There's a lot to talk about this month because I've shifted my butt into high gear lately and have made noticable progress on the car. Noticable to me anyway - casual observers enter the garage and ask when I'm going to start working on it.

John Vernon (u da man!) from www.rodvisions.com and I have been working closely (via e-mail) on a final rendition for the flames. He's sent scaleable final drawings of the flame layout for the top of the hood, hood sides and inner fender panels. They're ready to be made into slides that are projected on the car.

Here's a "doctored" photo of the final flame layout. I can't wait until the REAL car looks like this!

Rod Runs!
We're back home from this year's "Back to the 50's" event in St. Paul, MN that at last count featured 10,400 cars! As usual the weather was less than ideal. That's the thing about the Back to the 50's event... it's either cold, hot, raining or all three. This year it rained buckets Friday until about 3pm and then became a scorcher as the temperature and humidity climbed to record highs.

Also as usual, there were some interesting cars in attendance. Project33's spellchecker Bob summed this one up best when he said "this guy was thinking out of the box". Way cool but I'd hate to think about touch-ups!

I finally joined the `90's and got a cell phone. Actually it's a hand-me-down from my oldest daughter who keeps abreast of the latest phone technology. This was our first road trip with a cell phone and let me tell you, I don't know what we ever did without one. I was able to contact and meet friends in a crowd of over 66,000 people like nothing and keeping tabs on our two oldest daughters who stayed home was a breeze. I'm hooked! (now if only I could figure out how to remove "NERD" from the display after my daughter programmed it for me ;)

The Durango got a whopping 12 MPG (highway) on the trip and I experienced my first case of "road rage" on the highway behind a guy who wouldn't let anyone pass him. He even ran a guy in front of us into the ditch. When he stopped (backing up traffic for miles) I started to get out of the car to "have a little talk" with him but my wife pulled me back in saying something about him possibly having a gun and not wanting to raise the kids alone. I'm glad I didn't have one. The rest of the trip went without a hitch and I've since cooled off, but I can better understand how tempers can flair (especially in 100 degree weather) and things can get out of control in a hasty decision to bestow a roadside driving lesson.

Let's Race!
The "Pixel 300" has been resurrected! For those of you that are new to the site, the Pixel 300 is a fun way to let visitors to this site (like you!) vote on things that I'm indecisive about.

The last race was to decide the style of outside mirrors to use on the car. The latest race will decide how the lower edges of the inner fender panels will be shaped. To participate in the race, or to watch once you've voted, click here or on the Banner above. The first style to get 300 votes wins the race.