Myrtle and the Gambler

       December 27, 2017, I suppose that was when this started. PK (Piston Kristin) sent me a message on Facebook, I immediately agreed to the terms, from that point on we were Gamblin'.
       For the uninitiated, The Gambler 500 is  an off road challenge. The rules, what few there are, are not enforced, because most people who attend this sort of event understand the concept of the honor system. The idea is to race 500 miles in $500 cars. Its called the gambler because its kind of a gamble to take a 500 dollar car to Taco Bell, let alone Parker, AZ. Try to stick to the route that is provided, dont show up in a super expensive car, and make friends and help out your fellow racers. Its a good time. There is no prize. This would be Arizona's first Gambler, and we had 5 months to get ready.
       So step one was to find a car. PK left this pretty heavily in my hands. 500 bucks was the budget and we didn't want a sedan (because nobody wants a sedan, it really is the the embodiment of indecisiveness and boredom). So I looked around for a cheap 4x4 or old pickup, but after searching awhile it became pretty clear that most 500 dollar 4x4's were 500 dollars for a reason. So i kinda went the other direction with it. Figuring if a car cost about 1500 bucks brand new, then a 500 dollar version probably still has a little life left in it. Took afew days on Craigslist, but that line of thinking eventually led us to Myrtle...........

       PK called her Myrtle on the first day, I dont know why, but it stuck, and because she is kinda slow and turtle shaped, it fits. Anyway, Myrtle is a 1990 Geo Metro. Myrtle sports a 1.0L inline 3 cylinder engine. Wikipedia tells me that that is good for about 55 HP and 58 Lbs/Ft of torque. And, honestly, id bet she was making pretty close to that. Clyde, (the old guy we bought it from) assured us the motor and trans only had about 54k on it and honestly, despite looking like shit, she ran really really good. Clyde was some sort of bizarre metro enthusiast, he had several half built metros laying all over the place and could tell you way more about Geo Metros than you ever wanted to know. He was very enthusiastic about the idea of the gambler and had lots of stories about rally racing Nissan's back on the east coast in his younger years. He gave us afew pointers, threw in an extra set of wheels and happily lightened PK's pocket of 500 bucks. We had a race car.

       When we got Myrtle home, I set about the task of removing all unnecessary items. Geo had already done a pretty good job of that back in 1990 but creature comforts such as glass, upholstery, air conditioning, and interior plastics, these are unbecoming a gambler. The end game here was to get it as light as possible while also making room for all the gear we would eventually be carrying. It didnt take all that long to get the thing torn apart. At this point I was kinda thinking that Geo Metro's were not made with durability in mind. I would come to find that I was wrong on that one.

       Over the next couple months we would be getting Myrtle ready for race day. Cutting weight, welding bumpers, adding tow points, bypassing systems and generally making Myrtle function as simply as possible. The A/C was deleted, another cooling fan was added, and artificial grass soon lined the interior. The astroturf was added because it looked cool and I had alot of it laying around, but we would come to find it helped abit with sound dampening. We also added fresh tires and sweet paint job, so by the time race day rolled around, Myrtle was really strutting her stuff. Myrtle also received a 2 inch suspension lift via some junkyard springs from a later model sedan.

April 15th, Race Day. We started off from the house early due to an abundance of caution. As it turns out, this was unfounded. Myrtle carried us dutifully to the start line and we even had time for PK to stop and take abunch of pictures,

    The race got started. We were the second car out of the gate and PK was driving like the embodiment of insanity. Seriously, scared the shit out of me. We did not know what to expect out of the race course, and as we later found out, neither did the race organizers. Apparently they had only really scouted out about 50% of the course, with the other half being comprised of best guesses from google earth. I would complain, but seriously, we be gamblin'. Needless to say, things were not always smooth sailing. There were some pretty washed out sections and most vehicles did not come anywhere close to completing the first day. But with Myrtle's sturdy Korean construction, PK's excellent interpretation of Newtons first law, and alittle help from our new buddies from Utah, we successfully made it to Parker before sunset.

    The next day found us pretty ate up, I dont know how PK slept inside her mansion, that she easily could have parked Myrtle inside of, but I was pretty fuckin sore in the morning. Regardless, Myrtle was ready to roll and we had to get moving before ......i dont know, we figured we would end up walking eventually so an early start seemed advisable. 

    Day two was alittle more sketchy and there are indeed fewer pictures, Myrtle started having some pretty serious issues maintaining speed around noon and we were forced to begin some pretty bizzare routines to keep her running, ill spare you the details, ultimately we nursed her home, but it was pretty marginal for abit. We ended up abandoning the race course about halfway through the second day and making our way back on paved roads. Which was kind of an adventure in itself. 

     In Conclusion, we made it back, Myrtle still lives, we will be using her for next years gambler and it was a complete fucking blast. The End

The Annika Enclosure

       By far the largest undertaking for the 2018 Backyard Renovation was the creation of the Annika Enclosure. The Northeast quadrant of the backyard had historically been occupied by a messy and overly productive grapefruit tree. It required alot of water, was slowly becoming infested with termites, and made more shitty grapefruits than I could eat in a lifetime. Additionally, you really couldnt do anything else over there. It was just a tree, it took up space, that was it. It was too low to walk under comfortably and wasnt well positioned to provide any appreciable shade. It had kinda become a collecting ground for stuff I didnt know what to do with. Grass didnt grow well there, and it was alot of yard that was just dead space.

So the operation began, I could have had Jose yoink the whole thing out, Probably in 30 minutes, for $20, without breaking a sweat. But i was having fun and id just canceled my gym membership, so I kept at it. Worked on it about 45 minutes per night after work, for acouple weeks. eventually i got it widdled down to a nice little stump which I was then able to dig out of the ground. Ended up burning up anything worth burning. But ive still got most of that stump sitting in front of the house, waiting for the next bulk pickup. Anyway, once that fucker was out, I had a clean slate. 

So, we werent going to just keep truckin with a dirt lot. I could have found a way to have fun with that, but Christi and Annika were not going to be big fans. We decided artificial turf was gonna be the way to go. We shopped around ALOT. Quotes were mostly over 5k and most places werent going to touch our brick border unless we paid extra. It was starting to look pretty glum. As usual Jose saved our ass, he asked if we had found anyone to install the turf yet and volunteered his services. He also mortared in all the brick and relocated some irrigation lines. All for several thousand dollars less than the next nearest quote and all in a single day. Jose is a badass. Seriously. My real live hero. They should make a movie about him. 

Fence came next, to separate doggles from clean, expensive grass. That came from Home Depot in pre-made sections. Trump Enterprises installed the fence. They make the best fences. Tremendous, amazing fences. You have never seen such a great fence. Really great fences. With big hands. ( I actually installed the fence, it went pretty smoothly and took a morning.)

       So that was that. Annika loves it, its way better looking, and its great to chill by the fire or grill or garden while the wee child frolics in the emerald glade. And no dog poop. Love not having dog poop there. like a whole section of yard that is relatively clean. you can roll around in it. Its just great. Doesnt feel exactly like real grass, but lets not kid ourselves here, real grass isnt exactly without its own faults.