Today was a bit of deja vu from my nightmare day yesterday.
I spent part of the morning continuing to help with getting everything prepared so that Ms Karen from yesterday could get taken care of today.
I went and picked up the CV axle bearing and intermediate shaft assembly from the O’Reilly’s in Bentonville and drove it up to Miguel’s shop in Bella Vista.
I explained to their lead mechanic what all I had done and what needed to happen, and then I spent the next few hours talking to Miguel, both about my life, and about the future of our two businesses.
Miguel’s a good friend. I chatted with his partner as well, And she was super supportive as well.
I’ve been struggling so much lately.
Finally got the gumption to go to my first job about 3:00ish. And I had a deja vu experience. I started working on the brake job that he needed, but the whole system was so rusted together that I had to take a sledgehammer to get the brake pads off. I spent I don’t know how long chipping away the rust.
Nothing that I did could get the rotors off, though. They were so rusted on there that all the beating that I did with the sledgehammer didn’t move them even a millimeter. And apparently Ford or whoever made those rotors decided not to put the normal threaded holes through the rotor that allow you to pop rusted on rotors off fairly simply. You should just be able to screw in a couple of bolts, and alternate tightening them back and forth until it pops the rotor off the hub. But no, of course not. Rough job.
Like I mentioned before, I just don’t have the resilience anymore.
I’m thread bare.
This time, though, instead of beating myself to death trying to get it taken care of, I gave it a reasonable amount of time, and then I just called it.
Even though I was more reasonable, I was still completely frazzled. Like I said, thread bear. Nothing left. No ability to withstand almost any level of adversity right now.
Gratefully, as opposed to the lady last night, this gentleman was amazing about it, even in the middle of going through a super rough patch in his own life.
Grateful for him.
After that job, I drove to Fayetteville to do a belt job on a Mazda 3. I should have bought the belt ahead of time, but I didn’t, so I went all the way out to the car, verified that all it needed was a belt, then drove all the way to the parts supplier, and then all the way back to the car.
The belt job was a pain as well, but mostly just because I’m not familiar with that engine, so I didn’t know the trick to making it easier. Engines are fit so tightly on that you need special tools nowadays oftentimes just to even get a belt off because there’s no room to actually put a regular tool in there to get the belt off, even specialized tools that I used to use.
This one actually didn’t need a specialized tool, I just wasn’t familiar with the easy way of getting it off, so I fought with it and fought with it and finally figured out the easy way of doing it, and then it was relatively straightforward and easy. 🙃
By the time I got finished, it was after 8:00, I think, so I got home around 9:00ish, I think. I sent a friend of mine a text message asking how he was doing.
A few minutes later, I got a phone call from his wife.
My first thought was that maybe they were together but she had his phone, and that was quickly followed by the thought that maybe he had died.
She confirmed the latter. 😞
She told me that he passed away a couple of weeks ago, likely from a massive heart attack.
😞
John was one of my earliest customers. We became friends fairly quickly, though It wasn’t like go out and do things together friends. Just talked here and there and I fixed his cars and whatnot and occasionally visited him at his house… But still… We were friends.
Sad day.
Reminds me that I need to make a will so that no one has to try and figure out what to do with my assets should I pass unexpectedly.
Rough times.
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 