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mocha_mephooki and I shared a special, first-time experience with moiracoon last night. Something I've been trying to convince her to try for years, but she was always a little bit nervous about it. She'd been involved in activities of a similar, if more mainstream, nature before. Often, at conventions or parties, she was willing to participate in some fun of a lighter, less intense variety, but stepping outside the known and into new territory was a little intimidating. I can understand that; I'm pretty slow to warm up to a lot of new things myself. But together, the two of us broadened her horizons in a way that I've been hoping for for years. We got her to play Empire Builder with us!

We've done lots of stuff like Apples to Apples or Trivial Pursuit, but I hadn't managed to get her into the world of strategy and tactical games. Every time I looked over at my sweetie and saw her moving her peg along the rail lines that she'd drawn across the board, or puzzling over her next destination, I'd get this gigantic smile on my face. From there, maybe it's only a few short steps to... Iron Dragon! And then, then, it's on to Wizards! And Titan! And then... Freedom in the Galaxy and War of the Rings! All of which just conveniently happen to be in my parents' collection! *Cackles like a mad board-game scientist*

Err, anyway, sorry about that. Got carried away for a minute. Heck, I've never even played a full game of those last two. And we didn't manage to finish a whole game of Empire Builder either since Mocha had to leave, but that's ok. I am just tickled that everyone seemed to have a really great time! It's amazing me, now that I've been playing them again, how much I like board games and how much I've missed them. I want to do this on a more regular basis. And I need to weed out some of the extras in the basement and collect a few that I really want. Like Wizards. I will get a copy of that game. One of these days.

And there's another reason I'm happy today! I'm buying a drum set after work. Remember how I said a while ago that there was this set for only $150 and how cheap that was? Well, the one I'm buying doesn't actually have cymbals, so I'll need to pick those up on my own. It doesn't have a kick pedal for the bass drum either, so I'm going to comb Craig's list for that too. But I'm getting a bass drum, a floor tom, two mounted toms, and a snare for all of 50 dollars! Considering that that's about a sixth of what I was expecting to pay, I can live with that. It's a used set, and an entry level one, but the picture looks good, and all I need is something to mess around with while I see how much fun I have with them. I'm driving up to Hartland, which is west of West Allis, after work to pick them up. I'll have drums!!

(no subject)

I love good-news/bad-news kinds of situations. I mean, they're a lot better than bad news/worse news, right?

The good news is that my truck is safe to drive and isn't in any immediate danger of blowing up, disintegrating, or rendering itself unusable in any other swift and spectacular way. It should be okay to drive for at least a while. So I plan to continue to do so.

The bad news is that I have some transmission problems. Two of them. First, it's starting in the wrong gear. My acceleration seems to be kind of slow sometimes because I'm trying to accelerate from a stop in 2nd gear. Second, third gear is not really working so well. In fact, what I thought was a delayed shift to third gear is actually the transmission deciding to just give third a miss and head straight on to overdrive once it's going fast enough.

To the best of my knowledge, it's the original transmission (the previous owners mentioned an engine replacement but didn't say anything about the transmission) so I have to say, that's pretty good for 394,000 miles. ("Sure have a lot of miles on that truck!" was the first thing the person who called me back said.)

So I guess I'll keep driving it. I'm sure the transmission functionality will continue to deteriorate, but I'm crossing my fingers that the process will be a slow and gradual one. I'm certainly not in a great position to spend the $1700 that a transmission rebuild would cost me (but really, are you ever in a great position to spend $1700?), and I wouldn't do so even if I was. It's not quite worth it. As an alternative, I'm hoping that it will last me until the weather is at least in the 60s so I can, if I really need to, buy a transmission from a junkyard and replace it myself. I've done it once, mostly, and I'm pretty sure I could do it again, especially with a little help from a friend and a little modification of my floor jack. It's actually not that hard; it's connected to the drive shaft, the engine, maybe the radiator for cooling, and the speedometer and tachometer (which doesn't work anyway). That's it. It's just big, heavy, bulky, and in a confined space that would probably involve me sitting underneath it while I loosen the bolts holding it above me. What could go wrong? *laughs*

In the meantime, I guess I'm going to use it to drive to Hartland to pick up my drums. It does have a certain space advantage over moiracoon's KIA....

Oh, and by the way; Pfieffer Transmission, right on the Illinois/Wisconsin border on Sheridan Road is pretty cool. They aren't charging me a thing to have looked at it.