christopherfranklin.info

Spend more!

Chris — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:07:00 GMT

This is a funny video explaining what we need to do to fix the economy. Too bad he trys to blame it all on the Democrats.

http://www.christopherfranklin.info/video/flash/fredthompson_dec08.html

Stolen Bike

Chris — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:35:00 GMT

My oldest son's bike was stolen this afternoon. Sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 someone walked right up to the front porch and took off with it. It's not worth much, it was only about $50 at walmart 2 years ago but it's worth more than that to me. It was his reward for doing well and completing kindergarten. I had it waiting for him when he got home on the last day. He had no idea that I had a surprise waiting for him that day, he was SO excited when he saw it.

Here are some pics of that day in the unlikely event that anyone happens to see it somewhere.
http://christopherfranklin.info/photos/randompics/1042/slideshowpro.aspx

The most frustrating thing is that I have told him over and over again to put it up when he is done riding it but he always parks it right at the bottom of the steps and comes in the house. Hopefully he'll learn something from this.

He asked me if we could get a new bike. I told him we couldn't afford a new bike, we just don't have enough money right now. He'd just have to do without because he didn't take care of the one he had.

The whole truth is, money is kind of tight but not so much that I couldn't go buy a bike at walmart. They have really got the prices down and the quality up on their bikes in the last 10 years or so. Money isn't the point though, I refuse to reward his carelessness! I want him to learn a lesson from this. We had already discussed getting a new, bigger bike. He has almost outgrown this one. I told him if he did well in school and stayed out of trouble we'd consider it at the end of the year. I'm not going to change that because of this. He's going to have to go without a bike, stay out of trouble and get good grades if he wants a new one. Heck, it's only about 5 weeks.

Deer Roping

Chris — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:49:00 GMT

This was so funny, I couldn't help putting it here. Like many things that circulate the INTERNET, I don't know where it originally came from or if its true. All I know is it was worth reading, and forwarding in my email. That's something I rarely do.

______________________________________________________________

This is a rather l-o-n-g story about a man who isn't as smart as he thought
he was. I think you'll learn things about a deer that you never knew before.
Fortunately the deer didn't get hurt......as for the farmer........I think
he got what he deserved. The story goes like this............

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it
up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step
in this adventure was getting a deer.

I figured that since they congregated at my cattle feeder and do not seem
to have much fear of me when we are there, (a bold one will sometimes come
right up and sniff at the bags of feed, while I am in the back of the truck
not 4 feet away) that it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it
and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport
it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The
cattle, which had seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were
not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes my deer showed up, 3 of them. I picked out a likely
looking one, stepped out, from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope.
The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my
waist and twisted the end, so I would have a good hold.

The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was
mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it.
It took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and received an
education.

The first thing that I learned, is that while a deer may just stand there
looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you
start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned
is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A
cow or a colt in that weight range, I could fight down with a rope with some
dignity. A deer, no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and
pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it.

As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it
occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea
as I originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much
stamina as many animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not
nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up.
It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the
blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point I had lost my taste for corn fed venison. I just wanted to
get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let
it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and
painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and
that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing and I would venture a guess
that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several
large knots, where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my
head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could
still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I
shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I
didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death. I managed to get it
lined up to back in between my truck and the feeder, a little trap I had set
beforehand. Kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and
started moving up so I could get my rope back. Did you know that deer bite?
They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would
bite somebody so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that
rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it
is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go.
A deer bites you and shakes its head, almost like a pit bull. They bite
HARD and it hurts. The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably
to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My
method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for
several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter
than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.
While I kept it busy tearing the hound out of my right arm, I reached up
with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.

That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer
will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back
feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are
surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that when an animal like a
horse strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the
best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move
towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you
can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously such
trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond I devised a
different strategy. I screamed like woman and tried to turn and run. The
reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that
paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back
of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides
being twice as strong and three times as evil, because the second I turned
to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now when a deer paws at you and knocks you down it doesn't immediately
leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What
they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are
laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally
managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

...........Now for the local legend...........
I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose
eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be
just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my
insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I
drove to the nearest place, which was the co-op. I got out of the truck,
covered in blood and dust and looking like I'd just come from a barroom
brawl. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running
out yelling "what happened" I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas
that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this
is an area that they have overlooked entirely.

Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to
exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the
existing laws to paint my actions as criminal. I swear, not wanting to admit
that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response.
I told him "I was attacked by a deer." I did not mention that at the time I
had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the
back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on
my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come
get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own. He did. Later that
afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the
deer attack.

Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was
interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and
accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came
out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me. It
was obviously rabid or insane or something. EVERYBODY for miles around
knows about the deer attack (the guy at the co-op has a big mouth).

For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer
around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders.

I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I
have to see these people every day and as an outsider, a "city folk," I have
enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and
whispering "there's the dummy that tried to rope the deer."

Author unknown
_________________

NASCAR at Kansas Speedway

Chris — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:53:00 GMT

Last weekend NASCAR had the Life Lock 400, at Kansas Speedway in KCK. I was fortunate to get tickets from my Father In-Law. Matthew got to go to the qualifying event on Friday but I had class that day so I didn't go. He had a great time, just him and Grandpa Clark. Saturday was fun, the Busch races were that day. The weather was perfect and the cars were fast. After NASCAR Busch race was USAC race. Wingless sprint cars on asphalt was fun to watch but I like my sprint cars to have wings and dirt flying. The NASCAR Nextel Cup race was Sunday. It started out great but about 15 laps in they red flagged the track because of rain. There was about a one hour delay before racing again. They went for about 140 more laps and it started raining again. This time there was a lot of thunder and lightning and about a 3 hour delay. I got soaked on the way to the car. I left early because I didn't want to wait out the rain with 100,000 other people under the stands, or get home at midnight. Took about an hour to get out of the muddy parking lot and get on the highway. By the time I got to Emporia the race had restarted, glad I didnt wait that 3 hours! I watched the end of the race on TV. They called it early due to darkness and it ended under caution 57 laps short of the scheduled 267 laps. Matthew and I took lots of pictures. I will get them posted as soon as I can get them developed and scanned. I don't take the digital to things like that and I don't send it out with Matthew either. :) We always take the disposable type cameras to that kind of stuff. Can't get great pictures with them but they are cheap if you lose them and you don't have to wonder if the security guards at the gate will let you bring them in. If they tell you that you can't take it you just leave it and you're out 2 or 3 bucks rather than another 30+ minutes of walking back to the car and hoping no thief sees you putting your good camera in there.

Emporia Zoo

Chris — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:51:00 GMT

My Grandparents came for a visit this weekend. William and I took them for a tour of the emporia zoo on Sunday. The pics are here: http://christopherfranklin.info/photos/sightseeing/1036/slideshowpro.aspx

It's been a while...

Chris — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:43:00 GMT

...since I've gotten around to adding any new content here. I'd like to say I've been too busy, but the truth is, I just haven't felt like messing with it. That, and I took a week off and went to the lake with the boys.

I did add some new pics today though. Some are from the school carnival and some from the lake.

Windshield wipers.

Chris — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:44:00 GMT

I took the 944 to the Sheriff's office Friday morning for it's Kansas State inspection. It was raining and I discovered that the windshield wipers were useless. It was a long couple miles trying to see out of that thing. Saturday afternoon I decided to fix that little problem. I went to Walmart and got 2 new wiper blades, a bottle of Rainx and some windex. I cleaned the windows 3 times before I got all the gunk off then I rubbed them down with the rainx and finally installed the new blades. Wow! What a difference! I had my son stand in front of the car and spray it with the garden hose and turned on the wipers. No trouble seeing now I thought. Then the passenger side blade came loose and started flopping all over the place. Turned out to be easy enough to fix, just a quick tightening with a wrench and all was good.

Since I had the hose out, I decided to give it a bath too.

Cleaning 'er up.

Chris — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:30:00 GMT

Three years worth of crap have settled in every hard to reach place on the ol' 944. I spent several hours cleaning it out of the engine compartment today. I still have a long way to go before it's clean enough to suit me but it looks much better. Yesterday I spent the evening giving the outside of the car a good scrubbing that helped a bunch. I was going to wax it but decided that could wait. The guys at Imagine Auto gave it a good polishing while it was at their shop so a good wash was all it needed.

My 944 is home at last!

Chris — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:24:00 GMT

I finally got it home from Imagine Auto. It was a nice 100 mile drive too. The engine rebuild is great! It runs better than it ever has since I've owned it. I'll have a million nickel and dime things to do from now until eternity but the worst is over at last. IT's RUNNING!

Heartland Park: PCA Porsches in the Heartland 2007.

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:11:00 GMT

I added a ton of pics from the PCA club race this weekend at HPT in Topeka, KS. They are in no particular order. Some are from Saturday and some are from Sunday. I really could use a better camera. The bottom of the line Olyumpus just doesn't cut it. It's not nearly as good as the one that got stolen last year. :(

Oh well, I had a great time and the pics are good enough for this site. :)

Added a bunch of pics.

Chris — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:50:00 GMT

I found the bulk upload feature and used it to upload a bunch of car pics from World of Wheels 2004. I like the bulk upload for getting content added fast but I'll still have to go edit the descriptions manually. Most of the pics this time don't really matter but future uploads might be better with nice descriptions and comments.

Community Server Install.

Chris — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:52:00 GMT

Well, I finally got community server installed and running on my godaddy.com hosted site. It was pretty simple but I did have to get some help. Installing an asp.net app like this to godaddy.com isn't as easy as if I had it on my own server. This is simply due to the way they have thier free/shared hosting set up. I found a very helpful guid to installing Community Server 2007 on a godaddy.com site at http://davestokes.net/files/folders/2007_installation_guides/entry273.aspx