Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Beginning


I’ve looked and looked but I can’t find the pictures of the truck the day I brought it home. I figure they must have been taken with a camera that requires film, and who knows where I would have put the developed copy. So we are going to start the pictures and continue the stories from shortly after the truck got home.


As you can see I cleaned her up, threw on some new tires and shot some primer.


As I mentioned in the previous post this is the second ’63 Ford that I owned. From the experiences of the first I know that even with the safety latch these hoods blow open at the most inopportune times (such as running down the interstate at 80 mph). So to be preemptive, I cut the fenders, built a bracket, bolted it all together and now have a front tilting hood.  
I cleaned up the motor and firewall. Shot a fresh coat of old Ford red on the motor and rattle canned the rest.
As you can see I went through and painted the interior (nice quick job, used Krylon).

The next post is going to show how I threw all this away and started cutting, till next time, same Bat time, same Bat channel.

C

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Start of an Adventure


Enough preaching for a while. Now, its time for some real Kick-Ass Man Training. As long as I can get the photos to upload I’m going to take you on a step-by-step of how to lower a 1963 Ford F-100 Step Side ‘70’s style.

A stack of years ago my beautiful wife offered to buy me a 1963 Ford F-100 Step Side for my birthday (this happens to be the exact truck that I drove when we were dating). At that moment I instantly remembered this old truck that sat in front of a house in Lyman for as long as I could remember. I also remember the stories of all the people that had tried to buy said truck of the old rancher, to no avail.

Not to be deterred I decided that this was the truck for me. I approached the owner and asked him the story of the old truck and here is a little history on the patient; this diamond it the rough started out as a ranch truck in Lyman, Wyoming. In the late ‘60’s the owner blew up the motor, which coincided with him wrecking his beloved ’66 Fastback Mustang. In true redneck fashion he pulled the 289 cid (v8) and C4 automatic out of the Mustang and replaced the 200 cid (straight six) and three speed.  Anyone who knows anything about Ford pickups knows there is more than enough room for the swap and with the help of a stick welder the rancher transformed this truck into the exact specimen that I was looking for.

As I stood there starry eyed, hanging on his every word I finally found the courage to ask him if it was for sale.
“Well” he starts, “I was never going to sell this old truck, has to many memories, besides I always wanted one of my boys to take it and fix it up. But a couple weeks ago my son tells me it ain’t worth nothin and they didn want it.”

I was crushed. Till he says, “But I need $500.00”, (I can’t remember why, probably didn’t even here him), “and if that to much well, its yours.”

I have never counted out money as fast as I did that day. The truck made its long trip back to my house, about an hour and a half and became an ongoing project.

Now that’s a lot to take in so I’m going to work on getting pictures uploaded and I’ll continue with the story from there.

Till next time,
C


Sunday, December 11, 2011

Misconception


Any ASSHATS out there that think that cleaning or housework is women’s work; you’re an idiot. If your wife has been doing these tasks for you while you were working, then you should be ashamed of yourself. Marriage is a partnership that requires teamwork.

 There are tasks that require more strength sometimes, but this doesn’t mean that task “X” is for men and task “Y” is for men. It simply means that part of the team needs to step up and help out to keep the team strong and performing at its maximum potential. I know that living here in the west you were probably taught the separation of duties, but you were taught wrong.

Now, if you have tried and tried to clean and it keeps turning into a big pile of poopy (which is probably impossible, but I know someone will probably claim it) then find something else to do. Do the dishes, laundry, finish those projects that have been on your list for years, and above all else be a father to your children.

You don’t have any excuses anymore raise your children the way they are supposed to be raised. If you don’t know how, Google it, find some old guy to tell you. Whatever you do, stop adding to the problem. We’ll get back to this.

To review, if you can’t support the family financially do it emotionally. Remain the center of your universe and above all else be calm. Be the rock, the solid place, and keep a positive attitude.

If you’re scared, don’t let your family know it. You are the one that the family looks to for strength, be strong.

I’ll be back to ramble soon.

C

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Next


Next

Get up and go to work everyday. This may sound stupid and confusing, but it’s not. I don’t mean for you to go back to the place that decided that your service was no longer necessary, I mean for you to invent a series of tasks that you have to do everyday.

For me this was getting up and cleaning the house. This mundane task was something that my wife and I would do every Saturday. This task is something that I hate doing but I love the results. I’ve always hated how our house could get a little cluttered throughout the week, but right after it was clean it brought a since of peace and serenity. Hell, I would even hold off on going to the bathroom just to enjoy the fact that the toilet was so clean I could eat soup out of it.

With my wife still working it seemed like it was something I could do to ease the stress in her life and believe it or not it is a fulfilling task that allows you to see the results of your efforts.

When you’re done, your done. This becomes the time when you get to dedicate your time to your tasks. I would always dedicate four hours to cleaning (laundry, dishes, different parts of the house) and then lunch. Immediately after lunch I spend two solid hours applying for jobs. Finally, the last two hours before the misses gets home is my time.

During “my time” I work on a hobby. Mine, for instance, is cars. I love cars and there are a million things that I can do on my hobbies without spending money.

It give me a since of accomplishment and normality to continue to participate in these activities. I feel like I still have a job to do, part of it sucks (cleaning the house) but there is a final outcome; there is still paperwork (job hunting); and a reward for doing a hard days work (my time).

Your still a man, so act like one.

Next time I’ll help you think up things like, your new job, your hobby, and the ability to do these things without an income.

C



Saturday, December 3, 2011

Getting Started


When I first got laid off I was shocked, scared, pissed off, and stressed. It took a couple of days for me to realize that it isn’t the end of the world and it is happening to hundreds of people everyday.

I realized that with the economy like it is and the fact that so many people are on unemployment, perspective employers are going to have to overlook people with unemployment on their resumes. If employers don’t understand that this was out of the potential hires control they will be forced to only hire high school students with no work history at all. Which is worse?

To take action against loosing everything I had to take a good hard look at my life, lifestyle, and possessions. As I did this I realized the cost associated with this “stuff”, and make a decision as to what is actually important, and what I can live without.

This analysis led me to realize that the Dodge Pickup I bought when things were good was one of my biggest expenditure. Even though I had bought it 5 years earlier, I still owed $20,000.00. The payment, insurance, and fuel added up to close to my mortgage payment, and lets face it without a job I wasn’t driving anywhere anyway. It was an easy decision once I laid the facts out; I sold it, and fast.

I picked up a fixer upper, put one months worth of payment into fixing it up and now I have a car to get around in. Every month I drive saves money now. It’s not as comfortable as a new Dodge, but it serves its purpose and it’s paid for. Annual fuel, insurance, and up-keep costs me less than one month of payments and insurance before.

This is a lesson that any old person will tell you that should be practices even in good times, but we don’t listen. As a society we have moved from working hard for our possessions, to possessing everything we want and working to pay it off later. Getting back to living within our means is essential.

Stay tuned
C

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A little history


My name is Cory and I am dedicating this blog to all the workingmen out there that have found themselves out of work, to no fault of their own, but to the economic unrest that the country has found itself in. I’m not going to blame the politicians, the banking industry, or the media. I blame the general population of the United States of America.

I have been a successful part of the custom residential home industry since 1993 and have made a good living designing immaculate homes for the populous. Like most, I reaped the benefits of individuals qualifying for homes well outside their means, and watched as people were swayed into predatory loans that were designed for failure. I’m not saying that I, or most in the home industry, were directly involved with convincing home buyers to use these loans, but I didn’t say anything to deter it. I always figured the client is a grown up and can make his/her own decision.

The old builders told every day that this was going to be short lived and the bubble will pop. They would tell us that it was going to be worse than the ‘ 80s and we should all prepare. Although, we knew it couldn’t last none of us believed it would totally crash. We should have listened.

We enjoyed having so much work we had to turn it away and having the ability to charge whatever we wanted because we knew we would get it. Our egos inflated out of control and we thought we were untouchable. We were wrong.
In the fall of 2007 everything came crashing down. The old builders were right and none of us were ready. Companies went out of business, and craftsmen were left with nothing. I was one of them.

I bounced around trying to get my feet under me, tried to maintain my dignity. All the while I blamed everyone else. My ego wouldn’t allow me to admit to myself that I had worked myself out of a job. Finally, after four years of trying to make entry level positions work, I find myself unemployed.

By now you, the reader, are wondering why this even matters. Here it is; I am tired of listening to people in my position play the “Woo-is-me” card. Enough.

Its time to get off your ass and take your life back.

Stay tuned and I'll tell you what I mean.

thanks for visiting
C