Ok, I was a little hesitant posting this week because I didn't do a lot to the truck directly but I did get some stuff done that will work out in the long run.
1.) I ended up ordering a new welder from Northern Tool. I figured i might need that going forward with the plans that i have.
I ended up getting a Hobart 140. I could have went with a welder a little cheaper but man Hobart has a great warranty right now and it USA built. If my extra Benjamin means somebody has a job, so be it. Plus it was cheaper to order from Northern Tool and ship it to me direct than it was to buy from Tractor Supply and ship to a local store. Well it is still shipping ground so i guess I have to wait.
2.) I also ended up ordering my Mustang II x-member from Paul Horton's Welder Series. I just like the way his stuff 'looks', plus you can't beat the benefit of the current exchange rate w/ the Canadian dollar. It hasn't cleared the credit card yet but i bet I got 15-20% discount on his posted prices. (since he's in Canada, all his prices are Canadian dollars) I'm looking at a Fatman IFS, so i'll be calling them in a couple of weeks.
3.) Good-guys had their first show of the 4 they have here in Northern CA, the Spring Get-together, I was actually on the fence about going to this show this year. in previous years, the participation has been down, plus they don't attract that many vendors to the Get-togethers. (They usually show up to the West Coast Nationals at the end of the summer). Well I ended up going and i'm glad I did, even though there weren't a lot of ADs!
Now story time. I am happily married w/6 kids, 3 boys & 3 girls w/the youngest boy and all 3 girls still at home. (3 boys came pre-packaged w/ the marriage
). So why do i bring this up? I've been going to Good Guy shows for a while now, one of the boys and their girlfriend, the wife and 1 boy and all girls, Brother-in-law alone, (he's re-building a 69 GMC that my wife sold to him years back), Wife, with all the girls, etc...needless to say its usually an adventure.
So Saturday morning I had made the decision to head out (encouraged by the BinL as he rode out early to check it out.) I did the expected roll call to the family to see who wanted to go and the only one (surprisingly) who said she wanted to go was my youngest daughter at 7. I was a little apprehensive about this, since she's the one i have the most problems with, but hey how can i say no to my little girl. So after making sure she was dressed comfortably and still wanted to go we took off.
As we were on our way there i realized that it was a bit of a larger show as CalTrans was warning about delays at the exit for the show on the freeway. As we pulled up I noticed there were a lot more people! in fact the swap meet area spilled outside of the fairgrounds into the first section of parking. Plus the 4-Sale corral also spilled out in to a quadrant of parking...wow there's a lot of folks here!
So after i 'con' the ticket guy that my daughter is 6 and thus free and in fact didn't just turn 7 as she vehemently was arguing with me, he just shrugged and let us in. Hey that's $6! Anyway i soon realize this show is huge! There are a lot more cars and the auto-cross is hopping and there are people everywhere!
Needless to say my daughter did ok. There were a lot of cars and trucks that we did want to look at (she loves those old VW Bugs and Buses!) and I did get to check out some vendors. Briefly talked to the Sanderson Headers rep...
Did i get to pick over the vendors that showed up, nope. But i will say Scott's did make the trip up north for the show and their stuff in amazing. If i was building an auto-cross rig i'd definitely go with their suspension package. It looks amazing in real life! Did i get to walk through the swap meet...didn't even try due to an episode last year with the daughter in tow and i wasn't really looking for anything that might be there.
Like I said my daughter did great. At the end of the day, as long as i kept her fed and hydrated (as you can see by the large cup of lemonade and bag of kettle corn) she enjoyed herself. So did I. So I did find an AD for her to take her picture with because that's her favorite color! But like i said there just weren't that many there
As for today, i spent the afternoon replacing the shocks in the 90 3/4 ton Chevy beast that is our work truck cuz the youngest son "heard" something, (No he wasn't out joy-riding...
). So not a lot of time to work on Charlotte, but i got some good ideas, reaffirmed some directions i want to go in and spent some time w/my daughter. So in the end, it was a good weekend!