Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Page 4 of 4

Adventurers Like Abby Sunderland Should Foot the Bill for Rescue

Published on June 10, 2010 in Baby Boomer. 5 Comments Tags: .

This is getting ridiculous.
An adventurer gets a boatload of money from some corporation to do a feat of daring-do to “raise awareness” for something or other, and then when they get in trouble, like Abby Sunderland, nations throw money away saving the foolhardy from themselves.

Abby Sunderland is just the latest. She’s a 16-year-old girl who wanted to sail around the world solo. I don’t know what her motivation is – or whether she is doing this for a cause or not.

I’m just sick and tired of tax money being spent to rescue people who are making high-risk decisions. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want anybody on an adventure to die. Just know the risks and be willing to accept the consequences for your actions.

We are working closely with American, French and Australian Search & Rescue authorities to coordinate several ships in the area to divert to her location. There are several ships in her area, the earliest possible contact is 40 hours. We are actively seeking out some sort of air rescue but this is difficult due to the remoteness of her location. Australian Search & Rescue have arranged to have a Quantas Airbus fly over her location at first light (she is 11 hours later).

Several ships? A friggin’ Airbus?

If I take my kayak and head down the Niagara River, I don’t expect to be pulled to safety before I tumble over the falls.
But I’m not a blond, blue-eyed California girl either. Pulling a geezer from the river would be filed under “looney-tunes old fart loses his way.”

Geeky Animated Gif Monday

Published on June 7, 2010 in Baby Boomer. 3 Comments

Yeah, like I haven’t wanted to do this leaving an airport…this happens to be DFW, Texas. Rather than just waiting in line, hit the emergency eject button on the old Sixtymobile.

Drifting: Usta and Still Do Like to Hang Out My Rear

Published on June 4, 2010 in Baby Boomer. 0 Comments Tags: .


This is actually an off-road racer, but the action is the same whether or not the car is on gravel or asphalt or snow or ice or rain.

Drifting is driving so the your backend wants to pass your front end.

I learned to drift on a dirt go-kart race track a neighbor carved out of an alfalfa field for his kid. He put banking on the track and everything. After one summer of running our go-karts on this track, we had dislodged all the rogue alfalfa and ground the coarse dirt up into fine granules of soil.

It was an oval track and when we hit the corners, we would throw rooster-tails of this fine red soil. I recall my Mother saying one day she looked out the kitchen window toward the track and all she could see was a rising cloud of dust.

That’s probably the same day I came home a nice even shade of light brown from head to toe, only marked by streaks of darker brown where sweat had created tiny face ditches for drainage from my hairline.

Later, I moved drifting activities to the field behind my house where I fired up the 1949 Studebaker Land Cruiser with a six cylinder engine, my Grandpa gave me when I was fourteen.

It looked exactly like this one.

Not.

Why do you think my Grandpa gave it to me! Paint faded and bald tires, but it ran. and ran. and ran. Round. and Round. and Round. There wasn’t enough room to get drive straight so I just would crank that big old plastic wheel one way or the other as far as it would go and floor it.

I’m sure I was pulling at least 4 G’s.

My next experience with drifting was after I actually had a driver’s license and could get on the gravel roads that ran near my hometown. There wasn’t a curve taken that the rear end didn’t try to pass the front. Unless there was somebody coming the other direction.

I still like to drift. I bought a rear wheel drive car just so I could relive those memories. No gravel roads around here, so I drift on the ice or snow or rainy-wet.

You are aware that the best asphalt drifting is done right after a slight shower, right?

The oils put down by a week’s worth of traffic underneath a slight sheen of H2O is perfect for hanging out your rear.

If Granddad Bandit Drops 100 lbs. He’s Home Free

Published on June 2, 2010 in Baby Boomer. 1 Comment Tags: .


If I knew that dropping 75 pounds would make me invisible to people I have known for the last 15 years, I would have supplemented my income by robbing banks before losing the weight.

Check it out: this guy  robs banks across the south for months and the FBI doesn’t have a clue where he is. If he is smart, he is dropping the weight, because when I did I was able to walk right by people and not have them recognize me.

The FBI is calling him the Granddad Bandit because they say  it helps law enforcement officials if there is a clever nickname attached to serial bank robber.

Remember Baby Face Nelson? Pretty Boy Floyd? Bugs Moran? Never mind that those dudes were active decades ago, the FBI can’t seem to move on, so Granddad Bandit it is.

They are offering $10,000 reward for the Granddad Bandit’s arrest.

The man is described as being between 6 feet and 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing between 220 and 250 pounds. He is described as stocky and bald, with short gray hair on the sides, and wears glasses.

As if that doesn’t describe every white geezer in America! The only thing they didn’t add was “last seen at Wal-mart.”

To make citizens aware the FBI is pulling out all the stops to arrest this vicious geezer, they are putting up billboards in Missouri with his picture.

Yeah, that will help! Maybe Homeland Security needs to put up  Osama’s picture in Afghanistan.

Granddad Bandit: robbing banks since October 2009!

Go Granddad Go!