HAPPY THANKSGIVING YA'LL !

Turkey Day 2010...  They just keep coming don't they?  Any day in Birmingham is Turkey Day, the trick is to make sure your not somebody elses Turkey.  We (Birmingham) just received yet another dubious award title last week.  Seems like we are the 10th MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN THE USA!  Yeah us!  Go home team!  Pass the friggin ammo!  We were 6th in the nation last year for murders, and so far this year we seem to be right on track with about 50 piled up in the morgue so far for 2010.  The big rivaly around here is AL / AU Football, but I see another quest for a coveted title brewing between BHM and DET for MURDER CAPITAL USA!  And I almost got to raise our score by one just this very morning as I returned home from my predawn trip to drop Caitlin off at Starbucks.  The short story is he was walking by my house in the shadows when I turned onto the street so I figured why avail myself to be in the situation where I might have to shoot an idiot on Thanksgiving Day morning, right?  So I went around the block to give him some time and distance and by the time I made it back to my parking spot he was at the opposit end of the block.  But he saw me park.

Let me tell you a little about my parking spot.  If you laid a dime on the street where my left front tire sits, it would be exactly under my tire, every single time I park in front of my house.  And here's why.  With my car exactly in that spot (+/- an inch), I have a 10 foot wide stripe of light that bathes the area just immediatly outside the drivers door of the car so I can see anything that moves into the light to my left, and as soon as I stop I hit the power control for my drivers mirror and pan it out as far as it goes and that gives me a view of anything that might emerge from the shadowy walkway up to the apartment building next door to my house.  I have various lights across the street to illuminate anything that may come at me from that direction, but me and my car sit in total blackness under the row of Bradford Pears at the street's edge.  Point is, as soon as my wheels stop, I go into defensive/protective mode and I position myself so as to best be aware of anyone or anything that may approach me BEFORE the get close enough to give them the edge of surprise.  And this morning it saved somebody's life.

As I parked, I saw the creeper way up at the other end of the block and I really didn't think he'd make the effort from that far away.  But then Steppinwolf interveined and Born To Be Wild came on the radio as I was about to unlock and unbuckle my happy white ass and go get back in the bed to dream about big fat turkeys and juicy cranberries.  So I sat, one song, that all, I swear.  By the time I had bopped along with the radio, the creeper had come down the ally behind my house cut throught the parking lot and sidewalk of the apartments and was waiting for me to open the door of the car as he hid in the shadows just outside the reach of the lights.  He wasn't a large person, had a gray hoodie on with the hood pulled up over his head and some kind of small paper sack in his hand, and I really don't know whether he was going to ask me for spare change, spare food or spare smokes or just stick a knife in my back and take what he could find in my pockets and car.  As I turned the radio off, set the parking brake and turned the car off, I guess he figured that was his cue and down the bank of the apartments he shot.  I saw the blur of movement in my outside mirror and knew it was showtime.  I popped my .45 out of it's Fobus holster and brought it up into the drivers window ready for the curtain to go up.  He had his hand in the bag outstretched towards me as he ran down the bank and towards my still closed door.  As soon as he got close enough to actually see me inside the now totally black car, he must have been able to see the barrel of my .45 pressed against my drivers window and decided this was NOT a good day to die.

He tried to stop his forward progress but was met only with slippery wet leaves under his feet.  Then he tried to do a two-step with a little zig and zag move and wound up bustin his ass right as he slammed into my drivers door.  I saw two huge eyes look up from the swirling pile of leaves as he focused on the tip of my barrel..  Those eyes must have been directly connected to those feet, because there was no lack of communication betwixt what the eyes saw and what the feetsies needed to be doing which was RUN!  In the blink of my eye, he was running up the sidewalk shedding leaves like a tree in a strong wind.

He'll be back, if he's stupid enough.  And he probably is.  And maybe next time...  Who knows, maybe one of us will be able to put some points on the board.

So, I did make it back into the bed all safe and sound, I did dream about fat bottomed...turkeys and plump, juicy, succulent...cranberries.  And as I opened my little blue eyes a few hours later, my nostriles were happily greeted by the wonderful oders of Thanksgiving.  Joy was already up and moving like a one woman cooking machine in the kitchen.  Hell she had even enslaved the Grandkids and had them standing by to help out as needed.  I am looking forward to having all of our kids home again, under one roof, just like it used to be.  But I get the added pleasure of two extra daughter-in-laws and two extra Grandmonkeys and it just sweetens the pot that much more.

I hope YOUR Thanksgiving day leaves you with a full plate, a full home and a full heart.  And to my little creeper friend, I'll be seeing you again, real soon.  ...

Happy Vetran's Day...

If you slept all warm and cozy in your bed last night, THANK A VETRAN!  If you don't know, I am a Vetran.  USAF Security Police 2854th Security Police Squadron (now 72nd SF) Tinker Air Force Base Oklahoma 1980- 1986..  That was 24 years ago for me.  I was an active duty Air Force Cop when the Cold War came to an abrupt end with the breakup of the Soviet Union, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff in 1986, Grenada and our response to Libya firing missles at our planes in international waters off their coast.  There were many a night, that the world was in turmoil as I and a lot of other good men and women in the US Armed Forces did what we felt we needed to be doing at that time.  I served with some of the finest and bravest men and women I have ever met during those six years and I am glad to be associated with them even still today.  I hope YOU take just a moment out of your day tomorrow and say "Thank You" to a Vetran, it will be highly appreciated, trust me.

Automotive rant...

As many of you know, I am a Factory Certified Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Nissan, Honda and Subaru Master Mechanic as well as a AMI Certified Motorcycle Mechanic.  Ah... those were my late teens and early 20's.  I was also a Licensed NASCAR Mechanic at the tender age of 16, so I guess that's really where I let my tools and my skills put food in my face, etc, etc.  I won't bore you with all of my other mechanical marvels, just trust me when I say I know which end of a screwdriver to use, ok?  And tools, Oh My God!  I have spent more money on tools, toolboxes, shop equipment, rags and other "had-to-have" gear than many people spend for a house.  Yes, I work on all of my own cars, motorcycles, hovercraft and gravitational portals, I can, I usually have all of the tools I need and I have a garage, so why give all that lovely green paper to someone else huih?  But I gotta tell ya, I no longer look at those of you who take your cars to the "QuickyLubie" and cough up $50.00 to a $100.00 to have your oil changed and your zerk fittings greased with the same eye as I did in the past.  And here's why...

I have come to the realization that every single nut, bolt, screw and grease fitting on your car now REQUIRES you to have a specific and unique tool for that particular nut/bolt/screw/etc.  Back in the `70's when I was a Honda mechanic working for Bart Starr in Hoover, we used to joke about how their were certain "specialty" dealer only tools for a couple of applications on the Honda cars.  Then Ford joined that bandwagon and made cars that had to be returned to the dealer for servicing at regular intervals (Ford called it their "Dealer Assurance Maintenance Program").  Well, look who's laughing now!  I just got through trying to do a simple lube job on our Jeep Liberty and got nothing lubed, just walked away shaking my head in disbelief.

My old Plews grease gun bit the wennie quite a few months ago so I attempted to break the current world record (whatever it may be) in the International Grease gun Hurl and although I'll never know if I ever came close, the experience was, nonetheless, satisfying to me at the moment of my attempt.  Well, we as a family have needed one for quite some time now and I finally broke down and bought one of the mini-grease guns just for the occasional squirt here and there, besides I figured the mini could be used on Matt's Harley, my Project RoadPig (can you say "pipe dream"...) and on Logan and Anna's bicycles as well.  I dropped about $20.00 in the cash register at WallyWorld for a new Plews (the best made) Minigun and a few tubes of grease and headed home for the "fun" of working on my own car.  Well, it wasn't fun, and as a matter of fact I was unsuccessful at even getting any grease on the car, anywhere.

You see, in order for me to actually grease my own car, I need to "upgrade" my new grease gun a little bit, AND I need to actually BUY some grease fittings for my car because Chrysler was too damn cheap to put them in in the first place.  The "upgrades" will include a flex hose ($9.99), a movable angle head ($14.99) and about ten actual zerk fittings ($10.00).  So, I need to spend a total of $60-$75 buck all told just to have the fun of doing it myself.  Now I know why you guys take your cars to the "LubieQuick" and waste a few hours warming a chair on Saturday mornings.

And I'm not just picking on Jeep/Chrysler either.  I've got a `98 Astro that requires a $125.00 tool to replace the $50.00 waterpump.  Yeah, it's still sitting, somewhere.  It's also the same van that if it had been a `97, the fuel pump would have cost $60.00 at any car parts place, but noooo, it had to be a `98 and that fuel pump is only available at the dealership and it lists for $801.00.  For a fuel pump?  Come on!  Do I get a lifetime supply of KY with that?  Overnight?

So, I guess it's time to give in to the Tool Gods, and run right on down to the tool store and start completing my collections with the addition of  the likes of "Left Handed" wrench's and screwdrivers.  I wonder how long it takes before we have to have one wrench to take a nut off, and another to put it on?  If I could invent that one, I'd be getting a nut off I assure you!.  - Tim.