Minor Win thread - Life is good!

Had my 3rd back surgery (first fusion) at 830am on Friday. I'm back too walking in baby steps already! 

Just got my second dose of Pfizer, phew.   I’m the last in my family to get the second one, just my son and myself inside the two week window so we’ll all be good to go soon! 

Got an email earlier this week from Obamacare. They restructured some stuff. You may qualify for increased benefits. Apply by April 30th.  

Of course I wait till the last possible second. I'm a bit sceptical, but wtf, what the worst that could happen?

So I call. I go through the motions that I'm familiar with. Answer 400 questions. Annnnd, holy hot E36 M3,  looks like I'm saving $200 a month for the same exact Blue Cross plan! Aw yiss.

Got the window motors and regulators replaced in the Ramcharger. Both windows work, they no longer rattle, and I may have accidentally removed the exhaust system from the cat back. My muffler was about rusted out, and now I have a catalytic converter and a turn down. Ten dollar exhaust that sounds like it cost $600? Yeah, that's a win.

Made it home today. Sore as hell but surgery went well and hopefully the hardware fixed me ! 

I don't have to report for jury duty tomorrow!  Hooray!

Still need to check in for Tuesday and the rest of the week, though.

We went camping in Indiana this weekend.  They've repealed their mask mandate apparently, so I was able to go to the grocery store without my muzzle for the first time in a year.  It was glorious!

In reply to wae :

I dunno.  I like being lazy about shaving.

The weekend before last, on the Friday,  my cousin called me, hey you have bikes, you know where I can get something small and cheap, just to learn on? All the courses are canceled this year and I really want to learn how to ride.

No, not in this market everything is ... wait a minute. Call best buddy, hey you still want to sell those two junky pit bikes your kids never took to? Sure, you can have them for what I paid, $700 for the pair. Hey Denise, you interested in a cheap Chinese pit bike? Here's a video of one. I figure $50 is fair for picking up, delivering and making sure it runs right, and price it at $400. She's all in. I grab the bikes, give her the much nicer of the two with a money back guarantee, and go home with mine all excited because I got a bike for $300. I count the money when I get home. She threw in some extra for gas and delivery, etc. and didn't say anything. I don't complain, and realize I got mine for $250

I ride it and recall why I sold my old pit bike years ago. Those early Chinese bikes are not suitable for anything more than a beginner level rider. I list it on Marketplace for $550, telling Mrs. P that what I really wanted was a proper race pit bike, but in this market they just don't exist, and when one does pop up it's crazy expensive and sells right away. So I can wait til next year when the market settles.

The bike sells for full price in an hour in the middle of the afternoon. I sit down to dinner while perusing Kijiji and see a proper pit bike, low hours, $1200 an hour away. I text, and make arrangements to see it and leave right away, still chewing as I'm pulling out of the driveway. It's perfect, exactly what I wanted. I offer him $1000, fully expecting to pay full price. He accepts it noting that it's a quick easy sale, and that I did drive an hour.

So I ended up, completely out of the blue,  with a $1800 pit bike with 3 hrs on it for my initial $700 investment. That's a win

Second and third win, the gearing is not ideal, and I want to up the CS sprocket a tooth. I'm looking on Amazon when I think, I might have some parts from my old pit bike. I check, yup, I have the sprocket, and oh, look, a high performance CDI that actually worked so well I bought a second in case the first went bad. Win!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to wae :

I dunno.  I like being lazy about shaving.

I've always been lazy about shaving!  The cool thing is that I can't really see my own face so that's really just something that other people have to deal with.

Today's win:  The idiot, spastastic dog went through the screen in the kitchen trying to get to the neighbor's little 1/8th scale doglet thing.  After picking up the correct size spline last night I was able to use some screen I had left over from the last repair and it's probably the best screen installation I've ever done!

I shave once a week. My shaving cream cans last nearly 3 years

Ordered a dozen boneless wings with lunch.

Got 15.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to wae :

I dunno.  I like being lazy about shaving.

I travel for sales and eat lunch as I drive.  Always check for crap in your teeth before seeing a customer. 

Eating onions? Crap in your teeth?  Who cares, you are wearing a mask! For now......

Accidently left my headlights on for about two and a half hours.  Had no problems starting the truck right up.  The joys of a brand-new battery!

Pit bike follow up.

Youngest son was over last night to help me do something in the shop. Sees the new bike and is all over it. I wish I had one like your old junker to boot around on at (buddy) Al's. I tell him the story of the two cheap pit bikes, we make a sad face, I tell him I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Cousin Denise calls this afternoon, is that money back guarantee still valid? This thing's too big for me and I'm scared of it.

Ding!

I was kind of hoping somebody other than me was going to post in this thread.

I'm on a roll.

A conversation that started with me saying, I think I have one of those (parts) turned into how much do you want for the whole parts car?

It was a field car, an 87 Firefly, that I bought for the above mentioned Son in 2001 for $50. He got a good couple years out of it but the body was so rust free I couldn't bring myself to scrap it, and parked it in the back of the barn. Cleaning up the barn, at this point, I would have  paid somebody to come in and haul it out of there. Buddy offered me $400 for it and sent a truck down to haul it away.

And he's happy with his purchase!

I've been working on something for a couple weeks now. If it works out in this market it'll be one of my best deals ever. In the meantime, somebody else post here please!

Steering shaft and steering column disconnected from each other as I pulled up to a three way stop this morning.  Normally, this'd go in the rant section.  However, the road I was on curved left, and going straight (the only way I could at this point), put me on an unused access road.  Any other place on my route, and I would have been blocking traffic.  EastsideWife brought me tools, and I had it fixed fairly quickly after that. 

Record my wife wanted me to find arrived in the mail today (Tracy Chapman's self title album; has "Fast Car" on it). Ordered it from Germany to get one at a reasonable price.

Turns out, it was pressed in the DDR (German Democratic Republic) - East Germany.

I think that's cool and nifty. I'm slightly surprised that East Germany pressed records by a black American musician. Especially given subjects and titles of some of these tracks.

My son's friend's Dad passed away several months ago, and now the friend's family would like to get Dad's 1958 Willys FC-170 running again.  It had been restored about 10 years ago, but hasn't been driven in 4 or 5 years, so my son and I volunteered to get it going again.  Got it flat-bedded to my place Saturday, swapped in a spare battery and replaced the broken carb float with another one stored in the truck, and had it driving a couple hours later.  Apparently that broken float is what kept it parked for years.  Everyone is excited for it to be running again.

The rest of Saturday and part of Sunday, the boys (my son, 15, the friend, 14, and the friend's brother, 12) lubed the chassis, changed the oil, topped up the trans, transfer case, and diffs, and we have another dozen or so things to look at.

The primary minor win was spending time with the boys working on it.  They were truly engaged.  The secondary minor win was that it wasn't more challenging to get going.

One of the few jeeps I would love to own.  Forward Controls are weird enough for me to overlook the jeep stereotype.

As for my own win, I am never again going back to the local DMV office.  Even though it is only 10 minutes away, I have always hated how rude and curt they are there.  Because of Covid, I had to travel across the state to title and register my boat and trailer,  the people working there were actually very nice and helpful!  Technically I should not have been able to even register the trailer as I did not have a Notary stamped bill of sale to go with the NY title and Registration, but the guy let it slide.  The people working the local office would have never let that happen.

Finally found a copy of an old CD I did, it was a pain but that's more a rant than anything so I'll stay with the win.

I forgot how much I liked this album. I was vastly less experienced than I am now so it was interesting hearing the note choices and such. We even did a couple of acoustic songs, which to date are the only acoustic songs I've recorded. It was done live without overdubs on any instruments and I forgot how much energy that conveys. I even sang backing vocals.

I'm pretty proud of it, even if it was 15 years ago now

I turn another year older next month and my family has been pestering me to give them ideas about what I want for a gift.   Well, I both have almost everything I needs or want and the act of asking me that question makes my brain go "I've never wanted anything, ever in my entire existence."

Imagine my surprise when I look on eBay this morning and see the Miata 3.6 diff I've been looking for to "complete" the turbo car build.  I share it to my family chat, thinking that they would laugh at my wanting an expensive and old car part.

Well they laughed, and went in together to buy it for me!  Awesomeness 

(it's also getting a RB front sway bar and FM frame rails directly.  This car should be stupidly good when complete.)

My goal for the day was to till the garden again since everything I'd planted froze to death. Expected a half day at least, despite having it professionally tilled. 20 minutes!!

This also saves me $2500, because I'd been planning on buying a garden tractor with a tiller.

Loaner vehicle while the WRX is getting warranty work done (insert subaru joke here) is an Outback XT. My RT660s came in and I wanted to get them mounted ASAP, so I'm glad I was given a loaner that could fit 4 wheels :) 

Half day at work. Finally getting the recommended medical procedure this afternoon. Supposed to help me avoid surgery or at least buy me some years. And I think imma pick up some flatwounds for the new ibby. 
I mean, I hate needles, but overall this should be a good thing. And at the very least it gets me out of work early!