77 years old. Too soon.

I'll have more to say later, but for now, just please take a moment to salute a great guy who was absolutely One Of Us.

I regret to inform you all that there will be no more photos of cool cars passing by the windows of Sign Wizards, Inc. I got fired today. My former boss sat me down this morning and handed me a written warning about my job performance sliding, and me not paying attention. So I wrote her a long email in response, airing my many grievances: overworked, no support, no leadership, micromanagement, other employees quitting and adding to my workload, and my previous complaints and requests for a change of position going unanswered.

Twenty minutes later, she was asking for my key.

But that's not what pisses me off.

What pisses me off is that yesterday, I had Ripley in the office with me, and I was trying to talk on the phone to someone, and she wouldn't stop whining and barking, so I yelled at her to shut up. Apparently one of the new hires took offense to that, and told her I was being "abusive" to my dog. The rescue dog that we took in knowing she had massive health problems, have taken care of and loved for over a year now, nursed back to health, and love unconditionally. And who is not the first rescue we've taken in and cared for for the rest of their lives.

You can't call ME abusive to animals, you stupid fucking cunt. I just got upset and yelled at my dog because I was trying to straighten out some fucking mess that you dumped in my lap after another employee had the good sense to quit. And I regretted it immediately, because it wasn't Ripley's fault. How dare you. How fucking DARE you.

Mostly I'm just relieved. Suddenly, none of those idiotic projects that were making me dread going to work are my problem anymore. Never again will I have to park in that sorry-ass excuse for a neighborhood and worry about some homeless person doing something awful to my car. I'll never hear that stupid fucking doorbell again, or have to cringe every time I see a Slack notification from my other boss, the one I never could fucking stand.

Good. Fucking. Riddance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go file for unemployment while I look for something else...

I think it's safe to say that it has been a period of adjustment since Tribeageddon. Not only have the refugees had some trouble finding their feet, but the rest of us have occasionally gotten annoyed by the barrage of posts that aren't typical material around here: what's your favorite car/here's my favorite car, the polls and the posts complaining about the polls, and so on. It does get to be a bit much. And it's clear that the Drivetribe crew were far, far younger than I think a lot of us realized.

And it occurred to me this morning that that age difference explains most of the disconnect. We're the same; we're just at different points on the gearhead timeline.

When I was a kid, I thought about cars all the time. My dad had subscriptions to Road & Track and AutoWeek and I devoured them. I read every road test, memorized every performance stat, gazed longingly at every photograph. And then I talked for hours on end with a few friends who were as car-crazy as I was, debating which was better: the Mustang GT or the Camaro IROC-Z, whether we'd go for a Ferrari or a Lamborghini if we ever got rich, making grand plans for what we'd do to modify certain cars if we ever got them. We drew pictures of cars and car logos all over every notebook cover. Our other friends, our families, a complete stranger at the grocery store just trying to load a bag of cat litter into the back of her Renault 18i Sportwagen, got really sick and tired of us endlessly blathering about cars. Sound familiar?

The difference is that we didn't have the technology available to endlessly blather at strangers about cars from thousands of miles away. We had to keep our blathering local. And our fresh supply of automotive news and reviews came in the mailbox, a month at a time, so we weren't constantly flooded by new information that we simply had to share immediately.

Now I see that Drivetribe was Road & Track for the young'uns here. Not only that, it was also the seat on the school bus where you showed your friends the review of the latest BMW sports sedan, and the notebook cover where you doodled pictures of cars, and even better, it wasn't you and two other weird kids talking about this stuff at lunch; it was thousands of car-loving people, all over, who not only listened to you blather, but who blathered back. Honestly, if such a thing had existed when I was 15, I would have gotten even worse grades than I did. I'd have been on it constantly.

But there's something you need to know about that car-craziness: it mellows out. It doesn't go away; I think most of our spouses and friends would say that we still talk about cars too much, but it changes focus. Once you start driving, and get a car of your own, you start focusing all your mental energy on that car, not just cars in general. You don't have time to debate which manufacturer's shade of green is best, because you need to have your dad show you how to do a tune-up, or you're making plans for a road trip to the beach, or tring to figure out why the damn thing won't just start already.

After that, when you have a couple dozen years of driving under your belt, and have owned a fair few cars, you just stop keeping up with the latest and greatest, unless you're actively searching for a new car and need to research it. And all those supercars you used to daydream about might as well be on the moon for all the good they'll do you.

And instead of blathering about new cars you'll never own, you blather about old cars you used to own. And start posting lots of photos of your dog.

So don't be offended if no one cares about which Porsche you like better, or answers your poll of which shade of orange is better. It's just that we've been there and done that already. But stick around; it's going to be interesting to watch you all be able to officially join the party.

A while back, my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told him, "I don't really need anything, and the only thing I would want is a QuickJack."

Well look what turned up today...

Of course, the delivery driver left them out in the rain, at the bottom of the driveway... Oh well, at least we don't have a porch-pirate problem in this neighborhood. I'll just drive the truck down, load em up, and drive back up.

Truck battery is dead. Great. Ok, fine, I'll drive the Toyota back down, cram them in somehow, and drive back up. With the passenger door open. In the dark. Good thing we're on a dead end street so there's no traffic...

I won't have time to do anything with it until probably Christmas, because of life stuff, but expect some unboxing and setup photos when I dig into it.

I mean, it is a hatchback, after all...

It's a nice day out, and after my comment about the F40, I figured I'd better put my money where my mouth is. The old girl is running just fine, too...

I got a DM from @JunkleMKVII the other day, saying he had found an MGB GT Matchbox car the same color as my car, and decided I should have it. It showed up today! Thanks so much! And yeah, that's a pretty damn good color match.

I'm so glad I found this place. You all rock!

ETA: Since I already have a British Racing Green one, I'm going to pay that one forward and gift it to someone in the MG club at tonight's meeting...

We lost Leeloo tonight. She spent last night at the emergency vet and just crashed. My wife spent the afternoon there, talking to the vet and trying to decide what to do. By the time I got there she just... wasn't there anymore. Her breathing was ragged and she was shaking and she barely knew I was there. It was an obvious decision. But not an easy one.

Poor little bunnybear. This was just last week. It happened so fast. They think it was pancreatitis or liver failure or some combination of the two. They said by the time symptoms show up, it's already bad.

If you've got a fur face nearby, give'em a scritch on the head from me. And Leeloo.

Ladies and menfolk, I got myself a new job. I start Monday. I'll be doing production/finishing work for a company that makes mostly fleet truck graphics. It's a little bit of a cut in pay over what I was making before, but... No customer service, no project management, no Slack, no Procore, just hand tools and big machines like laminators and flatbed plotters. Just what I wanted.

It is a bit of a drive: I'll be commuting 25 miles each way, but it's nearly all freeway and I'll be going against the prevailing traffic direction for most of it, so it shouldn't be too bad. Gonna pile the miles on the ol' Corolla, though. Hope it's up to the task of 250 miles a week.

Spending my last day or two at home catching up on some chores, and having a little fun. Spent some good quality time with my old friend the Clod Buster yesterday...

The Toyota is sold, for the full asking price. Thus ends another chapter in my automotive ownership story: that was car number 32 with my name on the title. I still own number 29 (the MG) and 31 (the truck), and as soon as I get some paperwork with the trust/will probate straightened out, number 33 will be my dad's Chrysler.

You could say I had a love/hate relationship with the Toyota, but that's really too strong; it was more like a grudging acceptance/mild dislike relationship. It was OK, but it never felt like mine.

The truck (for now once again my daily driver) is totally mine. It's noisy, thirsty, bouncy, hard to drive in traffic, and I absolutely love it. It feels like something that was missing from my life all along and now I've found it. It just fits.

The MG is mine because of all the work I've done to whip it into shape; when your fingerprints are on the inside of the crankcase, the car is yours in a way no payment book could ever reflect. Now, my goal for it is, eventually, 37,000 miles, because then I will have put the majority of its miles on it myself, not something many people can say about a car two years older than them.

Could I love my dad's Chrysler? I think so. It's fast and high-tech and not at all something I would have chosen for myself, and of course I'd give it up in a heartbeat for one more conversation with my dad, but I can't say I'm not excited to start driving it.

(Since I know you're all curious, and I don't think I've listed the particulars of it yet: 2013 Chrysler 300C John Varvatos Edition, pearl black, with the 5.7 liter Hemi V8. It has the "safety package" with the parking sensors and blind-spot monitors and adaptive cruise control, a big-ass double moonroof, and a phenomenal "Beats by Dr Dre" stereo system. It's just a whisker under 60,000 miles and runs like a top.)

You can never tell for sure, of course, but I could see myself driving that Chrysler for years. Yeah, it's an automatic, but the bulk of my driving is Interstate commuting these days, and for that it doesn't matter. It's comfy and smooth, and a really nice place to be, which is what I want for going back and forth to work. And nothing with 363 horsepower could ever be considered "boring." (In fact, it will be the most powerful, fastest, and quickest car I've ever had, by a wide margin.)

Will it ever feel like mine? I guess we'll see. But I imagine it will still be "Dad's car" for a good long time to come.

I spotted this plastic Jeep in an antique store today for $25, thinking it would be a good donor body for an RC crawler.

It sloshed when I picked it up, and I had a suspicion:

Yep, it's a promotional decanter. And it still had a "full tank of gas," so to speak.

Pretty good stuff, too! Daviess County Kentucky Bourbon, from the late '70s or early '80s. I poured it into another decanter so I can still use the Jeep body.

Decent score for $25, I think...

The old green Chevy squeaked through another emissions test by the skin of its teeth. Good for two more years now. One of these days I'll probably have to replace that 1989 original catalytic converter... but today is not that day.

Tomorrow I have to go back to DEQ, though, to get Dad's car tested, so I can get it titled and registered in my name.

@Sam-Blockhan Ooh, it's the fancy one with six lights in the front, too.

@Vondon302 Even better!

@ibRAD I remember reading at the time that 4ws actually made the Prelude harder to parallel park until you got some practice, since the rear wheels moved away from the curb as you backed in. Honda's system was 100% mechanical, so it was what it was and you couldn't turn it off.

@Highlander With what time and whose money?

I mean, if I could, then maybe. I love SHOs of this vintage. My dad owned one, and I ran it up to 135 mph in the middle of nowhere Kansas once. Great car.

But it needed a clutch at 80,000 miles (not because it wore out, but because the throwout bearing fork broke), and it had a bunch of electrical gremlins in it. He offered to sell it to me for cheap, but even then I knew it would be a money pit.

@ibRAD No, it was sealed, with the tax sticker still over the cork. If it had been opened I peobably would have just poured it out.

@TheHondaBro Nah, no reason to buy anything new. I've been at this a long time, and I have a good parts stash going.

@TheHondaBro It's about 10.5 inches. I have a pair of RC4WD T-Rex 60 axles with leaf springs that I've been saving for the right project. I think this is it. I'll make my own frame, and pull an old Axial gearbox out of my parts stash.

@RallyDarkstrike The bourbon is in great shape. The Jeep is missing a few pieces, but it's good enough for my plans for it.

I spotted this plastic Jeep in an antique store today for $25, thinking it would be a good donor body for an RC crawler.

It sloshed when I picked it up, and I had a suspicion:

Yep, it's a promotional decanter. And it still had a "full tank of gas," so to speak.

Pretty good stuff, too! Daviess County Kentucky Bourbon, from the late '70s or early '80s. I poured it into another decanter so I can still use the Jeep body.

Decent score for $25, I think...