Rest in Peace

Back on Top

First off, I don't want to hear anymore about the devastating collapse in the last minute of regulation play against Boston University in the national Championship game last season.

Now that we're past that. I am proud to announce that Miami's hockey team is back on top of both the USA Today poll and the USCHO poll, as well as the not so important INCH poll. Not to give a lesson in English, (as if I could) that's defined as a consensus!

Well, I must admit that it is early in the season, however it is tough to overlook Miami's team based on their returning players and their ridiculous depth. Not to mention they have the highest winning percentage of ANY division I college hockey team over the last FOUR YEARS! That's saying something, really it is.

Exclusive eye witness report:

Miami sweeps #13 St.Cloud State in dramatic fashion. Friday's game was a come from behind thriller that culminated in a 3-2 overtime decision in favor of the good guys. Junior forward Carter Camper slipped the game winner into the onion bag ending the stalemate. Camper was a Hobey Baker award candidate last season and is expected to have fantastic appeal in this years race for the award. For those of you that don't know, the Hobey Baker award is the Heisman trophy of college hockey, in other words, it's awarded to college hockey's MVP.

Saturday's rematch was expected to be another fantastic showdown based on the previous night's extravaganza. It turns out that it was another great one, although, not quite as dramatic as the prior contest. This one was summed up in 20 seconds and two shots. That's all it took for Miami's high power offense to make the two game match-up a sweep. Both goals were scored about 5 minutes into the 3rd period. St. Cloud never really had a chance to make a comeback. Miami's one-two punch of ballistic offense and stifling defense tucked this two-bager away into the win column and didn't look back.

Overall, Miami's special teams were fantastic in both contests combining to score two power play goals out of 9 chances and stopping all 10 opposing man advantages. Sophomore goalie Connor Knapp recorded the shutout in Saturday's 2-0 victory, while equally capable Cody Reichard etched the "W" Friday.

Of course, there were a few scary moments that warrant some coaching attention, but that's to be expected while the rust is being knocked off during the season's onset.

The upcoming weekend takes the Redhawks to the University of New Hampshire for another Friday-Saturday double header. If I get inspired, I might blog about the results.

GO REDHAWKS!!!

The MPO Chronicles...

So I was watching some Law & Order SVU (Tracy's show) and it jogged my memory of an interesting story, and more.

Here goes.

Some background: Back in High school I had a job as a telemarketer working for a company called "Midwest Publishing" A.K.A. "MPO" I have no idea what the "O' was for in the acronym. It was probably there to confuse the Russians, which was the catch all excuse back in the day. Yes, I said I was a telemarketer. Yeah, I know but many of my best friends worked there as well. We worked from 5pm till 9pm Monday through Friday. We mad $5.00 /hour, that was actually pretty good for the times. After all the alternative was that we could "go flip burgers for $3.25 an hour" down the street at Burger King. That was true, and they never let us forget it.

The pitch: we called people "on behalf of the Ohio Patrolman's Benevolent Association" yadda yadda yadda... A gold pledge is only $45, you get everything plus a... blah blah blah... Oh, then maybe a silver pledge would be a better fit for you Mr. Jones, it's only $30. Wait, wait, don't hang-up, I really feel that you have it in your heart to make a difference for the men in blue, our Bronze pledge is only $15 and and you still get the sticker to post on your rear bumper... Well, I can't guarantee that it'll get you out of any tickets, but it can't hurt can it?

Well, the way it worked (remember, computers were still expensive in the late 80's) is that we took pages from phone books and "called them". One day, my boss "jumpin" Joe Niesch gave me a page out of a criss-cross phone book to call. Criss-cross books are organized by address, not alphabetically. So the first guy I called was some ancient codger that didn't know what year it was. The second (the first guy's neighbor) wasn't much better, and he made sure I knew that he was on a "fixed income" and couldn't afford anything. Based on the addresses in the listing, I knew I was going to be calling codgers for a while. So the codger calls went on for a while, prompting me to complain to Jumpin Joe that I was stuck calling a "fogey farm" and that my days results would suffer because of it. He didn't care and said call it anyway. Dejected and annoyed, I went back to my phone and started finishing the list of codgers a page and a half long. At that point, I really didn't care if I got any pledges or not.

The call: Still working the codger list I get a hold of this old guy on the phone and it went something like this:

Me: Hello Mr. Old Codger, I'm calling on behalf of the Ohio....

Old Codger: Hello?

Me: Hello, Mr. Old Codger...

Old Codger: I can't hear you can you speak up?

Me: YES, MR. CODGER, I'M CALLING ON BEHALF OF THE...

Old Codger: My name isn't Mr. Codger

Me: OH, I'M SORRY, WHO AM I SPEAKING WITH?

Old Codger: This here's peanut.

Me: OH I'M SORRY PEANUT... I'M CALLING ON BEHALF OF...

(at this point I start cracking up laughing as all my buddies around me are watching me work the phone with this relic, screaming into the phone, I just couldn't take it.)

After much discussion with my buddies about the codger call, I made my way back to my list and continued calling it without incident (other than the fact that there was no way I would get a pledge from this page of old fogeys)

Finally, I was through the codger list. Whew! Now on to some real phone numbers.

Maybe not. Not just yet anyway.

Instead I decided to call peanut back. It went like this:

Ring Ring Ring...

Old Codger: Hello

Me: HELLO, IS THIS PEANUT?

old Codger: WHO IN THE HELL IS PEANUT?

Me: (hang up) rolled on the floor laughing my ass off along with my buddies that were listening in on the call. Maybe you had to be there.

Our latest visitors

We've had some visitors...

Two days ago we had a visit from this guy, or gal in our garden.
This is a Eastern Box Turtle.


We have no idea how the heck he got in, but he did.


He wasn't alone. just outside the garden were a pair of cohorts. They were both roughly the same size shape and color. The markings on them were all different, but they were obviously all together.

Today, I was mowing the lawn out by the garden and had to mow around one of the turtles. After doing a little research on the web, I'm pretty sure this little lady was laying eggs. I will check it out a little closer later tonight. If in fact she did lay eggs, I will need to build a cage around them to keep predators like raccoons out. As you can see, I'm totally fine with opening my property to wildlife and the preservation thereof.

More on the turtles later.

Now on to the baby fawn I stumbled upon as it was bedding down up against my garden fence (on the outside of the garden)

She's rather cute, don't you think?


Her's a close-up


And now even closer. Oh, the dramatics.


Now, Tracy, Cammy and I are wondering if this fawn still has parents around. We'll be watching closely. If no parents, I guess we'll have to try and help it. We saw a news story just last night about a fawn that was abandoned. Some family took it in and was feeding it baby bottles full of milk. I'm not sure we'll be partaking in any activities that extreme, but I can assure you we will try and get some help for the little guy. My guess is we'll never see it again, but we'll see.

Updates on the turtles and fawn forthcoming.

Okay, by popular demand here's a post

So I haven't posted in a while. Shoot me.

Here's what's been happening...

Work has been busy. I have a ton of estimates I'm working on, several proposals out and several jobs in line. As far as I can tell, people around here haven't quit spending money on their houses. Not to mention, everyone that wants windows knows all about the energy tax credit. There's no doubt in my mind that the tax credit has definitely encouraged people to spend money on their houses. That means work for me. Thanks Barack. Yep, my vote counted and is working for me, unlike the previous two elections. Need I remind you the name of the scum bag that people actually voted for. I mean really, what the hell were they thinking?

The garden was planted a month ago give or take. Then it proceed to deluge all over my fragile seeds. The carrots and potatoes made it well. The lettuce and spinach, didn't come up at all. Not one plant. The beats, turnips and chard were okay. They were a bit thin, but not terrible. Since then, I replanted the lettuce and also planted popcorn and beans. They are up and doing well. Later I planted peppers, zukes, jalapenos, tomato's, cukes, watermelon and cantaloupe. Then it proceeded to deluge on my fragile seeds again. Damn clouds. Again some of the seeds sewed roots and some rotted and became decomposing plant matter. The failures included tomatoes, cukes, peppers and jalapenos. I plan to replant them with starter plants from the local feed and seed down the street.

One of the continuing successes of the garden is the asparagus. last year a couple of the plants that we let grow out at the end of the season produced tons of red berry like seeds that have resulted in tons of nice little volunteer plants. This year I have let several more of the mature plants grow up so I can harvest the seeds and plant a large area with them. The current plants are in an area about 4' by 12' long. I plan on finishing off the rest of the row to make a 4' by 60' patch. That should keep the bathroom stinking if you know what I mean. The only down side, is that it take 3 years for asparagus plants to grow big enough to harvest. I can wait.

Enough about the garden.

Cammy has been great so far. Most of the time she is a perfect little girl and cute in every way. Then there's always "the ten o'clock meltdown". That's when the pitchfork and horns come out. They usually subside within an hour. Sometimes much less but occasionally and less frequently much more.

Grandma and grandpa have been called upon for lots of babysitting, affording me the ability to go make money. Yay.

Along with Cammy came the screeching halt of the restoration of my Datsun 280zx. Actually, it's hasn't totally stopped, but it has slowed substantially. I did get a new battery for it the other day and proceeded to drive it around my property a little bit. everything still seems to work just fine.

Okay, that should get ya up to speed.

Garden Time!!!

The weather has cooperated this spring. At least enough for me to till the garden for the early crops. My garden gently slopes from the northwest to the southeast causing it to have a dry end and a wet end. This is actually a good thing because some crops need more water than others. For example, I like to plant my melons and towmaters in the wet end and onions, lettuce and such in the drier end. This seems to cut down on the amount that I have to water. Luckily, water here is really cheap and plentiful.

It's still pretty early to plant in this region so our options right now are limited. So here's the plan for tomorrow's planting:

Onions: scallions, yellow, white, red

Lettuce: Simpson seedless

Potatoes: red & white

Radishes

Beets - if Grandma and Grandpa want them

Turnips - if Grandma and Grandpa want them

I may take a chance planting some zucchini, since i rarely use all my seeds and if they don't make it, I'll just plant some more.

Here's the garden prior to tilling. The yellow things on the posts are insulators for the electric fence. We have tons of raccoons around here and this is the only way to keep them out, other than siting there all night with a 12 gauge.

Here's my garden barn. 2/3 is storage, 1/3 is relaxation.

This is my Troy-Bilt Horse model rototiller. I highly recommend this tiller to anyone. I really does all the work. They are commonly available on Ebay, but don't be shocked at the price. Mine is a 1982 model and is built really solidly. These tillers are still available new for around $2,800. they are essentially unchanged in their design after all these years. No, you can't buy one of these at Home Depot or Lowes! Anything at those stores with the Troy-Bilt name on it is junk, since MTD bought Troy-Bilt and trashed the name by sticking it on all the garbage they build.

Here's what I do in my spare time. I make heat.

More Cammy Pictures

Intorducing Cammy!

Cammy Marjorie Troxel!
Feb. 16, 2009, 2:02am
7lb, 10oz
19-1/2"
Middle name comes from Tracy's grandmother

Post winter storm

We got it! About three inches of snow, then 1/4" of ice and freezing rain, then another 7" of snow on top of that. It took about 36 hours to get it all, but it did come

Kudos to the weathermen I watched who actually predicted it really well. I have to hand it to them this time.

The snow blower blew right through it all, below is a video.

Getting ready for the big snow

Well, the weathermen nailed it last night. The Dayton stations said my area would get about three inches and so did the Cincy weathermen (we live in Middletown, the name fits because we are right between Dayton and Cincinnati). We got 3-1/8". Not bad huh?

Now the real storm is bearing down on us and is expected to dump anywhere between 4" and 12" later today and overnight. That's a real shovel buster. For some that is... Last year Tracy authorized me (or actually made me, to be more truthful) buy a snow blower. Well if you haven't been to our house, the driveway is rather steep. She was tired of shoveling it, and thus a snow blower was born into our family.

As usual, when I set out to buy a tool of any kind I do extensive research to determine the cost to benefit of the tool to me. And as usual, I ended up with the Cadillac of all snow blowers. It's really more of a commercial model, but with our driveway, I thought the extra money would be well spent in this particular area.

The bottom line on this snow blower is that it has several options that no other walk-behind model known to exist possesses other than this one. Those things would be:

Hydrostatic drive - infinitely variable speed in forward and reverse. No crappy slip clutch here!

3 position auger height adjustment - the auger head can be set to dig into the ground, ride level with it or ride about 1.5" above the ground. This is particularly important for me because I have partly a concrete driveway and partly gravel. On the gravel part I adjust the auger to pick-up snow above the gravel thus eliminating thrown rocks and annoying shear bolt breakages.

Track drive- The photo will explain it all. no wheels and chains here. this thing easily clears my driveway uphill while dragging me along. I'm considering attaching a sulky for convenience.

All this and a 32" clearing path, 11.5 horse Honda motor, electric start, etc, etc.

The Honda HS1132


The reason for the Honda HS1132


These photos of the driveway are about three years old
and thus the driveway shown was hand shoveled. Looks
like fun huh?

Gone at last! Gone at last!

Finally, Washington's colon has pumped out the piece of SHIT that it has been constipated on for the last 8 years. Good riddance you scum bag!

Oh, This is my new favorite photo...It's a bird. It's a plane.
No! It's a flying piece of shit!

Washington D.C. already smells better.

Welding, sanding and discovering

Well, today I continued my pursuit of completing the Z before we have our Daughter. Well, at least the plan is to complete everything I am going to do, which includes prepping the entire body for the final paint job and refinishing and installing the interior parts that need work. I plan to take the car elsewhere for the final paint job.

Back in the mid 90's I had a ford F-150 that I had painted. The guy who painted it is apparently still around, with any luck, I can find him and talk him into doing my Z. The F-150 turned out very good. He did a fantastic job, which I don't say about most paint jobs I see coming out of the local body shops because I'm very picky. Usually I can find multiple flaws in bodywork that are simply due to laziness. Trust me, most body shop guys can do fantastic work. It's just that they don't care, and most customers don't ever know the difference so they turn-out crap work.

Below are some photos of what's been going on:

The Driver's door with the spot welds where the door molding

used to be. I decided to take them off the car because they

are not stock items, they were likely added by the dealer.

The main purpose of the moldings is to prevent door dings.

I don't plan on parking this car where door dings are likely.

The hood. It's a bit dusty, but that's curable.

The circles marked all over it are areas that

need attention from rock chips, scratches, etc.

Areas in lighter grey are where I primed after

removing any surface rust. Next I will spray

it with rubberized undercoating.

The rocker panel below the driver's door. All the paint has

been sanded off and is ready for spot putty and primer.

It also had a bunch of spot welds where the rocker plate

was attached. I'm also removing those permanently

because they aren't original to the car either. And they

promote rust, and I don't need that!

The worst rust spot on the whole car. This is the lower

back corner on the driver's side. As you can see, it has been

sanded down and still has some pitted areas that need more

work. the little bracket holds part of the bumper on, so that

whole area is well hidden either under the bumper or beneath

it. That's not to say I'm going to skimp on fixing it the right way!

Under the "dog house"

Pleasantly surprised that there is very little hidden rust.
Some of what you see is undercoating, it looks like rust in
the pictures.


Behind the front fender in front of the door. This is rust,
but very light and only on the surface. An easy fix.


Again, very light surface rust here, easily fixed.

After removing the aftermarket rocker rock plates,for lack

of better terms, I was happy that again, there is little rust,

despite the rock plates being attached with rivets with no

rust protection.

Headlight buckets look near perfect! A little rust on the

Front tow hooks. They will get a fresh coat of black paint.

Pictures of the Z when I first got it

The Z when first purchased, picture taken at our old house.

Bonus: our old VW Scirocco in the background.

This car isn't in bad shape huh?

She's a little dirty under the hood, but everything is still

as it was from the factory, no hillbillies worked on this one.

I'm not crazy about the red interior, but it's way better

than the blue interiors the also came with!

Finally getting back to the Z

Okay, So I bought this 1979 "Datsun by Nissan" 280zx about 3.5 years ago with the intention of giving it a paint job and sending it to a happy new home, provided the new owners give sufficient monetary compensation in exchange.

Well, for the first year or so i drove it around. It is a really nice car and fun to drive. It just needs a little body work and fresh paint and it will again be a rolling classic.

The story goes like this. The father of one of my good friend's, Ken, owned this car his name is Bob. He was the second owner, his brother Ken (my friends uncle, also named Ken) was the first.

It was originally bought in Sacramento California in 1979 and lived there under the care of Uncle Ken. In the 80's, Uncle Ken moved to Hawaii and decided not to take the car with him, but rather left it under the watchful eyes of his parents at his childhood home in Sacramento. The car was driven from time to time by uncle Ken's father AKA "The Red Rider". In case you're lost The Red Rider is my friend Ken's grandfather. Follow?

Anyway, time passed, and so did The Red Rider. In dealing with the estate, Uncle Ken told his brother Bob, that he didn't want to ship the car to Hawaii, and that if he wanted it, he could have it. And have it he did. Bob had the car shipped from California to Oxford, Ohio in around 1995.

Since the car is a true California car, it had no rust on it when it was shipped. Knowing that winters aren't exactly kind to cars in Ohio, Bob had the car rust-proofed when it arrived in Ohio. This was a smart move. If you know anything about these cars, you'll know that they are very well built and run and drive really well. They really only had one major flaw. THEY RUST LIKE CRAZY IF DRIVEN IN THE SALT!!!

A little side story here
I'll never forget, one day back in high school, my friend Shane and I were rummaging through a junk yard looking for parts for my Audi Fox when we came upon a Datsun 280zx, just like the one I now own. It was rusted something terrible. I mean the body had fallen through what was left of the frame and was essentially sitting on the ground. I got in just to check it out and when I opened the driver door, the door chimes started ringing. That meant the keys were in it and the battery wasn't dead. I thought, what the heck, I'll crank'er over. It fired right up and ran perfectly. I realized that the car's mechanics were fine except there really wasn't anything left to hold the car in one piece anymore. What a bummer. Unfortunately, salt was the eventual cause of death for most 280zx's in the snow states.

Aside from being total rust buckets if driven in the salt, these cars were probably the most technically advanced cars coming from Japan at the time, a real flagship. Still to this day, every single thing works on mine. These are unique cars in that they are loaded with features rarely seen elsewhere in the industry including: Independent rear suspension with rear wheel drive, four wheel disc brakes, on board diagnostics, fuel injection, tilt, cruise, A/C, power windows, power mirrors, 4 speaker stereo, full gauges and more. Three items on the interior stand out. First, the automatic drivers side power window. This had to be one of the first cars out there to have this option, and instead of being a secondary detente on a solitary control button like cars today, it was a separate switch labeled "auto". The second thing that stands out is the climate control system. No it isn't automatic like you often see today, but it does have a plethora of standard and combination settings, not often found even today. On top of that, the fan switch is an actual rheostat, meaning that the fan motor has infinite speed settings, not just 3 or 4 positions like most cars today. Lastly, the fuel gauge is interesting because in addition to it's typical analog gauge with a needle that swings from E to F, it has a secondary gauge that swings from E to 1/4 giving you an exact reading once the take gets below 1/4 tank. On top of that, it also has a low fuel light. If you run out of gas in this car you area an absolute idiot!

Okay, back to the story of how I came to own this car. Bob's wife (Cris) drove it almost daily until the summer of 2004 when I bought it from them. Interestingly, I also bought his 1986 Audi 4000s at the same time, this was the car Bob mostly drove. (the Audi will be another story, but i do still have it and drive it all the time) Well, bob and Cris's kids, Ken and Jen lived in Columbus, OH and Chicago, respectively and they would never go visit them because they were afraid of having car trouble with such old cars. Well Ken and Jen would give them a hard time about this until they finally got new cars. After all, Bob is a well respected Chemistry Professor at Miami (that's in Ohio in case you didn't know) and Cris works in the President's office of the University. They could afford new cars. That is unless they were spending all their money on crack, which apparently wasn't the case. They got a Toyota Camry for Cris and a BMW 325 for Bob, so it was time to liquidate the other two. Knowing that I always' loved his Audi, Bob offered it to me and at the time he said he was going to get rid of the Z also, my eyebrow went up and after a simple negotiation I had both cars. That's how I ended up with it. (and the Audi).

Well, the whole point of this long winded blog post is to start a log of the restoration progress of the Z. The truth is, it doesn't need much (from my perspective). Basically, it needs two new front fenders, some small area's of rust taken car of and fix 30 years worth of really tiny door dings and other miscellaneous flaws it collected over the years. Then a lot of wet sanding and finally a coat of paint. The overall goal is to have a show quality paint job. That is, a much slicker paint job than it ever had from the factory.

Lots of photos to follow.