fixed!
thanks to a very very awesome poster on this forum who sent me a code reader to borrow! i was able to fix my baby without taking it somewhere.

the first thing i tried was replacing the fuel filter and pcv valve. i get better gas milage now haha . but that didn't fix anything.

for the last 4 years my check engine light has always been on. sometimes it would go off. but 90% of the time it was on. after hooking up the code reader i found two codes. one was telling me that cylinder 4 was misfiring and the other was saying that there was "insufficient flow" to the egr valve.
the first thing i did was replace all the spark plugs to see if that would help anything. still nothing though. then i took the egr valve off and took a toothbrush and some gasoline and scrubbed the crap out of it. then i soaked the inside of it in gas for a half hour and then cleaned it some more with the toothbrush. then i hooked it back up and tried starting it again. poof! one code gone! i was still misfiring though. the only thing i could think of to do was try replacing the coils. so i ordered that from advance auto and i found out that just one was 100 bucks! i do not have 600 bucks to play with at the moment so i ordered just one in hoping that maybe the guy at the counter might screw up. and give me all 6 for 100 bucks. no dice though. put the new one on and poof! no more misfire! car is fixed!

so now that my baby is fixed i took a nice drive down to johnson city yesterday and everything went fine! but one thing dampened my victory. my cd player finally took a crap on me. so now i'm in the market for a new cd player with a mp3 hook up. this is the 5th stereo i've been through. i should also mention that i listen to hardcore/punk and that i like to blast the stereo when i'm cruising. that might have a little to do with why i've been through so many stereos in the last 8 years.

so i'd like to thank anyone who helped me out in anyway with advice and that special poster who will remain nameless for letting me borrow that code reader! you guys saved me so much money!

i love this board!