That is so cool, Hugh! (I've missed you, by the way. Merry Christmas!)

*echos jrossi*

Heh, that's awesome Hugh.

How cool! Yay, for Hugh and Hugh's nephew!

I wanna buy that boy a Bentley Car Carrier with ground effects and a water fountain in it.

My nephew's been asking for months for an old Ford pickup hood for Christmas. He said he needed it for his junkyard towtruck, whose engine was rusting. So I found one I think ought to fit, judging from his description.

Lemme back up -- for his birthday in September I got him a hood that fit on a larger toy Impala he'd lost the hood to. I was at a truck stop days before his birthday when I found a Jeff Gordon refrigerator magnet set of one matchbox-car magnet and one hood magnet, which fit his Impala perfectly.

He said it didn't really matter if the hood was rusted, or what color it was, though he'd prefer orange, the more flames the better. I went out and found a plastic model Ford pickup with a big hood all in one piece that we can paint and it even has flame decals. Of course, he's only getting the hood, and he'll never know where it came from.

I had assumed the truck with the missing hood was damaged in one of the multi-car, multi-train collisions he stages, but I found out recently the junkyard towtruck was Mater from Cars. He'll be the only kid in the land with a hooded Mater.

I wish I was here more often. I really miss you guys.

He'd probably dig the fountain, D_W. Though not without first noting that it was very silly to have a fountain up on a car carrier.

He'd break it, though, and that's where the fun would start.

The other day he suggested that if he coupled a cross-country train to an airplane, he could probably make the airplane go as fast as 97 miles per hour. But what he'd really like to do would be to take the engines out of all his cars and put them into one.

One day he will.

How old is this wonderful boy again? Isn't he like 4 or something? What a great kid!

Yeah, he was four in September, and he tells jokes like:

Ding dong!

[Who's there]

Mustang 350 hemi block vinyl seat.

[Mustang 350 hemi block vinyl seat who?]

Mustang 350 hemi block vinyl seat I broke my hubcap, could you buy me a Porsche 911 Carrera?

...and...

Ding dong -- no, I mean, Knock knock!

[Who's there?]

Chevy Impala Twin Roadster crankshaft.

[Chevy Impala Twin Roadster crankshaft who?]

Chevy Impala Twin Roadster crankshaft I broke my alternator, could you buy me a Mercury Cougar XR7 Eliminator?

He went on with jokes like these, longer and sillier combinations of car words, for a while last time I spoke to him on the phone, before he started telling car stories that were clearly about the cars he was currently playing with. Eventually he just whispered car names repeatedly and absently holding the phone too close to his mouth, zooming and vrooming around the offroad track of the living room couch.

Make that "and" a comma and it might be okay.