I am incredibly bored right now. It's been raining on-and-off all day, but when it cleared up a bit, I drove out to Helper to go on my little bike ride, and as soon as I got out there and started taking my bike off the rack, it started raining a little. I decided "the hell with it, I'm still gonna ride," but after riding only a couple hundred yards, it was raining much harder, and it was damn cold. I could see that it was snowing up Price canyon just a few miles away, and I still had a long way to go before reaching my destination, so I just turned around and went home.

I really want to get out and ride my bike or go hiking, but this weather is just shit. I can see blue sky moving in from the west, but I'm sure as soon as I go somewhere, some more clouds will show up.

My radar detector failed me today. I was coming off of Billie's Mountain on US-6, right after the passing lanes end, when an UHP trooper in a Dodge Ram was coming the opposite direction. If he'd have been in a Crown Vic, I would have spotted him much sooner, but those Rams are damn hard to distinguish from non-police vehicles. My radar detector didn't even go off until he was past me, but I saw his lights come on and he pulled to the shoulder to flip a u-turn, so I just pulled over and waited for him--I knew I was busted.

My speedometer needle sticks at around 75 MPH, so I wasn't sure how fast I was going, but he said he clocked me at 81. He was a nice old guy--only wrote me up for doing 10 over, which saved me $75. The ticket is only $50, so it won't hurt me too bad. I'm more upset about the blemish on my driving record, which has been clean for quite a while up until now. Eh, time to get a Valentine One.

If the weather isn't too ugly, I'm going to go on a little expedition this weekend. There's this old railroad bed just east of Helper that I took my truck 4-wheeling on two summers ago, where I found a pretty interesting fossil (that I have yet to identify). I'm going to go back there Saturday and look for more fossils, but I'll have to ride my mountain bike there. The road is extremely rough, so I'll park my car right where the dirt road starts and bike the rest of the way. There are some steep grades on the way there, so I'll probably actually be walking my bike a lot of the way up.

Looking at that aerial photo, you can see a trail that heads northeast that I didn't know even existed, so if I'm feeling up to it, I may check it out. Damn, I wish I had my truck back--it would make this much easier. They're still trying to get a tranny for it, but they're apparently incompetent.

Here's a nifty little app for anyone running Apache for Win32. It hides the DOS window, and lets you start and stop Apache from a tray icon.

Well, I got my sewer line cleaned out, and it did only cost me $65. The Roto-Rooter guy played out 107 feet of ½" snake before he hit the blockage. No wonder the Drano didn't do the trick. The blockage must have literally been out in the middle of the street, just before my line hit the main line. The guy said he remembered coming out here a couple of years ago, which must have been right before I moved in, but he said "See you in about two years" when he left. Maybe I should move out of this fucking house.

The damn sewer line running out of my house into the main is apparently clogged up. When the washing machine was draining yesterday, the floor drain started backing up. Luckily, I was downstairs and heard the water gurgling and stopped it before gushed out all over the floor. Since then, I've dumped about 1.5 gallons of Drano down the drain, to no avail. And this morning I tried a pipe snake, but I played out all of the line without hitting a blockage.

So I called Roto-Rooter, and they said they should be able to make it out here in an hour or two. The guy said it'll probably cost around $65, but we'll see if it isn't a lot more than that by the time they're through (isn't that always my luck?).

I was going to head into the office for work today, but I couldn't shower or finish washing my clothes, so that plan went down the drain (sorry about that).

I was bored, checking out Google Groups, and found this newsgroup post by me from February 1996. That seems like forever ago.

A whole bunch of grass finally sprouted in my back yard today--well, I noticed it today anyway. I thought the freezing temperatures a few nights ago would have killed it, but it seems to be doing ok.

God damn, I hate working on cars. Well, at least when things go wrong. I got the new brake pads on my car yesterday, but it took me three hours. I had a very hard time getting the pistons to go back into the calipers far enough for them to fit over the new, thicker pads. I eventually had to go to Checker and buy a tool that fits inside the caliper and pushes the piston back in--I had tried using a c-clamp, but it wouldn't fit the caliper well enough. I got the right-side caliper to slide back over the rotor without any problems, but I had to force the left-side caliper into place. I thought once I started the car and pumped the brakes a few times, enough brake fluid would be forced out of the caliper that it would loosen its grip.

I was wrong. I took it for a drive up the street to make sure everything was working ok, and the brakes started smoking badly. The damn left-side caliper just wouldn't loosen its grip on the rotor, so it was like driving with the parking brake on. I just had to pull over and leave my car on the side of the road, because I'm sure if I'd driven any further it would have caught fire. It was getting dark and cold out, so I left the car there overnight and came back this morning. I just ended up putting the old brake pads back on, which weren't worn as badly as I had assumed before replacing them. It took me less than 10 minutes to remove the wheels, replace the brakes on both sides, and put the wheels back on. Right as I was finishing up, it started snowing, and there was lightning and thunder--something I've never seen during a snow storm.

The car still stops well enough with the old brake pads on. I'm not sure what that grinding noise was that I was hearing before, but it's not doing it now. But when I get some time and money, I'll have to take the car into a professional and see what's wrong with that caliper.

Oh joy, my car is making that godawful grinding noise--you know, worn brake pads on rotors. I once tore the shit out of the rotors on my '88.5 Escort GT because at the time, I didn't know how to replace brake pads (and I'm lazy, and didn't have the money to get them fixed anyway). Now I've done front and rear brakes on all kinds of cars and trucks, so doing the Subaru should be a piece of cake. I haven't bought a repair manual for that car yet, and I hope I never have to. I think I can figure things out on my own well enough.

I should probably bleed the brake lines while I've got the front wheels off, but I hate bleeding brakes. The brake pedal has always been pretty spongy, but as cold and windy as it's been outside, it's not worth freezing my ass off even more just to have that nice solid feeling when you hit the brakes. I'll wait 'til it warms up a bit outside, then maybe I'll get around to it.

I was watching Police Videos the other night (I love that show), and they showed a police chase in Provo. It started on State Street around 1860 South (not too far from work) and ended in a residential area near downtown. It was funny, because I was familiar with the streets, and when the guy being chased turned east onto Center Street, I was like, "Where the hell are you going?" He got to the dead-end near Seven Peaks and tried turning around, and got tagged by the UHP trooper's car. He ended up getting t-boned by another truck a few blocks after that, and his truck caught fire. You don't hear about a lot of stuff like that going on in Utah, but that's the second time a chase in Utah County has been on that show.

It's looking like the weather this week might be a little wet, which sure makes me happy. I haven't watered my new lawn (well, it's still just dirt for now) once yet today, and hopefully I won't have to. The only bad thing is it looks like the temperature might get below freezing, which will kill my grass. I still don't have any grass sprouting up, but it hasn't even been a full week since I planted it. I'll be pissed if all that work and money goes for nothing.

My allergies have been bothering me pretty badly this past week. There's a tree in my front yard that's dropping catkins all over the place, and they leave circles of pollen where they drop to the ground, but most of it is airborne. There was a rather thick layer of pollen on the windshield of my car this morning, so I'm sure it's on every surface outside, and most inside as well. I'm thinking about seeing my doctor and getting one of those prescription allergy medicines like you see on tv, the ones that give you diarrhea, headache, abdominal pain, and liver problems. No wait, nevermind, sneezing and having a stuffy nose isn't that bad after all. =)

Weekends seem to go by so fast when I don't get anything accomplished. Saturday, we went to Orem and hung out with Mike and Allison for Allison's birthday dinner. It was a fun day, but we didn't get home until around midnight. Yesterday I just hung around the house all day, doing nothing. I'm still tired and achy from all the work I've done around the yard the past couple of weeks, so I'll use that as an excuse to be lazy. =)

I tried calling the doughboy down at the Ford dealer to see if my truck was ready, but he was "busy with another customer," and the secretary said she'd leave him a message to call me back. It's been a couple of hours and I haven't heard from him, which simply means my truck isn't finished. I think I'll wait until tomorrow until I start harassing him.

The F-1Shitty should be back in service within a week. I decided against buying something different, since something in my price range is bound to have the same problems I had in the first place with the truck I already have. Now, I've got a rebuilt engine, new clutch, an entirely new brake system, new driveshafts, a used (but more reliable) transmission, and a whole lot of other little things I've had done over the past few years. I guess you can never win when your vehicle is almost as old as you are.

It was too windy (again) last night to plant my grass, so I got up early this morning and did it. I laid down some starter fertilizer, then the grass seed, then a layer of peat moss, and watered it. The shape of my yard (and the location of the garage and house) make it a little difficult to water with a regular sprinkler, 'cause I always end up either watering the windows in my basement or getting water under the garage door, so I just stood out there and watered with the hose. But I'm going to have to come up with a better way, because I can't be outside watering the grass all day, every day, until it gets established.

This wind is pissing me off to no end.

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday evening a little after 7:00 to get some plastic tubing so I could run a water line to my freezer and finally hook up my ice maker. They're building a new Supercenter right across the street from the current Wally World, and they've pretty much stopped stocking the shelves in the old one, but the new one won't be open for another week. So the damn place was nearly picked bare, and they didn't have any water line. So I booked on over to K-Mart, and what do you know--they're closed. The sun was still up (damn daylight savings), and the place was closed. I don't know if it's some Utah thing, where K-Mart closes super early on Sundays, but it sure pissed me off. I'm sure the new Wal-Mart will not only put them out of business in this town, but hopefully Albertson's will close shop too.

I would have planted the grass in my back yard today, but it was too damn windy. It looks good still, even though it's all just dirt now--in fact, it looks better than it ever has since I moved in. I wish I'd taken some pictures before I started all the work back there. I've probably put about 25 hours into it in the past week, but now all that's left is to lay down some peat moss and grass seed, and keep it watered. But once I get done with that, I still have plenty more work to do on the rest of my yard.

I was gonna take that F-350 for a test drive yesterday, but the guy couldn't get it started--the carburetor flooded really bad. It's got a 400M engine, 4-speed manual transmission, 33x12.5" tires, and it's a Canadian model, so the speedometer and odometer are in kilometers. I went over there with $1,300 in my wallet, prepared to offer the guy that much if I liked how it ran, but now I'm not so sure I even want it. I might just get my truck fixed, because at least then I'll know what work has been done on it, and I won't be wondering what'll go wrong next.

I went down to the Ford dealer to find out what the hell was going on with my truck, and they'd found another problem with it--a crack in the transmission housing. They said they could get me a used transmission for $500, plus about $200 in labor to swap them. So I'm looking at around $2,000 to fix everything that's wrong with it. They've already put $200 worth of labor into my truck just trying to find all the problems, but I think I'm just going to pay that and bring the truck home, and let the thing rot until I can get around to fixing it myself.

Some guy across the street from me is selling an early-mid '80s F-350 for $1,500, and I'm thinking about just buying that, if it's in good enough shape. It's been for sale for a long time, so I'm afraid something bad might be wrong with it. The only good thing is that the engine in my '79 will probably fit in it--I know the 351 engine was available in that year of truck, but I'm not sure if it was the Windsor or the Modified (like mine), and I'm not even sure if that matters. I'm going to call later today to get some details about it.

Christ, I'm sore. Every day this week, I've been working in my back yard for a couple of hours after I get off work, trying to get it ready to plant grass and do some other landscaping. I've torn out several tree stumps, almost all of Ailanthus Altissima, or Tree of Heaven. This tree has got to be one of the worst weeds in the world, but I hope to eradicate them from my yard entirely this summer. I also tore out the remains of some rose bushes I cut down last year, but they might as well have been tree stumps--some of them were larger than 6" in diameter at the base.

I also started removing two poles that used to have a clothesline attached to them. I borrowed Ty's grandpa's pipe cutter (thanks again! :) to remove the horizontal pipe connecting the two uprights, then I dug around the concrete base of each pole--one was 2 ft. deep, the other 3 ft. They sure used enough damn concrete. I tried using my Subaru to pull one of them out of the hole, but the concrete base just got stuck on the edge of the hole and my car couldn't power it out (my truck probably could have). So I had my wife help me steady the pole while I lifted the entire thing out, then rolled it back behind my garage and out of the way. I'm still working on getting the other one out--it'll have to wait 'til tomorrow after work.

I got my mom's tiller working perfectly, with a little help from my neighbor. I had changed the oil the other day and was trying to start it, but it just wouldn't go. Then I remembered that I'd messed with the carburetor adjustment screws last year when I was monkeying around with it, so I backed them off a bit and tried to start it, and the damn thing started right up! It used to be that when I could get it running, I would have to choke it completely (not with the choke lever, but with my thumb--cutting off almost all the airflow into the carb). But it ran just fine only using the choke lever, though if I turned the choke off it would die. So I tilled a good part of my back yard, even though when it was digging in the engine would rev really low, and when it was just idling, the engine would rev really high. My scary neighbor from down the street (this guy looks like every serial killer you ever saw) heard it revving so high and thought I was going to blow the thing up, so he came over and adjusted the carb so it would run perfectly whether it was digging in or just idling. At least he's a nice guy, no matter how scary-looking.

So I've entirely tilled the part of my back yard that used to be grass before I killed it last year (from not watering), and after I get some little tree stumps removed, and the old clothesline poles removed, I'll plant grass. I think I'm also going to do a little landscaping back there, though I'll go easy on the plants this year, 'cause it won't be worth spending money on nice plants only to have them die in this drought. Next year maybe I'll be able to plant more of what I want--mostly some shade trees that don't take up much space, like some quakies or something. My next project this year is to fix all the damn problems with my sprinkler system. Fun.

Time to call in an airstrike on Pleasant Grove. C'mon, people are pulling their children out of Little League because there are games scheduled on Mondays. Just level the entire city.

Good...the guy who was cited for swearing after he fell out of his canoe got his conviction turned over.

Michael finally got his two top-front teeth in today. He had his four bottom teeth in for a long time, and a few weeks ago two bottom molars popped through, so now he's got eight teeth total. I think he's starting to suck his thumb now too, but I'm not sure if he's sucking it to replace the comfort of his normal breastfeedings, or if he's just fidgeting with his new teeth.

He's really enjoying this warm weather, and so am I. Last summer, he was too young to do anything outside except lay on the grass and drool, but this summer he can run around and dodge cars in the street. Seriously, I need to put a gate across my driveway to keep him away from the street and in the back yard, because I live on one of the busiest streets in town. Some grass would be nice in the back yard too...I think I'll plant some in the next week or two, before it gets too hot outside, and I'll just have to hope the city doesn't put watering restrictions in place before it gets good and started.

The "picnic" we went on Saturday kinda sucked. It was just me, Traci and Michael, and my sister and her daughter. It's about a 45-minute drive up to the place we went, and when we got there, it was so windy that we didn't want the kids outside, so Traci and Mandy sat in the car with them while I rode my bike up the dirt road. I was hoping the road would wind up the canyon, but it ended about 50 yards around the bend from where we parked the Subaru. There were a few game trails past where the road ended, so I kept riding, but I got slapped in the face a few times by tree branches. I probably went a couple hundred yards further, then the terrain started getting too rough for a mountain bike, so I just turned around and went back. After I had something to eat and drink, I hiked up to the cave in the hill next to where we were parked, but there was a ledge at the mouth of the cave that I couldn't make it up without someone else's help, so I just had to hike back down the hill. It really wasn't worth the drive, but it was something to do.

Traci and I went to the park and flew our kites when we got back into town, and that was really fun. We went to the park near the cemetery, which is pretty new, and there are no mature trees or any other obstructions to get in the way. Michael seemed to have fun, and it was nice for us because the expanse of grass was so big, we didn't really have to worry about him wandering off--he was always in plain sight--but he stayed right by us anyway. My kite (a 4 ft. nylon kite that I've had for ages) doesn't do well in high winds. It kept nosediving when the wind picked up, and one time it did it when I had almost all of my string played out. I remembered that I had my cordless drill in the car, so I stuck the dowell in the drill and wound my string that way. I think I'm going to get a new 6.5 ft. or larger (maybe even a 20 footer) kite pretty soon--I've found them online for around $25--and I think I'm going to make a wooden winder similar to the ones most places sell. The one thing I hate about flying kites is winding string.