The Journey....it's the journey

 I get anxious, I know, I know if all you saw was the blog you'd think..." This guy is cool as a cucumber..."....no wait you'd say..." this dashing young man is as cool as a cucumber"....no, better yet..." This incredibly handsome and mechanically adventurous man is as patient as job"........OR you might just say..."Holey Crap Blake, lay off the coffee!!"......Yet again I digress.....my point is that the project that I naively embarked on has many pitfalls and road blocks. I try with every fiber in my being to remain open, accepting, and learn from these little pauses of progress. Some of them are mechanical(wrong engine) some of them are physical(body rust)  and some of them are lack of knowledge  (rookie move). All of these come with a fair bit of frustration because they could have been avoided. Yet there are others that you really just have no control over and in the grand scheme of things are non issues.....in fact some of them are welcome diversions.

Like Jeff, and his ladder to access his new climbing tree. For a nine year old he is pretty handy with tools and creative thinking in fabrication, but he still needs some help and guidance when it comes to using the chop saw and such. But happy as a clam doing a short term project on his own! And I will drop what I'm doing to facilitate him anytime!

Last Sunday was a horrendously windy day, we had winds in the area which are consistent with category 1 hurricane winds, gusting up to 140km/hr (that is about 85mph for my American friends) So I was once again glad to have my shelter, I could hear the winds....and feel the ground shake, but inside the shelter I was happy as a bug in a rug. I prepped the wiper mounting plate and vent areas, removing rust,gunk and dirt from decades old.

As I was walking to and fro, from front to back I had a feeling of "space". When I designed the bus shelter it was for form and function, so there is work space but you always are aware of the wall and roof....it's pretty tight....eh?(sorry couldn't help myself-a little northern pop culture reference). Anyway, as I was walking down the drivers side, I thought to myself.."Hmmm! It seems so open   here!"
Then I stopped and thought..."OK.....why does it seems more open in here?"Upon inspection you can see the wall on the left is bowed out about a foot or more. Being that I didn't have the entrance flaps tied down, the wind blew them open and then the shelter "bounced" like a kite trying to take off. She lifted up and the wall opened out before she fell back down. This would be another road block, speed bump....we'll chalk this one up as an act of god. All I knew is that it took me the next hour or so to right the wall and secure the entrance.

As I was moving the debris around to move the walls, I grabbed my tool box and the clasps snapped off, bend the metal clasp on one side and popped a rivet on the other. This then gave me yet another job to do before I could finish my original plan. We'll write this one up as being a lazy ass....to lazy to take some tools out of the box that I'm not using and instead keep rammin' them in until it overloads!

Finally, gaskets in place, motor mounts mounted...

Wiper arm installed. Yay!!!