Tell me this doesn’t land.

Hey guys, as some of you are aware I’ve been concerned about Johno. It has been 6 days since I had heard from him. That’s very unusual for him. He’s really good about annoying me with 15-20 emails a day. I had some emails from him last week that were in the trash on my iPad but I hadn’t deleted them yet. Some of them were sent to multiple people and I was able to see their names and addresses. So I tried reaching out to them on a one by one basis. Finally a person named Dee got back to me. Dee said Johno hadn’t been emailing for about a week. After some back and forth I suggested Dee contact the police and get them to do a welfare check. Dee said they only corresponded by email and texting and had no idea where Johno lived. I said the hospital had his address. To make a long story short, I stayed up

In contact with Dee until about 3:30 am. I woke this morning to find a new email from Dee telling me that the police had been in touch. They ended up doing a forced entry into Johno’s home and he was found deceased in his bed. No further details except that they thought it had been a few days. Johno occasionally would send me articles from a paper over there called gumshoe news. It turns out that Dee is the owner and editor of the paper. 

When Johno first appeared on the scene 5-6 years ago I didn’t care for him. I thought he was arrogant, not funny, and if I ever met him I was going to punch him in the face and knock him out. About 3 years ago I started emailing him. He was cautious about me as well. After a few days we had become friends. He had a dry sense of humor and I eventually learned how to take him and found him funny. He told me that he never found me funny. I will miss him.

I know that he would send you guys some emails too. Obviously you all meant something to him for him to do that. 

I just felt that you should know the news that I was able to learn. I know that he was also in touch with Wirecutter Kenny Lane. I have not ever been in touch with him. If any of you have a way of contacting him, maybe let him know too.

Deathray 

Mechanical Knowledge

“Y’all ever wondered why diesels are so loud, especially the old mechanical ones? This is why… the injection system! This P-8600 is like a mini engine pumping out almost 1200cc of fuel. It’ll be bolted to the side of an IH pulling tractor and tearing up the track this spring!”

This is a mechanical fuel injection pump that is going on a high horsepower Pulling Tractor.

Get a load of how much diesel it is dumping in just a few seconds.

I looked it up so you don’t have to.

1200 CC’s is 0.3170074 of a gallon, so almost a third of a gallon.

I couldn’t even guess how much money that thing cost to build and test.

Leigh might have a better idea.

It will give you a better understanding of why they belch so much black smoke at full throttle.

More like 25.

We live in Suburbia, on a corner with one street that doesn’t go through and stops at a driveway and at the entrance to a Cul De Sac going the other way.

Normally it’s fairly quiet although for some reason there is more traffic than one would think.

At least I do.

Garbage pick up is every Monday and every other week everyone puts out a rolling recycling bin with cardboard, plastic bottles and pop cans. There are smaller, stackable bins for glass bottles, newspapers and something else we never use that I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Since I haven’t even seen a newspaper in years we obviously don’t use that one either.

Also since I have worked a Swing Shift off and on for the past eight or ten years, there are times that I will be sitting out on the front porch having a smoke at One or Two O:Clock in the morning.

Over those same years, I have occasionally seen people going through the recycling bins pulling out the recycleable plastic bottle and pop cans in the middle of the night.

Sometimes on foot but mostly someone with a little pick up or car they throw them in the back of.

I doesn;t bother me a bit as long as they are respectful enough not to leave a mess, which I have never seen anyone do.

People do what they gotta do and we are obviously not going to do anything with them.

The last two Pick Up days have been different.

The last time two weeks ago and just now this morning a few minutes ago, there have been guys out there in broad daylight going through them.

Something has changed and it is indicative to me that people are getting squeezed harder than ever trying to survive.

Just my observation that I thought I would share.

Anyone else seeing local patterns changing?