I made a trip to Minneapolis today for work, and was worried this morning that the security lines would be very long because of the incident in the UK last night. At DFW, the line was nice and short, just like normal.
At MSP, there was a large number of military and local law enforcement patroling the airport with MP5s and M-16. Of course the news crews were everywhere too.
The dental hygienists asked me how I was doing.
“Fine, how about you?”
She said she was good, but then made some remark about it not really mattering to me. I replied that it did, because I was already nervous enough about someone sticking pointy metal tools in my gums, I didn’t need someone in a bad mood doing it. She suggested that I use laughing gas, since all her clients had done so all day.
“OK, give it to me”
I can’t believe I hadn’t asked for the gas every trip. You get to float around in space for an hour. Not only is in legal, but your insurance pays for it, and you don’t mind the lady with the fire hose and jack hammer in your mouth!
WOW, the “dirt” at my house is terrible. It is more like a hardened clay mixed with huge rock, kind of like concrete! My goal is to dig down 10 inches or so to remove all the soil and replace it with a material that will make a good base for paver stones.
Previously, I removed all the vegetation (scraped off the layer of grass) and added it to my “future garden” area. When the grass breaks down, it makes good dirt. My brother spent the whole weekend helping me out. He built two new raised beds in the back of the yard, so we would have a place to store the dirt we removed. It is tough to get work done in the 104 degree heat, but we managed to get most of the area dug out to the correct depth. I picked up a cubic yard of “screenings” to use as my base. It looks like I am going to need two more yards of material before I will be ready to lay out the stones.
I am burying drainage pipe that will take away rain water from the roof. Eventually, I will have the pipe travel down the length of the backyard and empty out into the alley.
On the way home from work yesterday (in stop-and-go traffic) a car behind us was not able to stop in time and smacked my rideshare’s Volvo in the ass end.
The driver didn’t speak English.
He didn’t have a driver’s license, nor U.S. identification.
He claimed it wasn’t his car, and didn’t have any insurance.
The car had dealer tags.
The Plano police came out, and soon found that the paper tags on the car were not valid. The officer confiscated the tag.
After an hour, the officer said we could leave. The non-English speaking no-insurance having, illegal car driving visitor to the U.S. was still there…
I can’t help but to think about the cost involved in this very minor accident:
1- personal cost = insurance deductible + lost time to take care of it all
2- government (tax) = police time of officer, paperwork, impounding of vehicle, what to do with the guy…
3- what else?
See if you can figure this out!
And I am dump a load of dirt into the front flowerbed.
Now here is the weird part. Look at the two photos below. They are taken seconds apart, with the camera at the same place. Notice all the “orbs” in the second photo?
This is my favorite. Look how huge the orb is by my knee!
At one time in my life, I thought I had a handle on the meaning of the word “service.”
“It’s the act of doing things for other people.”
Then I heard these terms which reference the word
SERVICE:
Internal Revenue Service
Postal Service
Telephone Service
Civil Service
City &County Public Service
Customer Service
Service Stations
Then I became confused about the word “service” This is not what I thought “service” meant.
So today, I overheard two farmers talking, and one of them said he had hired a bull to “service” a few of his cows. BAM! It all came into perspective. Now I understand what all those “service” agencies are doing to us.
I hope you now are as enlightened as I am.
He’s able to crush and mangle your luggage with extreme prejudice.
Who do you call when you never want to see your bags again?
I learned how to post pictures within the text body using html today.
Here are some pictures of my ATI ProCharger installation. It is a D1SC with a 3-core air-to-air intercooler, geared to run at 8psi, which adds about 160HP to the gas guzzler. I have plans to upgrade to dual in-tank fuel pumps and water injection, then change the pulley to get 12psi. I think that is all the stock v8 will take without internal upgrades.
