tracker7 | Entries tagged with cars

It is fucking hot and I hate it. I at least got the Impala's AC recharged, but the actuators are still fucked and it intermittently blows warm air on the driver's side. Frustration, coming and going.

It was good to be away from work and clients for a couple of extra days. I didn't do much, and much of what I did do was unsatisfying. I did get plenty of rest, and that's not nothing.

Saturday was Free RPG Day. Went over to Golden Keep and picked up a few things, bought the BattleTech Alpha Strike box. The store has been scheduling demo nights for an array of games - playing Alpha Strike there a week or so ago was a good time, and it's hard to beat getting in a lance-on-lance fight in about an hour. The box is a heck of a deal, two IS lances and a Clan Star for $80, plus all of the maps and terrain and stuff. They're hosting a Mothership demo night on the 26th, and I'm hoping to make it out for that.

Slur Your Role didn't go well tonight. I was the only board member there following a last-minute cancellation; two players had tried to get into my game but the ticketing system wouldn't let them; one person who had bought a ticket for my game didn't ion show; no one showed for another GM's game and I invited him to join mine and boy did he live up to the "mostly a D&D5 and MMO player" in his bio. It's Star Wars, dude, do more than endlessly ask for "who looks disgruntled in this bar" and ah fuck it.

Finally got around to seeing John Wick: Chapter Four. Liked it more than the third one, felt it was a return to the feel of the first two.

Got the books. The Buick started acting up around Bardstown - lost power, as the dashboard helpfully let me know. Towed it back to Liberty and drove the Frontier back to Louisville early Tuesday. Swapped it out for the backup Impala Wednesday after work. Impala is behaving and will hopefully continue to do so.

The Dodgers are up two games to zero in the World Series. Freddy Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam in the tenth to win the first game. Game Two wasn't as dramatic, but Shohei Ohtani injured his shoulder trying to steal second and that's concerning. Ice Cube performed a version of "Today was a Good Day" to open the game, paying respect to Fernando Valenzeula at the mound.

Running a Trail of Cthulhu game at Slur tonight. Got three players so far, and that's enough to make things work. If people bail, no worries, I'll just go home and watch the evening NFL game.

Taking Halloween and November 1 off. Voting on Halloween, hopefully not for the last time. Going to Virginia on Friday to see folks and a museum and other stuff. I think this is the first vacation trip I've taken since late 2020 - conventions are working vacations, so I'm not counting them. I'm looking forward to the trip, and very much looking forward to not seeing clients and not being at work for those two days.

Sent out a couple of resumes last night. I've given the job the best shot I can, and it's just not working out for me. Time to move on. Again.

Got the Buick back yesterday. No cooling issues and with the hub replaced, it is so quiet at speed. I probably would still be using the Impala, but the shift cable started going out, so I rigged it well enough to get it to Liberty and dropped it off.

Had a couple of those moments during the round-trip yesterday when I thought Holy cow, I am driving through what's left of a hurricane. Helene has done a number southeast of here. Asheville is isolated, only reachable by air. NCDOT said to consider all roads in the western third of the state to be closed - I-40 washed out at the Tennessee-NC line. I don't know if this will directly affect my nebulous plans to go to Spencer in November, but I'm looking at a visit to Roanoke instead.

The Dodgers locked up the NL West again, and have home field advantage throughout the National League playoffs. Hopefully that'll mean more than it did last year, when the NLCS started and they just forgot how to play baseball. On the other end of the spectrum, the White Sox are finishing the season with 121 losses, maybe 122 depending on how today's season closer goes.

Gave Alien: Romulus another viewing. My complaints stand, but it's a much better movie than I gave it credit for on the first watch.

Looks like the Buick's water pump failed, maybe a cracked housing. I got it towed home from Cane Run yesterday, took today off to handle things, and wound up buying an Impala. Dad and I are going to share it, a backup vehicle, until and unless we decide to get some work done on it and flip it for a couple grand more than we paid for it. Anyway, the Buick's getting hauled to Liberty in a day or two and it'll get repaired and then we'll go from there.

Updated my resume and applied for a couple of transfers Monday night. Would love to get into something that's more aligned with my education and interests and all that. I'm just over spending half the day driving around Jefferson County with the faint hope that I can find these people.

Friday wore me out, and driving to Liberty after work was taxing. Brought my bags into the house and planted myself in the recliner and I was asleep in a few minutes. Woke up when Dad got in, chatted with him, and went to bed. Didn't sleep as well as I wanted. Breakfast at the Bread of Life cafe, testing the Lacrosse, and visits to Mom's and Mamaw and Papaw's graves.

Some weather was threatening, so I headed back to Louisville early in the afternoon. This Buick likes to run just as much as the newer version I drove for a couple of months. It has a couple of issues to get taken care of next month, and I want to get the keyless entry and alarm sorted, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Weather went from threatening to dangerous yesterday around noon. Weather stations in lively Shively measured straight-line wind speed at 80MPH when the front came through that part of town. We got a lot of wind and rain and lightning over here, and the power went out around 12:30. I took the opportunity to nap a little while. Kaiju had power, so Slur Your Role was on. Drove over there, ran a short DCC game, went home. Saw lights on around the property and a couple of utility trucks, and power came back on in my unit a couple of minutes after l sat down. I caught some of an evening NASCAR race - and then the second stronger wave of storms starting coming in. We had the whole party for a while - severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings all throughout the area. At least two tornadoes hit the state, one about 45 miles SSW of me, the other further out in the western end of the state. Five deaths, and LG&E currently lists about 1800 outages and better than 50K customers without power right now.

Today has been quiet and very pretty and I have slept through much of it. If I wasn't asleep, I was watching The Crown on Netflix or Masters of the Air or Liaison on Apple+. Hadn't heard of the latter until it was mentioned on the Spybrary FB group, and an espionage series with Eva Green? Of course I'm watching this. Two episodes (out of six) in, and I'm hooked.

I do love a thunderstorm. One is rolling through right now, and it's occasionally producing thunderclaps that rattle the building. The system's spun up some severe weather down in Liberty, so I'm sure the Doberman is doing his best to force his enormous head under whatever cushion Dad's legs are presently on.

Met Dad in Lawrenceburg to swap vehicles again and talk about the Escape. Looks like the little guy is going to have to have a replacement transmission after all. I'm ... not surprised, and I'm considering a lawsuit against the idiot who tore the little SUV up. So, I'm going to pay a good mechanic for the work he's done and get documentation for the work. I'll store the Escape until I can find a suitable transmission. I've found a car that I like, and can afford and all that, so I'm going to buy it Saturday morning.

Oh, hey, Dad got some good news at his evaluation this week. The eye surgeon believes that cataract removal can be done on his right eye without any further damage to the retina. Dad's jumping at this chance, based on the success of the surgery on his left eye. That one's testing at 20/20, and Dad's ecstatic about how things have turned out. Surgery is scheduled for late June or early July, based on the results of two more evaluations. I'm so happy for him.

I am so ready to go back to work, even if it's going to be living out of hotels for a few weeks.

I'm quietly but deeply pissed about the Escape. This dipshit mechanic screwed up the work, and convincing me otherwise isn't going to be easy.

Got the PDF copies of the second Blade Runner RPG scenario, Fiery Angels. Not as taken with it as the one from the starter set. It does pull some pieces from the Westwood BR PC game from way back when, and that was a pleasant surprise.

Well, things didn't go as hoped. I picked up the Escape and noticed right away that it wasn't shifting right. Revving too high and gear changes not happening as quickly as they should. Somehow coolant and transmission fluid got mixed. The coolant reservoir fractured, spraying the mix of liquid all over the engine bay and the underside of the hood. Not good at all, and the transmission may be fucked thanks to the contamination. So, here we are again.

New employer pushed my start date back to next Monday. I should have something set up by then. I have to, because I am running out of ... everything down here.

The FNSLGS that became a pillar of support for me during this ill-advised self-imposed exile got hit with some kind of nasty tax liability this week. Bad enough that the state required the store to stop doing business until they can make a downpayment on the bill. Its a backbreaking hit, and the store has launched a crowdfunding campaign to try and stay afloat. I can't help right now, it's kicking my ass. Lemonjuice McGee's is a good store, building good communities in an area that needs them. I hope they get through this.

I'm going to go get in some Gran Turismo time. Taking my refuges where I can this morning.

I got a call from the local district health department a couple of hours after getting the offer letter from Seven Counties. Not too long ago, I would have said that the LCDHD posting was my dream job - communications and information director for a public health department. And, if they'd called me a week before, things would have been different.

I declined. I'd gone through enough interviews and application processes and tests and everything else that ... well, Seven Counties got me first. I start the new job with them on Monday the 5th.

A new radiator is being installed in the Escape this afternoon, so there's my transportation back online. Still needs some other work, and that'll come soon.

Saw I.S.S. last night. I'm willing to forgive factual and technical errors if there's good drama and story; I'm not forgiving this movie's errors. There are good performances, and a good seed of an idea, and the movie looks great, but it's not a good movie. Clocks in at 96 minutes, and I was still checking my watch far too often. Not recommended.

The good: after Zoom interview late last week, I was offered a job with a mental health/substance abuse treatment organization. It's decent money, it's at least related to the field I went back to school for, and it gets me back to Louisville and the friends and found family there. A few hoops to jump through - vaccinations and a tuberculosis screening - and I start in early February.

The bad: The Escape started vomiting coolant this afternoon. I'm hoping it's just a hose or a connection, and that's what it looks like to my barely knowledgeable eye. Paranoia is telling me that the block is cracked or a head gasket has blown, of course. I'll know more tomorrow afternoon.

Best-case, I'm going to spend a couple of weeks in extended-stay hotels while potential housemate and I look for housing. I'll get settled in just in time for GTS and hanging out with some game industry folks and maybe getting some freelance work. It's going to be a difficult month or so, but I can manage it. It'll pay off, in more ways than one.

Just gotta get through February.

Got the printer ink, and installed the necessary cartridge. And then got an e-mail notifying me that the cartridges I'd ordered the night before had shipped. Top of my game, y'all, top of my game.

Got the Escape's AC compressor replaced, and that wasn't cheap, but it has sure enough made longer drives more tolerable. Well, more than tolerable.

Like today, for example. It was Dungeon Crawl Classics Day, and that meant a drive to Louisville to run a game for people. And it was a good day. Three Judges (and therefore three games) and twenty players in total. I had a good time, but friends, a two-hour drive, then a five-hour game with seven players, then a two-hour drive home has made for a very tired fella.

So, I'm gonna make sure I can sleep, thanks to my friend diphenhyrdramine, read a little bit of a decent cyberpunk novel, and call it a weekend. Back in a couple of days.

Picked up the Escape Thursday morning. Glad to have the little SUV back - the big Taurus and its 305HP were okay, but the novelty wore off. I like the better sight out of the Escape, and it is much more nimble. Anyway, back to something like normal.

I should have taken advantage of early voting, but I let work and other stuff keep me from doing it. I'll be able to go after work Tuesday morning - wish my precinct's polling site was still at the JCC just down the street, but I'll manage. Might be the last time I can vote, y'know?

NerdLouvia returned this weekend. I ran two sessions of Alien, both going pretty well. Saw some friends, bought a couple of books. Didn't do much besides playing games - the magician put on a good show, but the Friday evening burlesque show did less than nothing for me (like, I think, every such show I've found myself at), and like hell I was going to stick around for karaoke. But, yeah, a good time all around, and I should get my comp from Free League soon.

I'm still having too much fun with GT7. Went through the Pan-American Championship with a monster Camaro this morning. It was darned unforgiving, and I had to make a couple of tries at one of the tracks before getting the placement I needed.

Dad has the Canyon again. I bought an Escape Saturday. Same model year as my Mariner, and the Mariner has already donated parts to its cousin - AC compressor.

The Escape has the same powertrain - 3L V6, 4WD, 4-speed automatic. It's an XLT, which I have always ID'd as a high trim level for Ford trucks and SUVs, like my old Explorer. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore. The Escape has far fewer bells and whistles than the Mariner, both convenience and functional bits.

Driving it the last few days has told me that the Mariner's frame rot was worse than I thought. I ran this one at close to 90MPH for about 30 miles, and it was just as tight as a drum. At about 80, the Mariner had some shuddering and felt unsafe.

Let's see if I can get 50K out of this little cute-ute.

My Mariner is just darn near dead. The ECM is damaged, and that is a royal pain to replace. Dad found a possible solution - a seller with a same-year Mariner, same drivetrain on a lower trim level, failing transmission. The transmission in mine is in good shape, so if we can get things sorted, I'm going to buy this other one and put it together. Just a matter of getting the seller to respond.

This week has seen some gorgeous weather - sunny, mid-70s. I gave my little grill a good cleaning this afternoon and cooked up some too-thick pork chops for dinner. Very tasty.

My main grocery store is in the same building as a B&N, which can sometimes be dangerous. Monday, after putting groceries in the truck, I decided to duck into the bookstore for a bit. Wandered over to the games section, looked down at a lower shelf, and noticed that one of those Battletech beginner boxes was thicker than the others, and, well, I'm not made of stone. Lucked into a Game of Armored Combat box!

I'm starting to think that it's time to move. I'm looking for work down around the home turf, and there are some opportunities there. There are plenty of pros and cons, and it's not entirely in my hands, of course, but right now, I think I'd make the jump and see how things would work out.

The Mariner had been making loud hole-in-the-exhaust noises for a while, and I kept telling myself to get it to a shop soon. Should have when I was in Liberty early last week, but didn't, and oh heck you know where this is going. Flex pipe let go just as I got onto I-64 Friday afternoon. Couldn't field-fix it, so called for a tow and got back to the house. Trailered him to Liberty Saturday afternoon, dropped him off at the shop Monday morning, and then Dad and I headed to West Virginia.

Lousy rainy drive, but worth making. We have a buyer for the plot. The deed has an assessed value, of course, Dad had a figure X in mind, the buyer offered 4/5 X and will have his attorney handle the details. Dad and I talked it over, and I think he's going to accept that offer. The buyer clearly wants it - he called Dad once on our drive back to Liberty after talking with his wife, and again Tuesday morning after talking with his attorney. Here's hoping!

Picked up the Mariner, he's quiet again, hooray!

LA lost to the Braves, 4 games to 2. Atlanta and Houston are tied 1-all, with the World Series going back to Atlanta for three games starting tomorrow night. Go Braves.

Made my first visit to a movie theater since the Before Times to see No Time to Die. Heck of a good movie, and I am really going to miss Daniel Craig's version of James Bond. Solid story, a callback to Dalton's Bond, and just good work all around.

Halloween's coming up this weekend! No plans, so I think I'll default to some good supernatural movies/TV and just enjoying the time.

No NL West pennant, and it looks like the Dodgers will go up against the St. Louis Cardinals and their devil-magic in the wild card game.

Big economic news for the Commonwealth today. Ford is going to build new factories to produce batteries and electric vehicles, and the battery plant is going to be built a few miles down the road in Hardin County. It's going to employ about 5000 people, plus the construction work, highway and rail expansion, and the inevitable support and supply plants. This may be bigger than Governor Collins landing the Georgetown Toyota plant back in the 80s.

Archon's this coming weekend, and I was going to run some Trail of Cthulhu, but that isn't going to happen. So, I decided that I'd convert the con investigations into a short campaign, maybe for some of my locals. But losing Mom just knocked my interest in existential horror flat. Mom was always hopeful, and Mom was home. So, I'm going to run something that has a streak of hope, and I'm going home to Night City. Cyberpunk Red this weekend.

Going to Liberty next week, for the first time since the funeral. I'm the executor of both wills, and this is just going to be signing forms and the like.

The Mariner is still behaving. I'll take it.

Lost one of my characters in this afternoon's MCC session. It had always been a glass cannon - a high-strength low-stamina Plantient, maxing out its hit points at nine at third level. Soidee's demise leaves Stout Evan, the Sentinel, as the last survivor from the four zero-level characters I started with.

COVID-19's Delta variant is the new big thing, very infectious, even among vaccinated folks. CDC is recommending masks again, so of course those kinds of people are losing their shit again.

After traveling something like 8600 miles, my Pelgrane order showed up Saturday afternoon. Pelgrane offered to send a replacement order, and that's just fantastic on their part. I'm hoping they'll be able to stop their US shipper from sending the replacement, but if I have to send it back, so be it. I'm just glad I have the books.

I'm tired as anything tonight. 54 hours working this week, drove to Mom&Dad's this morning, taking The Niece with me, so there was a good talk during the drive. Left the Canyon with Dad, brought the Mariner back, hopefully (again) its demons exorcised. Felt rather good to drive it again; the pickup is great, don't get me wrong, but the Mariner is a Mercury, and that marque paid attention to luxury and comfort in its last years. It's just more comfortable to drive for longer stretches.

Woke up to about two inches of snow, the puffy powdery kind. Dutchmans and Cannons Lanes were messy, slushy and rutted. I-64 was just wet, with more traffic than there should have been. We watched the weather throughout the day, checking forecasts obsessively. Around 1PM, the light snow switched to sleet, making a mess but seemingly reducing the amount of snow by quite a bit. On the drive home, I-64 was slushy and rutted; the surface streets packed with snow. The Canyon handled things well, and it seemed happy to switch from 2WD to 4WD-High whenever I pushed the appropriate buttons.

Very little snow or sleet or anything since I've gotten home. Most forecasts call for my area to see about six inches of snow by midnight or so.

I did get to play with trains for a couple of hours yesterday, mostly stuff I had picked up in the last year. Fun, relaxing, and I learned and/or discovered a few things. My lovely C&O Kanawha runs and pulls like a dream, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it instead of ordering one of the smaller steamers that Walthers regularly has on sale. Prototype 89' cars are just too big for my little semi-portable layout - one or two aren't so bad, but a full train of five or six 89' autoracks would just look ridiculous. Also, while it looks fantastic, the same goes for my Amtrak collection, if all ran together - four Amfleet 1 cars, a sleeper, and a MHC overwhelm things. On the positive side, my Atlas B40-8 and FVM GP60 (both in Norfolk Southern colors) look fantastic and run really well together, so there are my appropriate four-axle workhorses. Man, Fox Valley makes some great models.

Looks like our snow's over for the night. More in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, but I'll deal with that when and if it happens.

Super Bowl 55 was a dud. KC's offensive line was porous, and Tom Fucking Brady is Tom Fucking Brady, no matter what uniform he's wearing. I started fading around the end of the second quarter, played Gran Turismo during halftime, and called it quits a few minutes into the fourth. I had planned on watching the premiere of the Equalizer reboot, but I couldn't stay awake.

Monday was the first session of our Deadlands game, and I had a good time and right now I could happily not be a GM again for about a year or so. I'm reading Coriolis in prep for a proposed game, and there have been a few PDF purchases here and there for reading and out of curiosity. I have a feeling though, that my fading interest in the hobby is a long-term thing.

Woke up to an impending winter storm yesterday morning. It started hitting about an hour before I headed home from work - the obligatory snow and sleet and freezing rain mix. Got home okay, taking it slow, and settled in. About 8:30, power went out on one side of the house. Went out to check the breaker box, and one was thrown and would not reset. 40 minutes later, the rest of the house went dark. The furnace had gotten things warm enough that I decided to just throw another blanket on the bed and sleep at home. Woke up, thanked whatever was listening that the water heater is a gas-burner and took a hot shower before going in early and napping on a very comfy couch before clocking in. LG&E got things back online this evening - one of the mess of branches I had put off trimming had gotten enough ice on it that it pulled a power line away from a connection. Got home tonight, and the living room lights shining through the front windows were as beautiful as any cathedral's stained-glass illumination. Plugged things back in, cranked up the furnace, and now I am finished writing this and it's just about time to get back under those blankets.

On the other hand, the Mariner's electrical gremlins are back, and I don't want to talk about those.

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Roadside Picnic

Bright Ideas, Dark Futures

The Steps

Get Back

About Time

Nobody's Soldier

What About the Children

All Now

From the Iron Horse

Atmosphere

Out on the Weekend

Three More Days

Mother Road

Three Sixty Four

Golden Years

I am the Cool

Weird Science

West End Girls

The Scenic Route

Exploring the Omnivery

Sprite

Lady Parts

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June 2025

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