Crazy busy! In an attempt to garner some quick cash for some vehicular repair jobs, I loaded myself down with freelance tasks. It hasn’t been too bad, but it’s certainly kept me busier than I anticipated. It’s funny how every client always comes to me in their eleventh hour and needs something in hours, rather than days or weeks. I’ve spend most of the last couple of weeks keeping busy with this stuff, and hopefully it’s all about to pay off. I’m drawing up an invoice today for my latest job. 15 hours of work at $40/hour so far. And I think there’s a bit more to come, too.

Just as that freelance job is coming to an end, the bikini website guy is back, and wants a load of changes implemented to his site. I agreed to them. If I hadn’t bought that car, I probably would have said “Go fish,” but as it stands, I need the bucks. Having an immediate incentive to working overtime and earning money makes it seem worth it. When the money’s just disappearing into the bank or paying some bills, it’s hard to get as motivated.

In my spare time (which basically amounts to the 45-60 minutes during which I eat dinner and sit around for a little while), I’ve been taking a page from my friend Pooch’s book. I’m watching Law and Order on TNT. A lot. Which isn’t hard, because it’s on TNT a lot. I have a feeling it’s going to become an impromptu religion. That show’s been on for 14 frickin’ years and I never watched it once, and now I suddenly discover it and it’s pretty damn good. It’s not like those way overblown cop shows where they curse and bang locker doors, or those melodramatic lawyer shows where you’re bathed in legalese and it’s about as exciting as watching toenails grow. Instead, it presents a half-and-half mix of the investigative and the prosecutorial side of the law and it keeps it interesting. And that McCoy dude rocks. (No, not DeForest Kelley. He’s dead.)

So, being so busy has ensured that my workdays (which is basically all day) are progressing quite quickly. The week’s half over already and it feels like Monday. Which is good, I suppose, because by the time I’m waking up at noon on Saturday, it’ll feel like Tuesday. <laughs> I hope.

I brought KITT to work today. The weather has been extraordinarily nice so far this week, and in the evenings when I leave the office, it’s so incredibly cool and beautiful outside. A great time to take off the T-tops and cruise home. Only tonight, I have to cruise over to the bikini website dude’s house and listen to his requests. But hey, it’s money. And KITT needs a lot of parts.

Speaking of KITT, damn did he ever run shitty this morning. It’s weird, because this past Sunday I took the car out for a drive and it’s never performed better. Then this morning, it’s absolutely choking on fuel. Stupid. Although I’m sure I know why. Because my entire drive this morning was stop-and-go traffic. 45 minutes to drive eight miles. Creep, idle idle idle. Creep, idle idle idle. And KITT doesn’t like that. He can’t creep. It’s impossible. All he can do is launch. So I have to wait for the people in front of me to move up a little ways, then I touch the gas slowly…instead of creeping, the car bogs, chokes, stutters, then suddenly BWAAAMMMP it launches ahead once I get the clock past 1500, and the air intake catches up with the massive amounts of fuel getting dumped into the cylinders. I guess I should have known better than to drive the car today—Wednesday traffic is at least twice as bad as every other weekday, for some unknown reason—but I couldn’t resist. The car is just too much damn fun, quirks be damned. Since I’ll be coming home late and rush hour will be over, the drive home should make up for the shitty ride over. Then this evening, KITT’s getting garaged for a while.

But that’s the great thing about all this work I’ve saddled myself with. I’ve already worked hard enough to pay for new fuel injectors, which will hopefully solve this major fuel gluttony problem once and for all. Then I’ve got a laundry list of other things I need done. Most of them are small—$30-$50 apiece—but one of them is big, and that’s the exhaust system. Since after buying the injectors I may have enough cash left over to replace the entire system from the manifolds back (excluding the catalytic converters), I may spring for it. It’s not often I get that much free money in one sitting. I’m looking to install the Gale Banks Powerpack exhaust…they were one of the first custom-exhaust manufacturers for third gen F-bodies, way back in the 1980s. They’re hard to find, but it’s doable. And the price is right, at $350 shipped for the entire system.

Anyway, in a few minutes I’m going to have to go visit one of my freelance people and help him get a web hosting account so he can actually put his website somewhere. A lot of people don’t understand that when they register a domain name, that’s not all they need. I’m still trying to figure out how I am going to explain to relative computer illiterates that the domain name’s DNS record will have to be updated to point at their web host. I hope they haven’t lost the damn password to their domain registrar. That’s always loads of fun.