"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."- Theodore Roosevelt, Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Monday, November 8, 2010

So much living, so little time

This past extended weekend for me was packed with good stuff.  Overflowing in fact...yes, to wax poetic; my cup overfloweth.   I took a vacation day from the day job on Friday and I  went to the gym at 5:30 AM running numerous 400m runs with Amy V ( a die hard cross fitter, and awesome mom ) in the early morning darkness.  Later in the day I found myself in the middle of nowhere running a trail system amidst a freakishly early snow storm. It was one of those rain, sleet, and then snow kind of storms where the temps continued to drop throughout the day.  I manged to borrow a Garmin ( THANK YOU BRANDON!) to track the run at Potato Creek state park in order to see total mileage for the upcoming trail running event that I am trying to put on.  According to the Garmin GPS  its a bit short so I'll have to figure out how to add in another 3 miles.     It has been a while since I have done more than one hour solo out in a snow storm, so to tell you that I was miserable after the first hour would be a huge understatement.  Evidence of my dying enthusiasm can be carefully tracked in my pace on the Garmin info listed above under "Details".  Despite mother nature conspiring against me and making me earn the 9 miles, I did managed to have a awesome time.  While out and on the trail I was privileged to see a flock of wild turkeys and a sizable white tailed deer that had at least a 10 point rack.   Very Nice.
  I finished up the day working;  as I sometimes do, in the garage.  I am trying to put together a 1922 Ford  T -bucket ( replica body model T ) for my loving wife who just happens to love old cars as much as I do.   I've been working on this car for about a year and half now and I think I have finally turned the corner on getting it finished in time for her birthday in April.  Here is a pic of me working on mocking up the front end grill (still in primer ) that I made out of a 1952 International FarmAll grill.   Yes folks...it is a grill from a old tractor.  The problem is it did not fit the radiator that I had scrounged out of a fork lift (per the radiator guy who rebuilt it) , and it was cheaper for me to try to widen the grill vs make the radiator smaller.  Ahhh.  Its only more work.  What you see now in primer is about a month's worth of cutting, fabricating, crying and welding.  It appears that its going to work out just fine and really up's the kewl factor on the car itself. 

More to come on the race, and the car in future posts.   I'll try to keep them short, interesting and well illustrated to keep the people with ADD entertained. 
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