My Jeep has been a DD or “Daily Driver” and the price of gas was starting to wear on me. I came to the conclusion that I had to get a “commuter” to ease up on the gas consumption. I knew I didn’t want to spend that much and wasn’t in a hurry to buy anything, but when I went to pick up the tag for the BMW, my friend said, “You still looking for  a commuter?” of course I said, “Yeah, what’ya got?”. I took the keys and drove the Miata and it was in really good shape for 16 year old car. I took it home that afternoon. [singlepic id=103 w=320 h=240 float=right]I found out really quick that the little car is REALLY fun to drive, like riding in a go-kart! I took it up Brushy and the fun factor went up even more, not to mention I was getting 320 miles to a tank of gas (about 10.5 gallons). I added a “Style Bar” to stiffen up the frame and cut down on the “cuteness” of  the car and I made a windblocker for it as well.  The windblocker makes a HUGE difference at speed w/ the top down. The girls can ride in the car and their hair not get blown around. I have lots of ideas on suspension upgrades, tires, etc. (Like I need another project vehicle)

Wow! I woke up this afternoon about 1346 hrs (I work nights) and the whole house was moving! No drugs were involved, I wasn’t dreaming, it was moving. It was a little disconcerting for sure. My daughter came home from work and said, “Dad, there was an earthquake!” and I assured her it was just a tremor, but she then filled me in on the details about the 5.8 earthquake in Virginia that was felt from New Hampshire down to Atlanta. What a way to start your day!

I worked on the photo gallery today in anticipation of posting up pics on the trip. Things I need to finish up on the Jeep before we leave are: front and rear differential gear oil change, engine oil and filter change, tire rotation, check all other fluids and lube anything remotely resembling a grease zerk, and last but not least, fill it up with gas.

I have to work tonight, so that means [singlepic id=6 w=320 h=240 float=right] I stay up the night before, so I can sleep during the day. Its hard to stay occupied from 0100 hrs to 0500 hrs, so I end up on the computer playing games or messing around with Paint Shop Pro. Here is an example of where I found a cute shot of the girls when they were younger and got creative. They are gonna kill me when they see this.

So I was revamping my site in anticipation of mine and Andie’s trip to Colorado (more on that later) and I had a pretty good idea: Why not make my site for the whole family? All my brothers and sisters and their families? We could have one place to catch up on all the family stuff without dealing with facebook (yuck!!!) or email lists or other headaches of the modern age. Just one headache, this site.