The garage is organized.

I finally cleaned out the garage enough to get two cars back into it.  The front of the stall my Jeep is in still needs a little organizing, but the rest of the garage is done.

Some of the things I found this time include: A whole bunch of pliers and 4 pipe wrenches,

A million and a half screwdrivers,

5 utility knives, and last month I spent an hour looking for just one, and it had a dull blade,

One of these.  Recognize it?  It’s back from when motor oil came in actual cans,

A whole bunch of unused film,

Some pain reliever that expired in 2001,

A telephone extension cord,

And an old cell phone,

My old Discman,

And an ad for the earlier version, a Walkman,

An ancient mixer, without blades,

An old can opener,

And a couple of pre-Photoshop cartoons that I altered for school,

And finally, a bunch of old negatives that I hadn’t scanned yet.  This is the Haunted Old Mill back in the late 70’s – early 80’s.

See how much it had changed by 2007?

Salt Lake City, back then.

And some pictures I took right after my old garage collapsed.

With the car it fell onto in front of it.  I was afraid that it would collapse, so I parked the car in front of it instead of inside.  My luck, the garage fell forward and the front of it ended up on the hood of the car.

It still ran, although the hood was a little dinged and scratched.  If you know a little Utah history, you may understand why I named this car Ervil.

Idle since 2001

In 2001 a friend and I planned on moving down to Las Vegas to teach there.  The pay was better, we’d heard they were desperate for teachers and we were sick and tired of the politics regarding teaching here in Utah.  Ironically, the politics and pay are not any better than they were, but we never even got invited down for interviews.  So we stayed.

Anyhow, I’ve been going through a bunch of the boxes I packed way back then, part of my garage-cleaning project.  I completely filled the recycle and the regular garbage can with stuff I saw no more use for.

I did find some interesting/funny stuff like the original deed to the first property I ever bought (with my little brother, a duplex in Glendale), the programs for my junior high and high school graduations) and my 1979 tax returns.

Some of the other things include:

A picture a student drew of me.

An aptitude test I took in 1986, that disproves the old adage “Those who can’t, Teach”.

My W-2 from the first job I ever had
(not including my paper route).

A Café Rude business card.

Calvin and Hobbes.

The key to the first car I ever owned.

My 8^th grade report card. Right after that school year we moved here to Utah.  (I also found all my high school report cards, but those I’d rather not have seen).

My senior year school ID card.

My baby footprint.

A traffic warning I got where the cop identified my car as a Ford Metro.  It was a Chevy Metro, but I had removed the Chevy emblem and replaced it with a Ford emblem.

Grand Avenue comic.

For some reason I have a Holy Cross Hospital security patch.

An Olympic poem from one of my students.

From back in the BBS days, a classified ad where a TMC put all his friends up for sale (I’m S’car)

Uh, this one is hard to explain, you had to be there.  But it makes fun of Gayle Ruzicka and the Eagle Forum, so I had to add it.

And finally, the invitation to my wedding to “Lady in Black”.

Ok, maybe some of this isn’t that funny to everyone, but I got some good laughs while cleaning out the garage.  Made the chore a little more tolerable.

Fun filled weekend.

It finally was warm enough to work in the garage, so I decided this was the weekend to get the hardtop hoist set up so I can single-handedly remove and replace the Jeep’s hardtop.

First, I had to get the Fords out of the garage, which turned out to be a major production.  Alphonse, the ‘78 Marquis, no trouble.  I got it out, took it down to the car was to get the winter’s grime off it and parked it out of the way without any problem.  Old Blue, the ‘69 LTD, wasn’t as cooperative.  It got stuck on the ice, which I found out was 5” thick in some spots.

This was Friday afternoon, right about dusk, and as it got darker and colder, and the melted ice started to freeze up again, I had to leave Old Blue sitting across the whole driveway overnight.  Fortunately, I had thought ahead and the Jeep was parked on the street and not blocked in the driveway.

Saturday afternoon, when it got warm again, after a lot of salting, chipping, digging and tire wear, I finally got Old Blue out, to the car wash and in it’s pre-determined spot out of the way.

The the real fun started.  I had to move all the stuff stored at the back of the garage on the north side into the south side.  Believe it or not, all that stuff fit, stacked about 3’ deep, along the back wall of half the garage.

Anyway, after 4 trips to Home Depot and most of the afternoon, I finally have the hoist all hooked up, and a beam in the middle of the garage to help support the weight.

Finis.  And I found some funny stuff while moving the crap from one side of the garage to the other.  Such as this letter from the Salt Lake Bureau of Air Pollution Control which sped up the replacing of the engine in my convertible LTD.  (Click to read)

I’m sure I’ll find a lot more interesting things as I go through everything this summer.

Finally, this optical illusion shirt that a student wore to school on Crazy Pattern Day.

Next Project : Cleaning out the garage.

Yup, it's been about 4 years since the last time the garage got a good cleaning, and now that I have the permanent carport done and I've moved the office back upstairs, I have more room to organize my stuff. It's time, and I'm in a serious thinning out the herd state of mind, so I'm throwing and/or giving away a lot of stuff. (Uh, no, none of the cars). I found some boxes of paperwork from Free Wheeler dating back to 1988, it's entirely possible I don't need to keep those. I already threw away a bunch of switch plates and loose screws I had laying around. All of the boxes of stuff are going into plastic containers and being hauled down to the basement. Boxes of nails and screws, and anything else I can afford to have stolen, are going onto the shelves of the carport. Tools and other valuable stuff will stay in the garage, but with the other stuff out of there it should fit a lot better. I've got literally hundreds of murder mystery books that I think I'm going to donate, so if you have any good ideas where to donate used books, let me know. When I cleaned out the office when Amy moved into that room, I stacked the bookcases 2 deep against the wall (and still could fit both LTDs in there - 24'x24' is a ton better than 20'x20'). When I moved them out to the carport I found some interesting stuff hidden back there, including the license plate you see here. Now, picture that family, cruising around Europe for a full year in a 1970 VW Bus (that was the plate on the VW, we actually bought it in Germany). Mom, dad, 12 year old, 10 year old, 7 year old and a 4 year old. (No, that's not Jackie-O, that's my mom). We even spent 5 months in the French public school system (that's a 10,000 word post in itself). Anyhow, je veux allez couchez maintenant. Yeah, well, may not be perfect, but it has been over 30 years, and I do have to get up early so I think I will sign off.