PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Okay, so here’s the actual story...

NorCal in the 1990s was a pretty decent place to be. My biggest gripe about living in California was that I experienced bullies for the first time (as fucked up a place as California is, school bullies are a nationwide epidemic so it’s not fair at all to blame Cali for that). This story is not about bullies. It is about friendship...

I managed to make it from Kindergarten through 12th grade without getting beaten up or getting into a stereotypical fight with a stereotypical bully. Nobody ever stole my lunch money or asked me to meet them after school. I actually had quite a few really good friends when we lived in NorCal from 1996 to 1998, including at least three girls.

One of these girls was named Sara, and she was two years younger than me. I remember her being in first grade when we met, and I am 99.9% sure I was in 3rd grade. We played together at recess all the time and nobody seemed to give a shit.

One day, I went to the area outside her classroom at recess to wait for her, and when she came out she shocked me by saying that her teacher didn’t want us playing together anymore. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Keep in mind that while she may have only been 6 or 7 years old, I was only two grades ahead of her and 9 at the oldest (probably 8). It’s not like I was some creepy middle schooler or even a 4th or 5th grader. I didn’t make a scene or anything, but rather we just stopped hanging out and then I moved in the summer of 1998. She was not a military brat like me, so if she stayed away from drugs she’s probably still living in NorCal, with a career, a nice car, her own place, and possibly a family (she was 6 or 7 in 1997-1998, so she’s pushing 30 by now). She was blonde, had that adorable girl-next-door look, and probably grew up to be quite attractive.

I never learned why her teacher didn’t want us playing together...

 

Patience, grasshopper...

Look above.

 

When we lived in Oak Harbor, Washington from 2000 to 2002, the youngest guy in my circle of friends was 7 and the oldest was 13 or 14 (I was born in 1989 and the peak of my friendship in Oak Harbor was in 2001, the only full year we lived there; Just to give you an idea). I fail to see the problem with a 3rd grade boy and a 1st grade girl hanging out and playing together!

 

@LocoLocal

By the way, four of my old friends from Oak Harbor ended up making bad decisions that screwed up their lives. The aforementioned 7-year old, according to his older sister, is an Aspie like me and also a paranoid schizophrenic who has been in and out of jail since his 18th birthday. As of 2017-2018, when I reconnected with his sister on Facebook, he was presently in jail...

One of my friends, who was born in 1992 and 8 years old when we met, was busted for selling weed in middle school. He is technically a convicted felon, but he was a minor so it got expunged and he has remained on the right side of the law. He’s even allowed to own a gun, a right he takes full advantage of.

The adoptive older brother (7 months younger than me) of the would-be weed dealer broke into a vacant building while drunk, and got a felony, and unfortunately he was 18 so it stayed on his record. He has largely stayed on the right side of the law too.

The most fucked up story involves this guy named Jon Burger who was not really my friend but rather a friend of a friend who hung around all the time. He was a year younger than me and understandably got on my parents’ bad side when he stole sixty bucks out of my dad’s wallet in February 2001 (the dumbass was caught a couple days later when he was showing off the money at school and a teacher became suspicious. Jon Burger is currently in prison for raping his sisters. Real upstanding citizen, right? I am sad to say that I’m pretty sure I was friends with a genuine sociopath...

 

Only two of my friends from Oak Harbor that I’m aware of ending up having happy lives.

The first one is Geno, the oldest in the group. Geno is black and rather tall. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident in the 1990s and it messed him
up for life. Geno is presently working at a gym in Oak Harbor. He is unable to drive or really exert himself because of his injuries.

Doug Burke (who is my age and was seriously my best friend from 2001 to 2002) joined the Marine Corps right out of high school, and did about four years. He was honorably discharged and now works as an airplane mechanic at Philly airport. He is also married with a kid on the way and lives about an hour from me. Two weeks ago, we saw each other for the first time in over 17 years and had a joyous reunion over beers and wings at a bar in Doylestown. We plan on meeting up again next week, along with his wife, in his neck of the woods.

 

Your ability to recall these details is amazing!

Sounds like you were hanging out with a rough crowd back then Charlie…

 

They were normal kids back then, except for convicted rapist Jon Burger...

In December 2000, Jon almost killed the class goldfish that I was caring for over Christmas break by dumping almost an entire container of flakes into the bowl. In February 2001, he stole sixty bucks out of my dad’s wallet. Another friend of mine who knew him suspected he was “diddling his sisters” as early as middle school.

 

@El Duderino
@Taco critter

Ali3n is giving me the cold shoulder, pretty sure...

 

It happens

 

Is it all because of that comment I made about police and authority?

 

No clue

 

Bill (Plain Jane Taco) gets annoyed by some of the shit I say too and thinks I have a very skewed outlook on authority (he's kinda right). However, he has a nephew with Aspergers and understands the reasons I say some of shit I say. What do you think, and have I said anything to upset or offend you in any way?

 

I could care less. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

This is the internet after all

 

@LocoLocal
@El Duderino
@Plain Jane Taco
@Running Man
@shakerhood
@Taco critter

They don’t make ‘em like they used to! 1985 Carrier heat pump at my work, still going!

 

@Plain Jane Taco

In my opinion, your house is awesome because it has an HVAC system that would be considered overpowered in certain jurisdictions (sized correctly for the house in terms of BTUs/nominal tonnage, but in Pennsylvania you don't see many houses the size of yours with two A/C units). By comparison, my uncle used to live in Boca Raton, Florida. His was house was built in 1992 or 1993. It was two stories and well over 2,500 square feet (I believe 2,700). It only had one air-conditioner, and it was just a straight-cool A/C, not a heat pump. Your house has electric backup heat, which is essentially just a fan blowing air across oversized toaster coils, for when the heat pumps are defrosting, if it is too cold for the heat pumps to operate efficiently on their own or at all, or as if emergency backup if either one of the heat pumps fails. My uncle's house in Boca essentially had this type of heating system matched with a cool-only A/C. By the time he sold the house and moved to North Florida a few years ago, the central heat hadn't worked in years but he never bothered to fix it because it rarely got cold enough to need it.

How would you say you heat pumps are in terms of heating performance? You have a Carrier and a Rheem, right?

 

@Plain Jane Taco and anyone else who will listen. I've mentioned this before but here it is again...

When I was a little tike, I was terrified of central air-conditioners and heat pumps! I didn't know what a heat pump was until I was 16 or 17, but when I was 3 or 4, straight-cool A/Cs and heat pumps were the same damn thing to me.

From about 1987 to 1994, my aunt and uncle owned a house in Olney, Maryland (not far from DC). They bought the house new, and I believe it was formerly a decorated model. This house was weird for a 2-story colonial of the era (1980s) for the following reasons:

• It had a one-car garage instead of the usual two.
• There was a sliding door off of the kitchen that opened onto a balcony, and a walkout basement with a sliding door, but no stairs down to the backyard from the main level balcony. If you wanted to go into the backyard, you had to go out through the basement slider, or go out the front door and walk around back through the side gate.
• The house had four bedrooms. The guestroom had an open "half wall" which overlooked a "2-story" family room with a vaulted ceiling.
• I do not believe that house had a fireplace.
• The A/C unit (heat pump) was located in the backyard. Every other single-family home I've seen built from the early 1980s onward has the A/C unit (or units if it has two or more) on the side.

So anyway, my aunt and uncle's house in Maryland had a big old York heat pump in the backyard. I remember very well that it was a York, and to a scrawny 4-year old, that thing looked terrifyingly larger than it actually was. I do not remember the model, but based one the design of the unit, I'd say it was a York Stellar Series. This particular model was one of the most popular residential central cooling systems ever (in both straight-cool and heat pump form), manufactured from probably 1982 until well into the 2000s. In my opinion, they are very durable and reliable, as I see examples from the 1980s still in use. The bar where I used to work has a 2005 York Stellar Series 5-ton heat pump that is still going strong (though it's had it's share of issues like, most recently, a bad fan motor).

The earliest I can remember in my life is 1991-1992, when I was 2-3 years old. My aunt would have to adjust the thermostat or turn the system off to get me to play with my cousin in the backyard. One time in 1992 or so, my aunt adjusted the thermostat but did not actually turn the system off. I was happily playing in the backyard with my cousin, and then the temperature inside the house reached the set temperature on the thermostat. The big old York kicked on and I promptly ran into house through the basement door, screaming and crying, all the way to my mom who was talking with my aunt in the kitchen.

 

This had to have been October 1993, because my aunt and uncle moved to Fairfax County, Virginia in November 1994 (though my cousin was born in October 1988 so they could have celebrated his birthday right before they moved). My parents and I were living in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania at the time (less than 20 minutes from where we live now). My and I drove down to Olney for my cousin’s birthday, and my aunt had hung up the piñata from a tree in the backyard. While we were lined up at the piñata, I kept nervously looking over my shoulder at the presently-dormant heat pump, expecting it to turn on at any moment. My mom kept telling me not to worry and assuring me it would not turn on.

 

Also, I’d say I’ve always had a good relationship with my aunt and uncle, but from 2002 until probably 2007, I saw them as obnoxiously cheap. It’s one thing to save money, and I respect certain things they do, like driving the same vehicles for 12 to 15 year or more. In 1996, my aunt and uncle lived in a beautiful house in one of the most affluent zip codes in Virginia (possibly the country), but my aunt was driving a 1986 Plymouth Voyager and my uncle was driving a 1985 Mazda GLC. I can respect this, as I am presently driving a 10-year old base model Tacoma with crank windows and almost 106K miles on it!

Let me give you two examples of my aunt being “obnoxiously cheap”...

• Taking my cousin and me to the movies, and making us (two straight guys, in our teens at the time) share a large soda instead of buying us each our own drink.
• Taking us to McDonald’s and only letting order off the dollar menu.

By comparison, my mom would get us our own popcorn, our own drinks, and our own candy at the movies, and buy us each our own full meal at McDonald’s!

 

My parents did not get a vehicle with a passenger side airbag until May 1996. Hell, that ‘96 Pathfinder was our first vehicle with airbags, EVER! My parents did not read up on the dangers of small children riding in the front seat with airbags until several months after my dad traded his ‘93 S10 Blazer for the Pathfinder. As such, I was riding shotgun in the Pathy as late as November 1996 if I remember correctly. Luckily, for another 4 years after we bought the Pathfinder, we always have one vehicle with no airbags. I had to use a booster seat as late as 4th grade due to being small for my age, but my parents always let me ride in the front of whatever non-airbag vehicle we had. In 2000, my parents traded the 1990 Mazda pickup for a new GMC conversion van, and I was relagated to the backseat for almost a year.