If you’re at all familiar with full size vans, in order to do anything to the engine short of checking the oil, you have to go inside the van and pull the engine cover off. (We refer to it as a “dog house”) This is what I found when I opened the door of the van.

 How would you like to have to crawl inside this thing and practically have to put your head on the floor to get to the engine? I wore double rubber gloves and put an old set of overalls on to work on this. It took me almost an hour to move enough junk that I could actually get to the doghouse to remove it! Here’s what the back looked like:

To begin with, I got my first paying client for C-Digital Imaging last night. KB Performance Marketing is paying me to design and write a website for their client Bryan Sebetto, a sprint car driver. I presented the owner with several themes, she decided one one and we settled on a preliminary price to get the basic site up. Of course, being as I’m just starting out, I had to low-ball the price way below the going rate, but it got me the job and will hopefully lead to others. For the amount of time it will take to get this done, I’m going to lose money, but I gotta do what I gotta do to get started. As long as they are happy with my work, I think I can count on them to help promote my services.

I’ve also be quite busy at the shop and helping out SR as he still only has use of one arm. It’s amazing how simple tasks can become nearly impossible with one arm disabled. You don’t realize what it’s like until you experience it. The whole situation has really opened my eyes as to what permanently disabled folk must go through every day.

Of course, there’s always my News-Messenger blog to get done, which I had gotten way behind on. Luckily the new city editor is quite understanding and allowed me to miss a few weeks of posts without dropping my blog.

With all the pressure I’ve been under, I’ve decided I need to make a few minor changes in my life. I understand that there are folks under way more pressure than I every day, but for me, this has been a fair amount of stress lately. I’m going to try to not take things so seriously from now on. After all, the sun will still rise tomorrow no matter what happens and life itself is pretty much a joke in the first place, so why be so serious about everything? I’m going to try to spend less time at work and more time with those I care about and more time on my business (which I enjoy doing). I’m going to try to start treating people as they treat me instead of cowing down to even those that I know would never treat me the same as I do them. For example, I have some friends/customers that have no use for me until they need something done to their vehicle or computer. I always jump right to it when they need something done and that’s going to stop. I don’t need users in my life; they will get treated by me as they treat me. Really, it boils down to the fact that I need to have a little more respect for myself. I can’t expect anyone to have respect for me if I don’t have it for myself.

OK, down off my soapbox now I’d best get to work, I have a couple of big jobs to get done today. Everyone have a great weekend and hopefully I’ll have time to post more often.

As Always,
Chris

Amongst all this, there have been numerous small fires for me to put out.

A friend’s furnace went out during some very cold weather, I got it fixed.
There were several emergency jobs at work.
The office at work has adopted me as their IT support guy, so I’ve been running over there all the time.
I’m way behind on my blog posts for our local newspaper.
One of the guys at work got fired and I’ve had to take over some of his duties.
Yada, yada, yada

I’ve pretty much only been to my apartment this month to feed the animals and get cleaned up. The place looks like a bomb went off
Oh wait…..my place looks like that all the time anyways.

However, things seem like they are calming down now. Slowly but surely, the normal routine is returning to everyone’s life. I’ll say one thing about this month; if nothing else it has taught me how valuable the people I love are to my life. I need to make a better effort to let them all know that.

Hopefully I’ll be posting more often now. In the meantime, ya’ll take care!
As Always,
Chris

To be honest, I’m not much of a Xmas person. (I gotta quit using that phrase “to be honest”; it makes it sound like everything else I say is a lie.) Somehow the Xmas season has always put me in kind of a funk. Kinda like I’m disconnected from it. It’s been a little different the past few years, though. Maybe it’s because of SR. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. I dunno. But I’m getting so I really like this holiday. It takes a lot of work to ignore the massive influx of commercialism during the holidays and I’m learning to do that. If I tune it out, it seems to be a really nice thing. Celebrating the birth of a religious icon (if you’re of that religious persuasion, which I am), treating the people you love to gifts that they probably wouldn’t buy for themselves, and just generally showing people that you care. It’s kind of cool, all told.

So here I sit, printing out Xmas cards for my friends and acquaintances, running addresses through SwtichBoard to make sure I have them right, and writing this post. I’ve got a beer in front of me, a fire going in the fireplace, and (of all things), the uncut version of Porky’s playing on my DVD player. Ya know, if this keeps up, I might lose my status as a real sourpuss

Yack at ya’ll later, I’ve got some more cards to print.

Man, it’s gonna be a long day today. I just know we’ll get a bunch of no-starts towed in today. This kind of weather will make any border-line starting and charging system fail. Not to mention all the vehicles that are thousands of miles overdue for a tune-up. I can hear the phone calls now: “But I need my car right away!”, “What do you mean you’ll get to it as soon as you can?”, and so on. Oh well, we’ll do what we can do; what gets done gets done and what doesn’t will have to wait. As I always say: “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”.

I suppose I’d better get at it. I want to get this snowblower ready to go and then I’ve got a couple of diagnostic jobs to get done this morning. In the meantime, stay warm and take care!

As Always,
Chris

So I stay at SR’s last night and what do I find when I get up this morning? White stuff all over the place! Crap, it snowed last night! Of course, I’m not prepared; I don’t have the snowblower ready to go. I should have but I can be a really bad procrastinator at times. Oh well, not much I can do but deal with it. It could be worse, I only have to drive a few blocks to get to work. Truth be told, it is kinda pretty out, but a few months of this stuff and I’m sure I’m going to find it pretty damn ugly.

It’s still snowing as I’m writing this from the shop. Here’s a shot outside in front of the bays:

The one thing I really, really hate about this time of year is getting sopping wet at work; every vehicle I bring in today will be dripping water for hours when I have it on the lift. I’ve actually considered wearing a raincoat when I have to lift a snowy vehicle up. But, I can bitch all I want and the weather is still not gonna change just for me. As all of us have to do, I’ll just have to deal with it.

I think I’ll run over to SR’s after work to shovel the walks if the snow is still here and tomorrow morning I’ll bring the snowblower into the shop and get it tuned-up for the season. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for this kind of weather, we wouldn’t appriciate the warm, sunny weather. I’d best get to work; everyone have a good day and make the best fo the snow.

As Always,
Chris

I never thought I’d hear myself say this about my job, but now I’m just there to put my time in and that’s about it. I’m not the only one there that feels that way either. Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep blogging and keep my eye out for a new employer.

I’m not really in a bad mood, just kind of fed up I suppose. T is fixing dinner, so I’d better wrap this post up. I’ll write again tomorrow.

As Always,
Chris

I hope everyone had a good weekend. It’s Sunday evening again and even with the workweek looming in front of me, I have to say it’s been a pretty good weekend. I just got back from Applebee’s and a great steak dinner (the kind that practically forces you to take a nap afterwards) to celebrate the birthday of a freind’s grandaughter. If you get the urge for a really good steak and the idea of dragging out the grill is not exactly blowing your skirt up, try Applebee’s New York steak. I highly recommend it….(burp)…..’scuse me

Anyways…..Saturday morning I decided to check out the new Farmer’s Market they’re having downtown. During the three years I lived in Roanoke, VA, one of my favorite weekend activities was their local Farmer’s Market. I figured it would be worth a shot to see how Fremont was handling the idea.

I was very surprised. I didn’t expect too much in the way of size since this has just started, but the qualitly and atmosphere was great! They definently have the right idea. I took a few pics and thought I’d share them.

This is a look down Front Street at the market area from Chrogan Street.

My friend Curt convienently stolled into the frame as I ran into him and few other people I know.

Folks perusing some of the local produce and goodies offers. Although the mix of vendors was nice, I would have liked to have seen some more local growers offering produce and such.

Some folks just couldn’t help themselves and felt compelled to walk down the sidewalk rather than in the street where the vendors were facing. I guess all those years of being told to stay the hell out of the street are hard to overcome

There was a lot of activity around DaVinci’s Coffee House and the Finishing Touch Gallery. As it should be, this Farmer’s Market is successfully involving the brick and morter businesses on Front Street.

Just a sample of some of the vendors and performers that were there Saturday.

A shot from near the back of the market area towards State Street.

I personally think this a great idea. It not only offers a chance for the basic idea of getting really fresh locally grown produce, one can see what great talents lie hidden in some of the Fremont area’s population. Performers, musicians, wood carvers, all kinds of arts and crafts! I really hope this starts drawing a larger crowd and more vendors on the weekends. Best of all, it’s just plain fun!

Well, it’s getting on to 9pm. I should turn the TV back on, they’re announcing who won the Food Network Challange tonight. Yea, yea, I know, I normally HATE reality shows (because they’re anything but real), but a buddy of mine got me interested in this one and I just gotta know who wins. Crap….they got me hooked too, didn’t they?

I’m finally releasing that God-awful Explorer 4.0 OHC engine I’ve been working on tomorrow. A second oil change, put the hood and front splash pan on and it’s road ready. I fired it up last Friday and much to my amazement, it runs great. In case you’re not a mechanic by trade, the Ford Explorer is available with a 4.0L OHC engine (VIN code E) that has the most Rube Goldberg-ish timing chain setup you’ve ever seen. It’s a friggin’ nightmare and cannot be set up without some expensive factory tools. Of course, this engine is prone to eating chain guides like a starved Beagle going after a thick steak. I finally got the factory tools and this is the first one I’ve done. I have another couple waiting in the lot to do and I will devote a long blog post to this repair with lots of pictures. Whatever sub-human sadistic Detroit engineer thought this timing chain arrangement would be a good idea should be sentenced to hand push everyone of these vehicles that drop the chains and destroy their valve trains!
(Ok, that was a little harsh, but wait ’till you see this goofy engine design.)

I hope eveyone has a nice week and an even better weekend. I’ll be in Michigan all next weekend, so I’ll have a post and a pic or two the following Monday or Tuesday from the trip. I might even squeeze in anothe couple of quick posts this week.
In the meantime, take care.

As Always,
Chris

Also, you might have noticed that the old calendar is gone in the right side of my blog. I’ve replaced it with a really cool flash badge that shows my 30boxes calendar and my Twitter posts. All in real time, I might add. I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s a little slow in reflecting updates, but it works quite fast most of the time.

Well, I have another batch of lemon bars ready to come out of the oven, so I’d best get going. One more batch and I’m done for the night. Everyone take care and have a great weekend!

As Always,
Chris

Good Morning all!

Sorry about that depressing Memorial Weekend post. Actually, the rest of the weekend went great and I had a good time

The city of Fremont (where I live) is pretty picky about the sidewalks. If the sidewalk in front of your home or business is the least bit deteriorated, they want it fixed. Our shop had been tagged for this problem and Chris Heflinger from All-Star Construction has come out to do the job. I’m familiar with Chris and he does great work, very detail-oriented. I thought I’d post a few pics of he and his crew at work.

They should be finishing up this morning.

Myself, I hope to be fixing the AC in my apartment this evening.
Ya’ll have a great day and I’ll post again later.

As Always,
Chris