When I moved out of NYC, I was in the midst of working on my book and trying to get up and running at a new daytime job.  As I was doing that though, I found myself wanting for the first time in quite awhile, something to do which had NOTHING to do with computers (a rarity for me, believe me).  The idea began to form that maybe I could get an old car to work on.  After all, you could never do that on New York (who has spare room or money?).  I’m no grease monkey, but I am a technically minded person and old cars are almost like giant 3D puzzles waiting to be put together.

So I’ve spent about the last year earnestly looking for that project car (I had to wait til I had the book finished).  I went through several ideas – I came closest on a 61 Corvair Monza that I found in a great junkyard in August last year, but never could quite bring myself to pull the trigger and buy it to get started.  I think what drew me to the Corvair was the uniqueness of the car, though the air cooled engine also slightly scared me as a restore gig (remember, I’m no mechanic, i’ll be doing this with a book in my hand).  So I was still nosing around, and in January of 2009, I found myself trolling craigslist when i ran across a post called “1959 Volvo B190.”

Now I had to check this out and to my surprise, it was a PV 544!  I had no first hand knowledge of these cars at all, but I knew of them because of my interest in old cars.  The guy didn’t really know what it was, he’d bought it 30 years ago because “it looked neat,” and tried to get it running but couldn’t, so he drug it into a shed and left it there.  I guess it was time to clean up the barn, so he had his son in law post it for him.

I went up to look at it (it’s about 45 minutes from Durham, NC) and bought it on the spot.  It took me a week to arrange to to pick it up, fortunately I was able to arrange a free ride home courtesy of my CEO, Neal Page.  In the process of researching and learning more about my project, I also started meeting lots of PV fans and owners on the Internet.  One of the first   father and son,  Bob & Don (between then they own 3 PV’s).  Bob (the son) posts old volvo photos on flickr and activity participates on forums like brickboard.  Don (the dad) asked if I needed help picking up the car and actually came along and helped me and Neal retrieve my new car!  We had great fun, even though it was somewhat exhausting (the tires were of course very dead, so we literally drug and winched the car onto and off the trailer).

So, It’s week one with the old girl today, so I thought I should start posting some about it and getting my notes together.  I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, but its already been great fun learning about the car and meeting other enthusiasts. If you are at all interested in following my work on the car, check for posts in the 544 category here – if i can pull it together, I’d even like to do some interviews with others who like these cars as I get into the 544 owners club!

if there is ever a raging flood of diet coke threatening a small town, my mother and grandmother should be dropped in with a a season or two of good eats and they’ll have the whole thing taken care of before you know it.

456 BC: Aeschylus, a Greek playwright, was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone. The tortoise survived.

via List Of Very Weird Ways To Die | The Best Article Every day.

Don’t like speed cameras? Use them to punk your enemies.

all it takes to trick a speed camera is a glossy sheet of paper?  Sign me up….

To the person who called my wife’s cell phone twice this morning, here are some easy tips for living longer.

1) Don’t call people before 9 am on a Saturday.  Whatever it is can’t possibly be that important.

2) Don’t call back immediately after we dont pick up the first time “just in case” we didnt hear the phone.  We heard it, we just weren’t picking up.

3) Possily the most important – Don’t do the above when we’re on the West coast AND IT’S REALLY 5:30AM!!!