Wake Up

I'm reading quite a few posts and news items about the "bad, evil" people in the USA Congress or the "bad, evil" in the Presidential Administration who are doing "everything" wrong because it doesn't agree with the writer's political point of view.

Then, this is usually ended with some polemic or another of "throw the bums out" or "vote, vote, vote."

Wake the hell up.

The USA is NOT a country of the people, by the people and for the people unless "people" is defined as The Club of ultra-rich powerful folk that are really running things -- and you ain't one of them, Mr/Ms Voter.

Obama's 50th birthday is being marked by an "intimate" little gathering of 1100 people who are each paying between $50 and $3000 to attend. (How many $50 tickets do you think there are?) You got $3000 to toss his way? How about $3000 to toss his way several times before the 2012 election; and, several $3000 gifts to plop into the coffers of your favorite senators and representatives? Oh, and don't forget that you can "encourage" all of the corporations, for which you are a Director, or political action committees, for which you are a Director, to do the same.

You in that Club? I didn't think so.

But wait ... there's more!

The little get together for 1100 is only for the riff raff. The VIP's (?!?) are attending a different "special" party where the entrance fee is $5000 to $15,000 per.

I wonder why The Club can afford to spend so much money? All told, most people are estimating that the 2012 election will run in the neighborhood of $8 billion. Yes ... billion, with a B.

Do the "people" have that kind of money to donate? The Club does.

I often use the following "great revelation" to make people think about the futility of fighting this monster. Obama is expected to top the $1 billion mark for his re-election campaign of 2012. Obviously, whomever is his Republican opponent will have to match that (and they will.) Quite certainly Mr's Obama and Whomever don't have that kind of money to personally spend, so almost all of it will come from donations from The Club.

All to land a job which pays only $400,000 per year? For a job that is so tough that the "winner" is certainly going to age 10 years for every 4 he spends in office. Oh ... do the damn math.

And, do you think the poor dumb sap that gets that Oval Office REALLY runs things? Come on -- even a dumb monkey like "W" was in that office and The Club just grew richer and richer. [Bet you were thinking I wasn't going to get in another shot at Dubya. Ha ha. I'm very resourceful.]

During “that other damn Democrat’s administration,” prior to Dubya, The Club was losing a little wealth and power in the world because the US cut back and back on military projects, canceling them right and left. Then came 9/11.

Yay! We got ourselves a jenyouwine war!

But, shit, we can kick that little despot's ass in Iraq in a week. We gotta have a Real War so that our (The Club's) companies can sell We The People lots and lots of munitions and equipment and food and medical supplies and fuel and, oh, just tons of stuff.

Oh, yeah ... Afghanistan! The country that either hasn't been conquerable, or has bankrupted the conqueror, for the last 2,000 years. Sounds good to The Club.

Now, TEN YEARS later, have YOU made any money off of the war, other than maybe a salary? Nah. (You’ve just made all of the sacrifices.)

Did The Club make any money?

Why, yes they have, thank you very much. By the time you read this, the number will be $1.3 TRILLION. Kind of makes a stinking $8 billion look like a damn good investment, doesn't it.

So, yell and scream. Write lots of political screeds damning those damn Democrats/Republicans. Get out the vote. Send in your pissant little $100 donation to the Party of your choice.

But just keep the noise down a little. The Club has to get some sleep so that they can wake up in time to control whomever you elect.

Comes the revolution ... don't call me. I'm too old and I'm retired. Let somebody else get killed fighting the military might controlled by The Club. I’ll be watching from here in paradise and I’ll be sure to write and tell you what I think.

You’re welcome.

You'll Die!

Recently, I overheard a lady on a cellphone telling someone, "No, don't use Splenda! It causes Alzheimer's Disease."

Sure it does, and breathing air apparently (in your case, lady) gives a person a mega-case of the screaming yellow stupids. You're the living proof.

A few years ago it was Equal. A few decades ago it was saccharine, which absolutely positively caused cancer in millions of people ... oops ... they were wrong. Remember cyclamates? Cyclamates ... we're all going to die!

Coffee's good for you. Coffee's bad for you.

Red wine makes you live longer. Red wine kills you.

Water becomes a magical medicine because it "remembers" having some poison or chemical in it, even after it has been diluted down to the equivalent of a thimble-full of that chemical dumped onto the Pacific (homeopathy ... don't get me started.)

Where on Earth do so many people get so many ignorant urban legends and false "scientific" information? The Internet, of course; or, their best friend's aunt's boyfriend's boss. Therefore, it HAS to be true.

News Flash, sheeple: Just because YOU or your buddy reads something, it probably means that it is NOT true if it's on the Internet as a "new scientific discovery" or the latest easy way to do something hard. It is highly UN-likely that you would be reading or hearing about anything which has been newly scientifically proven because those results are only published in peer reviewed professional journals -- and you don't subscribe to any of those, do you, Big Dog.

Even worse, Stud Master, is if you hear something startling or controversial reported by broadcast news. Broadcast "journalists" have degenerated from the likes of Murrow and Cronkite to a collection of some of the most shockingly ignorant buffoons ever to grace any "profession." Nowadays, their only purpose is to look pretty/handsome, act like they're your best friend and confidant while they read fluffy, entertaining dreck, written by some 1st year J-school intern who is barely literate.

Finally, P-L-E-A-S-E stop forwarding emails to me about dangers and discoveries or for that matter, any damn thing -- especially if it's about Obama or politics or ...

Oh. Wait. I'm saving that for another screed.

J'ever notice how like-minded humans seem to be drawn to nest together? We were in a fringe neighborhood of Houston yesterday, to purchase new weapons and it dawned on me that everyone around me at the strip-mall was anglo and mean looking. Kind of like we'd driven into the private digs of the local Hells Angels chapter. Very weird.

Since we were there, we decided to go hopping around from geocache to geocache in the vicinity. We drove to several more spots in the area and the people-scenery didn't change much. REALLY nice homes ... but everyone looked like they were hiding from Da Law or were in the witness protection program. Eeek. Think I'll stay away from that area from now on.

Anyhowski, I have two new toys to report on. First, the Trimble software for cell phones called Geocache Navigator. http://www.geocachenavigator.com/ Darn near free, this stuff loaded painlessly onto my Blackberry and suddenly I have a GPS geocache locater that's as good as many dedicated geocache units. Some of the really cool features are that you can plot out a selected cache on a map that can be switched among blank background or overlays of a street map or a satellite view (ala Google Earth) or a topographic map mode -- all while your real-time position and that of the cache are shown. On top of these features, there are tabs to select which show: the cache's detailed description at www.geocaching.com; the direction to the cache using an electronic compass needle; or, "radar mode" (my favorite) which looks like, um, a radar screen, showing you and the cache positioned relative to your direction of motion. This radar screen automatically updates and zooms scale, as you get closer and closer to the cache, until every step you take shows up as a significant pixel shift on the screen. The radar screen is particularly excellent in forested or otherwise GPS hindered areas because you can walk to a clear spot, get a good satellite fix, then take a visual of the x-axis to the cache (including the distance in feet) then move to a perpendicular clear area to shoot the y-axis and distance. So, even when the cache is beneath a dense cluster or beneath a bridge you can still nail that puppy. Ultra handy.

Admittedly, the GPS engine on our Garmin is more sensitive and accurate but I was still able to have the Blackberry guide me to within a yard of a cache in the open.

Next new toy: I was surfing the Kimber America site (manufacturer of my hip cannon) when I noticed a tab for "Less Lethal." Uhhrrrru?!? Had to look. Zounds!

Kimber, in association with a Swiss company, is selling a device that looks like one of those electric self-defense zappers, but these fire (yes, fire) a loogie of dense oleo capsicum, accurately, at 90 miles per hour, for 13 to 25 feet (depending on which unit you buy.) The 13 foot units are up on You Tube titled Guardian Angel. These things each carry two shots and hit with a bang. Kimber claims there is virtually no blow-back and that a shot will blast right through a stocking mask or defensive fingers, etc., and that it travels so quickly to the target that it is impossible for the bad guy to duck out of the way. No more pissed off big bad guys whom you just shot at with a cloud of pepper spray ... but he started weaving n bobbing when you pulled out the canister and all you managed to do was make him cough once before he beats the crap out of you.

Are these critters a substitute for Kimmie on my hip? Nah. There's always still the chance that you'll miss with both OC shots and, well, see above. Or, you might be "taking a knife to a gun fight." But, these little toys are so non-threatening looking that I'm pretty sure that you can open carry and nobody will think anything of it. So, at bars, the beach, school campuses, hospital grounds and other places where Kimmie can't be carried, these "pain launchers" are way way better than conventional less-lethals and infinitely better than nothing. Check 'em out. We bought two.

How quickly we forget

I am shocked at how long it has been since I've goobled the gobbus. Shame shame. I need to get back with it. I have many curmudgeonly and downright contrary things to say. What better place to rant than a blog site that nobody ever sees. I resolve to reform.

Toll Road Followup

Award:

She's out there. La gran estúpida.

This really happened, this week:

Coming south, through the West Little York Toll Plaza, I'm in the Easy Tag Only lane and the usual morons are tying up traffic as they get into the Tag Only lane and then discover (or is it "discover" since I suspect that a lot of this is intentional) that they are in the wrong lane ... and they have to then block everyone while they try to nudge their way into one of the adjacent cash lanes.

So this woman in front of me, with an Easy Tag plainly visible on her windshield, begins to roll smartly along with the traffic as the morons clear away from in front of us.

She gets up to the Easy Tag reader and STOPS!?! (whereupon, I almost rear-ended her; and the guy behind me almost rear-ended me; and the guy behind him ... ad infinitum)

No horn from me, because I'm a REFORMED Road Rage Psychopath and every person has the right to drive safely and with the level of conservatism to which they are comfortable (gack! I want to retch every time I parrot those "good driver" platitudes.)

Away she crept from her stop at the reader. The toll gate went up (don't get me started -- yes, the damn things are back) she rolled up even with the gate and SHE STOPPED AGAIN.!! That ripped it.

She got the horn. I almost got rear-ended, again, and the other good drivers went wild with their horns.

She got moving, so out we all roll. I passed her and looked over to lay my most evil, rotten, "You're sooooo stupid!" dirty look on her but she won't look my direction. Ms. Gotta-stop has the pedal to the metal and is going to break the speed laws. On a mission.

Yeah, genius, stop twice in the toll gate but then get out there and drive 80 miles an hour while everyone else is doing 65-75. Makes perfect sense -- NOT.

That's O.K., I'll probably pass her in the next tool plaza after she stops suddenly, again, and causes a 37 car pileup. I'll save my "look" for then.

I Was Right All Along

I just knew that our old truck, Suzie Isuzu and I would get crosswise sooner than later.

O.K. Yeah, I’m spoiled. I’ve driven new cars for decades. After I’ve driven them awhile, they start to break, and I go get a new one. So, shoot me.

Regardless, there didn’t seem to be any sense in getting a new or near-new car for Costa Rica, driving it for a couple of weeks, then parking it in the garage for months, until our next trip to CR. Logically, we bought a 1994 ol’ beater. Dependable enough, but not breaking the bank. And NO PAYMENTS.

But then I started driving her and my love affair with Suzie started to sour:

• She burns oil.
• The rear doors are sticky and won’t always unlatch, without a jiggling and banging session. (And if somebody KEEPS slamming her seatbelt buckle in the door, they’re really hard to open.)
• The outside spare tire rack rattles and squeaks.
• THERE ARE NO CUP HOLDERS. ZERO! NADA. NONE!
• The driver’s window sometimes won’t go all the way up, leaving a tiny crack that whistles air and dribbles rain.
• Radio? There’s a radio?
• The front windshield washer doesn’t work.
• She stalls a lot when she’s cold.
• She burns a lot of that $6.00 per gallon gas.
• The hatch window lift gas struts are worn out. They won’t lift all the way by themselves and they leak down, slowly letting the window close on your noggin while you’re loading groceries.
• She smells like an old truck that has been used to haul everything except (maybe) dead bodies.

Waaah.

Then I remembered, “No whiners allowed in CR.” So I sucked it up and we started to get along.

Things were going pretty well one Monday, considering that I’d received 2nd degree burns across the top of my left leg that morning.

That afternoon, we had driven to Alajuela to see Maritza and Venicio and to introduce them to our daughter, Jenny, who had arrived from the States for a visit.

Time kind of slipped away during our visit and before you know it we were saying our goodbyes in the dusk. A short stop at a roadside restaurant put us out on the road home even later -- well into the darkness.

THUNK! Clang-ity-clang-cling-dinkle-dinkle-dinkle.

“What was that? Did you see anything in the road? We hit something,” I said to co-pilot, Pat.

“Didn’t see a thing, but yeah, I think we must have hit something,” she responded.

We drove for about 10 more minutes, putting us well up into the mountains, on the winding stretch with no shoulder and no pull-offs.

PHWUMP PHWUMP PHWUMP. I knew the sound and feel of a flat tire.

Absolutely no place to pull off. No way to stop on these blind curves … in the dark … with the pavement wet from the evening rains. Cripes.

Then a couple of those Pura Vida drivers started flashing their lights and honking their horns because: a)., I had a flat and was driving on it (duh); and, b)., I’d slowed down to below the speed of sound on these curves because, I brilliantly reasoned, a flat tire probably doesn’t get as much traction on wet pavement curves as does a fully functioning tire.

Tensions went up inside the cockpit as the girls tersely informed me that I shouldn’t be driving on a flat tire and that I needed to … well … uh … do something! Okey dokey.

It was probably at least a half mile before there was even the hint of a semi-flat spot along the shoulder of the road. I started in towards one and then saw that it was probably soft mud. Bailing back out onto the road irritated yet another Tico and earned me his ire, manifest by a little ol’ blast on his horn.

Thankfully somebody lives somewhere back in them thar hills as a driveway entrance suddenly loomed in the headlights. Driveway = flat (ish) and driveway probably = gravel. I pulled right in.

We’re parked at the top of a hill, at the end of a blind curve, about a foot off the road’s pavement. I hit the 4-way flashers. Yee-hah, they work. Score 1 for the home team!

O.K., we might as well get on with it. I knew the location of the jack due to an accidental discovery of its little hiding cubby while poking around inside one afternoon. That much we had going for us. And, oh yeah, we knew where the spare tire was … right there on the back hatch, always in the way. Two things going for us!

In very short order, the jack was out of its storage, and yippee, the lug wrench was in there too. Three things to the plus column!

You just know there are going to be some inhabitants of the minus column, don’t you. Bingo. You’re right.

First, pop that spare tire/wheel off the carrier on the back hatch. Slip the lug wrench onto the first bolt … skreeeek … it squeals loose and backs out; do the second one … ooof! … tighter but out it came … the third one should be easy because it’s on the bottom and I can put all 300 pounds down onto it. Nope.

By the time I was finished jumping up and down (painfully) on the lug wrench, the head of the bolt was starting to round off and there hadn’t been so much as a little “click” of promise out of the stubborn fastener. A couple of times I just let my arms drop to my sides, figuring that the game was over. That 3rd bolt was not coming out.

We momentarily discussed locking up the mess, calling a taxi and getting a wrecker to take care of the problem in the morning. That didn’t sound fun. One last go at it. The hell with how my leg was feeling, lean into the bolt head with everything I’ve got and then kind of fall down against the lug wrench. It squeaked a little! Re-purchase the bite on the bolt head … and pound down on it once again and it turned. That pig was completely cross-threaded – who knows how many years ago – and was probably hammered home with an impact wrench. It ground out of its hole by hand, but not willingly.

Pat started to cram the jack under the side of the car. But I knew that there must be some exact spot for this jack to go and that just anywhere wouldn’t work. What I didn’t know was that the inscrutable engineers at Isuzu had thought long and hard about how to set up their jack/vehicle “exact spot” in a location most likely to cause pain, anguish and suffering for any stupid old gringo loony enough to get a flat tire in the dark and then park over sloshy-wet mud/gravel. Oh, yeah. Let me.

I found the old owner’s manual in the glove box (amazing!) and dug into the “Changing A Tire” page. Oh, lord. The jack must be positioned directly under the rear axle, immediately next to the inside of the leaf spring bracket. In other words, WAAAAY the hell up under the stinking car.

Great. I’m dressed in cut-off jeans – cut off so that my bandaged leg didn’t have the pain of anything pressing against the burns – a brand new shirt and Crocs. Pura Vida. No whining.

Under the truck you go, boy. Not that hard. Just skud the jack through the mud and feel around in the dark (I had brilliantly taken our flashlight out of the truck the day before and forgotten to put it back.) The jack nested right up under the axle tube. The jack actuator wheel turned easily as the jack rose up and made contact. The actuator wheel stopped turning. That thing was going no further without a serious handle.

“Anybody see a jack handle?” No answer.

Dragged my bod up off the mud pan and started through every nook and cranny of that *&%$ truck. Nothing. Yikes.

Oooo. Oooo. The owner’s manual.

Remember those inscrutable Isuzu engineers that designed the lift point for the jack in an impossible place? Well, the same guys were on the team to find a place to put the jack handle. Without the owner’s manual, nobody would ever find it. Ever.

Here’s the trick. The rear seat and seat back fold down to give extra load space. While folding the seat forward, the very underside of the seat becomes visible. It is completely covered with the same carpet/fabric as are the floors. That (I guess) is supposed to be a clue. “Why would anybody upholster the underside of the seat?” you’re supposed to ask yourself. As you may have guessed, with a clever array of Velcro closures, the underside upholstery peels away. And, there, amid the springs and foam rubber, are little clips holding the two long jack handle pieces.

Oh, uh, but they are just straight bars. No handle off to one side so that you can crank the durn things.

Owner’s manual is no help on this one.

Search, search, search. The girls looked everywhere while I lay on my back underneath Suzie trying as best I could to turn the jack’s wheel with no crank.

“Are you SURE that there isn’t a handle under the seat somewhere?”

Jenny is standing near my feet, holding the lug wrench. “What does this little slot do?” She asked, examining the lug wrench handle.

Sure enough, punched through the middle of the lug wrench handle was a little slot that I guess we were supposed to simply know was the exact size of the flats machined on the end of the jack handle. What a leap of logic.

O.K., now I bet you’re thinking that all I had to do was to just slide that handle in place and spin the jack up.

Nah. Isuzu has engineers.

Some feces-face little geek in god-knows-where, Japan, designed this jack’s gearing so that the jack handle, which is already too long to rotate a reasonable arc beneath the truck, can’t possibly exert enough force to lift the truck smoothly, given the normal strength of a regular person. You get to lay on your back, way under the truck, let out a karate shout, while simultaneously pushing with all your might on the jack handle. It moves a quarter turn and then clangs into the truck’s undercarriage. (If you pull on the handle, you just lift yourself up out of the mud.) Re-set the handle for another push and repeat.

So with way more effort than I EVER expected to put forth while on vacation, I grunted and groaned the damn truck up a good two inches.

I was resetting the wrench/handle when I perceived the truck moving. I shouted something to the girls and did a twisting roll out from under the truck as it slid in the mud and fell off the jack.

Hey, this is getting fun. Now the gauze on my legs is fully saturated with mud – it feels really good – and we get to start all over again.

The girls went on a rock hunt and somehow came back with several stones big enough to wedge under the tires, ensuring that Suzie wouldn’t take any more unplanned strolls.

I went back at it and finally got the beast up high enough to remove the flat.

But not high enough get the new tire onto the lug studs.

Crank; clang. Crank; clang. Crank; clang. And then the engineers struck one final time. Ya see … they didn’t want to waste all of that money designing and building those fine jacks with ¼” of extra, useless lift capability … so they didn’t. The ol’ jack ran out of travel and quit with, oh, maybe 1/16 of an inch of clearance under the spare as it finally slid onto the studs.

But it went on and the girls took over the final installation and tightening of the lug nuts. And the jack cranked right down, with ease, so long as the weight of a whole damn truck was pressing it down.

Within 15 minutes we were home, covered in mud and grit (all 3 of us). Those on-demand water heaters proved to be up to the task because we all wanted and took some really long showers.

I love this car.

An Obvious Name

If you are sensitive to strong language, swearing, cursing, invective or whatever you want to call nasty words -- do NOT read any further. Go away.

If you are under 21, go away.

Are you ready?

This is serious stuff.

This is going to be rough.

Take a deep breath and hold on.

Here we go ...

If you've been over to the family blog, you know that we bought a car down in CR and Pat thinks we should give the new wheels a name. She even has a survey over on that blog so that you can vote for a suggested name or even suggest one of your own.

When she asked me to suggest a name, I immediately knew what to call the new buggy. This critter is a 1994 Isuzu Rodeo. Remember those old tanks? Solid.

But, being 14 years old and having seen a lot of duty on some pretty rough roads, I'm betting that this old lizzie will hear some invectives from me (gasp!).

{I've been trying to get rid of this bad invection, but I'm pretty sure that this is a Multi-Antibiotic-Resistant Invection (MARI). Groan.}

Seriously, here's the name:

"Fucking Car."

Perhaps even, "The Fucking Car."

Why, you ask?

Think about it. How convenient that name would be and how easily it will roll off my tongue.

When going out for a ride, or shopping:

"Get in The Fucking Car."

When coming home:

"Get out of The Fucking Car."

Let's say you're out for a day of shopping at the big mall and it has been so long since you arrived that you can't remember:

"Where's The Fucking Car?"

You can blame things on it with an innocent tone in your voice:

"The Fucking Car broke down in front of the bar, so I just went in to look for a mechanic."

Think about getting a flat tire:

"The Fucking Car has a fucking flat tire!"

What if, during idle conversation about exercising, you need to determine if your partner really feels like a jog or a ride:

"Do you want to take The Fucking Car or walk?"

As old as it is, it will certainly cost me repair money, whereupon I shall say, disgustedly:

"That Fucking Car."

I've already felt the vibes from Pat and I don't think The Fucking Car will formally initially be known by this name I'm suggesting. That's O.K. Everyone knows that it will eventually shed its cute anthropomorphic name in deference to the name it will answer to.

I'm taking The Fucking Car on a beer run. So there.