AIT? = Adventures In Truckdom

I’ve been a busy bloke lately …
… I’ve restarted my day-job search
… I’ve been working on my truck to get ready for my commute
… I’ve been promoting my book, AND
… I’ve been getting a few book presentations scheduled

Yeah, you read that bit about how I’m working on getting a day-job and getting my truck ready for my commute?  Here’s the thing … I need to kill the rust on the cab floor of my truck and paint it.  I’ve had some modern Naval Jelly stuff and paint along with other supplies, I just haven’t had time.  My preference has been to do this outside during the summer, yet the past few summers have been too busy.  This is +/- a 1-week project …. and now I’m trying to do it done before a job starts AND in winter?!?

Here’s The Deal …

The work ahead is more or less like this — bearing in mind that I have to make some accommodations to do the work at this time of year …

• Remove the bumpers from my truck to get it to narrowly fit in the garage at my new place — DONE
• Remove the bench seat and flooring — Partly DONE
• Carefully pull my truck into the garage where there is little space (Note that previously I thought I was going to have to remove the doors, too — but I’ve figured out how to accomplish the work without pulling these off.)

• 

  Heat the cab in an otherwise cold garage so the rust-killer stuff I have will work right and then allow it to sit for about 24 hours

• Paint the floor and heat the cab in the previously mentioned cold garage so the paint will dry right and allow that to sit for about 3 days
• Reinstall everything in the cab, put the bumpers back on, and return to driving on the sidewalks (<– yes, that last one is a joke — if you can’t deal with it then stop reading now)
• There are other tasks I aim to complete while the truck is off the road and the paint is curing, however that is aside the focus of this post …

Progress so far …

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on getting this project going — but things keep coming up.  You make plans and then there’s what happens — plans (often) don’t always work out as projected, the important part is that you do your best.  I have the bumpers off, the seat-belts and the bench-seat unbolted.  Yesterday I thought I was going to get the truck in, however a problem presented with the garage door — so a decision was made to put the work off until next week after the door is fixed.

There is a bright-spot in all of this …

I have plenty to do in the meantime — including working on my job search.  As for my truck, one of the smaller tasks is that I’ve wanted to kill the rust on the rear bumper and paint it.  I had planned to do this concurrently while working on the floor — now I get to try out my Naval Jelly product first and get familiar with it before working on the more-critical floor.  This also gives me time to work on other things that have needed attention.

OH… and one more thing… There is an online bagpipe school called Dojo University — I’ve known about them for years and heard nothing but good things and their prices are quite affordable.  If I could I would like to give their school a go, however I haven’t had an adequate net connection since finding out about them.  In the mean time I’ve read articles that they put out and uses some of their free services.  Lately I’ve been taking part in the “Dojo U 100 Day Bagpipe Challenge“.  The primary part of the challenge is for pipers, in their individual practice, to assemble their pipes and practice one tune — any tune — a day for 100 consecutive days …. and if you miss a day, you have to start over.  I see the object of this as not so much to work on one’s playing ability as it is to develop discipline.  Today will be Day 012 — it’s going well — and if I can … between now and when I can get started on my truck next week … I aim to do two practices a day.