three oil changes in less than a week & why i <3 SR motors

my last update was almost a month ago. wow.
a lot has changed since then. some for the worst, most for the best. i’m going to attempt to recapture the past few weeks. i honestly don’t care if anyone reads this or not, i’m only writing so one day i can look back and read about what happened this month…
i left philly on friday the 3rd. i packed my entire apartment in my car and drove to ny for an ifx meet. patrick brought this guy he had met the week before, jeremy, who has a white turbo ii. jeremy has a twin brother, john, who drives a se-r classic. me and john totally hit it off. that was honestly one of the best meets i’d ever been to. everyone showed up, we had a great time all just hanging out, and i got to see a bunch of my friends before i left. we were there until 4 in the morning.
i spent the next week desperately trying to find a new motor for the G as the one i was supposed to get fell through.
i ordered a bunch of new parts to make sure that anything that could possibly break (water pump, throwout bearing, seals, etc. just stupid preve
ntative shit like that) was replaced.
eventually i would up ordering a motor from jgy since i had no other choice. they are expensive as hell. and a very very good friend of mine lent me the money to pay for the motor since i am beyond broke. i hate having this debt over my head and i will be paying him back once i start getting paychecks from the new job.
anyway.
the motor showed up.
it appeared to be in great condition…
but the fucking TURBO was SEIZED
i was pisssssed
but.
the swap must go on
got it done in about two days, i got completely filthy working on the baby and i loved every minute of it. i had a great fucking time. seriously.
blowing the old motor was totally worth it just so i could have the pleasure of swapping in a “new” one.
i say “new” because it runs like butt.
well, it pulls good and it runs strong,
but it’s smoking out of the #4 cylinder (pull the spark plug wire after running it and you see a neat little plume of smoke… =\ ) and it is smoking white smoke out the exhaust. it smells and looks like oil (maybe a bad valve seal?), but a compression test revealed i have 130 compression on #1, #2, and #4, with the #3 cylinder having 125. ummm fuck? normal compression for these motors is like 150-170, which leads me to believe maybe it’s a head gasket problem… FUCK.
i’ve been trying to get in to
uch with JGY to at least replace the turbo which i had planned on selling to pay back some of the money, but this was about two weeks ago and i haven’t made an ounce of progress. double fuck.
spent the rest of the week trying to get the car running decent. finally managed the auto to manual seatbelt conversion with hamids extra strong help because apparently i am too weak to remove certain bolts (haha) and installed the bride seats which look oh-so-pretty and are wonderfully comfortable for my back 😀
me and patrick and john and jeremy and their cousin amy (awesome fucking chick who drives a gc8) and some of their other friends spent a lot of time hanging out during my ‘free’ time that week, which was next to none. we did make it out to montauk one night and lit a huge bonfire on the beach and just hung out and funny how i’ve lived there so long and i’ve never done that before. it was wonderful.
anthony and i had been in touch lately. he wanted to move to la too so we decided to drive out together. i left thursday morning, got stuck in crazy ass staten island traffic with the car smoking so much i was literally choking on it, and finally met up with him out in breezewood pa sometime that afternoon. he was driving the 1.6turbo sentra. yay!
we drove to columbus ohio and spent the night there.
t
he next day we kept driving and made it through what was left of that hurricane whic
h was a little nervewracking driving through the plains and tornado country (last years nopi trip scarred me for life. storms make me ultra paranoid) and made it safely to a little shitty ass city in kansas
junction city, kansas to be exact
within two minutes of arriving, we stopped to get gas
these 16 year old kids walked up to my car and started checking it out…
one of them says to his friends ‘yo she’s got a movie star muffler!’
i almost died laughing.
woke up the next morning and got back on the road…
i had a little scare by the colorado/kansas border which was due to my wheel liner ripping off the car at 90mph (thank you 75mph speed limit! 😀 ) so i immediately pull over thinking maybe i had a blowout and i couldn’t feel it cause my suspension is so damn stiff, and as i walk over to the passenger side to check it out i notice my car was pissing fluid. *insert panick attack here* but it turns out, haha, when the liner ripped off it took my windshield washer fluid hoses with it and that’s what was causing the spillage. nice. so now i have a little orange annoying light on my dash telling me my fluid is low. more like nonexistant. word.
saw some ‘dust devils’ along the way which made me a little jumpy because of my whole tornado-phobia (again, thanks nopi) but they were cute in a strange sort of way. silly midget tornadoes.
we ma
de it to denver, and the view was gorgeous
we started driving up the rockies
we saw buffalo!!
at about 9,000 ft elevation, we found a lake (picture to come tomorrow) and pulled over.
it was crystal clear.
i could see fish in the middle of it.
i knelt down and drank from it. it was the best tasting water i have ever had in my entire life.
we kept going that night, stopped in vail for a few minutes during a rain storm for gas, and eventually wound up calling it a night in this really weird-ass town.
RIFLE, colorado.
yes, there is a picture of the motel i stayed at in the pictures to come. the ‘winchester’ motel. with a huge picture of a gun on it. wonderful.
the next morning, the fourth day, we finished up the rockies and started into the canyon, desert, and plateau region of utah and arizona, which was phoenomial. i’ve never been anywhere like that before. it was just absolutely spectacular. i took a bajillion pictures.
i climbed a plateau.
i saw a cactus.
i also had to drive the whole day (and the day before as well) with my windows down and my heat on full blast to keep the car from trying to overheat due to 12 hours of steady 80-90mph driving in 120* deserts… ick.
so we’re driving through the desert, we get to nevada, it’s all flat and boring and pretty at the same time.
it starts to get dark…
then
all of a sudden, we come over this one hill,
and there it is
VEGAS BABY!!!
it was amazing, it just came out of nowhere and it was HUGE.
we got a hotel on the outskirts of the strip and went cruising
all i can say is that vegas is like times square on crack.
the next day wasn’t such a bad drive at all. we were averaging around 650-800 miles a day with 12-13 hours of seat time a day (including gas/food breaks). we stopped about 30 minutes outside of barstow to visit anthony’s aunt and uncle who were cool as hell before continuing the drive to la.
we made it
and we made it without a single accident, without a single car problem, and without a single getting-pulled-over
3,000 miles in 5 days.
not bad 😉
came to my apartment, got the keys from my landlord, and unpacked the few boxes i had brought with me. then we went to pasedena where he is staying with his brother to unload his stuff.
came back to my place, unpacked a little, and we camped out on the livingroom floor.
it was fun
my apartment is huge
its gorgeous
its completely unfurnished
i don’t have a bed, i am sleeping on the floor
but at least it’s carpeted 😀
i am using a drop-light in my bedroom as a ‘lamp’
i was using a cable wire as an antenna for my tv and i was grounding it out to a piston to get reception
i have carshow
folding chairs in my living room as ‘furniture’
it is ghetto fab
i call my style “early poverty”
so tuesday and wednesday i spent just getting the apartment settled, getting heat and electric, a fridge, cable/internet, etc etc.
thursday was my first day of work at garrett turbos.
i love it there.
everyone is awesome, my boss is great, and it’s only 5 minutes (with traffic) from my apt
friday night anthony and i went to the movies, and i have never seen so many painfully obnoxious 14 year old girls who think they are all that in my life. it significantly lowered my IQ just listening to them… haha.
but they do have initial D the arcade game version 3 at the theatre by my apt. yaaay!
afterwards we went out driving a bit, and randomly found signal auto. we were driving through a part of torrance i’d never been to before, and i see ‘abalone ave’ and im like omgg turn right! i didn’t know what direction to go but something just said go right. and there, 20 feet down, was signal. it was like midnight so of course it was dark and closed but damn. i found signal. randomly. how fun.
then i remembered i had the address to motorex in my bag, and after much driving and much getting lost, we finally found that too. impressive, even at 130am.
i’ll go back soon during the day when they’re both open 😉
saturday i went grocery sho
pping and then to santa monica to visit jonny. we went down to the beach and to the pier and we went on the silly carnival rides and i was holding on for dear life during the ridiculously non-scary roller coaster. haha. good times good times…
yesterday night anthony and i drove down to long beach and explored the Queen Mary (to those not in the know: it is a cruise ship built in the same era as the titanic, by the same company, only much *bigger*!) it was supposed to be closed but we managed to sneak around and see a whole bunch of stuff.
it was aaaamaazing
then we had dinner in one of the restaurants on board overlooking the harbor.
work again this morning, my job rocks, i don’t have any complaints.
i get paid to play with turbos and do marketing for drag race stuff
what more could i ask for
now for the subject line:
oil change once the motor went in, then two days later after i put 200 miles on it, then 5 days later after another 3000 miles were put on it. that’s a lot of oil changes in a week! 😛
and i *
here’s the best part:
I’M COMIN
G HOME!!!!
yep.
garrett is flying me to jersey friday night to work at the NHRA event at englishtown this weekend. i’ll be there both the 2nd and 3rd, so you guys better all come and say hello!! 😀
i miss everyone crazy amounts.
hamid, i miss you more than words can say
patrick, i miss you and your random acts of craziness
john, i wasn’t expecting to miss you this much, but i do, and i’m glad that we met, because i’m really happy to have you in my life.
i can’t wait to see everyone this weekend. woot! business trip to the drag strip!!! 😀
i’ll post pictures tomorrow because i’m exhausted right now and i’ve got work in the am.
it’s good to be back, i miss you all ❤

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by this time tomorrow, i’ll be back in new york…
i’m starting to get really scared. the motor hasn’t shown up yet, and honestly, i’m getting really worried if it will show up at all.
i would have liked to have had the parts ordered by now. i’m really starting to panic.
i’m scared i am going to have to drive it in the condition it is now, and i know it won’t make it.
i’m really really fucking scared and i don’t know what to do and i haven’t got a single fucking person to confide in.
why? read on and you’ll see why i have problems trusting people…
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it a bajillion more times.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
i spent the whole day today, even though i really didn’t want to, thinking about how much he lied to me.
i tried so hard not to make the same mistakes i made last year, to make it better this time, to NOT have last year happen again.
i tried so hard to be honest with him, and with myself.
but i can only try so much, there’s only so much i can do
…
i started thinking, and honestly, it made me really angry.
he never appreciated one fucking thing i did for him
nothing, none of it
he used me.
i tried so hard, all the time, to make him happy
but i guess it was never good enough for him
i loved him so much.
i really did, with all my heart.
and when he told me he felt the same way,
i believed him.
i know i will always love him,
there will always be a place in my heart for him,
but i am never going to admit it again.
i just can’t.
it can’t always be me trying, and him just not appreciating any of it.
if he meant what he said, which by now i am pretty sure he didn’t, then he wouldn’t have completely disregarded me and written me off.
you don’t tell someone you love them, and then completely ignore them, and not even bother trying to fix a really fucked up situation that you started in the first place.
you don’t tell someone they are your best friend, and then only call/hang out when you need something, and completely ditch them the rest of the time
you don’t tell someone you care about them, and then constantly make them want to bash your head against a wall so that maybe you wouldn’t be so fucking blind.
you don’t promise me things if you have no intentions of following through on them…
don’t do those things unless you mean them,
and obviously, you didn’t.
there are so many times, thinking back on it, where i tried so hard, and i got absolutely nothing.
not that i wanted anything, but he never even noticed how hard i was trying…
he didn’t care two shits if i was alive or dead.
lovely.
i don’t regret any of it.
i don’t regret telling him that i loved him when he first told me the same,
i don’t regret that night together.
i meant every single word i ever said.
i tried so hard, so fucking hard, not to fuck it up like i did last year…
the only thing i regret is being so fucking stupid that i couldn’t see through all of his shit in the first place.
it hurts me so bad to have to write this, to have to think this, and to have to say this
because i really, really don’t want to
i don’t want to be angry at him
i feel guilty as hell writing all of this…
i care about him so much
i would never want to hurt him
but there’s only so much i can tolerate.
the sad part is,
part of me wants to keep trying to make the friendship work
i hate having to live with “what ifs”…
what if i had tried just once more?
what if i had told him one more time?
what if… what if…
what if…
so as much as i don’t want to say it, i’m fucking done.
i really am.
have a nice life.
if for so
me god only knows why reason, you realize that i am right and that you fucked up bigtime, you know where to find me.
…but i won’t be waiting around forever.
ps, anne please stop reading my livejournal. thankyou.

so i just got back from a date…
yeah. me. on a date. stop laughing, it happens.
i actually had a really good time too.
there’s this guy that i always see at englishtown. he’s this really cute hardcore guy but i never talked to him because i suck.
well, about a week ago he found me online and we started talking and i was like damn this is awesome and well yea tonight we hung out.
we went to go play pool and he kicked my ass. he even beat me using one hand the entire game. but it was a lot of fun and i was happy.
when he went to drop me off i did the typical okay thanks i had a really good time and gave him a hug, and when i went to pull away, he kissed me 😀 yaaay!
hopefully we’ll get to hang out again before i leave…
look out boys, i’m baaaaack!!

my sleep schedule is all crazylike again…
i don’t dream.
i never dream.
sometimes, i wish that i did because i feel like i am missing out…
for the past two weeks i have been haunted by my dreams.
i wake up each morning panicking because for a fraction of a second, i believe it to be true.
then i realize it’s not.
and all i want is to go back to bed to avoid consciousness
but if i do, i will dream more
it’s a sleep catch22.
i wake up each morning hoping that, well, it will happen.
i wish with all my heart that this isn’t how it has to be
but that is why we dream in the first place, isn’t it?
i know why i am dreaming
i know who they are about
i know what is causing them
i know what they ‘mean’
but i don’t know how to stop them…
…sad thing is, i don’t know if i want them to stop
because if they do, it will mean that i’ve finally given up
and giving up is not in my vocabulary