I have been busy thanking the Gods for making the best of a bad situation. Apparently Ford now makes ball joints that don’t give you any indication that they are worn until they actually fail.
When the wheel on the driver’s side decided to make a sharp left turn, it took part of the axle with it, so both had to be replaced. It cost a fortune to fix, given that it’s a front wheel drive vehicle. I still have to get the other ball joint replaced as a preventive measure. I wish the mechanic had mentioned this when he called to tell me the news. I would’ve had him replace both at the same time, thus saving me nearly $100 to lift it up again. 🙁

But as I was saying I’m thanking my Gods. Every couple of minutes I stop to think about how the joint could’ve failed while we were barreling down 93 at 70 mph! Yikes!

Yesterday while pulling into (and out of) a parking spot at drum corps. practice the car made a funny popping noise, and shuddered like it had run over a good size rock. We called our mechanic this morning to set up a time to bring the car in tomorrow so he can road test it.

Today, while pulling into a parking space in from of Subway, we hear a slightly louder noise, coupled with the sensation that we’ve just run over a cat-sized animal. The next thing I know the car won’t move. When we get out of the car I notice that the front wheel on the passenger side is slightly to the right from making a right hand turn into the spot, whereas the one on the driver’s side it turned sharply to the left.

After two hours of hanging out a Subway, the tow truck finally arrives. We had to carefully push the car back enough so the truck could hook up. Even then the wheel on the driver’s side was dangling (it was either that or have it pressing up against the front bumper and risk tearing that off). As they were moving the car out of the spot in preparation to tow, we discovered a nice pool of dark liquid, and a nice shiny bolt. Nice and shiny generally means new, and between that and the fact that the tow-ers said it looked like a tie rod snapped at the bolts, I’m ready to have a few choice words with the garage that did our alignment. Did I mention they had to replace a worn tie rod in order to properly align the car? Grrr!

*drools*

I just slapped my old 120GB drive into the enclosure. That fucker may not be bootable, but everything’s there and accessable. Now to decide whether to temporarily move the stuff I want to keep onto my new drive, reformat, and move it back, or just delete what I don’t want (keeping in mind that there is a corrupt copy of XP on it and I have no idea which files belong to it). 🙂

Today Glenn and I went out for lunch. As it is with just about every time we go out for a meal, some guys (according to Glenn) were staring at us. Or, more specifically, me. They are always male, and they are always white. This time, despite the fact that I was within his sight the whole time, he had the nerve to ask me if I spoke with these guys. Did I mention I have no idea who these guys are? And never do? Anyways, he spends the rest of the day going on about how rude these guys are for staring at me. Since I’m accustomed to this, and now understand the root of the problem, I try to ignore it. Then he decides to have a few drinks.

As with any other time he gets liquored up after we have a meal out together, Glenn decides that there has to be a reason why the guys were staring so hard. Of course that reason is me, and it’s not because I’ve lost 30 pounds, or because of my dreadlocks. Oh no! It’s because I’m a whore and a slut who can’t help myself but flirt with every man I see. Of course, if I try to deny these accusations I’m a liar who is trying to protect “my own kind”, whatever the fuck that means. *rolls eyes*

I wonder if he realizes what his life will be like if I take the kids and leave?

For those of you wanting to create your own playlists for exercise:

http://www.mixmeister.com/download.html

The software is free (totally), and it allows you to see the beats per minute of .wav, .wma, and .mp3 files you have it scan. it’s not 100% perfect, but it does its job pretty well. I ran it on my currently library. With over 400 titles it only had trouble with 5 songs.