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And now, the meandering tale of an ethereal journey into the nether regions of the inane
As the Stomach Churns... |
No, we didn't name him Sir. Suckers.
We're adjusting to family life quite well. My sweetie is such a blessing - she is so wonderful with our son. I would probably go insane if it weren't for her. I have no idea how single parents do it.
Of course, evey parent believes their kid to be the greatest thing on the planet. I'll try not to bestow that impression upon you. The miracle of life is indeed wonderful. The change in priorities one encounters once you have the squirming bundle of joy in your hands is certainly interesting. Having a child kind of gives you a deeper purpose to what you're doing in life. Then they turn 13, and it's all out the window..... Luckily, I'm feeling pretty confident about the teen years. It's just the everything leading up to it; Have to start out right. Day one: we grounded Steven for taking so long in being born (10 days late). Day two: started talking about "when you turn 18, you can move out on your own." I've showed him the cars he won't be driving.
We recently got back from our "illegal" strike. I printed up a wack of resume's during the strike and hit the streets to find work so I could feed my family. As I was about to turn onto the highway, I had one of my "hunches" and instead, pulled into a different lane and headed to a nearby shop. Introduced myself and found out the shop owner was a former student of my school (1990). I ended up working for him for the two weeks we were out.
I learned a few things: 1) My training is very out of date 2) I am nowhere near as confident with other people's cars as I am with my own 3) My way of doing things isn't their way of doing things 4) I am not very fast at this 5) I don't really enjoy pulling wrenches (nothing's changed there since 1990...).
Perhaps, if I stuck with it a bit longer, I might become accustomed to the job better. Kind of like it took me a couple years to settle into teaching. There sure is a huge difference between teaching the trade and doing the trade. Funny how I can be so confident with students and their cars, and yet on the shop floor, under someone else, I just lose all my confidence. Strange.
Of course, the question asked is "how did you enjoy wrenching?" Well, it's totally the same, and completely different. Different stresses. Certainly less dealings with immature youth. It's kind of like saying "the grass is greener on the other side," but finding that it still has to be mowed.
I thanked the guy profusely for letting me work for him, and since the courts have ordered that we not receive any strike pay, that little bit of cash certainly helps.
I'm saving my political rants for another day.
Political rants upset people. And since my rants tend to go off the deep end at times, I'll spare you the details. Not like I voted the buggers into power or anything (grin).
It's certainly made me re-evaluate my proposed world order. Perhaps I'll need a different approach to world domination. I figured fascism might be a good way to go, but it's hard to make work without hurting people. If there was a way to do it in a pleasant manner.....
I've decided I need to start a ribbon campaign. The Black Ribbon, for EPC: "Eradicating Politcal Correctness." Folks, this kind of garbage has gone too far. Nobody really cares if you use the word "man." Like Mailman. Lineman. Whatever. It's just a name. Nobody actually thinks there's male superiority here. Get over it. Be thankful you don't live with a language (like almost anything other than English) where there is masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. Remember that when you're driving through Personitoba, Canada. Sheesh.
And then there's the nationality, or any other significant difference. Imagine a line of people, one of whom is wearing glasses. I ask you to give something to the person in the glasses. By doing so, am I discriminatory against people with glasses? Not at all. In the same way, if I ask you to give something to the only Chinese person in a line of people, I am not discriminatory against Chinese. By trying hard to describe someone without indicating their most obvious physical difference, I end up sounding ridiculous. Just stamp out political correctness. Ridiculous. "Give this to the person with hair." Krikey. A political rant after all....
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A Lotus Super 7 replica, based on Ron Champion's "Build Your own Sports Car for £250 and Race It!"
"The Lethal Locost" |
I sprayed Rust Bullet paint on the frame, control arms, spindles, panhard rod, and rear axle. I used my Princess Auto $39 spray gun, and the results were reasonable. Next time I spray, I'm going to need a filter and a water separator. Rust Bullet starts curing with moisture, and if there is any moisture in the air, it will start curing inside the gun. Not nice. The paint was ordered from Caswell Canada. Rust Bullet and POR-15 retail for $42/quart. POR-15 requires "Metal Prep" as a base coat, which may just be Phosphoric Acid, and should be topcoated (afaik). POR-15 can be ordered through LordCo. Rust Bullet requires two coats only, and needs no topcoat.
I had made an aluminum fuel tank a few months back. I had a few pin holes in it, so I tried to fix them by gas welding them closed. I had been getting good at gas welding aluminum. But, I couldn't get the welded seams to puddle properly without melting the surrounding metal. It seems welded aluminum is harder than the unwelded metal. I ended up making a mess of the tank.
So I took a large sheet of steel and tried to weld that together instead. Nasty. You could surf off the waves. Poor heat control on my part.
I debated making one out of fibreglass, but the thought of that in an accident frightened me.
So I bought a cross-linked polyethylene fuel cell out of the states. A bit smaller in size at 8 gallons (mine was 13), but still very doable.
I bought an air-rivet gun (very wise purchase) and installed the floor, sides, tranny tunnel sides, and the footwell with scrap aluminum from Knox Mountain Metal ($2/pound) that cleaned up really nice with some wet-sanding. I need a few more sheets to finish the tin work. I can only fit so much in the Sentra.
Since the strike, progress has been fairly stagnant. More details are on the Locost Page.