look

140mph in 1938. That is with one of those ChittyChittyBangBang engines. Think your car would do 140? Could you do 140?

I lifted this video and link from one of the posts on the HAMB.



If you like the looks of this book, follow the link for an excerpt.

http://wediditforlove.com/techtalk18.html


I am sure this book would make an excellent gift, should you be wondering what I might like for Presidents Day or something. It's outta print, so scour your swap meets. If you see it on ebay, don't bid against scottb396.

oohgeez

shit, that is cool

RIP: Pete Possum

It is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you of the passing of one Pete Possum. It seems that Pete passed peacefully, early this morning, of natural causes (perhaps exposure). The discovery was made early today, by KVC. I administered last rights, following coffee and a beer in Pete's honor.

Pete Possum became a regular fixture in the backyard over the past year. In keeping with the particularly private nature of opossum, he maintained a casual distance most of the time. It is believed that Pete may have taken up residence in the pool house (ugly shed) and was often spotted, plodding about the grounds.

It has been reported that Pete Possum relocated from the Pittsburgh/Antioch area. Previously, Pete Possum had pursued education at the Episcopal Opossum Priory, located on the plateau above Pismo Beach, in an effort to become a pastor. His pursuit of this education was said to have come from a brief turn in the penitentiary, due to a police intervention related to an incident involving a large quantity of PCP and a number of opossum prostitutes. Rehabilitated and armed with a new found belief in God, Pete was released into the public pronouncing his love for people and opossum alike.

In both his preachings and in practice, Pete Possum lived his life with dignity, charity and elan.

Plans for a Pete Possum Perpetuity Program are pending.

bitchin bird

I lifted this from KVC's photo album.
The link is fixed, if you click on KVC, down in the links.
There are pics there, in the album.
KVC took them, the pics.



I had some idea for a long winded post about something.
That bird picture seemed a lot more interesting.
I have the rambling thoughts all of the time.

So, I am giving you the bird.
The bird picture.

bigger pics

I had the cars out of the drive to rake up leaves, the sun was out, so I took a couple pictures. These aren't the usual phone pics, they are big and well lit - so you can see things.
Yeah, I know there are dents - and yeah I chose to leave them.

old Bonneville footage

cont'd


some more of this film, into drag racing

glowing cats

Did you here about that Korean guy who whipped up a few glow-in-the-dark cat clones?
How awesome is that?
They glow red even!
Ooh, the cat being cloned acted as the surrogate mother, too!
The guy tweaked some skin gene before implantation and made clone cats that glow red!




I have been working on this plan to take over the world for a number of years now. One of the greatest obstacles, as in any new business venture, has been staffing.
You know, I need to recruit menacing henchmen and goons.
There is the training, payroll and benefits.
It's a huge headache, when I need to be focused on the monorail and the moon base and everything else.


This cat story has me riled up though!
Think of the possibilities!

I can't really say too much, since it would reveal secret parts of the master plan.



Just picture a glow-in-the-dark cat clone army...



That is some bad-ass shit, right?

That is the sort of thing that will put a plan for global dominance over the top.

Fear & Loathing

So, I am a bit of a Hunter Thompson nut. I, on occasion, am convinced that no other writer has approached his expertise in lining up words.
So, anyway, I am also a bit obsessive.

When you put the "Fear & Loathing" bit out there folks automatically revert to Las Vegas. A fine book, sure.
Folks pass right over Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972, which to my thinking is far and away a better bit of the HST pantheon.

My obsessive bit has me reading this book as a prelude to every presidential election season. Every four years I read the accounts of the McGovern campaign, possible drug abuse by Ed Muskie, the ghost of Bobby Kennedy and the gloom of a possible win by Nixon.

What does the '72 campaign season have to do with our current political situation, you are rightly thinking. That HST guy was a doped up nut job, might be your discount.

This book still holds truth out in dirty hands. There are quotes and accounts that by changing a few words or names could read from tomorrows newspaper. F&L'72 addresses an election season which bares shocking resemblence to our current situation.

Clairvoyant.
Or history repeating.
Or history unchanged.

Beyond all of that, the book provides a strong reminder that politicians are, generally, grimy dangerous whores - and that in spite our eternal optimism the party machinations will serve up a shit salad to keep the old hacks happy.

remember this?

I was shootin' it with Mr. Ed the other day at work. We were talking about the old wheelyboard things.
I pulled reference to this SMA video out of the back corners of my mind.
This footage is nearly twenty years old. Can that be?

On this day...

...some eight years ago, KVC and I declared our betrothedness in a very real and legally binding way.

So, it turns out that the eighth anniversary is the bronze anniversary. According to those lists of traditional anniversary gifts, bronze. Which, I guess means you get weird sculptures of cowboys riding horses, or whales swimming, or used third place medals?

profile

I loaned the hoist to the crazy neighbor, to keep myself from doing this every three days. It has been a bit since I piled all the parts together and stared at them, though.

I think heaping it all together and such may have shook a windshield idea out of my head. Sort of a cowling/windshield thing that combines two our three ideas I have been pondering separately. I need to maybe just make it, to explain it.

alternator squeeze

That'll never work. I mean it fits there, but it just fits, no adjustment.
I'm working on it...

Finally, some political action...

What with the two or three hundred "major candidates" battling in this two party dumptruck race to America's doom, it seems like it is about time for some real old fashioned politicking. Finally, some action.

Some good money laundering sorta allegations. The traditional name-calling getting warmed up. A bonus wack job taping some road flares to the chest in a bid to influence American politics.
Well, the last one really picks it up a bit, doesn't it?

This race needs some real action.

No candidate from either party has really stepped up to do some krazy talkin' which has me a bit bummed.
Sure, Barack and John have gotten out on that edge a bit. That is to be expected, though. They are bound to.

I am kind of hoping that Big Fred Thompson is the guy who gets all wiggy this go around, personally. He seems mentally vacant and morally vapid enough to really get cranked up for one or two primaries, only to slide into a decline of prescription drug propped neo-con freak talk about how we're all going to hell if he isn't elected.

The Dirtbombs

If you don't already have a look.

The Death of Evel

It would seem that Mr Knievel has made the giant jump to the otherside.

I have to say, in spite of his total nutjob nature, I have some respect for the guy. I am sorry that he is gone. Evel Knievel was an inspiration to me growing up, maybe.

Shit, he had that awesome get-up. He introduced a generation to tough talking, bravado. There was that bitchin' (actually kind of lame) wheelie bike toy thing.
When dudes like Burt Reynolds and Bo&Luke were making the act of jumping cars look like a Sunday drive, Evel was showing us reality.
And he came back for more.

How many guys have enough passion (or level of insanity) to repeatedly throw themselves into a speeding ball of broken bones - just because. The many missed attempts to hurdle enormous obstacles are what everybody remembers, forgetting the crazy stunts he actually pulled off.
Nothing but gravity would stand in the way of that man and his vision.
Not a hundred cars.
Not some giant casino water fountain.
No gaping maw of a canyon.
Not even Kanye West and a pack of lawyers.

I would bet money that he knew his crazy rocket sled was headed straight into Hell's Canyon. God-dammit, he said he was going to do it though. He lit the wick 'cause it needed to be done, slag off whatever laws of natue might stand in the way.

So here is to Evel Knievel.
Go do a wheelie, or something similar, in his honor.

conditions are perfect

R&R

That has been the theme for the weekend, rest and relaxation.

I guess I needed it. KVC has a good reason for all the snoozing, but I have been getting about ten hours of sleep a day.
You know it may be the season. Dozing conditions have been near perfect, a slight chill to the air and a gray sky. The ratio of blankets to degrees celcius seems to directly impact my ability to deny waking.

On the relaxation front, well, we have been snacking and movie watching. I putzed about the garage a bit as well. I haven't really finished anything out there, but a pace of completion might be less relaxing.

I suppose I should actually do some things today.
Tomorrow it' back to the salt mines...

sorting the office a bit...

it's gotta nice beat

you can dance to it

doing some plumbing for gas and the trans cooler

GM

notice the cars in the background...I don't think this was some special parking area at a car show...just some pit area at some dragstrip...in Kansas, I think...not many Fords there...I think there is the roofline of one in the back...hidden behind some of my favorite of the General's offerings...

baboons

Have I mentioned that I am somewhat obsessed about baboons, recently?
I don't have a good explanation. Baboons...
There might be some need to explore this visually.
You know, with the paints and the what not.

Turkey?

Are you thinking about Turkey?
I bet you are.
How could you not be thinking about Turkey?


I mean it is a pivotal country, in regards to our national interests in the Middle East. There is that bit with the Kurds, which could destabilize the more secure regions in Iraq. There have even been military actions across the border, by the Turks. Plus, you have that whole debate going about the Ottoman genocide of those Albanians pissing off their population and eroding there support of our military operations. Rising strength in their more religious factions, politically.

Turkey.
Whew...

diversionary reading

After all that depressing stuff in Fiasco and the last few books I had read, I needed some antidote. I needed to cruise through some words that were pretty and artful.
So, I have blown through a couple of books by Tom Robbins.
Sure, a read through of "Another Roadside Attraction" and "Jitterbug Perfume" will turn around your mood better than a prescription for the happy pills.

Robbins is a master at lining up words, lyrical story teller and pretty damned funny.
Here is a quick out-take, describing rain, in Seattle...

"Rain poured for days, unceasing. Flooding occurred. The wells filled with reptiles. The basements filled with fossils. Mossy-haired lunatics roamed the dripping peninsulas. Moisture gleamed on the beak of the Raven. Ancient shamans, rained from their homes in dead tree trunks, clacked their clamshell teeth in the drowned doorways of forests. Rain hissed on the Freeway. It hissed at the prows of fishing boats. It ate the old warpaths, spilled the huckleberries, ran in the ditches. Soaking. Spreading. Penetrating."

If you have spent any time in the Puget Sound, you should recognize how nicely it's wetness has been communicated.
That is from "Another Roadside Attraction" - the story of some nutjobs who set up a flea circus and hotdog stand outside of Seattle and eventually come into possession of the mummified body of Jesus. Hilarity ensues and precedes.

Sometimes, reading about wildly absurd things makes it easier to deal ones mundane daily absurdities...

Manliness cont'd...

You can go back to the original manliness post, if you have forgotten that diatribe.

There was the big game today, the biggest game today. The game that is more secular than sport, if you share my home state.
That had me thinking about sports, in general.
That flowed into thinking about E. Hemmingway and his take on sport.

Ernest was of a mind that the only real sports were bullfighting, boxing and motorcycle racing.
I gotta agree with the guy, to some degree.

Those aforementioned activities will really put it to a guy.
You are earning your chonies staring down another man, a charging bull or a concrete barrier.
That guy in the black cloak is coming at you fast, in any of those situations.
The real game of chicken.

Anyway, that is Floyd Emde in that pic. He is about to demonstrate the act of manliness for a crowd at the '40 Oakland 200.

Nuff Said

lack of supervision

As dull as this may seem, when left unattended I begin to polish the transmission.

See, I have been burning the candle at three ends recently. What with work and school and the rest of life, I usually don't get out to the garage until you are wisely in bed.
Out of some basic courtesy I try to keep things quiet in the garage, at two in the morning. That leaves the less loud options for things to do - and there aren't a whole lot.

That is how you end up with polished bellhousing. I started with the 3M pads on the rest of the old tranny, but common sense took hold.

At least until I can't find something more useful to do...

October, First Account

I will bring anything for three
With a dusty smile and a loaded gun
You ask me again, whats in it for me?
Well thanks and tell me come undone

Painted red, our hands are white
I've never seen this place before
Seen through, we're on our way
Through and through each bolted door

Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come
Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come

Wont you help me out? Won't you please help me figure it all out?
We've cut ourselves open a hundred times
We've cut ourselves open a hundred times
But we're not out of ammo yet
But we're not out of ammo yet

Oh now no, won't you help me out? Won't you please help me figure it all out?
We've cut ourselves open a hundred times
We've cut ourselves open a hundred times
But we're not out of ammo yet, not yet
But we're not out of ammo yet, not yet

Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come
Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come
Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come
Driving us down for it's chase
And we run any day we'll skip town
It'll never hear us come



Lyrics thanks to Be Your Own Pet.

Yeah, I am a few days late...

More of the take things apart, paint 'em, put them together again routine.
Humpity Dumpity would be my bitch, 'cause I got this shit down...


Howzabout some LCD Soundsystem to break things up, huh?



Let me know if Daft Punk is playing at your house...

Paint is funny stuff.

I have been painting more stuff on the car, as mentioned previously.

As you may know, I am a bit of a nut-job.
One of my nutty things, about the car, is that I am trying to make things look old. I am trying to make thigs look shiny but old.

See, old shiny paint looks different than new shiny paint. The old stuff does more of a glowing thing in the light, it's less mirror like. Do you know what I mean?

There is this old Buick Skylark that parks at the train station where I park, just once a week. Sundays. It is black and so original it inspires me to covet. It's gloss yet is is not quite glossy. It glows.

Through a crazy process I have been able to recreate that glow (to a close degree) on the T. I'll spare you a detailed description of what I do with/to paint but anyway, I do this nutty shit to make new paint look old.
I influence the paint to think about the history which it covers, we'll say.

Usually, at least.

Paint and I have been differing as of late. Perhaps the change of temperature or humidity have us squabling about the manner in which it lays down. So it is doing it's own thing and some things are a bit more shiny than glowy.

I figure some time will get us on the same page. That, plus me being the only person who will ever notice makes it all equal out.

Fiasco

You have probably heard of this book - "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks. Ricks is a writer for the Washington Post.

Connected would be an apt description of Ricks.
There is long list of sources for his information, most of whom speak on the record.



I think I'll just quote a portion of Daniel Bymen's (also Washington Post) review:

"Indeed, the picture Ricks paints is so damning that it is, at times, too charitable to say that the military and civilian leadership failed. Fiasco portrays several commanders as misguided but trying their best, but others -- particularly the hapless Franks -- appear not to have tried at all. Worse, the overall war and occupation effort lacked the high-level White House coordination essential to victory, allowing Bremer to operate on his own, making major decisions without consulting the Pentagon or the National Security Council, let alone his counterparts on the military side of the occupation."


That fairly well lets you know what those 500 pages are going to confirm for you.
For me, the most compelling thing about the book is the field of vision Ricks is able to translate for the reader - through constant first person narrative.
Stories from the horse's mouth.


Facing the fact that we are going to have troops on the ground in Iraq for years to come, this book provides a great insight into the extent of our failings to date and the depth of the whole we are digging out of.

If you; care about the soldiers sent into harms way, care about our international standing as a country, have any regard for the thousands of Iraqis affected, are old enough to vote - you should probably read it...

SkullBot!

SkullBot F'n Rocks!

Turn your speakers up to 11 and follow this link...

http://www.myspace.com/skullbot




Be amazed by both their youth and their face melting metal.
They inspire hope in the damned young folks.

paint

I swear, there is a lot of stuff to paint when you build a car.
I swear, quick drying paint should dry a lot faster, too...

Sweet

What you see here is:
Butter Pecan Bread Pudding, in a Banana Bourbon Buttersauce
or something like that, it is some god-damned manna from devils stuff,
whatever they call it...

Part of the KVC B-day action, among some other delights from many places.



ANB? Are you tuned in? I swear, I will stuff the above detailed decadence down your gullet, the next time you visit. It is to be had at the Paragon, in the Claremont Hotel. The view can be as sweet as the desert, if the skies are clear.

Facebook?

So, I am on Facebook now.
I am not sure why.
KVC signed up, sent me a link.
You gotta sign up to look.
That would be how they get you.


As an aside, the Facebook dude has been through work a couple of times. Talking about how technology is changing this or that.




I hear a lot of that at work.






So, I guess I should go waste a few hours searching for some friends to network with.
It is going to be awesome!

Apex...

happy halloween

Billy Bragg

Why is it that the limey guys are so good at writing these songs? A few hundred years of bitchin' about politics ahead of us I suppose...



I met Mr. Bragg some years ago, while KVC and I were living in Seattle. He played one of those lunch time shows at work. I think, maybe, a dozen folks showed up. Regardless, he played an amazing set. He talked about life between songs. I took him for a drink, afterwards. It seemed liked he deserved more then he got, for his efforts.

We talked about this and that. He seemed like a guy on the road. More able to talk about life while on a stage. Good guy, none the less.

Anyway, I am reading "Fiasco" at present. The story of the lead up to our most present and ongoing war in Iraq.

This song seemed like a good segway to my coming review...

labels

I hadn't been applying any labels to my posts here, 'cause I am lazy about some things. I had some requests for easier navigation around here, which is somewhat shocking as it means people are actually reading the shite I post here.

So, over there on the right, by the profile stuff are some links for post labels (i.e. all the T posts link to T Blogging). I'll try to make 'em easy to understand.

T Blogging - Fear

Usually, there are pictures associated with the T Blog installments. Not this time. This episode is all about Fear.

See, the big battle in this whole bit of me building a car is, well, I am building a whole fuckin' car. That is a big thing.
It's not like a drawing, or a painting, or a bowl of pasta - it is a few thousand pounds of danger and speed.
This shit could kill somebody. It could kill me.

That is some heavy shit to ponder.

It has hung in the back of my head, since this whole deal got real.

I have cheated injury on a skateboard. I have near missed our maker a few times on the back of a motorcycle.
I have skipped over those details in the process. As I modified motorcycles to loose some pounds or gain some performance, I was able to look past some of the included dangers packaged in the details.

Goin' ground up on this Model T sports car thing I am building, though, it is all on me. See, doubts add time. I question this weld, I look three times at that bolt. That shit all means something. It may mean life or death

Anyway, I was looking at things - again. I was listening to some Metallica (Where Ever I May Roam, if you must know).

I think I may have had a "moment of clarity" as the tipplers say.

It occured to me that the experiences I have had in the process of making things, of bolting bits together are the shit that people tell stories of. I am doing more than building a car. I am building a bit of my own history.

Maybe I wipe a cam. I might even crack the frame I built.

How many people get to say that?

Maybe I break it. Perhaps there are bits that could work better. Shit, the Sausage Creature (get on your HST reading if you don't know who the Sausage Creature is)might lurk at the end of highway some off ramp.

So, I think I have gotten on speaking terms with the Fear. The two of us will push through the stuff that needs to get done to build a car. We'll go on a drive together...




Go listen to DJ B Mellow, on KEXP. He is rockin' it tonight, and you are a cracker that could use some black and brown.

not long ago...

not that long ago you could open up a catalog and order this-



I gotta say, it seems like we've gotten off track a bit. C'mon, shouldn't a guy be able to order one of these up? Doesn't everybody deserve the choice, at least?

Plus, I bet there would be a lot less road rage if'n you could get a bit of this action on the weekends.



The work week would be nicer after some seat time in your own dragster, too. I bet your ears would be ringing 'til Thursday.

Paper Planes

this song is stuck in my head...

Are you Guilty?

Well, are you?

I am pretty sure that I am.
I am pretty upset about it too.
Cleary, I have not been paying attention to politics as closely as I should have been. I don't think I am alone, though, Congress has been doing a nice job of looking the other way as well.
So, I am feeling a bit pissed and a bit duped.

What the hell am I talking about?

Did you really look through the Military Commissions Act, that Congress passed through a year ago?
No, of course not. I didn't either, don't feel like I am judging you.

Do you realize that it gives the executive branch complete authority to circumvent the other branches of government, suspend habeus corpus, along with the rest of your Constitutional rights.

Well, it does.
The President just has to give the word and declare you an "enemy combatant."

Sure, you are thinking "Scott, the President isn't going to say I am some 'enemy combatant'."

I am just pointing out that he could. Maybe for something you say. Maybe for taking a picture of something you shouldn't. It has aleady happened to a lucky few citizens around the country.

Maybe (for some delusional moment I'll never understand) you are confident in your current President - and trust that would never happen to either one of us. What about the next chump we dump into the big White House? Are you sure you can trust that person? They might be from the other side of the aisle.
It could (technically) be Ralph Nader!
Now how do you like that?
I would reason that any damned moderate elephant backer might be considered an "enemy combatant" by Mr. Nader.


Anyway, I am all fired up because I just finished "End of America" by Naomi Wolf. It should be required fucking reading if you have a brain and are an American citizen.





You might be aware that I am a bit analytical. I usually will read a book two or three times, to make sure I didn't miss something. There is usually a gap of a few months between readings. I have gone through this book twice in a week, then found the 467 pages of the MCA on line and skimmed through them. Every page makes me more angry and more frightened by our present political landscape.

So what am I guilty of?
I am guilty of not looking at what my legislature is doing.
I am guilty of allowing my rights to be picked from my pocket.
I am guilty of letting this administration erode the foundations of my freedoms in the name of delivering freedom to the other side of the world.

Get on it, go read this book.

October?

Shit. It is October already?
I don't really have anything to post.
I am avoiding actually getting something done,
by sitting here, screwing around on the old computimator-interweb-machine.

KVC has new pics up, from her last Asia trip. My link doesn't work, from here.
I'll get the link fixed, so you can see some pics...


Note: I actually did fix the link to KVC's photo album thingy.

Idiots will Kill you.

So, I missed the link to the actual study, but doctors in some EU country just completed a study on the impact of working/dealing with idiots has on ones health.

It turns out that your exposure to the jack-ass at work is more likely to lead to your death than smoking or drinking or most other things, actually.

That dipshit that shreds your work, occupies your day with dumb e-mails, well shit the list of dopey coworker activity is friggin' endless.

That is what is going to do you in.


I have come to terms with the old mortal coil and all, but damn, the fact that the shit-heads at work are surely taking time off my ticker pisses me off.
The fact that it upsets me is just the thing that is doing me in.
Vicious cycle, huh...

No escape from this either, as I can tell, there are dullards at every turn.

The Lump

Yeah, the lump is together. This time the bolts mean it, as they snuggle up with the various threads holding things together.

HRB helped me drop the bottom end in place, opened beers and got peanut shells all over the floor last week. I popped the pistons in on Sunday and have been sticking various bits on since then.

Somehow, it seems bigger than before. Sure as hell, it's a lot heavier when all those parts are together than on their own.


There is little stuff I will obsessively detail, yet. It's cool to see it together anyway...

Labor Day

May your Labor Day weekend be soaked in beer and bar-b-que sauce, roasted under the sun's sweat oven.




Before we all started sitting in cubicles for seventy hours a week, folks in America worked Hard. Sure, there have always been desk jockeys and ditch diggers. The ratio for either category has been inverted, perhaps.

Back when there were more steel mill workers than individual Wal-Mart locations, they came up with the idea to give those hard toiling folks a day off.

Big business complained about it, of course. They complained about the end of child labor. They paid thugs to burry clubs deep into the skulls of union organizers. Etc.
That sort of frivolity is bad for productivity and profits.

A few folks agreed, though, folks could use a day off.


Anyway, enjoy Labor Day...

13 Months

See that alternator there. I put it in there about thirteen months ago.
Do you care to guess how long the warranty on that alternator was?




Bastards.

Another Roadside Attraction

So, I just made my way through a re-read of Tom Robbins "Another Roadside Attraction"

I gotta say that it has been a while since I have read anything by Robbins, but it was good to wade into the less/more than solid worlds which he creates. His writing of the weather in the Northwest is spot on. Cool characters fill out the story which includes a lovely baboon, various atypical carny-types and the recently discovered body of Jesus (not a Mexican guy).

Anyway, you should read it, if you want to. I am sure this review is much worse than the book itself...

Oh, c'mon...Iran?

I think we can all fairly well agree that the country is waste deep in some uncomfortable shit. I will spare us from using the word "quagmire" because the conservatives in the crowd hate that - ties to bad memories make for bad press and all. What in the hell is our executive branch doing.

All of the recent escalated posturing regarding Iran and their "special designated terrorist" guard seems like greater nut-ball thinking than anything the White House has delivered in their tenure. They have floated the concept of airstrikes through the press, what since the UN has not been quick enough on more sanctions.

Beyond the fact that we are already fighting on two fronts and all, what of the global economic effects of these saber rattles?

Oh, top generals have snuck conversations of the need to crank up the draft again.
The stock market is flopping around like a fish on the dock.


I need to watch "Mad Max" again. Lots of decent reference material in that movie...

The Draw of the Dairy...

It is that time of year, when decent, good-hearted natives of the great state of Ohio begin to hear the internal call of the ButterCow.

Moooah, moooahh!

She calls out to our internal butter-fat gauges, beckoning us to eat iced cream, and chase it down with a milk shake.
Ohh, ButterCow, how you tempt us...

You see, the ButterCow (like Santa) is only around during a very specific time of year - during the Ohio State Fair.

There is some debate about whose state fair is the largest/greatest, amongst the states that might debate that kind of thing - but I digress. I am sure that the great ButterCow would not be hanging around any but the best of state fairs. I mean, really, the frickin' ButterCow!


Anyway, the ButterCow graces the Ohio heartland with an appearence only during the Ohio State Fair. She is the golden glow of her own sunshine, bathing all in her presence with a rich, creamy goodness - in the hall of the Dairy Building at the fair. Loyal followers of the great ButterCow pay homage to her grace by partaking in various dairy based delicacies, and admiring the fittest specimens of her bovine relatives.

Mother, some day, we shall gaze upon the great ButterCow together, again. We shall eat the iced cream. It will be glorious.

This is what KVC looks like, texting, at a pub.

made some shiny things...

shiny stuff showing up...

that is the gauge cluster I had stashed away, an Old's I think, in a chunk of alloy I cut and swirled up

I have not really messed with aluminum before this little project, but now that there is some here there will be some brackets and such fabbed from it...

Proof of Life

Evidence that I am still alive...
...in spite of my lack of communications.

The celebration of my birth has been completed.
I feel older.
All of the gifts and cards were received, appreciated, enjoyed.
I worked a bunch last week.
Not for busy-ness but for stupidity.
You might imagine the joy I did derive from that.
Midterms have been completed, fairly well.

Spare time has been spent noodling on the car.
A proposed visit by HRB to fire the engine...
...has me trying to get to the point,
the point where one could actually fire the engine.
I have come to realize that there is a whole big list,
of things that need to happen,
for that to happen.

So, I am keeping myself busy.

Shock and Awe

So, KVC is on her way to Europe. An "inspiration" trip, reportedly.
We could all use a bit of the old inspiration, every now and again...

Today was also the Asphalt Invitational. One of those car shows I have used as a motivator, to get my own project done. I thought maybe I would get things together in time for this show, and a list of others, but no...

I didn't go to the Invitational, for the doing of domestic things and to work on the T a bit.

I did some yard work stuff, to cross off some chores on the List.

Following that I did some very manly stuff, finishing the floor in the Model T. Lots of time with a welder, hammer and grinder. Sparks flew. Manly stuff. indeed.

As I was nearing the end of tasks, I decided it would be good to order a pizza. See, it would add closure to the guy stuff - plus provide some nourishment in the coming week. So, I did, order a pizza that is...

Well, I opened up the garage door to air out the acrid welding smoke, ya know.

I cracked open another High Life and took in my afternoon's work.

Real manly, you can picture it surely.

I took notice of Derald's double-barrel, which serves as a reference to things extra John Wayne-esque, and realized that it could use a bit of oil.

Naturally, I hunkered down on the frame of the Model T and got to oiling that shotgun straight away.


So, pizza-guy shows up to a perceived maniac, in a garage roiling with smoke and the scent of burnt metal, swilling beer and polishing a shotgun on the chassis of what must be some illegal manner of automobile.
His teen, suburban California frame of reference has most all of these things available only in video games, with no connection to the real world.
Pizza-guy was somewhat disquieted.

Good pizza, though...

creepy crawlers

Hey! There are black widow spiders around.
Like the one posing in the above photo.

Didja know they are really good jumpers?
Me neither...
Well, they are. Wow.

This is number three, that I know of,
passing through the garage as of late.
She, above, is not the largest one I have had
the pleasure of encountering.
I watched the really big one grab some other
normal spider, kill it and drag it off into the
privacy of a dark corner. Lunch.


So, that got me to thinking about the "Black Widow"
sedans that Chevy built in the 50's...