another explanation of time away from the forum!
After another round of life's curveballs, I will hopefully soon have a nice place to work on the Jeep.
After being sued by a neighbor for 14 months, for what he eventually claimed was me hurting his feelings, the case got dismissed and I am being awarded my lawyer fees (we will see if he ever pays up). Lucky me, out of the 20 people he decided to sue, my wife and I were the only ones dismissed. American legal system comments accepted here.

On a separate note, we decided to sell our house and move. It really is on a separate note, because my wife showed me a 5 acre property with ~1200 sqft detached garage/barn with a concrete mechanic pit in it that the p/o parked his semi-truck in. Yeah, it is going to be nice if it all works out (hopefully on Dec 6).

So, after seeing that we hurried up and put our house up for sale. That is a lot of work to do when you aren't planning on doing that. Thanks to my wife's hard work, it was on the market in pristine shape in a week and a half.
Then, as I was hanging the last blind after paint touch ups, we got a call and my wife's father passed away, unexpectedly. He had hit a bull elk three months prior, nearly died, had all but two bones in his face broken, but made a full recovery to where he was helping tow the kid of a friend's car home at 11:30 at night when, after doing a final safety check of everything on the tow dolly, he collapsed and died. Definitely a shock to the family, and things still are in flux (a month and a half later).
Then, I took off and had a white tail deer hunt. Ditched a turkey hunt earlier in the month due to the post funeral activities, but got the Jeep ready for the deer hunt. Took it on a scout trip which included 150 miles of freeway (~65-70mph, the speed limit of 75 seemed sketchy) and forest roads that were primitive/high clearance 4wd only. Jeep did great on that trip. So I took it hunting. Another freeway trip, then a heavy beating morning, lunch, and evening each day for three days straight. I was impressed it held up, with a continous close eye on everything. After the third day, I managed to pull backing washers through the frame on the rear drivers side leaf spring mount on the frame (see earlier posts about the ohio rust damage). At that point, I trailered it home. Since I have been busy since, it has sat in my current, smaller garage awaiting its new bigger home where it can get better attention.
Oh yeah, and work has been busy. And the kids have kept me busy. And packing is not fun.
Hopefully another more upbeat update will occur in early Dec.