snowblind friend

Lying on the pavement with the misery on his brain –

Steppenwolf quote. Great song. Makes me think about plow guys in these blizzard days.

Okay, it hasn’t snowed too much in the last few days, but we’ve still well over a foot…everywhere. And now I’m reflecting on those heavy snow days and the familiar enemy of the sane: the snow plow driver. In particular I think of the guy who plows the driveway across the street from our. Ours has been paved for a couple years now and I am a snow blowing fiend whenever the powder falls. The drive across the street is gravel, or pea stone, or whatever you want to call it.

I should say, it was gravel. Last year, pretty much the entire length of stone got dumped at the foot of my newly paved driveway. Boy, that was annoying. Our neighbors got the guy to redo their driveway somewhat, but this year he was at it again. Not as much stone ended up in our yard this time, but man, you should see the mounds of snow. No, you don’t see gravel in the snow, you see about an inch of the underlying dirt.

I’m thinking this guy is going to need some life insurance. And not because he drives like a maniac…but because my neighbor, when she gets a look at that…

Blue, Gold and Vroom Vroom

We just had the big Blue & Gold dinner for Cub Scouts. Boy, does this bring me back. I can still remember sneaking bits and pieces of such events from back when I was a scout. I mean, I never progressed beyond Webelos, something like 6th grade for me, but there were some good times.

The B&G dinner is a big family event for scouts, and it’s when most receive their next significant achievement, or the one they’ve been working toward for the year. My little guy got his Wolf badge, looking so good in his uniform. And the penne and meatballs plus salad served buffet style… not too bad.

The best part of the evening – the Native American dance demonstration. It was…illuminating. It gave me a whole new perspective on that snake dance ritual in Billy Jack, too. There’s really nothing I can say that won’t sound like a sleight, so I’m going to just leave it at that.

We still have a couple of good scouting events to end out the year. In a couple of months there’s an overnight trip to a battleship. I’m totally looking forward to that. And, of course, the Pine Wood Derby is only a month away. Our car is shaped and ready for paint. And I’ve already priced high risk auto insurance for the event, so we’re ready to roll.

Is it weird that I’m having more fun with my son as scout then when I was a scout myself?

Mattress Dump

You know that warm feeling I had thinking about the kindness and generosity of people donating their used books to local libraries for fundraising book sales?…yeah, that’s gone.

I mean, I think it’s still really cool that people are willing to donate their stuff to benefit a charity, or people in need. But only when they do it properly. I guess it is hard to screw up library donations. You have books, you put them in an old office supplies box, and tote them to the library.

It’s kind of like the big metal Goodwill donation bins. You know, they put them in parking lots with clear instructions that they’re for clothes and shoes only. If you bother to read the smaller print you see that they ask people to not leave anything around the bins. This is because the owners of the land on which the bins are sitting usually get pissed if there’s a lot of garbage hanging around, and they will have the bins moved.

The instructions ask that you not leave bags of clothes or shoes around the bin if the bin is full. they also ask that you not leave anything else around the bin, like books (we already know the library will take them) or furniture or baby items like cribs and strollers. They are pretty specific.

So can someone tell me who the incredible ass munchers are that leave strollers and cribs and chairs and other huge things around those bins? Come one. How much ass do you have to much for your brain to rot so much that you gleefully dump your old jizzy couch next to the Goodwill clothes and shoes bin? There was actually just such a bin with just such a couch on my way to work, in a little park and ride lot. I noticed a couch and armchair show up about a year ago. Every week for about 2 months I drove by and it was still there. Finally, after two months, the couch and armchair were gone. And so was the bin. Thanks for ruining it for everybody else couch jizzer.

A couple weeks ago we went to a favorite local diner. Toward the back of the parking lot are a couple of Goodwill bins. Leaning against the Goodwill bins were a couple of mattresses. Seriously. Mattresses?Think about it. Somebody had to actually transport that mattress to the bins. Couldn’t they have just gone another mile or two down the road to the town dump? Talk about a super douche.

Derby Time

Our first year in Cub Scouts is about to get real. I mean really real. We’re coming up on Pine Wood Derby time. Now, I was a cub scout for a few years when I was a kid and I participated in a couple of these. They were basket-case conventions back then, and from what I understand, man has not evolved in a good direction since then.

There was even a movie (made for TV by the looks of it) that they showed the group. It was all about competitive Dads missing the point, and their little scouts who suffered as a result. Actually, it was pretty cute.

Clearly there is some truth there, though. Some of these guys take it pretty seriously. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure one of the Dads was on his cell phone calling for an auto insurance quote while they were handing out the kits.

Well, hopefully we can do this thing without making fools of ourselves. But really, if we can make a cool looking car that actually runs the course, I’ll be happy. and if we don’t kill each other in the process…true success.

On the Road…Again…Revisited

With all the RV hunting I’ve been doing of late, I’ve had a lot of questions. Here’s another one – what about motorhome insurance. I mean, these things ain’t cheap. Particularly the RVs that are standalones. The ones you can tow are way cheaper, even the ridiculously huge ones that could sleep that crazy ass family with the 80s mall hair that keeps having babies.

I wonder if you even need insurance for those or if you just get some kind of “crap I tow” rider on your regular auto insurance.

Am  the only one who wonders about this stuff?

On the Road…Again

So I couldn’t help but do some RV pricing after my last post. Man, the nice ones are swank but they ain’t cheap. They’re like second mortgage if you’re lucky to have a ton of equity priced. I wonder if you they let you get PMI and borrow past 80% after the fact. Maybe I need to be checking mortgage insurance rates.

OK, I’m not serious, of course, but don’t you think it would be awesome to be cruising the highways of America in a $100k sleek ass silver and black swirl-paint-job recreational vehicle. In the words of my 7 year old when excited by an idea, “Oh Sweet Mama!”