Thanks to Mama for the excellent photo!
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
This morning I screwed up my courage and drove the Scout into work because the forecast is 90° and sunny. I haven’t had time to change the fluids or replace plugs and wires, so she still runs rich and stinky, but she runs and that’s good enough for me. I had a brief moment of fear when I drove up to the “maximum height” sign at the entrance to the garage and realized I could touch it with my fingers, but the windshield cleared it with about six inches to spare.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Saturday we treated Finn to her first IKEA visit, venturing down to College Park in search of picture frames and some other minor items. Even though she was disappointed at the lack of merchandise in the downstairs marketplace (they’re remodeling, so there’s about 1/20th of the usual stuff available) she bounced up and down excitedly in the cart and flirted with everyone she saw.
Sunday I took her shopping with me right after her morning nap, and we hit a grand total of five stores before it was time to head home. We shopped for gel repellent to combat the infestation of tiny ants we’ve had since the rain started, bought some small items at the Home Depot, hit two different auto parts stores to find a fuel hose for the Scout, and the grocery store. Everywhere we went, she got smiles and laughs and waves, and she was content to bounce in the backpack, sit on my shoulders (and eat my hair), or simply ride on my hip while I took care of business.
Our garden is coming along nicely. We’ve got three healthy broccoli plants bearing fruit, our cukes are all flowering and climbing, and we’ve got tomatoes coming in. The asparagus seems to be doing well, although the first trench we dug is flooded completely. We took some time last week to pinch the tomato plants back drastically in the hopes that they won’t get leggy and grow out of control as in years past, and it seems to be working. We also took some time last night to wrap the grape arbor in netting to prevent the birds from feasting; it looks like we’ll have another bumper crop of grapes this year.
In the afternoon, I replaced the aforementioned fuel filler hose on the Scout. After some wrangling with a balky hose clamp, I got the new one in place and took it for a test fill in the afternoon sunshine: success.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
This gorgeous green hunk of fiberglas and American iron is what remains of Chewbacca. When last I saw her, she was white, without a nose, and only temporarily set on the frame. She’s now mounted solidly, sprayed a beautiful shade of Medium Green, and ready for electrics and finish work. God, that’s a beautiful sight.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Plates are on, and I took my first spin around the block this evening. W00t!
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I’ve got a friend who has a lot of stuff. Before you tell me that you’ve got a lot of stuff, I should take a moment to describe the type of stuff I’m talking about: Surplus metal crates full of air tools. Ammunition in quantities I’ve not seen outside of a gun store. Welding generators. A fully refurbished, counterbalanced mount for a 50 caliber machine gun. 22″ CRT color monitors. Two Unimogs. Three years ago, he moved to the west coast, and last summer I helped him empty a warehouse and load a 20 foot box trailer. We needed an industrial forklift and several pallet jacks to move everything. He trailered the Unimogs separately and had them stored with the rest of his gear, somewhere in the wilds of Oregon.
Talking with him a few months ago, he casually mentioned that he’d sold the Unimogs on a whim—the right offer came along out of the blue, and he took it. Shocked, I asked him why he’d done it; after all, he had plenty of space to store them, he’d been talking about restoring them for years, and he’d already told me about his plans for them when he was done. “Made a snap decision the other week when someone showed an interest. Took too long to drive out to where they were; I wasn’t spending enough time enjoying them.”
This is also the guy who once told me, laughing, “Never get attached to any of your stuff. It’s just stuff.”
As he’s someone I respect and admire, I’ve tried to follow his example as much as I can in the last couple of years. I tend to hold on to things way too long, and I develop ridiculous ‘relationships’ with my stuff—as faithful readers of this here website know already. I’ve actually been pretty good about jettisoning some of my crap this year, inspired by his example and that of my wife, who is ruthless in culling the debris from her life.
With all that in mind, I made the decision a month ago to finally list the Scout on a few bulletin boards in an effort to sell it. The first few bites weren’t promising— a few online tire-kickers who didn’t read the parts that clearly stated “Does not run” and “Will need a new tub”. I had one acquaintance stop out to look at her, and he offered some money up as a parts truck. I was beginning to get discouraged, and started looking around for junk haulers in the local papers.
However, something odd just happened that reaffirmed my faith in serendipity. For reasons I can’t get into here right now (good ones, to be sure), the Scout will be going to a good home where it won’t get cut up for parts and left in a field.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Read this and try not to laugh.
5:09pm. OSX 10.2 is running, albeit slowly, but successfully on Renie’s old beige G3. There are problems getting a DHCP address—smells like the router may have 10baseT support turned off.
Damn The Torpedoes Dept. Jen and I had a very impromptu discussion about our plans to travel to Europe for our first anniversary. Given that the list of stuff we need to get done is as long as my arm—and if I auctioned that arm off on Ebay I’d still not have enough money to pay for it all —we’ve been holding off on making any solid plans. This morning we talked about doing all the stuff we’ve been planning (floors sanded, new bed, etc.) and making reservations for Europe in spite of all that stuff. We’re probably going to just *gulp* charge it and pay it off as we go, because gathering the money together before May doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. (And, honestly, if we didn’t have both vehicles and all our credit cards paid off, there’s no way in hell we’d do this.)
Sigh. If this Scout wasn’t that hideous shade of yellow, I’d actually try to figure out a way to buy it. (Clean Scouts on the East Coast for less than $10k are hard to find.) | I purchased the ‘Texas’ T-shirt for my wife last week, and it showed up yesterday, but apparently ‘medium’-sized women’s shirts are made for three-year-old boys. I own socks that are larger than this shirt. So that gets put in the ‘exchange’ pile.
In the ‘positive’ column, there’s a fresh white coat of primer on 99% of the downstairs hallway, and it’s begun creeping up the walls to the second floor. There will be some creative ladderwork in my immediate future to clean up the rest of the wallpaper paste, some minor patching, and then we paint. After two and a half months of stumbling through clouds of fine white dust, the end is in sight!
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I pulled into the driveway last night to find the tent I’d put up over the Scout upside-down, wrapped around the corner of the house due to the high winds. I put on some gloves and a hat and straightened it out, but found that two of the poles got bent all to hell and some of the grommets pulled out of the canvas. I’m going to have to anchor the thing down further with some sandbags and tent stakes, especially now that the trees have all lost their leaves. Obviously this is a temporary situation, and we’ll have to switch to Plan B. When I determine what Plan B is, I’ll bore you with it here.
Then I went upstairs and put some candles in each of the front windows to get some christmas frickin’ spirit up in this be-yatch. The house looks a heck of a lot friendlier and I’m considering leaving them in there year-round. (Our house needs all the friendly it can get.) Tonight, in a further attempt to get into the spirit of Christmas, we’re meeting my best man and his wife in the city to watch the lighting of the Washington Monument and catch a drink or two; I’m looking forward to seeing them and taking some pictures.
True love.
Jen: If you ever buy me anything from a store calling itself “a galleria of jewelry“, I will divorce you.
Me: Duly noted.→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
While putting the third coat of white paint over our urine-yellow dining room ceiling, I got a call on my cellphone from Nate.
“Bill. Why aren’t you outside? Go outside and look up.”
So I wandered outside and got to see the moon at about 4/5 of the eclipse. I hooked the camera up on the intervalometer to do some time-lapse shots, but it quickly snuck out of the frame after about 15 minutes.
This morning, there was a knock on the door, so I answered it in my P.J.’s. A man standing on the doorstep asked if “I wanted to get rid of the old International in the driveway.” I told him no, and that was that. I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that I ordered a canvas cover for the old girl, which should be in early next week.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.