on monday i took my car in for timing belt/waterpump/gaskets/oil seals, etc. in the evening i realized that i was leaking oil, so this morning i took it back in, and it turned out that the lower oil seal they installed was bad. so instead of calling people and orchestrating rides, i just figured i’d walk around. it’s crazy when you walk around town and notice things that you never had the time to as you drive by. anyway, i had a chicken sandwich at this burger shop, then walked to the gym and worked out, then walked back to my apartment (maybe 2 or 3 miles from the shop to my apt). by the time i showered, had a shake, and changed clothes they called me up to tell me my car was done, so i just walked back to the shop.

now that my engine’s running well again, i figure this weekend i’m going to do all the other things i’ve been neglecting, like front brakes/rotors, swap out my cold air filter for the stock one, plugs, wires, wipers, fix my bumper that’s loose and give it a good wash. if anyone wants to come over and get their brakes done (mike, ben), or christine if your window’s not working, teehee… i’ll prolly be at my mom’s house most of this saturday.

so i got my timing belt and waterpump changed the other day (after mike reminded me how important it was to do it, thanks buddy). anyway, i’d had my timing belt changed i think twice before, but i’d never changed the waterpump, even though you’re supposed to do it when you change the timing belt.

so i got to thinking, since it’s only supposed to last about 60k miles or so, and my poor integra now is pushing 180k, about how many times that thing has spun. i’m gonna do some bigtime estimates, but here goes.

a timing belt is about 24″ long. the diameter of the gear on the waterpump is 1.5″ so the circumference of the gear is 1.5*π= 4.71″… so 24″/4.71″ = ~5… so 1 revolution at the crank = 5 revolutions of the waterpump.

now my car has an rpm range of 0-7k, normal driving is around 3.5k though, and with all the traffic i’m in, it’s often at or near idling of about 700rpm. so here’s a big estimate of 2k on average engine rpm.

ok, now for even bigger estimates… how many minutes i’ve driven my car… or moreover, how many minutes it’s been at an rpm of 2k. well, the max i drive on the freeway is about 80mph, and the slowest, fucked up traffic goes is around 10mph, so to be conservative, let’s say 30mph on average, over the 180k miles. 180,000/30 = 6000 hours = 36,000 minutes.

so… 2000rpm for 36,000 minutes, at 5 times the speed of the crank = 360,000,000 rotations

so that fucking waterpump spun about a third of a billion times. that’s fucking insane.

i was trying to remember this song all weekend, because i heard the song on the radio, and was reminded of my long lost show reunion. anyway, i can’t stop listening to it now.

Bangles

Time, time, time
See what’s become of me

Time, time, time
See what’s become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please

Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside
It’s bound to be a better ride
Than what you’ve got planned
Carry a cup in your hand

Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky
Is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes my friend
That’s an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again

Look around
Grass is high
Fields are ripe
It’s the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won’t you stop and remember me

Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky
It’s a hazy shade of winter

Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground

so all week christine’s been staying at her mom’s house, because her passenger side window hasn’t been able to roll up and she wanted to keep her car in the garage. her driver’s side window has stopped working a couple of times, and i was able to fix the faulty switch. but the problem she described this time was that the passenger side window wouldn’t roll up, from either the drivers or the passenger side controls. which means it wasn’t a switch problem. there aren’t individual fuses for the left and ride windows, so i was at a loss. but since it’s saturday i figured i’d give it the college try (which speaks volumes when i say it =p) anyway, we were heading to my mom’s place where i have all my tools, and i was thinking it out… then i noticed she had the “lock out the driver side window switch” turned to “on”.

shali sent me an awesome website that has a plugin for firefox to keep track of calorie intake. it’s designed for people who are trying to lose weight, but works just as well for me :) there’s now an “eat meter” on my toolbar that shows me how close i am to eating the calories i want for the day. since i usually leave here by 4 or 5p, i set it to 3000 calories that i’d like to take in before then. it has almost every food (and fastfood) listed with the associated calories, so you just click on what you’ve eaten, and it updates it for you. it also produces graphs and all sortsa other interesting stuff. thanks shal <3

edit: the more i use this site the more impressed i am by it. it also breaks down the protein/carb/fat calorie count for each food i look up. and it also tells me helpful things like, "you would have to have vigorous sex for 7 hours to burn off the calories of a bigmac w/cheese" sounds like a win-win situation to me :)

and for ben, who can't cut and paste:
www.calorie-count.com

and the link to the firefox add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1649

good show last night. finally there’s some new drama, and not with the normal drama people. no drama for ryan, kiki’s kicked the habbit, and it seems that summer’s gonna get accepted into brown. but everyone else is fucked. coop likes that hurt-knee-surfer guy who’s now dating her sister, and their mom is chasing summer’s dad who doesn’t seem to be having her after seeing how screwed their family is. seth is smoking pot that he bought from kaitlin, and didn’t even go to his brown interview. sandy had to use slutty girls to make the sale of a hospital and is afraid he’s becoming too much like caleb. oh the drama!

i start school today. for some reason this semester starts on a wednesday, but otherwise, it will be for me: tuesday, wednesday and thursday nights. so along with gym on monday, wednesday and friday, i no longer have any free time :)

i had to do my wednesday workout yesterday because today i have work, then school, and then i’m going to la to see taka. i love chaos.

along with going to the gym pretty frequently, i’ve been eating a lot. recently i’ve been around 3500 calories/day but our gym buddy dave said that he thinks i should be closer to 8k calories/day to get the results i want. so yesterday i kept note of all the food i ate, and the calories/protein they have:

7:00a- bowl of cereal w/ half a banana and a cup of 2% milk: 250 calories, 10g protein
7:30a- 3 scoop chocolate cytogainer shake with water: 500 calories, 42g protein
9a- turkey sandwich: 250 calories, 15g protein
11:30a- 2 chicken sandwiches, bag of chips, large cookie: 900 calories, 30g protein
1p- chicken sandwich: 250 calories, 15g protein
2p- bag of pretzels: 220 calories, 4g protein
3p- turkey sandwich: 250 calories, 15g protein
4p- 3 scoop chocolate cytogainer shake with water: 500 calories, 42g protein
7p- 3 scoop chocolate cytogainer shake with water: 500 calories, 42g protein
8:30p- chicken taco, chicken enchilada, 2 margaritas: 1000 calories, 20g protein
11p- 3 scoop chocolate cytogainer shake with water: 500 calories, 42g protein

i also drank 7, 20oz. aquafinas, so 7*20= 140/128 = a little over a gallon of water throughout the day.

so that’s about 4900 calories and 280g of protein in a day. of all that food, the only thing i enjoyed was the cereal, the first chicken sandwich (they have great catering at my work) and the taco and enchilada. i can’t wait until food goes back to something that i always enjoy which will be in about 7 weeks.

but yeh, to get up to 8000 calories? i’d have to take 6 more of those 3-scoop, 16oz shakes. and those thing are hard to drink, esp when you’re stomach’s already full. anyway, that just sounds impossible.

taka sent me this pic from outside her place in chiba. i couldn’t imagine living somewhere where right outside there’s snow to deal with.