Multi-Purpose
Jul/090
It’s been a busy few days…
Thursday morning, Heather was doing particularly not well and we wound up in the emergency room starting around noon. The ER docs handed her off to neurosurgery, who handed her off to urology, who didn’t really help much. Thanks to some relaxing and some Valium, she seems to be doing better right now. We’ll see how the next couple of days play out. (For those of you who don’t know how visits to the ER work, we got home slightly after midnight with a diagnosis that was exactly the same as the symptoms she went in with, as well as a “come back if you notice” list also including all of the symptoms she went in [and walked out] with.)
Jason called me the other day. He’d just heard about mom. I honestly feel like I should call him back, but I have absolutely no idea what to say to him. Jason and I haven’t talked in a while and I know there some messy feelings going on, at least on my side. Even so, “not avoiding communication” is on my list of things that are making life better, so I need to find a way to connect with him.
There’s a lot more, I’m sure, but I’m not really in the mood to go into it right now…
I know you mean what you say, but you don’t always say what you think. You keep almost everything of what goes on inside you close to your chest, and you don’t let anyone see what you’re thinking unless you want them to.
Awakenings
Jun/090
For one reason or another, I’ve decided that I’m returning to my old habit of stream-of -consciousness blogging. For anyone who actually knows me, this little exercise should be quite akin to my original “log”, back before “blog” was even a word.
Before I dive to far into things, I want to make something fairly clear: I’m not afraid of the Internet, nor the people who exist there-in. I will not be changing names or details other than those which I am contractually obliged not to talk about. I know who I am and I have no fear, gentle reader, of you knowing who I am as well.
Today was a cranky day for Heather. Nothing terribly life change, but one of those days that it’s better for me to spend some time on my own, getting my own projects done. In that right, today was productive. Big items knocked off the checklist were:
- Fix Eurosport temperature sensor
- Replace Eurosport blinker relay
- Attach front blinkers to Eurosport
I should probably mention that the “Eurosport” is a 1983 Honda CX650E, a model not sold in the U.S. Mine came down from Canada a couple of years ago. At any rate, the most important thing to realize is that you can’t get parts for the thing even if you’re trading solid gold. Fortunately, several parts are interchangable with the Civic. Go figure. Anyways, I went into O’Reilly Auto and picked up a 1983 Honda Civic Radiator Switch as well as a generic electronic blinker relay. (This was actually a month long undertaking involving several iterations of ording the part, then getting called out of town, coming back to find that they sent the part back. Fun.)
Another big problem when working on truely foreign bikes: documentation is even harder to come by than parts. The only written word I could find about replacing the temperature switch is that “you do not need to drain the radiator before beginning this procedure”. Having now performed this procedure, without draining my radiator, I would like to profess for all to know: you need to drain the radiator before beginning this procedure. Can you physically remove the sensor with the radiator full? Yes. How much coolant pours out all over the lower radiator and floor? Enough to fill a Clabber Girl Baking Soda tub half way.
Anyway, ripped out and redid a bunch of amateur wiring and that’s done. Same with the blinkers, except that involved adding amateur wiring and zip-tying the actually blinkers to the forks. Don’t ask. I’ll do right by the bike one of these days. I’m thinking steampunk.
At some point, I’ll probably write some of that stuff up on Grind.
That was pretty much the apex of the day. Mom still has cancer. I still have a job to go to on Monday. Heather just got up and seems to be in a much better mood. I should probably go hang out with her. Before that, my list of things to get done before Monday:
- Push Heather’s student loans into forbearance
- Push my student loans into forbearance
- Re-route student loan auto-payments to annoying credit cards
- Officially accept IRS payment plan
- Get cat food