Jacks For Sale

I’m trying to sell my great old truck Jack. He’s a lifted 79 Silverado with a low mileage boxed 350 in him. Here’s my Craigslist Ad and please send it on if you know someone that might be interested! I’m letting him go for $2,500. Here’s Jack’s blog post.

If you’re nearby Driggs, he’s currently showing off in Broulim’s  parking lot.

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Categorized as Jack

Balloon Rally

I shot some video earlier this summer at the 2012 Teton Valley Balloon Rally and I’m finally getting around to posting it. This was shot with my currently dead camera and has my dust spot watermark on it, but what the heck, it’s still cool…

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Categorized as The Valley

Let It Snow

Ok, this post has nothing to do with snow other than the plate holding the Spam Musubi (pronounced moo suh bee).

Yesterday I went to Barrels and Bins and got some Sushi Rice (i.e. sticky rice) and Steph whipped up a batch of Musubi. Damned good stuff! (she made 8, other 4 were eaten :-)

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Categorized as House

Privacy

I’ve been diving into browser privacy issues the last couple of days and I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned. Look to the right here and you will see a new search bar named Private. The one below named Search will find all of my blog posts that contain the phrase you type, while this new one will use Google to search privately.

It uses a service called StartPage which adds a proxy between you and Google, who are notorious for tracking and selling the things you search for based on your IP address. This service strips your IP out so Google and their affiliates can’t track you. You can try it by entering something into the search box and clicking the Private button.


You would be amazed at how many companies are tracking everything you do on the internet. The example below shows me opening the L.A. Times site and blocking the trackers (upper right box).

This is accomplished with a browser plugin called Ghostery. I’ve set mine to block every tracker it finds, and it’s working great!


So now I can block trackers and do a Google search without sharing my IP address. Could my browsing habits still be tracked? You bet!

Everyone’s browser has a unique fingerprint comprised of a variety of factors relating to your computer and it’s browser configuration. This is actually valuable to those tracking down terrorists (and other bad guys). If you want to know if your browser is traceable, go Here.

SlideShow (Privacy)

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Categorized as Site Stuff

Chick-fil-A

Tasted my first chicken sandwich from this joint today, down in Idaho Falls. I had never heard of them before the CEO made his intolorence to same-sex marriage known, and the subsequent outcry that occurred during our Southern trip.

I was going to take a more staged photo at the start of the meal but I was hungry so I dug in first. They even gave us a free breakfast thing to try out. Overall, not bad :-)

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Categorized as Travels

Pipers Chair

Piper has the unique ability to transform anything into a bed. She’s totally comfortable around the property and has hiding places we’ve yet to discover.

She’s also very pretty, and nice!

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Categorized as Piper

Stephs Take

These are shots that Steph took with her camera during the last trip. I love this opening shot as we were coming home through Jackson and people were gathering to watch the moose family hanging out in the water.

SlideShow (Stephs Take)
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Categorized as Vacation 1

Leftovers

Here’s some leftover pictures from the last trip. They’re also the last photos taken with my now deceased camera.

The opener is what I call Moon Proof in reference to this post, followed by a shot from the window, the full picture of a surprised grandson, some more Civil War era shots from Franklin and then moonshine with the kids the night before we left.

SlideShow (Leftovers)
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Categorized as Vacation 1

Sixteen States

My sweet little truck has just brought us home from the South! We left a spot just East of Denver this morning at 0420, totally missed the Denver rush hour and came in the back way from Rock Springs. I projected a 1400 driveway pull-in and I hit it!

Here’s a list of all the States I’ve been in since starting my summer vacation, and it adds up to sixteen. Some States were visited more than once.

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • Oregon
  • Tennessee
  • Utah
  • Washington
  • Wyoming

I’ve also driven the truck 16,000 miles since buying it from Riley in June. Besides the work he and his buddy put into it I’ve added a new catalytic convertor, replaced the transmission fluid, replaced the carrier bearing, replaced all of the belts and bought four new Uniroyal Tiger Paw tires and a new windshield. New shocks are going in shortly.

If you take good care of your ride, it will bring you home :-)

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Categorized as Vacation 1

Hole Lotta Nutin

We got a great early start today with a Continental Breakfast at our motel and then shot through the Oklahoma City commute without a slowdown. Headed up I-35 knowing that I needed to find an oil change place shortly.

This is the second time I’ve racked up over 3,000 miles on a trip and needed to change the oil on the road. The last spot was Kingman, AZ, land of coincidence, where I bought two new tires to go with a quick oil change.

Today I was heading to Wichita Kansas, thinking it would certainly be able to handle an oil change. I was a little concerned that both cities had seven letters…

I found a Jiffy Lube and true to tradition they pointed out my frayed fan belts and warned of dire, stuck by the the side of the road, consequences if I didn’t replace them. Actually, they were a concern so I said go for it. Again, an oil change turns out to be a vehicle saving experience!

I left Wichita with a sense of peace knowing I’ve done everything I can to insure this sweet little ride pulls us safely into our driveway tomorrow.

Now, back to the post. There is a whole lot of nothing along I-70 between Salina, Kansas and Denver, Colorado. We did encounter a Turnpike south of Wichita that was cool ($1.95 to use the road) but other then that, boring…

The top story of the day is, I finally accidentally killed my poor spot infected point and shoot camera. A cup of water spilled on it, I turned it on, and the photo below is the last one it will ever take. May this little pain in the butt rest in peace…

btw: Here’s the first picture I took with this camera:

So, the camera lasted from June 10th, 2011 to August 8, 2012. It’s been in the shop once for spots on the sensor, developed new ones six months later, and died a wet death.

Panasonic is off my camera list…

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Categorized as Vacation 1

Heading Home

I made much better time then I expected this morning. We left the South at 0400 and hauled ass. Made a brief stop (somewhere…) for catfish sandwiches. The temperature was well over a hundred on I-40 heading West and we were slow-cooking with the windows down.

Currently hunkered down in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. We found a great motel coming into town that had everything needed: A/C, Continental Breakfast, etc… Steph just fed me Beanie Weenie and a tuna-fish sandwich, there’s a torrential rain/thunder storm happening, and we ain’t going anywhere tonight.

We traveled 650 miles today. We still have 1200 miles to go. The scheme is to shoot North from here, hit I-70 to Denver and then come in the back way through Jackson.

I also need to get Jill an oil-change tomorrow morning. This girl is cruising magnificently and I’m looking forward to parking her in our garage and letting her cool off for a bit…

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Categorized as Vacation 1

Wilson Dam

I drove down to Muscle Beach this morning, oops I mean Muscle Shoals, Alabama (Venice, California was last month) to visit Wilson Dam.

SlideShow (Wilson Dam)
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Categorized as Vacation 1

Battle Of Franklin

The Battle of Franklin took place during the night of November 30, 1864 and left 9,500 Union and Confederate soldiers dead, wounded, captured or missing.

The Carnton Plantation served as the largest field hospital in the area for hundreds of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers along with five dead Generals.

I drove to Franklin this morning and took some photos of the cemetery. It struck me that I was standing on ground that once had slaves working in the fields and on the plantation. I can’t say that about Driggs, Idaho thankfully…




SlideShow (Battle Of Franklin)

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Categorized as Vacation 1

Cedars Of Lebanon

I drove up the Music Highway yesterday morning, into Music City. I always hope that a big city I first encounter will be different than other big cities I’ve been to. Unfortunately, Nashville has the same issues every other place has: traffic jams, lots of people, etc… It’s Saturday so there was no way I was going to venture into downtown. Maybe tomorrow morning?

Steph’s son-in-law Michael loaned me his GPS for this little trip and I’ve had charging issues with it. My truck is old so it has an old cigarette lighter and the GPS cord expects something newer I guess. I finally got it charged up and I told it where I wanted to go!

Cedars of Lebanon State Park, 328 Cedar Forest Road, Lebanon, TN and damned if it didn’t take me right here. It’s a nice State Park and for $20 I get a space, and nice neighbors. It was raining heavy when I arrived but I still managed to break Park Rule #1 (no alcohol) and walked over to meet Wayne and Karen, who were also breaking Park Rule #1.

These two are my age and they’ve been hanging out here for a few days. They sold their mobile home and have been living out of their van with their 5 month old pit bull named Blue. Nice people! Karen even let me use her cell phone to touch base with Steph.

The conversation drifted to their daughter Megan, who died last year from a massive stroke at the age of 23. (Yea, I know…) We had quite the discussion about how doctors use every part of an organ donors parts, even down to your tiny veins for children. Very sad about Megan, they said she was really nice.

I went back to the truck to work on this post and when I re-surfaced they invited me over for a hamburger. I brought over my radio playing jazz and we hung out for the evening. I now have two new friends!

I’m currently hunkered down in my truck cave writing this, still playing jazz from my portable radio, typing these words by my little light here in the cave, and I feel totally secure. There are families camped here with kids riding their bikes around. Nice!

Wayne has invited me over for coffee and breakfast in the morning and then, since they’re leaving tomorrow, I’m going to follow them out of here to my next destination: Franklin, TN. I was heading to downtown Nashville tomorrow but after hearing their stories of dereliction, addiction and gangs I’ve decided to take their advice and go explore a civil war graveyard in Franklin :-)

SlideShow (Cedars Of Lebanon)
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Categorized as Vacation 1

Dead Corn

Driving through the Heartland of America last week, the number of corn crops we saw that didn’t survive this drought, was staggering…


What are the environmental wackos going to do? Ethanol is going to be scarce, and pricey! Oh yea, food prices are also going up…

SlideShow (Dead Corn)

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Categorized as Vacation 1