Thursday, April 30, 2009

What Did I Tell Yoo?

Ezaklee one month to the day, from my March 30 post, Messiah/President/CEO Barack Husein Obama Chavez Stalin announces that Chrysler Corporation is...
1) officially bankrupt,
2) merged with Italian junk-car maker Fiat in a joint venture,
3) 30 percent owned by the US federal government,
4) 40 percent owned by the United Autoworkers Union,
5) 30 percent owned by the former investors (who used to own most of the stock),
6) certain to need more guvment money to "survive" because the union will continue to bleed the company for benefits until they bleed it to death.

Fiat used to sell cars in the US but failed to hold their customers here because their cars were junk.
They still are.
(Remember the Yugo in the 90's? It was a Fiat built in Yugoslavia [how's THAT for a losing combination?]. It failed for the same reason all Fiats fail to sell in this country - they are junk.)
They could not produce cars with quality equal to the American cars at the time (imagine that!), and nowhere near the quality of the Asian imports at the time.
Chrysler is not known for high quality cars now (pre-bankruptcy), joining with Fiat is like the two last-place teams in the league (pick a league, any league) and creating an "all-star" team.
Instead a regular losers, they are special losers.

General Motors is next.
Care to guess how much of that company the UAW will be given by the Obama-Stalin administration?
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Ah, Spring!

Saturday morning was close to perfect for my six-miler.
It was about 52 or so, warm enough to shed the long britches and commune with nature a bit more.
I kept a light long-sleeved top on, which proved to be about right.
Other than seeing a solitary lady runner at the end mile five for a couple of minutes (she was going my direction but before I could catch her she stopped and disappeared) I had the course to myself - again.

BTW - seeing a lady running by herself indicates a serious runner.
Most ladies like to run with one or two friends so they can talk while they run.
Its that bonding thing they do.
I have never liked to talk while I run because the running takes too much of my lung capacity.
(that either shows how strong the girls are or how hard I run or how weak I am.)

Anyway, the trot was a good experience, no achy breaky ankles, knees, hips, etc, no almost left leg collapse stuff, no biological emergencies.
Just a nice run in the morning cool.
And another 600 calories gone.
My time was just under an hour so I was happee.
Four more weeks until the big race.....
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Monday, April 20, 2009

The Magic Lawnmower

Well, the saga continues.
Last week, I mowed the yard again.
I used ALL of the remaining gas in my plastic can.
That amounted to about a third of a cup or less.
It was so little gas that it did not even cover the lattice pattern in the bottom of the gas tank in my lawn mower (I don't know why the bottom of my tank has a lattice pattern. Maybe they are there for strength. But the whole bottom of my mower tank has little half-inch square depressions about an eighth of an inch deep in it.)

I thought sure I would not make it through cutting both my front and back yards this time - small as they are.
But guess what - I did.
On a fourth of a cup of gas.

IN OTHER NEWS...
I had another successful traverse of the Cotton Row course Saturday morning.
It was cooler than I would have liked (I LIKE 65-75 degrees) but I did the drill anyway.
There were two other ladies going my way and I caught them at the top of The Hill.
They expressed that they were impressed that I ran up the hill.
I confessed that the top half of the hill is not as steep as the bottom half.
I did not have time to tell them that I only ran the top half.

The jaunt took me just five seconds longer than 59 minutes.
Not bad for a 64 year-old (now) geezer.
The Cotton Row race is in five weeks.
I need to buy some new shoes for the event.
They are on my To Do list.
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Friday, April 17, 2009

No - I'm Not Dead

Well.
Tax season is officially and finally over.
Working in the tax preparation office was an educational experience.
Generally, I enjoyed the time.
The work hours were mostly good (I still do not like working on Saturdays).
The working conditions were mostly good (the HR Block office in the Sears store is unheated, so it was COLD in there some days).
The people in my office were easy to work with.

I was able to run and walk and work out every day that I planned to, with no intrusions from my work schedule.
That was good.

I have been running the Cotton Row course each Saturday morning since I last posted (two whole weeks ago - mercy!)

My dogwood tree is still blooming.
Some years it seems the dogwood trees bloom for a week or so then they are gone.
This year, the DWs have been blooming for about three or four weeks.

My back yard, which has been mowed once already this year, is due for another haircut.
It looks like a meadow in Yellowstone park.
I am still using the gas I bought in 2007 in my lawn mower.
I am trying to see how little I can put in it and still cut both my front and back yards.
I used to use a full tank (quantity unknown [a quart?)] to do the job.
Last time I mowed, I used about half a cup, and STILL cut the whole yards.
Even though the tank looked empty when I checked it when I finished, the mower showed no signs of wanting to stop.
Interesting....
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ON BEING A JANITOR

April 15 th of 2013 was my last year to work for HR Block. I disliked the corporate pressure to make us call customers to try to sel...