So mopedarmy.com genforum found my etsy shop and ordered some stuff...on my way to the post this morning I noticed a drip fall out of my truck engine bay...popped the hood and watched fluid dripping out of my brand new brake booster.
I think perhaps I am not currently destined to be driving. Or something like that anyway.
What.
The.
Fudge.
So I called the shop, who was of course mortified and gracious and said please please bring it right back to us. They are closed tomorrow for a long weekend but I am taking it back on Monday. Here's to another weekend of no driving around, scared the brakes will give out though I'm sure that wouldn't happen.

It was my plan this weekend to work on the truck a bit, which I'll still do. Install the new horn ground plate/screw, check out my running light situation (aka plug up new lights to the existing wiring harness and cross my fingers that they work), address the one weird side marker light thats out (sand the rusty contacts and put in another new bulb and cross my fingers that that fixes the issue), and prep the rusty crap for a repaint. If I have time and energy, I may install the new door on the drivers side. I need to do that before it gets painted...note to self.
Shoot I also need to replace fuses that don't appear burned out, the lights that illuminate the speedo and gas gauge/temp gauge don't work. The other lights come on when you cut the headlights on (the one over the slider for heat/ac) just not the ones on the dash cluster. Interesting.
Getting a friend with a spray gun to just go over the truck in black. Sorry, the yellow blob really ruins my day, and the green is hilarious but I'm over it.
It might not look like such a heap of crap if its all black? Thats my hope and plan.

ANYWAY.
Last night, after work, I checked Mr. Egon's awful spots again and they were looking worse.

Big and gross. He had popped some of them (Please accept my apology if you're eating and reading this) and the ones that had drained looked better...I mean I guess anything that doesn't have a pus head is better looking right? UGH GROSS.

He certainly isn't acting too bothered by the spots, though he is taking his bedtime a bit earlier these days. I'm sure thats mostly from the antihistime he gets with dinner.
He's at the vet today so the doctor can see the spots and check em. This morning the spots looked better. Less pus, less red. The antibiotics are kicking in and for that I'm very thankful.

Argh! Helluva week and its only Thursday. I mean Turdsday. So last week on Tuesday I dropped my truck at the shop and got the diagnosis of bad brake booster and master cylinder. Master Cylinder was literally brand new, have the receipt. Apparently the dude that I got the truck from installed it and pedal pump bled the brake lines. Its not the right way to bleed brakes, and results in air in the lines that shred the gaskets of the master cylinder. So it was leaking internally. I called the shop Wednesday am and said lets fix it. Order the parts, I'll bring it Thursday. So I dropped it Thursday of last week, thinking a-ok, I'd have a truck Friday. The shop is so awesome, the found reman or salvage parts for it (cause I wasn't trying to drop $700 without it even getting passed the safety inspection) and ordered em. Brake booster took forever to arrive. It showed up late Friday. They went to start the job and the master cylinder was totally wrong. Brake lines on the wrong side of it, etc. So they looked through all their books and finally found one that would work. Ordered it, arrived Monday. They went to finish the job Monday and the brake booster was off...the bolts on the housing that mount it to the firewall were 2" too short. So they had to order the new one as well. Picked up my truck Wednesday afternoon, and the shop still only charged me the quoted $500 instead of the $700, saying that its bad business to raise the price of a repair when their parts are the ones not right. That warrants a thank you card and probably brownies. in dog life news, there has been a lot of snuggling going on as of late. more than usual even. saturday i was so beat from the week that i came home and napped. i never get to nap. dottie snugged up between my legs and chewed on her fav bone, and egon bodyslammed my face and started snoring later that weekend he took advantage of more naptime and sacked out with andrew. the weekend was pretty grey and i was feeling really unmotivated didn't want to sew, didn't feel like cleaning, i just kinda farted around and honestly didn't do anything. ran errands, sort of. truck was still in the shop so i couldn't do the stuff i really needed to. hung out with the dogs and mostly entertained them, or they entertained me drank way too much coffee and watched the grass grow in the front yard gave the bostons a bath, egon was having a skin allergy and i thought it may help soothe his issues actually the bath was ALSO because of the mud monster he became after a walk and swim. dottie was fun to hang out with as always, but had some harsh words for the neighborhood kids playing basketball in the street there was much snuggling, at all times of day and then egons skin allergy got real gross and worse than just scratching! he broke out in a rash all over his belly. the next day the rash was blood red, and had become tiny pimples oh gad and then the next day the little pimples weren't little anymore, they were large pustules that made me almost gag. and then today they are bigger, i'll take a horrible picture when i get home, i just couldn't do it this morning. gross. back to the vet with him tomorrow. he's on all kinds of meds, antihistimine and steroid and antibiotic. dottie is finishing up a round of antibiotics, so hopefully she's been nice and immune to the grosso skin stuff. hopefully we'll get it all squared away after the vet tomorrow and mr. egon will go back to feeling sassy and great.

you know that saying about plans and their wayward nature, well the last week and a halfish has pounded that adage home.
oh the truck. lets talk about that. took it for inspection and it failed. duh, holes in the floorpans just like the last one. whatever, i'm okay with that. its simple and fixable. needed horn work (thankfully i'm a pro with reconnecting hilux horns apparently), a seatbelt (i'm good at the junkyard too)

and a tie rod. whatever.
went to the pick n pull and didn't have the one socket i needed d'oh!

went back a few days later and claimed the seatbelt i needed. ready to roll, i thought.
and then the brakes went out. booster was bad, i knew that from the moment i bought it. then the master cylinder went. the brand new master cylinder.
so in additon to the $500ish I was planning on shelling out to get it past inspection, i ended up dropping another $500 for a brake booster, master cylinder, and shop labor. greeaaat.
ugh. i quit old trucks. not really. but yes really.
feeling so shot down, its a bummer. at least the guys at the garage are real posi, they love old toyotas too.
ugh. lets move on.
it was large caterpillar day last weekend, on sunday.
andrew found this guy

and aptly named him MR CREEPERS

his hairs were hilarious. he was waiting for me in a plastic soda bottle when i came home. i let him go the next morning.

he was large and in charge, and i hope he pupates well.

he will turn into a bodacious imperial moth

later in the day i found a tobacco hornworm on my green pepper plants.

it was clear that the very recent colder weather was making all the big bugs consider pupating or launching into whatever transitional stage of life they were next inclined.
all the bugs that were out were very stoic, except for the asshole mosquitos of course.
found another mantis, who was just content to observe the action around her.

dottie, of course, could't stay away from whatever thing i was crouching to film, and nearly trampled her. whadda jerk.

been waking up early and taking time to sit with the dogs and enjoy a cup of coffee, feels like a good way to ring in the colder weather.
hopefully things will look up a bit with the truck situation here and i'll be less bummed, but its hard when most everyone hates on it. oh well. it'll get me to work and back, and hopefully i'll get to enjoy at least $1000 worth of fun times in it.
shern is moving to tuscon, i'm gonna save up $$ and go visit her, buy my dream truck from the desert. everything here on the east coast is so rotten. it wouldn't be a bummer to invest a lot of money in a 31 year old truck if the frame didn't look like swiss cheese.
long term plan.
tuscon
visit shern and caroline
love life
buy a truck
drive it home
haters gonna hate

SO this weekend I had a good adventure.
Sunday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, rented a car, drove to Maryland, and bought another Hilux.
WOOOOOOOOOT!
I found it on craigslist...

where it was advertised with these photos

as well as a long description detailing all the new parts. new remanufactured engine, nice header and exhaust, master cylinder, slave cylinder, alternator, tires, and more.
i was pumped, to say the least.
got to maryland and was suprised by a new paint job.



the green certainly is hilarious, and i think it probably makes the truck FASTER.
i'm genuinely stoked on it.
one thing i learned from building a nice restored moped is that i prefer the "patina" of a rusty older vehicle. new is cool, but i like old.
mechanically, the truck is so sound that its stunning, and i can appreciate that.
lets go offroads!!!!!

i think its my new goal to see a Toyota RV1 in person.

or an rv2. those things are CRAZY!!!! to me, those really look like future cars. seriously.
i found a slide in camper for a pickup truck here in RVA for $300. too bad new truck will be a shortbed!

i think i'll keep my eyes peeled on the statewide craigslist search for a while. it'd be really cool to see one of the toyota camper rear ends available, but i doubt it'll happen. never know.

oh hey.

i've been lucky enough to catch some breaks in the weather to ride home.
see that boat far right, center? they just pulled it up from the bottom of the james river. i've been riding past the process all week.
it was a resturant, employees hired, menu tested, that was slated to open the week of the hurricane. the wind and rain from the hurricane sunk it, though.
it spent its opening week under water, and just now was brought to the surface.
total bummertown. guess drink prices at poe's pub will be going up....

no but really, who can ever really complain when your ride to work involves some really pretty scenery

and fun off road riding?

Kissed the 'yota goodbye on Sunday/Monday. A young lady in Massachusetts (dang thats a long drive!) wanted it and sent her uncle from Manassas to check it out. They towed it away early Monday am.

Safari leaves on the 15th, to a good local home. I'm on a major getting rid of shit kick.
I'm going to get rid of my old horror movie collection, and probably donate most of my books to Books Bikes and Beyond. If its still in a box from the move in February, I'm letting it go. Too much holding me down in life lately, and I want to be freed up.
Commute this week has been wonky. Monsoon style rain, all week. What are we, Seattle/Portland???

Since the Orbea MTB is laid up needing fork service, I've been kicking it on the Miyata


Whats in my basket today, you ask? NOTHING! The road are wet and the dirt paths and trails are muddy, so nothing in there please.
Love the Miyata, aside from its steep gear, its a fun bike to ride. Cyclocross tires et al make for a good adventure.

Made for a really muddy ride to work. Last night I went out into the yard in the dark, barefoot, to pick basil for dinner. It was so gross, the ground had about an inch of standing water on it through most of the yard. The firepit is now a pond, the tops of the 3 foot cement sides barely poking up through the waters surface. Gross. Mosquito/mold/mushroom heaven.

The warmth plus humidity/rain makes for a gross ride into work. Well, the getting dirty isn't the bummer, its rolling into work at the fancy lady salon looking like a swamp creature. Wearing rain gear right now sucks, cause its warm, and after a solid 45 mintues of pedalling you'd rather be wet than in a sweat tent.

The hurricanocaine season needs to quit it, I prefer sunny pleasant commutes. I want to be able to ride the trails most of the way in, not roads.

At least the influx of water has washed the shit-stink of the james river away for now. There were some GIANT fish tanking around today down near the pipeline, wish I could've stopped longer to see em.
This weekend holds a special secret adventure, I can't tell you about it until its already happened, lest I jinx myself.

helluva week.
fork started bottoming out on the trails yesterday's yesterday.
got andrew to peek at it (most pro suspension dude i know) and the seal was blown and unfixable (without taking it totally apart, that is)

true gentleman that he is, he worked on fixing it until 2am.
no dice.

SO.
fuckit.
Safari is for sale. Get it outta my life before my shitluck hits it too.







tell your flossin friends.
i've got a south american 90cc kit, dellorto 16 sha lever choke carb and 16 intake, new in boxes with gaskets, in addition for sale.
sellin the safari with the powdercoated spokes, which have brand new wide pirelli's on em. keepin the mags unless you bribe with lots and lots of cash.

truck is totalled.
recieved a total loss check for $1000.