Dr Copa

Over the last ten years I’ve been collecting certain die-cast cars of NASCAR drivers that are my favorites, and who win the top races.  I don’t have all the die-cast cars of every race driver out there, but I do have at least one of most every driver that has won a major race.  Of course, we all know the top drivers are Ernie Irvin,Kyle Busch,Tony Stewert and Jeff Gordon.  Also on occasion Michael Waltrip and Jeff Burton have won races.  Oh, I almost forgot Dale Ernhardt and Dale Ernhardt Jr!  I have a lot of their cars, especially the ones with the fancy paint jobs.

One of my favorites die-cast cars is Ernhardt’s car with the pastel colors.  You know what I mean if you’ve seen it.  I especially enjoy collecting the cars that are painted up like Star Wars or Superman, I have one that has a picture of Brooks & Dunn on it, one with Tweety Bird & Sylvester, and one with the Incredible Hulk.  That one is really sharp.  We all know like everything else, the price of these cars keeps going up, and with my limited funds I even take the time to discuss this with my wife with just having two or three cars a year versus buying eight or ten.  She’s a nut about the finances especially when the bills barely get paid each month.   

I haven’t bought a car for pretty much a year now, but what I’m pretty much doing now is buying one or two cars a year, those being the ones of the top #1 and #2 drivers that finish in the top points of NASCAR for the year, that way I have a record each year and a car of the top driver.

Last summer my brother-in-law was showing off in his hovercraft, lost control, and crashed it into a stone embankment.  We hauled it off to our back yard to wait until we could fix it together.

So, I have started to look for fiberglass boat repair supplies and material to use when we are working on it.

Upon examination, we found that the front hull was crushed in several places and I have to make a template and then I’ll be using the supplies to re-mold the areas and strengthen the hull so that if it happens again there won’t be a weak place in the boat.

Aunt May has invited us to come visit her summer at her cottage on Cape Cod. My wife and I are really excited about the possibility of going up there – it has been five years or more since we’ve visited Aunt May. She is planning on lining up a couple of days where we sign up with some Cape Cod fishing charters for a couple of fishing trips. I love to fish; my wife doesn’t enjoy it quite as much, but she is always a good sport and goes along with me.

The last time we visited Aunt May we went to a clambake at her neighbor’s house that was out of this world! She was throwing a neighborhood social and hired a live band and had a catering company come out and do the cooking. We had lobster, clams, corn on the cob and iced tea. Ice cream for dessert and we were stuffed!

One of my wife’s favorite part of going to the cape is stopping at the Christmas Tree Shop on the way home. She LOVES that store, and is frequently reminding me how much she wishes that they would open a few stores here in Virginia. That is one of the things she misses about living in New England.

Thank goodness for the lockers at work. It is so nice to have someplace safe to leave a change of clothes and to store person belongings. If we didn’t have the lockers, I would have to leave all this stuff in my car. Then it would be a matter of schlepping the spare clothes into the building from the parking lot, changing my clothes, and then schlepping the other clothes back out to the parking lot, then going back inside again. That would be crazy – especially in bad weather!

I promise you, most buildings could easily add a small room with small lockers for the convenience of people who work in the building. Just think about how many people like to exercise either before work or right after work, or during their lunch break. These people needs someplace to freshen up and change their clothes!

I use my locker every day and have never had a problem (knock on wood) with anyone bothering my gear while the locker is in use. When you work with professionals, there are certain standards of behavior toward one another that you come to expect from everyone, such as respecting another persons gear in their locker.

Last year when the economy was bad and people were freaking out about the cost of gas, a lot of people ditched their family vacations and stayed home. So the term, staycation was born. I have to admit that I was one who spent much more time at home last summer than I would ordinarily. But this year people have decided to enhance their staycations and they are buying above ground pools for their backyards. I think the term staycation will be true again this year, but people will not be so willing to make all the sacrifices of missing their former vacation activities.

If you think about it, above ground pools make a lot of sense. Having a pool in your backyard used to be a luxury, but now they are very affordable and installation/setup is very fast. You can buy a pool this week and be swimming in it by the weekend. There are some really attractive decking packages that surround the pools, and tiki huts or cabanas, too. Some get very elaborate, with built in sound systems, outdoor flat screens and outdoor kitchens, too. I think this will be a growth industry for this year’s sun and swim seekers as they spend the money on improving their own backyards instead of spending it on transportation and lodging to more exotic locales.