Harnessing the natural insanity of little boys

A gentle nudge in the right direction and boys being boys leads to YouTube goodness:

via Neotrama

Hydraulics and the hero cycle

As some of you know, i spent some time this week trying to track down a bit of hose in order to resurrect a much needed forktruck. My initial failure at the auto parts store was but the first leg of a strange, and headache inducing, journey. Yesterday morning i started at the Kubota dealership in town — i was planning on working my way from near to far, as is logical — where the counter guy didn’t have anything for me but was steadfastly sure that the auto parts store i’d just been to did, no matter what the cranky old guy said, have the tubing i needed. It didn’t, and i saw it with my own two eyes. So began a classic tale of running around in circles…

Success

Nearly two years ago i purchased a “Goldfish Plant” (i’m too friggin’ lazy to look up the botanical name, sorry) at the farmer’s market. Just a little starter plant. It’s grown decently, if slowly over that time but never deigned it worthwhile to grace me with the show from which its name derives. Until recently. One flower formed but dropped before it opened. Then another formed and opened.

The madding crowd

Oh god, if this is what The Economist is going to pass off as informed debate then letting my subscription lapse was an incredibly wise financial and emotional decision. I have to wonder if people like Boaz and Kamarck get their jobs because of or in spite of inane, ideological drivel? Obama is a failure – and he’s a huge failure – because he’s working within the frame established by asshats like these two.

Sith lords at the auto parts store

So i’m in the process of trying to fix a relatively simple problem: a piece of flexible high pressure tubing on the forklift blew up on Friday and with the season of trucks, lots and lots of trucks, nearly upon us i need that forklift. Unfortunately, ownership is in Argentina so i can’t pass the task of finding the parts off onto the boss. After assurances from the helpful guy at the auto parts store that they had plenty of high pressure flexible hydraulic line i took to disassembling the forklift to the point where i could get the offending bit off. Other than standard acts of mechanic contortion tricks, it went easily and i headed to the store to pick up the measly six inches of tubing i need.

Helpful youngish man wasn’t around, so i got cranky old man. Have you ever noticed that like Sith lords there are always two at the auto parts store. The younger guy is friendly, helpful and too often doesn’t actually know what the fuck he’s talking about. The cranky old guy does know what he’s talking about but he doesn’t want to tell you; he learned the hard way and so can you, daggummit. That and he just wants to go home.

Since this cranky old guy was minutes from leaving and the answer to my question was simple, he wasn’t overly cranky. Or it might have been that cranky old guys take some cold comfort in saying, “Nope.” Sure, they’ve got plenty of high pressure flexible line in the size i need, just not the right kind. Not surprisingly, they have SAE line with the steel braiding between the tubing and the outer weave. It doesn’t bend very well, not the 180 degrees with no more than five centimeters between the ends. I can make it bend like that, but i doubt i’ll be able to mount while holding it in that shape.

He gave me six inches of the stuff and told me i didn’t have to pay so i could give it a try. But he and i both know it isn’t going to work. Enough of phoning first. Tomorrow morning i’ll have to start my day by going to all the places that sell equipment with hydraulics looking for my tubing. I’ll probably find it, and should have called those places first anyhow (except that they’re all a lot less convenient).

Nope, no point to this at all except the realization that auto parts store staff strangely resemble Siths and your only hope is that the cranky old guy will be nice to you because the apprentice will have you running around in circles, doing everything three times and returning to the store again and again.

Socialism for dummies (updated)

I don’t understand my country. None of its political labels make a damn bit of sense. Too many of them are outright falsehoods. And at least a couple have been maligned by so much propaganda that they may not be salvageable. “Liberal” is one. The word itself has become weaponized to the point where even liberals often eschew it in favor of “progressive”. I’m still not sure what that even means. Progress is cool, i suppose, but requires direction and a destination. And then there’s that pesky Zeno and his paradox: is progress even possible for a monkey with fancy thumbs? “Libertarian” is pretty bad these days too. Far too often the word is invoked as a dog whistle for social Darwinism and neo-liberalism. Liberty being best wholly described by “free” markets and possibly gun ownership. “Conservative” is the biggest laugh. Aside from conserving fetuses and the holy sanctity of heterosexuality (airport bathrooms and male prostitutes being the acceptable exceptions), i’m still at a lost for how these people got or retain the label.

Ship of Fools

Sean-Paul Kelly and others have been spreading the news of a grand new plan to privatize space exploration. You know, it never ends up being cheaper. There are always more losers than winners. And it never ends well. All this neo-liberalism will kill us, just as surely as it’s killed everything else it has ever touched.

When i went to Russia in the late 90’s, it much of it felt like inner-city Detroit. Not the skin pigmentation and not the same sort of violence, but the Khrushchevnikis reminded me of housing projects and the air often had that smell of the downtrodden just trying to get along. It’s something that doesn’t come through in economic statistics. They can define and explain it but not capture it.

This is headed towards that.

Gratitude journal

So yeah, i’m pissed off over the SCOTUS decision in a way that should (and probably will) provoke a rant capable of making a brothel full of sailors blush. But never mind that for the moment. I titled this “Gratitude journal” for a reason. This morning i spent the first hour or so of work doing some snow removal; i went back to the grind last Thursday and at least some portion of every day has included snow removal. A few of those days have been completely devoted to it. There hasn’t been any of it done since the first snow fell because no one’s been on the main property.

This, as you might guess, is a pretty big job. Multiple forms of shovels, a snowblower, and a Kubota L4400 tractor…45 diesel horsepower, 4WD and a locker…form my array of tools.

The devil and me

So now that we have the domestic drama of “Kennedy’s seat” being lost and the Democratic Party proving that it’s brazenly incompetent and disastrously out of touch, the earthquake in Haiti can be moved below the fold. But before one of Bill Clinton’s friends gets a big wad of “aid” money to build new sweatshops in Haiti, there are a few things we should talk about.

Not only were we treated to the historically inaccurate (and frankly bat-shit insane) sweet nothings that Pat Robertson’s Warrior Jesus whispers in his ear. We’ve also had the good, Dr. Wesley Stafford – CEO and President of an organization called Compassion International – agree with Pat’s thesis. Theoretically, Dr. Stafford knows of what he speaks; his organization is very active in Haiti. It pairs tens of thousands of Haitian children with direct sponsors in the U.S. and is active throughout the nation.* On a recent Focus on the Family appearance, Dr. Stafford said, “Haiti … has been a disaster in almost every way long before this ever struck. And it is a nation, between you and me, I guess, that Satan has had absolutely free reign in that nation…”

Count me convinced, and we’ll get to David Brooks a little later on.

Trailer trash?

So in glancing through the Action Shopper, a local classified ad paper, i noticed an intriguing entry. For a mere $23,000 i could be the proud owner of a two bedroom trailer on three acres in beautiful, Chatham. It’s not the trailer i’m after. My guess is that it’s a piece of shit that would be a barely tolerable living space. But it might provide a living space until something else can be put up, and since the loan for the land and the trailer would probably require next to nothing each month putting something up is a realistic possibility.

I could use three acres. That’s enough for a big garden, a couple of pigs and fair amount of poultry. I really don’t care about the pigs so much except that nothing builds better garden plots than last years pig pen.

But what really intrigues me…