The Bar 2014 Edition

[FIGJAM]

And the day before............the PSAs go out!!!

[trilobyte]

[Lonesomebri]

Back from the dog walk and drinking in the backyard...and yeah, I know who is puking in the corner now....

[ygmir]

*stumbles in*
hi gang!!
wow, nice to see GH.........seems yer havin a fun day!!

well, I did something today I"ve not done in I bet 40 years.........

I got new tires for my Bobcat (skidsteer tractor), and, since I have a tire machine, figured I'd save the 150 bucks and dismount the old, and mount the new, my self.......hahaa

well, the machine, after 2 hours, just would not do it. the combination of super heavy sidewalls and my lack of skill, had me stumped.
then, the "brilliant idea"......do it by hand with bars!! heck, I used to do it when I was a kid, how much harder could it be with tractor type tires (not huge, 10.00x16.5) than it was my old, used 4 ply mismatched tires of youth?

yes.


took about 3-4 hours to change them, but, I did it! all by hand with improvised tire bars and such.
Cleaned the beads on each with a wire wheel.

And of course the beads would not seat, so, pulled another trick from "long ago" out, and sprayed some ether in the tire and struck the lighter..........most took a try or two, and I hardly burned much hair, but they finally held air!


yay.


and now, I'm sore, sunburned, and tired, having forgotten to eat save for two nectarines today..........
Can't wait to see how waking up feels........haaha

*heads for IBBOD*

[Aurelia]

Well now I know what a real old school sparklepony woulda done if she had that situation LBri: she'd a made a big enough fuss till some relief would appear

xoA.

[gaminwench]

Ygmir, you need a pfluffer in your life.

[graidawg]

I heart you so hard, Goathead.

One month from tomorrow I start driving west.

one month from yesterday i start flying west

[Jovankat]

I heart you so hard, Goathead.

One month from tomorrow I start driving west.

one month from yesterday i start flying west

One week from today I start flying east!

[MyDearFriend]

Damn, Jovankat you must either have a loooooooooong way to come or a lot of friends to see along the way!

Okay it's too early to talk, where is my

But wait whoa Yggy!!!! WHAT what WHAT??? All that work on no food? No wonder it took you so long. No seriously, great work, sounds like a fun challenge for you!

[^Rhino!]

I heart you so hard, Goathead.

One month from tomorrow I start driving west.

one month from yesterday i start flying west

One week from today I start flying east!

One month from tomorrow I also start the 'quest to the west'

Eyes and mind wide open.

I learn something new every year, and meet someone incredibly interesting on the way.

I can't wait to see what this year has in store!

[^Rhino!]

Now, on to the morning.

The cat sits at or on my feet, awaiting whatever small crumb of egg or sausage falls. It's breakfast time: two eggs over way too hard (my mistake, I was too interested in reading ePlaya), breakfast sausage patties (free from Kroger affiliate with coupon), year-old hash browns dug from the freezer, two slices of whole wheat toast, and coffee with vanilla and Splenda (ice, ice baby......).

Took the day off today for the first of 3 major MD appointments. This one is orthopedic. Aging, you see, tends to follow the strategy of Miyamoto Musashi, it attacks the extremities first. This particular appointment is the one in which I'm trying to avoid what John Cameron Swayze would call.....'the agony of de feet.'

Surprisingly, the hash browns were quite good. Probably cooking them in the sausage grease had something to do with it.

[Jovankat]

Damn, Jovankat you must either have a loooooooooong way to come or a lot of friends to see along the way!

Okay it's too early to talk, where is my

But wait whoa Yggy!!!! WHAT what WHAT??? All that work on no food? No wonder it took you so long. No seriously, great work, sounds like a fun challenge for you!

Yeah Sydney is pretty far away I'm headed to The Bay Area to spend time with American Boyfriend and prep for the burn. I'll also be spending a few days in New York to see some shows between arriving in country on July 23rd and heading to the burn. So if anyone is in New York and wants to have a drink in a real bar while I'm there let me know!

[AntiM]

Oh Rhino, I feel for ya. I've had horrible foot pain for the last couple of weeks.

[Joeln]

*stumbles in*
"brilliant idea"......do it by hand with bars!!

There's the easy way, the right way, the hard way and the Yggy way - flip a coin to decide which ones are synonymous.

Morning bar!

[ygmir]

*wanders in, makes tea*
take care of them feet, Rhino! they certainly give you a good understanding.........

wow, love hearing of all the travel plans, from our far away folks.
I"d sure love a cross country trip one day.......maybe I can fly east and ride back out!! ha.
I wonder who travels furthest? Jovankat has to be close!
IIRC, the furthest point on earth from the playa would be somewhere in the Indian ocean........

Yeah Joeln. well, though hard, the bars were the only way I could do it myself. And really, the first one took a while to remember technique, but after that was not super bad......though my arms and shoulders are a little sore. haha.
It's good to know how to do things without technology, "just in case".

*heads for ROS*

[trilobyte]

If you get the opportunity, Ygmir, I say do it. I'd already been to most states, but when I moved from the east coast to the west about 12 years ago I took my car and loaded it with the stuff I didn't want to send with the movers and just made my way west. No real schedule or route locked down, just headed thataway. It was so nice checking out cities and sights and whatnot, as well as doing things like hiking the badlands, devil's tower, rocky mountain national park, grand canyon, death valley and other amazing places. I took two weeks and it felt great, looking back I wish I'd taken 4 and meandered even more.

I'm trying not to think too much about departure just yet. I've got a couple things left to design and build - not major time-consuming things, but stuff nonetheless. On that note, I need to get going, busy day ahead.

[Madgirl]

Morning all! Feeling surprisingly perky this morning given that I had too much beer and not enough sleep last night.

It's a 16 hour drive to the playa from where I live but one of these years I'd like to take a few extra days and do it by a more roundabout route...I've lived here my whole life and there are still so many places in my own state I haven't seen.

[unjonharley]

morning all.. No lath so will cut and press a bearing.. Used a block of wood for a idler.. I know it no as hard work as changing tires with the old tire iron.. Still will use the tire iron to hold the shaft while installing it.. Make it work

[littleflower]

G'morning ..... i busy making munchies and dreaming of the dust ............. we're getting close! save travels to everyone who is coming from afar! yippee .......

[Jovankat]

Oh god they look amazing!

[AntiM]

I have set foot in every state, although some I have explored far more than others. We drove to Maine from Vermont to hit NH and the coast, and get a lobster roll, just to complete all 50. On one of our cross country moves, we took HWY 50 and stopped at odd places like Daniel Boone's home. I adore car trips.

[Lonesomebri]

I have set foot in every state, although some I have explored far more than others. We drove to Maine from Vermont to hit NH and the coast, and get a lobster roll, just to complete all 50. On one of our cross country moves, we took HWY 50 and stopped at odd places like Daniel Boone's home. I adore car trips.

At first I thought you were launching into verse, maybe a Johnny Cash song.

I have set foot in every state,
although some
I have explored far more
than others.

We drove to Maine
from Vermont
to hit NH and the coast,
and get a lobster

Look, the only reason I'm hanging out at the bar spouting nonsense is because I'm here killing time while checking my email door to see if that hot STEP chickadoodle strolls in during the day.

[ygmir]

*wanders in, makes tea*
looking for a cool down here, high of 90, so, that's nice.
Has anyone noticed tickets coming available? seems a few are popping up now?
I'm not seeing the "ramp up" in postings like in years past......is it just me? Seems by the last 6 or so weeks before, there'd be two pages of "new posts" each morning I logged in.

[Madgirl]

I've noticed that too, that the number of tickets for sale seems a lot lower than in years past...but maybe that's because so many people are still waiting for theirs to arrive.

[sadie]

Good Morning All,
coffee all around.

It's was a gully washer in Abilene this morning! A lot of flooded streets...the city wasn't designed with rain in mind. Gotta love the rain though.
Expected highs in the low 80's tomorrow! A welcome change from the high heat lately.

Here's to a productive Thursday..

[trilobyte]

It's not just you, Yggy. It seems to be going as I expected it to from the start. They'll get a little bit easier in the next 3 weeks or so, both as mailing completes and people jump on the OMG sale. But overall, they will remain harder to come by than the last two years.

Yum, brekkie! I need to grab a nibble before burying my head in a new book for a bit. Yay for new books, though in this case it's a heavy duty technical thing.

[^Rhino!]

I have set foot in every state, although some I have explored far more than others. We drove to Maine from Vermont to hit NH and the coast, and get a lobster roll, just to complete all 50. On one of our cross country moves, we took HWY 50 and stopped at odd places like Daniel Boone's home. I adore car trips.

I am thrilled by car trips also, AntiM. We got some neat day trip opportunities and two day trip opportunities, sometimes multiple location/event deals, all within a few hours of home.

Even though politicians hang there, I like the Missouri state captial building because the state museum is there. Plus, if you go on the tour, you get to see the impressive Thomas Hart Benton mural that adorns the wall of the Senat conference room. Awe-inspiring. That's within a half hour of home to the south. The old state penitentiary has tours, and the historical society is a great place to dig out little gems from the past. One of my most regular statements of discovery, "I did NOT know that!", gets said frequently.

Knowing the history behind rthe history is even more fun. I found out that Ralston-Purina's headquarters in downtown St. Louis sits on the former site of the Civil War's most notorious prison in Missouri, the Gratiot Street Prison. Occasionally, artifacts are brought up when they dig for plantings. No bones, mainly Civil War era buttons and maybe a coin or two.

[Sunbeam56]

Is it possible to be allergic to your own farts?
I snuck one, and immediately started sneezing... Coincidence?

Another shot of Blanton's please...

[AntiM]

My father was in the Navy, so as a child, I experienced several cross country drives. We didn't often stop for long, but when we could, Dad would make sure we got to see sights along the route. Then when Larry and I got back from years in Japan, we had several more long moves, and driving to visit far flung family. Then he started driving a truck once he retired. I can tell a lot of truck stop and interstate stories.

Plus, Utah.... I may not care for Mormons, but there's some nice real estate here.

[FIGJAM]

"The smell of flatulence could help avoid cancer, strokes, heart attacks and dementia, according to scientists at Exeter University. Hydrogen sulfide is one of the gases produced by bacteria as it breaks down food in the gut, it is toxic in large doses but in tiny amounts it helps protect cells and fight illness."