It seems like a long time since I have updated this blog, but that's probably due to having an event filled week or so. The plan was to take our camper out to Grant's place and spend three days working on the car.
That plan did not come to fruition.
Because of Ted.
Who's Ted, you ask? Good question, and exactly what I asked when Grant cautioned us against staying at his place. Ted is apparently a resident of Gettysburg, OH, which is a zero horse town about a half mile from Grant's place. This is an aerial view of the megalopolis of Gettysburg - a two-pump gas station, a bank, a post office, and a pizza place. That, and a collection of misfits with anger issues.
Ted, probably having been too weird even for the GBurg crowd, decided to look for greener pastures a half a mile down the road. IOW, Grant's farm. Ted is an aficionado of weapons of all sorts, such as swords and other sharp edged implements. He reportedly demonstrated his "skill" with swords and other forms of messing people up by swinging sharp blades just an inch or so from Grant's throat.
We decided to camp at the Darke Co. Fairgrounds instead. Frankly, I was all in favor of that anyway - I really like the fairground for a number of reasons, including far less traffic noise and the IGA grocery store that's an easy five minute walk. They are renowned for their broasted chicken and Amish baked goods. It's the reason that we don't typically take a lot of food with us.
What? You don't know what broasted chicken is? Well, I've gotcha covered:
What is Broasted Chicken?
Broasting is a special cooking process that combines pressure frying and traditional shallow frying to produce juicy chunks of fried chicken with a crispy outer layer. The process begins by marinating the chicken in spices and seasonings before placing it in a sealed pressure cooker containing hot oil. This tightly closed environment allows the heat to cook the meat quickly without losing any moisture or flavor. Once cooked, the chicken is removed from the pressurized environment and finished off with some traditional shallow frying to create a golden-brown crust on the outside.
The Benefits of Broasting
The biggest benefit of broasting chicken over other types of fried chicken is that it offers an incredibly moist and tender texture while still maintaining the classic crunchy coating associated with fried food. The pressurized environment also helps infuse flavor into every bite, which means more deliciousness in each mouthful! Additionally, because this method uses less oil than traditional deep-frying methods, it can result in healthier meals since fewer unwanted fats and oils are absorbed by the food as it cooks.
Unless they have some event or another at the fairgrounds, we typically have very few other folks around is and its very quiet. The fairground is pretty big and its great for waking the dog or sitting outside reading in a comfy chair. Sadly, though, that sitting outside communing with nature took a turn for the worse: I got eaten up by chiggers. I'm here to tell you that you do NOT want Chigger bites. You would be better off hanging around with Ted.
As bad as those bites are, they were nothing compared to what went on in my underwear. Modesty prevents me from sharing those pictures.
You're welcome.
Now, I had heard of Chiggers, but did not know much about them. Now I do. And so will you, courtesy of a Google search:
You might be out for a stroll in the park with your kids. Or maybe enjoying an afternoon on the golf course. That outdoor fun, though, sometimes comes with a price -- an itchy rash from pests you can't even see.
They're called chiggers -- bugs so small you need a magnifying glass to spot them. They aren't dangerous, but their bites can leave you with a powerful urge to scratch.
Don't let them get the best of you! Learn how to soothe your irritated skin and find out how to prevent bites the next time you go outside.
Scientists call these creatures "trombiculid mites." But they have a bunch of nicknames. You might hear people call them harvest mites, harvest bugs, harvest lice, mower's mites, or red bugs.
Technically, these critters aren't insects. They're "arachnids," in the same family as spiders and ticks.
You can travel across the globe, but you can't escape these pests. Chiggers live in every country. Their favorite spots are moist, grassy areas like fields, forests, and even your lawn. You can also find them near lakes and streams.
Adult chiggers don't bite. It's the babies, called larvae, that you have to watch out for. They're red, orange, yellow, or straw-colored, and no more than 0.3 millimeters long.
After they hatch from eggs, the babies don't fly and don't travel very far on their own. They tend to stay clumped together in large groups on leaves and grass, usually less than a foot off the ground, and attach to animals or people as they pass by.
In the U.S., chigger bites are most common in the late spring, summer, and early fall. The bugs are active when the ground temperature is between 77 and 86 degrees F, and they die when it gets colder than 42.
Once chiggers latch onto your pants or shirt, they crawl around until they find a patch of skin. There, they use sharp, jaw-like claws to make tiny holes. Next, they inject saliva that turns some of your cells into mush.
Why do they do it? To a chigger, those liquefied cells are food. When they get on you, they can stay attached to your skin for several days while they eat.
Chigger bites can happen anywhere on your body, but they often show up in clusters around the waist or lower legs. You may not notice anything wrong at first, but in a few hours you'll start to itch.
The itching usually lasts for several days and can sometimes keep you awake at night. You may also notice that your skin turns red and has bumps, blisters, or a hive-like rash that may take a week or two to heal.
If you get a chigger bite on your penis, you could get a condition known as "summer penile syndrome." It causes swelling, itching, and trouble peeing. This can last for a few days to a few weeks.
Chiggers don't spread diseases but scratching could break the skin and lead to irritation or an infection.
I would have been better off with Ted. At least you can see him coming.
So, I have been going to the Darke County Fair for roughly 55+ years, with a notable five-year gap when I was in the Air Force. It will take more than chiggers to keep me away.
The fairgrounds, as I mentioned before, is relatively large. To help folks find their way around, there are about a dozen boxes placed around the fairgrounds that contain helpful maps. The boxes have little padlocks on them, presumably to keep people from taking the maps. I know that because I have always wanted one as a memento. I have had plenty of opportunities to snag one over the years because they aren't always locked up. My conscience was the only thing stopping me.
One of the benefits of staying at the fairground is the long, quiet walks with my dog Cassie. We were walking back towards the camper when we walked past the fairground office. The office is populated with a couple of friendly and helpful women. On an impulse, I decided to go in and ask about the maps - for all I knew they sold them off to other people that have the same devotion to the fair. Neither of the women knew what the fate of the maps are, so one of them picked up a phone and called someone that could approve may taking of one. I could actually hear her laughing at the request.
They just throw them away. In fact, they were getting ready to do so in the next few days as the fair will be coming to town in just a couple of weeks.
I finally got my map!
Very little work was done on the car. And Ted never showed up. So there is that.
When I finally got back to work on the car (with shop doors closed and locked to block Ted) it was to continue with the aluminum panels. Grant had spent a few minutes placing the panels where they belong (something I had failed to accomplish both times I tried to do it) so I could drill the holes and start with the riveting.
Figuring out where to drill was kind of tricky - it took four tries to get the prospective holes aligned with the chassis behind it.
I missed.
I followed that mistake with the exact same mistake:
Having learned (slowly) from my mistakes, I did a lot better on the other side.
I had hoped that Grant would not notice my fiasco. If only that tape wasn't so *&#$ bright I might have gotten away with it. He was not impressed. Neither am I.
I ended up just putting rivets in the extra holes. No one is likely to see them anyway. That's pretty thin gruel to live on, but whatta ya gonna do?
It's getting nigh on time I make a decision on wheels and tires. I'm leaning heavily towards 15" wheels - 17" just look too modern. They also cost more. It's a twofer! As far as wheel width, Grant is suggesting 10" in the back and 7" on the front. That's not going to be cheap!
I've also started thinking about paint. I don't want to blend in with the more traditional blue or red. I'm going to base the paint on the airplane I worked on when I was in the Air Force - the SR-71 Blackbird:
The Blackbirds were based in Northern California, but there were always a couple of them stationed over seas. One of those bases was in Japan. The Japanese gave the plane the nickname Habu because of some similarity between the airplane and a snake.
A habu (pronounced "hah-BOO") is a venomous snake found in southeast Asia (Japan, Phillipines, Taiwan, southeast China).
Habus are pit vipers, more closely related to the adder than to any species of North American snake. The actual "habu" (Trimeresurus flavoviridis) is relatively small, not usually getting longer than 5 feet. They are not typically aggressive but will bite if provoked. They are not as deadly as cobras or mambas, but are more much more dangerous than most North American venomous snakes. There are almost a dozen species of habu; the variety native to Okinawa (Trimeresurus okinavensis) is supposedly greenish or greenish-yellow; however, all habus are extremely rare in North America (less than a dozen specimens in all zoos combined) and photographs are very hard to come by.
When the A-12s (and later the SR-71s) were first flown to their new remote base at Kadena AFB in Okinawa, the local people thought that this strange and somewhat wicked-looking airplane was shaped like the habu snake. They started calling it the habu airplane, and later just habu. Crews who flew the airplane were also called Habu, and the name came to be recognized with the blackbird program and even incorporated into the insignia worn by the crews on their uniforms.
All of the SR-71s had a tail number starting with '17' an three incrementing integers after that. For example, 17956. I want that on the car, but the numbers I will use are 'N284DG' - that is the tail number of my airplane.
The Habu emblem above will likely be painted on top of the hood scoop. Also note how awesome those 15" wheels look!!
Oh, I almost forgot to show you the fair map's new home in my hangar:
