Benjamin 2014

This year has been pretty exciting for me. It started out with an awesome robotics season! My most looked-forward to activity each week is our robotics meeting on Thursday nights. I've been involved with FIRST Robotics since 8th grade. It's an international organization with competitions throughout the world. This year, I was excited to be elected as team captain of our chapter, as well as full time driver of the robot at our annual regional competition in March.

Every year all the robotics chapters throughout the world set out to build a robot for the competition that is announced at the first of the year. Last year the competition was kind of a volley ball game but the ball was over 2 feet in diamiter. The year before that it was a frisbee challenge. The year before that was basketball. Each chapter has to build a robot to be able to compete in whatever game is planned for that year's competition. (Here's a link to an article I wrote about robotics awhile back.)

This year we had to build a robot that could pick up a two-foot ball and be able to move around the field and shoot it into a 10 foot high goal. We actually won one of our competitions -- was awesome!

Another highlight of my year happened in the spring. I was given the opportunity by my next door neighbor and good friend, Mike Lorenzo, to accompany him on a hunting safari to South Africa for two weeks! It was an amazing experience!! After 20 hours of flight time I got to see a completely different part of the world and I got to hunt wild animals and learn a ton! It was an unforgettable experience!

I also spent a few weeks this summer in Connecticut with my mom and little sister Annika; she was attending a ballet camp there for six weeks. The thought of going up there and spending weeks in a hotel room with my mom and Annika freaked me out a first and I fought it tooth and nail.

When we went to Connecticut, the plan was for me to find an internship doing something with cars. There was a really cool shop that restores and sells antique cars that I was trying to get into, but it just didn't pan out. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and I'm in a hotel room going crazy thinking about all the work I could be doing on my Mustang at home!

While we were there my Mom figured out a way that I could use my skills with cars to create a video series about how to buy a used car.

So, for the next two weeks, that's what we did. Mom shot a bunch of videos of me explaining all about how to buy a used car. We shot multiple videos of me pointing out things to look for on the car and also what to look out for when taking it for a test drive. Then she taught me how to produce the videos so they'd look all nice and professional. She said I couldn't go home until the videos were all done.

Then she created a new website for me and now I'm (almost) ready to sell the videos!

(Small catch...Mom's helping me with the marketing as well, and since she's been home, she's been distracted with a million things, so any day now I'm sure she's going to tell me the product is ready for sale . If you'd like to get an update from me when it's ready, just give me a shout here.)

Since I got home from Connecticut, I've been working non-stop on my Mustang project. Mostly working to get money to fund it, but I'm making some great progress on the body and engine as well!

For the most part though, I have been trading vehicles like crazy.

It all started with a $700 Truck . . .

I don't think I was home from Connecticut very long before I found a sweet 1984 Ford F150 pick up for about $700. I cobbled together every penny I had, plus a small loan from Dad and bought it with the idea that I'd clean it up and sell and make some extra cash.

The truck, charming and rusted out, came with a gas can bungie-corded to the engine! I cleaned her up, got her running and sold her as is.

I traded her for a 1997 Dodge Dakota, a lifted truck that was nicer but didn't have an engine. It was bright yellow Rumble Bee that looked so cool so I knew it would be worth a lot if I fixed it up. So I found an engine for it and installed it. I later discoverd that the engine I had put in was bad so I ripped it out and put another engine in and it ran!

I was hoping I could sell this amazing truck for cash, but as cool as it was, I learned that the market for a cash sale on this thing is pretty non-existant. A trade looked to be my best option. Which turned out to be a good thing after all.

I found a really nice Ford Expedition. It was lifted as well, ran perfectly and didn't require hardly any work for me to sell.

I might / could've sold this one for cash but I got a trade offer for it that I couldn't refuse. Within a week of getting the Expedition, I traded for a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse with a Twin Turbocharged V6 engine! What a crazy, amazing ride this one was! It was really fast!

After a little TLC on the Misubishi, I got it ready for sale within about a week. I was hoping to get $6,000 for it.

Turns out this wasn't going to be a cash sale either. The car, as cool as it was, was a little too exotic for the cash market. So, I entered into a mind-numbing three way trade.

I traded the Eclipse for a really nice 1987 Jeep Wrangler (and that guy immediately completed the three-way by trading it for a diesel truck). I should be able to get a fair amount of cash for the Jeep. It's more of a standard vehicle with a market more apt to have cash to purchase compared to some of the other deals I've done. Now my only problem is that I really like the Jeep.....I kind of want to keep it!

I'm not too far away from being done with my Mustang and should be on the road in about a month after I sell the Jeep. At that point I can get my license. That's been the hard-fast rule of my dad. He says I can't get my license until the Mustang is done (drivable). Even though I've loved all the stuff I've done to get the Mustang project funded to this point, it's been a ton of work so it's been a great motivator to have the license hanging over my head! :0

In Other News . . .

Swim season was really great for me this year. I swam really hard in practice and I was able to win almost all of my races this season! I was district champion in the 50 yard freestyle. I was able to go to regionals in all four of my events. At regionals I broke the school record for the 100 yard freestyle!

I was so happy at the end of the season to have been selected as MVP of the year. I can't wait to see what next season brings!

I'm off to go off-roading with my jeep today. Wishing you all an exciting new year!

~Benjamin

PS. Keep up with all my projects at HabilisBoy.com