The BugShop: What's New at the BugShop?

This page last modified- 12/30/04



      [Check the site chronology below if you are not sure what you have or haven't seen. Use the LOST ? page to get access to everywhere with a single click.]



Today's Ramblings....

Well another year passes before I take the time to update this page. Bad! BAD! I'm still alive, still into VWs. Just very little bandwidth leftover to do anything with this site. Zarwerks continues to keep me very busy, and funds my need to buy overpriced old VW parts well. Big news this past year is that I moved. We bought a new house about 34 miles from our old one. No one big reason for moving but lots of small ones. And one of those "small" reasons was that I needed more space for my VWs (3 of them), parts and places to do work.

So needless to say, I got some more space. In addition to the 2 car garage attached to our house, I have a second, detached 2 car garage "shop". Or the "Man Cave" as my wife calls it. What was a bare stud building this summer, is now a finished, insulated heated workspace with blasing cabinet, compressor, 22 feet of workbench, tons of drawer and shelf storage. I'll post a pic later, or maybe even replace the "Tour My Garage" page which still shows my old garage. I have the fridge from our old house in there too, it is stocked with a variety of beverages.

I know that there are some e-mail links scattered all over this site, and some are wrong. For this page anyway, my current e-mail is zarwerks@charter.net. Happy to hear from you, but as you might well guess, since I have little or no time to do anything with this site, I have precious little time to reply to e-mails as well. Hope you understand.

 

I'll be at the Classic in Irvine CA again this summer. Current plans are to have a Zarwerks booth in the vendor section, stop by and say hello if you are there..

 

Hope everyone has a great and prosperous New Year!!!

 

Take care and happy New Year!!...

PS: thanks to all of you that "plinked" some change ($1.33 to be exact) into the old tip jar, it has helped.......!

 

 

Leftovers....

Ok, you might not be able to actually see what is "new" here, but it is significant.  As you may know, I've been through some trials trying to find an adequate webhoster for the BugShop.  In the early days, free web hosters were abundant, but as my site grew in size and popularity, and the free webhosters began to restrict space and bandwidth, there was trouble.  The site was browned out and almost constantly unavailable.

So I went against my own guideline (not to spend money on a hobby website) about a year ago and paid for a webhoster that seemed to be adequate.  I bought the domain name thebugshop.org at that time too.  For $5 a month, I thought I had a good deal, but I underestimated the popularity of this site.  The site downloads were nearly double the allowable limit of 3Gb per month, and I was getting "overusage bills" each month to the tune of $20+!!  In January of this year, I canceled that webhosting service and even was refunded the unused service.

Oddly, that webhoster never shut down my site after I canceled.  In fact, I still had FTP upload access to it!  But it was one thing for it to be available to the world because they just didn't shut it down (I could even see the statistics, downloads were running at 5-6Gb/mo, this time no one to bill for overusage apparently), but something different for me to actually use the service and update the site while not paying for it.  My good conscience didn't allow me to do that (much!).

So I have recently bought a new webhosting service that gives me 20Gb of download and about 6 times the space that the BugShop currently occupies.  This is from iPowerweb.com.  It costs me about $8 a month.   So I don't have to feel "bad" any longer about not updating the site, it won't be as "dusty" as it was the last 7 or so months anymore.  I have some new articles and features planned, so check back.

But I have decided to institute a "Tip Jar" here to help defray the cost of keeping this site up.  You can see it at the bottom of the navbar at the left.  The BugShop is just a hobby site for me, I make no money from it, but it is plain to see that it has become a very popular resource for the VW hobby and it would be a travesty to lose it.  Now seriously folks, don't feel obligated to contribute something.  My kids aren't starving, I can afford to pay the $8 a month if I have to.  But I feel that if someone visits here and honestly feels that the help they received is worth something, I should give them a way to help contribute to the costs of running this site.  If they want to.  No pressure.  Really.

So the "Tip Jar" is just a link to my PayPal account, configured to contribute an amount of $1.00.  When you click the Tip Jar icon, a PayPal screen will appear.  If you have a PayPal account already, you may get a screen that asks for your password.  But most likely you will get a screen asking you for credit card info.  Yes, you can bill a just buck to your credit card (I mean, yes, it is possible to do that!).  Or you can use your own PayPal account if you have one.  It is set up so that the amount is $1, you can't change it.  Only a buck at a time in the old Tip Jar. 

The weekend of June 9th I flew out to Los Angeles for the Classic.  What a weekend.  Got there Friday at around noon, picked up a $14 a day rental car (a Toyota Corolla with 6k miles, they ended up only charging me about $32 for the whole 3 day weekend!) and went out to Wolfsburg West.  What a nice, huge new building Tony and his crew have there.  In the open space sat a '58 European Beetle, with only 11k miles on it!  Very nice.  Then it was off to the Empi open house.  Not all that interested in the stuff they sell there, but quite a crowd had assembled.  Some "show" cars, food, free stuff.  Then I ran down to Irvine, checked into the hotel and headed back up to Lenny Copp's "West Coast Classics" restoration shop.  This was a big weekend event.  Tons of people swarming around, chatting, looking at the awesome cars there.  Joe Ruiz worked the grill making carne asada (sp?) for no less than 6 hrs straight!  Lenny is a super nice guy.  Great time there, all the "big names" in the hobby were there.   But by far the coolest thing about the whole weekend was talking to Jerry Seinfeld who was at the show on Sunday.  Someone spotted him and we found him looking at Eric Myer's Romtech.  I was surprised (and proud of our hobby) that people were just leaving him alone and letting him be a VW nut like the rest of us, and not an entertainer.  But when the opportunity came, I had to ask him if he had bought a Bill Collin's low mile, original 1957 sedan.  Bill had told me that he sold the car to a broker who buys and sells for Jerry, but wasn't absolutely sure Jerry had it.  He said he had indeed bought it, and in that classic Jerry Seinfeld voice said "I LOVE that car!".
 

Stop by my new little VW business venture www.zarwerks.com for the latest early beetle stuff we are reproducing.
 

Take care,
John


    My Summer 2000 Show Results table is being moved to the 2000 Driving Log page.


Date:
Change:
 
   
October 21, 2002 "Air Spud" link now re-established, with new "Op Theory" section complete
DKF Fall Cruises page now permanently linked here
September 5, 2002 New webhoster established!  MEGA space and MEGA bandwidth is now available.  Look for new and frequent updates to resume! 

2002 Driving Log Page added.

Also, I added the "Tip Jar" to the navbar on the left, if you would like to make a one dollar contribution to help defray the (new) costs of runnign this site.  PURELY optional, don't feel obligated.

February 9, 2002 New article in the Tech Help Section, "Beetle Steering Wheel Restoration"
January 24, 2002 New article in the Tech Help section, Building a cheap and easy sand blasting cabinet
November 4, 2001 The BugShop is MOVED to www.thebugshop.org
October 9, 2001 Updated the 2001 Driving Season page.
September 26, 2001 New article in the Tech Help section on installing lap belts in an early Beetle
July 17, 2001 Added some more "You know you drive a beater if..." lines to the Funny Stuff page.
July 13, 2001 A new "front door" image map takes its place at the BugShop
July 12, 2001 Finished the "DIY Paint Job" article and added a new link to the Links Page, has some detail on lower A-pillar rust repair.
July 9, 2001 Updated the  2001 Driving Season page, details and a pic from the slightly wet Endicott Estates show.
June 26, 2001 Updated the  2001 Driving Season page, some pics from the (wet!) NH show.
June 22, 2001 Updated the "DIY Paint Job" article (still not completely finished) and the 2001 Driving Season page.
May 29, 2001 Added a new article, "DIY Paint Job" to the Tech Help section. Incomplete, preliminary version.
May 3, 2001 Updated the 2001 Driving Season page.
Mar 27, 2001 Added a couple new literary works to the Rants page. "Stripping Forms" and "Layers"
Mar 14, 2001 Added a link to an article on the "Super shakes" to the Links Page
Mar 11, 2001 Added a new article, "Horn Wiring Hell" to the Tech Help section.
Jan 23, 2001 Updated the "Doors" article a bit.
Jan 9, 2001 Added link to Eric Huelsman's page on my Links Page.  It has lots of great detail on shift bushing replacement on a Super Beetle.
Jan 4, 2001 Added the new DKF site to the Links Page.
Dec 6, 2000 Couple new links added to the Links Page.
Nov 20, 2000 New article, "The Late Oval SWF Flasher".
Sept 27, 2000 Added Beetle Seat Adapter Plate for Tall People article to the Tech Help and '57 Resto pages.
Sept 26, 2000 Added Jim Migut's '66 Resto page to my links page, updated the 2001 Driving Season page.
Sept 20, 2000 Removed a few item from the Swap Space page that had been sold, updated the "show/event schedule" list above and reformatted the '57 Log page(s) to include a separate page for each driving "season".
Aug 23, 2000 A couple new entries added to the Reader Contributed page, updated the '57 Log page, a recent show and a new valve adjustment tracking table. 
Aug 1, 2000 Added a bunch of my more rare stuff to the Swap Space page. 
July 24, 2000 Updated the '57 Log page, some pics of my car at another local cruise night and the Time Machines show in Durham, CT. 
July 19, 2000 Updated the "Cleaning a Carbon Clogged Heat Riser Tube" article, includes pics.
July 18, 2000 Updated Page 20 of the '57 resto pages to explain how NOT to put window seals in.
Also some edit to the tech article "Installing Fixed Windows".
Removed a few items and added a few from the Swap Space page.
June 26, 2000 Added Charlie Russo's East Coast show info page to my links page, updated the '57 Log page.
June 15, 2000 Added a "show" page on June 4th's Northeast Classic. 
Removed a few items from the Swap Space page that I sold recently.
June 5, 2000 Updated two more links to the Links page.
May 31, 2000 Added an Accessories page to the '57 resto stuff. 
Updated the Links page, added some links to other non-VW sites I have done. 
Updated the '57 Log page, some pics of my car at recent events.
April 30, 2000 Added a new tech article on Early Beetle Bumpers in the tech section. 
Feb 25, 2000 Added even more (3 resto and 1 links) pages to the Links page
Feb 15, 2000 Added a new link to the Links page, a "Year of manufacture" (YOM) plate registration reference.
Feb 11, 2000 Added a new link to the Links page, Bruno Van Heule's '66.
Jan 10, 2000 Added a new link to the Links page (a '64 'vert resto), updated the Swap Space page. Updated the Tool Techniques article, an additional series of photos and text on the "MIG" method of extracting snapped off studs.
Oct 8, 1999 Main page interface for the site is redesigned, new image map with oval window used.

Added Page 21 on the '57 Resto. Details the front seat belt install and a gas tank leak fix. Added "Riches to Rags" in the Stories/Rants section.
Added "Is it for sale?" in the Stories/Rants section.
Added "Beauty Shot" page for the '57.
Added "the Paper Chase", about the ordeals of registering my '57 on an old MA 1957 plate.
Added new article "Installing Fixed Windows" to the tech section 

May 22, 1998 The  NEW  BugShop is unveiled
March 15, 1998 The BugShop gets it's 10,000th visitor
October 4, 1997 The BugShop is born
?? BC The earth's crust cooled.