Not-Summer

Well, there it went. Summer is "over". I say that because, all the little kiddies are back to school, I'm back to work and the long hot days are getting shorter. We've had some really cool nights now and even some chilly autumn days.

So a recap of the summer... Hmm.. Well I started off driving taxi for a bit. Also did some bus charters but mostly didn't work much for the month of July. It was nice having the time off but I got worried about money. Then my cousin offered me a job so I started working 6 hour days there. Although I had plans in the works about Si-Man coming to visit so I had to be upfront and tell my cousin I was going to need some time off while we had friends in town from the UK.

It was fun to find out many differences between our countries and it was trying at times to have 3 extra people in your house (hope we didn't scare you away!) We did many things while they were here. We took them to Canada's Wonderland, camping (canoeing and fishing), we drank entirely too much and we shared some amazing experiences. We took them and were able to have them catch the Pokemon that is region specific to Canada. They tried real Maple Syrup and Poutine and Kool-aid. Si-Man took it upon himself to not allow us to pay for nearly anything during his stay. He also thought it funny to buy us some really expensive gifts! So The Ole Man and I each of brand new Xbox One S consoles, and two games. My daughter got my old One and the other got a new TV. Now she has the best TV in the house lol he certainly spoiled us!

My Jane decided that she'd had enough abuse this summer and vomited transmission fluid through the wall of the housing. Another project.. The Beater PT has been having oil and overheating issues... it's just been one thing after another. The idea of having a newish vehicle is taunting.

I am sad that the summer is over. It always goes so fast. I much prefer summer over winter. People can complain about the heat but I'm already missing it. Not working in it, but certainly missing warm days over the ones we've been having, reminding me that winter is just around the corner.

Terrible

The point in time where you haven't so much as looked at your blog in months...

That's me, right now.

It is a constant struggle to juggle all the things in the summertime, between the car, the kids, the work and the other work, and the other, other work. Add a boyfriend in the mix too, and well, there you have it. Non productive in the writing department.

Things to come, or topics to write about in the (hopefully) near future:

• Halloween
• Thanksgiving (maybe)
• TayTay in TO
• Big News
• Other, other job
• Gushy mushy shit
• Sing It All The Way
• Beta
• Jane
• Camping!

That's a pretty long list... stay tuned!

Holy Hell

Where did the last few months go?

Fuck.

Between getting the PeeTee on the road, to pretty much blowing it up again, I'm already over cars right now.

I say that because it really fucks with me when I don't have a car. I also am at a complete halt without it because I can't do anything major to Jane until I have another car to drive in the downtime.

FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

It really sucks when you rely on people who really are just liars and thieves. Then when it comes down to it, you're the one that gets fucked in the end.

It's almost been a year since I got that car. I've driven it for one week. Had insurance on it for over a month.

Jane is now the DD I guess. I'm going to have to be without a car when she has downtime. So much work to do. So little motivation.

I May Be Stupid... but...

I got nothin'. It was probably pretty stupid of me to push the POS beater car to Ottawa and back. Then to say "Hell, it made it to Ottawa, it should be fine to go to Windsor".

Heh.

About that... Well, it wasn't boring, that's for sure. The weekend started off kind of shitty when I woke up to a pile of snow Friday morning. My landlords still have my snowblower for the "tuning up" thing I begged them to do all summer. So I had to actually shovel my driveway. That kind of sucked. And started my day later than planned.

The sight out my front window on Friday morning

Finally get the car loaded up and ready to go. Stop for fuel and some oil and get on my way, over an hour later than planned. Close to 200km into my drive, in the middle of Toronto on the jam packed 401 the beast decided it was a good time to overheat and the steering becomes a bitch. Turn off the car. It's not like we're moving anyway. When traffic does start moving, I resume the steady stop and go until it just about overheats again. Pulling off the highway and into a parking lot, I automatically look under the car for any signs of anything leaking. Nada. Alas I do find a power steering belt hanging there. Well now the steering problem makes sense.

I proceed to get some work gloves from the trunk to open the rad cap and let any pressure out slowly. Seems not so bad, so I continue to open the cap. Bad news, I'm pretty sure I got a million degree burns on my chest and face as well as drinking the shit. Whoever said that animals like antifreeze because it's sweet is full of fucking shit. That shit tastes disgusting.

So picture this: I am beside my car coughing and spitting and gasping and pouring water in my mouth and it going absolutely everywhere thinking I'm about to die from drinking this shit.

Throw power steering belt in car. Pour equal amounts of water and poison into the car. Slam hood in anger. Get in car, continue driving. Miss the deadline for getting the dog to my sisters for dog sitting. Have to wait 2.5 hours for the next chance.

Good thing I had shitty traffic and car troubles and only actually had to wait a half an hour.

Fortunately that's about all the events for the trip down to Windsor.

Oh, but wait. That's not all! THERE'S MORE.

On the way home we made several stops for visiting. When leaving the last stop, about an hour from home, my battery light comes on. FUCKING GREAT. Half an hour of driving the radio starts fucking off. It took me probably close to 5 minutes, pulled over, to figure out how to turn the damn thing off. Drive another 10 minutes, gauges fuck off too. Now is when I know I'm fucked. The lights start to dim, I can barely see. I get about 10km from town and she dies.

FUCK MY LIFE. We JUST want to get HOME.

Luckily a friend is not far and comes to the rescue. Charge the battery off his car for a bit, then booked 'er home. Barely made it, and had a cop double take me a couple blocks from the house. Likely because I had barely any lights left. I wasn't stopping for anything. He wanted me, he could follow me home, I was almost there! Luckily that was not an added hassle to my weekend.

Although, I did pass an interesting set-up for radaring I'd never seen before. I saw something on the bridge ahead, getting closer and closer, trying to figure out what it is. Close enough to getting a ticket lol when I realize it's a cop standing on the bridge above the 401 using a radar gun. Half a click down the road, two more cops have people pulled over.

Otherwise, it was a decent, relaxing weekend. Even with the two hour nap I took Saturday that fucked me for going to bed that night.

Ramblings

I went and pre-ordered the new Call Of Duty game, Advanced Warfare. Super duper expensive edition. Season's pass and all the works, which I'm seriously going to have to buy a USB to put all this shit on. Apparently there's no merch this time around. WTF? That's balls. We like collectable shit dude.

I also went next door to the shoe store and saw some super comfy shoes on sale... then felt bad if I only bought myself some, and bought the kids some too.

shoe-slippers

So, you know, the minute you spend money you really should have put in savings or something... something horrible happens that you need money for? Yeah, it happens to me. A lot. I do these things, then BAM out of nowhere, I fuck my car up. Yet again. Now I get to rip apart my entire front end to fix it. Meanwhile driving the beater, and kind of afraid how long that's going to last.

Winter is coming. 'Tis the season of depression. FML. It's far too soon for the winter we had last year. I seriously hope it doesn't snow before December again. It's very convenient that popular video games come out in November because people like me spend less time outside and more time inside due to the weather.

The one thing I like about this time of year though, is Halloween. It's fun, and an excuse to get together with friends. I always like those excuses. I have no clue what my costume will be this year... at this rate I should just put on a goddamn set of coveralls and call myself a damn mechanic with all the work I've been doing.

That is all.

For now.

Raceland Coilovers

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I actually clicked "purchase" online. I had buyers remorse, immediately. I regretted not spending the money on other things, things that I actually need. I then told myself: You know what, self? (yes?) You deserve it. When was the last time you did something for you? Sure, you need new tires, or a new windshield, but that can wait till next month. This month is the time to spoil yourself for working so hard all summer. Self,  you deserve this. (Okay.) So I promptly forgot about the whole experience.

Until the day they showed up, and wanted sixty-fucking-dollars for duty (heh yeah, DOOOTYYYY). So I had to pay that shit. I was kind of pissed off to find out that a friend who purchased them only weeks before, from the same company, and lives not far from me, was not charged any duty. (heh) What in the actual fuck? Why is he so special?

Now the plan was to do these over winter... but they were just sitting here, in my living room, calling my name.... They were mocking me. Heyyyyyy.... you! Look over here! Aren't I so shiny? And pretty? So I caved, and decided I was going to get 'er done. I called a few friends and after some slight mishaps, they are now installed on Jane.

It pretty much took all week to figure them out. ALL. FUCKING. WEEK. fuck. I had major issues with rubbing the top of my rear fender when turning or bumps. I'm not entirely sure I like the ride. What's done is done though.

Work in progress

Next? Windshield, new tires, fix some shit (steering column, leaky tail lights, I can't even brain right now as to what else), a good cleaning, then she goes to sleep for another winter.

FUCK. That means I need to start the work on the beater. Ugghh lol

Better get to work.

Car Stuff

I bitch a lot. I know. You don't have to lie to me about it. I know. But this is my place of bitching, I shall bitch how I wish.

I bitch about my car. I bitch about my life. I bitch about everything, because bitching about it, makes me feel better. Sometimes I write things out that are bothering me and it helps get it off your mind a bit so you can somehow clear your head and think a bit better about it.

I know I bitch about my car a lot, but really it's not so bad. A lot of the time it's all circumstances. Like the whole alignment thing. Due to my crazy schedule it was hard to work on the car. If it weren't for that, things would have gotten done so much faster and would not have been such a long drawn out process.

Sometimes it can be really discouraging when you're set on doing something and other things get in your way. Things can be, work, knowledge, tools etc. It gets really frustrating when things get in your way and then you end up not getting what you want done.

To conclude the ball joint and control arm bushing story:

I got the ball joint tool from work and ordered in a stock bushing. I was upset because all the bushings in my car are all polyurethane and a stock replacement is not. The tool didn't even get used because we could not get the one bolt out. I had a friend over to lend a hand and he brought his compressor but forgot the correct fitting for the impact gun. Which would probably solved this problem for us. We tried a lot of things to get that ball joint off.

In the end I said "fuck it" and drove it to the shop for the alignment. I asked them to do the work to the car and align it. They ended up doing the work and "couldn't" do the alignment. That was a frustrating day. They were trying to tell me that it was not the correct rack for my car. The actual problem was that the ring gear in the steering rack was put in one tooth off. I ended up going down to PDP's shop and he fixed the rack and did an alignment. The pisser is that I only paid the shop to do the work because I was out of time and wanted the alignment done. So I wasted my money because they "couldn't" do it.

Next up: Coilovers..... heh

FACK

Holy Shitballs it's been a while. By a while I mean, forever.

After being discouraged on the car, there was a happy ending.

I have much to write. So many ideas, so little time.

The anniversary of Gramma's death was not long ago and I wanted to do a piece on that. Then the conclusion to the alignment plus the trip to the track and show. After that, there's The EDGEFEST.

See? All of the things to write about.

It will be soon.

On the edge of your seat yet?

Who am I joking?

fack.

Go Fuck Yourself

I apologize, this may get a bit ranty.

That is what the universe is telling me. I feel like a complete failure in so many ways.

Hey, you wanna fix your car? haha, go fuck yourself.

Hey, you wanna get a part time job? go fuck yourself, and work 40+ hours a week and have absolutely no time to actually LIVE your life after you're done work, kids and the business.

Due to the whole "wiring" issue with the fuel pump, I was unable to make my appointment for the alignment on the Friday. So that had to wait until Monday. Unfortunately, I was told it was going to need a ball joint and a control arm bushing. Had I known that on the Friday instead of the Monday, I could have used my weekend off much more wisely. Because I did not find this out until Monday, that pushed everything back a week due to not having anyfuckingsparetime. To today, where I was off at the early time of 2pm, and therefore able to spend some solid daylight hours on the car.

Only to find out that the bushing I was told was in stock (aka my garage), was actually not. Also to have the ball joint seized in, so I'm going to have to get the tool from work to get the fucker out. Yet another day of unaccomplished dreams. So now I have to see about getting in the damn bushing, and push back the alignment. Again.

What's frustrating me so much on top of the obvious, is the fact that I have wasted the majority of the summer. I normally visit friends in Ottawa, Windsor, on top of going camping and going to Wonderland. None of that. Nothing. Where the fuck is the my fun? I can't go anywhere due to these issues. I have been stuck here. Worrying about my new tires.

Sometimes it seems really easy to just give up. Especially when you think of things like, the fact that you put a lot of time into something and feel you get nothing back on top of not feeling accomplished what so ever.

Progress Report

Well, have I been a busy bee lately? Why, yes, yes I have.

The unfortunate part is that I've been feeling very unproductively busy. The kids were at their father's for a week and I really felt like I didn't get anything done. I told my new work that I could work anything they wanted me to that week. A guy quit, and a guy was on vacation, so I was picking up hours. I worked my sweet ass off.

On top of that, I had some welding work to do. Most of which did not get done.

A couple of weeks ago I pulled out the clarion 7" fold out screen deck out of my car because the touch screen was no longer working and I couldn't deal with it anymore. I had a few friends up and we tried putting in another deck that was lying around here, which ended up not working. Another friend loaned me another one until I can afford a new one, and I wired it up myself. Which I decided I never want to do again.

Last weekend some friends helped me put the newly rebuilt rack in my car and the door speakers.

I had some unfortunate luck to have my car not start on Thursday night and had to get a tow home. Luckily it was only a few blocks, but I was without the car for almost 24 hours. After troubleshooting (wrongly) the car just started again. I'm pinning it down to wiring. Which is great.

The parts that really piss me off is that it was booked in to get the alignment on Friday, which I had to move to Monday. Also, I thought I could possibly get the pigtail to the fuel pump from work and what is listed looks absolutely nothing like what I need.

The next most shitty thing is that yesterday I ended feeling very unaccomplished because everything I tackled was a waste. The pigtail was not what I needed. I had ordered in a cam sensor in and it was the wrong one as well. I made two trips up to work, and had nothing to show for it. Yesterday felt like a complete waste.

So it was good that today was not. Although I wasted the first half of the day, and didn't even get to sleep in, I got the hitch fixed (hopefully) and the bumper sanded with a coat of the plasti-shit.

And now. It's late, and I have to work in the morning, after I drop my car off. Hopefully it's not too much of a whore, and it would be nice if it didn't need any work before the alignment.

One can hope.

Winter Driving

At last, I remembered a topic I wanted to write about!

People like to make fun of me because I have this ability to get into car accidents easily. My first couple of years driving, I got myself into quite a few accidents. I was then deemed a "bad driver" by most people, including myself. I believed that I was a horrible driver for a long time.

I now believe I was mostly wrongly accused. In the beginning, I chalked it up to being a novice driver. While the beginning of my life driving and accidents associated could be said I was a novice driver, the rest, not so much. Therefore I just figured I was a bad driver.

Looking back on just the last few years of my life, I have been in far less accidents and received far less tickets. In the matter of tickets, I actually went over year with not a single one, until I was driving my friends car on the highway one day in the spring and was paying too much attention to the idiot tailgating me rather than my speedometer.

As far as accidents are concerned, the only one that I feel the most fault for is the first one. I blogged about it a long time ago, and unfortunately can't link to it as it's been archived. I lost control after a major snowfall (driving a manual), it was my first winter driving and it wasn't plowed. I should have slowed down more before trying to turn the vehicle.

The rest are mostly history, but thinking about them, I have felt that in every instance I did my best, and did what I could to avoid them. In the few most recent ones (by recent I mean years ago lol) I was hit by another car.

There is always the "what if's" but I don't blame myself for them. Anymore. I was hit and I couldn't have done anything about it.

All that being said, looking back the last few years, I have noticed some things. I didn't realize how bald my tires had gotten until someone pointed them out. I avoided many accidents, in some pretty bad situations. I have spent a lot of time driving in the last couple of years. I drive many more kilometers every day than anyone I know (unless they commute to the city).

I'm not a bad driver. I just don't have great luck or the perfect circumstances most of the time. I have had plenty of practice and I have learned how to avoid collisions very well, even with bad luck and crappy circumstances.

Boyfriend-less

The Boyfriend was away for two weeks hunting. The Dog and him came back both very tired and proud boys. They did well.

While they were away I had some adventures of my own.

It certainly is a weird feeling when you're used to having someone around and they're not. Cooking dinner and trying to cook half the amount you normally cook because you don't want a weeks worth of leftovers.

Working on your own car because otherwise it won't get done. The Beater hasn't made it to "road worthy" status yet. Mostly to due to bad timing and weather.

I suppose Jane is mad at me for running her while Mother Nature decided to play a nasty trick on all of us. I didn't have a choice!

Of course, The Boyfriend is away and I am trying to DO ALL THE MULTITASKING and the alternator goes. I am now the proud owner of a shiny brand new alternator. With some luck and some help from friends, I got back on the road fairly quickly, with no help from the wasp that decided to sting me in 6c weather,  through my sweater.

Since the alternator replacement, I've been having some strange radio issues. I'll be driving along and find the station has been changed. It's been changing randomly. Sometimes landing on an actual station, sometimes not. Up the dial, down the dial, a couple of stations, or a lot. Sometimes it even changes to AM, with no rhyme or reason. What are you trying to tell me Jane?

All Of The Bullshit.