Battle Scars

As I mentioned in the comments on the latest car stuff post, I took Kutcher to get an alignment done, and then bought a whole new set of tires. The guy at the alignment shop told me that most of the front end could use updating (truly not surprising, I think most of it is the factory original stuff) and the motor mounts also look pretty bad. Back when I'd had the new engine put in, I'd bought a full set of mounts, since they're almost always shot when you pull an old engine out, but the guy who put it in told me the old ones looked like they were in good shape, so I had a full set already. They were the cause of the injuries shown here!!!

Most all the damage came from working on the rear engine mount, which was the last one I did, and the worst of the lot!!! First up, I was under the car, and was trying to slide into a better position, and I slid my head right into one of the jack stands, hard!!! My wife, up in the house, heard me on that one!!! I wondered if I was bleeding, but wasn't going to check with my greasy hands. Of course, it was still hot out, and I was sweating, but couldn't tell if it was sweat or blood rolling down!!! When I was wrapping up and came up to get cleaned off, I asked if there was any blood there, and my wife said there wasn't, but it did leave a mark!!!

Not long after I'd banged my head, I was trying to get something moved using a crow bar. Don't remember exactly what I was doing, but I remember what happened!!! I was under the car again, and the crow bar came back and hit me right on the bridge of my glasses, and knocked them off. It rang my bell, and the first thing I wondered was if it broke my glasses. Fortunately, it didn't. When I got cleaned up, I checked that area as well, and right between my eyes I've got a bump that persists to this day. I'd wondered if it would blacken one or both of my eyes, and today it showed up!!!

Surrogate son saw how my right arm was all scratched up, and asked if Sidney had got me!!! Younger son noted that one area looked a little like angry eyes and a mouth!!!

And there's a triangle or anarchy sign just a little up from there!!!

And, as always, I have to post pictures of the old mounts!!! First up is the first one I did, the front mount. As you can see, it had a pretty big crack or tear on the engine side, and smaller on the other side. It was the simplest one to do, but of course, a complication had to arise!!! It has two bolts that come up through the cross member, and one cross bolt. When I went to install the new one, the back bolt hole stripped out. I was able to find a nut with the correct thread at the Home Depot, which I picked up that night, and installed the next day. Of course, it was between the two sides of the mount and below the radius of the round part, so it was near impossible to get an actual wrench on it, but I managed to get it.

Next is the one from the front of the engine, on the passenger side. This one looked to be the most intact, but it has the circular area in the middle (this is from underneath) and some people say this mount has a hydraulic dampener in it. If it did have fluid, I never saw any sign of it, but the circular area is damaged. Three bolts on the body, two into a frame rail, one into the fender arch, and a bolt down into the engine, and two nuts on studs from the bottom of the same part, most easily to get at from below.

Third is the other end, the transmission end on the driver's side. It has cracks in the rubber on either side of the cross pin. It mounts to the frame rail with two bolts going down, and two going into the side, and has a cross bolt holding it onto the bracket on the transmission. The mount itself is pretty straightforward, but it's right below the air filter box, and the battery tray, so those had to come out. Of course, there was a bit of corrosion under the battery, so I took a bit of time to clean out and neutralize the acid, and wire brush off a good amount of the rust. Since I had the battery tray mount and the hold down out, I gave them a coat of paint.

The fourth and final mount, on the rear of the engine came last. This is where things got really fun!!! Remember the part where I said I'd bought a set of mounts before I had the engine put in??? Well, when I dug them out, there were only three of the four. This was the missing one, and as soon as I discovered it wasn't there, I ordered one. I had the thought that maybe the guy who put the engine in had used this one after all, but when I got it out, that doesn't appear to have been the case!!! The rubber around the cross bolt was completely gone on the one side, and not even connected on the other!!!

It was on Thursday that I'd been putting on the transmission side mount, and hadn't gotten this one yet. Right about the time I was finishing off the transmission mount, it arrived, so I went ahead and got started on it.

It has three studs that go through the cross member, and one bolt from the bottom. Not too hard to get loose, but then it has to slide up, and the side towards the engine is wider than the bracket on the engine, so it has to twist and go to the side to get out. Got it out without too much difficulty. Also, the longest stud came loose and made things go even easier. When I went to put the new one in, it didn't want to go. Got it sideways, past the engine bracket, and was trying to get it straightened and dropped into the mounting holes, and it didn't want to go. It goes over the steering rack, and the stud wasn't making it to the other side.

I worked on it until around an hour after the sun had gone down, and finally called it for the day. That night I watched every video I could find on it, and also came up with the idea that, since the transmission side and front mount both had a cross bolt holding them in place, I could pull both of those and get a better range of motion out of the engine. I did that the next day, and also loosened the bolts holding the sub frame on to try and get more range of motion out of it. I messed with it all afternoon, and into the evening, and didn't get any further.

My wife had the thought that Cheese Ball (the guy with the huge afro most famous from his starring appearance in the “Bold and Brash” clip) may be able to help, and she got in touch with surrogate son to see if he could get in touch with him. He works at a rod shop, and has done a lot of general mechanic work. Surrogate son said he called and messaged him like 20 times, and he finally contacted me late, maybe around midnight, and said he had good news and... neutral news. He can come and help out, but it will be around 2 AM!!! Said he'd keep me posted. Called around 2, and said he was with him, and they'd be along in a bit. I think he called again later, saying it was going to be later, but they were on their way. Ended up being around 4 AM when they got here. Cheese says he's done several of these mounts on various Toyotas and Scions, the trick is to have small hands!!! He takes a look under the hood, and says it has way more room than on the Scion XB, it should be easy!!! I think that jinxed it.

I was out there helping him for a couple hours, when surrogate son came out (I think he got a nap in) and I handed off the helper duties to him, and came in and tried to get a bit of a nap in myself. Close to 8, I'm awoken by the sounds of victory!!! I head out, and he said that finally after fighting it for hours (made me feel a bit better that I'd had so much trouble with it!!!) he pulled it out, and then dropped it back in, and it went right into place!!! I thanked him profusely and told him not to be a stranger (also never got a chance to show him the Studebaker in detail, I'd texted him some pictures and told him about some of the mechanical issues, and he said it looks even better in person) and he took off.

Later in the day, I headed out and put everything back together. Mostly, the hardest part was getting the cross bolt back in. One of the things Cheese had done to try and gain a little more room was to loosen the hard line to the power steering rack, but he'd put it back and tightened it, but when I got everything back together, it was squirting from the fitting. I took it loose again, and then put it back together, and there were no more leaks, but of course, the fluid was low, and it sounded terrible. I was going to check to see if I had any power steering fluid, but when I checked the cap, I saw it uses Dextron automatic transmission fluid. I'd grabbed a couple of partial jugs of just that when I was getting the Saturn engine from my parent's house, so I was set!!! On previous power steering systems, I've just turned the wheels lock to lock a couple of times, and that will bleed the air out. It didn't do it on this one, so I jacked it up again, and did probably about 20 times back and forth, and that did the job!!! It was after dark by the time we finished up.

So one mount turned into a three day job...

Farewell 2024

Welcome to (in all likelihood) the final post of the year!!! I had a few others in me, but they're not ready for prime time as of yet. So, what do I now have in common with my cat???

In 2024 we both have broken a bone related to walking!!!

On Saturday, 4 days ago, I was coming down some stairs, and on the last one I rolled my foot to the inside, and I swore I heard a pop (and, yes, I swore). It was painful, and I was limping around afterwards, but the pain wasn't in my ankle as I would have expected. I went to a local urgent care (which I'd been to once this month already, I had a cough that wasn't going away, and it turned out I had a bacterial infection. The stuff they prescribed did a fine job clearing it up!!!) and was told there was around a 3 hour wait. I expected as much, being a weekend, it wasn't anywhere near that long when I went on a Tuesday. Of course, I work in the evenings on Saturdays, and it was going to be close at best.

After a wait commensurate with the time estimated, they took me in and took my vitals and my story. After a quick visual inspection they took X-rays, and a bit later the doctor comes back and tells me I broke it. Displaced 5th metatarsal fracture, to be exact. They put on a splint (which feels loose to me) and gave me a pair of crutches and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon for further evaluation. Oh yeah, they told me before they put the splint on that I may have to cut off my pants when I got home. No thanks, I'll just take those off now!!! My surrogate son had been driving us around, and I know he had his windbreaker, and I figured I'd fashion it into a kilt. I never did, but that's what I was thinking of doing.

Ended up 45 minutes late to starting work that day. I tried to contact the orthopedic surgeon they had referred me to on Monday, and it put me on hold forever, then put me through to a message machine, which told me it was completely full after it beeped. At any rate, I had been looking them up the day before on the map, and they aren't very highly rated. My wife happens to know a place that does some orthopedic surgery, so I contacted them. The soonest they could get me in is this coming Friday.

I never saw the X-rays, so I don't know exactly the location or extent of the fracture. Most of the information I found was it'll be 6 to 8 weeks if no surgery is required. It honestly doesn't feel that bad, unless I try and walk on it or put pressure on it. There are a few types of fractures it could be, avulsion, Jones, or dancer's. I found a couple of images of them, and one of them was actually from another guy on Blogger, and it sounds like his injury came about similarly to mine, but it looks like his was worse, with some swelling.

This is now my second broken bone, the first one I referred to when it had happened, back in 2005 around when I'd started blogging. I have a couple of mentions and links to the picture, but they were hosted on Geocities (now defunct, if you didn't know), and if I'd posted about it, it was probably on MySpace. You remember MySpace, don't you??? Maybe I'll post about it at some point, I tell people it's where my newest tattoo came from (they injected numbing agents in my knuckles through my greasy dirty hand, and the mark remains) and it's one of my many tales that my younger likes me to share with his friends.

I was thinking of making this into a random post with several bits of the aforementioned possible future posts, but not tonight. One of the things I would have had that carries over is my wife had broken some of her back rods again, and had surgery at the beginning of November to repair and reinforce things. She got out the day before Thanksgiving, and thankfully she's got a good amount of her mobility back, which works out since I now can't drive. It was on my right hand foot.

Still holding the title of Titanium Queen!!!

Snowball Effect

I had mentioned at the end of my water heater post that I would likely be installing a new faucet in the bathroom. I did.

After I had installed the water heater I was talking to my friend who had recently bought the house mentioned in the Halloween post from last year. It's an old house, and the plumbing hasn't been updated. He mentioned how often one repair project will snowball into having to do something else, or more than you had intended.

We had a very basic single handle faucet that I'd put in years ago, and I know I'd replaced the cartridge one time. It had corroded around the base to where it had a couple low level holes on the base, so there was really no excuse to keep it. We spent quite a while looking at different styles, and finally settled on another single handle unit with a higher spout. It's installable with a 3-hole sink, or a single hole sink. With the 3-hole, as we have, it gets an oval plate that covers the other 2 holes. It was in stock, and as a bonus, it comes with a new, pop up drain (handy, since the old one had the pull stopper style).

The faucet installation was incredibly easy, and I was thrilled with how it came out!!! The new drain, though...

First of all, the old one was a pain to get out. You have to unscrew it from the chrome flange in the sink, and naturally it didn't want to come. Ended up bending the edge of it up, and got it's number. Hard part is over, right??? Went to put the new one in, and the threaded portion goes through with not much trouble, but it wouldn't go all the way down, stopping a couple of inches short. I tried to force the issue, but it wasn't working. I saw how it was looking chewed up at the end of the threads, and noticed it looked a little larger. Pulled out my calipers, and sure enough, the shank past the threads is an even 0.100” larger!!! What the hell??? I got the box and receipt together and took it back to the store to see if anything can be done. I had a feeling all of them are going to be like that. Of course, I wasn't taking the faucet part back, it's fine. The guy who helped me was great, since the kit wasn't complete, he said I could buy another, swap the drain and then return the whole thing. Of course, I was going to just check it before I got into all that, and as suspected, they have the same thing. Looked at the stand alone drains, and all pop ups have the same design, as did the pull rod type. They had ones with a grate that had the same size all the way up, but no. I took my new old box and drain and walked right out.

I considered buying a whole new sink bowl (maybe one with a single hole!!! And ours is a little worn looking, not terrible though) but I'm already way further into this than I wanted. I headed home, pulled out my little die grinder and went to work on the drain hole. It scattered brown dust everywhere, and stank, but I eventually got it hogged out enough for the wider portion, and after a little clean up, it went together without any more hitches.

Glad to be done with that!!!

5 MPH... Believe It!!!

This happened today. One of my pet peeves, when people fail to use their turn signals. When this fool started hitting his brakes, I said, "Hmmm, I wonder what's going to happen here..." but then they let off, and I thought for a moment I had been faked out, but no!!! In retrospect, they should not have let off!!! These exits are marked a 5 MPH, and if you aren't a master of cornering with decent tires, you best believe it!!!

Of course, I was driving Scruffy, and had to come to a full stop unexpectedly, so I was glad to not have another incident of rhinoplasty!!! I know the dash cam has audio recording, and it doesn't have any way to turn it off, but apparently it's not working. As I rolled past afterwards, I called out "Genius!!!"

The Mixer Mix Up

So, I'm driving home last week (in Scruffy, naturally) when I went over something in the road. I didn't see it, but heard the double thump of it going under the wheels or bouncing off the underside. Hope it didn't damage any tires...

As I'm proceeding home, I start hearing a scrape whenever I hit a larger dip in the road. I had flashbacks to the time the crappy hanger on the crappy exhaust pipe had broke. I drove home, hoping for everything to hold together and wondering how my heavy duty double bracketrey could have failed. Headed over to that side when I got home for a look, and saw a bar in the wheel well, pointing towards the tire.

(I did a closer shot with one of those helpful arrows pointed at it)

Huh. How did that happen??? And it's way away from where the bracket is. Went around the other side and went to drop down and get a look at what happened.

And found this poking out from the front end!!! That's no hanger!!! Turned out it was a paint mixer that had gotten flattened and went over the tip I'd made up!!!!

In other news, I think the high temp paint I used on it isn't a very effective rust preventative!!!

In the Harsh, Cold Light of Day

I kept telling myself it might not be that bad. Sure, the front bumper cap would need replaced, and I was sure that some of the mounting points on the fenders would have snapped, and the hood has a little fold on it that would need seen to, but since the impact was all on the bumper, maybe it just pulled everything attached to it out of joint??? I was looking at junkyard inventory and replacement bumper caps, as well as aftermarket styled bumpers, which are mostly hideous.

Finally got a chance to check it out yesterday. I had to use a crowbar to get the finger latch undone. Nope, I'm confident it's a total loss. In the first picture, I circled the bumper mount, that looks like it's bent about 15°, and has a big crease.

The aluminum bumper beam is all twisted, too, and the side metal that mounts the fenders is pushed over. The plastic mount for the driver's side headlight is broken, as well as the front end of the fender. In the last picture, you can see my new motor mount, which should be parallel with the frame, is at an angle.

Sometime in the future, I'll be yanking the engine and probably the transmission out. This is the only Saturn that hasn't developed oil usage issues. Probably will drop it directly into Scruffy.

While I don't completely NEED another car, it's always nice to have a back up. Currently, I'm not seeing anything that's a direct replacement, but there's a super impractical Sky Redline that I really like the look of for a better price than I've ever seen before. It's a sexy beast!!! And there's another way I've been considering going for a few years that I might just pull the trigger on!!!

Rhinoplasty Part Two

It's been raining since Sunday, on and off. It was coming down in buckets on Sunday night, but not at all yesterday afternoon. Coming home tonight it was, and just before a ramp I was taking, I saw a great puddle of water, extending a lane and a half out from the right. Uh oh... As I hit it, the car started pulling to the center of the freeway pretty hard, and I probably was trying to correct the other direction. With the little traction I had, I began a spin heading towards the outside wall. I saw it coming and knew there was nothing I could do but brace myself. It was a hard hit, I was probably still doing 50 or so, and kept spinning for a second revolution, coming to rest with the back end towards the wall, and the nose out in the traffic lane. I turned on my hazard lights and assessed the situation. Of course, it shook up everything in the car, my water bottle, glasses, phone, and the lid to my coffee cup all ended up in the footwell on the drivers' side. I picked all these up, put the gearshift into park, and tried to fire it up. Started up on the second crank, and I straightened it up onto the shoulder, and assessed the the exterior. I'd thought for sure it caught both ends, but apparently it was all on the front. It looked ugly, but nothing that would prevent me from driving it. Headed home, and there was a scraping noise as I was driving. A couple blocks away, I heard something come loose, so I pulled over and discovered the plastic shield below the radiator had been knocked loose.

When I got home, I took out the memory card from the dash cam. There were a half dozen of the clips marked with the emergency save, but none of them were from tonight. Scrolled though the rest, and where it should have been, I got a clip with the unplayable message. Good thing I didn't need it as evidence for an incident with another vehicle!!! I checked the rear camera, and it didn't get scrambled like the front facing one had, and here's the clip!!! Can't tell much of what's going on, but you can see the splash of water, and the spin and where it ended up.

As you can see, it made a mess of the front bumper!!! Lost the emblem, tweaked the headlights out of place, as well as tweaking the fenders and hood out of place.

In addition, that alignment I just got is now completely shot!!! The steering wheel in about 30° out of square. We'll see how it looks in the light of day, and when things have dried out some. Also, it wasn't a sufficient hit to set off the airbags!!!

At least when my wife did Scruffy's nose, it was just the hood!!!

Wild Snorlax Hunt

A great many things have happened. There were a couple of trips to Universal Studios, Christmas, Gravy day, and a radiator. I'm going to go with this, though.

In the middle of November, my younger boy wanted me to sign up for Pokemon Go, so he could friend me for one of his achievements. OK, I can do that. I don't know how much I'll do beyond that.

Well, I did, and I've taken to it some!!! Here I am, after I'd taken over my first local gym, and my Tauros was shown over it.

And there I am, after I'd defeated a Team Rocket Grunt. Yes, digital blackface. I like the look. Oh yeah, I've swapped out my original hat for a winter time beanie.

And there the boy and I are, getting ready to do a raid.

Last Friday, we were down at my parents house to celebrate Christmas with the extended family. My nephew was there, and he was asking my son if he was going to call his companion Pokemon "Little Catnip", so I renamed mine "Lil Irv"!!! There he is!!! I looked around, and saw there was going to be a raid going on at the park near there, and asked my son if he wanted to go. Just before we left, he looked around and saw there was a Snorlax at the Pokestop along the San Gabriel River bike path behind my parents' house. He really wants to get a Snorlax, as well as a shiny Evee.

OK, we'll try and get over there and get us some Snorlax action!!! We drove over to a far corner of the park, then walked past the golf course, across the river to the bike path, down to where another river joins, and across a bridge and down some from there.

It was quite a bit farther than I'd remembered!!! I'd guess we probably went at least a mile and a half one way. As a youngster, I'd used to ride my bike down there with my friends, and I related some of the stories as we made our way.

It was really getting to be the Golden Hour as we were working our way down, and we got some great pictures!!!

Of course, by the time we got there, there was no Snorlax to be seen. Oh well, we got to spend some time together, take some pictures, and do some father-son bonding!!!

Never got to do the raid, either. Ah well. Good times!!!

Hiccup

I had previously made mention that on our vacation we had run into some difficulties while travelling. This is the story of one of them.

On our flight from Oahu to the Big Island we had gone through the security screening most of the way. My wife, with all her titanium, doesn't get around too well for long distances found at most airports, so she gets wheelchair service, and we usually have a pretty quick go through. At the bag X Ray machine a TSA agent pulls my son aside and begins searching one of his bags. he locates the jar of Suavecito that he had in his carry on bag and pulls it out. "Can't take THAT on in your carry on bag, son!!!" You have two choices, go back to the airline counter and check your bag, or place your pomade in the trash can right there!!! Well, here's a quandary!!! Suavecito comes out with seasonal scented pomades, and this I believe was the Spring edition, with hints of dark rum. I'm pretty sure it was under $15 originally, and it's $25 to check a bag, so pretty easy math. However, being a seasonal thing, might not be able to get a replacement, and he really likes the scent. We start heading back to ticketing, and I'm looking up on my phone to see if it's still available, and nope, it's not. OK, it's looking like it's going to be a nearly $40 jar of pomade. Got back to the ticketing desk and tell them our tale of woe, and they say, don't worry, we've got this!!! Ended up not being out the extra $25 or the jar of Suavecito!!! So, it took a little longer and more legwork, but all's well that ends well!!! Funny thing, our first flight from the mainland they didn't catch it. To be sure, it was in our checked bag on the flight back!!!

Oh, and I've got to gush a little bit about the airline we took, Hawaiian. Not only did they waive the bag fee, but so far as I know, they are the last carrier to provide an in-flight meal. Something else cool they have, instead of having an in flight movie as previous flights I've taken, they have an app you can download to your device, and there's a veritable smorgasbord of shows and movies you can stream in flight!!! I got to watch "Isn't it Romantic" on the flight out because Rebel Wilson is awesome, and "The Lego Movie: The Second Part" on the flight back, but I think I fell asleep a little during that one.

Disaster Man

Here's a disturbing trend I've noticed.

Back in 2016 we vacationed down in Tennessee, notably in the Pigeon Forge area, as well as an afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains just outside Gatlinburg. It was a great vacation, and I could have posted more about it.

A few months after we'd gone, devastating wildfires engulfed the area.

The next year, 2017, we went down to Texas, flying into Houston, and spending some time there, as well as Austin, San Antonio, and Galveston. Another great vacation, and again worthy of more posts than I have done. (This was about the best shot that I have outside in the Houston area.)

Just a couple of months later, Hurricane Harvey blew into town and flooded the area.

Just last November my wife and I traveled up north to the San Jose area for our anniversary.

While we were in the area, the Camp Fire broke out. You could smell smoke in most of the places we were at, and it was smoke hazy the whole time. I took the last picture on the flight out, and you can see the layer of smoke.

I'm taking bids on where not to vacation next year.

Flat

It has been a while, yet again. I'd wanted to get more blogging in this year, and may have been somewhat successful. Anyway, last month my wife and I went up to northern California for a anniversary weekend. It was pretty fun.

We flew out of Long Beach, which is always a far superior experience than Los Angeles. The options of the flight were early morning or late evening. To keep from blowing the whole day (and as the day wears on, it seems more likely for a flight delay) we elected the morning flight. Of course, this means arriving well before check in time at our lodging. We got our rental car, one of the style I like where they just point you to the class of car you've rented and tell you to take your pick. I like the hatch style of the Hyundai Accent, so we took that and just started cruising about at random. First city areas, then farmlands, then we were in a forest area.

When I pulled off to take a few pictures, I noticed that the Hyundai is a 512'er!!! Pretty cool. Got to catch the end of The Woody Show on KFOG, and then discovered that our rental had satellite radio, and listened to that some. It was getting towards that time, so we started looking for someplace to eat. Rolling down the freeway, and suddenly the tire pressure light comes on!!! It began making a noise of a flat, and there was an exit coming up, so I kept going along to get off the freeway. The road we exited onto had no shoulder, so I continued to the next cross street and turned onto it, then pulled off to the side.

Yeah, it was flat all right. I moved our luggage out of the trunk into the back seat to get at the spare. Surprise, no spare!!! Just a compressor and a can of sealant. I have heard the sealant can foul the tire pressure sensors, so before I tried it, I called the rental company. They said to give it a try, so I went ahead. Connect the sealant to the line and compressor and let it run for 3 minutes. I did that, and it was as flat as ever. I noticed that there were three of one brand of tire, and a fourth was different, and the one that had gone flat had some cupping on the edge. I suspect that there has been some kind of suspension damage that causes one tire to wear quickly.

Called the rental company back, and they said they would send a truck. Could be an hour and 15 minutes, but it was only about the 15 minute. Back to the rental place, where the tow truck couldn't get into the garage because of the height, so he dropped us outside the structure. Went back, and they said to get another of my choosing, and suggested a Kia Rio S that was almost new, less than 1,000 miles. Also got phenomenal mileage.

Where we'd pulled off the road, there was a dead mouse laying there. Not a great sign, but the rest of the weekend was fine. At first I was thinking that this was the first time I'd had such a problem with a rental, but then I remembered the Mazda that had a window come off it's tracks. Was also thinking it's the first flat I've had in a while, but there was the shanking of Jade from earlier this year, as well as tires on Scruffy that would get low on air. So, this was the first time I've had an automotive incident where I've been stuck on the side of the road since the couple of times where AAA Screwed me over!!!

Scruffy Gets Stuck

Or more correctly, sticked. I considered titling this post 'Trouble with the Trees II'. I seem to be doing Scruffy posts fairly regularly, and here goes another!!! This weekend were were driving on the freeway when I saw it. Two cars ahead of us, a stick in the road. It probably started life as a 2x4, but it's had a lot of the edges knocked off. A little more than three feet long. The first car rolls over it, and the second car starts hitting his brakes... but there's nothing to be done, and nowhere for me to go. They roll over it, and launch it into the air!!! I thought it was going to go over us, but no!!! Right into the windshield it goes!!!

I've had windshields broken before, but never in as grand fashion as this!!! Of course it was loud, and I had to adjust my inside mirror afterwards. We kept driving along, but I was wondering how bad it was damaged, besides the actual windshield. The headliner was bent down about an inch, and I was thinking it had actually bent the roof. If that were the case, I was going to call it totaled.

When we got there, got out and took a look. Ended up to not have damaged the roof, and the headliner extends a couple inches into the windshield, so it was just pushed down.

Here's an odd thing, though, the very corner was also badly damaged, along with the outer frame area being cracked. At first I was thinking it had created a shock wave and kicked that portion up, but I'm thinking that the stick must have hit there, too.

See the close up shot??? Look at that, it actually embedded wood into the glass!!! One of the younger's friends looks at it and says, "that's a strong window!!!"

Last shot is before I stepped out, all these glass shards all over my pants!!! Things could have gone way worse, so thank God they didn't!!! Just a couple hundred to get it replaced, and we're back on the road!!!