In the lead photo, the gent seems to be prodding the 1100 as though it were a dead hedgehog. Prescience?

A Solio, basically a small storage battery with three fold-out solar cells. You charge it up, then you connect it to your phone to transfer those righteous solar electrons. I got it as a bonus with a cellular contract. Swell idea, but not quite ready for prime time, at least circa 2008. It takes forever to charge up in the sun, doesn't hold many amp hours, is superfluous in a car and too bulky and cumbersome to carry while traveling. If your phone's battery was dead and you were without power, yet somehow in full sun for a day or so, it -might- be better than nothing, but otherwise, it is largely useless.

The "Ebonized Fretboard" on my Stella guitar... also known as "black spray paint".

It's a 240 day! I extracted two bolt fragments from my B21F, where the alternator adjustment bracket is fastened onto the front of the engine block. And yet again, I am amazed at how one or two small pieces of metal can cause such misery.

One fragment is from the first bolt that snapped on a long road trip to Reno last year. AAA paid for a 90 mile trip on a flatbed for that one.

I had nothing to extract the bolt, which had broken off flush with the block. So, I packed up my tools (and a little of my pride) and took it to a local mechanic who got me rolling again. But it seems their repair only got half of the old bolt out of the engine block. Therefore, the new bolt only threaded part way in, and the damn thing broke almost a year later in Seattle! I cobbled it back together on my own this time and managed to get it back to home the garage.

This weekend I tore it down and gritted my teeth. Anyone who has done bolt extractions knows that it can turn into a nightmare in short order, but to my shock, amazement and pleasure, everything went according to textbook. Both bolt fragments eased out, no thread damage to the block, chased the threads, a new, correct length bolt and rubber mount, a few washers and I am a happy boy.

Despite my only knowing enough to be dangerous at the time, I was put in charge of managing the main network file server at my old gig. The entire system was a hot mess and had been the victim of benign neglect for for months, if not years. Example: I found that they'd installed a tape drive for backups, stuck a tape in it and never set it up to, you know, actually back anything up.

Once I got the tape drive doing its thing, I then found that the file server was nearing full capacity. A quick troll through the directory revealed that, out of a few dozen employees, the biggest user of storage by a factor of 10 was a long-time staffer who I managed, a nebbishy, sheltered little fellow in his late fifties who worked alone at night. And most of his partition consisted of jpegs.

Hmmm.

Bracing myself, I expected the worst and took a peek at what he'd been stashing away. What's this? No porn to be found. Instead, the most comprehensive collection of clean-cut teen girl pop singer pics EVER. Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Amy Grant, you name it, he had dozens if not hundreds of each, along with what was probably every pic of every single Sears and Victoria's Secret underwear model in existence. Gigabytes, gigabytes, simply breathtaking, resetting the bar for "creepy old guy" to dizzying heights. The sheer depth of his collection still amazes me to this day.

I quietly suggested to my employee that he (ahem) might want to (AHEM) manage his file storage a bit better. He didn't take the hint and ended up getting canned for his habits not long after I'd left the organization. So much for subtle hints and saving face.

Book of Faces targeted me for bedwetting prevention ads for several months. I will not begin to speculate why.

Second place would be getting ads in Hebrew for Austrian dirt bikes after I'd used some Yiddish slang in a comment. They expect a goy like me to be able to read that? The schmucks!

Where the hell is my plexiglass-domed aircar?

I am still bitter about this. Bitter, I tell you!

It was a late night, and I'd just spent an entire day slaving over my Econoline, installing a freshly rebuilt 300 six. I was dog tired, getting cranky, and my lower back was starting to throb from lifting and stooping over the engine bay.

I should have called it a night, but nooooo... I was SO close to having that motor in.

And damn, did it not just glide right into place? Mated up to the transmission and into the motor mounts, easy as pie.

Cue Three Stooges exclaiming "success!"!

Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius!

Moments later, I noticed my shiny new flexplate and ring gear assembly leaning up against the garage wall.

I have one of these things, purchased for $5 at a garage sale. It's art deco style, with a nice metallic brown hammer-finish paint job and long, chromed legs, just too cool looking to pass up. Once home, I oiled the arthritic motor with some lube, got it spinning again and turned it on. I then discovered its true purpose: a dirt distribution system! It ended up in my basement, awaiting the time when another use for it will reveal itself. Should be any day now!

My tools look a bit scruffy, but that's because they get USED. To the outsider, they may appear disorganized, but it's an illusion. I know exactly what's in my toolbox. I prefer compact storage and portability over visual organization, so no pegboards or huge rollarounds for me (though if I had more space I wouldn't mind them).

I have an old gray Bell Telephone lineman's box as my main toolbox. It looks like hell on the outside, all the better to disguise the value inside. Big enough to hold what I need, small enough to be easily schlepped. I survey its contents every so often and take out what I don't use regularly.

To maintain sanity, I keep smaller boxes specifically for wrenches and sockets, one for standard, one for metric.

I take home heavy duty double-walled cardboard boxes whenever I find them and use them to store infrequently used tools. One for auto tools, one for carpentry, etc.

My organizational tip: at the end of each day, gather all tools and put them back wherever they are stored. Always. And never leave them in your car! I lost most of mine that way once. Even though the loss was covered by insurance, it took years before my kit was back to the same level. Some tools were no longer made and lost forever, which pissed me off more than the rest of the experience combined (and then some).