Working Hard…or Hardly Working.

It’s taken me until Wednesday to write something about my weekend. I suck terribly. Here goes.

Girlfriend came down for a visit this weekend. We had a great time. Took her to a Gordon Biersch for dinner on Friday and drank a bunch of beer. On Saturday we went shopping and I got 11 shirts and 3 pairs of pants for 150 bucks. I love Marshalls. The girlfriend made the mistake of saying “I like boys in sweaters”. I got a sweater….with skulls on it. I don’t think she likes it. She bought super-sexy ruffly-butt underwear, which is always fun times. We then saw the Benjamin Button film, which we both liked. It reminded me of Forrest Gump a bit in how the movie played out. The best part of this is we saw it at a movie theater that instead of stadium seating, had restaurant seating in the theatre. We drank copious amounts of beer and ate chicken wings while we watched the film. Fantastic movie theatre idea. Beer+wings+movie=fun times.

We got back from the movie and drank a bunch of wine and got a little drunk. The girlfriend took a picture of Chase and I being goofy and made a contest out of it. Go enter it. We then decided it was a good idea to have an all out WWF wrestling match in my living room. The girlfriend is a good wrestler. One would think she’s from West Virginia or something. The girlfriend didn’t mention the wrestling match in her account of the weekend, but I have photographic evidence. It will be posted when I can steal it from my roomate’s camera. She did, however, write this about our weekend, which was very sweet. I love her very much, even if she can almost kick my ass. We also had a bunch of sex, but that’s about the norm when we’re together. When we live together, I’m afraid my junk is gonna fall off.

Monday night I put new bearings on one of the two shafts in my broken transmission. Last night I did the other. Those motherfuckers sent me a wrong bearing. I had to re-use one of the old ones. I’m fairly pissed about it. It’s the mainshaft center bearing, though. It’s the least likely to fail, and the old one was in pretty good shape. So goes life. For what it’s worth, here’s a pic of it put back together with new bearings and syncros:

Almost done!!!

 

This brings me to my latest gripe. Urinal etiquette. Some men don’t observe.

First rule: The buffer zone. If there’s 3 urinals, and I’m peeing in the rightmost one, do not come and pee right next to me if both of the others are open. Use a one urinal buffer zone. If the leftmost is being used, then it’s ok. But it’s courtesy to not violate my bubble while I’m peeing.

Second rule: Eye contact. Avoid it. It’s awkward. Also it makes me feel like you wanna see my junk.

Third rule: Awkward conversation. Avoid that too. Saying “How’s it going” is ok. But peeing right next to me, looking at me while peeing, and saying things like “You like movies about gladiators?” is unacceptable.

Fourth rule: Wash your damn hands. Especially at work. I don’t wanna be touching things all around my office after you touched your junk. I don’t know where your junk has been. Possibly in that skanky bitch from accounting. Possibly in a farm animal. I don’t know what you do in your free time.

 

There are more man-rules that should be obeyed. Scratch that..observed. Obey makes me think 1984. I’ll mention them from time to time when someone breaks one and pisses me off.

Virginia is stupid.

I’ve been living in the (ridiculous) south for over a year now. It has not snowed in the past year. Mother nature has decided to give us some snow tonight and tomorrow. I’m fairly excited. If we get enough, I may even build a little snowman in my front yard so that when it all melts he’ll look like a lone soldier after the apocalypse. EVERYONE down here is flipping out. People are already planning not to come to work. It’s all over the news. My TV is beeping warnings at me. All for a prediction of 1-3 inches of the white stuff. Motherfuckers down here are just plain ridiculous. It’s snow, people…not the end of the world. I feel like the only sane person down here. I want to move back to the north.

Transmission: Day 2

When we last left our hero, he had removed the transmission/transfer case assembly from his 1996 Suzuki X-90. Some tiny metal parts in the drained oil left many questions to be answered.

This morning I awoke on the couch in my long-johns watching a horrible infomercial about some guy who has some product that makes babies read. Weird. I ate some leftover pizza for breakfast, put back on my dirty clothes, and started to take the damn thing apart. I took what was shown in the last picture from yesterday to this:

The go box.

 It’s actually pretty small. This tiny little box contains all the bits that make your car go forward and backward and fast or slow. At this point I found the first culprit of the failure. The rear countershaft bearing self destructed. Here’s a visual representation:

Where's the rest of me?

I continued to take the thing apart and found the rest of the guts to be very much intact. No chipped teeth on gears. The syncros look good. This makes me very happy.

The Guts.

At this point I found the center countershaft bearing had also been destroyed.  The rest of the damn thing seems unharmed. The pile of little metal bits has grown, though. I should be able to rebuild the thing and put it back together this week, after those bastards at the tranny place send me the syncros they forgot about.

This transmission disassembly has been brought to you by Extra Gold “Slow Brewed” Lager, the world’s worst beer since 1985. If anyone ever wants to know how to rebuild a transmission or needs some help, I’m glad to offer some insight. I’ve done a few of these now, and I think I’ve become pretty adept at it.

Ew.

Transmission: Day 1

So I mentioned that last weekend my transmission blew up. I rode one of my bikes to work all week. Figures it’d be the coldest week we’ve had in Virginia in some number of years. I can only imagine the little sperms inside my testicles wearing earmuffs and wearing long-johns.

This morning I woke up and put on MY long-johns, a beat up sweat shirt, and a pair of boots, and I ventured out into the 35 degree weather to remove the transmission from my car. My roomates are gone for the weekend, so I had to do it alone, which is not really a problem. It does, however, make it very unsafe. If something were to happen, It’s doubtful that anyone would find me in enough time to call 911 to save me.  Oh well. Sacrifices must be made in the name of progress.

First thing I did was drain the gear oil. Initial impressions were not good. Upon removing the drain plug, there were some little metal artifacts stuck to the magnet. I haven’t split the case yet, but I’m hoping these are bearing parts, and not gear parts.

It doesn't look good, Jim.

It took me most of the day to remove the myriad of bolts involved in attaching the transmission to the rest of my car. I removed the starter and distributor as the haynes manual instructed. I’m somewhat pissed about the distributor, because it really didn’t need to come out, and I fucked up and forgot to mark the thing before I pulled it. This is going to make reassembly a little difficult. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it, though.

When I pulled the transmission crossmember out, I finally got to compare it to the new one I bought a while back. I bought a new one because I knew the old one was bent. I just didn’t know how bent it really was. I have no idea how this happened, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s part of the reason my tranny failed.

Go Get Bent!

I only jacked up the front of my car for this project. This is partially because I only own 2 jack-stands. It’s also partially because I think my car looks funny like this. It appears as if it’s in the act of pouncing on something.

Turn your head and cough...

After I got all the bolts and such out, I had to support the whole works with something. Being that I’m too cheap to buy a transmission jack (read that saving up to buy the girlfriend an engagement ring), I used the two floor jacks that were in the garage. This was not the best way to go about removing the damn thing. Being that I’m sitting here writing this in my moose pants (girlfriend’s parents), I survived.

Luckily, I was not crushed.

End result, I got the damn thing out. I only have some minor scratches and cuts. Tomorrow begins the disassembly and assessment. Those bastards at the transmission parts place sent me the bearing/seal kit, but forgot to send me new syncros. I’m not too pleased about that, but I doubt I’ll be ready for them by the time they end up getting here anyway.

Hopefully the guts of my transmission haven’t been reduced to dust and I’ll be able to rebuild the thing and be done. It’s time to eat some leftover pizza and watch some TV.

It doesn't look so bad on the outside.

Tylenol PM Races

Ok, so the roomate and I just had a cool idea. He’s sick and just took 2 Tylenol PM. I can’t even do that. I take one of those things and my ass is on the floor. They absolutely knock me down. I think we should get a group of folks together, each drop in 5 bucks, and each take 2 pills (the recommended dosage). The last person awake gets the pot*. To make it interesting, we might have to all watch a documentary on something boring, or a horrible movie. I’ve tried to fight the sleep. It doesn’t work. Maybe I have no willpower, or a weak/suseptable system, but I seriously can’t resist that shit. I took one accidentally once instead of a regular Tylenol…was asleep 20 minutes later. So Tylenol PM races may have to happen. It would probably make a boring YouTube video…maybe if i made it go in high speed or something. In summation….good ideas come from sitting on the couch bullshitting. 

 

*Not drugs pot. Money pot. I’ve covered this already.

420 Post for 420 Views

I noticed that at current, 420 people have looked at my blog. Every time i see the number 420, I think of my college roomates. Several of them were big into drugs. Some of my close highschool friends were big into acid. I’ve never been into drugs. Drugs are bad…as cliche as that sounds. I think that drugs should be completely legal. I don’t think the government should be able to regulate what I choose to put into my body on principle. I however, personally, will not do drugs. They make you stupid. I need a clear, sharp mind to do my job. Also needed to pass a piss-test. Let this be a message to everyone: I do not care if you do drugs. I will not join you. Yes, I know I used to have dreadlocks. If you overdose, I will not take you to the hospital. I view it as a personal choice. Just remember, if you die, you get no pity from me.

Having dreadlocks in college was fun. It was neat to get asked by 5 or 6 random people on any given night if I had any pot that I could sell them. Some dude asked me if I could help him find some acid one time when I was at Sheetz getting a sandwich. I was at a bar in Frederick, MD with my cousin one night shooting a round of pool and a guy in the bar asked me for some Pot. I said “sorry dude, can’t help you”. He was PISSED. He got actually angry at me. He thought I had pot and just wouldn’t sell him any. He actually started to threaten me. My cousin and I finished our beers and left the bar. When I was working up there, a few folks I worked with referred to me as Bob Marley.

It was neat to be around tons of potheads in college, though. They all thought it was HILARIOUS that I didn’t smoke. Everyone would be hanging out around the house, and they’d be passing the joint, or bong, or pumpkin*, or whatever else they were smoking out of. I would always pass. If someone new was at the house, It would have to be explained that Zach doesn’t smoke. Yes, we realize he looks more like a pothead than any of us. Then there would be laughing. I was actually walking somewhere on campus once and two kids stopped me. One looked at me and said “You’re that kid who won’t smoke pot, right?” I said yep. He looked at his friend and said “See, I told you he had dreadlocks.”

I got a part time job at a machine shop at some point in college for some extra cash. They sent me out on some Tuesday morning to get my company required piss test. When I got back, they already knew the results. A few of the other workers were suprised I wasn’t rolling my toolbox out of the building. They asked me “How did you pass?” I simply replied “I don’t smoke”

 

*I have seen people smoke pot out of everything you can imagine. You think you and your buddies were clever? I went to engineering school. I’ve seen bongs that took up entire rooms. There were pumps and tubes and water tanks and moving parts. I was always surprised at the new devices and ideas they’d come up with to smoke.

Craigslist is still hilarious.

Gotta Love the Best-Of. Found another gem that’s worth saving. Don’t we all need a woman that won’t combust?

Guitarist of megalomaniacal speed seeks audience who won’t combust

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Date: 2008-07-02, 6:29PM CDT

I’d like to start this off by saying one thing: IF YOU DON’T LIKE GUITAR, IF YOU HAVE A FAMILY HISTORY OF CARDIAC INFIRMITY, OR IF YOU ARE IN ANY WAY OF A WEAK DISPOSITION, HIT THE BACK BUTTON RIGHT AWAY.

But who doesn’t like guitar, right? I don’t think you understand. Jimi Hendrix played guitar. Groucho Marx played guitar. I think Winston Churchill might have played guitar. What I play is something different.

Picture a Verdi opera: 3 hours of music, some of beautiful and ennobling, at times piquant and subtle, other times dramatic and inspiring. Take those three hours of music, those thousands of musical notes, and compress them into 4 measures of incomprehensible speed, delivered with earth-shaking finesse and a raucous disregard for any physiological limit to human auditory perception. I cannot stress this enough: I will play guitar so fast your face will melt.

The last girlfriend I had was dearer to me than anything that doesn’t have steel strings and pickups. It’s with a heavy heart that I must confess that she met a tragic demise. I sat her down to perform for her, as she had never heard me play. Within mere seconds of the furious and almost satanically fast deluge of musical notes, she burst into flames and was reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. I have grieved for 7 months, and now it is time to seek a hardier companion.

I seek a woman of no flimsy construction who can tolerate the cyclone of death that my guitar will unleash upon her. Think about the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Holy Spirit (or whatever the hell that poorly rendered gaseous conglomerate was supposed to be) ravaged the Nazis by melting their flesh from their mortal bones. This is what my guitar playing does, except there is only vapor left, no bones. I cannot stress this enough: I will play guitar so fast the Earth will be rent asunder and armies of hellions will spew forth to wreak havoc upon the human population.

I don’t care if you are fat, thin, average, need attention, busty, or even whether you genetically qualify as a human being. All that I care about, the single thing that will hold my attention, is a woman who can listen to my terror-inspiring, WMD-unleashing, virgin-defiling, hell-bent-on-misanthropic-destruction tornado of picking and whammy bar stunts without dying immediately.

If you think you can witness the senseless and brutalizing destruction that is my guitar playing without being maimed, incinerated, mutilated, lacerated, or dismembered in any way, please send me an email and I will arrange a meeting.

Postscript: I think I’ll have to have you sign documentation of release before we meet, however, as I am a wanted man in 48 states for assaulting an officer via sweep picking, and my guitar playing has been banned in Norway for causing several churches to burn to the ground. And yeah, I’ve never been to Norway.

I blame it on the full moon.

Ok, so I drove up to visit the girlfriend this weekend. Always good times. It snowed a bunch on Saturday, which is cool because I don’t get snow down here in Virginia, and I miss it. I got to do donuts in the movie theatre parking lot in protest of them being “closed due to weather” when girlfriend and I tried to see the Benjamin Button film. Driving in the snow makes many people nervous. Not me. I enjoy it. You just have to be careful, and know how your car is going to react. 4 wheel drive is also always a plus.  That night, after going to blockbuster to rent movies due to the movie theatre wimping out on us, I stopped at Radio Shack to get a wire for girlfriend’s new DVD/GPS/Stereo in her car that I bought (Christmas gift). The wire is so she can plug her iPod into it and play music off the iPod through the car stereo. The radio shack guy was all “Why on earth are you out in this weather buying a 6 dollar wire?” I said, “It’s not the fucking apocalypse, it’s just snow. Besides, girlfriend wants to listen to the iPod in her car.” The guy didn’t agree. I wanted to tell him to either get a fucking helmet or move out of north east Pennsylvania. Asshole. He did commend me for spending the extra buck or two to get her the pink colored wire. That’s always me, though. I’m all about an A for effort. The night progressed as planned. We each drank an entire bottle of wine, watched 2 excellent 80’s movies (Weird Science and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure), and engaged in movie intermission sex. Awesome.

I left there today after a small fiasco regarding whether or not we’re ready to get married. Around the time I hit DC the noise from my car’s transmission started getting worse. It’s been some time now I’ve known the tranny needed rebuilt. I’ve just been putting it off, hoping it would hold out for summer and let me deal with it in the warm weather. No such luck. All gears but 4th ceased to be safe somewhere on I-95. I drove around 280 miles, all the way back to Virginia Beach in 4th fucking gear. Only 4th gear. It’s difficult to start out in 4th. I deserve a prize, or a medal, or a cookie of sorts. Looks like I’ll be driving one of the bikes to work, in the cold, until I can find time to rebuild the tranny. What a shitty day.

On the upside, it’s now the 12th. Seven months ago today I met the girlfriend. It’s been an awesome 7 months. In just over another 16, we plan to be married. I can’t wait. I wish someone besides me would tell her that getting married in just under 2 years is not, by any means, rushing it. My parents met and were married inside of 6 months. This year is their 32nd year married. I think our timeline is more than reasonable. I more than feel like we’re taking our time.

Ah well. It’s go to sleep time. Gotta be at work in 5 hours. Ugh.

Reasons My Girlfriend Is Better Than Yours

I talk a lot about my girlfriend. She’s really cool, and I love her with all my heart. I never thought I’d find someone quite as awesome as her, and I wonder every day why she’s with such a goofy guy. Here’s some of the reasons that my girlfriend is quite obviously better than yours:

1. My girlfriend is smart as hell. She’s got a degree in english, and is about to finish her MBA. She’s thinking about PhD programs. She’s great at trivial pursuit. She is the most logically thinking and down to earth girl I’ve EVER met.

2. My girlfriend is drop dead gorgeous. She’s got beautiful black hair, a perfect smile, green eyes, amazing skin, and the types of curves that make men sweat. She’s got impeccable taste in clothing, and looks positively bitchin’ in a bikini.

3. My girlfriend is AMAZING in bed. I’ll let your imagination take care of this one. I will say, however, that your imagination has no chance of coming close to what she’s like, and I know how wild imaginations can be. Trust me on this one. She’s a goddess.

4. My girlfriend is way more fun than yours. She’s happy at the bar drinking a beer, and not a shitty stupid horrible beer like your girlfriend drinks. My girlfriend will drink real beer, and actually enjoy it. Your girlfriend and her miller lite are laughable. At the same time, my girlfriend has great taste in wine, and even whiskey. She’ll go camping with me, or just sit at home in pajamas and watch a movie.

5. My girlfriend can cook. She can cook real food, not ez mac and hamburger helper like your girlfriend. Not only that, but she actually enjoys it. We’ve taken recipes that we both like and she’s come up with ways to make them better. She bakes cookies and cake. She makes amazing pie with from-scratch crust. Best of all, a lot of the time she does all this topless. I bet your girlfriend doesn’t do that.

6. My girlfriend’s family is great. Many guys hate seeing the in-laws. I really enjoy being with my girlfriend’s family. Her brothers are fun. Her dad keeps me beered and whiskeyed up. Her mom lets me help in the kitchen and makes fun of me playing Wii Fit. I could not be more pleased with the family I’m fixing to be a permanent part of. I win.

7. My girlfriend could shoot yours. It’s rare to find a girl that can properly operate a firearm, but also be able to choose from a wine list without asking where the Boone’s Farm is. Go ahead, try to find someone else that fits that description. I dare you.

8. My girlfriend will be cool when she’s old. Even though she’ll be wrinkly and I’ll have a gut and my penis won’t work anymore. I’m still going to be the happiest guy on that floor of the highrise. Her coolness is unending. She is the ideal person to grow old with.

 

I’ll try to post more reasons why my girlfriend is better than yours as they occur to me. Try not to be too jealous. She’s mine. I’ve even got her like 98% convinced that marrying me is a good idea. How cool is that? Realistically, I can’t sum up how amazing she is with any stupid list. She truly defies description. She’s taken me in barely 7 months from ”I met a girl” to “How would you kiss me at our wedding?”.  She really does make me the happiest man alive, and I’d do anything for her.

1 year as a corporate whore.

Today, January 7th, 2009 is my one year anniversary at my current job. It doesn’t seem like a year. It doesn’t seem like too long ago that I was the guy at the top of the steps throwing the empty beer keg down at someone running up so they could jump over it*. Now I have short hair, a trimmed beard, and I manage multi-million dollar projects. I’m all grown up and stuff. I’m even planning to get married next year. If you told highschool me that this is where I’d be in 6 years, highschool me would’ve laughed at you. So goes life, I guess. I’ll wake up tomorrow and put on my collared shirt and go to work. I’ll make decisions that I’m probably not quite qualified to make, and I’ll get paid more than I thought I’d be making out of college. Here’s to progress, and turning out better than we thought we would.

 

 

*This game is called “Donkey Kong”. It’s fun. It does, however, tend to put large holes in the wall at the bottom of the steps and result in your friends hurting themselves. Again…fun.