I’ve written lots on this and it doesn’t get any better with the re-reading.  It’s sick, no matter how you look at it, and might better be titled “Our Disposable Society.”  I hope some good comes out of it.

The page Whistler Sled Dogs tracks the story as it unfolded from the beginning.  More… (if you can stand it) Massacre in Whistler, Sled Dogs–The Fix is In, Timeline–Whistler Sled Dogs, and Aftermath of Whistler.

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T-shirts.  Bumper stickers.  Dog bandanas and coats.  Fridge magnets, signs and posters.  If it can be cranked out by the incredible American merchandising machine, it is on the drawing board and taking form right now.  Not to mention the blogs, websites, and most of all (wait for it)…..the 2nd thoughts people are starting to have about this guy.

Will it stick?  Who knows.  It’s a long time from February till the Republican Convention and even longer to the election in November.  And a lot can and will happen during the twists and turns along the path in the most high stakes chess game/poker match of all — to become the next President of the United States.

One has to wonder what Mitt Romney would have thought in 1983 of the plethora of merchandise he has spawned from strapping Seamus [pronounced Shay-mus] , the family Irish Setter, in a dog crate with some kind of homemade windshield to the top of his station wagon for the 12 hour trip to his parents’ Lake Huron cottage in Ontario on a family vacation.  They famously had to stop at a filling station and hose down the back of the station wagon, the dog crate and Seamus because Seamus’s bowels had let loose.  Then, Seamus was put back in the crate on the roof and they continued on their trip into Canada.

If any of you watch Stephen Cobert, you may be aware that someone fed up with Rick Santorum’s rants against gays decided to give a new Google definition to the word Santorum.  We’ll leave you to do the Google on that (brace yourself).  Not to be outdone, someone also decided to give a new definition to the word “Romney”.

The story of the 30 year old incident originally broke in 2007 by Neil Swidey of the Boston Globe, but it is now haunting Romney on the campaign trail as it seems to be taking on a life of its own.  And on January 8th of this year Swidey followed up with What our fascination with Mitt Romney’s dog Seamus says about our culture.  Good article, and if you really want to see the effect on culture you need only Google “crategate mitt romney seamus” or look at merch being offered on Dogs Against Romney.com.  And just think: the Photoshop guys (and gals) haven’t even gotten started yet.

Romney detractors say the incident shows a lack of empathy in his decision making process for those less fortunate who can’t speak for themselves (what are now being called the 99%).  Romney supporters point out that his emotion-free crisis management is exactly what is needed to find solutions to the complex problems in our society.  Personally, I just can’t imagine strapping a dog, windshield or not, to the top of a vehicle for even a 30 minute trip let alone a 12 hour cross country journey.  No wonder the dog shit himself.

I can appreciate doing something stupid, I mean, I do it every day.  What gets me is that after making the ludicrous decision to put the dog on the roof (which is insane), and after the dog lets you know in the most graphic way possible that it is under extreme duress, and after he pulls over to a filling station to wash down the car, dog carrier, and the dog, what does he do?  He puts the animal back in the carrier on top of the roof and carries on.  If this is a good example of emotion-free crisis management, it is more insane than putting the dog on the roof in the first place.  Emotion-free crisis management would have been realizing the plan isn’t working and changing the game plan.  Even way back in 1983 they made these things called luggage racks.  And that’s not emotion, that’s logic.

It remains to be seen how much and how many voters will be influenced by “Crategate” and will they let this incident influence their decision for something as important as who leads their country.  One thing is for sure:  this thing has legs…

Sources: Reuters, Wikipedia, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, CBC.ca.  So far, we have not been able to view the original archived story from 2007 without a subscription.

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In these hard economic times, most people are confused and wondering just what the hell is going on.

Here is an old standby floating around the internet for years, updated for our times, that makes things so simple even YOU can grasp complex world economics in 2012.  It uses the old standard of cows that was taught in economic classes back in the 40s…

~Economics Explained with Cows~          (original source unknown)

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go to the pub for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You borrow against the cows from the Germans
You kill the cows and make souvlaki
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money
You can’t pay the interest so the Germans lend you more money …..

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Perhaps it’s time for one of these billboards in our area.  Perhaps the solution is local, not national. Why should local ratepayers, local municipalities, local rescue groups keep stretching their overburdened resources to enable this scourge?  For what?  So puppies can be bought with a click of a mouse?  Hey, when YOU’RE the guy with the mop bucket, mopping up someone else’s vomit the night after the party gives you a different perspective of the balloons and the streamers.  There aren’t mops big enough, there aren’t mop buckets large enough to handle this mess we ourselves have created by our culture and complacency.

How long do you want to put up with this?  How long do YOU want to keep paying for it?  For what?  For who?  Why?  Even if today all the puppy mills were shut down in Ontario, pet stores were barred from selling puppies, and puppy sales were banned on sites like Kijiji, there still would not be enough resources to handle all the discarded and unwanted animals that are hitting the shelters now in these hard economic times.

Put a bullet through the brain of this scourge and let’s move on.  Quit making everybody else pay for this perversion of free enterprise.  Let the mills and factories find something else to “grow” and market at everyone else’s expense.  Teach that some kind of responsibility goes along with acquiring a pet.  That’s the way I see it.

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Anyone doubting the viability of restoring the CASO Station and the Elgin County Railway Museum in St. Thomas need only visit Auburn, Indiana.  Your visit is almost guaranteed to open your eyes, mind and spirit to the possibilities that exist right here in our own backyard.

Auburn is hoppin’.  And it’s hoppin’ with planes, trains and automobiles.  And for a guy or anyone who appreciates machines, history and popular culture, the place is just a dream.

And it all started because some people had vision, saw the potential, and an idea that they wouldn’t let their own history go to waste.  They built on what they already had:  a building that once housed the national headquarters, showroom, administrative and design offices of the Auburn Automobile Company.

From that building came some of the most innovative and beautiful cars ever produced:  the Auburn, Cord, and the famous Duesenberg.  ”It’s a Duesy” became part of our lexicon; the Urban Dictionary defines it as slang for “The Finest of its kind.”

The building went through many transformations over the decades.  Originally built in 1929 for $450,000, it was sold after the car company’s bankruptcy in 1937 for $25,000 to an area businessman who tried to keep some of the staff on to do car repairs, etc.  Over the decades the building saw several tenants including a T-shirt & garment warehouse, motorcycle repair shop, and fiberglass camper factory.  It also saw a fire break out on the lower floor in 1973.

Meanwhile, in 1969, Auburn Automotive Heritage, Inc. was formed by three Auburn individuals as a registered non-profit.  They, and an expanding group of like-minded people, would eventually purchase the building for $105,000 in 1974.  The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum opened six months later with 24 cars on loan, and the general public was treated to the first view of the fully restored lobby for $1.50 a head.  Much of the rest of the building was still closed off at that point, and they had their first car donation that year, a pattern that continues today with people donating their classic cars or otherwise loaning them to the museum (e.g. Frank Lloyd Wright’s car is on the 2nd floor).

The building was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, earned the highest accreditation possible for a museum by the American Association of Museums in 1997, and was designated a National Historic Landmark by US Secretary of the Interior in 2005.   It is the highest designation for a building in the US, and was awarded partly as a salute to one of the last surviving examples of hand-built vehicles made before mass production became the norm.  And the museum was named in 2007 by MSNBC News as “One of the Top Ten Gearhead Destinations in the United States.”

Above is the beautifully restored art deco lobby of the Duesenberg Museum and a view from the staircase leading down into the lobby when we visited in 2010.  How many volunteer hours went into restoring this lobby and showroom?  In 1974 when Auburn Automotive Heritage purchased the building they had 37 years worth of grime plus fire damage to get through.

Above:  an enormous car rotates on a pedestal turntable and slowly spins in the lobby.  Needless to say, the lobby and original showroom leaves you in awe.  Grace, elegance and style greet you everywhere you look.  It’s class.  It’s like stepping into an old black and white movie.  Only with magnificent car colours.

Beyond the lobby, the former workshop area and garage now house some incredible cars.

And as if the lobby and first floor weren’t enough, the second floor alone is enough to spend the better part of a day in.  Here you can see the restored offices including the design and engineering rooms plus a myriad of cars donated from around the world.

The incredible pearl finish on the Auburn “boattail speedster.”  Photos hardly do it justice.

Above:  clay models in the design room.  The museum has done a remarkable job of restoring the design and engineering rooms.   The designs of a few men who worked in these rooms changed the way we look at cars and transportation.

At last count, Auburn is now home to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum (1974), National Automotive and Truck Museum (1994), Hoosier Air Museum (1998), World War II Victory Museum (2003), Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum (2003) and the Early Ford V-8 Foundation & Museum (2009) with more planned or in the works.  It has become an industry in and of itself.

In fact, DeKalb County is now home to eight museums including the ones listed above in Auburn plus the Garrett Historical Railroad Museum in Garrett outside of Auburn, and the DeKalb County History Museum in Butler.  And they’ve come up with something unique:  a Passport to all their various museums to promote and encourage visits.

Above:  Inside shot of the just opened Early Ford V-8 Museum and a plane at the Hoosier Air Museum.  Below:  from the collection at the National Automotive and Truck Museum located in the former factory buildings of the Auburn Automotive Company, and a tank in the World War II Victory Museum, recently renamed the National Military Heritage Center (NMHC).  The NMHC has plans to also open the American Heritage Gallery, the Cold War Museum, and the War on Terror Museum.

Above left – from Kruse Automotive & Carriage Museum and the station at the Garrett Historical Railroad Museum.

So that’s about it.  From the work on one building and an appreciation of local heritage has come a growth industry in a place that is basically in the middle of nowhere.  According to Wikipedia, Auburn had a population of 12,731 in 2010 and DeKalb County had a population of 42,223.  Not bad for a small town, not bad at all.

Nothing happens overnight.  If you look at the numbers, the group that started this incorporated as a non-profit in 1969, bought the building and began restoration in 1974, the museum received the highest accreditation in 1997, and the building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005.  Today, 42 years after the group started, museums and tourism are helping to sustain the once factory/agriculture town of Auburn and provide an incentive to stay and linger on your way through.

If you go:  If I had to visit again, I would plan on at least two nights in Auburn.  You can spend an entire day in the Duesenberg Museum alone.  Auburn is almost a day’s drive from St. Thomas (300 miles), depending on your traveling style and time at the border.

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In August of last year the scene in St. Thomas was indeed depressing.  It seemed like everywhere you looked you saw vacant factories.  It felt like we had reached something, a low point that stunned most people’s comprehension.  Even after the Free Trade agreement, I don’t remember it looking this bad.  I went out with a camera on August 4 of 2010 and recorded some of what I saw.  The images pretty well say it all:

That was the scene that day in August 2010.  Pretty gruesome, eh?  And I know I missed some, such as Thermodisc, Emerson, and others–these were just the obvious ones driving by.  Since that day in August some positive movement has happened, most notably the move of Masco (parent of Brasscraft) into the former Sterling Truck plant at 350 Edgeware Rd.

For anyone driving by, their logo on that sign was a welcome sight to see.  And you have to hand it to Masco.  This is a very old company, established 1929, which now includes Delta, BrassCraft, Master Plumber, Waltec, PlumbShop, etc., that obviously takes a long view of things.  Any company that patiently waits its time and makes a move like that at what may be the bottom of the market has my respect.  Before and after pics below.

So, was that the bottom of the economic cycle for St. Thomas?  Don’t know.  It certainly looks like the bottom.  But it doesn’t feel like the bottom yet to me.  We still have the Ford closing to get through in 2011, and it seems to me this poor, ravaged community is holding its collective breath just wondering how bad the economic impact will be.  And we realistically may not know that till 12 to 18 months after Ford closes its doors, when we find out the hard way just how many households and businesses are affected.  That could easily put “the bottom” in 2012, especially if we continue to see higher gas and food prices to boot.

Sure, we’ll have some positive news this year along with the downward pressure of the Ford closing.  But markets move in only three directions:  Up, Down, and Sideways.  To me, the best we can hope for now is Sideways.

I really can’t offer much encouragement or worthwhile advice to someone in their 50s or 60s about how to readjust to the new economic realities we face here in Factory Town.  I can only perhaps offer something to someone younger, and if something strikes a chord with anyone else, so be it.  So here it is:

1.  Learn how to access information.  Get good at it.  The person who can access information will be of more use to the people who really make decisions, no matter what your chosen field is.

2.  Learn how to spell and write for Christ’s sake!  Or else you may find that people that you know are stupider than you are advancing just because they have a vocabulary they can use.

3.  Don’t wait for the Government to solve your problems: they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re always behind the curve anyway.  A few years ago, when the fishing industry collapsed in Newfoundland, people retrained as welders and hairdressers on a wide scale.  They wound up with more welders and hairdressers than a society could even possibly accommodate, and many had to eventually leave for Alberta to find real work after wasting a lot of their own time and government money.  A few years ago here in London-St. Thomas area it was graphic artists.  What flavour of the day is it now?  Who knows?  Who cares?  It may not matter in 20 years.

4.  Don’t overlook the Earth Sciences.  You don’t hear much about it in these here parts, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t viable in today’s world.  We are going to have to find ways to feed and provide energy to everybody on this planet, and the crunch is coming.  That means potash, phosphate, uranium, oil, natural gas, rare earths, and what have you will become critical for us to function as a society and they will have to be found and developed.  There is already a shortage of geologists and qualified persons in these fields and it is going to get much, much worse with the current retirement cycle.  Besides, you might just wind up travelling the world to some really interesting places while someone who took the government’s re-training program to become [insert flavour of the day here] is trotting down to the EI office yet again…

But of course, I could be wrong.

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I should note here that I am a Mac person and have limited knowledge about PCs.  But it is difficult to only have Macs in a PC world, so I use an older PC laptop running XP to surf the net, open programs the Mac doesn’t like, etc.  I’ve gotten used to it, and this system works fine for me as I can do research while watching the garbage that passes for TV or taking it back to bed with my morning coffee.

So after watching my PC laptop chuggin’ slower and slower every morning, when it was taking the computer longer to fully wake up than me, I decided to finally do something:  I called a friend.

His name is Gary, and he knows about these things.  Needless to say, he found lots of viruses and nasty stuff that rode in on the back of something else and the thing runs fine now.  It worked so well we sent him my wife’s old laptop and he cleaned it up too and discovered a very important piece of information:  her hard drive is failing.  Kinda nice to know ahead of time, especially since she uses hers for work.

So I realized that for me, PCs need to be handed over to someone qualified every spring or whatever and tuned up and sorted out before trouble rears its ugly head (again).  I would try to look after the Macs myself.  I was feeling fairly pleased with my new found wisdom, but apparently spending one’s life sorting out other people’s problems  ["emergencies"] occasionally causes said problem solver to throw up their hands in exasperation and wonder.

This apparently was what was happening to my friend one day, as he began posting nonstop on Facebook the wonders of the computer “sort out” experience.  I have copied his posts below as they appeared.  I really don’t need help doing a rant, but this one was so revealing I’d like to pass it on.  And I daresay anyone who has ever run a service business of any kind can relate:

Gary’s Rant–  April 30, 2011

So, having my poor brain taxed and picked apart with the never ending woes of the computer questions…I have retreated to the woods….far from any AC outlets, and where laptops can survive a few hours at best. A song a little before my time, but I can relate, I think most can.  Free Man in Paris

For the record: I do not own, nor have much control over your settings at the following businesses and their computer networks: Microsoft, Hotmail, Pogo Games, WII, Nintendo, Poker.whatever, Bell, Rogers, Intel, Any messaging service…yahooooooo, and no I don’t know if they are going to be “down” long.

Also: ALL parents use the internet for 3 things ONLY 1)sending jokes 2) Visiting a very limited (never porn) websites of interest…say gardening on-line or learning to fly a plane on-line….. 3)checking sports scores. I have been listening to parents long and hard for over 10yrs now– I have a solution.

FACT: Every computer brought to me by an adult was broken by the children!!! The adults swore to only doing the allowed 3 things mentioned above. No adults to date have broken one. That’s strong evidence. So I have a solution for parents outlined below.

Based on years of research and the sworn testimony of 1000′s of parents, I went looking for the solution to get me out of the family squabbles of Mom defending the children from Dad’s wallet anxiety ’cause every adult knows…..it’s those damn kids and their games!!!!! It’s ALWAYS been those damn kids! Long as I can remember!

So after much research and consulting Russell Peters, I offer Adults the world over a solution: BEAT YOUR KIDS.  If you want a hassle free computer experience….beat your kids.  If you don’t want viruses on the computer…you’re gonna have to ….beat your kids man! Beat em’–especially the white kids.

I do understand and here are the reasons I dropped what I was doing, gave up every weekend, and earned just enough money to keep me aggravated fixing computers:  I know how important pogo and live messenger are.  You were leaving for a vacation I dreamed of, and I have only 4hrs to have this done, and it’s not for you but for the children and their school projects….

…….you needed to apply on-line for a job that expires today, it’s the last day of tax season, all the baseball schedules are on there, it’s your WHOLE life story…., the home business is down now, did I mention I can’t get to poker stars….I play it all the time…., to save a spouse from about to “freak out”……to save the computer from “THE FINALL BIG TOSS”

Home visits are the best, I liken it to being the mechanic at Canadian Tire except you close the garage door with the WHOLE family inside. For optimal results I recommend placing your oldest, smartest boy directly over my shoulder…he plays his cards right, this could be your last bill. But the best is the questions….most I understand, but there are a few………

Fav ? asked of me by a redneck near St.Thomas…..I shit you not, he asks, “these cd burner things….do they give off some kinda black, fine smoke particle when burning???” I say with a straight face, No, why you ask and he pointed to the soot stained ceiling, so I pointed out the 200 candles around us in the room;)

Do you think someone would hack into my computer? Why yes of course I do. I can see why the world would have to know what you are up to. Perhaps it’s to get your bank overdraft account? Maybe its page 7 of that book you’re working on, or maybe just maybe, it’s all the elitists we hang around with here..in dade county.

but seriously…..it’s your wedding pictures and pictures of the most beautiful baby in the whole world-yours! Someone was probably gonna use your family footage to enter your child in a talent contest, and get the rights before you did. Someone who has exhausted their own family photo albums and decided they had to have yours!!!!

Why I have been amassing technology; because despite my dire warnings, constant reminders that things go wrong….I am still the backup plan. What would you like me to save if I can…….”everything” is the answer….everything I was supposed to do and didn’t and now you the professional better get results now that it’s broken and no longer functions.

I’m all over it.

Gary:  Jim asked for my permission to print this and I said, “Go ahead, if you can’t find the humour in what you do, it’s time to do something else;)

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The US housing market is at risk of a major collapse in 10 cities with 6.7 million mortgages waiting to flood the market, and another 2 million in foreclosure being held back by the banks.  The last time this happened people were walking away from homes and leaving their pets to fend for themselves or dumping them at shelters.

This comes at a time when many States are broke, having to cut back on unemployment benefits as gas and food prices are rising.  Considering our proclivity for backyard breeders, buying pups on Kijiji, and with Prop B just being overturned, the amount of animals to hit already distressed animal shelters is bound to get worse.

Even if a sweeping law were to be passed today, April 17th, on a multi-state effort to clamp down on backyard breeding and puppy mills, it would take 6 to 8 months for whatever is already happening to play itself out.  The current oversupply of breeding operations of one type or another is going to keep supplying pups at an unsustainable rate while more animals are going to be given up with the foreclosed house or from people in distress.

It’s like the perfect storm is building:  the housing market collapse, State debt levels, cutbacks on services and public assistance, a rise in gas and food prices, desperate people breeding pups for cash, and repeal of Prop B in Missouri (est. 3000 puppy mills).  Add them all together and it doesn’t look good for anybody.  If the backyard breeders and puppy mill operators had any sense they’d at least see the handwriting on the wall and be cutting back.  The market will eventually drive that point home, but not before resources are stretched even beyond the current breaking point.

And who will pay?  We will.  Down here at the local level, we pay.  The ‘ol Trickle Down Theory, except it’s not bringing any McJobs or some remote promise of prosperity.  It’s the Misery Trickle Down when it comes to animal rescue, because we are the final destination of a system we permit that starts with a backyard breeder needing cash or the puppy mills of Missouri or Ontario.  The problem is really created (or permitted) at the State, Provincial, and Federal levels, but we have to deal with the mop up operation (and expense) down here at the local level.  My opinion is that since we are paying for it, the municipalities and counties all over the US and Canada should have a greater say over it.

Anyway, that’s my rant.  Bottom line, the sheer numbers of animals hitting the rescue shelters is bound to get worse over the next 6 to 8 months, if not longer.

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This is a picture of part of the email I received.  Great story with incredible photos.  But it’s not entirely true.

So that was the lead in, with these pics and others attached (now posted on our Strange & Wonderful page)

At the end of the email it states: THE WOMAN WHO DID THIS IS A GENIUS….VERY CREATIVE!

I’ll say she was.  But according to snopes.com, that rates the story as “mostly true,” the real story is that the pictures are taken directly off the website from the Hotel Costa Verde in Costa Rica.  The plane is an exclusive suite, rents for $500 per night in season (Jan. to April) and $400 per night the rest of the year.

After a bit more digging, we find out that there is a real Joanne Ussery in Benoit, Mississippi, who did actually buy a used 727 for $2000 and had it transported to her property for $4000 after her own house was flattened during a storm.  She spent about $24,000 and four months doing much of the remodeling herself .  As you can see below, her view in Mississippi (right) would be a bit different than the one in Costa Rica (left) depicted in the email.  Also shown below is her kitchen and living room.

JoAnne had the tail anchored in 18″ of concrete so that the nose stuck out as if it was flying.  Her story, worth reading, is depicted here on airportjournals.com about 1/3 way down the page and states:

“Asked why she lived in an airplane, Ussery said it was “simply cost effective,” and once it was set up, required no maintenance. She didn’t have to worry about repairing the roof or replacing rotten boards or having it eaten by termites. And, to her grandchildren, living in a jetliner made her the coolest grandma on the planet.”

JoAnne isn’t the only one to have done this.  Shown above is a “bachelor pad” on 10 acres in Laurel, Oregon, and the Boeing 727 Hunting Lodge in Leflore County, Mississippi.  But the point is, why embellish JoAnne’s story at all?  Was it not glamorous enough?  Personally, I find the story of the “gutsy grandma” much more interesting and real than the high budget renovations that I can dream about, but can never afford.  Hers is a real story on a limited budget, someone like you and me, who thought “why not?”  There is no need to dress it up at all.  They’re both great stories.

This crap is typical of much of what passes as truth in what we get as emails.  Large type, usually pink or blue, purporting some cure or message that you are going to die tomorrow, win a laptop, or make some really easy money.  This fall it will be about time to get the “two moons” email again, and it is about time now to get yet another gut wrenching chain email about a solider in Afganstan which harvests yours + all your friends email addresses back to a data mining center for spammers or other sinister reasons.  That’s what chain emails do.

As a general rule, the bigger the type, the bigger the lie.  Funny how that works.  Do yourself a favor and check out the 25 Hottest Urban Legends on snopes.com.  You’ll be surprised how many look familiar.

Back to Jim’s Notebook.  See also Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.