"My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we married." - Rodney Dangerfield

I called Steve this afternoon - the Steve who is "Performance VW." The news isn't good. The engine is just bad enough - valves, valve springs, one wrist pin, cylinder wear - to warrant a complete rebuild. Ugh!

I suppose the good news is that for the same money he can use a big bore kit.

In a water cooled engine the block has the cylinders machined into it and the crank bolts to the bottom. Then the heads with their valves goes on top. An air cooled engine, whether it's an old VW or a motorcycle, has a "case" that holds the crank and then cylinders with cooling fins that bolt to the upper part of that case. Then the heads with the valves bolts to the top of the cylinders.

Here's a pic of a single-cylinder air cooled engine showing the case at the bottom that holds the crank shaft, the finned cylinder in which the piston moves, and the head with its spark plug and (internal) valves. A VW engine has four cylinders in a "pancake" formation - flat, with two side-by-side cylinders pointing outward and the case w/crankshaft in the center.

All of that (I know, you don't care) to say that as long as my engine needs an overhaul, which means new cylinders, pistons and valves, I may as well have Steve put on that "big bore" kit, which means ever-so-slightly oversized cylinders and larger pistons. He'd be replacing those parts anyway and there's no price difference for going oversized. And the payoff? We're talking screaming' machine! In terms of displacement the engine will go from 1200 cc to 1383 cc (about the size of a motorcycle engine) but that will generate an increase of about 25% in hp, or from 40 hp to near 50 hp. And from the outside it will look exactly the same, which I like.

What I don't like is the price. Heavy sigh.

He said I should have it back in about two weeks.

The good news ... turns out I get a $2 senior's discount at Super Cuts. In just 62 years of hair cuts I'll have this engine rebuild paid for.

Would YOU drill in the Everglades? I'm no tree hugger but that's a unique ecosystem already suffering from serious problems. Spills happen and that's one place where it really would be a disaster.

I'm glad there's now a monument honoring Dr. Martin Luther King in D.C. Yes, he behaved badly in the area of personal morality but so did Thomas Jefferson. He was the leading figure in a movement that pulled our country out of a de facto segregation of which we are now ashamed. He was not inclined to the self-promotion that too often characterizes politicians, and framed his burden as one for the country, not his race. He knew his life was at serious risk every day but didn't shrink from what he felt was his mission.

Where would we be as a country without the efforts of M.L. King?

I've started to punch in an extra 60 seconds each time I use our microwave but take the food or drink out after the normal time. I save up the unused time and at the end of the week I have another 5-10 minutes for whatever I want to do.

Almost every day as Jack and I walk down the street I exchange greetings with a man sitting in front of his house. We walk pretty fast so our exchange is usually very brief. Last week I decided to stop for a bit longer conversation.

His name is Marvin and he sold ice cream machines in Iowa before retiring - the commercial machines used in McDonalds and the like.

Marvin asked me what I did and I told him I was still doing it. That I was having a great time as a pastor.

He complimented me on my chosen profession (God chose it) and told me he was Lutheran. He said he was Lutheran primarily because he spent the first five years of his life in an orphanage run by Lutherans and they treated him well.

That reminded me how important it is for the cause of the gospel that we be kind, that we show whatever grace we can to people whose paths we cross. We never know what effect it might have.