The Useful Duck!

Contribute to my Vacation, please...

Thursday, January 31, 2013

I ramble on about nothing and don't find my keys

I have been looking for my keys for an hour. They seem to have vanished. I think my new pair of GoodWill special coveralls have a hole in one pocket.
I was going to get off to a good start this morning.
The Sun is almost out from behind the fog.
But then I got sidetracked...
I am bidding on a couple Felix the Cat 16 mm movies on eBay. I may have also bought the Gumball Rally movie on three reels.
But what really shut me down was two things.
First, I called a fellow in Washington about a nice LN8000 truck. It has been spoken for, meaning the fellow wants it but didn't bring the money.
And we ended up talking for an hour about old AC crawlers, Model T trucks, and Louisville Ford parts. He has a couple hoods and a set of doors for a LN ford and he was going to check them out for me.
So I went by the local truck shop to talk about my LN8000 with the 670 detroit and putting the hoist I bought from him on the truck.
We had a long discussion about it and then he showed me a mid 1990's Freightliner with a 10 spd and day cab that a fellow had bought for $3,500. It was in really nice shape. This was followed by a lecture on fixing up a 1971 LN8000 with a 671 detroit and a financing plan for a newer and better truck that involved the scrap man and the elimination of five combines and three non-roadworthy old trucks and he didn't even get to my LN8000. He said I should keep it for a flatbed and never spend money on it.
And feeling a bit depressed I went home.
This morning I was setting in my office reading, "Crossing the Line, A bluejacket's odyssey in World War II" by Alvin Kernan, which I think my lovely wife ordered for me for Christmas but it didn't arrive on time, and just about the time when I read the following paragraph,
"...the futility of life lived with old, broken-down equipment, about foolish ideas that have no chance of succeeding. In a world where disaster is always ready to happen, it is best to look for something that has a chance of working." (page 6)
Just as I was reading that paragraph and searching for the bog paper the phone rings. It was the fellow from WA with the truck. He had found a hood and doors.
Um yeah...
Now I am going to the local tire factory store to pick up a blank wheel rim for the New Holland Stacker. The old rim was bent and New Holland wanted $750 for a new one. The local salvage yard wanted $350, lube not included.
So I fixed em all! I found a local fellow who will cut the center out of the old rim and install it in a new blank rim for $175. I bought a blank for $200.
I am quite happy paying $375 for a rim I could have got for $350 because the local salvage yard annoys me so much.
And that I suppose, pretty much explains the whole philosophy of the former Daily Strumpet Irregular Newspaper - Inaccurate news on an irregular basis for irregular folks" and the current incarnation, thedailystrumpet, aka ThelazyFarmer.
Have a nice day...

UPDATE:#$%^&*()#@#$ Felix the Cat, "ASTRONOMEOUS" sold for $66. My snipe of $35 was pathetic. Drat and Dang! I should have sniped it for $100. That was one to add to my collection and I would have liked to see it. I am a worthy cause! Please give me that 1.2 million dollars. I will spend that money on things like lego trains and old cartoons and an excavator and restoring MM tractors and Dynaco and all sorts of really cool and interesting stuff! You could dole it out a bit at a time and make one of the conditions that I write about it on this blog! You would not be disappointed!

I give you, "ASTRONOMEOUS"
The wrong people have all the money!!!

8 comments:

  1. At first I thought "poor Felix", but then when I see how he pretty much destroys our universe and invades Mars with noxious, feral, cat clones I didn't feel so bad for him.
    What's with the sound track? I couldn't understand a thing he said. Was that just filler or was there really a dialogue?
    We can always get a projector for the computer to show it. No worry about the age of the film that way. But then again, that's not the same. I kind of enjoy seeing the film snap & pile up on the ground, or that burning image on the screen. Part of the show that's missing today.
    I have some old cartoons, and a large box of home movies, but they are 8mm. Maybe some evening I can bring the projector over to the neighbor's hay barn screen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't think you were supposed to understand the dialogue. I also think the movie might have been a bit on the subversive side.

      Delete
  2. You'll have days like that. In fact, I have a lot of them!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your thinking and priorities. I will put you on my list to contribute to when I hit that big lottery win.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I will do the same for you! Cockshutt tractors 1970's snowmobiles, IH trucks, we could form a cooperative of eccentricity. Call it the Rural Eccentricity Cooperative? Get a grant from the UN?

      Delete
  4. "a lecture on fixing up a 1971 LN8000 with a 671 detroit"

    Perhaps I should have read this line before I shelled out $$$$ for a new (to me) suspension for a '65 Freightliner cabover with a 8V71 Detroit and bad paint! Oh well......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh but a 1965 is different. That would be a restoration. There is no glory in mid late 1970's/early 1980's fords.
      A month previous the fellow said he would put together an old Pete, 8V71 (rebuilt and unused), 13spd, spring suspension, long frame, and mount the bed and hoist off my dead IH for a few grand. This would have been socially acceptable in the Farm truck world. But, putting a used hoist on a 1971 LN8000 with a 671 that looks rough but is fairly good mechanically is a bad idea.

      Delete

Tell me what you think

Please leave comments! It is really easy!

You just type your comment in the text box below the post. You can be anyone you want.
And...Would the joker who keeps clicking "offensive" please leave an explanation ?!