The Personal and Professional Blog for Bennington V Purcell

I made it back to the east coast!

Since then I have been keeping myself very busy. First I started by running again. I am planning/hoping too run a marathon. I also started to carve.

I am doing some draw knife carving and making a sweet spoon and some other stuff.

Read More »

I haven’t posted lately. This week was camping from Monday til Friday with a all-too-brief visit with Rachel and now I am leaving the grandparents house!

The camping was cold and fun, the visit was Rachel was great (it was homecoming and we ate tasty tapas and sampled my uncles wine), and as always the grandparents are grand! We winterized their backyard and I planted about 75 bulbs! So come the spring it should be very pretty here!

Read More »

I had a ridiculously nice time with my aunt nancy and uncle Fred.

I got to Seattle late on Friday night and drank some cold beers and chilled out. The sleep was wonderful! The bed was comfortable and cozy in a little guest suite they have (it has a sitting room veranda access and it’s own bathroom).

Saturday Nancy, Nathan and I went to explore the area.

First we went an toured the Microsoft campus.

Read More »

I stopped in Portland after my two nights camping to stay with my family the millers!

I had a great stay! Mike and I took bikes from their neighborhood in SE quadrant downtown. What a beautiful and fun city. Mike let me ride Jims single speed hipster esque bike, and combined with flannel and my moustaches I fit in seriously well! I even looked the part at the Occupy Portland happening downtown!

Read More »

I am again at a KOA now near Eugene Oregon. Betsy and I made it 350 miles today even including a very long detour to help a German couple who had locked their keys in their can on a scenic alternative to the 101. We had quite the time getting help. No ones cellphone had signal even when I drove Karl back to the 101 (almost 25 miles). We ended up finding a ranger station and using a pay phone for like 7 bucks in quarters (they got expensive in their disuse).

It was funny helping a German couple with their Ford while in my Das Auto.

Finally we got a tow truck and got them back on their way. Took almost two hours. They were very nice folks and really had gotten locked out with nothing! No wallet or jackets (I lent them mine because it was chilly “7 or 8 Celsius” said Karl). In return for my service and hospitality they gave me a lively bottle of wine from napa.

Oregon is strikingly beautiful. It might be the nicest looking state I have driven through.

Read More »

KOA. 27 dollars? Really? For some lawn? Bullshit. That’s where I am tonight. In a KOA in eureka. It is nice enough. Cold. Very cold. I didn’t bring enough bedding.

I had a great drive up the coast today!

Read More »

Betsy, as you should know is a ’72 VW Beetle. She is sky blue and very fun.

She requires a skilled driver (me) and regular maintenance. For maintanance she likes her oil changed regularly (with nice VR1 racing oil) and her valves set too .008 occasionally. Her gas cap says “Oktan min. 91 ROZ”. I don’t know what ROZ means but I let her have 89 and she seems fine.

She weighs about 1900 lbs dry and with all the stuff in her right now probably weighs more like 2700. She has a 1600cc air-cooled engine and “4 on the floor”. 50ish horse power seems like plenty!

She is simply stuffed with things. Almost my entire belongs have fit into her. She has lots of gaskets, extra cables, lots of tools, extra oil, all my clothes, and a boom box I have wired up to work with my iPhone.

I also wired up a 12 volt plug so I can charge my phone (since apparently Germans didn’t smoke enough to have cigerette lighters built in). It works quite well but probably would tax the electrical system if you had more than just USB power being drawn off.

Read More »

Up to Malibu! Betsy and I have taken flight all the way to malibu (not that far)

But here is Betsy and I last minutes in Santa Monica -

On our way!!