What could be better than beautiful Italian cars and wine? I can’t think of anything. That’s how we spent last weekend.

We went to the Concorso Italiano show in Monterey Bay California. We try to go every year. If you know me you know that I love Italian cars. So many Ferraris and Lamborghinis in one place, it’s heaven. I have posted pics here if you would like to see them.

We also got to see our good friend from Canada, Andre. He usually goes to this show and the SEMA show in Vegas so it’s good to catch up with him then.

After the show we headed down to Paso Robles for a bit of wine. A group from the wine bar we frequent went there the weekend before us. We told Bob, the owner, when we’d be there and suggested that they go the same weekend if they could so we could join them. I think he went the weekend before just to spite me. It worked out ok though, we went to the bar a few days before we left and talked to several people that went. They told us which places were worth visiting. Over the next couple of days we visited 10 wineries and tried about 80 wines. Almost all of them were fantastic! I won’t bother going into much detail though, my wife already did. We joined our first wine club, the “James Gang” at Tobin James. I’m really looking forward to that first shipment, which should be in November.

Normally I would post this in my Diablo Blog, and I did but this is such a big deal to me I am also going to post it here.

My Diablo can now stand on it’s own. It’s on the ground on all four tires. Pretty cool huh? This is a major milestone for me. I’m am much more enthusiastic about this project now. Just look at the view from behind! That ugly engine is temporary and will be replaced before too long.

I still have a lot of work to do but we are making a plan and think that we could realistically have the car finished, minus paint and upholstery within a year.

Here’s another view just cuz it looks bitchin with the wheels on it.

Almost a year ago I sold my chopper to a guy named David. He contacted me recently and said he had finished it. He sent me some pics and I think it looks really good. I’m a bit jealous, but if you know me you know it never would have been finished if I kept it.
Here are the pics. The first shows what he started with after he got it home, though there are a few parts not pictured. The other two pics show it completed. Looks nice huh? Looks like a lot of time and sweat went into it. He apparently changed out some of the parts I gave him but I really like it. Good job David.

Jessica and I went to California for our annual pilgrimage to the Concorso Italiano show. I love that show! We flew in to San Jose Friday morning, rented a car and drove straight to the show. It was great. It was a little chilly but not nearly as bad as last year. There’s nothing like being surrounded by hundreds of Ferriris, Lamborghinis and other exotics. They had everything from junky looking tiny vans (It was italian) to million dollar Ferraris. We even saw Jay Leno there. The bulk of the show was Ferraris but there were a lot of Lambos too. I’m really more of a lambo guy myself, if that isn’t obvious. Exotic cars also seem to attract beautiful women so there was a lot to look at. We had some friends that were vendors there. We went to their booth and there was a guy laying on the ground in front of it with a few security guards around him. I guess he had a seizure. Poor guy, I bet that ruined his day. It was early in the show too. He paid all that money to go to the show, gets there and barely has time to enjoy it before he’s being taken away in an ambulance.

I took lot’s of pictures at the show, then we headed to the hotel, back in San Jose. The hotel was pretty nice. Jessica does pretty good finding us deals in decent hotels. We pretty much just relaxed the rest of the night. On Saturday we visited some wineries with the aid of the in car navigation system in the rental car. I love that thing. I must have one now. Sunday we visited some more wineries before heading back to the airport. It was a great trip and I can’t wait for next year.

Since selling my Harley the other day I have been desperately looking for a replacement. I started with a list of 27 possible bikes and slowly whittled it down. I went in a totally different direction, sport bikes. I had fully intended to get a replacement the day after I sold my Harley but it wasn’t to be. I had narrowed it down to two bikes. I looked at a 2002 Yamaha R1. It was nice but had a big scratch on one of the fairings and the exhaust where they droped it putting it in a truck. I could probably live with that but it also had 4,000 miles more than what he originally told me it had. I wasn’t sure I could live with that. I wanted to look at the other bike but the guy had to work late and get up early the next morning blah blah blah. I wanted a bike damn it! It wasn’t so much that I’m impatient (though I am) as until I got a new bike I had to ride a bicycle to work in the blistering Phoenix summer heat. I was very tempted to just go get the R1. If he had come down a few hundred more I probably would have. But I held out. Yesterday I called a couple of other people and they seemed promising but I first wanted to look at this other one. Finally we were able to arrange a place to meet and look at it. I had been worried, it had unusually low miles and I figured something must be wrong. But I looked it over and it looked almost perfect. The original owner was in the Navy and had been in Iraq. The current owner barely rode it. It had exactly 2650 miles on it when I looked at it. And it looked like it too, it looked practically new. It had one scratch on it that he had to point out. It was mostly stock except a tank pad and frame sliders. It was perfect! I was hoping to talk him down a little more since he was going to clean me out, but he said he wanted original asking price. He had already said he’d go down a couple hundred which put it at exactly what I sold my bike for and exactly what I could afford. Now he wanted more. My blood started to boil, I knew something would go wrong. Finally he agreed to take what he originally said he would and after about an hour of looking for a notary, the keys were mine. Finally the stress of finding the right bike is over and most importantly I don’t have to ride my bicycle to work anymore.

I did it. I sold my Harley. The bike that I had wanted all my life. Why did I do it you ask? So I could get a bad ass sport bike of course! Woohoo! It was a bit sad seeing someone else ride away on my bike but only briefly. I’ve been wanting something different for some time now. I’ve been looking at sport bikes and I think I have it narrowed down to two, a 2002 Yamaha R1 and a 2002 Honda CBR 954RR. I started with a list of 27 possibles (I don’t think either of these was on that original list) and finally narrowed it down to two. Most of the 27 were already sold and many aren’t returning calls or e-mails so I assume they are sold. I wish people would learn to delete their ads when their item sells.

I plan to check out the R1 tonight and hopefully the 954RR too. That was all I could think about all night. I even took a sleeping pill but it didn’t help. I ended up going to work about an hour early since I couldn’t sleep anyway. I really want to get a bike tonight. Riding my bicycle to work in this heat sucks.

I’m constantly amazed by how many exotic vehicles there are in Arizona. I shouldn’t be, I’ve lived here a long time and have seen a many. We regularly go to the weekly car show at the Scottsdale Pavilions and there is usually at least a Ferrari there. Last time we went there was a Lamborghini Murcielago, very cool. We went to a club in Scottsdale a few weeks ago where there was a Lamborghini Gallardo parked out front. The following week we went to another bar in Scottsdale. Right before we arrived a black Ferrari 430 Spyder drove by heading in the opposite direction. As we walked up to the bar the same kind of car drove by us. I can only assume it was the same car. Near the entrance there was a Lamborghini Gallardo and an older Ferrari 308 or 328.

The other day I was on my way to a meeting and thinking about how I should write this post. I was originally going to call it “Scottsdale Exotic Cars” but just then I spotted a nice Ferrari 355 coupe on the opposite side of the highway. I was not in Scottsdale so I decided to change the title to reflect all of Arizona. Arizona is a great place to live if you love exotic cars as I do.

I’m really starting to hate working on vehicles. Last night I tried fixing my bike. I had previously decided to take it to the dealership and let them deal with it, but I figured I’d give it one more shot and take apart the carb and clean it out just in case a passage was clogged or something. The problem is it runs very bad at mid to high RPMs. Bad enough to make it unrideable. While I was cleaning the carb I looked through the manual and saw that there is a procedure for lining up the intake manifold. I never knew that before but it would make sense that if I didn’t do it there could be an air leak and my symptoms sounded just like an air leak. So I cleaned out the carb, aligned the manifold and put it all back together. Then it wouldn’t start. DOH, I forgot to connect a spark plug wire. Ooops. By then I had drained the battery so I put it on the charger for a while. A couple hours later I come back out and start it up. It seems to run ok, but it idled fine before too. I let it warm up then go for a ride. I get it out to the road and I’m off! For about 15 feet, then it sputters and dies. It wouldn’t start back up after that. Yes it had gas in it, about a half tank according to the gauge. I have no idea what’s wrong. At least before it would run.

I really can’t remember the last time I worked on one of my vehicles with success.

We bought a new truck the other day. First I’ll tell you about it and show a pic, then if you care you can read the long story that goes with it.

It’s a 2006 Ford F150 XLT. It had less than 12 miles on it when we drove it off the lot. I never thought I would buy a new vehicle but I was kind of desperate. It is pretty nice though. It’s very nice having passenger side door locks and windows that work, a power seat that works, etc. Here’s a couple of pics.

Ok, now for the story. I should warn you though, it’s a long one. You might want to go get a cup of coffee first. I’ll wait.

It all started when we were driving back from Vegas Sunday night. It was getting late in the day when all of a sudden my transmission started slipping. I popped into neutral, then back to drive and everything was fine. A few minutes after recovering from that little heart attack, it did it again. It started doing it every time we went up a hill. We stopped and topped off the transmission fluid, thinking that might have something to do with it. It didn’t look like it was low enough to cause any problems. I tried just taking it easy after that and it seemed to be doing ok. Then it started up again. Finally it just wouldn’t go any more and we had to pull off the side of the road. Of course neither of us had service on our cell phones since we were just outside of Nothing (an aptly named town in AZ). After a few minutes I started up the truck and put it in drive and it started to go. Woohoo! I pull back on the highway and after about 100 yards it won’t go any further. I did that several more times, let it cool down, start it up and drive 100 yeards or so. At one point it gave out while we were going past a barrier on the side of the road. There wasn’t any room to pull over so I tried to coast past it. I made it but it rolled to a stop with the back corner of the truck still sticking in the road a little. That was a little scary, stuck on the side of the road on a two lane highway with people speeding by inches from you. A couple of minutes later we were able to pull off the road a little more.

We were finally able to get a weak signal and get through to AAA. We both tried calling. Jessica got disconnected and the lady couldn’t hear me clearly. I was trying to tell her where I was. “Somewhere between Wikiup and Wickenburg”. She just couldn’t get it. When she finally did she said that wasn’t enough info to dispatch a tow truck. WTF!!?? I’m getting desperate here, my phone is dying and the sun is setting. She asked if there was an exit anywhere near us or some houses. No, we were in the middle of nowhere!!! There was nothing. It had been a long time since we’d seen anything. I was getting very frustrated so Jessica took the phone. I ran up the road to find a mile marker. I should have gone the other way, I think I ran more than a half mile to get to it. When I got back Jess was off the phone with AAA. I think she said she had been disconnected. I was so frustrated things are a blur at this point. It was about this time my phone battery died. Jessica kept trying to call AAA to tell them the mile marker and she tried calling her friend Darice. Neither of them could understand us due to the poor signal strength. She tried telling her that our transmission blew up and were stranded somewhere north of Wikenburg, so call the police and have them send someone out. A cop would at least know where we are and could get us a tow truck. All she heard was “…blew up…. Wickenburg…. police”. Then she got disconnected. So we sat there wondering, is anybody coming to save us? How long should we wait before we start walking? We tried limping it along in 100 yard (more going downhill) incrememts. I think we made it another mile.

Finally a tow truck showed up. It was an old truck and only had two seats. Wouldn’t ya know it, there was two people in it. So where the hell do we sit? So we sat in our truck, on top of an old tow truck for the ride back to Wickenburg. When we got there and gave them our $150 for the tow, Jessica was able to get through to Darice. Her and Darren came out to save us, er give us a ride home. We still had to find a way to get our truck back to Phoenix. Jessica called her new boss and told him what was going on and that she wouldn’t be in till later the next day. She was supposed to start work on Monday.

Monday morning we got up and went to Uhaul to rent a truck. The plan was to tow our trailer to Wickenburg, load up the truck and tow her back. Then figure out what to do about fixing it. They first gave us an old beater truck that looked like it was from the 70s. It was diesel though which I thought would be good for hauling a full size pickup. But the battery warning light was flashing and that concerned me. So they gave me a different one, a newer one. Probably from the late 80s. This one was gas though. I noticed the ball mount was welded to the truck so I asked what size it was. 2″. Good, that’s what my trailer uses. On the way home I noticed it sounded like it was either low on oil or it had an exhaust leak. I decided to check the oil when we got home. I tried but the damn hood latch wouldn’t release. Oh well, hopefully it’s an exhaust leak. We load up our traier. Hmm, looks like we need an adapter for the wiring. I noticed some at Uhaul so I went back. They told me that adapter doesn’t exist. I thought he was full of you know what but he seemed pretty sure of himself. Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Jessica called work to say she should be in between 11:00 and 12:00. I thought that was a bad idea. If everything went perfectly she had a slim chance of making it but I didn’t expect that to happen. Finally we are on our way, without trailer lights. After driving up the hills with nothing but a trailer in tow I had little faith that it would be able to handle hauling a full size pickup.

We got to Wickenburg and found our truck, unmolested thankfully. Unfortunately the parking lot was pretty busy so I had no choice but to block vehicles with the rental truck and trailer. We quickly set up the ramps and I moved the Dodge into position. I gave it some gas and nothing. I revved it up a bit and finally the truck started to crawl forward. Woohoo! I got a bit of a head start and started going. Jessica jumped up on the trailer to direct me. I told her to get out of the way, I’m not stopping! I hit the ramps, front wheels were up then the front of the trailer flew up! Damn, I must not have latched it good. I kept trying and made it a bit further. I got the rear wheels on the ramps, or so I thought. Jessicas yelling at me to stop. I’m thinking if I stop I won’t make it. It didn’t matter because it wouldn’t go any further. Jessica later told me that I had gone up onto the wheel well and almost went off the other side, off the trailer. That really would have sucked. I don’t think I would have been able to get the truck off the trailer if that happened. I rolled it off the trailer, then we hooked up the trailer again. I made sure it was latched good. I got back in the truck and it wouldn’t go any more. At one point it went a little, but not enough to make it 6″ up the ramp. By this time a few locals had come over to help us. They suggested I move the trailer over to an area where there was a slight decline and we would push it on the trailer.There were cars over there so I had to park between a couple. That made me a bit nervous. We tried pushing the truck. Almost made it, got the front wheels on, front of the trailer flew up. I swear I latched that thing. One of the guys looks at it and says the ball is the wrong size. Oops, I could have sworn it used a 2″ ball. My bad for not verifying. At this point there was nothing we could do. There was an Ace Hardware right there, but since the ball was welded on I couldn’t swap it for a bigger one. We were pretty much screwed.

We found a phone book and called a local shop to get a quote to fix the truck. That wasn’t a great solution since we needed two vehicles and it would take them a few days minimum to fix, but it was the best we could think of. They had to do some checking around. Finally they called back and gave me a couple of options. $2500 or $3600. I don’t like either of those, but maybe I don’t have a choice. We had been thinking of getting a new (used) truck for a while, so we decided to go to the two dealerships they had in that hick town. Maybe there was more but that is what we could find. They both had all new vehicles. I wanted a 3/4 ton, diesel pickup. Those were all $33,000 – $44,000. That’s a little out of my range. I had been hoping to find a used one for $10,000 – $15,000. I started thinking about 1/2 ton, gasoline trucks. Our old one struggled a bit while towing a car chassis from Vegas. That’s why I wanted a 3/4 ton diesel. But the Dodges seem to have lower tow ratings and mileage than Chevy and Dodge. We found a couple of Ford F150s that might work. They were still more than we wanted to spend and less truck than we wanted but we were desperate. They said they’d give us $2500 trade in for our truck with the bad trans. I figured if I had it fixed for $2500 I might be able to sell it for $6,000. Of course it would be difficult finding a buyer for a gas guzzling Dodge with gas prices so high. So trading it in really only cost us $1000 if you don’t consider that we would have bought a used truck for a third of what we got. But we got rid of that nightmare and we have a nice, low mileage, reliable truck. I can’t complain too much.

Jessica didn’t make it to work by 12:00 of course. By the time we got back and returned the rental truck it was 6:30 PM. I hate to say I told her so, but I told her so. Really not a good first impression at her new job, but she’s a good worker. I figure in a week or two she’ll have won them over and they will forget all about it.