Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Slumming in the theater distict

Its amazing how much loose change you can pick up down here. I just knew this tattered Texans jersey would be good for something. ;)

The clothes have no emporer

What a great line. Wish I'd thought of that.  I can't remember where I read it.
As Obummercare unfolds into a slow motion train wreck, the other half of America slowly awakens from their ambulatory slumber to realize what a liar and fraud the current resident of the white house is.
This shit storm is only getting started. When the employer mandate kicks in, the buyer's remorse will rise to epic proportions.

Meanwhile, Harry Reid changed the rules in the Senate to make it easier to stack the federal courts with the "correct thinking" type of moonbats. Why?  Because the Democrats can't shake the obummercare tar baby off their hands no matter how much they shake, shimmy, and spin.
They are in for a shellacking come the 2014 midterm elections.
So, they will legislate from the Bench.
Once again, the Republicans stupid party gets out maneuvered.
But, no worries. It's only the little people that get fucked over.
You, and me.
and
all the dumb asses that voted for our first Gay Kenyan Muslim president.

Good Grief! another week blurred by

Everything seems to be frantic these days.
My clients make decisions at a glacial pace and DEMAND action yesterday.
Everyone is so covered up, trying to schedule meetings is far worse than trying to herd cats.
But! We've Got to Have a Meeting!!!!!
Half my client team are the cats.
Got the fuel pump replaced in son's jeep a week ago. He called this evening from a downtown parking garage to report said jeep would not start.
I drove into town after work through blinding rain and flooding streets to lay hands on the jeep, hoping all the way I could get it started.
It was parked in the basement level.  Pushing that effer up to the street level, was not the way I wanted to end my day.  I willed it back to life.  There is something wiggy with the relays going on in that car.
When it's running, it runs like a bat outa hell.
The jeep is not afraid of Sonnage. It is terrified of me because it knows I brought it into this family and I can sure as hell take it out.
Saturday I bought two more new tires for Duh's Cobalt and replaced all for four beat to shit wheels.
 Sunday I bought new wiper blades for my Scion roller skate. My new wiper blade on the driver's side was worse than the old blade.  My scheduled overdue oil change for rollerskate got rained out.*

I'm taking off Wednesday.  Wednesday I get to drive down to Old Hickory Lake to get finger printed because some douche nozzle suddenly decided the practice of architecture was so over run with felons that finger prints and a criminal background check were needed to renew my registration for the thirtieth time. And no, I can't use my CHL finger prints and back ground check. That would be so... un-bureaucratic.
Yeah, there's places closer, but they're all booked up through the end of the month when my license expires.
Plan ahead? You've got to be kidding. I pretty sure I saw myself leaving the office when I arrived this morning.



* I will be on my death bed before I allow some dipshit at Fred's croissant, fill dirt and lube to change the oil in my vehicles.

.

Tab clearing my brain

Move in, or move out?
When we moved into the BAR Corp. HQ, the only "store" close by was a lonely Texaco gas station.
I hated the long commute to work.  As we have gotten closer (very close) to the childrens graduating college, Belle and I have mused about moving closer in to town so my daily commute isn't such a long grind.

It has gotten so crowded out here now it's beginning to bug me.  God help me, I'm leaning towards moving further out.

Doh! Biden visited the Port of Houston Today.
He gave an "inspiring" speech about things of which he knows nothing.  By "inspiring" I mean he managed not to step on his own tongue.
I can remember when it was a cool thing and big deal to have the president or vice president visit Houston.  Now when they show up my reaction is, "Oh jeez, please go back to DC before some of the fail oozes off of you and pollutes one of the few surviving economies in this country".

Fog out there this morning, drive safely.
So said the weather report this morning.
"Drive safely" apparently means drive slower than physically possible during rush hour.  I left ten minutes ahead of schedule and got to work ten minutes late.  The fog was "thick". Visibility couldn't have been more than two miles in front of my car. Thank God it didn't "rain". I might not have made it to work by quittin time.

One down

Looks like it will be a weekend of getting greasy.

My son and I spent a few hours today replacing the fuel pump, strainer and fuel filter in his jeep.  Has there ever been a differential that didn't leak? Man that was grubby back there by the fuel tank. The good news was we didn't have to drop the tank to get to the pump. The bad news was we had to get all kissy-smacky face with the greezy differential to get at the pump.

Nonetheless, mission accomplished.

In spite of the circumstances, it was really good to see him.  He's a busy young man these days. I don't see him too often anymore.

On the to-do list for tomorrow is an oil change for my car, rotating the tires on my daughter's car and, if she manages to get over here, finishing the electric lock repair on my youngest step-daughter's car.

.

Milestone

I feel kind of like the three year old running behind his siblings, but the BAR blog recently rolled past 100,000 page views.  Compared to the BAR blogroll, this doesn't even show up on the radar scope.

I apologize to all those that have come here expecting to find actual content or cogent thoughts.

The lovely Belle started this blog. Somehow..."you should post something on my blog" I got roped into this.*

I request that our my readers leave comments demanding that that Belle re-engage in "her" blog.
We just had a "discussion" about whether I should take her pictures off the blog.

heh.




* I like blogging. The true bonus is that I've met quite a few folks IRL that I never would have otherwise, for which my life is richer.

Al Gore's next gig

If you were wondering what was going to come after Global Worming, wonder no more.

As the global worming schtick has waned, temperatures have refused to rise and the polar icecaps have increased at record rates, the UN saw the writing on the wall and attempted to get some traction with "biodiversity".  The Wormists and the skeptics* were too far gone in a rut induced horn lock to even take notice.  Whatev.

So what's the next ozoneholethermageddon tax dollar gravy train?  Ocean Acidification.

"This Summary for Policymakers states with "very high confidence" that increasing acidification is caused by human activities which are adding 24 million tonnes of CO2 to oceans every day."

Very high confidence. 
Human activities.
Indeed.
Where have I heard that before?

So, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and global average temperatures now appear to have no correlation whatsoever. One thing the wormists poo poo that has managed to, begrudgingly, creep into the nooz is the sun seems to be taking a nap.  Sun spots are almost nonexistent.  Could it be? Nah, Sun activity couldn't possibly have anything to do with temperatures on earth could it? Perish the thought cretin, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.


So now the PH level of the oceans is rising because atmospheric CO2!!!111eleventy!11.

Really?
Which tree ring will the sciency-tists point at as the safe PH baseline?
Has anyone thought to look into volcanic activity on the ocean floor? I'm just asking, ya know. Personally, I think we need some federal legislation against those nasty, mega-polluting volcanoes.**

I am officially calling bullshit right here, right now. I no more trust "scientists" whoring for government grants than I do obama.








* I am a skeptic.  Well, actually that's an understatement. I think global worming is unmitigated bullshit.

** When Mount Pinatubo erupted, it put more pollution into the atmosphere in that one event than all of mankind from the beginning of the industrial revolution up to that very moment in time.
We should file a class action lawsuit against the earth for polluting itself.

Scout Scope

Initial fit up on the scout scope setup for my Mosin Nagant.
I'm dubious as to how well this mount is going to hold up under the Mosin Mule Kick Recoil.
Time will tell.  Loctite on the allen screws will be s.o.p.
As it is, there's clearance to shift the scope back some, which I think I will do.
Then comes the process of sighting in. Time to learn something new. This I have not done before, but I'm just having the best time with a rifle older than me.
I'm not too proud to be coached btw.

It's a date then

With a fuel pump next weekend.
God laughs while man makes plans.
The man child's jeep crapped out again.  He and I have been chasing this "no start" issue for a while.
So I drove 40 minutes to lay hands on it.  No error codes stored..again.
All this time I've been thinking it was an ignition issue because after cranking it a while I could smell gas like the engine was flooded.
I popped the hose off the intake and hit it with some carb cleaner while sonnage cranked it over.
It started.
So it appears the fuel pump has gotten rather long in the tooth. It's not putting out enough pressure for a cold start. It's still putting out enough to run the engine, just not get it started up. It takes about 15 psi more pressure at start up than required to just keep the engine going.
So, the fuel pump's time has come.

A mechanic shop charged me $600 to replace the fuel pump in my Jeep some years ago.
I was not a happy camper. So I decided I'd be doing the next one myself.*  Rockauto.com lists a replacement pump for $72.79.  Even with a couple of hours of my time invested, that's a pretty healthy reduction in expenditure.**

Most people I talk to regarding shade tree auto repair believe that modern vehicles are too complicated to repair themselves, what with all the sensors and dohickies.  For 26 bucks, you can buy a code reader. Often, the computer in the car will tell you what the problem is. Once you discover how simple it is to replace many of the engine management and emissions sensors you will not be happy with what your auto shop charges you to do so.
When the error code search comes up empty, there's either no spark or not enough (no) fuel.





* I also fired the mechanic shop I'd done business with for ten years.  The fuel pump episode was the last straw after finding out they were charging me 4x retail for parts. Yeah, I know they have the parts warranty thing...whatev, bite me. They aren't even paying 1x retail for parts.  sunsabitches.

** I have saved not spent tens of thousands of dollars on auto repairs over the years.

New toys

Scout scope for my Mosin, rings, mount and laser bore sighter.
Oh...yeah, almost forgot, got a bunch of stripper clips too.
If I'm not too assymetrically sore after attempting to glof*, I might just get some recoil therapy this weekend.

* Pros golf. I glof.

On Vacation!

I'm not on the water right now, but that is my pic from a while back.
Decompressing.
Sort of.  I've only responded to 15 emails or so in the last 36 hours.  :-)