My man cave build - UK edition

[Skytrooper]

Very cool Captain ! I wish my daughter had gotten aken the job with the F1 team. An exciting lifestyle !!

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks Steve, hadn't considered it being a small club, thought of it more as, geez, I've been doing it for too long

Thanks Paul, I'm not working for Redbull but helped Honda F1 for over 3yrs, they're mostly to blame for my slow man cave progress, my best ever work is helping to power both Redbull and Alpha Tauri cars, will continue to be used until the end of 2025

Thanks Matt, please tell your daughter from me, keep trying, don't give up, F1 might be difficult to get into but its harder to leave, like Hotel California, you can check out anytime but you can never leave

[javadog]

Hey Captain, do you ever get to keep any of the widgets that you design? You know, after the newest revision has made the last iteration redundant?

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by javadog

Hey Captain, do you ever get to keep any of the widgets that you design? You know, after the newest revision has made the last iteration redundant?

Got very few widgets, the odd broken bit, a few wheel nuts, a couple of real car part leaving presents like a signed rear wing end plate and a small centre rear wing, that's all

I was offered a full-scale 3D printed gearbox casing as a leaving present. It was huge, Mrs Ahab would never have let me keep it in the house

Also the car was crap and the team run by a bunch of amateurs so I didn't want any reminders of my time there.

I politely declined the kind offer, turned it into a plant pot and left it in the race teams engineering office

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Update time....

Today was recycling day and start of my big spring clear out

Two car loads of stuff, love my dump run route, a very scenic drive on quiet roads through typical English countryside



Green rolling hills are nowhere near as scenic as the view from the dump near my mountain house



In the past I have disposed of an old washing machine by chopping it up and putting it in my trash can over a couple of collections

But my spare Toyota truck was just a bit too big to leave out for the trash men



So a local car wrecking yard and metal recycling place collected it

Loading up was easy but one of my elderly neighbours must have been so excited to see this yard eye sore leaving our neighborhood she fell off her door step so we had to pause loading to stand her back up and dust her off



Needed my wheels back for my other truck so grabbed them and said my last goodbyes, buying this as a spare was a good idea at the time but glad to see it go



One truck down, another truck to go (soon to be the star in my road trip thread), that'll bring my fleet down to a more manageable 6 cars

Nearly threw out this mangled, twisted left over steel concrete steel mesh from the hole I'd cut out in the garage concrete slab for my hydraulic lift table



I'll need mesh for the new lowered concrete slab for the recessed hydraulic lift table. Planned to buy new but decided to try and reuse. Broke out the hammers and went all medieval on it. Won't win any a concurs awards but it will do the job

[oldE]

And the award for reusing and recycling goes to: (the envelope, please), Steve,aka Captain Ahab!


Les

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thank you Les, award graciously accepted you guys are going to pee your pants when I reveal how my white truck is going to be recycled

This morning I dropped off the rest of the truck to the recycling place ie doors, tailgate and the rear quarter panel

Think this twisted mess might have been the Japanese Sumo Ninja steel I rolled off my driveway yesterday



Felt a tinged of sadness watching a mechanical monster ripping engines out of soon to be dead ICE cars

Technology progress never stops but I can't be alone as a driving enthusiast thinking even though EV's will eventually do most things better than an ICE car, it doesn't mean the driving experience will be better or anymore fun

[Skillet83]

This has been post. Thank you for the updates Cap.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

The big spring clean continues but my feeble winter office phisque took a real beating today

Mrs Ahab and I shovelled and bucketed over 3 tons in just over 3hrs



Hard to imagine, this pile was left overs from just knocking a door way, turning a window into a door through the ordinal 2ft thick house walls and the small hole I cut through the garage concrete slab

Much better now, almost a clear view of our boundary wall we built years ago and then extended downwards during this project

[masraum]

Good stuff! Great updates and glad you were able to get out and do a bit of physical labor instead of desk jobbing it.

[group911@aol.co]

Captain. You can probably appreciate this story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/realestate/scotland-villa-home-renovation.html

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks for that Bob, my build has stalled this summer all for good reasons

Have to confess I squandered my free time this summer by enjoying too many enjoyable man cave building distractions

Humanitarian trip to Ukraine, Mrs Ahab and I drove our faithful old Toyota 4Runner filled with medical supplies to Ukraine, donated it to be used on the frontline as a snatch ambulance

Enjoyed a week holidaying in Cornwall with my whole family celebrating my mum's 80th birthday

Another weeks holiday enjoying our other home in Slovenia including a day trip in Italy



Another humanitarian trip delivering my other family 4x4 SUV to Ukraine, even found time spent for a day driving around the countryside sightseeing there too



Then back home for a day of work

Needed a rest from work so jetted off the next day for some long over due Mrs Ahab and me time, visiting the Seychelles, it rained a lot but the islands have the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen



As we couldn't agree between ourselves on would we rather see the Seychelles or Mauritius Mrs Ahab came up with the best example of woman's math, we should do both in one trip as it would be cheaper on flights

Seychelles made the beaches in Mauritius look average but the food in Mauritius was better than the Seychelles



Then back home for a day, last day of work at Alpine F1on this, special edition Alpine A110, spent the little work time I did trying to bring F1 carbon fibre quality up to road car aesthetic quality which is a lot more difficult than it sounds



Following day I was on a plane to Japan for a business trip which will have a quick Germany business trip in the middle of my Japan business trip



So when I should have been making progress on my man cave build, I've been driving and flying around the world, seeing 12 countries, some more than once, 4 of them new too

I did however find a spare few days to assemble my triple stacker car lift which I'll share in my next man cave progress update

[group911@aol.co]

Slacker. That is some good looking barely dead fish.
Is your Slovenian place near the beach? The Dalmatian coast was on of our favorite rides.

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Thanks for that Bob, my build has stalled this summer all for good reasons

Have to confess I squandered my free time this summer by enjoying too many enjoyable man cave building distractions

Humanitarian trip to Ukraine, Mrs Ahab and I drove our faithful old Toyota 4Runner filled with medical supplies to Ukraine, donated it to be used on the frontline as a snatch ambulance

Enjoyed a week holidaying in Cornwall with my whole family celebrating my mum's 80th birthday

Another weeks holiday enjoying our other home in Slovenia including a day trip in Italy



Another humanitarian trip delivering my other family 4x4 SUV to Ukraine, even found time spent for a day driving around the countryside sightseeing there too



Then back home for a day of work

Needed a rest from work so jetted off the next day for some long over due Mrs Ahab and me time, visiting the Seychelles, it rained a lot but the islands have the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen



As we couldn't agree between ourselves on would we rather see the Seychelles or Mauritius Mrs Ahab came up with the best example of woman's math, we should do both in one trip as it would be cheaper on flights

Seychelles made the beaches in Mauritius look average but the food in Mauritius was better than the Seychelles



Then back home for a day, last day of work at Alpine F1on this, special edition Alpine A110, spent the little work time I did trying to bring F1 carbon fibre quality up to road car aesthetic quality which is a lot more difficult than it sounds



Following day I was on a plane to Japan for a business trip which will have a quick Germany business trip in the middle of my Japan business trip



So when I should have been making progress on my man cave build, I've been driving and flying around the world, seeing 12 countries, some more than once, 4 of them new too

I did however find a spare few days to assemble my triple stacker car lift which I'll share in my next man cave progress update

[Captain Ahab Jr]

I'll eat most things that come out of the sea raw but one sushi had sea urchins on top, yuck!

My Slovenia house is in the mountains but have driven down the Croatian coast which is a beautiful drive, if you liked that part of the coast in Croatia, I can recommend Montenegro is worth a visit

[group911@aol.co]

Montenegro was where we ran out of time. That was where I ordered mussels for lunch. Asked the waiter how fresh they were. He pointed to a guy retrieving them from the bay as we spoke.
Albania wasn't doable at the time for various reasons but it's sounding like that has changed. Have you been there?
Sea urchins. Yum

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Albania is on my list, still slightly undiscovered compared to Croatia, need to do some research on how lawless it is down there as we'll visit driving our own car

[LJ851]

What’s happening, Captain?

[Magyar Kiwi]

Happy New Year Captain,
Looking forward to the triple stacker car lift installation story !
Cheers

[Bill Douglas]

Good times!

[daepp]

Yeah - starved for an update!