So have you got a heat shield for the master cylinder yet?

--Ian

I have been in your shoes and did what you are doing, it costs you nothing to park the car and cut unecesary expences until you are back on your feet.
Come to Indiana, we have e85 everywhere and you will have a few tracks nearby to play in, you will also have some disposable income to save for retirenment after plying with the car LOL

+3 for Indiana. Hope you like looking at corn though.

Car looks great. Eventually I will go back in your thread to catch up on your build. I have been away for too long.

Yeah, but I don't make Bay Area money, I still don't understand how people survive up there. And I'm getting tired of tolerating. I have 2 hobbies that the state is openly hostile toward: fun guns and fast cars. I can solve both of these problems by changing the scenery. Right now we (wife and I) are stable and we are putting money in the bank and the only thing that keeps me from moving away is the fear of loosing that stability and our proximity to family, and both of us have commutes under 10 minutes. I am NOT a city boy and never have been, but this state is being pulled down into the abyss of regulation by the prevailing thought processes of the Bay Area and the Los Angles basin. This state is a lot more than just its urban centers. About the only place that feels right to me is extreme Northern California, but the quality of life vs cost of living ratio is all out of whack. I can buy a doublewide in Redding for the cost of a nicely equipped new car, but then I'd live in a doublewide in Redding. (Some parts of Redding are really pretty, its not all bad, its just an example.) Plus both the wife and I would need to find jobs. Other than the university, county/city government or a couple hospitals there is almost zero industry. I'm in Tech/IT and there is almost nothing up there outside those few employers. I very seriously entertained a job in Colorado back in 2006~2007 before that state really started to boom. I was still single and the urge was very strong. Now I have a very different set of skills and competency than I did back then, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm also now married. My wife is from Santa Cruz and while its always been a little weird up that way, its gone full retard in the last decade and even she balks at what its become. We both like the rural thing but neither one of us has ever lived more than 10 miles from the coast in our entire lives. (Except when my wife was going to Chico State of course.)

I love this state but I'm coming to the realization that its been an abusive relationship for a while now.

Same clamp-on one I used last year! Though I do need to reposition it a bit, one of the clamps rubs against the steering shaft on hard right hand turns. I just need to rotate it around the pipe and it'll be fine. I should probably add that to the list of things I need to do this week.

See? Harold gets it. Its a fairly tempting proposition. Though I'm not sure I want to trade earthquakes for baseball sized hail and tornados.

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpr..._56_years.jpg?

In IT you can make 100k + in Indiana (depending on your certiffications) , not sure what your wife does but another 30k or more and you will be very confortable, For Wayne, Bloominghton and the Indianapolis area has many good IT jobs, you can live in a nice 3000 ft 3 car garage 250k - 300k home with a full basement (tornado shelter, you do know when they are near by) in a nice neigborhood for a $1300 -$1500 mortgage payment be 10 mi from work and yes take your vacation and go visit your family in January when is cold and have them visit you here in the sumer.
I know it is hard to pick up and go, leave everithing you know behind, and big changes like that should be well researched, planned and executed when you find the right job etc.
Best of luck to you, you will do fine regardless of where you go if you stay disciplined about your expences etc.

You can live and work anywhere. I've lived all over and prefer to have a house paid off and substantially funding my retirement. Some places are better than others, but you have to be happy. Move around some and see some new things. You may be surprised what you might happy with. Move around while you are young and get a feel for different things. That's a luxury of youth.

This is all good advice and I have an old man's perspective.
The only thing is the "visit your family in January" thing. I lived in New England, where it froze solid for a few months a year. Us CA folk don't do so well below 20*F.
20*Fffffff!

If you can just hold out until the next big quake.
Uh oh , too much to drink tonight, better quit before I piss too many people off.

Far northern California is basically Oregon...

Come to the light side.

Jk don't move up here. We have too many of your kind already.

The State of Jefferson is where it's at!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff..._Pacific_state)


I really enjoyed Mt. Shasta the couple times I visited, but no way could I live in Kalifornia, even the "Jefferson" portion...

Texas, do eet. (At least visit)

Lot's IT work in Austin, Cota track around the corner as well as harris hill raceway. Coast is... 4 hours away but well worth the scenic drive.

My coworker next to me is from California and vows never to return, says it was completely toxic and is now living in a nice 2 story home with a theater room, pool table etc etc. Getting a lot more for his money.

One word of advice: Don't wait.

Move when you're young, so that if it sucks, you can move again. Doing it when you're in your mid 50's is a hell of a lot tougher, so it's easier just to stay put.

Wish I'd gotten out of NYS 2 decades ago.

:rofl:

You don't understand the powah of the Dark side.

I hate the bay area with a passion.

I understand, SF just isn't what is was when I was a young man. Every time I cross the bridge to visit my mom, I end up cursing at all the idiot drivers, at the very least.
Seriously worst drivers in the nation.
I just can't deal with the cold, but North West cold is more tolerable.

My buddy Jamie bought a house (some Miatas at the Lake attendees went there) 3300sq ft on 23 wooded acres with a huge detached shop that holds 10 cars, has hydraulic floor lift, paint booth, and additional covered carports for $58k. He put on a roof, installed a new A/C unit, some wiring, new flooring, cabinets, etc. for about $25k and then had the timber in the back 10 acres harvested for a gain of $18k. Since his house is paid off, he got an easy supervisory job with the county with lots of time off, good benefits, and a pension. Now he builds and sells hot rods for fun.

I guess my point is, don't be a slave to a mortgage unless that's what makes you happy.

My house down here in Florida was under $100k 3/2/1car +detached 1 car garage/workshop stucco/block. It's a newer house in an older neighborhood that has a mix of crummy and nice, but it is all we need. House is paid for and we are funding our retirement. Ryan G bought a large 2 story house with a detached garage with an apartment above it. He's living in the apartment, keeping the garage for himself, and renting out the house for more than the cost of the mortgage payment and his utilities. He's living for free and heavily funding his retirement.

It's all about what you want to do with your life. You only get one of them.
Make yourself happy.
IT jobs are everywhere. See the world.

Nobody has brought up the school thing yet. Idk if G plans on kids, but me and my fiance do. And in reality school quality is the only thing holding us back from moving out to the boonies. My job is located somewhere that could easily be a 30 minute commute to a cheap house with lots of property, but it has a shitty school system.

Its a really hard balance to find, and something not everyone thinks about.

It's not all bad. But the parts that are bad, are really bad.

There's a reason the area is insanely overpopulated and getting more so each year.

That's a whole another topic for later. Because of my diverse environment and the relatively small company I work for with its legacy infrastructure I don't feel I have a lot of experience that translates into common more modern tech/it structures. But again, I could go on and on about this for pages, but I'm not sure anyone wants to hear it :bang:

Thanks man, I appreciate the vote of confidence :bigtu:

I spent my 20's and my early 30's grinding myself into the ground to survive. I'd like to think I'm adaptable and have varied enough work history that I could do anything, its just that "happy" thing that challenges me. I feel that getting off the rent treadmill is a huge step in this direction.

Pssht! Whatever. I was here in 89 for Loma Prieta and I know how to swim, so I figure I can survive anything :giggle:

I'm a proponent of the 4 of 5 state breakup. Let those fucking urban centers try to figure out how to support themselves while the rest of us go about our business.

I've been to Edinburg, is that representative? ;) If so, then I'm not interested.

I do wish I had spent time moving around in my 20's, I think it would have been good for me.

Dude, seriously, WTF is wrong with you people? I went and visited Oregon a couple months back for a friends wedding and I got shit on by 2 complete strangers in unrelated incidents after I told them I was from visiting from California. I've never met such random open hostility in my entire life. When I was in Texas people viewed me as an oddity, but at least everyone was friendly and wanted to engage in conversation and ask me questions about the west coast. Oregon was just horrible.

We don't have the racism and homophobia on the west coast that seems to be present to one degree or another in the rest of the country, but god damn we sure as fuck have some xenophobia going on.

Its because there are too many people and too many cars. SF (and the rest of the country for that matter) suffers from a terrible lack of public transit. Maybe NYC got that part figured out, but I'm not going to visit to find out.

This is high on my list of fears about leaving California. I don't know what real "cold" is and I'm afraid its going to kill me.