Head West, Old Man

That'll be me in a few days. Cuzzin Ricky and I are headed west on our train trip and we're planning on making a stop at Bonneville. I'd really like to be there when the speed trials are going on but sometimes you just have to settle for a little less than what you really want. Hopefully I can make it out that way again some day.

Tripping

I went in to the college the other day to attend a meeting with the accreditation team. I'm an advisory committee member for the welding program, and as it happens, the only one who wasn't working during the day. As I was going in I came across this beauty in the parking lot. I'm pretty sure it belongs to a former department head who held classes in the lab where I used to work as a tech. I don't know where he got his money, but I like the way he spends it. I saw an old E-Type the other day also. It was a maroon 2+2. Still my dream car.

I got the sandblast cabinet back operational, did a little welding job for Surly, cut the grass, and rode the Royal Enfield up to the travel agent to pick up the tickets for the trip out west yesterday. It was a beautiful day for a ride. In fact, one of the guys I did the Cowboy Trail with last year stopped by on his motor bike while I was out mowing. He said he was planning a trip to the Barber Museum soon. That's something I'd like to do as well. I did make an inquiry of the travel agent about an Isle of Man trip while I was there. She had no clue about the Isle of Man, so I might have to take my inquiry some where else. I'm thinking real seriously about taking that trip - either the TT or the Manx. I'm leaning towards the Manx with all the classic bikes. I sent Surly an e-mail about it. We'll have to discuss it and see what he comes up with as far as vacation time, which event and all that. It'd be real nice if we could make the trip together.

I got the dope on baggage limits for the train trip when I picked up the tickets. Not near as restrictive as air travel for carry on luggage so I put the wheels and handle back on my suitcase. I probably could have left them on since I saw others carry on bags much larger but both times I have flown recently, there was a box that your carry-on was supposed to fit in. If it didn't fit you had to check it. Mine wouldn't have fit with the wheels and handle attached, so I drilled the rivets out and put screws in the holes to keep the bag from coming apart. It's back together again now with acorn nuts on the screws on the inside of the bag to keep from snagging anything. Time to start packing - already made a trip to the liquor start. Clothes come next. All about priorities.

Eggs

But no longer - finally!

The two smaller eggs are from the new chickens or chicken. The other one is from our Rhode Island Red for a comparison. That one would be classed as an X-large or Jumbo. The new girls should be putting out some larger ones after they're in production for a while. I was thinking they should've been kicking out eggs before now but we normally have more than we can use with just the one hen producing, so we haven't had to buy eggs. Plus my brother sent several dozen home with me when I went out to Kansas to pick up the new pullets. Of course I've been buying feed for the freeloading slackers, but they're more pets than anything else - cheaper than a horse, that's for sure. And when the SHTF, we'll be able to eat eggs everyday to keep us going, cholesterol be damned.

Country Music

We've been watching the Ken Burns' Country Music documentary. Last night's show came on right after the Emmy preview the Missus was watching on another channel. I knew most of the people featured on the country music show but knew only a couple of the people on the Emmy show. In fact, I haven't seen any of the shows that were up for awards. I'm sure some of the shows are worth watching but I refuse to watch all of the commercials that take up at least one-third of the viewing time. I do watch some of the old television shows from the fifties - which have fewer commercials and if you order now you'll get another one of these amazing gadgets for free and free shipping.

On my first bicycle tour my buddy and I stayed at a bike hostel on the Katy Trail in Missouri. Right next door was a little bar where we went to get us a beer and a sandwich after we got bedded in for the night. After the sun went down they started doing Karaoke. After a few others sang the bartender came over to us and said we're up next. I'd never sang Karaoke before, or since as far as that goes, but when in Rome and all that, so I sang Tiger by the Tail by Buck Owens and Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire if I remember correctly.

Kind of reinforces the point about the effect Country Music has had on everyone. I grew up listening to rock & roll and Motown stuff on WLS and WCFL out of Chicago, but I could have sung both of those "Country" songs without the Karaoke book. I could listen to those country tunes from the 50's and 60's all day long.

Porcupine

I got the new sump installed on the sandblast cabinet. I was able to make it out of one piece, with just a little welding on a couple of corners. Rather than welding the new piece on to the blast cabinet, I riveted it. I fastened it on with Clecos first to make sure I had a good fit and so I could know where to caulk the mating edges. Pretty much used all of my Clecos. I should probably buy some more one of these days. I'm sure I'll be doing more sheet metal work in the future.

Finished sump all riveted, caulked and painted. It's a bit hard to tell from the photo but the white blob in the middle is the PVC pipe cap for the drain. I picked up some new hose for the pick-up feed but it's a little small in diameter. It's reinforced clear tubing, so I don't know if I can heat it up and get it to slide on or not. I'll get out in the shop and see if I can make it happen. It'll be nice if I can get the tubing to fit so I can wrap this project up. I've got a couple of things to blast.

I took the Missus to the hospital for some blood work the other day. Everything came back fine, so the cancer is still in remission. Good news there, by golly! She goes to the oncologist this week, but that should be a mere formality.

Birthdays

Sophia's birthday. If you don't know what the attraction is, you've obviously never seen Boy On A Dolphin.

Hank the First had a birthday earlier this week. He never had too many of them, unfortunately. The older I get the less important celebrating the day of my birth is. I just want to keep having them. I can feel myself slowing down a bit but I haven't kept up with my cycling and walking so that might explain part of it. I have been doing some strength training but I sure don't feel very damn strong after coming home from working a 10 hour day. I suppose there aren't too many people who do though.

Here's wishing all of you out there a happy birthday, whenever the day comes around, and many more in the future,

Project Update

I made five of these over the weekend. It took me longer than it should have because I didn't have access to the prototype I had made previously. I was going to bring it home and use it as a pattern but the guy had it in his vehicle and was still on the road when I left Friday. The only thing left for me to do is stencil the company name on the tote and lid and they'll go into service.

The weather's been nice the last couple of days. I cleaned up the woodshop after making a mess on the company job and then started cleaning the main shop proper so I could finish the sandblasting cabinet.

I got the new drain outlet welded in and all the metal removed that needed to be removed. The new outlet is 1-1/2" pipe and is facing straight down. The old outlet was about half that diameter and came off the side - it was pretty close to useless. This should make changing the grit or cleaning out the sump much simpler.

I've got the new sump piece all ready to fasten in. Maybe get that done today. I need to mow the back yard and a couple of other things also. I did a little maintenance on the mower yesterday before I mowed the front yard - sharp blades, clean pre-filter, tire pressure check. About six more weeks it'll be time to put it away for the season. That sure won't bother me but it also means, as always,  I need to pick up the pace a bit to get a few more things done before the snow flies.

The power went out a couple of days ago and the new generator kicked in like it was supposed to. I'm thinking we might need it this winter - all the signs are pointing to a tough one.

Rain Out

I was supposed to drive a late model stock car this morning like the one shown above. It was with the Kenny Wallace Dirt Racing Experience but it was a wash-out. According to their web site, there's another date at a track not too far away in October, if not, I can schedule something else for next season. I was pretty pumped about doing 10 laps in a real honest to goodness race car. Instead, Cuzzin Ricky and I did breakfast as long as we were up anyway and then headed for home. It's been a tough year for us with the races - lots of rain-outs. However, the Dirt Racing Experience also has a two seater sprint car. I think I need to get a ride in that thing next year as well.

Sofa Repair Man

While it might be a little hard to decipher from the photo, it's the bottom of a couch that's standing on end. It ended up where I work because the legs were falling off of it. My boss asked me if I could do anything with it. After taking the cover off the bottom, I was appalled by the construction of the frame. It appears to be put together with floor sweepings with a little bit of glue and a bunch of staples. I taught high school shop classes for 36 years and I don't think I ever saw anything as poorly constructed by high school kids as what this thing is.

I got one end squared away with a combination of lag screws, hardware store corner brackets, some bolts, and even a bit of angle iron welded to one of the leg brackets. I was just getting started on the end in the photo at quitting time but it shouldn't require near as much work since it hadn't been damaged like the other end was. I'll finish it up next week. I've also got another job for work I'm going to try and get finished at home this weekend. I'm only working two days per week but I've got enough work there to keep me busy damn near full time. However, that's not going to happen. The boss is looking to hire some more help but I don't know when or how that's going to turn out. As it is, I'll just keep on keepin' on for a while.

IMS Racing

And I'd be willing to bet about 99% of the population didn't use it either. But that's a story for another day.

Cuzzin Rickie and I went to the midget races in Indy on Thursday night for the BC39 race. It's a big attraction for midget racing fans and drivers with the show running for two consecutive nights. We went last year for the inaugural event and it was a miracle they managed to get the race in with all the rain that fell. This year it was a great night for racing with several qualifying races and a 39 lap main event. With all that talent out there the race was won by a 16 year old youngster who took home $15,000 for his efforts. They added 600 more seats for this years event and it looked to be pretty close to a sellout.

The Brickyard 400, however, wasn't even close to a sellout. The Missus turned the race on and I watched a bit of it before heading out to the shop to work on the sandblast cabinet. It looked like the stands were just about bare. Several sections had no one in them at all, and the grandstands by the starting line looked pretty sparse from what I could tell. I went to the first few races and it wasn't too bad getting around the first year but then they added another event the day before and then it was hard to find parking and took forever to get out after the event. It probably wasn't much tougher leaving after the race than it was after the midget race the other night, both events being held at IMS.

The race used to held in the middle of August and it was always hotter than hell. Now that they've moved it into September the weather should be better suited to sitting on aluminum bleachers for the better part of the day. However, with all the changes NASCAR has wrought, they've really shot themselves in the foot. I pretty much quit watching years ago when I tuned in to the Daytona race at the beginning of the year and sat through about of an hour of Jon Bon Jovi, Gillette razor flash cards in the stands and finally gave up after about an hour without seeing them turn a wheel and took the Missus to the movies to watch The Worlds Fastest Indian - that will give you an idea as to how long ago that's been. Then they went with "The Chase" and now they do some idiotic stage racing. And, of course, your Confederate flag is no longer welcome. I wouldn't be at all surprised if IMS lost money on the race yesterday. You damn sure didn't have to contend with a scalper to get a ticket. Just walk right up and lay your money down at the ticket booth - Plenty of good seats available.

Gen Set

The crew showed up bright and early to install the generator yesterday. Installation took the three man crew about six hours. Everything looks very professional and I should be all set if we get a power outage. I had them put in a tee fitting to allow me to hook up a smaller propane tank in the event the power goes out when my big tank is low. I've got hose that came with my heater in the shop that will connect to the tank but I don't know if the diameter is large enough to supply the generator. I'll check with the outfit that supplies my propane and see what they recommend. I'll also put something down in the flower bed to set the tank on if I ever need to use it. I've got a 100 pound one for the shop and it's a bit much to move around. I might buy a 50 pounder just for the generator. Nice thing about propane is that it doesn't go bad like gasoline does.

One of the guys on the crew was a former student of mine. Sort of ironic that he was teaching me the ins and outs of the system. He did a fine job, though. Fine young man. Glad to see he's doing well.

Quickie Vacation

The Missus and I did a quick overnighter at Brown County State Park so she could meet up with a relative of hers that was passing through. We had beautiful weather both Monday and Tuesday until we ran into some rain on the way home. Nashville was crowded on Monday so we didn't do any walking around the town. Lot's of motorcycles out and about - mostly Harleys it seemed. It's a nice place to ride with all the twisties. We had a nice visit with her niece and husband. I would have liked to have stayed for at least a week, however. It's rare that the Missus and I get out together,

Back to the grind.

New TV & Other Stuff

I got the new television and I got the installation finished up on Saturday. When I went to Harbor Freight the other day, as soon as I walked in the door there was a floor rack with bargain priced stuff. Just so happens there was a swivel mount for a flat screen TV for $17.99. I hadn't bought the TV yet but  figured it would probably work with what I was looking for. As it ends up, installation went pretty much smooth as glass and it didn't require a trip to the hardware store either. As you can see from the photo, Roy and Dale look as good as they ever did. The HDTV is quite the improvement over what I had. I still haven't figured out all the bells and whistles and I need some sort of an adaptor to connect the DVD player up, but we're watching TV and very happy with the picture quality.

I bought a couple of parts for the sandblaster modification - 1-1/4" close nipple and cap. I'll cut the nipple in half and weld it in to the bottom of the modified sump. It's a start.

Discharge chute for the blower in the previous post. I got it straightened out and painted both of them. I'll get them bolted on next time I work and that job will be done.

Top photo is the first blueberry off my bush. There were originally two bushes in order to insure pollination and to make it worthwhile having the bushes. Unfortunately, I managed to cut one of the bushes off with the weed whacker a couple of years ago. I was surprised to find a berry on it without there being a pollinator. Not much of a crop but it did taste pretty good.

Bottom photo is a seed pod on one of my magnolia trees. A couple of the trees are loaded with seeds this year. I tried planting a couple of them in the past but didn't have any luck. Might have to do a bit of research.The grape vines are loaded up and I've got quite a few apples as well. The persimmon tree and one of the apples lost quite a bit of fruit when we got the hail a week or so back. I didn't get a single peach on the trees this year, though. Should be about time for the chicks to start laying. I'm hoping the guy will be here to install the generator this week. That's about the last thing on the list for my "preps". If you don't really know what you're prepping for, it's kind of hard to know what you're going to need but I'm as ready as I'm going to be. Fortunately, we don't get hurricanes here in the mid-west, so I don't have to deal with any of that like they are down south again.

And today is Labor Day. The one day of the year dedicated to all the working stiffs. There's more of us this year than there has been in a while with the low unemployment numbers. I've been working for better than 50 years now. I don't know how much longer that's going to continue, but I figure I've earned a day. So today I raise a glass to all of us who get our asses out of bed every day and keep the wheels turning.