2022-10-12 — Must Eat More

It’s pretty shocking how much weight I’ve lost. I didn’t really notice until today when I saw myself in the mirror and was like… 😶😶😶

It’s amazing how quickly things turn. I stop eating the junk again, and then I just… don’t eat much at all because I’m so busy and stressed all the time, and bada bing, bada boom… you can call me Mr. Rail.

Anyway, a bit better day today for me. The phones were dead, so we actually didn’t go out to fix any cars today. Instead, I worked on to-do-list stuff. I paid a nephew of mine to come over and help me get a bunch of things done. He trimmed the dead branches off the tree that’s directly outside our kitchen window. It’s been dying for a couple of years now, though it made an attempt at a resurgence this year. But there were several unhappy and dead branches closer to the ground that were a bit of an eye sore from the kitchen window, so he first fixed our old extension ladder. Then he trimmed those up.

I also had him clean all the leftover goo off the sides and back of my backup and backup-to-the-backup vans. You know the sticky stuff that gets left on after taking stickers off? Yeah, that stuff. It was all over my extendo-candy van, as it used to be a Baptist church van. The other van was a plumber’s van, but they’ve both had their goo removed, so now their ready to… paint. Just gonna do a quick Rustoleum paint job on the candy van to get it looking at least somewhat more presentable.

I pulled out the rest of the interior panels today and the rest of the headliner. It’s a louder ride now, but it’s gonna be better, I think, overall. There’s more space, and it’s brighter inside (it’s all white now instead of black panels and disintegrating headliner.

I’m regretting having cut out the door holder thingies. I unbolted them so we could get Austin’s motorcycle into the back, but then I thought it was nice to have the doors be able to swing wider. What I didn’t realize was how floppy they’d be without their little holders. And now those holders have been cut in half, so… oops. 🙃 There was no way to remove them from the vehicle without cutting them apart, at least not that I could see.

Anyway, the van has been cleared of all the old panels. The interior lights have been zip tied neatly to the top. I think I’m going to unplug the lights, though, as they’re the old style that drain batteries down. Can’t have that. Nope. Nope. Nope.

What else… I cut out the rusty sections of the body on the bttbv (Backup to the backup van). It’s ready to be repaired and pressed into service, I guess. Needs a few important things, but it’ll get there.

I got the area by the driveway a lot cleaner, and Hunter took the trash up to the dumpster. I also got my tools organized a little more.

At some point, a gentleman from Missouri called me. He’d come down to Springdale to trade his car for a motorcycle, telling the guy beforehand that he wasn’t going to have money to pay for gas for the trip home, so he was calling around to see if he could sell a clutch he had for $20 in order to get some gas money.

Poor guy.

He was an older guy, diabetic, losing the feeling in his legs, didn’t have his insulin with him… So I drove all the way down to Springdale, gave him the $20 for the clutch, plus an extra $10.

Have no idea what on earth I’m going to do with a clutch for a 2004 Infiniti, or whatever it’s for. 🙃 But that wasn’t really the point, right?

Lift the world?

Anyway, I think he was grateful, especially when I gave him more money than he was asking. Nice to be able to help.

In other news, my brother in law who I thought was going to be able to fix my Genie has been kept so busy that he hasn’t been able to, so I went over and asked my hill brother Jim if I could pay him to take care of it, and he said yes, so hopefully we can get that thing fixed soon and be ready to go.

Went to the hardware store with Stevie to buy some chainsaws, but they didn’t know how to start them, and I didn’t want to mess around, so we decided to come back in the morning when the Stihl guy will be there. That way we’re set to go with someone who’s a Stihl expert.

Expensive chainsaws. Gonna be nearly $2500 for the pair, I think. 😶

I’m certainly not going into this business like I usually do. I’m usually a bootstrapper. With this, not so much. I’m just plunking down money here, money there, money everywhere.

Well, folks. It’s time for me to bail and go to bed. It’s after midnight, and life is crazy busy, and I have a lot I need to get done still. So much. New Zealand is a month from Friday!

Busy busy busy.

Love to all.

Lift the World

~ stephen