Twice now I've been run off the road at one section of highway. I should have seen it coming. Aggressive tailgating, snap lane changes. I'm trailing at a semi's right quarter heading into a merge down to one lane. He whips around me, and blocks me out of position by tailgating the semi. When I finally get next to him, I asked him why he cut me off?
"I thought you were gonna go ahead of the truck!"
Right. I'm going to cut off 80,000lbs. The dotted lines at that point had ended. It was technically a two lane blacktop. Never mind the half mile of brake checks because I had the balls to honk at you so you wouldn't side swipe my car. I need a beater with intimidation factor and/or a willingness to not give any berks about bent metal. I'm sick of this E36 M3.
It's just over an hour from my house to the Louisville airport. I left with plenty of time to pick up Tiger Mom at 9:20 when her flight was scheduled to arrive. Only because "air travel" her arrival was delayed. It's midnight and she shoul be touching down in 5 minutes.
I can't freaking sleep. And gotta be on the road at 6am.
This sucks.
Hanging out in Sister Bay, WI today. Kids out on kayaks and there is a short breaker of rocks with a big sign stating do not climb on the rocks - I want to climb on the rocks.
Old guy out on the rocks apparently can't read.
In reply to mtn:
Not bad. We're at Wilsons for burgers.
mtn
MegaDork
7/18/17 1:36 p.m.
Datsun310Guy wrote:
In reply to mtn:
Not bad. We're at Wilsons for burgers.
Good stuff.
Unless I was on the boat, I've never felt comfortable in Door. In-laws have a place in Sturgeon Bay. Just not my jam--way too many people. I prefer the other side of Green Bay--way less touristy (and for good reason--it isn't as pretty, and it has some industry going on).
But then that makes sense, I enjoy being on the water on a boat. I'm not into gift shops and confectionaries.
Have some Spotted Cow for me at the Bayside. Or anything at Donny's Glidden lodge.
mtn
MegaDork
7/18/17 4:52 p.m.
Dear colleague: stop asking me if I'm done with this project. I know you have other projects to work on. I'll tell you when I'm done with this project.
There's an auto manufacturer whose name is a Four Letter Word that begins with F, who deigned to produce TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT F-150s for the 2004 model year, with no means of differentiation by trim level or engine code, and, apparently, VIN.
Our VIN-decoding parts catalog system cheerfully offered up parts for the new bodystyle, when the vehicle I was waiting for parts half the day was the old bodystyle.
For extra fun, if you looked at a picture of, say, the brake parts, they looked the same. For the rotors the question of five-lug or six-lug came up (easy), and the rotors were the only correct things. The rear pads were the same crappy design but about 1/2" longer, and the front calipers, believe it or not, bolt up to the old knuckles just fine. But the (old) pads are, again, about 1/2" shorter...
To top it off, the rear axle seals weren't bad, they had just been replaced by whoever used to own the truck. But the wrench holder used a Roloc disk in a longitudinal motion on the axles to clean the seal surface. Noticed this when I was putting the second (note: not the first) axle in and, when rotating it to line the splines up, saw by the light glinting from the axle that it was no longer round, but sort of a septadecagon. Thanks, moron!
Wife just left me, took the kid. Hopefully they'll be back, but it's not looking good.
That's not the rant, not exactly minor.
No, the minor rant is that she left her car here with a CEL on and I loaned out my scan tool the other day.
Oh and the state is auditing our tax returns from 2015.
I mean, it can't get any worse, right?
I'm going to crawl into a bottle for the night, FML....
In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock:
Yeah. 
What about the RS? (All kidding aside I hope it turns better).
My uncle bought a 1965 Shelby Mustang on his honeymoon and drove it back to Chicago. His marriage dumped and his wife/four kids (my moms sister) had the usual broken family issues over their lifetime but at my moms funeral 10 years ago the first thing my Aunt says to me was that Uncle Bud still had the Shelby.
ncjay
SuperDork
7/19/17 4:15 a.m.
Reply to Stefan: One thing I've learned is that it can ALWAYS get worse. Flesh eating bacteria, cancer, job termination, being evicted, robbed, thrown in jail. My personal gauge for a good day is any day I make it through without winding up in jail or the hospital.
In reply to Stefan:
Damn dude. Hope today is looking up.
Duke
MegaDork
7/19/17 8:45 a.m.
In reply to Stefan:
Dude, that's well past "minor" status. That really sucks. You have all the sympathy and understanding I can offer.
tuna55
MegaDork
7/19/17 8:49 a.m.
Oh man, what happened? Are you alive today?
To change topics midstream, berkeley you Ford. At least you did one thing right and GM copied it. 
Cheers!
In reply to tuna55:
I'm alive, working on about 4 hours of sleep, drank a few beers and ate junk food, feel like E36 M3 today. At least she answered my text this morning, so that's something.
Not sure what's going on, but I've gotta work and also work with the auditor, so hopefully I can talk with her later and see my daughter (walking into her empty room last night was heart breaking to say the least).
One step/day at a time.
In reply to Stefan:
Yup, one step at a time. Hope it all works out for you.
My minor rants seem extremely petty... but hopefully can serve at least as a distraction...
Finally sold the Jeep- but for several hundred less than I'd hoped. Was worth the extra loss to have it GONE and not my problem any more. Rant: for like 3 months I've been occasionally checking that a nice-looking blue e36 vert for sale about an hour away for challenge money was still there- and it was when I checked earlier this week. Now that I have the money for it? Not there. 
My phone's battery has been getting crap for life lately, so I picked up the iFixIt kit to replace it- doesn't worry me much, did this on my previous iPhone. But they recommend the battery you're pulling out be as drained as possible to minimize the chance of it exploding if you rupture it- so I'm going to be skirting the edge of running out of power today to replace it this afternoon.
Finally- Got into a minor argument with SWMBO last night. For the last 3+ weeks I've been doing my best to avoid processed sugar in what I eat as part of trying to lose some weight before the Challenge (ostensibly to shave time off my runs- but in reality it's just a convenient marker to aim for since I could do with dropping the weight). Last night after getting dinner out SWMBO wanted to go out to a new gourmet popsicle place that opened up in town and got grumpy after I said we could go but that I was probably not going to get anything. I eventually decided that a ~100-calorie popsicle was not worth her being grumpy about and agreed to go and get one with her. Of course I enjoyed the popsicle- but it's frustrating when I'm already fighting myself (and generally winning) over my love of sweets to have to be fighting her about it too.
Code Orange ozone action day
Minor rants for your amusement.
The A/C in teh volvo stops working when it gets over 85-90 degrees. Compressor coil is bad, overheats and stops engaging. And because some total dumbass put a glass sunroof in the car (who in their right mind thinks these are good ideas?) the car deperately NEEDs air conditioning to be at all tolerable since even with the sun cover closed, the solar heat does a mighty fine job of heating up the cabin.
And, to top it off, 40k of Cleveland roads have finally killed the CD player. It used to skip all the time, because that is what CD players do, but I hit a good bump right as it was switching tracks and now it can't find any tracks except the first one.
The car knows that I just deposited an extra $400 in the bank, is what happened.
The real rant? As sideways-toilet as this car is getting, there are no better alternatives on the market to be had for any price. And that really sucks.
