Friday evening we went directly from the train station to dinner, and then to the pharmacy to pick up pills for the cat. On our way out of there we got a text from our neighbor, who invited us to a friends-only showing of Frozen in Ellicott City. There’s a wine store right on Main Street who hosts a movie night in the summertime, projected onto a screen hung from the side of the building. The weather was perfect so we picked up a fleece blanket and some snacks at the store, and got there just in time for the movie. It was late by the time we got Finn into bed, but definitely worth it.
Sunday was Mother’s Day, and Jen wanted to tackle the garden. We raked, trimmed, and cleared out the vegetable garden, moved some netting around, and dropped straw on this year’s crop. Then we cleaned out the other beds, bought some mulch, and straightened up the rest of the backyard. It’s always amazing what an afternoon of solid work can accomplish.
In the interest of getting rid of some shit, I’ve been looking around the house at potential sale items with a mercenary eye. As mentioned before, I got rid of an engine stand that was taking up garage space, and today I sold an unused camera bag to a guy in D.C. I’ve got some other camera equipment on CL for sale, and I’m going to expand the list to some computer gear and some unused tools. Along with Craigslist, we have an epic yard sale planned, which means we have to find time to hump five years of baby gear out of the attic to prep for display.
w00t! It was close, but a Scout hood will fit in a CR-V.
I also picked up a cardboard glovebox liner to replace the one I’ve got. Meanwhile, Bennett loaded up Heavy D with four fenders, a hood, a couple of driveshafts, and miscellaneous smaller parts I can’t recall. So now I’ve got a complete spare front clip tucked neatly away in the garage, awaiting a date with the soda blaster.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
We were finishing up an errand last night when we got a late invitation to an open-air showing of Frozen in Ellicott City last night. Even though it ended way past Finn’s bedtime, I can’t think of a better way to have seen the movie.
I forgot to post about this a few weeks ago–I sold my droopy secondhand Harbor Freight engine stand on Craigslist for $40, after it proved it couldn’t stand up to the weight of an International 345 (advertised weight: 700 lbs.) I got it for free about five years ago after helping a friend load a storage container for shipping out west, so it never owed me anything, and it’s good to have space back in the garage. That money goes into the project fund.
Another friend posted a pile of parts for free on Facebook, so I’m going to head down to Annapolis on the weekend to pick up the only sheetmetal I don’t have a spare for: a hood. He’s got two in good shape, so I’ll add it to the collection:
| Driver door | Tahitian Red, great shape |
| Passenger door | Tahitian Red, great shape |
| Driver fender | Winter White |
| Shitty blue repaint | |
| Passenger fender | Tahitian Red |
| Tailgate | Tahitian Red, in great shape |
| Windshield | Light Buckskin. Minor pitting |
| Tahitian Red. Minor pitting, still has glass | |
| Front grille and valance | ’72 model year, Frost Green; in great shape |
| Cowl cover | Winter White, in great shape |
| Inner fenders | decent shape, need some rustproofing and patching |
I’m really, really tempted to replace some of my sheetmetal with spare parts so that I can go for the full harlequin effect. I wish I had a good door in a different color.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Bike EXIF shows up in my Flipboard feed, and I occasionally browse through it to look at pretty motorcycles. Imagine my surprise when I recognized the name of the owner of this very pretty ride: the Loaded Gun Customs Triton, owned by an old acquaintance from back in the day.
Don’t show up to meet me with $32 in your pocket when I clearly stated the price was $40 firm, and then tell me your wife has your bankcard. You had the opportunity to tell me that via text before you wasted my time. Douche.
Look at that girl. Just look at her. We took her to the Kinetic Sculpture Race on Saturday, and with her pink tutu she fit right in.
There’s 5 gallons of session IPA in the fermenter downstairs. My neighbor and I attempted to swap out the radiator in his Corvette yesterday morning but the lack of low-profile ramps and the integrated design of the radiator assembly prevented us from getting it done. So, we pulled out our equipment and brewed beer instead. My new pot is fabulous, but designed for 5-gallon batches, so the temperature sensor is placed about 2″ too high to be of use.
I’m 3/4 of the way through Life, by Keith Richards. It’s a fascinating history of his life, and the story of the Rolling Stones. I’m just getting up to Emotional Rescue or so in the timeline, and the story just keeps getting better.
Unscientific Observation About Modern Country Music, Based On a Five-Hour Pandora Playlist While Brewing Beer:
Country music spends just as much time asserting its genuine lower-middle-class authenticity as hip-hop and rap spends glorifying material wealth and success. What does that say about modern America?
I don’t have any money to be spending on the Scout right now, but one of the things on the to-do list is to rebuild a spare carburetor. I have two spares, one of which is of uncertain provenance and the other a direct pull from a Scout. Given that Carter made a million modifications to the Thermoquad over its lifespan, I thought I’d put the spare side by side with my working carb to see what visual differences I could pick out.
Apart from the extra arm attached to the main throttle linkage, they look identical to me. I did a brief comparison to my third spare, and that one isn’t even in the same family. The main body is cast differently, and there are a handful of inlets and outlets that don’t match up to the ones I’ve got, or are completely missing.
From what it looks like, most carb rebuild kits are ~$50. Peer Pressure has been getting harder to start reliably, so some carb adjustment is definitely moving up the priority list, and having a pair to tear down will help in familiarizing myself with these complicated beasts.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.