It's the beginning of the end. Here's my new chassis from Wicked Fab. I'm going to need to make a few changes to it, but other then that, it's ready to go. I'm going to change the front window structure so that I can actually see out. I'm going to also drop the door bars down so I can actually get in. I might have to do a bit of modification to the rear where the tires are. If I don't then the whole back axle will be like a foot past the back of the rig. Then it's mounting the drive train and building a floor and firewall.

I think I only have one more large purchase for this rig and that's a new hydro-steering system. The one I have isn't that great. Actually it sucks.

It's been about four years now that I've had a Mac. I'm still looking for that perfect text editor to do my programming with. So far it's between TextMate and VIM, but still they don't provide the perfect environment.

TextMate is a new editor on the scene. It's nice because you can load a whole directory of files into it and edit them. But it has bad points to it also. The biggest problem being that it is unbearably slow. I can type, then look up and watch the lines that I just typed printing on the screen. And scrolling is slow also. If I have a long line of code that goes past the border, it takes forever to arrow through it. I have to go to the mouse and use the scroll bar to scroll to the end.

I'm hoping that TextMate becomes better than it is so I can use it as my primary editor.

VIM is a great editor. I've used it for a very long time. It's very powerful and does a lot of things. It's very fast and clean. It does everything I need and then some. The problems... CSS files get whacked when editing them. Some kind of formatting problem with the auto format. Very annoying. It's not a Mac application, so it's not Mac like. The commands are very different. The modes can be annoying sometimes. I believe that some of it's short comings can be easily fixed with a bit of work on my part. But others are not so easily fixed.

What would be perfect would be a Cocoa version of VIM with Mac style keyboard commands and menus. But that would fork the code and possible make it incompatible with other platform versions. So nobody is going to invest in that much work.

Maybe one day I'll be able to take up the slack and do it. Maybe.

So my frame will be here tomorrow night. I sure hope I find a way to pick it up from Reno before then. I'm still looking for a truck or something to use.

Anyway, I can't wait to get it. I'm totally excited.

So I sent the previous message to Marlin, telling them to just forget it. Chris emailed back and said that they would give me a great deal on a Twin Stick for my troubles. I said OK and that was the last I heard about that.

Here is it, the next week and still I've heard nothing. No twin stick, no billing/invoice, nothing.

I'll give it a few more days then I'm going to order my twin stick somewhere else. This is starting to get retarded.

I don't know if it was miss-communications or what, but I didn't leave with a good feeling from Marlin Crawler.

When I first ordered my Dual Ultimate Transfer Case I was told that I would receive it in a few days. That turned into a week, then two weeks. It was pushed back every time I called. I believe it was actually three weeks from when I placed the order till I received the product. It's no problem to be three week, it's just that I was told one week.

Then I received it without shifters. I expected it to be complete, but I guess that's not the norm. It didn't even have a shifter knob like advertised on the web site. Anyway, I made the comment that I didn't have shifters on P4x4 and Chris chimed in saying to call.

I called and talked with Marlin and was told that I should get a shifter because of my situation. No problem. I said no hurry, send it standard ground.

Then Chris emailed asking for me to call. I guess Marlin didn't get my info to ship me the shifters. After talking to Chris the last thing he said was that I would receive two shifters via Marlin's suggestion. I was happy that I didn't have to find another shifter.

I received the box the next day and there was only one shifter. All well.

I emailed Chris and told him to forget it. I'm done and I don't want to deal with any more miss-communication and longer.

I'm going to order a twin stick from FROR for $150.

I just purchased a tubbed chassis from Wicked Fabrications the other day. It should be here on the 5th. I can't wait until it gets here. This should really speed up my project. The next major buy is the hydro steering system. That's going to cost me...

Anyway, this weekend I'm going to have to fix my truck so I can go pick up my new chassis from Reno. All I need to do is swap out the bad transmission with the, hopefully, good transmission. That should only take a few hours. I'll just have to figure out how to get it to my work area.

Welp, back to work I go...

The rock crawler project is going way too slow. I just can't figure out where to start. I was thinking it would be easy, but it's not. Right now I'm just grinding the frame making it nice a clean. I've also started working on a tube bender mounting stand. That's not doing too good either.

I've been looking at built rigs on the net. I have been seeing them for around 10k-20k. I could just buy one already done and go wheeling, but I don't have that kind-a money right now.

I guess I'll just keep working on my rig.

Calling all Keyboard manufacturers...

Will someone please build an Apple Mac Split Ergonomic Keyboard!

I've been search for months now to find a new keyboard to replace my current keyboard. I would love to buy a TouchStream LP, but Fingerworks went out of business and now the keyboards are over $500 (normally $250).

I have yet to find anything. I have found keyboards that say Mac compatible, but they do not include the Mac keys. Basically they just switch the print on the windows key and call it a command key. No volume control, no CD Eject key, and in some cases no Option key.

Kensington makes a really nice keyboard for the Mac. It has all the keys and even a few to control iTunes. This keyboard is excellent except that it's not a split ergonomic style keyboard.

Why do I want a split keyboard? After spending 8 hours at the computer every day, my wrists are getting tweaked. I've been having pain for about 6 months now. I can't just stop using the computer because it's my Job and my life. I guess I could re-train to do something else but I don't really want to.

Anyway, the search continues...

I finally put a big dent in my Samurai. There it is, in all its glory. I have it on video also. Check out Wheeling 6.

Tim and I were heading up a trail that was a bit narrow. He didn't want to go up it and I should not have either. I tried to go up but I just in the right position for it. I ended up sliding down and smashing in the back left quarter a bit. It's not really that bad, but it looks bad.

I guess I can call it a trail rig now. :-\

I just finished my SOA lift just a few days ago also. It's quite a difference.

I switched to the Dvorak Keyboard layout the other day. I'm doing about 7-10 words per minute right now. That's not very good. I have a huge project that I'm working on right now, so I need to get up to speed very quickly.

I guess the more I type the faster I'll get...