With much grunting and muttered curses, I got the top back on the Jeep. It was shrunken from lack of use and severely dry rotted so in some places the zippers tore right off. It is by no means water tight but holds enough heat and will keep enough weather off of us that I think we can use it to get to the Smokeys and back. In the worse case I hit cruising speed and the top shreds. I put Noah in someone else’s car and drive the Jeep by myself.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
One Cold Jeep
So an eon ago the top blew off the Jeep. Mind you, it’s the same top I’ve had on the Jeep since I bought it November of 2004. And, yes, it is held together by bare threads and duct tape. The zipper on the drivers window is shot so the window is held in with wireties. Now, when I say it blew off, I mean the metal strip that is attached to the windshield had a structural failure and half the screws came out at once leaving some bent and torn metal.
This morning I managed to repair the metal and now I’m off to get new sheet metal screws and lock tight. I know. I should redrill and tap but I don’t own a tap set and don’t have the commodity of time to redrill right now. The body shop would eat me alive on a job like this.
The remaining wildcard will be the top. Has is dry rotted to the point of being completely useless? I don’t have time to ebay one and spending the small fortune that a local 4WD shop wants for an OEM top isn’t in the budget right now. Last time I asked at the salvage yards they laughed said, "ebay."
Pacman them resources!
Apparently our websites have been eating enourmous resources on the shared server that does our hosting. The end result is we were flagged to "go away" or buy a dedicated server. It could be the live plugin that I enjoyed so much or it could be my experiments with this website or a combination of both. The idea of jumping from $20 per month to $100 per month to host a bunch of websites that don’t a dime really disconcerned me so, bye bye, live plugin. And that image manipulation stuff has to get gone too.
Kids bounce
Evan just slyly sneaked halfway up the stairs (wood, no carpet), smiled big and laughed at himself. Then as I said, "you are making me nervous" he rotated and in slow motion fell to his side and rolled down the stairs like a log. There is no more helpless feeling than watching your child have an accident that you can’t stop. I think he is ok. Where was Hiro!
Difficulty writing
I am having a hard time writing about my life right now. I have noticed a sharp decline in readers also according to the stats. I have several reasons for backing off on my writing. 1) I am interviewing. I cannot imagine a net savvy company not seeking out a prospective employee’s blog. 2) I am facing some large challenges. I want desperately to write about them but that may have to wait a while and be presented in a retrospective. 3) My time has been sucked away from me to deal with 1 and 2.
Look out!
I’m getting back on top!
And my body crushed under the weight of the world
I am so stressed that every muscle in my body aches. I want to go back to bed but today is Monday and Monday’s are hard.
We had chinese Friday night. Yum! My fortune cookie read, "You will find your solution where you least expect it." That gave me such a ray of hope!
I like hats!
Cathy said, "No!" to this hat.
Thanks for the referral!
I had the pleasure of diagnosing and replacing a bad powersupply in someone’s computer today. I like getting machines working again. Satisfying feeling.
From the mouths of babes
As I get out of the bath.
Cathy: "Would you [take your naked body over to your computer] turn off your camera so that I [can take my dressed, albeit gowned body and] empty the dryer?"
Great Pictures!
You must see these pictures that Uncle Dean and Aunt Jeni took of the children! Nice work guys! Btw, their cat has his own blog.
I’m blind – and in trouble
When I lost my glasses I was actually being given a vision test. Turns out, for most of the day, they were resting gently on some beautiful, rolling landscape…er, cleavage.
Does your spouse ever make your eye twitch?
I love my wife more than anything. She is special! She fantastic! She is beautiful! She is my soul mate. All that aside, she still occasionally makes me feel like Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus.
Me, trying to portion dinner: "Honey, are you a little hungry or a lot hungry?"
Wife, as I mouth the answer: "Medium."
Me: Twitch. Twitch.
I love my wife!
Living Quad I
Dear Stephen R Covey,
How does your system work when _everything_ is Urgent and Important?
Sincerely,
Testing Tensile Strength
Politely Rude – Parking Lot Road Rage
So yesterday I pull into the parking lot of the Baptist church where my daughter gets her preschool classes. They have such an exceptional program! I nose into my parking space and the car to my left is backed in with a driver and passenger still in the large SUV. To my right is another van that is nosed in, perfectly parallel but maybe one tires width off center toward me. It is well within its space. Since the car beside me is occupied, I take an extra moment to make sure I have pulled into my space straight and well spaced. I am perfectly parallel to the white lines. I know this because when I got out I gave it a critical eye for a reason that is about to be explained. I am equally spaced between the two cars making my not perfectly centered in my parking space but well within the lines. I am probably a tire’s width off center and I could easily open my door and get out without the door crossing the virtual wall of the white line.
After I get out the occupied car’s engine cranks up, the car lunges forward, then backs up at an exagerated angle with the rear tire overlapping the white line and the backcorner now occupying the empty space beside him. I should have taken a picture with my camera phone.
Being a person not afraid of confrontation, I turn around and walk right up to his window and he rolls it down. I ask, "did I park too close to you?" He replies, "No, I was parked at angle." Me, "I am parked well in my spot with plenty of space between ours. Would you like me to move my car?" He politely replies, "No." I re-examine my parking job and am prideful of how straight I parked. I could have maybe been slightly more centered in the spot but not by much. Thank you Alan Shore for helping me not telling this guy what I really thought of him.
Fifteen minute later I return with my daughter and they are still sitting in the car and it is unmoved from the angled parking. These are the people that make me sad for they are the ones whose emotional problems are damaging our democracy and the American lifestyle.
