I'm getting old.

So I hurt my arm working on the car. That was like... last week, Tuesday. It was a strange angle I was using my right arm and I was putting a whole lot of pressure on it. I felt my muscles twitched and jerked as I put my mind over the weakness my frail form can put out.

Outwardly, I'm fine. But as soon as the next day, I felt sore. It wasn't a good muscle building sore. It was a Arnold Schwarzenegger GGAAAWWWAUUUUAGHGHAGGGAA sore whenever I put force through my elbow. The next day after that I couldn't help but wince doing simple things, like lifting steering wheel lock for the car (which requires some complex moves). I laid off it, since Tennis Elbow is a pain (badum - tshh). And given a week (well... tuesday to saturday) I felt it again when I was throwing a basket ball.

Just today, while shaking a rattle can of paint, I gasped and nearly let go of the paint can.

Writing it down seems scarier than what it is. I just take some ibuprofen and lay off it, and it gets better. Theres just these odd pangs and reminders that, when I would get a very similar injury when I was younger, I would heal in a day or two. This is no more apparantly.

Cognizizant

Adj. 1. cognizant - (sometimes followed by `of') having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception; "was aware of his opponent's hostility"; "became aware of her surroundings"; "aware that he had exceeded the speed limit"


Adj. 1. cognisant - (sometimes followed by `of') having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception; "was aware of his opponent's hostility"; "became aware of her surroundings"; "aware that he had exceeded the speed limit"

Noun 1. cognoscente - an expert able to appreciate a field; especially in the fine arts "from cognoscente, adjective, wise, from Latin cognoscent-, cognoscens, present participle of cognoscere"

Yah, the spell checker on this site is running all kinds of ways with my spaztic inability to spell.

MS: Igloo 2 Gravity Front

"I know you..."

I have to admit I was disappointed going into this one when they laid heavy on mythology and religion, specifically, from Japanese culture. Of which, my best knowledge comes from a similarly disenfranchised cultural subgroup. It's not unlike saying I know everything I need to know about the Japanese from watching "Revenge of the Nerds". I'm very cognizant that my take and others in similar cliques of society tend to have an altered somewhat dissonant view of the world.

So aside that, my understanding is incomplete and colored with the odd exchanges of media or just scowling glances from the corporate overlords. The later is always fun.

MS Igloo 2 manages to be good all the same even with that huge leap in religious beliefs and heart wrenching all the same toward the end. Where it seems to fall apart in the beginning with the introduction of the Shimigami (a kind of angel/spirit of death), it pulls it together at the end beautifully.

It's not as good as the first Igloo, but it is still worth a shot if you can manage to get a copy and want to see, much like the predecessor, the stories of the every day ground pounders being thrown into the meat grinder of what is still quintessentially a giant super robot show. It's gritty. It's awesome. And the religious elements add some flair without drowning out the show.

MR2 Update: Nasa would be proud

A little bit of a forward, my Dad had an afro. A literal and complete natural afro the likes of which would seem appropriate only in a movie where Samuel L. Jackson was in the credits. He was also white, but these two details never really mingled in my mind. So upon one saturday afternoon when he explained the term "afro-engineering", I didn't take it as a racist statement. It was just something my Dad did when he didn't want to do it right.


Behold the horror of what I fretted about earlier. Notice the thick piece of metal just dangling there?



Not good, eh? Among a litany of other things wrong in the front end, this was the most concerning. Dragging pieces of metal is very "no bueno".

Further inspection more or less explained why it was like that.

Ah yes. "Afro-Engineering". Weld the radiator support to the car. To be fair, the previous owner did mention he did something like this. For the life of me, why didn't he do the same on the other side if he was going to do it on the passenger side?

He did- or perhaps Toyota did. As far as I can tell, there are two small weld spots on the other side of the radiator support to hold it in. At some point in time, these welds failed thus leading me to the "OMGWTFBBQ" moment of yesterday.

I can fix it. I'll drill some holes and screw it in as it should. It might be a good time to get a welder and just fix it back the way Toyota may have designed. It's great that the principle problem isn't nearly as bad as I thought.

MR2 Update: *Jeopardy Tune*

What am I doing in this picture?

A. Fixing the AC.
B. Calibrating the parking brake.
C. Changing a fuel pump.
D. Porkchop sandwiches.

I don't think that I would have ever got to this point and still know what I was doing. I do, sort of. This has all been a progressive learning experience and, in retrospect, that one detail has exacerbated the time spent on the project. Hind sight is more than 20/20, it's down right painful.
I used to see pictures like this, or God forbid cars driving around like this, and think the owner must be some shade of insane. But here I am, neck deep in problems as I wade through 20 years of rust and abuse, grabbing each one of them singly by the throat before sorting it out. Every day in the garage is like a Boris Vallejo painting, only with car parts and my shirt stays on.
It's in this way that problems get sorted out as quickly as new ones are identified. I've never really came across a problem that made me stop and despair, rather plenty have been identified as either being necessary to the function of the car or not and whether or not it's going to be a learning experience.

Until today that is. While performing "C." in the above picture, a feat by itself that boggles the mind in its complexity and by itself drove me to anxiety, I noticed some items dangling in the front undercarriage of the car. Curious as to what it could be, as I had previously addressed some dangling wires, I inspected it to find a oddly sheared wiper fluid line... and some metal splinters. A casual brush against the steel radials of the passenger front tire revealed that it was a few miles from detonating.

'Awesome', I think to myself as I queued another item in the "prevents car from functioning" list. But the damage goes beyond that. The car was in an accident in the past that was never really fixed. Careful examination of the undercarriage like I had not done before was slowly revealing a Lovecraftian horror of missing parts and dangling support structures.

Literally, there are hanging suspension bits that I had not noticed before that were not anchoring to anything, at all for various reasons between accident damage, rust, and from what I can tell, simple neglect. How they are still on the car at all is worth scientific scrutiny.

At once, I felt this project was a mistake. I long ago was sold a bill of goods on the car. I came to terms on that. On paper, despite feeling jipped, I'm still ahead. I've been working at this like a second job since February when I thought this would be a few weekends and the car would be road worthy. I even knew there was some potential problems lurking in the front. And I was okay with this too cause it looked fine on casual inspection.
But one glance from underneath the car and the situation became sublime.

An elephantine load just emptied onto the "Prevents car from running" list.

"Fuck this", I said to myself, as I cleaned up the shops activities for the day and went inside to wash dishes. Later I'd crack open a Heineken and play some Company of Heroes.

Playing as the Wehrmacht and tangling with some Yanks, things got rough at one point- it could have been the beer slowing my actions. I had to adapt and reconsider my strategy. One option was giving in and starting over.

And despite playing as the Germans, I could hear R. Lee Ermey shouting about what a miserable sack of puke I was all the while I was considering what my life would be like if I just gave up in the face of adversity.

I don't just give in. I adapt and overcome. And despite being routed for the moment, and again it might have been the beer, I felt I could get over this as well. There are a lot of things I could have done differently in the past. But none of the wishful thinking of the past is going to fix the here and now. And that starts with action.

It's amazing what a few beers does for morale.

Ultrasound Pics

It was almost immediately obvious on the screen what the doctor and I were looking at. His shape was clear from the beginning and quite surprising how quickly the ultrasound machine worked.
I think what was most surprising about the ultrasound, is that the our little baby was moving. He moved around a bit and reorientated himself while we watched. It really struck me again just how precious he is.
"He" is still used tentatively at this point though. They think it is a "he" but it is too early to tell. His due date is November 4th right now.

Heard the baby heart beat friday.

Yah, image macros. But this is what I was thinking when I heard it and realized the machine wasn't hearing something else.