Needle well past "E"

We all know that guy who thinks he is so in tune with his car and pushes his luck driving on an empty tank. He is the same guy who ran out of gas every other week in high school. He is the guy who calls you up for a favor at 11pm on a Sunday night needing you to come out in ten degree weather and blowing snow with a gas can. He is the same guy who cannot hold down a job and so when you hand him $40 so he can fill up his fuel tank, instead he pumps in three bucks worth and drives off with your change. He's calling for help again. Dude, seriously...

Appearances May Be Deceiving

After having a rather heated discussion about Syrian refugees with some dumb Floridian transplant who proudly flies a Confederate flag from his pickup truck, and born and raised in New York to boot, I decided to further investigate what makes him tick. I stumbled upon a rather humorous video of him filming his buddy riding one of those new gyroscopic-type scooters. Of course the rider falls on the pavement and laughter ensues. That is when the true wanna be colors show.

Knowing full well his friends will be watching the video he asks repeatedly "Did you break your iPhone 6 S?" He doesn't ask if the rider is okay. He doesn't ask did you break your phone. He doesn't ask did you break your iPhone. Heaven forbid he refer to it as an iPhone 6 either, as not owning the latest and greatest phone might give the impression that he cannot enjoy the finer things in life because of his mortgage on that double-wide. It's an iPhone 6 S, bitch, because we're republicans.

100,000,000 Years

Just how long is 100 million years anyway? Never mind that the Earth is billions of years old. That is near impossible to fathom. Is it that hard to believe that over millions of years some plant had a genetic mutation that produced a sticky substance that would stick to the legs of an insect? Is it impossible to comprehend that said insect then transferred those plant genes throughout that plant species as it foraged for food? It seems the most plausible explanation to why pollination exists. It actually seems rather elementary. So why must society reject such a notion and insist that plants were always this way, engineered in the classical sense of the word by some designer that just decided this would be how things worked? Is it because we are conditioned to believe what has been told to us from some book that was written during an age when man had absolutely no idea how nature functioned? This seems to be the most plausible explanation, supported by the fact that religious institutions put people to death for suggesting that the Earth wasn't the center of the Universe. It had to be or everything we have been told is false.

That First Glimpse...

You have all seen it. It is where true feelings exist. Fleeting, honest, then wiped away. It is strong enough to create love, and potent enough to elicit fear. It is a beautiful woman entering a room. It is a poker player's first look at his cards. It is meeting someone face to face that you have recently insulted via social media and you know they know it.

That first glimpse. It says it all.

Epic, My Ass

Could someone please explain to me how a post on the interweb can be considered "EPIC?" Does anyone know the definition of epic? The Universe is epic, because its size boggles the mind. A less than funny story of how the dog jumped on your Aunt Jane and smudged her new dress is not epic. Actually it is just plain stupid and hardly worthy of the time it took to type. Now just because you own a shirt from Hot Topic that is a by-product of a dying and very lame trend of saying everything is epic doesn't mean that it is. Almost nothing is epic. Now I am epic because my greatness is beyond comprehension, but I will freely admit that as far as epic goes, I am the smallest and most insignificant example of what can be construed as such. Sometimes I think I am only just awesome because to actually use the word epic so out of context is the folly of the cheese.

A Pool and a Hose

As an electrician I have something in common with doctors. We both diagnose and fix problems. We are also approached in public places to have said problems explained to us in murky details. Unlike a doctor however, electricians are expected to explain how to fix problems so the homeowner can fix it themselves and therefore avoid paying for the expertise. People also think that since this is what we do for a living that we just love to do it in during our free time and should come over bright and early in the morning to do so. Wrong!

I understand that it is human nature to not want to pay for things. This is especially true when friends are involved. I am reminded of the time I wired my buddy's new inground pool. He and his wife want for nothing and regularly take vacations, go on cruises and have a home full of expensive gadgets. So when I acquire much of the materials for this install from work, at my own peril, I should not have to listen to his wife cry poverty when I ask for the ninety bucks that I had to spend at the hardware store for the things I could not acquire. Seriously, am I supposed to pay you to do this for you? "We aren't made of money" is a shitty thing to say when I already saved you hundreds.

So it took every bit of imagination I could muster to get power to the pool location, and quite a bit of expertise. There I am with the sun beating down on me in ninety degree heat when my buddy dares suggest that "we should do this as a business. We could make some nice money." Now the fact that he hasn't lifted a finger to help, nor has he yet to offer me a beer, seems insignificant to the fact that I know he isn't going to pay me shit for all of this work. The irony seems lost on him, but what are friends for, right? Of course I was right. Adding insult to injury he tells me the electrical inspector told him it was the nicest installation he had ever seen. Of course it is.

A year later my buddy's brother moves in down the street from me. His family is somewhat poor but again he always seems to have money for snowmobiles and for his RV and for the kind of things that I do without. He knocks on my door and asks me if I would be interested in wiring his new pool when it gets installed next week. Well here we go again. I guess at least I can take a dip when the summer heat becomes unbearable, which never happens, but I digress.

We begin by heading to the local electrical supplier so he can open an account. This helps to avoid the inevitable arguments over the cost of materials. The clerks suggest an account of $1200. It better not cost me that much, he moans, as I already spent seventeen grand on the damn pool already. It seems to fall on deaf ears when the merchant tries to explain that what he will need for the job is simply that expensive. The clerk and I share an awkward moment as the guy walks out of the store, hops in the vehicle, and slams the door (to my fucking truck no less!). This does not bode well for my bottom line. I am pretty sure I am going to get stiffed. The merchant ran his credit application anyway and later told me it was rejected. Of course it was.

Naturally I cannot get the work done fast enough for his liking, even when "borrowing" a couple hundred dollars worth of wire from my employer to try and save his some cash. He seems indifferent to the fact that I had to rewire half of his service panel and add a sub-panel just to make room. To make a long story short I bust my ass on the sunny side of the house for a week and do a superb job. Then the guy doesn't even give me the case of beer he said he would give me for all of my effort, which in all reality should have been about fifty cases and the hundreds for the materials. He then has the nerve to come knocking again when he destroyed all of the switches and outlets across the yard from the pumps by crushing them with the excavator he was using to install his fence. I told him I would be up when I was able. I never went back and I have yet to be invited for a swim. Ain't that a peach?

This is why they say never loan money to friends, or in this case try not to work for them. You will just get hosed in the end. If you make a big stink about getting paid then they stiff you anyway and you are then down a friend, therefore I tend to just let it go. I make it back when I can, perhaps when running into them in a social setting like at a tavern. When they come back from the bar I ask them where my drink is. When they say drinks are like four bucks I respond "well that was about the cost of just one of those fittings that you never paid for on your pool pump." If the guilt isn't enough to get them to go back to the bar then it was nice knowing you.

Permanent Dismember

In my never ending search for the ultimate in irony I focus today on the United Nations and the fact that the five permanent members on the U.N. Security Council (U.S., U.K., China, Russia and France) also happen to be the five largest arms dealers on the planet. So what exactly do they mean by "security?"