RowdyRebel

A drone snooping around my place will be met with the same hospitality any other uninvited guest should expect to find...

I can parallel park a vehicle towing a trailer better than most people can parallel park their small car. That skill seems to evade such a great portion of the population that many states are removing the requirement from their road test for kids getting their license...which will lead to even fewer people having even the slightest clue how to, whether or not they can actually DO it.

...and they're pushing for automated TRUCKS! Imagine...you're hauling a high-dollar electronics load, or cigarettes, or booze, or anything else a hijacker could profit handsomely from obtaining. He no longer has to find you on the road, convince you to stop, or anything else...just hack into your truck's ECM and route it to a nice, secluded warehouse where you quickly discover you are outnumbered and outgunned. The truck pulls up, a door opens, it rolls inside and shuts off as the door closes behind you. Or worse, you're hauling fuel or any other hazardous substance and a terrorist hacks in and uses your truck (with you inside) to torpedo a target of their choosing. You're dead, and the FBI is investigating YOU for terrorism (they only seem to resist that determination if you're a radical muslim extremist with ties to known terrorist organizations, as they don't want to "offend" or be accused of "profiling") meanwhile the hackers are sitting comfortably wherever they might be preparing to do it again to somebody else. Sorry, but I'll keep the electronics out of my vital controls...brakes, steering...and even though my truck is drive-by-wire for the throttle, I have a clutch and full control over what gear I'm in. There is no "communications" sent or received by my truck...so no way for a hacker to get in unless he's sitting in the truck plugged into the port. I'm OK with that, even though I'd PREFER full mechanical linkages without any electronics. Best way to prevent hacking is to not have anything to hack...kinda like my fool-proof measure for preventing fuel theft when I am out overnight...I fuel in the morning...350-400 miles before I plan on shutting down...so that I have no more than 1/8 of a tank...just enough to get me to a fuel stop to start my day. They can't steal what I don't have, and they can't hack what isn't controlled by a computer.

Yup. If I'm paying that kind of money per month for that long, it had better be earning it's keep. Paid just shy of $800/month for a couple years when I bought my Mack, and it earns a paycheck...still does long after it's been paid off. For a vehicle that just stays parked most of the time? I won't spend more than I can make in a couple weeks.

Yup. Big 4-door crew cab w/ cloth seats and a rubber floor, 8' bed, 4x4 w/ manual transfer case and manual lock hubs, and a MANUAL transmission. That last non-negotiable detail means IF I buy a new truck, it is either going to be an older Ford or a new dodge. I've always been a Ford guy...but shifting gears myself is more important to me than having the blue oval on the grille.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/08/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-says-obama-is-dead-wrong-on-global-warming/?intcmp=ob_article_footer_text&intcmp=obinsite http://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/article_detail.asp?name=weve-found-the-source-of-human-caused-global-warming-data-manipulation

I'm not offended by the sale of the Nazi book. I'm offended by the fact that speech is being selectively censored. In order to claim a freedom of speech, we need to vehemently defend the right of people we DON'T agree with to express their opinions...because when WE have something to say, somebody else is probably not going to agree with our thoughts. If we try to silence our opposition, we don't have a leg to stand on when our opposition tries to silence us. So no, I don't give a flying fornication about the Hitler book or the Nazi flag on the cover. I'm not even all that upset about the ISIS flag being put on a cake. What pisses me off is the fact that the ISIS flag was made the day after they refused to make a Confederate flag cake, and the Nazi book is still being sold while you can no longer buy Dukes of Hazzard toys or books about the Confederacy. Hell, I should've looked in the movie aisle...see if you can still buy "Glory"...or "North and South"...or any other War of Northern Aggression based movies.

Wife, her sister, and the brother-in-law all work there...so going there every once in a while is inevitable...

...read this article the other day and it pissed me off: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/11/walmart-to-melt-class-rings-bearing-confederate-flag-rather-than-complete/...of course if you remember not too long ago, Walmart refused to sell a cakke with the Confederate Flag on it too, but was perfectly happy to decorate one with the ISIS flag. So today I'm at Walmart, and saw this book. Apparently Hitler books emblazoned with the swastika are OK, too...

Aww, hell...that little ballerina twirl is NOTHIN! Just something about that #3 car @ Daytona...

That right there is straight out of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America...outright banned the importation of slaves from foreign lands, and strongly urged against importing them from the north, too. In other words, NOT 1 slave was EVER brought here under the Confederate flag, and the Confederacy was taking steps to curb the slave trade BEFORE the war began...so people who think the war was fought over slavery are full of crap and simply don't know history. Besides, if Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, his "emancipation proclamation" would have freed the slaves under his jurisdiction...NOT just the ones in territory loyal to the Confederacy (while "union" slaves remained in slavery).

Stacks on a step-side don't look near as silly...at least you can still USE the bed to haul stuff...like a truck OUGHT to be able to do...

Everybody I've ever known who drove Mercedes cars were gay...just sayin'.

I hate the "stack" trend. Can't buy a decent used truck because they've got holes cut in the bed floor. At least it's a good indication that the truck probably isn't worth 1/2 the asking price, though... I saw one a few weeks ago with the stack mounted in the center of the bed, and short enough that the back of the cab and sliding rear window were covered with soot. Yeah, the guy had the rear window open, so every time he stomped on the throttle, the exhaust would bellow up out of the stack and be sucked right into the cab. Dumbass. Seems most of these trucks are automatics, too, which makes them worse. I don't care how much you spend on a top-dollar exhaust, it's going to sound like crap if you've got an automatic transmission. I LOVE the sound of a vehicle running up through the gears...and that just ain't there with an automatic.

It was all said in fun. I know he can't do it (anytime he pulls the hay wagon & needs to back up, he just unhooks and has a few people push) and I'll admit to showing off a little. It's what I do, and I do do it well.

...we cut down a tree that was pretty well rotted, and it was constantly dropping huge limbs. Was at the point where any future limbs dropped would potentially take out the fence where the wife's horses are, and that just wouldn't be very good. So, the tree had to go. We (mostly I...he took some convincing) decided to hook one of the hay wagons up to the old F250 to haul the tree out to the burn pile...large limbs in the bed, smaller branches piled on the wagon. Hell, that wagon probably held 3 or 4 pickup truck loads, so it was less trips across the levy through the hay field to get to the burn pile. Got the whole dern thing hauled in 2 trips. Anyway, he's jealous because I can back up the hay wagon just fine behind my F250. It doesn't matter if he's in his pickup or on a tractor, he can't seem to get 'em to go where he wants..."too many pivot points" he says. I hope he was only kidding when he said he can't be my friend anymore...

If I were a senator, I'd look at the list of signatories on that letter, laugh, and dispose of it in the trash where it belongs. Do any of those companies even pull doubles? If not, how exactly would the change affect them? One other thing, if the gross weight is still limited to 80,000 pounds, how would adding 5' to each pup "accelerate wear & tear" on the nation's highways? Wouldn't stretching out the bridge between axles REDUCE the wear & tear? After all, that is the entire premise behind the federal bridge law formula.

Remind me never to post close-up pics of MY truck...y'all are pretty harsh critics of the redneck engineering fixes for otherwise expensive problems by monetarily challenged individuals.

If I put 10K tags on my F250, I'd need to have it inspected twice per year, too. With 8K tags, I don't need any inspections, ever. If it were a commercial vehicle, rather than a personal one, and I used it in interstate commerce, then it would fall under the FMCSA's jurisdiction and I'd only need 1 inspection per year. Intrastate, though, every 6 months it'd be due.

Would a 12R22.5 tire work? Nearly the same diameter as an 11R24.5 tire, but fits on a 22.5" rim...you'd just need 9" wide rims instead of 8.25" wide. The load rating is also slightly better than an 11R24.5.

I've got 4.17's and had been contemplating 4.42's when I pulled a dump bucket on mostly 55 mph roads. Now that I'm flatbedding and spending more (still not much, though) time in 70 mph zones, if I HAD made the switch a few years ago, I'd be looking to swap back to 4.17's or even 3.94's. It is all in what you do and where you go, though. I'm running 11R24.5 tires, though, so my 4.17 rears are like having lo-pro 22.5's and 3.73 gears.

Whuddaya need brakes for? All they do is slow ya down!

That right there is why I have my truck leased to a carrier. I haul the load, turn in my paperwork by Tuesday @ noon at the office, and my money is in my account Friday morning. I haven't the time or the motivation to try remembering much beyond that what all I did. Hell, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning! I want to get paid immediately, but 7-14 days after hauling the load is acceptable. Beyond that simply isn't.

With the electrical gremlins that can and do have a tendency to show up at the most inopportune times, the LESS electronics on a truck the better.

$160