2002-07-23 - 12:35 p.m.
Some times I get to thinking that life is a series of let downs�Nothing ever seems to as planned, someone or something always seems to throw a wrench into the perfect�well in the perfect whatever it is that you are looking forward to.
Sigh�as yall can tell, there is still no sign of my parts, and therefore I will not be going to the steam tractor show this year. But as my Uncle told me on the phone last night�hey, there is always next year! That is true�there is always next year. And that is a good thing. I think I will be spending my long weekend doing�well a little cleaning, and if all goes well installing the heads on the SHO. If they ship today like they said, well I should have em by Friday�right?
So, life is not one let down after another, there have been some good things happening as well. Yesterday I went to the shop to get the Jeep inspected (which it did with flying colors�an amazing accomplishment if you know anything about Jeeps, �specially mine) I figured what the hey�I would visit my poor forgotten SHO sitting out front of the garage. On a whim, I climbed in, put the key in the ignition, and (not expecting anything at all to happen) I turned. The engine turned over exactly once and fired right up! Remember that this car has sat�unmoving for over 2 months now! She fired up not only on the first turn of the key�but on the first turn of the engine! Hot Damn! I love my car�
Ok so I am sure yall are asking�I thought it wasn�t running�WTF J? Well remember that the heads that I replace my old ones with were slightly warped, so I had one cylinder that didn�t seat right. Therefore coolant is getting into the combustion chamber. Bad for the car�So I knew I was going to have to get my heads machined anyways�so why not get the stage one cams replaced, and have the heads ported and polished at the same time. Hehehe�foolish me. It would have been easier and cheaper for me to just pull the warped heads off, have them machined flat, and be done with it. It would have cost a third as much, and be done in 1/10th of the time. But I figured WTF, I might as well have it done right this time, so that I don�t have to worry about them for another 60k miles�foolish me�.
Needless to say, I had forgotten how comfortable my SHO was, how good it sounds, and how pretty it was. Sigh�I�m telling ya, in the long run all this bullshit will be worth it. Yes, it will be very worth it!
This week at work is looking to be a very slack week. The boss lady is out of town again. She has gone north to dog camp. Yeah you heard me right. She has gone to dog camp for 2 weeks. No I have no idea what they do at dog camp. But that is not the point. The point is, she is gone for 2 weeks. Which puts me in charge. Hehehehe� Now as my first order of business as Evil Over Lord, you all shall now only address me as �Most Holy�. For my second order of business you will bring me all of the gold in Norfolk! Or I shall destroy this city. You have hmm�4 days. Get moving! Sigh�now that brings a big �ole smile to my face�yeah. And then I will write my memoirs, and it will be titled Everything I needed to know to be a successful (sortta) Evil Over Lord I learned from Cerebus
Well as you can guess, I am not really taking this Management position very seriously. Why you ask�well simply that the folk that I work with here are very responsible, and need little or no direction from me to do the job that they have been doing for years before I got here. So for this week, my management strategy is to put out fires�and let my employees have a break from the iron fist of the boss lady. I have faith that they will get their work done. And if they don�t�well I will cross that bridge when it happens. Here is hoping that my employees don�t abuse the freedom, and relaxed atmosphere that I am implementing this week.
Last night was also an enjoyable one. I hung out with the neighbors last night. Played lots of Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast (of which I won most of the time�well it is my game after all.) had dinner. Which I am starting to feel guilty about. They have been feeding me for several days now. I offer to pay, help, pitch in food�but they won�t hear it. Guess I am going to have to invite them to my hole for a big ole dinner or something. After dinner we sat around and worked as a group on a crossword puzzle, and then sat down to the movie American Pie 2. Now I hadn�t seen this one yet, and I gotta tell ya, I was rolling. It was simply a scream. There were parts that were almost too painful to watch, and others that were so funny I almost fell off the sofa. Last night I also met a toddler who could easily give Zack a run for the cutest toddler on the planet. Granted this fellah is younger, and has nowhere near the vocabulary (English and Zacklish) that Zack does (which earns big points in my book for Zack!). I loves me kids that can talk. Babies�well I guess their ok, but once the little tykes start walking and talking, that is when they melt my heart. Now here is the very cool part. Eddie(a guy who is staying with my neighbors for a little bit) is the�Uncle of this little fellah. Now here comes the very cool part. Eddie is 21, and like many 21 year olds he is very into drinking, smoking, partying, and getting laid. But when he got a call last night from his younger sister to pick his nephew up from his (the tykes not Eddies) fathers (who NO ONE in this crowed likes�and even I have to admit, his a Serious Ass Hole), Eddie was gone like a flash. When he returned, the little guy was almost asleep on his shoulder. I was a side of him that I didn�t know existed. I guess what I found so magical about the experience was that little guy could have been me. Everyone in the room�me included was the right age to have been the folks that I grew up around. In fact they were even the partying types like the Neighbors and friends. But when that little guys was there, it was obvious that for everyone in the house (with the possible exception of Eddies girl friend), the he was the most important thing there. Its funny, but last night just reinforced, and increased my love for those who were there for me as I was growing up. I guess, because now�well I understand the whats and whys they did, a little bit more. Thanks all�
Lastly, a brief update on the Blacksmithing experiences this last Saturday. First off, it was HOT�DAMN HOT�Satan couldn�t take that kinda heat! But other than that�
So lets see, there were 6 of us working at the forge that day. Of that 6, 3 had never done any blacksmithing work before, one had a little experience, but hadn�t worked at the forge for several years, and 1 had a fir amount of experience but hadn�t put hammer to steel in a good year or so. So what does that mean for me? Well, being that I was the most experienced on there, and knowing that we had a Million tent stakes to make, I did what every good smith would do. I gave these guys hammers, demonstrated the basics of how to draw a point, and turned them loose. No I didn�t do any teaching past the bare minimum. We just didn�t have time. Yeah I feel kinda bad about it. Like I should have done more�but ya know, by the time the day was done, we had made over 150 tent stakes (which looked pretty good actually). All in heat that would rival good muggy Pennsic weather any day. That in its self was worth it though. I could tell that folks were getting frustrated though. For every stake that they made, I was making 5, and their points didn�t looks as good as mine. I partly blame it on the heat, but mostly on my lack of teaching. It is just that we didn�t have time to get in to the nitty-gritty details of how to do this task, and still complete it in the allotted time. Sides the stakes all look fine. I reminded them that, after all they are stakes, that are designed to be driven into the ground. I also promised everyone there that the next time that we get together for smithing, it would be a teaching session, and not a mass production session. They seemed to accept and like that. So what were the results of the day? Well the good news was there were no serious injuries. Just a bunch of sore muscles, a pile of blisters (me included�by the end of the day my hand was so blistered I could barely swing a hammer. Each blow was incredibly painful. I had to stop when I finally realized that with every hammer swing I was wincing and grunting in pain), and only 2 burns, on of which was me (a sunburn�but I was wearing sun block�go figure). We managed to get all the stakes made, which was amazing since like I had said, there were over 150 of them. Unfortunately I didn�t get the other items on my list finished. Again, I am sorry Byram. I am going to try to finish them this weekend though.
Well that is it for now. My class has arrived and I need to go teach them the wonders of Microsoft Word! Wish me luck�
Today I learned that the world has again risen up and bit me. While my heads will be in the shop tomorrow to get set up with my cams�the fellah who is to do the work (their SHO specialist) will be at the SHO convention till Friday. So�what does that mean? In theory my heads will be shipped Friday. They will hopefully arrive here by Wednesday of next week, and the SHO will be reassembled by Friday. Not bad considering they promised to ship to me 3 weeks prior to that date. Well at least it will be after payday that the work is finished, so that I can pay my buddy Brian a chunk of what I owe him for his help through all this. Here again is me crossing my fingers�hoping to not be disappointed yet again by failed promises of delivery.
So�I am sorry that yesterday I told yall that I didn�t care what you learned�that is not true. I was just frustrated with the world�With that said�I really wanna know, What did you learn today?
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