Happy Saturday morning all:

“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.” ~ Jeff Bezos

Just stumbled across this quote and loved it. Whether in business, part of a neighborhood civic group, or just anticipating that first coffee of the morning—keep the focus, keep the vision; but a little experimentation won’t hurt.

The Big Lebowski – Earlier this week I happened to catch an interview with Jeff Bridges and the co-author of their new book; The Dude and the Zen Master, and sat to listen and watch.

It wasn’t a day later (I remember it as that was the coldest day of the year) and I was walking the mile and a half to the post office. Anyway, on the way home and thinking a bit about the previous day’s interview, I turned and realized that I would pass our public library branch. Aside from a little warmth they might just have an old DVD copy of the 1998 classic; The Big Lebowski starring Jeff Bridges, the “Dude”. With that thought I opened the door and stepped in.

“Well hello Dirk,” came a voice from behind the desk. It was Mr. C the librarian. Mr. C leads storytime. Last year with Vai in tow I would spend a morning a week at the place doing spectacular things such as the dancing to The Washing Machine song. A few pleasantries later I asked whether or not the Big Lebowski was in; it wasn’t.

Smiling, Mr. C quoted that famous saying from the movie; “the Dude Abides.” And I responded likewise. Several minutes later I was in the stacks and we happened to pass each other, and again a pair of “the Dude Abides” was exchanged – this time with some strange looks from a few of the folk in the place. The time at the library had quickly transformed into a Zen moment.

A Carburetor highlight – Solex is the name of an old French company which specialized in the manufacture of millions of carburetors. Throughout it’s production it made innumerable variants for cars such as Volkswagen, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Ford, Triumph, Saab, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, and of course my lowly Citroën 2CV—our little Duck; thus fulfilling Citroën’s slogan of “Créative Technologie”.

My little 2-barrel Solex carburetor worked flawlessly until one of the jets vibrated loose and fell somewhere on the roadway. Finding documentation for a specific carburetor long out of production for a car long out of production becomes a bit of an issue. Over Christmas I even brought my star engineer nephew Joel into the discussion. And we thought we had a solution.

Sitting in the freezing garage in front of the little car with its hood up and my lap full of computer printouts and a couple of workshop manuals I finally came to a differing solution from what we discussed at Christmas. I became convinced it was something called the Idle Jet that was needed.

I could not find the necessary Jet, only a rebuilt carburetor from Europe for well over €200. There had to be a better solution. More searching and finally some contact with a company called Gene Berg Enterprises in Orange, California. These people are Volkswagen aftermarket specialists and boy, did they work with me. They finally found a Solex Idle Jet for Volkswagen that would work in my car. Yesterday my $8.22 jet arrived and shortly I was back into the freezing garage. An hour later the Duck was purring happily.

What a difference when you establish a working relationship with people who have pride in what they do and because of that excel at their business.

Fini – Remember my mention that last Saturday was the neighborhood’s Progressive Dinner? It was a huge success. On top of that, our eclectic neighborhood is such a wonderful place to meet people. For Kirstin’s birthday gift it was a book written by a lady down the street who happily inscribed it for her. Another neighbor, and my Scotch Whiskey drinking buddy, offered the use of his animal crematorium for our use when Vinnie-the-cat’s time comes (probably much sooner than later). Then, I heard one lady urge another to try the hummus as being the best she’d ever had—that was my home-made contribution to the event; I smiled from ear to ear.

This week nephew Joel and daughter-in-law Cathy celebrated their birthdays. Tomorrow Kirstin will do likewise. Happy birthday everyone.

Now, have a great week and stay safe.

Cheers,
Dirk

From the Archives
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Morning All:

The heat just kicked in – off with the nighttime setting and on with the higher daytime setting. It’s always nice when everything works, as it should. I had barely poured my coffee and was just beginning to head for the office to write this post, when the power went out on our street. The fact that we got almost a half-inch of ice overnight probably had nothing to do with that though. Miracle of miracles, about thirty seconds later everything came back on. And here is an even greater miracle, a huge city salt truck just rumbled by spraying away like mad. Normally we do not get this treatment till three or so days after the rest of the city has dry roads. The fact that we have to drive uphill no matter which way we try to leave Red Bud normally means little to the ‘keepers of the salt pile’.

Tuesday Marcia made it back from Florida right on schedule and I found her shivering in front of the airport terminal. I love the way they won’t let you stop for a second, even at night when the place is nearly deserted. Instead they force you to get dizzy racing in loops around the airport perimeter, along with fifty or so others. We had made it back almost 40 miles and within sight of the city lights when everything ground to a halt. It appeared that six lanes of highway were shut down so that a massive new bridge support could be moved into position. Halogen klieg lights all over the place and workers dressed as Antarctic explorers shuffling about. How about that for perfect timing on our part?

Now that she’s had a taste of warmer weather, it’s at a point where Marcia can’t wait for Spring to come so that she can join our neighbors in one of the front yards for a vigorous but relaxing session of Chigong and enjoy a Passagiata just joining up with the others

In a while (Marcia speak meaning five hours) she wants to head for our old outdoors Farmers Market. Since I have few opportunities to dress up like a ‘worker garbed as an Antarctic explorer’ it might just be interesting enough to give it a go. Exactly how do you carry bags of veggies when your arms can’t hang down at your sides? On second thought, if my arms are jutting straight out like windmill vanes, Marcia could just hang the bags on them.

Exactly one year ago my brothers and I were walking the streets of Amsterdam in search of fresh salted herring and an Amstel beer. Then in the evening we partied oh so heartily as our twin cousins celebrated their – mumble, mumble *****th birthday. This evening as you both celebrate again drink a “jonge jenever” on me – then repeat that by having one more on Art, George, and Pieter. Be sure to take a cab rather than try to ride your bicycle home, those canals are rather cold this time of year.

Have a great week.

Cheers,
Dirk