finally getting off the dime.....

Back Again....

:OT: Well, we managed to get the Scouts safely through another campout; we didn't kill anybody other than a LOT of Rainbow trout. Fifteen fishermen times a 5-fish limit equals an ice chest 3/4 full of cleaned fish.

Just an aside: I officially do not like lake-fishing for trout as much as stream-fishing. Boring - you throw your line out there with about a 1/2 oz weight and 5' of leader terminating in a #14 treble hook buried in a big glob of Powerbait. And you wait. And wait. And wait. <yawn!> It's like lake-fishing for catfish! Almost lost my pole once, 'cause I fell asleep while waiting for the tip to wiggle indicating I had a fish - one of the kids yelled at me and I caught the pole as the reel was about 6" from the water.
And they taste funky, too. Fishy - not like "real" trout.

Oh; and to recycle the tired old joke I heard either here, or on MercuryCougar.net, or over on Network54: I searched high and low while driving through the Cleveland Nat'l Forest to Lake Cuyamaca; didn't see one stinkin' Cleveland anywhere! Couple Chevy 350 pieces on the road and one mangled motorcycle being pulled out of a culvert; but no Clevelands (or even Windsors for that matter)

Anyway, I came home to find the carport had NOT been cleaned out. I guess Jessie doesn't want the Cougar fixed all that badly after all......
Maybe it'll just become my car right away

Well, there's always Auto Mechanics Merit Badge..... Otherwise, there's not a lot about Muscle Cars in Boy Scouts. They've become awfully "PC" in the last 10-15 years. 351 cubic inches (or 357 cubic inches at .030 over) of fire-breathing 335-series Ford muscle doesn't quite fit the whole "conservation" image

That always slays me.... I can remember when my mother-in-law-to-be had a 1982 Cougar (a four-door Mercury version of the Fairmont) that she had bought new. After ragging on me about "that hot rod of yours" (my Gran Torino) "that will never make it through the smog test", she ran her sweet little ersatz "Cougar" through the Pima County Emissions testing station (and Selby Lincoln-Mercury) four times before it passed. I was run through the test twice in the same vist because the HydroCarbon reading was too low! They thought they had a bad test sensor; when in fact it was because I had set the timing at about 2* into spark knock and locked down the set screws on the vacuum actuator for the back barrels. Baby (my Gran - with a Cleve built up pretty much like the one in our Cougar, but still factory bore) ran like crap to and from the testing station; but she got through the test with flying colors.

Of course, I just had to limp her along no farther than M-I-L's house before I reset the timing and the actuator pushrod - oh, and show The Future Mrs. StDr's mom my emissions test form

2nd EDIT: placed before the first EDIT: Susan tells me that was the worst thing I could do..... point out where her Mom was wrong. (Stinkin' Democrats, anyway!)

EDIT: Jessie read this and grumped because I failed to mention that she actually did clean out the carport after school today.....

Uh-uuuhhhhh! She needs to get her room cleaned next.

On second thought, she could do your driveway first; and keep all the leftover blasting sand for kitty-litter! Midnight's catbox (in Jessie's room) is getting pretty intense and the smell is clogging up my sinuses!