this post is fluff, and unfulfilling

after finishing up that last entry, i did some stuff around the house and eventually got into bed and started reading wired magazine. a little after 1am i got a call from jamie. she was at the continental club and had gotten a flat tire. she said she could change it, but she was concerned about some of people hanging around in the area. so i got up and got dressed and headed over there. (it’s only a few minutes drive.) we put the spare on, then tried to think of somewhere nearby we could go so we could eat something and she could get some “good” coffee. (that “good” was her qualifier — she doesn’t like the coffee at house of pies. i think maybe she was dropped on her head as a child or something.) we couldn’t think of anything, so we went our separate ways.
sunday jack came by and picked me up and took me over to their house. they’d gotten their jetta back from the shop a week or so earlier, but when jack had gone to give me a ride home in it the thing started overheating so he’d had to turn around and switch to their van. he was in the jetta, and said they’d taken it back and it was running well. going down 59 it started overheating again. we had to pull over several times and stop and let it cool down before we made it to their house.
i had easter lunch over there, which was king ranch casserole. somehow, their family developed a tradition of sloppy joes for easter over the last few years, but they switched it up this year. sue’s brother shawn was their with his fiancee, as well as chip and chip’s dog. the other visitors left, then it turns out sue was on call and she had to leave for work. at this point in the story, the jetta situation becomes important. well, that and the fact jack had four sleeping children. i was stuck. we watched iron man, which was okay. then we watched natural born killers, which i hadn’t seen in years. there are things i like about it, but while some of the visuals and storytelling techniques are cool, it kind of starts to get old after awhile. the dialogue is pretty nice, but then it’s a tarantino script. then we started watching dazed and confused. sue showed up around 3am or so and drove me home. i hadn’t really planned on being out that late, since i had work in the morning.
tuesday morning i had my ortho appointment. unfortunately, i didn’t really learn anything. he pretty much just looked at it and said “yeah, it looks like it’s getting better.” everything else was along the lines of “who knows with crush injuries? they’re all different and you don’t really know.” i asked him about the fact that my foot and ankle stay swollen pretty much all the time since i’m on my feet so much now, so he wrote me a prescription for a t.e.d. compression hose. i’m planning on going by a medical supply store to get fitted for one here soon.
since i couldn’t get any guidelines on driving or anything other than “if you feel like it, but don’t push it” i went ahead and started driving to work. my ankle has hurt some when i was in stop-and-go traffic for awhile, but nothing too horrible. i’m never really sure at what point i should stop “taking it easy” and when i should start to try to do stuff with it to get it better.
yesterday sue came by with the kids and picked me up. we ate at quiznos, dropped by michaels, and then went to a dollar theater and saw paul blart: mall cop. there were some funny things in it, but it wasn’t all that great. i suppose it was worth $1.50.
earlier today i finally made all those old blog entries from 2003 and before october 2004 live. you know, the ones that were lost in a server crash, then even further lost in a desktop crash, but then i recovered off the desktop hard drive when i found most of them in some cache files while i was trying to do data recovery on the drive.
i decided to get an apple tv and try to play around with boxee, but then i started talking myself out of it. (i’ve talked myself out of getting an apple tv at least 3 or 4 times over the last couple of years.) then i decided to go ahead and do it. i didn’t feel like going to the galleria, so i headed to meyerland. except i guess the apple store went away at some point. so i had to go to the galleria. the guy at the apple store then actually talked me out of buying one, suggesting i get a used mini since i wanted to play with boxee and the mini would give me a full functional computer hooked up to my tv. but once home i determined his estimate on the prices of used minis was off. so now i’m not sure what i’m going to do. maybe i effectively talked myself out of buying any of these options for awhile. it’s not like i watch that much tv anyway. while i was in the galleria i went by the borders there. they didn’t appear to have much selection at all on 50% off cds. on the way home i stopped by the one near my house, but i didn’t buy anything there either.
i’m also starting to flounder on what engine to get and put in the bel air. it appears i can get a gm built crate for about $2k, but it doesn’t include manifold, distributor, etc. like the edelbrock crates. (nor does it have as much hp or torque.) it’d also be nice if i had a mechanic who i thought would be interested in talking about this sort of stuff. as it is, i feel pretty much on my own about any decisions, and there is a lot i don’t know about engines and what all it takes to get one in and running (what parts need to be replaced, what additional parts are needed, etc.). if only there were some sort of place that was a collection of information about stuff, like virtual pages of books or something, but all interconnected…kind of like strands on a web, and you could have a thing where you could search for the information you wanted and find lots of resources instantly. like maybe even via computers. yep, that would be pretty cool.

6 comments on “this post is fluff, and unfulfilling”

  1. You know I read this thing, right?
    😐
    Thanks for helping me, eh. I really appreciated it a lot.
    Also, I can totally hook you up with car people. Car people are even more helpful than that weird, foreign, strandy thing you described at the end there.
    Although, my severe head injuries might prevent me from remembering how to hook you up with car people. We’ll see what I can manage . . .
    Does not liking HOP’s coffee really suggest brain damage? Really???!! How much do those people pay you!? Sheesh. Plus it is like the only thing in the world that I’m picky about. You’re picky about stuff! Cut me some slack, meanie!!

  2. I say go GM crate. Then you can pick-n-choose some parts off the old motor and add selected Edelbrock parts that you like for extra torque and HP.

  3. Ditto to Linc’s post. I was actually going to write a comment about that as well, but I guess I needed a nudge from Linc to have the courage to put words to…uh..hm…well…not paper? So, how do you afford your non-web-logging life style?

  4. jamie: yes, i know you read this. or at least that you’ve read it in the past. one never knows when you might stop, so the concern of me speaking poorly about you helps guarantee i’ll have at least one reader. 😉
    as for hop coffee — it’s okay if you don’t think it’s great coffee, as it’s not, but to be unwilling/unable to drink it? it’s not *that* bad.
    as for car people, a lot of them seem to have a hard time talking shop with people who have huge gaps in their knowledge. not just of parts and their workings, but the lexicon. there’s a lot i don’t understand about options and effects and choices, beyond just knowing terminology.
    chris: that’s what i was starting to lean toward due to cost, but the mechanic suggested as long as i’m going to have to buy most of those parts anyway, i might as well get one that was designed to go together.
    linc/ash: i just wasn’t feeling it for awhile there. i had stuff to write about, i just never felt enough spark or urge to sit down and type it in. some might call it leisure…others would call it laziness.

  5. Fine. You got me. It wasn’t about the coffee at all.
    I was just using you for your l33t mechanic skills. There. I said it.
    Nevermind the fact that I can change a tire with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back. Or something like that. I didn’t want to have to hang out with you and needed a quick excuse to get away from you and all of your late-night kindness. Can anyone really blame me?? I think not. 🙂
    Okay, that’s not true. I like hanging out with you. Next time I will think twice before forgoing a chance to drink crappy coffee with you. Promise. 😀
    Yeah my brother is one of those car dudes that speaks some bizarre car language and seems to be entirely unaware that I have no idea what he is talking about. It’s very weird and also kinda creepy.

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