Stay Afloat

So it seems that the past couple of months I've been struggling just to stay afloat. I get to the weekend and immediately start off several steps behind and have to work the whole weekend just to catch up. Yeah, most of these weekends have been vehicle related, but I thought this weekend I might finally get some relief. I did, from the vehicles themselves, but then I remembered that there's something else I needed to take care of. This weekend's time was spent dealing with a speeding ticket, for which I needed to take a defensive driving course. Since I've waited til near the deadline, the online course was my only option. Just to make things more difficult for me, last Thursday, out of a desire to get some web streaming radio station working, I uninstalled Service Pack 2. The radio was fixed and worked, as well as every other networked application, *except* for *all* web browsers. That's somewhat essential to my online course. So, fixing that was not very easy and took up most of Saturday. Sunday I spent taking the course. I fully expect the next month to be full of the same type of wheel spinning activities as I pack up and clean every room in this house. This is sure to uncover lots of junk that's accumulated over the past four years. It probably won't turn out to be as bad a chore as I'm currently thinking, and I'm really hoping this time I'll throw some stuff out instead of repacking all this junk I never use. And when it is done, I'll be able to finally start looking ahead, and maybe think about doing something with my life. Yeah, not likely.

Three Degrees of Separation

I have two wing entries and one automotive entry saved up at this point... but don't you want to read something completely different?

Tonight I found myself bored and with nothing* to do, so I decided to head out and play NTN trivia, something I haven't done at all in roughly a year and a half. I won a couple and lost a couple against my local competitors, but the highlight of the evening for me was finding out that one of the guys I was playing against knows Greg from Survivor I, who obviously knows Colleen from Survivor I (if you watched it you may remember they were close friends). She was one of my TV infatuations, and now I can say I know someone who knows someone who knows Colleen. I guess I could say that of anyone on the Survivor I cast, but I really don't care about the others, so what's the point. The theory of six degrees of seperation states that you are connected to anyone on the planet through an average of five intermediaries. So I consider myself halfway closer to knowing her! And it only took one short trip to a nearby bar. Think about that the next time you decide to spend your free evening hours home alone watching TV. You could be out there meeting someone you've always wanted to meet, or at least someone who knows someone who knows someone who you've always wanted to meet.

*by nothing I mean many things that I should do but don't want to do

Thank you Real World Austin

for helping me remember the name of the bar just north of Club DeVille where I saw a band a few weeks ago (Velvet Spade). [RW: This is where they practiced their film production] And thanks for helping me remember the name of the bar where a certain bachelor and bachelorette party I attended ended with the bachelor and bachelorette hunched over their respective toilets (Paradise Lounge). [RW: This is the place to take a roommate or two to discuss the others over dinner]

And here I thought they had stopped exploring already would only go to the Dizzy Rooster (I know where it is, but haven't been there) and Paradox (I don't even know where that is).

It Smells Like Burning!

It's time for part two of my story. Actually the first half of this is really part one, a flashback if you will. So... "I remember it as if it were yesterday"

Two Saturdays ago, I was ready to buy a car. Riding a motorcycle in the heat all week had gotten old. And, since it's been, oh, probably a year since I've had the oil changed on my bike, I figured it was about to bite the dust as well. But since I wasn't 100% sure I would have a new car that day, and Saturday is the really the only regular time I can get to the motorcycle dealer while it is open, I decided to take a trip there first to buy some oil in case I needed to do a "quick" oil change myself. With that trip done, instead of buying a car that afternoon I went home and did more web searching for cars, just to be sure I was making the right choice. By the time the afternoon was over, I knew I better get out to the dealer or I'd have to wait until Monday. So I look for my keys... for a long time. Can't find 'em. When I did, I found them where they shouldn't have been. In the ignition of my motorcycle. Now if you've never driven a motorcycle before, you may not know that 1) to turn them off you don't rotate the key back to off, you flip a kill switch 2) the headlight doesn't have a separate on/off switch (it comes on automatically when the key is turned) and 3) there is no ding-ding-ding sound when you cut the engine to tell you that your headlight is still on. These facts make it very easy to leave your headlight on and kill the battery. So, when I finally found my keys, I also found a dead motorcycle.

I was surprised to learn on that camping trip how quickly leaving the light on will drain a motorcycle battery. But I was also surprised to learn how easy it is to roll your bike down the street, pop the clutch, and have it running again. So this is what I decided to do. Maybe the hill I was on wasn't steep enough, or I needed someone to push to give me more speed, or something serious was wrong with the bike (needed some oil maybe?), but I couldn't get it started that way this time. I ended up two to three blocks away before I gave up--and had to push it all the way back home, uphill (but at least not a steep up hill). It was hot and still sunny, so not fun. I had to rest several times on the way back. So this whole deal took several hours from start to finish. I called Jeremy who noted that I could jump start it. I mean, I did still have a car here. It doesn't run but it does still have a charged battery. I found the battery on the bike (actually quite easy to get to), hooked up the jumper cables, and I'm back in business. I drove it around for an hour to get the battery charged up.

When I tried to start the bike on Sunday, it wouldn't. At that point I'm thinking that maybe I killed the battery for good, or something worse like there isn't any oil in it at all. That starts my oil changing story (see previuos entry). My Probe--which I keep swearing I won't drive again--got me to the dealer on the 4th of July, and I got the new car. They wouldn't take it for a trade-in, and I can't say I blame them. So, the Probe sat up there for nearly a week.

I got Jeremy to go up there last Saturday to help retrieve it. It had a little trouble starting, but not much. Jeremy drove my new car back and followed me home since he wasn't exactly sure where we were. He was probably adjusting the mirrors, seat, radio, whatever, for awhile as I sat there with the Probe running, watching the smoke escaping from under the hoood. "Hurry up!" I thought, "I need to start driving to cool this thing off before it blows up!" We got most of the way home and by that point my heart was racing... I was noticing more smoke and some not so good smells from the engine. A couple miles away from home I turned on the heater full blast (to try and cool off the engine) and tried to adjust my speed so I wouldn't hit the stoplights on a red. Almost there. Since I knew something bad was going to happen at any second I took the shortest (distance) way home. The bad thing about the shortest way home is there is a long, very steep hill just before the house. On this hill I made the mistake of shifting to second gear once I was gonig fast enough. Once I realized the car wasn't going to get all the way up in second gear, I tried to shift back, which is when the car died. I tried to start it, but it was done for that day. Thankfully street parking was legal where I was, so, using gravity and my emergency brake, I was able to park it on the side of the road and call it a night.

It stayed there until just a few hours ago, when I walked the couple blocks down to attempt to bring it home. I've been putting it off cause the car is really starting to scare me now. I checked the oil, which accomplished nothing because oil coats the entire dipstick when I put it in now. So, I dumped in a quart "just because," started it up, kept it in first gear, and drove it the rest of the way home. Only two blocks and it smells like burning already. But, now it is here and I can forget about it for awhile. But not too long, as I may be having to move in a month or so--and I don't want to have to drive it to whereever that is.

The Amateur Bike Mechanic Again

Those of you who don't read the comments to my entries might still be wondering if I got into an accident on the motorcycle. No, thankfully that is not the case, but I am still suffering the pain--of the world's longest oil and filter change. I have a maintenance manual for my bike--I don't remember the brand name of the manual, but it's from one of those companies that makes manuals for every vehicle. I have no trouble understanding manual instructions: unscrew this, take this out, put this in, etc. It's always simple stuff. The problem always comes in finding and using the correct tool for each of those steps, because the instructions never tell you that. But why not? You would think that a particular model of vehicle would be manufactured with the same size screws and bolts for each particular part. Oh well, I suppose these manuals are written generically enough so that they can be easily used for other vehicles too. Hand in hand with having the right tool is interference removal--stuff that doesn't need fixing but is in the way of whatever you're trying to fix. Sometimes if you have the right tool some interference removal can be eliminated. But usually that is impossible, so you have to remove some extra stuff. In this case, I made the mistake of thinking the manual instructions wouldn't make me do extra, unnecessary things--like take off both exhaust pipes. That was a pain in the ass, and, I assumed, completely necessary. Since this was my first time changing the oil filter, I didn't know exactly what covered what and even where the filter was located. But now that I have it back together, it appears that taking off the exhaust pipes was completely unnecessary. Thanks, Haynes... oh now I remember your name.

So this whole process of getting the right oil, filter, tools, taking apart the exhaust system, getting other parts*, draining the oil, replacing the oil filter, putting back together the exhaust system, and filling the oil has taken me more than a week from beginning to end. I'm still not quite done as I somehow came up 12 oz short of oil, and have a dead battery (that's another story). Maybe by next week the bike will be up and running again. Certainly by Worldwide Motorcycle Ride to Work Day.

*new exhaust bolts to replace rusty ones, also new exhaust gasket which will hopefully stop my right leg from getting scorched at stoplights

Forgotten 80's with Wings

Heard last night:

"What is Love?" - Howard Jones - I've heard his other hits lately but forgot about this one!

"Affair of the Heart" - Rick Springfield - I wasn't sure this was him until I looked it up. I may have to buy his greatest hits if he has one. I can't seem to get enough of his crappy music.

"Lies" - Thompson Twins - This is one of those 80's songs that uses that "oriental" music following a line using the word "Japan." You know what I mean, lots of fourths... also in songs like "China Girl" (Bowie) "Turning Japanese" (Vapors) etc. Why don't I hear that riff in music anymore? Is it offensive, or did it just get old? Yes, I realize "oriental" is considered offensive too, but it's interesting to note that it's really only considered that way here in North America (see link).

Okay I'm Back

The last week or two has been filled with stressful personal transportation related events. Maybe I lied when I I said there wasn't anything worth talking about, but I really didn't want to write anything until the whole situation was over and done with. Which it is--except for the fact that my motorcycle is in pieces and I still have my Probe.

So, you say, nothing has changed and it's actually gotten a whole lot worse! So why are you writing now? Well, I do now have reliable transportation as today I bought a new(er) car. A trade-in would've yielded me nothing given the Probe's condition, and since I know someone who would like to work on it I'll probably just give it to him. Then I could come over and visit it when I get lonely and miss it. Maybe I'll talk about the motorcycle later.

My new car isn't entirely unlike my old one, in that it is a 2 door coupe hatchback and has a bit of a reputation as a chick car. But it is different in that it has a bigger engine (good move with gas prices and all huh?), a moonroof, and leather interior. Care to guess? It is on the Female Best-selling cars by gender list, though mine is a used 2003, not a 2005/2006. Since only one of these is a hatchback, it should be pretty easy.