I'm just like all these other collector losers

"You think it's healthy to obsessively collect things? You can't relate to other people, so you fill your life with stuff... I'm just like all these other collector losers. "

I've been a collector of crap off and on during much of life. As a teenager it was comics, albums and old games. The music kept coming and I still buy CD vs downloading and copying all my friends music for some odd reason. I'm now back to four scooters (2xLambretta's and 2xVespas). I'll need to get rid of 2 of them in the next year if I want to keep from letting the obsession back into my life. Camera's are another "thing" i have too much of too. I can at least use a camera to create other things so to say, so they are not really an obsession in my book since they are like brushes, paint and canvas of sorts. Tools after all. Oddly enough it took me a long time to really look at collecting and collectors.

When I restored film I worked with a "Film Collector" who fucking drove me nuts. He always wanted everything we were suppose to throw out. It took looking at his obsession to really put my own obsessions into light. My parents sold the house I grew up in, it was easily for me to take all my childhood obsessions and sell them off. Really easy actually. The comicbook and games went quick and easily. But I turned around and stared the scooter buying very quickly after that. One fueled another. When I moved to Portland I was easily able to get myself to sell off all my running scooters too. Didn't need em, best to find em a good home. The nicely restorred TV175 Lambretta I built and rode once was easily to sell off too. I hope I can do it again as easily with the two scooters I'm currently building. That having been said, I know i need to get paid if I do!

Currently I'm being lazy about my book collections. Honestly I'm not about to ever open half of these books I read 10-20 years ago.

Gym Socks

So since being laid off I've tried to get back into a very regular exercise routine and mostly failiing at it. I'll go 5 days a week for 2-4 weeks and then either hurt myself or take a break that lasts 1-3 months. My last attempt is now nearly 2 months long and so far I haven't hurt myself (which honestly has been the most common problem).

Right now I'm doing 40 minutes on the tread mill (3 miles I think?).
Then 20 minutes on tread mill (300 stairs I think?).
Followed by 30 minutes in the pool (16 lengths or 8 laps) - freestyle.

One of the problems with my old routine was that I'd get to certain point concerning the tread mill and either I'd need to start running as I can only walk it so quickly. I've opted to get to the long quick walk, but then kill it (I started off at an hour on the tread mill for instance) and build up on the stair climber and swimming. So far, so good.

Lambretta

So I've been building a Lambretta Tv175 Series III motor scooter. Over the last week I hooked up all the cables and wiring and this weekend I wanted to start it up and see how well it was working. I remember to put gear oil in the engine since I accidentally spilled it out when I was building it. It actually kicked over on the 3rd try and promply died a moment later. The carb leaked a lot of fuel and it didn't seem to be getting all the oxygen it needed. 2 hours later I had rebuilt the carb twice and re-runned throttle cable. At best I could keep it going for a minute or two and then it would die. Ugh.

You can find lots of photos of the build so far as well as a couple of videos of me trying to start the damn thing at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/filmtwit/sets/72157623338894738/

These are the Days

I find my self getting irritated easily these days. I hate feeling irritated, it tends to turn me into big ball of asshole really easily. While I can be an ass, I tend not to like being a complete asshole. There's no fun in it.

Bullet Dodge

So I had two interviews for a part time position with the Oregon State University. The position was for a on call undergrad reference librarian. 16 hours a month and max of 88 days a year. Down side, 1-2 hour each way to Corrvalis. I haven't heard thing since the second interview, so I'm thinking this is the blow off. The experience would have been fantastic, but having done the drive down and back I'm thinking I dodged a bullet here. 90 miles each way would have drove me batty. No really, by Portland standards this was the commute from hell, even if only once a week.

Feelings

I feel disconnected from the life around me. This isn't anything new to me, but none the less, I feel it in and around me. I can't make myself connect. Frustration.

Happy Jesus-Zombie Day

Ok, as usual not a lot going on, but some updates none the less:

School: Just finished up my Photoshop class and should be finishing up my Lightroom class this coming week. I should sign up another class at Newsroom, but I kind of want a break and Real school should be getting a bit busier from this point on in the semester. Real school (MLS) is about 60% and I have another paper to do this week. Ugh.

Car/Truck: The Nissan is running, but I've opted not try and renew the registration since it's blowing more and more smoke these days. I had to cheat the last time around to get it to pass smog and I know the rings are bit more warn after two years now. The tires are nearly bald and I know I should replace the fan, bearing and shaft at this point. I suspect there's about $2k in work needed to get the Nissan back on track. But I've opted not deal with it. Once I track down the title it will go up for sale. If you can find a good engine or know how to replace rings, then it should really cheap way to get a very good truck. Honestly I've had it for over 3 years now and it's been bullet proof to me and never caused me any problems. I've been pretty religious about maintenance is partially why and good about getting anything fixed before it became a problem too. But after 190,000 miles the rings have just worn out. Again it still runs and if you're outside of Portland you won't need to get it smogged either! So expect it to go cheap.

Work: Have a telephone interview this week for on-call library reference position at OSU in Corvallis. If I can land this, I'd say work wise I have what I want and need till I graduate. Now to land the work. Ugh.