Automotive Archeology

After climbing around this truck, most sensible people would probably need a tetanus shot. The only thing I have been infected with is inspiration. Inspiration of this nature is a close cousin to delusion, but for me this truck is beautiful.

When I was in high school, my first vehicle was a 1968 Fargo short box fleet side truck that was built by Tyler Higgins and his dad in Cardston. I bought it when I was in grade 12 from Central Service where it had been traded in. I loved that truck. It had a 383 big block and a ratchet shifted automatic. It was all engine and had crappy brakes. I sold it when I went on my mission to Randy Blackmore, but bought it back after Kathy and I got married. I sold it for the last time when we lived in Olds, because I was a starving student and needed the money.

I don't know where that truck is now, but have always wanted another short box Sweptline (as Dodge named this bodystyle) truck. I acquired this one in a trade for my Fury convertible. Not straight across, mind you. I also have the 2001 Chevy Silverado in the upper photo. That will be my practical, fuel efficient, kid friendly daily driver.

I am really excited about the Dodge. It has been sitting since the early 70's and has been used to store items in, on and around as is evident by the photo. The truck has 56,000 miles, a 225 slant six backed by a 4 speed and is rust free. Dodges of that vintage were prone to alot of rust in the doors and rocker panels, so finding one in this condition is rare. All the pieces are there. The truck was hit in the front end and parked. There is a new rad support and fenders that aren't shown which are also really straight.

My first task is to extricate it from its resting place, which includes cutting down a tree and moving a bunch of parts, but I love doing stuff like this.

I will keep the slant six, but would eventually like to put a four barrel manifold on it with headers and cherry bomb mufflers. Slant sixes have always got really good fuel mileage, but are a cool engine to build as a performance platform.

I have also included a picture of what the 67's look like when they are done.

I have to be to work early tomorrow, so I need to go to bed...

Josh Broadhead- Motivational Speaker

I have been working really hard on eating well and exercising over the past month and struggle sometimes with discouragement. Despite the assurances from Clayton (my life coach/nurse in charge of my health program), I want to lose weight faster than is possible. I get impatient, to put it bluntly. I can motivate myself quite easily to keep going and not give up. The reason for that is the misery and worry involved with being overweight feels worse than the temporary discouragement when I can't see the results I want when I want them.

I was getting Josh dressed this morning and had him laying in front of me on the bed so I could get his pants on him. As he was laying there he pressed his feet into my stomach and told me that I have a big belly and that I am going to explode. That really made me laugh. I have been smiling about that for most of the day since. I really hope I don't explode, especially in front of him.

The only person I have ever seen explode is on Monty Python, which is where the above photo hails from. "Just one wafer thin mint!"

I think the best ways I can survive worry and discouragement is with my sense of humor and by just enjoying the ride. I have a really funny and wonderful family that make me laugh all the time. Josh is 4 and calls things as he sees them.

All I can do is be consistent with my exercise and eating habits and the results will come.

Good night...

Montana

This is a shot of my 1962 Plymouth Fury convertible where I found it last year. It is a rare car. It is one of about 1500 made that year. It is a Sport Fury with a 361 big block engine and a push button automatic transmission. I got it running, did some suspension and drive line work and had a lot of fun driving it around last summer.

The car is a good runner, but needs a total restoration. I don't have the time or the resources to do that, so I am trading the car to Steve Celar in Helena, Montana. I am getting a 2001 extended cab Chevrolet truck that is in really nice shape. I am sad to get rid of the car, as I am sure I will never run across another one again. Steve runs a body shop and is a hard core hot rodder, so I know the car is going to a good home. It still really sucks though.

I really enjoy going to Montana. The scenery on the way down to Helena is one of my favorite things to see. I would like to take some more time to explore some of the old mining towns down there. What I love the most is looking at old cars. Steve Celar and Kurt Rose are two friends of mine down in Helena that have amassed an amazing collection of old cars. The cool thing about Montana is that no one throws any old vehicles away, so they are to be found almost anywhere.

I went with my friend Craig to a Wal-Mart in Helena looking for Cherry Coke Zero, that can't be found in Canada. I had never travelled with 22 cases of pop, but I did today. I know that I am not a fashion model, but I am positive that the beautiful people of the world weren't gathering at that Wal-Mart yesterday. I feel bad saying this, but if I was 30 years younger I would have been terrified to the point of crying at the people I saw. I have watched a lot of "Night of the Living Dead" type movies in my life, and wondered if perhaps Craig and I were the only ones shopping there who weren't one of the undead. Luckily there were enough values to be had so the people we saw didn't try to eat our brains.

I know I am shallow and judgemental, but I spent a few minutes during my people watching honestly wondering if one man in front of me was an albino or not. The next time I start feeling down on myself and doubting my looks, all I have to do is remember the Helena Wal-Mart.

I am a sinner, I need the Lord...

Hawaii

I can freely admit that I am obsessed with going back to Hawaii. So much so that I dream about returning or being there at least twice a week. I do find it somewhat unsettling at times, but I guess I have been desperate to recapture the feeling of being absolutely stress free and truly at peace.

For me there was more than just the beautiful scenery and cool snorkeling. The reason we went was to see my Dad perform songs he had performed in Samoa as a missionary. When he was in Samoa he travelled with three other missionaries around the islands performing songs they had written, as well as other traditional favorites. Dad toured with them until he became extremely ill and couldn't continue. He was replaced by another elder until the tour was finished.

The surviving members of the group had planned some concerts around Oahu that was attended by members of the Samoan community living in Hawaii. I was lucky enough to go to 2 shows while we were there. It was amazing to see my Dad singing in Samoan and even more amazing to see how the Samoans reacted to the songs. One song Dad had a hand in writing is entitled Masi Samoa, which is still very popular in Samoa 45 years later.

Dad had always taught me about how wonderful and kind the Samoan people are. My first missionary companion was a Samoan elder named Fagatoele Seumanutusa. He had great faith that seemed almost second nature to him, and was a good example to me. Before that I became friends in the MTC with a couple of Samoan elders I met and had the experience of playing volleyball with them. I learned NEVER to try and return a spiked ball by trying to set the ball with my fingers in front of my face. The ball blasted through my fingers and changed direction only after flattening my nose and lips. They are powerful and strong people. I also have learned never to make them angry.

When I went to the first concert Dad and the other Eldares ( as they called themselves) were setting up for the show. I was sitting by the wives of two men in the group that I didn't know very well. I felt alone, as Kathy didn't come because she felt ill, and it was odd to feel that way.
It didn't last very long until a man named Tua came over and sat beside me. He took care of me the rest of the night and made sure I wasn't by myself. He showed me a book from Dad's mission, and best of all kept giving me different Samoan desserts to try when the show was over. He introduced me to his wife Rocketi. She is named that because she was born during one of the Apollo moon landings. Kathy and I saw him at one of the swimming lagoons at the Ko Olina resort a couple of days later with his family. I was able to introduce her to them. What floored me is that after we left to come home he gave Dad a bunch of gifts to give our family. He wrote a really nice note and called me his "Canadian brother". What is amazing is that I can still feel a real bond with him.

We were able to go to a Samoan ward to church on the Sunday we were there. It still remains one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. The Samoans hold missionaries in very high regard. We were given leis when we got there and were given the chance to speak. One of my favorite things is to hear them sing. They sing loud and in all four parts. I couldn't understand a word they were singing, but I could sure feel it. I was able to speak for a couple of minutes and greeted them with "Talofa, brothers and sisters". Talofa means hello. It is tradition for the congregation to repeat "Talofa" back. When I heard that I couldn't speak for a while. I had always wanted to hear that, as my Dad had described it when I was young.

When the meeting was over, the congregation stood and all came to the stand to give us a hug and to thank us for being there. I was overwhelmed by their kindness and still am. I didn't want to leave the church that day and didn't want to leave Hawaii because I loved the feeling of being with the Samoan people. It may sound cliche', but that experience changed me forever. I hope that at some time in this life or the next that I can work with them as a missionary in Samoa or wherever else.

Being with them felt as much like being in heaven as I can imagine. If I make it there, I hope they put me with the Samoans. I'm sure the food and music will be really good.

Goodnight...

Sleep?

It is 2:10 a.m. and I just got finished on the treadmill. I should probably go to bed, but am sitting here listening to Ozzy Osbourne on my I-pod. Ozzy will probably rot my brain, but it is part of my cool down after my work out.

I promised myself I wasn't going to miss a day on the treadmill. I really look forward to this now. There are things that happen most every day that I can't make sense of, but I have really been able to face and defeat the anger and anxiety of the day while working out.

Just so you know, the guitar solo in Ozzy's " No more tears" song is one of the best I've ever heard.

Just being active has awakened my goal setting ability. I really miss playing the drums regularly. I used to be really good at it when I was younger and want to get another drum set and knock the rust off. I also want to learn how to play the guitar and the piano.

I also want to get a really good sketch pad and some sharp pencils. I can now trust myself not to jam them into my face. I have mastered not running with scissors as well. I used to draw almost every day and miss that creative outlet. Finding the most disturbing pictures I can find on the internet and posting them as my Facebook profile picture has been and is fun, but I need to do more creative things.

Welding and fabricating things out of metal at work is something I love doing. That is why restoring old cars is so fun for me. In the 50's and 60's cars had so much style. I love looking at what some may consider a worthless piece of junk and making it cool. I have an idea of what I want it to look like and then plan the drive train, suspension and body work accordingly. I have plans to restore my 1954 Dodge panel truck that I hope to begin shortly. I have a Dodge Aspen station wagon in the back yard that will provide the suspension and drive train. I should be able to get it moving under its own power, for the most part, with parts and components that I already own. I've never built a low rider before, but my panel truck will be. The interior is still up in the air, but I would like to go with a Hawaiian theme inside, if I can pull it off.

I have a goal to drive that truck as far south on the Florida Keys as I possibly can, jump in the water for a while then turn around and drive home.

I have owned my 1962 Plymouth Fury convertible for almost a year. That is one cool car, but I need to part with it soon. I got it running and clamped on a pair of Cherry Bomb mufflers and have been having a blast driving it around. The kids and I took it in the Stirling parade last year and won a second place ribbon. There were two of us with classic vehicles. I lost to a 1937 Studebaker pick up truck. It is a beautiful truck, so I was happy to concede defeat. It really surprised me how people react to that car. There were only 1300 or so made that year, so it is really rare.

I really need to go to bed now...

"T" and Fergus

This is a shot of T and Fergus which was taken last fall after bringing Fergus home. We've had T for over a year now. He is a Chow and Labrador cross that we got from our former neighbor. He is a really good dog. Before we built the fence last summer, he got out and became intimately acquainted with our neighbors Akita dog. Fergus is a consequence of T's actions and is his son.

Our daughter Katie learned an awful, yet unforgettable, lesson on reproduction the day Fergus was conceived. She chased T over to Davisons to bring him home. She had to separate the lovebirds, so to speak. She hasn't spoken much about it since, and I don't blame her. At any rate, we now have two dogs and they are really fun to have around. Fergus is as big as T now and may surpass him in size.

I have always enjoyed having animals around and have loved spending time with them since I was young. When I am playing with the dogs, I feel just as happy as I did when I was little. Most of my youth was spent on an acreage in Leavitt. We always had a dog around and a whole mess of cats. There is a picture of me somewhere that was taken when I was about 11. I am wearing some camouflage pants, a bright blue BYU Fun Festa shirt and a really sappy smile that was aimed at our cat, Kitty.

Kitty was rather old by that time and was a bit of a floosie. She was missing most of her front teeth, but that didn't seem to bother any tom cats that happened by. As a result, there was always a new batch of kittens to love, play with, and grow attached to. There was a time there where some of the older kittens were still around, which muddied the gene pool something awful. To avoid being too graphic, Kitty's family tree didn't branch too cleanly, if at all. Before the pride was thinned, we had some distinct "special needs" kittens stumbling around.

Whenever I would enter the barn, I remember one kitten running to greet me. It ran well, but didn't have the greatest sense of balance. It would always veer to one side as it ran. There was never much of a gleam in its eyes when you could get it to focus on you. One side effect of the shallow gene pool was a rather high mortality rate. That was rather disturbing, but was fairly frequent.

My sister Karen had a favorite cat she had named Scratch. Scratch went missing one winter and we looked everywhere for her. One of our passtimes was to go walking on the gravel road out in front of our yard. It was cold that day and we were playing on the smooth sheet of ice that filled one rut. When we cleaned the snow off the ice, that is when we found poor Scratch. She had met her end trying to cross the road and was now flat and very much two dimensional under the sheet of ice. Nature had created a rather morbid piece of art for us to discover. I have started writing a song called " Flat Scratch Fever" but haven't finished it, mostly out of respect to my sister, who, like me, still bears the scars of more graphic and traumatizing pet demise experiences that I won't relate here.

Anyway, time goes on and Karen and I both have healthy, living pets to help erase the trauma of the past.

Is that spandex?

Something happened yesterday that I never thought would ever occur. I bought some spandex running shorts. What is different from me and some other husky spandex wearers is that I have actually used them for exercising.

I apologize if there is an unpleasant mental image associated with this story, but please try to cope with it.

I have never worn spandex before and I can safely say that this will be my only foray into the world of slippery fashion. If I can ever run fast enough to where wind resistance becomes enough of an issue, I may have to soften my stance and go with a full body suit. For now, they shall remain hidden under my sweat shorts as I trundle my way to fitness.

I am quite proud of myself. On most Easter holidays and special occasions I can be found devouring whatever treats I can find. I behaved myself this weekend and walked a total of 5 miles on the treadmill at the hotel yesterday. I walked 3 miles on Friday, and I am really enjoying being active.

I had a great time with the family and really enjoyed playing with the kids in the pool. Being in my swimming suit in front of people still bothers me, but I did it anyway.

We brought my mom with us to Great Falls this weekend. Scott had to fly out to Tulsa to visit his dad, so we took the chance to have a bit of a holiday. I have been really trying not to take my Mom for granted. She is really fun to be around and I enjoyed spending time with her. We've had some good talks lately and she is a great example to me.

Josh is hounding me to get off the computer, so I had better listen to him or face the wrath...

Are you our teacher, you big fat man?

I thought I should jot down a few notes about what has motivated me to become healthy. It's been a lot more realistic to start and stick with my goal since I've got my depression under control.
I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. The fruits of this have been, and not limited to, low self image and low self esteem, which have fueled my depression until just recently.
I've had some rather harrowing doses of reality lately regarding my health and what would happen to me if I didn't do something about it. Most have come from the health professionals that I've been working with, but others have come through most of my life. I will talk about the professionals first.

I have been meeting with Clayton Witbeck at the Raymond clinic and am part of his health program there. In addition to measuring weight, he measures body fat percentage, total body mass, water weight, etc.

When I first started, we were talking about obesity, and my fat percentage was only a few points below what is considered "morbid obesity". That was and is really embarrassing. All I could think of to say was to ask if there was any type of obesity club card that I qualified for. It would hopefully be good for a few dollars off a motorized cart or to get a free box of Twinkies, while I could still bear my own weight.

There would be nothing more flattering than having to remove the wall of my bedroom and hoist me from the house with a fork lift and flat bed truck to go to the doctor, or a fat farm, as I watched in a documentary. This happened to the gentleman being featured in the show. He told all about the day he was cooking breakfast and could no longer walk. They followed him on his journey via flat bed truck, covered in a sheet, into the fat farm and through his struggles with his weight. His wife was an enabler of the worst kind, as one scene showed the nurses discovering his stash of Little Debbie's snack cakes and potato chips his wife had brought him. I watched for a while and turned the channel, hoping that when I next checked in it would have been a happy ending. Not so! He had passed away and they were just discussing the difficulty of cremating him when I stopped watching.

That is a rather drastic and unrealistic comparison to my situation, but it is the sum of every fear I've had about what could happen. Luckily I am now losing weight and exercising, so this fear is diminishing. I have had to write down and be accountable for what I eat and am making healthier food choices.

One thing I find odd is that in an era of supposed political correctness, that fat people have earned an exemption, in that every jack ass on the planet can and will comment on their weight.
I'm not sure what power is given them by exercising their command of the obvious, but they do it with great effort.

I ran into a former coworker while I was getting some stuff for our renovations. He leaned right into the window of my car, quite sure that I still wanted to hear what he was up to. I was staring into his mouth at all the recently vacated tooth sockets and wondering where his teeth had gone. I wondered that to myself, but probably should have done that aloud, as he then told me that I had gained a lot of weight. I have a problem with close talkers, with or without teeth, and felt like rolling up the window and pinning his head in it, but his subsequent screaming and cursing would have opened his mouth a lot farther and closer to me than I wanted to see.

The title of this post is in reference to the earnest question of a young primary girl when Kathy asked me to sub in primary at the last minute when we lived in Olds. That was really quite funny. I gave her class the greatest lesson on new swear words and the benefits of smoking.
Not really, but I felt like it.

If it sounds like I am bitter, I am. But it is helping to motivate me, especially when I am on the treadmill. I think of any smart ass comment about my weight that I can remember and I get angry. I use that anger to push myself farther and faster. By the time I am finished, the anger and tension from the day are gone. It has been really therapeutic.

I am feeling and starting to see a difference. That is really exciting. I have set a date to reach my goal on my birthday of this year. To reward myself, I want to get certified as a scuba diver and go on an offshore boat dive on my birthday in Hawaii. Whenever I get discouraged, I think of how fun that will be.

Good night. That is enough ranting for now...

Jason

Flat cat

This happened a while ago, but is still worth mentioning...

My wife Kathy was doing some laundry and had a large pile of clothes in the hall that we needed to take downstairs. I probably should have taken the laundry downstairs when I saw it, but I decided to walk over the pile and go somewhere else.

I stepped on what felt like a warm, soft towel. I am quite confident it was bearing my full weight when I looked down and realized it wasn't a towel at all. I had pinned our cat Mittz to the floor.
There was no sound, as I am sure there was no air left in his lungs. I also don't remember feeling any of his ribs when I stepped on him. All of that stuff had to have been displaced somewhere, but he immediately got up with no ill effects. I checked him over, and was quite astounded that everything was still intact and that the only body parts I had to stuff back in were his eyes.
Gentle, but firm, pressure with the moistened eraser on a pencil were all it took to pop them back in.

I am lying about his eyes. There really was nothing wrong with him.

I wish I could say that was the only run in I've had with cats, but it isn't. ALWAYS check before you sit down on the couch. I didn't, and only knew I was sitting on the cat when I could feel his limbs quiver beneath my buttocks. Poor cat...

Welcome to my blog

I have had this blog for a while but have never used it. Since it is my blog, the rules I follow will be my own. I enjoy ambling through life at a relaxed pace, so my blog will be much the same way.

I am a rather cerebral person and quite self aware. I look forward to just being myself. I have a rather warped sense of humor that helps shape my view of life, but I enjoy looking at life from where I stand. Recently I feel more anchored and comfortable with being me. Having self confidence is something relatively new, but I really enjoy having it. Some may take that for granted, but it is something I have worked at all my life.

I have made mention on Facebook of being my own latest restoration project. I have been working really hard at changing how I treat myself and others. I have battled depression for longer than I have realized. That is a work in progress, as everything else is, but I have had a lot of success and growth along the way. I also have started eating better and exercising regularly. I am really excited about that and am enjoying the energy it gives me.

I hope to post things fairly regularly, so feel free to stop by...

Jason