What do my mosin friends do for a profession???

[boltaction]

Hello,
I like your thinking on the taxes.... Where do I opt out of those?.

[AMCHornet]

No kidding.

We've had a record sales year. I feel a little guilty about that considering how badly off many people are right now.

[boltaction]

Hello,
Yep, we(those deemed as essential workers) kept on working, producing and earning. So, they(the government) didn't have too...
Yet, They can keep their socialist handouts(stimulus checks). So therefore , I'd like too keep my earnings. I think that would be fair and square. Just, my view on the subject.
Oh, and to stay within the original topic. I am a self employed metal fab worker.

[SA1911a1]

I envy you guys who got greasy as kids, working on cars. I never did. I despise anything more difficult than changing the spark plugs and take it to someone to do. Inside of a building, I am the cat's meow and can do anything from the ground up. Need to wire a three way switch, reverse the spin on a three phase motor, hang a door, build a cabinet, design the plumbing system for a skyscraper I am your man, but I don't do cars.

In fact, any more I don't do anything that I don't enjoy doing, except buying groceries. I was born for retirement!

[SA1911a1]

Hello,
Yep, we kept on working, producing and earning. So, they didn't have too...
Yet, They can keep their socialist handouts. So therefore , I'd like too keep my earnings. I think that would be fair and square. Just, my view on the subject.
Oh, and to stay within the original topic. I am a self employed metal fab worker.

Who is this "We and They" you are speaking of? I hope you are not talking about me. I paid in my first Social Security in 1962, and paid into it up to 2017. Four of those years were when I was serving my country. I will not live long enough to get my all of money back so I sure as hell don't want to hear about Socialist shit.

[boltaction]

Hello,
No, Sir. I'm not talking about you. You earned your retirement. Enjoy it.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I envy you guys who got greasy as kids, working on cars. I never did. I despise anything more difficult than changing the spark plugs and take it to someone to do. Inside of a building, I am the cat's meow and can do anything from the ground up. Need to wire a three way switch, reverse the spin on a three phase motor, hang a door, build a cabinet, design the plumbing system for a skyscraper I am your man, but I don't do cars.

In fact, any more I don't do anything that I don't enjoy doing, except buying groceries. I was born for retirement!

Got greasy? You mean still getting greasy, I still fix my own shit because it's the only way it gets done right. Of course all my shit is ancient, I wouldn't know what to do with the newfangled crap made now.

[boltaction]

I envy you guys who got greasy as kids, working on cars. I never did. I despise anything more difficult than changing the spark plugs and take it to someone to do. Inside of a building, I am the cat's meow and can do anything from the ground up. Need to wire a three way switch, reverse the spin on a three phase motor, hang a door, build a cabinet, design the plumbing system for a skyscraper I am your man, but I don't do cars.

In fact, any more I don't do anything that I don't enjoy doing, except buying groceries. I was born for retirement!

Got greasy? You mean still getting greasy, I still fix my own shit because it's the only way it gets done right. Of course all my shit is ancient, I wouldn't know what to do with the newfangled crap made now.

Hello,
Why, you would plug a computer into it and it would tell you why the check engine light was on.... no more trouble shooting anymore.
The young kid at the auto zone didn't understand what a tach and dwell meter was for, he was sure my 1971 VW bus had that port for that computer thing somewhere under the dash....for, all cars have them he claimed. He even offered to look for it, I got a big smile from that one. No thanks,I'll find it was my reply.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I envy you guys who got greasy as kids, working on cars. I never did. I despise anything more difficult than changing the spark plugs and take it to someone to do. Inside of a building, I am the cat's meow and can do anything from the ground up. Need to wire a three way switch, reverse the spin on a three phase motor, hang a door, build a cabinet, design the plumbing system for a skyscraper I am your man, but I don't do cars.

In fact, any more I don't do anything that I don't enjoy doing, except buying groceries. I was born for retirement!

Got greasy? You mean still getting greasy, I still fix my own shit because it's the only way it gets done right. Of course all my shit is ancient, I wouldn't know what to do with the newfangled crap made now.

Hello,
Why, you would plug a computer into it and it would tell you why the check engine light was on.... no more trouble shooting anymore.
The young kid at the auto zone didn't understand what a tach and dwell meter was for, he was sure my 1971 VW bus had that port for that computer thing somewhere under the dash....for, all cars have them he claimed. He even offered to look for it, I got a big smile from that one. No thanks,I'll find it was my reply.

My Model T would blow his mind, so would the Model A, or the '61 Dodge M37 . None of my vehicles have that port under the dash. I get people telling me I should convert my breaker points distributors to electronic with that Petronix device. My reply to that is I know how to deal with breaker points, I have no need for devices to do away with them. With the M37 it would do no good anyway, it has a sealed 24 volt ignition that would not accommodate any devices. Fortunately I have little need for traveling long distances, I actually could accomplish anything I needed a vehicle for with the Model A. Now with Covid I don't leave the property at all, just back and forth to the shop on our own internal roads, everything is shipped in. When you have your own roads there is only one bad driver to worry about. I should have saved every VW bus, no matter how badly rusted. We had them, lots of them, all years and types, they rusted as you looked at them, and fell apart from road salt. Now I see people on youtube repairing them, so badly rusted a good sneeze would blow it apart, and paying serious money for this.

[boltaction]

Hello,
Yes, the prices of the early VW split window buses(pre-68) are insane 50k-100k+, too say the least. Early VW baywindows(pre-72) also hold a very good value 20k-30k+. Only, if we would have known...Boss.
I'm lucky, my 71 pop-top camper bus has lived most of it's life up in a high dessert/alpine region with no salted roads or sea air to rot it... It's a true survivor, the previous owner(original owners son) never messed with or added anything "extra" to it. No hack-up wiring or the sort, it's all stock; even the radio. It's a classic car, that is why it was put on the car trailer first before, the mosins were "fully" secured for the approaching wildfire this last summer... Four miles from the town/lake basin, was way too close for my comfort zone.
Oh, and like others here. I collect old stuff and get it working again. Be it a clock, phonograph, or internal combustion engine driven devices; whatever it may be. Ya Gotta, do something with your spare time.... Beats getting my nails done. Just, One of those non-essential jobs IMO... I can clip my own nails, thank you.
Yep, I'm old stock. And, out of date with todays times....that's fine by me, I understand that. Yet, just. Let me be me and you can be you, and let's just not mesh in the process.... Is all I ask of others.
Hey. But, I am way off topic, excuse me for the rant and or the drama. But, man. I am, ready for this year to be over with....

[boltaction]

Hello,
Yes, the prices of the early VW split window buses(pre-68) are insane 50k-100k+, too say the least. Early VW baywindows(pre-72) also hold a very good value 20k-30k+. Only, if we would have known...Boss.
I'm lucky, my 71 pop-top camper bus has lived most of it's life up in a high dessert/alpine region with no salted roads or sea air to rot it... It's a true survivor, the previous owner(original owners son) never messed with or added anything "extra" to it. No hack-up wiring or the sort, it's all stock; even the radio. It's a classic car, that is why it was put on the car trailer first before, the mosins were "fully" secured for the approaching wildfire this last summer... Four miles from the town/lake basin, was way too close for my comfort zone.
Oh, and like others here. I collect old stuff and get it working again. Be it a clock, phonograph, or internal combustion engine driven devices; whatever it may be. Ya Gotta, do something with your spare time.... Beats getting my nails done. Just, One of those non-essential jobs IMO... I can clip my own nails, thank you.
Yep, I'm old stock. And, out of date with todays times....that's fine by me, I understand that. Yet, just. Let me be me and you can be you, and let's just not mesh in the process.... Is all I ask of others.
Hey. But, I am way off topic, excuse me for the rant and or the drama. But, man. I am, ready for this year to be over with....

[Junk Yard Dog]

Wasn't raised with internet, or message boards, so going off topic means very little to me, and I do it all the time. Seems like nobody has any more job related posts to put up anyway, the rest of us must be unemployed, situation normal for many during Covid.

Fires, yea, in fire country I would be living in an RV, fire it up and bugout in two minutes, same for hurricane country. Fires happen here, small brush type fires that don't get out of hand, lots of rain and snow, humidity, keeps the ground damp. That would also be why the VW's all rusted away. Traces remain, a door here, bumper there, little relics. Found a nice glass snowflake taillight lens the other day, not sure they used them on the bus, but the bug had them in the early 60's.

[awalker1829]

Today’s cars are nothing like real cars and trucks. Too much electronic stuff, most of it unnecessary. The only electronics you need are for the ignition and lights. Everything else is optional. The only electronics on the project bus are the ignition, lights and electro-pneumatic door control. I’m glad my bus has a Hydro-Matic transmission and not the automatic transmission that GM offered on the diesel buses. The Hydra-Matic actually has three different forward gears versus the other automatic transmission. It had three positions-forward-neutral-reverse. Getting it to go into gear was a real pain from what I’ve read and heard from older drivers. The Hydra-Matic is slick as snot. Push the lever and it slips right into gear. That kid at the service counter probably wouldn’t know what a Hydra-Matic is.

As for technology, I was a teenager when the internet came online for the public. I carried spare change for use if I needed to use a pay telephone. If you wanted to communicate with friends or family, you either called the person or wrote a letter. When my parents first got their pilots licenses, the way you figured your position was by plotting it on a map-no computerized GPS then. You did radio navigation by taking a bearing off two different radio beacons. Your position was where the lines crossed.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Today’s cars are nothing like real cars and trucks. Too much electronic stuff, most of it unnecessary. The only electronics you need are for the ignition and lights. Everything else is optional. The only electronics on the project bus are the ignition, lights and electro-pneumatic door control. I’m glad my bus has a Hydro-Matic transmission and not the automatic transmission that GM offered on the diesel buses. The Hydra-Matic actually has three different forward gears versus the other automatic transmission. It had three positions-forward-neutral-reverse. Getting it to go into gear was a real pain from what I’ve read and heard from older drivers. The Hydra-Matic is slick as snot. Push the lever and it slips right into gear. That kid at the service counter probably wouldn’t know what a Hydra-Matic is.

As for technology, I was a teenager when the internet came online for the public. I carried spare change for use if I needed to use a pay telephone. If you wanted to communicate with friends or family, you either called the person or wrote a letter. When my parents first got their pilots licenses, the way you figured your position was by plotting it on a map-no computerized GPS then. You did radio navigation by taking a bearing off two different radio beacons. Your position was where the lines crossed.

Big cast iron hydramatic drive, in your case the 655 pound Truck Hydramatic bus version with angle drive. GM was continually upgrading that transmission, it was used in some tanks during the war before it made it into a bus. The two speed options were the Dynaflow from Buick division, and Chevy's cast iron powerglide, both two speed. The best of the three was the Hydramatic, that's why it made it into Cadillac after being tested on the 1940 Oldsmobile . In 1953 a fire took out the Hydramatic plant causing all sorts of chaos for a good chunk of GM, and the entire auto industry. For instance Lincoln also used GM's hydramatic, so did Hudson, and a number of other makes. All sorts of strange arrangements had to be made, mostly with Borg Warner, to get replacement transmissions for these makes. GM just used the Dynaflow, or the Powerglide in place of the Hydra for a few months until production came back on line. This led to a lot of confusion in the parts business for years after this when customers would call for a 1953 Cadillac transmission, and find out they had a late '53 model with the Buick transmission. I still have a Pontiac, and probably an Oldsmobile Hydramatic hidden away in storage that we pulled from wrecks 55-60 years ago.
The only place you would find the internet when I was starting out was in science fiction with Robby the Robot. The 200,000 greasy fingerprints on the pages of my old service manuals show were I went when I needed to know specs on something. Small town back then, not many pay phones, the black western electric wall phone was what we used, rotary dial, and we were still small enough that when you asked for a number you might hear some letters . We didn't have as many fancy toys, but we had a fuck of a lot more fun than now.

[Longcolt44]

I grew up until I was 7 in the Northern Calif. city of Chico. We had a three-party phone, we were assigned the 2nd ring of that three-party group. I still remember that number from 1952, 243OJ. We didn't get to be a two-car family until we moved to San Jose in 1955, mom had a '53 Oldsmobile, and dad had a '49 Ford. I had a BB gun and got my first rifle, a Winchester Model 94, in 1958 when I turned 14. I passed it to my son last year as he started hunting.

[Ironnewt]

Spent entirely too long as a Police Officer in a municipality in Maryland. I get a good pension but most of my friends are / were on the job and it’s tough to see them with all the BS going on.

[rice paddy daddy]

After one 3 year enlistment in the Army, I got out. A tour in Vietnam convinced me that was not an ideal career for me.
i went to work as a laborer in a lumber yard and spent the next 45 years in building products wholesale distribution.
At the end, I retired as a warehouse manager, in 2016.
I still work part time delivering parts for a huge and very well known auto parts company, to help make ends meet and get enough saved up to go to my annual reunions of the 5th Infantry Division.
My wife is disabled and runs our little homestead which includes a vegetable garden, a mess of chickens, a horse and 4 dogs.
I supported all this on my paycheck alone for decades which is why there are no "retirement savings."

When the building boom was roaring in the 90's and up to the Recession, I would get quarterly profit sharing bonuses. I had an agreement with The Wife that this was "found money" to be spent any way I chose. And I chose guns and ammo. (I have absolutely no worries about past or current ammo shortages )
Although being an Old Soldier I gravitate towards military weapons, I do have civilian ones as well.

[Miller Tyme]

Started out doing plumbing, but I like new work, and there is no money in it, the money is in the service end, but broken sewer lines and toliets full of shit didn't appeal to me. So I went back to school and switched trades, been doing Commerical HVAC Service work for over 35yrs now and I have never regretted the decision.

[awalker1829]

One of my retired coworkers was retired USAF. He went in during Vietnam and did a full twenty years. When he got out, he went to work for the Clerk of Superior Court and worked until he could get full retirement here. So he's now actually retired and gets three checks a month from the government-military retirement, state retirement and social security. He got a VA loan to buy his house and can get healthcare through the VA if he wants it. I'll work to get my retirement here, then may do something else depending on circumstances when I get to that point.

[bogozzo]

For just under a year now I've sat in a converted bedroom, watching and creating videos. ( Down boy, thegy're all clean, I teach college level IT, accounting and business strategy via Zoom type classes ). Looks like I'll be stuck with that routine until at least Sept and maybe even Dec of this year.

Of course sitting that close to a browser in a boring meeting is dangerous - 6 "new" Mosins since last August managed to find their way to the mancave.