Archives 2004

It looks like Michael Jackson has some competition, Lionel Richie’s soon to be ex-wife. Anyone else get disgusted by reading this?

(LONG BLOG ENTRY DISCLAIMER)I picked up the Vette after work Monday night. It was dark, the guy wasn’t home (only his wife) so I had to get the beast backed out of the garage, cold. It was grumpy as normal on startup, stalled a few times until I refamiliarized myself with the 2 foot method necessary to keep the machine running initially. I rumbled home, making mental notes of all the shakes, rattles and other noises that I need to address. Once, home the big test, will both cars fit? Ali guided me in as I backed it in, readjusted, backed it again, several times. They both fit! It’s tight but doable, a relief.

On Tuesday, I took the day off. Ali needed a break from Nicki at work because the state auditors are in and I had things I wanted to address on the car right away. First line of business, I had to replace the right front tire. It is almost brand new but the prior owner had a bad run in with almost 2 dozen nails that he filled with patches. It holds air but it’s unsafe, so I wanted to get that taken care of asap. The tire I needed was a “Kumho”, a comical name for a tire. I went on the kumho website and found local dealers. I called the first one, they don’t carry them anymore, I called another, the guy said they do carry them but the computers were coming up so they couldn’t check the distributor yet. I said I needed to get it today so if they have to order it I wasn’t interested. He come back with “You aren’t listening, I get the tire from the distributor but I get it the same day.” Hehe he must have been watch stand man’s cousin. I hung up with him and filed him under the “never call again” file. My last option was a place called “House of Flat” this is where the prior owner got the tires from. I was in luck, they had 2 of them! I find the place, it is a dump. Old tires stacked to the ceiling, barrels of lug nuts and not a word of English being spoken anywhere. I found the guy I talked to on the phone, he was nice enough and hooked me up. Job one, done.

On the way back I stopped at the auto store to load up. I purchased some cleaning supplies, lug nuts, a tire iron, a shop manual, a steering wheel cover, some replacement light bulbs and most importantly, A FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Ok I threw the new tire on the car. Then I began the process of replacing all of the dirty nasty lug nuts with new chrome ones with wheel locks. I noticed that some of the wheels where short one nut, running with 4 instead of 5, a bit alarming. Some of them were quite tight but I managed to get them off with my big ass tire iron. Until I came to THE nut. One wheel had one nut on it that was obviously different than the others. The tire iron just spun on the nut. A closer insprection revealed that the corners were rounded. Great. I got out my trusty gator socket, the socket that is supposed to turn anything. No dice. I worked on it for awhile with no success. I got frustrated and decided I would have a garage get it off since they have a far better arsenal of tools than I do.

Next project, replace 2 bad bulbs in the rear taillights. Normally this would be a super easy job, unscrew the lense, slap in a bulb you’re done. Hmmm no screws in these tailights. I flip through my manual and find the procedure to replace these bulbs. I reread it to make sure I got it right. To replace these bulbs requires the following procedure:

Remove license plate
Stuff arm into hole behind license plate and jam your arm into the bumper area, up to your elbow (if you have a big fat arm, forget it)
Feel for the bulb holder
Once found, try to figure out how to release it by feel alone
Once the socket is out, the wire is too short to come out of the license bracket hole
Crawl under the car and jam your 2 arms behind the bumper and try to hold the socket with one hand while attempting to release the old bulb with the other
If you are successful removing the old bulb, reverse the procedure to put a new bulb in the socket
Stick your arm back into the license plate hole and feel for the wire
Blindly try to manipulate the socket so it fits back into the taillight assembly

No, I am not exaggerating.

Replacing the 2 bulbs took close to an hour.

Thankfully installing the new steering wheel cover was easy. All that was left was to take it to the garage and let them have a whack at the lug nut. On the way there I was having some serious buyers remorse. Ali again has been super stressed at work which makes me feel guilty about buying my new toy. The car obviously could suck money out of me like a vaccum cleaner. I was depressed. I rumble into the garage. I decide to have them do an oil change, check the brakes (pulsate badly) and try to remove that lug nut. The guy says no problem, we can get it in for 20-25 minutes. Ok, I’ll go get lunch. I walk to KFC and eat a depressing solo lunch, doing nothing but thinking about my stupidity and regretting my purchase. I returned to the garage 30 minutes later, it still is sitting where I left it.

So I walked around the lot like a wanderer, I sat down on a curb awaiting for the work to commence. I was sitting there a good 5 minutes when I felt a burn on my knee. Damn fire ant. I jump up. The spot on the curb where I was sitting has fire ant battalions marching back and forth. I do an immediate damage survey, I have ants on my belly, on my legs and even had one on my neck. Grrrr. Just as my annoyance was escalating off the charts, they pulled the car in. They changed the oil, said the brake pads were good and tried to work on the lug nut. They tried the air wrench. They tried hammering on a socket and turning by hand, no dice. The said that the only other option was to drill it off. They did not want to attempt this since there is a high risk of damaging the aluminum around the opening. Great. They said if I can get it off, they can replace the mounting stud and we would be back in business. Although my car was there for close to 3 hours, they only charged me for the oil change and sent me on my way.

Now I had a mission. The lug nut must go. I got home around 1:30 and began my assault. About 7pm I gave up, exhausted. I think instead of stamping license plates or digging ditches, state prisoners should have to try to remove stripped, frozen lug nuts as part of their work program. I broke 4 drill bits, my hands are still numb today from hammering on the nut with a chisel for hours on end. I took care of the mechanic’s worries about damaging the aluminum by scoring it repeatedly with the drill and chisel attempts. By the time I gave up, what was once a nut, looked like an amoeba. I smashed, ground, chiseled and pryed the thing till it looked like it was part of the wheel itself. I am close. I was actually driving the thing back and forth up the driveway with no other lug nuts on it, hoping it would break the final piece of metal that was holding it on. It’s loose, it’s real close but I think it needs a wee bit more drilling. I packed it in , cleaned up and decided to give it another whack with a new drill bit tonight. It was the most frustrating automotive repair experience I ever encountered. It made the taillight fiasco look like a day at the beach. Somehow during the process, my feeling of guilt subsided, maybe the anger and frustration beat away the guilt. Oh well, I asked for it.

I have cut back on my mentioning of reality TV comments to avoid public humiliation but I witnessed one of the dumbest things ever so I have to mention it. In Average Joe Hawaii, it was down to 2 guys, 1 “average joe” and 1 “hunk”. The woman didn’t appear to have a genuine thing going with the hunk. He was good lookin and intelligent but you got the feeling they just didn’t click. The average joe guy literally loved the woman and was ready to tell her that. He opened up his feelings to her like a book. She got along with him well. He would have done anything for her. The way the show was edited, it looked like she would pick the “joe” for sure. The only downside was she wasn’t that attracted to him but surely he would be a better choice than the hunk who was very guarded and closed in comparison. Well you can see where this is going. She picks the “hunk” anyway, and breaks the “joe’s heart. You couldn’t help but feel terrible for the guy. But that isn’t the real stupid part.

The woman and the hunk go off on a 4 day trip to get to better know each other. It’s going great. Then on the last day she has a big “secret” that she has to let him know. They have been playing up this secret for weeks. So she exposes it. She dated Fabio. Ok great, big deal, who cares? Right? Wrong! For some reason this sets the hunk into a tizzy. He calls the whole thing off. Follow Fabio? Outrageous!!! It made no sense. A very silly ending to a silly show. One less show to watch, GOOD.

Friday night I packed the truck to the gills with unwanted items we have collected from around our house. I wanted to have it ready to go so we could roll out Saturday morning no later than 6:30 am.

Saturday morning I popped up, ready to have a prosperous day selling stuff to people that already had too much of it. It was quite chilly, the thermometer read 46. To make it worse, it was quite breezy on top of it, making it feel even colder. Cold weather and flea markets are not a good mix. When I got there there were only a few stands, a far cry from the 15 the lady mentioned to me on the phone. We had a total of 8 stands. All the vendors were freezing their asses off. We wound up retreating to the truck, only coming out if we spotted a patron heading towards our stand. We had an impressive display, 90% of our stuff was a buck or less. We had great deals. Unfortunately, traffic to the sale SUCKED. One car here, 2 there, in total if 50 people stopped by the entire time we were lucky. As I forecast, I sent Ali home shortly after the initial setup so I ran the show myself. As the norm, the people that were also selling there were the biggest buyers. Not one haitian showed up and only a handful of mexicans. Mostly older white people were the prime clients. Even with the cold and light traffic, I managed to get rid of around half of our stuff. At the end I was throwing stuff in for free if they bought something else, it was comical. After we paid out the fee for renting the space, we had cleared 28 bucks. HHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh well. Less junk.

I have been going back and forth with this local guy that was selling the Vette for a few weeks. After I made my offer on Friday, we got a call back on Saturday with a counter offer. We were about 500 apart. I initially decided to just let my offer stand and if the guy had the car another week he would probably cave to my demands. I thought about it awhile. Sunday afternoon I called back and made one last offer, splitting the difference, DEAL! SWEET! Today the seller’s wife stopped by and dropped off the title, I paid her. I will do the title and plate work here today and pick it up on the way home. I’m excited. It’s a bit daunting imagining what I need to fix on it but I have lots of time to do so. Sunday night I gutted the garage, took out the measuring tape and then rearranged in a manner that I am HOPING will allow us to put two cars in there, crossing my fingers. The Buick has finally been replaced.

I remember walking the boardwalk as a kid and seeing those tshirts in the stores. Remember the cartoon images of a muscled up vette? I think I may have even owned such a shirt. Well last night I actually got the chance to stop and drive the Vette I have been eyeing up. The car needs a lot of TLC. It has some big warts. It was left out in the deluge of rain that we got on Wednesday. The weatherstripping along the removeable top is deteriorated and as a result leaks badly. As a result, the floor was a wet mess. I asked to drive it and the guy warned me about the soppy conditions, I didn’t really care. I hopped in and fired it up. It came to life with a grumbly roar and then shuts off. I repeat the cycle a few times, the guy tells me how it is rough until it warms up. I quickly got the hang of working the brake and gas to keep it going while it went through the warm up phase.

Driving a vette is different. You are nestled in like the cockpit of a plane. These model years have the digital dash and a couple dozen switch’s and buttons everywhere. (which I love) Out on the road I took it easy, only stepping on the throttle mildly, but even so it was impressive. It has power to boot and just sounds grumpy and mean. At the stop light I could detect another wart, the front brakes pulsate badly, going to probably take front discs. I had it out maybe 10 minutes total. It did run better once it heated up a little. During the drive the owner was talking pretty much non-stop. Some things related to the car but mostly not. I pretty much tuned him out while I tried to get a feel for the car.

I pulled back into his driveway and did more inspections. The car is going to take the weather stripping, brakes, new rugs, new center console cover as well as many miscellaneous parts, mostly small. The motor runs ok but the rough behavior when cold probably is a result of other things that could use maintenance. I had him remove the glass top which turns the car into an open roofed cruiser. Again I was I was doing my walk around, the guy was chattering incessantly. If I didn’t know better I would peg him as a car salesman. He reminds me of some of the guys I worked with when I was in the profession. I showed the owner some information I printed off the internet that pegged the value of the car significantly lower than what he was trying to sell the car for. It sobered him up a bit and slowed down the flow of words.

I left it that I wanted to do some more research and I would get back to him. Today I got some more answers I was looking for and called and left a message with his wife with an official offer. It is a lowball offer, some 2500 bucks lower than what he was asking when I first talked to him. However, all things considered it more than fair offer, whether he realizes it or not. So, maybe I’ll join the Vette club this weekend, maybe I won’t. But if he balks at the offer, at least I think can finally put it to rest in my mind. If he accepts, cool, I got a car that is rough now, but could be a sweet ride with a little sweat work.

I just called into domestic animal services. Evidently the puppy’s owner claimed her yesterday. That is somewhat bittersweet for me. I’m glad she is back home but I question what kind of home it is. If she manages to escape again and find her way to our place there will be no round two of this. It is a relief to have one less thing to think about. Now I can debate more about the vette. 🙂 The price on the one I have been eyeing has dropped, the owner or more specifically the owner’s wife really wants it sold, so it may parlay into a decent deal.

This saturday at 6am, I will be at the county fairgrounds setting up a stand at the flea market. Flea markets are always a mixed bag for me. It’s exciting to snag a bargain on something that a seller just wants to unload but the overwhelming majority of flea market attendees are not exactly the type of crowd I fancy hanging with. So I am preparing for a day of haggling with Haitians, trying to speak broken spanish with mexicans and having a more or less frustrating day. Ali hates the environment. So much so that she will probably help me set up and then head home to do stuff. I don’t mind really because having her be there, frustrated isn’t a good thing anyway. What drives me nuts are the hagglers that no matter what the price is, want it for less. A 5 cent item they will ask for 2 cents and a stick of gum. However, we have a bunch of stuff to get rid of as part of our simplify and get rid of junk campaign so it is a necessary evil. I always price stuff real cheap at such events because I am there to get rid of stuff first, make money second. I find having EVERYTHING labeled with a price and having it all out in plain view is key to a successful flea market stand. Most people don’t want to rummage through a box or ask you what the price is for something (at least I know I don’t for sure) My fortune awaits…..

I am an avid Stern show listener. This morning I read that clear channel has taken him off of 6 markets because of inappropriate content. This ridiculous witchhunt has gone too far. Evidently the exposure of JJ’s boob was the final straw as far as the conservative right was concerned. They are now over reacting to anything that is deemed inappropriate outside the viewpoint of bible thumping conservatives. More Bush led BS.

If someone is offended by Stern’s show or by any program that is on radio or tv the answer is blatantly obvious, CHANGE THE STATION! I don’t need government dictating what is appropriate for me to view or listen to. It’s really getting out of control.

THEN I follow up reading the story about Greenspan recommending that social security benefits be cut to address the deficit that is largely in part to the decisions made by the Bush administration. Instead of correcting the reasons the deficit is huge, why not cut benefits to retiring people that have paid into the system their entire working lives? It’s like fighting a fire by throwing gas on it. Like paying one credit card with another. It doesn’t address the real problem. Those tax rebates were ridiculous. The couple hundred bucks we got back meant nothing to me, but they helped push us into the current financial blackhole that exists.

I can’t imagine where this country will be if Bush gets propped up for another 4 years. He must go.

I had another one of those bite your toungue when you shouldn’t have moments. My wife’s watch had a dead battery. It has one of those press seal backs so I couldn’t replace it myself. In the past I have taken our watches to this place at the mall run by some immigrant that always did it for us quick and cheap. Unfortunately it appeared that his store was no longer there. As I wandered around I saw one of those stands in the middle of the hall that sold watches and advertised battery replacements.

Running this booth was a balding, short, middle aged man. I politely asked him “Can you replace the battery in this watch for me?” The reason I worded it that way was because it was fossil watch which wasn’t something they sold there, I just wanted to verify they could do it. He responded (paraphrasing) about how they spent hundreds of dollars on the signs advertising battery replacement for nothing. Of course he can replace it. He said this while smiling. In that split second I had to instantly analyze if this guy was just making a joke or being a genuine smart ass. By the time I decided he was being a smart ass he was already into the watch. Now the choice was to just shut up or expose his remark. I decided it wasn’t worth it. The guy was probably bitter about having a career as a mall watch stand tender. However, it is sticking in my craw. Even as I walked out of the mall I was debating if I should call him out. Even if he thought my question was ignorant, I am presenting him business as a customer, therefore it becomes a mute point. This sort of stuff drives me crazy. I should have asked for the watch back immediately and made a scene. Instead I did the “logical” thing. Damn it is a hard habit to break…

A constituitional amendment to ban gay marriage? You have to be joking. What role does government have in individual relationships? If 2 gay guys or women get married, how does it adversely affect society? I could care less. To attempt to mandate such a thing from a federal level is outrageous to me. So many other things to worry about that actaully affect our citizens and GW decides this is his focus between trips to the ranch. I can only hope this fuels the momentum behind getting him out of there.

Today we are getting absolutely dumped on. It may be some of the hardest rain I have ever seen. It wouldn’t be that noteable except that it is February which is normally very much a dry time of year. A look out the window and you would think everything was under a waterfall.

Being permanently sleepy is starting to become a state of being for me. I have had a very hard time getting a solid night’s rest recently. Last night I was awakened at 4am by the sound of the cat throwing up by our bedroom door. I certainly wasn’t going to get up at that moment and clean it up. Just as I managed to fall back asleep, the cat jumps on the bed and wakes me up again. In one instinctive move I grab the cat and fling it off the bed. I then jump out of bed and chase the damn thing out of the room. The quick adrenalin burst keeps me from falling back asleep until just before the alarm sounds at 5:45. Yawn……

Here are the 3 pictures I took of the puppy. 1 2 3

I went back to volleyball after a 3 week hiatus due to my shoulder killing me after the last experience. Overall I played subpar to average at best. My shoulder hurt but not as severely as before. I had one hit that was in rhythm that made the night worth it to me. I hit it in stride, in front of me, hard, with full extension. It was one of those bang bang hits that gives me the most satisfaction. It was good to be able to still do it. But if a set is off or I try to hit a ball that is behind me the slightest bit, I can’t do shit with it but tap it over. I never have been a great sixes player. It doesn’t make much sense, you would think playing with 6 on a side would be much easier than just 2 on a side but it doesn’t work out that way for me.

I never thought I would hear this combonation of words used in a commercial jingle but the good folks at Pepto Bismal have proven me wrong. It goes something like this “Nausea, heart burn, upset stomach, diarhea, indigestion HEY PEPTO BISMAL” Catchy, huh?

I loved this bit on last year’s MTV music awards!