Feeling posh

Dinner this evening: Quinoa, fennel and radish salad, Italian rice sautéed with onions, and Kombucha Botanic No7 (kombucha, hibiscus, orange peel, chamomile, fresh-pressed ginger) to drink.

Does any of this sound tasty? Truthfully, it all is. But I would never think that I'd be so close to driving a Smart Car unless it was a Smart Forfun2.

Although, speaking of Smart Cars, this one is cool, too.

My day so far, with car troubles

I had my written final today. The oral/aural half was on Tuesday. On the way back home from the test, my car stopped running again as I was about to exit onto I-66 from 50. After I let the car sit for about 30 minutes, I drove home without incident.

Recent life

So my Nissan is in the shop again. On Thursday, as I was driving on highway 50, and traffic around me was doing between 60-70mph, my engine just turned off. The car kept moving, and I only noticed it when I applied the gas pedal and got no response. I shifted the car into neutral, and turned the key, but it didn't start. I put my hazards on and attempted to coast into a parking lot. No worries, really, as I was still doing about 50, and I was nearing my destination. I slowed and entered the parking lot, and attempted to start my car again. It fired up, fortunately. I was doing about 10mph, so had I needed to accelerate again, I would have been in trouble.

I drove it the rest of the evening without incident.

Friday morning, bright and early, I drive to the office. I have some errands to run in Tyson's Corner, so I got there at about 7AM, so that I could have my work done in plenty of time to run my errands. Noon rolls around, and I take off to run my errands and then get back home, as I'm supposed to ride with Michael C out to Front Royal to sing at the Tridentine Latin Mass for the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. After running the errands, I'm leaving the parking lot to get onto highway 7, and my car doesn't move when I apply the gas. It's not running. I turn the key, hoping it will start up. Nothing. Of course, there's a line of cars behind me...

After signaling the 5 cars behind me that they need to go around, I push my car out of the way, and make some phone calls. No one really knows exactly what it is, but the primary question is, "Do you have gas?" Of course, I have gas. I have half a tank. I just filled it up the day before...

So, I look around, and as luck would have it, there's a service center in the same parking lot. It's a Mr. Tire/Goodyear, so I'm not sure if they do diagnostics. I leave the hazard lights on and walk over. As it turns out, they do diagnostics, so they help me push my car from one end of the parking lot to their building, and we put it in the shop.

After a couple hours, they can't find anything wrong with the vehicle. Their first inclination is that it's water in the gas tank, so I should fill it up the rest of the way and hope that's enough to dilute the gas/water ratio. So I take it back and fill it up. I get onto 495 and as I'm exiting 495 to get onto 66 (see location), the car dies again. So I call a tow truck, and they tow the car back to the shop. Again, they can't find anything wrong, except that the tow truck driver didn't give them the keys, so they are good as lost, because I don't have them anymore.

That evening, Michael and I sang at St. John's for the Mass as planned. After Mass, we went to dinner with Fr. C, who said Mass, and then out to Christendom. I had a small role in the latest Mirandum Pictures film, and Michael had a dance to attend. We left about midnight.

Saturday rolls around, and Michael and I head over to Tyson's Corner to talk to the mechanics. No keys have shown up, so Michael drives me to the Nissan dealership and we find that we can get new keys made for $8. I just need a copy of my insurance card. I had a spare key for the ignition, so I brought it to them and asked them to not lock the car. They began working on it, and the car performed just fine for them. They took it for a 45-minute drive and it never had any problems. They said that they would keep it through Sunday and drive it around, trying to get it to stall.

On the way back home, I asked Michael to drop me off at St. Andrew's so I can catch confession. He reminded me that I'd have to walk home, but that didn't bug me too much. He drops me at home first so I could drop off my laptop and pick up the umbrella (and a pipe -- it's a long walk), as it was overcast. After confession, I fired up the pipe and walked back home (about 4.5 miles), which took me about 1.5 hours, walking at good pace. I stopped a couple times for pipe maintenance, and once to check my voice mail on my cell phone, but aside from that, I made pretty good time, overall. I'm sure I was quite the sight: my corncob pipe in my left hand, my long walking umbrella in my right, but pointed up and resting on my shoulder as though it was a rifle. I was walking at a decent clip, so I'm sure people were thinking that I was either a former army boy or just a wierdo looking for attention. Of course, the latter was true...

So I made it back home and then went to the gym where I killed my arms. They are still a little sore, but it's a good kind of sore...

Anyway, so on Sunday, after Mass, Michael and I went to Paul E's Easter Season Party. After a while, I went outside to smoke a pipe, and Michael came with me. Earlier in the day, I had filled the Zippo lighter with fuel, and closed it, but it had been slightly overfilled, so a little bit spilled out onto my hand, so when I tested the lighter, the lighter lit up, and my hand also torched. It didn't hurt at all -- I just felt the warmth of fire and then shook my hand off, and it extinguished itself. Last time I had overfilled the lighter, the entire lighter (outside as well) had gone up in flames and I had dropped the lighter pretty quickly. I didn't fill it that full this time, so the lighter behaved normally -- well, aside from lighting my hand on fire...

So at Paul's place, I wanted to do that trick again. So Michael (who took the picture), Bridget, Jonathan and Draper were watching as I poured a little lighter fluid onto my hand, and attempted to light it on fire. I waited a little too long, because the fluid had all evaporated, and there was nothing left. So I doused my hand a little heavier and spread it around, and this time it caught. I waved my hand around for a quick second, and then shook off the fire. Except that I didn't shake off the fire -- it kept burning, and the harder I shook my hand, the more it burned, because I was feeding it oxygen, so it burned hotter. After a second shake of the hand, I realized that it wasn't going out as easy as it had before, so I ended up having to essentially wipe it off on my pants. Fortunately, they were made of heavy flame-resistant material.

For the first 2 seconds or so, it didn't hurt. For the last 3 seconds or so, it did. But my hand is fine, with only some minor blistering and a lesson learned. Wanna know that lesson? Next time I do that trick, have a bucket of water handy. Alternately, use less oil and spread it around instead of keeping it focused in the palm of my hand (so that it burns quickly and is done). Better yet, use rubbing alcohol, which burns cooler (blue) and doesn't stick to your hand like oil.

So now it's Monday, and the guys at the shop still can't find out what's wrong with the car, because it's not acting up for them. I piked it up and it runs fine.

I've spent nearly $1000 since last Monday. Last Monday, I dropped about $700 into a total fluid flush. Friday, I spent $120 on a system diagnostic and today, I spent another $120 on an hour of miscellaneous labor (dropping the tank so they could test the gas). So much for paying off that credit card this month...

Follow up on the car

Well, Bryan, Ben and I went to check out the 1993 Mustang. It was a beautiful car in the pictures, but when we went to go check it out, there were little imperfections all over it. The top looked like the canvas was coming off the frame. The seals around the windows weren't all that great. The trunk was clean but tiny. The engine was wide open but full of old parts. I fired it up, and fell in love with roar of the V8, but putting it in gear was scary. There was a rattling that came straight from the transmission when it was in gear. The top was slow in moving, slow enough that Ben offered to help move it along. The most that the car was worth was $4000. They were asking $5900.

Needless to say, I didn't end up getting it. But it sounded beeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooootiful.

Cars

Well, I think the Nissan has about had it. I tried replacing the alternator, but I'd need to get underneath the car to take off the exhaust manifold (I think that's what it's called), and looking at the front of the engine, it's got a pretty bad oil leak, too. It's probably inexpensive to fix myself -- it looks like all I need to do is replace the seals on the top of the engine. I think the parts cost for that would be around $50, and then I'd spend maybe 2 hours fixing it. But even if I do that, the mechanic had said that I'd need a valve job done on the car. I don't know what that is, but he quoted me $1200. And I know that after I do that, I'll need to redo the suspension on the car, as well as fix up the body damage. If I had a garage, I'd be working on it now. The problem is that I have neither a garage, nor the right tools to do half of the work that it needs. With all this in mind, I'm going to go look at some new-to-me cars today. Hopefully, I can get something not too expensive ($10K or less -- preferably $5K). Needless to say, I think that this puts a motorcycle on hold, unless I can get a replacement car for less than $5K.

In any case, that's all that's been going on for me. Thanks to Alex and Ashley S., I've been able to get into the office a three times this week, and I worked from home Thursday and Friday. I'm getting used to that. It's actually far less distracting, as long as I have music on. It's good to be in the office for social reasons, but on days when I need to focus and get a lot done, I can sometimes actually work better at home. I just set up everything to keep me motivated and the music changes as I'm working. I tend to make a lot of progress when I've got choral or classical playing, but on my tired days, that will knock me right out, so I'll throw on something a little more upbeat. And thanks to the XM radio I got for Christmas, if my CDs no longer cut it, I've got about 70 stations of "ad free" radio from which to choose.

"Ad free", huh? It's roughly $10/month, and by "ad free" they mean no non-XM-sponsored commercials. There are still commercials on a few channels. Eric W. and I were both working from home one day, and he pointed out how many commercials there were on one channel. I forget which station it was, but as I listened to it, I began to notice them. It was the same ten commercials over and over again. We made fun of one of them. It was a commercial for a guy telling parents that with his simple tactics, you can get your children to respect you again. We both chimed in about the benefits of spanking or other forms of discipline. :)

Anywho, on that note, I'm out. Bryan S. is coming by today to take a look at a car with me today. It's a 1993 Ford Mustang, and since this is a series of car with which he is very familiar, he was very gracious in agreeing to drive an hour out to my place to help me out. There is another Mustang that I'm considering, but I prefer the 1993, as there is less computer operation and therefore more work that I can do on it myself. Whether I actually get either car is still up in the air, but there's another guy out at Leesburg Toyota who is looking through his inventory to see if he can find anything in my price range, too. In any case, we'll see what happens. There are a couple others that I'm considering, but these are newer-to-new cars -- and I really don't think want to spend that much (about $15K)...

There are days...

You know, there are days when I wonder why I even have a blog. I hardly ever post to it. Few people read it. Then I realize why: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." --Al Franken, Stuart Smalley in Saturday Night Live, catchphrase

So anyway, it's been a while again, and a lot has happened since. Most recently, my car had a bit of a heart attack, but after undergoing surgery, I think it'll be OK. The distributor and the alternator both went out, and that may not be all. The mechanic fixed the distributor, but charged me so much that I couldn't afford anything else. Thus, I had to pull it out of the shop. I will fix the alternator myself, and hopefully be able to diagnose whatever else is wrong with the car.

With the beginning of Lent, I've decided to take up Holy Transfiguration again as my weekday religious destination. Unfortunately, with the loss of my car, I am stuck at home, with nowhere else to go until it is fixed. So, to all of you whom I would be singing with at any point in the near future, I've not abandoned you -- I'm just stuck.

Aside from that, work has been very busy. 10 hour days are not uncommon, nor is spending the night at the office (although that's far less common than 10 hour days). I'm hoping that comes to a stop soon, as that's a recipe for fried Anthony, and a fried Anthony is a cranky Anthony that no one wants to be around. Heck, I don't even want to be around me when I'm cranky. I'm awful! Plus, I smell awful when I'm fried. Baked in a confection oven, now that's a different story!

OK, that wasn't even remotely amusing.

Previously, I had mentioned an interest in music and composition. That interest is still there, but at best, it's only an interest. I'm too busy now to actually pursue it regularly, no matter how much I want to.

Girls -- who can fathom them? I sure as heck can't. With that said, the priesthood is becoming an ever more tempting option. Don't get me wrong: I love women, and I would probably enjoy being married to one. I just don't really remember why anymore.

And speaking of girls and Lent, a certain young man set me up. The jerk knows me well enough to know that I can't actually turn down a real challenge, even if my first reaction is to say no. Knowing this, he suggested mildly that I give up flirting for Lent. You can imagine my initial reaction of, "What? Give up flirting? You've GOT to be kidding me! No way!" He suggested that if I have to flirt, then I should flirt with only one person. I made a few suggestions, but he said no, I wasn't allowed to flirt with any of them. I could only flirt with Christine. "Why Christine?" I asked, thinking that I already knew the reason. Turns out I was right, I did know the reason: she wouldn't flirt back, and constantly puts me down. His reasoning was this: "When you're married, you can't just flirt all the time." "True," I reasoned back, "but when I'm married I'll be able to focus all my flirting on one lady, and I do intend to flirt with her daily." He couldn't really argue too much with that, but he still stood by what he said: that I should give up flirting for Lent. Naturally, I refused.

The next day, Christine was online, and I told her what this young man had told me. She lauded him on such a wonderful idea, and insisted that it would only be of good use to me. According to her, I flirt to hide who I really am. According to me, who I really am is a superficial flirt, so I'm not really hiding anything. But the more I thought about Lent and my refusal to give up something, the more it bugged me. So I eventually broke and gave it up. And now it's a daily struggle to not flirt. Do you have any idea how much of a problem this is? This is awful! I can't just go around flirting with girls anymore. I have to have serious conversations. This is truly the low point of my life.

And now for something a bit more rebellious (actually, is it really?). I want a motorcycle. And I'm not just dreaming this time. I actually really want a motorcycle. I went to a shop not to long ago to look at them. I sized up a Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic, and a Honda Shadow Sabre. I also ogled a Suzuki, but the only one that they had to show me was the Boulevard M109R in red. It was a stunning bike, but it looked to be designed for one person. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, but having the extra seat would be convenient.

Of course, anyone in their right mind would argue to death with me about the dangers of riding a motorcycle, how I can kill myself on one, how I can't afford it, how I don't need it, how it will make me even more of a social outcast than I currently make myself, etc. But you know what? I'm getting older, and the three of the most dangerous things I've ever done all involve work: 1. slipped and fell under a mower -- I still have my toes thanks to steel-toed boots; 2. worked for 36 hours straight in front of a computer, nearly going insane and contemplating quitting; 3. worked at an asphalt plant where the danger of me falling off the shaker and getting run over by a Cat front-end-loader was about as likely as my going deaf or getting killed by my co-workers, some of whom had jail experience. I've ridden roller coasters, the Dive Bomber Alley at Six Flags Over Texas, and I just feel like I'm reaching the end of my prime. Call it an early mid-life crisis. Call it stupidity of youth. Call it whatever you will, but don't deny an old man his dreams.

Oh yeah, and I also want a tattoo. Perhaps 1, perhaps 2. I haven't decided for sure how I want them. But, if I ever get a tattoo, I want a traditional Sacred Heart of Jesus and a traditional Immaculate Heart of Mary. And when I say traditional, I mean just that. I don't want a freaky new-age design. It had better be Michelangelo himself putting that into my skin, or I will freak out and punch the artist and not pay him. That's one of the main reasons why I will probably never get a tattoo -- I want them to be perfect. I don't want to have them ruined by some punk who thinks he's doing me a favor and making me look all bad and like a tough guy by adding a dragon's head around the hearts or something. And, since most tattoo artists are known for experiencing trips and highs, I'll probably not be getting a tattoo any time soon. But you never know. There could be a good Traditional-Latin-Mass Catholic priest available who just happens to be proficient with a needle and ink...

So anyway, yeah. That's about it. I'm hanging in there. If you're reading this blog, you know how to contact me if you so desire. And if you don't desire, that's cool, too. You know who you are, and if I get a messed up tattoo on my body, think about how you might have been the voice that could have stopped me. {wink}

Ciao for now! God Bless!

Oh, and check out my new blog on the side there: "Ramblings of a Crazy Person". It's a different category than this one...