Archives 2004

Gnome has been bitchin so I thought I would drop a quick entry in. When you live in a hole in the ground like a gnome does there isn’t much else to look forward to.

I have been more or less healthy for at least 6 months, maybe more. During that time my wife has come down with sickness after sickness. Wouldn’t you know it, last night 2 days before I am playing in my first meaningful volleyball action in almost a year, I start feeling sick. I have that feeling you get in your throat before illness and I feel weak and tired. Just perfect. I’m hoping for a miracle recovery between now and tomorrow at 9am.

Shi-Ann got the boot last night on Survivor, eliminating me from the Survivor pool I am in. Adios to my shot at 350 bucks!!

Simon had a classic line the other night comparing John Stevens singing latin music to putting chocolate ice cream and onions together….

Bloggin has been slim, I have had some projects underway that will keep me busy for a bit.

I haven’t made any blog comments regarding this season’s American Idol although I have been watching it faithfully. However since we are down to 6, I thought I would offer up my opinions on each.

Diana Dewhatever – she sings well, she is very young, it annoys me that they always flash to her butterball mother during the performance. Diana is only 16 and already looks like she is a only a few twinkies away from joining mom in porkertude. She doesn’t have anything that would make me want to hear her over anyone else.

Fantasia – a natural performer, highest energy of the group, however most of her songs sound the same to me, really found it annoying the other week when they brought her kid on the stage right after she sang, seemed almost like a ploy to draw votes (which backfired as she was in bottom 3)

The Hawaiin girl – She is another good singer but she seems to have a hard time getting through an entire song without hitting a few rough spots. She looks better since she stopped putting the flower in her hair every week. However I don’t think there is anything unique enough to let her win

Latoya – I think she is the best in the group, she sings great, looks good and dances well. However I will be surprised if she wins because I don’t think she has huge support because she doesn’t have any “quirks”

George – George is Alison’s favorite. His personality is his best trait. He sounds great if he sings a song tailored to his voice. His recent performances have been less than spectacular. I don’t think he will win.

John Stevens – I pity this kid. Although he has definitely made an effort to display more personality as the show has progressed he just is overmatched. His voice is tailored for doing Christmas albums, nothing else. He should drop out and get right to work on his Xmas compilations. He seems like a great kid but he just can’t sing pop songs with that voice. He’s the next Johnny Mathis.

There ya go for all those that follow AI, let me know your thoughts. If I had to pick a winner at this point I would imagine it would have to come down to Fantasia or Latoya, however the recent voting says otherwise.

This weekend I kick off my 2004 volleyball season with a tournament in Siesta Keys with a guy I never met before who lives on the east coast of Florida. I met him on a volleyball message board and we agreed to give it a go. Rich, my preferred partner for the past 10 years or so has more or less retired from serious volleyball. So I hope things go well this weekend so I have someone to play a few tournaments with down here. It is tougher and tougher each year to find the time and motivation to play but everytime I do I wind up being happy I did so I will continue on as long as I can. Physically I am holding up better than I have in many years so maybe I can actually do a few more touraments this year instead of steadily decreasing my number of tournaments like what has happened the past 5 years. Forecast is for the upper 80’s and muggy. Whew…..

I swear, 80% of the time I look at the Reading forecast it is rain, it’s become east coast Seattle.

Wow almost 3000 hits on the blog, only 97,000 to go till I hit my goal.

This weekend was not very relaxing for me. I felt overwhelmed all weekend. I had a list of stuff to get done and didn’t do it all. I spent way too much time making an impossibly long list of things that I would like to address and then being frustrated by the inability to do it all. I don’t think the upkeep on the house is anything greater than when we first moved into it but it sure feels that way. When I feel overwhelmed and that I don’t have things firmly in control, I get real down. I can’t mask it, can’t push it away, I just clam up and think about how it sucks.

When I lived at home I aspired to live on my own. When I lived in the townhouse in Wernersville, I aspired to live in a single family home, detached from immediate neighbors. Now that I have been in a single family home for going on 3 years, I am thinking a house with minimal or zero maintenance is ideal. What I want seems to be a moving target and even when you hit that target it only seems to give temporary satisfaction. At this point I am trying to find some angle that I can get my moods elevated and devise a way to satisfy the home maintenance issues without driving myself insane.

On an up note, Sunday we took Nicki back to the dog beach. Unlike the first time when she was extremely timid and afraid to go in the water, this time she was much more open and was in the water with us constantly. It was really funny to see her walk and eventually swim for the first time in the gulf. She was running back and forth in the water after a little while and seemed to have a great time. The rest of the day she was passed out cold from being so tired. By the time we left, the dry area on the beach was next to nothing, it must have been high tide. We came back from a trip in the water to soaked blanket and a beach bag that was “marked” by an over zealous canine. We will take her back on a regular basis. It is a good, fun, free entertainment, something we can use right now.

This week the wheel started to very slowly move in the direction of us selling our place. On Tuesday after a long day we were on our way home and ran into a huge backup. It was creeping along. After a few minutes realizing this was going to be a long delay, I swung a u-turn to go the only other way there is to get to our place, although it is significantly longer, at least we would be moving. WRONG. On that road traffic was snarled due to a head on collision where both vehicles were destroyed and incinerated. It took us over an hour and a half to get home. During that time I turned to Ali and expressed how “Sometimes, I really HATE where we live” It’s true. Although I love our house, I love the normally quiet neighborhood I hate the commute. I hate sitting in traffic every damn morning, I hate spending over an hour to go 23 miles. The roads in our area are the most dangerous in the county. They are 2 lane roads with no medians with vehicles going in excess of 60 mph. People get frustrated and do dangerous manuevers like swinging out into oncoming traffic in attempts to pass a slow vehicle. All it takes is one maniac, one drunk, sleepy or distracted driver to cross over the line and take you out in flash before you can even react. All these things have been pushing me along for quite awhile towards ideas about relocation. We spend 40 hours a month commuting for cripes sake. So I got a rough idea of value of houses in our area. The downside is although our property has appreciated greatly in the 3 years we have been there, so has everything else so even if we clear a big chunk of change in the sale, chances are we will be lucky to move anywhere and keep a similar mortgage. So who knows what will go down, I just know I am thinking about the possibility more and more. The idea of living in a development where there is little to zero maintenance and is close to my workplace is sounding like where I want to be.

This weekend Alison has to work Saturday. I have yet to be able to time it that on days she has to work on a weekend I can just be a bum and enjoy myself. Instead I have a plate full of stuff I would like to do. I need to clean, mow, pickup, trim and even go over to my mom’s place to do a landscape project I have been putting off for too long. I just can’t get off that treadmill.

Today we Naples folk had a brush with the president. He was in town for a 25,000 DOLLAR a plate fundraiser among other things. However his motorcade went right by the building where I work. All traffic in the area was blocked and it looked like an impromptu parade. A lot of people standing by the street hoping to catch a glimpse. Needless to say with my views of his administration I wasn’t one of them. However I did wonder how it would be received to be standing out there and then suddenly shooting the moon as the prez rolled by. Of course I could never do such a thing in real life but damn would it be sweet. Some of the women in our office were out there and came back inside near hysterical because they SAW him and HE WAVED to them!!! Oh my.

To me the true definition of a hero is through actions not words. I was shocked to hear that Pat Tillman was killed on duty in Afghanistan. For those not sports oriented, he was a pro bowl caliber defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals. After 9/11 he walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army. Not a cushy job either, a ranger. I can not fathom the conviction this man had. He had what would be my dream situation, a successful pro athlete and he turned his back on it to serve the country. Although his bravery was no greater than everyone else’s that joins the service, the situation he left to display that bravery is incredible. And now he is gone. I can only aspire to be the type of person that he was. He didn’t go out and buy a flag to hang from the window of his car like most of us. He gave up a dream job that would have set him up for the rest of his life and now at 27 it’s over before it began, very, very sad.

Today I went to the gym over lunch, like most other days. I was doing dumbell pullovers when a petite woman who I would shortly found out was 44 started up a conversation.

She said something about working out and how she wasn’t young like me. I said I don’t feel that young which in turn lead to her telling me her age and I told her mine. She then made a comment about “At least you don’t have a debilitating disease…” Then in the next 10 minutes or so I found out the following background from this woman, without me making any effort to extract any information from her.

She has MS, had it for 14 years
She takes 4 types of medicine a day it costs 1000 a month, she is lucky she is with a rich man
She used to be an athlete, could run 5 minute miles
She was an artist, she made a lot of money with her art, she can’t do her art anymore because of the MS
Got married once when she was 16, divorced at 20, married again at 26 divorced at 30, currently in a 16 year relationship with a man but is not married.
The man she is married to is 60
She has a 10 year old son
Her son is “good looking like you” (me)
Her boyfriend is filty rich, he owns 6 McDonald’s, they have 2 Rolls Royce’s, A Ferrari and an Avalanche to name a few of their vehicles. They also own many houses.
She has a 6’8″ 300 lb nephew that went to an all black school to play football even though he never played football before.
In their home up north they have a smaller house in front of their bigger house. She said that will be her son’s “get lucky” house when he is older.
She used to do fox hunts
She can no longer drive, she got to the gym on a push scooter.
She tries to stay in shape, she think she doesn’t look too bad for her age
She was smart and had a kid with her boyfriend
She said since she isn’t married she can cheat as long as she doesn’t get caught.

I am not exagerrating and there are probably a few things I missed. All the time she is talking I am trying to continue with my workout without being rude. I am doing my sets and she just keeps talking away. Plus she was loud so everyone in the immediate area could hear what she was saying. In a nutshell, I got the impression she was looking for me to volunteer to be her boytoy. Since I had my lifting gloves on she could not see my wedding ring. Finally I got away because I had to go work another bodypart. She went to the lockerroom and then came back out and tried to start up again but I only minimally engaged her and continued on my workout. It was funny as hell. The one guy that was nearby could not believe the stuff she was saying. I’ve never been solicited at the gym before. I felt bad for the lady because she has MS but never expected her to go where she did. Crazy.

Our weekend was planned out, go to Daytona, do the timeshare thing early Saturday morning, go to the Kennedy Space Center, come back Sunday. A nice little trip that shouldn’t cost a lot of dough. None of it happened.

We were on our way up to Daytona on Saturday when we realized that due to traffic we would not get there by 3pm as we were supposed to. So we called the resort to let them know we would be a bit late. Sorry, they are having Black College Reunion week in Daytona, the streets are closed and there are no rooms available, call your agent that booked it. What????????? Ali called the travel agent, they said they just found out about it that morning and had tried to call us. We we didn’t leave until 10 am and there was no message left on the machine, but yea ok, you tried to call us. So now what? They said they would find us another place to stay around Orlando. They called back and redirected us to a place called Celebration World Resort. No additional costs but we still had to sit through their timeshare presentation. We found the place and unloaded, then thought about what our new plan should be. We came up with, let’s go to Universal Saturday after the presentation and then Sunday go to the Kennedy Space Center. So we still had some time to kill on Friday so Ali suggested we go find downtown Disney since we didn’t get to see it the last time we went up to Orlando in December. We stopped at one of those tourist info/ ticket agent places that you see every few hundred yards in the Disney area to ask how to get to DD. While there I asked the lady how much the Universal tickets cost. 58 a piece but hey, if you want to sit through a timeshare presentation, you can get 2 tickets for 45 bucks!! Another one??? Hmmm I thought about it for a second and figured it was worth 60 bucks to me to sit through another sales pitch. So now our Saturday had TWO timeshare pitches on the schedule!

We found our way to Downtown Disney. In typical Disney fashion it was grandiose, beautiful and CROWDED! The first thing Ali saw there was that Cirque del Soliel runs a nightly show there, she loves Cirque del Soleil. She wanted to find out info. They had no ticket prices posted so that was an immediate red flag for me. Then I watched in horror as a gentleman paid over 400 dollars for tickets but I wasn’t sure how many he bought. We eventually found out the tickets started at 70 bucks for the bad seats and went up. OUCH. I was able to negotiate with Ali that the next time we come up we can schedule to go to a show and that dropping 150 bucks out of the gate like this would not be a good way to start our supposed inexpensive weekend. We saw the sights, went into stores and took in a great meal at the Rain Forest Cafe. It was a jungle type atmosphere inside complete with a jungle canopy, animals, fish tanks and even a pretend thunderstorm every half hour. We didn’t get back to the room until around 10:30. We were quite tired and had to be at our first timeshare presentation by 7:15 so we had to hit the sack.

After a restless nights sleep I got up unwillingly at 6am. The first presentation was fine, very similar to the one we attended the last time we were in Orlando. The concept of the timeshare was a good one to us but money and the fact that the resort didn’t allow animals killed the idea for Ali. We collected our voucher for Universal and headed back to Celebration to attend presentation number 2. Again I figured, more of the same, blah blah, blah. Well this plan was different than the others we saw. It was a point system that allowed you a lot more flexibility than the other options we saw. In the other plans, you had a week at the resort that you could use there or you could trade to use for a week at another resort around the country or around the world. (with a small charge for the trade) With this plan, you used the points in the same manner but you also have the option to use the points to pay for other aspects of a trip like car rental and airline miles. That sparked our interest. We saw the model rooms and they were quite nice, not extravagant but brand new, well maintained and clean. Then Ali saw in the information that the resort was pet friendly. That really sparked her interest. The idea that she could bring Nicki with was very appealing to her. That idea although not as exciting to me was a selling point. Finally we got down to the dollars and cents. We opted for a plan where we get point allocations every other year. This allowed us the flexibility to take as much as 2 weeks of vacations every year while keeping the cost down. We were close to making a decision and then had to work out the final price. We negotiated it down to a number where we could simply pay it in full without financing. That was the only way we would do it. Yea, I know, timeshares, they often come with automatic negative feelings. But in our case it should more than pay for itself in 5 years. However there is no way in hell I thought there was anyway I would have signed up for one before Saturday.

All of this action on Saturday and we still didn’t even go to Universal yet. On the way to the park I was already feeling some buyer’s remorse, I think it is pretty normal to feel that way after dropping large amounts of money but still I was feeling rather down. The park was full, not packed but full. When we got there we had a decision to make. Universal has this thing call the Express pass. It is a ticket you buy in addition to the regular admission that fast tracks you on all of the ride lines. It is like Disney’s Fast Pass except you can use it on EVERY ride but only 1 time. However Disney’s setup is free, Universal’s pass costs and additional 31 DOLLARS PER TICKET. Well we decided since we got the tickets at a discount we would splurge and get the express passes. In retrospect, a wise move. We waited no longer than 15 minutes for any ride, while the “regular” people waited an hour or more. It helped us get through the park much quicker. My favorite rides were the Hulk Roller Coaster and the Spider Man simulation ride. the funniest moment of the day was when we rode the Jurrasic Park water ride, we were seated behind a man who was visibly drunk and his family. Before the ride started the attendant told the man he had to take off his hat. He drunkenly whipped it off his head and in the process forgot his expensive sunglasses were up there as well. The glasses flew into the water. The guy just shrugged his shoulders, smiled and slurred “Oh well 150 bucks, no big deal…”

By late afternoon I was feeling pretty crappy. The combination of the timeshare purchase weighing on my head, some nausea from the rides and the unrelenting hoardes of people were pulling down my mood considerably. We were going to head out but decided to walk over to NBA city and the Hard Rock. In NBA city they had hand prints of many famous players, it was fun to compare hand sizes. Kobe had one of the biggest hands there, my hand looked childlike in comparison. Surprisingly, my hand was almost the exact same size as Grant Hill’s. Inside they had some basetball games of skill, including shooting things, dribbling things and even a machine to test your vertical. I was tempted to test my vert but shyed away when I saw it was 6 bucks and knowing that if I wasn’t loose my vert would suck anyway.

Then we hit the Hard Rock, it was awesome inside, with a huge pink cadillac spinning above the bar. We weren’t going to eat anything but then decided to plop down at the bar anyway. I had a couple beers and we both ordered salads. It relaxed me a bit. The alcohol alleviated some of my ill will and we checked out a few more areas of the park until we left at about 7:30. I enjoyed Universal much more than the Magic Kingdom because it is much more geared towards adults. However I still got real sick of the crowds real fast. I asked the bartender at the Hard Rock when the slowest times are. He said May, September, November and early December, mark that down. I also don’t like the feeling when I go to the parks that I am hemmoraging money. Everything is sooooo expensive it’s just ridiculous. At the end of the day I am afraid to look in my wallet to assess the damages.

We got back to the room at a reasonable hour and relaxed. I had another restless night’s sleep. We packed up and had a very quick 3 hour trip door to door. My mom stayed at our place to watch the animals so that made it very easy for us. She was surprised about our timeshare news but I didn’t expect anything less. All of the pictures from the weekend are here. Some funny stuff in there. Also some more vette stuff is up. Our recent spending habits has made me declare a moratorium on any and all unnecessary spending. The vette will remain in it’s present state for awhile.

Some observations from the weekend:

Kids are fat. I saw countless young girls with big rolls of fat spilling out from their belly shirts and tons of young men of the same rotund build. I think more kids are fat than not anymore, a disaster in the making.

You can average 80 mph between here and Orlando with little worry of being pulled over for speeding because cars are passing you.

The average amount of time the initial excitement from entering an amusement park mutates into annoyance with the entire scene is roughly 2 hours

The idea of self service lockers where they ID you by a scan of your fingerprint sucks and does not work

Old people(like me)can’t go on rides continuously without feeling sick…….

Last night at 8:45 there was a rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center. We were able to go out in our backyard and witness it! It was pitch dark so it was very easy to spot it. With a pair of binoculars you could see the rocket in great detail. It was odd to observe the trajectory. From our vantage point it looked like the rocket ascended at about a 40 degree angle. I’m sure it has to do with the fact the KSC is some 300 miles away. Regardless, it was awesome to see. Within a couple minutes the rocket looked like just another star in the sky.

When we bought our last car, the 2003 Sentra, I was really dumb about it. Incredibly dumb if you factor in the fact that I sold cars for over a year and a half so I know about how it all works. We bought the car on a whim and basically just went in and looked to be at a certain payment amount, a cardinal mistake but I figured that the dealer wasn’t going to be able to do it. Well they did and we happily signed the papers and went on our merry way. The entire deal left a bad taste in my mouth for several reasons but this week I found one more thing to be pissed off about. On a urge I called NMAC to check the interest rate the loan was at. 7.5%!!! With today’s low rates, 7.5 was close to being highway robbery. Those son of bitches, of course I really can blame noone but myself. Well I promptly called the credit union and refinanced the car for 3.9%, saving me a couple months on the term of the loan as well as dropping my payment 25 bucks a month. Now those Nissan creeps won’t be making any financing or service dollars from me. Although I have been generally pleased with the Nissan’s I have owned over the last 5 years I won’t ever buy another new one as a result of the BS I have had to put up with from the 3 different Nissan dealers I have had to associate with.

You know when I first saw manufacturer’s putting DVD players in vehicles, I thought it was incredibly cool. Watch a DVD while in a car, how great huh? I wanted such a vehicle for a short while even though the reality that I drive 99% of the time when we go anywhere, which would mean that I would never actually be the one to watch anything. They are commonly used to pacify children. Throw in the Lion King dvd and let the kids mindlessly stare at it while mom drives to her errands. I must be getting old fashioned but something about this bugs me. Why do kids need to be entertained every waking second? Whatever happened to staring out the window, daydreaming, taking in the sights, and just wondering about stuff? I know many parents that use the TV as their baby sitter. While this is convenient, it certainly is not an ideal way to raise a kid in my opinion. I know it is odd to hear such an opinion from someone that watches more than his share of TV but I’m an adult, right? 🙂

I saw about half of GW’s news conference, that was enough. It was more of the same with the normal share of George stumbling and bumbling for answers and falling back on the old stand by’s like “Stay the course….” Wait, didn’t his dad use that line too? It was funny when he was questioned about why he and Cheyney are going to appear together in front of the 911 commission instead of separate like was requested. I joked to Ali that George would say “It’s because Dick is a much better talkerator…” The classic Bushism for the night was “…you got me under the spot.” Hey I don’t think I would be able to answer questions off the cuff in an intelligent manner either, but this is the President we are talking about here. For me, the entire event just further reenforced my desire to get rid of this guy, soon.

I found an interesting study in human behavior that I passed on to Keener. He duplicated the experiement in his work environment with staggering results. The experiment is very simple. Take the bottle of handsoap from the sink in the company lunchroom, put a sign on it that says DO NOT REMOVE, and put the soap dispenser in the fridge, yep in the FRIDGE. This is a test of common sense versus the urge to do what a sign tells us, no matter how non-sensical it is. There is no logical reason to leave soap in a refrigerator, right? Well the soap has been in there for almost a WEEK! Evidently the urge to follow a sign is greater than the implementation of common sense. Try this experiment in your workplace and report your results.

Wonder where the blog gnome has been…..

Even though I had a terrible attitude about Easter on Friday, it turned out to be a nice holiday all the same. On Saturday we had chores a plenty to get done (what else is new) Since we are going to be gone this upcoming weekend we had to knock some stuff out ahead of time. My mom is going to be house sitting for us and she loves to use the pool so I have been doing battle with some stubborn algae that keeps clouding the water. I hammered the water with enough shock to strip paint as well as replacing the main pool filter and the mineral cartridge. The water is better but not good enough, hopefully I can get it all straightened out by this weekend. Saturday night we watched the “It’s the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown” special. Although it doesn’t pack the same punch as the 3 classics (Christmas, Thanksgiving & Halloween) the Easter special is still a favorite. Unlike the others, I have probably only seen this one 2 or 3 times in my lifetime.

On Easter I hid a basket for Ali in the microwave. It was equipped with some Peanuts Easter treats as well as the customary Peeps (one of Ali’s favorites). Then instead of someone working 3 or 4 hours on a meal that will be consumed in 15 minutes, we decieded to take my mom to Carraba’s for Easter dinner. They opened at 12 and we got there shortly thereafter. I was sure it would be a mob scene but surprisingly we were able to sit right down and were out of there in less than an hour and a half. We went back to Mom’s place where she asked me to rake up some leaves from a huge tree that is dropping leaves like it was fall. She said something about they were blowing around the neighborhood and she didn’t want to be a bad neighbor or something like that. She said she couldn’t rake leaves because of her bad shoulder. Mom has a number of things wrong with her. Her method of handling her ailments doesn’t make much sense to me. She hurts herself doing something, then she is scared to do anything so she restricts her activity, her muscles get even weaker so she is more susceptible to injury, and so it continues to spiral downward. It frustrates me to see her in such shape and I have repeatedly encouraged her to do some sort of regular exercise. (along with quitting smoking) But for whatever reason she fails to do so. So I have adopted the “Can lead a horse to water…” attitude. She has to do it because she wants to, I can’t make her. Mom also has some sort of weird crusade about air conditioning. She wears the fact that she hasn’t turned her AC on yet like a badge of honor. It was 88 and humid yesterday, yet she had her windows open. She said there was a great breeze blowing through the house. Yea, a hot, humid, sweaty breeze. 🙂 Weird.

Anyways, after the leaf raking we walked down to the beach and spent some quality time there. Even though we were only there maybe an hour and a half, I was toasted. The highlight of our stay was me stepping in to try to help a young boy retrieve a kite that was at least 500 feet in the air. He was trying to reel it in and wasn’t having much luck. The string was hooked around some tree tops so it was angled low to the ground so people kept walking into the string and in the process almost falling over themselves. (the beach was very full) I thought I could save the day. Well during the 15 minute reel in process I came to learn that this kid was the 4th or 5th owner of the kite that day. Evidently some older guy put the kite up, got tired of it and then gave it to a kid. That kid got tired of it and gave it to another kid. This process evidently continued for awhile until we got to junior here. So I tried to hurriedly reel it in but quickly noticed that the kite was not breaking free of whatever it was hooked on in the tree tops. When I got it as far as I could without pulling the kite into the tree I told the kid I can either yank real hard and hope it breaks free or just leave it. He didn’t say much so I decided to pull like hell on it. The string broke but the kite remained tethered to the tree tops. Oh well, sorry kid. He still didn’t say much. I asked if he wanted the string, he shrugged and said I guess. About that time his FATHER comes up and consoles him, saying it wasnt a big deal. I am wondering to myself “Why am I the one trying to retrieve this kite for this kid when dad was right there?” Dope, help your kid.

The gulf water was pleasant, around 75 degrees. The wind was really gusty so it whipped up some waves making the beach sound more ocean like. It was relaxing to just sit back and enjoy. We hoofed it back to mom’s and headed home in the Vette.

There was some minor work on the vette done this weekend. I got my replacement shifter knob. Remeber 90 bucks new? I got one used off ebay for 18 bucks that looked brand new after some leather conditioner was applied, a nice find. I really need to get down and dirty and tackle some of the bigger issues soon. I think I need to replace the intake gasket on it, a huge job for someone with limited experience ripping apart motor components. I once replaced the intake on my 71 Chevelle but that was a hell of a lot simpler. While I have the intake off there are probably other things I should do while it is apart. I am a bit scared to do it because once I have it ripped apart , there is no return. If I mess something up it could be a real PIA to get it working correctly. So many bolts, brackets and other parts have to come out to get it off. I also need to replace the transmission fluid, a potentially VERY messy job.

This upcoming weekend we are heading to Daytona Beach for a little mini-vacation. While up there we plan to go to the Kennedy Space center. Outer space was one of my first fascinations I can remember growing up so I am really pumped to see the KSC. I checked out the web site, tons of things that look interesting to me. Should be a blast.