the wrong truck…

You have to like trucks to watch a video like this.

I looked up “will it run”…and this came up.

This big dude is goofy.

And….goofy is good.

Here’s a truck that he bought at auction….that turned out to be a good truck.

He had to go to the Ford dealership to have a couple of keys made…but the truck ran well when he finally got to fire it up…so I think that he got a good deal.

He said that he must have bought the “wrong truck” when he discovered that everything worked.

I guess that it doesn’t always work out so well when you buy a truck at auction.

I’m fresh off the Neon fix….after a month or so of having the little red car up on jack stands in our driveway….and after some blood, sweat, and….no tears…I got it back together and it ran well.

The more I do the better it goes…confidence is funny like that.

Maybe I’ll start buying cars and trucks at the auction, too?

Now that I know that I can leave a car sitting out in front of our house for months at a time….up on jack stands and obviously not running….it makes it easier to think about having cars sitting around that need work.

This hot, dry weather makes it a whole lot easier, too.

I hate working on stuff in the rain.

I need a big shop.

Auction cars….and a big shop…and a new minivan…and fencing…and a well over at the property…and an HVAC unit…and…lots of money.

And….more coffee.

It’s early.

“Will it run”?

That’s a good question.

 

Never Do Major Car Repair When Your Young Children Are Within Earshot of Your Potty Mouth.

Finished the Neon this afternoon and, man (!!)….it’s freaking fast!

Timing Belt…rebuilt the head…took it all apart and got it all back together and only had about 5 bolts left over.

And…it ran.

I was kidding about the “fast” part.

I feel so beat up.

Mechanic in the gravel is not a good thing to be if you value being able to function physically.

I am sore.

But…I got it together…timed correctly…torqued to spec…and…it runs pretty smoothly.

Busting my knuckles is a real vocabulary expander, though.

I cuss like a sailor when I’m perplexed and in pain.

Yelling at the SOB of a Neon doesn’t help it get back together.

There’s a cover for the “+” (positive) side of the battery terminals that says “POS”.

I laughed when I saw it….P.O.S, indeed.

Hah!

Piece of S**T.

That’s not what I should be teaching my children….Daddy in the driveway, laughing his maniac laugh….letting loose with a shotgun blast of profanity when the parts don’t go together without a major shift of a giant conglomeration of metal and plastic.

Sorry, kids.

I’m glad that Neon project is finished for a while.

 

back, back, back…back from the dead

I’m on the tail end of the Neon repair.

At least….I hope that what I’ve done is a repair.

It’s hard to tell until it’s all back together…full of fluids again…and you turn the key.

The moment of truth.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s something that I drag my heels over….wanting to delay knowing whether or not I did the job correctly.

It keeps me up at night…worrying.

What’s the use of worry, though?

This is fun to watch.

After all the grease and fluids getting all over me, this is fun to watch.

I like seeing someone puzzle through a problem with knowledge, skill and a sense of humor.

I trudge through the muck with profanity, pain, and pessimism.

That doesn’t sound as nice, does it?

Maybe it’s just the sharp gravel and the sun in my eyes that makes my methods so much less appealing?

I’ll start the Neon today.

The Neon will run.

That’s optimism.

I’ll call my video “Abandoned for 7 months….will it run?”.

Abandoned.

It’s easier to just tow the broken thing out of your life forever.

I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point where I start out “giving up”?

 

Silence-The Deconstruction of Faith

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

That’s what this review is all about….SPOILERS!

I wanted to watch this movie (“Silence”)  when it came out….but it slipped by and we haven’t seen it yet.

Maybe it’s that I wanted to watch it when I thought that I wouldn’t fall asleep after we put the kids to bed and finally had a small chunk of “grown up time”.

I need to watch this.

This video is a total spoiler….but…doesn’t spoil the movie.

I need to get some rest and stay up one of these evenings….and watch Martin Scorcese’s movie, “Silence”.

“Pray…but…pray with your eyes open…”

Man.

David Holt interviews Rhiannon Giddens

One of my son, Isaac’s, true champions is friends with David Holt.

She wants Isaac to meet him…. and to get into playing bluegrass and folk fiddle.

I don’t think that Isaac wants to play fiddle.

He wants to buy a synthesizer.

Oh, well.

Music is music, I suppose.

Here’s an interview with Rhiannnon Giddens….formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Knowing all that musical history…and bringing some of it back to life…or keeping it alive… is vitally important.

Isaac still should meet David Holt.

That would be cool.

I Love Bread.

This is a documentary about wheat.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee…..at!

Some folks don’t like wheat.

I guess that it might not be good for you.

I like wheat…even if this guy says that it’s not good for me.

I like a piece of Jenny’s homemade bread….with some good butter!

It doesn’t get much better than that!

And….beer!

Don’t get me started on beer.

“Wheat Belly” is the book.

Dr. Davis talks about the damage that GMO wheat causes.

There may be a lot of truth to what he says.

I still like bread.

 

Tom’s Typewriters

I watched some of this documentary the other day….”California Typewriter” from Gravitas Ventures.

Who knew that Tom Hanks loved typewriters so much?

Not me.

When everything is Twittered and Instagram-ed….there’s something to be said for a piece of paper covered in black letters that were hammered onto the page.

Real stuff is in short supply these days.

I can see why these guys are into typewriters.

Couple Living Off Grid Deep in The Forest…

Sweden!

Looking a lot like Northern Idaho…..

Here’s a young couple getting a homestead together….good stuff.

“Off the grid” is sounding better and better these days.

It might be really smart to have a place that was self sufficient the way things are going.

But….who’s really “self sufficient”?

We need each other, right?

Sweden!

Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t head on up to Idaho sometime soon…..

“Mentally Ill”? Nahhhhhhh…..

A Fox News guest called this young Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg, a “mentally ill Swedish child” the other day

Wow.

She’s not mentally ill.

Sane…impassioned…and,maybe probably, justifiably terrified…but…not mentally ill.

In some circles, it’s not popular to believe that the climate is at a dangerous and new tipping point.

I’m impressionable.

I believe that something pretty bad is beginning to show its effects.

Who wants to watch something go down that we probably can’t change?

Who wants to try against those odds?

Why not bury our heads in the sand and buy another SUV?

This young lady isn’t mentally ill.

That’s sad.