HOBBY TIME

[boxcarOkie]

T.G.I.F. as they say in some circles, I am ready.  I am sitting here drinking a cup of fresh coffee, sitting in front of my brand new, bought at Walmart, Made in China, wired backwards (off is on and on is off) six dollar fan.  I have this new wrinkle in my life, a huge red mark on my forehead, sort of reminiscent of Mikael Gorbachev as a result of a close encounter with an open bay door on my coach.

(Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991.  He also has a huge red mark on his forehead)

This morning as I read the board I see another welcome to a new guy.  As I sip the brew and wait for the caffeine to kick in, I mull around the word "Hobby" in my mind.  Each week on my webpage, I receive a lot of emails from folks, some are bus folks and the majority of them are not.  I got one this week from a bus nut I feel like sharing.  He is not a newbie by any stretch of the imagination, but he did have some good points.  So here you are, I found it interesting and to the point.  

We were talking about bus building, hobbies and vacations.

I've been doing this sort of thing for years Don. I find my vacations in moments and generally they are at work or chasing my dog around the back yard. Folks talk about 3 week vacations and such. I haven't taken 3 weeks total in the last 5 years including sick days and funerals. I'm not complaining at all. I find my moments to enjoy and sometimes they are by working. I guess one reason I enjoy my bus so much is because while I'm working on it I am on vacation. To be honest with you I have spent more time working on it than using it. Not a complaint at all other than the fact I wish I had more time to do more on it. I too have found that vacations and some tourist traps generally leave me as tired or more so than when I left. But pull the bus in the shop and give me a weekend with her and I sure enjoy thinking about the sites I could view through her front window!! I may not get too but I keep the windshield clean just in case!!!

Which brings us here.  From time to time I venture online and I see a hearty welcome to a newcomer or newbie.  It usually consists of several catch phrases, some are "welcome to the hobby, welcome to the madness," or some other type of expression endeared to the bus community.

I was taught that the meaning the word hobby when used as a noun, was an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.  But building a bus, as such is the case, can often surpass hobby and walk over the line to obsession, which is also a noun, and it means the state of being obsessed with someone or something.  

There are people who haunt this medium who have been working on, building on, tearing apart and rearranging these monsters of the American Road for over nine years.  Now which one of the two above listed descriptive would you say applies?  Nine years is a long time in anyone's book, it is a virtual lifetime for a dog (63 years).

My hobby has forced me to cuss, cry and often, injure myself.  

On more than one occasion, I have stabbed myself with razor knifes, cut fingers with 4" grinders, set myself on fire a couple of years ago in my shop (now that was interesting to say the least).  From time to time, I have dropped things (heavy things) on my feet which forced myself to walk with a hitch in my giddy-up for weeks at a time.  I am sure at one time, I have been the talk of the beanery after leaving that morning after breakfast.

"Jeeze Marge, did you see that poor guy, wonder what happened to him?"

Who hasn't sit patiently on the top of a an old empty bucket and stared for a considerable amount of time at an object, trying to figure out what it is that needs to be done, in order to make it work?  Who hasn't had the wife walk, silently into the shop with a cup of coffee and surprised you while talking to yourself, trying to figure out what it is that needs to be figured out?  Who hasn't missed a birthday party or social event, because you stayed home and worked on the bus?

Obsession?  Recently I posted asking if painting screws came under this heading, I received a myriad of answers, none of them Dr. Phil conclusive.

There are times I feel truly inadequate, a little bit out of sync with the rest of the world.  For instance, I really do not know how to greet someone who is indeed new to this bus-building-rearranging process.  One side of me wants to say, "Hey glad you are on-board" and the the other part of me wants to yell ...... "Run Skipper!  Run!  Run as fast as your feet will carry you."

Taking all of this one step further (as I am often prone to do) we find the word "insane" which is an adjective and it means a person who is in a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction.  Which on most days, would just about fit the bill for a great many of us, myself included.

Perhaps this is why a select few, I have noted, always respond with "Welcome to the insanity" when welcoming another poor Mr. Goodwrench Bus Wanna Be bus-nut into the fray.  

Now here is the good news ... Today is Friday, and it is a good thing, you made it thru your work week of never ending days and America's Got Talent and now comes the weekend.

Just in time for your hobby.

BCO

[buswarrior]

I'll drink to that!

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[bevans6]

I'm rolling up the shop door and getting ready for the weekend this morning - just a bit early!  This weekends project is to get the new engine up on the rolling dolly, put the transmission back on and generally start the final finishing touches to put the engine back in the bus in a month or so.

When Clifford tells you how hard it is to get an engine into an MCI configuration from some other setup, believe him!  It's a ton of work!

Brian

[Scott & Heather]

Wow...that was a great read! What's scary, is that I'm only a year and a half into this, and I'm kind of feeling his vibe. I am happiest (my wife can attest to this) when I'm working on some sort of project on the coach. I get up before her, and I'm usually banging luggage bay doors open to get my tools and putz around on some little thing here or there that caught my attention that morning. This morning, it was cleaning the windshield (inside and out). Last night, I siliconed a couple of tiny leaks in our shower that have been bugging us. The day before that, I built a shelf for our "makeshift" kitchen until we can afford cabinetry. It scares me to think about what my life will entail if the coach is ever "completed"  I really don't ever want it to be "done". So, even though I'm a green newbie, I read that post with more understanding than I care to admit to.

[lostagain]

Had to fix a few things in the bus this week, so we are ready for the week-end run.

This morning we are off to another dirt bike race 6 hours away near Brooks, AB. One of my boys slelp in the bus last night already, the other one I have to kick out of bed soon, while their friend just got here and is loading his bike in the trailer.

Life is good!

JC

[robertglines1]

not meeee      i'mmmmm    normalll  seeee how many buses I have. oh! that's right his& hers. I'm Ok!  Feel better now.  Just a dream.  Ok time to work on rear bath in bus today. Bob

[baldeaglewy]

Don...never thought about painting screws to "be over the top"...living with Tony all these years, I thought it was just normal..."the friggin screws MUST MATCH!"  We even have a screw painting station in the shop....UH does that mean we are ...??

Ok...time to get off here and load the bus...we are off to Buffalo Bill Stat Park for the weekend. That way Tony can sit and find more things that need to be done to the bus.

Pam aka Bernice

[thomasinnv]

Why do I get the feeling like someone is talking about me again? LOL. And another thing, if the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing at night before bed, and several hours in between (EVERY DAY), are spent perusing this and other "BUS" related boards, think that might make you part of that "obsession" group? How many on here fit that description? I wonder how many, besides me, tear into something knowing full well that you will be doing it again soon, because you don't have all the parts to do the whole job, but you just gotta take something apart? It's sick I tell ya, just plain sick!

[Ed Hackenbruch]

 Hobby for some, lifestyle for others, addiction for all.

[Iceni John]

This "hobby' makes it clear to me that I work to earn money to work on my bus!   Some days at work (the boring type that pays me a pittance each month), all I can do is think about how to build some widget, or drill a certain hole, or do some absurdly arcane little job that will eventually take me a week to complete to my satisfaction.   Is this obsession, or worse?   (Maybe Calvin Klein should have an overpriced designer spray bottle containing grime, sweat and diesel, and market it as "Obsession For Men"?)

Some evenings when I get home and my GF asks me what I did for three hours that evening, I say to her that I drilled two holes.   She looks at me with complete lack of comprehension, mutters some platitude like "That's nice, dear.   Now get in the shower", and I then realize that this fine line between "hobby" and worse is being not just crossed, but completely obliterated.   What she, and anyone else who doesn't do what we do, fails to understand is that at least half our bus-conversion time and energy is devoted to the purely cerebral part of it, pondering exactly how best to do some seemingly-impossible task with the limited resources and skills available.   That's how it can easily take three hours to drill two holes.

John  

[Chopper Scott]

  We are off this weekend on a camping trip along with the son and the grandkids. Basically just a 40 mile trip at most but a couple days of doing nothing. We haven't had much time as of late and the ole girl has just been sitting there waiting for me to awaken her from her month long nap and hit the road. It sure is nice knowing that all I have to do is hit the switch and she bellers to life and wants out as bad as I do. I am talking about the bus! The other ole girl is ready also! Cooler temps and a reclining lawn chair await me!!!

[boxcarOkie]

And another thing, if the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing at night before bed, and several hours in between (EVERY DAY), are spent perusing this and other "BUS" related boards, think that might make you part of that "obsession" group?

Yes it is true, a great many of my mornings I get up and read my email, look over the bus boards, catch up on the latest.  No crime in that.  Put on a pot of coffee, sip it with no apparent hurry and savor the quiet of the morning and the sweet smell of my favorite elixir.

You see, I don't have much of a life. 

Nothing exciting happens in my world, I lead as the French writer Thoreau said, "A life of quiet desperation."  I am somewhat similar to the uptight lawyer and father of three who switches identities with his slacker buddy in the movie "Change Up."  It is not easy being a type-A individual these days, and after a night of drinking and attacking the problems of the nation, I decided to urinate into a "magic fountain" (men often do this, they call it the Great Outdoors) and then I switched personalities with my slacker friend.  This in turn, processed me into the maniacal bus board reading fool I seem to be. 

Life as most of you very well know, is all in how you look at it.

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. "That laundry is not very clean," she says to her husband. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap." 

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.  Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments. 

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this."  The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."

And so it is with life.

What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.  No good huh?  Well, whadya expect for free anyway? 

At a certain point in a man's life, when you wake up and cannot for the life of you, remember what is going on?  It is more than likely not because of some bacchanalian evening after a ballgame in some public park.  It might simply because you are up at three in the morning, drinking coffee and reading the bus boards.

A tough job ... But somebody has to do it.

BCO

104* and headed for a Death Valley reading this afternoon ... Stay cool boys.

[boxcarOkie]

We are off this weekend on a camping trip along with the son and the grandkids. Basically just a 40 mile trip at most but a couple days of doing nothing.

You my friend are a fortunate Pilgrim indeed.

BCO

[babell2]

Even before I got the bus I remember going "On Vacation" with the 73 GMC S&S motor home my parents bought.  Vacation would involve loading up driving to some where to camp or relax. We would then hook everything up to camp resources and I would start to repair the things I found wrong during the drive. Cook some food relax with a drink.  The next day would continue with repairs and cooking and relaxing.  So I guess our hobby is relaxing and fixing no mater what we drive.

Brice

[chev49]

My wife tells me everyday that I dont have much of a life...