3/18/13

So we went to the Goodguy’s car show thingy at the speedway on Saturday, right?  There were a few cars I found interesting but mostly it was stuff about which I could not care less.  What caught my eye?  Mostly Rat Rod T-buckets and Coupés and such.  It got me thinking about doing a ’27 Track T as a fiftieth birthday thing.  I just came from the Speedway Motors website and it looks like I could be pretty well into a kit for just shy of $5k.  John suggested we revisit the idea of using the frame from a Nissan/Datsun pickup and just buy the body from Speedway.  My initial thought was, “Yeah, that sounds good,” but then I priced the body.  When I saw that a plain body, with no doors or floor, was $999.99, I thought, “Psh, for a mere... uh, little bit more, you get the frame, and hood, and floor, and stuff, and things, and people, and motors, and shit.”  I was in the process of sending that very text to John when I did the actual math.  The ’27 Track T kit goes for $3,299.99 with all that stuff I just went on about… well, no motors or people, and very little actual “shit” Juan would hope.  Anyhoo, I did the math and the difference is more like $2,300.00 rather than the $1,500.00 or so I'd convinced myself it was.  Yeah, I have “math blinders” occasionally.  So, now I'm thinking… gulp, this hurts to say, John just might be right after all.  Now I'm wondering if there might be a way to replace the torsion bars on the truck with a transverse leaf spring to make the independent front suspension look slightly more like the solid axle a Track T “should” have.  Oh, I'm also thinking that the Chickenhawk might get a KA-24 rather than the VG-33 so we can put the V6 in the Track T.  Of course the smart thing to do would be to consider the Spit as my fiftieth birthday thing since we will both be fifty years old in 2015.  I really don’t need another project on the plate.  I think I even said as much to John.  Something along the lines of, “When we’re fifty miles away from this venue, and the memory of all these cars has faded, I'll probably cool on the Track T idea.”  I should probably never have mentioned it.  But I did, so there’s that going on.  At the car show, we hooked up with Pat and Tony after we’d walked most of the event.  We did about half a row with them and then they started to lag behind.  We discussed whether we should wait on them and decided against it.  We walked the last few rows and bailed on them.  I called to tell Pat we were ditching them and he said, “Yeah, these are all cars Tony is interested in.  The problem is he knows what he’s looking at and has to stop to talk to everyone.”  I agreed that that would be an issue and said we’d see them another time and place.  John and I then went to An Zen for their sushi buffet.  It was nice to be able to sample other rolls and stuff.  I mean, we’re kind of in a rut at Wasabi… not that I'm complaining, because it is quite a nice rut.  John asked if An Zen was too far to drive after Saturday shop work.  I grimaced a bit because it kind of is.  I'm sure we’ll do it from time to time though because for less than $20.00 each we were quite stuffed… with bait!  Now, if you’ve never eaten bait you won't know that it can get quite spendy when the number of rolls starts piling up.  That is the beauty of a buffet.  Hmm, as if y'all don’t know how a buffet works, sorry.  Anyhoo, after we gorged on bait, I took him home and went home to take a nap.  I considered taking… oh!  I haven’t told that story yet!  Ok, so earlier in the week Jeff the Toyota guy texted me to ask if I'd be willing to help him move a barbecue grill.  I said I would.  Wednesday Fiona was low on gas so I swapped parking positions with Fifi and drove the truck to work Thursday and Friday.  Friday afternoon Jeff texts again to see if I was still willing to help.  I said I'd call when I was leaving work.  I did and was told he had to get the address and stuff.  I went to Bloodbath & Beyond.  They had two bolt-action .22 rifles on the shelf.  I've been in the market for a B-A .22 for a while now.  I grokked them while waiting to hear from Jeff.  He texted me the address and I headed out… after asking how late BB&B was open.  I kept berating myself saying I didn’t need another .22 and that I'd be a fucking moron if I went back.  The whole time I was helping Jeff I kept telling myself that.  After I was done with Jeff, I called Larry to tell him what I'd found and see if he would talk me down or into the thing.  He talked me into it.  I went back to BB&B and grokked them again.  One was a Marlin with iron sights and the other was a Savage with scope rail and no sights.  The Savage also had a threaded barrel for a suppressor… more commonly known as a “Silencer.”  I decided that I didn’t need the temptation to blow another pile of money on a suppressor and that iron sights would suffice so I bought the Marlin.  Yes, I am exactly that dumb.  I shuffled stuff in the gun cabinet and made everything fit… but I wasn’t happy with the arrangement.  I had to convert the Neos from a carbine to a pistol, hang said pistol under the pistol shelf, lean the carbine barrel against the wall behind the lever gun, and stand the carbine butt stock on top of the divider thingy on the back wall.  As much as I like the Neos carbine, the pistol is just kind of “Meh.”  I decided that I'd try to sell them at the gun show on Sunday.  Which brings me to a decent enough quitting point so I guess I'll do that.