Chrome, a shower faucet knob, and GM

Do you have the same problem I do after watching that Cymbalta commercial? It’s the music…it’s so damn depressing. It makes you feel like you need to see your doctor right away and tell him, I’m depressed Doc!

Don’t worry. After a few minutes into whatever show is following the commercial, you’ll be right as rain again.

* * *

Can’t our government do anything right? Now we hear that they’re running out of money to provide coupons for people who need a converter box to continue watching their TVs.

Now there’s talk about postponing the switch to digital until they can come up with more money to keep providing the $40 coupons.

That makes sense to me.

We got two coupons and bought digital converters and gave them to our daughter and son-in-law, Renee and Scott. I hope they know that if anything goes wrong with our cable, we get to go out and watch their TV and I get the remote control.

* * *

Whatever happened to chrome on cars? I remember that 1958 Buick Specials and those 1950s Cadillacs had a ton of chrome and looked like a million dollars. Especially those with black paint jobs. My 1965 Grand Prix even had chrome on the inside of the car.

I still dream about that car.

Part of the reason for not using chrome as much anymore is safety. It reduces the glare inside of automobiles and what other drivers see (glare) coming at them on the road. Another reason may be that chroming involves dangerous chemicals.

Federal-Mogul used to chrome tooling subject to wear and galling. They eventually found another way to solve the problem and got rid of the chroming room.

* * *

This year’s two week Tip-Up-Town at Houghton Lake takes place January 16-18 and the following weekend, January 23-25.

My first Tip-Up-Town was six years after it first became a winter festival. It was just a one weekend event back then.

Tipup

As you can see by this picture, I didn’t have a very good camera back then.

I tried to rectify that problem since then.

They had a simple parade with simple floats. Mort Neff came up and tried to give everybody’s secret fishing hole away. My Aunt never liked that guy even though she appeared on his show one time which was filmed during Tip-Up-Town.

* * *

I teased my newest son-in-law, Ross, about breaking the shower knob in the bathroom during the Christmas holidays. In reality it just broke from years of use. Call it fatigue if you will. As my granddad used to say, we used it well -- only he was talking about a guy.

What does a computer guy do to remedy the situation? He gets on the internet which is exactly what I did. Within a week’s time I had a new knob for our shower faucet.

An attempt to buy it locally proved fruitless even though they had plenty of other knobs. Just not the right one. In Gill-Roys’ defense they are the most valuable store in town.

At least to me.

Now what am I going to do to prevent this from ever happening again? I’m going to order backups for the knob and the valve (they’re on their way.) It beats the hell out of paying over three-hundred dollars to have the faucet replaced. The problem is they’d either have to go through a recent shower renovation (without a new faucet — my fault) or they’d have to cut an access door through the wall in the hallway.

Hopefully, I’ve avoided all of this.

* * *

The American tax payers just got a slap in the face from General Motors after we backed the loans to keep GM afloat. What did these intelligent people do? They announced they’re having one of their newest models built in Mexico.

Mexico reported that their car production increased last year while ours went down — way down. Doesn’t GM owe this country something instead of giving business to Mexico? Any new vehicles produced in Mexico, or anywhere else after the bailout should be labeled, "It’s illegal to sell this vehicle in the United States of America."

Let the Mexicans buy them.

Until the next time . . .