Maybe she could tear the instrument cluster out of the Caballero for me so I can see if I can fix the bad connections for the gauges on the flexible printed circuit board..

I woke up at Oh Dark Thirty this morning for some damn reason.

After the usual cup of coffee and a smoke, I sat down here and read a bunch of Emails etc, etc., waiting for a decent enough time to drive the thirty plus miles over to the In Laws to take FIL’s 4WD Tahoe to the smog check station, which is ten miles back the way I come from.

I get over there and he is waiting but still can’t give me a coherent answer on what this mysterious problem he experienced yesterday was, where the thing didn’t want to move after he put it in gear. I did take my code reader and found a code for an oxygen sensor so I cleared that out first.

Then I look under the thing and don’t see anything out of the ordinary, he says he can’t see what it was because the wheel is in the way. It’s still a mystery. I never did have any problem like what he was talking about.

I open the hood and start checking fluid levels, already planning to take the thing somewhere and get the oil changed first thing out of the gate.

Enter Murphy, that dirty fucking BASTARD!

Almost exactly a year ago, I went over there and wound up changing a heater hose when all I was going to do was check the coolant protection level.

Today I take the cap off the radiator and can hear an echo come back out of the filler neck when I look in there, don’t see any coolant and say FUCK ME!

Of course there isn’t any coolant laying around in the garage so off to the parts house I go, it’s only a half mile away, and snag a twenty dollar gallon of anti freeze to fill it with. I get back, fill it up and then turn my attention to the Mother In Law’s little Ford Focus that we gave to her a few years back.

It’s supposed to be silver but now it is a greenish silver with moss all over it. The tags on that expired clear back in January and it hadn’t been driven since.

All 4 tires are extremely low also.

While I was there last year, I hooked up one of those Harbor Freight Battery Minder gizmo’s because she never drove it and the battery would always go dead.

It’s basically a Wall Wart with battery clips on it to keep it charged up.

Apparently it had died at some point and so had the battery.

I snagged my jumper cables and started the Tahoe and jumped the thing because they are sitting right next to each other. The little car fired right up so I let it sit there and run while I finished checking out the Tahoe.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, I shut the thing off and tried to restart it. No dice. OK, it’s on my list. I gather up Father In Law, make sure he has the DEQ paperwork and off we go to the Jiffy Lube, also about a half mile away.

We get there, I pull up to the door behind another rig and we sit there for a minute. I reached down and shut the rig off and pretty soon this kid comes out and starts looking under the left front of the rig. He says something about a coolant leak and I told him I had just topped it off. he says no, you have a coolant leak and we can’t change the oil with it like that. So I get out, take a look and bigger than shit coolant is POURING onto the ground!

WTF?!

The damn thing sat there and ran for ten minutes in the driveway and no leak.

Fuckin’ Murphy AGAIN!

I had to back out completely around the building and go a block and a half back to the parts house across the road.

Miracle of Miracles, they actually had a radiator in stock!

No fucking radiator cap but whatever.

So I got the new radiator, two more gallons of coolant at $20 each, a tin drip pan and a covered plastic drain pan, a little magnetic flashlight and head back to their place.

The old guy has a small roll away but virtually zero metric tools. I found a set of deep metric sockets and a cheap assed ratchet that the retention ball and spring were missing out of.

Thankfully I had a small toolbox with me that had my Snap On metric wrenches in, a set of metric Snap On Wobbly Sockets, one of their Flex Head Ratchets and some other tools I needed.

Every once in a while I outsmart myself.

This DEQ joint closes at 1 PM but as soon as I found out I had to R&R that radiator that shit went right out the window.

It took me a couple of hours but I did manage to get the thing changed out. The amazing thing is that it only rained on us once and just for a few minutes.

The bottom radiator hose had one of those damn Spring Clamps on it and it took me over a half an hour just to get that prick off.

Damn I hate those things!

I swore it wasn’t going back on so I took the battery out of the Focus, ran up and got a new one of those and then stopped and snagged a couple of Screw clamps.

Finally got the damn thing in and filled up, ran it for a while to make sure there were no leaks because not only does this radiator have an automatic transmission cooler inside one of the tanks, it has an engine oil cooler in the other one.

Thank God I had those metric wrenches to get those flare nut fittings loose without rounding them off.

After all that horseshit we finally get to take it back up for an oil change. I would do that myself too but it is a nightmare trying to get rid of the used oil anymore. You are money and aggravation head to just pay the bastards.

Except.

Except they do their damndest to upsell the shit out of everything.

It’s a good thing I was there.

First thing,

“YOUR FRONT BRAKE PADS ARE DISINTEGRATING!!!”

WTF?

Why are you even looking at the brakes?

I’m here for an oil change fer Chrissakes.

“THERE IS A PIECE OF BRAKE PAD STUCK BETWEEN THE ROTOR AND CALIPER!!!”

OH MY GOD, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!

“DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!!!”

Here we fucking go.

“We can do those here you know”.

Uhm, no, thanks.

“Would you like to see for yourself?!”

Sure. Jack it up and pull the wheel.

So much for that Drama.

While I was down there I noticed something else they were about to spring on me next,

Yeah, OK, I see it. Now put the wheel back on it please, I’ll add it to my list.

I get back in the rig and thirty seconds later one of the little clowns stick an obviously almost brand new air filter in my face.

OK, thanks, you can put that right back in now.

They tried and tried to upsell a bunch of shit and I just sat there in comfort, shooting them down in flames, one right after another.

I think there was like 5 of the fuckers. One older guy and four kids. I do mean kids too.

They finally got the message that I ain’t buying their schtick so let’s get done here shall we?

$70 for an oil change and the unforgettable opportunity to stare at yet another filthy front brake set up. Like I haven’t already seen a thousand of them at least.

Got that done, went back and started looking around at some other shit.

Ayep, needs some tires here buddy.

I have known my In Laws for well over thirty years now, getting closer to forty at this point. They are really nice folks but they are also getting up there in age and are like thousands of other elderly, they are living on a fixed income. This radiator and battery alone came to over three hundred bucks.

I paid for all of it except the oil change.

The Wifely Unit and her mom can have all the conversations they want about who is paying for what and how much. If it was up to me I would just call it good and leave it alone. Neither one of those two are going to let that happen though.

I told the wife, hey, I’m just taking care of what needs to happen RIGHT NOW.

Next weekend I will see about getting over there again and getting his rig through the smog test and getting tags on it. Then I will worry about the little Focus and make sure it is legal and driveable.

The wimmins can worry about the finances, that ain’t my department.

BTW, speaking of such things.

Because I had no idea all of this was going to happen, while I was at it I snagged the new tin drip pan, the new plastic drip pan/container and the cool new pocket light with a magnetic base.

I’m an old hand at acquiring desired items when the hen isn’t guarding the checkbook.

Heh.

Not like, “You Da Man! but because you are the man of the family and something needs to be taken care of that nobody else can deal with efficiently.

It comes way too early for some after the loss of a father. Sometimes when you grow up in a broken home and have younger siblings, you have responsibilities beyond your age thrust upon you. Sometimes you just seem to collect these responsibilities as you age.

It is what it is and every guy has to come to grips with it at some point whether they like it or not.

Those that can’t or won’t cope with it have their own demons to deal with and I won’t bother going into it.

In my case, it started at the tender age of 8 when my parents split up and my dad got custody of me and my little brother.

He worked, partied and chased a lot of tail so it was up to me to take care of myself and my little brother for a long time before the rest of the family put the ass on him and he tried hiring babysitters.

We went through a few because by that time I was a full fledged wild boy and we pulled shit that you would think were only possible in movies.

My youngest Aunt was finally tasked with trying to tame us and keep us in line.

Trust me when I say she only had limited success.

Then my dad remarried and the new wife also had two boys, both younger than I am.

Long story short, there was the expected dick measuring and pissing contests because me being the oldest didn’t sit well with some people and at the tender age of fifteen I said Adios.

Not quite like that, it was more like shove it in your ass, I’m out of here to be exact.

So I have been older than my years for a long fucking time.

Speaking of time, a lot of it has passed since then and almost all of my immediate family on my mom’s side, including her, are long dead now.

My dad kicked the bucket six or seven years ago too

That pretty much leaves me, being the oldest son, as the Patriarch of what is left.

My wife’s parents had 3 girls and no boys.

Since her father is in his mid to late 70’s and has been diagnosed with Alzheimers, that leaves me as the De Facto Patriarch of that whole family now also.

It is what it is.

So Wednesday night, as I am literally getting undressed for bed, the Wifely Unit springs on me that I have to go over to her parents and attempt to get one of their vehicles through the Smog test so it can get license plate tags put on it.

I won’t go into the entire scenario here but needless to say this is no small feat that needs to get done and I have until one o:clock this afternoon to do it.

It is almost 8 AM right now, for some reason I popped awake at 5:30 this morning and have been sitting here going through EMails and what not kind of waiting before I drive 35 miles to get this shit show started,

The very first thing I have to do is investigate some new concern with this vehicle that has something to do with “two pieces that wouldn’t move under the back of the rig in the middle” that wouldn’t let the vehicle move when put into gear.

Some of the most awesome information a mechanic could possibly get.

My first guess is the Emergency brake cable system binding up. We shall see. Then I have to take it to a Jiffy Lube and get the oil changed because it was black and filthy an entire year ago and hasn’t been changed in that time period, because Old Timer’s Disease.

Then and only then, can I take it fifteen miles away to the testing station and roll the dice.

So it’s these kinds of things that a guy has to do “Because he is a man”.

No sweat, challenge accepted.

It is what it is and I will do the best I can under the circumstances.

Because that’s what we do.

Every damned day.

And if you think for one nanosecond that I wouldn’t say that directly to her face then you absolutely do not know me.

The reason I say this?

It seems that it is perfectly fine for ANTIFA and the rest of the Commie Conglomerate to riot, burn,injure and even kill people FOR THREE MONTHS STRAIGHT while the entire time she keeps the balls of all of the Law Enforcement Agencies sitting in a jar on her mantle and the District Attorney for Multnomah County greases a revolving door for the violent cretins but the minute a Right Wing group who has been fighting these ANTIFA bastards for years wants to have a peaceful march, she pisses down her legs and declares an emergency.

I’m serious.

As Proud Boys plan to rally, Oregon governor declares state of emergency

BY BROOKE WOLFORD SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 06:27 PM

Oregon officials are ramping up safety measures to protect Portland residents ahead of a planned Proud Boys rally, where some participants are expected to be armed.

Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency in response to Saturday’s rally at a press briefing. The action allows Oregon State Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to take “charge of public safety in Portland,” Brown said.

“The pattern of these particular groups is clear: to intimidate, instigate and inflame, and these types of demonstrations in the past have often ended in fistfights, and sometimes escalated to bloodshed,” she said. “I am incredibly concerned about this increased risk of violence in Portland this weekend, and for the safety of Oregonians.”

“I am incredibly concerned about this increased risk of violence in Portland this weekend, and for the safety of Oregonians.”

That right there is a bald faced lie.

She sure goes out of her way to make these Proud Boys sound scary though don’t she?

I bet these guys are maniacs, who knows what they are capable of, maybe stuff like this.

Oh wait, that is all ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter violence, you know, the kind of shit that has been going on since May.

But Kate doesn’t seem to mind that.

God Forbid those Proud Boys should want to come back to town though, there might be a fist fight!

She thinks that is worthy of declaring an emergency and unleashing those same Law Enforcement Agencies that she has had Hog Tied to keep them from breaking heads that really do need breaking.

To put an even finer point on my little rant here, when I tried to use GOOGLE to search for this bit of news, using an almost verbatim choice of words in the search bar as the headline for the article above, the one single return on the first page of results came from MIAMI FLORIDA.

Clear across the fucking country, even though Portland is literally a ten minute drive from here.

Eventually the piper has to be paid.

I absolutely can not wait to see the look on her face when that bill is presented.

Justice will be served even if it takes years.

Something tells me it’s not going to take that long.

Between Kate Brown, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, the Portland City Council and that Soros toy monkey of a District attorney, we are looking at multiple conspiracy charges that could be filed tomorrow if the Feds had any balls.

Look at the balls on these motherfuckers here,

California COVID-19 hospitalizations could jump 89% in next month amid signs of coronavirus spread

By ALEX WIGGLESWORTHSTAFF WRITER SEP. 25, 20208:09 AM UPDATED3:27 PM

California is expected to see an 89% increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the next month amid growing signs that the spread of the coronavirus may be intensifying again, state officials announced Friday.

The proportion of Californians testing positive for the virus continues to remain low at 3% over the past two weeks, and the total number of COVID-19 patients in the state’s hospitals continues to decline, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s health and human services director.

But he said that some other metrics are prompting concern that a feared uptick in the virus’ spread, which public health officials said was possible in the wake of the Labor Day holiday and more businesses reopening, may be materializing.

Many regions have seen a slight increase in the rate of cases per 100,000 residents, and COVID-19-related emergency room visits have trended upward over the past week in virtually all areas of the state, Ghaly said.

The number of new hospital admissions has also crept upwards, “and that means that overall, we’re seeing more admissions that we did the day or week prior for COVID-19 in some of our hospital systems across the state,” he said.

Based on the current conditions, he said, the state is now forecasting that 4,864 people will be hospitalized with COVID-19 by Oct. 25, an increase of roughly 89% from Wednesday, when there were 2,578 patients.

In other words, our bottom line is starting to collapse because we aren’t seeing near the numbers of people sick enough to need to be hospitalized like the numbers these experts kept telling us we were going to see.

These fucking cheese dicks just can’t help themselves at this point

So we are going to pull some bullshit numbers out of our asses, make up some phony bullshit scenario, take a wild fucking guess at WHAT COULD HAPPEN and then call up our mouthpiece over at the LA Times and have him splash this all over the headlines to keep you rubes all spun up.

Just because all of the latest statistics show that this motherfucking Kung Flu has a 99% survivability rate, the PTB have instructed us to put the Fear of God into you fucking Deplorables every opportunity we get, plus we get paid more if some of you actually wind up needing to be hospitalized.

These people absolutely have no shame, think we are all as stupid as Home Plate and will continue to do so because they keep drinking the fucking Kool Aid.

You need to get a grip, wise the fuck up and get your shit together.

Here’s a hint for you cocksuckers, we are all done playing this game.

Seriously done.