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.