Building season

 The summer is behind and now its time to push my bucket of bolts into the shop for Saskatchewan's long cold building season. This is why we have such nice hot rods in Canada. We can only drive them for 5 months of the year then work on them for the other seven. This also gives us lots of time to save up money, dream about then finally order that shiny new part that will make our car the fastest thing in town. This is all fun and not much beats the feeling of opening up a box of new speed parts! There are guys that build all their toys from used stuff as well. They get great satisfaction from making stuff work that they find cheap. This is also a fun way to do hotrodding but it usually takes longer because of waiting for the right deals or treasure hunting wrecking yards or kijiji. Re-purposing is the newest buzz-word i see on the internet. My wife likes to take some old wooden door, pallet, or window frame and somehow make it into a shelf or decoration for our home. I like to take an old engine or rearend and upgrade it to work in some way in my next project car. My problem is that I have so many ideas for projects but I often have to step back and decide what i can afford or have time to build. The main thing I'd encourage guys to think about in the hobby is to have a plan. I see many young guys with no plan. They just know they want to build something cool and fast. They tend to make bad choices, spend money on the wrong stuff and end up disappointed selling a half done project for a huge loss. They work with what they happen to have because it was free instead of paying a little extra and getting something worth building. Why spend one cent on a 305 chevy when you can get a 350 core for $100 ? Why build a 5.3 LS when you can spend a little extra and get a 6.0L ? Why build a 454 when a 496 rotating kit costs the same amount? Why spend a bunch of money on rebuilding iron heads when you can go to aluminum for an extra $400. I've made some of these mistakes and i'm here to tell you to be patient and do things right. It will always cost more but when you see a guy who's engine doesn't make the power it should because he bought chinese cylinder heads or went with a flat tappet cam when he should have went roller, a few extra bucks is a small price to pay. Buyers remorse never happens to a guy who buys the best parts. It happens to the guy who bought something cheap thats really worth nothing. I made a big purchase this year that i feel good about. I finally bit the bullet and bought an aftermarket block. It was exspensive but will hopefully last for many years and be a strong foundation for big horsepower.
  As I usually do I would also like to take some time to talk about the lessons i've been learning in my faith. I really like hotrodding but i really Love God. Living within God's kingdom and seeing him lead my life has been the biggest joy and blessing this year. I have found him to be completely trustworthy. People that don't trust God don't know what they are missing. This summer I started praying that my family and I would experience what it means to be in God's family. We went on a vacation out Vancouver Island and God answered our prayers. Every time we went to church we met awesome people who are part of the family of God. They showed hospitality to us and we did really cool things that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do. I love salmon fishing but its terribly exspensive to hire guided boats. On our first Sunday on the island I swam with thousands of Salmon! It was an experience I will never forget. Then I caught a big King Salmon and got a fish cleaning demonstration from an ex - commercial fisherman! The second Sunday we were invited onto a 35 foot cabin cruiser and went out fishing in the pacific ocean twice. We loaded up on Koho salmon and bottom fish. It never cost us a dime! Usually when I'm on holidays I never seem to make it to church. Not Anymore! Lately I've come upon the verse Ephesians 3:20. Take some time to read it and ask God to show you its potential and your potential in his Kingdom. You will never be the same.