Minor Win thread - Life is good!

Normally when I get a Pkg from a customer the first thing I do after it's unpacked is toss out the box and assorted packing material because I have my own return packaging. For whatever reason this one box has been sitting in my shop since April. When I went through our correspondence to make sure I got the order right I realized I somehow missed the line where he said included in the box is an envelope with a money order for the parts and return shipping. I looked in the box and it there it was, as obvious as can be. How I managed to both miss it in the correspondence and the box I don't know. But it wouldn't have been funny if I'd thrown it out. 

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Huge minor win, really.

I still haven't gotten over the time the professional petrochemical transfer technician filled my 11.2:1 hot rod with regular, then swore at me when I wasn't satisfied with the offer of a half-pint bottle of octane booster.

Nor have I forgotten the time a similarly skilled and equally unhinged attendant tried to fill my tank through the upper strut mount, then threatened arson when I joked that maybe I should take him up on his offer to let me do it myself.

It's great to be an adult, and it's even better to be treated like one.

I made udon from raw noodles for the first time today, and they kicked all the ass.

A house went on market in a great neighborhood, in our price range, and meets our needs (and then some, friggin 3 car garage!) 

it's not perfect, and it needs a few things, but nothing I can't manage. 
 

In conclusion, we just put our very first real estate offer in. Fingers crossed. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

Good luck!  It sounds awesome

I was heavily involved in building an e30 road race car for a couple of friends.  They bought lots of good parts, plus one that I questioned when we installed it.

The gearshift kit is some magic boy racer high quality short throw solid mount aluminum assembly, and I really don't think a short throw, narrow gate shifter belongs in a road race car. You don't want to have to focus on finding the right gate.  Just shove the lever a couple of inches ahead, back or sideways, and there's the correct gear. They ran a couple of events last year, two more this year.  They came home after the fourth race, ordered a bushing kit for the stock shifter, installed it and headed off to Calgary, where they were immediately a second a lap faster, on old tires.

Two minor  wins, I guess.  They are faster, and I was right.

First and firstmostly, it's way past time to get the AW11 back in rotation. It's been down for a very long time with what I assume is a bad crank position sensor, but sometimes those are only mostly dead. This morning I threw the battery back in the car and took a chance, and the old beast fired right up and settled into a nice Detroit Diesel style surging idle, just like the good old days. Didn't even smoke. I backed it into the driveway before it changed its mind and moved on to the next task.

I genuinely struggle to find time and especially motivation to deal with yard work. It's not something I enjoy or am even remotely interested in, let alone good at. Still, out of overwhelming shame and desperation (two things I actually am good at), I managed to spray a bunch of trouble spots with the vinegar/soap/salt cocktail promoted in the scorched earth weed killer thread, then pulled a few low branches off our big cedar, got the lawn mowed, and finally took all the yard crap to the yard crap dropoff. So at least we have slightly less biomass on the premises. And, in the process, the old J20 earned some compliments.

After a short nap - which is a minor win in and of itself - I decided I had had just about enough of the old window shaker a/c unit in our bedroom. It cools well enough, but moans like a Reliant K with a dead hole and an exhaust system that walked off the job sometime during the Clinton administration. This afternoon we finally replaced that with a different unit that required some adaptation, but we achieved a "good enough for who it's for" install and nobody got hurt. It's one of those jobs that usually kick my butt and make me resent taking it on, and today it didn't. It went alright. And the new unit, despite being purchased secondhand for cheap money and sort of stuffed in the whole rather than properly insulated and isolated like a guy might do if he wasn't rushed, is far, far quieter.

Time to see if I can get me some sleep. Benadryl, take me away...

A broken off below the surface exhaust stud came out of the Datsuns head today with like 10 minutes of drilling/heating/using a bolt extractor. I couldn't believe it. I've been hyping up for this fight for weeks

Always good to have another 14 months of headroom (I do my emissions test as early as legally allowed).

a win in two parts.

part 1. on saturday morning i noticed that my drivers license wasn't in my wallet.  this wigged me out because i *never* take it out without putting it back.  sunday evening while putzing around the garage, i remembered that i put my DL in my fanny pack when i went out for a run Thursday morning.  check fanny pack:  DL located.

part 2. while wigged out over missing DL, i logged on to the Secretary of State website to start the replacement process.  SoS said "it expires in 4 months, why not renew instead of replace?"  So that's what i did.  cost $18 and i don't have to go to the SoS.

Accepted a job offer yesterday. It's a very similar role to what I did at my previous job, which is what I was looking for, and with a not insignificant increase in pay to boot. Everyone I've interacted with so far has been terrific. Feeling pretty good about this!

In reply to Furious_E (Forum Supporter) :

Congratulations on the new job and raise.

The vegetable garden is really starting to crank out the goods. Yesterday Mrs Monohue picked a bunch of maters and made three pints of sauce. Tonight some of that sauce went into a lasagne, along with more from the garden in the form of some zucchini, baby bell peppers, and another Cherokee Purple tomato sliced in for good measure. I ate so much I just about anchored myself to the chair...

"I don't care if they are more expensive! They do the job right the first time and that's cheaper in the long run." 

Overheard by an employee while at a customer's office. Said by a maintenance manager talking to his GM. 

Maybe people are starting to understand the true cost of cheap and the actual value of quality.

In reply to Toyman! :

It's a race to the bottom out there isn't it?  Competitors are bidding work cheaper, paying people less - which means getting unqualified workers, and providing a poor work product.

You seem to have built your business on quality of work, treating your employees well, communication, and not being the cheapest but instead being the best.  Congratulations on getting to where you are. 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

I had to call my insurance agent a couple months back and when he called me back he was apologizing because the local cable company who they used for the office phones was having some problems and all their phones were nonfunctional.  I joked with him that I worked for a company that's owned by the local phone company and that naturally I would expect nothing else from our competitor!  He responded that they used to use us but went to the competitor because they were cheaper.  He didn't have a good answer when I asked how that was going for him.

In reply to Toyman! :

Let us hope.

My employer also puts an emphasis on quality. It's been working out for him since 1904.

barefootcyborg5000 said:

A house went on market in a great neighborhood, in our price range, and meets our needs (and then some, friggin 3 car garage!) 

it's not perfect, and it needs a few things, but nothing I can't manage. 
 

In conclusion, we just put our very first real estate offer in. Fingers crossed. 

We didn't get it. Can't compete when folks are making cash offers 50k over asking. The hunt continues!

My GF and I made a deal that we would start eating healthier after the kitchen was put back together. Not having a sink or stovetop really limits what you can cook. It sucked, to put it lightly.

Our diet was horrible. Lots of fast food and pizza. Almost every meal was delivered. My personal demon is portion control. I must eat all the things. 

We started the new diet on July 21st. I have not had ANY fast food since then, save for one cheat meal of Five Guys.

I started out at 236lbs, which is the heaviest I've ever been. I weighed myself today and am at 226lbs. 10lbs in just over a month! My goal is to get back down to 185lbs, which is what I weighed when I got out of the Air Force in 2017. The GF is down 12lbs. She's doing great. She keeps me honest and I keep her motivated. 

Yesterday at 1630, I placed an order with Summit Racing for a pair of SFI-rated driving shoes and 12qts of ATF Type F for the Saab.  Today at 1130, the box containing those items was on my porch.  I paid zero dollars for shipping, so that was just the regular free economy shipping option.  Damn, guys - customer for life now!

In reply to wae :

Summit has a deal with UPS and FedEx for them to leave trailers at their stores, and Summit employees do the legwork of loading.  The carrier drops off an empty trailer and picks up a new one a couple times a day.

Your stuff was probably boxed, labeled, and loaded on the carrier's trailer within a half hour.  If you were lucky, this was just before the trailer got picked up to be taken to the distribution center, and so forth.

Summit sells OE level replacement parts too, it was often faster for us to order from Summit than through our normal suppliers like NAPA.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Nearest Summit store to me is in Sparks, Nevada. It's a rare day that shipping takes longer than 48 hours.

I finally used the quick jacks we bought in January, even if it was only to see how high it goes. The truck can use the "truck adapters" so it lifts crazy high- this is the first safety block. Amazing!

Picked up a pressure washer for free because it didn't run. Pulled and cleaned the spark plug, drained the old gas, added fresh gas and a touch of seafoam. Started on the second pull, warmed right up, and made pressure.

I'm 60YO and have a puritan level talent for depriving myself of good stuff. I'm happy to say that my son isn't so strident. He just bought a clean 2011 Mercedes C63 AMG.

Boy, what a cool car! It's got a lovely V8 rumble, heaps of power (451) a great interior with most modern amenities and handles very well to boot. His last toy was a BMW 335i and this feels about the same in terms of scoot, but it handles better and is more refined. Great fun!