Category SSR

So I called up Best Buy on Friday to find out how to go about getting my 73″ inch Mitsubishi TV fixed under the $400, four year extended warranty I bought with the TV in 2008.  I explained the problem and then gave the woman on the phone the contract number.

After punching it in she says, I’m sorry, your warranty expired on May 6th.  I was immediately confused.  I explained to the woman that when I bought the tv I was told the warranty is tacked on to the factory one year warranty, giving me five years of coverage.  She explained that is not the case, the extended warranty overlaps the first year of factory coverage, her explanation being that it covers items the factory warranty does not.

Well of course I was quite annoyed being that I am 25 days outside of that 4 year period and that the warranty was misrepresented to me up front.  I expressed this to the phone rep multiple times and asked repeatedly for Best Buy to do something for me to remediate the problem.  She apologized and said there was nothing she could do.  Her only advice was I could go to the local store and talk to the manager there to see if I could get anywhere.  Well that is the last thing I felt like doing.

You see I already knew that I had the back up plan of getting the repair done by Mitsubishi at a reduced rate.  If I was looking at a $1000 repair I might have been more tenacious in my fight. So I hung up, called Mitsubishi and made arrangements to have the tv fixed for a flat rate of $200, including parts and labor, not a bad deal for a tv that is 3 years out of factory warranty.

So on Saturday I got busy around the house in the morning, hoping to knock out most of the housework before picking up the dogs, whom were doing a sleepover Saturday night.  The reason I wanted to get stuff done was to clear the slate to finish up the castle stone border around the pool landscape area.

I planned to pick up the remaining 25 stones I needed from Lowe’s since that is where I got the first 75 from.  I was annoyed that they just happened to be sold out of 12″ sand colored castle stones on Saturday afternoon.

So I hopped back in the truck and went over to Home Depot, luckily they had them and they were the exact same price.

As the dogs sat outside in the shade with me, I worked on getting the remaining stones in place.  Overall I think they look ok although there is a height change between the two side halves of the border that I am not thrilled with.  At least that is a job I should not have to revisit anytime again in my lifetime.  Once cool weather returns I will rip up the border around the pond and do the same thing.  All the pics from the project are here.

Saturday night I finished up season 2 of Boardwalk Empire. It was a surprising ending, it seems like half of the original cast is dead.  Season 2 definitely had more action and was better than season one.

While I was driving my SSR over the weekend I had noticed I was getting a clicking noise when I pushed in the clutch.  Well on an on ramp when I was stomping on it hard after shifting from 2nd to 3rd instead of a click, I heard a snap and something metal falling off.  I looked down in the foot well and saw a large spring that looks like it snapped.  Well the clicking noise was gone but the odd thing was everything still felt normal with the clutch.  I have not yet determined where the spring goes to, something else to fix. Yay.

The party van has a problem as well with the HVAC fan.  If you turn the fan speed to high it sounds like it is going to come through the dash, vibrating terribly.  If I keep the fan on the first two speed settings it seems ok.  So until I get inspired to look further into that repair I keep the fan dial turned to the left and just max out the secondary fan that blows cool air out the ceiling vents in the rear.

I had a nice Sunday with the girls.  After doing a bike/swim brick at the water park I was outside with them quite a bit.  They had dog smiles for most of the weekend.  They were especially big when I made them burgers for lunch on Sunday.

The reason I had them overnight was because Ali was doing the Naples Tri on Sunday morning.  She had a good showing, knocking somewhere around 10 minutes off her time from last year.  She was exhausted afterward.  I didn’t wind up bringing the girls back until dinner time.

So when I asked to take Tuesday off last week I was doing so in the hopes that the extra day off would help tack on to a nice holiday weekend.  Well it certainly didn’t work out that way.  By the time my 4 day hiatus was coming to an end I was still trudging around the yard, practically ready to melt away into a pool of sweat.  It sucked.

On Saturday morning I decided to bypass the club run since my hip was still hurting from my Wednesday squat session.  Instead I decided to get busy on what was turning out to be a very chore intensive weekend.

Now typically, I have a track record of busting through chores very efficiently, usually with a few hours of work I can have all of my must do’s for the weekend done.  Well for some reason either I was inefficient or I just had too much to do.

During the afternoon I headed to Lowe’s, I had a number of thing I needed for various home repairs/maintenance.  While I was grabbing stuff I wound up picking up something I didn’t expect to, 15 concrete castle stones.  One of the items on my new project list is to replace the already twice replaced rotted landscape timbers that create the border around the pool and the pond.  Well Lowes was running a sale on all concrete landscape items, a considerable, flat 20% off.  On top of that I had a 10% off coupon Ali gave me which she received when she moved into her new place.

I realized I was opening up Pandora’s box by buying the blocks, knowing getting 15 laid down is only going to make me want to get more to complete the long overdue project.  I did it anyway.

One of the other things I got was stuff to amend the garden.  I cleared out a total of 7 beds to use for planting.  I spent A LOT of time in there, turning over the soil with both a pitch fork and the roto-tiller attachment for my weed whacker.  I mixed in both compost and some fresh bags of Miracle-Gro garden soil to give my new crop a good chance at success.  I bet I spent at least two hours in there farting around.

I planted both seeds and veggies I bought at Lowes.  Corn, tomatoes, squash, leeks, kale, spinach, carrots, beets, bush beans and artichoke went in the ground.  Summer in Florida is typically not a great growing season but I am going to give it a go anyway.

My dinner needs on Saturday were taken care of at TGI Friday’s.  I drank beer and ate dinner while punching in the paper entries that were collected at the running store.

So when I got home I wasn’t done.  Originally I had a loose idea to go to the Tarpon’s arena football game Saturday night but since I was still feeling behind the 8 ball with my to do list I decided my time would be better spent mowing the grass. I was out on the mower until after 8pm. What an exciting Saturday night.

On Sunday, despite knowing I had a lot I wanted to still get done I decided to still get in a biking/swimming brick.  I left early with the intent of dropping off excess vegetables at my mom’s before she went it to work.  I arrived at her place before 9am but saw her vehicle was not there.  I recalled mom saying something to me a couple weeks ago about her starting work earlier during the summer, I figured that had started.

Ok well I knew I had a key to her place, I would just throw the veggies in her fridge and leave a note.  Well my key didn’t work.  It occurred to me that I had never received a new key after my mom moved the last time, I still had the key from her old place.  Damn it.  I threw the veggies back in my truck, frustrated I wasted the trip.

By the time I got my bike out on the road at 9:30 or so it was already getting very warm and humid.  We seem to have hit the fast forward button and jumped into the heart of summer in the uncomfortable scale.  I had a pretty strong ride, averaging just under 19 mph for the 12 mile plus ride, my second straight week of speed improvement.

At the water park I put in another 1600, averaging about the same time as the week before.  I didn’t stick around to relax at all, I had too much to do.  By the time I left the park around 11:30 the line to get in was ridiculous, at least 100 people long.  I was quite glad I got in (and out) before the huge holiday crowd hit.

My next stop was Ali’s place to pick up the dogs.  Ali decided to go into work on Sunday so I said the dogs could come hang with me.  Once I got them back to the house I got busy outside.  I decided I was going to first take on the unpleasant job of mowing the back of the property.  Mowing that large square is typically something that only got done 5 or 6 times a year and when it was done it typically was done by Ali.  It just isn’t much fun.

The back of the property has a lot of uneven areas that are not at all fun to roll across on the tractor, it is like one long non stop series of speed bumps.  You are constantly getting bounced around on the seat of the tractor.   After I got done mowing the area I decided to up the misery quotient, firing up the weed whacker for an even less frequent chore, whacking the entire fence perimeter on both sides.

This chore has it’s own set of frustrations.  Weed whacking a fence line is a weed whacker line destroyer.  I went through more than a full spool of line doing the job.  Plus since I do the entire fence so rarely, the vegetation that accumulates can be quite substantial, slowing down the process.  I really should just hit the entire fence line with Round Up.

Finally I began work on the landscape timber replacement project.  Ripping out the old pressure treated timbers was very easy since they were mostly a rotten mess.  I hardly needed my pry bar, most of it I could just grab on to and rip it out with my hands. I chose to work on the shortest of the 3 sides, figuring the 15 blocks I grabbed would be almost enough for that area.

Once the wood was ripped out I used mostly my gloved hands as the primary excavation tool, pushing back the mulch, pulling up the weed block and smoothing/leveling the dirt underneath.  I liked the end result although I later went back and flipped the blocks so the smooth side was up.

I made plans with Ali to accompany her to Target when I brought the dogs back Sunday evening.  She wanted to buy her own furniture for her deck, she was using one of the two chaise lounges from the house.

So we jumped in the van and headed up the street to the store.  I had a list of things I was looking for as well so we grabbed two shopping carts.  Ali got a new chaise along with a matching chair and table.  We precariously balanced the furniture on top of the carts after we grabbed everything else.

I carried the new stuff up to Ali’s apartment and lugged the old chaise out to the van and stuffed it in.  I wound up eating pizza at Ali’s for dinner and then helped her with the late night dog walk.  I wound up staying a bit later than I expected.  I wanted to get back since I was timing the Memorial Day race and had not loaded up any of the equipment in the truck yet.  Once I got home I quickly attended to race details and got the truck loaded in about a half hour.  I knew I had to get up early so I tried to go to sleep pretty early, around 10.

Well for some reason, I found myself wide awake at 2:30 AM.  Despite my efforts, I could not make myself fall back asleep so I said f it, and got up.  I spent the time in the middle of the night playing some Diablo 3.  It was weird and I knew would pay for it later if I didn’t get a nap in.

Timing the race was pretty uneventful, it was a relatively small event with less than 300 runners.  I managed to get out of there nice and early, shortly after 9.  I had received a text from Christy, who lives near by, asking if I could come jump her Jeep, her battery died and they did not own a set of jumper cables.  I said sure, no problem.

So I swung over there, hooked up the cables and told her to crank it.  The Jeep started but as soon as she took her foot off the gas it would die.  I then told her to hold the gas pedal down to keep the RPM’s up, hoping once the engine warmed a bit it would stabilize.  Well that didn’t seem to work either.  Even after a few minutes it was still dying.

I told her she would have to “two foot” it to the store to get the new battery.  That idea did not sound appealing or safe to her.  I told her I didn’t mind driving her Jeep there for her since I am experienced at this driving technique as a result of the Tacoma problems I had recently.  She felt bad that she would be taking up more of my time but accepted the offer.  I didn’t mind.

We drove over to Advance Auto and dealt with a woman that was super nice and helpful.  Not only did they install the battery (after testing the old one to make sure it was bad), they put a tester on the car to make sure there wasn’t a problem with the starter or alternator.  Plus, the battery had a kick ass three year full replacement cost warranty and a pro-rated warranty after that.

I noticed that after the new battery was put in, the car was holding idle on it’s own so I told Christy she could drive back.  As a token of her appreciation she drove through DD (she is a fellow enthusiast) and bought me an XL coffee (my second of the day).  It was much appreciated.

So once I got back home I had to dig into all of my post race work which took me up to 1PM.  I wanted to go to Lowe’s to grab a bunch more landscape blocks since Memorial Day was the last day of their sale.  I knew doing so would scuttle any chance of a nap before the running club picnic at 4.  Oh well, the nap was sacrificed.

I bought 60 blocks.  I was more efficient this time, asking if they could use a skid loader to bring a pallet out to my truck so I could load them directly instead of loading them to a flat bed and loading them a second time on to the truck.  They said that would be no problem, awesome.

I capped it at 60 blocks just because of weight concerns.  As is, the front end of the Tacoma was pointing up on the way home.   I parked it in the backyard and left it there, planning to lay down the additional blocks on Tuesday.

I was so tired/sleepy at this point.  My 2:30 wake up time was hitting me hard. As I laid on my bed with my eyes closed, I was half considering telling Ali (we were going to carpool) that I was just going to bag going to the picnic.  I decided to just grin and bear it.

On the way to pick up Ali I grabbed myself a 5 hour energy, something I only utilized once before during one of our western road trips.  I don’t recall it helping me all that much back then but I figured it was worth a shot.  I chose the Berry “extra strength” variety.

Well you know what, I think it worked.  I actually felt human, despite 4 hours of sleep.

We drove to the picnic in the SSR with the top up.  It was so damn hot and humid that I didn’t feel like sweating my ass off.

The picnic was held at Cutlass Cove, a beautiful beach side park in the exclusive Port Royal neighborhood.  There was a good turn out of people, most of which brought their own food items to compliment the hot dogs and hamburgers provided by the club.

I actually had a really nice time.  In years past I would typically be sticking by Ali most of the time at the event but I thought it was important that I made sure to venture out socially on my own now based on our new realities.

Later in the party Ali asked me if I wanted to walk down to Gordon Pass, where the Gordon River empties into the gulf.  I said sure.  By the time we got back the amount of people had thinned dramatically, I bet at least 75% of them had vanished in that half hour period.

Well most of whom was left were the more hard core partying part of the club so the fun continued.  I started juggling some coconuts and discovered another club member was a juggler.  We did some tandem juggling that had a lot of fail in it.  I also played with my juggling partners little daughter, she is very cute.

Finally there was a lot of yoga posing going on, my main contribution was doing elbow planches at various spots and trying to instruct others on how to do them.

We wound up staying much later than I expected, staying until after sunset.  Not having to work the next day made doing so much more palatable.

I dropped off Ali and helped her walk the dogs again.  I made arrangements to pick them up during the day Tuesday to hang out.  I also agreed to take them to the vet for an appointment for Nicki to have some gross discharge problem looked at.  By the time I got home, the 5 hour energy was now in it’s 7th hour, I was dead.

So as arranged, I went and picked up the girls on Tuesday after grabbing some DD.  I was not looking forward to another day laboring out in the hot sun but in my mind, I had no choice.  The 60 blocks in the bed of the truck aren’t going to unload themselves.

It was so hot that the dogs didn’t even want to stay outside with me.  Once they came out they wanted to go right back inside within a few minutes.

I resumed my pool border replacement project, starting on the other side by the far door.  I decided today I was going to utilize more precision when laying down the blocks, using my 4 foot level to make sure the blocks are level.  Well evidently, the ground has a slight downward angle.  I found the further I went the more fill I had to put under the blocks until I got to the point where I was using a second block underneath.  Well by the time I got to to the corner the border looked ridiculously high.

When I compared it to the stones on the other side there was a huge height difference.  I later decided to just rip that section down and redo it as just a single layer.  It looked better and would save me money by not requiring as many blocks.

I got a small break in labor mid-afternoon when I took the dogs to the vet where I picked up some antibiotics.  After dropping them back off at Ali’s I was right back in the border building soup, working until relatively late in the evening. I was just miserable by the end of it, all of that time on my knees was not a good thing and my hands/forearms were killing me from using them as human backhoes for hours.

My 60 blocks covered a good portion of the pool border.  I need roughly 25 stones to finish it. Since Randall had to bow out of volleyball this weekend, perhaps I will complete the ass busting project then.

I was frustrated with myself Sunday night, amazed and annoyed that I spent the vast majority of my waking Memorial Day weekend hours busting my ass.  Sure it is nice to get so much done but damn, the work/play ratio was definitely out of whack this time around.

Not much to report regarding last evening, I did my mini-workout when I got home which included crunches, static wall hand stand hold and elbow planche.  My dinner was some meatloaf mom kept for me and steamed broccoli from the garden.  After some WoW I watched some more Boardwalk Empire and the latest episode of Game of Thrones.  Both shows are very good in different ways.

I find it funny that my most favorite character on GoT is the dwarf.  This is the first show I can recall that has an adult little person in it as one of the lead roles.  The guy is damn good, I recognized him from Elf (dwarf child book author).

I forgot to mention that on Sunday I swapped out the ignition switch on my SSR.  Up until mid-model year of 2005, a defective version of this switch was put in the trucks.  The failure of these switches can cause any number of problems.  The general consensus is even if you haven’t had a problem yet, if your truck has one of the old switches in it, you should replace it anyway. So that is what I did.

Dicktator from SSRFantatics made a very good step by step how to on the procedure. Here is a link to a PDF version of the instructions that I made.  I decided to video tape the switch swap.  Other than my  successful, 60,000 view Tough Mudder video, my automotive maintenance videos are the most popular on my YouTube channel.

The most difficult part of the swap out was removing and re-installing the plastic cover that covers the lower half of the steering column.  I struggled quite a bit getting it off and on. It did not go back together cleanly, I have a small gap along the seam.  I think I may have damaged a tab when I pulled it off.

I also had the key, which is supposed to be in the RUN position for the entire procedure, in the wrong spot.  As a result when I first tested the switch everything was off by one click.  When I turned the truck off  it acted like the key was in the accessory position.  I fixed this by simply dropping the new switch down, putting the key in the proper run position and then clicking the switch back in place.

Anyway, if you are looking for the only known how to video on SSR ignition switch replacement, look no further.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FY7LuN_Z5I

So after my crazy road trip to Plant City on Thursday I designated Friday as chore day.  I wanted to get everything around the house done so my weekend was void of must do’s.

It really is amazing how much different cleaning is with one less person and two less dogs in the house.  The amount of scuzz that I pull out of the carpet is dramatically less and I didn’t even need to run the Scooba, the tile areas were totally fine.

It was also the first time I used my new mini-Dyson to vacuum the entire house.  It did just fine although there were a couple draw backs.  The smaller vacuum head means a lot more passes to cover the rug.  Also it’s smaller size translates into a shorter power cord, meaning I have to do more unplugging and plugging than I used to.  Neither thing is a big deal, just different.

Since I mowed on Tuesday I was totally done with everything by early afternoon.  I sat down and decided to peruse my newly connected HBOGO service on my 360 (courtesy of my buddies’ Comcast credentials)  I saw “Game Change” pop up, the movie about the 2008 presidential campaign and specifically that idiot, Sarah Palin.

Julianne Moore did a FANTASTIC job of portraying Palin.  Not only did she look like her she sounded almost identical.  Woody Harrelson was great as McCain’s campaign manager and Ed Harris made a pretty believable John McCain as well.

The movie did a great job of just portraying how overmatched Palin was being thrust into the role of potential VP.  Her overall lack of knowledge was comical as was the campaign’s staff realization that they were dealing someone that had no business being there.

I knew very early on that Sarah was a joke so this film did nothing but to reaffirm that existing opinion.  However if you are one of those people that still think Palin is the political answer to ANYTHING besides cancelled reality tv shows, please take two hours out of your life and watch the movie to free yourself of that silly belief. It gets an A.

I was unsure if I wanted to drag myself out of bed to do the club run on Saturday morning.  I was still feeling sleep deprived from the way my week went, especially Thursday when my day started at 4am and didn’t end until after midnight.

Well I set the alarm anyway and drug myself out of bed, cursing myself all the while.  I arrived at the start point of the run with 15 minutes to spare.  When I saw Christy and Michelle show up I figured since I was feeling like my batteries were half full, I would just run with Ali and them.  There was one problem, Ali wasn’t there. Ali came speeding into the parking lot just as the group had started walking out on to the main road.

So we started running at the rear of the pack.  I ran with the girls for a little bit but their pace was just a little too slow for me so I slowly pulled ahead.  I forgot my GPS so I had no idea what sort of pace I was actually running.  At the halfway point I met back up with Matt and ran back with him so I am sure overall I had a negative split.

After I finished I hung out waiting for the girls to get back.  I had asked Ali the night before if she had any interest in going to a game for the arena football team.  After her run she said she would go.  At first she sounded like she wasn’t all that interested in going but when I asked again she said it was a better option than sitting home.  I told her how the tickets were only $7 and we could park for free at the outlet mall next door.  It would be cheap entertainment.

My main task of the day Saturday was to thoroughly clean the SSR.  The inside and outside of it was a mess from the drive to Plant City.

I spent a good two hours thoroughly cleaning the truck.  One of the areas that required extra elbow grease were right behind the passenger side wheel wells where there was rubber residue from the retread I inadvertently drove over. One spot I was able to get off with just soapy water, the other spot required follow up with Goo Gone.

After the clean up I laid down for a much needed 90 minute nap so I wouldn’t be completely dead for the football game.

I headed over to Ali’s early.  I told her I would spring for the pizza and we could catch up on the latest Biggest Loser.  While I was there we took the girls for a long walk around the lake in Ali’s community.  As we walked it started to rain progressively harder but neither of us really cared.

I also brought my clippers with so Ali could repair my self inflicted haircut.  I tried to give myself and straightline across the rear of my head while using a mirror.  Instead I succeeded in giving myself a ridiculous looking jagged edge.

We left probably earlier than we needed to.  By the time we parked at the outlets and walked across to the arena it was 6:30, a full hour before the game was scheduled to start.  We just bought two 7 dollar tickets at the box office, knowing the place would not be very full based on our past arena football experience.

You see Alison and I had season tickets for the first two seasons of the first arena football team in our area, the Florida Firecats, who folded a few years back.  After two seasons of indoor football we sort of knew what to expect.

The new team is called the Florida Tarpons.  They evidently are pretty damn good as so far they are undefeated.

The first thing we did was grab a beer.  I was surprised that Ali ordered a Bud Light as well, she has never been much of a beer drinker at all.  We then walked the around the concourse a bit just to see if there were any significant changes to Germain Arena since we were there last.

We then found our $7 seats which were at the very top row.  Even being up top, the place is small enough that it isn’t a big deal.  Plus I was positive we would be able to easily move down as the game progressed.

I did find myself annoyed that a bunch of people sat down right next to and in front of us.  It seemed ridiculous that they would need to seat people shoulder to shoulder when there were so many empty seats.

So we just hung out in the seats and watched the Tarpons warm up.   Later on the opposing team, the Mississippi Hounddogs came out.  My eyes were immediately drawn in like lasers to number 60. He was not just fat he was SUPER fat.

This dude was so fat that the biggest jersey they had did not fit him.  He had to wear a supersized shirt underneath his jersey to cover his humungous stomach.

Both Ali and I were amazed the guy was even on the field.  The impact on his joints if he tried to run had to be tremendous.  I also pitied any ball carrier that found himself underneath this guy.

It turned out number 60 only played sparingly during the game.  I think we may have seen him in 4 or 5 series tops.  He made zero tackles but he did sort of run around a bit. Ali felt bad when the PA system played the Fat Albert “Hey, hey, hey…” a few times when big boy was on the field.

Well the Tarpons didn’t waste much time showing why they were undefeated, jumping out to a quick lead.  I found it interesting that in arena football you score a point if your kicker can boot the ball through the narrow uprights on a kick off, something the Tarpon kicker did two or three times.  I don’t recall that rule in the other league.

As planned we steadily improved our seat position during the game.  After half time we tried to really get greedy, moving down into the padded seats that include cupholders.  Well unfortunately the old lady seat attendant walked over and asked we had tickets for that section.  I told her we did, just a few rows up.  She said we had to move.

It sort of pissed me off.  Yea I understand we paid for $7 seats and were probably sitting in seats that cost $20 or more but really, who cares?  If these seats are not sold, it isn’t like I am costing the team money by sitting in an unsold seat.

To me, with a new franchise that is trying to build a following, they should tell the seat nazi’s to chill out.  If I am sitting in somebody else’s seat, sure tell me to move.  But in my eyes, moving to an unsold seat is a no harm, no foul situation.  If anything it makes me more likely to attend another game if I know I can improve my seat position with out getting hassled.

The Tarpons set a new standard for ugly mascots. Timmy the Tarpon was just fugly, no two ways about it.

The cheerleaders for the team, “The Reel Girls” were surprisingly good.  They did a number of dance routines that seemed solid.

The Tarpons absolutely smashed the Hound Dogs, winning by a final score of 58-26.  Ali and I ducked out with a little less than 10 minutes to go in the game to beat the traffic.   Ali and I both had a good time overall, the game delivered pretty solid bang for the buck.  I would go again.

I told Ali I had ideas of doing a bike/swim combo Sunday morning however the rainy forecast put it in doubt.  I told her I would let her know in the morning if I was going to do it or not.

Well Sunday mornings weather radar looked bad, rain was definitely coming so we scrapped the plans.  Instead I asked Ali if she wanted me to grab the dogs on my coffee run to take them to the house.  Ali wanted to clean her place thoroughly and having the dogs out of the apartment would make it easier.  She took me up on my offer.

So after picking up the girls we headed back to the house.  I let them immediately out into the back yard.  I can tell they really appreciate being able to roam around leash free now although during our walk at Ali’s place they also seemed quite happy strolling around the lake too.

My main Sunday project was to finally install the new spark plugs and spark plug wires I have had sitting on my workbench for the Tacoma for over a month.  I was sort of putting it off since the truck had been running ok although I know at 138,000 miles and 13 years old, the plugs HAD to be changed.

So I decided Sunday was finally the day.  I moved the SSR over and pulled the front end of the Tacoma into the garage to work on it.  It had been raining off and on for most of the day.

Getting access to the plugs on the passenger side was not bad, I basically just had to remove the hose that runs from the air box to the throttle body.  I was glad I invested in a magnetic spark plug socket.  The plugs sit deep in tubes, the socket was able to grab hold of them easily once I loosened them up.  The tool was equally useful in putting the new plugs in to prevent them from dropping down the hole and damaging the electrodes.

Getting access to the plugs on the driver side was a bit more challenging. I had to remove a few brackets and move some wires.  I was also very fortunate to have bought a swivel extension bar set a couple months go.  If I didn’t have it I am not sure if I could have done the plug by the firewall.

The plug wires were a new experience for me.  The last time I did plugs and wires on a vehicle was probably my 69 Firebird back in the early 90’s.  Back then you had one wire per cylinder. Well with the Tacoma, despite there being 6 cylinders/spark plugs, you only have three wires.

There is no distributor, instead each wire connects to a coil on the other side of the engine.  That coil controls the spark for two plugs.  I almost miswired two of the plugs but luckily realized my error before firing it back up.  I was quite happy that when I turned the key the engine fired right up an ran normally.

When I pulled the old plugs it was confirmed the job was way overdue.  The center electrode on the plugs was worn away from millions of ignition cycles over the years.  I am doing a new mileage test to see if the new plugs and their better spark translates into better mpg.

Later, I hung outside with the dogs several times, walking around the yard and watching them play.

I also watched all Game of Thrones episodes, I am now current except for the latest episode.  I really like the show. Sadie and Nicki slept in the bedroom with me while I watched the shows.

I asked Ali if she wanted to come out to pick up the dogs instead of me dropping them off.  She hadn’t been back to the house since she moved out in early April.  I told her I had some pasta in the freezer I could make.  She accepted the offer.

So when Ali arrived I had already started working on making a salad for dinner, something that used to exclusively be Ali’s duty.  I actually did 100% of the meal prep, it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

Ali watched the latest Celeb Apprentice with me while sitting on my new, used, furniture for the first time.  She said the sofa’s were pretty nice and overall she said I did a nice job of arranging things in the house to make up for what was taken out.

When it came time for Ali to leave she was upset which upset me.  It’s hard for her to be leaving like another house guest.  It was hard for me too.

Over the course of the weekend we talked about if us seeing/interacting with each other as much as we have been since we separated is a good thing in the big picture.  If we continue to act like a married couple that simply has two different addresses it probably isn’t the best thing long term. However this is a hard time for both of us and I think we both find comfort in each other’s company.

It’s early yet, we still have a lot of sifting through the trees till clear daylight is ahead.

So I set my alarm for 4:15 am so I could be out the door by 5 for the drive up to Plant City in the SSR.  I had been both looking forward to and dreading the drive at the same time.  I was afraid whatever the source of horrible rattling noise under the truck was, it would cause the truck to die on me en route during the nearly 180 mile trip.

It was rather chilly out Thursday morning with temps right around 60 so I decided to leave the top up for the drive up.

The drive required two DD coffee stops, one at our local location and again up at Siesta Keys.  I also inadvertently ran over a retread that was on the highway after not seeing it soon enough in the pitch dark.  I later discovered the tire fragments left rubber marks along the bottom of my truck which I will have to get off later. Other than that the drive went fine, the truck, despite the rattle, drove like a champ, just as it has since the noise started.

I had a little issue locating Lonnie’s shop, Sinister Kustoms, even though I had the address punched into the GPS in my Pioneer 930BT.  Once I got into Plant City the GPS had a hard time tracking me and as a result I found myself being told to turn onto streets I already had passed.  Eventually I just pulled over and called Lonnie to get final directions to his place the old fashioned way.

I actually beat Lonnie to his place, arriving a few minutes before 8.  Once he and his wife Lauren arrived he opened up his 4 garage doors, revealing a vast collection of cars in various states of completion.  Lonnie does incredible work and routinely fabricates components from scratch.  It was really impressive seeing the various projects he had going on.

So after pulling a couple project cars out of the bay that has his lift he got to work along with his other mechanic, John.

Lonnie noticed I had stock running boards.  He told me how he sells modified brackets for the running boards which pulls them down so they are even with the bottom of the body line and tucks them in so they are less of an obstacle when stepping into and out of the vehicle.  He said they only cost $100 installed and he had a spare set on hand.  I told him to go ahead and do that as well.

Now in addition to the Corvette flywheel/clutch swap that was being done I had brought up a number of parts I have had for over a month to be installed as well.  They were all piled in the bed of the truck.  My plan was to work on them while Lonnie did the more complicated work.  Well it turned out the only job I truly did myself was installing the front air dam which is a no brainer.

As John worked on getting the transmission area pulled apart for the swap, Lonnie worked on some of the smaller jobs like installing the running board brackets and replacing my bent panhard bar. I was glad to see that Lonnie wasn’t at all bothered by my hanging around. I told him  I had no issue getting dirty if he needed help with something.

Relatively early in the process a straight body pulled up to Lonnie’s shop, it was his exhaust guy, Jim.  Jim basically has a rolling welding shop, complete with most anything he would need to do most exhaust work.  Jim was a nice guy as well and seemed to share Lonnie’s passion for custom vehicles, describing several projects of his own he is working on. Jim first installed the new muffler and then the monster sized exhaust tips.

So after most of the the auxiliary jobs were done the main focus became the clutch swap.  I pitied John as he struggled to get the old stuff out, it looked like a real pain in the ass.  Once the transmission was separated from the bell housing Lonnie was turning the shaft on the tranny and heard some gear noise that he wasn’t sure was normal or not.

He called up his transmission guy for some advice.  The advice was to pull off the front of tranny and take a look inside to see if anything looked abnormal.  Of course this had me a bit nervous.  I was already concerned because a visual inspection of the old flywheel/clutch did not reveal anything broken that would have been causing the rattle.

So I got my first opportunity to get some real grease under my fingernails when I helped Lonnie and John lower the tranny out from under the SSR and onto a table. Actually it wasn’t so much grease as it was transmission fluid spilling everywhere.  Lonnie, despite never having ripped into a SSR 6 speed transmission before had no qualms in doing so.  He removed the bolts holding the cover on and popped it off.

Both of us looked at the various gears, bearings and pinions over and did not see anything that looked damaged or scored in the least.  So Lonnie put the tranny back together.  Despite seeing nothing wrong in the tranny I still had a bad feeling in my gut that when everything was put back together the noise was going to remain.

During the day we took a lunch break, Lauren had ordered a couple pizzas that Lonnie said I was welcome to enjoy with them.  I thought that was really nice.  I could tell very early that both Lonnie and Lauren are just good people.

So during most of the afternoon the reassembly process took place.  By this time Lonnie knew I was fine with helping so he utilized me a few times as a third set of hands.  I also got to learn a whole bunch about the underside of the SSR and how stuff goes together and comes apart.

One of the things I learned was the truck obviously was hit in the rear at some point and time.  Lonnie first mentioned that the rear emblem’s “R” was not positioned the way it normally is.  When I was walking under the truck I saw the passenger side rear quarter obviously had been pounded out at some point and time.  Evidently whomever repainted that section of the truck didn’t take note of how the old emblem was attached.

So eventually after a lot of effort the new Corvette parts were installed and the transmission and drive train were put back in.  Lonnie started the truck up and the only noise I heard was what sounds to be idler pulley stuff that has been there since day one.  However I told him that I have noticed that the noise is not always heard when the truck is first started up however after only driving it a couple miles I can hear it.  So Lonnie took the truck for a quick spin around the block.

Well that was all it took, as he pulled back into the garage I could hear the death rattle had returned.  My heart sunk.

Lonnie heard the noise clearly and said we should put it back on the lift to listen to it better.  One thing I like about Lonnie, he never gives the impression that he is flustered or he can’t handle an issue.  You always get the feeling he is in control.  It is much the same attitude I take when it comes to my job, just a quiet confidence that despite obstacles, you will always find a solution.

So I get in the truck and ride in it upwards on the lift.  I start it up so Lonnie can listen closely.  He said the rattle sounds like it is definitely coming from the transmission.  Shit, that was EXACTLY what I didn’t want to hear.  My bill was already approaching stratospheric proportions, the prospect of a transmission repair on top of it was really, really depressing.

Lonnie called back over to his tranny guy and asked if we could bring the truck over for him to listen to.  His shop was maybe 15 minutes away so I rode shotgun while Lonnie drove.

This transmission place had car lifts, big ones, all over the place, most of them outside.  Evidently this place even does full size tractor trailer size truck transmissions.

The owner hopped in the SSR and rode it up in the lift with it running to hear the noise for himself.  After a few seconds he said, “it’s notthe tranny’, trusting his expert ear.  One of the other mechanics walked under the truck with a stethoscope and took the “pulse” of the SSR trying to verify where the noise was actually coming from.  He said the noise was coming from the exhaust pipe that runs right under the transmission.  He said something must have broken in one of the catalytic convertors and that was the rattle.  Lonnie listened with the scope himself and verified the same diagnosis.

Well this was some good news indeed, replacing the catalytic convertors although, not cheap is a less expensive and far less time consuming option to a tranny overhaul.

I had to laugh as when we pulled out onto the main road from the transmission shop Lonnie lit up the tires to put on a show for the guys who requested it.  The SSR sounded like a pure beast with the new exhaust components in place.

Ok, so by now it was getting late in the afternoon.  Lonnie called back Jim to see if there was any way he could come back to replace the cat’s.  At first the response wasn’t good.  Jim had a baseball game to attend at 7 and he wasn’t sure if he had cats that would fit on his truck.  He said something to Lonnie about not being able to do it until after 3 o’clock on Friday.

Now I actually had made provisions for staying a night up in Plant City, packing a small bag just in case things went long but I certainly wanted to avoid it if possible.  After verifying that Jim actually did have the cats he would need on his truck, he said he could come back and do it around 9 after the game.  Ok that was fine with me, I could hang out, eat dinner somewhere and get the work done.  A late night drive back to Naples wouldn’t kill me.

Then just as I was getting ready to head out Lonnie says Jim called back and said he thinks he can come over before the game and get it knocked out, perfect!

So as we were waiting for Jim to arrive Lonnie opened up another one of his storage bays to show me some more of his projects.  The most amazing of all was a totally custom vehicle that started off as a Honda S2000.  I told Lonnie it first looked like a Lotus to me from the rear.  He said he actually was going for the look of an old Lamborghini.  This thing was absolutely incredible.  I was awestruck as he described how he fabricated the body of this vehicle, making many parts and inserting parts from other vehicles to make it all work.  The truck latch was from an old Camaro, the tail lights were from some old Caddy I think.

I just can’t wrap my head around the skill, patience and talent that Lonnie possesses to make these sort of creations.  Lonnie and my uncle would get along great.

So as we were walking back to the main shop a kid pulls up in an old Camry with a dented in trunk.  He wanted to know how much it would cost to get it fixed.  This kid was pure central Florida.  Although he was very young, he had a very defined section of white/gray hair towards the front of his hairline.  Inside his Camry there were various items including a bowling ball, jumper cables and three angle grinders he just bought for $9 a piece.  Oh did I mention he was also wearing spurs? Yes, spurs.

So anyway the kid described how his trunk has never been able to open in the two months he has owned the vehicle because of the dent.  Lonnie told him that it would make more sense to replace the trunk lid instead of trying to fix because of labor costs.  The kid then asked if Lonnie might be able to get the trunk open.  Well Lonnie dove right in and in the span of a few minutes was on his back inside the trunk, working on the latch via the fold down rear seats.  He eventually was able to get the mechanism to release and showed the kid how to do so himself in the future.

The kid was very grateful and Lonnie didn’t charge him a dime.

So while Lonnie was finishing up on the kids car Jim had arrived and wasted no time getting to work.  He was able to replace the both cats in less then a half hour.  When he pulled off the driver side cat he shook it, it sounded like a baby’s rattle.  There was the noise culprit.

I thanked Jim several times for going out of his way to accommodate me by coming back.  After he left I said my goodbye’s to Lauren and Lonnie and again thanked them for everything.  What a great team.  I just wish they weren’t so far away since I have struggled so much finding quality mechanics.

Despite the clutch swap not being the actual fix for the problem and the additional costs I felt very good about the entire experience.  I wanted the day to be memorable and it was indeed.  I just will be extremely frugal during the month of May to try to lessen the impact of the big bill.

Just before I got on I-4 I spotted a Carrabas and decided to treat myself to a dinner for one at the bar.  I took the only seat available at the one corner, right next to a group of four women whom were obviously out for a girl’s night.  Three of the four were very attractive.

I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation since they were right next to me.  It seemed like at least two of them were recently separated/divorced and were complaining about various aspects of their relationships and men in general.  The group laughed when they saw my reflex facial reaction when one of them said her ex didn’t know how to “use his equipment” .  She blushed when she saw I heard it.    I interacted with them a little bit but I did not stay long since I had a long drive back to Naples to complete.

I had the top down for the entire drive home with my Linkin Park Pandora channel blaring on the radio.  The truck felt GREAT.  It wants to just get up and go.  The new exhaust provides a deeper, meaner, “you better get the fck out of my way” sound that I find very endearing.

The SSR is BACK.

If you want to see all of the pictures from the day, go here.

I got it in my head that I wanted to get the grass maintenance taken care of last night.  As soon as I got home I changed my clothes and backed the tractor out of the shed.

I was able to get both the mowing and the weed whacking done in record time, in total I think I spent 90 minutes.  I was able to chop a bunch off the time because I didn’t have to mow everything.  The area of the yard that are not getting hit by the sprinklers is pretty much in hibernation right now.

The weather the past couple days has been great, we are getting a VERY late in the season cold front.  I have had the AC off and the windows open, it’s great plus I’ll take the electricity savings as a bonus.

Tomorrow will be my road trip to Plant City.  I am very excited about the prospect of getting my SSR back on the road.  I’ll be pulling out 5am-ish.  DD coffee will be riding shotgun.

Yesterday Homey clued me in that Microsoft was dialing back the amount of space allocated to people for free on their Skydrive service from 25 gig to 7 gig. However if you go to the site and click a link, they would allow existing clients to retain the free 25 gig of web storage space. So that is what I did.

Going back to the site allowed me to see that they have polished Skydrive since it was first released.  It now has a built in desktop application and apps for i devices that give Skydrive a feature set very similar to Dropbox, which I love.  With Drop Box, I only have 3.5 gig of free space and I only managed that by referring a number of people to the service.  The 25 gig I get from Skydrive is a HUGE upgrade.  You might want to give Skydrive a look see.

So the other day I was at the gym on a cardio machine and was watching Sportscenter.  I saw the clip of Ron Artest delivering a hellacious elbow to an opposing player.  What I didn’t understand was why they were referring to Ron Artest was Metta World Peace.  WTF?

Well evidently Ron decided to steal a page out of Chad Johnson’s script and legally changed his name to something utterly ridiculous, Metta World Peace.  I really wish media could just use these idiots original real names. Or better yet just refer to anyone that changes their name to something idiotic, as “Dipshit” or “Asshat”, for the rest of time.  Morons.

My uncle just finished his latest clock.  His imagination and craftsmanship is just outstanding, approaching super hero level if you ask me.

So mid-morning yesterday my buddy Matt was chatting to me.  He asked what plans I had for last night.  Since I was already pooped from going to the bar Wednesday night I told him I was just going to be hanging at home, probably working on housework.

Matt told me he had a spare ticket for the Heat/Bulls game last night and asked if I was interested in going.  A bunch of his co-workers were doing a bachelor party thing and going to the game was part of it.  Evidently one of the guys had a personal issue come up last minute and wasn’t able to go.

Well there were a a couple reasons I would have normally said thanks but not thanks.  Like I said, my ass was dragging already.  The idea of spending 4 + hours behind the wheel last night to get to Miami and back seemed pretty silly.  Plus I am not a Heats fan in the least, hell I am not really an NBA fan anymore for that matter. The jaunt would also cost a few bucks between the ticket, parking, gas and food.

Despite those negatives I saw it s an opportunity to do something different, something out of the ordinary.  These days these type of things are very appealing to me.

I told Matt that if he had any other co-workers that would want to go he should offer it to them first however if there were no takers I would step in.  Matt said there weren’t any other candidates.  So shortly after our virtual conversation he swung by the office and dropped off the ticket.  I told him I would meet him at the venue.

Even with leaving the office a little early, by the time I got home, changed and back out the door it was maybe 5:45.  With a tip off of 8 PM I knew I would be hard pressed to get there before the game started.

I grabbed an extra large DD coffee on the way home and then supplemented it with rest stop coffee along the way.  It was absolutely necessary. Without coffee I would have been either in a ditch or sound asleep in a parking lot somewhere.

The drive over to Miami was fine until I hit the logjam of vehicles as I approached the stadium area.  I circled the arena bit looking for a reasonably priced place to park.  I saw some places charging as much as $25.

I found a place maybe 4 or 5 blocks away that was only $12 so that was my spot.  By the time I parked and actually got into the building it was probably 8:20 or so.  My lack of passion for NBA basketball meant missing the first few minutes of the game didn’t bother me in the least.

I had not eaten any dinner so the first thing I did before finding my seat was grab some stadium food.  My personal pizza and souvenir soda clocked in right under $20, sheesh.

My seat was in the 400 level which is the upper deck.  My seat was in row 17.  I found out that section 405 has exactly 17 rows.  Yep I was at the top of the arena.

Even being up that high I could see the court well enough, at least well enough for me.  Matt had actually bought two blocks of tickets, he was in a different block that was in the 2nd row of the adjacent section.  I figured he would come find me so I sat down and enjoyed my pizza.

Matt did eventually spot me and come up.  We watched the game from that high vantage point until halftime.  When the seats emptied out we moved his entire group to the better seats.  By that time enough people had started shifting around that there were open seats available.  Knocking 16 rows off definitely brought the game action significantly closer.

Speaking of the game, it was a good one.  The Heat and the Bulls are the top two teams in the Eastern Conference right now.  The game was a physical, low scoring variety with lots of pushing and shoving.  I think there were three or four technical fouls called during the game.  Lebron James and Dwayne Wade both made some unbelievable plays.

Well late into the fourth quarter the Heat had around a 10 point lead.  Matt, knowing I had to work today, said he asked their limo driver if there was a trick to beating the traffic after the game.  He said the only trick was to leave early. Well that  is exactly what I did, thanking Matt and sneaking out with about 4:30 left on the game clock.

The walk back to the parking lot was a bit scary.  There wasn’t the huge wave of humanity that I rode into the stadium with. Instead I was quick walking it back to the lot mostly solo.  Some of the walk included poorly lit sidewalks with plenty of dark corners.  I was quite aware of my surroundings, ready to react if need be.

It was about 10:45 so the people that live on the streets were already starting to lay down in “bed”.  I passed one inlet that had a few guys already in sleeping bags.  The smell of urine as I walked by was quite evident.

Luckily I made it to my truck without being assailed.  I fired it up and headed out pronto, I knew the tsunami of humanity was going to be spilling from the arena at any moment.  I JUST made it out onto the main road that lead to 95 before the crowds engulfed the streets, I felt quite fortunate.

The drive back across the state went well.  I didn’t feel as dangerously drowsy as I expected.  Maybe the coffee, two large diet sodas and the excitement of the game (the Heat won), helped me along.  I pulled into the driveway right around 1AM.

Again my lack of exhaustion surprised me.  I actually checked my email on my pc before heading back to take a shower and go to bed.  Waking up this morning was painful however on less than four hours sleep.

Despite all the driving, the costly gas, dealing with congestion in the city and the day after exhaustion, I chalked up my Thursday night excursion to the Heat game as worth it.

Has anyone else seen the latest version of Microsoft Messenger that is included in Windows Live?  Wow it pretty much does it all.  It ties into almost any popular site/social media you can imagine and aggregates it all into one UI.  I like it, a lot.

I have all my ducks lined up now for the SSR work, including confirming next Thursday as when Sinister Kustoms is going to do the clutch/flywheel work.  I just hope I am able to make the roughly 3 hour drive to his shop without whatever is making noise in the flywheel area blowing apart.

This will be a laborious weekend.  At the house I need to mow and whack the grass, do cleaning, replace the ripped screen and hopefully get the oil changed in the Tacoma.  It would be nice if I got the new plugs in the truck as well.

I also will be heading over to Ali’s place on Saturday to attend to a few more items and bring over some stuff she needs.  I’d like to help her get the majority of her boxes emptied since I know having them around is stressing her out.

I was planning on also doing the hella early GCR run Saturday morning. Busy, busy, busy.

Last night after work I hoped to take an official crack at hard mode for this month’s challenge.  Hard mode is a bodyweight dip tree where you keep doing consecutive sets, increasing your reps by 1 each time.  At the gym at lunch I had done bicep and tricep work which potentially could have been a problem but I decided to try anyway.

I did a test run of this challenge at the gym and made it through 8 + sets.  Well I could tell early on that I was not going to do well.  I stopped abruptly in the middle of set number 7, hence my new title of Dip Quitter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3qOG6r0_xc

I wanted to at least do something positive out on the bars so I followed up with 5 muscle ups, the first two of which were very clean, at least for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VStB1-8sRZk

As I was coming inside I noticed yet another screen panel on the bottom of the pool cage was ripping along the spline.  I suspect my darling little Sadie may have head butted it at one point during their visit, probing for an exit.  I really don’t like doing the bottom panels, the low working conditions and surrounding thorny roses make it quite the unpleasant experience.

Since my CC period rolls over in a couple days I would like to get my SSR up to Plant City to get the clutch/flywheel swapped out late next week.  I am hoping that while that is being done the guy will let me put some other parts on the truck while it is up on the lift.  I have an upgraded engine fan and a front air dam, both of which are designed to bolster the stock underpowered cooling system in the truck.

I still have the new set of plugs and wires for the Tacoma sitting on my workbench. I haven’t gotten around to replacing them yet.  I find myself hesitant to do so since the truck is running ok.  But at 137,000 miles and counting it really should be done.  Heck it may even help me squeeze out another mile or two per gallon, something that is becoming increasingly more important with the price of gas.

Last night when I got home I finally got around to moving the SSR into the center of the garage.  Centering the truck not only is more visually pleasing, it gives me full access to either side of the garage.

It was the first time I even started the truck in a week and a half.  Ever since the clutch/flywheel issue popped up it has remained caged in the garage.  I don’t plan to do any significant driving in it until the upgrade/repair has been done which I am hoping is late in the month, during the next credit card cycle.

Last night while I was watching Celebrity Apprentice on Tivo I got to put the new sofa/loveseat through some real world comfort testing.  I utilized one of the recliners as well as laying across both pieces of furniture while using a throw pillow.  Every position was very comfortable.

My immediate furniture needs are small.  I need to pick up a cheap, very small end table to throw on the other side of the sofa and a small lamp to put on my great aunt’s table.  Down the road an oversized ottoman or coffee table would be a nice addition but is not a dire need.

This morning I got up bleary eyed at 3:45 am.  I agreed to pick up Ali to take her to the airport for her very early 6:30 am flight.  I brought the party van so the dogs would be comfortable for the ride. I had to load up a couple things for the girls four night sleep over like their food supplies and Nicki’s bed.

After dropping off Ali I headed back to the house to drop of Nicki & Sadie.  Within 10 seconds of being back home Sadie was out the dog door and surveying “her” backyard, it was funny.  The dogs also gave the new furniture a thorough smell down but had no issues jumping up on it.

I am sure the dogs will have a good time with me during their stay.

I will be busy at Ali’s place while she is gone.  The new tv I ordered for her gets delivered today so I will be setting that up.  I also have an external hard drive on the way to be utilized to back up Ali’s pc on a regular basis.  I also figure I will put together the shelf unit she bought the other day while I am over there.

Ali has been having a real problem with ticks at her new place.  She has now had 5 or 6 she discovered inside , two of them on her body.  Of course this is freaking her out.  The dogs have a fresh application of Advantix that should keep ticks from latching on for a month.  Unfortunately there is no human equivalent unless you want to wear Deep Woods Off like a perfume.

Last Friday we made arrangements to drop the Camry off at the dealer for a 100,000 mile look over.  It is amazing to me the Camry already has 100k on the odometer considering it was purchased in November of 2006.  The car has served us quite well.

Anyway, ever since about the 65k mile mark I have been doing the oil changes and other routine maintenance on the car to save a few bucks.  However since Ali is going to be on her own we both thought it good to have the car officially serviced at this milestone mileage mark.  Looking at the factory maintenance schedule I saw the car was due for an oil change, coolant flush and a solid overall inspection.  I also told them to swap the spark plugs awhile even though they are not actually due to be replaced until 120,000 miles.

We actually dropped the car off the night before so they would have access to it first thing.  We however made a dumb mistake, telling the service advisor that we didn’t really need the car back until the next afternoon, automatically shifting the Camry down on their priority list.  He told us the car should be done by 3pm.

So as 3pm the next day approached I asked Ali if she heard anything yet, she had not.   Then about 20 minutes after 3, neither of us had heard a peep yet, but Ali was on her way to the dealer to pick up the car. I decided to call just to confirm the car was done, assuming it would be since it was there all day and the work that was being done was minor.

Well I talk to Mark, the guy that promised the car would be done by 3pm.  He tells me they just pulled the car in a little while ago.  I reminded Mark that they said the car would be done by 3.  He acknowledged that and apologized for them getting backed up.  Of course I knew that we gave this loophole by not telling them to do the work asap.  I told Mark that my wife was about 20 minutes away from picking up the car.  He told me that she might have to wait “a little bit”. I asked what a little bit was.  Mark said no more than 15 minutes.  I asked Mark if he could make sure to expedite things as much as possible.

So I called Ali back and told her the car wasn’t done and also told her about the “little bit” wait that was indicated.  Ali was familiar with what a little bit means in dealer talk, it means a long ass wait. I told her she should just go to the grocery store and go home, I would go to the dealer after work to pay for it and we could pick up the car later.

So on the way there about 5:15, I get a call from Mark, telling me the car was done.  WTF, if Ali was actually waiting there she would have been twiddling her thumbs for 90 minutes.   Mark informed he did not do the coolant flush as requested because they found the water pump is starting to leak.  Part of the pump replacement procedure is to drain the coolant so he said it was pointless to do it now.

I was not thrilled to hear about the leaky pump but I was annoyed because if they worked on the car in a timely fashion they would have been able to do this right away, now it was too late in the day, meaning a return trip would be necessary.  Hearing the estimate of $430 to replace the pump did nothing to brighten my spirits either.  I guess the good news was at this point the leak is very minor and not in need of immediate attention.

I was surprised when I went online and searched “Camry Hybrid water pump” and hit upon a ton of people that have had their water pumps start leaking as well, some in as little as 40,000 miles.

So over the weekend I took a look at where the water pump is located in the Camry and initially wrote off the idea of replacing it myself due to what appeared to be very tight quarters.  Well last night the idea of spending that much money, especially considering our short term money outlook, did not sit well with me.

I hopped on Autozone.com and checked out what a water pump (non-oem) would cost me, wow, only $50.  Add in the couple gallons of anti-freeze and some RTV sealant I would need to complete the job I am still under $100, potentially saving myself $350 in dealer labor.   I then found a post on Toyotanation that outlined the steps to replace the pump in a pretty clear manner.

Part of the process is to remove the alternator, the passenger side front wheel and a small cover to get better access to the pump, something I didn’t realize when I eyeballed the job.  At this point I haven’t decided if I want to tackle the job myself or not.  The most invasive procedure I have done on the Camry so far is replacing the front and rear brake pads.  I am pretty sure I could pull this one off though.

So with the SSR potential flywheel problem the most agreed upon advice is to have the stock set up ripped out and replaced with the clutch and flywheel from a Z07 Corvette.  The factory clutch set up in the SSR will be nothing but problematic, one owner has had the factory set up replaced 5 times so far.

There just happens to be a fellow SSRFanatic that specializes in this swap, he has done 15-20 already and has had great success with it.  His shop is located in Plant City, about 3 hours away, close to where the Tough Mudder was held.

I called and talked to the guy yesterday, he was real nice and extremely knowledgeable about all things SSR.  His personal SSR is tricked out beyond belief.

With him being that far away the question becomes how would I get my truck there?  I asked him his opinion on the chances of me making the trip successfully based on the noises the truck is making now.  I told him that the truck still appears to drive/shift normally at this point, I only notice the noise when I am stopped with the clutch in or the SSR in neutral.  Lonnie said it’s hard to say but there is a good shot I will be fine.  If not he said as long as I have AAA (I do) I could always get towed the rest of the way in.

I thanked Lonnie for the info and told him I would be contacting him to set something definitive up.  He said the swap takes about a full day, 8 hours of work.

So my mind is made up that is the best long term solution to the problem, the issues are two fold, money and getting the vehicle there/what to do once it is.

As far as the money goes, I am going to wait and see where my money levels are once Ali is safely moved into her new place.  Once that happens I can make a more sound decision on the money.

As far as getting up there, I initially asked Ali about possibly following me up to Plant City on some weekday.  I’d just burn a personal day.  Ali said she was fine to do it.  I am not sure if I will take her up on that offer or not.

I feel kind of bad asking her to drive all the way up there.  If I did it solo I could just drop off the truck with Lonnie and watch the process take place, possibly picking up a tip or two along the way.  I could also rent a cheap motel room and stay a night if need be.  It could be a fun little adventure.

So we will see what shakes out in a couple weeks.

My neighbor has put me in a precarious situation.  As I mentioned last week, he was having his house painted by Rhinoshield, the same company that did our place that we were/are very happy with.

Well in addition to painting his house, he also contracted with them to paint his entire concrete driveway, the concrete border that surrounds the house, the pool deck AND the aluminum pool cage frame.  It is a TON of work and he is paying a ton for it, double what we laid out almost.

Well the job was supposed to be wrapped up on Saturday.  It wasn’t close to done.  My neighbor had been squabbling with the company over what they exactly agreed to do.  They wanted to do one coat where the neighbor agreed to two coats, the paint used on the pool cage was in question and several other small items.

Well my neighbor had to fly back to Michigan on Sunday and the job was still not complete.  He was holding final payment for the job, you paid a portion up front and then the balance upon completion.

Well he called and asked me for a favor.  He wanted me to hold the checks for him and only present them to the contractors after I CONFIRM that all the work was done and done adequately.  I told him I wasn’t real comfortable with that responsibility since it his money and I didn’t like the idea of saying the work looked ok and then having my neighbor come back down and see things he wasn’t happy with.

He said he trusted my judgement so I reluctantly agreed to be the check holder, quality control inspector.  Originally the job was supposed to be completed Monday but when I checked last night they still had not done anything with painting the pool cage.

To be honest, painting that cage looks to be a job that would be incredibly tedious.  They are supposed to paint the entire cage, both the inside and outside of the frame.  Doing so requires them to tape and mask off each and every screen panel before spraying.  A decent wind will rip the taped paper right off.

Then there is the issue of how exactly they plan to paint the high areas of the cage that are over the pool directly?  Short of bringing in a temporary scaffolding I don’t see how it can be done. It just looks like an awful, awful job.  I am sure the painters hate the sales guy that said this could be part of the job.

I am not really looking forward to playing mediator in the soap opera.

Last night after giving the dogs much needed baths and eating dinner Ali embarked on her first serious session of packing.  I had a few things to take care of on my pc but afterward I figured I should be helping her pack, there is a lot to do.

Her and I tried to be somewhat systematic in the packing process although it is a bit tough to do, especially at first.  It becomes overwhelming when you start to grasp just how much stuff needs to be packed up only to be unboxed again 15 miles away.

For the first time in several days I felt emotional several times during the process.  Undoing things that we have set up together over the years hurts. There was no way I could get my mind to ignore the pain I felt as I took Ali’s medals off the wall or boxed up other personal items that have been part of our shared environment for as long as I can remember.

The dogs were also confused by the process.  Sadie would sit right in front of me, just staring.  Nicki was under Ali’s desk, looking sad.  It almost seemed like she knew something bad was coming.

I did my best to bring my mind back to center and not dwell on the symbolism of the packing process.

We got the office and the dining room stuff she will be taking boxed up for the most part.  We will be going room to room, doing our best to be as ready for Saturday as possible.

I already took next Monday off from work to have extra time to help Ali get settled as well as do the various rearranging that will happen at the house once her items are removed.  It’s going to be hard to keep dry eyes this weekend.

I talked to Todd last night, he called about a new Iphone problem.  I found it odd that he did not mention my separation with Ali even though I did not tell him first hand.  I only told my parents directly, figuring the word would filter down from there.  Well although my dad, mom and sister know, none of them relayed the info to Todd during any of their recent interactions.

He was surprised to hear of the upcoming split but had no real advice to offer based on the 4-5 year plus quagmire of divorce proceedings he is mired in.