Some Past Victims

I thought it might be fun to post some pictures of some past Subaru's I have worked on, most of which ended up getting parted out, but some fixed up and re-sold. It's funny that I still have pictures of most of them:

My oldest one ever - a 1975 4WD wagon. This one was parted out by a friend of mine. It ran and drove fine, but the body was in bad shape. I picked this car up for $300.


This was a $100 car from Utah. Someone had just driven it back and snapped the clutch cable. I picked it up in Manchester for a friend of mine and fixed the cable (in the dead of winter, mind you).

An old friend of mine and fellow Subaru nut, Paul. This pic he was pretending to do something on this parts Brat. As you can see, every part went to good use.


This Brat was picked up right outside of Waterbury, CT. I remember that it had 76,000 original miles. It was not a running vehicle for some reason. This was one of many very profitable parts cars. Parts were sold on e-bay. I think this car was $300.


This one I picked up in Southbury, CT. This was $100, and had an awful paint job. This one was parted out, too.


The girl who had this car thought it was alot nicer than it was. It took me almost a year for her to sell it to me. She originally wanted $1000, but finally settled on $500. It had a salvage title, but was repaired and a good runner. I later sold this car on e-bay in the $1100 range.


This car I got in Enfield, CT. It was a low mileage car with a ton of good parts. It was parked for a long time and the body was rusted. This car was parted out on e-bay. This car probably made me the most money of any parts car.

This car I got out of New York. Another good parts car.


This is Allison's current driver -- probably the nicest Subaru I have ever owned.

My current parts car. Runs and drives, motor needs cam seals and head gaskets. This is what $400 will get you today....pretty incredible. Leather interior and everything. This car will be parted and scrapped.

Getting Back to an Old Hobby Part 1

Recently I have been feeling like I want to wrench on something in the garage again. As you may remember, in the past I have been pretty handy with working on cars and have had a lot of fun doing it. I am going to start a series of posts dedicated to my old hobby.

Nov 2002: First, a 1984 Subaru Wagon. The EA-81 cars, called that due to an engine designation, were getting harder and harder to find. Back then, if you could find a EA-81 car with a good body, it didn't much matter if it ran or not. I began my search on e-bay. The closest and nicest one I found was outside of Philadelphia. I persuaded the owner to end the auction early for $300! The car was in great shape but had blown head gaskets. I knew where I could get a donor motor and had a friend that could tow the vehicle, so off I went!

Here is what awaited me:


After a lot of sticker peeling it was pushed into the garage and the work began:

Several weeks later, Gini visited and I was tooling around in the backyard!
One night, I even got stuck in the backyard. My buddy Chris Clark came to the rescue. His F350 Super Duty even got stuck. Thank god Kimmy was there with the Pathfinder. Chris Bazzano offered to pull with the Pathfinder.
By summer, the car was cleaned up, and actually was pictured in the 2003 Ultimate Subaru Message Board calendar with this picture:
When we moved to Las Vegas in March 2004, the car was sold to a friend. I miss it.

Trip to the UP

Ok, so it's been a long time since I posted. I have been thinking lately and recently motivated to begin posting again. I have decided to make this blog a place to share all of the fun places I visit while traveling for work.

I recently traveled to Michigan. I was excited to hear that there was a job in Marquette, MI. Marquette is in the upper peninsula, a place I had always heard was beautiful. My friend Kevin had always told me how he worked in Michigan and had crossed the Mackinac Bridge. It is a 5 mile span which crosses the Straits of Mackinac, the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.


I decided to head up to Sault Ste. Marie for lunch, I had always heard about this town on the edge of the Canadian border. It was about 60 miles north of the Mackinac Bridge, and I had some time to kill.
If you look in the distance, you can see the Canadian flag on the other side of the fence.
Now, on to business. Here are some pictures of Marquette, MI, on the shores of Lake Superior.
Yes, I took this picture....
And of course, you have to eat the local food specialty. Up here it's fudge and a stuffed thing called a pasty. Pasties are filled with your choice of filling, mine had steak, potatoes, and rutabaga. It was awesome!

Work trip to San Diego

I recently took a trip to San Diego to help out some of my counterparts down there with some Emerson gear. During my stay I was treated to a couple of nice meals and a couple of baseball games. Of course the Padres aren't my all-time favorite, but it was fun anyway. Here are a few pictures from the game.

Here is the outside of Petco Park in San Diego

My colleague Dan and me outside the park, no we are not partners, even though the sign says so.

A view of the field walking up to the suite

A nice shot of the scoreboard and left field. I thought it was interesting how they built the park around the historic Western Metal Supply building.

Growing like a weed...

I have been feeling lately like my yard is overgrown. I looked back on some pictures and thought it would be fun to show you how quickly stuff grows out here...

November 2005

May 2008

I better get out there and trim those trees already!

I guess I'll play...

When I become a billionaire


OK, I'll do this thing.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I had just quit my career working at a package store in Vernon, CT two years prior and took a job working for my friend Dean. We were doing some wiring in the G-Fox building in Hartford for TCI Cable. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of a great bunch of jobs in the Telecom field. I was not with Allison yet, and having kids was not even a thought. I can't imagine life now without my great wife and beautiful son.

2.) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Take another shower so I can get ready and meet some friends down at the Nugget.
Eat some leftover Costco pizza for dinner (since it rocks)
Finish this post so everyone will stop asking me when I am going to post again.
I am considering helping my wife with laundry before I leave, but no promises.
Give my son plenty of kisses before he goes to bed.

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Double Stuf Oreos
Otter Pops
Drumsticks

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Pay off all of our debt immediately, no doubt.
Buy a modest home in Vermont on plenty of land.
Make plans to visit all of my family whenever we wanted to.
Buy James a full size real steam engine with a working Choo Choo whistle!

5) Places I have lived:

Ashford, CT
Ellington, CT
Manchester, CT
Vernon, CT
Suffield, CT
Enfield, CT
Henderson, NV
North Las Vegas, NV

6.) Jobs I have had: McDonalds, Burger King, Savings Bank of Manchester, Vernon Circle Package Store, The Scarlet Begonia, Team Telecom, TAD Telecom, Reliance Com Tec, Reltec, Marconi, Emerson Network Power, Cox Communications.

7.) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:


I think everyone who has a blog has already been asked, oh well.

Fun in the sand

When my cousin Chris came to visit in April this year, one of the fun activities I had planned for us was to go ATVing. Since I had recently sold my ATV's, I borrowed a Rhino from a friend and off we went. Since we had other things planned that day, we decided to stay in the Las Vegas area and not travel too far outside of town. We went and played at a place called Nellis Dunes. Here is a picture of the view of Las Vegas from Nellis Dunes.

Here is the view of Mt. Charleston from up there.

Here is a picture of me standing next to the Rhino...

And a picture of Chris enjoying the bearable April sunshine.

"Dude... this is so much fun"...

I know the front end is already a little messed up, but we have to catch some air...

What a fun time we had. Come back soon, Chris!