. . . like these:
"Man Shoots His Own Car - West Slope 03/26/16 - Just before 5 am, after having his keys taken by a friend who didn't want him to drive drunk, a man fired shots from a .40 caliber handgun in the air and at his own car! Fortunately, no one was injured. Deputies arrested the shooter for Unlawful Use of a Weapon, Recklessly Endangering Another Person, Disorderly Conduct, and Unlawful Possession of Firearms. He had plenty of time to sober up in jail." Now that is a level of drunk, and stupid that even amazed me. He's just the kind of stupid to make the bullet holes in his car into a story of brave, daring do. Heh! Thankfully, West Slope is about 5 miles down the pike from Stately Maddog Manor. "U-Turn, U-Turn, U-Turn, U-Go, I-Stop, U-Go . . . to Jail 03/29/16 - Just after midnight, deputies stopped a vehicle after watching a driver make a U-turn and hit a sidewalk. The driver admitted to drinking and showed signs of impairment. Suddenly, the driver took off, did another U-turn, hit another sidewalk, and sped away. Deputies pursued the vehicle south on SW 185th Avenue, where he made another fast U-turn at SW Hart Road, went into the ditch several times, reaching speeds up to 70 mph. The driver briefly stopped in a nearby neighborhood, then took off one more time. Deputies stopped the vehicle using a pursuit intervention tactic on SW Farmington Road. The vehicle was safely stopped without anyone getting injured. He was lodged in the jail on multiple charges." I am detecting a pattern. Booze + dumbshite = jail time. I never argue with math. This is also a good 5 miles from Stately Maddog Manor. "Twice in the Same Week! 03/21/16 - An Aloha man reported his vehicle had been stolen from his driveway; it was recovered a short time later. Then, just three days later, the same man reported his vehicle stolen again from his driveway. Both times, the vehicle was either unlocked or left with keys in the ignition. Please make vehicle theft harder for the criminals; remember to always lock unattended vehicles!" It really is impossible to teach an old dog a new trick. Again, more than 5 miles from Stately Maddog Manor. This is what passes as crime in the extended Maddog neighborhood. In the closer neighborhood there is nearly no crime. Pretty boring here at the End of History.
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Do you live in a bubble? A quiz
My score appears below. Apparently, I do not. Raised early in a blue collar neighborhood, later moved into upper middle class neighborhoods, we always had a gun range in the basement. My parents valued productive work, so I worked in a paper mill during school, and then for a few years while I took time off from college. After that, I lived in a poor neighborhood in Mexico, on just a few hundred dollars, which required I make do with what I could for something less than a year. When I returned from Mexico, I finished college, and worked industrial demolition as a laborer, and later crew chief, the money was that good. I have two union cards. My father made it through college, and picked up an MBA to boot. My mother has two degrees, education, and theology Both brothers have MBA equivalents, one from University of Michigan, and one from Northwestern. Both sister's-in-law have degrees, one has two. Maddogswif is a professional with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, and I am a lawyer. We are an over-educated upper middle class family by education. I am equally comfortable in a biker bar, a law school hangout, or a downtown martini bar, although I prefer a neighborhood pub. I draw the line well before stripper bars. I enjoy great food and good service, and hate fancy food and stuffy service. I am equally comfortable digging a new sewer line, talking theology with an itinerant proselytizing believer, probing the mind of a philosopher regarding Descartes Meditations, or spending 2 months kayaking in the wilderness. I really wish I could claim this was all my doing, but I had great parents, and adventurous siblings. I was supported in every endeavor, not matter how harebrained, or brilliant. My parents seemed to understand that children need total as much as they need to succeed. Once when feeling my oats about being in my third year of law, I said something which inflated the law at the cost of the blue collar. Good ol' dad, took me down a notch, wondering, "After the Richter 9 earthquake who would I most value? The clean water worker, the sewer worker, or the lawyer." Point made, Maddog humbled, I responded, "I can still handle a mean shovel." I have never forgotten that pay and value are not synonyms. Perhaps my score is exactly correct, I was always equally happy shoveling manure at my grandmothers ranch, or litigating a difficult medical issue. More importantly, I have attempted to instill the same broad flexibility in my children, Maddogsdatir is too young to tell, but Maddogsson also has two union cards, and is currently working for UPS as a Preloader while studying college, and, as you know, is shipping off to the Marine Corps, MCRD San Diego, today. I have spent the past few years teaching him how to deal with electrical, plumbing and other home ownership skills, as well as welding, and mechanical skills. All this said, I still suffer from biases. What is your score? What are your biases? Scoring You got 51 points.The higher your score, the thinner your bubble. The lower, the more insulated you might be from mainstream American culture. See below for scores Charles Murray would expect you to get based on the following descriptions. 48–99: A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and movie going habits. Typical: 77. 42–100: A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and movie going habits. Typical: 66. 11–80: A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents. Typical: 33. 0–43: A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot. Typical: 9. 0–20: A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person with the television and movie going habits of the upper middle class. Typical: 2. Instapundit Six Tips for Reducing Airport Security Hassles
. . . simply not to fly. Short Maddog story follows! Wildcat Mountain Hike
. . . of dragging his Chevy Blazer out of a ravine! He has been setting off on weekends to find adventure. This weekend, he drove up Wildcat Mountain Drive (Mt. Hood National Forest) passed the forest service gate, through 8"-10" of untracked snow, and eventually slid the truck off the road, and down the embankment. Not being quite satisfied, he dropped it in reverse and spun the left rear wheel until the axle was on good ol' terra firma. I was frankly uncomfortable just driving in on the roadbed with the amount of snow, and the remote location. The road is a narrow single vehicle, no shoulder National Forest Service Road, I believe it is NF-36, but it could be NF-3626. After seeing just how screwed in he had gotten the Blazer, I was unsure if it was coming out without some serious winching. But I had the Suburban, and 3 or 4 drag straps of different length, and a few drag chains. First pull, I used a long strap, hoping the snow would be heavy enough to keep the truck from sliding, it wasn't. The truck was 20˚ down by the front, and 20˚ down by the drivers side, and the left rear was dug deep and riding on the axle. The belly of the Blazer was also solidly riding on the snow/ground, which is the reason he could not get traction. I did not have a winch, just the Suburban. The truck needed a little tug to bump it up over the sunk left rear wheel, and slide the truck up on its belly until the front wheels were able to again support the vehicles weight. This food a few tries, since I did not want to damage either the Blazer or the Suburban. The Blazer bumped up nicely over the deep hole, but the snow didn't hold at all, and it slid parallel to the road. Essentially, the Blazer was sliding sideways, but not making any movement towards the road. I decided to reset. Reset required Maddogsson dig out, but he didn't have a shovel. I gave him an improvised shovel, and he did a bang up job clearing the dirt, and snow from the rear of the truck, and the front wheels. The Suburban was comfy and warm! Luckily, it was about 35˚ and raining, so it was nothing more than a pleasant afternoon outing, in freezing mud, and knee deep snow! The Blazer was able to hold without sliding, so I had Maddogsson unhook the long drag strap, and rehook with a short drag strap on a hard diagonal from the Suburban tow hook to the far left side of the Blazer frame. I was hoping to force the truck back up on the roadbed with a bit of geometry. I like this pull much less, since it puts the vehicles very close together, but I had no other choice at the time. The slow pull was not very effective, the snow was too deep, and the Blazer was too draped over the steep shoulder. It only took a couple of bumps to get the Blazer moving, and then a good solid pull put the truck's back wheels up on the roadbed. Then all it took was a little bit of straight power to keep the whole thing moving until he was fully out of trouble. My concern was the narrow road, the steep the shoulder, and I was on a curve backing up on a curve. I had to keep an eye on the Blazer, and the rear view mirror, to keep the Suburban on the road, in the tracks, and out of trouble. I've pulled more than my fair share of vehicles out of all kinds of trouble, but this was unexpected, Maddogsson had left the impression that the Blazer was not in any real trouble, but is was about as bad as any non-rollover I've seen. Yes, Iv'e seen deeper snow, and steeper train, but this was moderately deep snow, steep nose down, and steep driver side down, and he had sunk the left rear wheel. I am still a little surprised we got the Blazer out without needing to go back for more equipment, a winch, and a some good long handled shovels. I didn't even need to bump pull the Blazer hard enough to make me worry about damage. We finished with a short discussion on safety. He had passed about a good place to park less than a 1/4 mile from where he ended up stuck. The road was covered in untracked snow, and he could not determine exactly where the roadbed was located. We discussed how in this case he should not have ventured up this heavily snowed in road without a shovel, and an Army entrenching tool in the vehicle. If he had those, he still should have walked the ravine side edge of the roadbed making sure he knew exactly where the road ended and the soft shoulder began.This would have given him a clearer idea of the location of the road bed. He had failed to leave me a map of where he was headed, and he didn't know the names of the road exiting from I-84, although I knew basically where he was due to area familiarity. I told him for safety, he always needed to leave a basic road map of where he intended to park the car, and a simple, map and description of the hike. Next week, before he goes seeking adventure, I will have another talk about minimal food, and water, and lightweight emergency survival gear he needs to carry with him in snow country. He knows all of this, but seemingly has forgotten to implement these precautions. That needs to change. He is young, he always likes the stories I have to tell about my wilderness experiences. I admit, I like it better when I get in trouble. I am good at solving these problems, he is young, and green. Of course, the only way to obtain the experience is through experience. It is good he is out in the wild, but close enough to home to allow me to help him find his feet. I expect the Marine Corps to help speed this along nicely. Captain Kidd on Twitter
You really must click through, it is indescribable, to the uninitiated in the delicacies of industrial demolition work. During the Vancouver project we needed to bring down a "roll grinder room" a room within the larger paper mill building. The room was about 2-1/2 stories high and the "rafters" were huge 28" x 36" beams (whole slabs of squared off tree, actually). I told the men my plan of action, and asked them to get the equipment while I organized a crane, among other necessaries. I left them to clean up the area, and get ready for the demolition. As an aside, the paper mill was still operating, and one of the paper machines was a mere cinder block wall, and 10' away from our work area, so I had to be careful. The structure needed to be raised without breaching that cinder block wall, raising too much dust, or dropping one of the "rafters" on the machine, or the rewinder. By the time I returned, one of the men had become antsy, scaled the wall, and was sitting astride one of the "rafters" sawing through it with a chainsaw. Yes, he was standing out-side of the saw cut so once finished he was ground bound along with the "rafter." I am still not sure why I didn't infarct right then, but I held out. I finally threw a piece of wood, or perhaps concrete him, and hit him. While he dropped the chain saw, he had sagaciously tied it off to the, yes, out-side of the saw cut. I called him down. Then I released the men to work on another project while I spent an hour performing my best interpretation of R.Lee Ermey's role in Full Metal Jacket. I screamed streams of epithets, and curses which even impressed me. I evolved entire new curses and epithets. I was not sure whether I was so enervated because I had narrowly dodged spending the next 24 hours of my 13 hour per day, seven day per week, 365 day per year shift with State Fatality Investigators (really, not kidding one bit, I worked 15+ months on the project a minimum of 12, but more commonly 13 hours per day - ok, the first week we only worked five 10 hour days, we were waiting for equipment and supplies). Or whether it was not having the "rafter" collapse, punch a hole in the concrete floor, then rotate over collapsing the cinder block wall into both the rewinder, and the paper machine. My job would have been the least of my worries. Oh, and for any dear precious snowflakes who happened to stumble upon this story, I did not get to go home early, nor was I given a safe place to cry out my angst. I worked the remaining 9 hours of my shift, and tagged my day shift counterpart to finish the now nearly finished demo. Lather, rinse, repeat, every single day for more than 15 months. I slept well, banked a ton of cash, and worked hard. I was in hog heaven. You are released to go back to your college dorm room, and whinge about how your butt plug is too tight. |
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