WooHoo!

Yesterday I made my final mortgage payment. A day I didn't ever think would actually get here. I have refinanced my home three times because of a divorce, and twice to take advantage of lower interest rates.
O took out a Home Equity loan to  fix the roof, and do a bunch of other stuff. All paid off.
At the moment I owe about $350 in various bills. which will be paid in full next payday.
I will be debt free.
Retirement now becomes a real possibility rather than a remote concept.
It's kinda scary as well as exciting.
Now I need to start getting the house in shape to sell once I retire.
Sell the house and move to the country.
Buy a place with some elbow room and a proper shop.
Much excitement awaits.

A Nice little Hike

The two pictures are of Twin Falls, wa. This is the lower falls. It is about 150 feet tall, really spectacular in real life. And the two pictures are approximately in the right positions to show the whole falls.

The hike isn't too bad. About a half a mile from the parking lot to the trailhead, then a mile down to the falls by a switchback trail. The last quarter of a mile is so steep that they have put in stairs.

The hike back up is at least twice as long as the hike down. The dogs needed to stop several times to catch their breaths. After all, they have to take four steps to my one. All I can say is that I made it. That and my legs aren't too sore from the hike.

We need to get out and do this more often.

What a wonderful day.

Too Busy

As the saying goes "I'll sleep when I'm Dead."
I had the dubious privilege of working both days last weekend. So I didn't have much time to accomplish anything at home.
The Z will start, but runs real rough and then dies. I'm not sure what the problem is. I think it is probably a vacuum leak somewhere, but I haven't tracked it down yet. I am waiting for a couple of parts to come in before I get focused pon figuring it out. Upper and Lower Radiator hoses, thermostat and gasket. Should be in in time for me to finish putting it back together this weekend. Now if I can just figure out how come it is idling  so rough.
Last weekend we went to see Marcia Ball at Jazz Alley. She was a lot of fun. I love that whole boogie woogie piano blues thing, and she does it the best. Jazz Alley isn't exactly the kind of place where you get up and dance in the aisles, but the crowd was on its feet and dancing. A lot of fun.
Next weekend is Keiko Matsui, who I really like. Best jazz/new age keyboardist in the world as far as I am concerned. I have several of her CDs and play them regularly. Should be a very nice evening.
On an entirely different subject, the balance on my mortgage is $3100. So this retirement stuff is getting real. I am a little uncomfortable with the concept of not working, but will make sure I have enough projects to keep me busy and out of the hair of She Who Must Not Be Named.

Did you hear that?

A rumble in the distance, a low roaring sound. An almost smooth braaap?
The Z has stirred to life again. Not well, but it does run.
I got far enough that I decided before I went any further, I should try getting it to run. It currently does not have a radiator, is missing hoses and has a hole in the exhaust manifold where the EGR tube should be. None of those things should keep it from starting.
You wouldn't want to run it for any length of time with no radiator, and the lack of an EGR tube will make it run like crap, but run it should.
And run it did. Not for long, but just enough to let me know nothing catastrophic is wrong. The EGR fitting on the exhaust manifold is stuck tight. I put a box end wrench on it after soaking it in rust buster, and reeefed on it with a pinch bar, to no avail. All I did was round off the corners of the fitting.
Time for drastic measures. Blow torch? Impact gun and air chisel? Special socket for removing bolts with the corners rounded off?
It's a good thing I don't have access to a cutting torch.

Last Fishing Trip

Uncle Fred was my fishing partner for about 40 years. He was the one who taught me how to catch trout in the high country streams in Northern Idaho.
Every time I saw him later in life, the conversation would inevitably turn to fishing, usually to one particular fishing trip.
At the time the limit was 15 trout per person per day. We came back with 30 trout and one whitefish. Since I caught the whitefish I was declared the winner of our informal competition. Since there was a whole house full of people, the catch provided a meal for the whole family. And the fish were all substantial. The smallest was about 10 inches, the largest 18 inches. I have never seen a better looking string of fish.
Last year he passed away of cancer. I visited him in the hospital, and he made a special request of me "Would you do me a favor?"
"Sure Uncle Fred, you just ask".
Take me fishing one last time."
"You got it."
We had a meeting of the clan in Sandpoint, Idaho last week, and my cousin Ginger brought his ashes. I had told her my intentions to scatter his ashes along our favorite stretch of fishing water.
On Sunday I set off alone for Deep Creek with his ashes. It is hard to catch fish this time of year. The water is warm and the level low, so what fish there are are laying in the bottom of the holes, under logs and are inactive. If you want to catch fish you need to get your spinner and worm right down where they live. It means you will get snagged a lot and have to wade in to work the hook loose from wherever you have it snagged, but if you want to catch fish, that's the way you have to do it.
I had made my brag. I was told there were no fish in that stretch of creek. I told the family that I was going fishing, and I would catch fish.
The fishing was slow. A few little bait thieves here and there but nothing worth pursuing, so I fished along and scattered ashes as I went. I thought I was going to get skunked.
 I set Uncle Fred's ashes on the bank of the stream, and told him "Uncle Fred, I'm doing my part of this. I am carrying you down the stream and scattering your ashes as I go. It's time you got in the game here and encouraged a fish to bite. I'm doing catch and release, so it won't deplete the stock, so go do something."
I'm not claiming any supernatural intervention or anything. but shortly thereafter I caught a beautiful 10" brook trout. Bright sparkling in the sun, colorful and firm. I went to take a picture with y cell phone, but the phone was dead.
Shortly after that I tied into a big trout. Probably would have gone 18 inches. He dived into the roots of a stump, wrapped the line around a root and broke off my spinner.
Uncle Fred would have loved it, me going home with one fish caught and "The one that got away."
So long Uncle Fred. There will be other streams and other fishing trips, but I will probably never fish that section of stream again.

Vacation

A guy could get used to this vacation stuff. Or as I like to put it, practicing for retirement. The only real problem is that I still have a sense of urgency because I only have so much time to accomplish a lot of stuff.
So yesterday I slowed down.
The only thing I accomplished was to make a batch of home made applesauce. Nothing like a fresh warm batch of applesauce with a little cinnamon.
I am slowly working on the basement. There was a patch of black mold on the drywall in the basement, so I had to tear a section drywall out. The spare room was a mess, so I had to rearrange everything. In order to move something, you have to have a place to put it.
The drywall was behind an old hide-a-bed sofa that needed to go to the dump. But since it was too big to fit in the truck, first it had to be torn apart, which took most of the day. I still need to finish cleaning up and make a trip to the dump, buy the new drywall, install it, Spackle it and paint it.
Oh, and I still want to get the Z finished and ready to drive.
Oh, and I have a family reunion for four days in Idaho.
Today the powers that be (She who shall not be named) insists I take a day off. We are going to go see Maleficent and then go to dinner. Probably at the Wild Fin.
That leaves me two days to get the Z running. I can do it in two days, if everything goes right.
But when has everything ever gone according to plan?

The End of Civilization as we know it

Yesterday, pot went on sale legally for recreational purposes here in Latteland. For all the hype and stern warnings by concerned conservatives, life as we know it did not come to an end. A 65 year old Grannie was the first person in the state to make a legal over-the-counter purchase, and although she had a little trouble making change, she did not morph into a deranged crazed killer.

The lines were not all that long, and I heard of no line jumping or riots. The crowd seemed quiet, and, well, normal.

In other news a 20 something young cereal killer ate a whole box of chocolate Cheerios.

A couple of hipsters became addicted to blo-pops. They were heard to say "O wow it starts out like hard candy, and then all the sudden you realize you are, like chewing gum. Like when did that happen?"

Energized housewives were seen placidly cleaning house, although they tended to get distracted. "hey look how the light refracts through this cut glass vase! It makes little rainbows!"

There were noticeable fewer road rage incidents, because people went home and tried out their new purchases, and then responsibly stayed home to watch the sprinkler.

Domestic violence reports took a decline, but no one is sure why. maybe the usual participants just couldn't get up the energy to give a hoot.

On the other hand, close call pedestrian/car incidents were on the rise as people stopped in the middle of the street to watch the street lights change.

And so it goes.

July?

How did it get to be July already?
Last time I checked it was early June, then BAM, July.
I stall haven't gotten the Z back together, but that's OK I am in no tearing hurry, just want to get it on the road before the Summer is over.
Spent all day Sunday getting the timing chain on, the cam re timed, the oil pump on, the timing chain cover back on.
I checked the timing mark and everything was right on, So I can proceed with no fear. I took a bog box end wrench and turned the engine over very carefully and there is no interference in the engine. Now the only thing left as far a s timing goes is to get the distributor lined up. Since the drive is by slot and key you can only be in or 180 degrees out. Since I didn't turn the crank or cam when it was apart, should be fine as long as the rotor is pointed at number one piston when the timing is at top dead center.
I am putting everything back together with stainless steel allen headed bolts, except for a couple of places where you can't get to the bolt heads.
Next comes the water pump, then a couple of water inlets, then the exhaust manifold.
Then the intake,  distributor, wiring, and valve cover.
Gas pedal linkage and gas/vacuum lines.
Whew, I'm tired already.

Back on Track

The timing chain cover just came in for the Z. Degreased and bead blasted, it bears little resemblance on the surface to the beat up grimy one I took off of the car. Now I can begin putting things back together.
I also got in all the nuts and bolts to put everything back together, ad well as a new crank seal and gasket set. By the time I get through getting it all back together it will have cost me about $250 to replace the head gasket. A lot more than I figured. It will be sooooo nice when I get it running again and can drive it.
On another front, there has been a lot of e-mail traffic back and forth between myself, my cousin Ginger, and my newly found cousins.
We have also connected on Facebook. I don't care that much for facebook, but it has been good for reacquainting with long lost family and friends.
One of the things that came out of this all was that two of my cousins are going to be coming to the meeting of the clan in Sandpoint this summer. Ben, who lives in Florida is going to fly up to Spokane, where he will meet up with his sister Ursula, and they will come together.
I have ordered three additional copies of "Candles of the Lord" from the Ursuline sisters in Kentucky. They should be arriving next week. I think my one cousin that lives in Spanaway is going to come over and get her copy. The ones for Ginger and Ben I will probably hang on to until the Meeting of the Cousins in Sandpoint.
It has been an interesting couple of weeks.

Family

When I was 13 my Uncle George passed away from brain cancer. He was still fairly young, and left behind a wife and a bunch of kids.
Their mother, my Aunt Marge was barely functional. The State took her kids away for a couple of years, but eventually she got them back. To me, they just fell off the edge of the Earth. I never heard from her or them again. Always in the back of my mind was the fact that I had a bunch of family out there somewhere.
Last year I set out to verify some things about my family's time in the Four Corners area of the southwest. AMy dad and all of my Aunts and Uncles were born in the town of Waterflow New Mexico. I was told that my grandfather was the farm manager for a Catholic School, so I set out to find out something about the School.
I googled Catholic School New Mexico and got the Sacred Heart Academy. There was a picture of the schoolchildren in 1938. Two of them were my father and my Uncle George. There was a contact number which led me to the book "Candles of the Lord" which is the history of Waterflow and the Sacred Heart Academy, which mentions all of the Warren family members,
Shortly after I started, I got an e-mail from my cousin Ginger. She had been contacted by a Dale Warren of Kentucky, who was in search of a male member of our family to get DNA tested. Since I was headed down that path already I agreed to be tested.
Turned out we are not closely related to any of the established Warren lines, which was a big disappointment. We are not related to dale, but Dale is related to Terry Warren, who was our Uncle Ben's godfather. Small world.
AT any rate I was trying to get beyond Charles Warren, but was having a lot of troub le. Mainly because the name is spelled a lot of different ways. Warren, Worren Waring Warring etc.
I took a trial membership in Ancestry,com, and already belong to Myheritage,com. WHile doing some research of family trees containing information on Charles, I came across a family tree that contained a bunch of information about Charles' ancestry, so I contacted the owner of the family tree.
Mariam told me that a lot of the Warren Family information was given to her by Ben and Laura Warren. Ben was the son of my Uncle George.
I last saw him in 1961.
I asked if I could get their e-mail address, and was given it and told that they had been searching for Warren Family relatives for years.
We have connected. We shared e-mails addresses and someone set up a group mailbox. We all connected on facebook and had a great time meeting and greeting yesterday. I sense the beginning of a long term relationship.
Besides this, I got the front end of the engine of the Z torn apart so I could fix the timing. It was two steps forward and one step back. I got everything torn apart, gor the timing sprocket back on and the tensioner back in place. Unfortunately I dropped the timing case and a corner of it broke off. Al least things are noe going back together rather than coming apart.

A Test of my Patience

I have stated before that patience is not one of my better virtues.
One of my favorite sayings is "Just keep swinging and walking forward and something is bound to fall down eventually".
This does not work well with cars.
In my battle with the Z, It has taken another round on points.
I put the new head gasket on and torqued it down.
When you take off the head you need to make a piece of wood 1 1/2 inches wide by 9 1/2 long to jam in between the two halves of the timing chain to ensure that the chain tensioner remains in place. Otherwise the tensioner drops out and you have to tear the front of the engine apart to get the timing chain back on.
I dutifully made the block of wood, and jammed in between the two chain halves. It remained in place while I worked on the head.
I put the timing gear on the chain and was maneuvering it in place. It was within 1/16" of being in place. The damn stick kept interfering with the bolt that attached the gear to the cam, So I took the bolt and got it started by hand. Then I removed the stick, since there was tension on the timing chain.
You can probably guess what happened next.
The bolt popped loose before I could tighten it, and the gear dropped down, releasing the tension on the chain, thereby allowing the chain to relax and the tensioner popped out.
Now I get to tear the front of the engine apart to get at the tensioner.
I walked away from the car, as I was on the borderline of throwing  things and turning the air blue with cusswords and shocking the neighbors.
One step forwards, two steps back.

Blood Sacrifice

The car Gods were angry with me.

They demanded a blood sacrifice before I could complete the task at hand, which was extracting a broken off exhaust manifold stud from the head of the Z.

The head stud had been broken off at some time in the distant past. I didn't break it, so it must have been broken when I bought it, ten years ago. Since I had never even entertained the notion of removing the manifold, I had no idea there was something wrong. It wasn't making any noises or anything.

After being there for who knows how long, I knew it would be difficulty to get it out.

It was when I broke the third easy-out that I sliced open the side of my thumb. It bled copious amounts of blood. After that, I got the broken out stud out.

First I drilled a small hole in the stud and soaked it in rust buster. Then I broke my first easy-out.

I had to walk away.

So I went down and bought a diamond drill bit to drill out the easy out, which was broken off below the surface of the head.

I drilled a slightly larger hole maybe half way through the stud, tried the next size up. Snapped the very top of the easy-out odd. That left enough that I could get my stud puller on the shaft of the easy-out, which promptly broke. Because I was herking on the wrench with ell my might when It broke, it took a divot out of the side of my thumb.  

It left just enough grip that I could get the easy-out removed. I got a slightly larger diamond drill bit and drilled all the way down the length of the stud, and put the larger easy-out in the hole

At last I could get the leverage I needed to extract the stud. And I still have plenty of threads left in the head to insert a new stud.

A lot of struggle over one exhaust manifold stud.

At least that is done, and now I can start putting things back together.

Me vs THE Z

Over a couple of Saturdays, I have torn down the top end of the Z. I have never gotten into fuel injection, so I wanted to take it slow and mark everything and label the wires.
I busted the second head bolt. Twisted it right in half. You shouldn't be able to do this. The head bolts were WAY over torqued. They must have been at 120 ft/lbs. It took everything I had to break them loose. And of course since I broke #2 I sweated every bolt.
When I pulled the head off there was about 1/2" of head bolt sticking up. Just enough to engage my stud puller. Big WHEW" there.
When I took off the intake/exhaust manifolds, I saw that the first and last bolts were broken off in the head. As soon as I got the head all cleaned up and the left over gasket material removed, I set out to remove the ends of the studs. Drilled the first one, engaged the easy-out. And of course snapped off the easy out. Flush with the block.
Well, crap. Went down to Lowe's and bought a couple of diamond bit. Now I will have to gingerly drill out the easy-out, so I can try it again. Pain in the A**.
The EGR tube was also broken. It has been broke forever. I am surprised I didn't hear the exhaust leak. But the if it has always been broken, I would have probably figured that was the way it was supposed to sound. The engine always ran strong, so It ought to run even better when I get through putting it back together.
That's WHEN not IF.

Karma

I must have done something good.
Yesterday I came out of the restroom, and of course I washed my hands. When I went to go through the gate to get back in my work area I noticed my wedding ring was missing. I figured it must have come off when I was drying my hands, so I grabbed the trashcan liner and all the paper towels in it and dragged them back to my desk, and went through the paper towels one by one. No ring.
Well, there were two cans, so I did the same with the other. No such luck.
I had to go home and face the music. I figured it was gone for good.
I sent out an e-mail to a bunch of people asking them to keep an eye out for a yellow gold mans ring with a white gold insert.
I got a phone call from the office in the next bay over. Someone had found it and turned it in.
I went down to the office, and sure enough, There was my ring.
My Karma was strong.
It restored my faith in humanity.

Convergence

When separate elements approach a common point, not necessarily by any plan we know of.
I had to work last Saturday, not an uncommon occurrence. I work every other Saturday.
I work an eight hour "Split Shift" so called because it covers two shifts First shift (:00 to 1:30)
and second shift (2:30 til 11:00)
My shift is 9 to 5:30.
So the sun was up, it was a beautiful spring morning. The early flowering fruit trees and ornamentals are in bloom, The world is coming out of it's Winter hibernation.
I pulled into the parking lot, and an open space was fairly close. As I pulled in I noticed the car next to me
It was an early Japanese little pickup, all tricked out. Custom metallic bronze paint job with blue pin striping. Lowered until it was sitting on the ground. spray-in bed liner, custom interior, killer sound system.
As I turned into the parking spot what came on the radio?
LOW...
RIDE.....
ER.......
Oh YEAH
CONVERGENCE.

All the news what's fit to print

The Westfalia should be back on the street tonight. I think someone tried to steal it. The little half-moon tab on the bottom of the ignition switch was suddenly broken off of the key switch, like somebody tried to force it. The replacement process is a little long, but not expensive. Pull the steering wheel, pull the turn signal collar, pull the wiper collar, pull the electrical connections. Slip the housing out, Remove the switch half. Drill a 1/8" hole in EXACTLY the right place, pull the key barrel. Buy new key barrel. Reverse everything. I should be done putting it back together tonight.

I ordered up the parts for the 280Z, they should be here on Saturday. At some point I have to decide what I want to do while I have the head off. If I want to go with a performance cam, now would be the time to do it. The only real problem is that you can't just replace the cam, you will need new lifters and rockers and lash pads and springs. So the total is about $800.00. A little pricey and definitely not in the car fund. The car fund is tapped out since I just got the Z painted.

It is my turn to work overtime this weekend. I really don't want to work any overtime, but the extra money comes in handy. I really want to stay home and tear apart the Z. Oh well, I'll have plenty of time.

For our anniversary we are going to Cannon Beach for the weekend, some time after the weather turns nicer.

V. gets home from Army AIT tonight. He won't get in until about 10:00. I won't be waiting up for him, since I have to work tomorrow. Hopefully we can go out for a beer and Pub Grub soon. He mentioned that he has a week of emergency Medical Training to do starting Sunday, for a week, so it may be a while.

The Z is Mocking Me

Ten weeks the Z was in the shop. I saved car fund money for two years to get it painted. The final bill was around three grand. It is SOOOOO pretty.
So why does it hate me?
New wheels, new tires, new seat covers, new carpets, new paint. Lots of cars would be happy, lots of cars would be proud. Not mine.
Sunday I backed it out into the driveway to do a couple of small things. Reconnect the speedometer, figure out why only one speaker is working. Little stuff.
When I backed it out, I noticed a large puddle on the ground.
I pop the hood, and I see a small pool of green liquid on the motor mount. Antifreeze. This could be small or this could be huge. A leaky hose is a relatively minor thing. Since I can't tell where the leak is, I clean off the side of the block, fill the radiator, and start the engine. Go around and look at the side of the engine to see antifreeze seeping out of where the head meets the block. No water in the oil, no oil in the water. These are good things It means the leak is only from the water jacket out. It means a new head gasket.
A big pain in the butt.
So for now the car sits in the driveway sparkles and mocks me.

At Last

Take a load off

If you come around here at all, you know that the state has taken two of my grandkids and put them in foster care. I have lost a lot of sleep over this, because I know foster care is a flawed system.
I have heard the stories, have been involved in a few of them.
My feelings towards DSHS is distrustful bordering on paranoid.
I got some pretty glowing reports from Grand daughter A about the Foster Parents, something that surprised me.
Sunday she helped set up a visit with Mrs A and I her and Neeko and the foster parents and the two grandkids. We met at a Micky D. with a playland, and of course it was total chaos, with kids of all sizes running around screaming and yelling. It was not the best situation for a meet and greet, but it was OK. We had some good conversation, and I came away feeling much better about the situation. I hate to think of how much sleep I have lost worrying about it and feeling helpless.
If you accept the situation for what it is, The kids are in about the best place thet can be.

An oldie but a goodie.



Blatherskite

Stories you might read here are mostly true

Thursday, June 15, 2006

My Life as a Chicken Hypnotizer.



When R. was small, I decided that she could use a little experience in the feeding and care of farm animals, but since we live in a more-or-less urban area, although it is unincorporated, there are some restrictions on what you can do, not to mention the restrictions on space (I only have 1/4 acre).

I was tearing an old dilapidated deck off of the house, so I used the pieces to build a chicken coop in the back yard. Then we went down to the feed and seed store, and bought a couple of Banty chicks that became Rusty and Dusty, our two laying hens.

R was fascinated that without benefit of a male chicken for inspiration, they would produce eggs on a regular basis. Not only that, they weren't white or brown like normal store bought eggs, they were a grey-green and smaller. She used to like to take hard boiled Banty eggs to school because most people had never seen anything but regular eggs.

One day she had a couple of friends over, and she was showing them the chickens, and I asked them "Do you know it is possible to hypnotize a chicken"

"NO WAY! Could show us?"

So I did.

Later R. asked me "Dad, where did you learn to hypnotize chickens?"

As I have mentioned ad nauseum, we had a farm, and raised all kinds of things. We always had two batches of chickens, One batch of laying hens, one batch of fryers. One of the kids jobs was to go out to the hen house in the morning and gather the eggs and feed the chickens. It was always a little like a treasure hunt, because you never knew what you were going to find. Taking the eggs away from the hens could be an adventure too, as some of them took objection to us removing their eggs. After all it wasn't easy producing them.

The fryers life was short and pretty good. They were fed and watered and didn't have to produce anything to earn their keep, just put on weight. The down side was that before things froze up in the fall, would come slaughter day.

Everyone hates slaughter day. It is nasty, smelly work, but it puts food in the freezer for all winter.

The little kids were chicken catchers. Grandfather was the headsman. Uncle Fred and Dad were the gutting crew, and everyone else were Chicken Pluckers. It was our own little assembly line.

My job was Chicken Hypnotizer.

After the little kids caught a chicken, they would bring it to me. I would stick it's head underneath it's wing and then pump it (the whole bird) up and down for about 30 seconds. Then you could set it down on the ground and it would stay where you set it. Eventually it would sort of shudder, pull it's head out and look around like "Where the hell am I?", but on slaughter day, they generally never came around. If they started to, I would just grab them before they got any ideas about running off, and re hypnotize them.

It always caused me to wonder "How did someone figure this out? It would seem logical that it would be someone who wanted to transport chickens quietly and easily. Like maybe a Chicken Thief? How did my grandfather, who was from the hills of Kentucky and taught me the fine art of chicken hypnotizing happen to be in possession of this particular bit of information?"

It wasn't until many years later that I learned that this is a technique used by bird hunters to train their bird dogs. They will hypnotize a chicken and set it down in the brush, then get the dog and lead it around close to where the chicken is, then reward the dog when it finds the bird.

I have always wanted to put this on my resume'. Chicken Hypnotizer. That alone should be good for a first interview, and once you get your foot in the door anything is possible.

I have never found a use for this very rare skill in the modern world. I mean you can't exactly pick up a newspaper, and there on page 13 of the classified ads you find "Wanted: Chicken Hypnotizer. Full time. Full benefits. Must be experienced. Top Wages."

Any one need a perfectly good barely used Chicken Hypnotizer?

Getting Impatient

My '77 280Z has been gone for a month and a half now for paint. I am getting a little impatient to get it back. I told my painter to take his time, no hurry, no worry.
I called him last week to see how it was going, and he said he would come by with pictures. He showed up last Friday with pictures of it in Satin Black. It looked so good that I almost told him to leave it as is and finish it up.
Almost. I have this vision of what it will look like with the purple/blue green satin color changing paint that I need to complete the project to make the vision become real.
He said he was going to put on the color changing stuff on Monday. I haven't heard from him since. Of course just laying down the paint doesn't finish the process.
Rust heads were showing around the gasket for the windshield and rear hatch window, so I had him putt both and gave him new gaskets to reinstall them. He told me that once he got the windshield out there were a bunch of pinholes to weld, so that took more time. The body shop is a side line for him, so I know he doesn't work it like a regular job. And I did tell him to take his time, so I have no room to complain.
Besides, the weather has been crap for the last month. Not inspirational sports car driving weather. But I can smell Spring in the air, and I want to be ready.
Patience, patience, patience. Never has been one of my better virtues.

Life as Defined by Two Photos

SO this little tableau is a metaphor for life.

At one end of the rainbow we have the gold/goal, the beer store. When I get off of work I'm going to The Beer Store to reward myself for my hard work. The Beer is the pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.

After we have attained our reward, we satisfy our craving, all is well.

Then 6the other end of the rainbow is a shower of gold.

And repeat as necessary.

Valentines Weekend

I proposed to the lovely Mrs A. on Valentines Day 11 years ago. I try to return to "The Scene of the Crime" every year tom commemorate it. So last weekend it was off to The Lake Quinault Lodge.
It is in the Olympic National Forest at the edge of the Quinault Rain Forest.
No phones in the rooms, not TV no cell phone service. Lots of beautiful hiking trails, a decent restaurant in the lodge.
I was concerned this weekend because the weather forecast called for rain followed by rain, with rain expected along with high winds. We have gone there before, and the rain doesn't bother us that much. Only one time have we been there when it POURED rain the whole time.
The drive there was through light drizzle, but not as bad as I had anticipated. We had dinner at the restaurant, and it was OK. They did not offer my favorite, Cedar Plank Salmon for two. So I had a steak. I was disappointed in the steak. Being raise on beef, and our family raising beef, I know a good cut of meat from a bad one, and the quality was so-so. The steak was thin and tough. This was not a $28 piece of meat, it was an $11 cut of meat. At least they had the Marionberry Cobbler, which was good enough to be the reason for the trip.
Sunday, after sleeping in we took a long hike, about four hours. We timed it perfectly. We started out in the drizzle, and were dressed appropriately in waterproof gear. We really didn't need it, because it quit raining and we actually saw the sun, an unexpected bonus. We got in the car and drove around the lake the waterfalls were all going full throttle. Quite impressive.
Nature being a thing of balance it made up for the unexpected bonus by bringing in a howling drenching rainstorm, and the power went out in the Boathouse for five hours. The Lodge has backup power, but not the boathouse, so we were in the dark without heat. No big deal. The lights came back on about 10:30.
The drive back home was a white knuckle drive all the way. Absolutely pouring rain. As much water coming up off the road from the cars as there was coming down from the sky. Traffic would hum along, the blind leading the blind, and suddenly it would stop for no apparent reason. No accident, no stalled vehicle, nothing
we talked a lot , told jokes, got rid of a lot of tension, had some good food, had a great hike.
Couldn't ask for a better weekend this time of year. Just enough negative to make you appreciate the positive.

A little bit of humor

I was walking down the aisle to the machines to get my morning Fritos.
A rather attractive woman was walking past in the other direction.
She was staring at my crotch.
I thought "What, did I forget to Zip or something?"
No everything was normal there.
As I checked my hand brushed my left hand pocket.
I had a bottle of prescription pills in my pocket.
I realized that it looked like I was "Really happy to see her"
I found it highly amusing.

Coming around

I have not frequented my blog of late. In general, I do not do well in the winter. Whether it is the weather or the lack of sunlight or whatever,  Throw on top of that not knowing where two of my grandkids are, and all of the uncertainty with their mom, it is hard to stay on an even keel.
SO I withdraw from the world, read and do genealogy, go to work, work overtime, and pretty much hunker down. I'm OK but the daily slog is just enough of an uphill slog to require a little determination to keep up at it.
I had a great time watching the Seahawks thump the Broncos in the Superbowl. Things are looking up.
But I am still having a lot of trouble gaining traction to go anywhere or do anything.
Oh well, Spring will come, the weather will improve and if things go well, I can retire this coming December.

"Z" Paint

I turned over the 77 280Z to the painter today. I have been planning to get it resprayed for some time, and have been saving the money up.
Strictly by coincidence, my friend Gabriel that I lost contact with a couple of years ago showed up a couple of weeks ago, and he came over to take a look at the car to give me an estimate on a respray. I want to do something a little different this time. I love the emerald green to cobalt blue color changing paint, but I got some stuff that also has purple in it. I think the color change will pop better if it is covered with a flat clear.
At any rate, that's what I'm going to get it sprayed.

If I decide I don't like it flat, I can always get a shiny clear sprayed over the flat. I've seen a couple of examples, but only tesr swatches. There's no hurry, so it will be a couple of weeks at least.

Pictures to follow when I get it back.

Grandkids

I said goodbye to my two grand kids on Sunday.
I may never see them again.
"i" was out of control, a situation made worse by CPS. The won't allow you to punish a kid that is placed under your care by the courts. I am not a proponent of beating kids, but find nothing wrong with the application of a wooden spoon to the "seat of knowledge". If you completely take that tool away from parents/guardians then it becomes almost impossible to control kids.
When a five year old is telling you he is going to kill you, and you find him stuffing paper in the electric heater, there has to be a more rigid form of punishment than giving the kid a time out.
Since they were having so much trouble controlling "i", they had to find some place outside the family to send him. They found someone that would take both kids. X is five months and the cutest little thing you ever did see, but the objective is to keep the two kids together. Since the place they are going has no other kids and a stay-at-home mom, she should be able to give the constant attention to "i" that he will need.
But Grandparents have no rights, so I am just SOL.
So I took the day Sunday to go up to Concrete and say goodbye to the grand kids.
Tough day.

Pothead

Anyone who comes around here regularly over time know I live in Seattle, or as I like to put it, Latteland.
Maybe I should start calling it Potlandia, as the infamous weed is now legal in the State of Washington.
Of course just to make things ridiculous, there is no way currently to purchase it. Distribution centers have yet to be set up.
It takes about 500 politicians a couple of years to roll one joint.
One thing that is in place is Medical Marijuana. If you have one of certain medical conditions, you can get a prescription. Well, I have Glaucoma, which is one of the few recognized universally conditions that can be treated with Marijuana. Glaucoma is excessive pressure in the eye, and pot relaxes the muscles of the drains for the eye,
The main reason was really insomnia. I haven't had a decent knight's sleep in years. So I wanted to see if it would help me sleep. Cost me $100.00 to go see the Naturopath, 11.00 for a gram of weed. They gave me a sample of a chocolate with THC, said it would help me sleep.
It did the opposite. I was up all night. Mainly because my mouth got so dried out. My sinuses swelled shut so I couldn't breathe through my nose, and when I breathed through my mouth it dried out my tongue so bad I had to take a sip of water.
Miserable night. It DID relieve the pain in my neck and shoulders. Maybe if I take  claritin before I indulge, it will work out. But not on a work night.

Bullet Hole

Mrs A went about her usual chores and stuff on Tuesday. Worked out at the gym, Want to the thrift store. Bought a few groceries.
She was coming back from dropping off some movies at Redbox, when she noticed something unusual.
A bullet hole in the hood of the car!
When she got home, she came in and said "Y0ou've got to come look at something."
I went out and looked, and there was a perfectly round hole in the upper passenger's side of the hood. From the way to hole is, it was apparent to me that someone had shot a gun in the air, and the bullet had come down on the hood of our car. From the angle, the impact was vertical.
So we got to inform the insurance company, call the Police for a Police Report, and go in for an estimate.
$750.00! For one little hole!!
We have an appointment next Monday to get it taken care of.
This kind of thing is always happening to Mrs A. Always being in the wrong place and wrong time. At least she wasn't standing where it hit.

Almost Christmas

I have to admit to being a bit of a Scrooge. I really don't like the hype, the commercialism and the drama. I withdraw like a turtle into my shell, and peek out occasionally to see if it is over yet.
Now that we no longer have kids at home, we don't much decorate, and I hate shopping with a passion year round, but especially at Christmas.
So two of my grandkids are under court guardianship, my daughter is in the hospital recovering from a pulmonary embolism. The daughter lost custody of her kids because she is a junky.
Under the circumstances it is extremely difficult to maintain a cheerful demeanor. I don't want to bring anybody else down.
Oh well. It snowed this morning and I got to see multiple people doing stupid things. Snow provides much amusement. First you have the people that have not a clue how to drive in the snow. They accelerate too quickly, jam on the brakes, take quick turns. The car ends up going straight when they want to turn. I saw two in my four mile commute this morning having intimate conversations with light poles.
Then there is the snow bully. They usually drive big four wheel trucks or SUVs. They tailgate, blink their lights, toot the horn. Their basic attitude is "Get the Hell out of my way, I'm coming through". They don't seem to realise that just because you have four wheel drive, it doesn't mean you can STOP any faster than homebody's old beat up jalopy that they only use to drive in the snow because it is no loss if they put it in the ditch. These guys usually end up in the ditch, quite frequently upside down.
The best advice I ever heard about driving in the snow is: "Pretend you have an egg taped to the bottom of you shoe(s). It is of utmost importance that you not break the egg.."
So I was driving the 2007 Chevy HHR with the Blizzak snow and ice tires. The tires are rated as the best for snow and ice. Front wheel drive, so the front end is always trying to go in the direction the tires are pointed. Slow to moderate speed, maintain your distance from cars around you, and Look out for the idiots.
The snow was falling and Christmas carols were playing in the radio.
I almost started singing along.

Weather

It has been pretty cold for Latteland for the last couple of weeks. Down below 20 degrees several mornings. I know that would be perceived as a warming trend for lots of people this time of year, but we are real cold wussies up here. Anything below freezing is considered extreme weather.
This morning it was freezing fog, a personal favorite. I cleaned and scraped the windshield before starting out, but after a couple of blocks, I had to pull over and scrape the ice off of the window again.
When I got out of the car, everything was coated with a thin film of black ice. I sat in the car and waited for the car to warm up and the defroster to do its job, then went on.
I was very cautious applying the gas and brake, as the ends of the car seemed to want to go any direction but straight. I have to admit that 1 280Z with street tires is probably not the best choice on the ice.
But I made it to work without making the acquaintance of the ditch or anything else, so a successful venture. By tonight it is expected to return to normal, normal being rain.
We like rain. Rain we understand. We embrace rain.
On a side note, overtime this weekend. Some additional money right at Christmas is always welcome. Hopefully it will be relatively quiet, but not completely boring.
Since my daughter is being totally unresponsive to DSHS, has not enrolled in a drug rehab program, is not being forthcoming, making no progress, there is a hearing today to see about seeking a more permanent solution to her two kids custody. My grand daughter wants to keep them both, but she and her husband have been at war with DSHS ever since the kids were placed with them. Let's just say that my low opinion of DSHS has not improved any. The State of Washington is fourth WORST in the entire United States in providing legal representation for kids in Court during Custody Proceedings, a shameful statistic. No one represents the best interests of the children.
Hows that saying go about accepting the things you can't change?
Patience my ass, I want to kill something.

TSO

Last night was one where everything just went right.
Months ago I bought five tickets to Trans Siberian Orchestra. I am a big fan. This is the fourth time in the last fiver years we have gone to see them. I belong to the TSO fan club, and got pre-sale tickets. Five rows up from the floor stage right seats eleven through 15, I think those are the best seats in Key Arena.
It was me, Carol, my cousin Lynn and our friends Steve and Donna.
We got there early so we could have a drink before the show, and stopped into the EMP.  We got to our seats about fifteen minutes before the beginning, just enough time to settle in.
What can I say about TSO? Screaming electric guitar laser light show pyrotechnic Christmas extravaganza. An experience. The talent level of the performers, the quality of the presentation, the incredible complexity of the set, the lights and pyrotechnics are overwhelming. Sit down and hang on for the ride.
Afterward it was on to The Palisades, an upper tier restaraunt  The filet was great, The waitstaff very good, the drinks well made.
So many times you set out to have a special occasion and stuff just goes wrong, but last night everything was according to plan.
A night I will store away in memory to be taken out, turned over examined and put away many times in the future.

Awesome Bike

I came across this the other day. I have featured a bunch of streamlind art deco cars here in the last couple of months. Here is a modern interpretation, Smooth-Ness, by Arlen Ness. Incredible vision and execution. The paint alone has to be worth 20K. 

About the Caulking

Got up this morning with the best of intentions. After breakfast I went upstairs to start on the bathroom. I spent a couple of hours stripping the old caulking out of the seams for the tub. It was old and gunky and cracked., and some of it was very hard to get out. But I persisted.
The decaulking done, I was ready to recaulk.
Now, where was the caulking I bought yesterday?
Not in he bag with the rest of the stuff from Lowes. Not on the kitchen counter. Not in the bathroom. Not on the stairs. Not downstairs. not upstairs.
Well, some tile I bought wasn't quite right, so we went back to Lowes to return the tile and buy some more caulking.
Mrs A says as we walk into the sore "You know as soon as we get home the other tube of caulking will show up?"
"Of course it will dear, it's inevitable"
So we did our business and went home.
As Mrs A walked in the front door and into the kitchen, there on the cabinet was the original tube of caulking.

Growing old makes every day an adventure.

Hey Dear have you seen my caulk? I seem to have misplaced it and can't find it anywhere.

Not lately dear. Did you check in your coveralls?

Droll, very droll.

Home Improvement

Sitting here on a quiet Saturday night. Mrs. A. is upstairs taking a shower, the pellet stove is going, casting that orangish glow on the room. The dogs are curled up on the floor. No drama, no problems to speak of. Nice and quiet.
Things have been a bit chaotic lately. We are having friends come over Nov. 23rd to see TSO in concert and spend the night, since they are driving from Yakima. It is always great to see TSO screaming electric guitar pyrotechnic laser light show extravaganza Christmas show.
But nothing happens in a vacuum. This becomes a stimulus for doing a lot of things we have put off for a while. I am perfectly happy with the way things are, but Mrs. A. always sees ways to improve things.
Of course this requires my participation. As it well should. But I don't always agree with what needs to be done.  Or when it needs to be done. This leads to some lively discussion. I readily admit to my share of blame. I have been known to be stubborn and opinionated.
But when all is said and done there is nothing I like better than sitting in the quiet of the evening in my own home, warm and dry, fed and comfortable, and at peace for the moment.
Tomorrow there is another project. Tomorrow I tackle the upstairs bathroom. The tub needs recaulking.

Genetics 101

Some times things do not turn out the way you want them to. Whenever someone starts out doing genealogy, they have dreams of finding out that they are descended from royalty. But the other alternative is equally possible. You might be descended from roguery.
I my search for my genetic history I came across Pope Alvey. Do a google search on him some time.
Sentenced to death not once, but twice, but never executed. Under bond for his life they decided that he would make a good hangman.
I guess the logic was that no good man would want the onus of being the hangman, so the good state of Maryland came to the conclusion that since he was a convicted murderer and thief and seemed to have no remorse, he would make an excellent hangman.
Don't worry, he was many generations back on the female side of my family tree, and the male DNA follows the father, so very little of his DNA has passed to me.
But it does remind me of an incident in High school........
I was bored out of my mind, It was between classes. I pulled down the blind on the window next to my desk, and fooling around, made a noose.
What to do next?
I tossed it around the neck of the guy in front of me (sorry roadrunner) and pulled the blind down and let go.
It sprung back up and roadrunner jumped up out of his desk clawing at his neck.
That was about the time the teacher came in the classroom and demanded to know what was going on.
He didn't seem surprised.
Maybe I can blame it on genetics.

Happy Halloween!

Meet Frankeneinstein, famous for his theory of irrelevantivity.
I saw this on the internet and ordered a pattern, which I transferred by hand to a pumpkin. Then it is a three level carving to get the different levels of light. I had a bit of a hard time envisioning what I was doing until I put the light inside of it. Should have thought of that a lot sooner.
It is exactly opposite if drawing or painting where you add something to give the picture form. Here you are taking stuff away to add light.
Never done it before, but I like to stretch my brain on occasion.
The result is a little rough, but definitely ok for a forst time.
Anyway, Happy halloween

Genetic confusion

I have been playing around with various genetic websites while waiting for my test kit. It gets pretty confusing, because a lot of them don't agree.

The fins a gravestone site lists James warren and Sarah Horrell as the parents of Alfred Alexander Warren. This is bad information. As a matter of fact, Alfred A warren is the son of Charles Warren. He is listed in the will as inheriting part of Charles's estate.

Charles is also listed as being executor of the estate of William Warren, who I figure must be his father. But I haven't been able to find anything that supports that. William warren was born in Maryland, in the area that would become D.C., but so far I have not been able to find anything concrete.

This has been fun, trying to ferret out small facts out of an enormous pile of........facts

Well, maybe not.

About the royal blood thing.....................
There are two mind sets about Guddun, Princess of England.
One side says she is the daughter of William the Conqueror, one side says not.
Her tombstone says she is, so I'm sticking with that.
I still have not connected the two halves of my genetics together, The sticking point is James Warren, who married Sarah Horrell in Kentucky in 1817. He was not born in Kentucky, but was born in Maryland, which would go along with family oral history. There was a migration of Catholics from Maryland to Kentucky in the late 1700s and early 1800s and the information I have managed to dig out is that he was born in 1790 in Maryland, died in 1870 in Kentucky.
I have joined the Warren family DNA site and have ordered a test kit, which will be used to compare 27 genetic factors of the warren family and should give me a match.
It will take a couple of weeks.
You may call me SIR.
Or not

Royal Blood?

I have been fiddling around with Genealogy lately. It all got started with me going back to recover some some recent history, mainly our family's activities in the Four Corners area of New Mexico.
One thing led to another and next thing I was doing a family genealogy. I had a decent place place to start, with a genealogy put together by my Uncle Ben.
I dug it out, and it took me back as far as Charles Warren (1748-1820) and Monica Drury (1785-?)
With that as a starting point I just slogged it out with the Internet until I worked my way back to William de Warren, who was William the Conqueror's right hand man,fought beside him at the Battle of Hasings and married his daughter Gundren the Princess of England.
The blood of kings flows in these veins!
They can have it back whenever they want, it doesn't seem to be doing me any good.
Next thing you know people will expect nobless oblige.

Won't be able to fart or burp or pick my nose.

Fie on the peasants I say, FIE!

The Grandkids

We went up to Concrete last Saturday to visit Amelia and James and the grandkids. It was good to see them settling in. The baby had gained 2 lbs in a week, which is significant because it was from seven to nine pounds.
It was a beautiful fall day for a drive. As we got out of town and a little up in elevation the leaves began to turn color. We stopped at a State Park along the Skagit river and walked on the trails for a while.
The mission was two-fold. We had clothes and stuff for Rs kids and a birthday present for Neeko's fifth birthday. It was hectic, with two five year olds together. They are already acting like sibs, in other words half the time they are playing together and riffin off of each other and the other half of the time they are fighting. Pretty normal.
Cps has been less than supportive up until this week, so we brought clothes and money. Although the State had awarded custody to Amelia and James, CPS was dragging their heels trying to find some other alternative. Rs lawyer finally nailed them with : The state has already given custody to James and Amelia, you need to take this case out of investigation and give it to a case worker so they can get the support owed them through the court. Good for him.
Monday they finally got a support check for clothing for the kids, who had arrived with practically nothing,
Looks like things might settle down now.

Driving the Z

So the Z had been dormant for a couple of years, because the dash lights were all out and it had developed an alarming "thunk" in the rear end.
It has been back on the road for a couple of weeks now, and I had really forgotten how much fun it is. I have slowly pushed the performance every day to just a little quicker, a little faster, until today I was back a the point where I remembered why I love driving this car.
The acceleration, while not neck-snapping, does push you firmly back in he seat. It doesn't take long to go from 25 to 60, and on up. Top end is around 140, but I've never had it above 120. With the ground effects kit on, it is firm on the road with plenty of pedal left at 120.. Some people may not like the removal of the bumpers and addition of the ground effects kit, but I hated the look of the enormous ugly front and rear federally mandated five MPH bumpers. And it is much more stable at high speed.
The handling is superb. It hugs he ground and corners like it is on rails. The car itself is a little on the heavy side, but  no ponderous. The power is adequate to pull through the corners, and one of the joys of driving it is hitting that point riding on the edge of control, when going around a corner you can just feel the rear tires just beginning to break loose, feathering the gas to retain control.  Hyper alert, senses at their peak, knowing you are riding the edge of disaster. Pulse racing.
Oh yeah!

On the Road Again

Well, after a couple of years of sitting dormant, the Z is back on the road.
I had put it out of service because all of the dash lights had blown. Since I work ten hour days, starting about now it is dark when I go to work and dark when I go home, so interior lights, while not being absolutely necessary, are a definite plus!
It is not perfect. They two immediate things are that the Brake light that comes on when you set the emergency brake is always on. It is mildly annoying, but no big deal. I need to fish around under the passenger's seat and see if I can find the wire.
Also, in my hurry to get it back on the road, I neglected to hook up the speedometer. As I tend to drive by the tach and engine sound, this is not a big deal. If a cop stops me and asks how fast I was going, my reply will be "3200 RPM in second gearr" Sounds perfectly good to me.
I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to drive.
But it sure came back in a hurry! Definitely not the best car in the snow unless you put some superior tires on it. I have a set of spare wheels, I wonder how much a set of Blizzaks would set me back?

Court

Today was the custody hearing for placement of R's two kids. My grand daughter and her husband have been trying to get custody, but it has been an uphill battle.
Her hubby has a record from back when he was a kid. It was all a long time ago, and minor stuff. His last charge was seven years ago, for carrying a pocket knife. He would have been about 16, Certainly not reason to block their placement. Bu CPS had a wild hair up it's ass.
I wrote a letter of recommendation for them. My recommendation matters because I am the grandfather, and I have been approved by CPS, since I adopted and raised one of my grandkids. I also
helped them write a letter to the court.
Court was this morning. They agreed to place the kids with Amelia and James. They called me just over the moon with happiness. They will pick up the kids tomorrow.
I hope they know what they are getting themselves into. "i" is five and has some behavioral problems from being dragged around by his drug-addict mother. The little girl is only six weeks old. This is a life changing event. I wish them all the best.

Power Without Accountability

By God, I hate CPS.
They are a perfect example of what happens when you give marginal people power without accountability.
The individual who is working with R. to arrange for care for her two kids told her (rightly so) that because R was not in jail and not yet in care, she has the legal right to have a say about where her kids are placed. Think of it this way: It is legally no different than if she asked someone to babysit her kids so she could do something. That is her legal right.
The people from CPS took violent exception to this. After all, they had not approved of the placement. They were still doing background checks on my grand daughter and her husband.
So given the conflicting information, she went down to pick up the kids. Everything was going along fine, when CPS shows up with the cops, and demands custody of the kids.
They tell Amelia that it is not her, it is her husband that they object to. They refuse to say why or what he has ever done to cause such a disturbing display of jack boot Nazi trampling of of basic human rights.
It is my opinion that they were just pissed that they had gone down to pick up the kids before they had been given the official OK. In other words, a childish temper tantrum of monumental proportions that had absolutely nothing to do with the welfare of the kids.
And will anything ever be done about it?
Of course not.
Power without accountability.

Another Little Piece of my Heart

One of THOSE phone calls yesterday.
It was my Grand Doughter, Amelia.
She called to give me some information
1) My daughet was going in to in-hospital rehab for drug addiction. This is not news, I think this is the third time, In between she is just a junkie.
2) The reason Amelia knows this is because CPS called and wanted to know if Amelia would take the kids for a month or os while R was in the Hospital. KIDS as in multiple. Tha last time I saw her was at Christmas and there was only one. I heard rumors about a second kid, but have not heard from my daughter since Christmas Eve. Now there is a six week old Grand Daughter I have never seen. I don't even know her name.
My daughter can kick the crap out of my without ever even talking to me.
Why do I continue to let het do this?  I have been told that she isn't even mine, something I was always pretty sure of, but figured in the end made no difference.
But she stilll sneaks in there ad breaks another little piece of my heart.

The Gloves

Well, I got a lot of the information about the gloves wrong.
First of all, they weren't purchased by my dad.
My Uncle Father (Richard?) Clark was a priest on the Ute reservation in the early part of the 20th century, When he retired from his position he was presented the gloves by the tribe in honor of his service.
When he moved back east uncle/Father Clark gave the gloves o my dad, who was working for the Trading post and acting as Assistant Postmaster at Towaoc.
So that makes the gloves even more relevant, I guess.

Family History

I've been doing a little family history research lately. This all started when I came across my dad's silver and turquoise ring that he bought out of the Trading Post he worked at as a young man. So of course I had to find out which Trading Post it was.
I knew he had worked at a trading post on the Navajo Reservation, but on questioning my mom, I found out that right out of high school, he worked at Towaoc at the Ute tribal headquarters. He spoke Ute very well, and acted as an interpreter for the tribe. He was also the Assistant Postmaster at this time. He purchased a pair of beautiful beaded gloves there in 1938 or 1939. We still have them, and they are in excellent condition. They have beadwork roses on the back of the hands. It is the plan to return them to the tribe when my mom passes on. I figured I would personally deliver them so I could spend a little time in the four corners area where my family lived. The trading post is gone now but the Utes still have their Headquarters in Towaoc. The gloves are exceptional and belong in a museum.
In the early to mid 20th Century my Grandfather was farm manager for a Boarding School in Waterflow New Mexico, so this same train of thought got me to wondering about the school. My search turned up the Sacred Heart Academy in Waterflow. I doubt there was any other Catholic Boarding School in the area, so this must be the place.
Included in the short history of the school was a picture of the students in 1928. I figure my dad and a couple of Uncles should be in the picture, but I haven't seen enough pictures of my dad as a child to pick him out. The school was run by the Ursuline Sisters, who have an active web site. I have sent them an inquiry about Grandfather and the students in the picture.



Chicken Gumbo

Desperation drove me to the Cafeteria today in search of sustenance. The Cafeteria does not serve food, it serves fuel to keep the workers moving.
Today one of the soup choices was Chicken Gumbo. I make traditional Cajun Gumbo from scratch. This is nothing like that. Calling this Chicken Gumbo is an insult to all other Chicken Gumbo's. It is my theory that they tie a cleaned chicken carcass on a string and drag it through a 55 gallon drum of stock. Occasionally a piece will fall off. If it is your lucky day, you get the piece of chicken.
Because it is made for mass consumption, all the flavors have been tamed down to insipidity (is that a word? if not it should be). If you take the Gumbo and add enough Tabasco to it that your nose runs and you break out in a sweat, you can occasionally get a hint of what real Gumbo tastes like.
Almost.
The real problem is that in order to make real Chicken Gumbo you need to start with a stewing hen. Do they even sell stewing hens any more? I think they all go to soup makers. At least I never see them in the Supermarket.
Oh heck, now I'm hungry for some seafood gumbo. My recipe does not start wih: Fill a 55 gallon drum with water.

The Ring

The curtains had blown around in the bedroom because the window was open. The hot August evening was cooling off a little and the bit of breeze was welcome.
The flapping curtain had knocked over some stuff on the night table, so I was tidying up. For no particular reason, my attention settled on the old battered jewelry box. Dark blue, battered, satin embroidered ill fitting top. It is not so much a jewelry box as a junk collector. Mostly stuff of little or no value that I can't bring myself to part with.
My Army Dog Tags. An arrowhead I found as a kid, An old gold chain, cuff links, a bead necklace made of seeds presented to me by my daughter when she was about six. My Army lapel insignias and shoulder patches.
And this battered old turquoise and silver pre-war Navajo ring. It has a very nice old stone of high quality that is cracked in a couple of spots. A lot of the detail is worn away on the silver. It has obviously been worn for a long time.
The silver looks to be coin silver, and it is obviously hand made. I am not sure exactly when it was made. What I do know is that my dad bought it in 1939 when he was working in a Trading Post on the RES in New Mexico when he was 19, I think he probably bought it out of pawn. It was a pretty standard practice for the Navajo to pawn their personal jewelry when they needed a little cash infusion and buy it back later. I suspect this was a piece that was not retrieved.
My mother says that it was the very first personal luxury that my dad bought. He was not one to accumulate things for himself. Throughout his life he accumulated a bunch of kids (seven of us). some tools, and half interest in the farm in Idaho.
So it is my personal connection to him. I can't wear this ring without feeling the connection to him, and wonder about what it was like and how things were with him at the time.
He was the strong silent Western type. He never talked about himself. Never told stories, so to me he was largely an enigma. There is a picture of him taken about the time he bought the ring, hair slicked back, sitting on a Harley Davidson, looking way cool and self assured. I hear he cut a pretty wide swath in  North-W
estern New Mexico in the late 1930s. He had cowboyed, moving herds from summer to winter pastures, and vice versa. But his first real job was working in the trading post.
He spoke Navajo, Ute, Spanish and English, so he would translate for the First Peoples when they needed to deal with the officials.
The other thing he accumulated during this time is a beautiful pair of white gloves with incredible beadwork on the backs. The beadwork is of roses and the gloves are beautiful. We have contacted the Ute tribe and will be donating them to the Tribal Museum. They are too nice to be moldering away in a drawer somewhere.

So for now I am wearing the ring. It is fairly small, so it will only fit on my little finger, but I wear it to honor the man that was my father.

MEH

I'm really not sure what's going on with Blogger, but I have been having issues with it.
It eould let me enter a Title for a post, but that was it. Wouldn't go down to the body of the post.
Oh well I faked it into working for the moment.
Three weeks off, what can I say. Too short, that's what. Paint the house, pressure wash the patio and back deck. A week of camping. Never did have enough time to work on the cars at all.
They insisted on giving me a new laptop at work. I don't mind the improved performance, faster speed, and better graphics, but I sure wish they would get to the point that it would actually work whan I plug it in. Nothing is in the right place. everything in my favorites is where I left it. More stuff will show up as I try to do something and the link is tucked away in some forgotten corner. Hide and seek for the next couple of days.
Oh well, it will all work out in the end.

Staycation

I am taking off the next THREE, count the THREE weeks.
I had already planned taking off two weeks when the shop announced they were taking off the week I planned to return. So I asked the boss if I could just extend my vacation for another week.
He gave me the OK.
It has been ten years since I took off more than two weeks.
The last two years we have taken two week trips in the Wesfalia. Altogether put about 10,000 miles on the camper. Had a great time, but I'm kinda burned out on the always on the road moving from one place to another gig.
Last summer I had the siding on the south side of the house replaced and painted.
Number one project is to prep and paint the east side of the house. I dug out the old airless and got it working, but had to replace the gun and buy some new hose. I think it is ready to go, but first project will be to do a trial run.
Then I need to get the big ladder out and wire brush the bad spots. Then do the trim. Then paint. I have set aside a week for this, which SHOULD be plenty of time. I still need to get a five gallon pail of paint.
Then we take a break.
Then I work on the Z for a while. If I get done with that, then I need to work on the deck off the kitchen. I need to repair the railing and re secure the decking. I may have to replace some of the boards, as they are pretty badly warped.
If there is any time left, Frankenhealey beckons. The fuel pump is broken, and it's my fault. After the umpteenth time of it freezing up, I'm afraid I used the wrong hammer to tap on it. A ball peen is not the appropriate tool, a rubber hammer is. Suffice it to say, it needs replacing.
One more day

Next Steps

Once I get the clutch free and adjust the valves and fix the "Clunk" in the rear end, I am going to get the Z painted. I love the blue to green color shift, but I was wondering if it would look better if the final finish was flat instead of shiny. In the picture at the top, I think the "Shiny" detracts from the color shift.
Oh well, when I get to the point it is being painted, I can have them do a coat of flat clear with the additive, and then if I don't like it that way, I can just have them put a second coat of shiny clear on top.
I dug my old airless paint sprayer out of the basement. It has been sitting for better than ten years, so I tore it down and cleaned it and put it back together. Didn't work.
Pulled it back apart, and figured out I had the diaphragm in the pump in upside down. Mind you I have no repair or owner's manual, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants.
Put it back together and it still wasn't working. Tore it down again. A small steel ball bearing check valve was kinda rusted in place in the intake. Cleaned the ball bearing, the seat and the spring, turned it on "prime" and it started moving water around. Installed the high pressure hose and gun. The pump moved fluid but nothing was coming out of the gun. Removed the gun and ran the pump, and fluid comes out of the end of the high pressure hose, so I think all I need to do is tear down the gun and clean it up. I'll try it tonight if I have the time.
You may ask yourself "Why is Al doing this?"
Or maybe not.
I have three weeks of vacation coming up, most of which will be spent working around the house. Last year I had the siding on the South side of the house replaced and painted. The east side needs to be wire brushed and painted also. An airless sprayer is the only way to go.

Z Interior

 

 

I finished buttoning up the interior of the 1977 280Z today. Put in the trim pieces on the dash, installed the shift knob. I included a shot from "before" for contrast.

I also included a picture of the tach with the dash lights on to show that, indeed I do now have dash lights, the lack of which sent me down this path. Now on to fixing the mechanical stuff. Right now the clutch is frozen. Not sure if it needs to be bled or just busted loose.

Moving Forward

I've been fighting with Blogger for a couple of days. I would try to post, but once I put in the header, that's all it would let me do. At any rate, it seemed to be working now
They tore off the old roofing yesterday, will put the new roofing on today.
The poor dogs just do not understand that we actually WANT people walking around and hammering on the roof. They are quite certain that we are being invaded by aliens or some such.
Of course Mrs A. is about frantic by the time I get home. I advised her (notice I didn't say TOLD her) that she needs to pack up the pups and run down to the park with a picnic lunch. Everyone would be a lot happier.
They had to replace a few sheets of plywood at the edge of the roof, which I figured would be necessary.
I still haven't heard from the Bank about the equity loan, but should soon. I figure I will just put everything on my Visa and pay down the Visa when the loan comes through. Accumulate lots of rewards point that way.
The Z comes along slowly. I finished rewiring the stereo on Sunday, put the seats back in and installed the console. Need to put in the steering columns surround and lower close-out panels, and the interior should be ready to button up.
Unfortunately the clutch isn't working. It feels like the pedal is not pushing anything. so it may be the clutch master cylinder, if not that the slave cylinder. If not that the clutch disc is frozen in place from sitting too long. I guess it will be a check it out thing once I get it up in the air. That will also give me the opportunity to look for the source of the Thunk in the rear end.
One thing at a time. And every time you get something done, one step closer to on the road.

Fourth of July

Of course I have the day off, for which I am grateful.
I guess I am officially an old fogy now, because I don't set off fireworks anymore. A lot of it has to do with no kids in the house as an excuse. They all go to one of the big commercial displays. I still get the occasional urge to make something go BOOM, but mostly it is a stick of dynamite I want to chuck under the neighbors house. Don't worry, I don't have any.
So I will probably spend the day working on the Z.
It is going back together OK. When I went to put the stereo back in, I saw that there was only one set of speaker wires hooked up. (and no, I did not put the stereo in). So I needed to run some new wires. I am doing this before I put the center console back in. A lot easier if you can actually see and reach the wires under the dash. I got it hooked up, but one of the speakers has a bad buzz. I probably reversed the wires when I hooked it up.
Then the console goes back in, the various trim pieces. Put the new seat covers on and put the seats in.
When I got the new water heater, it was too big to fit between the Z and the deck support, so I wanted to move the Z a little to get by. Unfortunately the Z would not go into gear. The clutch is stuck from sitting too long. Bummer. One more thing to take care of before it moves again.
Then bleed the brakes,
Then address the clunk in the rear end.
Then paint,
The list goes on.

Hot water part II

Things very seldom go as planned, at least for me.
I replaced the lower thermostat on the hot water tank, waited until the water got hot, took a shower and went to work three hours late.
I forgot me cell phones.
Mrs A was desperately trying to get in touch with me. The upper thermostat had gone haywire. Mind you I did not even touch the upper thermostat. But when I got home there was evidence of a fire, and the plastic shield that covered the thermostat was mostly missing, with drips of plastic and flame and scorch marks going up the side of the tank.
I think it was a message.
So I quickly went down to the Hardware store and bought a similar sizee and design hot water tank. Then I needed all the adapters elbows and pipe to replace the stuff that hooked up the old tank.
The hook-ups for the tank are 3/4". The house line is 1/2". So I had to go back and buy adapters to go from one pipe to the other. And adapters to go from brass pipe to plastic pipe.
When I first started filling up the tank, I forgot to leave a faucet cracked, but it is a good way to test the system for leaks. I heard hissing and was checking the pipes to see where the leak was when
BOOM! Loud hissing.
I hadn't done a very good job of putting pipe goop on one joint and it had blown apart.
Mrs A thought I had been killed or something, ran to the top of the stairs yelling "AL, are you OK???" I was
busy turning off the water, then answered. Scared the heck out of her.
Regooped everything and put it back together.
Ran water, and did not have a good seal on the adapter that goes from brass to plastic pipe. Leaking pretty steadily. Only one way to fix it, and that was to cut the pipe so I could unscrew the fitting and goop it and put it back on. Of course it was too late to go down to the hardware store and get an adapter to glue the two halves of the pipe together, so no shower.
Fill the bathtub part way. Get your largest kettle. fill with water, heat to a boil, add to bathtub.
Mama was not happy.
Hell, I wasn't happy.
Gotta stop on the way home and buy an adapter. Might buy a couple just in case.