This was only about 2/3 of the stuff I disassembled in my car to look for those wires that didn't exist.

Copper sulfate... not good for the eyes... got it.

Adminisk8or

02/19/2024

It really isn't every week I can say I disassembled most of the interior of my car, rehearsed some grand choral numbers and burned my eyes in the same two days... but hey, that's just my life.

So yeah, life was interesting this weekend. I decided on Saturday, after the last parts arrived, to take on the task for which reason I ordered them- to add steering wheel controls to my 2006 Xterra. I was most anxious about disassembling the steering wheel, but that proved to be quite a lot easier than I expected. I thought to myself, "well, there's the worst of it over!" Now... if I were to describe every step I went through in doing so... we'd be here a while. Suffice it to say, I spent hours and hours trying to find a wire that actually didn't even exist. I tore apart virtually all of my front dashboard and center console just to find it, but I may as well have been looking for Bigfoot, because *Begin phone line operator voice* THE WIRE YOU ARE LOOKING FOR DOES NOT CURRENTLY EXIST. PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN. *End phone line operator voice* And to make matters funner, I had to get really creative in how I ended up running those wires, but it worked, and it worked well!

And so I spent my whole weekend and a couple hundred dollars just to add a few media buttons to my steering wheel. Was it worth it? ...I'm just gonna say, I'm the wrong person to ask, because I'm just crazy enough to say yes.

And then Sunday came, and we went to a choir rehearsal for this Easter cantata thing. I knew we had missed a couple of rehearsals prior... but when we walked in unknowingly 30 minutes late, joined a very talented and loud choir, and found ourselves sightreading pretty advanced choral pieces, it was what I think most people would call baptism by fire. But boy was it great! After it was over, I, my wife, and another choir member hopped in my car to leave... I turned the key, and my Xterra sat there quietly.

The following five or ten minutes were spent finding someone to help jump my car, and then realizing perhaps the issue wasn't a low battery, but that my terminals were too corroded. Seeing this, I just took my fingers and gave it the redneck cleaning by wiping away what I could and blowing away the rest of it. That might've been a fine idea... had I been wearing eyewear. So when a tiny piece of corrosion flew up and hit my eye, it wasn't very fun. I will say, it's not anywhere near as bad as you'd imagine... in fact for a few minutes, I was too sidetracked by getting my car to start to notice it much, but when my car then started, I figured I should probably be safe and go wash my eye out.

I did so briefly under a kitchen sink in the church's kitchen, and then drove my neighbor and us home. Once home, I took a good shower and rinsed my eye out some more. It wasn't hurting too badly... honestly, I'd say the rinsing was causing more pain to it than anything else. But then came the worst part of it all. Pain? No. Inconvenience? Not exactly. Research? Yes. Imagine you were in my shoes. What do you google to look up what you should do? Whatever your answer, you are probably wrong, because every article and it's mother, son and cousin was about "what to do if you get acid in your eye"... which wasn't exactly what had happened to me. Yeah, true, it was copper sulfate, but not the same thing as direct battery acid.

I was finally wise enough to call poison control, who suggested I play it safe and go to an instacare- or in my case, E.R., since it was past 10 PM on a Sunday. We visited, and 200 dollars later, verified that my eye was thankfully fine. But yeah... I got quite the look from some of my friends and coworkers when in our Monday morning meeting, I said, "Yeah, it was a good weekend... I wired up some stuff in my car, rehearsed with a really cool choir, got battery acid in my eyes and went to the E.R. ...yeah, a good weekend."

It's funny how in situations like I was in, as much as you could make the argument that my physical vision was in peril, had I let the panic get to me, it would've been my mental vision at peril. Although it's no fun experience, people all over the world experience bad things like that- losing sight, hearing, mobility, and all manner of senses and controls. Some are worse than others, but there is no worse one, in my opinion, than losing the ability to think and/or emote. Our minds are at the center of it all, and while we may lose our sight, the ability to envision beautiful and grand colors is a wonderful gift. Although Beethoven lost his hearing, he yet had the ability to not only compose music, but compose symphonies, including what many argue to be one of the most beautiful pieces ever written, Ode to Joy.

I hope I never find myself, in a situation where I fall into such a category of tragedies, and especially the loss of mental ability. I know close family who to some degree or another, already has, and it's just not fun for them to deal with. But I find at the core of it all, maybe at wits end, the best we can say is that life is just a journey, and although sometimes we're wearied to the bone, experiencing the challenges we do is what helps us to understand and see the beauty around us- and often, it brings out the most beautiful things by means of some of our worst trials.

I know many suffer afflictions of varying degree too many to count. But through the blue skies and the black, I pray you will not only endure, but have the vision to see and appreciate the beauty around you. Until next time, see ya!