Bugs Palace!

Only 90 days till the wedding. We’re in the crunch now baby.. Ya. Plans still coming along. Hopefully Shannon and I can finally buckle down and get things ironed out and put in stone this week. I don’t even want to think about it after July 1st. I want it all planned. (ya right).

Shannon and I just had an awesome weekend. As many of you know, Jim_ from 2cpu has recently moved down the the St. Catherine’s area, and our online friendship has developed into a pretty good real life one. Not to mention his girlfriend Alicia (who is a sweet heart IMO) and Shannon have gotten off famously. Very scary in Jim and my opinion. Two girls, get along super great, who have a great deal in common,  both love shopping. Not a good combo.

This weekend, to add to the mix, a Erle, from IRC (AKA Duke), who I’ve been wanting to meet for ages made the 6 hour commute south from Ottawa to visit us all. I don’t think I’ve been this sore from laughing since college. Jim and Erle go way back (in real life too, not just IRC).  The 5 of us got along like lifelong friends, not like people who have basically just met. I wish we all lived closer so we could get together much much more often. Thanks a lot for a great time guys, it was a blast. Erle, you’re as cool in person as you are on IRC.. It was a pleasure to finally get together.  

Bug updates: we’ve hit a snag. A medium sized one. While reconstructing the front corner, we assumed that the people who fixed it up before did it right, and made it all straight, and all we would need to do is patch the holes and strengthen the metal. WRONG. Butcher job. We put the fenders on, and one side was close to dead on, whereas the other side was very crooked looking. Alex has decided to cut the part of his donor beetle and weld it in instead of trying to straighten the butcher job the the guys before us did. We can deal with imperfection and we know this isn’t going to be 100% dead on, but we do have limits to how far out of spec we will go. This is way to far out. Hopefully we can have it put in by next weekend, and the very last of the welding done. I know I’ve said that for the past few weeks, but rain, baseball and family commitments have hindered progress. Looks like now weather may actually be warming  up to summer temps, and we may get some work done in the evenings too, not just 4-5 hours each weekend. Here’s hoping !!!!

Well, its 12:05 on the 31st, so its technically the 31st, but it is still the 30th to me. Mom got her results back from the doctors and they finally figured out why she’s been feeling soooo shitty for the past year or so. Turns out that it wasn’t the surgery causing the problems, but an infection which she got somewhere along the way which never left he stomach heal properly. The good news is, this is treatable by medication. Thank good for modern science. Now if we could get doctors to use it a little bit more freely, we wouldn’t have people like Mom suffering for a year needlessly, or Shannon being dizzy for the last few years. Doctors need to read the symptoms better, and not put off the obvious. Thankfully Shannon too can be treated by medicine. Hope and pray that they both get better in a speedy way.

Wedding invitations are done, printed, and in our possession. Scary stuff. They look great. Now to figure out addresses and such so people get them promptly. Plans coming along. Still lots to do. Hopefully Shannon and I can get serious and get a bunch done in the next couple weeks. I’d like everything sorted out by end of June. Only 99 Days to go!!H#@K@HK#H@

Bug update: spent some money this week. Picked up 3 new fenders (now have 4 new ones in total), the fender seals, all the hardware to reinstall the new fenders, window seals for all the windows, and some tar board for the engine compartment. Coming along slowly. Some more welding to be done and then its almost time to ship it off to Lens in Jarvis to get the remainder of the body work completed, and have it squirted in a shiny new colour. As of right now, arrival blue is still the colour of choice. Still gonna look around more seriously when the time comes, but that seems to be the winner. And as said before, 99 days to go 😉  ..

Truck: running good. Wheels are awesome still. Better feel of the road, without being harsh. Really sticky off the line and in corners. Much better handling prowess and capabilities. Money well spent in my opinion. Still hoping to lower it a bit more to fill them wheel wells a bit more, bed rug, and some more painted, smoothing to be done. However body work on the truck is on hold until the bug is done. Possibly just do the drop and rug this summer and save up to repaint the whole truck with a nice clear coat when I do the front bumper. Possibly shave the door handles as well while I’m at it. Sounds like a plan to me

Got a new web server boxen up and running. Old machine was a POS. (Piece of shit), and was in dire need of replacing. So thanks to Foxxxy, I now have another dually in the family. Still only 2 machines in the house, but both have 2 processors. New box is a Bp6 with 2xCeleron 433. Nothing spectacular, but it’s a heck of alot faster then the old PII I had there. Seems to be a bit quicker for WWW and certainly faster internal file sharing.  Just got to get a happy kernel running.

Super quick update. I’m finally rolling on 20’s. Truck looks awesome even though the pictures don’t 🙁 .. Must have been too bright or something. I will try and take some more pictures tomorrow and update that link tomorrow night, but we will see how much effort/energy I have.

Edit: couple new pics of the wheels up. Still not happy, but they are better then the first batch. Click the above link.