GeneNichols.com

We’ve been real busy and I have not taken much time here lately. I had work in Florida and Susan flew down to meet up and we made an extra long weekend out of it. We got lucky since the weekend started of windy and 50. Monday hit 75 degrees and very sunny. What nice break since we have not seen dry pavement for some time. Spring is here!

Getting real close to auto show time. The North American International Auto Show press days start early Monday morning so I am starting to get in the mood. See I sort of have to prepare for a very fast 2 days of maneuvering around the show floor, along with several thousand other people, trying to get to as many new car introductions by big car companies that I can. These big staged productions run for 20 minutes with everyone crowding around since seating is only for the lucky ones who get there a half hour early. I have to pick and choose which intro to attend since they only leave about 15 minutes in between. It’s a maddening shuffle of people all day long. But I keep coming back.. to see the next big new all-talked about thing.

So… at a slower pace was a visit to the Ray Skillman muscle car museum. Dad has been telling me of a nice car museum in Greenwood IN that we should go see. We went just after Thanksgiving day and all I can say is WOW! This is an awesome collection with some of the finest old classic cars I have ever seen. The thing that stuck me was the open non-barred feeling you get to move freely about the cars but of course no-touch is the unspoken code. If you look close you will see some rare cars here.

Susan and I were shopping at Traders World.. yes an indoor flea market. Located between Dayton and Cinci, this is one of those weekend only you can find almost anything type places. Good thing we got there early because the crowds hit right about noon when we were ready to leave.

Funny thing.. I was thinking just thinking it has been sometime since we have been to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. 10 years? Anyway we got a call from Jon and they were coincidentally just leaving home for the Air museum so we met up with them and enjoyed the balance of the afternoon checking out the exhibits and wow the place has changed a lot!

See the pics…

Once again Brian and Laura let us come in and mess up their house for Thanksgiving day. We ate, napped, watched TV, then ate, napped and watched more TV…

Fred posted the shot of the day so I decided to post the goofy shot. Thanks to everyone for being so much fun!

Jonny wins the prize.

What a nice wedding! Congratulations Joe and Melissa Nichols!!

I have been remiss in getting the photos processed so here they are.

Woops… What happened to September? I was mostly in Georgia moving glass around. I now have enough time on my hands to post. Here I sit in a Walmart Service center waiting room - Newport News VA, (I know… within a few miles of Kris and John’s) I did a presentation for Virginia State Insurance Claims Association this afternoon and figured I would bug out of Norfolk before the traffic got heavy and right before I got to the Bay tunnel I flatted. DAMN.. So picture me in dress clothes (unusual for me) changing my tire with primitive tools on the side of the interstate. I won’t make it home tonight… again. Kris and John are heading to Ocean City so I will see them next time around. Time for new tires.. woohoo!

What a great summer! so far… The weather has been awesome and every bike ride we have done with the group has been rain and mostly sweat free. There was that one Sunday in Xenia that was in the 90s. 25 miles felt like 40.. Lot’s of water.

When I refer to the group it is anywhere from 4 to 15 riders that all have one thing in common. We like to ride our “whatever” bikes but mostly recumbents. Most folks in the group that ride those funny looking sitty-upright-tall bikes are working on getting into the right recumbent for them.

The best thing about our group is we like to go at an even pace. No race! Nice easy rides. Our team captain, if you would, is Denny who works part time and off site for the local bike shop. He is the recumbent expert for the store and set’s people up in proper fashion. He hes gathered this group via an email list that has grown to about 30 folks and every week we try and gather at some trail within an hour’s drive. Sort of forces one to be there on time, well forces you to just be there at all if you know what I mean.

Yesterday I did a Saturday morning ride with three others on the south part of town. Started at 7am. Yeah.. my time of day. 32 miles before noon which included a stop at the coffee shop for a sit down breakfast and good company. Today we are all gathering at Scott and Lynn’s, after a ride of course, for a barbecue.

We will have many more rides and many more stories to tell about them…

My palms are a little sweaty going without a picture here but I’ll muddle through.

What’s more exciting than a new garage door? Taking the old one to the landfill!! (stay with me here) I have been hauling the old garage door around in the Safari van for several weeks now, cut into 4 foot sections and ready for an unsuspecting dumpster. I guess I could have thrown it out the back door and just leave it lay in the yard, but we live on this side of the river thankyou.

Too big to go in the trash can and considered construction debri so curb side would not do my only choice was to take it to the landfill. My first thought was, man I have to haul it down there and pay to dump it, so off to the landfill we went with 15 bucks in hand.

Pulled into Scott’s Landfill, motored up to the little shack and payed the guy my 15 dollars, and he said, “take it to the top of the hill….” I slowly turned and looked at that trash mountain (you know.. like the one’s you see from the interstate that look like a small mount everest) and said in my own breath, “really?” OH BOY I thought, were gunna do some hill climbing! I haven’t done this since I had my 1972 Ford pick up, well back in the 70’s. I haven’t even been off roading in years!! I jumped back in the Safari van and looked over at Susan and said, Were going to the top baby! She said something quietly like “oh shit..”

Now you would think they would have a road that winds it’s way around the hill for a gradual climb, HECK NO baby! Straight up! How cool is that?? Okay it wasn’t straight up but it was steep enough to be fun. Drop it in low and keep the momentum up so she doesn’t spin out. Pick good lines, not on the ridge and not in the groove… keep the steering wheel moving… that’s it. Like riding a bike, you don’t forget these skills. We bounced and swayed, passed a dump truck that was coming down the somewhat 2 lane path and eventually popped out on top. Yes!! ..made it.

Now were driving on dirt covered trash and the thought of sharp objects and tires blowing out cross my mind, but we made our way over to where the big dozer was pushing trash over the side. “Man I hope he sees us,” I said. One of those giant steel wheels is bigger than our van. Anyway we toss our stuff out next to another small pile, shut the doors and pull away. I stopped and mentioned, “hey look you can see the entire city from here.” You could see for miles actually. It was mount Columbus we’re on! What if we built a house up here? How cool would that be? …Then it hit me - that little voice of sanity said, “Dude.. your on a giant trash pile. ok.. let’s go home.

Let’s see, legal dumping and off-roading for only 15 bucks. …and took me back 30 years. Yeah… I’ll be back!

A perfect day for the Bell reunion 2009. Family, fun, food… what more could you ask for?

See more here…

Material things are easy to write about. Okay.. you say, how could you possibly get excited about a new garage door? We have lived for the last 8 years (of 20 in this home) with a garage door that while it worked fine, was literally falling apart. I had patched it with pine trim boards to “decorate” and cover up the deteriorating press-board so much it was getting heavy. It was as they say butt-ugly. So Susan has always wanted a door that looked like barn doors with windows. I agreed. So we caught a sale at Menards and got the door we wanted. I really didn’t read the ad and was surprised when they gave us a free opener to sweeten the sale. I recall saying something intelligent like “really?” When it came in we had lined up an installer. Not that I couldn’t do it myself but never doing one it would have taken me an entire weekend and this guy knocked it out in four hours, including the opener. I also wasn’t crazy about working with those springs either so it was a good deal.

Now, the funny thing about this is you rarely get a chance to see and admire the door yourself. It’s really for neighbors and folks passing by. Think about it… when we are outside the door is up and out of sight. And it really looks silly to stand outside starring at your closed door. It does look great when we pull up in the drive and then - it disappears again..

Finally the sweetest part was cutting that old door into small pieces adding closure to all those years of patching the damn thing together…