83 bags of concrete later...

I should have hired a concrete mixer.

Instead, I just called up Mr. Patrick Hutton, and five hours later I now have a concrete driveway upon which to lay my Cougar.

Technically, we only did 51 bags today; the other 32 were used for the side room (where the fan is sitting). But 51 x 80lb bags is like literally two tons worth of mixing, dumping, and spreading. No wonder my back hurts.


Remember the Cougar? I'm sure you guys do. I found it buried under a mountain of crap my dad had stacked atop it. So I pushed it out, called up Pat, and together we realized a dream I have had as long as I've had my gentleman's muscle car.

You guys might not be too excited about this, but I am. Not only do I have a driveway, but the framework for my room is finally starting to take shape.

This might actually happen sooner than I thought.

Make no mistake, I have a long, long way to go. Even when my room is finished, the garage still needs a whole lot more organization, the yard is a mess, my father's shed is held up only by the sheer amount of stuff piled within. So yes, I have plenty left to keep me busy. But I think I will celebrate by conquering Prussia. I already had way too much to drink this week (just ask Pat and his cousin Kevin).

Maybe I'll find more time for this blog too.

Progress?

I just want to preface this post by saying I love my dad.

But I hate the Cavern of Crap that has become my basement.

Five or six years ago, we filled an industrial-size dumpster with all sorts of garbage he mostly brought home from the dump. My dad just can't pass up anything free that might, some day, some where, be useful, or usable. We may have actually thrown away some cool shit back in "the day". But now, most of it is just filler, and there isn't enough room to do more than move things around at this point.

So don't believe this picture that makes it look like I accomplished something today. It looks nice, but it is all lies.

I just moved some things around, organized a little, and vacuumed up one of many layers of sawdust that I'm sure will reappear tomorrow.

It always does.

I spent most of the day writing and driving around trying to find Por15 rust-preventative paint for my Jeep (fail), a new cell phone (fail), and an air card (Verizon fail x2).

But in the short time I was in the basement, I did find something, sort of interesting, but mostly puzzling. It's an ammo box for a machine gun of some sort. I think. But where the hell did my dad get an ammo box?

He was never in the military, and I don't think anyone in their right mind would let my dad near a machine gun. It is too rusted to be sure, but there are a few yellow numbers on the side that look sorta military-ish.

Anyway, there is lots of other, more interesting, weird, old stuff I am going to start catalogging. I have to do something to keep what little sanity the penguins haven't already stolen from me.

Dooooby, dooby doo...

Opening Salvo

I dove head first into this project, and very nearly broke my neck. More than once. There are so many pitfalls and most of the items are precariously balanced against one another, so that moving the wrong piece are the wrong time at best results in a large sliver or gash, at worst, decapitation. It's almost like a life-size Jenga puzzle.

I have approached it as such, by first cleaning out the area I will soon inhabit. I have some some preliminary work, like setting up shelving and scaffolding (to serve as temporary shelving) both inside and out. But once this room is set up, I can stop sleeping on the floor. That was this weekends accomplishment. Tonight, I moved some more wood around and cleaned out the tool kit. After all, I must have access to the tools I need if I am going to make this easy. So a lot of this work is going to be organizing.

Expect more daily posts with photos to kept track of my progress, for now, this. It's a start.

Hanging up the party boots, putting on the work boots

In a room to my right, the past five years of my life are stacked and packed together, and my old apartment is all but empty. I never knew I had so much crap, but like my dad I don't really throw anything away so I guess its no surprise. But it all looks so small packed up, and it just made me think that up until this point, I haven't left much of a mark on the world, not even enough to fill up a small room.

So it is a good time to move on with my life, hang up my party boots, and get all existential up in this bitch. I spent most of today running around, on the phone, interviewing a guy with a 600k mile Mustang, finishing some freelance newspaper
article, and trying to set up something interesting
for the Syracuse Nationals car show. I love this work. I am much more motivated when it comes to working for myself, something about doing work I enjoy and can actually see the results for myself.

But I've also had a chance to do a lot of reflecting on the ridiculous bullshit I've witnessed that is just too strange for fiction. Like waking up on my last Sunday morning to find a confused Irish man without a shirt sitting on a couch in the basement after a party. I could hardly understand him but I did manage to get that he had no idea where he was, and we had no idea who he was either.

Or the time Walsh attacked a Christmas tree that was staring at him funny.

Speaking of Christmas, how about ornaments made from beer cans.

Bedroom doors perforated with ninja stars.

Twelve minute stomping contests.

Obnoxious yelling at all hours of the night.

Who wants to do a shot?

Notorious C.A.T.

Sketchy beer pong tournaments.

All good memories come from bad decisions.

Amen.

Recovery Efforts

"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
-Dr. Martin Luther King

These are the famous closing lines of King's most famous speech, "I have a Dream."

I had a dream once, albeit more guilty and self-centered than King's. Dr. King's dream was of racial and social equality, I just dreamed of the day when I would never have to endure another class, another assignment, another semester, month, day, hour, minute of school.

Now it is all over, save the part where I get my degree. CCSU pretty much hustled us across the stage, and while I appreciate the brevity of a ceremony celebrating the simultaneous graduation of 1200 students, something a bit more personal would have been appreciated for all of our collective "effort".

This all feels a little foreign. As much as I hated higher education, I met many of the most interesting people I know because of my connections and participation in college. But I still don't know as much about "life" as I would like to. My new found maturity feels like anything but, and I can't help but be utterly repulsed by the real world more than ever. The real world created the culture of spend and need that put us in this economic pit in the first place, and I wonder why our elected officials seem to think more spending will solve the problem.

Oh well, now at least I have more time to write. Expect much more in the way of musings to come, if you're into that sort of thing...

Reconnoiter

The weekend is over, as is one of three finals. Several days ago I took pictures of the battlefield that lays before me, filled with some four decades of what can only be described as the Cave of the Pack Rat King. My father does not throw away anything that might one day be useful in one way or another. He is also an extremely rushed and busy man, and so sometimes he starts one job before finishing another.

Thus, the third world garage. Honestly, it is a lot more cover than the delapitated porch above which has since been fixed...kind of. So considering my dad did most of the work by himself, I can't complain. In fact, it is one reason why I am embarking on this righteous war of good riddance. My dad is old, and he has done good by me. This is by no means poorly constructed, just not finished. So its time for the son to carry on the torch.

Under the tarp are all sorts unfinished projects, including a ride-on mower I took rides on as a toddler, a Mercedes engine/anchor from the '60s with a hole in the block. I'm not even sure how I got it anymore. In the background is a washer in three pieces with some kind of concrete toilet seat atop it. Lots of ladders, and an epic arched window leaning against the left hand side of the side door...I think my dad ganked it from a church. Also notice the encroaching flora from both sides, untamed and left to run rampant on the hillside. I have grandiose plans for that whole hill, but that is another post, and many, many stories about landscaping and working with heroine addicts.

It isn't any better on the inside. My car has become buried beneath the clutter, and what was once a half-built garage became another place to store...stuff. If you can't tell, I don't blame you, but this is my mythical '69 Cougar, the car you may have heard of but never actually saw. Life got really interesting in college, and I have a hard time paying attention to anything for extended periods of time. But I will never give up on this car. And before the Clutter War comes to a close, I will have this car better than it has ever been before.


Deeper in and we find the worst of the refuges.
Believe it or not, my father once used this as a workshop, building or repairing things he found on the side of the road, at the dump, or at a job site. Now, it houses, among car parts from several aborted projects, all sorts of broken, half-fixed, and working-yet-useless objects. Like half a chair. Honestly, after staring at this picture for five minutes, I don't have a fucking clue what most of this stuff even is. Theres a television, and a press drill from the fifties, but what the fuck is that white device next to the shelf? Oh, and don't ask what is in all the coffee cans, because I couldn't tell you. There are literally dozens of coffee cans full of nuts, bolts, do-dads, and gizmometers. That is the only description for it, unless you're my dad. He has a system no one else can understand by design, as he is what some might describe as a paranoid right-wing lunatic. He is a good man, just very unmoving in his beliefs.

Anyway, graduation is this weekend, and I have two finals left before I finish school, hopefully forever. But once all that hubbub is over, I am diving in head first. But I also have to enjoy my last week of college, so here is a picture from Tisane's bar last night. Even if there was a restart button to life, I wouldn't touch it, because I could never replicate all the good times that happened to me my first time around.

It's too bad you only live once, but I guess that's the point.

Those precious few final hours

My last day ever as an undergrad, and I skipped my first class today. In fact, I shouldn't be getting out of Earth Science for another 15 minutes, but to hell with it. This is it, the culmination of five years, seemingly endless frustrations, too many nights I can't remember, yadda yadda yadda.

College was kind of a disappointment. I had fun and met a lot of interesting people to be sure, but for whatever reason I kind of expected more. The awful dining hall food didn't help either, but it has been two years since I ate that slop. Maybe I had too high of expectations for college, because none of the shit I saw in movies ever happened there. I've seen some shit that should be in a movie (I'm working on that...) but overall my perception of college is a lot different than what I imagined it was like going in.

It all went by so fast. I guess that is a good and bad thing. Now I just have a few more finals standing in-between me and Freedom.

Before the storm

I'm moving home. I don't want to, I always said I wouldn't, and I can't believe I am, but it has to happen. There isn't much in the way of jobs, and I don't really want to work for anyone else anyway. It never made much sense to me to work hard and make somebody else rich.

So I'm gonna wing it, take a shot at doing life my way, rather than take the easy way for once. I have a lot of wild ideas and projects I want to tackle (anyone who knows me has had to suffer through at least one ridiculous scheme of mine), the first of which will be cleaning out my parents' basement and moving into it. I have about another month or so left in my apartment, so that will be the lead up to this Herculean task. Work has already begun, but there is a lot left to do, and a lot of challenges in the way, not the least of which is how to bond an old concerete pour with a new one. Yup, it's gonna be one of those kinda blogs, and a whole lot more...