11/27/06

I almost started out by saying, “I cannot believe this year is almost over,” but I'm not going to. Well, I guess I sort of did actually. Oh well. What happened over the long holiday weekend? Wednesday afternoon I cut out at about 1530 h and went to the shop. I stopped at the Kreblechistani tire store to see how late he’d be there doing inspections. He said about 1730 h. I stopped at the M-pulse machine at the credit onion then went to the shop and got the Seven out. I hauled ass back and got in line for the inspection. Since the car is a “1967” and it only needed a safety inspection, he jumped me to the front of the queue. The dude didn’t even try to drive it. He asked me to pull it in the bay and I went through all of the lighting functions for him. I think I honked the horn too but I don’t remember. He scraped the old sticker and stuck on the new one. John called while I was there and said he wasn’t coming to the shop after all. My sister had called earlier and asked me to get some sparkling wine for the dinner on Thursday so I said skipping shop night was fine. I parked the Seven and headed for the wine store. Well, it was World Market on Hulen since that was where my sister said I could find the stuff. As I drove up Hulen, I remembered the sushi place just before the railroad bridge. I tried to drive past but didn’t make it. I stopped in and ate $60.00 worth of bait. From there I headed to World Market and looked for the wine. I had had my sister e-mail page me with the details of what she wanted so I found a clerk and asked her. She didn’t know what it was so she found “the wine guy” for me. He said they didn’t have it and said I should try Central Market. Just then I noticed a bottle that looked like what my sister had described. I read the label and it was the stuff. “Oh, you wanted ‘Asti,’” he said as if that would make me believe he knew his shit and wasn’t just a pretentious git. I grabbed the three bottles she asked for and headed to the register. I made it home in time for “Mythbusters” and settled in for the evening. Thursday morning I got the Seven and went to my sister’s. We all ate and I had to ‘splain the car to everybody. When the Brokeback game started I headed north. I parked the Seven and went home. Friday morning I headed to the shop determined to finish the stereo installation in Mr. Wiggly. I wired in and installed the front speakers then started looking at the rears again. I almost decided to blow them off and just run fronts but Marty Smith talked me out of it. Oh, John called to say he wasn’t going to be able to come down again because his wife was sick and he needed to take care of the kids. I was solo again. Marty and I went on a quest for food and hardware in his Miata. I gave him grief about it but it really is a pretty cool ride. I finished up the wiring for the rear speakers and looked at the boxes again. I tried to cut out the aluminum spacers for the speakers but the blade kept falling out of the saw. It got broken and the cord got cut off then it sat under the faucet filling with water. I tried to just install the speakers without adapters but that pissed me off as well. The boxes got broken and thrown next to the saw. I decided I'd buy new boxes. Pat and I went to Sweet Home Chicago and Monica is working there again. She didn’t look as good as she did last time but she didn’t look bad. From there I went to the Boys of Pep but they didn’t have boxes. Best Buy did but I almost gave up looking for them. I searched for a while and then decided to ask. As I was waiting I noticed the boxes I was looking for. When the sales dude finally got to me I pointed them out and he got them down off the top shelf. I paid and went home. Saturday I got a call from John Ullom saying he was on his way to the shop but John Roper wouldn’t be joining us. I headed down to let him in so he could get the red 510 ready to drive home. He was already working on it when I got there. I got the speakers installed in the boxes and tried out Mr. Wiggly's sound system. Yep, it sounds like a $100.00 stereo in a big tin box, but it is better than nothing, barely. John got the distributor changed in the 510 and started on the seat. I welded some cross bars onto the bracket and he got it installed. I make it sound like this took only a few minutes but it took all day. I did some stuff to the Seven while he worked but I'll save that for tomorrow. Have a day.