No Bike Ride Yet....

Was getting nowhere with lab projects, and ran short on cash. Got with instructor to let him know I will be back to finish last 14 labs in January. I am tired of having to wait on everybody else all the time. That's a major part of why I was behind in the first place. Can't wait to be clear of it all and done. Not even thinking about getting work afterwards anymore. Just want to finish first.

Teaching for myself is done for a few more weeks. I need a break, with time as my own. Even if it is all spent rebuilding dead cars and bicycles. I have a desire for a motorcycle, but hope to just wait until July or so. If all goes according to plan now, the gas savngs alone should more than help my budget issues and allow for the motorcycle I really want by then.

Jeep is running under it's own power. Money too short to finish up and smog for now. Shouldn't take much to get it current with DMV again. Want it to be ready for summer this year. My perspective is that if the place catches on fire, at least I can start it up and get it clear of thebuilding. Need I mention two counts of arson at this complex since moving here...? Yeah, it COULD happen.


Tearing madly into Miata to repair it. Two places said the bottom end froze, and the noise was crank bearings. Over a two year span with little money I have collected a short block, clutch and various other stuff to right all the cars wrongs all at once.Today, I found the crankshaft pulley bolt tightened...but the pulley LOOSE on the crank nose. This is the sound I have been hearing, and would explain much on why the car wasn't running right. The crank sensor doesn't line up correctly among other things. I could tighten the bolt and/ or fix whatever the issue is...but after all this time/ expense, the new block is going into the car. No more fucking around with this crap, it's getting replaced. I can always do a supercharger build out of the original bottom end at this point. A few small parts still need to be replaced, hopefully while everything is taken apart and easy to get at. Would like to replace front sway bar while I'm in here. Don't know about it all yet. All gets back to money. And maybe some welding.

Truck is last in line for repair. Bushings in suspension are dead. After finding issue on Miata today, I suspect I will never be going back to garage that had been doing my repairs. They were great at first, but each repair was increasingly rushed it seemed. Debating teling owner about it all. He seems to be a nice guy and honest. I really don't want to deal with truck bushings, as I can't see how to safely jack up the damned thing and get them installed. Oh well, I have one other place that could probably do it easy enough.

If I reach a halt point on the Miata I will jump into the bicycle paint repair. I am sick to death of how my poor bike looks. I need to ride more, so it needs to be fixed soon. I used to live for riding at night at this time of the year. I miss it all.

Much to do before allowing myself the joy of any bike ride. When the car is current and drivable, I can ride again. A week or so maybe at this point?

Fiberglass Project

It's the fiberglass project slowing me down now. Too damned cold in the garage to work on it after a certain time of the day. Got about 60% of it done, and off to school to see what else is going on for the things I've already turned in. Hope there are no more corrections to do on them and I can get to the next step of things. All this make-up work is taking far too long.I can't see it done until January now, even though I will work for sooner. December is such a crap month to deal with, why must everything close down?

Light...or not?

Taxes dealt with. Pending taxes being dealt with.

Jeep being dealt with, until disaster stuck commute truck.

Truck repeatedly dealt with. Seems handled.

School project not going well, will be dealt with.

Considering how to deal with tiny car not driven for a number of years.

Garage cleaned up enough to function in and purged of some stuff I no longer need. Still more to deal with.


That might be light at the end of the tunnel, or my own reflection in a darkened mirror horrifing me. With Poe, you never know...do you?

It's all About Food

I haven't been able to figure out my Blogger password in some time, since the Google take-over. I had nothing to say either. I used to surf blogs and find much interesting and fun....but that seems to be a thing of the past. Now the only thing I seem to find are 1. Cooking Blogs, and 2. Spoiled rich girls dropping out of coillege to travel/ find themselves/ recover or whatever else one does when daddy's money foots the bill.


Life for me remains a constant strain of making up schoolwork and bills. Is it ever going to change?

Worse than I thought. Much worse.

I have been going through what the business earned and cost for the last few years and I have been majorly losing my ass. I can't see how I stayed ahead of the basic bills, but can see why I am not getting ahead at all. Nothing short of a miracle could save this thing now. The rents are higher than ever (like 6 times higher than when moving into the locations), and income has dropped like 65% from a high point like 5 years ago (about when I moved in).

Two years ago I got in a bad wreck once again, and I am sure it addled my thinking, this seems to prove it even more. Geez, even if I were working a 9-5 job this wouldn't be worth it...why should I take such major amounts of money out of my pocket so everybody else can have fun? It sure doesn't make the whole deal fun for me.Now I need major investment in equipment just to hold even. I don't think that's going to happen now.

I need a steady job, even at minimum wage it would be a huge improvement on things now. Perhaps a night job until I finish school...? I can't sort it all out this late.

Why....

are all the people in my life who understood the progression of certain arts through certain histories to the present all dead? Why not the half-assed morons with even more half-wit off-spring? Why DO the good die young?

Sometimes.

Sometimes the past can't be edited enough to work. Sometimes you just have to finish it to be able to move on to the next thing.

Strummer

I fucking hated The Clash. I heard them years ahead of any US punk I ever met, as I was living my life listening to the World Service of the BBC...back when they still transmited to the US.

Some of the tunes were pretty good, so I read every thing I could on them. Everything went on and on about how much they hated this, that or the other kind of music...or group. I became so annoyed at their on-going whining that I wrote them off.

Then, I met Strummer for about 10 minutes, in Northen California. It was a wreird gig, the audience was mainly like 13 year old girls trying to be hip. It was one of the few gigs where I was tall enough to see the stage from the floor. The band played well, but looked completley perplexed at the crowd. After the show I was ready for an arguement, and worked my way to Strummer. He greeted me with a warm hello and said he hoped I'd enjoyed the show. He mentioned he had noticed me, as I was a foot taller than everyone else down front. I got him right on music, and he was not at all what I expected. he said, "Whatever music you love is great! Just do it like you mean it! I hate all the magazines, they cut so much out of what I said and make it look like I hate all sorts of things. Christ, I wouldn't have started playing guitar if I didn't like what came before me!"

In that monet, I heard The Clash a whole new way. I ended up liking them.

But the bass player was the biggest prick I've ever meet in music. He was walking with a boombox, and thinking I recognized the reggae tune he was blasting, I asked what it was. He gave me a snotty answer that it was reggae. Asshole, I was probably listening to it 10 years before he ever even heard it. Why is it that the wrong one in a band always dies first?

They Call Her A POET?!?!?!?!?!?

Who the fuck was stupid enough to pick Elizabeth Alexander to read at the big hoeha inauguration?

They call her a Poet? That was the single worst reading I have ever heard from ANY poet! I've heard coffee-wired goths whining away in cafes that were better than that. Hell, I've heard FIFTH GRADERS who were better than that! In fact, on the day of the reading I had a fifth-grader tell me they thought it was both a terrible poem, and badly read.

There was no emotion, and she clunked each word out like a special ed child struggling to read the next word. Christ, if she wrote the damned poem, she should at least be able to infuse it with some degree of emotion or meaning! In listening to the actual words (as hard as it was...), the poem was completely common. I mean, any bored soccer mom with no grip on the English language could have spewed that thing out.

Once again proof of how wrong affirmative action was in practice. The idea of giving everyone an equal chance was grand....but the fact is that after a few years, the color of your skin got more jobs than actual qualifications. This woman is where she is because of the color of her skin, not because of her qualifications.

The sad thing was that she was better than the self-promoting asshole of a preacher than came on to close the show. Perhaps he should go back to the black community and get them to begin "doing the right thing" before he decides to demand of the white community. That might clear the jails out and improve society a touch quicker. Guess the fucking asshole didn't realize he wasn't preaching to a room full of his blind sheep followers.

The Wasted Energy Of A Racing Mind.

For some years I have felt underchallenged. In my past, I had the need to fill my mind at all times with variuos useful thoughts, which all stopped in '88 with the car wreck. Since then, instead of viable creative thoughts, I find myself consumed with worry about the worst possible thing that could happen. I go to class, its failure, I go to teach, its weird parents and their children who refuse to work, I drive, its some idiot causing a wreck for me.

I struggle to shut it all off. Some 5 years ago I was there. I shut it off and had a calm mind. I lived by the rule that 90% of what you worry about never happens, so stop the worry and be ready for the ten percent that does happen.

I recognize the need to reach this place again. I waste so much energy on worry. I need to get things rolling again, instead of burning the candle of doubt.

Tiring....

...but I think I have answered all the pending e-mails sent me since the middle of December. Feeling way sick, first sinus, then headaches, then stomach and more. God, I just wanna get the year rolling...and it certainly is fighting me. I have enrolled in yet more general ed classes as I chase my A & P cert. Labs still to finished...groan....

Behind Again Already...

Its a new year, and between the limited access to the internet, my new glasses, and trying to finally get rolling on a number of key issues (auto repair, etc), I find myself behind again already.

I am backed up on e-mails. I am behind on autos, and I am struggling over a project involving a 100+ year old table.

I aim to start the catching up tonight....

God I Hate Change!

BUT...

Its probably the best thing for oneself innit?

Last time I remember playing music and it meaning something was new years eve of 2000. All I've done since then is work. I am tired of work. The gods conspire against me, so I cast them out!

Need new toys, need new goals, need new. Got some new already.

I may hate change, but I welcome it!