12/21/06

I had nothing to say yesterday, so it didn’t say it. Of course I have nothing to say today, yet here I am. John and I went to the shop last night. He brought the trailer back and we parked it between Gigi II and Cave In. Did I ever mention that I'm calling the 1979 Chevy truck I bought from Kevin “Cave In” because that kind of sounds like his name and I finally caved in and bought a Chevy? Well, now I have. Anyhoo, we sat around and made a half assed attempt at installing the “match box” distributor in George's engine. I still have to work on the base plate to make it fit but it should be fine. I mentioned that I had to swing by Pat's place to pick up a key and have a look around since he and Nora are out of town and suggested eating at Benito’s. John liked that plan. We discussed the Pimpmobile situation because I came to the realization that I'm not going to want it back when his “lease” is up. Of course I'm so upside down in that car that it might as well be re-christened The Albatross. Good thing that name is taken already by the air horns on the Weber carburetor in Mr. Wiggly. I'm dumb. I should never have bought that car in the first place. But looking back, how would I have known? I did have to justify the slush box transmission to myself when I bought it. I should have stuck to my guns and walked away. I'm not sure how I would have gotten the Seven to Austin to meet up with the USA Sevens tour though. John has concerns about Mr. Wiggly being up to the job of towing. He’s got a bigger engine than the Pimpmobile, albeit only 200cc. He is considerably down on power though, doo-doo the fact that technology has marched pretty far in thirty years. Thirty hell, the slant six design is more like fifty-five years old! Sure, the displacement increase from 170 to 225 cubic inches is only thirty-five years old, but the basic design is from the fifties. Yikes! That does kind of put things into perspective. I'm not really sure how exactly, but it does something. Where was I going with all of that? I'm not sure. The point is, I think, that John doesn’t see me using Mr. Wiggly for long tows. I agree, but he’ll be fine for around town stuff, rescues and such. I don’t think it would stretch the imagination too terribly far to see me using Mr. Wiggly to tow from here to Houston or Tulsa once in a while. Those are pretty much my north and south limits anyway. Similar east and west limits look like Shreveport and Abilene. San Antonio, Lubbock, Oklahoma City and Texarkana fall within that circle while Odessa/Midland, Amarillo, and Little Rock are within a reasonable “Aw, you’ve come this far, keep going you puss!” additional distance. By the way, this circle was laid out using my fingers as a compass on a railroad map and indicates “as the crow flies” distance. It is entirely possible that I would not be willing to drive that far on the actual highways and byways necessary to get to all of these various and sundry places. Yeah John, I hear you asking if I'd really be willing to listen to that thing drone on for hours on end on the freeway. I know you think it is more suited to “surface street” towing, and you are probably right. We’ll just have to wait and see. Well, it is lunchtime and I have to pee. I'll talk to y'all later. I'm back. I've been thinking about Mr. Wiggly's “long haul” capability and I think the problem would be with the exhaust. I think if I had a less buzzy zorst built, it would be livable on the highway for somewhat extended periods. Yeah, that’s how I'm going to play it. Of course I'm not going to have another zorst built just yet, not until at least one Datsun is back on the road. We’ll see. Ok, well, I think I've just about said all I have to say today, and then some. I think I'm going to call it quits. Have a day.