salt pumping hasn't deposited enough, the courses and the whole shebang have to be moved somewhere else.
You standin' on unstable ground, boy.
Here's the story of Boyd Coddington's visit in 2007, as published on the Bonneville website, http://www.saltflats.com/
_______________________________________
Back to USFRA Home Page
Bonneville can be a tough place.
As you may have heard, at SpeedWeek 2007, Boyd Coddington star of TV’s American Hotrod show had a very tough couple of days. Boyd and his wife Jo were running a beautiful roadster, hoping for a class record, with a full TVcrew recording their racing efforts. As you will read, things went from bad to much much worse for the Coddington crew.
Ron Christenson (long time USFRA volunteer) was working the Speedweek 2007 Event in his usual position as Radio Announcer on 1610 AM radio announcing the event. He captured these photos and this inside story from his ringside seat.
Photos and Narrative by Ron Christensen
Thursday afternoon the Boyd Coddington race team, complete with a film crew for Speed TV's "American Hotrodder" was heading from the starting line to the 3- Mile after Jo Coddington (Boyd's wife) had just spun their roadster at about 180- MPH (and come really close to backing into the Timing Slips stand at great speed.) The motorhome headed for the return road just as it was supposed to do. Unfortunately it broke through the thin salt (the SpeedWeek tracks had to be relocated to a risky area after the rains a couple of weeks before the event). We normally wouldn't have been driving in this area as it is quite a distance east of the usual location of the track.
With the "American Hotrodder" film crew shooting away, the Coddington group tried to get the motorhome free but it had sunk in up to the axle and even with lots of digging it would not budge. So they called a tow truck to come and pull them out. The mood of the Coddington crew was sort of giddy . . . the seriousness of the predicament hadn't seem to have sunk in nearly as well as the motorhome had. They were all standing around laughing and drinking beers, having a great time.
Two vehicles (a very large wrecker and a flatbed) arrived about two hours later like the Lone Ranger and Tonto to the rescue . . . . The Coddington crew was certain it would be out of there in minutes and heading back to the casino in Wendover for dinner, gambling and more beers! Plans didn't quite work out as hoped as both rescue vehicles promptly got stuck not far from the motorhome. It should have been obvious that if the motorhome broke through, a big heavy wrecker didn't stand a chance. So there were now three stuck vehicles. The wrecker crews were heard to say something like "We'll just get 'Big Blue' in here . . . no problem!" More beers came out and the party continued.
At about 6:00 PM, I had to leave the salt about that time to go to the workers dinner at the Nugget and a party at an old friend's home in Wendover.
When I returned at about 10:30 p.m. to my radio trailer to spend the night I noticed there were lights in the area of the motorhome so I drove over there. Things had gone from bad to critical at the scene. The Coddington crew's mood had made a 180 degree change from when I left. They looked very sullen and an air of gloom hung over the group. I then surveyed the scene. "Big Blue" (the wrecker that would save the day) had arrived after I left and had been trying to pull the big yellow wrecker from the nice soft mud into which it had become so comfortable. The yellow wrecker which had been sitting so peacefully with the salt surface firmly against the undercarriage when I left was now at about a 40 degree angle with mud coming up about 6 feet to the door of the cab on the left side. It was wedged firmly into the landscape with its right side tires about a foot off the ground and about 100 feet of 4-foot deep trench indicating where Big Blue had dragged it in an attempt to free it from the clutches of the desert.
The dragging had only gotten it deeper into the mud. And to make matters even worse, Big Blue had gotten itself in about the same situation, sinking into the mud about 4 feet as it attempted to pull the yellow wrecker free. And in a last ditch effort to get the motorhome out it had managed to damage its boom winch and a tow cable was now stretched tight like a huge steel guitar string between it and the motorhome. The damaged winch would not release and they could not remove the cable. It was about 3 feet above the salt and about 1050 feet long which created quite a hazard. One of the Coddington crewmen had borrowed some orange cones from the race course return road to mark off the cable so no one would drive into it. Unfortunately one of their own crew drove their mini van right into it as he attempted to drive between the cones!
I struggled not to laugh at this comedy as it unfolded. Another pair of cables stretched between Big Blue and the yellow wrecker. Big Blue was sitting at an odd angle with its right rear wheels buried firmly in the mud. It looked a dog cleaning its backside on the carpet. Somehow they had managed to free the flatbed which they had backed in to try to free Big Blue and it too had become stuck again, this time much worse than before. The three rescue vehicles were in a nice tidy row, half buried and held in the firm grip of the clay-like mud that lies just below the surface of the salt. The scene resembled some sort of elephant hunt with three slain carcasses lying dead on the playa. The motorhome sat unmoved in the same spot it had found itself in when it started this fiasco, no doubt chuckling to itself at the mess it had created!
The muddied and sullen Coddington crew divided up and some of them stayed in the motorhome while another group left in the mini van with a fresh cable burn on its nose. It was pitch black out with no moon and they had no idea how to find their way back to the access road. I explained that they just needed to drive to the dike behind the starting line then follow it around until they encountered the row of cones that marked the route to the access road. I returned to my radio position at the starting line where I started to prepare the Cherokee Hotel for the night. I watched as the Coddington crew left in the mini van and drove past the starting lines then proceeded to head off in a northerly direction instead of following the dike to the west as I suggested. I could imagine them driving off into the darkness and getting stuck in the muddy area towards the mountains. A perfect end to their evening!
I decided to rescue them from another disaster and I chased them down in the Jeep then guided them to the coned route to the access road. They still had the water hazard at the end of the access road to negotiate. I explained that they MUST keep the relocated row of cones to the immediate right of their vehicle at all times as there were now 3 to 4 foot deep holes hidden under the surface of the water if they ventured off the marked path. I returned to my trailer and wished them luck.
The next morning the scene at the motorhome was revealed in all its glory! You can see the carnage in the photos. I wonder how or if they will "replace their divots." About 10:00 a.m. ANOTHER huge wrecker arrived. This one was even bigger than the big yellow one and it was equipped with a third axel on the back. They carefully backed it up and removed the motorhome, the flatbed, then "Big Blue." When I finally left they were still working on pulling the big yellow wrecker.
Your friends at the USFRA encourage you to be careful out there. Bonneville can be a very tough place!
______________________________
These folks have obviously never lived in real snow country. Treat the mud like deep snow, respect it, and it might not swallow your truck. Trouble is, unlike snow, mud doesn't go away by July. I mentioned a while back that if you get stuck in Colorado, wait and we'll dig you out, it's what we live for in the wintertime. Well, that and summer. That's really what we're doing, filling time while we wait for summer. Anyway, after all of this, we coulda gotten these boys out of that jam, without the huge three-axle wrecker and all the to-do. Of course, the mountain contingent might not dig 'em out, they were just so daggum stupid. But you can't just throw big iron at a break-through problem, just like you can't just floor it on the salt. One'll eat your truck, and the other will eat your tires.
Merry racing!
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