Today was different. It was really nice while I was at work and pretty nice on the way home. I made a deal with Ashley for me to leave early today (because she had a legitimate reason to leave early today) and she can leave early on Thursday. I wanted to take my bike into Performance and see what was wrong with it. I rode down there, a pretty pleasant ride. There were some hills and I definitely haven't gone up a hill in a very long time. Other aspects of my riding like power and stamina have been helped/maintained by the time I spend on the trainer but climbing hills isn't where it was last summer at all (whereas power is possibly better and stamina is a month of training away from where it was).

We determined it was the bottom bracket that is causing my problem. I didn't notice the problem at all on the ride there. I really only notice on my trainer, but it happens with every rotation on the trainer (95 times a minute). It will be between 65 and 90 to get it fixed there. I'm holding off for the time being because it's not too big of a problem and I want to try to get my car situation figured out before I waste any money. So I head out and it's getting a little darker, which is fine. I head through campus to take 25th Ave home and right as I get onto campus I notice some raindrops. By the time I'm off campus it's raining. Now, the rain sucks, but then it got worse, I got a flat tire right around 60th and 25th (so 30 blocks from my house). So I had to walk the bike home from there, in the rain, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I wasn't that upset about it, but it does suck that it happened. I think I have two spare tubes anyway. It's actually the first flat tire I've gotten since I started mountain biking/cycling the past couple years.

So I'll be getting about $2500 or so on Friday (paycheck + tax return). 700 or so goes towards bills, but I have 600 in the bank now so that almost cancels out. What sucks is that I sort of need a new car. Sort of because my transmission is bad. The car runs. It has had the problem since Halloween, so it's been running like this for 4 months. It functions fine except it won't shift into overdrive. The only real problem this causes is that instead of getting 27 mpg on the freeway I get 22-23. But it's really annoying and the transmission is bound to fail eventually, so I'd like to get it fixed sooner rather than later. Given that I'll have a bunch of money, I could actually get the transmission fixed, but the car burns oil horribly and I'm not content with the car when I stop at a light and the cab starts to smell like oil (this happens without fail). There's also body damage and the windshield needs to be replaced so I think I'd just be better off trading it in for a new start.

Problem right now is that I have a lot of things I'd like to buy. A lot of things I could afford after this Friday. A laptop (my computer is five and a half years old). A trampoline (with springs, not straps). A camcorder. A weight bench and some dumbells. A BMX bike. I could afford all of these things (not necessarily new) if I didn't need to save for a car.

Oh well, we'll see how this works out. If I could find a way to get my car to stop smelling like oil I'd probably just get the transmission fixed and keep it, but I don't think it'll be that easy.