T Park Lock

I was going to post all about my second to last car show, but I have some exciting news where I have teamed up with Mustang Maniac which I can share with you today. (I have been given permission to use their photos and video.)

Mustang Maniac has developed a replacement standard “T handle” shift lock for the early Mustangs ’64 to ’73.

It’s called the “T Park Lock”

The handle is designed to be a direct replacement part of the original T handle, but will retain that all important stock look. The lock works by putting the shifter into ‘Park’ and simply pressing in the button on the right of the handle. This locks the black button on the left from being depressed and so you can’t move the gear stick into any drivable position and the gearbox stays locked in ‘park’. Simple, but effective. Anything we can do to slow or prevent our precious cars being stolen is worth it. For a relatively small amount it think it’s a must have purchase to be honest.

With the lock in place nobody will really notice any difference from the stock T handle.

When the handle is unlocked the barrel will spring out and stop. With the lock disengaged the chrome of the handle continues on to the lock barrel itself.

When you have unlocked and removed the key (optional to remove the key), you just shift as normal, if you do press the button in while going along, you can still shift to neutral when convenient to unlock again. Or if you prefer drive with the key in the lock simply unlock again when you need to.

The lock comes supplied with two keys and as are unique to that lock, none of the that one key fits all the locks the same!

To fit the lock it’s a two minute job, remove the old handle, replace it with this one and tighten into place. For added security you can place a small drop of glue onto the grub screw to stop it being removed via the allen key. No garage fees to fit, or maintenance. Fit and click.

I have personally been using the prototype of the product for the last few months and it works flawlessly. To see it in action the Mustang Maniac guys put up a video of the lock in action.

I will be selling these and can be purchased here.

You can also see the link under my “For Sale” heading in the top menu bar.

OR copy and paste this link into your browser: T Park Lock – One Man And His Mustang

If you need any further details, help or questions, just leave a comment or contact me.

Park up & Lock up!

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Stonham Barns

Thanks to everybody who sent me messages from my last post(s) about the number of cars within the posts. The consensus was ‘the more the merrier’ so here is a fairly large post in one go. I have been a little busy with car shows and trying to catch up with posting about the shows, I can’t complain as this time last year I had only a couple visits to car shows. This post is about Stonham Barns which took place on the 15th August 2021. A free for all show where anything goes age wise and there is usually a good mix of cars and some car part stalls as well.

The weather was supposed to be dry, it didn’t look great, but at least it was dry. I left a bit later than normal and thought it would still give me plenty of time to get in. Wrong, I hit a queue to get in, I normally try to get to the shows early to avoid this very scenario.

After twenty minutes or so I eventually got in and had a cyclist who cut across the front of my car causing me to brake while he was going to the car boot sale which was in the adjacent field. As I had my window down this lycra clad clown started with “Am I holding you up?” I responded with an equally sarcastic; “Causing me to brake and avoid you then yes you are.” He started with some rambling rubbish which I couldn’t hear (I was so upset about that – not), as my engine was purring away. He did shout “nice penis extension” at me as he prepared to ride off. The cars were moving in front of me again, but I did pause to instantaneously shout back to him; “At least I don’t dress up to make myself look like a pr!ck”. The other people wandering into the car boot show started to laugh at him. I didn’t give him time to respond and moved away with a few revs on to drown him out. I enjoyed that, so funny 🤣 Classic Car Owner 1 – Cocky Cyclist 0.

Still chuckling away to myself I drove into the field and was directed around to the Bury Retro Car Club stand and parked up. Here we are all lined up.

It was a busy day with lots of cars and plenty to look at. So in no particular or I just wandered up and down the lines.

The weather was cloudy and sunny at alternating intervals all day, which is fine by me.

American, British, Japanese and German all together. The little Audi in this set was amazing and I just loved it.

I’m not sure what this truck is in the first picture but it was massive, and I liked it.

This Ford Escort isn’t my cup of tea, but the guy had spent plenty of time on it that’s for sure.

The white Vauxhall Cavalier in the first picture used to be a firm favourite with Sales Reps, almost disposable. Yet here we are 25 odd years later and it’s in a classic car show!

This proper old school Ford was just beautiful.

The weather started to turn with a little drizzle which didn’t last that long or even dampen the atmosphere.

I spent quite a long time speaking to this guy who only had the car for a little while. It came with a box full of sales receipts and invoices and not to mention a few boxes of spares too. I was surprised to see an I6 under the hood, but he says it cruises great and is such a smooth ride.

I reckon that the Custom, Galaxy and the Chevy must have been the biggest cars there.

I’ve lucky enough to drive the a Harley Truck, it was like sitting in my favourite chair at home, such a nice place to be.

A few fast Fords, 60’s Lotus Cortina and a Sierra Cosworth.

You just beat the fins on these American master pieces.

The stalls weren’t that bad either. I’m not sure what was going on with the screw on aftermarket exhaust tips, they are mounted horizontally as a rule, but like they say – rules are meant to be broken. I’m not that rule was though!

I eventually got back to my car for a well earned sit down and a sandwich. The Cortina GT parked up next to me was a nice example and the owners were thinking of selling it and had a few interested people ask about it.

And to finish up with some dogs I managed to grab a few pictures of.

A great show with lots of nice people to talk to. The weather held of and the drive home was nice and relaxed with no signs of self entitled cyclists to ruin my journey home.

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Helmingham Hall 2021 (part 3)

This is the last part of the car show to complete the previous couple of days. As we got to the end of the field the drizzle started again and came down a little harder now, each shower seemed to be getting a little harder and longer. Again it soon finished after a quarter of an hour or so. The weather sequence carried on for the rest of the day and you never new where you were, sun cream or coat.

There are a couple more rare racing Ford Escorts to start with on this little batch;

As we got closer to the main house we passed some food stalls which Craig decided the queues were far to long, and and a brass band serenaded us as the sun came out again.

There was this amazing truck which I had seen before at this show, but never had the chance to get up close to it because of the crowd around it. I’m not sure if the back of this rig has had a bit added on to it, but it was like a living room, flat screen TV, leather seats, drinks bar etc. a real home from home.

By the main building (where you pay extra to get afternoon tea and some typically British jam and butter cream scones so I’m told), a big attraction as ever. The main reason is that this area is the main walkway to the house and gardens which is open to the public too. All in all a good family day out in that respect. and when the rain started the house got very busy for some reason.

We wandered back to the car. I took some pictures of the club stands but they weren’t that great. There was Mini’s, MG owners, Rovers, Corvette club with lots of C6 and C7s, Mercedes, BMW etc, most of their cars were from the last couple of decades or so. The cars that can be seen pretty much anytime really on the road. As I sat here editing this post I thought it looked a bit like an old supermarket car park montage photo when I looked at it. So I reluctantly I left those pictures out.

We got back to my car, broke the chairs out and had something to eat and drink to refresh us after at least a couple of hours walking around cars. I even lifted the hood on my car, once it stopped raining.

Craig took a few more pictures of my car;

Some more of Craig’s other car pics he took which I liked;

As we are almost at the end we have some pictures of man’s best friend.

Craig captured a few for me too;

The trip home was made a little bit earlier than the ‘rush’ to get home, and it still took us a fair while to get out, it would be dash to get home before the threatening rain. We lost, it absolutely chucked it down. for about twenty minutes. The sun started to appear as we got back home, I managed to wipe the car down quickly just as it started to spit again, this time it looked like it was going to stay. I pulled the car into the garage and put the dehumidifier on without the cover for a few hours.

Craig packed his daily car with the stuff he took to the show. We stood for a while outside under our little porch and chatted a little more about a few things I had promised him for ages. Due to Covid he hadn’t managed to get over and pick them up. But, he seemed pleased with a old school pair of steel car ramps, some samples of waxes I had, some cleaning cloths, wash mitt and applicator pads etc. We eventually said goodbye until the next show where he will hopefully be bringing his real nice Honda Integra Type R to a few shows. He just has to put it back together again now after he got it back from the paint shop.

I hope these posts didn’t bore you with the size of the posts and lots of cars. Let me know if I posted to much and I will cut it down a bit going forward. But, in my defence, there was some great cars to share with you.

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Helmingham Hall 2021 (part 2)

So here we are with part 2. I left yesterday post with the feeling of rain, it turned out it was a little drizzle but the dark clouds were closing in. Of course I blamed Craig for the poor weather and was glad that I hadn’t left my hood up for a change. The light drizzle lasted for a ten minutes or so it wasn’t to bad.

We carried on walking around the show individual entries, again in no particular order. At the start here there area couple of rare fords, a Sierra Cosworth and a Lotus Cortina MK2 in a rare colour combination.

I really liked this little Lancia which also caught my eye.

As a kid I had posters and models of this car and always wanted the metallic purple version of this car, the timeless Lamborghini Diablo. Just for a side note – I still want one.

While we are on the subject of iconic cars the Delorean has a cult following mainly due to the Back to the Future films. The gull wing doors being instantly recognisable.

Withese two icons side by side, who won the looks for the doors?

I still say the Diablo has it!

The mix of cars was amazing and some real old timers next to some modern classics, Americana with Brits, Italian with German, it all just worked.

Of course old vs New Mustang to start us off here, with the UK equivalent of the Ford Capri;

That brings us almost to the end of the individual entries as we worked our way back up to the main stand house passing some stalls on the way. Not sure that a car show has room for women’s jewellery hats and scarfs and so on. Is it just to keep the ladies happy while petrol heads wander round? The next post will have some more of Craig’s photos and some rather cute dogs too.

Watch this space for part 3

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Helmingham Hall 2021 (part 1)

On the first of August this year I had one of my favourite shows and never disappoints is the Helmingham Hall car show. Always fully booked, and awesome settings. Thisyear as there have been quite a few car shows I am seeing the regulars on the scene. So I’m aiming to get different cars to show.

This show I managed to take over three hundred photos. As an extra I had my good friend Craig come with me. He arrived at my house nice and early as I was packing my stuff ready for the day. We loaded up the car and set off for the thirty minute drive to the show. Craig is a member of the SXOC so he managed to us a club stand pass. The club has diversified quite a lot from the initial Nissan SX Owners Club. There are now, Porsche, Jaguar, Mustang, BMW all were welcome etc. The club stand side is always the nicer side of the park. Private entrants on the right hand side of the field, clubs stands on the left.

Always a queue to get in. The best of it was that the side road we needed to emerge from was not getting much sympathy in letting us out. As a massive coincidence one of Craig’s friends in his Porsche flashed us out – what a result as the timing was just perfect. The prediction for the weather was for a nice day, the clouds were looking to say otherwise.

We found the stand half way up the slightly slopped field and parked up nicely.

Craig is avid amateur photographer and took lots of photos of the day too. I have been given permission to use some of his photo’s like this one below. A great moody shot, also the same featured picture at the top which I darkened right down, just because I liked the look of it.

There was a little reorganisation of the stand once everybody who was expected turned up. In the mean time we got out the cloths and gave the cars a quick wipe over. The reorganisation was for the cars to point into the corners of the allotted space and some in the middle to spread it out a bit, instead of a boring straight line.

After a energetic spurt of cleaning we got the chairs out and had a break for a few minutes. As the time got nearer ten o’clock for opening the general car parking fields started to get very busy.

We decided to have a walk round and look at the cars. We decided to look at the private cars first and on the way we passed a couple of club stands and we would do the rest later. Without any order of preference on with the pics;

Along the main entrance path either side were some super cars. Aston’s Ferraris, McLaren, BMW, Porsche, GTR’s etc.

On the private entries i think this was my favourite and amphibious car.

Back to walking around the lines we were back to more familiar vehicles.

After an hour or so we felt it, yep the first drops of rain! This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Due to sheer number of pictures that I took and some of Craig’s along with the loading times, I think this will be best split into three posts. A hundred or so photo’s in each.

Watch this space for parts 2 then part 3!

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Festival Of Wheels

Last weekend was a full on couple of days with a show on both days. Saturday was a two day event so I decided that I would go on the Saturday as the much better show would be on the Sunday at Helmingham Hall, where a mate of mine would be joining me. That post will be split into two posts as I took a lot of pics!

I got up on the Saturday and the weather was little overcast and was supposed to be a dry day. The thirty minute drive to Ipswich or the Suffolk Show ground was a nice run where a Mk 1 Ford Capri sat beside me on the dual carridgeway as we gave each other thumbs up and nods of approval.

The Bury Retro Car Club had a stand for both days and I was directed to the marked out part of the field. Being the considerate club member i parked on the end leaving space for the others.

I didn’t need to worry as I was the only there on the day. The rest were going to show up on the Sunday. So for the day, I was ‘Billy no mates!’

After a quick wipe over that lasted an hour or so, I decided to go for a wander and look at the other cars, to be honest there wasn’t a huge amount there. To put a two year old Ford Focus in the show is not my idea of a car show, sorry. If I exclude a lot of those types of car then there was even less on show.

I walk around clockwise which took me to the traders where there was nothing there for any real petrol head. Wicker baskets, flowers, womens clothing, home made jewellery, kids toys, were all avoided like the plague. No car parts, but there was a cheap and nasty tools stall.

There was an original Charger from the TV series Dukes of Hazard on show. The cast had signed the inside and drew a lot of attention.

There was some exhibition stuff, displays and some fairground rides, which I didn’t see run all day.

There was some nice trucks and vans on in their own little area, which was quite nice to see.

A little further round there was BMX team doing their thing and the bloke on the microphone was really into it, much more than the little crowd watching.

There was a a monster truck fitted out to take a passenger payload at the back, this got a constant stream of visitors for the ride, where it would drive over some cars on a little track.

There were a few cars which I think I should the ‘WTF section’. I mustn’t be cruel, somebody loves these cars and they may think that about my car. Look behind the top picture and there is a fairly new Audi SUV. I can see them all day long in a Supermarket car park!

The dying of trend of ‘slammed’ cars was out in force. That does exclude the rather flattened cars that the monster truck rolled over a few times.

A few bikes of various styles were dotted around.

Perhaps my favourite of the day the Hummer; I never realised just how big these vehicles were.

A selection of Mustangs of course.

More American Muscle

Some nice trucks were at the show and there seems to be more each year. I do like a nice truck.

Outside the main arena was another park area where some motorbikes were doing stunts and the low riders were parked up. There was a Porsche low rider that had problems and decided to dump a good deal of what ever fluid they use onto the floor. They didn’t look to impressed and a few naughty words could be heard.

The rest of the cars that took my fancy

As I eventually got back to my car for a well sit down there was a few people around my car who were drifting their way to the centre ring.

I spent a nice hour or so talking to many people about wanting to ‘Do one up’ or restoration for our USA friends.

The main arena had a a little show of ‘Who has the loudest exhaust’. There was a bout ten or so who took it in turns to rev the nuts (mechanical ones – not the men’s dangly bits) out of their cold engines. Just behind where I was parked up on my own was the Subaru owners. Who decided to rev the nuts out of their engines at the same time. Obviously miffed that that they didn’t get picked to go in the ring. There was a tractor unit in the ring with massive air horns. That idiot thought it would be great to do his parade around the ring sounding it for about five seconds and of for about two seconds. It drove me insane.

I got so hacked of with being mostly on my own in my own little bit of field I decided to go home early.

I wish I hadn’t as the wife tried to give me a few jobs to do in the garden. Unfortunately I had to explain to her that the car need a wipe over. For some reason she didn’t look impressed.

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Let Me Try That Again…

My previous attempt and many hours of fiddling with things and more plugins didn’t get me very far. Some of you kindly gave me some feedback on what was happening. I agreed with pretty much all the little suggestions that came my way.

I got a little bit cute this time and picked a WordPress theme that I sort of liked. Again I got onto the Chat team and told them what i wanted and they sent me an additional CSS code to paste in. Now it does what I want, mostly. I have been fiddling again with that bit of code customise a little more to my liking.

I have managed to get a menu that scrolls with the blog, a header Image I can use now, A site title and tag line which was missing but added to the header image before.

It looks like the third party theme was a bit flaky and sort of did what it wanted. This WP theme seems to be much better and the help guys will help you fiddle with it.

I have added and amended the sidebar to make it look more up to date while I was at it.

Again please let me know if there are any issues and I will get onto it and fix it. Thanks again for the feedback and patience while I try and sort this lot out.

With any luck tonight I will get into bed before two in the morning!

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A Refreshing Look?

Yesterday I had tried to add a couple of items to my menu bar and I ended up breaking it. 🙁 I managed to get it back again to a normal state but’s not how it was. I was getting constant ‘gateway errors’ and the menus wouldn’t update. I have since been in contact with WordPress Help a couple of times, and they informed me that the theme that I had been using is now eleven years old. I nearly fell out of my comfy office chair when that flashed up on my little chat window.

The task for today was to hunt through all the themes that are out there to see if I could get one to work. I had a priority list of must haves; the image header, custom text colours, post options and of course how it looks and feels.

I found a few but settled on this one. I have been able to edit everything I needed with a the help of a couple of plugins that I need in order to make it all work. So far so good.

Except the header image which is playing me around. 😡

The image I’m trying to use is this one from the pro shoot in Cambridge, which has my blog title and tag line on the picture. The heading space wouldn’t allow both a picture and site tittle for some reason.

The heading looks fine on a couple of browsers Chrome/Firefox and the occasionally on Edge. It works on the mobile phone with the menus via a drop down so it’s much cleaner look too.

If you look at the new design can you please let me know if you have any issues with it, either half showing or heavily cropped like this;

I got a nasty feeling I may have to change this all again. I hope not.

Why did I mess with it? Well, I wanted to add a little ‘For Sale’ heading as I have a little supply of some parts. The addition of the extra menu tab was just to much and the theme had a bit of a frothy fit and wouldn’t play ball anymore.

What I have for sale is a little supply of the genuine Summit Racing Universal Engine Lift Plates. These are aimed at the carburettor guys on any make of engine. at £14.00 + P&P its a right steal. Click here for more pics and details.

In the very near future I will be selling something quite unique for classic Mustang owners. The prototype works and I’m now in collaboration with Mustang Maniac to get them made in volume. It’s all very exciting so watch this space!

Back to this post, I think this is much needed update and clean modern look now. The menu bar should be at the top on a PC so it’s easier to navigate around. There area few little tweaks to the side bar and social media buttons to like and follow.

If ANYTHING doesn’t work or looks rubbish let me know and I will amend it. I’m still playing with some of the settings and I may need to change bits around.

Please let me know if you like it or you want the old back. I can take criticism and take it like a man.

I do have two car shows to post and I haven’t forgotten them, it’s just that I have been busy trying to sort the theme mess out. Funny how a hour or so has turned into nine hours already!

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Pro Shoot – Cambridge

I mentioned a couple of post ago while I was at the Culford car show I got talking to a photographer who wanted to use my car as part of his port folio. I agreed as he would also send me the photos to use too. I got them a few days ago and I’ve just got round to posting them up.

We agreed to meet up early in the morning when the sky would be moody and even more important, it wasn’t due to rain. I was to arrive at Cambridge before six in the morning or earlier if possible. That meant I had to get up at four in the morning as I had to get some fuel on the way. The best part was our two little dogs decided that they wanted to get me up at half twelve and then again at two in the morning. So when the alarm went off I was literally running on a couple of hours sleep. So it wasn’t just the sky that was moody! I was Mr bear with a sore head who had also sat on a cactus. As the sun started to creep up and I arrived at Steve’s house well before six, all was good again. I gave him a quick call and he came out straight away and we drove of to the little lane to catch the sky and ambient light just about a mile away.

The road was a single track road which gets busier than you would expect. On a couple of occasions I had to move the car out the way. People were very patient with us and we got a thumbs up or ‘OK’ hand signals now and again.

I’m so happy to share these pictures with you which were taken last week in Cambridge by a self employed pro photographer called Steve Armon. He has a great Instagram account called “trigpointpictures” where you can see a lot of his work, and not forgetting his website where you can book his services www.trigpointpictures.com. His accounts have some amazing and very varied pictures which are well worth checking out, and they include my car. Before you ask – no I’m not being paid by Steve to say these things or on any commission. I wanted to give him a shout out in these difficult times as he has done my car proud and me very happy. don’t forget to mention me when you discuss your photo requirements, so he knows where his traffic is coming from.

these are most of his pictures and they are amazing, I haven’t even managed to pick a favourite yet as I love them all. I think this first one has to be up there though.

We did a few drive-by to get some movement in the pictures.

I parked up and we took a few interior shots.

I opened up the whole car for a unusual set of photo’s that you don’t see very often.

We decided to do a few under hood shots.

To finish up I love this picture of me in the car looking back at Steve in the rear view mirror.

An hour or so later we had finished and I dropped Steve back home and took a leisurely drive home. Parked the car in the garage, took myself into the house and plonked myself on the sofa for some much needed shut eye. I need to mention that the dogs were fast asleep until I got back in, the tables had turned in my favour now. But, not for long as my little guy jumped up on me for a cuddle there we stayed for the next couple of hours. What a great way to start a day.

The photo’s are a bit out of sequence from the day itself where I thought that I would try to group them up. I have also taken some of my own pictures at the same time as Steve trying to learn from him. Obviously they aren’t as good as his pics, but I will post some of mine up soon. There again I sort of expected that his would be so much better than mine as I only have a smart phone, Steve had a big camera with all sorts of bolt on bits and pieces which were all way beyond me! My idea of an ‘F-Stop’ is to shout out ‘F-ing stop’ to somebody I think might crash into me. Apparently it’s not the same thing. 😉

Thanks again to Steve from ‘trigpointpictures’ we had a great morning.

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What Have I learned?

This post is more about my blog/website itself, and not just my car. Although there are some photo’s I have messed around with at the end (with a quick vote for fun), which I quite liked messing around with.

I’m asking for a little feedback to see to see if what I experienced was the ‘norm’ or not. Did I almost sell out? Did anybody notice?

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a marketing company about my site, they wanted to advertise on my pages. That company was “Infolinks”.

Now don’t get me wrong, they first sent me a nice email, where they asked if they could could book some time in with me to discuss a potentially good money making offer. All very professional and above board. I had to check for scams; were they legit, will it cost me anything?

I did my homework on them, all was good from what I could see. Promising start.

I responded back to agree to a meeting which was arranged via google calendar. Bang on time the next day I was called and we started to have a nice chat. He liked my site (I guessed that was standard patter), and saw a good potential to get me some extra money. They had even set a ‘budget aside ready for me’. With the average daily hits I was getting I was told that the advertising would get me $15 to $20 a day. That is a good amount to me for a niche audience like mine to be fair. That type of (proposed) money would come in handy to pay for my hosting, domain mapping and WordPress plan etc. I agreed to their proposals and within hours I was sent login details and everything I needed to get me going.

Setting it up was all straight forward enough, plugins and some little behind the scenes config and it was ready to rock. I decided I would try it for couple weeks straight and run their ads to see what the revenue would be like; in that time over 5,500 were ‘served’ on my unsuspecting readers and followers. After those two weeks I earnt a massive $3.21, that’s somewhat short of the $$ per day I was going to be getting. 🙁

I currently use WordPress ads and that pays for most of the hosting etc. I did check on my pages from a different IP Addresses to see what was going on. I didn’t like the intrusive load of ads from the start and thought it would settle down. It didn’t So I stopped it over the weekend.

My question to my fellow bloggers; did I get greedy or was I just naive and sold a story?

I learned that my readers and first time visitors experience of my pages is more important than a few cents. If I have to be a little out of pocket each year – then so be it. I’m Sorry if my temporary ads made my little ol’ blog unpleasant for you.

My Car Pictures:

OK, back to what I do know, my car. From the last show Culford I took a few pictures at the front of the building. I decided to have a little play around with some effects. It took me a while, but I learned just how easy it is to really mess up a good picture.

Here are my attempts at something arty, see what you think.

The original

Sepia

Artwork

Faded

Sepia with coloured Car

I decided to have a little poll to make it easier as I haven’t had a good ol’ vote for a while.

I have some amazing photo’s coming soon which I can’t wait to share with you, watch this space, hopefully at the weekend for a post. Although I have a car show Saturday + Sunday so not sure when I will get time to do it. This time last year I was scratching around for something to post about.

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