Hah.

It’s really early….and I’m drinking again.

Coffee.

I’m up and everyone else is asleep and tonight I need to stay up to celebrate my birthday.

I wonder if I’ll konk out on the couch while the party rages around me?

That will make people mad.

I turn 59 today.

Who saw that one coming?

I’m 59 today….which is information that some internet scammer will probably use to bring down my financial empire.

Internet scammers are good at “doing the math”.

You shouldn’t reveal anything.

You’re safer hiding in a deep, dark hole somewhere people can’t see or know you.

“Safer”….that’s what I’m shooting for.

That’s what’s going to get me to 120.

The Jeep is running great now….but yesterday it stopped….stopping great.

The wheel cylinder blew out and I lost my brakes on one of the steep hills behind the post office.

That was exciting.

And….the problem is bigger than I thought.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

The backing plate….which is a part made out of pretty thick metal….”tore” where the wheel cylinder mounts to the plate….split right down to where it mounts to the axle….err….hub(?)….split to the point where it needs to be replaced before I can start to do a brake job.

There must be a lot of stress back in the parts that stop a heavy Jeep on a bunch of steep, steep hills.

There’s a lot of stress in the driver of a Jeep that has to stop on big, steep hills, too.

Nothing’s split in me, though….just a bunch of little stress fractures that I can’t see.

So…a cheap fix that I can do in the driveway got a lot more complicated.

So…I’m back to driving the Toyota on the route.

Good I got used to driving the old truck while they were replacing the engine in the Jeep….a job that (because I was patient) took 4 months.

That’s a long time to replace an engine.

That’s a crazy, long time to have my Jeep sitting in somebody’s shop.

Patient=passive schmuck…sometimes….even if I only heard that comparison in my own head.

(That’s what you call “good self-talk”.)

Maybe a good birthday resolution is to start yelling at people a lot more?

I’m going to be a SQUEAKY WHEEL if I can ever keep a rig on the road.

I’m going to be a bitchy old man if it kills me.

Mail Jeep.

Good grief….it’s a love/hate thing, for sure.

And….what a speed bump having no brakes can be!

Anyway….it’s my birthday.

My family’s all here with me….sleeping right now.

How much better could I have it than that?

I have the perfect life that everyone talks about.

Who saw that one coming?