Saturday Ben asked if I wanted to go look at some new stereo stuffs for my car. My M3 still has the stock head unit in it but I took the six disc changer out awhile ago because it wasn’t working for some reason which, whatever, I used the Ipod with tape adapter all the time anyway.

He warned me in advance, ‘We are just looking today. Pricing. Okay?’ as if I’m some impatient impulse buyer that doesn’t have any control. And I am. That is me in the relationship.

Ben: Do you really need more makeup?
Me: But I didn’t have this color!
Ben: Purple?
Me: It’s not PURPLE, it’s TRAX. That is other one is Violet. Plus it’s pigment, not eyeshadow.
Ben: You wear it on your eye.
Me: I JUST NEED IT, I HAVE TO BUY IT, IT’S A NEW COLOR AND SO PRETTY AND I JUST HAVE TO.

Or something.

Anyway, Ben drove my car a few weeks ago and when he put the tape in it made a sound like 500 gears being forced in the wrong direction. And that’s all it’s done since then. It. Has. Been. Rough. Mornings aren’t so bad because I listen to NPR and traffic updates but the afternoons, or anytime Cassidy is in the car, it kills me. Do you know how many times you have to search the entire FM band to find ONE good song? Well, in a three hour drive from here to Bakersfield, I managed to find ONE song. Seriously. One. Not that I even listen to good songs all the time. I mean, I have an 8 year old girl and there’s a lot of Fergie and Gewn Stefani goin’ on. Which I guess isn’t THAT bad. It could be worse. Like the Hanna Montana crap she’s suddenly OMG SO IN LOVE WITH BECAUSE SHE’S SO KEWL!

Ben: I’m thinking a nice head unit, an amp and some front speakers and you’ll be set.
Me: Whatever. As long as I can listen to my Ipod, I’m fine.

We ended up getting an Alpine iDA-X001 head unit built in collaboration with Apple for use with the Ipod. It even shows album art. TeeHee. Small pleasures. We also got some bad ass six inch Alumapro speakers for the front which will require some modification of the kick panel but these speakers almost caused me to have a spontaneous orgasm right there in the sound booth so I’M OKAY WITH THAT. Then Ben made the mistake of asking to listen to them WITH an Alumapro subwoofer and ‘almost’ turned into ‘real’ and we got it too and two Alpine amps to power them all. And they are really cute amps. That was one of them. I’m not sure which speakers that powers. I didn’t even know there were TWO until Ben just told me after laughing at me for not knowing. And blue cabling for all of it. And a capacitor, also Alumapro.

I drop the car off Friday night and can hopefully pick it up Saturday evening. *giddy*

The other big news?! Cassidy is home. Love. I was REALLY missing her the last week or so. That’s partly the reason I hadn’t blogged most of last week. All the posts turned into whiny sob stories of WHAAAA I miss my little 8 year old mouthy BFF/daughter/MiniMe! That lasted a whole 24 hours. Because she came home with pink eye (which they took her to the doctor and ‘treated’ her for so how the fuck does that happen?) and an over sized, incredibly skanky, Bratz Doll she named Cynthia. Cassidy even called her a Hoochie Momma. Thanks for teacheing her that term and letting her think it’s okay to use it in public conversation, ass fuckers.

Anyway, it’s good to have my sidekick home. And I better get to bed because I need to get up, get her to the doctor, then to work before 11:30 when we have a going away lunch for a co-worker.

Night, All!

And now for a tomboy post. If you aren’t into total tomboyishness you might want to just skip to paragraph three.

Saturday morning Ben and I got up bright and early to install my new TSE exhaust on the M3. I’ve put off getting an exhaust on the car for a long time because I really love the sound the Conforti intake makes when you mash down on the accelerator. But Ben promised me that this exhaust was The Best Exhaust and I trust him so I told him to go ahead and get it. And I’m SO GLAD that I got it now. It’s throaty and mean when you really want it to but at idle it’s just a nice quiet rumble and hardly noticeable. It’s just, awesome.

Then, this morning we got up and put the Rogue Engineering short shift kit on and GOOD LORD!! It’s like I’m driving a whole new car. I swear it feels like the shift throw is MAYBE an inch. I can slam between gears so fast and I’m REALLY happy now to have the clutch stop on the car or there’s no way my feet could keep up. The process between clutch in, shift, back on gas is one fluid motion that’s over a second after it’s started. It’s just… amazing.

AMAZING!

And as exhausted as I am, I decided that I’d make a flourless chocolate cake at 10:00PM. heh. So that comes out of the oven in about 20 minutes and them I an SO CRASHING OUT. I’m hoping that Cassidy and I can pick up a letterbox or two tomorrow and start the process of getting our own plated. AAAANNNNDD. She want’s her website back. So I need to do something about that. Eventually.

So I will be able to reference this when I need to here are the specs on the M3 to date:

Specs:
1995 Alpine White M3 with black interior.
5 speed, sunroof, power windows, Vader seats.
107,650 miles

Engine:
Intake: Conforti
Software: Conforti

Drivetrain:
Clutch Stop: UUC v3 Bigboy
Shifter: Rogue Engineering Short Shift Kit

Exhaust:
Cat-back: Twin Silenser Exhaust

Wheels: 17″ BBS RGR W/Diamond black finish
Tires: Kumho Ecsta PSX 255/40/17
Stud Kit: Motor-force 60mm

Suspension:
Front Caster/camber adjustment: Ground Control Race
Front Shocks/Springs: Ground-Control Shortened Struts / GC Custom Valved Koni SA / Eibach 450lb - 2.5″
Rear Shock Mount: Ground-Control
Rear Shocks/Springs: Externally adjustable custom valved Koni SA / Eibach 525LB - 2.5″ / Ground-Control Ride Height Adjuster
Rear Trailing Arm Bushings: Stock w/limiters

Aesthetics / Body:
Spoiler: REMOVED (hopefully replaced soon)
Shift knob: UUC Motorwerks RK5
E-brake: UUC Motorwerks RK5
Headlights: HELLA Angel Eyes HID lights

GOODNIGNT!

After Ben explains to me his want need for some 5 gallon fuel tanks to put on the trailer full of 100 octane fuel. Keep in mind these are NOT the EPA regulated one’s because those one’s “flow to slow”…

Ben: I mean, you’ve heard me complain about having to pump gas and Laguna Seca because of how slow the pumps go.
Me: MmmHmm. So, if you get pulled over and they get taken away FULL OF FUEL, I don’t want to hear you complain.
Ben: PFFT!
Me: What?! That’s what you’d say to me!
Ben: Okay, I’m going to get 20 of them.
Me: What?! Why?!
Ben: I’m going to decorate the entire trailer with them.
Me: You’re going to wake up one day and see that I’ve painted your trailer pink.

He clearly ignored me when I said that which lead to…

Ben: Today is Jason’s birthday.
Me: Nobody told me!
Ben: I didn’t now either!
Me: We didn’t get him anything!
Ben: I asked him what he wanted and he said, “Something small.” He said something like the mirror I have for the track car so I asked him, “Anything more expensive than that”? So he said, “SURE! Rear control arms!!” So I said, “I gotta go!”
Me: HA! HA! We should totally get him a Chinese bride!
Ben: Okay, I’m getting off the phone now.
Me: You can get them online now!
Him: That’s not new, you’ve been able to do that for awhile.
Me: She can do his laundry for him. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving!
Ben: Ooookay, BYE!
Me: Bye!
*click*

When I lived in Bakersfield there were two freeways. One went East and West, the other ran North and South. EASY! If you want to go West you get on one, if you want to go South you get on the other! Bakersfield was designed for blond people.

So before I moved to the Bay Area, Ben sent me a map so that I could start to familiarize myself with the freeway system up here. Because it’s so NOT BUILT FOR BLOND PEOPLE. Like the whole 280/680 thing. Both start (end?) way North and head the same direction but very near my house (where 87 intersects 280) 280 becomes 680 because they are actually the SAME FREAKING ROAD. Like a big ‘U’. So, as you are driving along suddenly 280 South becomes 680 North, except you are still going in the same direction because it doesn’t turn for a few miles. And like, couldn’t you have dumped them both into 101 WHICH GOES THE SAME DIRECTION AS THEM so that they each have a beginning and an end and you aren’t driving along and suddenly realize that you are going TOTALLY THE WRONG WAY. On the WRONG freeway. But you never got OFF THE RIGHT FREEWAY that you began on?!

So okay, to go pick up my mom the other day (after her second car accident in three months) I had to go from our place to Milpitas. It’s 15 miles away, which is half the distance I have to drive to work one way and only have to get on TWO freeways. Thank God. But to get to her place I had to:

*deep breath*

Take 85 South (one exit) to 87 North to 280 South which became 680 North to Calaveras *pick her up* continue up Calaveras which becomes 237 (one exit) get off to drop her off head up Trimble to 101 South (one exit) 87 South to 85 North (one exit) GET OFF THE FREAKING MAZE. And thank GOD for the new google maps app for cell phones because, well because I’m blond! I need to get that damn GPS receiver and Tomtom installed on the phone.

So, 6 separate freeways. SIX! To travel 30 miles round trip! I could have taken 880 which becomes 17 to 85 instead of the 101/87 route but I hate 880, even at 10PM at night, because it’s not as fun in the M3 as 87 is (except the 17/85 interchange with can be VERY fun at night when it’s deserted *evil grin*). Plus, I think 87 is faster.

I swear when I began this post I had a point.

Oh yes! To the people heading to San Francisco on 280 North at around 5:30-ish in the morning today… could you perhaps find another route? There must have been an accident on 101 North because there were more of you than normal and it’s not that I’m complaining (yes, I totally am) but you really threw me off my line. And made me late even though I left the house 5 minutes earlier than normal and was all happy that I’d be getting to work on time for the first time in a month. The 280 stretch to Palo Alto is my Wake Up Run. All windy and sloped and wide and USUALLY EMPTY. I turn the radio down and listen to the intake roar and feel every rock under my suspension. It’s ME time. ME! Not you. Okay?

Thanks!

Okay, yeah that was all.

P.S. - Go read Ben’s M3 blog. I feel bad because I kinda pressured him into using it again by threatening to link to it in every one of my blog posts. TeeHee.

Saturday: Clean, laundry, dinner with The Crew. Cassidy spent most of the DAY running back and forth between our house and the neighbors WITH random neighborhood kids in tow thrashing the house and the backyard and letting the cat out every 10 minutes. Thanks goodness for hardwood floors. I know I complain they are hard to keep clean but they tracked something through the house that I can only describe as “Eww”.

I really wish I had remembered to put the memory card back in the Canon before we left the house for dinner. I actually took the time to wipe the card clean then got sidetracked and didn’t put it IN the camera. *shakes fist at blondness* Dinner was a blast though and I’m still full from the filet.

Sunday: Went to the Top Driver Shootout AutoX at the Marina. This time I remembered to bring the memory card and took 1200 pictures. That’s a lot. I went through and got most of them organized into subfolders by driver/car last night but was too beat from all the walking, sun and fun to get many of them posted. Unfortunately, early in the day I used the circle polarizer on the lens to take a shot of an Alpina and didn’t take it off for the actions shots so a lot of them came out dark and will need a bit of PS manipulation to lighten them up. I should have listened to Ben and gotten a bit closer to the cars but after watching a few of them spin past cones, it’s not a comfortable feeling planting yourself right in the path of the cars. But he’s right, that IS where you get the best shots. Eventually I want to pick up a better zoom lens but right now I think I need to focus on getting the settings down and making sure I have the correct filter on the lens. heh

Today: They changed our productivity rates at work and instead of getting LOWER numbers I’m like, WAY OVER. I hit 155% at 10:00AM and have been having a hard time motivating myself to get anything done since then. Usually I count down the minutes till 2:30 but today I’m willing them to take longer.

Cassidy got in trouble at school (talking in class) last week and didn’t give us TWO papers the teacher required us to sign so she’s managed to dig herself a pretty deep hole. That means I have to stay after class to talk to the teacher today. I hate that. I feel like I’m the one in trouble and there’s that feeling of impending doom of when I get home and have to tell my mom. Except I DON’T have to tell my mom (well, I will because I’ll call and be all “Remember that time I was supposed to bring you a note home to sign and I didn’t tell you and you got really mad and grounded me? Well I didn’t tell you this but I called you mean names when I got in my room and rolled my eyes 180 degrees in my head and I’M SO SORRY BECAUSE YOU WERE SO RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”).

Instead, I have to BE the mom. And that’s SO MUCH WORSE because I’m totally not the disciplinary one in the relationship. That generally falls to Ben. He’s very good at sitting down and explaining things and making sure Cassidy understands consiquences and why punishment is necessary. I just get frustrated. It’s become pretty clear though that Cassidy has learned to manipulate that situation and will come to me instead of Ben if she’s trying to “pull something off”. I need to stop being such a pushover and start putting my foot down more because the only person I’m hurting by NOT doing that is her. It just kills me to see her upset or that look on her face when she knows that she’s disappointed me because I can tell it hurts her and it REALLY hurts me. Like, makes my heart physically ache.

See, they should use that as ammunition for abstinence and birth control for teenage girls. Diapers and sleepless nights and 10 extra pounds of baby fat: Cake. Having your heart broken by doing the right thing when they lie to you: TORTURE.

Last Friday Ben’s motor went into limp mode just before the crest of turn 5 at Thunderhill (think, mini corkscrew-ish a la Laguna Seca). He made it back into the pits and a quick scan threw a code pointing to cylinder 3. After pulling the plug you could see that a valve was bent. After a few ignition bumps it was clear it was stuck open. Fuck.

We didn’t know if it was open far enough to be tapping the piston though. Well, after wrestling the vanos for two days, he and Ivan got it off. Piston 3 took damage. So. That sucks. We thought maybe we could get off with new valves, springs, etc but now at LEAST that piston is going to have to be pulled and that’s sending it close to the edge of the used/crate motor vs. rebuild of this one.

This means the end of track days for probably the rest of the season. I feel bad. Ben loves to drive. It’s a passion. It’s a release. The fact that he’s not going to get to do that for ahwile sucks. I’m sorry, honey.

I’ll be in Bakersfield this weekend for a big Reid Family Shindig. Weather.com is saying 104° for Saturday and 106° for Sunday. Ugh. Ben won’t go to B-town if it’s over 100° and I don’t blame him a bit. My dad and step-mom are driving in for the party then getting the heck outta there. SO! I’ll have some free time down there if anybody wanted to get together, say, Sunday afternoon.

I wasn’t sure how to start the story of my new car. So, I’m starting from the very beginning. The first time I met Ben was online. On BakersfieldStreetRacing.com (BSR) to be exact…

*crazy wavy fade to flashback*

I was a moderator at the time and this n00b named Dinanify came on the forum and started a big stink. A couple of the local guys didn’t like Dinanify because they thought he might have a bigger penis faster car than them so they decided to talk a little whole lotta shit. I told the boys to play nice and closed the thread. Dinanify AIMed me to tell me that he wasn’t offended and that he had been laughing the whole time. Dinanify was cool!

Not long after we had a Christmas Toy drive to donate them to a homeless shelter. My friend, Crazy Redhead, assured me that Dinanify was HAWT and asked him to park his car by our booth. I was far too cold and far too busy to notice anything other than the leather jacket and shoes. They were nice shoes. Dinanify liked to shop. Dinanify was really cool!!

In late January I finally met Dinanify face to face out at the street races one night. He told me his name was Ben. That’s about all I remember because there was a lot of people, it was dark, goddamn cold, and I had been drinking 80 proof Rootbeer Schnapps in Dr. Pepper all night (original drink created by me and crazy Redhead known as Doctored Pepperâ„¢).

A few weekends later Crazy Redhead told me I HAD to take a ride in his car. It was a German car. How cool could it possibly be? It wasn’t even a V8!! But I was convinced as soon as I saw all the pretty buttons. So. Pretty. Ben raced a built Mustang and lost by half the width of a fly’s back leg. I was impressed! What was this German car that drove so well?

I did some research when he logged onto the BSR’s IRC chat (a boy with a pretty car with lots of buttons that was fast AND HE’S A GEEK *swoon*) and they started talking about M3’s. Not too long after he told us he worked at Nvidia. That isn’t really pertinent, but HE WORKED AT NVIDIA!!! It was not conceivable to me why women didn’t FLOCK to this man. As a matter of fact, he was having girl issues. Apparently some stupid girl was giving him the run around. (Aside to the girl: I don’t remember your name, but THANK YOU for being an idiot and letting him slip through your fingers!!)

*cue film to 3-4 months post divorce*

I wasn’t long before Ben wasn’t the funny guy with the crazy German car and the awesome shopping skills… he was the HOT funny guy with the crazy German car and the awesome shopping skills. And I noticed. And apparently he noticed me too because one weekend he drove into town and took me out on a date. In his crazy German car. And the first corner he took at about 45 miles per hour and I peed myself a little. Luckily he did this BEFORE we ate because he didn’t know then of my weak tummy.

The next weekend after about 10 corners at 45 miles per hour I looked at him straight in the face and told him, “YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY LET ME OUT OF THIS CAR YOU AN INSANE DRIVER.” He swore to me that M3’s were not like American cars… So to prove to me that he wasn’t crazy he took me to a long straight backroad, took the car to about 100 MPH, slammed on the brakes and came to a complete and controlled stop in about 2 feet.

So that was my introduction to M3’s. Since then at different times they’ve made me scream with laughter, cry out of frustration and throw up.

Not long after we went on that first date, we shared our first kiss in his M3. Top down, cool fall evening, millions of stars in the sky… [/mushy stuff]

*jump back to present time*

About two weeks ago, I told Ben I was ready for my own M3. After he peed himself, we started looking. Last Thursday, one day before I thought I’d get the car, Ben drove into the drive way in my M3 to surprise me. MY M3. And it was love at first sight.

Thank you, honey. Thank you for being so patient in the search, for finding me the perfect car, and most of all for the thought and planning it took to surprise me with it. After our conversation Monday, I look back and I realize just how much that really meant to me… and what it meant to you to be able to do it for me. (k)