Crazy Bikes Revisited

Way back when I made the Tribute post, I made mention of a couple of my creations. The other day I was at my parents house, and took a couple of pictures of the pictures mentioned therein.

First up was the chopper bike I'd made by welding in six foot fence posts. The original thought was to use the forks on my 20" BMX bike, possibly with a smaller wheel on the front end. It was highly unstable, and impossible to drive. Since I had come upon this 16" kids bike, complete with training wheels, and the head tube was the correct size, on the forks went to it. The training wheels made it so it could be stood up, at least, although it was tilted way back!!!

The second shot is the April Fool's trick where my sidehack ended up on the diving board of the pool.

Dang, I was a dorky looking kid!!!

Something Like 12 Years

Perhaps you recall several years back, I did a post about my cool lunch box. This post is about what happens to this lunch box if you use it five days a week for around 12 years (so, in a way, it's a 5-12 post!!!)

Remember that molded plastic Coke bottle handle??? Probably six months or so back, I saw that the plastic on the bottom of one end was almost worn through. I put a glob of epoxy on it to try and build it back up. It worked for a while. Then, a week ago, it cut loose as I was walking into work. I knew this day was coming, but now what was I to do??? If I were at my old job, I probably would have machined up some kind of cool aluminum handle.

No fancy CNC machine, or even the old school machine shop tools I cut my teeth on, but I should be able to come up with SOMETHING...

And, here's the result!!! Pretty much all I did was got a couple split shaft collars and a bar of aluminum. Drilled and tapped the ends of the bar, and melded the three into one. A bit of time with a file, and a 3M Scotch Brite pad to put a nice finish on it, and there it is!!! If I'd had access to the aforementioned equipment, no doubt it would be fancier, perhaps finger notches or more rounded edges, or even a Coca-Cola logo cut into the side faces, but this gets the job done in a clean, understated way.

No one I work with has noticed yet. Or at least not made mention, if they have.

Something I've not made mention of, my work issued everyone water bottles. Not only have they put in all new work stations in the newly remodeled offices, but also out in the area I work in. When they did this, they didn't want people spilling on the new stuff, and if you don't have a spill proof bottle already, now you have no excuse. The company colors are yellow and green (the company name is on the other side, they prefer employees to not share about them online for some reason) and while I like it alright, it looked the same as everyone else's. At first, I'd put my 512 on the lid, but it wore off pretty quick. Next, I took a couple of the yellow bands off. That distinguished it from everyone else, but I wasn't satisfied with it. The bands looked like they were the size of those rubber wrist bands, so I had my eye out for them. Eventually came across a green one, which went well with the text, but I only had one. Later, at my wife's doctor's office, they had a bunch of orange giveaway ones, so I grabbed a couple. They go together pretty nicely!!!

Gatsby

Tonight was the firstborn's Winter Formal at his school. The theme was "A Night at Gatsby", 20's attire encouraged.

He told me this, and I told him, "I've got a 3-piece you're going to want to use!!!" 3-piece works for most occasions, and fit the bill nicely.

His lady looked amazing. To hear her tell it, it took the better part of the day.

Oh, and she was quite impressed with how he looked. I told them that they both clean up pretty nice. (Truth be told, she always looks good)

The second picture is the only one I actually took, in the alley. The rest are pics of pics from what I assume to be a photo booth.

Of course, I had to ask him how it went. Naturally, the only acceptable answer would be, "Great!!!"

Just a Sprain

This has been sitting on my side table here for a few weeks now. Finally put it in my CD drive and got the images off it.

It's from last year's epic road & boat trip vacation. Just realized that this year's will be a plane, road and boat trip, cool...

Anyway, these are the x-rays from when the boy sprained his foot. As you can see, not much to see, as it's just a sprain!!!

The Deadly Dinosaur

I haven't been very good about blogging recently. Yesterday my parents came up for Easter festivities (normally they would have it at their house, but the rainy season revealed leaks in their roof. They're front room is going to be getting a new ceiling and paint, so all the front room was going to be in the garage... but turns out it isn't yet) and I've got a camera full of some pictures from that. I bought myself a laptop at the end of last year, I think I've made mention of it here, but it could do with an in-depth post. Janice, I finally got running last week, but now begs a question: is it better to have a car that won't start, or one that won't turn off??? Always something. For the first time I used some software to do my taxes online. For the first time, I had my taxes rejected.

THEN, last night I went to the Once Upon A Win website, and here THIS is!!! Another idea I'd had for a series of posts!!! All the cars I've owned....

While this wasn't the first car I ever owned (that honor goes to Mav I), but was the first car I ever purchased. Mine was nowhere near as cherry as this fine specimen, it was missing the grille, and one of the front fenders and the bumper were bent up some. It was a rusty copper color, sprayed over the original quirky AMC purple color. I would have rather had the purple. It had no radio, and the ignition was popped out of it when I bought it. The previous owner won it in a bet. He had bet the other owner that he could get it running cheaply and easily. He did this by putting a toggle switch and push button in place of the ignition switch. I paid $160 for it, if I remember correctly. The 258" six cylinder engine ran rough, having a dead cylinder due to a burnt valve, but other than that it was fine!!!

Shortly after purchasing it, I gutted most of the interior. Carpet, back seat, dash and instrument panel, heater and air conditioner (hell, neither of those worked anyway!!!) all got yanked out and tossed. The front seats stayed, they were out of some other AMC, probably a Hornet and were in great condition, even if they matched nothing else in the car. Also, they folded into what is likely the closest to a bed of just about any car ever!!! I had heard Ramblers and later AMC's were renowned for that feature. Probably around 300 pounds or more of not so pretty fat was quickly removed. Something car makers today could learn from, just losing considerable weight does wonders for performance, handling and mileage!!!

I put in a slick little instrument panel from a Toyota pickup, bought a straight front bumper and pair of front fenders (I don't remember what was wrong with the other side's fender, but I do remember buying two of them... wouldn't have done that for no reason... both replacements were the original purple that mine had started as!!!) and held the pertinent paperwork to the firewall with a magnet!!! On one of the back pillars, I hand painted "The Deadly Dinosaur". Rebuilding the carburetor was the only thing required to get it to pass smog, amazingly, what with the dead cylinder.

I bought this car before I was married. Not long after getting married, my wife's Mustang died from lack of oil. She drove this for a few months while we saved up for another car. While driving home, she got her first speeding ticket doing 80 MPH on the freeway. She also had her first accident, some fool running a red light that she had been in the middle of an intersection to finish her left turn. Put a flat spot on one of the new fender replacements, and completely caved in the side of the little Toyota she'd hit. Probably would have gotten their car fixed up by our insurance, but then they started lying about three extra passengers in the car needing medical assistance (there was just one person in the car, the owner's brother) and I think our insurance company told 'em to pound sand or they'd file insurance fraud against them!!! Good times!!! One night, someone hit and run clipped Dinosaur while she was parked by the corner near our apartment. Made a tiny little dent in the rear bumper and knocked the back end over about a foot, but tore off a big piece of side trim and all kinds of dirt from the underside of the other car. I would have liked to gotten a look at the other guy!!!

After we got another car, my sister wrecked hers, and we loaned this to her. Her dipshit boyfriend managed to destroy the lifetime starter I'd put in it and kill the battery, and I had no place to store it. Ended up junking her, for $100 if I remember correctly. Seems like everyone has some car from their past that they wish they still had, and this is one that's on my list. She was never pretty, but FUN!!! A curb-jumper built like a tank, amazingly good mileage, easy to work on (I think I was able to do an oil change from the top of the engine, without even having to jack her up to fit a drain pan under) and a theft deterrent in itself!!!

*Edited in February 2019, RIP Once Upon a Win, link removed, pictures updated. SOMEWHERE I've got actual photos, but the first image is close to how it could have looked at one point, the second is close to how it looked when I got it. Never had a grille. Also, the rear window when I got it had no latch and just kinda flopped back there. I ran a screw and big washer through it and semi-permanently closed it!!!