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Please be advised that the contents of this blog are opinions only (my opinion, the opinions of my family and the opinions of anyone else directly or indirectly involed in this blog). This is not an accredited training blog, nor is it an accredited anything blog. If you (and you) do anything that this blog says, or don't do anything that this site says not to do, and you get injured, sick or killed, you cannot blame me or my family or blame anyone else directly or indirectly involved in this blog. By reading anything on this blog (including this message) you are saying that you are a person who makes thier own choices in life and does not hold the writer of this blog, the writers family or any one else that may be directly or indirectly involved in the production or writing of this blog, responsible for your stupid and irresponsible behaviors, injuries, sicknesses or deaths. With that said, please enjoy my fun blog.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Dec 3. Another run, another storm, another weird Lego advent surprise…

Was going to run in the morning, but by the time Andrew got up and we got to Soccer, it ended up too late. DW had to get to her craft fair in Airdrie and Andrew and I had a sausage party to look after. We got Traci set up at the fair, said out goodbyes and headed out to CrossIron Mall. On the way there Andrew decided it was time to fill me in on our plans for the day.

Daddy, first. *pause* we will go to the end of Big Iron mall and look at the big fish in the fishing store. Then we will go for a walk in the mall and go to the food court and I will have Chinese food with chopsticks. Then we will go to toys and us to look at what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas. We won’t take much time for this because we need to head home to take a quick rest before we find the lego parts from last years calendar. Then we will… Well that's about it.

Is that a good plan Daddy?

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Yeah. the mall was pretty fun. Can you tell if he had a good time? He looked at the balloon making guy and told him he wanted a Green Puppy.

Meanwhile, outside it started storming. A pretty good blizzard. I hadn’t ran yet. dang. Oh well, a Strides run streak challenge is a challenge!! My mom came over to sit with Andrew and put him to bed so I could drive back and pick up Traci. After I found out there was another travel advisory to where I needed to go to get Traci, I was motivated to get out there and run, so I could take my time on the road.

It was pretty freaking snowy. I loved it. Actually for about the first 200 feet I wanted to go back home, but after that it was really good. I always liked running in winter. As a gear junkie, it’s prime time! I am still amazed at how good my VivoBarefoot Neo Trails are in the snow. All my other minimal shoes start cold in the winter, but these, sockless, seem to be the perfect temperature at all parts of the run. My feet finish dry too!

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It was pretty evident that I was going to be the only knucklehead running tonight.

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Went for 1mile and did 1.5 again. I. just. felt. like. runnin.

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Advent calendar. Day 3.

A cop with some s&m handcuffs came out as our surprise today. I though naked Santa from last year adds a little some- somethin to todays image. Man does that cop look smug. Maybe because he just came off a successful tour with the village people.

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OK, so as you all know, we are as poor as folk right now. Well, we needed a second vehicle as the cube we were driving was given back. Well, I decided we should go to the Auction to see what that was all about. We liked the idea of it, so I went back and bought a minivan for $1900.00. Pretty good deal.

Pretty good deal, that is until we took it to the mechanics shop and found out it needed $7000.00 work just to be safe on the road. Well, since we’ve been going through tons of financial shit lately, I just chalked this up to ‘what the hell’ and we’ll figure out what we need to do later. I couldn’t really deal with this punch in the gut at the moment. I carried on with that day. As it turns out later on that day I am at one of my vendors offices on work stuff. I overhear a conversation about a guy who can’ get rid of a free vehicle. I jump into the conversation casually and ask what kind of vehicle it is. A 1999 Oldsmobile silhouette minivan.

Really? I ask. Yep, he says. It needs a starter, and a few other things, but I think I'll give it away to the kidney foundation.

Can I have it, I ask? The guy says sure. I go over the  next day, load it onto a trailer and take it home. (oh yeah. I guess I should tell you, this free van is Identical to the one I bought at auction)

Yep. Now I have 2 vans. That day I jack up both vans in the driveway and swap starters, and the 2nd, free, van starts right up! Woot! I take it for a drive and yeah, this van is pretty nice! It has a grinding noise from the engine, but I quickly diagnose the noise as a drive axle CV joint, or the hub bearing.

I tore down and re-assembled a 1969 volkswagen a few years ago, so I had some knowledge of cars, so I decided to attempt the repair myself. I went and bought the parts and in about 3 hours I had the work done and a really nice driving van.

Moral of the story? Be nice to everyone as Karma is watching and will pay you back when you most need it.

Another quick story about recent car repair. Our 2004 Buick Regal that we bought new, started having strange problems a couple weeks ago. Minor things like…

when you turned the left signal light on, the engine shut off.

Oy… that was annoying. So, what the heck, no need to panic. I consulted the internet and it had all  my answers. It was the ignition switch in the steering column. Ok pretty simple right? Well, kinda.

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It was a little dicey taking apart so many parts of the dash, and I relied on some common sense and plain ol’ good luck to figure everything out. I pulled out the part that was supposedly the culprit and headed down to AutoValue. They have the part, and he quoted me $199.00. Dang, I told him. I can get that part for $125.00 online, inc shipping.

Without missing a beat, he says “Well. the best we can do is $134.00”

Really? I thought to myself. If I don’t ask, you just automatically take an additional $65.00 from the unwitting?

What I said though was. “ok. thanks.”

It was the right part and the car was put back together and running nicely about an hour later. So between the van and the car, doing the labour myself saved us well over $1500.00 in work.

*wOoT*

anyroad… I digress.

Traci’s craft fair was part of Festival of Lights in Airdrie. So I took these shots with the iPhone while I waited for her to finish up.

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Goodnight!

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