rew | ff

Friday, May 21, 2004

Ah, Friday, the psuedo-end of the week. Saturday looms. Often we'll go out on Friday nights in spite of Dane and I having to get up early in the morning, but this time we all three were just too tired. So we stayed in and rented Underworld, starring one Kate Beckinsale. Kate Beckinsale and Norah Jones are going to have to find some fair way to figure out which one of them is going to marry me; I am only one man.

At school I have a weird ongoing annoyance in the fact that I am continually forced to be in groups with other students, when I'd much rather just be allowed to do all this stuff on my own. There's a kid in my group who is a really nice, quite guy, but he just cannot seem to grasp certain simple concepts, and he questions me on them incessantly. He is obsessed with the idea of direct drive, and can't seem to understand it, even though I can sum it up in the following sentence: it's as if the car's transmission were substituted with a single shaft connecting the engine to the driveshaft, so that every one turn of the engine resulted in one turn of the driveshaft. That's it. No gearing involved. It's what 4th gear is in most cars. Simple, no? Still, every other thing out of this kid's mouth is a question that ends in the phrase "direct drive."

Next Friday will be like a real, honest-to-God Friday, as I have Saturday off. And Sunday and Monday. I will be extra careful between now and then, just to make sure I survive long enough to enjoy it.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

"There are over 40,000 perfect games in bowling every year. So it's still rarer than a no-hitter in baseball." - some jackass on NPR

Wow, Thursday already. This has been a really tiring week, even more than usual. It's because I've been particularly busy at work, filling in to some degree for the mechanics who are gone (one got fired, one's on vacation). It's cool because I'm getting to do more actual repair type of stuff, but it's also exhausting. This schedule is draining enough, but the increased workload coupled with the lab-intensive class I'm in right now (I tore down and rebuilt both a 3 speed and a 4 speed manual tranny today) have worn me out, and I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Sean's class (air conditioning) is apparently really boring. I walked by his classroom today and actually saw him fall asleep and then catch himself. Sean talked to someone today and found out we should be able to both be in the same automatic transmission class next phase, which would be both convenient and cool. Dane hasn't really said too much about his, but he's apparently made a couple of friends, and they're over at the gym playing basketball right now. Sean and I are staying here because we're too tired / busy, me with filing out the FAFSA online and him with playing Max Payne on the playstation. Best. Videogame. Ever.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Time is short tonight; there's a Seinfeld marathon on TV. Right now it's the one where George buys Jon Voight's car. I love that show. "Jon Voight bit you? What is he, a vampire?"

I also love the class I'm in now. Transmissions are really cool... I've always liked things with gears. And I don't know all that much about them, so there's a lot to learn. It's a fun class, and the teacher is the best I've had so far.

Anyway, I'm tired, Seinfeld's on, and my eyes hurt, so I'll be going now. Hey, I'm O-Positive, according the the Red Cross. Same as Sean. That's the one that almost anyone can use, I'm told. Anyone need any blood?

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Today was all over the map. First of all, I had to go pick up an older lady to come get her car at the shop after it had been repaired. She's probably in her early sixties. I had dropped her off in the morning, so she knew who I was. Anyway, I pulled up in her driveway and she opened the door of her house and headed out. After she'd gone about 5 steps, she tripped on the toe of one of her flip-flops. It looked for all the world like a simple little "whoops" kind of thing, where you sort of stutter-step to catch yourself and then fall back into a regular walk. She didn't have such luck, however. After the initial trip she stumbled forward, half caught herself, stumbled again, tripped even further forward, almost caught herself (gaining speed and getting lower to the ground all the while), lunged, and finally crash landed in the middle of the street. She probably covered a good 15 feet from the initially tripping point before she finally hit the asphalt, going from the garage end of her driveway all the way into the road. All of this was happening on the passenger side of the van I was sitting in, and I was still in the driver's seat. So she sort of disappeared from view when she finally fell. It was an amazing and frightening thing to see. It almost seemed like she must have done it on purpose, it was so long and drawn out.

Anyway, I jumped out of the van and ran over to help her up. She'd cut herself in several places and had torn a bunch of skin off of one of her hands. I helped her into her house and before I knew it was performing basic first aid on this woman as her cat watched suspiciously. She had hydrogen peroxide and neosporin, and tracked down a bunch of big band aids at my suggestion. It was kind of awkward, because she was pretty upset and I don't really know a lot about first aid. I was also trying to avoid the blood that was seemingly on everything I was supposed to use to patch her up.

Some of you may know this, but I don't do so well with blood. I'm pretty oblivious to injuries to myself, especially if I'm engrossed in something like fixing a car or playing baseball, but the moment I see blood it's over. My vision gets blurry, I have trouble getting enough air and my knees go weak. A classic example was the time I obliterated my thumb out in the driveway of my parents' house in Portland trying to get a drain plug out of my car's differential. I was lying on my stomach pulling as hard as I could on a pipe that was fitted over an allen wrench that was inserted in the plug (as anyone at our school could tell you, this is an extremely bad idea). Predictably, the plug eventually snapped free, and I brought the pipe down on my thumb with all my strength. I immediately grabbed the thumb and went inside. It hurt like crazy, but I was mainly thinking, "Sweet, I got that goddamned thing off," until I glanced down at the floor and saw bright red dots of blood all over the place. Within moments I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, hyperventilating, watching the world go white at the corners of my vision and pitifully holding my hand out for my mom to fix.

So anyway, I was fighting to keep my knees from buckling the whole time I was dealing with this woman I don't know, trying to keep her blood away from the various cuts and scrapes on my skin, hoping her cat wouldn't attack me without warning. She was fine, of course, but the whole thing was pretty outside the realm of my normal day.

My good deed for the day having been done, I then spent the rest of the day fucking up. Here are some examples: putting tires on an SUV backwards, possibly damaging one of the lifts at work, mistakenly taking the keys to the shop van home with me (finally! guilty as charged!), walking into an ash can and hurting my knee, and telling Kramer I can't move back to New York yet to help with their new shows. Ah, the yin and yang of American life.

And holy shit, the 17th perfect game in baseball history happened today. Thrown by a pitcher on what I guess is now my hometown team. Way to go, Randy Johnson. I almost saw Mike Mussina throw the 17th perfect game in history a couple years ago at Fenway Park. Luckily "Jurrasic" Carl Everett wasn't around this time to screw it up.

Monday, May 17, 2004

Fuck yeah, Massachusetts! They may not appreciate you here in Arizona, but hey, is Arizona the smartest state in the nation? Does Arizona have a ballpark where time stands still and people still talk about a home run hit in 1975? Does Arizona have four distinct seasons? No, no and no! Fuck Arizona! Congratulations, you crazy gay people! I hope your marriages work out better than most straight ones.

Today we started our new classes. I think I'm going to like this one. I can tear down and rebuild one of the many transmissions I have in the apartment for extra credit. Yup, I do have two transmissions sitting around in the apartment. Sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy joke.

We found out today that Volkswagen may actually start paying people to go to its school. $15 an hour to be in their program. As it is now, all the manufacturer programs are free, which is a pretty sweet deal, but getting paid? Sweeter. If BMW doesn't work out, VW it is.

I always seem to feel like crap on Mondays. Kind of like Garfield, back when that strip was funny.

Sunday, March 16, 2004

"You're goddamned right he wasn't, but those two lookers who capped Kennedy from the grassy knoll sure as shit were!" - David Duchovny in Zoolander

Today was a very lazy day, which was nice. Nothing at all happened until after 2pm. Then Sean and I discovered Costco, which may well qualify as a life-altering experience. What DON'T they have there? And the weirdest thing was, the place was full of hot chicks. Huh? What's up with that? Anyway, it turned out we didn't have enough money for the membership ($45), but we're definitely going back next week and buying shitloads of bulk merchandise. Mainly nutrigrain bars... I assume they're healthy.

Daryl, you're an animal!

Then, upon leaving Costco, we noticed that there was a sporting goods warehouse next door. Thinking we might be able to score a cheap baseball bat, we went inside. It immediately became apparent that this was not a team sports kind of place. Dead animals lined the walls and teenage girls were selecting handguns with the help of their fathers. We were on our way out when we noticed something. There were little paper targets with drawings of things like prairie dogs, woodchucks, coyotes and rabbits. We bought the woodchuck one and named it Daryl. For the rest of the day Daryl accompanied us wherever he went. Before we even got back to the car we had close to fifty ideas for short films, pranks, and just general fun we could have with a paper woodchuck.

The three of us went swimming after dark. We had footraces across the pool, which is harder than it might sound, and I think our neighbors thought we were crazy. Now we're winding down and watching Zoolander, which is a great movie no matter what anyone says. I know. I went to film school.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Today was nice at work because Freakshow had the day off. Initially we all thought he'd slept in again, and were elated because that would have surely meant his termination, but it turned out he had gone, with permission, to his brother's wedding. This resulted in a very smooth, painless day at the shop.

After I got home, we all bummed around until Bobby came over and we watched the Spurs get eliminated by the goddamn, motherfucking Lakers. Then we went back to the Four Peaks and played baseball trivia games all night long. We all were pretty tired. Kind of a forced night. We got home relatively early for a Saturday (around 1:30) and went to bed. I slept on a Playstation controller all night long but didn't realize it until the morning. Should have known an air mattress can't be that lumpy.

© Long Shot Films 2004