Seriously?

Living in the Calgary area there have been many times where I give thanks to the amount of skills and services available to me during my rebuild process with Fillmore. Yet there are times where i struggle to find some of the simplest things. Take for example PVC fittings for my water system. Now I know that they are there, somewhere. I am sure that I just haven't found the correct store, or the right person who will take the time to tell me where I can find what I am looking for. 

As I stated last blog entry I am away from Fillmore for the next few weeks, I travelled from the booming oil and gas hustle and bustle of Calgary where if you can't find what you need they can get it and ship it faster than you can pull out your wallet, to a small seasonally sleepy community of Onanole Manitoba. A place where the hardware store is also the liquor store and the butcher shop. A place that is busy and bustling in the summer and quiet almost deserted in the winter.

You can imagine my surprise when I went into the hardware store to get a couple of beach towels and a bottle of red wine that I turned the corner to find the tank fittings I have been searching for(unsuccessfully) in Calgary for the past month. Seriously???

So I bought the bunch......I love small towns.

And yes the red was delicious!!

Men are from Mars

Years ago my wife and I were out one evening walking the dogs. All the while our son Jeff who was 5 at the time was zipping around us on his bike. He would pedal as fast as he could only to slam on the brakes and skid the back tire out to the side, sometimes the skid was so fast he had to lean way over to one side to counter balance the forces trying to fling him up and over his bike frame. At the time, I frankly barely noticed his shenanigans, it just didn't register. Where as my wife became increasingly distracted and anxious as the complexity of his stunts started to increase and his inner Evel Knievel showed through. Eventually as Jeff hurled himself down the side of the ditch to hit a  haphazardly made plywood jump that had "emergency room stitches" written all over it, Michelle couldn't take it any longer. She screeched out a futile yelp of last second protest as Jeff became airborn. Only after he landed his death defying trick did she turn to me with eyes wide with bewilderment and a face flushed with what I still don't know was anger or the final stages  of her mamma bear fight or flight reaction, she asked as sincere as I have ever seen her...

"Why does he do that?"

To be honest I was puzzled by the question, and before I could think of filtering my answer I blurted out "Why wouldn't he do that?" I tried to clarify by adding " the only reason he wouldn't do that is if he was 98% sure he would die in the process, anything less than that, as far as he is concerned, the odds are in his favour"
As you can probably guess...that didn't help. She simply shook her head and walked off muttering something along the lines of " I just don't understand you guys"
My point is that often we, as the XY genetic carriers, think and act very differntly than our XX counter parts.
For example....

These are seats from a 2011 Escalde. Unfortunate for the Escalade it met it's demise in a significant collision, but the good news is the rear seats were untouched. A very simple removal of four floor bolts and the chairs were easily removed and simply could be set down in the appropriate place in Fillmore and just like that we had passenger seats. Or so Michelle thought...

I had other plans. Looking at the set up, the seat bottoms were in too much of a reclined position, too low to the floor, and there was potential for better usage of the space underneath the seat. So Anna and I started to plan and fabricate a new seat base. First step strip away the old base...on the kitchen counter...while Michelle is out shopping...and try not to scratch the counter top(Ooops!)

I am always one to learn from my mistakes. This time I had to call  the kids to come out  and  learn from my mistake. This was a doozy. Even I had to laugh at this one.

After measuring and re-measuring, dry fitting the pieces, I was a little excited to actually put it all together. These welds were going to be so easy I could taste it....But after I was done, and took my blinders of progress off.....It became apparent of my catastrophic fail. This is what it looked like.

This is what it looked like after I realized my mistake, cut the welds and welded the legs on the correct side of the cross bar.

After many hours of cutting and welding and measuring and cutting and re-welding. Here is what we have! This will allow the forward facing seat to have a storage drawer underneath which will also double to increase seating area for a meal, and allow for the seats to be converted into a small bed.
When I excitedly explained all of this to Michelle, she once again looked up at me with that puzzled flushed look and asked me again...."Why? Why cant you just use the seats as they are?"

Because Men are from Mars my love, Men are from Mars.

Now for my annual progress disclaimer. This time tomorrow I will be in Manitoba for 2 weeks with the kids. So Fillmore is officially put to bed until August, at which time the plan is to continue to make progress!!!

Thank you Robert

Have you ever watched a live choir perform? Seems like a funny question but it's the question I want to ask you. I'm pretty confident that if you have ever listened to a choir perform, then you have been there what I am curious about is have you ever watched a choir perform?
What do you see?.....or better yet, the hopeful question would be what don't you see?
In a choir you want uniformity of performers. The uniform expression of emotion, the unanimous agreement of the story, the flawless execution of music and movement in telling the story.
Distraction is the enemy. As an audience you yearn to be swept away by the story and the music but all too often we are pulled away from our imaginary trip by something that doesn't quite fit, a wrong note, a quick failure of synchronicity, as little as one face looking in the wrong direction. Its the little things that pull you away from the fantasy and make you think "huh! that's weird" 

And this is where Robert comes in. A former owner of Fillmore Robert had accumulated a whole bunch of "bus stuff" that pertains directly to Fillmore's past. When we connected we had a great chat, and near then end of the conversation he told me he had the middle section of the rear bumper, I couldn't believe it and I jumped all over it when he asked if I was interested in taking it off his hands!

So today I decided it was time, I removed the other mid section that we had formed a couple years back.

This one was a much better fit than the last. The curvature of the previous one.....just wasn't right. It drew your eyes away from the flow of Fillmore's butt......I can't believe I just said that...but it's true and I'd say it again!

To fine tune the curve, I employed the same technique as you could use for cabinetry, the kerfed plywood technique.

Of course where I needed to mount the bumper the bolt holes had to be repositioned

And the "extra" hole welded over.

Note of interest: there is a reason why welding jackets are made of leather....or at least flame retardant canvas. As tough as Carhart clothing is, it's can't compete with the constant shower of sparks from the angle grinder.

Now the choir can sing, my eyes are not drawn away from the beauty....thank you Robert.