the homeless guy and his dog

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T12:45:00.003-05:00

Hey...
New thing..
After having kids in the house every year since like 1979.. I got to sleep in until like 9:00 this morning... I waited up till late hoping Santa would bring us some Coal, but about 1:30 I decided to climb in with the Beagle and Milly for a too short winter nap. Woke up this morning to my Wife asking me to go check the Furnace.. cause it was "Cold " in here... I convinced her to just Bump the thermostat and I'd get up in a bit...
I think it's time to get training for a new trade... Oil Burner guys have to be some of the highest paid guys in the whole galaxy... I have had horrid luck trying to get one to show up here... No trouble getting info from them but actual presence??? Hah!!! I'm going to get training and be the guy who shows up, I think... Film at eleven... One of my Buddies has already given my new enterprise a name...
I got Shiloh a new toy... A stuffed Wubba Fox... Let's see how long that lasts... He's happy... and Warm... Milly got him a reversible coat.. and he's stylin...

Last post 2009??? Holey crap

2011-07-10T21:52:00.004-04:00

So I dropped in and I realize it's been over two years since I wrote anything here. Man.. Try to go backwards. Just lost my Mom to, well, it was probably renal failure.
I'm finishing up with a placement for a company that I almost moved to Vermont to work for. I've had a stint with underemployment. (They Suck ... Period) Worked for this place for last fall; in the shop doing reconditioning. Spent last summer on the Road doing installations with this same company... Lost my best buddy Louie, summer of 2009 . Got a new buddy about 5-6 months later. Actually , Found him Lost him to another family and then got him from them three months later. Dog wise I am very happy.
Not sure where I am going next.
How many things can a 58 year old guy with two mangled fingers do these days ??? I am going to try to figure out how to get a month or two of reflection... And perhaps jot down some things. Try to get some music time in. Amazingly losing the tip of my left index and the side of my right thumb hasn't made me a worse bass player. Didn't do wonders for my crappy regular guitar playing. But I discovered that I have a lap-steel gene... and I'm trying to develop that.
Couple buddies want to come play in my machine shop. Company would be nice.

Velveteen Rabbits and Sick Beagles..

2009-08-15T21:17:00.003-04:00

This is a place I hardly get to anymore. It has been a roller coaster the last couple months. I have over the course of time collected a number of vehicles which I at one time had a lot of interest in. I am seeing my Mortality more and more. So I am trying to unload some of my projects. Step one . 1983 Diesel Rabbit. I told some folks who had been interested in it hoping someone with skill would come along and buy it. Lately it seems that every time try to sell a VW I own (Too Many) I get time wasters, people with no money, (Why should I sell something for Zero money unless I am related to someone or have a serious business relationship with them???) or folks who want to tell me I am asking too much/not enough or want to help me "convert it to french fry oil" or some such other time invasive project... I"m trying to sell, eliminate from my sphere, or otherwise convert my stuff to money. and have it go away. to a new home where it is loved or not.. Not get a new relationship with someone. My life is pretty full now. Enter a buddy of mine. With money. who wants to get a vehicle that gets better mileage than his SUV, with room for his drum kit. I look at his Budget...( he used to live at in my spare room)... and make a deal.. take your budget,.. Buy parts... (Cringe) I'll help you get her back to her former lackluster blandness. I have been running this vehicle on my property for three years, and trying to get time to get it back onto the road.. I will give you the car but you need to buy parts and do most of the actual work.. I know it has a couple issues.. Charging system and Brakes.. so I says.. Lets do a complete brake job , I mean complete.. starting with the brake booster.. which leaks.. I have one in stock.. for semi immediate delivery.. out of a VW Caddy Diesel... Who knew.. So in goes the Booster.. new front pads and wheel-cylinders, brake shoes and turned rotors and drums.. We are really cooking now.. My buddy wants to do service.. Change filters... Oils and stuff. I"m all over it.. lets do it.. at some point we realized that the motor isn't winding up like it should... Hey I thinks.. the filter probably has cruds... This can only help... next thing you know its hardly running at all.. I have spent years on the road working on all sorts of construction equippage so I immediately think.. Lets bleed everything.. I try bleeding with pressure ,,, bleeding with vacuum.. and finally running a line right from a container of clean brandy new fuel into the lift portion of the pump. Still Ick.. and NO return fuel at all.. So I start to call everyone I know who is still doing this stuff.. What did I forget????? Meanwhile I drain the tank.. and put that fuel into the oil-tank for the furnace... (Have I mentioned the part about not having enough money to get the tank filled??? No?? I'll get to that ) and start to use my oil sampling tool (heavy vacuum) to bleed the pump.. I"m getting foam... Foam.. Criminy... the motor still runs the same ... but foam.. You would think that because I am drawing a vacuum I'd be reducing the fuel to the injectors but No difference... I had put some Diesel cleaning stuff into the little tank with the fuel.. not much return .. Foam.. this is driving me round the bend.. (have I mentioned that my Beagle is really sick yet??? No???) anyhow.. I call the guy who owns the car and said.. "You know any active Prayer Warriors???" (Yeah ... I"m one of those whackos) and I went to bed ... Next morning I start seeing tweets from my buddy looking for PW's to help on this.. back to yesterday's ritual.. fill the leetle tank.. Pump vacuum... rinse repeat.. not much change.. But I have not had it idling for this long for a long time.. the electrophonic fan comes on and goes off a few times .. the battery voltage drops.. I shut the car off and take out the solenoid shut down valve... look it over and clean up the components.. put it back in and put my charger on the brand new Walmart battery... go work on the rear brakes.,. finish them up.. and get back under the hood.. (definition of insanity.. try the same thing over and over expecting different results.. ) Start engine , play with starting leever.. no change.. pull vacuum on return line.. foam.. Criminy.. anyhow about an hour later.. I get a txt that folks are praying for this to work.. Start engine ... idle.. do the vroom vroom thing .. still foam in the return and not much RPM... keep the vacuum on it and all of a sudden the leetle jar on the sampling pump is full of FUEL, NOT FOAM... I shut everything off ... put the return line into the tank and check the leetle jar on the sampling pump for goo, fudge, crap, or anything not fuel or FOAM... Nuttin... anyhow.. Start it again. and its like 2005 when I last drove it.. Vroom Vroom plenty of return fuel ... no foam.. no chunks.. NADA.. but its running good.. better in fact... I'm very impressed... Don't see many answers to prayer around here.. The really amazing thing to me??? Folks who are always after me to trust G-d more are trying to come up with a worldly reason for this sudden return to normalcy ... Who knew??? Anyhow.. The guy who owns the car decides that in light of his budget not being wailed just yet he wants new front calipers.. Why not?? Its a good idea ... the car has been sitting... Calipers go right on.. Pads go right on... Start to pressure bleed from the bleeders up.. I always bleed like that.. suck glop out of master cylinder.. bleed rinse repeat.. then fill reservoir.. have someone pump the pedal and bleed conventionally... and air is gone.. put on wheels... take it for a test drive.. and brakes work but not stop on a dime and give change good.. Uh... this really should be better .. Now I"m having mental blockage.. Call another buddy and he suggests drawing a vacuum on the booster.. Sure enough its got a leak... Its been sitting in storage since 2003 probably... we order up a new booster... and an alternator.. (did I mention the phantom battery drain???) A couple days later we have a new brake booster and a new alternator... and My buddy's budget is starting to strain.. So in goes the new Booster.. and check everything brakeage and it seems fine.. I drive up and down my dead end street.. (It still has plates on it.. MassiveChewShits has rules about unregistered cars.). and the brakes seem fine..
Next up.. make sure the alternator is alternating.. of course My lovely Fluke Mulimeter has died.. just flat out puked.. No leaking 9 volt battery just an abject refusal to operate.. So I take out the trusty Amprobe.. which has a scale almost applicable and search to see if we are getting charging.. I remember a thing about the Old GM alternators where if the idiot light fails the game is over.. So my buddy and I embark upon a web-search looking for information and I call one of the old owners of almost everything VW I have and see if he has any books left with this sort of information.. The two I have are not making themselves obvious.. and My Buddy finds a blurb regarding warning lights and lack of charging... The Old archivist comes up with a book that has a wiring Diaphragm and his text expounds the same thing... I'm going through my collection of Old Simpson Multimeters to see if one might work ... and I get an e-mail with a written procedure online using a test light.. and a jumper lead.. Pisser. Now we are cooking.. the dash is out.. we are testing every lead we can find both ends of and finally we get an open in the wiring harness.. SO to double check it .. I take my handy dandy cable strippers and try to make an uninsulated part on the wire.. it strips but there is NO RESISTANCE TO THE COVER BEING STRIPPED OFF... [ ?? ] turns out .. the wire broke off safely inside the molded rubber plug that goes to the back of the alternator.. We attempt to go into my "storage shed" my very sad 1952 Yellowstone travel trailer which hasn't had any innards since the 90's but is stacked to the gills with bins full of all sorts of car parts.. We get in and I have put 2X6's on strategic places because the floor is getting soft.. Sure enough.. Once we get in there and start gooning stuff around I end up standing on the ground underneath.. with two 235 Chevy six cylinder heads and a 650 BSA crankcase pinning my foot to the ground.. Freakin Ouch.. and Panic.. (did I mention the recent type II diabetes Diagnosis??? No?? F--k it) So My Buddy is freaking out.. and I realize that its only my Shoe that is stuck... so I ask my buddy to try and lift one of the heads and I extract my stocking foot... then I reach down with a Chip hook that was there and retrieve my shoe.. re-install shoe grab bin with VW wiring harness parts and head out into the declining light.. of course No plugs manifestered them selves.. I satisfied the current requirement temporarily, by hack sawing off a part of the plug where at one point the offended terminal was and just crimping on a "new" terminal.. of course all was not immediately well.. we still had to try a few more LED bulbs in the dash to get all of them that this car uses to work and complete the trigger circuit to get the alternator to work... then of course one of the stainless hoeys that hold the headlight bulb decided to break off allowing the bulb to dance around like a dirt bike headlight on a really horrible road.. back to the wiring/electrical bin and out of the seven or eight the previous owner had saved... there was one with three out of the four needed still attached and we had two headlights pointing in more or less the same erection.. another test drive and it seemed like we were ready to get the registration stuff done.. My buddy had the next day off so we parked his soon to be re-assigned car out in the back yard.. (wayyyy back) and I took him round in my van to get rid on my plates and set him up to get HIS new registration,.. Of course HIS insurance company is in Floridia and faxes hadda be faxed and internet stuff had be printed and stuff had to be done to get the paper stuff done none of which happened quickly or correctly.. so .. the old car goes to a tenant where my buddy lives, and he Rides his bike to work a couple days.. Soon everything is looking happy and plates are acquired at the RMV and the Rabbit is ready for its maiden voyage.. Off drives my buddy and I go on to collapse with the beagle.. (remember the Furry Beagle??? It turns out he has cancer cells in his urinary tract and he isn't a happy guy at all) So we veg out on the floor in front of his fan and in about a half hour... a knock comes on the door.. A concerned newly minted Rabbit owner is on my porch with an incredibly worried look upon his countenance.. Hey Woolfey .. can you come look at this??? I get outside and it smells horrible out there like clutch or brakes or something.. the rears on this Bugs Bunny are drums.. and I (mistakenly) figure they are freakin out somehow. BUT, they are cool to the touch .. But the fronts are HOT and so are the centers of the rims.. I say.. Buddy Duude guy.. this is way beyond my ability to understand now.. The rabbit has an European diagonal brake layout .. If you lose a circuit you should have one front and one rear on opposite sides.. NOT two overheating fronts and rears that seem to be behaving properly.. I lend him my van to get home with and I start looking at Books and stuff online.. and the Beagle looks at me.. (did I mention he's sick?? and I'm trying to sell cars and stuff to get him Better/Diagnosed??) In the morning I call another of my VW diesel rabbit owning compatriots and ask him what HE thinks of the rectum as a whole.. He seems to think .. and I agreed after he mentioned it .. that something must be keeping the cylinder cups from returning to the rearmost and drain back position.. Made sense to me... So with numbing aches in my left arm and shoulder.. (Neck pinch not heart attack) I take the master cylinder off , its the only thing in the brake system that hasn't been replaced... and I get it onto my bench and put it into the vice.. Long story short.. It had run out of Fluid a year or so ago and brake fluid being Hygroscopic.. built up a ring of rust on the seal that keeps excess brake fluid from getting into the booster.. thus keeping just enough pressure on the fronts to make them drag and get hot while the rears like good little drum brakes behaved honorably like drum brakes on light weight cars do.. My buddies budget by now is hosed and he is riding his bike to work and eating food of his own construction for lunch.. (Did I mention he is single?? ) Enter the next Beagle problem.. He needs an ultrasound.. In the brief seconds I have not been consumed with this car that I just wanted to sell to someone who would take it home and make it real (Velveteen Rabbit reference) .. love it cuddle it and drive it forever.. I have been trying to get the scrap metal I have been hoarding off to my favorite scrap dealer.. I have recently had to move several buckets and what do I find but three buckets of sorted cartridge brass I raked up on a range a couple years ago.. I combined that with a bunch of aluminum and got a couple hundred bucks for Beagle maintenance (not enough for the ultrasound) and I lent my buddy the funds for the masturbatory cylinder.. Incidentally the furry beagle got a medicine change and we all (Beagle, Buddy, Wife, and ME) had to endure him being in pain until we could change his NSAID (Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug) meds for his arthritic paw for one that would help his intestinal tract...
Friday Morning came.. I delivered a SECOND load of brass that another friend and I had spent 11 hours sorting out from mud and inappropriate other content , picked up the newly minted Rabbit owner and his new master cylinder and headed out to the abode of too many things outside and ONE sick furry beagle..
I checked the actuation rod on the booster and decided to just screw it in a bit to prevent a mechanical repeat of the previous problem.. And installed it bled it up and down.. and made a license plate bracket.. and found out that the previously effeminate sounding euro horn had deceased.. Ugh.. drove to the next town where my buddy had worked in another branch of the parts dealer he works for in the big city and bought another effeminate Euro wienie horn.. we then checked all the lights, handbrake, horn (again) and double checked the license plate light and went off to my buddies' favorite inspection place.. WHERE we are told his buddy can't do an inspection on this car because it's a diesel.. WTF!! Massachusetts Sucks at registry stuff.. Just plain all out sucks.. Incompetence and aggravation designed to extort its bleating serfs to go and by new stuff they can't afford.. We then drive to the inspection station I use and no problems.. Its about time.. the car has a sticker, and is once again for the first time since 2004 back on the highways and byways of one of the worst states in the union.. Run, incidentally, by an incompetent ex community activist from Chicago.. Who has inflated the budget and just about single handedly sent more jobs out the state than a functioning railroad could have..
Anyhow the Velveteen Edition Volkswagen Diesel Rabbit is back on the road and the Beagle has one less Rabbit to chase around the yard, That is of course if he recovers sufficiently to even want to engage in that sort of gleeful canine behavior.. Oh yeah.. and I didn't mention.. a series of cat scans that I had to endure during this epic struggle shows that my lungs are clear.. No horrible stuff there..

Culture of Corruption spreads in MassiveChewShits

2009-02-01T12:14:00.006-05:00

Sorry for the long Hiatus but I been trying my best not to lose everything in the Peoples Republic of MassiveChewShits, While those on Welfare and SSDI get more than I can working for folks who might hire a 56 year old guy who can't seem to buy his way past a pre~employment physical.
I recently had a bit of contract work with a company I have worked for in the past. In that past incantation they have had issues with DOT and smaller utility type trailers. My boss gave me a copy of an interoffice memo describing a new law that the Peoples Republic of MassiveChewShits has recently enacted. This law is aimed at thousands of small businesses in the state who use trailers in the course of their daily business. Basically in MassiveChewShits you were not required to have an inspection sticker on your trailer unless you were going to go outside of the Commonunistwealth. I was working in an inspection station in the early 70's when that requirement for trailers was relaxed. Now the new government lead by someone who was part of the same circle of corruption in Chicago Where our new Messiah comes from, has deemed that certain trailers have to be inspected to "increase the safety" of the highways in MassiveChewShits. Here is the rub. Trailer inspection was always a good idea. I have no idea why it was dropped. BUT did I find this out in an announcement from the RMV??? No I found it out because someone in the company I was working for read an article praising the bold new move that was written in a transportation journal published in a different state. In an effort to save money the MassiveChewShits RMV doesn't send out renewal notices for licenses anymore. and evidently they don't feel that telling folks who use trailers in the course of their small business that they are now in violation of some law they passed for revenue enhancement. Not only do all trailers require inspections but the real problem is that any trailer that can be registered for more than 3000 pounds GVW requires this inspection to be done by a DOT certified garage.. these inspections are done for a fee PLUS an hourly rate charge. My trailer has a GVW of 7000 pounds and costs 81 dollars to register. the old sticker if you could find someone to do it was 29 bucks. The new inspection process could be as high as 150 bucks for my trailer and could possibly change the insurance and registration of my passenger van I tow it with. raising the cost of my insurance and registration. All of this with no notice from the RMV. SO I call my insurance company. My agent says "Didn't you know that?". My reply, When did they send out the notice, IT'S NOT EVEN ON THE WEBSITE. My next question: Do I have to upgrade the insurance on my passenger van?? Agent: I presume so. I call the RMV sit on hold for a half hour get no one to answer my question and fire off an e-mail. Last December... just after Christmas... Corruption at its finest .. and when in the spring the lawnscapers start rolling out and getting fined into obscurity the newspapers and television will do some sort of "Sinful Messiah " piece about how the lawnscapers are ruining the roads with their 3000 pound GVW trailers and have to be stopped. Of course the idea isn't to stop them at all but to steal money from them. I might make mention that MassiveChewShits is the only State in the 50 that requires law enforcement personnel (The Armed Flagmens' Union) to officiate at every work site on a public highway. Our Culture of Corruption Governor from Shitcargo.. the same culture of corruption that spawned Hillery and out blessed Messianic presence in Washington, and the misunderstood embarrassment to Slavic people everywhere; Rod R. Blagojevich; Devoid Patrick allegedly tried to get civilian flagmen to do the job. (Sound familiar??? Civilian police are a big ticket in the Shitcago culture of corruption at least when they leak out to surrounding areas) Well the armed flagmens union staged protest where they drove illegally through work sites telling motorists that they had no reason to obey civilians and the Governor relented. And the cops got hand slaps on their permanent record. I think Public executions on pay~per~view were in order. At least pay~per~view beat downs and these Pigs working convenience store jobs the rest of their lives working for Illegal aliens that they are by law unable to do anything about in MassiveChewShits because MassiveChewShits is a sanctuary state. Back to the trailers.. If a trailer is being pulled by an illegal alien's illegally registered truck I suppose he'll get off scot free. My trailer barely breaks out of Hobby status and is no threat to anyone. Its Not for hire as the old rule used to say and gets about 1500 miles in a busy year. If I tow it with a car do I have to re-register my car to a level that only MassiveChewShits that I know has ??? The passenger car as a commercial vehicle status??? That is one of the highest cost registrations in MassiveChewShits. What a Country and What a bunch of Morons Who keep voting for Change.. Welcome to Pick one: Russia in the teens, Germany in the 30's, or Cuba in the 50's, .. I hope to see a bunch of you idiots go before me. Your pattern of voting for change has been directly responsible for the deaths of over 56 million people reported in the 20th century and over 60 million in China during the same period not really reported..

has it really almost been a year???

2008-05-11T00:27:00.005-04:00

Wow, It has been extremly busy since last time. I'll try to catch up with a couple posts so as not to have one huge one that will overrun the page. We changed some bad pipes in the cellar in preparation for bringing in machinery from everywhere I have had it stored. (I have some machinery moving pictures as well.) But right in the middle of hauling stuff to the scrapyard and moving stuff and changing pipes, I had a real job for a couple months. I had to find someone to come and take Louie out for his mid-day Bark and give him some food. (He is mostly beagle and one thing everyone has told me is Don't leave a full dog dish near a beagle). Now during the time in the trailer, this was never an issue. But for some reason, once we started house living again, He would eat all his food at once.. and he's not as FAT as he looks... He is built like a bulldozer.. but he still don't need to be left with a full food bowl because it won't make is past 9 AM... (I was leaving at 5:30 AM and on most days the earliest anyone would have been home was 5:30 -6:00). So Milly would handle giving him his morning food at 7:15 as she was leaving... and I had a local gal come and take him out for a nice walk around 2 PM and give him his midday bowl , and We would give him is night bowl at about 8..
It was nice having an income for a bit But I was left with a ton of catch up...
And as promised, I finally got used to being follicularly depraved, have had a couple haircuts since last July the 5th and have settled on what seems to be what the hair is going to be for a while. So here's a picture. Nothing personal about the serious expression, but I was trying to land in my seat before the timer went of in my camera.

July is here and its hot out

2007-07-05T15:50:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since last posting. Milly and Louie and I have been trying to remember which friends have which stuff and also trying to figure out how to get out of our storage unit.
Almost all of my trucks are home, Cept one that a guy I will never be able to adequately thank has been allowing to hang out at his place. Right now, since it is a big (BIG) van we are planning to bring it by the storage on the mighty Texas Rollback trailer , load all the rest of the boxes and couple bits of furniture into it,along with the minty mighty Norge gas range which I have been finding parts to modernize, and just park it out back in the outback of the house.
The weather has been getting more and more onerous , and I have been doing a lot of stuff outside, with my son. My hair which has been really long since 1978, has been starting to get to be a nuisance. I decided a couple weeks ago to donate it to "Locks of Love" so that a kid getting chemo or some other hair threatening treatment can get a "hair prosthetic" as they call it...
I washed it and conditioned it a couple days ago and again this morning, My son who is pretty good at haircutting showed up around 9 and the process began.. First some "before" pictures with my diminutive canine companion, then dividing it up with some of them clips the hairdressers use.. then making a pile of little Wolfen ponytails on the kitchen table.. then scissoring to a rough approximation of a more "55" looking haircut then then buzzers to get it closer, Maybe I'll post an "after" picture after I get used to it but for now.. I had my heart set on a mohican, like my other son had had but my hair had been used to being middle parted for the last almost 30 or so years and it was having NONE of behaving .. so I have a shorter middle parted haircut with goo in it till it mellows out... anyhow ...

this chunk of hair is just about 17" long and the short parts average a foot long.
I hope it is able to help someone... Or honestly I'd have been to stubborn to cut it.

and here is the link to "Locks of love" if anyone else has a sudden lapse of follicular sanity

Locks of Love

God loves My Wife...

2007-01-12T02:43:00.000-05:00

So after a few months of cleaning .. Milly's mom's house was ready for the appraisers ,, then the realtor. When the first report came in we (Milly her brother and her sis) were all shocked at what the economy in Mass had done to home values... We had been looking at properties and trying to find something in our price range but initial market analysis of this place just over a year ago put the old home place way out of her/our range... Turned out Milly could afford to buy the house she grew up in ... and after a couple calls to the mortgage brokers who had tried to help us before... we managed to find a good loan and she as able to get the place...
So Homelessness is a memory... but unless you have ever done it... you will never understand... a Pleasant one mostly.. Its nice to have a place to work on stuff... and spread out a quilt project or a computer chassis and not have to pick up as soon as you get tired of it... so nothing will fall while we travel... We were able to retain a lot of our "good" stuff thanks to the help of good friends... so I still have a 1951 suburban project ... a 50 chevy panel project... and a 1963 Grumman Kurbmaster , Our next RV project... we are thinking of outfitting it in the style of the old beach buggies of the 50's and 60's... It should be fun... along with all the "small jobs" that a house constantly wants done...

Interesting day..

2006-08-23T00:23:00.000-04:00

So I came out of the house we are staying at today and I see a guy parking at the end of the driveweigh... He has a kinda worked on Jeep wagoneer... and a roof rack... I noticed a pole saw on the roofrack and realised he must be the tree climber the Loggers need to help in their quest to remove some trees that have to be moved out in preparation for a new septic system... This guy was the best Climber I have seen... Pretty unorthodox... but really nimble and able to get up the trees... and attach the lines to guide the trunks to the ground and really good a cutting up there.. (doing most of his heavy work in the 75-85 foot area)... Took quite a few pictures... I might post some later... anyhow... just figured I'd stop in and type something...

Insanely busy....

2006-05-28T23:57:00.000-04:00

For the last month or so I have been working for my buddy who has a millwright business and at night helping my buddy who I used to work for move his entire operation wayyyyyy west of here..... Like 40-50 miles west of here.... this has really crimped my tme... I did get a Demo to use from the laptop place... and It seems to be working fine... So I was able to watch my progress on the gps thingy... And also find a Quicker route for my Boses kid,....to get to an appointment...
My equipment here is dwindling by attrition... I lost a 21" monitor this afternoon... and It won't be replaced... until I can afford a flatscreen Flatpanel..

...............................................................................

thoughts from the "home base"

2006-04-12T00:12:00.000-04:00

Doesn't seem I ever get to type much here. I actually Have work!!!!! A buddy if mine is a Millwright and We have been doing projects for the last 6 months or so. It's nice to have a fairly steady income. And a actual Schedule. We have been doing some projects for different companies in our area. An automated Chopping machine for a plastics plant. A cooling tank for another. We did some rigging at a manufacturing facility a few towns over. Did some welding on the top of a Brownstone in Boston... That was strange... The top of those buildings are a different world. I have pictures someplace of patios on top of buildings, Small buildings on top of others. With trees and grass!!!!! I would much rather live further out west, or even better, more to the north, Like Maine or New Hampshire...
Milly and I are checking the Real estate listings hoping to find an older house that we can perhaps afford... where I can set up my shop again and start doing my own projects, and maybe some for people who might actually pay me. That would be nice.
It would also be nice to be able to let Louie run amuck without fear of some loser in an expensive car on the way to some Important event, Squishing him.
I put together some money and am looking at a laptop and a docking station for my van... so I can use it to run a mapping program and do email and stuff from the many WIFI sites near me... I am also considering trimming my "home" setup down... Now I have three CPU's , two 21 inch old heavy monitors two keyboards, Related KVM switches, and other stuff. The laptop guy says I can use my laptop on my "home" network with a port or two on my KVM switch... I got two cases that are the same with two bigger power supplies, of my best motherboards With 1 gig processors, And I hope to have my bench down to two CPU's Next stop flat panel monitors... that can run on 12 volts... Then later some of them newfangled ITX motherboards that are single voltage... for moving back into an RV, This fixed address stuff is for the birds.

Spring last year..

2005-09-23T23:31:00.000-04:00

Anyhow... After the second winter we had the second spring in the trailer. It had been a bit cold , and we had our share of problems with the furnace and stuff, But we had made great strides on cleaning out the house for Milly's mom. I had a really nice bass fiddle in storage and took it too a friend who is a Luthier to have it brought back into great shape.... It came out way better than I had expected that it would... and after doing some searches on the Internet and talking to Kay bass aficionados.. I discovered that it was a rare beast.. a 1941 model 0-100 Orchestra model bass.. I had Glenn of Mockingbird music put a new neck on it and do a modification to it that only a few players really understand and Like... Until they try it... The biggest problem I had now was I really didn't have a place to keep such a nice instrument... and Since I have an Aluminum one out of the 30's... which would deal with the elements were we live... I Put it up for sale.. I had to deal with the usual dealer-speak.." You ruined it by putting on a new neck I give you 900 bucks..."
Uh.. anyhow one of the guys in the truck club is an instructor at Berkeley School of music... and I called him to see if he knew a student with a clue who might need a really nice bass... for Gigging... or to fall in love with... He played it for an hour and wrote a check...for a respectful amount... and almost a year later.. He still loves it... Armed with a bit of money Milly and I started seeking a new place to live/park... turns out we made our choice at just the right time... One of the people in the neighborhood had been trying to get us ejected from the area because he didn't like seeing our trailer from his house... .Turns out the day after the selectmen's meeting was the day I took the "house" to a millwright buddy of mine who had agreed to sandblast the frame... in preparation to re-coat it and do some modifications to the suspension... to make it better for Boondocking... Anyhow the bored with health never showed up for the inspection because the trailer was gone from the lot... Even though ... it was another problem that no-one in Milly's family needed... We had made a considerable dent in the cleanup inside so Louie and Milly and I moved inside... and started on the outside cleanup as summer had come...

the Journey to the second winter continues

2004-08-24T14:02:00.000-04:00

We had been on and off our buddies driveway for about 9 months when the frustration level got really high. We had interviewed for at least a dozen appartments and applied for another 20 more without any form of reply ... (You don't have to be professional or even polite to be a landlord..) It seemed that the Housing gods weren't about to let us off the streets. But the campgrounds were closing for the year and winter is a season I like to be stationary for. So we were off looking for a winter parking place. The only campground handy to my wifes work that would entertain fulltime tennants required a years worth of rent up front and wanted a "removal fee"for any unit over 10 years old... another fee we didn't need.... We stopped in a my wifes moms place to tell them we were having trouble finding a new spot and came up with the idea putting the unit out back at her place for a while and cleaning up a spot inside the house for the long term.. Made more sense at the time than using a friends undeveloped land which we had been offered. THAT would have been really nice cept for the 1/2 mile undeveloped road to the nearest street, As it turns out maybe buying a plow might could have been the better choice...

The Saga Continues

2004-08-11T21:06:00.000-04:00

The quickest way to find out who your friends are is to get into a situation where you really need help. Once people who knew us found out what are answer to homelessness was, it was like we had contracted some incredibly vile contaigiuos disease. My families answer was something that sounded a lot like "If you stop resisting employment," and get rid of the only real friend you guys have, (Louie) you could get into subsidised housing. Great We talked to a couple of people we knew would get into trouble if they helped us , to see if they could think of something we hadn't and they said "we'd be honored to help you". We had a place to park while we looked for a more realistic solution. We would go to a camping ground for a while, then go to our driveway spot then Wal-mart. then another Parking lot where I was working. It actually got nice working this out A buddy let us put our phone at his address. The phone company put a interface on the house and we ran the comwire to it. We had a phone mount in the trailer and a modem for one of my junkyard computers. We started looking in earnest, figuring that everymonth we didn't pay some landlords mortgage or send some guys kids to college. we could grow our bank to the point where we could put a down payment on a real piece of property. Enter disaster. I had been looking for a job with decent pay and having no luck at all, when a friend of mine who runs a company that does millwright work,asked me to come out for breakfast. He asked me my opinion of a couple jobs he was quoting. They were nice jobs involving rebuilding conveyors in a flourmill. Since my buddy has MS and understands the racist policies of employers regarding hiring people with slight medical problems, my back and neck problems weren't going to be a problem. We finally had a good job for me and my wife had good insurance. My buddies company had a couple good sized jobs then the one big one we were looking to get, a complete overhaul of some grain conveyors. 270 feet of 24 inch wide paddle conveyers 150 feet in the air. Not a horrible job actually, we had a rigging company come in with a 250 foot crane and were able to break the housings into 16-32 foot sections, and lower them to the ground where we moved them into a shop where we could work. After a long day of rigging around, the crew would head home to showers and bed and come back in the morning. A couple days into the job the crew decided that we needed specialised tools to make the job go better. Since it was Friday and we wouldn't be working all weakened, I went to the storage where I have some tools. Coming round the back of my truck, my left leg collapsed. (Damn Spinal stenosis!!) Broke my little toe clean off. Hurt like hell too. I went to the emergency room and spent the kinda fun filled night you can only have there. Made an appointment with the bone guy, had to wait a couple days, (frickin insurance companies), and got an aircast. Now I wasn't allowed onto the property where I was working. Luckilly for the guy who owns the company , he had a relative who had just lost a bid on a job he really wanted. So he was able to pick up where I had to leaf off. This left me however without an income again, but we had caught up on a bunch of bills that needed catching up with.

The Beginning of the Saga

2004-08-02T11:14:00.000-04:00

Almost two years ago my family and I were living in a 3 bedroom appartment in a town in central Mass. We had been in this same place for 17 years . Towards the end of November the landlord came and said he had finally got his equity loan and was beginning "extensive renovations". We had till the begining of December to be out of there. The letter said something like "I hope giving you an extra week gives you plenty of time to find a new place." We had been behind and caught up and behind again, but he did have a contractor ready to start working. (Turns out the contractor took the guy for a ride as well) We offered to get caught up before we left but he said to use the money to help get a new place. My wife is the pro with dealing with landlords so she increased her searching through the papers and ads in the funny papers the realtors leave in stores to make people think that there are appartments and houses availiable to blue collar folks. We had been looking for an upgrade or at least another place for over a year because this landlord was the third we had had in the time we had been there and I could see that we were getting near the end of being able to live there without and incredible rent increase. Now the family consisted of my wife and I, two sons, a daughter and her daughter. Quite a collection. A recipe for any landlord worth his salt in Central Mass to keep out of his/her property. Not to mention Louie, the diminutive Canine companion. Milly would find a place she thought she could afford and I'd call to try to get an appointment. I made the mistake a few times not asking if they would accept dogs, but I soon found that even if they didn't say in their ads no dogs most people hide behind their insurance companies and wouldn't have them. I started sending this little story I had first seen in the Readers Digest and later on the internet along with our applications... I haven't seen it properly credited. nor have seen any one claim it for their own. I'd like to know who wrote it first , I have seen several versions , I like this one the best.

I found it on the web
Dog Heaven
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like Mother of Pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold.He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?""This is Heaven, sir," the man answered."Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked."Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."The man gestured, and the gate began to open."Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked."I'm sorry sir, but we don't accept pets."The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog. After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road which led through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book."Excuse me!" he called to the reader. "Do you have any water?""Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there." The man pointed to a place that couldn't be seen from outside the gate. "Come on in.""How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog."There should be a bowl by the pump."They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself, and then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree waiting for them."What do you call this place?" the traveler asked."This is Heaven," was the answer."Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.""Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's Hell.""Doesn't it make you mad for them to use heaven's name like that?""No. I can see how you might think so, but we're just happy that they screen out the folks who'll leave their best friends behind."

Amen .....

After it became obvious we weren't going to find a place in any appropriate time, we went to the biggest RV place in the area because I had heard that they had a sale in the fall of units that were being given up because the owners didn't want to continue with rent for winter or cause they were trade-ins and the units were being wholesaled out. I looked at a couple just out of my price range and then a couple which I didn't like at all. The last unit in the lineup was a 1975. really nice, good layout for a fulltiming situation. Turns out that because it had no refrigerator I could have it for 495.00!!!!! We had a fridge, so we grabbed it and started our tour of central Massachusetts. We had to do a little bit of work, the furnace needed to be cleaned and the ducts underneath were amazingly clear of mouse nests. The water heater worked fine and the stove just needed to be cleaned up a bit. I do some work sometimes for a guy who makes the testing and reconditioning equipment for the Blue Rhino folks. He was able to recondition our aluminum propane tanks and we got a new switching regulator at the Camping World place near where we had a millwright job going. I bartered my way to a brandy new set of 7.00X15 trailer tires. We have been moving around for almost two years and now that we are in an attic cleaning up a house for some relatives.. I really miss the trailer. I still consider myself... "The Homeless guy and his dog"