The One Month Update
Today Hazel is one month old. After a month of fatherhood this is what I have learned.
1. Your wife is going to be possessive, emotional and irrational at times. Shut up and clean the bottles.
2. Your wife is going to be very busy during the day, especially if you are working. Feeding a newborn every 1-2 hours is very frustrating. Shut up and prepare the bottles.
3. Your wife is very lonely while you're at work. She may refer to inanimate objects as "Wilson", or if you have pets she may speak to them as if they were Wilson. When you get home from work she's going to talk your ear off. Prepare for this any way you see fit but when you get home, shut up and listen. When she starts to speak too fast to keep up just listen for inflection, or the end of sentences and respond with "Wow, great idea.", "Fuck yah! That's what I was thinking!" and my favorite "Hahaha!"
4. Cook huge pots of stuff for her to eat during the day. My favorite is chicken noodle soup. Use a crock pot. Make it microwavable.
5. Shut up and clean the bottles.
6. Try to take at least a week off of work. Do all of the laundry, dishes, cleaning, lawn work during this week. Try to be available to help when needed but get these things done before you go back!
7. Watch the baby in the middle of the day when you can so your wife can sleep.
8. Stop updating your blog and feed the baby while she scrapbooks.
10. Ten is a nice round number.
Pay no attention to the man behind the Glass
Today I received my driver door glass from AAPD.net. I have heard a lot of horror stories about the contour of aftermarket glass not matching the contour of stock glass. However I have not heard anything specific about Scott Drake reproductions, which is what this is. I just ordered my butyl tape from NPDlink.com and I will attempt the assembly next week when the tape comes in. I really hope this glass matches the stock contour, so far I have had nothing but trouble with reproduction parts...
Here is the glass. Dachshund not included.
I also talked to a restoration shop and a chrome shop today on the phone. I have to give a shout to the guys at http://www.vintage-mustang.com for the recommendation. I called Orlando Mustang and Peter was so helpful. Even though I was not spending money with him right then he was more than willing to talk to me about chroming and recommended a great shop called Space Coast Plating over in Melbourne. I am willing to ship my parts to someone I can trust, and so I will. Space Coast quoted me a price I was very happy with. They were very helpful and honest with their answers, as if they enjoy what they do and are not out to just make the quick buck. I was figuring a lot more.
Thanks a lot to Peter C (Pmustang) from vintage-mustang forums, Peter from Orlando Mustangs and Space Coast Plating (Sorry I cannot remember the gentlemans name I spoke to). I can't wait to do business with these guys.
Chrome Plating http://spacecoast-plating.com/
Used/New Mustang Parts and Restoration Services http://orlandomustang.com/
Very helpful group of guys (and girls) that are very responsive and thoroughly enjoy the hobby. http://www.vintage-mustang.com
So Many Pieces…
In the first photo on this post you can see the exhaust laying on the ground under the car. Par for the course I didn't have the tools I needed to really remove the exhaust. Not that pulling out the exhaust was hard but I could not get the car high enough to easily turn it so that the high arc in the back over the rear axle would clear. So I decided my objective was clear, this shit needed to come out and I don't care to save it so I'm going to man up and buy something dangerous (if used improperly).
All of the trim, busted up or not is tied down to cardboard and hanging in my garage. Once everything is polished or replaced I'll be wrapping it in paper and putting it in the attic.
All of these boxes have labels and are organized into restoration groups.
This is what my organization process looked like. As I removed things I would drop it in its respective box and add it to the label. Anything that would not fit in a box was labelled and added to my spreadsheet. Yes, I have a spreadsheet also.
Click for the larger image to be displayed in all it's glory.
Maybe I am a little anal, maybe I am a little OCD. But I'm not going to lose anything. And I know how much this thingamajig costs even if I don't know its proper name.
Bentley
This will be Bentley's debut on my blog! I considered posting this in the Fatherhood section but the more I thought of it the more I started feeling like though I am the disciplinarian for this little bundle of energy, I am more like a friend, or a companion. So that's OK. Bentley is a 1 year old Dachsund. I know, he looks like a Beagle, but he's not. He has the same coloration but I promise you he is a short haired Dachsund.
I just want to share a few photos that maybe no one has seen yet. This first photo is the first one we ever saw, it's the photo taken by the breeder. We fell in love with him through photos and really liked his name so we kept it.
To my left you will see a photo of Bentley with his head stuck in a stuffed log. He was chasing the stuffed squirrels. They escaped. He sat like this for probably 10 minutes while we laughed at him. He didn't want us to remove the log, he loves it!
This is one of my favorites. This was probably 6 months ago, but he still sleeps like this hiding behind his own leg and opening an eye when one of us walks by.
This last one is right after I got my 50mm f/1.4 Canon lens. This photo was from standing height and wide open. Another one of my favorites.
Welcome Home
Man I fell way behind on this. The project has progressed but the blog posts fell way behind. I got so involved in so many things that I neglected to update. Where was I? On may 5th the car was shipped from Oklahoma to Florida. May 7th the car arrived at my house.
As soon as the hauler pulled up I had a moment of clarity. "Holy shit am I capable of this?" I had a few minutes of being overwhelmed before my "working" brain kicked in and I realized it was all nuts and bolts. In the photo above I was already placing monetary value on this project. Fenders, quarter panel, door glass, bumpers, etc...
Steering was actually really free. All that's up front is a V8, no fluff. Much easier to steer without power steering than modern vehicles. This was a really exciting time right here. Justin, Ryan, Mickle and Mickle's cousin all pushing the car up the drive way.
After everyone left I pulled my Volkswagen in. My little VW is considered a small car by todays standards and it's lowered two inches. Look how much taller it is!!
Sitting next to my first born. She's in pretty bad shape. But it's just sheet metal, and there is very little rust. There actually isn't any rust in most of the areas you would expect there to be. Well, there she sits... she is now in about a million pieces and the project is probably going to take a little longer than I initially anticipated. I'm going to add a post everyday until I am caught up on this. Here's a little sneak peak at the next post...