Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Hallelujah, the car is rollin' again. Well, I guess technically she never lost her ability to roll. She just couldn't do it under her own power. Now she can. Muchos gracias, Mr. Watson! When I told him I owed him one, he reminded me that I gave him a hard drive to fix his computer and stated that we were, in fact, even. Works for me!

Discovered some very unusual wear on one of my current tires. It appears as though the inner corner of the tire has been rubbing against the fenderwell somewhere, but we could find no evidence of this on the car itself... it's worn pretty much all the way down to the steel belts in the middle of the tire. Don't know WHAT caused it. I do know that the tires need to be replaced ASAP.

While working on the car, I found a rusted old Craftsman 3/8" ratchet in my toolbox. I don't have any recollection of where it came from... in fact, I don't recall ever having seen it before in my life. It was rusted to the point that the inner mechanism had seized up completely. Knowing that Sears covers all of their hand tools under a lifetime warranty, I took the rusted old thing in this evening and asked for a replacement. Was a little curious what would happen, because it clearly wasn't a defect in manufacture... obviously the thing had been neglected badly. Walked out with a refurbished, good-as-new ratchet. Exact same model number. Perfect! "Guaranteed forever" indeed.

Lastly, it is absolutely insane what David Ortiz has done the last week. According to Rotoworld, he has 9 home runs in his last 9 starts, boosting his season total to 31 with 1 game to go before the All-Star break. Let me put that in perspective... the Red Sox, who have had multiple members of baseball's 500 career HRs club grace their roster over the years (including hall of famers like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx), as well as one likely to join the club next year, have NEVER had a hitter reach 30 home runs by the All-Star break. Mark McGwire had 30 when he went on to break Roger Maris' record of 61 with 70 of his own in 1998. Barry Bonds had 39 when he broke McGwire's record with 73 in 2001. No, I don't think he's going to break the record... but I think his last year's career best of 47 is in serious jeopardy. Can't wait for the Home Run Derby next week.

My Poor Car

Cluttered Garage

Well, my poor car has been out of commission for 2 months... one of those things I just haven't felt the urge to blog about. To make a long story short, due to an injured left ankle, I accidentally let the clutch out faster than I intended... causing massive wheelspin thanks to wet pavement... causing a broken CV axle. Could have been worse... we were worried the clutch had gone out. For those of you who know nothing about cars, it's a LOT less work to replace an axle than it is to replace the clutch.

So now I finally have all the parts needed to fix it (had to order various little bits from Honda)... and I'm going to do a couple of other things while I'm at it. That's what I'll be doing for the next couple of days. I had been borrowing Tanya's car while she was out of the country (thanks!), but she has reclaimed it now so I really need to get my car roadworthy again. I also need to say thanks to Michael Watson ... due to his expertise (and hands), this has been a lot easier than it would have been if I had to try to figure it all out on my own.

The above picture shows off our cluttered garage ... you can check out more photos here: Project Annabelle. Yes, I named my car Annabelle. Apparently it means grace and beauty. Since I think my car is both graceful AND beautiful, I thought it fit well. (Yes, Marti... I know I'm a dork.)