8/15/2011

The Black Death reeks. It was OK Saturday when John and I took it across town to take him home. There was a hint of death in the air but that was slightly offset by the mustiness of the post-rain funk the car always gets. Sunday, when I drove all over town with Larry, it was acceptable. It smelled a little bit now and then, especially when it had sat for a bit and was restarted, but it was tolerable. This morning however, there was as Vincent Price said, “The funk of forty-thousand years” in the car before I even fired it up. The swearing began. It got worse, both the smell and the swearing, when the vent started blowing in my face. I shut the fucker off and went in for the keys to Fifi. I'm done. I guess I'll put a bandanna around my face as a gas mask and drive the sum-bitch to the back patio this evening. I'm not even going to try to sell the piece of shit because I'd have to practically give the damned thing away. Although, I guess that would be better than it rusting away on the back porch. Oh, another thing that is going to kill its resale value, apparently my depth perception is crap when I'm wearing my glasses. There is now a significant quantity of white paint from the shop’s wall on the right front corner of the front bumper... and it doesn't fit right any more. But I'll get to that in a moment. Saturday went as planned, at least I think it did. I picked John up and we went to a Hardly dealer so he could buy a pair of used mufflers for his Gold Wing. Then we went to Not Texas to buy my Gold Wing. We loaded it in the back of Fifi and headed out. I felt a little guilty being a block from Tony’s house and not calling about lunch so I did. He talked us in to his neighborhood and we showed him the bike. OK, so it is just a frame and engine, but it is most of a bike. We rounded up Dawn and Orlando, their kid whose name really isn't Orlando even though it should have been, and we all went to lunch. It was OK Mexican food. John and I eventually tore ourselves away and headed back to Texas. We dropped the bike at the shop, literally but that’s not important, and had a look at a few things. John made a bracket for his bike while I started Bobbi and made sure it still worked. We headed to my house where I took a quick showed and got ready for Randy and Jana’s anniversary party. We got in the Black Death and headed to John's. Like I said before it was OK. Sunday morning John texts me to say he forgot his mufflers in Fifi. I call Larry and arrange to meet him at the railroad so he doesn't have to drive his bald-assed tired, weak-assed air conditioned truck all the way across town... and so I can drop off John's mufflers. I decide that since I'm going to be doing a lot of close-up detail work, I shouldn't wear my contacts. I would have been fine with the contacts and reading glasses as it turned out. Oh well. I loaded my stuff in the car, got John's mufflers, and went to meet Larry at an empty parking lot near work. We transferred his gun to my car then he parked his in the railroad parking garage. We headed to the shop. We got both guns stripped down and the requisite things drilled off and/or out. We touched up the paint on them and began to reassemble. The SAW pistol grip I had would not work with the converted trigger group. I needed a Hogue grip like Larry had. I also realized I'd forgotten those retainer plates I'd ordered so we were going to use the “Shepherd’s Crook” springs which came with the fire control groups. I could not figure them out. Finally we decided that since it was lunchtime, we’d go to my house, get the plates, call John about lunch, go to lunch, go to Blood Bath & Beyond for a grip, drop off John's mufflers, and then go back and finish the guns. As we were leaving, I tried to avoid the huge puddle at the end of the building and this was when I discovered my lack of depth perception with glasses. The wall crunched as we passed. When I finally had a look at lunch... well, I was a little pissed. We did the rest of the running around, including buying the Hogue grip at BB&B, and went back to the shop. Larry's gun went back together relatively easily, as did mine. We played with them for a bit then packed up and left. I did try to clean off the white paint from the bumper, hoping it was just the powdery stuff Juan always gets when leaning on the wall. Yeah, no luck. I dropped Larry at his truck then we met off campus to transfer his gun from my car to his off site. After that, I went home and hung out until time to come in today. And there you have it.