2003 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab 4x4 Limited V6 with the TRD offroad package.

No rust. 1 billion miles (okay, 182k). 2-owner, second being my neighbor. Yep, my neighbor finally decided to sell it to me.

Oh yesssssssssssssssssss!

Farewell.

I had recently posted on Oppo that the AC on the Pontiac was weak and somewhat intolerable to drive this summer. The air was cold but the airflow was so pitiful. A few people chimed in (thank you), but all glory to @Snuze on this one:

Well let's have a look --

Oh, it's all black and the frame is missing...

Holy mother of God!

Here's some of the debris that fell out while pulling out what's left of the filter.... Another few ounces landed in the ajar glove box.

Conclusion? I replaced it, turned on the fan full blast aaaaand...

Okay, goodbye now

Can I get an amen?!

Seven years ago today, I bought my 1980 Toyota Pickup.

I drove it from Seattle to Everett on under a clear, starry night sky. The windows were inoperable and the brakes encouraged me to take the very long way home on the back roads. I spent nearly every day doing something on it for the first year. The brakes. The windows (many, many attempts). The cleaning. Exhaust manifold gasket. Carb adjustment. Then both calipers seized. I enjoyed doing all that because I knew it was a good truck, and I had a lot of spare time back then.

I've moved twice with it. It slipped in and out of daily driver duties as I shuffled through other vehicles. Countless couches loaded, mountains of bark, acres of garbage, and cut branches have graced its bed. It's paid for itself countless times over.

Getting nostalgic as aging people often do, I dug around in my paperwork and found the hand-written bill of sale. 2-20-14. Seven years... It really sneaks up on you. I had no idea I'd have it this long.

Though I guess it's not too surprisingly it's lasted this long. Since we moved into this home a few years ago, it's always garaged. I drive it maybe 1,500 miles a year. I try not to drive it in the rain or when salt is in used in the parking lots of businesses I patronize during those colder weeks. And when something new needs fixing, I've been making time... Basically buying time.

I took it out for a spin on Wednesday, with the roads dry and clear. It is definitely not as spry as a few years ago, but the feeling I get reaching for those long throws still feels like the night I drove it home. Anyway... Those are my feelings for the day.

Thanks for reading.

No new car, but got this ice cream cake ️

It's sad to see the my online persona is also my work persona and also my real life persona

I don't deserve her, but I try!

This is my friend's new house she's having built on Camano. Who's the builder? Her entire family, as they're all crazy-skilled folk. I believe I posted the foundation photos sometime last winter (which she also aided during the pour, whilst pregnant). Please enjoy.

Thank you for your time.

... But I am currently pleased with my acquisition of material possessions!

Short version is when me and my wife were renting a glorified shack back in our early 20's, I had the goal of owning an SC400 and a T100 4x4 in a spacious 2-car garage by the time I was 30 -- with a house nearby, I guess.

Well, some many shitty Tercels and a Celica later, I entered my 30's with a tiny house (that's still good!) and a *1-*car garage (that's also good!) buuuuuut no dream fleet (that's bad!). But later into my 30's snagged my Fancy Toyota -- but instead of plush V8 coupe, I got an obscure straight-six wagon-thingie. I was going to keep it one year, maybe two. Somehow still have it. Time marched on and my dreams of a nice little pickup with power steering and air conditioning (wow, what standards) had begun to die. Prices had long since been spiraling out of control before the Covid market for pickups of any age, any quality, and configuration. But yadda yadda, you may have heard, a few years late but I got my pickup -- except with a double cab and a short bed But I'm learning not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm still looking up Tacomas for sales every day and saying to myself, "Yeah, no. No..."

In reality, I am greatly relieved, because looking for a pickup afflicted me with similar anxiety to when me and my wife we're trying to buy a different home and sell ours. That sort of "oh God, we're being priced out of where we want to live, we gotta act NOW -- oh God we'll be stuck here forever --oh God oh God" kind of urgency that just suuuuuucks. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this feeling. But now, I open my 2-car garage, and say to myself, "Yep." Then I look over at the longboi and say, "Yep" (no, I still haven't decided to sell it and I very much don't want to ), and I look at my wife's car and say. "Yes, you too."

So anyway, I'm just saying it's nice to kind of have that off my plate, and hit my decade-old goal for vehicles with a lot of asterisks of the final configuration.

Now I just have one vehicle dream left... IS500 or LC500.

... I think I'll just stick to buying floormats and grilles.

I thought that my title was a little more zesty than: "Here's everything wrong with my blah blah blah..."

BUT THAT'S WHAT THIS IS.

Most of what is below was disclosed or discovered prior to my purchase, but at least one item was found out after money changed hands. I'm sure I'll find more:

• Needs an alignment. Current tire wear appears even, but steering wheel must be ~7-degrees off center to track straight.
• All but one bulb in the gauge cluster is burnt out.
• Oil leaking somewhere, not enough (yet) to drip on the ground, but lots of healthy drippy glazing underneath.
• Driver's side mirror has some play and rattles while driving. Adjustment screws are stripped. Gonna shim while I source new screws.
• Seldom, but SOMETIMES, when having to come to complete stop after being at high speeds, there is a slight drivetrain "clink."
• Condensation in passenger-side parking lens.
• Impressive battery acid buildup around terminals.
• Interior needs some serious Svending.
• Steering wheel is chewed up to hell.
• Panel cover for driver's seatbelt loose. (Popped back in today WOO!)
• Timing belt due in 34k miles.
• Canopy glass does not latch on right side.
• Canopy needs replacement key.
• Canopy brake light wires all cut.
• Canopy not water tight.
• Clearcoat on roof non-existent.
• Scratches, boops, bops everywhere, but looks okay from 15 feet away.
• ooh! One more! Most of the weatherstripping for the windshield is missing. The glass is properly sealed but I'm gonna need that piece, methinks!

But here are some positives to consider:

• New valve cover gaskets.
• New transmission fluid.
• Haven't visually inspected, but brakes work great, no noises.
• 2-year old tires with plenty of tread.
• New master lock actuator or module thingie (apparently when the driver's side power lock goes bad, none of the individual ones work).
• New passenger side window regulator.
• If this truck was in any better shape, I would have never been able to afford it.

Tomorrow, I will take it in the shorts when I have to pay for sales tax, title, new plates, and tabs at the DMV. I also am at the stage that I quickly reached with the Paseo previously, where I feel guilty for spending big money on something I don't need when I could have used that money and blah blah blah. That's a me problem -- but that money was doing nothing but collecting dust anyway. However, I think I might be a bad person turning my back on the longbed. But as I commented earlier, this more-less fell out of the sky. And imagine my infinite regret if I was to let it slip away, and then spend the years watching another single-cab with crank windows sell for $25k on BaT.

Thank you as always for tolerating my existential ramblings.

@ohcrikeytherozzers Special to me, anyway:

I tried to buy a high mileage SC400 several times. Last go around, the seller contacted me the day after I lost patience and bought an old Celica GT instead. I kept the Celica for about five months. SC400s disappeared from CL and began showing up on BaT.

There was a stripper 4x4 Tacoma single cab with 69k miles for sale a little over a year ago. It was like 9 grand. It was what I was looking for -- but I didn't like the color and the price was nuts to me. Now I'm not so sure

And then two years ago, there was a Z4 Coupe 3.0si for sale for like $12,500. It was missing this and that, was black with black interior (which I didn't want), but had low-ish miles miles and a manual. I couldn't justify expense, plus my general unfamiliarity with owning. BMW. Well, try to find a decent one today. Oops.

@bicyclebuck Thanks for the recommendation. The time has come.

I told my wife I was going to treat myself to all new landscaping tools this summer (mower, trimmer, blower). Instead, I bought car parts and then a pickup...

@bicyclebuck Thanks -- the weed trimmer is a shitty, shitty Back & Decker battery pack unit that I've had for three years and have made various fixes on to keep running. Today it stopped a few minutes in. I'm like UGH! This old battery finally gave out. Put in the other battery. Nope. But in a new battery from the B&D blower I bought last year. Nope. Test the batteries on the blower. All good. I think it just decided "I'm done!"

@highlander Nope, but I've re-read my contract 1000 times, I have no defense against restructuring of pay or duties. I've worked here forever so it was never really a fear, but the past two years it became a "concern." And now it's a trend. And the clever caps and surcharges are a way to pull off money and put it in a magic bubble that removes it from certain people's commission/credit scales.

Sadly this is not about floor mats.

I learned I did not receive I job I had applied to that would have been an amazing opportunity. There were plenty of candidates, some I presume far more qualified, but it doesn't mean it doesn't suck. That's the easy letdown.

It gets worse.

A good chunk of us at work received what is basically a "pay cap," as I would word it. We're incurring more price increases from our vendors, thus having to charge more, but I will receive no additional compensation for that increase. This would be more fair, if I had at least receive a pittance of that increase to offset the fact that everything is more expensive now, inflation, all that jazz. It's also more work to land jobs because we are so expensive. I've checked the competition. They're more than yesterday, but they ain't more than us. So if anything I'm working more to make the same money to have less purchasing power. We had this in place at work for a certain product line, but today management has retroactively added it for a different line. In other words, it's actually a paycut. Because I am charging my customer slightly more for the same product than last week but getting significantly less weighted credit this week.

I asked my manager if we could meet off site and discuss this off the record in the middle of the day. Let's just say it was spirited. Lots of flailing arms and looky-loos. Being told I make more because we've been raising prices past X years is patently untrue. I've been making less money each year since 2018. And now they're implementing price increases without additional compensation to commissioned people to protect their margin, because we'd go under if we tried to pass out price increases directly to the customer and then NO ONE can sell anything. But it's weird -- because when we eventually lower our prices during slow seasons, I make less per job, but when we sell for MORE -- well we just can't PAY you more!

Anyway, I need out of this place before I jump in front of a Tercel, which would only bruise me slightly but crumple the Tercel due to being held together with rust and well-wishes.

Also, my line trimmer just broke which I only busted out to distract myself. So I gave up, came back in, and wrote this post.

Thank you.

@forsweden I gotta MOW MAH LAAAAAAWWWWN

@chariotoflove said in "locked":

@hammerheadfistpunch said in "locked":

The buttons are mostly a placebo

So like the door close button in an elevator. Got it.

The trick is to hold it down firmly and mutter, "C'mon c'mon c'mon..." otherwise it will not work.

@mastermario It's a flip AND a scam!

@carsoffortlangley said in Computers are the devil:

@cb Just adapt a naming scheme that changes enough to meet the requirements but follows a common theme/pattern so you always remember it

Fallpassword2021! for example. I mean, what could possibly be on your work PC that is that sensitive?

One of my last passwords was "TheyWantANewPassword!2021"

By Mack Hogan (remember him?)

People going to get their Broncos they had ordered and being greeted with a $10,000 markup after their wait. I was watching a Chevy Suburban video where a dealer in Jersey was marking up new Suburbans by $2,500-$5,000 and the comments were pretty outraged. That's a 5-9% markup on a Chevy SUV. Now imaging ordering a little (BUT BIG!) 2-door Bronco with a few options for $35k, and then being told you need to pay 28% more.

They know they can turn them around to the next warm body if the original customer walks. But maybe they should have notified them earlier, or mitigated that price hike in a more palatable manner. I get it: there's less to sell. Things cost more. Supply and demand blah blah. From the consumer standpoint, if I ordered a new car spec'd to my whim, waited 18 months where I did NOT buy another car because I thought mine was coming, only to later have the rug pulled out of from me at the end... Too close to bait and switch for my taste.