May 27, 2005:  SCREW HYUNDAI!!!!!!!!!

May 25, 2005:  What an awesome weekend!  Lisa and I finally went to see Fever Pitch and even went out for drinks after at a really cool bar in Amherst called The Moan and Dove.  Not only does it have a great atmosphere but is has the best selection of incredible beers we've ever seen.  A couple of people I work with talk about it all the time and this week one of them was going to be there so he invited us to stop by.  We actually felt like real people again.  Lisa had a couple of chocolate stouts and was feeling it for sure, I had a couple of wheat beers but don't remember the name.  We will definetely be checking that place out again real soon.  I got the Sirius Satellite radio installed in Lisa's car last week and it is everything we hoped it would be and more.  The reception is pretty good, a little on the digital side sometimes but still far better than FM even on a good day.  The selection of music, talk, comedy, and everything else seems endless, I don't know how we went without it for so long.  We drove around in Lisa's car all weekend and I totally got adicted to it, so much in fact that I went out and picked one up for the Element on Monday.  It took a while to get them installed nice and clean but overall I am very happy with our choice of hardware.  We got the Sirius Starbase, their are a bunch of options but this is the one we liked the best.  I can't wait to go on a road trip with it, perfect for trips up north!  So on a completely different note, Lisa has been having some problems with the power locks and windows in her car lately, she had it looked at a while ago and they said it would take about 8 hours for them to fix it.  She made numerous appointments to get it done but they kept dropping the ball, parts didn't come in, parts weren't ordered, that kind of crap.  Well last week the windows stopped working for good.  Gregg found a TSB from Hyundai for the problem, it said that a design flaw caused water to get into the connectors to the door wiring and caused corrosion.  I took off the driver's door on Sunday to take a look, I figured I could clean up some corrosion right?  Well I could if that was the only problem, it was so bad that the pins in the connector have disolved away, it was as green as the Statue of Liberty too.  So I called the dealer on Monday and tried to make an appointment to get it fixed, they said that we would have to pay because it's 4k miles over the bumper to bumper warranty period.  The part of this that gets me is that they diagnosed the problem, it was due to a design flaw, they dropped the ball numerous times, now they won't fix it?  Eff them is what I say, I called Hyundai customer service to complain, they are sending us back to the dealer to have it looked at yet again, then they will decide if they are going to fix it for us, otherwise we have to pay the $950 to replace the wiring.  To be honest I think I am being extremely calm through all of this but we'll see how long that lasts when Lisa brings it to the dealer again tomorrow and they give her a hard time like they always do.  They are real nice on the phone with me but then they treat her like crap, that's not going to fly this time.  Hopefully they repair it and make us happy, either way we will probably never buy another Hyundai again and I'll make sure to rub that in their face if things go down the wrong road later this week.  I'm off to NH this weekend to pick up my new kayak and do some wheelin with Gregg and the rest of the guys.  It looks like the weather could go either way at this point, hopefully it's not raining, the trails will be muddy enough without any more rain.  I'll try to get some pictures and even some video too, we got a DVD burner this week so we can finally get video off of our new digital camcorder, we haven't been using it much because the only way to watch the video was to plug the camera into the TV.  I'll be updating the ATV Log to the left when I get back next week.  Everyone have a great holiday weekend! 

May 17, 2005:  Hey again, not much going on at work today so I figured I would do a quick update.  If you are having a great day then I suggest you read this later, not a lot of great stuff to say really.  The kayak that we bought for Lisa two weeks ago is being returned due to a defect.  We tried and tried to adjust it so she was totally comfortable but it would never quite get there.  After looking into it further I realized that seat, thigh braces, bulkheads, seat adjusters and foot braces were mounted in the wrong place.  After getting into it with Perception for about a week through multiple emails they worked with our dealer and we are getting a new boat, a new 2005 too.  It's basically the same as the one we have now but with a slightly different seat and in a different color.  Lisa is pretty bummed because she really loved the color, I did too but would rather see us get a 2005 model for the price we paid for this one, even if it means settling on a different color.  I have to drop it off today and they will order the new one, it should be here in a few weeks.  My boat came in today though, the dealer up in NH called to tell me, I can't wait to get up there and pick it up, it will be a week from this Friday before I can make the trip.  The battery in Lisa's car died last night, the Jiffy Lube guys tested it a couple weeks ago and said it was bad, I blew it off until she called me last night on her way home when random electrical things in the car stopped working, like the windows.  I ran out to get a new battery just in case she got stranded on the way home and I needed to go out and fix it.  Luckily she made it home, disaster averted.  So last weekend some jerkoff cut in front of me on I91 in Vermont, in a section of road that is so torn up they have signs to warn you about following too close, and threw up a handfull of pavement that broke the Element's windshield.  That topped off the fact that someone rear-ended it a couple weeks ago while parked and just took off.  Well, this morning on my way into work, some eff'n punks in the hood were throwing rocks at cars and landed two nice ones right in the driver's side.  At this rate I'll be lucky if the thing lasts the year.  We are so out of here next year! 

May 15, 2005:  The weekend is over, honestly it felt more like a week than a weekend.  Lisa has another rough week coming up so she stayed around the house to study.  I drove up to NH to work on the Rincon a little and hang out with Kevin and the guys.  I got in late Friday night and stopped by his place for a bonfire and some cold ones.  Fortunately or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it, one of the guys that hangs out works for Budweiser.  That means that when we party we ALWAYS drink Budweiser products.  I guess I can't complain, I haven't actually had to pay for any of it.  We were out by the fire until almost 2am, it was 34 degrees when I got back to the house.  It's weird because down here in MA it's Spring, grass is green, leaves are coming out, up there, grass is still brown, it's cold, and the trees are still bare.  Sometimes it feels like a different world up there, which I think is why I have so much fun when I go.  We were going to do some wheeling today but I'm not 100% sure the carburetor on the Rincon is tuned correctly and didn't want to chance it.  Besides that it was barely 45 degrees and raining all day.  My father is going to drop the Rincon off for a friend of his to tune it for me, he has always worked on our other machines.  This way I'll be sure it's perfect for my next trip.  Saturday we worked on Sean's motorcycles a little, tried to get the carburetor tuned on the chopper with no luck, and that night hung out at Kevin's place and drank a few more cold ones.  It was a pretty quiet weekend.  I'm on call this week so it's going to be two more weeks before I can make another trip up.  By then my kayak should be in so I can take it back here with me.  Hopefully Lisa will be able to join me that weekend but finals will be the week after so I doubt she will be able make it.  I guess that's it for now, have a good week.

May 8, 2005:  We had another great weekend here in good old MA.  Lisa worked on Saturday and I stayed home to get things done.  I made the weekly dump run, cleaned the house, washed the dog, and got started working on my brother's mountain bike.  He dropped it off on Friday so I could overhaul it, add disc brakes and give it a tune up.  I had to order a couple more parts and some tools to get it back on the road, they should be in early this week.  Lisa and I got to hang out Saturday night, it was a quiet night but we were together, which is more than we do normally.  Sunday we drove to CT to check out Collinsville Canoe and Kayak, hoping to find a new boat for Lisa.  This place was crazy, they had at least 500 boats in stock, probably more.  Lisa test fit about 8 boats and settled on a Perception Avatar 15.5 in the blue/granite fade color.  She was the most comfortable in this boat out of all of them, which is awesome because she really didn't fit in her old boat all that well.  They were great boats to start us out but now it's time to move on to something that fits us better.  The boats these days are much more customizable than they were back when our old ones were made, you can really make the boat fit you perfectly.  I got to see a 2005 version of the boat I ordered last weekend, I only got to test fit an older one so I hadn't seen one in person yet.  I can't wait for it to come in, it's a good looking boat.  The racks on the Element need to be adjusted to fit the new boats, the hulls are shaped completely different than our old boats.  We had to drive home with the new one on backwards so it wouldn't flop around between the two saddles, it looked pretty funny.  The picture doesn't do it justice because the flash washes out the granite portion of the boat, it's actually speckled with blue in the center then grey toward the front.  My boat should be in by the end of next week, I'll get pictures up of both then.  Back to the grind tomorrow, probably be another long week at work, Lisa has a couple more bad weeks coming up at school, starting tomorrow.  I am going to try to take the Rincon up north for tune it after installing the new accessories and take it for a quick ride, that will work out well, I'll be out of her hair for the weekend.  Have a great week, summer will be here before we know it.

May 3, 2005:  Another week of rain closer to Summer here in MA.  The weekend was mostly a bust, Lisa hung around the house doing homework and I hung around the house doing, well, nothing I guess.  I did some cleaning and whatnot on Saturday but that was about it.  I wanted to tune the Rincon with the new Quiet Core installed in the exhaust, which by the way made a huge difference in the sound, but the rain didn't really stop all day so I sat in the garage and stared at it instead.  I decided last week that I was going to try to sell my kayak and upgrade to a new, larger one that fits me better.  Someone at work was going to buy it but that fell through, so I laid down the $0.97 at Walmart to buy a For Sale sign to put on it in the front yard.  I threw it out there on some lawn chairs in the rain and had a few people stop by to ask about it but no solid takers either Saturday or Sunday.  One of the people that asked about it on Sunday left a note on the door yesterday asking if we were interested in selling both of them.  Lisa said she would love to get a new boat that fit her better too so we went for it.  They gave us just what we wanted for them and seemed happy to do so, it was a very fair price.  We loaded them up on the Element this morning and I dropped them off for the guy today at lunch.  This is the last time they will be on the roof of the Element, Isis had to get in the picture too, no matter what side I took it from or what angle, she walked over and stood in front of the truck, weird.  As silly as it may sound, I was a little sad to see them go, we've had them for 3 years and my parents had them for 2 years before that.  It's cool to know that they are going to people that will enjoy them, and that they are staying together too.  I sat in a few boats at a local dealer on Saturday and found one that fit me very well, the Perception Eclipse 17.  One has been ordered for me but it will be a few weeks until it arrives.  I ordered it from Wilderness Sports which is actually back home in Gorham, NH.  They were able to make the best price and because they are in the 'Live Free or Die' state of NH, no tax!  Now we just have to find the time to get out and test fit some boats for Lisa, not like she will have time to use the thing this summer anyway, but just in case we'd like to have it around.  I'll have to make the trip up to Gorham to pick it up as soon as it comes in, I guess they don't have all that much space to store boats and at 17'2" long it takes up quite a bit of it.  I'm hoping that while I'm up there I can get some riding in too, the Rincon will be with me for sure!  Lisa got through another week of hell at school, pretty soon we'll be able to count the number of those left on one hand, time sure is flying by.  We are going to try to get out and see that movie we were trying to see three weeks ago, Lisa doesn't have as much stuff to do this weekend so she has it penciled in for Saturday night, I'm pretty psyched.  My brother is dropping his mountain bike off at "Jay's Fix Anything Shop" Friday for a tune up and to get some disc brakes installed, at least it will give me something to do.  I guess that's it for today, oh yeah, my cool screwdriver came in and its way cooler than I thought it would be, I'll get a picture for next time, later.