RowdyRebel

OK...so I was sitting in church on Christmas Day TRYING to pay attention to what the preacher man was saying, when I noticed him pick up a red plastic cup and take a sip of what I assume was water..... DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT WAS to pay attention to the rest of the sermon with "RED SOLO CUP.....I FILL YOU UP....LETS HAVE A PARTY...." running through my head? DAMN YOU TOBY KIETH!!!!! If I end up in Hell, it's all his fault!

I was going to use "like make-up on a whore" as part of my comparison, but with the current state of complaints about "offensive" posts, I figured it would be best not to offend the whores who might be browsing this website.

There's no reason for anyone to be anywhere near my house uninvited.....and I don't offer an invitation to very many people. I can count on one hand the number of people I've invited into my home in the past few years....and still have fingers left. Even the sheriff's deputy who stopped by on some official business wouldn't get out of his car. Dozer done good that day.

We had 'em on the wreckers, too....I always thought they looked kinda cheesy, but the operations manager seemed to like 'em. ...then again, he'd wash & wax his car weekly and STILL be out there in the shop with a rag and the touch up spray 10-12 times a day making sure no dust had landed on his precious car. Looks were important to him....with me, not so much. In my opinion, they are no different than putting a hub cap on a car to cover up an ugly steel wheel to make it look like more than it really is....but to each their own.

...I wasn't home at the time, and apparently they were incapable of making sure the storm door was CLOSED after they knocked. When that happens, the wind catches the door, rips it open, bends the rods in the closers, slams my porch light, and seriously PISSES ME OFF!!!! I'm cutting the f'ing door handle off the outside of the storm door. I don't have this problem in the summer time.....first, because the screen is in the door instead of the glass....and second, because my security system dies back each winter. Yes, that is what you think it is.... ....and I'm not allergic to it, so it isn't any different for me than having any other leafy green plant growing around the house.

Well, I decided to sleep in today...getting ready to drop the trailer and bobtail into town to wash about 8 months of dirt/road grime off. Also gotta stop by the post office before they get TOO upset at me....seems grandma decided to use fresh fruit to fill out a box she sent me for Christmas that I haven't been able to get by the post office in over 2 weeks now when they were open in order to pick up. It's probably pretty ripe by now, and they're likely tearing the place apart looking for whatever died. Anyway, then it's back to the house to swap vehicles and head the other direction to the other town to pick up oil and filters from the Mack dealer...gotta buy my oil from them this time so I can put it on my account & pay it when I have money again...then back to the house to get to work. Going to change the oil, grease 'er up, and then get to work welding & fabricating. First up are some fender brackets. I've got one that cracked, so all week the fender has been flopping around. I was going to just weld it up, but it's SUCH thin metal that I'd probably just blow holes through it if I tried. So, I picked up about $20 worth of stuff at Rural King the other day (before my card was shut off) to just fab up a couple new fender brackets using 1/4" galvanized pipe and flat steel, and a 5/8" grade 8 bolt. I figure I'll drill a hole through the flat steel to stick the bolt through, and then weld the bolt in place. Then weld a pipe flange to the weld steel, and thread in a 6" piece, a 45 degree angle, an 8" piece, another 45 degree angle, and then a 12" piece with a pipe cap on the end. Once I get it all in place and my angles are all correct, I'll weld it all together. Then, put the bolt through the hole in the frame, put a nut on the backside of the bolt to hold it in place and clamp the fender back on. Gonna be a hell of a lot stronger than what's on there now, for 1/4 the price of a new fender bracket......Redneck Engineering at it's finest. Then, I have these four 1/2" u-bolts that I pulled off my brother's trailer when I swapped the axle out....don't worry, I used new u-bolts on the trailer to hold the new axle. Anyway, I cut a 4' piece of angle iron into 4 pieces, and need to weld these u-bolts onto the pieces of angle iron. Then drill a few holes in 'em and use some bolts that have a hook on the end instead of a hex head to mount the angle iron onto the outside of the frame rail.....then I can hang snow chains from the u-bolts. Last year I just carried 4 chains on the nasty days in a milk crate on the back of the trailer...figure I can hang 'em on the truck this year. Couple years ago, they would have come in REAL handy after I thought I had to detour around a road closure and ended up sliding down an icy hill before I realized I shouldn't have detoured, then spent over 3 hours chopping ice with my shovel trying to get backed back up the hill to go back around the other way (chains would have cost me 15 minutes to put a couple of 'em on, back up the hill, and take 'em off again)...so when I got a heck of a deal on 'em (4 new in the bag, 4 used...$100 took 'em all), I couldn't pass 'em up. Now that I've got 'em, they ain't gonna do me any good sitting in the garage if I need 'em. Oh well....nothing's getting done with me here on the computer.....finished with breakfast now, so it's off to get some stuff done on MY truck. I love the way that sounds.

I'd have no problem whatsoever running that truck. I couldn't care less what a truck LOOKS like....an ugly truck makes just as much to haul freight as a pretty one. My only concerns when looking at a truck are the engine, transmission, drive axles, tires, suspension, and frame rails.....can they handle the job I'm going to be asking the truck to do. FWIW, I painted my '86 Ranger with rattle cans back when I was in college.....

So last year around this time, I called the finance company to discuss the possibility of making slight overpayments to principal in an effort to get the truck paid off this year instead of next May. We decided $250/month would get me close enough that it wouldn't be too large of a payment at the end. Well, that was going well until March....and then things started tightening up financially to the point where January & February were the only months I was able to overpay. I had given up on a 2011 payoff date, and figured I was close enough it would be April instead of May....at least I'd have it paid off a month early. I've never taken a loan to full term...ALWAYS paid 'em off early. Anyway, fast forward to yesterday (Wednesday) evening. I was on my way home and hit my usual fuel stop to top off, and after pumping $193 worth of fuel, my card was DECLINED! This struck me as odd, considering I had JUST been paid the day before. Now I'm glad I carry a little cash on me all of the time...ever since I was on vacation and my credit card was shut off for "unusual activity" and I spent 3 hours at the gas station trying to get it sorted out so that I could pay the tab and get back on the road, I decided to always have enough to fill my tank a time or two so that if that ever happened again, I could just pay the fuel bill and make my calls from the road to get it straightened out again without losing any time. So I check my PO box on the way home, and find a letter from the bank stating that last week, the finance company tried taking a bunch of money that I didn't have, so the bank rejected the EFT and hit me with an overdraft charge. Keep in mind, this was only 3 days after they hit the account for the usual truck payment, which had the funds available to pay. So now I'm starting to put 2 + 2 together and figure the finance company is where all my money went. So today after I got loaded, I stopped off at my bank to sort things out. I had printouts of what my records show my account activity to be, and I requested a printout of their records over the past month. That's when I saw how bad the situation was. I had been hit with a $27 overdraft charge 6 different times, either because they tried taking money that wasn't in the account, or I had used the card to buy fuel after they took the money, running my account into a negative balance. My bank pays up to $500 overdrawn before they cut you off....they just hit you with an additional $27 each time another charge comes through, so it adds up pretty quick. Anyway, once I had a grasp of what was going on, I called the finance company to see what they had to say for themselves, and in the meantime my bank was trying to figure out how they could best help me since with a negative balance, I didn't have the money to run past today until I get paid again. First of all, the finance company quickly agreed to reimburse ALL of the overdraft charges....no matter what option I chose going forward. Then, I had a decision to make. I could either: 1) place a stop payment order on the EFT, which would cost $15 to be paid by the finance company, at which point the bank would IMMEDIATELY credit my account the amount which had been taken from it while they await the return of the money from the finance company. I would then have the money in my account as though this incident never had occurred, so that I could run tomorrow and Monday. I continue making my regular monthly payments for the next 4-5 months. OR; 2) I could take Friday and Monday off work because I don't have enough money to buy fuel to run the truck until my next paycheck is available (usually Monday, but it's a holiday weekend...so it'll be Tuesday before I have money again) and the loan will be paid off in full. The lien will be released, and the title will be in the mail either today or tomorrow so that I should have it in my hands sometime next week. A couple bills might end up a couple days late getting sent in, and some of the payments that I usually send extra won't get the extra this month.....but there will be NO MORE TRUCK PAYMENTS! I'd be lying if I told you the fact that they are calling for sunny & near 60 degrees all weekend didn't play a role in the decision. I can once again, for the first time in 3 1/2 years, say that I OWN all of my vehicles. If it's got wheels, it's paid for.

Pfft... Close only counts in horseshoes, handgrenades, and nuclear warfare.

I'd have a tough time taking an EPA officer seriously...same with OSHA, MSHA, or any other bureaucratic agency. If I'm out in the woods on a 4-wheeler, if ya want me, ya gotta catch me. If I'm at the house, you'll be more likely to wind up staring down the barrel of my shotgun than you'll be to see my ID or get even the slightest bit of cooperation once you start trying to tell me what I can or cannot do on my own friggin' property. Unless you're helping me pay my mortgage or my property taxes, you have no say in what I do here....and if ya wanna try, ya best be prepared to meet your maker.

Grandma says when she was a child, a lump of coal was a GOOD thing to get, because it meant you could keep warm for a little while. She and her siblings used to walk the railroad tracks picking up coal that had spilled off the trains to carry home to heat the house....

Got up & went to church this morning to celebrate the reason for the season....and I'll tell ya what, I've definitely got to get my motorcycle up to par for this summer (tires, brakes, lights, fix the fuel leak, etc...). The church I've been going to for the past almost year only meets once a month. Well, they meet the other Sundays too, but at a different location. It's 2 congregations, 1 parish...kinda confusing, but hey...they's good people....lots of farmer/truckers in attendance. Anyways, being Christmas and all, I decided to try to find this other church building they meet at on the other Sundays and let me tell you...it's a fun little hilly twisty curvy road to get there. When the weather breaks, I might just start attending EVERY Sunday just to have an excuse to get out and ride, which I haven't really done a whole heck of a lot of these past few years. Hopefully with the Mack paid off in April, I'll have a little extra coin laying around to be able to get back to riding more often. Anyway, after church, I came home and messed around online for a little while....then called the family to wish 'em a Merry Christmas. After I got done talkin' to them, I headed outside & greased up the ol' Mack......wearing a t-shirt & overalls.....BEAUTIFUL weather in the near mid-50's and sunny. Got that all done and swapped the motor out of my power hacksaw (old one was locked up....so I bought one with more power). Of course the NEW motor's mounting bracket was just a hair shorter (so the belt was loose) and not all 4 holes mounted up to bolt 'er down....so I figured I'd just swap bases. Sounded easy enough, except the new motor is just a pinch shorter than the old motor....so I got to bending that old base around until the new motor fit into it. Once I had that done and the new motor bolted in, I tried wiring it up, but the insulation on the old wires was crumbling worse than a well-done Christmas cookie. So, I decided I'd better rewire the dern thing because the old wires are probably older than I am...so I found an old extension cord I haven't used in a long time and got to cutting & splicing. Got 'er put together and tested 'er out, but had to swap a couple wires around because the motor was spinning the opposite direction as the old motor used to turn. Then, of course, I had to test it out. Got the ol' oil can out to lube it up, then grabbed the 4' long piece of angle iron I needed to cut into 1' lengths to fab up some brackets to carry some snow chains. Worked pretty dern good if I do say so myself. If only I could get motivated like this to get stuff done on ALL my days off.....

55 mph deer strike #2.....6 pt buck, dead center bumper. Bent the center in maybe an inch and broke all 3 plastic clips holding the right headlight in.

55 mph deer strike #1 on the left corner of the bumper. Damage? It wiped the bugs off....and cracked one of those plastic clips (P/N 7313-95943) that hold the headlight in place.

15 will get you 20....

I don't cross them scales.

They said they'd "get back to me"... ....so how long should I wait? I need to make some money before the Christmas bills start rolling in.

Unfortunately, they spotted the one MAJOR flaw my bus had....the little knee-highs I'd be driving to and from school couldn't reach the door, let alone climb in through it. My bad. An obvious oversight on my part.... So anyway, they decided to give me a road test in one of THEIR buses, saying that I'd most likely just be driving one of them instead.

They wanted to see what I could do behind the wheel, so I took 'em outside to show 'em the bus I wanted to lease on with the school district... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M31oWwrWaNQ

There's the problem right there. When I hit a deer with a freightliner, it mangled the bumper pretty bad. Didn't hardly even tweak the bumper on my Mack either time I've smacked one with it.

What time you planning to be up 'round there? You's approaching my neck of the woods.... I've found it's cheaper to just use my truck. I've only had to shell out less than $10 to fix the damage each time I've killed a deer with my Mack....but if you want to use a gun, you've got to buy a permit, and them permits cost more than $10.

Would diesel be OK? I don't have any gasoline to give...

The 2003 Rand McNally Motor Carrier Atlas (page A16) has the State/Provincial weight and size limits for the various states. Walk into any truck stop and flip through the front section of a 2012 to make sure it hasn't changed....but this one here that I have handy by the computer says Missouri allows 45' straight trucks.