6ixString's Home Improvement and Mindless Ramblings Thread....
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2016 00:48
VIEWED: 54624
PAGE 1 of 3
Or "Anybody I Know Still Post Around Here (Part 2)"
JO753 asked me to post a new thread since the old one was taking ages to load on his netbook. I was thinking it would probably be a good idea before, but never bothered until somebody mentioned it. It does take quite a while to load a thread that big with that many pictures attached. 
So, the original thread, which has had 305 replies and 5339 views since September 11th, 2011, has now been retired. Thanks for all the interest, witty banter, seeing old friends and new people stopping by to say hi, and thanks to FFF.net and everyone who commented for giving me a place to showcase some of my FINALLY finished jobs, to have an interactive journal to record what I did for the day and to hear other people's responses to the work being done, and a place to ask questions and get feedback on future projects I'm contemplating.
Jeez.... That almost sounds like a going away speech, doesn't it?
I'm not going anywhere.... 
I'm starting a new temp job next week, but it's only part time and my weekends are free. Rehab projects will definitely slow down, but they won't stop.
I hope this new thread makes what's going on more accessible to people and that more join in the fun.
Hopefully when the site is revamped, we have the ability to only see the last 10, 20, 50, or 100 posts like we have the option to at other forums so opening a new thread will not be necessary in the future.
Oh, and a special thanks to WISHIMAY for all of her comments and conversation. She had a lot of great ideas along the way when I was stumped or needed the opinion of the fairer sex when it came to how to put some final touches on things. Thanks to her hubby as well for a few things he gave some input on, since he's an actual professional at what he does, and I'm just a DIY'er that is learning new things everyday. 
The old thread is here: http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=49651&m=888051#888051
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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i seeing you try to reply a lot to this thread JO753. Sorry about that :)
Hope it all gets ironed out.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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How about now?
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Hey! it workt!
Lets see if I can put my original reply here.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Its like walking into a brand new house - all emty space and freshness.
Kool title!
Let me get the clutter started!
Yesterday morning I posted a new KoMIK: http://www.nooalf.com/JEZUSKRas.html
I'm not religious or a country muzik fan, but I watch American Idol so had the idea for that back wen the song 1st came out.
It seemz Jezus haz a sense uv humor also, kuz he played a little joke on me yesterday afternoon.
Yesterday afternoon, I'm driving along wen a hum starts somewhere in the rolling hardware. It quickly turned to a buzz, then an angry buzz!
I keep going, hoping to at least get to my 1st destination, only a haf mile away. But the angry buzz changed to a krunchy thumping, so i had to slowly pull into the nearest parking lot & call AAA.
Thats wuts left uv the PSF outer weel bearing. If I'd tried to go any further, the weel woud hav fallen off & I woud be talking with cops.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Glad you're ok Jo. We've had a wheel fall off, it's not fun. Well, it was for about 3 seconda until you realize that the wheel surrealistically rolling along with you is YOURS, then it's gets scary, hah.
New threads is good...
Jack- about sod...I was gonna say I don't think I'd sod, unless you are willing to put major money into a back yard, 'Cause they don't usually win you points re-sale wise unless you go big. Also, it's spring now, so you can have the grass pretty quick, and you might have to put more dirt down next year if it settles more... There are good vids around for detailing what to do to get nice grass, so that'd be my bet...
I feel leery saying that, I think you'll take it as a challange TO go big, hehehe...
Glad you got a temp job, it's good to get away and get perspective. I was worried about you sucking fumes for days on end, too... And no need for thanks, I'm just hanging out where I live and it's nice to have company
Floors look awesome!
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Where andor why did the weel break off?
I've seen vehiclz with missing weelz on the side uv the road and it alwayz looks like they forgot to tien the lug nuts.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Hey JO753,
I have to laugh at that Jesus pic just because of the sheer obsurdaty of it. I'm not up on the internets speak, so I probably wouldn't get the joke even if I watched American Idol and/or listened to Country music and/or went to church.
That being said, I don't know why it's funny, but I still had to laugh when I saw it.
WOW about the wheel though man. That looks pretty nasty. Makes me think I should start wearing a seatbelt in my 16 year old Camry. You can't beat buying a vehicle that was being repo-ed for less than 2/5 of what was still owed on it, especially one that gets the long engine life and great gas mileage that Camry's do, but..... It's 16 years old. I worry about freak accidents like that everytime I'm on the expressway with it.
Sucks going through that and having to pay for repairs, but at least you're alright.
As a side note, I find it very fitting that your signature quote is from Jubal Early. Not exactly sure why, but I'm just saying
Hey Wish,
I was reading the same thing you said about the sod. I also read that up north like we are, it's actually smarter to lay seed than sod for large projects anyhow. You can always get sod for bargain basement prices if you search, but it's usually more than a day old and will be much harder to maintain until it takes. TRUE and GOOD sod that has been freshly cut can cost .50 cents a square foot where you can seed the lawn for .01 cents a square foot.
I'm definately not looking for a challenge here lol. My limitless free time window is quickly coming to a close.
I don't think it should settle much either, since what's already down (about 85% of what I needed) didn't "settle" at all over the winter. Thsi was probably because after each of 6 layers of dirt I laid down and raked, I spent about 45 minutes walking on every square inch to push it all down with my body weight. Truth be told, I probably shot myself in the foot doing that because I think it's now more compact than it needs to be and that's why I have to order more dirt before seeding now.
All that being said, I'm 99% sure I'm going the seed route. My one question to you about seeding is this... If "settling" were not a factor, which at that point I really believe that it isn't at all, how high should the level of dirt all around be in relation to the existing grass before planting seed?
That's the one piece of information I'm having a lot of trouble finding the answer for either seed or sod. Of course, you'd need less dirt if you were sodding and more if you were seeding, but nobody mentions the level it should be at..... 
Thanks about the floors. After two coats they really did look great. I blew the final coat though, and I have to do a lot of work now to fix it. The directions say to scuff sand before the final coat and then wash the floor down with either water or mineral spirits. I chose Mineral Spirits because they (I thought) evaporated much quicker than water. I didn't know until today that MS has oil in it.
Water based finishes are VERY finicky! My step dad HATES the fact that the federal government is looking to eliminate oil based finishes for the GREEN movement for this reason. He's an expert at getting a perfect finish on your furnature with oil based products, but water based finish may end up doing the same things my floors did simply because the water you drink and shower with in your own house is slightly tainted with a foreign material.
In the end, they don't look THAT bad after the 3rd coat settled and cured, but I didn't spend 600-700 bucks and 2 weeks plus of my life for "okay" looking floors.
So, on Tuesday I will be sanding the shit out of the high spots the 3rd coat created, and at my Step-Dad's suggestion I'll be washing the floors with rags and distilled water before putting the 4th coat down.
Who knows.... this could end up being a great mistake?
If I choose to rent a buffer to prep for the final coat, I would still have that buffer late enoug
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Where andor why did the weel break off?
I've seen vehiclz with missing weelz on the side uv the road and it alwayz looks like they forgot to tien the lug nuts.
Wheel bearing seized and ate though the wheel axle... We were actually on the way to get it fixed, ironically...I didn't think it was much at the time, and we didn't have much $$$ at the time, so I put it off for a week. Week too much as it turned out...
Jack, just put good light dirt until it's a smidge higher than the rest of the ground...You can always wait until the grass is up and sprinkle more light layers of dirt down if you need to, the grass will grow through pretty much anything... I just did that in my backyard, and the built up spots look ok now.
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^ posting just to see if I GET AN ERROR MESSAGE HERE TOO.... ALL CAPS, CRAP.
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Undr the KoMIK therez a link to the American Idol episode in wich Carrie duz her song, just for people who dont get the joke, Jack.
Kind uv a bummer about the finishez, but I'd rather hav a clean envirment than a shiny floor.
I'v alwayz assumed that car paint stopped lasting very long bekuz uv dangerous chemicalz being fazed out rather than Detroit forgetting how to paint.
Ate thru the spindle! That must hav required sum serious radio crankage to drown out!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Undr the KoMIK therez a link to the American Idol episode in wich Carrie duz her song, just for people who dont get the joke, Jack.
Kind uv a bummer about the finishez, but I'd rather hav a clean envirment than a shiny floor.
I'v alwayz assumed that car paint stopped lasting very long bekuz uv dangerous chemicalz being fazed out rather than Detroit forgetting how to paint.
Ate thru the spindle! That must hav required sum serious radio crankage to drown out!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I'v alwayz assumed that car paint stopped lasting very long bekuz uv dangerous chemicalz being fazed out rather than Detroit forgetting how to paint.
How very intuitive of you JO753...
That's EXACTLY what's happening.
In the end, I must admit that I belive that water based finishes as they're constructed today, are tougher than the oil based finished of yesterday.
You better be a pro if you put them down though..... and if you're not, you better be ready for fixing let-downs.
I think you've got a feel for how OCD I am about this. I can't imagine how many clueless DIY'ers have hat teh same problem but nowhere to post about it.
If a tree falls........... right?
f
I don't blame the product at all for this problem.
I blame the instructions for the problem.....
They recommended cleaning all coats beore spreading with mineral spirits, even the poly before the first coat, which would lighten the wood color significantly.
My review for this product, otherwiese, would be great. I will make it my mission to make them chan ge the steps to use "either mineral spirts or water and rags" to only use "water and rags".
Personally, I think I shouldn't have to drive 15 miles round trip to buy another gallon tomorrow.
When these awsome floors are done right, Minwax should pay me to be an example.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
I'v alwayz assumed that car paint stopped lasting very long bekuz uv dangerous chemicalz being fazed out rather than Detroit forgetting how to paint.
How very intuitive of you JO753...
That's EXACTLY what's happening.
In the end, I must admit that I belive that water based finishes as they're constructed today, are tougher than the oil based finished of yesterday.
You better be a pro if you put them down though..... and if you're not, you better be ready for fixing let-downs.
I think you've got a feel for how OCD I am about this. I can't imagine how many clueless DIY'ers have hat teh same problem but nowhere to post about it.
If a tree falls........... right?
f
I don't blame the product at all for this problem.
I blame the instructions for the problem.....
They recommended cleaning all coats beore spreading with mineral spirits, even the poly before the first coat, which would lighten the wood color significantly.
My review for this product, otherwiese, would be great. I will make it my mission to make them chan ge the steps to use "either mineral spirts or water and rags" to only use "water and rags".
Personally, I think I shouldn't have to drive 15 miles round trip to buy another gallon tomorrow.
When these awsome floors are done right, Minwax should pay me to be an example.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Ate thru the spindle! That must hav required sum serious radio crankage to drown out!
Well, I weren't the one driving it
... And it was only a light noise for a week, and then a little grind-y for a couple days...I like to stay on top of things... OTHER people, no names here, like to wait until things break and THEN fix 'em...
Got lotsa siding today...going to be busier than a puppy with two tails this summer, yay!....and ....arghhh.
No vacay 'till next year for us...
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I personally am glad you started a new thread since that old one has been around for a long time. But I don't think I'd only want recent posts on a thread to show up, maybe if you could choose for yourself with settings, but not by default.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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All the modern forum software limits the number uv posts per page & starts another page for the topic. The Skeptic's Society, for example goes to 40. I put the 'Active Topics' page in my favez. This makes it eazy to get to the latest posts.
My fave forum in termz uv the software, or platform I think its called, iz The Infinity Program. They recently swicht to xenforo, and its like an expensive luxery car vs a Chevette compared to this.
A few yirz ago sumwun started a Firefly topic there: http://theinfinityprogram.com/index.php?threads/best-tv-show-ever.4000/
Sumwun frum here, I suspect?
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Ye, thats you, Wishy!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
I personally am glad you started a new thread since that old one has been around for a long time. But I don't think I'd only want recent posts on a thread to show up, maybe if you could choose for yourself with settings, but not by default.
Hey Riona,
I agree completely with the ability to choose.
I don't want to name the site, because I don't want the heavy involvement I had in a 4 year project to overlap with what's going on here, but the site I had allowed the user the choice.
The thread could theoretically go on forever, and we tested that with thousands of posts and over 1/2 a million views, but there you had the ability to view 10, 25, 50 or 100 posts. If you clicked on the thread itself, you'd see the first 100 and could move forward, and if you clicked on the last post you'd see the last 100 and move backward. (There wasn't an option to view ALL posts, but then again, rarely did a thread there ever have more than 100 posts so it was mostly a non-issue for everybody else).
I'd be in the minority there to complain about it, but because I had so much on my plate and some nights I would remember an idea somebody mentioned 6 months back that I finally had time to try to implement I either had to post a question to repeat the full idea, or I'd have to use the search feature over and over again on each page of 100 posts while I went back and forth around the time I believed the post was made.
Anyway, I'm glad there's a new thread now too. The old one was taking ages to load with all of those pictures that were posted.
(Note to anyone interested, they can look at the first post of this thread and see the link for the original thread :))
In home improvement news, things have been going GREAT the last two days!
I scuff sanded the contaminated 3rd coat, much more vigorously than I would have a good coat, and washed the floor twice with water and a Quickie dry mop. After giving it 15 minutes to truly dry, I wasn't happy with the overall results (I sanded so much poly off this time, that even two rounds with the mop left marks that needed to be remedied).
I took two old socks and wore them inside-out on my hands and, on my hands and knees for every inch of the floor I did the "Mr. Miagi wax-on, wax-off" technique to make everything sparkle. (That's a special note to money saving apprentices there. I could have used the $5.00 set of 2 microfiber rags to do the same thing, but used socks inside out are the exact same idea, and you get the benefit of being able to "wear" them on your hands so they don't slide around).
So.... I put on my 4th coat of Minwax Water Based Polyurethane for Floors today and saw NO separation as I was laying it down.
5 hours later I was able to walk on it with socks and there are only two small spots where it was originally the worst that you can still see some minor divots. Otherwise the floor is PERFECT! Thankfully, these spots are in the very middle of both bedrooms where you'd most likely have an area rug anyhow.
I had my bro and his wife, and my Dad and Stepmom over last night and they didn't even know why I wanted to re-do the floor one final coat. I guess to the casual person they were already perfect.... Me, with my OCD about this stuff, and my Stepdad with his woodworking trade thought it was absolutely necessary to fix it.
When I told my Dad it cost me about double to fix it on my own, not to mention all the days of work (at a $650 price tag), he said that the Pergo (fake, unfixable wood flooring) he had installed (just)in his kitchen alone cost $3,000 (about 10 years ago). And I got my cheapness (ahem.... frugality), from him.
Meesa smiles!
It was so cool having them over last night for pizza. I finished the enclosed porch by finally cutting the carpet that used to be in the Master Bedroom to size and securing it around the door thresholds, and I fixed the ceiling fan and spent about 1 1/2 hours cleaning all the dirt, grime and nicotine off of it
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Ugggghhhh.....
Weird thing happened today on the job front. My supposed 28 hr/wk, 5 week temp job may actually be an 87.5 hr/wk, 5 week temp job. Instead of working 5:30AM to 12:30PM, Mon-Thurs, it may be 5:30AM to 6:30PM, 7 days a week.
I found it funny that when the client was asking us if we had any questions that I was the only one to ask about the drastic change of hours, given that our temp manager was there. LOL... I don't think this drastic change even dawned on him until I spoke up about it. (He was making quite a few cell phone calls for the next 15 minutes on the DL after this new information presented itself).
At first I thought this was a deal breaker if they didn't honor my original scheduled hours, but I didn't say anything. After going home and doing the math, I've decided that I will agree to work 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, minus lunches, as long as overtime is 150%. Hell... that's nearly $5,400 after 5 weeks, even making this meager hourly wage with no benefits. I could put 3 months extra work into the house with an 800 dollar budget on home improvement a month without even tapping the reserves when that is done
Geeze....
Give me a job like this 4 times a year, and I could have 32 weeks a year doing home improvement and still watching my bank account grow.....
Two more things I plan on getting done tomorrow. I will be putting a 5th and FINAL coat of poly on the hardwood upstairs to make it perfect (No reason not to now, since I won't be moving furniture back upstairs for the next 5 weeks, and I still have 3/4 a gallon that would otherwise go to waste). I will also be primering the kitchen walls which should be completely prepped for primer by the time I'm done putting the poly down.
(Hehe wish..... Guess you can drink again, I said "primer")
Then, on Saturday and Sunday, before 455 hours of work and 24 hours of round trip driving time in 5 weeks, Jack finally rested.....
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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I've alwayz considered overtime to be evidence for management nincompoopery. Especially exesive overtime.
Sumtimez circumstancez arize, so overtime iz not proof that the boss iz an idiot, but wen its happening all the time, DU! Hire more peeple, gorramit!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Sure thing Jubal....
if I was somebody else with obligations or dates to meet, I'd likely tell them to "F" off like most of the other 9 candidates will.
I'm going to try to not only get the OT tomorrow, but get a few bucks more an hour to save their face.
They're "F-to-the-U-to-the-C-to-the-K'd" here.....
Maybe I can make an extra 2 grand here for being a reliable team player here?
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If you want the money, I gess its not so bad.
Maybe thats part uv the reazon I'm alwayz poor. I'd rather keep my time than sell it.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I'm with you completely on the selling your time bit, J. I've worked really hard to get myself into a position where I don't have to work a job I don't want to. I'm not there quite yet, but when the house is rehabbed to my liking, I could probably work 20 hours a week at Family Video if I wanted to. (I'd like to think that when the house is finally done though, that I could transfer some of that ambition to more fruitful pursuits than that).
The life of a minimalist is pretty damn sweet, once you've set yourself up in a way where you can enjoy it. I'm almost there.
It's not as if I'd be working that crazy schedule for long, it would have only been 4 to 5 weeks, and all that insane overtime pay would have freed up easily another 3 or 4 months of working for myself on the house...
But, alas... I got too excited too early. They had it all figured out. I guess we had enough people where it only took adding two others who will go through orientation next week and we will all be working 40 hours or less, except for the two people who will be "rewarded" with a few hours overtime by being "floaters" that have a few nights and a few days every week. I have bad enough insomnia as it is. No way I'm doing that to myself for a few extra bucks.
I got a better schedule than I had originally though, so it's not all bad news. Instead of the 4 day a week 28 hour job, it's become a 3 day a week 36 hour job. I just secured a painting gig that I can do on my off days starting on the 11th too, so it will be nice to finally be adding funds to the accounts for the first of nearly 8 months living here.
It was too wet outside to try to do any floor stuff today. I needed to mud a 3rd coat on a lot of spots in the kitchen too, so no primer today. So... not a lot got done, but that's okay because I felt like crap. This colder rainy weather really brought out the joint pain, and it didn't help that I've been beating myself up trying to remove a tree stump from my yard. I easily spent 2 1/2 hours on it yesterday, using a hand axe as a chisel and hitting it with a hand-held mini-sledge hammer. Sometimes I forget that I'm going on 33 and that even though it doesn't hurt while I'm doing it, it KILLS when I wake up in the morning.
On the bright side, I have the best tan I've ever had in mid-March in my life.
Anybody here know about removing tree stumps?
I used the stump killer, but apparently I didn't wait long enough since a lot of that stump is still alive. The dead stuff comes right out but the live stuff is murder. Originally the stump was probably 6"-7" out of the ground. The hole is now about 5"-6" deep. I'm just wondering if I can fill the hole with clay and put some top-soil on it, seed it, and call it a day.
I REEEEEEEEAAAAAALLLLLLYYYYYYY hope I don't have to spend another two days trying to remove everything before I soil over it.
Plus, since I have a corner lot, people like to cut across my lawn. The hole is pretty damn invisible until you're right by it, and the last thing I need at the moment is a lawsuit because somebody broke their ankle falling into it.
THANKS!!!!
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Anybody here know about removing tree stumps?
Actually yes, but I don't think you'd want me to do it for ya...
Mind you it wouldn't be that extreme, more of a loud thump cause I'd use distributed low order to chunk it into easily removable (via shovel and hand) pieces in place rather than blow it clean, or barring that just blow under it to clear the roots and then wrench her out with a tow chain and a truck...
But yeah folks get snippy when you do that in an urban area, and rightfully so mosta the time cause less-professional folks tend not to account for stuff which might also be down there like plumbing, electrical or gas lines - which I'd have mapped out and specced before so much as even taking hand to a shovel.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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That looks like the eazy way to do it! Literally blows away my tweezerz & nail-file method!
That soundz like a way better skedual, 6. Less commutes and more owrz.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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We cut strips out with a chainsaw verticaly,(hollow in da middle) then put a steel fire ring over pieces and had a three day long cookout... But we can do that here...
I've been told the new guys on the police force come by here every once a decade to tell people not to burn leaves or whatnot, and they just laugh and say "Soon as you tell me where I should take 'em, officer."
Nearest dump like that is in the next county...
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Holy shit Frem, that video was AWESOME!
I think I'd probably be arrested for doing that on my property in these parts, even if there wasn't a large easement on my land for the gas pipes underneath (Why I'm not getting paid monthly for mowing their grass is a mystery that doesn't need solving).
I got it as deep as I'm going to get it (about 5") and I just filled it in today rather than risk a lawsuit for a broken ankle. I'll plant some seed soon and when it inevitably becomes a sinkhole I'll deal with it then.
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
We cut strips out with a chainsaw verticaly,(hollow in da middle) then put a steel fire ring over pieces and had a three day long cookout... But we can do that here...
I've been told the new guys on the police force come by here every once a decade to tell people not to burn leaves or whatnot, and they just laugh and say "Soon as you tell me where I should take 'em, officer."
Nearest dump like that is in the next county...
Hey Wish,
Yeah... I don't have a chainsaw, but that would be nice. I wanted to use my Skilsaw, but I don't have any electric close to the hole and when I tried to use my jumper box for my car it fried the A/C component of it. (SHIT!)
It seemed like a good idea at the time.....
I'd seen that somebody else recommened the burning as well online, but that it might take 3 or so days for it to go out. I didn't think it would be safe and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't allow that here. It's Indiana, yes, but aside from all the awesome tax benefits being an Indiana resident brings, I may as well be living in the Chicago suburbs otherwise. I've got a White Castle, Pizza Hut, Wendy's and Little Caesar's all within walking distance of me.
NEW PICS!!!!!
Kitchen upgrade..... not a full rehab, mind you, as I'm perfectly happy with everything about the kitchen at the moment besides what NEEDED to be done. The only other thing I'd love to do soon would be to put ceramic tile on the floor, but since I plan on making the 3 season porch behind the door a full diningroom with insulation and ductwork down the road, I don't want to lay tile down in case I want to extend the same tile into the dining room down the road.... so I'm stuck with that for the moment.
Hideous! Right?
I couldn't believe my luck when I figured out that those white/orange/black stripes were actually painted on and not wallpaper. I can't imagine that anyone would have ever gone to the trouble it took to do that horrible design, but I have to give them credit for the effort put into it.
Honestly, why would ANYONE think this border was a good idea? It wasn't a "moment of passion" thing either.... given the extensive work on the wall painting and the diagonal chessboard floors, this was without a doubt pre-meditated.
These creepy chefs had been eyeballing me for 7 months until I ripped them all down last week.
A view of the walls and soffit without the Chefs, and seeing that the color only went about 4" under the ceiling line, more proof that this was all premeditated.
Interesting pic here. Not only to you get to see the hideous wall painting, but an almost equally hideous wrought iron segway into my mold-free basement with it's sparkly white painted studs and the ceramic tiles which are in perfect condition, and the single cosmetic upgrade to the basement that withstood the floods from the previous owners.
AFTER TWO COATS OF PRIMER:
Still got a little bit of visible bleedthrough going on, but nothing a coat of BM can't cover.
It's amazing how much you finally notice just what a hap-hazard painting job the previous
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Okay, random ramblings time...
You mentioned elsewhere the Princess Maker series, which everyone seems to have a slightly warped concept of, prolly due to folk deliberately trying to push buttons or take things out of context, in fact they're more parenting sim than anything else, and not shy about dropping the guilt trip on the player for screwing up, neither.
That said, next time you've got some time on your hands you might check out SynthOrange's deliberate attempts to "create a monster" via Princess Maker2 - there WAS an english beta of that one about 95% complete before being abandoned and anyone who understands the code can patch the rest up themselves and have a mostly complete game, so one of the GoonSwarm/SomethingAwful folks, that being SynthOrange, decided to do a lets-play walkthrough AIMING to create an epic disaster...
The unofficial slang for this is pulling a "boatmurdered" (google it) after a truly, truly, go-down-in-history/infamy lets-play gone so horribly wrong of Dwarf Fortress.
Anyhow, here is - for your twisted amusement, SynthOranges wacked out lets-play of Princess Maker 2.
http://lparchive.org/Princess-Maker-2/
Save this for a boring day when you're waiting for paint to dry or something, it's lengthy but quite entertaining...
What's ironic about it is that while there was a discussion/review at another now-defunct site I used to do game/anime reviews for - in which some of them were whinging about the supposed difficulty of the game and the gauntlet was thrown - "Let's see YOU do any better!"
Mind you said site operators were unaware of my advocacy work, so this falls under askin-for-it, really.
So - from get, a no-save, no-research playthrough, and what happens ?
General of the Realm.
(I even still have the proof!)
Molly "Ironhands" Khallinenda.
Seriously, you think I'd not START with self-defense ? *laugh*
Of course, that particular site imploded soon after, not only was there a certain lack of objectivity amongst some of the reviewers, one of which we highly suspected was a corporate shill all along, it all came to hell when I caught some of them out throwing bad reviews at, and flaming, a series they DIDN'T EVEN read/watch - it's a very controversial one I'll not name, but instead of being objective they chose to follow the crowd and flame - something that seriously pissed me off cause it was a delicate and problematic topic, and yet despite the publisher trying to spin it one way, it really did address certain social problems and more importantly WHY THEY HAPPEN, which no one else did.
The resulting fallout more or less obliterated the site, alas.
Anyhows, it's always worth asking someone who's actually seen-read-played something before accepting the word of folks who'll flame something just cause someone else flamed it.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Hey Frem,
Your girl certainly turned out to be a lot more respectable than most pictures I've seen of the series or stories I've heard about it. I didn't realize that there was actually a "good" way to play the game before. Until you posted otherwise, I just thought it was soft-core Hentai for hard-core sexually deranged guys where were way too old to be playing a game with that theme. (Yes, I admit, I was influenced by other people talking about it online entirely, since I've never played it and I've never personally known anyone who has played it).
On the darker side of the game, I suppose it's good that there are things like this out there to keep the creeps busy with their virtual girls, rather than try any of what they would there in real life. Who am I to judge? When I play GTA I kill a bagillion cops.... I hijacked a tank once and drove around for about two hours smashing through fed vehicles.
When I played Fable the first time, I probably spent way too much time beating up the other kids and kicking chickens as far as I could in the very first part because the NPC's character's reactions were so funny. I'd never played a game before that where the AI's reaction to idiocy was as spot on. By the end of the game, I had more "Guard" kills than any other person or beast killable in the game. My bro had to laugh at that, since although many times that and the stealing and breaking and entering made the game tons easier for me than his playthrough, he had exactly 0 kills on guards the entire time he played. (In the end, I would up winning the game as a saint anyhow, because I had so much money that I bribed the hell out of the church and bought my way into heaven even though you could call my playthru genocide)
Negative reinforcement is what you need in games not to be a bad guy. I learned my lesson in Oblivion. After putting about 60 hours into that game there was a lot of great stuff I wasn't ever privy to because of my evil deeds along the way. I assume Skyrim took that to the next level, but I swear to NEVER play that, because I hear that it's an OCD'ers wet dream. I could probably lose 3 straight months of my life if I ever put that disk in the machine.
As for some quotes in the site you provided....
I don't know what's funnier......
"Ow, GODDAMN! Did you just stab me in the face for no 
reason? I was just going shopping!
In full armour?
Because shit like this keeps happening all the time.
In retrospect, stabbing little girls might not be such a viable career path."
OR
"Hello, little girl. Want to come over to my place?
I dunno... you're really kind of creepy.
I'll give you money.
Yippee!"
I know there is a lot more context to those conversations, but you can see Frem, how it would be very easy to use a few "sound bytes" to crush the rep of any otherwise upstanding citizen who played such a potentially controversial game.
I got the kitchen totally painted today. It looks clean and no more evidence of the stripes anymore. AWESOME.
Here's hoping that tomorrow I can finally get the last coat of poly on the 2nd floor hardwood. It should FINALLY be a low enough humidity level for me to mess with it.
The security firm called me today and left me a voicemail asking if I'd come to their place and pick up a badge with my ID number before starting work on Friday (for a part time job that only lasts a month). I won't call them back on it. If they call me again tomorrow, I will give them an ultimatum. I'll drive there to pick up the badge if they give me 2 hours pay to do it. I was there JUST THREE DAYS AGO to pick up the hard-hat and goggles they weren't aware we needed. It's a 25 mile round trip and over an hour of my time whenever I have to needlessly drive there. They're SOOOOOOOO clueless and unorganized.
Short of that solution, they could just give my badge to one of the other morons who actually drive back there to get their badge and they can leave it at the client's site for me to pick up on my
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Stumps: When my granddad was a little boy in the 30s, they had a stump on their property that they needed to get rid of. So he wandered down to the corner store to pick up some dynamite to use, yes you could do that back then and it wasn't a big thing. So his dad lit it etc. and BOOM! The stump flew up in the air and landed on the roof of their little house. :) So now they had to figure out what to do with a stump on the roof instead of a stump in the ground.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise
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Feh, most gamers are perverse, at least in spirit, like we don't know this ?
Hell, I think most PEOPLE are, witness the unholy glory of the internet, and just how much of it is devoted to porn - not that there's anything wrong with that, but people as a rule are all about the humpin, whether they admit it or not...
That said - yeah they deliberately spin it all out of context to make it look worse than it is too, there's a lot of "artistic license" goin on in SynthOranges LP, obviously.
And yeah I know where you're coming from, why you think I didn't actually name the series those morons flamed without actually reading or watching ?
It doesn't help that the publisher more or less tries to market it in that kinda context either.
*eyeroll*
That said, it does delve into a critical social problem, and what the root causes and damaging pyschological, social, and legal impacts are, but that's often left by the wayside - why is it nobody ever wonders WHY young girls become sexually aggressive, they ain't born that way, and without SOME example of a Male/Authority who's approval is NOT linked to sexual conduct, what do people think they're gonna learn from society - over here, OR over there - and it sure ain't helped by fathers being afraid to so much as hug their kid for fear of being accused of something, which just feeds the damn cycle.
*sigh*
But, of course, no one wants to talk about it...
Ain't the first time I've handled THAT problem, believe it - all in good time.
Annnnyhows,
Of course I am quite, quite fond of GTA: San Andreas - my primary stress relief is to load it up, go downtown and perform seriously EPIC sprees of carnage and destruction, you know, those days when ya just wanna kill evvvverybody, and it's nice to get it out of your system before the rage spills over onto some poor schmuck in the real world who may or may not have it coming...
I could never much get into Fable, but I did rather enjoy that townsfolk would scream and flee from my very presence, as a villain by nature for me that's positive reinforcement!
*laughs*
Yeah, Skyrim - too much to DO, and that whole real-life thing to handle, I liked Fallout3 better though.
Just something about blasting someone with an AK suits me better than hackin em up with an axe, I guess.
Of course, something fun that DOESN'T take up a huge amount of time is Overlord - it's available on all three major consoles and PC, and it's a fun enough game, with a script written by Terry Pratchets daughter, all the fun of being a big bad, hilarious evil minions, emo hippy elves, and hey, a mistress - what's not to like ? 
Far as real employment goes - ever think of contract security ?
It's what I do, and one dubious benefit is that as the economy tanks we become MORE valuable and in demand - if you pick your contracts right it's a slackers dream too, since doin the job right is easy so long as you have the self-discipline to not bollocks it completely, which you do, and after a while once you develop the reflexes and feel for it you can actually do the whole job on a sort of mental autopilot, so it's almost like free money, and (depending on the contract) a bit of useful exercise as well.
Plus, I suspect that much like me, that 2-5% of the time you DO actually have to do anything, you'll cope well enough if not actually enjoy the challenge - most of the folks who fail at that are buck passers with no initiative who aren't willing or able to adapt to the situation and sit around waiting for someone to tell em what to do...
-Frem
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Hi Frem, don't you reckon that some girls, or boys, are sexually aggressive by nature/its just how their physicality works, because I do reckon it. But I think our society allowing it and not functioning well makes the problem more common and worse.
I think if someone's killing on videogames meets a need they have and they're thus able to behave reasonably in real life then by all means they can shoot 'em up on videogames. Because I'd rather they do that then harm anyone real.
I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise
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Looks like there wuz a real artist living there befor!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Hey Frem,
"Most gamers are perverse"
LOL.... True Dat!
I remember playing mini-golf with my GF and some friends back in 1999-2000 and we played some arcades afterward. I pretty much just played whatever Kim wanted to play. She decided that "Killer Instinct" would be a fun time, and I swear the thought of letting her character "B Orchid" kick my ass was more arousing than letting Kim beat my ass....
We had a LOT of fun later that night, but I was mostly fantasizing her with big B Orchid boobs and wearing that green/yellow outfit the whole time. Don't get me wrong, she was a beautiful girl, especially if you're into the Kate Moss type.
But anyways, I think you hit the nail on the head more precise when you said "most PEOPLE are".... although I can only speak from the Male point of view.
In general, I think that's why it will hit Women the hardest when 3D TVs and computers and whatever other stimulating things come down the pipe in the next 15 years become the norm. Women definitely have much more of a need of emotional attachment than men do to survive.
It's really scary for all of us when you think about the potential ramifications of that fact and the fact that technology is making such huge leaps and bounds. Hell... half of the things that were "Science Fiction" when I was a kid in the early 80s have become "Science Fact" today.
Anyway, thanks for opening my mind about PM. I probably still won't have the urge to play it, especially since I've been way to busy to play any games of late (and I still am only halfway through Fallout 3 before my XBox 360 died by some miracle). I prefer to keep an open mind about things, and your endorsement of the game as something other than I've always seen it painted as makes me not believe the Hype.
Short points.....
GTA - Awesome! Get out all of your frustrations on game AI so you can better deal with real life assholes after the fact.
Fable - Practically soft-core porn for old school Final Fantasy fans who love GTA. Complete freedom. Be as evil as you want to be 99% of the game, and before the end of the game because of all of those evil deeds you'll have more money than God, so it's easy to buy your way into heaven and finish the game with a halo and butterflies surrounding your bald dome instead of horns and flies if you want to be the good guy at last minute.
Skyrim - Nope.... never going to play it.......
I swore I'd never play WOW because it was "neverending" and it's kind of scary that even non-online games are starting to seem that they can become that way when you consider downloadable content after the fact.
I'm SSSSSSOOOOOO glad the XBox 360 my bro gave me broke. I'm stuck now with a PS2, XBOX1 and everything before it. None of them tempt me like the new games do. As long as I don't buy the system, I don't know what I'm missing
About employment, what do you mean by "contract security"?
I'm actually working at a security firm that is giving me a temp job for 4-5 weeks. So far IT SUCKS!!! I've put over 150 miles on my car between going to their office 4 times and going to a client site one time (all for minimum wage, not the slightly above minimum wage they'll be paying for the actual security work and I'm not including driving time or payment for gas driving). Also, my schedule has been changed 4 times in the last two weeks before my work starts on Friday as well. They're a freaking joke.
Totally not intending to sound racist here, but I'm the ONLY white guy there, out of 12 hire-es... but on top of that, 3 of them are old enough to retire. Everyone is older to MUCH-older than me, a majority of them are women, and only of of them is even remotely close to me in age and physical shape.
When I asked a representative of the client that if we were on detail to check lunchboxes and tool boxes to make sure that nobody was stealing any tools this simple question "how do we differentiate the tools they brought on site from the company's tools", he was baffled. All he could sa
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No! I'm serious!
Not that I like the cozy local diner style, but matching the floor with detailz in the border, drunk french chefs, a floor level opening to the basement with a wrought iron fence?! Thats not your typical cookie cutter kichen decor there, thats the product uv true inspiration! John Waters woud despize you for removing it.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Quote:
We had a LOT of fun later that night, but I was mostly fantasizing her with big B Orchid boobs and wearing that green/yellow outfit the whole time. Don't get me wrong, she was a beautiful girl, especially if you're into the Kate Moss type.
Oh that's HI-larious... see, I used to play Killer Instinct, and got so good at it NOBODY but Alec (who mostly played Glacius) would even try to take me on, and what char did I play ?
B Orchid.
Even funnier you mentioned the boobs - she can KILL you with them, you know.
Seriously.
Now THAT is a lethal set of "guns", heh.
Saved that for easier fights though, it's tricky to pull off and usually they went down via the 36-41 hit Ultra Combo - that sound bite still makes me chuckle "ULTRA, ultra, ultra....".
Quote:
It's really scary for all of us when you think about the potential ramifications of that fact and the fact that technology is making such huge leaps and bounds. Hell... half of the things that were "Science Fiction" when I was a kid in the early 80s have become "Science Fact" today.
Yeah, kinda cool and scary at the same time - I still want a McNugget tree, hehehe.
When I think of where Tech and Society is goin, more and more I start thinkin Transmetropolitan.
Quote:
Anyway, thanks for opening my mind about PM. I probably still won't have the urge to play it, especially since I've been way to busy to play any games of late (and I still am only halfway through Fallout 3 before my XBox 360 died by some miracle). I prefer to keep an open mind about things, and your endorsement of the game as something other than I've always seen it painted as makes me not believe the Hype.
Actually it'd prolly bore you half to death, hell *I* found it boring, not my kinda game, but I had a point to prove...
I do have a recommendation for your XBOX1 though, Test Drive: Eve of Destruction. - it's a VERY cornball, old school racing game based around Demo Derbies, Smash Racing, and the lunatic stuff (chain races, gauntlet runs) that they do at the Smashfests out in hillbilly country.
Bear in mind I used to do this stuff once in a while for real - so did my mom, who back in her youth was the county demo derby champion for three years straight, hell, I even ran a derby once in a friggin YUGO, and scored top-ten!
(Eighth Place, but still, with a Yugo!)
As for online games, I play some off and on, when I have time - I am quite fond of World of Tanks, and extremely deadly with the german beginner tank, like, wax half the other TEAM kind of deadly.
The big tanks are nice but mostly the players in those matches are gutless cause of the big repair bills, so that kills a lot of the fun factor.
As for Contract Security, well - the quality of the work and the people doing it varies greatly, and believe me from your description you're scraping the bottom of the barrel there, some company on their last legs who'll take any contract they can get, and throw untrained bodies at it, yeah, that's bad.
And as is typical they're real halfass about it too ain't they ?
Stay AWAY FROM: Wackenhut now known as Group4Securicor aka G4S, and Pinkertons, who are complete scum.
But there's a bunch to choose from, and one cool thing is that if you can find a contract they're servicing in your area, even if their office is far away you only have to go there maybe once or twice, and can handle the rest via fax and phone.
I went back into security after Engler killed the local cab business by handing the scummiest company in the state a no-bid exclusive airport contract on his way out as part of his epic sabotage when he was pitched out on his ear and threw a temper tantrum in response - by the time the legalities were sorted and that was undone, between that and fuel prices the local cab biz was obliterated.
And last year some of my people got fed up with my refusal to take contracts with or work for DepHomeSec or TSA, cause that's where all the money is,
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Interesting glimpse into a world I know nothing about, Frem.
Everything I knew about security work befor that wuz frum Walter Sobchak & the guy who fell asleeep kuz George Castanza gave him a chair!
How old are thoze gamez you guyz are talking about? Looks like early 90z.
My 2 fave gamez are Asteroidz Deluxe and Simpsonz Hit & Run. I've also played alot uv Gravitar and Unreal.
Back in the 80z me & my brother used to get 10 buks in quarterz at the 7-11 and play Asteroidz Deluxe for an hour or 2.
Sum yirz later we'd play at arcadez, then we found a place called Empire that sold used gamez that woud let you play for free.
Eventually, we had Asteroids Deluxe and Gravitar in our basement and played till our fingerz hurt.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Haha.....
B Orchid's Boobs are definitely Lethal :)
I loved how KI2 came out she looked suspiciously like Paula Abdul, who I had a hard crush on when I was 11-12 in Jr. High.
I was never any good at fighting games though. I could beat the 1 player stuff just fine, but if I ever went to the arcades and played my friend Doug at any of the Mortal Kombat games he would whoop my ass every single time no matter who he played with. By that time, I had spent too many years on "the bench" playing console and PC RPGs that dull your senses. When I was a little kid standing on a milk crate to play games, the teenagers would crowd around and watch me play Pac-Man, Centipede, and later Pyros (aka Wardner) and Pac-Land. I was like the "Pinball Wizard" of arcade games when I was 3 feet tall.
Haha.... McNugget tree....
I'm still waiting for the Tendercrisp Bacon Chedder Ranch Breast tree that Hootie promised us.
Not a big racer fan though. The last good racing game I played and enjoyed was Rock n Roll Racing....
Awesome soundtrack for the 16 bit era, yes, but the game play was spot on. Back then, the only 4-player SNES game that could compete with it for a pizza and mountain dew filled sleep over was Bomberman.
As far as security Frem... I was wondering if you could tell me your top 5 best and worst firms. I'll let you know in a PM if I'm in the worst, which I can only assume I'm in.
The 3 you mentioned I've never heard of, although I laughed at the Pinkertons, just because they were the only A-Holes that Al Swearengen from Deadwood was scared of.
Of course, I'm not looking to sell my soul here. I'll work at Cousin's subs for minimum wage and still pay the bills if it came to that. :)
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
No! I'm serious!
Not that I like the cozy local diner style, but matching the floor with detailz in the border, drunk french chefs, a floor level opening to the basement with a wrought iron fence?! Thats not your typical cookie cutter kichen decor there, thats the product uv true inspiration! John Waters woud despize you for removing it.
LOL... not sure who John Waters is, but if he would have loved it so much I should have looked him up to sell him the house as-is after I got the mold out
I do agree that a kitchen should be something special, and I hope to turn my 3-season porch into a full fledged extra room in the house to have a dining room and a full double-wide entry between the two that has no door. This will probably be WAY down the road though. I just HAD to get that beat up nasty wall out of my kitchen. Sorry man. Blank white for me right now is so much better than what they did. I said I respected their vision and the effort, but the kitchen looks twice as big now when I don't see "bars" everywhere.... so much black and orange and bars.... every trip into the kitchen was like watching an episode of Oz on Showtime. Yes, the episodes where guys lovingly kissed one another.
Haha! George gave him the chair! I always love a Seinfeld reference. It's even funnier when you think about how it was probably his second job and that once his wife found out he was fired he wished that he was literally given the chair instead of figuratively....
Yup... most of those games are early 90's
Good call
I never played Asteroids Deluxe or Simpson's Hit and Run. I played Blasteroids on the arcade, which was like the 1992 awesome update to the franchise, and I played the shit of out the Nintendo Bart Simpson vs the Space Mutants.
Awesome on you for having two arcades in your basement!!!
My first project after all the necessary house stuff is done is to build my own M.A.M.E. Cabinet.
M.A.M.E. (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator)
I have an XBox now with over 5,000 arcades from 1972 (yes, they actually went back that far) to the early 1990s (yes, the Turtles and Simpson's games are included).
It also plays about 10,000 other console games spanning from Odyssey 2 and Atari 2600, all the way up to SNES, Genesis and PS1. Not to mention all the hand-held games in between, as well as loads of PC games.
My goal is to build my own cabinet, with my own tools, and put in several monitors so if 4 people were playing a game like X-Men on arcade, it would be as badass as it was when I was 13 and there was 4 monitors covering the fun!
That will be a thread of it's own though, at another time and date :)
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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WOW!
Soundz like you plan on sitting down in frunt uv your console at about 35y.o. & get up to take a leek wen youre 90!
I blew about a year on Simpsonz H&R. My old pal Tim woud come over & we'd compete to see who coud elude the cops the most timez in a row. An entire Saturday GON!
John Waters iz the guy who makes thoze weird low bujet bad taste moviez. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000691/bio
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Actually Jo - you should get yourself a copy of MAME32 - it's an arcade motherboard emulator which runs on PC, I have it, and I have something like six hundred original arcade ROMS for it, some downloaded straight off the chips of wrecked or discarded machines.
And I have ALL the old-school games, from Asteriods to Zaxxon, man if you liked Asteroids Deluxe you'd get a big charge out of Space Duel.
Gyruss is awesome too, always was.
And yes, I remember the "Glory Days" of Arcade Gaming, when a good player would draw a crowd and there was a certain respect for those virtual gunslingers, unlike today - back then they'd give you room, shut the hell up, yanno ?
Gotta remember I been playin the bloody things since they were invented, even consoles, starting with the Coleco Telstar, then grammas channel-F, and finally the Sears model Atari 2600... and on from there.
My gramma was about the only one who COULD whup my ass, man she had the physics of COMBAT on the 2600 down pat and could nail you from any freaking angle in one shot.
One of my favorite taunts is "I been doin this longer than you been alive, kid!" - that was especially galling to a certain pair of brats when I beat BOTH their AREA51 High Scores simultaneously, being ambidextrous, I used to pump a dollar in the machine and play both guns, one in each hand, heheh.
And Rock-N-Roll Racing ?
HELL. FREAKIN. YES!
That's STILL my favorite SNES game, hands down, I tore hell up with Kat - not only could I pull off corner-shorting jumps, I could use the shoulder buttons to snap-slide and fire missle salvos at you from anywhere on the track - I usually stuck with the Battletrax to the very end cause of that, since the Hovercrafts beam weapon kinda sucked.
As for companies, there's so many I couldn't really tell ya, but ole Crackenhut is and always has been the bottom of the barrel, and the other baddies, DynCorp, Triple Canopy and Blackwater went paramilitary, and then ya got Pinkertons...
There's a SPECIAL kinda hate between me and them - see my ancestors was UMWA and IWW, original old-school union legbreakers back when being union was near a death sentence, and Baldwin-Felts and Pinkertons were WHY that was the case, hired goon strikebreakers and infiltrators, not to mention downright dirty murdering bastards, the lot of em.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_spies
Seriously, real scum of the worst order, and here's a bit of history you may not know - the US Dept of Justice was originally so understaffed and funded that the Gov contracted it out to the Pinkertons, who continued their reign of terror from under Government auspices (since the Gov has pretty much always been suckin Corporate schlong..) and this continued till EVERYONE got fed up and eventually passed the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893.
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The Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 (5 USC 3108) prohibited the US Government from using employees of the Pinkerton Detective Agency or similar companies as strikebreakers. In 1977, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted this statute to prohibit the U.S. Government's employment of companies that offer "mercenary, quasi-military forces as strikebreakers and armed guards" for hire. United States ex rel. Weinberger v. Equifax, 557 F.2d 456, 462 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1035 (1978). A DoD interim rule effective 16 June 2006 revises DoD Instruction 3020.41 to authorize contractor personnel other than private security contractor personnel to use deadly force against enemy armed forces only in self-defense.
Bear in mind that Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp, as well as all the other PMC goons, are in violation of this in both spirit and fact, but nobody else seems to care.
Of course, ya don't have to worry about Baldwin-Felts no more, thanks in great part to one of my ancestors by the name of Sid Hatfield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan
He was outright murdered on the courthouse steps in retaliation for this, with nary a blink nor a shrug from the forces of law and order, which eventually
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Lots uv amazing info!
I played Space Duel alot at Empire, but didnt like it az much az Asteroidz D and Gravitar.
I'm the only person I know who finished Gravitar - past invizable ground negative gravity! My hi score wuz over 850,000, wich iz sumwer near the end uv the game for the second time.
I have the Atari Annaversary Edtion game pack for PC, but never really played any uv the other gamez.
Anybody who callz themself a libertarian iz an idealistic ignoramus. Therez a mountain uv history that provez corporationz run amok wen given too much freedom. The union busting storiez are evidence enuff, but therez also the persistent tendency to attack the environment, injure & poizon their employeez and cheat the customerz any way they can.
Ron Paul soundz good for about 30 secondz, but hiz schtick fallz apart with a few 'wut if' or 'wut about wen' questionz. The only reazon he'z still able to stay in the race at all iz bekuz the other contenderz are clownz that keep tripping over their own contradictionz and hypocrisy.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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I NEED ADVICE!!!!
I just got wind last night that the casino security gig I applied for (a $9.50/hr with limited benefits job) is apparently too much for me to handle.
Thank you for your interest in the Security Officer position. ****** takes great pride in matching each candidate's background and interests with available opportunities and we are continually impressed by the caliber of our candidates.
Unfortunately, after careful consideration of your qualifications, you were not selected for this position at this property.
WTF?????? Really?
Without even giving me a job interview?
I know my previous employment history, spanning many other types of work, doesn't show any security history... but I worked my first 12 hour security gig today. How hard is it to stand around doing nothing but wearing a uniform while trying not to drool on yourself or fall asleep??????
Of all of my denials so far, this one particularly bothers me, because there was no cover letter or pre-screening test involved. The only three things involved of any relevance were my resume, previous salaries, and ticking off those fatal boxes saying that I'm a "white" "male".
At least give me an interview before you tell me that you don't like me. Short of that, please tell me what the hell I'm doing wrong that I'm vetted out constantly before even being invited for an interview. I can't help that I'm a white male, but maybe there is a 3rd thing that is keeping me from being hireable.
My only other thought is because I've been honest about my previous salary, and my lack of college experience. I won't go into how much I made when I was laid off after 5 years, but let's just say that after 2 promotions and some of the higest "merit" raises every year, I was making about 250% more than anybody without a degree would be making out of the gates.
Here's what I'm thinking.... In all future resumes I put out, I'm just going to say I made 20k a year there when I got laid off. If I'm right that this figure is what is making these "less than 10 dollar an hour" jobs even ask me for an interview, then I shouldn't be denied that early in the future. I mean... who lies on their resume to downplay their past????? They'd probably never even bother checking to see if I was lying about my previous pay after an interview.
Any thoughts on this tactic?
I don't mind hustling part time security gigs that are as boring as watching paint dry and scrounging my own home improvement gigs for a while, but I want a job making at least 10 bucks an hour, full time, with health insurance and a 401k plan with a meager company match that would at least cover the 10% penalty when I withdraw it early.
I don't need much to live on at this point, but I don't want to hustle for income forever. There has to be somebody out there willing to pay me a steady 16k a year with benefits so I can do that and just have fun on my off time instead of worrying about the future constantly.....
I sure do miss 1999. I could have gotten an office temp job within days making 12 bucks an hour back then. (Not to mention gas was a buck a gallon back then) Given inflation, the same should be true today of office temp jobs, only the number should be more like 15-16 bucks an hour. Yeah right... good luck with that salary requirement on your resume.
Hey Frem,
Haha...
Frem, if you could only see what I've got here. All based off of Mame32, and just MAME before it.... It's really awesome! Probably 4,000 more games here than I'd ever even care to play by far, but you can sort them a numerous amount of ways, and favorite the ones you want to play on a separate list so that's all you see in the future if you desire.
All the old school games are accounted for. I actually learned that the original arcade novelty machines dated back to at least 1972. It blew my mind when I found out that people where playing black and white games at bars that could afford the machines, some of which were very remin
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Jack, in respect to that position I'd all but celebrate the rejection!
Casino security comes in three types.
1. Covert - this wasn't it, they get paid WAY more and generally require both some casino experience (not neccesarily security) and mil/intel or PMC background, serious hardcase hunter types.
2. Operational - the guys who make sure no one messes with the cars in the parking lot, who show drunks to the door, basic stuff, only payrate average is around $13-14, CCW or not, and experience is certainly required, also that's usually a BONDED position, which means unless you got family money or serious assets (something to hold over your head as a leash, see?) you can forget it.
3. Goons - these are the guys they send to throw people out for winning at nickle slots, or for sleazier casinos, to commit "muggings" against people leaving the property with the casinos money, while the operational guys convineniently go to the restroom or look the other way, generally they're lookin for someone with bar-bouncing experience and maybe a couple brushes with the law, no morals and unlikely to ask questions.
At $9.50 they're lookin to fill that third type, dude - and seriously, I think you'd prefer a job where you could sleep at night and look yourself in the mirror, right ?
Bank Security and Armored Car is right out too, shit pay, too much risk, and that whole cooperate with the robbery shit would grate your nerves forever, especially if policy forced you to hand over your piece to some punk with an obvious capgun or replica, who then shot someone with the piece you handed em - I know a dude from Ohio who all but imploded his life over something similar, and you wouldn't wanna go down that road.
The two gigs you want are either industrial, or common residential (not gated communities).
The former is as much safety patrol in many cases as it is anything else, and especially suited in most cases to folks who ain't fond of other people - the pay ain't too hot, but ain't like you DO much for it neither, mostly you're a warm body in place cause it's cheaper to hire you than pay extra insurance.
That's where I got my start, way back when, and I enjoyed the work even if it was for some bastards.
The other, well the gated places go for the cop-wannabe, pretend-blackwater punks who talk a good game, but ain't gonna DO shit but call the cops while they run and hide, pays good but they're lookin for former police or military goons, especially large intimidating ones. *eyeroll*
What you're looking for is some podunk apartment complex that isn't in-da-hood and overrun with druglords already, maybe some place which has just changed management and is looking to go a little more upscale, or in a slowly declining neighborhood and wants to hold the line.
Good work, initial pay ain't so hot and the first year in kind of sucks, but once word gets around and you manage to impress the locals a bit it gets better, a lot better - especially if you're not a jackboot or cop wannabe and know when to look the other way versus what you REALLY need to address.
Also worth a look - storage facilities, auto dealers and if yer okay with a little morbid, the occasional cemetary.
Note they're all jobs where you generally work ALONE, with minimal supervision (i.e. hassle and nitpick) and generally done overnight or in the darkest hours, stuff folks with more interesting social lives than yours do not WANT to do, you see ?
You could also start out as a floater guard - filling in for folks who have called off or gotten sick, but that requires a reliable set of wheels and willingness to travel a bit.
So long as you set your limits with em in advance, say - "I ain't driving no 90 miles for a four hour shift, dude.." - it's usually a good "in" with a company till you get something regular.
Worth a note, you can also mention you have a mentor, and comes to it I could prolly crank out a letter of reccommendation.
Also, race and sex doesn't mean so much in the security biz, age does a little bit, but only cause you dun wanna stick so
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Thanks for all that security input Frem.
I'm definately not a jackboot thug. Actually, I'm working at a *** plant now, and it was funny.... my first day, during my first smoke break in 5 hours, I had some guy who was in the Carpenter's union tell me that he didn't have his safety goggles on because one of his co-workers accidentally took his (as he asked me for a light). It didn't even dawn on me at first that he was just saying that because he was afraid I might rat him out.... lol.
It wasn't until he was talking about another topic and then realized, he shouldn't be talking about this to "Mr Security Guard" that I figured out his game......
It's cool man. I have broken several of the Cardinal rules myself on the first day I was there. I'm not looking to bust BS shit. I'm paid only to watch the gate and make sure that only qualified people are coming and going. In my down time, I will read books and do Sudoko puzzles.
Until it's light out, I smoke in my car, which is not a designated smoking area.
I sit at a location so far away from everything that's dangerous that I look completely ridiculous with my hard-hat, goggles, and fire resistant 1-piece "April Oneil" jumpsuit. If you REALLY work in the trades there and want to needlessly risk sacrificing your own eyes, telling you better is way beyond my pay grade.
Sounds like I'd hate Casino security even more.....
What I want is the security gig that the guys had at my old job. They just sat at the front door, friendly as ever, and said hi to us as familiar faces used their RFID cards for the door. If my GF or my brother's wife wanted in, they called in to the command center to verify they were legit.
They did a few rounds here and there to make sure every thing was "kosher".
Up until the 2nd buyout when they put a camera directly on them the entire time they were working, I bet it was a pretty awesome job for a few bucks over minimum wage.
I'm not too far from you Frem. If you could have any direct input at a legit firm, I'd love to speak to you about it in a PM.
Twisted Metal is only as good as the opponents you have.
Why play Chess (or basketball, for that matter) if you only play those who are undoubtedly inferior to you?
Sure, there is no "racing" aspect, but the only multi-player "shooter" without cars back in the day that held a candle to what TMB on the PS2 brought was Goldeneye for the N64.
The single player campaign is alright if you don't have anyone around to play, but a 2-4 person multi player experience is bliss.
I always liked playing live more, but back in the day, we were all drunk and high. There was no controller in the face action going on.
The only thing that pissed me off is that even with all of my taunting I could never get most of them to team up against me. They'd try for a while, but like human nature usually dictates, it's much easier to fire with guns blazing at the weakest link. I get the logic.... It's better to be 2nd place than 3rd or 4th when only the top two spots get to play the next round.
Haha on the video man...
I'm the MF Karaoke King!
My friends used to say that I could sing Tom Petty better than Tom Petty could.
I'm a little too out of shape to survive a whole song now, but I used to whail a baddass Metallica Enter Sandman and a Kid Rock Bawitaba too!
My favorites though, are songs like Edwin McCain's "I'll Be". I remember bringing a picture of beer back to my table and spilling half of it one night when a girl I didn't even know came up and started making out with me after I sang the song.
She said it was her favorite song.
Man I wish I was 25 again without the crow's feet and the grey hairs popping out on my sideburns!
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Spilled a picture uv beer? That takes sum serious effort! I coud do it with Fotoshop in about an hour.
I never played, but I luvd that TM commercial:
You gotta play Simpsonz H&R! If for nothing else, to kick Growndzkeeper Willy around to hear all hiz complaints. I got all the way to the Halloween level at the end.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.nooalf.com
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Hahaha, I try to picture you as a jackboot and it just makes me laugh.
Of course, I actively foster the perception to a degee, but most of my associates bust my chops about, and Wendy nailed it prettmuch on the money, not that I'd ever ADMIT it to her.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NobleDemon
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It's cool man. I have broken several of the Cardinal rules myself on the first day I was there. I'm not looking to bust BS shit. I'm paid only to watch the gate and make sure that only qualified people are coming and going. In my down time, I will read books and do Sudoko puzzles.
Until it's light out, I smoke in my car, which is not a designated smoking area.
Yep, that's prettymuch what I did - I am kinda funny about it, for all my rabidity about kickin people in the can for giving me crap about smoking, or trying to force me to quit, I don't smoke ON the job (at least not where anyone can see me, I use my office) cause it looks unprofessional, occupies one of your hands, and gives away your position.
Speakin of, I have a one-hand-free policy.. besides the fact that the more gear a guard is carrying the less their mind is on the job, there's also that trying to juggle a clipboard, light and watchclock LOOKS stupid and clumsy and renders the guard all but helpless while they do so - perception is a very important thing in the biz.
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I sit at a location so far away from everything that's dangerous that I look completely ridiculous with my hard-hat, goggles, and fire resistant 1-piece "April Oneil" jumpsuit. If you REALLY work in the trades there and want to needlessly risk sacrificing your own eyes, telling you better is way beyond my pay grade.
Ayep, especially when they just admitted they know better, so what's harpin on em gonna buy you?
As for uniforms, this is one place I tend to be a bit strict about - now mind you I do *NOT* issue crummy polyester shit you have to beat half to death with an iron for an hour just so it looks good the first twenty minutes of your shift, not only does it always look sloppy but it's too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter and has no freakin durability.
I issue one set of dickies 874 flat-front uniform work pants (black), and a dickies work shit with patches sewn on (grey), and they're welcome to buy extras on our account for bulk prices, and I'll throw in the patches, but you'll hafta have em stitched on yourself.
It's a good uniform, tough, durable, stain resistant, holds its shape without ironing and is comfortable in most temperature ranges while still looking professional and non-intimidating.
Thing about uniforms is - initially a gaurd has no actual authority beyond what people are willing to give them, and that is very much dependant on their appearance, demeanor and professional conduct.
Now over time as you develop contacts, relationships, reputation, that'll change - and it can go either way depending on your own behavior, nobody likes a puffed up authoritarian prick, but someone who knows when NOT to swing the big stick is generally an asset, AND someone who keeps confidences will wind up with better information networks than most police departments.
And yes, your old security job is exactly what I was suggesting, here at Site Three we don't have a kiosk or gated entrance, so I just wander the rounds out there, but I know the engine/exhaust note of prettymuch all the residents cars, and really have an almost precognitive recognition of anything suspicious anyway - every place has a natural ebb and flow, stuff that breaks the pattern is what you watch for, basic situational awareness.
Good work, other than me, the pay is crap, but it's a solid, reliable gig - and since it's easy to do RIGHT, doing so allows you massive amounts of slackerhood, so long as you do it in the right places...
If you take forty some minutes to do a fifteen minute round, that's fine, more time out in place, more visibility and deterrent, you know ?
I do try to play it off as something of a slacker but nobody here buys it cause most of em hav
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Hey Frem,
My second day on the job wasn't so bad. It was 13.5 hours instead of the 12 on Friday, but after getting over the first day jitters and having a good book to occupy my time, it seemed to be a much shorter day. I'm actually there nearly 14 though, because when I show up earlier than the actual staff does, and nearly 30 minutes before 2 of my co-workers do, I can just claim ignorance and take the "East Gate" position which is the easiest of the 3 by far. I lucked into that position with my own management, but from doing a little social engineering :), I've discovered that I'm probably the only security employee that hasn't been told to man a different position to learn all of them. I intend to keep it that way.... to be able to read a book all day and only have to really do about 30 minutes of work on a 13 hour shift while reading a great book at the only position held that is 10 times as far away from the administrative building than the other two, well, it seems like a fair trade off to me.
Haha... Noble Demon. Yep, that sounds like Frem to a tee. Not me though.... I'm more the live-and-let-live type. I've had plenty of battles, for sure, and I lost more than one good job because I'm not the best at choosing my battles. But when I do dig my heels in, I make sure there are PLENTY of witnesses, for better or for worse. (Usually at my own expense).
It's really a question of ethics though, I think. What makes somebody more ethical than somebody else? Is the guy who always tows the company line (or on a grander scale, the line of socially accepted legality), for better or for worse.... Is that person more ethical than the guy who has been successful against all odds while staying true to his own code of ethics which may often times eclipse the standard code of ethics, sometimes with disastrous results to one's self?
I may not play the way that most other people play, and I certainly don't ever want to be in a position of being in charge of other people who likely would not stand still on my sinking ship when things went wrong, but when I do feel something is wrong for me or any one of my peers, I'm the first to speak up about it, regardless of the personal consequences. I'm confident that this is the main reason that after leaving my work family of 5 years when I was laid off, that I'm probably one of the only laid off guys that still has relations with many of them... even people who weren't on my shift.
If only they weren't 170 miles away and could hook me up with a job :)
Smoking for me, usually isn't a problem. I'm very aware of my surroundings and I have a nearly 180degree line of peripheral sight. The first few hours of work it's dark out and only the lights are on and nobody is really around much, so it's a breeze. Later in the day when it's light out, I'll usually just take 3 puffs and call it quits until I can get an actual break. I can almost guarantee that I'm the guard of the group that takes the least amount of breaks. Lisa told me today "you have a great system". I laughed later when I realized she was talking about my "pipes" and how long I can sit in my car without calling her to cover to go to the bathroom. I thought she just meant how I break up my day by waiting 5-6 hours for my first break and then go 3 hours and then 2 and then 1.5
I guess the other guards take her up on every offer to cover when she makes her rounds, which is usually ever 1.5 hours or so.
This job is really great though, now that I'm used to it. I don't have to really carry anything, and I get to sit in my car for most of the day. I don't write incident reports. I simply have a sign-out sheet for non-certified personnel and I wave the certified personnel through. The rest of my 13 hour shift is simply fighting the battle to not sleep, which is made much easier because I can alternately listen to talk radio and read a great novel.
I'm reading a Sci-Fi Novel from 1951 from Hugo Award Winning Albert Bester called "The Demolished Man", BTW, which is FREAKING AWESOME.
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Damn Jack, sometimes it scares me just how much we're alike.
Back when I worked for Advance, at the SCM Chem Plant, (they make Titanium Dioxide there, but IMHO what they mostly make is friggin pollution!) I took the Chloride Gate for the exact same reasons, to a nicety.
And yeah, 95% of the work is essentially nothing, but it's being able to do that 5% without losing your edge or becoming an undisciplined shlep, which won't happen to neither of us cause we're too damn OCD and have too much professional pride to do a job badly - once the money has crossed our palm, the job you paid us for is gonna get done come hell or high water, cause we're LIKE that.
As for ethics and reading material, you really, really, REALLY *WANT* to read Matthew Stovers three books, Heros Die, Blade of Tyshalle, Caine Black Knife, I cannot stress that reccommendation hard enough, although I'd recommend finding the second book in electronic format cause even a USED copy will set you back twenty five bucks, and a new one a hundred-plus, it's THAT much a cult-classic, and it delves into the themes of free will, personal morality, and concepts that you and I know intimately but don't really have the words for - the last book appeals a bit more to me cause I am oh-so-really KNOWING what it's like to get old having once been a holy terror... as I point out to folk around here, yes, I was a piece o work in my glory days, but them glory days were twenty and more YEARS ago!
My breaks come at the end of each round, I either sit in my office or at one of the picnic tables in the park and do minor stuff like check my e-mail, local crime reports, or just skim over FFNet or what have you - but I run on coffee, and like beer, you don't buy it, you just kinda rent it...
I simply empty the tanks before heading out, cause the last thing you want is the distraction of biological needs while you're out there in the darkness handling a potential "situation" before it becomes one, and for long shifts like yours I reccommend a small snack before punching in, cause you don't wanna be too fat-n-happy, but you also don't wanna run out of fuel and be nodding or starving.
My coffee certainly ain't Starbucks, more end of day truckstop sludge, but I like it that way.
Also, when doing rounds I reccommend brachs peppermint candy, saves you from getting cottonmouth, less worry if you have to talk to anyone since you're not like to be bombin them with halitosis, and the peppermint not only helps keep you lively and sharp, unknown to many it's also a mood stabilizer and helps you keep your cool as well - bonus points that it clears your sinuses during allergy season or cold weather, straight up, I keep a five gallon BUCKET of the damn things in my office, so gaurds can grab a handful and pocket it before heading out.
Stay-Puft jack, bwahahaha, oh that's good - my usual uniform is pretty strack, but I tellya if it gets as HOT here THIS summer as last, imma get a freakin utility kilt!
Not goin commando or regimental though, I'll prolly buy some ridiculous smiley-face briefs to go under it in case of high wind or curious femmes, meh heh heh.... seriously, it was 102F out there one night at MIDNIGHT, here, in Michigan!
I was doin rounds with a freezy-pop stuffed up either sleeve and they were mush before I was even a quarter of the way through - heat is hard on someone with lots of prosthetics, since you don't have as much area to lose it, conversely I can handle temps so cold most folk can't even function.
For really cold days I have an awesome armored-insulated coverall/jumpsuit with tool hooks and pockets galore, and slip-on snow chains for my boots, I've been out there as low as -40F and in up to three feet of snow, not so much worried about crooks at that point as the older residents, cause you fall down or get stuck out there in the depths of night, I am prettymuch the only rescue they're likely to get, yanno ?
Oh, and any company who'd reward a gaurd for short-timing a round needs a kick in the junk - gaurds and companies get so focused on DOIN
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It's really funny Frem. Actually, this security gig is VERY much the same as my obscenely overpaid job I was working for 5 years (It's actually where I was doing a lot of my FFF.net RWED posting, and where I first joined the site). I got so much personal stuff and time wasting things done on their dime, but I was a glorified babysitter of machines. It wasn't a production job. There were no quotas. If there were problems though, they had to be handled correctly and if they weren't handled within the alloted time frame, you had better have a damned good explanation for it. (If my extremely verbose, and oftentimes probably too long and boring to read posts here are any indication... I think you can figure how detailed my to-the-minute reports of issues in our ticketing system were).
Yep... life was good at that job before the 2nd buyout. I worked only 1/2 of the days of any given year, got a 100% match on 401k benefits, decent health insurance and the highest merit raises in the room year after year and a huge bump after a promotion in the middle of my 2nd year. All the while, on any NORMAL night, I was really only working about 1.5 hours out of 12, and most of that was just documenting routine things that happened every night (keeping myself sharp, and showing that the note-taking I did on even the mundane details when I started the job were just as detailed and mundane the week before I was laid off).
In the end, I'm not sure what hurt me more.... The fact that I picked so many battles, or the fact that I assume I was one of the highest paid guys there, and they could just hire 2 more of me that did a semi-competent job after I was gone. It was likely a mix of both. I know neither of those things helped my case.
Matthew Stovers, huh? I've made a personal note to read them. I should probably get around to buying a used Kindle one of these days, especially if security stints like this become the norm for me for a while. I have about 6k books downloaded that I've never even looked at because I'd never read them on a computer monitor when I'm home and I could just watch movies and TV shows on my bigscreen TV, but when I'm on the road and bored nothing beats a good book. Actually, that's my favorite part of this job. Embarassingly, I admit that I haven't read anything, save a few short stories in the last 4 or so years until this week. Feels great finishing an awesome classic sci-fi book and a few Steven King short stories while getting paid to do it.
(I hope that Matthew's books are SHORT..... I love Steven King's short stories, but when I look at how small the print and how obscenely wide the paperbacks are, I never even attempt to start reading them with my limited attention span.... Loved the first 4 Harry Potter books too, but then 5 got REALLY long, and I never picked up 6 or 7)
LOL... Oh... I buy the shit out of beer... lol. But if you mean constantly-having-to-replenish-the-supply to survive, then I grasp your meaning. Same thing with coffee I suppose. It's funny how I won't buy a large container of Folgers coffee if it's on sale because it's like 12 bucks otherwise, but I go through more cases of beer a month than I'd care to admit in a public forum, even though the full 12 bucks of coffee lasts me 3 months...... I'm just silly like that.
There is seriously, like, ZERO danger at all on this job. I'm just paid ambiance during a yearly outage. Tons of overpaid union guys and delivery trucks coming in and out all day long is all. Anybody in either of those positions really would have nothing to gain and EVERYTHING to lose by doing anything that even hinted towards illegal behavior. I've been there 3 days now, and I still have no idea why they're even paying me to be there. If I wasn't so damn jumpy and energetic since I stopped smoking weed... or better yet... if I could actually SMOKE weed on the job, I'd be happy working those 13.5 hour shifts and having 4 day weekends the rest of my life it was a full time gig. (although, that plan would defeat its
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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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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
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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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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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:), 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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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
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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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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 thin
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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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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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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 t
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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 lo
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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
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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 thei
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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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:
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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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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 o
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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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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 un
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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
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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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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 i
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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
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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.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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.
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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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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.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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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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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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.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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.
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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!
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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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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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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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Another con, 6string: Hospitalz will be ground zero in the zombie apocolypse.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
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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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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 m
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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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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...
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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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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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Got 8 Hosta plants from my grandmother today!
Hers are about 8 years old and were mature enough to split, so i'm going to put them in the front yard tomorrow. Did a little work cleaning that bare area up tonight and realized that even though the dick-head previous owners removed all the Hostas they had (probably sold them on ebay), at least 3 new ones were already growing before i planted any of these! My grandma wasn't kidding that they're a hearty plant that doesn't need any care.
SixStringJack here to tell the world that the Hosta is the perfect specimen, human or otherwise. Where else in the world could you see beauty that is 100% self sustaining and zero maintenance?
The damn things would probably be classified as a weed if they weren't so pretty.
I was also telling my grandma over the phone that I had two "growths" that I didn't think were weeds, but I couldn't explain them right to her. When I saw her lawn and she was telling me the different plants she had, they look exactly like her Tiger Lilly plants, but about 1/5th the size.
Score one more freebie!
Oh, and has anybody EVER seen an Evergreen of any species grow on its own? There was a baby evergreen that my grams just noticed today that she didn't plant. She said in all of her years of gardening she's never seen that happen. She gave me that little "bud-that-could" as well.
So.... forget about the crabbage patch tomorrow. I'm all about cleaning the million of "hellicopter" seeds from the Maples, pulling all the weeds, re-grading the dirt, and planting all these new additions to the front of the house. I was left with a scrolling and side-winding custom made stone border for vegetation in the front of my house fit for a king. I think it's high time I start showing my neighbors how beautiful I plan on making this house on the outside, even if they're not aware of how much has already gone into the inside!
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