today I just get to bitch.

Ok, first. I though that this was the land of free speech. God know we have to listen to sorts of opinions from the Democrats and Republicans all the time, the bible thumpers, anti abortionist, pro choicests, and god knows the gays and Rosie O'donnell cant seem to shut up. I am really disappointed that espn, one of the sports stations the I frequent has fired on of their part time writers for speaking his mind on his blog. I thought that's what blogs were for. I have taken a sort of straw poll with my friends. Primarily a republican, straight, conservative, group, and none of them have donated to Haiti either. It's not that they arent a generous group. They just either dont have any extra money at this time, or they dont believe that any money is going to help. So much for the land of free speach.
Next who is teaching the youth, orientals, mexicans, etc. how to drive in this country. God forbid you have to share the road with a soccer mom with a van load of kids on her way to school to drop them off. They speed, turn from the wrong lane, cut other drivers off, stop unexpectedly and I am sure, even if they dont actually have an accident, they cause several. I cant believe they give anybody in this country a drivers license with out having to take a driving aptitude test first. This test should include, reading and following information signs highway speeds, which pedal controls what function in the car, how to use the cruise control, why slow drivers are supposed to stay in the right lane only, and why the hell its not cool to try and race the guy driving the vette all the time, and dont pull out in front of the truck pulling a trailer, and dont speed up if the guy in the truck and trailer passes you. Just get the hell out of the way. He is only passing you because your driving to damn slow in the first place.
Its a really nice sunny day today. I'm not going to Scottsdale to the horse show, its too pretty a day to waist on that. My customer with the appy came and rode with me yesterday, she rides really well, and the horse was REALLY good. I like him quite a bit. I think I'm going to sign on and go to some Appy shows this year. I cant take all the credit for his training, he was pretty good when he got here, and so far it seems pretty easy to maintain him. The stud horse was somewhat sound today too. Which is good because I am really getting tired of his obnoxious ass trying to bite me and jacking around on the lead rope on the way to the round pen. He needs to get back to work. So back to the weather, I'm going to take the top off the car and drive around today. I have to take Dave to the airport he is going to Chicago for a birthday party. Sounds like a great day to me.

some questions that I have

I would really like to know the answer to a few questions that I have about Haiti. Who is going to be in charge of all that money that has been raised and pledged for the people of Haiti. Lots of countries give millions of dollars every year to the third world countries and it doesnt seem that it makes any difference. How do we know that they are going to use this money properly. I mean why dont they have adequate education, health care, and why the hell are there so many abandoned kids in orphanages. Doesnt seem right that we keep adopting the little buggers out just so they can keep making more. I may be a real ass but times are tough for me too and I dont see anyone holding a telethon for me, or any one else from the united states that has lost their job. I mean why didnt we have a telethon for all of those union auto workers that lost their jobs this last year. What about all the uninsured in the u.s. If you've lost your job, or quit anytime in the last few years, you dont have health insurance. Nobody that I know can afford cobra plans for more than a few months. Just a thought.

surviving the storm

As some of you know, I have a small car collection, very small, and I recently consigned one of the cars to the Russo and Steele auction. On the first night of the auction Scottsdale experienced one of the worst windstorms that they ever had and blew the tents down over the cars. Some of the cars were exposed, some were beaten up by the poles that held up the tents and others were pelted with flying debris looking like they had been in a hail storm or worse, and some that were under the collapsed tent looked like they had the finish sanded off of them. Mine was one of those, but I cant complain because the cars surrounding mine were beaten by tent poles. Many of the cars were a complete loss, others were beaten badly enough that they needed major repairs, and some could be cleaned up enough to go thru the auction and many of them werent touched at all. The Scottsdale fire marshal deemed the auction site unsafe and locked it down until Saturday morning when only the owners were allowed in to see their cars. The auction continued on Sunday morning and the consigners were given the option to pull their cars, or run them across the block and hope for the best. One of the things that disturbed me the most were the owners with no damage to their cars that pulled them anyway. The second thing that disturbed me were the amount of restored cars that showed so much body putty where the damage was inflicted. Those owners wisely pulled there cars, I would assume because they didnt want to get caught mis representing them once the damage was aparent. Some of the cars that were damaged and went thru the sale didnt appear to have much bondo on them so I assure those owners didnt feel they had anything to hide. I had my car cleaned up and it ran thru on Monday afternoon. That ended up being a good thing because there seemed to be a lot more buyer traffic on Monday than Sunday. I was, and still am, slightly alarmed by the talk from some of the consignors about the possibility of not getting paid for their cars because of the loss incurred by Russo and Steele because of the storm. I decided not to jump ship and sold the car anyway. I didnt get great money, but it wasnt the lowest seller in the auction, and I think all things considered I did pretty well.
You see, I needed to sell something to pay for the race engine that I had built for my vette, I blew it up in September on the track and have been trying to sell something so I could afford to race again. I picked the car that I did because cars are somewhat like women. Once they have been restored, you have to keep it up or they end up getting old again. Kind of like a woman thats had a face lift and needs another too keep from getting wrinkles on her face, except that on a car you dont usually end up squinting or have a permanent smile.
This was my first time trying to sell a car thru one of the Scottsdale auctions, which are some of the most prestiges auctions in the country. It might have been much more fun if the weather hadnt ruined it for me. I didnt sleep well at all until I knew what kind of condition my car was in, and then worried constantly until it sold. I might try it again, but not in the near future.

storms.

I've been a little busy the last couple of weeks so I havent been able to find the time, or the energy to sit down and try and write something creative. Until now. I'm sitting here at Paradise Bakery waiting in the rain for the Scottsdale fire marshal to let us back into the auction site. For those of you who dont know I have a car for sale at the Russo and Steele collector car auction going on this week here is Scottsdale, and last night we had a helluva wind and rain event. The two tents that house the cars were blown down. One landing on loop 101 and stopping traffic for a few hours. Near as I can tell, the car either is just setting under what is left of the tent, or it has a pole laying accross the roof.
This gives me time to expound on a couple of things that have me concerned this week.
First: recently while at a local show with a CA customer of mine. I just train her driving horse, she was telling me about a conversation that she had with another CA trainer about the experience she was having with her other horse that wasnt quite being quiet when she showed it. The CA trainers response was get with the show vet and give it a cocktail. They have one that wont test and then show your horse. Ok here is where I get pissed off. I may not be the best trainer in the world, have numerous world championships to my credit or the most lucrative training barn in AZ, and we all know that I have plenty of flaws. But I have NEVER taken a horse to the pen when it had been given a "cocktail" so that I could show it. And what kind of business are we in when a well known trainer with several world championships to her students credit tells an amature to give a horse a cocktail to get it shown. I think that this puts all of that trainers previous success in question. And what happens when you sell that horse with an artificial record and it wont perform for its new owner.
Ponder that for a while, I just got news that we cant get in to see the cars until tomorrow morning at the earliest so I'm going to head back to the house and find some mud to play in.

a scary fact.

This last weekend I got to go to the track for the first time this year. It's January, It's cold. No worries I'm in a car, I'll stay warm. Wrong. You see, to optimize the horsepower to weight ratio of my car and still compete in the class that I want to I removed the air conditioner, and all its parts, heater included to make the car lighter. Those of you who know me know I'm not exactly small so I thought I had quite a bit of leeway there. Anyway. it was 49degrees the first time on the track saturday morning and guess what I froze my ass off. To make matters worse to be on the track, you have to leave the windows down. Thats in case you have a wreck and the doors get jammed shut someone can reach in, grab you by the shoulders and hoist you out thru the window. Imagine some track worker trying to pull me out of my car. Hell I weigh twice as much as most of them. Lets just say. I had better not wreck. Needles to stay I have installed a fire extingusher where the passenger seat was, and a fire supression system is on the horizon for installation soon. When your riding around in 49 degree weather, windows down. 125 down the front straight wind swirling inside the car, I have a really really bad head cold. This give and entirely new meaning to the phrase "you play you pay" I have a new visor on order now too.

who's at fault.

I want to say first of all. I am not in Florida at the quarter horse show. But you know bad news travels fast. I understand that we had a tragic event this morning during the select pleasure driving. Basically a horse went batshit, had a wreck and injured an exhibitor, not to mention the trauma inflicted on the innocent bystanders, judges, and other exhibitors and thier horses.
Who's at fault. Well ultimately the trainer for not paying attention to the signs of a horse not wanting to drive today. And the other exhibitors for letting the class go on anyway, the judges, ring stewards and AQHA itself. We as exhibitors, trainers, professionals, and horsemen, should know better that to put an amature exhibitor in harms way. It's our responsibility. Period. The AQHA has treated driving for years as the stepchild class. No seminars, no safety concerns, no guidance whatsoever from any qualified individuals. This is a direct result of what I talked about in one of my earlier blogs. Horses are not driven enough so as to keep this sort of embarrassment from happening. They need to be driven around the grounds, in the warm up pen, in traffic, with hunters, pleasure horses reiners etc. When you are prepared this sort of thing is less likely to happen. I sincerely hope that there were not any serious injuries inflicted today, and if their were I hope that the next ones inflicted will be on the trainer who is responsible for taking an unprepared driver to the arena in the first place.

people will show you who they are

Last nite, I went to possibly the best new years eve party that I have ever been too. Maybe 10 couples, the weather was great, the moon was incredible, good food and great company. It was fun, and relaxing all at the same time. We celebrated the new year in fine fashion.
This was all with a new group of friends that I have made since I moved to Arizona and one of the things that struck me the most was how a diverse group of individuals we all were. People will show you who they are. Thats not original, Some famous writer or philosopher said it, but I have never noticed how true is was until last nite. You see I bring this up because I like all of these people very much. We all come from different backgrounds have different hobbies, kids, no kids, marriages, political backgrounds etc, and I am more comfortable in this group of people that I have been than any group I have ever been with before. While contemplating this fact I realized thats because I dont care who or what they are, because that is who or what they are. I think I have finally gotten to the point in my life when I have learned to accept most people for who or what they are. Flaws, scars and all. Dont get me wrong, I still cant even begin to tolerate EXCEPTIONALLY STUPID, OR MEAN PEOPLE, but the rest of you are just pretty damn all right. I guess when you lose someone that your very close to, and lose them in a pretty awful way watching slowy die. You slowly kind of learn to get your priorities in line. Life isnt practice, you dont get to do this over at the last minute if you decide, you want to try again. Take people for who they are, dont judge or try and make them something their not, and guess what , if your happy with your self, other peoples idiocyncrises wont matter at all.
Life is pretty good after all. Go out and enjoy it.