Tacoma tires turn into tie rods, FF 6, Tech toaster, first 6, 300 x 76, Plastered at the picnic

So on Friday I decided I was tired of farting around regarding the Tacoma tire situation.  I had spent a couple weeks scouring both new tire prices and Craigslist ads, looking for a cost efficient way to get new rubber on the truck without spending an arm and a leg.  I had mentioned last week I had a goal of getting it all done for less than $600.

Well it became pretty obvious I was not going to be able to hit that goal.  So Friday afternoon I called my local Tuffy, the place that handled my SSR tire problem last year for free.  I figured I may as well give them my business as a thank you.  I called them up and got a quote of $674 out the door for a set of General Grabbers, a nice looking, raised white letter tire.

So it is a little more than I was looking to spend but at least it would be done.  The garage ordered the tires.  I told them I would be in first thing Saturday morning to have them installed, good deal.

So I roll into the garage a little after 8 am and see Brad, the manager I dealt with before.  Brad is a bit of an enigma.  His demeanor is very subdued and you would almost get the first impression that he was annoyed to be even speaking to you. However despite his somewhat unfriendly outward appearance, he does try to take care of customer needs.

So I handed over the keys and took a seat in the lobby.  I had a conversation with Brad and another customer in the waiting room about how things used to be in Collier county and how much things have changed in the last 20 years.  The convo went much along the lines of what Mitch told me the week before with stories of drugs, gangs and crime being the norm.

So the mechanic that was working on the Tacoma came in and talked to Brad.  Brad tells me that the driver side tie rod is bad, allowing lots of back and forth movement.  Replacing the rod and doing the required alignment afterwards was going to tack another $200 onto the bill.  Well I knew I had little choice, you don’t want to throw new tires on a loose front end.  Brad said they could get the part in less than an hour.  I told him to go ahead and do the repair.

Well the tie rod and alignment of course meant I was spending more time waiting.  I didn’t get out of there until 10:30.  By that time I was quite tired of waiting but glad to have the work finished.  I hopped in the truck and headed home.

Well almost immediately I noticed an odd noise once the truck got over 40 mph, it was like a droning sound.  At first I thought it could possibly be the little rubber nipples that are on new tires however it didn’t make any sense that it would be that loud and that the noise would come and go.  Instead of turning around and going right back to the garage I went home, I had stuff I wanted to get done around the house before it got too damn hot.

I did call Brad when I got home and told him about the noise.  He told me to bring it back in and they would look/listen to it.  I told him I would stop back later in the afternoon after I got some work done.

I got my work done and drove back to the garage, still hearing the noise, and frustrated that I had yet another vehicle issue to address.  When I got there the mechanic that worked on my truck went for a drive with me.  He clearly heard the noise and agreed it was coming from the left side.  I described the noise as sounding like something was rubbing or similar to how it sounds when you drive over rumble strips except the noise fades in and out.

When we got back to the garage he put the truck up on the lift.  He called me out several minutes later and handed me his amplified automotive stethoscope.  He had me hold it against the back of the driver side rear wheel as he spun it.  I heard what sounded like the brake shoes lightly rubbing against the drum, he told me what I was hearing was the wheel bearing.

I immediately questioned the diagnosis.  I told him that before the tire/tie rod replacement I never heard the noise.  I assured them I was pretty in tune with what noises my truck makes after all this time.  It made very little sense to me that changing the tires, a tie rod and an alignment would have caused the rear wheel bearing to fail, yet the noise did sound like it.

Replacing a wheel bearing is nothing I am equipped to do and it is a part that is only available from a dealer, meaning it was not going to get addressed on Saturday afternoon.  I am going to be getting a quote on the repair later today and am going to have to make arrangements to get the truck there sometime this week.  I am hoping it isn’t too steep, my total expense could reach double what I was looking to spend originally, fantastic.

Saturday night before going to the movies I was an inadvertent accessory to fatally maiming an anole,  it somehow got itself wedged under a sticky sliding glass door I was trying to pull shut.  I felt absolutely horrid when I looked down and saw it’s small tail frantically thrashing.  I lifted up the door off the track and got the poor guy out.  He was still alive but the damage was done, the 3/4 of his limbs were wrecked and the skin on his back was torn back.

I immediately felt a heavy wave of sorrow hit me as I picked up the little lizard in my hand.  I took him outside, thinking he would prefer to die peacefully outdoors under a plant or tree.  However when I tried to put him down he acted like he preferred the warmth of my hand.  I realized that in his condition he was likely to be attacked by ants or other insects while he was still alive and unable to do anything about it.   That certainly wasn’t what I wanted to happen.

So as I held him in my hand I lightly rubbed his tiny head with my fingertip, wondering what I was going to do, I was already late to leave to go to the movies.  So I did the only logical thing, took him along to the movies.  I knew he wasn’t going to last long but I thought the least I could do was let him die with company instead of alone since I was responsible for his fatal injuries.  By the time I got to the movie theater he was almost completely faded away.  When the movie was over he was gone for good.  I felt really bad about the whole ordeal.  When I got home the little guy was buried in the garden even though it was pushing 11:30 at night.  Sorry buddy…

Speaking of the movies, I saw Fast and Furious 6.  You would think a movie with 6 sequels would be rather long in the tooth.  Well the FF series seems to buck that trend.  This was not only a pure action film, it was old school, relying on honest to goodness car chases, explosions and fight scenes that were real and not CGI creations.   I can only imagine the budget involved with destroying that many things.

The Rock  is f’ing huge.  He looks like he washes down his Revita-T with steroid milkshakes.  The guy is just a monster, tons bigger than his days a s a WWE wrestler.

The movie was just fun.  Yea the plot is predictable but with a movie like this you really don’t care.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself from start to finish.  Maybe the most amazing thing is they are clearly making a 7th installment, and you know what, I will go see that one too.  It gets a solid A from me as long as you are just looking for brainless entertainment on a grand scale.  If you are looking to boost your IQ, look elsewhere.

You may recall I had this dumb idea to replace my dishwasher with a higher tech version for no good reason.  Well the higher than expected Tacoma repair charges did a good job of derailing that idea.  I did make a tech appliance purchase this weekend though, a toaster.

A toaster, much like my dishwasher is an appliance that sees a lot of usage in the house.  This particular toaster injects some fun tech into the process.  It has no traditional lever to drop the bread.  Instead you place the bread in the slot, hit a button and it is lowered into the toaster.  The unit has a LCD screen where various info is displayed, including a count down till your toast is done.  It looks super cool, at least as cool as a toaster can be.

The purchase satisfied my gadget itch without putting a major dent in my wallet like a dishwasher potentially could have, a good compromise.

On Sunday I did another training brick, this time just a run and swim.  Since I omitted biking I felt like I should stretch the run, doing 6 miles instead of 4.  This was the first time I have run 6 miles since doing 16 with Tracy what felt like eons ago.  It almost wound up being another 4 miler.

As I was coming close to completing lap two of the two mile loop I was in the midst of heavy internal conversations.  One voice was really interested in stopping at 4 miles, I just was not feeling great. Stopping short was sounding really good.  However thankfully the “don’t be a pussy” voice was louder and pushed me into lap 3.  Despite feeling pretty shitty the entire run I averaged slightly over a 9 minute mile pace which isn’t terrible for me.

In the pool I stretched things as well, doing three 500 yard segments instead of the 400’s I normally break my swim into.  I was quite pooped by the end of it all.

I picked up the dogs on the way back to the house.  They had fun hanging there as always as I worked on various things around the homestead.  They both just seem so happy when they get to run around (fast walk for Nicki) the yard with no tether.

My Memorial Day started early as it has the past few years due to timing a race.  For awhile it was just Bill, who drives the running club supply truck, and myself.  We seem to be the only two that are on site two hours before a race consistently.  Bill was actually there far earlier, having to do some last minute changes to the course due to a large soccer tournament that was going on at the same time.

The race wasn’t all that big with around 300 entries.  Timing the event went very well with no major issues at all.  It almost felt relaxing compared to some races I have been part of.

I had a bit of downtime early Monday afternoon so I thought I would fill it with a physical challenge.  I targeted the big 300 pound tire in my backyard as my exercise, specifically flipping it.  I have done some flipping of the tire before, it was tough.  For the holiday I wanted to push the envelope, flipping it from the parallel bars to the fence line and back, somewhere close to 500 feet in total.

Before the attempt I applied one of the temporary Bud Light Platinum tattoos that Ali gave me awhile back.  For some reason it felt appropriate.

As expected, flipping the heavy tire that far was pretty brutal.  It didn’t help that my knees both felt shaky from the run the day before and that my forearms were still feeling mildly irritated.  None of it mattered though, I was going to get the tire to the fence and back if it killed me.  It probably took me close to 15 minutes but I completed the challenge, sucking wind majorly by the end. On the return trip I tried to count the number of tire flips, I think it was 38 flips meaning for the round trip I probably flipped the big ass tire somewhere between 75-80 times.

Late Monday afternoon was the GCR Memorial Day picnic.  On the way there I drove through torrential downpours, I was hoping that the picnic would have different weather conditions since it was located much further south and on the coast.  For the most part, it was.

There was a period of 45 minutes where it rained quite hard.  I stood over the grill with a big umbrella, trying to keep our grill master Dave dry as he cooked the burgers and hot dogs.  There was a great spread of food this year once again.  Unfortunately we also were once again plagued with a large amount of flies trying to get their fair share.

Although the food was great, I actually had very little of it besides a small veggie burger and some healthy pasta salad.  Most of my consumption was the alcohol variety.  I didn’t keep an accurate count but I think I downed something like 5 BLP’s, an equal amount of Miller Lites and a couple jello shots to boot.

I was drunk, really drunk.  At one point I was trying to bump a volleyball around and was physically unable to do so, shanking nearly every ball towards the water.  Much like last year, I was one of the few that basically closed out the picnic sticking around till the very end.  All I can say is thank goodness Cindy, the woman I am dating, knows how to drive stick.  Otherwise I may have still been sitting there in the SSR waiting to sober up.  It was a fun time for sure.  I am still feeling the side effects though.