Let's Get Social

As the countdown to the official publication date of The Portable Dad approaches (April 6, for those of you playing along at home), the book has been very busy doing a little social networking. You'll find TPD on Facebook and Twitter (and who knows what's next.)

You'll find those links permanently in the sidebar, along with upcoming appearance and very soon a new poll. Happy hammering!

The Book Exists!

I know it won't be in bookstores yet for another week or two, but The Portable Dad does indeed exist in printed form. Here's proof.

A lot of steps in this process are fun (and a few aren't), but so far nothing has been quite as fun as getting my first copy of my first book.

Here's hoping folks find it as useful as I think they will, and it's the first of many! Thanks.

In Praise of Clean Tools

Today I finally got a chance to clean the shop.

The old BMW has been up on jackstands for a couple of weeks (and still is as I await one more parts shipment), and typically when I'm in the middle of a job I don't get too particular where I set down tools. So my shop has been a mess for a while, with wrenches, ratchets, an old transmission mount and various other greasy bits scattered across both workbenches. Which, when you're in the middle of a job, is fine.

But clean tools - put away where you can find them - are so much better.

Clean tool are nicer to use and safer since they're less likely to slip out of your hand. So at the end of a job (especially a messy one), I'll put a little mineral spirits on a rag and wipe everything down before I put it away. (Let the rag air dry in the open when you're finished, then throw it away.) It just takes a second, but in that second you can see if anything is damaged or notice the empty slot in your socket organizer (and then go find the missing 12mm socket before it escapes for good.) Then the next time you need your tools, you'll know they're ready.

Good Help is a Good Thing

Here's something to remember about all this fix-it stuff - nobody is born knowing how to do it. At some point, somebody taught us and we learned. We learned by watching, by reading, by taking shop classes, by getting yelled at by foremen, by doing.

My favorite way to learn is to read and try. And it usually works. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to get a project done than it should, and sometimes it costs a little more, but I'm stubborn and almost always get it done.

Sometimes, though, the best thing to do is to ask for help.

I had a bolt break bad on my 1974 BMW and tear up the transmission case. Getting the tranny out and to the welder's to get fixed I could handle, but getting it back in - that was kicking my butt. (You have to line it up just so with the engine and it's just not a one-guy job.) So yesterday I called a buddy and knocked on a neighbor's door and asked if they could come over this morning and help. Didn't really know the neighbor that well, but I know he works on cars. It made all the difference. The transmission fought us for a while, then we took a break, regrouped, and came at it from a slightly different angle and it came right together.

Later, I enlisted my patient and wonderful wife to help reinstall one of the transmission mounts because it takes one person under the car and one in the car to get it done. (From the coveralls, I bet you can tell where she was...)

So if there's any advice here it's that even if you like figuring stuff out yourself, there are times when asking someone to lend a hand is the only way to go. And who knows - maybe they'll look cute in coveralls, too...

A Pre-Publication Post

So it's less than a month until The Portable Dad hits bookstore shelves, but since the website has gone live, the blog better, too. If nothing else, posting gets me out from under my 1974 BMW 2002 which needs to have its transmission reinstalled.

However, it apparently doesn't want its transmission reinstalled...

Anyway, welcome! There's a new poll on the right, and I'd love to know what brung ya here.