Tim Tebow

Jesus didn't have anything to say about homosexuality but he did have something to say about public prayer.

Matthew 6:1

"Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6:5-6

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand at the street corners, that they may be seen by men.  Truly, I say to you, they have their reward.  But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

dd-wrt part 2

So I reboot the computer into the Vista partition and I'm not on the internet.  I let Windows diagnose the problem and it says I don't have a valid ip address.  I read the help, which says to let the ip4 thing set it automatically.  I had set it to 192.168.1.9, because the instructions said to do that.

Once I set it automatically, now I"m on the internet.  Hm.

dd-wrt success!

So I was pretty frustrated because my client bridging wasn't connecting this computer to the internet.  I looked in the dd-wrt forums to try to find answers and someone posted my problem and got one of those answers that basically said you are an idiot.  It linked to posts that said don't get your software from the software page for you router, as I had done.  It said you had to do several hard resets before during and after the process and if they weren't timed exactly, things wouldn't work.  I was afraid I hadn't done this as thoroughly as I should.  It said to read the instructions, which I thought I had.

So I turned evertying off and I mean everyting in the house from this computer, all the way to the modem and went to bed.

I got up today and started turning everything back on.  This computer is dual booted with Ubuntu and 64 bit Vista and I have planned to get rid of the Ubuntu partitition for a while now because it's irritating that it boots to it by default.  So when I came back in here to check things, I tried the internet just for fun. 

It was there.  So all I needed to do was reboot everything.  Which I thought I had, at one point.  So something changed today that might not be ok tomorrow but for now, I was successful.

But I'll still read Networking for Dummies until I'm not a dummy anymore.

dd-wrt

I fried my wireless usb so I decided to set up an old WRT54GS router with dd-wrt and use it like a wireless card.

You can't just go in and install any old dd-wrt willy nilly.  You have to find your router on the dd-wrt web page and pick just the right one to flash it with.  It can't take the full size standard software right away, you have to flash it with something else first, something smaller  and then flash again with a full size fully functional version.  No sp1, which won't work as a client bridge, but sp2, which I guess is what they offer by default on the page for my router.

I followed the steps in the client bridge wiki and when I got to the part about changing the ip of the router to 192.168.1.6, I tried to log back into the router and instead I was logged into my main router,which I thought couldn't happen since I always set them to only be accessed by a wired connection.  Imagine my shock when I saw I had logged into my main router.  Netmagic, which still wants me to buy it can see every computer that was ever on my network and one thing I wasn't sure what it was but decided it had to be the blu-ray player.  Netmagic also said I was on the internet, which I was not.  I can see the router and every other computer in the house but I am not on the internet yet.

I shut off the main router and then was able to log back into the dd-wrt router and change it's ip and once I got everything back up, everybody can see everybody, but the dd-wrt router is still not connecting to the internet.  And I can't access the printer from the rest of the house, either, so I am about ready to abandon this whole thing and buy a new usb wireless adapter and get my network back up for real.

I would buy Netmagic if I actually were connected to the internet on that computer but I don't care for software that lies to me and I am thinking it is time to remove it from that computer for good.

I was also frustrated because I could not find where to change the channel in dd-wrt and ended up changing it on the main router which still did not result in getting the dd-wrt computer on the internet.

I saw a "networking for dummies" section in the dd-wrt wiki, maybe I should read that before I give up.  I always think there is something really simple and stupid I am missing when I am trying to get things like this to work.

Yes, I am tired of the assholes

A few years ago, one of my coworkers was talking about retirement with a customer he was waiting on.  She was a sweet little old lady.  He talked about the rotten economy that made retirement seem not feasible although he did long to leave.  And then she said "You're tired of the assholes."  Our jaws both dropped and she became my favorite customer that day.

My colleague retired a couple of years ago and was not replaced, so the lines are longer and the assholes are much harder to bear without others standing beside you to help with the burden.

For instance, if there's a big long line behind you and you have bought all the items you need, how hard is it to simply take a couple of steps to one side or the other so that the next person can come up?  This afternoon, I not only had someone who thought it was fine to just stand there and address an envelope at my window with at least a dozen people behind her but when I got her to step aside, she did not give me the 98 cents I needed to end her transaction and she even said, "Just a minute."

What.  The.  Fuck.

She continued to address the envelope and I asked for the money for the second or third time and she finally handed it over.  I imagine had I pointed out to her how rude, how stupid this behavior was, I would no doubt be in the wrong.

These kinds of incidents always launch me into corporal punishment fantasies, and I have beaten her bare ass savagely with my belt in my mind for the rest of this evening.  I tell her she has to take six of my best but she doesn't follow directions very well for counting them off and it ends up being more like a dozen.  Every man in line has a huge erection and one holds her down over the counter for me.  Everyone approves and applauds when I'm done.  A couple of women give me their phone numbers.  The universe has been set right and we can all get on with our lives.

Not Cool

Ok, the movie stopped and went back to the start again.  So I have to go into the disc menu and navigate to the approximate spot where it bailed and continue to watch the movie.  Not an optimal experience.

What the f*@%.  This Vizio Blu-Ray player is not my best purchase ever.  At $99 ( which did NOT include the HDMI cable) it was practically an impulse buy but I think I will resist any impulse to buy Vizio in the future.

I wonder how frustrating the Netflix part will be?  I have been really happy with Netflix streaming since I wired the computer to the router- no pauses for loading.  I wonder if I"ll have to take advantage of the replacement plan, maybe luck would get me a bug free player.

My First Blu-Ray Movie

Well it was another day in hell at the job I can't talk about.  But after I clocked out I met a retired co-worker at the back and we were visiting and I happened to mention I was heading to Wal-Mart to get my HDMI cable so I could use my new blu-ray DVD player and he said he had a cable at his house he wasn't using and I could have it.  I offered to pay for it but he said no, I'd worked on so many of his computers over the years, usually just for a six pack of beer, so he can have one on the house one of these days.

It looks nice and seems to be ok except for inexplicably stopping in the middle of the movie and returning to the beginning.  I took it back to the scene and it finished ok and hasn't done anything else weird.  Cars 2 is very entertaining and can be viewed many times.  I've got the director commentary going now.  I loved hearing Bruce Campbell's voice as a Mustang, although IMCDB called him a Dodge Challenger.  Wikipedia says his character is a "portmanteau" of a Challenger and a Mustang, which means blend to you, Bubba.  I don't keer, that front was pure Mustang.  And not to spoil anything but I just gotta say, my first car was a 1974 Gremlin and everything they say about them in this movie is true.

At lunch time I brought a basement computer upstairs and tried to set it up in the office but when I inserted the wireless usb, there were sparks!  When I placed the usb in every other available usb port, it said it couldn't load drivers for it and it was an unknown device.  The led would not come on.  When I put in the top usb ports (where it sparked) it was like both of those ports were dead, which might be the case after sparking, good grief.

So maybe I can get one of my other routers to get that computer online by using them as an access point.  That can be a project for that computer later on.  But tonight, I have forgotten to fix supper and I am very hungry and need to have something.

Boo Vizio

I bought a blu-ray player.  They had them for $99 at Wal-Mart and I thought, what the heck, it's about time, the vcr part of my dvd player is dead and the dvd part makes some strange noises some times.

But the hdmi cable necessary to attach it to my TV is not there.  "Be sure to buy a hdmi cable" is on the box in tiny letters and needs to be on there is giant freaking huge letters if you ask me.

I don't feel like heading out tonight to get one, and if I did it wouldn't be a big deal, since I live pretty close to Wal-Mart.  I moved my nice desktop into the living room and moved the modem and router up here and wired it all together and so far, I have not had Netflix stop to load yet.  So maybe using wired ethernet instead of wireless is the answer to that problem for me.

I'll stop off at Wal-Mart after work tomorrow and pick up the cable and watch my first blu-ray movie tomorrow night.  I bought Cars II.

Karma

I like the show "My Name is Earl" and not just because the title character drives an El Camino.  I saw one at the first hotel I stayed at on my way down to Little Rock and I saw a Ranchero on a car hauler on my way home today, but that's digressing.

My vacations this year were messed up for one reason or another.  The one in July by Mother Nature (the flooding that shut down my track weekend) and this fall's, well let's just say I let it get messed up by eating and drinking the wrong things.  I am a poor traveler at best and wanting to make it through the trip down I missed a lot of meals because if you don't eat, you don't shit.  I woke up Thursday morning with a headache, which wouldn't go away and I broke down and took an Advil to get it to go away and ate some breakfast type snack bars to go with it, so that seemed ok, but didn't eat anything else for the rest of the trip except for one more snack bar once I got there.  I figured there would be munchies at the meet and greet but there were not.  Only the bar.  I should have asked for water but I got ginger ale.  I had two of them over the course of the evening and I think on an empty stomach this was the mistake that made me a prisoner of my room the next day.  And scared to eat anything else.  So I slept and watched TV instead of attending events.  I was depressed and miserable.

Today (Sunday morning) I got up before six and packed and checked out so I could navigate my way out of town with little traffic. It was a trade off between driving in the dark with no traffic and waiting until daylight and dealing with traffic.  I only made one mistake getting out of Little Rock and the GPS got me back on track in little time.

I got real sleepy around noon and stopped at a Flying J and tried to power nap but in a black car in the full sun, that wasn't going to happen.  So I ate a snack bar and went inside to pee and bought a 5 Hour Energy shot to get me the rest of the way home.

So back to Karma.  We all laugh at those bozos who say the queers cause floods and hurricanes and tsunamis but maybe I shouldn't be laughing at the stuff that's going wrong in my life since I started dating again.    Either I shouldn't be dating at all or the desire to burn through as many women as possible before I die is wrong.  Maybe Karma is kicking my ass for trying to go poly with mono people.

I was thinking Thursday night that I could probably get another notch on the bedpost from the woman I was talking to, but Karma made sure that didn't happen.  No sex for you!

Right now I just feel old and ridiculous.  And grateful to be alive.  Driving all that way, I'm lucky I didn't die in a fiery car crash, like Dan Wheldon.  God rest his soul.

First Night

There was a meet and greet with a bar and a DJ.  It was hard to have conversations over the loud music and a lot of people- not just the smokers- went out on the balcony to visit.  I spent most of my time visiting with a woman who lives here in town.  I walked up to a few people and introduced myself.  Most of these people have known each other for years, though.  So they have a lot to talk about.

The speed dating was cancelled because there weren't enough single femmes.  So they started up the karaoke and we watched that.  The woman asked to be walked to her car, since she had parked a couple of blocks away, so I did.  I went back for about another 20 minutes of the karaoke.  I was impressed with the people who are brave enough to get up and do that.

I am tired.  Socializing is hard.  I suck at it.

dumb hick in the big city

I didn't stay in Joplin last night, I stayed in Carthage.  The GPS doesn't say the towns.  Carthage is pretty close to Joplin.

I woke up with a headache like I'd had a few beers, which I hadn't.  I went to breakfast at the last possible minute and took my time getting cleaned up and checked out.  I hit the road by 11.  When I stopped at a rest area in Arkansas, the phone rang.  My co-worker was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I suggested the supervisors solve the problems.  She says she'll call me back.  She does, when I'm in heavy I-40 traffic.  I talk her through what she needs to do.  I should be paid for this but I know no one will be sympathetic to me, since they are leaving her to sink.  I guess that's what they want.  I am not down with this mindset in my company's culture.

I arrived at the Peabody at about a quarter to four.  It's not like a regular hotel.  A guy took my keys.  There's no big parking lot, so I don't know where they took my car.  I had to unload everything there and I forgot my suit and nice shirts.  Valet parking costs $20 a day.  So I'll have to find out how to retrieve them or go to the prom looking really scuzzy.

There are two bottles of Fiji water by the ice bucket but it costs $3 to drink them.

The ducks will be marching in about half an hour.  I guess I'll wander around and see if I can find the River room, where we are supposed to register for the event.  And I'll take my camera in case I get a good spot to watch the ducks.

Journey through a rainy land

It was raining this morning when I got up.  I ate breakfast and started packing.  My mammogram appointment was 9:20 and the Dexa scan was at 10:00.  When they set that up, I thought they were cutting it close.  The instructions for the Dexa scan said don't wear clothes with metal parts.  So I wore my gym shorts.  I had a fanny pack to put my keys and wallet into.

I got into the mammogram before the appointment time and we were done in no time.  I didn't want to hang around the waiting room for forty minutes, so I ran over to the post office and picked up my mail.  When I got back to the hospital, I put my keys in my shorts pocket instead of the fanny pack and sure enough I only remembered them once I was on the table and snatched them out before she started imaging my hip.

I was on the road by noon and the sun was shining then but after I was past Des Moines it was rain off and on, sometimes so heavy the visibility went down to nothing.  Or it was sunny and it was like some one was dumping buckets on you.

I had toyed with the idea of taking the GoPro camera and do movies on the highway but I have so many toys with me I decided against it.  But the cloud formations heading towards Joplin were very interesting looking.  And I spotted a lot of Mustangs, MINI's, BMW's, a Jaguar Xsomethingsomething and a couple of smart cars.  I think those smart cars might be ok for tooling around town but on the interstate, you should have a real car.  I'm just saying.

I got a call from work, an issue I noticed on my way out of there sure enough caused some problems.  You try to convince your boss about what problems can arise and they just smile and tilt their heads like adorable Golden Retrievers but instead of petting them you want to beat them into unconsciousness.

I am staying in a nice Best Western.  In fact, it is the Precious Moments Best Western.  The Precious Moments Chapel is around here somewhere.  There was a gift shop with Precious Moments type knick knacks and some frozen foods fit for a microwave and since I had a microwave in my room, I bought a small pizza and three postcards.  I didn't have any napkins or paper towels to put the pizza on so I tried Kleenex, which really isn't suitable but it worked ok, you just have to make sure to peel all the Kleenex off the bottom of the pizza.

I got a call from Dad and another from someone at astronomy club.  I didn't tell Dad where I was.  Is this coming out day or was that yesterday?  We just had our usual chat.

It should take five hours or less to get to Little Rock tomorrow.  I really am going.  I'm exhausted.  I wonder if I can find some Farscape reruns to fall asleep to.

Vacation

I fell into my routine of not getting dressed-forgetting to eat-not leaving the house.  I had a big old Farscape watching marathon and I played games online endlessly.  My resolve to go to Little Rock is seriously weakened.

I finally stepped outside today to do some long overdue yard work.  I remembered I needed to change the wheels on my car.  The Focus may get better gas mileage for an 11 hour drive but it doesn't have cruise control. And I don't think I'd want to drive all the way down there on the Falkens, the Nitto Invo's will be a lot more comfortable.

The neighbor came over and asked a favor.  He doesn't have internet because he's changing providers and he guessed the signal he was seeing was mine because it had a car themed name.  He only needs to be on it for two weeks for school and then he'll have his own after that.  So I found my usb drive with my router key and let him have it.  And promptly shut down every computer in the house.  Especially the one with all the naked pictures on it.  It has a Google screen saver which uses a slideshow of pictures from my hard drive and sometimes I walk in to a picture of someone's shaved pussy.  But usually it's a picture of a car.  I have lots of pictures of cars.

So I'll leave all the computers shut off but the router and the modem on.  As long as there aren't any power failures, he'll be fine.

By the time I got the gardening done and I got to work on the wheels, it was getting dark and I had to do the last two tires with my lighted cap.  I remembered the centering ring on the first wheel, forgot it on the second and sure as hell remembered it for the last two wheels.  Thank God for the impact wrench making taking the wheels off more speedy and less exhausting.  I took the helmet and the rest of the race kit out of the car.

I haven't packed.  I have what I will wear to the prom, a blue blazer with blue chinos and Doc Marten wing tips. A shirt with french cuffs and Ford cufflinks and a Ford tie. Some guys have tuxes.  I wish I had the guts to get a tux. The rest of the time I'll wear boots and jeans.  I'll take my leather jacket but I bet it's hot down there.

I decided not to pack the BDSM stuff but yes to the safer sex stuff.  And the strap-ons.

I have a mammogram and a bone scan tomorrow morning and planned to head out once they are done with me.  Unless I crap out and don't go.

Homecoming

Sometimes people donate their bodies to science.

When a school is done with the remains, they are cremated and returned to the family.

Cremains are usually mailed registered mail.  I signed one such package over today, and the elderly woman said he was being returned to her on his birthday.

The package was somewhat hefty and she seemed somewhat frail and I offered to take it to her car.  She accepted and the small girl with her asked what the package was.  She told the child it was hard to explain but it was something special.

I placed the package in the seat behind her and they drove away.

Second Chances

Not getting to do the track weekend put me into a huge funk and when weekends come I haven't been leaving the house.  I wonder if I've become clinically depressed.  I decided not to go to an autocross in my own town but it turned out it wasn't held because there was too much water on the course from the rains.  I'll get another chance to go this weekend. I'll have one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Unless I decide not to go.

My ex keeps urging me to go to Little Rock.  I wonder if this is a good idea.  I wonder if I should drive some 900 miles with my vision where it is now.  I was covering up my right eye and looking at the time clock today, waiting to clock in.  My left eye seems to have double vision, all by itself.

I wonder if she has allies there who will dump a bucket of pig's blood on me.

I haven't done P90x for a while, either.  Maybe there's no point in exercising at my age.  It's like I can't make endorphins anymore.

weather warning

I have never seen a tornado in real life but I really enjoy weather porn.  When I have a dream about tornadoes, there's not just one, but several advancing on the horizon.

Netflix Streaming

Well, I am not that happy with it.  I am waiting right now for it to load again and hope it makes it.  I read somewhere that one should watch from a computer with a wired connection.  My router is in my basement but I may want to move it upstairs and maybe move the phone to the kitchen.

I was at the eye doctor after work.  The retinal specialist called and I am supposed to go back to see him and I thought I'd get my prescription updated so maybe I could at least see the letters on the wall...

The right eye has had a few idiopathic bleeds for about six years now.  I had them again last year, triggering a series of visits to the retinal specialist and the bleed would seem to improve and I wouldn't get any shots in my eye, since I am not bleeding because of neovascularization. Then the original bleed was over with but a new one started up but was gone by the next appointment and I didn't have to go back for six months.

Tonight during the one-two, three-four, which is better routine, nothing looked good for the left eye, the eye that is not bleeding.  I even asked if we were even looking at letters because they were just spiky shapes.

I have reached the point with that eye where they can't fix it anymore.  So tonight I am going to have a few beers and somehow figure out in the days ahead what the heck people do when they can't drive them selves around anymore.  I have to get to a driving school next spring for sure.  I'd like to do one with Corvettes but I didn't go to Miller Motorsports because it was ridiculously expensive to just drive Mustangs there (race prepped ones for around $5000, and would include a Ford GT for $8000) so once I find out what it costs to rent a Corvette Grand Sport, I might forget about that dream too.

And there Netflix is loading again, glad it's not my favorite episode- I watched that one, last night, the body switching episode on Farscape.

I really shouldn't embrace self pity because there are people who have real problems, horrible diseases that are going to kill them or make them really miserable and I am relatively healthy.   But impending blindness is a bummer and I am going to get a little drunk tonight and not worry about p90x tomorrow.

And I don't think all that much of John Crichton marrying that princess.  You know he loves Aeryn.

Kenpo

Kenpo is punching and kicking.  I am not very coordinated at all.  So a lot of times, what I was doing didn't look all that much like what they were doing.

And you know what?  Screw jumping jacks.  They hurt my knees.

Holiday Aftermath

These long weekends are nice but they are a bitch when I go back to work.  Couple that with some one being on vacation and it means today will be hellish.  So I gave my self the day off from P90X.  And I'm having a beer tonight.

Teetotal-ling is not agreeing with me that much.  I keep waiting for the endorphins from exercise to make me all happy and it's not happening.  I used to love to work out but that seemed to end when I was 35.  Now I am 54 and am trying to not think life is over.  The numbers will never go up again, unless maybe I take testosterone, which I am sure would make me real happy.  But I don't think I like the idea of taking shots for the rest of my life.

I think my mistake this weekend was trying to keep up with them.  I can't do 25 reps on lunges or other weird leg exercises.  I should have just done 5 or ten and then I probably could have lasted the whole workout.  I'm not very sore now.  The next video is "kenpo".  After the massive yoga fail, I dread whatever this is.

I missed the butch-femme mini bash in Minneapolis this weekend.  With my libido gone, I just don't see the reason to be around people.  I wonder if I'll ever feel good (without drinking) again.

More Fail

Crap, when are the warm ups going to stop feeling hard?  I made it through half the back and leg workout before I felt sick and stopped.

Setback

Yoga is brutally hard.  The Yoga dvd is 90 minutes, not the usual hour, so it should have been ok since it is the weekend and I didn't have to be done in an hour to get ready for work.  But I only lasted 20 minutes and I admit my irritation at this workout being so long might have led to me bailing.  Because it is so hard, it really seems like an hour would have been more than enough.  It's also hard to see what they are doing when you are doing it yourself, so next time I'll have to setup sideways or something.

P90X Day 3

With the holiday weekend, I thought I'd sleep as long as I needed to before I got up, which turned out to be about nine hours.  The third dvd is shoulders and arms.  I'm still sore from the first workout, although I can look at my watch without howling in pain.  I also remembered to take my "before" pictures of my flabby thin body.  I did that before when I started at Anytime fitness and couldn't tell any difference with them.

I had dreams, which I don't seem to much anymore, probably because I don't get as much sleep as I need.  There was something about being in a huge house and there were lots of people and someone was going around cutting the fringe off of rugs and place mats.  I knew it was one of the children and I was determined to find out which one.  Everyone else seemed quite indifferent about it.

P90X Day 2

I awoke in pain at four in the morning.  The worst spot is on my elbow, where the tricep inserts into the elbow.  So when I put my wrist up to look at the time- "Yee-ouch!"  I rubbed a little Icy Hot on it and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't so when five am rolled around, I put in the disc called "Plyometrics" with dread.

The man was accompanied by three different people today, one was a man with an artificial leg.  Plyometrics involves a lot of jumping.  Many of the exercises could be modified to have less impact.  I found it was very painful to squat very deep.  So I didn't go deep.  The exercises have interesting names, like Monster Truck Tires and Mary Katharines. Yep, after Mary Katharine Gallagher and her signature move.

After the workout I fixed a smoothie with blueberries, yogurt and protein powder and some Advil.  Then I had my oatmeal.

Exercise

So at my last physical I was told my cholesterol was elevated and to adjust my diet and exercise and we'd see how it was next year.  I've slowly adjusted the diet to include less fat and my weight has gone down a little and I'm drinking a lot less.  So what to do about exercise?

I had an Anytime Fitness membership that I allowed to lapse.  I went two or three times a week and did the same thing every time and kind of got bored, I guess.  And within a month of not going anymore, I suddenly weighed ten pounds more and the most I've ever weighed in my life.  And some other stuff happened that probably should have sent me to the doctor then but I'm hoping that was cleared up when I had the colonoscopy.

So now I am doing P90X.  It came in the mail yesterday and I did the first dvd this morning at 5 am.  A very fit man led two other men and a woman through a routine for chest and back.  They warm you up and take you through 12 sets of variations of pull ups and push ups and some dumbbell rows.  Sometimes the leader would announce the exercise and ask each participant how many reps they planned to do and they would answer something like "30!"  My answer was usually 5, or three.  I'm 54, ok?  And it's been ages since I've been able to do a pull up or a regular guy's push up.  And I am very sore tonight.

Another thing I have to do is start getting to bed earlier, I can't do this kind of workout and then get by on four or five hour's sleep.  I don't know if I will do the workouts every day, but I will try at first.  I may have to do every other day.

Now I Want a Corvette

I spent a weekend hanging out with a Corvette Club.  I was one of two non-Corvettes there and we were asked "What would it take to bring you over to the Dark Side?"

Not much.

The models that appeal most to me are those from the 60's and 70's and it is possible to find Corvettes from the C3 and C4 (80's, not quite so appealing to me ) generations for reasonable prices.  However, I don't think my mechanical abilities are up to the challenge of taking care of a 30 or 40 year old car.

Since I was cheated out of going to Mid America Motorplex by Mother Nature, now I am planning to go to Motorsports Park Hastings in Nebraska next year to take a driving school and hopefully do it in a Grand Sport Corvette.  Then I can run with the Corvettes on their high speed day and get to use most of the oval at the Iowa Speedway.  I hope they can teach me to heel and toe.

So this won't be my last muscle car summer, unless I get a wild hair and replace the Mustang with a real sports car such as a vintage Corvette or a MINI Roadster.

The ex girlfriend has been swinging back and forth between angry recriminations and sweet pleadings for us to be reunited.  I think she probably wants to strangle me in my sleep and I guess if she did, that would save me the trouble of killing myself down the road when my vision or my health have deteriorated to where life is not any fun anymore.

But I'm not done living yet.

Next To Last Muscle Car Summer

The  person who was going to buy my daily driver backed out which means I have it to drive this winter which means the Mustang can race again next summer.  So I'm just going to keep on a goin'.

I haven't gotten over my MINI Cooper lust though.  There's going to be a roadster next year.

LDR advice

When you come for a visit, the option to stay longer should be at the discretion of the host, not the guest.

I'm just sayin'.

supporting me

This morning the girlfriend said she'd support me should I desire to take testosterone.

I had mentioned how in the 80's and 90's I had been a gym rat and if natural transition were possible, I would have become a man during this time.  I took everything I could short of steroids to bulk up and would have embraced masculinization through bodybuilding if such a thing were possible.  I stayed scrawny and overtrained and mostly succeeded in squelching my libido, which is okay, I guess if you want to be celibate, which I was during those years.  I lifted competitively and was even in a meet where everyone was tested and the values of the weightlifting club I belonged to dictated that steroids were cheating, so I never sought them out.  But I coveted their effects that I saw in some of the women competitors.  One woman had an astonishingly deep voice and a coach told me " I remember when she looked and sounded like you."

So we're still in the honeymoon phase and on the verge of spending a long weekend together and she's showed me pictures of her exes, who are very masculine looking and on the burly side.  I am not that big, I have no tattoos and I don't ride a motorcycle.  But my girl is determined to get me inked and bulked up and get my Mustang traded for a trike.

Sigh.

I feel like I am going sideways, heading for the wall.

The other night I dreamed the sky was full of jagged, lightning-like cracks.  I knew if they didn't seal up, the world would end.

One Wet Summer

Well, my track day weekend appears to be in jeopardy.  They evacuated the county near the Missouri River that is the home of Mid America Motorplex, which was to be the highlight of my summer.  I guess it's possible the waters won't reach it and damage the track and the Missouri River will recede and we will all have a great time in the middle of July.

So to get one more track day I'll have to wait until next year.  Unless I go to another track.  I would hate to have to put those Nitto NT01's in the basement without getting to drive on them.

Father's Day

is not this weekend, as I was thinking but the week after.  So I didn't need to rush out and get a Father's Day card to mail.

I had picked one out a couple of weeks ago but decided against using it.  It had a picture of Tom Hanks from A League of Our Own and inside was a recording of him saying "Crying?!  There's no crying in baseball!"  There was something on the front about instilling rules in us as we grew up.   I thought it was hilarious.  When I was a kid, we had a plastic ball and bat and sometimes Dad would pitch the ball to me.  I guess I was pretty bad, because one time he said if I hit this ball, he'd get me a pony and a bicycle. I missed.  I didn't get the pony or the bicycle.  Dad also played football with my brother and me, he'd overpower us but that didn't stop us from trying.  And we loved the attention from him.  If he was in a good enough mood to play with us, things were cool.  Usually he was really busy farming or sleeping for the night shift at the factory.  Or he was in a really bad mood and not talking to anybody.  Probably because he was tired from working so hard.  God help us if we did anything to piss him off, which often happened without our even trying.

My dad just had knee replacement surgery and had a very hard time of it.  He spent some time in the nursing home before he came home.  He was home last time I visited but he told me about his stay at the nursing home and about breaking down and crying during a church service there.  That's when I decided the Tom Hanks card couldn't be used this year, or maybe any other year.  Old men can be weepy, I guess as their testosterone declines, their emotions are expressed more easily.  I would not want him to think I was mocking him.

Cowering Indoors :(

We had some storms Saturday night and some places got hammered pretty good.  I was going to go an autocross on Sunday but the weather report was ambivalent.  The rain was probably over, but there could be storms and they could be severe.  So I was scared to go.  And the weather was fine, there was no more rain or storms and I missed a fine day.  And I was very out of sorts about it.  I wouldn't talk on the phone to my girlfriend and it upset her greatly and needlessly.

At my car club meeting last Wednesday, the president announced that he had sent out an email about our track weekend but no one had signed up yet.  I didn't get that email, in fact, I am not getting much at all in the way of emails pertaining to the club.  Am I getting excluded on purpose or is his distribution list not as good as he thinks it is?  The attendance at the meeting was the lowest I have ever seen.  Are people bailing because of the presence of the butch dyke treasurer or because of the crappy economy and sky high gas prices?

Mr. Family Friendly is moving away and is no longer a part of the club.  How many allies of his are still in the club?  Why should I care, if I got elected twice, the second time with the current flattop haircut the probably tips everyone off to the fact that I am a butch dyke?   What if I started my own rival club- for adults only, where we are fucking on the hoods of our cars?  How cool would that be?  Where could we go the next time the gf is in town to do this and not get arrested?

I am going to the track weekend, not only because it will probably be my last.  I spent almost $1000 on tires and wheels just for this weekend. But I haven't signed up yet.  But I will.  And I want to go to the Corvette Club track days at our track.

The guy with the MR2 Spyder was in today, waving it in my face.  I told him about the autocross that will be at our local track.  Maybe he will run it and decide to keep it or he will find a buyer for it and then I can stop thinking about owning that car.  Or maybe he will bring it and run it and let me run it in a fun run and I will fall in love and have to have it.

This week someone is supposed to come and look at my daily driver and if she buys it, the Mustang will be my daily driver.  So now I am calculating, can I just get studded snow tires and drive it year round?  Or should I be sensible and trade it for a new Focus (the hatchback is back!) and just have one car?  Unless I buy the Spyder for a fun car.  Which would probably be a bad idea since I am heading towards a probably early retirement due to economic conditions or possible blindness?  Or just keep the Mustang as a daily driver and have the Spyder as the fun car?  Lots of time to think about this stuff.  Until time runs out this fall.  What am I going to drive to Little Rock?  How badly will I behave while I am there?

This car is so gorgeous and  would probably be a very decent autocrosser:

See?  It's like a baby Porsche!

You Never Know Which One is the Last

Someone is going to look at my daily driver and maybe buy it next week.

So I'd be down to one car, the Mustang.  If I decided to keep it through the winter, I'd have an excuse to buy more tires and wheels (studdable snow tires and cheap alloys) and have my first Muscle Car Winter.

I'll feel bad seeing her all muddy and salty in the winter, but I guess it can't be helped.  Some people do drive their Mustangs year round and it's not a big deal if you are careful.

And then I can finish wearing out my autocross and track tires next year.

What You Looking At, Frat Boy?

The night Chaz was on Letterman, the girlfriend was in the house and made sure we watched it.  So I've been reading some articles about it and one thing he said in one article I ran across stood out for me.

Since he's transitioned, he is treated better by everybody, especially men.  This made me remember something.

When I was in college in Iowa City, Iowa, I wasn't wearing men's clothes or wearing my hair especially short.  But I was wearing the butchest women's clothes I could find.  I did not look feminine.

Sometimes, when passing a young man on the street, he'd look me in the eye and spit on the sidewalk.  I wondered what it was with men that they seemed to need to spit so much.  I wondered if it was a sign of contempt for me, someone they didn't even know but probably assumed was gay.  This never happened anywhere else, only in this college town.  I never mentioned it to any one else, to see if men in Iowa City were spitting in front of everybody.

Maybe you mellow with age because I don't seem to struggle so much with depression anymore and I don't notice so much hostility or else don't take it so personally if I do notice.  I wear men's shirts and pants and even wear a man's tie at work now.  I wear my hair very short and get many compliments from people on it, both men and women.

So either I've gotten used to it or the world has or both.

How many people will look at Chaz and think, hm, I'd like to be treated better too?   I wonder how many butches will go for it because of Chaz?  Where are the butch celebrities for us to look up to?

Stop Eating My Posts

Saw a car with yellow headlights last night on I80.

It was a Porsche 911, the kind with a whale tail spoiler.

It passed me and I saw it again in Iowa City pulled over by a cop.  I wondered if he was going too fast or if it was because of his yellow headlights.

He passed me again later and I thought it would be amusing if I saw him pulled over again, but I didn't.

Really? Me?

I work for a government agency and I work with the public.  It's a hectic and action packed day.  Customers can amaze you with their stupidity or with their heroism.  You see people that are easy to judge harshly, or to pity and many who just simply humble you.

On my way to my car after work, a pretty young woman pushing a baby stroller and walking a little white dog came up to me and said she just wanted to say I was the best employee she ever saw.  She said she was often frustrated when she had to come to our office because of the long wait times in line but I was always friendly.  Me?  Always friendly?

How can you hate your job when people say things like that to you?

Brake Job

I replaced the rear rotors and brake pads on my Mustang today.  I even rented the brake caliper tool set from O'Reilly's Auto Parts, which is supposed to make this job a breeze.

I could have taken it in to have it done but the place that did my oil change and pointed out the need for new rear brakes suggested a Brembo kit.  Expensive and flashy, and I am not about the looks and I am sure Brembo brakes perfom just fine, so long as they aren't more prone to warping because of the slotting and drilling, but I'm very happy with my plain rotors.  And the ceramic pads.

When I look for brake parts for my 08 Bullitt on Tire Rack they suggest Brembo kits.  No pad repacements, no rotor replacements.  When I ask them for brake stuff for a 08 Mustang GT, they offer me plain rotors and ceramic pads.  So I ordered them.  I thought I could get the shop to put them in and then I decided, no, I am going to do it.  I watched some YouTube videos and read some forum posts.  It didn't seem that bad.

So I got the car out, expecting this all to take an hour, maybe two, tops.  I put it in first gear, put a brick behind one of the front wheels, and went to work.

The calipers aren't that bad to take off.  But the 15 mm bolts holding the caliper bracket on were a bitch to get off.  I ended up breaking them open by banging on the wrench with a rubber mallet.  Taking the old rotors off is a breeze and putting new ones on is no big deal.  The retaining clip had already been removed per the instructions that came with my Kazera wheels I use for autocross.

Now to depress the piston in the caliper.  This is necessary because new pads are much thicker than old ones, which is why they are worn out.  I didn't think they looks all than worn out, but what do I know?  They looked about 5 mm thick and the one YouTube guy said 3 mm is when they should be replaced.

That guy also made using the caliper tool look easy.  He just did it with his hands, twirling one part back and then cranking the screw down to push the piston in.

Well, I was a little baffled as to how to assemble the tool, since there is a plate with a hole in it that sits against one side of the calipers while a round thing with two pegs fits into the piston head and a screw pushed the piston in.  Everything is on YouTube and I did find a video which showed a guy flipping the T handle to one side and putting the plate on over that end.

It was hellishly hard to turn the piston.  The man in that video must have had super human strength, which I do not.  I did manage to find leverage against the hub as I rested the caliper on top of a jack stand and slowly get the piston to turn in.  If you don't turn it in far enough, you can't get it over the new brake pads.  It has to be lined up just so, to fit over a notch on the pad.  It really hurt my hand to push on that T handle.

I pumped the brakes back up after getting everything back together and put away.   I went for a ride.  The car moved, the brakes worked, first at slow speeds and then stopping from 30 and then 40 mph.  There was a high pitched noise that seemed to go away after pulling away from a stop sign, so I guess I'll have to watch for that.

So I did a very butch thing of working on my car.  It took five hours.  Mechanics earn every cent they get and they also have nice power tools to make taking bolts off a lot easier.  I am exhausted and my hands hurt.  I'm still a little worried about whether the job will hold up and should at least have the torque on the bolts checked.  I want to get the OEM rotors machined and get some OEM pads to put back on with them.

And I'll have a shop change them back.

Brake pads and rotors

When I got my first Mustang at age 50, a blue V6 with Pony package, I told myself I just wanted a nice car, I didn't want to race.  Then I went to the local race track and watched some drag racing.  Then I went back and raced.  That was all it took.  There I'd be every Friday night or Sunday afternoon I could get to the drag races for my adrenalin fix.

Soon I realized that I really needed a V8 if I was going to be serious about racing.  And I had become as serious as a heart attack about it.  I traded the pretty blue Pony car for sinister looking black GT.

I hadn't grown up around car people so things like changing oil and tires were beyond me.  I was flummoxed by just checking tire pressure, I didn't know if I could trust a tire pressure gage's reading and I thought I was just letting the air out of the tire trying to check it.  I learned to go way outside my usual comfort zone to do these things anyway either by researching them on the internet or from the people around me at events.  I bought drag radials for the rears and changing those out became my pre-race ritual.

I got involved in autocrossing and attended a couple of track day weekends.  I always enjoy driving these events, even if I am disappointed in how I do compared to other people.

I indulged myself in these automotive pursuits because I am getting older and haven't really lived all that much. I really feel alive when I do this.  As my employment situation becomes more precarious, I know I may have to give it up abruptly.  I wouldn't be able to afford $5/gallon gasoline if I lost my job tomorrow and I am not saving that well for retirement with the money I've spent on the Mustang.  I've told myself this is the last summer I will do this, my last muscle car summer but every time I drive that car I tell myself, no, just keep going, don't sell/trade it.  Hang on as long as possible.

When I got my summer tires mounted, the shop said my rear rotors and pads were close to needing replacing.  I've ordered rotors and pads from Tire Rack and will install them myself.  I'm studying YouTube videos now and last year, someone from my car club let me help him change his brake pads.  I have a couple of weeks off before there are any events until the middle of May.

Toyota MR2 Spyder

The guy with the Spyder stopped by and parked outside where I could see him and when I waited on him he mentioned he had dropped the price again.  The car is beautiful, like a mini Porsche.  I've never seen one at our autocrosses, so it would be unique, most likely.

Tonight I have to go to Mustang Club.  Wouldn't it be a bitch if I ditched the Mustang now and didn't renew my membership?  Yeah, I'm the treasurer, no I don't have a Mustang and I'm not even a member.  Hee hee.

Uh Oh

Ex complains I never call her.  Wants to share a room in Little Rock.  Used to get after me all the time, am I seeing somebody, have I had any dates?

I lied, said no.  Everybody else is so circumspect, so I am too.  Oh, no, nothing's going on, we're just hanging out.

I told her I spend a lot of time on the phone (required for LDR's) but if I wasn't involved in October, we could totally share a room.  But what if I am involved by then?  Do I have what it takes to be monogamous?  I kind of doubt it.  I don't expect anything from anybody when I'm not around, so why should they expect anything from me?

And I'm happy to tell you what my problem is:  I still have it hard for a married woman.  Or maybe a couple of them.  Because if I got with them, I'd be off the hook for most of the relationship stuff.  Because they'll never leave their husbands and I'd be kind of freaked out if they did for me.  Because I just want these few intense moments and then walk away.  I don't want to connect and I don't believe anyone will really love me, because I'm don't believe love is a real thing.

In The Once and Future King, a fish tells young King Arthur: "Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution.  Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same.  There is only power.  Power is of the individual mind, but the mind's power is not enough.  Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is Right."

When I read that as a youngster, I felt the sucker punch of a great truth.  I felt the horror of not being a man, not being powerful and of not being able to fully participate in life.  I would never be Mighty and I would never be Right.

Until I found the butch-femme people and BDSM and learned there were beautiful, feminine women who were all too happy to make me feel Mighty and Right.

Does it have to be the last?

As I changed my wheels this morning and admired my sleek black car in the sun, I thought to myself, "I am NOT trading off this car."  The offer to buy the other car has probably evaporated, so things will probably stay as they are for now.

I guess I forgot through the long bitter winter how much fun I have with that car.  Sometimes I get new car fever and search the inventories of local dealers.  But I remind myself that any new car will probably have some drawback that will make it less fun.  The new Mustangs are harder to drive, Sam Strano said so.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a car he won a championship in.

I may not be the fastest with my "get it in second and leave it there" strategy, but I doubt I would do much better rowing back and forth through the gears on a six speed.

I still have a longing for a convertible, and if I got an automatic, I probably wouldn't want to try to race it.  I'd like to have the new Mustang because the engine gets much better mileage.  I guess I could wait on that until next year when maybe I could find a 2011 for a little cheaper than they are now.

I hope the weather is nice in October since I guess I'll be driving my current Mustang to Little Rock.  I've been caught in snow in it before, so it's not the worst thing in the world.

If they still had drag racing at our local speedway, I'd probably still be doing that and would have jumped all over that Shelby at our local dealer.  I'd have drained my bank account and still had payments.  Guess I'm lucky they did quit them.

Windy Sunny Sunday

So we had a great day with not a drop of rain in sight.  I got a really good autocrosser to ride with me and then I rode with him.  I keep vacillating between abandoning this altogether and maybe keeping at it and figuring it out.

What if I had just one car that was a sports car and drove it all the time?  Winter tires would make the winter bearable.  Would a Ford dealer take both my Focus and my Mustang in trade for a new 2011 Mustang?  Should I get a v6, which is now in F-stock or a v8?  Decisions, decisions.  I guess I have all summer to think about it.

and just one more...

and I always thought tripodding looked so cool...

Ok , I don't want one quite so badly now

embed test- adult content warning

Room 33 Erika Lust from boolab on Vimeo.

Fevered dreams

At the last autocross the fastest guy drove a Mini Cooper S, beating the Porsches, the Corvettes and the Mazda RX8 that usually rules these things.

And since then, I've barely been able to think about anything else.  It seems like a perfect choice, only a little more than a 2011 Fiesta but much more sporty and fun.  Ok, probably about $5000 more.

But I am trying to get a grip and stick with the original plan to get the best gas mileage possible and walk away from racing for good.  And I'd have to use premium in the turbocharged Mini.

And I could always get some competition tires for the Fiesta, it will probably be a great G-stock car.

April 3

Sunday is my second autocross and Mother's birthday.  The 10th anniversary of her death is April 6.  This tends to be a tough time of year, being jealous of everyone who still has their mother and grimly enduring Mother's Day.  I wonder what would have happened if I had came out to her.  Sometimes I thought maybe she reached out to me.  But I kept my mouth shut.  I never forgot when she told me at the breakfast table, age 6 or 7: "People who are like that are sick."  I didn't want to be sick.  But I sure learned to keep my real feelings to myself and to feel pretty bad about having them.

Now, when I think about maybe making plans for the rest of my life with someone, I remember I would have to come out to my Dad..  Can I avoid it completely? I'm moving to South Carolina.  Just because.  No, don't come and visit, I'll come back to see you.  Would the girlfriend put up with that?  Would Dad?

I could never picture that conversation and when I tried, it didn't go well.  One girlfriend shouted in exasperation "But you look so gay!  How could they NOT know?"  Maybe they do and they just choose not to bring it up.  And I choose not to throw something in their face that I am pretty sure they can't handle.  It's a kind of détente.

I've lived the best life I can.  I am the only one I have to satisfy.  And girlfriends who try to make me do things I don't want to- they fall by the roadside pretty fast.  Because I am the Butch Daddy and what I say goes.

The woman I spend the rest of my life with will be totally OK with that.

Spring Tease

We had a decent day for the first autocross.  It was raining as I drove there but it let up and by the time I drove the course was dry.  The Falkens felt good, the car didn't go anywhere I didn't want it to, but I was tentative and didn't post very good times for the first session.  I resolved to really hit it hard in the second session.  But the second session was cut short because of an accident.  Yesterday I had to scrape a couple inches of very fluffy snow off of the car before I went to work and it had all disappeared by lunchtime.

So what's it going to be this Sunday?  I'm just hoping it's appropriate weather for summer tires.

Tires

I probably look at the Tire Rack site as much as I do Fetlife.  I love looking at the tires and thinking about what kind I want on my car.  I am fulfilling all my tire dreams this year.  I have Nitto NT01's for track and non-SCCA autocrosses that I mounted on gorgeous American Racing Torque Thrust rims.  I have a set of Falken Azenis RT615-K's mounted on sexy black Kazera KZ-K's for SCCA autocrosses and Nitto INVO's for every day driving.  The Falkens can go in the dry or the wet but the Nitto NT01's are only for dry.

And sometimes I think I'll get rid of the Focus and just drive the Mustang year round.  Maybe with winter tires it wouldn't be so bad.  Tire Rack has nice deals on winter tires.

One set of tires is sitting in the kitchen now and I love that smell of virgin rubber.  I can't wait to start wearing them out.

Second

Had a nice ride in the car today.  The roads were dry and it was sunny.

First

It seems like whenever they show blizzard footage, they always have to show a Mustang in the ditch.  I feel sorry for those who drive their Mustangs year round, and that is why I drive a front wheel drive Ford offering during the winter.  I learned the misery of rear wheel drive in the snow in a 1974 AMC Gremlin in college.  Tonight, as the blizzard rages outside, my Mustang sleeps safely in the garage.   I shop for a second set of rims to wrap the racing rubber around, for my automotive adventures this summer.

Not long ago, I dreamed someone stole my Mustang and the extra racing tires right out of my garage.  I was devastated and couldn't manage to dial the police to report it.  I set out on foot to go to the police station.  On the way there, a petite blonde in a black leather dress was operating a shoeshine stand.

I thought maybe with the way she dressed, she might be a bootblack and sat down for a shoeshine.  I was only wearing brown chukkas but I made comments about leather topics, to try to chat her up, I guess.  She didn't warm up to me.  Maybe she wasn't a bootblack, maybe she wasn't gay, maybe she wasn't into butches or maybe she just wasn't into me.  That's ok, I like them with a lot more meat on their bones anyway.

I woke up without the need to check reality, because I don't keep the racing tires in the garage in the winter, they are safe in the basement.  But I did peek into the garage window on the way to work, just to double check that the Mustang was still there.