Bugs Palace!

Lanner from VDubEngineering stopped by last week with my freshly narrowed front beam and re-drilled drums. With some help from Bryan Mitchel, we finally have it wrestled back in place, lubed up and ready to rock. Couple more items to check off the list and the old gal will be road worthy again. w0000t.

The wheels on the other hand have hours of work left. I picked up a set of 2 piece BBS wheels and have started stripping, sanding, polishing and painting them for a nice restored and custom look. Holy hell it is a lot of work. 2 wheels are completely stripped and sanded to 220 grit. The 3rd wheel is ready to start the 120/220 sanding. Once all 4 have been sanded to 220, I will be doing some paint work, then start the wet sanding of the lips. Lots of work, but will be worth it in the end.

Finally had some semi-regular warm weather again. Bike has gotten a bit more use and Shannon has finally dropped the top on the jeep for a drive or two. Hopefully  by May 1st, I can start riding the bike daily. Be nice to finally get some real km’s under my belt on the Honda in weather that is ABOVE 10 degrees.

Finally had a really fun weekend with the family. Friday night the 4 of us went to St. Mary’s for movie night in the gym. Got to see Wreck-It Ralf. Very funny movie. Kids had a blast. The next morning the 4 of us got up and drove into Burlington to catch the GO-Train to Toronto where we went to see the Yankees beat the Blue Jays. The kids had a great time., and were so well behaved. It made for a very, very fun day. Joey got to see his first game/train ride, and Abby got to do her second of each. After the game, Joey was exhausted and fell asleep while we waited in line for the kids to run the bases. Abby and Shannon got to touch all 3 bases and the plate. Pretty neat being down on the diamond in full MLB setup. Maybe next time Joe will stay away long enough to run himself.

Ya, so it’s now April, and aside from 2-3 random days it has still basically felt like winter out there. I’ve been lucky enough to take the bike out a couple times, and during a moment of weakness I  mounted the 18’s onto the MINI and also put the soft top back on the jeep.  Officially 3 of 4 vehicles are ready for summer. Next up, the bug.

Bug is still unchanged, however, I got an email this week that my beam and brakes are ready for pickup. Thursday night the parts come home, and at the earliest available time, I will be mounting them up and getting the old gal back up to road-worthy status. Can’t wait.

As mentioned earlier, I threw the 18’s onto the Cooper. Looks awesome. Some fresh 18″ NON-runflat tires actually feel smoother going down the road then the 17″ winter tires do.  Waiting on a used sway bar to be shipped out, and a couple other little tweaks and she will be done for the time being. Not really doing much to this car right away. Kind of doing it in stages.

Even though I mentioned it on Facebook, Shannon and I are now officially 35. Don’t feel any different, but does sound weird to say. Happy birthday wifey. Love you muchly.

Finally baseball season is back! LETS GO YANKEES!

Well we’re half way through March, and the days are getting longer, and weather slightly (albeit randomly) milder. This kid is stoked. Itching for days of t-shirts outside without the jacket, and even more so, riding the bike, dropping the top on the jeep and maybe even giving the beetle some road time (once the parts finally get home of course). So hurry up spring, we miss you.  The only good thing is : warm weather or not, we’re less then 3 weeks from opening day for Major League Baseball.

Been doing some work on the house. I spent some time in the laundry room. Yanked the old washer/dryer out of the closer where it was and restored the space to actually be a closet again. Still needs a door, but the clothes rod and shelving is back in. After that, I got the room all painted up and hung a new cupboard in the upper corner. I think we may pick a second one for additional storage. Finally the new washer and dryer came and got hooked up. Hard to get excited over laundry appliances, but Shannon is happy and they certainly should be more efficient then the old ones we replaced.

Also on the reno’s we decided to get the gas company to come and figure out whether or not we could switch to a tankless hot water heater. Hopefully we can. I’ve already allocated the new free space to other things pending the tankless install. If for some reason we can’t, I’m gonna have to get creative for shelving in our utility area.

Abigail got her senior kindergarten graduation pictures this week. Holy cow that is scary. She looks adorable as always. Proud poppa typing this post. Good job baby girl, very proud of you.  As for my boy, what I can say, he may not be in school yet, but just by mocking his sister he has taught himself how count and is working on the alphabet now. Funny to see him just spit out the numbers and letters like its no big deal.

Lastly, Shannon and I are starting to look a bit closer at our summer plans. We’re looking at going to Cleveland to see the Indian play and depending on how well the kids do at that game, we may hit Pittsburgh for a Pirates game on the way home.