cells,texts and tweets in the blk hills of sd

working remotely is always kind of nice, but it does kind of suck, I have most of the files that I need, but not all , iDrive is looking better and better, remote file transfers take a bit, but they are

something I need.

 No cell service, spotty wireless for the mac, take a bit to get use to. How on earth did we ever get to the point of 24/7 contact and communication . I kind of like not having that  contact with the outside world, but it is weird, blogs, e-mail,  tweets, text and cell phones.....all part of everyday life. But not when  I am in the middle of the blackhills of South Dakota.

 When I go in to town, Custer SD, my cell goes nuts, with texts and msgs. I am not looking forward to that, but it is an necessary evil of modern life.

we take care of ours

vacations are funny things, I have always needed a day after the trip to recover , and I suppose this one will not be any different in that respect, 

This one is a little different,In the fun factor. My paternal grand mother, nana, is getting up there in age, she just turned 96 years old. I know that women don't like there real age divulged , but shes 96 fracken years old. She has been the head of our family since before I was alve, the martaric , the glue. 

 She has taught me so much over the years, and I am a better pearson because of her,She is definitely on my fav 5 list. 

 Being that she is nearing the end of her time here, I have to come connect with her . She is my Nana.

 Last night I cooked dinner for her,my dad , mamadar, and my step mom, never mind that I had just spent 21 hrs on the road to get here, and was beat tired . Sandy , my very loved step mom,

has been diagnosed with colon cancer, and is in treatment for it. She just did not have the energy to cook and clean up after wards and asked if I would do it. I was honored to help her.

I give her a lot of crap, but always with a smile and love.

 Then there is my dad, the man who taught me how to be a good man, husband, father, and son.

the 2 women in his life who matter most to him are needing him to take care of them, tough role for my dad...

 Vacations are a good thing, they are a break from the normal stresses of life, this is a hard time for me, this is not a 'fun' vacation. I will enjoy the time I get to spend with both of these very important women , but I am having a hard time seeing both of them like this. 

We take care of ours nana said last nite, damn near at the same time I did....funny how that works. 

 She is a pretty good grandmother , a great grand ma, and a really great great grandmother, all puns intended.

 

macafacation now complete

In any business , small or larger, computers play a huge role in the back ground. Information, organization , storage,  communication, advertisement all handled by computers . I have been playing and working on computers since the cassette tape drive  came out. For those of you that are to young to remember that, now I feel old  they look like this .  During my decades pecking on a key board I have been in the microsoft world, dealing with the windows line of products was just that ,dealing with windows. I have become pretty good at crashing the os, As windows has matured it has gotten better,( I did like the NT os) and it has gotten  harder for me to screw up, but I have been crash os's for a few decades and can still do it. Case in point, My good friend , biz partner, graphic designer, web master, art guru,actor rock band and all around level five.... Master Gumby   rebuilt his old G10 tower for the shop to run. Our old server, running NT, and I had a disagreement  and the server decide to take his ball and go home. So the Mac came in ...... and I liked it.It was what I had wanted windows to be, it was smooth, intuitive and clean. the g10 stayed in my office for a bit, till the main house server decided to join his network buddy and crash. So being a man who has been married for 20 years, ( as of yesterday) , and wanting to keep it that way, I brought the Mac in to the house so my wife could do her thing on the web, while biggene built us a new MS computer. Mama Dar tried to use the mac,  and did not like it. She found it hard to switch back and forth between work and home, two different operating systems , so when the new computer was ready, the mac went back to the shop, and I have been on it full time.The more I use it the more I like it, it has gotten to the point if I want to use the computer I would go out to the office instead of using the MS 'chene .I found it clunky, even though it was new.

 Well I also have a lap top, that my brother,  MS and Mac God, had refurbished for me that I have been using when I travel . It is an old IBM Think-pad, a great machine in it time, but it was SLOW, and very limited . But it did the job. Well another friend , Greg had an older G-4 note book, running g-10 that had out lived Greg's usefulness , so he rehabbed it for me, and brought it over yesterday. I LOVE IT. 

 Now Master Gumby has been a mac guy since day one, and had changed jobs a bit back and had to learn the MS OS, not a fun thing he told me Now I understand what he means, it is like talking to a child vrs having conversation with a college grad. Man I love my macs........

B O P 11

even more pics  here

and here

some pics  here

show season is here

Well the first bug show of the season is done. If you did not get a chance to join us in Chattanooga , you missed a good event. With the arrival  of most of the camper peeps on Friday night. the party was on. For those that don't do the camping thing at 2 day shows, you all are missing half of the fun. With being able to walk the swap meet early, and seeing old friend. It is well worth effort, and it is quite a bit cheaper.

 I like sitting around the camp fire, and watching the drunken  ass hattery, listening, (and telling ) tall tales. It is almost a sure bet that someone ends up clean up the result of to much fun,  and this year was no different, but I digress. At the time of asshattery it  is always entertaining, even if the end result, ends up in 'clean up isle 6'. 

 There was lots of nice cars at this show, and some that are not so nice, but they are on the road, and is what I like to see. I always look forward to seeing  what people have done over the winter.

 As I wrote in a previous post  We were one of the sponsors of this show. The charity of this show was Ronald McDonald House. It is a good organization , and worthy of our support .I spoke with some of the club members of the Scenic City volks folks , and I was told that the first day revenue was more than the previous years totals for both days.

 363 days to bug a plauza  12

 

Drop Smoke

D-day as is departure .......

All the beams are made, the truck is packed, still need to wash and vacuum the purple people eater. and we roll.......at noon. We have 2 cars on trailers , 1 pulled behind an suv, and 5 that are driving.... this should be interesting. 

Is the car clean , is there gas in the tank?

In e-mailing with my first cousin, bob the climber, dude is crazy for climbing, but I write about him at a later date. He let me know that he to has one of these blogthingies , but hasn't updated in a while. So it made me think that I need to do updates, but updates would imply going back and bringing current some of the items that were in the past, being that this is my 5th post, there are not to many things to up date.

 Show prep......

 Getting ready for a show used to be, is the car clean and is there gas in the tank.......? Then it was need to get the canopy and chairs, and then there is camping shows, all that is there, but as I do this more for the shop  and and less for me, them more shuff I have to get ready. there is the displays of beams, weighing any where between 10 lb to 40 lb, there is the canopies ,tables, chairs, flyers, coats, brochures,trike trailers , patches, stickers, and on and on. Part of the night mare is the gathering up of all the  shtuff . Being that we out source most of our swagg, to local venders, all that has to be done, and gathered up, payed for,priced and sold. 

 Don't misconstrue , I still enjoy there shows, the little boy is still inside me, and there are alot of shiny cars going to be in one place, and, I get to hang with my friends, 

That is the best part

back to work

Mad Props To Just Jim

Let me tell you about my buddy Super beatle JimJust Jim, or JJ .

he is one talented dude!!! He is a car guy, he owns a 69 camaro ,

lifted stepside 4X4, and a 79 convertable bug. and all are nice, but

that is just his hobby. In real life he is a defense sector graphic artist .

 I don't really know what that is , but I do have an idea of what he does

cause of a promo vid he did for the shop. 

 See we are growing a bit, and  are helping to sponsor a few shows

this season. the first one will be Bug a paluza 11 anyway... part of the deal is

the shop gets a vender space, and need draw peeps in, this is in all fact a 

temp store for the shop, so After talking with Master Gumby, the other 

owner of the shop, we decided to get a dvd made for display of the shop,

a 5 min commercial if you will. Now  Jim is a member of the vw club

and hangs out at the shop once in a while, and I was talking about this

in passing about 1 month ago, and he offered to help out and give it a try.

 well this is the result .

We the teaching went well, don't know about the learning........

TJ seem to understand what I was telling him, we shall see.

 On to the week, 

 On Friday we at the shop are heading out to  bug a paluza

http://www.bugapaluza.com/ . We are one of the sponsors 

this year and have to really get ready. 

 I have one more beam to build, and got to get mamadar buggy

ready.

Sat

I have always love sat morning, but no cartoons for me,

at least not this weekend, my granddaughter who is 4

is not here today, and I have a wrench to turn and

a bit of teaching to to.

The client coming in this morning is a good kid, but

kind of quiet. At 17 , he is driving his dads old 63 bug.

a few months ago we dropped his ride, hard.....

at his age it is surprising to see that he drives this car

everyday. It is good to see the next gen of dub heads.....

and being that he is the future of this hobby I have an obligation 

to teach him. Today it is just the basics a valve adj and a dizzy/

carb swap.

 The valves are something that every dub owner should do . Even

though I own a shop I want all my clients to do their own valve adjustment 

by the owner doing this and oil change, they can  keep in touch with

what is going on with their car.

And so it begins

Why the hell not, everyone and his brother has a log, come to think about it my brother does as

well. 

 Since this is the first posting  I have not a clue....

I will include whet ever strikes my train of thought.

mostly about classic volkswagens, and the ass hattery that ensues 

with own and wrenching on on these cars, and owning a shop.