https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhxF9Qg5mOU
It's so hard waiting....
She wrote the song - and performed back-up vocals. Made number one on some charts back in the 1990's. The girl in the vid was their little kid at the time. They wrote two songs for Whitney Houston - that were major hits.
If I did not have to deal with reality and could be bank-rolled, this would be my dream career. Singing and song-writing with my spouse. I could rock it - but who has time for that stuff......
I have to run this week out to the the midwest and pick up a Subaru for my wife. I found a gasser that gets around 40 mpg and still has AWD. I talked to a guy last week with the same powertrain, and he claimed to have gotten over 50 mpg with his on a recent road trip. I think someone played a trick on him and threw a few gallons in the tank when he wasn't looking.....
It is the Impreza - they have kind of perfected their game with that car. The unit that I am picking up has been wrecked in a minor enough fashion that I am driving it back - but I can do the sheetmetal and airbags in a weekend - one more weekend that I do not have..... Such is life. I buy the sheetmetal of the same color and then just bolt it on and touch up the bolt heads with color match paint. I have mapped out my parts from Denver to Portland and will just flit about picking up what I need as I drive back.....
My painting skilz are really poor to say the least without a good paint booth and proper lighting and ventilation. I have painted probably 20 cars and only had two or three that I felt good about. The rest were marginal - you have to do it consistently to get good at it. Not one every couple of years. One of my best jobs was a little Honda in the parking lot out behind my apt at college using pre-loaded rattle cans from the local auto paint store. It had snowed the day before in Provo - but it warmed up above 65 degrees the next day, so I shot it right there in the open air and it worked great.
Even with all the political poo-ery and end-of-the-world doomery, life still goes on.
But basically, it is the road trip from hades - so the blog may be kind of sparse for the next week. I will be crashing in the back of this rig until I get back to Seattle. Doing it on the cheap. Life is an adventure - just don't kill yourself in the process, right??
Here is one of my most intense jobs, to date. I found this in a yard in Brooklynn, NY and bought it sight unseen off the internetz. When Dodge first came out with the stow n go, I had to have one for our burgeoning family - so I pounced on the first one I could find. It had 5,000 miles on it:
I removed the entire power train and front suspension and rolled it out of the way on a cart. The passenger side frame rail was kinked so I triple spliced it back at the firewall. I got the entire front end off of another crash test car from Texas, same color and bolted it on once the frame grafting was complete. I had this crashed car shipped from NYC. I only saved about 8,000 dollars from buying it off the lot - but I learned a lot. I bought a 10 ton frame machine out of Chicago for that one and used three lasers for alignment in the xyz axis. Got it back to within 1/8 inch - which was close considering the front sway was about 12 inches out. It was hit hard. The amazing thing was that this thing had NO rebuilt title. A glitch due to shipping over state lines. Not a problem, I made it stronger than when it was new - but not everyone takes the time and has the desire to get it right.
So yeah, this kind of stuff keeps me busy and out of trouble. And got me in the mode to do crazy frame splicing and monster-garaging on 777s and 747s in the factory - on a whole new scale. Some of the stuff we do even bends my mind. You just have no option - you cannot scrap stuff, so you have to come up with a fix to make it at dwg strength, or better. You just have to move forward - there is no moving back. This has been how my life has been. I just have to keep making forward progress - there is no going back, even when it is downright scary and freaky. I think, if you are a good person - and are not on the docket to get eliminated in what is coming (or are a good person who has a role to fulfill on the other side other than rotting in the pokey with the wicked until the end of the millennium) you will find that God is asking you to do HARD things. You are being prepared for things you cannot imagine.
Back on that factory note, right before I came into the factory to basically learn an apprenticeship for what is probably the coolest job I will have ever had in my lifetime, we had a situation where a new manager was on third shift where we do a "high blow" test where we take the pressure vessel (airframe) up to about 1.5 times the normal operating pressure that it will ever see in service to check for leaks and to pre-stress the members in the airframe for increased durability/life cycles while in service. Well, someone forgot to do a check on the locks on the nose cargo door and about mid-pressure check, she blew open. Thankfully, none of the QA inside checking for leaks were near it when it blew because they would have been thrown out the nose and onto the factory floor 30 feet below. Probably dead. The door flew up and smashed into the flight deck structure - nearly completely destroying it.
Well, you cannot just scrap an entire 300 million dollar freighter over a 20 million dollar repair, so my lead at the time was point man and they tore it down until there was no more damage. And then rebuilt the entire nose right there on the spot over a month, while keeping the line moving. In about three or four years he went from rank and file, to my now second level manager. Hard things prepared him to assume greater roles in his future. That decisive event helped him to cut his teeth for greater things. Many of you - are being prepared in a similar fashion.
While on my mission in Brazil, I was paired with Elder Per..... who had sniffed glue as a kid in the Rio de Janeiro favelas as a kid (before joining the Church). His brain was fried - and it was like working with a 12 year old with ADHD. The longest anyone had been with him was about three weeks. In a 24 month mission, I was his 24th companion and we were together for three months. The other Elders literally called the mission home and begged to be released..... I guess I am a sucker for punishment. Well, he was my first comp as a Senior Comp - and I went from that to District Leader and then put him on the bus at the end of his mission and then I was made Junior Zone Leader at the end of those three months. I had been in Brazil for 6 months and could barely speak the language to my satisfaction. Six months later, I was made Assistant to the President. I really think it was Elder Peartree that was the reason I rose. I did not realize it at the time, but he was some kind of litmus for character. Those that survived - floated to the top. Others that struggled with him - not so much. I never did get a mission genealogy to check time with Elder Peartree vs success in leadership. But I would guess there was a connection...... When we are asked to do hard things, there is growth. So, do not shy away from them - but endure them patiently, for they usually do bear fruit if you are patient. I was once in a very difficult situation where I prayed actually did several 3 day fasts (over several years) asking to have the burden lifted from me - and was finally given a yes; with the caveat that I would NOT get the blessings of sticking it out. So, I am still assessing how good my decision was at that time to stick with the difficult thing.
So, in your prayers - ask the Lord what your roles are going to be in what is coming just around the corner. He wants you to be ready to fill your role and meet the measure of your potential. You just need to feel after Him - and find out what that role is. And it may be as simple as just being a good parent - or learning to obey with exactness. Only those who know how to do so, will make it. It will take precision and decisiveness. Those who flinch - or who do not act in faith simply will not make it. I know that to be true. This is the time of great sifting - and the separation will be complete. There will be no more fence sitting allowed.
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