Not Necessarily Interesting News

Two days ago I went in for a Heart Stress Test on the recommendation of my doc. Last week I was experiencing a bit of chest pain and some headaches so I went in for a check-up. After talking for a bit and going over my history and family history he decided to get me tested to be safe. Once he’d heard that I had an uncle die at 44 he got more cautious. Family history is a big indicator of possible problems.
I showed up for the test and got into some shorts to get ready for it. They had me take off my shirt and put sticky pads all over my chest and hooked me up to the machine. They took some pre-test measurements and then had me get on the treadmill.
The test itself wasn’t really that tough. The treadmill is on an incline and starts off rather slow. Every three minutes it speeds up and the incline increases. The doc had a target heart rate of around 160 for me. As the treadmill started he said ‘Don’t try to beat the machine. You won’t make it’. I reached my target rate at around the last minute or so of the third stage. He asked me how I was feeling all through the test and at this point asked if I wanted to continue. I said my heart and lungs were doing fine, the only thing that was gonna stop me was my calves. They were burning like crazy.
He stopped the test right at the start of the 4th stage(Thank God, my calves were dying but I didn’t want to stop. I guess I was trying to beat the machine. 🙂 ) and said he had everything he needed. He also said that everything looked good at that time. It takes a couple days for the full analysis so I hope to find out tomorrow how I did. I think I did fine. I felt great before, during, and after the test. Actually, I’d felt fine all weekend before the test after seeing my doc on Friday. That tells me it really seems to be work related. The not knowing what’s going to happen and how you’ll support your family eats you up inside.
Both docs said it seemed more like a stress thing than any real heart problems at this time. I also found out over the weekend that other people in my family are/were prone to the same ‘anxiety attacks’, so I’m apt to side with the docs. The longer I stay in my current position the closer I know I’m getting to being laid off. The end of the quarter is coming and the rumors are flying. As a contractor I have no job security which is what I’m trying to fix with the Iraq job.
Speaking of the Iraq position, I had the second interview yesterday and it went great. I talked with a V.P. over there for over a 1/2 hour and it sounds like a great opportunity. They do some cutting-edge work in fields that have always been interesting to me and from the job description I feel I would fit right in. They said they’d be getting back to me and schedule another phone interview then a day at the facility to do a meet-and-greet. You know it went well when the V.P. gives you his cellphone number and tells you to call anytime if you have questions. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one. I’d love to get into my first permanent position in over 5 years. I can see myself staying a long time with the right company and they seem to be the kind I could do it with. Yeah, a year in Iraq away from family doesn’t sound like a perfect job but I figure it’s a great way to get some experience in the field, earn some good money, and, I know this sounds hokey, to serve my country in whatever way I can.

Sitting here in bed a bit ago I heard a noise outside. Sounded like tires over a curb. I figured someone had gone in the ditch again. I heard squealing tires and a crunching. ‘Crap, better get up and look’. By the time I got up and looked out the window all I saw was a girl standing on the corner. Wierd. A minute later a guy drives up and stops sideways in the street and talks to her. 30 seconds later a Deputy and a Trooper come whipping around the corner and get the guy to pull over. As I’m watching from my window a girl walks out of my bushes and crosses the street to where they are.
‘Huh? Did I miss something?’
I wandered out my front door to hide in the shadows and try to figure out WTF was going on. And to take pics in case something even more interesting happened.
They convince him to turn off the car and then pull him from it. They do a field sobriety test and after a bit of persuasion get him to blow in the breathalizer. Apparently he failed as they immmediately cuffed him and put him in a cruiser. One of the Troopers then reached in a poured out a can of beer on the ground.
They talked with the girls for a bit and then as a motorcycle drove by a deputy noticed me standing in shadows. He came over and asked if I had called. I told him no. Then he asked whose yard he drove through. ‘I don’t know’, I said as he started shining his light at the neighbor’s yard. Then we noticed the tracks on my lawn. The dude missed the turn at the corner by like 50 feet and drove up into my yard and missed both my house and a big-ass oak tree by 10-12 feet. ‘Shit’, said I as I sat and looked at my torn up lawn. I needed some new ruts I guess.
They hauled the guy off and let his sober girlfriend drive off in the Cherokee.

Right now as I sit here and type this a drunk guy on a Harley pulled up right outside my window. Then fell over. I called 911 on his ass. He finally got it together enough to stand it up, pick up his broken mirror, and drive off before a deputy could show up. Fuck this town

That last paragraph seals it. I don’t know what else to say. Two drunks outside my window in a hour, a drunk driving death last week, along with all the other idiots. And my son wonders why we don’t let him play in the front yard without close supervision. This used to be a great neighborhood but in the past 2-3 years things have been going downhill. Time to move to a few acres in the country.

I’ve been looking for a permanent position with a company lately as I want to get off the contractor bandwagon. I sent my resume in for a job that looked like a decent fit, doing Linux clustering work, network administration, permanent employee, etc. It’s for a company that does 3D mapping and rendering and such so it looked like fun as one of my hobbies is maps. The catch was, after your initial training, you do a year of on-site work for the company.

In Iraq.

Last night I got a call and did a phone interview. It seems like I passed the first hurdle and my name is headed up the list. The pay is outstanding for that year overseas. Enough for me to pay off all our bills including our house. After that year I’d come home to a permanent position here in Austin. No moving or anything. And no bills/no mortgage other than the month to month expenses.
A year in Iraq sounds interesting. I wonder if I should get fitted for a cast-iron neck brace before I go.

Woohoo! I got tickets to the ‘Special Advance Preview’ on June 23rd of Serenity, the movie offshoot of the tragically short lived TV show Firefly. They sold out in under 10 minutes and I was lucky enough to click the link to Fandango at the right time. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. If you haven’t seen Firefly you owe it to yourself to check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Didn’t do much this weekend. We did pick up the first season of Dead Like Me on sale at Hollywood video for like $15. We hadn’t seen a single episode before but decided for $15 it was worth a shot. We are now addicted. In three nights we watch through 1/2 the season and will be done with it in the next few days. I hate finding new shows to love. It means I have to schedule time to catch them on TV and keep up with them. Let’s see, right now we follow; The Sopranos, Deadwood, Carnivale, Dead Like Me, and Entourage on HBO. We also liked Oz when it was still on. HBO does the best TV shows around, I swear.

I also picked up Forza Motorsport for the Xbox. It’s taking some getting used to as it’s a simulator not an arcade game. Turn off ABS and you’ll go sliding off the track everytime you hit the brakes. Get a little ‘love tap’ from an AI car in a turn and you’re going for a little spinning ride. It is neat the way that you can customize your car like you want it. Want a ricer? There’s lots of stickers. Want a sleeper? Put a giant turbo in that Focus. I’ve found that the best way to upgrade your car quick is to sell the cars you win and use that money for upgrades. I did that for my AudiTT and now it’s a 400+HP beast. The physics seem pretty decent. My only complaint is that the car sounds don’t seem realistic enough. When I put a big ass supercharger in a car I want to hear that high-pitched whine. It doesn’t seem to do that which kinda sucks. The 5.1 Dolby sound is good though after you turn off the crappy music. Why does every game seem to think I want to hear music when playing? It distracts from the gameplay if you ask me. I’ll put up with it in menus but turn that shit off in the game please.

Yes, I’m writing this at nearly 3AM.

We live on the corner of a fairly busy feeder street to Anderson Mill Road here outside Austin. The speed limit is 35 and the road is about 3/4 of a mile long. There are a few bends in it but no stop signs for its entire length. It is fed by several side streets, and has a couple schools on it. People think it’s a speedway. I regularly see folks doing 50+ and often over 60 down this street. In the 9+ years we’ve lived here we’ve seen no less than a dozen accidents occur from our house. Mostly due to speed but there were a couple of drunks tossed in there. Racing isn’t too uncommon either, which leads me to tonite.
I heard something outside about 2:30 but it wasn’t loud enough to investigate. It didn’t have the trademark carwreck sounds. I’ve heard enough late at night to know when it’s time to jump out of bed with my phone ready to dial 911. Less than 5 minutes later I heard the sirens and saw lights passing my window. I got up to investigate. There were about 6-7 emergency vehicles parked a block up from my house. I grabbed my camera and walked up to see what happened this time.
There was a motorcycle laying in a heap on the sidewalk on the outside of a bend. It looked like they laid it down and hit a trashcan. EMS was loading the rider into the truck. He was moving and didn’t look to be bleeding too bad.
As I was talking to the neighbor about what he’d heard a deputy walked up from behind us. I turned to ask him what happened and noticed that he was trying to wipe blood off his uniform. He said that the guy they were loading should be fine but the other was DOA. We both looked at him and said ‘other guy?’ He pointed over the fence and said there was another bike in the backyard of the house. I peeked over the fence and saw another bike smashed against the back of the house. ‘Oh shit.’ There was blood everywhere and the typical sheet over a body. Against a brick wall, even a rider wearing all his gear is gonna lose.
I started to take pics of the scene to document it for the POA when another deputy came up and asked if I was taking pictures. I told him ‘Of course’. He told me not to take any more as it’s not the time to do so. I told him ‘It’s _exactly_ the time to do so and I’ve tried in the past to get speedhumps on this road to slow idiots down. The more evidence to do so the better our case. I’m a photographer and this is a public street. There’s nothing that says I can’t take photos.’ He looked at me and said with all the blood and such that it not appropriate. I just looked at him making no move to stop what I was doing. He had tried the intimidation route and saw I wasn’t buying it. That’s when he visibly dropped the authority figure persona that many cops have when on duty and then said the magic words, ‘Please, out of respect for the dead, will you stop taking photos? I can’t tell you to stop but I’m asking as a human being.’ I told him ‘I’d rather not but since you’re asking out of respect, I will stop.’
I know I’m a bad photographer for stopping but a cop had the decency to ask me nicely instead of trying to force me to stop. So I did. I also voluntarily erased all the pics but one taken from a distance that just shows a downed bike.
Please, for all that is good and holy, slow down on neighborhood streets. There are kids playing out there. A person died tonite because he thought it’d be great fun to race. It’s sad, yes, but also I know that that’s one less speeder to worry about and that he took only himself out in the process and not some innocent bystander.

I’m in the market for a used Range Rover Classic to compliment my Defender 90. I want to use it as a beater/back-up/tow vehicle for the D-90. I’m looking for and ’89-90 preferably in Texas as it’s not worth paying around $750 shipping for a car that’s going to cost around $2K.

I found one on eBay that didn’t quite meet my criteria but was close. I really want at least an ’89 as they went from a 3.5liter to the bigger 3.9liter engine which is the same as my Defender’s and I already know how to work on that. I don’t mind a little body damage as I’ll beat it around anyways. Running isn’t a huge deal as long as it’s been running recently. Color doesn’t matter. Etc. Vehicles in that condition sell for around $2K, give or take. In the person’s auction they bitch about having to pay eBay fees again because someone backed out of an earlier one.

It closed last night without selling again because his price is way to high for a car that:

• Doesn’t run
• Has body damage
• Has possible frame rust as is common of Land Rovers from that era
• Has a less desirable 3.5l engine
• Has 150,000 miles on it

I sent him a nicely worded offer for $1,000 cash and that I’d pick it up in 3 days if he agreed. It’d save him relisting fees and such. Yeah, I low-balled a bit expecting a counter-offer around $1,500. Here is what I got back.

—————-
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 09:44:20 -0500
From: idiotcarseller@houston.rr.com
Subject: Re: Question from eBay Member
To: me@nnin.net
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106

YOU ARE A STUPIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD IDIOTIC MORONNNNNNNNNNNNNN WITH THIS OFFER.ONLY MEET IF YOU WANT YOUR ASSSSSSSSSSSSS KICKED FOR BEING SUCH AN IDIOT.
—————–

Nice.
I reported him to eBay for the threat as they’ll drop your account in a heartbeat for threats of bodily harm. I wanted to report him to the grammar police too. I mean WTF is up with all the extra letters? Also, how tough is it to just say ‘No, thanks’? The dude needs some anger management classes.

So, if you know of an ’89-90 Range Rover Classic for sale near you let me know. I really would like to get my summer project in the garage so it’ll be ready for fall wheeling season.

Okay, I support your right to pollute your body with smoke. Fine, go right ahead. I’d be a bad libertarian if I didn’t support your right to do with your body as you like. I also think that it should be a business owners’ decision on whether to allow smoking in their bar. It’s their bar and business, they should be able to determine what clientelle they want. I personally hate the smell of smoke in my clothes and rarely go to bars because of it.

My problem with smokers is that they all seem to think littering is okay. I have yet to encounter a smoker who seems to know what their ashtray is for. If you’re a smoker and claim you don’t do that I say you’re a liar or so far the exception to the rule it doesn’t count. Click on the picture above. This is just one intersection near my home. They all look like that. See what I mean?

‘Oh, it’s just one little butt. It won’t make a difference.’ Look at what the roads look like when several thousand smokers all say that. I’m sick of seeing your shit on the side of the road. Stop it! Use your Gawd-damned ashtray. Eat the butt if you don’t have one. Cleaning out your ashtray may be no fun but it’s even worse subjecting us to your trash.

‘The rain will wash it away.’ Bullshit. That much trash is going nowhere when it’s under an overpass like that. Anyways, where do you think those storm drains lead? To the magic cigarette butt fairy? They end up in our rivers and lakes where my family and I swim. It’s always nice to go swimming in a ashtray.

When your smoking starts to affect me, then I have a problem. Seeing this shit on the side of the road and in our lakes pisses me off.

In closing, Use your fucking ashtray, you assholes!

This past weekend I went to my first Land Rover Rally, SCARR 2. I missed last year because the accident happened just before I was to go and I sure couldn’t go in a jacked-up truck.

I woke up early on Friday morning for the 5 hour drive to Barnwell. I had to be to the rest area on the north side of Austin by 7:30 to meet up with the crew from San Antonio. They showed up on time short one Land Rover. Brett had to go by the Ausitn dealer to get something looked at. The 5 of us hit the road around 8:30.

On the other side of Waco we pulled off for gas, as we slowed down I noticed by temp gauge red-lining. Dang. Fluid looked a bit low so we topped it off and let it cool down. Everything looked fine, so off we went. We got in to Barnwell around 1pm. We took an hour or so to sweat-up set-up camp and then hit the trails.
First up was Greenlanes. A fairly easy 3 diamond course we all made it through with no problem. We did a couple more runs and I started overheating again. Topped off the fluid out on the trail, again. I then split from the group and headed into town to try to find a place to flush the radiator on a Friday evening. I found a guy who did it for me after I tempted him with a few extra bucks to stay late. He was nice enough to let me drink a couple of his beers while he finished it up for me. If you’re in Gilmer and need a quick repair, go see Randy. He’s on the outskirts north of town on the other road that doesn’t lead to Barnwell across from a minimart. I had no problem with overheating the rest of the weekend.

I got back before dark just as the guys got back from their runs. We ate some dinner then headed out for a night run. We picked what looked to be a decent 3 diamond trail, The Polititian. We should have known by the name alone that it was a liar. On the last pitch of the trail Ed bent a rear radius arm nearly 90 degrees. We heard the tire rubbing on the slider but he made it to the top of the hill. After some field repairs we got it to where we could tow it without doing more damage and I towed him back in to camp with my D-90. In camp he got it back mostly straight and was ready for the morning.

In the morning I split with the group and went on a guided run. The trail leader got some nice pin-striping going down Clyde’s Ravine. After seeing that, most folks decided the bypass was the way to go. I followed him through, shunning the bypass, with no problems. At the end of our run we got to wait for about 45 minutes while two broken trucks were removed from the trail ahead of us.

After lunch I linked back up with the San Antonio guys for some afternoon runs. Coming up out of Greenlanes into camp there’s a challenging little pitch. I powered through it without much problem with Max in his little 88 right behind. I went to watch Adam in his H&H Rangie give it a shot as I knew he might have a spot of problem. About halfway up the hill I hear a pop like a rifle shot. Adam powered it to the top of the hill to clapping of the on-lookers. I walked around his truck hoping to see a blown tire but saw what I didn’t want to see, his right-rear corner was sunk to the bump stops and the left-rear was slowly lowering. He’d blown an airspring. He limped into camp on the bumpstops. Jack came by in his Tomcat and said he could fix it. After some wrestling it was back in place and aired up, just in time for the evening raffle.

At the raffle I won a heater vent scoop for my Defender. Isaw it and knew what it was so grabbed it. My heater blower is dead and this will at least give me some ram-air action for heat in the winter. Brett a.k.a “BQ” won a DVD copy of Bill Burke’s Bypass Basics. Someone else won an Optima Redtop.

Time for the evening runs again. The 5 of us went out and did Pipeline and Solihull back up Pipeline with ‘BQ’ in the lead. Along the way we picked up a few people. We then headed toward the back of the park. Somehow I ended up in the front. Someone near the back told us some good trails so I headed towards those. Once they’d say it’s a decent trail I’d go without question. On one trail I shot over the edge and started down hill. Oops, looks like I started in second gear instead of first on a rather steep pitch. Bounce, bounce, bounce. All I’m seeing is sky, tree, sky, rock, rock, tree, sky, rock. I make it to the bottom in one piece somehow. My not questioning the trail and this little run earns me the nickname “Trigger”. We hit a few more trails then stop for a quick bladder break at the top of a hill. Truck after truck continue to crest the hill. I was pulling a train of about 20 Rovers it seems. On the way down the next trail I ran into a group of guys in Toyotas headed up. I got out to talk to them and said I’ve got like 20 trucks behind me. They were cool and decided backing up was easier on them than us. We made it back to camp in one piece.

Most guys passed out in their tents after the long day while a few hung around the bonfire.

In the morning we decided not to risk breaking our trucks an hour before driving them home so we packed camp and made a leisurely drive home. My truck started the overheating bit again and did so a couple times on the way back. I made it home after spliting up with the guys north of Austin.

I had a great time and look forward to next year. Maybe next year I’ll head up Thursday night so I can get a full day of wheeling in on Friday.

Today was the employee car show at work. I got the Defender all cleaned up and ready to go. Got there early this morning to get myself setup in my assigned spot. I brought along the ramps so I could flex the suspension just a bit. That little bit of showmanship is what makes people stop and take notice of the car. I got lots of questions about it and people seemed to like the little RC model of it I had on the ground. People voted on their favorite cars and at the end of the day I won a spiffy trophy for Best in Class. Yeah, it’s got a stinking Jeep on it but who am I to complain?

That makes two Best in Class awards for my Defender 90 in the last year. This and the one at the Texas All British Car Day last year. I’m on a roll here.