My Black Brick

Saw this wile driving in front of Neuman Leather in Hoboken. Oops.

I came to a stop in traffic Saturday and noticed the guy behind me swerve to avoid hitting my rear. Idiot tailgater, I thought. It was only later that I realized my brake lights were out. Argh! I checked the fuses and they seemed fine, but I replaced the brake light one anyway. Voila! Hopefully now I can avoid getting rear ended… and arrested.

I parked on the sidewalk to wait for a street sweeper that never came.

I shot these pictures when taking delivery of Girl Scout Cookies last year. Ours was one of 5-6 cars picking up for our troop; my daughters did not sell all of these cookies.

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Today I stupidly tried to plow my brick through a 1/2 block long flood of water and stalled. I pushed the car about 20 yards by myself through knee deep water before jumping back in. After 5 minutes of futile starting attempts my trusty brick sparked back to life and I sputtered to higher ground to dry off. Can’t kill it.

While I didn’t get video of my ordeal, I did manage to shoot plenty of traffic near my studio. This kind of flooding has been happening for years.

Flooding in Hoboken from Stripped Nuts on Vimeo.

Somehow this trucker managed to wedge his trailer under the train trestle at the entrance to Hoboken. This happened today a block from my studio and I shot video and photos. It’s a recycling truck that had just emptied it’s load about a 1/2 mile away. Took the tow company a couple hours to finally pull it out since it was wedged under two different tracks. Hoboken traffic was a mess with this major entry and exit route closed at rush hour.

Saw this black brick in front of the bank. You can see how the ipd sport springs change the rake on my car. I recently re-blacked the bottom trim and you can see the difference it makes. As usual, the other Volvo 240 is plastered with an Obama sticker.

Union Rat is set up across the street from my studio this morning. Not sure if it’s for the Hoboken Business Center or our building, which it’s facing. And, yes, my car needs a serious washing after parking in front of a construction site.

My daughter checking out the book adaptation of the movie “Rango”.

With my lower ground clearance I’m finding that little patches of snow between ruts on the road are scraping the underside of my brick. Parallel parking is a particular challenge, as I just jam it into reverse and plow over snow drifts until I can’t move anymore. The snow I drove into last night had been deep enough to slightly elevate the chassis and gave the rear wheels even worse traction than usual. I had to rock back and forth about 5 minutes before breaking free.

Driving around town is fun tho. Not as exhilarating as the rubber-burning brick seen above, but as much fun as you can have w/ RWD, no traction control, tight streets and vast sheets of ice.