Monday, December 22, 2008

Beers and cheers to uncle Chuck aka Chiggins
















I didn't know you too well.. but you were a decent person in my eyes. Cheers.

You were a giving man. Thanks for the memories.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Vote!!!!!

Look what Piper found!!!

Get out and VOTE!

I have never had Participation Lager. :)

Monday, October 13, 2008

See?

Dear Supporter,

We're coming down to the final stretch of the campaign. Each day leading up to November 4th plays a critical role in securing a Victory for our team of reformers. And I'll get straight to my point - if we're going to win we need your immediate support.

Will you join the McCain-Palin Victory 2008 team today during these critical final days?

The Obama-Biden Democrats and their liberal, allied interest groups are spending more than $1 billion to defeat our ticket in critical races across the country. They're flooding the airwaves and stuffing mailboxes with misleading information, and in some cases flat out lies about us.

The truth is that far-left groups in this country will do anything to help the Obama-Biden Democrats win the White House and maintain their majorities in Congress. And last week, we found out they're going even further to win.

The left-wing activist group, ACORN, is now under investigation for voter registration fraud in a number of battleground states. ACORN's political action committee has endorsed Barack Obama and Senator Obama himself has said, "I have been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career." The Obama Campaign even paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN affiliate for "get out the vote activity." And now we find out that ACORN is suspected of voter registration fraud.

But, the Obama-Biden Democrats would rather sweep these facts under the rug and use their mainstream media allies to bury this story. But we can't let that happen. We can't allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election.

That's why McCain-Palin Victory 2008 has set out to ensure a fair election and I'm asking you to join us today. Will you follow this link immediately to give $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or more to our effort?

McCain-Palin Victory 2008 helps fund our get-out-the-vote efforts in states across the country. We're working day and night to ensure this election is fair and we're working to elect the ticket that has a record of reform leadership.

Our team of reformers is ready to lead. We're ready to tackle issues affecting your family. But we'll get never get there without your support. Will you join our team in the final stretch before Election Day? With your help, I know we'll ensure this election is conducted in a fair manner. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Governor Sarah Palin

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Cider Mill - ahhh nutz

We (Piper, the boys, and I) went to Yates Cider Mill yesterday http://www.yatescidermill.com/cider-mill.php . It is in Rochester Hills or Shelby Twp. or something like that. We took the camera but we forgot the memory card for it. Too bad we forgot it because there was some interesting things we saw. The first thing was a giant pair of testicles hanging from someones pickup truck trailer hitch. Jamie said "whats hanging from that guys truck?" and I replied "Looks like a big sack". Always great to have a giant pair of nuts hanging from your truck at a family event. Here is where you can buy them and what they look like http://www.thatsnutz.com/truck-nuts-c-65.html

When we went inside there was a sign on the door that said something along the lines of: If you don't want to be filmed then don't come inside. We thought it was kinda odd until we got inside and noticed they were filming some type of commercial footage or something. I got filmed paying for the cider and donuts. Maybe I will be in a commercial? :)

After we got our Cider & donuts we went for a walk about a mile down a path that was next to the Clinton River. At the end of the path there was a river with stagnant water. Not quite the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As we were walking back, Piper said "whats that seed pod"? Well, it was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium We should have ate the seeds, it would have made the path more interesting. :) We also saw some weird plants growing that looked like bamboo but had the same texture as a green onion. We couldn't figure out if they were Cat tails or reeds or what?

We had a good time and stopped at Buddy's Pizza on the way back. I haven't had it for about 15 years and it was better than I remember it. We got the meat special with mushrooms and Antipasto salad.. Yummy!!!!

On the way back, Piper spotted the Girls Gone Wild bus merging off I-75 on to M-59 West... here is what it looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrr97mGipo

A very interesting family? day.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Yesssss.. We are not all fat geeks.. and hot chicks play too!!!

Check it out.. :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26947992/


I don't feel so bad now..

Weirdest song lyrics ever

The Mars Volta - Televators from the Deloused In The Comatorium album.

The Mars Volta - Televators
Found at bee mp3 search engine


Lyrics:
Just as he hit
The ground
They lowered a tow that
Stuck in his neck to the gills
Fragments of sobriquets
riddle me this
three half eaten corneas
who hit the aureole
Stalk the ground
Stalk the ground
You should have seen
The curse that flew right by you
Page of concrete
Stained walks crutch in hobbled sway
Auto-da-fé
A capillary hint of red
Only this manupod
Crescent in shape has escaped
The house half the way
Fell empty with teeth
That split both his lips
Mark these words
One day this chalk outline will circle this city
Was he robbed of the asphalt that cushioned his face
A room colored charlatan
Hid in a safe
Stalk the ground
Stalk the ground
You should have seen
The curse that flew right by you
Page of concrete
Stain walks crutch in hobbled sway
Auto-da-fé
A capillary hint of red
Only this manupod
Crescent in shape has escaped

Pull the pins
Save your grace
Mark these words
On his grave
[x3]

You should have seen
The curse that flew right by you
Page of concrete
Stain walks crutch in hobbled sway
Auto-da-fé
A capillary hint of red
Everyone knows the last toes are
Always the coldest to go

Sunday, September 28, 2008

My Ham Radio Logging Setup

OK, so most of my blog readers are people that come here that I make contact with on the radio. They look up my call sign on www.qrz.com and see the link to come here. This is a breakdown of my logging setup here. Computer is a old Pentium 2 - 400MHZ with 384MB RAM and a 20GB HD. Not much of a computer by today's standards but enough to log my contacts and soon serve as the digital nerve center for all my digital mode transmission including but not limited to RTTY (Radio teletype). The digital stuff is coming in a few months... check out www.tigertronics.com Signal Link USB... OH YEAH! OK, back on track here. The logging software I use is Amateur Contact Log 3.0 from Scott - N3FJP. I highly recommend it. Check out all his software (I own it all) at www.n3fjp.com Great program, the best for the the money. This log program does it all and is simple to use. Every other log program I have tried has way to small print to read and way to complicated to mess with. Scott has it right with this one. A lot of people use his software worldwide and I can see why. Anyway, so that's the program I prefer. I also subscribe to qrz.com's XML data service which links with the log program to look up all the details instantaneously (such as state, county, grid square, blah blah blah) for $29 a year. The cost of the $29 for a year subscription far outweighs going through and manually putting in all the details. You can download the data from the FCC and convert it yourself, but it will not contain grid squares and counties, or data from different countries. The nice thing about the log is that it has a feature to automatically interface with LOTW (Logbook of the World) www.arrl.org/lotw Logbook of the world is great because every contact confirmed there is equal to using a paper QSL card. Old school operators don't usually like LOTW because it is difficult to install and they think it is the same as EQSL which in my opinion is garbage and means nothing. I have about a 10 percent QSL rate with LOTW and I am currently working on my basic WAS (Worked All States) through LOTW only. So there you have it. That's my logging setup here. Either you are asleep by now, or you found this informative.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Financial Crisis!

I just received this email from Ron Paul...

Dear Friends:

The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.

We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.

Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.

Still, at least a few observations are necessary.

The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?

We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.

Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).

Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."

Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?

Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.

It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.

The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.

F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:

Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.

To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.

The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.

The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?

Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.

The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.

I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.

H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.

In liberty,



Ron Paul

3000 contacts and rising

Well, I just made my 3000th radio contact. That is just since I started logging. I have 3044 to be exact in my log. 43 States and 37 countries confirmed electronically through LOTW (Logbook of the World) www.arrl.org/lotw Yes Alaska counts as a separate country and state. Here are the countries, states and callsigns worked below.

Alabama KF4GRA
Alaska AL2V
Arizona K7L
Arkansas W5VAN
California K6DEX
Colorado W0RIC
Connecticut W1AW
Delaware N8NA
Florida K4PPK
Georgia WA4TII
Hawaii KH6LC
Idaho NX7TT
Illinois K9CT
Indiana N9YK
Iowa W0EWD
Kansas W0BH
Kentucky KB4AMA
Louisiana W5WMU
Maine KV1J
Maryland W2CDO
Massachusetts W1PLM
Michigan K8BB
Minnesota K0TG
Mississippi KD5JHE
Missouri W0MA
New Hampshire N1IW
New Jersey K2SQS
New Mexico N2IC
New York N2SQW
North Carolina K0HWY
Ohio W8OSP
Oklahoma W5IF
Oregon N6TW
Pennsylvania KB3JGU
South Carolina NN4F
Tennessee KA4WTB
Texas KD5LNO
Utah KG7C
Vermont N1LDT
Virginia N3AO
Washington W7DX
West Virginia AJ1M
Wisconsin KC9ECI



ALASKA AL2V
ANTIGUA & BARBUDA V26B
ARUBA P40A
BAHAMAS C6ANM
BARBADOS 8P5A
BONAIRE,CURACAO (NETH ANTILLES) PJ4/PA3CNX
CANADA VE3CX
CANARY ISLAND EA8/DL3FCG
COSTA RICA TI50DX
CZECH REPUBLIC OK1CF
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HI3T
ENGLAND M3SDE
EUROPEAN RUSSIA RX3AGD
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY DL2MWB
FRANCE F5KEE
FRENCH GUIANA FY5KE
GALAPAGOS ISLANDS HC8N
GRENADA J37K
HAITI HH4/AF4Z
HAWAII KH6LC
ICELAND TF3Y
ISLE OF MAN MD0CCE
ITALY IR4X
LUXEMBOURG LX7I
MADEIRA ISLANDS CT3FQ
MARTINIQUE TO5A
MEXICO XE2WWW
MOROCCO CN3A
NICARAGUA HT2N
NORTHERN IRELAND MI0LLL
PUERTO RICO WP3ME
SAINT KITTS & NEVIS V47KP
SLOVENIA S52OW
SPAIN EC1CT
TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS VP5DX
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA K2SQS
WALES GW4BLE

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Higgins Lake 2008 ("Bring the kids. It will be fun")

It started on Sunday morning...




Car loaded up & the kids ready to go.




We stopped at Tony's for breakfast. ummmm bacon!



Can you handle all that food, Jamie? :)




Andrew made his signature coffee cream pyramid.



We showed up around 2 or 3 PM and Craig arrived about 5 minutes later. He started a fire around 4 PM. :-)







Monday, we all got our shoot on. :)




Later on that day, Glen & Ali arrived. Glen burnt off his eyebrows starting a fire about 3 or 4 hours after arriving. His chainsaw provided plenty of fire wood with Jamie's
help dragging logs from the woods.




The gang enjoying some grub.




Guitar Hero was a staple for the kids.





We had some fun times by the fire at night.



Craig taught Jamie many lessons.



Andrew had many philosophical discussions about guitars and video games.


All in all we had a good time. Thursday night we went to the bar for comedy night and saw 2 comics that were very funny. I got very drunk. The only thing that sucked about the whole vacation is the fact that the entire vacation my shoulder was killing me. My back was good though. Jamie did lots of kayaking in the lake (thanks Ali & Glen). Glen's dad came up for a few days and we played some softball which was fun except for the fact that I can't catch a fly ball. Ali was quite the outfielder though. Glen's dad was the long ball hitter of the day and I ended up being the pitcher for most of the outing. It rained 2 days lightly but the weather was nice other than that. That about covers it. I think I need to take another vacation to have a vacation from this one. :)

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Guess what time it is?

Its meat thirty!




16 pounds of Delmonicos. Oh yeah!




Friday, August 08, 2008

My sister



LOL! My sister met Jimmy Fallon

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Preparing for "chiggins" lake

Made a stop at Target tonight. Got some things for the trip this week. Many community items.

:-)



Barrel of dried fruit & Barrel of Roasted cashews


Large bag of swedish fish. Bite size style too! Not the giant stupid ones.


2 Boxes of wine. Tour de Franzia


Jug O' Heaven Hill Rum. This has become a chiggins staple.


Brand spanking new, yellow, Malibu official frisbee 110 gram flying disk


2 six packs of Clif Bars.

Dunkin' Donuts coffee.


Not pictured - 2 pairs of cargo shorts. New polo style shirt that is green and white striped. Aqua shoes (yes!). 2 six packs of much needed (Jason style) socks. New sandals for the kids, and a plethora of orange tic tacs and mentos for the drive. Also, the new Rock Band with 20 new songs and the '80's Sing Star karaoke game. I have a feeling that we will have to pry the mic out of Glen's hands. :)

I volunteered (groan!) to go into work tomorrow and work for about 3 to 4 hours. I didn't want to, but if I didn't we would have lost about $3500. I figured I would be the martyr and go in and get the job done.

Tomorrow, I need to get 2 more things for the trip. Insane amounts of steaks and a 30 pack of Ice House. Yeah, Baby, we are rollin'

Tomato Worms

OK, so I have tomato worms.. These things are nasty. Where do they even come from? They give me the Heebee Jeebees. ewwwww!




This the the back of it with some weird horn thing sticking out.




You can't really judge from the picture but the thing was 4 inches long!




Here it is crapping out green balls that looked like mini tomatoes. I guess it crapped these out due to the trauma of being pulled of the tomato plants (not by my hands. I will not touch them).



Anyway, I haven't seen anymore..

/knocks on wood

Oxygen Tanks

Here are some pics of oxygen and nitrous oxide tanks from my work. I just decided to post them for the hell of it. You don't usually see stuff like this everyday. Enjoy!






Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Highland Appliance

OMG LOL!!!!!




Remember?

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Cool Site



Here is a cool site I found where you can add your own text to images. Check it out

www.imagechef.com

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Old skool fast food joints

Remember Burger Chef? It was sold to Hardees in 1981. Check it out: http://www.freewebs.com/burgerchef/. Hardees is still around in Michigan. I forgot about the one on the east side. http://www.hardees.com/home. There are actually 3 left in Michigan. Remember Arthur Treachers? There are none in Michigan left. http://www.arthurtreachers.com/


This guy is a tool too, by the way. It sucks he is named Jason. :-(

What happened to Long John Silvers? There are 5 left in Michigan. http://www.ljsilvers.com/ I used to tear up their hush puppies when I was a kid.

Remeber Top Hat. Piper used to tear that shit up, the one at 59 and telegraph. They tasted like shit to me. They became Sonic. http://www.sonicdrivein.com/ There is now 1 in Michigan. In Southgate, 32 Miles from my house. The food looks awesome from the commercials. Who knows?

White Castle is still going strong. 36 locations the the southeast Michigan area. I still love a slider every now and then. http://www.whitecastle.com/

I can't think of anymore... anyone else?

Oh!!!! Rally's. The best fries in the universe!!! They are still Rally's in Kentucky and Indiana.
http://www.rallyburger.com/
They became Checkers elsewhere: http://www.checkers.com/
There are 12 in the southeast Michigan area all within 25 miles. I might have to check them out. They look the same with the Rally's style fries. hmmmm...

SAUSAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Piper cooked up some sausages tonight. That got me thinking...... 2 classic sausage videos for your pleasure.



Sunday, July 20, 2008

Random pics from my digital camera

Here are some random pics that were in my digital camera last time I downloaded the memory card.



Oliver found a warm spot



Sitting in the stands at Comerica Park



Drinking beer from a giant boot



Piper drinking from the same boot. Everybody drank from that boot. Kinda like the Stanley Cup.



Wires that came down in front of our house that caused a 5 day power outage. I estimated 90 mph winds. They were actually around 80 mph.