There are only a few things guaranteed in this life, Twinkles passed away in his sleep last night. We all say this about out beloved pets who become our best buddy as Kevin and Twinkles wew 
Used to live at our paint shop, he was absolutely the best security specialist you could have. 
He could read people as they came up and would just hang around looking menacing if he felt he needed to. 
He turned into Kevin’s work buddy as well and would guard the door wherever Kevin was 
The last year or so he went into semiretirement still at work before dawn 
but Kevin took him on home at lunch but still, he knew and he did his job 100% as Horton the elephant would say. 
I think as long as he could hear Kevin working and knew he was near he was good to go.
He gave his nod to me yesterday morning as I came in, yes he and Kevin were already at the shop working 
You may thnk it odd me spending all this time and pics on a dog…. Twinkles was not a dog… he was family 
that’s a pic of 4 generations of Wendzels. And Twinkles was family to us the Co-op family so if you could take a minute and Email me a short note I want to present them at his wake gathering which I know will happen. Notes will be received on my Email site coopmotorworks@yahoo.com . Dangit this is a tough one…
Got a post asking me to change the font here back to the print we used before and to change the color back to black. Good pickup, I didn’t notice the color was grey… where did that come from? I’ll need to figure out the font thing, hey usually that’s easy right…. I’ll get back to you. Thanks for the input…
Well watching the weather this morning I see we’re scheduled for a little inclement weather for Monday in the form of Tropical Storm Erika. For folks with coaches here, let me go over out plans so you will know your babies are well cared for. I am a Florida native, been through this drill before. Yes, this is the major weather event Florida is noted for and there have been some pretty scary times but as in many things like this there are a few precautions you do to greatly enhance your safety.
We will be stopping work to prepare the shop for whatever happens. We have good prtection from the north and south… we have the back of our building facing south to block the movement as this event will come in from the south. There is a building back wall to our north. Out gate to the west has buildings on both sides of the opening with the west side open being our “back 40” lot. We will gather up any loose material outside… yeah, that’s why I’m stopping work now to pick all that up. Our trash material specialist was alerted 
to come by in the morning… this will be a great way to clean up around here a bit. Hey you need to look for silver linings.
James coach is off the lift and is ready to be mobile shelter if needbe for James and Catalina. Found a nail in his tire and there’s a freash water system leak we’ll fix today and they will be ready. 
He has a undercoated frame and undercarriage, complete fuel deliver system renew right down to the 3 port mechanical recirculating fuel pump. Has all new brakes, body pads and his motor got the once over. With his positive test drive yesterday other than the quad bag we’re waiting on and a couple more goodies he will be outa here on the open road again.
Of course preparing for next week, they will hunker down here at the shop where it will be “safe in numbers”.
A decade ago when hurricane Charlie took a swipe at us, we had all the coaches huddled tight together agianst the walls in the middle of the open lot 
With our canapy opn, as you can see only a bit of debris landed in the middle of the lot. After that storm, the Orlando lost 20% of it’s treecover. This is looking down my street at the house where Larry pulled double duty supplying power to 3 houses. 
Had a story on my other web site “Any Port in a Storm… I’ll try and get it back up.. it was an account of how we thrived at that time because we had our motorhome. We’ll have Janies coach at the house this time with Larry and JayGee taking turns guarding the fort. After the mess at the shop, we faired really well 
this was over 100mph winds… so I pulled up coaches with fuel to run a generator. I was on dial up at that time and with the phone working the Daily pose was up and reporting the next day 
(Yep, that’s Martin D. coach which BTW was just sold … at the same time I would charge my electric scooter which kept me mobile 
Trees covered the road, no gas but man I was the scooterking! 
So anyway, the guys will batten down the hatches again, we’ll be fine.. with the ability to update the daily pose now from my phone… heck, maybe we should contect CNN to be a news portal…. I don’t see this as bad, it’s something we will prepare for.
Hey Jay M., if you like, come on up from the Miami area and hunker down with us in your coach. The visor isn’t on but much of the rest of it is good to go. Louie has a pile of trees over his place, please invite him…
Jim G & Ada, same offer to you…
I hope you guys who have coaches in here see we will be fine, our shop has faired very well in much worse situations and all will be good.
Spacely, you will ride it out on the lift, Hank is deep in your frame repair today. Gimme a minute to process a few pics…
OK, here is Spacely’s new toy, a good looker 
…. the coach too. With his RF wheel off, his frame looks OK. 
but from the inside … Capcom, we haave a situation 
Yep, thatud be rust. The battery probably gassed out acid once and started the process. This is at a tritical spot on the front clip and needs to be supported. Hand went out in our back 40 and pulled out a rear frame section with a suitable piece of steel 
cutting a scetion then starting to shape it with out plasma cutter and Mig, Hank is making a strong patch 
and here it is roughed in before final fit 
. With final fit and stretching completed here is the patch section ready to pretty much weld in and still hot! 
Stay tuned on the other side of the storm of more on this one…
OK, I’ll post when I can, think good thoughts and fair winds. Thanks for dropping by, we’ll be here… no problem…
