u/Jiannies

Moved to Atlanta from Oklahoma a couple years ago, I needed a change of scenery for personal reasons and I had a buddy in ATL with some shows lined up that he was able to get me on. Fortunately I kept my 484 card, because once things dried up for me in Atlanta I was able to get a couple weeks on a show in Texas last July and those couple weeks turned into a whole year on two shows.

Now we’re a week from wrapping this current show and I’m set to go back to Atlanta. For the past month I’ve been trying to think of the healthy routines and habits I’m gonna start building now that I have some money saved up and time to do anything I want. But now that the end is really in sight, the excitement for those plans is starting to turn into anxiety that I’m just gonna do what I always do when I’m not working, smoke pot and lay in bed and rarely leave the house.

It’s just frustrating knowing that I’ll happily pull 4/0 cable all day in the sun if I’m getting paid to do it, but once I’m left to my own devices it feels impossible to get out and do anything.

Does anyone else experience this? Got any tips for leading a healthy and fulfilling life when not working?

I've got a 2017 Ford Escape 2.0L, 127k miles on it. Bought it CPO at 70k miles and at 84k I got hit with the dreaded coolant intrusion, paid $6k for a brand new 0 miles engine with a 1 year warranty. So the current engine has about 55k miles on it.

I've noticed that I get some weird shudders around 40mph or less, took my car in to a mechanic and they told me that the transmission fluid is pretty black (this is entirely my fault, I've done my oil changes on schedule but have never done any trans fluid changes) and that my torque converter could be failing. They quoted me 8k for a transmission rebuild, and said that doing a fluid change could help but could also hurt it, and that I should be prepared to put in a new trans if I decide to change the fluid. I need my car for work, and the shudders aren't terrible yet, so I decided to forego it until I get a couple weeks off in July at the end of my current job.

I finally paid this car off a few months ago, so the thought of taking on car payments again sucks, but obviously a broken car doesn't do me any good either. I'm planning on calling around to some transmission shops to get some more quotes- is there a price that would make a new transmission make more sense than taking that money and putting a down payment on a new or CPO car?

Of note, my job can sometimes require a shit ton of driving depending on the gig. On the last project I was working on, I put around 25k miles on it in four months. So that could factor in as well

Thanks all in advance