Speak Up

I keep seeing F-150s and Silverados with 6-cylinder engines for sale, cheap. Does anyone know if these trucks are any good? I like the idea of the lower maintenance and repair cost of a 6-cylinder, but I don’t want to have problems with inadequate power. And who doesn’t love V-8 smoothness?

I know some 6-cylinder engines have high horsepower ratings, but those ratings can be very deceptive. If the horsepower rating on my T-bird meant anything, it would do the quarter in under 14 seconds.

I have mentioned my dad’s desire to get a pickup and a trailer; just to be clear, I am not planning to haul his trailer behind my truck.

It Will Pay

Man, do I have stuff to do today. I have to spray things with copper to kill fungus. I have to make some effort to get started on the soffit. And I have to kill an electric eye on a garage door.

I have had lots of problems with this electric eye. Its purpose is to detect objects in the path of the door and stop the door so it won’t close on them. That’s its ostensible purpose. Its actual purpose is to protect the garage-door-opener company from lawyers.

You would have to be brain-damaged to let yourself be injured by a garage door. And the door has a second sensor which stops it when it hits stuff, so the electric eye is superfluous even for the brain-damaged. Obviously, somebody has sued over this, because there is no other explanation for all this safety junk.

I am wondering if I can fool the electric eye by putting foil over it, so the foil reflects the light back into the sensor. If the door crushes me and I die, I will take full responsibility.

I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to disable it sooner. Maybe I’m brain-damaged, and I need the sensor to save me.

I put arsenic on some of my St. Augustine grass yesterday. Still waiting to see if it dies. I sure hope it does. I love that fluffy, bug-free, weed-free Bermuda grass.

Over the last two days, I have gotten so much done, it’s hard to believe. Yesterday I filled the trash heap with an enormous pile of hibiscus and other limbs. I gave a new hedge its first trim. I’ve been moving my old tomato pots off the patio and dumping the dirt in areas that need it.

I feel full of hope these days. Am I the only Republican who can say that at this time? I’m sure I’m not, although I doubt there are many non-Christian Republicans who feel this way.

Call me a Cynic

Here’s something the media will never tell you.

When Joe the Plumber brought attention to Obama’s socialist agenda, the left went after him. The press dug into his past, and the Obama campaign smeared him with ridiculous and meaningless assertions. They pointed to a small and completely normal tax debt, and they told us he was not licensed to do plumbing in his part of Ohio. They also dropped the following bombshell: “Joe” is actually his middle name. That was the best they could do.

Now we know that people in the Ohio government ran checks on him, using state computers. One check was performed by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. They wanted to see if Joe was a deadbeat dad. The lady in charge of this outfit is one Helen Jones-Kelley. Her defense is that Joe made a public claim that he wanted to buy a prosperous business, and that suggested he had assets, so her people were obligated to see if he owed money to his poor battered and estranged wife and his starving kids–people who do not exist.

I feel very safe in assuring you that Helen Jones-Kelley is lying. Ohio has millions of citizens, and many are well-off, and many are well-known. I promise you, Ms. Jones-Kelley hasn’t run checks on all of them, or even on a significant percentage of them. Who is she trying to kid? Why don’t we start with the rosters of every professional sports team in Ohio? Let’s throw in every civil servant who makes over, say, $40,000, and then let’s throw in every well-known businessman in Ohio. If they haven’t been checked, her defense is a lie.

The press has admitted that Jones-Kelley donated $2300 to the Obama campaign, which is a big chunk of a civil servant’s salary. Here is what they probably didn’t tell you:

See if you can spot anything in this photo that might lead you to wonder if Jones-Kelley has a motive that goes beyond liberalism. Think hard. You’ll eventually figure it out. If you’re confused, post a comment, and I’ll give you a clue.

If other blogs are already posting photos like these, pardon me. I am far too lazy to go beyond the three blogs I read regularly.

Okay, I have done a cursory check. Looks like Ace has been here already. UPDATE: do yourself a favor and don’t click on his NSFW photo link. I wouldn’t have linked had I checked it first.

Hey, maybe Jones-Kelley has done this for other Democrat candidates, some of them white. Hmm…wonder if we could check her agency’s records and find out. Would you bet on the evidence supporting her defense?

I have a feeling one Change we can look forward to is a Change in the leadership of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. If Jones-Kelley is guilty of abusing her position, she needs to be replaced. When a government official does a thing like this to a private citizen, in order to squash his expression of political views, it’s not just a tort or a crime. It’s OPPRESSION. Which starts with “O.” Not that I’m suggesting anything.

Connect the dots.

Amen, Bubba

I feel like God and gardening are all I write about these days. I guess it’s monotonous for a lot of people. Can’t seem to do anything about it, however.

I think the physical condition of a house reflects the spiritual condition of the people in it. If you have filth and crud around your doors and on your walls, for example, I think it means malevolent spiritual beings go in and out freely and hang out inside and on the grounds. Just as the blood on the doorway of a Hebrew home during the Passover was a sign that a hostile spirit was not to enter, mildew and rust and mold and bug cocoons are signs that say, “Everybody come in and party; you will be welcomed here.” I can’t say I know of a biblical justification for this idea, but it still makes sense to me. So I can’t help thinking that the compulsion I feel to correct the neglect and decay on this property comes from God and reflects the turnaround I have made.

My mother was a realtor. In addition to selling property, she found tenants for condominiums. I used to paint empty condos for her, and sometimes I helped clean them.

In Miami, the presence of drug dealers and the necessity of doing business with them are facts of life. And it was worse back when my mother was alive. It was not unusual for her to rent properties to people she felt sure sold or transported cocaine or other drugs. I was often disgusted by the things I saw when I entered the places they had vacated. Very often I could smell the roach feces as I opened the front door.

Many of these people were involved in Santeria and other occult practices. Sometimes they left big black candles behind, which had become fastened to counters by wax that had melted. They had revolting shrines. If I recall correctly, sometimes they had photos of their children around the areas where they kept their religious items. Innocent-looking school photos framed in construction-paper borders. Imagine involving your child in Santeria. Why not just inject him with AIDS while you’re at it? Looking at those photos was like looking at photos on milk cartons. No hope for those kids.

The tenants kept liquor around, ostensibly to be used in worship. And they had so many roaches, their cabinets were littered with tiny brown pellets of reeking manure. For some reason, they had German roaches, which are much filthier than the bigger and scarier American roaches. German roaches are unusual in a clean home in Miami; it has been years since I have seen one. Avoiding American roaches is impossible, because they live in the trees and don’t need filth to survive.

I remember sponging out those cabinets and throwing out that disgusting Santeria trash. I wondered how anyone could be foolish enough to worship demons in their own home. Of course, this stuff still goes on here, and it’s not just among drug dealers. But with drug dealers, you can pretty much count on it.

These people welcomed demons into their lives; they spent money and worked hard to attract them. And their homes were like neglected animal pens. They stank. If you were to buy one of these condos, the only way to make them right would be to install new cabinets and replace the carpeting and blinds. The filth works its way into the particle board and fibers.

Santeria, spiritism, and voodoo are among the reasons I want to get out of Miami. These evil religions are the reason life in countries to the south of us are so miserable. In a country where Santeria is popular, no one should be surprised when a communist revolution erupts. You should expect things like that to happen; it’s the logical result. When you worship demons, a punishment like the Castro regime should be considered mild. And Haiti, where voodoo is practiced, is worse than India.

And here we are in the US, flirting with socialism, at a time when sick religions are more popular than ever. Coincidence?

I keep thinking about getting a truck. At first, I wanted one because I realized it was impossible to pursue my interest in tools without a decent vehicle that would hold things like dirt, bricks, scrap metal, and sheets of plywood. But lately, I have begun to think that every responsible person should have a truck these days. At least those that don’t live in cities. Hard times may be on the way; when they arrive, practical things will be a blessing, and Bentleys and Porsches will lose a lot of their appeal. And a person who has a truck can do things for other people, which can’t be done with a roadster.

Today I have to put poison on my mamey tree, which has termites. I have to trim a hedge. I should trim a tree that is getting a little close to telephone and electrical wires. Sooner or later I have to get real and fix the soffit where the bees were removed. I also need to remove a dead strangler fig from a cabbage palm.

Before too long, things will look presentable. I may celebrate by barbecuing every day for a week.

Paths Directed?

Man, did I get stuff done today. Washed half of the back of the house. Removed a 300-pound fragment of broken sidewalk. Planted shrubs. Then there is the key lime tree I already mentioned. I planted it, put manure around it, added gravel on top, and attached a wire mesh shield. And this stuff didn’t take much time. I finished quite some time ago. I managed to get out and get a flu shot.

Moving the sidewalk piece was an interesting job. I realized there was no way I would be able to right it and get it on a handtruck. It was close to a wall, and there was no way to get leverage. I thought I might use the rotary hammer to break it in half, but I didn’t want to blow $30 on a chisel bit. Then I decided to take my 3/4″ masonry bit, drill a series of holes across the concrete, and snap it in two.

Believe it or not, this worked. This concrete was unbelievably hard, probably because of its age, so it took maybe 30 seconds to drill each hole. Still, it was easy, because a rotary hammer doesn’t require much pressure. Soon I had about ten holes running across the fragment. I tried to pry up one end with a crowbar, but the fragment wouldn’t snap. I got a machinist’s hammer and a chisel and busted out the concrete between two adjacent holes, and when it went through, the whole piece broke in half. Not bad! I’m going to get a chisel bit; this job would have taken thirty seconds had I had one.

I managed to get each piece on a handtruck and put it on the trash heap. I hope the trash people can’t pick the fragments up. Their crane keeps digging out the ground in the trash area, and I need something hard and heavy there to keep them from turning the whole thing into a pit.

There is NOTHING like having tools. Without a handtruck, a rotary hammer, a hoe, a machinist’s hammer, and a big chisel, I would have been out of luck today.

The weather is fantastic. I think I’ll go stand outside and stare at my handiwork.

Her Bugs and Fungi are no Match for my Gardening Kung Fu

I am a gardening juggernaut.

I got me a second Key lime tree. I feel like they’re free; Home Depot is charging like 20% of what slightly bigger ones cost at nurseries last year. And Home Depot’s trees are much nicer.

Home Depot is generally a bad place to buy fruit trees, because they have a pathetic selection. No mameys, plantains, guavas, papayas, or other worthwhile tropical stuff. But they do okay with citrus.

A funny thing happened while I was unloading the tree. A crew was doing something or other across the street with a lo-boy and a backhoe, and one of the guys came over and offered to put in a hole for me. Didn’t say anything about money. I was too startled to take him up on it, and there was another consideration. If someone does something for you free of charge, there is a limit to how much you can holler at him to get it right. No, I’ll go out tomorrow before the sun gets hot, and I’ll put it in the ground myself.

I had a problem with some ornamental flowers by the door; I didn’t have enough of them, and they vanished from the market for a year. While I was shopping today, I noticed that they were back. Now I got that fixed. Finally.

While I was looking for a good bag of excrement to buy, I learned that excrement comes in different quality levels. There was an ad thing over by the Black Kow manure display, cautioning me on the deficiencies of inferior manure. So I bought the real thing. Evidently the cheap stuff is only part manure. The rest is old Band-Aids and Run, Hillary, Run stickers that have been put through a grinder.

I paid good money for dirt again. I put about 400 pounds of it in an area where the dirt had simply gotten up and walked away.

I poisoned the snails and ants one more time. You just can’t poison them enough. This morning I found a carpenter ant with me in the shower. Explain that. Seems like every time I poison them, we have two days of torrential rain which carries the poison away. It’s sunny today and the humidity is an incredible 48%, so I took advantage.

I washed the front of the place with a Windex product which works pretty well.

Now I have to go out and build little mesh shields for the tree trunks, because it has become obvious that different illegal aliens are mowing the yard every time, and it is pointless to tell them to quit cutting into the bark with weedeaters. Someone needs to invent a device that grabs the weedeater line, rips it out of the machine, and sends a giant shock up into the illegal wielding it.

I can’t believe all the stuff I’m getting done. Maybe in ten years the difference will be apparent.

It’s Freezing

Mish Weiss has an infection. According to her blog, this is normal, after a bone marrow transplant. It happens because marrow recipients endure a period during which they do not produce white blood cells. Still, it’s upsetting to read about. Her fever was over 103 today.

Keep praying.

Also, don’t forget to check out Agent Bedhead’s blog. As stated yesterday, John Malkovich mentioned her in Esquire magazine! Bloggers are the new media! Resistance is futile!

It’s a beautiful day, at least compared to the mess we’ve been having lately. It’s BELOW 70 DEGREES! That will probably change in the next half hour, but it’s still encouraging. I’m very tempted to get a second Key lime tree and plant it.

Key limes are essential, if you live in Florida. In fact, if you have room to grow them indoors, they are probably great to have, no matter where you live. They bear fruit practically all the time, and the fruit is very useful. And if you make pies, you can go through a whole lot of limes. I think Persian limes are better for many jobs, but store limes tend to be dry and unripe.

Persian limes are supposed to bear fruit about ten months out of the year, but that has not been my experience.

Blogger Pal Rivals Hedda Hopper

First off, Agent Bedhead is now famous. In a recent interview with Esquire magazine, John Malkovich mentioned her blog. I won’t spoil it by quoting him here; go read. And because this is a crummy Sunday link, I will mention it again tomorrow.

I’ll bet Orson Bean is jealous.

In other news, George Moneo of Babalublog had a car accident yesterday. You may want to do him a favor and pray that things will work out with minimal conflict, and that everyone involved will be physically healed. As of yesterday, George and a person from the other car were having neck pains.

Mish Weiss is still recovering from her bone marrow transplant, so don’t forget her, either. If you’re wondering how Leah Friedman is doing, she is apparently strong enough to deal with a home full of kids. That’s more than can be said of me at my best.

It’s funny; prayer is like tending a garden. Every day you get up and you tend to this person or that one, just as you would go from tree to tree in your yard.

I am making a determined effort to find a decent church. I’ve really enjoyed Perry Stone’s work, so I looked up his denomination. Turns out it’s the Church of God. Hard to argue with a name like that.

Made an interesting score at Costco yesterday. I bought a bag of pummelos. These are like grapefruit, except a small one weighs maybe four pounds. The big ones are like volleyballs. I can’t remember the last time I had one, but I believe they are dryer and less bitter than grapefruit. Guess I’ll find out this morning.

I remember these because when I was picking grapefruit on a kibbutz, there was talk of switching over to pummelos. Europeans were excited about having pummelos for breakfast, so Israelis were eager to grow them. Not sure how to pronounce it. On the kibbutz, they said “puh MELL oh.” But wouldn’t that imply “tan JELL oh,” which is wrong? Tangelo rhymes with Angelo.

I am thinking I need to keep putting in fruit trees. I like the idea of having them all around the place. Some people down here don’t like putting fruit trees in their front yards; that seems silly to me. They look just as good as ornamental trees, plus–hey–fruit! I’d love to have a pummelo tree, if I could find one.

The neighbors would steal all the fruit, I suppose. That’s Miami for you.

Time for a pummelo.

Cream Puffs

It is impossible for me to go to Costco without buying something stupid. Today’s crime? Creampuffs.

I’m sure you’ve seen them, frozen in their big white bucket. Like me, you must have had an almost morbid fascination, wondering what a frozen creampuff in a bucket would be like.

Anyway, I bought them.

The verdict? You will not mistake them for fresh creampuffs. On the other hand, you could slop some raspberry sauce or chocolate sauce on them to cover the bucket flavor.

I managed to resist the odd-looking P’tit Basque cheese.

My Feet are Back on the Kibbutz

WHEEEEE my new IDF boots arrived. The first pair I bought were a little loose. My feet sort of defy those measurement machines they use in shoe stores; I’m never completely sure what size to buy.

I am dressed to kill. IDF boots, wool socks, cargo shorts, and a baseball shirt. I ordered 6 shirts from a company that sells Anvil shirts for under five bucks each. I got three colors. You could say I am getting over being a clothes horse.

I have to go buy Scotchgard. I just have to. I can’t take these beauties out in the dirt and filth without giving them some hope of protection.

These boogers are actually made in Israel. I didn’t know that until today. Walter Sobchak would approve.

Now I have to find a home for the old ones. I hate the thought of seeing them on some unrepentant wino on the corner. Maybe it’s time to make a Goodwill drop.

Fuel for Obama?

Here is something I wish I had read before I started blogging.

Proverbs 24:17-18:

Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:

Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.

I see the US perched on the verge of a sharp decline into socialism, which brings poverty and totalitarianism. I used to think it was punishment for our sins. Things like pride and greed and cruelty and sexual immorality. But I have to wonder; isn’t it possible that the GOP is being repaid for gloating during the Bush years?

I certainly did it. I still have a Sore Loserman shirt. I posted a ton of material about the whininess of liberals, and I reminded them over and over that no matter how much they hated George Bush, they still had to send him their taxes every year.

Now look what’s happening.

Maybe we need to cut back on “moonbat” and so on and make more of an effort to be civil. Liberals have been much, much worse about lowering the tone of discourse, but many of them don’t know any better. They think arrogance and cruelty are virtues. If you know better, you should act like it.

What good have we done ourselves, ridiculing the opposition? None, as far as I can see. Ann Coulter raises millions (no exaggeration) for Democrat candidates, and she has probably never converted a single person to conservatism. Tell me I’m wrong. Have you ever seen a Democrat scratch his head and say, “Wow, maybe Ann Coulter has a point”?

It’s fun to vent, and liberalism is inherently silly and self-contradictory, but in the end, we are all Americans, and most of us want what’s best for everyone. We should stay focused our ultimate goals–peace and prosperity and unity–instead of settling for the short-end thrill of calling another person an assclown. If we behave ourselves, we’ll end up receiving more abuse than we deliver, but isn’t that the way life is, for good people? And isn’t it worth it, if we make America a more peaceful place and help the opposition to come around to our way of thinking?

I don’t know about you, but given the choice between being a George Will or being a Sandra Bernhard (or worse), I’d go with George every time.

Something to think about, now that we may be about to elect a cigarette-smoking, gun-grabbing President with strong socialist tendencies.

Store-Bought Poo Gets Tree Off to Pleasant Start

My fine new cara cara tree is in the ground. Praise God. And I did not even have a heart attack.

I think I did okay. One frustrating thing: the tree came in a pot a foot tall, and the packaging said to dig a hole “three times as wide and as deep” as the pot. Clearly, that means a cylindrical hole three feet deep and three feet wide. Imagine digging that in my rocky yard. No way. I got on the University of Florida website, and they said to dig a hole NO DEEPER than the pot was tall. With SLOPING SIDES. Now I was getting somewhere. That made the job possible. Had I paid attention to the packaging, I would now be dead, and the authorities could just roll me into my giant hole.

I paid for excrement. Again. I don’t know why I can’t just lower a suction hose into the septic tank. I put maybe 25 pounds of manure in the hole with the plant, and I put the dirt back in (minus a couple of gallons of rocks), and I fertilized the general area. Then I did something the university website told me to do. I mulched with Chattahoochee gravel. This is brilliant. This stuff can’t rot, it can’t hold water, and it will keep weeds down. Maybe it will save me from the weedeaters that keep ripping into my trees.

It was depressing, using my new Gerber to rip open a bag of crap. But I took a deep breath and did it. This is what I bought it for. Maybe I should have a Gator II for the yard and a clean Gator II for regular life.

I bought myself a hoe. This is a marvelous implement everyone needs. I think I was biased against buying one because of the miserable times I spent helping my cousin hoe his tobacco. But there is no hoe substitute. It does things a shovel refuses to do. And it’s really dull, so it gives me an excuse to get out the grinder.

I can’t wait for my poison to arrive so I can start systematically killing my St. Augustine grass and letting the Bermuda invade. I’m convinced that St. Augustine is just a delivery system for bugs and disease, and besides, it’s ugly. And I enjoy poisoning things, so that’s a plus.

I better eat lunch before the ambulance arrives.

This is Why I Should Have Had Kids

I have done gone crazy AGAIN.

I went out in the yard to dig a hole for a cara cara orange tree. I knew it would not be fun. The dirt here is about 40% rocks, and some are as big as hams. Most of the shovel loads I moved contained less than a pint of dirt and/or rocks. And I really enjoy the sensation of ramming the shovel through the soil, feeling as though I’m getting somewhere, and then stopping dead when I find the inevitable chunk of oolite.

I had hoped my mattock would help, but it has a three-foot handle, so to use it, I have to stoop. No, sorry. That will not work.

Og told me I could get a spade attachment for my rotary hammer, but it’s SDS Plus, and I can’t find spades that work with that format or whatever you call it.

I threw up my hands and started digging, and within three minutes I could actually hear my fat screaming for me to stop. Never dig a hole after the age of thirty. Believe me. If they started doing this in gyms, the digging people would eventually kick the crap out of the spinners and the Tae Bos, because nothing except all-out fistfighting is as tiring as making a hole.

Anyway, I eventually finished.

I decided to do this yesterday. I realized I still needed trees, and I went to Home Depot to check out the citrus. I found a nice Key lime and a cara cara, and I promised myself I could have them IF I dug the holes first. Because I did not want to see them turn into pot queens while I put it off.

A cara cara is a navel orange. Ordinarily, navel oranges are exquisitely lame. Dry, flavorless, and hard to peel. Here in Florida, no one takes them seriously except yankees. The king orange of all time isnt an orange at all. It’s a tangelo, also known as a minneola or honeybell. It’s supposed to be a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine, but it’s more like a giant orange with a peel that falls off if you so much as look at it funny. The flesh is brilliant orange, and it tastes like a sweeter and less acidic tangerine. Down here, people like tangelos. I don’t know anyone who wastes time and space on navels.

That being said, the cara cara is special. It’s a weird hybrid. It has dark pink meat, and it tastes wonderful. It also peels easily.

I really hope I don’t die from digging holes. Maybe I’ll survive long enough to have someone bring me fruit in the hospital.

Take the Good With the Bad

Deflation. Good if you have cash. Bad if you owe money. I keep wondering if it’s on the way. Gas prices are plummeting, and so are the prices of metals.

Here is something that may make the shooters among you happy: Natchez Shooter’s Supply is selling CCI Blazer 9mm ammunition for $7.49 per box. Ammunition is full of copper and lead (and aluminum, in the case of Blazers), so as metal prices have gone insane, so has the cost of shooting. Now metals are cheaper. Maybe that’s why ammunition prices are dropping.

They’re even selling .45 ACP for under twelve bucks. If you don’t reload, this is a hell of a deal. Maybe the metal shortage is over.

Incidentally, let me ask: have any of you had bad luck with PMC .357 ammunition? The last two times I’ve tried it, I’ve had lots of duds, and I’ve been pretty unhappy with my accuracy.

Yesterday I started thinking (again) about building a belt sander. Then I looked at the price of steel. It’s ridiculous. A one-foot piece of 2″ square tubing costs $22.

Can someone explain this to me? I’m sure I can buy heavier products containing steel for less than that. And they’ve been worked and painted and shipped and advertised, so you would expect them to cost more.

I have to wonder how anyone ever comes up with the money to fabricate anything. Some time ago, I realized you can do a lot with dirt-cheap galvanized stuff, but the cold-rolled costs plenty.

I’ve noticed something else. The supply of surplus Ebay motors has dried up. Wonder what that means. Does it reflect a slowdown in business, generally?

Picking a motor is difficult even when there are a lot of them available. For example, one guy who built a grinder says he found a DC motor and speed control on Ebay. It’s nice to be able to vary the speed of a grinder. But how do you power a one-horse DC motor? Where would you get that kind of DC current? Ebay has something called a “motor drive.” I guess that’s it.

I never got the gearmotor I ordered for my pig roaster. I’m very upset about that. Maybe I should take care of that first.

New Internet Daydream

I have no intention of building a belt grinder. Let’s get that straight, right away.

But what if I were?

I have this idea. There is some empty space under my workbench. And one of the annoying things about belt grinders is the way the motors sit beside them taking up room. And another annoying thing about them is the need for some kind of post to hold the whole mess. So why couldn’t I suspend the motor under the bench, put some kind of removable access panel in the top of the bench, and fix the bench so the grinder could be attached to it quickly when I needed it? Think about it. You grab the grinder (which is not that big, in and of itself), and you pop it onto the table, and you yank the access panel, throw a drive belt on the motor and grinder pulleys, crank the belt tight, flip the power switch you mounted on the front of the bench, and GRIND, GRIND, GRIND.

Does that sound insane? Who cares.

There are free no-weld grinder plans available out there, but some of the resulting grinders are monstrosities. If you weld instead of using bolts and so on, you can use a lot less metal. And here I am, with a spiffy welder of my very own.

I assume you want a fast one-horse motor for a thing like this. Time to check Ebay.