Thank you

Thank you everyone for your support. I truly appreicate it. And you'll all be proud to know that I have now made it 26 days and counting.
I gotta go for now though. Just wanted to say thank you.

19 Days and counting

Okay, so 19 days ago, I came down with the flu. It's been a long time since I have been that sick. However, looking back, I wouldn't change a thing. You see, I have quit smoking.

Yep, that's right. I am currently a non smoker. I say "currently" because who knows if it will last or not. What I will say though is that it has been really, REALLY easy for me because the first 6 days of quitting I didn't want one because I was so sick. So really, all I'm having to do is break the habbit rather than fight the addiction. The withdrawls were over before I could even think about wanting a cigarette.

Here's the crappy thing though. I have 9 unopened packs of Marlboro's in my freezer now. I had just bought the carton before I got sick. What a waste of $39.00. Yes, only $39.00. I live in Oregon where they were $38.75 until just recently when the taxes increased them $12 a carton. :-) Why do you think I kept smoking, it was still cheap here... well, relatively speaking.

So wish me luck everyone. I think I may have actually kicked the habbit this time. Only time will tell but I'm doing well and breathing easier every day.

Time for a happy dance

How did you spend your last days of winter? Me, I had the flu. Yep, strapped to my chair for a week. It was not fun, but there is a silver lining. You never know how good you really feel most of the time, until you really are sick. Oh, and another silver lining: I haven't had a cigarette in 11 days. I was planning on quitting in May, but since I wasn't smoking anyway being sick, I figured I'd do it now. And it's been amazingly easy. I've had a few cravings but really not many. I don't really miss it at all.
So now it's spring and it's beautiful outside. The happy dance is for the fresh cut grass, and the smell of BBQ in the air. Sleeping with the windows open, and driving with them down. You don't need the heater, or the air conditioner. Life is absolutely perfect.
I hope that everyone is having as good a time as I am this spring.

Groundhog? How does he know.

I can't tell you how ready I am for Winter to be over with. I'm really starting to not like the color white. I went to bed last night and had green grass, but I woke up this morning and it was all white again. Yesterday I was out in the shop with the door open working on the Jeep. It was windy out but it was sunny. Then I looked out and it was friggin snowing again. "Are you kidding me?" I'm tired of the way my yard looks, the fact that I can't keep my car clean, the clouds and wind... everything. I used to like winter, what happened to me? I think it was living in Seattle.. :-) (Just kidding Dad...)
With nice weather comes bon fires in the yard, kids playing outside, BBQ's, camping trips, friend and family visiting from the other side of the state (and other parts of the country for that matter). As if that weren't enough to make me love the summer time, vacation is just an added bonus. This year I'm not yet planning on going anywhere for my vacation, although I may head over to Seattle for a couple of days. I'm going to spend a majority of the time in my yard. I have about 8 bushes that are going to become firewood. :-)
As I type this I glanced out the window to find that it's snowing. Only it's not real snow. It's the kind of snow that looks like the insides of a bean bag chair. It's what I call "crap snow". It's not even pretty to look at. It's disturbing. Like living in a snow globe where some drunk idiot keeps shaking the damn ball. :-) It's time to warm up here. The Groundhog said 6 more weeks of winter. It has been 5 weeks as of today. So next Tuesday if it's still snowing, I'm going to track that little rat down and have him over for dinner. That will be the first bar-b-que of the season. :-) Grilled Groundhog.
Well, thanks for playing along. More to come with warm weather. :-)

Jeepin' through the snow

Since my last post, I put larger, more aggressive tires on the Jeep project. I had to do a little trimming of the fenders to keep them from rubbing, but we got them to fit. So it was time to take it up on it's first trip to the mountains. And I must say that other than a couple of stalls, it did really well. And how nice it was to be able to drive home in the same rig we took up... (reference last June if you don't know what I'm talking about).

A friend of ours has some property up on Basket Mountain, so we decided we'd make a weekend of it. Once we got up on the mountain the fog cleared and it was 50 degrees and sunny. It was a perfect day to take the Jeep out and see what she could do. One thing she's very good at is digging holes... :-) Honestly though, we only got stuck a couple of times, and I only had to dig once... er twice.

Dena had a lot of fun driving. The Jeep fits her much better than the truck did, and the Jeep didn't come home with additional body damage like the truck did. It's a little easier to manuver the Jeep around the trail than the long box Chevy we had. :-)

Anyway, here is a picture of the Jeep when we got it home. It's a little dirty, but to be fair it looks better that way. :-)
Dena really loves going through the mud and muck. All the way down the mountain if she saw a good patch of the sticky stuff, she'd swerve over and nail the skinny peddle. It's really kind of cute to see. She's 5'1" (on a good day) and just a petite little thing, but you get her behind the wheel of a 4x4, point her into the hills and she'll go anywhere you tell her she can... or even can't go. I have seen her go through things she shouldn't have been able to. I don't know if it's untapped skill or dumb luck, but what ever it is, it's working for her. :-)

Up on the mountain we were playing around in the meadows finding hills for Dena to climb. Erik and I were in his Toyota and Dena and Chandi were in the Jeep in front of us. We were probably 5-10 car lengths behind then following in their tracks when all of the sudden the snow gave out under our front passenger side tire. Dropped us so far that the front bumper on his truck was at the snow level. He's running 36" Irok tires, and you couldn't see any of it.

And no, Dena was not digging it out. We were able to drive it out by simply backing up. But as you can see, the snow was a bit unstable. The Jeep went right over it though. It's got a little better weight distribution.

There are some more things to do to the Jeep project though. I'm going to build some bumpers for it because the stock ones aren't strong enough to pull from or to jack the rig up from, and when you're burried axle deep in snow or mud, you really want to have a good strong point to pull from. I also am going to build a roof rack and a light bar. It's amazing how dim the factory headlights are. Extra lighting is really nice at night on the trail. Also coming this summer (hopefully) will be a roll cage. If you've ever seen Dena drive, you'll know why I want that. :-)

So if anyone is looking for a great project that is extremely capable off road, find yourself an older (87 - 90) Jeep Cherokee. They are easy to work on, reliable as hell, and cheap to find parts for. Stay tuned for future updates. It looks like I'll have this project for a while. Dena likes it too much to let me get rid of it. :-)

It's alive!!!

You may remember that a while back I traded our pickup for another Jeep Cherokee. Fully knowing that it had an overheating issue, but ran and started right up with no issues. Well, after lifting the hood I found it had more than just a couple of issues. It has a great many little issues. But they are little things that just need a little time to fix. Things like wiring that wasn't done right, a missing electric fan (Cherokee's have two fans), the center console is not bolted down... you know, little things.
It's been so cold around here lately that I have neglected to work on it. So last night I took it over to my friends house (heated shop!!!) and we tore into it. Within about an hour, we had the biggest issue fixed. It no longer overheats. Not only does it not overheat but according to the temp guage it runs cooler than my daily driver. We'll see how it does in July.... :-)
As it gets warmer I'll continue to fix the little things, but for right now, it runs and drives so I'm happy. I'll try and remember to post some pics when we take it up on it's maiden voyage to the mountains. :-)

Old man winter moves too slow

I'm sure you have all been going somewhere at some point in time and been stuck behind an old man. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that can't see over the steering wheel, or can't turn his head far enough to see if anyone is coming, or the one that has the brakes locked on his walker so it seems like it could literally take all day to make 3 steps progress. Yeah, that's "Old Man Winter" your behind.
In the past few years Walla Walla has not really had much snow. An inch here, an inch there. Heck, two years ago we didn't get any at all. This winter, just before Chirstmas BAM! Here you go. Here's 3 feet. That stuck around for about 2 weeks and then melted off. Since then we've had a couple of inches at a time that stick around long enough to make the roads really icy and then melts off.
I get it, it's not as bad as it is in some places (thanks for the story Amanda) but we're not used to this. I'm a person that used to love the cold weather and snow. I must be getting old because I'm not so into it anymore.
So I say for everyone: get out of the way old man winter. I'm not scared to run your slow butt over. :-)
On to a previous topic: I haven't had much time to do any upgrades or repairs to my new Cherokee due to the cruddy weather. We have been up in the hills a couple of times since we got it, but sadly it had to stay home because the cobbled together lift that is on it is just not safe enough for my liking. Plus it is in serious need of front tires. :-) More to come on this as it warms up.
Gotta go for now. Stay warm everyone.