A long overdue update

This one will have to come to you in chapters.

PAIN

This should be the first spot where I say my birthday was a quiet little endeavour. Simple, no-frills, quiet and relaxing. A far cry from what happened later on in the week. See, Jo-Jo and I usually celebrate our birthdays close together. So back on the 10th, we decided to have a brunch affair with Ivette (not that sort of affair) and have a good go at it. Well, that morning I threw out my back helping with some of the chores around the house. I was hunched down behind the dryer installing a new vent tube and felt my back wrench itself when I got up.

Now, again, this is on a Saturday when this happened. No one was open, my doctor wasn't even going to answer so I could get some muscle relaxants or pain relief meds. In a sense I'm glad. See, when I got to work on Monday my boss gave me the number to a good chiropractor. I figured "why not", shuffled my twisted back into their office and got-a-crackin'. This guy is good, Ive heard vertebrae pop that only normally does so when I cough heavy.

I've been seeing him pretty regularly since the 12th. It has made a vast improvement in my day and my well-being.

Ice packs and chiropractors. Get yours today!

MOTORCYCLES & VEHICLES

I am still on the fence about motorcycle ownership, but I will get the license so I can ride them. I love motorcycles. I can't help it, their lines are seductive, their aura of mystique is captivating, the seemingly complex ballet of hand-eye coordination goes out the window when figuring out how to even operate one of them suckers- but I love them. I spend my days reading magazines devoted to them, learning all I can about them and what is coming down the pike.

I know a lot of my desire for them stems from their overwhelming beauty. The lines found on a Harley Davidson V-rod are my idea of what form & function should look like. Sleek, flowing & innovative. My other favorite is a Kawasaki ZZR 600. Whenever I think about a motorcycle, this is the bike I imagine. These are some of the cleanest lines since the Ducati 996 and the more erotic 1098. Problem is, if I think I am visiting a chiropractor pretty heavy now, imagine if I was riding one of these suckers for long distances.

So, with that I started thinking about other cars I could spend some time and money on. After being brow-beaten by several friends against even considering purchasing Jo-Jo's Mustang, I came to the most obvious decision ever. I am going to finish my 1957 Chevy and start driving that for a while. It's just sitting in the back yard, waiting to have the brake system finished. Well, that and it would probably need a little cleaning as well, but it should fire right up once every things been done to coax it back to life.

I can't help that I'm a Mustang person.

CLOTHING

Levis suck.

Back in the day, everyone's closets were filled with jeans that were just so old they started to fray around the knees and the stitching around the pant cuffs were just tattered. The jeans had a thickness to them that rivaled leather at times due to its indestructibility. The colors on them have probably faded away leaving almost white jeans due to repeated washings and the pockets themselves probably have as many holes as a sieve, but they were more than likely extremely comfortable to wear.

This was before they packed up many of their production plants in America and moved to Taiwan & all points overseas.

Now, their jeans are barely lasting one year. Jeans with price tags of $60 shredding mere months after their purchase, or wearing way too fast. I had (threw them away the other day) 4 pair of pants that ripped, one after the other in 4 consecutive days. Im not talking at the knees or someplace common, but at the back pocket on the ass. Way too often, my jeans have revealed my choice of boxers to the world without my approval. I have had it. I found that Gap's jeans are pretty damn comfortable and are pretty affordable.

Look for the label to emblazon my ass soon.

By they way, I wear Tommy Hilfiger boxers.

INTERNET

On the 10th of March, I threw out my back. Because of this, everything else took the back seat as far as priorities go. Interestingly, I believe the network went down sometime that day. Well, whatever happened, the wireless router died and prevented anyone from accessing the internet. I was hurting way too much to even shuffle over and check it out. Once I was able to do something about it, I figured I would go all out and upgrade the network to a secure network and prevent others around me from possibly stealing internet signals for free.

An interesting theory.

In practice I found that to be so fucking frustrating. I bought a Linksys wireless G router from Wal-Mart for $60. You see, it was the router I really wanted when I bought the Belkin model a year before. A problem at setup caused the Belkin's network security features to be disabled when programing the router to the ISP. It wasn't the end of the world because all of the computers at home access the network wirelessly (including my TiVo) and there were no complications. This setup worked well. The TiVo had full access to the network to perform transfers of TV shows, wires didn't need to be strung thru the walls to connect distant computers, it was truly a win-win situation.

Again, that was with the Belkin.

The Linksys setup I bought was nowhere near as easy to use as I hoped. First, I tried to set security features. That failed. After locking the network, found that my laptop would loose connection 10 minutes after discovering the signal. After unlocking all security features, found the connection was still lost to both the TiVo and the laptop. Then TiVo couldn't join the network even with WEP keys. Finally, I had enough. I yanked the power cord out from the wall, threw the router on the ground, stomped on it, threw it along with its cables and manuals (which were a total waste of time and don't get me started on their India-based tech support of whom I hung up on after hearing their name was Alex) and went back to Wal-Mart to buy a Belkin router identical to the one that died and guess what?

It worked FLAWLESSLY.

Still works, as a matter-of-fact. Even loaded the security features that the previous model didn't load.

Alas, that has been the past few weeks in a nutshell. I like the way this update shaped out, and I might start doing more updates in this fashion.