I've mended something!

Today I started and drove my car for the first time in over a year. I am so happy right now, like, it moves. Under its own power even! It still needs a lot of work to be roadworthy, the turn signals are still broken and the power windows are sketchy at best, and my radio is not in the car anymore. I have lots of electrical work ahead of me, which I must admit I'm not comfortable doing without the help of someone who actually knows how to do this.

But mobility fricking rocks. I can drive this thing around the neighborhood without turn signals at least, and that should keep fluids circulating and whatnot, which is a lot better than just sitting like it's been doing.

At long last, Phoebe the Thunderbird lives again :,)

Also shout out to my neighbor Bob who lent me some starter fluid, that made cold starting it a lot easier.

Today has been very long, and very terrifying. This friend of mine is a good guy, just has a LOT of emotional baggage, and some serious trust issues. I helped him through a hard time in high school, and I'm one of the few people he does trust, so of course he called me today to talk about how the world is out to get him and he wants to end it all. I thought he had been doing better, and was not prepared for this bombshell. I did everything I could to convince him suicide is never the answer, but he didn't want to believe me. Thankfully, he mentioned that one of the parents of the family who's adopting him happens to work at my college. I couldn't convince him to talk to them, but I knew they needed to know what was going on so they could help. I was able to track them down after my friend hung up on me, and after I explained the situation, they were able to have the sheriff go check on him. He's in a mental hospital now, where he'll be safe from harming himself. I hope he starts doing better. Poor guy's been through a lot.

Until today, I've never had to try and convince someone not to kill themselves. That was terrifying. Thank God his parent works at my college, otherwise I don't know if he would've gotten help in time.

I need a hug, a couple birthdays, and a drink.

Today, I park my car in honor of The Ever Given. It may no longer be wedged in a canal, but it will forever be wedged in our hearts.

I've just been accepted into YWAM (Youth With A Mission), which means that this September I'll be leaving to spend 3 months in Hawaii learning about missions work, and then spending another 3 months on a missions trip to... I don't know yet, they don't tell you until later because reasons.

I know they've got free WIFI where I'm staying in Hawaii, so I might still check in on Oppo from time to time whenever I'm not busy. But since I have no idea where I'm going for the actual missions trip, I don't know if they'll have internet at all. They focus on ministering to groups of people who have never heard about God before, so we may be heading to some pretty remote places. One thing's for certain, I'll have some stories to tell when I get back

I'm honestly super excited about this! I don't know how many of you on Oppo are religious, but for me personally, everything in my life not related to my relationship with God hasn't really worked out. The plans I make for my life keep failing, but when I do what I feel like God is asking me to do, it does work. Every idea I had about what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, fell apart over the course of 2020 as I either realized I hated it or that it just wasn't for me. But at the same time, I've been realizing that what I can do is missions work. I can share my testimony and change people's lives. I've already saved one of my friend's lives doing that, and impacted many others. This is what I'm meant to do, regardless of what job I have or where I live.

What I've realized is that worrying about the future consistently gets me nowhere, but going wherever God tells me to just works. I'll trust in him that he has a plan for me, and go wherever he tells me to. And the first step in that is YWAM.

As soon as I get back, my only plans are to get a job and start saving to go somewhere else. I don't know where yet, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I do feel like God's been getting me interested in various methods of making money without staying in one place for a reason, so I have a feeling I'll be traveling a lot in the future. Perhaps I should start prepping Phoebe for road trips... Or get one of those fancy vans...

TL;DR I'm going to probably disappear for 3-6 months, and I expect to be a different person when I return. I'll still photograph every interesting vehicle I see on my travels, so expect one heckuva photodump next year Thunderbird on an island for your time.

Remember that post a couple days ago where I said I was going to have to sell my Thunderbird? Well, last night both my mom and I had nightmares about the horrific consequences of a decision. We both believe that dreams have meanings and can be prophetic, provided you know someone who is gifted in interpreting them, as everything in dreams is symbolic. Specifically, Mom had a dream about an object being important in the future and not to sell it. Before I even told her my dream, she said she thinks hers is about my car, despite her being one of the people who encouraged me to sell it. My dream was more vague about the specific decision, but was quite gruesome in driving home the point that the consequences were very, very bad.

So, on the bright side, I am going to keep my Thunderbird and continue pursuing its restoration, starting with a new wiring harness so I can drive it again. Yay! On the down side, it may be because something very bad is about to happen and we'll need my car then. Scary, but hopefully at least this means we'll be prepared.

If this post confuses you... don't worry about it, I just figure divine intervention is as good an excuse as any to keep a financial liability. So Phoebe is here to stay

This thing is made entirely of Lego: It has a seven-foot wingspan, and is built to minifigure scale. Here's the link for better pictures of it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/166701137@N06/albums/72157719542757675 I just want to know where he stores these things...

This torched 2013 Kia is owned by a man named Odaeye. It was once owned by a friend of his, who did a few too many drugs, and thought it would be a good idea to light a fire in his car to warm himself. He escaped, but his car went up in flames. There are no salvageable parts left in the roasted Kia, but there is actually some incentive for Odaeye to temporarily keep it. You see, every car in Jordan has a serial number separate from the VIN number, which the government uses to keep track of them. This number must stay with its vehicle for at least ten years after the date of manufacture. But after that, the vehicle can be sold to the Jordanian government for 1,400 JD, at which point it will be scrapped so that its serial number can be reused on a different vehicle. So next year, Odaeye will be able to sell this Kiampfire for the U.S. equivalent of $2,380. Not a bad deal for an unrepairable car!

@CarsOfFortLangley I make wooden things (mostly toys) for a living, and sell them at the local farmers market every Saturday. I've been doing this for about six years now, and I design a lot of my own stuff. My biggest sellers are wooden puzzles of assorted animals, vehicles, and anything else I think might work. like guitars:
I also dabble with making things on a lathe, such as giant coffee grinders and peppermills. Also I am a long-time Lego nerd, and this is my Lego Ideas Miata project (please support!) https://ideas.lego.com/projects/dc154873-6c00-4d14-91e4-c0fe521b632d

So, I was one of those unfortunate students who graduated from high school and started college in 2020. That dumpster fire of a year was crap for everyone, but it hit me hard in school, and 2021 has not been any better. I didn't realize at the beginning of the semester that you're only supposed to take two online classes at a time, with four online classes over the course of a semester, and they don't recommend that freshmen take those at all. I took one in addition to four regular classes. That was intense, to say the least. But I thought my workload was normal, and I was just being lazy or dumb, so I never questioned it. Instead, in my attempts to get everything done, I got nothing done, or at least nothing done very well. I had a meeting with an advisor a few weeks ago who told me that my schedule was a recipe for disaster that she wouldn't recommend to anyone, and since then I've dropped the online class and had to drop another class for which there was no chance I could pass now. My workload should've been much more manageable by now, but I've dug myself into such a deep hole that even the three classes I have left, I'm struggling in because I'm so far behind. And this morning I learned I'll have to drop another, which means I'll lose financial aid, and might not be able to come back to college. I want this major so badly. I'm willing to fight for it, to do whatever it takes to even just barely pass so I can stay at this school, but every day it feels like even more of an impossible goal. Trying not to slip into depression is almost as hard as getting the work done.

I used to look at my Thunderbird as not just a car, but a symbol of what I could achieve with enough hard work and perseverance. That car was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. As I look at it now, I realize that whatever happens, I'll at least be able to point to it and say I accomplished one of my dreams. If I did it once, I can do it again. As I write this, I'm waiting for a professor to come to school so I can sign up for a quad class. I've already signed up for one, and if I can get into this second one, I'll once again have enough credits to stay in school and not lose financial aid. I'll have to work hard over spring break to get caught up in these new classes, but if I can stay in school, it'll be worth it. I'm not giving up now. If I'm going down, I'm going to go down fighting. May the roar of my 390 V8 be my battle cry!

I recently drove my Thunderbird to our family mechanic to have the electrical system fixed. It took about ten minutes of cranking and squirting gas down the carb and much blowing to put out the fire caused by the engine backfiring through the carb before it finally started and was able to idle. I was thankfully able to finesse the window down so I could use hand signals since the turn signals don't work, and thankfully the car had no more problems getting to the mechanic.

So why am I blue? Well... I dunno, I just miss the old girl. Our family mechanic usually has a policy of not working on classic cars, but because we're good customers and they don't have much business at the moment, they agreed to take the 'bird and work on it whenever they don't have something else to work on, which is great for me but also means I don't really know when she'll actually be fixed.

Also I had kind of hoped to fix her myself... but I had little luck finding help, and since I'm job searching at the moment, I have more important things to do than mess with an old car, not to mention I'll be needing that old car for commuting once I have a job, so the sooner it can be fixed, the better.

But the important thing is that repairs are no longer being delayed by procrastination, she's in the hands of professionals, so Phoebe the T-bird will drive again.

@Gabriella Happy Birthday!

@amoore100 Gotta love prewar cars! They have so much character. Those ones are beautiful.

@facw I hope it gets parted out then, at least that way the Mitsuoka bits could be transferred to a regular Nissan.

@415s30 Letourneau made a TON of delightfully bizarre tree-crushing vehicles back in the day! My favorite is the tree stomper, which shuns wheels in favor of giant metal slabs that it scoots itself around on like big mechanical feet, flattening any trees in its path.

@EssExTee I think you left off a green 1x1 piece on the Aston there.

@Mr-Hawk I still cling to hope that someday Buick will build a new GNX. They have stylish sedans in China, GM has turbo V6s, and we're at peak 1980s nostalgia, build a new GNX you cowards!

However, without a car like that, Buick has no reason to linger in the U.S.

@ForSweden I absolutely agree actually, in today's world of reviving storied nameplates for electric crossovers, why is Buick sitting on the perfect EV name and not using it?

@Brickman What is this, a cup holder for an ant!?

@Qaaaaa Synthetic fuels are going to have to happen sooner or later, for the simple reason that electric airplanes and cargo ships are impractical. They're being developed either way, so might as well try to adopt them for cars and trucks as well. It might start out with rich car collectors using them to brag about how green they are while still driving their toys, then trickle down to influencers using them for climate clout once they become more widely available, and eventually they'll be cheap enough to replace gasoline.

@Just-Jeepin Caboose camper? Sure! Why the frick not?