This bird will fly

Ordinarily this is where I would moan and curse about the state of my life. But a wise man once said that if nothing changes then nothing will change. So I've changed my life by choosing to concentrate on my trip to Labrador. It could not coexist with my job so the job has been sacrificed. No one cried any tears upon my departure. In fact, the last thing I heard was, "Oggy, you got any food in the fridge, cause we're cleaning it out." I did have some yoghurt and claimed it for my breakfast. Then I was gone and forgotten like the worthless temp worker I am. $400 a week and my expenses were about $350. Pathetic.



Goals: Spiritual thinking. No more copper and doodads. No more gadgets. This may mean the end of my digital career but I think it is for my own improved mental health. No, I don't think my choice will change the world, but it will make me more content. My mental disability forces me to consider the source and effects of all this plastic and copper and ion implantation and it is driving me insane.



Outfit van for trip: Stove, camping equipment, food, alternator, spare tire cover that says "Labrador or Bust: Arctic Wolf Tour 2010"



Say goodbye to everyone: Goodbye. It was nice to know you.



Con my brother into buying me a suitable camcorder for the trip.



Edit and deliver my stageplay that the local theater wishes to produce for next spring.



That is all.

See the Aurora Borealis! Answer The Call of the Wild!

You want an adventure? You want to behold the glory of the northern lights in their natural setting? You want to travel North to Labrador, Canada in an authentic 1969 Ford Econoline Adventure Wagon customized specifically for this trip with a twenty-year experienced wilderness guide and storyteller extrodinaire? This is your once in a lifetime opportunity to see the Northern Lights as they were meant to be seen, from the middle of an unihabited tundra.

This trip includes, Door to Door service from New England to the Arctic and back.
meals cooked to order in the van.
wilderness survival training and camping tutoring.
A safe and insured driver who wants to change the world starting with you.

Itinerary is up to you! No strings. No strict plans! No cocktail hour where you mingle with phony people. This is not a meet and greet where you talk about your past life. No. This is the part where you actually live. We will travel as the ancients did with the stars as our guide and with adventure as our destination.
We can go through Northern New Hampshire or Maine or Vermont. We can stay in Montreal or Toronto or Quebec City. It's up to you! We can visit a safari park or a university expert on Sea Turtles. Eventually we will drive up the incredible route 138 from Quebec City to Baie-Comeau. From there we will literally leave the world behind on the seldom traveled route 389 through the lakeland marshes and tundra of Northeastern Quebec. You will see terrain that few have ever seen and mingle with animals in their natural habitat. It is North America as it was 500 years ago, as it was before Man's footprint fell so strongly on the land. We will study the stars by a campfire and commune with nature in a way that will connect you with our wolf-nature. Don't worry about bugs as it will be too cold for that nuisance. We will be outside every network calling area in existence. You will be unplugged and so will the music be soothing and acoustically transparent. Songs of youth and heartbreak and nature will relax you as you sleep under the stars, your breath hovering above you. We will be taking short day hikes every day to further increase your connection to the land and we will follow the northern star until we are blessed with the vision of the Northern Lights. Don't be afraid to cry because they will inspire you to tears as all of nature would if we were not bombarded with manipulated cleavage images and expectations that are merely a marketeer's grip on your humanity. Break the bonds to the consumer age!

This trip will turn you into a new person and it is impossible to put a price on such a spiritually liberating course of action. Nothing can prepare you for this adventure that you will remember for the rest of your life and relive in countless dreams of happiness. You will come to understand the old adventure saying, "Even the bad times were good."

This is a team adventure. Money doesn't buy anything of value in this world. You pay your own way and we become a team only because we trust each other. You can't buy trust even if some limp dick lawyer can write a clause that claims to sell it. No, you earn trust with exercises that will take place in New Hampshire and beyond. That's what separates this adventure from others. There are no free rides and you will be escorted by a veteran adventurer. Bring every penny you have because where we are going you won't want to come back.

I estimate $2000 will bring you home safely but the real price will be to the claws of capitalism that have you anchored to your desk, working for the wrong reasons, suffering in quiet desperation. Had enough of Tea Party lunacy and Democratic preposterousness? I have the answer and the answer is a dancing rainbow of light that will almost make you forget the negative 30 degrees that will freeze every part of your face and hands if you aren't careful. But it will change your entire point of view, it will change your soul, it will reveal to you the power of the earth and your place on it. In the distance a wolf howls to its mates in an ancient ritual of communication that will change you. Are you ready to listen to the message?

Contact Oggy Bleacher if this sounds like your cup of tea. Or keep poking at your computer screen and hoping a Wall Street fat cat doesn't mismanage your pension fund. There is more to life than 401K and aromatherapy. I will show you what that is.

Trips leaving soon. Be part of it or forever wonder what could have happened...

You do not pay for this adventure; you earn it. The Northern Lights are waiting for you.

· Location: Labrador / Arctic

· it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Dear Mr. President,

I urge you to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a new National Monument.

I have pondered the value of reckless innovation and have reached the conclusion that it can not continue. While great advances have been made in quantity of life, there have been very few made in quality of life. Proportionately, Mankind is no more content than in the Middle Ages, but we have eradicated countless species in the pursuit of an impossible longevity and grotesque comfort. Stock prices and the increased pyramid of wealth seem at the true root of this heedless attack on nature, not the benevolent lifting on Man from the mud as some CEOs would have us believe. I'm unconvinced and plead my case to you, Mr. President. Do not be swayed by the countless hacks and theives who would pry your soul open with their filthy claws. The Arctic wolf, the Polar Bear, the Musk Ox, the Hare, the Caribou, the Native American ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE DECADE OR TWO OF PETROLEUM THAT WILL BE STOLEN FROM BENEATH THEM! They are not yours or mine to sacrifice but ours to protect. America is not the lord sovereign of planet earth but without your moral action it will become its destroyer.

Please join me in this fight.

Dreams to Remember

Dreams to Remember by Otis Redding. This is how I enter my dream world...on the wings of velvet throaty tones, lyrics that observe the world without the satin sheets and post production values of manipulation. DO NOT DISCOURAGE THE VAIN FROM THEIR JOURNEY AMONG THEIR SORROWS! Otis beats me on the head with his Adam's apple language. Like a volcano I am emerging from a dormant period the subducted rock of my sadness slowly melting into magma that MUST ERUPT INTO ARCTIC WOLF MADNESS. Here you witness my desire for unattainable longings and flesh that once was warm and close and is now a million miles away and dreams I once gently guided with training wheel care into full growth but that have since withered into dry capers of agony and only through the milking of my weakened soul can i engorge them again to fullness and when ripe I align them with the unnamed stars in the sky. Otis, take my hand.

Collapsed at work after long bouts with high productivity. There is nothing there but arthritis and prostate problems there, discussions of the springtime we never had and the youth that has grown gray on my chin like a billy goat who nears death.

Review of NTB Tires in Newington, New Hampshire: Grade F

Tim of NTB Tires, Home of Bad Service, hand-delivered the best corporate cuntery quote that I could ask for:

"My hands are tied."

Ah, if anything reeks of corporate training, weakness, and incompetence it is that admittance of uselessness: "My hands are tied."
Everyone from Wall Street fat cats who eat blue collar pension funds out of the pussies of 16 year old whores to quavering Presidents with Alzehimers to true cunts wearing shiny flare buttons will mutter this repulsive trope. When the shit finally goes down they all smirk and say, "My hands are tied." with the obligatory shoulder shrug.

And we are bigger cunts if we allow them to get away with it.

Let me explain...

Went to NTB to discuss my alignment. I spent another $250 today to have the Ibeams tweaked so the tires would not be chewed up as they were after leaving NTB. It's a long tale and unless you have a mid '70s Twin Ibeam ford van or truck then this is not something you need to care about. But if you do have one then DO NOT take it to NTB.

The saga in short form:
Back in July I spent $300 at NTB for two new tires and an alignment. First of all, a rear tire exploded a day after leaving NTB. Then a rear wheel bearing seized up causing great and numerous problems. Once that was sorted out I saw that the tires were horribly aligned, visually off which means they were way off. Others agreed and I returned to NTB tires and they also agreed that the alignment, expecially the camber, was all wrong. Funny, the exact shop that had done the original work was telling me how bad it looked. They actually asked,
"Who did this alignment?"
"Uh, you guys. Here's the receipt."
"Oh."

They again could not do anything to help, scratching their asses as you do when clueless.

So, I left NTB again with a terrible alignment and upon closer inspection determined the inner 1/4 of the tire was actually below the wear marker indicating time to replace...after 800 miles. This postponed my Labrador/Arctic Wolf quest indefinitely and after digging into the depths of Banfield road it was decided that only a rare procedure known as straightening the I-Beam would actually reposition the tires correctly. Internet research confirmed this. The procedure could not be done on Banfield but rather on Route 1 by an RV and big rig/bus service shop called Coastal Truck and Auto Body. They estimated a $400 bite from Oggy's wallet but since the van is running so well and ion implanters are being ordered like bean and cheese burritos, I agreed. I can't keep running through tires (the last front tires bubbled out until they were running on metal radial...and this was becoming ridiculous.

So, this morning found me at 5 am running down the foggy road (route 1) trying to loosen my load on my 1974 Vespa Ciao after dropping the 1969 van off so I could get to work at the robot factory. I swear that watching 10 minutes of my life would leave most people hysterically laughing. 5 minutes of Jersey Shore made me want to shoot myself in the mouth but an average visit to the bathroom with me is like a Jerry Lewis short movie.

Anyway, I pick the van up after work and the thing is dialed in. They torqued the I-Beam with clevis hooks and bottle jacks, a procedure I've seen pictures of, and they adjusted the toe and all. The alignment looks good and feels good and only cost $250. Which leaves me with a $300 reciept at NTB that I am scratching my ass about. The alignment they gave me was useless and because it was useless the two tires are now toast. I understand that it is my responsibility to not patronize a garage of pot smoking idiots but let's not cry over spilled milk. I just want to have two new tires on an aligned front end. And I paid $100 for an alignment that was obviously totally useless. Which brings us to this afternoon as I walked into NTB with a handful of reciepts and a small attitude.

I don't want to transcribe the entire conversation even though I could do so. I will highlight some moments that are especially revealing.

Me: See, it actually cost $300 to get the alignment done correctly. I had no problem paying that. But my question is if I got it aligned somewhere else then what did I pay you for?"

Tim: uh huh.

Me: I mean, what did you do? I left here with a crappy alignment that burned through two new tires. What did you accomplish?

Tim: I'll be right back.


Tim brought reinforcements in the form of a square-jawed grease monkey who "Had never heard of straightening an I-Beam."

Me: That van is older than all three of us. They haven't done I-Beam straightening in twenty plus years. But it is a true procedure. Look it up.

Here's something I'll print out for square jaw to look at...

"If the Twin I-Beam axles are the forged variety, which were used from 1965 through 1981, camber can be corrected by bending the axle with a hydraulic ram. To make a make a positive camber correction, a rigid work beam is slung under the axle from a pair of clevis blocks. A hydraulic ram is then placed under the middle of the axle. When pressure is applied, the ram bends the axle upward and tilts the knuckle down to increase camber. A slight amount of overbending is usually needed to compensate for spring back in the axle. A negative camber correction is made by removing the outboard clevis block and inserting a spacer between the work beam and axle. The hydraulic ram is then repositioned directly under the inner axle bushing. When pressure is applied, the work beam bends the outer end of the axle up which tilts the knuckle and decreases camber."

Square Jaw: I've never worked on one but I think they gave you a line of bullshit. There is no way...

Me: Call them and tell them that because they've forgotten more about alignments than you will ever know.

Exit Square Jaw.

Tim: I don't know what I can do for you.

Me: Refund everything. All $300. The alignment was useless. It was negligent for you to attempt it in this shop.

Tim: Those tires have some life left on them. The steel radials won't be showing any time soon.

Me: Great! I'll give them to you when I replace them and you can sell them again.

Tim: You'll have to talk to our manager, Tony.

Me: Wheel him out.

Tim: He's not here.

Me: So you're the big man in charge and your hands are tied?

Tim: I can't help you.


Now, I'm not an abusive person and I know Tim has been trained to pass the buck because he isn't authorized to make a refund like this. It's corporate policy to avoid responsibility and avoid any refunds...always prolong the problem because most people will be too busy to pursue it. Sooner or later they will die. In fact, I'm too busy to pursue it. I'll call the manager who will also deny me satisfaction. I can call all the people I want and they will not refund my money. It will take a court order three years from now to get my $300 back and I believe all the evidence points to neglect and incompetence. For the service boss of NTB to say confidently that a pro auto alignment shop "Definitely fed you a line of bullshit." is just proof he has no idea what he's talking about. It's a procedure that he will never do in his life unless he works on thirty-year old Ford vans and trucks. But to run his mouth instead of admitting ignorance is proof that corporate monkeys will proceed without caution into things they know nothing about. That whole shop will go to their grave thinking they could align that van and a few miles away is a shop that can actually align the van. It should be NTB mandate to decline service to 1980 vehicles and older. Why? Because most of the kids working there were born in 1980.

So, I'm good at a few things and not resenting corporate buffons is one of them. I hold no grudges and consider it a lesson learned. Of course I will speak truth to power and discredit the NTB brand whenever I can but I will do it in a way that does not make me out to be a grudge-holder. I know they were unable to do the work and they know that too but they still tried and failed and charged me for their failure. NTB SERVICE TECHS FAILED. They failed and still charged me money for their failure which they now refuse to refund and claim that their hands are tied. It is this that makes them cunts. Would you bring your car to a mechanic whose hands are tied?

For me to ignore this would be irresposible because they also need to learn their lesson as I have learned: Namely, not to have my van worked on at NTB. I can move forward toward this goal without venom in my heart or hateful words on my lips. This is the universe speaking to me in muted words no different than the rustling of leaves when a deer takes a shit. I move through the placid river of life at times in eddies of sadness and tumult and in times of gentle repose. Money lost is not something I resent or begrudge. I see everything as payment for lessons and the greatest lessons cost the most and I will tell you that $300 is not a significant amount for anything. Wisdom costs much more and the currency doesn't come from your wallet.

I should mention that nothing short of refund will satisfy me. Even if they offered to replace the tires I will refuse. "That van never enters that garage again." will be my comment. You don't complain and then let them touch your car again just like you don't send food back at a restaurant. Either eat it or walk out.

The story isn't over but I've said all I want to say about it.