Diving into a new fishing hole

Posted on 02/08/2010 by RLW3

I have needed an engine for a car that I owned only two times in my life. Both times, I bought a book and learned how to rebuild them.

Tonight, I picked up the phone and bought a JDM engine from a company in my old stomping ground, the San Fernando Valley in California, without having ever heard the engine run. In fact, I have not even seen it!

It’s like diving into a new fishing hole. You don’t really know what lies beneath the surface of the water.

JDM stands for Japanese Direct Market. Evidently, Japan’s emission control laws are so strict that they replace their engines after 50-60,000 miles. I know they have been getting quite a bit of bad press recently, but that for a Toyota engine, that is barely broken in real good. And I am getting it at a pretty reasonable price: $350 ($525 if you include shipping).

However, it still feels risky. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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I hope I don’t have my head in the sand?

Posted on 02/06/2010 by RLW3

When my wife made the big weight loss bet with me, I had two thoughts: if she does it, she will look great and that will be fun, if you know what I mean! If she doesn’t, I don’t have to get braces. Either way, I win.

When she said that she wanted to go back to school to become a nurse, I thought, “She is really making some big changes in her life!” But, I thought it would be a good thing for her.

Now I starting to wonder…

Am I in denial? Will I look back and conclude that I ignored the obvious signs?

Think about it, out of the blue, she wants to lose weight. That subject has been off limits for years. No se toca! (That’s a little Spanish lingo for “Do Not Touch”)

Then, she wants to get her own career…earn her own cash…

Hmm…

I’m no physicist but I can handle elementary math…

She’ll be lookin’ fine AND she’ll have her own mu-nay!?

Now that I think about it, it does seem that every week I learn about a different young buck taking classes with her at the local junior college.

Oh sure, the stories are all innocent and above board. But…

Isn’t that the way it always is???

Today, she asked our youngest daughter to sign her up for the ACT test! She said that she HAS to take it in order to be eligible for nursing school. They are going to take it together!

Do you see what I am getting at?

What if this is just the early phases of a mid-life crisis? What if she is tired of the “old man”? What if…

Umm, I have to go now…

I’ve got to put some more of that hair growth goo on my head…

got to go work out…

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RotFLOL…well, more like DOMKNFOLSHIH!

Posted on 02/05/2010 by RLW3

I finally made it over to my mechanic’s to get the master cylinder fixed. I asked him to change the oil and oil filter while he was at it.

Everything went pretty much like he predicted. He then asked for the key to start the engine up just to give the car the once over before I paid him and took off.

When he turned the car off, everything changed…

It sounded like a dog was taking a leak on the floor…but there was no dog in the shop!

It was my car!

He had forgotten to put the oil filter on!

He didn’t cuss, but boy, did he want to!

“Boy, that makes me so mad!…I could just kick myself!”

I think that the only reason that he didn’t try was because he was afraid he might slip in the oil and end up on his…

Posterior!

I felt bad for him. I tried to cheer him up by telling him this.

As I was talking, I was standing in front of his tool box. A magnet held a series of pictures printed out from the Internet titled “Murphy’s Law Revisited”.

I took them down and started looking at them. (click on the pics to get a larger view)

Did you notice that there is a guy standing IN the water? Did you see the tires behind him? He is standing on a car! Now, that’s a problem!

“Fine…we’ll just get a crane and pull it up out of the water.”

“There you go…That wasn’t too hard.”

OOOOPS!

When I saw this one, I doubled over in laughter!

When I recovered, I looked at it again and doubled over again! I could almost hear ‘Mater’s voice (the tow truck) from the movie “Cars”!

The van is BACK in the water AND the crane is in the water! Now, THAT is a problem!

“What are we going to do now?”

“We could get a bigger crane…”

“I think we’ll have to…”

We’ve been here before so let’s wait and see what happens…

Good. That went pretty smoothly. Now let see about that other crane…

“This baby’s got plenty of power…You just got to hook it up and go!”

“We’ll have this buttoned up and be out of here in just a few more minutes…”


When I saw this, I laughed so hard that my stomach convulsed. I was reduced to squatting down on the floor with only my hand keeping me from completely falling over. Oh, was I in pain! Thus the new acronym Down On My Knees Nearly Falling Over Laughing So Hart It Hurts!

When I recovered, I told my mechanic that if he wanted to feel better, he just needed to look at this! He does not have any problems!

You can find the original pics here. The man who deserves the credit for taking the shots is here.

Posted in Cars, Humor | Comments Off on RotFLOL…well, more like DOMKNFOLSHIH!

I like where I am but I am really glad about where I have been

Posted on 02/03/2010 by RLW3

We attended our first home group with our new church.

It was pretty interesting.

First, the room was filled with people who really love God.

Second, I don’t think that we were the youngest people there, chronologically speaking. However, we were clearly the youngest people there! I guess all of those years mentoring young people and fathering my children has preserved my wife and I.

Third, it made me even more grateful for my spiritual heritage! Wow! It is not as though I haven’t realized this before, but I am so grateful for where God saved (CA), the time that I was saved (1981), the ministry that He used to reach me, and the pastor and peers that he gave me. My wife and I have been spiritually privileged people!

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Off the hook!

Posted on 02/02/2010 by RLW3

I knew what I was doing all along…

When I started driving the Nissan last Monday, I noticed that it needed brake fluid.  I stopped by my mechanic the next day and he determined that the master cylinder was leaking. He called and ordered the part while I was there and told me to come by after work on Friday since the job would only take an hour.

On Saturday morning, I went to my first men’s meeting at our new church. Since the church is about a mile from the mechanic, I decided to slip on over to get some things out of the trunk of the Toyota.

As I lifted the trunk lid, I remembered that I had completely forgotten my Friday appointment!!! When Friday afternoon came around, I was so excited to see my wife at the apartment complex movie theater, I just headed straight home.

I called and left him a message.

He didn’t call me back. I called him today…

It turns out that he forgot about it too. He never picked the part up!

So, if I had remembered, he wouldn’t have been ready anyway. I am officially off the hook!

In fact, I actually did him a favor by forgetting!

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How do you do this nicely?

Posted on 02/01/2010 by RLW3

I had to do something uncomfortable this morning…

For the past two months, the pastor of our new church has been calling me by the wrong name.

I haven’t said anything because he has really gone out of his way to make us feel welcome. Besides, it has usually been just a quick handshake in the middle of the worship service.

But today I met has I was heading into the men’s meeting. He was shoveling snow off of the sidewalk.

Once again, he called me by the wrong name.

I thought, “I’ve got to bring this up sometime and now is as good a time as any…”

But how do you address this? and still be cool?

Oh, that’s right. I just remembered…

I don’t have to worry about that last thought. I’ve never been cool. Whew! That’s a load off my mind!

I decided to just dive in. I put my hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye and said, “I’m not offended, but my name is Lord.”

No, no, no…I said my real name!

He was so embarrassed and apologetic.

I said, “No worries.”

Oh well, now he knows.

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That was sooo close!

Posted on 01/31/2010 by RLW3

On the way home from church, I drove by the little frozen waterfall…

As I drove by, I thought that it was worth taking another picture. So…

I started backing up…

Made sense to me. Evidently, my wife didn’t think so.

As I put it in reverse, Bunch said, “What are you doing?”

“Backing up.”

“You can’t back up! That’s illegal!”

I kept going…

“You can’t back up on a curvy road like this! It is SO dangerous!”

I kept going…I could see down the road. In fact, a car did come by and I had plenty of time to pull safely off to the side of the road to let him pass.

And then I resumed backing up…

“This is so unsafe!”

By now, we had made it back to the waterfall and pulled off to the side of the road. If women had their way, we wouldn’t have any fun…

Well, not exactly any…

but…

you know what I mean!

As I was getting out of the truck, she said, “What kind of an example are you setting?”

“A terrible one…Not only was it ‘unsafe’, ‘illegal’ and a bad example, you forgot to mention that I am a 50 year old man dressed in a suit on a Sunday and that I had my wife and daughter in the car while I did it!”

I got her with that one. She laughed and laughed.

Oh yeah, the waterfall…

I took a picture because it was sporting a Laurel and Hardy mustache…

Posted in Marriage | Comments Off on That was sooo close!

Are we on TV?

Posted on 01/29/2010 by RLW3

When I walked outside early this morning, I did a double take…

I couldn’t quite figure out what I was seeing.

It snowed last night. That’s not really news any longer. After all, it is winter and this is the Midwest!

But, it was how it looked..

.

(click on the pictures)

Our apartment complex looked like it had become a very large coloring book! Snow perfectly blanketed the streets and the sidewalks but not the grass!

Whoever did the coloring did a very good job of staying in the lines! Only the stones were covered on the walkway to the sidewalk!

Actually, it was too perfect…

As I headed back inside, I started looking for cameras…

I wonder if our apartment complex is really just another set on the “The Truman Show”?

Posted in Weather | Comments Off on Are we on TV?

If everything went this well…

Posted on 01/28/2010 by RLW3

Yesterday, I tried to link to a post about my most recent problem with my MacBook Pro laptop computer. I didn’t succeed because I never told you the story!

I back up my entire computer semi-regularly onto my Time Capsule. However, that is still a hard drive and, therefore, is subject to failure. So, about twice a year, I make a DVD copy of all of the files that I have personally created.

About three weeks ago, I decided that January seemed like a good time to do that so I popped in a DVD and got the following error message…”media error”!?!?

Fine. I’ve got four more disks…

I got the same message with five different disks!

Now, I can believe that one disk might be defective, but five…??? I don’t think so…

I did a smart thing when I bought the computer nearly two years…

I bought Apple Care. That means that Apple will fix anything and everything (well almost) for the next three years.

So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and headed down to the Apple store.

“It’s not your disks. It’s your DVD burner.”

“Is this a covered repair?”

“Absolutely. Let me get your computer checked in.”

“How long will you need it for?”

He looked up from his screen and saw me visibly wincing, smiled and said, “Hold on a minute…” and disappeared into the back of the store.

Five minutes later, he came back and said, “I talked to a guy in the back who said that he will do it while you wait.”

Folks, I walked in for my 5:45 appointment trying to find out why I couldn’t burn a DVD and walked out at 6:30 with a new DVD burner installed in my laptop!

Go Apple!

Posted in Money, Technology | Comments Off on If everything went this well…

I’m not moving

Posted on 01/27/2010 by RLW3

I confessed something to my wife a few days ago…

“It might seem corny, but I REALLY like using my computer.”

Three weeks ago, while I was waiting for my MacBook Pro DVD drive to be replaced, I bought Apple’s latest operating system, “Snow Leopard”. It is faster and more powerful than the “Leopard” operating system that I currently run.

Before I could load it, I learned that Apple was going to unveil the “iPad” in a few weeks.

“Hmmm…I wonder what else they might release?”

I decided to wait just in case they pulled a surprise and released another new operating system.

While I was waiting these last two weeks, I found two pieces of software that REALLY make using my computer an enjoyable thing. In fact, the last time that I was this excited about computing was 23 years ago when I bought my first MacPlus and learned how to program in Hypercard.

Then I realized that my happiness was creating a dilemna…

Two of my favorite pieces of software are not compatible with the new software.

“Do I really want to upgrade to ‘Snow Leopard’?”

It is a little like selling a house that you really love and moving out of a great neighborhood just because you can get a great deal on a “nicer, bigger” one in some other part of town.

I took Snow Leopard back.

If the software that I really like gets upgraded to be compatible, I will upgrade. Until then, I like where I live.

Posted in Personal, Technology | Comments Off on I’m not moving