No attempt goes unpunished...

I decided to take a break after about 3,000 words to go do some errands, including mailing some items to Texas that Galina had asked for. On the way, the Ford decided to throw a rod, or something, so I've spent the last 90 minutes actually recovering from that little setback, which puts me back home, errands undone, sans transportation, listening to a sizeable chunk of change upstairs, packing its clothes.

<grumble>

Cheers...

Crazy day...

LJ friend furzicle reminds me that the Ford's engine could have picked some lonely place along the road from Houston to Colorado to deliver its swan song, but I suspect the cold may have played a pivotal role, as I recall that the last couple of times I cranked the engine, it turned over with difficulty. It could be that, despite letting the engine get warm, several days of sitting idle just overstrained a piston rod on startup.

Max, our mechanic, already called with an estimate of how much it would cost to replace the engine. On the one hand, the car is worth less, Blue-Book wise, than the repair cost; on the other, you really can't replace the Ford with a new-as-in-never-before-owned-by-me car for that money. I've asked him to see about possibly pulling a used engine, as opposed to buying a warranted rebuilt job, but I'm not sure that's the right way to go.

I woke early today, with my brain brimming over with a story line that fellow LJ Idol contestant agirlnamedluna and I can address for this week's "assignment." It took me a little while to get the idea down on pixel and shared, and though I personally think it's good enough for a novel-length treatment, I figure we each have - at best - about 1,300 words in which to tell a story from two points of view.

If we pull this off - and we will - it will be a pretty slick piece of writing. I'm not going to whine about not having time - the Big Job (4500 source words left, plus figures, plus major despeckling) has to be ready Monday morning, and I spent today translating about 10,000-source words of an Excel file (550 lines, 19 columns... <spit>) - because it seems the only time I can write is when I don't have time.

Though I've actually translated the Excel file, I did it by exporting the text to Word, so now I need to "massage" it back into Excel. I'm on line 441. I really want to get this file out of my hair, so I better get to it.

Cheers...