11/10/08

Wait, what just happened? Did we just have a weekend? I don’t feel like I did. Hang on a minute, let me get my head on straight. Ok, I remember now. Friday evening, mom went to Granbury to help my sister get ready for some catering thing she had Sunday night. I decided it would be a good time to really clean the guns. I set up in the bathroom, which was probably a mistake but fortunately nothing ugly happened to the new carpet. I cleaned and oiled the two guns and then put them away. I'm sure I wasted the rest of the evening in front of the TV. Saturday morning I met John at the shop and we stripped the KA-24 engine… Hey, I haven’t told that story have I? Wednesday evening I met John at his house and we took Fifi to go pick up a KA-24 engine he had done some horse trading to acquire. It was at some dude’s father’s house, or some dude’s girlfriend’s father’s house, or some dude’s wife’s father’s house, or something, way the hell out in Outer Buttswainia. We loaded it up and tied it off. From there we went to dude-and-girlfriend’s, or dude-and-wife’s house to pick up the transmission which went along with it. I managed to keep my khaki pants reasonably clean in the process, to my surprise. From there we went to the shop and dropped it all off. We put the engine on a stand and headed out. We stopped at Hoffbrau for a couple steaks then went back to his house. Ok, I never promised that it would be a good story. So, back to Saturday, I put the two guns and what ammo I have in the back of Darth Versa and hop in the driver's seat. I see Mr. Wiggly’s license stuff in the door and decide I'd rather take him. I go back in for the keys and transfer the guns to the back of Mr. Wiggly. As I'm pulling around, I remember the license stuff still in the door of Darth Versa and go back in for his keys. I finally get everything together and head for the shop. I'm curious as to why I haven’t heard from John yet checking on my status. I'd find out why in a bit. As I'm driving in I notice that I'm smiling. “I really like this van,” I think to myself. Well, I probably said it out loud actually. Then I corrected myself, “No, I love this van!” I'm really not sure what it is about that stupid, ugly, noisy, uncomfortable, hard to drive, gas guzzling, stinky, old POS van, but I really do love it. Kooky. So, as I pull around the corner of the building to approach the shop, I “see why” John hasn’t called to check on me. He’s not even there yet! Of course as I get closer to the shop I see Fifi parked on the end of the row, he is there. Turns out he forgot his phone. I park and tuck in helping him strip the KA. We get a bunch of stuff off and start in on the intake manifold. We remove “all” the bolts and start trying to get the gasket to release. Nothing doing. It will not budge. We fight it for a while and just as I'm looking at the other KA in the corner, John sees the two long through bolts we’d missed. Once we had them off it came right away from the head. With that project done for the time being, I moved on to sapping license stuff on Mr. Wiggly. I removed the plates and put on the temporary then replaced the sticker. I suddenly had a thought. I have never been satisfied with the low-pitch air horns I had installed on there. They never seemed very loud. I remembered the kit we’d bought to replace the low horn on Darth Versa would have a high horn, another “Y” splice, and some hose. I suggested to John that we put that horn on Mr. Wiggly in addition to the low horns. He was on board for that so we began the search for the horn. I finally found it and we spliced it in to the hose. I honked it and it did sound better. It still wasn’t very loud though, or so I thought. We got to work installing the high horn and when it was all said and done I tried it again. “Damn, that is loud,” John said. I was incredulous as it still sounded muffled and weak to me. I said so and was instructed to stand in front while John honked it. Ok, yeah it is loud in front! I probably didn’t need the high horn after all but it does lend a definite trainliness to the sound. I like it. I'm pretty sure that was all we did at the shop so we next went to lunch at Benito’s. As our Queso Flameado was being prepared, the waitress stirring the flaming cheese and Chorizo sausage into the most awesome flavor combination ever, a couple little old couples were being seated near us. They looked on in slack-jawed amazement. I overheard one, as she turned to point our way, wondering what it was. I got up and pointed it out on the menu for them. They ordered it as well. As we were leaving I stopped to ask how they liked it. They liked it. I was glad to have expanded the culinary repertoire of another bunch of folk. Outside of the restaurant, John and I talked for a bit. We noticed a scooter dealer down the street and walked down to price them. They were all Chinese units of seemingly good quality but none really sparked my “gotta have it” center of the brain. Oh sure, the pink and maroon ones would have been cool, especially after I put all the Hello Kitty stuff on it, but I wasn’t ready to drop $1,300.00 for a toy. We walked back to our vehicles and took our leave of each other. I decided I didn’t really need to go to the gun range after all and went home. That evening I went over to my friends Amy and Sam’s house for a porch party. Little did I realize it was going to be an Obacalypse Celebration and Sarah Palin bashing party. At one point I almost left in disgust. I stuck it out though and just shook my head as they drank deep from the Borat Osama Kool Aid. I did notice Sam was quiet most of the time and as I was leaving he admitted he wasn’t as pinko-commie as the rest of the bunch. No, he’s an “anarchist” like me and claims Libertarian as his party of choice. I admitted that the only reason I didn’t vote “anarchy party” was it would have been a tacit vote for Osama. Had I any inkling the thing would be so one-sided, I probably would have voted Libertarian to make it known that we need another party in this system. And with that, I think I'll call it a rant. I'll tell y'all about Sunday and this morning’s events tomorrow. Toodles.