The Manic Mechanic

Thanks to the wonderfully kind and delightfully cute jacked01, who stood in line for me at the DMV today, I finally have my temporary parking permits. I tried Tuesday at the Columbia office of the DMV, a tiny office in a strip mall the size of a Radio Shack, and the line there was outside the door. Being that this particular day also dealt me with several other bad situations and shitty news, I was ready to give up. Today the crowd at the Beltsville office was a fraction of the horror it was the first time I stopped in last week, Joe had to stand in the much smaller line for about 20 minutes at most, the wait thereafter was less than an hour, time that went by much faster with someone cool to hang out with. Less than 5 minutes at the counter to get the placards and we were on our way. Thanks again, buddy, you made life quite a bit easier for me. I owe ya one.

The ever increasing pain and lack of mobility has finally beaten me down. I no longer have the desire to tinker or otherwise make fun use of my free time. I've been doing more sleeping than much else. Being a tad under the weather doesn't help matters much, either. I know I'm not a bucket of cheer to be around either. At least Jeff and I had a decent dinner at a new place down the road from the house called Twist and Turn Tavern. With all the building up and suburbanization happening around here, at least there are some decent places to eat that are not chains or corporate blandness. Jeff had a ribeye steak that was outstanding, I went with a simple bowl of Maryland Crab soup and a Chicken Caesar wrap. Both were good, and soup is what I like to have when I'm feeling out of sorts.

I have a few other tasks to complete before my surgery, nothing too strenuous, once they are done, I'm pretty much set and can (hopefully) not worry about anything once I go under the knife and I'm benched for four to six weeks afterward. Hopefully once that's over, I can get my life back into some semblance of normal.

So, what's happening with y'alls?

I've been lax in timely updates. Not all has been spent stumbling around like Pegleg the Pirate on ice, though. Late last week I braved the DMV/MVA for all of about 20 minutes to acquire a temporary handicap parking tag for the car. This will allow me some temporary rockstar/Doris Day parking while I get through my period of defective leggedness. It's a help, for sure.

On Friday, Jeff and I had a chance to make an across-the-coasts connection with a friend of mine I have known online for over ten years now. musklebear was in town on a teaching gig, far, far away from his Cali home. We used the fortunate time to rescue him from his boring hotel room that evening and took him out for dinner. We happened (well, I hobbled at best) upon an odd restaurant called "Ketchup" at National Harbor. Apparently they are known for their... ketchup. Make that ketchups. Maple ketchup. Chipotle ketchup. Raspberry ketchup. Ranch ketchup. Garlic ketchup. And plain, old ketchup. The food was so-so, the atmosphere very noisy, and they attempted to pile our main dishes onto our small table about a minute after receiving our entrees (we sent them back until we finished the 'apps', as has now become fashionable to call the appetizers). But our very engaging waitress and our wonderful guest more than made up for it.



This was a very welcome diversion after several weeks of work and health issues. Thanks bunches, Jim.

The weekend was fairly quiet, I managed to finish up patching the huge sinkhole and it's older, smaller cousin in the driveway on Saturday. This was a job that would have normally taken me half a day at best, but was spread over several days because I just can't do much heavy work at all being incapacitated. It's very frustrating for me. But, I manage. Slow and stead wins the race, blah blah blah and all that. This week I hope to arrange my surgery and get that taken care of. I hope to sneak in a trip to the ophthalmologist in there as well as find a dentist to take care of other minor (or not) maladies I've been putting off for a while.

Tomorrow is more rehab/treatments for the ankle and taking Kodi to the groomer. And whatever else I can manage to do.

Today's weather was nazztuh. I bagged work yet again mainly to avoid dealing with the icy conditions, and in the afternoon went out to renew my driver's license which expires this weekend. A new record, in and out in about five minutes. Of course, my picture looks awful, with my winter beard a permanent record for the next five years. And now, a restriction for corrective lenses. Bleah.

The snow we had yesterday got glazed over with slick ice. Jeff and I had to go and retrieve Kodi, who got stranded in the yard unable to walk up the bit if a grade leading up to the house. It took me over five minutes to walk from the front door to the carport to take out the garbage, the walkway was so slick. Tomorrow morning is going to be an adventure for sure.

With the weatherman predicting crappy weather for Saturday, I did not expect to get much done outside. As it was, the weather was quite nice, and some much needed spring cleaning took place. A full truckoad (no kidding) of flattened cardboard boxes got taken to recycling. A full 55 gallon bag plus a partial one filled with styro packing peanuts I took to the bewildered (yet always happy to receive them) folks at my post office. Being that Jeff and I do so much internet and mail order buying, the fallout of packaging collects in no time. All the styro blocks and materials will have to find some other disposal method.

It was also time for me to tackle the soapy disaster in the trunk of The Strat. The half-quart or so of mega-concentrated dishwashing soap collected in the spare tire well, soaping up just about everything on it's way through the well. Trying to figure out a way to not waste the soap, I pulled everything from the trunk, filled the well with several gallons of water to dilute the soap, then bailed it into buckets to be used for cleaning the cars and trucks. It seemed a wonderful idea. And it was. It also begun the inside-out, bottom-to-top detailing I like to give my vehicles in the spring. Taillights were removed, housings cleaned, the trunk scrubbed and shop vac'd clean, then onto the engine bays of three of my rolling stock. Rinsing the soap from the carpet and the spare tire cover panel took about a half hour of continuous water blasting. It looked as though I had a foam party in my driveway afterwards.

People who know me well will know that I prefer to have the engine compartments of my vehicles clean enough to eat from. So, with the soapy water, engine cleaner and other goodies, I cleaned up three engine bays:


The Strat ('00 Dodge Stratus ES)


The '03 Mini Cooper S and all it's mods


The '07.5 Chevy Silverado Duramax, All 365hp/660lb-ft of diesel goodness.

Okay, the last one was a bit of cheating, it did not need a lot of work to look spiffy, since it's so new. And yes, I added a second alternator, just because I could.

Today was cold and windy, and I did not feel like washing these vehicles as I was hoping to do. Instead, Jeff and I took a trip to Carmax for kicks to see what was available. Jeff's commute , though not that long, is a killer in gas mileage since his S-10 does not exactly sip fuel with it's big V6, oversized tires and the roof visor. There was a lot of cars in decent shape, but nothing truly stood out that was not already sold or either too expensive or with way too many miles. There were some nice Cobalts, quite a few Pontiac and Malibus, an unusual blue Camry, a couple Solaras, and a couple Dodge Calibers. The pretty green late model Stratus Jeff saw on the intarweb had been sold. Other interesting cars had manual transmissions, which Jeff does not do. After some walking around, kicking tires, picture taking and a little bit of seat time, we had lunch then did our grocery shopping for the week. The funky weather put me under the weather somewhat, so I rounded out the day with some household tasks, a nap and other sundry nonsense.

As usual, I've been a bad blogger, no regular updates 'n' all that shit. Been pretty busy at work, then I come home mentally exhausted and not much in the mood for anything challenging. That sort of carried itself into this weekend, where I did little non-critical projects, some of them odd, some necessary. The bathroom vent fan in the travel trailer, while effective, is the biggest source of RF interference this side of an armed forces tactical jammer. Anytime it's on, forget about watching or listening to most anything over the air in a radius of 200 feet. I pulled out the motor and fitted it with a set of capacitors, now there is no EMI. One dumb project taken care of.

Last weekend I had pressure washed the big parking area in front of the garage. During the week I have been filling cracks in the asphalt and concrete. Today I picked up a couple huge cartridges of concrete crack repair. It's essentially a self-leveling latex caulk. I tackled the long crack along where the pad meets the building. Once I made the first pass, I waited for the stuff to level and seep into the crack, filling in where it's insufficient. Color me surprised when I find a portion of the bead moving and writhing, then attempting to walk across the driveway. Apparently I sealed a blue-tailed skink (a common lizard) inside the crack. These strikingly colorful little reptiles are suddenly very common around here. I felt bad about entombing the little juvenile lizard in the sticky caulk, so I spent about a half hour trying to clean him up. Water is hopeless, so I used a bit of vegetable oil. Eventually I got most of the stuff off the critter washed him up and set him free against the house. I hope he makes it.

I have so much to do and no desire to do it. I gotta get out of this slump and take care of these things before it becomes overwhelming and expensive. And getting angry at myself no longer does any good.

I'm still around. I have not been in a Livejournal-y mood lately, besides, seeing post after post of my mundane life and all the entries that undoubtedly would be negative in nature would underscore the mediocrity and buzzkill when it really isnt always the case. There are fun, little positives like Jeff cooking and serving dinner in the trailer yesterday. Just trying out the appliances and getting a feel for camping in the thing, all the while being parked ten feet from the house. We're going to have to have an overnight in the thing, maybe this weekend, seeing that we are keeping close to home during the insanity of Memorial Day. Our shakedown cruise/maiden voyage happens the following weekend when we take a trip to Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. If the truck and trailer can handle the mountain passes and all the systems on board work as they should, there should be no problems during our big trip to P-Town in July. Wish us luck.

I had an unsettling dream that involved Mom last night. It was not all bad, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Every now and then my dreams are full Technicolor widescreen affairs, with THX surround sound (and Sensurround if my muscles and limbs become involved). This was one of those dreams. I heard her voice loud and clear, as I always remember it being, not as it was in the last couple months when the cancer robbed her of her voice. I wanted the dream to go on and on.

Then reality tore through it all in the form of the clock alarm and it's signalling the beginning of yet another day of work filled with idiocy and incompetence. Reality bites. It can bite my ass.