I’m on the firetruck side. Along I-35, in the general area of Round Rock, there are two places that appear to have used fire trucks for sale. I haven’t actually checked out either one, because I didn’t know what to look for in a used fire truck and I wasn’t sure I could afford one anyway. So this article delights me. Key points:
Used firetrucks can be very cheap. Like almost couch change cheap.
“…buy a truck from an active fire department (as opposed to a private owner) because many older private firetrucks have been neglected and no longer have functioning pumps.”
Buying a used firetruck is another instance where it is a good idea to buy local. I would not have thought of this, and did not realize this, but: “firetrucks aren’t built to drive highway miles or drive at highway speeds”. This does make sense, but it leaves you with a problem; if you don’t buy local, how do you get it home? (In the author’s case, by truck from Ohio to Montana, and it cost more to transport the truck than he paid for it.)
It is worth the time to research local laws.
It is also worth the time to think about where you’re going to park your fire truck. Not just at home (will it fit in the garage?) but when you go to the store to get butter and cheese.
I do wonder what an auto liability policy on a used firetruck runs per year, but I’m not going to ask: the author’s blog uses the Gawker comments system, which I refuse to register for.
I am not a lawyer, but to the best of my knowledge:
The state of Texas does not have a blasphemy law.
If the state does have a blasphemy law, it probably would not pass constitutional muster and could not be enforced.
If the state of Texas did have a blasphemy law, and if such a law did pass constitutional muster, I seriously doubt that it would carry the death penalty, and if it did, that also probably would not pass constitutional muster. If the Supreme Court is unwilling to allow the death penalty for raping a minor, how likely would they be to allow it for “blasphemy”?
I think it is worth having a discussion about the death penalty. I know I keep threatening to do this, but I still want to write an essay about the death penalty, my qualms about it, and why I still believe it should be an option.
And part of that context is that horrible people do horrible things to other people, and forfeit their right to be a part of society. It is worth debating whether that forfeit should be a lifetime behind bars, or a needle in the arm. But by framing this in the context of “would we do this to Jesus?” without considering that Jesus committed no crime under Texas law – indeed, rigging the game so that Jesus has already been convicted of a non-crime, and the jury is only supposed to consider punishment – well, my feeling is that Osler and Bishop are framing their challenge in a dishonest way.
If ministers want to visit prisons and provide religious council to the inmates, even the ones on death row, that’s awesome. More power to them. But their dominion is the heavens, not Earth. As a friend of mine used to say about some folks, “Jesus may love you, but I think you’re s–t wrapped in skin.”
Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist made a good point, which I am ashamed to admit I missed. This whole debate is stupid for another reason: Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to redeem mankind’s sins is the central concept of the Christian religion.
You can sit there and debate whether Christ should or should not have gotten the death penalty. But without the crucifixion of Christ, you don’t have the redemption of mankind from sin. Without Christ getting the death penalty, you don’t have Christianity (or Catholicism). At best, what you’ve got is Judaism where Christ is an important prophet of the Second Coming.
Christ has to die. That’s the entire plan. And this debate ignores that point.
(Mike’s point reminds me of another one I’ve been thinking about for a while. Namely, Judas gets a bum rap, and is probably sitting on God’s right hand in heaven. Without the betrayal by Judas, there’s no trial, there’s no crucifixion, there’s no resurrection, and again there’s no Christianity. All Judas did was set in motion the plan that had been in the works for thousands of years. Judas was doing what he had to do to fulfill the plan; blaming him is like blaming the last snowflake in an avalanche.)
Edited to add 2: You know, I bet the idea that “Judas got a bum rap” is probably one of the many heresies (like the Manichaean heresy) that existed in the early church. But I have yet to find an example of it in practice, or even a name for it.
My great and good friend Joe D. left a long comment on last night’s cycling post. Because I believe in rewarding hard work, I’m promoting his comment to a post. (That also gives me a chance to do some annotation.)
You could bike to work. If you do that, they let you use the showers in the fitness center for free. You’ll need to bring your own towel, though.
Yeah, I could bike to work, if I was working. I did give some thought to trying that, just as an experiment, when I was still working for Four Letter Computer Company. Google Maps has the distance as about 14 miles and 90 minutes.
I did the bike-to-work thing pretty much daily for 6 years. 8 miles each way. Saved a buttload of gas, got in shape, etc. But since they made me start working from home, I haven’t been biking nearly as much. I miss it.
I’m not exactly basing my employment decisions on the ability to bike to work, but I’ve seen some jobs that look promising and might allow for a more reasonable bike commute.
I only recently got a cellphone. If I’d had one when I was commuting, I’d have used it to do all my trip logging. I did install MyTracks, though. It seems to work well. I rode for a couple of hours last weekend, and it didn’t seem to affect the battery life that much. Even if it did, I bought myself a http://kiwichoice.com/portable-chargers/kiwi-u-powered for my birthday. It should more than double my battery life.
That Kiwi looks nice. I have a couple of USB batteries that should work if I need more cellphone power: I used to use those to run the USB Christmas lights at 4LCC, since we couldn’t have plug-in lights. If I were employed, though, I’d give serious thought to the Kiwi as a backup/bug-out/prepper device.
Oh yeah. Speaking of cellphone, the one I get was with Republic Wireless. You have to buy the phone for $250, but it’s $20/month for unlimited talk/text/data thereafter. The phone (Motorola Defy XT) is a couple of years behind the curve, but works well enough. I wish it had a bigger screen, but other than that, it’s fine. The reason it’s so cheap is that if you’re connected to a wifi network, it will make all the phone calls via voip over wifi. Otherwise, it uses the cell network.
My current service is with Sprint, but I’m off contract and will be considering a phone upgrade and/or provider change once I’m employed again. Republic sounds worthy of consideration.
If you’re looking for panniers, get yourself a this: http://www.topeak.com/products/Bags/MTXTrunkBagDXP
Oh, I am delighted to hear you say this, Joe. I have actually been seriously considering both the Topeak MTX Trunk Bag EXP as well as the MTX Trunk Bag DXP. I will probably pick up one of those once I’m employed. From what I’ve seen at REI, the DXP is about $30 more, but has a larger capacity than the EXP.
I keep a spare tube, tools, and such in the center compartment, and if I need more storage, the sides unzip and fold out into saddlebags. There’s enough room to hold a laptop and a complete change of clothes, including shoes and a towel. Best of all, it unhooks from the rack with the push of a button allowing you to carry it in with you.
Yeah. Currently, I have an under-seat bag that holds tools and spares, but it doesn’t fit with the current rack, so I’ve sort of South Austin engineered it onto that rack. I like the large central compartment of the Topeak bags very much. The one minor problem I see with the DXP and EXP is that I’ll probably want to change out the current rear rack for a Topeak compatible one; that’s not a deal breaker, though I am a little confused as to exactly which rack I need to use with the DXP/EXP.
One additional point in the cellphone vs. dedicated computer debate that I didn’t think of last night: a cellphone, at least in theory (we’ll see how this works out) offers you audio capability as well.
Some people I know believe that the only sound you should care about when riding is the ambient sound around you. Other people like to listen to music to pump themselves up, or perhaps podcasts as a diversion. I don’t fall on either side; I have iPods, but those require headphones or ear buds, and I find the idea of plugging one’s ears while riding an evolutionarily BAD idea. I kind of like listening to the ambient sounds around me, but if I can add the soothing sounds of Siracusa or squirrels, that would be a big win.
Or, of course, I could just play some appropriate music to get myself pumped up for those hills…
as well as the 
; that’s not a deal breaker, though I am a little confused as to exactly which rack I need to use with the DXP/EXP.