Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hitchin' A Ride ♫

Well, haven't heard back from the garage yet, so I don't know how much the ball joint repair is going to set me back.  Doing without a vehicle is very frustrating. We have another vehicle, but it overheats.  It's okay for short trips, but you have to stop and let it cool down if you have to drive more than 10 miles or so...and carry several jugs of water or antifreeze with you to replenish the coolant. I had it looked at a couple of years ago and was told it had a leaky head gasket. Don't really think that's the problem. I've had it worked on several times, by the neighbor, but it still overheats. I tried starting it yesterday afternoon; the battery is dead. And it's parked a lonnnnnng way from an electrical outlet to plug it into a charger. I may tackle that dilemma this afternoon; I think I might have enough extension cords to plug together that might reach it. In the meantime I've been borrowing vehicles from friends and relatives or asking them to drive me various places.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Big Bang Theory

Well, nearly a month has passed us by since my last post. I guess it's time for an update on how things are going.  I'm still unemployed, only one response to my resumes so far...they weren't hiring.  If nothing turns up by November, I'm probably going to apply for early Social Security benefits and say goodbye to the rat race. After working my arse off for 46 years, I deserve a little retirement. 

The website has been on hold for a couple of weeks, the wife has discovered Fan Fiction and is in the process of spinning a tale about Sherlock Holmes (ala Benedict Cumberbatch). She's finished 5 chapters (about 2 chapters a week) and has gotten several very good reviews from her readers.  I've been proofreading for her and suggesting changes to her text to liven things up a bit. Things like adding a few descriptive adjectives, pointing out continuity problems, etc.. I'm impressed with her story, she's really a good writer. I guess 30 years of teaching reading to third graders might have helped somehow.

As I mentioned earlier, the wife had a major blowout of a blood vessel in her left eye just a couple of days before she was scheduled to have cataract surgery.  It didn't get any better after a couple of weeks so she had to have a vitrectomy done (sucking the vitreous out of her eye along with the blood and debris, replacing it with saline solution).  The cataract surgery is now on hold until that clears up.  Might be two or three months before it's back on the table.

As for her bariatric surgery, there has been some good news in that corner. Her insurance company has changed it's waiting time policy from six months to three months.  She's already been in the program three months now, so the doctor's office is preparing the paperwork to request authorization. It'll take a few weeks to get that all together, then a few more weeks for the insurance company to go over it all before approving. Hopefully sometime in July or thereabouts she'll be getting that done.

I got my foot tangled in the seat belt of my pickup truck about two weeks ago and fell over on my back onto a concrete parking lot.  Messed my back up quite a bit, making it hard to walk without extreme pain.  Have visited the chiropractor several times and am starting to feel better.

I barely avoided a catastrophe today. I had both front wheel assemblies on the pickup replaced by a "big brand" service center in Columbus last summer.  Ever since that, the front end has had a rubbing/squeeking/creaking sound in it. Hard to describe, best I can come up with would be like a large rusty hinge. I had it looked at a couple of times, but nobody could see anything wrong.  I noticed today that the sound was getting louder and thought to myself, "I should have that looked at."  I drove to the supermarket and picked up a few groceries and as I started to back out of the parking space, there was a loud BANG! and the driver's side front end shook a little bit. I braked immediately and got out to look at the front wheel. Didn't see anything, so I thought "the service station is less than a mile away, I need to take it down there now and get it looked at ASAP!"  I jumped back in and started to back out again, moved just a little bit and there was even louder BANG! This time the whole front driver's side shook and dropped several inches.  I got out and this time there was something obviously wrong.  The tire was tilted out at about a 30 degree angle and something attached to the frame was sitting on the ground.  As I have since been told, a ball joint failed. While it's a disaster and is certainly going to mess with my already tight budget to get this thing fixed, thank the Lord I wasn't tooling down the road at 55 MPH when the thing failed!

My youngest son's adoption plans are now on hold due to other financial obligations, mainly medical bills. About a year's worth of work has gone into the adoption process, he assures me that it's just on "hold" for a year or so and they won't loose any of the money they've already poured into it.