Some of you might have noticed the lack of post from last week, and for that I apologize. Those of you who are close to me will know already that as of June 18th I am unemployed. For those who aren't, I was laid off from my job of 4 years (almost to the day) at a tech startup company. In short, I was performing quality audits on interactions with our support team. Management decided that the AI tool they were using did a good enough job, and gutted the department.

It is currently 25 minutes before my usual posting time as I sit down to write this. The last few weeks have left me with a surplus of time, which would be true if not for the fact that this surplus of time comes with a deficit of motivation. I'm not the type of person who handles uncertainty well, and the current landscape of my life is nothing but.

I feel it's important to mention that when I started the work to install all my new alignment hardware on the BRZ, I still had a job, and plans to get the car on track. Both of those things are now question marks. I still will have to ability to trade coaching for track time, but I also need to consider the price of that, even if the track time is free. I like to think this will be a short term problem, so fuel is my main concern. But, with no idea what kind of salary I will be bringing in for the foreseeable, the most logical thing to do is to keep the car parked.

I left off in my last post with the front hubs installed, and the end links cut to pieces. Last week (after the date I would normally post) my end links arrived, and they were relatively easy to install. The issue, though, is that I was not able to install my camber plates because I was missing a key part from the kit. There are two specialty nuts that sit on top of the shock tower and hold the camber plates on (I assume) which I did not have, making install impossible. Luckily, I reached out to Verus Engineering who, despite a short delay, were very helpful in selling me replacement nuts for my camber plates.

Right now, the car sits in the driveway completely reassembled and road ready except for one small issue. The steering wheel was at a noticeably different angle than before. I say different because my steering wheel was not straight to begin with. With the wheels straight, it sat at slight angle to the left. This was a result of my last alignment, and was something I OK'd, and not the result of negligence. When you do an alignment with fishing line instead of an alignment rack, I understand these things happen.

Now however, it sits at quite a sever angle to the right. Now, I'm not an expert, but to me, it seems like the alignment in the front has changed pretty drastically. The car can be driven in an emergency, but I fear for the health of my already-below-the-wear-indicator front tires. So, the car sits. Hopefully by next week, I will have received my new specialty nuts to install my camber plates and get the car aligned so I can enjoy it, at least to and from the grocery store, for the remainder of summer.

Before I end, I wanted to share some photos from my non refundable camping trip last weekend. Usually when I talk about camping, it's at the race track. But a few times a year my fiance and I like to do some actual camping, that doesn't involve internal combustion.

I found this weekend very refreshing, and it reminded me how much I love the outdoors. It also reminded me that there are other things to do in summer that aren't constantly repeating the process and breaking and fixing my car.

I've recently adopted a new perspective on summer thanks to the work of former Donut Media host James Pumphrey. On his new channel, Speeed, he offers what I think is a unique perspective on life and how to make the most of it. I've found his videos on how to dress better without trying, and how to have a good summer on purpose to be very inspiring.

Anyway, check these out.