New toneau cover!!!

When I first bought my truck in 04, I fixed her up with a BedRug Bed liner, a set of black chrome bed rails (don't recall the manufacturer) and a Toneaumasters rollup toneau.

The BedRug is fabulous, 5 years and 140000 miles, still looks like new, sweeps clean with a broom always, and the trucks bed underneath it looks like it never left the dealer.

The rails are still there, and serve their purpose of providing a solid attachment point for cargo tie downs. The black chrome faded the first winter and looks like crap, but it hasn't gotten any worse. Next time will get em powdercoated.

The toneau died about a year ago :( After getting caught in the rain last week with some expensive cargo that it woulda covered, I ordered a new one. Toneamasters seems to be out of business, so this one is a Genesis by Lund. It's the same style, rollup black vinyl, the bows roll up with the cover, it pops into spring loaded latches in the rear and the sides secure with velcro.

Installation is cake, took less than an hour, even with only one useable thumb.

The rails go on first, they clamp to the sides of the bed with those 3 clamps.

They look like this when they are on, you can barely tell they are there. The strap is the release to unlatch it.

The front bow comes with the rolled up cover attached. It secures to the side rails with 2 bolts. and that's it, all done.

I like this type of cover. Smooth and clean when  it's on, and east as sin to roll up out of the way. I use my truck for work and have occasion to carry some pretty big loads. Thos fancy hard covers won't work for me at all, and the snap ons, while cheap, are a pain in the neck. These rollups are highly recommended.

If you look close, you'll see this is a Silverado SS.

It's an 04, when they still had all wheel drive, 4 wheel disk brakes, and 4.11 gears. They took a standard silverado 1500, and put a complete escalade drivetrain in it, along with an upscale Tahoe LT interior, leather seats, bose stereo, the works.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I like my truck. 136,000 miles since november of 2003, heck that's 6 years ago! She's on her second set of tires brakes and shocks, and I had to change one front hub. Everything else but oil and filters is still original. and she still goes like a bat out of hell, and will flash the tach over 6k at the touch of a toe on the go pedal.

The thumb is still there. Covered in hard scabby stuff. Hurts a bit still. Healing I think. No pic today.

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Tieing up the loose ends

After a bunch of short posts these last few busy days, let's tie up the loose ends.

We had a great lil b-day party for Brian, live on webcam of course. He got a bunch of cool presents including a werewolf costume and a new bike. The cake looked like Scooby-Doo, and I had 3 pieces. Our friends in BC-CA watched on Webcam, and Danielle called me, and Brian got to talk to Shelby for a while.

I'd mentioned yesterday that I went on a field trip with Brian's class. I am after all the official "field trip Dad" and I go on most. Here's a few pictures from yesterday.

Yes, we really did bury Tory in the corn.

And yes, Danielle did get her braces on today. It's ok sweety, they won't be there forever, and I still love your beautiful smile!

And finally, here's today's thumb update

A tough pic to take, by myself on a cel phone. Not focused very well I'm afraid, sorry. I've left it open the last couple days, and it's pretty much covered over with hard black stuff. I'm still not sure of it's better to put a bandaid on or  leave it open. If it's covered, all the hard black stuff goes away, and it just looks raw and gross.

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Brian's Birthday!!

Our lil Brian is TWELVE today!!!
Their makin us crazy wanting to do presents, so more later.
Here's a pic of the birthday boy

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Braces?

Today was a great day!
I joined my son Brian (11) and his class for a field trip. We went to a autumn thing, got lost in a corn maze, burried a lil girl in corn kernels, had some great fun!

My friend Danielle is goin g for braces today, I'll need to call her, and also to get an "after" picture.
Here's a good before pic:

Well, I remembered wrong, it's tomorrow. I'll call anyway.

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Sunday Night continued...

The pizza was good, and I got that first pair of smurf doors up. Those lil toy closets in the "billiard room" have been door free for nine years. Now the left side is done, and tomorrow I'll get to staining and varnishing the pair for the left. Thanks to my good friend Rob for making them.

It was good to make a lil run in the Camaro. Been awhile. No, it's not too cold to have the top down.

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Back from IOWA!

And my first favorite niece Cheryl in now a MISSUS!!!
Can you imagne such a thing, I mean "how'da thunk it?"

Since "I" am not getting old, how could "The Next Generation" be "mature" enough to marry?

It was a GREAT WEEKEND. Those of us who refuse to be old partied late Friday night, some were even doing shots of Jose Quervo. Jose went down smooth, too. I'll maybe have more on the weekend, perhaps with pics, later or some other time.

As usual, I'm busy as hell. How do "Professional Bloggers" with thousands of readers and sponsors and ads out the yingyang, people who are nowhere near as whitty or articulate as "yours truly" find the time?
I think they must be closet couch potatoes.

So, in a few minutes, I'ma gonna cruise my ole Camaro Convertible out to cop some pizza. (pic of Camaro here):

After dinner, I'll be in the "billiard room" putting up the first pair of smurf doors.

The webcam will be on, so if you want to see what a smurf door is, login at htto://www.Jimragtop.com:12000
Username team p/w camaro
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quickie today

Well, I missed yesterday, I took a thumb update in the orning but never got it posted...lol.

But Hey, that's because it's a very busy and very special weekend!

Cheryl is getting married, and the whole family has travelled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to enjoy the festivities. Cheryl is our oldest neice, and the first of her generation to marry. Last night we partied pretty hard, some perhaps a little too hard. My wife has all ready  told the entire hotel all the details, so if you're interested, ask them.
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Birthday wish?

For my birthday, I'd like one or two stools so I'd have something to sit on in my mancave.
You know the ones, bar height, black leather swivel seats, either a nascar, NHRA, or craftsman theme.

Ya see, it went like this... You remember those doors from yesterday, right? I use varathane water based poly on all my woodwork (ding ding!) The first 2 coats  kinda build a base, but they also raise the grain a bunch. So then I smooth em out with some 00 steel wool before putting on the final coat.

That's where I am now. I just finished rubbing on both sides of door one. Without being able to switch hands (see  previous posts for info regarding unintended collision between thumb and table saw blade) it gets kind of tiring. So I go in the house to sit for a few, and babble-boy-Brian, who's at the dining room table doing homework while watching TV starts babbling at me about some TV show.

The only way to stop this and get him back on homework is to exit.
So here I am with my laptop out in the mancave, with nothing to sit on.

The webcam is on. More comments is you wanna know the password. Help me out here, I know this blog is new, but still, I don't wanna feel like I'm typing to myself.

OK, back to work.

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Almost Friday...

I just thought I'd pop in a quick thumb update before I head to work.
It's looking kinda juicy around the edges this morning. No sign of infection, so that's good.

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Happy Wednesday!

Hi all, and Happy Wednesday!

First, a thumb update. As you may recall, my right thumb had an incident involving a table saw last Thursday mornig.
Well, I've left it open since yesterday morning, and it's all congealing nicely. Scabbing over, more or less.
Here's the pic:

The last few days I've been working hard on some doors. I got 4 of the 6 sealed and stained a few days ago, and today I got 2 coast of poly on both sides of all four. Tomorrow hopefully, I'll sand em smooth and put a finish coat on one side, so they'll be almost done.
My wife is always after me for "never finishing a prooject..." well, the 4 smurf doors will finish off the basement billiard room, and the 2 closet doors (see pic above) will almost finish off the guest room.

See the cute lil mini closets, that's where the 50" tall "smurf doors" go. Those openings have been open since we built the house...
9 years ago. 'Bout time I got that done.

I broke down and ordered new back tires for the vette today. She's been laid up since May, I got a small hole in a sidewall, tires were worn out anyway. I do need to sell the car, anyone needs a 1993 Corvette, let me know. 96k, dark green, tan interior, all the options, automatic trans, glass removable roof, 26+ MPG on the highway, new back tires. $11,000, emaill jimm1968@att.net

Again, this fine car is for sale, for 11k. These late C4's are really fine cars, they ride good, have great power, you can drive em every day (I have, really, except in snow) If you keep a light foot, she'll give you great mileage, even around town it's rarely below 20 mpg. And of course she's still a Corvette. Great looks and handling, 300 horse LT1 small block under the hood. Goes like stink when you put your foot in hard. Email me at jimm1968@att.net for ore info.

Last thing for today, had some weirdness with the motorhome. The battery's like to get "light" after a while, even though I always hit the disconnects, so today I went out to check things. Chassis battery was completely dead (expected after sitting since labor day) and the house battery had just enough ooomph left to get the genset cranked up.
I figured I'd turn on the furnaces and heat her up a bit, I'm worried about the plumbing, haven't winterized yet. The furnaces didn't go. The propane detector was chirping, I reset it, still chirping. Light for "propane on" was lit, it wasn't screaming, just giving a chirp every once ina while. Furnaces did not go at all. Stove would light fine. Water heater did not. Plenty of power with the genny going. Gonna hafta work on that soon . Also gonna hafta winterize the plumbing and find a place to park her for the winter. Sadly, camping season is done.

Wife says if I want people to read this I gotta be funny. Wuts funnier than sticking your thumb in a power saw?
check out my webcam at http://www.jimragtop.com:12000/ If you comment, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you the password.
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Tuesday....

Hi all, and happy Tuesday.

First, a thumb update. Here's a pic from the morning of the tenth

Someday I'll  figure out how to format this thing, in the meantime, sorry...

I've been bandaging the thumb over night, and when I  get up it's all raw and puffy like in the pic above. Then I leave it exposed all day, and it gets all crusty and blackish like the pic below.

And here's the offending power tool, wicked, isn't it?

Carol just got back. She went to Dekalb to visit our oldest son... He's in jail. Being held in lieu of bond, charged with breaking into people's cars and stealing their stuff, to get money to buy drugs no doubt.

That's really all I want to say about that right now. He's been out of my house for a while now, and he's not coming back. We're not bailing him out. I'll never understand mothers... Jake can still get to Carol, He causes her such pain that I bleed inside for her. But I won't bend, I  just won't. We've heard all this before. We've been talked into bailing him out before. He's promised to stay away from his worthless friends and quit ruining his life with drugs, before.  A buncha times. No More.
This time he has to fix himself.

I REALLY want to move to Colorado. That mountainside is looking really good right now. Carol (my wife) is scared to death, she thinks I've lost my mind. In an ideal world, Mark and Sandra would join us. We'd make a living building cars and "improving" motorhomes. We'd travel. We'd raise our kids way better than the world we're attached to  lets us now. That's gonna be a tough sell though. They've always just collected a paycheck. And their from another country after all. It's a lot to ask, and I can't push. My golden goose in Chicago is dying. But I know I can do it again. It sure would be nice to have some more help though.
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Mark and Sandra's visit

Moved from the old blog, originally posted last Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

For the first time I can remember, I've done nothing on a Saturday.
From 10AM to now, I've just done nothing.
Exhausted. I can just imagine how Mark and Sandra feel.

This started last week when Mark .L.W asked me to look at a car for him. The car checked out, and I borrowed a trailer and brought her home.

She's a 78 Camaro, backhalved, tube chassis and full cage, certified for 8.50, and including a dana 60 / four link setup and some monster hoosier slicks.





And Mark and Sandra started talking about a marathon drive from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to yorkville, IL to pick the beast up.
This being Canada's Thanksgiving weekend, they snatched a couple extra days off, hooked the trailer to the pickup, and hit the road.

Meanwhile, it was decided by my better half that since we were having guests, we had to have a guestroom.

So we got to work cleaning out Brians old room, painting it, p;utting down the hardwood flooring, wall paper border, and quick buying a bed, bedding, and curtains.

This all went pretty well, except for that small incident Thursday morning when I knida got my thumb too close to the table saw blade while ripping the last row of hardwood floor. Nasty business, but I'll survive.



So Thursday afternoon, Mark and Sandra clattered into my driveway.

It was kinda funny. I'm checking my watch after the last phone call, looking out the front window... Finally, I call him again, and ask :didja get lost or something, u should be here?" And he says "Look out the kitchen window, we're in your back driveway!"

So Thursday we hang around here, Mark washes both our trucks, while I stand around with my thumb bandaged and leaking all over. Carol fixed a lasagna for dinner, and we all get to catch up a bit. After all, it's been almost 3 months since our west coast vacation together.





Friday, we got the car and all the parts secured and loaded, and around 1:00 we took off to show our friends the great city of Chicago.

We had lunch at Portillo's, and then drove downtown on Archer Avenue. we drove around Midway Airport, and through Chinatown, finally heading north up Lakeshore Drive.

We did a brief stop out by the Adler Planetarium, great skyline views there, but the wind was blowing hard off the lake so we didn't stay long.

Next we parked by Illinois Center and walked into Millenium park to check out the bean.

After that it was off to That Great Street, State street, and into the store I still call Marshall Fields, in spite of all the new Macy's signs.

It was still raining pretty hard so we drove up to Water Tower Place and found some parking. We didn't get too much time there, but the rain did stop so we decided to hoof it to the resturant.

After fabulous Ruth's Chris steaks with all the trimmings, we went outside to find the weather had mellowed considerably. We walked back downtown to see Buckingham fountain put on the hourly showw. At the same time, we could see the fireworks at Navy Pier too.

That 2 mile walk back to the car helped get dinner processing properly, and we didn't stay up talking past midnight.











And finally, around 10 AM Saturday morning, our good friends saddled up and headed west for Canada.

Mark and Sandra, have a safe trip back. Thanks for coming to visit!

Due to popular demand, here is the thumb.

It's actually healing nicely, I left the bandage off most of the afternoon/evening, and it's getting crusty and not oozing anymore.

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