Go Truck Myself! Part 2

Back on my birthday I bought my first vehicle in 22 years.  I wrote a pretty good blog about it.

Here is it.  (Part 1.)

Go Truck Myself!

I ended up selling my longtime car, a Ford Focus, to a friend of mine.  Included in the sale was my milk crates with all my car supplies.  Things like oil, brake fluid, anti-freeze, rags, window visor, a screwdriver and other hand tools.  So I needed to replace all of those things.

First up, I needed a toolbox to put everything in.  I found a great deal on Craigslist for a Husky brand toolbox.

Now that I have a toolbox, I can fill it... with tools.  Now comes the fun part.  Time for a trip to AutoZone!!!

First up, I needed to make my truck wheel look classy.  So I bought one of the wheel covers.  I think this one makes my truck look... sophisticated.  

I don't know why they put carpet in trucks.  You know us outdoor guys are just going to get dirt, mud, guts, etc. in the floorboards.  So I bought some heavy duty floormats.  I have to say these have some weight to them.

I couldn't leave AutoZone without buying one of those nice smelling tree thingies.  

I ended up buying a lot of supplies now so if I need them later I will have them with me.

I bought oil, anti-freeze, windshield washer cleaner, bungee chords, chrome cleaner (for my toolbox,) dashboard cleaner, and something I had never bought before, microfiber cloths for my mirrors.

That's what I have so far.  I already had jumper cables and a four way.  I still plan on buying a brush guard.  I'm trying to hunt down a used one for a decent price.  I did buy a new set of tires, and am just waiting for a time slot to open up to have them installed.  

So things are looking up for me.  This of course makes me paranoid that one of these terrible drivers around here will plow into my truck.  I've managed to go 19 years without an accident, and I want my streak to continue.  When I have more work performed on my truck I'll make sure to write a Part 3.  

The Best That I Can Do

I was listening to the 80's on Sirius XM's Channel 8 when they had this week's countdown from 1981.  It was neat to hear the Rolling Stone's "Start Me Up," and other great songs on the top of the countdown.  It was then that one song came on that really took me back.

It was a song by Christopher Cross called, "The Theme from Arthur (The Best That You Can Do.)"  You may know it by the great lyrics from the chorus.

When you get caught between the Moon and New York City
I know it's crazy, but it's true
If you get caught between the Moon and New York City
The best that you can do
The best that you can do is fall in love

When I was a kid the day care I went to would take us on weekly trips to Skate Odyssey, the neighborhood skating rink.

While we were there, the DJ would change it up and have a "friend's only" skate.  So you had to find a partner and hold hands while trying to skate.  Honestly, I was never that good at it.  It took me a few years to be able to skate really well.

But during these, "friend's only" skates they would play a slower ballad.  One of the songs they would play was, "Arthur's theme."  When I heard it play on Sirius XM it really took me back to my childhood.  Still after all these years it's an amazing song.

On a side note, you may have missed a Christopher Cross reference on the TV show, "Family Guy."  When Peter's son is in trouble he calls out his full name, "Christopher Cross Griffin!"  That's right, Chris is named after Christopher Cross the singer.

Aftermath: Hurricane Clean-up

In terms of hurricane hits we were lucky in the Tampa Bay area.  Irma did a lot of damage to the islands and hit Naples pretty hard, but here in Lutz we didn't have too much damage.  Here's what happened.

So Dad and I organized everything outside.  Anything that could be a flying projectile was put away.  I made a trip to the gas station and filled up everything we had.  Dad had the generator ready to be pulled out from the back shed.  I also made a trip to the grocery store, and stocked up on "camping goods."

The power went out on Sunday, Sept 10th at around 8PM.  I already had my candles ready to go.  I put them in the fireplace with a mirror behind them to help illuminate the room.  The next night I put a big piece of wood covered in aluminum foil behind the candles.  That ended up working out pretty well.

The worst thing we had to deal with is boredom and each other.  I played a little guitar, and played my 3DS game, "Ever Oasis."  When we finally went to sleep the temperature was still cool.  So we were able to sleep without it being annoyingly hot.

In the morning Dad tried to start the generator.  It had other ideas.  Luckily, our neighbor Dale is good with small engines, and took it apart and put it back together in less than 30 minutes.  The generator started up, and we had power.

It's not a huge generator, but it was enough to run the fridge and outside freezer.  We also had the fish-tank, some lights, fans, and a few power strips running off of it.  We were advised only to run it for two hours, and then give it an hour break so it wouldn't get overworked and overheated.

The night of Monday Sept. 11th, I cooked dinner with the gas grill and a Coleman stove that hadn't been started in 30 years.  Both worked just fine.  Oh, and dinner was really good too.  I'd like to thank myself.

But this lead to a problem that no one wants to take care of.  The dishes had piled up.  Let's just say they hadn't been cleaned in a while.  So I spent an hour and a half doing them all by hand.  I'd clean some, put them on the drying rack until the rack was full.  Then I would dry them by hand and put them away.  I ended up doing that three times.  So yeah, there were a lot of dishes.

There was still a bit of daylight left so I started making new candles as a good number of mine had run out of wax at that point.  I still had wicks and wax left.  I also have a special pot specifically for double boiling wax.  I managed to knock out quite a few candles.

For an hour that night I tried to set up an old TV that would pick up channels without being plugged into cable.  I was just about to give up when the power came back on at 10 PM.  So we ended up only being without power for 26 hours.

Once it was morning (Tuesday, Sept 12th) we walked out to survey any damage.  We has a bush damaged beyond repair, and a few limbs down, but no damage to the house.  I've spent a few days since then dragging brush to the curb, and putting the small leaves in trash cans. 

I also had to spend a good amount of time putting everything back up (the Coleman stove, lanterns, etc.)  Dad and I also had to rearrange the shed.  Namely to put the generator back in place, and organize all our gasoline cans.

I realize we were much luckier than a lot of people in the Tampa Bay area.  For us it more of an annoyance.  For others, well, I still have friends who are without power.  Let's just hope we have no more hurricanes come our way this year.

Go Truck Myself!

For the last three months I have visited or talked to twelve different auto dealers.  Well, I finally decided on a vehicle.  It's a 2014 Ford F-150 STX.  It is a regular cab/short bed.  And the funny thing is that I found it in the same color as my Mother's Ford Escape, Lightening Blue.

I searched far and wide for the perfect truck.  How wide?  Well, I set Autotrader's search out to 200 miles.  160 miles away in Fort Pierce, Fl. was Arrigo Dodge, and they had this perfect truck for sale.  While most dealers were $3,000 above KBB price, Arrigo actually lowered their price of the truck to $1,000 below KBB value.  So I jumped on that deal.

Let's go to the pictures!

Pretty awesome right?  The funny thing is I hadn't bought a vehicle in 22 years.  That's right.  I bought my Saturn in 1995, and inherited my Grandmother's Ford Focus in 2005.  So I had not bought a vehicle for over two decades.

The STX comes with the side steps and 18 inch tires.  Although, I will have to replace three of them.  One is new, but the other three are only going to be good for another 5,000 miles or so.

This one came with a bedliner so I don't have to worry about adding one.

It also had the receiver for a trailer hitch.  I did have to provide said hitch and hitch pin.

My first vehicle was a 1985 Ford Ranger.  It was pretty burnt out by the time I got it, but I loved that truck.  I was only able to drive it for three years before it was unfixable.  Ever since getting rid of it I have wanted to return to truck ownership, but finances held me back.  So I am glad to own my very own F-150.

Here's an old photo of me with my Ford Ranger.  Remember, it was scanned from an actual photo taken on 9mm film.  It's not a great picture, but it's alright.  It was taken in 1993.

I'm still looking for a toolbox and a brush guard for my F-150.  I'm taking my time to see what good deals are out there.  As I posted earlier, at least I have started my upgrades with the trailer hitch.

The funny thing was I actually managed to buy the truck on my birthday.  Weird, right?  I didn't plan it that way, but the deal was too good to pass up.  Especially when the truck comes standard equipped with Sirius XM radio.

Tortoise or Snake?

We have a section of the yard called, "The Swamp."  When it rains here, and since it's Florida it rains often, this section of the yard floods.  Let's just say it's always pretty moist, and as such, it's tough for anything to take root.  So we've left it alone for years.

A few plants were planted in that section, and some have taken root.  But the funny thing, is that, a lot of ferns decided to make it their home.  In the end, there were ferns two feet tall all over the area.  However, it was decided that the ferns would have to go to let other things grow there.

So I took the weed-eater, and cleared out the ferns.  I was clearing around a pine tree when I suddenly lost gravity.  Yep, I started going down, and wasn't sure why.  Eventually I did stop.  That's when I realized I had stepped in a hole.  And I have to say it was a pretty good hole.

Let's take a peek at the beautiful photo I took of said hole.

I didn't clear away the pine needles from the hole as I didn't want to put my hand near it.  Although I did get close enough to put the yellow flags near it.  The reason I didn't want to put my hand near it is because of what is probably living there. 

It's either a Florida gopher tortoise (endangered and protected,) or a really large snake.  Here in Florida we have a number of large poisonous snakes.  Namely the Diamondback Rattlesnake and the Cottonmouth Moccasin.  Both have really bad attitudes.

So to put it this way, it could be this living down there.

Or this guy.

Either way, I'm not putting my hand near it.  I'm just going to leave the hole alone.  I'll just let the reptiles rent their space on the property.