Montana State Fair

Well, Friday, we took the kids to the State Fair. They had a blast. They had fun on the rides, ate corndogs and cotton candy, and we all got caricatures done. So, my cheap-ass decided to try to scan the drawings. The problem was, they were bigger than the scanner, so I split them into 2 scans, and then used Photoshop with the latest CS version to merge the two scans. It was so easy, I just highlighted the two scans in browser mode and clicked photomerge, sat back and let the magic happen.
Here’s me and the wife, our new wedding picture! You'd never know these pictures were made from two seperate images. Photoshop rocks.




















Here's the kids, again, two scans merged into one, seamless:

Slim's Hate for Fat Carts, or, How to Trace American History through Television

As promised in the July 21st post, here’s my hate for fat carts. The service one is still in the works.

The Fat Cart:
I hate the fact that fat people use a device I’m sure was meant for the old and the honestly handicapped. Here’s where I lose some fans;
I have no sympathy for fat people because they are all lazy. There, I said it. If you are fat and don’t want to be fat, lose the weight. Change your lifestyle. With the right kind of motivation, you change; with laziness, no change. If I can quit smoking, people can lose weight. If you don’t try, don’t bitch about paying for two tickets on an airplane. If you do try, but nothing changes, try harder. No sympathy.

History note:
So I left America in the summer of 1993, off to start my career and earn my name in Japan. It was a simpler time, ’93; Starbucks hadn’t polluted every street corner, Seinfeld was just getting started, we’d seen the last of Wayne’s World, and if you were fat, you had to walk like other people.

I passed through America twice in ’96, but never left the airport; the only carts I saw had chauffeurs and, oddly enough, carried the old and handicapped.

I came back to America for a month-long fire school, circa ’98. I didn’t see any fat carts then either, but my shopping adventures pretty much took place in pool halls and happy-hours, so that's understandable. Fast Forward to summer 2001.

USA: Welcome back to America, Tokyo Slim!

Me: I like what you’ve done with the place! Holy crap, when I left, you had only served 60 billion on the McDonald’s sign!

USA: Yes, we’re glad you noticed. We stopped counting and now it’s just “Billions” served. America’s been busy getting fat since you left.

Me: I see that. Oh, wow, there’s a little electric scooter for the old and handicapped at the stores! Well isn’t that considerate! I remember that episode of Seinfeld when George was faking he was handicapped to get a job, and they gave him a scooter to ride. That was so funny, because he was using it and wasn’t handicapped, just lazy!

USA: Um… yes, that… was funny… anyway, welcome back.

So how does a long lost American track down the moment when fat people took over the scooter in America? Television, my friend, and here’s how:

With the help of the internet, I can track certain episodes of “The Simpsons” and "Seinfeld" which took notice of certain changes in society and made fun of them. Apply a formula and done.

The Simpsons, Episode 3F05, King Size Homer, aired 5 November, 1995. A strong desire to work at home prompts Homer to gain a lot of weight so he can claim work disability. See, this is when Americans started to use excuses to be fat, rather than actually work at losing the weight.

Seinfeld, “The Butter Shave” Episode no. 157
Season 9, episode 1, broadcast 25 September, 1997. George gets the scooter. This is where the non-handicapped people started going after the perks of the handicapped, but without the pain, loss of mobility, and general shittiness of being handicapped. Seinfeld sees this in society, and boom, you got your show. A moment captured in time.
(http://www.stanthecaddy.com/the-butter-shave-script.html )

I split the difference between the air dates of the Simpsons and Seinfeld, then compared it to the difference between the air date of Seinfeld and date I returned to Fat Land, multiplied by the constant, FL, (fatty laziness), and I get December 1999.
Here’s my formula:




















Were you in America in December of 1999? Is this when it started going down?
I need some comments here people. Must we watch TV to find out if history repeats itself?

Old Pics Found

I was looking through an old backup CD, and I found a few pictures from the Desert with the Horse. As BW said about the terrain there, "Greetings from Mars."

This picture was taken when we ran out of steel. We put up 1 and a half UBM's and the steel we ordered was held up in port and customs and stuff. They started to create work for us. "Someone" made this sign and we decided to take a pose. The rest of the crew was back in the tent city building a double-decker porch on our morale tent. The sign mysteriously disappeared later that day, no doubt taken down by the higher-ups; fun while it lasted. The head is missing from a guy I hate. I don't want him in my pictures, he's a piece of crap. The sign says, "Unemployed, will work for steel." In the background, the forms to place the concrete footers are ready, we just need steel to put the building there.



Here's a picture of our Milk Truck. You would not believe the high demand for milk on a jobsite in the desert. Once again, dumbshit's head is removed.



Here's another one. Me and JS hard at work. This was on the last building we put up, probably a couple of weeks before he broke his arm. He came over the other day to BS before I leave.



And finally, here's yours truly taking a break in a wheel barrow, waiting for the next cement truck to come. You take your breaks when you can get them. It was actually very comfortable.

Old friends

Guess who's back in town? It's my old friend, searing neck pain! My god, ol' buddy, how long's it been? 3 months? Why, I haven't seen you since that day in traction?

I'll give it until Monday, then I'm gonna go to Physical Therapy; get on the old traction contraption. Hopefully they can squeeze me in, get it? Sorry, I'm medicated.

So, my going away lunch is today at Legends, where I'll maybe get roasted a bit, then I'll have to say something. MK, if you read the Royal Order of the Horse, I'll puke right on you!

The going away lunch is your last chance to address your co-workers, burn some bridges and a last ditch effort to get your orders red-lined. Through these crappy 4 years, I've pictured what I would say, and how much trash I would talk. Now I'm actually at that point and there's nothing in the world that could make me say anything to jeopardize me leaving. "It's been wonderful, I love you all," turn, walk away holding back puke, failing, failing... "Clean up at table 6". Don't get me wrong, I've met a lot of nice people here, but the assignment just wasn't as good as it could have been, and you 've got to be polite in these situations. It's surreal to witness the exact moment when you know you've been beaten into submission.

What is it about our society that makes it so wrong to say exactly what's on your mind? You can do it sometimes, with a low limit, but only to some people. That's why characters like Cosmo Kramer have such an appeal. He says exactly what he thinks, and winds up with an Oscar and Miss Rhode Island. George Costanza, on the other hand, is just like the rest of us, but worse.

Aggravation Compensation

Ok, so if you know Tokyo Slim, you know I can get really aggravated, really quick, over really trivial stuff, then hold a grudge for a really long time (so far, that appears to be "till death"). Well, today I got aggravated and, minutes later, dropped a grudge for the first time ever. That's right; I know if MK is reading this, he probably just crapped himself. Here's how it went down:

I'm at the Walmart; I hate the Walmart, but I go there anyway because, as you may have read before, I'm a bargain shopper (I'm a cheap bastard). I get aggravated just about every single time I go to Walmart, and this time was no different. We bought 4 big 18 gallon plastic containers with lids to throw crap in, 1 small container to lightly set crap in, and then a few other crappy items.

We start the antagonizing death march down the row of checkout counters. God Help Me, I hate Walmart. Lane closed, Full cart, 2 Full Carts, Full Cart, Half-Full Cart, Lane Closed, Lane Closed, Full Cart... Eureka! 15 items or less lane, there's a Fat Guy in a red shirt, he's got 2 small items on the counter, that's it! He's just standing there, it must be all on the counter! Watch it lady, you don't want none of this.
Yeah, score.

Now normally I'd wonder why a guy this fat didn't get on the lazy, fat people's cart*(see footnote 1) as nature intended him to, but I set aside my inquisitive ways and relished the sweet score on a "low lane."
I'm looking around, people are giving me the "good score on the low lane" nod, and I’m nodding back. The security guys in the back of the store are no doubt going over the replay tapes, already calling the Chunky Soup commercial guy with "the voice" to do the archive commentary for "Great Moments in Shopping History, Part IV."
Ok, don't get a big head there, Bucko, eyes front, let’s get some of your small crap on the counter.

What the??? There's another item in the fat guy in a red shirt's pile!? He must've overlooked it, maybe lost it in the belly shade or something. No problem, still plenty of room for my stuff. Turn, reach into my cart, grab some small crap, turn... Ok, where's the hidden camera? More stuff in his pile? This ain't possible. Where's this stuff coming from? This guy was so fat, you couldn't see his cart in front of him. None of it. I'm not joking.

Like a pair of pocket Aces before the flop, the fat guy in the red shirt was slow playing his cart items, hiding his cart with the big red tent he called a shirt, trying to sucker me in; and I bit. One after another, he fired out bets, and I stayed there in line, pot committed now that people blocked me in.

Oh, I was agg-rah-vated. The nerve of this guy, to sit there and keep pulling items out from his cart like he was one of those clowns with the never-ending-chain of hankies! And the fat cashier, she's just lettin' it go down! That's not right. Maybe I missed the secret fat people society's jowl-shake or something. He finally stopped, on my count of 23 items and I began ORM, weighing my options, calculating pot odds. I could poke him in his back fat and let him know he broke the rules; he was over 15 items. He could ignore me, or belly bump me into sporting goods. I could say, "my, what a big red shirt that is" and he could say, "the better to wipe my mouth with after I eat you."

As I went over scenarios in my head, my concentration was broken by the talk of numbers and defensiveness. Shut it Slim, you're in the presence of incompetence ** (see footnote 2).
Listen in:

Fat Guy in a Red Shirt: That wasn't right.

Fat Cashier: huh?

FGIARS: I gave you the 40 cents also

FC: Oh, yeah, sorry, I'll give you the 75 cents with your change.

FGIARS: Yeah! That's better!

Me: Ok, you both are boobs. You gave her odd-ball change on a bill that came to a different odd-ball amount, to get more pocket change back. And you know how much he gave you but rang it in different? You dumb, fat bastards don't deserve to touch money!

Ok, I didn't really say anything, but I was thinking some stuff along those lines. I knew I was gonna have to watch Fat Cashier really close. Fat Guy in a Red Shirt gets his bucket of change and waddles on out.

While the Math-Olympics were going on, I was feverishly getting my few crappy items up on the counter and had my plastic tubs poised A) to show they were empty, B) to let tubby scan the UPC and hit 4.

So she starts to ring up my stuff. She does the small crappy stuff, and, in true cashier form, throws it into the center of the cart so she can put the huge stuff on top of it; Sheer Genius. She scans my 1 small container, bags it, then looks at the 4 big containers and:

FC: Oh, you didn’t have to put those up on the counter; they’re too big to go over the scanner here.

Me: I know how big they are; you gotta check and see that I’m not smuggling stuff out.

FC: (ignores what I just said) No, I got this smaller scanner; I can just walk around and get it.
Me: Just stay back there, it’s already on the counter, lady.

FC: Aren’t you sweet? (She moves in for the scan.)

Me: You bet I am, BEEP!

No, I didn’t say beep, the register behind me beeped, just as she went to scan my tubs. She thought she got it. She slowly lifts a finger, points at the top tub, then counts her way down the stack like a drunk who can’t focus for long and sounds like she just ate garlic and wants to share it with you.She almost sounded like the Russian chick from the Bullwinkle cartoons, but whispering. Somehow, she managed to count all four. She hit something and the 4 to signify there were 4 of what she scanned and totaled it up. Looks a little low…

Walking out, I check the receipt; just as I suspected. She scanned the small container but missed scanning the big ones, charging me for 4 smalls, no larges, instead of 1 small and 4 large. A savings of over 5 bucks.

Now normally, I’d never forget Fat Guy in a red shirt. I’d see him again (this is Great Falls) and I’d remember him, and I’d avoid him, because he’s a conniving, 10-sandwhich-eating, entire-cart-hiding, no-math-skill-having piece of crap, and he suckered me into a lane that wasn’t designed to be that slow. And that’s a grudge I could easily hold forever, but, this time was different.

This time, I saved money because fat cashier was an idiot, I got a good laugh at the two of them in math class, and I don’t know when I’ll ever see someone who can actually hide an entire shopping cart with their body again!

* footnote 1: Stay tuned for the feature spotlight "Slim's Hate for Fat Carts"
**footnote 2: Stay tuned for an upcoming entry on "Slim's Theory on Cashiers and Food Service Jobs"

Tale of the Tape

My tape-measure got packed and shipped with my pro-gear. This sucks. I have to get both of my kids height for their "No-Fee" passports that they need to go back to Japan. They have their own, personal ones that they've used to go back to Japan for a vacation, but I guess the AF just wants to make sure they are who I say they are. Kinda like the Lady from the old Hanes Underwear Commercial.

LadyftoHUC: It don't say Hanes, till I say it says Hanes!

That's enough reminiscing, back to my problem. So I need their height in inches, but all I have is a metric tape-measure, and I really hate doing conversion math on leave. Any kind of math, really. Also, I need to get new filters for the furnace, but I don't know what size. The lasts ones I got were too small, and I used 'em anyway because I was too lazy to take 'em back. Don't roll your eyes like that; they're gettin' the job done!

Oh! Kid #2 just waltzed outta bed, hang on... 104 cm for kid #2.

104 cm

x .39

40.6 inches

That wasn't so bad, now if lazy Kid #1 would shake a leg I can move on to the filters.

Oh crap, I have a briefing on Terrorists to be vigilant against during my upcoming travels (the AF worries and loves us so much) in a few minutes, the tape must wait. Bye.

hisashiburi, BC

I just got done talking to a gaijin (not Japanese) friend from Tokyo area. It's been a couple of years since we talked. It was so nice to hear from him again. Both of our lives have changed so much, and both for the better, which is great. I gave him the URL for this Blog, hopefully BC leaves a comment and signs my guestbook. I'm currently at 481 hits to my Blog, but only 5 people signed my shit. What's with the rest of you!!!?

Making More Work

Ok, as I said in my last post, I put an entry on my Japanese Blog and now I realize how much studying I need to do to keep up that other Blog. Well, I've managed to add some pressure now.

I've been watching 2 other Japanese Blogs, and, like an idiot, I just had to put a comment on both of them. I never expected strangers to be so nice! On one Blog, the guy responded positively to say I could put a link to him here at Slim's. On the other Blog, I've gotten individual heartfelt responses from each member of his family! The father, the mother, the daughter; they've all been very nice, and they use the simple hiragana symbols that I and other illiterate foreigners need. So now I want to talk more with them, but I really need to study more. Right now it takes a very long time to whip up a message because I need :



Then, my wife checks it, cuts out most of what my feeble mind has piled together and I hit the books again. I don't know what I'm gonna do in Korea when she's not there to help me. I feel like such a fraud!

It's like the saying goes: It's better to keep your mouth closed and be thought of as an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Here's some pictures I took today, without my dream camera. I adjusted the flash, exposure compensation and white balance a little. I really want a better camera. Anyway, here they are:

Drinking

So I'm getting my coffee in this morning, thought I'd post something while I drank. I'm off to do some out-processing this morning. The part that sucks about that is you've got to do alot of it in uniform. So I put on the ole rags and let me tell you, I forgot how much I hate socks. For the last couple of weeks, its been shorts and sandles. Not a sock in sight. They're so restricting. And then you got the whole boot thing on top of the sock. I'm not even gonna get started on those things.

I finally got around to posting on my Japanese Blog last night. After speaking my kid-like uneducated version of Japanese lo these many years, I realize I'm really quite illiterate and I've got a lot to learn. I can speak some and understand quite a bit, but writing it is a whole new ball game. I've been relying on charades and stick figure drawings to get my point across for too long. It's time to study grammar and sentence structure, not too mention how to actually read! If you have Japanese language support on your browser, like Internet Explorer, go up to and click the view menu, and scroll down to encoding. Then pop over to, if its there, Japanese (Auto Select) or maybe Unicode (UTF-8) and let the page automatically reload to read this: ばか。That's about all I'm good for this morning.
またね！

The Skinny on The Scam

Ok, so I got hosed. It only cost me something to look forward to. I've ordered things through Amazon's marketplace before and had no problems, so why not take advantage of a sweet price. I knew, being backed by Amazon's policies, I wouldn't get stiffed. So here's how it happened:

I found the low price, checked the review for that seller, and everything looked good. They had quite a few 5 outta 5 star reviews and a couple of 4 out of 5's. I placed my order and waited. Got the confirmation e-mail from Amazon.

Me: Cool, it must be set in stone now! Go tell everyone what a great deal you got!

Me: OK, yeah, I am pretty psyched!

So I post on here the deal and throw in some pics all while day-dreaming of the awesome stuff I'm gonna do. After downloading manuals from Canon to get a jump on the controls and switches and setup stuff, the idiot goes to bed. Visions of sugar plums and crap, drool on my pillow, muttering stuff in my sleep, wife thinks I'm cheating on her with a girl nick-named "shutter speed".

I wake up this morning, throw on a pot of coffee and straighten up the living room from all the camera buying and boasting the night before. Beep, the coffee's done brewing (yeah, it really does beep when it's done; I don't skimp on my coffee makers, homey) and sit down with a fresh cup to check the e-mail. I got one from Amazon saying they charged my credit card for the camera. Awesome. Awhile later I get another email that looks very Amazony.

The seller requests to be paid via Western Union Wire Transfer.
Thank you for the understanding.
Click here to locate the agents in your area :
http://www.westernunion.com/info/agentInquiryIntl.asp

Once the payment was sent, provide the seller with the following information:
1) MTCN (Western Union Money Transfer Control Number):
2) Sender name :
3) Sender address :
4) City where you sent the money from:
5) Amount sent:
Then wait for the confirmation that the payment was received. Within 2 business days,
you will receive the tracking number for your product.

Shipping from Address and Payment Information:
E-mail Address: ceimaisus@aol.com

Ship from Address:
Samaon Ovidiu Ioan
Calea Dragasani
Pitesti, AG 0300
Romania
Payment Address:
Samaon Ovidiu Ioan
Calea Dragasani
Pitesti, AG 0300
Romania

Note: Due to this terms the shipping will be supported by the seller.

Purchase Protection and Refund Information:
Currently, this seller has $ 4,000.00 deposit in an Amazon.com managed purchase protection account. Transactions with this amazon seller are covered 90% in case of fraud and description errors.
You have 14 days after you receive the product to request a refund.
Refund requests are processed within 3 days.
For your safety, this account was blocked today, for 14 time. The seller is unable to withdraw the money within this period.
The seller was informed about this transaction being started and is awaiting for your payment.

Uh-oh, here comes another email. I wonder who it could be from?

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 12:13:06 -0400
From: ceimaisus@aol.com
Subject: Re: Sold -- ship now! Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Lens...
To: Tokyo Slim

Hello!

All is done .

Now i will wait your reply with the details of the transfer from Western Union

My details :

First name : Samaon
Last name : Ovidiu Ioan
Street : Calea Dragasani
Zip code: 0300
City: Pitesti
Country: Romania

Ok, time to call Amazon. I reported it, my credit card was reimbursed, and now I have to find another camera. I don't think I'll use Amazon's Marketplace again. The sellers' reviews must be bogus and I got lucky the few times I ordered through them.

Well, I'm about blogged out for today.

Returning Sprinklers

Ok, so I hate returning stuff. I absolutely hate it. I get all paranoid and I always feel like they think I'm trying to rip them off. My voice gets shaky and it usually goes down something like this:

Me: Yeah, I'd like to return this?

Clerk: Okay, let me see your receipt.

Me: Right here, in triplicate.

Clerk: Just the original is fine, sir.

Me: Ok, yeah, so... Yeah.

Clerk: So it fell apart?

Me: Yeah, the piece of junk. In the dishwasher. It doesn't say "dishwasher safe" but it doesn't say "dishwasher unsafe" so I thought it'd be okay. Here's the package.

Clerk: Here's your money and then just sign here.

Me: I swear, I opened the dishwasher and it wa... ok. Thank you.

So, I expected to have another rough one with the sprinkler at Home Depot. Maybe they would think I broke it somehow, or I used it wrong and that's why it didn't work, or they would send me home to try it again and "just think about what I'd done."

So here's how it went down:

Clerk: (in the middle of conversation with other employee, grabs the sprinkler in package with receipt stapled to it, starts punching numbers.)

Me: (silent)

Clerk: Do you have a penny?

Me: no, sorry, I...

Clerk: here's your money and just sign here.

Me: thankyou.

Best return ever.

A New Camera on the Way

So, I've been wanting a new Digital Camera for a long time. The one I have works ok as a simple point and shoot, but I've been wanting to do more. The technology has come such a long way since my first digi-cam, and the prices have really come down.

So I decided to do some research on different digital SLR cameras, and found one that has some really great features, but easy to run for a "beginner" SLR camera. You can study too at Steve's Digicams. After I picked the camera best for me, I started shopping and here's the prices I found:

8.0-megapixel Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT SLR with
EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-f5.6 zoom lens
List Price: $1,499.99
My Price: $400
Saved $1100 (73%)

SanDisk SDCFH-1024-901 1 GB Ultra II CompactFlash Card
List Price: $349.99
My Price: $89.99
saved $260 (74%)

I can't wait to take some shots and post them here, but until it comes in, check this blog that's got pictures from the area we'll be headed to next year. This guy has some really fantastic photos, he is also working far away from his family, as I will be soon. http://1207aoimori.blog7.fc2.com/ and here's some shots of my new cam:

The Battles of Summer

So I was about to post something about why I haven't posted in a day or so, but then I saw that it was 5:22pm. We can only water the grass between 5 and 10, AM and PM. So I set down the ole laptop to "quickly set up the sprinklers" while I mulled over what to Blog about.

#1. I bought a new sprinkler today at Home Depot. The stupid thing wouldn't change directions where it was supposed to, I got water all over our windows trying to get it set. Eventually, I determined it was a piece of crap, so I burned up another 10 minutes looking for the receipt to return it tommorrow.


#2. Set the old sprinkler up in its place, trying to not get water near our basement windows and on the neighbor's truck. The basement will flood and the water is so hard here it leaves ungodly water spots on cars. It took awhile, hitting dry/dead spots, avoiding windows/cars.


#3. Set another sprinkler on the other side of the driveway. This one's yer standard, back and forth rainbow shaped jobby. "old faithful." Got it setup, but oh crap, the wind changed direction, gotta reposition "old sprinkler" before I flood my basement!


#4. Got "old sprinkler" repositioned, but now "old faithful" is hitting my car! Unhook old faithful, use the hose to squirt down any dust on the car so I can chamois off the water without scratches. Car's dry, move it out of the driveway next to the other neighbor's boat that never moves. Now you gotta hook up "old faithful" again, hero.


So, after all this screwing around out there, I can finally sit down at 6:45 pm and start typing about... aw crap, I forgot now.

Well, I made kabobs yesterday, how's that for a topic? I bought 2 ribeyes, a pack o' shrooms, a big red onion and then threw caution to the wind and financed one red and one green bell pepper. How come bell peppers are So Freakin' Expensive? It's stupid. Oh well, they were delicious.

Here's some pics of the Kabobs on the grill. That's all for now, I gotta go over the loan paperwork on those peppers.
















My wife, kids, and co-workers think it's odd to take pictures of my food, but when I see these pictures, I remember how good it was. Mmmm, Kabobs....

Big-Ass Table

First off, let me say thanks to F.M.. Dude, that thing was a monster!

Ok, I bought a new counter-top height dining table, and six chairs. This bad boy is huge. What makes me a little mad is you go and spend over $800 and they don't even keep the stuff in stock. They told us 2-6 weeks for it to come in, and then they want to charge you extra to deliver it to your house.

So, my bro F.M. came to the rescue with his truck. I met him at the shop and we drove over. At least the store people (newly created race of humans) loaded it onto the truck for no extra charge.

We came back to the house and unloaded the chairs; this isn't so bad... Okay, now to unwedge this box from between the wheel wells of the truck bed. Dude, I think I tore my sac!

Once out of the truck, we decided to take the thing out of the box right there in the driveway. We could maybe lessen the spinal damage by separating the legs from the top. Good idea, each leg tipped the scales at a good 15 pounds a piece, saving us 60 pounds.

After we got it into the house, F.M. was going to leave and then he asked if I wanted to get my car or not. Oh, the vacation your mind can take when you're on leave!

Here's a few pics with 4 of the 6 chairs. I threw the broom in to see the scale of this thing. The other two chairs are put away for now, until we get some friends!

Here it is closed, with our broom.

Here it is full open, with the broom on top.

Sorry if I sound all braggy, but we've never had nice stuff, so I'm kind of proud.

My Life, All Boxed Up

So the mover came and left yesterday. Yeah, they sent me 1 guy to pack up my stuff. One guy to put a year's worth of "life" on a truck. I was thinking "I'm glad they sent my 1 mover so early in the morning, because he's gonna need all freakin' day."

He was done by noon. It seems my "life" fits in four boxes.

Here he is wrapping up mah TV. See that box in back with the roll of tape on it? Yeah, that's got a mountain bike, a set of golf clubs, a Nike Golf Bag, the pull cart for the clubs and two back packs. The Colombians could use a guy like this to streamline their "Muling Ops."

The fact that almost all my essentials fit into these four boxes has shed new light on my basement cleaning.

So here's my stuff...

and the truck it rode out on!

So Long, Matay

Well, me boy Matay is off to Korea. He came over this morning to drop off my Dremel Kit. I totally forgot he had it, so that was a nice surprise. I plan to cut my toast with it for breakfast tomorrow, if I could only find my safety glasses...

I should catch an email from him in a few days. I'll be leaving in another 21 days, to a place a couple hours south of him. We plan to do some golfing together, and eat crap-loads of Kimchi!

So, Matay, have a safe trip, and I'll see you in a month!

A Post with a Purpose

There's nothing interesting in this post. I'm only throwing some keywords into this to see what pops up on my Google Ads thingy at the bottom. Anyway, here goes a string of words to try to influence my adds. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...

Wizard of Oz, vacation, airfare, hotels, web hosting, juggling, Mormons, Society for Pro-Acrylic Knitters, Left Handed Dentists without Tonsils, Swiss Cheese, Spanky, Maui, New Jersey, JJ's been shot, I shot J.R., Tang, Liquid Smoke, Tom Collin's Mix, butter, cloves, Beavers and Ducks!

Advertise that, Google!

Packin' it up

Two more days till the movers come. I've got my Pro-Gear set aside in my tidy, organized garage. I boxed up my PS2 and the cheap-o home theater system that was set up down in My Lair (aka the basement that no one likes to hang out in cuz its all cold and spidery). I bought it on the Barksdale Project, it's cheap, light and sounds pretty good for the price. Yuck, my dog Kona just threw up. Uggh. Now she's working up another pile. Man that's nasty. Ok, back to my drivel. I wrapped all the wires and twist-tied them like new. Everything's back in the original styrofoam and box, ready to be taken by the movers.

I'm starting to get my stuff into little caches around the house. My Pro-Gear, bicycle and golf clubs are out in the garage. My computer stuff, audio/video, cordless phone, dustbuster, linen, cooking stuff, pool cues, and poker chips are in the Lair. This should be a smooth move.

Meanwhile, the kids room has been staying clean. I had them out in the driveway washing their storage tower the other day. I'm two sewing machines away from getting that sweatshop I've always wanted. Muuaaaahaaahaaaa.

That's probably all you can handle for now. It's a lot of crap to sit through. I leave you with a picture of me and Kona (aka pukey) in her Albanian Refugee get-up.

The Ragin' Cajun

After an uploading battle with this site I'm finally posting some pics of Cajun, the Red Ear Slider. Here he is, and the box I built the other day. He's almost 2 years old.

NATHAN’S FAMOUS

Well, another July 4th has come and gone. The highlights? Takeru Kobayashi of Japan wins for the 5th year in a row at Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest.

"Competitive Eating" as a sport is surreal. ESPN covering it live? Equally surreal.
Kobayashi won last year with 53 hot dogs in 12 minutes. This year, he's down to 49. So sad to see the World's Great Champs on the downhill slide.

As George Jones sang, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?

Where's Slim's Blood?

A new Low is reached. If my "Life and Times" weren't boring enough, you can now check back for the on-going progression of blood under my thumb-nail.

Just near 1 month ago, we had our FTX (Field Training Exercise) and I smashed my left thumb setting up a cot. It hurt, so freakin' bad, but despite my being alone, I didn't cry. But it was close. 8 June, everyone was at evening chow on the 1st day. I stayed behind to monitor ops on the shower shave, waiting to get relieved. I decided to set up cots to sit on , as it was our staging area,and I pinched my thumb just below the nail. The base of my nail turned blue.

M.K. said I'd lose the nail, he was wrong. Take that M.K.!

So now the blood pocket has traveled half-way up my nail. It is definitely half-way. This picture is on 4 July. Keep coming back to watch my blood rise! If the pictures no good, tough. The flash is a bitch to control. Try to photo yer own nail!

Celebrating Independence My Way

My hat's off to Matay for his Projects


This is the lamest July 4th Weekend ever. I used to party and stuff.
Yesterday, between the kids and I, we filled 3 trash-bags of clothes for the Salvation Army and then I put a huge dent in the ole basement project. Rock on.

Today started out slow and developed into productive.
First, The Wife suggested we put Cajun out in the sunshine, it’s good for his shell and skin. Cajun's the turtle I accidently dug up at Barksdale AFB during a water main project. (When red earred slider turtles are still in the egg in the fall, they stay in the egg, hibernate, then hatch and dig their way out in the spring. We accidently dug his ass up in late November, so I kept him and brought him to Montana to live with us.)

I had some scrap plywood in the garage, so I built a little box to stop Cajun from venturing too far. By the time I had it done, there was a good amount of my tools in the backyard, so I decided to bring all my tools from the basement and garage to one area to consolidate, streamline, and organize. This required cleaning off the garage work bench...

While separating tools from non-tools, I got a couple of garbage bags going. Wow, some bare workbench. Sweet. Why stop here...

All my tools were in one place for the first time since we moved here. Embarrassing. Anyway, with this almost clean work bench, I figured, why not clear this whole work bench and tear this mother down? The work bench needed to come out when we moved on my mid-tour and I had to store the pedal boat in the garage for the winter, so take it out now...

After building the Small Wall of China for Cajun, tearing down two 4’ x 4’ peg-boards and getting my huge L-Shaped workbench 99% disassembled the battery in my Hilti Drill finally died. It wasn’t fully charged at the start. In to the charger, I planned on where the pedal boat would go, and then where the peg boards would go back up.

With the battery charged up, I took the last few screws out to complete the workbench removal, stowed the plywood and 2x4 sections neatly, and re-hung the peg boards. It’s funny that by removing a workbench I can gain extra space for pedal boat storage. This bench was huge. Bad part of a huge workbench is the ability to accumulate crap on it. A lesson learned, a productive day.

So I am celebrating my Independence from "Clutter."
Tomorrow is started by 2 or 3 trips to the dumpster. I’ll snap a few photos of my work and sneak them inside this post, so check back if you have nothing better to do.

What's Been Happenin'

Did some shopping the other day. Bought a new computer for the wife; the one she's been using is slow and old. I built it from scratch back in Alaska (Japan) around 5 years ago. Here's a picture of the prototype:

Back then, if you had a copy of Windows to re-use, it was cheaper to build a super fast, top of the line one from scratch, but they have now gotten cheaper to buy off the shelf.

I also grabbed a new set of bed sheets. I know, I know, "who brought the cool kid?" but I'm not using "Dorm sheets" in Korea, and the only Twin size sheets at Chez Slim have the Power Puff girls and Blue's Clues on 'em. I got Superman.

Anyway, I also bought a couple of Web Cams to use for communications between here and the Korea. Got 'em set up on Mom's new PC and Dad's laptop. The kids had a blast on the test run.

Today we drove to Helena to do some shopping. We left Great Falls and the car was spotless. We got to Helena and I decided to fill the tank just to wash the bugs off the windshield. Checked out some luggage at Macy's. You know you're a cheap bastard when 65% off still ain't enough. Then we went to the Veteran Haters (Target) where I made some dude root around in "the back" for the owner's manuals of two Samsung Mini DV cameras I knew I wouldn't buy.
"Ok, well now I see the difference between these two models and their features. Thanks for tracking these manuals down. Let me go talk it over with my wife." Turn, walk five feet, holding back laughter... failing... failing... Buuwahaahaa!!!!

On to Ross Dress-for-less for some cheap-ass shirts. I bought two for $3.49 each and one for $5.99. Marked down from $24 each and $38. I'm a bargain shopper (Cheap Bastard).

A quick stop at the Carousel again:

Then it was back home. I stopped at the gas station on base, knowing it was closed. I used their windshield washer scrubber to get these bugs off without buying any gas:

Tasty, yeah?

Took these two pics about 10 miles outside of Great Falls. The bugs are really bad at dusk.

That's about all that's been happenin'.

Cheap Bastard, Out!