Just sold my Talon. always feels weird when they take away your car. but it had to go. it was getting on in years, and more and more things started getting buggered up in it. i was getting into deeper and deeper mechanics territory, and while every time it was a learning experience, every time was also a bit of an ordeal - not knowing, needing to read up and look at websites and forums, buying parts, buying tools i didnt know existed, and it always took sooooo looooooong. these 2 guys put a new arm in right there on the spot in like 15 minutes. it took me hours and hours to get all the shit off. mind you, it always seems harder to take shit apart in a car - shit is seized up, cant see a screw or bolt thats still holding it all together...
that was the first "good" car i bought with my own money. actually, it was the first one i bought with my own money, period. the previous one was bought with student loan money.
this car went with me to San Francisco, then almost to LA, then to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, back home, then to Toronto... and then back again :) well, there were little excursions to Niagara Falls, Windsor, Detroit. got quite a few speeding tickets with it, including one that might still make me wanted in California :)
when i bought it in 2001, it had about 60K on it. 7 years later - it has 235K
fastest i've ever gone in it was 215 kms/hr (133 mi/hr for you 'mericans) - 215 was also its nominal horsepower.
...
i wrote the above like a month or 2 ago, then just saved it - to be edited and added to later. well, that never happened, and i'm not sure what i was thinking of adding to it, so here it goes.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Łukasz
you were born on january 27 - a month premature. i knew that a month early, especially these days, is not bad at all, but watching you suffer like that right from the get-go felt really shitty. they plopped you down on the scale, all naked and cold and screaming, then put you on some examining table, squirting antibiotic cream in between your puffy eyelids, repeatedly vaccuuming your nose, mouth, throat and lungs with this tube, to clear out as much fluid as possible, injecting you with all kinds of shit to help with this and that, hooking up the intravenous, cutting your heel and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing to get way too much of your very thick blood for tests. other babies get to rest a lot with their moms after they're born. not you, little guy. your mom was in the recovery room, drugged and vomiting and being pumped with other drugs that were supposed to help but only exacerbated it. finally they ran out of things to inject her with, and she stabilized.
what did it do to you, baby - being born to pain for hours, and then subsistence for weeks - almost no comfort of human contact, just machines: checking your heart-beat, your breathing, your blood oxygen saturation, keeping an elevated air pressure to your nose with extra blows of air when you're supposed to be breathing, machines dosing intravenous fluid with an added fat solution and electrolytes, and a tube taped to your little chin and going down into your tummy to make sure air bubbles come out easily. and a UV lamp on for 2 days straight to help get rid of your jaundice. people would come around every now and then, to stick an IV in a different hand, foot, thigh, both sides of your head, and all you got to show for it is a crappy mohawk and tracks and bruises everywhere.
the nurses said that you were doing pretty good for a premie, but there wasnt much to be rejoicing about. i felt fucked up, and all i did was look.
but sounds like you've been doing better and better - too bad we havent even been able to visit with you more often, but we've been sick, and we dont want to risk getting you sick. wonder if the nurses think we're shitty parents. fuck'em if they do - i think this is unfortunately the best course of action. maybe they know and understand. here at home we've all been going through a stomach flu, a cold, boogie's teething, and trying to let mommy heal from the c-section. your babcia has been helping with your sister, so that's been great. times like this you feel the value of being part of a community, a family, having someone to help you when you need it - its survival of the group, not survival of the fittest.
what did it do to you, baby - being born to pain for hours, and then subsistence for weeks - almost no comfort of human contact, just machines: checking your heart-beat, your breathing, your blood oxygen saturation, keeping an elevated air pressure to your nose with extra blows of air when you're supposed to be breathing, machines dosing intravenous fluid with an added fat solution and electrolytes, and a tube taped to your little chin and going down into your tummy to make sure air bubbles come out easily. and a UV lamp on for 2 days straight to help get rid of your jaundice. people would come around every now and then, to stick an IV in a different hand, foot, thigh, both sides of your head, and all you got to show for it is a crappy mohawk and tracks and bruises everywhere.
the nurses said that you were doing pretty good for a premie, but there wasnt much to be rejoicing about. i felt fucked up, and all i did was look.
but sounds like you've been doing better and better - too bad we havent even been able to visit with you more often, but we've been sick, and we dont want to risk getting you sick. wonder if the nurses think we're shitty parents. fuck'em if they do - i think this is unfortunately the best course of action. maybe they know and understand. here at home we've all been going through a stomach flu, a cold, boogie's teething, and trying to let mommy heal from the c-section. your babcia has been helping with your sister, so that's been great. times like this you feel the value of being part of a community, a family, having someone to help you when you need it - its survival of the group, not survival of the fittest.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
i was on some web page when i noticed a link that said something like "video of heath ledger snorting coke". huh??? they're actually showing this?? after clicking on the link, i found myself on one of those celebrity-following websites, and an article talking ABOUT the video having been bought, but not released, yadda, yadda... so, disillusionedly reading down the short blurb i happened upon this line:
"Referring to his love of cannabis - an illegal drug often smoked in cigarette form - Heath added: "I used to smoke five joints a day.""
umm, where do you begin....
do most people not know what cannabis is? certainly people who read about these celebrity "indiscretions". though, granted, people who follow the lives of celebrities are much more likely to learn a thing or 2 about coke than pot. but calling pot "an illegal drug often smoked in cigarette form"? i guess it sounds more sensationalistic than an "illegal plant". and describing it as such might focus undue attention on the ludicrousness of the concept of an illegal plant.
smoking 5 jays a day may be a bit much. the guy probably had either problems that he should have been dealing with, or too much time on his hands and nothing to do with it. still, i would say let him do whatever he wants if it doesnt hurt anybody. unless it does, then thats a different story.
i can see how idiots might right away point and say"gateway drug!" i would love to pound their stupid heads with the bottles of booze he'd drunk before he ever touched a joint. i'm such an angry little boy :)
lots of people go thru life snorting coke and having jobs, raising families, and not becoming junkies. lots of people go thru life like everybody else, while smoking pot and not touching other illegal substances. lots never touch anything illegal, and just booze it up. some never even drink. "drugs" are not as straightforward as misinformed or misinforming loudmouths would have us believe. we need truth and education - not sensationalism.
"Referring to his love of cannabis - an illegal drug often smoked in cigarette form - Heath added: "I used to smoke five joints a day.""
umm, where do you begin....
do most people not know what cannabis is? certainly people who read about these celebrity "indiscretions". though, granted, people who follow the lives of celebrities are much more likely to learn a thing or 2 about coke than pot. but calling pot "an illegal drug often smoked in cigarette form"? i guess it sounds more sensationalistic than an "illegal plant". and describing it as such might focus undue attention on the ludicrousness of the concept of an illegal plant.
smoking 5 jays a day may be a bit much. the guy probably had either problems that he should have been dealing with, or too much time on his hands and nothing to do with it. still, i would say let him do whatever he wants if it doesnt hurt anybody. unless it does, then thats a different story.
i can see how idiots might right away point and say"gateway drug!" i would love to pound their stupid heads with the bottles of booze he'd drunk before he ever touched a joint. i'm such an angry little boy :)
lots of people go thru life snorting coke and having jobs, raising families, and not becoming junkies. lots of people go thru life like everybody else, while smoking pot and not touching other illegal substances. lots never touch anything illegal, and just booze it up. some never even drink. "drugs" are not as straightforward as misinformed or misinforming loudmouths would have us believe. we need truth and education - not sensationalism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
