As I Lay Dying

Hello Reader,

The title of this post is a literal translation of my day. I've been bored to tears, on the brink of death from mental and physical stagnation. It's the end of the month (obviously you knew that) and I don't have anything to do. It gets like this every month. The first two weeks are complete hell, with heinous amounts of work to do, and then the last week of the month is a different type of hell, where I sit at my desk desperately trying to find something to do, willing myself away from the IE icon on my desktop, for fear that I'll be caught surfing and given another account to work on in my "spare time". I also forgot to mention that I sit and watch on bated breath for the minutes to tick by. There was a cartoon I once saw as a child, I forget what it was about but "Father Time" was in it, marching on as he always does, although this time he was on a treadmill. Well Father, I fear that your piece of overpriced exercise equipment has gone caput. Please buy another so that I do not feel the cold, steely fingers of tedium entrap me. PLEASE!!!

Well since the timestamp on Blogspot never works, it's 4:11Pm and I'm about to leave work for the day. Thanks for tolerating my eccentric outbursts.

Bleeder Valve Nipple Covers

Good Morning to all my rabid readers!

Last night I was given the distinct privilege to assist a good friend of mine with working on his car. Now I always jump at the chance to use and improve my mechanical skills, and yesterday’s opportunity was especially exciting, because I got to work on a Porsche! Since there are only like 5 people who read this blog and they all know each other and all of them know only 1 person who owns a Porsche, I’ll just tell you now I was helping Bru.

So our task was a fairly simple one. Flush the brake system in preparation for Saturday’s Autocross race a Beaver Run. This process isn’t really difficult; it’s just tedious because all 4 wheels need to be removed which involves lifting the car on jack stands, ect. We got a bit of a late start on the whole process, on account of Bru having to run out to get a last minute gadget for our project, but by 6:30 we were ready to start.

Now Bru is an extremely meticulous person when it comes to doing ANYTHING with the 911, and with good reason. I mean the car is amazing. However he did make me laugh at times with how careful he was being. For example: It took him about 5 minutes to loosen the first lug nut. Not because it was on so tight that he couldn’t do it, but because it took him that long to work up the courage to actually use the force that was necessary to crack it loose. The preceding 4 minutes and 50 seconds we filled with little baby attempts. Once the first one was loose and he saw that no damage had come to his baby, we made excellent progress.

Ok, car raised, wheels off, and we’re ready to go. It was a scene straight out of West Virginia. Well… and affluent area of West Virginia (I doubt there are many 911s sitting in front yards on bricks, but w/e). So my job for this project was the “helper”, meaning I sat in the car and put pressure on the brake pedal to keep air from getting sucked back into the brake system when the bleeder valves were release. I also was teaching Bru how to do this process. Now I know some of you might say something like “How the hell does Dallas know anything about fixing cars?” Well remember, I’ve now owned oh, 8 of them. If I hadn’t learned how to fix some stuff myself, I would have been broke because with all the cars I bought, there wouldn’t be any money left over to fix them. Anyways, I’ve done a brake job or two in my years, as well as a lot of other stuff, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m doing. I did have one other job, which will explain the title of this blog. Each bleeder valve has a small rubber cap on it. Because Bru was wearing gloves he couldn’t remove this, so I was responsible to getting them off.

Anyways I was the helper and I sat in the car and pushed the brake pedal. This will probably be the only time I’m ever in the driver’s seat of the Porsche. Even sitting still, engine shut off, wheels removed, up on jack stands, this car is still fricking nice! We finished bleeding the brakes, put the wheels back on and lowered the car right around 9pm. Even though it took 2.5 hours, this was the easiest “do it yourself” mechanic project I’ve ever completed. After we finished we took it for a test drive. No fatal crashes so I guess what we did, we did correctly. Hooray!

Men of Steel

Well hello there reader, welcome back.

Every morning, on my daily commute, I get to go past a construction site downtown. It’s on Liberty Ave, at 10th Street. Each day I’m continually amazed at the engineering that goes into constructing something so large in such a cramped space.

Now I of course have seen large urban buildings, in fact I work in one. But I’ve never been lucky enough to see one being constructed. I have gotten to see the daily progress ever since they broke ground on the project. Granted this building isn’t even going to be that big. I think 4 or 5 stories. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the new African American Cultural building.

Right now, the building is only a collection of steel girders, but it’s still fascinating to watch it take shape. Already I’m trying to figure out what goes where. For example, I’m fairly certain I know that there are going to be some escalators, and consequently where the lobby is going to be. There are 3 rows of ascending steel frames that have the look of an escalator. I can also see that the building is going to be very unique looking, because it’s not modular or square at all. There are beams going every which way.

What’s so awesome is how a building transforms from this scraggly collection of steel beams into a structure capable of supporting people with form and function. How the empty spaces between the beams become rooms and hallways and offices is just so fascinating.

Anyways, this might be the first actual topic that I've pondered. So that’s kind of exciting. Have a great day everyone.

Oh, also. On a side note. Last night during a game of Scrabble I was observing, I, along with everyone else, learned that "et" is actually the past tense of the word eat. Who the hell knew? "Last night I et some pizza" I guess "ate" is getting the shaft on this one.

An Anal Bead or a Dragon.....Which One Are You?

Think carefully now on your answer. It could be important.

So if you haven't guessed, I just got back from seeing Pineapple Express. Let me just say that it was hilarious. I must say that I was slightly skeptical, and mostly ignorant of this film in the past weeks leading up to its release. I hadn't seen any previews (I pay for cable solely to get a discount on my internet) and therefore I had no idea what to expect really. I like Seth Rogen and although I've only ever seen James Franco in the Spiderman movies, he wasn't bad. Then several people told me it was a great movie, and the prospect of $5 movie night is just too much to pass up. So I went to see it, and was not disappointed.

The evening had some moments about as outrageous as the movie. It was supposed to be Ravi, Mike, Kerri and myself, but it ended up being a bros night. First off, Kerri, apparently unaware of how a clock works or how to read one, went grocery shopping at the Waterfront 20 minutes before our movie was supposed to start...in the Southside. So she did not make it. Now Ravi had already purchased 4 tickets (the movie was sold out so good call) and upon receiving the call from Gatti that she would not be attending, was now in a bit of a situation. Luckily the universe does not fail to provide, as an 8 year old had just such a need for a ticket of this kind. So Ravi was scalping tickets at the Southside Works movie theater. Before our movie could even begin, there was some additional excitement. Apparently a rather unscrupulous character had tried to see a showing of Pineapple Express without right to do so. Whether it be by sneaking in or just not leaving after the previous showing, we will not know. Now I was not there to witness the initial fiasco, but McCall tells me that a very beastly movie attendant with no shortage of attitude confronted this guy, who fled the scene into the Men's bathroom. Where I come in is at this point, where she is outside the bathroom, yelling various obscenities which vary around insulting this guy's manhood...or lack there of.

Anyways, the movie was GREAT. It did a great job of building excitement and anticipation, which is no small feat for a comedy. It started of benignly enough and built up into this crazy smattering of ridiculous situations that did not fail to disappoint the laugh-o-meter. It does a great job of simultaneously glamorizing and denouncing the practice of smoking weed, and has some killer action scenes. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so I won't say anymore.

I hope everyone else's Monday evening was equally enjoyable. Goodnight all. Until next time, thanks for reading.

When it rains, it pours...

Sorry for the hiatus, but at the beginning of every month it gets really crazy here at work. I won’t bore you with the mundane; lets just say I sort of maybe almost understand what it’s like to menstruate now. I don’t mean this in a literal sense; just the anticipation of a monthly situation where your emotions are going crazy and you get pissed off easily. That’s essentially what the last week has been like here. Anyway, things are back to normal now for the next few weeks.

So on Monday I woke up to a lovely rain shower outside. Now I hate rain, because it’s so annoying and inconvenient. I realize that it’s essential to life and all, and admittedly I’ve actually had fun “playing” in the rain as a child, I just wish that it would only actually happen at times when it wouldn’t impact me. So that would be between the hours of 8:30a and 4:30p, and 12a till 630a. That being said, I truly did find this rain to be a pleasant occurrence. I had my windows open so it was nice and cool in my room, there was a great breeze, and the sound was soothing. Well, I quickly changed my mind about this rain the minute I went to leave my apartment. As I stepped out the door of my building, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour ensued. Now I have this crappy little umbrella that I lifted from 354 Semple during my exodus, because my really nice, hella big “golf” type umbrella was stolen. This thing isn’t worth the child labor that was used to make it. I was COMPLETELY soaked. My arms, legs, backpack. The only thing dry was my head. I get to the bus stop, get on the bus and guess what… it stopped raining. So it rained like an asshole just long enough for me to look as if I came through a monsoon, and then it stopped. And this is why I hate the rain.

Anyways I’m excited for the weekend and what it entails. The Scooby Do Shitaru is going into the mechanic’s next week. Hopefully it’ll be fixed and ready to be sold soon, which would be fantastic. If anybody knows someone that needs a car, and you don’t particularly like this person (its not going to be a great deal, haha) send them my way.
Thanks for reading this far, and come back soon.

David Who?

So a couple moons ago my good friend Mo called me and in a very excited tone of voice proceeded to tell me that the new season of The Real World, Hollywood, had a star from Waynesboro, PA. She was so excited because this person was our age, and since Waynesboro, my hometown, is so damn small, the chances of me knowing this character were high. Now the only thing she knew about this guy was that he was blonde, and his name was Dave. Now I don’t watch MTV, so by extension I don’t know shit about The Real World. However as soon as she told me this, my mind immediately shot to a guy who is the only person I could think of as being foolish enough, or narcissistic enough to actually go on The Real World. So when I got home that day I did a little research and sure enough, Dave on The Real World was exactly who I thought of. There must have been 20 guys named Dave in my high school when I was there, and my guess was exactly right as this being the one. And this guy was (and apparently still is) a complete tool. That guy who thinks he’s popular but isn’t at all. Hangs out with all the “cool groups” but doesn’t belong to anyone. A MALE CHEERLEADER! Apparently his man junk was also on the “less than impressive” side. At least that was the rumor. I of course have no personal experience with which to judge. So there’s your back-story

Last night, for Alex’s farewell hooray, we went out to Matrix. Now a small group of us arrived early. Craig, McCall, LP, Carrie and myself. We’re sitting in the Top 40 room just watching the ugly hoes, who can’t dance nor keep their nether regions from temporarily blinding us at our table. Anyways, the DJ comes on, trying way to hard to get people excited for the then empty Matrix, and he starts saying something about David Sky from The Real World coming to Matrix that night. Now so as not to be a complete dick, I’ll refrain from posting his last name, but let’s just say it starts with “M”. It most definitely is not “Sky”. I ended up seeing this D-bag walking around, and you’ll never guess, he was walking around by himself. Not one person actually gave a fuck that “Dave Sky from the Real World” was there. HAHAHAHA. I love it.

Small town stars. What a joke. Haha