Category: random

What sort of campaign slogan is “Forward,” Mr. President? It means nothing to the working man or woman struggling to make ends meet, keeping both a roof over their families head and food on the table in this tough economy.

“Forward,” to where Mr. Obama? Into de-industrialization, socialized everything, a third world nation?

No thank you.

And if I hear Vice President Joe Biden spout off one more time, saying, “Here’s a bumper sticker for you: Osama Bin Laden’s dead and GM lives,” I think I’ll go play in rush-hour traffic. Again it mean’s nothing, with the number of people out of work and foreclosures wrecking neighborhood throughout the U.S.

After all if we’re going to elect a president based on who killed Osama Bin Laden — I’m voting for a Navy SEAL.

This was my first car — a 1963 Chevy Biscayne. I bought it for 300 bucks. I took Jill Ziemer to the prom in this car. It was a three-on-the-tree and I couldn’t get the stupid thing in reverse. Jill saved the day by climbing in the driver seat and finding the gear for me. Admittedly, it was kind of embarrassing.

I traded out my Biscayne and a couple hundred dollars for a 1967 Dodge Charger. It had a 383 under the hood and 440 Interceptor shift-kit. I out ran the CHP in it a couple of times. Shame on me! Because I tended to drive too fast in this car, my parents refused to let me take Connie Harper to prom in it. Instead I had to drive their 1971 Opel Cadet. It wasn’t a very sexy look!

While stationed at Warren AFB, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I spent 1200 dollars on a 1976 Datsun 610 Wagon. I did my best to drive that thing to death by taking it camping, with my friends Dave Barber and Linda Alverson and on long road trips. It was a piece of crap — but it got me from there to here and back again. Even my friend Linda Bottazzo, who was also stationed at Warren and owned one, says they were crappy, but reliable.

I had a 1977 Triumph Spitfire for a few months. I ended up with after I sued an employer to get my back pay. Unfortunately, since it was owned by that same employer, I had to surrender it to get paid. Sometimes I think I should have jus’ hung on to the car and forgone the check. It was a chick-magnet. Hind-sight is 20/20, huh?

I didn’t own a working vehicle for nearly two-years after giving up the Spitfire.  I bought a 1974 VW Superbeetle, completely rebuilt with a 9-11 Porsche engine, for $3,500. The  day I got it anew paint job, my friend Beth Wachter stuck a bag full of gummy bears to it. So much for the paint job as I removed them one-by-one. It didn’t look like much, but add a few bags of sand in the front trunk to weigh it down and whammo — that little Bug could do near 60 mph in second gear. I sold back a number of pink slips, making my rent because of this.

 My first real old-timer was a 1937 Pontiac six 4-door Touring Sedan. I traded for it with a biker named Russ, who wanted my leather jacket. Since it didn’t run very well and a hole in the gas tank, I left it parked on the far-side of the apartment complex from where I lived. I should have kept my eye on it as within a couple of weeks, somebody stripped it down to its chassis. They even stole the seats, which were in pretty good shape. All I could do was file a police report and hope. Nothing was ever recovered. Dirty bastards!

After blowing the engine for a second time, I figured it was time to part with the Bug. And for the first in my life I decided to buy a brand-new vehicle. I drove my 1988 Hyundai Excel for 14-years until it caught fire on I-80 one morning and burned to the ground. The sad part about this is I had jus’ put anew water pump and radiator in the damned thing. I was also arrested for arson because the police thought I’d set the fire. They dropped the  charges after the fire marshal found an electrical short at the point of the fires origin.

For some reason I got a bug up my butt and decided to buy myself a “classic truck,” in this case a 1959 Chevy Apache Fleetside pick-up, that I named “Big Red.” I never could get the speedometer to work properly, having been over three times, though never cited, for going over the speed limit by 10 mph. I had a friend named Ray who was a mechanic and a race car driver, who was going to fix it up for me, so I moved it to his garage, unfortunately he and his wife split the sheets and she absconded with my truck and his two race cars. She is from Arizona, so I suspect the truck is sitting someplace on one of the many Reservations in that state. Whadda shame.

Shortly after moving into our new home, I had what I call a mid-life crisis spending $4,000 on a Chevy 3100 Series step side truck.  After five years of ownership I concluded “Little Blue,” deserved better TLC and feeding than I was giving her, so I sold it to my friend Paul Hinen’s son for 500-bucks. Happily, I see him zooming around town in the truck from time to time, so I think I got a good deal out of the sale.

After the Hyundai went up in flames, I needed a vehicle. I looked at all sorts of cars and trucks. I knew what I wanted and needed so I set about to find something that would solve both. That solution was a 1998 Ford Ranger XLT. I purchased it used for $12-thousand, which was about 1K more than I’d hoped to pay — but it has been worth every dime spent. I’ve crossed the western part of the U.S. twice in it, travelled up and down Nevada and California too many times to count in this truck and I continue to drive the hell out of it today.

Honestly — I had no idea I’d owned so many vehicles in my lifetime.

A southern Nevada man is one of those killed in Libya during the Benghazi attack on the U.S. Embassy.  Tyrone Woods most recently lived in San Diego before moving to Henderson with his wife, Dorothy and  and their three sons: Tyrone Jr., Hunter and Kai.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Woods died helping to protect his colleagues. Woods was a  former SEAL with more than two decades in the Navy including stints in Iraq and Afghanistan.  After retiring, he opened ‘The Salty Frog,” a bar in Imperial Beach.

Since 2010 though, Woods worked to protect American diplomatic personnel in posts from Central America to the Middle East.  US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service officer Sean Smith and Glen Doherty, also a former Navy SEAL, were  also killed during the attack.

Democratic Congressman Shelley Berkley is challenging Republican U.S. Senator Dean Heller for his senate seat. To that end, she’s airing a TV ad claiming Heller, is part of a $64 million diamond scam.

“It’s a reach and a diversion,” University of Nevada, Reno political science professor Eric Herzik told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Given the volume of incorporations in Nevada, you’re going to have some fly-by-night operations and some fraudulent activities. To pin that on the secretary of state is a reach. ”

The ad goes on to suggest Heller took campaign contributions from a “co-conspirator” named Urban Casavant.  However, the campaign contribution in question came in June 2005 to Heller’s 2006 campaign for Congress by Rendal Williams, then CEO of U.S. Canadian Minerals.

In 2004 U.S. Canadian Minerals, with Williams at the head, acquired a 5 percent interest in CMKM Diamonds. But Williams was not among the people indicted by the feds in the fraud case.

Briefly, the ad shows a sworn affidavit taken by the Security Exchange Commission deposing Donald J. Stoecklein, dated January 24th, 2006. Stoecklein is an attorney in San Diego, California

On page 128, lines 20 through 23 Stoecklein says he met with then Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller.  But what you don’t see is page 130, lines 1 through 6, where Stoecklein says Heller and Casavant may have been in the same room, but never interacted with one another.

As for Berkley, she’s under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for possibly using her position to help her family financially. Included are efforts to keep a kidney transplant facility connected to her husband’s medical practice, and pushing for the Ways and Means Committee to not cut reimbursement rates for doctors who give dialysis to Medicare patients.

Obviously worried her ethics problems will cost her the race, Berkley is doing her best to make Heller look crooked, too.

Speaking at the  Trucking facility in Sparks, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said the latest federal job report shows one in four people stopped looking for jobs in August. He added while 96,000 people found jobs, the economy needs to create 150,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth.

“This is nowhere close to an economic recovery,” Ryan told the crowd. “President Obama is not a bad guy. He’s good at giving great speeches. He’s just really bad at creating jobs.”

Ryan said he and presidential candidate Mitt Romney have a plan to fix the economy.

“We have to stop spending money we don’t have,” said Ryan, “We need to get our budget under control, or we will end up like Europe.”

If the Republicans win in November, Ryan said, they are not “going to spend four years blaming other people” for their problems.

“We are going to fix those problems,” he vowed. “We are not going to kick the can down the road.”

Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, running against GOP U.S. Senator Dean Heller for the senate seat, used Ryan’s visit to criticize Heller for supporting Ryan’s proposed change to the Medicare system.

Funny thing, Ryan didn’t mention Medicare in his speech, but he did say he wants to put an end to the nation’s deficit so (our) children today do not have to pay it off in the future.

“A lot of people are depending on you,” he told the 2,500 present.

Talk about being off point.

President Barack Obama flew into Las Vegas for another quick campaign stop focusing on his economic policies. Air Force One touched down at McCarran International Airport for the president’s eighth appearance this year in Nevada.

Obama spoke before a Democratic campaign audience at a convention hall just north of downtown Las Vegas before departing for Denver. His visit comes after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed a National Guard Association convention in Reno.

During that convention Romney told guard members September 11th is a time to renew the resolve of protecting Americans against “evil” attacks. Romney added that the events of that day remain seared in the memory of Americans.

Meanwhile, a watchdog group gives Nevada Senate candidate Shelley Berkley a “dishonorable mention” in its report on corrupt members of Congress. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington cited a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations she used her position to help her family’s financial interests.

The Nevada Republican Party filed a complaint last year saying Berkley’s efforts to keep a kidney transplant program open in Las Vegas constituted a conflict of interest. Her husband is a managing partner of a company that contracted with the hospital to offer kidney care.

Also, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller is in the Middle East to learn about military and overseas voting issues. He and other secretaries of state are traveling with U.S. Department of Defense officials, and so far have visited Kuwait and Qatar where they met with U.S. embassy and military officials.

Discussions have focused on voter outreach efforts for U.S. citizens living abroad and absentee voting for military personnel stationed overseas. A Nevada bill passed by the 2009 Legislature allows Nevada voters overseas to register to vote, as well as request and send absentee ballots electronically.

Nevada also adopted the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which requires  absentee ballots be mailed to voters who ask for them at least 45 days before an election to make sure their ballots are counted.  In 2009 Congress passed the MOVE Act to help military voters obtain absentee ballots, wherever they are stationed.

Finally, the Military Voter Protection Project reports a significant declines in absentee-ballot requests by service members across the nation. Compiling data from Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada, the organization found military families have requested 55,510 absentee ballots so far this year.

That’s a sharp decline from the 166,252 sought in those states in 2008.

Did you hear the one about the unemployed Henderson, Nevada couple who went to the Democratic National Convention to cast their vote for President Obama’s reelection nomination?

Bob and Linda Cavazos traveled to Charlotte as delegates, putting away money from his $396 weekly unemployment checks so they could afford the trip. She’s a devoted Obama for America volunteer, while he’s an experienced telecommunications manager.

While at the convention they heard from such notables as Democratic advisor Donna Brazile, who told the crowd, “You bet we’re better off!” And senior Obama advisor Pete Rouse who claimed, “We are trying to create jobs in Nevada.”

When done, the Cavazos returned to Nevada with it’s 12.5-percent unemployment rate so he could continue looking for a job. Now, Bob has to show why he was not looking for work during that time period and it could affect his benefits.

What? No laughter?

There’s some confusion about the origin of the name Gabbs, in the valley by the same name, in Nye County. One claim is the valley, mountain range and city is name after engineer and Professor E.S. Gabbs. However its more likely named after William More Gabb, a paleontologist and member of a survey team under professor Josiah Dwight Whitney from 1862 to 1867.

Several of his colleagues surveyed and mapped the area now called Gabbs Valley. While never seeing the valley that bears his name, Gabb described fossils collected there.

The first-known use of the name Gabbs Valley appears on a map from 1871. Seven years later, the 39-year-old Gabb, a Philadelphia native died at his home.

Gabbs is also the home of Melvin Dummar, who came to fame because of the so-called, “Mormon Will.”  Dummar says his inclusion in Howard Hughes’ will came after he found Hughes, half-dead and laying in the road near Lida Junction, then drove the disoriented billionaire to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Dummar has never been able to prove his claim on the Hughes’ fortune as the courts have ruled the “Mormon Will” a forgery.

Gabbs owes its existence to the discovery of major brucite deposits in Gabbs Valley in the late 1920s.  Brucite’s importance wasn’t realized until World War II and the need for magnesium in weapon production.

By the end of 1942, hundreds of workers and their families lived in new town sites named North Gabbs and South Gabbs. The first post office in the Gabbs Valley opened December 3rd, 1942. Initially, named the Toiyabe Post Office; the name changed to Gabbs, June 1st, 1943.

Gabbs gained city status March 29th, 1955, when the area mines were still operating at full capacity. The Nevada State Legislature disincorporated the county’s only city, May 8th, 2001, because Gabbs tax base could no longer sustain its municipal government.

Whether Gabbs becomes a ghost town like so many other mining towns in Nevada’s history, only time will tell.

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval is the newly appointed vice chair of the National Governors Association Health and Homeland Security Committee. This is a reward for his performance a the Republican National Convention

“Like Republican governors all across this nation,” Sandoval said. “I chose to make the tough decisions.”

Does he mean decisions like voiding battling both the state’s employee and teachers unions, unlike Ohio, New Jersey and Wisconsin’s Governor or continuing to lay the ground work for ObamaCare, something neither governor in Florida or Texas are doing?

Then there was this from the former federal judge, “So I stepped down from a lifetime appointment to make a difference.”

Not really.

Sandoval told the Reno Gazette-Journal, as he announced his 2009 candidacy for Nevada governor, that he had become increasingly concerned about how the state was being run and he “decided to act on my concern.”

That’s a big difference.

The year 1881 is generally declared the beginning of technological change in the logging industry. Up until then, men, oxen and horses carried the load.

In that year, in Eureka, California, John Dolbeer applied for a patent for the steam donkey engine. Early loggers gave it that humble name because the original model looked too puny to be rated in horsepower.

Back in 1864, Dolbeer, a very successful mill worker, became a partner with logger William Carson in Humboldt County. Together they built a logging empire called Dolbeer & Carson.

Dolbeer’s donkey was actually patented in 1882. It evolved through even more labor-saving changes including a “haul back line” through a pulley attached to a stump that eventually put the horse out of business.

His donkey engine sat on heavy wooden skids. It was an upright wood-burning boiler with a stovepipe on top that was attached to a one-cylinder engine, which drove a revolving horizontal drive-shaft with capstan spools at each end for winding rope.

Operating an early Dolbeer donkey required three men, a boy and a horse.

One man, the “choker-setter,” attached the line to a log; an engineer or “donkey puncher,” tended the steam engine; and a “spool tender” guided the whirring line over the spool with a short stick. The boy, called a whistle punk, manned a communicating wire running from the choker setter’s position out among the logs to a steam whistle on the donkey engine.

Occasionally a novice Spool Tender would try using his foot instead of a stick. When he returned from the hospital, he would use his new wooden leg instead.

When the Choker Setter had secured the line running from the spool, the Whistle Punk tugged his whistle wire as a signal to the engineer that the log was ready to be hauled in. As soon as one log was in, or “yarded,” it was detached from the line; then the horse hauled the line back from the donkey engine to the waiting Choker Setter and the next log.

By the turn of the century, donkeys were mounted on barges to herd raft of logs and “bull donkeys” lowered entire trains of log cars down steep inclines, all with the help of iron and then steel wire cable that replaced the original ropes.