Small successes add up to a good day

Gave myself a great haircut yesterday morning. I'm getting better at it all the time and let me tell you it takes some courage to hack away at the back without being able to see what you're doing. It's kind of funny to remember how horrified I was the first time I had it cut several years ago, after decades of really long hair. I cried that day and I only took six inches off. Now I cut it myself, so short that it doesn't even hit my shoulders and in another six weeks I'll be annoyed that it got too long again. I'm still always amazed when it turns out so well.

Inspired by my success I decided to tackle the gas cap problem on my car. It has one of these locking gates on it that you pop open with a little lever inside the car. The trouble is it hasn't worked for over a year. Getting gas became a two man operation. I had to hold the lever up while someone else opened the gate. When I wasn't driving much it wasn't a big deal because I only had to tank up every couple of months and I just paid a little more to go to a full service station.

I would have been happy to keep doing that, unfortunately they don't seem to have one of those here so I've been reduced to asking passersby to help me open the gate. Since I'm now filling up once a week, it's been rather embarrassing so I took my out my trusty toolbox, figured out how to get the gate open myself (I used a stick to hold up the lever) and fixed the gate.

Well fixed might be the wrong word. I figured out the stupid catch mechanism wasn't working right so I removed the catcher from the gate itself. I even got to use my ratchet thingy. So my gas tank isn't locked anymore but it felt pretty macha to figure it out and I can stop for gas any old time I want now. Thus cheered by this success I decided to finally get out the house and check out the local bar.

It turned out to be a pretty cool place. You have to join as a member to be allowed in so I trotted down with my five bucks and signed up. I was there early but there were a few regulars around. People were nice and chatted me up and I like the room. The band was doing a sound check and the acoustics are good but I didn't stay. I don't usually do Saturday nights out but I'm looking forward to checking out the local musicians at their weekday open mike/blues jam thing. Appears it will be a good place to get an occasional dose of live music and human contact.