Doing What I Can. Fire Sucks.

https://www.gofundme.com/colvillefiresurvivors

That's THE Lawson's from McDonald v Chicago, Strong Second Amendment people who have done a lot for our rights here in Ill-annoyed and beyond.

Donate if you can, I did.

Regional Coordinator.

I am a member of GSL, and on the steering committee for our local meets in Springfield.

At the meet last night I got promoted, our fearless leader had to step down and since nobody else steeped up, I am now the Regional Coordinator for the Sangamon County GSL.

Me, the Grand Poobah. Yikes........

Stupidity in Small Groups.

Take a group of normal or above intelligence folks, add Jeeps and an off road park, instant stupidity.

I was invited to a birthday bash for one of my fake internet friends at the Badlands Off Road Park in Attica IN. They were there for the weekend and I could only go for one day, I picked Sunday.

Got up at FuckThis0:30 in the morning and made the 3 (ish) hour drive over with the Short Bus on the trailer and apparently go there a bit early.

It seems that the folks I was supposed to me up with got a bit smashed the night before, possibly more than a bit. So they weren't up, moving or answering the phone when I got there. Which was awesome as I have never been to this place and know exactly 1 person there, my Uncle ED, who drove over to ride along for a bit. He's been Jeepin with me once and he's never been here either.

We get the Jeep off the trailer and get it setup for the trails and take off following a couple strangers down the way. After a bit they stopped and I explained the situation and told them I wasn't stalking them.

They said it was no problem and headed into spots that were a bit tighter than I like and I was beginning to wonder if they were wanting to watch me rip the top of my Jeep to shreds.

After about an hour my fake internet friends finally returned my txt's and we met up. They were a bit slow moving and were fixing a driveshaft from the night before. We made proper introductions and started becoming meatspace friends. I was still not sure what kind of trouble I was in though. They looked like normal folks but we all know looks can be deceiving.

Ed ended up having to leave about this time so I ran him back to his truck, boy did he miss a good time. I bet those artificial body parts of his would have needed a lube job by the end of the day.

So we get the driveshaft repaired and head into the park, my Jeep, a purple TJ and a rattle can black Cherokar. The TJ was not as built as mine and the Cherokar is pretty close to mine so I figured if they could make it so could I.

We headed straight for the Quarry section which if you hadn't guessed is filled with rocks, boulders, ledges and stress.


Right off the bat I realize that this place is plumb full of stuff that's a lot more difficult than what I am used to playing on. Good thing I brought the trailer. And spare parts, And the GoPro. Bwaaahhhhaaahhhhaaaa, these guys are my kind of stupid.......

Lucian, in his wife's Purple Tj turned out to be a great coach and spotter and Marc in the XJ was a pretty good crash test dummy. If he could make it up or over something I stood a pretty good chance of making it. There were a couple spots he made that I didn't and couple I made that he didn't.

So here we go,

Was hoping to catch Marc being a super hero gettin up that ledge but he pussed out, so I figured that smaller climb looked like fun. The hooping and hollering you here was Lucian trying to break his rig on a smaller climb.

After clearing that section we headed down and around into a boulder garden. Lucian took the easy road and of course, I had to hit the hard part. Took the hardest hit of the day 5 minutes after we got started. That section was a lot of fun!

Just so you know, every time that hood shakes, its from something other that suspension bottoming out HARD. Lots of grinding and such throughout the day.

Next up was another small climb and that purple thing doesn't have lockers so if/when it gets flexed out it will just spin one front and one rear wheel. I got a giggle or 2 out watching it.

Next up we played in a notch, Marc got a bit hung up going out and ended up stacking rocks to get clear. Made me look like I knew what I was doing since it got easier after he finished.

Then came what I thought was going to be a scary climb but it turned out that once you got the front tires over the top, it was filled with superglue and velcro. Well maybe not but there was a lot of traction on top and it climbed right up it without spinning.  6' straight up was awesome.

Up the hill over the ledge and down the trail to another climb. Lucian and his short wheelbase made it right over that hump, Marc and I with the long wheelbases ended up high centered. Luckily I still had 1 front tire still touching and it was enough to pull me clear. Everything under the Jeep was grinding as I made it off.

Just past that was the one climb I was sure I was going to break something on. Goose it and go drag everything at least twice on the way over. 

Marc got a pic of me here so you can see what it looks like from the outside.

I caught the last part of Marc heaving his rig over,

Another climb, Marc knocked the dust off for me so I made it looks easy(ish).

Marc making it over a decent climb, me failing/pussing out. I could feel broken parts coming if I kept at it.

Good pic from on top,

Marc climbing the steps, me following.

All three of us heading back down that boulder garden on our way out to get some chow.

Another still from the middle of the day, I couldn't resist crawling up on the TJ's tire.

All in all a great day, met some great guys and didn't break anything in spite of my best efforts. I found a new place to play too. I will be going back for sure and will be going wheeling with these folks again. 

Tuesday's Child

She's got eyes!

She flipped me off when I was burping her but I didn't get a pic.

Probably wont be the last time she does that haha.

Update.

Nothing makes a bad day better than sneaking off at lunch to see the Grandbrat. A week old today!

She had some issues with jaundice and had to go to the hospital to spend some time in the tanning booth but todays check was good so hopefully that's over with.

The End is Nigh.

Something very wrong with the world today.

Seriously.

At 4:57 this afternoon,,,,,, I became a Grandpa.

That's Skylar Grace, 6 lbs, 19" long, has all 12 of her fingers and all 13 toes so everything is normal. Full head of curly black hair.

Mom and Dad are both doing fine. Wife was a wreck, and for the record I did not cry.....

Wish Pops was here to meet her.

For my Brat......

Nothing creeps her out like a clown. A 6'8" clown that can sing should give her proper nightmares......

Pardon Me,,,

Coming thru......

Blazing Swords!

https://www.facebook.com/OperationBlazingSword

I'm on the list, are you?

I'm proud to say that Erin is my friend, for real, we've even met in meatspace! I am also very happy and proud of her for the success she is having with this project.

Regardless of how you feel about lifestyles and orientation you know that they don't deserve to be shot up or slaughtered for being different.

Besides, I have gay friends and they are not nearly as scary in person as they are in real life......

And on a side note, If you decide to let the 70 pound welding bottle slip out of your hands make sure you use your big toe to cushion the blow....... Big toe is angry and broked, welding bottle is undamaged, didn't even hurt its feelings.

The Wheels on the Bus,,,

Go round and round.

Story of my week.

If you like awesome covers, check out his channel. Holy crap this Guy's got talent.

I've been wearing this one out, way better than the original.

 

 

Be prepared to spend an hour or so looking at his vids.



How Not To Start The Week.

Woke up to a note from Da Good Squaw that Zoey, our asthmatic cat had passed away while I was sleeping.

She had breathing issues in the past and usually a quick trip to the vet and a shot would fix her right up. After her last shot she became a new cat, more outgoing and braver, to the point of putting the Penis Dog in his place. We thought we had it licked but it was not to be.

Thing Plays A Guitar.

A group of Things plays Metalica.

Wasn't My Intention,,,,,,,,

To start a Jeep Blog but, uhhhh, well, it looks like that may happen. Need to go shootin maybe it'll cure me.....

Anyway, Took my Uncle Larry out on the trails over the weekend and ran Pokey's Run, its the first time I've ran this trail, 3 rated.

He's been in and out of the timber cutting wood with 4x4 trucks but hasn't been out in a Jeep just for fun, He didn't go running for the highway halfway thru so I must have done something right.

The trail itself had some interesting obstacles and a lot of elevation changes that were a blast being dry but I can see that it would be a flog fest when wet.

Right off the bat we hit an off camber v notch and we got hung up on a rock and to get clear of it we had to turn against the camber and I got to thinking we are going to fall over, which is not something on my "that would be awesome" list. About that time I looked over to check on the hitch hiker and realized that the top of the cage on his side was only an inch or so off the ground so falling over wasn't going to be that big a disaster.

Got loose and headed of to the next obstacle and reached up to turn off the camera and I had forgot to turn it on......

Anyway got a bunch of vids of the rest of the day and here they are in no particular order, (just for the record when renaming vids it pays to add a number in order so you can get them back in the right place.)

Fairly steep downhill across a ditch and crawl up the hill between the goal posts. When wet this could be the end of some fairly nice fenders.

The Guy behind us needs tires and has no lockers and struggled a bunch before pulling the winch.

Next up: a nice drive down a creek, not deep enough for a water wall tho.

 

 

 

Gobbler's Gulch. If you watch in the distance you can see the white Cherokee getting all kinds of crossed up and Larry says what are we getting into around the corner and all honesty I didn't know but couldn't wait to find out.

 

 



 

 

Picking the right line and having a lot of flex made that fairly easy, I guess I'm learning a bit.

 

I really need to start playing with the other camera mounts I've added to the Jeep as that one doesn't seem to show how rough or how far the rig is leaning on some of these spots. I can assure you that its more than what it looks like.

 

Eventually we came back around and ran it backwards,

 

 

 

There was a bit of 3 wheel action in there but that's what I built it for, besides 3 wheels is a lot easier on it than 2 wheels.

 

 

Not sure what the next spot was called but as we cleared the notch someone was saying sumpthin about Lucky J and being in an LJ and being named Jay, I thought it was good enough to name the vid.

 

 

 

The poor guy in the jeep we turned to avoid tried to run that notch and slid off the high side and ended up with tree roots sticking in the passenger side so they were in the process of removing everything they could to reduce damage when he tried to winch off. Then the winch cable snapped, followed by the rear tire popping off the bead. Eventually they got him clear and all was well.

 

 

After lunch we turned around and dropped back in the same spot, I killed it right off the bat.

 





 

 

Toward the end I learned another trick, to get around that tree you turn up the hill and allow the Jeep to slide against the steering to get around it without smashing up the top. It feels weird when you do it.

 

Climbed a waterfall, not very full though.

 

 



 

 

Wet and covered in slime that would be funner.....

 

Climbed a hill and found a hole,,,

 



 

 

Don't like flogging it hard so I end up getting a 2nd or 3rd try at some of them and those unannounced drops always make me cringe.

 

 

Almost climbed another a hill 3 times, got it the 4th time. Tried to hit a tree somewhere along the way

 

 



 

 

 

While we were playing on the kiddie trail the big boys were making a new line off to the left and catching some serious air in the process. Next time I'll grab some vids, those guys were having way to much fun.

 

After that we ran thru a puddle, only a couple feet deep, then watched a guy running his daily driver a bit harder than its used to,

 



 

Amazing what a stocker with some tires and a heavy foot are capable of!

 

 

Ran Rooster Hill and took the easy way, of to the right was the hard way and even the buggies were having trouble with it.

 

 



 

 

Getting close to the end of the day and we ran an obstacle that after the 4th try I said the hell with it and backed out. Had me a bit pissed but I wasn't about to tear something up or bounce off god knows how many trees in order to get thru.

 

My Jeep is just long enough to drop into 4 holes at the same time I just couldn't get by so we hit the bypass and waited for everyone else to come around..... 

 

 



 

 

Right before we got to that spot another Jeeper had dropped his phone and I think the white Jeep ran over it, that's what they were picking up out of the mud.

 

 

So we get line to head back over to meet up with the others and I got to thinking,,,,, this looks kinda familiar, OHHHH great, wrong line and we are headed back for more humiliation and possibly broken parts and bent fenders. Oh Joy.

 

Something got screwed up somehow though,, I made it thru without smashing or breaking anything.

 

 

 

 

 

That was pretty much the end of the day and it was a blast! No flipped Jeeps, only a couple flats and a broken drive flange on a buggy, I got out unscathed and my Uncle had a really good time. Success all the way around.

 

 

 

UNTIL,, I got up this morning to this.

 

 

Flat with a nice pair of gashes in the sidewall and it aint fixable...  Oh well, I need new ones anyway.

 

 

I also came up with a name for my fictional Jeep Fab shop and had a buddy waterjet out a plaque.

 

 

 





 

 Sound it out if you don't get it. Its funny, trust me...

 

 



 

 



 

 

 

 





 



 

 

 

 



Don't Watch This......

I warned ya.                                       NSFW.                         If easily offended not for you....

If you made it thru without laughing there is something wrong with you.

Boosting the Signal.

http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2016/02/murphy-thy-name-is-cancer-recurrence.html

Helping where I can.

You can help too.

Medicine Storage, a Cautionary Tale.

This happened a while back so I have rectified the situation.

If you wake up at eeerrr-mmaaah-gaaaah-thirty with an acid reflux attack (I'm gonna puke or my heads gonna pop off) and you stumble blindly into the kitchen to find the Tums (or a hammer to smash a toe to get your mind off it) it pays to be aware that the dogs aspirin/joint meds are right next to the Tums and is in a similarly shaped/sized bottle.

In retrospect turning on the light and visually checking would have been far more genius than I was capable of at the time.

I can tell you that attempt at meat flavoring in the dog meds was far from accurate. I already had the first one gulped down and the second one in my mouth before the taste hit my brain.

It did cure the problem though as I ended up projectile vomiting which dropped the pressure on my valves enough to make the Tums unneeded. Your results may vary......

And for your auditory mastication,,,,,

Winch Fest.

Saturday was the first Jeepin event of the year and it was interesting. Warm, at least for February almost 50 degrees. Had been looking forward to it for almost 4 months and it wasn't what I was hoping for.

We met up with the rest of the club and found out that the only trails open were a 4+ and a 5, both of which were more than I wanted to tackle. I have completely rebuilt/redesigned the front suspension and wasn't wanting to do anything stupid to it right of the bat. Well that went out the window and we got to be stupid almost immediately. My Jeep is a 3+ rig, on a good day it will do a 4 rated trail and this wasn't a good day.

This was a trail builder, trail repair and cut in some new sections. Turns out what we were cutting in was impassable for most of the Jeeps on the trail so I don't feel to bad about ending up on the winch. A LOT.

Da wife got me a Gopro for my birthday and this was the first chance I got to play with it, I did edit out most of the cable pulling.

The first vid I left the winching on there to show what happens when you make it up the hill and catch a bad hop and end up wedged between 2 trees. One in front and another right behind and they were a Jeep and 6" apart. No way to steer out of it, so you use the winch to drag it sideways out of trouble.

That limb that hit the Jeep was loud inside the cab, it sounded like something broke and freaked out both of us. Passenger was a friend of mine that had never been exposed to rednecks in rollover prone vehicles off in the trees. He had a good time and I promised him a more successful trip next time.

This next one was kinda fun but still stressful on me and the equipment. I don't mind running it hard on occasion but I don't like having to do this on every obstacle. If you keep doing stuff like this something is going to break.

When we finally got over the top we had to stop and let the guy in front of us lose his argument with the snotty grease covered hill in front of him. After watching the vid I realized I should have waited until he got winched out of the way before going over that notch. We had a lot of momentum after clearing it that would have helped with our argument with the snotty greasy hill. We lost that one too.

Last vid is what happens when stubbornness and determination get ahold of ya.

One more try I said, next time I say that just kick me in the nuts. It'll be cheaper and less painful in the end. That gravely poppin sound near the end was the passenger side axle shaft u joint exploding. It tried to take the axle shaft with it but while the ears were a bit bent I was able to salvage it. The shafts in this thing are aftermarket chromoly and are not as cheap as stock ones but are a lot stronger.

We were able to remove the broken bits and limp off the trail and make it home so it wasn't horrible but it still sucked. I will have it repaired for the next outing in a couple weeks and I hope to have a better day.

A bad day on the trails beats a good day at work every time though.

Anniversary

Its been a year since Pop's moved on and its been rough but we are doing ok. Still get the urge to call him at least once a week.

We still don't have a tombstone, he wanted a dark stone which had to come from China. I think they shipped it on a rowboat. The stone is in Georgia getting shaped and polished and will be awesome when it gets here. Since we are putting him and my stepmom in the tombstone we haven't had the gravesite rights yet so I have him on a shelf with me at the shop, he hasn't complained to much about it so I guess he's ok with it.

I went to see the hospital Chaplain on the anniversary and I did fine until I got on the elevator and that's when things got a bit overwhelming. I'm not a religious person but she was a big help and I wanted her to know that.

So many regrets and second guesses as to what we should have done but I try not to dwell on those and think about the better times.

 Miss ya everyday Dad.

 

 

 



Bullsh--------!

Errrr, Bullfrog. Mom-in-Law wanted a handmade frog for Christmas.

Normally I don't do requests but I thought it would be a fun project. I was mistaken.

If I were charging shop rate its a $600 gorram frog.

 

 

From the bottom, The only machines used were my bead roller for the rib down the center and my welder. Everything else was hand formed or hammered to shape.

 



 

 

47 kabillion hammer blows in each leg,

 

 





3 color fade paint job,

 

And since I like sparkles, I added some metal effects clear,

 

 

It turned out decent considering I had no idea how to build a frog. In the future I will leave frog building to Mother Nature.

 

BTW I named him Jeremiah......

 





Neglect.

Yep I have been neglecting this place and I guess its time to get back after it.

Couple new songs added to my IPod.

 

 

Awesome how well these 2 songs work as one.

And my new favorite song, Hippie music got angry....

 

 

Puts chills down my spine, well done Fellas!