Labor Day 2008 – Mike describes the origin of mikeroweWORKS.com

Click here to watch the video.

SRW’s 4-1/2 cents:

I’m really bugged about something and I’ve decided to throw it out there. Here’s my question – Are the American farmers heading towards the same fate as America’s auto industry? I know some of you are already thinking “What the heck is this guy talking about?” but just stay with me for a few minutes.

I had a real interesting conversation the other day with a friend of mine. She was raised a God-favouring, true blue American gal. She believes in and supports America, proudly wears red, white and blue and even thought about enlisting in the Navy back in 1975 when she graduated high school. She wore a POW bracelet for 6 years (interestingly the name on it was John McCain III). She considers herself a moderate conservative and honestly, truly believes she puts her money where her mouth is. So what happens is she gets hooked on this thread started in our Water Cooler last year called Ford Pays For Its Prudence. (Check it out – it’s still going on.) Anyway, Mike posted there several times and got this gal to thinking about stuff. Turns out she’s owned a BMW for 21 years, is quite happy with it and hopes it lasts her the rest of her life. It also turns out that she had never considered buying an American car because she learned that foreign cars held their value better and, depending on what it was, lasted longer than American cars and she works hard for her salary and likes to get the best bang for her buck. In fact, because of those “facts” she had sworn she’d never buy an American car.

Then this auto crisis slams the country and all of a sudden she’s paying attention. She’s really troubled by the whole deal, the effect on our country’s economy and is concerned about all the folks who lost their jobs and families impacted by the disaster with no end in sight. To top it all off, billions of our hard earned tax dollars start getting pumped into 2 failing companies to prevent them from going into bankruptcy (again). And it’s not like we got a lot of extra dollars to spare, right? (Between you and me, I think we’re throwing good money after bad but that’s another story…)

Anyway, to cut to the chase, she tells me that because of that Ford/Prudence discussion, she realized that she was talking out of both sides of her mouth. She loves the good old US of A but is going to buy foreign cars for the rest of her life? What’s up with that? And now her tax dollars are going to support a couple of companies who are happily taking those tax dollars to keep them afloat. All of a sudden who cares if her BMW lasts forever and held its value better than a Chevy – that car just cost her (and millions of us) about what… $ 300,000 in taxes used as bail-out money? I dunno, you do the math but my point is that had everyone who says they support America bought American, would our auto industry be in the pathetic condition it is at the moment? I’ll go out on a limb and say nope. In fact, I’d bet on it. Read More...

On a recent episode of Dirty Jobs, Mike spent the day as a chicken buster in Miami. According to the Miami Department of Code Enforcement wild chickens roaming the streets are quite a problem. Since they started rounding up the wild chickens, they’ve collected over six thousand of the fowl and raised over 10,000 dollars for charity.

Of course that’s not the only thing the Department of Code Enforcement rounds up. They’ve also roped in 381 illegal gambling machines, 997 abandoned cars, 495 junk in yards and 635,541 solid waste citation violations. Sounds like Mike could find plenty of dirty work with those hard working folks.

When it comes to animal roundups, the first thing that pops into the mind are cattle drives. It seems like you can’t have a good western movie without a rip roaring cattle drive happening. Even with all the modern technology that has come to the farming industry, cattle herds still need to be driven. Luckily for us, we can have our own “City Slickers” type adventure. Equitours offers up a wide array of cattle drive vacations. You can also find opportunities to bring in the herd at the Double E Ranch in Gila, New Mexico or the Bitterroot Ranch up in Wyoming. Although you’re sure of plenty of fun, these are considered working vacations. You can get the basics of cattle roundups here. Although if you’re not a skilled rider, you might want to consider signing up for chuck wagon duty. Read More...