PV problems, impromptu garage sale, back on a list, WoW attire

Our first weekend of party van ownership was up and down. Here are pictures of it BTW. On Friday evening I got home and scraped the for sale sign off the windshield and took it to the gas station to fill it, it was close to empty. 28 gallons and 70 some bucks later I pulled out with a full tank and light wallet. Oh well with a big tank it will give us better range I guess on road trips.

On Saturday I wanted to fire up the van to show our neighbors, I turn the key and get a click. I try again, then again, click, click click. It was odd because all of the electric devices in the van seemed to work fine, not slow like you would think if the battery was weak. I was perplexed but went as far as to swap batteries between the van and the Tacoma to see if it would start, same click. Hmm ok, well I guess the Tacoma battery which looked like it was on it’s last legs anyway, was too weak to turn the starter on the big motor. So I head down to the new Wal-mart supercenter, on a Saturday afternoon, during season, to grab 2 batteries, one for the van, one for the truck. Needless to say, it was a mob scene. I parked at the right end of the building, thinking that it would be like most Wal-marts and have the auto section there. I was wrong, it was on the opposite side, several hundred yards away. After my long walk up and back, I had my 2 batteries and was on my way home. I installed the Tacoma battery first which went fine. Then I hooked up the new battery in the van, I turned the key with much anticipation and got another , CLICK. I swore loudly and hit the steering wheel in anger. What the F. I turned the key multiple times in disbelief that I just bought a van that won’t start. After double and triple checking the battery connections I called the seller and described the problem, asking him if he saw this behavior. “Oh yea, I had that happen to me once. The key wasn’t in the ignition straight.” He told me the outer key ring is loose and doesn’t line up like it should and I just need to make sure it is straight. Oh ok, simple enough, I thanked him and hung up. I went back out and saw what he meant. The outer ring spun loosely, which it shouldn’t do, so I carefully made sure I lined it all up and tried again, click. SOB! I spent a half hour out there dicking with it, seeing if I could find the perfect alignment, which I couldn’t. I was really frustrated and called the seller back, asking if there were any other things he could suggest. He had none and I was a bit less cordial this time, I told him I was very frustrated to have this happen 2 days after buying the van and that I wished he told me about it ahead of time. He said he didn’t tell me because it only happened once. Yea, sure. I hung up in disgust. I was determined to fix this thing. Luckily it had a Haynes repair manual included so I looked through it. I flipped through it and eventually came up with the idea that the lock cylinder could be bad. I followed the manual and popped the lock cylinder out. I looked at it, blew on it and put it back in. I turn the key, VROOM! WTF, I don’t know why but that fixed it. I triumphantly beeped the horn and had Ali come out. She was excited to see I got it going and later we had her drive it for a bit to get her accustomed to it. I ordered a replacement lock cylinder as a precaution. The interior of the van needs some cleaning but it is basically sound. I pulled out the sheepskin covers from the front seat, checked out the tv and it’s options for installing a dvd player and generally just putzed around. I quickly got over the ignition problem and now am once again happy we have the party van.

Our neighbors had a short notice garage sale Saturday and asked us if we had anything to sell. Initially I figured I had 2 or 3 things to get rid of. But when I started digging through shit early Saturday morning, I soon had taken enough stuff over to their driveway to basically equal what they had out. We had a lot of junk. Until Ali got up, I worked the stand with my neighbor. We had some good early success and I threw in several items for free to my customers, which was irrestible to most yard sale types. We wound up making 60-70 bucks but more importantly unloaded a bunch of shit we no longer had use for. A win-win.

I worked off a list again this weekend. It really helps me prioritize stuff. The list had 5 or 6 items on it and I managed to wrap it up without much fuss. There really is something to be said about writing down your goals, whether they be long term or just for a day. That simple act of writing down the goal makes it real and commits me to accomplishing it.

This week’s silly WoW comments. My warrior is still my highest ranked character and I have been playing him more lately. Out of boredom I decided to change up his look. A warrior normally wears plate armor, which is the strongest armor in the game. However I was looking to make my warrior look unique. I searched through the auction house and bought him a leather eye patch. The leather item has much less armor value than a plate head piece but it looks funny as hell. Here is a pic of him. He sort of looks like a bad ass member of the village people.