I did. The way I'm looking at it is this, regardless of what broke, the block is most likely trash. It has a .060 over bore and can't be bored any more. Even just a little cylinder wall damage and it is history.

:things aren't always as hopeless as they might seem...

Not looking as being hopeless. Just aggravated. Already have another engine. Hopefully my cam, etc are still good so I can do a swap. As I said, haven't really opened her up yet...

:I agree that a cooling off period is a VERY good idea.

Yeah, tend to avoid knee-jerk reactions where my cars are concerned...

:My own initial reation to the first round of bad news (Ok, THIS round of bad news)

What was that, round 3,692??

:Alice will most likely be back on the road not long after I come back from my vacation rather than in the parts yard which was my original thoughts....

Well, you'll beat me. I'm gonna pull the engine, see what happened (if I made a mistake, part failure or what..) and go from there. Gonna tear down the other 302 I've got, see what it needs (was running really well when pulled), and get it ready to rock. Have a set of 88'GT heads and a set of '66 289 heads (need rebuilt). Need to see which ones are the best to go with. I'll also get my tranny rebuilt with a shift kit installed.
After all of this is done, it's time to start the body (should be doing that now, but....)