Truck Repairs

Last week I had my mechanic check out my newly acquired Saturn Vue SUV. When I went to pick it up, I dropped off my pickup truck. Had my mechanic change the oil. Also asked him to look into fixing my air conditioning. It turned out it needed more freon. Unfortunately, it uses an old uncommon type of freon. My mechanic said next year I should get the A/C switched over to use the modern freon type.

As soon as I got my pickup truck from the mechanic, I drove it over to the tire store. The front passenger tire was always low on air. I figured it must be a leak. I asked the tire guys to patch it. An hour or so later, I got a call from the tire guys. They said the tire was rotted and could not be fixed. They also said all the other tires were rotted as well and should be replaced. I told them no thank you.

The tire guys gave me a long list of items they thought needed maintenance on the truck: front rotors worked, bearings repacked, idle arm repaired, air filter replacement, preventative maintenance flush of fluids, and a serpentine belt replacement. I thanked them for the info. But I said I was not ready for any of that work. I asked if I owed them anything since they could not patch my tire. I got put on hold.

The tire guy came back on the phone and said my tire was low because it had a nail in it. Turns out they could patch the tire after all. Crooks. Hey. I had my truck there. So I decided I would let the crooks patch the tire. The moral of the story is to say no to the upsell. Then even some unscrupulous mechanics might agree to only perform the minimal maintenance you request.

Breaking Bad

I have been hearing a lot about this cable TV show called Breaking Bad. I guess the hoopla was because the series finale recently showed on air. The show had been going on for five seasons I think. The basic premise is that a chemistry teacher goes into the crystal meth business. What's the big deal?

Today I watched the first episode of season 1. Now I think I have a taste of what the draw is. The crystal meth business is just the backdrop. This seems to be the story about a meek chemistry teacher who comes out of his shell.

I have a good feeling about this series. It almost reminds me of The Sopranos. The lead actor seems strong. The story also seems superior. I am anxious to find out what more this chemistry teacher can show me. Not about drug manufacturing, but about being a bad ass.

Party Time

Little Kat hosted a party at our house this weekend. The format of the party was his friends coming over to play our video game consoles. It also doubled as a birthday party for Little Kat. I had previously worked with Little Kat to order some party platters from the supermarket.

Around 45 minutes before the party, I went to the supermarket. I had requested that the platters be ready early. When I got them, the contents were cold. The deli lady told me they came that way and were to be served cold. WTF? We had items like mozarella sticks and jalpeno poppers. Those things need to be warm.

I called Little Kat and told him to heat up the over. When I got home, we piled the platter contents onto some baking sheets and stuck the contents in the oven. I had to run to pick up Little Kat's best friend from his house as he could not arrange a ride.

Luckily the snacks turned out good once warmed. Unfortunately I needed to give Kit Kat a ride to her friend's down. Kit Kat hates driving on her friend's campus. I volunteered to take her there. I like when Kit Kat spends time on campus at a real university.

By the time I got back home, I found the kids playing all our consoles. I thought they would play XBox 360 and Wii. Turns out they also loved the Playstation 2 with out retro games. I took a nap before having to drive Little Kat's friend home after the party. Actually I sat in the passenger seat as Little Kat drove him home. This was a party well done.

Low on Energy

Recently I have been tired a lot. Maybe it is because I am studying hard every night for my college class. But it might be more than that. I thought I needed a vacation. There is no time for that right now. I am hot on a project at work that lasts at least one more month. What is a tired cat to do?

Well I tried going to bed early. I got a good night's sleep. However it did not cure my sluggishness. Today I tried hitting the exercise equipment. Earlier this year I was exercising a lot. Then I got real busy with my Windows 8 app development projects. Exercise got cancelled. Ouch.

Today I did the normal routine. Five minutes each on the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. In between those workouts, I did some curls with Little Kat's barbell. Now I will see how this affects me. I should try to get back on the exercise routine. Strange that you might get more energy by working out. You would think a workout would make you more tired.

Birthday Surprise

Little Kat came home as usual today. He came down to my study for homework. When I got off the phone with my work, I wished him a happy birthday. Soon after, Kit Kat came home. She told me to keep Little Kat at bay because she was wrapping his gift. That was not a problem. He was with me until quitting time.

Turns out Kit Kat had wrapped a mega roll of bubble wrap for Little Kat. Me I had purchased a custom card for him a long time ago. It had pictures of him and I from long ago. I also wrapped a token gift. It was some military game for an old console. I told Little Kat that his real gift was some party platters I am buying him for his party this weekend. Little Kat thought that was not a good gift, since Momoko was requiring him to have the party. Ha. Imagine that. Ungrateful, especially given the trouble I had to go through to order these platters.

The big hit so far was Momoko's gift to Little Kat. She gave him a card that said his gift was delayed due to government shutdown. WTF right? The card instructed Little Kat to go upstairs and take a look at Momoko's computer screen for a picture of his intended gift. This was a ruse. There was no picture up there. Only instructions to locate his real gift. Momoko purchased a new laptop for Little Kat. He had been asking for one. He also needed once since his is getting broke down. This made Little Kat very excited.

One of the funny ploys this birthday was when Little Kat needed cash for his trip to the Renaissance Faire. Momoko made him call grandma to see if he could get an advance on his gift if it was monetary. Now grandma planned to get Little Kat a gift card of some sorts. However since Little Kat needed cash, he got cash instead. And it came early. It worked out good. He bought a wooden sword with the proceeds. I was impressed at how heavy the small sword weighed.

Failure Scare

I have been keeping an eye on my fuel gauge in my newly acquired Saturn Vue SUV. The thing seemed to be below half a tank. Today is seemed to hover at a quarter tank. I figured I better fill the thing up.

Went to my local gas station. Pay for $20 worth of gas. You get a discount for paying cash. Almost as soon as I started fueling up, the gas cut off. What? I tried squeezing the pump to force more gas in. I had only put in a gallon or so.

Eventually the gas overflowed out of the side of the gas opening. Ouch. I went home and contemplated what to do. I called up the dealership and asked if this was covered under warranty. Usually they are pretty lean on used car warranties. But I just bought this thing!

I scheduled a service visit next week. That was the first available time. At least they let you drop off your car at your convenience. They have a night drop system. I was still peeved that I had to put the car in the shop so soon. I had flashbacks of the Volkswagen Beetle.

On the way to school, I set up a trip meter to measure how far I had travelled since my last tank fill up. On the way to school, something must have been working overtime in my mind. I determined that I had been looking at the oil pressure gauge by mistake. The fuel gauge is over on the right, and it correctly shows a full tank. Whew.

Now with that scare out of the way, it is time to schedule some manual transmission practice with Kit Kat.

Home Networking

The family thought it would be best to put a password on our wireless router. Otherwise anybody can use our Internet. The family thinks this slows us down as other people are leeching onto our Internet access. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are not. I told the family it would be fine by me to put on the password.

The problem was that we have an old wireless router. The software to control it does not work on any of our computers. Little Kat thought we should buy a newer and more modern wireless router. He came with a printout of a bandwidth anaylsis he got online. To him, this proved that the wireless router was the problem.

This made for a good engineering case study. I drew some pictures. Showed the devices in our house, our wireless router, our cable mode, the cable, and the cable company. Then I showed Little Kat what bandwidth rate we were paying our Internet Service Provider for. I also showed him the documentation for the wireless router. It was educational.

The bottleneck is surely not the wireless router. However I did purchase a new router that works with all modern operating systems. Now Little Kat is working to get that new router working. He tells me he thinks it is much faster. We are going to teach this cat some network analysis some day.