Today’s high was 95, with a real feel of 107. At least, that’s what weather.com said When I looked up the temperature at the time of day that’s usually the hottest.
And my poor little backup van… AC it hath not.
Even my cell phones don’t approve. 😅
They run rather sluggishly in this hot weather; and I don’t have working AC to blow on my cell phone when I overheat it if I accidentally leave it sitting out in the sun while I’m working on a car.
Just means I have to be more careful about where I put my phones, and it means I get to deal with delays in voice to text functionality.
First world problems.
I don’t think I actually mentioned it? Maybe I did? Oh yeah, yes I did. Today was day one of the new exercise routine. We started out stretching, did a handful of push-ups, and then went for a little walk. Not much, but it’s a start, and that’s the whole point. The plan is just to add a little bit every day until we have solid exercise sessions every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
I’ve also been holding to my reduced sugar intake. With all of my emotional struggles lately, I have regularly drowned my sorrows in popsicles– not uncommonly an entire box in one sitting. 😅
Well, per my nephew suggestion, I’m going to limit myself to one popsicle a day, before 6:00 p.m. If customers offer me sodas or something like that, I will graciously accept, but then I won’t eat my popsicle for the day.
So that was good to do this morning. The first day of hopefully a returning habit.
After that, I headed over to the junkyard to try and buy parts for my busted up work van that was still sitting on the side of highway 49 in between exits 83 and 82, southbound.
I went over to the junkyard, and I was able to find u-bolts that would work at least temporarily. I thought they were the right ones, but they were too long, but gratefully, they worked at least temporarily.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a drive shaft. The huge forklift that they use to lift up cars and move them around smash the drive shaft on larger trucks and vans because it sticks down below the sides of the frame.
That’s a little annoying. Very few usable drive shafts because of the damage. I like the way they do it at the car auctions. The forklifts have really really long forks on them, and that allows the huge vehicle to lift it up and wise.
Anyway, so I wasn’t able to get a drive shaft for it, so I headed back to my van on the side of the highway with the hopes that maybe I can find some way to rig it up to work or at the very least, make it so it could be pulled onto a trailer without the rear axle completely falling off the Van, leaving the butt of the van smack on the ground.
I was able to get the u- bolts on, the axle rotated forward, and it tightened down at least enough to roll without risking losing the axle out the back as it was pulled onto a trailer. After doing all that, I weighed in my mind the thought of then driving all the way Back home to get my trailer, then all the way to Bella Vista to get Miguel’s winch, then all the way back to the side of the freeway back in Bentonville, weighing that against the prospect of just paying for it to be towed. After thinking about it briefly, I voted just to pay for the darn thing to be towed back home.
$165.
I’m not thrilled about that. But I’m not really that bothered either. The van is home. I don’t have to worry about the highway patrol sending somebody to tow it. And now I can figure out what I’m going to do with it at my relative leisure.
After coming back home to direct the tow guy where to drop it off, I ate my popsicle for the day, ate some lunch, cooled off in front of the fan in my room, and then headed out to try and get the jobs that were left overs from yesterday done.
I went to the Nissan dealer hoping to find the o-ring I needed for the Infiniti QX70, but that was a bust. I wasn’t really able to find any o-rings in my many different stashes of o-rings either, so I went to AutoZone bought another two packs of assorted o-rings, and gratefully, I was able to find an o-ring that looks like it might work. It was slightly thinner than the original, but it was the right size, so I crossed my fingers.
so I headed over to the QX70 with my crossed. I was grateful for the little bit of wind that eased the brutal heat. I guess I’ve gotten used to the heat a little bit here, the humidity, and dripping sweat all the time, and having almost zero means of evaporative cooling because you’re just on a sauna.
Used to it, but still miserable. 😅
I’m starting to think more seriously about leaving Arkansas and going back to a non humid state.
I remember back when I was in living in Utah and was voluntarily homeless, during the hot summer months, all I had to do was douse myself with water, and I felt great. The evaporative cooling was just as good as AC. It could be 100° outside, but as long as I was wet, I felt fine.
Not sure what I’m going to do at this point. I still have to put my affairs in order here in Arkansas before I can even really responsibly consider leaving. I don’t want to leave other people with the burden of my stuff.
Anyway, the o-ring worked! After fighting with the vehicle a little bit, I was able to get the job done. 🥳
The other job I had left over for me yesterday quasi canceled. I was doing the job at a hotel, and they were very unhappy that her car was partially disassembled in the parking lot. 😅 If I did the job in the parking lot there, I would be taking off more. She decided she would just take it to a shop that was down the street, so that it wasn’t in the hotel parking lot anymore. So I went back and put her front bumper back on at least enough to safely get to the shop without it falling off, but not so much that it took a lot of time, and the shop she took it to would have to turn right around and do all the annoying work of getting all those pain in the butt clips back off.
I didn’t charge her for going back and putting her bumper back on, and she was grateful for that.
What happened after I got home is pretty much just a blur. I ate dinner, and then I think I just went to bed early after vegging out for a bit. And that was the day. Welcome to August. 😊🥵
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 