6ixString's Home Improvement and Mindless Ramblings Thread.... by 6ixStringJack

Frem.... what do I do here????I'm actually being "suggested" to take another point of view?????
WTF

My brother.....
i spent nearly 6 months watching him in a coma

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012 9:16 AM

Well, thing is Jack...

We're different - it's how we are, it's WHO we are, and often so much so that even communicating with the average joe takes actual work on our part, case in point the sidewinding stream of consciousness thought process in your post here, which prolly threw most readers for a loop, neh?
I have some theories and suspicious about the how and why of that, but precious little hard info since most of "us" don't survive to adulthood and prosper, not in THIS society, anyways.

And since we're mostly talkin to each other I'll simply respond to points in same fashion instead of doing my usual for-the-normals cleanup to make it coherent to em.

Glorified babysitter, of machines, or people, is still a job that needs doin, and more importantly needs doin by someone who can do it, day in, day out, and not lose their edge - that's an uncommon gift, and generally most prevalent in them that's lead a "life of adventure" and knows how much that SUCKS, thus treasuring the boredom.

And alas, Stovers books ain't short, but you will like them anyway, I guar-an-friggin-tee it, hell, you might have trouble putting them DOWN, cause for you, I think, the HSQ (Holy Shit Quotient) will be downright fascinating - it ain't the length of modern novels which irritate you, it's the gratuitous padding and incompetent storytelling, now, if you want some hardass storytelling prose stripped to the bare bones which slams you like a kick in the junk, try Andrew Vachss - his Burke stories are just that, and a peek into *MY* world, from the underside, definately not for everyone though.

And yes, the peppermint idea originally came out of the button trick, but don't you know, buttons taste terrible, hahaha.

And yes, my personal gear is what others around here call "Batman Grade", hell my raingear is a frogtogs rainsuit made for bowhunters, and one item of it is worth it's own mention - my Microlink FR160B.
http://www.amazon.com/FR160B-Microlink-Self-Powered-Weather-Flashlight
/dp/B001QTXKB0/ref=sr_1_1

Seriously, this thing is BADASS, AM/FM/NOAA (all SEVEN channels) Radio, flashlight, and USB output charger, and it runs on crank power and has a solar cell as well - you can just crank it up and go, and can even (I wouldn't recommend this with hi-tech phones though) jam your cellphones USB charger into the port and wind that baby up if your phone dies, or lean it up against a window to catch the sun and listen to the radio, if you like.
Worth every damn penny of the thirty bucks I paid for it, too.

ETA: I also have a USB-connector charger that will charge my pile of rechargable AA and AAA batteries which power my lights, cameras and other electronics, so in a pinch I can jack that in and crank-recharge them to power ANY of my other equipment, so even in a total power outage MY stuff is always gonna have juice.

My bane, ironically enough - is heat and sunlight... you ever have a sunburn to where your skin itself just plain stings, all over ?
THAT is what it feels like to me, to be out and about in strong sunlight, and I can't SEE a damn thing either cause of my eyes, which are getting slowly but progressively worse, I am all but completely blind in my left one except in twilight or darker - upside to it is that for me even quarter moonlight plus the security lights might as well be broad daylight, I can see in the dark naturally almost as good as a set of high grade NVGs, so it's not without benefit, but I am prettymuch blind, helpless and miserable in the summer sun, which lead to no end of vampire jokes in my youth, which kinda stopped being funny when some members of a radical church congregation tried to kill me over it in Brooklyn Park one night.
At 70F, I start wilting, at 80F I am suffering, and anything past that I am having to pop salt tabs and chug electrolytes (which for the record, taste bloody awful) just to stay functional at all, bleh.

And yeah verily, prosthetics, which are NO fun in the heat, and thing with that is, you gotta hook the meat to the metal somewhere and after a while that don't feel too good - being that I am only somewhere around 70% OEM equipment, that comes with it's own brand of suck - but it has it's compensations, damage resistance and cold resistence primarily, and the local yahoos don't want to admit to being spooked or chased off by some old geezer with a gimpy leg so they make up scary cyborg stories, and I'll totally play to it just to wind the bastards up, get all terminator on em, meh heh heh.

Being in Michigan, I don't mind the cold - I was actually a bit disappointed by the recent insultingly mild winter, the cold keeps the creepers away, and doesn't bother me, the worst I've ever faced here was around -40F with windblown snow and hail, but it was Xmas night and I take a great personal satisfaction in doing the holidays since I don't particularly care when me and mine celebrate em, and knowing those people can enjoy them cause I got their back... it does something for me, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, unlike social events with folk I can't stand and don't wanna be around, which is most folk.
Ain't gotta LIKE people to want to protect em, with me its just kinda my nature.

Me, well it ain't shysterism so much as I exploit the HELL out of peoples psychological blind spots and weaknesses, or play on their own pre-existent conditioning by themselves or some agenda or other, and my favorite trick of it is flat out telling them what I am gonna do and being all melodramatic about it, which causes them to laugh me off, and follow that invested effort with denial, right up to the point where they finally realize I was DEAD FRIGGIN SERIOUS from the get-go, and they're having the ass handed to em cause they preferred denial over the three little words which have destroyed so much and so many.
"I was wrong."
Murders are committed, wars are waged, relationships destroyed, all cause no one wants to say those three little words, even to themselves - and I *WILL* cram that one down some cretins gullet sideways, as you are no doubt well aware.
A close parallel to that would be Grand Admiral Thrawn, from some of the Star Wars books, he pulls the same mental-pysch-cultural exploitation tricks on a pretty epic scale.

And yes, we hate debt, we hate OWING anyone anything - my lawyer plays this one on me by doing me little favors here and there and then REFUSING to accept payment, he KNOWS how bad that rooks me, he KNOWS I'll get all foamy at the chops about wanting to square it...
I'd choke his ass for that, but I need him - even if he is so evil most people think I summed him from the depths of hell via virgin sacrifice or something, really.. he's THAT vile.
Nor would you want MY advice concerning women, I just do what I do, be who I am, and they come to me, often unwanted and at damnably inconvenient times, they're like cats, with thumbs, I swear!

Now, as you know I ain't got a single ounce of racism in me, which occasionally causes me to cross sabers with folk who do even a little, often without realizing it, but since yer on a positive note here lemme explain things from a slightly different perspective.
The REASON why black people look younger to you is simple, and you'll dope slap yourself for it when you think about it - contrast.
Us pasty-faces and our light skin show every imperfection, every shadow and wrinkle cause the color balance is obvious to the eye, but someone of a darker shade those imperfections by which we detect age tend to blend in with their natural coloration - plus on a cultural side many of the hairstyles tend to age better, I mean if you see a white guy walking around with a Mullet you know he's either old or into some weird counterculture stuff, right ?

As for why they seem happier overall, this *IS* cultural and lemme explain...
The sixties weren't that damn long ago, a lot of folk living now, or their parents, lived through the civil rights wars and all the hate and violence that fell out from it well into the 80's, you see.
When you are so used to getting kicked in the teeth by society left and right, when that don't happen it's like a Russian Peasant getting a tax refund, you understand ?
Plus racism itself is slowly dying, held up mostly by rightwing dickheads who soon enough will be fertilizer, hopefully without passing their idiotic and sadistic "values" unto their offspring, if any, so there's that factor, and another.
A lot of them have also seen, up close, just how ugly their life COULD be, COULD have been, where those roads untravelled might have lead them, and with that for a basis for comparison are generally a lot happier even when they don't have all that much - than say, some gated community suburbanite who's never suffered from want in their life, or some trailer park cracker who seems to feel the world fucking OWES them something, not that THAT problem is restricted to any race or culture, but I am making thatt last comparison on a purely economic rather than cultural level you understand.

One note on culture - other than them scary mofos up in New York, the Jamaican folks I have met are some of the kindest, sweetest, downright FRIENDLIEST people I've ever met, hell even when I TRY to get mad at em for something I just can't pull it off, it's like they radiate music and sunshine from their very souls...
Now, I do NOT like people touchin me, I really, REALLY don't (to the point where it's negatively impacted relationships, mind you) and they got this thing where they get all really close to you and wanna put their hand on you when talking to you, as part of their way of communication, of making personal contact, and from ANYONE ELSE, I wouldn't take it well but I just grind my teeth cause it's who they are, and I LEARNED something that way, too.
I think that one of the things which has lead to our national psychosis is rooted in the puritan idiocy of avoiding physical contact, cause non-sexual personal contact, the power of touch, seems a critical component of developing a higher degree of empathy - this is known in some cultures as skinship, and our lack of it is one of the factors which I believe cripples our empathy and ability to emotionally connect with others as people, internalising them to our personal world, rather than seeing them as external things to be manipulated and used.
For THAT alone, I will always and ever forgive them being all in my personal space, since from a human standpoint my aversion to it is the unnatural thing, not them wanting to connect and communicate.
Not sure if the normals will get all that the way I phrased it, but I hope you will.

As for the rest, well you can't save everyone Jack - you have no idea how much of a bitter lesson that's been for me, and how painful, but it's true...
But if the price of saving many is appeasing the occasional exploiter, CHEAP AT THE GODDAMN PRICE.
As for your Bro, there's ways and ways - playing a rigged game by the rules handed to you is never a good idea, but I've managed to put the arm on medical providers and even the Gov by way of rules-lawyering the hell out of em, so there's that - being that Medicare is in great part RESPONSIBLE for my condition due to deliberate medical neglect often in defiance of their own rules and the law(1), their negligence has made them, albiet very reluctantly and kicking and fighting all the while, somewhat responsible for the medical expenses thereby incurred, which a Federal judge rather soundly kicked their ass about way back when - it's a bitch getting them to comply, but given that some of my prosthetic equipment costs about as much as a fuckin mercedes, well...
(1) - To me, these things are a CONTRACT, you sign that W-2/W-4, it's a contract, they take X amount of your money outta every paycheck on the agreement that if certain shit happens they've got your back, but often as not they don't hold up their end of the deal do they ?
And I get downright PSYCHOTIC about breach-of-contract, it's one of the things which'll drive me into a rabid, foamin frenzy... everyone knows it, and did I mention I am CONTRACT Security, hmmm ?
Breaking contract with me is about as smart as suck-starting a double barrelled shotgun, only more painful.

Anyways, the devil of the details and whatnot, I am sure it's possible to end-run or manipulate the process to get your bro some help, it's just a matter of knowing HOW, and that, that I might be able to help ya with, maybe.

Oh, and guilt....
Seriously, DO NOT DO THIS to yourself, man, JUST FEKKIN DON'T.
Feeling all out of sorts about things going your way for once is emotional suicide, take the goddamn gifts life hands you man, gods know you've paid enough for em, especially when the wee hours roll around and the brutal, crushing guilt of your life comes crashing down upon your shoulders like a ten ton fucking weight, hanging itself around your neck like a millstone of grief...
Take it from me, don't do it to yourself - if you beat yourself up inside every time something goes your way you'll wind up so deep a mass of emotional scar tissue you'll all but be unable to feel anything ever again, and that is a nightmare all its own I hope you never, ever face.

Would that I woulda had someone to dopeslap me about it like I am doin you.

I hope that helps some, but alas I got work to do.... friggin auto parts stores, they post the goddamn parts as "In Stock" and then the instant they got your money kick it over to "Backordered"?
That's bullshit, and if this place didn't have such a good rep I'd be callin my credit union to put a boot up their ass and demand my dosh back, you know ?
But man this is gonna be sweet once I get it done - a near mint 1985 BMW 325e ?
Okay, so maybe it ain't no split-window corvette, sure... but it's a DAMN nice car.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012 2:11 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

A Jack a stor,
It sounds like your brother's application was denied, those rutters. You've got to appeal within 60 days or else you may have to start over again, at least that's how it works in OR and SS is a national thing. So be persistant and keep trying, lots of people get denied the first time, its standard practice. I'm really surprised he wasn't already listed in there since he got hurt so young, lots of times a family with a child with special needs will get some assistance while the child is growing up and then when s/he is 18 it will switch over to regular SSI, and of course if/when that person gets a job with enough hours you can discontinue benefits, to be resumed later if necessary. It sounds like that didn't happen for your family though so you've got to jump through all the hoops. Its standard procedure to deny the first time, so keep at it and don't give in to the stupidity, keep pushing and let them know that you're not going anywhere.

I think you're feeling a might truthsome. Its hard when someone you love has mental health differences, whether by genetics, by trauma (which are all tangled up sometimes anyway) or by brain injury. I know you guys have a complex relationship, but I also know you love him very much. It would be easier if he were touched (certain varied symptomotology, a certain sweet energy, needing a certain amount of looking after), when you see them you generally know it. It doesn't sound like he is though which makes things harder for all y'all because usually its easier to get touched ones help since they are clearly, visably, in need of it, sometimes even they fall through the cracks though, which upsets me a lot because how can anyone not care about them? But its harder when the person isn't touched but clearly needs lots of help. Its hard because they don't have that sweet energy that makes people want to look after them, it sounds like your brother has some major anger issues that contribute to a lack of self regulation in regards to violence, which is unpleasant for everyone including himself of course. Now touched folk can have these problems sometimes, our River has gotten violent once or twice, :) but I just don't think your brother is touched, he is more like most of us with mental health and/or brain injury challenges.

But keep trying and you can always call local organizations that help families that have experienced brain injuries, maybe they can give you some tips on convincing SS to behave for you.

I don't read books for fun unless they are under 650 pages, that's why I've never read Harry Potter, they get soooooo long and I don't want to read the first few and then not be able to finish the rest. I sure wish I had more time to read, I've been reading The Bourne Identity for 2 and a half months now, I'm almost done, but it shouldn't take that long.

Frem, I'm not a big personal space invasion person either, sometimes I wish I was. I'm kind of like my mom, when kids are little its all about snuggling, I like being close to them because they need that closeness and nurturing, but once they get older I don't really like it anymore. I'm not physically affectionate with my friends for instance, Mary likes hugs so I oblige, but its not something I really enjoy. Every once in a while though a mood comes over me and I like being close to people and wish I could snuggle.

And Jack, don't feel so bad, your situation is a combination of advantageous choices and just being in the right place at the right time. Some people are just more fortunate than others and it doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense, but in your case some decisions you've made helped you along, mixed with that right place, right time thing.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise. "A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012 3:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Frem, I'm not a big personal space invasion person either...

I just can't resist...

-F

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012 6:27 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

:), I guess I was askin for that.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise. "A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, April 5, 2012 2:35 PM

So... I guess we're all on board the new FFF.NET now, uh?

Interesting looking site, and I can already tell the advantages of it. But being one of the die-hards that I am, Imma drink one extra beer for our old and true, black-and-blue themed layout.

Here's hoping that the "back-copy-paste fix" that I've been using when I spend ages writing a post that never shows up after I posted it on the old forum still works here. Short of that, here's hoping that when I reply to this post I remember to do a test run and don't REALLY piss myself off by losing everything that I've posted.

Oh, and BTW.... As deep as my LOVE of Saffron goes, I had to change my Avitar. I wonder how many people were reading my posts on the RED site and seeing Saffron instead of Mal, like it was on the BLUE site lol.

Hey Frem,

We're so deep in long posts that only you and a few people like us could even keep up, let alone have any single desire to keep up. I got to truly hand it to you for being able to do that in a sober state of mind. Admittedly, I can only keep focus on something this long and try to reply to all issues when I've hit that sweet spot between "buzzed enough to care enough" and "just before being SO drunk that I'm making an ass of myself".

I'll try to keep this message a little shorter, especially since Riona seems to get it too, and I'll be replying to her as well

I enjoy being a Glorfied Babysitter in any position I'm in. I want very little responsibility 80% of the time I'm actually making a paycheck. And managers would be happy to have me because I'm one of the few people who can do the job so good during that 20% I'm needed that they never have to answer to their own bosses about why I dropped the ball. The GOOD jobs in that field though, are the ones that it takes somebody with a specific skillset to do. For the time being, security babysitting is for me, because I don't know how to get back into the "tech-world" babysitting without a degree in this economy.

Save the "adventure" for outside of work, I say.

Stover's books = long :(. Andrew Vachss books = potent and short :). I'm just a short story/novella type of guy Frem. Sounds to me like Riona is the same way, with her 2 1/2 months reading Bourne 2. If I actually read a Steven King NOVEL it would take me 3 months to complete. Sure, part of me might enjoy it, but the back of my mind would be constantly kicking me to finish it and it would be more of a chore than anything else.... just one more JOB I have to accomplish on my to-do list. My brother got nothing but C's and D's in public schools, yet give him a 1200 page novel and he's done with it in 5 nights of reading and could recite a better synopsis of the book than Cliff's Notes could ever. Bastard....

Haha... peppermint = button trick. Somehow though, I don't assume you got the button trick you based it from off of the AWESOME Cube movies though, did you?

Your gear sounds awesome man. If it looks, 6 months down the road, that security might be the only career for me in this brave new world, I think I'll have to invest any bit of surplus cash into some of those "wonderful toys".

I LOVE the heat and sunlight, while I'm working, although anything over 85 degrees starts to gnaw on me... ESPECIALLY in a house with no A/C and nights that are above 80 degrees. Yanno, the nights when even a fan on your naked body with no bedsheets over you seem to feel more like heaters than relief.....?

I've had a sunburn as you talk about only twice in my life. I'm a majority Irish, but that's only beacuse I'm like 28% Irish. I come from a long line of mongrels. I'd like to thank my resistance to the sun/heat/skin cancer on the idea that because much of my otherwise fair European background, I have quite a bit of Sicilian roots, and the rumors are that I could very well be the grandson of an Octo-roon. (So far so good.... no Sickle Cell, no Skin Cancer).....

F! the cold though. I suck at ice-hocky too, although I pretty much rock floor hockey and I wasn't half bad on roller blades when I was a teen. If being part black means that the only visible negative sympton of that is that I suck at Ice Hockey, who gives a shit? I always loved Ice Hockey as a sport only one rung above Soccer at the bottom of the dung heap.

As for prosthetics, and the fact they cost more than cars I'd never even imagine purchasing... I didn't realize that I was talking to the 6 million dollar man. (The 20 billion dollar man, adjusted for inflation....)

I'm hoping that science comes far enough that when I'm 55 I can buy new lungs and liver on the cheap at K-Mart and when I'm 65 I can buy a new pecker from Bed Bath and Beyond.

I know what you mean... Debt is the WORST thing that anyone can willingly inflict upon themselves, especially if it's needless debt. Occasionally I'll obligingly put myself in somebody's pockets temporarily, but that's only if I know it will be easy to get out of them and that the ends justified the means. I know you're on point there....

Fortunately, in my life that is only a big deal in my own mind, I don't really have the need to sleep with serpents to get the job done. Who could blame you for the company you keep? I HATE lawyers too, but there's some times when I wish I had tight relations to a few of them so evil and vile that they had enough grub on the politicians around that they could have some strings pulled for some of my friends in need. Otherwise, most of the people I ever owe anything to are family members and close friends that I have also in the past bailed out big time when money was more free flowing. In the end, that has all seemed to even itself out in a good way.

Allow me to refrain from the female aspect of this conversation except for to give a little chuckle at the "cats with opposite thumbs" comment. I'll meet the right girl someday, but it has to be on my terms, when I'm comfortable enough not only that I feel that even in the worst times I could take care of me, but I'd have enough to weather it out for the both of us, or even our kids if I ever grow up that much....

In the mean time... Anything that happens in anonymity stays in anonymity, right?

As for black people looking younger, I agree to a point... White skin does show any imperfection, where darker skin doesn't show as much. But when you're treating a hardwood floor, it's the light color floor that can go a month without dusting and the dark colored floors need to be dusted every 2/3 days. The theory is sound, save for the fact that I've knowng black guys who smile through everything and they were 20 years older than me and don't have the crows feet on the eyes I have at only 32 today. This guy Lamar I haven't seen for a decade, but worked with on and off for about 7 years was over 40 when I last saw him, but I'd have swore he was only 25. He always had a smile on his face, and it got him in trouble with the higherups on more than one occasion. I even confronted him about it one day. He told me about the second time he was sentenced to prison for a narcotics charge. When the judge asked him why he was smiling when he was told he was going to prison, he told the judge "why not smile about it, it's not as if you would reduce the sentence a day if I looked like I felt bad about it".

Shit! I wish I could live life that way!

I'm one of those personal space people too, although I'm not a phobic about touch and I do give hugs and stuff when I feel that they're warranted.

As for my bro.... if there's anything you could suggest, I'm all ears. My Dad has taken over that department for quite sometime now, but it seems to be a long up-hill battle that I don't know if he'll ever win, and I hope he does before his marriage suffers from it.

As for the guilt.... you're right. I should probably just pop more vitamins and get my daily dose of B-12.

My guilt isn't because I can't fix the world, it's just because I bitch about things that seem so trivial when I hear the stuff people that I work with go through on a daily basis. Even if they are getting food stamps and tax breaks I could never concieve, I can't imagine a life where I had to wire 10 bucks last minute to my phone company just to have another week of phone usage...... WTF???

Anyway.... good look on the car Frem. How I miss my 1978 LTD in near mint condition.... I got a garage for it now, but the timing just wasn't right.....

Hey Riona,

His application was denied, yes, but it was denied twice before when my Mom and Step-Dad tried to get it for him. Back then, they were still claiming child support for a 23 year old, and he had over 5, in the bank and was bound to fail. Unfortunately, those two previous "black marks" on his record are proving making the case even harder for him today.

My dad's still trying though, going through the "usual channels" for such an unusual case....

Had my Dad been in charge of everything from the beginning, he would have been a part of the system when he was 6 years old. Things being how they were, I was raised in a 2 income-split home growing up, and until I was 18 I thought that everyone had free healthcare. I view it as my own first glimpse at the "insurance bubble" that many are going through now.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Mom, and I'm not even saying bad things about her now, but I am just understanding that she was really depressed. She did go to work and ended up making a good salary over the years, but she was never happy and inflicted that unhappiness on everyone around her over the years. On her off time, she woudl generally sleep the days away.... I can't blame her, because I do that myself a lot of the time when I have a job. It just kills me though, because the courts automatically gave her full custody and left my Dad with his

in his hands. He would have had my bro in the system from day one.

The fact that not only his child from his second marriage has a 4 year ride from a prestigious University for free, but even her child before they got married is just finishing his 5th free year of college is proof enough of that.

(Meanwhile, here I am, some disgruntled genius pawn in some Wicked Game, who had to pay his own way through 3 failed half-assed attempts at Jr College.... grumble.... grumble...)

It's all spilled milk though.... No changing the past...

I'm over it, and I can make my way now, especially since I made those good choices when life handed me lemons. If I even come close to messing my life up now when I've made it as easy as humanly possible to live it without any of the stresses most Americans face, I have only myself to blame.

And that's the only way I'd have it...

Haha about Frem's reply to "Space Invaders".......

Was that somehow a meaningful conversation Frem made a joke about or was it a misinterpreted quote that Frem somehow turned into the MOST EPIC "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" the universe has ever seen?

Anyways......

You and Frem are right....

No sense in beating myself up about it. I got my foot in the door, to a job that was "high-school or GED equivilant". Nothing more, nothing less. As my old supervisor tells me, what I did with that time I can only have myself to pat on the back for that.

I just wish 2 things....

A) I could find that spot again

B) Some of the qualified people I've met in my trists with working with the "other half" could.

I'm no more qualified then they were......

~6

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Friday, April 6, 2012 4:35 AM

Ha, yes, Stovers books aren't THAT long - and there's now four, Caines Law just came out..
But lemme dynamite the pond for you, the longer one, Blade of Tyshalle centers on concepts so near and dear to us that we couldn't imagine life without em.
You know you're favorite short story and it's inherent motto FWIW ?
Just as the Ghands live by the words "Free Will, I Won't." so too do the Cainists in that book, for their motto is "My Will, or I Won't", also with the pointed all-consuming question...
"What do you WANT?"

Quote:
"We can each sit and wait to die, from the very day of our births. Those of us who do not do so, choose to ask--and to answer--the two questions that define every conscious creature: What do I want? and What will I do to get it? Which are, finally, only one question: What is my will? Caine teaches us that the answer is always found within our own experience; our lives provide the structure of the question, and a properly phrased question contains its own answer."

You and me, as a rule we don't DO philsophy, we kinda live it inherent in who we are.
But I really was blown away by someone putting it into words, so there it is.

And oh the irony - most folks don't understand my sideways, often layered and esoteric humor, so it's always good to have it appreciated.

-F

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Friday, April 6, 2012 4:05 PM

Hey Frem,

I think you may have sold me on Stover man. I probably won't be able to get a copy of any of his books before this job has run its course, but hopefully my next gig allows me enough time to catch up on some more reading. It's seriously been at least 4 years since I've picked up a book, and I remember now how even though initially starting a story always seems to be a chore to me, once I really get in sync with the vision of a great storyteller it really is a great time and well worth the effort.

The actual quote though, was "F.IW", which you had to read about 3/4 of the story to find out meant "Freedom.... I Won't", even though everybody in the world had that plaque in their homes. They claimed that it was the most powerful weapon known to man, and in a society such as theirs, where EVERYBODY was on board with that notion, I believe it to be the absolute truth. As you know, in the world we live in, otherwise known as "reality", you have to be a bit more sly about exercising freedom of will when there are sheep abound and an associate you had previous dealings with would flip on you in a second once the screws were put to them....

Quote:
"We can each sit and wait to die, from the very day of our births. Those of us who do not do so, choose to ask--and to answer--the two questions that define every conscious creature: What do I want? and What will I do to get it? Which are, finally, only one question: What is my will? Caine teaches us that the answer is always found within our own experience; our lives provide the structure of the question, and a properly phrased question contains its own answer."

Wow.....

I love that. And I realize that I have, at this point in my life, not a single clue what my Will is. "What do I want?" and "What will I do to get it?" I don't even know where to begin answering those questions.

It makes me think of a great song from the late 90's that I heard once or twice on the radio. I barely ever listen to it these days. None of the lyrics were sung. They were just words of an essay read to a catchy beat that just made a whole lot of sense to me, and still do. It's funny, since most of the other things I agreed with in the late 90's I don't anymore.

"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.

The most interesting people I know, didn't know at 22, what they wanted to do with their lives.

Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know, still don't".

Nearly every line of this song/essay speaks to me, and has for the last 12 or so years. It's just amazing. That particular part is the most powerful statement to me though. Now I know how to rephrase that for myself in one simple sentence....

"What is my Will?"

I don't know about not DOing philosophy, at least on my part. I sure am a "man of action" on a lot of counts, but in many ways my actions are selfish ways of making sure that I have the most amount of time possible outside of these actions to be alone and philosophize. This is probably the reason I respect you the most, Frem. I'm still relatively young, but I feel that I'm getting better every day/week/month/year.... I'm still far too selfish and self-centered to make a difference in other people's lives that I know you have. You willingly thrust yourself into situations that 99% of people would actively run away from or pretend they didn't see it.

I'm just trying to build my "castle" now, and have a base to work from to help people in the future, which I feel will be MUCH easier to do when my own sweet setup requires only 20% of my income to maintain.

Don't sweat it Frem... you ARE funny when you're making humorous remarks. I wouldn't recommend "stand-up" as a career, but people in our little world get the joke. I think you'd like my old-man too. He'd tell you that in the universe he's just a meaningless speck, and puts no pressure on himself to do anything, but what he never realizes is how many people in his life he has positively impacted. I really love him man... I can think of at least 6 people who have been a part of his life that would have been completely "F-d" without him in their lives. Unfortunately, because of the "divorce dynamic" he wasn't able to be as much of a father figure as he wanted to, and I'll never be as successful as the 2 children from his second marriage, but the only reason that I'm where I'm at now is because he got my foot in the door to a 5 year job that was easy as hell for me, but I would not have ever been hired into without a degree.

The fact that he took in my "broken" brother when nobody else would and seems to be the only one who can actually reach him just blows me away.

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Friday, April 6, 2012 4:12 PM

IN HOME IMPROVEMENT NEWS!!!!!!!!

GOT A TON DONE TODAY!!!!!!

Put the final 2 yards of black dirt on the pool that I needed before seeding the huge crop circle in the back yard where the pool used to be. In all, that was 15 yards (more or less 15 tons) of dirt, and nearly 400 bucks of dirt. SOOOOOO nice to have that behind me.

Mowed the lawn, for the second time on April 6th, which nobody this far north usually has to do

Then my bro came over and we put all the furniture back upstairs and put felt pads under all of it to protect the floor. After that, we got the fiberglass shower out of the basement.

That last thing might not seem like a big deal, but before that furniture was moved, I was basically living in a tent the last two-three months.

Moving the furniture upstairs finally makes 2 bedrooms upstairs completely livable now. Also, it opened up the Livingroom that has been a storage room for months, and I was able to lay out the Oriental rug my grandmother gave me.

After that, I got my dimmer controlled chandiler installed, this time for good.

I almost wanted to cry when I saw the end results of the day.

It was only a 13 hour day of work today, but those 13 hours were the final touches of nearly 3 months of labor, and it's more than I would have ever had thought I was capable of if you asked me a year ago.

I f'king love this house!

I'm so looking forward to make it better every day that I can!

Hope things are going well for everyone!

~6

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Friday, April 6, 2012 5:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Put the final 2 yards of black dirt on the pool that I needed before seeding the huge crop circle in the back yard where the pool used to be. In all, that was 15 yards (more or less 15 tons) of dirt, and nearly 400 bucks of dirt. SOOOOOO nice to have that behind me.

Mehehehehe.
That quote drew my interest, but the one that REALLY hooked me was this little tidbit.

Quote:
The Board of Governors: This seems a steep price for so small a service: to crush a powerless cripple.
Tan'elKoth: Doubly fools. He does have power. One power: the power to devote himself absolutely to a single goal, to be ruthless with himself and all else in its pursuit. It is the only power he needs - because, unlike the great mass of men, he is aware of this power, and he is willing, even happy, to use it.
- Blade of Tyshalle

Being on many occasions essentially "helpless" since age and injury has crept up on me bit by bit, I do a lot of stuff by proxy(1) or even, as our society grows ever more dependant on it, over the net - but the core of WHY is still the same, always was, always will be.
(1) I have a neato telepresence rig, really it's just a webcam with audio to a wireless enabled laptop, but as long as someone is on-site and running it, it's almost as good as being there, especially since we use a teamspeak server and I have voicecom with the person carrying it.

Oh, and the car I am working on - it looks about identical to this:

When I get done with the repair work, I might well go full resto and have the paintjob cleaned up and the hood badge replaced, cause at THAT point she'll be factory-spec and then some, mint condition just like she rolled off the line.
The "and then some" is cause I bagged a Magnaflow performance exhaust way cheaper than OEM stock.

-Frem
"I do not serve The Blind God."

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Saturday, April 7, 2012 12:16 PM

Haha, nice pic Frem. Though I more resembled a glimmering Greek God after I was done with my tan and sweat and 2 back to back days of hard labor, rather than a 12 year old big-eyed Anime girl, the rest of that pic was pretty spot on for the work done in September. I managed to keep pretty clean this time around though since everything was cold and dry and I was only doing 2 yards instead of 11 yards.

I was going to put grass seed down today, but there's no need to rush it and do a poor job. I'm going to mix in 2 bags of this starter soil/starter fertilizer with a rake and then use my awesome new broadcast spreader to spread the seed, rather than do it by hand. Unfortunately, nothing but 3 13.5 hour days of work ahead of me now, and I have some other side work that may extend that even longer. It's still early enough in the spring that I'm not really worried about my immature grass getting killed by heat and sun if I didn't get it done today.

Where's that quote from Frem? Is that from one of the books you suggested?

Also, that car is MAJOR bling Frem. I'm not looking at what it looks like or runs like now, but if you put the care and money into it that I know you will, that thing is going to turn a lot of heads. Have you thought of a color scheme yet? I know black sucks because every single spec of dust shows on it, but when you have a ride that sweet, I think you're insulting it by not having a beautiful, shiny jet black coat that you wash every week. (As opposed to my tan Camry, which almost never shows any dirt and I've only washed twice in 2 years

)

I never do webcam or teleconferenceing myself, but the internet is a godsend for today's DIY'er. For more personal touch type of stuff, I usually like running ideas by places like here and seeing what people like Wish think about them. But for the cut-and-dry stuff like refinishing hardwood floors and fixing a sabatoged furnace, my cable internet has paid for itself 100 times over since August.

After paying things you don't pay when renting (property tax/homeowner's insurance/gas/water/trash pickup), figure I'm saving nearly 1k a month owning a house this size in this area outright rather than renting it (not to mention the as-of-yet undetermined equity this implies). Also, because (up until recently) I had nothing but free time on my hands, I don't really factor in my own time/labor as an expense. So, being able to do so many things in the last 8 months on my own, for just the costs of materials and tools, I've avoided paying anywhere from twice to 10 times the cost of paying professionals to do the work.

BIG THANKS to all of the pros out there who take the time to answer questions on forums and/or write up how-to articles for people like me. There has rarely ever been an instance that I could not find answers to questions about home improvement online, and so far... the results of access to this knowledge bank and a little bit of time and elbow grease have been astonishing.

As an interesting side-note, "implied value", a term that many Texas Hold'em players worth their salt are aware of, the implied value of being rent-less and mortgage-less, especially in this economy is staggering. If my estimate of 1k a month saved by not renting a place this big after the costs that owning it is true, that's 1k a month that would have been spent on rent AFTER taxes were taken out (Which would require AT LEAST $1,134 gross a month before taxes).

If you do the math of that....

$1,000 a month x 12 months = $12,000
$12,000 / 2,080 hours (what you'd work in a year at 40 hrs a week) = $5.77

This "implies" that, AFTER taxes, no matter what tax bracket I end up in (and whether I'm actually working or not), I'm making $5.77 an hour (after taxes) for 40 hours of my life every week I live here, just by not paying rent.

I just wanted to state those facts because I want people to realize that if they ever earn or luck into a position that could ever make this possible for them, don't piss it all away on "keeping up with the joneses". I lived like a hermit/monk for nearly 5 years making money that I could have been partying in the lower class VIP lounges 3 nights a week and nothing to show for it. I could have constantly been buying all of the new gadgets, had premium cable across the board, and ate out at Outback Steakhouse everynight.

I'm not suggesting that anyone go to my compulsive extreme if they get a great position, but just to seriously rethink how they spend and try to create a budget that will allow for some great personal progress when times are down like they are now. Had this been 2001, pre-9/11, the money I saved in 5 years wouldn't have really meant shit when it came to buying a house (even though it sure bought a lot more gas at the pump back then).

Donald Duck gave Hewey Dewey and Louie a bank when I was a kid. When they put money into it it would sing "Take my advice. Do as I say. Save a little money for a rainy day."

If you're neck deep in debt when the rainy day comes, you're up S creek without a paddle. But if you stashed away acorns while the sun was shining, it's times like these where people are willing to sell anything at bargain basement prices.

The way I figure it, times are about to get a lot better for people, no matter how the upcoming elections go. If Obama stands any chance of being re-elected, jobs had better open up and gas prices had better go down. (God knows that he didn't make good on any of his other promises at all in 3 1/2 years).

Short of that, and the more likely scenario, the next Republican president better change things across the board if he wants to be more than a one-termer.

This ain't the end of the world. Things really aren't as bad as the media portrays it. I know it's a lot rougher than a lot of us grew up with, but this is all cyclical. From the mid-70's to the mid-80's things were insanely difficult compared to now. The only difference is that so many of us had so long in the "good times" that we didn't prepare for the bad times, having never lived there before.

This was just another lesson to us all. The next time things turn around, remember these years. When external forces finally relent and we're all out of the quicksand, take that time to save rather than spend to impress people who don't even really matter, especially when the chips are down.

~6

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Saturday, April 7, 2012 3:59 PM

Yeah, I know - that pic is far more representative of Byte, but it was all I had in hand at the moment to make fun of you staggering in all dripping dirt and sweat everywhere...
I had to help take down a fire damaged building once - in my youth I worked for a light construction/demolition company, and mosta the demolition was by hand, which was fine by me since I had a lot of rage to work out, I used a long-handled rock hammer/pick in my left and a six pound maul in my right and would just go to town on places, the combination of fury and knowing when and where to apply it make me damn good at taking condemned residental buildings to bits in short order.
Anyhows, end of THAT day, what with all the soot (not being an idiot I was using an SCBA unit) every damn where I looked like one big clump of anthropomorphic coal, with EYES, bwahahaha.
Some of the best jobs, the most fun gigs, are the ones where you wind up covered in grunge, which drives me a little batty as fastidious and finicky as I can be, but there's no way in hell you're gonna tear down and fix half a dozen small engines, then replace a minivans cracked oilpan and seal gasket without getting any on ya, and for me the scent of gasoline, coolant, transfluid, motor oil and baking asphalt is a homey, nostalgic smell anyways, throw in a puff of exhaust and some revving engine and I'll all but spring a hard-on, cause that means SHOWTIME!
(I did mention participating in a couple backwater smashfests, yesss?)

And yes, that quote is from Blade of Tyshalle, in regards to the badly damaged (physically, emotionally and psychologically) Hari Michaelson, aka Caine, STILL managing to be quite a pain in the ass to the Board of Directors - it's worth mentioning the guy schooling them USED to be an outright God, till Caine completely whupped his ass despite being technically outclassed on every level.

As for the Beamer, Jack - that's prettymuch the original color, the picture angle makes it look a bit darker, but it's more of ye olde BMW silver, and with a Beamer or Mercedes you kinda gotta go with the silver-grey scheme as homage to the original color balance.
I might have the paintjob redone and touched up, if I have the budget left to do it, but imma stray with the default color if I can find a place that'll match it correctly.

And it has those same rims as in the picture, which are the originals and happens to be mounting a set of Pirelli tires with about 80% tread remaining on em, plus a full size spare (no steenking donut for a Beamer, no!) in the trunk with about 70% of the original jack + toolkit back there, and even the trunk upholstery is mint condition, plus I just put a brand new high grade battery in, kind of necessity in cold-ass Michigan, not to mention I am the one who jumpstarts residents with dead batteries around here.
My cables are long enough that the battery in the trunk actually is gonna make it easier cause I can just roll in behind em at 90 degrees and hook em up.

And you betcha on internet writeups, cause THIS is what we're gonna do.
http://www.pelicanparts.com/bmw/techarticles/101-Projects-20-E30-Timin
g-Belt/101-Projects-20-E30-Timing-Belt.htm
All that, plus distributor cap and rotor, plug wires, plugs, fluids and filters.
I've got all but a few of the parts sittin behind me right now, I just have to wait for the rest to be shipped in from another warehouse since the parts supplier didn't have em in stock (despite saying they did) and then it's off to my hired mechanic - I suppose I maybe COULD do it myself, but my "shop", still located in my ex's garage(1) is focused on small air cooled two stroke, so I am operating outside my expertise on large four stroke engines, and replacing a timing belt is a step or two beyond my actual competence... that and I'm lazy, mehehehe.
But no, the consequences of fumbling the timing on a Puch or a Honda is that it runs badly or don't run, you blow it on this yer gonna smack a piston into a valve and all hells gonna break loose in there, so I've shanghaied a retired mechanic who is impressed enough by the classic-ness of the car to override the usual UAW attitude about "Foreign Junk!"(2), and having talked up his skill when I baited him to do so, now his rep rides on getting the job done perfectly.

The cool thing about the parts supplier (not Pelican Parts cause I don't trust em, too many of their overpriced parts might fit, and might not, and that's a HELL of a thing to find out when you have your engine scattered across a garage you're renting by the hour!) I am using is that they offer discount box-kits for certain jobs like this, one of them contained all the necessary hoses, belts and clamps - and another contained the cap, rotor and filters, all specific-matched to the exact vehicle so you KNOW that stuff will fit.
As opposed to the cretins at Autozone who will lie to you about it fitting, lie about having it in stock or being able to get it, charge you some outrageous price, stack ridiculous shipping on it, and then yank you all across town saying it came in and then "oops" when you get there, and try to sell you something else - I swear, they've gotten as bad as RADIO SHACK, in their worst days, and that's every bit as insulting as I mean it to be!

(1) My Ex and I are actually still best friends, and she LIKES the fact that there's a fully equipped shop in the back of her garage since she has ZERO mechanical ability and thus can shove off any mechanical stuff which goes wrong onto me whenever I come over, which I don't mind since I have leave to use her garage as my shop whenever I please, it's a cool arrangement for both of us - I'm actually friends with like all but two of my ex's who were kinda psycho to begin with, as I know when to hold em and when to fold em, generally doing so before it gets ugly.
Me and her new husband are real tight too, so I'm kind of like a wacky brother in law, heh.

(2) And where does the UAW get off bashing "Foreign" junk when most of the shit the big three build is (North)American Made, which means slammed together in Mexico out of cheap Chinese parts cast from metal I wouldn't trust to make pots with... while friggin Nissan builds THEIR shit right over there in Indiana!
Oh, and that brake component they had all that hoo-rah about failing in them Toyotas ?
ALSO made in Indiana, by an AMERICAN company - and the nationalist bullshit (cause you KNOW the media wouldn't have crowed about such a defect in a Ford or Chevy for weeks, yes?) that came heaped upon them for that convinced them *NOT* to open a plant here and hire americans - good JOB you fekkin morons, wanna reload and shoot the other foot, boys ?
*shaking head*

Also, one of the problems with trying to put away for a rainy day is that most folks are ALREADY up to their ass in debt and living on the edge of a paycheck thanks to blowing $80K on a near useless piece of paper which isn't much more in the end than a join-the-club fee in much the same way British officers used to have to purchase their commissions to prove out that they were scions of the wealthy and powerful to keep the peons out...
For all the bullshit and gloss we put on it, our society still *IS* based on a Feudal model.
Fer cryin out loud I'd challenge any of em with a basic degree to a contest of mental skills and prolly crush them humilatingly into the dirt, especially the ones who haven't much existed in the real world up till then - mind you I ain't dumping on higher education itself, so much as how much of a financial SCAM it has become, and I have always, ALWAYS held a big grudge about "padding the bill" by demanding classes or credit requirements which have NOTHING to DO with the degree, especially since even if I could afford it, being a Discalc still excludes me cause of mandatory algebra and crap, which has exactly WHAT to do with Criminal Psychology, again ?

I am much more in favor of trade schools and PAID apprenticeships, and not no kiss-ass-for-half-price for twenty years bullshit ones like they used to have under the Guild system in Europe neither, it don't take no twenty damn years to learn how to lay bricks....
Of course these days you have unpaid Corporate Internships, which just reading about makes people like us all foamy at the chops at the stupidity and gullibility of our fellow man, but the whole scheme from top to bottom is really to keep them too ignorant to SEE the trap till they're already neck deep in it and the only way to buy themselves out is to play the game.

Me, I NEVER played the game in the first place, and while I suspect you mighta danced a couple steps of their tune it never stuck with you either.
And I do squirrel it away, s'funny - having been dirt poor a good chunk of my life, and working with folks who themselves have starved often enough to leave a lasting impact, all of us tend to have some weirdness about food supply, Wendy checks the fridge to make sure there's stuff in it like every twenty minutes, Alice has to have a loaf of bread visible on the counter or she'll get twitchy, and if my reserves cabinet isn't completely full I go into a mental siege mode - it doesn't take much to transfer this attitude to finances, save for finding a TRUSTWORTHY financial institution, which for me makes banks right out, but there's a Credit Union up north of here which has never, ever, ever shafted me, overbilled me, or pulled any BS on me at all, their balance matches mine 98% of the time and the remaining 2% is inevitably my poor math skills due to being a Dyscalc - plus whenever there's been a problem they're right on top of it so fast it's a toss up whether which of us gets to it first...

But mostly I like that when I do my balances they MATCH, none of that slowly disappearing money shit which happens at most banks, five cents here, twenty cents there, hidden fees and just plain theft, you ask me - AND after being hammered for my childhood savings by Old Court Savings and Loan, and the failure of the FSLIC, I know damn well that a Bank is liable to just slam the doors on you and laugh in your face when things get wacky, so a lot of my chunk is also in hard goods like precious metals, uncut stones, high quality tools and stuff of VALUE that you'd have to physically wrest from my possession, cause I don't do "paper" gold, silver or stones, not no points or shares of stones which may or may not exist in some vault somewhere, nu huh, cause I know what that paper is WORTH - I got $1800 worth of paper from Old Court Savings and Loan which is worth no more than the paper it's printed on, and I learned THAT lesson well.

And I physically CHECK the damn stones or metals before money changes hands, I had a highly "reputable" above-board business actually try to foist off some phony Engelhards on me a while back.
http://about.ag/Lead100OunceBars.htm
The guy gave me a BUNCH of crap and stalling and such about demanding physical delivery, wanting me to take the paper, and I know all too much about how THAT goes.
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/moneyfornothing.html

So when I finally get there, he's got em in a nice little pyramid, pushing me to grab and go, and I'm ALREADY suspicious as hell and naturally paranoid besides, so I look at him sideways and pull out two things, a large ziplock freezer bag, and a small steel mallet.
Suddenly the rep gets all twitchy and starts sweating despite it being about 55F in there.
I slide the top bars off and yank one out of the middle, noticing as I do so that the logo looks a little crooked, I dump it in the bag, hold it up and tap it... CLUNK.
I pull it out and pitch it to the floor, grab another one that looks a bit iffy (the ones on top were, of course, actual Engelhards, and perfectly fine, maybe...) dump that in, then walk right up to him and back his ass all up against the wall, hold the bag riiiight up next to his face, and tap... CLUNK.
He looks for the exit to find one of my bullygirls standing there and then starts freakin PLEADING with me, he didn't know, really, yadda freakin yadda - and I told him "NO SALE", I wanted, right then and there, CASH MONEY, not my money back, not melt value, but THAT mornings RETAIL sell value, in hand, TODAY, or else - and I was gonna hold one of them iffy bars right there in my hand till I damn well got it.
He claimed to not have that much on site (which was a lie, but I forgive him not wanting to open the cash vault with me and one of my bullygirls right there, and heaven knows how many more lingering nearby) and sends off a courier to get it from uptown, and I call one of my flunkies and have them bring me a counterfeit pen (just for theatrics, this, but I was PISSSSED!), being that he's already tried to foist off phony silver on me.
Yeah verily, I walked out of there with my money, oh yes, and tossed him back his crummy, phony silver, heaven knows they likely pawned it off on someone else soon after - for a fact none of the so-called "reputable" establishments are, but catching them out ain't so easy for the average joe so they get by with a whole damn lot.

Anyhows, despite not making all that much money, I don't actually SPEND that much either, my office bills total only about $650 a month and that's apartment and personals included, and I happen to be both inventive and efficient when I do have to spend - mind you I never ever paid myself even a salary out of the CoTL accounts when I ran the place, and often threw expenses on my personal tab besides.
I've got sufficient chunk squirreled away though, I mean I more or less pulled $5k outta my arse on the spot when my former car died, and the Beamer only cost me $2650.00 with tags, reg, taxes, insurance and all that rot, the parts less than $1k, the labor (remember I'm hiring an actual pro, on contract, with a rented full job shop) is coming in at about $750, which still leaves about five hundred bucks for bells and whistles, which is likely gonna be a cleanup of the paintjob and the remainder logged to maintanence budget.

Not sure I'd buy a house though, not at my age and condition, and up till only the past couple years I valued mobile operations a bit too much given the nature of the work I used to do and how grey some of the involved legalities were - if I happen to cap it there's pre-existing arrangements which have been in place for a long time, not the least of which is the immediate takeover of my various identities by the next in line, in much the same way I took the original Fremdfirma from a guy too old and sick to finish off Synanon himself.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/synanon.html
Synanon was the original cult full of lunatics and their brainwashers which spawned WWASPS and most of the Hellcamps, it was also in part financed by some Goverment creepers back in the days of ULTRA when they wanted to study mental exploitation (a lot of which they refined into military training back in the 80's) and then later given grant money under the guise of being a "Drug Treatment Program" (The Seed) and then again when they changed their name to dodge legal backlash (Straight, Inc) and then pipelined political funds (when they became WWASPS) by Mel Sembler, Robert and Narvin Lichfield, George Bush, and Mitt Romney.
http://reason.com/archives/2007/06/27/romney-torture-and-teens
You can *IMAGINE* how I feel about Romney, in light of that.

Anyhows, while I don't have property in the form of real estate, I have STUFF, from the more obvious in the form of precious metals, to high grade tools, to less obvious things like my Games & Anime collection - and of course, now a "Classic" car to add to it.
My ex's husband, who was with me when I bought it, suggested to her that they knock me off and steal it, to which she's like "Nah, wait till he fixes it up, I'll get it when he croaks anyway."
I told her just for that imma live forever!

-Frem

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Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:54 PM

Bleh, looks like Indiana has a bit more red tape and BS than Michigan, well, *technically* Michigan is worse thanks to cops getting MI Public Law 338-1968 shoved through after the "Police Riots" of those years caused folks to seriously think about replacing them with contract guards - essentially they made it so you HAVE to be an ex-cop to run a security biz, which itself wound up violating other federal acts against monopolies and anticompetitive behavior and was thus later amended with a provision titled "persons excluded from this act", which I have exploited the everliving hell out of...
Although our compliance with the uniform requirements is voluntary, I insist on it cause it standardises everything, and makes my people less likely to get capped by some triggerhappy nutter or cop.

Quote:
In the state of Indiana both the armed and unarmed security guard need to be licensed in order to work in the security sector. Even the unarmed guard that will find employment in the private sector will need to possess a state license. This licensing is pursuant to the state legislative regulations IC 25-30-1-3 Section 3, these regulations mandates the applicant will provide personal information, and they will attend a state certified courses. The unarmed security guard license will need to be renewed prior to the date it will expire or the applicant will be required to take the training course before it will be renewed. The personal information that will be required is as follows:

The applicant applying for an unarmed security license in the state of Indiana will be at least 18 years of age
The applicant will be finger printed
They will submit to an FBI style background check
The applicant will have a high school diploma or an equivalency certification
The applicant will submit to drug testing
There will be no felony convictions or misdemeanor convictions.

The applicant for the unarmed security license will be required to attend training courses that will prepare them for work in the security sector. These courses will be at facility that has state certified courses by the Indiana Department of Public Safety. The courses will provide education in emergency situations and criminal activity, along with education in the states regulations and laws. When this course has been taken successfully and the personal requirements satisfied the Indiana Department of Public Safety would issue an unarmed security licenses that will enable the person to be employed in the security environment. The course education is as follows:

Legal and ethical issues
Professionalism with the public
Non-lethal force
Detainment methods
Medical emergencies including CPR

The training course is designed to enable the unarmed security guard to professionally handle daily situations and emergency situations with confidence, until police, fire or ambulance officials arrive. The unarmed guard will also be trained in working with officials and reporting to them in emergency or criminal situations. The Indiana licensing opens up many employment positions for the unarmed security guard that will utilize their training skills.

There are different types of security opportunities for the unarmed security guards that are in the public sector and those that are in the private sector. Opportunities in the private sector often include gate duty outside of a residence. Some of the available positions for the licensed unarmed guard can be found in:

Banks
Financial institutions
Schools
Colleges
Malls
Retail stores
Parks and other public lands
Museums
Hospitals
Apartment complexes
Guarded housing developments
Private security

The unarmed guard might also be required to have a valid Indiana driver’s license for some types of security employment. There are other opportunities that will be found in the security environment for the unarmed security guard licensed by the Indiana Department of Public Safety.

Still, having that license in hand instead of being some companys bitch opens a lot of doors - just like back when I was driving a cab, instead of having them through the company, I OWNED my own licenses and district stamps (I used magnetic ones) and could therefore work for any company in the county at whim, which was damn handy when one was full up and another was short staffed - and if more than one was, well then make me an offer!
I am something of a mercenary when it comes to work, and as I mentioned, I get kinda psychotic about breach of contract, cause there WILL be a written contract, and my vile lawyers office also runs an arbitration firm... I WILL take it to binding arbitration and I will financially asspound you till you cry for mercy, plus I am notorious for slipping weird provisions into contracts cause no one reads the goddamn boilerplate anyways(1), seriously, all they gotta do is pay me in full and on time, what's so bloody hard about it ?

(1) For some reason after updating it, the contract software I use has this blank space in the boilerplate, and it won't freakin WORK unless you put SOMETHING in there, so I usually jam some ridiculous provision in there as a side-joke, which came back to haunt me when through no fault of his own a property owner had to default on us, and then owed me "Ten pounds of locally caught fish as an appeasement to the Feline Gods.", I STILL haven't lived that down around here...

Anyhow, you should contact the local board and find out what's what.
http://www.in.gov/pla/2768.htm
Cause there MIGHT be a loophole provision like the one I am using.

-Frem

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Sunday, April 8, 2012 4:34 PM

Hey Frem,

Don't know why, but I didn't even get an email that you replied. Seems a grave injustice to you since you put about the longest post ever made on the site here if you string the two together.

To add insult to injury, I'm going to try to reply quick again, but this time out of necessity. I've been up since 12:00AM, and couldn't sleep until it was time to get ready for my 5:00AM job I show up 20 minutes early for. Didn't get home till 7:00PM (on Easter Sunday, with no overtime or double time all the other types of employees got today, for that matter), and I'm already 5 beers deep into it and need to be up at 3:30AM again tomorrow morning for another 14 hour shift. lol

Dirty work is FUN, if you're in that mode. As disgusting as the mold remediation was, I was well protected, and I got to SMASH a LOT OF SHIT!!!!! The only thing that sucked that first month, is that even in 95 degree days, I still had to take ice cold showers at night when I was done before I bought and installed the water heater :(

I LOVE the finished project as much as the next guy, but there's a special place in my heart for destroying stuff that I have every legal right to destroy, whether it's mine outright or it's a job requirement

Silver is a cool color too. Don't let me force my own latent "goth"-black tenancies on you.

It will look freakin' awesome whatever you do with it!

I don't know shit about cars or car repair, and never had a garage to work with before, so your intended fixes are over my head right now. I so wish I had this 2 1/2 car garage 2 years ago before I sold the near-mint bodied LTD that was a year older than me.

Internet writups for your passion are truly the shit though....

I'm friends with a lot of my ex-es too. Crazy and even normal types. "Friendly" would probably be the more appropriate word though... I'd love to talk to them more often, but we're all still relatively young (not much older than the Brat Pack in St. Elmo's Fire... at least the age of the actors, and the fact that I've probably proven myself on a regular basis over the years to be way to eccentric to be any real competition to a stable relationship, I get the feeling that the hubbies, even the one's I like and approve of, don't like me being around all that much ;)

Glad it is working out for you though. It gives me hope. Maybe when we're all older we can be closer. For a long time, some of them were my best friends before I imploded. The sex, which was usually way to vanilla for me anyhow, was just a perk.

I really don't have opinions on cars, foreign or US made. I've never owned a new one. I've always gotten great deals on what I was buying. Most lasted only a few years, a Cavalier that was 3 years old lasted me nearly 9 years. My Toyota now, save some electrical problems that no mechanic could figure out I've sidestepped by upping the fuel intake, has served me well for 2 1/2 years. I get less gas mileage now, but it's still better than a lot of cars. It used to die VERY often when I stopped at a light or stop sign because the RPMs would fall below 500. Putting it in neutral wouldn't help, like it did when I had similar problems with the LTD. Upping the fuel intake seems to have been the perfect fix. The only caviet is that I can't drive over 75mph on the expressway or the first stop I make when I get off it will die. Don't ask me why it happens, but maybe it's God keeping me honest. It's been 5 years now since my $400+ ticket and 15 day license suspension for going 102 mph, and even though that kept me honest for years, I noticed myself getting "braver" as time went by without further incident.

About putting away for a rainy day, I wasn't suggesting at all that people should do it now. It's too late. That would be asking meth addicts who already give sexual favors for their next fix to put some away in their safety deposit box. I was just sayin' that things will get better. This ain't your first rodeo Frem.... I'm sure you've heard all of this "the sky is falling" stuff more than once in your life. Most early-30-something folk like me have never experienced it before though. I guess I should have specified that these are the people I was talking to.

We're totally based on the Feudal model, no doubt. But the smart people who luck into something and live a minimalist lifestyle for a while can really capitalize on it. It only took 5 years of living like a monk and banking it away, and I was able to get into my potential dream house in a great neighborhood for a song (ONE OF THE ONLY TIMES I'LL EVER THANK THE GOVERNMENT, BECAUSE THEY SCARED AWAY EVERY SINGLE OTHER POTENTIAL INVESTOR BECAUSE THE BASEMENT WAS TEEMING WITH MOLD BEFORE I GOT TO IT!!!! As was evidenced by the smell of 1,000 cats shitting all over and nobody bothering to pick it up.)

The smell's not there anymore, no sir...

My only question is, in this economy, short of renting out part of the house, or shacking up with some woman I don't REALLY care for that is desperate enough to put up with my HAND, how do I keep this place? If I could make 10 bucks an hour full time, it won't be a problem, although I probably wouldn't have health care. If I could luck into something making at least 12 bucks an hour with a healthcare plan that only covered catastrophic things that would protect my house.......

Life would be gravy

About higher education, for the most part, I agree. "F" higher education. "F" public school while we're at it. Though I'm above most of that BS now, and I'm definitalely several rungs above most of the idiots that made my life hell in Jr High and early HS for being the 98lb weakling that sported glasses and braces, I don't blame those kids at all today. The entire concept of shoving millions of "pegs" of different sizes and shapes into a "round hole" the Federal Government decides they'll pay for on a daily basis based off of how many kids actually show up to class (the ONLY reason for roll call), is ludicris.

Had I been raised, since a child, by any Master Craftsman, I would be a Master myself right now.

As it is, I'm just a dabbler..... but from my viewpoint, everything I touch turns to gold.

As Paul Simon said..... "When I look back on all the crap I learned in HS, it's a wonder I can think at all. And though my lack of education never hurt me none, I can see the writing on the wall."

As for playing the game, I was pretty good at it for a while and had the right environment for thriving in it. It's probably the one reason I was hired on, forget any inherent abilities. I was young. I was good looking. I was gullible. I was able to tell other people the "truth" when the truth I unwittingly painted wasn't the truth at all. Even though, thankfully, I was never let into the "inner circle", I sure as shit wasn't stupid, and I learned a LOT about a lot of things, particularly manipulation. Even at 32, I'm pretty sure I could sell a 3 legged dog to even you, Frem, but man... do I miss being 22. If I could sell a 3 legged dog to Robocop today, imagine what I was able to sell to a ripe college Freshman co-ed on the weekend when I visited friends wearing my "Sunday Best", even when I was just working part time at Old Navy.

I get you on checking the accounts. I have too many cards again. I'm going to have to cancel some. It's become a chore. I know, to the exact penny, what I spend on everything, and I have a spreadsheet that gives me monthly totals on groceries, vices, home improvement, monthly/yearly bills, gas, electronics, unexpected costs, clothing, haircuts and other topics. If even one of those institutions try to screw me out of a penny I'll have their asses.

Actually, it's funny. I usually pay my most used credit cards 2-3 times a month as they post the costs, but my most frequently used card has shown a descrepincy in my favor of 72 cents for the last 10 or so days. I haven't paid it because I'm waiting to see if they iron it out and a payment wouldn't be do for at least a month. I often make returns in my home improvement work, and that seems to muck up the system, but usually that's ironed out in about 3-4 days, but in this case it's taking a lot longer. I owe them 72 cents more than they claim. They'll figure it out, I'm sure..... but in the mean time, it is a cool social experiment.

At 650 a month, I have to tip my hat to you Frem. The cheapest apartment I ever had was a 1bed/1bath shithouse, but it was in a good neighborhood in SW subs of IL. It was 580 a month cash. That was back in 1999. My last apartment was 2bed/2bath at 800 in WI. As it stands now, my NECESSARY bills that were covered in rent while owning this house (property taxes, property insurance, gas, water/trash) are over 300 a month alone. If I factor in my personal vices and groceries and hygene and gas and unexpected costs on top of those built in costs, I need to make over 900 a month, and that's just with cable internet and not any Cable TV!

Then again, that's the price I pay for living in a neighborhood that I believe I could go to work all day long with my front door and back door unlocked all day and nothing would be touched. I'm too paranoid to test that theory, but I believe it to be true.

Plus my lot is as big as 2 of my neighbors across the street combined, and because of a pipeline in the ground, it's built at an angle facing away from them (as indifferent as my nature is :)) And it faces a ditch and houses the other way are a football field away! I live no less than 45 seconds from a White Castle, but at the same time I'm about as country as Dolly Parton. It's my perfect life!

Anyhow, all of my stuff I own currently in the mean time is mine too. I may be a generation and a half behind on video games, but that's a boon in my business. The only thing my cell phone does besides make and receive calls is the LED flashlight. Oh, and it's got an alarm clock I've had to use since I've got a job "for the man".

As for the info you dug up... I really appreciate that Frem

Quote:
In the state of Indiana both the armed and unarmed security guard need to be licensed in order to work in the security sector. Even the unarmed guard that will find employment in the private sector will need to possess a state license. This licensing is pursuant to the state legislative regulations IC 25-30-1-3 Section 3, these regulations mandates the applicant will provide personal information, and they will attend a state certified courses. The unarmed security guard license will need to be renewed prior to the date it will expire or the applicant will be required to take the training course before it will be renewed. The personal information that will be required is as follows:

The applicant applying for an unarmed security license in the state of Indiana will be at least 18 years of age
The applicant will be finger printed
They will submit to an FBI style background check
The applicant will have a high school diploma or an equivalency certification
The applicant will submit to drug testing
There will be no felony convictions or misdemeanor convictions.

The applicant for the unarmed security license will be required to attend training courses that will prepare them for work in the security sector. These courses will be at facility that has state certified courses by the Indiana Department of Public Safety. The courses will provide education in emergency situations and criminal activity, along with education in the states regulations and laws. When this course has been taken successfully and the personal requirements satisfied the Indiana Department of Public Safety would issue an unarmed security licenses that will enable the person to be employed in the security environment. The course education is as follows:

Legal and ethical issues
Professionalism with the public
Non-lethal force
Detainment methods
Medical emergencies including CPR

The training course is designed to enable the unarmed security guard to professionally handle daily situations and emergency situations with confidence, until police, fire or ambulance officials arrive. The unarmed guard will also be trained in working with officials and reporting to them in emergency or criminal situations. The Indiana licensing opens up many employment positions for the unarmed security guard that will utilize their training skills.

There are different types of security opportunities for the unarmed security guards that are in the public sector and those that are in the private sector. Opportunities in the private sector often include gate duty outside of a residence. Some of the available positions for the licensed unarmed guard can be found in:

Banks
Financial institutions
Schools
Colleges
Malls
Retail stores
Parks and other public lands
Museums
Hospitals
Apartment complexes
Guarded housing developments
Private security

The unarmed guard might also be required to have a valid Indiana driver’s license for some types of security employment. There are other opportunities that will be found in the security environment for the unarmed security guard licensed by the Indiana Department of Public Safety.

I feel, truly, humbled by this info gathering on your part.

I usually don't sign things unless I've read everything beforehand, but I must have signed these things. I had no idea there was an FBI check (glad I checked out!)

They got finger prints.

They got all other background info (I'm sure my 790 credit score opened some doors there).....

But what you're really telling me is that I now possess a license I wasn't even aware I possessed.

Right?

Just say the word and I'll snatch that bitch from this underpaying head-hunting company in a second. (Note to them, if they ever figure who I am, that I did say they were cool before

If I'm getting 9.25 an hour doing this job under them, it's worth at least 14.25 on the real market.

This is only temp positions for the client, so I'm aware that they're willing to pay more knowing it's just a 1 month contract. But if I can get the qualifications I submitted to, through them, in my own hand than I can freelance higher paying gigs on my own.

Thanks Frem... My brother in Morassity!

Hehe... don't know why, but this conversation sparked another song I loved as a kid, even though Belinda is practically old enough to be my mom today, i loved the shit out of the Go Go's and her voice was amazing!

I'm not an Atheist, Frem or Riona or anybody else. I'm 32, but i'm still an idealist who is no less vested in religious beliefs than the beliefs our government and/or media tries to put on us.

As sac-religious as the idea of "Heaven on Earth" may be to True Believers, isn't that idea so good?????

Maybe we're all in Hell now for committing sins we aren't even aware of in a previous life????

Maybe we're just floating around in Purgatory/Limbo, and one of God's "Production Control Agents" are just sleeping at the wheel until one of us makes enough noise and shakes the cage enough to get attention?????

I really envy women like Belinda for her past, and the many millions of women who are and were beautiful before and after her. Save several "Ultra-Alpha-Paid-Males", no men get to feel the power that is bestowed on nearly all women who range from Nicole Kidman in her prime, to mildly attractive with makeup...

It's been a long time since I felt that feeling....

The feeling that a Girl I longed for wanted me too.

It's not that I'm too old or undesieralbe to be loved, but i just don't care much anymore about that.

Songs like this used to shake me to the core....

These days, they just seem to ignite a tiny spark of a life I wish I could go back to.....

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Sunday, April 8, 2012 5:38 PM

WISHIMAY

Heehehehhehhheeeeh... Tiny spark....tiny spark... Put all the siding in a pile and pour me some flamables, and weeeeeee tiny spark- go woooooosh!

No more siding, mama, I don't wants the siding!!!

Wishy crawls into a corner and makes a fort... OUT OF SIDING!!!!
*Giggles maniacly* It has foam, jack...it'll keep my fort warm this winter!
FOAM!
FOOOOOAM!

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Sunday, April 8, 2012 8:13 PM

Alas I've not the time at the moment for a real reply either, but yanno I always liked that song...
AND - it's also what drew me over the line to being an actual fan of Hatsune Miku, who covered it like she owned it, in phonetic-english no less.

Hoo boy, monday comin up, fun fun fun, NOT!

Oh, and no, YOU don't own the license, THEY do - it's their way of keeping a leash on you, but maybe you can sidestep it by perhaps having the board issue you a copy or something...

-Frem

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Sunday, April 8, 2012 9:05 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

I finally finished Bourne 1, I thought it was definitely better than the movie. I'll add Bourne 2 and 3 to my list, I doubt I'll read any of the others because Ludlum died after 3 and the others are written by other people, and series who get written by someone new just don't feel right.

There's just not enough time for reading anymore, honestly this site eats up a lot of my time during the week.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Monday, April 9, 2012 3:00 PM

Ahhhhhhh Wish.... Now I know where you've been. Been inhaling the foam, have ya?

Seriously, that is the craziest post I've ever seen from you. It made me laugh.

Sometimes I wish I lived that far south that I could actually burn my siding and not get arrested for it. I'm just assuming what would happen if I made a fire that big in my back yard with plumes of black smoke coming out of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I'd get away with just a slap on the wrist and a fine.

Hey Riona,

I know all about reading and time. I hope I can make some time for it semi-regularly in the future. As much as this job blows, it is nice to be able to read again.

Haha Frem,

My short term memory isn't always that great. I forgot you posted that just the other week. Funny how the subconscious works. Last night I thought I hadn't heard that song in ages, but I did when you posted the anime version of it. Doh!

Quote:
Oh, and no, YOU don't own the license, THEY do - it's their way of keeping a leash on you, but maybe you can sidestep it by perhaps having the board issue you a copy or something...

Drat, I figured as much. By "board", you mean... who exactly? :)

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Monday, April 9, 2012 5:46 PM

WISHIMAY

ONE SIDE DONE!

90 feet long...Sooo much sunlight, blink blink... Neighbor drove by today and I asked him how he liked it and he says "You gonna fix that soffit er what??" No pleasin some people... One part was a mess, they spanned gaps with siding and had glued bathroom panneling up?? and it had rotted... had to spend two whole days making that right before I could do anything...

Oh, and remember that lawn mower I got?? Didn't see a force flex trash bag till it was too late... I did something bad. It's now smoking and dripping oil. Have to wait n see...

Oh, and the a/c went out on my lovely car that only has 27k on it(used! no warrenty left, 2005) THE BASTARDS WANT $1500 to fix....dammit...

I'm not sure what's making me go MORE crazy at the moment... fixing things...or breaking things....

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 1:22 AM

Okay, I've dredged the Indiana Law Codes for you, and here's how it is.

THIS - is the fulltext of Indiana Law Code Article 30, relative to your profession.
http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title25/ar30/ch1.html

Once you sort through the legalese basically you have to have an actual company with $100,000.00 worth of liability insurance, in theory this is in case someone on your team screws up and gets you sued - but in practice this is to ensure the cops don't have to put up with too much competition.

The Exception Provisions are under IC 25-30-1-5, and do not seem to have quite as much slack in them as Michigan does, however THIS little tidbit seems potentially useful.

Quote:
IC 25-30-1-5(7) A retail merchant or an employee of the retail merchant to the extent that the person is hiring a private investigator for the purposes of loss prevention investigations for the retail merchant's retail establishment.

Which doesn't cover your current employment, and alas doesn't seem to cover residential or industrial, but DOES loophole you to work directly for a retail outlet as loss prevention sans licensing.
Also note the huge exceptions made for cops and lawyers, as usual.

Just for comparison here is the Michigan one, PL Act 300 of 1968.
http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-Act-330-of-1968
And here's how I worked it.

Quote:
338.1052 Definitions; persons not subject to this act.
338.1052.2(g) "Private security police" means that part of a business organization or educational institution primarily responsible for the protection of property on the premises of the business organization, but does not include a private college security force.

We work for a Realty company, we protect their properties, simple, this - as long as the owner of the property is signing the checks we're paid with, it's all good.

How it works as a general rule in either state, is that the jerk running the company has the license and insurance, and then holds the licenses if any of the guard flunkies who are often as not untrained (technically a violation of the requirements, however no one but me seems to care) since they are then responsible for training and often do not do so.
Me, I never liked that - MY people *are* trained, and any situation they can't handle gets kicked up to me anyways, and unlike most of the jerks that run something like this I *will* show up, personally, and handle the situation.
Anyhows, case in point, how much "Training" did they give you, Jack ?
I am betting none, and if any, it SURE didn't include...

Quote:
Legal and ethical issues
Professionalism with the public
Non-lethal force
Detainment methods
Medical emergencies including CPR

Mind you, I try to have a first responder handy cause my own personal religious/philosophical beliefs forbid me to intervene in an imminently fatal situation save under certain strict conditions - essentially I cannot perform CPR on a stranger, so I make damn sure to have someone who can and will handy, right ?

Oh, and tryin to sell me a 3 legged dog wouldn't work cause of how you thought - I was all but born suspicious and paranoid, on the other hand, I like animals, better than people, and it might amuse you that since my ex and I have joint custody of the cats, I do have a three legged cat.

This is Squirmy - she was hit by a car in Ohio during a thunderstorm, nearly drowned, and some good hearted person dumped her on the doorstep of a vet and hightailed it (but hey, that's more than most would do!) - the vet took pity on her and managed to save her, but she lost the back-right leg, and my ex's cousin was one of that vets assistants.
They didn't wanna put her down after investing all that work, and cause she was the sweetest, friendliest little ball of energetic fluff, but people can be dicks about adopting a "defective" pet, so the question came up of just who might take a 3 legged kitty ?
And of COURSE my ex's cousin is like, oh I know, my cousin has a 3 limbed boyfriend!
Bwahahaha.
Actually that worked out well, I got her to learn how to use her tail to offset so she could move in a straight line again, and knew some of the tricks for dealing with phantom craps, yadda yadda - she's the fastest cat in the house over there, about the only noticable difference is she doesn't have much of a vertical leap, plus she's badly nearsighted, but she will play the look at poor crippled me thing for sympathy, although it's bullshit and we all know it, lol.

And I track every penny too, except I not only do so electronically, I put it in a black ledger as well just in case, electronics can fail, glitch, or just plain not work, and when it comes to MONEY I am an iron-fisted tyrant - and yeah, I got a good deal on these arrangements, technically this place is in the bad part of town, being right across the street from West Willow, but them hoodlums KNOW not to cross the damn street by now, and there's not a lot here worth even trying so they give it a miss.
Not to mention this place is a podunk backwater shoved in the woods back up against a lake, 30 one story buildings of 4-8 units in an oval you could maybe spit across if the wind was right, so we're a lot like Hobbiton, beneath the notice of most troubles - a place that normally wouldn't rate a guard force as skilled as mine, and certainly not a stormtrooper like me, but I happen to like it here, so there it is.
It's actually hilarious in a demented kinda way, cause to the occasional dimwit I suppose it's like planning to raid someones barn out in the boonies and running into fucking Blackwater, meheheheh.

Oh, and music....
There's two songs along the same vein I kinda like, but originally I HATED this first one.
I had thought they were mocking me, at first.
See, I take a lot of flack from my people about not being actually as bad as my own self image tells me, but I never listened to em till Wendy started following me around pointing out all the little stuff I do each day which falls completely beneath my notice - the simple reflexive kindnesses and decencies I was all but completely unaware of till someone clocked me over the head with it all day, so I dun hate it that much now, and it is kinda pretty.
I do kinda still have mental "issues" with the notion of people being friends with me, yanno.

The other one, it's just awesome, like they bottled Spring itself in music form, always liked this one.

I will *NOT* inflict "Beautiful Day" upon you, unless you think you can handle it, it's mind-crushingly cute, but it has an even more special meaning for me, given that someone sent it to me just before I had that stroke/collapse and neurological/autoimmune misfire, and I was using it as a survival mantra.
Ever since then whenever it gets tough and I am barely hanging in there I start singing/humming that to myself, and find the strength to go on...

Oh, and Wish ?
I *might* know something about how to fix the mower - maybe, it's prolly a four-stroke engine, but a small one, probably a Briggs or Tecumseh, and THOSE I know a little bit about!

-Frem

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 1:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Drat, I figured as much. By "board", you mean... who exactly? :)

Oh the Indiana Licensing Board, aka Indiana Professional Licensing Agency.
This is the direct link to their site.

http://www.in.gov/pla/2768.htm

See, I play the thug so well folks tend to forget I was originally trained as a Quartermaster, and frankly I have kicked more ass with MS Excel than I ever did with a crowbar, but don't tell the bad guys that.

-Frem

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 11:35 AM

rezident owtsidr

I had a notion to change my name to Skip Boobly & become a roady for the Go Goz back in the 80z.

Aaaa, the good old daze!

Hirz my fave Belinda song:

----------------------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 12:45 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Hey Frem. So you can't intervene for strangers, but can you intervene for people you know, to save them I mean? I hope you can fix Wish's mower for her, it pisses me off royal when my stuff breaks so I can understand how annoying that is.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 4:36 PM

Hey Wish, Good for you!

1) There's no pleasing some neighbors, but I'm sure he said it in jest.... somewhat...

That's a good thing though. At least you have a neighbor who knows enough to know what to call it, and the fact that he's even aware that there was a problem means his house and lawn probably look as good as yours does. One of my neighbors has been fixing her house up for 8 years now and it looks great. My other neighbors, although they're really nice people.... not so much.... Nothing a nice big privacy fence won't fix though when I get the money/time for it.

2) I know a ton about rotted wood and mold... you know that. I know it sucks having to fix stuff like that before you move on, but you'll have the piece of mind that a hidden weak spot/potential health risk was fixed and done the right way before you covered it back up.

Give yerself a big 'ol pat on the back from me.

About the mower.... man... sorry to hear about that. I got lucky when I ran over somebodies disgusting soiled undies last summer (don't know if you remember that story or even remember if I posted about it). Leaking oil is no good. Maybe hubby, being an electrician, has a friend who does small engine repair, or has a friend who knows how to do it? Get that fixed ASAP. Don't put it off and let a minor problem become a huge problem.

Too bad you don't live by Frem. I'm not sure if he actually knows how to do small engine repair himself, but he has suggested to me in the past that I learn how to do it myself given my predispositions.

I got no pity for you on the A/C issue though... sorry about that :) For about 6 years now, I've owned two cars with no A/C (and similar quotes to fix them). Before that, even when I owned my car with A/C that worked, I didn't have the money coming in that I felt warranted that luxury. (I know.... I'm a cheap bastard!)

Focus on the positive and forget about the negative. If you can figure out how to do that... tell me how. :)

Thanks for summing it up for me Frem, I'm drinking some beers now and enjoying the first of 4 mornings I won't have to wake up at 3:30AM until it's back to the grind. I'm one of the few people you probably know that can understand Legalese, but I'm not fluent, and it does take me a while to ponder the true implications of each and every sentence as I go along still.....

Of course it's really about keeping the cops in business. In a way, although I know it's a sin to say, that's probably a GOOD thing, at least until our Government truly throws the constitution out the window. I know they're increasingly bending their own rules, and that's very scary, but at least we don't have Blackwater troops pulling us over for speeding violations and tazering us before they fist us with a glove to find drugs they have no reason to even suspect we have hidden in our rectum, right?

So... to make a long story short though... there's no sense in trying to ask for this license for my own personal use. I'm understanding that correct, right?

Training? lol

I had to watch 2 1/2 hours of DVDs on Customer Service stuff (Professionalism with the Public was actually covered here), an instructional video on driving (assuming I work a job where I have to drive site to site), and some other stuff I don't really remember and just let the other guy answer the questions as we went along and I'd just nod and use just enough brain power to figure if I thought he was right or wrong before filling it in while in Catatonia Land.

There was nothing on Non Lethal Force or Detainment Methods. Basically because we're not even a firm that is supposed to do any of that (maybe the guys who take the voluntary training courses are privy to more jobs like that which I'm not even aware of. It's a question I will be asking). We're there to do two things, and two things alone. 1) 90% of people who are capable of commiting a crime simply won't if there are guys in suits walking around. 2) Document anything that happens, and if something seriously is happening, call the cops. (I'm actually okay with that, since I'm getting paid NOWHERE near wages that I'd even think for a second to be a hero)

Haha, CPR.... yeah right.... I could probably save somebody choking though. My mom didn't know CPR, but I had a disgusting habit of putting pennies in my mouth when I was a kid and nearly choked on one when I was like 4 years old. I remember my mom beating the shit out of my back and how much it hurt, but I coughed that SOB up and I'm alive to write about it today. I never put a penny in my mouth again after that :)

I'd probably go the other route though and just punch somebody repeatedly in the stomach with Evander Holyfield type uppercuts until they spit it up. I know.... there's got to be a better way to do that considering that I'd likely end up getting a chicken bone spit in my face from that angle.

Haha.... Hell frem.... I like SPIDERS better than most people. :) If woke up and found a squatter in my house I'd probably shoot first. Two weeks ago I woke up (when I was doing that work and living in the finished attic) and there was a small spider on a strand drifting down in the vicinity of my head. I just played with the strand a bit until he got skittish and climbed back up and went somewhere else. If it was one of those black monsters I posted about on the other thread, I would have freaked out, but I would have gone downstairs, got a cup and paper and let it out back.

I can't tell from the pic that the cat only has 3 legs, but it would surprise me if you ever owned a pet that didn't' have some major obstacle that most mortals would never even consider and some of the most sinister would actually just put the animal down if it happened after they got it, even if they weren't in pain and it wasn't life threatening. I think, whereas some of the "elite" people go out of their way to find and pay top dollar for the most purebred and impressive specimens to own and train, you probably look for the one greatest in need (and you'd even pay the same "adoption" rates that a 4 legged cat would cost, to boot). It makes me think of Charlie Brown picking out a Christmas Tree.

That being said, Squirmy is a cute cat. And the fact that you got her walking straight unconventionally is more impressive than some rich schumck "training" a purebred prize winner to do what they were born to do.

Hell... After hearing that story, I wish more than ever that we were closer demographically and you could have some influence on my brother.

I think I'm covered on my financial tracking though. Whenever I save my spreadsheet, It's saved on the computer AND a thumb drive. Once a month, I back that bitch up on 2 other places as well. Unless somebody develops and uses some wave EMP that knocks out all electronics and trashes the data (also on non-operating media at the same time), I would never lose more than 3 weeks of data that I could most likely re-create with receipts.

Haha..... There you go, mentioning Blackwater. I didn't even pick that up first read before I replied. You've got a love of adventure in you that I wish I had, living where you do and loving it. I know I have it deep inside of me, and I know that I'm very capable of doing without the things that most people feel are necessities (while also admitting that my "vices" tab in my spreadsheets for beer and cigarettes are items that are considered in my own mind necessities where others wouldn't)... but there's still too much of a love of the easy "good life" in me to willingly put myself into that position if I don't have to. Sadly, that's the difference between you and I. I do want to help people, particularly my family and close friends, but I want to be able to do it from a platform where I'm secure, my future's secure, and I now live with a surplus that would be embarrassing to me if I weren't helping those I love with it. If things ever get REALLY bad for everyone, I think I'd be right alongside you with my compact .45, shooting mindless hoardes of zombies trying to eat the brains of Us and Ours, but in today's world, I just want to be a content person who has positioned himself high enough above the boundaries that society and our government has pinned most of us under that I'd always have enough spare change to say "sure, I can help you out".

In the position I'm in, there's only 3 people outside of my family I'd ever consider helping like that for fear it wouldn't be paid back, and I'm happy to say that I was able to lend a friend a couple hundred a few weeks back. He's a very smart, college educated, banker and owns a house he rents out currently. He also has a kid he's paying out the ass for in child support, and recent tax increases in Cook County, the fact that he wasn't aware that the EAV existed (which I was lucky to find out before I bought a house there), and that insurance companies have moved away from the "home value" model to the "repair cost value" model have all blindsided him, and aside from the kid, the rest hit him all in one year. (Thankfully, he's one of the most savvy people I know and if anybody can weather this "Perfect Storm" it's him. It's just shitty because it couldn't have happened all at once to a better person).

He still insists that he will pay interest on it. He actually had it 2 weeks ago for me, but I've been so busy I haven't been able to meet up with him to get it back. I have financial concerns to some degree, but nothing that 200 bucks means shit to right now, or I wouldn't have lent it to him. What's interest on 200 bucks for a month anyways? If he wants to buy me a Three Floyds beer at the bar one night, I won't decline the offer.

Wow, thanks for showing me the Cindy Lauper song. It's really good. It's funny, because with the "basic" autotune in those days, she almost sounds like the fake Anime girl that did the "Heaven" remake.

I always liked "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" when I was a little kid, just because it was so fun. I think that song, "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran and "Hard for me to say I'm Sorry" were my first 3 favorite songs, even though I was too young and dumb to get the meaning. It just felt good listening to them.

Even to this day I have Cindy Lauper on my mp3 Player.......

Actually, this is the first time I saw the video. I just loved it from "The Goonies", which was my favorite movie for probably 5 years and probably saw 100 times when I was a kid. In my mind, I was always Mikey sneaking that kiss in the dark from Andy, when she thought she was kissing my big bro (Josh Brolan, who many years later went on to play GWB)

EDIT: I was going to show the official video, but it's like 3 minutes of 80's BS that I can't even get through before the music lol.....

So here's the SONG (In Karaoke Style):

Wendy sounds like a keeper, good for you for having people like that in your life. Sometimes it's really nice to have somebody to point out the beautiful things life has to offer, especially in the otherwise bleak landscape folk like us tend to gravitate to .

Hopefully we'll meet up someday man. I'm really bad about that myself too. If we never do, I hope that you consider me a friend, even if just online, like I do with you.

Kiss Me is an awesome song man. I just listened to it for the first time, at least consciously, for the first time in about 8 or so years at your behest. It was on the radio all the time when I dated my first girlfriend. Don't know the girl's name, but between her and Sarah McGauchlin, they both had the shared monopoly (Oligarchy?) on the "Angel's Voice" in radio that year.

"Beautiful Day" is a great song too. I used to LOVE U2, but ever since they came out with that BS song that was first released as an IPOD commercial and later made into a video that was a BLATENT 3+ minute commercial for Target, I really despised them. I'll admit that I'll never turn off a U2 song when it's on the radio because they really are so talented and their songs, even lesser known, are so great, but i don't keep any of their stuff on my mp3 Player and I would never buy a song from them.

It's just sad.... On one hand, you have an Iconic band like The Doors, who we've NEVER seen a SINGLE SONG played in ANY COMMERCIAL after all of these years, yet (even if it's "for the good of Africa"), you've got an equally Iconic band like U2 pimping themselves out like hookers to the major chains that have put record stores out of business.......

It's just sad.....

Oh, and Wish, if you're still reading... SEE... I told you that Frem might be able to help you.

It's worth a shot asking. I fixed my furnace with help from HVAC pros online 3 days after I didn't even know how to light a pilot. Maybe he can walk you through, for free, what somebody would charge enough to make you throw your hands up in the air and buy a new mower for (or ride that one into the ground until you were forced to).

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I had a notion to change my name to Skip Boobly & become a roady for the Go Goz back in the 80z.

Aaaa, the good old daze!

Hirz my fave Belinda song:
]

Hey J,

First let me say, no offense at all if I'm wrong in asking this, but the avitar I see on the site now perplexes my natural inclinations.

It has just occurred to me tonight that I don't believe I've ever asked your sex and you've never volunteered the info. I may have subconsciously, chauvinistically assumed you male this whole time when you aren't.

So... before you answer, a dual-bladed apology is in order.

Sorry if I was right all along and you are male.

And sorry if I was pig-headed and wrong and you are female.

I'm sorry, but the hilarious name Skip Boobly and the desire to become a GoGo Roadie does absolutely nothing to clear this up for me. If this were the 80's, it might be easier to figure out, but in 2012, who can tell?

As a side note, I don't disparage "I Get Weak", but personally it's on my 10 most hated songs ever. The ONLY reason for that is because it was on the CONSTANT repeat playlist at Toys R Us when I worked there as a young teen. We all called them "TRU Favorites". Up on that list are also Chicago's "Saturday in the Park" and "As I Was Walking Down The Street One Day".

Funny how 2 of my favorite songs "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and "It's Hard For Me to Say I'm Sorry" are both performed by some of my MOST LOATHED SONGS!!!!! (Although I guess it's not that funny since I LOVE about 3 songs of Duran Duran, and the rest of their music is SHIT)

Seriously man (or wo-man)... not knocking your choice. I just have heard that song about 5,000 times more in my life than any mere mortal could endure. If the Chinese captured me and made me listen to Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance", a song I love, for 5,000 times... I think I'd tell them any American secret they want to know.

EDITED TO ADD:

When you're surrounded by a box you can't escape in the working world, I believe, your mind subconsciously makes refuges for you to cling to amidst a sea of pain and sorrow....

That being said...

Two songs on the "TRU Favorites" list that I personally grew to love over the years.......

I humbly present

Exhibit A)

Take That's "Back For Good"

Sure, it's a boy band from the UK, but they were older than me at the time and I heard they played live for Queen Elizibeth back in the late 90's.

Exhibit B)

Moody Blues' "Wildest Dreams"

If you hate this song, you're a Communist.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 5:47 PM

What do you think of this song?

http://www.myspace.com/b49teen84/radio

Hurt. by Jonny Cash, I meant, if it comes up with another song....

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Tuesday, April 10, 2012 9:36 PM

Well there is that - not everyone in the biz is one of the good guys, sure, and I'll get more into that, prolly more than you ever wanted to know, in a bit..
I once tried to explain the exact specifics of who and who I could not help to HKCav and Anthony, both of whom started immediately pointing out exploitable loopholes, the treacherous gits, lol.
But most people, if my assistance alone is the deciding factor that might prevent your death ?
I'd advise makin peace with your maker, cause I cannot help you.

And yes, Squirmy the three-legged cat, who I taught human-words too.
The trick to that is picking a sound close to one they already made, then convincing them that you not only want them to make noise, but to make a specific noise - and the cat has to like you enough to want to bother, and it takes a damn long time... the payoff is however, quite worth it, since I taught her to say "Mei-Mei" which is Chinese for little sister, I think - and when she did that to a friends kid we were babysitting she nearly dropped a plate, mehehehe.

Molly, the other calico (tortiseshell type) can actually kind of manage a human hard "B" sound, which is odd but she's always been a strange cat, and I've been trying to teach her to say "Beer?", with debateable success so far - she was dumped on the doorstep an inch from death after being rescued from an abusive owner, and part of a pair, the other one did not survive the trip... generally if you can get a critter to my doorstep, it's gonna make it.

Ugh, Blackwater - okay, imma hafta explain why I hate em so...

Way back when I first broke with the military, I worked on an affiliate basis for Eagle/A-1 Services Ltd.
I'm sure that name means nothing to you till I point out that their direct competition at the time was a firm called Executive Outcomes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes

Basically I was in at the very dawn of the PMC concept, and EA1 preferred more morally-tolerable contracts, which over time got them financially wrecked by the scumbags like EO and others, long story short, the bad guys won that time around - what I did mostly for them was long range secured courier stuff, running cargo cross country that was sensitive and folks didn't wanna trust to a shipping company or the postal system, good money but you never got to freakin enjoy it cause you lived on the road, bleh.
And having broke with the military in great part due to not wanting to support the fuckin murderous Contras(1), I was on the more moral side of things with EA1 despite being a crazy bomb worshipping nihilist at the time, cause I'd just recently watched my own family and entire life come down in pieces around me so all I had left was the ability to do violence, really.

(1)S'funny, nobody believed me at the time cept those in on it with me, some of whom I co-opted into my crew, but *NOW* the words Iran-Contra are well known, aren't they ?

But to WHO and WHY mattered to me, to the point where the army considered me a class three conscientious objector, NOT because I had any moral issue with killin folk, but because I had philosophical and religious issues with killin em at a bulk rate, in that it dehumanizes them - you want someone dead, you put the hit on THAT PERSON and you pay job rate, at least in my viewpoint.
This of course goes out the window when someone sails a round at me cause I'll bury em in a fullisade of belt-fed 7.62x51mm out of sheer annoyance...
Thing is, I don't find the idea of capping people repugnant so much as the notion of capping someone I don't know, never met, who ain't done shit to me, on the say-so of some yahoo with fancy metal pins tellin me to - that's just insane, innit ?

So you had Wackenhut, which went from wanna-be to never-was as a result of poor hiring practices, incompetent personnel and getting into the for profit prison industry, but mostly absolute mismanagement and incompetence ruined em to the point where they had to run and hide under the skirts of Group4.

Triple-Canopy is mostly a collective of the remains of other failed PMCs and not especially horrible but rather iffy on the quality of personnel.

And then there's DynCorp, who got their start as semi-competent aircraft mechanics and were slowly financially imploding till they somehow wound up servicing the CIAs cocaine pipeline airfleet, many of which were also used for extraordinary rendition - something exposed due to the crash of N987SA.

Quote:
On September 24, 2007, a Florida-based Gulfstream II jet (#N987SA) crashed in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Departing from Rio Negro, Colombia, the plane loaded with approximately four tons of cocaine was denied permission to land in Cancún, as those who were paid off to allow the landing had already left for the night. It then ran out of fuel and crashed in the village of Tixkokob, 11 miles from Mérida.

And out of that somehow DynCorp also wound up a PMC, but didn't fall far from their scumbag roots cause while in Bosnia they got caught out involving themselves in a sex-slavery ring, me and Rev (who was deployed there at the time) weren't a direct factor in them getting caught cause that was due to them being blatant and incompetent about it, but moreso we kinda kept the matter from being swept under the rug - State Dept kind of cut them out of the loop (although they still did deniable muscle work for the alphabet boys) till Bush came around and kissed up to em enough to send them over to the middle east to protect the rapacious american corporate executives while they looted the place.

And finally, Blackwater.
What makes them different is that they're actually competent in a military and operational sense, but frankly that just makes it WORSE, they showed their true colors in Katrina when they showed up and more or less engaged in violence and looting for the lulz - I know damn well they emptied that bank vault but cannot prove it, and heaven knows how many folks they capped just for shits n giggles, plus NOBODY knows who hired em or if they even were paid, as opposed to doin it on spec.

And it don't stop there, nope, see, they're run by a certain cabal of creeps which constitute a whole new nightmare, not only are they hard-right-neo-con mighty-whitey-righty types hell bent on a racial-religious crusade, it ain't just political as (and this is proven and admitted fact) some of em are a combination of hardcore Opus Dei and friggin Knights of Malta, heavy cult stuff which'd sent Piratenews into paroclysms of glee cause it really *IS* that goddamn woo-woo-weird.
We've gotten an agent into their private little meetings over in Holland, Michigan before with a recording device, and that shit is just plain chilling to hear.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/secret-erik-prince-tape-exposed

This is on TOP of trying to more or less pull a political coup on Michigan by fronting Dick DeVos (who's sister is married to Erik Prince) as potential Governor, only for even the hard right front around here to recoil in horror from the guy and watch him get CURB STOMPED by then Governor Jennifer Granholm, the most hilarious part being a debate he refused to have in the state, refused to have recorded, in which he showed up worn out and hung over, then got verbally obliterated in by Jenny, who's a former State Attorney General..

But it's even worse than THAT - see, that whole Franklin-Boystown child sex slavery mess, well when Franklin and company got run out of town on a rail it was Jack Abramoff who stepped into the vaccum of power, notice that the media rather studiously avoided mentioning that most of the "prostitutes" he was providing were neither involved voluntarily nor old enough to have a drivers license, neh?
And I suspect that ain't all ole Abramoff was into, nobody but me seems willing to ask the question of exactly what Mohammed Atta was doing on Jacks casino party boat just prior to 9-11...

But anyhow, when Jack finally got his ass kicked in court for shorting the payoffs, it was Prince what stepped in and more or less pulled a hostile takeover on his network, which pissed off the Feds who then sent the BATFE to raid and sieze Blackwaters Georgia armory and illegal machinegun factory, to which Blackwater responded by pulling up stakes, moving their HQ to Dubai (a place that exemplifies the phrase "money talks") and changing their name to Xe.

So essentially you've got a creepy-culty nutter involved in all that, AND with a very well equipped and trained private army for hire, which is just bad news all around - and I even know their endgame, they wanna pull some shit like what happened in Rhodesia a while back, find some shitty third world nation and pull a coup+takeover and have their own private kingdom.
That I would hate these bastards is kind of inevitable.

For myself, I always was pretty much a merc - I mean even a courier or cabbie is essentially a merc hired to drive, and that's always been my primary method of puttin food on the table.
Now, with all that in mind, even though I am old and half crippled, still - someone like that working for a podunk apartment complex in backwater Michigan is a serious disparity in skill up against the local yahoos, which are might I add TOWNSHIP yahoos, not even Detroit punks, they're so pathetic it's laughable... and it leaves me with essentially nothing to DO out there but walk around proving I am still here.

Now, back to the rest, heheh, you too have a "vices" tab in your budget, that's just great!

Mine is actually pretty substantial in comparison to all else, holding an equal slot to the food budget, although a lot of those items cross over cause like all security guards worth the name, I do like my pastry, oh yesss.
(Cue: Donut Jokes)

And no, I never liked auto-tune either, nor do I like a lot of the computer-written and enhanced pop of today unless yer gonna go ALL the way and have Hatsune Miku perform it - and I totally feel you about songs completely wrecked by commercialization, for me "Good Vibrations" has sucked ass ever since Sunkist bought it out and annoyed the piss outta me with it, and I know ALL about the annoying hell of the Toys R Us sound system, having worked for them once over the Xmas holiday, uuugh.

Wendy, mind you - is a closet kid I rescued who due to permanent damage is kind of always going to need a bit of looking after, and has a massive savior-crush on me which completely wigs me cause of the age difference and her looking much younger even than that due to stunted development, she's never quite accepted that it can't ever go there gracefully, but has comfortably enscounced herself into the role of annoying bratty daughter, emphasis on bratty - any time her fridge starts lookin bare or the whim strikes her she'll come over here and raid MINE, cause she *knows* I always have a stock of goodies...
I been writing this in between my rounds tonight and she raided the hell out of my brownie supply when she came off shift earlier, but at least she left me some!
She's a damn good guard though, ironic in that originally due to being a closet kid the cold empty darkness was her nemesis, her nightmare, and yet she managed to conquer it in her heart and make it her kingdom - she's got more guts than I do, that kid.

She's also kinda responsible for my retirement from running CoTL, I was already considering it at the time after WWASPS fell, and what pushed it over at the time... see, obviously I taught self defense to our rescuees as part of their recovery process, and I don't mean dojo warrior BS, but the brutal art of essentially how to eff people up hard and fast - the graduation exercise of which is a locked room brawl one on one in which they have to give a passable account of themselves, in truth more a test of heart than skill that one, but anyhows...
Wendy can also berserkerang - she's generally as nonviolent a person as it gets, but push her buttons and wowza... wowza indeed, for she kicked my ass SO hard that wound up with her banging on the door screaming for Justin cause she thought she'd killed me, once he ascertained it was merely a concussion and a LOT of bruises (despite protective gear!) he about peed himself laughing, at which point it was pretty damn clear I was just too old for this, bah!

Worth pointing out that you do not, do not, DO NOT want her to kick you, when she's all zerked out each kick is about equivalent to being hit with a full out two handed swing of a four pound maul, and did I mention she can land 3-4 of them on you per second ?
That punk she kicked out into the street was damn lucky the first one sent him outta range of the follow up or he'd have been worse off than a fractured pelvis.
Of course, the real reason nobody messes with her on shift it that it will bring me down upon them in a complete fury even worse than messing with me directly will.

Okay, small engines - yeah, I am pretty good with em, and when it comes to air cooled two stroke, I not only claim zen mastery, I can and will back that claim up, any time, any where.
Of course, your mower is likely a four stroke, and the FIRST thing you oughta check is that stupid flywheel pin - there's this pin there which is made out of this soft, brittle metal - in theory it's supposed to come apart if the engine jams on something to prevent serious damage, kind of like a mechanical fuse, but in practice it's more about keeping mechanics in business cause it tends to come apart at the slightest provocation or even none at all.
As for the oil, hmmm - MIGHT be overpressure of the gearbox seal, if you start a new thread with pics I can prollly walk you through DIY repair, although mowers ain't my specialty.

And since you've all but asked for it - lemme explain a bit more, cause I dun think we're talking about the same song here.
See, actually knowing something about Games and Anime, AND since I used to more or less babysit the horde during conventions, care to GUESS who gets to vet that stuff for peoples kids to make sure it's appropriate, cause rating systems suck ?
Plus I have an extremely high tolerance of and perhaps even a bit of affection for, overly cutesy stuff - consider well the horrors I've seen and just how potent an antidote kawii, moe, glurge or whatever you wanna call it, can be against those things, balm against those psychological scars.

I had not actually realized it till I was vetting Rhapsody(PS1) for a friends child since it was so hard to find an MMO appropriate for and suited to girls, and the ridiculousness of it and the music won me over, so I had to buy ANOTHER copy for us to give to her, cause I wasn't parting with the test copy, oh hell no!

Sadly the DS remake clipped out the music, which is apalling cause that's what made the thing what it was... and they wonder why no one liked it ?
(Marjoly has one of the best deliberately-horrible villain songs EVER.)

Annd that brings us to a really brain-overloading bit of cute known as magical meow meow taruto, a series for the smaller kids which is postively adorable, and I would run it for them at the conventions to give them something to do, easy enough given a full copy of the whole series cost me less than a bag of tobacco does, right ?
And it did kinda grow on me. sure - so someone sent me a copy of an AMV made from clips of it set to a tune called "Beautiful Day"... and I was feeling a bit out of sorts that weekend so I rather enjoyed it.

Come monday morning I went down like a ton of bricks in front of my closet due to a mild stroke brought on up a severe case of acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis with neurocomplications and autoimmune response, essentially my own immune system started laying waste to me from the insane, and logically I shoulda been dead-right-there, but somehow I managed to crawl to my crutches, stagger to the car and drive to the clinic, and throughout the clueless fumbling, misdiagnosis, stupid halfassery of the local hospital docs, that song (which is like pure bottled happiness in concentrated form) was what was keepin me ALIVE, till one of the other docs who the rest were ignoring threw in some Mad Science which actually fixed the friggin problem, or at least brought to where my system can pin it down and keep it suppressed.
(this makes me a virtual prisoner here, cause leaving my lair for any length of time will cause sufficient stress and lead to a relapse)

Ergo ridiculously cute or not, this clip is kinda important to me, cause it's essentially a survival mantra used when the chronic pain or illness starts to win out on me.
So, in all it's horrible glory - Beautiful Day.

-Frem

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 12:11 AM

rezident owtsidr

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
What do you think of this song?

http://www.myspace.com/b49teen84/radio

Hurt. by Jonny Cash, I meant, if it comes up with another song....

It came up with sum amatuer lameness. I went to Yotube & the Johnny Cash song soundz OK to me. I think I've heard that before in a movie.

I'm a guy! Herez the 'Meet the Author paje at Nooalf : [url] http://www.nooalf.com/JO753.html]

The avatar iz ANJeLENU, wun uv the Nooalf Warriorz that I will write storyz for wen I hav the time & inspiration. I got tired uv using CoR GWo and figured a nice hairdo will attract a little more curiosity and a better attitude than an in-your-face ape or inscrutable alien.

Also, I thought it coud be funny if sum newbie took a fascination with me & didnt bother to check the bio! hehehehe

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012 2:46 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Frem, I don't think the things PN talks about give him any sort of "glee" and I know you know it.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Friday, April 13, 2012 1:05 PM

In home improvement news.....

Got the grass seed planted and raked in the pool-hole, the sand box hole and over the 2 removed stumps. Time will tell if this novice green-thumb did enough research to make it work.

I also removed, to the root, about 1/8 of the ally-way easement where the phone pole is stuck. I know it's not my responsibility, but it's apparent that everyone living here since the house was built in 1959 felt the same way. It's about 800 sq feet of weeds, and the only grass growing there is crab grass. It looks like shit, and apparently, it's looked like shit for over 50 years.......

I hope to have real grass growing there by mid-summer, as well as in my pool hole.

Until I get a good paying job that I can justify any large expenses, my only work on the house now that the 2nd floor is done is to get the yard looking good. It's all good. So much cheaper than the indoor expenses, and such a huge improvement from the street. The weather is fine now, and I can get a jump start on my tan.

Hey Frem,

Haha! I wanna teach a cat to say beer!

"Executive Outcomes", huh? I don't know which name is scarier, Blackwater or that? lol

Long range courier stuff... kinda sounds like the Shadowrun world. How many times did you wonder what exactly was in the packages you were delivering? If people don't trust the PO or the commercial carriers, and they're paying you to do it.... that's a question much better left unasked.

"Bomb Worshiping nihilist".... I can't even picture that. Glad that was left to Ted and the Unibomber... My family has always been in a state of upheval the likes most people I suspect wouldn't have to ponder (the sum of all the f-d up parts, mind you, not one individual gripe at a time). This time seems different though.... We were never "rich", but the kids grew up with health insurance and if my parents ever worried where the next meal was coming from, they never showed it. Things are pretty scary for some of them now though, and not just my bro I talk about all the time. I'm talking about people who worked hard all their life, and they've all but lost any perks in life that make keeping on even worthwhile. For some of them, it's getting to the point that if this economy doesn't turn around soon, they might have to sell their houses. Hell... if I don't find some steady work at a reasonable wage, I might be doing the same in the next year or two... assuming, of course, that anybody would even be in the market to buy at that point.

As for the rest of the history there... it's just too dark for me to contemplate much on. All I can say is I don't envy your positions in the past. I'm so glad that I was dating a girl who kept me out of the military back when I was going to willingly join. I'm thankful I've never had to kill anybody that somebody else told me I had to, or even have been in a position to kill-or-be-killed because I volunteered myself for a wage.

I'm no merc... I'm an idealist, and if the need ever arises I believe I am a survivalist, and I i think many of the quirks I have that handicap my personal life today would be very useful if things ever got really bad.... but I'm no merc. My ideal job is something that pays well that consists of making my superiors look good, also, with VERY little if zero oversight because they trust that I'll just get the job done better than anyone else can. The several times that I've lucked into that type of position, I do just that with VERY little effort. It's not bragging, but I'm just more organized and methodical than any one of my peers. I'm surely not the smartest person I've ever known by a long shot, but my behaviors and mindset are geared more towards that type of work. I don't need any awards and recognition... just show me the money, and give me just enough props to convince the middle management that it's a good idea to keep me around. I prefer living life in the shadows that way. I did it for five years and it paid for my house. Until recently, I was able to spend 7 months working at my own pace trying to make my house perfect. If a week came and went that I didn't feel like working, I didn't... but when I did work.... man... a lot got done.

Haha! Hell yeah... I have a "vices" tab in my budget! What's the sense in lying to myself and calling it "disposable" income when I know I'm going to spend it every month? Even if I cut out the beer altogether, I spend 102 bucks every 2 months buying 4 lbs of menthol pipe tobacco and 10 "cartons" worth of filtered rolls to put it in. Add to that the fact that a high quality machine only last about 10-12 months when you're using pipe tobacco because they were designed for cigarette tobacco. It's an acquired taste, but I'm used to it now. I hear it's healthier for me than real smokes anyways. I haven't had a smoker's cough in a few years since I've been smoking them, although I'm still short on breath. If I bought "budget" menthol cigarettes pre-rolled it would cost me 35 bucks a carton or more. Right now, by rolling my own with pipe tobacco, I spend about 10-12 bucks a carton, which is 4 bucks less than a carton cost when I started smoking.

Good luck with helping Wendy man. I didn't realize that she was just a kid when I spoke. She sounds like my kind of girl man. Every one I've dated was "eccentric" to one degree or an EXTREME! Never dated one that could kick my ass though, physically/mentally/emotionally. Probably why I'm bored of dating and have just doing things my own way for the time being. Even if they were crazy, it wasn't long before the Stones' "Under My Thumb" became the story of our relationship.

"Under My Thumb" sounds good, for sure, but when you think as much as I do and realize how much you've actually had the power to change somebody and that you find yourself in a one-way relationship where you're doing all of the taking... well... maybe I've just got too much Jiminy Cricket in me for my own good. If I'm going to make somebody's personal life miserable, I'm doing the rest a favor by just keeping that aspect of myself to myself.

I do envy that relationship you have though. A paternal, mentor, relationship. There is one ex-girlfriend in particular that I wish I knew how to get in contact with. She was on anti-psychotics and anti-depressants back when I was living in my grandma's basement with cat's that pissed everywhere. That didn't matter to her. She thought she loved me still, even though I could no better take care of myself than I could take care of her at the time. As beautiful as she was, and as sweet as she always was to me, I knew she was more than I could ever handle at the time and I had to cut her loose. Now that I have a place of my own....... Wish I met her now instead of then.

Haha... "Beautiful Day". Definately not talking about the same song. I thought you were talking about U2's "Beautiful Day".

I'm glad it helped you out. That J-pop, K-pop stuff really is happy as shit. I actually prefer the stuff that barely has any English lyrics myself though. I get to listen to beautiful voices singing some of the most harmonic, although very heavily auto-tuned, harmonies I've had the pleasure of listening to, without the banality of realizing how little "weight" the lyrics most likely have.

Since you're vetting stuff, this is a "cute" song, a remake of Bryan Adams... DJ/Dance version. I never knew what the girl singing it looked like growing up, but I thought she had the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard, and she was singing a song I loved growing up.

Kinda like your video, but not an anime girl with cat-ears :)

Man... I'm so sorry to hear about the stroke. I'm glad you managed it all the way you said. I couldn't even imagine that scenario and how I'd have handled it.

Don't go checking out on us any time soon Frem. The world needs people like you now more than ever!

Hey J,

Yeah... sorry about the amatuere lameness. I was just drinking and singing the other day and decided to show some old songs I posted back in the day. I know that they all suck compared to real life artists, and I have zero producers or autotune.

Didn't intend to trap you like that.

BTW...

Still don't get any of your pics, but they make me laugh every time.

I'm a big fan of the unexpected.

Oh, and BTW... completely agree with Riona there. I don't think that PN takes any glee in being right about anything he posts about.

Had my union buddies listened to me and waited before buying their houses, they'd probably own them free and clear now instead of owing more than their equity. Had my parents, god forbid, listened to their kid... they'd be a shit ton better off now too.

I was talking about the "housing bubble" years before that term was even coined.

The funny thing is, the reason I thought it would explode never even happened yet.... in fact just the opposite has happened.

My reasoning, back in 2005 whenever somebody told me I was stupid to rent and I should buy was that I truly believed some president would try to save the USD and bring interest rates back up to 15-20 percent like Reagan did. If that happened, nobody would buy your 1 million dollar house if it meant paying nearly 8 million for it after interest over 30 years.

But the opposite happened.... and that's why I am CONFIDENT that everything is "gamed" and really f'd up....

Right now, it costs 4 bucks a gallon of gas by me, which is cheaper than surrounding areas.

Take my purchase price of the house of 67k, and divide it by 4 bucks.

That's 16,750 gallons of gas that this house purchase could have bought......

Now... let's go back to any point in time in the Bush era that this house sold for 145k....

http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/17/news/economy/aaa/index.htm

News stories abound that the national gas price had reached $2.06 a gallon nationally.....

Take the purchase price of the house at, the vicinity of this article at 145k, and divide by 2.06.

That's 70,388 gallons of gas that this house purchase could have bought....

And don't make me even bring up how much everything else costs today because our lives are run by the cost of fuel these days.....

EDITED TO ADD:

I think you and yours might like this song too Frem....

I've seen internet speculation that it was an anti-Aids song, but that's not how it ever reverberated with me. I was probalby like 8 when it came out and I just loved it. I wasn't allowed to watch MTV at the time, so I had no clue what the video was until tonight, but I'm not let down at all...

I didn't even know that the singer was a Disney girl back in the day when Disney girls weren't known because only the rich could afford paying extra for the Disney Channel lol.....

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Saturday, April 14, 2012 1:51 AM

Well I was being all ironical and facetious about PN, I thought that obvious..

I never much actually CARED what was in the cargo, Jack - I ain't responsible for it, and if there's a problem in order to break the seal there has to be a rep from the DOT as well as a legally authorized representative from both the sender and recipient, so if it was anything out of sorts I wouldn't be the one gettin a boot up the ass about it, and I got paid either way so... *shrug*
Never had that actually happen, but I *did* get the occasional hicktown deputy dawg type who wanted a peek in there, but most of the time bringing the idea of pissing off the Feds into it made them reconsider the notion, save for a guns-drawn confrontation in bumfuck ohio, but nothin came of that either cause I seemed a little too confident in my ability to take the both of em for their liking.
(I used to point-shoot competatively with the IDPA)

And yes, bomb worshipping nihilist - one reason I find the dude praying to the bomb in Fallout 3 so damn funny is cause I *DID* worship the concept of nuclear armageddon at one time, and considered the radiation symbol an icon on par with the cross or a pentacle.
You gotta remember, all my childhood associates were prettymuch dead or in slam, I didn't have friends and for the past ten years I was a complete pariah to society, and I had just lost my remaining parent, watched my so-called-family vulture the assets, had my whole damn life crumble to bits, and nothing to turn to but an impossible ideal everyone else on this planet seemed to find repugnant, preferring their hate, their intolerance, exploitation and abuse and I was like, okay fine, I hope WE ALL DIE.
I seriously, seriously WANTED to kill EVERY BODY, and the only thing holding me back, the only fine thread which kept me from going complete rampage, was that I wouldn't get ENOUGH of em to matter.
The psychological scars from that still linger, in that my first reflex still is the desire to kill, weakened and easily dismissed that it is, when I see another human - this has NOT done wonders for my personal relationships you can imagine.

I was a ball of semi-feral hardcore violence just waitin to happen to someone, and prayin to have someone, or someones, lots of em, to happen to - only they waited too long to get around to doin it and by that time I'd dredged enough coherent thought back out of the pile to realize what a setup that was and made other plans... I ain't exaggerating about that semi-feral thing either, a person under ENOUGH stress will actually start to devolve below what I consider sentience, and one reason I am so good at bringing back abused people from the brink, or even pulling them out of the whirlpool, is cause I been there, I know the waters and can navigate them.

And yes indeedly, pipe tobacco, cause of the class-L dodge around them motherfuckin insane taxes which every time, they leech it all off into their pockets, and then try to throw another increase "for healthcare" or "for the schools", but the money NEVER GETS THERE, and they think they can double, triple, quadruple dip on that forever, and then have something of a hissy when people quit?
Oh, I'm sorry, wasn't that your fully expressed intent assholes, to force people to quit when you couldn't flat outlaw it ?
Buncha freakin liars the lot of em, it's about money, it always is...

Anyhow, yes, class-L pipe tobacco, which I score for about $12 a bag, WHEN I pay for it at all, God Bless Canada.
*hums Smugglers Blues*
And yes they're healthier cause that's bulk tobacco, untreated with the barrage of chems that prepackaged smokes are, although in my case I doubt it matters cause I don't freakin bother with the niceties of a rolling machine and filter tubes, I just crack open a rack of TOP rollin papers (the ones WITHOUT all that plastic/rosin coated shit layered on em) and spin em up like a nice fat dooby, and light that mofo!
I used to roll em straight, but when the Baltimore City cops started givin me shit and threatening to bust me for paraphanelia (rolling papers) just cause they COULD... I started rolling em just like phatties, and then walkin right by their damn cruiser takin a nice bit hit just to screw with em, and don't ya know, they actually taste better that way... plus with a hand-roll, you can adjust the size and shape for the exact grade of hit and flavor you want, on the fly.
Yeah verily, those people I know who do smoke the "greener grade" as it were have me roll it, if I am available, hehehehe.

Anyhows, $12 for a freakin POUND of pipe tobacco and $12 for 12 packs of Top papers, 200ex, makes 12 cartons worth for me, at a price of about two bucks a carton, a carton which when you include a tax of several times the ENTIRE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT, comes to about $65.50 for ONE carton.
And I used to buy bulk cigarrette tobacco, till they increased the excise tax 1300% (NOT a typo) on that in a single year, which resulted in the distributors yanking it off the shelves and simply changing the packaging to say Class L Pipe Tobacco even though the exact contents of the bag didn't change one goddamn bit - take THAT you rapacious dickheads.
That is of course, the times I pay for it at all, since I get my rake-off on the Canadian leaf that crosses the border, which makes those intended revenues all the more illusory as they wind up spending more money trying to chase those bullshit dreams of floodgates of money and wind up pissing money down a hole when they WOULD have had sufficient tax revenue if they hadn't jacked out of a combination of greed and puritannical bullshit from morons who didn't seem to learn a fuckin thing about prohibition.
And I just better stop there afore I get all foamy-rampaging, you of all folk KNOW how I feel.

As for relationships, I've cut a great many loose over their issues, mine, or some combination thereof, usually long before it turns ugly - I am not an easy dude to live with, or like, and I despise being an emotional crutch for a girl seeking an excuse to not spread her own wings.. situation like that I will drive them off, I got enough darkness in my soul to really freakin horrify someone, and I'll use it too.
Only Wendy don't buy it, her and Alice, my former right-hand-person of CoTL are the only ones who ever saw through the darkness to WHY, to what the REASONS were, mind you that didn't make Alice like me no better - she believes in me, believes in what I do to the point where she'd die for it without hesitation, but me personally ?
She wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire, and she has a right to feel that way, yes I interrupted her attempted suicide and saved her life, gave her purpose, but I also dragged her into my fight where horrors far worse than what lead her there were everyday commonplace - I didn't have a lot of options at the time and I needed people I could trust, no excuse for it but there it is.

Wendy on the other hand sees right through all of it to the very core, and on top of that has a kind of religious faith in me - see, at the time I was just scouting, and then this kid matching the description comes flying out the door with angry foster parents in pursuit... so I kicked the passenger door open, grabbed her hand, yanked her in and took off - come to find out that she had, as a matter of some kinda religious faith or something, the firm and earnest belief that if somehow, someway, she got up those steps and out the door, someone would be there to rescue her, BELIEVED this enough to risk her very life for it, cause them were some naasssty people mano...
What do you SAY to that, when YOU are the one who WAS there ?

She's not blind to my flaws neither - one thing I try to do is encourage our rescuees to be better people than me, to do less would defeat the purpose, so when her or any one of em calls me out on something, I actually LISTEN TO THEM, cause again, to do otherwise would defeat the purpose of them BEING better people than me - but it probably does look odd to see a kid schooling an adult on their behavior, sure.
As she says "Involving YOU in a situation is like dropping a bomb on it!" - I kinda do have a bent towards overkill, as that dickhead David McDade learned to his peril, cause I *still* ain't never taken my thumb off his ass...
But anyhow, the mentor thing works in both directions, strangely enough.

Speakin of Taruto, one funny thing about the series - from the cats point of view, that's how they look to themselves and each other, and they can understand each other and human speech...
But you get the occasional clip from the humans point of view, in which they look like cats, and while they can understand human speech, the humans just hear meows, leading to a HILARIOUS conversation in which Taruto is proclaiming her undying love for her owner Iyori (which is kinda clueless and wrapped up in his own little world anyways) and he thinks she's just wanting his food.

I did think of one seriously BRUTAL subversion you might like though, Puni-Chan.
What if the adorable magical girl... was unrepentingly EVIL ?
Not just snarky, sarcastic or moody, but downright freakin vile, and her mascot worse!
Bonus points that her fighting style is based offa Royce Gracie - if she gets a hold of you it's your ass.

Meh heh heh.

-Frem

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Saturday, April 14, 2012 4:21 AM

rezident owtsidr

Dont take 'amatuer lameness' az too much uv an insult, Jack! I never even went to see QueensRyche or Metal Church kuz they arent az good live az their studio stuff, like most bandz.

Sum uv my frendz are pro.
[url] http://www.7thheavenband.com/]
[url] http://www.gypsyacoustic.com/]
[url] http://mattmcbride.com/pages/main.asp[/url]

If youre really talented and work hard for a long time (or get a lucky break) you can get rich.

My fave joke with theze guyz iz 'you must be doing it rong, man! Evrybody knowz if you get a second hand guitar chancez are youll go far!'

If you get sum free time and spare $, Steve (gypsyacoustic) haz an actual studio & duz an amazing job uv layin down the tracks.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Saturday, April 14, 2012 4:57 PM

Haha J0753,

No worries....

I'll never be famous or even good at that stuff, and I don't ever want to be either.

I'm to old for that now anyways. Unless I come up with some mind-blowing orignal work, 32 is the equivilant to 1920's 60. I'm not a bad looking guy by any means, and I have skills on the guitar and to rehab a house, but nothing that would make a million teenage girls scream and buy my album.....

Sadly, those times have come and gone.

That's on a grand scale though.....

One on One, my natural charisma coupled with a guitar and my remedial knowledge of how to get around it has made some magical nights happen. :)

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Dont take 'amatuer lameness' az too much uv an insult, Jack! I never even went to see QueensRyche or Metal Church kuz they arent az good live az their studio stuff, like most bandz.

Sum uv my frendz are pro.
[url] http://www.7thheavenband.com/]
[url] http://www.gypsyacoustic.com/]
[url] http://mattmcbride.com/pages/main.asp[/url]

If youre really talented and work hard for a long time (or get a lucky break) you can get rich.

My fave joke with theze guyz iz 'you must be doing it rong, man! Evrybody knowz if you get a second hand guitar chancez are youll go far!'

If you get sum free time and spare $, Steve (gypsyacoustic) haz an actual studio & duz an amazing job uv layin down the tracks.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

BTW... Frem

F-U-C-K the new system here at fff...

I spent nearly an hour replying to your post and it's gone now.

I NEVER had that problem before!

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Sunday, April 15, 2012 4:58 AM

rezident owtsidr

32, yes, 1 foot in the grave. Mold growing behind your ears. "Too old. Yes. Too old to begin the training." (Yoda)

Soundz like you paid too much attention in the Conformity Factory! Sheesh!

Life iz not a train on railz, Jack.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Sunday, April 15, 2012 2:48 PM

In home improvement news.....

Weeds SUCK!

Of course, anyone who gave a crap about how their lawn looks knows that... but the project I'm up against now is not a question of regular lawn-care and maintenance, but the first assault against a mature "patch" of wildlife that likely has never been tousled with since the house was built in 1959.

I humbly submit the Before picture of the 80ft x 15ft Com-Ed easement that I've dubbed the "Crabbage Patch".

(Note, I took the picture after a few hours of work today and the few hours I did last night, but ALL of this was full of weeds beforehand. I figured since I'm going to be evening out the ground when I'm done before planting seeds, I wanted before pics that save my ass when my neighbor may complain that I put all of my rain runoff into his back yard. I didn't add any new dirt. It's not my fault that my property overall is about 3 inches higher than his is

)

Do you know how many 5 gallon pails you fill up when removing weeds and debris from a virgin 1,200 sq/ft piece of land in this state? Well, I'm only about 2/5 to 1/2 done and I'm already well above 25 pails. As every other job I've taken on has proven in the end, this is a much larger job than I thought it would be initially.

I'm just shocked that the weather held out all damn day for me to do it. Got a few 1 or 2 minute drizzle spells, but other than that I was at it all day long. I figured I might luck into a good hour or two before the rain came when I started this morning. Lucky me!

Anyway, here's the After pic about 10 hours into it....

The silliest thing is, I kind of understand why nobody ever did this before. This area is a glorified Alley. I don't own the land, but I sure have to look at it everyday. I really can't imagine why nobody who ever lived here ever did this during their down-time though????? How could you have an otherwise nice looking back yard but live with that crap everyday for YEARS???

When I put my own privacy fence up to block the neighbor's ugly fence and their ugly back yard, here's hoping the village lets me keep as much of this re-seeded lawn as possible inside the fence (like my other next door neighbors have their fence).

Haha JO753...

You're right. To me, the WORST thing that could happen would to be famous, so it's not as if I'd want to ever be as talented as Clapton anyways. Maybe I'll be good enough to play in a band that does some city summer events like one of my ex-girlfriend's step dad did.

I've never heard that Queensryche song before. It's crazy... Don't hate me for saying it, if you don't like Boston, but this song sounds SO MUCH like Boston!

I can't even imagine how you could ever hit vocals like that man. I got a decent voice, and back when I did Karaoke I could rock a lot of songs from Edwin McCain to Tom Petty to even Metallica, but that insane wavering falcetto is just amazing. Back when I was really in shape and only smoking about 5 smokes a day I could hit all the high notes on Ah Ha's "Take on Me", but that falcetto was pretty straightforward and without the reverb of Queensryche.

I don't know a lot of their stuff, and if an old coworker didn't mention them to me about 6 years ago I never would have even known about them. Don't know how I missed them since I was growing up around the time they were doing their thing. Probably had something to do with the fact they weren't super-mainstream, my parents forbid me to watch MTV, and I was not only the oldest of my siblings, but I was the oldest cousin... so I didn't have any cool "older"-whatever to influence me on the down low.

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Monday, April 16, 2012 4:08 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

That's the thing about kids, or anyone whom you are teaching/mentoring/helpin out, you learn just as much from them as they learn from you. My 5 and a half year stint on junior high staff at church taught me this, and when they are grown and returning the favor for other kids, some of them are on staff now themselves, they learn this, its something you don't always get though until you're in the mentor or parent role, when you're the one getting raised or helped you don't usually know what an impact for good you're having on the one doing it for you.

Sarcasm and I have a funny relationship, there are as many ways to be sarcastic as there are people in this world. When you think you've got it down someone does it different and then you realize you don't.

"Crabbage patch" :)

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 12:09 PM

rezident owtsidr

I wuz a little slow catching on to QueenszRyche myself. Back in the 80z the local metal station only played 1 uv their songz, Close To You. It wuz good enuff to make me buy the album, Rage For Order, but I didnt bother lissining to anything else from it for yirz. Wen I finally did, I discovered everything else wuz at least az good az that song!

Their first 5 albumz have zero filler krap! Its all good to great. The next 2 or 3 didnt appeal to me so much, but I havent heard their most recent yet.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
That's the thing about kids, or anyone whom you are teaching/mentoring/helpin out, you learn just as much from them as they learn from you. My 5 and a half year stint on junior high staff at church taught me this, and when they are grown and returning the favor for other kids, some of them are on staff now themselves, they learn this, its something you don't always get though until you're in the mentor or parent role, when you're the one getting raised or helped you don't usually know what an impact for good you're having on the one doing it for you.

Sarcasm and I have a funny relationship, there are as many ways to be sarcastic as there are people in this world. When you think you've got it down someone does it different and then you realize you don't.

"Crabbage patch" :)

I'd love to be a mentor Riona, but with all of my successes, I am plagued with failures and eccentricities, and I'd never want to put myself in a position to ever be in any public spotlight in this brave new world we find ourselves in. I think that's why I'm always urging my bro to finally have a kid with his wife and wish they didn't get that damned cute dog to fill that void. You can never say never, but I'm pretty sure I'll never be a parent. I'm going on 33 and I still own an 8 year old cell phone because even though I love my current company after having 4 others before, I don't want to upgrade my phone and be in another 2 year commitment. Oh yeah, my house and car are paid for.... Ummmmmmm.... see a pattern developing here?

Short of them ever having kids before they're too old to, I think my only shot at influencing the young in a positive way is a zombie apocalypse, which I do believe I'm ready for. Not that I'm crazy enough to think it would happen, but with the REAL fears I'm loading up against I think I got at least 1 year of survival under the absolute worst circumstances taken care of. Don't remember what movie it was, but the guy who played Casey Jones in Ninja Turtles said something along the lines of "when the shit hits the fan, who's going to survive longer, the bleeding heart that stored up a year worth of water, or the guy next door with the gun and nothing to lose?"

Figure I'd do both so I don't have to trump my morals if things ever get bad. :)

Ah yes.... Sarcasm.... my number one defense mechanism....

Haha... glad you liked the Crabbage Patch lol

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I wuz a little slow catching on to QueenszRyche myself. Back in the 80z the local metal station only played 1 uv their songz, Close To You. It wuz good enuff to make me buy the album, Rage For Order, but I didnt bother lissining to anything else from it for yirz. Wen I finally did, I discovered everything else wuz at least az good az that song!

Their first 5 albumz have zero filler krap! Its all good to great. The next 2 or 3 didnt appeal to me so much, but I havent heard their most recent yet.

Wow Jo, you sound just like the guy who introduced them to me. I wasn't just in the mood for it I guess when I heard the first song or two on the album he burned for me, and I don't know where it is now. I hear it's the one of their albums that tells a story from start to finish very much like 1984/Brave New World. I'll have to listen to it sometime. Maybe you could clue me in again to which album that would be?

The only song I know from them is their most POP song, Silent Lucidity.

I can actually play that one on Guitar

I can hit all of those notes too, even though I smoke..... WITHOUT AUTOTUNE!!!

Oh... BTW...

In other home improvement news....

One of my best friends, and somebody who has done many years of home improvement himself came over the other day to see the fixes I'd made and he was blown away. He was reluctant to step on to my hardwood floors on the 2nd floor because "it still looked wet", even though I just laughed it off because the 5th and final coat was applied over 2 weeks ago.

People might be "inconvenienced" by my "no shoes and no bare feet" policy upstairs, but that's how this floor will look just as good 10 years from now, without having to polish it with substances that will make easy refinishing impossible when the time comes. Besides, that's what the basement bathroom is for. Shit on the seat for all i care down there. It will be a long time before I fix that and I trust that I've prevented 99.9% of all future flood circumstances.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:40 PM

rezident owtsidr

Operation Mindcrime iz wut youre thinking uv; the fave uv most hardcore QR fanz. My fave iz Rage for Order and Nue Regel iz my fave song.

Iz it just my computer, or iz anybody else having trouble with the cursor wile typing here? Sumtimez it just duznt move to where the typing iz actually going to happen, either with the arrow buttonz or the touchpad. Dam irritating, gorramit!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Operation Mindcrime iz wut youre thinking uv; the fave uv most hardcore QR fanz. My fave iz Rage for Order and Nue Regel iz my fave song.

Iz it just my computer, or iz anybody else having trouble with the cursor wile typing here? Sumtimez it just duznt move to where the typing iz actually going to happen, either with the arrow buttonz or the touchpad. Dam irritating, gorramit!

Haha... Operation Mindcrime! That's it!

I'll really have to give that a listen....

Nope, no problems here, except that I spent an hour replying to Frem a few nights ago and my post was "eaten"!

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 1:05 PM

So, Frem... I might be doing a permanent security gig in June at a hospital. I think that would actually be pretty ideal, don't you?

Pros: Air Conditioning. Far enough from anywhere that matters that there would be any terrorist threats. People there generally are in need of help, so there's little reason to have to rough anyone up. There will be enough people coming and going to keep things from being so boring as my previous gig. There's always the chance that I could score another gig inside the hospital that pays more and has benefits after people there get to know me.

Oh..... and I look pretty sexy in a uniform, and there's a MUCH greater chance of meeting a sexy young thing than any of my previous jobs in the last decade.

Cons: I'm sure I'll have to walk across the street to smoke. It only pays 9 bucks an hour.

In the mean time, I'm going to do some side jobs and see if there are any better positions out there, but it seems like I'm a lock on this job when it starts.

Sorry I'm not replying to your last post. I mean, I did reply, but it took me about an hour to write it and it got "lost" in limbo when I posted it. Our interactions were getting way too long for even us to follow anyways, so I hope we can start again and if there were any important things you'd like to reiterate we should start fresh here.

Later,
~6

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 1:27 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

The thing about kids and mentoring is that you're never going to be perfect, so you might as well start where you are now if you want to do it. I did junior high staff from age 19 to 24, I was sort of talked into it, Bryan really needed people so we were all told to give it a try and see what we thought. I thought I'd be horrible at it because junior high was a horrible time in my life so why would I want to hang out with a bunch of kids that age? But right from the start I loved it and knew it was where I belonged, the kids were great and we had a blast. When I finished up almost two years ago it was because I couldn't keep up with the younger staff, not because I couldn't keep up with the kids. :) My staffmates were driving me to distraction and so it felt like time to finish up. I still see all my kids a lot though on Sun. mornings etc.

I know you've said you'd like to find a woman who already has some kids that you can help her raise, so you don't have to start from scratch, and that way some kids who need a paternal figure can have one who will care about them and raise them like his own, I think that's super cool! I think she's out there too, maybe at this new hospital job, ;)

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 7:08 PM

rezident owtsidr

Another con, 6string: Hospitalz will be ground zero in the zombie apocolypse.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:42 AM

Feh, $9 an hour ain't bad, especially for a non-armed position and a rookie to boot, frankly that's premium wages as a starter.
No benefits worth a mention, unless the hospital kicks em in the side, which'd make that a little tastier but it's good enough as-is for the time being, right ?

Now, the position you DONT want, is door warden for the Emergency Room - trust me dude, you do NOT want that, it can get hairy, it can get ugly, and it's also very likely to leave you morally offended at the Hospital besides - just trust me on that one, okay ?

And yes, the babes dig a well groomed guy in a spiffy uniform, although generally they tend to jump harder for the lean & mean look rather than buff roid-head or spare tire porter, hehehe.

I'm more lean and grisly than lean and mean, and once outside the office in "work mode" I am kinda scary, cause that runs on almost a mental-autopilot built out of conditioned reflex - now if you actually speak to me I'll defrost enough to chat one up for a couple minutes before getting on with it, but outside of that I stay pretty frosty, and when I go full stormtrooper folks run for cover.

Speakin of grooming though, you'd appreciate this for cheapness - I got really, really sick of payin $15-$20 for a friggin haircut cause all I ever get is a straight buzz all the way around anyways, and just chop it back when it starts lookin ragged, so I took careful note of what the places reaming me for the cut were using, and then bagged a Wahl Performer kit, new(old stock) in box for $8.70 on Amazon, got the cutter, the attachments, comb, scissors, brush and oil all with it, and with a little practice, and I mean very little, you can pull that off solo in about ten minutes or so.
Me, I just slap a No2 attachment on it and clear the deck, with a hand mirror and by touch where you can't see, it's pretty easy, actually - and don't cost no damn $15-$20 neither, heh.

As for the other stuff, feh - better that I don't sit here and clobber myself about the stuff on my conscience, can't unring the bell, you know ?

Oh, and a suggestion.

Quote:
People might be "inconvenienced" by my "no shoes and no bare feet" policy upstairs, but that's how this floor will look just as good 10 years from now, without having to polish it with substances that will make easy refinishing impossible when the time comes. Besides, that's what the basement bathroom is for. Shit on the seat for all i care down there. It will be a long time before I fix that and I trust that I've prevented 99.9% of all future flood circumstances.

Why don't you just steal a march off the Japanese here - drop a set or three of house slippers inside beside the door for the use of guests, this makes it much easier to keep a place clean, which is why they do it, and you can select slippers which'll not leave marks on the floor, so that one is win-win, yes?

-Frem

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:22 PM

Heh, in this economy sadly, being able to be in the A/C and make 9 bucks an hour without a college degree isn't bad at all. I just don't know how anybody not in my position otherwise would be able to make ends meet. You'd never be able to pay a mortgage on 9 bucks an hour, unless you were married to somebody making at least that much. If you were renting, you'd probably have to have a roomate. Not to mention a car-note that I've been lucky enough to avoid for quite a while. Hopefully my baby keeps purring for at least until I can get a better job.

9 bucks, assuming it's a full time gig, is pretty much the bare minimum I need to survive, with a few bucks left over week to week to afford some minor home improvement/maintenance costs. There's no way in hell I'll be buying the gutters I need any time soon with that, let alone the natural gas backup unit in case the electricity goes out (a requirement in this house, before I even consider rehabbing the basement). Damn property tax bill coming up next month too. Drat! It's not too bad here though... only about 350 bucks more than my monthly rent was for a 2bed/2bath apartment in Wisconsin a few years back. If I were still in crook county in the exact same house on the same sized land, it would cost me about 4 months rent at that same apartment, for just six months of taxes!!!!!

I'm sure there's no benefits, or at least I'm going into it with no expectations anyway. I'll probably be one of the only white people on staff there besides some of the doctors, but I've usually found that I get along great with black people in a work setting. It might be different here, because I'm wearing a guard uniform, but I can lay the charm on think when I want to. I'm great at building rapport and making acquaintances. Not so good at making real friends... but who needs to make friends at work?

I'll make a note to self about the emergency room. I actually thought of that myself, particularly given the neighborhood of the hospital. I'd rather not be in the thick of any tensions that arise from a gang related gut shot wound. Funny that you mentioned that.

I don't know if I'd be considered "lean and mean". I have a few scars on my forehead and face, but they don't look so bad that you'd think I took shrapnel. Most of them are from stupid shit I did as a young kid, or stupid shit my parents did, but that's another story. Nobody has to know that though. It could easily pass for battle scars. Even with those growing up, before I bulked up, this girl I was really hot for called me "pretty boy". Never did hook up with her. I think I could have someday with persistance even though she was into the ghetto white boy DJ type.... but I ruined that when i hooked up with her sister one night. In my drunken state, I somehow thought it would be a way to make her jealous, and that's the only reason I did it lol. Nope... bad idea.

I'm 10 years older now though, and my features had definitely hardened over the years. I certainly don't waste money on new threads like I did constantly back then too. So I'm a bit more ragged and blue class than before.

I have some clippers, and occasionally I do trim everything up, especially in the back where I form a "duck tail", but it's hard work. I've messed it up before and then I have to cover up my head until I can get a haircut. I actually enjoy getting a haircut where I go, and drive out of my way to get it. I'm pretty hot for two of the girls who cut my hair, but one is married, and the other one has been dating some loser so long that she might as well be (they live in her Mom's basement together). The haircuts are only 13 bucks, even though i throw them the change from a Jackson, and I get it cut short and have the type of hair that can go about 90 days and still look good if I trim it myself before getting another cut. They do it better than I could do on my own, it's more interaction I have with good looking women on any given day with the jobs I do, and even though I still can't figure it out, there's something about a good looking woman giving you a shampoo when you're laid back that feels about 1000 times as good as shampooing your own hair in the shower.

BTW... GREAT Idea about the slippers. I'm going to have a poker game here in the next few weeks and all of the wives/girlfriends and hopefully some unnattached female friends are welcome. The basement bathroom for the guys will be a glorified out house when I put tarps around it where there currently is no door or the bottom 4 feet of drywall. I'm sure the girls don't want to use that. I'll just have some fuzzy pink slippers at the bottom of the stairwell for the ladies to use!

Thanks Bud!

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 4:58 PM

Ah, yeah - the haircut as a tradition or social event, I get that, I'm just too bloody cheap most of the time...

The few times I ain't though, there's two places here.
One is down the road, has been there forever and the rickety old geezer is so old-school the damn chairs still have ashtrays built in, and he does the whole shebang, shave and a haircut, bay rum, the works.
He mostly services the old UAW grunts.

The other, a little further north up near Dearborn, is this little old jewish guy, I had a moment at his door where I kinda crossed up with some of my own prejudices cause I was having a real bad day and when I noted he was wearing a yarmulke I paused and began to turn around - and instead of taking offense he pointed out that he was a barber, as well as a jew and I really did need a haircut, could I not maybe put my issues aside for just a little while ?
Right there he had me, he's a way cool dude, and no more a fan of the Likudnik/Zionista crowd than I cause he winds up taking crap about it he don't deserve, and don't ya know he's a right good barber too.
Whats determinedly ironic about it is that a lot of the muslim dudes in Dearborn (and there's a bloody lot of em) come to him for a cleanup trim so they can look sharp while still keeping within their own code about such things cause they trust him to do it right - funny how people can find a way to get along when Government isn't in the way, innit ?

-Frem

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Saturday, April 21, 2012 1:30 PM

Haha... you know me Frem. The king of frugal, or "cheap" if you wanna be a dick about it.

Never went to a barber shop myself and had that kind of social atmosphere. I'm sure it's a generational thing, but I figure the best haircut you can get when you're looking to attract a 25 year old girl is the haircut you get from a 25 year old girl you're attracted to. Went to Supercuts as a kid, but then I found this Fantastic Sams that was down the street from a job I had 12 years ago and I've been going almost exclusively there ever since. Even when I lived in WI, i made a point of going there when I was in town visiting family. I'm definitely a creature of habit.

Interesting story you had there about the Jewish barber. Overall, I'm not a huge fan of what Jews stereotypically are known for, but my Uncle is one hundred percent Jewish and his kids are half since he married a Catholic Polish/Irish girl. They're 3 of my favorite people in the world. Dad owns his own business, the youngest son is going to be a politician, and the older son is already a politician and has hustled so much work and ideas that he's been his own boss and been able to pay for his own health insurance for a decade without relying on parents or a job to provide it for him. He's got a conscience too, which really counts. You can never know what goes on behind closed doors, but I really believe he has the interest of the community in mind and isn't just your average politician looking to make his own life better. (Being a politician has meant doing more work for other people than he's ever done in his life. He's smart enough and ambitious enough where the work he's putting in now would pay off 10 fold in one of his other endeavors).

I got more work done on the crabbage patch today. It's now, officially, over 5/8ths done. What a chore....

I had a few little helpers today for over an hour too. I was talking to my next door neighbor I rarely ever talk to since the work is right up against his property and he was mowing his lawn today. His daughter and her friend were out too. Later they were playing soccer and accidentally kicked the ball by me and said sorry as they came and got it. I told them no worries

... One of them asked what I was doing, looking perplexed. I told her I was removing all the weeds so I could lay grass down. She thought to herself for a moment and said "cool", and then ran off.

About an hour later, they both came over and asked if they could help. "Really? Why would you want to help doing this job?". They said they were bored and her dad wouldn't let them build a fort out of the scrap wood in the back yard.

About an hour later the dad came out and said "I thought I'd never see the day"... lol.....

I told them "I told you, you just set yourself up for more work now".

He said "Since you learned how to pull weeds, now you'll have to pull weeds in the front yard tomorrow."

She told her dad "This is a one time only deal, Dad!"

Kid's are so cool. Somehow, this was fun for them. One of them kept saying that this was "anger management" for her, as she took her hand shovel to the stone infested rock and dug away at it. I asked them how this was fun for them and they said, "you wouldn't understand, kids like this stuff".

They really didn't get much done, and I'll have to go over the area they covered tomorrow, but they got me to work another 90 minutes longer than I would have. They weren't looking for anything in return. They were digging for buried treasure. They found a huge polished rock that probably weighed 5 lbs that they wanted to keep. When I told them all the weird stuff I've dug up back there, one of them really wanted the rusty horseshoe that I found a few days ago for good luck, so I gave her it. Her parents will probably make her throw it away... lol

In over 8 months here, this was about 1000% more interaction than I've had with those neighbors combined. It's crazy... even the dog that would bark at me 10 minutes straight while I was working by their fence came out for a few minutes after and didn't bark at all. He just put his face up to the fence and let me put my hand out for him to lick.

It's nice to know that Cujo is really just a lovable fur ball when you get to know him.

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Saturday, April 21, 2012 5:31 PM

People do surprise ya, don't they ?
Man, most folk don't know half of what they think they know - and only a few of us are smart enough to realize it.

-F

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Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

People do surprise ya, don't they ?
Man, most folk don't know half of what they think they know - and only a few of us are smart enough to realize it.

-F

The more I learn, the more I realize the less that I know....

People can be pretty cool sometimes.

I dug around the power lines today without killing myself, which is pretty sweet. I didn't think they'd be dangerous since it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen, but I have respect for that kind of thing. I've been shocked several times in my life indoors because I was too lazy to turn the main off, but that really is just enough voltage to zap you out of whatever reverie you were in to do something so stupid in the first place. I'm sure those outdoor power lines would fry my balls right off.

That's exactly what I wanted to get done this weekend. I didn't want to be digging around those power lines during the week when the code enforcer/police/fire department vehicles might make a stop and hassle me about permits. Technically, I AM re-grading this part of the lawn which I don't even technically own(which would require a permit and inspection), but I'm not actually adding any dirt, just flattening it all out. If anything, there is less on my side after removing all the roots and a ton of stones. It just so happens that after taking out the hills and valleys in the crabbage patch that my higher lawn will run off right into my neighbor's lower lawn with no impedance.

It could be considered a dick move, but my neighbor didn't complain at all about anything when we were talking yesterday. Actually, I found out that his is considered the 2nd to the lowest property in the village aside from his nextdoor neighbor on the other side. He said that after only 10 days living here (about 7 years ago) there was a flood so bad that he had 7 feet of water in his basement. He said that overnight his 150k home loan ballooned to about 250k after the necessary repairs to his house and garage.

That's just so unfortunate. With upgrades made to the sewage/drainage system since then, nobody expects it to happen again and we should not be considered a flood plain in the upcoming review. It's nice not having to pay for flood insurance when you own your property outright, but it will be even nicer to know that the bank wouldn't require it if I had a mortgage

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Monday, April 23, 2012 2:01 PM