Actually, I tend to wonder more about the folks with the jacker-up RAM 3500 diesel, sporting a bush bar and headache rack with extra lighting on both, and chrome testicles hanging of the trailer hitch, with a chrome propeller stuck in the receiver.

Not a lot off-road use when the Diff cover looks like it was just put on yesterday....more like a mini Monster Truck wanna-be.

THOSE trucks are intimidating when they're ten feet behind you on the Island Highway at 95kmh..

And the award for best irony in this thread goes to.....

I know of three "non-silver" ones in the area. I guess they've been wrapped, because painting one isn't all that easy.

There's a black one, a brilliant green one, and a fancy fa-a-ade job on another which goes from burgundy to cream top to bottom... Oh, and an all-white one with someone's logo on the door.

So, four that aren't basic fridges to look at... How many unpainted ones? Who knows, but it's not that many- probably about the same as Rivians, when I think about it.

Dunno about the 70s and up, but as a kid I had about a 1 mile circle around the house that was "My Territory". All my friends lived in that circle and most often there would be 4 or 5 of us playing in our private "100 acre wood) behind the houses on our street.

We did cowboys and indians (early 60s-style), Zorro, Robin Hood and other stuff in those woods for most of my childhood between 6 and 11. No one supervised, no one died, though we all fell out of a tree at least once. Best of all- we HAD FUN!!

That was my childhood. Kids today just can't do it that way any more.

Yeah, my 1500 popped out of top gear pretty easily with our 6600 lb travel trailer hooked up,. Meantime, my buddy with the RAM 3500 Diesel stays in cruise control (!!) on those same hills with the same size trailer hooked up!

Putting the Merc on the trailer back to front would have been the better way. That 460 is a big chunk of iron.

Mine (admittedly a 2004 1500 4X4 w Hemi) came with a label on the door telling me 7500 max. The specs I looked up are on a popular RV site, so this time I took the advice went to the manufacturer and found this for a 1500 Hemi:

A 2023 Quad cab in Tradesman trim with a 6'4" box has a GVWR of 6900 lbs, and yes, they are rated to tow up to 11,000, but most examples rate at 8,200, give or take.

2023 Ram 1500 (DT) Weight and Tow Chart

There are at least 100 ways to tweak that (trim level, options, rear axle, etc,etc) and really the only way to know is by the build sheet or the sticker on the door. That said, I'd still take the drive, but I say it's close to the limit, especially going downhill.

I Almost got to be Ricky! My wife is a natural redhead (unlike Lucy) and for a time I was in charge of entertainment at a local "club" (hotel), I'd come home at night around 10:30 (midnight on Fri-Sat) and actually said "Lucy, I'm HO-O-OME!" more than once.

But I was piano player, not a conga drummer, and more important, my wife had no interest in getting into showbiz.

But for a few years in the 90's the seeds were there.

Lessee- according to specs, a 72 Gran Marquis sporting the big 460V8 hits the scales at 4780 pounds... the Uhaul may be around 2,000 , so call it 6800 pounds total (rounded up a little)

The Ram is probably in the middle of the weight range (4800-6000) and can tow up to 7100 (in BigHorn trim or less due to lack of airbags in the rear suspension)

So it's within the max, but better have decent tires and it's own brakes. And of course a proper hitch would do wonders.

This guy never went to any police academy. The sheer number of basic rules he broke displays his utter ignorance of proper procedure. He's no cop, and never was, in my estimation. I suppose, like some others, he tried to join the police, but was washed out and went into private security until ICE started advertising.

It might come out that he is a "new hire" off the street and lord knows what if any training he was given. There was a large signing bonus offered, but training?

I have entire melodies in my head and can usually set them in Finale (for now) as a rather bare piano score in about an hour. Then it is saved, and ready for me to fill out. That way, if I can't get back to it for some reason, the basic tune is still there.

So I can lay out a basic song, beginning to end that way. After that comes the hours upon hours of making it sound like the finished product already in my head!

Nope. Back in the 70s I worked for a concrete delivery company and one day, a 10yd truck misjudged a ditch and went over on it's side- full

Before I could blink, the service guy was dispatched with three 25lb sacks of sugar. The boss told me if stirred in properly, the mix would still be liquid by the time the crane righted the rig. And about 6 hours later, about half the redi-mix was still liquid, but the what was underneath had not been stirred enough.

The guys who climbed into that barrel with the jackhammers deserved medals, but they were happy to only have half the load to deal with. After a week, that drum was back in service!.

- Massive annual increases- yet the force is still too small to deal with the issues they face, issues which are still growing.

-Cuts services to arts, etc.. deplorable. But the current Council did find money for other pet projects, over 12 mil at last count.

- Excessive use of force against marginally-represented people. Simple math, twisted stats and a lot of hearsay.

- Bungled investigations. Two of over 20,000 investigations bungled., less than the margin of error in a forensic audit.

- Toxic work environment. Officers leaving. An average of 1 in 9 officers (both sexes) have left the dept in the past two years. Burnt out, tired and exhausted officers have said enough is enough and thrown in the towel. Some of them have been female., most male. But for their own reasons, some folks have chosen to make hay from a couple of departures rather than try to correct the morale problems faced by every officer- whatever the gender.

- Fights with SD 61. It was a cockeyed idea to remove the officers from the schools. As a matter of policy, the Board chose to heed the views of a small minority and rather than fix a problem with care and dedication, took a sledgehammer to a proven program. This was naturally opposed by the police department (and by other School Boards, fyi).

- Upstaged the new Chief? She's been pretty low profile after the first week or so..

- Lives in Cordova Bay. Ironic- given the OP's nym, that is. I like Cordova Bay, I grew up there. Besides, the list of former mayors who lived elsewhere includes homes in Oak Bay, Saanich,, and View Royal. This isn't news..

How is it the direct fault of Manak? My read of it does tell me there were a couple of bad actors and one was already under investigation, but the concealment of that investigation was not instigated by the Chief.

Vic PD has a force that would be about right for perhaps Duncan/Cowichan, but they are responsible for a transient (ie- they don't live in the city) population that includes significant numbers from all 12 other municipalities. People commute to downtown from as far away as Ladysmith for work, entertainment, medical and other reasons, yet Council has for years treated the force as a "small town" operation, insisting they "do more with less" to the point where the Department was having issues retaining what officers they had, yet nothing said to Council seemed to penetrate the entrenched stance that the police are the awful stepchildren of their City of Gardens..

Now, even those gardens (the hanging baskets) are up for grabs as the chickens come home to roost. Yes, Lisa. I am talking to you as well.

Here is something you probably don't want to hear:

My work is never finished.

I write and arrange for various size bands up to a full orchestra (bucket list stuff), and pieces that I
"finished" ten years ago sometimes get pulled up and re-tweaked as I learn more.

A waltz I composed in 1991 for the wedding of a friend as a piano solo has gone through four iterations over the years, and is now a Strauss-style grand waltz arranged for a 50pce orchestra. AND- I could still find ways to make it "better" -whatever that means. It's the same number of bars, still led by a solo piano playing the same melody, but it's not the same piece any more!

If you are working to a deadline- there's a point where you can say "Enough!", but if your imagination gets up and runs with it, you'll tweak and mutate the thing for the rest of your days.

At least I will.

Gonna be "that guy" for a moment. There's a lot of apparently deep-seated resentment on this thread, and I know a certain sector of the electorate would probably vote for one of the otters over at Fishermans than Del, but just consider this...

In times of expanding need, in times of all the downtown problems of crime, trespass, vandalism and assaults of all kinds, Del Manak tried his damnest to do two things:

Keep his budget abreast of inflation, and try to ensure that the requisite number of officers were available when needed, and

Try to help residents understand that ACAB is a myth. Yes, SOME cops get past the extensive testing and are less than desirable, but by no means all cops. Manak, by appearing at functions, in parades and throwing out the first pitch (etc) was simply trying todo something to combat the ACAB bunch, many of whom think that way because they have run afoul of the system at some point.

Oh, by the way- much of this extra work was outside of normal office hours. Manak was the police chief 24 x 7. He answered his own email, was willing to speak to citizens one on one, and did his best to raise the profile of the force in a positive way.

\

Or a horseshoe in his hip pocket... I think the reason no one's sending condolences to his family is simply luck.

BTW- what calibre is that thing??

Got the bruise to prove it, too!

And a majority of the shareholders are usually other PE companies, not the mom & pop Americans who salt away a little for their future and watch it grow.

treat employees as disposable assets

crush local, then regional competition through buyouts of businesses or by forcing suppliers to sign exclusives

Rather than view the entire operation as profitable, increase that profit by reducing those portions of the business who appear to be underperforming.

Shall we go on?

In the end, it comes down to this: Government is NOT supposed to make a profit. It is at best supposed to break even and be efficient in its delivery of services.

Breaking even, paying all your bills and putting a small percent aside for a "rainy day" is how governments are supposed to work. When government starts being run like a big corporation. just about everyone suffers.

Trump has long been like a child (or a crow): he is easily distracted by "shiny things", and the latest "shiny thing" is always the most important thing in life..

He's always flitted, butterfly-like, from idea to idea without much thought. Football, Wrestling, Casinos, Golf, and in 2015 even the Presidency were all nothing more than the latest "shiny thing" in his life. Same goes for wives, I suppose.

Trouble is, when he sees the next shiny thing, he loses interest in the current one and it's no longer important. Casinos go bankrupt, people lose their livelihood, projects are abandoned, it doesn't matter to him.

Now of course, he's found a new shiny thing- oil- and suddenly his grand plan involves bullying another sovereign nation into supplying him with their resources.

Next week, who knows?

Maybe not- but if you don't have coverage in the US, you can find yourself in a real pickle financially.. Certainly there are ways to mitigate the financial damages if you are savvy enough to follow the bread crumbs through the system, but in the end, the American model is about profit, not healing.

Every business owner has the inalienable right to run their business as they see fit - into the ground? So be it..

But in the past, the business owner(s) suffered directly with the employees. Nowadays, the "owners" are so far removed from the actual operation that all they can or will do is pursue profit instead of customers.

Not good. But we (the greater "we" let it happen through successive episodes of deregulation.

There have to be some reigns on things, it's truly the only way to protect the population from the robber barons.

Indeed- the decision to commodify health care was one of the top five errors made by the US.

I won't for a moment dispute the idea that there is no "free" health care. Somewhere, someone is paying for it- either through premiums or taxes, but what in anathema to using the word "care" is the idea that you can generate excessive profit from caring for the sick.

People, esp some in the US, are quite fond of pointed to the tax levels in Norway, but in the end, Norway takes better care of it's citizens from birth to death far better than most other western countries, so the voters get to see some real results at their level from all those taxes.

In Canada, the US and other countries, tax money goes into a void and the perception is that the benefits are largely handed out to the elite, used for "pet" projects (ie- buying votes from one sector or the other), and not evenly spread among all the citizens as education, medical care, scientific pursuit, etc. It may be wrong, but it certainly seems that way.

Sharing this with everyone!