I’m wandering without a compass here

And a map would be nice, too. That is what depression does, it robs you of your sense of direction and knowledge of what is ahead and behind you. And in this case knowing is not half the battle. Just because I know that I’m depressed, and that depression robs me of my sense of self and self-worth, doesn’t mean my depression goes away. Even with medication I’m still depressed, just not as depressed as I was without. And that only takes care of the chemical part of depression. Anything that’s caused by external factors, like a pair of nit-wits threatening to destroy the world in a dick-measuring contest, is up to you to deal with. So Cheeto Jesus and Rocket Man rattling sabers are creating a whole new group of medication-resistant depressed people.

Anyway, I know what I need to do to get the money to build the car, I know what I’m going to buy with the money once I get it, I know how to use the parts and materials once I buy them. It’s just finding the drive to get up and get the money. Taking that first step, that’s the scary part. Literally getting the courage to take the first step, and the next and the next. In my mind’s eye that first step is a huge cliff towering in front of me. In reality it’s literally getting out of bed and walking out the door. I do that. I get up and get dressed and walk out the front door to go to the Lab Rat Keeper, but it’s a struggle when I’m doing it for my own selfish purposes. I know that people need the plasma I would be selling, but that turns it into a commercial transaction, not expanding the bounds of medical science a minutia. And for some reason, doing things for just me with no altruism, makes silly things like getting up in the morning almost impossible tasks. Going to get my insides poked around on the off chance it will lead to a surgical cure for hypertension, I’m ready to go. Sell something that people need to live, me-h-h-h, that’s too haaarrrd! Same action at the same time of day, one altruistic and the other mendacious, but only by the tiniest margin, and altruism wins. Don’t ask why, I don’t know. That’s why I’m mentioning it here.

Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that writing about this is easier than not doing anything about it, believe it or not.

Advertisement

I might stop updating for a while

Long story short, I’m in the process of changing meds and there will be a period where I’m not taking the old med but haven’t started the new med, and I’m in the process of tapering off the old med. This will make my depression worse, on top of the broken toe not helping my disposition. Mrs. the Poet and the cats are already leaving me lots of room around the house, except when Clint decides I need some lap time.

I’m still working out the packaging for the TGS2. If I don’t try to get the driver forward for better balance, and put the fuel tank in front of the bucket body instead, it’s pretty easy to put the powertrain in the fake pickup bed and still have a fairly normal-looking T-bucket. Well as normal as a mid-engine bucket can look when they are usually front engine. The proportions would be sorta normal, close to that of the original Model T front to back, but much wider because of the minivan donor vehicle axles and driveshafts. And the front axle made so the widths kinda sorta matched. This is on the assumption that I’m going to get the minivan donor vehicle.

Now if I’m not getting the minivan donor vehicle then things get… different. Then everything depends on the donor vehicle or the crate engine and transmission combination. I can say I would love to get a flood-damaged front engine RWD car as a donor vehicle but again that would require resources to buy and then get the car home, in fact I found a Corvette listed for $700 but I would need a flatbed to tow it home. I also found a couple of V6 Chargers and Challengers with $100 or less prices. But again I would need a trailer, something to tow that trailer, and gas money for the tow vehicle. But now we are getting into the real pipe dreams, unless I can find something in a local auction with some kind of cash for seed money to buy the car. I might as well wish for working wings on my back. And yes that is the depression talking, but it is also realism talking. Which is another reason why I’m taking a break until I get my meds under control, you guys don’t need to be dealing with my depression any more than I do. Now that I have ways of not being depressed, I really want to not be depressed.

I’m starting to repeat myself and having to delete things, so this would be a good time to quit.

Short post, nothing got done, I’m going to bed

Headline said it all, both Mrs. the Poet and I are laid up, I don’t have enough cash to pay for either thing I have to pay for but the phone bill would take her debit card no sweat if I could walk to the store. And I have been without depression meds for 3 weeks now and really starting to feel the add-on effects of depression, the lethargy and over-reaction to minor pains. And insomnia, I’m exhausted but I can’t get to sleep because my stupid brain won’t shut down and let me sleep. If it was running something useful I would just channel it to do something with it, but no it’s just running like a hamster on a wheel getting nowhere and doing nothing except not letting me sleep. It’s now 0300 and I’m about to drop physically, but the mind won’t stop racing through thoughts to let me sleep. I can still use the keyboard to record waht’s happeneing more or less but rational thought prosesses ARE off line ATM. Stream of prtial concsiousness complete with typos and ransom spelling errors coming through.

I have my personal YTM channel going on my phoind b ut I’m not looking at the screen for the vide just listening to the music. Every so often I get something slightly soothing like Solsbury hill by Peter Gabriel. i’m sp tired but I can’t sleep. I can barely see the keyboard rith now because my eyes have gotten all goopy from lack of sleep so im not sure I’m hitting the right keyes I’m just touchtyping ATM and I know I’m not hitting all the right keyes because I can feeel I’m hitting more than one key at a time and some words are too long some by several letters.

I’m giving up on trying to blog.

More on not being depressed, this might get a little repetitive

So far this week I have gone to the Lab Rat Keeper, and bought a stamp and mailed a letter at the post office in one day, taken a 2 mile walk to buy cat food, fixed dinner (beans, rice, and vegetables) and had a conversation with Mrs. the Poet on another day, took another two mile walk and had another long conversation with the Mrs. on another day, had a shorter conversation with Mrs. the Poet, went grocery shopping, had another two mile walk and stopped to correct a $0.40 mistake on the grocery bill yesterday, and so far today I had a conversation with Mrs. the Poet plus all the regular maintaining life functions stuff and the day’s barely half over. The conversations are what has Mrs. the Poet excited the most. Seriously this is like meeting an all new person for her as I was already depressed (but didn’t know it) when we first met.

The letter was an order to Ron Coon Resins in NE for 8 Wide 5 hubs, 8 disk brake rotors, 8 wheels, and 2 quick change rear ends. I’m at the point I can’t do the front axles without the actual hubs I’m going to use, so this will let me move on with the build(s). Yes that was a plural on the build, I’m making the “ultimate” build with the LS7 engine at the same time as the “most probable” build with the Small Block Chevy, so I have a 3D blueprint for making either one of them. I’m still trying to find brake calipers for the rear brakes, I found some good ones for the fronts but GM Metric calipers are very hard to find in 1/25 scale. In contrast 1/25 or 1/24 scale 4 piston calipers are common. Most are not cheap (except the Model Car Garage die-casts at $5 a set of 4) but they are available.

On another note I have been thinking of how I could get some pedal time in while I’m on the computer, but I’m at a technical impasse. Anyone know how to make a Chromebook shut down gracefully when the voltage is taken away from the charge port? I think this would be a software thing. I’m trying to get my computer to run on a pedal-powered battery charger and use the battery to keep everything going in sleep mode when I quit turning the pedals. I’m thinking connecting the pedals to a car alternator to make dirty 12VDC then filtering that to the clean 9VDC the computer needs with lots of caps and “stuff” to make an LC filter and a linear regulator for the final output with another filter cap across that output to make it absolutely ripple-free, and then plug that into my computer.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

It’s amazing what can happen when you’re not depressed

I went for a walk today to get some cat food from the store and to max out the captures on the phone game I play that pays me money to play, then I sat down with my wife and had a conversation. Pre-medication I might have been able to do the first, but I probably would not have been able to do the second, and doing both in the same day, much less one right after the other, would have been a miracle. That’s the difference between mild depression and none. Mild depression I can go to the doctor, or cook dinner, or sit down and have a conversation, but not all on the same day. Without depression I can walk two miles to the store in the heat, have a long conversation with my wife, and cook all of dinner all on the same day without feeling like I was drowning, or some other overwhelming feeling.

Mrs. the Poet was like “Who are you and where did you put my husband?” over the difference. She has never known me from before I was depressed. I’m not sure but I think she likes the non-depressed person better. I know I do.

PSA, Opus

I just tweeted this but anyway

The anti-depressant works at keeping me from being depressed. What it doesn’t do is keep me awake, like at all. I have zero energy and can barely keep my eyes open, I’m yawning constantly and also keep doing that “wake up stretch” my body does when I’m fighting off sleep to get something done late at night. Except it is 1630 not 2330. I think my body is reacting to my efforts to put me back on a diurnal schedule rather than a nocturnal one. I keep getting up earlier each day but still end up staying awake until 0300 or 0400, even when I get up at 0800 or 0900 the day before. It’s just not fair, now that I’m not depressed I want to sleep like I am worse depressed than before I started taking the med…

Now I’m gonna force myself to take care of things around the house including myself and the cats. Write to you later.

PSA, Opus

Interesting perspectives

Today is Day 2 of my anti-depressant med and I have had an epiphany. When I thought I was happy before, I was just Not Depressed as much. Seriously, compared to last week this feels positively giddy. WTF?!? I could have been nearly happy all these years if I had been on the right meds? Forty-some years of my life wasted being depressed because I couldn’t take that damned pill? Because seriously, this is what I used to call “happy”. I am so (bummed, angry, pissed) or I would be if I wasn’t so damned “happy” right now.

Another thing is I’m sitting in my office in front of the AC and sweating like a pig doesn’t. Pigs can’t sweat, did you know that? Anyway AC is blowing directly on me and I’m damp all over. Ambient temp outside the direct blast of the AC is 83°F in the office so that might have something to do with it.

I’m still trying to figure out how to get the body on the Sprint-T around the diagonal braces that run through the cockpit from the top of the rear hoop to the bottom of the front hoop. Every other part of the frame is outside of the body except those two braces and the body would just plop right in without them, but because they are the required (by the SCCA) diagonal braces for the roll over structure, and because leaving them out would compromise the torsional stiffness of the entire frame which is kinda the reason for the entire project (T-Bucket made for handling). I was thinking of cutting the body apart and using flanges and screws to hold it together to get the body around the braces, but that would be ugly if I used enough screws to make it rigid. Not to mention a pain to mock up and install. Especially the mocking up part. That would be at least two installs and removes before paint and powdercoat with at least one installing every screw to make sure all the holes line up. I have also considered using a bolt-in brace instead of welding it in…

And of course this also applies to the Mini Sprint-T only more so, the body I’m using can’t be cut apart because the kerf from the cut leaves a huge gap in the body after it’s installed, unless I use a crap ton of body filler before painting. But I have to install the body after painting, to prevent overspray on the interior and the frame (which are a different color from each other, and from the body) because the frame goes over the body except for those braces I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Anywho it’s like one of those puzzles with the marble inside the carved wooden cage that can supposedly be removed and replaced even though it’s bigger than the holes in the cage and the cage is all one piece of wood. If I had a vacuum-forming machine and a way to make an accurate mold then I could make multiple bodies and cut them apart so the seams would overlap and be invisible, but I no longer have access to that equipment.

Well it looks like I’m starting to ramble around a bunch of different subjects, so Imma put this baby to bed now.

PSA, Opus