When I think back on it, I wonder why I didn’t do something. Maybe I could not have intervened directly, but I could have called someone. I suppose, at that point though, an ambulance could not have done anything. The fire department; well, it really wasn’t their…department (so to speak). The police, perhaps, might have made an arrest. Still, though, it was too late to prevent what had already happened. At any rate, I guess I was too much in shock to do anything but stare in horror and disbelief.

Now, no matter what I do I cannot get that image out of my head. I have taken to drinking in an effort to at least numb myself. But, of course, that only works in the short term. Maybe by writing about it I will somehow find some sense of closure. Maybe, someday, I will forget that I saw an obesely fat man mowing his lawn wearing nothing but a Speedo.

A lot of people out there are also using My Space as a place to promote what ever it is that they do that they wish they could get paid for; whether it be recording music, creative writing, live web cams, or proof-reading new dictionaries. Some people prefer this because anyone can access their information instead of just their 2563 close personal “friends”.

The only problem with these social networking sites is that they are highly addictive. You have to log on several times a day and change your status, check to see what your thousands of “friends” are doing right this minute, add the 12 newest applications, or attack a bunch of people with your zombie/werewolf/vampire/slayer/pirate/school girl. And you have to spend time visiting and leaving comments with all of the multitudes of groups that you have joined. If you’re really lucky you’ll still mange to get two hours of sleep every night.

One other solution is to make several videos that are somehow relevant to your web site and then post them on some of the 6052 YouTube-like sites on the internet. Again all you would have to do it wait for people to make their way back to your home page. I’m certain that within a few months your hits will increase by…eight or more and you’ll be laughing all the way to the virtual bank.

Pretty soon though, they’ll need to make some sort of a free drug rehab program just for Facebook addicts. It will most likely be a two-step program. Step 1: cancel your account and never go back there again. Step 2: leave the house and interact with real live people. (Just for the record that second step is not something that I would ever personally endorse.) Come to think of it there’s probably already a support group for Facebook addicts; you should be able to join it on Facebook.

Some people have used regular automotive antifreeze, which naturally doesn’t freeze but also doesn’t make as much hho gas. Others have added methanol or ethanol alcohol to the units. The problem is that it is hard to keep enough alcohol in the water if your hho unit is hooked up with vacuum and the temperature of the water gets very high during operation. This can cause alcohol to evaporate off, and the lower concentrations can allow the hydrogen generator to freeze at night or when sitting.

Others claim that high levels of electrolyte will stop the generator or lines from filling with ice. I hope to test that later on this year. Without trying a few things after temperatures go below freezing, we won’t know for sure which methods work and which don’t. Hopefully we will be able to stop hho hydrogen generators from freezing and continue to use them to get better fuel mileage all winter.

If you purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock a while back, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron stocks, you would have  $16.50 left of your original $1000.00.

With WorldCom stocks, you might have less than $5.00 left.

If you purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left of your investment.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of Blue Beaver Beer or cheap wine one year ago, drank all the beer/wine, then turned in the cans/bottles for the aluminium and bottle  recycling REFUND, you would have around $45.00 in your hands.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink heavily and recycle. This way you get some entertainment value for your money.

I’m pretty sure Ernie and I are heavily invested in this redneck retirement plan already. How about the rest of you?

Sharon Hurley Hall wrote a guest post on Anywired called Trouble in Paradise : Freelancing from a Tropical Island pt. 1. I found it pretty interesting. There’s a few drawbacks to paradise after all.

And that is what got me to thinking about my home locale. I know everyone thinks of Horseguard Valley as some sort of Redneck Paradise. Fishing, hunting, camping, drinking, blowing stuff up, you name it. If rednecks like to do it, we pretty much have it goin’ on. You might picture yourself moving out of the city and living the redneck high life while making a living online with your laptop. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Pull a trout out of the mighty Horseguard River for supper, then whip off a couple posts and visit some of your favorite online sites. I know it works for Grizzly Brears, and he is much farther North and out in ‘the sticks’ than we are. So far out there he recently referred to it as ‘the twigs’.

However, this lifestyle isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Read on, and I’ll fill you in on a few of the drawbacks.

1. Inclement weather. This is another way of saying, you’re either gonna freeze, or your gonna fry. Our temperatures range from -45 Celsius, to +35 Celsius. Sometimes in the same season. Snow, rain, sunshine, fog, mud, sleet, more sunshine, strong winds. This could be a description of Alberta in any given June. As long as you have a warm base location, you can wait out the weather. You would be welcome to grab a stool at the Redneck Bar and Grill on a rainy day. Update: Dec 4 /08: -22dgrees Celsius. Dec 5/08: +4 DegreesCelsius. Almost a cruel weather change!

2. Crappy internet connections. You might be able to get wireless internet installed, depending on your exact location. The closer to a big town you are, the more likely this is. Turns out I am equally distant from all wireless internet providers, and therefore they are all equally useless to me. Dial-up internet is an option if you have a phone line and unlimited patience. We chose to go with satellite internet, which requires us to pay a fortune for lousy service and mediocre speeds. It also doesn’t work if it’s raining or snowing too hard, or many other times for no apparent reason. Other than that it’s great! The final option would be a wireless card which works off the cell phone towers. This is cost prohibitive for most people, and there are a lot of places that cell phones don’t work around here. Update: Fall of ’08, wireless cards went down in monthly charges from $100 to $60. Much more affordable.

3. Distractions. It’s hard to get any work done when there is so much Blue Beaver Beer to drink. All those fish are just waiting to get caught. Anyone want to go skiing? How about a nice nature hike, maybe some quading or 4×4 ing down some trails?

Okay, so that last one there was more like redneck paradise, not a problem at all. I do have to admit, living out of town has some huge benefits. If Aron and I want to cause some highly flammable substance to ignite in a tightly sealed container using a long fuse, we just go do it. If we want to listen to loud music in our front yard, we do. Person freedom and open spaces are something us rural Alberta rednecks take for granted. You just have to weigh the pros and cons. Can you put up with snow in July? Then maybe our redneck paradise is right for you. Of course, if you are looking for private jet rentals, you will never find that sort of luxury item here. On the other hand, a couple of our bush pilots will work for beer!

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You’ve all seen them, and there are extremely few, if any, of us left who do not use them every day. I dug deep and spent a lot of time and energy trying to discover where these things came from. I Googled the subject and I learned the following from the first page that I read.

The very first emoticon was used by a guy called Kevin MacKenzie in 1979. -) was supposed to mean, “tongue in cheek”. Fortunately, it did not catch on at that time. Unfortunately, between 1981 and mid-1982 they reappeared and just increased in popularity every year since.

There was a CMU bulletin board system where many people could chat and have discussions. Apparently, some people on this board didn’t understand subtle humour which led to countless flames and meaningless discussions. So a number of these people started to wonder if they could use some combination of punctuation marks to signify what was and wasn’t a joke. If you want to see how it evolved you can read about it here. Long story short though, a guy by the name of Scott Fahlman came up with to show that something was funny and to show that something wasn’t. And now today we thousands of different variations of these EMOTional ICONS to signify any imaginable state of mind that you could possibly be experiencing.

Now, I’m not certain exactly how “LOL” and all of it’s endless variations came into being, but I can only surmise that there are people out there who are unable to read the traditional emoticon so they had to invent something more obvious.

Alas, I don’t think that this is a problem that will go away any time soon. Therefore, I will have to apply the old adage, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” During my research I came across this: ROTFC, PGH. It means, Rolling On The Floor Choking, Please Get Help. I think I am going to try to use that as often as I can. Also I have invented this :-0->B It means that I am opening my mouth and reaching out for a Blue Beaver Beer. So, when you’re feeling blue :-0->B

(originally posted March 2007)