I might stop updating for a while

Long story short, I’m in the process of changing meds and there will be a period where I’m not taking the old med but haven’t started the new med, and I’m in the process of tapering off the old med. This will make my depression worse, on top of the broken toe not helping my disposition. Mrs. the Poet and the cats are already leaving me lots of room around the house, except when Clint decides I need some lap time.

I’m still working out the packaging for the TGS2. If I don’t try to get the driver forward for better balance, and put the fuel tank in front of the bucket body instead, it’s pretty easy to put the powertrain in the fake pickup bed and still have a fairly normal-looking T-bucket. Well as normal as a mid-engine bucket can look when they are usually front engine. The proportions would be sorta normal, close to that of the original Model T front to back, but much wider because of the minivan donor vehicle axles and driveshafts. And the front axle made so the widths kinda sorta matched. This is on the assumption that I’m going to get the minivan donor vehicle.

Now if I’m not getting the minivan donor vehicle then things get… different. Then everything depends on the donor vehicle or the crate engine and transmission combination. I can say I would love to get a flood-damaged front engine RWD car as a donor vehicle but again that would require resources to buy and then get the car home, in fact I found a Corvette listed for $700 but I would need a flatbed to tow it home. I also found a couple of V6 Chargers and Challengers with $100 or less prices. But again I would need a trailer, something to tow that trailer, and gas money for the tow vehicle. But now we are getting into the real pipe dreams, unless I can find something in a local auction with some kind of cash for seed money to buy the car. I might as well wish for working wings on my back. And yes that is the depression talking, but it is also realism talking. Which is another reason why I’m taking a break until I get my meds under control, you guys don’t need to be dealing with my depression any more than I do. Now that I have ways of not being depressed, I really want to not be depressed.

I’m starting to repeat myself and having to delete things, so this would be a good time to quit.

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My foot is looking better

I just checked how my foot was looking where I had access to a digital camera so I snapped a shot of it to share. This is much better than it looked yesterday, an about the same as it did the day I hurt it.

The swelling behind the knuckle has gone way down and almost looks normal. The swelling at the end of the toe is slightly down, and the whole thing is much less painful than it was before. It still feels broken, but better. I just have to remember to not curl my toes down or then it really hurts, again.

Foot is better, still trying to figure out what to do with the bucket

The toe looks worse today, but feels better. I mean the toe looks seriously ugly today between the color and the swelling, but as long as I don’t mess with it it feels pretty close to not-broken. As in most of the time I can’t feel it at all unless I do something that causes pressure against the toe. So basically if I don’t do anything stupid I feel pretty good.

On the bucket, I have been “what-if”-ing the car for more than 50 years, there is literally nothing I haven’t thought about doing to the car. About the only thing limiting me now is previously-purchased parts. The big thing is the 58″ front axle and the early Ford spindles and steering arms that I bought to match the hub spacing for the minivan donor vehicle I was expecting to use. Now what I seriously want to do is a V8 front mid-engine semi-traditional bucket with 4 equal-sized tires instead of bigs and littles. If I had the resources that is what I would do. Right now I have absolutely no idea what kind of car I’m going to be building, it all depends on the donor vehicle or getting a crate engine and transmission.

And as you might guess I didn’t win the lottery last night, so the build will still be as cheap as possible. Unless I win on Saturday, of course. First time through the “o” didn’t take and “course” became “curse”, I wonder if that’s an omen. Not that I pay actual attention to omens. I still need to get financial resources and the most likely way of that happening is winning the lottery, or finding a job, but to be totally honest I have a better chance of winning the lottery than I do of finding a job at my age and state of disability. That is a sad statement to make, but even sadder is that it probably is true. Winning the lottery is strictly based on chance, but getting a job requires convincing another human being that I deserve to get the job, or in other words I have to overcome any prejudices against my age and/or disability and the source of my disability (the bicycle wreck). All I need to win the Texas Lotto is beat 25827165 to one odds against. Compared to overcoming ageism, ableism, and automobilism all at once that’s nothing, and even slightly better than the odds of surviving getting hit by a truck doing 60 MPH.

So, question time. Anyone out there need a slightly damaged blogger to do something that pays money, or should I keep buying lottery tickets? Leave a comment.

I better win the lottery tonight

Because my foot is absolutely THROBBING from the little bit of walking I did yesterday, basically to and from the bus stops. So it turns out walking almost a mile with what is essentially a broken toe isn’t a good idea, whodathunkit? So since I’m suffering all this pain just to get the ticket there better be some payoff that is worth the pain.

And since I can’t proceed with the plans I have already made I have been making more plans for the TGS2 that I can’t fulfill. Since I can’t sit still and I can’t move forward I run around in circles to fool myself into thinking I’m getting something done. It’s terrible to try and fool myself that I’m actually doing something when I’m not, really. But the alternative is something like stepping in front of a train or bus. I’m not planning on that, but that is pretty much the choice, either fool myself I’m getting something done or end it all. Or just write stuff in a blog which I guess falls under the “fool myself I’m getting something done” category.

Of course if I win the lottery I will have the resources to actually do something, roughly $144k/an after taxes and the agreed-upon division of 1/3 each for me, Mrs. the Poet, and the house/cats. Mrs. the Poet has medical issues she needs to deal with, I have medical issues I need to deal with, and the house and the cats have deferred maintenance/medical issues to deal with, and probably after all the deferred issues have been at least started to be dealt with next thing is doing something we want instead of just what we need. Then I can start actually building the TGS2 instead of just writing about maybe building it someday.

I’m back at the keyboard

And I have been applying the data from scaling the picture to checking the fit against the actual body sitting in the living room. The engine will fit with both ends hanging out by about an inch from the bottom, or about 2″ on the left only if that’s the way it balances out, or whatever way it works out. Or, thinking again, there is enough room to fit the whole mess inside a stretched pickup bed . It will be wide enough but I will need to stretch it to fit the front-to-back. Then I can sit inside the actual bucket instead of a pod out in front of the body. It will still be center-steer, probably with my feet through the “firewall” of the original body.

The trick will be making sure the front tires don’t hit the body at full steering lock, and finding someplace to put the fuel tank or tanks. If I can get enough room I might be able to stuff the gas tank behind the driver like on the pod in front setup. The only difference is instead of 34″ width to the axle for the footbox I’ll use the 26″ firewall width for the footbox. Still a ton of room for my brogans or combat boots, or my usual walking shoes, and the steering shaft. The critical thing on the front is keeping the tires out of the bodywork at full lock, and turning the tires parallel to the axle gives me 34″ between the tires. So if I keep the firewall on the body far enough behind the axle then the tire will not hit the body at full steering lock, and there will be room inside the body behind the driver for the 32 gallon fuel tank.

I might have to cut the back of the bucket off to get the engine and fuel tank in the available wheelbase. A bucket has 100-102″ of wheelbase normally, they run from 87″ to 116″ historically for buckets made from old passenger car frames, my bucket will be 100″ even. As mentioned in an earlier post, with the 32 gallon tank all the pieces and I take up 97″ with no extra space between the bits for bulkheads, which means I can use the same 1.5″ round tubes for the bulkheads and crossmembers that I plan on using for the frame rails.

While I was letting the cat out for the night I tripped on where the cats had wrinkled up the hall runner in the dark, and I think I broke a toe. It hurts constantly, and gets really bad when I touch the side of the toe, like really intense. The toe is swelling up and I guess I will find out in the morning if I broke it if it’s all black and blue. This really sucks because I need to walk to the store to get a lottery ticket later and that will be difficult with a broken toe.

Update, it’s a few hours later and I definitely have injured the toe next to the big toe on my left foot. As in swollen, and black and blue, and very painful and sensitive to touch.