White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Leaving work this morning, my neighbor (4 houses up the street - Harold Katz) pulled up behind me in his new Rolls Royce. Nice looking car. Hope he has a nice drive in to work.

Technorati Tags:Car | Recession

Labels: Car, recession

Ok, I apologize. My 'creative bent' of late has been MIA. That last weekend update was about as lame as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I should of hyped the pinewood derby a little more. You know, add in the fictional explosions and ninja assault platoons ... but no, I slacked. The Work thing has been a bear of late and the current events of the nation and world lay heavy on my mind. Equivocation and perfidy seems to rule the day, not that it has changed much over time. Whaaaa! What a big baby.

A few Items of Happenstance need to be reviewed right now: One, the SuperSaturn POS is back after it's Automotive Spa Treatment. Still as difficult as it always has been, but the bumper is now firmly zip-tied to the frame. Uber-Mechanic Chris was quite diligent in servicing it ... and so we have ONE MORE YEAR(tm) before we need to replace it. Twelve years is a long time to hold onto a chunk of metal (mostly plastic) so I'll be glad to see it finally go to pasture. Of course, that would work if one would consider the cow anaology, but it is more of a pig than any barn-yard animal.

At TSD practice last night, everything was going along swimmingly until sparring. Indeed, the very last session against a green belt did me in. My hubris got the most of me and in the attempt to do a low 'X' block, I caught the full force of a kick on my finger and jammed or broke the middle and ring-fingers something fierce. I've taped them up but being right handed, this is quite an inconvenience. It's not that they were all purple and swollen that gets me, it's that grinding, low-level pain that is going to get me into more trouble by distracting me or causing me to loose focus. Argh.

The Tyrants are preparing themselves for a new and wonderful experience ... stress. This is because 'Mid Terms' are coming up. Yep, The future rulers and Tyrannical Dictators of all that exists will get their first trial by fire at the hands of addition, spelling and reading comprehension. Just the other day, Ghengis was given the ignoble honor of bringing home not just one, but TWO 'bad' grades (16/18, 18/20 which translates to a 'G' and not the 'VG' or the greatly coveted 'O'). We went over the mistakes and cooked up a strategy for his next tests ... write down the answers in the question to see if they make sense. He is just so animated and impatient ... goal oriented, Type A extravert. Don't quite know where he get's it from.

Technorati Tags:Injury | Blogging | Karate | Children | Car

Labels: Blogging, Car, Children, Injury, Karate

BOYS BATHROOM DUTY AGAIN! Yep, another swim meet and another round in the boys locker room, spending my time naming the cockroaches ... and then stomping on them. Yeah, it was that entertaining. There were a few moments where I had the opportunity to tell the twerps to get out if they are not using the crapper. It's a locker room, not a playground! To make it worse, I left my thermos of coffee in the 'loner car of poor idling' so I was pretty much up the creek, without a paddle, and a full bore migraine waterfall raging. After I was finished with my stint in purgatory, we went to a pizza party for the swim team which was more of the same except the kids were not running about screaming in their birthday suits ... nope, they were mostly dressed. The only saving grace was that I was able to pour two pints of lager down my gullet at $5.50 in 90 seconds flat. Oh, did I ever need that to dull my finger-nail scraping on whiteboard nerves.

Speaking of nerves ... the SuperSaturn POS just cost me another $1K+ in repairs for the inspection. It needs new struts, 1 wheel, new front disks, trans bolt, re-attach bumper, a leak in radiator (which will be ignored) among a plethora of faults. We have 2 more years (give or take) on the Family Tank v2.0 then we can get a replacement car for me. The damn thing is draining my dry.

Technorati Tags:Swimming | Car | Children | Weekend

Labels: Car, Children, Swimming, Weekend

Well, that was special. Everything has been moving along on a fairly even keel that the universe had to step in and smack me down good. Just another day of schadenfreude for the universe stomping on me ... but this time I nipped it in the bud. HAH! My a posteriori engagements with vehicular maintenance saved my but this time. It was an odd incident, but I've been having difficulty with the battery I installed in the POS SuperSaturn a few years back. Leaving the headlights on and draining the battery by natural result had weakened it to a point where turning the engine over from a cold start could be a death rattle. I was surprised by this though. I had just stopped off at the DayCare/ReEducation Facility to extract the Tyrants and head off to the Swim Club when the situation occurred. I tried to restart the engine and heard two clicks ... then POOF! Nothing. Every electronic system in the pilot's console went blank. No lights, no digital clock, no constantly beeping/dinging alert of unfastened seatbelt harness or door ajar. I shrugged and went into the trunk where I had a jump pack and tried to reanimate the critical systems ... only to find out that there was not enough juice to do the job. So, in a fit of panic, I call the Mrs and let her know that the 'Fit had hit the Shan'. She would be there within the hour. Just as I was terminating the SOS request, one of the mothers (Maddie's Mom) from the Tyrant's class was wandering by and asked if I needed a jump. I gleefully accepted her benevolent offer ... but I was parked with the front of the vehicle pointed down-hill ... against the edge of the lot. Alas, to garner her spare electrons, I had to ask the Tyrants to disembark and go play while I pushed the multi-ton bock of inert metal and fiberglass uphill, for 10 meters, with a bad back, and knee, and shoulder. EGADS! But I was determined and perseverance won the day. She pulled up, I connected the jumper cables and the POS SS sprang to life. IT'S ALLLIIVVVVEEE! Quick Egor, break out the champagne and alert the villagers to sharpen the pitchforks and distributed torches. Now, I had a choice. I could still take the Tyrants to the Swim Club but I would either have to get the Mrs to meet me there and give me a jump or leave the engine running for an hour and hope for the best. Pollute the planet and tempt the local youth with a free ride? Tweak the Mrs by having her drive all over damnation to keep the auto limping along? No good choices there. Then, there was another plan that the Mrs suggested: Go to the Uber Mechanic Chris and ask him for a battery. Well, yeah, of course! But Chris had moved his shop around the corner so I needed to pummel my way through afternoon traffic to get there. Better than going to one of the other shops miles away and ... yeah. So, I engage in mortal combat with the other harried rush-hour gladiators only to find that Chris had NO INVENTORY since the move ... but I could go up to the street where I just picked up the Tyrants where there is a Napa Auto Parts warehouse and they would sell me one with no problem. Urk ... I just slogged through that swamp. So be it. Got the battery ... dive back through the same traffic jam ... and arrive at the manor 30 minutes after initially killing my battery. I quickly changed batteries while the Tyrants got changed into their uniforms for TSD and did their homework. By 1730 (1 hour post energy death), the cold fusion battery was swapped and we were rolling off to practice. HAH! Take that universe! And so it did ... but It came back to haunt me the next day.

This morning at the late hour of 0830, I had my second PT session. This one was not anything like the first where we played the 1000 question game and did a load of mobility/flexibility tests. No, this was where we had the pleasure to forgo the usual niceties and went right into the torture session with Tiffany BoneCrusher, bugbear of all soft-tissue injuries and strained sinew. So, she twisted and mangled and pummeled my tender ligaments into a pulpy mess before shooing me out the door ... see you next week! All cheery and happy with her gristly work done, I pour myself out the door and pray that I do not undo all her machinations before my next visit.

Technorati Tags:Car | Swimming | Karate | Children | Physical Therapy

Labels: Car, Children, Karate, Physical Therapy, Swimming