Umm, yeah.

Set it back down, go get 10 gallons of gasoline, dump it all around the shed while staying on the tractor and leave a nice trail of it away.

Get your 12 gauge and load it with bird shot

Then snag a long pole with a rag tied on the end.

Light the rag on fire and stick it in the trail of gas.

Fuck that shed and anything in it.

Fuck those snakes too.

Shoot any that try to escape.

So The Wifely Unit wanted to go out to brunch for Easter and had made some reservations for 10:30 this morning. As I had envisioned, I was sore as a motherfucker this morning from all the exertion yesterday, re-arranging the entire garage.

We head out and are supposed to meet The Kid and his girlfriend but of course they are running late because she didn’t have her shit together.

We finally got sat down, ordered had a nice meal and was working on dessert. The place had filled up after we had gotten there and everyone was just loud as hell for some reason.

Probably the never ending Mimosa’s they had along with their breakfast special.

One poor girl waitressing for over 30 people, she was getting run ragged and I felt for her.

Time seemed to fly by and as the rest of my group were starting to think about ordering shots of Tequila to wash it all down, I noticed that was already 1:00 in the afternoon.

Yeah, you guys do whatever the hell you want, I gotta go do the front brakes on The Wifely Unit’s hoopty.

So they all agreed that The Wife and our oldest boy would get a ride home with The Kid and his GF.

Works for me. I hauled ass outta there but had to stop and get gas on the way home first.

Have some sticker shock Phil.

Sweet Jesus, gas had gone up 75 cents in a week!

$85.50 for 19 gallons of Regular.

Fuck You Biden. Fucking Commie Bastard.

After that little ass raping, I ran home, got changed, opened up the garage door and started hauling tools out front.

Her car has been making grinding sounds for over a week and I was dreading pulling the wheels off to surely find no brake material and wasted rotors.

I already knew the back brakes are completely shot but I was hoping to save at least another $500 on the repair bill that Les Schwab was going to hand us next week because I am not doing the rear brakes again. My body can’t take it anymore and just replacing the front pads was going to push it.

I had to order the front pads yesterday because my parts store didn’t have them in stock so just in case, I called them to see of they had rotors in stock and yes they did.

I got everything laid out, pulled up my little Mechanics rolling stool that was my Dad’s and went to sit down to start in.

About half way down my legs just started screaming at me.

I finally just flopped down on the seat and then had to sit there with my eyes squeezed shut and my teeth clenched together while I rode out the massive wave of pain.

I’m telling ya, it sure felt good when it quit hurting.

Off with the hubcap and wheel and started taking a peek at the rotor on the driver’s side where it sounded like the grinding was coming from.

Looked good on the outside so I gently ran my finger across the back side. Miracle of miracles, it wasn’t eaten up.

Since the wife was home by then I ran up and bought the pads and skipped the new rotors.

It hurt like a bastard every time I had to get up and sit back down but I finally got both sides done.

Just, in time too.

Not much left there before it started eating the rotors.

We got our monies worth out of that set for sure.

I took it for a test drive, came back and popped off the left front plastic hubcap because I was hearing a chirp every time that wheel went around . Some of the retaining tabs have been broken for years and sometimes it makes noise as it rotates.

Took off again, no noise anymore and tested the brakes several times.

No more grinding from the front and no more chirping after I put the hubcap back on either.

Yay me.

Tomorrow it goes in for two new front tires, a complete rear brake job and then we will see if they come back with some front suspension/steering issues because it certainly needs an alignment too.

The inner edge of the drivers side front tire was worn pretty good but not dangerously so.

I had to take several breaks but I finally got everything put back away and then came in the house to collapse in my recliner.

I can’t wait to see how sore I’m going to be tomorrow, the second day is always the worst.

But for right now I can just chill out and enjoy the rest of a nice day.

As it is right now I had to take multiple pain pills throughout the day just to get it done.

Sometimes I’m just too damn hard headed.

I should have called around and seen if anyone was available to help.

But because it was the first really nice day around here in a couple weeks, something tells me everyone would have been busy anyway though.

Pretty much everything in these two pictures except the big red toolbox got moved today.

And I am wiped clear out now.

My lower back and my legs are done in.

Especially my legs.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to sit down and take a break.

At one point it was every three or four minutes.

But I got it done.

Now that I have everything situated, I am going to go through that big white cabinet and the big black file cabinet, sort out stuff to keep and get rid of both of them.

Then all the crap in the whole garage is going to get gone through and a whole bunch of it is going.

If you look closely, you will notice that I moved all the machines into a square with a good size opening in the middle and all of them except the grinders are facing in.

I am going to get a rolling architect’s stool and set it in the middle so I can just roll around from machine to machine and the main cabinets without having to get up.

Something like this, with wheels.

This is long overdue and is partly the result of being nagged at for years.

It’s going to work good for me and somebody else better damn well be happy too.

I had no idea this was a thing.

Apparently you can buy a brand spanking new Old School Jeep.

Actually, you stick their body on a Wrangler frame…

And the trailers they used behind them.

They also make Aftermarket Off Road parts for the newer Jeeps too.

Where I work they have some of the same kind of lasers that they are using in the video to cut the parts out of the sheet steel with.

It’s interesting if you have never seen it before.

I have uploaded two videos as they highlight two aspects, the first is actual production and the second is a tour with the owner who explains a lot about it.

Both also diverge into different subjects so when you get to that point in the video just stop.

This country is doomed.

Yeah, OK, the left handed hammer thing is a joke as we all know.

The thing is, watch them search their damn phones trying to find ANY hammer.

Here’s a tip for you little dumbasses.

Take a few minutes EVERY DAY and just walk around the damn store looking to see where stuff is.

YOU SHOULDN’T NEED A DAMN PHONE TO BE ABLE TO FIND THE THINGS AT THE STORE YOU WORK AT.

Case in point.

Several years ago now I went into an ACE Hardware store looking for some obscure item.

There was a very cute young lady working in there and I asked her if she knew if they had any.

She didn’t even blink an eye, gave me the aisle number and told me where it was on that aisle.

After I found that item I remembered there was something else I needed so I found her again and asked her.

Same thing.

Aisle number AND DRAWER NUMBER.

Right off the top of her head with no hesitation.

If I had to guess, I wouldn’t have put her past 21 years of age, if that.

That young lady had her shit together and by now I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I went back and found her running the place.

This was just before The Kung Flu hit town so what happened to our kids in that space of time?

Might want to start laughing out of the other side of your mouth.

This is Joe Biden’s, I mean Barack Obama’s America now in 2024.

The fucking Federal Bureau of Investigation knocking on front doors of American Citizen’s because of Facebook posts.

We are one step closer.

That No Good Miserable Piece Of Shit Joe Lieberman finally kicked the bucket so I can quit hating on his ass after forty fucking years.

Rest In Peace Asshole.

Now if that crooked bastard Cheney would just cooperate….

They are few….WE are many.

We just got home from taking The Wifely Unit’s hoopty up to Les Schwab Tire Shop to have a brake inspection done and to get a leaky tire fixed.

The tire had a nail in it and since it has their tires on it, they fixed that for free.

The brake inspection turned into a clusterfuck.

I did the rear brakes on this thing several years ago and she has complained about it squeaking ever since.

My bad, I cheaped out and didn’t replace all the hardware kits and springs.

Anyway, about a week ago they started grinding from the left rear.

After forty plus years of this shit and since now I am all fucked up in the legs with all the clogged arteries, I told her I wasn’t doing it again, hence the trip to Schwabbies.

So after waiting an hour and a half and about ten minutes before they close, this young guy calls me up to discuss the issue.

First off he tells me they couldn’t get the rear drums off and that we need to make an appointment so they can employ someone there who can.

No surprise there, I’m sure as worn out as those brake shoes are and after 250,000+ miles, there is probably a hell of a lip inside those drums and they are probably going to have to use a great big puller on them.

That of course, will completely destroy everything inside.

Par for the course and no real surprise there.

The surprise I did get was when he told me that he couldn’t take the left front wheel off to check the brakes because the inside of the tire was bald.

“”Scuse me?”

Like I said, I’ve been turning wrenches for over forty years now, including two stints at tire shops plus ten years at a dealership.

Needless to say, I have literally pulled off THOUSANDS of tires and wheels and AT NO TIME EVER, did the condition of the tire ever stop me from taking the wheel off.

I’m thinking the fact that it was close to quitting time had more to do with it than anything else.

But still, that was a new one on me.

Can you smell the bullshit?

I can.

So between two new tires, a front end alignment, ( IF, they don’t find something else worn out) and a complete rear brake job, I told The Wife to expect to be paying $1200 AT A MINIMUM.

This on a twenty year old POS with 250,000+ miles on it.

She dumped almost $3,000 into it last year having the timing belt, water pump and valve cover gasket done on it.

The thing is, this damn thing just won’t die and she loves the stupid thing.

This is also the same woman who constantly gives me a massive ration of shit about a certain British car sitting out in the drive way that I have had for over 35 years, that according to her, needs to be sold yesterday.

God forbid I should try to draw any similarities though.