Update ,Work In The Garage (art,the blizzard,& bike work)

It's been a while,I've been busy out in the garage cleaning out the crap.It took over and I finally decided to attack the mess so for the last two weeks I've been clearing out the unwanted stuff, cleaning ,and organizing my shop.This is no easy task,things got stuffed in every place imaginable over the years as I lost my other storage spaces one by one.Well,I am coming to terms with it now as I start the process of clearing out all the stuff I can't bring with me to Arizona.Found this cool old generator buried under some auto parts Decided to make it work and put it up at my camp to run the water pump.I can leave it there and when the place gets sold let the next guy have it.It's pretty cool but not cool enough to keep so I'll go thru it and get it functional after I get the DS6C finished and up for sale.

The DS6C is starting to come together now.I bought a truing stand and trued up the wheels I put together for it the other day.You know,there are limits on how long I can stay in the garage cleaning so I do other stuff to break things up some.It takes a couple hours to get the garage warm with the heater in the morning so usually I use this time to do those other things.It's going to be a fine bike for someone to own and enjoy.Wish I could keep it but Arizona is calling and I'll be 67 in a couple months so it's time to thin the herd some and get down to just 4 or 5 bikes.

I like spending time in my garage doing this.I'm handling all my little treasures and finding things I forgot I even had.It's like therapy going thru the piles of parts and finding this lost treasure then sorting thru it on my workbench as I glance out the window past other treasures I have sitting on the shelf. It's a good feeling cleaning out the place.

I only have one corner left to sort thru.The motors are all over there.A shelf with motorcycle engines,2 MOPAR slant 6's on stands in front of the shelf and a 6 cylinder Chevy motor that I got fucked on back in November on another stand.This one really pisses me off but,I have let it go and changed my plans.I was going to put the 6 in my 71 Chevy C20 truck and pull out the 350 V8 to get better gas mileage but to fix this motor will cost another 4 or 5 hundred on top of the 350 dollars I already spent to buy it .It's a loosing proposition.The V8 runs fine but only gets 8 or so MPG .The 6 would get better gas mileage but it will take so long to recover the 8 or 9 hundred dollars it will now cost that it's not worth the effort so to the scrap yard it goes ! This is the fate of lots of the auto parts I had in the shop.I've beef filling the back of the truck for two weeks now with scrap metal.Was doing this right up to Friday night and then the blizzard struck ! The blizzard was bad.It started in the middle of the night Friday night and ended Sunday morning before dawn sometime.We got 2 feet of snow and I spent the entire day yesterday(Sunday) digging myself out.After I dug us out I spent the afternoon digging my neighbor out and made some money for parts for the DS6C .Always wheeling & dealing.Storms always make money for me either with the snow blower or the chain saw .

On Saturday while the storm was raging I took some photos and had some fun in PhotoShop with them making some abstract things.I like doing this.

Been doing some painting as well.I did quite a few paintings over the holidays.Here are a couple of them.I've been very productive this past few weeks,too bad I'm not making any money but that's the way it goes these days in this land of the rich and home of the greedy.Overall Things are pretty good ,I'm keeping busy out in the garage,down in the basement ,or in the house in my little studio where I hang out with my 3 tortoises and paint pictures.But,I'm getting antsy and I want to head on down some really cool road I've never seen before out in the desert or in the mountains meeting new people and going to new places.It's my time for this now.

Well,it's too cold out in the garage to work there today,besides,there is 2 feet of snow in the driveway where I would normally put one of my bikes while I work.I'll shovel some today but not too much,I'm tired of that shit.No,today I think I'll take a break and paint.It's going to warm up tomorrow and rain .By the end of the week most of this garbage will be melted so I think I'll just chill and let nature do the rest of that work as I paint some and sort thru more auto and unneeded motorcycle parts .Putting stuff up for sale on the internet too.Sold some exhaust parts and have to get them shipped.I wonder what goodies I'll find to sell off next !

And The New Year Begins

Yesterday was a nice day here in NY.It was sunny and in the mid 40's F so I started to get the garage cleaned out in preparation for a winter of bike work.It was my first work day of the new year and it felt good to empty off the top shelf of the storage space I have.

Of course it's not as bad as in the photo because I have been getting rid of stuff I no longer need for quite a while now . Thing is,now it is possible to actually get back to the shelves in the back and on the sides so I can sort thru them and throw things out.It wasn't always like this but I lost the two other storage garages I had so things got stuffed in my work garage.It's mostly car parts for my MOPAR A bodies and now that I'm down to just 2 of those I can sell off most of this stuff.I'll never use it 'cause I don't really do auto restoration any more .It's just bikes for me now.There was a time when I had 7 cars.I was into it big time,always building cars with my friend Al and I enjoyed it. I had 4 Valiants and 2 Barracudas and I don't know how many parts cars that I dismantled.It was a real addiction for 20 years.Here are some of them.

And this is just a few of them .There was a 66 Valiant convertible,and 3 other 2 door Valiants .But now I'm just down to the convertible and the little station wagon. so all those parts are going to leave.This will free up space so I can work more efficiently. I've got a lot of project bikes to work with as builders.

I picked these up back 20 and 30 years ago when no one wanted them and now it's time for me to build them and sell them .So,the other day I went out and bought a wheel truing/balancing stand at Harbor Freight. You know,it's just Chinese crap but it will do the jobs I need it to do.I laced up these wheels for the 1970Yamaha DS6C I restored a couple years ago but never got to truing them so after I finish up out in the garage today I'm gonna head down into the basement where it's nice and warm and true these.

So this is how the new year begins.I'm full of hope that it will be a good year and I'll reach my goal of getting the down payment on a little house out in the desert by selling bikes and my camp.It's hard to let some of this go but I know I will be heading to a better place with a better life and more time to ride down new unexplored roads.This bike will be the 2nd one to get sold in this project to get out of NY.

It's in the work space now waiting ! So now my new year begins and hopefully with any luck I'll get all this work done,these bikes sold,my camp sold and be moving out to Arizona into the desert before too long .