The Bing and the Duck

Among my possessions is a 1971 Volkswagon van that I started to rustproof about 7 years ago. (It didn't seem that long, now that I think about it). I brought it down to Mexico in 2003 and hired a guy to sand and prime the vehicle while I worked on SV Bliss in the San Carlos dry storage workyard. My stateside address at that time was on the northern California coast, and the spindrift was eating up the car. It belonged to the 1st Mate for years, and when we parted company she gave it to me (bless her heart).

When the 1st Mate and I moved to Mexico (Christmas 2005) this car was placed in storage in California. We retrieved it, and the rest of our belongings in the spring of 2007. It then moved out to the Flash workyard where it sat until this year.

I decided to sell the VW Westfalia and finish up the Bing... I wanted to drive this car south instead of the Westy. So, I started sanding, removing rot, painting primer, etc until I fell off the ladder and injured my ribs. Up until this time, we called the car "The Gray Van" because it had been covered in gray primer. Before I fell, I had the local paint store mix up a gallon of deep red paint, which reminded me of bing cherries, hence the new name.

I contacted my good friend Earl, and he introduced me to a body shop owner in Guaymas who had taken the name, "El Pato." (It is customary here, in this region of Mexico at least, for auto painters to adopt the name of some creature. "El Pollo, El Pato and El Raton" are working locally. Certainly there are more). El Pato looked over the van and gave me a price of 7700 pesos, which I rejected as too high. I told him I wouldn't pay more than 5000, but I could provide all the materials. He agreed to the price and gave me a list of materials, in addition to the paint I had brought with me. The paint store in San Carlos charged me less than 300 pesos for the remaining stuff and I took it out to the Duck. The Duck looked over the dings on the Westy and priced it at 2500 pesos. Pretty good, I thought. So the plan is to drive the Westy to pick up the Bing this afternoon and leave the Westy with El Pato, then take the Bing to get a new windshield and bring it home. The Bing will be my new daily driver.

Recently I purchased some stuff for this car: Two gray captain's chairs from a Westy owner on the east coast of the US, two louvered windows from a guy in PA, 4 yards each of light and dark gray naugahyde, an in-dash cd/dvd/ipod player, an external oil cooler, an aftermarket cruise control, a 2000 watt inverter and two heavy duty golf cart batteries, and rain gutter clips to build a custom roof rack. From our old RV I salvaged some aluminum awning parts to build an awning off the roof rack I have planned. I also salvaged a 300 watt car amplifier, a 7 inch flip down video screen and a backup camera. I'd like to take the fancy wheels off the Westy for this car, but will probably just get new wheels and tires when I sell the Westy.

I will bring a 4x8 sheet of plywood and saw horses to the house and set up the industrial walking-foot sewing machine to do the interior panels in two-tone gray naugahyde. There's some great instructional videos on youtube for auto upholstery.

I'll be chronicling my progress here.

Some people...

I've had to institute comment moderation. A recent comment on this blog included a link to an oriental kiddie porn website. It would seem that are lives and activities are sometimes defined by the worst of us. Just take an airline flight in the USA to get the point.

Some people...

Downtime...

I fell off a ladder day before yesterday. I was arranging the shade over my workspace next to the Flash, when the flimsy ladder I was using slipped and I landed on my right ribcage on the side of a dinghy on the ground. I fell about nine feet. When I hit the boat I could actually see my ribs deforming and the lower right part of my chest move to the center of my chest. It was remarkable.

Of course it hurt like hell.

My brain started screaming panic, but after a second I just muttered to myself, "It's just an injury." Then I took my first breath, and once through that, took another.

Of course it hurt like hell.

A bit dizzy and wobbly, I got up and covered up my tools, locked the gate and drove home.
Once at home, I fired up my computer and Googled "rib injury." I called the First Mate and told her about my mishap so someone would know, and after a brief discussion, drove to "Rescate" to have the ribs wrapped. Rescate is our local Mexican-manned First Aid and Ambulance station in San Carlos. It's supported by the residents of our town through a variety of means, mostly fundraising events.

They gave me some lightweight drugs and taped me up. Then I went back to the house to consult with my next door neighbor, Dave. Dave is a retired physical therapist, specializing in sports medicine. He was so good at his job, he worked on the Olympic teams. So after a several minutes with Dave, I knew that I needed to get x-rays, and I would not be getting a lot done on the Flash, or the cars or anything else for a few weeks. Dave gave me a couple of Vicodin tablets he had, and I went home and setup a comfortable chair in front my computer to watch dvds while the drugs kicked in.

At one point, I sneezed. Of course, it hurt like hell.

My plans to head south for winter cruising are now postponed for a month while I heal up. The 1st Mate came over with extra pillows and white dogs, and we made plans to go get x-rays the following day. After the Vicodin started working, I was able to crawl into bed and get some sleep. I've had worse nights.

The x-rays show no fractures, all normal. So, according to Dave, it's all soft tissue stuff. Still very painful, but I will recover faster than if there were cracks or breaks. I figure it's God's way of telling me to slow down.

My plans now evolve around getting the Bing finished at a bodyshop. Getting the Westy up to the states and on the market. Getting the 2011 database designed for our next book, getting some old graphics files replaced in the book we do, and taking it easy. I'll hire somebody to clean up the workyard, put all tools away in the trailer and tow the trailer next door to the secure yard. Heal and go.

This morning, while surfing around I ran across this quote, which I try, in my humble way, to emulate:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein

Who's the Cat in the Hat?

Rob asks in his recent comment. So here's one of many of Tom Waits' performances on YouTube:

Looks like...

Whattya' mean, this is your truck?...

These two local cats have the "looks like trouble" thing going. And the yellow cat on the right, in my mind, anyway, looks like Tom Waits...

You never know who you might find lying on your truck in the morning.

I'm not so snart...

The last few days I've been putting in long hours in the desert, building large structures out of steel. In the evening, I bring a truckload of stuff that needs to be fixed back to the duplex. The last few weeks I've been frustrated with my Makita drill/driver. I bought this thing back in the 90's and it's the best all around tool I've ever owned. It's got an expensive habit of going through NiCad batteries (around $35 each) and lately I had problems with the charger. Again. Last time I found a used one that I bought.

This time I decided I'd fix it or replace the guts with a 9v charger that I had laying around. So I took it apart and found a little circuit board inside that everything was wired to. I remembered that someone once told me that most service techs fix circuit boards like this: if there's corrosion they clean it off and then test the unit. If it works, they button it up, charge you $25 and go out to dinner on your dime.

If the cleaning doesn't work, they heat up a small soldering iron and lightly touch it to each connector on the board, reflowing the solder. They test it, and if it works, they put it together and charge you $35 and go out to dinner.

If that doesn't fix it, then it gets into deep dark secrets of leaking or clogged electrons, of which I know next to nothing, so I won't go there...

But I've learned that I can do the first 2 things. And you know what? I fixed the first one with the soldering iron ($5.95 at Radio Shack 10 years ago-came complete with solder). The second one I will do tomorrow.

Don't have to be genius, but a good memory goes a long way.

The Boatyard Pedicure

I like to wear sandals. I wear them everywhere, except to bed.

Today I was unbolting chainplates from the boat and I dropped one on my foot. When I drop things on my foot, though, the only thing between the thing I drop and my foot is, well, nothing. A chainplate is 3/8 inch stainless steel 8 inches by about 20 inches long. Maybe 20 or 25 pounds. If you drop one of these on your toe, you'll probably break the toe.

That's where the sandals come in... just tuck an ice cube between the toe and the sandal and keep on working. No sweat.

Put some iodine on it when you get home and don't drop anything else on it for a couple of months. 'Cause that would really hurt.