Buenas!
Happy end of Thursday. 😊
I suppose you could say that I took it easy today. I still worked like 12-14 hours, but it was a less frantic pace, which was rather nice.
I got two of the dud cell phones shipped back today. I got some labor claims typed up and submitted for AutoZone. I stopped by to visit a longtime customer. (I was going to visit her yesterday, since I was having David do the work. I at least wanted to say hi, so she didn’t feel neglected that I personally wasn’t there. We chatted for a good bit.
What else… I warranty swapped some tools at Harbor Freight. I returned things to AZ and O’reilly’s. I bought some stuff at Walmart (still no milk though! By the time I got to Walmart tonight, it was closed because of the new Covid-19 hours. I need milk! Can’t carry it with me all day… don’t finish work until stores are closed.).
Anyway… today was my first day of the new normal with David taking Thursdays and Fridays off. It’s easier and harder at the same time: It’s easier because I’m not trying to get everything arranged for two people, but it’s harder being the only guy for everything.
So what did I actually do As far as cars are concerned today?
Uhhhhh….
Oh yeah. I helped a gentleman finish removing and installing a fuel pump in his truck. Unfortunately, the person who tested it and told him it was bad apparently didn’t know what they were doing because it was fine. Went to start it up, and… nothing. I checked for power at the pump. None. If I jumped the fuel pump relay, still nothing. So… apparently, the issue is between the fuse block and the pump. There could also be a ground problem. There weren’t any issues until after a guy wired in a hitch, I think. Poor guy. Fixed income. Lots of money to waste on a bad diagnosis.
I’m falling asleep deeply enough as I write this that I’m dreaming 🙃
Anyway, after that, it was a gentleman with a power steering leak needing to be diagnosed. I’ll repair it tomorrow. Then there was a big F700 truck (I don’t usually work on those big things, and it was a diesel, too, which I certainly don’t work on, but he really needed help). It was out in the middle of nowhere, and parts were gonna be a pain (25 year old medium-duty old truck), but I went out anyway. I didn’t even think about it being a diesel until I’d already agreed to take the job, so I knew it could be a shot in the dark.
I got lucky this time.
He didn’t, though 🙁
I was able to figure out pretty quickly that the flywheel was toast, and a major repair was needed to get back on the road. Funny enough, the owner had called a bunch of different companies trying to get someone, and was having no luck, but he got me. I guess he got another guy as well because 15 minutes or so after I got there, another company showed up. 🙃
The tech from the other company was a heavy-duty truck technician, but fortunately this was something I could diagnose on my own. I think the owner ended up paying both companies for the service calls, though. I don’t think it was that big of a deal, though, as it looked like he paid me out of a wad of $100s when he paid me the $96 and change it was for the service call.
Anyway… after that, I was near the house of another one of my longtime customer’s who also needed work done on his son’s car, so I swung by and did a freebie diagnostic for him just as the thunderstorm was rolling in. He and his wife fed me dinner (which my mom will be happy about), and we chatted world and politics stuff for a bit before I went home, failing on my way home in my attempt to buy milk.
So that’s the daily run down.
Oh, I made a tentative plan for my cardio exercise. 😎
I’m gonna start getting up at 6:30 now, I think (the sun is waking me up about then anyway right now, so the earlier I can get to bed, the better).
Years ago, I invented (I’m sure someone else thousands of years ago beat me to the punch, but…) servicize. Get your exercise while doing service for other people. Yard work is a great avenue for that. So, that’s what I’ll do for my cardio work. Feel free to picture me frantically cutting down trees with an ax, running back and forth through the forest gathering up the dead wood off the forest floor–same thing with rocks (gathering them up from off the forest floor and running about with them). Digging trenches… contouring the driveway by hand… etc. All at a pace that is fast enough to be a good cardiovascular workout. Should be fun. And efficient. And productive.
So much more good can be done if the daily exercise routine is also a service for someone else (or even yourself).
It’s double dipping in a good way. 😊
Take care of your body. Take care of someone else.
Servicize 😁
And I signed up for Match.com.
After I got home, I went up to Liz’s place and chatted with my nephew for a bit. He’s in med school at the Mayo Clinic, and he’s got a major career-defining test he is going to take next week, so we chatted about that for a while. Just a week ago, he was frantically trying to get the test scheduled. He’d had it canceled on him multiple times because of Covid-19 or other wacky things (one of the testing centers even burnt down), and he had to be creative to even get something scheduled.
What else… The last shipment of laundry detergent got in, so that rounded out our year supply of that stuff. And we have an extra box on top of that because I didn’t realize I’d already stored another one in a different place… so we might actually have a year and a half supply now (11 boxes… 102 loads each… 1100 loads a year? Three per day?
So… if the apocalypse comes. Yeah… we’ll have clean clothes.
So there! 😎
Okay okay, yes, I made a profile on Match.com today and started… looking around…
(sigh)
Dating.
Ugh.
And online, too. 😬
Oh well! 😁
Gotta get back in the game sometime somehow. I’m thinking I might just take this as an opportunity to practice. Get used to going on regular dates again without anything serious. It’s been so long since I’ve had any sort of regular fun in my life that I’m actually serious when I say I’ve forgotten how to have fun. I know I mentioned it not too long ago, but I don’t know if y’all knew that I was actually serious about it… not just a way of expressing that I work too much. I literally… For so many years, I haven’t done much at all of the things I love to do… I just don’t remember how to do it anymore and not think about all the work I have to do and the husks I have, and then there’s that running away part as well.
It’s really screwed up. I can’t ever let work just be “over there.” It’s always right up in my face, and I’m so focused on getting back to where I was (and beyond) financially, getting to the point where my financial investments produce enough income for me to live off of, that any break from that feels wrong.
I’ve seriously forgotten how to have guilt-free leisure time. 😶
Gotta fix that.
Gotta.
I go and go and go and go until I’m so beaten down and overwhelmed that the breaks force themselves on me, but there’s always so much to do that the breaks are never really totally free feeling.
Anyway… so… as I think I’ve said before, all work and no play makes for a boring stephen. I know how to work, and I know how to serve, and I’m good at both. But fun? Leisure? I used to be fabulous at those things. I was the guy who was always on adventures and had all these amazing stories, and now?
Well… Not many good stories in these journal entries yet, not that they’re bad, but a mechanic’s life isn’t really that exciting.
At least I’ve been getting my crap together lately.
Speaking of which… still kicking strong!
32, 40, 31, 5
Aaaaaaand, gratitude!
#1. I’m grateful that Harbor Freight gave me a much nicer ratchet since they didn’t have one of the ones I was warranty swapping out. I needed the one swapped, and I needed to buy the other one because I’d lost it somewhere on one of my jobs, but since they didn’t have what I needed to warranty swap the first, they just gave me the second, a much nicer one, free.
Yee haw. 😊
#2. I’m grateful to be able to build good relationships with my clients, such that they feel comfortable hanging out, inviting me to dinner. Heavens, I even had one of them ask if I was interested in going into business with him.
I like people 😊
#3. I’m grateful that I felt better today. I’ve gotten so used to feeling bad (physically), that I didn’t realize how bad it’s been lately. As I was driving down the road today, at first I was like, “I feel great!” Then it donned on me… stephen, what you’re feeling is what normal is. You’ve just been screwed up for so long you’ve forgotten.
How true it is!
I’m about to fall over the edge again right now, actually…
#5. I’m grateful that I’m gonna be in bed right about midnight. It’s gonna be raining in the morning when I get up, but I’m gonna start my exercising tomorrow, unless I can’t turn this messed up body around tonight. I’m gonna start small, but I am gonna start, and one more little thing is gonna go up on that ticker.
Well, peeps, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy it and find something useful and/uplifting for you.
Wish me luck with the world of online dating. This boy is back 🙃.
Good night, peeps.
~ stephen
Lift the World 