1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4X4

1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 4X4

I think I bought this thing in 2002. I had acquired a dealer's license for my company since we did some import and export stuff and it was like letting a junkie work in the pharmacy...after hours. This was the first thing I ever bought at a dealer auction. I didn't know what I was doing and I went on a Tuesday night to the Hobby Auction and it was all junk. This was the nicest thing there I think. (Thursday mornings are the big auctions with thousands of nice cars at Hobby - Tuesday nights were a waste of time I learned quickly). 

I really liked the charcoal metallic over charcoal leather interior combo, and as far as Grand Cherokees go this one had everything. It was a 4X4 with a V8 and every option. It did have 60K miles on it though which was a lot for a two-year-old truck. 

When I decided to sell it I think the mileage freaked everybody out and it just didn't move. It drove me crazy because it really was about perfect, but it just sat in my driveway. I finally got a call from a girl that worked at NASA that wanted to trade up with her 95 Blazer and I agreed. I hated the Blazer, but sold it eventually as well. It was probably a mistake, and started a long history of me losing money on cars I didn't really need in the first place.

I really liked the Grand Cherokees at the time. The new ones are great - I rent them from time to time while traveling - but they've gotten too expensive for what they are. You can get these older ones for almost nothing and they still ride and drive well. They aren't known for reliability though, especially the transmissions. Still, as cheap as they are you can afford to fix a few things here and there and still have a nice, cheap extra SUV.

Ruining Other People's Porsches!

Ruining Other People's Porsches!

You down with OPP? (Other People's Porsches) Yeah, you know me! This is just kind of a funny story. So, what you're looking at is the cover of a calendar. This will definitely require some explaining before I just show you the pictures, so here it is.

My buddy (and neighbor) Michael bought a Porsche 911 that was being shipped to him. Unfortunately, he was leaving on a family cruise for a week and the car didn't quite make it before he had to head out. He asked me if I could take delivery of it and keep it until he got back. No problem!

The car showed up late on the day he left. Michael was very excited about it and messaged me from the ship asking for pictures. I told Nel that I was going to ruin every picture by putting myself in it so I started sending him shots like this:

 
And this:

This one was actually on "National Selfie Day" so it made sense.

For the next week, every time Michael would ask for a picture he got shots like these. At some point he texted a comment to the effect of having enough pictures for a calendar. Branelle made the same comment the day before Michael was getting back and we just decided to do it.

Perhaps my favorite thing about these entire shenanigans is that we started this thing about 5:00 pm and had it finished that night. We decided to just go with costume changes and snap a few shots and then switch and do it again....and again....and again...

Nel was dealing with our two youngsters, so I would stage the car, get into whatever ridiculous outfit I needed, set up the shot, and call her out. She would run out and take some pictures and then we would do it all over again. Keep in mind that it was like 98 degrees while we were doing all this.

When we had enough pictures we built the calendar on Walgreens website and ordered it. We picked it up, put it in a gift bag, and put it in the trunk and just didn't say anything. Michael found it eventually.

Anyway, here you go:

JANUARY

This one was pretty simple. I just threw on a ski outfit and grabbed an old pair out of the garage and then added some effects from the Walgreens editing tool.

FEBRUARY

This was a picture I had sent during the week, but with some fun Valentine's Day stickers added.

MARCH

Same story - a pic from the week, but unfortunately the Walgreens design tool didn't have any clovers or March related options. My shirt happened to be green at least.

APRIL

Also the shot we used for the cover - we grabbed every little rubber ducky that our daughter had and I put on a ridiculously fluffy bathrobe. Get it - April showers? I set up a ladder for Nel to take the shot just because there are only so many angles you can get of the same car.

MAY

Honestly, we just miscounted how many pictures we had with me posing and it was too late to take any more (and I was out of outfit ideas). I had taken this shot of the 911 in the garage next to our Beetle so we made due.

JUNE

We were kind of going with showcasing the Porsche racing heritage with this one. I grabbed every marathon medal my wife had and my hydration pack.

JULY

Trying to hit on the lifeguard. That's not photoshopped - it's one of those cardboard cutouts of Alexandra Daddario. It was breezy and I had a hard time keeping her upright (Ha! - I had a hard time keeping Alexandra Daddario upright.) 

AUGUST

Clearly every tool listed in the 911 shop manual - sledge hammer, chainsaw, pry bar.....

SEPTEMBER

Branelle added a nice little tinting effect to mix things up. If any of my neighbors had driven by while we were taking this shot (pun intended) I might of had some explaining to do.

OCTOBER

This seemed like a good month for the Bandit costume. My daughter thought this was hilarious when we were shooting it. 

NOVEMBER

The name's Idiot....Scott Idiot. We tried a lot of different poses for this one but the classic Bond shooting behind himself ended up looking the best. The champagne bottle and flutes were a nice touch I thought. 

DECEMBER

I had to recruit my mom to take this picture because Nel didn't want our daughter to see me wearing the Santa suit. I was going for Santa delivering Michael's present to him and handing him the keys. 

That's it. One of the funnier things about this is that Michael was telling me that at work people would ask if he had any pictures of his new car and all he had to show them were the ones I was texting him so he kept having to explain why there was some idiot in his car all the time.

It was fun making the calendar, but the downside of having the car around all week was it gave me the 911 itch again (which I've since scratched). Thanks a lot Miguel - my wife says you're a bad influence and I'm not allowed to play with you anymore.

Let's Build A Pool! Part 11: Finished!!

Let's Build A Pool!

Part 11:  Finished!!

I finally took some shots of the pool a couple nights ago. I'm just going to throw a few "Before & After" shots up and then a few more pictures and comments below. 

The Concept

The Finished Product

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Our yard has come a long way from the two acre shadeless field it was when we bought the place. The pool turned out great and along with the new porches and guesthouse really frames out the place. Nel says there were probably cheaper ways to cut down on the amount of grass I had to mow. 

The spa is huge - a lot bigger than it looks here, which is weird because I'm not the kind of person that's going to have 12 people over to go hot-tubbing. The reason we made it big is because I've been in other people's hot tubs and it seems like it's knee to knee if you have more than three people in there. No worries here. 

I ordered a bunch of Texas ceramic tiles and had them put on the steps and I also ordered this 24" Texas mosaic that's on the sun deck area. I had briefly toyed with the idea of making the whole thing Texas shaped, but that seemed a little too awesome. 

The fire pit and pavilion areas are raised. It just kind of adds some depth to the pool area and sort of creates different "zones". The pavilion was one of the surprises of the build. It was pretty cheap and I think fits perfectly with the design. 

The rock area (the pool company calls it a grotto but I don't think it qualifies) has a big waterfall all the way across it and two smaller ones on the small rocks to the left. The real fun feature is the three different fire locations. The flames are massive when you turn them all the way up.

While I may not be 100% pleased with our outdoor kitchen, we use it all the time. The lights are cool, the sound system is great for the yard, and the grill works fantastic. We even use the fridge. We added this 18 foot porch extension off the main house and it might be one of the best things we've done. Shade is your friend here!

The dry spa was the most problematic feature of the build. It's actually much bigger than it looks - probably too big. The swim up bar is cool and the seating area may turn out to be popular if we ever entertain, but it didn't turn out quite like I planned it. I envisioned it as being more of an "island" - sort of out in the middle of the pool. I should have made them enlarge the pool area by quite a bit around it to create that effect.

 
Not sexy, but important. We got basically every piece of equipment you could put on a pool. It's all automated - I can control everything from my phone - and the water quality so far has been great. When you get out it feels like you're getting out of the shower.

One final sunset on this blog post - everything about the design for the pool, from the flames to the landscape lighting, was done with the night time in mind. I'm a creature of the night, and I wanted this place to really be useable 24 hours a day. 

Our pool company, Preferred Pools, did a great job and were really good to work with and I would highly recommend them if you're considering putting one in.

That's it - I've got a few other plans for the backyard, but for now we will just enjoy our little pond and watch our trees grow.