Insane Week Recap Part 2

[zrath]

Friday: Called Joe at the garage that fixed the Fnord Stranger before I took delivery of it.
Told him about the cracked hose. He offered to fix it for free if I could find the right hose.
Well, that gave me my mission for the day!
I duct-taped the crack on the hose, filled the radiator, and went to Pep Boys to find the hose.
Apparently, they don't have the car diagrams anymore, so it was a complete waste of time. I went to
the nearby Westside Pavilion to make a payment on my T-Mobile account and keep my cellphone turned on.
While there, I discovered that the Japanese toy store "PowerAnime" had not, in fact, closed.
It had relocated to a larger, ground-floor space. Somebody had forgotten to put a sign about the move
on the old storefront way back in October when I tried going back there. Harrumph!
Anyway, this gave time to the Stranger to cool down enough for me to refill the radiator.

Went to the local Ford extortionist dealer to gather some data on the needed hose.
The Ford Parts Guy had problems understanding my accent.
Kzin: "Hi, I need a part."
Parts Guy: "A bolt?"
K: "No, a part. A spare part. A hose."
PG: "What kinda hose? There's a lot of 'em."
K: "I don't know what it's called."
I described in detail where the hose was and what it was connected to. I asked him to put up an
exploded diagram of the truck on-screen so I could point to the part. He replied that he didn't have
such a diagram. Okay, what the hell? I remember clearly such diagrams available at car parts dealers,
both dealers and 3rd party, and now they've all disappeared! Nobody ported them to the computers!
This is stupid and damned inconvenient! While at Pep Boys, I looked through a Chilton car repair book
and nowhere did I see an exploded diagram of the vehicle with all parts labelled and numbered!
Anyway, Ford Parts Guy brought up a super simple diagram showing the heating system and, miracles
of miracles, the hose I was looking for. I pointed to it and he worked the keyboard some more.
Now, this hose I needed was roughly 8 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter. Pretty small.
"Oh, this is an expensive hose," he clucks. "Over $90 at least..."
He is not kidding. I wasn't planning to buy it there anyway, I just wanted the info.
He didn't have the hose in stock, but he printed out the diagram for me to have, so that was cool.

I immediately took off for Kragen Auto Parts, which is where I had wanted to go in the first place.
The guy at Kragen was incredibly cool. He let me walk in the back and look at the hoses they had in
stock to see if I could find a close match. Then, he let me walk out of the store with the hose so
I could measure it against the existing one. The hose I found was a really close fit, so I bought it.
It cost me all of $9. Mission accomplished! WIN!!! \O/
I came home and found an e-mail from Genex in my box. I did not get the job. They chose someone with
more web server testing experience. Nom de dieu de bordel de putain de couilles de merde!
I dejectedly crashed in front of the TV and watched some "John Adams", the HBO miniseries, on DVD.

Saturday: Got up at 7am (hisssssssssss!!!), showered, dressed, grabbed a few things, refilled
the truck's radiator and took off for Joe's place to get the hose put on. Traffic was wonderfully
light and I got there quickly. After the truck had cooled down, hose installation commenced.
The hose turned out to be the perfect inner and outer diameter. It was a bit long, but that was easily
remedied with a little cutting with a very sharp blade. In the end, it fit perfectly.
The engine was run for several minutes to make sure everything was good, all fluids were checked and
topped up. I shook Joe's hand vigorously, thanking him for being such a cool guy and doing this free.

With that taken care of, I headed for Torrance to attend the monthly LUGOLA meeting.
I eyed the gas gauge nervously the whole time because it was getting low, and I was out of cash.
I had a Lego set with me that I was hoping to sell to get some gas and food money.



The meeting was held in a smallish apartment, and the turn-out was greater than last month's.
Which makes perfect sense since last month's meeting was held in a roomy house. :)
Our host was the lovely and talented Andrew, who has a penchant for mechs and anime armor.
And building entire armies, as you will see with the next 5 photos:



Andrew said he found himself with a lot of dark red parts, so he constructed a rather impressive
raspberry-colored task force. In the back, a heavy fighter flanked by a quad-thruster troop carrier.
Also, various hovertanks, attack drones and a combat mech.



Here we have a heavy gunship flanked by hover artillery.



Here's another view of the hovertanks from earlier. They're single-seat affairs, similar to the
Ghost hoverbike/tanks from "Halo".



Here's the combat mech from earlier, its white cousin, plus combat drones and a squad of soldiers.



A quintet of smaller combat mechs plus a pair of larger 2-seat Ghost-like hovertanks and more soldiers.
Andrew also builds ships and other things:



The skull-faced ship is not the Arcadia from "Captain Harlock". It's a smaller version of this
gigantic 5-foot long Lego ship whose name escapes me. It's part of the "Space Skull" line,
popular with the Adult Fans Of Lego (AFOL) community: skull-faced vehicles in black and red.



The larger helicopter is a pretty good replica of Mi-24 Hind Russian gunship.



Here's some assorted mechs. The grey 3-wheeled one looks oddly familiar.



Andrew also built this cool little guy, a very Shirow-esque quadruped tank.



With Andrew's stuff all over the place, it didn't leave much room for other people's MOCs.
Someone brought this quintet of larger mechs, including two veterans from Battletech.
The red one in back is originally a Bigfoot mech from "Fang Of The Sun Dougram". I totally forgot
what its Battletech name was. The black mech is the famous and overexposed Mad Cat.
The red and yellow mech is something different. Here's a closer look:



Yes, it's an Iron Man Mech! Or Iron Mech for short.
Because, some days, you need bigger armor. :)
And finally, la pièce de résistance! Le coup de grace! The last photo!



This is a Lego mosaic of the Criterion Collection DVD cover for that masterpiece of Japanese cinéma,
Akira Kurosawa's take on King Lear, "Throne Of Blood", starring the incomparable Toshiro Mifune.
I need to rent that.



The weather was hot, the apartment was crowded, but we still had a good time!
And I sold my Lego set so, upon leaving the meeting, I immediately put gas in the Stranger.
Then I stopped at Red Robin for lunch on the way home. I had an A1 Peppercorn Cheeseburger, and boy
was it ever peppery! Also, two baskets of those Bottomless Fries with mayo on the side. :)
Red Robin is a pretty cool joint, they have yet to screw up on me.
I got home at around 6pm and just chilled. I watched more "John Adams".

Sunday: I was hoping to be in the Valley by 10am to help selenesue with stuff moving but
I was, wait for it, "le tired"!! Bwahahahahahaha-snort! Ahem...
So I got there a little later but just in time to stuff the Stranger full of boxes (cue Tetris Song 2!).
And then we stuffed a friend's Exploder full of stuff. Selene's got too much stuff...
We caravaned to the house and unloaded everything with help of a friend's two nephews, or something.
Then we went to the old place and loaded the Stranger and Exploder again. Greg The Jedi showed up
to help load stuff. We caravaned to the house again and unloaded the stuff. I was still achy-breaky
from the Thursday Sound System Deployment & Evac Drill, so I couldn't lift the heavy boxes of books.
I was thankful Greg was there to do that. I was completely drenched in sweat during the whole thing.
Selene treated the survivors to supper at the nearby Sizzler's, and the food was, and remember that
this is a Frenchman talking, to use the current jargon, "meh". At least mine was.
Also, the ketchup was not Heinz. It was a Heinz bottle but the ketchup tasted cheap and watered-down.
I thought there was something wrong with my fries but it was, in fact, the ketchup.
I enjoyed the fully operational air conditioning in Selene's new house for a while, then went home.
Jean-Louis was supposed to come by and get his sound system, but he didn't make it.
I showered and relaxed in front of the TV to watch the rest of "John Adams".
And thus the weekend ended...

Comments

[girlfmkitty.livejournal.com]

Dude, you ARE French. French fries and mayo? *shudders*

[duntov-475hp.livejournal.com]

I think the reason Ford doesn't have any exploded views in the manuals because most of the time the person fixing the vehicle is dealing with an already exploded Ford, therefore they need a picture of the vehicle reassembled. (I know I'm going to be hit for that one. Honestly, just because I drive a Camaro doesn't mean I hate Fords, just Mustangs.)

[paka.livejournal.com]

Minor quibble; Throne of Blood was Macbeth. Ran was King Lear.