How much debt do you have?  Include everything – school loans, house mortgage, car payment, business borrowing, everything.

I’m like a car

Once you get me to start

I’ll take you near or far

Just keep refueling my heart.

Cars are like birds.

Achieving speeds so fast

Able to make the sharpest turns

but if not alert, it crashes into glass.

A bird is like a child

They’ll go anywhere without a reason why

Startled by anything they heard

Eager to start the sun’s renaissance

A child acts like a bird

Chirping, looking for a response

Be it in a cage, or running wild

They have the potential to fly.

Birds act like cars

They can go for mile upon mile

In formation above a highway with others

In beautiful design and style; all the while.

A car acts like me.

Sits there silently, waiting for someone

Waiting for someone with the key

The key to life, love, and fun.

When Kallie and I had our back windshield broken by some kids while she was at work, she drove it home and I started doing some research on getting it replaced.  In my online search, I found a lot of car windshield replacement services that boasted 24/7 hours.  What I learned though, is that just means SOME of them have an answering service and NONE of them can come out to repair your windshield until the next business day, at the earliest.

Why is that???  I would see a windshield as critical as a battery or a flat tire.  You simply can’t drive it safely without it.  With a flat tire or a dead battery, at least it can just sit there and not increase in damage, but if it’s raining, you’re interior is going to get ruined!  Also, people can get into your car and steal it or anything you have inside! 

When I called these places, they were saying that i’d have to wait 3 days for an appointment, or that I’d have to pay $600 for someone to come to me the next day.  There was not a simple place that offered a solution to get it done that day, and it was only 5pm.  There’s got to be a demand for that, even if it’s not a standalone business, but an add on to services like AAA offers for battery and tire repairs.  The solution is simple.  There are windshields in a warehouse somewhere, and I need one.   I mean, if I knew they would give me one, I would risk the danger and just drive it to the warehouse to get replaced. 

It’s just silly.  No way anyone can fix a windshield by themselves, and yet there’s no business that wants my business, even at a premium.

I’m a mile away from your bedroom door

I wanted to get close, but I can’t go anymore

There’s caution tape around the 1 mile radius

of the crash site that claimed the life of one of us

How vividly I can remember the events of that day

And I thought that we both escaped unscathed

But the next morning the newspapers read

“Fatal accident leaves 1 man dead.”

Maybe if I duck under the tape

And slowly get closer to where I met fate

I’d still find my heart slowly beating and clinging to life

And I could call the paramedics, and give it CPR

Or drive it to the hospital myself if it wasn’t too far

Where they would get the crash cart, screaming “we’ve still got a chance”

One more chance to revive the romance

Between a guy who loved a girl more than he should have

Between a girl and a guy who did less than he could have

To save himself from dying in a unforeseen accident

But he didn’t, and the doctors will say they can’t

Because taking the heart away from where it was

Closer to your heart, and your rushing blood

Was what was keeping it alive, and I never knew

Your heart was keeping mine alive too.

So I’ll stay here, pumping gas in my car

My body facing your direction from afar

And I’m trying to look through all of these houses and trees

Virtually flying, imagining everything in transparency

Until I reach your bedroom, where I’ll stop and knock

And maybe you’ll answer and maybe you’ll not

Maybe your music is too loud, and you’d never hear

The sound of my heart beating, no matter how near.

I snap back to my car as the handle finishes pumping

Deep breath in, and I get a small hint of something

Besides the gasoline, there’s something else in the air

Something that reminds me of the smell of your hair

Back in my car, back on the highway I drive

Never knowing if I’m dead, or just barely alive

And as I pass the road to your place

I’m the only one turning my face

Away from the site of that terrible crash

Where wreckage is being hauled away as trash

The wreckage of what I was trying to build

But I never got to finish before I was killed.

And maybe next time I come down this way

A new structure will stand in its place

Built by a man, whose blue prints you approved

Or maybe, once all the wreckage is removed

A memorial will be built in remembrance of me

And when it’s done, the newspapers will read

“Woman builds memorial for lover lost in fatal accident.”

I was driving in the car the other day and I heard a commercial for HD radio.  I remember hearing about these things years ago and thought for sure they’d go the way of the Betamax.  why would anyone want HD radio?  What’s wrong with normal radio?  Why are all these “extra stations” not on normal radio?  Why would anyone want to buy a new HD radio if they could get satellite radio?  I expected HD radio to go away, but apparently it’s still around, although I’ve never met anyone who had ever been in a car with one, let alone owned one themselves.

Kallie and I drove to Chicago on Oct 15th for the Urbanathlon on the 16th.  We were a little scared about the 7.5 hour drive since our car has been giving us so many (expensive) problems.  It lasted though, and hopefully we didn’t shave off too many days of it’s life.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in the West Loop, which was a nice short walk to the starting line.  when we got to our room, it was a 2 double bed suite.  Whenever something is not as it should be, I let Kallie be in charge.  I’m too nice and just suck it up and take the hand I was dealt.  Kallie goes to the front desk and she gets us a room with a king bed, the only “downside” is it’s a handicap room.  So, where we asked for a different room because we’re tall and need a larger bed, we got a larger bed, but the room has light switches and counters at about half-height.  The bathroom was just a big tiled room with a curtain and shower head off to the side.  I’ve never seen that before.  It was very mental hospital-ish.  Whatever though.

The race was fun, but I didn’t get the time I wanted due to muscle cramps around mile 7.  It took me nearly an hour to finish the last 2 miles.  It was frustrating and embarrassing.  I don’t know what caused them.  It wasn’t unusually cold and I should have had all the nutrients I needed.  I hadn’t had anything like that come up in my training.  When I got to the finish line, as I was jumping off the first taxi hood, my right calf cramped and I almost fell on the ground since I could use it to balance when I landed.  I also couldn’t get up over the second cab until it stopped, so I just stood there stretching and rubbing it, while all these bystanders looked at me.  Ugh.  I think the picture to the left sums it up pretty well.  Even after the race, just sitting on the ground drinking water, my muscle was cramping.  Ridiculous.  Nothing I could do about it though, and I raised a bunch of money for the Living Ministry, so it wasn’t about me, it was a race for the ministry.  Now it was time to have a great weekend in Chicago with my wife.

So we were going to meet up with Kallie’s cousin, Julia, for lunch.  Julia was thinking a place called “The Girl and The Goat” (check out my review) but they were only open for dinner.  She also had to work, so that limited our time.  What we decided to do was Kallie and I would go to eat dinner, then come see a show, where Julia worked, and then we’d get drinks afterward with her.  I’ll tell you more in the reviews of the restaurant and the play “Detroit” at the Steppenwolf theatre (review here), but to sum it up, we had an awesome day.  So great.  We couldn’t have planned it better ourselves.  THANKS, Julia!  Sunday morning we got some fruit sushi / frushi at Orange before heading out for home.  We had eaten there last year and thought it was so good that we made a point to go back this year.  If you’re in the Chicago area, I’d recommend it.

So this is a MOC (My Own Creation) that I did a year or so ago in a similar design, but never documented it. I’m a lot happier with the lower profile of this incarnation over the boxier first version I did.

My initial intent was just to test my abilities with gears and the technics set. I was going to set out making some sort of car, I knew, but I wanted to use my battery pack to make it either be remote controlled or at least self propelled. As it turns out, my LEGO motor no longer works, and I have no idea why, and it seems most battery sticks from the early 90′s, like mine, no longer work. So that already discouraged me from doing what I wanted to do. The next obstacle was having enough “sticks” that were long enough. I wanted to create something like a racecar framework, but I didn’t have the joints and pieces for that. Lastly, I have a ton of gears, but i have no more rubber-bands that would look awesome in a car, so I had to use gears instead of the pulley wheel designs.

All told, I like how the tractor turned out. The mower deck is a little lame, I know, but it was something simple to throw together and use the trailer hitch. The front loader functionality worked better in my original iteration, because the bucket doesn’t quite tilt back all the way, but it would just need a little more tweaking to fix, and I figured I spend enough time on this already.

and a video to show you all the movable parts (hood, steering wheel, engine piston, mower deck, and front loader):

The Driver is the authority on music. He or she may delegate to passengers at their will.

here’s another memory of when I almost died, or at least, almost caused severe bodily damage to myself.  Twice.

I was changing the tires on my 92 ford taurus at my mom’s house one day.  I had it jacked up, and the wheel was off.  I was sitting down, with my legs out in front of me, and as I was reaching and rolling the new tire to me, a big gust of wind came, just enough to knock the car off balance from the jack.  The…circular part that the wheel connects to…went slamming to the ground and took a big chunk out of the driveway.  I think my feet were just barely in the wheel well area, safe and untouched.

Then, when I had my truck, I learned that just any tire on a truck won’t do.  I must have changed the tires on the truck a dozen times.  I want to say I had the truck fall twice…, but I only remember 1 time for certain.  I was changing the front passenger tire on Erin Street across from my house.  If you’re familiar with where I live, Erin street is at least a 30% grade hill.  Same thing as with the taurus, I nearly lost my feet.

Remember kids, always block off the opposite/diagonal tire from moving before you jack you’re car up.  It doesn’t hurt to block them all off either.  If you can, get to a flat surface as well.

- this message brought to you in part by safe tire changers of america.

You’re staying at a hotel and you notice a car has it’s lights on in the parking lot.  You stop by the front desk and let them know, but they can’t do anything about it because they don’t keep track of whose cars are in the lot.  What else do you do?  What else can you do?  Do you go to the car and see if it’s unlocked and turn the lights off yourself?  Do you set off the alarm so they have to go check it out?