08/18/2003





08/11/2003

I am tired of trying to be a mind reader.. I am sick of trying to figure out if Im supposed to talk to a girl or not.. why do we have to always guess and play games.. why cant people just say something if they are interested.. has it always been like this? a girl dresses in such a way that just about any guy on the planet would fall over looking at her.. yet she claims shes not trying to get any guys attention.. or better yet, says she has a boyfriend or husband.. or in my case, they get offended if I talk to them at all.. worse yet, I have had girls blatently flirt with me, and then when I ask them out, they tell me they arent interested,. or that they werent trying to get my attention on purpose.. is this fair? I think not.. but its happened more than once. and people wonder why I am just going to give up. I cant play this game anymore.. no matter what you do, you will lose... she flirts.. you ask out, she says shes not interested and you were reading too far in to it... you DONT ask out, and you are a blind dopey guy who cant take a hint... well Ive made up my mind.. I dont want to guess anymore if its me they are trying to get attention from... but heres how its going to be now... if a girl wants me to ask her out, she can show up infront of me wearing some sort of green pants or skirt,.. and a purple top of some kind.. maybe with some red clips in her hair... THEN,.. THEN I will know its my specific attention that shes trying to get... until then... I will be ignorant of my surroundings.



08/08/2003

First of all, let me say that Pepsi Vanilla RULES.. I picked some up a couple days ago, and it wrecks Vanilla Coke.. just like I had hoped, they put more real vanilla flavor in it, like they did with cherry pepsi, so it more perfectly resembles somehting youd get in a sweet shope where they actually mix the sodas for you. and theres no bitter oddball lemon type after taste like coke has. once again, Pepsi came through.

Last week sucked big time. it started out with the girlfriend betrayal incident, which I forgave and tried to repair, ended with me getting dumped anyway, and had my car become unusable somewhere in the middle. not to mention a bunch of other little things that I just wont go in to here. when the car died, I just lost it.. I couldnt hide how angry I truely was any more. so today, things are back to my normal. I dont care to give details about the being cheated on or the other little things that made the week suck.. but Ill write up about the car, since thats something I was able to fix.

So it had been having a little trouble starting.. it would click the relay, snap the solenoid, but not start the starter motor.. after a couple trys it would work.. I figured when it would finally dry up outside I would take a look under the car.. then a headlamp blew.. not a big deal.. fixed that. and the rivit that holds the motor in the door for the power lock popped out.. pain in the ass, as this happened on the passenger side a few months before so I knew what was involved... but I fixed that too.. then the start problem got worse and worse... so thursday I get the car in the garage at home and look under there... turns out the problem was the relay on the back of the solenoid wasnt making good enough contact when the solenoid was pulled back to allow enough amps to turn over the starter... but with a wiggle of the wire, the car would start. so I figure I can go out for the night and just start the car that way... no.. I go out, try to start the car,.. wont go.. wont go.. wont go.. turns out now I need someone to move the wires while someone else turns the key.. so I have someone do that, and then guess what.. the alternator that I had put in just 5 months ago.. decided to start crapping.. was only pushing 11.5 volts, when normally it pushes 13.5. last time this happened I was able to run with it for about a week. so I figured Id be able to order a new one the next day, which would hopefully be covered under warranty and be ok for the night... no.. yes it was under warranty, but it didnt last another hour after I discovered that it was going bad.. so now Im stranded in middletown. I get a jump from a friend... charge the battery for 10 mins off of hers, and keep the RPMs VERY high all the way home.. with a little red light running, and speeding, I got near home.. then got a battery pack and got the thing home the rest of the way that way.. so the next day I order the alternator and go to pick it up saturday afternoon.. I couldnt find the receipt, but the guy remembered me and we got it swapped out. I had him look up the solenoid while I was there and he didnt have it, but the store in warwick did.. but it was packed and getting ready to be sent out back to the napa warehouse since it was sitting for so long. so I go there, beg the guy to dig it out,.. he does,.. so now I have both bad parts and can get the SHO going again.. no.. but this isnt really a bad thing now.. now its more of a project. I got that stuff in, but since it was apart this far, and in my car, you have to take it all apart to do anything.. we decided to locate this odd engine noise that started about a month ago. it was a tapping sound at idle, that would get real loud at 1500 RPM, and then completely go away after that. in the previous month we changed plugs, took the valve covers off and did the gaskets since it needed them anyway, but checked the valve spacing for the tap.. nothing.. and taking that manifold off isnt an easy thing. so I had a feeling it was not in the engine but under the timing cover.. sure enough we take that off this time and the belt is loose, but not bad. further digging found a self adjusting hydraulic tensioner that wasnt strong enough anymore.. causing the belt to flap and hit the housing. so now its parts ordering time. but first we need to get it all apart. no.. we get down to the crank shaft and the bolt in the shaft that holds on the damper pully is so tight that not even stuffing a wrench on it and laying it on the subframe and bumping over the engine was getting it off,... and since it was on a pully, it was nearly impossible to stop from turning, and bent just about everything we put in it as a breaker bar. so now its grinding time.. what a chore. after 3 days of turning, impacting, torquing, and finally grinding, we get the thing off, find the tensioner that we need, and we order the bolt, which came to 20 bux, and the tensioner that came to about 175. get those in and start putting things back together.. we had picked up new belts for the car too, and now came the job of timing this SHO engine.. fortionately Ford and Yamaha made this easier than it looked.. with the crank turned so that valve 1 was TDC, there was a dimple on the crank gear that lined up with a bump on the oil pump... up top, there was a dimple on each cam wheel that lined up with a line on the metal plate behind them... set all those, and then take the belt, aim the writing so that its facing the engine, and find your 2 cam lines on the belt, and line them up with those dots.. pull down the belt to the crank, and theres 2 lines, 1 for the 3.0 and 1 for the 3.2 engine.. line that 3.2 up with the dimple on the crank gear, and route the rest of the belt.. release the tensioner and the belt gets tight, and the car is perfectly timed. now we put everyhting else back together, put the new s-belt on, and naturally 1 last thing has to be a pain.. the battery clamp decided to break... 1 minute away from the car being done and the stupid little metal circle that holds the positive to the battery has to snap.. so we rig that up with a pipe clamp till I can get a new crimp on from Ford, and we start the car and the starter I put the solenoid in worked like a champ, the alternator worked like a champ, and the mysterious noise was GONE. today Im getting new tires as well, so the SHO is going to be in GREAT order. MANY thanks to my friend Allen who loves his cars and couldnt wait to get his hands in a SHO engine.. little more than you bargained for? hehe. Now I get to upgrade his computer,.. thats how we constantly pay each other. compuetrs for car, cars for computer.. his assistance was greatly appreciated. and MANY thanks for my step father.. who worked for Ford Parts for 25 years and knew how to find what we needed fast, and also was able to contribute many ways to the actual work we had to do. He knows lots of tricks and has a lot of information that was helpful to us. however, when it came to the SHO specific stuff on the car,.. we all learned a lot of new things about cars... such as theres such a thing as an engine that sparks twice in a cycle.... let me tell you.. I used the taurus station wagon we have over the last week to go to work while mine was down.. thanks to my sister Liz for giving up her primary ride for the week and my mother whos car it is... so after driving that and having to school all the dopes in their neons with a wagon, I nearly forgot how much easier it was in my SHO until I drove it to work this morning for the first time in a week. all I can say is.... FAST... :) I love my SHO.



08/06/2003

Ive updated all the past surveys and crap to reflect current situations and information. below are quick links to all of them.

Survey 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Survey 5
AaBbCc's



08/05/2003

I think I figured out why guys only go after a girls looks rather than her personality...

Cause it doesnt matter who they are,.. shes gonna fuck you over eventually anyway.



08/03/2003

so... that "worlds greatest girlfriend" thing is no more... there was an inncodent in the begining of the week... trust was broken.. a willingness to work it out was there,.. but it didnt last aparently for just 5 days later I am once again alone. once again told its not my fault. once again left to do the only thing I know how..... this time though, Ill know better than to think for even a second that things can really ever change. I know my place and my role for sure now.