JamesSlusher.com

I’m having a horrible day.  Sucky suckiness with suck on top.

I have an August 1st deadline to have the truck moving under it’s own power.  That means I have today and tomorrow to hook it up.

I started the day with 5 things to do to get it going.  None of these things should take more than 30 to 45 minutes.  I got 2 things done.  In 8 hours.

I needed to go get the new driveshaft for the truck.  There is no way in hell it would fit into my Honda Civic.  I mention this to my neighbor (who is helping me with drywall repair in my house) and I tell him that I don’t want to get his Tahoe dirty.  He suggests hooking his small trailer to the back and using that.

Sounds like a good idea.

We hook it up and I drive down to Master Fabricators and pick it up.  As I’m backing out of the parking lot, this Chow puppy that they have running around the shop comes jetting out into my path.  I swerve to miss it and the trailer swings around sharply and punches a small hole in the side of the SUV.  Not major damage, but noticeable and probably expensive.  And definitely embarrassing.

So this guy is working on my house and doing me a favor and I repay him by scratching up his truck.  Nice.  I go home and give him the bad news and he takes it quite well.

That is gonna turn out to be a very expensive driveshaft.

So the driveshaft, thankfully, pops right up into place like it should.  Thank God for small favors.  The transmission cooler lines take me forever to line up and tighten down.  The transmission linkage is a being a huge pain in the butt and I can’t seem to get the darn thing to pop into place like it should.  The transmission filler tube is designed for a lower riding intake manifold so I’m gonna have to get that bent somewhere.  And I still have to tighten down some crossbars.

So I have 3 things that need to be done tomorrow.

Let’s hope it is a better day.

I’m not, shall we say, all that enthusiastic about my job.  I’ve been off since June 26th and I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Ick.

Living On Tybee Time

Originally uploaded by jaslusher

This is a picture from us on the pier at Tybee. This sign is right next to one of the daiquiri bars. I’m sporting my new Corona gear.

Monday morning we get breakfast at the Sunrise Restaurant as is our tradition now.  One, because we get such awesome service and two, because the “breakfast” that the HoJo offers is not fit for human consumption.  Seriously.  I’d rather get my breakfast out of a random tupperware container at the bottom of the communal fridge in a halfway house.

Sunrise Restaurant breakfasts are always good.  Ordering off the menu is, however, preferable to the buffet.

Afterwards we headed down to the beach and played and played and played.  Emily kept her old man quite busy.  The waves were quite rough, though, and Emily and I weren’t as into wave hopping as we normally are.  We explored some and ended up coming to the conclusion that the tidal pools down the beach a short walk were preferable for the kids to play in.  We decided that Tuesday’s campsite would be nearer to those.

About 11ish we went back to the room and got cleaned up.  Kinda. And took naps.
I just want to say at this point that being in a hotel room with Jonathan is like checking in with Quiet Riot.  You know something is gonna get trashed at some point.  It turns out that the second you take off his diaper in a hotel room an excretory function is going to get triggered.  All in all Jonathan did a number 5 on the hotel carpet.  If he had thrown the fridge into the pool it would have completed the rock band motif.

We decided to go to lunch kinda late and couldn’t really decide on what we wanted, so we just cruised the island a bit to see what struck our fancy.  What struck our fancy was Boonmas Thai & Hawaiian Cuisine.  I think technically it is called the Norased Grill, but it recently changed ownership and will be changing names shortly, too.

The food was great, with Marilyn having a vegetarian Hawaiian Fried Rice dish and me having a Pineapple Curry dish.  Both were excellent.  They gave Emily some plain white rice and chopsticks just like she likes and Jonathan had the chicken fingers and fries, which is a staple of his diet.  The missus and I (mostly me) also partook of a bottle of Way Kuhl Riesling from Mosel-Saar-Ruwer in Germany.  Actually, it was the name that caught my eye, but the wine was quite tasty.

We will definitely be partaking of food from that establishment again.

After that, it was back to the hotel room for awhile and then I headed onto one of them there casino cruises whilst Marilyn and the kids chilled and saw a friend from home who happened to be vacationing, too.

The casino cruise deserves it’s own post, so I will leave it at that.

We are back from Tybee and we had a great time.

Sunday we headed out after breakfast at The Cracker Barrel with my Mother-in-law. The ride was pretty uneventful and we made good time, getting to Savannah about 12:30 p.m. Check-in isn’t until 3 at the HoJo so we decided to kill some time on the Savannah Riverwalk. We got some treats at Savannah Candy Kitchen (go there and get the chocolate-covered pretzels, I’m serious) and had some lunch at Spanky’s just down the street. After that we had burned up enough time to head for Tybee.

We got to the hotel still a little early, but they let us check in early so everything was cool. We decide that it is waaaayyy too hot to hit up the beach and pool right away so those are crossed off the list right away. I wanted a new pair of swim trunks and we forgot our beach towels so shopping seemed like the thing to do.

I would just like to point out that this is the start of the man/woman/venus/mars section of vacation.

The shops we want to go to are approximately 200 feet from the hotel. At absolute most. Marilyn says that it is too hot to walk and wants to drive. 200 feet. I make the argument that by the time we load the kids into the car, drive there, park, and unload the kids we would be better off just walking. I don’t win the debate, though admittedly, I didn’t try real hard. Didn’t seem worth the effort.

So we drive 200 feetish. And pay the parking meter a dollar to park for one hour. That’s just insult to injury there. We go shopping.

I picked up a set of Corona swim trunks and 2 T-shirts, Emily gets a crocodile and a frog made out of some weird rubber that gives me the creeps when I squeeze them, Marilyn picks up a little dress. Jonathan was completely uninterested in the whole shopping thing.

Our parking hour is almost up and we have gotten a little peckish. So we talk about eating. Here is the deal though. The restaurants are actually farther away from the hotel in the same direction. But marilyn is starting to have buyer’s remorse about paying the parking meter a buck an hour when the car is only 200 feet from it’s free spot at the hotel.

Venus/mars again.

I think we’ve made a mistake by driving. But I think it is even sillier to get the kids back in the car, drive back to the hotel, get them out, then walk back past where we just were to walk twice as far past that. I’d rather pay another dollar. After you make the mistake, the conditions have changed and now you try to make the optimal decision on the new conditions. My thought is that paying another buck and going to dinner is optimal. Or if you have to get in the car, seeing as how we are are on a one way street that goes past the restaurant now, let’s just park in front of the restaurant and pay another buck. I didn’t win the debate, but again, I didn’t try real hard. I’m on vacation, I’m not there to argue over the logistics of eating dinner. That’s for home.
So we drive back to the hotel, get the kids out, walk past where we just were and walk twice that far past that. And eat dinner at Spanky’s. Yes, same place we ate in Savannah. Good stuff if a bit Applebee’sish.

We finish dinner and get the kids ready for the walk back and it starts raining. POURING, I should say. Jonathan is in the stroller, so he has his head covered. Marilyn has an umbrella so she is covered. I’m not made of sugar, so I really don’t care if I get wet, but Emily doesn’t want to walk and Marilyn can’t carry her and the umbrella at the same time.

Logistics like this are a biotch sometimes.

Emily ends up standing on the back axle of the stroller, holding onto the handle, with my shirt over her head. I’m still wearing my shirt now. I just look like I’m pregnant with Emily’s head. So that’s how we walk back in the rain.

I was wearing denim shorts so it didn’t take long for them to become thoroughly soaked and begin to want to slide down my hips. Denim gets heavy when it is wet, you know.

So get you a good mental picture of this: Me pushing a baby stroller, Emily in front of me on the stroller’s back axle with her head under my shirt. I can’t go very far back because I will pull her head back, but I can’t get really close because she is between me and the stroller. My shorts are trying to slide off my hips so I have to keep my legs spread apart to halt the slide. This is making me waddle since my feet are wider than my shoulders at this point. It’s raining like hell.

At some point in the proceedings, Marilyn starts laughing at me. I can only imagine the look on my face as all this is going on. In other circumstances I might have gotten pissed. But I honestly had to admit that this had become a comedy of errors. That and my wife is so beautiful that it is almost impossible to be mad at her when she smiles.

We stopped under a store awning and had a good laugh about the whole deal and then I duck walked my kids back to the hotel to dry off.

At this point, we are only two, maybe three, hours into Tybee. I will tell you about the rest tomorrow.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that going to the beach is one of our favorite things to do.  We go fairly often.  Like 3 or 4 times a year.  Today we are keeping that tradition going strong by heading to Tybee Island.

We will be staying in our normal HoJo haunt and I might partake of a bit of casino cruising.  But most importantly, I will be chillin’ with chirren.  And chillin’ with the wife.  And chillin’ on the beach.  Did I mention chillin’? Cause I’m gonna be doing that.

I want to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July.  I hope everyone enjoys the rights and freedoms granted us by the Constitution.

I don’t write much in the way of political statements anymore.  It’s generally a waste of my time.  I have too busy of a life.  By the time I write a condemnation of some despicable act of corruption or injustice, the Cheney administration has committed two more.  By the time I lament the loss of one of our essential rights, entire sections of the Constitution have been trampled.

In a recent post, Ken put up the Declaration of Independence.  Give it a read. It’s amazing how many of those things could be applied today.

I had an appointment today with a dermatologist. My GP seems to think that my multitude of moles need to have an eye kept on them. So off I went today for my first visit.

I knew that the Doctor would want to have a look at my back and legs, so I wore shorts to make it an easier inspection. Turns out that they were gonna want a more complete look than that.

I wasn’t prepared for that.

They told me I could keep my boxers on, but I would need to shed the rest of my clothing. Well, this particular pair of boxers has a nasty habit of coming open at the fly. Most of them don’t, but this pair does. Everyone has a pair of undies that require them to make discreet adjustments now and again. I wore my pair to this appointment.

So after I disrobe I am handed one of those hospital gowns. I breathe a small sigh of relief, no matter that these things are pathetic attempts to maintain a bit of modesty, at least my randomly open barn door is going to be shielded.

So in come the doctor and her resident. The doctor looks old enough to be my grandma. The resident looks young enough for me to have babysat her.

Great.

After the introductions, we began the exam. Turns out that the teensy-weensy gown is somehow in the way. I’m asked to take it off.

Fantastic.

So, off it comes. I fixed my gaze steadily on their eyes when they addressed me, the wall cabinetry the rest of the time. The exam went amazingly fast. I was told that though I have a lot of freckles and moles, none seem to be grounds for concern. They were gone in no more than 3 minutes.

They breezed out telling me that I could leave as soon as I got dressed. Only then did I have the courage to look down at the problematic barn door.

I still haven’t rounded up my horses.

I may be off work, but I’m working awfully hard.  Remodeling my neighbor’s kitchen has been pretty much consuming all of my time lately. It’s coming along swimmingly though and I’m quite proud of the job I’ve done.