So it's been a while since I've blogged. I got a micro SD card for Christmas, for my phone. 4G. Haven't put anything 'cept a couple pictures on it yet. I also got one of those armband things for my iPod. Works great. I love running with music. I also got this cool guitar thing my brother got me. It's like, ceramic or something, and he painted it to look just like my bass. It's a six string guitar, but still, it's pretty cool. I got a hoodie, too, but it was too big, so I gotta take it back. My dad also randomly got me a bass amp on New Year's Eve, for no reason in particular. I'm gonna count that as a Christmas gift, too. It's really nice. Crate, 50 watt. For those of you who don't know bass amps, Crate is a good name, not top-of-the-line, but definitely a respectable brand. And 50 watts is about medium for a bass amp. It would be big for a guitar amp, but basses are different. The smallest bass amp I've ever seen is a 25 watt, which I own. It's still pretty big for a practice amp, and it has hardly any bass to it. My old youth pastor had a Nemesis brand, which a really good brand, amp with two speakers that was something like 320 watts, I believe. That was a building shaker. It may have been closer to 500 watts, actually. I don't remember. So anyway, yeah, that was Christmas. The bowl game was alright, but I only came back with about $40 out of the $120 they gave us, because I payed back $20 I owed to another bass fish for lamination or something lame like that. It was lame. Anyway, then there was New Year's. I went to one party type thing with the Seales in La Grange. It was pretty cool. I also got to hear them sing before it, which is always a great thing. I met some really cool people there, wherever it was. I don't even know. I just followed them out there. Way out there. I had to leave at 10:30ish to get back home to be with my family for midnight, so we could pray in the new year (one of our traditions, if not our only real one), and then I went to Chelsey's party. It was cool, cuz I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in a long time, or hadn't, I guess. Since then, I haven't done a whole lot. Ooooh, except for yesterday. Ugh...
Ok, so my Scout has been broken for quite some time now. It needs a new rear axle and differential. The differential is basically the part that turns the one drive shaft spinning perpendicular to the axle, into the axle spinning in the direction the wheels spin. It does so with two things called a ring and a pinion, among other parts. The ring and pinion both have teeth that fit together, and they basically spin similar to any other type of gear. The teeth on the ring and pinion in the old differential of my Scout were all broken, though, so we had to get new ones. However, as we ("we" being my dad and me) were putting in the new ring and pinion, we saw that another part of the axle was messed up, this time it was something on the ends that holds the wheels in place. It's a good thing we found this out, because, if we hadn't, it's very possible that I could have been driving down the highway (maybe. Probably just a side road, though) and then have seen a wheel, my wheel, rolling past me. So, although finding this problem now as opposed to later was definitely a good thing, it also meant that we had more to fix. My dad decided it was best just to replace the entire rear end. So, anyway, my mom's cousin, or something like that, came to Truck City one day for some reason, and mentioned while he was there that he had gone to some junkyard in Seguin for something, and that it looked like a good place to look for a rear end for my Scout, because they had lots of Internationals. I went there yesterday, and came back rather disappointed. Walking in, I asked the guy behind the desk if he knew if they had any Scout rear ends. He walked over to a map of the yard and showed me where the Internationals were. He was one of those people who seem like they're pretty OK...until you talk to them. After finding out the hard way that you aren't supposed to drive back there (I've never been to a junkyard before, so I don't know procedure), we (Mariah went with me because she had nothing to do, and we hadn't seen each other in, like, a million years) walked down to the Internationals, detouring through the Fords in hopes of seeing some cool old Mustangs. I didn't, but probably only because I didn't look very hard for them. In the International section (International Harvester, or just International, was the company that made Scouts, by the way), there were lots of Scouts, but most of them were Scout II's, which I thought wouldn't work. My dad and I found out afterwards that they might have. Out of all the Scouts I found that were like mine, only one still had the rear end in it. There were also a couple Jeeps that I thought might work. I went back and got the measuring tape, measured the old rear end, and took the tape back down into the yard to check on the axles I had found. The creepy guy I talked to before drove by in a truck while I was measuring some random axles from a pile, and he was, well, still creepy. I measured the one Scout axle, just to be sure, before I checked the Jeeps. Out of every single axle I found, the Scout was the only one that would work, but it was missing the back cover, which, sadly, was also one part we were missing, and the right brake drum. I called my dad about it, and he said we could buy a back cover, and use the old brake drum, so it would work fine, if they offered about $75 or less. We started walking back, and I figured that, if they offered less than $100 for it, I wouldn't try to bargain, but, otherwise, I would try my best to talk them down as much as possible. A worker in a truck stopped by us on our way back, and asked if he could help. I told him what was up, and he gave us a ride back. When Mariah shut the door, she accidentally slammed it, and the guy glared at her and said, obviously joking, "Watch my door!" and then laughed rather cheerfully. I decided that this was probably the only guy at the junkyard that I liked, and Mariah felt the same way. Back at the front, this other guy came out to talk to us, different than the first creepy guy. After telling him what part I was looking at getting, he thought for a moment, and then said "Umm, how about... $300?" It immediately infuriated me, because I knew he was trying to take advantage of me. I then told him about the missing parts (I hadn't mentioned them before, on purpose), and he dropped down to $175. I couldn't do anything then anyway, because they only took cash, and I had less than $20 on me, but I still talked a little bit more. They wouldn't touch it without at least a deposit, which was understandable, but I still didn't like the way he dealt with me. I finally told him I would think about it, and left without any intentions of coming back. They didn't even have any free kittens, which I considered getting for my sister, after seeing the sign on the front door. All in all, I concluded that I liked the junkyard, but not the people running it. Now, my dad and I are searching for alternative sources of an axle for my Scout. I think he said he might be on to something. Hopefully this leads somewhere with nicer people. He did mention a junkyard with this really cool guy that I would like, someone who my dad knows. I just hope he's not like other salesmen, who use friendships like that for their advantage. I guess I'll find out. *sigh*, ok, I really should get off the computer, and onto working on....other stuff.
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