2021-12-04 — Inspection X3

Good evening, and happy Saturday to you!!! 😊

I’ve been dragging today–not emotionally, really, just… tired. But I’m good. Solid right now.

I’m still trying to get my routine figured out as far as sleep is concerned, which is why I’m tired–that, and I’m still not getting to bed at 8:30. It’s usually 9, so I’m losing a half hour there. What I wouldn’t give to be one of those people who could thrive on five.

But, I’m getting my routines more solidly down, diet more solidly down, I’m doing a good bit better with self discipline, and once I’ve gotten to the place where my diet and routines are solidly down, then I’ll be better equipped to know how much sleep I really need to be at peak performance (which I don’t feel like I’ve been at since probably early teenage years… blasted pot. I think I can trace my brain getting more foggy to right around that time maybe. I used to have a super sharp mind. Then… not sure what happened. Brain fog is the climate nowadays. Anyway… moving on. 🙃)

Squirrel!

So! I’m getting things together, and that’s super good. 😊 I got up on time again today. I’m kicking trash with that part of the routine. In fact, I plowed through my morning routine rather well today, just like yesterday.

I made a new metta meditation recording and have listened to that a bit during the day today. I got some important tax stuff done, pushing through on some stuff I didn’t want to do. I rocked my cold shower, though not as amazingly as yesterday. 🙃 It felt colder today. 🥶 But I did it. I timed it today to get an idea of how long I’m in the super cold (I don’t do a hot shower first. I just push the head to the side, climb in the shower, and no hesitation, just take a deep breath to begin the mind over body effort, grab the shower head, and boom.

I hold my breath for a little bit with the freezing water gushing all over my body. Then I, as controlled as I can make it, breathe out. Then a 4 second breath in, 7 second hold, 8 second exhale. Over and over and over and over.

I’m working on mind over cold, not just the discipline to get in and deal with it, but the effort to actually train my mind how I want it to perceive the cold.

It’s amazing how powerful the mind can be, blocking sensations, changing sensations, etc.

Anyway, moving on–again. Did a little nonprofit stuff, though for the life of me, I can’t remember what I did. I just know I did it?

It was really hard to go out and work on cars today. I was grateful, though, when I realized the first job was actually one that was going to need to go to a shop, so that was nice to get that off the schedule. It was far away and not a quick job.

So I did 3.5 jobs today, and today, apparently, was inspection day. Usually I do a pre-purchase inspection maybe once a month or so? I did three today. First job was a 2015 VW Golf STI that had low coolant and a couple of air intake vacuum codes (which on that car can be a really big deal. The way the engine is designed on those, if the pressure inside the crankcase gets too far one way because the vacuum is off, it can actually blow out the rear main seal! 😶

Yeah.

And that VW had two of those codes. There wasn’t a leak at the rear main that I could see, but there’s no way I’d recommend he buy the car without doing a vacuum leak test and checking to see if the rear main was bad. At a minimum, he’d probably need to replace the valve cover, and that’d probably be $700 ish.

Second car I inspected was a 2016 Hyundai Accent, and the coolant was so low that there was none in the overflow, and I couldn’t see any under the radiator cap or down the hoses.

Huge red flag. The woman didn’t quite understand what I was explaining to her (which I realized because she kept asking other questions about the car, so finally I was like, “I just want to be absolutely clear, don’t buy this car.“

Then she understood. 😊

Both the first two customers were super grateful.

The third one was inspecting a 2016 Hyundai Elantra, and that one was actually pretty decent. It had evidence of what I would guess would be minor accidents (hood gaps and bumper and headlight not lining up properly, rear brake light assembly not lined up properly, but no evidence of major damage that I could see. It also had a tinging sound inside the engine that might have been a pinging, but I couldn’t tell. I think they ended up being more interested in a Camry that the salesperson showed them while I was checking out the Elantra.

After that, I drove from Bentonville to Bella Vista, and did a diagnosis on one SUV and took a look at his van as well. He’s been a multi-repeat customer, and when it came time to pay me, I just wished him a merry Christmas and didn’t charge him. That was nice.

I was still dragging when i got home. I ate some dinner, and I watched a whole bunch of heartwarming YouTube videos of people just going out and doing wonderful things for people. Loved that. Really loved that. Makes the heart happy.

Time for bed. 8:22. Might almost perhaps just barely possibly make 8:30 bed time!

Daily Accountability

• Bed last night at 8:30: 8:45?
• Up at 3:30: 😎
• 5x5s: 😎
• Exercise: 😎
• Cold shower: 😎
• Meditation: 😎
• Breakfast: 😎
• NP Work: 😎
• Tax Work: 😎
• Lunch: Uh… No?
• Work done by 6: 😎
• Dinner: 😎
• Only truly healthy foods: Doing better and better.
• No Wasted Life: I’m gonna call those YouTube videos pure goodness. 😊
• No Distracted Driving: I’m getting better and better!
• Faced a Fear: Ugh!
• Tamed the tongue: 😎
• Bag of veggies: Breakfast veggies!!! 😎

I feel like I am making daily, noticeable progress, and I’m grateful and encouraged.

My love to all of you! 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen