On Aug 14, 2008, at 2:15 PM, miguel pacheco wrote:

> Hey, wait just one minute. Some of us were mechanical nitwits!  :
> My dad is a doctor. Driveway always contained nice cars. He paid to
> have all maintenance and repairs so I learned didly. Thanks to Muir's
> Idiot Manual, I corrected that, later.

Yep- that's me too (though I'm barely past basic maintenance in the
Idiot Book). My dad bought the cars that last a million miles and
then got mad when he has to go in for scheduled maintenance. I am
sooo jealous of my wife. Her dad can fix pretty much everything-
keeping her in air-cooled bugs as a teen though he thought they were
a joke (he's a Chevy and John Deere guy). I can't wait to get done
with this semester of grad school and actually have time to learn to
work on stuff with him (like tearing down that 2 liter I got from
Craig).  He used to farm- now does salvage, so he gets the occasional
VW so I get dibs on parts. Had some 60s/70s bugs, 412, squarebacks,
and one 68 bug with a 10 by 10 by 12 foot cabin built on the back-
still wish I could have saved that. No Vanagons yet, but I'm waiting:)

And yes- I hope oil becomes too dear for plastic dog houses, vinyl
siding, etc. Imagine how much money could circulate in an aftermarket
industry for America- and think of the aesthetic improvement. I
cringe every time I drive past those 100 year old houses decked in
weeds right next to the milion dollar tornado/hurricane-bait
disposable boxes.

Oliver Mueller-Heubach
groundhogging@mac.com