Whole bunches of stuff.

So let me start from long ago. Rebecca and I drove to Oregon for the 4th of July weekend to visit a good friend of ours. Perhaps some of you remember Jason Wunschel. Well, he moved up there back in June and I wanted to go visit him like a week after he moved so it would be right before he actually started his new job, but unfortunately my car broke and I couldn't get up there. Well, my car got fixed and we went for the 4th instead. It was a load of fun. We went hiking to a great waterfall. It was very relaxing, and the best part was that it wasn't a hard hike. Only about a half mile so I wasn't huffing and puffing like well... a computer game nerd who never does any exercise. After that we saw the Firework Display. It was a long wait, but people with all sorts of illegal fireworks were starting their own displays with the big mortars as we waited for the actual big display. We also went to an Army Surplus store. I had never been to one of those and it was a blast! Didn't really buy much, even though I wanted all sorts of rad stuff. They had "Ninja Grappling Hooks" and gas masks, and helmets, and all sorts of rad stuff. All I came home with though was a pair of inert .50 cal rounds, and a gun cleaning kit because by .22 kit is empty. The last day I was there I watched the new Indiana Jones movie. I didn't care for it very much, but it was still a good time because of the company. Then we drove back home.

The week I got back was pretty uneventful and rough. I worked for 10 straight days for a total of over 100 hours. It was icky, but I did get the following Thursday and Friday off. I didn't do a whole lot during those days. I took Felice to the Vet (more on that later) and did some test driving, but for the most part I was just taking it easy. I have decided that my next car is going to be a VW. It'll be a Golf, but I'm not sure if it's going to be a regular Rabbit, or if I'm going to save up for longer and get a GTi. I also went to see WALL-E with Mom. It was a good movie, but it finished weak. In that sense it reminded me of The Black Stallion. The first half was excellent and I was thoroughly enjoying myself, but then the second act just became too jumbled and needlessly complicated. But all in all, it was worth the money, which is something I don't say too often. Oh! I also saw Hellboy II with Rebecca that weekend too. It was very pretty and enjoyable in a dumb sort of way. ...I don't know if dumb is quite the correct word... I just mean you didn't have to think about anything that the movie was trying to tell you. It had the subtlety of a 90's Sitcom. But because of how pretty all the different monsters were, I thought again, that it was worth the price of admission. My goodness I've seen a lot of movies this month. I also did the most manly thing I've ever done that weekend. I changed my own spark plugs in my car. It was super awesome to get my hands dirty like that and it also kind of blew my mind. It is cheaper to change my spark plugs with the best that money can buy than it is to fill up with regular unleaded. That realization gave me a slight chuckle.

Last weekend was not very eventful. On Saturday I went over to Mike's house and helped him move his big items to the garage or front room so that when he moves to Marks old house next weekend, it'll all be right there to move into the truck. We only had about 2 hours worth of work, but we spent like 5 hours doing it. We spent most of the time just chatting and such. When we were moving his arcade cabinets I noticed that he had Terminator II: Judgement Day and well, we just had to beat it. It was one of my favorite arcade games when I was growing up, but I never had enough quarters to beat it. Also, when we moved his Gun Safe we had to pull 'em all out and talk about them. We just had a good time shootin' the breeze. He also told me about a friend of a friend of his that recently inherited a couple of RC boats and a RC plane. Since Mike knew about the RC car that I have he was hoping I could help him find what a fair price is for them. I can help him with it, but since there is so much price range between different vehicles and parts I'd really have to see them to find out. However, as soon as I do figure out how much they're worth, I think I'm going to give him an offer for one of the boats. I mean for crying out loud, I live on a lake. So, I'll keep y'all posted about that.

Well, my dog isn't doing absolutely wonderful lately. Just before the 4th of July weekend she developed a bald spot on her side so we took her to the Vet. They did a skin scraping and found out she had a bit of a bacteria infection. So they gave us some antibiotics and an antibacterial shampoo and told us to bring her back in two weeks. Well, two weeks later we brought her back and they were satisfied with her progress and told us to keep giving her the meds and baths. Well, later that same week, on her other side she started growing a cyst. At it's worst it was a lump about the size of a large grape! So, we took her back into the Vet for the third time and they weren't terribly worried about it. They just pricked it and some stuff came out so they don't think it's like a tumor or anything. We got some stronger antibiotics for her and the progress seems good. The lump is getting much smaller and the bald patch is (however slowly) getting covered back up with fur. I also want to mention that throughout this whole ordeal Felice wasn't in any discomfort. She was always our happy little puppy that she's always been. I'd have been a lot more worried if she seemed to be in pain, or if she was lethargic or something. Like I said though, she's getting better and I'll keep you guys posted if anything changes.

S'more good news is that I have some vacation time coming up. I'm going to be taking the first full week in September off and I'll be damned if I know what I'm going to do with it. There's just so many options I could do. I could drive back up to Oregon again and visit my friend Jason again, or I could drive or fly down to Phoenix to visit my other friend Jason again, or I might take some sort of trip to the east coast perhaps to see either of my siblings or my dad. Or maybe I'll pocket the grand I'd spend on a trip like that and buy my self a racing suit and helmet. Perhaps I'll just take that money and throw it into a CD and make some money on it (least likely). I am at a complete loss as to what I should do for my birthday week. Any suggestions?

Thanks for checking this blog after so long an absence and for reading so many friggin' words.

-Rob

Sorry Guys.

It's been a really really long time since I've written anything. And well... it's not going to be 'til some time next week when I can make an actual good post about everything. I've been busy as crap here at work. When Wednesday rolls around I'll have worked 103 hours in 10 consecutive days. So, after I take a break from work, and come back on Monday I'll write about how my 4th was and such.

To keep you busy 'til then though, I'll leave you with a Logic Riddle:

You have 2 sand timers, one's a 5 minute, and one's a 2 minute. How do you boil a 3 minute egg?

Hoo-ray

So I haven't written anything in a little over a week because I didn't want to write until I had some good news. It just seems like I've been on a downer for the past month or so.

Anyway, my car. It is fixed! The best part was that my mechanic decided that it wasn't the transmission like he said, but the linkage, like I said. To his credit though, this car has a weird linkage setup. Basically, the linkage goes to a box which then in turn moves some more links around to actually make the transmission change gear. It seems fairly redundant to me too, but whatever. So basically, instead of buying a used transmission for $800, then putting it in for another $900 or so in labor, plus another however much for fluids and washers, it only cost me $500 for the part, and $200 in labor. All in all it only cost me $731.81! That leaves enough money left over for me to get some new rubber for the corners. My front tires are getting pretty worn and my back tires are mismatched from blowing one out on a pot hole a long while back. So, all in all, my day has been goin' pretty OK.

That's about the extent of my news though - OH, I forgot, I saw "Speed Racer" this past weekend. It was friggin' fantastic. Well, maybe not "Friggin' Fantastic" but it was quite enjoyable.

Quotes:
1) "Someone tell the fat lady, she's on in five."

2) "Cinderella Story here at Augusta."

3) "Oh My Dear Little Librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows and you'll find you have nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays."

4) "Moisture is the essence of wetness. Wetness is the essence of beauty."

5) "I've been following my gut since I was 14 years old. I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

6) "You're not the same man I knew ten years ago."
"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

7) "Don't be lost when your time comes! Because the Day of the Lord cometh, as a thief in the night."

8) "You're a very handsome man."
"Thank you, Mr. President."
"Just get rid of that grin. You look like a schmuck."

9) "Mike broke the Hubble! Mike broke the Hubble"

10) "I bet they've got a lid on every trash can... and a fence around every tree."

Holy Crap

A new update.

So, nothing really new goin' on in my life right now. Still the #1 thing on my mind right now are my car troubles, but those are soon going away. Basically, it was not just the linkage on my Focus that was the problem, it was the transmission itself. It exploded. So they quoted me a $1,400 rebuild, or I could get a used one for $600. So I'm getting a used transmission and a new clutch. The most heinous thing about it is the labor though. 8 friggin' hours at $90 an hour. So the whole ordeal will cost about $2,000. I've enough saved up to get it fixed... well... almost, but Accurate Fire owes me 5 days of vacation pay from the time that I didn't use last year. So they're picking up the rest of what I don't have and call us square. So the mechanic is going to start working on it tomorrow and that's that.

I was going to go to Oregon this weekend to visit my friend Jason Wunschel, but because of these expenses I cannot. I think Rebecca and I will go up there the weekend of the 4th though. I should have my car back by then. So that'll be a lot of fun.

Outside of car problems, my life has been almost too ordinary. Nothing really exciting. I did see watch a movie the other day and I can't understand why I keep giving Ridley Scott chances to impress me with his movies, but of all the movies that I've seen, that guy has made only 2 movies that didn't suck, and they weren't that great (Matchstick Men, and G.I. Jane). Anyway, I watched Blade Runner. Ugh, someone needs to give that guy more than just a spelunkers headlamp to light his movies with. The thing that I don't understand the most is not his inability to make good movies, but the public opinion that this guy is an absolute genius movie maker. I have no idea why everyone and their mothers (except me and mine) loved this movie. It was a bad movie. At one time, I had a point by point argument as to why it was a bad movie, but I forgot them because I *thankfully* have forgotten the movie. I just remember that it was bad.

Anyway, I'm at work, just typing on my break, so I better get goin'.

The last quote was from "Starship Troopers"

New Quote... kinda easy, but it made me laugh:
"Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face."

Yet more car troubles.

So, I took Rebecca's car in for the 60,000 mile tune up and I decided to go to the dealer because I simply didn't trust the other guys. Well, as they were draining the fluid from the transmission a few pieces of a washer came out. This is a washer that puts pressure on a plate so that it changes gear smoothly and is apparently rather important. He gave me a quote, and by California state law, he also had to include a new torque converter which came to a total of, are you ready for this, $3,034! He said that I probably wouldn't need a new torque converter so the price would probably be around $1,800. I asked him what would happen if I just didn't do anything, what's so bad about having a hard shift. I mean sure there would be more wear and tear, but we weren't planning on keeping the car that much longer anyway. He told me that not all of the washer had come out, so there's still a piece in there and if it got into the pump it would destroy the whole transmission, which costs $4,500 on it's own without labor. In addition to that, they recommended that I get a new timing belt; price for that: $830. But wait! There's more! The heat plate on the O2 sensor has gone bad so I need a new one of those too; $275. This brings the grand total that I'm going to need to have to get the car fixed up to $4,139.00 or somewhere thereabouts. That's HALF the price of what I could SELL it for. I don't know what I'm going to do. I think I'm just going to do the jackass thing and get the O2 sensor fixed so the "Service Engine Soon" light turns off, then unload the car on some hapless sap. This is precisely why I am always going to buy my cars from a dealer; because of people like me.

I am going to get my Focus in to the shop come Monday. I have about $600 to spend right now and I *hope* that will be enough to get it fixed (please oh please just be the linkage). If it doesn't, I'm pretty sure that Tom & Joel will just let me put it on the Accurate Fire account we have with this guy and I'll just pay them back when I can... probably by having them take it directly out of my pay check. So, with any luck, I'll be back in my Focus by the end of next week.

Other news on the Rob Front... Well, not much to report really. Because of these car troubles I haven't had any spare money for anything fun. However; there is a bit of a silver lining about it. Rebecca and I are actually growing up. We made ourselves a Menu for the next two weeks for both lunch and dinner. We went down to the super market and bought everything we needed and now I'm brown baggin' it every day. It's going to be a super money saver. We spent 'round about $200 on groceries for the next two weeks, which is just about the same amount I spent for eating out just for myself. Yay for not spending money on food so I can spend it on cars.

I'm also getting a new video game today. Before y'all go "The hell?! This fool just spent the entire post bitching about money and he's buying a video game?", let me explain. I pre-bought the game like 7 months ago. The money is spent, and all I can get back is store credit so I might as well just get the game. It's called "Ninja Gaiden II" and it's going to be super awesome! I simply loved the first one, so I have high hopes for this one.

I hope everyone else is having a fantastic week.

"Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center. Sounds charming."

EDIT: Goodness you're too quick Dad...

Alright, here's another one, and I'm pretty sure this one is Dad proof:
"Sir, I don't understand. Who needs a knife in a nuke fight? All you gotta do is push a button... sir."

Car Trouble Update

I talked with the Mechanic that we use here at the office and he told me that it would be $400 to look at it. Basically since my transmission is transversely mounted and underneath the engine block he'll have to remove it to find the problem. He then gave another few breakdowns of price. If it is the linkage, there's no extra cost; it's all right there and he can just re-attach it. If I need a new transmission, it's another $1,150 on top of the $400 and there might more labor cost as well.

I haven't taken it in yet because of Rebecca's car. I'm using it right now which is all wonderful, but it needs it's 60,000 mile tune up. This is not a cheap tune up. The intake plenum is covering the Spark Plugs so that entire assembly needs to be removed to get at those plugs. The dealer said it's an $830 job, but I found another mechanic that specializes in Japanese cars and he quoted me $593.95. So, before I get my car looked at, we're going to get Rebecca's car tuned up so it doesn't break. Then I'm going to save up and get my car looked at. Then either start driving my car, or start saving up for a new transmission and clutch.

I think my next car is going to be easy to work on. I was thinking that my next car was going to be a VW Golf GTi, but I'm not so sure any more. I'm thinking Small Block Chevy... 'sept gas prices suck so hard... *sigh* just can't win can ya'?

P.S. No one got my quote from last post. It was from "Snatch"

New Quote:
"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought."

Go ahead Dad,

You get to tell me "I told you so."

My car broke yesterday. Not entirely sure what's wrong with it, but I'm sure taking my car to the track did not help. What really sucked is that it was 11:30 at night at Florin Rd. @ 99. Not exactly the best place to be at the side of the road in the middle of the night.

So basically, I pull away from a light (not at any great speed, just like normal) then I reach for 2nd gear and it wasn't there. So I decided to reach for 3rd gear, it liked 3rd gear just fine so I thought to myself: "huh, must be a linkage problem if I can grab 1st, 3rd, and 5th, but not 2nd, and 4th. So I pull over into a parking lot to see if the linkage problem was just in the area right around the shift nob, but it wasn't. At this point I think, "no big deal, I'll limp it home and take Rebecca's car tomorrow." However, I tried to pull away and now it wont engage any gear. It wont even slot into any gear... I mean, it'll go to where it's always been, but I can just make big ol' circles with the shift nob without having to slot from 1st to neutral to 3rd or anything like that. I told that to the mechanic that our office does a lot of work with, and he agreed with me that it was probably just the linkage, but it also could have been something else and much more expensive... We'll just have to see when I save up enough money to get it looked at. Shan't take too long. And at least the engine is still strong. AND at least I have alternate transportation. This could have sucked a whole lot more.

Oh well... that's life.

"Why do they call him 'Bullet Dodger'?"
"Because he dodges bullets."