I have an offline blog entry simmering on the back burner, collecting my feelings about this time of year, but I shall allow it to bubble and fizzle out for a while longer. Tonight is the night before xmas, part 2...
Tomorrow we trek up to St. Cloud, the new geographic center of the extended family universe ever since C and J moved to Fargo. So tomorrow we will be doing the xmas with my side of the family. And what is stirring in the house? Well, I FINALLY got Felix to go to sleep about 15 minutes ago, Andrea and her brother are in the dining room watching Home Movies and laughing quite a bit, the dog is off in his corner licking his paws in his typical OCD manner, and I'm in the basement, which still stinks of dog piss, quietly trying to figure out how to make video DVDs from AVI files in Linux.
For work I've taken it upon myself to drive the creative process for the next presentation. Our Star Wars themed version control movie apparently set the bar pretty high and other teams are feeling the pressure to produce something "creative" for January's quarterly meeting. Since the version control movie was done using stills of star wars figures, I htought I'd step this one up and try to do something that's animated. I have Anime Studio Pro which I think I can use to make 2d animations, sort of like South Park, but i need actual characters, etc and I don't know if i want to tackle trying ot draw them all...so then I decided to dabble with Poser, which is a 3D rendering program specifically for posing and staging scenes with human and animal 3D models. Spenty a good chunk of the day just trying to figure out how that program works, and ne4edless to say, it ain't easy to use.
Ah well...
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
security guard pre-requisites
"I've lost my coffee mug. Can you look in your lost and found to see if maybe someone turned it in?"
"Sure........nope, no mugs here. Where did you lose it?"
Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhh.
If I knew where I lost it, I'd have found it wouldn't I, and it wouldn't be lost and I would be talking to you...
"Sure........nope, no mugs here. Where did you lose it?"
Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhh.
If I knew where I lost it, I'd have found it wouldn't I, and it wouldn't be lost and I would be talking to you...
out to get me down?
Sometime last week Google Calendar decided to start giving me some commentary every day. How depressing.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
gitterdone
I got my xmas early today when Sears delivered the new dryer. Of course, it wasn't without cost. When I approved the replacement, they told me to go to the SEARS website and look at the model they were going to purchase for us (they = home warranty company) to make sure that the measurements were OK. This is important, they said, because this is non-returnable, non-refundable. I'm thinking "It sits out in the open, not in a closet or enclosed space, how could it possibly not fit?" so I called back and said, "Yeah yeah, looks great. Gimme."
Today the delivery guys show up and I wave them around to the side door so they can take it straight down to the basement. The guy whips out his tape measure and measures the doorway. Uh....uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. He says, "I think this door is going to have to come off. In fact..." he looks down the stairs and measures the width of the stairway at its narrowest point. "I think you need a flatback dryer. This ain't gonna fit." no no no no no no no.
"Well, this is a warranty replacement and its non-returnable, so its gotta fit. Tell me, what do we need to do?"
He looks at the stairs. "Well, I guess if this could come off it just might fit." He's pointing to the sort of mantle-like piece of wood the runs along at the top of the staircase. I don't know how else to explain it....maybe as a "ledge" where I tend to set tools and other stuff that needs to go downstairs. Anyway, I get my hammer and give it a few whacks on the bottom lip and up it comes. "Well....OK." He says. I take off the door as well while he and his partner uncrate the dryer. By the way, at that moment it was starting to actually snowing the first real snow we've had this year. The attach their lifting straps and whatnot and start to move the dryer in. The round the corner and are starting to ease down the stairs when they stop. "It's not wide enough," the one guy says. "Whaddya mean? It looks like you're already on the way down?" I say. "Naw, it's starting to rub, it won't fit. We could force it but it'll get scratched."
"Scratched, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Will it dry clothes?"
"Well....sure."
"Then f-ing scratch it. I've got a 5 month old baby who's diapers we've been drying on the damn radiators for a week and a half. If you guys showed up with a blow-torch I would have been happy. I don't care if it has scratches, just et it down there. Christ, the OLD dryer was crap when we bought the house, a few scratches aren't going to bother me. I'm the only one who's going to see the thing anyway."
"OK, here we go."
And the pushed and there was the noise of scraping, but it turned out mostly to just be paint and wood on the stairs. The dryer was delivered to my laundry room and they gave me a power cord. Yeah, weird how dryers don't come with the power cord attached. Then the guy looks, "Oh, you've got a 3-wire outlet....this is a 4 wire cord." Uuuuuuuh.
"No problem, I'll go get a 3-wire from the truck." whew.
The new dryer is beautiful.
I put on the power cord, the feet, an d set about trying to level it. Then I attach the vent from the old one. Its tight, but it works. Probably want to get some new venting, but that's no biggie.
I level it, make some adjustments to the feet and plug it in....
...except that the cord doesn't reach the socket. No. no no no no no.
So I move the dryer enough that the cord just reaches and, of course, the vent pipe comes off. I climb back there and reattach vent. And find I'm trapped between a tightly stretched power cord and a tightly stretched exhaust vent. I end up doing some limbo action to get myself out of there. The dryer is about a foot more forward than the washer and, in its new location I'm going to need to adjust the feet again....but anyway, I power it up and it works. Smells like burning something, but apparently that's to be expected on a new heating element.
So, next small project...replace the ledge in the stairs. And get a longer power cord and exhaust vent.
Today the delivery guys show up and I wave them around to the side door so they can take it straight down to the basement. The guy whips out his tape measure and measures the doorway. Uh....uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. He says, "I think this door is going to have to come off. In fact..." he looks down the stairs and measures the width of the stairway at its narrowest point. "I think you need a flatback dryer. This ain't gonna fit." no no no no no no no.
"Well, this is a warranty replacement and its non-returnable, so its gotta fit. Tell me, what do we need to do?"
He looks at the stairs. "Well, I guess if this could come off it just might fit." He's pointing to the sort of mantle-like piece of wood the runs along at the top of the staircase. I don't know how else to explain it....maybe as a "ledge" where I tend to set tools and other stuff that needs to go downstairs. Anyway, I get my hammer and give it a few whacks on the bottom lip and up it comes. "Well....OK." He says. I take off the door as well while he and his partner uncrate the dryer. By the way, at that moment it was starting to actually snowing the first real snow we've had this year. The attach their lifting straps and whatnot and start to move the dryer in. The round the corner and are starting to ease down the stairs when they stop. "It's not wide enough," the one guy says. "Whaddya mean? It looks like you're already on the way down?" I say. "Naw, it's starting to rub, it won't fit. We could force it but it'll get scratched."
"Scratched, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Will it dry clothes?"
"Well....sure."
"Then f-ing scratch it. I've got a 5 month old baby who's diapers we've been drying on the damn radiators for a week and a half. If you guys showed up with a blow-torch I would have been happy. I don't care if it has scratches, just et it down there. Christ, the OLD dryer was crap when we bought the house, a few scratches aren't going to bother me. I'm the only one who's going to see the thing anyway."
"OK, here we go."
And the pushed and there was the noise of scraping, but it turned out mostly to just be paint and wood on the stairs. The dryer was delivered to my laundry room and they gave me a power cord. Yeah, weird how dryers don't come with the power cord attached. Then the guy looks, "Oh, you've got a 3-wire outlet....this is a 4 wire cord." Uuuuuuuh.
"No problem, I'll go get a 3-wire from the truck." whew.
The new dryer is beautiful.
I put on the power cord, the feet, an d set about trying to level it. Then I attach the vent from the old one. Its tight, but it works. Probably want to get some new venting, but that's no biggie.
I level it, make some adjustments to the feet and plug it in....
...except that the cord doesn't reach the socket. No. no no no no no.
So I move the dryer enough that the cord just reaches and, of course, the vent pipe comes off. I climb back there and reattach vent. And find I'm trapped between a tightly stretched power cord and a tightly stretched exhaust vent. I end up doing some limbo action to get myself out of there. The dryer is about a foot more forward than the washer and, in its new location I'm going to need to adjust the feet again....but anyway, I power it up and it works. Smells like burning something, but apparently that's to be expected on a new heating element.
So, next small project...replace the ledge in the stairs. And get a longer power cord and exhaust vent.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
weekend shmeekend
Actually, all things considered, it wasn't a half bad weekend. ACTUALLY, all things considered, it was a pretty good weekend.
Last Saturday I called in to our home warranty company because our dryer, which as been on its last leg since we bought the house (and has been steadily losing its toes), finally kinda kicked the bucket. The belt or drive wheel no longer gets enough traction to spin the drum if anything heavier than a wet sock is in it. So I called them up last Saturday and they said someone would call me within 24 hours.
Sunday comes and goes.
Monday comes and in the afternoon I call back to say, "Nobody called me."
"Oh," they say, "It says the contractor said they don't go all the way out there." Out there? out where? We live smack dab in the middle of the damn city. "I'll put you on the redispatch list."
"Uh, yeah, its been two days now, can you give it some sort of priority or something?"
"Yes, I'll do that."
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
"Hey, nobody has contacted me yet."
"What? Oh, it looks like the contractor doesn't..."
"Yeah yeah, Jon's Appliance...I had this conversation two days ago. We were supposed to be redispatched, with priority..."
"Um...whoever said that must have forgotten. I'll redispatch..."
"Yeah, look, we're on day 5 with no dryer and I have a 5 month old baby. I've had the same conversation twice now..."
"Here, let me transfer you to a service agent and they will handle this for you directly."
"Uh, thanks I guess."
Muzak.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
"I called in on Saturday..." story continues.
"Ok, I'll find a contractor right now, can you hold?"
Muzak.
"Ok, um, the only contractor I was able to get in touch with was...SEARS, and they can't get out there until Monday. Is that Ok?"
"Monday? No, of course that's not ok, but what the hell am I going to do? If that's the best you can do, I guess I'm stuck with it. Can't you keep trying other contractors and hope someone can get here sooner? I NEED a dryer. I'm drying diapers on my freakin' radiators."
...
UPDATE: So we're getting a new dryer. Will only be a week or so before it arrives... gah!
Last Saturday I called in to our home warranty company because our dryer, which as been on its last leg since we bought the house (and has been steadily losing its toes), finally kinda kicked the bucket. The belt or drive wheel no longer gets enough traction to spin the drum if anything heavier than a wet sock is in it. So I called them up last Saturday and they said someone would call me within 24 hours.
Sunday comes and goes.
Monday comes and in the afternoon I call back to say, "Nobody called me."
"Oh," they say, "It says the contractor said they don't go all the way out there." Out there? out where? We live smack dab in the middle of the damn city. "I'll put you on the redispatch list."
"Uh, yeah, its been two days now, can you give it some sort of priority or something?"
"Yes, I'll do that."
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
"Hey, nobody has contacted me yet."
"What? Oh, it looks like the contractor doesn't..."
"Yeah yeah, Jon's Appliance...I had this conversation two days ago. We were supposed to be redispatched, with priority..."
"Um...whoever said that must have forgotten. I'll redispatch..."
"Yeah, look, we're on day 5 with no dryer and I have a 5 month old baby. I've had the same conversation twice now..."
"Here, let me transfer you to a service agent and they will handle this for you directly."
"Uh, thanks I guess."
Muzak.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
"I called in on Saturday..." story continues.
"Ok, I'll find a contractor right now, can you hold?"
Muzak.
"Ok, um, the only contractor I was able to get in touch with was...SEARS, and they can't get out there until Monday. Is that Ok?"
"Monday? No, of course that's not ok, but what the hell am I going to do? If that's the best you can do, I guess I'm stuck with it. Can't you keep trying other contractors and hope someone can get here sooner? I NEED a dryer. I'm drying diapers on my freakin' radiators."
...
UPDATE: So we're getting a new dryer. Will only be a week or so before it arrives... gah!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
looks like it worked
Day 2 with no messy coolant leak forming under the car...course, it has been raining all day yesterday so it was hard to tell, but this morning I checked again and it looks like the new radiator was the solution. With this sort of thing I'm always paranoid that I'll go through great expense or great effort and only partially fix the issue or in the process uncover other equally serious issues. Hasn't happened in this case yet.
NOTE TO SELF: Need to fix headlight.
NOTE TO SELF: Need to fix headlight.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
conquest
YAR!!!!!!!!!
I finally finished working on the car. Tonight was another grudge match against the engineers at Ford. It was slow at times, frustrating, but in the end I won.
I installed new transaxle oil cooler lines, which was as hard as removing the old lines, as well as installing a new fitting on the tranny because the plastic "quick connect" clip (because nobody would actually buy a "This is going to take you 45 minutes just to install this line connect") broken when I removed the old line. And "removed" is putting it politely.
Once the new lines were in, I felt OK attempting to remove the radiator. Turns out the guys at the Taurus Car Club are right, you do NOT need to take off the bumper to replace the radiator. Besides, all of the hard stuff is on the engine side. If you really wanted to make removing and installing the radiator easier you'd remove the power steering pump, the alternator, and the AC hoses. Anyway, the whole radiator part only took about an hour, and most of that was just trying to remember where all those bolts went. I only ended up with one bolt leftover, and actually, I think I know where it goes and it is non-essential.
So, now the heat works great and so far as I can tell we're not leaking coolant...a little oil and maybe a teeny bit of brake fluid (at one of my last services I was infromed of some seeping or weeping from the brake master cylinder or slave cylinder? Can't remember which. Passenger side front wheel is all I remember). So, anyhow, I started Sunday around 2:30pm and finished Tuesday at about 1:45am. All told, the radiator only took about 2 hours. Most of the remaining time was spent driving around (tonight) looking for a replacement fitting or yanking on tranny oil cooler lines (last night and some of tonight). If I were to do this again, I expect it would take me maybe 3 or 4 hours total.
And the only known casualty is my passenger side head light bulb, which was the older of the two and was probably going to go out anytime.
We still need to have the cooling system flushed, though, but I'll let JiffyLube do that in a week or two.
Right now i have so much testosterone...
I finally finished working on the car. Tonight was another grudge match against the engineers at Ford. It was slow at times, frustrating, but in the end I won.
I installed new transaxle oil cooler lines, which was as hard as removing the old lines, as well as installing a new fitting on the tranny because the plastic "quick connect" clip (because nobody would actually buy a "This is going to take you 45 minutes just to install this line connect") broken when I removed the old line. And "removed" is putting it politely.
Once the new lines were in, I felt OK attempting to remove the radiator. Turns out the guys at the Taurus Car Club are right, you do NOT need to take off the bumper to replace the radiator. Besides, all of the hard stuff is on the engine side. If you really wanted to make removing and installing the radiator easier you'd remove the power steering pump, the alternator, and the AC hoses. Anyway, the whole radiator part only took about an hour, and most of that was just trying to remember where all those bolts went. I only ended up with one bolt leftover, and actually, I think I know where it goes and it is non-essential.
So, now the heat works great and so far as I can tell we're not leaking coolant...a little oil and maybe a teeny bit of brake fluid (at one of my last services I was infromed of some seeping or weeping from the brake master cylinder or slave cylinder? Can't remember which. Passenger side front wheel is all I remember). So, anyhow, I started Sunday around 2:30pm and finished Tuesday at about 1:45am. All told, the radiator only took about 2 hours. Most of the remaining time was spent driving around (tonight) looking for a replacement fitting or yanking on tranny oil cooler lines (last night and some of tonight). If I were to do this again, I expect it would take me maybe 3 or 4 hours total.
And the only known casualty is my passenger side head light bulb, which was the older of the two and was probably going to go out anytime.
We still need to have the cooling system flushed, though, but I'll let JiffyLube do that in a week or two.
Right now i have so much testosterone...
Sunday, December 10, 2006
the saga continues
Good grief, somebody shoot me please. First of all, those jackasses at the service shops are f-ing full of shit. Second of all, Ford is f-ing full of shit to build a car around an f-ing radiator. I will never buy another ford. Probably. Unless its a Lincoln or something...whatever.
I spent almost all of today working on that goddamned radiator and curently I'm feeling somewhat defeated. It was looking bleak when I couldn't figure out what the instructions meant when they said, "Remove radiator mounting bracket assembly" and thought for sure I was going to have to remove the bumper cover and just the thought of doing that was very overwhelming. Here's why. The Haynes manual does this super nifty thing where to install a radiator is explained in less than 20 semi-detailed instructions. However, you'll find that step 11 is "Remove bumper. See chapter 8 for details" and so you go to chapter 8 and find the "remove bumper" section and it has 10 steps, step 5 is "Remove headlamps, see section 2" and step 12 is "remove fender liners, see section 4" which is another 8 steps, one of which is "Remove the wheels". I imagine this is the scenario that the service shop is trying to sell to me. HOWEVER, it just so turns out that the hard part about removing a radiator from a 97 Mercury Sable is the fact that the hoses all connect on the engine side of the radiator and there is little to no room to work. Keep in mind, this would be absolutely the same scenario if you took the whole front end off. The worst part is that the transmission oil cooler lines use a little plastic quick disconnect "tool", which, of course, only works if your line fittings are not rusted to your radiator, like mine are.
So, after getting off to a great start, floundering for a little while, then having a eureka moment and blazing away, I end up feeling defeated by a pair of poorly places and solidly stuck transmission cooler lines. So I had to give up for tonight. The only option I have is to cut the lines off the radiator so I can remove it, then I'll need to install new lines along with the new radiator. Which probably isn't a bad thing...just another operation I wasn't counting on and which on the face of it SHOULD be relatively simple and hopefully low cost. Right? And I take some small consolation that had I gone with a service shop they would have called me to let me know "Turns out your tranny cooler lines were rusted to the radiator and we had to cut them off, so you'll need new ones of those installed which will take 2 more hours and $200 in parts..." or something along those lines.
Mainly I just feel like I've let my family down, stranding us without a car for who knows how long. Hopefully I can get these lines at an auto parts store for a reasonable price and hopefully there are no more surprises. Oh, and I absolutely HATE spring wire hose clips. What a horrible idea those are.
And to top it all off I felt like shit (maybe it was just because I was practically swimming in antifreeze all day) because I was missing my son. I'm not supposed to be away from him like this on the weekends.
I spent almost all of today working on that goddamned radiator and curently I'm feeling somewhat defeated. It was looking bleak when I couldn't figure out what the instructions meant when they said, "Remove radiator mounting bracket assembly" and thought for sure I was going to have to remove the bumper cover and just the thought of doing that was very overwhelming. Here's why. The Haynes manual does this super nifty thing where to install a radiator is explained in less than 20 semi-detailed instructions. However, you'll find that step 11 is "Remove bumper. See chapter 8 for details" and so you go to chapter 8 and find the "remove bumper" section and it has 10 steps, step 5 is "Remove headlamps, see section 2" and step 12 is "remove fender liners, see section 4" which is another 8 steps, one of which is "Remove the wheels". I imagine this is the scenario that the service shop is trying to sell to me. HOWEVER, it just so turns out that the hard part about removing a radiator from a 97 Mercury Sable is the fact that the hoses all connect on the engine side of the radiator and there is little to no room to work. Keep in mind, this would be absolutely the same scenario if you took the whole front end off. The worst part is that the transmission oil cooler lines use a little plastic quick disconnect "tool", which, of course, only works if your line fittings are not rusted to your radiator, like mine are.
So, after getting off to a great start, floundering for a little while, then having a eureka moment and blazing away, I end up feeling defeated by a pair of poorly places and solidly stuck transmission cooler lines. So I had to give up for tonight. The only option I have is to cut the lines off the radiator so I can remove it, then I'll need to install new lines along with the new radiator. Which probably isn't a bad thing...just another operation I wasn't counting on and which on the face of it SHOULD be relatively simple and hopefully low cost. Right? And I take some small consolation that had I gone with a service shop they would have called me to let me know "Turns out your tranny cooler lines were rusted to the radiator and we had to cut them off, so you'll need new ones of those installed which will take 2 more hours and $200 in parts..." or something along those lines.
Mainly I just feel like I've let my family down, stranding us without a car for who knows how long. Hopefully I can get these lines at an auto parts store for a reasonable price and hopefully there are no more surprises. Oh, and I absolutely HATE spring wire hose clips. What a horrible idea those are.
And to top it all off I felt like shit (maybe it was just because I was practically swimming in antifreeze all day) because I was missing my son. I'm not supposed to be away from him like this on the weekends.
chasing geese
I now dedicate December as National Mechanical Failure Month, or, perhaps, National Bad Luck Month, or even National Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch Month. Definitely making it (if it isn't already) Empty Your Bank Accounts Month.
So, here's the story:
Andrea's dad offers us an early xmas present - he said he'll cover to cost of labor to get the radiator replaced. So I call up the place that gave me the best estimate, which involved buying a radiator from a radiator salvage place and then taking it up the street to a service shop to have it installed. They quoted me 3.8 hours (like the other places did) and an hour after I dropped it off, 20 minutes into the hour bus ride BACK to Minneapolis (both of these places are over in old St. Paul, on Rice Street) for work (late, by the way) I get a call from the shop. "Uh, there's an asterisk on the deal. Turns off this is a six hour job cuz that bumper has got to come off." Just like the first place I took the car to said. "Well, forget it then. I'll be back this afternoon to pick it up." Grrrrr. Even though the labor portion was being gifted to us, I'm not going to bump up the gift cost by hundreds of dollars. So I already bought the radiator ($75). I call another shop and ask them why this 3.8 hour job would suddenly turn into a 6 hour job? They say, "Doesn't make sense to us. None of our guys can remember ever having to take a bumper off to install a radiator." So I of course hit the library again, this time checking out the Haynes manual for my car and looking at the AllData database again (which one of the shops quoted me as having the alleged asterisk, which I could not find) for the service instructions. The Haynes manual mentions removing the bumper cover. The AllData instructions don't mention the bumper or bumper cover at all. So I scour the web, again, and this time I come across the Taurus Car Club which has tons of info in the forums. Lots of people saying that you don't need to remove the bumper, that the radiator comes out the bottom. Hrm.
Sigh. Ok, I have the part, and Andrea's dad had volunteered his garage and tools before he offered to pay for the service, so I decided I'd be taking him up on that (I'm going over today to try to do this repair...you can bet there will be an entry about how that goes) offer instead.
So, yesterday (Saturday), we're going about our semi-regular weekend schedule, which includes doing adult people laundry (instead of the baby people laundry I do at least every other day). I had started the laundry Friday night and dried half of our laundry over night. Saturday morning I was drying the first load of darks (always heavier due to the jeans, etc) and I thought I smelled burning rubber. Oh Great. Yeah, the drive wheel or belt or whatever on the dryer is slipping and won't turn the dryer drum if more than maybe a handful of socks are in there. Well, this thing has been on its last legs since we bought the house, and in the past month is has gotten louder and louder (screechy and scraping), the door latch broke so I'm holding the door closed with a 2x4 with angled ends (works pretty well, actually). Well, with cloth diapers we can't really afford to have the dryer out of commission for more than about a day. Luckily, all of our appliances are covered by our home warranty, so we pay $55 deductible and someone comes and looks at the dryer and at worst fixes it and at best, replaces it. I'm going to try to get this thing replaced if at all possible. Talk about a silver lining on this past dogshit week. But I'm not really expecting that. But who knows...maybe the time it takes to fix the dryer will be more than the cost to just replace it...I'm not looking for a nice stainless steel industrial grade dryer (though that would be nice), just your basic front loader that was made before 1980. Our current dryer is a Monkey Wards brand dryer, if that tells you anything about how old it is. So, the guy from the appliance place hasn't called me yet (supposed to get a call within 12 hours? Riiiiight) to set up the appointment. I expect they will call me on Monday when they check their messages. Which means I'll probably be taking a half day sometime this week to deal with that...
And now, after continuing to drive the car with not much trouble at all (heat works after awhile, car is not over heating, but still see fluid leaking) I'm starting to worry that the leak might not be in the radiator at all, but could be a hose or the reserve tank. But the first service shop, the ones who actually DID diagnostics, a pressure test, etc, said that it was the radiator and thus delivered the quote for 6 hours work, $600. AND THEN EXTRA TO FLUSH. That's what gets me. Shouldn't a cooling system flush be fucking included in this type of service???? That's one of the reasons I may not go back to that place. So far the only thing they have going is that they are close to where we live.
Ok...enough for right now. Perhaps my next entry will be when I am glowing with the satisfaction of DIY done good and having saved $$$.
And of course, to further put worry bees in my bonnet, my dad asks me, "Did you ask a Ford dealer what they would charge for the service?" No, of course not, I assumed they would cost more than anyone else. "Bad assumption..." he says. Well, whatever their quote, I'm past the point of no-return. Right now my biggest concern is what am I going to do at Andrea's dad's house for 3 hours while we wait for the engine to cool...
So, here's the story:
Andrea's dad offers us an early xmas present - he said he'll cover to cost of labor to get the radiator replaced. So I call up the place that gave me the best estimate, which involved buying a radiator from a radiator salvage place and then taking it up the street to a service shop to have it installed. They quoted me 3.8 hours (like the other places did) and an hour after I dropped it off, 20 minutes into the hour bus ride BACK to Minneapolis (both of these places are over in old St. Paul, on Rice Street) for work (late, by the way) I get a call from the shop. "Uh, there's an asterisk on the deal. Turns off this is a six hour job cuz that bumper has got to come off." Just like the first place I took the car to said. "Well, forget it then. I'll be back this afternoon to pick it up." Grrrrr. Even though the labor portion was being gifted to us, I'm not going to bump up the gift cost by hundreds of dollars. So I already bought the radiator ($75). I call another shop and ask them why this 3.8 hour job would suddenly turn into a 6 hour job? They say, "Doesn't make sense to us. None of our guys can remember ever having to take a bumper off to install a radiator." So I of course hit the library again, this time checking out the Haynes manual for my car and looking at the AllData database again (which one of the shops quoted me as having the alleged asterisk, which I could not find) for the service instructions. The Haynes manual mentions removing the bumper cover. The AllData instructions don't mention the bumper or bumper cover at all. So I scour the web, again, and this time I come across the Taurus Car Club which has tons of info in the forums. Lots of people saying that you don't need to remove the bumper, that the radiator comes out the bottom. Hrm.
Sigh. Ok, I have the part, and Andrea's dad had volunteered his garage and tools before he offered to pay for the service, so I decided I'd be taking him up on that (I'm going over today to try to do this repair...you can bet there will be an entry about how that goes) offer instead.
So, yesterday (Saturday), we're going about our semi-regular weekend schedule, which includes doing adult people laundry (instead of the baby people laundry I do at least every other day). I had started the laundry Friday night and dried half of our laundry over night. Saturday morning I was drying the first load of darks (always heavier due to the jeans, etc) and I thought I smelled burning rubber. Oh Great. Yeah, the drive wheel or belt or whatever on the dryer is slipping and won't turn the dryer drum if more than maybe a handful of socks are in there. Well, this thing has been on its last legs since we bought the house, and in the past month is has gotten louder and louder (screechy and scraping), the door latch broke so I'm holding the door closed with a 2x4 with angled ends (works pretty well, actually). Well, with cloth diapers we can't really afford to have the dryer out of commission for more than about a day. Luckily, all of our appliances are covered by our home warranty, so we pay $55 deductible and someone comes and looks at the dryer and at worst fixes it and at best, replaces it. I'm going to try to get this thing replaced if at all possible. Talk about a silver lining on this past dogshit week. But I'm not really expecting that. But who knows...maybe the time it takes to fix the dryer will be more than the cost to just replace it...I'm not looking for a nice stainless steel industrial grade dryer (though that would be nice), just your basic front loader that was made before 1980. Our current dryer is a Monkey Wards brand dryer, if that tells you anything about how old it is. So, the guy from the appliance place hasn't called me yet (supposed to get a call within 12 hours? Riiiiight) to set up the appointment. I expect they will call me on Monday when they check their messages. Which means I'll probably be taking a half day sometime this week to deal with that...
And now, after continuing to drive the car with not much trouble at all (heat works after awhile, car is not over heating, but still see fluid leaking) I'm starting to worry that the leak might not be in the radiator at all, but could be a hose or the reserve tank. But the first service shop, the ones who actually DID diagnostics, a pressure test, etc, said that it was the radiator and thus delivered the quote for 6 hours work, $600. AND THEN EXTRA TO FLUSH. That's what gets me. Shouldn't a cooling system flush be fucking included in this type of service???? That's one of the reasons I may not go back to that place. So far the only thing they have going is that they are close to where we live.
Ok...enough for right now. Perhaps my next entry will be when I am glowing with the satisfaction of DIY done good and having saved $$$.
And of course, to further put worry bees in my bonnet, my dad asks me, "Did you ask a Ford dealer what they would charge for the service?" No, of course not, I assumed they would cost more than anyone else. "Bad assumption..." he says. Well, whatever their quote, I'm past the point of no-return. Right now my biggest concern is what am I going to do at Andrea's dad's house for 3 hours while we wait for the engine to cool...
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
ah to be a stay at home dad
I took off two weeks (vacation) to stay home after Felix was born. Other than that, I've never taken more than maybe 5 days of vacation at a time, and 90% of the time I only take off a single day. So, I tend to accrue vacation time quicker than I use it. In fact, in the past month I've taken off three days (including today) which is a lot, if you ask me. I've taken off one day each week for the past three weeks to stay home and help take care of Felix. This is as much a benefit to me (getting to spend a whole day with Felix is great, especially when its not a weekend day) as it is for Andrea (having someone else around to occupy Felix, as well as another adult person to talk to during the day helps break the isolation, just a little).
Now, I work with people who I have a hard time imagining they have any vacation time left because A) I've been here longer and B) they seem to be on vacation all the time. Mostly doing half-week stints at least once a month and a spare Monday or Friday during at least one of the other weeks that month. And, for people (I'm saying "people" because I don't want to single a person out, even if not using any names...who knows who reads this thing anyway, right? Learned THAT lesson already!!!) who take so much time off...they also seem to be taking the most sick days too.
It does make me a little self-conscious, taking these days off, but at least I planned them well in advance and picked them strategically to try and have the least impact on my team. Some people barely give any notice and don't seem to take into account the fact that they may even be on-call when they are scheduling their "vacations" (last minute or not).
I'm all in favor of having a healthy work-life balance (its why I'm home today), but it is possible to be leaning too far in the life direction to really be fair to your work. Of course...who knows whats going on behind the scenes.
Anyway, I'm home today and I feel pretty good about it since I did more than my part to keep things running and even advance them along the way. The big project I'm working on, the one I have been working on since October (where I replaced that guy, who is now back...and I'm still doing most of his job on the project) keeps getting held up by technical issues. And each time, what do you know, who figured it out, wrote a little script, or debugged a piece of code, that got everything back up and running? Me. I am a troubleshooting mofo fo' sho'. (*snicker* Felix's monogram is FSHO, F'sho'!)
Right now is the "quiet" part of the morning when Andrea and Felix are still trying to squeeze in another hour of sleep. I put quiet in quotes because, on this day, the garbage trucks in the alley next to our house start at about 5am. Apparently the dumpsters for the apartment building across the alley are a target of opportunity for every single waste management company, as it sounds like no less than three different trucks have pulled in, picked up, and slammed around those f'ing dumpsters. What is this, garbage truck school?
And in other news, my Linux home initiative is still underway. The main computer was reloaded Linux, then returned to the previous Windows install (different drives) when I couldn't get Samba working the way I wanted it (rather, I didn't know how to set it up) which cut us off from our night time entertainment (big no-no) on nights when no netflix arrived. I have since switched back to Linux, have samba working, bit torrent working, and, through the glory of VNC, I am able to do almost everything without going down into the basement. So we are now Linux in the basement and using our laptops (OSX and WinXP) in the rest of the house. And it is relatively seemless. The other nice thing about VNC (better than Windows Remote Desktop, I think) is that it is fast and unobtrusive. If i have 10 minutes, I can pop onto the Linux box remotely, work on something, and then put it down as quick as necessary if Felix or Andrea call. Current Linux project I'm working through is getting Wine (a Windows "integration layer" to allow running Windows programs almost natively in Linux) to work so I can still take advantage of certain Windows programs that are particularly useful, like DVDShrink and DVD Decrypter. The main trouble lies in the fact that I'm running 64-bit Linux and not every software package is available in binary format (precompiled) for 64-bit systems. The nice thing is, with a little extra work (or if you tap the right resources, with someone else's little bit of work) you can usually compile these applications yourself or wait for someone else to do it for you, and voila! It usually works.
Now, if I could only find a way to make the dog much quieter as he tromps up and down the stairs....THAT would be a big win.
Now, I work with people who I have a hard time imagining they have any vacation time left because A) I've been here longer and B) they seem to be on vacation all the time. Mostly doing half-week stints at least once a month and a spare Monday or Friday during at least one of the other weeks that month. And, for people (I'm saying "people" because I don't want to single a person out, even if not using any names...who knows who reads this thing anyway, right? Learned THAT lesson already!!!) who take so much time off...they also seem to be taking the most sick days too.
It does make me a little self-conscious, taking these days off, but at least I planned them well in advance and picked them strategically to try and have the least impact on my team. Some people barely give any notice and don't seem to take into account the fact that they may even be on-call when they are scheduling their "vacations" (last minute or not).
I'm all in favor of having a healthy work-life balance (its why I'm home today), but it is possible to be leaning too far in the life direction to really be fair to your work. Of course...who knows whats going on behind the scenes.
Anyway, I'm home today and I feel pretty good about it since I did more than my part to keep things running and even advance them along the way. The big project I'm working on, the one I have been working on since October (where I replaced that guy, who is now back...and I'm still doing most of his job on the project) keeps getting held up by technical issues. And each time, what do you know, who figured it out, wrote a little script, or debugged a piece of code, that got everything back up and running? Me. I am a troubleshooting mofo fo' sho'. (*snicker* Felix's monogram is FSHO, F'sho'!)
Right now is the "quiet" part of the morning when Andrea and Felix are still trying to squeeze in another hour of sleep. I put quiet in quotes because, on this day, the garbage trucks in the alley next to our house start at about 5am. Apparently the dumpsters for the apartment building across the alley are a target of opportunity for every single waste management company, as it sounds like no less than three different trucks have pulled in, picked up, and slammed around those f'ing dumpsters. What is this, garbage truck school?
And in other news, my Linux home initiative is still underway. The main computer was reloaded Linux, then returned to the previous Windows install (different drives) when I couldn't get Samba working the way I wanted it (rather, I didn't know how to set it up) which cut us off from our night time entertainment (big no-no) on nights when no netflix arrived. I have since switched back to Linux, have samba working, bit torrent working, and, through the glory of VNC, I am able to do almost everything without going down into the basement. So we are now Linux in the basement and using our laptops (OSX and WinXP) in the rest of the house. And it is relatively seemless. The other nice thing about VNC (better than Windows Remote Desktop, I think) is that it is fast and unobtrusive. If i have 10 minutes, I can pop onto the Linux box remotely, work on something, and then put it down as quick as necessary if Felix or Andrea call. Current Linux project I'm working through is getting Wine (a Windows "integration layer" to allow running Windows programs almost natively in Linux) to work so I can still take advantage of certain Windows programs that are particularly useful, like DVDShrink and DVD Decrypter. The main trouble lies in the fact that I'm running 64-bit Linux and not every software package is available in binary format (precompiled) for 64-bit systems. The nice thing is, with a little extra work (or if you tap the right resources, with someone else's little bit of work) you can usually compile these applications yourself or wait for someone else to do it for you, and voila! It usually works.
Now, if I could only find a way to make the dog much quieter as he tromps up and down the stairs....THAT would be a big win.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
when it rains it pours
So, over the past few days we have made some hard decisions and some unfortunate discoveries. It's been good news-bad news the whole time.
Turns out our heater isn't broken, its just that we're low on engine coolant! That's good.
We're low on coolant because there is a coolant leak. That's bad.
Auto service place says, "You're absolutely right, there is a bad leak in your radiator." That's sorta good.
"And by the way, we found a leak in your oil pan. AND we're going to charge you $45 to tell you you were right in the first place." That's bad.
"To fix your car, we will charge you $1000!" That's good for them. Bad for us.
I hope that my silent scowl while paying $45 is correctly interpreted as "F-you bastards for telling me nothing i didn't already know and having the balls to charge me for it." That's highly unsatisfying.
I get quotes for the same work from various radiator shops around town that are all much lower than this place. That's good!
None of the quotes are under my new $100 policy regarding this car. That's bad.
I can buy a reconditioned, warranteed radiator for about $75. That's good!
Supposedly this model and year of car is a bitch to do radiator work on, which is why all the estimates were so high in the first place. That's bad.
My father-in-law has volunteered his garage and tools and to help do the work ourselves. That's good.
It's still going to cost at least $75+ and probably an entire day of work to do it ourselves, and if we screw something up could put the car out of commission (always an option when I'm involved). That's bad.
The dog had diarrhea and shit in the middle of the living room in the middle of the night. That's bad.
I got to mop the entire downstairs of the house, a chore that was long overdue. That's good.
The dog did it again two nights later, this time pooping in the living room and in the dining room, both in the exact locations where we either put Felix down on his play mat or where we sit his bouncy seat. Seems like something more is going on. That's bad, bad, bad.
We do some soul searching and finally decide that the dog needs to go live in the country. That's bad and good.
Suzanne is going to lend us her crate so we can more easily contain and minimize clean up the dog when Andrea goes out. That's good.
If the dog can actually be crate trained, he might not need to go live elsewhere. That's really good. Good for everyone.
Dog still needs to be trained, which is time consuming and the whole reason why he hasn't been trained yet. That's bad.
Andrea and Felix will still be trapped at home during the day until we can use the crate...and even more so now that it is so cold and the car has no heat. That's BAD.
And of course it is getting very cold and we have a drafty old house, which means our heating bill has already started heading for the ceiling, which is just bad in general, but not our most impending bad news. I would consider that to be part of the general ambient seasonal badness.
I honestly think that Xmas is the magical wonderful time it is for children specifically because they never know what their parents are going through.
Turns out our heater isn't broken, its just that we're low on engine coolant! That's good.
We're low on coolant because there is a coolant leak. That's bad.
Auto service place says, "You're absolutely right, there is a bad leak in your radiator." That's sorta good.
"And by the way, we found a leak in your oil pan. AND we're going to charge you $45 to tell you you were right in the first place." That's bad.
"To fix your car, we will charge you $1000!" That's good for them. Bad for us.
I hope that my silent scowl while paying $45 is correctly interpreted as "F-you bastards for telling me nothing i didn't already know and having the balls to charge me for it." That's highly unsatisfying.
I get quotes for the same work from various radiator shops around town that are all much lower than this place. That's good!
None of the quotes are under my new $100 policy regarding this car. That's bad.
I can buy a reconditioned, warranteed radiator for about $75. That's good!
Supposedly this model and year of car is a bitch to do radiator work on, which is why all the estimates were so high in the first place. That's bad.
My father-in-law has volunteered his garage and tools and to help do the work ourselves. That's good.
It's still going to cost at least $75+ and probably an entire day of work to do it ourselves, and if we screw something up could put the car out of commission (always an option when I'm involved). That's bad.
The dog had diarrhea and shit in the middle of the living room in the middle of the night. That's bad.
I got to mop the entire downstairs of the house, a chore that was long overdue. That's good.
The dog did it again two nights later, this time pooping in the living room and in the dining room, both in the exact locations where we either put Felix down on his play mat or where we sit his bouncy seat. Seems like something more is going on. That's bad, bad, bad.
We do some soul searching and finally decide that the dog needs to go live in the country. That's bad and good.
Suzanne is going to lend us her crate so we can more easily contain and minimize clean up the dog when Andrea goes out. That's good.
If the dog can actually be crate trained, he might not need to go live elsewhere. That's really good. Good for everyone.
Dog still needs to be trained, which is time consuming and the whole reason why he hasn't been trained yet. That's bad.
Andrea and Felix will still be trapped at home during the day until we can use the crate...and even more so now that it is so cold and the car has no heat. That's BAD.
And of course it is getting very cold and we have a drafty old house, which means our heating bill has already started heading for the ceiling, which is just bad in general, but not our most impending bad news. I would consider that to be part of the general ambient seasonal badness.
I honestly think that Xmas is the magical wonderful time it is for children specifically because they never know what their parents are going through.
Friday, December 01, 2006
"working at home"
I'm doing a domestic shift today, staying home with Felix to give A a break. Started the day off right too...Ash kept waking us up last night so at 4:00am I took him out back so he could pee. Came back in and went to bed. An hour later he was back at it. I shushed him and went back to sleep. I eyes snapped open twenty minutes later to the smell of dog shit. Right in the center of the living room. Ash has his issues, but incontinence isn't really one of them unless he's left alone in an enclosed space (in which case he gets freaked out, pees (or poops if the space is large enough), then freaks out even more because he just peed or pooped and knows it was the wrong thing to do. Anyway...the point is, our routine is to go out between 6:30 and 7:30am for a skate/run/walk/bikeride around the park. On weekends we might not make it out until 9, maybe 10am. So, he's demonstrated the ability to hold his poo for quite a while in the morning. So on the one hand, I guess I should have paid more attention when he was insistent, but on the other hand, I thought he was just being a brat (over the past few months he's been getting worse with requesting attention, competing with Felix). Wrong again! Anyway, so I cleaned it up. Thus started my "day off" which isn't a day off, its just a day working at home, on home stuff. So, why not start the day with a dirty nasty job? Ugh. In a few minutes I'm going to be washing all of the floors, which I might as well have done had the dog not dumped in the living room since its been at least a month and a half since the last time I did...maybe even longer, so they really could use it anyway.
Felix fell asleep on my shoulder while I wrote this. I don't think that he has fallen asleep in my arms since he was a month old. I coul be wrong. Maybe every time seems like the first time?
So, warning, I'm about to do the proud parent thing:
Every day Felix amazes us. Parents out there are probably nodding their heads while non-parents are probably smirking and making little gagging pantomimes. That's ok, I used to do the same thing. Honestly, I'm still a little wierded out when other people are interested in even just hearing about my kid, and they get all "awww" and "yeah, that's so great". I'm like, "What? Yeah of course *I* think he's great and I'll tell you he's great...but why are you getting so jazzed up by it?" I think babyhood is something of a drug and people like to get a contact buzz or something. Whatever!
I have yet to punch a stranger for touching my child without permission, but just you wait...it just might happen this shopping season. And now, back to work.
Felix fell asleep on my shoulder while I wrote this. I don't think that he has fallen asleep in my arms since he was a month old. I coul be wrong. Maybe every time seems like the first time?
So, warning, I'm about to do the proud parent thing:
Every day Felix amazes us. Parents out there are probably nodding their heads while non-parents are probably smirking and making little gagging pantomimes. That's ok, I used to do the same thing. Honestly, I'm still a little wierded out when other people are interested in even just hearing about my kid, and they get all "awww" and "yeah, that's so great". I'm like, "What? Yeah of course *I* think he's great and I'll tell you he's great...but why are you getting so jazzed up by it?" I think babyhood is something of a drug and people like to get a contact buzz or something. Whatever!
I have yet to punch a stranger for touching my child without permission, but just you wait...it just might happen this shopping season. And now, back to work.
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