4/21/08

I have decided to not be “that guy.” You know, “that guy” with a blog who thinks it is the duty (tee hee, I said doody!) of the rest of the world to read it. I'm going to be so not “that guy” that I'm not even going to worry anymore if it even gets posted on a daily basis. Last week was missing a few days, I don’t even care. There are going to be things I talk about that won’t make any sense because y'all didn’t get the day when I ‘splained it. Too bad, tough titties. I don’t care. So let’s see, what did I accomplish this last weekend? Friday evening I was invited to go to happy hour by one of the administrative assistants. While she was talking about why she wanted to go, she mentioned her only child’s impending high school graduation in Phoenix where she “lives with her dad.” Now, I knew she was about my age, and I knew she had a kid, but I didn’t know the father of the kid wasn’t in the picture anymore. I'm not sure if there is another husband but the prospect of a potential hookup with a drunken MILF/Cougar was enough to cause me to steer clear. I went through all of the potential scenarios in my head before coming to that conclusion. None of them ended well. I had said I would think about it so on my way out I swung by her desk. My thinking was, if she saw me and really wanted me to show up she’d say something to me. She wasn’t at her desk so I headed on home. Saturday morning, around 0345 h, I was awakened by a horrible knotting of the lower intestine. I flew a half-hour bombing mission and then fell back into bed. I didn’t stir again until 0900 h. I got up and dressed to go to the shop. As I was letting the cat out John e-mailed me to check my status. I told him I was on my way. I arrived and we worked on the right hand drive conversion of Timmy. While he was doing stuff that didn’t require my help, I reinstalled the axles and rear brakes in George. The rear axle is all together now except for the brake drums. I'm still debating replacing the shoes. We cleaned up and went to Benito’s for lunch. While there I told John that I didn’t think the router mom uses for her DSL or whatever internot hookup she uses was wireless after all. We decided to stop at Best Buy and get a wireless router. I also mentioned wanting to get a memory card for the Dingleberry so I could load music and use it as an MP3 player. He thought those were good ideas. We went to BB and found the micro SD cards and I picked a 2 gigabyte jobbie. I wanted the 4 gig but John said the phone only recognizes 2.5 gigs. We then walked to the computer section and were led to the wireless routers. I bought a $49.99 dude and we headed to Lowe’s for the bolts he needed for Timmy. Back at the shop, John drilled holes in the support bracket we removed from that South African Ute and then drilled corresponding holes in Timmy. I pookied the washers and bolts with silicone then backed them up while he tightened them from inside. He forced the steering column support and pedal assembly in place and bolted it down. Even without the bolts through the firewall, that thing is solid. We had a look at clutch master placement and decided to mount it in the car on top of the pedals. I zooked on a pair of washers to the top of the clutch pedal for the master cylinder pushrod’s clevis and it looks like it will work. We weren’t sure about the gauges at that time but looking in George’s dash I can see that there should be plenty of room. Refilling and bleeding the clutch hydraulics will be a major pain in the ass though. Oh well, not my car anymore. With that done, we left. Sunday morning I hopped in Mr. Wiggly and rolled to the shop. I loaded the stock wheels in the back then backed up to another door. There I loaded the spare Slant Six cylinder head, big valves, new valve springs, Clifford four-barrel intake manifold, the stock intake and exhaust manifolds, and that Holley 390 cfm four-barrel into Mr. Wiggly. I'm ready to let it all go for one price. Make me an offer. Well, come to the Pate Swap Meet and make me an offer. No wait, go ahead and make me an offer by e-mail (dimlight65@aol.com) if you want. That would be easier than hauling it up to the speedway and trying to sell it. Ok, so once I had Mr. Wiggly loaded I went back to looking at George. I decide to do one of the “fun” jobs. I decided to replace the seats. I took the driver’s seat out and had a look. I unbolted the cross member I'd made for that and had a look at bolting that to the Corbeau seat. I drilled it and bolted it up. It sat way too far forward. I couldn’t even get in the car. I removed it and had another look. I took a 36” long piece of ¾” square tubing and cut it in half. I bolted those to the seat with the rear bolts right at the end of each “runner.” I clamped the “runners” to the cross member and sat down. It fit well. I like it. I took the seat and cross member out and zooked the one to the other. Well, I zooked the cross member to the two “runners.” I bolted it all in the car and tried it again. The centering was right on the wheel, the position was nice and low, I could work all of the controls, and I could get in and out of the car. I declared it the official seating position. Of course I still need to zook the rear cross member to the runners because the thing springs up and down when I'm not sitting in it. That is one lightweight seat! Now, the thing that really pissed me off, and it was totally my fault, is the great big black handprint on the side of the seat. I forgot that those ¾” square tubes have some kind of corrosion inhibiting coating on them that makes my hands greasy and black. I picked up the seat and smudged the hell out of it. It’ll probably clean up, but I don’t know. Oh well, too late now. By this time I'm ready to go home, so I do. I take a shower and settle in for a nap in front of the TV. There is a program about jet engines which I sleep right through. Mario calls to ask if we can unload the trailer with all of his Z-car parts that evening. I say we can and head back to the shop. I marvel at just how much easier a modern car is to drive than that thirty-two year old van as I'm effortlessly zipping up onto the freeway. Yep, it’s time for Mr. Wiggly to find another home. I hate to do it but it has to be. Oh, Saturday evening I loaded several albums onto the two gig card in my Dingleberry and bought a mini to mini cable. I hooked it into the stereo in Darth Versa and listened to it on my way to the shop. It is quite cool. Mario shows up and we move the Z so he can hook up to the trailer. We roll Timmy out and put the hoist on the trailer. We roll Timmy back in and go to the small shop. We unload the stuff and close up. Back at the main shop we put the hoist back in behind Timmy and stand around talking about stuff. I tell Mario that I'm thinking about selling all of the V8 accouterments at the swap meet because I really do not need to build a V8 Datsun. He was a little dejected because he was excited about building that engine. Well, we’ll see. Around 2100 h we finally get tired of looking at stuff and talking so we lock up and leave. So, there you have it. That’s what happened over the last weekend. I think I'm going to start taking my laptop home every night now that I've got wireless access. I'll shoost this off to Spiderman when I get home. You may get to read it and you may not. We’ll see.