Car of the Week: Alfa Romeo 4c

I know, two Alfas already... I can't help it they are gorgeous! As the guys from Top Gear say, "You are not a car nut until you own an Alfa." (I am still working on this Alfa owner thing...) This particular one is a concept car that is supposed to be on sale as a 2013 model and even available in the US! It is a small, light, mid-engine car. Only 4 meters long and weighs a light 900kg! The engine is a turbo charged 1.7 liter four cylinder that makes 230 bhp. While the statistics are pretty exciting (0-60mph in 4.5 seconds) it really is the looks that make this thing so desirable for me. It looks like my favorite car, the Lotus Elise, only the Alfa did a much better job with the design. MSRP? Supposed to be in the $50,000 range... almost... nope, can't afford it. Here are some pics from the Top Gear site and an add off of YouTube.

Love the pillar-less look and all the subtle crease lines.

What about in a matte red?

The most beautiful door ever?

Alfa 4C add.

Pickled

Dhaka is a hard place to find good quality food. Things like pickles for example; the pickles available here are those soft yellow bland things that, you know, have to be pickling your liver too. Early in the year there was a party where someone brought some homemade pickles that were amazing. Crisp, tasty and with a discernible spice. Since then I have wanted to try making some. I don't have any of my canning stuff here but I did some research and found that you can make refrigerator pickles that you don't have to officially can and they will last a month or two. After some modification I had a recipe that I was happy with and which resulted in some pretty respectable pickles.

I sanitized some old jars, sliced a bunch of cucumbers and stuffed them into the jars. The pickling solution was the following:
4 cups of vinegar
5 tsp salt
2 tsp of pepper corns
2 tsp of mustard seed
1 Dried chile chrushed
1 tsp of paprika
2 tsp of Oregano
6 cloves of garlic sliced

I brought the pickling solution to a simmer and then poured it into the jars. I put the lids on and let them sit out for 24 hours. Now they live in the fridge but not for long! I would change a few things about the recipe; first I would use 2 cups of vinegar and 2 cups of water, add more salt (up to 6 tsp) and of course I would use fresh dill in the jars (I could not find it here).

I am almost to the point of making an entire sandwich from scratch. I have made mayonnaise, bread, and now pickles. Next I will have to make some cheese. That will have to wait until I am back in Ukiah so I can use unpasteurized milk. I think I want a pickle!

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter has always been one of those holidays that I really enjoy. There are no religious connotations for me, I just feel like celebrating the coming of spring, it just feels right. Spring always feels like I have woken up from some kind of hibernation, my energy level goes up, I am inexplicably happy and I want to get out in the world and see it all. I try to have a big old bash at my dad's place but, like this year, it doesn't always work out. This year we went to the America Club Easter egg hunt and then to a lovely brunch. The weather did not cooperate to give use that spring time feeling but it did invoke a sense of urgency to the egg hunt. Here are some pics of Lola in action:

                The worries of how the hunt will go...                     The lovely ladies

                   The excitement, the anticipation!                                    In action!

Go Lola go!

All in a day's work...

The easy and relaxed look of a pro egg hunter after delivering another basket of the goods.

Pain Cave

Spent a little time in the pain cave last weekend! 80km on the dirt, on the cross bike. My buddy Ken led the ride and posted this video from his helmet cam. Cool ride mostly through villages and farm land. The rice paddies are looking amazing right now and you can catch a glimpse of them at the end of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtWeNEAb90Q

1st Guest Speaker

So a while back I asked all of you to give me some feedback on my car issues and I got a lot of "Its OK you just like cars" which I agree with, and I am morally OK with. My problem is that I know that they are lame wastes of money and resources. Here is one of the more insightful responses I got from my good friend Ryan. I think he gets it because he is struggling with similar thoughts and we grew up working on cars together and so we were steeped in the same water. Here it is:

Nick,

First of all, I don't think you have a problem. At least, your problem isn't with cars. Your problem is being hung up on the fact that your desire to work on cars is wrong. Try not looking at the work as the end product. Look at the effort you expend in finding the diamond in the rough and getting it cleaned up and running sweet as the result. The car, the boat, the bike, the whatever - they aren't the thing that makes you tick, not what makes you happy. What you desire is the work, the searching and the finding, the cleaning and the fixing. And that is OK. In fact, I think that is a beautiful thing.

The past 6 weeks have been a complete blur for me. Today was my first day off of working in that time period - and I only didn't work because I was too sick to get out of bed until after 11 this morning. My boss has a 30 foot sport fishing boat with twin 6-cylinder Volvo diesels. It's been needing a ton of maintenance and repair work for awhile now. I volunteered to help work on it and of course roped Shawn in too since we needed his expertise. It was supposed to be a 5 to 6 day job: dry dock the boat, pull the drives, pull the engines, clean and paint everything, repair what needed to be once we got it disassembled and then slam it all back together. It has turned into a 6-plus week operation. Shawn has been driving over to Arcata to work on it every weekend for the past 6 weeks with Scott and I. And Scott and I have put in countless additional days on our own. It's been a total nightmare. Every. Single. Thing. We've touched has been broken. Both turbos bad (one trashed enough to require removing the head to inspect for damage from the destroyed impeller), both oil pans removed to be cleaned and painted, both water pumps rebuilt, both sea-water pumps rebuilt... and the list goes on and on. Steering bushings trashed, further removal required. And then came the reassembly that brought about flawed and damaged fiberglass work that pushed us back another week. And then we finally got it together and tried putting it in the water on Thursday, and, it leaked. Like a fucking sieve. Boat is now back out with heavy duty marine sealer setting up over the weekend in hopes of patching up the joint where the fiberglass is damaged due to shitty design. Otherwise we'd have to pull everything back apart completely and hire someone to rebuild the entire transom (rear part where drives and engines mount) of the boat. An easy 2 week and $10,000 task - for a professional. After Scott already has to have at least $25 or $30,000 into this so far. It better not leak when we put it back in the water on Monday...

Anyway... I shared all that with you for a reason. While this has been one of the more hectic and crazy few weeks of my life it has also been incredibly rewarding. This isn't even my boat and I feel like it has been a totally worthwhile experience. Why? First of all because it has been the first time in probably over a decade that Shawn and I have hung out together for an extended time. And it wasn't just sitting around, not family or friend time. It was accomplishing a task. Solving problems. Fixing broken stuff. Taking something flawed and making it better. The process has been stressful, it has been disheartening, it has been frustrating. But it has also given us an excuse to be together. It has given me an opportunity to work with my hands again. I missed it. I'm sure you miss it too. Shawn never gets a break from it. I think that both extremes aren't right. But people like me and you and Shawn, we need to create, need to repair, need to bring back the broken from the brink. When those engines fired back up on Wednesday it was a beautiful thing. You've heard that sound before. You know what if feels like to turn a key on what was once pieces scattered across the garage and hear it roar to life. It's not the car or the engine. Who cares about the car or the engine. It's the knowledge that you have made something work that wasn't working when you started on it. You did that. And you probably did it with friends around you. I have gotten so much fulfillment from working with Shawn on this disaster of a project. We've done good work and done it as efficiently and effectively as we could. That's a good feeling to have. I remember getting that same sense of fulfillment all those years ago working with you on the buggy or your panel or the canoe or any number of projects we took on. I know I had been missing that feeling. Maybe you have been too. So maybe it isn't the car. Maybe you're just searching for a sense of fulfillment that fixing cars give you. Roll it around, see what you think.

Thanks Ryan, I think you nailed it. I just like the cars because the represent a clear path to me one that involves hanging out with my pals and one that is extremely rewarding because you can see the end result. We do share this need to create, solve problems and fix things and that is what it is really about. I want that, and the car is the manifestation of all those things in my mind. Would I still get as much satisfaction from putting an electric motor in a 69 Camaro? Hell yeah, because it is about the process and the problem solving and the creating, and if I can make a statement about how lame cars are in their current state all the better!

Car of the Week: Jaguar XK120

The jag that I have always wanted...

Unknown photographer

One of two LT 2's left (Jag's light weight racer version) If you have a good eye you will notice that there are no fender seems as this car has a one piece magnesium body!. Photo from www.conceptcarz.com

Built from 1948 to 1954 and beautiful from front to back. Upon its introduction it was the fastest production car in the world and as you could guess, had a real world top speed of 120 mph. How? Streamlined shape, aluminum body and a 3.4 liter DOHC straight six. I love this car for the way it changes the way you feel about driving. If I were behind the wheel I would take the long way home, I would dress up just to drive it somewhere and I have to buy some driving gloves... alright maybe not the driving gloves. A neighbor in Ukiah purchased one a few years ago and the thing is just amazing in real life. I will always want one but probably will not be able to afford one. Basket cases are $12,000-20,000 and nice ones are up into the $100K mark.

From the 2009 Wine Country Classic.  Photo by: Will Campbell

Throw Back of the Week

Not to brag... but I have a pretty great book collection. Diverse (both in subject and time), high quality and all acquired for a steal (thank you mom for the bargain hunting skills). It is a bit of a guilty pleasure, shipping books across the world buuuut, I have now gained the leisure time to check them out. From my library comes this artifact from the good old days of driving. It was printed in 1953 and I am sure that I find it more interesting than the average drivers ed. student did. So close your eyes (this will make it hard to read so just picture this in your head), imagine you are in a high school class room. The guys are wearing blue jeans rolled at he cuff, a black belt and a plain white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up and tons of product in their hair. Girls? They are wearing long skirts, with mary janes and their hair is tied back with a pink ribbon in a pony tail with the ends curled. They may be wearing a cashmere sweeter or a high wasted jacket. Now open your eyes and read on.

From the title I gather that it was a campaign to make drivers education "sporty" and fun. The best part are the illustrations are that they depict another time both in style and in message. Here are a few gems:

Little known fact that drinking and walking is dangerous too!

This is something they don't teach in drivers ed anymore...

In case you were wondering what that big circular thing does.

Golfing and driving... Never would have made that connection.

The public must not stand for it...

This is what driving or walking in Dhaka is like.

You see it really is slow driver's fault, always knew it!

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That is where all my money is going.

I would never pick up this hitch hiker, he just looks evil.