Category SSR

I checked out of work at noon yesterday to handle the SSR transaction.  I took the SSR to work and made arrangements to meet Cindy at the Bonita Home Depot en route to Cape Coral.  She had my Tacoma with the SSR spare parts loaded in the bed.  I used the GPS in the SSR to find Al’s house.  Unfortunately it defaulted to take me the route that was the least distance, not the fastest.  As a result we weaved slowly through Fort Myers instead of just cruising at 80 mph to the next exit on I-75. We finally got there, about 15 minutes later than I predicted.

We unloaded the parts and and all three of us headed out in the Tacoma with Cindy on the small rear jump seat.  We first stopped at Al’s bank for him to get a cashiers check cut for the sale.  I have not been to the Cape Coral area for a long time and after yesterday I really don’t have much need to return anytime soon.  The one word I would use to describe it is, congested.

The bank was quite busy despite it being the middle of the afternoon.  All of the customer waiting area seating was occupied and the line for the tellers was double digit long.  Of course the majority of the people you saw were retirement age.  After getting the cashiers check which I promptly handed to Cindy for safekeeping we headed to the Lee County Tax Collectors office which was nearby to do the title transfer.

I had a bad feeling when the first thing I saw when walking in the door was a scrolling LED sign stating the wait time is over an hour. Geezus.  They were inaccurate, in total we were waiting around two hours before a clerk helped us.  It was maddening.  The number they gave you had a letter followed by a number.  The letter seemed to indicate the type of transaction you were there for.  In our case our number was B148.  When we first sat down the first B number we saw called was B138 so we figured we had 10 people ahead of us, not so bad.  Well somehow it took 120 minutes to process 10 title customers.  When we finally got in front of the clerk we had all of our stuff ready to go, we were done with our transaction in 10 minutes or less. We walked out of there relieved but frustrated the process was so horribly slow.

So we went back to Al’s place where I took off my famous MUSCL UP license plate and installed his brand new plate.  I gave Al a quick lesson on the stereo system, told him about the clutch fluid drain line, and a few other pointers about the truck.  We also got a little info regarding Al’s plan’s for my SSR.  He wants to get it painted in a manner similar to his 2004 which is cool.  However he also wants to undo the lowered suspension which I found quite surprising. I always felt the lowered stance was one of the coolest things about my truck and set it apart from most other SSR’s I have seen.  I am curious how you go about undoing the process.  I have no idea what all was done to lower the suspension several inches, hopefully it is undo-able. At first I assumed Al was going to sell his 2004 SSR since he was buying mine.  Yesterday I realized he may wind up keeping both.  His issues with owning two SSR’s isn’t financial, it’s garage space.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he winds up keeping both.

As we thanked Al and pulled out of his driveway I was feeling strangely not sentimental about the whole thing.  When I bought the SSR it was my pride and joy.  After I separated I had these glorious visions of me and the truck on a cross country road trip.  I thought I would literally own the truck until my last breath.   Well obviously times have changed.  A lot of things have changed over the last couple years.

The death of my Mom and Nicki sort of realigned some of my views about things.  The SSR was definitely a “hey look at me” vehicle and the classic mid-life crisis crutch.  I just did not feel the need for it anymore.  The addition of Cindy to my life also certainly made gaining happiness from a material object less and less necessary.  I’m happy the SSR is in the hands of somebody that will take pristine care of it and invest money to make it even nicer than it is today. But if I said I was really sad to see it go I would not be truthful.

Cindy and I watched the Walking Dead season finale last night.  It was impactful to say the least.  The entire episode you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and went it does it is hard and heavy.  I woke up in the middle of the night and found my mind replaying it again and again. Crazy.

I saw this morning Villanova won the NCAA college basketball championship game last night which I know I should be really excited about since the small school is from my hometown area.  I am happy for the team but I am being honest I just don’t care about college basketball, at all.

On Saturday morning Cindy was coaching at her first track meet, leaving me alone to run wild at the house.  I did a number of chores around the house including having all four of my cleaning robots running simultaneously scrubbing/vacuuming all of the flooring.  I then decided I was going to head out to Home Depot.

Cindy and I decided we were going to add an extra level of castle stone to the landscaped border around the pool.  We are both sick and tired of the chickens going into the area and kicking the rubber mulch out into the grass.  It has become a constant see saw of work.  So our thought was adding the second layer of stone would be enough of a wall to deflect their shrapnel back into the bed where it belongs.

Cindy had counted and we needed a little more than 90 of the 12 inch stones to do the second layer (we already had bought a few).  I had bought these stones in bulk once before and just had them bring them out on a pallet which I requested once again.  The immense weight immediately bottomed out the Tacoma’s suspension.  I am sure I was well over the posted maximum payload of 1700 pounds.  I drove very conservatively on the way home.

On the drive home my cell phone rang from an Oregon number.  It was a guy named Al that was calling about the SSR.  He had not seen the ad on Craigslist.  In fact he didn’t see any ads at all.  He was called about it from one of the main guys from SSR Fanatics.  On Friday I decided to also post my truck on their forum for sale.  I didn’t expect a lot from the posting but obviously I was wrong.  Al was called because the SSRF guy (Dick) knew he was looking for a 6 speed truck.    So anyway Al said he could leave Cape Coral right away to come see the truck so I told him to come on down.

When he showed up I was a bit shocked to see ANOTHER SSR parked in the driveway.  I had no idea he already had an SSR, a 2004 with a slick custom paint job.  He actually has owned his truck for 4 or 5 years but he was interested in a 6 speed.  Since Dick has met me and worked on my truck at a few of the meet ups he personally vouched for my truck, letting Al know it was nice.

Al was like the vast majority of SSR owners I have met, of retirement age and very nice.  Of course I didn’t have to give him a walk through of the truck like I did last week since he was already very familiar with the vehicles obviously.  When I told him some of the upgrades I had done like the LS7 Corvette clutch swap he knew exactly what it was and why it was a good thing.  We went on a decent test drive and he confirmed he liked the truck, just like Dick said he would.  Unlike last week where the buyer was all about lowballing, Al was fine paying my asking price, his background as a SSR owner made my price fair to him when compared to other trucks out there.

After the test drive Al hung at the house for quite awhile talking with Cindy and I.  Most of the conversation was not SSR related at all, just exchanging snippets of our background.  Al has been retired since he was 55 and spends 3 months out of the year living on his boat in Oregon.  It sounded like he was very fortunate the way things fell in place for him when retirement came around and he was grateful for it.  So we got around to making plans for the sale.  He left me a check for a deposit and said to call him Sunday after he checked his calendar to see when we could do the sale.

We worked it out that I am leaving work early today to get it all done.  I brought the SSR to work and will be driving it to Al’s house with Cindy following me in the Tacoma.  We will then leave the truck there and head to the bank and DMV office to finalize the paperwork.  It will feel weird for sure to walk away from the R but it is offset by getting much more money for it than I was willing to accept a few days prior.  It’s funny how things work out.  It’s also funny that Al will have two SSR’s in his driveway until he manages to sell his 2004. 🙂

After Al left I wasted little time heading outside to work on the 2nd level of our castle stone border.  Cindy and I first unloaded all of the stones, putting them in place on the wall where they would go.  It was only temporary as I needed to go stone by stone and reset both the first and second layer.  When I originally put the castle stone in place I just used the sandy soil as the base under the wall.  Over time areas of the wall have shifted as a result.  A good number of the stones had a slight downward facing angle which looked shitty.

Along with the pallet of stone I also bought 6 bags of substrate normally used under a paver installation.  The substance was basically very small stones, designed to give a firm base to support the blocks.  I began a very arduous process of pulling up each and every stone and re-leveling it, using the stone base to provide support.  It was not enjoyable as you can imagine.  Most of the work required me to be on my knees which gets painful very quickly.  I just kept my blinders on and focused on getting done.  Before I called it quits for the day I had about 75% of the wall complete which was cool.

We cleaned up and headed out to Germain arena for an Everblades game.  We had not gone to see the local minor league hockey team for a couple years.  I saw it was Star Wars night so I thought it would be fun to go.  When we got there the parking lot was pretty full, something we arent used to with the sparsely attended Tarpons games we are used to.

As we walked up to the ticket window I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw signs on the window saying SOLD OUT. WTF?  Germain seats between 5000-6000 people I could hardly believe the game would be sold out.  Cindy and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

Just as we were ready to start walking back to the parking lot a couple behind us stopped us.  The man said he had spare tickets and we could have a couple of them.  I told him I would gladly pay for them.  He said to not worry about it they were already paid for by his business.  Cindy and I could hardly believe our good fortune.  When we got inside I tried to repay their kindness to at least a small degree by buying the guy a beer.  It’s always nice to confirm that not all people are assholes.

Now I am the farthest thing from a hockey fan you can get but it was still fun to be at a live game.  I downed a couple large Shocktop drafts to help up the fun level.  We also enjoyed chowing down on our standard arena menu of pizza, a soft pretzel and roasted nuts.  At the end of the second period Cindy wasn’t feeling great after downing her alcoholic cider.  The home team was down 2-0 at that point.  I told Cindy I was fine heading out and although she didn’t want to be the impetus to leave I could tell she liked the idea.  After thanking the couple once again for their generosity we headed out.  I saw later the Everblades wound up losing 2-1.

On Sunday morning there was no way I felt like running/riding after the block work Saturday afternoon.  Plus I wanted to take advantage of the cooler morning temperatures to finish up the wall.  Of course I was just a little short of what I needed to finish so Cindy and headed out for yet another Home Depot trip.  We grabbed more castle stone as well as 12 more border stones that looked like smaller cousins of castle stone.  We wanted to lay them down as a test in the rock border area to see how they look.  Unfortunately the chickens have no problems kicking small river rock out of a landscape bed either.  Cindy has been putting the displaced stones back in place several times a week.  Surprisingly the chickens don’t listen when we ask them to stop scratching in those areas. 🙂

When we got back I finished up the main wall.  Both Cindy and I liked the finished product and we have not seen any projectile mulch clear the wall since it was extended.  We laid down the smaller stone border on a small section of the river rock bed and it looked good.  Although it is significantly smaller than castle stone in height we are thinking it should be high enough to block the stones since they won’t fly as far as mulch.

I was pooped from the labor that covered portions of both days of the weekend.  Late in the afternoon I decided to finally get to making a video that told the story regarding my drone prosecution.  Although I kept the video pretty in the middle, not trash talking the NPS tactics as much as I could have, I wanted to get a video out there shining a light on what happened.  Perhaps the same ranger that thought it was fair game to ruin my Xmas holiday will stumble across this video as well.  Hopefully it makes him sleep better at night.

The video is about 15 minutes long.  I don’t believe I have ever talked at that length on film at one shot.  As expected there are some stumbles along the way but all in all I give a pretty clear outline of what went down and why I feel it was handled poorly.

So yesterday I saw the electronic lien was cleared from the title of the SSR so I had a paper copy printed.  I now figured I was officially ready to sell the truck so I created my Craigslist ad and posted it.  I was sort of surprised I got a call within 30 minutes.  That call was from a guy that lives in Panama City, some 5 hours away.  He seemed interested and said he might actually make the drive down this weekend to see the truck.

I got a second call from a Wisconsin number.  He is from there but recently moved to Estero.  Frank said he had been looking at SSR’s for a short while as a perfect cruising vehicle for his retirement lifestyle.  He said he could come by last night to look at the SSR, I told him that would be fine.

Cindy offered to give the SSR a thorough bath during the day which was great since I had not had a chance to do it myself yet.  Frank pulled up in his Tundra just as I was finishing up doing a few things outside.  He immediately struck me as a nice guy.

Very early on in the conversation he identified himself as a serious lifetime car hobbyist, the hard core type that restored vehicles from the 40’s and 50’s.  The guy knew way more about cars than I did, that was very clear to me very early.  During the test drive I knew if he made an offer on the truck it wasn’t going to be very close to my $25,500 asking price.  He talked about another SSR he looked at that only has a ridiculously low 9000 miles and untouched from factory original options.  I actually saw this truck on Craigslist myself when I was looking at comps.  Anyway the seller had that truck listed at 32-33k.  Frank told me he could get that truck for 24k.

He asked me what I needed to get out of my SSR dollar wise.  I didn’t have a clear answer for him.  I told him that since I am under no pressure to sell the truck, I just listed the truck as being for sale, and I have a guy from Panama City that seems very interested I wasn’t looking to give the truck away.  After the test drive we were discussing dollars further.  I told him I could agree to dropping the price to 24k.  Frank clearly already had his number in mind and it wasn’t close to mine.  He offered 21k and said it would be a simple all cash deal that could be completed the next day which of course was appealing.

I went inside for a couple minutes and talked to Cindy about it.  Frank’s offer was a lowball but the reality was it would still more than easily allow me to execute my plans for the new Tacoma.  She came back outside with me.  I was hoping Cindy’s friendly personality could possibly help me disarm him enough to accept a counter offer.  I came back with 22 and he wouldn’t budge, not even a little bit which of course was annoying.  He claimed with some of the work he would want to do on the truck he couldn’t justify going any higher, especially with the 9000 mile SSR as another option.  After exchanging some glances with Cindy I told him I would do the deal. The appeal of a simple cash deal and getting the transaction completed quickly was appealing enough to be worth it to me.

I did some paperwork regarding the sale.  Frank suggested that he could take the spare parts now so I wouldn’t have to try to jam them into the back of the SSR tomorrow.  We planned to do the transaction at my office on Friday morning.  He gave me $100 deposit in good faith and headed out.  Although I didn’t feel great about the negotiation or lack there of I was happy everything was falling into place quickly.  I felt good that the truck would be going to a true car enthusiast that would take great care of it.  That good feeling faded away about 7:48PM.

My phone rang and I saw it was Frank’s number.  He told me that he thinks he may have jumped the gun and he reconsidered.  He said with the work he wants to do on the truck the dollars will get out of hand.  I was shocked at first.  When he was at the house he seemed pretty sure of himself and his number.  Him taking the spare parts now seemed to further cement it was a done deal.  I expressed my surprise but wasn’t a dick about it.  I am not sure if his wife at home was the fulcrum behind his reversal.  The whole thing seemed extra weird when I realized I had a voicemail from Frank at 7:30, asking me to take the ad off Craigslist, not something a person that was having buyers remorse would normally do.

So whatever the reason behind his decision, we made plans to undo what we did.  He agreed to meet me at work today to give me back the parts.  He said I could keep the deposit if I wanted which of course I refused.  When I met up with him this morning he apologized for the trouble and indicated he could still be a potential buyer at an even lower number which I pretty much brushed off.  At this point I will see what comes my way the next couple weeks.  Like I said, there is absolutely no pressure on me to move in any particular direction so for now I will just chill.  In some ways I am glad to have an opportunity to potentially get more for the truck but also a bit sad to not have quickly turned the transaction around.

After I got the call from Frank I headed out to the coop to put the chickens to bed.  Stephie, the chicken that gets picked on the most by the others seems to really like Cindy and I.  When I went in the coop to count heads I didn’t see her at first.  I called her name and she immediately sat upright so I could see her.  She then started to move around the perch to get to the front where I was.  As she was maneuvering closer one of the other hens pecked at Stephie.  I put my arm up to scold the pecking hen and as I did Stephie instantly hopped on my forearm and used it as a perch.  She immediately lowered her body like she was making herself comfortable for the long haul.

It was so cute.  I let her there for a minute or two as I petted her.  She seemed as content as a chicken can seem.  It almost looked like I was a falconer with a big hawk on my arm.  I eventually coaxed her back down on her perch.  I have a feeling she will be using us as human perches more often. It was a nice moment to lessen the disappointment of the phone call.

This weekend I might start tackling adding a second row of castle stone to the pool landscape border to stop the incessant chicken vandalism.  It should be lots of fun.

Well if there was any doubt about my intentions to sell the SSR they were dissolved last night when I did some minor work that needed to be done before listing the vehicle for sale.  The trim piece for one of the cupholders and a door reflector needed to be glued back in place.  I also removed the custom decal that I had made for the truck several years ago, using a hair dryer and some fishing line. The decal which was bought when I had the mindset that I would own the truck for the long haul.  Peeling off the custom decal indicated that mindset has definitively changed.  Of course I felt some degree of regret as I de-personalized the truck but it was offset by the bigger picture where I utilize that money for a vehicle Cindy and I will get to enjoy daily.

I talked to my dad last night.  He had read about my thoughts of selling the SSR.  I was somewhat surprised that he thought it was a good idea.  The reason for my surprise is my dad’s 1964 Alfa Romeo that he has owned my entire life.  I am sure in a way, his dedication to his young man’s sports car influenced my views on vehicles as well.

My dad told me he actually has been considering selling his Alfa after several restoration projects on the vehicle that have literally consumed decades of time and countless thousands of dollars.  His ideas behind a potential sale are very much inline with mine, he hardly drives the car.  Although it only took me around 5 years to come to the same realization that has taken my dad 40 years or more, the end idea is the same.  At some point you just realize that it doesn’t make sense anymore, not that it made sense before.  You just finally come to realize it doesn’t.

Dad also told me he has been already trying to sell another mainstay of his adult transportation experience, his motorcycle.  Much like his Alfa, the bike sits unused the vast majority of the time.  Last year dad said he put a total of about 200 miles on it.  After hanging up with dad I felt even more assured that my decision to move on from the SSR is a good one in the big picture.

Before I list the truck on something like Craigslist I need to get the paper title in hand just in case an impulse buyer is ready to move quickly.  I also need to give it one more thorough bath to make sure it’s alluring beauty is clearly visible for any potential buyers.  It will be interesting to see how much I can sell the truck for.  I plan to start somewhere around 25k and work from there.  From a few scans of other privately for sale SSR’s in my region, most lacking the upgrades and customization mine has, that number seems in the ballpark.

Three years ago on this day Cindy took me up on my FB invite for someone to use the second ticket to a Tarpons game.  Although I knew Cindy a little bit from running club social functions the game wasn’t really intended to be a date from either of our perspectives.  I had been through almost a solid year of dating unsuccessfully at that point and was pretty turned off by the whole scene by then.  Cindy wasn’t doing much dating either and had focused much of the previous year on triathlon training as she had completed her first half Ironman a couple months prior.

Since Cindy is outgoing and a talker it immediately made things more relaxed for me.  I am a conversational counter puncher, someone who will interject thoughts here and there but never one to be able to carry a conversation single handedly very well.  We seemed to have similar viewpoints on a lot of things. Without even really looking we both found ourselves in a relationship.

It’s hard to believe that three years have already passed.  When I think about all that we have done and seen in that time it is pretty amazing.  Cindy’s energy level and consistently positive attitude has been a good counter to the less than stellar mood valleys I find myself in on a regular basis.  She literally brightens each and every day I am on this Earth.  I have never had anybody be so selfless in their support of me and to be honest to this day I still am not all that good at accepting all of it.   It still feels weird to have somebody love you that much and be so open with their expression of that love. It’s a good problem to have.

Tonight we have reservations at Seasons 52 for a celebratory dinner.  Unfortunately the earliest time slot I could get was 8:15 so it will be a late meal.  I plan to combat the potential drowsiness with a 5 hour energy.  I have been very lucky to have Cindy in my life the last three years and I love her for the person that she is.

So yesterday after writing my blog entry about a new Tacoma ideas were floating through my head.  One of them was something 4 years ago would have been nothing short of blasphemous, selling the SSR.

When I bought the truck going on five years ago there is absolutely no denying it was a classic mid-life crisis purchase scenario.   I wasn’t very happy with aspects of my life and the truck was a way to redirect my focus elsewhere.  I directed a lot of resources to the truck early on.  I easily spent 4-5K on various upgrades, none of which were really needed.

Once I got separated the SSR really became something I leaned on.  It was a key part of my flawed dating strategy as any woman that was more impressed by the vehicle you drive than the person that you are is not somebody I would be interested in anyway.  I had a lot of solo drives in the truck after another lousy first date with Linkin Park blasting as I thought about how single life was not all that I imagined it would be.  Cindy, who is a big fan of cool vehicles loved the SSR.  She eventually became the only other person that I have allowed to drive it.  We would normally take it on most dates, enjoying open air driving on a regular basis.

Over time an odd thing started to happen, the truck would sit in the garage for weeks at a time.  Once we bought the Prius, sensible, gas efficient transportation trumped the loud, rumbling ride of the SSR the majority of the time.  When I have thought about why this is the simplest answer is that I am more content in other areas of my life nowadays so the truck is no longer needed to fill that void.  Which lead me to the thoughts yesterday.

If I would sell the recently paid off SSR and my beloved 99 Tacoma I would be able to easily slide into a new Tacoma without feeling any budget impact.  I would be able to do so for the same or less than what my SSR payments were.  There would be some ancillary savings as well as far as maintenance and insurance only being on two vehicles instead of three. Subtracting a 17 year old vehicle from the fleet removes a lot of potential repair expense.  I was somewhat surprised that when I mentioned this potential plan to Cindy she was enthusiastically supportive.  Although she loves the SSR as well, getting a new Tacoma that I would get to enjoy daily instead of the bi-weekly or longer SSR joyride would be a win overall in her opinion.

I will give more thought to the option. It does seem like a more mature and logistically feasible way to go in the big picture. I do hate being accused of being mature though….

My SSR instrument cluster showed up yesterday.  The guy I sent it to was extremely fast in turning it around. The new silver face plate for the instruments looks cool.  Despite the lack of daylight courtesy of the time change, I thought I would take a shot at putting the truck back together last night.

I got the cluster back in but gave up trying to reinstall the dash cover.  The lack of light and cramped working conditions resulted in me getting nowhere for 15 minutes or so.  This job is actually best done in warm temps and with direct sun to help soften up the plastic/vinyl that has to be manipulated.

Despite there being no sunlight, by the time I was done I was sweating through my shirt, a tribute to the stupidly warm temperatures we are still continuing to experience despite now being into November.  The temperatures have been at or above record setting levels.  I believe the high yesterday was 91 degrees.  Usually by this time of year we have had one or two real cool fronts blow through.  There has not been one yet this year.  It may seem odd to hear a Florida resident bitching about it being too warm but after the 6 month long summers I really do look forward to temperatures and humidity levels that don’t invoke instant sweat responses when stepping outside.

I neglected to mention yesterday that Monday night I did a dual broadcast of my latest head shaving session, recording it for YouTube as well as broadcasting the event on Periscope simultaneously.  It was an attempt to add variety to my growing collection of head shave videos.  I’m not sure how successful it was.

So yesterday I get a text from Cindy saying that when she opened the garage door to take in groceries from the car a bird once again flew inside.  Not just any bird, the same bird that we spent 20 minutes getting out the night before.  Why in the world this bird felt the need to come back in the garage when it was obviously freaked out from the prior day’s escapades is beyond me.  I told Cindy to just leave the garage door open in the hope the bird would be smarter this time and fly back out.  Evidently the bird is still pretty dumb.

When I pulled up the garage door was still open.  I did a quick visual scan for the bird and didn’t see it.  Cool, maybe he left?  Well when we hit the button to close the garage door the noise scared the bird, who was apparently quietly hanging in some corner.  It felt like groundhog day as Cindy and I made futile effort after futile effort to get the bird once again out of the garage.  I was finally successful using the fish net but in a different manner than the day before.

This time I was able to get the net on top of him as he sat on top of my volleyball bag.  I then used a towel to cap the opening of the net, pinning the bird safely inside.  This time I decided to release him far away from the front of the house, hoping he will take a hint.  I had a pointless one way discussion with the bird as I walked to the rear fence line, letting him know everything was ok but he needed to find somewhere else to hang out.  When I opened the net he immediately flew up onto one of the bushes growing in the fill pit and stayed there.  Hopefully he finally realizes my garage has a permanent no vacancy sign.

I then turned my focus to bringing my dead SSR back to life.  I had Cindy sit in the drivers seat while I pushed it out of the garage to get it in a better position to be jump started.  I pulled the Tacoma in front of it, hooked up the cables and then told Cindy to hop in the Toyota to increase the RPM’s to give me some juice.  I hopped in the SSR and turned the key which resulted in a couple weak half turns of the starter, not enough to bring the 6.0 L motor roaring to life.  I tried cleaning the battery terminals and adjusting the jumper cables, hoping to provide some additional current but I was still unsuccessful.  I at least was able to put the power windows up while connected to the Tacoma.

I disconnected the jumper cables and retrieved my battery charger from the small shed.  I was hoping if I pump juice into the battery for a bit I may have a better result.  I set the charger at the higher 6 amp charge rate and went back inside to eat dinner.  After eating I headed back out and tried again with no jumper cables attached.  The motor turned over a bit more but not fast enough to start, damn it.  I reattached the charger with the plan to try one more time before bed.

Around 9:30 I headed back outside.  After removing the charger I reattached the jumper cables to the Tacoma.  I was hoping the combo of the time on the stand alone charger with an assist from the Tacoma would be enough to fire the SSR back up.  I got lucky, the SSR finally started up.  I figured I should take it on a short drive to dump more juice into the battery.  I dropped the top and took a short but enjoyable 12 or 13 mile spin east on Immokalee Road.  I couldn’t help but punch the SSR well above the speed limit for brief periods of time.

When I rolled back into the garage I turned the truck off and  back on to see if it would start.  It did but you could tell the battery was still weak.  I hooked the battery charger back up to the SSR and let it run all night at the lower 2 amp charge rate.  Before leaving for work today I tried the truck one more time.  This time the start sounded normal, hopefully the lifespan of the battery has not been cut short from being completely drained.  I showed Cindy how to tell if the truck is in the correct off position and how easy it is to accidentally leave it in the battery draining accessory detente.

For the past week or so I have had what I assumed to be ear wax issues in my right ear.  When I would take a shower and wash my ears the right one would immediately become water logged, like the opening is constricted.   The odd thing was when I would clean the ear I wasn’t really getting a significant amount of wax out of it.  I have used some ear wax removal drops and straight hydrogen peroxide to try to address the problem and had no success.  I am not getting much of anything out of the ear, despite it feeling constricted.

Well sometime on Monday I noticed my right eye was starting to get red.  Last night it was more red and sore to the touch.  This morning I woke up and it was even worse.  This eye pain/redness is something I have had happen before.  The first time it happened I went to the doctor and then the eye doctor with no official diagnosis given.  If I remember correctly I was just given some generic antibiotic drops and it eventually went away.  Since then when it happened again I just rode it out.

The additional wildcard is that I swam a 1/4 mile in the gulf on Sunday.  Despite wearing ear plugs, I am sure some of the nasty sea water found it’s way into my head.  With my life long history of ear infection issues, sea water is asking for trouble.  Part of what is going on could be tied into my swim. I’m not sure. I am going to stop by the free employee clinic this afternoon to have them take a look.  I am hoping two things occur, they can tell me if my right ear is indeed clogged by wax or not and hopefully give me some drops to wipe out whatever is making my right eye look like a pale cherry.

I forgot to mention that I finally got around to getting nightstands for the master bedroom again.  Ever since the split some 20 months ago I have had a flimsy, small shelf on my side of the bed that was loaded down with remote controls, magazines and books.

At first I looked into getting the matching set from Rooms To Go since that is where the bedroom furniture came from.  They no longer had that style of furniture and any nightstands they were selling were between $200-$300 each, more than I was looking to spend.

Well as has often been the case, Amazon once again came to the rescue.  I found $70 stands that appeared to be a close match to the wood color of the existing stuff.  All I had to do was grab two metal knobs at Home Depot to mimic what is on the RtG furniture.

Assembly of the nightstands was straightforward and despite the low price, they seemed to be pretty high quality.  The finished stands felt solid and looked good.  The color match with the old stuff was very good as well.  To the casual observer, they may even think the nightstands were part of the bedroom set.  Their addition to the room added a completeness that was missing.  The only in house item that I need to reinstate is a king size bed in the guest bedroom.  Hopefully that will be a 2014 item.

On Saturday I had various things I wanted to get done.  I mowed the big section of the backyard and then ripped apart the dash of my SSR for seemingly the 100th time to adjust the gain on a potentiometer in my stereo system.  When I last ripped it apart to redo the ground I turned down the gain.  Well I turned it down too far, so far that with the stereo set at max volume it was hard to hear during topless highway driving.

I also needed to check the clutch fluid on the truck, shifting was feeling different.  Well the reservoir was very low.  The question was where did the fluid go?  I opened the remote drain line while refilling the clutch fluid tank to fill/bleed it.  I am hoping that possibly I just didn’t have the drain plug on tight enough, causing the slow leak.  I will need to keep an eye on things.

So back to the stereo.  I ripped the front dash cover off, something I am quite adept at by now.  I turned the dial up on the potentiometer and turned the key enough to flip on the radio.  It was loud with volume to spare, sweet.  I put everything back together, happy to have completed the project.

Well I wasn’t happy when I took the truck to the movies with Cindy Saturday night.  When I started the truck I immediately heard the annoying as shit electronic whine that follows engine RPM.  Evidently I cranked the knob too far, enough to once again pull that noise into the system.  When I tested it during the day I stupidly didn’t turn the truck all the way on.  So sometime soon I will be ripping the dash apart yet again, fantastic.

The movie we went to see was 47 Ronin, an action movie set in ancient samurai times starring Keanu Reaves.  I was SHOCKED when we walked up to the box office and saw a line of 30 plus people at Coconut Point.  This theater is never, ever this busy.  Evidently I must have never gone there to see a movie between Xmas and New Years.  Luckily the long line moved quickly.  The line at the food stand was equally long and unfortunately much, much slower.  By the time we got into our seats we were well into the previews.

I thought the movie was good, not great.  It was nice seeing Keanu back in an action film.  I’d give the flick a strong B+, bordering on an A- depending on my mood.

Perhaps my rating is negatively biased from the fat, zit faced kid that was sitting two seats to my left during the film.  Every few minutes he felt the need to light up his phone, just to make sure he didn’t miss some social media, text message or other brainless activity.  When I see individuals that are so connected with their electronic devices that they can’t even sit through a movie without interacting with them it sickens me.  It makes me feel badly for even owning a smartphone myself.  As I was waiting in the hall after the movie, 75% of the human beings in the hall with me had their heads down, making virtual love to their phones.  It just bothers me.

When we got home we had to light up a vanilla birthday cupcake for Nicki, celebrating her 11th birthday.  Both Sadie and her LOVED their sweet treat.  Sadie was pushing the dish across the floor, trying to lick up every last speck of icing.  Tonight I get to repeat the process since it is Sadie’s bday.

Sunday was a very slow/lazy day for me.  It was off and on raining for most of the morning, scuttling our tentative plans to do a bike ride.  Late morning we headed back up to Coconut Point to the ATT store.  We had stopped there before the movie to look into replacing Cindy’s aging Iphone 4S.  I had made the suggestion that she looks into breaking away from her Iphone heritage and look into a Samsung Galaxy S4.  Since playing with my Galaxy Tab 3 Cindy bought me for Xmas I am more and more impressed with the Android environment.

The S4 hardware is superior to what Apple offers as well with a better camera, dramatically larger screen and release from the typical Apple shackles, allowing you to do things like add a memory card and swap out the battery yourself, GASP.  Cindy wanted to go back to that particular store because she had a soft spot for the kid that helped us. He had a pretty noticeable stutter, something difficult to deal with in the sales field.

Well her loyalty came with a price.  The cost was at least 60 minutes of standing around, waiting for Nathan to get free.  We had the misfortune of showing up while he was in the middle of replacing phones for an ENTIRE family, four phones in total.  By the end of the 60 minute wait I was right on the verge of consuming my last grain of patience.

Finally he finished up and took care of the swap which was pretty easy.  Cindy converted over to the ATT Next plan which allows you to swap out your phone more often for less up front money.  I was skeptical of the plan since when you break costs into monthly increments you always wind up paying more than if you just bite the bullet and pay it up front.  However in her case the numbers made sense.  Instead of paying 199 up front for a new phone, her upgrade fee was 40 bucks and will remain 40 bucks in 18 months when she upgrades again.  With a 10 GIG shared data plan (her daughter is on her account), her monthly bill only went up roughly 10 bucks.

Cindy was scared to leave the comfort of her Iphone but I convinced her after the transition phase which is sure to be frustrating at times, she will be glad she made the switch.  I know multiple Galaxy former iOwners that LOVE their Droids once they switched.  A good portion of the rest of Sunday was spent fussing with the S4, migrating data from her Iphone to it and exploring/learning/configuring things on the new phone.

I sort of felt like a lazy bum during the afternoon, surely due to the lack of any organized exercise during the weekend.  It wasn’t like I was laying around watching tv and drinking beer but still, my mental health requires physical effort.

I had the Phantom in the air a number of times over the weekend.  Each time I was amazed at just how ez the thing is to fly.  I had so much confidence in it’s stability that I even let Cindy fly it around the yard quite a bit.  As long as you make sure you are away from/above any potential obstacles you are good to go.  Crashing it would require an act of extreme negligence.  I’m not quite sure what the range is of the radio but I have had the sucker quite high, to the point where it was a small red/green blip in the sky.

Wow, the Eagles did it.  They beat the Cowboys to win the NFC East, delivering a huge interception at the very end of the game to secure the win.  The game was great, just what you would want for a contest deciding the division champion.  The Eagles never trailed but were only holding a very narrow lead for most of the game.

For Dallas it had to be a heartbreaking loss, akin to what the Eagles experienced losing three or four NFC championship games in a row.  You see for the past three years Dallas had a chance to win their division on the last game of the season against a division opponent.  For three years in a row they have gone down in flames, losing to the Giants, the Redskins and now the Eagles.

The Eagles winning the division is part of a dramatic turnaround that I never would have predicted a couple months ago when the team seemed destined to be in the midst of a rebuilding year, sitting at 3-5.  I am very happy to pronounce myself mistaken in my analysis of the team back them.  Nick Foles meteoric rise at QB and the defense playing better resulted in 7-1 finish, putting the Birds at 10-6 for the year.

Even with the great finish I am still not taking anything for granted.  I have no idea if they can make any headway in the playoffs or if the Saints will come in to one and done them.  It doesn’t really matter though to me, it’s all gravy at this point.

Short on time so I’ll be short on words.  Yesterday’s highlight was my outdoor squatting and deadlifting session where I used lifting straps.  The straps allowed me to set a new personal best, pulling 340 pounds for 8 reps.  Deadlifting outside is tough on sandy soil.  There is no bounce at the bottom, instead the weights sink into the ground with each rep.  By the time I was done I had a 1-2 inch trench.

When class was done I headed out to Sam’s Club in the SSR.  I had a few things to buy for myself and others.  Plus if I am being honest, I just wanted an excuse to take the truck out as well.

As I walked back to the truck the sun was setting so I snapped a pic.  It just looked sort of awesome.

I had a very atypical Thursday morning.  Cindy was off today and had made the suggestion earlier in the week that we try to get a 30 mile Ave Maria ride in before my class starts at 10.  Sure, I said.

Well this morning rolls around and the thermometer shows 53 degrees.  I was still game and Cindy agreed to give it a try as well although she hates cold air.  She layered up as did I.

The ride was very cold at first.  As the sun rose and our body temperatures elevated it became tolerable.  It was a pretty ride out to the college and back although we certainly didn’t set any speed records.  It felt like we had decent head wind both directions somehow.

That’s all folks.

The other day I took a picture of the SSR odometer, it had just hit 39,000 miles. That’s a very low number considering the truck is now 8 years old. (really almost 9 since it was built  January 25th of 2005) When I bought the truck around two years ago it had somewhere just under 29,000 miles on the odometer.

When I bought the truck I obviously was not going to make it my daily driver.  I implemented a plan where I would take it to work on Fridays.  It’s the best day of the work week typically so why not amplify that with a weekly SSR commute?

I kept up this routine for awhile, maybe the first 9-10 months of ownership.  It was fun in some ways although it seemed like the SSR was a bad weather magnet. It felt like it rained more days than not when I brought it. Also when I brought it to work the only place I felt safe parking it was in the garage which is a considerable walk from the office, making things like my lunch time gym trips tougher to swallow.

Slowly the Fridays I would commute in the truck became fewer and farther between. Present day I never take the truck to work unless a social event or other need dictates it.  Instead I will take it out on the weekend if Cindy and I go somewhere but there are times where the silver beast can sit dormant in the garage for two weeks or more.

A part of me actually likes this, I want to preserve the truck, keep the mileage low so it remains pristine and valuable.  Part of me is in conflict with this strategy, as I paid a lot of money for the SSR and it doesn’t repay much in fun dollars if the ignition is turned off.  When I am on the road with the truck I try to make sure I do indeed make up for lost time.  6000 rpm shifts with the Corvette motor sound and feel amazing as does the back pressure gurgle as I downshift the 4800 pound beast.

There are even fleeting moments when I wonder if I should even own a vehicle like this. Fiscally it makes no sense, I could save a ton of money from the net proceeds of selling the truck compounded by the subtraction of a car payment, insurance and registration costs.   Fortunately I don’t make all my decisions in life purely in terms of dollars and sense.