And this concludes the house search. After months of searching, 7 or 8 written offers, at least one instance of rage quitting, and many wasted weekends of kicking tires doors, we've finally closed on a house.
It has a detached garage with a skylight (!) and 120v 20a service (boo) which I'm working on upgrading to 220v 50a, it's in a nice little area, and we're super excited about it.
BTCC 850 for your time.
It's over. Shopping for a car has made me consider hating cars alltogether.
I posted yesterday about a craigslist transaction out of frustration. I'd met with a seller to test drive a vehicle. He said that he hadn't anticipated it selling so quickly, so he didn't have all the accessories and things together. We agreed upon a price, I put $100 down on it, shook, and agreed to exchange the remainder in cash for the vehicle and title the following day.
The following morning, he calls and says his sister wants to buy it. He says he's returning my deposit and keeping it in the family. This was exceptionally infuriating as we'd already agreed to a price, a time, location, and I'd put a small amount of cash on it. On top of that, this isn't exactly a common car and they're very difficult to find in decent shape.
Around 6pm, the seller calls and says his sister is flaking out. Truthfully, I was so mad at this point that I'd considered telling him to get bent. I calmed down a bit, we agreed to pick up the previous agreement where we left off, pending that we complete the transaction this evening- no questions.
Enter: The new DD. It's a 1996 Volvo 850 wagon, 5cyl, 5spd. 132k miles, and a fat stack of nearly every service performed, all at a local dealer.
Seller included the Thule rack and cargo box as well as a set of studded tires mounted to OEM steelies with hubcaps.
Also includes the original sticker at an even $33k, which seems like a bunch of money for 1996.
The stack of papers also included the original 1996 brochures, accessory brochures, and manuals.
Arguably, this is my favorite photo:
Yes, this vehicle does have the rear jumpseat. I cannot wait to fill it with blonde-haired children, absent from motion sickness.
Current plans are to do some baselining and maintenance, including new shocks and tires, replacing some of the light bulbs, fixing the seat heaters and the driver side mirror heater, and trying to track down some interior rattles. Expect to see more posts about this guy soon.
This isn't a BaT writeup or review- that'll come a bit later.
I woke up this morning, printed out the bill of sale, swung by a car wash with it for the last time, and stopped to fill the tank one last time. The whole process was kind of sobering and somber, if not a little saddening.
That's the last photo of it I took. It's odd, seeing the only constant over the past 6 years of your life drive away, but I'm happy for its future home.
Met the buyer at the airport, we spent some time going over the truck and some oddities of it, we grabbed lunch and chatted for a bit. I caught a train back home and he drove off to pick up some gear for his 4-day road trip back to California with it. He's a super great guy and I think he'll be an excellent caretaker for the truck in its next segment of life.
I'll definitely miss it. I already do.
So my partner's hand will look like this for a few more days, but it's back together. Everything went smoothly. Post-op recovery wasn't fun for either of us, but she's back on the mend and getting better!
Hi Oppo,
It's been a bit. I've been visiting less and less over the past year and there's been a lot of drastic changes on my side of things. Unsurprisingly, there are a ton of new usernames here which is great to see. Kudos to everyone keeping things so fresh and happening around here!
Last spring, I left my full-time job for a freelance career which would afford some more flexibility and thus far, it really has. I've been enjoying the freelance work and backfilling some downtime with a p/t gig at a local bike shop. This could probably serve as its own post if there's sufficient interest. 
Since then, my grandmother passed away after 95.5 years. There's been a lot of time sorting her house and its contents which haven't changed much since my family moved in in 1961. On the upside, there is an insane amount of things which nobody knew existed. I thought I'd pass along some of the more relevant and interesting ones.
This straight razor etched with a skyline of the Chicago World's Fair, 1893
untold amounts of my dad's toys from the 50's and 50's.
popsci and pop mechanics magazines from the late 60's
lead additive because, you know, why not?
1968 radio shack catalog, which is more fascinating than it has any right to be.
I, uh, hm.
30wt
entire suitcases and boxes of documents from the late 1800's of my (paternal-maternal-maternal/paternal) great and great-great grandparents' stuff, deeds, birth certificates, and enough relevant stuff to create a small museum.
Cookie recipe and cookie cutters from my great great grandmother, with a note from my grandmother about how she remembered those shapes when she was a little kid.
It's really cool to find so much historical stuff, but man if it isn't time consuming to sort through all of this. Do yourself and your children a favor and go through some of it before your time is up. They'll appreciate you for it.
This past Saturday, a bunch of weirdos met up in a parking lot. They drove around, talked about a bunch of weird stuff, and called it a day.
Naw, just kidding. We had a solid and respectable turnout for the (first?) Colorado Oppositelock meetup. 9 (!!) people made it, representing a good chunk of the front range.
@Lanciere brought the Lancia
@Future-Next-Gen-S2000-Owner brought the Triumph Daytona triple
@MarquetteLa brought the R32 (MkIV)
@MUSASHI66 brought the 500 Abarth
@VincentMalamute brought the pinnacle of utility with his Transit (not pictured)
@fhrblig brought the Venue
@Grindintosecond brought the Flex, coming second with most cargo capacity + roof box
@2-Jeeps-and-a-Mustang-wants-a-Fiata brought the Mustang
and I brought the trusty 850 Estate.
Collectively, this made for 7 manual gearboxes, 2 auto gearboxes, two puppers, and 52 cylinders, with @VincentMalamute owning the most turbos (2.)
I've got a few photos below but check out others' including @MarquetteLa 's pics in this thread:
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/17626/thanks-to-all-the-colorado-oppos
Jealous? You should be! But fear not, there should be at least one more Colorado oppo meet before the end of this year. We discussed a late summer or early fall color cruise and briefly chatted about a potential 4x4 meet, as well as the possibility of a show and meet without a cruise.
There's also the AutoMezzi meet on July 18th if you'd like to see a special blue Lancia in person.
Thanks to everyone that made it out. It was awesome to see such great representation of Oppo and the eclectic mix of vehicles.
This is Moki. She's office security, it says so on our website:
When security needs pets, security needs pets:
She took my chair for the rest of the afternoon yesterday as punishment for insufficient petting.
What? Lol, you thought it was a car? Maybe even a motorcycle? Hah.
Sucker. So gullible. I bet you'd even click this link.
Nah, it's not a vehicular addition, but it's a fabrication addition!
The Dynasty 300DX was produced in the early 00's and phased out sometime around the late 00's or early 2010's.
This one is in need of some refurbishment, it seems to peak at 92A with a foot pedal in standard remote operation (RMT STD) but will put out a full 300A in Remote Trigger Hold mode, (2t). I'm hoping it's something like a footpedal condition as the main board for these is no longer available.
Regardless, for the price, 92A is still a lot of juice for most of my applications and I think this will suffice nicely. Bonus points are that the torch, cooler, and other accessories would move to a new power supply when the time comes.
It came with a water-cooled torch, but no cooler so I'll be trying to track down one of these in addition to some more collets, lenses, a gas cylinder, and a suitable way to sharpen tungsten.
Oppo, prepare to see more photos of metal poorly adhered to other metal.
This is Fry. I haven't posted much about him, but he approves of the 850 wagon. More Fry to come in the future, if you're interested.
Several co-workers were feeling ill but decided they could "tough it out" and work through it. Currently 1/3rd of the office is now out with covid.
Covid is still around, not to mention every other illness we had before covid. If you're feeling ill, do your coworkers a favor and take some sick time, work from home, do whatever you need to do to not get the rest of your associates sick.
Oppo Tax:
Fry seems to really love this pillow.
@spacekraken Dang, that looks so rad. That's a heck of a find and looks like a sweet build.
People ask me the same question, FWIW.
@SilentbutnotreallyDeadly parts availability in North America is not too bad currently. We're mostly missing 12spd cassettes.
I have mixed feelings about CUES.
I was off work Monday and the weather was fantastic. Took a short trek down to Pueblo, CO in search of dry MTB trails and wasn't disappointed:
Look closely and you might notice Pike's Peak in the skyline:
And the remainder of the Shimano certs arrived, completing the set:
Useful? Not really. Nice to have? Maybe.
Goofballs for your time:
@AestheticsInMotion heck yes! stoked to see more MTB adventures on oppo.
I'd recommend a helmet with MIPS. As far as bike racks, there are a lot of good hitch options that don't contact the frame or fork and I'd recommend those. Something like the 1up USA or the Thule Helium. The Kuat Piston is great if you've got some cash to burn.
@TheHondaBro "hello, yes, this is roll. we've been trying to reach you about your vehicle's extended warranty"
DOUBLE whammy
@spacekraken I won't buy your habit, but we need an oppo mtb trip soon.
Ah, the ideal vehicle for 4 hours of road driving for a work trip in CT.
