4/2/07

I'm a little pissed off at the moment. The folks doing the carpet in NOC-1 unplugged all of the connections in the back of my rack and now I have to go down there and figure it all out to reconnect it. I'm going to wait a little while before heading down there so that the guys installing the table will be finished. Who knows, maybe whoever unhooked it took notes and will hook it back up. We’ll see. Ok, so we’ll move on now. Friday night it rained. I mean it rained its ass off. It rained so much I was a bit concerned that the shop might be submerged when we got there in the morning. I was certain the water crossing on Old Granbury Road would be. Well, I head to the shop around 0900 h Saturday morning, expecting the worst. It is bright and sunny out. I roll up to the water crossing and it is dry. “Cool,” think I. I roll up to the gate, which John has informed me is broken so I'll have to use the second gate, and drive in. Oh, John called while I was driving in and asked if I could stop at O’Reilly’s and buy some sway bar end links. I say I can, with a vengeful smirk knowing he could sense that I was intentionally not mentioning that I always stop for him when he calls but have to go back out for stuff when I call as he’s driving in, because I'm not that petty. I walk the isles of the Vato Zone on 377, because I wasn’t going by the O’Reilly’s and it was only slightly out of my way as opposed to a really long backtrack is why I went there if you must know, and finally am asked if I could use some help. I tell the dude what I'm looking for, sway bar end links for the attention span challenged, and he shows me where they are. I buy a set and head for the shop once again. This is when I see the dry water crossing and pull up to the open gate. I roll to the back and park. John is under his “new” 510 so I ask what he’s up to. He tells me he is changing the rear brake lines to which I have no reply. I may have thought about looking into considering doing something on my stuff but I probably just sat there. Oh, as an aside, ok another aside, I won the auction for the second set of expensive wiper bushings and being the stand-up guy I am, bought them. I did look to see if the Vato Zone had them but they didn’t. Ok, back to the narrative, John finishes up in the back of the car and moves to the front. He removes a strut and takes the guts out of it. He sets it in the vice for me to cut the spring perch out. I hook up the plasma cutter and get to work. After several attempts I figure out a way to make it happen. I'm sure the thing works better when Juan uses it correctly, but I'm far too lazy to read the instructions to learn how that is supposed to be. I get the perch cut and John gets the second strut out and gutted. I cut that perch and he gets the 280ZX struts gutted and ready for welding. See, he wanted the 510 perches welded into the ZX perches because the ZX springs are bigger than 510 springs. I zook the first perch in and hand it off. I zook the second perch in and hand it off. I shut down the welder and the plasma cutter then go to sit and watch him reassemble. Pat showed up at some point and helped John with the installation of the first ZX strut while I was welding the second. We both “helped” with the installation of the second strut. By this time, we were getting hungry, or at least tired of the shop, so we broke for lunch. I made a list of stuff I wanted to get at Lowe’s and we went to Joe’s Pizza and Pasta, or something. Oops, another aside, Thursday for lunch I had pasta. Friday for lunch I had a calzone. Friday night for dinner I had pizza. Saturday for lunch I had calamari and a stromboli. Guess what ethnic group’s food I had for lunch on Sunday. Yep, mom and I went to Johnny Carino’s for Italian food. I think I might just be pasta and pizza-ed out for a while. Ok, so we’ve eaten at Joe’s and now are standing in the parking lot. We’re looking at a motorcycle. I noticed the couple who came in with the leathers and helmets while we ate. Pat made a comment that the dude was probably wondering why we were standing there looking at his bike. I said I ought to go sniff the back seat where the chick was riding. John said he’d give me a dollar. I decided against it, not because I was worried about the dude but I really didn’t want to sniff the seat. She was cute, but really. Anyhoo, we all parted company and went our separate ways. I called John later and said, “It might have been her bike and I'd have sniffed his seat!” We agreed that that would have been infinitely funnier had it happened. I went home and got ready for Gallery Night with Amy and friends. I'll tell that story tomorrow. As a teaser, the night ended in a biker bar.