Author: jason

Francie sez:
“I’m pumped. In fact, I just did an arm pump thinking about it. We’re gonna get ‘er done tonight, boy!”

So, I got my car back and as far as I can tell everything is perfect.

Seriously.

Ocean’s 12 was a real let down. That is all.

Heh.

So I’m getting a brand new transmission for my car for NO MONEY DOWN! That’s pretty cool. It’s being overnighted so it should be here tomorrow if the order went through or Thursday if not. Then they have to install it and then whatever the next thing that’s going to go wrong is will go wrong and then I’ll climb the tower.

The trip, she is over. I’m sitting in the airport in Philly waiting for my plane to arrive so it can depart. Expected was tons of traffic and crowds and lines and problems. Experienced was no traffic and 5 minutes elapsed from the front of the airport to my gate, including security.

The trip was pretty decent. Got to spend plenty of time with my family, most of which I never see. We had a big 4th of July party on on Saturday and about 48 people showed up. Most were from my stepfather’s side of the family but I knew a few of them so that was cool. I threw my stepbrother Barry bodily into the pool to the cheers of the crowd. Aparently he does it every year to someone and payback has been due for many moons.

Sunday Civvy (sister), Dave (her husband), Chris (brother), Tyler (his son), Adam (brother), Susan (his wife) and me (me) went to Ocean City, NJ which is “The Shore”. We ate everything. Mack and Manco’s Pizza, Kohr Bros. Ice Cream, Rita’s Water Ice, Curly’s Cheese Fries and a cheese steak from some place that was really great. Did some swimming and some body surfing in the freezing cold ocean and did a little tanning in the not really that hot sun. I haven’t been in the ocean for… a long time. Don’t even know. It’s been years. I think the last time I was at the beach was with Kelly years ago and I don’t think we actually went into the water.

Today we went and saw my grandmother, on my father’s side. Haven’t seen her in years and years too. That was nice, and we got to hang out for an hour or so before I had to jet off to the airport. Before jetting off though we took a drive a little further down the road and saw the house I was born in. Or at least lived in when I was born. I was born in a hospital just like you. I had absolutly no memory of the place, which isn’t surprising because we moved to Maine and then Florida pretty much as soon as I was born. I did take a picture of it, just for the hell of it.

So that’s that. I was surprised at how much things have changed since I left. People are old, landmarks are gone, hell, people are gone. This trip pointed out to me just how much Kansas is home now. I miss my house, my dog, my friends and just generally my life. A lot of people I know talk about “going home” when they mean going back to see their parents, or going to where they grew up. When I refer to home it’s when I am talking about heading back to Kansas. This trip was a trip “back to Jersey”.

This week should be pretty great. It’s a short one, to begin with, which is always nice. Got a few concerts, gonna try to get my car the rest of the way fixed, and I’m gonna sleep in my own bed. Or preferably yours. Man, I need to get a girlfriend.

Oh, I need to tell you an embarassing story. On the way out I was boarding my first flight in Philly. I got on the plane and my seat was alllllllll the way in the back. The very back seat. I get back there and there is a black guy (this is important in this story, settle down) sitting in the window seat and I’m in the aisle seat. I sit down and say “Hi there” and he says “Hey. Back row eh?” and before I even think of what I am saying I say “Yea, back of the bus for us.” And then I died of embarassment. What I was thinking, when I said that, was high school and sitting in the back of the bus where all the cool kids sat. I certainly wasn’t talking about segregation and I don’t think he took it that way but man I felt like an ass.

Sitting in the airport in Charlotte. Sky is getting darker and darker. Storm’s are a’comin. It’s not gonna be a happy time in Jason land.

The Pitch made me laugh out loud today. There was a picture of Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds with the caption “Science fiction expert Tom Cruise stars in War of the Worlds”

That was hilarious!

So, I got my car back today, finally.

The body work is perfect. The wheels are perfect. It’s just that pesky engine and transmission that’s not working right.

When I bought the car I immediatly noticed a problem with the transmission. If I was driving hard, during the shift between 3rd and 4th if I had the engine at about 6500 RPM I would grind the gears a little bit. I talked to Mazda about it immediatly and they said to bring it in and it would be fixed under warranty. No problem. Except I needed to take their tech for a ride and do about 80 MPH and it rained for like a month straight and then I crashed.

So while it was in the shop for the crash they talked to Mazda about the transmission and Mazda recommended different transmission fluid. They put that in and now it’s even worse. Happens at about 4500 RPM and at 38 MPH and above.

Additionally, now there is a vibration throughout the car at about 1.5k unloaded and 2.5 loaded. Joy!

So I went back to Mazda and took the service guy and the body shop guy for rides and had them acknowledge the problems. It’ll get fixed, eventually, I know that but in the mean time I have to be without it again next week and find something to drive and annoy my friends and waste piles of money.

My recommendations? Don’t buy used cars. I thought I would be all awesome and save a ton of money buying a year old car but a new one wouldn’t have this transmission problem.
Also: Don’t crash your new (used) car. It’s a real bummer.

Why do I always fucking stink after eating mexican food? Is it the smell of the food lingering on my clothes? Or is it cause I eat spicy food which makes me sweat and stink? Or is it the smell coming through my pores while I digest? Or do I always just stink and none of you fuckers have told me about it?

Assholes.

So, I am starting this little project that will involve sending some SMS text messages from a web site. In investigating how one would do this I found three options:
1) Use a free, or commercial SMS gateway
2) Use one or more cell phones hooked up to the computer
3) Get a leased line from a cellular provider for major money

Using my cell phone from my computer sounded like a neat thing to screw around with so I started reading. This fit in nicely with the past weekend when I was using my phone for Internet access while driving across Missouri. Anyway, turns out that Sprint phones (and most phones) speak regular old Hayes AT commands just like a normal modem and that some phones even support a superset of Hayes that includes SMS commands.

I hooked up my handy, dandy USB cable to my phone, fired up ZTerm and lo and behold:

atz
OK

You all recognize that, of course!

So, I know that to get a Internet connection over Sprint Vision the number I have to dial is #777

atdt#777
CONNECT
~}#@!}!K} }4}"}&} } } } }%}&~:Ux}'}"}(}"%~~}#@!}!L} }4}"}&} } } } }%}&~:Ux}'}"}

And that, my friends, is Sprint’s server sending me PPP welcome packets. That’s completely hot and it really awes me that such new tech is using such old tech. The other cool thing is that when I run that command the phone totally shifts into data mode, showing send and receive bars and all. It’s really pretty cool.

Takes me back, it does.