My “Boondockers Welcome” hosts Dennis and Mary K. have invited me to stay as long as I want because they like having someone here while they’re gone. (they took a trip to Laughlin). I wasn’t planning on staying in Bakersfield this long but as it stands right now the extended invite looks to be a blessing in disguise. As I mentioned yesterday my brakes on the truck were starting to squeal. Well today I went to fill my propane tank and the noise was horrendous. So I GPS’ed a brake shop and stopped in for the free inspection.
Sure enough, the front pads were down to the sensors which is what initially makes the squeally noise, (if you ignore it, it becomes other issues grinding upon your rotors). I’m not really set up to do much mechanical on my own and to be honest my feeble collection of tools would technically void my “man club” membership if they caught me. So I got the guys at Brake Masters here in Bakersfield to replace the front pads. It took them about a tenth of the time it would have taken me since I’d be learning as I went. I had the rotors replaced when I did the back brakes about a year ago so thankfully everything else was ship shape and there were no other issues.
So the upside is the damage was minimal but the downside is that it was $180 more out of my already decimated November budget. At this point I’m just going to chalk it up to misfortune and a little bad management on my part and scratch a month off the tail end of this trip. So far.
I say “so far” because I still hold out hope that somehow I can start bringing in the $1000 a month to keep going by the time my savings run out. My friend and business partner LaDonna has had potentially great meetings that could have resulted in some hefty print sales get cancelled, (after laying out over a $100 for a proper portfolio book of work). She even lined up a pitch with a production company for a possible reality/doc show about me and this trip, but we got passed on. Things could be going better but they could also be going worse.
I referred to a little note document I have on my phone that I wrote about the job I left. A list of reminders to reset my self sabotaging mind when I start to dwell on the negative aspects instead of the positive. Needless to say my worst day out here is still miles ahead of my best day in the cubicle. Like I’ve said before, not that it was a horrible place to work. It simply wasn’t the fit for me.
So yeah. I may stay here and get some work done for the next few days. I have millions of shots to edit, more video to put together, and there’s a Artist Walk/Market here in Bakersfield tomorrow evening called First Fridays that I think I’m going to take a break and check out. Who know’s, maybe I’ll find something that inspires my next step in becoming sustainable on this adventure, because I sure as hell don’t want it to end in 5 months.
So thanks for coming along on this therapeutic ramble with me. Now go buy a print! ..Please? 🙂
W.
