Somebody! Anybody! Poke me with a stick!
So...umm....yeah. Neglected again. Poor little blog. I just don't seem to have to time to update it more often anymore. But I'll try and keep everyone up to speed with things that have happened recently (since my last post, that is).I'm working at Cendant. Its a good job. Pretty easy, just sit at the computer all shift and take reservations or give phone numbers etc. It gets a tad annoying at times when there's no break between calls for a few hours straight but oh well. Then there are angry goobers that call in sometimes and pranks calls etc etc. The usual fun stuff. I missed my shift bid for July so I'm stuck with working 3:30-12:00 again, which isn't so bad. I would've liked to get Saturday and Sunday off but Tuesday and Wednesday will do. At the moment its a little annoying as Danielle is working 1:00-9:00, so I arrive in town 2.5 hours early and she has to wait 3 hours after her shift for me.
My nephew and niece have been staying with us since Monday and are going home today (I think) as my brother and his wife are in court for some custody hearing or whatever.
My dad bought a 2005 Chevy Silverado 4x4 extended cab with a 6.6L Duramax diesel with the 6 speed Allison transmission. He is now working running the truck between Indiana and Salisbury or Truro hauling camping trailers.
My car hates me. It is not behaving well lately. I had to disconnect the battery recently to put it in the Ranger to move it and the car did her usual stalling-when-slowing-down trick that I hate so much. Also, the gas gauge is all fucked up and not working properly. Yesterday I drove into town to drop Danielle off. The gauge read 1/4 of a tank when it was parked in the yard. Start driving down the road and it went to empty, then eventually quit in the middle of traffic at the intersection of Thorne Ave and Bayside Dr due to no gas. So that was an interesting couple of hours getting gas in it and running around and so on. I think the car knows I want to get rid of it. And this is why...
I went to CarQuest on Tuesday to do some pricing. I came up with this list of parts that my two vehicles need:
1995 Escort GT (Max)
- 2 rear struts $81.70/ea
- front brake pads $22/side
- rear brake pads $27/side
- left park brake cable $42.83
- right park brake cable $52.38
- rear brake calipers $117.72/side
Total of $539.15. Plus body work and paint.
1988 Ranger (unnamed)
- left park brake cable $23.56
- right park brake cable $34.30
- front brake pads $26.14/side
- rear brake shoes $36.86/side
- Carter carburetor rebuild kit $52.44
- parts truck $200
Total of $366.01. Plus paint (bodywork 95% complete)
As you can see, the Ranger is much cheaper to get on the road now as we've been working on it for 5 years on and off. The parts truck that I wish to buy has the same engine but with the older Carter 1BBL carb instead of the newer Aisan 2BBL carb that I have. My current engine isn't running properly and drains the battery. So I plan to either swap the manifold and carb or the whole engine into my truck and then put it on the road. Once I get it on the road I plan on selling the car and getting it out of my hair. Sure, the car is newer and all but that just means that the parts are more expensive when (no ifs, WHEN) something breaks. The Ranger is older and a bit simpler in technology so its cheaper to maintain (with the exception of the stupid carb and module I have grr).
That's everything in a nutshell so far. More to follow....