bobss396

Key to keep moving. I lost 30 + lbs since 2020, we had an awesome cafeteria at work and I fell into bad habits. A result from the stress I was under. Some married guys follow the wife around all day and are happy about it. I'm single but dating, the girlfriend is leaning towards retirement which suits me. I too keep busy, cooking, got the old cars around, the cat. I listen to music and hang with the cat.

I was outside in late summer waiting for the bats to appear. I was in a chair and a raccoon comes with in 5 feet of me. I do not know who jumped higher.

I am an NTMA alumnus, I took a PAID course with them in 1981, 5 months full time. I was one if the few grads that stuck with it through a full 4 year apprenticeship. I had always liked making things, it was a calling for me. I find it mind blowing on the amount of detail kits had prior to NC and CNC machining. Older kits, look at the parts trees closely. You can see where parts were added or deleted, where a mold was repaired. Mold repair is another facet of die work. I knew a Hells Angel that made a living at it. More on the new kits, I saw the re-pop of the AWB Chevelle, just from the layout of the trees I can tell that this was designed via CAD.

Geez... now I'm becoming the elderly parent. My dad had always said that getting old was not for 🐈🐈‍⬛. Nice that you can help someone out when you can.

Very nice. I have one I chopped myself I need to get going again. I'm going back and forth between fenders, no fenders. I've been picking up 3D printed parts along the way. After seeing yours, no fenders is back for consideration.

This guy had about 10 years on me, he had his bypass 6 months after I had mine. He had houses in Florida and Michigan and a small plane. He sold the business a couple of years ago, I think some of the same guys are there. It was a real throwback type of shop, nothing fancy. It had a full kitchen with a formica dining set and a grilling area outside. They put in some hours there. My buddy had his LS done after my 355 was done. I need to stop in and pick their brains over a 396 I'd like to get into.

My wife was a dealer when my kids were little. They had to buy their own display kits, she had everything in a big bag to take from party to party. She qualified for a van as well, she sold so much and had a bunch of awards. The quality of these items has outlasted lives and marriages, no doubt. There was always a pipeline to getting parts replaced.

Top 3 are Ivan on Turkey Day. Last one is my girlfriend's cat Bleu.

My engine builder keeps some blown up parts out on his counter. Twisted drive shafts, kinked up connection rods, broken drives haft yokes, busted cranks, etc.

I had worked in the junk car industry as a "jerker", as in finding junk cars and selling them to scrap yards. Some were literally pulled from yards and have been buried for years. Some were quite nice cars with minor issues. My brother got a '67 Impala real cheap. It needed a front seat, which I had. This car went way upstate NY and other places. My racing partner, he was great at finding relics and getting them running. These cars followed DIRT modified and sprint car racing. He had a '65 Fury, a '62 Lincoln (later totaled out), a '69 Caddy. Some others too. He was famous for his "no parts" tune ups. He would just clean up the plugs, etc and put them back in.

They are going to blow out fast. I will check eBay later. Nobody will be giving these away for a while. Maybe the dust will settle by the NNL East.

This is nice that you have something t hat meant a lot to your dad. Often our parents are gone and so is the essence of who they were. My stepmother took great strides to eliminate and memories of my mom. I have pictures however. My dad's stuff, my brother has his wood working tools and his WWII items. When dad was in Florida, his crazy wife would hire help that turned out to be thieves. He lost all his Masonic jewelry. I have all his other Masonic accessories. I also have his Kennedy boxes from his Grumman days.

As a kid, me and my brothers had a communal parts stash. Mom worked for a big department store and would bring us boxes when we needed them. One being a large coat box with a lid. If I had no money, I could often root through it and do an entire build out of it.

On my mom's side of the family, heart issues run rampant. I lost one uncle around 1978, he was only 49. Grandpa went while working, age 59 back in 1945. No warning. Grandma went in 1956 at age 61, but she lived a tough farm life. My youngest brother had a HA at age 41 and had a stent put in. He did well until last year, he needed 3 more at age 66. I had my triple bypass in 2016 and a stent 4 months ago. I'm in a cardiac rehab, only 32 more sessions to go. I had thought I was in good shape. My dad's side, they live long. He went at age 96, a heart issue that caught up with him finally. He had a 4 way bypass at age 74 and recovered well. In my rehab class, we have one lady that is past 80. My heart doctor said that older folk sometimes never make good recoveries. She seems to be doing well. I stay busy with the 1:1 cars too. At age 69 I have done some very heavy work on my "new" Belair. Brake, front end work and an alignment 2 months after my stent. My cardiac rehab will be the best thing for me right now. I go in the afternoon. Pain wise with other injuries, this is where I peak for the day.

On top of any MRP system, the master-scheduler had them tracking WIP with Excel. I had to look at it now and then, but it was a living hell for the planners who lived with it on a daily basis...they were micro-managed to death. Any changes to the master routers had a hundred-fold impact. Set up and run times, heaven forbid a new sequence was added.

Older cars needed attention once they passed 60k or so miles. Things broke on them. A tune up with points was good for 10-12k miles. Sometimes new points/condensers failed early. Fuel pumps died. Shocks were good for 30k miles. Alignments were needed every few years. Bias ply tires didn't last too long. I had a '65 Belair I drove all over despite issues. I followed DIRT racing and was out on disability from work for 26 months total. Upstate NY, NJ, PA... I put miles on it. On the road, I had a balky starter so I parked on grades in case it refused to start. I had to be ultra careful leaving it in gear on anything angled. It would get stuck in 2 gears at once and it was a battle to free it up. My buddy at the time, he bought any old car he found. We worked on a nice '55 Chevy 4 door that had a 6 and an automatic in it. He was known for, and still is, for going on extensive road trips. He had 3 old Mustangs, a '51 Plymouth, a '53 Ford truck, etc. He was with his family, around 1985, with the '55 down in the Carolinas and the oil pump went. That was a 2 day repair by a garage in the sticks. He got another 50 miles before it seized up. At that point, the trip was done. He sold the car cheap to another shop and went home in a rental.

Another old kit that has stood the test of time. This and the '56 Ford and '58 Chevy were always fun builds.

I like it. I have one started (BACK IN THE BOX..) and was using the kit engine and headers The headers hung way down, too low. I had to remove them (all painted if course) and remove some vertical material. I dropped mine down too.

I have to dig out some old pictures. I was small but 1960 was a snowy year, 1964 too. We had snow forts all over. My dad had a bad back, so the driveway had to be 100% clean by the time he got home. 1969 was another wild winter. In more recent years the President's Day storm of 1996 dumped 30" on us. That season we had over 100" of snow.

I keep small clean styrene and metal parts in pill vials. Bigger stock in bigger containers. Leftover parts I have in 2 model boxes, general use and stock car. I just started a box for modified stock car pieces.

Look to see what VCG Resins and Iceman Collections have. They both make Bronco stuff.

Oh that bad boy stays... I picked up a nice bag of custom 'wheels at a show.

We got an older cat that needed to be rehomed. My son asked if there was anything we should know about her.. the answer was, she liked belly rubs. Any time she wanted one, she simply flopped over on her side.

I worked at one facility for close to 20 years. This was around 1990,I was talking to someone at a party that was an EMT for an ambulance service. I told him where I worked. He said you mean "heart attack alley". At that time I was back at that facility for only a few years, but I did know some fat cats that worked there had cardiac events. The stress level at that time was considerable. Contracts running out, layoffs, furlough, we had it all. One lady in another department was known as The Black Widow. She lost one husband to a HA, married another guy from work, he also died of a HA. She was dating yet another after that.. I was there when the ambulance came for him. He survived but broke up with the lady. I cannot say how much of a killer that stress is. Watch for the signs, always have an exit plan.

I have 3 I did in more recent years. A black box stock I did for a contest. I may take that apart one day and upgrade it. Then my blue gasser that made the magazine in 2022. The last was my purple custom that has a glaring issue with the rear window fit, which also fogged with CA glue. I see them as a blank canvas. The possibilities are endless with them.