9/18/12

Well, it turns out it wasn’t a waste of time talking to y'all yesterday.  Apparently John made it home last night.  I haven’t asked how the trip was yet.  I was saving that for Saturday.  Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I'm going to be able to go to the shop Saturday.  Remember last week, or perhaps the week before, when I told y'all about having to drive mom and Nadine to the hospital?  Did I even tell y'all about that?  Hmm.  Well, if I did, suffer though it again.  The other night mom gets a call from Nadine, the previous owner of the TR-3 of the same name.  Her husband, Willie, was in the hospital and the doctors say the next 72 hours are critical.  We hop in the car, pick Nadine up, and drive her to be with him.  Oh, this would be Thursday the 6^th I believe.  Well, he survives the 72 hours and we get a call Tuesday the 11^th at around 2130 h asking us if we’d drive her again.  Of course we do this for her.  We assure her that she can call anytime to be picked up again.  Mom gets THAT call at 0515 h Wednesday morning.  She goes and gets Nadine and drops her at home while I get ready and go to work.  I get the call later in the day that Willie died Wednesday morning.  His memorial service will be at the church this Saturday morning at 1100 h so I don’t really see it being possible to go to the shop.  I informed John and asked if we could move shop day to Sunday but he has to check with the high command, AKA: Samantha.  I'm still waiting to hear back on that.  Now, I assure you that even though this narrative SOUNDS callous, my eyes are quite damp at the moment.  I would have skipped the Saturday morning session at the Ranch, had Birkinstock not been cancelled this weekend, to attend the service.  So there’s all of that going on.  As for Lil' Wiggly, well I guess we’ll move it when we can… even if it yet another week from now.  I've been reading on them intergoogles about GT40P cylinder heads.  Apparently the early 90’s Mustang Cobras had some super hot-rod cylinder heads from the factory, known as the GT40.  Then, for some unexplained reason, those same super hot-rod GT40 heads got used on other vehicles in subsequent years.  Then, for even less satisfactorily explained reasons, the late 90’s Explorer and Expedition got an IMPROVED version of said super hot-rod heads.  These are the fabled GT40P heads.  Ok, so they are almost identical except for different spark plug placement and ever so slightly better ports, but they ARE slightly better… and cheaper to boot!  According to my “research” they are good for a 20 to 40 horsepower gain on an otherwise stock 5.0 motor.  They do have slightly larger combustion chambers than the 289 heads, but the pundits claim the port flow outweighs the slight compression loss.  Needless to say, I want a set of GT40P heads for Lil' Wiggly's 289!  I need to set John to shopping for a pair… along with a transmission.  In the immortal words of Mayor Teddy Burnside, “Han’l it Roy!  Han’l it han’l it!”  Psh, as if he doesn’t have anything better to do than shop for MY parts!  But he’s so good at it!  Well, hopefully he’ll keep enabling me for a little while longer.  Oh, speaking of enabling me, the other day I was talking to my sister-in-law about stuff.  We were talking about the little inconvenience store I'd like to turn into Dimlight Racing 2.0 since we passed it on our way to lunch.  I reiterated the fact that it only made sense if I were to stay in the house on Burkett.  She said, “If Bruce, Ted, and I have any say in the matter, you WILL get that house when Dot dies.  You have earned it.”  Bruce and Ted are my brothers of course.  I said that I thought Linda, my sister, was thinking along the same lines as well.  Now, I'm not sure just how much say she has, or how she’s sure that Ted feels that way, but it does remove some doubt as to where I'm going to live when that time comes.  I would like to hear from Ted where that side of the family stands on the matter.  I know, at least I think I know, that he doesn’t want anything to do with the house, but I'm not sure if they are so mercenary as to say, “Sell it and give us our share!”  I'd like to think they aren’t but I haven’t heard it said.  Knowing that Bruce and Mel feel that way is a comfort.  So, perhaps I need to look into that driveway to the back patio again.  I could park at least two, maybe three Datsuns back there and still have the new driveway for Fifi and the trailer.  Hmm, it’s a head scratcher for sure.  Well, I see I'm approaching the bottom of another page.  I guess I'll call it a rant for the day and continue tomorrow.  Toodles.