2/12/09

Huzzah! We have the internot back at the house! Last night I spent another hour on hold and with tech support getting mother’s account re-registered and now it is back on. I had to reconfigure the wireless router and my laptop so that I could get on, but fortunately I remembered how to do that. Mom was all a-twitter about the sixty e-mails she had waiting for her after three weeks away. I had 125 after three days away the first week it was off. John probably has that many waiting for him when he comes home from work though so I'm not trying to be Mr. Internets or anything. Speaking of John, he sent me a text a few weeks back asking if I'd help him sell his Kimber Ultra-Carry II 1911 .45 ACP pistol. I said I would and spread the word. Well, the other day he sent me another saying, “The Kimber is no longer for sale,” and had an attached photo. The photo was of a Ruger Super Red Hawk in .454 Casull. When I didn’t reply immediately, he called to ‘splain what he’d done. He traded some dude the Kimber for the Ruger and “A gift for you,” he said. Now, I can be a little girly from time to time, but for some reason when he tries to goad me into getting all curious about stuff with statements like that, I just don’t bite. Then again, I think I might have been a little delirious from fever these last few days. Quick side story: on Monday I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. It was the desktop support guys wanting to go to lunch. I literally had to look around to see where the hell I was and had to figure out why I was there. I do not remember sitting down at my desk, I do not know what I was doing at my desk, and I do not know how long I'd been sitting there doing it either. I said I'd be right down and stumbled in a fog down the stairs. Some food helped but I was still a bit loopy the rest of the day. So, when I got his message about a “gift” for me, I guess I figured I'd know what it was when I got it. Well, last night I picked him up after work and we met Pat at the Whiskey Flats shoosting range. As he was putting his bag behind the seat of Fifi, John handed me a Taurus magazine for, we hope, Lil Millie. I figured that was the gift and never gave it another moment’s thought. At the range, I shot the Pimp Gun, it’s awesome, Big Millie, also awesome, John’s Ruger, really awesome, and sold Lil Millie to Pat. When we were done, we decided on dinner and left the range. John asked if we could stop by the shop for a moment. I said we could and thought nothing of it. I had no idea what he had going on so I said I wanted to re-adjust my headlights in Ms. Clio while we were there. He walked in and made a bee-line for the paint booth. I put my new cleaning rod for the Space Gun in the gun cleaning drawer and was about to just hang out and see what he was up to. He came out of the paint booth and gave me a “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Get your ass over here and see what I've done!” look. You know the one. I began to make my way over there and could tell there was something in the booth. Something I was going to be surprised by. Something I would want very much. I'm not sure if this slowed me down or sped me up. As I approached the door he said, “Now, if you don’t like your present, I can’t return it. I'll have to keep it.” This really made me curious because, like I said, I thought the Taurus magazine was the gift. Oh no, this was way more than a simple magazine. This was something so stupendously awesome as to be noted in the annals of stupendously awesome things as the premiere, ultimate, quintessential, utmost, stupendously awesome thing. There, sitting proudly in the spot recently vacated by Shichi, was a Honda N600! I could not believe my eyes. It needs, at the barest of minima, a battery and coil pack, but it appears to be fairly intact. As I was taking it all in, he threw even more gas on the fire by showing me the awesome 12” alloy wheels he got with it. I swear, they look like cubes because they are just about as wide as they are tall. I know they aren’t, but they looked like 12” by 12” wheels. Awesome! He showed me all around the thing, pointing out flaws and “features” along the way. I “hopped” in the driver’s seat and had a go at the controls. I could drive this thing as it sits. I think better seats and steering wheel will go a long way towards making the driving position perfect. No, it wasn’t the driving position; it was ingress/egress that gave me trouble. Like I said, I could drive it the way it sits, but it wasn’t the easiest thing to get in and out of. Somewhere between “Shichi with the Birkini top on” and “a Datsun 1200 with sporty seats” is where I'd place the ergonomics of Honda N600 ingress/egress. Ok, there is nothing less ergonomic than “Shichi with the Birkini top on,” so on that continuum (I love double “U” words) it would be much closer to the Datsun end. Actually, I think I would compare it favorably to the ingress/egress characteristics of a Datsun 1200 now that I think about it. It was just ever so slightly less easy to get in and out of than a Datsun 1200. Of course, when I say “Datsun 1200” I mean a coupe. I've never owned, or even sat in, a 1200 sedan. They might be the height of convenience to get in and out of. I do not know. I do not even want to know. I don’t like Datsun 1200 sedans. But I know better than to say, “I’ll never own one,” or sure as shit I'll have three next week. Anyhoo, I guess I've rambled on enough for one day. Toodles.