Vehicle repair, work, music, religious humor, more work, housecleaning and superheroes

Following almost everyone's advice about the pickup truck, I set out Monday to get a few estimates. The one place that was highly reccomended by a friend, in that he's known the guy for 40 years, turned out to be a wash. Their phone had been disconnected, and giving them the benefit of a doubt, I stopped by there to find the front door locked.

A place my boss recommended told me after a quick drive around the block that it would cost between $1,400 and $1,800. The next two places, both of which boasted "complete car care" on their signs, told me that transmissions were not their specialty...but if they did fix it, it'd cost about three grand. Those two places referred me to the fourth and final place I went to.

The guy I spoke to asked to keep the truck for the afternoon so they can run some diagnostic tests. That question sealed the deal for me. I got a call at the end of the day telling me what it would cost to take out the transmission and check each part, and the worst-case scenario cost of fixing it. Note to all: Transmission fluid should be pink to red, not black.

A quick call to my folks later and the mechanic was given the go-ahead.

I picked the truck up yeasterday and it's purring like a kitten and able to go to 0-60 without a panic attack from the driver. I have a vehicle again. How much of the $1,737.17 I'll have to pay back to my folks is yet to be decided.


Work has been a bit intense. A couple of projects blew up in our faces, but luckily, I have avoided any fault in those matters. The huge project seemed to be off to a shaky start, but we're as on-track as we can be with as many people we have to rely on for all of the information. Needless to say, I won't be having a day off until at least the 9th of June.


Today, before going in for a few hours of work, I stopped at the Cherry Street farmer's market to listen to Cairde na Gael play. Across the street, the Methodist church was having a yard sale. Looking around, I got to ask a question not everyone gets to ask in their lifetime: "Hey, how much for the pulpit?" I couldn't help but think that they were upgrading to the ChristMaster 3000 with the "fire and brimstone" lighting controls built-in.

I also noticed a couple sets of crutches and a couple walkers for sale as well. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I thought the Jesus healing the cripples alegory was kinda clever.


I went into work for a few hours and mapped out the big project in a huge list. I color-coded each item: Red for completed, orange for in progress, and yellow for in question. The amount of yellow on the completed list has me kinda worried, but a marathon meeting session early this week should clear it all up.


I got home this afternoon set to clean up the place, but I got sucked into the DVRed shows from this past week. Strange how many dishes pile up when you haven't had a meal at home in over a week. Laundry and dishes will have to wait for tomorrow night, after work and Spider-Man 3.


Speaking of Spidey, I saw that it made $59 million in a single day. How great would it be to have been involved in something that produced $700 a second? Just wait, Pirates 3 will knock that out of the water, no pun intended, in just a few short weeks.

The reviews I've read have been mixed on Spider-Man 3. I try not to pay it any mind because superhero movies are pretty much critic proof. However, even the hardcore geek-boy reviews are coming in as less than stellar. I'll still give it a whirl, though.