7/2/07

Now I can officially say the year is half over. Yikes! Well, the Seven did its best to try and cancel the trip to the Tail of the Dragon. Here’s the poop. I got a late start heading to the shop because, based on the last few weekends, I didn’t expect John to attempt to drive the 510 across town. I also knew Pat was going to the Motorsport Ranch at around 0900 h to get the little trailer and meet me at the shop. As I was leisurely driving in, John called to ask where I got the fender mirrors. We discussed them and I told him I'd be there in just a few moments. He was working on installing fender mirrors of his own on the 510 so I pulled the Seven out to wash it. I drug out the hose and bucket then filled the latter from the former. Oh, there was soap and a sponge involved as well. I rinsed the car. I soaped a section of the car and rinsed again. I soaped another section and rinsed again. After I had the whole car “clean” I looked for something to dry it off with. I called Marty Smith to see if I could borrow a towel but he wasn’t at home at that moment. I found a “T” shirt and began drying. I made the mistake of sopping up the accumulated water on top of the tonneau cover and therefore had a wet “T” shirt for the rest of the car. It moved the water around sufficiently to prevent most spotting so I was satisfied. Pat arrived with the trailer and began working on the parking lights. I would have helped but as I was finishing up with the “drying,” I noticed the car making a funny noise. Before long the noise manifested itself as the electric fan ramping up to full speed. I pulled the hood and yanked the main fuse. I decided I must have filled the fuse box with water so I pulled the scuttle. Nope, the fuse box was dry and dust covered. I looked at the rest of the harness and saw that the ignition switch was quite wet. I took it loose from the chassis and a couple tablespoons of water ran out. I hooked up the air hose and tried to blow the water out. I tried the main fuse again but the fan came on. I took the electrical tape off of the switch; the same tape I had assumed would keep the thing dry. There appeared to me schmutz between the main power solder joint and the solder joint right next to it. I took the test light away from Pat for a moment and checked continuity. Yep, it was shorted. I cleaned off the schmutz but the fan still ran. I checked to see if the ignition was hot but it wasn’t. This confirmed that it was just the fan and fuel pump circuit shorted. Oh, I checked to see if the fuel pump ran constantly and it did. John asked if I had tried to start the car to see of it would even run. I had not so I did. It cranked and fired right up. I still had the “shower caps” on the carburetors so I didn’t let it run long. When I shut it down I sat back to think about it some more. John stood there glaring at me. “What?” I asked. “What don’t you hear?” he replied. The fan wasn’t running with the switch off now. “Oh, I guess we fixed it,” I said. It was about then that the thunder clapped. We looked to the sky and saw that the bottom was going to fall out soon. I began reassembling the car and John went to help Pat with the trailer lights. I'm not sure what all they did, but it was declared that John is the electrical exorcist. The trailer lights work. As the rain began to fall, I drove the Seven back around to its parking spot and pulled inside. What I didn’t notice at the time was the mud I threw up onto the passenger side of the car. It was probably a good thing I didn’t see that or I'd have been really pissed. We sat out the rainstorm and then headed out for some lunch. Pat and I took the truck and trailer while John drove his car. Oh, John had changed his water pump and added a seven-blade fan for better cooling and to fix a leakage problem. We ate at Don Pablo’s then Pat and I went to Lowe’s. I bought two new straps, two pairs of ear-penii (those interconnected ear plugs that look like penises and pronounced pee-nigh), a power inverter, and probably something else. From there we went back to the shop. Along the way, I asked several questions about Pat's MP3 player. That’ll be important later. At the shop we loaded the car and began to look at tying it down. After an hour or so, we settled on a solution we both liked and began packing the rest of the stuff we thought we might need. With the trailer loaded we discussed where to leave it. We decided on my driveway and headed that direction. At my house we had another look inside the trailer and then parked it. Pat went home and I began shopping for MP3 players online. Well, I shaved, showered, ate dinner with mom, watched TV, went to bed, got up and then started shopping for MP3 players. I found a download that would allow Petey, my PDA, to act like one and sent John and Pat e-mails to ask their opinions of it. Without waiting for a reply, as I'm wont to do being the instant gratification slut I am, I headed out with the intention of shopping for an MP3 player. I headed toward the shop for some reason. I think I was going to the Radio Shack on 377 but can’t confirm that. There was a train at 2871 and Aledo/Iona road. I turned and went for a hoon taking Aledo/Iona to FM5 to Old Airport Road to 171 to Bear Creek to Muir Road, back to FM5 to 1187 to 377 to 1187 to that road by Café 1187 to 1187 to Old Granbury Road and finally the shop. I went inside to have a look around and Marty Smith showed up. We talked and asked each other if we’d had lunch. We went to Sweet Home Chicago where I had a Chicago style Dogzilla and a Bratwurst with sauerkraut. We were both so full that he was not surprised when I said I was done for the day and left. On the way home, I did finally stop at Radio Shack and the sales dude convinced me to get the 2-gigabyte MP3 player and an FM transmitter thingy. I went home and started loading CDs to my laptop. After a few hours of that, mom called to see if I wanted some dinner so I went down and ate. Back at the computer, I loaded a few more CDs to the laptop and then began trying to figure out how to get them to the MP3 player. I loaded several albums then noticed I was down to 80-megabytes of memory. Ok, so now I get why Juan only loads selected songs onto the player. I deleted most of the albums and selected songs off of them to reload. I never got the FM transmitter thingy tuned in, mainly because I wasn’t sure if I was needed first thing here at work and didn’t want to mess with it in the driveway any longer this morning and figured I could do it when I went home. I pulled into the parking garage and saw a car pulling out of a spot so I went for it. It was a good spot next to a support column with passenger doors next to me on both sides. I parked and got out. I slipped on puke! I was pissed! I didn’t fall but got it all in the tread of my shoe. No wonder the other car left. I was already out of the car so I went ahead and grabbed my laptop and headed inside. I stopped off at a grassy area and wiped my feet a bit but it still smells like the inside of someone’s stomach. I suppose y'all didn’t really need that last bit, but you got it anyway. Well, I have to go pee and I've shot way past the page break. I may have more tomorrow but don’t bet on it.