Tom Geiger

I recently came across a 1969 Firebird for sale at a gas station on my route to work. It was for sale so I stopped to take a look. What a stunning car. Cars like this just jump out at you when you haven't seen one in person for a while. It was like seeing it new again.

The Jeep was very nice to drive. This was a 2014 that already had 45,000 rental miles on it and there were no issues. Pickup was good, it never hesitated on climbing the mountain roads. And Jeep claims 31 mpg. We bought the full tank of gas with the rental figuring we'd drive it off. We put 200 miles on the vehicle and returned it with slightly more than half a tank!

and the ten years worth of dust from on top of them!

And we headed back down.... and we saw a sign for Sundance, so why not? Nothing there this time of year so we just breezed through... that was our day of snooping around Utah. Pretty interesting scenery!

Heading up the hill, the residential properties contained a lot of older vehicles, much more than you'd see in a rusty state like New Jersey. Here's a Scout II that I'd like to have dragged home. This guy had no fewer than four Ford pickups. and we continued our climb! It's really cool that people live here. and the view these folks wake up to every morning! and our trusty steed for this jaunt was a 2014 Jeep Cherokee courtesy of Advantage Rent A Car. They are called that because they will try to take advantage of you! We rented a Chevy Impala for $14 a day, only to be told they didn't have one, and that we'd have to pay them $60 a day for an SUV. Nope! Stuck to our guns and got the Cherokee for the $14 fee.

Some things I saw on my recent trip to GSL in Salt Lake City. On Sunday, the awards brunch is over by noon, and that gives us an entire day to explore the area. One year we went to Bonneville and into Nevada. One year we went north up into Idaho and the resort town of Paris, and the last trip we decided to drive into Wyoming and stop in the first interesting town we came across. This time we pointed the car towards Provo, Utah and decided to see what we could see. We weren't interested in formal things like museums and the like. More interested in the local flavor, old towns and of course anything automotive.... Headed on the highway towards Provo we saw a town name of "American Fork, Utah" and figured that was good enough to detour onto the local roads. We were rewarded when we came across someone's 1:1 scale diorama of a Sinclair station, complete with a dozen or more old weathered vehicles. Once past the station, we saw a road that went UP, and decided to take that one! See next post!

Safety and work... I grew up in pharmaceutical companies that have been very big on regulations and safety. There always was very specific safety training and adherence. A lot of it is just common sense. Then I got out in the real world. I found contractors who thought nothing of walking into a crowded cafeteria with ladders, seting up right against tables where people were eating and taking out ceiling tiles! Completely clueless!

New version of the "mother in law seat". I wonder how long you could drive that down the PA Turnpike before you got pulled over?

I never saw that episode but my wife noticed that I washed my hands right after putting on my shoes. She asked why and I explained that the mens room floor is always covered with questionable liquids. Funny thing, I've never seen an episode of the Sopranos, even though my daughter's friends's father was one of the producers.

Ah, so it's only gold and silver... that's what I was doing wrong!

I'm going to hit Home Depot today to buy the above Brinkman unit. Their ad says they have six of them in stock at my local store. If not, there's a second store 10 minutes away. I have a 10% off coupon valid on a purchase of $299 or more, effective today!

I've always said for every OSHA rule, there must've been a duessy of an accident!

I think it makes good sense to shut the darn thing off before pulling that goob out of it!

I find what gets me going is to go sit at the bench, no matter how worn out and tired I feel. Once I'm sitting there and start fiddling, the next thing I know I'm focused and working on something. I'm no longer tired, and actually feel good. Right now my focus is more on getting my yard work done. I find I cannot get interested in working on a hobby when I have obligations calling my name!

Actually Americans are wary to stop and offer assistance anymore. Too many times the accident or break down is a ruse to rob you! And now a days nobody is truly stranded. Everyone has a cell phone to call for help. Most folks have AAA cards with free towing. I make sure all my women folks carry the card.

You reminded me of a story. My wife was out of town and I thought it would be nice to have dinner with my then teen aged daughters. My older daughter drove then and said she'd meet me and my younger daughter at the restaurant. I was ticked when she showed up with her boyfriend. That changed the whole dynamic of my father / daughter dinner. The two girls talked with the boy friend and I was pretty much left out. Then lover boy headed to the mens room. He comes back physically shaken. He had dropped his phone in the toilet.. ah there is a God! So now he's very concerned. It won't turn on. He's shaking it all around, hitting everything with toilet water, trying to get the water out. I chased him from the table, gross! And his phone was ruined. Good for the little jerk (yea he was one). I'm sure mommy got him a new one.

Pep Boys usually has their Duplicolor cases all locked up. I remember going there and it taking a while to find an employee to open it up so I could get what I needed. Once I picked out a color and a can of primer, the kid took them from my hands and told me to follow him to the cash register.... I was a friggin 55 year old man! I wasn't tagging their store, I wasn't stealing their paint! And the last time I was in the store, the locks were all gone.

Agreed. When I go places I'm not big on the tourist stuff, I'd rather live with some of the local folks to see how their day to day living goes. My Aussie friends felt the same way, I have several that have spent up to a week with me, and wanted to do things like go to the grocery store with me, just to see how it differed from home. I've done the tourist thing in places like St John and St Thomas. Great places to visit for a week, but you'd go nuts living there since there aren't a lot of the amenities we all are used to. As an army brat I've lived in a few different states and countries. A lot different when you live there for a couple of years!

Now ya got me Jonesing for fish tacos! Last year we were in the historic waterfront Fells Point area of Baltimore and every sidewalk cafe was advertising fish tacos on their posted menu! So I had some... blackened Mahi fish tacos with cilantro... they were so good! And now I'm hungry!

and an openly practicing one at that! Bill, you would get into the period of postal history I collect since it was the beginning of automation, as the first motorized trucks overtook horse carts, as companies raced to build stamp canceling equipment, vending equipment and stamp affixing machinery..

What is the norm there?

I love it! That's my color! I'd buy that as a 1:1

My mother worked at a long defunct chain store back in the 1980s. The big problem was that anything that left the store at a discount would show up at the refund counter for a full price refund! Same with anything put in the dumpster. She told me that one time the store donated out of season clothing to a charity and within a week a good quantity of it had been returned for a refund! After Hurricane Sandy, my daughter volunteered at a recovery center for victims who lost everything. There was loads of donated home goods and clothing. She quit in disgust after a day because it was obvious that the place was swarming with people who weren't victims at all demanding only things with tags on them. You know they were intent on refunding it at stores. Scum.

Thanks Lee. I will go check it out this week. Interesting that it's got lettering in both English and Spanish.. just like the mens room at Home Depot!

Great save Ron! It's always better when we see the "Before" picture! I too remember not having money for supplies and scrounging. Had some Testors 19 cent bottles but didn't have that last 19 cents for the thinner bottle so my brush went hard. No problem, Mom had Q-Tips! Yea I painted a model or two with those. And one time my mother had bought Christmas green and red spray paint for a holiday project. I wound up using those on my T'rantula kit. Yea, everytime I see one of those kits I remember it painted Christmas green with a red interior and motor!