Minor Win thread - Life is good!

I don't play much golf, it's not really fun unless I'm playing with friends who are also not serious about making the PGA. I'm on a business trip and my boss said at breakfast let's go play a round at Forest Hills which is the course that U of Augusta uses, what a nice course! And four of the 9 players didn't have professional aspirations so we were able to hack around.

In reply to chandler :

The reasons you mentioned are a big reason I never wanted to learn to play golf.  Everyone seems to have started playing when they were 8 and are very good.  They snicker and scoff at an absolute beginner.  Same with a lot of sports.  Even the rec league mens softball team I'm on.  It's crazy competitive for what is supposed to be a beer league.     

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

whale E36 M3 all the same!

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

That's why I only made it one season in beer league softball.  Too many people thinking there were MLB scouts there.

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

I always imagined golf was fun once you already knew how to play.

Getting there sounds boring and frustrating.

Duke said:

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

I always imagined golf was fun once you already knew how to play.

Getting there sounds boring and frustrating.

 

Eh, you already know HOW to play. Getting really good is the hard part. I just stay on the periphery and know I'm not playing every week or every month or every year and acknowledge I won't be good. It's pretty fun if you find people with a similar outlook.

When I was in high school I played golf poorly but occasionally enjoyed it. When I went to university, golf was an option for meeting our PE requirement.  I thought "great, now I can have someone actually teach me how to play golf".  Our golf instructor was also a football trainer. He taught golf as I would imagine he trained football players. I didn't enjoy it at all. Haven't picked up a club since.

Got lucky with an alignment at NTB. I figured I'd need a specialist shop to do my aftermarket steering setup but the closest ones are just out of town. NTB is a couple minutes away and could at least set the toe and I'll get the rest done in the fall before the first track outing.

Turns out the tech is a JDM enthusiast and really liked the RX-7 so he took the extra time to set the caster I specified. Corporate probably wasn't happy but I was still charged the $100 flat rate.

Golf is fun. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either too serious, or afraid they'll get made fun of. I don't play and haven't played in 7 years but that's because while it is fun, it is also expensive. 

My win tonight is that my package arrived a day early. An old digital recording station sent by an old band mate. Even bigger win was the SD card still in the thing. Bigger than that was the contents of the card. Our old tracks! I'm having trouble pulling them up, but I refuse to believe the info is gone. I couldn't actually access the files, kept saying "error". The file names are still there and visible, I think I just need to dig a bit harder. So cool to think I may soon have access to those sessions we poured so much of ourselves into. 

And along came a Spyder

In reply to NickD :

After hearing your one autocross report, this comes as no surprise.

One of my friends who has had multiple RX-7s, RX-8s, 944s, and C4s loves his little Toyota, so the sentiment is out there. 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I've codriven my friend Mark's four times, and have gotten my two highest ever finishes in it, so I was on the hunt. I guy I autocross with, who also races a Spyder, found this one at a used classic/sports car dealer he's done business with, and put me in touch. Two owners (and the last one only had it 6 months before health issues forced him to part with it), 98k miles, never driven in winter, garage-kept for the first 20 or so years of it's life, $7500. Tires have some weather-checking and the top is patched but doesn't leak. My friend pointed out, really if I put tires and a top on it, I could easily get $10-11k for it if I decide not to keep it. 

In reply to NickD :

Thats a hell of a deal.

Today I have a mixed bag of minor win and minor rant. In the interest of positive thinking, I will post it in this thread.

We got almost uninterrupted sleep last night, which is a change. Not totally uninterrupted, but almost.

Even normal summer temperatures cripple me, and we have a week-long heat wave starting tomorrow, so I got out this morning with the intention of mowing what's left of the lawn before it got hot. Today I did not give up before getting started. That's a win in and of itself.

Before attacking the lawn, I pushed the poor old dormant MR2 out of its spot and cleaned that area up so it looks less abandoned. The parking brake cables had not seized up, so it rolled. Unexpected minor win.

Moving that thing allowed me to shovel a bunch of silt and tree crap that had settled there into the truck, which started without issue despite getting driven monthly at best, and generally get the street in front of the house looking less terrible.

This all involved the use of the string trimmer and leaf blower, both of which alternate between greatness and recalcitrance. Today the leaf blower started easily and the string trimmer started eventually. Good enough. For some reason it needed a carb adjustment again, but it ran. Naturally, it ran out of string five minutes into the job, and then the feed mechanism fought me, but I won, and I finished the job.

The mower fought me like a son of a gun until I raised the deck one notch. Then it was happy. Good enough. This fifth-acre patch of weeds ain't ever gonna be a golf course. The yard is mowed.

Toward the end, Little Monohue came out to investigate. He ran the push broom on the front walk while I vacuumed up what I could with the mower. It was sweet. I mean, he does terrible work, but it's sweet that he wants to help.

I came indoors just after noon, filthy and tingling, disappointed in the state of the place, but satisfied that it's better now. Tomorrow I'll take the yard waste to the nice people who turn it into compost. I may even get the MR2 pushed into the driveway so it can go under the knife. If not, there's always October.

And now I get a nap.

I'm lying here in bed at midnight; im just about to close the laptop.

All my windows are open and the owls are hooting. There's a train in the yard in the distance, it's airhorn going off every minute or so. The nightlife insects are all singing. I've got a cat between my legs. All just like when I was a kid, it's all very tranquil.

Crony city manager has been ousted. Now onward to the November election (we do off year elections) and oust the three council members that caused this mess.

It's 102° today and the air is lousy with wildfire smoke, but I work in an air-conditioned office, and work wasn't even terrible today. I checked the mail when I got home and Little Monohue got a new book from Dolly Parton's imagination library. He came out to greet me and was all smiles when he collected his copy of How to Say Hello to a Worm. Coming up the walk, the exhaust from the living room A/C unit was blasting red-hot from the window vent - those BTUs have been removed from the house. And an hour later, we have some brats and homemade sauerkraut to get through.

The rain cooled us down to 97f, and I don't even mind the 80%. Perfect timing for a jam session I've been trying to make happen with my cousin. The guy is the reason I picked up a guitar all those years ago and we've always been close. Tonight we were out in the shed pretending to be nirvana just like we did 20 years ago, except this time I was on drums. Also my first jam session playing drums ever. Double win. And the special heads and cymbals mean he was using an acoustic and we could still hear to talk. I don't know if he knows how much I needed that. 

It looks like I will be gainfully employed again soon, and not only is it a great group of people to work with from the techs to the service advisors to the owner, the shop is 10 minutes closer to home AND it is a quarter mile away from the Batcave.

I figure I'll be saving $100-150 a month just in driving less

I have a lot more words for win but those are mostly private.  People I've talked to about this in person know.

got this truck topper for free, it opens on both sides and the back. plus my truck still looks like a work truck so I get to take unauthorized shortcuts still

I thought my fuel pump went  out randomly over the winter.  Hoped to throw a pump in it and take it to the dream cruise this weekend (WORKING AC!)

This is the fuel pump harness.  It resides inside the fuel tank.  Minor win that the car still exists I suppose, though I'm about done with this thing.  

Today I didn't hurt anywhere at all. 

For the last two years I've hurt somewhere enough to slow me down somehow.  Minor aches and pains here and there before that.

Had a very productive day today.

Must be a fluke, I'll probably pay double tomorrow. 

pennywise posted this on their fb. I said this. I got these. If you know, you know. 

As mentioned in the boating thread, I've owned a little 16 foot sailboat since 1983.  When it's not in the water it lives on an equally old trailer under the front deck of the summer house.  The water's only 60 ish feet away down a slight hill so with a little help I can launch and recover it without a vehicle.  Which is a good thing because island = no road or vehicles.

When we launched it back in June I noticed the tires were pretty dry rotted, like rubber strips peeling off the sidewalls and I can see the cords dry rotted. Not shocking as they could be over 50 years old so I picked up some replacement wheels and tires.  I loaded up my impact gun and sockets too as things looked pretty crusty in the lug nut department.  This morning we set up to do battle.

The minor win?  21 year old me must have had the forethought to put some anti-seize on the lugs.  I hit them with some penetrating oil for good luck and as crusty as they looked all 8 came off with almost zero effort.  I was done and the trailer back under the house in under 15 minutes.  Now if we could just turn the sun on for a bit....

You can now pump your own gas in Oregon.

 Win for the same reasons I use the self checkout at the grocery store.

 But also because of that time the nozzle fell out of the 2002 and I noticed when the tide of fuel ran across my side of the car. Don't know how many gallons I was sitting above.

 Or the time an attendant couldn't get the nozzle to sit how he wanted, so he jammed it right through the back of the NLA rubber filler and started filling the trunk.

 Rare, and not a problem with most vehicles, but I'm happy to take over this task.