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Baby, it’s cold outside

Three degrees F this morning, in fact.  That’s -16 to you Celsius speakers.  Damn cold.  Which is why it was especially bad when our furnace died last Friday.  We now have a nice, shiny new furnace and heat pump, installed yesterday as a couple of electric space heaters struggled valiantly to keep the parts of the house we were in above 60 degrees.  So far the new system seems to be working quite well.  It’s not quite as quiet as I had hoped, but it’s not bad.  Looks like the humidifier needs fixing as well, but it’s a minor thing.

All things considered, I’d much rather have the air conditioning conk out at 90 than the furnace die at 20.

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Thieves, scumbags and vermin

Some people just need to be hunted down and beaten.

Take, for example, the vermin behind a company doing business in the Atlanta area. They’re variously known as VersaDebt, Warranty Activation Center, Debt Freedom, Debt Safe, Card Services, Client Services and probably dozens of other aliases. The current address I have for them is 4501 Circle 75 Parkway Suite A-1225 (Upper Level) Atlanta, GA 30339. Then there’s PO Box 674406, Marietta, GA 30006-0074. The domain registration s for Versadebt.com and some of the others indicate a couple of other suspects:O’Donald, Burt (BurtODonald@ibmi-us.com)
Innovative Business Marketing, Inc.
10021 SW 142 Street
Miami, Florida 33176
(305) 253-9977

Autenrieth, Joshua (goodliving13@yahoo.com)
Two J Consulting Group Inc.
108 N. Wymore Rd.
winter park, Florida 32789
(407) 758-3728

Oh, what a surprise!!! Florida, the home of an incredibly large number of thieves, cheats, liars, con men, murderers, drug dealers, and petty criminals of all descriptions. Apparently you can pretty much do as you please in Florida without the inconvenience of any semblance of law enforcement.

We have been getting telemarketing calls from these scumbags for a couple of years now. It’s always the same thing: forged caller ID with a fake phone number, a recorded pitch trying to sucker you into some scam – it used to be “debt and interest reduction for your credit card accounts”. Now it’s “Activate the extended warranty on your car”. All of it bullshit. We’re on the Do Not Call list, have been since it came on line. They don’t care. They know they can operate with impunity, because apparently the FCC and FTC are toothless old women, unwilling or unable to do anything. The GA Attorney General doesn’t care. I would be tempted to think these jackasses are paying people off for protection from prosecution, but I think the sad fact is you can get away with damn near anything illegal in this country any more, without any fear of having some government regulatory or law enforcement agency actually enforcing the bazillion laws we already have.

Like I said… some people just need an old fashioned beat down. Whatever you do, DON’T start prank calling (877) 680-3328 or (866) 620-3350 or (800) 350-3046, or FAX-bombing 678-238-0625, or hacking livedebtfreenow.com, versadebt.com, or ibmi-us.com. Just don’t.

Unless maybe you live in Florida or Georgia, then you can probably get away with it. Everyone else does.

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The M&P is sweet!

Well, yesterday afternoon I finally got the opportunity to run a box of ammunition through the S&W M&P 40 Compact that followed us home a little while ago. Nice shooting gun! With a 3-1/2″ barrel it’s not exactly a long range target pistol, but that’s not what I bought it for. What surprised me Continue reading “The M&P is sweet!”

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We seem to have trouble learning new things.

If there is one thing I hope we have learned from the present conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that US involvement in the Middle East can have no positive outcome. Involvement by pretty much ANYONE in the Middle East can have no positive outcome. When you’re dealing with governments and groups led by people who lack the slightest shred of common thought patterns, you just can’t expect to be able to play in their sandbox. Continue reading “We seem to have trouble learning new things.”

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Post-Christmas bloat

Some year I’d like to figure out how to convince myself I really do not need to eat enough for a small town during family get-togethers.   I think I did better this year than last, but it’s still going to take some gym time to work this off.   It may actually work out better for the dog.   Now that I have a decent hat to keep my ears from freezing, I may start taking the poor little guy out for walks again.   It’s easy to do when it’s warm, but at 20 degrees and windy it’s far too easy to just let him run in the yard and chase him around the house.

Well, back to the gym like the rest of the winter lemmings…

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Is it just me…

or did the snow come about a week or two too early this year? I wasn’t quite done with things in the back yard when it started. I’m hoping we get a reprieve, maybe just a few days of decent temperatures with the snow melted off. I’ve got antenna work to finish!!

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Successful quest!

Well, we did find helmets last night. We started with what we figured were the two best chances to find a decent selection. Both had a good stock of helmets – as long as you wear one size, and don’t want a flip-up modular. We left both places with the same story — “Well, our stock isn’t so good new, it’s out of season”. This from a motorcycle dealer, and a motorcycle parts & accessories dealer? In the Spring we’ll hear, “Well, stock is low, everyone’s buying now”.

So we ended up at Dillon Brothers H-D. Less than an hour later we had a matching pair of modular helmets, both of which fit. They had them in our size. Imagine that. Yes, they’re KBC like everyone else has, but with a little higher price tag… but they HAD them. Now all I have to do is get two new headsets…

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Mixed blessings

On one hand, the emergence of the Internet has been a huge blessing to many of us. I’d even say most of us. Access to information (some of it even correct some of the time) has been greatly improved.

On the other hand, just TRY to find a specialty shop that carries anything you need. Sheesh. Continue reading “Mixed blessings”

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There’s no reaction quite like a knee-jerk reaction…

I received an email today, another forwarded message with someone’s teary reflections on how sad the world is. This one dealt with the recent Westroads mall shootings in Omaha, which are still pretty fresh in our minds. Locally, at least – the national news has pretty much forgotten them already and moved on to the next catastrophe. Part of the email read:

“We’ve learned that while the gun lobby keeps saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” that in this case “people with guns kill people.” We need to find a way to keep adolescents and guns away from each other, and that no hunter needs a semi-automatic assault rifle with armor-piercing bullets to kill Bambi.”

It saddens me to see that some people are shifting the focus away from the human reason for this tragedy, and onto the convenient scapegoat again. I’m not the least bit surprised, of course; it was only a matter of time. Usually this time is measured in minutes, if not seconds.

Let’s start with the glaring factual errors first: The moron was 19, not an “adolescent”, a mentally Continue reading “There’s no reaction quite like a knee-jerk reaction…”