Well today we turned our 3 cats into the animal shelter because they were just getting 2 expensive to have, wouldn’t really come around, kids refused to take care of the cat litter and a few other reasons. We’re still keeping our dog because she’s a great little dog that’s loves to be around us and is very protective. She loves being around my wife more then anything and really never leaves her side, I guess that’s because Karen’s home all the time so she’s more protective over her.

Now on to the car. It seems reverse is going out in the car and that’s NOT a good thing. As a matter of fact, it really pisses me off so I called the guy that I purchased it from this morning and he told me to get the fluid flushed out on it and if that doesn’t fix it then wait a couple weeks and he’ll backdate the warranty that he offered at the time of purchase for $420 and then they will take care of fixing that and my damn SRS light that won’t go off as well as go over the car with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing else is wrong with it. I wanted to get the warranty but I was scrapping just to come up with the $ to get the car. So now I have to raise $420 for the warranty so if the fluid flush and change doesn’t work, which I doubt it will then I can take it to his shop and let them fix everything on it with me sitting right there making sure everything is done perfect.

My wife thinks that it’ll be a lot easier now that we won’t have 3 cats to buy food and litter for but she doesn’t realize that it was only about $30 month to take care of them, one of the main reason’s she wanted them gone is because they were tearing up our furniture and neither one of us believe in declawing them. After this weekend, I’ll have a better perspective as far as where we’re at $ wise and what med’s I can skip so I can get this car repaired.

On a good note, it looks like the weather is going to start getting better sooner then I expected but that means yard work again for spring cleanup, (IE: Cleaning all the dog crap from the yard, garbage that got buried under the snow storms, cleaning out the shed which is going to cost me about $75 for someone to come take away 90% of the stuff that’s in there. I’m slowly trying to get away from being a pack rat and that means cleaning all my computer stuff in the den also. But I’ll have my shed back which was my get away place in the summer to just sit back and relax. Over the last couple years it’s filled up with more and more stuff that Karen and the kids put in there. So once I get that area back then my son and I can get back to father son time again just sitting back and talking about different things.

Well now that I have the car cleaned up as far as the outside goes, all that’s left is for the weather to warm up to the 60’s - 70’s so I can get the buffer out and start cleaning the paint and then 2 different coats of wax. All glass is coated in RainX now as well as RainX wipers on the car. I still need to coat the inside windows with the RainX wipes though but that’s nothing that can’t wait a couple weeks as I believe I went over my budget by about $50 for things to clean it up for me for my daily driver.

I’m hoping this week or 2 we can get some rain to melt all this damn snow we’re getting here and what’s built up. 400lbs of salt still hasn’t cleared it up and it’s aggravating.  I’m still having a issue with the airbag light staying on in the car but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s not a fuse as I haven’t found anything in the manual to see that a fuse controls that.

So this week will be the first full week driving it back and forth to work so I’ll get a better idea of what kind of gas mileage I’ll be getting which will help.

I’ll be posting more as I do more things to fix it up. My son wants me to get a body kit for it and a kick ass sound system but that’s not me, not at 39 at least. Maybe 20 years ago it was but this is turning into more of a family car more or less. I’m still not sure if this is something we’ll be using for our Christmas vacation next year to Floriday or not, as much as I’d like to because of the mileage, I’m not sure If I can trust it. I’ll know more this summer as I do more driving and get used to it.

Well we finally got a second car again and I’ve done something I said I’d never do and that’s buy something non American. We purchased a 2000 Honda Accord LX with 115k miles on it last night but it’s fully loaded, get’s GREAT gas mileage and Honda’s are known to last forever if taken care of properly. This one has been taken care of and the interior looks brand new more or less and after we get some warm weather, I’ll be outside with the buffer and cleaning the paint and then a couple coats of good wax.

It has a bigger tank then the 2006 G6 that we’ve had as our only car so it costs more to fill up but from what research I did and the person we purchased it from, the thing averages over 32MPG on the freeway which is where I spend the majority of the time driving. He said he was getting close to 28MPG in the city also. With gas prices rising each week it seems, I can see this thing saving me a small fortune in gas and we won’t be going as far over the lease miles on the G6 as we were heading. At the rate we were going, we were looking at being around 12k miles over so now that it can just sit in the driveway 95% of the week, it’s going to be nice.

I still have some small work to do on the Honda as far as an oil change, replacing a couple burned out fuses and replacing the battery in the remote but that’s minor work. The only thing that’s bugged me so far is the burned CD’s that I have won’t play in the factory CD player, I’ll be checking tonight when I get home if a store bought CD will play and if that works then I need to figure out a way to trick the CD player into playing my burned ones or find a format that it’ll play. I’m also thinking about putting my XM radio in it but taking it somewhere to have done.  So in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy not watching the gas needle move as I drive home each day from work and turn this into the family car.

My TIA’s that is. A TIA is Transient Ischemic Attack or Mini-stroke and I’ve been suffering from them for over a year now. They seemed to go away for awhile but over the last month have really come back strong again and each one does more damage to the brain. Last night while we were at our church orientation, I had another one but there was one difference, another lady in the class suffers from them also and saw the attack start. My wife started getting really upset because of the attack again but she was relieved to find out that this lady also suffers from them also and like me, had a hard time finding a Dr to tell her what was wrong.

We ended up leaving our orientation class early last night and Karen drove us home because I obviously wasn’t able to because of the shaking that comes along with it and the blurry vision that comes along with these attacks. I still am having one hell of a time speaking today and still have the shakes but my vision has cleared up some. At least it was good enough for me to take back roads into work all the way in this morning where I didn’t need to worry about traffic or worse yet, kids waiting for a school bus.

So today I need to get through work again and do it without talking which isn’t much of a problem considering where I work at and then try to get home again. We have another winter storm watch for tonight again which really sucks since I can barely get in our driveway as it is now with all the ice/snow buildup at the end of it now without scraping the bottom of the car.

Life goes on and I will continue to do so. I don’t give up easy and this is a fight that I refuse to lose. I may not have control over my brain and these attacks but I sure as hell can do my best to continue to work and provide for my family. I can’t take the time off work to get my back fixed right so I know they won’t give me the time off to get this issue fixed. It’s just not the way the company is.

Well today is my 39th Birthday and yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 12 year anniversary. I told my wife and kids that next year they get to buy all those over the hill birthday cards/hats/banners/etc that we see at the stores. My body still feels like it’s twice it’s age easily but that’s due to all the health issues. My back is, well back to being messed up again. I’m eating pain pills like they are m&m’s. A few friends of mine have a  running bet as to when my body’s going to break down for the count. It’s not a cruel bet/joke/etc as it’s something that we started about 15 years ago when we really heavy into sports and playing with some severe injury’s. Think cast on leg and playing softball, bowling, basketball, etc.

So I guess I’ll be back to blogging more often again. Not sure what or when yet though.

So I decided to move my main blog back over here and have a mobile blog up at http://mobile.c2wifi.org where I can post to when I’m out and about with the family since I can post to that a LOT easier from my Blackberry then I can to wordpress.

I may be double posting but who knows. It’s up to what mood I’m in I guess.

Todays post is titled “What are people thinking?” Because for the life of me, I can’t figure it out. Let me explain. Why the hell do people buy Blackberries and then cancel the data service after walking out of the store when they get home? I just don’t understand why they even purchased the device. Is it to look cool or something? A friend of mine is getting the new AT&T 8310 Curve so he can have all his appointments off his Outlook with him at all times. He said that after 1 month then he’s canceling the data service since he has to have it for 1 month to get the rebate which brings his total new purchase cost to $0.

Now I offered to give him my BRAND NEW 8800 + $100 cash for his 8310 as soon as he gets it since he has no plans on using the data service or any other services on it other then the calender. He doesn’t even want to use the camera on the device. So I keep asking WTF are you getting a Blackberry for then? He said because he can get it for free and if his company wants to pay for the data service then he’ll have it. Now that makes NO sense to me at all. Maybe I’m just crazy or something. Someone PLEASE explain it to me because I’m pounding my head on my desk just thinking about it.

Well the 8300 Curve that I’m using instead of my 8800 Blackberry (which is up on ebay now) had some dust under the screen. I’ve been uncertain about taking it apart because it is my primary heartbeat and by that I mean without it, I feel like my heart is beating very hard as if something is missing from my life. It’s actually the same feeling I had when my son broke his elbow 2 years ago and he had to go for his first surgery. I had tears in my eyes because I was scared for him.

So this dust problem is a common thing for the 8300 Curves and youtube has a great video on how to take one apart. I didn’t need to go to the extent they did and to be honest, I’m not sure why they fully disassembled it but then again I don’t care. It was good enough to get me where I wanted to go as far as taking mine apart and cleaning the screen. So below I have posted the video off youtube in order to do so for the readers that might have the same issue but didn’t know about the video.

Well I’m putting some things up for sale at http://sale.c2wifi.org if anyone is interested. It’s to help pay for medical bills, meds, etc. Basically all the crap that my insurance doesn’t cover. I’ll add more as I get time and pictures taken.

Well thanks to the 8300 Curve, this weekend hasn’t been that bad. The procedure on my back didn’t work out like we all hoped as it didn’t fix everything and it looks like Fusion surgery is the last choice. I was able to keep my mind busy reading the ebooks and listening to about a gig of MP3’s that I had loaded on my Curve as well as take some weird pictures of myself when I was a mess just to laugh at later on.

So now I’m full of the steroids they injected me with and found a new level of pain that I never knew existed. I am able to walk a little better now so I guess that’s a plus. So now I’m just going to sit back, try to get through everything and figure out how to keep this back crap off my mind. This is where Xanax comes in handy. I’ve been taking it for awhile now to help with the day to day stress that I have between work, home, and most importantly my health.

Last night I tried to switch back to my 8800 Blackberry and actually did for about 2hr’s. I was happy with the GPS again as to me that’s a very important thing. But it just didn’t feel right in my hand so I went back to my Curve. I put up the 8800 for sale on one of the BB forums this morning and it should sell since it’s not even a month old and it’s most importantly UNLOCKED. That means that anyone that uses GSM can just toss in their SIM card in it and it’ll work right away without any issues of it being locked to just one carrier. Once that sells then I can pick up the 8310 Curve from AT&T that they just released. That one has the shape/feel of the 8300 Curve as well as BUILT IN GPS!! Then I will have what I consider to be the perfect device for me.

So it’s Sunday now and we have church in about an hour so I guess it’s time for me to get ready after another cup of coffee. Without my morning coffee, it’s best to stay away from me for awhile as you never know if I’m awake fully enough to give you a complete sentence, much less remember anything I might have agreed to earlier.