The Handsome and Talented Brad Andersen

A few weeks ago I took our car to get the oil changed (we had a coupon for a free one!). While I was there the mechanics proceeded to tell me all the things that were wrong with our dear Martha (that's what we call our car). They even went to the effort to bring me back into the shop and show me on the car. I said, "Fine. Just fix it." Well, after waiting for 2 hours (thank goodness I thought ahead and brought a book) they realized they didn't actually have the parts they needed. Oops. "But please go to our other store at this address. We already told them you were coming." Ummm....no thanks. To make matters worse they didn't even refill the coolant or the whipper washing fluid. Seriously? What were they doing for 2 hours?? I called Brad for the ump-tinth time to vent my frustration. He says, "I just looked it up online, and it doesn't look that hard. When I get home we'll go get the parts, and I'll change the belt myself." "Are you sure?" I say. "Yeah, it'll be easy."

Turns out Brad can do pretty much anything after reading about it or watching a 5 minute video on YouTube. Because, by golly, he changed that power steering belt (with a little help from his favorite pup).

"I want to be a mechanic just like dad."

That's the old belt. It's pretty frayed. It needed to be replaced but not nearly as bad as the people who changed the oil said. They told me it was dangerous for me to be driving, and they were shocked, absolutely shocked, that it hadn't snapped off yet.

And just for fun, one more of Killer.

Brad also changed the radio in dear old Martha. A couple months ago all the left side speakers just quit working. Just all of a sudden. We checked the fuses, and Brad took the whole front console apart to check all the wires. When no fuses were burnt out and no wires were frayed, we just kind of left it alone and drove around with only right speakers. Most of the time we'd only hear half a song since several songs utilize only the right or only the left speakers. We eventually got used to it. Then we wanted to go to the drive-in theatre. We realized we simply could not go with only the right speakers working. We'd miss half of the sound from the movie. Brad decided it was probably the radio that was broken. So he fixed it. Well, not really. I don't know if it was fixable, but we went out and bought a new radio and he installed it. I didn't get a picture of what it looked like during the process, but there were lots of wires and converter boxes and electrical tape. Since the old radio was custom made for our 2004 Sentra it fit perfectly into the space allotted for a radio. The new radio did not fit perfectly.

See all the space around the outside? Well instead of buying a plastic piece that fit around it Brad tore up the old radio and fit that plastic to the new radio. He's so handy.

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You may think roller derby has nothing to do with Brad being handsome or talented, but, boy, are you wrong. Who wouldn't be handsome in these glasses?

And it took a lot of talent to put together these outfits.

Brad did not do my hair, but I thought I'd include this picture anyways.

We have come to love roller derby. After every bout we go to I come home wanting to play, but then I quickly remember how tough those girls are and change my mind. I think I'll keep all my bones intact, thank you. Our favorite team, the Apocolypstix, were playing in the semi-finals last month, so to show our support we wore their colors - pink and black. We always see crazy people who dress up for the games, and Brad really wanted us to be those crazy people this time. So we trekked on over to Goodwill and found some stellar outfits. Unfortunately the Apocolypstix lost, but not from our lack of moral support. There's one more roller derby match of the season, and you better believe we'll be there.

Love, Brad & Courtney