Tuesday Thoughts v10!

10 Weeks and Counting – I deserve a Pizza Trophy.

Fall is beautiful. This morning had a misty, golden sunrise and a crisp 58˚ while the morning news was on and coffee was brewing. It finally looked and felt like fall, and about time!

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Today’s my friends John and Erin’s 2nd anniversary. Seems like just yesterday, guys! Theirs was the one wedding I actually attended and not worked to photograph in 2006, but I couldn’t help but bring a camera. Sara and I had to hurry home and pack and leave for an out of state wedding job of our own, but I got this favorite laugh photo before our exit.

Congrats again, newlyweds!

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Where has the time gone? It’s OCTOBER tomorrow! We’ve almost finished off our first gallon of apple cider to ring in the new season.

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Today I’m playing Bucholtz Family tech support from the kitchen while Adrian naps. My sis could neither find the file she thought she saved on my parents’ computer or explain what she was trying to do so she’s coming over to ype it again. She said she saved it on a disk but… I can’t even name the last Mac that came with a floppy disk drive. (Even the G4 towers we used in 2003 only had zip drives!) I told her to email me the file or, if that wouldn’t work, to copy & paste the text but… something wasn’t working correctly.

Sounds like Adrian’s awake anyway, good timing.

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I’m just about back to normal after last weekend’s TWO concerts gave me an exercise beatdown. Friday at the State Theater was a great time working with the Underground Cafe’s finest, including a visit from our out-of-town graphic design student / master lighting designer DJ, Phil. Seems like years since the last time we hung out man. Got to see him twice this last weekend. Mark, JP, Judah, Alex, Dio, Ezra and the gang… man it was lot of work for those shows, man it was great laughing with you guys.

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My wife’s car was having trouble and our friend Eric was over so he and I took a look to see what was going on under the hood. Had it been early enough in the day on Saturday I would have called Car Talk cause they’d have had a riot hearing about and mocking diagnosing a repair for this car.

It’s a 1992 Toyota Corolla with 228,000 miles she bought off a friend for cheap to use as a beater car no one will steal way to save gas money. (Allegedly the engine was replaced / cleaned / looked at / something around 100,00 miles and little Toyotas run for decades.) It was squeaking a bit last week when she was driving away to an appointment and I meant to have a look when she got back but forgot. When I did get a look there wasn’t a serpentine belt left. I didn’t remember if it was worn out or not and there wasn’t a loose tensioner so I figured it just broke and fell off.

At the auto parts store the clerks were unable to find the specific model of the 1992 Corolla Sara has. It didn’t exist. So I got the generic Corolla belt and headed home. I let out all the tensionings and the belt wouldn’t fit even when I tried to pry it on there. (If I had fit it on this tight it would have likely been too tight and burnt off soon.) Then it hits us, look up the VIN number, title, and check the door / trunk stickers to see exactly what model it is.

Turns out it’s not a Corolla DX like the trunk letters told us, but a completely different model. One made in CANADA? We tried a larger belt and it was too big, and had to drive across town to another store to get a belt sized in between the two we tried and just HOPE it fit.

It fit! Got things tighened back up, tensioned properly, started it up and… SQUEAK! Shut it off to smell a toasting belt and see a little smoke. One of the pulleys was frozen up. It’s beyond what I can buy fix-it-yerself parts for at the store. At least I can say we tried.

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Lastly, just got the snail mail and… a giant spider was waiting on my cell phone statement. We don’t have dogs to chase the carriers, only arachnids. You were warned.