Moving, DBC, Bricks, Brakes

So I told Ali I would try to help her move on Saturday.  I was unsure how my ab pain would be by then.  Luckily the pain seems to now be present only if I press on the area above my belly button.  I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing.  Also the closing on the new place did not come through, meaning we would be doing a half move, from Ali’s apartment into the back of the moving truck, a less than ideal scenario for sure.  I also brought the dogs out to the house so they could stay there while Ali’s living arrangements are in limbo.

I picked up Ali so we could go grab the moving truck.  I told her I could drive it since I have long straight body truck experience.  The 17 foot U-haul truck wasn’t huge but hopefully big enough to get the job done.

When we got back none of the recruited help was there yet so Ali and I started moving the dozens of boxes down into the garage, making room for the big furniture items to get moved out.  Some of the additional people showed up so we got busy.  I wanted to get the sleeper sofa out of there first as it is probably the biggest and heaviest item there was to deal with. Once that was out of the way I figured it would be downhill.  Getting the sofa out was a challenge but successful.

The crew we had there worked diligently for maybe 90 minutes getting all of the furniture items out of the apartment and into the back of the truck.  Once they finished up everyone enjoyed the coffee, donuts and bagels Ali bought before they headed out.  There was still a lot of little items scattered about but that wasn’t the type of thing they could help much with so they headed out.

I could tell Ali was feeling burned out from the process so I tried to come up with a plan to get things to more manageable state.  First we totally cleaned out her office so she could sweep it out.  We then moved the bed pad and topping to the office so she could use it as crude sleeping quarters temporarily. We then cleaned out the master bedroom so that could get swept out as well.  We moved pretty much everything besides the clothes and shoes in her closet to the landing area by the steps.

Christy showed up and helped Ali sort and box up some of the remaining loose items.  My job was to take all of these completed boxes and storage containers and fit them into the truck Tetris style, trying to get as much in while keeping the load as stable as possible.  By the time the last box was in place the truck was pretty much filled floor to ceiling, front to back.  There are still things in the apartment that need to come out but it’s pretty minor compared to where we started.

The game plan now was to leave her stuff in the truck and as soon as the bank is ready to close on the new place, try to get her moved that evening.  The problem is there is no firm date for that to happen, quite annoying considering Ali was originally told her closing date would be 4/15.  I left her place around 2PM.  Ali was very thankful for my help.  It was a lot of work to be sure but I’ll be glad to see Ali established in her own place and don’t mind helping her get there.

Saturday evening I was quite beat as you can imagine.  Cindy and I stayed in.  She made a great dinner which included eggplant that came from the garden.  She is very good at improvising meals.  We watched Dallas Buyers Club Saturday night, the movie Matt McMconaughey won an Oscar for.  Wow his frail, gaunt appearance in the movie was very disturbing but lent credibility in his portrayal as a man with AIDS.  The movie was very well done and shined a light on the lunacy of medicine in the United States.  I’d give it a solid A.

Sunday morning, despite busting ass the day before, was designated to be a training brick.  Cindy and I headed to the waterpark to do a bike/swim brick.  We had done neither training discipline in quite a long time, 4-5 weeks at least.  The bike ride was difficult with the typical headwind when riding south but we maintained an average of 18.7 mph which isn’t bad at all.

I was worried that the swimming movement would aggravate my abdominal thing but I was able to get 1200 yards without feeling pain.  I was surprised I was able to keep my 400 yard segments under 9 minutes.  In fact I did a negative split for all three legs. (8:55, 8:40, 8:35) On the way home we grabbed some well deserved DD coffee as well as making a few other stops.  The girls greeted us like we had been gone for weeks of course.

My Sunday afternoon was mostly consumed by another Tacoma maintenance project. redoing the front brakes/rotors.  The brakes on the truck have been pulsating pretty badly for quite awhile.  I ordered the parts online from Autozone last week.  I went this route instead of simply going to the store to score two $25 AZ gift cards which I still have not located.

I had replaced the rotors on the Tacoma several years ago so I didn’t bother doing any refresh on how to do it, I figured it would come back to me, which it pretty much did, however it didn’t take long until I had my first issue.  The brake pads that AutoZone sent me were the wrong ones.  My Tacoma is the Pre-Runner variety which has upgraded brakes with different pads.  So I had to waste 90 minutes running to AutoZone to return what was sent to me and get the right type.

Doing the actual work wasn’t too bad.  I did take the pins that the brake pads slide on and throw them in the vice.  I used a paint stripper attachment in my drill to remove caked on gunk from the pins that was surely making the old pads get hung up, probably contributing to the old rotors getting warped.

While I had the hood up I did a partial brake fluid swap, sucking out the reservoir of the coffee colored brake fluid with a turkey baster and refilling it with fresh synthetic fluid.  I also replaced the air box for the second time in roughly a year.  The replacement air box I installed a year ago broke in exactly the same manner as the OEM box it replaced.  This time I bought the new airbox from AutoZone so I am hoping it holds up better than the first one which came from Ebay.

When I road tested the Tacoma the brakes felt smooth and strong, just as I hoped.  Feel free to spend 13 minutes of your life watching how I did it.

This morning I had a good report from my dentist.  Unlike the rest of my body, my teeth seem to be the one thing that has actually gotten better with age.