Charlie’s Haus

Last weekend, was a busy one.  Saturday, we started out doing some tail-gating, then went to the badgers football game.  We watched them bitch-slap Northern Illinois 44 – 3.  They were playing their 3rd string by the end of the game.  It was pretty sad for NIU. 

Sunday, I borrowed my buddy Scotts truck, went to Uhaul and picked up a car carrier, then headed down to a little bit south west of Chicago.  There I picked up what is almost my dream car.  My real dream car would be just a few years older (the 1970 to 1972 range).  They had chrome bumpers instead of the federally mandated “5 mph” urethane bumpers.  However, those have been going up in price pretty quick, and I really couldnt afford that.  Anyways, this is close enough for me….Im not going to be picky. 

I have some work to do to it.  I am planning on a frame-off restoration.  The good news is that there is very very little rust….pretty impressive for a 32 year old vette.  One of the unique things about corvettes is that they body is made almost entirely of fiberglass.   It has the lowest ever horsepower v8 in a production corvette, 1975 was the first year of smog restrictions.  I plan on putting on some new heads and a new cam, etc.  That should bump me up to over 400 HP instead of the sad 165 it has now….ouch.

The good news is that it has a 4 speed manual tranny though!  I wouldnt have it any other way.  All in all, by the time I am done, I will have one special car.  I do plan on painting it orange instead of the Dark Red it came with from the factory.  For some reason, I just love orange.  I am trying to decide if I should do a year correct orange color (technically called orange flame), or just a nice orange.  Some people have pics of them with the 2008 corvette atomic orange, and its looking pretty sweet.  I might have to find an new vette to see how it looks in person.  Interior will change from Oxblood to black. 

I have one problem I need to contend with though.  Space.  I need space to remove the body and store it while I work on the frame.  Not sure what I am going to do about that at this point.  However, if anyone wants to contribute to the cause, I would gladly accept parts/money to get this ‘75 lookin sharp again

You can view the full album of my progress here:  http://www.charliemaurice.com/?page_id=265&g2_itemId=320

I picked up an ice cream maker from Amazon the other day.  They were having a sale and it was there for a price that was too good to be true.  I was gonna ask for one for xmas, but at almost 70% off, I couldn’t not grab it.  I picked up the Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream book too.  The first batch I made was Kahlua Amaretto.  It is really good, but it needs something in it.  Next one I make will probably have dark chocolate peanut M&M’s in it…yummy!  Its pretty awesome.

I also got a great deal on a panini maker.  Mandi has wanted one for a long time, and I was gonna give it to her for xmas, but I really wanted a panini after seeing the ones on the box…lol.  We have had panini’s for the last 3 nights.  They are so good. 

Sunday we went to the Cross Plains firemans country breakfast.  We decided it would be a good idea to support our local fire dept.  It wasnt a bad deal either.  For $6.50, it was all you can eat and they had some good choices.  Eggs, sausage, ham, hashbrowns, and pancakes.  Plus then they had juice, milk and coffee.  It was delicious…we will definately be doing that again.

Well my last post was September 24th.  What happened since then?  Halo 3.  Yes Halo 3.  Thats it.  It was released at 12:01am on Sept 25th.  I was waiting in line for it.  I got my copy at around 12:20am, and drove home and played till about 3am. I took off work cause I knew I couldnt make it through the day thinking of my poor game wanting to be played.  I played for 7 hours straight on Tuesday (minus a small break to gulp some lunch down and a few restroom breaks).  It was all worth it.  The bad news is the game was pretty short (only took about 8 hours to beat it), the good news is that the story was phenominal, and ended the trilogy awesomely.  I cant wait for the next game staring Master Chief (the ending leaves no doubt there will be more…they just wont be called halo is all). 

I then picked up an xbox Live subscription for the next year, so I can play my games online against other people.  That is pretty fun. 

Other than that, I was sick =(  Mandi had a cold for about a week, then friday it hit me hard.  I spent the weekend doing not much of anything.  Just hanging around and watching tv/sleeping.  It was worth it though because Im already starting to feel better (cold wise I feel better, Im just sleepy). 

The only other note-able thing is we finally got our roof replaced.  It was damaged a little over a year ago in a hail storm.  We havent gotten the final bill yet, but its gonna cost more than our deductable.  After they tore the shingles off, they found some of the wood was rotten.  So they had to replace it.  Still, for what we got and the price, we cant go wrong.  We ended up with 30 year architectural shingles, so a much better shingle, and a ridge vent instead of the turtle shell vents.  That should help with some a/c costs.  It looks really nice and took the crew about a day and a half from start to finish.  They worked crazy fast.