Hand me a 9/16″
The adventure continues…
And good golly, look how happy I am!
So happy, I’m ready to dive in and remove the carburetor… I love working on my car!!!!!
So happy to dive in and even get a little dirty!
This was Jason’s view when I asked him for a 9/16″ socket. (He got to be Toolwench’s tool wench for a little while!) It’s also one of my favorite pics of the entire adventure:
He was marvelling that I fit so easily under the car without having to jack it up.
I really, really, really, really, really love working on my car. Really. I do. Ain’t it obvious yet?
Engine Swap, part 2
It was nothing but fun… Okay, so there was some hard work involved… and a few broken nails…
In this next pic, there’s a few things to notice. You can’t really tell what I’m doing, but I’m installing the water pump bolts on the new engine. Of note, there’s my hubby’s Corvette. (Well, it’s mine, too. I just don’t drive it as often as he does. Hell, half the time I want to take it for a spin, I discover that he’d already left with it!) Also, notice the box that clearly reads “Hooker”? I had a bit of an oddyssey with those headers.
‘Cause y’know… I’m just a dumb girl. I dunno anything about cars.
According to the catalog, they’d work on my new engine. (I’ve got Dart heads.) But when Jason and I pulled them out of the box, he noticed that they didn’t match up too well. The ports on the heads were wide while the ports of the headers were tall. I ended up taking the headers back and bringing a template of the head ports. The guy behind the counter pulled out three sets and none of them fit right. Some were coated, some were painted, but no matter what I chose, I’d have to do some grinding in order to make them fit.
And…well…the girl in me told me to get the pretty ones. They happened to be Hedmans. You’ll see them later…and me grinding on them.
Look at how dainty and pretty my hands are… I use a special mixture of lotions… called antifreeze, oil, grease and dirt!
And I hadn’t even gotten underneath the car yet!
This was only the first day, but I’d made a lot of progress for only having worked an hour or so.
Back from vacation!
I got quiet the last couple weeks because I was in England. I’d hoped to post something while I was gone, but obviously, those plans fell through.
I’m in the process of culling the photos from the trip, so as soon as I have, I’ll post some here, of course.
Needless to say, I had a fantastic time…even got to watch a to-scale trebuchet be shot on the grounds of a real Medieval Castle!
On the plane ride home, I decided to make a list (mostly from memory) of all the castles that Jason and I have visited. Our grand total (that I could recall) was 83. That doesn’t include abbeys, priories, cathedrals, stone circles and various other pre-historic sites. Good golly, we’ve seen a lot. And I hope to see many, many more!
Dungeon Majesty was AWESOME!
I was all set to post the next bit about the engine swap, but I really gotta yack about last night. Oh my goodness, I had such a fantastic time at the premier of Dungeon Majesty episodes 4, 5, and 6. I was in episode 5, along with the other half of Ashleigh Raine. Mystika and Devastina interviewed us while we were at the Romantic Times Booklover Convention 2005 and I had no idea what the finished product would look like.
I was wearing that bizarre swirl dress during the interview and horridly nervous, but I have to say, I didn’t appear to be as frazzled as I actualy was. I think some of that might be great editing and some might be luck plus a little bit of acting skill on my part.
Anyhow, the event was held at the Vine Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, just west of Vine.
Jen couldn’t make the drive (it’s quite a ways) and Jason was more interested in finishing his novel, so I took my next best best friend, Eddie. In fact, he was the Best Man at Jason and my wedding–which was held literally around the corner on the same block as the Vine Theatre.
I also took a funny picture of him–which he prefers–but that one turned out super-blurry. I don’t know what the deal is with my camera…
Anyhow, Mystika was in the ticket booth and she introduced me to Riley–their Dungeon Master.
As you can see in the background of all these pictures, these people are definitely my crowd. I’m not a hardcore fan, but I have the heart of one. See, if I truly embraced my fan-ness, I’d have no time to write!
Eons ago, when Jen and I first tried Dungeons & Dragons, we were probably about thirteen years old. During that very same time period, we were living in Northern California and for a few days, visiting Southern California. During our foray into Hollywood, she and I really, really, really, really, really, really had to pee and began going into every doorway, looking for a restroom. Obviously, the tatoo parlors wanted nothing to do with a couple of thirteen year olds. The first X-rated theatre also told us to go away. But the second theatre… Why, the nice guy behind the counter took pity on us and let us use the bathroom.
I hadn’t realized that this theatre was that theatre until I walked through the door, to the right and then saw the stairs. Talk about a silly, random, unrelated to Dungeon Majesty, blast from the past that I’d’ve kicked myself if I hadn’t gotten a picture of.
Okay, now, onto the show… I hope it gets posted to the Dungeon Majesty website soon. I can’t wait to see it again.
The first episode was a sort of live action version of part of their D&D adventure.
The next episode was shot entirely at the RT Convention and they manage to really capture the essence of the experience–all the costumes, the romance, the cover models, the great vibe to be had by all. That was awesome. Jen and I were interviewed and spliced in with authors such as Angela Knight, Morgan Hawke and Sherilyn Kenyon. WaHooooo! And as I said earlier, aside from the silly dress, I didn’t come off as too much of an idiot.
During intermission, they raffled off a bunch of books and stuff–including Ashleigh Raine’s <a href=”http://ashleighraine.com/books/loverstalisman”>LOVER’S TALISMAN</a>. Way cool.
The last episode was comprised of fun featurettes by each of the characters. I loved every inch of that!
And then I finally got to have my picture taken with Mystika and Devastina. …And that’s where I came off like an idiot! When my eyes were closed, they were looking at the camera. When my eyes were opened, they were looking away. Oh well. I tried.
I’ll continue with the engine swap stuff shortly. I just really enjoy sharing this stuff!
Engine Swap, part 1
ot that I’m new to the whole engine swapping experience, but this was the first time I’ve ever taken pictures during the process.
So, without further ado, here’s the “Before” shot of the engine compartment of my 1968 Mustang (which I’ve had for about 13 years and plan to keep forever–maybe even be buried in it!)…
There’s not much to say about it other than when I’m done, it’ll look almost the same–only much faster!!!!
Remember, my car is not a show car. She’s a plain Jane daily driver and therefore, I need not wear a lab coat and sterlize everything. Hell, I can accidentally scratch paint, leave wires out of looms and use bolts that don’t match if I want to.
Of special hinky driver note, yes, there’s a rag plugging one of the holes in the firewall on the right hand side. It’d be plugging both holes, but it has fallen. No, this is not stock and yes I prefer the rag…otherwise, I’d have to get off my lazy ass, measure the holes and hunt down grommets–waaaaay too much work for a driver! I’ll bet there are several car enthusiasts fuming right now. Sorry guys, I’m just a dumb girl. I dunno anything about cars.
This was day one and my hands were still clean:
I dunno why I put the bandana over my hair. It seemed like a good idea at the time even though I had yet to be in a position to need my hair covered. Whatever. I was working on my car, for goodness sake, not going to a gala.
It was my job to get everything off of the engine so that it’d be ready to pull over the weekend. I started easy: Disconnect the battery, the ignition, pull the alternator and set it aside, empty the radiator, pull the heater hoses, pull the radiator hoses…and most importantly, try not to make too much of a mess because I was going to end up crawling around under the car at some point and there are few things worse than automotive fluids to get in your hair…thus perhaps why I put the bandana on my head prematurely.
Derailed!
And I’d thought the shirt patterns were tops of my list for when I got my sewing room shovelled out. Ha! Instead, I …uh… ‘merged’ a shirt and dress from the late 60s/early 70s and created a coat. Perfect for spring!
I really wish I had more to report. Life’s gotten busy, but mundane and boring. By the end of this month, I’m sure I’ll be wishing for mundania, but in the mean time, I hope all is well with everyone!
Learning about myself
Here I go again having recently had something happen but yet I was lame about blogging. I honestly have no idea why I do that. It’s not like stuff’s a big secret or I’m afraid or whatever. I mean, I’ll shamelessly wear my geese with stripes shirt in public. Hell, ya’ll should see what I wore over the weekend at the two book signings in Northern California.
[Wow! I just accidentally segued into what I’d set out to blog! COOL!]
There’ll be pictures up soon at ashleighraine.com but I’m not quite ready to post them yet. They need to be resized and stuff. Plus, I’m digging out from the pile of other, older updates that still need to be done.
Anyway, over this last weekend, Jennifer and I (and our great friend Donna) went up to Northern California for book signings in Monterey and Santa Clara. Special thanks to Borders Express because they’re awesome for having such a huge group of authors signing those two days!
Jen and I used those two signings as an excuse to stay at my parents’ house and visit with as many of our old friends as were around.
I could go on and on and on and on about how much fun we had at the signings and getting caught up with friends and all that excitement, but that’s not what I’d intended this blog entry to be about.
I wanna write about what I learned. I was rather surprised, too.
Y’know how you’ve got friends that you don’t see all the time, but whenever you talk to them it’s like you’d never lost touch…aside from all the ‘so whatcha been up to?’ catching up stuff? Then there’s the friends that are always around, but they tend to call you before you call them… And then there’s the friends that you always call first–whether it’s because you need their help or they’re just the person you need to talk to right then.
Well, all of the friends Jen and I were with fall into all of those categories. Our friendship range was diverse and we were all wishing the whole crowd was there, but happy with the crowd who made it.
Anyhow, at the end of the first night, my old friend Carrie was making a run up to the corner store for a few things and in passing, I’d thanked her for letting me tag along because I needed to “decompress”. She questioned what I meant and I replied that there are certain expectations of me when I’m out with Jen, etc. and that when I’m out with Carrie, those expectations aren’t the same.
At the time, I didn’t really ponder that thought, but later on, I totally did…And started to realize just how many personalities I have in certain situations–which got me realizing that it’s not conscious…and that they go along with the company I keep.
From there, I realized that I hang out with the people I hang out with–when I hang out with them–because of what they bring out in me. Seriously, if I want girltalk, I call Jen. If I want tomboy, crawling around at the junkyard, I call Eddie, the best man at Jason and my wedding. Obviously, I choose to hang out with my husband Jason the most, but still. I found the whole thing rather fascinating. Just in those three examples, there were three almost completely different ‘me’s. They all intersect, but are not limited to the same list of traits–some are louder than others.
Everyone probably does the same stuff without realizing it, but then I started wondering if there were facets of me I should put forth more often; which ones do I like more? Would it work to mix those facets…say, drag Jen to a junkyard or girltalk with Eddie? Probably not. And that’s what makes them unique and my friendships with them so wonderful. I dunno. To me, discovering this kind of stuff about myself is fascinating.
Of course, from now on, I’m gonna be analyzing the characters in my writing to see if they’re true to life in how they operate with other characters in their stories…see how they mesh and dive a helluva lot further into what makes them who they are and why. I geek on characters already, but this quantification will only make me geek harder and I think that’s awesome.
Dungeon Majesty!
At the time, I hadn’t realized what I’d gotten myself into–other than a lot of fun–but as half of Ashleigh Raine, I was interviewed for a show called Dungeon Majesty.
After receiving an email about a screening they’re doing on March 23rd in Hollywood, I checked out their site again…it had been awhile since last I’d visited. In fact, it’d been so long that I didn’t remember what it looked like last time I was there.
Anyhow, on this trip, I discovered two of their episodes and zowie-wowie, I can’t wait to see the other ones. They’ve got something like 8 done. Only 2 are up on their site, though.
All I gotta do now is start planning my outfit for the screening next month. You see, when they interviewed me, I was wearing the infamous swirl dress and I need to make sure I’m wearing something as…uh…stellar.
Or at least barbaric or magical!
Jason and I in Locus Magazine!
A few posts down the list, I mentioned that I was pouting and sighing because my issue of Locus had yet to arrive…
Well, it finally showed up and I scanned the shot of myself and my wonderful hubby, Jason Stoddard!
And what a fitting shot for the first one I’ve put up here on my lovely blog…
Getting louder, I hope
Yes, this is going to start as an apology post because I’ve been so quiet lately. I assure you much has been happening…
For starters, as of January 13th [yes, that was a Friday the 13th!] I have an agent. Deidre Knight of the Knight Agency.
I have no idea why I didn’t announce it sooner…even in a two line post. Perhaps, I wanted to spend more time on it. I dunno.
Anyhow, she picked up Ashleigh Raine and by default, me, too. Pretty nifty stuff. We really dug in and the ride is full of excitement so far.
I’ve picked up a project I’d dropped for awhile. Y’know…having an agent now, I feel like my hope has been somewhat renewed. See, there are only so many rejection letters plus comments that I can get before the “almost there”–as the pros excitedly say–turns into “that’s nice, but it still means no.” I was starting to reach that point…and that’s doggone sad.
But this blog has never been about ranting and grumping and various icky stuff like that. I’ve tried to keep it about nifty life-happenings…things I’ve learned, etc.
So, that being said, let me get back to having hope and picking up that project I’d dropped. Oh. My. God. Lots of fun. I hope I can keep up the pace!
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