The "I'm in a damn good mood" Thread

I leave work to get on a plane in about an hour and a half. Haven't been home for 2 weeks. I'm only off for the weekends - back to 12hr night shifts Monday evening, but right now I am in a good mood.

Mike wrote: In 1995, I drove my basket case RX-7 to see an autocross an hour from home. I watched it, and loved it. I just needed to fix a few things on my car, and I'd be ready. I've needed to just fix a few things for a while. Got a good job a few years ago, but owned an SUV. Replaced it with something closer to the ground, but I needed to get a helmet. I went to an event Sunday, and couldn't think of a reason not to participate. I went home, pulled out the credit card, and now I'm signed up for November 8.

Last in HS, third from last overall, and more than ten seconds from the FTD, and I couldn't be happier. I dropped almost 18 seconds in my six runs. Someone let me ride along after lunch, and it helped change my perspective immensely regarding what attitude I should use. The ride really realigned my perspective on the sort of thing we were doing.

While turning up the aggression got me one cone each in the antepenultimate and penultimate runs, my final run was almost 18 seconds faster than my first.

I left the event seven hours ago, and I still haven't stopped grinning. I'm about to sign up for the next event.

Work has been crazy busy this week. I'm a consultant and I charge by the hour. This is a good thing.

Finally, after a month to the day of dropping it off for a tune, I have my car back! It drives better than ever so far. We'll see how it does on the 120+ mile round trip commute tomorrow. There was an issue during the initial ECU flash and they locked/fried the ECU. They had to procure another one and then flash that. The shop owned up to their mistake and did everything for no charge. I respect when a shop does admit their fault and do the right thing, so props to them.

Just went shopping for potatoes to put in the crock pot for dinner. Wound up spending $114 on staple goods (new pantry, must fill it!). While cruising the aisles I was stopped by a little old lady (5', 90 lbs, 1,000 years old) wanting to tell me some tidbit of information about a canned juice. Well, she turned out to be really cool with an amazing array of experiences she wanted to share. Pretty clearly she wanted to talk to someone. So we chatted in an aisle of the store for a solid half hour.

I hope some young lady is as accommidating when I'm elderly and wanting to talk.

Set out this morning to get the Blazer's front hubs replaced- and for once things actually went pretty much as planned and got both done in a bit over 3 hours. It's nice when things actually go well!

even though I'm still losing weight at 2-3lb per a week, I feel like it's due to the dietary restrictions and not calorical energy being used by the cancer. My energy level is increasing and for the first time since about March, I feel healthy. Healthy, motivated and ready to take on new challenges.

fantastic

captdownshift wrote: even though I'm still losing weight at 2-3lb per a week, I feel like it's due to the dietary restrictions and not calorical energy being used by the cancer. My energy level is increasing and for the first time since about March, I feel healthy. Healthy, motivated and ready to take on new challenges.

Now i'm in a good mood too, carry on Cap'n.

Da Boss asked me if I wouldn't mind going out to his dad's shop after work to see why his Solstice wasn't running right.

TLA overload: His dad yanked the LNF in favor of an LS3 and TR6060 and the swap is now in the final 10% that takes 90% of the time. One of these items that hasn't been dealt with is the exhaust.

The trans tunnel in a Solstice was designed to take a single exhaust pipe on the right side, and a little Aisin-Warner trans. A TR6060 is gigundous, has cooler lines, and there is a whole lot of mass on the LEFT side, which is also the side where the original exhaust DIDN'T go.

When we were leaving, I opined to Da Boss, who has previously given me all SORTS of fun problems to solve, that I was VERY happy that for once, that particular packaging problem is NOT MINE to solve.

I'm in the last hour of my last 11.5 hour workday this week. I have the next 4 days off from work. I've needed a break for a while now. I am indeed in a GREAT mood....

Packers won.

RELAX

Just got word that the M3 will be at Greer SC for performance center re-delivery on Dec. 10.

Mashed sweet potatoes with andouille sausage and pecans is awesome

It's been a month since I quite my auto parts manager job of 11 years and went into the world of manufacturing. Now I wonder why the hell I waited so long to get out of retail. Less stress, more time off, better benefits. Heck, I've gotten more done the past 3 weekends than I have the past 6 months! Not to mention my migraines have all but gone away.

I did retail a little bit when I got out of the service ... realized it wasn't for me ... eventually I ended up in manufacturing ... after many yrs of eng. tech work ... surveying then electronics bench tech ... plus in and out of the food service business through out the yrs (always something I could fall back on) ... yeah, manufacturing, what little there is left in this country is the way to go ... at least for me ...

sounds like it's also good for you ... hope it holds up down the road ...

Good luck you guys. Glad manufacturing is still alive and kickin'.

Had over 30 years in industrial plants, it's our bread n butter. Last plant of four years was four too many, took a wrong turn there. Told the maintenance boss and the super when I went in that I had sworn off industry, feast or famine kinda stuff but I signed on anyway. What a berkeleying zoo.

Sticking to my trades now. No more production calls, shady maintenance practices or we are all equal cuz union.

I make steam for the governmink now and that's all I do. Hope this lasts into retirement. Never done retail but if I wanna easy button into retirement I could sell at Beer World all day long.

It's pretty cool. I'm actually on the warranty repair side of things so it's not like I'm stuck on the assembly doing the same thing over and over. We build gearboxes for industrial equipment (mainly for conveyor belt systems) and our main unit is a cyclo disc reduction box which is very similar to a rotary engine. The only downfalls are that its a messy job, and no A/C in the shop.

And the biggest perk is that this place has an actual pention plan as well as a good 401k program. I can actually retire from this place!

So today, for the first time in a quarter century, I have my high school class ring back.

I had given it to a young lady I was "going with" back in '91. We went on a vacation together to Cape Cod but being a long distance sort of thing we parted ways soon after. Thoughts of her and my ring would drift by every couple of years as such things do but I had no way to get in touch. Until she friended me a few months ago.....I asked about the ring and of course she didn't remember it at all.

Last week I got a FB message from a secretary at my old HS here in Kentucky telling me what happened. Apparently, young lady in question had lost my ring at the beach on Cape Cod. A few years later an older gentleman with a metal detector found it, took it home and put it in a box for a decade. Then he developed Alzheimer's and went to a nursing home in 2008 or so. His wife, going through his stuff, found my ring and noting the name engraved inside decided to return it to it's rightful owner. She mailed it to my high school where they apparently had no valid address or phone number (I lived 20 miles away in the next town, good job guys) so it went into a filing cabinet for the next 7 years. Last month the secretary finally tried something new and typed my name into facebook and sure enough, it was me! Last night when I got home from work there was a padded envelope containing my LOOOONG lost class ring.

Of course it's a class ring from 1989 so it's going to go into a box on my dresser until I die but at least it's mine again!

In reply to KyAllroad:

Dude, that's an awesome story!

Just got back from BMW Performance Center in Greer SC where I picked up my new M3.

Some work days are bad. Some work days are tough. Today wasn't bad at all.

All I can say...It's Friday, I should be out by 3, a new German themed brewery opened new the office and the motorcycle is in the parking lot (For a MI rider, this is huge. Mid Dec?)

In reply to Grtechguy:

We are getting up to 70 today. Wish I had a bike.