$1600 plus with zero payoff, tech toaster

So yesterday the new garage looked at the Tacoma and confirmed what I already indicated, the driver side rear wheel bearing was bad.  They recommended replacing the bearings on both sides because of the age of the truck just as Tuffy did.  The dollar number was actually a few dollars MORE than what Tuffy quoted.  Well the truck is there already, I told them to just do it. The guys I dealt with at least were much more customer friendly.

I picked up the truck last night and the wheel bearing noise is gone, but the noise was gone before I spent one dollar on the tire replacement task.  That is the bitter irony of all of this expenditure.  Even $1600+ later the truck now doesn’t feel significantly different than before I dropped a dime, despite 4 new tires, a new tie rod and 2 wheel bearings.  It still will vibrate around 70 mph and the steering wheel is now slightly off center. Yea the new tires look better than the 5 or 6 year old Firestone’s but the bang for the buck equation is woefully in the red.

Spending that much money repairing a truck that might be worth $4-5k tops is a frustrating reality.

My robotoaster showed up yesterday.  I wasted little time unboxing it and plugging it in.  Working the toaster was very easy.  Select the toasting level from 1-7 and hit the TOAST button.  The bread is slowly lowered into the body of the toaster and then guards pop in from either side to keep it centered.

Once the toast is in position there is a bar graph on the front display that graphically shows how much time is left before the toast is done.  When finished the bread is lifted out of the toaster and an “all done” noise is sounded, cool!

I ran the toaster through a number of cycles to play with it.  I shot a quick video of one of the cycles. 

I was going to simply discard the crude Toastmaster that has adorned the house for a dozen years.  However Ali reminded me that we got that toaster at a second hand store when we moved here.  For whatever reason that instilled a sentimental value into the old thing that makes me pause to toss it.  If anyone needs an old reliable toaster let me know.

This weekend I have no huge plans although I will be heading to a local triathlon to both cheer on my various friends that are participating and to help Bill with setting up and tearing down equipment that the running club is loaning the event for the race.

My biggest complaint about Windows 8 is yanking the Start Menu out from under me.  Thankfully, there’s an app for that…