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Sat.Jun.03.2006

3:02 am EDT        62°F (17°C) in Dearborn, MI

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I’m finally medically cleared to drive a truck again, after going down to Columbus on Thursday for my D.O.T. physical. It’s not like I had anything to worry about health-wise, as I detailed here on May 20, but my surgeon’s (probably mis-interpreted) orders on my return-to-work form and several other tasks I had to do got in the way of actually getting into an exam and being passed. There shouldn’t be any problem now with going back to the truck on Monday, the day that will mark a full month since the last time I have operated a truck.

The highlights of the trip to Columbus included a severe thunderstorm that passed through the south side of the city just as I was leaving, which forced everybody on Interstate 270 down to 35-40 mph (56-65 km/h). I swear that drivers everywhere are idiots: they go too slow and block passing lanes in dry weather, as I mentioned last time, but they tail your ass like crazy in a literally blinding rain. Oh well, at least the $2.59 gasoline all over Findlay, OH, was quite wonderful — that’s a dime to 15 cents cheaper than can be found anywhere in Michigan. (In fact, one Marathon station at State Route 12 and I-75 was only asking $2.54! Too bad I didn’t notice that until after I had already made use of one of the $2.59 stations.) Finally, the exceedingly cute young guy in the waiting room at the clinic I was sent to was a bonus.

Yesterday, I did the first oil change on my car in well over seven months. (I had only driven 2,259 miles (3,636 km) in that time, including the Columbus trip, hence the long time between changes.) I’ve decided to change to using 10W-30 oil instead of 5W-30, despite Saturn’s recommendation (at least on the filler cap) to use 5W-30; I have a feeling that the engine burns a little bit of oil, and 10W-30, being somewhat thicker, is a little bit less likely to sneak past rings or valve guides and get burned. We’ll see how that works. (For what it’s worth, the large diesel engines in trucks call for 11 gallons of 15W-40 oil, not the puny four quarts of 5W-30 most car makers specify.)

It’s an election year, so you know that the Gay-Obsessed Party (GOP) is going to be back up to their usual tricks. This Monday, in fact, they are going to again try to write un-American, anti-Christian discrimination, bigotry, and hatred into our Constitution (“that goddamned piece of paper,” as King 29% would put it). Chances are good they won’t succeed in getting the necessary two-thirds margins in both houses of Congress; all the Gay-Obsessed Party will be accomplishing is locking up spots in Hell, next to their great inspiration Satan.

Yes, I am tired of talking about Rethuglican politics and the anti-Christian behaviors of so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’,” because the truth is so blatantly obvious and you can only state it so many times in so many ways without going nuts, but I must soldier on with every further erosion of my God-given rights enumerated in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Freedom fighting is quite literally in my blood, what with my distant relative Josiah Bartlett’s signature on said declaration, and stopping this bullshit “Federal Marriage Amendment” is the TRUE freedom fight of our day — not King Chimpy’s fake little “war” for Iraqi oil.

Outside of that, when it comes to politics, somebody please wake me up when America is restored to a constitutional democracy again …