My 12 second pass.

I've already posted this on facebook, myspace, and every forum that I'm a part of, but just in case you missed it........



You might say I'm pretty proud and happy about this run...you'd be right.

Halloween '08

Here are the pictures from the Halloween. As usual things went off well and as a first for me in a LONG time I even had to get in costume for a friends party.

Another toy back from re-finishing.

This one is familiar to Kevin and dad. I bought it on the way north in July for a good deal, but the idiot before me had let it sit and rust in places. I sent if off two months ago to get refinished in hard chrome, a process dad is familiar with as I believe he used to work at a place that did this procedure. It finally arrived back home today. I came out great and there is hardly any sign that the pistol had been neglected. The only way I could afford this one is getting a fixer upper because you don't want to know how much one in good condition goes for. (Over $1400)

Latest toy

Well, I've moved as you can see. I'm sure this blog will be just as busy as the old AOL one was....not very. This one doesn't have my font either, which sucks.

As promissed, here are some pictures of my AR15 I've been building piece by piece for the past month. Actually some of the parts have been in the safe for years wating for this one to come together. There are only two pieces of the entire rifle that were bought outright, the rest were traded/wheeled and dealed into.

The laser and sight are both infrared so when I get some night vision I can kill zombies in total darkness.

Not quite as scary now.

Mega changes around here job wise, though things are still going pretty normal around the base camp. I think Deb worried quite a bit, and probably still is worrying, but is hiding it well. I just keep saying "I feel so alive" because the shake up has got me liking this line of work again. The old company had turned a job I once loved into just a regular job. Now I'm running things, so if it's not fun it's my fault.

Lyndsay is doing well in school, though needs to work on her handwriting a bit. I went with her to open house yesterday and was able to compare to the other students in her class and talk to her teacher. That is the only problem the teacher had, so we are working on it. She writes a lot on her own, mostly songs, and the teacher thinks it will work itself out in the long run.

It's the nicest time of year down here and we are enjoying the 60's at night, 80's during the day. I've been able to get a few bike rides in lately too, though I really don't have to stop riding here for very long during the winter.

I'll have some gun porn to post soon as I'm building an AR-15 and my little HK is off getting hard chromed to get rid of the rust damage the last idiot inflicted on it.

We are back on Atkins and I've lost 13 lbs. already. I started back to the gym today, but then got pretty damn sick this afternoon. Deb had the same sickness over the weekend, and I don't know what it is but it seems to move on pretty fast. I'm doing a helluva lot better right now than I was a few hours ago.

Ok, enough. Will type more another day.

Scary times ahead.

Well, I'll start by saying we had a pretty great weekend spent in Perry, GA with a bunch of car club friends, in what amounts to an air conditioned airplane hanger full of cars. We started off Friday with night of drag racing, then all day Saturday was the car show. LOTS of fun. I won a door prize worth about $700 in billet aluminum dress up goodies for the interior of our car.

Now the not fun. From the looks of things the company I've been employed with for the past 8 years has been taken over by DirecTV. On Friday there was a conference call that only higher ups were on, and shortly afterward we were called explaining that hiring packets with applications had been Fedex'ed out and if we still wanted a job we'll show up Monday morning at 6:30am to talk to the DTV hiring person to apply for a job. The pay is supposably "comparable". I think my team will keep their jobs, but I'm not real sure about middle management....namely me....and Al. So basically the last 8 years has been a waste as far as working toward retirement, or anything else for that matter.

I don't believe this was something the company was trying to do, but was forced. We were employee owned, so I'm not really sure how they did it without leaving themselves open to lawsuit. Oh, and I had right at $100k in stock options that according to the paperwork I was faxed is in jepardy. The old company is talking to, get this, "outside experts" on what to do about ESOP holders.

Lucky I have that nest egg to get us through these hard times....NOT.

Yeah, this could get ugly real quick.

Kathy, if you happen to read this, I'm not sure if I've got a check coming in the next few weeks. I'd rather stay out of jail during this "transition". From my computations I'm nearly done, but contact me before you call the state or anything, just so I know it's coming.

Back to Geocaching.

It's been a while since I've hit the woods, so I thought I'd return from Montgomery today through Tuskegee National Forest. I didn't find the cache, but found this cool firetower.

 

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Police ass whooping public service announcement.

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Morgan video

Nope, we didn't forget about the requested videos...however, Deb's vids were to large to put on photobucket so I've got some editting to do. Here is a Morgan vid that makes the size cut. You can tell she hasn't been around in a couple weeks and is used to running things at her house.

 

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Happy Birthday Mom!

First things first. Happy Birthday to my mother today. Both Lyndsay and I had a great time up there, and really appreciate how much extra work you put in to make our stay fun. I'll be paying for all the food for weeks, but it's worth it to me. Most of the folks that will see the following video are coming from Mom's blog and I want ya'll to know that even though I don't comment over there much I read it daily and love my mom very much.

July trip.

Ok, I've put off talking about this because I was unsure if we could do it or not. I've put in vacation from June 28 to July 6. There is no way I can afford to drive our car up there as the gas bill alone would be around $350 round trip. Tonight Deb's mom offered her new Camry for the trip that would basically cut that in half. No way Deb can come because if she doesn't work for a week, she doesn't get paid...no vacation days in the hairstyling biz. Without her check, we ain't making it even in a Camry. Lyndsay has been counting down the days, so I'm going to try to make this happen.

The plan is to be there Saturday night, and head back the next Saturday. If this doesn't work on your end let me know. My vacation days aren't locked in stone.

 

My DVD arrived.

We got the DVD from the SRT track experience that I blogged about here. I made a few youtube vids of it for the car club, and thought I'd share here.

First is the little turbo 4 cylinder Caliber. The funny part in this one is the lady getting kicked out of the instructor car when she tells him she gets motion sickness!

Next up is the first run in the SRT Magnum. You can see Deb sitting on the pit wall when I return.

 

This is the last run in the Magnum, this time Deb is in the car I'm chasing with the instructor.

Up late on a work night.

I'm not a big fan of going out when I have to work the next day. I'm not much of a fan of going out at all really, though someone who didn't go "clubbing" would probably think we are quite the bar fly's.

We try to support any of our friends who are in local bands by going to see them when they play. We actually know a lot of musicians, but mainly just our close friends draw us out. None of them do a lot of gigs, and they really like to see a familiar face in the crowd. My mechanic/welder buddy Mike is a drummer at night. The bands he joins very seldom stay together long enough to get an actual paying job, so when he called today saying he was playing this evening I knew we had to go. He is very talented, and so are most of the folks he hooks up with, but those band types just don't get along to well. Anyway, we went to see him this evening.

Deb and I are actually pretty ruthless on the folks that hang out in these bars. It is pretty much a freek show anywhere you go anyway, but the type of people that go to bars on Thursday night was worth the price of admission just for us to make fun of them. Just tonight we saw Charlie Manson, Bob's Big Boy, a cro-magnon cavewoman, a very fat girl who didn't know she was fat and had her ass hanging out, some women that thought they were men...well, you get the picture. The music was not really our taste, but Mike did a great job for the band.....and we made fun of folks for a couple hours.

 

Another video.

I won't say where I got the link for this one, but let's just say it wouldn't look quite right on My Country Life....just sayin'.

 

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I like!

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Still alive and kicking.

Just when you think this blog is dead, I show up with a post. Top story of the day is another grandchild and the first boy of the group. Celeste had Skylar this morning around 9am. I haven't even been to the hospital yet...me and Monk are waiting for Deb to come pick us up.

We've been running crazy lately. You sure wouldn't know just how broke we were if you were trying to tail us in traffic. We had our car clubs birthday party at a diner in Atlanta two weeks ago.

This weekend was highly anticipated by both Deb and I. When you buy an SRT of any type, part of the price is a driving course voucher that you have one year to redeem. They set up at tracks all over the country, and you just sign up for one that's close to you. I'm doing a cut and paste from my car club forum on this one, because it pretty much is the short version. If you click the link there are several videos to give you the general idea of why I'm worn out and sunburned today.

 

Just a week short of our vouchers expiring, Red07SRT and myself made the trip to Atlanta Motor speedway yesterday to take part in the SRT track experience. I thought it would be a cool thing to do, but I had no idea just how cool it would be. From the opening briefing when they said to drive these cars like they were rentals I started to get the idea.

The road course was my favorite portion of the shindig. Two cars follow the instructor who gauges from his rearview mirror just how fast to lead. There were a couple problems with the ESP systems freaking out when exiting the infield onto the banking. If you hit it too fast the car thought it was flipping over and pulled all throttle. I first went in the Charger group and we went fairly fast, nothing I haven't done before though. The second run was in 300's and the trail car had the ESP problem so it wasn't very fast either. By the time I got in the Magnum I figured I'd went as fast as they would allow....WRONG. I can honestly say that we drove them poor bastards as hard as they would go. I made sure to get back in line for the Magnum instructors group a couple more times, and each time we had the station wagon drifting through every corner, and flat footed on the back stretch.

I won the drag racing portion in our group and found out that if I had the Jeep I wouldn't have to worry if Silver Dollar preps the track or not. At the end of the module I was 7 and 1, then went on to beat the instructor 2 out of 3. As you can tell, they didn't short us on runs, although each of three groups had over 25 people.

Autocross I ended up in forth for our group, but way down the list in the totals. There were a couple ringers in the groups, SCCA types. The guy that won the day was turning better times than the instructors. Oh, on that subject the little Caliber runs pretty darn good if you keep the turbo spooled up. Blow a corner and have to hit the brakes though and you may wonder if the motor is still running when you get back on the gas.

The Viper driving was also an autocross event. Again, I didn't fair so well, ending up mid pack. The part the suprised me was how close everyone was in the Viper. The times were so close it was hard to tell who had won each run. Deb probably had the most fun at this one because she rode out with the instructors a couple times who drifted the entire course.

At the end of the day you go back onto the road course to ride with an instructor to see what "maxed out" feels like. Through the entire thing I was sitting there thinking "we were going this fast this morning" until one sweeper heading from the front straight back into the infield road couse section.  It turns out the guy was holding back a bit in the morning section because we hit that way faster than I thought the car would stick. I do understand why we were "shorted" when we were driving though...it was probably a 100mph sweeper and had concrete on one side and aramco on the other. The instructors basically drifted through the entire corner. Not Fast and Furious style, but a wonderful 4 wheel drift right to the edge of the track.

When we headed up I was thinking "hey, it's a free day of driving and we get fed". Now we are both talking about next year.

Snow? Again??

 

This is the view out my back door this morning at about 10. It was 70 yesterday, and will be in the 60's tomorrow, but today it's snowing. It's not going to amount to anything, and I may head out to Silver Dollar Raceway to watch a friend run his car anyway, but it's windy and cold. 37 degrees. And to think I was planning to ride the bike out there all week.

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Another car club entry.

What a week. A lot happens in a week lately. This time it was job related. I found out Thursday that I'm now in charge of our contractors. Something tells me it may be a bit harder to get private contractors in compliance as opposed to company employees, but we shall see.

We had another car club meet, this time in Atlanta at the Varsity which is a very popular drive-in restaraunt down town. The place is huge, but the food isn't what I'd call healthy. In fact, I wish I had some Lipitor after eating a chili dog. Anyway, it is a great place for this type of thing. Both Deb and I got quite sunburned while we were up there, and the temp was around 80.

I did get a visit from the local rent-a-cop after this:

It was all in good fun though.

No excitement weekend.

No earth shattering news from this end for the weekend. I "worked" (see last entry) last Sunday, so I got a three day weekend....and no babysitting duty either! (thanks Christyn)

Friday I waited around until it got over 60 and hit the road for a long ride. It was a little cool riding the ridge of Pine Mountain, but still a nice day for a ride. That evening we were invited to dinner with some old friends to Ben's Chop House where I discovered Tiramisu a couple years ago. Like every other place around here the price goes up, but food and service don't. I was ok, but not great...the company was though, so I'll not complain about it.

Saturday I sent Deb off to work and headed for the gym. We missed our normal Friday evening so I wanted to catch up. It's not nearly as fun by yourself. Then I spent a few hours cleaning up the yard. We had sweet gum balls everywhere from dropping the tree a couple weeks ago. By the time I finished that it was pushing 70 so I hit the road again. I didn't stray to far this time, basically riding all over Columbus.

Today...well...we didn't accomplish a damn thing. Had brunch at IHOP then went to a couple Dodge dealers looking for the latest SRT's. Don't need one, just wanted to check out the new colors. We topped off a wasted Sunday with a stop at Ranger Joe's coffee shop. 

Yeah, I worked harder typing this than I did at anything all weekend, other than the gym. Deb has us signed up for another car club get together in Atlanta in a couple weeks, so there's something to look forward too...more car pictures!

Car club meet and greet.

What a nice weekend we had. (Although waiting for you mother to post an update when she's traveling the world is a bit troubling)

Our main car club, Georgia LX Car Club, had a meet and greet in Columbus for a change. Usually we end up having to drive to Atlanta. This meant I could finally have a truely clean car without brake dust and bugs. I sent Deb to work Saturday in her moms old car so I could spend the day getting the car cleaned up and doing a couple of modifications. The biggest job was installing the tail light "halo's" seen here:

That was no small task, but they look great in person. We met at the local Mellow Mushroom because one of the club guys runs the place. The parking lot is being redone, so we did fight dust because of folks rolling through checking out all the Chargers (and one lone Magnum). After we ate we hit the road for a cruise around town and also to find a place to take some pictures. Only six of us went cruising because the folks from out of town wanted to get home before it got to late. One fella drove all the way from South Carolina! Debbies brother Donnie recently bought a Charger and showed up too. He's the second car in the picture below.

We followed it up with a BBQ at Celeste's house. That was a nice change of pace because we usually do that sort of thing over here.

Tags: GALXC, Charger, Magnum, 300, Georgia, MOPAR, car club

Big project Sunday.

Damn, I forgot I was going to do a "new van" entry. I guess it will have to wait, because we had a rather large project to take care of today...

Sweet Gum trees are a pain in the foot due to the prickly "balls" they leave in the yard. To make matters worse, the rather large one we had in the back yard had been struck by lightning years ago taking the top out of it. So, it was rotting from the top down, dropping rather large limbs.

You'll notice we are pretty far into this project when the pictures start. I didn't think about the camera, and Deb didn't want to see the scary part.

I had the help of son-in-law Tim. One very large limb was handing over the shed, so we tied it off over another limb. He had a harness on in the tree, cut the limb, then I lowered it. The rest were just dropped straight down. The tree was tall enough to reach the house, so I had to notch it about 20' up to section it down some. I cut the notch from the ladder, then had Tim stand on the shed with the pole saw to make the back cut. We also roped the tree to Tim's truck to provide some directional assistance. I fell right where I wanted it, which is good because neither of us is an arborist by any stretch of the imagination.

Now the yard is cleaned up, I've got quite a pile of brush for the city to pick up Friday, and the stump has a pile of charcoal smoldering on top of it. Debbie is really happy to have this project done, not because she wanted the tree gone, but because there was no damage to people or property.

Thanks to Tim, for the help, and the extra saw.

1st day trip of the year/ SNOW??!!

We planned to attend the International Motorcycle Show every since we left it last year. It is a huge show with every manufacturer represented (even some I'd never heard of) and all kinds of aftermarket vendors as well. Sort of a nice way to kick off the '08 riding season.

Speaking of riding season, when I got up yesterday morning Weatherbug was raising hell about a "snow storm warning". Well, that wasn't going to stop me, and before we left it had been cancelled anyway. So off we went.

At first it was just a nasty day...cold and rainy. But before we even got 20 miles from home the snow started. The pictures tell the story, but it snowed pretty hard in Georgia yesterday. Of course, it's all gone now, and pretty much was when we headed back south last night. It is pretty cold out there, but sunny as can be.

We made it to the Georgia World Congress center just fine. For my kin it is pretty much like a large Bartle Hall. It's right in downtown Atlanta beside the Georgia Dome and CNN Center. We ate at CNN which is a very cool place to check out.

All in all, a fun day. I will go on Sunday next year though...to many damn people there on Saturday.

Oh, and I heard Ron Paul placed second in the Nevada primaries. I'm sure this won't stop the media from ignoring him, but at least some folks get it.

Weekly update.

I suppose I'm due to type an update since it has been a week. My excitement for the week was getting a new work van! We've been told for the passed six months that we were getting new laptops and for good reason. The one I had was over 3 years old and SLOW. We were also told that the supervisors were getting the first four new vans that came in. When I left Montgomery on Wednesday I was informed that I should be there Thursday morning because the IT guys were showing up with the new laptops. While enroute I found out that we were also going to pick up our new vans! Hell, I've been living in that thing for over 3 years, I've got a lot of stuff to transfer. The laptops are quite nice, Dell widescreen with a wireless card....not networking, but wireless internet! Now that part is great, because the way I've always done it when I needed to email was cruise around a development until I came across someone's unsecured wireless connection. NO MORE. I can be on the net wherever, whenever. I got the important stuff setup at the office, and threw the rest in the back of the new van....then spent Friday and Saturday getting things right. I'm actually happy with everything about the new one, other than the DirecTV billboard on the side. That was one thing I didn't have to deal with in the old van. Now I can't stop anywhere without someone wanting to ask a question. SO, I got it waxed up, installed my XM, center console, and several other non-approved accessories that make my life easier. Now tomorrow I shall go to work in the thing. I'll get some pictures also.

I did get a ride in this afternoon, but had to cut it short to get back and head to the gym with Deb. We joined the YMCA before Christmas, and have been hitting it pretty regular. I notice she's cut off my food supply a bit as well....hmmmm, I think it's a conspiracy of some sort.

For now this is the only picture you get, from my Sunday ride

.......

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Summer stopped by today.

What a nice day we had here today. Weatherbug says the high was 70, I'd have guessed higher. It was above 60 in Missouri, but yet one of my guys who transfered to north Georgia sent me a picture this afternoon of a frozen waterfall and then called to tell me how cold it was up there. Weird.

We started the day by cleaning vehicles. After that I was put to work picking up leaves and cleaning up the yard. Of course, it wasn't that bad of a chore....the Walker just sucks up anything in it's path. It was my Sunday on call, so I couldn't really hit the road on the bike because I've got to answer the phone when it rings. Deb was passing through the living room when something was mentioned about geocaching on some show on Discovery channel. The next thing I know, Celeste was picking up Morgan and off we went. Lyndsay spent the night with her Aunt Angie last night, and they tracked us down in the park to drop her off, so she got in on the action as well. It was a good walk, but we only found one cache. Two straight days of treasure hunting are catching up with my feet right now, that's for sure.

 

Oh, the phone never did ring.

1st Saturday of the Month.

Well, Lyndsay and I had a pretty full day of it. Since it was the first Saturday of the month, we started at Home Depot for the Kids workshop. After that is was time for some more geocaching, or treasure hunting as she calls it. We hit another Columbus Park, Cooper Creek. There weren't as many caches as Flat Rock, but we still got a good walk out of it, 2.99 miles total.

Tags: geocache, geocaching, Columbus GA

Welcome 2008!

2007 wasn't all bad. I sold some toys, bought some toys. Got some things accomplished, left some things undone. And, it is another year gone that I can't get back. But overall, I'm not sad to see it go. Not that I really look at today as being much more than yesterdays tomorrow, but the new year is a "reset" of sorts, right?

While talking to Dad on Friday I told him I was going to catch a bike ride while it was warm. The cold front was headed this way fast, and it's done nothing but rain lately, so I was going to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. Well, as our conversation was in progress, I noticed that son-in-law #2 was trying to call me. Son-in-law #2 is also my employee, so I figured it was work related. After I hung up with dad I called him back...he had been given a "scooter" by one of his customers, and had already dropped it off at son-in-law #1's house. Well, I figured I'd better go check it out, right? Well, I did end up getting a bike ride in....just not on my bike.

It's a Honda Ruckus. It's got 49cc's and 3.9 screaming horsepower. I figured I'd better ride it now because those two will probably jump it off a house or something and trash it pretty quick.

We were supposed to head to Montgomery last night for the new year celebration, but due to unforseen circumstances that didn't happen. We did stay up, Lyndsay through some "poppers" in the driveway at midnight and my neighbor unloaded a pistol in his backyard. It was very "Georgia". We all slept most of the morning away. The cold front made it, and it was windy as hell, but not real cold, so I did get my new years day ride in. I road over to son-in-law #2's house in time to catch him filming son-in-law #1 sliding the poor scooter in circles until he wrecked several times. I knew I'd better ride it while I could.

Mom, I could use a few pictures of the upgrades that dad has added to his bike please.

Happy New Year to everyone. See ya when I see ya.