Ace-Garageguy

This is probably my real problem.

Beautiful car, sound system looks fine fine fine. The blue dots in the taillights are pretty cool too.

Cool truck I'd sure love to have. And it'll get done if you don't ever give up.

No.

Exclaimed on the phone the reason she was out all night was because her best girlfriend's mom was in the hospital and she was taking care of her friend's kids, but caller ID said she was at Raoul-the-pool-boy's; stupid girl.

I think it was a different kid. Those seemed to last forever. The ones on ethernet cables seem to fail after relatively few cycles.

Hee's working now. Did it blow a hydraulic line on the lift?

Not to pick on Ford vans, but the front door hinge pillar design on the current full-size vans is one of the worst I've ever seen. Not only are the hinges not in a line perpendicular to the ground, causing the doors to open at a wonky angle, it's clear the designer of the door pillar had no working knowledge of metal fatigue. One shop I work with has a bodywork contract with Lockheed Martin's Marietta plant, and we've been repairing fatigued hinge pillars at about 40,000 miles on their entire fleet of these trucks. The pillar skin is very light sheetmetal, the reinforcement behind it "floats" and does very little, the stiffening ribs are too far from the load point, so the washer behind the upper hinge attachment fatigues and pulls through the pillar skin. Our fix includes fabbing a 1/8 inch thick load-spreader plate inside the pillar, that does what Ford's sub-optimal design doesn't. They never break again. Only other pillar design I've seen fail like this was on the mid-1980s Isuzu pickups, when I owned a fleet-services company, and my repair then was almost identical. EDIT: And yes, they get used hard. But they're, you know...trucks.

Yup, and it's also just slightly underscale...which becomes apparent when you try to add speed parts to it.

Intervene when you see a friend indulging in self-destructive or addictive behavior and they'll probably hate you for it, but if you really care about someone, it's worth the risk.

That Fujimi Speedster is a lovely kit, but needs a little ride-height adjustment. And lots more Speedsters came with pushrod engines than the 4-cammer. The Jimmy Flintstone 550 has an odd looking butt I've never seen on a real 550 or 1:1 kitcar, but a 550 is the natural home for the Fujimi cammer mill.

Paradoxical is defined as seeming impossible or difficult to understand because of containing two opposite facts or ideas, as in: we're told that to save the planet "we should stop carbon emissions by buying renewable energy tech from China and shut down all our fossil-fuel-burning power plants", while China burns more coal than the rest of the planet combined, and has MANY new coal plants under construction or in planning.

Depends on the location, and the day you get there. Stock changes constantly. Resale stores in affluent areas often have great, hardly used stuff for very reasonable money. Resale stores in less affluent areas usually have mostly useless junk.

One would think this guy could easily handle some "overly aggressive paparazzi"...or am I missing something?

I really need to put ordering some of this guy's stuff near the top of my priority list.

Amen to all the above. But the US-born America haters, whiners, and spiteful slackers who think they're somehow owed a free ride, or that they're entitled to what somebody else sweated for, will never get it. This is not to say that the US of A is perfect, but when it works right, as designed, it's as close to perfect as you can get on this planet with humans at their current state of development, and those of us who appreciate and understand what we have need to stand up to make sure we keep it.

Yup. I'll generally clean up and reorganize after each separate job is finished...same in the big-car shop. This coming Monday is my put-stuff-away at one 1:1 shop, 'cause I couldn't put my hands on much of anything easily last week, and though I have a large bay there with benches on two sides, it's really not enough for the complexity of the build. Organization is necessary to progress efficiently. Some of the model shop at home doubles for big-car work, like making small parts on the baby lathe. It can get scrambled pretty quickly if some bench discipline isn't observed.

Very few cars I've seen really qualify as "non restorable" but this one's pretty damm close.

I don't call it the "swampeast" for no reason.

I had that one in my distant past, had been building models long enough that I actually did an "OK" job on it. Sacrilege I know, but I'm kinda toying with the idea of doing the big one in black "radar absorbing" paint, a refueling probe, and a few other "what if they were still in service" touches. The B52 may very well still be flying when it's 100 years old, so why not a few 58s? Really though, could there be anything more beautiful?

All my parts released from their molds with no drama. I wish humans would respond so well to rational treatment.

I'd like to know what 5-year old designed the latches on ethernet cables.