12/20/10

Well, I guess I'll keep talking to y'all. Friday evening, on FaceBuick, John asked if I was going to stop doing the blog after “coming out” of the curmudgeon closet. I said I hadn't decided and was asked by another FaceBuicker for this address. I gave it to him and perhaps we have another reader. Welcome aboard Chuckie! Oh, I guess I need to start looking to see if there are any comments after I read the thing from now on. Hmm, already this is becoming a pain in the ass. Well, we’ll see. Anyhoo, there’s that going on. Saturday morning John and I went to the shop and set Nadine back on her wheels. Well, we set her on Lil' Wiggly's wheels but that’s just me being pedantic. We rolled her out and drug the engine hoist out of the paint booth. With the Chickenhawk's Z-20 hanging from the hoist, we rolled Nadine back in and under it. A little finagling and it dropped into place on the 1200 cross member. We dropped a pair of bolts in and the engine balanced nicely in the bay. Looked good in there too. I hope Spiderman has posted some links and/or pictures for y'all because I want to see them too. We did a test fit of the intake and zorst manifolds. Intake is fine, zorst... that will need some work. It will fit, once a few “titties” are ground off of the manifold. I'll probably go down and do that next Saturday. Yes, I know next Saturday is Christmas. I hate Christmas, remember? Anyhoo, we have the engine mocked up. And there was much rejoicing. Yea. It looks like a 240SX KA five speed will fit nicely, and in fact will put the shifter in a better spot than the HL-A10 Violet dog-leg five speed would. I'll probably use the dog-leg in the Chickenhawk behind the KA and hope it don't ‘splode. But back to Nadine. With the engine sitting in place, we decided we’d done enough and went to lunch. We at “Injun” food at Maharaja. Yeah, yeah, racist, blah blah blah. If you want political correctness, go somewhere else. The Chicken Tikka Masala was awesome! OK, it has been better, but it was still awesome. The spinach stuff was quite tasty as well. We ate then chatted a bit more about the car situation. Eventually we parted company and I went home. Sunday morning I waited for Larry Shuttlebus to call so we could go to the gun show. I was going any... Holy crap! I just got a phone call that made me have 1980s flashbacks! The caller requested a 35mm projector and a Wollensak! I haven’t heard the term “Wollensak” in... well, years! OK, I'll tell y'all what a Wollensak is. It is a cassette tape player/recorder which will connect to a Kodak E-III 35mm projector and automatically advance the slides during a presentation. T’was the height of presentation technology thirty years ago. I had the 35mm for him but no Wollensak. It’s a shame too because I would have loved to have been able to pull that miracle out of my ass. Oh well. Where was I? Right, I was going to the gun show anyway, with or without Larry, because I was shopping for a Saiga 12. Larry finally called and I headed out. About halfway to the freeway I remembered the money I had squirreled away in the gun safe and had to turn back. I got to the credit onion where Larry was parked and rolled to the automatic ATM machine, teller, to get out a little more cash. Then we took off in Larry’s truck to the gun show. We walked the isles and I saw a few things which interested me. Then I saw the first Saiga 12 of the day. It was already decked out with the US made Itrafuse collapsible stock, pistol grip, and fore end. All it needed was a US made muzzle brake and piston puck to be 922r compliant with any magazines. Unfortunately, it was $650.00, which is about right considering all the accoutrement already on it. I made a mental note and moved on. We eventually found SAW Guns and I had a look at their inventory. They had a bone stock Saiga 12 for $449.00, which was more like it. We walked the rest of the show but found no more Saiga 12s. Now, y'all might remember I was thinking about another Taurus PT92, right? Well, they were out of my price range. I did see something else which piqued my interest though. A Kel Tec P11 is basically Kurt Corto's big brother. It looks just like an inflated P3AT and it shoots 9mm. I priced them all thorugh the show. I found them from $239.00 up to $299.00 and all in between. OK, so they were more like ten dollar increments in between. When we’d finished the rows, we went back to SAW. I picked out a blued P11 for $249.00 and a Saiga 12. I had them start the paperwork and I sat down to fill out mine. When they said the total, I had to mooch some cash from Larry to cover the unexpected taxes. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t have bought the Kel Tec, she’s named Katie by the way, but... um, your face shouldn't have... oh, just shut up. We walked back to my reloader guy and I bought another fifty rounds of .45 Colt JHPs for the Judge and Lever Gun then we went to lunch at Benito’s. After he dropped me off at the credit onion, I hopped in Fifi and headed to Gregg's to see what he was up to. “Not much,” what with the bone cancer and all. Eventually I left and went home via Cabella’s. I went in to pee and then had a look at their Kel Tec magazines. They didn't have any for the P11 so I left. I opted to not stop at Blood Bath & Beyond and went straight home. I probably should have swung by Shooster’s Club and run a few rounds though Katie, but I didn't. I'm not sure why. So, that gets y'all caught up to today, more or less. I may have more tomorrow. We'll see.