If you know me, you probably have an idea about what this article is about. Well, I’m here to tell you that…..
YOU ARE WRONG
You are wrong.
This article is actually about Dairy Queen. You know the place. I go there a lot. I was there the other day and got a blizzard. They are probably my favorites because they can actually satisfy my need. The sundaes just don’t do it for me.
You’ve probably noticed that they do a funny thing before they hand your blizzard to you. They turn it upside down and look at you like “See?!?” What I don’t really get is what point they are trying to prove. See what? That your frozen treat defies gravity? That the desert Im about to put in my mouth is made of super-glue?
I’ve thought extensively about it and come to the conclusion that it probably is their way of letting you know that they just made it, it hasn’t melted cause if it had been sitting around it would be liquid by now and would fall to the pavement.
So I was at Dairy Queen getting a blizzard. The girl flips open the window, turns the blizzard upside down and it all falls out down onto the pavement. Like a sloppy bowel movement. She looks at me in horror and I’m already pissing myself I’m laughing so hard. She runs off to make another one and this time delivers it without attempting to turn it upside down. She just hands it over and shuts the window.
So whatever it is that they serve they want you to see that it behaves like ice cream. But you should know that no where on any menu, sign, document or drive through window will you find ice cream on the menu at Dairy Queen. They don’t serve ice cream, you see. It’s an ice cream-like substance but it’s not ice cream or you can bet that it would be on their menu. Look next time. It’s a Buster Bar Parfait, a blizzard, a dip cone, a cup, but it doesn’t say ice cream. Cause it’s not.
Do you feel a little deceived? Yeah, me too. Here are some other things that aren’t what you think they are:
Truffle Oil
Olive Oil
Maple syrup
Honey
Anything with vanilla
Wasabi
parmesan cheese
instant coffee
crab meat
It’s called food fraud and it’s rampant. We are not eating what we think we are eating and what we are told is healthy is making us fat, lazy but much less likely to start a rebellion or over throw the government.
Did you know we are the ONLY species to drink the milk of another species? Most people are actually lactose intolerant, so the fact is that we take pills so that we are able to drink thed milk of another animal which is unnatural in the first place! Amazing what marketing can do.
I rarely write or talk about politics. I think that the topic has become so divisive that it has become a threat to our well being. Our communities are being torn apart as we are almost forced to choose between two sides that encourage us to hate each other. We all know (or I hope that the majority of us are smart enough to realize) that this is being executed as designed. The two major parties pick a topic that engages our emotions so strongly that we forget that if we step back and take a look at things, we all want the same things – a safe place to live, enough food on our table, good education for our kids, and a little bit left over for some fun. Nobody can argue against that.
This machine that divides us has infinite power. Some how Trump has learned the secret to loyalty, his followers will do anything he says and nothing that he does can turn them against him. Let’s look at some of the things should turn any normal, semi-intelligent being to think twice about this horror of a man:
His association with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex-trafficker who killed himself after being found guilty. Trump called him “a great guy” and a “lover of beautiful women, sometimes on the young side.”
His attempt to turn the US into a dictatorship, throwing democracy to the wind. This, alone should be enough to turn any US Citizen who spends their time quoting the constitution regarding the right to bear arms to be afraid that the document they hold so dear was almost shredded into nothingness on that 6th day of January.
His statement to Iowans after a school shooting in Perry “get over it and move on”
Fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
Telling Americans to inject disinfectant to kill Covid-19 on national television.
His statement that the Civil War could have been ‘negotiated’, his praise of artwork by White Supremacists and pandering to the far-right wing Christians.
The fact that he faces 91 charges in several cases across several states.
His promotion of conspiracy theories, racism and misogony.
I could go on, but I shouldn’t need to. Not only is this person not a good candidate, he’s not a good person. I’m certainly glad that when my great-great grandfather arrived here from Sweden that someone like him wasn’t in office claiming that we were “poisoning the blood” of America.
Now I’m no Biden fan either, but one cannot ignore the following facts:
Unemployment rates are at a historic low of 3%.
There are more new small businesses than any other time period on record.
There are over 11 million new jobs.
We are on track to rebuild our failing infrastructure of roads, bridges, electrical grid, passenger rail system and are investing in cleaner energies that will have to replace our dependence on coal.
Women and Black Americans have made historic gains in pay equality.
Paved the way for the legalization of marijuana by pardoning all prior Federal convictions of possession, encouraging governors to do the same, and by creating a panel to re-class and re-thing the approach we take on the drug.
Only 8% of Americans remain without health insurance.
Wages have risen
Inflation has decreased.
Ideally a third party candidate could win the election. I think I’m done voting for any party who’s goal is to divide and conquer. We should be about uniting a nation rather than dividing it.
Recently the clerk of Rown County Kentucky lost a court case in which she was sued for not signing marriage licenses of same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs. She was ordered to pay $100,000 to the couple along with court costs.
This brings up several issues – individual freedoms, religious freedom, and separation of church and state.
Should this clerk be allowed to have religious beliefs that contradict her civic duties? Yes, of course – the constitution allows for religious freedom. This concept is one of the reasons why the US sought and won independence from Great Britian. Does this permit her to deny another US citizen their constitutional right to get married? No. Should she leave her religious beliefs at home when she comes to work at her government job? Absolutely. The separation of church and state disallows the government from adopting a single religion or favoring one – religion has no place in government.
This is a no brainer. It’s very clear and although the media states that it is a complex issue, it really isn’t. It’s very. clear. Perhaps if your beliefs contradict your job duties you should find another job. In this case the voters took care of that for her. She wasn’t re-elected.
So Navigator finally gave up on the negotiator that was working with us and assigned us a third person. This one was awesome. She came to our house and shot the shit straight out. She was down to earth, human and told the story as it was.
We worked with her for a bit and actually finally came to an agreement. She sent the paperwork off to Navigator and then we heard nothing. And a whole lot more of nothing.. And then? More nothing. NO AND THEN.
Turns out that Navigator scrapped their pipeline plans for Iowa altogether. I guess they were having issues with permits and getting enough landowners to sign on that they trashed the whole project. BIG WIN!
Is it only day 8? It honestly seems like a month at this point. After yesterday dragged on for an eternity, my sense of time has been completely shattered. I’ll get you all caught up (since my last post disappeared mysteriously, I must have forgotten to click save).
Day 1: I left at 2am after getting the water link/sink fixed in the bathroom. I wasn’t too worried about leaving at night, I thought it might make the traffic situation a bit better. It did. I made it to nearly the border of Iowa/Missouri where I stopped at a rest stop off of I 35 and slept for the night.
Day 2: I headed towards my first destination, Bolivar, MO just north of Springfield. I stopped in Sweet Springs because they had a spa and soaked in the hot tub for a few hours – my muscles were so tensed up from driving – I must say that it’s nerve-wracking pulling a trailer for the first time. The spa was super relaxing and afterwards felt ready to tackle the road.
Somehow I lost track of where I was going when the phone died. I kept going in the general direction but when the phone finally came back up, it had me zig zagging on very narrow country roads which pretty much nullified the good the spa did. This also made me late and I didn’t arrive at the campsite until 8pm. So not only will this be the first time I’ve setup the camper, it will have to get done in the dark.
I drove around the campground for a good 1/2 hour looking for my spot. Could not find it for the life of me and finally called Teresa, the campground manager for help. She directed me to my spot, which was in between two already landed campers in a row of very tightly packed sites.
I set up the camper as best I could and went to bed.
Day 3: I worked until 5 and then had to reset up the camper. It was crooked, to close to one neighbor and backwards (connections for water/electricity/sewer were on the wrong side. With Chris’ help over the phone, I got it all setup except for the sewer which didn’t look right. More on that later.
Went to Springfield that night to get away for a moment and have a drink. Found a cool little bar that was having Karoke. Bartender was super friendly and made a good Long Island Ice Tea.
Day 4: Worked and continued to clean up the camper which was a total wreck. I had hit some bumps on those country roads and everything in the camper had been thrown around and the little glass I had was broken. My makeshift shelving in the bathroom had fallen over and there were clothes covering every inch of the bathroom. This cleanup effort would last until the end of the week, just in time for me to have to pack up and leave again.
Went to a local hardware store in search of a sewer hose part that I seemed to be missing. Finally found it, but by the time I got back to the campsite, it was too dark to deal with it.
Day 5: Finally got the sewer hooked up, but not without a bit of drama. I had purchased this cool attachment that has a place to put a hose so that you can easily rinse out your black water tank (the poop and the pee) without having to bring a hose in and stick it down the toilet. It hooks on the the sewer outlet and the hose hooks on the other end. Pretty slick. Thought I was super smart for hooking it up right away instead of waiting until the end when the job would most surely be really shitty. So I hooked up the new hose with the coorect end to the rinser attachment and opened the dam gates. Here comes a flood of really not very attractive brown color water gushing out (the attachment tube is clear) and then it abruptly stops. Like nothing is flowing past the rinser attachment.
I search for a valve or something and nothing. I did note a little piece of plastic on either side of the attachment and came to the conclusion that it had a seal on it like you would find on peanut butter or salad dresssing. I mean, really? Are they afraid my poop might becoming tainted? Shessh. Now I have a problem. I shut the dam gate so there was no more flow but I still had this tube of shit full and ready to well, you get the picture. So again, Im stuck. I’m not unattching the tube without rubber gloves or a bucket. And I have neither. So its off again to the hardware store (the next day) to get the needed supplies.
Day 6: Ok, this time the sewer gets connected and it runs. i held the bucket underneath the tube (with the rubber gloves) and unattached it from the hose. Next I pulled off the plastic tamper-proof seal (god it made me feel good to know my shit tube was safe) and………
……. it all went in the bucket. No more drama to this story, thank goodness. And i finally got the sewer hooked up the day before I leave.
I spend the rest of the night buckling up the camper.
Day 7: Time to pack up and go. The neighbor sees me struggling to hook up the truck and comes over to help. Nice guy. He and his wife bought a camper for $5000 and moved in to it and then realized it was all rotted out. So he’s got tools and saws and wood all over his spot and is trying to make all of the necessary repairs. Meanwhile, they have two teenagers who were just removed from their dad’s home (they are the wife’s) and are now living with them in the camper. 4 adults, one small camper. I don’t feel so crowded all of a sudden.
So it’s raining, of course. It’s been raining for two days now. The only thing worse than packing up a camper in the rain is pulling a camper in the rain. It’s miserable. I feel like I’m hydroplaning all over the road and everytime a semi passes me (and everybody is passing me because now I’m that dude driving 50 in a 70mph zone.
I stop several times to catch my breath and throw up a little and it’s starting to get dark and I’m in a town called Poplar Bluff. I’m cold, wet, tired and grumpy and decide to splurge on a hotel with a hot tub. It was nice but the hot tub was lukewarm, half-full and there were like 4 jets. Whatevs.
Day 8: Most definitely the worst day so far. This day sucked so bad…….
As I left the hotel parking lot I hit the curb with the camper wheel and I’m sure threw stuff around. The rain continued and was pretty heavy at times. I traveled through Missouri and into Illinois and then into Kentucky. I didn’t get very far when I decided to stop at a gas station for a little break in Paducah, Kentucky I went in, and when I came back out I noticed the camper was leaning heavily to the left. The tire was blown! Aargh. I start making phone calls.
On my first call to AAA, the agent informed me that I didn’t have an RV membership. I pulled out my RV Membership form and called back. The second agent told me my membership had been cancelled. As I was on the phone with him, another call came in and it was a third agent informing me that she had it all worked out and was looking for a tow truck that could haul a single axle camper.
While I was waiting, I called around and found a tire at wal-mart about 6 miles away but I needed to get the wheel off and had no jack. So I drove to wal-mart, bought a jack and some jack stands and went back to the camper. Got the wheel off and rushed off to Wal-mart to get the tire put on and when I got there, they didn’t have a tire. Nor did they have a wheel with a tire that would fit my camper. Aargh.
I left and stopped at Tractor Supply and they had a wheel with a tire on it (I needed a spare anyway). Rushed back to the camper and with the help of a very nice man named Mike was able to get the new tire on the camper.
Kentucky gets 5 stars for friendliness. I was very impressed with the people there.
Back on the road and headed towards Nashville around 8pm. I got close to the campground but was worried about getting in too late and dealing with setup in the dark again so I stopped at a rest area and slept for the night.
Day 9: Got into the campground at 7 am and was setup by 7:55. Made it to work with 5 minutes to spare.
Non-eventful day. Went to dinner after work at a nice place after work since I hadn’t eaten a square meal in a couple of days. When I got back to the campground, I had a voicemail from the manager that we were going to be freezing over the next three nights and to disconnect my water supply at night so the faucet wouldn’t burst. I’m supposed to far enough south to avoid the freeze at this time! Aargh.
I have a f****^%#%^*ing water leak. I cut my finger and was looking for a bandaid and noticed it was a bit damn under the sink. A little more research revealed a drip from the cold water feed. With a little help from Chris, we are repaired but am not a fan of last minute drama. And it was a mess to clean up. I finally got to bed at 4 am. Was having some doubts but Chris reminded me of the snow coming and that totally energized me to get the f out of dodge
I took the week off of work to prepare for this strange adventure and to help my brother clean up some things on the farm. I spent the week cleaning, organizing, going to the dump, going to Goodwill and endlessly rearranging the camper. I know I’ve packed too many things, but when I think about what is now gone, I’m not being too hard on myself – I got rid of a lot. Like (30) 30 gallon garbage bags of clothes. Countless electronics, knic knacs, stuff that belonged to my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents.
Even though I got rid of a lot, there were certain things I felt I needed to purchase in order to make this a successful trip. Here’s a list of things that I believe will make this transition easier.
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Monitor Mounts for the monitors I’ll be using for work. I found these to be very reasonably priced and very sturdy. They are an easy mount and the monitors fit flat against the mounted wall yet pull way out when I want to use them. They tilt, turn, twist and rotate just about any way that you could think to adjust a monitor and they stay put when you want them. Great buy.
Also in the technology mounting category, I bought a Microphone Mount and a Base so that could be easily adjusted and out of the way. It works quite well. And of course, we can’t forget the camera, so I bought a mount for that too.
They say that travel trailers aren’t really meant for full time living and one should worry about excess condensation which can cause mold. Something I’d never considered but a micro dehumidifier should solve that problem. Seems to be working great in my driveway testing.
Because I love my ice maker so much, I had to have one in the camper. I’ve been testing it out for the past few weeks and it make nice thick cubes quickly. Not a lot of noise and easy to use. I get mesmerized by it – watching the water turn into ice is for some strange reason highly interesting to me. I know. I’m weird.
I ended up completely remodeling the dinette – taking the table and cutting it in half to make an L-shaped desk. I, of course needed a keyboard tray so this is the one that I got. Sturdy yet affordable. Very happy so far.
I know, I know, pictures. I’ll take pictures very soon. I just want the rig to be in as finished of a state as possible before presenting to the world.
Welcome to my adventure! This blog will document my travel over the next little bit of time around the US as I explore places to find a permanent home. I hope to hit a lot of cool places, meet some new friends and connect with some current friends. Many of you have asked that I share regular updates about my travels and so I thought I would do it here. But first, let’s explore the backstory of how I got here in the first place.
About 5 years ago, I moved back to the family farm in Iowa to take care of my aging parents and the farm that has been in my family for over 130 years. After my parents died, I remained on the farm to help keep the family’s legacy alive. I had previously lived in San Francisco for most of my adult life, and although I love the peace and serenity of living on the farm, the lack of social opportunities, food options and activities started to take a toll on me. That coupled with all of the work that is required on a farm pretty much turned me into a hermit, rarely leaving the place for anything other than occasional shopping trips to nearby towns.
My brother came to me one day in the not very distant past and was complaining about a situation at his job that he didn’t feel was fair. It just so happened that the equivalent of his job opened up in the town where I live and he applied for it. He got it, but was unsure where he was going to live. He had a home in Iowa Falls but that was too far to drive on a daily basis. The stars had aligned and I told him he should move back to the farm and I could find somewhere else to live. He liked the idea and three weeks later was here living in our AirBNB rental. I started going through all of my things but couldn’t figure out a place I wanted to move. I knew that I wanted to be near a bigger city, but didn’t have an idea about where to go. As I brought up my head from contemplative thought, I eyed the camper and an idea was born.
Next came the process of going through and whittling down my belongings, getting rid of things and packing some stuff away in the attic. That process has taken two months but I’m nearing the end. My brother moved into the big house two days ago and I’ve been living in my camper and working here for about two weeks.
So now you’re caught up. I’m currently going through all of the crap I’ve packed in the camper and whittling it down further – I had converted the shower into a closet but have since decided not to bring so many clothes. I’m going to have to learn to do laundry more often.
I’m also considering re-configuring my desk once again. The camper had a dinnette with two bench seats and a table that I tore out and re-configured. It’s nice, but I’m thinking I don’t need so much table and am considering cutting the table in half and making an L shaped corner desk so I could fit another chair in here. Pictures will be forthcoming.
Anyway, hope you enjoy reading about my journey, leave a comment here and there so I know who’s out there!
Ever do a Google search and the results are inundated with pages from a site that you really don’t want to see? Google provides some not-so-widely used tools to help you hone down your results to something that is useful.
Today I was looking for a chimney sweep. No matter how I searched, the results were littered with pages from angi.com and homeadivsor.com, the same site for which I have had really bad experiences with. Although not the main topic of this post, this company purports to find you professionals in your area and has a wizard to get the info about the project and then finds professionals to help. Every time I have used this, it returns the message that there are lots of professionals in my area and asks for my contact info. Once entered, the message quickly changes to inform me that there are really no-one in my area to help me. But now, they have my contact info and subsequently spam me for weeks for other things. Needless to say, I don’t want to see results from this company when I search.
Google search provides a simple exclusion tool to leave these results out. Here’s my search syntax:
chimney sweep near me -angi.com -homeadvisor.com
The addition of a minus sign (-) immediately followed by a domain will exclude any result from this domain from your final results. Handy, no? You can also use the minus sign to remove specific words or phrases from your results. For example, if you didn’t want to see results that were located in Des Moines, you could add -“Des Moines” to the end of the search. The quotes around the exclusion phrase are necessary only when you want the exact phrase to be eliminated.
The quotes bring up an important point. By default, Google uses an AND between multiple words. In my search google is looking for pages that have both the word chimney AND the word sweep in them, but not necessarily the words chimney sweep together. To make it more accurate, the following syntax could be used to get at more specific results
“chimney sweep” near me -angi.com -homeadvisor.com -“Des Moines”
The above syntax should find chimney sweeps near me, eliminating results from the sites angi.com and homeadvisor.com and without Des Moines in the text.
Verizon has to be the most incompetent company on the planet. And deceptive. I needed a new phone and the had an offer for a free phone. Turns out free is not so free. My bill went from $45 on Visible to $190 on Verizon and I have less bars. I traded in my old iPhone and they offered me $1000. As it turns out, they get to pay me this $1000 over the course of 3 years in the form of a credit of $27 on my bill each month that help to pay for part of my “Free” phone.
In addition, the put me on a more expensive plan than I requested, refused to change it and suddenly my $100 bill is was now $168. The second month it was $190. Part of the promotion was a $200 gift card that was presented to me as a visa gift card but when I got it, it was just for merchandise in the Verizon store. I went shopping and hardly anything was available to purchase. I finally found something and went to check out and there was nowhere to enter my gift card. Shocker.
I got on their chat for help and after 3 agents and an hour, they told me to click Place the order which I did, and it charged it to my PayPal account instead of offering a place to enter the gift card. The agent then went on to request proof that I placed the order so I sent her screenshots of the cart, the order from Verizon and the email from payal. She had the nerve to tell me that it was the wrong order because it was placed the day before. FUCK! I’d been on the chat with them over an hour and the order was placed on the 23rd and now it’s the 24th. WTF? of course the date changes at midnight. She then cut off the chat without helping me. What a piece of shit company. I’ve filed a complaint with the BBB and will file another with the FTC. So pissed.
Nope! Sorry, try again.
Green brings upon thoughts of eco-friendly, outdoorsy and money.
