STUMPTOWNBLOGGER

LINDNER'S WORLD

M-kay... I’ve had friends from the neighborhood congratulate me on my “retirement.”

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Someone I don’t even know messaged me a few days ago, asking how much I wanted for the Javamobile II.

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I ran into a Facebook friend at Lowe’s on Sunday who asked me what I planned to do with the Javamobile II.

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An old buddy from high school days congratulated me on my retirement.

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The pharmacist at Costco asked me yesterday who was going to inherit the Pony Espresso spot at the Beaverton Farmer’s Market.

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👉🏼 👉🏼 👉🏼 👉🏼 Breaking News 👈🏼 👈🏼 👈🏼 👈🏼 

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I. AM. NOT. RETIRING. / I. AM. NOT. RETIRING. / I. AM. NOT. RETIRING.

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I just gave up my weekday route. So if anything, I’ve semi-retired. I’ll still work the Beaverton Farmer’s Market on Saturdays, film and TV crews, sporting events, whatever, for as long as I am able. Twenty-five years of working 6 or 7 days a week was enough. I’ll now work 1 or 2. I know, I’m a lazy bum.

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But I have NO PLANS to fully retire. Not now, not anytime in the foreseeable future. And I definitely have NO INTENTIONS of parting with my beloved Javamobile II (are you KIDDING me?), so hold your offers. I still love what I do, and would have continued the route too had fate not intervened late in 2017.

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Arrakis depends on me. If not for the Javamobile II and other independents, the good people of Snappytown would be at the mercy of the evil Baron Schultz of the House of Harkkonnenbucks.

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The Spice must flow.  ☕️

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LINDNER’S WORLD

Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before. You know what I hate? What I really, REALLY hate?

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I hate plumbing. I HATE IT!

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What started out as laundry day ended up being an adventure in hoses, wrenches and bloodied knuckles. I ran a load of towels around 4:00 am, then sat down to read some news. But something didn’t sound right. The sound of Multnomah Falls was emanating from my laundry room. I shut off the washer. The sound continued.

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The hot water hose had an aneurysm. Then it ruptured. I hadn’t even had my coffee yet. Or a shower. Now I’m standing in 1/2” of water inside my house.

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No problem. I have two spare washer hoses in the garage.

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Yes problem: No gaskets. They didn’t come with gaskets. What kind of washer hose is sold without gaskets? 😫

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So I waited until Lowe’s opened at 8:00 am. They’re about four miles away.

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I drove to Lowe’s, grabbed some gaskets and hustled back home. I put the gaskets in the hoses. Then I discovered the hoses are too short. I need 5’ hoses and the hoses from my garage are only 3’ hoses. 🤯

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Story of my life. Hose too short to git ‘er done.

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Back to Lowe’s I went.

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Me: “I need some 6’ washer connection hoses.”

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Help desk: “Aisle 16 sir.”

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I’m at aisle 16. There are lots of hoses. Even steel braided hoses. I grabbed those. Up to the checkout I went.

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Checkout clerk: “$28.99 sir.”

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I reach in my pocket. No wallet. I left my goddamn wallet at home.

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Back home I go. I. Am. PISSED 😤 . I grab my wallet. Back to Lowe’s I go.

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I buy the 6’ steel braided washer hoses... 👉🏼 WITH FOUR GASKETS 👈🏼 (Yes, I checked first).

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I return home. I install them. I mop the floor. I check all four connections for leaks. No leaks. Which reminds me, at this point I need to take a leak.

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I shower. Make coffee. Run a load of laundry. Everything’s kosher. 👌🏼 

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Eight hours from first attempt to wash my socks and skivvies to mission accomplished. EIGHT HOURS. And 24 miles on my car for three (3) round-trips to Lowe’s.

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There are humans living in orbit around the Earth right this very minute. We all carry highly advanced computers around in our pockets and purses. Yet we still move water from point A to point B the same way the Romans did. In tubular conduits that rupture without warning. (Surprise!)

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Science has to drop everything and concentrate on perfecting a method of moving water around via osmosis.

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Either that, or I’m going to smell like a nanny goat in heat from now on.

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I hate plumbing. I HATE IT!  😖

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If Donald Trump was a thing, he’d be plumbing.

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💦 💦💦💦 #IHATEPLUMBING! 💦💦💦💦

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=677676144

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

You’ve heard stories like this before, right? Some farmer/pack rat dies unexpectedly, and his family discovers a 1937 Packard or 1931 Cord 812 when they’re cleaning up his estate. Well, here’s one for the record books.

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A farmer (of course!) in France, by the name of Henry Ruggieri, passed away recently. When his relatives cracked open his barn doors, they discovered a veritable gold mine. Oldsmobile Toronados, Cadillac Eldorados, Corvettes, two 1956 Continental Mk II’s (the design of which was later reduced in size to become the blueprint for the first Mustang). He also had a 1961 Series 1 Jaguar E-Type, a 1953 Porsche 356, 1947 Hotchkiss, various Alfas, Citroëns, Lancias  and Peugeots, and the pièce de résistance... that red Lamborghini Miura—quite possibly the most beautiful car ever penned.

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Monsieur Ruggieri’s entire collection was auctioned off on Saturday. The Porsche 356, even though basically just a rusted hulk, sold for $54,000. The Jag went for $112,000. And the Lamborghini? Even beat up and used as a planter for fungi for five decades? $636,000.

A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDUNCE OF THE UNITED STATES

 

• Yellow: Unnecessary and inappropriate use of capitalization.

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• Light green: Not hyphenated.

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• Purple: Factually incorrect. Neither an excursion nor a public relations event.

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• Light Blue: The White House men’s room janitor helped him with this one.

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• Red: Untrue. Nothing he’s ever said to anybody is sincere.

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• Fuchsia: False. Border security isn’t a “movement.” It’s a policy. A policy you’ve botched.

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• Green brace: Failed to use justify alignment mode. Every twelve year old knows better.

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• In publicizing this letter, Trump has announced to the world what Speaker Pelosi’s travel plan was. So even once the shutdown is over, she probably won’t be safe rescheduling, because any potential adversaries will now know she’s coming.

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From The World according to LINDNER 

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

Serious question: What was the process that led up to that poster being in this scene? It’s a foregone conclusion whose idea it was, but what led up to it being there? Was there a discussion? Was there any pushback from his staff? From anyone in that room? Did anyone point out “Mr. President, this is a televised Cabinet meeting. Sanctions aren’t on the agenda. The message in this poster is dated November 4th. Today is January 2nd. It’s an indignity to the rest of us in the room.”

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Look at the faces on the people in that room. Is there a single person there who doesn’t know their boss is mentally ill? Yet they go along with this latter day Caligula. They pretend everything is normal as he maligns yet another outgoing general who put principles before policies that were repugnant to him. He also criticized Barack Obama, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and Mitt Romney. During a CABINET MEETING! A Cabinet meeting that opened with a nauseating display of suck-uppery by his interim Attorney General.

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This scene may seem merely “inappropriate” to some folks, but I see it as a symptom of how far we’ve fallen. Iconography to oneself is yet more proof that we’re on the road to authoritarianism. Not just on the road, but in the fast lane.

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I hope I live long enough to witness the day when Congress deems this man’s image doesn’t belong on any official government portrait, coin, postage stamp or statue. He already has truckloads of shrines to himself that he can fawn over at Mar-a-Lago.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

See that dashing hombre? No, I mean the one in the middle. That’s the Lindner patriarch, my dear old dad. And today is his 99th birthday. He was born just four months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (and thus ended the war to end all wars). 🙄

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When he was 13, July 6th 1933, he watched from the grandstands at Comiskey Park as Babe Ruth hit a two run homer at the world’s first All-Star game. Lou Gehrig played too. There probably aren’t too many people alive today who can say they saw the Babe hit a home run.

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Just for chronological perspective: On that same day, the New York Times headline read “Hitler Political Foes Disband – Nazis Now Only Party in Germany.” Der Führer was rapidly accumulating power. Also on July 6th, by decree of the German Interior Ministry, all German government employees will henceforth be required to salute each other with the right arm extended upward, and greet each other with “Heil Hitler!” This of course, later spread throughout the Reich. But it began that day... the day the Babe and the Iron Horse showed off for the crowd in Chicago, half a world away.

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But my dad was safe from all that. He grew up in Chicago at a time when the de facto mayor was a guy named Al Capone. He was playing stickball in the street one day, when John Dillinger drove through their game and glowered at him. Not nice! Dillinger got his comeuppance though.

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So anyway... he’s been around a while.

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And get this: he still drives. Not far mind you, just into town to get groceries and Friday mornings to meet his few surviving buddies for coffee in the next town over.

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🧔🏻 So I’m like: “Dad, why are you still driving? Take an Uber!”

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👴🏻 “Listen, I’ve been driving since 1935 without an accident. I’ve got this.”

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Hard to argue with that record, but still, I worry. My mom by the way, will be 96 in the spring.

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So happy birthday dad! Thanks for everything. Next year is gonna be epic. 💯 

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(By the way, the American League won: 4 to 2. That Babe was a force to be reckoned with. ⚾️)

 

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THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

Just for shits’n giggles, I calculated the difference in my Javamobile’s weight between when it’s wet vs when it’s dry. That is, when all tanks are full vs when they’re empty. For the sake of simplicity, I’m using the weight of water as my reference.

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Gas tank: 28 gallons (old truck was 19 gallons)

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Water tank: 50 gallons (old truck was 32 gallons)

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Fully stocked fridge: 26 gallons (old truck was 18 gallons)

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Total weight of fluids in Javamobile II: 104 gallons (weight of water) = 790 pounds

 

Total weight of fluids in old Javamobile was 520 pounds—or 270 less than JM2.

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Here’s the fun part. With the generator running (drawing from the same fuel tank as the truck), I get 4 mpg. With the generator shut down, I get around 17 mpg. That’s exactly TWICE what I used to get in the old Javamobile: 2 mpg, 10 mpg. Which weighed 1 ton less dry weight, had less water capacity, a smaller fridge, a WAY smaller fuel tank, two fewer cylinders and half the horsepower.

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So all-in-all, Javamobile II is more efficient every way you look at it. Plus, it’s just so goddamn cool. 😎

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I know... I’m a geek. 🤓

WORLD ACCORDING TO LINDNER

I was working during the McCain funeral yesterday. I had the television on in the Javamobile to try to catch what I could, but I missed Meghan McCain’s eulogy (the line of customers at my window insisted that I pay them more attention than the television...how RUDE! 🤨)

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So I’ve now watched it twice, as well as President Obama’s eulogy. My online friends weren’t wrong when they told me how impressed I’d be by Meghan’s. It was one of the most honest, heartfelt expressions of love and patriotism I’ve ever heard. And of course, there was that zinger:

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“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

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What caught me off guard wasn’t so much the direct shot across the bombastic one’s bow. What took my breath away, was the spontaneous eruption of applause in that cathedral. That was a bipartisan rebuke of Trump’s arrogant, egocentric slogan. The savior-in-his-own-mind got shot down before the eyes of the world, and the congregation approved.

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I’ve been waiting for nearly three years for someone to find just the right place and time to put Trump’s mantra to rest. It was doubly appropriate that Meghan McCain—surviving daughter of the man Donald Trump refused to offer a soupçon of respect—did so on the day she put her father to rest.

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As of yesterday, whenever Trump blurts out or tweets his cynical slogan, as many people or more will remember Meghan’s retort than will ponder Trump’s alleged “greatness.”

 

#RIPJohnMcCain  #RIPMAGA  #MAGAHats90percentOff