Minor Win thread - Life is good!

Tomorrow is the end of my 2nd week in my new position. In this position I'll be rebuilding the gearboxes that power the rollers that systematically squish a 6" x 6" x 50' long billet of steel into a rod with a diameter as small as .4375". By the time it gets to that diameter it is very long and moving VERY fast! I'll also be turning and grinding said rollers. I'll be performing other machining processes on an as-needed basis.

There are a lot of neat things to learn in a steel mill!

Also no more of that working-all-three-shifts-in-one-week nonsense. I'd call that a win!

Edit: Make that .219" as the smallest diameter, not .4375".

I got a needle stick at work 3 months ago, so the last 3 months have sucked while I sat in limbo waiting to be given the all clear. Yesterday my latest results came in and I got the all clear! I nearly did a dance in the doctors office. So berkeleying received! All that stress and angst because some useless human couldn't be assed capping their used needle....

Needless to say my partner and I had a few beverages to celebrate, life's good again.

In reply to daeman:

"Didn't contract HIV or Hepatitis" is slightly more than a minor win.

In reply to BrokenYugo:

Yeah mate, very true, but hey I didn't want to make to much of a song and dance. I'm just glad I'm OK, and more so that my partner is to.

Grilled cheese and lobster salad sandwich on sourdough bread. Happy now.

Streetwiseguy wrote: Grilled cheese and lobster salad sandwich on sourdough bread. Happy now.

Do people debate making lobster salad with mayo vs Miracle Whip like they do tuna salad?

Great day.. Finally got around to burning some of the debris from clearing out some trees. Got ice damage repairs moving again. While heading out to Lowes to get a new vanity for the bathroom, a neighbor with a new Viper GTS let all three of my boys sit in the Viper AND his Ferrari 430 Spider. My boys are on Cloud 9. Then, to top it off, the neighbor complements how fun it was to show the cars to the boys because they were so passionate about then, but more importantly, respectful and appreciative to him.

To wrap the day up, went out for Mexican food. The twins got Chimichangas, beacuase Deadpool. Good food and lots of laughs.

logdog wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote: Grilled cheese and lobster salad sandwich on sourdough bread. Happy now.

Do people debate making lobster salad with mayo vs Miracle Whip like they do tuna salad?

There IS no debate about mayo and Miracle Whip:

I made the newsletter!!!!

The apartment I have lived in is under new managers (same management company) and apparently how my lease was recorded previously did not show my pets or my pet deposit.

So now they are upping my base rent plus adding on pet rent plus adding on a pet "fee". All in all it is coming up to an almost 20% increase in rent.

The one, I mean one bright spot is I now, brining in more money than I ever have, qualify for reduced rent housing on quite possibly the nicest apartment I have ever stepped foot in. So the move is going to only be a ~5% increase in rent.

it's Friday, I left work early.. and tomorrow starts my vacation.. I call that a win

With the falling price of natural gas my house has gotten cheaper and cheaper to heat over the last 3 years. Today I opened the bill to find that I had a $50 credit. Yay for lower than budgeted bills!!

My ticket got dismissed, and I was in and out of the court in under an hour. Yay! !!

About 2 weeks ago, I was reading the noisy animal book to my daughter. Pictures, few sentences, push a button hear a noise. I might have accidentally on purpose referred to the cow as a cheeseburger, and the pig as bacon.

Today, probably by accident, we were reading the book and I asked "What noise does the cheeseburger make?" she made a Mooing sound. Probably a coincidence, but it's keeping me smiling.

But maybe my lessons are sticking.

I drove an MGB today and my left knee didn't scream at me.

Then I drove a Toploader-equipped 289 Mustang and my left knee didn't scream at me.

So I can drive old rear drive cars but not Subarus. A sacrifice I will just have to accept Hopefully RX-7s and Quantums fall into the "old rear drive car" category.

It occurs to me that being paid to drive MGBs and early Mustangs is also a minor win. Although, they come to me in need of help, so much help. Their care is far more important than my car-guy interests. There's a level of professionalism and decorum that must be maintained. And it's probably this strict level of professionalism that allows me to be entrusted to all manner of historically interesting, if not technically interesting, automotive machinery.

It's only after that the car-guy lobe of my brain is allowed to function, and I realize, OMG I just drove a berking Stage III Belvedere/Rebel Machine/427 Corvette/whatever.

(426 Wedge B-bodies are very finicky on carb tuning, a PITA to adjust valves, and not very fast in stock street trim. Rebel Machines are the Sentra SEs of the 60s. 427 Corvettes are hot, noisy, cramped in the wrong ways, and the easiest way to do plugs on them requires a lift or laying under the car and reaching up)

Man, the past 6 months have been a marathon.

Both me and the wife started new jobs 6 months back, and we are both kicking butt. It's good to actually like what I do for work for once!

I have also been able to write more, and have had the good fortune to be able to write for a car blog that gets lots of views, and people are digging most of my stuff which is really humbling. I've even made some connections with other popular authors in the industry, and it's very cool to be able to chat with people I grew up reading. I know a couple of you work right here at GRM, and I remember specifically picking Mr. Wallens's brain at the $2014 Challenge about making that extra push and getting my writing out there. Thanks again for that!

And I have started to focus what little time and energy I have left on reorganization, and I have passed on one of my project cars so I can focus on the one I really want to get done. It's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Next challenge to overcome: get in shape. I have gotten waaaaay too big in the past few years from stress eating and making unhealthy decisions. I am motivated to make it happen, now that I am in a better place. If I can do all that other stuff I just talked about, then I can do that too!

Got the truck back on (temporary) insurance (it expired on the 5th) and all cleaned out for the new owner on Saturday.

I would actually call this a major win. My local CBS station seems to be having transmission problems. ALL the commercials are muted, while the news/shows have perfect audio. This is amazing.

So I just got back from Okoumofest and I have discovered that I really do not like kayaks... even the multi-thousand dollar kind. It's not that they are tippy, I have pretty good balance, I just hate how without a rudder (or with it up) they always want to go into the wind. I am very glad I went before buying a kit to build one..

however.. I did bring home a kit from Chesapeake Light Craft (Like I need another hobby) to build this..

It's their "expedition wherry" a sliding seat roughwater boat that has enough storage to do a several day "beach camping" expedition. I used to row competitively in High School and College.. while I am very rusty, it was starting to come back to me after about 5 minutes of either catching crabs or swatting gulls.

The Bride of Burrito just passed her MSF course! T-minus two weeks until The Summer of Braaaap begins!

Friend of mine made fun of me for putting a new engine in my Rover.. The cumulative repairs to his E-class wagon have now surpassed what I spent on my disco's new engine.

Got pulled over coming home from Pep Boys. No plate, brake lights hanging, no trunk lid. Just a run to get parts, so 2 miles round trip, kinda forgot I didn't have things in order. Got a warning. I'll take that as a win. Just have to remember everything needs to go back on tomorrow so I don't forget on my way to autocross.

Duke wrote:

logdog wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote: Grilled cheese and lobster salad sandwich on sourdough bread. Happy now.

Do people debate making lobster salad with mayo vs Miracle Whip like they do tuna salad?

There IS no debate about mayo and Miracle Whip:

Rant:

What the hell is a "moist sandwich flavor"?? I'll tell you, in just a moment. I did just now create and consume a sandwich. It tasted like a sandwich. It consisted of two slices of wheat bread, two slices of Swiss cheese, and a small grabful of shaved ham. It contained no condiment whatsoever and yet it tasted like a sandwich.

So what equates mayo with "sandwich flavor"? Spreading that crap on every sandwich you make. You are deceiving your brain into thinking that rancid egg and whipped God-knows-what is what a sandwich should taste like, indeed (by the very words in the comic) a sandwich is DEFINED as something that tastes like that. It's conditioning, it's training, it is Stockholm Syndrome. You only think that a sandwich so infected is what a sandwich should taste like because you simply haven't ever experienced a sandwich that does not, until years later, after the brainwashing has been complete, and then you firmly believe that such a sandwich is wrong because to think beyond your self-imposed mental prison is tantamount to rebelling against your upbringing.

Mayo sucks. Deal with it.

G_Body_Man wrote: Got the truck back on (temporary) insurance (it expired on the 5th) and all cleaned out for the new owner on Saturday.

Whoa, what? Selling the truck? I missed that I guess.