Weeks 1502 & 1503

The past two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind and me not taking the time to write this is evidence of that. 

Long story short, we visited MO two weeks ago to attend the funeral for my wife’s last grandparent. It was a long journey to get there as my car broke down on the side of the highway, 70 miles away from home, 15 miles from Limon, CO (a small town and the only functional one for miles), full of us, our luggage and animals. 

Apparently, the front differential broke and I proceeded to drive it the last 15 miles so we weren’t stranded by a tow truck coming to pick us up. 

We got it to a shop to figure out what I now know and Syd sat in my car with all of the animals playing Pokopia for 4 hours while we waited for me to get picked up by a shuttle service, driven to Denver to pick up a car rental (because we couldn’t rent anything nearby), before driving back to Limon to pick everybody off and leave my car for the weekend. 

Before I got picked up by the shuttle, Ellie (one of our Great Danes) started having diarrhea (fortunately, not in the car) and threw up (unfortunately, in the car). 

The best part was, she threw up on a portable air compressor I keep in my car and it started going off and wouldn’t turn off until the battery died. 

Ya boy was very overstimulated from the breakdown, dogs breathing and drooling all over him, cats meowing, and a lovely wife trying to help him figure out what the hell they were going to do to get to Missouri. 

Ultimately, we got to rent a Z71 Tahoe, which I have been itching to try and see if it is a practical vehicle for us and our furry family and we ended up making it safely to Missouri… At 2:30 in the morning after leaving our house at 7:00 AM. 

Spending time with my in-laws was great, as it usually is. Regardless of the circumstance. They beat us at cards (I was the weak link and made us go set three times). 

The funeral was great and everybody felt like it honored good ol’ Eugene. 

It was a military funeral and I had never been to anything like it, with all the rituals/traditions and such. 

Also, the second time I’ve seen a dead person and this one was significantly more expected than the first so it wasn’t quite as jarring. Plus, it's hard to be as jarring when you are being buried in your fishing gear. 

While we were at the funeral I got the call that my car was fucked not going to be immediately driveable unless the transmission was replaced due to the differential being housed with it (in it, on it, I don’t know - I’m not a mechanic). 

Nice. 

We left early Tuesday morning to no news on my car and received none until we almost got home where I got another call that the rear differential also needed to be replaced because of how the drivetrain works together. 

Nice. 

I worked a couple of days - had a bit of a cluster there - and rolled right into a long weekend due to our anniversary. 

We had pizza and I was totally fine with that but my mom called and wanted to pay for us to have a celebratory dinner so we went out to a vegan place that Syd liked that was also really good. 

I also concluded that life would suck without vegetables. 

Think of everything that we derive from vegetables and the flavors that you can create with that versus what you can do with meat alone. 

Not an ethical argument, I’m just saying… Crucial ingredients. 

That about rounds out the weeks. 

I did practically nothing meaningful to progress towards my goals aside from going to the gym. Just not as intentional with the time as I could have been and I have been so concerned about figuring out if I need to replace my car or if I trust it enough to drive it for a couple more years that I have been in deep research mode and not taking time for the important stuff. 

I did a little Japanese this past week but nothing noteworthy. 

I had concluded that I was going to wait two years to get something until I was backing into my garage and saw an oil spot when my car had never leaked oil before. 

Push is coming to shove really quickly. I don’t know that there is a clear way to determine when it’s time for a new car but I don’t want to try and fix that just to learn that there is another much larger problem that I’m going to have to pay for. 

Decisions decisions.