It's Alive!!!

Don't you just love the feeling when you complete something?  Maybe the task was somewhat difficult, but when its over, you can look back and privately give yourself a little pat on the back.  Sometimes in my profession, I wonder if I'm a glutton for punishment.  At times cars seem to set their will against you and defy your ability to understand them.  I think however, that these thoughts can stem beyond the automotive industry to any problem you may be facing.

I've tried to remind myself, to look beyond present circumstances to the end goal.  Even though things are frustrating now, they will eventually work themselves out.  Afterall, for me its just nuts, bolts, tires, and wires!  My wife Julia has been really helpful with encouraging me to think on the brighter side of things in the midst of frustration and confusion.  Thank you!

I once read some good advice that I love to remember.  "Think of the solution, not the problem."  Its way easy to dwell on the here and now and not look for the resolution when it presents itself.  Its human nature to worry about things, but we do find assurance that we will be taken care of.

In the end, when I complete a job at work, like bringing a car back to life, it is a rewarding experience.  I get a sense of accomplishment that makes the labor all worthwhile in the end.  I try to remind myself to look forward to the accomplishment at the end and not worry about the present problems, one step at a time.

Sometimes, tail lights are a beatiful thing to see!!

Make Time...Tick Tock

So I haven't been posting on here in a long time.  Things have been real busy.  I keep thinking that if I sit down at the computer then I have the time to be doing something else that is productive.  Then I kinda get that guilty feeling that I used to get when I was in school and needed to do my homework, but really wanted to play video games or something like that.

So anyway, I decided to make some time and put something on here and try to find out who is still posting on here and find out who else is crazy busy like me and have kind of abandoned the Xanga scene.  I was kind of inspired by one of Nathan Battey's posts and decided to try to start posting on here again.  No promises for the future though.

Things have been crazy busy in my life.  My weeks consist basically of this:  Sunday - Church, of course.  Monday - Small group bible study after work.  Tuesday - work, then free.  Wednesday - work, church.  Thursday - work, men's bible study.  Friday - work, then free.  Saturday - sometimes work, then free.

So you can see that there are just a few nights when I don't have anything going on.  I could stay busy with getting things ready for bible studies and trying to put together new lessons.  Here lately, I have had a bunch of people wanting me to fix their car on the side, that means in what free time I have left.  Of course, it's hard for me to say no, especially when the extra money is good.  I try not to lose sight of priorities though.

Last week I got the flu and had to miss three days of work.  That was tough.  I'm so glad that I have a great wife that was able to take care of me.  She says I'm a big baby when I get sick, but I was feeling like a baby anyways so I guess it was ok.

Guess thats enough for now.  Don't hold your breath till next time.

We went to see Transformers and I loved it.  I grew up watching the cartoon and playing with the action figures.  What I liked most about the movie was that all of the good guys were General Motors products, and the bad guys were Ford products!  Now who can't like a movie like that?  Here are some pictures from the movie.  The yellow car (Bumblebee) is the Chevrolet Camaro concept scheduled to be available in 2008.  Chevrolet hasn't made the Camaro since 2002.  Its about time that they came back with a car to compete with Ford's Mustang.  Another concept car that was featured in the movie was the Pontiac Solstice hardtop coupe.  (Also one of the Good Guys)

It's all wet...

It has rained almost every day for the past week here in Ada.  I don't remember us getting this much rain since I was a youngin'!  It sure is a drastic change from last summer here, we went through a real bad drought.  Now I heard on the news that Alabama is having a bad drought this summer and I guess we've got all of their rain.  Sorry, I sure wish we could share some.  Monday morning we got over six inches of rain.  Here's some pictures that the local paper has on their website.  I've heard from my friends at work that alot of people have ruined their car engines due to getting water in them.  They are busy this week while I'm on vacation.

"Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous!"

-Willy Wonka

Wow, I've been really busy and haven't had time to get back on here.  As you can tell from the pictures on Julamula's page that we've been remodeling our bathroom.  All of my spare time has been spent on that.  Today we put the sheetrock up on the walls and hopefully things are on the way to being completely done!  I've been really pleased that we haven't run into any bad surprises that would cost us a lot of time or money.  Things have been going smoothly.  I've never done extensive home repairs like this before and I'm loving the chance to get to learn.

This whole next week is our vacation time!!  Yesterday at work I thought that 5 o'clock would never come.  I think I was just anxious for the vacation.

Oh, by the way...I took two Certification Assesment tests in Dallas this week.  I passed the one over Diesel Engine Performance but I failed the one over Manual Drivetrain & Axles.  Oh, well.  I'll do better next time.