After some careful consideration, I've decided that three years of keeping this blog is enough. I thought I could make it to a fourth year, but that won't happen. There are other venues for writing that have been keeping me occupied of late, and that's where I'll be. So it's time to take out the proverbial bowling pin and beat this blog over the head. Thanks for reading.
On a journey to the heart of darkness and futility.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I'm finished!
After some careful consideration, I've decided that three years of keeping this blog is enough. I thought I could make it to a fourth year, but that won't happen. There are other venues for writing that have been keeping me occupied of late, and that's where I'll be. So it's time to take out the proverbial bowling pin and beat this blog over the head. Thanks for reading.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A new year
2009 has gotten off to a whiz-bang start. Just a few days into the new year my car began giving my trouble. Might I add at this point that a mini van makes an excellent traffic control device when it stalls in the middle of morning rush hour traffic in a school zone. Fortunately someone came along and helped me push my van into a nearby driveway and out of the traffic. Off to the shop with my car on a flatbed wrecker. The diagnostic computer said there was a bad crankshaft sensor, so that was replaced. I picked up my car the next day, and when I was about a mile from home, the van started doing the same thing it was doing the day before--stalling out, but cranking back up and then stalling again when put in drive. For the second time I had to call a wrecker to come pick up my car from the side of the road. And also for the second time the same guy who had been dispatched to get my car the first time showed up again. As he pulled my car up onto the flatbed wrecker, I told him, "Given the schedule my car is on, I guess I'll see you on Saturday."
The diagnosis for my van the second time in the shop was a bad power control unit, the computer that reads input from various engine sensors and keeps things running. It would've been an expensive fix were it not under warranty. The next day after work I head back to the shop and picked up my car. Even though they logged 20 miles in the post-repair test drive, once again at the same point the car started acting up after the first repair, it started stalling again. I did manage to keep it running long enough to make it the last mile home, me popping the car into neutral and restarting the car every time it cut off on me. It was almost like riding a bucking bronco.
Saturday morning and another call for a wrecker to come get my car, which this time sat in my driveway. And the same wrecker driver who had come pick my car up the first two times pulled up to my house. "See, I told you I'd see you Saturday," I told him as he got out of his wrecker.
By this time what I had been feeling as a nagging thought was screaming through my head: my van had been a very reliable vehicle for almost the past six years, but what if now we're entering that stage where we'll be slowly, and expensively, replacing the car piece by piece, one repair after another? That afternoon it was off to the dealership under the guise to look, though I knew in my heart I'd be leaving with a new car. I needed something I could trust when I drove it, and that wasn't the van anymore. But there was a new Jeep on the lot that not only could be trusted, but also fell well into the range of what I could afford.
Even though 2009 got off to a crappy start, things are starting to look up.
The diagnosis for my van the second time in the shop was a bad power control unit, the computer that reads input from various engine sensors and keeps things running. It would've been an expensive fix were it not under warranty. The next day after work I head back to the shop and picked up my car. Even though they logged 20 miles in the post-repair test drive, once again at the same point the car started acting up after the first repair, it started stalling again. I did manage to keep it running long enough to make it the last mile home, me popping the car into neutral and restarting the car every time it cut off on me. It was almost like riding a bucking bronco.
Saturday morning and another call for a wrecker to come get my car, which this time sat in my driveway. And the same wrecker driver who had come pick my car up the first two times pulled up to my house. "See, I told you I'd see you Saturday," I told him as he got out of his wrecker.
By this time what I had been feeling as a nagging thought was screaming through my head: my van had been a very reliable vehicle for almost the past six years, but what if now we're entering that stage where we'll be slowly, and expensively, replacing the car piece by piece, one repair after another? That afternoon it was off to the dealership under the guise to look, though I knew in my heart I'd be leaving with a new car. I needed something I could trust when I drove it, and that wasn't the van anymore. But there was a new Jeep on the lot that not only could be trusted, but also fell well into the range of what I could afford.
Even though 2009 got off to a crappy start, things are starting to look up.
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