As you sit there and read this, slightly lift your right foot off the ground and rotate it in small circles clockwise. Now try to draw a six in mid-air with your right hand. I betcha can’t do it without changing the direction of your foot! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I would like to open up BLOGINYOURFACE.com to anyone who would like to submit a guest post to me about their personal belief on any political issue(s). I know I don’t have that many readers but if you would like to get any type of political rant off of your chest about any topic at all, I will post it to the site UNEDITED for all to see and comment on along with you blog URL for promotion purposes. Just e-mail it to me at ahubbard13@bloginyourface.com Here is one of my (few and far between) political rants:
I wrote a little piece on Global Warming below in the wake of one man’s quest to raise awareness by climbing the New York Times building. I basically just wanted to say how awesome I thought it was that someone has that kind of devotion to a cause, ANY CAUSE. I admire people that are that passionate about their beliefs. Well, I must say that as much as I tried to keep politics out of it and human perseverance as the main theme, I ended up kind of doing the opposite; that is, judging by the couple of comments that I received.
Here is my reaction to the most recent comment by my big Sis:
Let me start off with one figure which I will base my views on…$720,000,000. That is how much we spend on the war in Iraq right now EVERY…SINGLE…DAY. “The War On Terror…” Lets just say that we had that kind of money to spend elsewhere…
For instance, with that kind of money America could:
1) Pay 12,478 teachers a salary of 55,000 dollars a year.
2) Provide 163,000 people with a year’s worth of health insurance.
3) Put a roof over 6,482 familes’ head.
4) Build 18,000 windmills…cutting down on energy costs and emissions exponentially.
5) Build up to 8 community centers a day in areas where gang activity is getting out of control.
6) How far would 700-some-million dollars a day go in fighting the war on drugs?
7) How far would 700-some-million dollars a day go in researching cancer treatment, STD prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, property tax relief and recycling incentive programs (i.e. paying Americans to recycle)?
How far would 700-some-million dollars a day go in preparing for “The Big One” (San Andreas Earthquake) which is predicted to affect 20 million people (or more) on the west coast and leave them without food, shelter, electricity, water, communication and adequate law enforcement?
9) How far would 700-some-million dollars go in doing something about the 10,000 hand gun deaths in America each year (compared to just 12 in the UK)?
10) Pay for research and prevention of the 45,000 Americans that are killed in car accidents annually.
11) I could go on and on about problems on our own soil…
And on an international level? If we really want to be the world super hero, can you imagine what 700-some-million dollars would do for:
1) The 8500 people that die from AIDS every day.
2) The 5000 children that die from dirty water every day.
3) The nearly 4 million people worldwide that have died from starvation so far THIS YEAR!
4) The 30,000 some kids worldwide that are born with a cleft pallet every year. We could do nearly 2 million surgeries on cleft pallets a day with this kind of money.
5) The 50 to 100 million active land mines that are in 80 countries around the world today?
6) I could go on and on here, too…
You say:
“I see the terrorists in the Middle East as a much more dangerous threat than global warming”
The way I see it, terrorists in the United States and in the world are some of the least of what we should be worrying about. In fact, I will go as far as to say that we are brainwashed into thinking they are way more of an immediate and dangerous threat than they really are. If the world is going to shit and human existence is nearing an end, I can guarantee that in the end it will have absolutely or barely anything to do with a) fuel costs or b) Terrorism.
There is nothing we can or will EVER be able to do about terrorism. No matter how long we are in Iraq or any other Middle Eastern country, there are always going to be extremist Muslims (and terrorists of other denominations). If we think we can win a holy war we are insane! These people are fighting to the death because they don’t value their lives on this Earth! How do you defeat an enemy like that? You don’t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fact: If someone on this Earth wants to harm someone else or a group of someone elses bad enough, they will find the means to do so. Their free will and our destiny to survive their wrath are both what God intends for. You say:
“If you truly believe that there is a God and he is watching out for you, then trust Him. He always knows what is best. Remember: fear is the opposite of faith.”
I could not agree with you more, Sis. But if that is the case, why do we fear terrorism so much? Why do we fear the inevitable and go to war over it, while ignoring so many other problems at home and around the world? PROBLEMS THAT WE CAN GET OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT!
If terrorists really want to inflict harm on us, they will find a way. Our faith in God is what will protect us, and if it does not protect us it will lead us to the heavenly kingdom in our unfortunate death. Most people that pray to God daily usually include something about protecting them and keeping them safe though, right? My opinion on the War on Terror is that we get the hell out of there and start using our military for better causes. I say we get the hell out of there and start using our resources to help people around the world make it through the present and future problems that are facing the human race. People that actually want our help. People that would maybe even return the favor…
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, KIM!!!!
Those that believe in Global Warming and those that could care less. This video depicts a man last Thursday who scaled the 52-story New York Times building to promote public awareness on the issue. On the 9th floor he displayed a banner that read “Global Warming kills more people than 9/11 every year.” His name is Alain Robert and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. Not just because he wants to address an issue that is important to me, but because he is someone that is so passionate about something that he would go and pull a stunt like this.
Most of us could only dream of developing such a strong passion about changing the world that we were willing to devote our lives (or in this case, risk our life) to have our voice heard.
I see the way that the Midwest is being affected by Global Warming everyday. The last two summers we have had nearly drought-like conditions. This year we have had flash floods and tornados. The changing ocean temperatures are creating completely unpredictable weather patterns that are getting to the point of devastation. I have done a lot of thinking over the last few years…is Global Warming man made? Can humans really have an impact on our climate? I have gotten to the point where I really don’t know and I really don’t care. What I know is that whether it is a natural climate cycle or it is man made, we are not doing enough as individuals, as a country or even as a world to adapt.
Instead of fighting wars we need to be spending money on developing ways to combat the inevitable changes that are going to occur sooner than later. Instead of drilling for oil we better start scouting and drilling fresh water resevoirs. Instead economic stimulus packages, we had better start giving incentives to people that recycle. We had better start modernizing our energy infrastructure. We had better start teaching third world countries how to grow crops and prevent disease.
I am done arguing the politics of Global Warming and I am done arguing why the hell it is happening. To me, it is now a survival issue. It’s not about the price of gasoline, cable television, food, water and gallons of milk. It’s not about the housing crisis or the Dow Jones dropping. It’s about honey bees dying. It’s about devastating weather. It’s about not having enough trees. It’s about cancer and chronic disease. It’s about the 150,000 and counting deaths that can be traced directly back to the fact that the Earth is warming for WHATEVER FUCKING REASON.
Alain Robert may be a wack job for climbing a 52 story building. I am not going to argue that. Maybe Al Gore and the rest of the environmentalists in the world are wack jobs. Maybe I am a wack job. Maybe I am crazy for wanting a better world for my kids. Maybe I am crazy for thinking that the problem is not to big. Maybe I am crazy for thinking that the world can come together and work on a solution.
But the solution is so simple…visit thesolutionissimple.org
Well, as if the Minnesota Twins couldn’t suck any more than they already do, they had to go and get swept by the White Sox. They lost by a 4-game combined total of 15 points to the White Sox’s 40 points! I hate seeing them lose to the damn Sox, let alone lose 4 games in a row. In fact, I can’t think of many things that I hate seeing more. I have compiled a short list of some things that I would actually rather see than my Twins sucking this bad. Here they are in no particular order:
1) Roseanne Bar in a ketchup bikini.
2) Marilyn Manson doing a Dwight Yoakam cover.
3) Chris Farley naked in a kiddy pool full of Ramen Noodles.
4) Jaci gaining 65 pounds.
5) My parents making out.
6) Ru Paul in a Victoria’s Secret Commercial.
7) Ball Park Franks Inc. going out of business.
8 ) You Don’t Mess With Zohan winning an Oscar.
9) Poop on the back of the toilet seat.
10) Amy Winehouse as my kids’ kindergarten teacher.
11) Richard Simmons starring in the next Batman movie.
Seriously, I am taking offense to our offense. We gotta pick it up. At least we have the Indians for a series…always an upside, I guess.
Jaci and I have several resident squirrels in my backyard ever since installing the squirrel feeder on the big ol’ Hackberry tree. All I did was screw two 2×4s into an ‘L’ shape and screwed that to the tree trunk. Then I went to Home Depot to get some HUGE nails to impale some corn cobs on. I found some 9 inch ones that were slightly short of railroad ties sitting on a shelf next to the rest of the nails. I asked the kid working there how much they cost, and he looked at me and nearly started hyperventilating. After he came to terms with the fact that his name tag reads “How may I help you” and he couldn’t pretend that he simply hadn’t heard me (being that I nearly shouted the question directly into his ear the third time I asked him), he mumbled something about “…however much it says on the box…”
I informed him that the two nails that I was holding had been separated from the herd.
He blinked at me a couple of times.
I rephrased the statement (for the sake of an obvious lack of neuron responsiveness) and said “They are not in any box. They were just sitting on the shelf. Besides, I only want two. I will pay whatever price you want, just tell me how much they are, buddy!”
Now, this next part of the story (tangent that I have gotten off on) goes out to anyone who owns stock in Home Depot. The kid told me that he doesn’t care how much the nails cost and that I should just put them in my pocket and walk out the door furthest from the registers.
So I did.
Anyway, in the weeks since building my squirrel feeder I have become very fond of the (only) black squirrel that frequents my backyard buffet. I call him “El Negro.” When I was in elementary school we briefly had a kid in our class from Sudan. Now, if this kid closed his eyes in a dark room, we would seriously forget he was there. I mean this kid was black.
El Negro is so black that he makes the Sudanese kid look like a flourescent light bulb made out of marshmallows. I mean, El Negro is ONE…BLACK…SQUIRREL. Seriously, if Omaha, Nebraska was a Mexican border town and Zorro lived amongst us, he would shit his pants if he saw this squirrel.
Getting back to the point…
El Negro is getting so tame that he peeks around the tree at eye level with me while I am changing the corn cobs on the feeder. I keep talking to him every time I am out there and I try not to make sudden and threatening moves. My goal is to be able to feed him out of my hand at the end of the summer without getting rabies.
My nephew totally dropped a bowling ball on his finger and broke it. But he broke it in half vertically. If you are having a hard time grasping that, think of the letter “Y.” As my mother put it, “Bones came right out of the finger and bled like a son of a gun.” Yikes!
He is one tough little man! Definitely didn’t learn that from his uncle!!!
When you go throughout your life - or a good majority of it - believing something that you have always been told is true…and then someone or something goes and makes you challenge your beliefs or seriously makes you consider changing your mind altogether, it kind of sucks. When you develop strong opinions about something that you feel is right, wrong, weird, acceptable, cool, awesome, shitty, stupid, annoying, awkward or just “a given,” and then you come across someone/something that thinks, says or DOES the complete polar opposite, it kind of makes you feel really weird and frustrated. These are not just BuzzKills. These are things that are on a much larger scale - things that could potentially change not only our way of thinking but the entire way we live our lives.
Here are some past examples from my life:
1. Finding out Elton John is gay.
2. Finding out that Santa Claus is not real.
3. Finding out that Ozzie Smith is a dickhead.
4. Finding out that hot dogs have 60 percent of my recommended sodium intake per day and have virtually no nutritional value.
5. Finding out that Jaci sheds 4 1/2 pounds of hair in the shower every day.
6. Figuring out that I am not capable at plumbing of any sort.
7. Finding out that Barbie dolls have no nipples.
8. Assuming that Cristina Ricci could never make a shitty movie because she is just plain TO HOT!!!
9. Finding out that Kirby Puckett was mortal.
10. Finding out that Mickey Mouse is really just some fat guy named Harold in a mouse suit sweating is a** off and hugging (and scaring) little kids for little more than minimum wage.
I was reading one of my favorite personal finance blogs the other day, FRUGAL DAD, and he informed us that he was going on a 30 day binge of drinking strictly water. No other liquids. I was skimming through the comments when I came across one that led me to a website entitled “Not Milk” - www.notmilk.com - a play on words from the famous “got milk?” marketing campaign.
Now, I have grown up in the Midwest and I have always just assumed that drinking milk is a good thing. Drinking milk makes strong little boys. Drinking milk makes strong bones. Drinking milk is an important part of school lunches. Drinking milk at every…single…meal…is just something that all Americans should do in order to be healthy, right?
Not so much…
This website has completely changed my perspective on milk. In particular, THIS ARTICLE within the website. I won’t bore anyone with too many details, but the more you read about cow’s milk, the more disgusting it sounds and the more insane we seem for drinking it as much as we do. Pesticides, Hormones, Lactose, White Blood Cells (Puss), etc. The fact that milk really does NOTHING to prevent osteoporosis when it all comes down to it. The fact that billions of people in the world have never tasted cow’s milk and correlational studies point to them being much healthier because of it. Allergies, Cancer, Kidney Stones, Alzheimer’s and Crohn’s Disease. The list goes on and it scares the buh-JESUS out of me.
The people that market milk are genius. They have done a flawless job in brainwashing the American public into believing that milk is virtually a necessity. This website and article have completely stopped me in my tracks. I found myself staring at the milk with the ‘fridge door hanging wide open tonight. How could this be? Sweet, sweet milk…tell me it isn’t so!
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As if trying to soak in the bad news about one of my all time favorite beverages isn’t hard enough, I also came across some information that I found to be absolutely mind boggling. It concerns electric and gas/electric hybrid cars. I have been under the assumption for quite some time that electric cars or gas/electric cars are the wave of the future. I watched the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car and I immediately became frustrated with the oil companies for “sabotaging” the engineering of the Electric Car in the early nineties.
But then I found this out: If we were to all switch to electric cars today - right at this moment - yes, we would reduce our dependency on foreign oil immensely, but I never really thought about the effect on our nation’s present day power grid. Ever since I started getting interested in politics I have been under the assumption that any kind of energy and transportation that doesn’t have to do with oil has got to be a good thing, right?
Wrong. And that brings us to BussKill #2 of the day: This Article.
The author, Clayton Cornell, points out that a 30 mile commute in a gasoline powered car costs our water supply 18.9 gallons of water (in the refining of the gasoline). The same thirty mile commute in a plug-in-hybrid car would use up to 318 gallons of water! Unbelievable!
Why the big difference???? Power plants are the source of energy for your little hybrid. The majority of power plants on our grid are either coal or natural gas. Someday we may be able to have power plants running on wind, solar and geo-thermal energy but that is a whole different blog for another day in the far away future. For now we have the more traditional two listed above. The turbines in those power plants are run on steam and the whole plant is cooled using water.
Now, I am absolutely HUGE on water conservation. I predict that future world wars will be fought over water. I predict that the United States will end up centered around the Great Lakes. I predict that water will be more expensive than gasoline one day. I predict that the end of human existence will come because of something directly related to the lack of water. I think it is a huge deal that not many people think or care about in today’s politics.
That is why BuzzKill #2 is so hard to digest. My heart and mind was set on the fact that Gasoline=Bad; Electricity=Good. But with the information about the ridiculous amount of water it takes to run a hybrid car, I find myself forced to partially retract some of my strong opinions. It is frustrating to be so passionate about the environment and feel like you know what is good for it and suddenly realize you have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously, I feel like tomorrow I am going to find out that recycling is horrible for the planet.
Yeah! The new mutha-effin’ Weezer album! I can’t wait to listen to it all day today and write a review of it. Also, if you are obsessed with viral videos (like myself) and have not seen the new Weezer video for the single Pork and Beans yet, you should check it out.
Hey Andy! You should embed it in your blog with your new YouTube plugin!
OK!
Get ready Nebraska! And for those of you that aren’t from Nebraska, boy do I feel sorry for you! You are missing an extraordinary event…one in which Nebraskans await nearly as anxiously as the opening season of Husker football. Yes indeed, it is wild Asparagus season! People all across the upside-down-pan-shaped state will be scouring the ditches and railroad tracks in search of the delicacy this week. And in honor of wild Asparagus season, I would like to honor the one thing that makes Asparagus absolutely hilarious: Stinky Pee.
Did you know that your post-Asparagus stinky pee is caused by none other than a chemical called Methanethiol? But don’t be so quick to give Methanethiol such a bad rap! This cousin of sulfur actually helps cleanse your body of toxins. So give it a break!
Wanna know some other foods that have the stinky substance in them? HO-KAY!!
1) Cheddar Cheese
2) Eggs
3) Cabbage
4) Peanuts
5) Coffee
6) Mushrooms
Don’t bother this year, because wild Asparagus is only in season for another couple of days. But, get your friends together for next year’s wild Asparagus season and don’t miss out on the stinky pee excitement!
I know that God tests us everyday of our lives in different ways. These past couple of days he has really gone over the top!!! I didn’t get sick…ALL…WINTER…LONG. That is pretty good considering I share a floor of an office building with 500 some people and this was an extremely cold and miserable Nebraska winter.
However, the day that it hits 80 degrees for the first time, my ear started to ache. And now it has multiplied exponentially and the crud has completely taken over every membrane, gland and organ in my face, throat and chest. I was sitting at work yesterday and the pins and needles took over my face. You know, when you are freezing and sweating at the same time. I felt like I had something that was a cross between the Black Plague and the Ebola Virus.
Here is what I have been doing to treat the sonuvabitch:
1) Drinking English breakfast tea.
2) Having Jaci scratch my head while I lay in her lap and moan and groan.
3) Using throat numbing spray every 10 minutes.
4) Using nasal spray like a black tar heroin addict.
5) Cleaning my ears out nightly with the baby booger sucker outer thingy.
6) Taking generic Sudafed which works about as well on my cold as tomato juice baths do when you get sprayed by a skunk (and by this I mean it does not work worth a crap).
I refuse to call in sick, though. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said “I have a dream that one day I will put a sweet down payment on a car with the money I make selling my sick days back to the company…”
The most valuable lesson I ever learned from my Father is that calling in sick is for wussies.
I was talking to this lady today about parking in downtown Omaha. She parks in the parking ramp that is connected to the tunnel at work and pays $110 dollars a month for a spot there. For an 8 x 12 parking spot!!! I, on the other hand, park about 8 blocks away on a 10 hour parking meter which costs me 75 cents a day. So, for a month, that’s roughly $15.75.
She just couldn’t get over how insane I was to park that far away. She just could not fathom why I would not buy a parking pass. For me the answer is simple and it is a two part answer: One, because it saves me $94.25 cents a month and two, I really don’t mind the walk. In fact, it only takes me about 8 minutes.
How insane am I??? Lets assume the parking prices never change for the next 35 years of my employment. Lets assume that I were to put that $94.25 into a high interest savings account like an ORANGE ONLINE SAVINGS ACCOUNT from INGDirect. Lets assume that the interest rate on that account will be 3% for the next 35 years, even though 6 months ago it was at almost 5% and I have seen it even higher. So if I put in the $1,131 that I save a year by parking at the parking meter, in 35 years I would have…
$70,434.09
So if you have areas in your life where you cut corners to save money and people make fun of you for being frugal, remind those people of the power of compound interest.
You can check out the official Centennial Bulb website here.
I was working outside in the backyard the other day when I thought about this little story about weeds:
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this’. His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest, then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the wheat unto my barn.” ‘ ”
Some of us might be good seeds and blossom into wheat despite all of the “weeds” around us. Some of us might actually be the weeds in the field. Consider your life in this world as one growing season in the whole scheme of things. You have until “harvest” time to get your act together. When that day comes will you be harvested and brought into the barn or burned by the “farmer?”
Give it some thought, eh?
I attended a funeral lately for my uncle’s best friend Sam. He died at the ripe age of 48 from a blood clot that went to his heart like KER-BLAM! He was fine one second and then got to feeling kind of sick, and less than an hour later he was with God. Let me tell you what, when I go, I hope it is as quickly as Sam. I don’t want anything long and drawn out. But, anyway, that’s not my point…
What got me thinking was his actual funeral ceremony. Talk about a celebration of life! Here are some of the details in a list…because, well…I like to make lists:
1) Sam wore shorts 365 days a year. No matter what the weather was, he would never put pants on. His legs were literally immune to the Nebraska winters. So, his pallbearers all wore shorts and t-shirts instead of formal-wear of any kind. My uncle was wearing jean shorts and a Bob Segar T-shirt, while another guy was wearing some hideous Hawaiian shorts with a Styx T-shirt.
2) Speaking of Styx, they read the lyrics of “Come Sail Away” instead of any generic and dime-a-dozen bible verse.
3) The minister compared life to a dart game. Sam loved darts. If Sam and I were a carnival act, I would trust him to tie me to a wall and throw darts at an apple on my head without thinking twice.
4) Sam totally loved his nieces and they talked about how he would kiss them with “Raspberry Kisses” or, in other words, make farting noises against their cheeks.
5) A common phrase that could be heard by everyone speaking at the funeral was “This Sucks Rocks.” Sam has been saying that for years and years and years.
6) Sam loved to eat…he definitely didn’t enjoy delaying that pleasure in the slightest. They talked about how his favorite prayer was short and sweet: “Rub-a-dub dub, thanks for the grub…YAY GOD!”
7) And the coolest part of all was honoring Sam’s love for fireworks. As they carried the casket out of the church, people threw black cats around it. Also, at the end of the burial service at the cemetery there was an ear-shattering fireworks display that gave me an “inbetweener.” For those of you that don’t know what an “inbetweener” is, it’s one of those emotions that is unlike any other. It’s when you are in between being mad and happy, or mad and sad. Or in my case, when they set off those fireworks, I laughed hysterically while crying and blubbering like I haven’t in a long time.
The whole thing got me thinking about MY funeral. I hope that my pallbearers will wear grass stained jeans with Minnesota Vikings T-shirts or Iowa Hawkeye hooded sweatshirts. I hope that my dog will be at my funeral in Jaci’s lap. I hope they use the phrase “Holy Mother-Effing Crap” to remember me. I hope that they eat hot dogs after the funeral in remembrance of me. I hope someone sings Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind at my service. I hope they tell stories about me in college. I hope they remember the silly drunken times I’ve had. I hope they recall the time I sang that Whitney Houston song from The Bodyguard at the karaoke bar and MURDERED it! I hope my favorite (only) nephew gets told that he has a brand spankin’ new guardian angel.
Everyone has been to funerals. Maybe not everyone has been to a celebration of life like this one was. It really opens your eyes about how you want to be remembered and how you hope people will celebrate your life on the day that you meet your maker.
So, I thought I would throw my hat in for this sweet little website. Jaci and I weren’t really thrilled about picking just one or two spots to register at for our wedding. And I was not exactly ecstatic about walking around with a little scanner thing all flippin’ day picking out what we want for presents.
Then we stumbled across MyRegistry.com which is totally what we were looking for and what we are going to utilize for our wedding to avoid some hassle and to personalize our gift registry. Also, by using MyRegistry we will pretty much get EXACTLY what we want. Here is how it works:
1. When you mail out your invitations you make sure to add the link to the MyRegistry website along with a personal pass code for folks in your wedding.
2. Then you and your groom/bride-to-be go on the page and you can find pictures of things that you want (or links to certain websites with that item) and put them on your page. You can add little notes…for example, Jaci and I are crazy about Disc Golf. So we put a picture of a disc on our registry and added a note that says “Disc golf is a very fun activity and much more environmentally friendly than regular golf. Jaci and I need some new discs because our current discs have hit their fair share of trees! You can find these discs for around 7 to 15 dollars. We prefer Innova brand. Thanks!”
3. Then your guests go on your registry page and when they find what they would like to purchase for you as a gift, they click on the picture. They have a variety of options: MyRegistry searches for the best deals across the Internet if they would like to purchase the item online. It also searches for any online coupons that your guest can print off. Then your guest can notate if they would like to purchase that item online or they can check the box that says they bought the item at a store and it disappears from your online registry!
4. Guests can also contribute money to larger items such as a furniture set.
Best of all, the service is completely free! If you are thinking about getting married, I would highly, HIGHLY recommend MyRegistry. It’s the greatest thing since Democrats in the White House!
Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote a great article in his weekly mailbag that I feel pretty much sums up my thoughts on the oil companies. Here is an excerpt:
“The solution is to put that support infrastructure in place right now. If you want to break up dependence on oil, look at individual consumer and political action. Buy highly fuel-efficient cars, or even look at all-electric options (yes, there are some). Use public transportation. Work politically to get people elected that will encourage such things - yes, even going so far as to support the Green Party, if need be. Don’t just focus on the presidential race, either - focus on the local race for Congress in your area and also for the state legislature. Who are the candidates and where do they stand on those issues? Work to support the greenest candidates by putting up signs and telling your neighbors. In other words, fight oil dependence at the revenue level, not at the profit level, while building a different transportation infrastructure.
I’m very serious about this. In fact, I’m strongly considering buying a Tesla Whitestar for our next car for most of our driving needs, even at the relatively high cost. Over a reasonable lifetime, no gas cost is potentially huge savings, as is the vastly reduced maintenance costs of having minimal moving parts in a vehicle. Pushing that curve is something that can bring about big change. If five million American families did that instead of griping about gas prices, profound changes would begin occurring very rapidly, as competitors would jump in and drive the price down, making electric cars compete in price with gas cars. When that happens, electric cars win in a landslide.”
We don’t have to go to extremes to bring down the price of oil. But if every American just did a little something…ANYTHING…like carpool, buy smaller cars, turn off lights and unused appliances, buy electric cars or small gas powered scooters, ride the bus, run, walk, blah blah blah BLAHHHHHH…
I still say we don’t need to drill for oil. But what do I know…I’m just a hippie environmentalist, that’s all.
Little guy has some moves, huh?
It is a very simple concept. Chris has a small ball taped up underneath his armpit with athletic tape. All he does is squeeze his arm against his body when he is ready and he cuts off that artery and WHAM! There goes his pulse!!!
You can do the same thing at home. Put a golf ball or a ping pong ball under your armpit and bet somebody five dollars (preferably a registered nurse or doctor for the best effect) that you can stop your pulse! Works every single time!
Lets face it…I know about as much about cars as Hitler knew about compassion. I would probably have a tough time differentiating between a monster truck and a Gremlin let alone an oil filter and an air filter. My Dad never taught me a single thing about cars growing up. In fact, he rented three garages out to a race car driver for free as long as he(his name was Bill) would work on my Dad’s car when it needed it. My Dad never got his hands dirty, or replaced a single Jimmy-Rod-Do-Hickey on any of his cars and certainly didn’t teach me how to.
So, needless to say I am a sucker for unnecessary work that “needs” to be done on my car. In fact, not only am I a sucker, I have at times been a downright VICTIM!
For the longest time I would take my car to a franchise place called “BrakeMasters” when it needed an oil change, inspection and what-not. The last time I went there in January they told me (like so many times before) that I needed a whole bunch of things done to my truck in order for it to be ready for the Spring:
Oil Change: $20
Brake Fluid Flush??? $39
Brake Pad Cleaning??? $20
Exhaust Inspection??? $39
I was also informed that I would need new brake pads by the end of the year.
I will finish this part of the story in a second.
Now, my girlfriend’s “Low Coolant” light had been coming on periodically around the same time. So, she took her car to BrakeMasters with me then. They informed her that the cause was…
At this point they started using some technical jargon that I am convinced was meant to confuse and scare us into thinking there was a major problem…the only word I recognized was “Manifold” and I think the rest might as well have been in Russian. I almost immediately lost interest in what they were talking about and began thinking about how bad I wanted to go to Sonic and get a cheeseburger and a Cherry-LimeAid…
Anyway, it was something that was going to cost Jaci 650 dollars to fix. My truck was going to cost me $118 plus tax. We decided to check out a few more places for estimates and I darted for the door of BrakeMasters before they could get another word in. After we hightailed it out of that joint, Jaci told me about a tiny little garage on a crappy little service road behind her apartment. We decided it couldn’t hurt to check them out since they were so close to her place at the time. Come to find out it was owned by a couple of young guys named Ted and Jason and they were the only two that worked on cars there, unlike BrakeMasters who have like a buh-GILLION employees and really pushy managers and sales people.
Long story short, Jason and Ted fixed Jaci’s car for like 100 bucks less than BrakeMasters was going to charge and he explained to Jaci in clear terms that she could understand just WHAT the exact problem was with her car. He even used a visual aid, if you count a visual aid as him interlocking his greasy fingers to represent the engine and manifold or whatever it was. Once again I wasn’t really listening because I was thinking about the scene in the movie Wayne’s World when Garth accidentally scratches the entire side of some guy’s car with a rivet gun while messing around in Phil’s Auto Body Shop.
Anyway, Ted and Jason were great to us. So, needless to say I decided to take my truck in there for an oil change on a Thursday morning. I dropped it off and walked about a mile to the Border’s bookstore down the road. Jason called soon after and told me imy truck was done. I told him I would be there in about 20 minutes because I needed to walk back his way. He actually said “No” and insisted on coming to pick me up in his truck….and he did.
On the ride back to the shop the conversation went something like this:
Me: So how much do you charge for a brake fluid flush? BrakeMasters says I need one.
Jason: My truck has almost 300,000 miles on it. I have never-EVER flushed the brake fluid. It is not necessary.
Me: OK…well they told me I need the brake pads cleaned, too.
Jason: Just get some tire and rim cleaner and clean the brake dust off the inside of your rims if it bugs you. If it doesn’t bug you, DON’T! Cleaning your brake pads is not necessary. They will just get dirty again. They are right behind your tire and only a foot above the road. Plus, they grind against metal all day. They are suppose to get dirty.
Me: So do I need an exhaust inspection, then?
Jason: Looked OK to me from what I saw while I was under there.
Me: And will I need new brakes soon? That’s what…
Jason: That’s what BrakeMasters told you? No, you have 50 percent or more of your brake pad left. You are not even close to needing new brakes. See, BrakeMasters works on commission. They will try to sell you services you don’t need in order to make money. Ted and I work for reputation. We aren’t a franchise so we don’t have much to back us up but our work. What I am telling you is that all you need today is a 24 dollar oil change and I hope you appreciate that enough to come back next time and maybe tell a friend or two.
So there you have it. My story ends there, but it has just begun. I am never going back to the Chevrolet dealer, or any large auto-care franchises like BrakeMasters or JiffyLube. I’m sticking with two greasy, dirty mechanics that own a shabby and somewhat run down auto shop. Why? Its simple…TRUST. Plus, I think its good for America. I think that Americans SHOULD spend their money at locations and retailers that they can honestly say that they know and trust. I think that wherever possible, we should try to do business with a handshake and on a first name basis.
Some people argue that America is built on capitalism. They might say that we wouldn’t be where we are today without Wal-Mart, Home Depot, McDonalds and Starbuck’s. But to me, what I think is the heart and soul of America…the bread and butter of our country…is the honesty and integrity that you get out of places like Ted and Jason’s Complete Auto Repair in Papillion, NE. Or that Ma and Pa grocery store that refuses to go out of business despite the big box stores sprouting up around it. Or the pharmacy down the street that still has the same cash register that they had in 1960.
It isn’t the suit and ties that make America strong. Its the grease under people like Jason and Ted’s fingernails. I encourage you to spend your economic stimulus money locally in your community. Gonna buy a new lawn mower? Why not buy it and Joe Blow’s hardware store instead of Home Depot this time? Why not go to Sally’s Bakery on the corner and buy your office two dozen doughnuts. Need some work done on your car? Why not go check out your local grease monkey auto shop. I did…it saved me money and everything about it felt great.
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