That brings a whole new dimension to wild shots. You probably feel it in your stomach when you miss the entire board, LOL.

OK, I'm not proud... here are some pics of my dart boards, starting with a steel-tip board in my painfully humble, un-heated garage which is about a million years old (or maybe 90 years.) I bought this board and cabinet when I was 25, so also a million years ago.





...and my soft-tip board in the basement, flanked by a gas stove and my winter wheels:





And if you're wondering why I created that elaborate back plate, ask yourself if soft tip darts will poke a hole in drywall.

The answer is yes, they poke holes in drywall.

 

Need the story behind that adorable little tree that I'm assuming one of your kids painted on the wall. As soon as I saw the second set of pics, I was like "oh no, the drywall" :-)

 

That's awesome. I have pretty much the same dart board from around 1995, also in the garage. I took the inner metal rings off to reduce deflections. I should see if my girls have any interest in throwing darts

 

When the girls were very small, I took all the extra white paint I could find, and painted the boards between the 2x4's. And I tried to do the same on the posts in black. Ran out of paint (and patience), so only about half the garage was involved. Anyway, with a huge white canvas broken down into segments between the 2x4's, my mother-in-law and my girls did all these little-kid art projects. Here we are 20 years later, my MIL is dead and the kids are college graduates, so it makes us smile every time we pull the cars into the garage.

...which will be something I'll miss when we move. Hadn't thought about that until just now. I have a love/hate thing with my old garage.

 

Last year, in June of 2024, I found a Leather Restoration Specialist in the area. He came to my house, and repaired (painted) my driver's seat with perfectly match latex-like something that he sprayed on with an air gun. It looked 95% perfect. Not 100%, because only OEM new is 100%. And even then sometimes, LOL. Anyway, about a month or two later, it started breaking down, so he came back and re-did the entire project. Since then, it's been fine. No complaints.

Until this weekend. With a long & hot road trip this weekend, my driver's seat was starting to stick to my pants. I tried layering materials underneath, but they just stuck too. And now it's all starting to break down. Ugh.

So I reached out to my restoration guy, who also does traditional leather repair, and he agreed to work on the seat this upcoming Winter. We will remove the seat, he'll take it back to his shop, and get it back to me whenever he's done. This let's him do the work as a side-hustle outside his normal schedule, without any delivery pressure. And my car will be down for however long it takes, which is OK because Winter.

So... Round Two. No wait... Round Three.

 

Aching joints and vanishing muscle tissue aside, stories like this are what embrace the investment of age. Lock them away in your non volatile memory and pull them out when you find yourself spiraling downward over an issue that you have little control over.

 

An example of someone that you'd write a Google Review for online. I am so sick of everyone that does any form of paid work for me pestering me for a google review. Taking the time to write a sincere review should be saved for folks like your leather guy.

 

Quoting myself to bump a small disappointment in the steering wheel swap from a year ago. When I went on that road trip with my daughter, she was asking me about Cruise Control. I turned it on, and the light went on, however it would never "set". So this replacement steering wheel comes with an unused ACC button, and either the Cruise Control switches are compromised, or the SET button itself is compromised.

I mean, no big deal really. I literally never use Cruise Control, which is why it took a year to recognize this. And I literally never switch EcuTek tunes on the car. I guess the take-away from all this is to be sure and give the next owner the original steering wheel, which is up in the attic somewhere.

 

Damn brother you're hitting the wisdom hard today LOL.

 

John I might have a set of switches for the wheel that are just the normal Non-ACC ones. The innards are different. Let me check my stash.

 

Embracing my inner Gandalf :-)

 

That sucks. I hate when things don't work, regardless of whether or not I use them or not (hence my reluctance to tear the 10 year old tint off the rear glass and replace it as the defrosters I've never used will be toast)

Thinking. You replaced the diff gears and I recall reading that when replaced, Cruise Control fails to work at certain speeds. Could that be your issue?

 

Like I said, I never use cruise control on the G. Without ACC, I think CC is annoying. The last time was when testing how to switch tune maps 3 or 4 years ago.

 

With a manual, I'm not sure I'd use it either as its a different driving experience. With an auto, I use mine religiously on long drives and the mileage is often >25mpg.

Educate me, with an auto, the cruise control and gear selection occurs automatically (say when you are going slower and approach a steep grade where a downshift is needed). How does that happen with a manual? Back when I drove manuals, CC didn't exist on anything other than Buicks and Cadillacs.

Even breather rental cars have the feature today, which is where I see the little underpowered 3-4cyl engines struggle with shifts even at higher speeds.

 

AFAIK, it just stays in gear until you shut it off or touch the brake. Again, I never use it so I'm not exactly the right guy to explain how it works on a 6MT. All that I know is that it doesn't work anymore with this steering wheel that I swapped in. Fortunately, the left-side controls work just fine (radio, back button, etc.)