The Motobecane

When I was a freshman in college at ACU, I was a depraved child. My parents decided that it will not be necessary for their kids to have a car during their first year away from home. Oh the humanity! Of course this steadfast rule held true until our little sister went off to school... but that's another story. I gained something special as a result of that rule and this begins a documentation of an attempt to restore it to it's original luster.

I'm talking of my 1978 Motobecane Super Mirage. I put hundreds of miles on this beautiful piece of machinery. From trips around Abilene, all over College Station, riding with my older brother in Austin and a 500 mile 'vacation' he and I took from Houston to Corpus and back in May of '82. It even helped me win a coveted Intramural Championship shirt.

Dave picked this bike up for me in Austin in the Fall of '81 from an actor needing some cash. At least that's how I remember the story. I had been borrowing my roommate's Schwinn to get places and it was killing me. I had to do something. Abilene is a small enough town that you can ride a bike from campus to the mall in about 15 minutes but not on a Schwinn.

I've taken the wheels to a local bike shop to be rebuilt. The front will get new spokes, tube and tire. The rear will need a new hub and gear set as well.

I'm stripping the bike down to the frame but I'm not sure what I'll do about the paint. It's rather chipped and pealing in places.

'tar baby

From the time Savy started telling us what she wanted for Christmas... I think this was way back in September... until a few weeks before, the desire remained consistent. Years ago, she had begun picking up my old guitar and teaching herself little bits and pieces. She'd get on the Internet and figure out chords and short pieces of songs and really displayed some natural talent. So when she consistently kept asking for her own guitar, I was very willing to oblige.
The shopping was quick. Quicker than I thought I would be happy with. We drove over to Mr. E's, just to look mind you, and sat in their guitar room for a little over an hour. There were several upper end toys in there but right in the middle of the room were several starter guitars. The sound of these were really quite nice. We left there with a little black beauty made by Ibanez.

When Savy told me we had to come up with a name, one immediately came to mind. First of all because of the instruments color but second, how from the moment we got it home, it was stuck to her side. Of course the name, that has also now stuck, is 'tar baby. I had to explain the name's origin to our 13 year old because Disney has completely locked away in 'the vault' that politically incorrect film and any related paraphernalia. Why the apostrophe-tar, you ask? It's a guitar... 'tar baby... do ya guit it?

Valentines Day Massacre (of my diet!)

Lisa has a fun tradition of making chocolate covered heart shaped brownies. These things are to die for. That's exactly what my diet did this weekend.

Valentines Day always vexes me. I never quite know what to do to show her that's she's special to me. I don't think I've never given her white roses so this year, that's what I did.

It's hard to compete with sixty school kids that want to shower her with everything from candy to bath soaps. Actually, compete with sixty school kid's moms. This year, I took a picture of the candy stash alone...

Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity

Several people have recently asked about the vanity in the room addition bath so I thought I'd brag a bit... what, me brag?... :)

When we started designing this bath, we definitely didn't want standard cabinets and a counter top. We pretty early in the process decided on some type of vanity. As soon as I saw this piece in the Pottery Barn catalog, I knew we had to have it. The only problem was that it was way too big. It was two sinks and there was no way it would fit in the area we had set aside for it. That and it was ump-teen gillion dollars.

We needed the vanity pretty quickly, so I set out to make it myself. Since the only thing I had to go on was the picture in the catalog you see here, the design part was a lot of fun. This is where SolidWorks was a big help. All of the drawer fronts and cabinet doors were cut rail and style from red oak. The columnar legs are fir.

The crowning jewel on the piece is the granite top. We had that made from a remnant that we found at a local granite counter top place. The colors in the stone were perfect so I can't take all the credit for how it turned out.
(Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Superbowl XLIII

pictures by ::brandi:: (thanks bt!)
Sunday night was Superbowl Sunday if you missed all the hype. It was also the first Sunday of the month and that means a teen devotional. Although we didn't change our worship plans we did work the devo around the game. Thanks to TiVo, we didn't miss a play.