Harold

To quote P.T. Barnum, "There's a sucker born every minute." Caveat Emptor, China.

Well, evereybody has to be someplace. Michigan is where most of my family is at, and I just gradumitated from UM-Flint. Plus, the house is in a decent location. I found out that my assumptions were almost right. According to the little old lady who lives across the street, the house had been boarded up for thirty years, The owner fancied himself as an antique dealer, but she said it was mostly junk that he packed inside the place (boy, did I find that out...). As for the piano, I've determined it's an 1896- 1901 Ivers and Pond upright. They were on the same level as Steinway in terms of quality. There's even a tag on the inside that says it was specially selected and voiced for a music hall in Saginaw. Now, if I could just sell my Healey...

Lately, Phish's 'Picture of Nectar', Joe Ely's 'Live Shots' (with considerable help from The Clash), 'Live With A Little Help From Our Friends' by Gov't Mule, Procol Harum's 'Live With the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra' and 'Grand Hotel', 'Freakshow' by the Bulletboys and 'Nico' by Blind Melon.

I think the reason for the filler on the passenger side was more of a safety issue for people who might run out of gas. Try dumping in a gallon or two on the shoulder of a busy freeway with the filler on the driver's side. Now there's an adrenalin rush...

Some sprue I like to save and use for scratchbuilding- for example, 'T' sections make great spindles, and those flat pieces with the manufacturer's logo have many uses.

Yep, $500. Last Friday I had it appraised, as it sits, for $15,000. My guess is that somebody had inherited the house, used it for storage and let it go for taxes. This might become my new cash cow- buying homes from the Land Bank, rehabbing them and then selling them. Best birthday present ever.

Also acceptable- differently living, Zombie Americans, Flesh-eating Abled.

Happy B'day, Dave. May you have many, many more.

Well, this has been a weird year. In March, I was given $2,000 to move from my old apartment. I moved in with some friends, and most of my stuff is in storage in the next county. Here in Flint, we have the Genesee County Land Bank, which manages foreclosed and abandoned properties. I put in a $500 bid for a two- story dwelling near Mott College, and they accepted it last week. My buddy and I emptied all the junk out of this place and now we're waiting for a bit more cash (thought I had the Healey sold last night, but it didn't happen). I'm hoping to move in by the first of June, and then I can finish my secret project. The house is in great shape, actually. The floors are solid, there's a new roof and it even came with an upright piano. What was nuts is that we also hauled out 2700# of scrap metal. Apparently, someone was using the place for storage, but hey, I no longer will have to deal with anymore jack@$$ landlords.

Right now everything is on the back burner. Between moving (and moving again in the next few weeks), everything is on hold. Heck, last week I finally found the box where my files, blades, knives and brushes were at. Strange year so far........

I saw Fritz Henderson on channel 12 this morning doing a press conference. This guy strikes me as the epitome of the 'Peter Principle', someone who got promoted one step above his level of competence. All he did was speak in business cliches ("Going forward, we must synergize our paradigms...). While not a direct quote, his whole spiel was at that level. Also, he was the guy in charge at Delphi, and we know what's become of them. Henderson is not a CEO as much as he is an undertaker. He's already made the decision to embalm Pontiac and Saturn (why not fold the Saturn brand into Pontiac?). What they need to get rid of are Hummer (please) and GMC. As John Phillips noted in Car and Driver a few years back, "If GMC is professional grade, does that make an equivalent Chevy truck 'Amateur Grade?" Trivia- GMC actually stands for Gabrowski Motor Coach. They were a truck maker in Hamtramck who were snapped up by Billy Durant in 1904.

I know exactly how you feel, Kevin. Years ago when I lived in Huffman, Texas I was walking my dog back from the 7-11 when her leash broke. She shot across FM1960 and almost made it until some jackass in a Firebird hit her and kept on going! Instead of a fun Friday evening, I wound up conducting a funeral and a wake, and walked around with an emptiness in my gut for about two weeks.

I haven't been able to plunk down the bucks yet for a macro lens, but I do have a 3x magnification filter that helps a lot. You can put several together to increase magnification even further.

If this is an April Fool's joke, it's wonderfully, darkly amusing. If not, it's still wonderfully, darkly amusing. Not to mention hysterically ironic. How about a link to the article?

Happy birthday, George. Just be sure to get a burning permit before you light the candles on your cake.

I wind up doing both. On my '69 Thunderbird, I had to scratchbuild all the ribs on the trunk floor. On my '65 Lincoln air cleaner, I used the center section from a '58 Edsel and the outer housing from a '58 T-Bird, along with some Evergreen strip, I consider it to be scratchbuilt. On that one, I also scratchbuilt the windshield from a 2-liter Faygo bottle. A kitbash would be like one of my F-150's, where I'm just mixing and matching bits from several kits to make one.

That's obviously the before photo....nice job.

Sweet looking Chevy. The paint is superb.

Last fall I broke the bank and bought a Canon Rebel XSi DSLR and I couldn't be happier. It's 12.2 meg and is capable of shooting in Camera RAW, which is great because you have the information before the camera converts it into a JPEG and destroys the color and clarity. I also bought Adobe's Creative Suite 4 with the latest edition of Photoshop, so I can manipulate the RAW files.

Hmmm..Probe GT, Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, Mustang SVO, Omni GLH- these are off the top of my head. Personally, I liked the cars from the eighties. They were fun, after years of strangled engines and gas crunches. Their nimble sizes allowed for handling a darn sight better than a sixties-era muscle car, and you could drive past gas stations.

Happy B-Day, Jairus. Here's a little birthday song my fourth grade teacher taught us: (to the tune of 'Song of the Volga Boatmen') Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Pain and sorrow everywhere People dying here and there Happy Birthday Anyway, happy 50th (and it's all downhill from here )

The chassis and floorpan are from the '58 Edsel.

Yeah, Nick, it runs really nice. We cleaned the plugs, points and cap contacts, primed the carbs and it fired right off. As for the electrics, now you know why Sir William Lucas was always referred to as 'The Prince of Darkness".

Thanks, dude. I got all 17, and my favorite was wheeling him out the window. I must really be sick...

Monday I picked up this little guy with the sole intention of making a small profit. It's a '68 Austin-Healey Sprite Mk. IV with 58,000 miles. All she needs is a fuel pump, and that'll happen today or tomorrow. I'd love to keep the little guy, but I need to make some cash.