I recently experienced the most special day of my life, to date, it was truly an overwhelming experience.

I have been hanging with my best friend for nearly 22 years and we recently celebrated 20 years of being hitched. Our anniversary was actually on September 22 but we celebrated on Saturday the eighteenth.

It all started a few weeks prior to that with an idea I had to attempt to surprise Bride on our anniversary. If you don’t know this about me, I go out to the beach at least once a week to watch the sunrise. I get there when it is dark and get to watch the whole show. Bride is not a morning person but she does like to go sometimes and always goes with me on our anniversary. Well I remember when we got married we talked about a 5 year deal, if we still liked each other in 5 years we would get married again, if either of us thought is wasn’t working out we would have the opportunity to get out. Seems silly as hell 20 years later but that was our mentality when we started out together. So when we hit the 5 year mark we were still having fun so we convinced our great friend Lonnie to reaffirm our vows, and we did the deed at our house with about 50 people in attendance.

That was a great experience and we planned then that we would just keep a running 5 year deal, if one of us wanted out, we had to wait for the 5 year mark when the contract was due. Well along came 10 years and it so happened to be working out that on our anniversary we were closing on our new home, not brand new but new to us. We celebrated well into the night with our great friends Scott and Sara, who were just dating then and have since gotten married and just added little Jack to the family. So we did not officially renew our contract on the 10 year mark, but buying another house together was kind of an unofficial renewal of the deal. We did not renew at 15 either, that was about the time that Bride was diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder. That was quite a blow to our otherwise idyllic lives that required a reevaluation of everything, not whether we still loved each other but how this news was going to affect our lives moving forward.

We have both learned a lot about life in those years between 15 and 20. I think after all the turbulence we both experienced we came out the other side stronger than ever. I am not saying that she is no longer Bi-polar, I am saying that we approached it like everything else in our lives, with open minds and love. The medications are crazy and changes in medications are even crazier but we are still chugging away, still in love and dealing with life one day at a time as it comes. All we have is this moment and we learned that no matter how much planning for the future you do, it can all change with a 15 minute trip to the doctor’s office. We live in the moment, Bride is retired now and has even gotten her nose pierced and is growing her hair out and not coloring it anymore, I love her confidence. She says she is throwing off the shackles of the business where she toiled for so long. She is the strongest woman I have ever known. Even when her mind is playing tricks on her, she just keeps on keeping on. I do not think that I would be strong enough to deal with a diagnosis like that.

Anyway, back to a few weeks ago when I decided to surprise her for our 20 year contract negotiation. I thought, I will get Lonnie to marry us again, I had recently reconnected with him on FaceBook. He was unable to make it though, work obligations. I was sad about that but was not willing to let the idea die there. I have a great friend, Pervalia, who recently became more active in ministering to those in need through her church. I called her and she said she would marry us, and to top that we would be her first marriage. OK I thought we are on our way. I wanted to surprise Bride on the beach while we were watching the sunrise. I contacted some of our other friends to see if they were interested in getting up VERY early and making it the beach. After I meticulously timed things out, as long as everyone was on the beach by 6:15 or so it would still be dark enough that we would not be able to recognize anyone. So that is what we did, my Niece Amanda was a gate keeper, directing folks where we were at and where they were supposed to go and wait. She then called me, under some other guise to let me know that everyone was there and ready. I asked Bride if she would marry me again and when she said yes, I jumped up and did a little jig, that was the cue for everyone to make their way over to where we were sitting.

Well I had spent so much time planning the event and getting things arranged, who was bringing mimosa’s and things like that that I neglected to think about myself. I was also worrying about Bride finding out and how excited that she would be that I had not spent one minute thinking about how this would make me feel. Well Bride was very excited and it was an incredible experience watching the realization and happiness sweep across her face as our friends came wandering up, at O-dark thirty on the beach. I found myself completely overwhelmed with joy. I can not even begin to describe how special it was. To Watch Bride beaming with joy made my heart leap with joy, it was very emotional for me, it was priceless. I had given Pervalia free rein as far as the service, which ended up being a rededication of our rings. It was the most incredible and beautiful service I have ever heard – thank you Pervalia for officiating the most wonderful ceremony ever, I was so happy that we could be your first, you always remember your first time.

To be able to share that wonderful experience with our friends at sunrise meant so much to me, the fact everyone got up so early to share this very special moment with us was overwhelming and I can not thank everyone enough for coming. I want to try by thanking them here, Thank you Scott and Sara, thank you Doug and Judy, thank you Bob and Beth, thank you Betsy and Wally, thank you Pervalia and Vincent, thank you Jeff, thank you Roy, thank you Ruth-Ellen and Vincent, thank you Conny and Mark, thank you Bobbie, thank you Amanda, thank you Debbie and thank you Tami. You guys, one and all, contributed to my experiencing the most incredible day of my life to date. Not to mention that without Sandy saying yes none of this would have been possible.

Sandy, you mean more to me than I ever thought anyone ever would. I can not imagine what my life would be like without you in it, it would no doubt be a dark place without joy and with dim, uneventful sunrises. You make my life complete and I can not believe my luck in finding and catching you. Everyday my love for you continues to grow. I want to take away your fears and sooth your concerns, I want to lift you above the fray that some seem to get stuck in. I want to continue to be best friends, who can laugh at the ridiculousness of life. I want to be having coffee with you at sunset on the river for the rest of my life. I enjoy hanging out with you so much that I will keep playing the lotto so I no longer have to go to work and we can just play together.

Thank you everyone for being involved in making me and Bride so very happy!!!

Jalopy repairs, expensive yes but basically a one time cost and therapeutic for my soul

About 4 years ago I picked up the Jalopy, I was almost ready to buy a motorcycle when I came upon it. Now I am kind of a car guy so when I saw this car, that I did not even know they made in 1958, I just had to get it. I have been to countless car shows and have never even seen a Ranchero older than 1960 when they started using the Falcon body style. The first year for the Ranchero was 1957, two years before my all-time favorite car – the 1959 El Camino, those fins are just magnificent.

I had an opportunity some years ago to purchase a 1959 El Camino from the original owner. This is when I learned that in fact, money talks and bullshit walks. I came upon this beauty with a for sale sign in the window in rural Virginia, I immediately stopped. The transmission went bad several years ago I was told and now the engine will not turn over either. Undeterred, I looked the car over and found the body and interior in very good shape. Everything was old and faded but was not rusted out or dented up, and he only wanted 600 bucks. This was in the mid 80’s, before an ATM on every corner and actually before they became popular at all. I told him I would have to run to the bank and get the cash and I should be back in a few hours. Well off the bank I went and on my way back - what passes me, a pickup truck pulling a trailer with that El Camino on the back. When I got back to the place it was for sale I asked, why did you sell it out from under me? The old man’s response is still ringing in my ears – money talks and bullshit walks.

So when the opportunity on the 1958 Ranchero came up, again from an older gentleman, who reminded me of the “money talks” man I knew I had to act quickly. The car was far from perfect, there had been some body work and the car was loose. By loose I mean I could tell it would be needing some suspension work, engine work along with the eventual body work. For me that mattered little, why you might ask? Because I knew this car was going to become a project car, a never ending project that I could work on when it needed worked on, or and more importantly when I needed to work on it. Don’t get me wrong, it was drivable and all but I knew there was enough work there to keep me as busy as I wanted to be for as long as I wanted to be busy. One thing you learn driving an old car every day is patience, in spades. There will be times it will not start, there will times it will not move and there will times it will leave you someplace. Those are inevitabilities, you can’t get mad, it is just a fact of driving a Jalopy. I just keep a tool bag and some critical spares in the car and anything else I can call friends.

I find it very cathartic to tinker around on old cars. My job is, like most folks, a never end sea of too many things to get done with no end in sight. TV and Radio are never ending and in some respects more monotonous than delivering the mail. The Jalopy allows me some mindless thing to do, not that working on cars in mindless, but for me it is. Never will I have to worry if this piece of hardware will no longer operate correctly when a new update to Flash player comes out. Never will I have to worry about a satellite feed being adversely affected by sun spots, taking the broadcast off the air. Never will I have to worry about a power supply filter failing and placing just enough ripple on the DC voltage to cause a weird intermittent popping on the digital radio channel. In 1958 things were simpler, no computerized anything, no software compatibility issues, no anti-locking anything and no way was someone from Onstar going to unlock my doors, shut off my car or even determine where I am located.

Bride humors me on this, sometimes barely but she does and I love her for it. I use the logic of comparing all repairs to a number of car payments if I were to go and buy a new car and that works, she likes Jalopy riding so that helps as well. So about 7 months ago I started pondering what needed doing next and I came to the suspension and steering mechanisms and after crawling around under there for a few hours I determined it all needed replaced. WOW I remember thinking, this is going to be a big project. At that time I also started wondering if some upgrades might not be in order. Maybe a conversion to front disc brakes, something that was not even available in 1958. The Thunderbird was the first Ford that disc brakes came standard and that was not until 1965. I knew that would require big changes. The factory tires and rims were 14” and the disc brake mechanisms would not fit inside that rim, I had to change over to 15 inch rims. No problem except that I wanted to keep the original 14 inch hubcaps. I ordered new steel rims and then had a metal fabricator create, and weld in, some rings that would suspend my 14 inch hubcaps in the center of the 15 inch rims. A quick trip to the powder coater for a shot of red powder coating (to match the car) and the first part of the project was complete.

Next was the rear suspension, new shocks and new spring mounts and then mounting the new and much larger rims and tires. That also required some modifications to the fenders to allow them to fit, although none of that is visible by looking the underside required quite a few hours of work. I also reworked the original drum brakes that were on the rear, I wish they had the automatic adjusters that were available starting in 1959. I have since found a conversion kit for that that is cheap – 40 bucks but requires me to pull it apart again to install, I already order the kit so that will be coming soon. With the rear done I moved onto the front, first ordering most of the parts in a “front end” kit from Kanter Automotive. I also order new springs and an updated stabilizer bar from Concours parts that far exceeded the factory original. Next was the conversion kit for front disc brakes from Master Power Brakes. Once I had all the parts, I planned the disassembly. The underside of the front end was horrible, 52 years of dirt, grease and grime was fossilized all over everything. My best friend Mark came by to assist with the tear out. It was every bit as nasty as I had anticipated and I greatly appreciated the assistance, thanks brother.

We were able to get the entire front end pulled out in one day. There were three weeks of scraping and cleaning and primering and painting and powder coating of the parts I was going to use. Once everything was clean and all the new parts were installed I was thinking this should be pretty easy. After installing the master cylinder and brakes lines, which is one of my least favorite things to do by the way, we were on to reinstalling all the parts. That actually did go pretty smoothly, the only big mistake was I installed the lower control arm bushings backwards which required about an hour each to remove and install correctly and yes there are four of them. When I went back to the shop manual there was a line that was BOLDED and in all CAPS that said, be sure to install bushings with the flanges on the inside, yes I had read that whole section before I started. Once past that little snafu everything else went pretty smooth and it went back together pretty quickly.

I knew that I would need to get the front end aligned at least close enough to drive it to the shop for a front end alignment and to get the new tires installed. I remember a trick I learned from my 11th grade auto mechanics teacher at Ohio High Point joint vocational school to get close on a front end alignment using sticks (3 foot yard sticks) and a piece of string. Well I thought, this is 2010 I should be able to accomplish this task even a bit better. So I broke out the laser pointer, a stick, a string and dusted off Pythagoras’s theorem for a 21st century version of that old trick. Well sir, I surprised even myself with that one and the alignment was, I believe, closer than what it was before I tore it apart. I am going to ask for the before and after numbers from the alignment shop to see exactly how close I came. It drove fabulously, without a shimmy or a shake and the new disc brakes stopped very strongly with no pull to the right or left.

She drives like a brand new 1958 Ford would have, and that is a lot better than what it was driving like before I started. I was amazed that it still had the factory original upper ball joints, I know that because they were riveted in and none of the aftermarket ball joints, even from Ford directly were riveted in, they were all bolted in. The project took, all told, about 150 hours spread over 6 months. Since I did not want to stop driving I performed the work in stages with the longest period of outage being about 4 weeks while I had the front end out. I spent in the neighborhood of 4 grand, or about 8 car payments but that money was spent replacing items that were mostly 52 years old, they will not need replaced again in my lifetime so I my opinion it was money well spent.

The biggest bonus is this, I got to spend male bonding time with a great friend and I got the satisfaction of fixing the jalopy and I got to get my mind off of work for a while. I am already wondering what is next, I may have to learn to work sheet metal and body filler as well as how to paint. Who knows, I might replace the old and tired 110 horsepower six cylinder with a Boss 302 with a supercharger pumping 500 plus horse power. Whatever is next, it will have to wait for me to replenish the “car” fund.

September 11th, what does it mean to me nine years later?

I spent most of the day just putzing around with my old jalopy, well between that, the pool and the couch. As I drove around I noticed more flags flying than normal, in the neighborhoods and at businesses. I heard folks on the radio waxing patriotic and watched television personalities do the same thing. I feel strangely detached from the ninth anniversary of 9-11 and I am not sure why.

I want to go back and take a look what our 2001 world was like, of course that was before the world of the Ipod. The first of them was released in October of 2001. The average price per gallon of gas was $1.46 and my electric bill was more than one half of what it is today. In 2000 the Federal funds rate was 6.5%, today it is .25% and while that might be good if you are continuing to spend money you do not have but if you are trying to save in a simple savings account or CD it SUCKS ASS! In 2001 we had no idea that a storm called Katrina would decimate our gulf coast.

In 2001 we were enjoying a time of prosperity and peace, as much as it pisses me off Bill Clinton did a good job. I wish the biggest worry I had about our president was whether or not he was cheating on his wife with an intern. I would have paid for a first rate, good looking hooker to entertain George Bush Jr. if it would have kept him distracted, instead of leading us into a ridiculous war on terror. The war on terror is just as much stupid rhetoric as the war on drugs. A war on an ideology, who thinks that it a good idea? I mean if we were to use the war on drugs as the example, why would we ever choose to war against an ideology again. When Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in June 1971 I wonder if he would have ever guessed that it would cost this much.

Since the “war” on drugs started we have spent in the neighborhood of 35.5 trillion dollars and it has netted a little over 1,000,000 arrests. That is about $35 million PER PERSON, seems like a bargain to me. Currently we are spending over $75,000 per minute on the war on drugs, yep that comes out to 4.5 million per day or 40 Billion a year. So we had a good example for the cost and success of a war on an ideology. These numbers PALE in comparison to the cost of the other war against an ideology or the war on terror as it is more commonly known.

So as I reflect on the anniversary of 9-11 I see not only the state of our country I also think about the 5661 Military heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice and I am not sure it was worth it. I think about the almost 1.400,000 Iraqi’s who have died as a result of our invasion of their country. I also think about the nearly 1,000,000 Afghani’s who have lost their lives as a result of our invasion of their country. We have been desensitized to the sheer numbers. 1.4 million human beings dead as a result of the invasion of Iraq, that is like killing every person in the Jacksonville area – that is a shit load of people friends.

So as I reflect on 9-11 I wonder if the terrorists accomplished what they were trying to accomplish. Our country is in shambles, we followed the lead of our President who encouraged us to spend, spend, spend. We cared little that we were spending money that we did not have. We started building the foundations of our current problems at the instruction of our leaders. The government made changes to the rules and large banking institutes started rolling on the dough, taking advantage of the dirt cheap interest rates on money. They passed that along to us and we spent like drunken sailors and having been one of those I know how that works.

We have sunk so much money into foreign lands that we did not leave enough to fix the damage from Katrina, and that disaster is 5 years old. We have given control of our world over to people running the government who have as much common sense and give a shit as my dog, and my dog is a dumbass. I love that dog but I know he is a dumbass so my expectations are not high. My expectations are no longer high for any person holding elected office, except my sister who is cleaning up an office fraught with corruption and fraud and wasteful spending in a small town in Ohio.

So just in the lead up to 9-11 our country is talking about stopping someone from building a house of worship and a crazy man who is talking about burning some other religions holy book. I am trying to remember back to a pre 9-11 world and do not think I remember hearing about things like that. They may have been there but I do not remember them dominating the news. The 24 hour news cycle and our addiction to it also fuel a great number of our problems as well, in my opinion.

So my feelings about this anniversary are mixed, I watched a couple shows that talked about the events of that day and the ones that followed and I vacillated between crying, outrage and being inspired by the courage of normal Americans in a moment of tragedy. When I see the towers fall I still get chills and Goosebumps, my reaction is every bit as visceral as it was on that day nine years ago. I am also disappointed that we seem unable to catch the real mastermind, Osama Bin Laden. I served in the military and work in a technology oriented business, sorry but I refuse to believe our government does not know where a 6 foot 4 inch terrorist is at. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I refuse to accept that we, the most powerful country on the planet, can’t find him. This is an age that my portable electronic device can pinpoint my position within inches using satellites that are in outer freaking space. We (our Government) have known where he is every minute since that day, I am convinced of it. If we would have gotten him on day one there would be no reason to keep the war going, the military industrial complex would have nothing to do. I believe many in power had a vested personal interest in keeping the war going and that makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it. Of course it is way too late for that now, the time has passed that loping off his head would make a difference.

So overall, I am really disappointed and feel numb about the whole thing. We seem to trot out our patriotism in remembrance but we seem unable to hold our elected officials accountable for getting us and keeping us in this unwinnable war against an ideology. My heart is heavy for the folks who suffered on that fateful day but at the same time I am angry that our country ended up where we are today and yes I think the two are directly related. I did not fly my flag today, I refuse to condone the actions of my government in response to the events of that day. I said a prayer for the over 2,500,000 million people who have lost their lives since this boondoggle started 9 years ago. Folks our leaders have spent over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars (1 trillion) of the money that WE have paid into the system in the form of federal taxes. And that is just what the government has spent the real costs are probably double that.

Sad, that is how I feel, and not for what happened that day but what has happened since 9-11