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OK, I guess I’ll be the curmudgeon as usual. I come here to read about the car industry, not to make new friends. Why in the world would I want to know what’s happening in the author’s personal lives? Boundaries, people. They’re there for a reason.
I don’t want to be that guy but I have a great solution, since this is members only content just don’t be a member or don’t sign in. then you won’t see it.
Actually, you do see the content when not signed in.
“OK, I guess I’ll be the curmudgeon as usual.” — it’s good to know thy self.
Clicking on a link is crossing that boundary. That’s on you.
True enough, but I was curious to see the commentary. Sadly, I was not disappointed.
I do believe Sheryl supports your vehicular madness! My partner is adamant that I have at least one, but preferably three or four, project cars to work on once we have a house. She doesn’t understand my love of cars, but she wants me to enjoy my hobbies and would love to watch me and learn.
I’m trying to locate a specific chair she wants for her future library. It does not look cheap and I probably need to start saving now haha.
Matt, roll up smoked salmon with a bit of cream cheese in the cucumber….
Great read everyone!
David: I’m sure you got this married thing in the bag, congrats on the engagement!
Mercedes: Congrats on the 2 life milestones this month, and I look forward to reading about your Euro trip! We have family friends that live in GB and “summer in the South of France” They always invite me, but unless they’re paying airfare, I’m not going within the next 10 years at least!
Thomas: Great advice, take time to slow down between Summer and the Holiday season.
Jason: Awesome work! Glad you are healthy and still here, the place you’re working with looks awesome!
Matt: I need to start really focusing on this too. I’m trying to drop some weight, and I can only have so many salads. But, they’re easy to throw together. Not as easy as having a pizza delivered, but I’m trying!
DT – the one thing I learned going through the marriage then kids process is to listen to all the advice people give you, and discard any and all that don’t make sense for your situation. This really became important when the kid came along. Everyone has an opinion and “great advice!”. Most of those opinions were irrelevant to us.
Great insight to you all. Love to hear more about your personal lives and get to know more about y’all.
DT getting married? Never thought I’d read that. Congrats! The Mrs. and I will celebrate 20 years in December, we sorta eloped. Cheap and cheery, if you will.
Mercedes, glad to see you have found happiness in life. You’re never allowed to talk to the Mrs. as I don’t need birds in the house.
Torch, glad you’re still with us, and love the old tech. I started on a Commodore VIC-20. Now I’ve been a professional Systems engineer for 31+ years.
Matt, that bowl looks pretty good if you take out the Avocado, but you do you.
Does anyone think Adrian can do one of these without expletives? I’m curiously waiting to see what happens there.
My prediction: it’s a bridge too far for Adrian, and if I’m right, kudos for him for resisting the Jerry Springer-fication of a pretty good automotive website.
David, I’m right with you on HVAC. I replaced my condenser fan myself this week because there was no way in hell that someone was gonna service my unit from 2006 still running on R-12. I figured the $150 I spent on the motor was less than the call-out fee just to be recommended a new system.
Yep; my new motor cost the same!
Here I thought I was the last person on Earth that still appreciates ST:Voy. Congratulations on the anniversaries, Mercedes!
Voy is my favorite series! I have a whole Janeway jumpsuit uniform thing to wear once I hit my goal weight. 45 pounds down and counting! I can’t wait. 🙂
Awesome. In case you didn’t know, Pluto TV has a channel dedicated to that show 24/7…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDV-dOvqKzQ
Oh hell yeah, that’s featured on the video for one of my favorite songs.
(Congrats, David, ya old fart. Good luck. Don’t be a groomzilla.)
(Also, congrats Mercedes! Two great milestones at once.)
David- I saw your gold i3 for sale last month, and wondered why! Wedding planning can be stressful (I did it last year). The only tips I can give is check out multiple venues, go to wedding expos since vendors often have discounts if you book from those events, and dont go overboard on decorations (Wedding favor idea- 3d printed Jeep CJ kit cards). Also, some barbers can be hired to do the groom/groomsman like the brides makeup artists! Its more money, but it was nice to have somebody make sure I actually looked good that day.
Mercedes- Big month! Congratulations to you both, and on 10 years. Enjoy your trip!! and is the yellow scooter the U7?
Jason- I just showed my wife the rick rolling phone. She asked what it was, so I explained it. She asked me if it was something old people did. Ouch.
Thank you so much! ♥ It is not the U7E! However I’m getting close to missing my self-imposed deadline to get it running again. The scooter I’m selling is a 2005 Genuine Stella 150.
Here’s hoping there’s an eventual Adrian update like Bollocks. All of you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwJ6OVSwkM
This is my karaoke song.
Hell yeah.
I like this idea. Ever had a radio or podcast host that you like listening to and you start to feel like you are connected in a weird way? You start to care about that host, even though they have no idea who you are. That is kind of like reading the writers here. A little internet family. So, thanks for giving us a little glimpse of yourselves.
Mercedes, what a great way to contract the international-travel bug!
Depending on the length of your layover in Munich, I highly recommend taking the train into the city (30-45 min one-way) and checking out the BMW museum.
And Nice was one of the stops on our honeymoon this past spring, though we spent most of our time in Eze and Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Loved seeing Monaco license plates!
I hate to recommend NOT going to a car museum but will make an exception in this case. My favorite museum I’ve ever been to is the deutsches museum downtown. It’s like the museum of science and industry in Chicago, but seemingly with a target audience of an undergrad engineering student instead of a 7th grader’s field trip.
My favorite exhibit while I was there was one on jet engines. They had cutaways of about 50 different ones from 1940 to 1960 highlighting what each one’s innovation was and how it improved the state of the art.
I just did this, but in Frankfurt. Had a decent layover en route to Glasgow so we went and saw the old bit of town. Made it feel like another vacation.
There’s a shot in Frankenheimer‘s Ronin[1] where they cut to an aerial view of a city and water and it’s beautiful. And at the bottom of the screen it’s labeled
Nice
It is nice. The shot is just long enough for it to get awkward and then it gets funnier.
[1] Couple of my favorite car chases in this, worth a watch
David, that money thing will never really go away now that you’re (partially) responsible for other humans. Best advice to to not take more than you can on, and reduce your things to what is manageable (aka cars).
Mercedes, 10 years!!! Wow. I still recall reading that article. Enjoy your trip!
This is going to be interesting to read. We do a lot of this on the Discord server (well, I do). Glad you are all sharing. It’s certainly helps connect more with us readers.
Are there any vehicles available new that still use a fan belt?
Plenty, they use ribbed ones to maximize pleasure.
Depends how hard you need it to be driven. You can go with one big & thick one, dual, or ribbed.
If I become a member will you send me the Polybius ROM?
As a Gen-Xer, I’ve always been esp fond of an urban legend actually from my time.
David, it’s a crazy feeling when the person you love loves you back and agrees to spend their life with you. Never take each other for granted. Oh, and cut your losses on the older I3. You don’t need both I3s and $9,500 in your pocket is better than a pile of tires and a car that you don’t want in the garage.
Mercedes, it’s great that you’ve accepted who you are and I hope life is everything you want it to be.
Thomas, you summed up my own thoughts on autumn. Best time of the year.
Jason, that’s a cool hobby. I’m glad you’re still with us.
Matt, that looks yummy.
Cheers all!
David. Congrats on the engagement! Don’t freak out, it’s gonna be great! How is it possible though, that you update us on your life and leave out any update on the Jeep kitties? What the Hell, man?
Next week: a Jeep kitten update!!
I’ve mentioned this before, but I stopped writing about the kittens because one of them passed away in a way that I blame myself for. I may discuss this next week.
The remaining three are thriving, though the two who live with me are in love with my fiancee and only tolerant of me. Not sure how that happened; I love them and they only sorta-like me!
But that’s OK; Elise deserves the cat-love.
I mean, they’re cats. They like who they like, when they like, and are inscrutable to us humans.
It sounds like you are getting the hang of raising teenagers!
who feeds them?
My cats LOVE me when I share my snacks / food with them.
Remember – dogs have owners, cats have staff.
*hugs* Kitties can be fragile, so don’t blame yourself too much.
I read this and thought “he’s David, not Lennie!” but I get it now…
It’s better that way. Out of the 5 cats in my house, there is one who only comes to me for food. We respect each other.
I’m pretty sure cats are just sort of like that. Have you tried the slow-blinking thing? My neighbor’s cat (who is allowed to roam) didn’t want much to do with me until I tried that.
And your comment about the little kitten made me think of the series of Calvin & Hobbes strips that dealt with the discovery and passing of an abandoned baby raccoon…sometimes they’re just too fragile. (._. )
Tuvok and Janeway?! :’) I love it so much.
This was my thought as well. Fantastic!
David – we need a Jeep kittens update!
Congrats on your anniversaries Mercedes! Life is so much better when you are happy.
David, As someone who got sold some cars before marriage to clean up the driveway and get some cash in the bank, I think a good question to ask yourself about what to sell is “what will I do with the $XX,XXX in the bank?”
I sold a couple of cars and used the cash for a down payment on a house, so fair trade off in my mind.
If you just want the cash in the bank (I’d recommend a money market at least) for comfort, then nothing wrong with that! But what’s the vehicular ‘love’ you lose out on?
Or would you use the cash for travel, investing for future family planning, etc?
Perhaps just another way to look at how to chose which cars to keep!
Love the series!
I think the issue I face now is that when I see the opportunity costs, they aren’t just affecting me, they’re affecting others. Those $17 G’s could be put into a college fund (potentially) or into a house or retirement or vacation or any number of things.
Before, I didn’t really care. It was just me; I’d keep the car, I could sell it later, maybe I’d lose some money in the process — I was happy either way, especially since expenses were low and predictable.
But as a married man, “I love that car” doesn’t seem like a good enough reason for some of those opportunity costs. I now feel a strong urge to focus all my efforts on ensuring a prosperous life for my partner and potential dependents.
If / when you get there 18 years of 529 savings helped us make our kids college costs almost $0.
If we get grandkids we’ll be doing the same.
Additionally, you and your new wife are going to make a family (regardless of whether you decide to have kids). This is likely to force some prioritization as you will need to devote time to your relationship.
I’ve always thought your projects could use some… focus. This could be the thing that provides that for you since your time will be more limited for things that you enjoy alone.
You said:
“Did anyone else get nervous about finances before marriage? It’s not driven by anything other than just… uncertainty about what marriage/family life costs? I really have no idea, and it’s probably irrational.”
If you mean nervous about finances because of the wedding? Absolutely! Those costs will always balloon out of your control even if her family is paying most of it. It’s always crazy. As a cheap person you should know one thing about the wedding: Keep it to yourself. It is going to happen and just go with it.
As far as being nervous about the finances because of the marriage? Absolutely not! Marriage or any similar partnership where two people have the same goals and work toward them together is generally the fastest way to building a healthy life, financial and otherwise. You share expenses and all that but it’s more about lifting each other up and pushing toward those goals. Just talk about everything. Discuss every little detail you want for your lives and the two of you will figure out (almost instinctively) how to get there.
Finances will only be a problem if you keep buying extra rusty Jeeps without finishing the one you have.
Don’t worry about that part at all. You’ll find it’s the easiest thing.
Thanks for that snapshot into your lives and being willing to just belt it. Also if you ever do an Acapella group that sings about nothing but cars, then the Fanbelts is a good name.
A+ on the name for this series. Well done 🙂