Bloomington Gold

This year Indianapolis was chosen to host Bloomington Gold. This show represents for me all the things I dislike about car shows, chrome, cars that are never driven, wax type discussions, etc. I am interested in the performance side and while I respect the whole 1 of 3, 100 point car that is Bloomington Gold, I would not have driven 50+ miles to go.

I was not even aware that it was being hosted here this year, the advertising apparently was done mainly through newspapers, I saw nothing on the local news or heard any radio ads. One of my reports at work, left a newspaper on my desk which spoke about 1000+ corvettes participating in a "Gold Tour", After reading the article, the proposed route and it being at the brickyard I had a reason to go.

The event was scheduled Thursday - Saturday June 25-27 with the Gold Tour ending the event Saturday night. We arrived mid morning Saturday and were only there a few hours when the vendors started packing up to leave. There were rides being given by Ron Fellows group driving brand new Z06's but by the time I figured it out it was too late to participate. We did get to ride in the Ridetech Z06's on the autocross course.

At the autocross course Lingenfelter had a second display with this awesome Karl Kustom Z06. While there were a lot of very impressive corvettes there, this was among my favorites.

Couple of Z06's in the parking lot with handicap tags, the blue one is a stage one aero and the yellow a stage 2.  I did not see a stage 3 this weekend.

We waited in line for about 45 minutes to sign up for the Gold Tour, for some reason they did not allow online signups. That evening it took a little over an hour to get everyone lined up and start the Gold Tour.

The tour route was planned for just over 41 miles in which they had every intersection we passed through blocked off.  The police were very active in pulling stray vehicles out of the line of corvettes and actually had major intersections blocked off for well over an hour as a line over five miles long consisting of 1,000+ corvettes went through.

Once the tour started we entered the track and did one lap (limited to 65mph). I really had no anticipation of driving around the brickyard but admittedly once you are doing it, it is very cool.

The last two shots were taken by a co-worker as we entered the Metropolis parking lot.

There are a few videos of the Gold Tour posted on the net, this is probably one of the better clarity / views out there. Tania and I are center frame at 10:40.

Flower Bed Part 2

In August of 2013 we finished our flower bed / retaining wall project along the front of the house.  We had some block left over to start along the side of the house but did nothing with it last year.  This spring we decided to finish the project so I ran over to Lowes to get some more block. They had none in stock and no one there could tell me much about why or if they were going to get more etc.

I came back home and called Lowes tech support line and found out the company that supplied the block went out of business. They gave me a name of the manufacturer and suggested I try calling other stores to see if there was any stock remaining. I had no luck with that so we spent a weekend driving to different home improvement stores and landscape companies looking at block. I found out that there are quite a few different companies that make decorative concrete block. There is no standard for it, it changes from lot to lot and all of the landscape stores have "better" block than the home improvement stores, or at least that is what they claim.

In the end we did not find a suitable substitute and I was back on the phone making calls. Twenty three calls later and at least one French language phone switch board I found a guy at a landscape store in Davenport Iowa. He knew the company that made our stone which was about 20 miles away from him. He also thought he had a phone number for someone that had worked there. I told him I needed two pallets or four tons and he said he would make some calls. Two days later he called me back and said he had two pallets on the way and I was able to get them for the same price it would have cost me at Lowes. The bad part is Davenport is a 600 mile round trip and the only thing that I have access to that would handle that much weight is a 16 foot box truck.

After work Monday May 18th I picked up the truck and we drove to Le Claire and spent the night. The following morning it was a 15 mile drive to pick up the stone and another 300 home. We had all four tons unloaded and the truck back to the rental place before 5pm.

What four tons of block looks like

Over the next four weeks we put in a few feet a week and these are the final results.

Laundry Room

Since we moved in we have had a resin folding table in the laundry room. Because we did some work with the sink as well as repaint I decided to get rid of the resin table. I was able to locate the company that made the cabinets in our home and order three lowers that matched.

Other than needing to add a duct I was covering to the kick panel they were easy to install, then came the odyssey that is Corian. You cannot buy it if your not certified you cannot install it if your not certified. The simple top was more expensive then the cabinets themselves and even though I ordered everything at the same time it took two more weeks to get the top installed.

Part of my plan was to add a Rev-a-shelf ironing board.  I was able to find a fairly good price on one at a store in Rapid City SD. It is fairly heavy though and the shipping was expensive, so Tania's parents picked it up and brought it with them when they came for Matty's graduation.