Classin' Up the Joint

It occurred to me recently that I haven't done much at all to 3 since I got her. I swapped the rims and tires, as well as the 512 Labs exhaust system, backup camera and the speakers, and had the rear window re-tinted, but that's about all I've done to her. Finally did a couple more things recently.

I'd picked up a Vue instrument cluster last time I went to the junkyard (well, technically the time before last, but I digress) and have since installed it. Prior to installing, I realized a flaw. The front plastic had a little crack on the bottom edge. Ended up pulling the front off the one that had been in there, and after a good cleaning, put it on the new Vue cluster.

I'm THRILLED with it's looks!!! Takes the feel up a couple notches!!!

The night illumination is even better!!! Interestingly, the needles aren't illuminated unless the car is running!!!

Only a few shortcomings. Foremost, the check engine light is on. There's no codes, but apparently it doesn't like the new home with slightly different body. If I'd read a little more on the swap forums, I might have picked up on that. I saved the one that had been in Scruffy after swapping the one with the working lights from 3 into her, because I may need to swap that back into 3 to get her smogged. Just under that, you'll see another flaw, now the fuel side arrow is pointing to the wrong side.

Finally, the trunk open icon has the image of a boxy car instead of a coupe. Ah well, still like the look.

Finally, I got the replacement headlights!!! They look great!!!

Don't forget to visine your headlights!!!

Maximum Cuteness

Finally did it!!! Spent some of the money my parents gave me for my birthday and did as I said I was thinking of doing, and got a new pair of headlights for 3!!! They look great!!! When I'd swapped the ones into Scruffy that I'd gotten from the junkyard, I just took the before and after pictures with my phone, and the GIF I made up you can totally tell the angle wasn't the same. To try and get a better effect this time, I used my Pentax DSLR for the pictures. I knew there were some old pictures on there, so I retrieved them while I had the card out. Guess what!!! They were almost all cute grandkitten pictures!!!

Look at that upside down snuggle head!!! Squweeee~~~~!!!!

Loves for grand-cat-ma!!!

I think he knows when the flash is about to go off, more often than not when taking his picture, he's got the semi-squinty eyes!!!

There's an open-eyed shot!!!

A lot of the pictures I was trying to get him with his tongue out, licking water from the faucet, as he does. Since I was already in the GIF-making mode, I made this one up. Like most of my GIFs, it's not great, but gets the idea across.

Lick it up, boy!!!

Pretty OK Wolf

Most years we go on some sort of epic vacation. This year, with my wife having mobility issues, not so much. We did go to family camp, and that actually somewhat spawned this little trip.

I always need to get my vacation picks in at the end of the year, and always try to get the week for that off. Well, at the end of last year I was told what week it would be, and I requested and got that week. A few months in, I was told it was actually going to be the week after that. Grrr.... I looked, and the only days that week that were still available were Tuesday through Thursday, so I requested those days. Friday is my normal swap day, so that was OK, and Saturdays are a special circumstance, and I was able to get that moved over a week, too. That left Monday, and I had a personal day I could use on that, so I did. Still had the week before off (except the Saturday in between the two) as well as around ten days in a row at the end of last month where I'd been thinking of going on a vacation. I was considering making up another post of a month plus of not working very much. Mostly it consisted of family camp, getting my wife wrenched on, and a fair bit of the recent work I've done on Scruffy.

But that week before family camp!!! It was right in the midst of a heat wave. I had the thought of getting a room near the beach and just enjoying the sea breezes, but we ended up going to the Great Wolf Lodge in Garden Grove!!! It's not cheap, and the rooms aren't anything much special, but they do have an indoor water park!!! See all our wolf ears??? The pricey lodgings come with a set of those, so, worth it, I guess.

There's my wife and the raccoon character, and me looking like a third wheel. Couldn't get the boy in on it. Except for the first shot, I didn't get any of the water park, so all the shots of it are stolen. They've got all the water park staples in there!!! Wave pool, lazy river (which I'd thought would be an inside and outside deal, but no), kiddy climbing fort with slides and a giant bucket that dumps every several minutes, racing slide, and various other slides.

Even if you're not able to check in early when you get there, they give you access to the water park starting early on. We got there, and headed in. Of course, my wife was in her wheelchair, and after we were there a few minutes, a crew member came by and offered to get her a water wheelchair!!! Rolled her into the wave pool, she got in the lazy river, and we rolled by the splashy fort.

One unique slide they have there is the Wolf Tail, where they put you in what looks like a teleportation chamber. Stand up, leaning against the back. They close the chamber. It has an amplified heartbeat going on. Then the bottom drops out, sending you straight down!!! Into a twist, then a splash down trough. The place seems to be geared to younger kids, so there was usually almost no wait to go on it. I did, several times!!!

All the slides are in the far corner, and there's an extended portion of the roof there to accommodate them. The tube slides and the raft slides actually go outside the building, then splash down back inside. All the tubes are enclosed, though.

The side by side racing slides also do something unique I've never seen before, they all start out in tubes that make a loop before going into the side by side.

One of my son's favorite things to do at water parks is the lazy river. Hard to mess up a lazy river, right??? Well, he wasn't such a fan of this one, it moves pretty swiftly, so I guess not lazy enough for him!!!

So what was the consensus on the place??? Well, you save money on sunscreen!!! First water park I've ever been to where I didn't feel broiled afterwards!!! It was much more comfortable than an outdoor one, being climate controlled, and not cold to where you'd be freezing after getting out of the water. Down side, you have to have a lot of chlorine in all that water, and being contained in there, after a while it feels like it's burning your airways, especially if you're climbing to the top of a slide.

Oh, and just found out that my niece is working there now. Good for her, they should have plenty of money for her!!!

After we stayed our two nights there, we went to the Orange County Fair. That was a lot of fun, too. Wouldn't have stayed as late as we did, but it turned out there was a monster truck competition that evening that we had to stay for!!!

Hits & Misses

So if you recall my last post about Scruffy, I ended it up with the tale of the dash lights having issue. I ordered a pack of LED light bulbs that were supposed to fit my panel. Come to find out, GM in their infinite wisdom made the light sockets hard wired to the lights. I was able to change them out, but it is a rather time consuming task, and for some reason, the outside gauge lights would not work. Got the odometer light working, and the top lights and center gauge lights, and they all look really good, but those outer ones... grrr....

Somewhere in there, I came across this bit of information: some of the later model L series and Vues use the same arrangement of gauges, but with white faces!!! I had been looking at white gauge face overlays and considering doing that, but this sounded even better!!! I considered, and decided that I didn't think that aesthetic would go as well as what I'm heading towards with Scruffy, but with the silver shade of 3, I think it will go quite well. I went to the junkyard last Saturday after work for another of their 40% off days in search of some 16" Ion factory alloys (more on that later), and picked up this cluster out of a Vue, with the nice chrome look bezels to the gauges. Figure I'll swap the one from 3 into scruffy, and hopefully all the lights in that one will work in there. Also picked up another set of visors for Scruffy (ever since we bought her, she came with what looked like pillow case material stitched over the visors; rendered the mirror on the passenger visor unusable, and more recently the clip on part of the drivers' side broke off) as well as the window switch panel to work in the new style console. I'm thinking of buying myself a pair of headlights for 3. Found out there's a place that sells them with blacked out area between the reflector areas, and they look pretty good, but I think the factory style will go better with the silver body.

Way back before the transmission incident, I had taken Scruffy down to my parents' house with a glasspack muffler and a set of flanges. I've been running the original replacement from baby since she found her voice, but it's a bit loud with that deal. Besides, Jade has that same canister style, and it leaks like crazy!!! I'm actually surprised she passed smog with that big of a leak, and I want to put the old one from baby in her next. ANyway, I managed to get one end welded up, and realized it was coming out too short. Ah well, I've got more pipe from the other taken off systems around, I'll finish that off later. Transmission intervened, and it had been a while. A couple weeks back I got back over there and finished off the task. Once again, I'm happy with the results and new, slightly quieter note.

Way back when I got that system made up, I'd made mention of the crappy hanger they'd put on the end. Well, last Thursday it came apart!!! Going out of a driveway it scraped a little, then the rest of the drive you'd hear it scrape when you'd hit a dip. Finally got it detached from the suspension!!! I was glad to have it loose from there, but I'd mothballed her until I could come up with something.

That something was this!!! Bought a rubber insulator mount clamp and some bracketry from my work, and with much modding I managed to come up with this hanger for now. Already better than what was there, but I want to weld on longer bars to the pipe and have a better mounting. A few days before, also made up some bracketery to mount the rear facing camera in both Jade and Scruffy. Also picked up a new battery to replace the slow cranking one, saving $15 getting a Die Hard from K-Mart instead of Sears!!!

Also found a real nice looking pair of headlights for Scruffy at the junkyard. Really improves the look from the front!!!

So about those wheels... Saturday last week after work I go to a pick your part searching for them, and found they only have one with 2 of what I'm looking for. Front left and rear right, both with only one lug nut holding them on. Tried jamming stuff under that front wheel to keep it from turning, and finally see a slot the right size on the brake caliper, jam a screwdriver in there, and succeed in loosening the lug nut!!! Sweet, the back should be easy, just set the parking brake and go to work!!! I go back there, and it's happening just like I planned, got my breaker bar on the nut, and it feels like it's loosening. Nice!!! Until I realize it's rounded off the nut. Forget it, I'll go to another one on Monday and get 'em. Took the younger with me again so he could stand on the brakes while I loosen. Find two there, with four on one and two on the other. For some reason, the one with two, they'd put 65 series tires on them instead of 55's, so it looked strange and I'd be searching for tires real soon if I got those, so I head to the other one. I have the boy stand on the brakes (which wasn't too effective, it was low on fluid) and go to loosen the front one. It spins a bit, but I already know it's secret and still it with a screwdriver again. Start leaning on my breaker bar, and it feels like it's loosening, then I hear a cracking noise... I had a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter on my bar, and the small end was twisting off!!! Grrrr.... I'm done. Found a window regulator for Jade and called it on that one, too.

Portrait Gone RONG!!!

It's been a while since I've done a self-portrait. Way back I'd done one and two, and I've probably done something in between, but here's the third!!!

For the back story, a while ago I came across the tale of 9-year old Alice, who came up with some great captions for the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. Apparently they do the art for some cartoons, then you can submit your caption. Of all of them, this is the one that stuck with me!!! One day at work all the label printers and the wireless had all gone out, and no one could get anything to work. I checked on Slack, and a bunch of people were informing via that of the problems. One of my old time friends who's been there about as long as me was across the conveyor, and he posted something to the effect of "Everything is broken!!!" I seriously LOL'ed. When I got a free moment, I found this and showed it to him.

Eventually I made up a new card for my tray, and did my best to copy the artwork, and change it just a bit to make it a self-portrait!!! Changed the text to make it more palatable to myself, and the guy to be me, complete with 'skinned head, glasses, changed the smoke to a pen, and, of course, my 512 shirt!!! Not long after I finished it, I realized that, with the exception of the shirt, there's about a half dozen of us fillers that it could be!!!

Scruffy Gets 'Skinned

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Yeah, my birthday. 50 years old!!! That's like, 89 in bin filler years!!! So what did I do for my birthday??? It was a little low key, actually, but it was good. I'd scheduled it as a day off, like I often do, at the end of last year. I'll usually go to the beach or something, but the week before my wife got her new hip!!! The first few days were some of the worst post operation days (physically, at least, the one before she had a tough mental time from the pain medicine they had her on) and our home is one of the worst arrangements for having a new hip in. Consequently, we didn't do much. My younger boy and I went to the 99 cent store to refill my candy drawer, I bought a Little Caesar Extra Most Bestest pizza and breadsticks, and got an Unbound energy drink and two $2 lottery scratchers from the AM/PM (one winner, another ticket, as yet not changed, YAY!!!)

I bought myself a radio for Scruffy. That shortcoming had been honestly one of the more annoying parts of driving her. Since it's the same arrangement as in Saturn 3, I was going to get the same one, or at least the same style, as the one I've got in there. Found the newer models of it for a reasonable price, then started looking for the double DIN install kit to fit it in. For basically a flat rectangle of plastic, they wanted over $20!!! At my previous job, I would have just made one up in around 10 minutes, but since I'm not there any longer, I just looked for comparable ones in the single DIN size instead!!! The one I got has the same features, but in a size that fits the install kit already in there, for about $11 less. I made up a side-by-side picture of before and after, since that's not all I did!!!

Since I already had the dash board apart, I was giving everything that could be got at a good wiping down. Under the fuel gauge there was still a lot of glass fragments from the windshield incident!!! Several months back I'd gotten another dashcam-back-up cam mirror from Woot, and a 12v to USB converter to run it. Installed the converter and ran the wires up to the mirror, as well as pulling the cable for the back camera to the rear. I still have to come up with where that's going to mount and connect the reverse signal wire to it.

Remember when I got the console to put in Jade??? One unforeseen issue, the window switches have a different arrangement in the new style. Next time I hit the junkyard I'll check to see if the connector looks the same, and pick up one of those if it does. Anyway, I swapped the new black one into Scruffy, and the tan one will go better with the interior of Jade. Tightened up the parking brake a bit while I had things apart, but went overboard and when I tried to drive it to work the next morning, it was tight to where it wouldn't start rolling with just your foot off the brake. Put that back where it was after work that day. In the before and after, you can see four things: the new radio, the black center console, a USB port added right below the temperature control, and the microphone mounted in the slot under the radio. Oh, and it's a lot cleaner.

A couple weeks before, Woot had a bunch of shirts in purple. I have three purple shirts, but one is getting a hole in it, so one of these will replace it!!! Several were previous designs (including one he'd had for Christmas 7 years ago), only with a different shirt color behind them. My younger son had a tree design he liked, and I found the "My cat went to Space Camp" (apparently the best loser in the Sci-Fi Kawaii derby) design I liked. I'd made mention of the date they were on sale until to the boy, and he remembered right before it ended, and I hit the "Buy" button on both of them before it ended. Showed up the day after my birthday!!!

Some weeks back I'd gone to Wal Mart, and happened to be by the locked up spray paint while there was an employee there. I asked how long to get it unlocked, and he replied, "Not too long", so I ended up buying three 16-oz. cans of Krylon satin black. Over the next few weeks I finally got the body panels for Scruffy painted. At first I'd scuffed them up with some sandpaper, and it was too coarse, all the scratches showed through. Not to mention, I'd laid it on too thick and it came out with several runs. Sanded it down with progressively finer paper and shot it again. This time it came out splotchy, flat in some areas and glossy in others. More sanding, and a final attempt before I ran out of paint. Third time is a charm!!! Finally got all the door and quarter panel skins put on after work yesterday!!! I'm not sure if the sub structure of the drivers' door is tweaked or what, but it has a big gap to the outside on the back and to the inside on the front. Didn't look damaged, and functions fine. Guess I'll just have to make it gull wing to fix that!!!

Oh, and apparently having the dash all apart caused at least one of the instrument lights to burn out, as well as the odometer, so that's all got to come apart again. Even though I never had that area taken apart. Sigh. Gave me an excuse to order some LED lights for it.

The Other Tower

For several years we've been going to a family camp with my parents. Some years my niece and nephew and sister have been along, some years I haven't been able to make it. This year was one that I made it.

Quite close to where we go, there' a fire service lookout tower. Most every year, we swing by for a visit. Several of the high angle pictures are from there in previous posts. Like many slightly developed mountain peaks, it has a lot of antenna and dishes.

I think I'd heard of this one before, around 15 miles from the one we normally go to. Keller Peak, it's called, and we all agreed, it's a much nicer location!!!

It's a lot farther out from "civilization", and most of the drive is on a narrow little strip of paving. Also, the antenna and dishes are not right up on the tower, so the view around is better.

Off a little way from where we parked was this large slab of rock, and underneath it was a naturally occurring tunnel.

Pretty much everywhere you look, there's a view!!!

The tower volunteer told us of a B-26 that had crashed in a snow storm back in WWII. On the road back there was a plaque commemerating the crew, and at the tower they had several bits of debris, photos and newspaper articles.

And the last shot: Is it bigfoot??? No, it's my firstborn!!!

Scruffy Rides Again!!!

It's been a long time coming, but she's back!!!

Found out that even with the drop, she'll still do OK on a wheel lift type tow truck. You know that transmission I got from the junkyard??? Turned out to be every bit as junky as the vendor's name would have you believe, as well as just a junky as the one I started with in there. Before I swapped transmissions, I tried the valve body from the junkyard unit in the one in the car. I pretty much knew it wasn't going to work when I pulled the pan off. I've heard of the burnt clutches smell from automatics before, but now I know what it is. So, put the junkyard transmission in (as well as a new motor mount, transmission mount, one axle and the cooler lines, not to mention fluids. Once I got that back together and it didn't work, I tried the original valve body in the junkyard transmission. So, a lot of practice pulling all the stuff that goes over the transmission pan (mainly the battery tray and air intake), with no good to come of it. Ah well. Having grown weary of doing such things, I called up a transmission shop I've dealt with before and had them come get it.

Ended up costing more than either of the last two Saturns I've purchased, but hey, it comes with something none of them did, a two year warranty!!! I'll take it. In the meantime, I've sanded down the door and rear quarter panels, and put a coat of rattle can black on the doors. The transmission seems to be doing well, but the four months or so of sitting doesn't seem to have done the battery any favors. It is cranking a bit slow every time now. I'll check the connections before I get another one, but I have a feeling that's coming, too. Oh yeah, that air conditioning recharge I had done back before the transmission debacle doesn't seem to have taken, so I'm looking at having to do SOMETHING with that, too.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

More Random From the Dash Cam

Another clip from the dash cam. At the beginning, keep your eye on the left lanes. I was going down the freeway, and as I was preparing to exit, I saw something bouncing down the left hand lane. I'm pretty sure it was a roll of bubble wrap. As I exited, I saw there was a second one farther over to the right, too!!!

What I Did This Summer

Or "Stupid Fun"

For our 4th of July hi-jinks today, we came up with this amusement.

One person holds a foam paddle board vertically underwater. They count down, then release it into the air. At that moment, the other person attempts to hit it with a beach ball!!! Seems like sometimes the air from the board would cause the ball to veer off.

Good times!!!

3 Random Pictures

Just a few pictures from my phone...

To start off, last week they held Burger Week at Oinkster. Never posted about it, but I followed up in 2016 by participating again. I skipped last year, but heard about it again this year and decided to give it a go again. Once again, I enjoyed breaking the routine. One thing, though, since the Oinkster has a fairly small parking lot, I usually end up parking up one of the side streets and walking about a block. Along the way, I passed this tree with massive roots, where it looks like they actually conformed the sidewalk to clear it!!!

A week back I was wearing a shirt with a breast pocket. I dropped my phone into it before we went for a drive in Jade. Unbeknownst to me, I'd managed to swipe the camera on on it's way in, and it took over a hundred pictures as we drove. I deleted all but this one, as we were going under a railroad bridge. Most of the other ones were nothing but sky, and a few with palm trees or power wires.

Final shot is of the wife's pelvis. I've never gone through all of it, but she's go a lot of titanium!!! Started out by getting both knees replaced at the same time. Following that, she had the one hip replaced, and I believe this is the first picture I have of it. Next, she had her shoulder replaced, the one she's been complaining about for the longest time. Most recently, last August, she had her neck reinforced. Last Monday we had a final appointment before she was going to get her spine reinforced, but her doctor noticed she was having trouble getting around. The X-ray he'd taken for her back had down to her hip bones, and he called in his colleague, the hip guy. Now she's got an appointment with him next Monday!!! Her doctor reasoned that hip surgery is a quicker recovery than back surgery.

A Sign From God

You may have noticed I haven't posted in quite a while about any sort of progress with Scruffy. Back a couple months ago, my shadetree mechanic had charged the air conditioning in her, and when I got home from there, I'd attempted to back up whilst parking, and lo and behold, reverse wouldn't go!!! Grrrr.... I've had more transmission problems with her than any other of the Saturns I've owned!!! I've had the idea for a while of buying up a running parts car to get the engine out of to do a build on, as well as to have a transmission, just in case. That was something of the impetus for this post. It was a very terse ad for it, and the outside picture looked real good. Very low miles, 67,000 I think, and it looked well optioned, and was a year newer than 3. I had the thought of, if it was as good in the flesh and had the ABS option, swapping it to my daily and sacrificing 3. Getting in touch, turns out it had no current smog check or title, so the $1,300 asking price started sounding less good. In the meantime, I used one day off to check the resistance on the valve body solenoids in Scruffy (an issue I've seen before), as I could buy a rebuilt valve body for under $300. No dice, but I had also found that the main bore in the valve body can become worn and cause this symptom. Finally got the cash together and made it over to take a look, and found it to be a single cam model, and nowhere near as good as the pictures appeared. Sad trombone. Also came across an ad for another low mileage one that had a similar fate to Scruffy's nose (first shot was of the engine, kind of rare to have ANY shot of the engine, and then I noticed it appeared to not have a hood!!!) but it was gone before I was able to make it out there.

Come to the following weekend, Memorial day, and the junkyard is doing their 40% off days. I'll try my luck there!!! There are two in the age range to have the late model head with the roller valve train and undersized exhaust ports. Both are a year newer than either of mine. My first pick was a sedan with front end damage, I reasoned was running fine right until said front end damage occurred. Found it, and started looking into it, only to discover several mounting points on the engine block had also been damaged in the collision. Located the second choice, a dead ringer for 3, and it looked kind of better... someone had attempted to mount a early exhaust manifold to the late head, and that did not go well. By the way, there's my shadetree mechanic friend, Chad. He was also in search of a transmission.

I had wanted to try and determine the mileage by powering up the instruments, and had a couple things to try that with. Powering up the circuit for them with a power tool battery, or using the key switch with that battery to the terminals under the hood. The key was there, albeit in two segments, but still was able to turn. Did not work, though.

In the process of trying to get the engine ready to yank, we had the idea to take off the drive belt. The crank pulley was easily accessible, so we tried loosening that. It did not want to turn, then we had the thought to try rotating the crank, and it didn't move either way at all!!! Also not a good sign for an engine, so gave up on that idea. Went ahead and took the transmission out of it.

And there it is!!! It wasn't real easy to get out, but we got it!!! Ended up dropping to engine cradle to get it out. Ended up doing the same thing to get the transmission out of the other one that Chad wanted, too. Left it in the back of my dad's truck until the next weekend. Figured I'd drive Scruffy down for one last run with that transmission then do the deed. Got about a mile, and it stopped upshifting out of first gear. Another possible symptom of that worn cylinder in the valve body. Took her back, then drove to my parents' house and pulled the valve body out of the junkyard transmission, just to see if that's all it needed. Put it into Scruffy's transmission the next day, but I kind of knew it wasn't going to work. Took the pan off (by the way, if I haven't mentioned previously, the pan is on the top of the transmission in S series Saturns, and the filter is an external spin on) and right away could smell that the clutches had been burning. Did it anyway, and at first reverse actually worked, but in short order it was as it had been before.

So I have yet to get it put in. Spent a while yesterday cleaning it off, and while it's not 100% spotless, it'll still probably be the cleanest thing under the hood once I do get it put in.

Meanwhile, I picked up a few other things while I was there. The visors in Jade were looking pretty bad, so I found a pair in the front end wrecked one, and my wife had caught the passenger side mirror and cracked a piece out of the outer shell, so I got that off the same one. The center console in Jade has a cover on it that the plastic is cracked out under the top pad, and the early body style console has a design flaw. It has two cup holders at the front, one directly behind the cigarette lighter socket, so if you're charging your phone, one is unusable. The later style has one in front, and one towards the back, and it's offset from the lighter. Also, the covered box at the back on the early style is somewhat rare, so I took the console from the same one I got the transmission from. It looks like the back end mounts a little differently, but I should be able to adapt it.

Clipped to one of the visors was this cross with Proverbs 3:5-6 on it. Up on the cowl of the coupe was this reflector with a blinky red LED from Mount Moriah 62nd anniversary.

I'm taking it as a sign from God.

Breakfast is Served

I've been doing the Saturday shift at work for about 2 1/2 years now. It's not as easy as it used to be, weekends have gotten busier than they used to be, but it's still OK. Only thing is the shift starts almost 4 hours earlier than during the week, so, depending on the time of year it's either full dark or just getting light when we get there.

This is a little clip from my dash cam when I was pulling in this morning. On the left side, you'll see a coyote skulking off, but you probably can't make out that he's carrying a critter in his mouth!!! I caught it (my head apparently turns better than my cam) by eye and took it to be a rabbit. I've seen both rabbits and coyotes in the parking lot before, so I guess that's just what my mind filled in.

My co-worker in the white Benz had his phone in hand, and was able to get this picture!!! No, I'm pretty sure that's a cat. Poor kitty!!!

It's the circle of life...

Somebody Stop Me

I'm thinking of doing it again...

My Name is the Night

Get up, go to work, come home, fall asleep, repeat. That's my life most weekdays. It's OK, I don't mind being in a routine.

Every once in a while, though, it's nice to have a little deviation. That's what happened back at the beginning of this month. While at break one day, I saw an interview with one of my favorite artists, Brian Fallon, previously of The Gaslight Anthem. A good interview, and at the end of it there was a link to check out concert dates. I'd looked earlier, and it was all East Coast or across the pond. I looked anyway, and it turns out next week he has a couple shows in town!!! The one close to me is on a Friday night, not great for right before the day I have to get up earlier than any other day of the week, and the other is on a Tuesday, down in Orange County. Huh. I might be able to do a Tuesday. On the way back from break, I happen into a friend I work with who also happens to be a fan. I make mention to him, and he looks into it himself later. I was actually thinking of trying to make the Friday show, but a couple days later he asks if I'm interested in going to the Orange County show. Turns out he lives a couple miles from the venue, and has been there a few times. Yeah, I'm in!!!

The place is called The Observatory, and it's not too big, maybe 1,000 people.

He was promoting his new album, Sleepwalkers. I'd gotten it a few weeks back, and picked up the previous one, Painkillers, once I was heading to one of his shows. He had a guy I'd never heard of, Ruston Kelly, as the opening act. Only three guys in the group, one of them an old guy who was sitting at a steel guitar. Turns out that is his dad!!! He only did four or five songs, and I was pretty impressed with him!!! One of the best opening acts I've seen!!!

While they were doing the change over, my friend asks me if there's a second act before Fallon comes on, because there's a keyboard dead middle of the stage. Turns out there was not, and for most of his set it went neglected.

Here's the setlist he played:

A Wonderful Life

Forget Me Not

Come Wander With Me

Ladykiller (Horrible Crowes song)

Crush (Horrible Crowes song)

Steve McQueen

Little Nightmares

Rosemary

My Name Is the Night (Color Me Black)

Watson

Nobody Wins

Among Other Foolish Things

Smoke

Etta James

If Your Prayers Don't Get To Heaven

Encore:

The '59 Sound (The Gaslight Anthem song, and the song he broke out the keyboard on, a quite different version)

I Believe Jesus Brought Us Together (Horrible Crowes song)

Got My Mind Set on You (George Harrison cover of a James Ray song)

I thoroughly enjoyed the show, with the possible exception of the last song, which I've never much cared for. Made for a great show!!!