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.

Montgomery Gentry--Speed

Ain't it the truth?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

1. Complete portable jacob's ladder for sparking motorcycle helmet
2. Get another motorcycle
3. Get it running
4. Go to the Rocky Mountain Concours d'Elegance and dig the Munro Special '20 Indian Scout 45
5. Get the rest of our motorcycles running
6. Join a high school rugby team
7. Aquire and hotrod a 50cc scooter to do an honest 55 for any sustained period of time, more than once
8. Attach a tow hitch to our Olds
9. Hotrod the Olds
10. Get Brushfire Customs off the ground as a business
11. Graduate high school
12. 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?

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)

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?

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.