2/26/08

Darth Versa’s lower chassis brace and NISMO shift knob arrived yesterday. I'm still not sure if the knob is going to fit but it is really nice. As for the brace, it is really nice too but it came with no instructions. I'm hoping it will be pretty straightforward and easy to finger out. We’ll see. I'll probably take it to the Motorsport Ranch and use one of Ray’s lifts to have a look at it this weekend. I need to pay him for that A-series engine I got with Marty sometime. Gregg wants to buy it for his Locost project so, in theory, I'm not stuck with it. Again, we’ll see. John is planning a Japanese car gathering at Freebird’s World Burrito on Overton Ridge between Hulen and Bryant Irvin for the evening of Friday March, 7. I'm planning to bring Shi-Chi but wouldn’t mind having Darth Versa there as well. Perhaps I can drop off Darth Versa and have someone drive me to the shop to get Shi-Chi. It is near enough that I think that plan will work. I'm almost 100% certain George won’t be ready by then, in fact I'm not even sure why I mentioned it. Yeah, I just looked at the calendar and see that the 7^th is not this Friday but next. Ain’t no way George will be ready. In fact, I should probably go back and delete even mentioning him. I obviously didn’t, but I should. I need to alert Enrique to the event so he can bring Matilda. It would be cool to have all three of the DLR Spec Versæ in one place. Yes, I have decided that the plural of “Versa” is to be “Versæ” from now on. So let it be written, so let it be done. I dig that little “æ” symbol/letter thingy. I sure hope it comes through when Spiderman posts this up. If it didn’t, the symbol/letter thingy of which I refer is that “a” smooshed together with an “e” thingy. Ok, shifting gears a little bit here, I've been in a fairly foul mood for the last day or so. I'm not sure if it is feeling guilty over “coasting” through my life, especially here at work, or worrying that someone is going to notice me “coasting” and fire me. Probably it’s a little of both. Yes, I see the irony of writing in this blog while on company time and making comments like that. The classy thing for you to do is ignore that point. Pointing it out will only make me feel worse. Ok, no it won’t, especially now that I sent an e-mail to my boss requesting a service call for some of the things I've been slacking on. Yeah, now that I feel like I've actually done some “work,” I don’t feel nearly as guilty as before. I really hate contacting my boss. I like to think of myself as being out here in a frontier outpost, away from the scrutiny of the home office. Here in the hinterland I like to keep my head low and off their radar. When I have to actually make contact and remind them I'm out here, I feel like I'm poking the sleeping bear with a stick. How many mixed metaphors can I have in one rant? I guess individually they aren’t mixed, but taken as a whole and they are. Anyhoo, enough about that girlie-feelings-stuff, let’s see if I can’t get us back to cars. I really need to get those Versa headlights back from John. If I can’t take them apart to paint inside, I want to look at blacking out the outside of them. Every time a picture of Darth Versa comes up on my screen saver, all I can see are those huge expanses of chrome on the front corners. They must be reduced somehow. I have to get them apart. Oh, I just had a thought. Mom is replacing the oven at the house. I wonder if I can claim the old one for the shop. It still works but it is “Avocado Green” and the door doesn’t always shut all the way. It should still work fine for baking car parts. I need to ask about that. No, I need to let the damned thing go with the contractor who is installing the new oven. I don’t have a place for an oven at the shop. Gregg has offered his oven for baking headlights anyway. [ I may have another option... - SM ] We’ll see. Well, I just had an emergency bombing run and it is approaching quitting time. I think I'm going to call it a rant. Have a day.