The Wayback Machine

I've kinda been on a roll of late with me blogging. I'm going to try and keep it going!!! I've got a lot of things I could go on about, but for now I'm taking this fork. Something I've wanted to do for a while. All the cars I've owned!!!

I did one post, back in 2009, about the first car I ever purchased, and just today I went back and added web-sourced pictures and another paragraph. Way previous to that, I'd done a tiny little post of my first actual car. Much more could be said there.

Anyway, fast forward a few years from the Dinosaur, and here's the first car I ever owned that would have had two names on the title!!! Would have, mind you, as we were never actually able to get it titled in our name. We bought it for $750 without first having the owner smog check it. I have been wary of doing so ever since, but still haven't let that stop me!!! I'm usually too antsy to jump on a "deal". Took it to a smog check center, and it had three places in the exhaust system that had leaks. Can't smog it if you can't detect anything at the end of the pipe!!! 1975, if I remember the year correctly. Seems to me it had the rear edge of one of the fenders crinkled, as though the door had met it at some point.

Anyway, this was back when we were poor. Probably 1989 or 1990 is when this all went down, and we'd saved up to buy something. I don't remember ever having to use one car between us, so I'm thinking this was while we were using the Gremlin. If you're poor, my advice to you is to stop being poor, it sucks. My wife had ridden in someone's Celica once, and liked it, so the hunt was on to see if we could find one in the price range we could afford. One of my friends growing up had a later fastback, and spun it on the freeway into the guard rail, totaling it. He'd sold the engine from it to someone he knew that had a coupe of the same color as his, swap included, and I helped him swap it. Actually, we both swung the engines (and transmissions) from the one to the other, and he flaked, so I ended up finishing everything off. I believe the girl we were doing it for ended up paying me some amount more than I was expecting, likely stiffing him for the rest of the cost. His was manual and the recipient was automatic. If you've driven an econobox of this vintage with an automatic, you'll likely agree that manual transmissions are the best option. ANyway, I was impressed with some of the innovation of those clever Japanese.

Ours was similar to these web sourced pictures I found, in that it was a red coupe. I preferred the fastback style, in most generations of the Celica, but apparently there were none to be had in our price range. Also, ours had a strange vinyl top, not the decent looking full top black pictured in the first shot, but tan, and only covering the rear half, landau style, and it looked like the color had been refreshed by spray painting. I seem to recall it wasn't fastened to the roof especially well, and would billow up at highway speed. My plan, if I'd ever gotten to it, was to strip off the vinyl, sand down the rust that was likely hiding under it (primary reason I don't like vinyl tops) and getting some black wrinkle finish paint to spray on the area.

Inside, the fun continued with a headliner hanging down. Not long after we got it, I made up an aluminum plate about 2 inches larger than the dome light all the way around, and used that to hold it up a little better. Seems to me it had some strangeness with the electrical system, and I'm pretty sure the air conditioning didn't work.

Mechanically, it had the manual transmission, and if I recall, a leaky clutch master cylinder. I seem to recall at some point filling the reservoir and opening the slave cylinder to do a "gravity bleed". Another time I was heading to my parent's house, and it stalled on the off ramp. I don't think I even opened up the cool forward-flip hood, just took off the mile or so to my parent's house. No one was home there, so I went to Sean's and we took his '68 Mustang with similar red paint and vinyl top, as well as his toolbox, to see if we can figure out what was up. Upon opening the hood, I quickly discovered the hot wire to the coil had broken off, so it was a fairly easy fix. Sean, meanwhile, found the sprinklers along the off ramp had a little plastic sign that said, "WARNING: These premises irrigated with reclaimed waste water", so he removed one and hung it by the sink in his bathroom!!! I remember some wonkiness with the windows, them not quite rolling up all the way. Pretty sure at one point one of the regulators gave out and I opened up the door panel and fashioned a 1x2" piece of wood to hold it in the closed position. I remember in the short time we had it, it rained quite a bit. It had 5-slot mag wheels, the same as my first car had, so we had two cars with the same style rims at the time. I think it had some kind of aftermarket stereo, but don't remember for sure.

It was a fun car, front engine rear drive with a fairly tight suspension, and of course that stick shift!!! Go-kart handling, and while it probably wasn't especially quick, it sure felt like it was.

I can't remember how long we had it, long enough that I remember it pretty well and fondly, but in my head I can't imagine it was more than six months. Certainly a car I kinda wished I still had. If you are able to find any of them anymore, they are either complete junk or are ridiculously priced, or both. So, here's how it ended...

We were living in North Long Beach at the time. As is the case, you end up finding short cuts to get home. Ours was to cut through the residential area before where we lived, avoiding a left turn light, then an uncontrolled left across a busy street. There were a couple of cross streets with a stop sign going crosswise to the one we'd be on, but they had deep rain gutters on either side going our way. Hence, a lot of people going our way would come to practically a stop, but we had no such respect for our suspensions, just slow enough to not bottom out. Since most people going our way would be going very slow, a lot of people rolled the stop signs. You can probably see where this is going. One afternoon I come home to my wife talking on the phone to the insurance company. Hmmm, that doesn't sound good... I look out the window into the parking lot, and see the front end basically flat. She gets off the phone and breaks down crying, and for a while I can't understand what she's saying. Come to find out, pretty much exactly what you'd guess from the intro to this paragraph!!! Some guy in a full size van rolled through the stop sign, never suspecting my wife, and she cleanly T-bones him!!! His insurance ends up paying us off to the tune of $1400 or so, if I recall, and we get to retain the hulk of the poor Celica. The cool looking front end was closed up in the middle of the grille, with the hood bent down and the bumper bent up. Since we were having trouble getting it smogged, we were more than happy with the payoff!!! I remember getting a replacement fender from half price day at the pick your part, but don't remember if that was before or after the wreck. Know I never put it on. I also remember pulling the bumper mounts and straightening 'em, but not ever getting it back together. Couldn't find a replacement hood. I'm pretty sure the radiator was leaking afterwards, but somehow I got it to my parent's house and had it in their side yard for a while. Don't remember for how long, but after the wreck I was finally able to get a salvage slip in our name, after clearing up some strangeness with the previous owner's actual name. Ended up selling it off, maybe for $100, maybe for $200, but not before I took the rims off for our next car (bought, of course, with the insurance payoff money!!!) That is, possibly, a story for another day. I've already got the images for it from the 'web!!!

A Legacy of Art

As I've mentioned a few posts back, my dad was a painter back in the 60's and 70's.

I suppose that, like his son after him, he's come up with various art at different points all throughout his life. He had mostly gone on a hiatus from oils on canvas. Now, as he's gotten on in life and it isn't as easy for him to do some of the things he would do some years back, he's broken back into it!!!

These are a few of what he's done. I've tried to get them in chronological order, but I'm not 100% sure that I've got it right.

The first one is simplicity. Sea and Sky, with no real distinction between (although, it appears there is, due to a shadow falling across it). Following that is the Danube, like many of the paintings he now does, he'll take a photo and then translate it to paint. Both of these are on the small side, around 5x7".

Amboy crater, followed by the coastline, looking North from the Huntington Beach pier (another unfortunate victim of shadows). The sizes on these are larger, around 10x14" and around 14x20" respectively, I'd guess.

Don't know where the imagery for the golden sea and sky came from, but it's an excellent painting!!! There's a junk floating on the sea, if you didn't pick up on that.

The last one is still a work in progress. Once again, from a picture he'd taken. Took him several tries to get the perspective right on the shack. It's supposed to have a water tower in the background, but he says he can't get the lines for it to come out straight. He gave up on that, and is adding in a flying saucer. I approve!!!

Chimneys

My last post brought to remembrance that I still have quite a bit I could blog on about several of our last vacations.

This one is more about our trip to Tennessee a couple years back.

We had found out from some locals about one of the trails out in the Great Smokey Mountains, a hike out to a natural rock formation called The Chimneys. My younger son and I left mom at the trail head with the rental car and started out.

I went back through my pictures and selected several of the good ones from the hike.

Another of those situations where almost all the pictures came out really good!!!

It was only a little over three miles of a hike, but it's upsy most of the way. It gains almost 1,500 feet.

The first part follows along a stream bed, so there were many water shots.

It started out as a bright sunny day with a few clouds, but as the day (and our hike) went on, it became more and more cloudy.

Which was actually pretty nice, otherwise it would have been even more sweaty!!!

It appears that the only actual shot I got of the wood beam steps that were prevalent for the later part of the hike was one of my bad shots, where it blurred.

The main color that we saw was the forest green, which made the red flowers and red leaves we saw stand out all the more.

When we got to the actual Chimneys, the trail ends and you have to scramble up the exposed black rock.

There's not a picture that shows it very well, but it goes up. Almost straight up!!!

There were some other hikers up there to take a shot of both of us.

And the last couple of shots were from my newly acquired smart phone, a selfie of both of us.

And another, attempting to get a shot of the sheer steepness.

Disaster Man

Here's a disturbing trend I've noticed.

Back in 2016 we vacationed down in Tennessee, notably in the Pigeon Forge area, as well as an afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains just outside Gatlinburg. It was a great vacation, and I could have posted more about it.

A few months after we'd gone, devastating wildfires engulfed the area.

The next year, 2017, we went down to Texas, flying into Houston, and spending some time there, as well as Austin, San Antonio, and Galveston. Another great vacation, and again worthy of more posts than I have done. (This was about the best shot that I have outside in the Houston area.)

Just a couple of months later, Hurricane Harvey blew into town and flooded the area.

Just last November my wife and I traveled up north to the San Jose area for our anniversary.

While we were in the area, the Camp Fire broke out. You could smell smoke in most of the places we were at, and it was smoke hazy the whole time. I took the last picture on the flight out, and you can see the layer of smoke.

I'm taking bids on where not to vacation next year.

Super Blood Wolf

Tonight was the lunar eclipse. I attempted to get a few shots with my phone's camera, and then broke out my Pentax to see how I did with each.

Probably haven't made mention, but that was my Christmas present to myself, stepped my phone game up to the Galaxy S8. Better everything than the S5 I'd had. My younger boy is saving up for the S9, for the improved camera it has. Anyway, the first couple of pictures here are what you can get with that!!!

Next, I got out my DSLR to see what I could do with that. Caught the blood effect much better!!!

I've got a couple of tripods, as well as a remote shutter release. I was going to set it up on one for these pictures, but come to find out, the wing screw I have for them is too long to clamp down the camera!!! I'll be getting a new one of those from my work at some point.

Anyway, I was able to get some fairly plausible pictures with the 300mm lens just resting it on an edge!!!

(The more you crop it, the worse it looks)

More Car Stuff

Here's a couple of the things I've been up to. Finally made some progress on getting a bit more black paint on Scruffy. After I got my gravy (a new record amount!) I went to Home Depot for some interior paint and spray black paint.

I was mostly wanting to get the hood painted, as it was the only panel of a completely different color. There were a few scratches to fill. While I was at it, I did the front bumper and the passenger side fender. I guess the front bumper had some different color, too, where scrapes had been painted over by the previous owner. The first round came out fairly terrible, I got a lot of runs. Lord help me, I'm just not that good at spray painting! The bumper and fender came out pretty good, but the hood didn't get the satin look. Looks like straight flat black. Still better than it was. You can see I had the trim over the window on that side off for painting, but I cracked the plastic on the next one back. I epoxied it back together, and it still needs to be sanded.

Onto Jade, I bought my wife a new stereo for her for Christmas. Tried to get the same one that I'd gotten for Scruffy, but apparently it's no longer available. Had to go up several model numbers, and it seems very similar. A few minor moves of the buttons and a smooth knob are all I can see that's different.

For the first time, I got a plug in wiring harness adapter. I was able to do all my soldering and shrink tubing at the kitchen table, a real plus this time of year with it getting dark so early. Worked flawlessly! All in all, the installation went fairly smoothly.

She loves being able to play music from her phone through it, and the customizable lighting! Purple, of course!

And finally, something my wife got for me for Christmas, new floor mats for Scruffy! They're cut to size, and I think they may be the best I've ever gotten! A few cuts, and they fit right in and lay nice and flat, and stay put!

My Name Is the Knight

There are many influences and inspirations for art. Here's a confluence of a couple.

Some of my favorite new music from last year came from Brian Fallon. In one of the songs, it features the following lyrics:

And it cost me nothing, baby

Nah, nothing more than this

Nothing more than this useless heart in my chest

Nothing that I needed, nothing I regret

Nothing that I needed, and I'd do it all again

I'd do it all again

I thought that was a great lyric, along with the later lines,

Singing, "Ooh, not just yet"

When I go, I'll be going out in flames and fiery wrecks

I decided I would have to come up with some sort of artwork to memorialize it. I didn't have to go far to find it, after all. Don't know how it came to me, but it did.

For as long as I can remember, there's been an oil painting that my dad did back in the late 60's hanging in the living room of their house. A surreal knight from a chess set with a hole broken in the side to reveal his broken heart. I did my take on it on my board at work. I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'll probably eventually add the first set of lyrics to the drawing.

It wasn't until I started adding in the coloring that I realized that the whole thing is heck of a pun.

My Name Is the Knight (Color Me Black)

Meet Virginia

This is most interesting. Around seven years ago, our last outdoor cat passed. In the last few weeks, another cat has shown up in our neighborhood, and, not having seen her in around seven years, she looks almost exactly the same!!! I suppose it's completely possible that this one of her descendants. My younger boy did the same move we'd done with the original, gave her some food. She's been back a few times. She's a little spooky, but kind of a people cat once you get up to her. Entirely possible that she's someone's pet, and thus far she's eluded the coyotes. The original we'd named Shenandoah, and for the last six months or so, the John Denver classic, "Country Road" has been on the boy's list, on account of Fallout 76. Since Shenandoah Valley is mentioned in the song, he thought the new one should have some name also from the song. I suggested "Ridge", short for Blue Ridge mountains, also unique and monosyllabic. That didn't stick. He dubbed her Virginia.

2018: The Year in Food

Welcome to the end of the year!!! It's been a pretty good one, and at this time, there's always a bunch of lists and retrospectives, so here's another!!! A look back at some of the stuff I ate!!!

To start off, I'm always looking for a good Chicago deep dish pizza. There's a few places that are purported to to serve it up, but the only new to me one I tried was a place called Dough Box. It's pretty decent, but not quite as good as the one I had in Chicago.

Next up is a creation of my own. The Woody Show had a segment on the ultimate stoner foods, and one was a grilled bacon cheese peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I think Menace may have cooked some up. Probably on 4-20. I love me a grilled PB&J, it's a meal and dessert in one, so I tried out the embellishments, and it was pretty good. Added in some grilled onions, and if I remember, I had some fancy kind of cheese. When I went to make it, though, there was only one slice each of two different kinds of bread, so it was a real mash up.

I've been going to the Aldi by my work for some time now. they have some of the best prices on most stuffs. One time while I was there, they had Jeno's East Chicago deep dish pizzas for around $6. Had to get one, and while, once again, not as good as Chicago, it was still quite plausible, for a fraction of the price. I think I got one more before they sold out, and they came back later and I got 2 or 3 more.

Next up, Oinkster had their Burger Week again. I skipped last year, but this year they were bringing back a few of my favorites, so I made it a quest again. I think the winner for my favorite was the Thrilla from Manilla. Pork patty with shrimp & mushrooms in a lumpia wrapper, green papaya relish, pork belly, and sweet sweet Thai sauce.

I was looking most forward to the Pantera burger, with grilled mac & cheese, pulled pork, bacon and garlic aioli. Sounded awesome, but for some reason I was underwhelmed.

One of my favorites from my first time was the Bet it All on Black Garlic burger, with a lot of garlic stuff on it, too. When we got there for this one, they told us they were out of the black buns, so it'd be on just a regular bun, but when I got it home, it was black!!! Didn't seem as garlicy as the first one I'd had.

They also had several of their "tribute" burgers, starting with the Big Max, then the Sourdough Josh, and the week ended with the McRibster, which makes the original seem like the ribwich from the gas station!!!

Habit Burger never disappoints, and I made it by for the limited time guacamole crunch burger, and it was well worth it. Later on in the year they had a French Onion burger that was also quite good!!!

Here's one I happened on. For National Donut Day, Burger King came up with the Whopper Donut!!! Only five locations in the country were going to have them, and one was close to where I was going to be, so I was able to get in on it!!!

Really nothing that special, just a Whopper with the middle punched out. Comes with a "mini Whopper slider", which is just the punched out center. Whopper is a pretty good mass-production burger, so I enjoyed it.

As briefly mentioned, we went to the Orange County Fair this year. Always fair food to be had, and here's a few!!! We got some of the Australian Battered Potatoes, which were quite good.

Of course, deep fried stuff had to be consumed. I got some deep fried cheesecake, the younger boy got some deep fried Oreos.

Mom got the deep fried Nutella. Looked bad, tastes good. She also got some pizza on a stick later on.

Of course, they had the Christmas party for my work this year. Seemed like a lot of people weren't going when you'd talk to them, but once we got there, every place you look you see someone. I'm always tempted to get the fish, but I got the filet mignon, and it was good!!! Mine was kind of thin, but that made it nicely cooked throughout. Dessert was these little cakes.

Just the other day I went to Taco Bell and had them try and make a re-creation of Woody's deep dish Mexican pizza!!! He'd gone to their test kitchen and stacked it to where it'd just barely fit in their oven. I basically just had 'em double up everything, and it looks like it could have gone taller, but it was honestly more than enough!!!

Finally, back at the end of August, noted crackpot California Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman was calling for a boycott of In-N-Out Burger. All that made me do is want an In-N-Out Burger. The next night, I went by and got one. The boycott doesn't seem to have done them any harm. It occurred to me just the other day, I can't recall the last time I've had an In-N-Out Burger that wasn't prepared animal style!!!

I took this picture and posted it on Twitter. I think it may have been the most liked and retweeted post I've ever done. For the text, I just did three words.

God bless America.