2008 News

Found some REAL antiques!

Tim Simkins — 2008-06-11T04:00:00Z

So, I recently bought my Dad's old pickup (2000 green Chevy pickup) when he got his new one, and I'm going to sell my current one (the 1994 red Chevy pickup) which I also bought from my dad. I was cleaning up/cleaning out my old truck, and transferring stuff to the new one. I went to grab the flares that had always ridden in the back, and was about to move them over, when I noticed the box was a little mildewed. No big deal, I can get more, right? Plus, the box said something to the effect of "manufacturer recommends replacing every year." But in the meantime, I did what any red blooded pyromaniac would do, which is to light them off in our driveway. As I pulled them out of the box, I saw that they were a bit distended, and one was split open. I also saw something else interesting. The date (presumably) of manufacture.

JULY 1978

So, I have to ask. Did these ride around in my Dad's 1976 yellow Chevy pickup truck, his 1983 blue Chevy pickup truck, the 1994 red Chevy pickup truck, and ALMOST made it into the 2000 green one? They were literally older than me by about two months.

I have an email out to my Dad, and I'll see what he says!

2008 All Ford Nationals at Carlisle

Tim Simkins — 2008-06-07T04:00:00Z

This Saturday Kristen and I went to the All Ford Nationals at Carlisle, and had a great time. It was really hot and humid, but we saw a lot of great cars. The day didn't start out so well, though! After running out to get a cubic yard of topsoil for our garden, I wanted to pull the Mustang out of the garage, and put the truck with the dirt in, so the dirt didn't turn into mud.

I found that the key fob didn't work, so I unlocked the door manually. When I tried to start the engine, I got NOTHING. Not even lights on the instrument panel. We pushed it backwards out of the garage, back down the driveway a little (I had visions of it happily backing into the woods!) and got it jumped.

In any case, I've posted some Carlisle pictures. Not as many as last time, but I got some Bullitts, AC Cobras, GT500s, and some pastel cars (for Nikki!)

Houndini Video

Tim Simkins — 2008-03-19T04:00:00Z

This is from August 2006, but since I was putting the other Wyatt and Pepper video on YouTube, I figured I'd upload this one as well.

Our little hound Wyatt was a climber from the start. He's about three months old in this one. We had tried to contain him in the entryway with a baby gate, but it didn't work.

Hmm... I'm stuck in here. Can't go over. Can't go under. Well, let's try over again! Almost there... *plop* *wag*

Wyatt and Pepper in LATE NIGHT CRAZIES

Tim Simkins — 2008-03-19T04:00:00Z

We captured this video tonight of our two little monsters, and Pepper's "Late Night Crazies". This is my first foray into uploading to YouTube, and I may upload some more.

I had been running into a problem where I couldn't import the audio from our digital camera videos into Apple's iMovie. I found a piece of software called MPEG Streamclip that splits out the audio and video tracks so iMovie can understand them.

Of course, while I was editing the video, everytime I hit the part near the end where Wyatt lets out the big "WOOF", both dogs went nuts and started barking. Enjoy!

Website Overhaul

Tim Simkins — 2008-03-15T04:00:00Z

Alrighty... I figured that since I'm a web-type person, I probably ought to use a standards-based layout (divs instead of tables, etc.) I updated the look and feel, as well as the structure. After staring at it enough, I realized that the orange color I had added in the last minor overhaul was a little much, so I toned everything down a little.

This is the first major overhaul since probably around 2001 or so. It's funny how you add little bits and pieces to make it look "better" over time, and the end result doesn't end up as well as you intended. I'd tried some minor fixes in the past, but I finally decided to do a "reboot" and update the whole things.

Enjoy!