21 September 2006 - Can you hear me now?

Well, I'm back from China, but I can't seem to stop eating with chopsticks and eyeing the dogs longingly? I'm missing the orient so much that I'm already planning to go back. Yup, I will be heading back again in a few weeks. However, this time the supplier must show me that they have completed all tools and addressed all of the open issues I pointed out during the 1st trip prior to my arrival for this next trip. This is critical as Julz and I are scheduled to close on our new house the 18th of October! Yup, you read that right, we will finally be getting out of this crappy rental. Not sure how we will sleep at night not hearing the semi's rolling down the highway 24/7! Maybe I should record the noise to be played on the stereo while we sleep at night?!

Also, we'll get away from our white-trash redneck neighbors! These people are rediculous! I think I mentioned it before, but my original goal was to have the car drivable by Sept. Well, when the China trip was scheduled it changed to having it running. I made it with a week to spare. My parents arrived a day before I left, on Labor Day weekend, and I started the car for my dad. The couple next door came storming outside yelling and cussing at me saying I shouldn't be restoring a car. This coming from a typical redneck who does daily grinding on his daily-driver 80's Ford pick-up and keeps touching up the primer orange paint with his spray cans! HAHAHA They also threatened to call the po-po. Well, last night I called his bluff and was looking forward to having the police show up. Why? Because my cousin, a cop, was there as well! Best part was the guy flew into his driveway nearly hitting my cousin and coming just inches from some items I had sitting in the shared driveway, on my side. My cousin just shook his head and stated, "boy, the cops would be here in a minute if he would've touched me, because there would definitely be a problem!"

Yes, I only have headers on the car right now, but it is not even loud enough to drown-out the highway noise. Also, it is only a small block just lightly modified. It actually has a nice sound to it, especially when it is idled-up a bit. It is by no means necessarry to wear earplugs, which I originally did. This was also only the 4th time I have started it. The 1st 3 times were a max of 15mins. This 4th time was a bit longer totalling about 30 minutes due to the many tweeks for tuning the timing in on the engine and carb.