I parked on the sidewalk to wait for a street sweeper that never came.
Waiting for the Street Sweeper at PVS
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Travels & Tribulations
How Many Thin Mints Fit Into a Volvo 245?
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.
Flooded
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.
Stuck Truck
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.
Twins
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.
When Union Rats Attack
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.
Renee Reads Rango
My daughter checking out the book adaptation of the movie “Rango”.
Drifty Brick
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.
Next Year: Snow tires
The Brick’s anti-lock brakes have engaged twice as much this winter season than in the 6 years I’ve owned it, combined. The past few years have had low snow fall and good plowing. This year, not so much. I used to be able to just let the car hibernate in the winter, but now that my kids go to school further away and we have to drive to gymnastics every weekend it’s become more of a bother. I just fishtailed around Hoboken and there’s barely any accumulation.
I hate the feeling when the ABS engages. It feels like someone threw a bunch of rusty ball bearings into my rotors, and swapped the pads with sandpaper. I thought they might be screwed up but a mechanic tested them and me they were fine, that’s just the way they feel.
Snow Block Brick
This is how I found my car on Wednesday morning. It had snowed overnight and the wind up the street had formed an almost perfect rectangular cube on the roof, about 4-5″ thick. More, larger images, after the jump…