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The Aussies Have Invaded

Yesterday, the Holden Owners of Indiana put on a cruise called the Fall Foliage Cruise. I had Amelia with me and wanted to take her on a proper ride in her papaw’s car.

The route began in Nashville, IN with a destination of Bo-Mac’s Drive-In located in Shoals, IN. We then took a separate route towards the starting point, which literally took me home, ending the cruise for us.

The route was far more twisty than Google wanted to show.

Me and the Camaro, surrounded by some amazing cars from all around Indiana

When I took this picture, the guy in the Ute said, “That’ll be $3.” I <3 these Aussie cars.

We all hung around for about an hour, talked to each other and then took off. Shockingly I has the most conversation with a guy in a Mustang. I was the only Camaro on the cruise.

The Geo Metro driver took this photo and I love it.

On the first leg, not too far out of Story, IN we ran into a group of 4 bicyclists. We were all running pretty hot, warming up the road and our tires. The car in front of me, a Geo Metro Convertible locked his brakes up and went in the other lane. That was when my own brake light came on and I lost a lot of my own braking power. For the rest of that first leg, I had to press the brake pedal about 3/4 of the way before the brakes began to work. We drove by Bedford North Lawrence High School, which is right by where my daughter now lives. It would have been nice if her mom and stepbrothers would have came out and waved in support.

Thankfully we were at a gas station for the first pit stop.

The next leg took us to Shoals, IN and the drive-in. Getting there was a bit of a battle though, as our group of 60 cars was split by a stranger and a tanker truck on US50. This road isn’t exactly “friendly” for safe passing of vehicles. One by one, the guy in the Mustang I mentioned previously, an AMG Mercedes and I passed them both however. Amelia loved it.

When we arrived at the drive-in, Amelia ranted and raved about the place. As a friend of hers had three t-shirts from there. Later in the day, she found out this friend’s grandfather owns it.

We all ate, rested and chilled for a while. Then a group of us, mostly driven by members of the BAC, decided to leave early to do some more “spirited” driving. We of course, went with the group. This became the hardest, fastest section. We took a county road the hardest I’ve done since I was a teenager. At some points my tires were telling me I was pushing the limits. I was proud of the IROC’s performance however, beating anyone was not what I was trying to do, keeping up with the pack is all I needed to smile.

Then we had another “incident.” We had moved from the county road to US450, a proper two lane highway. We turned a corner and were on a bridge when everyone just began braking, hard. It took everything I had to not hit the car in front of me. The 4th Generation WS6 Trans Am behind me almost hit me, but he later said he was under control. Then to my left, a white Fiesta went flying down the oncoming lane, hard. He later said he was going to make that oncoming truck stop, and he did! A couple of minutes later, we ended up on US50 at a gas station with a large parking lot. Upon arriving we all got out of our cars in a collective WTF just happened?

As we were there a Bedford cop showed up, I said well we’ve been made.

In all the years dad owned this car, he never really tried to see what it would do except for the few times we took it to Indianapolis Raceway Park to drag race it. Those who know IROC-Z’s know they aren’t a drag car in stock format. They are killer in the corners however, and can keep up with brand new sport cars in that regard.

I talked to Amelia about this, and how I hoped we were making him proud from wherever he is. It’s all I want to do, make him proud.

October VCCA Meeting

The October meeting of the Indiana region of the VCCA happened yesterday, and I have to say it was a great meeting to me. We had the largest turnout I’ve seen, and two new members joined.

One of those members brought his 57 Chevy Belair. He said it’s his 11th, and he has eyes on the 12th. With my father having one in his youth, this car has always been special to me.

Our October meetings are held at Jim & Holly’s house, and they have a glorious estate. I knew when I made it because I saw his Corvette and Camaro out front. We lined all of our cars up, and I saw an opportunity for a picture. I should have taken another photo however, as more people came afterwards.

Left to Right: 87 Camaro IROC-Z Convertible, 1971 Chevelle SS, 1972 Chevelle Convertible, 1988 Camaro IROC-Z, 1964 Malibu Convertible, 1957 Belair 2 door hardtop

We also had these beautiful automobiles:

We sat around a fire and roasted hot dogs and had our meeting. On the agenda was next months meeting, the upcoming anniversary meet and the Facebook group we agreed to make last month in order to bring our region into the modern world.

After our official business was done, the men kind of split from the women. We actually talked about our cars and had conversations about the automotive world. Something I haven’t seen much of in the group unfortunately.

This journey of coming back into the fold of dad’s car club is really starting to set in for me, and I embrace everything the club embodies. I have much to learn from those I share membership with, and I try to take every moment and every detail of it in.

Next month, we plan to meet in Morocco, IN. We have a couple of people who are interested in joining the club and have been invited to take a tour of a Snowmobile museum. It’s a big trip for me, but I am genuinely excited about the museum.

I’m waiting on some business cards to come in the mail so I can design some for our own club to be used to give away to others to use as materials to reach out and say nice car!

Workin’ in a Coin Mine

My girlfriends son, primarily through the influence of his friends decided to get into cryptocurrency, and more succinctly mining it.

Little did his friends know that I’m a bit of an OG when it comes to such things. So I gave Tyler my old Block Erupters and Antminer U1. Set him up with the next to latest release of cgminer, and let him go to town.

There’s another hub full of the block erupters and the non pictured Antminer U1.

Something about the excitement did something to me, because I did something pretty crazy, I decided to buy an Antminer S9. This thing is insanity when compared to the mining equipment of my younger days, which was the first equipment specifically designed for the task. ASICS, short for application specific integrated circuit. Aka, they only do 1 thing but they do it extremely well. At my highest level, I was mining bitcoin at a rate of 26 GH/s but this S9 mines at a rate of 15 TH/s. GH means gigahash, TH means terahash which is 1000 times greater.

As you can tell from the design alone, this means business.

That said, it comes at a cost. You see, with great power comes great need. I’ve been doing some calculating. This miner will probably use more electricity than I use in a month in my home.

My last two days of electricity usage are showing as 53kwh and 49kwh. By doing the math on the lesser of the two days, that brings me to 1470kwh a month. Which is often more than double what I use.

The other factors are the noise and heat. This machine makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 db of noise alone. I have seen youtube videos and pictures of people putting them in coolers. There are people selling pieces to put on the fans to “quiet” them. This brings me back to way back when, all of the “accessories” you could purchase for your gear.

The heat this machine emits is kind of nice seeing as we are coming to a cool part of the year. I had placed it in my utility room, with the door closed and could still hear the fans winding away at 4000 rpm. The exhaust blows at roughly 10mph. When I opened the door, the room was at least 20 degrees warmer than it had been.

I’m unsure if I am going to move it to a location where I can have it running without paying for energy, or resell it. I’m currently mining on the pools I used to use to get the small amounts I could not withdraw out.

So right now, it’s fate is unclear. But it certainly has been fun.

Well That’s Great

To quote my father, who said that after we had a car accident.

A week ago, a condition I’ve been dealing with reared it’s ugly head. It’s embarrassing to talk about, but I think those are the things that NEED to be discussed. That event brought on a concatenation of events that I’m still trying to heal from, both mentally and physically.

Well what is it? The condition, diagnosed through one of my own staff doctors at the school of medicine is called proctalgia fugax. I started having flares of this condition after going to a concert last year. I didn’t seek any treatment, as there are no real treatment options specifically for it.

While on the way home it started to increasingly become difficult to sit, as a burning pain seemed to become more and more intense in the area of my tailbone. It came to a point where I was forced to stop. I got out on an off ramp of the interstate to try to walk it off, but it was of no help. I then tried to lay down, no change. My girlfriend claims I passed out between walking it off and laying down, but I have no recollection of this.

From that point forward, this intense amount of pain would happen unexpectedly and at any location. I began to get this urge in my mind when these attacks would happen. As if it was one of those built in instructions from when we were neanderthals. It told me to use my muscles to try to have a bowel movement. That doing it would make the pain go away. This became my immediate reaction when the pain would start to happen.

Over time, the pain and effects of this condition lessened. To the point where I barely felt it the last time it happened. I thought I was over this, but I thought wrong.

I was woken up from the pain coming on last Sunday, and did what I normally do. But this time it came on stronger than it ever had. What happened to me is up for interpretation. To my memory I went from sitting on the toilet to waking up on the floor, face down. I had no visual memory of moving from point a to b. I did however have audible memory of crashing sounds.

With my history of seizures, I was very concerned that I had just had a seizure. When I got off the floor I received a couple other surprises. My back was red in an area on my shoulder, full of scratches and gouges. Then came the pain. I had some severe pain coming from my right rib area, directly under my breast.

My MD faculty at the school of medicine urged me to go to the emergency room, but the stubbornness in me refused. There isn’t much that can be done for broken ribs anyway. Why go? The next day I went, as I woke up with more intense pain than I had been feeling. They confirmed what I had though, diagnosing a “rib contusion / minor fracture.”

I’ve taken the week off of work, and the pain has slowly gotten less sharp in intensity, but it does remain.

Random Mumblings

I feel like I need to write. This week has been a mix of incredible and overwhelming anxiety.

This week was my first week of 4 day workweeks, something I asked for to help with these trying times. I was given approval by my manager and center director to do so. I don’t know how long I will be doing this, but for the time being I need it.

I have been putting off some much needed maintenance on my Jeep. I need to change the spark plugs badly. It seems like every time I psych myself up to do it I chicken out however. I don’t get it. I did get around to changing the differential fluid on both rear ends today. I don’t know if it was a fluke or what but the front would only take 1 quart. The rear 1 1/2 quarts. They should take much more.

I love the fill and drain plugs of the Dana axles.

One day while at work I received a call from my mortgage company. I’m thankful they were able to help me keep my home at a time when all the odds were against me. They have called me many times with offers that were of no benefit to me, just another sale for them. This time it was different.

With the economy in dire straits, and my credit card debts only increasing, this changes the ballgame for me. It rolls all of my credit card debt into a refinance, lowers my interest rate by 1.26% AND my payments with escrow stay essentially the same. This is a financial grand slam as far as I’m concerned.

This will relieve me of over $500 in credit card payments a month alone. It’s not that I couldn’t pay them, but the removal of those stressors is a welcome sign. The only downside to this is resetting the 30 year countdown on paying the debt off, and increasing that particular principal owed.

The elimination of the other higher interest debts really balances it out however, at least to me. With my paycheck not getting any larger anytime soon I need to make some strategic financial moves to ensure I stay in the green and actually build a savings holdings.

Neighborly Love

Last year my neighbor bought a fishing boat. It’s nice and similar to what I would choose to buy if I had those funds. He’s in his late 70’s and most of the time takes his wife out for cruises on the lake in it. She often takes selfies of them and it’s adorable.

After talking with him the other day, he seemed a little sad that people of his age are dying off, he’s losing friends. He wanted to go fishing, something his wife doesn’t exactly like. I told him to let me know – and I’d be happy to go with him. He asked, and today we went for an early morning fishing session at Lake Monroe. As soon as he asked, I sent an email to my boss stating that I would be taking the day off, and while I monitored goings on I was able to be care free.

The weather has been cooling off in the last few days, which has made it nice for me. I wish I would have gotten a picture but the lake was covered in fog when we got there, it was absolutely beautiful.

I haven’t even been on a boat since I was young, let alone went fishing on one. With my trusty Zebco Bullet .22 fishing pole that I’ve had since I was about 13 we got to work and eventually found a cove where the fish were biting, and hard. Every time I tried to set the hook however, nothing. Then surprisingly, my hook was gone! That dang fish took my hook!

We then trolled up the shoreline (he had never used his trolling motor) for a while. I kept casting, but wasn’t getting any bites. Then we both decided we needed a bite of our own, and decided to pack up and grab some grub. Deciding to go to Cloverleaf and we both decided on a full order of biscuits and gravy.

When I first moved into my home in 2006, he came off as the kind of person you try to avoid. Over that time, he’s seen the highs and lows that have come with my life which I believe has led to a softness he doesn’t show everyone. Thank you Bill. Today probably meant as much to you as it did to me.

Life Has Become Expensive

There’s a commonality between many American’s these days. We are all just one emergency away from disaster. Many are living paycheck to paycheck, or the newly minted direct deposit to direct deposit.

This year, the drainage work I had to have done was enough to break my budget. When this pandemic struck, my salary was also cut by $1750 a year, with overtime eliminated.

Most recently, my daily driver has required much. The brake replacement costing $700, I still need to perform the 100k mile tuneup. While I have already acquired the parts needed, being spark plugs and intake plenum gaskets, I have extreme trepidation about performing the task. The fear of the unknown has always been one of my largest fears.

As if life wasn’t giving me enough to deal with, something happened with my washing machine. I’m not an expert in electronics or in major home appliances but all of the things shown tell me it wasn’t good.

I first discovered a trail of water in my basement in an L shape from my basement garage door to my washing machine. From there the possibilities were endless, that was until I opened the washing machine up. It was completely full of water. It was overflowing, causing this leak into my basement.

I borrowed a pump off of a friend who had lent me a pump when my basement was flooding. Thankfully it fit into the old washing machine, which was just a $75 Craigslist special. When I bought it, I promised myself that I would not be doing this song and dance again. I wanted to purchase something new and something that was Energy Star certified.

But first, I had to correct the issues. The water valves were leaking and would not shut off fully.

I did not want to replace these valves with the same thing. I wanted ball style valves without a flange for wall mounting. Thankfully when whoever set this up originally, they attached these with a threaded fitting, making replacement somewhat easy. Finding the valves I wanted ended up being a task however. The major big box stores did not have any. Menard’s said it was special order, Lowe’s stated they had 6 in stock online, so I place an order before I went to bed. By the time I woke up, that order had been cancelled. This is the second time this has happened to me when ordering something online from them.

I had a meeting the next day and as luck would have it that meeting took me into the direction of a small True Value hardware store in a town where I used to live. They had the valves I needed, but they were double the price.

So with the old washing machine cleared of water and moved out of the way, I got to work removing the valves. I had to put a fair amount of thread tape on to seal the valves, redoing one of them twice. But they function much better than the ones that were existing.

The correct term for these are “Hose Bibs”

I then needed to do the thing I was dreading the most. I had to get rid of the old washing machine, and the old dryer I had replaced but never taken off. I also had 6 brake rotors sitting around from all of the brake work I’ve done in the past year.

I have my dad’s truck, but it’s currently not operational or road worthy. Most in the area charge to haul things off, no matter what the size. This has always stricken me as odd, as they receive money for scrap on these items. So I reached out, and a friend very openly let me borrow his truck. In kind, I left my Jeep with him. I’m not a fan of taking things from others and leaving them without.

My body is in horrible physical condition, and as I’ve learned it’s becoming weak. It made me happy to be able to accomplish this task.

When finished, I filled up the gas tank of my friends truck in appreciation. He uses it a lot for his work and drives a lot. I would much rather help someone I know than rent a piece of equipment and give money to a corporation.

Then it arrived, the new washer I bought. At first I was a little overwhelmed. I’m not used to having such nice things to handle such tasks.

I had the delivery men take it out of the box and leave it in my garage.

It was a bit hard to get it into my utility room. The feet on this unit don’t allow it to slide like most washing machines that I’m used to. So I had to carry it. With new everything, the entire installation went very smooth.

The contrast is now obvious and clear however. This new machine has more than double the capacity of my old one. It automatically senses the load size and can be started with an app.

Thankfully I was able to get this on an 18 month no interest offer. I hope to pay this off quickly, then purchase the matching dryer. That will require some more upgrades, as my dryer outlet is a 3 prong, and new dryers require a 4 prong.

As it’s been for a while, I’m just living for the future, when some of my debts are paid, and the difference between living and surviving becomes clearer.

Twenty One

Last week something pretty awesome happened, my oldest child turned twenty one.

Her mother and I were young when she was born. I blame it on kids who weren’t using their minds. Regardless, we’ve loved her from the beginning. I had more difficulty along this journey. I always felt like she was mature as I was.

Her mother and I split up early in her life, I was going through some of the heaviest things I had dealt with up to that point, causing me to be just another child for her to deal with. We sometimes bicker, we sometimes fight, but it’s always been about her interest.

Over the years, she did what a kid does, she grew. The time was passing by and I didn’t even know it. Had I known, I would have taken those opportunities to do so much. I was in a semi-permanent state of exhaustion just trying to keep the lights on.

She often talks about how one of her happy memories of childhood is when I would play barbies with her. She would put Barbie into a situation where she needed rescued, and I would turn Ken into Superman. He would fly up and rescue the damsel in distress.

As the child became the teenager, that closeness disappeared. In many ways, it’s the circle of life. I was just starting to get a grasp on how to be a father. She went off and did her teenage things, and I took those lessons she gave me to provide the things I should have for her, to her sister.

The day she was born, I had my mom buy a bottle of Jack Daniels (I was too young). To be held onto until her 21st birthday, when her mom, I and her would celebrate this accomplishment. I feel that modern society doesn’t give our children any real rites of passage through their journey to adulthood.

Some get graduation or commencement ceremonies for each level of school (I didn’t). Some get parties for these things, I didn’t. I wanted to ensure my children knew and had the depth of thought about their father holding onto something for 21 years, just to share it with them.

I was happy to share my home for people from all over to come celebrate her graduating high school. It filled my heart for this experience however.

The next day, I took her out to dinner in her papaw’s Camaro. I had driven her around the neighborhood, but she had never properly rode in it before in her life. I think that ride showed her why it’s special to me, and why I want it to stay in the family.

Here’s to adulthood, and all the responsibilities contained in it. Life is a complete mess for all of us right now, but we will always have each other. I love you kiddo, and always will. Through the ups and downs life throws us, we need people we can depend upon and I’ve always tried to be just that for you. Ol’ dad will always have your back, without question.

My goal in life is to see you succeed where your dad never could. I’ll do just about anything to help you do that, but like my father before me I won’t dictate your vision for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A Light Shined Upon Me

Today was a good day. Today I met a man I’ve known strictly through Facebook for what feels like an eternity, but we had never met in real life until today.

He and I share the same debilitating skin disorder, learning of each other in a support group and quickly becoming friends due to our fairly close vicinity to each other.

He knew I was feeling overwhelmed by all of these chores I needed to complete, but couldn’t simply due to the heat and offered to help me clean up the trees I cut down. I completed the task by cutting the pieces into smaller manageable pieces, while he used my mower and cart to haul the wood to the back of my lot.

I became overheated and had to take breaks. I appreciated the company and the brotherhood he provided. Immensely.

I hope more people like him continue to shine a light on this world.

I Can’t Keep Up

Ever since the beginning of this pandemic, work has been full of changes on a level I’ve never seen before. It’s been almost impossible to keep up with the continual questions from those who depend on me, I’m learning as they are.

Personally, it’s been much of the same. Nothing I want to disclose at this point, but with my dad’s birthday coming up my normal strengths have become weaknesses.

I had to do something about it, and I couldn’t fight the need to flight – so I packed my stuff and went home. I spent the weekend in an odd state of consciousness, not living just existing. I hoped to get a lot of things done, and a friend offered his assistance – but the weather had other plans. I told him to not make the trek, I didn’t want him out in the rain like that.

I decided to start therapy again, it’s a helpful tool that I’ve used throughout my entire life. Perhaps there is something there I’m not exactly seeing that is causing all of this to just be too much.

I wasn’t even excited about picking up my youngest daughter on Sunday, something that typically changes my mood 180 degrees every time.

I know the subject of my father with my therapist made me weep uncontrollably. So it’s quite possible that’s the ticket, grief.

I took off work today, and took the trash and recycling off. I also sent the master cylinder I bought for the Jeep back. I then changed the oil, did laundry and put it away, then put my dishes away. The dishes have been done for a week, just sitting in the dishwasher waiting to be put away.

I accomplished some things today. That’s always something to be proud of right?