The Jackalicious Files

It has been sometime since I have been able to make a site update or pass on something I feel might be interesting to my readers.  Lately I've just been posting something I thought might get a laugh or two but of course that wouldn't be much of a blog, now would it?

After losing my mother in July, things were just depressing all around and everything seemed pointless to me. It took a while to get things straightened out and trying to pay attention to my wife who was going through it just as much as I was or maybe worse was hard at times. All I could think about was death – her death, my possible death and the lack of sleep just made it all worse. Furthermore, I was finishing up my summer semester term in College but as luck would have it, I have fallen into the fall term, all of my courses are now focused in upper level courses that deals mostly with writing essay and the like.

I'm not sure if my middle sister reads my blogs or not but I would like to make a comment on how she accomplished the arduous job of working out the affairs of Mom's passing. She single-handedly put all of her belongings in storage and took numerous trips down for many weeks to put it all away. Of course we worked together getting it worked out but I was very worried that it would be too much for her to handle with the paperwork involved, taxes, and all that mess that goes with leaving this world.  However, she did not and she stood strong through it and did an upstanding job of it all.

Speaking of dying and all that junk we hate talking about, I cannot stress the importance of getting your affairs in order before you head out to that happy hunting ground in the sky. The headache that goes along with trying to decide what to do with all that junk folks leave behind can be extremely hard to deal with and letting your state or local government deal with it can take over a year, or even YEARS - if you've been through what we endured, you know what I'm talking about.  Be smart and make sure your family knows what you want…or you can just leave it all to me.

Now that things are settled down I wanted to get started on the dozen or so side projects I put to the side and begin blogging about it all. The biggest news lately is that I had a birthday! Happy Birthday to me! What's most awesome about it all is this ability to stay 35 forever. I’d like to give a big shout out to Billy Witchdoctor who gave me that magic potion and spell to keep me young and in my prime! Whooo! Go Billy Witchdoctor! He was a great deal at only 3 chickens and a guinea hen. By the way, be sure and ask him for the ‘special’.

For about a year now I’ve been looking for a vintage VW Bug to drive. The sedan I was was shooting for was an early 70s Super Beetle, but anything in the late 50s or 60s would have been perfect for me. After searching and going on wild goose chases, being mislead a few times, I finally found that perfect 1969 sedan. I have always been a fan of the original VW Beetle and it probably stems from going up with one as a child. We owned a '72 Super Beetle and for a brief period, a late 60s Baja. That sound that only an airheads will know and love was ingrained in my memory long before I could articulate a sentence. As a matter of a fact, I can remember being small enough to lay down in the luggage compartment behind the seat and go to sleep to the sound of that ingeniously built, air cooled engine. If you own a bug, you'll know just how small that area is.

Right now, I’m in the process of tearing it down and restoring it and hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll be posting pictures of the restoration and possibly some video! The intro image of the car is the first image I had of the car before I bought it.

If you own a bug, I'm thinking of starting up another site dedicated to sharing questions and how-to on the VW bug. While there are many sites out there, it never hurts to have another.