As I'm sure you've noticed by now, I've recently been provided with a shiny new banner graphic for this blog whatsit by the amazing Spiderfox.
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Furry Critters,
greed,
Rambling Monologue,
Strange Sightings
Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
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Random Facts
This tale is only "sort of" a tale of the Hole in the Head Gang in that it just involves yours truly...
Allow me to set the scene for you...
I'm driving along in my mucus green 1973 Ford Galaxy two-door... well it was mostly mucus green, the nose was white since it had been replaced after my aunt killed a VW Rabbit a couple years before I inherited the vehicle in question...
As I was saying, I was tooling along the highway at a nice sedate 65-70mph, minding my own business, while avoiding any law enforcement types.
This particular stretch of highway was undergoing some construction of the type where they were cutting ditches across the road and working during the night, then filling them in and patchcoating them so the highway could be used during the day, leaving what can only be described as inverted speedbumps across the roadbed as they tended to settle over the course of the day.
Now, as previously stated I was rolling along, minding my own business, with my recently installed stereo blasting in the background, windows down, and not a care in the world.
Now, bear in mind that I'd been driving this car, in my usual manner, for quite a few months by now... meaning that I routinely beat the ever-loving crap out of it... without so much as a hiccup as far as it's operations were concerned, which makes what happened all the more surprising.
As I fly past the intersection that would have taken me home I'm thinking about the bits and pieces I need to get at the junkyard for my father while a few more miles fly past and I hit... The Bump.
I hit this particular rut across the highway at about 65mph and the first thing I notice is the sound of metal making an odd scraping/tearing sound and the radio cutting out as the back end of the car dropped a foot or so.
At this point my first thought is that the spring shackles I needed to replace finally let go and I dropped the rear axle... a pain in the ass to fix but not catastrophic...
I was wrong...
I was noticing several things at once at this point, the radio cutting out, the engine dying, a whole lot of metal scraping noises, I was sitting at an odd angle, and I was feeling more of a draft than I should.
Looking in the rear view mirror to see where my axle was headed instead gave me a view of my back seat rapidly getting smaller and smaller as I moved away from it... this was not right.
As it turns out, the frame was just a bit rusted and I had managed to tear my Ford completely in half behind the front seats... so, I begin wrestling the now powerless power steering to aim my now bifurcated Ford to the side of the road and... wait.
I turned on my emergency flashers, but this was more out of habit than anything else since the ones on my half of the car were facing the wrong way and the ones on the back half were useless since that half was no longer connected to... well, anything.
Now, also bear in mind that this was before cell phones were anywhere near as ubiquitous as they are today... So after about 15-20 minutes a police car finally deigns to arrive.
After parking his cruiser behind the back half of the Galaxy with his flashers going so some random idiot wont plow into it, he walks the quarter mile distance to where I was seated still in the driver's seat like nothing untoward has happened.
He eventually makes it to my location and knocks on the window, and with all the aplomb I can muster I roll down the window and ask, in all innocence, "Is there a problem, officer?"
With an equal amount of aplomb he looks from me, to my half of the car, and then to the other section of auto back up the road.
After exactly 7¾ seconds he returns his gaze to the section of car I'm in, and then back to me... After yet another pause he tells me, with a perfectly straight face, "I don't know whether to cite you for littering... or leaving the scene of an accident."
So, after a bit of back and forth involving paperwork, reports, the signing of names, and making sure both I and my car were who we claimed to be, he eventually calls a flatbed to drag my debris home.
Now, while this is going on, my father is outside working on the jeep I was supposed to be getting parts for on this little foray and he sees the flatbed coming.
The first thing he notes is my in the cab not looking very pleased and then, as it makes the turn in the road, he sees the remains of the Ford scattered about the bed of the truck, this elicits nothing more than a shake of his head and a return to his wrenching.
As I'm getting out of the truck to direct the deposition of my car's mortal remains all I hear from his quarter is "I don't want to hear about it" and the sound of a ratchet spinning... but the grin on his face tells me I'm never going to live this one down... ever.
On September 10th, 1945 a Colorado farmer attempting to dispatch a chicken for dinner ended up with one of the biggest non-hoaxes of the era and a place in the Guinness World Book of Records for the headless chicken who survived the longest.
Lloyd Olsen had been sent out to the yard to sacrifice a plump young rooster of about six months.
And guess who was coming to dinner to eat it... His mother-in-law.
Knowing how she favored the neck, Olsen went about his task with the idea of keeping on the mother in law's good side, by keeping most of the neck on the chicken.
He succeeded in a way he'd never have expected in his wildest dreams.
When the chicken (who later became known as Mike, although nobody remembers why) was decapitated, he refused to lay down and die.
While many birds slaughtered this way will appear to run around for a few seconds, it's actually a nerve/adrenalin response by the body, with no actual intent to escape.
They drop down and die.
But not Mike.
He continued to run around the chicken pen.
Olsen let him be, and the next morning found Mike asleep with his "head" tucked under his wing.
Figuring that any bird who wanted to live that bad was worth the work, he began feeding grain and water directly into the gullet through an eye dropper.
When Mike was still alive a week later Olsen packed him up and drove him to the University of Utah to, hopefully, get an explanation for the phenomenon.
Apparently, the axe had severed the head above the brain stem, missing the jugular vein and leaving the entire brain, and one ear.
A large clot had stayed any major bleeding, and the wound healed over, leaving the gullet open for feeding.
Not only did Mike live for another 18 months, but he grew from a mere 2½ lbs to almost 8 pounds, and became a national news story as well as a sideshow attraction.
Mike went to that great chicken coop in the sky eighteen months later during a road trip in Arizona, when he began to choke in the middle of the night, and Olsen was unable to find the eyedropper with which they kept his throat cleared.
Labels:
Random Facts
Took the Old Man out for a spin today for the first time in way, way too long and realized a few things...
Foremost among them is the fact I'm criminally out of shape and am in incredible pain at the moment, but that's only a temporary thing.
Secondly, most folks are still idiots... now I know this is pretty much considered standard knowledge but every once in a while I like to be reminded of the fact lest I get complacent.
This reminder was brought forth as I passed a store in town called "Taste of Dawn", this is a store that's been around since 1976 and deals in herbal supplements, vitamins, organic foods, and various other, so-called, "hippie" goods, nice store, nice owner.
And as I passed this establishment I noticed the white Ford Excursion parked out front of the store... running... with only the dog in it and the A/C running full blast... while Miss "Single Occupancy Armored Personnel (Dog)Carrier" got herself some fresh wheat germ and bragged to the store owner how much she's doing for the environment by using reusable shopping bags at BJ's.
On the plus side, there's now a nice shiny new bike shop in Bloomingdale that I paid a visit to while out, The Get-a-way Cycle Center.
They're just starting out but they have a decent setup for sales and repairs, the owner and staff are really friendly and don't mind wasting time just shooting the breeze.
Also, they have no problem doing small things, like adjusting a saddle or swapping out a set of handlebar grips, or mounting a new accessory, for free, unlike the other shop in the area that will do the aforementioned for $10, $15, & $20, respectively.
I hope they do well there, the town needs a real bike shop.
Dear Sir:
We have the distinction of being members of a committee to raise $200,000,000 to be used for placing a statue of George W. Bush in the Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. The committee was in a quandary about selecting the proper location for the statue.
It was thought unwise to place it beside that of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside that of Richard Nixon, who never told the truth, since George W. Bush could never tell the difference.
After careful consideration, we think it should be placed next to the statue of Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all, in that he started out not knowing where he was going, and in arriving did not know where he was, and in returning did not know where he had been — and managed to do it all on borrowed money.
The inscription on the statue will read:
“I pledge allegiance to George W. Bush and to the national debt for which he stands, one man, expendable, with graft and corruption for all.”
Five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, “Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land.”
Nearly five thousand years later, Ronald Reagan said, “Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land.”
Now George W. Bush has stolen the shovels, kicked our asses, raised the price of Camels, and laid waste to the Promised Land.
If you are one of the few who has any money left over after paying off Bush’s huge national debt, we will expect a generous contribution from you toward this noteworthy project.
Yours sincerely,
National Committee on the Bush Bust
(I know it's old, but I like it.)
Labels:
Rambling Monologue,
Strange Sightings
On a recent excursion for items varied and sundry, it was required that I make use of one of the several interstate highways in the area, a task I'm not entirely fond of on a good day... and it's been rather a long time since I had a good day.
It was during this particular excursion that I saw a sight that, once again, made me wish I had a camera small enough to keep with me at all times...
I came up on a family minivan appropriately loaded with various younglings and other animals some keep about their domiciles, which would explain the fact the driver was carrying a boxed item atop the roof of their vehicle, since it obviously wouldn't fit inside it with all the wildlife taking up room.
What made this cargo carrying note (and photo) worthy was the realization that this individual had what I believe was a new barbecue grill in it's box secured to the roof by only a few turns of plastic pallet wrap...
That's right genties and ladlemen, about a hundred pounds of grill were being held in place by a handful of layers of what amounts to slightly thicker than usual cling wrap, wrapped around the roof through the door openings, the doors then closed on the film, half of which was trailing in the breeze behind the van.
Needless to say, I didn't spend long behind that vehicle as I didn't feel like having a grill sit in my lap at a combined speed of about 95MPH.
Labels:
Rambling Monologue,
Strange Sightings
Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to wear tail lights.
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Random Facts
Ok, found this on Instructables and thought it well worth sharing as all good ideas should be.
Presented here are the steps necessary to quite easily construct a keyring capable of being used as a hex bit driver.
It's so damn simple you'd think it would have been obvious...
Considering the debris I have in my tool box I should be able to knock out a couple of these to keep handy.
All right... that's it, you can all go about your business now.
