3/19/07

I've been busy today. It is 1540 h and I'm just now starting to talk to y'all. I think I'm going to have to break the weekend’s story into chunks because of this late start. Friday evening, I leave work to go pick up mom at the airport. Her flight was supposed to arrive at 1915 h or so but I went ahead and drove straight there from work. I did stay at my desk until 1700 h though. I got to the ‘port and pulled into Terminal C, which is where I thought Amy worked. I went in to find out how far away from mom’s terminal I was. Turns out I was one gate away. Woo hoo! I hung out there for a bit and finally pulled my head out long enough to remember to call Amy. She was working Terminal D or something and was going on a call. She said she’d call me back when she was free. I hung out. I saw a nice looking lady walking my way and assumed she was waving to someone behind me. As she got closer I recognized her from work. We spoke for a bit and I showed her where the restrooms were. We got separated then and I hope she didn’t think I ditched her because she’s way too hot to ditch! She does have a couple rug-rats though. Anyhoo, I head back to mom’s gate and continue to wait. She finally arrives and we take her bags to the car. The trip home is uneventful except that we stopped at Chef Point for dinner. Now, I was still stuffed from lunch and was close to being ready for a Shaq Attack. While sitting there waiting for the food, my bowels had enough. I went to the throne room and besmirched it pretty badly. Oops, sorry about that. Back at the table the food had arrived. We ate and then went home. I crashed pretty early that evening. Saturday morning I decided I wanted to have the receiver hitch installed on Mr. Wiggly. As I got in Matilda however, I realized I also wanted the “auto up” feature reset since it quit on me when we installed the CAI the other night. I went to Nissan. They had a line of cars and I didn’t want to leave mine so I left. I got almost to the shop when there was a truck high-centered on the road. I sat and watched them try to get it off for about an hour. They finally moved it and I got to the shop. I hopped in Mr. Wiggly and headed out. I got to the trailer hitch place about 1145 h and noticed the sign. “Hours of operation: 9 to Noon on Saturday.” Crap! I go on in, just in case. The main dude was on the phone but one of the hottest girls ever was behind the counter as well. She asked if she could help me. In my most suave voice, I said, “Muwha gibble muh fuhah homina homina homina.” Actually, I ‘splained what I had and what I wanted. She followed me out to the van and I showed her my thing. I mean I showed her my big piece of equipment, in the back of the van. I mean I showed her the receiver hitch I had bought. She said the other dude would have to look at it and we went back inside. When he finally got off the phone he did come have a look and said they could probably do it on Monday. I thanked him and left. I decided I'd go ahead and install it myself. I forwent going back to the shop and headed to the Motorsport Ranch instead. There I saw Marty Mary working on a car. We chatted for a bit and I went looking for Ray. I found him and we talked for a while. I said I was probably going to head north and look at that hitch. I went on to say I might mess with George some. He raised an eyebrow at that and I went on to say, “The car, not the grumpy old fart.” We discussed George, the GOF, a little. Ray said he was glad George didn’t like him because he’d have to reconsider himself with friends like that. I laughed and agreed. I went back over to where Marty was and bid farewell to him. He asked, “What could possibly be more fun and exciting than this?” to which I had to agree. I left anyway. As I drove north, I decided that I was going to put the Seven back together and go back to the Ranch. This I did. I put the battery charger on the, um, battery and got to work on the nose. I had a look in the radiator and decided to top it off. I gave the alternator/water pump belt a tug and noticed the crank pulley was loose! Yikes! I pulled the bolt out and dumped on a generous helping of red Lock-Tite then reinstalled it. I got it as tight as I could and moved on. I go the nose and scuttle back on and dropped the bonnet in place. I had a quick argument with myself about letting the Lock-Tite set and not going to the Ranch but lost out and fired the engine up. I rolled it out and changed shoes then locked the shop. I headed for the gas station to dump in a few gallons of petrol then headed south again. At the Ranch I hung out with Marty some more then pedaled north again. I took a jaunt out FM5 for a quick hoon then dropped the car back at the shop. I debated which car I was going to drive home and Mr. Wiggly won. Mom wanted a hamburger for dinner so we went to Sonic, in her car I might add. She did make an effort to get in Mr. Wiggly but the step up was a bit too much. I wasted the evening watching TV and playing with that house I'm designing in Paint. I finally went to bed around 0345 h. Well, it looks like I'm at a good quitting point so I'm going to. I'll finish tomorrow.