8/5/14

Wow, August already.  I’m… hell, I don’t know how I feel about that.  Anyhoo, when we last “spoke” I was telling y’all something about that thing with the guy in that place with the stuff… if I remember correctly.  Moving on, I guess I’ll gas on a bit about things.  Last weekend was my thirty year high school reunion.  I was kind of “Meh” on whether or not I wanted to go to it but my friend Danny Andrijeski talked me into it.  I made contact with the organizer of the event and asked if there were any open spots left at the last minute.  There were not.  Ka-PWING!  Dodged a bullet!  But then Friday I got a call from him, the organizer, saying there was a cancellation and I could attend the Friday evening event.  I said I would be there and immediately regretted it.  I spent the whole afternoon dreading the whole thing.  Eventually I couldn’t come up with any more excuses for staying at work and went home to get ready.  I headed to the winery in Burleson with much trepidation.  I got there a little early and sat in the car hoping someone I knew would arrive.  When the woman in the car next to me finally got out and headed down the drive, I joined her.  I asked, “WHHS reunion?”  She replied in the affirmative and we introduced ourselves.  Yeah, I had no idea who she was or had been in the past.  She didn’t remember me either.  I recognized the organizer of the event and got signed in.  I bought a bottle of wine and got to work on it.  Yeah, while I don’t dislike wine, I don’t really like it either.  I sipped on it while talking to people I kind of remembered but didn’t really.  Oh sure, there were a few familiar faces, once I saw the names, but for the most part… strangers, again, still.  Eventually my old next-door neighbor Scott Adams arrived and a group of us found a table.  We all chatted a bit and then Danny, from above, arrived and joined us.  Both Scott and Danny reconnected with old friends while I talked to people I once knew.  It reinforced my memories of high school and how I didn’t give two shits about those people thirty years ago either.  As the wine softened my brain a bit, Scott said one of the ladies at the table wanted my number and asked if I was interested in giving it to her.  I laughed and said, “Psh, why not?”  Danny latched onto this and Would, Not, Let, It, Go.  Eventually I found a pen, wrote my number on my name tag, and handed it to her as I left.  I headed home wondering if I had written the right number down.  I always do, but always have second thoughts about it after it has left my possession.  Anyhoo, that was that for the reunion… or so I thought.  Saturday morning I rolled the Seven out and headed to the shop.  My plan was to check out the radiator fan and maybe replace the fuel pump.  See, the fan quit working but the fuel pump works too well.  The fuel pressure is too much for the needles in the carburetors.  I arrived at the shop and got to work removing the nose.  I tested the wiring an, much to my relief, found it to be good.  You don’t know how annoyed I would have been to have to track down an electrical fault.  I removed the old fan, which we decided was the original one installed in 2004 when the car was originally built.  I borrowed John’s car and went to O’Reilley’s to buy a new one.  Knowing that the radiator cools really well once there is any air movement; I opted for the 10” unit knowing as well that it would fit.  I had doubts about the 12” fitting.  Back at the shop I installed and wired it up.  It tested fine so I moved on to the fuel pump.  we removed the boot to have a look at the unit and it was decided that we would try to re-readjust the pressure regulator again instead.  We got the pressure down to zero PSI and then opened it back up to 2 at idle and 1.5 when revved.  I took it around the block and John had a look again.  It had crept up just a tad so he lowered it down to 1 psi at idle.  I took it around again and declared it as fixed as I could declare it without an extended freeway blat.  We closed up and went to lunch at Taco Casa… at least that was what we tried to do.  We wound up at the Chinese place NEXT to Taco Casa.  Don’t ask.  It was “meh” at best.  Not even capital “M” “meh” either.  While there, I got text messages from Danny and Dawn, the phone number woman, asking about the reunion activities scheduled for the afternoon and evening.  Danny was going to the picnic and Dawn the evening dinner.  I didn’t want to go to either and held fast to that decision.  After lunch I took off for an extended hoon out of the way home.  Oh, crawling in and out of the car while working on the fan and pump killed my back so I removed the top for the drive home.  The car ran great so I think I am going to forego the fuel pump replacement for a while.  I parked the car, took a shower, and settled in to rest my back.  A few hours later, Danny texted again to say he was across the street and invited me over to grok the Subaru 1600 GL-5 in his father’s garage.  He said, “I’m just going to roll this across the street one of these days and then it will be your problem.”  Or something to that effect.  The car has been sitting for quite a while and is just a tad rougher than I remembered, but it is still in great shape.  I’m perfectly willing to take it off their hands to try and get it back on the road.  And once again, he was not willing to let go of his attempts to hook me up with Dawn.  He kept trying to talk me into going to the dinner.  I kept saying “No.”  What is with married people trying to ruin the lives of perfectly happy singles by trying to get them involved with someone?  Eventually I’d seen enough of the car and went back home.  Sunday I sent John a text saying, “My sunburn, back, and creditors are saying ‘Put an ad on Craigslist asking $20,000.00 for the Seven’ but watching ‘Top Gear’ makes me want to go for another hoon!”  We discussed it a bit and decided that we would pop up an ad.  I sent him some information and he did it.  The e-mails have not flowed in.  Of course I don’t really expect anyone to pay $20k for the car, but if they did I could walk away from my debts with a decent credit rating intact.  $15,000.00 might be enough to settle the accounts but would totally shit-can the credit score.  Of course that isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me since it would prevent this situation from occurring again… for a while.  We’ll see.  And on a final note, I had a text chat Sunday with Dawn about the dinner I didn’t miss one single bit.  She wanted to know if I was sad I hadn’t gone.  I told her I was so depressed that I had mom lock up the gun, liquor, and medicine cabinets.  She didn’t buy that.  We’ll see if I need to inform her that I’m not interested in dating or if the whole event is over.  I’ll keep y’all informed either way.