Surprise Bachelor Weekend
Every year, for the past three or four years, my wife and her mother travel to Sacramento to visit family over Memorial Day weekend. It's a trip they enjoy, and one that I typically don't join them for. We spent some times in the past week lamenting the fact that because Logan is only 8 months old, traveling by airplane wasn't something we likely wanted to do with him if it could be avoided.
My wife was lamenting the loss of the annual trip and the opportunity to share our son with her family. I was lamenting my now traditional Memorial Day weekend of drunken debauchery and not wearing pants. It was a painful decision for both of us.
Nearly at the last minute, sometime on Wednesday, my wife IMs me and asks how I would feel about her driving to Sacramento with the baby and her mother.
I had a chance. I had to play it cool. Come on too strong and she'd ask why I wanted her away (drunk, no pants, video games all day), come on too soft, and she might decide not to go.
Sacramento is a 9.5 hour drive from Vegas. It's a trip that I wouldn't personally want to make. After about 5 hours in a car, my crippled knees start to painfully cramp.
I played it cool.
"It's a long drive. If you're going to do it, I'd rather you take my car."
"That makes sense," was her reply. It did make sense. My Tdi Jetta Sport Wagon has far superior fuel efficiency to her Mazda 3s, as well as more storage room and more torque for climbing mountain passes. The conversation quickly turned to one of logistics, and I knew I was home free.
I loosened my belt in preparation for taking my pants off.
Once she was gone, leaving in her wake a lengthy list of chores, I realized I had something precious. Something I hadn't had since Logan was born. Free time to devote to long abandoned projects.
Back in October, when I left the office for 3 months of paternity leave, I purchased supplies to engage in several projects, thinking I'd be beset by time to do so. I laugh now at how naive I was just a few months ago. None of those projects got anywhere near completion, most never got started.
One of those projects was painting the Bronco.
The Bronco is a great vehicle. Solid, dependable, a surprising turn radius, and as sure footed as a house cat taped to the ceiling. It's blue though, and that color isn't terrible well suited to the desert. It absorbs a lot of heat, and it sticks out like a thumb, especially with all the chrome. I wanted to give it a nice flat coat of a desert friendly color. My goal was to make it look as much like the CUCVs I had used while in the Army.
Maaco offers cheap paint jobs like this, but the only Maaco shop in Vegas is way up on the north side of the valley. I reasoned I could do this myself with rattle cans.
Early Saturday morning I started the job. I only had time to get the hood and front quarter panels done. I couldn't locate my face mask, so by noon I had a headache that suggested I couldn't realistically proceed any further for the time being.
Like any other paint job, the prep took the longest and involved sanding and lots and lots of clean up. Sanding automotive paint leaves a lot of automotive paint dust behind, which requires a lot of cleanup with mineral spirits.
The actual primering and painting didn't take nearly as long, or require as much paint as I had thought. About three cans of primer and maybe four of paint. The following day I found my filter mask and finished up the rest of the driver's side before calling it quits. Another few weekend days and this should be done. The hardest part is going to be the roof, which will not only be hard to reach, but will have to be done outside, because my garage isn't tall enough. This will require a day relatively free of wind, which we've had precious few of this spring. Hopefully it won't take me another nine months to get around to finishing.
My hopes hand't been real high for the quality of the job. I went in with both feet on the project, realizing that I would very likely screw it up so bad I'd end up having to take it to Maaco anyway. Overall I've been pleasantly surprised with not only the ease of the job, but the quality. The Bronco not only looks better, but in some way, even looks newer. I think that with a little more attention to detail, time and patience, it would be possible to create a very nice, near factory, finish. The only thing you don't get is an oven cure, but I'm counting on the desert sun to help with that.
My wife was lamenting the loss of the annual trip and the opportunity to share our son with her family. I was lamenting my now traditional Memorial Day weekend of drunken debauchery and not wearing pants. It was a painful decision for both of us.
Nearly at the last minute, sometime on Wednesday, my wife IMs me and asks how I would feel about her driving to Sacramento with the baby and her mother.
I had a chance. I had to play it cool. Come on too strong and she'd ask why I wanted her away (drunk, no pants, video games all day), come on too soft, and she might decide not to go.
Sacramento is a 9.5 hour drive from Vegas. It's a trip that I wouldn't personally want to make. After about 5 hours in a car, my crippled knees start to painfully cramp.
I played it cool.
"It's a long drive. If you're going to do it, I'd rather you take my car."
"That makes sense," was her reply. It did make sense. My Tdi Jetta Sport Wagon has far superior fuel efficiency to her Mazda 3s, as well as more storage room and more torque for climbing mountain passes. The conversation quickly turned to one of logistics, and I knew I was home free.
I loosened my belt in preparation for taking my pants off.
Once she was gone, leaving in her wake a lengthy list of chores, I realized I had something precious. Something I hadn't had since Logan was born. Free time to devote to long abandoned projects.
Back in October, when I left the office for 3 months of paternity leave, I purchased supplies to engage in several projects, thinking I'd be beset by time to do so. I laugh now at how naive I was just a few months ago. None of those projects got anywhere near completion, most never got started.
One of those projects was painting the Bronco.
The Bronco is a great vehicle. Solid, dependable, a surprising turn radius, and as sure footed as a house cat taped to the ceiling. It's blue though, and that color isn't terrible well suited to the desert. It absorbs a lot of heat, and it sticks out like a thumb, especially with all the chrome. I wanted to give it a nice flat coat of a desert friendly color. My goal was to make it look as much like the CUCVs I had used while in the Army.
Maaco offers cheap paint jobs like this, but the only Maaco shop in Vegas is way up on the north side of the valley. I reasoned I could do this myself with rattle cans.
Early Saturday morning I started the job. I only had time to get the hood and front quarter panels done. I couldn't locate my face mask, so by noon I had a headache that suggested I couldn't realistically proceed any further for the time being.
Like any other paint job, the prep took the longest and involved sanding and lots and lots of clean up. Sanding automotive paint leaves a lot of automotive paint dust behind, which requires a lot of cleanup with mineral spirits.
The actual primering and painting didn't take nearly as long, or require as much paint as I had thought. About three cans of primer and maybe four of paint. The following day I found my filter mask and finished up the rest of the driver's side before calling it quits. Another few weekend days and this should be done. The hardest part is going to be the roof, which will not only be hard to reach, but will have to be done outside, because my garage isn't tall enough. This will require a day relatively free of wind, which we've had precious few of this spring. Hopefully it won't take me another nine months to get around to finishing.
My hopes hand't been real high for the quality of the job. I went in with both feet on the project, realizing that I would very likely screw it up so bad I'd end up having to take it to Maaco anyway. Overall I've been pleasantly surprised with not only the ease of the job, but the quality. The Bronco not only looks better, but in some way, even looks newer. I think that with a little more attention to detail, time and patience, it would be possible to create a very nice, near factory, finish. The only thing you don't get is an oven cure, but I'm counting on the desert sun to help with that.