Charlotte Oktoberfest!!!

We had planned to go to the 12th annual Charlotte Oktoberfest for a while now but when the time comes to buy tickets we figured our money could be better spent elsewhere. Thank goodness for Molly's friend Amber and her husband Ralph!!! Ralph works for Abita Beer and received a certain amount of tickets and Amber hooked Molly and I up to get in free and we even got free food out of the deal! What a great day.
So the Charlotte Oktoberfest has about 350 beers to try and the give you a free 5oz tasting glass to help with the duties.
We tried about 8 different beers each and I think our favorite by far was brewed by a local home brewer out of Winston-Salem, NC. It was called "Hop Island Breakfast in Bed Stout" It was an oatmeal espresso stout. SO GOOD!

We were given these yellow wrist bands and that got us in for free along with free lunch, snacks and water.

There was definately no shortage of people. we looked on the website and they had sold out of tickets for a while. It's amazing how beer brings people together!

Next time we are going to have to score one of these pretzel necklaces, they were everywhere!

Thanks again Amber and Ralph!

The Newest Member of the House Family

I am so thankful that I have a wife that has good taste and that we like so many of the same things!

In our quest for "all things vintage" we stumbled upon what became the newest member of our family. Well... stumbled may not be right, earnestly sought out might be closer. We both have always liked the old appliances and we were talking a few months ago and kinda decided that we ought to find one some time to replace our normal looking, non vintage, loud fridge. So the hunt was on! I would scan through craigslist almost daily finding incredible deals on incredible appliances... in New York...and California but not so many in North Carolina. One was finally posted in Winston-Salem which is about 1.5-2 hours from us. After many emails and a borrowed truck (Thanks Larry) we brought her home! Everything was in pretty good shape and worked great but needed a little paint and some cleaning.

The new old fridge as we got her. As far as I can tell it is an early '50's model.

Sanded and prepped for paint!

After a couple of coats...

Molly is demonstrating the difference in height and size of our current fridge on the left and our new fridge on the right.

Done and in action!

Very full. Our little freezer is pretty full as well.

I love the porcelain covered metal drawers for the vegetables and meats!

And what makes it even better is that it has a glass top/shelf so you can see whats inside without having to pull it out.

I was pretty excited about this bargain, total cost of new cool fridge...$155
I would be tempted to believe that just about everyone that has bought a new refrigerator in the last 15 years has replaced it but this one is still going strong and IT'S QUITE! I just hope I don't eat my words and have to replace anything anytime soon because I said that.
Now if I can only find an sweet old gas stove.

New Sopkes with Powdered Wheels!

I received the new spokes a little more than a week ago for the CB450 wheels that I had powder coated . I have never attempted to lace and true a set of spoke wheels but I figured with all the info online I'm bound to get it sooner or later.

There is a certain order this has to be done in otherwise it work and you'll probably go crazy trying to figure out why it's not working!
I don't have a lot of pictures of each step but I messed it up a couple times and finally figured out what I was doing wrong and it went together real quick after that. It's amazing how well things work if you do it right!

This is the final product except for the truing part. That will probably take a bit of work.
Front Wheel

The rear wheel went together real quick the first time!

When I get done truing them and wiping them down I'll probably post a couple more pictures taken outside. They look way better in sunlight than in my living room at 5:30a.m.