Bugs Palace!

24 days until Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens! Sadly I’m not going to be able to see it for a week or so after it’s released, but still, I’m beyond stoked. As are my two little people. We’ve been re-watching the original 6 movies and the cartoon Rebels to get ourselves all up to date and ready for the movie. Hard part is going to be the time between the movie coming out and the day I actually go see it. Avoiding spoilers on the internet is going to be near impossible. I may even have to take an internet hiatus for that period of time. Yikes

Winter is here-ish. Temps keep flipping from 15degrees to -3. Little flurries here and there but so far we’ve avoided any accumulation. Hoping that is still the case for at least another month. If I could go all winter without shoveling, I would be a happy guy. That said, I may have to go without shoveling, as I just remembered my shovel didn’t survive last season. Sounds like I need a Costco/Depot run.

As mentioned last month, bug is sleeping, and MINI mods are pretty much done for the year. Bike is going to my mechanics this week to safely remove the engine covers so I can get them powder coated. Hopefully Santa is good to me and brings me some of the other parts i’ve asked for so I can get the bike the way I want it by spring time. As for the Jeep: Dodge contacted Shannon last week to offer her a deal on a ’16 Wrangler. We thought long and hard and looked at the website. Found they don’t offer orange this year. PASS. Keeping the big pylon for a while yet. To be honest, even if they had the same colour, I really doubt Shannon would have parted with her baby.

Christmas is coming soon. Chaos has been surrounding our lives already as far as scheduling and we haven’t even looked at the week or Christmas yet! Parties, shopping, tree hunting, etc etc.  One day I am looking forward to is Dec20. I bought tickets to take the wife and kids to HBC Arena (or whatever it’s called now) to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Shannon and I have been a few times before, but never with the kids. Should be a fun day! Following it up with a trip to the Outback so Joe can have his ‘brown bread’

Been going for nearly two months on work sanctions now. Such a pain in the ass. Somewhere someone thinks it’s doing something, so for now we continue. I’d find it easier to support if we were given more details as to exactly what we’re fighting for but as with all union negotiations we must simply hope they are indeed doing what is best for us. I have a real hard time with this, but for now, I will follow the heard. Hopefully this will end soon without any loss of income or full work stopages.

Onto more fun stuff…

Decided to pull the bike apart this winter and do some work. Going out to my mechanics in the next couple weeks to get a hand yanking the covers off the engine for some powder coating. Most of them I’d do myself but the clutch cover has some fancy springs etc underneath which I’d rather have a hand doing. Also no easy way for me to catch and dispose of the fluids when it all comes apart.

The Bug and the MINI are mostly done tinkering till spring. Bug is gone to sleep for it’s long winter nap- aside from a short trip to my parents garage in a week or so. The MINI is done getting new toys added for now. I have some audio stuff to finish up. Every thing is in and working, just needs some tidying and panels reinstalled. One good day and it will be 100% done as well.

I’ve started doing a checklist and prepping a blueprint for my new garage. Barring any work stopages, we’re hoping to break ground in the spring. Likely in May providing I can get my uncle and cousins booked up to get their build on! I’m finally getting into the details of what I want where, sizes, dimensions etc. No more random rectangle with a door drawn on it. Time to make these plans official.

Kids have been keeping Shannon very buys with Gymnastics and skating lessons. They both seem to be loving it – and doing very well. Joe went from needing to be held up to moving up to the next group within 3 weeks. Sounds like he’s got the hang of it. And Abby is just flying around the ice like an old pro. As for gymnastics – I am pretty sure they are both made from the same rubber as a superball. They bounce and bend beyond what I would have expected bodies should be able to do. Very proud of my kids.

Finally a little over a month till STAR WARS: the Force Awakens comes out. I may be a touch excited. |-o-|

MINI is FINALLY home. Looks great. Needs to go back in for a door adjustment, but otherwise the body work turned out excellent. Since it’s been home I finished the stereo install, installed a boost gauge and swapped out the rear sway bar for a nice beefy H-Sport bar. Pretty sure that’s the end of the mods until spring. Pretty happy with it so far. Only a small handful of things I’d like to do, but they will wait till after the winter.

Speaking of winter, the Jeep will be getting the hardtop on soon + it’s first set of winter tires. Also on the docket for the winter months is a small handful of tweaks to the Thruxton. Hoping to black out  the engine covers, convert to clip ons, and some other small tweaks. Should keep me busy over the winter while the Beetle sleeps at my parents again.

Shannon’s settling into her new job with Norfolk County. Seems to love it so far. Hopefully things keep going as well as they are and she can really make the job her own. My work on the other hand has been a bit of a shit show. September came and went in a blur of chaos as always. Making things tougher this year are some sanctions that have been put into place. My unions contracts are currently up and we’re going through a bit of a labour dispute. Meaning there is a bunch of ‘non contracted tasks’ that we are forbid from doing. Makes doing my job pretty impossible. The goal is to put pressure on the board. I’m not seeing the benefit yet. but hopefully the union knows what they are doing.

Only one more update for this month, and it’s a bit of a tough one for me to post about. I’ve been trying to figure out just what to write since the day it happened, but I am still just not coming up with the words to express the hurt and sadness that I am feeling over the recent loss of my Grandfather, Frank Armstrong.  I can’t bring myself to go into the details so I will simply say that I love you Grandpa, and hope I can make half as much out of my “dash” as you did with yours.