rew | ff

Friday, May 14, 2004

Today was "end phase friday," so after our early release from school we headed to the Four Peaks, which is pretty much the norm. We played some foosball and were waited on by my latest waitress crush, Shannon, who is from Long Island and enjoys long walks on the beach and sleeping in on Sunday mornings. She doesn't seem to remember it, but the first time we went in there we asked her to settle a bet between Sean and I as to whether or not Queens and Long Island were on the same land mass. As I recall, she was noncommittal in her answer.

At the brewery we ended up getting into a big political argument with each other. This was odd, because we all have pretty much the same politics. The argument was mainly about whether or not it's worthwhile to vote, with Sean and I saying it is, Dane saying it isn't and Bobby, Aaron and Shannon seeming uninterested in our heated conversation. As is the case in most arguments, no one's minds were changed. I thought an audible political argument might be just the thing to catch Shannon's attention, but apparently serving beer to paying customers is more important to her than the future of the country. Maybe I should find a new crush, if that's the way she's going to be.

Anyway, we all did pretty well that last phase. I was tops in my class, Sean was very close and Dane did well, too (I'm not as in tune with how Dane's doing these days because of his opposite schedule). Starting Monday I've got manual transmissions, Sean has air conditioning and Dane has his second phase of the hot rod classes.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

"It's like someone drove us into a ditch, and now you're saying that should be the guy to drive us out." - Jon Stewart, on Pres. Bush

Whew, today was busy. First, at work, they... are you ready for this? My benevolent employers took a chance on a young kid from Portland and let me change the oil in the shuttle van. It was tough, but I did it! Yeah! I'm on my way, mom!

Then at school we had to cram in a shitload of lab stuff that we'd missed up until now, because we had a sub for a couple of days last week. Lots of thinking, lots of math, combined with live electrical circuits... not necessarily the ideal combination when the students at our school are involved (sentence of the day: "I worked at Arby's for a while, right after I got out of prison..."). Luckily we made it out alive.

Somewhat off topic, as someone only two degrees removed from Donald Rumsfeld (I used to work with his son at Swan Island Networks), I say fire the bastard. Didn't take long for them to spin this Nick Berg stuff in their favor, a la "this is a reminder of how evil the people we're dealing with are." I hate. Drink when he says "evil"!

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

"No, I think this is going to be a catastrophe beyond imagination." - Congressman Marion Berry, who knows a thing or two about drugs, on Medicare

Well, Keygate turned out pretty much as I expected it would, following the storyline perfectly. I was blamed for the loss of the key and asked to find it. I couldn't. The loss of the key was accepted and alternatives were explored. The truck still had to be moved, as it was blocking the boss's car. A plan was formulated. As said plan was being set out on, yours truly glanced at the ground while getting ready to move a Toyota Camry. Lo and behold, on the ground was a Ford truck key.

Deduction: key was dropped when someone went to move a Ford Expedition that was in the Camry's spot the night before. Two Ford products -- similar keys -- easy to confuse, necessitating a trip back to the office to get the correct key. First key is dropped on second trip. Blame lowest man on totem pole.

Almost this exact scenario was proposed by me to Sean last night on the way home from school, substituting a Mercury Gran Marquis for the Expedition. I'm sure it goes without saying to regular readers of this blog who was in fact the guilty party. Once I found the key and turned it in to the boss, it became apparent very quickly what had actually happened and who was at fault. It also became pretty obvious to me that Freakshow had tried his hardest to throw me under the bus, probably realizing that he was at fault but being at a loss as to how to fix things. Once my name was cleared the big boss offered to buy my breakfast by way of apologizing, but I declined.

Meanwhile, the latest horrendous news from Iraq cast a dark mood on the day. All politics aside, what a truly terrible way to die for that poor guy. He was my age. It's hard to get out of my mind. Apparently some guys were watching the video on the internet at Sean's work today... I sincerely hope I never see, or hear, the footage.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

"Special Olympics Tee-Ball Tee Pitches Perfect Game." - headline in The Onion

Confidential to Kobe Bryant: I hope you go to a particularly brutal prison. What goes around comes around, Kob. Also, I dislike your basketball team.

Something I forgot yesterday - our instructor was making a point about how long it would take to turn over an odometer by hand if you could do it at 60mph. He did some math to come up with a time period for X amount of miles (I can't remember what), and came up with 277 days. "That's almost a year," he said. Luckily a student in the front row was on the ball and informed the class, "277 days? That's more than a year." Christ.

Today was normal until I got a phone call from work at lunch break at school. They were calling to accuse me of taking a key to one of the customers' cars home with me. This was even more of a problem than it would be otherwise since said car was blocking my boss's car in the parking lot, preventing him from going home. The only trouble with the whole scenario was that I not only don't have the key, but I haven't touched it since 9am this morning, when I hung it up on the proper hook. I remember this distinctly. This information apparently changes nothing as far as my boss is concerned, and my failure to produce the key means we're "going to have a talk about this," tomorrow morning. Fucking hell.

Monday, May 10, 2004

"I can't think of a quote tonight." - Dave Killen

I'm not going to write too much tonight, because I'm really tired, which seems to be normal for a Monday. But some unexpected good news... our bass-loving neighbors have moved out. Gone. Audi 5000. Hopefully whoever replaces them is not as into driving techno crap music.

And what's up with there being no parking at our apartment all of the sudden?

Oh yeah, and Sean and I finally figured out what has been making that screeching noise in his car whenever you turn left. After much thought, work and money going into various stuff with the wheels and suspension, we discovered today that the battery tray is loose, and when you turn left it comes into contact with the fan belt, making a screeching noise. Time to break out the bungee cords.

Sunday, May 9, 2004

"I don't give a shit about the Barracudas. Fuck it. I'm building it anyway." - Max Fischer in Rushmore

Happy Mother's Day!

Dane and I got up a little earlier than normal for a Sunday, at around 10:30. We hit up the junkyard before noon in order to get some stuff for Sean's car, and got it all done pretty quickly. I think the blazing heat is a good cure to my tendency to get lost and spend 3 or 4 hours looking at wrecked cars every weekend. On the way home we rocked out to Whitesnake in Sean's car, much to the amusement of the people in the cars around us.

After that, we came home and watched a little baseball before going over to the pool and lounging around for an hour and a half while I did my laundry. The pool is really nice; combined with the air conditioning, it makes Phoenix almost liveable. Then we fixed a few of the nagging problems with Sean's car using the parts we acquired earlier at the junkyard. No more hard starting. Anyway, now we're watching Old School, killing time before we have to go pick up Sean at the airport. He ended up getting to see a Cubs game at Wrigley after all. Sweet!

Saturday, May 8, 2004

"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican." - George W. Bush

Interesting development this morning... Freakshow's time at the shop may be running short. He was a good 45 minutes late, which meant me and a couple of the mechanics were stuck outside the locked gates until around 8:15 with about 12 angry customers and their cars. We finally got ahold of the parts guy and he came and let us in, and then it was a frantic rush to get everyone taken car of and their cars sorted out and ready to be repaired. When Freakshow finally arrived, he was clearly extremely hung over and looked awful, and everyone noticed it. Several of the customers commented to me about how much they didn't like him, and I encouraged them to call in and talk to the boss. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this on monday.

During the last hour of work, a couple pulled up in an early eighties BMW. It had a simple problem with its alternator mount, and I knew I could fix it quickly, so I did. This turned out to be a bad idea, as I got in pretty big trouble with Freakshow, who obviously had some aggressions to take out after his rough morning. Apparently there were two problems with me working on their car -- 1) we don't work on BMWs at our shop, and 2) I'm not supposed to be fixing cars, period. The only problem with this for me is that I do work on BMWs, thus combining the two things that we don't do at the shop. Anyway, I probably should have known better.

Then, on the way home, I became the ultimate hypocrite and accidentally put diesel fuel in my car instead of gasoline. This is a common occurrence at Sean's work, where people will routinely by new 4runners and then immediately fill them with diesel, presumably because they think their badass SUV must run on real truck fuel. I've laughed at Sean's stories, and we've had a couple people do the same thing at our shop, so I felt pretty stupid when I realized what I'd done. Maybe Oregon's got the right idea not letting the general public pump their own gas. Luckily, I only put about 23 cents worth of diesel in there before I realized what I was doing, and I think the 11 gallons of gas I put in after that will dilute it enough that it'll be OK.

After Dane and I got home, we sat around for a while and then I finally got my act together and changed my car's oil. To avoid the oldies, I drove it around the corner and got it done in about 20 minutes by the side of the street. After that, Dane and I decided to test the ol' 20w-50 and drove to the Four Peaks, which is probably the longest drive I've taken my car on so far, and I figured it'd be a good test. We didn't end up stranded in Tempe, so I guess he passed.

© Long Shot Films 2004