this is Really Cool
this is cool
this is fun
this is useful
|
||||||
   |
No excuses, it has been way too long I’m going to try and once more find the wherewithal (sp?) to write at least a few paragraphs here every couple days. Maybe even add a link or two and some photo’s… Did you miss me? OK, I also need to figure out my login for the damn tag board to get the spam out of it too. Anyway, time to walk the dog and get to work. Dog you say? Yes, I’ll fill you in on that and much more during our next episode! I think this has been the longest I’ve ever went without updating. So much has happened, and at the same time not much has changed at all. If you know what I mean. I won’t try and fit it all in one post, I’ll backfill in dribs and drabs. Much easier for me. Work is good as usual, home is good. Grace has finished the six month long process of bringing her stuff up here and even turned off her telephone line down at her parents so I guess we’re offically co-habitating now. You guys don’t know but I was without a car for almost two months and it was brutal. Sam drove me to work in the morning (at least he always got up for school) and Grace came to pick me up in the evening. It made for some long days, but I was working a lot of overtime during that period anyway. I finally got another Jeep. Not a TJ like I wanted, but a decent one of those is 15 grand used so that will have to wait for awhile. Nope, I got me a bona-fide real Jeep, an old CJ-7 that drives like a truck, bounces, rattles and squeaks more then the ’69 ford tow truck I drove years ago. But it’s a solid foundation to make a good weekend rock-crawler out of. If you know Jeeps I’ll fill you in on the specifics, if you don’t prepare to be bored (or moreso, whatever the case may be). It’s an ’86, considered by most best year for the CJ-7’s. It has 258 straight six, Dana 30 front axle, Dana 44 rear, and a Dana Spicer 300 t-case. Motor was rebuilt less than 10k ago, it has like every piece of stainless add-on you can get (which I usually don’t like but it looks OK), all new autometer gauges and a monster tach with tell-tale, headers, dual exhaust, MSD 6AL ignition, Tuffy security console, BFG 33.5 x 12.5’s on AR wheels and what appears to be about a 4 inch lift. The motor pulls strong, everything works, and it goes straight, so all in all not bad. The main thing is the frame is good, and there is like NO rust on the floors. It has those ugly double tube chrome bumpers and nerf bars which I really hate, but they’ll have to stay on for awhile. So I was surprised but my Wet Okole covers fit the seats pretty good, so I slipped them on. Makes me feel at home, I sat on those seat covers for 3 years every day in my ’00 Wrangler… I also installed a CB (Cobra 29LTD) and antenna. I have a Cobra 148 GTL and also a good 10-meter radio I could have installed but it would have been overkill for what I need. I have tons of stuff need to do, most will have to wait until spring. I plan on gutting interior and coating the tub inside with Herculiner. I need to swap the doors with a pair I have that are mint (but need to be painted). I also have to paint and swap the tailgate. I want to put steel corners on the rear and do the custom tail light thing, with the LED lights, of course. And I want to put in a new lift kit, a proper one with new springs. And a steering box brace is mandatory. And finally I want to get a rear bumber with swing away tire carrier and trail rack. Soon after that I’ll swap out that ugly front bumber with a rock bumper and hopefully one day add a winch to it. And I want to get one of those trick CO2 tanks for onboard air. Once summers here of course I’ll need a bikini top. I figure if I spend a few grand I’ll have a really solid and capable machine, and fortunately they just go forever and you can keep rebuilding them forever too! Oh you want a picture you say? Ok, maybe just one. OK, here she is, a little dirty, like a Jeep should be. Here’s a shot of the interior looking through the drivers door, nice neoprene, right? And here’s the view from the other side. As you can see, the interior needs some cleaning, tidy up loose wires under dash, etc. And I need to mount some speakers to cover up those holes in the dash. Eventually I want to get the Tuffy overhead console to get the CB out from between the seats. So it will give me something to obsess on, spend all my spare timne on, and yes, have fun 4-wheeling with. OK, I’m dead tired so enough for now. I’ll write as soon as I can and post more pics too. Oh yeah, happy new year and hope you’re holidays were good… Just a real quick one. Hooked up Grace’s scanner to her computer and was scanning in some old photo’s. Did this one of a dog I had, or should I say the BEST dog I ever had. His call name was Primo and he was truly a great dog. Good prey drive, eager to please, and always ready. In any case here’s a picture of Primo. K, that’s all for now… But as if you couldn’t guess, y’all will prolly be seeing lots of old pics in the near future! Wow, two posts in one day, haven’t done that in awhile, huh? Yup, we just got back from WallyWorld (AKA Walmart, the retailer who is ruining this country according to more then one web-pose (I just invented that, it’s my word for a Web Expose). We stocked up on paper plates, napkins, cleaning chemicals, the ususal crap. Also went by Home Depot and priced the rug we’re gonna get for the spare bedroom. Now just have to go back tomorrow and somehow get it home, it’s probably as long as the car I’m driving! One more thing about Walmart… If you ever want to see all the people who should NOT be wearing spandex doing just that, and with a belly shirt to top it all off, just go spend 45 minutes at your friendly neighborhood Walmart! I guess I can understand the 50 inch hips on the regular shoppers there, I mean, how can you pass up those candy bars next to the checkout, they’re only 44 cents a piece! Anyway, I actually got a comment to a post here a few weeks ago and I just noticed it and read it. It said “we want pictures” and that’s it. So I figured I’d post a few more pics to keep that person happy. And hey, maybe more people will leave comments, ya’ never know. So real quick as I’m tired and wanna go snuggle/watch SNL, here are a few. You have all heard tales of my one cat that’s a real killer, Gray Cat. Well she leaves whole chipmunks, squirrels, moles and mice for us, or sometimes she eats the whole thing and just leaves the stomach. She has woken me up at 3:00 am to the sound of a skull being crunchily chewed up before. A couple weeks ago I opened the bedroom door in the morning and found just this head on the floor looking at me. I thought it was kinda comical so I snapped a pic. Last week she dropped a live chipmunk in our bedroom and then chased it onto our bathroom. The poor thing was trying to escape and jumped into the toilet bowl!! It almost drowned in there, but I snatched it out and let it free outside. Grace held it and protected it until it was no longer in shock and could run off into the woods again. I wish I would have got a pic of it in the toilet, now that was funny. This is Grace’s cat Graham, he’s a big boy, almost 17 pounds, but very mellow. We also have the semi-feral Max, who stops by every couple days to grab a bite to eat, next time I see him I’ll snap a photo. He’s also gray, yes, we have 3 gray cats. Remember we made our annual pilgrimage to the beach a month or so ago? I said I’d post some photos so here goes. This is the usual “oh, how scenic” shot of the lighthouse with a sail in the background. And here’s my honey standing next to the sign before you walk onto the beach. The weird thing out there (Robert Moses State Park if you must know) is you’ll be walking along the boardwalk that traverses the dunes and see a deer right next to you on the sand. Just odd seeing deer; A- at the beach and B- on an island. And another shot of G standing on the boardwalk as we were walking out. If you look closely at the background you’ll see not everyone is naked. You didn’t really think I was gonna post naked pics of us did you? I guess you had to be there, in fact, I know you had to be there! And if you know me, then you know I have been a changeling at times. Just to keep you wondering, take a look at this shot of me about 5 years ago. Hmmm, a little different then I look nowadays, huh? OK, I said I wouldn’t be long so I’m gonna go upstairs. Oh, guess what I found today I haven’t had in almost twenty years. Goat’s milk ice cream. Yummy! PS- I’m not even gonna proof read this so please ‘scuse any typo’s K, g’nite…
And falling too, all over the yard, I dread having to start the annual rake-a-thon. Looks like fall is here and before you know it there’ll be snow on the ground. I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I’ve written anything here. I’ll skip the obligatory apology. But I’ve been painting my ass off trying to get all the outside stuff done before it gets too cold. I’m actually looking forward to the winter so I can turn my focus to the inside. If you knew me you’d know I’m famous for gutting a room, re-wiring and insulating it, then sheet rocking it and then, well, waiting a year until I get around to taping it and painting. Seriously, Sam’s bedroom sat for a year in bare sheetrock before I taped it. But it was a spare room then so it was easy to just leave the door closed and forget about it. I don’t mind the taping so much, it’s the sanding I can’t stand! I sheet rocked the upstairs hallway about 6 months ago so if I get it taped in the next couple months I’ll be ahead of schedule, right? I did paint the whole cottage, trimmed out the windows in the back of it, and changed the color scheme a little in front. The back side of it was a whole ‘nother color, it hadn’t been painted in probably twenty years, so there was quite a bit of scraping to do on the wood part up above, but it came out pretty good. It looks really cute if you ask me, like a little house. I guess that is the definition of a cottage, eh? And I cleaned out my shed and organized it, built a new door for it (it was doorless for over a year) and I also finally pulled wires and got electricity in it. As you can see, I have it jam packed full of stuff. Speaking of jam packed, I need to organize the front room in the house. It’s just storage really, all the stuff that won’t fit in the computer room or the laundry room. And all the tools and stuff I have nowhere to put now that I don’t have a garage anymore. Just look at all the crap in there! Yes, those are all old Sun workstations and external drives on that top shelf. In fact, I dug up an old photo of my computer room when they were all hooked up. Here’s my Sun Stack from a few years ago. Yes, my computer room was just a little bit cluttered back then. And I do apologize about the MCSE books in the background, I bought them on sale and never even cracked them open. Now my O’reilly Unix books on the other hand, got plenty of usage back in the day… Back to my cluttered storage room- If you look close you’ll see the bottom of the Joey Ramone figure I just had to buy (you know, it will be a collectors item one day). Yes, I’m an ideal canidate for that show “Clean Sweep” that airs on TLC!! Yeah, I have pack rat syndrome. A severe case of it indeed! But I’m throwing stuff out on a weekly basis and trying to get better at not saving everything. I could be worse, I don’t have jars of bent rusty nails that I’ve saved for years and years like someone I know (you know who you are). Hehe, couldn’t resist that one. Last weekend we had Sarah up as it was her birthday that Friday. Isn’t she adorable? We just hung out and did a lot of canning. We made apple butter and apple sauce to can, and then baked a birthday cake for her and then made dinner. I guess she had fun. We pretty much worked in the kitchen all day, but for me it’s not like work if it makes the house smell yummy and the end result tastes good! So now you see/hear how busy I’ve been last couple weeks I’m pardoned for not updating here, right? Riiiiiight… OK, enough outta me. I hope to finish painting the trim in the spare bedroom and maybe pick up a carpet for it and lay it this weekend. That room is going to be a giant closet basically for Grace to put all her clothes and furniture in from her Mom’s house. Then I can paint the other little bedroom and make a guest room out of that. Oh, I said I was outta here, right? K, bye |
|
||||
|
Copyright © 2015 Steve's World - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
