Frieze - The Frieze and The Freeze

With projects that take longer than I originally planned I usually get to a point where I feel as though they're never going to get finished. I'm there right now with this work bench expansion/Yankee Stadium Frieze project. The good news is that the new 'bench looks fantastic.

The plan here is to expand the original work bench, add an additional work bench the same size as the expanded "old" bench and add shelving under the entire structure. I plan to paint the whole thing (undecided on the color scheme) and finally, to finish it off, add a Yankee Stadium inspired Frieze at the top of the whole thing.

 

Time goes by so fast. After spending an entire weekend expanding the existing the bench and framing out the new one and the shelving, I thought I had maybe one more weekend of work on it to get it finshed. Yeah. Well, the next weekend I had to go to Memphis on business so I lost that weekend. Last Saturday I lost the day because it was freezing cold outside and only slightly warmer inside the garage. Forget that. The Frieze has to wait til the Freeze passes.

This past Sunday I had maybe 2 hours to work on it when it was a little warmer. I got the shelving under the new side of the bench reenforced. That was it.

 



This week has been a sweet old tease. It's been 55 to 60 degrees all week so far. Just in time for the weekend we're expecting a good old fashioned blast of mid January Fury 'd Mother Nature. Great. If I'm going to get anything done out here this weekend it'll have to be done with me looking more like the Michelin man than a hack weekend carpenter.

 

 

I'm getting there, though. The original structure above as become the beast below.
 

 

Time marches on. So does the cold. It's been a pretty intense winter so far.

Cadillac Ranch

Well there she sits buddy just a-gleaming in the sun 

Eldorado fins, whitewalls and skirts

 

Rides just like a little bit of heaven here on earth

  

Cadillac, Cadillac
Long and dark shiny and black  

Open up your engines let `em roar
Tearing up the highway like a big old dinosaur

 When I die throw my body in the back
And drive me to the junkyard in my Cadillac

You're my last love you're my last chance
Don't let `em take me to the Cadillac Ranch

Ford Ranch Wagon - The Company Car



When the mechanic at Stu's Gulf gave the diagnosis that the Rambler had a cracked block, he gave my father two options. He'd either replace the engine at considerable cost or he'd take the car off his hands for $150. Sitting next to my father in the greasy office of that long gone service station at the corner of Merrick Road and Silver Lake Lane back in Baldwin, I could hardly contain my excitement when my father said he'd take the money.

Despite a push button transmission, I was never impressed with the gray on red, 1961 Rambler "Classic" that was the Connolly family ride when I was very young. When you grow up on a block loaded with automotive talent from Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Lincoln, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Ford and Plymouth "The Rambler" seemed woefully if not painfully inadequate.

What's more, back then my father was an executive for Burlington Industries. At least once a month if not more it seemed, he'd fly to North Carolina for several days and return home in a "company car". It was a rental from Hertz but since "the company" was paying for it that's what we called those cars. For the most part he came home in something that was much more interesting to me than the Rambler. From time to time though he would bring home some clunker like a station wagon or little foreign job. One of those "little foreign jobs" was a 1973 era Mercury Capri btw. I hated it at first because my father, who was a big man, hated it. What did I know. This is a story for another time.

 

With the Rambler finally gone I was giddy with anticipation as to what we'd get. How exciting it would be go car shopping! Would we get that amazing Impala Sports Coupe he had brought home not so long ago? Perhaps that gigantic and magical Fury convertible he brought home in the middle of winter! Oh, sweet joy, the sky was the limit!

 

Our Ranch Wagon looked EXACTLY like this except ours had blue rims not black and did not have whitewalls.

 

So, when a blue '68 Ford Ranch Wagon showed up one day I simply shrugged my shoulders that it was one of the clunkers he'd get every now and then from Hertz. You can only imagine the crushing disappointment I felt when I found out it was in fact our new family truckster.

 

I found this quickie shot of a '68 Ranch Wagon from an epsiode of Kojak. Who loves ya, baby. Note roof rack, chrome rub strip, black rims and whitewalls. This is probably a Ranch Wagon 500. We had the bone stripper Ranch Wagon.  

Turned out my father was such a fan of Hertz' rentals that he bought one they had for sale. It was the company car that came to visit and stayed for a long, long time.

Forty plus years later I'm still reeling from it.

Frieze Update! - Work Bench Expansion

 

The Frieze project rolls on. Albeit slowly. This past weekend, with the considerable help of my delightful younger son, I made significant progress towards starting on it.

To review, my plan is to construct a Yankee Stadium inspired Frieze (pronounced "freeze") at the top of my work bench. A ridiculously frivolous project. Exactly why I want to do it.

First things first. Updating our master bathroom not to mention finishing a stoop and shelf in the garage has taken most of the winter so far. And then there's the way over due expansion of the work bench itself. All this I deemed had to be done before I dove into something frivolous.

 

 

The expansion of the work was three fold. First, I wanted to expand the original bench. Secondly, I wanted to add to the existing structure by adding another section that was as large as that original and finally, add a parallel shelf under both sections for much needed storage.

 

I think I enjoy planning and engineering these projects more than actually doing them.

 

So, this...

 

 

 

Has become this.

I'm pretty happy with it. There's re enforcing to be done, electrical and paint. Then perhaps I can start on the Frieze. My plan is to have it done by Opening Day. Play Ball!

 

1986 Buick Park Avenue - To Know Me Is To Love Me

I'm not an advocate of taking pictures while driving but this one was too good to pass up. Trust me when I tell you that I just picked up my trusty Blackberry and snapped away hoping that something usable would come of it. Eureka!

 

It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to each his own and love is blind. So true. Case in point. A 1986, creme colored, Buick Park Avenue. I didn't even like these cars at first but I fell in love with them because they were just so darn good.
 

 

I remember lamenting GM's switch to front wheel on their full size cars like it was yesterday. I was actually saddened by it. Really. I like my cars big, rear wheel driven and powered by a mighty, carbureted, V-8 engine like the brute above. Or so I thought.

 

 

These cars though, with the exception of Cadillac's awful version with a V-8, where small (relatively), front wheel driven and were powered by a V-6. Ugh. Drive one and your perception changes immediately. Snappy engines, great handling from rack and pinion steering, superb brakes. Suddently, the big, rear drive, V-8 cars became, "old school". The styling kinda grew on me too although the sedans were never "handsome" in my opinion. I preferred the much rarer 2 door versions.

 

  

My Dad had this very similar Buick LeSabre that sadly, met the rear end of a Jeep Wrangler outside the Queens mid town tunnel. The trim and equipment level might be a tad plusher on the Park Avenue and the wheel base a bit longer but underneath where it counts the cars are identical.

 

  

You don't see many 27 year old cars running around these days as daily drivers. Especially here in North East Ohio where many of them no doubt have succumbed to rust. This lovely Park has a little rusht but nothing that doesn't make it even more interesting.

Slow, down will ya? I need another picture!

 

2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo - Of Cars and Dogs

 

One Sunday long ago our delightful family dog, a Scottish Terrier I called Fred and my mother called Lassie, wandered into the dining room while we were having Sunday dinner. He sat down near my father, his tail wagging and with that that heart warming beam in his eye that I adored.

 

 

He then threw up all over our black and white linoleum tile floor. "Ah geez chrise...," my father bellowed, "now what??".

 

I bought my 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, going on three years ago, as a way to try and stem the bleeding of green that comes with a owning, operating and maintaining an automobile. It was, at the time, a fairly pricey proposition with the hopes that I would "save money". Ten Grand was a lot of   money for an 8 year old used car; albeit one with only 14,000 miles on it. An older car with low miles for well less than half of what a decent new car would cost? Sign me up.

Speed bump. No bank would loan me what the dealership wanted for a car that old. If they were going to finance any part of it they wanted a large down payment first and the loan they would give me had  an APR that was ridiculously high. Hrmph. So, the wife and I made a withdrawal from the Good Bank of Connolly and paid ourselves back with diligent, aggressive monthly payments. Now, if a tree fell on the old girl or I wrecked it, I'd get perhaps half of what I paid for the car since "The Book" on the car was significantly less on it than I paid for it. Risky. But what the heck. I went for it.

 

 

So far, so good. "The Dale", as silly as I think the decals on the car are, has been a model of rock solid reliability. Well, for the most part.

 

Fred was a great dog, so much fun. I used to play football with him in our small yard back on Long Island where he was both the ball and the opposing team. Don't ask. He was also ferociously loyal to myself and my family and he was tough as nails too. So, when "little things" like his letting go at Sunday dinner happened we got him right to the vet to get him checked out. When the vet came back with only, "how old is he?", we realized that it was "the beginning of the end". Indeed, Fred was getting older. That was that. I think it was less than a year later that he passed away.

 

 

There are inherent risks with driving a car that is pushing 12 years in age (it was built in July of 2001) as a daily driver. Regardless of how gently it's been driven throughout its life or how low the mileage is. Cars today are spectacularly complicated beasts and when they start acting up, it's a sign that it's "the beginning of the end".

 

For example, on the way to the office last week the radio stopped playing and a pleasant, female computer voice popped on the speakers in the car asking me if I wanted to make a phone call. Heh? The car has a primitive cell phone system that was the all the rage back in 2001. Problem is, I didn't press any button prompting the car to ask me if I wanted to make a call. It proceeded to ask me the same question every thirty seconds until I got to the office. No, turning the radio off didn't solve the problem.

 

That said, a couple of weeks ago "The Dale" was as dead as a door nail in the parking lot of a JC Penny near where we live leaving my son and I stranded. Much like Fred letting go, there was not a hint of a sign of a problem what so ever beforehand. I called the wife to come give me a jump from our trusty, aging as well, 2006 Tahoe. No sooner did she pull up beside me that I was able to turn "The Dale" over.

This is on top of the myriad "idiot lights" that won't go off every now and then on the dash board. Some blinking sentinel is always telling me that a seat belt is unbuckled or tire is about to explode from a lack of pressure. It's the car that cries wolf. Constantly.

"Ah geez chrise...," I bellow, "now what??". 

 

I took "The Dale" to our mechanic had them take a look at it. The only thing they said to me was, "how old is the car?"