SUCKERED AGAIN!

To say I'm PO'd would be a gross understatement right now.

Last fall, I sucked an aflac duck our dogs had been playing with into my Toro leaf vacuum/blower and burned it up. I'd used it several seasons and the only problem was with the elastic on the leaf bag giving out. An old ranch kid like me knows how to deal with that with the equivalent of baling wire. Problem solved!

I needed a new leaf vacuum and soon found a brand new Weedeater E-Max at a sale, still in the box, for $25. I bought.

Today, I decided to vacuum up the leaves in our back yard so it wouldn't be so messy and went merrrily after them. In about half an hour, ground up leaves started hitting my leg. What the _____?

Inspection revealed that the small twigs that are inevitably a part of such a job had knocked a hole in the housing surrounding the impeler. Off to the shop to contrive a fix.

I discovered that the housing was very brittle and very thin -- less than an eighth of an inch. Also, it's a plastic impeler instead of the metal one in my old vacuum. It already has chips in it.

I'm like the guy with the Tee Shirt that says, "I can fix anything! Where's the duct tape?" It soon became apparent to me that duct tape would be the best repair. After several layers of that, the hole was sealed and I was back on the job -- for about a minute -- at which time leaves started pouring out the other side.

Another hole!

After four stops for repairs which left my tool basically a duct tape wonder. I finished up and all the leaves had been ground up and deposited in my compost bin where they're soaked down and soon will be great composted mulch that's set aside for my patch of egyptian walking onions.

What companies stick people with really frosts me. I'm sure Weed Eater makes a deluxe model, but this certainly isn't it. This is made to trick people who want a leaf vacuum but can't afford a good one to buy this cheaper model and then be stuck with a broken down piece of junk and their money already gone into the ravenous pockets of some millionaire or billionaire.

They'd never stand behind such a piece of junk and just say something was sucked in that never should have been. If I have to sort my leaves to find anything a little bit hard, what's the point in having the tool anyway. My original Toro took care of any small stick without even a grunt, but that stuffed duck was a little too much for it.

Will I ever get to the point where I don't get suckered like this? Doubtful. There isn't time to think every little thing through to the nth degree. I know I'll spend my money for a piece of junk again sometime somewhere. Just gotta live with it -- but, I can at least bitch about it!

INTERESTING DREAM

(From Facebook.)

I had an interesting dream that could never be a reality. For some reason the dream didn't include, I was asked to give a sermon in a Lutheran Church. Being an atheist, I had to preach on the Sermon on the Mount, and I was dwelling on the very things I dwell on here on Facebook and on my blog. The audience reaction was not included. There I was standing and waxing eloquent in the traditional attire of a man's dress.

Dreams are strange things. I guess it just resulted from my being so passionate about some of the things I dwell on here. I always was a fair-minded person, and when I see the blatant unfairness and mindless sloganeering rampant today, it drives me nuts.

Anyway, I've again shared some very pointed observations on the world situation. It's the only preaching I have access to right now.

JESUS IS A ROMAN INVENTION!

I just sat through this video movie the second time. It is astonishing, but it makes perfect sense. It really is the ROMAN Catholic Church!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2KONcLKQU
Cesar's Messiah Jesus A Roman Invention
www.youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aSKN0xnfsA This is for educational purposes. Source; Cesar's Messiah . Proving that religions have been reworked to control n...

COMMUNICATION IS GOOD

(From Facebook.)

It again hit me how valuable modern social media is to us humans. I remember when communication with others was a haphazard thing governed by the need to write and mail time consuming letters or make expensive phone calls, and we just didn't have the wherewithal to get deeply involved with those we should have been closest to. We were often deeply separated from those with whom we should have been the closest and pretty much an unknown nebulosity to them.

It doesn't have to be that way anymore. We can email, we can tweet, we can blog, we can dial the cell phone at odd times when we just have time on our hands and feel the urge to talk. We don't have to feel alone and isolated anymore.

I spend an awful lot of time on Facebook. It keeps me in contact with a whole bunch of friends and relatives and they are aware of what I'm thinking and doing, and vice versa. I'm often sitting just waiting on Phyllis to finish something like shopping and just pick up my cell phone to call someone, often my sister who neither Facebooks or blogs.

I'm well aware that all these things can be over used, and maybe I sometimes am guilty, but I feel my children, grandchildren and friends know me a whole lot more than they did before, and the reverse is also true. I think anything that increases personal contact and understanding is basically good.

DISASTER IS INEVITABLE

It gets a little overwhelming sometimes.

I can't dwell on what happened in the Philipines or I'd not sleep well. There's never been a storm like that recorded, and I for one, am not going to give countenance to the nonsense that human-caused global warming isn't at fault.

Yes, we have to move about, but we don't have to do it in fossil fuel powered vehicles. We could have been moving on hydrogen and only exhausting water from our tailpipes decades ago. It was deliberately suppressed and the lie that it was too dangerous was just that -- a damn lie! Nothing would be too dangerous if it enriched the powers that are in control!

Here in Arizona, there's a big battle going on before the Corporation Commission trying to sabotage the development of solar energy by saying that people who get paid for the energy they contribute to the grid and thus often pay no electricity bill aren't doing their fair share to maintain the power grid. Any excuse to slow down and/or sabotage progress just out of jealousy and greed. Some millionaires and billionaires are behind it I'm sure.

Just like in ancient Rome, we have a government owned and dictated to by big money. We don't have official slavery, but our minimum wage baloney and steadily eroded social justice system makes de facto slavery an everyday reality. If you can't earn a living wage, you are a slave, pure and simple!

I'm very discouraged. I also know we are very vulnerable to comparable disasters right here. When is the San Andreas going to let go? When is a giant fault slippage going to wipe out much of the northern pacific coast and send massive tidal waves all the way to Asia? When is that madrid fault going to go in the midwest? Such things are inevitable and are now being augmented by our own stupid ravages against the entire eco system. A deeper sea means bigger waves that reach even farther inland!

Frankly, I'm mighty scared when I contemplate what is likely to happen any day! Our luck can't hold forever.

If you think otherwise, just ask a Philipino.

CHANGE IS NOT AN ENEMY

Getting back in the swing of things.

I did a few more improvements this afternoon. For one, there was a ceiling fan hanging in the shop I didn't use because a floor fan worked better. I found today that it wasn't working, so down it came and got broken up into various types of recycling. That opens a rafter for some hooks to hang tools I'll soon be taking out of my van. I just don't need to carry all that weight around when I'm dropping the floor work. Still planning to hang onto the van though.

It really bothers me psycologically to give up the business. It was so much a part of my identity for so long. I miss going out, doing a small job and coming home with extra money in my wallet. I also miss the interaction with interesting people and feeling like I was a help to them. I know now how my dad must have felt when he had to move off the ranch. He had to do it seven years sooner than I did because that ranch work was a whole lot more demanding in a climate like that of North Dakota. Being stuck out there just wasn't feasible anymore.

It's all about facing and accepting realities. Life is full of those situations and I've had my share, just like everyone else. Those who refuse to change when change is called for are in for trouble of all kinds and sometimes it leads to disaster when there is total refusal to accept reality.

I had to accept the reality that what I thought was a lifetime career was over and had to find my way into a new one. I had to accept that a forever marriage was very temporal more than once and make the most of the situation. I had to carefully think through the whole direction of my life and slowly evolve from religious fanaticism to secular reason. Those are just the most major of the changes I've been through. There are too many to enumerate. Just sitting here writing this entry is a major change in my lifestyle that would have seemed an impossibility not too many years ago.

Change is not an enemy unless we stubbornly make it so. Glad I wrote this. It helps me sort things out and view them rationally.

THE DIVINE MAFIA

(From Facebook.)

I was going about the weekly floor cleanup, and as usual, my mind was also busy. I get alot of thinking done when I'm busy at something. I came with with thoughts I'll outline here and call "The Divine Mafia" when I post them to my blog.

Most people condemn and abhor organizations like the mafia, but they absolutely worship the same system when it comes to their personal beliefs.

Cosa Nostra (our thing) has fascinated me all my life. I think many people share that fascination, hence the success of movies like The Godfather.

Have you ever noticed how religions tend to mirror the organizational setup of the mafia? That's no accident. The parent basis of them all, the Catholic Church, was set up on the imperial roman political system which was fascist and authoritarian just like the mafia. It was one man rule from the top down that brooked no naysayers. Some of those rulers were benevolent and others were downright evil and sociopathic. All demanded unquestioning obedience to arbitrary rules that became traditional.

I know some churches are somewhat democratic in their setup, but you still will not be very welcome in their midst unless you subscribe to a basic set of beliefs and dogma. I guess that is unavoidable in any group. Nobody is going to fit into our freethought group if they come to a meeting and start praising Jesus or suggest an opening prayer.

Anyway, think about it. While you're at it, think about why that approach doesn't fit in a secular republic when people try to apply it to politics.

There's no room in a democratic republic for godfathers.