Sunday, July 09, 2006

Getting Shit Done!

Spent the last week in Massachusettes, New Bedford, Jamaica Plain and Wayland. Laura went up last Saturday to New Bedford to meet up with her friend Alicia and to oogle at her 8 month old baby Anais.



I came to New Bedford on Monday after finishing my Monday deliveries. Alicia's place is a trip, there are five people, three dogs, one cat and a baby living in one house. Everyone chips in to look after the baby, it's impressive.

For our nation's 230th birthday, we went over to Alicia's mom's place a couple of blocks away and had a barbeque. John and Noreen came and John went house on the barbicue. He cooked up some Portugese style linguice dogs, chorizo dogs and some intense ribs. Later than night they drove us back in their new car and we spent the night in Jamaica Plain.

The next day we went to Wayland Mass, to Laura's mom, Val's place. From there on it was all business. Laura has had some outstanding hiccups with her license and the project of the week was to get it all settled. On Thursday we spent the day, and I mean THE DAY in Worcester District court waiting to see a judge. It was quite possibly the saddest six straight hours I've spent in a long long time. The best was the 67 year old man who was being arraigned for assault with a deadly weapon (he hit a nurse when she tried to take his blood) he was apprently weaned off of his drugs beforehand. After we were heading back after the lunch break, we saw him coming the other way. Laura's time in front of the judge was a combined one minute and thirty seconds. Laura is no more in trouble with Worcester nor shall she be cuz we promised each other we'd never return.

On Friday we bought a car. We had checked the thing out on Wednesday, had a little test drive and had gotten a great vibe from the guy who was selling it. The car is a 1987 Volvo 240 DL. It has its own little idiosycrasies such as a broken gas guage and a roll up window that needs a little help but mechanically, it's sound. The guy who owned it owns his own company that makes parts for semiconductors, he futzes with Volvo's in his spare time. It cost so little, the thing has to last but 8 short months to have been worth it. I bring you: THE BLUE BRICK




Currently, the car is chilling near Val's house, we'll be picking it up in a couple of weeks. Oh yeah.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woo! Blue Brick!

The gas thing shouldn't be too tough to get around... just figure the gas mileage out and use the trip timer and don't try to push your luck (and/or keep a little 1 gallon "emergency" gas in the back).

Frank Robbins, LEED AP said...

Hey Josh,
Just try telling that to Laura. Luckily, Matt reads my blog and spent about 7 years of his life keeping an even older car running. He had a CJ7 that was two years older than me and is probably still driving his 11 year old other Jeep. Here's what he told me to do:

"I just read your blog
First off, go get a chiltons book for the car, you’ll need it.

Next, find the hot and ground wires going to the fuel sending unit. $10 says there is a short to the ground. Which means you need too find the ground, , undo the ground screw, probably underneath the back bumper, take some sandpaper and sand the hell out of that little area, its not getting good contact. Then replace the screw and smear the whole thing with a bit of silicone. If that doesn’t work, you are screwed."


If I am indeed screwed, it's going to be all about the trip odometer.