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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Working on the Instruments I worked on my instrument panel on the Studebaker and got the gauges to working. It was a bit of a challenge. Keep in mind that what I have done is take an old truck body and put it on the chassis of a later model truck. In the process none of the instrumentation from the S-10 dashboard carried over. If I wanted to know how the engine was operating I had to install some aftermarket gauges. I bought an inexpensive set. The temperature gauge had a long flexible metal tube that ran from the engine port, through the firewall and into the display fixture I crafted on the dashboard from sheet metal. This is a mechanical gauge and works like a thermometer The volt meter required that I go into the plug that once connected the S-10 wiring with the instrument module. This plug had over forty wires in the connector, now hanging under the dash. Since that Chevy module would not look right in an old truck it had to be discarded and the wires for the essential functions had to be identified. For the voltmeter I needed a wire that had switched power. This means a wire that becomes hot when the ignition is turned on. The first active position on an ignition switch turns on power to the accessories you need, even if the engine is not running. This is called switched power. In order to find a candidate wire you use a test light which is a thin steel probe with a bulb inside that lights up when the tip touches a hot lead. A black wire with an alligator clip tails out of the test light and is connected by the clip to a good ground. When you probe the end of a wire and it activates the test light you are on the right track… not there but on the right track. The problem remains to determine if this is switched power or continuous power… like it was once connected to a clock. If it is hot all the time it is not switched power. To find out you turn off the ignition and if it still lights it is not switched power. Anyway I found and connected a switched wire I located, to the positive terminal on the gauge and a ground wire to the negative and the volt meter was installed. The last of the three gauges was the oil pressure gauge. I had trouble finding it's engine port and finally one of the mechanics at Pfeiffer’s showed me where it was . Behind the left front wheel by the oil filter. It was an electrical gauge and my aftermarket was mechanical. It was sort of like the temperature gauge and had a long thin plastic capillary tube that went from the engine port to the dash fixture. When I started the truck the gauges told me information that most modern cars and trucks no longer show. Today there are lights that come on when the parameters of a warning light are exceeded. The light tells the operator there is a problem that needs to be addressed, but doesn’t show the extent of the problem. This is what the gauges showed. Temperature: The engine was running at a constant 190 degrees. It hasn‘t fluctuated much. When the engine is started it gradually warms until it reaches this operating temperature which is about normal in my experience. Voltmeter: When the ignition was in the accessory position the meter showed 12 volts. It would be better if it was 13 volts. It could be the gauge is not that precise or the battery could be a little run down or there could be resistance in the circuit. When the engine cranked it increased to 14 volts which is good. That means the charging system is working. Oil Pressure: When I cranked the engine cold the oil pressure showed 60 lbs. That is very good. The engine has about a hundred fifty thousand miles on it. Obviously it has some wear. As the engine heated up the oil pressure began to drop and once warmed up, settled at about 40 lbs. I had the valves reground when the chassis was separated from the original S-10 body. I probably should have had the rings done at the same time and there was some blow back as the refurbished valves settled in. When the engine lugs the pressure drops to about 35 lbs. There is clearly some wear, certainly in the piston rings and possibly in the main bearings. What the heck … It runs sweet and should provide good service for another 100K miles. If it drops to below 10 lbs at idle that indicates that the engine has about come to the end of it's service life. I have a ways to go before that happens. The last of the “gauges” were the turn signal lights on the dash. The turn signal lever is worn and sometimes does not click off when the turn is completed. Thus I need an indication on the dash when this function is occurring and completed. This requires intermittent power and I had to locate the appropriate wires in the cluster that performed this function. In other words I had to find the two wires that made the test light flash on and off. Eventually I found them and wired them to the apporpriate blinker. I did this placing the ignition in the accessory position and the lever in the left and right positions until I located the right wires. I connected the leads to some large green LED like lights and installed them in the cluster unit. Since I am a bit of a novice at electrical work this took me the better part of a day but the results were worth it. There is peace of mind knowing that essential automotive functions are working as intended and the turn signals work. |
| Percy Goodfellow on Managing your Money I was amazed to see during the recent panic money being invested in “Treasuries.” If must be coming from foreigners. With all that is going on with our politicians and financial woes, parking money in Treasuries made me scratch my head. Actually there are not a whole lot of options right now but Treasuries? We have a simple investment strategy for our meager portfolio. One half is in conservative mutual funds and the other half is in precious metals. When the stock marked goes down the metals go up. When the metals go down the stock market goes up. That’s the idea anyway. I had to do something with those rotten CD rates. This seems to be working after a fashion but it will probably go sour like some of our other financial efforts in the past. Then again there have been some successes. Still we have this philosophy that if we are not plagued by a continuous stream of minor setbacks then the tsunami is about to come crashing down about our heads. Linda and I are resourceful and always seem to come up with a way to cope… with a “little” help from the “Big Guy”. Certificates of Deposit. (Savings Accounts/CD’s) This option is dead on arrival even though I see some banks trying to revive these ailing instruments. Stock Market: In a panic downturn there are many stocks that fall below their value. Most little guys probably should not be speculating and the wiser choice is a conservative mutual fund run by a reputable financial house. Even though the return might not be great people have to eat and provided themselves with the necessities in life. Investments based upon real value are probably not a bad idea despite the fact they might fluctuate up and down around the locus of their actual value. Precious Metals (Gold/Silver): I would not speculate in coins as I see many of the advertisements on TV trying to advocate. Invest in production capability or the actual bullion. If you don’t know anything about coins don’t speculate on them. Depending on the coin, the precious metal content is far below what the asking price is. Treasury Notes: The way money is being printed these days I hesitate to recommend heading too far down that road. Maybe a little ways but not too far. Certainly not more than ten percent of your net worth. It does give an investor liquidity but the returns are not great and we have yet to feel the full effect of the run-away, and hidden long term effects of printing huge amounts of paper. We know the more that is printed the more our currency is being devalued. What seems to be propping the Dollar up is foreign money. Bad as we see the way the dollar is being managed it is even worse in other countries and the smart money overseas sees the United States as a long term player in the world financial game. In parts of the world where the Socialist mentality has been entrenched longer there has been more opportunity for these failed political ideologies to eat away at the financial health of the governing institutions and their markets. Bonds: Offer a guaranteed rate of return and are attractive to many. Institutions that sell bonds to raise capital (Corporations, Municipalities, schools, etc) know that if they default they will never sell another one and to safeguard this potential revenue source they will fight to maintain their fiscal reputation to the bitter end. It is a source of capital they prize and depend heavily upon. If they have a tax wire or a means of raising public monies, such loans are seen by financial institutions as reasonably secure. If there is a general collapse they will be among the first to default as the numbers of taxpaying citizens diminishes. (A significant percentage of citizens under the present tax code already pay little in property or income taxes.) Eventually there will be no more blood in the proverbial turnip. Stuff your Paper in the Mattress: If there is a crash this might not be such a bad option. The government will endure and make some effort to sustain its currency despite the inevitable inflation that will follow. Having some money buried in the back yard is better than having no money at all. Keep in mind if the banks fail the government is going to have to buy some even larger and higher capacity printing presses. They will need to back the insured savings that will still be out there, albeit ,in diminished amounts and seriously devalued. Still having a little cash is better than having no cash at all. So what does the little guy do. I am probably the last person to give advice but the options look to me to be. Invest in conservative stocks that produce things that are required to sustain life and health. That is where you need to place half your current value. For what’s left consider precious metals… not coins but production and bullion. I am seeing that when the stocks go down the precious metals go up and vice versa. It isn’t a great strategy but one that might be viable in the troubled times that lie ahead. This means you have to look at your mutual fund portfolio and see how these management clowns are actually investing your 401-K money. Get involved in investment clubs or organizations and get some informed help that will show if your money is intelligently positioned in commodities that have an enduring value even in the worst of economic times. Consider the reputations of the Financial Houses you elect to deal with. Some are a heck of a lot more trust-worthy than others. Even if you have to sacrifice a little on the return, such investments can keep you treading water and provide a modicum of security in the future. |
| Living simple in a Complex World Well, I have four students in my One Act Play class for next quarter. Last quarter I started with six and quickly dropped to two. Still it was a great experience and both my students, considering where they started, exceeded all my expectations. I wrote this example play which was at the level of what I expected my average student to come up with. I didn’t want to make it too good and discourage anyone and not so bad it utter destroyed all my credibility. The goal was mediocrity that did not detract from the teaching points. I wanted to show the students the mechanics and components and wrote it in one sitting. Every time I go back and read it I cringe a little and think about doing away with it but decided that providing an example, even if it was a bit lame, served a purpose. I like to see examples and they always were the greatest help to me in understanding text books. I have this device called a C-Pap that forces air into my nose when I sleep. It is like the mask a pilot wears at high altitudes. Among other issues I have a sleeping disorder and don’t go into deep REM’s because I start snoring and it wakes me up. Reggie White had the same problem and died from it. If it can whack Reggie, I figured I needed to take it seriously. My snoring never bothered Linda who snores even louder than I do, but nothing wakes that girl up. When she nods off she is gone for the night. Anyway I am hard on these masks and they don’t last me very long. I thrash around and they get a lot of abuse…. Nightmares don’t contribute to extending their service life. I don’t know why I have bad dreams. I’m not a bad person and while no saint, my life is not full of incidents I feel particularly guilty about. Still I have bad dreams and wake up often feeling really stressed out…. Until I forget them. Have you ever noticed how quickly you forget a dream? One of my new students was sold on the course after reading the Introduction to the One Act Play. She sent me three pages of editorial corrections. It took me an hour to fix all the glitches. I was perfuse in my thanks and sent some Gps. It’s not often I get a really useful review and this student certainly has an eye for detail. I joined the Dyslexia group (DDS) and will be doing some reviews there in the future. My spelling is getting much better since coming to WDC and sometimes I even finish a blog with no typos. Can you imagine that? Well, Linda left for work and I walked out with her and waved goodbye. She left me with a To-Do list which includes, take garbage to the dump, trim with the push mower, move the wood into the woodshed, cut the grass next to the outdoor wood stove and plant the boxwoods. I still haven’t gotten around to doing that. Our tomato plants have overtaken the flower bed where I parked them when Linda brought home some flats several months ago. The good news is that we have a bounty of ripe red ones. The bad news is that they overwhelmed the flowers. Fortunately the flowers have passed their bloom cycle and will be just fine come next spring. |
| Another Day on the Farm My wife has a weekend off coming up and we are trying to decide what to do with it. These are the options. Do a whirlwind visit of my two daughters, and Linda’s parents. Do a quality visit with one of the above. Take some time off together in a quiet weekend getaway. Linda is having trouble deciding like she always does. Ever since she got her dollar allowance as a kid and had to decide how to spend it in Woolworths, she’s had this problem. She loves to have me help her decide and is particularly delighted when I come to the same conclusion she has reached in the back of her mind. Thus my problem solving has little to do with “Best” and a lot to do with figuring out where her mind is heading…. I know! I know! telling people what they want to hear is no substitute for telling the bold and unvarnished truth, however, there are certain processes you learn in marriage that are not exactly scientific or totally honest. Sweeny Todd was nothing like I expected. I thought the acting was great but the story line a bit overdone and graphic. Still I am sure it appealed to many and received a mountain of good reviews. It was one of those movies that when it was over Linda and I looked at one another and didn’t know exactly what to say. Tonight I think we will go to Baraboo and eat at the Cracker Barrel and maybe see a movie. The two are right next door to each other. Yesterday we did yard work and I worked on my truck. I had misplaced, for about a year a Gauge, Gauge. That’s right a tool that measures the gauge or thickness of a metal. It is a circular aluminum device with slots of various thickness cut in it, to do its intended purpose. You slip the metal coupon into the appropriate slot and “voila!” you know how thick it is. I also found a caliper that will do the same thing. Knowing the thickness is important in selecting the proper tip in gas welding. Speaking of that my acetylene tank ran out yesterday and I have to get an exchange. I understand that stuff is in short supply and is no longer being manufactured much in the United States… some kind of environmental issue. I could be wrong on that but lately it has been scarcer than hen’s teeth. In the yard cleanup I discovered that some of my 55 gallon drums had collected water and frozen in the winter and the bottoms had bowed out in a concave manner. Had to stand them on end and beat them onto a level plane with a sledge hammer. I intend to fill them with sand and stack them on the corner of my property to use as a backstop for zeroing my rifles. I love to shoot….hate to hunt but love to shoot. That really has my neighbors scratching their heads. After feeling like the “Hunted” in Vietnam my heart is not longer in shooting dumb animals. Turkeys and deer taste gamey anyway and why anyone prefers them over store bought is hard for me to understand. Every morning Linda lets the dogs out and when they do their business and come back in she gives them a doggie treat. They really like that and almost tear the door down to get back in and have their dumb biscuit. Maybe its not so dumb…. I sure do like my coffee in the morning. |
| My wife ordered the video, Sweeney Todd. We are going to watch it tonight. Helena Bonham Carter is a great actress and I like to see her in about anything. She reminds me of my wife Linda with her expressive face. I also like Johnny Depp and think he is extremely talented. I practiced my welding today and am determined to keep at it until I break through with a basic skill and understanding. Linda had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch and what she calls “Weisengrund” chicken. This is chicken strips in a sauce of onions, bacon and green beans. My daughter came up with the recipe that sought to capture the “Yeager Schnitzel” we used to get in the village we lived in in Germany. Every Friday night we ate at a Gausthause called the Weisengrund. So much for the diet I guess. Today I weighed 178.8 and no telling what the scale will read tomorrow. After lunch we got a call that the Studebaker was ready and we went and picked it up. They did a beautiful job on the glass. I love to drive that old Studebaker pickup on the S-10 chassis. I drove it over to the shop of my friend Henry and we chewed the fat for awhile. Felix the female cat continues to audition for the In-house cat position. The problem is that there is no such position. I keep the cat’s fed and in the winter make sure they get let into the heated shop on the coldest of days. They do just fine outside as long as they are fed plenty to eat. Still it gets to me sometimes to see her sitting out on the porch railing looking in with those mournful eyes. She can’t understand why the dogs get to come inside and the cats don’t. I talked to my younger daughter on the cell phone on the way up to Stephen’s point. She has two sons one in grammar and one in High School. My older daughters sons play games on the wifi and they are states apart one being in Georgia and the other being in Kansas. The boys in both families hang out together electronically. Is that not amazing? My daughters, Christine and Leigh are very close and stay in touch during the week exchanging information of my 5 grandsons. Those boys never cease but to amaze me. |
| Silent Inflation Occasionally I go to the “Stats” on my blog, entering from my Port page. There are a host of interesting statistics and as you scroll down you get to the URL section at the bottom which lists all the URLs that have visited the blog. I am not sure how it works exactly but it seems that the last place a viewer was before he/she visited your blog is what gets displayed on the screen. Maybe somebody knows better how this works and if you do please educate me. Anyway I always click on the URL’s and then comment positively on their blog or review something in their port. It’s another sultry day and I’m reminded of the song. Summer time, and the living is easy Fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good looking Don’t cry little baby Don’t… you cry. One of these mornings I’m gonna rise up singing Spread my wings and reach to the sky. Until that morning there’s nobody can harm you Don’t cry little darling Don’t… you cry. My memory is not perfect and if I misquoted the song writer please attribute it to an imperfect memory. The talk of the media is the deal that has been struck between the Republicans and Democrats on the budget. I try and steer clear of political commentary so will let that dog lie. I hope for the good of this country though that we get the fiscal house in order. I think that senior citizens fail to realize that their savings have been raided for the past three years of possibly thirty percent of their value. There has been inflation taking place that has been inaccurately reported as rising food costs and energy are not part of the calculation. The question I have that never gets addressed is what is the total value of the country and how is that wealth distributed. My hunch is that seniors control a big piece of it in savings accounts and are the real bill payers when the government silently devalues by printing too much money. One thing is for certain. Retirees with savings and investments are not living on the interests and dividends. They are having to reach deep into the principle. That’s fine I suppose if you don’t live too long or have to depend on socialized medicine. What we are doing to the next generation of workers and their families is a travesty. You can really see it in the rural areas where working Americans are hurting and the out of work are coming to the end of the 99 week unemployment benefits. What a pickle we have gotten ourselves into. |
| Confessions of a Closet Dyslexic One of the first rules you learn as a dyslexic is not to advertise your disability. By that I mean when you screw up don’t go blabbing it about. When you do something characteristically stupid and are called on it, go ahead and admit to as much as the error requires but don’t feel obliged to explain any more than necessary. Running off at the mouth only makes matters worse. I know my army of interested readers is curious as to what prompted this pronouncement and in keeping with the rule I intend to stay mum. Suffice it to say I botched the course schedule in my mind for next terms New Horizons Academy where I am teaching the One Act play and spent the afternoon “Unbotching” it on my course pages and covering up the evidence. I should write a book about a bad guy who is dyslexic and how good he is at covering his tracks. In my profession my peers often noted what they viewed as peculiarities in my actions but attributed them to eccentricities. I religiously kept to a calendar , written schedule and a rolodex full of telephone numbers. Without aids I often couldn’t tell you what day of the month it was or even the year. Some things just don’t feed well into my bio processor. The upside was that I could organize complex requirements into outlines and memorize those outlines and all the information therein. When the time came to explain something I could do so off the cuff, using my mental outlines and speak to the issues with words of lucid understanding. Using imagination I would game play scenarios and was able to anticipate most everything that came along. When occasionally, taken by surprise, I was in deep water but those occasions were rare and in crisis I always performed well above my peers, using general preconceived contingency plans. So there it is, my dirty little secret, and it is almost a relief to admit to it after all those years keeping it under wraps. While teaching at Ft. Leavenworth I heard about a case where it was discovered an officer, who had attained the rank of Captain, was found incapable of writing a coherent paper without the help of his wife. He knew his stuff but just couldn’t get it down so at night he would talk to her and she would write his papers and he would memorize them. Once the lines were memorized he could write them as well as anyone but when it came to structuring something new he was in a “Hurt locker.” His instructor gave the class an unprogramed writing assignment and he “Tubed it” in the worst sort of way and one thing led to another until they discovered he couldn’t write a handful of simple sentences and combine them into a paragraph. For me the ability to learn to write was an agony. I remember the experience in the 4th and 5th grades and it was tied to a difficulty reading. I was also socially behind and flunked the 5th grade and the frustration levels were so high I used to be baited and fight on the play ground and finally in the classroom. My teacher and a Librarian worked out a plan when it looked like I was about to pop my cork I went to the library. Ms. Henderson started me reading out loud and then silently with harder and harder books….adventure novels…The three musketeers, Captain Blood… Scaramouch and slowly I got the hang of reading and one morning I woke up with one heck of a vocabulary and on top of that could write… It was like learning a foreign language….I read voraciously, a book a day, however it was all sight and sound, and grammar rules never made much sense except that I could recite them verbatim. Don’t ask me today to explain the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb. Don’t get me started on math. |
| Blau, Blau, Blau It is hot and muggy… the ceiling fan is going and we have no air conditioning. Tonight I wish we did. Most nights it cools down and there is a breeze that makes sleeping a delight. Today I practiced on my welding. The metal I am using doesn’t seem to want to flow right. If I use a small tip I can’t get a puddle. If I use the next size up I burn through. This is thin sheet metal I’m working with and the coupons I am welding do not seem to be behaving like the ones being demonstrated at the show. I will have to ask Mark is there is something I need to know about his sheet metal vs. mine. After lunch I came inside and updated my course pages for the One Act Play. I also filled out the course survey from the schedule I have prepared. Tomorrow I will do the same for the Lesson Plans. My daughter called and told me her boys have the same warped sense of humor I subjected her and her sister to when they were little. It was a cornball humor that played on the hidden meaning of words. Some of these words had a nasty undertone. She said that eating at “Cox’s” barbeque and shopping at “Dick’s” Sporting Goods got them started and when they got to the sporting goods store, her youngest piped up and said, “Lets go look at the balls.” My daughter is pretty straight laced and doesn’t encourage them but her husband is a soldier and eggs them on. I think she was disappointed that she never had a daughter she could hang out and do girly things with. My friend Gary came by. He was an aircraft mechanic and retired last week. He told me about his adventures in Alaska and his career working on Aircraft. He tried his hand with the welder and had the same difficulty gas welding that I was experiencing and commented on the metal’s tendency to resist flowing. Linda came home and I was glad to see her. It will take her a day or two to unwind. In December she will be retiring and won’t have to work every weekend. I know she finds it harder and harder to work the long hours and I’ll be glad when she can hang it up. In a way it will be a shame because she is such a good nurse and her coworkers all acknowledge her contribution. I think I’ll read my welding book. That should put me to sleep in short order. I used to read Clausewitz, On War, while in the military to achieve the same purpose. That is one boring book that goes on for pages talking about things that I doubt people cared much about then and care less about now. Then suddenly he will hit a vein of pure gold and go on for a couple of pages. Most books are like that I guess. You read and read…. blau blau blau and then stumble onto a nugget or two. That makes the whole process worthwhile. I wonder what it would be like to read a book full of nothing but nuggets… |
| Dogs and Cats If you want a real-time practical demonstration of how life works in the absence of any exercise of reason watch a group of cats going about and observe their interpersonal relationships. There is the sex criteria, the age criteria, the hunger criteria and the pecking order criteria. All this is orchestrated by emotions and they are loving or hateful depending on mood and circumstances. They seem to thrive on violence which is a necessary component to a balanced life style. I see so many similarities between cat and human society and cats have the game of life down pat. They are as “unscience” as a species can get and respond to changes in conditions as the world changes. Don’t believe this Mars/Venus stuff….if you want an analogy use the one that says, men are like dogs and women behave like cats. I wrote another episode in my novella, Volusia. Concurrently I read a blurb written by Joy on drama and episodic writing. It was quite good and I went to her port and read some of her stuff and then looked into her blog. She uses U-Tube videos that are quite good. I can’t believe I’ve been here over a year and not picked up on her writing. Anyway in this story the narrator is a supporting character who has the POV. He thinks thoughts. We will get to meet the central character through her dialogue with her son and Rindar the cave man. It is a male dominated society and she must deal with that aspect of life without giving up own her own need to influence the events that circulate around her. Its not that she necessarily feels the need to be in charge but knows that left to others the outcomes in her life will be less than optimal. On top of all this is a self destructive nature that her less cerebral hero is challenged to hold in check. Interjected is her young son who is much like his father who Volusia is ticked off at. Every day my muse gives more of the back story while I try and pound out the next episode. One of the things Linda left on her To-do list was cut the grass. I did this task on what she calls my “Auto-Pilot” She hates it when I go about performing the mundane functions in life while focused on a back channel where all the exciting thoughts are taking place… like my current cave man story. She wants to be a part of that action and not the recipient of a vacant stare as we drive down the road. So I was mowing and not paying a whole lot of attention and got to close to a tarp that had blown off a wood pile and it got sucked into the mower deck and became tangled in the blades. “Shucks!” I muttered as the engine shuddered, gasped and choked out. Disengaging the blades I proceeded to the shop dragging this long tarp behind me. It was there on the apron that I realized that no longer did I have to drive up on my metal ramps to get underneath but could instead drive up on my scissors lift and elevate the tractor into the air. The lift was perfect for this purpose and in a short time I had the mower to chest height and was working with a box cutter to clear the fowled blades. Made quick work of it I did and in five minutes of relatively easy work did what would otherwise taken an hour laying on the concrete apron. Isn’t it amazing how one skill or capability so quickly translates to similar but unrelated tasks making life so much more easy and productive. It happens all the time in my writing but that’s a different story. |
| Today I picked up Felix and she's fine. She "meowed" all the way home. Then I looked in on the ‘40 Ford Sedan. Progress is slow but sure. Pfeiffer's Auto is close to putting the body back on and adjusting it to the chassis. Out in the shop I drained the oil from an old flathead engine and poured fresh down the spark plug holes. Then I worked the crank pulley and it started to move and then cycle through the four strokes. I made a mess and spent a half hour cleaning up but was satisfied at finding the engine still turns over. Next I'll take off the heads and see if all the valves are moving up and down. If that's a go I’ll button her back up, check the compression and see if I can get her to crank. That is always an exhilarating experience, to hear them come back to life after a long hiatus. In a weird sort of way I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. It's a high that's difficult to explain but I love to listen to the resonance of those old engines as they rour back to life. Today, as I was working… on a different channel in my brain, I started thinking about a novella about a prehistoric man meeting a woman from a different tribe. It was like Jean Aural in Clan of the Cave bear. A reviewer read it and also noted the same comparison. The story is different but the setting is similar. The first installment is in my short story folder named Volusia. It is the story of a smart and volatile woman and her love for a man who is a strong and steadying influence. (Albeit, not as bright) If it starts to take wing I’ll write an outline to stay on track. My diet has gone up to 182 and back down to 179 and my eating has stayed pretty consistent with the general plan. Today it was 179.2 Two pieces of toast in the morning, a sandwich at lunch and a salad and couple of burger patties for supper. I’m drinking water instead of soda and trying not to snack. I’m also trying to develop the same habit I used to quit smoking. That is that nothing enters my mouth casually and without the approval of conscious thought. Everything I eat is being processed through my awareness and cleared by my will and no habitual eating (snacking) is allowed. This is hard because I've never had to pay much attention to what I eat….Well, I do now and if I don’t get serious my goals will never be realized.. |
| Hectic Thursdays I try and stay out of technicians way when the are doing work for me. Up to a point that is. If I have a car being worked on I drop in once a week to make sure progress is being made and if it isn’t after a couple of weeks I politely thank the shop and get my creation the heck out of there. There are good shops and bad shops and you have to give them some opportunity to show which one they are before they get too deep into your wallet. I have gotten pretty good at figuring out who to do business with. Pfeiffer who runs a general automotive garage is a great value. He told me up front that he was only going to work on my car as a filler and if that wasn’t acceptable he would not feel offended. When he does find time I get a break on the shop rate and he does first class work. I spoke about the glass guys I scouted who knew less about glass than I did until I finally found a good shop in Stephens Point. Today we went by and I looked in on the progress. The front windshield panels are in as is the rear window and the side windows and vents are about ready for final installation. What a beautiful job they are doing. The day started with taking Felix to the Vet. They asked me if I had an emergency contact number…. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Felix but if she were to expire out on the operating table it would not be the same as a wife, son or daughter. I try and not get too attached to the cats… like I did with Dark Vader (Get it Dark Vader?) she was my first walk on cat and she loved me. I used to go out and comb her and she would purr like there was no tomorrow. I hated it when she got run over in front of the house…. It was mad Alice Malarkey, barreling over the hill who whacked her…. The same woman that buried her husband out under the power lines behind her house… This area is pretty loose on burials… Linda called when we got home and Felix came through the procedure just fine. The Hospital called and want Linda to come in early tomorrow morning so she is busy ironing and getting ready. We went to Barnes and Noble and I got a welding book that I will be reading this weekend. Then we ate at Olive Garden which has a good salad and I ordered a small spaghetti….couldn’t finish it. My stomach must be shrinking. It was a good day… except for the politicians and the budget fiasco. I won’t go there… I came home and practiced my gas and TIG Welding… That TIG welder is really something… I cranked it down to ten (10) amps and was welding stuff almost as thin as beer cans. I hope I can get that good with the gas welder. Mark and Bob proved to me it was possible at the Air Show and I need to improve a whole lot before I even consider a franchise. |
| Lessons Learned When I came back from the Air Show I remembered some of the things the TIG Instructor had pointed out and one of them was about the gas you use. For those of you who are not welders (Don’t feel alone) TIG stands for tungsten/inert gas. The way it works is on an electrical circuit inside the machine pushes electricity out through the “Gun.” The gun has a non-consumable electrode and when the arc jumps to the metal being welded the circuit is closed and out of the tip leaps the spark from Hell. That spark melts the metal being joined and creates a molten puddle. The inert gas creates a shield around the weld to keep out the atmosphere which will otherwise contaminate your work. The trick is to move the gun along as you dip the filler rod into the puddle. Of all the welding processes this one is the most difficult because there are more things that can go wrong. For example if you accidentally dip the tungsten tip into the puddle it becomes contaminated and you have to go back to the grinder and clean it off. Another thing I learned at the Show is that the gas you use has to be completely Argon or Helium. The gas I am using is the same gas I use for my wire feed which is Argon and Carbon Dioxide….That is a huge NO! NO! And I suspect is a big part of my problem in TIG welding. Another Lesson Learned is that you must reverse the polarity from negative to positive when you weld aluminum. Duh! No wonder my welds look so crappy. I am learning to weld the same way I do so many things. By just doing them… It was the story of my career in the Military, going from one assignment to the next and running organizations that were doing tasks I was totally unfamiliar with… The first big step was always figuring out what the heck was going on while my subordinates looked at me like I was some “Dumb Ass” from the planet Doofis. For a closet dyslexic I didn’t do too bad. One of the advantages to the affliction is being able to think on your feet and a knack for walking around talking to people and looking semi-intelligent. Amazing what you learn talking to people about their lives and families. My wife has signaled I need to get up and start getting dressed. She has a big day planned and in the process will be putting on her “Nurse Face” for the weekend. On Thursdays we tend to bang heads and sparks fly….just like welding. It’s hell being married to a woman who is smarter than you are but is still a woman who needs to be nurtured along and steered from the path of self-destruction… If you don’t know what I mean you haven’t been married long enough. |
| The Air Show I didn’t do a blog yesterday. I got up early and went to the air show in Oshkosh. It was quite an experience. Oshkosh is only about an hour and a half east of my place. I got there about nine AM. If you ever want to see every shape, manner and description of airplanes I recommend the show…. To think of the money invested in those beautiful machines that were parked over acres and acres. Being an aviator is not something that interests me but they are machines and I like those and many of the aircraft were homebuilt. There were many workshops being offered to the public on the various aspects of building a flying machine. There were classes on sewing the fabric on wings and fuselages, on using rivets to skin an airplane and classes on many of the welding processes. One class given on TIG welding was particularly informative and I learned a great deal about many of the things I am doing wrong. I think I will get a how-to book on TIG to make sure I remember all the dumb mistakes I’ve been making…No wonder I can’t TIG weld….. Or that I am not a great welder when it comes to any of the processes. Recently I bought a Henrob 2000 light welding gas torch at the Iola Car show. In the process of talking to the owner, Mark, he is trying to get me interested in a franchise. The problem I have is that my skills in gas welding even with this great little torch are so remedial I can’t see myself demonstrating the process to the range of interested people from experts to total novices. Mark says, not to worry, just practice a few minutes each day the expertise will come but he agreed I need to practice… I will and see if I notice any serious improvement. Sill it was fun talking to the customers who came by the booth and when Mark and Bob were tied up my job was to engage them in conversation until either of them could free up and give them the real expert individual attention they were looking for. This morning I slept late and went out and practiced a little welding. This afternoon we went to the Wisconsin Dells and say the movie, “Captain America.” There was nothing socially redeemable about the flick but it was fun to watch as action movies go and Linda and I had a good time. Plus we had a good meal at the “Cracker Barrel “ restaurant. I really like the veggies they serve and the portions are just right for a senior citizen. The past two days have been heavily overcast and getting on the internet via Google and the satellite have been difficult. Plus there is a hedge bush that has gotten out of control and grow up around my satellite dish. As I type I can see the cats starting to gather for the evening meal. There is Frankie, Moon pie, Doodle and our newest addition, Felix, who turned out to be female. She is going to the vet tomorrow morning to get fixed. Then Linda wants to go to Wausau and I will browse around Barnes and Noble. I love that store. |
| Working in the Shop Tomorrow I go to the Air Show in Oshkosh. I will keep everyone informed on what it was like. There was a lot of interest in my visit to the Iola car show and also a surprising amount on my Diet. This morning I weighed 180.4 and I swear I ate less yesterday than I did earlier in the week. They say that water and air are non caloric but sometimes I wonder. I tried to get my wife to go with me tomorrow but she begged off. “You go Honey,” she told me, “and enjoy yourself.” She does have an appointment at the beauty shop and far be it for me to interfere with that. Today I worked on smoothing the Bondo and spraying on the primer. Roger at the parts store has ordered me a couple of rattle cans with the original color of the S-10 inside. Actually the project turned out quite well and the little pick-up is respectable once more. Here in Wisconsin the term “Respectability” is applied to vehicles that don’t show rust, corrosion or serious dents or rips or gouges in the sheet metal. A vehicle that has rusted out spots on the quarter-panels or along the lip of the front or rear wheel well are considered rightly or wrongly as a reflection on the owner… Its sort of like the guy in the Suburb who doesn’t mow his grass. On a farm it’s a homestead that looks like a dump or salvage yard. People are expected to keep their vehicles and domiciles maintained and picked up. The struggle to maintain “Respectability” is a never ending task and some are much better at it than others. The front yard of our Homestead looks better than the barnyard and my wife is constantly on my case to keep things picked up and Respectable. Her standard is to have the place looking like the front page of “Country Living” and mine is to maintain respectability. Respectability also applies to a person’s shop and I am ashamed to tell you that working in a shop and keeping it clean and up to standard is a very difficult undertaking. I try but it’s hard. If the work is particularly dirty I do it outside on the apron or under the walnut trees. I like the breeze to be working outdoors but in the winter that is not an option and by springtime the shop is in bad need of a cleaning. I try and put my tools up because if I don’t I can never find them. Its always the one tool that is needed most that is the most elusive and I wish I had a nickel for every time I spent half an hour looking for something that was right under my nose. The left front fender of my 1940 Ford Sedan had a serious corrosion and botched repair problem. It looks like someone tried to “Lead” it many years ago. Leading was a process that was used way back before body filling epoxies came along. Some purists still like to use it and you can buy the materials in several of the popular catalogues. Anyway I had to cut out a huge chunk under the headlight and used the sheet metal strip technique I described in an earlier blog. I must be getting better at it the more I do it. It really turned out well and captured the compound curve to perfection. I think I will use the process on a Sedan body I have that has some serious roof issues. |
| Repritorizing the Honey-Doo List. Well this morning I broke into the 170’s for the first time in a while. 179.6 to be exact and I danced a little jig. My wife called a few minutes ago and I couldn’t wait to share the good news. The hospital at Marshfield is full to overflowing…the heat wave probably has something to do with it. There is a chemical used in automotive restoration called POR-15. It converts rust and gives the metal an undercoated, black look. It is expensive…a veritable liquid gold. Whenever I open a can I try to have enough projects lined up to use it all up because if you get the product in the sealing groove of the can it becomes almost impossible to open it again. Thus you dip it out with a ladle to keep it from getting into the lip of the lid seal. Yesterday I took what was left of a can and painted a frame I picked up recently in a salvage yard. It was to a 1953 Ford, F-6 Service Truck. It was straight as a die and the owner of the yard sold it to me for scrap value. Not only was it still straight but it had remarkably little rust and so I coated it to preserve its possible use in the future. As I was working I was thinking of what I could put on it. If this stuff gets on your hands it is almost impossible to get off so I used latex gloves and mineral spirits to clean up as I go along. What I failed to realize was that I got a little splatter on my face and don’t you know, I didn’t realize it until I came in for the evening? I swear I look like a chimney sweep and my wife is going to scream when she sees me again on Sunday Evening. Today is “Dump Day.” For those of you living in the Metropolitan Areas, Dump Day is when the Township opens the Land Fill and allows it’s residents to throw their garbage into a line of dumpsters. We have become very recycling conscious out here and there are dumpsters for newspapers, plastics, aluminum cans, and general garbage. These have to be put in special white bags or you get chewed out by the dump policeman who is not an elected official. Actually he is a very nice fellow and gives my dogs a treat. He is particularly fond of my golden doodle, Honey. Today I intend to do some yard work and repair a fender for the 1940 Ford. That will be a challenge because the rust and corrosion is around the headlight and hard to get close to. |
| RatRods For an old Geezer one might think that my taste in cars and trucks ran along the “Restoration” track where the restorers rigidly adhere to the standard of Originality. In other words make the car or truck as close to possible as it came off the assembly line. Such an assumption would be totally false. If I have a restoration philosophy it's inclined towards the “Rat Rodder” culture which in my view has produced some amazing and exciting automotive creations. Across the road are my friends Tim and Mark. Tim is on a farming kick and Mark is consumed as always by his passion for hunting. They are both good guys. The other day I was driving the Stude around and pulled up when I saw them chatting alongside the road. The Stude was sounding good and I had done some more body work. Neither had seen it up close and it was starting to look good. They made some complimentary comments not realizing it was not an “Original“ restoration. “You really got that classic engine running nice,” said Tim “Are you going to have this thing ready for the next Forth of July parade,” asked Mark? First off the engine is not “Classic.” It’s a six cylinder S-10 engine. It's of a modern design and less than fifteen (15) years old. Secondly I was not building it to drive once a year in a parade. I intend it to become a daily driver. Still, they were trying to be polite and pleasant and I thanked them for the kind words and pointed out that I simply put an old body on a more modern chassis. “I see, said Tim scratching his jaw…. “You’re building a rod…” There was a sound of distain in his voice and I knew he had classic car sentiments and looked down on the “Rod” culture. I was not offended. “Yeah, it’s a Rod...,bought it from Jed Clampet." (If you're too young to remember the Beverly Hillbillies you won't remember Jed's truck) I have an attraction to the fringe of the Hot Rodding culture. The “RatRods” There are the traditional Hot Rods, the Street Rods and now the RatRods have emerged as a legitimate force. To build a RatRod ,a person uses stuff that has accumulated around the shop and gets additional parts from the local scrap yards. They then unleash their creative energies and build vehicles fresh and innovative ways. The patina of rust and corroded metal are particularly prized in the construction of these cars and trucks. At a car show the RatRods are the first thing that attracts my interest, and I walk past a lot of $10K paint jobs to check one out. Naturally it drives the purists batty when nobody stops to look at their beautiful and meticulously restored vehicles and instead there are always these big crowds standing around the RatRods. When my wife and I were much younger we loved antique furniture but couldn’t afford it. So we did what we could to acquire old furniture and our house was full of it. At the time there was a craze to paint old chairs, tables and dressers in this awful “Antique” green lacquer, after the original patina had been scraped down to bare wood. Eventually this type of “Antiquing” gave way to cleaning up and preserving the old patinas and I see the same trend in antique cars today as I did then in furniture. Anyway I sure like to look at the RatRods and see some of the clever ideas and accents that the builders have used in transforming their creations into virtual pieces of automotive art. |
| The Greek Way I don’t think that hunger is the biggest reason why people overeat. I think the reason is habit and since our bodies change as we grow older so must our habits. When we don’t adjust accordingly, we get fat. My blog buddy, Karen, made a good point in responding to yesterday’s blog. She said that as long as we see dieting as being deprived of something rather than as a tool to a better quality of life we are not going to be able to break the cycle of overeating. I couldn’t agree more. Since the subject has been on my mind this week I have paid particular interest to my hunger and find I;m hungriest around noon after only two pieces of toast for breakfast. So at lunch I think about those two Quarter-Pounders, large fries, sweet tea and maybe a “small” chocolate shake. After I finish the first burger I am finding that my hunger is largely gone but I feel obliged not to waste the money I spent on the rest of the food ... (when my eyes were bigger than my stomach.) This practice I’m dialing back. The dogs like that other hamburger, even the fries, and need little encouragement to lap up the shake. I can always cut their rations a bit in the evening…. I am after all their “Master.” There are some exceptions I make to the white bread and French fries rule but I try and stick pretty close to the “hunger and three meals a day” rule. It is beginning to pay dividends and I intend to start bragging when I drop below the 180 lb. mark. Already my stomach is not sticking out as much (Or is that my imagination?) and the socks are going on easier. But I keep thinking back on what Karen said….Don’t look at dieting as being deprived of something but rather as moving you along on a journey that leads to a better quality of life. And don’t be in such a hurry to see the results…. Headlines such as “I lost forty (lbs) in two weeks eating junk food,” are misleading and strain the credibility of the average reader, however I read an article by a Doctor that made just this claim. His whole premise was that you lose weight by burning more calories than you eat…. Nutritious food or junk food becomes a moot point when it comes to weight loss. He went on to prove that by moderation, even in eating exclusively junk food, a person can lose weight. Moderation! Now that appears to be the key word. The Greeks at their temple at Delphi has two sayings inscribed over the Portal. “Know Thyself,” and “All things in Moderation.” Now the Greeks were pretty smart but they had the same problem that most of us do today. They knew the answer but were unwilling or able to put it into practice. “Know Thyself” implies that in addition to knowing your limitations, that you’ll act upon the knowledge. “All things in Moderation,” implies that not only do you understand the dangers of overindulgence but that you also have a will to limit life’s pleasures. Then and today the Greeks were/are smart enough to talk the talk but have some problems with the discipline that goes along with it. As Americans we demand our freedom to choose, but without self-discipline that very freedom dooms us failure. |
| The Unscience of dieting The only defense we have against overeating is the conscious exercise of will. If we respond to the urgings of our bodies, weight gain is inevitable. My wife used to feed the dogs and she kept their bowls full all the time. Guess what….they gained weight. It was only after we changed that routine that our lab started losing weight. People however are not dogs…. If we were slaves like in days of old maybe our masters could impose a regimen through fear and insist we regulate our intake of food. (Like the Government) However, since that option does not exist for the present, it rests solely on the individual to discipline themselves and regulate the food that goes into their mouths. Some have a metabolism that makes this easy and some don’t and some have the ability to discipline themselves and some don’t. What is interesting about weight gain is that we can understand the science and still be unable to summon the inner strength to keep it in check. Hunger is a chronic and nagging compulsion. The more overweight we become the more cells screaming for nourishment have to be kept in check . My wife and I beat smoking after many years of addiction. We liken our present diet challenge to what it took to quit. While there are similarities there are also some marked differences. The similarities are that it takes a long term commitment and an unrelenting vigilance. In the smoking struggle we would often give up after giving in to the temptation for another cigarette. “Oh goodness,” we would reflect…. “I had a cigarette and I was doing so good. Guess that shows I can’t quit… might as well give up and smoke the whole pack.“ To get past the tendency to capitulate after a lapse we decided to push though these failures as if they never occurred, telling ourselves there would be setbacks, however we would continue to persevere. It finally worked for us as the durations grew longer between smokes and our resolve stiffened. (And the smoke started to stink.) Food is different. You're never going to get past a hunger for food. It is not an addiction like smoking but, rather a bodily function. It goes to the core of our being and the search for food is hard wired into our genome and it isn’t going to go away. Most of us understand the science of weight control but fail when it comes to dealing with it. My wife and a blog buddy, Karen, point out for example that it is better to eat more often than just three meals a day…. That more often excites the metabolism and actually causes you to burn more calories…. Or that going into the “Starvation mode isn’t good either.. because the body begins shutting down non essential metabolic functions. I believe the science of all this however, there is a human component to dieting that trumps the scientific one. Eating six times a day instead of three is a whole lot like snacking and the distinction begins to blur the more often you go into the refueling mode. For that reason I stick to three meals a day. Dieters like to weigh themselves in order to measure progress. The less they weigh the reasoning goes the better the diet is working. Naturally the scale is an important tool but it is not the only one. The mirror is a good tool as well and if you become more active a redistribution will begin to take place that will not necessarily show immediately on the scale.. There is also the “Socks” test. The ease with which this morning task is accomplished is also a good indicator. But the biggest test is a state of mind that insists that dieting must become a part of your daily routein and life style.... that it's so important that a person has no choice but exercise greater leadership and discipline over this bodily function. I imagine my body as a Starship.….Inside my mind, like the crew of the Enterprise, are minions of little people. They operate our bodies. They see the life we are experiencing on the video screen of our minds. The senses feed a stream of images onto the screen and the sensors on the bridge show data on the mirad of gauges. These minions have no concept of tomorrow and live only for the present. All they know is what the control room instrumentation tells them and what the will (like some powerful and omnipotent voice over the loudspeaker tells them) If a good looking girl walks by they hit the testosterone lever. The will must often intervene to avoid a bad situation. If its gets hot they remind you of the fridge and a cool beer that waits invitingly on the shelf. If your bladder is full they send you skipping to the bathroom and so on and so forth. Our creator, however, has provided us with a manual override to these automatic functions taking place within us; A Captain Kirk. That is our will. Through the exercise of will we can make our bodies do things it doesn’t want to. Like a spoiled child the flesh hates us when we exercise the override option but it has no choice but to comply…(Well almost no choice). As an alternative it waits until we’re distracted with other things and sends a low level chronic compulsion through our being that is constant and relenting and which slowly wears us down until we're caught in a weak moment and capitulate. With eating, unlike a substance addiction, the struggle is unending and we must have simple and nonnegotiable barriers in place… and just because there is a breach from time to time... so what? We must gird our will to a life-time struggle and keep that delicious poison we call food from ruining our quality of life and killing us prematurely. |
| The Body Shop Diet Well Monday my blog hit 1700 views. I’m not sure what that means, if anything… About an average of 8 views per day. In recognition of that milestone I have decided to formulate a diet. As you might be aware the doctor said I had to lose forty (40) lbs. That at 190 lbs and standing 6 feet tall I needed to weigh no more than 150 lbs. He then went on to question what I weighed in my twenties and pointed out that in the last hundred years peoples average weight has risen by more than fifty (50) lbs. That in the Civil War (Look at the old pictures) the men were pretty thin. Anyway I decided to start a long term weight reduction program and try and achieve the goal he set for me. I have started on my own personal diet which I call the “Body Shop Diet.” It is actually very simple. It has a macro component and a micro component. The macro component says limit your eating to three times a day… eat slower by chewing your food more leisurely and quitting when you are full. Despite all those poor children in China, I no longer feel obligated to clean my plate. Indeed leaving food on it when I feel the edge come off my hunger is a good thing not a bad thing. Eating too much is as bad as eating too little. Why is that so difficult to understand? The micro component goes like this. Most of us know the foods and drinks that are responsible for the gradual weight gain that has slowly taken place in our lives. I've lifted a page from my One Act Play Course which limited my critique of a student’s work to three things most in need of fixing. In some cases there were more than three things, however, I didn’t want to beat a dead horse and limited my negative commentary to three things. “Fix these,” I would say “and the play will be much improved. “ Now I know you are wondering how these relate to the “Body Shop Diet.” The answer is simple…since you know the three things most responsible for the sad state into which your body has fallen, then eliminate the three most onerous culprits. In my case the three are French Fries, White Bread and Sodas. I have quit eating and drinking these. Now before you start chuckling, let me emphasis that this is not called the “Lawyer’s Diet.” By this I mean don’t try sticking to the letter while you make substitutions that are just as bad; for example mashed potatoes, wheat bread slathered with butter and jelly or sweet tea and cool aid with a half lb of sugar poured in. If you find yourself pigging out on closely related substitutes… that is contrary to the spirit of the diet and this is a spiritual journey. It’s not the letter that’s important, it’s the idea. It’s a slow process to reverse the consequences of an eating disorder that has evolved slowly. Notice there is no exercise component to this diet. I don’t recommend entering a Triathlon as a supplement for dropping some extra lbs or expecting a health club to solve the problem for you. By all means take the dogs for a walk and stay active in the garden or some other activity but the diet is aimed at poking less food in your mouth, particularly the type that is most responsible for the current sad state of affairs. I will keep you posted on how I am coming with this revolutionary new concept in dieting. In a few weeks I hope to reverse the trend that has me looking like a pretzel who has just swallowed a watermelon. I might change the name to the Percy Goodfellow Diet and when I’m rich and famous all my devoted readers can tell their friends…. PERCY! I knew him when he was a real fatso! |
| Heat Wave I groaned when our women lost the World Cup Soccer match yesterday. It was one of those days when you can’t catch a break and the other team is on a roll. I am happy however, for the Japanese team and the lift they gave to their country who hasn’t had much to cheer about lately. I read a lot of “how to” books and often the instructions aren’t very instructive. Invariably the writers are experts who unwittingly make assumptions about things they think everybody should know. The ideal person to write about how to do something is someone who has just finished doing it for the first time. They know much more about what the novice needs to know than any expert. In yesterday’s blog I talked about gluing in patch panels and I pretended I had never done it before to be as clear as possible. I was constrained to using only words that were not supplemented by any diagrams and pictures. Some people have minds that work best with symbols and diagrams and some do well with words….The best approach without a doubt is to use both. In “How To” books the quality of the photography is often so bad the pictures are not always very much help. The same is true in “Hot Rod” magazines. We are under a severe heat and thunderstorm warning. Since there are only a couple of weeks in the summer up here where you need air conditioning we choose to not have it. This is when we must suffer the consequences. Today I will continue my body work and maybe clean up the shop. It needs a good going over. Linda has the week planned so we can do things in the air-conditioned car and at places that have air-conditioning. At the end of the month and early next month is the Iola Military show and the Oshkosh Air Show. Those are good shows and a great excuse to get out of the house. I like to watch the people as much as take in the exhibits. We have a sizable Amish, Mennonite and Mung community and seeing those families about in large numbers is interesting. There is so much diversity these days and there are people from everywhere in the world in Wisconsin. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
