Mission Not Accomplished
1/9/3

The plan yesterday was to stop by either Advance Auto Parts or K-mart and either get the oil filter for Aisai�s car or see what offerings K-mart has as far as 5-quart jugs of oil. I chose the K-mart route and the selection sucked.

It wasn�t that it was so bad, really, but the Castrol Syntec and everything else was in gallon jugs and Aisai�s Focus takes 4.5 quarts, so I�d need to buy another quart, and that was overpriced. They had a lot of oil fiters of different brands that they were discontinuing (they�d only keep Fram it seemed) but no book to find out which filter for Aisai�s car. I didn�t get anything and got lesson number 10 or so in why not to ever go to K-mart. (Because they suck.)

When I got home, I didn�t put together the network. The packet of paperwork for our home study came. I knew that there would be odd questions, but I thought that meant difficult ones. They were all fine by me, really. But some were odd.

The strangest set of questions is where they want us to give driving directions to places like the grocery store, the doctor, etc. Seems a little odd, but it makes some sense. There were also questions like �In your family, what are common way to express the following: Happiness, Anger, etc.�

�Well, personally, when I�m angry, I really like to raise my voice and gesticulate wildly.�

I had been home about 8 minutes when Aisai got home and we looked through the paperwork together. No biggie, but some hours involved. We also have the forms we need for the INS, the local coppers doing our finger prints, and the physical. Aisai said she�s call down to the clinic in Birmingham that can get us all the vaccinations we�ll need. Conveniently it�s in the same building that her mom goes down for some kind of thing. Aisai will drop by and pick up all the info next time.

Of course, as far as the network goes, there was a cable missing. Or, I should say, I lacked a cable. There were no cables in the router box and there weren�t supposed to be. On the way home from Church (after eating with Chris and Jess at Aisai�s mom�s house) we went by Best Buy.

I had bought a 50 ft Belkin brand Cat-5 cable off Amazon for $10. The same cable at Best Buy was $25. But I only needed something about a foot long, but the shortest they had was six foot. It was $8. Now, I should have everything to get the network up.

Oh, and it seems that the instructions for the network indicate that the term LAN isn�t out of fashion. My LAN, I must set up my LAN.

So, Today, the plan is that when I get off work I�ll go by Advance Auto and get 5 or 6 quarts of Havoline Synthetic 5w30 for Aisai�s car and the Purolator PureOne filter. I�ll probably change her oil on Friday or Saturday. Saturday morning is Tech Day at Trussville Mazda, which I still need to find out how to get to. Basically, many Miatas will descend on the place and we�ll be taught and shown how to do various things on our cars.

Miatas are very simple to work on, but seeing something like a timing best change helps in the grand scheme of things. I need to change my plug wires (simple), my brakes (simple but I forgot how), flush the radiator (simple), and I�d like to replace the valve cover gasket (allegedly simple). I�m planning on buying some NKG wires for my car when I�m down there. I�ll probably use Bosche Platinum plugs. I�d like to start running Mobil 1 in the car again. I might change over to that orange type of anti-freeze (I think it has more rust inhibitors, but then again, the green makes it so you can tell if you�ve got rust happening).

Currently, that�s most of the list of what the car needs. Sure, it needs shocks, but they died hard (rather than dying goosh, you�ve seen those cars the ones where when they hit a bump you can say �She said�she liked�the ocean�� and it�s funny).

And I think that having my protein in water in the morning, rather than milk, is the lamest thing I�ve ever done. Three days into it I dread breakfast. Oh, it�s hideous.

And my weight is staying at 192. I�m probably still losing fat, but since I�ve just started working out again after taking two months off, I�m gaining muscle pretty rapidly. Today is my favorite day, back day.

Even though I loved the shows The Mole and Mole 2, I deleted Celebrity Mole without watching it after I looked at who was going to be on it. I don�t like any of those people. Why do the networks think we like celebrities? Of all professions, I think it�s one that is the most devoid of normal, likable people.