My Traveling Family

Well, as anyone who owns an old beetle probably knows. The heating and defrost in a bug isn’t the best design ever made. With Wally I can cook my feet, but have almost no defrost and the heat on the passenger side is less than optimal. So, I decided to do some work on the bug today.

First thing I did was adjust all of the cable conrols to the heat flappers. Both front foot controls and the rear under the seat Y pipes. Turns out the Y pipe under the rear seat passenger side wasn’t even connected. The flapper was stuck in floor mode.

Also, for some reason which I cannot fathom the rear Y pipes are vented. Which means, no matter what, the rear seat gets 90% of the air, hot or cold. Here’s what they look like.

From Wally the Superbeetle

The pipe to the top goes to the front heater channel and the defrost system, the pipe towards the bottom of the pic is for the rear floor heat. So I did a quick duct tape modification to see how it would effect my front defrost. Here is what it looks like after my changes.

From Wally the Superbeetle

I’m hoping this will give me some forced air to the front. Maybe if this works I can get rid of the paper towel I currently use as a defroster. Fingers crossed and we’ll see how well it works.

Just a quick story to give you an idea of what Tom was like. Tom was one of our network guys at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. Tom was pretty smart in a definite redneck sort of way. Tom also had bouts of, well, let’s just call them moments of sub optimal intelligence.

Tom liked to hunt and fish. Tom owned an air boat. Tom used to go waaaaay up the Chena river into the back of beyond and set up camp. He’d then leave the camp and come back to “civilization” and work. Then the next weekend he’d head back up the river. Well, Tom had a problem with bears messing with his camp while he was away. Bears being big ole grizzlies. This is central Alaska remember. Something about grizzlies that may not be obvious. They’re very curious animals and like to check out things that are strange or different. Like fishing camps in the middle of nowhere.

So, like any good smart guy, Tom came up with a plan. He was well and truly fed up with the bears poking through his camp. So, on his run down to civilization, Fairbanks, I guess you could call it civilized, well, if you’re drunk enough. Anyhow, during his work week Tom ran over to the hardware store and picked up a bunch of plywood and nails. Long, pointy nails. He then went back to his camp and had a good time fishing and hunting for the weekend. Then when it was time to head back to Fairbanks he hatched his plan. He took those sheets of plywood and drove hundreds of nails through them and placed them in a circle around his camp. A veritable mine field of nails. Those damn bears weren’t gonna get his camp this time! And back to Fairbanks he comes.

Now Tom was proud of his plan. In fact he bragged about it to those of us poor folk who didn’t have fishing camps. That is until he went back and checked on his camp, or what was left of it.

It seems that bears when they are wandering around just being bears, well, they get kind of pissed when they step on a nail. Kind of like people really, I suppose. Well, imagine how pissed you would be if you stepped on say, 20 or 30 nails. Every time you tried to get off of one nail you stepped on another. Well, I don’t know about you or I, but that bear was really, really pissed! By the time it was done dripping blood and shredding anything in sight, well, Toms camp was pretty much gone. We’re talking shreds of camp covered in bear blood, and plywood scattered to the winds. The camp was totally and utterly destroyed.

Tom never did see the bear, at least he never mentioned seeing it. I imagine the bear had enough of the whole fishing camp experience and lit off to better environs. I do know that Tom never admitted to trying the nail trick again.  I guess it’s just better to let the bears poke around rather than piss em off and have em destroy your camp.

So, lesson to those who want to set up a fishing camp in the back woods of Alaska. Don’t be smart. Let the bears poke around and don’t, no matter what, piss em off.

And if you’re like me. You can’t get the pictures of one pissed of bear, bleeding and angry, ripping and tearing that camp apart, out of your head. Even after all these years it still brings a smile to my face. Sorry Tom. But, damn, what a story.

The Seattle group The Tap Handles will be coming to the Monterey area the weekend of April 23rd through the 25th. Gig sets and venues to be announced soon.

At least one Acoustical set at the house. I’ll even be bribing them with free beer.

Rumor has it they have just spent a drunken/productive weekend recording a series of new songs out on the islands.  Check out their current Demo cd here.

It’s sad when my fathers new motorcycle has a bigger engine than wally the superbeetle.

Bike: 1800 cc Engine

Superbeetle: 1600 cc Engine.

From Wally the Superbeetle

So, in the drama of our lives this week we have:

A cold/plague has run through the household. Knocking everyone on their tails for a couple of days.

Normal Teen drama, who’s dating who, who’s fighting with whom.

Amo’s mother calls the cops and say he’s a runaway. Then tell the cops she thinks we’ve kidnapped him. Yep. True. Cops show up Friday morning while everyone but Leecha and Me are home sick.  Roberta has a long talk with the Pacific Grove officer. Who already knew Amo was here, even knew his grades were improving. He told Roberta that there are some days he hates his job, like today. Because Amo’s crazy mother filed a complaint, social services was going to be getting involved and a case worker assigned. No choice. Even though Amo liked it here, and going home really wasn’t an option, and going to his fathers was out, odds are that once social services spins up he will be forced into a group home. Which is utter bullshit. But, it’s out of our hands. We’re just waiting for the axe to fall. So, because his mother is wacked and won’t take care of him, he’s likely to be forced into the foster system. And we don’t have a choice in the matter.

Welcome to this weeks drama.