05-31-2010, 10:29 AM
Here is the full monty write up of Part 4. Seemed like there were a few people interested, so here you go. Pictures are in the edited version. I added a couple of bonus shots here.
We left rxter patting himself on the back as he and Mike headed off the the Long Beach Grand Prix.....
<b>The Phoenix</b>
http://www.968forums.com/index.php?showtopic=9453
Fast ride down the freeway – posted a car and personal best in the Mazda on the toll road (that is a damned good car by the way and I think I’ll keep it). We get home and I pop open the laptop to show my bride the fresh kill from our hunt – must have felt the same 4000 years ago when a slightly less clean male hauled in a big hunk of dead elk or whatever – pride baby – one of man’s worst emotions, but that’s a discussion for the psych forum. I check my email and I have 3 separate emails from the seller – uh oh.
Taking several deep breaths I recall sales 101 – if your customer is not talking to you he’s not buying from you. Idiot – how could I have forgotten that??? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img] The seller must be worried that I’ve lost my nerve or interest or something. I should have called him at least twice during the day. We’ve heard of buyer’s remorse right? Well there is a corollary rule – its called sellers panic. It goes something like this - “DID I JUST LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE??” Damn damn damn.
OK, easy, just open the emails – I’m sure everything is OK.
<i>Email #1</i>
“Dear rxter,
I have not received your deposit yet, did you change your mind?”
uh-oh
<i>Email #2</i>
“Dear rxter,
I tried to call you but lost your number. I have 2 other offers that are higher than yours. I need to hear from you asap or I am going to sell it to buyer #2.”
oh sheiet
<i>Email #3</i>
“Dear rxter,
Since I have not heard from you I’ll assume that you changed your mind and I am going with buyer #2.”
Panic panic panic panic – calm the hell down. If this guy is gaming me he is doing a great job – even my dear sweet wife is swearing, and Mike looks like he is going to be sick.
Did I just see a dead elk with two f*+^#ing shots in the chest and one in the head - get up and walk out of my camp site? The only thing that came to mind was Randy Jackson’s – “what”? (weird how the human brain works some times)
OK ok calm down. I’ll just call the guy and we’ll straighten this out. 6 calls to 3 different numbers and no pick up – leave messages trying not to sound panicked. I am now a complete mess and I don’t even think about trying to go to bed.
I have no idea how or why his particular anxiety thing happens. I can typically control it and even have learned to use it to my advantage in business situations. But this car was the 24 point elk that was going to feed the tribe for the winter, not to mention satisfy my silly need to have a really really cool sports car and hang out with all the cool guys on this site [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif[/img]
I finally get some sleep but get up at 4 AM – after all maybe I can catch the guy shaving or something – get a grip dude!!! I toss in a couple more calls and hope for the best – screw it I have to go to work….the car probably stinks like onion farts anyway – to hell with it I’ll call the guy with the Iris blue coupe….
<b>
The Adoption</b>
Finally I get an email – the seller is a big time blackberry guy.
Well the price has gone up. Of course. Now I can let that pride thing get the best of me and try to kill the elk that just came back into my camp site with a stick, or I can just suck it up, realize that this is still a good, if no longer great, deal, and give the f*+^#ing elk an apple – stay big boy - stay. I piss and moan to get a concession that he’s not going to hose me again between now and the time of the transaction, bite the bullet and agree to a modified agreement – arghh…..Still a good deal and what looks to be a great car.
OK now on to logistics – the easy stuff. Plane tickets – check, move the meetings from Thursday and Friday – done, go to the bank and get the check – got it, wring hands while justifying spending my son’s education fund on a car – done.
2 days to go. I don’t let the elk spend more than 2 hours alone. I continue to send little love notes about this or that to make sure that he knows I’m still here and that I care. This was all getting a bit tedious, but confidence is a fickle community and I really needed to nuture this one – a bit nervous. At least now I’m in comfortable territory for me and I’m able to get some work done.
<b>The Big Adventure</b>
Mikey and I boarded a Wednesday night flight East to see our prize. All the diligence was completed. This car is real and its tight. We pack a minimum of clean clothes and load up on electronics – radar detector, GPS, communication suite, laptops, synchronized watches – you name it. Airport security was a hoot [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] Oh and one more thing. I got a roll of that temporary plastic wrap stuff – we brought that, a couple rolls of blue tape, and my vinyl bra. You see, what we should have done is had the car shipped and avoided putting 2500 grueling unnecessary miles on the car. Shoot it would have cost less to transport it. Not to mention that I needed to take 2 days off of work and pull Mike out of school for 2 days – and with his grades this is not a trivial matter.
However, as a father of 3, with 2 of those 3 gone already, I have finally learned that if my child wants to spend 4 days living in a car with me then I’ll just drive in circles if I need to. Life is way to short and this was an opportunity of a life time for me, and hopefully for Mike. I’d like to think that when I am long gone and he is waxing his shiny 40-year old 968 he’ll think about our trip.
So this gets really, really fun now. The seller was great – he had a car meet us and drive us to his place. The car was exactly as described both by he and the mechanic that worked on it. We checked her out good and used the checklist (I’ve compiled a PPI checklist from several sources and it is very comprehensive – if you’ve read this far and would like a copy PM me and I’ll email it to you – admins I would be happy to post somewhere if you want me to). The test drive was great – car drives like a 968 should – tight, powerful, and fast. I have the car, you have the money – transaction complete, see you later.
We drove up the road a bit and pulled over to get a bit better settled for our long trip ahead when the now PO comes by in his brand new sedan. He stopped, rolled down the window and said good bye. I said – lets see some tire smoke John – he pushed a couple of buttons, stood on it and obliged. Nice car. I like mine better - no buttons required [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif[/img]
<b>Day 1</b>
First stop – Target – I need more tape and a box cutter to cut this wrap stuff (and you can’t carry those on the plane). And another diet coke, thanks. We also heard that there was a big storm West of us that dumped golf-ball sized hail – yikes. So I bought a big ass comforter figuring that if it starts hailing and I can’t get under a bridge we’ll try to protect the car as best as we can and sacrifice our own bodies – we heal, steal and paint don’t. Sounds nuts (and possibly futile), but Mike was in.
Incidentally, I now know just how much stuff you can shove into the boot of a 968 cabriolet. This just in – not much.
We sit in the parking lot of the Target and wrap the entire front end of the car. The paint is really good and I don’t want to screw it up on the way home. This stuff is a hoot to apply and I have loads of tips that I have posted in another thread. We learned loads of lessons as the stuff flapped in the breeze – well I guess 70+mph winds qualify as a hurricane, not a breeze. And we developed a big pouch on the hood, which was comical. Most annoying was the above the windshield tape job that created a first octave F-flat reed effect in the wind. I thought we were going to go deaf with that.
Every stop we cut a little here and there and put on more tape. We made too many stops dicking around with the plastic and flat ran out of steam 50 miles East of St. Louis. Dad’s had very little sleep since Saturday and almost none on the plane. Time for a horizontal bed and 10 hours of recovery.
By the way mobile internet is no longer a cool option in my opinion. I know because I don’t have it and I really needed it. We were trying to keep an eye on the weather, traffic, and find hotels all while making good time. So my lovely wife helped us out by tapping away on the tethered computer at home. I need to fix that pronto.
<b>Day 2</b>
Refreshed and ready to go, we spend another 90 minutes reworking the entire plastic wrap job. This time I had a clue and the stuff stayed on much better – even in hurricane cat 4 winds (go look that up [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif[/img] ). We went 50 miles and guess what – we stopped to go up into the Arch – shoot I may never be this way again. As we were leaving I realized that our stop in St. Louis was appropriate, because at our current wagon train pace we would reach California just before winter – onward!
We live in SoCal and you can take a couple of different routes – I-40 or I-70, the Southern and Nothern routes, if you will. They are almost identical in distance and duration. I’ve been on the Southern route – southwest out of St. Louis through OK city and on through NM, AZ, and CA – 3 times before. And the trip through the Rockies would be spectacular. So we decided to take the Northern route.
I bring this up now because St. Louis is your decision point. West on 70 or southwest on 40. Through MO to KC and then on through Kansas. We chewed up a lot of long flat miles on Day-2 when I finally decided to call it in for the day. I thought we might make Denver but that was a stretch and this was meant to be a planned nap-in-the-car night anyway. It was really cold, and raining, but I found a little diner out in the middle of no where that had free wifi – go figure. So I booted up and checked the weather. Hmmm….
<i>
Truck Stop Diner with WiFi</i>
A large system is rotating counter clockwise over pretty much the entire state of Colorado. Some snow south of Denver in I-25 yesterday, mostly rain now, and definitely raining where I am – well maybe a couple of flakes. But its 42 degrees so no big deal. 90 minutes later, somewhat refreshed (I don’t sleep well in cars or planes) we start off again – West to Denver.
When we get through Denver I’m pretty tired, and its still dark and Mike’s sleeping, so I decide to catch a few more Z’s roadside. I want him awake for the beauty that is the Rockies.
Up at dawn we press on. This looks wild, but the road is clear and dry so on we push in our blue tape special. And of course changing course now would mean losing a day. And the road is open and clear or the cross buck road closed things would be down right? The mountains are spectacular – Mike is taking pictures like crazy. Oh yeah, he decided to use my ancient film-based Cannon of the last century – good lenses and optics though so the pics will be terrific.
We are hooting along, really looking forward to seeing Vail – it must be so beautiful there. Coming around a curve at about 60 the car just looses adhesion. Slide…….foot off accelerator…....let car swing wide in turn……pray……apply accelerator…….drive through corner with reclaimed adhesion. Oh s*** !!! I was never glad before to have grown up in upstate NY until that moment.
OK so now this snow stuff is no longer funny. I’ve gone by at least 6 signs that say “Chain laws in effect when flashing” and they were not flashing. AFTER I hit the ice the next sign is flashing – great. Then I see trucks pulled over into these ¼ mile long “Chain Stations” putting chains on their tires.
So let’s see – a rear-drive sports car with summer performance rubber heading into a place where the 80,000 pound trucks need chains. Now I am seriously worried. I slow to about 20 and realize that either I am going to slide into a ditch or be slammed by a truck from behind. Nobody in their truck or giaganto SUV says “excuse me sir I think you might want to reconsider heading into a mountain pass in the snow in your little sports car” – nah, they just laugh and shake their heads as they drive by thinking “you idiot you are going to die”.
So we poke along for about 1 mile and now there are only tire tracks through about 2” of fresh snow – there it is – an exit – thank god. I head up the ramp across the highway back down the ramp to the Eastbound side, without ever touching my brakes. Another mile of this s*** and we may actually survive.
Through Denver to safety – well to Eastern Colorado anyway. The question now is how do we get to I-40? We pick a state road that goes due south. 20 miles into that and we find some of our president’s stimulus dollars at work. The geniuses in CO have decided to close 8 freaking miles of a road at one time and repave it – shovel ready I guess. More like idiot ready. Anyway, this is about a 90 minute delay if everything goes well, so I decide screw this we’ll go over to that state road about 5 miles West of here.
Well these here state roads are connected by a county road – uh oh. The county road is literally Macadam, and a couple of sections are in the middle of a repave. They dozed (or prison labor shoveled?) the gravel to the side of the road. So now my car is crawling 5 mph over a dirt section of road – in the rain and wind – nice – so much for that paint job huh?
Here is a great shot of the CoRd2W. If you look closely you can see Mike’s hat in the wind. It was literally sucked off his head and shot over the car as soon as he opened the door – must have been 60 mph gusts.
Anyway, we finally exited this silliness on I-25 S in CO to NM to AZ to CA and home with a little bonus heading West from Palm Desert - a great mountain pass that we inexplicably had to ourselves so we pushed the limits of adhesion - loads of fun.
What a blast. I’ve not had this much fun in years. The new old car is safely in my garage next to my other old car (photos of the twins as soon as they are cleaned up and presentable).
Given all the logical reasons not to do any of this – the economy sucks and I could lose my job tomorrow – 2 of my kids are in college and need my support – Mike needs to be in school every day – I am running out of space to park cars – and on and on….. I will always remember the fun and adventure that I had with my son on our 4-day road trip. And we are planning our assault of that I-70 through Denver this summer. I can’t wait.
We left rxter patting himself on the back as he and Mike headed off the the Long Beach Grand Prix.....
<b>The Phoenix</b>
http://www.968forums.com/index.php?showtopic=9453
Fast ride down the freeway – posted a car and personal best in the Mazda on the toll road (that is a damned good car by the way and I think I’ll keep it). We get home and I pop open the laptop to show my bride the fresh kill from our hunt – must have felt the same 4000 years ago when a slightly less clean male hauled in a big hunk of dead elk or whatever – pride baby – one of man’s worst emotions, but that’s a discussion for the psych forum. I check my email and I have 3 separate emails from the seller – uh oh.
Taking several deep breaths I recall sales 101 – if your customer is not talking to you he’s not buying from you. Idiot – how could I have forgotten that??? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img] The seller must be worried that I’ve lost my nerve or interest or something. I should have called him at least twice during the day. We’ve heard of buyer’s remorse right? Well there is a corollary rule – its called sellers panic. It goes something like this - “DID I JUST LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE??” Damn damn damn.
OK, easy, just open the emails – I’m sure everything is OK.
<i>Email #1</i>
“Dear rxter,
I have not received your deposit yet, did you change your mind?”
uh-oh
<i>Email #2</i>
“Dear rxter,
I tried to call you but lost your number. I have 2 other offers that are higher than yours. I need to hear from you asap or I am going to sell it to buyer #2.”
oh sheiet
<i>Email #3</i>
“Dear rxter,
Since I have not heard from you I’ll assume that you changed your mind and I am going with buyer #2.”
Panic panic panic panic – calm the hell down. If this guy is gaming me he is doing a great job – even my dear sweet wife is swearing, and Mike looks like he is going to be sick.
Did I just see a dead elk with two f*+^#ing shots in the chest and one in the head - get up and walk out of my camp site? The only thing that came to mind was Randy Jackson’s – “what”? (weird how the human brain works some times)
OK ok calm down. I’ll just call the guy and we’ll straighten this out. 6 calls to 3 different numbers and no pick up – leave messages trying not to sound panicked. I am now a complete mess and I don’t even think about trying to go to bed.
I have no idea how or why his particular anxiety thing happens. I can typically control it and even have learned to use it to my advantage in business situations. But this car was the 24 point elk that was going to feed the tribe for the winter, not to mention satisfy my silly need to have a really really cool sports car and hang out with all the cool guys on this site [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif[/img]
I finally get some sleep but get up at 4 AM – after all maybe I can catch the guy shaving or something – get a grip dude!!! I toss in a couple more calls and hope for the best – screw it I have to go to work….the car probably stinks like onion farts anyway – to hell with it I’ll call the guy with the Iris blue coupe….
<b>
The Adoption</b>
Finally I get an email – the seller is a big time blackberry guy.
Well the price has gone up. Of course. Now I can let that pride thing get the best of me and try to kill the elk that just came back into my camp site with a stick, or I can just suck it up, realize that this is still a good, if no longer great, deal, and give the f*+^#ing elk an apple – stay big boy - stay. I piss and moan to get a concession that he’s not going to hose me again between now and the time of the transaction, bite the bullet and agree to a modified agreement – arghh…..Still a good deal and what looks to be a great car.
OK now on to logistics – the easy stuff. Plane tickets – check, move the meetings from Thursday and Friday – done, go to the bank and get the check – got it, wring hands while justifying spending my son’s education fund on a car – done.
2 days to go. I don’t let the elk spend more than 2 hours alone. I continue to send little love notes about this or that to make sure that he knows I’m still here and that I care. This was all getting a bit tedious, but confidence is a fickle community and I really needed to nuture this one – a bit nervous. At least now I’m in comfortable territory for me and I’m able to get some work done.
<b>The Big Adventure</b>
Mikey and I boarded a Wednesday night flight East to see our prize. All the diligence was completed. This car is real and its tight. We pack a minimum of clean clothes and load up on electronics – radar detector, GPS, communication suite, laptops, synchronized watches – you name it. Airport security was a hoot [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] Oh and one more thing. I got a roll of that temporary plastic wrap stuff – we brought that, a couple rolls of blue tape, and my vinyl bra. You see, what we should have done is had the car shipped and avoided putting 2500 grueling unnecessary miles on the car. Shoot it would have cost less to transport it. Not to mention that I needed to take 2 days off of work and pull Mike out of school for 2 days – and with his grades this is not a trivial matter.
However, as a father of 3, with 2 of those 3 gone already, I have finally learned that if my child wants to spend 4 days living in a car with me then I’ll just drive in circles if I need to. Life is way to short and this was an opportunity of a life time for me, and hopefully for Mike. I’d like to think that when I am long gone and he is waxing his shiny 40-year old 968 he’ll think about our trip.
So this gets really, really fun now. The seller was great – he had a car meet us and drive us to his place. The car was exactly as described both by he and the mechanic that worked on it. We checked her out good and used the checklist (I’ve compiled a PPI checklist from several sources and it is very comprehensive – if you’ve read this far and would like a copy PM me and I’ll email it to you – admins I would be happy to post somewhere if you want me to). The test drive was great – car drives like a 968 should – tight, powerful, and fast. I have the car, you have the money – transaction complete, see you later.
We drove up the road a bit and pulled over to get a bit better settled for our long trip ahead when the now PO comes by in his brand new sedan. He stopped, rolled down the window and said good bye. I said – lets see some tire smoke John – he pushed a couple of buttons, stood on it and obliged. Nice car. I like mine better - no buttons required [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif[/img]
<b>Day 1</b>
First stop – Target – I need more tape and a box cutter to cut this wrap stuff (and you can’t carry those on the plane). And another diet coke, thanks. We also heard that there was a big storm West of us that dumped golf-ball sized hail – yikes. So I bought a big ass comforter figuring that if it starts hailing and I can’t get under a bridge we’ll try to protect the car as best as we can and sacrifice our own bodies – we heal, steal and paint don’t. Sounds nuts (and possibly futile), but Mike was in.
Incidentally, I now know just how much stuff you can shove into the boot of a 968 cabriolet. This just in – not much.
We sit in the parking lot of the Target and wrap the entire front end of the car. The paint is really good and I don’t want to screw it up on the way home. This stuff is a hoot to apply and I have loads of tips that I have posted in another thread. We learned loads of lessons as the stuff flapped in the breeze – well I guess 70+mph winds qualify as a hurricane, not a breeze. And we developed a big pouch on the hood, which was comical. Most annoying was the above the windshield tape job that created a first octave F-flat reed effect in the wind. I thought we were going to go deaf with that.
Every stop we cut a little here and there and put on more tape. We made too many stops dicking around with the plastic and flat ran out of steam 50 miles East of St. Louis. Dad’s had very little sleep since Saturday and almost none on the plane. Time for a horizontal bed and 10 hours of recovery.
By the way mobile internet is no longer a cool option in my opinion. I know because I don’t have it and I really needed it. We were trying to keep an eye on the weather, traffic, and find hotels all while making good time. So my lovely wife helped us out by tapping away on the tethered computer at home. I need to fix that pronto.
<b>Day 2</b>
Refreshed and ready to go, we spend another 90 minutes reworking the entire plastic wrap job. This time I had a clue and the stuff stayed on much better – even in hurricane cat 4 winds (go look that up [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif[/img] ). We went 50 miles and guess what – we stopped to go up into the Arch – shoot I may never be this way again. As we were leaving I realized that our stop in St. Louis was appropriate, because at our current wagon train pace we would reach California just before winter – onward!
We live in SoCal and you can take a couple of different routes – I-40 or I-70, the Southern and Nothern routes, if you will. They are almost identical in distance and duration. I’ve been on the Southern route – southwest out of St. Louis through OK city and on through NM, AZ, and CA – 3 times before. And the trip through the Rockies would be spectacular. So we decided to take the Northern route.
I bring this up now because St. Louis is your decision point. West on 70 or southwest on 40. Through MO to KC and then on through Kansas. We chewed up a lot of long flat miles on Day-2 when I finally decided to call it in for the day. I thought we might make Denver but that was a stretch and this was meant to be a planned nap-in-the-car night anyway. It was really cold, and raining, but I found a little diner out in the middle of no where that had free wifi – go figure. So I booted up and checked the weather. Hmmm….
<i>
Truck Stop Diner with WiFi</i>
A large system is rotating counter clockwise over pretty much the entire state of Colorado. Some snow south of Denver in I-25 yesterday, mostly rain now, and definitely raining where I am – well maybe a couple of flakes. But its 42 degrees so no big deal. 90 minutes later, somewhat refreshed (I don’t sleep well in cars or planes) we start off again – West to Denver.
When we get through Denver I’m pretty tired, and its still dark and Mike’s sleeping, so I decide to catch a few more Z’s roadside. I want him awake for the beauty that is the Rockies.
Up at dawn we press on. This looks wild, but the road is clear and dry so on we push in our blue tape special. And of course changing course now would mean losing a day. And the road is open and clear or the cross buck road closed things would be down right? The mountains are spectacular – Mike is taking pictures like crazy. Oh yeah, he decided to use my ancient film-based Cannon of the last century – good lenses and optics though so the pics will be terrific.
We are hooting along, really looking forward to seeing Vail – it must be so beautiful there. Coming around a curve at about 60 the car just looses adhesion. Slide…….foot off accelerator…....let car swing wide in turn……pray……apply accelerator…….drive through corner with reclaimed adhesion. Oh s*** !!! I was never glad before to have grown up in upstate NY until that moment.
OK so now this snow stuff is no longer funny. I’ve gone by at least 6 signs that say “Chain laws in effect when flashing” and they were not flashing. AFTER I hit the ice the next sign is flashing – great. Then I see trucks pulled over into these ¼ mile long “Chain Stations” putting chains on their tires.
So let’s see – a rear-drive sports car with summer performance rubber heading into a place where the 80,000 pound trucks need chains. Now I am seriously worried. I slow to about 20 and realize that either I am going to slide into a ditch or be slammed by a truck from behind. Nobody in their truck or giaganto SUV says “excuse me sir I think you might want to reconsider heading into a mountain pass in the snow in your little sports car” – nah, they just laugh and shake their heads as they drive by thinking “you idiot you are going to die”.
So we poke along for about 1 mile and now there are only tire tracks through about 2” of fresh snow – there it is – an exit – thank god. I head up the ramp across the highway back down the ramp to the Eastbound side, without ever touching my brakes. Another mile of this s*** and we may actually survive.
Through Denver to safety – well to Eastern Colorado anyway. The question now is how do we get to I-40? We pick a state road that goes due south. 20 miles into that and we find some of our president’s stimulus dollars at work. The geniuses in CO have decided to close 8 freaking miles of a road at one time and repave it – shovel ready I guess. More like idiot ready. Anyway, this is about a 90 minute delay if everything goes well, so I decide screw this we’ll go over to that state road about 5 miles West of here.
Well these here state roads are connected by a county road – uh oh. The county road is literally Macadam, and a couple of sections are in the middle of a repave. They dozed (or prison labor shoveled?) the gravel to the side of the road. So now my car is crawling 5 mph over a dirt section of road – in the rain and wind – nice – so much for that paint job huh?
Here is a great shot of the CoRd2W. If you look closely you can see Mike’s hat in the wind. It was literally sucked off his head and shot over the car as soon as he opened the door – must have been 60 mph gusts.
Anyway, we finally exited this silliness on I-25 S in CO to NM to AZ to CA and home with a little bonus heading West from Palm Desert - a great mountain pass that we inexplicably had to ourselves so we pushed the limits of adhesion - loads of fun.
What a blast. I’ve not had this much fun in years. The new old car is safely in my garage next to my other old car (photos of the twins as soon as they are cleaned up and presentable).
Given all the logical reasons not to do any of this – the economy sucks and I could lose my job tomorrow – 2 of my kids are in college and need my support – Mike needs to be in school every day – I am running out of space to park cars – and on and on….. I will always remember the fun and adventure that I had with my son on our 4-day road trip. And we are planning our assault of that I-70 through Denver this summer. I can’t wait.