Horsefeathers & Rabbit Turds!

well hello good friend!

2009-03-20T22:16:00.002-04:00

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....

2008-02-08T21:37:00.001-05:00

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

2008-01-15T19:36:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-29T04:08:00.000-04:00

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....

2007-09-30T23:44:00.000-04:00

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

072207

2007-07-22T02:21:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-09T22:21:00.000-04:00

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

hmm.......... been buisy (ofcourse)

2007-07-04T00:41:00.000-04:00

well I am not really in the mood to write but I will give ya all the high lites, went to a few auctions and on Saturday I went to one I never even planned to go to and I am glad I did, I bought all the pallets at the auction for $10 and finally took them all in today for a whopping $265 profit plus another hundred bucks in scrap metal that I didn't pay a dime for.... nice, today was an exceptionally good day, got a good battery in the durango and stretched it's legs good and bought mulch for the flower beds and while I was out at T&J getting mulch I flagged Tom (jr..) down and asked him about a truck I saw sitting in the tall grass rusting away and voillia it is for sale,... 1998 Ram 3500 4x4 Dually with a Cummins turbo diesel and a 12' flat bed that dumps, drive it home for $3000, I about shit a brick at that price cause I have been bidding on these trucks on eBay and not a single one goes for less then $10k so I am going to buy it and do the minor body work to it and repaint it and have one nice truck to use... well I need to get some rest, nite

yet another auction

2007-06-24T17:22:00.000-04:00

some auctions are good and some are bad, the one today was awesome, I finally bought a new chainsaw after Jeremy decided to destroy my old one, well I actually bought 4 of them, one real nice Stihl 036pro for myself and some shitty ones to hand out as loaners... why loan out a $600 chainsaw when you know it will come back messed up. loan out that $20 craftsman and then when it breaks the break-ee can afford to pay for it. although the whole point of getting a nice professional saw is that I am tired of neighbors bitching about our trees so sometime in the future I am going to just cut down the one maple that steve keeps bitching about.... if I take my time and double check everything I shoudnt have a problem doing it over the course of 2-3 days with some help from DC. and Jeremy... got plenty of chainsaws LOL, I will add more later but right now I have to get these snow plows unloaded

$2800, oh where art thou

2007-06-19T00:24:00.000-04:00

this week has already started out with 3 challenges

get money or truck from Frank - not working
find a new 1 ton truck - not working
getting people to pay their bills from 2006/2007 plowing - kinda happening

as far as the new 1 ton truck I am working on that, as far as frank goes..... I guess I will have to just chalk that up as a lesson learned. and people and outstanding plowing bills.. well I am working on that and I think I am going to have to get a lawyer involved, I hate to but sometimes they are a necessisary evil.....
~Nate

Zoning Enforcement!

2007-06-17T21:32:00.000-04:00

welp I just got home from the strawberry fest and boy am I beat, lately the sun just takes it out of me..... I took a bunch of pictures of Tom Andersons "floats" that he was displaying in the parade... well technically he was not in the parade because he got kicked out over decals on his cannon and shithouse he towed behind it....., total BULLSHIT in my opinion, well here are pics in no peticular order:

after the "parade" was over I just had to have some of my favorate BBQ, cool guy and he makes good food! I have done quite a bit of welding and fabrication for him on his BBQ trailers

this next winter when stainless steel comes down in price I am going to build a larger cooker for him and I will make a smaller one for myself. well it was a fun day but it is time for me to put the quads away and call it a night

~Nate

pictures of the week

2007-06-12T01:00:00.000-04:00

the way Toledo works is assanine

2007-05-23T20:05:00.001-04:00

why can't thing just be simple?

answer: because simple does not make a dying city any revinue.

what the hell lets take the week off!

2007-05-22T01:20:00.000-04:00

last night sucked, all I did was toss and turned and I just could not get my mind off of this accident bullshit..... I HAVE to have the truck towed home tomorrow otherwse after a week they scrap it.... nice... BUT on the plus side I found a F350 that was taken to a local scrap yard same year as that one and it has a rust free front clip and a 7.3 diesel engine........ $1000 buys the truck(well I already put a deposit on it....shhh ) and it has every part needed to repair the maroon one so once my insurance gets done examining it I am going to tear the front clip off and do the engine swap and then most likely have the guys at New Direction Auto Works do ther magic and install the front clip and repaint the front and cab Gloss Black to match the 10' flatbed that is going to go on the back instead of fixing the farkd up bed... at this point I just want my damn truck fixed so I can get on with life and get back to making money.

Demo-Derby Nate Style

2007-05-18T01:38:00.000-04:00

it just amazes me at the way today went from pure awesome to shit in 50'

well I will start off with the positive side of things.... someone called on my ad I have for the hauling of appliances and scrap metal and said that their church had a verry large commercial freezer unit that they wanted hauled away... no problem.... me and Jeremy go and look the unit over and while wandering the halls we hear the musicians practicing in the sancturary so I go in and have a seat and listen to the 3 girls playing flutes.... I absolutely love the sound of music on a flute so I killed 5 minutes or so listening.... anyways we get this 1800# unit loaded in the back of my F-350 and get all the parts and stuff loaded aswell and the church cordnator lady comes and thanks us and ofcourse doe's the invite to the church so we exchange cards (they are looking for a landscaper/plower) and as we are getting ready to head out I had the lady a nice donation for the metal( all stainless @ $1.50 a pound)..... now to the gritty... after stopping and saying hi to a friend I take Jeremy home and on the way back while I was coming up on byrne ave I am watchig cars turn infront of me but it was 150-200 yards ahead so no big deal...... well I had a green light and then this little car darts infront of me with a red F-150 behind him, I miss the car but unfortunantly I take out the F-150 at about 50 mph.... even though I saw what was happening and tried to avoid it there was just no way to not hit someone, to the right was a car with people in it and to the left was another car full of people and stopped dead ahead of me was the red pickup so my 10,834# truck tore the hell out of that truck spinning him into a 2005 dodge caravan... if anyone has taken physics they know that a moving mass of 10,000# hitting a moveable mass of 4000# does not necessisarly mean that the 10,000# object looses all of it's momentum therefore my truck decided to sacrifice the rest of it's front clip on a telephone pole because the steering linkage broke... or the clifnotes version is me and mapledog went for a cedar point ride, now I have no truck, I am going to get a nice check sans state farm, and I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow.

nite
~Nate

everybody wants something

2007-05-13T02:00:00.000-04:00

well this evening I wanted something, a helping hand to change a flat on my dually.... ofcourse nobody wanted to come and help me pop the bead so I could change the tire... guess it will just sit on the jack til morning when I can take it to walmart and have it changed... sence it is 2am I doubt I will get up early so Jeremy will just have to wait til it is done before I haul the damn fence panels. tough shit, if giving me a hand is not on his list of priorities then helping him is not on mine.... afterall I cant haul fence panels with my truck sitting on jackstands now can I?

nite cruel world!!

hmmmm,.... earth to Frank! where is my truck!?!?!

2007-05-12T00:21:00.000-04:00

I just looked at the date and realized that it has been about a month now that a buddy of Mine Frank has had my dump truck..... ofcourse rent free..... I was supposed to either get the money for it or get it back by this weekend. hopefully he brings me the money because if he does then I will have a little more money twards a new to me cabover Isuzu

20MPG, Diesel and has a max GVWR of 14,500 pounds so it can be plated as a private vehicle so it can be legally parked at the house and nobody can do a damn thing about it.... f@%king inconsiderate neighbors always have to pry ito my business and try and make my life misreable, they made me get rid of my favorite truck because it was a 1.5 ton capacity..... after putting a few hundred miles on one of these I am in love with them and they will run on homemade Biodiesel..... currently I am spending around $150 a week on gas alone so being able to get my fuel for about $25 a week is another plus....

welp I am off to bed, I have to be up early so I can go and buy steel to finish a trailer I am building for a friend

where is the dagger? OUCH.... not my back!!!

2007-05-10T00:09:00.000-04:00

hmm, it is amazing how some people can point out the way someone is useing you and yet do the same thing while your focus is on the other people. it is sick, downright sick that someone can be that minipulative and yet blame it on other problems that they have.... they will be all nice and buddy buddy and kiss your ass because you have something that they want and when everything is said and done they turn around and take that dagger and stick it in your spine just to fuck you over and ammuse their little brain.

it amazes me that some people in this world can be so two-faced... give a whole bunch of lip service and then when they are gone talk a bunch of shit about you and your family when you have helped them out with goods and advice

fucking users and posers....... I have no need for them nor will I ever help them again.

making a list

2007-05-02T01:27:00.000-04:00

it is amazing the amount of shit that I have, not only do I have a garage packed full, but a bunch in the back yard aswell as a 10x40 storage unit about half full... hmmm how to remidy that... simple... I am loading up everything that I have not used in the last year and taking it to the big Yoder & Frey consignment auction for the May 8th sale. here is my list so far

the F-350 (cant pour gas on the ground as fast as that thing uses it)
a air compressor
a compressor pump
a pallett Jack
a mig welder
my large mig welder I just bought in fremont that I am yet to use
a bunch of hydraulic crap
all of my rubber belting besides the 12" deflector belting (one large trailer full)
3 sets of dually tires
a fertalizer spreader
a spray tank
the 10' snow plow blade (maybe)
and a bunch of small random shit that I bought but will never use or had an idea that did not work
basically I am tired of holding on to stuff that I "might" use in the next few years.... if I need it I will buy it and if it is not here people won't have a reason to borrow it and break it before I can use it

my goal from this condensation is that I will get enough money to have a transmission put in my 91 chevy and get it back to being reliable and then get out of dodge for a little while and go explore.... throw some tools in the truck, grab the dog, load the 4 wheeler on the truck, go borrow DC's 16' aluminum boat, pack the tent and get away from the hell for a week or two

Virginia Tech

2007-04-20T16:41:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER

*******first off if you think you might be offended by me being an ass then please go away*******

ok now that that is said yes I feel sorry for them, but not enough to go wearing ribbons and changing my myspace profile pics and avatars on bullitin boards that I visit and all that bullshit that worships the dead and idolizes people cause they died in a shooting. I have the best and simplest solution and that is to make it legal to carry a conceled weapon without a permit or bullshit like that! if everyone is armed then the criminals that use guns to commit a crime just MIGHT think twice about pulling a gun on some lady. .... more on that later

back to VT.... where were the police after the "first wave" oh wait here they were!! secret spy pics:

I will add more to this later, I have to go and buy more ammo for my guns

13 days!?! so what, I'm buisy

2007-04-16T04:46:00.000-04:00

well I have just been buisy with makng money, nothing new, sold a bunch of conveyor belting at the archibold auction for decient money, well ok money... enough to pay my commercial insurance policy and cover this months truck payment for the black chevy.... god I wish family video would pay me so I can just pay that damn truck off... right nowI am trying my damndest to keep things paid ahead but with no good money for the last 2 months and pallets and scrap metal slowing down I have been shit out of luck and lucky to bring in $100 a day but unfortunantly everything comes in spurts, I have ebay set up to list about 30 things tomorrow at 6 in the evening so that will provide enough loot to let me get a new landscape trailer and possably a new mower aswell.... everyone in this town is as broke as I have ever seen it and listing stuff for sale in the paper has yeilded no results so far so to hell with it... people come and look at a outboard motor that is worth 2 grand that I am asking $500 for and ask if I would take $200, I told that guy I would rather take it to the scrapyard for the aluminum then sell it to him.... this town is headed to the shitter so fast that it would make your head spin.... well I have to get this junk truck prepped and ready to take in first thing so I am out of here

F-350 = best investment to date

2007-04-03T02:03:00.000-04:00

just been doing what I do best, working my ass off and making money.... got the red F-350 running decient so that is what I am driving now, 10MPG sucks but it is reliable and has brakes and overdrive.... oh well until I get the trans in the black chevy it will have to do..... someday I am going to buy a 5th wheel camper and this truck will pull it to the carolinas when I move.... just to see what it would look like I backed it into place infront of a buddys 30 footer and I cant wait til I have saved enough to get one, used 4-5 year old 28'-33' 5'ers as they are called on www.irv2.net are going from $6k-$12k so saving for one wont be a problem, I figure I can do it in a year or so just with mad money, well I am tired and I am going to bed, nite

time has been flyin!!

2007-03-28T01:14:00.000-04:00

shit, another week gone.... never to be returned to my life......... oh well

got the new F-350 home tonite and started working on it trying to figure out what the problem is...... WOW it is exactly what I told Johnny it was, the selector valve was stuck and the fuel pump in the front tank is bad.... $40 in parts from my friends at KRAP Junkyard and the truck will be on the road, I cant believe that people get pissed at the deals I get but hey thats life, ya gotta have money to be able to jump on those deals! I am not gonna lie but things have been tight for the last month or so with the ony thing keeping me afloat is the scrap metal I have taken in... some days ya eat hot dogs and some days ya eat steak

I am just happy that I am going to have something to drive that I can take on the freeway without it eating a gallon of gas every 7-8 miles

I gotta laugh though Jeremy finaly was paid a visit by the Department of Neighborhoods on monday because of "Jeremys Junkyard" as I have nicknamed it... mostly he has a asshole neighbor that keeps calling and complaining, kinda like what I went through with Steve
blodgett.... oh well I hope he can make everything kosher by thursday so they dont tow his...conglomeration... speaking of monday... yesterday actually I was out on the 4 wheeler and I was flagged down by Tom Gamble who practically begged me to remove the "ripoff-report" that I had filed at www.ripoffreport.com back in august of last year because he keeps getting phone calls about it and it is the first thing that pops up in a google search when you search for cottman transmission toledo and from the way he talked he would do anything...... it amazes me the power of the internet and me just blowing off steam...... he even hinted at building me a transmission for my work truck but I dunno yet on that, but he basically said to name what I want and I will get it... oh welll I am off to bed... I gotta run out to KRAP first thing and maybe do some flyering in stone oak

1983

2007-03-20T22:02:00.000-04:00

wow this last weekend was awesome, went to 2 auctions and got some awesome deals that I wouldnt have imagined I would have got from the Baker-bonningson consignment auction. I was not going to go to but DC talked me into it and man am I glad I did, FIRST off I got my bidder number and it was one of my 2 lucky numbers, one is 484 and the other is 1983 and I got 1983 and I knew I would get what I wanted HOT DAMN!

50 HP Johnson $35

250 amp MIG welder $15
a 14" Hydraulic Cylinder and control valve for $15.00, a dozer blade for the 4 wheeler for $2.00 and the best part... a 1994 Evinrude 1?? possably a 135hp but I think it is a 100 HP V-4 Outboard motor with Electric tilt and trim for $25 which is about 1/10th of the motors retail price,... I have been looking for this motor for a while and now that I have it I am not selling it even though I have had 3 different offers around a grand each for it, screw that I finally got a decient motor for my Lund and that boat WILL be on the water this year, no more dicking around, I bought a piece of 1/2" stainless plate to reinforce the transom after I get done with the transom rebuild.... I am listing the 35HP motor and the 50HP motor on ebay as I type this so that will bring some money in soon along with the glass ceran Jenaire cooktop I had in storage so I will be able to get the 1 ton I have had my eye on for the last few months,
Johnny had it marked at $1800 but his idiot mechanics screwed up something and he asked me the other day what I would give him for it and I used my auction sign language to say 3½ and he said 4 so I said ok... it is a step into the past, it is identical to my 90 F-350 I used to have with the exception that it is a 4 door cab... but ya know what that means.... ROAD TRIP TRUCK!!! 2 bench seats so there is room for 2 people to crash... now I gotta find a pic of my old f-350
this is scarry, I found the pic in less then 10 seconds.... god I loved this truck, it was a F-450 1.5 ton Diesel 5 speed with a 12' flatbed..... it is the only vehicle I regret selling and I have had alot of them.... Just sitting in that red dually rekindles ALOT of memories.... back when I was just a snot nosed teenager and drove it like I stole it and me and Jeremy always had the trailer behind it doing something, hauling a junk car or doing lawn work or just out scrapping (back when it was $35 a ton)whatever paid for lunch and diesel fuel we did and had a good time.... now a days everything has to get technical and people have to pull head games and you have to deal with bullshit drama.... I honestly miss working as the "shop manager" for Triad Cycle and cuttin grass part time with Jeremy, so I only made $25-$40 a day but I didnt have to deal with the bullshit called life, no stressing about paying $1000 a month in bills, who is going to do this and how am I going to run 2 crews this year with limited startup capitol? well as Tom Anderson says " Nate, Just do the best that you can and know down in your heart that your dream will succeed" atleast I know I am going to have a nice new landscape trailer to use, I am ordering the steel for it next monday and I am going to cut it all up to size and knock 2 of them out next week, one for me and one to sell so I can get my money for the other one... shit I priced them while in fremont and just for a plain jane 6x12 single axle landscape trailer ith a ramp gate is $1000 and I have everything but the steel to build myself one and the steel is less then $200!!!! I am going to take my old hauling trailer out to the auction at archibold and see what it brings,.... last time I was there they sold a tandem axle 6x12 with no sides for $350 I really hate to get rid of that trailer but I want something new something that is "mine". I am still up in the air as far as what to do with the dump truck... I want to yank the drivetrain and the bed and hydraulics off of it and scrap it but I know Jeremy needs a 1 ton truck bad for his littlle hauling biz so even though people think I am a callous asshole I still care about my little buddy and I couldnt just junk the truck to be a dick... I am tired of rowing gears and having it nickle and dime me but I wont complain too much, that truck has made me $10k sence I got it and it had sat in a backyard for 5-6 years before I got it and I DROVE IT HOME and had it hauling the next day. I dunno.... I am going to concentrate on getting the maroon 1 ton and then go from there once I figure out what my goal is everyone will know...
I am out of here, l8r

NABBED by a Leprechaun

2007-03-16T10:58:00.000-04:00

Speeding drivers in Orange County today may spot a leprechaun dancing on the side of the road but instead of finding his lucky pot of gold, expect to find a hefty speeding ticket.

Deputy Richard Lockman of the Orange County Sheriff's Office has stopped more than 50 drivers who were exceeding the speed limit, which is 45 mph in the area of University Boulevard west of State Road 417. The fastest driver stopped so far was going 72 mph."We've given about 1 ticket every minute since 8:00 this morning," said Lockman, who, in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, was dressed in a green leprechaun outfit complete with hat, tight white knickers and a shiny plastic pot of gold.

Lockman held a sign that read "Watch your speed or it will cost you your pot of gold." A laser speeding detector was located above that sign. More than 10 motorcycle deputies were on hand to stop violators. Another operation will take place later this afternoon on East Colonial Drive.

Sheriff's office spokesperson Jim Solomons said the operation is all part of an aggressive driving crackdown.

"We do this sort of thing a lot on holidays to make people are aware they are speeding," he said.

In past years, deputies have dressed as other mythical characters. Lockman said in December 2006, he dressed as a Christmas elf. Speeding violators complained that being stopped by a deputy in costume was entrapment.

"I think that's just ridiculous," said Lockman, who was wearing a fake fuzzy red beard. "The elf didn't force anybody to speed."

The problem is, The problem is.....The future is not what it was

2007-03-14T22:58:00.000-04:00

I guess I can use this title again cause it has been a while, it is amazing how one thing can start a chain of events and then you end up with a problem, and the problem is that the future is not what it originally was and people cant handle that.

well I guess I should post a rebuttial to Trishes blog, I dont want to because I just want to be left alone and poking the hornets nest never results in a good time, screw it i will post it in the morning before i leave for my non government mandated job

some people just don't get it , I have better stuff to write aboutI

2007-03-11T22:58:00.000-04:00

I still dont understand why people just cant leave well enough alone? forget it, I have better stuff to write about like the auction me and Tom Anderson are going to on Tuesday, they have 25 tons of stainless steel scrap and hopefully we can purchase it all for around 50¢ a pound, the main reason I am going is because there is a pallet of 10 gauge stainless sheets, more then enough to make a stainless steel flatbed for my black chevy pickup, whatever else I pickup I will list on ebay and if I get no response there I will just scrap it out, Mike at Metal Management has been treating me verry well lately giving both me and Tom $1.50+ for 304 stainless and around $200 a ton for shread steel so I am happy, I will be real happy if I get those 6 sheets of 10 gauge though for 50¢ a pound/ $300, I already have a sissor lift and a powerpack to run it, it will give me an excuse to sell the dump and put that money twards the new truck I found today or trade the guy if he still wants to do it

2 posts today

2007-03-07T23:05:00.000-05:00

well today I am going to add a post to my private blog aswell as one here,....

it just amazes me that some people just dont get the drift that you just want to be left alone to do what you do and then when they dont get their way they throw a hissy fit and try and start drama when they need to look at their current situation before speculating on others.... but I dont care, I have better things to do with my time like celebrating with my two employees at City Hall the fact that I just landed a $1200 a week mowing contract today, FINALLY a good contract and at that rate I will be able to afford a new 1 ton dodge ram too, yAy! well first thing will be buying atleast 1 landscape trailer .

I will deal with drama at a later time, the only thing on my mind right now is G'ma, everything else and everybody can fvck off til everything is back to running smooth.

~Nate

well, the lund plans are scrapped

2007-03-05T02:15:00.000-05:00

well Jeremy scrapped the Inboard/Outboard motor and drive I was going to use for my lund so now I am going to have to find a new motor.... great... but thats ok! it is not like I needed it or anything like that

oh well, I'll just have to get a new outboard for this season

thinking about my boat right now

2007-03-01T01:41:00.000-05:00

just sitting here thinking about my boat right now.... plus listening to DC's myspace profile song "Redneck Yacht Club" isint helping.... I have ALOT of fiberglass work to do to make things right on it but I WILL have it on the water this year for sure, tomorrow I am going to go to Jeremys place and load up the new engine and outdrive and start working on it and getting it prepped now so that when I am ready I can pull the Lund into the garage and seperate the hull from the top shell and start tearing it up and getting it ready, I figure it will take a month of weeknight work to get done but once it is done it will be the ONLY Lund Fiberglass speedboat from the Shell Lake Wi. plant that has a 200hp inboard/outboard engine in the WORLD and I know that for a fact because I contaced Lund to ask if they ever produced a I/O powered fiberglass boat and they said NOPE! and that my boat is #9 of only 183 from that peticular mold and that when I finish the swap they would really like some pictures because there is only 10 known boats still afloat from that hull mold and mine is one of them... COOL!

"Redneck Yacht Club"
'm meeting my buddies out on the lake
we're headin out to a special place
we love that just a few folks know
there's no signing up, no monthly dues
take your johnson, your mercury or your evinrude and fire it up
meet us out at party cove
come on in' the waters fine
just idle on over and toss us a line

(Chorus:)
basstrackers, bayliners and a party barge,
strung together like a floating trailer park anchored out and gettin loud
all summer long side by side there's five houseboat front porches astroturf,
lawn chairs and tiki torches
regular joes rocking the boat that's us
the redneck yacht club

bermuda's' flip-flops and a tank top tan
popped his first top at ten a.m., thats bob
he's our president
we're checking out the girls on the upper deck rubbin' in 15 spf, its hot
everybody's jumpin' in
later on when the sun goes down
we'll pull out the jar and the old guitar
and pass'em around

repeat chorus

when the party's over and we're all alone
well be making waves in a no wake zone

repeat chorus

hmmmmm... still alive after the mounds

2007-02-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

well I am still here, I guess that is a good thing....
had a good time at the mounds in mt morris michigan on saturday til about 2:45ish when the 4 wheeler I was riding kicked out of gear for some reason while I was asending a steep hill basically at the top and well when the forward propulsion system fails on a incline usually the item being propelled goes the opposite way and unfortunantly it resulted in me rolling the quad 3 times with it coming to rest on my melon , lol. it was a hard hit and I still am missing about 10-15 minutes of memory but f-it it probably isint that good of a memory to have anyways, we are planning another trip there on March 10th..... unlike some people that have made the comment of " cant you leave well enough alone? guess you dont learn from your mistakes!" BULLSHIT! I will do what I want to do, if you want to sit at home and do nothing thats fine with me, cause I am going to go and do what I love doing... period I decided about 2 months ago that I would start being more adventurious and make new friends... well I have met a pretty cool group of about 8 guys that share the same interists and like doing the same things I do aswell and I am glad and verry appreciative that they have accepted me for what I am... it is good to keep business business and friends friends and I think thats the way it will be from now on.

here are some pics of the fun

the things I do for money

2007-02-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

well one of them isint working the showers at the local truck stop but I will tell you it would have been easier to sandpaper the asshole of a alligator in a phonebooth then clean up the mess I just did earlier, picture this: a basement enterance in the side of a building that goes to a parking lot so burried in a snow drift I didnt find it til I fell [sank] in it up to my head, wow that was fun to dig out, it claimed a shovel and 2 tanks of gas in the snowblower aswell as a hour of my time, but hey $100 later I have a grin on my face...

Rob mentioned that I didnt list any failures but in all reality it was quite the eventfull storm, what all broke

the lift hose on my snoway plow [black ¾ ton chevy] $28
Angle hose on the dumptruck $76
Motor Mount on the dumptruck [not fixed yet] $20
2 headlight bulbs $32
and for the major failures I tore the 10' plow off of the dumptruck after I made the decision it was better to wreck the truck then hit a minivan full of kids on their way to go sledding [sleds on the roof] and I broke a upper mounting nosepiece on the snoway, but both times it took longer to drive home and do some welding then it took to fix it.... looking over receipts this last storm is a recoed for the most gas used at just over 120 gallons for 2 trucks but that isint too bad considering the 1 ton has a big block and did not get shut down at all for 36 hours, we just swapped drivers... well I am off to bed, tomorrow I gotta dump off the gravel in the back and start hauling firewood again.... well ya know[the things I do for money]

Teh sn0w Kicked my ass

2007-02-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

wow, is all I can say, I spent 60+ hours of seat time over 4 days in 3 different trucks... oh well it was worth it, nothing like making more in 4 days then most people do in 2 months but here are some pics

oh and I cant forget my new JEEP!! YAY finally something nice to drive besides all of the pieces of shit I own!

nice

2007-02-13T00:47:00.000-05:00

WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM TUESDAY TO

12 PM EST WEDNESDAY.

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM TUESDAY TO
12 PM EST WEDNESDAY.

A MAJOR WINTER STORM IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT THE ENTIRE REGION
TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY MORNING. LIGHT SNOW WILL MOVE INTO THE
AREA LATE TONIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING. CONDITIONS WILL
DETERIORATE QUICKLY DURING THE DAY ON TUESDAY...WITH SNOW
BECOMING HEAVY AT TIMES. BY EVENING RUSH HOUR...4 TO 8 INCHES OF
SNOW IS POSSIBLE...LIKELY MAKING THE EVENING COMMUTE VERY
DIFFICULT. ANOTHER 3 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW IS LIKELY TUESDAY NIGHT
BEFORE TAPERING OFF WEDNESDAY. STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 7 TO
14 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE WITH THIS STORM. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY
THAT THE SNOW MAY MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO SLEET MAINLY EAST OF
INTERSTATE 71 LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND TUESDAY EVENING. IF IT
DOES...SNOW ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE REDUCED SOME.

NORTHEAST WINDS WILL GUST TO 30 MPH AT TIMES TUESDAY AFTERNOON
AND TUESDAY NIGHT CREATING CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW
WITH NEAR WHITE OUT CONDITIONS AT TIMES. THIS WILL ALSO MAKE
TRAVEL VERY DIFFICULT.

HAHAHA MY GUT WAS RIGHT!!!!

2007-02-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

I kept telling people to watch out the second week of Feb. cause we were going to get hit with snow.... even back in Jan. and everyone looked at me like I was nuts... well IN YOUR FACE!!!

OHZ003-006>009-017>019-027>031-036>038-047-122315-
/O.CON.KCLE.WS.A.0002.070213T0800Z-070214T1500Z/
LUCAS-WOOD-OTTAWA-SANDUSKY-ERIE OH-HANCOCK-SENECA-HURON-WYANDOT-
CRAWFORD-RICHLAND-ASHLAND-WAYNE-MARION-MORROW-HOLMES-KNOX-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...TOLEDO...BOWLING GREEN...PORT CLINTON...
FREMONT...SANDUSKY...FINDLAY...TIFFIN...NORWALK...
UPPER SANDUSKY...CAREY...BUCYRUS...MANSFIELD...ASHLAND...
WOOSTER...MARION...MOUNT GILEAD...MILLERSBURG...MOUNT VERNON
1001 AM EST MON FEB 12 2007

WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH

WEDNESDAY MORNING.

A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH
WEDNESDAY MORNING.

A MAJOR WINTER STORM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE UP THE OHIO VALLEY
TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY SPREADING SIGNIFICANT WINTRY PRECIPITATION
ACROSS THE ENTIRE AREA. SNOW SHOULD START EARLY TUESDAY MORNING
AND CONTINUE THROUGH MUCH OF WEDNESDAY BEFORE TAPERING TO SNOW
SHOWERS. SOME SLEET MAY MIX WITH THE SNOW LATE TUESDAY AND
TUESDAY NIGHT IN THE SOUTHERN AREAS...GENERALLY SOUTH OF A LINE
FROM FINDLAY TO MANSFIELD.

BY THE TIME THE SNOW TAPERS OFF WEDNESDAY MORNING...ACCUMULATION
OF MORE THAN 8 INCHES IS EXPECTED AND COULD POSSIBLY REACH A FOOT. WINDS GUSTING TO 30 MPH WILL ALSO LEAD TO BLOWING AND
DRIFTING OF THE SNOW.

A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THAT HEAVY SNOW IS POSSIBLE. IF YOU
ARE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...REMAIN ALERT TO RAPIDLY CHANGING
WEATHER CONDITIONS. STAY TUNED TO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OR
THE LOCAL NEWS MEDIA FOR THE LATEST UPDATES AND POSSIBLE
WARNINGS.

Pave Paridise and put in a parking lot

2007-02-09T22:24:00.000-05:00

Part of the land occupied by off-road vehicle park is eyed for $1.6 million cargo airport.

By STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com

WILKES-BARRE – The owner of Paragon Adventure Park near Hazleton lost another appeal on Thursday but vowed to take the issue to a higher court.

Lycoming County Senior Judge Clinton Smith granted a motion from Gladstone Partners L.P. to dismiss Kyle Knosp’s appeal of an August judgment and eviction issued by District Judge Thomas Sharkey in Hazle Township. Gladstone wants to have Knosp’s off-road vehicle park evicted from the property so it may build a $1.6 million cargo airport on part of the land.

Gladstone is eyeing a 4,800-acre parcel in Luzerne and Schuylkill counties for the facility that would be run by an authority created by the Luzerne County Board of Commissioners.

Gladstone claims that Knosp breached his 25-year lease with landowner PCA Corp., and wants Knosp evicted so the land could be used for the airport and related development.

Knosp denies breaching the contract and said he’s being bullied into giving up the lease.

Jonathan Lang, representing Gladstone, argued that the method of appeal that Knosp was trying to use should not be allowed because the issues in the appeal were already addressed by another county judge.

After Sharkey ruled against Knosp and granted Gladstone a $36,000 judgment, Knosp’s attorney, James Scallion, filed a petition for relief asking a county judge to lower the judgment. At the same time, he filed an appeal that asks a judge to review legal defects of the district court ruling.

Judge Hugh Mundy in October lowered the judgment to about $7,000, and Scallion in November filed an overall appeal of Sharkey’s ruling in county court.

Smith dismissed the November appeal last week because it wasn’t filed within 30 days of Sharkey’s decision. Scallion then had the writ reinstated, saying Mundy never ruled on the issues raised in the writ.

The writ alleged that Sharkey had no jurisdiction to hear the case because Paragon’s business offices are in Schuylkill County and Sharkey’s jurisdiction is Hazle Township. It also alleged that Sharkey is prohibited from granting judgments more than $8,000, and that Gladstone never proved it had standing in the case.

Because the petition for special relief couldn’t be filed without the writ, Lang said the writ also had to be decided before Mundy.

Smith agreed and struck down the writ, which was Knosp’s last hope for appeal in county court.

Smith also dismissed Knosp’s motion to quash Sharkey’s order granting possession of the park land to Gladstone.

Scallion said that an order issued Wednesday by Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ann Lokuta will allow Knosp to continue operating the approximately 4,300-acre park as Knosp appeals the case to state Superior Court.

Scallion said Knosp would be amenable to relocating the park to other available land owned by PCA Corp., but PCA has offered no acceptable terms.

Jill Moran, the county prothonotary and Gladstone’s attorney of record, said she was pleased with Smith’s ruling.

Moran said she was “having a hard time deciphering” Lokuta’s order because she couldn’t find any case law referencing Lokuta’s terminology that her order would remain in effect until “a final and unappealable order” was made in the case.

Moran said she is considering asking Lokuta to reconsider her order in light of Smith’s rulings on Thursday, as well as appealing the order to a higher court.

Moran said she thinks the only issue that could be appealed to Superior Court is whether Smith was correct in dismissing the appeal to county court. “I think we would win on the merits,” she said.

Knosp said he will continue operating the park on the land for as long as the courts will allow. As of Thursday, he was still unsure if the park would be open this weekend.

this cold snap blows........NOT!!

2007-02-09T00:37:00.000-05:00

I absolutely wont bitch about it.... firewood sales are starting back up, there is 10" of ice in maumee bay so I can go ice fishing, it is too cold for the scrappers to venture out so scrap metal has shot up about $50 a ton due to the lack of a supply

here are some pics of my $300 truck making that $300 back in 1 load

here is the next project I am going to tackle...hopefully this weekend... 120 gallon Atlas compressor and I am using a 2 cylinder Quincy air pump from a GE "Dash 9" locomotive and hopefully the 5hp motor that is on the compressor that I built for Rob... using the 5hp motor I think I will have less then $100 in this compresosr and it will be big enough to handle sandblasting snow plow blades :P

I found a 3hp motor out at Tom Andersons place that he is going to sell me for $50.... cheaper to run for sure and is more then enough to drive that single cylinder pump that is on there the big grey box on it holds the "magnetic starter" that I built... that was a fun project but hey it works

nite all I got alot of splitting to do tomorrow for this weekends orders

still here

2007-02-03T03:44:00.000-05:00

just buisy as usuall, mostly doing firewood and playing HALO on the reciently aquired XBox, a guy from canada emailed me this pic yesterday and it had no discription but I thought it was cool so I posted it

snow YAY w00t!!!!

2007-01-28T18:18:00.000-05:00

Tearing it up on the quad w00t!!!!!!!!!!111111

this is what I am doing today, and tomorrow, so dont bug me on my vacation!!!

Banging my head against the wall

2007-01-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

I am posting this from Jeremys house because I never made it to the internet place today to pick up my equipment for the house , go figure

lost the fricking transmission in the black chevy and I ended up having to drive it home in reverse

here are some funny pics of today

hmmmm I dont think boats are supposed to pass the vehicle
towing it

and then "whoops, I didnt think the curb would knock the boat off the trailer

oh well, some people just dont learn

Court Rules Sculptures are 'Agricultural'

2007-01-22T21:33:00.000-05:00

The steel sculptures decorating the yard of Thomas J. Anderson at 8246 Angola Road cannot be regulated by Springfield Township, according to a recent court ruling.

A December 20 opinion issued by Sylvania Municipal Judge Scott Ramey states that "the character of several of the objects, specifically the strawberry and corncob, indicate that these may likely be used for agricultural purposes."

In March 2006, Jacob Barnes, township zoning enforcement officer, cited Mr. Anderson for failing to to obtain a permit for the structures, which included a large strawberry and a wagon among others.

When he returned in May 2006, Mr. Barnes noted that the objects were still present, and then included a wagon, a corncob, a man holding a flag, a dinosaur and a strawberry.

Township officials believed that the steel objects met the definition of a structure, and therefore required a permit because the township zoning code defines a structure as "a combination of materials to form a construction for use, occupancy or ornamentation..."

However, Judge Ramey ruled that they are not structures because they are not permanently affixed on the ground.

Citing several other similar cases, the judge stated "when it is necessary to interpret provisions of a zoning ordinance, the provisions must be construed in favor the property owner."

Mr. Anderson, who was an unsuccessful candidate for township trustee in November 2005, told the court he has lived at the property since 1966, when it was zoned A-3 agricultural. In 1996, the property was zoned RA-3 large lot rural residential, which allows single-family dwellings and agriculture uses.

Mr. Anderson argued that he was not required to obtain a permit for the objects because they are permitted under agricultural zoning.

Agriculture is defined as "the use of land for agricultural purposes, including farming, dairying, pasturage, agriculture, horticulture, animal and poultry husbandry," and more by the zoning code.

A zoning certificate is not required by the township code for any building or structure in an agriculture area. Mr. Anderson told the court that "he uses his land for farming and housing animals."

Judge Ramey said the township failed to provide proof that any buildings or structures on Mr. Anderson's property were not being used for agricultural purposes.

"The state has failed to meet its burden of proof that these objects serve no agricultural purpose," he said.

At a January 2 meeting of the Springfield Township Trustees, assistant zoning inspector Robert Seger updated the trustees on the lawsuit and asked whether they wanted to pursue an appeal.

"The contention that it is an agricultural operation is mind-boggling," Mr. Seger said. "I don't know what the court's trying to do."

Mr. Seger said Mr. Anderson's financial records submitted to the court show he has no income from agriculture.

Trustee Andy Glenn said he also was frustrated with the judge's ruling.

"The township attempted to get it cleaned up, but the court apparently deemed it ‘mining steel'-that it's an agricultural use there," he said.

"He's advertising a non-existent agricultural business," Mr. Glenn said.

In December 2005, Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik issued a similar ruling concerning the property.

The trustees had filed an injunction in court against Mr. Anderson for allegedly displaying signs without a permit and operating a commercial business in a residential area.

For several months, a sign with Mr. Anderson's telephone number and "Firewood for Sale" was placed on a large wagon painted red, white and blue and filled with firewood.

At that time, Mr. Anderson's front yard also featured a flatbed trailer with a turkey sculpture, an old bus, and several metal sculptures including a dinosaur.

The court ruled the sign was in violation of the zoning resolution. Mr. Anderson told the court that he would remove it and did so.

However, Judge Osowik stated that the wagon is not a sign, and therefore it may remain in the yard.

Trustee Bob Bethel said he was unsure whether the trustees should pursue further legal action.

"That's a tough call. When I drive by there, I want to do something about it," he said. "But after all the time and money we've spent on it, we keep running into a brick wall."

Mr. Bethel suggested postponing legal action to "see if we can take a different approach, other than a confrontational approach."

_____________________________________________________________________

LOL, I love Frosty the snowman!!!!

The problem is, The problem is.....The future is not what it was

2007-01-19T23:45:00.000-05:00

w00t! Awesome day today, made about $300 today and we got some snow, yAy!!! all is better in my book... some people are still being childish and pouting but like before I dont give a shit, I got some loot in my pocket and things are going pretty good with the exception of a broken taillight but once again I am having a awesome day so it does not matter, I get High speed internet in about a week so I will be cruzing at the speed of light again, oh well, here is some pics from my Awesome day today... brought in some scrap metal I had stockpiled in the garage for whe I was low on funds, took it in and made a hundred bucks, then took $80 of that and bought a load of wood and delivered it for $180
oh well, I will see ya next time, I am off to bed

Brand new wood burning stove for $185

2007-01-10T23:46:00.000-05:00

it never fails I stumble on good deals when the money I have is ment for other things... oh well I am going to jump on it anyways because I can get a brand new still on the pallet Century Wood Stove that usually sells for $550 for $185, I have been talking about getting a new stove for the garage for a while, I wish I had extra money because if I did I would buy one for Cherie & Rob so they can have heat in their farmhouse but such is life I guess, sense I have a shitload of wood at my disposal for next to nothing I can heat the garage more efficently... yea thats it, lol all that matters is that I have enough money to buy the stove and pay that fricking ticket I got before christmas.....

bah!!!11

2007-01-10T02:37:00.000-05:00

this week is starting off boring....BUT it is finally starting to get cold and cold = people buying firewood, ABOUT TIME!! I have been pissing away $100 a week on the ad in the paper and I have had no calls in the last 2 weeks that have resulted in a sale f@wk!!!! however having free time means that I can surf the net on the neighbors wireless (LOL) so I have been checking out different music groups on myspace, hell I remember when myspace was first started way back in 2002 and I have had an account sence they started and wow has it blown up bigtime, anyways, hopefully I can make about $500-$600 this week but we will see... oh well I have to crash, gotta be up early tomorrow (today) so I can drive out to wauseon AGAIN because some dipshit on ebay has me on a wild goose chase all over a saw blade jeesh I should have paid the $25 to have it shipped cause I have used $20 in gas to drive out there already

happy new year

2007-01-02T00:49:00.000-05:00

I guess.....

I am sitting here listening to "You Gotta Tap" by AudiObody and I am thinking about what I need to do to make 2007 a profitable year... but everything comes down to cashflow right now, farkin a! right now I am in a bit of a bind because someone wrote me 2 checks that are not worth 2 dead flys for a grand total of $600... oh well.... but this week I am going to be buisy hauling in 20 or so tons of scrap metal for Tom Anderson and then next week I start torching steel at his yard for $15 a hour, I need to get a new face shield but I gotta make some cash first!

still working on the splitter plans

2006-12-25T13:29:00.000-05:00

I will update this as the day goes on but here is a screenshot of the 12 way wedge, each log will take one cycle instead of up to 12, IE: 15 seconds instead of 1-2 mnutes

merry christmas

2006-12-25T01:24:00.000-05:00

merry christmas.... I am sitting here playing with Auto-CAD designing something I will probably never build but what the hell it will help pass the time... I am basically copying Tom Andersons firewood saw setup but on a smaller scale... instead of a 60" blade mine will have a 36" blade and split the log blanks as they are cut, right now he has 2 guys splitting wood while he saws and they can produce only 2 cords a hour, mine will need one person to run it and should produce around 5 cords an hour provided I have enough logs to go that fast. I have been scrounging for parts to build a good splitter for over 2 years and I finally have at my disposal 80% of what I need, I have a 3cyl 45 hp gas motor, a 40 GPM ydraulic pump, a bank of spool valves (8 valves) 4 hydraulic cylinders, one is 6" wide and 36" long and will be used for splitting the wood 12 ways in one shot... now all I need is some steel, some time (got plenty of that , lol) and a set of plans. the only real expensive things that I do not have yet is the 36" saw blade which is around $600 and the hydraulic motor to power it which is around $250 but like I said before.... I have been scrounging for 2 years to get the other parts at little cost to me so if I have to wait til next year to spend a grand in making it saw its own logs... so be it! 2 chainsaws are $300 and me and a helper can cut alot of wood in a afternoon with 2 saws.... the big time saver will be only loading the logs once and getting 12 splits in one pass and then having a conveyor load them right into my dump truck off the back of the splitter... oh well I will add more plan drawings later

running around like a checken with its head cut off

2006-12-22T23:03:00.000-05:00

well the title describes it best, this evening I went up to gibralter trade center to pick up a external hard drive enclosure so I can start using the 160gb sata drive I have had in the computer as a backup but after looking at the contents I found something that I thought I had erased and that was the video footage from July 3rd. I have had 4 cameras in various places sence last year and one shoots down the driveway from the coupola on the garage, 2 wireless ones are in the large maple tree in the front yard and one in the backyard...bah I am not going to get into that... it is best left in the past.... or until I file suit in late January..

I am still not decorating for christmas - to hell with it
I am still waiting for snow - but I stopped holding my breath
I am still hauling firewood - but I doubt it will last much longer unless it gets colder

oh well

Inconsiderate & ungrateful people

2006-12-09T23:27:00.000-05:00

normally I try not to bitch and moan about petty things but lately people in general have just been pissing me off.... I'll start with Trish... Jeremys girlfriend, all this woman wants is the world handed to her on a fricking platter! about 3 weeks ago I decided to let her use my blazer because she was constantly bitching and whining about not having any transportation because her blazers transmission went out". "Nate, can I use your blazer to look for a job and to take the kids to school" how can I say no? Maybe she is going to actually get off her dead ass and on to her dying feet to try and support herself and her kids so jeremy dosent have to do it all by himself... wow what a concept.... a week goes by and all that the blazer has been used for is driving around town for shits and giggles...... 3 weeks later the transmission calls it quits, I knew it was not in the best of shape to begin with but I was pretty sure it would make it through the winter if it was not beat on.... well now it has a new transmission.... and she killed a set of brakes.... and blew out the radiator,,,... to top it all off she bitches me out because I havnt had it fixed yet!!!! Well pardon the fuck out of me!!!!! I just spent $450 on that transmission! that was cold hard cash toots and it broke the pre-season repairs fund, I am not going to put that $180 radiator on the charge card so you have something to beat the shit out of! you already killed 4 of jeremys cars and I am not going to let you screw up a plow truck that I am going to desperately need this winter just so you can joy ride around town and beat the piss out of it when you get mad. What finally pushed my last button was last night I ran them(jeremy & trish) all over the place because they still dont have a running car, I spent $20 in gas....no biggie... and while we were out we stopped at the country hearth center to look into getting a grate for their fireplace so they could use it and actually get some heat besides the furnace. the lady showes us the wrought iron grates and the cheapest one was $55 I know jeremy dosent have that kind of money so I asked the lady what else she had and she found a cast iron one for $25, being the nice person I am I bought that for them and then went to my house to load up about 6 bundles worth of firewood and 20 gallons of water. we all squeeze in my chevy and drive over to their place and I unload the wood and clean out the fireplace and get a fire going for Jeremy because he is yet to master getting one going and right as we sit down for a late dinner trish pops in a dvd... and the opening scene is some guy having a frontal labotomy done in a mental hosspital... come the fuck on!!! I am trying to eat and she pops in a horror movie??? what the hell? everyone that knows me knows I am open to almost anything but I dont like horror movies and gorey stuff, shit Jeremy begged me for a week to go see "Underworld Evoloution (3 or 4)" with him because of his anti-social thing and that movie wasnt that bad as far as weird gorey stuff goes. so I left like 5 minutes after we get there, I had originally brought along a DVD that I had from a box set on the stealth program that interisted me and jeremy but she didnt want to watch that "stupid airplane shit"

I try my best to help people but anymore screw it, anymore people are just out to use you until you cry foul. I think I just need to start looking for different friends.

wow time flies

2006-12-01T00:57:00.001-05:00

good god the last 3 weeks have been a living nightmare, I have been selling firewood and have sold quite a bit for Tom Anderson... well when I say a bit I mean enough to pay for me to purchase a 2 ton dump truck :-D I but it already split for $100 a cord and sell it for $180 delivered in Toledo... just back in the drive and dump and go around $60-$65 of pure profit for an hour and a half of work... even working at jeep wont touch that unless you are doing OT all day long

I'll tell you what I cant wait fr the snow... I am SO Excited this year I will have 5 trucks running, the Chevy 2500 I just bought, the dump truck will get a 10' road blade and do stand-by work for the city of Holland, my blazer is getting a 6.5' Meyers( what was on the durango) the durango is getting a new 7½' Meyers plow, Jeremys S-10 is getting a 7' Meyers blade and will be a backup truck. I just landed all 13 family video stores which is a pretty decient contract and hopefully Andy Mock from Techlawn will get back ahold of me so I can give him our Sub rates. all I can say is that I am praying for snow, I did some math and the family video contract is worth around $10k for snow alone plus the mowing work in the summer... well I am off to bed, I will post pics of the new trucks soon

Toledo proposal targets cars in backyards

2006-11-15T00:12:00.000-05:00

Toledo proposal targets cars in backyards

Leaving cars parked in yards in Toledo could put their owners at risk of seeing their vehicles driven away behind a tow truck, under a proposed ordinance reviewed yesterday by a Toledo City Council committee.

The ordinance is aimed at giving police and city nuisance inspectors the power to issue $25 parking tickets to people who park on any unpaved section of their property. City Law Director John Madigan said current city law prohibits front yard and side yard parking, but not backyard parking. That would be changed under the new law. In addition, nuisance inspectors would gain special police powers to ticket and order tows of vehicles parked illegally - not just those that are "nuisances." Last summer, the city was forced to pay a West Toledo man $7,500 to avert a potential lawsuit after he was charged with misdemeanor assault in a chest-butting altercation with a private tow operator. The operator was summoned by the city to move a truck and trailer from the man's yard. The threatened lawsuit came after a Toledo Municipal Court judge dismissed the charges based on a 2004 Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals opinion that the vehicles didn't fit the description of a nuisance. Chief Michael Navarre said police have been restricted from ticketing and towing vehicles parked in rear yards unless they meet the definition of a junk car - one that is at least three years old, is apparently inoperable or extensively damaged, and is worth less than $1,500. "Last year, we received 800 complaints. We were able to tow 100 vehicles," the chief said. "This ordinance will allow us to remove those other vehicles." Sue Frederick,(See: Bitch;Devil;Spawn of Satan in your websters) manager of code enforcement, said vehicle owners must be given at least one notice or ticket before a tow can be ordered. Councilman Mark Sobczak, who chaired the hearing, said council members have concerns that the towing law may be enforced too zealously. Ms. Frederick said the law would be used against people who park vehicles on the grass despite notices to move them. "These are habitual violators that we get complaint after complaint about." She said the law would not make it illegal to park on uncurbed streets where there is a gravel parking area parallel to the road. And she said existing gravel drives are grandfathered into the law. The committee took no action on the proposed ordinance, and Mr. Sobczak said it likely would not be voted on before council's meeting Nov. 28.
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why dont they take care of some of the existing problems in the neighborhoods before they go giving these people badges to do whatever the fuck they want to do!!!!???!?!

why not go after the house 5 down from mine that has had a van in the driveway for 4 months WITH NO LICENSE PLATE or down one more block to a guy that runs a lawn business from his house and jeeps his trailer on the grass in his front yard...... oh wait BOTH OF THESE PEOPLE ARE AFRICAN AMERICAN so they get special rights to do whatever the hell they want to do while the city drives by atleast once a day and takes a picture of my house and complains that I dont have lids on my garbage cans BECAUSE THE MORON GARBAGE MEN THREW THE FRICKING LIDS AWAY 2 MONTHS AGO (HERES YOUR SIGN) or they complain that one section of fence is a shade lighter then the other... WHO CARES!! about 2 years ago I was ready to paint each picket a different color of flouresent paint to be an ass and I still might and then paint a big 3' high "JESUS LOVES YOU" on the fence and paint a wall mart smilie on there too. good night!

I worry too much

2006-11-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

normally I dont put my personal life out on the internet but I have had a few things bugging me lately and I am open for any advice I can get... one is a repeated dream that every time has 5 distinct people in it but the dream is different every time... it has Susan Frederick, Mike Bombrys, Jeremy Goldthwaite, Carty Finkbeiner, and myself. the last one was the most vivid and I woke wide awake at the end, it started out a normal summer day early morning I woke up and went outside and let the dog out andto start mowing the lawn I was sitting on my riding mower cutting the grass (specifically the one the city took on May 25th) and I saw Sue's green jeep come tearing down the road along with a wrecker and a garbage truck ( like she had on the 25th) and I stopped what I was doing and asked what was going on, she said "fuck you fatass, I am taking your stuff" and I say bullshit and then go in the house to grab a ball batbut instead I grab my Kimber and 4 clips and go back outside to see a group of black people loading everything of mine into the garbage truck and crushing it, my dog is going nuts at the intruders and then one of the black people kick her in the head and down she goes. he then grabs her and heads to the garbage truck but then falls about a foot short after I fire a 45ACP round through his cranium and then I follow suit with everyone else in the back yard and then I throw all the bodies into the garbage truck and walk around to the front of the house to see my new truck on the back of the wrecker and everyone standing in a circle laughing, then Sue looks over and says,"HAHA I told you I was going to take your stuff fatass" pop pop there goes sue into the garbage truck with the rest of the people and then Robosaurus just materialized and it ate Carty Finkbeiner and the guy from Graingers towing and then the graingers tow truck and right after that bam I was wide awake...

I have had similar dreams lately and usually they are not as graphic but I have been stressed out lately over trying to make things work out and worrying over the city hassling us moreanyways I am going to bed - sweet dreams world, LOL

tough choices today

2006-11-02T20:59:00.000-05:00

well I have been debating this for a while and as much as I hate to do business with the toledo blade after they screwed alot of people over.... but....I have to, last year 60% of my calls were generated by the blade and now I am off to a slow start so I called and got the adds going so I can make some money, plowing insurance this year is going to be in the $3k range so I need some loot to pay for it.... but on the plus side I found out about the freeway ads that are free so I can save some money and sell some junk I have laying around

been buisy

2006-11-02T01:16:00.000-05:00

well I have been buisy, what else is new I am trying to get everything ready for snow plowing this winter while trying to juggle leaf work and trust me it is hard, the leaves dropped all at once and ofcourse the best buy delayed me a week in getting my promotional material out in the mail so that blows but I am getting calls for things still so it is ok, hopefully I will be able to start doing some door knocking on friday or saturday and start making $400-$500 a day like last year oh well I am off to finish addressing the 1200 postcards for snow removal

back from detroit

2006-10-21T01:27:00.000-04:00

well 5 days later(friday) I am home for the day, I found my limitations yesterday when I took a good spill after surfing across the linoleum floor on a piece of clear plexi-glass so last night after some heated words because I was in pain and I didnt want to work anymore I decided to call for a ride home, at this point I didnt make any money, actually lost some after gas and bullshit like that
oh well, I am going up there tomorrow to gat a load of pallet racking (money) to try and make some cash back

FRIDAY THE 13TH! omg!!!

2006-10-13T22:40:00.000-04:00

WHEW WHAT A WEEK !! I have been too buisy but here is what i have done (cliff notes)

rebuilt a ford c-4 transmission
cut the lawn
prepped a snow blade
fixed my trailer lights
fixed my trailer
installed a trailer jack
ran atound town to every junkyard trying to find parts
had dinner with the family
made some money
hung out with pops
bought a new graphics card for my computer (radeon x1300pro)

next weeks schedule is a clusterfuck, we finally start the best buy project in michigan on monday thank god I will finally get some money coming in again to take care of some bills, after a shitty winter last year it has been hard to screw off this summer and still keep up on things

A Visit From Carty Today

2006-10-06T00:46:00.000-04:00

I swear to god any more I can never take a good morning constitutional any more because I am always interrupted, today it was by Carty Finkbeiner telling me that my little red Daytona had to go or it would be towed because the tags were expired by 4 days, when prodded about who complained he said the guy across the road on nela (who is currently on my shit list) and then he started mumbling and wandering around with his hands in his pockets looking at stuff and yelling "This has to go!!!!! There is no excuse for having this here" over and over and over, while the 15 police officers stood guard like they were Bush's secret service, I came out and then Jeremy told him he was a horses ass and then said we were still planning to sue the city, right after that everyone loaded into the van they came in and then sped off. I'll tell ya what I am so tired of the bullshit in this town that I have decided to move, maybe then I will be able to take a shit in the morning without being interrupted, and I wont have to worry about some over zealous City Offical coming and taking my stuff.

Busier then a one legged man in an ass kicking contest

2006-10-02T00:55:00.000-04:00

This week started off slow and lazy, mostly screwed around hoping for some money to fall in our hands from heaven and boy did it ever..... On Thursday I went and signed for kristas apartment (I pray to god it wasn't a mistake) and on the way back we see 2 trucks loading stuff from best buy being the nosy sob I am I tell Jeremy to go over there... I walk in and some scrapper instantly knows what I am up to, probably because I wear a Omni-Source hat ( hey I gotta plug them.... They put food on my table) and comes running up and says that everything is spoken for
, SURE buddy was my response and I keep walking towards the 2 guys in company shirts and ask them whats up. This s where I get an earfull, the scrapper that they hired had only himself and his buddy and a half ton pickup truck to do the job and he wasn't performing to their expectations he said so I told him that if he needed the stuff gone to just say the word and I would have atleast 90% out within 24 hours he said bullshit so Jeremy flipped open his phone (3:30pm) and started dialing numbers, within a hour we had 4 trucks and trailers there and 10 people loading them up and we were all on our second load by 7pm and done for the night at 10pm... The guy running the show chris said that we had done more in 5 hours then their scrapper had done in the week and a half that they had been there, ... Wow what a complement! We decide to start at 10am the next day so I go home and start calling people, we get 5 people who want to haul, me and Jeremy in his truck and my trailer,Darrel in his truck with Nabils trailer, Frank and his wife in their pickup with the trailor he made, Justin from Wagner landscape brought a 1 ton with a 16' trailer and a old friend of mine that I cant remember his name right now and we had the place down to nothing by dinner time so we packed it up and did dinner at city hall bar & grill and talked some more with Chris, he said that there was a store in southfield Michigan just outside of Ann arbor they are emptying starting on the ninth and they asked if we wanted to do the demo, I immediately said yes and said that all I needed was a forklift and the ability to use my torches to dismantle, they called there boss and he said fine (god I am still tired but you get the just of what I have been doing, I will update this n the morning)

good god another weekend

2006-09-25T01:24:00.000-04:00

lol, I have this title saved as a favorite because that is always what I say, wow another weekend.... well I could write a book with all that have done sence my last post on here but I will justgive you the cliff notes

well friday I went to cherie & Robs lace and looked at their trailer and aired up his trailer tires for him
and then sense it was a rainy weekend me and jeremy cleaned out the garage so we could start working on cars in the garage during the day sense the city is being a bunch of doushes, here is a pick of it 90% done, all I have to do is move the air compressor that I got from the coke head across the street and move some boxes to storage and it will be done good enough for me..... this winter I am going to build some utility trailers aswell so I need the space

I get the daytona turd in the garage and then as I bang my head I see the flash of the camera it is rare that I am in pics but jeremywas all excited like a kid on christmas day and he managed to snap a few before I could take the camera away... oh well I am off to bed, I have to be up EARLY today so I can finish getting things put away and then go to the car lot and help Amy while John is at the hospital

new welder

2006-09-21T22:52:00.000-04:00

well today I got an incredible deal at the Maumee valley Habitat for Humanity's RE-Store, I had originally went there for a new back door for the garage and a screen door for the breezway (more later) but I stumbled across this little gold mine... a 1979 hobart welder
gotta love that 1979 built like a brick shithouse design, it weighs almost 400 pounds and came with 40' of welding cables so I can leave it in the garage and weld outside..... the best part was the price, I offered $25 and the manager said $75, then he said "well your a regular here and you did give us that pallet of ceramic tile last year so why not split the difference" so I walked out of there with a welder and a new gate latch for $55.00 and does it work great! granted I spent the money for the new doors but I just couldnt pass this up considering I was bidding on a damn near identical welder on ebay and decided I didnt want to pay the $200 something that it was bid up to... oh well so I spent the money I had set aside for putting doors that lock on the garage because krista ( the broad that lives with us til the end of the month) dumpped her boyfriend and he is turning into a problem FAST and the last thing I need is all my hard earned stuff to walk away.

rainy day

2006-09-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

well I didnt get much done todaybecause I slept until bout 2:00 today, mostly because I cant wake up when it is raining,,.... dont ask why but I just cant.

last night was a fiasco, nevr made it to south bend, too much happened at once and I was needed in town (damnit) everything that could go wrong did, the fuel pump in jeremys truck gave up it's ghost and this chris chinny guy turned out to be a real joke as he tried for 4 hours to fix one of kristas struts on her car, so me and my mom drove up to lambertville so I could fix the car and her to calm down krista and keep her out of my way after much messing around about 1 am I finally fix this jokers f-up and we all go home... I'll tell ya what, for him being a race car builder / driver he sure dosent know his ass from a tree stump.... finally I called him on his BS he has been spewing and he got pissed off at me (whoptie-doo) but hey if bullshit was music this guy wold be a brass band and after hearing so much I had to say something.... oh well

good god another weekend

2006-09-17T01:43:00.000-04:00

wow, hard to believe that I have pissed another week away.... the only fun thing that has happened was we went offroading out at TnI out by the airport. tomorrow i am going to south bend indiana to pick up a new log splitter, with the cost of natural gas skyrocketing I am going to heat with as much wood as I can this year and see how it goes. last year I heated the garage with a wood burning furnace that I built and it worked well, however this winter I am going to buy a wood burning insert for the fireplace with a blower to blow the heat back into the room... I figure that and sealing the house tighter then a ticks ass will help keep the already rediculous heating bills in check....

I do have one hunch though..... I have been thinking about this upcomming winter and I have a good hunch that we will have had some form of frozen precipitation by haloween.... however I think this winter won't be a real wet one but a cold one

being sick sucks - update to the weekend

2006-09-14T00:53:00.000-04:00

friday night was a no-show with this chris chiluhy guy, but he does have a budget racing car in the super stock class but he was not driving..... why waste the $25 to get in to see his car make a left hand turn for 50 miles, LOL. saturday I came down with something resembling the flu and that is strange for me because I rarely get sick, I can count on atleast one cold per winter and that usually happens right in the middle of a big storm while I am plowing and out freezing my ass off( I dont have any pics of that) but when I first started plowing almost 7 years ago I used some pretty primative equipment to get the job done and I was always cold and sick, but back then $100 an hour just sitting on my toosh was verry appealing to me, this year I am itting in a heated leather seat playing a real life videogame and I will watch the other trucks make me money this year for a change, I have always feared growth i my plowing biz but I guess there is a time when you have to get bigger and grow and increase revenue to make profits

enough of that ....on sundayI went to the good old GM park & shine and killed a few sets of batteries in my new kodak Z-650 digi cam and had a good time with jeremy and trish and the kids, monday was a blur do to being in bed til about 3 in the afternoon after a night from hell with some of the most relentless heartburn I ever have had, yesterday was good with an exception of the rain but it pissed me off that I had to empty our new garbage cans into the back of the city garbage truck myself or tey wuldnt take them because they are 39 gallons instead of 34 which is the largest can allowed, I think that having to buy more new 34 gallon cans is bullshit, I mean think about it, I can put 50 55 gallon garbage bags out at the roa and the city will take every single one, and as a matter of fact I have before IE: after our basement floded like earlier this year I got some friends together and we hauled out 48 garbage bags, 2 sets of bedding, a sofa sleeper set and a few chairs... atleast they took it all........ so in all reality what difference does 5 gallons make?

today I got a new toy, the neighbor across the road was hurting for cash so I bought back the air compressor I built for him last winter, I figured what the hell I need a new one sence I blew up my little one working on Roberto's trailer last month and the fact that he sold it to me for $50 Josh is a cool guy but drugs are screwing up his life so I try not to associate with him too much, I just keep an eye out for strange things is all, hence why I have a video survalence camera pointed at his house all the time and a few others around the yard.... some people never notice how observant I am until I tell them something that they themselve didnt even know, well tomorrow s another day and hopefully everything will go according to plan and I can make it to michigan to sell some cisco network switches I have laying around

the pretender

2006-09-07T23:51:00.000-04:00

well ths krista broad that has been living with us has decided that she needs another new boyfriend and she found one, this guy is a piece of work and is taking her for a ride, lol

here is a list of things that this guy supposably owns;

a 2006 f-350
a 40' race trailer full of race cars
6 more race cars
a 10 bay shop on alexis road
and he knows everyone that you talk about knowing even Seth McDoogle ( fictious name)

but the best part is that as of yet he has not driven any vehicle to the house, nor showed me any of this stuff that he keeps bragging about, he said to go to toledo speeday friday to see his cars... I guess all I have to loose s $10 in gas

wow the daytona runs

2006-09-06T02:23:00.000-04:00

well I got it running sunday and twisted the drive shaft in two today, go figure. tomorrow I need to go and take a picture of the high level bridge to upload to www.wikipedia.org to finish my article on it.

so much for enjoying a day on the water

2006-09-03T16:25:00.000-04:00

I guess I will spend the holiday weekend working on POS cars ... lets see I get to do a clutch on a s-10, a tranny fluid and filter change on a caravan, a wiring harness and computer on the daytona turd, another wire harness on a 91 caravan, a transmission vaccume modulator on a aerostar ..... god I hate cars

I swear to god I will never buy another car on EBAY

2006-09-01T23:37:00.000-04:00

boy did I get fucked... with a capitol F this is the story about thursdays evening oddesy to get my new project car

we finally got our act in gear and drove the durango around the 75/475 loop to see if it would strand us... then we hopped on the turnpike and tried to make the deadline for picking this pile of shit up. we got there and the guy wasnt even home... great... we start looking over the car and discover that it has a flat tire, double great... the chick there says that she will call him and that he is about 10 min away... cool we can use the jack and spare for the car... NOPE gone... so we decide to just load it on the dolly anyways... that didnt work too good... so now we have a road blocked off trying to load this fricking car.... the guy finlly shows up and he looks at us nad says sorry I dont have a spare or tools great...me and jeremy finally get this damn car loaded after 20 minutes and the dousche didnt even help push it.... I finally get over to him only to see him forge someone elses signature on the title, I askWTF is this and he said that it was just in his fathers name... something didnt sound right, the mileage didnt match on the odometer and he didnt have the motor that he said he did but I was getting tired and wanted to just go home so we headed back finally at midnight. we stop about 20 miles down the road for a chance to hit the can and get some soda whenjeremy starts looking over the car in the light....and we find this... yes thats a broken bellhousing on the transmission... talk about feeling your stomach hit the soles of your shoes.... we finally looked it over and got our goodies and headed home. today me and jeremy spent most of the day trying to make this car run but it didnt happen. now I have 2 junk cars in the driveway... great!

I think I will be alot happier when I get this damn car to start up.

looking over dept of neighborhoods law books

2006-08-31T01:25:00.000-04:00

0.24.010 Definitions.

As used in this chapter, the following mean:
"Costs" means the expense of removing, storing or selling a discarded vehicle.
"Discarded vehicle" means:
1. A vehicle that is in one or more of the following conditions:
a. Inoperative,
b. Wrecked,
c. Dismantled,
d. Partially dismantled,
e. Abandoned,
f. Junked;
2. Discarded vehicles include major parts of vehicles, including but not limited to, bodies, engines, transmissions, and rear ends;
3. A vehicle that does not lawfully display registration plates with unexpired stickers shall be presumed to be "abandoned." This shall be a disputable presumption.

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.010 (Definitions) definition of "Discarded Vehicle" is amended to add:

4. For the purposes of this chapter only, a vehicle rendered temporarily inoperative but otherwise legally parked outdoors on public right-of-way adjacent to the vehicle owner's residence or on private property shall not be considered a discarded vehicle if the vehicle is secure, not creating a hazard, and repairs to the vehicle are made within 30 days. (Ord. 1296 Section 2, 2003)

"Enforcement authority" means any authorized agent or representative of the city as set forth in Section 1.20.040.
"Person in charge of property" means an agent, occupant, lessee, contract purchaser, owner, or person having possession, control, or title to property where a vehicle is located.
"Vehicle" means every device in, upon, or by which a person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a public highway, except devices moved by human power or used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks. For example, and not a limitation, the following are vehicles:
1. Motor vehicle;
2. Motor home;
3. Utility trailer;
4. House or vacation trailer;
5. Implement of husbandry;
6. Article of machinery;
7. Boat;
8. Camper; or
9. Canopy or any part thereof.
"Vehicle owner" means an individual, firm, corporation or unincorporated association with an individual or joint claim or a legal or equitable interest in a vehicle. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

10.24.020 Declaration of public nuisance.

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.020 (Declaration of public nuisance) is amended to read as follows:

Accumulation and storage of discarded vehicles reduces property values, is unsightly, promotes neighborhood deterioration, invites plundering, creates fire hazards, is an attractive nuisance causing a hazard to minors' health and safety, creates a harborage for rodents and insects, and is injurious to the health, safety, and general welfare. Therefore, a discarded vehicle on private or public property is a public nuisance which may be abated in accordance with this chapter. (Ord. 1296 Section 3, 2003)

10.24.030 Prohibited action.

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.030 (Prohibited action) is amended to read as follows:

A. Storage of a discarded vehicle on private property in Toledo is prohibited unless the vehicle is completely enclosed by a building, stored behind a site obscuring fence, hedge or wall, or stored by a lawfully conducted business dealing in disabled vehicles.

B. Storage of a discarded vehicle on public property in Toledo is prohibited unless the vehicle is completely enclosed by a building or stored by a lawfully conducted business dealing in disabled vehicles. (Ord. 1296, Section 4, 2003)

10.24.040 Investigation.

The first sentence of Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.040 (Investigation) subsection (A) is amended to read as follows:

A. When an enforcement authority investigates a discarded vehicle on private or public property and determines that a nuisance exists, the officer shall: (Ord. 1296 Section 5, 2003)

1. Attempt to discover the owner of the vehicle and the person in charge of the property on which the vehicle is located; and
2. Give written notice to them by personal service or by registered or certified mail that the vehicle is in violation of this chapter.
B. If the owner of the vehicle is not found, the officer shall place a notice on the windshield or some other part of the vehicle where it can be easily seen. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

10.24.050 Contents of notice.

A notice issued under Section 10.24.040 shall state:

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.050 (Contents of notice) subsection (A) is amended to read as follows:

A. That the discarded vehicle is in violation of this chapter and that within ten (10) days after sending or posting the notice:
1. The vehicle must be removed from the city or to the storage yard of a lawfully conducted business dealing in disabled vehicles, or
2. The vehicle must be completely enclosed within a building, or
3. If the vehicle is on private property, the vehicle must be stored behind a sight obscuring fence, hedge or wall; (Ord. 1296 Section 6, 2003)

B. That the alternative to compliance with subsection A is to petition the municipal court clerk within the ten (10) day period described in subsection A and make a written request to appear before the municipal court judge to show why the vehicle should not be immediately removed or properly stored;

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.050 (Contents of notice) subsection (C) is amended to read as follows:

C. That failure to comply with this chapter authorizes the city to remove the vehicle, charge the cost against the property from which it was removed and/or the vehicle owner, issue a citation to either the person in charge of the property and/or the vehicle owner, and/or sell the vehicle to satisfy the costs of removal and storage. (Ord. 1296 Section 7, 2003)

10.24.060 Entry on private property.

A. An enforcement authority is authorized to enter private property at all reasonable times and examine a vehicle to determine whether it is discarded. Except when an emergency exists, before entering onto private property, the officer shall obtain the consent of an occupant or a warrant of the municipal court authorizing entry for inspection.
B. No search warrant shall be issued under this chapter until an affidavit has been filed with the municipal court showing probable cause for the inspection by stating the purpose and extent of the proposed inspection, citing this chapter as the basis for the inspection, stating whether it is an inspection instituted by complaint, or giving other specific or general information concerning the vehicle in question or the property on which it is located.
C. No person shall interfere with or attempt to prevent an enforcement authority from entering private premises and inspecting a vehicle when an emergency exists or when the officer exhibits a warrant authorizing entry. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.060 (Entry on private property) is amended to add subsection (D) to read as follows:

D. If required by law, the same procedures for entry onto private property shall be followed for entry onto public property. (Ord. 1296 Section 8, 2003)

10.24.070 Hearing by municipal court.

A. Following a request, the municipal court shall fix a time for a hearing to show cause why a vehicle should not be abated immediately and to receive evidence and the testimony of the enforcement authority and other interested persons concerning the existence, location, and condition of the vehicle. After the hearing, the court may order the vehicle removed by the city in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.
B. The court shall make its ruling in the form of an order declaring the vehicle to be a public nuisance. The court may order the removal of more than one vehicle and may consolidate the hearings and orders relating to move than one vehicle. People receiving the notice specified in Section 10.24.040 shall be sent copies of the court order.
C. The court may impose conditions and take other action it considers appropriate under the circumstances to carry out this chapter. It may delay the time for removal of the vehicle when, in its opinion, circumstances justify such action. It shall refuse to order removal of the vehicle when the vehicle is not subject to the provisions of this chapter. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

10.24.080 Abatement by the city and appraisal.

A. Ten (10) days after giving the notice required in Section 10.24.040 or, if a hearing is held, ten (10) days after adoption of an order declaring a vehicle to be a public nuisance as required in Section 10.24.070, the city will have jurisdiction to abate the nuisance and may remove the vehicle by use of city employees or authorized independent contractors.

Toledo Municipal Code Section 10.24.080 (Abatement by the city and appraisal) subsection (A) shall have the last sentence of the subsection amended to read as follows:

No person shall interfere with, hinder, or refuse to allow authorized persons to enter private or public property to remove a vehicle under this chapter. (Ord. 1296 Section 9, 2003)

B. After removing the vehicle, the city shall have it appraised. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

10.24.090 Low-value vehicle.

A. If the vehicle is appraised at one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or less, the enforcement authority or independent contractor may dispose of the vehicle without notice and public sale if either of the following occur:
1. The owner of the vehicle and any lessor or security interest holder shown in the records of the Division sign a release, under oath, disclaiming any future interest in the vehicle;
2. The owner and any lessor or security interest holder shown in the records of the Division have been sent notification of the location of the vehicle and, within fifteen (15) days after the date the notification is mailed, the persons notified have not signed releases or the vehicle has not been reclaimed. Failure to sign a release or to reclaim the vehicle shall constitute a waiver of interest in the vehicle.
B. Prior to sale, the enforcement authority or authorized independent contractor shall file an affidavit with the Motor Vehicles Division describing the vehicle, including the license plates, if any, stating the location and appraised value of the vehicle and stating that the vehicle will be junked or dismantled. The enforcement authority or independent contractor may dispose of the vehicle and execute a certificate of sale without notice and public auction. (Ord. 1264 (part), 1997)

City settles tow-truck incident for $7,500

2006-08-29T03:22:00.000-04:00

City settles tow-truck incident for $7,500
Payment resolves threat of litigation

By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER

The city has paid $7,500 to resolve litigation that was threatened over a vehicle-towing incident last year involving an employee in Toledo's Department of Neighborhoods.

The out-of-court settlement was reached recently with George Pratt, who threatened to sue the city after he was acquitted of assaulting a tow truck operator during an alleged nuisance complaint at his West Toledo home. "We made a settlement with him," John Madigan, acting law director, said last week. "We felt that there might have been potential liability against the city.'' The payout stems from an incident in July, 2005, when Sue Frederick, who is manager of city's code enforcement division, asked Mr. Pratt to remove a truck and trailer from the yard at his home on Strauss Street. When he refused, Ms. Frederick called a private tow-truck operator, who was injured after he was chest-bumped by Mr. Pratt, court records said. Mr. Pratt was charged with misdemeanor assault in Toledo Municipal Court in connection with the incident. City prosecutors later amended the charge to disorderly conduct. The case went to trial in May, and Judge C. Allen McConnell dismissed the minor misdemeanor charge after hearing testimony from two witnesses. Ms. Frederick, an attorney who previously worked in the city law department, was involved in other altercations involving vehicle towing. Jerome Phillips, an attorney who represents Mr. Pratt, said the incident with the tow-truck operator wouldn't have occurred if his client's vehicles had not wrongly been tagged for removal from the yard. The truck and trailer were parked in the yard so that Mr. Pratt could remove materials for a fence that he was building in the yard, records said. Mr. Phillips said Ms. Frederick testified that the truck was a nuisance because it could have leaked fluids into the yard. She also told Judge McConnell that she didn't check for contamination on the ground when she tagged the vehicles, he said. "But that never occurred. Instead, she issued a citation for failure to comply with an order, even though there was no immediate danger and the vehicles were not a nuisance," Mr. Phillips said. Mr. Madigan said he wouldn't comment on the incident, in part because others whose vehicles were tagged for similar reasons might want to file litigation against the city. In a letter to the city, Mr. Phillips said hundreds of vehicles could have been towed under the guise of a public nuisance even though the vehicles were on the property of their owner. "It appears this may give rise to a potential class-action lawsuit," he wrote. The settlement was reached this month. The payment didn't need City Council's approval because the judgment was under $10,000. Last December, Ms. Frederick, 49, was accused of arguing with the owner of a parked vehicle and threatened to have his vehicle towed during a dispute with the movement of a recycling truck. Then a manager in the Toledo department of economic and community development, she was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors. She pleaded no contest in April to an amended minor misdemeanor charge of failure to aid a law enforcement officer.

I think I might call that lawyer tomorrow and see what he can do for me and the city towing my 1991 ford Pickup

durango issues

2006-08-25T00:18:00.000-04:00

still there are some issues but I am buisy on the other neighborhood blog and I will update this toorrow

buisy day today

2006-08-23T01:19:00.000-04:00

well today started out with DC calling and wanting me to help him go bike shopping, so e grabbed a tradin post and headed out to see what there was.... we test rode afew bikes an finally found a dea.... turns out an old friend of both me and DC had a 1983 Kawasaki for sale for a verry reasonable price so DC bought it for $460 and we got it back to his place.... on the way Jeremy called and told me that the grand jury he spoke to on friday was back in........ and they threw it out, I about shit my pants and DC just shook his head. I finally got home around 5 and found a suprise in the living room..... my new camera YAY!! 6.1 MP Kodak Z-650 with the 10x zoom, it will be verry useful in my next project http://www.rancampplace.blogspot.com hey if my asshole neighbors want to complain then I will start complaining about them along with takig dialy pictures of the neighborhood,... now everyone alse will know how t feels to have to deal with the city and the chance that they will take their possessions away aswell, even if nothing happens it will still make me feel good inside.

onto something else that chapps my ass, Cottman Transmissin/AAMCO talk about a ripoff joint.... our family has had many dealings with tom gamble and up until about a month and a half ago we have not had a problem with any work he had done, about 6 weeks ago the trans went out in the durango and sence it was rebuilt by Cottman Transmission about a year and a half ago we took it back there because Tom had told me personally that if I ever had a problem with it to just bring it back and he would take care of it... so much for his word! if I had known that we would only get a little less then 20k on a transmission designed for a lifespan of 100k-130k then I would have never agreed to pay $3100 for the transmission and transfercase in the first place! he had told my mother that the trans was completely burned up and no good (bullshit) about 6 weeks ago when it decided that it didnt want to move anymore so he told my mom tha tit was going to cost around $2000 for parts to fix it (more BS) and at this point I decided to do a little investigating and found a site called the www.ripoffreport.com and they have a whole section dedicated to cottman trans/AAMCO click here to see all the complaints
at this point me and my mom decide that neither of us have the money for that so I decide to gt the old trans from cottman to do a little snooping it is then that I start getting pissed, Tom had told my mother that the trans was junk and not rebuildable but I completely disssembled it and found out that the friction plates and steel plates had worn out, THATS IT!!!!!!!!!!

total cost to fix it was UNDER $100 and all of the other fiction plates and steel plates WERE PERFECTLY FINE!!!! at this point I am furious but I held my tongue for the sake of my mom because I can get real mean and real nasty real fast when I think someone is giving anyone in my family the short end of the stick, and it always upsets her when I yell however sence we found out that info I decided to just comb the junkyards and find one from a running vehicle because tom said that he couldnt rebuild the trans so we found one 4 days later for a reasonable sum of $315 at Airway Auto in battle creek, so we made a day trip of it and went and bought the trans with 38k miles on it and when the guy who owned the place asked who was installing it I said probably myself but if things get tight then cottman would do it..... this is where I started hearing more hororr stories and one cought my ear about a guy with a jeep grand cherokee that had work done to their truck and after it was done while they were on a family vacation a week later the transmission magicly shifted ino reverse causing them to spin out and roll their jeep. and at this point I think fuck this joint I will do it myself but after my mom decides htat se still wantsthem to do it because they said it would be done in 2 days whereas I said I would work on it in the evenings until it was done but less then a week and atleast if I did it I knew it would be done correctly but no she wanted it monday like they said, told my mom that he was full of shit and proceided to make a wager of $20 that wouldnt be done on time.... I won I went down there on wendsday and looked at him square in the eye and said "What the hell is goin on?" and his only reply was that his $5 a hour labor hadnt shown up in 5 days but reguardless he was able to have a tech work on a $100k showcar that came in with a problem over the weekend... I guess we were put at the bottom of the list because we didnt spend the $2k on a rebuild....... and it drug out a week then he needed a seperator plate because he claimed ours was bad ( yea because his hack job mechanics screwed it up) so that was another week and finally when the cat was out of the bag a week later when he found out I had tore down the transmission and ever sence then he has been a total ass to us but wait a glimpse of hope this evening WOW IT IS DONE! too bad the shifter isint ajusted correctly, the transfercase shifter was not either and the transmission was filled with the wrong fluid, my mom drove it about a mile before she took it back to them and said something was wrong... um yea it is a EGR valve and you need a new battery they said....... hmm a 1 year old 1800 cca industrial battery from a Caterpillar BULLDOZER just up and gave up the ghost I dont think so! I have had enough of their bulls#it so I went to their lt and used my spare key and hopped in it and fired it up and took it for a spin and it works enough that it will move under it's own power again so it is comng home in the morning whether they like it or not and I will fix it

FULLLLLLLLLLLL PULLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

2006-08-20T00:34:00.001-04:00

well last night I was up til 5am caughing and hacking and dealing with snot and I found a box of dayqill but they were green pills, I didnt think anything of it and after I took 4 I crashed until dinnertime the next day... wow what a nap.... it rained last night so the track was wet in BG soit was delayed 3 hours thank god so I was able to make it to the tractor pull this evening... all the fun and noise didnt do my stomach any good so I found a trash can and decided that I didnt want my $15 dinner anymore, lol ( if you follow my drift) but never the less I had fun... here is some pics

go diesel go! most of the Suer Stock tractors are a factory off the line production line just with different 4 valve hemispherical heads, bigger injectors, bigger fuel pumps and ofcourse bigger turbochargers , most of these tractors produce about 900-1200 diesel hp and probably upwards of 3000 ft lbs of torque here is a 3 turbine powered puller, it has 3 westinghouse turbines on it with each powering a gear in a planetairy setup, output on these are around 1500 hp each x 3 - 4500 hp give or take
here is a Modified Pro Stock, basically the same as a super stock but with up to 4 turbochargers and they make between 1200 and 2000 hp and 3000+ ft lbs

I dont know much about this one but the guy washing it said it makes some wicked power and when I said how much... 1200-1500 he looked at me and laughed and said about double that
this one here was just plain awesome...... when this one went down the track I covered my ears, and that was the nly time I did, each motor (there is 3 of them here) is capable of 4000 hp @ 7500 rpm and being v-12's theyhave neveer gotten a torque reading on the dyno so he said that means over 6000 ft lbs each so this pull truck has approx 11,000 hp on alcahol and 12,000with a shot of n20 and around 18,000-20,000 ft lbs of torque, ths one went the farthest this evening f 318', oh well I am off to bed

damn

2006-08-10T00:14:00.000-04:00

today was a scheduled screw off day and I figured what the hell we got a full tank of gas in the K-car lets roll around and kill time, so I grabbed the digital camera, a 1gb memory card and my phone ..... all is going well and we stop home and rob and cherie stop by with their new pile of rolling scrap metal called a trailer J/K! I wish I would come across a deal like that....... after that me and jeremy decide to go to walmart, on glendale instead of the superwally-world I figure why not hit the one on glendale because it has more sporting goods compared to the others.... I find out that this is a big mistake, we decide to lock the doors and roll up the windows just incase....... doing that didnt do shit, someone took a pry bar to the door to get my camera that was pretty well hidden in the door pocket and they took my cell out of the glovebox... I am not too angry about the camera because I paid about $100 for it on black friday 2 years ago, what I AM pissed about is the fact that I bought a 1GB flash memory card and rechargable NMH batteries no more then 3 days ago so that my mom could shutterbug all she wanted without a problem, oh well time to buy a new camera, i think i will finally get a Cannon EOS Digital Rebel like I have been debating over for the last month or so, afterall it is only money

I figure I will post a pic of my soon to be mine ride, it is a Shelby Z Dodge Daytona, I have to go to the chicagoland area to get it

I am getting a awesome deal on this, Jeremy thinks i am going to have fun with it for a few days and then sell it..... most likely not..... it isint every day you get a $5000 car for $500 because someone fucked up :-D

l8r

damn weather

2006-07-28T22:35:00.000-04:00

well toledo got struck with a bunch of storms again last night and atleast they only dropped 3 inches of rain instead of the 5-7" that came the last time in june but we were given a gift about 1:30am today courtesy of it :crunch - twack - crunch: of a 14" limb dropping out of our tree on to the freshly painted fence

oh well, i'll post more pics as I clean up the mess, maybe even fix the date on the camera too

wow

2006-07-23T12:22:00.000-04:00

I loved it yesterday, everybody was all tied up in the hullaballow that more then half the people I know including family forgot about my birthday, oh well no biggie..... once you go past 21 who cares anyways lol

2006-07-08T02:06:00.000-04:00

July 7, 2006 - The man charged for driving into two city of Toledo workers is speaking out about the ordeal. Jeremy Goldthwaite (gol-th-wait) talked only with 13-abc's Erica Hurtt about his version of what happened.

It was a dispute over towing vehicles that left two city workers injured.

But Jeremy Goldthwaite says he didn't mean to hurt anyone and he thinks the city tried to illegally seize his cars.

Jeremy Goldthwaite says he's had a bad week!

It might be hard to find sympathy for a guy accused of driving a truck into two city workers, but Goldthwaite insists it was accident.

"I've got faith in god and the judicial system that this will all get cleared up."

On Monday, Toledo code of enforcement employees came to tow Goldthwaite and his friend's vehicles.

She had no paperwork for it. She was going to take vehicles that were all running, legally plated, legally parked on driveways not on the grass, that had not be cited before.

Goldthwaite admits neighbors made complaints in February but says those problems were fixed.

He claims city employee Sue Frederick was unfairly targeting him so he drove off in his truck.

That's when he says he unknowingly hit Frederick and coworker Mike Bombrys.

"I believe I had seen the guy in the jeep getting ready to back it up so I put it in reverse. And as some people have told me she stepped in the way of the truck trying to stop me from backing up. I didn't see her step in the way."

Goldthwaite says he came back as soon as he heard the workers had been hit; but that was too late for police.

Yesterday they charged Goldthwaite with aggravated assault. He says he has paid to get all of the vehicles out of impound, but only a minivan was back at the house today. It has a temporary tag that expires on July 25.

Both workers suffered minor injuries.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am about to take some money I have stashed away and go on a vacation for a few weeks till all this blows over, kinda thinking about going to a friends in Kingman AZ

What a holiday

2006-07-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

2 Toledo workers struck by trailer
Pair suffer injuries while trying to tow junk cars, mayor says

Zoom | Photo Reprints

Two city of Toledo Department of Neighborhoods employees were hurt yesterday - one when her ankle was run over by a trailer on a pickup truck, the other when he was pinned between the trailer and a parked car during an incident in the south end.

Sue Frederick, manager of code enforcement, was in fair condition at University Medical Center after her ankle was injured during the incident about noon on Nela Parkway. Mike Bombrys, a seasonal supervisor, was to be examined at Occuhealth for a swollen knee, police said. Jeremy Goldthwaite, 26, of 1009 Nela, who police said was driving the pickup, was not charged. The incident remains under investigation. Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, during an unrelated news conference, said the two employees were there to tow junk cars after repeated complaints from neighbors. "They were injured when the disgruntled vehicle owner assaulted them with his vehicle," the mayor alleged. Police said the two workers were towing the pickup when Mr. Goldthwaite disagreed about whether they could take it. He jumped in the pickup and backed up, police said. Police are investigating exactly how Ms. Frederick, 49, was hurt but said the trailer ran over her ankle. Mr. Bombrys, 38, was getting out of a car when he tried to get out of the way and was pinned between the trailer and a parked car. Mr. Goldthwaite fled but returned and was interviewed by police when officers contacted him and requested he come back, authorities said. Ms. Frederick in April was convicted of failure to aid a law enforcement officer after pleading no contest to the charge stemming from a Dec. 28, 2005, incident. She argued with the owner of a legally parked vehicle and threatened to have the vehicle towed during that incident in the 800 block of Geneva Avenue. After police asked her to stop, she continued and was arrested. Mr. Bombrys, a former police sergeant, was relieved of his duties in late 2004 when he fired several shots from his department-issued handgun and drove erratically outside his home. Authorities said then they believed his medical condition as an insulin-dependent diabetic was the cause of his behavior.

everything the city took was perfectly legal,parked on concrete and ad valid tags, we will be filing suit on wendsday

new prop

2006-05-30T16:45:00.000-04:00

well Darell and I just got back from Erie propellor in Point Place and as usual the guys there hooked us up(bigtime Thanks Jim!) with a "used" prop someone bought and installed it on their boat for a whopping 10 minutes and took back off and returned so we got it for $85 and that includes a free prop tune up at the end of the season so now we are back in business with his boat and tomorrow I am going to pick up my new 100 hp Evinrude outboard for my speedboat... it will be nice to get that back on the water... stay tuned,,..... I am going to post a video of the boat in action

there goes another $185

2006-05-25T00:02:00.000-04:00

what can ruin a nice day in less then a second.... a BiG Rock,.... smoked it doing about 5mph coming out of harrisons marina this afternoon, atleast we were on our way backform the islands instead of on our way out or it would have caused us to turn back, it wasnt the end of the world we were still ale to cruise at about 28-30 mph

time flies when you are not having fun

2006-04-23T00:38:00.000-04:00

the rise and fall

good god this past month has flown by, I dont know where to start but I will give a summary for those that give a shit...... first off is that the aqua-hog project was abandoned due to serious stringer rot, hay I didnt expect much for $25.... it is going in the blade on monday and I figure I can get $250 for the trailer....... the hauling business and the landscaping business are picking up and I am planning to start mowing full time on monday... Jeremys usual bullshit sphiel got us kicked out of our store location on the 14th AND Outback Storage on the 10th of this the same month (and got on my last nerve) so I basically said fuck-it and shut her down... it was a big disapointment to our only employee who had just quit his other job earlier this month to go full time working for us... so last weekend we had a huge sale... and I mean huge sale, we did just a little bit over $1100 in 2 days, it was barely enough money to pay for 3- 10x30 storage units for 2 months, get the phones paid up and pay off some other storage bills...... ohwell all I can say is that it was a horrable success and it opened many peoples eyes up to the fact that some people have what it takes to make a business work and some people are totally irrisponsable and make bad business decisions... in the end I am getting the short end of the stick from the shut down... I am left with a $687 electric bill and a $435 gas bill that totals $1120 and all jeremy was worried about was his $500 that he had invested in the deposit. I am 95% sure that it would have been a success if jeremy was not trying to run it "his way" and everybody else seems to think the same way Corey had voiced some concerns back in december but I was inundated with plowing and paperwork for making this business legit..... Jeremy kept dragging his feet so I said fuck it and registered the businesses & got my tax id's and registered the names Affordable Appliances Plus and Affordable Appliances & Repair under the NCLS Corperation I figure what the hell atleast if me and jeremy go seperate ways I still own the business names and I will be able to rebuild it the way I had wanted to in the beginning, atleast it would work.... I mean it started out like a fricking DREAM... it was TOO PERFECT, here is some pics:

everything was honky-dorey and nice and well kept until jeremy got evicted from his trailer and decided he would move into the shop so he did and things went downhill from there, the arguements increased, more money was disapearing but that is for a later time

this is what the shop looked like as of a month ago,

shit everywhere, parts everywhere, carpet tore up, just a damn disaster zone... Corey and I couldnt keep up with it, I couldnt stand to deal with it so I did something that I dont normally do and I just gave up on it and watched as it slid into a big black abyss of chaos and stood on the sidelines saying to myself "I told ya so dumbass" in my head over and over... I dont think I would have thrown in the towel normally but I have been quite depressed for a while now, we had a horrable winter, we got 3 storms that were worth a shit and my seasonal totals were 26" of snow = $2780 in billing and cost this year with a new plow was just shy of $4k) but I am pulling out of the funk now that spring is here and I am cutting grass and I cant wait to rip it up monday... I have a brand new trimmer, a new edger, and a new backpack blower to start the season off with a bang, wish me luck

~Nate

hmm,good little movie

2006-03-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

I myself am not normally into conspericy theorys but I was visiting a blog that I normally watch and he had a video link posted so I figured what the hell...(link here, it is about a half of a gig so ya had better have high speed) it took about 5 mintes to load the whole thing with BEX (thank god), it is a hour and 20 minutes or so long and points out alot of stuff that most people might miss, check it out

trash night

2006-03-20T23:55:00.000-05:00

12 midnight,... final call for garbage bags going out for the night, I stopped counting at 30 bags, a loveseat, bookcase, and a bunch of old mattresses, Corey came over after he was done at my shop and helped out for a few hours, it is amazing what can be done when there is"nothing to do"

here is a before and after shot:

after
yay, a new couch, chair and a coffee table!

oh well, the dog just puked all over the floor again so I will have to finish this later

keeping busy this week end

2006-03-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

well I donned a respirator saturday evening and went to town in the basement... last spring the sump pump took a shit and the basement ended up with about 2 inches of water in the laundry area and it was never truely cleaned the way it should have been and of course stuff piled up down there because... well it is a basement... the perfect place to stuff shit that you dont have space for, lol

I was mostly bored saturday evening and said f-it, I dove in head first to a pizza and then did 11 loads of laundry & baged 7-55 gallon sacks of trash, Next Stop.... the most anti-union place out there; Wal-Mart, ended up getting 2 cases of purox laundry detergent(they had the dye and scent free 36 load bottles 5 for $10) and 3 cases of contractor cleanup bags, they are the same ones that we use for the hauling business and they work well and hold alot and are about as thick as a plastic tarp

tonite me and Jeremy did 8 more loads of laundry and took out 15 of those jumbo bags packed full of shit(there is still 10-15 full sacks down there plus a couch and maybe a dozen boxes to take out to the ever increasing pile along the road.

(and Rob, dont look in the mirror and smile and think that you got me to do this because you didnt, jeremy and I have had this planned sence the first of the year but we have had no free time to do it)

500 flyers down.....

2006-03-14T23:47:00.000-05:00

and 4500 to go

worn out boots

2006-03-13T10:16:00.000-05:00

I am sitting here looking at my pair of Hi-Tec leather boots and I cant believe that they are beyond wore out in less then 6 months (bought them a day before the anversery party last fall) the one seam came completely undone on the one boot and the sole has peeled off of the other about half of the way on the other not to mention that all the tread is gone... smoothed off! comeon I would think a $135 pair of boots from a company whom I have never had a problem with before would go atleast a year, I had a pair of wolverines last 11 months before I wore the tread off... and a pair of hunting boots from meiers ($10 on clearance) go for 2 years!! I think I am going to fire off a email and bitch and see if they have good customer service or tell me to pound sand

busy weekend

2006-03-13T00:27:00.000-05:00

wow a busy weekend, litterally..... cleaned out the interior of the aqua-hog and discovered that it needs a new floor... big deal... me and DC are going to do it next weekend, the pour in place foam will be the only big cost to it.

oh well thats next weeks project....

tonite I am finishing up the flyers for the landscaping business, the good old HP Laserjet 4100 is getting its yearly workout....
After 3 toner cartridges and $70 in paper;
that is stack one of four, 4,000 flyers total on 65# cardstock and 1000 on 24# paper. hopefully I will add on some extra work this spring. the guy at office depot was a queef and kept trying to convince me to use just 24# paper, sorry jack I used to do full color printing and specialty flyers for people with my Xerox Phaser 7300 I know what works and what dosen't!! 65# cardstock isint much more expensive and it holds up better and if I have extras I can fold them in half and then send them out in the mail to select targeted homes or the 26¢ postcard rate. well me and jeremy will be in stone oak tomorrow for a while, LOL... atleast they have mail boxes out at the road and they are all designed the same with a paper slot in the bottom, there is 1000 homes in that sub division so I figure I can do it in 2-3 hours of putting around

poeple amaze me

2006-03-08T13:14:00.000-05:00

People amaze me at what they will pay for a piece of nostalgia

some pics I found

2006-03-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

so much for the snow

2006-03-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

oh well not enough to plow but people wanted salt so mom went out and salted this morning I wont sneeze at another $300 in mad money, stay put for a funny steve based post

YAY SNOW COMING

2006-03-05T13:38:00.000-05:00

I am actually happy to see the forcast calling for 1-3" of snow mostly because everything is ready to go, the new plow, new salter, a ton of salt, new blowers, exc. the last storm was a total nightmare that resulted in me loosing 2 customers that storm made me want to get out of the snow plowing buness but looking at the checks that rolled in 2 weeks later make me a little happier. what other industry is there that you make between $250 and $300 a hour while sitting in a truck playing a big video game but in all reality loosing one of my larger customes was a bit unnerving considering I have a 99.5% retention rate and have serviced the same 12 customers ever sence they gave me a chance in 2002 when I jerry rigged a 8' plow on my 78 ford bronco, I remember that year vivdly..... it was november and a guy on www.plowsite.com asked if anyone in toledo could accept a random account that he couldnt do anymore and I said I would look at it and I did and I signed the deal for brent industriies 2.45 acres of parking lot and 9 looading docks $400 each plow but what was I going to use to do it.....the bronco! so I scavanged through Estels junkyard and found a plow pump and mounting bracket and bought it for $25 then I had a local landscape company give me a blade because they didnt have any trucks that it would fit because it was 10' wide, hey a freebie is a freebie right so I took it to a friend at performance machine and Kurt cut it down to 8' for me.
at the same time as I was doing all of this a mutual friend of me and brian hayes just bought himself a plow because he landed all the taco bells in toledo for snowplowing so me and Andy got together and used our combined newbie knoledge to get things rolling, that year we had a whopping 57" of snow and I plowed 18 times. we had a snowplowers dream 9 storms spaced out over 3 weeks each dropping only 2-3 inches but I still made $1000 each time I went out whether it was 2" or 8", about half way into that spree of clipper systems I was basically burnt out and hired a friend from Toledo 4 wheelers to plow for me in the bronco for $20 an hour, we would basically tag team everything. The bronco had a mini love seat and brown shag carpeting so one of us would take a powernap while the other plowed an vice-versa. that winter I made so much money that the summer was a big fuckoff session and I junked the bornco and bought a jeep cherokee and traded the 8' plow for a new 6½' plow. the jeep ended up being a total piece of shit and the crappy 2.8 blew the headgasket and I sold it minus the plow for $10 more then I paid for it,... good riddence to bad rubbish, I swear to god I will never own a jeep again. the headgasket went mid season so after some barganing I threw the 6½' meyers on the durango and then the madness began, we started taking on more accounts after andy lost the taco bells and I had a reliable vehicle to use

I will finish this hen I get back from wallmart, gotta pick up some random stuff

another TPD visit

2006-03-05T02:22:00.000-05:00

Brian from across the street stopped by about an hour ago to borrow my paint spraygun beause his was messed up, noting new... we borrow tools from each other and help each other with projects and assorted shit like that, anyways we get talking about paint and how the EPA is trying to ban Base/Clear paint spraying in the private sector and only allow single stage paint when we decide to go in the backyard and look at the botched clearcoat on the aqua-hog.... so I flipped on the floodlights in the back yard and got deeper into the conversation on paint, about 15 minutes pass by and we decide to head over to his house and set the gun up to spray. I let the dog back in and walk across the road, as I am walking a TPD cruizer glides down Nela Pky at about 10mph,... nothing new they usually drive by once in the evening and 99% of the tim it is my buddy Jim who is patrolling our sector, tonite it was him as usual but it turned out that Steve had called them on me and brian for talking loudly and painting a boat at midnight, Jim just laughed and asked that I turn off the floodlghts to help keep the vein on steves forehead from exploding. Jim chuckled about this call as he usually does, the last time he was called out I was "Shooting off fireworks at Steves house"... yea,... um.... NO I was using a cutting torch to trim Brians bumper down to size. Apparently steve dosent know that you need a airline to run a spray gun and that welding isint shooting fireworks, oh well it is good for a laugh

more pics of the project

2006-03-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

went and took some daytime pics of both boats I have and I will start with the project first

I have a slab of 12" wide oak that I am going to have ripped down to ½" and then it is going to be the gauge trim piece

I got the majority of the interior gutted this evening, once I get a tag for it I am going to take it down to the u-do-it carwash and give it a dousche. this next weekend is looking like it will be nice so I will probably take it to walbridge park and put it in the water for a hour or so to find any leaks,if there isint any then I will go to stage two and pull it in the garage and sand the top of the hull and reshoot the clearcoat with blue and gold glitter instead of the red and silver and then install the steering and motor controls. I am kinda pissed for giving away the set of evinrude simplex controls I had last year that I need now but hindsight is 20-20 nad I will do the seating aswell. hopefully I can have this boat done in 2-3 weeks and be ready to put in the river for some walleye fishing :hopefully:
heres a pic of the lund speedboat, the motors are in the garage right now, I have a 85 hp Johnson motor for it, last year on the last trip out with the 60 evinrues I burned up a piston so they have been on the back burner til now

new outboard

2006-03-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

well Brian was hard up for money so I bought a 35 hp long shaft outboard motor off of him this evening for $100, not that bad of a deal considering there is one on ebay in the same condition here in Ohio that is selling for over $500 I think I am going to use ths motor on the aqua-hog project. I would rather use this over a starflite beause it has through the prop underwater exhaust whereas a v-4 starflite has open headers, this boat will mostly be used for putting around and occasional fishing so having alot of power is not a big deal. from what I am told this motor will plane a 2000# boat at about 22-24 mph..... that works for me. the next step is to aquire some teak to make a retro swim platform for the rear of the boat.

total cost to date is $186 (boat,motor,trailer,tires,lights,titlework)

the next project... the aqua-hog

2006-03-02T23:07:00.000-05:00

the next $25 project, a Spirit 14' boat built by the Tomahawk Marine Group and at the time was owned by Harley Davidson, Jeremy drug it home on 2 flat tires. apparently you can drive from McCord & Door st to my place before the steel rim wears off the hub, LOL. Upon coming home as usual Stevie next door threw open the curtains and stood there and glared at us... I wish this joker would get a life and a job, his previous excuse was the fact that he was being a stay at home dad but now his kid goes with his wife michelle every day and he just sits in his living room watching cartoons all day.
Anyways back to the boat.

it is going to get one of my special built 60HP Starflite Evinrudes and a totally new interior with black naugahide seat cushons. it should be a fun and relatively easy project considering the floor is verry solid and so is the transom so there wont be any major structural work, mostly cosmetic, the total cost for restoration will be in the $250-$300 range and I will probably get around $1200-$1500 for it after it is completed

HI STEVE!

2006-03-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

I guess he didnt like seeing me outside picking up dogshit. after he started glaring at me I grabbed the small digicam I carry around and took a pic... Id say it is pretty good evidence that I am not insane and that he does constantly watch us.

This is for you Steve!

2006-03-01T02:05:00.000-05:00

(deleted because I am going to get on with life)

another day like no other

2006-02-28T19:17:00.000-05:00

yay, 1 inch of snow, I can ride the snowmobile around the neighborhood... well that got cut short by Tom @ Cottman transmission calling needing help with a Kubota L35 TLB that needs a clutch, it should be a fun project , for those watching I emailed a link to rob that points to here.... should be interisting soon
more later

more personal attacks

2006-02-27T13:56:00.000-05:00

Removed because the family asked me to

horsefeathers and rabbit turds

2006-02-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

well today started off with a bang,
literally... 12:09am the guys across the street lit of a 36 shot firework repeater box, I followed suite with a 25 shot Saturn missile battery and then called it a night... that should make our asshole neighbor happy LOL

11:18am I awoke to people bitching about Robert.... the person that weaseled his way back into this family after a 20 year absence, last night at about 2am I was bored and searching eBay for a new boat motor for the 14' LuxaCraft I just bought for $25 the day before and I googled a address and left the window open... before I went to bed I was looking at caravan prices because my grandmother wrecked her van and I want to make sure the insurance company doesn't screw her over and then I remembered Robert saying at the hospital that he would put a pic of her van on his blog site thing, well I googled it and found it and needless to say what I saw did not make me happy... basically he trashed me, my grandparents and my mother, I figured I would mention it to them in the morning but somehow they found out about it before I did and as usual the drama llama came up from the basement and shit hit the fan... about 1 in the afternoon I said screw the drama and went over to the shop to work on appliances and I kind of kept busy there til 6-7ish and came home

{insert relaxing here]

all I can say right now as I am reading
(removed)is that he
is full of shit, plain and simple. you don't say shit like that unless you are
out to hurt feelings, but in all reality it must take a person that is really insecure about themselves to constantly point out other peoples foibles in hope that the spotlight doesn't shine on them when in all reality they are far worse off then those picked on.

ROB>

all I can say is
that I am the way I am
And if you don't like it then feel free to piss up a rope

interisting day

2006-02-26T01:39:00.000-05:00

shitty things that happened today

car wreck
flat tire
spilled coffee
asshole neighbor staredown
asshole uncle being a dick

will add more later