well hello good friend!

Well it has been a while since I have posted on here because I have moved my day-to-day blog to my myspace and facebook page. this last sumer and winter was full of trials and tribulations but I am stll chugging along doing the best I can do.

I hate to always bitch....

but this seems like a good place to rant about stuff that pisses me off and let me tell you this last month has really tried my paitence, I have gone back to just doing all the plowing on my own, why you ask? well lets see, whenever I call someone to see if they want to come help all I get is "oh I got plans" well ya know what fine then I stopped calling people and just decided to do it all myself. For years I had loved to go plowing because it was fun, about 2 years ago it stopped being fun.... as I look back it also was the first year that I had more then one plow truck running. when I started plowing in 99' for Dan Wilson it was fun, in 2000 it became even more fun because I bought Brian Hayes old bronco, there are pics floating around on here somewhere, another friend helped me out and sold me a 8' Meyer snow blade and I layed out some brackets and another friend did all the welding for me, yea the truck was a pile of shit and the plow was hacked together but it was mine and I was making decient money with it. after that truck I bought a Jeep Cherokee and plowed with that for half a season before the shitty 2.8 motor blew up, and from there on I plowed with the durango until fall 2006 when I bought the 90 Chevy and put my brand new plow on that, it is also the year I got got the family video plowing account by lowballing it, biggest mistake of my life but it was a lesson well learned about how corperations are only out to fuck over their contractors and employees... I have always stayed away from residential work, I honestly don't know why, this year I took on 10 residential drives and I have not had a problem with no pays and nobody has bitched once. I dropped all but 3 of my commercial lots, I still plow and everyone loves the service I give them but unfortunantly I have decided that this is most likely my last year for snow plowing, when your passion for something turns into hating to have to do it then why do it? I don't know for sure just yet what next winter will bring but I cant keep plowing just to cover the gas and some mad money, I am going to start flyering for mowing work next week, I am going to take on strictly residential work, too much bullshit for commercial work, everyone wanting 1-2 mil in liability just to do a $20 mowing job!?!?! FUCK YOU!!! I have $100,000 in liability on my business and I doubt I could do that much damage if I tried, I have also decided to stop buying cars to junk, the steel market is too volitile plus I am not making any money at it now that my helpers are making more then I do after the cost of gas/fuel and the price of the cars, to hell with that, I will let the rig just sit out at Toms before I make $25 a day driving around hoping for a little piece of free scrap or someone to call willing to off their car for $200 when the junkyards are paying $300+ now, prime example: buy a chevy sunbird for $160, I spent $40 in gas to go get it and bring it to my place and then haul the body in, $10-$15 in oxygen/propane to torch stuff off of it, the body brought $222 in junk, the aluminum rims brought $60 in junk.... now lets do the math, I have $225 in this junk car that junked for $282. I made $60 NONOOOOO! I have to split it with my helper... I spent 3 hours doing that and made $30? whats the point of that? I can go work at autozone or Advantage Auto parts or Walmarts tire shop and make $10 a hour there, fuck that. As much as I am against working for the man, at this point I am ready to get something part time and just do it for some guaranteed income hell at $40 a day my bills are paid and then some! and that would still leave 4-6 hours in the day that I could go out and dick around mowing lawns or doing whatever I feel like.at this point I honestly don't know what the next turn will bring me but all I do know is that something has to change and it IS going to change, I am selling off all the shit that I don't use and condensing everything and getting to the point that everything can fit in my dumptruck and on my car hauler, grab mapledog and see where the winds blow us.

It's been a while

just have not had much to say or share... been depressed for a while, nothing new but I am finally starting to pull out of the funk and I am having a good start to the new year, Tom Anderson gave me a bobcat trailer to use after almost getting into a wreck with the other one of jeremys and loaned me some money so I could start buying cars again and get back on my feet. it really helped my confidence in being able to make things work the way I want them to, I am averaging 1 car bought, salvaged, and prepped every other day at a good profit although I don't know how much longer the motor in the durango will hold up towing a 10,000 pound trailer around all day the low oil pressure and motor noise has been getting worse but until I make enough money to buy a new turbocharger for the ram it is all I have to use. I hate to say it but I cant wait til spring, this winter has been a complete bust as far as snow goes and there isint much demand for firewood at the moment because of the 45 degree plus days lately. oh well such is life, I'll be back.... don't know when but it wont be as long as the last pause of silence

I guess I really am an asshole

well it is about 4am right now and I have been working on cleaning up the shop so I can get plows ready and out of nowhere a shout HEY! apparently Steve thought someone was trying to get into our garage but it was just me, anyways I figured I was about to get bitched at but he was acting real weird but I walked over and we both asked what each other was doing at 3:30 in the morning and we got into some small talk but I noticed that he kept stuttering and finally asked him if he was alright and he said no.

I should have prefaced this with a short reminder about how me and him never really liked each other and it had gotten to the point of yelling matches and each otherready to duke it out in the road. but never the less.....

anyways he said that he has malignant brain cancer as well as lung cancer.... I just kind of stood there feeling like the worlds biggest piece of shit for previously wishing this guy would just die and not more then a year ago telling him to his face that I couldn't wait til he died so I could shit on his grave and there he is standing next to me telling me that the doctors said 3-6 months but he is hoping for a year or two, thats rough.

hmmmm....

still alive, new truck is holding up good, other then that nothing new or super interesting just making firewood.
~Nate

072207

yesterday was somewhat fun, I decided to screw off and go do something different so I went down to the docks to watch them do some dredging and take some pics of the Willis B Boyer
freighter ship for the hell of it

I love my camera, nomatter what it takes some awesome pictures, here I am on the shore taking pictures from 150 yards away, always crisp

With the 10X zoom lens I was able to spy on the crane operator eating popcorn, LOL




oh well, I was going to wait and suprise everyone as to what I bought myself for my birthday this year but I will spoil it, I bought a Slush Puppie machine on ebay, LOL I have always wanted one and I love the slushes so what the hell
I cant wait for some Donatos tomorrow, LOL

the MOUNDS again

I just have not been in a mood to write since the fourth, don't know why but I do know what part of it is and I cant really discuss that here or other people will read it and get pissed over the truth oh well here are the pics of my trip to the mounds
playing in the creek






Lunch time and a cool-down session


















lol, muddy durango hauled 4 people around just fine suprisingly













I think I can... I think I can.... oh fuck it where is the winch!









after our little group decided to leave the mounds and head to the outlet mall about 6 miles north, it was dark as night and the lightning was frequent but I wanted a new pair of shoes so we stopped at the Nike store and waited for it to blow over, after about 10 min it was nice again but when we returned to flint everything was white as if it had SNOWED
atleast 2" of hail on the grass and a inch on the road and at intersections it was up to a foot thick and there were kids playing in the ditches in ice up to their chest. I have not seen hail like that in about 8-9 years
















well I decided that come hell and high water or hail to my asshole I am going to get a newer truck so I bought that 98 ram 1 ton off of Tommy, gave him $1500 and the rest in payments that way I don't have to get it all together at once, he is a cool guy











the more and more I look at this tree I think it is going to end up in someone elses yard at the rate it is leaning and I don't know for sure when or how but I am going to take it down once I get the new motor on my chipper and I can find somewhere with a manlift for rent for under $200

oh well I am done for now, I have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to take scrap in and go to archabold