Which Mike did you run into?

Today, I had almost as much fun as you did Friday. Sort of. Okay so Wednesday the radiator in my truck started leaking when I got back from lunch. I guess doing 80 the whole way up the mountain highway on the way back didn’t help. Of course, I’m not the one who discovered the leak. Paula told me about it "you’re truck is dripping," says she "oh. From the back?" says I, "No, from the front, it’s dripping green," she responds, "oh. Bummer." Then I went to check it out. It wasn’t leaking all that bad (comparatively), but dripping it was. So I figured, if it doesn’t pop completely, I can at least get to work and back the remainder of the week, adding water all the while. So I do. With the intention of taking the radiator to the Radiator Nazi to have it repaired today (Saturday). So I wait until this morning to remove the radiator (in no mood last night) thinking that the shop will be open today.

Well, first thing this morning (after breakfast) it starts raining in a rather monsoon-like manner. While I’m making other plans, it clears up, gets sunny, and nice. I go out and start removing the FUBAR radiator, about a 30 minute job, and of course as soon as I get to the part that involves laying on the ground, it starts raining again. Mind you, there is also a good 30 mph wind, so the refuge of under my truck isn’t as dry as I would have hoped. Now, if I hadn’t been to lazy to pull the truck into the shop to do this, I would have been perfectly dry, but then I would have had to clean the floor of the shop when I was done, wereas the driveway can stay nasty for all I care. The radiator is out. I take it to the other driveway (the driveway the truck is in has no water service, and thus no way to add water to the radiator to check it) and I can’t for the life of me tell where the leak is, or if it even is leaking. The rain and wind most likely account for this.

So I bag it. Go inside, play some Rogue Spear, dry off. Once I decide to take the damn thing in to have it fixed, call the shop, he’s closed on weekends. After a brief but spirited string of expletives, the determination is reached that the repair should be attempted for free before anything else is tried (of course, I called around to find prices on a replacement radiator, but the $350 price tag was slightly discouraging.

Lets just say the repair attempt failed. Mainly because of the heavy-dutyness of this particular radiator, it was not something that could be done easily.

At this point I went to Schuck’s, bought some Bar’s Leaks, put the thing back together, added the Bar’s Leaks and am now done with the project.

That took until around 7:00 to accomplish, making me wonder what the hell I did all day that took so long.

Thursday, I went to the Washington State history museum. (that’s the one next to union station in downtown Tacoma) This time to see their Thursday Night Music series. The subject of this weeks was "Hard Hitting Songs From Hard Hit People." Mainly Woody Guthrie songs, quite the live show. The performers were all (I assume, judging by their great knowledge of the songs and their origin) history professors and researchers. It was amazing, all these songs from the thirties about the struggles the Okies and Arkies had in their journey to find work, about the sharecroppers in the south and the organizers in the Great lakes states. The history takes on an entirely new life when you hear the songs written by the people living the experiences. The coolest part is, it only cost $2. And that was to park, if you’re willing to park elsewhere, the museum is free Thursday nights from five to eight.


Down across the freeway (I think that’s the freeway) from the Hysterical Museum they are building the Museum Of Glass. As in Dale Chihuly glass. They’re building the museum right next to the old Alber’s Mill, the one people keep trying to tear down, and other people keep trying to keep from being torn down. MuseumOfGlass.org If you check out the live webcam, you see the same view as my dad from the break room at his work (the camera is on top of the building where he works. Pretty fulking cool.

Damn. It’s almost 11. Time for sleep.


Later.