Fire flutes!!

One of my pals here at work, Craig Noss (aka Craigger Craigger Master of the Kegger) is also an accomplished flute maker! He hand makes all kinds of wickedly cool flutes!

Check out his website...what a great idea for a Christmas gift or to surprise everyone at Thanksgiving with your flute playing skills!

Craigger's Fire Flutes Website!!

Craigger's Flutes for sale on eBay!!

Viva Alfa Romeo Car Show this weekend

This Saturday (11/1) I will be attending the Viva Alfa Romeo Car Show 2008 in Celebration, FL.

This event is put on by the Mid Florida Alfa Romeo Club (of which I am a member)

I plan to drive my Spider down and put it in the show....luckily they are not too picky about the cars that enter :=)

I am trying to find a volunteer to drive my 164L down as well so I can have both cars present.

There are sure to be some very cool and rare Italian cars at this event.

Tre Italiani

Do you ever get the feeling when reading this blog that I like my Italian vehicles alot? Hope you don't mind, but, well, here's more :=)

Bob White Airfield "Fly-In"

Today I attended a "Fly-In" at Bob White Airfield in Zellwood, FL. This is where Cap'n Jim keeps his 1946 Aeronca Champ.

We got there good and early in the Alfa Romeo 164L and took a quick flight in the Champ whilst the skies were clear. Shortly though clouds moved in so CPJ maneuvered the Champ into the line of planes for folks to gawk at.

Lots of really cool planes to see and even some other cool vehicles, like a 1952 MG car and an old International Harvester tractor.

A really fun way to spend the morning!

More pictures here!!! Click Me!!

Back from Birmingham....what a trip!

Pictures and videos will be posted in the next day or so as I am too tired to do it now. Just got back tonight from the Birmingham trip with my friends Rob (Kawasaki Vulcan) and Bob (Harley Davidson). The Guzzi Breva was it's usual flawless self over the course of the near 1200 mile trip. So was Rob's Kawasaki Vulcan. Not so however for the other bike on the trip .....hmmm, guess which one that was. More on that later.

Click the link below for my Kodak Photo Gallery of my trip pics...

TRIP PICS CLICK HERE!

On the way up Friday we ran into moderate to heavy rain in Alabama for a few hours. Bob's HD conked out on Hwy 280 in Alabama with an electrical issue which required a call to the Harley dealer near B-ham (about 60 miles away) and a tow there.

While they HD dealer was working on the bike Saturday Bob had the "privilege" of riding on the back of my Breva!

The Barber Motorsports museum was AWESOME and so was the vintage cycle racing. But the coolest thing was the Aerobatic show put on by the Shell Aerobatic airplane team...unbelievable!

We rode some nice, twisty roads in Alabama and had a great time.

Monday a.m. we left early only to be surprised by the cold temps....we rode for about two hours in temps of 39-43 degrees. That sucked! None of us really had the proper cold weather gear with us for that!

It finally warmed up but Bob's bike again conked out near a WalMart. We diagnosed the electrical issue as a bad relay which was blowing the fuse for the ECM(Electronic Control Module). But there was no Harley dealer around to look for a replacement part. So we loaded the Harley into a UHAUL and Bob drove that home while Rob and I enjoyed the ride back on our bikes.

All in all an excellent time!

Motoring to Birmingham

Tomorrow I am heading to Birmingham, Alabama on the Guzzi Breva with a couple riding buddies. We are going to the Vintage Motorcycle Festival and AHRMA vintage motorcycle races

Should be a load of fun!

Faretheewell sweet Subaru!

My brother Luke and his friend Bret flew in today to pick up the Subaru Legacy wagon.

I took them over to Crabby Joe's seafood shack on the pier in Port Orange, Florida for dinner and then we headed down International Speedway Blvd past the Daytona 500 speedway so Bret could take a few pics.

They are now on the way north and west back to the Omaha, Nebraska area in the Subaru.

My garage is now occupied by the Italian quartet....Alfa Romeo 164L, Alfa Romeo Spider, Moto Guzzi Breva and Bianchi 18 speed bicycle. The BEST thing is I hold free and clear title to all of them :=)

Farewell my silver friend!!

Been a looong week

Well I wrap up my week in Texas tomorrow. It's been a lot of long days at the client site. My hotel is located next to Six Flags amusement park, Texas Rangers baseball stadium and the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium which is under construction.

Looking forward to heading home tomorrow....

Texas bound

I am heading to the Dallas, Texas (Arlington) area soon to work at a client site. There will be a whole team of Fiservians at the site, as this bank is undergoing a complete conversion over to multiple Fiserv products.

The hotel I am staying at (Hyatt Place) is pretty neat looking. It even has a Starbucks facility in the lobby area. Mmmmm, white chocolate mochas are good :)

Maybe I will be watching the Cornhuskers on a 42" flat-panel high-definition television in my hotel room!

Click here to see the hotel...

Living in the garage lately

I guess it is time to announce that I have purchased Carlo Briscese's Alfa Romeo 164. Man am I excited about it! I figured with the Subaru going back to Nebraska with Luke and me just having the 2-seat Alfa Spider, I needed something with seating for four so I can get people at the airport on occasion or tote people around at lunch, etc. not to mention the idea of a car with A/C did hold a certain allure :=)

So I bought the 164, at a pretty good price I think ($3500). I soon found out a couple things. The A/C was not blowing cold air and the car, which ran well at speed, had a terrible idle, stumbling and bumbling when it sat still.

The a/c issue was quickly resolved with a trip to RML Automotive, where Alfa guy Ric Lovecchio refilled the system with freon and it now blows air at 29 degrees at the vent!! Yeah!

The bumbling, stumbling idle was not so simple. While at Ric's shop he took a look at it and suspected a leaky fuel injector, caused by a bad o-ring.

So when i got home I started the rather laborious process of removing the 6 chromed intake runner (which allow air to enter the combustion chamber), as well as the 6 fuel injectors and the fuel rail(which delivers fuel to the injectors).

Well it was a minor pain in the *ss but I got through it. What I found however is that 4 of the 6 intake runners had NO GASKET between the runner and the engine head. A gasket here is crucial so that unmeasured air is not sucked into the combustion chamber. Guess what happens when unmeasured air gets sucked into the combustion chamber...that's right, crappy idling of the motor!

Anyway, I knew I was going to be SOL trying to find 6 new intake runner gaskets at Autozone, so I opted instead to buy some bulk gasket material and trace out 6 new gaskets using one of the old ones as a pattern. Then I cut them out with an exacto knife and some scissors and voila...new gaskets!

I finally got everything reassembled and the moment of truth arrived. I started the 164 and was met with a beautifully smooth idle! Yippee doodle doo!!!!

Central Florida Alfas

From the 1960's to the 1990's the Alfa Romeo new car dealer in central Florida was European Motor Service in Longwood, Florida. ALFA is an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (translated: Lombard Automobile Factory, Public Company).

European was owned by Johnny Mollica (Mo-leek-ah) and Carmine "Carlo" Briscese (Brees-chay-zee), both born in Italy. Not only did they sell and service new Alfa Romeos but they also served as the rebuilding center for ALFA Romeo USA, the place where motors and transmissions in need of fixing came to be rebuilt and then sent back out to various dealers nationwide.

I have had the opportunity in the last week or so to chat with both Johnny and Carlo. They are now in their 70's and are enjoying life in retirement but still in love with their Alfas as they each still own them.

In fact I have had several conversation with Carlo during which he told me a little bit about his childhood in Italy during WWII and some of his history with Alfa Romeo. Carlo did a lot of the engine and transmission rebuilding in Longwood himself and is an Alfa Romeo expert.

One of his cars is a 1991 Alfa Romeo 164 he has owned since new. Black outside. Beautiful tan leather inside. A dizzying array of switches and buttons controlling every little feature imaginable.

More pictures of this beauty soon.....and here they are! Not bad for a 17 year old car!