Missing in Action

Since about the end of December, I have been “missing in action” as far as writing this blog goes. I’m sorry about this, but sometimes life gets a little overwhelming and it’s hard to keep up with it all.

This winter wasn’t a bad one here in Wisconsin, but for a while there, it seemed like we were getting a little snow every other day. That was one thing that kept me busy shoveling snow at a new (actually over 100-years-old) building I bought in Waupaca, Wis., to eventually expand my business.

But my hibernation wasn’t all weather-related. I had an assignment to write a Volkswagen book and I had been dragging my heels on that project. Then, I received a call from the publisher. “Get it done by the end of the month or we’ll tear up the contract,” he said. Yikes! So, I buckled down and spent about a month banging a book out.

About the same time, Old Cars Weekly locked me in for two old car pricing projects. One involved adding another year to the Old Cars Price Guide database. The other was aimed at correcting or updating several sections already in the Old Cars Price Guide.

By this time, it was the end of February and time to start working on my income taxes. When you’re driving 30,000 miles a year to attend car shows to write about, you rack up a lot of mileage and travel expenses and your taxes take longer than normal to do. Generally, I write two articles or blogs everyday, but in March I could not even average one a day.

In the first three months of 2016, I traveled a lot less than in the past few years. I skipped the Milwaukee World of Wheels, the Chicago Auto Show, the Progressive Motorcycle Show, the Racing & Performance Expo, the B-O-P meet in St. Charles, Ill. and the British swap meet in Wheaton. On top of this, The Shop Show in Indianapolis was not held this year.

Finally, the first week in April rolled around and I was ready to start coming up for air. The month started with a 5-day trip to the NEW Motorama (www.newmotorama.com) in Green Bay, which included a return visit to The Automobile Gallery (www.theautomobilegallery.org) . Then, I started to get back to writing a couple of stories per day. And now, I’m finally getting back into action on these blogs. It’s nice to have something to do in retirement, but sometimes it’s just hard to do it all.