Blaster lives… November 3, 2008

The kids decided ‘Blaster” is a good name for the Master Deluxe.  Maybe because that’s the noise it makes, and with all the smoke.  A 67 year old straight six doesn’t exactly purr the first time it’s started.  Anyway, I figure it’s a good name, and better than some of thier other choices like “flower” or “kitty”.  We got Blaster going last week, and it was actually really cool – I was jumping around like a moron..who wouldn’t!!  A $600 car from 1941 and it started…seriously, who’d a thunk it.  It caught on fire a couple times in the garage from the gas I spilled working on the carb, and one electrical fire…but nothing serious.  It definitely tells a story about the times: there are about 15 ashtrays!  There is an ashtray on every surface.  Now the real work starts..the stuff I need to do for it to be road worthy: brakes, clutch, lights.  The interior will be (according to the kids, to whom I promised the colour choice) black and purple, which actually is gonna be good. (They coulda said pink and orange so i should be glad).  They want to chop the top off, but I vetoed that since we don’t live in california. Some projects end up taking so much time and work that it’s only fun when they’re done, but something about this one has been fun since the beginning, and the fact that both kids sometimes draw pictures of it with thier latest paint job idea, means that it actually will be a family project, which was the point from the start.

But we still gotta convince cindy it was a good idea…

SuperIncredibleKids – The Movie April 2, 2008

We’re making a movie. 

It started pretty innocently, but like everything in our house, it went out of control pretty quick.

Just after supper the girls said that they wanted to make a play, and mom and I would be the audience.  Then they said “let’s film it.”  I told that if you film a play, it’s a movie.  Well, that set it off the rails. They lost their minds. “A movie!  Yaa!! Let’s make a movie!!”

For the rest of the night, they jumped and ran and acted and screamed and argued around the living room while I wrote it all down.  It’s all their ideas, 100%.  I just asked stuff like; “What kind of story? (Pirate/Princess/super-hero/scary/sports?) Who is in it? Why are they good/bad? Do they have any special skills or powers? Where did they get their super-power?  Why do they do that? Who will play them?”  They just kept going on and on.  I can’t wait to start. We’ve got it all mapped out, we just need to do the dialogue and make the costumes and set.  Even if it take forever, I think the process will be the fun part.  They get to paint the background and sets, make the costumes etc.  They’re excited about that.

Here’s the story so far:

A good wizard is dying, and he knows that an evil mad scientist is going to try something.  In his dying moments, the good wizard transfers all his powers to a group of kids who are having a dance party.  They don’t realize it so they discover their new powers by accident, and each only gets one or two of the powers, each something different, stuff like; the power to turn invisible, turn into various animals, become Bruce Lee (seriously – my daughter loves his movies), shoot lasers, etc. When the evil scientist poisons all the food in the world, the kids decide they are going to find a way to save everyone.  They go on a quest to find the evil scientist and along the way they have all kinds of adventures and meet; a dragon, a robot, two aliens, a pirate, a witch, and a few others…I couldn’t write fast enough, they had so many ideas.

This is gonna be the funnest project ever…woohooo!!! 

Low and slow baby March 26, 2008

Holy bonus day!!!  My cruiser bike parts arrived by UPS last week!   I’m building a couple of cruiser bikes, mostly out of bits and pieces from the garage, but some small stuff I had to order like single speed freewheels and big wide handlebars.  (Plus I got Cin a really long low stretch frame for like 50 bucks) The rest I got at the recycle depot or I found (like the Banana seat I found at a yard sale!!!)  In the end it might cost me maybe $100 per bike, for Cin and I to have comfy cruisers to pull the kids around Devon, go shopping (we always walk or ride, one less car.)  Then I just have to weld a tow bar to pull the kids around in the custom wagon I made out of one chair and two BMX bikes.  We gonna be like Ramone and Flo, cruizin’ low and slow baby, low and slow.

The bobber is coming home! March 18, 2008

 

I’m going to get my bike this weekend!  Wooohooo!  (My motorbike)  I started building an old-school bobber years ago, and has been sitting, half-done, in a shed at the farm, collecting rust, bird-crap and dust for years. 

This Christmas, Cin bought me a little welder, and I finally found a fuel tank for it at the wreckers, so I can drag it home and finally finish it, instead of leaving it 4 hours away at the farm. It’s a pretty cool project I think.  I got an old bike off a friend, and stripped it and cut it up with a torch, and then basically started welding together what I wanted.

It’s 15 inches longer and about 18 inches lower than original.  I cut the whole back end away and made it a hard-tail rear triangle.  Getting it all straight was the real battle…I don’t honestly know if it will track straight or not…I can’t wait to find out.  We’ll see how that goes…I’m not a rider, don’t even know how, and I’m not a wannabe, I just really dig building stuff, especially mechanical stuff, and I never did a bike before so what the hell.

I just have to put the wiring in (there’s nothing there, gonna have to do it trial and error); make a seat (one with springs!); build and mount all the foot and hand controls (haven’t decided on a suicide shifter or not – I reckon they call it that for a reason);rebuild the motor; then, finally, paint!  I think I’m going WWII bomber-style paint, with the 40’s Memphis Belle type chick on the side.

The girls are gonna help me – they love to build stuff, so now that it will be at home it can be a family project.  Giddyup!