About nothing

My buddy jabacue wrote a post about nothing, and since I don't really have anything about which to write, I thought that I, too, would write about nothing.

I've heard a lot of good things about Seattle, though I have never been there. I'd like to go some day.

The transmission in my truck broke. I don't know exactly what is meant by "broke," but I suspect most of my readers don't know enough about manual transmissions in 1990 F150s for it to be a critical point. The transmission was tragically and immovably broken, so the truck wouldn't move. I had it towed to my guy at the shop, and he suggested we replace it with either a used or a rebuilt transmission. I wondered about just scrapping it. He said it was worth enough to fix it and sell it if we want to. The used transmission was cheaper (by more than half, if I recall) so that's what we chose. I wonder if it was a wise decision. We picked it up on Superman's lunch break today. The sucker cost almost $1000 to repair. Labor was a large portion of the charge, as it takes a lot of work to pull and replace one of those trannies.

I like that truck, but my ardor is waning. I like it less during the hot summer months (no a/c) than I do in the winter. I have a difficult time determining when it's best to cut my losses and move on. Hey, maybe if I keep it another 10 years (or more), it will be an antique and a collector's item. We need a pickup truck, and we probably couldn't get another one in decent condition for less than $1K. Now that it has a newer tranny (67K miles on it) it is a decent truck. Not a great truck, not a pretty truck (it has never been pretty), but a decent truck.

Light has gone out to look for a job. I had to kick her butt to get her moving. She only has an hour to try, because Sproing has an appointment to see the doctor later this afternoon. He did something to hurt his right ankle. I'm not sure what happened, but he says it has something to do with being roughed up by some big mean kids. It's been a bit swollen and intermittently sore for two days. I say intermittently because sometimes he milks the injury for all it's worth, and sometimes he runs around like nothing is wrong. I think the pain is genuine, but not as intense as he makes it out to be.

But about this job thing: the child needs a job. She isn't really a child, exactly, except that she's my child. She'll be 21 next month. She'll be in her senior year when she returns to college in the fall. She has never held a traditional job. She's done some long-term babysitting and occasional house- and dog-sitting. She spent a week as a receptionist last summer, filling in at a friend's office for the vacationing receptionist. She did quite well. She is intelligent and articulate, empathetic and responsible. She'll be an asset just about anywhere she goes. She just has to get out there and try!

Yeah, Sproing got roughed up a bit on Monday. He was at his "friend's" house playing the Xbox, and some big mean kids came around to pick on them. I really have no idea what happened. My sources aren't reliable. The upshot, though, is that his bike got stolen. Pisses me off. We called the police. The only name we had was "Big Devon," but the police officer was able to get some information about him. He (the officer) called Superman later in the evening and gave him the name. They did not find the bike, but the officer suggested that Superman go to the office that handles that stuff (?) in the municipal building downtown and file a juvenile complaint. That's on the to-do list.

I'm supposed to go to Columbia tomorrow to visit the Diva. -groan- I guess I'll call her therapist and arrange a time for that. Oooh! But if I go to Columbia, I can get a Cinnabon! Life needs frosting, you know.

I was schlepping around Wal-Mart this morning and ran into one of my professors. She taught my English class last year. She's a really nice (and pretty) woman. She says she likes my new haircut. I forgot that no one from school has seen the butch dyke cut yet. She indicated that she really likes it, though. That's nice.

Now that the hair has had a few weeks to grow out, I might take a picture and post it here. I like it a little bit better now. It was uneven at first, but it grew out enough for Superman to give it a buzz with the 1" shield, bringing the top to more or less uniform length.

And that's a lot of nothing. Congratulations on reaching the end.

It's all good

Too much time has passed since my last blog post. I want to update more often. The time and a good subject haven't coincided before now. Today, however, I had a blog-worthy experience. 

My dear darling daughter Light was in a stage production of some sort tonight. It was a variety show lip sync thing, the purpose of which is fuzzy to me. It was of course for fun, but there may have been other stated purposes. She wanted me to be there and I arranged to go. 

I set out good and early so that we would have time to hang out before the show. The sun was shining brightly behind me and the clear sky expanded in all directions as I drove my beloved truck, Manny, on the country highway toward college town. I had MP3 tunes in my ears and 300 cubic inches of engine at my command. All was good with the world.

Until the klunk. 

Has that ever happened to you? You're rolling along thinking everthing is copacetic when all of a sudden you hear and feel a powerful change in your plans. 

The engine died and I was coasting down a slight hill. I wrangled the ol' boy into the center turn lane. Power steering must have both steering and power to be power steering. Without power it is an upper body work-out. I stepped on the brake to stop the truck, and he stopped. We can't assume too much in these situations, so stopping when I depress the brake is a good sign. I turned the key, and indeed the engine began firing on all cylinders. So far so good. I pushed in the clutch and put that transmission in first gear. That's when things went south. As I released the clutch and gave him some gas he did nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. There was no movement in the RPM gage. That needle was hugging nuthin'. With the increase in gear engagement, however, we had some impressive klunk*, rattle, and roll. That's "roll" as in "sway," not to be confused with forward movement. 

No first gear, so I tried second gear. No second gear. At that point I decided the best course of action was to get out of the middle of the road. Since I'd stopped the truck and the engine would no longer move the wheels I had to provide movement with my raw Java power. Those of you who have met me know that Java's raw physical power is pretty wimpy.** A nice fellow passing by stopped to help me push Manny into a parking lot. 

Superman and I have been members of AAA auto club since 1984. It says so on my AAA card. Since we frequently drive old cars with comensurately old parts, we have had many occasions to be very glad we have AAA emergency roadside assistance service. I called the AAA help line and before too long a very friendly Bubba came with his awesomely powerful superduty flatbed tow truck to carry Manny back to Greenwood. Technically it seems that the flat bed truck is called a carrier. That's what Google leads me to believe, anyway. 

Once Bubba got Manny onto his carrier bed this is what we saw. It isn't pretty.

This is Manny's rear end. No, really, that's what they call it! It's also known as a differential. It isn't supposed to have that big gash in the middle of that plate. You see it there, with the gash that looks like it was attacked by a rabid can opener? Yeah. That explains the klunk and jerk, doesn't it?

Believe it or not, that's a good sight to see under the circumstances. I thought the problem was in the tranny. Yep, that's what they call it. Otherwise known as a transmission.  But since the problem is obviously in the differential, that is much better than having a wrecked transmission. 

Here, let me show you:

On the left is the differential. It is a complicated compilation of gears and associated machined parts. And below is a cut-away image of a transmission. Do you see how much more complicated that sucker is? In Auto Mechanic-ese, complicated = very expensive. The transmission is also more difficult to access. It's located under the front of the car, behind the engine, in the center of the underbelly of the vehicle aproximately even with the dashboard. The differential, centered between the two back wheels, is much easier to access. In Auto Mechanic-ese, "easier to access" = expensive, but not as expensive as "hard to access." Let's face it: in Auto Mechanic-ese, handing the mechanic your car keys = expensive. 

But you know what? It's all good. I had my cell phone and was able to call Light to tell her I couldn't make it, to call Superman and give him the news, and to call AAA to get a tow back to town. The wind was pretty cold out there in the parking lot, but inside my beloved truck with the sun shining low through the windows I was very comfortable. I had my big 52 ounce mug of ice water with me. The hour or so I spent in the truck was an opportunity to clean out the trash. I filled two plastic grocery bags with the trash from my back floorboard. I found my road atlas, too. And I finally found the match to that garden glove that's been in my console box for 2 years. It was an adventure in discovery, actually, but some of the stuff I found is just a little bit TMI for me to post. 

I am sorry that I missed Light's performance and the rest of the show which I understand was side-splittingly funny. But over all I think the evening went pretty well. It's all good.

* A "klunk" is worse than a "clunk." Trust me.

** My awesome Java powers are primarily emotional in nature.