Tag: Me Myself I

Personal stuff

The Return Of The Tiggy

Drive Time

Phew.  Turns out the problem with the Tiguan’s engine was not serious — just needed new plugs and coil, so less than $400.  Had the brake fluid replaced and an oil change while it was there, so I picked it up on Saturday morning and it runs like a sewing machine again.

Question:  is it reasonable for spark plugs to last ~100,000 miles?  (They were the premium-priced ones I had installed right after I bought the car back in 2016.)

Of course, they tried to build the ticket by suggesting that my rear brakes were getting thin — but I pointed out that a) the car passed state inspection only three weeks ago, and b) I drive like an old lady anyway, never braking hard unless an emergency looms.

True story:  Some years ago (don’t remember which car it was), the first time I ever braked hard and the ABS kicked in, I thought my brakes had broken so I took off to the dealer quickly.  When I explained the situation the mechanic looked at me like I was from another planet and said:  “You’ve owned this car for over ten years, driven it every day, and you’ve never had to use the ABS?”  I hadn’t.  Didn’t even know what ABS stood for — some kind of magic, I guess.

Community

Friends and Family

When I first started blogging back in early 2001, I didn’t enable comments on my website because its original purpose was to showcase my writing, such as it was back then.  This is why there were a lot of essays and such — lengthy pieces wherein I explored the world, my world and the world around me — and I have to admit, it was hard work.

Then one day I threw up a pic of a gun that I liked, completely out of left field and quite gratuitous.  That became a weekly fixture, and then inevitably, as I started reading more and more about guns, I got dragged into the politics of guns, and thereafter into politics in general.  And the rest you know.

But in all that time, I felt as though I was just shouting into the void, not knowing whether anyone heard me or cared.

Then Connie suggested I open the site to comments, and I resisted fiercely for about a couple of weeks because I’d seen how other websites had been overrun by trolls and other such pond scum, and I just did not have the patience to deal with that.  So she suggested that I ban anonymous comments, requiring people to register their email addresses first, and reluctantly I agreed.

Now I can’t function without comments, or to be more specific, not only my Readers’ feedback and arguments, but the several friendships which have arisen from this contact.  So the past week or so, where I’ve just been shouting into the void again, made it unbelievably difficult to summon up the motivation to post anything at all, and I have to tell you, I found it difficult to write about anything.

So if the past Time Of Silence sucked, content-wise, please forgive me.  I’ll Try To Do Better — but already I’ve noticed that it’s easier to do so.

Welcome back, y’all — and that comes straight from the heart.

All that said, over the next week, Tech Support and I (mostly Tech Support) will be rebuilding this website completely:  new dedicated server, fuck off Hosting Matters, etc.

The format should remain the same, and it should happen more or less seamlessly; but if you hit that shortcut / bookmark and you get this:

…for an hour or so, please be patient.  Just know that I will be chafing and biting my lip as much or more than you are.  TS has promised to keep me, and you degenerates informed as much as possible (his word, not mine; as though a fixation with seditious ramblings, guns, cars and boobs is degenerate).

Problems, We Have Them

Technology

Tech Support tells me that the login issues are not the only ones he’s finding, but as he has an actual (well-) paying job, for some reason he’s putting that first instead of my problems.  Go figure.

Please be patient.