On The Road: Denver Edition: The Reason This olelongrooffan Is In The Mile High City

Dateline Denver, Colorado; July 24, 2011

As I am sure those of you who have been Counting Along With Me are aware, I have been in the Mile High City for just over two weeks now. The reason this olelongrooffan is hanging out where pot is legal and a right turn on red isn't is because a great friend has purchased a new to him home and he called me last month and asked me to come on out and help he and his girlfriend renovate their first "John Lee" home.



So I did a rare thing. I got on an airplane for only the second time in ten years and headed out to this fair city to be of whatever assistance I could be.



While Big J and Ellie were at the long delayed and much anticipated closing on their home, this olelongrooffan headed over to their new pad, utilized those tin snips in a way that I am confident their designer never thought of, and set those newly clipped roses in a vase on a the portable table on the covered patio out back.



Yeah, in that cooler are a bunch of PBR's, IPA's and a cold bottle of bubbly to Celebrate Life in their new home.



Now this olelongrooffan has to tell you, Big J is all about value. See that fancy dancy green Werner fiberglass ladder he is holding? Thirty nine bucks at the local ACE hardware store. Regular retail? Sixty four bucks. Yeah, "that's value".



Their new home, originally constructed in 1901, is an interesting mixture of architectural finishes and modernizations. There was a commercial style drop ceiling in the downstairs covering some fixed metal duct work and the kitchen cabinets are barely affixed to the walls. The sink was not even hooked up to any plumbing.



And of course, by the end of the first day of possession, Big J had injured himself but it's okay, we have Duct Tape!



And above that metal grid drop ceiling was this falling down plaster ceiling.



This olelongrooffan, after a hot shower over at Big J and Ellie's condo, needed to utilize another tool in an unusual way. I manned that sawzall to trim a branch from the neighbor's tree so I could pop Filmore's top and create a mini me version of the Taj Mahal.  That is Ellie's pup, Tripod, at the base of that el cheapo ladder.  Look closely and those of you Counting Along With Me can determine how this Jamaican born canine got its name.



Like many of the vehicles in the possession of this olelongrooffan, Filmore is having an identity crisis this day.



See this man on the right in the above image? He was sent from God.



No, this olelongrooffan is not responsible for the consumption of this bottle of Mohawk Vodka during the construction of this 110 year old home, nor any of its previous renovations.



Ah, the 2 x 4 less Filmore is an excellent resting place for this olelongrooffan once the top is popped and a cocktail is in hand.



ACE is the place of the helpful hardware man. And their wheelbarrows make an excellent grill stand.



Remember just a moment ago when I mentioned the man sent from God? Well that man, Tim, spent an afternoon of his vacation out from Delaware helping Big J and this olelongrooffan put in this drop ceiling in the living room and extra bedroom in This Old House.



And even though this olelongrooffan has done a "John Lee" house so many times that process possesses my name, I am renovating this home with an engineer and an electronic technician. Sometimes I even get to put my 3 cents in.

And even though this olelongrooffan is not getting rich on this project, finding those 3 cents and putting them in allows me to continue to

Celebrate Life.

On The Road, Denver, Colorado: The Do You Remember It Edition?

Dateline Denver, Colorado; July 18, 2011

When I was a kid back in the 1960's, I distinctly remember visits to my paternal grandmother's home while we resided in the Gateway to the West back in the day. At Moo's home, kids were better seen than heard and if we weren't seen at all, that was even better. As a result, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan spent a lot of our visits to that Giles Avenue home in the dark and dank basement playing with some cool old toy cars while our sisters were upstairs in the parlor visiting with Moo and the folks.



One of the cool things about that house, other than my Uncle Frank's wide track Pontiac convertibles, was the fact my quite elderly grandmother was still sporting around in a 1953 Desoto Firedome, yes with a hemi. It was maroone with a grey cloth interior and the semi automatic transmission of the time. You used a clutch to get underway and stop but when it was time to shift gears, you just lifted off the accelerator and it shifted automatically. It was pretty fascinating at the time although I rarely rode in Moo's car back then, only to learn to drive it much later in life.  It was the same body style as the one in the above pictures. This olelongrooffan will never know how I came to be in possession of those images but I am sure they were saved so they could be utilized in this post.

Later, after it was determined that Moo was unable to drive herself any longer, that old MOPAR product, now extinct, came to reside on our Halltown edition of Haven Lee Farm.

One time an older sister, who had recently gotten her driver's license, and I were traversing some country road out in Lawrence County, Missouri, had to be 1971 or 72 and when we crested a hill, that gravel road also took a blind turn down to the left.  My sister over compensated and we bounced off the adjacent embankment severely damaging the left front quarter of the old beast, which had by now been painted a bright orange by one of TheGentlemanFarmer's buddies.

Well, needless to say, when we returned home, the proverbial sh*t hit the fan for a couple days and then it kind of blew over. And my Dad, in one of his many travels around the countryside, stumbled across a 1952 Desoto 4 door post sedan parts car and, of course, drug it home.  And it was a parts car for the repairs to Moo's car so this olelongrooffan could hoon it around for a while.

So by now this olelongrooffan is sure those of you Counting Along With Me are screaming at the tops of your lungs..."WTF longroof, you think we are here to reminisce the ole days with some dude who is hanging in the Rockies for the month?"

Whoa?...Where did that come from?....But I think it was pretty funny considering...

So anyway, this afternoon while out scoping out suppliers for this remodel project I am involved in and which solely represents the reason I am here.....anyway, until a couple days ago, life in the mountains had left me disoriented with respect to north/west/south, etc. "If you see the mountains, you are looking west." Yeah that's great if you can see the mountains!...sh*t where the h*ll was I?  Literally and Geographically.

Oh Yeah! So this olelongrooffan was out and about and on a street which I knew and in a location roughly where I thought I was and I spotted this while travelling north on Lowell.



Yeah, it's a 1952 Desoto Custom two door post.  Looks to be nearly original and I had to teach Filmore, the Vanagon, how this olelongrooffan likes to whip ueeeys just for this reason.



And in my world, seeing this old classic and not gathering some images to share is beyond my comprehension.



I mean Counters, when was the last time you saw a manufacturors name, trademark and design flair all on the same car?  H*ll not just the car, this was just the rear emblem.



So, I guess it is time for this olelongrooffan to put his foot in it again and share the absolute next image after the trunk emblem I captured.  Yeah, Klutz could be my middle name.



Having said all that, this sweet old beauty had the exact same transmission set up as did Moo's '53. I drove Moo's car (as it was known until the day it was sold) up and down that mile long driveway out at the farm many times to "check the mail" as it were.



That multi-toothed '53 sedan, the '53 turn signals were moved outward to the chrome in the fender and Chrysler was able to squeeze in a couple more teeth on each side, anyway...Moo's car would haul *ss, in the hands of a 16 year old Hoon and on a gravel road, well let's just say I had a couple Lightning McQueen incidents before this olelongrooffan met my Doc Watson.



To my mind, even the front emblem on this automobile is nearly asspectacular as the rear. This olelongrooffan would love to have one of those hanging from the wall of the Taj Mahal. Not this one though, it is in its proper location, hopefully forever.



I don't know if many of you Counters Out There follow we Hoons over in the Hooniverse.com but over there is a Mystery Car Contest, usually on Fridays...anyway, I thought about submitting it for a post in that category but those Hoons can guess a mystery car by its freaking shadow at night, so that image remains here on By The Numbers, for now.

After this olelongrooffan had gathered those images of that two door,



of course, I had to take a peek out back. The fun ones are a 54-55 Ford Ranch Wagon, a baby Jaguar of some indiscriminant designation, a couple beige vehicles, an early 70's Cutlass, what I'm gonna call a 50's era Olds and behind that Ford pickup was the nose of a '56 Chevrolet. It was quite a sighting, not unlike most days here in the Mile High City thus far.

But it was when I sneaked around the other corner and spotted this



ole flatfender to share with thejeepjunkie, the Kid and the Bus that this olelongrooffan really remembered how to

Celebrate Life.

On The Road: Golden, Colorado: "Howdy Folks"

Dateline Golden, Colorado; July 15, 2011



So I'm still dodging lightning strikes here in the Mile High City and yesterday this olelongrooffan ventured out to Golden, Colorado to see what could be seen other than Clear Creek Park. I started to head up the mountain to see Buffalo Bill's Enternal Place of Rest but at the first picnic area, just up the hill, I pulled Filmore into a parking space, had a sandwich and my favorite carbonated beverage and contemplated driving a 31 year old air cooled Volkswagon Vanagon up that steep, long road. And I decided against it. Sorry to disappoint those of you Counting Along With Me but this olelongrooffan decided there were much better places to see with that old Bus than straining to climb that mountain with this olelongrooffan in tow.

So Filmore guided me into downtown Golden, Colorado, a bustling area this Saturday.



We did a drive by in downtown and headed over to the MillerCoors Brewery for a free self guided tour.



This sign greeted the group of tourists waiting for the shuttle bus to show up and get the bunch of us to the other side of the brewery for the beginning of the tour.



All of these van front shuttle buses were vinyl wrapped and advertising their products. Incidentally, they offer a beer called Colorado Native and it's sold only in Colorado.



Once we got off the shuttle bus, this olelongrooffan noticed that out front they had a pretty cool themed water tower and



This cool copper mash kettle. Once inside the reception area, we were issued a headseat telling us what was going on as we proceeded with the tour.



One of the things it didn't tell me, however, is the year of this cool old Chevy truck.



Nor did it tell me who took that Coor's cooler on its first picnie.



And a shoe box Mustang gave its life for this display in the reception area.



Once inside, it was pretty disappointing. We went through a series of hallways with lots of Coors memorabilia lining the walls and displays. Once we got through that, we came to the mash room with many of those kettles I had seen outside. These were in operation though.



And across the way is the one guy here on this Saturday to ensure things ran smoothly that day.



And that dang headset didn't know what this guy's wife cooked him for dinner that day.



We finally got to some action but all it was was the packaging plant where they were putting cans in to cardboard boxes.



It was cool for what it was but it wasn't much. The last time I was at the Anheuser Busch brewery in Tampa, we got to see the bottling plant, the area where the cans were formed. The lines where the put lables on bottles. Just a whole lot more goodness.



However some good did come out of it. When I showed Big J these images, he casually mentioned he built those blue electrical panels to the left in those wider angle shots of the packing plant machine.



And I'm going to guess Coors got into racing long before NASCAR.



And a pretty cool monument in memory of our Defenders of Freedom.



So this olelongrooffan decided to hoof it back to downtown to see what was up.



On the way, I captured another image of Mount Table.  See that Subaru Forester in the foreground?  The day I spent driving around downtown, I counted 51 Subaru Outbacks and that was once I started counting.  Ah, just another number here on By The Numbers.



And another one of Clear Creek from the bridge on the main drag.  Yeah picnic tables and chairs on the bridge. Pretty cool in my book.



And of course, another huge animal lurking just around the corner.



So, as I was leaving downtown, this olelongrooffan spotted a sign suggesting  Filmore and I turn right and head toward the Colorado Railroad Museum. It was just down the old highway running alongside Highway 6, a major traffic moving roadway but not a member of that exclusive Eisenhour Highway System.



It was pretty cool to see.  They had various gauged railroad cars



A bevy of boxcars



and these cool old passenger cars. Now I had seen pretty much all this olelongrooffan was interested in seeing and decided that paying the $12 admission fee was not going to occur so I may gain admission to the esteemed Colorado Railroad Museum.



However, as this olelongrooffan returned to that cool old highway that would take me back to the Mile High city I spotted this snowplow laden railroad car and I just had to get Filmore to stop so that I could capture an image of it.

That museum was actually the third museum this olelongrooffan didn't get into that day. Well, that is if you don't count the MillerCoors museum.

You see Counters, due to fiscal constrants, not only did this olelongrooffan not get into the Colorado Railroad Museum, earlier I had been denied admittance to the Golden History Museum for exactly the same constraints.

The third occurence with respect to museum admission happened earlier while that buffalo was chasing me around downtown Golden, Colorado



You see Counters, this olelongrooffan was to busy running from that buffalo to stop in at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum thus avoiding the Golden, Colorado version of the proverbial "bull in a china shop."

My Sincerest Apologies to all of you Counting Along With Me.

But you can bet your bottom dollar this olelongrooffan was still able, that day, to

Celebrate Life.