93 EZ Loader

The poor thing had one fender that was mostly missing, someone had literally chiseled [...]]]> I’ve been working on the EZ Loader trailer that carries my Stratos 274 around. The trailer was pretty damned ugly when we got the boat and a couple thousand miles on the road hasn’t helped

93 EZ Loader

The poor thing had one fender that was mostly missing, someone had literally chiseled about 3/4 of it out. One spring was lighter duty than the other, so it listed to the starboard side. The paint was pretty well chipped all to hell. What used to be chrome wheels were mostly rust as well. On the plus side it’s mechanically sound. I’m pretty sure the trailer had been wrecked at some point of it’s young 20 year life.

93 EZ Loader - Bad Fender

The refurb job has been in progress for a while seeing as I don’t take full days to work on it. Right now it’s upside down on saw horses getting prepped for paint. The right rear fender step looks like it had been reworked or replaced before and never painted underneath, so the rust was pretty bad.

93 EZ Loader - Bent Metal

Not rusty enough to replace the steel but needed a good phosphoric treatment. That same fender step had also been smashed up a bit. This pic is after it’s already had the majority of the bend pushed out with a jack and most the rust removed.

It’s amazing what you find on a trailer (or any vehicle) once you get it upside down! Fortunately flipping a bass boat trailer isn’t as hard as flipping a bass boat.

93 EZ Loader - Flip It

If you’ve got a cherry picker, it’s as easy as chaining the frame up in the center rear and hoisting it up in the air high enough to be able to rotate it on the tongue. Just make sure you get it high because you’ll bang up the fenders if you don’t. I pulled the wheels & bunks off to get rid of the unnecessary weight. I was up to throwing my back out over this, heh.

93 EZ Loader - On The Horses

Once you have it in the air nice & high you can get a saw horse under it on one side and lower it onto the next horse so you are working on it like so

I just emailed Congress to urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation, known as the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This legislation seeks to give the executive branch power to conduct slash-and-burn campaigns against websites that allegedly host – or even link [...]]]> Dear friend,

I just emailed Congress to urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation, known as the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This legislation seeks to give the executive branch power to conduct slash-and-burn campaigns against websites that allegedly host – or even link to – content that infringes on intellectual property rights. That would “disappear” whole domain names, fundamentally undermining Internet security, and/or choke off their financial support. The Internet Blacklist Legislation puts more sites than ever at risk, effectively upending the DMCA safe harbors that have been crucial to the growth of Internet innovation and creativity.

Sadly, these short-sighted and dangerous bills won’t do much to stop online infringement – but they will jeopardize our ability to speak and read online with the kind of freedom we cherish in the offline world. Deep-pocketed Hollywood lobbyists are aggressively pushing to control and censor the open Internet, willing to sacrifice free speech and our Internet culture in hopes of controlling how people view their movies and products.

We need to stop this bill before it goes any further. Will you contact your representatives in Congress and urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation? Visit: https://eff.org/r.C8A

Restrict laws for law abiding citizens having licensed guns and you strengthen unlawful people with unlicensed guns. Think criminals get their guns licensed? Sit in the back of the bus dipstick…

Think it’s guns that kill people, there again dipstick, sit in the back of the bus… People kill people….

Do you know the [...]]]> IMHO—

Restrict laws for law abiding citizens having licensed guns and you strengthen unlawful people with unlicensed guns. Think criminals get their guns licensed? Sit in the back of the bus dipstick…

Think it’s guns that kill people, there again dipstick, sit in the back of the bus… People kill people….

Do you know the history of Germany that led up to the 2nd World War? Hitler declared that citizens had no need for guns because the “Government would take care of them”. We all saw how that turned out.

Maybe someone could challenge me on the topic?

I happen to really like that phrase and why not? When someone raises a stink about something and they get shot down, what’s better than sayin’ ‘How ya like them apples boy?’, LOL.

I’m gonna elaborate more on this later but if you don’t get it, [...]]]> How ya like them apples boy? Ever hear that?

I happen to really like that phrase and why not? When someone raises a stink about something and they get shot down, what’s better than sayin’ ‘How ya like them apples boy?’, LOL.

I’m gonna elaborate more on this later but if you don’t get it, go back to whatever bubble wrapped place you came from…

Riverside is perched on a bit of a bluff overlooking the Trinity River in [...]]]> Riverside, TX is the closest thing that resembles a town to me so I thought I’d write a little about Good Old Riverside. The city limits signs read “Population 425″ and I don’t expect that to change much anytime soon

Riverside is perched on a bit of a bluff overlooking the Trinity River in Northeastern Walker County, Texas . It’s located just up river from where the Trinity River flows into Lake Livingston (The second largest lake in Texas that is completely inside Texas). Today, Riverside is a quite little community that is mostly based on ranching, hunting leases and other recreational activities.

Historic Riverside turret bridge

Riverside was founded in 1872 during a time when the economy in the area was run by cotton gins and the railway. The Houston & Great Northern Railroad (later International & Great Northern) was being built in the area for the reason that the river dried up in late summer and the steamboats could no longer navigate all the way to Riverside from the Gulf, down stream. Walker County landowners gave earth, lumber and minerals to the railroad in order to obtain shipping facilities.  Riverside began as a railroad town and grew alongside the tracks on the South side of the Trinity River, thus the name “Riverside.

Public recreational facilities in the area include Cove Marina, Bethy Creek Resort and the public boat ramp at the Hwy 19 bridge & the Trinity River. These are all water based recreational areas, which is the best kind

I’ll be writing more about this area soon, it’s a great place to live! Texas rules!!

And more speech practice

Under the last president, Solyndra couldn’t get the funding they wanted. George [...]]]> When asked to elaborate on the companies failure, the CEO & CFO of Solyndra ( a California based solar panel technology company) got a lot of mileage out of their “I plead the 5th” pie hole dribble…

And more speech practice

Under the last president, Solyndra couldn’t get the funding they wanted. George W denied the DOE funds to Solyndra, a couple months after taking office, spring of 2009, B. H. Obama grants the funding. Two years later Solyndra is facing bankruptcy and refusing to answer questions. I understand investigations into campaign contributions are under way.

Here’s another good one. Jonathan Silver was named Executive Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office in November 2009. He can’t say who made the decision to lend Solyndra $535,000,000.

Oh BTW… feel good in the aspect that Solyndra only burned through $527,000,000 so far ;(

Ohio State Senator Sherrod Brown releases his brilliant plan, sue companies that won’t hire you. Not based on the usual things like gender, race, creed, religion, sexual orientation… Nope, his idea is discrimination based on long term unemployment.

Yup, if you been unemployed for a very long time, you can sue [...]]]> Dateline September 6, 2011

Ohio State Senator Sherrod Brown releases his brilliant plan, sue companies that won’t hire you. Not based on the usual things like gender, race, creed, religion, sexual orientation… Nope, his idea is discrimination based on long term unemployment.

Yup, if you been unemployed for a very long time, you can sue the potential employer for not hiring you. Doesn’t really matter that you haven’t been able to hold a job because you are unemployable. Doesn’t matter that you have no job skills. Doesn’t matter that you have been fired from every job you’ve ever had for being late or absent too often. Doesn’t matter that you have anger management issues & punched someone out at a couple of your jobs and can’t provide any decent work references.

Now I’m not saying there are plenty of good-harted, hard working people that need a job. The economy sucks and there’s been cutbacks & layoffs. But this doesn’t address them directly from what I hear. Would you hire a meth head that’s been unemployed for 4 years & stealing & dealing to get by? Of course not…

Now there’s a great plan for stimulating the economy.  If this legislation passes, see how many potential employers stop hiring.

Enough for now, need to go grab a beer & chill out. I got plenty worked up when I heard that one… I think he was asked if there was booze in his coffee cup with this pic

Ref: http://brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press_releases/release/?id=4228263e-e410-415d-a2f2-0c15b60188ca

Turns out poor Wesley Norman, of Norman’s Outboard Service, had medical problems and had to let his shop helper go. That set his schedule back a bit. Having the medical problems is bad enough but having to let the employee go because he was being a flake just [...]]]> Picked up the Stratos today, repairs finished!

Turns out poor Wesley Norman, of Norman’s Outboard Service, had medical problems and had to let his shop helper go. That set his schedule back a bit. Having the medical problems is bad enough but having to let the employee go because he was being a flake just added to poor Wesley’s dilemma.

We dropped by his shop last Monday to see if I could possible work part-time for him until he hired another mechanic but he passed on my help. I guess mixing customer and employee would be weird, but I thought I’d offer anyway. He jumped right on the repairs, replaced parts, machined gears, tested & we got the repaired boat back on Friday. He apparently bumped our boat ahead of a couple others to get it back to us sooner. On top of it all it was all done for around the estimated price.

We’re happy to have done business with Wesley and will be bringing him more work in the future