[DeTomaso] The 2014 Fun Rally Chronicles Pantera Content???

[Larry - Ohio Time]

Chris,

Yours and the other chronicles on this email form (Larry Jab) are one of the
mane reasons I show up for work anymore.

Keep it coming and Gods Speed Chris Kimball.

Larry (desk time) - Cleveland



-----Original Message-----
From: DeTomaso [mailto:detomaso-bounces at poca.com] On Behalf Of Christopher
Kimball
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 2:55 AM
To: Pantera list serve
Subject: [DeTomaso] The 2014 Fun Rally Chronicles Pantera Content???

The fun
Rally Chronicles 2014
Every year I try to encapsulate my journey to and from the POCA Fun Rally
(the first couple of years my sons actually took care of it), and this year
is no exception.  If you don't have a lot of free time, I suggest you simply
delete these emails before you even open them.  Otherwise, feel free to
enjoy the view from the window of a '72 pre-L, and through the eyes of a
54-year-old Pantera owner/enthusiast.


My ramblings concerning this year's Pantera Owners' Club of
America Fun Rally will differ slightly from those in years past, because I
am
incorporating my family's summer vacation with the Fun Rally in San Diego.
Rather than chronicle the non-Pantera activities
my vacation will entail, I'll relate the drive from home to California, skip
the days between the completion of the drive to California and the first day
of
the Fun Rally, pick it up again at that point and continue until I return
safely back home to University Place, WA (assuming I actually make it safely
back to University Place-it's over 2600 miles, round-trip).


The idea of combining a family vacation with the Fun Rally
came about when I told Vicki of this year's Fun Rally location.  Vicki spent
the first 8 years of her life in
California, and very much enjoys visiting. 
San Diego is a favorite spot so I thought it would be fun to somehow
incorporate two great activities into one giant fun-fest.


The first obstacle was, of course, Pandora has only two
seats.  Our family consists of four,
rather tall individuals.  That fact didn't
dissuade me, however, from having both of Pandora's Recaros recovered in
leather.  They look fantastic! 


By the way, for those of you new to my overly-wordy
diatribes, I'll simply tell you Pandora is the nickname given to my 1972
DeTomaso Pantera-a car as temperamental as she is beautiful.  The origins of
the name Pandora are fully
described in previous historical documents written by this very author, and
evoke simultaneously from those who read them, both hilarity and empathy.


At any rate, I was not about to let the mere shortage of two
seats deter my plans.  I decided the
perfect solution was to drive to San Diego in the Pantera a couple of weeks
before the Fun Rally with my younger son, Donald, have Vicki and my older
son,
David, fly down to meet us once we arrived, have Vicki and Donald fly back
at
the end of the Rally, and drive back to University Place with David.  This
would give me five days of quality
drive-time in the Pantera with each son, and a week-and-a-half of vacation
for
the four of us in San Diego, including some fun at the aptly-named Fun
Rally.


It was agreed this was an acceptable arrangement, so I set
about purchasing airline tickets and contacting AAA for hotels to and from
WA
to CA.

To save money, I was able to redeem some of the
frequent-flyer miles Vicki and I had accumulated.  This meant, after many
hours of trying to get
one round-trip ticket for Vicki and two, one-way tickets for my sons on the
ridiculous "Thank-You Points" website (I feel like telling them "Thank You
for
making the point redemption so complicated!"), the tickets ended up costing
us
very little.  This was good, considering
what happened next.


A couple of weeks before the trip, David was contacted by one
of Microsoft's subcontracted companies.  
They asked if he would like to fly around the U.S. training people about
Microsoft's new operating system.  He was
thrilled to be asked, and I was thrilled when he told me they were going to
pay
him.  For a University student, this
seemed to be a tremendous opportunity, but, alas, the timing couldn't have
been
worse.  


The dates for which he was needed were the exact dates of
our family vacation and the Fun Rally.


Vicki and I always knew the time would come when arranging family
vacations would become more difficult, and, sadly, those days have
arrived.  Still, it turns out the
Microsoft people will allow David to fly into San Diego during one of the
weekends, so at least we'll have a few days together in the sun.


I mentioned the cheap ticket prices?  I called the airlines as soon as I
realized
David wouldn't be needing his ticket, and was told that to change the $110
ticket would cost $125.  The irony of
that seemed lost on the customer service rep.


In a seemingly-not-related-but-it-really-is-and-you'll-soon
see-why issue; the very same son who is Microsoft-savvy convinced me to get
a
really cool, new phone.  It has the
ability to hold something like a million gigs of music.  This is important
to me, since while driving
I like to listen to music.  Do you see
where this is going?  If I could load
enough music on my phone, which can hook up to Pandora's stereo system, to
play
6 weeks of continuous music, that would mean if I careened into a ditch on
the
way to the Fun Rally I could survive for at least 45 days prior to rescue.  
The best part is the phone is only slightly
larger than a telephone book.


I learned that to fit the maximum amount of music on my phone, I would need
to figure out how to
convert it all.  I thought it puzzling my Christian Rock
albums needed to be converted, but then I remembered all those
fundamentalist
preachers telling me in high school that kind of
music was "of the Devil..."  Maybe they were right after all!  

I worked for hours and hours and hours getting all sorts of
music moved onto a micro SD card.  For
those of you who aren't as much of a techie as I am, a "micro SD card" is a
really small SD card.


While I was working on music, my favorite Pantera mechanic,
Larry (actually, Larry has been my only Pantera mechanic ever since he first
looked at Pandora and discovered the frame-shaped rust held together with
undercoating which he subsequently fixed), was busy checking out Pandora to
ensure she was ready for the grueling 2600-mile round-trip.


I figured by the time he got done with his part of the trip
preparation, I'd be done with mine, and things would work out swimmingly.
It turns out "swimmingly" more aptly
describes the first 900 miles of our trip through torrential rain, including
raindrops the size of Studebakers; but more about that later.


Among other things, Larry discovered the brake line which
was new in '72 was, in '14, quite pitted with rust. 
He was concerned.  Larry isn't particularly emotive, and I
sometimes have a hard time reading whether or not he thinks a particular
problem is serious.  
Therefore, I asked
him a definitive question.  "Larry," I
asked, "would you drive to California with a brake line in this condition?"


It took about a second for him to respond, "NO!"


It was therefore decided he should replace a 40" piece of
brake line.  This apparently is only a
little less difficult than playing Clarke's "Trumpet Voluntary" on a bassoon
without
inhaling.


While Larry was performing another one of his mechanical
miracles, I discovered  something had
gone wrong with my conversion.  


I don't mean to say my
conversion; being a bit of a Calvinist I'm hoping my place in Heaven is
secure.  

No, what I'm referring to is the music.  It
certainly went to Hell!  


Something was wrong with the software and NONE of the music
I spent hours preparing worked-it all came out as nothing more than white
noise
(that's the techie equivalent of the mechanic who says, "Your carb must have
been running too lean and we'll need to replace your engine.") 


All those hours of working on preparing my music were a
total waste of time.


Undeterred, I set about moving unconverted music onto the micro-SD card.
This would result in less
music stored in the phone, but the music I would be storing would sound
better,
meaning I could only survive in a ditch for a couple of weeks, but I'd enjoy
superior fidelity before I was eaten by a mountain lion.  So determined was
I to get it right that I
stayed up way past bedtime on several nights, sitting in front of our
computer.


Meanwhile, Larry had Pandora ready to go, but the recovering
of the passenger seat wasn't quite finished. 
The only things more certain than death, taxes, and flight cancellations are
delays in car-related projects which need to be finished on a tight
timeline. 


Luckily, the car was done with days to spare-about two,
actually.


The car was ready, the musical phone was ready, what could
go wrong?


Stay tuned for the first day's installment.  I don't want to give away what
happened, but
let's just say the first leg of our journey was shorter than Captain Hook's
after
his encounter with the alligator.