Brad Cannon (who was smaller than Jason when I first met his parents), my little man, and "Big Poppa" Cannon helped haul my first race car over to the new digs.

Ah, at 236,000 miles how can I complain?  Ugly? Yes!  Slow? You bet! Women who dig it. .. zero!  Men who want it .also zero! Money I owe on it ... ALSO ZERO!!! It always starts, usually stops, and never complains about the lack of waxing.

Brad just looked too cool tooling down the 210 Freeway while his dad and I enjoyed the air conditioning in their truck. Now I feel guilty!

No, that’s not the title of some new movie about Greek fighters getting their butts handed to them by the Persians, that’s just the amount of seconds in four hours, which is about how long it takes me to write each blog.

No, it’s not that I type slowly, either; it takes roughly 240 minutes to review the photos I have (which is the only way I can remember some of what I did since my last entry), jot down some notes, write the story, re-read, edit and do spell-check, and then send it-- along with all of the photos -- over to NHRA.com.

It can take much longer when this piece of s#$! Internet service decides to take a sabbatical in the middle of checking e-mails (oops, it sounds like I’m venting over something as trivial as expecting decent performance from a phone-company product ... silly me!).

This effort needs to be shorter. I’m just not feeling the impulse to stay up until 4 a.m. in an effort to amuse, so I’ll write even quicker this time;

Our official move-in day was Aug. 1, but we got a one-day jump on things, thanks to the Cannon family. Brent and Brad showed up on Friday to our “old” house in North Hills, and we loaded up my first car (and first race car) on their trailer.

Then I thought, heck, as long as we’re all making the drive out there, why not just pack my Nissan pickup with every Valvoline product that I own and take it as well? So, we did a small caravan out there, with Jenna and Jason in the PT Cruiser as our “chase vehicle.” Yeah, we loaded that full of stuff, too.

Saturday I went and picked up the 26-foot moving van and got it situated in the street in front of the old house. Eric McDonald showed up at 10:30 and we started shoveling stuff into the truck. Jenna and Cindy continued to pack boxes whilst the sweat began to drip down my brow (just where is the brow located, anyway?).

The cavalry horn must have sounded, as the reinforcements began to arrive in force (two of them, anyway). Andy Montgomery (of the famed Twin Palms RV Storage) decided he had nothing better to do with his Saturday, and my brother Ted wanted to see if I was throwing anything valuable away. Poor Andy, he even let us pack his Suburban with all of the electronics and delicate objects (no, I don’t count as a delicate object) and he made the 83-mile trek out to Norco for us. I can’t wait until I receive his fuel invoice!

We loaded everything out of the house (with the exception of the weight room) and a whole lot of the garage items before we left. Heck, we had a two-day rental on this truck and it already looked as though we were 70 percent done ... piece of cake!

Once we left North Hills, Eric was dismissed for the day. Actually, I’m not sure that I didn’t work him to the point where it violated some labor laws. I conned my brother into riding out with me, promising him he could drive the Nissan back to the Valley that night. Besides, he had yet to see the new place (now I’m pretty sure he won’t want to come back until he knows we are ENTIRELY unpacked). The “Norco crew” consisted of the Cannon family, Bob Smith (not just any Bob Smith, mind you, but my buddy from the races who is just far too nice and really good at moving stuff. Anyone who owns their own furniture moving dollies is an expert, if you ask me), Mike English (not just any Mike English, but the very same one who announces for the NHRA. And, because Bob Frey and Alan Reinhardt both said they were busy that day, Mike was the only announcer we could find), and Andy Montgomery. Andy was given his pardon and released once he unloaded his Suburban, signed an affidavit that nothing was damaged, and promised never to sue us for friendship abuse.

This is where two story houses really suck. Furniture magically gets bigger, AND heavier when moving it upstairs. Fortunately, with all of the great help, we were able to unload fairly quickly. So Cindy, Jenna, Bob, and brother Ted stayed in Norco to set things in place while Brent, Brad, and I headed over to Cindy’s house in Fontana. Confused yet? Well, we had previously rented a 16-foot truck and taken LOTS of things over to Cindy’s garage in order to unclutter our house for the realty showings. Anyway, the three of us really hauled butt and got everything loaded and back to the Norco house.

By now the entire crew was pretty worn out, but somebody suggested that we unload this new cargo before eating! (The nerve of some folks!). So we did it ... much slower than the first load. It was then that Jenna suggested that Ted just spend the night and ride back with me in the moving van the following day (Sunday). Made sense ... if you’re a masochist.

Poor Ted. We headed back to North Hills Sunday morning to finish up the “little load” that awaited us. Problem is, nothing that was left was packed in boxes (it was all bulky items, oversize pieces, and car parts that were too heavy to box. And, it must have swelled up since we left it the night before, as it completely filled the 26-foot truck, AGAIN.

The last items to be loaded were from the weight room. I’ll tell you, after three days of moving, those 80-pound dumbbells never felt so heavy. What we thought would take 3 hours, max., wound up being 6 ½ hours of torture. The optimist in me even “called off” our cousin Jason that morning, as I know he has a full plate right now (he and Stephanie are expecting) and would be stuck on the freeway for quite a while. Besides, I thought, how long could this small amount of stuff really take? Once we finished and I dropped Ted at his house and headed back to Norco, it now was past midnight, I had a truck packed with VERY heavy objects, no one to help, and needed to have it back by 9:30 am Monday. That’s when reality set in:

Monday, while I finished wiping the tears from my eyes after calling the rental company to extend the truck for a day, Brent, Staci, and Brad Cannon came to the rescue once again. They helped me make short work of unloading (who the hell am I kidding ... all three of us were wiped out, longing for some Ben-Gay, and sweating more than a kleptomaniac in confession). The point is, we got it done, and I would have been there another week if by myself. Thanks to all of you guys (and gals) for the hard work!

Later that week (I think I blanked out for the next couple of days), I headed to downtown L.A. and the Petersen Auto Museum to do an appearance (is that term truly correct when it’s a radio, not TV, show? Technically only my voice needed to be present, but I guess we can still call it an “appearance”) on the Speed Freaks radio show. I have known this group since the beginning of their show, and it’s always a blast hanging out with them. Chris Jacobs, who hosted the Overhaulin’ show with Chip Foose, was also on hand, as well as Kenny, Crash, and Stat-Man (not to be confused with Lewis Bloom).

The next day we (the Beckmans) made the 83-mile trip back to our old home to do the final walk through and meet the new owner for the first time. It was sort of melancholy for me, as I had lived there nearly 17 years. I don’t think Jenna minded much, as she already has her sights set on sprucing up the new house. I took a shot of Jenna and Jason on the front porch, and there’s one of me holding him in the front yard by the planted-last-year plumb tree. One day perhaps I’ll take him back there and we can get another shot of a much bigger tree (and child). Maybe I’m getting sentimental, but I think these shots will mean a lot to him one day (I know they will for Jenna and me).

The following day I was going to head over to Fontana and hang out with many of my racing buddies for a couple of hours, but tragedy struck. Ronnie Marcum, whom I have known since I began racing, was killed in a freak pit accident in his dragster. I couldn’t even begin to put into words what a loss this was, and how badly we all feel for his daughters and those who witnessed the accident. It just put such a hole in so many of our hearts, and I’d like to send my condolences to all who knew him (and certainly would have loved him).

On a more positive note, the next day half of the track came over to the new house (okay, I’m exaggerating just a bit). Tom Bayer runs a very successful rental car program, and the clientele is almost exclusively students that we taught at the Hawley School. This weekend he had Tim Takeshita, Les Matsukado, and Randy Beck in his cars. They, along with their entourages, all came over for pizza and beer. Heck, we even invited Gary Beck along just so he wouldn’t be left all alone. Be honest, how many of you that are hard core fans of the sport would ever dream that Gary Beck would come hang out with you at home? (I believe that, for a nominal fee, I may be able to make that happen for you ... just send your cash deposit and list of preferred dates). Not only did he bring much of his family (and cheering section), but he didn’t make it out of my house with his shirt! I gladly traded him my National DRAGSTER Tee for his Gary Beck shirt ... way too cool!

Sunday night I flew out to Norwalk. No, I wasn’t there to bask in the glory of my most recent win, I had work to do. I hadn’t instructed a class for Frank (Hawley) since last year, but this was a nice opportunity to fill in while Frank was out of town. I really enjoyed this group, and we did our best to dodge rain drops in order to finish the class. It was a satisfying feeling to be back in “instructor mode” for a couple of days, and I made 22 new friends.

Back home, it was right back on house duty. Once I got shelves up in all five closets, it was on to toilet tasks (no, not what you may be thinking). Of the four crappers in our abode, two were on the fritz (just who the heck is Fritz, and how did his name get such a negative connotation?). After having two plumbers come out and remove nothing more than $165 from my wallet, I decided to have a go at it myself. 30 minutes, one wax ring, and one clothes hanger later, and it was fixed! Though I wasn’t able to retrieve the money that I think was “flushed down the drain” (roll with me, I’m getting tired), I did locate the missing toilet paper holder (and obviously the cause of the flushing problem). Sure glad I paid a professional to auger and snake the plumbing, but he was right about one thing: had I paid him another $250 to install a toilet to replace our “defective unit," it too would have fixed the problem! I did it for $3.75 worth of wax. The other unit needed a new gasket and flapper and is now ready to be test driven (I’m just waiting on my next issue of National DRAGSTER to arrive).

Brainerd was good, but I wish it was great. We have a great running car right now, and I think we are ready to win another race REAL soon. The guys have been doing a phenomenal job, and I really want to get them back in that winner’s circle right away.

“The Zoo” was as fun as ever. Some of the guys and I ventured in Friday night for about an hour. We saw the good, the bad, and the ugly...and everything in-between. If you don’t believe me, I have the pictures to prove it!

Ted Flanders, whom I met at this race last year, came and hung out for two days with us. Ted takes care of my Web site, GoFastJack.com, and does a great job. Saturday he brought his friend, Al, and Sunday his daughter, Jos, came along. They all are just super people, and it was cool to finally get to spend some time chatting with him face to face. No offense, but I can only type so fast, so e-mailing everything back and forth to Ted has its limitations.

Speaking of typing (and limitations), it’s been nearly 6,500 seconds since I started this, and there’s still lots to do before it’s done and sent. Stay tuned!