I loaded up the family yesterday and we drove 250 miles up into western Michigan. Traffic/construction were pretty brutal, so with only two short stops that took us six hours.

Today we met @454ssracetruck and his delightful wife. The purpose of the truck ostensibly was to pick up these minibikes he gave us.

The bikes aren't QUITE rideable yet, but getting them still blew the girls minds. They had no idea that was part of the equation. They thought we were just going to see my friend's farm/animals.

We then spent several hours both seeing the farm and meeting the animals. Cows, goats, pigs, chickens and giant shaggy dergs!

Oh, and we did do some riding. He had a little Honda semi-auto dirt bike, a little Chinesium 2-stroke ATV, and a Honda quad as well. Didn't ask how big Amy of the engines were. My little one's hand are still too small to work the brakes, so she rode in front of me on the big quad. My big one rode both the ATV and the dirt bike. She was actually much more comfortable on the dirt bike, and rode that a ton. I had to call it after a while. She didn't want to stop, but I could tell she was getting tired. Overall she did phenomenal. I'm super proud.

We stayed a lot longer than I planned (we drove back this afternoon/evening), but we enjoyed every minute. Thank you @454ssracetruck and your wife again! We had a great adventure today, and it's always nice to meet new friends

I have a summer birthday. Actually, I turn 40 on Tuesday. For my 8th birthday I received the coolest thing ever at the time, a calculator watch. Unfortunately, before the end of the summer, it was stolen from me at the local pool.

32 years later, my wife has righted that wrong. I received this 80's hotness for Father's Day.

I smiled every time I looked at it, for the rest of the day.

We spent the weekend as a family up at Road America for the IndyCar race. A good time was had by all. Full report to come later this week.

Warning: This is long, personal, not the least bit automotive related, and I didn't even put a cat picture in it to lure you in.

I am lucky enough to have two guys I grew up with, who I both call my best friend. The three of us would do anything for each other. We all reside in different states now, so seeing either one of them doesn't happen often. I think the last time we were all three together was at my wedding over a decade ago. I feel like there was one time since, but I can't remember for sure. Doesn't matter, if any of us needs help, we're on the first thing smoking.

Anyways, one of these guys, who I will call Bob ... because that's his name ... became a stoner fuck-up in high school. We never stopped being friends, I just didn't hang out with him much for a couple years. I wasn't into that stuff.

Bob never met his dad (he died before Bob was born), and his mom just couldn't control him to the best of her efforts. I was worried about him. My dad was worried about him too, and worried that I was going to get into what Bob was into. Bob barely graduated high school.

Shortly after graduating, Bob's cousin OD'd and nearly died. Bob took a look around at the crowd he was hanging with, at some of the ... less successful members of his extended family, and decided he wasn't going down that way.

He cleaned up, went to community college, and pulled straight A's. Then he transferred to a university, got an ROTC scholarship, finished his degree, and was commissioned as an officer in US Army, where he joined the medical core. I'm not going to lie, I cried like a baby at his commissioning ceremony. My eyes are a bit moist writing this now.

Cut to seventeen years later, and he's still in the Army. My best friend, who is dyslexic and always struggled in school, whom we used to call Drunk Bob No Pants, is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Medical Service Core, has a Master's degree from Baylor that the Army paid for, and is 34 months away from retiring. He's happily married, has three great kids, has a house, all that good stuff too.

I often think back to that conversation I had almost 25 years ago with my dad, about how worried we were about him. My dad asked me if I thought there was anything I could do to help Bob, and I said, "I don't think so. All I can do is hope he comes out the other side, and be there and be his friend if he does." My dad agreed that this was really all I could do, so we both crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

Man is is great to see how far Bob has gone. He had people that helped, people who cared, but he did it. He gathered himself up, and crushed it. I am so fucking proud of Bob.

In my line of work, I've met many kids who were like Bob at his lowest. Troubled, not doing well, but clearly good and intelligent people. It's because of Bob, I know those kids can do it too, if they chose to do it. There isn't much I can do, except be there for them if they chose the light. It gives me hope and peace to know there is always a path.

Some will chose the light, and some won't. If I can guide a few here and there to the light, then all the bullshit I put up with in this line of work is worth it.

I will leave you with this. If you've chosen to read this far, maybe you have somebody in your life who reminds you of the way Bob was. Just be there for them. I hope they chose the light. If they do, you can help pull them in farther.

My truck is back! Now with new rocker panels on both sides, new right rear cab corner, repaired lower dogleg of the front passenger fender, rebuilt bottom of the driver's door, and both bedsides completely repainted. Oh, and a new front lower bumper. That was all jacked up and stitched together with zipties. The job isn't perfect, but it looks damn good IMO, and I didn't pay for perfect.

I'm a happy boy. I think once I get my first paycheck of the year, I'm going to treat myself to a new bedcover. The old one has been on there none years, and is looking a little tatty.

I finally paid off my student loans.

Truth be told, I borrowed less than $12k to get through the last year of graduate school and student teaching. I worked and saved along the way, my grand parents paid the bulk of my bachelor's degree (back when in state tuition was entirely reasonable). I am very fortunate for all of that.

The interest rate was like 2.5%, so I never bothered to try and pay it off early. I set it on autopay at $97/month, and let it ride. I'm still happy it's over though.

That you're awesome!

I will spare any details, unless they want to ID themselves, but one of y'all just sent we something very nice out of the blue. I have already thanked them separately. I just thought I'd take this OPPOrtunity to say that this is the best damn place on the internet.

We also proved when we managed to jump off kinja, and onto the hyphen, that it's not the place that matters, it's the community that resides here. I'm just so happy that I didn't lose you wonderful bunch of weirdos when that herb tried to whack us.

Stay awesome Oppo! Have a Hammer pic. I know you like those.

This is the A-Team cake my wife made for my 40th birthday. It was delicious too! The frosting is home made cream cheese frosting.

There were also A-Team presents.

Fun story to tie it all in together. I vividly remember going to pick up the table these are on with my mom, in my dad's electric blue '79 Chevy K-10 pickup. There was some sort of promotion at the furniture store, and I got a giant plastic A-Team van from them.

Just got Pfizer vaccine round 1. Round 2 is scheduled for the 25th.

Eat it 'rona!

I was going to do a full report of taking my family to the IndyCar race at Road America, but instead I want to focus on one particular thing that happened (a really good thing).

First, a brief rundown of the weekend. I have been to all the IndyCar races at Road America since they returned to the track in 2016. This year, for the first time, I took my family as well. It was the first time my wife had been to Road America at all, and the first IndyCar race both for her and my daughters (whom I took to the IMSA race at RA a couple years ago).

We had a ball. I took my girls on scooter rides, we walked the paddock, bought souvenirs, ate tubed meat, saw cool cars, met nice people, all that great stuff that happens at racing weekends.

So, here is the thing I want to talk about, because it struck me as discussion worthy. Last week my daughters decided that they each wanted to give their favorite driver a card wishing them good luck. They wanted to know if it would be possible to give the drivers that card. Knowing that the paddock would be open, and given IndyCar's stellar access to behind the scenes, I told them that it may indeed be possible. And so, they set to work on their cards.

My 6-year old made this card for Colton Herta.

I never saw the card my 8-year old made for Scott Dixon.
She sealed it in an envelope before any of us saw it, and when she gave it to him she told him not to open it until he was home. She spent over an hour just decorating the envelope, which I stupidly did not take a picture of.

We attended the event Friday-Sunday, and made our first attempt at meeting the drivers on Friday. We didn't see any drivers around. I'm a bit shy (so is my wife) and didn't want to interrupt any of the team workers, so we continued on our way to the souvenir areas. I bought them a bunch of stuff, and I got a couple stickers.

Saturday there was a morning practice, followed by qualifying right around lunchtime, followed by an afternoon practice. Before the afternoon practice I figured was our best shot, so we headed back to the paddock.

We came to Colton Herta's pit first where they were readying the car, and I fought back my shy nature and told one of the team members that my daughter had made Colton a card. He told us to wait right here, and Colton would be there any minute. A few minutes later, Colton arrived on a sweet Honda Cub scooter, and immediately autograph hounds descended. Without so much as a word Colton instantly began signing away at hero cards and whatnot. I waved Colton over, and told him my daughter had a card for him. He asked if he could open it, and my daughter froze, so I said yes for her. He opened it, and said, "Well, he's got a lot of hair, so you sure go that right." She wished him good luck, he thanked her, and we moved on with one very happy child.

We then got to Scott Dixon's pit and waited there. A couple minutes later, we heard another fan say, "Oh, it's Scott Dixon!" We turned around and he was walking up doing the classic racer walking and signing thing. As he walked by, I told him that my daughter had made him a card, and he instinctively reached in with a sharpie to start signing something. He then stopped, and seemed a bit taken aback (in a good way) that this was not an autograph seeker, but a child with something for him. They had a little conversation, and then he resumed his walking and signing while carrying his card. We moved on with a second very happy child.

It struck me as we headed back to our campsite, that there were throngs of people there wanting something FROM the drivers. And credit were credit is due, the drivers were dutifully obliging in a way that IndyCar drivers are known to do.

My daughters, on the other hand, wanted to give something TO them. In exchange they both had a nice little moment that nobody shoving a hero-card in a driver's face to be signed ever gets. I was really proud of them, because the idea to give them a card was completely theirs, and in return they both had an experience that I've never had.

I've never even tried to meet a driver. My shy nature prefers to just watch the happenings. My girls are a lot different than I am, and I really respect that about them. They're so generous and so friendly. It was a damn good Father's Day for me (even if this happened the day before).

This dumpster fire of a school year is finally fucking over! The boss-lady even let us cut out early. I went to the front office to finish my sign-in sheet, and one of the Math teachers was in front of me said to her, "I swear my watch says 3:30."

Boss-lady replied, "It's 3:30 somewhere. Spread the word, because I don't give a crap."

And with that, I was out like a light.

Here's a celebratory burnout picture that I've been meaning to dig up and post on Oppo for quite a while. This is the only burnout I've ever done. Taken the night before I traded that lemon of a GTO in on the truck I'm still DDing to this day.

I loved that car, but holy hell was that a fragile thing. It spent 31 days in and out of the shop for various maladies, in the scant 3-1/2 months I owned it.
I was smart enough to clean off the rubbersicles before I took it in.

@just-a-scratch said in Stretched van RV:

@kiltedpadre I'm not so worried about this thing's width. The steering geometry might be a mess though. Do you think they changed anything to make Ackerman work right on the wider track? I'm guessing, no.

My thoughts exactly.

@decay-still-has-too-many-beaters Thanks for weighing in. I've been convinced that this is the way to go, if I can't find something cheaper locally.

@dipodomysdeserti I don't know if I'll keep it or not, because I don't know how it rides.

@long_voyager94 Niiiiiiiiiice!

@grindintosecond I'm leaning that way. The extra bit of money is sounding smarter and smarter.

@hfv That's my least favorite generation of Deville, but still a NP IMO.

@hfv Whoa! And it's a 6-door limo!

@future-next-gen-s2000-owner said in Reality-Check my plan please Oppo:

All in, I would get the one out of Florida. It's not the cheapest but it has no miles on it. A couple hundred bucks for 20K less miles is worth it to me. That's how this breaks down for me.

This is the direction I'm leaning.

@darkbrador said in Reality-Check my plan please Oppo:

@Shop-Teacher I'm not one of the resident experts, but rebuilt a sh&t load of bikes along the years. My $0.02 is : there are salvaged but complete bikes cheaper than the cost of an engine on the Bay.
Also, get a larger engine, make that little Virago a sleeper. That'd be a cool project.

I haven't been able to find a complete bike, but that would be ideal. I love the idea of putting a bigger motor in it, but I haven't been able to find any info on motors that will bolt in, and I lack the knowledge base to realistically be able to do a custom swap.

@bicyclebuck If they're camping stealthily enough that you're not even sure, I see no problem with that.