Those of you who have been to performances at the Auburn Performing Arts Center (PAC) might remember that through this tunnel used to be the PAC parking lot during events and student parking during the day. It's now a full-on construction site.
These are the tennis courts that used to border the PAC parking lot. There is equipment everywhere and the forms for the new foundations are stacked neatly awaiting their future tasks. Along with these tennis courts go the memory of the students inside the tennis courts taunting the PE teacher outside the tennis courts. The PE teacher was too large to fit through the court gates to get at the taunting students where they knew they were safe. Ah the nostalgic past!
And these are the baseball fields that many a student has nicked across to find freedom from an assembly or a class.
Here is a view of the construction, err...destruction of the high school from Main Street. You will notice the brick doctor's house is gone along with the senior parking lot and tennis courts.
This is the "neighborhood" that was on 3rd Street behind the pool. The large building on the left is my Auto Shop. The construction workers just love it when I pop my head out the back door to check on their progress. I must also mention that the compacting machine has made my life miserable for the past week shaking the building, rattling thing off the walls and making me motion sick to the point of taking Dramamine to keep from being totally motion sick. Is putting up with motion sickness for several days part of the "Other duties as assigned" clause in my job description?
The weather was great today so we dusted off the convertible and went to town to shop for a car color. Although we have chosen the color to paint the XKE, we still haven't found the correct shade. Once we found the correct shade, we haven't been able to find one with the correct amount of metallic in said shade. The convertible looks great for having been in the garage for a while.
When we stopped at the Volkswagen dealer to look at their colors, I saw this Bug all shrink wrapped up. It looked so cute in it's snug little outfit. It must have been very cozy on it's cold ocean voyage to get here.
Our culinary arts instructor, Chef Marcie, has been out of school for some time while being treated for a rare lung cancer. To celebrate the half-way point of her treatment, we were given hearts to decorate and these hearts, with everyone's well-wishes will be hung in front of her house to spur her on to the home stretch. I sewed Marcie's name and some lace on the one I did. No "Get Well Soon" from me. Nope. Nothing but the strangeness of sewing on paper from me. Good Luck, Marcie.
Nitro enjoyed the sun today too. He basked in his catio all morning and after a shadow fell on his catio, he followed the sun from window sill to window sill as it moved around the house. If you ever get cold, find the cat. It'll be in the warmest place in the house. Guaranteed.
This morning Bob and I went to PGP Motorsports Park at Pacific Raceways and took a few turns in go-karts. They got new go-karts this winter and they are zippy, fast, and more stable than their others so it made for a fun ride. After an activity like this I feel like we should have gone to lunch or something, but since we are only on the track for 15 minutes and, including paperwork and finding a helmet, we were home in half an hour.
A selfie (Grampa vocabulary: self-portrait) of us in our helmets after the big race. It's my first selfie and it turned out pretty good considering we have huge helmets on!
This afternoon we loaded up the convertible with a 10' canopy, chairs, and avocado deviled eggs to go to Chelsea and Richard's for their first event at their new house in Bonney Lake.
All sides of the family came from all directions. Richard's family even came from Idaho! Since Chelsea was born to be a planner, an event like this is no exception. No detail of a project escapes Chelsea's sharpened pencil, so she ordered a beautiful sunny day and she even got Mt. Rainier to come out! We sat around Chelsea and Richard's yard and baked in the sun and ate. Then baked, ate, repeated.
Bob spends his evening researching painting and restoration. Part of this includes finding the necessary materials at the best prices. The results of his last order ended in my having a sore toe since I didn't know it was a 3,500,900 pound box and tried to kick it into the house when I came home from work and found it on our porch. This is what $800 worth of paint prep supplies looks like...and that's not even the paint!
Our first attempt of mounting the bonnet on stands so Bob can work on it more comfortably. Fail. We ended up putting the nose on the sawhorse so the bonnet was more level.
Here's a shot across the bow. You can see how rough the metal is. The body filler shows in all the little dents that were put into the nose during a reverse-rear ending repair many years ago.
Another shot of the nose showing the dents and divots of life. The first dent removal years ago caused more damage to the nose of the car more than the accident did.
Here's a close up of the nose. The brown spots were where the paint had been bubbling on the nose of the car.
As you can see, the passenger door has quite a bit of body filler on it.
The driver's door appears to have had a much easier life than the passenger door. Bob stuck the cardboard in the window to protect the glass while he sanded around the chrome holder-oner thingys.
Here's a close-up of the work Bob has done around the chrome holder-oner thingys.
The hood in front of the windshield where the window wipers and squirters go made for a nice challenge. But it finally succumbed and now it's nice and shiny too.
Bob wanted to tidy up the towing plate on the back of the Jag so he built spacers a cover for it and bent the cover under the jag to give the back end and finished look. This way it retained it's ability to tow and looks cosmetically attractive.
This is the green turtle shell you saw earlier, except it's on the bottom where it belongs. Well, where it belongs if you are the car, not if it were a turtle. He'd be in a real fix if it were a turtle. Bob worked really hard to get the "mouth" even all the way around. It was not this nice oval shape when he started.
A detail photo of one of the headlights all stripped and ready for the fine work to be done before painting.
Bob got all the fine stripping done as well. Looks nice. Looks like a DeLoreoJag with that stainless steel look.
The dreaded louvers have been left for last. Better get to 'em.
Bob with his bottomless patience stripped all the little louvers. I'd just Bondo them over and have two lumps on the hood. I don't have the patience or that kind of detail work.
These chrome pieces are being sent to the chromer's to get shined up. After we ship them to California, they will probably travel across the border to Mexico where there are less EPA and labor restrictions and it's ok for children to do the work the dump the residue into the local drinking water. We should have them back in a couple of weeks.
See you all next week!
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