Not the biggest zombie truck

I've been working on several different projects lately. First is tons of self improvement stuff; working on certs, physical improvement, and looking into other dumb grown up things.

But this isn't about those things. This is about a project I have wanted to do for a while now. This is one that I want to do all the time. Every time I look out the window, every time I stand in the late afternoon sun, every time I stand up in the mountains it creeps under my skin. It is time to ruin my gas mileage and make my truck something a little more awesome. I have worked on a list of things I wish to complete over the next year or so.

1. Lights - I want to upgrade the headlamps to halogens or something similar. I would like to add some molded top lamps in the amber fog color.

2. A full blown suspension overhaul - I don't want to lift my truck, but just beef up the suspension for some of the forest trails around the state

3. Brush guards - for all the new fancy pants lights

4. Upgrade seats - The front driver seat either needs re-upholstering or just out and out replacement. With a replacement I could put in a harness instead of stock belts

5. General performance boosters - Anytime the maintenance calls for replacing something I want to upgrade to something stronger or tougher. Things like tires, spark plugs, spark wires, upgraded filters would fall in here.


The overall purpose of this should be obvious. I want to make something tough enough to roll with the big bad zombie dorks, but still be able to drive to work without watching my gas gauge plummet. I am starting with a strong motor, Toyota's 22R-E. It isn't the most powerful engine to build off of, but it does have one advantage; it isn't deterred by most hills. So I think the place to start is on some of the easy stuff like wires and lights. Then some new struts, not the best right now, but something better than what I have under there currently. And any little things I can complete on the weekends.

Unstuck!

So I am now unstuck on the plot motion for my story. Now that I can get everyone on the boat they can go ahead with their voyage. Huzzah!


- Posted using BlogPress from the road.

Coffee

I don’t know where my wallet got to today. I’m a little pissed off. And really tired. I haven’t been able to relax in months. So today I am watching Hairspray and drinking coffee.

I don’t know what it is about coffee but it is really relaxing. The only thing better would be smoking a hookah on a deck in the late spring air, with a cup of Turkish coffee. Watching the moon rise above the range while inside sits a puppy resting his poor feet. The run through the woods today was a great one, three miles out and back. Now I sit at home, a little dub floats in the apartment’s air, and all there is right then is me the moon and the pup. Then the coffee boils over.

He seriously can’t be that good…

Sitting at lunch and working on the adventures. We’ll see what happens with this, but I don’t have the creative energy to spend on one of the short stories stuck in DropBox or the hard drive right now. Freaking iTunes is a piece of shit yet again, telling me that my iPhone isn’t authorized to sync with the same computer it has always been sync’d to. But whatever. Updates and relaxing night of D&D with the guys should fix my mood. Stupid neighbors and thin walls.

On the bus

I am forever stuck on this bus. I see your eyes and it isn’t the next day that I am thinking about. It is twenty years from now that I seek. The quiet, the alone doesn’t bother me as much as what you could do to me if you get up from that cushioned seat. That fear is what stays my mouth when you smile at me. It’s okay though because I am forever stuck on this bus, and you’ll leave it soon. Just another hour and then I can sleep in my room.

From my Netbook: Entry 1

Alright, so I am poking around Microsoft’s online store for the different Office products and discovered that there are too many options. This was one of the problems when Vista came out just a few years ago. MS needs to follow the K.I.S.S. principle when it comes to offering products. Aim one at business people with serious IT departments, one at smaller business groups with basic database needs and one at home/students with the basics. Word, Excel, PowePoint, Outlook and OneNote all should be included in the most basic level of Office. I can see losing Outlook, but don’t make two different versions of the software, one without Outlook and with OneNote, and one without OneNote and with Outlook. It is just a silly way to do things. Microsoft continues to try to push the envelope just a little more but they need to give their customers what the customers ask for. I would condense the Student and Teacher edition and Standard editions of Office into one edition. Well, hopefully they will do it in 2010. Here’s to 2010.

Christmas 2009

Got The Alchemist from Eldon and Meghann today. Well, didn't get it today, but opened it today. Looking at netbooks, seeing what Best Buy might have in stock.

As I keep looking I continue to wonder why people seem to think that these little laptops are hindered by the lack of a heavy optical drive. They are not meant for more than surfing, writing, and coffee house culture. The little boxes are meant no more than what the perfect computer for most Gen X's parents will ever use it for. Writing their friends, leaving inane comments for their children on Facebook, and keeping in touch as they learn to live on less and less.

To me they mean so much more. They mean home servers, wired housing, and everything that Gates, the two Steves, Linus, and many sci-fi writers predicted. They are ideal for students who need something other than the heavy duty laptop/desktop left in their room. Wired up rooms, houses you can monitor from home, your own little Big Brother. Beautiful baby, beautiful. It is a little machine I can take my D&D character with me, stop at a Starbucks and pull down my book from Dropbox or my own server, and can post my homework before I roll some twenties with my friends. When I started college this was what I was looking for out of a laptop. Small, light, good batt life, and able to keep up with my typing. Woo... sleep time now.