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Thanks for posting Vince. Pretty incredible story. Koln was 85% destroyed by the end of the war. There was not likely much left moving around the city by the end when that event happened. It would have been easy to assume the car was active military. Can't even imagine what it must have been like for the guys left alive and fighting. They had already seen hell. Any potential threat would have been a target. The stories from that time are almost all painful. It is nice to hear about a little bit of healing. The survivors also did a lot more than just fight. Edmo's story is a perfect example. Hiding was the best if you had the option. Anyone that could be pulled to fight had to support the party for better chances of survival in fighting assignments. Toward the end, they didn't even know who was the enemy. During the Nz growth they pretended to be for the rising. The schools were filled with books to support the cause. Banners and plaques were on the buildings. Toward the end the residents tried to hide all that propaganda in case the allies reached them first. They were afraid to burn the books in case the Nz side won, so they buried them in the woods for potential retrieval. I have seen those mounds. It is hard to imagine surviving and living through history that was being changed by the winners. Everyone that did survive was touched closely by the losses of their family and friends. The people that lived through that time will not forget. We should remember too. BTW Don, they have kept incredible records if anyone wants to find out more about your family. The churches are a good start. You would be amazed at the amount of information. Marriages, births, deaths, divorce, single parent, residence info, and school records are some of the examples.

I wasn't that impressed until he dropped the skis. I have seen some pretty bad foot injuries from hitting debris while barefooting. Those little chunks of ice can be like rocks if you start hitting higher speeds. Barefooting portion is all front facing, but it still takes speeds over 30 mph especially at the drop.

Do you guys ever check the gauge economy vs. the real numbers at the pump just to see how accurate? I always wonder if the gauge is showing perfect numbers.

It is kinda sad to see. The losses will curb playing and spending for quite awhile too. Probably the last generation of farmers in quite a few families by the time this mess is done. I know that some don't have much sympathy for the farmers. They have had some good years while other sectors suffered. The more recent bad years are adding up though. Most don't realize that many of these guys have already been hanging on just for their passion of being a farmer. Not many regular business folks would keep operating at a loss for long without throwing in the towel. Bad years for farmers don't mean just switching jobs. Their entire lives belong to their income. How many regular people live at their work? How many live their work? It is a way of life that is being permanently affected. Nobody is going to start out being a family farmer in today's market.

Interest rates are a whole lot different. The scenario would be a whole lot different if people were using those rates to cover market losses. Credit is getting tighter for the farmers now. Rates are certainly not going down. The banks already know farming is a bad bet.

Those locations actually make sense, especially for solar. The whole idea of using productive land does not. It is pretty tough to cheaply convert the land back to production. Seems ironic that the cities want the solar projects, but they don't want to live nearby. The wind projects should also be using marginal land, but that is where the raptors live. If you want to block a nearby proposal, find an eagle nest. Funny that they do not talk about the bat problem with wind power.

I would hate to be starting out right now. There is no way it is possible. It doesn't look like things will improve anytime soon. Crop outputs look like they will be extremely strong this year. Factor in the markets. Losing money on a lot of bushels is still losing money. Operating loan rates certainly are not going to help next year. We are going to see quite a few not weather this storm. The ripple is going to go a lot deeper than individual farmers. Check back on this topic in a year. Plop down some of the headlines you see then. It will not be tough to see who actually understands what is building right now.

I have seen friend suggestions from anyone that was called from my phone. I wondered who are these people until I figured the connections.

He was also the first one to get the big toss. Very odd for the operator to go first. Putting on a heck of show for the go.

How do you screw that up? Wasn't even in big water. Throttle control was interesting. Could see the problem coming.

She cheated. Wearing gloves?

Just barely enough. 😏 It didn't even slide down the road. I do have to admit I'm surprised the truck had enough stopping power. It takes a pretty good jerk to break them loose from dry bunks sometimes. I do watch when I see boats bobbing along on the trailer with the front strap loose. That is pretty much a disaster waiting for the next unintended event. Entertainment is just waiting to happen.

Last fall was a late wet start in our area. The harvest lasted 41 days from start to finish. I put 439 engine hours and 392 separator hours on the machine. I didn't think for one minute that flip flops and shorts would be appropriate wear. Some of that mud would suck the boots off your feet. Yes, the machines are easier to operate in perfect conditions. It is not often that you see perfect conditions. Mud can be a big factor along with crop condition. It takes an attentive operator to get everything you can out of the field. Throw some schmuck in the machine and you are throwing away good money. Leaving the crop in the field or throwing it out the back of the machine is a tough way to make money in a high cost low margin business. The technology is pretty amazing. It is not cheap. It also does not guarantee the highest optimization. It still takes a good operator. I'll take the person with boots and jeans over the one wearing flip flops and shorts.

I have done quite a bit of hiking and camping in Wales. Most of it was done years ago before things became so popular with tourists. BTW, they have a very cool system that hopefully will remain. All land is considered public for the purpose of camping etc. We asked the locals about all the low flying military craft. They were pretty casual about the whole thing. Their response, It has always been like this since the war. We didn't get involved, so it was a good place to test and train. Seems like they just kept using the area after the war. We saw some of the old test targets for development of the dam busters/skipping bombs. It is an interesting area. They seem almost untouched by modern needs. "Live life like we always have lived" is an obvious motto. Nobody seems to mind a good hike either. Get used to seeing sheep everywhere. Pronouncing the old place names is a real challenge. Stock up on spit.😏

We had a fellow that helped on the farm. He somehow made it through the Bataan march. That guy refused to even touch any of the 4 wheelers etc with a Ja origin. He would walk by them and curse. He rarely talked about that time in the war. I knew him for quite a few years before I even knew that he was a march survivor. I have to admit I did see him differently after I did know. I can't even express how much appreciation I have for someone that did that much sacrifice and lived. His stories when he did talk were brutal beyond imagination.

Thank god my wife never fell into that ideology. She says they are impractical and annoying to wear. It was one thing we easily agreed upon. 😏

I drive in Germany fairly often. There is a misconception about how fast you can drive for the most part. There are very few areas with wide open running for legal EU drivers. (The laws are tough to enforce with some foreign drivers, and some of those drivers really haul the mail). There are different levels of license skills. The bahn drivers are tested and approved for that level. Passing on the right is a big no no. Thank God. You can not imagine how much easier it makes driving. Did I mention easy? It is a lot easier to drive over there. The roads are consistently marked, exits, upcoming construction, lane shifts, etc. The passing deal does make it so easy. I don't understand why we have such a tough time with that concept. It is pretty simple. Stay right until you reach a slower vehicle. Then you pass. On the left. It is the KISS principle and it works. BTW, when you do drive in areas that have open driving, it is impressive. No matter how fast you are moving, someone will still fly by. Watch your mirrors. You learn to pass safely by watching for potential high speed vehicles coming before even moving over to pass. It is a blast to drive on the road with people that know how to drive. They also do an excellent job of managing traffic. They use an excellent system for slowing down traffic for upcoming hazards like accidents and construction zones. Those boards over the highway manage the lane speeds individually while they also click off the user taxes. 😙 Upcoming hazards and exits are marked off progressively as you get closer, so there are no surprises. A funny note to the signs. They also have a sense of humor. The construction zones are marked with various versions of smiley/frowning faces based upon your progress through the zone.

Opiates are getting harder to obtain. Media hasn't caught on to how much the rules have changed. Typical. Crack and meth are almost perfect drugs for dealers. They are easy to transport and the profits are getting huge again. Also harder to detect especially compared to mj. Nice thing about selling those is the rapid addiction rate. It only takes one time to be part of the club. We almost kicked meth to the curb with the difficulty obtaining pseudoephedrine, etc. Unfortunately, the drug money peeps realized all the moola they could make fast and easy. They created a whole new manufacturing and distribution with even better product. Crack and meth don't get the fancy media coverage like opiates. Again, typical. I think they are worse for average society. Too easy and cheap. But, they don't take out celebrities. They just take out the working class Joe. Same group of people that are not likely to get real treatment for long term recovery.

They are being over prescribed. We want to be pain free and we want it fast. Drugs fit the bill. How often do they ask you about your level of pain whenever you see the doc? They even have a special process to ask children.

That pharmacy was shut down in 2012. Their practice was taking advantage of a changing monitoring system at the time. The number of drugs allowed for distribution in any given region are determined by historical data and demographics. They finally got stopped when the new system highlighted their out of whack numbers. The laws in place are constantly evolving to deal with this issue. The DEA used to require individual pharmacies to track "addictive" drug distribution. The process worked fairly well when everyone picked up their prescriptions at the mom and pop pharmacies down the street. Things changed when corporate drug stores opened up all over. Every new store had to establish a new drug history for the area. That essentially meant a free for all on prescriptions until the new history was established. It was too much for the DEA to regulate and monitor. So, they made the distributors responsible for the monitoring of drug distribution based upon the local region. That worked OK until drugs started going through the mail. The process for monitoring regional distribution is flawed. You would be surprised by how few people there are in the DEA working in a region. There is no way for them to "watch" everything. There is a lot of finger pointing going on with this problem. None of that will solve the issue. We like our drugs in this country. We also like our money. There is an insane amount of money in this business.

Title seems a bit ironic coming from a country that has built the largest wall in the world. Maybe this guy knows something no one else has learned.

So the wifey has some tools that she brought across the pond. Her father wanted her to have good stuff of her own. She has a set of Witte Triax 1000v screwdrivers that are impressive. It is almost embarrassing. I have always tried to have decent tools and those were hard to beat. Also have a set of pipe wrenches I inherited from her father. Schneider Klein is the name. They are amazing. I have never seen them over here. Closest I could find. https://www.kctoolco.com/knipex-83-30-020-21-3-pipe-wrench-s-type/ They do grip well. Although, it would be tough to add leverage with a long pipe thrown onto the handle. 😉

They are OK. Not high end LEDs. I know LEDs are not supposed to fade. I swear that our lights are getting dimmer. Could be old age. 😙 Have quite a few different LED lights around the place. The light color selection is big. Also opt for the better LED if you are "using" the light. Under cabinet lighting around here doesn't get used as much, so they work for that application. I do prefer better lighting for work areas.

We are apes. Shopping in other parts of the world is a whole different experience with carts. They actually return them to the store.

It is one to buy and two to sell around here for housing. Makes for messy divorces sometimes. One can accumulate the debt. Both are liable.