I just came in from my daily walk and had to tell you that I have the theme song for a popular American sci-fi show channeling thru my head. No.. not Star Trek but rather, the Twilight Zone (do do do do...).

There I was walking my daily loop when a car passed me and decided to slow down. 'Oh dear.. who's going to accost me now' I thought. A woman in her late 60's/early 70's rolled down her window and so gently asked me 'excuse me.. do you happen to know where the Boy Scouts of America' office is located?'



After I recovered from the initial shock of the question I had to suppress my overwhelming desire to start laughing like a hyena. Never in my craziest dreams did I think that someone would stop me on my daily walk and ask me that question - especially after posting what I had a mere 20 minutes prior! And I felt bad that I didn't have an answer for her because I had never known that the BSA office was on my walking route. So strange!

I spent the next 20 minutes walking back to the office pondering the bigger picture of the world asking myself why today of all days a woman would stop me and ask that particular question. Imagine my surprise when she drove back in the opposite direction, slowed down, pulled over and told me that she had found it and that 'you just have to know where to go and what you're looking for!....' She then stuck her hand out the window and sped off waving

We live in an interesting world...

 

"Were you involved in the Boy Scouts Mr. Montero? Did they have a chapter in South Africa?"

It was a British thing,of course, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and only kids from the English speaking community were allowed to participate and join.

I grew up on a 10,000 acre ranch where cattle, sheep and horses were reared and I grew up sleeping summer nights under a lean-to looking after the sheep and keeping jackal away from the lambs. When I was 12 I would take my father's .22 rifle, pack a blanket, emergency water, some flour, salt, our version of jerky (cured with a little more attention and finesse I must say) and three oranges, and go off following a river and living off the land for three days and two nights. The only thing my dad would say before I left home was: "Always make sure there is a back stop whatever you shoot at to eat", and my mom would only ask: "Did you take your hat?".

Then later I met an English-speaking girl from the coastal city of Durban (we deridingly called it "The last outpost of the British Empire") and I went by train to visit her and her dad once. She was in the G-Scouts and introduced me to some of the boys who were in the B-Scouts and I went to a meeting with them once and after an hour I was bored to death learning abut sailors' knots and cutting blazes on trees to mark the way back as we walked along a well trodden parth (in the eyes of a farm kid)

By then I could strip my Dad's Massey Harris tractor, lap the valves and put it all back together again, and had already hunted my first kudu with a large calibre rifle. The soft ways of the city was strangely unpleasing. Lynne however had some more interesting interests than only girly scout stuff - so I in fact went back there again the next winter holiday... (Durban is at the tropical east coast of the warm Indian Ocean and they never get frost or even near-freezing temperatures. As it was it turned out to be a hot two weeks by the sea for a farm boy used to 5,000 ft elevation and a Calvanistic milieu).

Back to the present: the sagged passenger seat was because of a torn base. The two photo's show the tear and the fix

 

Is there anything at all one can in all honesty call "coincidence"?

Was it coincidental hat I was thinking about having an older model permanent 4-wheel drive vehicle and looked at a Dodge RAM at the dealer but it needed front and rear differentials as well as a steering box, and a salesman walked out and I offered him $500 and he asked what I was looking for, and I told him a perm. 4WD and he said "can I come round later ths evening" and he came around with his D1, covered in thick mud inside and out and idling like wheezing rhinoceros with a bad case of phlegm. To my utter amazement he accepted the rather unflattering offer....

 

I'm cutting you off of the Irish Coffee Mr. Montero. You're missing letters right and left in your past 2 posts. And I've always wanted to walk down a well trodden 'parth'

I don't know the answer to your question on coincidences. A colleague of mine once told me that he thought coincidences were due to our mind being more alert to what happens around us or rather that we are looking for similarities in a situation. I certainly didn't ask someone to stop and ask me for directions this afternoon to the BSA office and it seriously seemed serendipitous then and it still does now. So no.. I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in fate.

Regarding your offers, which unflattering offer did he accept? The one where you told him that you'd take a 'wheezing rhinoceros with a bad case of phlegm' off his hands (thanks for the mental image) or the one where you offered him $500?

Nice job on the seat repair. Now all you need is a passenger..

 

Touché...

I bet there are muffin crumbs under the keys on this laptop - so two things need to be done. No, in fact threeee:

1) Hammer them harder
2) Vacuum them
3) Edit the result before posting

My sincere apologies - I was being distracted at the time by my friendly landlord with internet stuff that I am interested in and just knew that the post went out unedited; even that is no excuse for typing errors - and embarrassing myself by insulting you, the reader.

The $500 offer was for the Dodge RAM van with the singing differentials; the vehicle was on consignment and had a reserve price of $1,500. It is still there.

Later that evening he brought his own D1 to where I stay and I had it for the next day to drive; I came back after 20 minutes with the offer which was accepted and I took it immediately. It was truly in BAD shape appearance-wise as well as in the way it was going. Now, one month later I like her. Once I have contained the power steering leak I shall not let it go for less than 4x what I had paid for her.

 

A dear friend of mine once told me that Land Rover issues are like teenagers. If you don’t watch them closely, before you know it, they’re giving birth to triplets. At the time he stated it I just ‘let it in one ear and out the other’ but now I understand what he meant by that comment. Best to keep a good eye on that power steering issue

No worries over the typos – I was just worried that I ‘implicated’ you too much with one too many hot toddies. And I have to admit that your post was funnier with the word ‘parth’. It gave me a chuckle and took your story to a whole ‘nother level

 

....are you still vacuuming your laptop Mr. Montero?

I do hope that you're enjoying your evening.....

 

Hello lady landlover,

I am here - in full belief that there is some malware on this site. Each time I log in the cursor becomes all jittery with a life of its own. My full response to your post and an update on Ms. Landy suddenly disappeared as the cursor jumped to somewhere unspeakable and activated a turn-off. Not onto a byway, into a complete dead end. A full shut off.

Now I'll have to rethink the whole train of thought and attempt to recover some of the lost intellectually viable titbits.

We'll see in a while.

 

Oh Mr. Montero…I do hope that you haven’t been infected by a virus! I probably shouldn’t say this but if you didn’t take care of the muffin crumbs quickly enough perhaps they decided to hook up with the hammer and play with your mind! Non.. in all seriousness, I’m sorry to hear that you were subjected to such unspeakable treatment and I understand how you feel. Just this past Monday evening it was advised to me that I should upload some software to my very own laptop to optimize performance (it has been a bit sluggish lately) and speed things up (my apologies for the preposition at the end of a sentence). I acquiesced as my interest was piqued by all of the talk of increased performance without the addition of RAM. Disappointedly however, I found that after uploading the software there was no noticeable change other than myself becoming very frustrated. And based upon the software feedback I should have realized that perhaps this wasn’t the avenue to take in restoring my laptop’s once ‘zippy’ demeanor. So I’m left at a loss as to what to try next. I’ve been told that I should add Ram (DRAM or SRAM? SRAM is touted as being faster & bolder but fussier and needing more than one transistor AND it’s somewhat expensive). Oh the things I ponder...

So I understand your pain as far as computer issues go this week. Hang in there. I hope you continue to post on this forum as I would miss your daily banter and smiles

Renee

PS. As a side note, I was called an ‘honorary bro’ today by my colleagues (I work with seven men). I didn’t QUITE know how to take that.. is it an honor or an insult to be called an ‘honorary bro’ (it didn't do much for my feminine girly girl side..) AND.. according to my colleagues, there is apparently a website for male interests titled www.manteresting.com which supposedly is the equivalent to pinterest (which they implied was for women). Who would have thought!

 

I think you meant to say 'tidbits' Sir..

Missing your banter tonight. Hope you're having a good evening. I'm sorry to hear that you lost your train of thought