Argh, No Time...

[1SlowFormula]

OK this sucks, I got extremely busy at work with a new project that they dropped in my lap out of nowhere, 90+ hour weeks and no weekends, or time for anything else...

Last month I pulled a bunch of body panels off and started a few projects in lightening the car up, but they are all incomplete. My nephew, one of my crew members, bailed on me a few times when I wanted him to come over and help and now the tracks are open, weather is good, and my car is in pieces. God it sucks when life gets in the way of racing and playing with the car...

OK, thanks for letting me vent a little...

[Shifter]

I feel for ya man.  It's always like that. Time vs. Money...

When you have lots of time there's no money for projects, and when you have the money...there's no time.
With spring turning the corner, now is not the time to be in pieces!  Good luck man!

[10secondranchero]

With fuel prices rising like they are, maybe now IS the time to be in pieces.

[shadow41246]

 slow, go ahead and VENT!!! just don't VENT from the wrong end !!!!! LOL    shadow     

[1SlowFormula]

Last weekend would have been the perfect day to try and break this damn record (bolt-on LT1 record, currently at 11.805, and I am soo close to beating it) with my car so I could move on to other plans with it. But that didn't happen, and the way it looks now I might just be slow all year unless I take vacation days just to work on the car...

Here is my list of things to still get to:

• Installing air helper springs on the truck, to help support the extra weight of the trailer
• Tuneup the truck before my first long distance haul, trailering the car to Kansas in April for a race event
• Replace a leaking caliper, the caliper is here and just needs to be installed
• Finish cutting out some of the supports I started cutting to lighten the front of the car
• Clean up the metal so there are no rough edges to cut me when rushing around in the pits
• Install front clip (fenders, hood, nose, and etc.) that was removed to do the stuf above
• Install hood pins from scratch, since I removed all hood mounting hardware in the lightening steps above (I've never done this before and still need to figure out how to do it)
• Layout and install the lighweight carpet, since I pulled the stock carpet because of weight
• Make mounting brackets for my new racing seat
• Install my new racing seat
• Finish some of the weight removal from the doors
• Install interior panels
• Take the rear wheels off and have the tires unmounted and new slicks mounted
• Readjust the suspension heights/settings for the smaller slick being installed, 26" slick over the 28" drag radial I was running last year
• Finish modifications to make my stock style rear drag swaybar to be more adjustable for preload, prety much making the mounts more hard mounted and have adjusting nuts and such over bushing spacer mount it currently has
• Tuneup stuff like changing plugs and oil in the car since it has pretty much just sat all winter
• Build and install new Alum. rear LCA's, not needed, but I would like to like to finish this project before the first race
• Turn sheet aluminum into a decent looking center console to cover the ugly stock shifer and electonics, again not needed, but I would like to have it done

I am sure there are things that I don't have off the top of my head, and that list doesn't include any of those unknowns such as what happens if the car doesn't run right when it is actually started for the first time in months, or if there are any items that have decided it was there time to die...

Shifter - You hit the nail on the head though I hd no money for mods over winter when I had all the extra time in the world and just started getting back into things in Feb when money started coming available, now that I have the money to play with things and get it all ready, I have no frickin time to do anything...

Shadow - I have been doing a lot of venting out the other end too since I am trying to loose weight myself to help get down the track a little quicker... 

[racecarpop]

What race is in Kansas in April?

[REDGAR]

He is going to
http://www.ltxshootout.com/2008/

[1SlowFormula]

What race is in Kansas in April?

A small shootout for LTX (LT1/LT4) motored cars. This is the first annual LTXSHootout in KCIR, and looking at ti agin it is Kansas City, MO not KS...

Wow, that was fast Edgar I ddin't even have the time to look up the URL before you posted it...

[Brian C]

And when do you find time to sleep, John?

[1SlowFormula]

And when do you find time to sleep, John?

whats sleep?

Let's use this past week as an example, in mid Feb. I thought I would have had the car back together and ready for a good TnT on Saturday 3/1, and I am pissed that I missed some good -DA action last weekend, but don't get me started on that...

So instead of that, for the first part of the week I worked 15-16 hours plus an average of 1.5 - 2 hours total for travel to and from work, an hour for shaving, showering, getting dressed, and whatnot, and maybe 30 minutes a night for dinner with Marie, so maybe if I was lucky I could get 4.5 hours of sleep a night. I took some time off Thursday morning into the afternoon to take Marie to the hospital for bloodwork and tests and run errands, speaking of which I should call Rich and give him my credit card info to pay for the visit to his shop on Thursday. I got home mid afternoon and worked until 1 am (it normally takes me another .5 to an hour to wind down from the caffine/sugar to fall asleep), the alarm is set for 6 to get me out of bed by 6:30 to get to work on time, yes that is maybe 4 hours sleep. I was in the office by 8:30 (about my normal time) on Friday, and worked until 6:30 at the office, then came home (around an 45 minutes to an hour long trip depending on traffic) and put in another 4 hours after dinner, again sometime after midnight wrap up time. You would think with so little sleep I could sleep in on the weekends, but no I am normally up between 7:30 - 8 when I don't set my alarm. So, Saturday I had some time to relax a little watched some TV, and talked to Marie in the morning, then I put in 14 hours during most the day and into the early morning, 2 am or so wrap up. Knowing that I needed to have everything ready for testing before monday morning, Sunday was a longer day, I started around 11 am and worked on it untill 5:30 am, then was back in the office Yesterday morning (yes that means no sleep, more like a quick power nap) to be sure the testing team had everything under control for the first pass of testing. I left at 6 yesterday evening, went to the gym, ate dinner, then worked on it again from home until falling asleep in front of my computer at around 11:30 last night. Luckily, I had fixed most of the issues found in the first pass of testing by then and was able to call it an early night...

Today I have more stuff similar to that, but I need a mental break so I have been checking up on you guys... 

But, that just means I have to work late again tonight to catch up for tomorrows deadline.  That's OK though since I had maybe a full 6 hours of sleep last night, and that is the most I have had in weeks...

At least I am a contractor and get to charge my time as hourly, because it would really suck if I didn't get anything extra for all this time taken away from my family, the car, and you guys...

[1SlowFormula]

*********** JUST VENTING AGAIN *************

OK well with Friday more than halfway through it looks like I am not going to have much of a weekend this weekend either and the car will have to stay in pieces for a while. This sucks...

I am getting so frustrated with this job, and screwed up leadership... I have hours upon hours of meetings today that the (PM) Project Manager setup, although I told her I had a lot of this other work to do to meet todays goals, then she just came up to my desk knowing I just finished nothing but meetings all day, and asked how things were going on todays tasks...

I wish I could have nicely said "no different from where I left them yestersday because of the whole day of meetings you set me up with and I have only been back to my desk for 15 minutes", but instead I just said "a little behind, but don't worry it will be ready by Monday". This is her first project as a PM, I have tried in the past to tell her that this is unreasonable but she just doesn't get it. When I say it takes 3 hours to do something, that means 3 hours of dedicated work, not 5-10 minutes here or there that may add up to 180 minutes, because if you only hit it for 5-10 minutes at a time it normally takes 3-4 times as long to get it finished...

When I estimated this work for her I said it would take 17 days (working days based on 5-6 hours of dedicated project work is normally how things are quoted, and I sent the quote on 2/13), and maybe as little as 11 days (8 hour business days) if there was nothing else on my plate. But, I was not even dedicated fully to the project until 2/21 because I was wrapping up me last project. I was then told that she will do what she can to keep you plate clear, but I only have less than 1.5 weeks to get it done before testing needs to start (3/3), and then less than 2 weeks during testing to fix any issues because we have a hard deadline to have it finished by 3/17 for the client. So at that point I have had 1+ week of a few hours here and there on this (maybe 6-7 hours total) and full time on the other project. Then I get the shaft on this project because it has a hard deadline 3 weeks from when I started on it, and the work required 3 weeks of work prior to testing. Oh, then I get meeting after meeting added to my schedule, half of which are just pulling me away from work to give a status of where I am. I normally start that meeting off with a comment of "further behind where I would have been if I was at my desk working on it..." Still the hint doesn't make it through, to stop bothering me if you want this done on time...



OK guys sorry for venting again, but it is either this or going postal, and that just wouldn't help me get to playing with the car any faster...

[Brian C]

John, you sound like my wife after a day of hell where she works. She vents all the time about how screwed up management is.

Hey, vent away here! Just don't go postal!! I don't want to hear about you on the evening news, man!