Expect The Worst And Get Something Less…

I thought today would be a pretty buggered-up day but as it turned out it was ok. I didn’t have to go to the doctor. The 997TT programming worked out great and the customer was thrilled. We’re going to be one of five places in the US able to do the modification so we should start seeing orders coming in via UPS/Fedex I hope. It’s a complex/dicey process but it does work.

There were so many people dropping in today and phone calls that I got lost. People still want to use me for technical support but if I’m busy assisting customers then I don’t answer the phone, which means I’m not wasting my time as such.

The white 996TT looks the bomba. I just hope James fixes the clutch release- or should I say “spring loading cock action” so we can drive it properly.

Ugh

James got the white TT mostly done. It really needs to have the clutch slave fixed but other than that it drives, moves and looks good. I added some more carbon fiber flair to it last night so she’s a looker alright.

I also finally got to see Clerks II. I knew it wouldn’t be quite as good as the first and it had the effect of making me feel old and “uncool”, which I think was the most important points of the movie. Not that the movie was or is important but ragging about Star Wars isn’t as cool as being a Lord of the Rings fan boy. Or is it? Had a few laughs but not too many.

Today should be oh so much fun. Starting off with a difficult customer and a first-time 997TT flash. I have to take the ECU out and bench flash the darned thing. I’m sure he’ll be hovering over me like a hawk which will make it even more fun. After that I have to go pay the doctor a visit on the other side of town and then come back and do more work. Wonderful.

Oh James and I gave ourselves a pay raise. How nice. The company gets to pay more employee taxes and then we give even more money to the fed and state. Yippee!

People

It’s funny on the one hand I’m apparently “wonderful” when it comes to dealing with people (so I have been told) and as you know they come in all shapes and sizes. I’m not talking physically and merely referring to their egos. So whilst it may appear that I am doing my job and taking “good care” of all of them they can be the most assanine, stupid and spoiled bunch of XXXXX the planet has ever seen. This saps a lot of energy out of me and right now isn’t helping me to write and submit my column for CPU Magazine. In fact, I’m so tuckered out I feel like just nodding off. That is of course assuming the phone isn’t ringing off the hook.

 Ah well, the car is going really well now. Needds some stuff but it runs, drives and looks half decent. So we sort of have a 996TT again. I can’t for the life of me sell the other one so that’s proving to be “fun”. In other car news, James and I decided we’re going to the the “green” on the GT3-RS.

Quiet Time off

Had some real quality time off to do just about nothing. Hadn’t had a few days like that in a while so I took full advantage and was a lazy sod. On Saturday night we went to see the new Bond movie with James (our James). It was a lot better than I had expected and quite enjoyable. The first scene had some of the crazziest run/chase/jump sequences I’ve ever seen. Not realistic but since when has James Bond been realistic?

Sunday I watched the Raiders loose- again. Say no more.

Just Strange

So I’m finally settling down in terms of tinkering. I found some good settings for the DLP on AVSForum and the picture seems a lot better. At least from 4-5 feet away. The replacement Onkyo reciever now supports HDMI 1.1 and so I’ve got virtually no cables and now Uncompressed 5.1 Dolby Digital sound pumping throuh the Dali speakers when watching Blu-Ray movies. I have to say I’m starting to get too used to Blu-ray. Going back to standard DVD’s is pretty painful. Tonight James and I popped on one of the strangest movies I’ve ever seen, The Brothers Grimm. I’m not sure what happened but the effects were interesting. Matt Damon with an English accent is painful, especially through uncompressed 5.1 DD.

We started the car today. Had a couple of fuel leaks that needed fixing so we didn’t finish her but at least she runs. The white and carbon theme is going to look pretty spiffy. I thought I’d be more excited about it but right now I’m still trying to sell the black car and that’s more on my mind. The dealer called us about our GT3RS. It seems in a couple of weeks we’ll be able to put the order in. Green or orange. Green or orange?

At Work… Again…

So we “had” to go into work again today to install a 997S exhaust system. The guy drove down from Fairfield so it was no day off for a Canadian and Brit. The 996TT has had some more bits put on it and other than that I finally sold one of those 997S Europipe set ups, which I’m looking forward to hearing/seeing etc… They make some amazing quality stuff those guys.

Joan and I had a slight tiff last night over the phone for some reason. Well the reason is that she’s down in LA with her family and I’m not. I guess she has a point but I just can’t help it, I do have to work and take care of things up here and she knows that I don’t find her family the most enticing. I do try when I can and I’ve been friendly/supportive to them even when I don’t agree but I guess there’s too much BS from before which always gets brought up. Either way I think it’s because we miss each other mostly. She’s going to be driving up tonight although my money is on her showing up tomorrow instead. I might watch a movie tonight. Either the new Bond or something at home. I feel pretty listless today so I don’t want to do much of anything.

Turkey Day

Well I’m not a yank yet but it’s ThanksGiving over here so I’m not at work, nothing is really open and I’m lazying about in bed watching Football with the dog. Joan is away in LA as usual doing her family thing. Hopefully she’s happy. I think James is going to come around later on and cook for his family here. Even though he’s Canadian and we’re doing Lamb instead of turkey (I hate turkey) we’ll likey watch some movie and take it easy. We have to go in tomorrow because there’s a new and rather selfish customer that insists tomorrow is his only day off. We might as well go in and finish up the white 996TT. It’s getting pretty close to being done.

 I needed a day off as yesterday was a royal pain. I got down to meet with the guy who was interested in the car and the detailer had killed that battery and possibly the starter as well. Apparently he wants to come back on Monday and drive it but we’ll see. I doubt he will buy it which means I’m going to blow it out for 61K. Time is money and I don’t have anymore time to dick around with it anymore. I just want it out of my life….

OK We’re Done

On the home entertainment front, after re-arranging the room (again) to where I’m happy it was time to address the AMP situation. The one I had did not upconvert nor did it support HDCP/HDMI properly. Some things worked and others didn’t so I would be lucky to get video and usually no sound. So I swapped it for a new Onkyo, which actually was pretty cheap considering (1/3 of the price of the Yamaha) all I really wanted from it was decent sound (ok no worries there) and most importantly vide upconversion/switching for HDMI. No all I have is three HDMI cables, one for the Blu-Ray, one for the Satelite and one going into the TV. I’m really done now. No more tweaking. Setting up the reciever last night was a pain in the arse but everything works. No more tweaking. No more buying/swapping anything else for a while. I’d like to just go back to watching movies now. At least for a bit.

So my black car is donw in Gilroy all nicely detailed but for some reason doesn’t “start”. That’s especially useful because today is the today someone, who is apparently serious, is coming to look her over and likely buy her. The detailer thinks it’s something more than the battery but we’ll see. I’m off to swap in an Optima and see what happens. If it’s the starter then that’s not going to be fun. I almost ended up trading the car in for a white GT3. The idea being that this one was “super” cheap because it had some repairs done and that we’d use it for the shop and make some products. After that we’d sell it for a bit more than we bought it for. That was the theory anyways. It likely would have worked too if the car hadn’t been a dud. Probably a good thing it was anyways. James and I are still on the list for the GT3RS and as it turns out that car is so sought after that it’s almost “Ferrari-esque” in terms of the premiums people are likely going to pay. We will likely flip it. First thing though is to decide on Orange or Crazy Green. Hmm.

Our white 996TT is chugging along now. We got a few more things done yesterday and “hopefully” she’ll be on the road tonight. Hopefully.

 Joan is down in LA again. She seems to be going every other day lately either for doctor’s appointments or family stuff. She’ll be back Friday so maybe we’ll find time to do something this weekend. Stanger things have happened.

Monday Moaning

So I hung out with the dog most of yesterday watching football, going for a walk and generally lazying about. I’ve been looking forward to today because on the home-front we’re canning Comcast Cable in favor of the DishNetwork stuff. More HD channels, cheaper and faster internet. Not too bad to be honest. Glad to be rid of Comcast. Image quality is terrible on half the channels that are analogue and the ones that are digital are a mixed bag anyways.

 Work has been quiet today and with James in SF with his family I’ve paid some bills done the sales tax and even managed to make a disk image for the Blu-Ray firmware update.

Normal Service is Resumed

Well after such a good Thursday I knew something was going to happen and sure enough it did as Thursday night I spent the entire night throwing up thanks to a migraine. James drove me home thankfully so at least I was at home instead of at work. I did go back in on Friday and a good thing I did because I got a lot accomplished again.

Yesterday James, his parents and I all went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the “new” Great White. I hadn’t been in a long time so it was about time I went. The whitey was smaller than the last one but a lot healthier. I wonder how long they’ll keep this one? We luck  out on the weather and walked all around Monterey. Really nice way to take Saturday off. On the way back we stopped at an Indian restaurant, which certainly isn’t in tune with eating half a sandwich at Subway but what can I do? It’s my favorite food so I endulged. We missed the UFC stuff and instead Brendan, James and I all moved/re-located the entertainment system and watched the Blu-ray version of The Great Raid. I’m still not happy with the image quality on the DLP so it needs some tweaking and without the firmware on the Blu-Ray player it’s still got some issues. I’m suprised the crappy Sony reciever I had actually supports 1080p switching? Or does it? It says it does but who knows really. Back to the movie… I hadn’t heard of it but for some reason I’ve always been interested in anything WWII related. Maybe it’s because 99% of my non-existant family all perished in one way or another during that period. Or maybe I’m just sick? I don’t know. The movie clearly had some serious money behind it but you can’t really go wrong with one of those “This is sort of what happened during the war” stories. 501 US POWs that were abandoned by McArthur in the Phillipenes in the early days of the war theater against Japan were still alive in one of those sadistic work/death camps. I didn’t happen to know the story of their succesful rescue during the latter days of the war but it was interesting to see the portrayl of the lack of respect that the Phillipenos had with the US millitary but especially so with the Japanese army. As usual they are the type of people/countries that really suffer. In the face of unsurmounting odds they still side with the US/UK, even if they are adandoned, forgotten, betrayed or neglected. For some reason they take an alliance seriously where as we seem to always have “issues” keeping to our side of the bargain. Nevertheless the movie only touched upon that and quickly returned to being a “feel good winning the war” affair after all but one of the prisoners was rescued. I’m sure the real mission was much more hairy and some of the sacrifices will remain untold but it sure seems like a different era? Today people “have” to be first and do all sorts of crazy driving just to get in front of you and possibly cause you to crash so the idea that anyone in today’s world would risk their life for you when they can’t even be so kind as to let you merge into a fucking car lane is obviously a sad state. I often wish I had grown up in those days. I would have liked to have seen what I am really made of. I would like to think that I would have fought, died for my country (whichever one that is I guess) and more importantly bonded with people that were willing to sacrifice for you.