Something to Remember

Where was yours truly last Tuesday night?: try some great seats at the Paul McCartney concert in Utah! That's right, the Sir Paul McCartney. The weather was nice, the crowd was good, and it was all topped off with three great hours of non-stop Paul. The 68 year old played the whole three hours without a break or drink as near as I could tell, only pausing to tell some great stories and to make us laugh. It was a fantastic concert.

I was a little skeptical that Sir McCartney would just be old and that the concert wouldn't be very good, but I couldn't have been more wrong. What a performer! It was thrilling to be in the presence of this amazing musician.

Years from now I will be able to tell my children that I saw Paul McCartney live in concert.

This clip is from his Liverpool concert, but it was the same bit he did for us (best version I could find).

Why is this here?

The answer to the question in the title is, "Who really cares where this is, it's FANTASTIC!"

I am, of course, speaking of a store called "Bonners Books". Now I have been to my fair share of bookstores, and this one is one of my favorites. Bonners Books is located in an innocuous enough town known as Bonners Ferry in northern Idaho. Some of you may recall that I journey up to the 49th parallel to visit the parents of the goddaughter. There are usually two things that I always make a point to do while visiting in the North (besides eat and nap), go to the Mennonite store and buy whatever it is that Mennonites make and go to Bonners Books.

Bonners Books is located in an old building in downtown Bonners Ferry. As you walk in the store you notice all the community announcements in the entryway. If it's a rainy day there may be a black cat lounging near the entrance. The store is well organized and decorated with mostly books both old and new. The wood floor is not level. There is an old grad piano in the middle of the store with books arranged on the lid.

One of the best things about this store is that there is usually no one else there. The books are arranged by categories that make me smile: Too Good for General Fiction, Sort of Metaphysical, True Biographies, Probably Less Than True Biographies, etc.... The selection of books is great. I usually come out of the store with at least five books if not more. I credit Bonners Books with finding me one of the best Volkswagen history books that I've read. In fact, I haven't bought a bad book there yet.

If you ever find yourself 30 miles South of Canada in the Idaho Panhandle then you are close. Stop in, it's worth it!

Blazer Report #2

Why I love working on cars:

I love the smell of old oil and the dingy sheen of old engines. I love how the rubbing of a slightly oily rag can clean the time and miles off dirty parts. I love being pleasantly surprised at the ingenuity of engineers and designers of times gone by.

This Blazer project has been none of that. I'm convinced that this engine is more dirt than oil. There is no smell of old oil. The smell you encounter is the smell of oil soak soil; like what you will encounter in a farmer's barn where he parks his tractor. The engine has no dingy sheen. I had to start scrapping away with a screw driver before I even found out that my engine had originally been orange.

I have taken the engine apart down to the block, scraped as much dirt off the outside as possible, and loaded everything up to be taken down and acid cleaned tomorrow.

In the aftermath I'm sitting in the biggest mess I've ever made and I'm not sure if I know how this whole thing goes back together (or if this garage floor will ever come clean). I will be relaying on the expertise of the friend that is helping me for assembly.

Within a week I hope to be putting things back together, but only time will tell....

Blazer Report #1

So to recap: I'm in the middle of an engine rebuild (currently just a tear-down).

I would love to report that it is going well, but during the engine removal a plasma cutter had to be employed. Currently the engine is in as many pieces as it is possible for an engine to be in, and I am slightly panicked.

As it stands, the crank shaft is toast. On the plus side, now I have a crank shaft to make a mailbox stand out of.

Now I'm trying to decide whether to rebuild the engine or..........

Where No Robet Bentley Manual Has Gone Before

(FYI: Robert Bentley publishes the factory repair manuals for my VW's. They are phenomenal.)

In a quick laps of mental consciousness on a Friday morning I purchased a 1975 Chevrolet Blazer. I'll pause while you pick yourself up off the floor........


I'd post a picture of the actual truck, but it is just too ugly. Why have I done such a thing you ask? I'm still not sure. This K5 Blazer comes with the 350 V8, conventional four wheel drive, and a 3 speed manual tranny with a compound low range 1st gear. As a bonus my new Blazer also comes with a fair amount of rust and a prodigious knock from the engine. Within minutes of arriving home I discovered that I own a grand total of 3 standard gauge tools, not to mention the fact that this square behemoth doesn't actually fit in my Volkswagen sized shop. Not an inspiring situation.

With much persuasion from my neighbor and another Chevrolet fan that he knows I was talked into rebuilding the engine. A repair manual came with my purchase, but I find the fact that every paragraph begins with the phrase "remove the rust and dirt from the...." to be disconcerting. As I work on the engine removal I routinely become incensed at the backwards engineering and pot-metal construction and then conversely pleased with the fact that I can climb into the spacious engine compartment with the part I'm working on without having to be a body contortionist.

I don't know what else to say about this. It cost $350 and it has an 8000lb winch, which is honestly what I'm most excited about. I plan on using it to drag other cars out of the parking spot I want.

More later....

What people in Vermont call "The West"

I am slowly and tentatively exploring the eastern side of the United States. So far I've only seen Chicago and now Missouri. Now, I am well aware that any geographer would be quick to point out both of those aforementioned locations are technically considered the Mid-West, but when you are as far West as Nevada most of the country is "technically" East of you. Hopefully, I will also be in Florida this July for the second to last Shuttle launch, but I digress.

I flew into St. Louis and then drove out to Ft. Leonard Wood to spend the weekend with my Aunt and Uncle and their five kids. (I almost had myself talked into renting a new Camero but I chickened out. At least they finally gave me the new Chevy Malibu that I'd been asking for.) It was exciting and entertaining to say the least. The kids were great, and Missouri was generally flat.

My dynamic duo cousins

For my benefit Clark and Cal are reenacting the time when Cal got his finger stuck in a battle tank.

On the trip back I stopped in St. Louis to go see the Arch and got unknowingly caught up in some of the pre-game crowds of the first Cardinals game of the year.

It was really a great trip in all. I only got mildly lost once. All of my flights were a few minutes early. I got in some golf and was able to reinstate myself as the favorite cousin.

It was a lot like.....

Last Thursday I was meeting with an industrial door repair contractor who was driving up from Las Vegas to look at some of our large, locomotive sized doors. I arrived at my office and waited, but the guy didn't show up. I called down to the engine house and discovered that he was already down there inspecting the doors. It was a quiet and sunny day at the rail yard so I went walking down to the engine house, trudging through new snow that fell the night before.

Passing the freight barn I noticed that one of our diesel locomotives was parked outside in the yard. As I was walking it almost looked like the locomotive was moving (you know how it can look if you're moving and you're looking at an object that isn't). After not being able to convince myself that the locomotive wasn't moving, even though it was quiet and there wasn't anyone around, I stopped walking. By the time I had stopped walking the "not moving" locomotive had really picked up some speed. I could see that it was heading down Machine Shop Track #2 towards the engine house. I began to panic, wondering if I should shout or try to stop it (this thought was tossed out almost as soon as it entered my thoughts). In another instance the locomotive went crashing through the closed roll-up door.

As it turned out the door contractor had been standing on the other side of the door just seconds before the locomotive came crashing through. No one was hurt, but the door had been ripped down and now had the face imprint of a large locomotive on it.

Later that day as I sat down to write a narrative to the insurance company all I could think to write was,"Well, it was a lot like watching a train wreck."

On the upside, we really couldn't have chosen a better day to have the door contractor on site. I thought the door was un-salvageable, but they worked a miracle.