The FORD Lounge

I've seen this Ardco water buggy off and on in our parking lot over the last 17+ years and never once paid any attention to it.  I just happened to notice the side distributor today and walked over to it.  This thing has a Ford 300 in it, and a manual transmission!  No idea how old it is, but it does still run and drive.  It will be coming up for auction sometime this year.  

If you make a couple hundred a year you're into seven figures by the time your kid gets into kindergarten.

I mean, I'm not sure what an 'average' salary is in Dallas, but Texas is a wealthy state by any metric.
Sure you're not gonna even get close at McDonald's, but you say you're in Semi.
AMSL is right over in Wilton and I know people in engineering, sales+service.. they do okay!
Not like the C-suite IBM'rs I know, but they're definitely not hurting.

The venerable 300 is everywhere!
Lots of pumps.
Almost every piece of airport baggage handler and tug I've ever seen.

I'm not too surprised.
If you want a motor that doesn't vibrate and lasts forever with just a bit of care......

I've bid on several surplus tugs over the years, but have never won any.  So far the ones I've bid on have either had a Slant 6 or some kind of Continental engine.  I'd have to up my max bid if I ever ran across one around here that had a 300 in it.  

Continental/Lycoming makes a lot of sense at an airfield.
By slant-six I assume you mean Dodge?

Yes, the Chrysler 225 is what was in the few I've seen here.  There was also a smaller displacement slant engine from Chrysler (170 I think).  I had a mid 80s Dodge D150 with that 225 slant six, and it was a good engine.  I'm not a Chrysler fan at all, but I've had several of the D and W series trucks from the 72-93 years with the 225, 318, and 360 and they were all actually pretty good trucks.  

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Seems to me that if the whole point of having a career is to get to a comfortable retirement, you would want to increase your earnings so you could sock away more over whatever time you have left???....

I definitely don't see this as the point of a career.  MAYBE the point of a JOB.  But I see a career as a thing you do for the thing itself.  I (almost always) enjoy going to work.  Yes there are aspects of it that are a drag, and it would be nice to have all the free time I wanted.  But now at age 60, where I'm in the financial position that I likely could have a comfortable retirement if I quit working now, I'm still thinking I'll work at least another 5 - 10 years.  I figure as long as I enjoy what I'm doing and still have the energy to live my life when I go home I'll keep working.

I do see in my 91 year old dad that energy level is a BIG thing as the years go on.  He has to decide if he's going to go to church in the morning or come to our house in the afternoon for a family Christmas party.  Working an 8 hour day would be way beyond anything he could do now, even if he didn't want to do anything else.

I'm 31 years behind him, so it's no surprise I'm not there yet.  But I see that it will be coming.  And when I have to choose between working or living my life, I won't choose working.  But until that point "working" is a valuable part of living my life.

I get that not everyone has the luxury of having a "career" by this definition.  And if all you can do for the middle ~60% of your life is try to prepare to enjoy the last 20%, well I feel sorry for you, but certainly hope that you can enjoy retirement.


And I'm not a ladder-climber either.  My company puts a lot of value on growth and learning.  But I've been in my current job for probably about 20 years now.  I still learn some new things, but I'm not at all interested in getting any more promotions.  And thankfully my boss (who's about 20 years younger than me) appreciates what I bring to the company and doesn't demand that I bring more.

I am lucky, and I know it.

viven44 wrote

Add up total income over a 30 year career... it will get into the 7 figures for most 9-5 jobs.... Maybe I'm too 3rd world, but that is a LOT of money. If you put up a fight.. sure. You can go from a low 7 figure to a high 7 figure gross income. I just don't think it is worth the stress or bypassing certain personal values, if needs can be kept reasonable....

You are correct. Actually a large amount of millionaires earned 65k a year or less. Market analytics and investing is something I actually do lol. $100 month deposited into a market average return account from birth to 18 will yield around  $70,000. If continued until age 50 then it yields around $1.7M.

I suppose I'm just an outlier.
The money and material things don't matter at all to me.
Sure both are nice to have in abundance, but just cause a bunch of stress & drama.
I would rather live in a cave than care what anybody does or thinks.

I don't want to be 90, any more than I wanted to be 60, or even 30.
Yet here I am, definitely not doing the things that interest me, but sometimes things I'm really good at.

I woke up this morning got right to it, my ADHD kicked in and didn't even think to mask up while painting.

Well needless to say I blew my nose and it was red so ran upstairs and did a sinus rinse with the navage. I feel stupid now just enamel my lungs like I didn't already have issues lol.

That does sound like the impatience of ADHD. The speed at which I see you moving overall trying to get things done with wiring etc, I have been wondering… man “this guy works like me”

When I start a project, it becomes an obsession, a mission — as it will never get done otherwise. I struggle with “family time” during those times and in fact I got a good piece of advice from Jeff here who said “projects will wait for you”.. if only my ADHD brain will remember that just like it won’t remember to wear a mask when I need to paint because I am too focused on that painting job!!

ArdWrknTrk wrote

I suppose I'm just an outlier.
The money and material things don't matter at all to me.
Sure both are nice to have in abundance, but just cause a bunch of stress & drama.
I would rather live in a cave than care what anybody does or thinks.

I don't want to be 90, any more than I wanted to be 60, or even 30.
Yet here I am, definitely not doing the things that interest me, but sometimes things I'm really good at.

I don't know that you and I are so different.  I'm just saying that I'm not out to make money so I can enjoy life.  I just want to be doing what I want to be doing.  That takes some money so earning some money is helpful.  But I think it's most important to be enjoying the entire journey, not just looking forward to retirement as a destination.

Jim, that is precisely why I closed the business and retired by 50! stopped chasing a dollar for someday. I had realized that my mind was on restoration of these trucks all the time and I started doing this every day. now I do get interrupted by people places and things too. life happens. wife happens. haha.
many assume that I have all this free time since I'm "retired". not the case. I do 12-hour days as a norm. now i try to find time to go fishing instead of finding time to work on my truck.

Gary said that he had never been so busy before he retired!  

I think this was in response to my saying that "every day is a Saturday for you!" (except Sunday, because of his Church)

I must be honest. I sleep in. then sit with my wife drinking coffee and discussing everything big and small. usually with computer on my lap like now till 9-10am. then I hit the road or garage. then I'm going until 9 usually whether mowing acres, mentoring at my nephew's shop, building engines or transmissions or whatever. sadly, the truck project has been stalled for a year now. I really need to build a space to do my body work. like I need more to do. I just don't want to sub it out. I like doing the whole thing and will as long as I can

I am still trying to figure out how I had time to go to work now that I have been retired for 12 1/2 years.

I’m sure everyone’s heard about the software bug that’s disabled just about everything.. We are trying to catch a flight for a long awaited vacation (I’m a babysitter only as I don’t like traveling) but this damn software bug has some caused chaos. I don’t even know what kind of plane we will be on.. I’m definitely more comfortable on the road on a good running carburetor, about 14V at the battery, a spare DS-II module, a spare frame mounted fuel pump, and a small tool box

Are you headed home with your parents?

How long has it been since you were in South Asia?

No. Parents are actually holding down the fort at my house, taking care of our senior dog as well. This is for the kids. Disney.. Florida.

Oh! Should be fun, for them

I hope the ticketing mayhem and scheduling nightmares resolve quickly.

When you have a system that's intentionally overbooked constantly, it's a challenge to get back to "normal"..

My brother's city 911 and all emergency services went down overnight.
Thankfully this started on the other side of the dateline and native English speakers in NZ & Aus had started to get a (literal) handle on it, as servers had to be manually rebooted.