Spring Inspection

Spring is on it's way. The snow is now only holding on in the shade of the trees on the North facing slopes. The temperature during the day is usually in the 40's and 50's. I love it. With spring comes dirt works and drainage projects. Here's the Blazer helping me do culvert inspection on the railroad. As often as I voice my disdain for the Blazer it's really growing on me as a back-country explorer, and this summer that top is coming off (just before it decides to rain, I'm sure).

Guess What it is!

While many of you are basking in the sun and budding greenery of spring I am not. The end of last week Ely received close to a foot of new, wet snow. Fortunately, snow this time of year usually doesn't stay around long. The snow pictured here is all but gone now and the next storm is already on the horizon.

Answer: It's a 1974 VW Super Beetle

Dedicated to Linda Bohn who loved puzzles, and who was a tireless supporter of whatever it was that her children or grandchildren were interested in.

On one occasion my cousin and I were driving Linda back home from Provo. I happened to be wearing my "extreme Volkswagen addict" T-shirt. Upon reading the shirt she remarked,"that's a bit of an understatement." Love you Grandma!

If only my mornings were this magical

Everybody wishes that their mornings would start with a crazy dead classical composer bursting through their dining room wall riding a grand piano and yelling, "Guten Tag!" and distributing cereal that instantly gives you a classy white full beard.

Chasing Classic (Volkswagen) Cars

Sorry that I haven't been posting as often so far this year. I've just been too busy................buying cars.

Just before Christmas I happened to be surfing the KSL classifieds. (Actually, I religiously check the classifieds at least twice a day, usually more.) Upon my screen appeared a '75 Volkswagen Standard Beetle. It was cheap, it was the year and model I want to modify and take to Alaska and it looked clean. I called the guy up, shot him an offer, and he accepted. This all happened in about 15 minutes start to finish. I had my brother, who lived in the same city, pick it up and take it to his place. It was a couple of months before I could go pick it up. Sad to say I don't have any pictures of it currently. You know what old Bugs look like though. This one is Silver. 

Perhaps you've run across a program called "Chasing Classic Cars". Most of you reading this blog probably just continued surfing past it. The program is about this guy who deals in high end classic cars- Bentleys, Mercedes and stuff. He has clients who hire him to find and fix up cars for them. Then he sells them for these clients, supposedly at a profit. I have a commiserating car junky as a neighbor and I ran this idea past him. He mentioned that he'd always wanted to own a Karmann Ghia and that was it. A suitable specimen was found and the purchase was made. 

This is a picture of that car being picked up in California. My friend in Napa was nice enough to keep the Ghia at his house until the weather over Donner's Pass cleared.

 

I actually didn't learn that the car was orange until after the purchase. (it looked red in the 60+ pictures I was given) Orange is pretty fetching though. It's a clean car that needs some TLC.

This particular car is a 1970 VW Karmann Ghia. These cars were designed by Ghia of Italy (a design firm there) and the bodies were built by Karmann (a German coach builder in Osnabruck). The bodies were then shipped to Wolfsburg where the VW underpinnings were fitted. Billed as the world's slowest sports car it's no less fetching to look at. The fixing up part hasn't started yet. We've just been enjoying it some. It really gets lots of looks. It currently is the only Karmann Ghia in Ely. I'm hoping to have it ready for showing and selling this summer. My neighbor might not be willing to let it go though. I think he may have been bitten by the bug (no pun intended).  

 

The new car hanging out with the first car down at the shop.

A Warning From the Other Side

The story of my life is that of the Government Cheese Wagon always being out of reach. As you may have guessed I have just filed my taxes and found out that I OWE MONEY! That's right,......I'll pause while all of you baby laden school nerds pick yourselves up off the floor because someday it will happen to you too.

The day I turned 24 I filled out my FAFSA and applied for grants. The terse reply came back that I made too much money to qualify for grants. Outraged, I marched down to the student aid office and was told that, yes indeed, I made too much at my part time job to qualify for aid. The counselor consoled me by saying that had I sat on my butt and taken out student loans to pay for school I could have the government picking up the tab and showering me with money. "FANTASTIC!", I thought, "we only help people who do nothing in this country." I eventually calmed down and was just happy that the government at least gave me my income tax back at the end of the year.

Now all that has changed. Not only is the government going to take around 18% out of every,... last,.... one of my paychecks and add just over 6% to the things I buy, they are going to hold out their had for more when I file my taxes. And I can look forward to paying more money in taxes the more I make. There's incentive for ya! This country cost too much to run.

Welcome to real life, Nathan. 

Not Waffles

   Inevitably, it happens. One day as you're merrily puttering around the shop you notices a small spot on the floor or as you're poking around under the hood you see a wet area. You lean in to determine what color the fluid is and the sweet smell of waffles and hot syrup hits you. The liquid is green.............*sigh* engine coolant. 

This is what I get for letting water cooled cars into my garage, nothing but a winter full of bad water pumps and an endless supply of leaks. The Blazer has blessed me with 3 leaks so far and one bad heater core. The wagon thanked me for it's recent oil change by letting its water pump crap out. I'm not sure what the GTI has in store but I'm sure it will have to do with the green stuff. My bugs never gave me this problem,......never.

Christmas Attack Zone!!!

I am happy to report that I survived my Christmas holiday. The weather was murderous with temperatures frequently dropping below freezing and snow that piled up in feet. Family came and went throughout Christmas and it was nice to see them all.

For New Years I went down to Logandale to be celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday. It was great to get out of the snow. The New Years was rung in with all of the joy of having 21 family members in a 1500 sf house. Add to that all the neighbors and friends who came for the birthday party and you have the making of.........I'm not sure what.

For a quick respite from the crowd my uncle and cousin and I when down to the new Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.

If I only had something to drop off. I was really temped to throw the family of terriers off that some schmuck had brought on the bridge (in blatant disregard of the sign stating that no dogs should be brought on the bridge).Some how I managed to restrain myself.