I have had a heavy feeling, the last couple of days, but I had no idea what was really triggering how I felt.

The S-10 project has been gradually un-raveling. Easiest new engine I have ever started. Ran like a top. I drove the first hundred miles with no problems what so ever. Oil and water levels remained good. Then, I drove to the parts store to work, and on the way I caught a flutter in the oil pressure gage. I knew this was not good, so I pulled in to a place and killed the engine. I went inside for a few minutes and returned. Opened the hood and pulled the dipstick. Yikes! Where was the oil. I had a partial quart with me, and I poured it in, then checked it again. It was still low, but at least it was on the dipstick. I was only ten miles or so from work, so I decided to ease on. I made the drive with no problem, but my mind was racing to figure out what might possibly be the problem. Before going to lunch, I filled the engine oil to the full mark. The little truck continues to run well, but is beginning to smoke. I drove the truck home, noticing every once and a while it was still trying to smoke. I parked in the driveway, and went in the house for the night. The following morning, I went to the truck and opened the hood. Pulled the dipstick and it showed the engine a quart low. Fifty miles and a quart of oil was consumed. I filled the crankcase again, and began my trek West. I parked the truck until lunch at which time I checked the oil. One quart down. Fifty more miles and another quart of oil! What in the world is going on? During a brief lull in the store, I slipped out to the little truck and removed a vacuum line I thought might be suspect. Returned to the store, cut a new vacuum line and returned to the truck to re-install it. I started the truck, and it didn't smoke, but when I revved the engine, it would blow wet black oil on the gravel of the parking lot. Now, was this fresh or residual? I began to hassle Chris, the nephew who owns the parts store about taking the little truck back to the farm shop, removing the engine I had purchased from him, bringing it back, him reimbursing me for the cost of the engine plus the labor to install it, and retrieve my old engine from his shop. (He hasn't sent the old engine in as a core yet!). If you really want to get Chris's attention, talk about money, if you want to make him sit on the edge of his seat, talk about him spending or losing money!

The new engine in the S-10 has a three year 75,000 mile warranty. It is a National company that advertises they are the worlds largest supplier of re-manufactured engines, transmissions and powertrain components. When Chris thought I was serious, he found a phone number and made a call pretty quick. After a brief conversation he handed the phone to me. I had Hailey on the line with the engine remanufacturer. She was wanting all sorts of information, engine part number, engine serial, install date, pickup VIN, miles at installation, current mileage, and a brief description of the problem. She took my phone number and address and told me a technician would be contacting me.

Surprisingly, a short time later, Richie, a technician with the company called me. We went through a list of procedures of the installation, the break-in period, and what we had done to try to figure out what the problem is. He asked about performance, and I told him no four cylinder engine performs, at least in a stock configuration. He laughed, and told me he concurred. I was very impressed with Richie. He didn't try to make you feel inferior, and gave me a list of diagnostics to try, and when completed I am to call him back with the results.

On the drive home, the smoke diminished the further I drove. This could be good, or it could be bad. (Meaning maybe it ran out of oil to burn). Just kidding, the oil pressure was O.K. so I know it had oil! I am off today, so I have not journeyed out to check oil level!

I talked with a co-worker yesterday who had ridden with me in the little truck and he told me the engine ran too good for it to be much. I am prepared to change the engine oil and filter today (even though it only has five hundred miles on it), and I am going to change the PCV valve. Then I will put a vacuum gauge on it and record the vacuum at idle, blip the throttle and see what it drops to, and observe whether the vacuum is steady or varying.

My final comment to the co-worker was "The thought of removing and replacing that engine again makes me physically ill!

And it does.

And I wonder if the prior entry was the cause of my emotional distress.

But read on.

When I walked in the house last evening, I removed my boots, removed everything from my shirt pocket (credit cards, driver license, and other necessary items), and laid them with my truck keys on the cabinet. I walked through the house to my bathroom, opened my closet and got my lounging clothes. Sweat bottoms and a sleeveless T-shirt. Once I was in my comfortable attire, I went back to the living room where Krl was at. When I walked in she was on the phone.

"Do what?" she exclaimed in shock. Immediately she turned to me and said, "Ollie is in jail again!"

I sat down in my chair and listened briefly to the one end of the conversation I could hear. It didn't take long for me to hear enough and I got up and Maple Syrple and I went to the home office.

I had not talked with Ollie since Tuesday when she called to tell me she had wrecked the car I had financed for her. She said she dodged a deer and hit a fence. She called a neighbor who came and got her and took her home to wash her face. The air bags had deployed causing a busted lip and a bloody nose. Apparently the police worked the accident as a hit and run/abandoned vehicle accident and had the car towed.

Ollie told me she was driving about twenty when a deer darted across the road, then another darted out and she dodged to miss it and hit the fence. This is a very similar story to when she wrecked her Mother and step-Dad's pickup a couple of month ago. I told her, "Hit the deer!" She told me, "Dad, we are going to make money on totaling this car out!" (That should tell us a lot about her mind set). And she told me she had an American classifieds and I needed to get one too to help her find another car!

When We had begun talking about helping her get a car, one thing we had talked about was no drinking and driving. Of course she was more than receptive of that condition. The possibility of a violation of our agreement crossed my mind when she told me of the accident along with her not being at the scene. Maybe, just maybe, she was hiding out from the police. (I have come to doubt the neighbor's involvement).

The following day, she called asking me to fax a copy of the title, the police were wanting proof of ownership before they would release the car to her. Another tell tell sign she didn't interact with the police at the accident scene.

It seems that Ollie went to the jail to visit her beau who continues to await his fate on parole violation for felony DWI, and when she was there the police checked for warrants and found Ollie had written some hot checks, and apparently forged some checks on her Mother and step-Dad's account. Combine this with my recent discovery that she is on probation from Lubbock on forgery and hot checks in San Angelo, and it looks as though she might become a guest of the State of Texas with you and me picking up the tab.

And this makes me very sad. Not that she is going to jail and probably prison, because she deserves it, but because she has made such poor choices. Just last week she called wanting to borrow some money. (She told me she had used her check taking care of some checks). I sent her the money along with a letter. In that letter I told her I could not even imagine being almost 27 years old and not being able to make it on my own. Her sister didn't escape unscathed because I told Ollie I couldn't imagine moving back into my Mother's house with my child and live-in-lover-ex-con in tow at the age of 29.

I am having a hard time here.

Of course an even more stark realization is that not only does Ollie deserve and need to be in jail, her sister Kali needs to be there too. You could just about pick any thing you might want to lock Kali away for. Reckless endangerment of a child. Impersonating a mother. Fraud with the unemployment system, fraud with medicare and medicaid, theft. The list could be endless.

Choices. Last week when Rian spoke at Lubbock Christian Schools chapel, that is what he spoke on. Making good choices.

The girl's Mother says it isn't her fault. She says it is her bipolar disorder that is responsible. I think making excuses doesn't help at all. For that matter I may be Tri-polar!

I think of Ollie in Lubbock, rookie of the year in real estate, and I wonder when she began making bad choices. I have a good idea. And I would have to say the choice was not necessarily hers alone, but she made it, and I believe it all began with a roommate. From that point on, her life has been a slow slide from the fast lane to the slow lane to the gutter.

I don't know, or understand why. Why is it some people never believe rules are for them. I have never wanted to risk my freedom for some freak frill. Whether it be for something you don't have money for, to alcohol, to illicit drugs.

I enjoy kicking back as much as anyone by enjoying a relaxing drink, I am not going to proclaim to be lilly white, but doing in the confines of your own home and not to excess is something totally different from going out and driving.

Hello, my name is Don, I am the father of two wanabee residents of the women's correctional system of Texas. They would rather lie than tell the truth, would rather cheat than earn something honest, believe that image is all that matters, and any rules and or laws do not apply to them.

Time for some hard love here.

Lock them up and throw away the key! At least we won't have to worry about where they are or if they are all right. Maybe a little more structure is what they need.

I have come to two conclusions. 1) Any effort to help them is considered (by them) to be an indication of weakness on our part. 2) Any effort to help them makes us an accessory to the problem because we "enable" them.

Is this what has been weighing on me so heavily? Maybe a combination of it all?

You know, the engine problem isn't very big at all.

Have a day!

FATHER, my heart hurts. I hurt for Ollie and for Kali, but I realize that the lessons learned best are the lessons hardest learned. I don't know where or when, or what choices were made that made them the way they are. Help me, to know that what happens is in YOUR plans for them. YOU are good.