Good news / Bad news - the good news is, I'm getting the truck painted soon. The bad news (and unwanted motivation behind this) is that I was in my first traffic accident, of course with the blue truck. I got caught with nowhere to go and changed lanes into an occurring accident - no, the tow truck wasn't really moving into the intersection - he was SKIDDING INTO THE CAR IN FRONT OF HIM. Shit. I was only doing 40 in a 45, but there were cars lined up on both sides of the lane I had just changed into and by the time I realized the tow truck (without lights) wasn't moving, I only had about 3 car lengths to stop. I bumped the Taurus that was on the tow truck at about 5 to 10 MPH. The truck has minor damage to it, the worst part is that the grille was damaged and it's the only part that's not being reproduced yet. I'm lined up with all the replacement parts, including a good used grille and should be starting to get it back together next week. There's a new gallery in the photo album with pictures of the damage and my progress in repairing it.

Hey - more wiring progress pics. I got roped into a 3 1/2 week job in Alaska - started as a 3-day job, ended up being a lot longer. I got home on Thursday and was scheduled to leave on Tuesday of the next week. I did a 3 day no-sleeper and got the truck running again, just in time to take it to Orlando to work on the Iraq / Bloom truck, which NBC just used again for the coverage of hurricane Irene. The parts we needed weren't there, so I had Norm help me put the new tailgate handle in so I can shave the tailgate. We didn't have any sheetmetal up there, so I'll have to make the filler later. I'm also going to re-do the dashboard so the gauges set into the dash, more like stock gauges. That's gonna take some time and engineering, but I should be able to get it done soon.

Here's a direct link to the new stuff: Click here

Almost forgot, in France right now - haven't seen much to take pictures of... Should be back at the end of September.

I just added lots of photos of my "new" truck. They're in the gallery section under "blue truck". Go figure. I'm neck-deep in my little rewiring project on the truck still - I just couldn't get into the way that the engine and transmission cooling fans became intermittent on really hot days. Now, I'm really up the creek because it's turned into a pseudo-rebuild on the whole thing, but in the long run, I'll end up with a better setup and I'll be more familiar with how everything is on the truck. That last line is my little mantra right now - dammit, it's been nearly 3 weeks since I've heard that nasty huge engine make any noise, and I'm really getting tired of it. Oh well, I'll get it done sometime in the next week or two, and life will be good again...

Oh yeah, I also added lots of pictures of the new flooring at the house. I finally ripped out the nasty old carpet and put down wood flooring. My sister came out for a few days and re-decorated the whole joint, and it really looks nice now. Pics are in the house gallery. There's even one of Ed, the cat, in there.