So, how windy was it last night in Duluth?
By Paul Lundgren on Jan 12, 2012 in Weird Stuff
Well, I parked my vehicle on Third Street around 4 p.m., opened the door, and the wind ripped the door right off.
O.K., the door wasn’t literally ripped off so that it tumbled down the street, but it bent all the way backward. Instead of stopping at the usual 70-degree angle, it opened all the way up to a nearly 180-degree angle.
I didn’t take a photo at the time, because my first instinct was to quickly pull the door back and close it. Once it closed, I considered that a major victory and left it that way. Here’s what the damage looks like today:
Now the door won’t open to more than maybe a 20-degree angle because of the bent panel. It seems to still be on its hinges, but the plastic thing that covers the wiring is ripped apart, and there’s probably something else in there I’ll find broken if I decide to force the door past 20-degrees and take a look.
This will be a fun one to explain to the insurance company. As a companion to the previous post about finding a good Duluth mechanic, does anyone know who might specialize in this type of repair? I suppose I could start with the infamous ear worm, huh?
Vandura? Vandura!
That’s Vandura 2500 to you.
I’m pretty sure this is a WD-40 and duct tape scenario. I mean, it’s a Vanura for crying out loud.
1) Pry the two panels apart, they are binding together. (Screwdriver/ prybar covered in a rag to prevent too much scarring)
2) Forget about it.
3) Return to listening to the 8-track you have in the player.
B-man, you make it sound like I live in the past or something. I don’t have 8-track. I totally rock the modern cassettes.
I like to listen to a wide variety of music.
I had this happen to my ’79 Caprice Classic. I just bent the metal out of the way of itself and was good to go.
It also happened to my wife’s’ Rav4 on one of the rear doors. Now it catches and releases every time you open the door making a clunking noise, but I’m too cheap to pay the $400 to fix it.
I say pop in The Goonies VHS tape in your 8-inch TV in the back, grab a bottle of vodka and ponder your next move. After a few drinks the solution will all come together.
I can’t find The Goonies anywhere. The Great Muppet Caper will have to suffice.
As for today’s wind, I was walking along Central Avenue and heard a plastic shopping bag making noise behind me. After a while I turned around to find a diminutive lady was following me closely, using me as a wind blocker.
I thought I was cold until I saw someone flooding the rink at Memorial Park. I’m sure you can imagine that standing on ice and holding a hose on a super windy day is a job that totally sucks. That person gets my vote for volunteer of the year.
Oh, hey, I couldn’t find The Goonies because it was already in the VCR from last summer. Mystery solved!
Seriously, you have the worst luck with vehicles.
Though now would be a good excuse to weld the doors shut and paint it General Lee orange.
I got blown off the hill at Lutsen. The gondola was shut down due to the winds. I could not stand up when strapping on my board as the wind would blow you across the top unless dug in, back to wind. I had to stick to black diamond as the wind would stall you to a complete standstill on intermediate runs.
Okay, I don’t know what this means, and I swear I am totally not making this up, but:
Last night I had a dream that I ran into Eddie Van Halen. I told him that I had been at their first album tour in Omaha (true), that I rocked out despite being hindered by various substances (true), and that I at some point in my life lost the Van Halen tour T-shirt that meant a great deal to me (very true). Then I asked Eddie for another Tshirt.
Does this mean that Van Halen will tour Duluth, or that Van Halen will fix your truck, or that Van Halen is hypnotizing the citizens of our city? I don’t know.
It means Van Halen will tour Duluth.
A decrepit and botoxed David Lee Roth trying to do the aerial splits; another Van Halen Tshirt; no Valerie Bertenelli to contend with as I fight for the hand of Eddie Van Halen (sorry, mister emmadogs)—my dreams finally come true.
Throw away those cassettes and make a new one with this song repeated over and over.
For those of you too young to remember the beautiful era of vans, called the 1970s, and as an owner of a Chevy Van which has performed many laps around America, I’m pleased to announce there is a whole song dedicated to the endless possibilities in these fine vehicles. And the only time a girlfriend didn’t have anything against them, was either when her dad owned a conversion company, or she was cool enough to get the humor in this song.
Like others have said, this isn’t the kind of damage I would think to repair. I already have my kids entering my minivan from one side only. You can get OUT on both sides, but you can’t enter on the left. The back door opens only from the inside. Right passenger window won’t open. Back vent windows won’t open. CD player is broken. And last year, when there was snow, I dented the back bumper in by hitting a snowbank. That’s hard to imagine this year.
Phew, it took a while to find this one, but I hope y’all appreciate. My old buddy Brew, in SF, has become quite the wordsmith. I recently discovered his blog, a real champion of Americana, it specializes in beer, bikes, boobs, face melting rock, and vans. He honored me by posting recent pics of my trip back from DC, a town so fraught with corruption, that walking the back of the white house and trying to comprehend it all, just boggles the mind.
http://superbeastcreative.blogspot.com/