500 miles met with smiles, Procreating rips, ask and receive, little off the top

So I left work a little early on Friday to facilitate my drive in the SSR to Longwood which is east of Orlando.  When I punched the address of the La Quinta into Google maps I saw 197 miles spit back at me.  Ok so doing some basic math, optimistically figuring I could average 70 miles an hour, I guessed the trip would take me roughly 3 hours.  I didn’t bother to look at any details of the Google info.

Well if I had looked at the details I would have seen the 200 mile route was the one that goes through the center of Florida through a number of small towns which slow you down significantly.  The I-75 to I-4 route was 250 miles.  Well when you add on three separate sessions of dead stopped traffic due to accidents, I didn’t roll into the hotel until 10 pm.  I was not a happy camper.

So I walked up to the front desk.  I saw the parking lot of the hotel was jammed.  I was glad I had a reservation.  So I give my name and the girl punches it in and makes a confused face.  She asks me how it is spelled and looks again.  It’s not there.

Well I was prepared, I had printed out my confirmation email, that should clear things up.  I hand it to her.  After she glances at it she sees the problem. I reserved a room for Thursday….  Evidently after 45 years I still haven’t mastered the skill of reading a calendar.

I covered my face with my hands in frustration.  After the killer drive the last thing I needed was this even though it was my fault.  At first it seemed like my only option was going to be being thrown into a smoking allowed room however the woman was nice enough to let me stay in their one remaining suite for the same price as my original reservation.

As I parked my SSR around the side of the building a black SSR pulled in right next to me.  As we stepped out I told the guy I bet I knew why he was there.  He was a fellow SSR Fanatic named Dan who drove up from Miami.  I talked to him a bit as we walked inside.

My suite was nice and was identical to the La Quinta suite Ali and I stayed in once or twice during our various western road trips.  It felt like kind of a waste for me to be in there by myself.    I was exhausted and after taking a shower collapsed into bed.

Well I had an awful night of sleep.  The ac unit in the suite provided great white noise when it was running but it also appeared to be on  a hair trigger thermostat.  When it hit the set temperature it would shut off and then when the temp dropped like a tenth of a degree it would rattle back to life.  This on and off cycle repeated all night long and felt like it woke me up every time it happened.  I am not sure why I didn’t just get up and turn it off altogether.  I awoke Saturday morning feeling exhausted.

When I went to grab breakfast in the lobby Dan was already there, I sat down at his table.  Dan has an interesting history.  He currently is a computer science teacher at a high school.  He spent years being a CIO and has lived in Colorado, Key West and South Beach.  We talked SSR’s a bit as well.  He had only been to one other meet up but said it was a good time.

After breakfast I got all my stuff packed up and checked out.  Before heading to the location of the event I found a nearby Dunkin Donuts using the Waze app on my Iphone.  If you use the built in Iphone nav app I strongly suggest you look at Waze.  It is NAV and so much more.

The meet up was supposed to start at 9, I got there around 8:30.  Dan said getting there early would be smart because of all the people that were supposed to show up.  When I got there I saw maybe 6 or 7 SSR’s already lined up. This was being held at a Maaco.  We were given full use of their garage, including a lift which made working under the trucks much more tangible.

I met a couple of the guys whose names I recognized from the SSRFanatics message board.  I was excited to finally meet the head of the group who goes by the handle of Dicktator. (his name is Dick)  I got his attention and told him I was Duf.  Dick greeted me enthusiastically.  Dick is 78 years old but still has a great energy about him.  I t wasn’t long until I heard a few of his dirty jokes. Between Dicktator and the rest of the group there is a HUGE collection of SSR knowledge.  I planned to tap as much of it as I could.

Since I was there early I got to throw my truck up on the lift first.  I was having my front radiator support replaced.  From the factory, the SSR has a shitty piece of plastic that is used for this role.  I bought a strong powder coated steel support to replace it.  This upgrade is highly recommended as it really helps to tighten up the front end, cutting down on the shaking and rattling over uneven road.

I was impressed at the hive mentality of the group.  Without asking I instantly had a half dozen guys helping out in the process.  Getting the new radiator support on is tricky and the installation was completed by one of the group veterans while I served as primarily a human jack support.

While it was up there I asked one of the guys about some of the vibration noises I was hearing when the top was up.  When the catalytic converters were replaced it looked like one of the heat shields was a bit messed up.  He shifted the shielding around to hopefully fix it.  Dicktator said that when the cats were replaced you normally want to replace the O2 sensors as well.  He said they can start to rattle as well as they age.

By the time I got my truck down a lot more guys had showed up.  It was very interesting seeing the various customizations guys have done to their trucks.  Some of the mods seemed to have crossed the line from cool to over the top.  The most visually and technically stunning was the gull wing door mod I saw.  Man that had to be tough to get set up. (and expensive)

Everyone I dealt with was really nice and friendly.  As I expected, I was the youngster of the group.  Of the 30+ SSR owners there there may have been 2 or 3 including myself that were under 60.  The great thing was they all had a youthful spirit about them.

The group arranged to have a food trailer brought in as well which was a nice touch.  I enjoyed a nice veggie burger for lunch.

I installed a rather simple upgrade while my truck was in the parking lot, LED brake lights.  Upgrading to LED’s required replacement of the flasher module as well.  The LED’s are brighter and just look cool, especially at night.

All of the work getting done inspired me to tackle one more project I was on the fence about doing, ripping my radio out to relocate the ground. Since I installed the Pioneer unit I have had an issue with engine whine getting picked up by the stereo.  My hope was relocating the ground to another location would fix the problem.

I figured if I was ripping things apart I might as well install the amplified antenna I bought several months ago to address my poor radio reception.

Well as I was digging into the dash I started having various visitors, wondering what I was doing.  Some of them were guys that had never ripped their dash apart before and were hoping to pick up some pointers.  It didn’t take me long to have the front cover as well as the A pillar and cowl covers torn off.

Some of the guys looked at what appeared to be total chaos and expressed  concern about my ability to get it all back together.  I assured them I had ripped it apart several times so I should be ok. 🙂

Installing the amplified antenna wasn’t too hard.  I located a ground to use in the cowl area and tapped power from the radio harness.  I moved the ground from near the instrument cluster to some bare metal above the passenger footwell.  Moving the ground didn’t help the engine noise issue.  I fixed that by turning down the gain on a potentiometer that was installed as part of the new radio. All in all I may have spent a couple hours working on this project.  I got a bunch of sun in the process since I was doing this in the lot with the hard top retracted. It felt good to get it done.

I did one more project on my truck.  One of the guys had his single bar frame support replaced with a better double wide model.  He gave me his old support.  I installed it alongside my existing support to stiffen up my frame even further.

Once I finished up that I jumped in to assist with a  a couple other things.  I was most helpful with a guy that was adding bluetooth to his existing factory radio.  I helped him come up with a place to tap power from and then helped him with the unfun job of getting the front dash cover back on.

I stuck around until after 5, well after the majority of the guys had already pulled out.  Before I left I said goodbye to Dicktator who was busy all day and was currently in the middle of an ignition switch replacement.  I told him I had a good time and was looking forward to the next meet up.

My drive back home was uncomfortable.  My lower back was screaming from two consecutive days of long drives.  I was also very tired from the night of miserable sleep followed by a day of wrench turning.  I took a 5 hour energy to keep myself alert.

The entire drive home was topless.  I definitely could feel the difference from the two frame stiffening additions I made.  The truck did not rattle around nearly as much as it used to.  The LED tail lights looked cool in the darkness of night and I enjoyed blaring the radio without the annoying background whine.  The drive back was thankfully devoid of accident back ups, I got back to Naples in just under 4 hours.

If you want to see all of my pictures from the event look here.

I slept like a rock Sunday night, not getting up until close to 8AM which is very late for me.  I had work to do, of course.

After weeding the property I turned my attention to replacing the two damaged screen panels.  One I ripped, the other Sadie did.  I grumbled to myself as almost on cue the wind started picking up as I was pulling out the tools for the job.  Luckily Alison was dropping off the dogs so I utilized her hands to hold the one screen that was most affected by the gusting wind.

After successfully completing the repairs I was extremely agitated when later in the day I saw a panel on the other side that was ripping along the spline.  Argh!

Mid-afternoon I decided to do something I haven’t had done in at least a decade, have my hair cut by someone other than myself or Alison.  When I do it myself it is next to impossible to do anything other than buzz my entire head to one length.  When I try to do a taper it usually turns into a mess.

I drove down to the nearest Sport Clips to give them a try.  I was surprised it was so busy on a Sunday afternoon.  There were 6 other guys waiting.  Luckily with three women cutting hair it didn’t take too long, I may have waited a little more than a half hour.

I told the woman that I normally just buzz my head down with either an 1/8″ or 1/4″ inch attachment.  She suggested we go less aggressive.  She buzzed the back and sides with a 3/8 attachment and hand cut the top to finger length.  Since it was my first time there I got the VIP treatment thrown in for free.  This included a shampoo, scalp massage , and a hot towel over your face.  It was actually quite nice.

I can definitely tell the difference having a pro cut my hair, I think it looks good although since it isn’t skinhead short it means I would need to attend to it on a more regular basis.  I am not sure if I will use Sport Clips exclusively from now on but it was a positive experience.  Whenever there are a few beers, a video camera and a clippers in the house you never know when I am going to go nuts.

Nicki made my dog sitting duties a little more gross than I anticipated.  While she was briefly indoors unsupervised she dumped a small puddle of diarrhea on the rug near the kitchen and two small ancillary puddles elsewhere.  This was after she did double dumps in the yard shortly beforehand.  This is the first incident like this since the excrement nightmare surrounding my PA trip.  Luckily, unlike that time, her loss of control seemed to be isolated although it didn’t make me feel much better as I held my breath during fecal clean up activities.

When I got my new Iphone, the Apple guy informed me that there was a 36 dollar “upgrade fee”.  Since both Ali and I upgraded our phones that meant I had an extra $75 added on to this month’s bill.  Well the Apple guy also told me that if I simply call up ATT and ask them to waive that charge, they normally will.  So that’s what I did.

After a 5 minute phone call and confirming I had been an ATT customer since 2007 they rep had no problem making that charge disappear.  Sometimes all you have to do is ask.

Tonight I am planning to run 10 miles after work.  Never did that before.