Car not sold and projects done.

Well, it's been two months and I haven't sold or even put the Miata up on the market. Partly because I don't want to and partly because I don't need to. I haven't forced myself to take any pictures thus I wouldn't have a reason to post them on some car list. I'm not sure I want to try in this market, I would hate to have to field phone calls of nosey potential buyers that don't really have any intentions of buying it. The car is super clean and after talking with my son-in-law, there may be a point in time that I might paint the intake manifold on it. There is a way to polish it that I found on a forum and it looks real good but it is very time consuming to get it right. Greg's way is much more simple and will look just as good. Before the newer engine designs painted valve covers were the thing to have with the manufacturers name proudly in place. Today the name is there in many cases but it is on a piece of plastic covering the engine. Looks good but.....

I haven't been totally lazy during this time. I get a magazine called The Family Handyman. In it you will find a section called Helpful Hints. They invite you to turn in your ideas along with pictures. If they use the idea you will get $100 and if they include or just use the picture there is another $100 in it for you. You go through life and do things that help take time out of a task. You never think about it, you just do it. I have been having trouble with my paper towel holder in the garage. Large full rolls just don't want to start easily in the beginning or the holder breaks from trying to force it to work. Lets face it, you don't put a lot of money in a towel holder for the garage but you do want it to work. Well, I got really tired of it so I took a few minutes and thought about my delima. I decided I would build my own. Three sides fixed together with a dowel rod through the two opposing sides for the roll. As I started the project I was contemplating the size of the rod, do I need an inch or an inch and a quarter diameter hole in the sides. I needed to make it the size of holesaw I already had, you rarely use holesaws so I didn't want to have to buy one. Next I started thinking as to how I was going to keep the rod from working its was out from either end. I don't have a lathe to turn the rod down to some deminsion to keep it from working it's way out of the sides so I decided the rod wasn't such a good idea. Next was to just do a drop in bar that would be notched like a lincoln log. I would give it enough clearance so that when changing rolls it wouldn't be cumbersum. You just want to pick the bar up swap the empty for a full roll and drop it back on without even having to look. Simple is good. A lazy man is said to be the best at finding the simplest way to do things. I'm somewhat lazy by nature. I have included my quickly taken pictures and the sketch that anyone can use. Thirty minutes without the painting.

Well, after building it and painting it, I took some pictures as well as made a drawing in Windows Paint and sent them into The Family Handyman. I don't really expect to get anything but it was fun doing it. I have made another one since then, somewhat as a joke. I showed a neighbor what I had done, we do some projects together, his basement, his yard sprinkler system and some of his house wiring when it was being built. I told him I could make him one, I had plenty of scrap wood and he said, only if you paint it Bemmer Blue and then he pointed to the blue on my garage wall on the side of a Porsche. Somewhere in this blog you will find the airbrushing I did in my garage and you will see the Porsche he is talking about. Anyways, I just so happen to have that paint still so I took 30 minutes out of my very busy day (lol) and made him a blue towel holder. I gave it to his wife and told her to just set it in his garage and not say anything. He has a ton of STUFF in his garage and only he knows where everything is. Believe me, he does know where everything is but the question is, will he notice something new? If I asked him where is new towel holder was could he find it? If he didn't put it there, wherever there is, he probably couldn't find it. I know that so far he hasn't seen it. It has been in the garage for about 7 hours and he and his wife left for whatever about two hours ago. We were on the deck and he honked and waved. Had he seen it, he would have called. I even included a first roll for him. All he has to do is mount it to the wall.

Enjoy, Chris.

Something to write about

Well, it's been a week since the opening of the racing season and I am still just as excited now as I was before the Dayton 24 Hour Race started. Brumos is back. They were so close last year. All the hoop la with Jimmy Johnson, Danica Patrick and some for Jeff Gordon doesn't even begin to make the standing of the name of Donahue. I said Brumos is back but the real biggie is the name Donahue in the winners circle. I started watching and reading about Mark back in the late 60's. I have watched and waited for the day that son David would take his place in racing history and that happened on Jan. 25, 2009. I watched from the beginning to the end taping, of course, the parts that I needed for sleep. It was one of the best finishes I have ever seen and if anyone was watching and left before the end without a good reason then, just too bad for them.

I have listed in my profile that a good read is the book "The Unfair Advantage". I use to keep some of Mark's quotes posted over my desk for various reasons of encouragement or motivation. Now, I think I will revisit the book, not for the work needs as I'm now retired but more for the enjoyment and life in general.

We can talk about the Unser's, Petty's, and Andretti's, these are all great race families but the second and in some cases third generations didn't have to get to their level without the help of their fathers. David did and in a very fine way.

One last comment is that you don't have to always turn left to race. What with all the gossip and turmoil in NASCAR, the new IRL/CART and F1 the ALMS and Grand AM series might be the only place to get good racing without someone trying to screw with the points systems.

Enjoy the pics below.