On 8 Jun 2005 04:48:57 -0700, "Denny" wrote:

I have watched a few early episodes of Junkyard Wars, and Monster
garage, and Orange County Choppers, and that custom car guy in
California - Ward something or other -but I have quit... The fake
deadlines and manufactured crises annoy me to the point that I cannot
enjoy watching... Actually what they do with the machinery is
interesting and I dearly love watching rough metal being shaped and
smoothed and painted and coming out looking like a piece of sculpture,
but the crap that the vapid producers use to hype the show ratings is
intolerable...

Denny

My feelings precisely. The producers appear to think that just
building a great vehical from scratch isn't interesting enough to
appeal to a broad enough audience, so they make sure there's always
looming deadlines to produce conflict, intrigue and anger to attract
the non mechanically minded people to watch the show. They may be
right, but I don't care for that aspect of the shows at all.

After all, they're building hot rods and/or choppers, why does
anything have to be rushed about that? Rushing ALWAYS causes
problems. It's kind of the opposite of the homebuilding aircraft
ethic, to me. Of course, I probably carry it to the opposite extreme,
being very slow at construction. I've been working on my Christavia
for some 15 years now and I'm nowhere close to finishing. Work has
slowed almost to a stop right now while I do LONG delayed house
improvements. I view this work as an absolutely necessary part of the
airplane construction: If I don't do the house work, I won't be able
to work on the airplane due to pressure and anger from the other
important one in my life. And she's right. I'm building a toy,
albeit a very expensive toy, but the house may eventually be sold some
day and we should do what's necessary to get the best price possible
for it, when/if that time comes. Even if it doesn't come, the home
improvements are gratifying anyway. So I thought this summer was
going to be the big push to finally get the fuselage blasted and
painted, but work on the house will likely make this difficult to do,
if not impossible.

Testing the engine will be the goal for this summer, it looks like.

Corky Scott