Measuring up to the Competition!

You don't want to end up on the short end of the stick.


Let me start off by saying "AARRGGHHH!!" Our mechanic was so busy (meaning he really does good work) so he didn't get a chance to look at the GF's car. He'll hopefully be able to look at it Monday. In the meantime we are worried that it could the transmission or a myriad of other things. The interesting thing is that nobody that I know has "diagnosed" it the same way. I know a few people that are good at figuring out what car issues are happening (I'm actually pretty good at it too, though I don't usually have the knowledge to FIX said problem, but I can say, "Its the fuel pump" or "the plugs are misfiring" at least) and they are all over the place. I tend to want to believe that its the cheap, "the one of the tranny mounts probably came loose and she lost a bolt," as opposed to "sounds like the tranny is shot."

I am going to work an early morning shift on Monday so I can get the GF to her job in time not to miss work, then work the rest of the shift from home, then drive back to pick her up. So that entails, Home to My Work (20 miles south) to her work (20 miles north past our house, then 40 miles north and west to her work) then 40 miles back to my apartment ... when her shift is done, 80 miles round trip from home to her work and back. Hopefully the mechanic will have figured it out and has a plan by then so we don't have to do that shit too much longer.

We've been dreading this for quite some time. Her car has about 260k in miles (140 now on the engine) and I have 240k on the car I am currently driving. To continue living our "extravagant lifestyle" we have to drive elsewhere for decent paying work. If we could afford to upgrade our rides, we'd definitely have done it already. So if her car is toast, I'm not really sure what we are going to do.  Right now the most affordable things I am seeing online is a 1991 Honda Accord for 800 bucks (has 210k miles, a chip in the windshield and a rot hole in the trunk) and a 1996 Chevy S10 Xcab for 1100 bucks with some rust. I'd prefer not to get raped by a "buy here, pay here" place, especially since I haven't found a part-time job yet to augment my full-time job.

In the end, I'm just venting mostly .. thanks for listening. Lets hope its just a small thing and she's back on the road in no time for little money.

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Made this quickie caption for Wendy on Friday, in between driving the GF to work, etc .. I guess I am pretty lucky that my schedule can be mixed up a bit as long as I do the work later. Its also slower in July, and just starting to pick up now for the Fall Season. I ended up making three captions, though they haven't all been posted. One of them has a Leeanne cameo, so be on the lookout for that one!

The GF also hasn't been feeling well, so she went to bed like 7 PM. I watched some Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990's (one of my favorite all time shows) and now am online. Perhaps I will go picture hunting and try to whip up something in the caption milieu if I can get in the mood.

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I'd like to once again thank everyone that comes here and reads my stuff. I love to see the page views and comments .. we are almost to 2200 comments on 443 posts! I've been thinking about everything to do with captioning lately, due to more people leaving (Caitlyn, Smitty, etc.) and having to write about Steffie for the upcoming Haven Quarterly V (yeah Rachel, its finally fucking done!) Perhaps I'll elaborate more in the coming posts (or have already beat most of it into the ground in past blog posts already!) but if it ever gets to the point where its an obligation and feels like a job .. I'm done.

I never want to be "O goddess, I need to update the blog," or "I don't want to have to make a caption for BLANK," or "Fucking A, I have to deal with BLANK on the Haven again!" I've seen that burnout in people, and I never want that to happen to me. I think I'm lucky enough to get the minimum daily dosage of participation from longtime friends, commenters, and drive by visitors to keep my batteries recharged and my mood weather vane pointing towards the positive.